The Tessarandin, Book 13

Narahu knew that it was not cold enough that he should be shivering. He was also breathing hard, his lungs burning for air, but he knew the reason for that. The two hundred yards he had run to where he lay gasping on the damp earth under the bridge, was faster than he had ever run before, but the terror of the scene behind him had driven him recklessly onward in the semidarkness of the young night. Tal, the smaller of the twin Tessalindrian moons paled orange as she hung low above the mountains far to the east, offering little light. She had drawn him like a magnet away from the inferno in the smithy behind him to the shelter of the bridge.

He knew they would come after him. He knew why in the same instant. The clarity of what had happened swept over him in his brief moment of refuge. Images of the events leading to this moment flooded through his mind for what seemed like hours; he knew it was a mere few minutes.

His father was—no had been—a bladesmith for the great King Lutaka of Tessamandria. Although he had worked exclusively for the king, he had had no use for the busy-ness and distraction of the fortress and had preferred to have his smithy a fair distance from it. He had often remarked, “Too many people, too many comings and goings. It is good for a king, but not for a smith.” The smithy was about a mile from the fortress, outside the city that surrounded it. Here on the outside, separated from the outermost city houses by a stand of trees, it was quiet at night. He could see the stars and the mountains and hear the river wending its way north to places Narahu never expected to see.

His father’s work for the king was unusual for a smith. Lutaka had an entire smithy in the fortress where his smiths made all the weapons of war: the swords, javelins, daggers, spears and other things that were necessary for his campaigns to unite Tessamandria. All the work of making other blades he had given to Narahu’s father: the knives and choppers for the kitchens, the sickles and scythes for the harvests, the axes, froes, adzes, threshing bars and tailors’ shears that were needed in sundry places throughout the fortress and his kingdom.

One month ago, late in the evening, they had had a surprise visit from Mankar, the commanding officer in Lutaka’s army. Mankar knew his father, but such a visit was unusual. He had come alone, secretly. His father was finishing an experimental blade for cutting thatch used in roofing houses in the town when Mankar entered.

Mankar’s request was unusual. He wanted his father to make thirteen swords, one for King Lutaka and the other twelve for himself and his generals. It was to be a surprise for Lutaka, a special favor for his king. His father had resisted, insisting that it was not his place to make swords, but Mankar pressed him and offered larger and larger sums of money until he relented and agreed to make them.

The king’s sword was to be a little bigger, and if he were to put a special effort into any one sword, that would be the one to favor. “Only the best for the king, you know,” Mankar had said, smiling.

Narahu sat up slowly, his head spinning as he lowered it between his knees. He remembered feeling a vague apprehension when the final sum was determined. Perhaps it was Mankar’s smile that had made him uneasy. It was more of a sneer, really. His father had looked directly at Mankar’s face when they shook hands. Had he not seen it?

His father had started work on the swords immediately, working late into the evenings after spending long days at his commissioned work for the fortress. Narahu had worked the bellows, watching and listening as his father sang the forge poetry, metering each hammer blow and heat by the rhythm of the words as they poured forth from his father’s mind and mouth. The forge poetry for the swords was different from the poetry for the other blades his father made. Narahu remembered understanding all the words, but it seemed darker and tangled somehow, as if its origins were from another world entirely. He had not liked the sound of it. It was not like the poetry of the knives and the hatchets, which was warm and strong.

They had finished the swords two days ago and laid them out on the bench in the center of the smithy, awaiting Mankar’s arrival. Narahu studied his father’s work carefully. He had grown accustomed to the masterful craftsmanship for which his father was renowned. Even so, he had been stunned by the surpassing excellence of the swords. They were beautifully made, in every detail, flawless. Narahu had doubted that he could discern one from any of the others except that the king’s sword, though identical in form and detail, was a bit larger. Narahu shuddered involuntarily as he pictured the swords laid out on that table.

His father had sent a message to Mankar at the fortress. Word came back through a page that he would be arriving tonight, shortly after nightfall. Narahu had sensed that his father was tense, as he had been since he started the swords. He had snapped often at Narahu, which was not his way, and had exhausted himself in perfecting the swords. Now he seemed eager to get them out of his possession and he moved nervously about the shop fidgeting with tools and placing and replacing everything he touched.

