Ayann #1 A Fantasy Action Adventure
Part A
Broken Sword In Dragon Dungeon
Text Copyright © 2013, 2014 by Kristie Lynn Higgins
Cover Art Copyright © 2013
www.KristieLynnHiggins.com
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Ayann #1 A Fantasy Action Adventure
Part A
Broken Sword In Dragon Dungeon
The Valkyrie's Tale
Chapter One
Lessons Of My Youth
I was born among the snowcapped Mountains of Firedown in a Fotia village called Sprite's Glow. The Fotia Race was a hearty, stout, tall people with hair the color of flame who long ago mastered the fire element. Many a barbarian, valkyrie, warrior, and other weapon-style classes hailed from our race. We had a high endurance to the cold and to fire, and we had a weakness to water magic and to poison. Ours was a proud people who served our creator first and then loyalty and friendship above all else. Those among the Fotia who didn't become a quester who banded together for excitement and gold or an adventurer who hired out their skills for prestige and money, farmed when it was hot and hunted when it was cold. Our smoke grass filled a many of pipe, our hides warmed many a soul, and the meat we procured were some of the tastiest.
Afosiosi, my father, was the chief of Sprite's Glow and at the age of forty he still had no children. He and my mother, Dynami, prayed an heir would be born to them and that a boy would bless them in their advancing age. When my father turned forty-two and my mother forty, the creator of us all blessed them and my mother became pregnant with me. During the Kafto Season, the last of the snow around Sprite's Glow melted away and the green of the smoke grass filled our fields. My father would tell me later that my mother went into labor as the sun first appeared over Kindle Valley which was below our village. It took the mid-wife till the moon was high above our lodge to coax me out. My father would tell me that I came out shaking my little fists at the heavens as if proclaiming my arrival and warning all evildoers to beware. When the mid-wife noticed my gender, she whispered to my mother that an heir hadn't been born. Dynami turned her face from me as the mid-wife held me, and my mother refused to take me to her bosom. My father came over to see why my mother refused to take me, then he took me from the mid-wife, and he held me tenderly in his strong arms. He took one look at me and all the cares for an heir burned away like tinder in his heart, and he named me Ayann which means undying love. Though not born a male, he adored me and treated me like a son. My mother couldn't get over the shame of only having a daughter, and she passed on to the next life when I was four.
I don't remember much about my mother, but my father... I loved him, and we were inseparable. His bushy red beard along with his long hair made him look like a Blazing Lion that hunted our lands. A fire engulfed the lion when it was angered, but the flame never consumed it. I remembered fondly when I was five, his beard scratched me when he gave me kisses. I pretended I didn't like his affection and pushed him away. He roared like the lion, baring his fingers like claws, then scooped me up in his arms, and gave me a hundred kisses.
As I grew, he taught me the bow and the sword and how to use my natural born powers of the fire element. My father taught me many things about honor, loyalty, and that my word was my promise then on a day during the Kyro Season when I was fourteen, my father taught me the most important thing of all.
The cold had been a harsh one, and we traveled far from our home to hunt gray deer. I had gone on many a hunt with my father before, but none in weather as frigid. Even with our high endurance to the cold, it still felt like icy daggers pierced my body. The only shield we had against nature's freezing weapons was to keep moving until we camped and made a shelter and a fire. My father wore the wrappings of a horned grey bear over his Fotia clothes, which like mine, consisted of a gray deer skin long sleeve tunic and trousers, and fur lined boots. I wore the white wrappings of the long-haired mountain goat over my Fotia clothes and a black fox hat with flaps covering my ears. We each carried a bow and spear, and we bore a pack and quiver on our backs.
“Come, little cub,” my father called as he increased speed as if he were the horned grey bear who had caught scent of cooking meat. “The morning is still early, and I have our first prey's marks in my sight.”
“Yes, father,” I said as I followed in his path through the foot deep snow; the white powder crunched with our bootsteps and yielded to our weight.
My father was like the plains rhino I had heard about, leaving ditches across the arid land where he walked, but instead of dirt and sand, my father's domain was snow and ice. Or should I say, my father was like the blizzard beast who had no fear of where he treaded, moved where he willed, and unsettled mountains in his wake? My father was a monster of a man, and I admired him deeply. I wanted to be just like him.
“Come here, little cub. Let me teach you a lesson of great importance.”
I walked over to him as he bent to the ground, pointed, and questioned me, “What do you see?”
