“Will you fuck him Miri?!” Naran asked the whore boisterously, causing Cor’s face to flush.
“I think he is too young, not ready to be a man yet,” Miri answered.
She was a Westerner, having left her home years ago to find wealth in Tigol. She had rudely found that she had few talents anyone would pay for, except for one, and that one sailors would pay for mightily. Miri had dark brown eyes and matching long hair that she forced to curl around her breasts. She was generally lithe, but buxom in the places that men cared about. She wore a bejeweled brassiere and sheet of gilded sheer fabric that wrapped around her waist, both easily removable. She wore other jewelry as well – gold bangles, rings, a pearl necklace and silver jeweled tiara. It was all fake of course, but her patrons cared little for that.
They had sailed back to Hichima after the battle with Kosaki to port for a few days. Naran spoke at length with Cor on the way back and decided it would be best to take Cor home. Cor needed answers, and he would not find them with Naran on the Narrow Sea; it was time he returned to his parents. Eventually, the Loszian lord would know that Kosaki failed and more privateers would be sent after the boy. They needed to find that he was no longer with Naran.
Naran decided to have a celebration in a local tavern.
“He’s man enough Miri. I took my first whore when I was younger than he!”
“You Shet,” she sighed, “are so very vulgar when you will. All this time, and you have never learned to be civilized?”
“Civilization! Ha! You speak of civilization, and yet I find myself wading through blood amongst civilized peoples. Cor here killed a man with cold steel only a few days ago! Killed him well,” Naran said and then continued almost as if to brag. “Only I was strong enough to rip the sword from the deck where it impaled the dog.”
“Really?” she asked, perhaps feigning incredulousness. “I’m not sure he is strong enough for that.”
“I do not lie Miri. Does it matter anyway? My coin is good enough for any whore,” Naran said as if to end the matter.
“I fuck who I want to, when I want to Naran, not just who has money,” Miri said red faced with anger and stormed off.
“Too bad,” Naran said wistfully into his flagon. “I’d have paid double for you my young friend.”
Naran slapped Cor roughly on the back, nearly spilling both of their ales. Cor stayed silent throughout the entire exchange and was actually glad for the way it ended. It wasn’t lack of interest on his part, but rather sheer embarrassment.
They sailed late the next morning, Naran allowing the crew to sleep off the night’s revelry; Cor’s head pounded. He occasionally drank, but never so much; it seemed the ale just kept appearing in his hand. He vomited over the side of the ship at least twice in the early morning hours, and Naran let Cor sleep later than most of the crew. They teased Cor incessantly throughout the day.
“Not quite a man yet,” Naran said. “You have to learn to drink like one!”
It was late summer when they arrived; Cor didn’t even know the name of the small city, the same in which he had joined Naran’s crew. It had not changed. Naran was not one for goodbyes, and he handed Cor a large canvas bag full of silver coins, claiming it to be Cor’s pay. The big man bid him farewell and good luck with a bear hug.
“I will miss you young Cor,” he had said, “But I believe our paths may cross again one day. You know to find me on the Narrow Sea.”
Cor endeavored to move quickly; the knowledge that a Loszian lord chased him dispelled any desire to linger. He purchased a horse, only partly to decrease his travel time, but also to replace the one he had stolen from his father’s barn. Pondering, he realized that he truly had no idea how to return home, only that he had fled south from his home. But if he could find Martherus, returning home from there would be easy; he’d made the trip with his father many times as a child. When he reached the outskirts of Martherus, he knew exactly where he was and changed direction for home.
Cor spurred his horse to a gallop over the last mile or so near his parents farm. He had no idea what to say to them or where to start; all he knew was he wanted to feel his mother’s embrace again, see his parents’ faces. The place almost hadn’t changed at all, but something was somehow different. Everything was where he remembered, and the fields looked as they should for the time of the year. The farm felt subdued, older.