Narahu had helped tidy up the smithy for the arrival of the great commander. He had set tong racks in order and swept the floor, cleared the vise bench and refilled the slack tub with clean water. At his father’s request he had retrieved extra lanterns from the storeroom and lit them and hung them about the bench to illuminate the swords on the table. The swords glowed in the lantern light, casting muted reflections across the beams and walls of the smithy.

Mankar had arrived as expected, but not alone; several of his generals accompanied him. Narahu could see only four of them, but he was sure several others were waiting outside. Those who had come inside, remained by the door in the shadows. Narahu was not able to see their faces, but there was a certain darkness surrounding them, like a shadow; a darkness that should have been dispelled by the abundant lantern light. As they entered the shop, Narahu sensed that something was wrong. How he knew this, he was not sure, but his suspicion about Mankar was confirmed when the commander saw the swords and smiled at his father; there was evil in it, pure and cruel.

Mankar stepped forward to the bench and picked up the king’s sword. As he swung it slowly back and forth, it hummed softly. His father spoke: “They are the finest—”

“Quiet, little man,” Mankar growled as he continued to wave the sword. “These are fine swords. Only the best for Mankar, don’t you think?” There was that sneer again, reinforced by the ugliness of the voice issuing from the commander’s mouth. Narahu tasted revulsion in the back of his throat, but there was no time to identify it.

What happened next was to be burned forever in Narahu’s memory: His father said something about the sword being for the king. He must have sensed the same wrongness that Narahu felt because when the sword flashed the first time—haarrrraannggg!—his father ducked and the blade struck the post vise where it was anchored to the bench. With a blue flash the sword clove the solid iron as if it were a melon.

His father leapt behind the forge bed and yelled, “Run, Narahu, run!” He remembered the quick movement of the fire shovel. A shower of glowing coal from the dying fire bathed the commander who howled in pain as the fury of that evil being was unleashed on his father. “Run, Narahu! Now!” The other generals leapt to the table to claim their swords. Haarrrraannggg! Mankar’s sword slashed through the edge of the forge bed with a blinding flash, followed by billowing, hissing steam as his father dumped a bucket of quench water into the fire. Mankar cursed as the searing steam blasted up from the firepot. The generals behind him began yelling obscenities.

Narahu remembered hearing the crash of glass and tin as one of the lanterns near the forge yielded to a blow from his father’s forge rake. Paraffin from the lamp rained down onto the fire and with an eerie whoosh, an orange fireball leapt toward the ceiling. More cursing followed, more crashing. Two generals started toward him. Crack! The lantern on the wall between them exploded. “Run Narahu!”

“Father!”

“Run—now!”

Harrraaannngg! the king’s sword sang again. There was another blue flash followed by the splintering of wood. The whole building lurched down as Mankar severed the support beam in the middle of the smithy.

Two generals crashed through the fire from the second lantern. The one in front tripped over something and the other fell over the top of him cursing and growling.

“Run—ru—“

Narahu felt the blow that cut down his father, as if it had cut his own heart out of him. How could he have felt it? He knew what it meant. Mankar laughed. That hideous, cruel laugh fairly erupted in his ears. It shook the smithy. It shook his vorn, the core of his being. It shook the foundation from under his feet and he turned and ran toward the back door.

Having dodged the stack of anvils and the ring mandrel, he rolled under the rack of iron bars and spare tongs. The thrashing, swearing and growling was right behind him, like a nightmare against the backdrop of Mankar’s hideous, snarling laugh.

Through the back door he had run—into the night—into the freedom of the open endlessness of the outside world. He knew it well, even in the dark—every turn, every jog and dip of the trail to the river. The snarling shouts of Mankar’s generals made his body light and his feet swift, giving him strength he did not know he had. They were not far behind. Something flashed so brightly that for an instant the entire landscape was illuminated as if by the sun. The generals burst into another string of profanity. Swords clashed and their guttural curses mingled with other voices, shouting. There were more flashes. Narahu could not risk looking back; he dared not, lest his winged feet fail to carry him as fast and as far as possible from the holocaust behind him.