“I see gray deer tracks,” I replied.
“Do you see anything else?”
I took a closer look and answered, “I see the old tracks of a horned bear. The bear went through here before the deer, so it's not tracking out prey.”
“Do you see anything else?” my father repeated.
“I don't,” I replied, searched the ground again, and then asked, “What am I missing?”
“Nothing here–” my father replied as he stood, then motioned around us, and said, “–but you have missed plenty. Do you see the Woolly Squirrel's nest above us? Do you see the Long-haired Fox's den above us in the cliff? Do you see the Frost Vulture circling above us in the sky?”
I peered up at the tree I stood by and saw a large clump of leaves on one of its branches. I looked to the side of the mountain about four feet from the ground, and I saw a hole made by claws and marked with Long-haired fox scat. I lifted my hand and shielded my eyes from the rising sun, looked to the clearing sky at the bird that seemed to float on the air, and then I told my father, “I do now.”
He put his arm around my shoulder, and it was very warm. My father said, “Observe the world around you; sometimes it
can give you clues to what you can't see. For example, what does a circling Frost Vulture usually mean?”
“There is something dead close,” I answered.
“Well done. Now look to the home of our woodland kin. The nest of the Woolly Squirrel tells us we're in climates that reach freezing, and the den of the Long-haired Fox tell us we're at least a thousand feet up. Observe the signs around you, and you can know things that most don't.”
I heeded my father's advice and continued with him as he trailed our prey. The early morning went, and mid-morning smiled on us along with the sun, warming my face. When we entered an area of the Mountains of Firedown that we had never been in before, my father held up his hand as he stopped beside a Scarlet Oak. The tree was one of the largest of our homeland and its leaves were red in the spring and summer and turned to yellow as winter approached. Right now it had no leaves. My father told me long ago the roots of the oak were blue and we used them to dye our festive clothes.
My father studied the ground and then he told me, “Our prey's tracks have disappeared as if the very mountain hides it from us.”
“Did a lion or a bear snatch the gray deer? Or did it leap up the side of the mountain?”
“No, there is no blood,” he answered as he examined the last few footprints of the deer. “It's as if the very ground swallowed it.” My father touched the dirt, then stuck his hand in the snow, and uttered, “What is this? Webbing?!” My father turned to me with a look on his face I had never seen before. It sent shivers up my spine as I realized he was afraid and then he ordered me, “Don't move, little cub! We may be standing on a...”
I unintentionally took a step back, and the snow collapsed beneath me, sending me tumbling backwards. I fell headfirst into an ice cave through the root system of the Scarlet Oak when my ankle entangled in some of the vein-like extensions of the tree. The root twisted my foot as it stopped my plummet after I had fallen a third of the way through. The pain was excruciating and I cried out, sending my screams echoing through the large icy-blue cave. I dangled there a few seconds, then the root broke under my weight, and I fell another five feet. I landed and bounced in what looked like the white version of our mountain pumpkin's sinew minus the seeds. I wriggled my arms and legs as I ignored the pain of my ankle, but I couldn't free myself of the foul smelling sticky substance that trapped me like a bug.
“Ayann!” my father yelled as he took his spear and hacked a hole for himself away from the webbing. He removed a torch from his pack, lit it with his Fotia Fire, and then jumped down the entire fifteen feet after me. He quickly searched the area with his torch, found nothing with us in the cave, and then moved to me, whispering, “We need to be quiet, little cub.” He unsheathed his efficiency knife he named Floga from his belt, heated the blade with his Fotia Fire, and then started cutting at the steel-like webbing.
“This is a lair, isn't it?” I questioned my father in a low voice.
“Yes, we're within an Ice Wolf-spider's nest,” he told me as Floga cut through the sticky webbing as if it was deer flesh. “They're very vicious creatures, so I wish not to tangle with them. If I hurry, we may leave and you won't have to lay your eyes on those vile beasts.”
“Are they like most spiders in the way they hunt?” I questioned in a whisper as he released my right arm. With my hand freed, I was able to use my Fotia Fire to burn away the webbing around my waist as my father cut at the webbing on my left arm.
“If you mean, do they use the vibrations of their webbing to know they have caught prey? No. They're like the spiders and the wolves that hunt by scent and sight.”