His mother saw him first as he turned off the road toward the small thatched roof house. She watched as if curious as to the identity of this visitor, and as she watched, recognition came over her face. Her son had grown substantially, becoming tall and his body changing into manhood, especially with the hardships of sailing, but their was no mistaking his face and the obvious coloration, or lack thereof, of his skin. She held a small wooden bucket that, now forgotten, dropped to the ground spilling water into the dirt. She ran to him screaming for her husband.
When Pel emerged running from his cornfield, an old wooden hoe in hand, he found them kneeling in the dust and dirt holding each other. Cor’s mother sobbed loudly, her arms wrapped around her son with fistfuls of his tunic in each hand, afraid to release him in the case that he wasn’t really there. The hoe fell from his hand as he approached the pair, slowing with each progressive step until he stopped hovering over them. His shadow fell across them, and Cor looked up into his father’s face.
“You’re back?” Pel asked.
“Yes father. I’ve come home. I have a lot to talk about.”
“Later, after supper. I still have work to do,” Pel said gruffly. He turned and walked back to his field, retrieving his hoe in the process. Cor could only stare after his father.
“It’s been hard on him,” his mother said, wiping her eyes. “It’s been hard on us both, but your father loves you. It’ll be fine. Come inside. I was just beginning to make supper.”
His mother listened dutifully as Cor spoke of sailing the Narrow Sea and of the places he had seen. He spoke of the water and the duties and dangers of sailing a vessel. He spoke of the differences between Western and Tigolean ships and the people as well. He conveniently left out stories of battle, blood and killing, including his own part in killing a man. He also hadn’t mentioned the Loszian lord that clearly wanted him for some design, but he knew he would have to approach it eventually.
“Quite an adventure for a young farmboy,” Pel said from behind him. Cor was so wrapped up in his story, he had not heard Pel come in, but he did hear the sardonic tone in his father’s voice.
“I guess farming wasn’t good enough for you? And what is this?” Pel asked, tapping his boot against the longsword attached to Cor’s belt, and Cor’s hand shot to the hilt. He had honestly forgotten about the weapon, so used he was to carrying it; it was the same sword with which he had killed a man a few months ago. Naran had thought it a fit parting gift.
“Sorry father,” Cor said, suddenly feeling guilty. “Sometimes one must defend themselves.”
“I assume you know how to use it?” his father asked, receiving a slow nod in answer. “Put it in the barn. I will not have it in my home. How long are you staying?”
Cor hadn’t expected such a question and as such had no idea what the answer was. “We have things to talk about father. About me,” he said.
“Tomorrow around midday it will be too hot to work for awhile. We can talk then. Let us enjoy supper in peace,” Pel answered.
Throughout the night, Cor started to understand just what he had done to his parents, and guilt came to him with heavy weight. He felt it pressing on him as if he were caught under a huge granite stone like those used to build the massive protective walls found around the large Western cities. Every time he looked at his mother’s face, he could see the hurt and the need to understand what she had done to deserve it. There was so much he wanted to say, but he had no way to say it. She looked tired and drawn, and Cor feared he would have to hurt her more before too long.
Pe
l, Cor’s father, showed no such emotion, no signs of how he felt. He remained as impassive as an aged statue.
Cor slept in his old room that night, and it felt huge compared to the veritable closet he’d used on board Naran’s ship. His mother kept the room exactly as it was when he had left; it seemed she had even straightened the bedclothes that morning and never again touched anything in the room. Most everything, a bureau, old toys and small table next to the bed was covered with a fine, thick layer of dust. It made him sad, and he wondered if he could ever make it up to his parents.
Cor woke just before the sun broke the horizon, its rays already turning the sky from black to hues of blue. He found his parents already awake, his father out in the fields and his mother milking cows in the barn. Little was said, but he did what he could to help, taking on whatever chores his mother would ask of him. Cor didn’t know how to say how sorry he felt, so instead focused on making himself as useful as possible as if his actions would be their own apology.
