The battle was lost even before it had started - and with it came the end of the war. Ordeyirgoss had been the last bastion of resistance against the forces of the Call of Skaelor - but even the most northern kingdom fell to the Call and its Quieting Angels and Scything Souls. The grip of the Call spread from Ordeyirgoss to the north to the Guravass isles to the south.
The Call of Skaelor allowed the survivors of the battle of Melzay to return to their homes and spread the story of the Call's victory to the commoners and their surviving noble masters. Above all, in the skies over the realms flew the Quieting Angels, sure to quiet any dissenting voices.
Khaln Dharrec sat at the reins of a wagon pulled by two mighty oxen, the leather straps heavy in his hands. Behind him rested the bodies of his father and older and younger brother. They had fallen during a scouting mission he had volunteered for but his father had asked him to hold back, fearing his size and sometimes feral blood lust would harm the mission.
"You were born for open battle," his father Yvrer would warn him. "I've seen you turn the tide to many a skirmish - but stealth is the talent needed now." So Khaln had watched his father and two brothers race into the night. And when the forces of the Call descended upon the last encampment of the Ordeyirgossien resistance - Khaln had lived up to his father's assurance. But the tide of battle was irrefutable and the Call was victorious. He was allowed to retrieve their bodies and wrapped them in resin soaked bandages and cover them with salt before returning home to his family's farm.
Khaln knew his return with the corpses of his siblings and father would spur a battle with his most tenacious enemy.
The mother who hated him.
@@@@@
The path that cut through the countryside was a potted trail with rocks and jutting roots that made the wagon creak as the oxen pulled it forward with unerring determination. Khaln reached beneath his seat and felt the reassuring hilt of his sword - it had been hard to smuggle the weapon but he had managed to wedge it in a slot beneath the wagon's bench. His shield was tacked to the base of the spare wheel hidden beneath the wagon.
Khaln had reached for the sword when he saw the first plumes of smoke escaping the stone chimney that emerged from a dip behind a curve in the road. The sun was setting and the black smoke marred the beauty of the rosy sky - it reminded him of his mother's dark gaze.
As the front of the stone dwelling came fully into view, Khaln saw the abundant and serene greenery that he had almost forgotten as his mind had turned to blood and battle - cows grazed lazily, oblivious to the war that had reshaped the landscape while goats played and frolicked. The door to the dwelling opened and a striking figure of a woman stepped out to bathe in the sunlight that poured across the field.
Preya Dharrec was tall and possessed the natural grace and authority associated with a royal courtesan and not a commoner's wife. Her svelte form commanded attention even when draped in the drab brown linen of her field dress. Her long black hair was pulled back from her sharp features and held tightly by a string of gut while leaves from her favourite scented tree peppered her hair. But her enjoyment of the morning sun was broken by a shadowed silhouette and the creaking sound of wagon wheels jostling over rough terrain.
"Yvrer!" Preya cried as she waived and ran to meet the wagon.
"No," Khaln's voice rang as it shattered her hope and she froze while he rode the path out from the sun's shadow.
"Mother." He said flatly.
Preya's jaw tensed before she turned and marched past him to inspect the corpses of her husband and two beloved sons.
@@@@@
"Two years at war and you are the one to come back?!" Preya demanded as she watched her son sit down at the meagre table she had often covered with bread and salted meats for her men. But even behind her anger she could see that Khaln was not how she had remembered him. He seem taller and certainly more muscled that when he foolheartedly followed his father and brothers in battle against the Call of Skaelor and their crusade against the Magii Domini, the Magedom.
"Even the Gods didn't want you?" she demanded while she slammed her fist on the table - she noted with flagrant satisfaction how Khaln's nostrils flared at the jab. Yet, the tears still formed at the corner of her grey eyes and trickled down her cheek.
"At least their bodies were honoured in the ways of Sil'hazat," she whispered, knowing Yvrer's desire to be met in death according to the rituals of his old god.
"It was parting token offered by the Call of Skaelor," Khaln said.
"You? You dressed them?"
Khaln stood - for the first time she could remember he towered over her. Preya stepped back at his sudden presence in her space. But he simply turned his wide back to her and walked towards the door.
"I did," Khaln said as he gazed at the barn where the bodies resided before the time of burial at sunset. "He told me he loved me but that I wasn't his. I was yours, but not his. You resented me because I was a reminder of how you were used and then thrown back to this common life."
Khaln stepped out as a wind lifted dust and it seemed to dance around him. "I will bury the bodies of my family in their ancestral land - then, you will never have to deal with me again."
Preya watched as Khaln walked to the barn and grabbed a pick shovel - over head, the sky grew dark as a flight of dark chagrin birds interrupted the sun's touch.
@@@@@