I feared my cries may have drawn our adversaries to us, but if they hunt by sight and scent then we should... A hideous howl dashed my heartening thoughts, and then at least a dozen more howls joined in with their leader, crippling my hope. I prayed they were a great distance from us and that the way the ice cave and tunnels had formed, amplified the sound and carried it to our ears, for it sounded like the pack was in the next room. My father never turned around until he finished releasing me even though we heard the pack panting as they ran through the tunnels. I landed on the ground and winced as I put weight on my twisted ankle.
My father knelt before me, looking me over as he questioned me, “Are you hurt?”
“My ankle, but I can walk on it a little,” I told him.
My father peered up at the hole we had come down from and then he told me, “We won't be climbing out of here without ropes. We will have to find another way out but only after we have taken care of our adversaries. Stand behind me and use your arrowed doused with your Fotia Fire until you have no more arrows.” He stood, set his pack on the ground, and removed his battle ax from it; it was double-bladed and made from Fotia steel. He stabbed the ax's pike into the icy ground. He removed six arrows from his quiver and stuck their heads into a snowy patch and then he handed me his quiver as he said, “Take mine also. Use your spear once you run out or if they get too close to you.”
I took his quiver with a shaky hand as the Ice Wolf-spiders sounded again, quaking my heart with their blood-thirsty barks and snarls. I was dreadfully afraid of them even though we couldn't see them yet.
My father saw me trembling and quickly took me into his arms as he said, “Fear not, little cub. Papa bear's here. I won't let anything hurt you.”
I squeezed him back as I started to cry.
“Shed no tears,” he told me as he released me and stared into my face. “Cry after a battle, never during.”
I nodded as I wiped my eyes and then my father retook his position some ten feet in front of me. I knocked an arrow and pointed it toward the only entrance our adversaries could come at us from. The opening to the cave we stood in lay a hundred feet away. Darkness shrouded the area beyond that point. I charged the arrow with Fotia Fire, but it was a different form than the one my father used to ignite the torch and heated his efficiency knife to searing hot; it was a level two form of Fotia Fire I had mastered only a few months ago. The flame ignited the arrow but it didn't burn the wood. It was as if the fire hitched a ride on the arrow and would only explode with its power once it made contact. My father also knocked an arrow right before the first Ice Wolf-spider came into view. It was the size of a small horse with a spider's head and a wolf's body. My father released the string of his bow, and the arrow flew through the cavern, lighting up the walls of the ice cave as if they were crystal before the sunlight. The arrow hit its mark, embedding deep within the beast's chest as it exploded with flames, and the arrow tumbled the beast as two more Ice Wolf-spiders came into view. My father knocked another arrow before the first hit its mark, and he aimed for the second beast. I let my arrow fly, and it missed as my father's hit the beast in its shoulder. The Ice Wolf-spider tripped, but it soon rose back to its paws and took up the chase again as flames ate at its fur. My father took it down with his third shot as I stood there feeling powerless to help.
“Shoot for the middle of their grouping till they are closer,” my father ordered me as he knocked his fourth arrow, he drew back the string, aimed, and let the flaming arrow fly as I knocked my second. His fourth arrow hit the third Ice Wolf-spider right in one of its eight beady black eyes.
I released my arrow into a grouping of five that cleared the tunnel and this time my arrow hit, sinking into the back of a beast. It howled and yelped, trying to grab the shaft with the claws of its mandible. My father's next two arrows also hit their mark, taking out the last of the leaders; the rest of the pack came at us in a swarm. I continued shooting to their center as my father took up his battle ax. I counted at least another thirteen beasts as my father shouted his Fotia battle-cry and charged the pack with his ax held high. I increased my shooting and started aiming for individuals now that the pack was closer. The Ice Wolf-spiders focused on my father, and he beat back the pack. My father mercilessly swung his mighty ax right and left, cleaving fur, flesh, exoskeleton, and bone.
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Two of the Ice Wolf-spiders broke the formation they had around my father and came at me. I panicked and cried out as I took a step back on my injured ankle. I used the last of my arrows, so I reached for my father's quiver lying beside me. I pulled an arrow just as the first beast leapt on me, knocking me to the ground. I lifted my arm, keeping the beast's head back and the claws of the mandible that dripped with poison from reaching me. The second Ice Wolf-spider came up beside me, and I knew I had no chance of stopping it. Just as the beast started to jump, my father's ax embedded deep into the beast's head, cracking its skull open. My father pried the blade from its skull and turned his ax on the beast upon me. He sliced across its body, and its intestines spilled upon me. I rolled the beast off of me as the last three Ice Wolf-spiders charged after us. I stood to my feet and readied my spear. One leapt for me and hurled me back into a wall and knocked me unconscious. The last thing I remembered in the cave was my father calling out my name.