Though it was still morning, the day grew hot; Pel had left his fields, and busied himself with repairing a damaged fence near the road with the help of his wife. Cor worked in the barn at his mother’s request, his father having refused his help; they had spoken few words to each other all morning. Cor stood at the barn’s entrance, taking a momentary break and watched his parents work a rotted fencepost out of its hole several hundred feet away.
A man approached, walking the road from the direction of the village. He had the dark brown hair of a Westerner; long and unwashed, it partially hung over his face. He was fairly tall at roughly six feet in height with a lanky build, his arms and legs disproportionately long for his height. The man wore black breeches and soft black boots, both covered in dust from the road, and a gray cotton tunic. Seeing Cor’s parents, he walked leisurely toward them, his thumbs hooked into a leather belt. Cor was some distance away, but he could clearly see the man’s hands with its abnormally long fingers.
Feeling sudden alarm, Cor frantically retrieved his sword and charged out the door, hoping he could cross the distance in time. His father had stopped his work and turned to talk to the stranger.
“What do you need, neighbor?” asked Pel.
“I’m trying to find a farmer by the name of Pel,” responded the man, in a curious accent.
“You have found him, but I’m not hiring hands for a full two months yet.”
“Oh fortunately, I’m not looking for employment; I’ve got that. Farmer Pel, I don’t actually seek you, but the boy with gray skin who is your son,” said the stranger with his accent that seemed to emphasize words differently. “I see him approaching now. Thank you.”
“Go on your way. I’ve had enough of men troubling my son,” Cor’s father said, pointing back the way the man had come.
“I’ll go about my way once I have the boy.”
Pel made to move toward the stranger, his mouth open with a forthcoming threat. The man barely flicked his wrist, followed by a gleam of steel flying through the air. Cor skidded to a halt in the dust just in time to catch his father as he fell backward, making a horrific gargling sound. A steel point protruded from the back of Pel’s neck, and the steel handle of a small dagger jutted from his throat. His eyes were wide with surprise or fright as he choked and drown on his own blood that flowed in rivers onto Cor’s tunic. Cor fell slowly to his knees, lowering his father to the ground, Pel’s head finding his wife’s cradling embrace.
“Well, I gave him a chance. But look - he left me a fine woman as well as his son. Too bad I really don’t have time to enjoy her,” the man said as he slowly came toward them.
Cor leapt to his feet, sword in hand, determined to hack this new foe into bits. He roared unintelligibly as he rushed to the attack. The man reacted with another quick flick of his right hand, and Cor saw the sun glinting off steel just before it impacted his forehead. His forward momentum stopped, and he lost all sense of what was happening, as the man stepped up to him with a clenched fist and knocked him hard to the ground with a punch to the jaw.
Cor lay on the ground, conscious but unable to act, his vision black and purple around its edges. His mother, tears running down her face, took her eyes off of her dead husband, first meeting Cor’s and then looking up into the sunlight at the blinding outline of their attacker. The man took a fistful of his mother’s hair in one hand while running a cruel looking curved knife across her throat. Cor watched a great gout of blood pour from his mother’s neck, coloring the ground and the stranger’s boots red as it mixed with her dead husband’s. It all happened so slowly, but too fast for Cor to will his limbs to move.
“Enough foolishness. You know, I didn’t have to kill them. People are just stupid. They don’t understand when they don’t have a choice,” the murderer said, picking up Cor’s legs by his ankles to drag him to the barn.
“Let him go Loszian!” boomed a voice. The man looked up and saw a gray faced warrior on a black stallion. He had a longsword in one hand and in the other a shield with a fist sized blue stone set directly in the middle.
“Ah, my master warned me that there may be another!” exulted the man. “Let’s make this easy. Come with me. My master would reward me greatly if I delivered not only the boy, but a true Dahken as well. No doubt, you would live like a king in the Loszian Empire. Ride with me.”
“The Dahken serve neither your empire, nor the West. We choose our own path,” Dahken Rael replied, steel in his voice.