His heart was still pounding like a drum in his chest as he gasped in the cool clean air. His hands were shaking. His head swam in a numbness he hardly had time to notice. They would be coming. He knew it with a certainty that transcended everything else at that moment. He must keep going, but where? There was no going back. The fiery glow in the night sky behind him told him that there was nothing to go back to but death. He knew his father was being cremated in his own smithy. He choked back the tears as his body heaved. He threw up between his legs.

“Narahu!”

A new wave of terror swept over him as viselike hands gripped his upper arms. He tried to scream but an icy palm was clamped over his mouth, choking his cry. “You must not run, Narahu. Listen carefully. There is little time.” It was a language he had never heard before, but he understood it perfectly. He tried to break free, but the beings on either side clamped his arms tighter. “Are you afraid of the water?”

He tried to shake his head. “Take a deep breath.” The hand came off his mouth and he drew in deeply. He knew what was about to happen. Horses hooves clattered toward them on the road, rapidly approaching the bridge. In the next instant he was in the river, still in the grip of his captors as they pulled him deep into the dark water.

“No!” he wanted to shout. He knew he couldn’t.

“Stay calm, Narahu. Save your strength and breath.” Voices? Underwater? He felt the powerful stroke and kick as they swam downstream in the watery darkness. He was face-up between them, watching the faint glimmer of the surface, surreal and quiet, about ten feet above him. “Stay calm, Narahu…your strength…your breath.”

His lungs began to burn again. He needed air…had to break free! He started to struggle. Suddenly, the shadow of one of his captor’s face pressed down upon him. His breath was sucked out of him and then returned to him before he understood what had happened. The new air was strong and vitalizing, and the burning in his lungs stopped abruptly. Cold water rushed past him as his captors swam on powerfully, deep in the middle of the river.

Without warning, they turned in perfect unison, like flocking birds that dive and turn in formation. Narahu guessed that they were headed to the riverbank. He was cold now, and shivering, though he did not seem to need air. Something about the man’s breath—

They broke the surface quietly under a tall overhang of bushar reeds. As they came up the hand clamped over his mouth again. He did not need to breathe, but guessed it was to prevent his crying out. He was right. “You must remain quiet.” The hand fell away and Narahu exhaled softly. “Listen.”

He had already heard the cursing and shouting from the bridge, now about a hundred yards upriver. The welter of angry voices carried over the water, yelling at each other, threatening, swearing. Mankar’s men had lost their quarry and were blaming one another for it.

The warriors still held Narahu firmly. For several minutes, they waited silently under the reeds with only their heads above water. Not until the confusion on the bridge abated did his captors move.

“You must head north to the mountains. Travel only at night.” It was the being on the right. He released Narahu’s arm.

“Do not light a fire. Stay off the main roads. There is great danger,” warned the other as he released his grip also.

“Who are you?”

“Servants of Mah’Eladra, Guardians of Psadeq. I am Vishtava,” said the one on his right.

“And I am Vor,” said the other.

“Eladra?”

Vor nodded. “Your life is in grave danger. Your father is dead. Your mother will be soon. You cannot go back.” Narahu shivered. He already knew that.

“When you get to the mountains, hide in the caves you find there. Keep moving. There is no safe place for you in Tessamandria. We will be watching,” Vishtava said with a smile.

They ducked beneath the surface of the river simultaneously and vanished as quickly as they had appeared under the bridge. Narahu shivered again. This time he was not sure if it was from fear or the chill of the water.

Pulling himself along the bank, he found an opening in the reeds where he could climb out of the water. He crouched low and listened. No sound came from the direction of the bridge or the smithy. Still, he needed to be cautious. He had lost his shoes in the river, but he did not need them now. They were heavy shoes anyway, for protecting his feet in the smithy. Outdoors, he preferred bare feet. Keeping himself well down in the tall reeds of the riverbank, he removed his tunic and shirt and wrung them as dry as he could, then his pants and socks. He must travel tonight. He would hide and let his clothes dry in the sun the next day.

When he stood up, his knees were shaking. He felt weak. He tried to think back, but his mind mercifully blanketed the ordeal with numbness. He headed north cautiously. The mountains lay low and barely discernable in Tal’s low-slung glow. Somehow, he had to reach them. That was all he knew.

Used by permission from Discipleship Publications International