I went in and out of consciousness. I felt my father lift me into his arms and carry me through the cave. Unconsciousness... My father took his ax to an ice wall and started chiseling a hole. Unconsciousness... My father pushed me through the hole and out across the snow. Unconsciousness... He placed me on his back and headed home. Unconsciousness... The sun hung high above us. Unconsciousness... The sun set over the mountains. Unconsciousness... The moon broke through the night, lighting our path. Unconsciousness... The sun rose, setting a new day in motion. I noticed bite marks on my father's back; the Ice Wolf-spiders must have bitten him several times. I also heard him laboring to carry me as he continued on through the snow. Unconsciousness...
The first thing I remembered when I came to was that I wasn't cold. I open my eyes and saw I lay in the hut of our healer, and I questioned her as she sat beside me, “Where is my father?”
“You've been sleeping for a few days, but–” she told me as she stood and motioned behind herself, “–he hasn't left your side.”
I expected to see my father sitting in a chair and smiling at me, but he was in worse shape than I. My father lay on his back with deer furs covering him as sweat drenched his face. His skin was pale as the snowcapped mountains, and streaks covered his cheeks and neck like black lightning. I sat up and started to move from my bed when the healer tried to stop me. I pushed past her, put weight on my wrapped ankle that was still a little sore, and went and sat beside my father. I touched his red-bearded face, the one that I complained scratched me when I was a child. I wished with all my heart he would sit up and roar at me like the Blazing Lion.
I asked the healer, “What happened to him? We fell into an Ice Wolf-spiders nest, and the last thing I remembered...”
She interrupted me, “Your father told me that they outnumbered you. You were beating them until one of them knocked you unconscious and went in for the kill. He was able to slay all of them but not before two of them got in a few good bites on his back and arms. Even though the poison slowly blackened the areas of flesh where they sunk their fangs in, your father carried you on his back for two days until the two of you reached our village. He collapsed the moment someone saw him and came to your aide.” She paused and then she said, “With all that went on in the cave, I thought you would have more injuries than a twisted ankle and a bump on your head.”
“He will be fine, right?” I questioned her. “You have medicine that will cure the poison, right?”
“I'm sorry, child. If I had gotten to him sooner, I might have...”
“No,” I yelled and then I wept on my father's chest. “You can't leave me. You can't.”
The healer told me, “All we can do is ease his pain and stay by him till the end.”
I heard her exit the hut, leaving me alone with my father. I wept bitterly on my father's chest then after a while, I felt a hand touch my head, and I peered up to see that my father woke to my cries.
“I'm sorry, I shouldn't be crying,” I told him as I tried to dry my eyes. “But...”
“The battle is over, little cub; you can cry.”
“It was all my fault,” I told him. “I didn't heed your warning and stepped back into the Ice Wolf-spider's trap.”
“By the time I gave the warning, we were already standing on their trap,” he told me with a weak voice. “I don't want you to cry about this anymore. You're not at fault and you have nothing to feel guilty about. Some things in life we have no control over. I'll be leaving you soon, sooner than I had planned. You should go to one of the schools and finish your training. In truth, I have taught you all that I can. I can see it in your eyes, you want to be an adventurer like my father was in his youth.”
“No,” I insisted. “I want to stay here with you. I don't want to leave you...”
“Listen, little cub...” my father started and then gasped for breath. “I'll be leaving you. It can't be help. Death comes to all of us; we can't undo this part of nature nor should we. Now please, let us spend our final moments together remembering old times.”
At first I refused to give in to his request, but then he took one of his hands and made a claw out of it and roared at me with what strength he had. I laughed and cried and then after a few moments, I nodded to him. We took turns telling each other stories of our past. I did just as the healer woman told me, and I refused to leave my father's side. He held on for four more days then went to our creator's arms. My father taught me many important things, but he taught me the most important lesson while we were in the ice cave; he taught me the meaning of sacrifice. He must have forsook his own body to make sure no harm came to me. I will never forget his love and sacrifice.
I wept for a week till my cousin arrived from another village; he would take over as chief. He told me I could stay with him or if I wish, he would sponsor me and I could go train in one of the classes. There was nothing left to hold me in Sprite's Glow, so I chose to train as a valkyrie.