“What we?” the man asked derisively as he dropped Cor’s legs and held his arms out from his sides. “Your people are broken. How many of you are left? The West believes you wiped out completely.”
“The boy is leaving with me,” Rael said, unfazed.
“I don’t think so.” He whipped a throwing dagger at Rael in a much practiced maneuver, the same with which he had killed Cor’s father.
Unsurprised by the attack, Rael easily batted away the weapon with his shield. He jumped his horse forward, bringing his sword across, parallel with the ground as he passed his adversary. The man deftly ducked the attack just in time, feeling locks of his hair cut free. He turned with his own dagger only to find Rael’s sword neatly skewering him from Rael’s backhanded thrust. Rael yanked his sword free of the man’s belly and brought the sword around to cleave the man’s head off. The body tumbled to the ground right next to Cor, blood pouring from the stump of a neck.
Cor struggled onto his side and then to all fours. His head cleared slowly, though it pounded and every sound raged in his ears. It was similar to the hangover he endured the day he left Hichima for the last time, but far less fun. He touched his fingertips to his forehead, half expecting to find the handle of a dagger, but instead finding only a massive painful knot that was only beginning to form.
“The Loszian threw an iron sap at you. It is a nasty way to stun those who do not protect their head. Are you well?”
Cor tried to stand, but found his legs too unstable. He fell back onto his ass, his vision almost clear. He looked around at the bodies of his parents, murdered, their blood merging with the dust and dirt to form red mud. He looked at the headless body of their murderer and felt satisfaction for a moment, replaced by anger that he had not killed the man himself.
“What is your name?” a voice asked him. Cor looked up blinking as if from a dream to see his savior cleaning blood off of his sword.
“Cor, after my mother’s father,” he replied.
“Cor, I am Dahken Rael, and I am here to protect you and teach you about yourself. This man,” Rael pointed at the corpse with his sword, “was a Loszian, an agent of someone who would control you and use you for his own purposes.”
“I’ve seen a Loszian Dahken Rael,” Cor replied. “He did not look like this man.”
“There are Loszians, and then there are Loszians,” Rael answered vaguely.
Rael dismounted and bent over the body of the Loszian. He pulled f
rom his belt a small utility knife and cut the man’s left shirtsleeve clear up to the neck. On the left shoulder was an intricate tattoo, a symbol. Rael carved into the flesh of the shoulder, removing a large flap of skin with the tattoo on it, and he placed it into a saddlebag. He then retrieved Cor’s fallen sword and remounted his stallion.
Cor crawled to his parents’ bodies, their blood staining his breeches, and sat back on his haunches. He was very careful to keep his eyes on their faces. His father, eyes once wide, had apparently died with them closed, and he looked at peace. His mother’s eyes were still open and stared unblinking into the sky. Cor softly wept as he reached to her face, closing her eyelids; he didn’t know why he did it. It just felt right.
“You must come with me for others will follow him,” came Rael’s voice. “I will protect you and teach you how to find your own path. Boy, you must trust me. Look at my hands and my face. See that we are of the same blood and that I only wish to protect you.”
Cor stood and turned to stare quietly at this armored man. He looked at the Dahken’s hand for a long moment and then placed his own within it. Rael’s hand was about the same size as Cor’s, and they were nearly indistinguishable from each other. Cor had sailed for over two years and never seen anyone who’s skin tone matched his so perfectly that their clasped hands seemed to blend together. It was a sudden and inexplicable feeling that all was as it should be that led Cor to firmly grasp Dahken Rael’s hand and climb onto the stallion. In so doing, he caught glimpse of his mother, lying dead.
“My parents,” Cor said numbly.
“There is nothing they can do for you or you for them. Your first lesson as a Dahken is that you must embrace death. It comes to everyone eventually, sometimes even the gods.” Rael turned his horse around and headed away from Cor’s old home, away from the village.
6.