The Warrior

CHAPTER 1: The Summoning

Violent winds whipped the trees into a frenzied dance, shaking free debris and leaves that swept down from the edge of the forest to swirl around the young woman standing alone on the beach. Allorah looked at the bruised clouds with trepidation. Dark and heavy, they crouched on the horizon, illuminated every few minutes by wicked spikes of lightning. Bone-shaking growls of thunder were amplified by the black expanse of ocean until they seemed nearly deafening to the inhabitants of the small island. Never in her lifetime had there been such a storm, yet she had the foreboding sense that this was only a precursor to the true threat.

The threat that was posed by the invaders to the north.

Tall and strange, they had landed on the island's northern shore when she was still just a child, and they brought with them bizarre creatures, and unfamiliar ways. Almost as soon as they had arrived, they began clearing the woods around the area of their landing, erecting houses and fences with the raw wood, and setting loose their animals to graze on the newly opened spaces. To her people, who lived in the sheltering boughs of the trees, such behavior was unfathomable, and unnerving. Especially when rumors of what had happened to the original inhabitants of the northern region began to circulate. Soon after, it was decided that everyone would withdraw to the south, and there they had remained for twelve years. No one ventured to the north, and the foreigners didn't seem to have any interest in probing farther than a mile from their settlement.

Until a year ago.

Perhaps their population had reached a size where expansion was becoming necessary, or maybe their youths were frustrated with the confines of their territory. Whatever the reason, they had begun making expeditions into her people's land, and the encounters between the two were increasingly violent. Events came to a head at a time when Allorah was spending a rare night among the other people of her town.

People sat around the communal fire, talking and eating and singing in the company of their fellows. Women shared gossip and news, older men told circles of children about some of their more exciting hunting experiences, and young men vied for the attention of the maidens that giggled and blushed in response. Since the communal fire was one of the few things to be located on the forest floor —as all but small cook-fires posed a hazard to the wooden structures of their arboreal homes— nearly the entire village could gather around the cheerful blaze.

Allorah sat to the side, not completely alone. A few of the bolder youths had positioned themselves around her and were attempting to coax her into conversation. One boy in particular, Geldan, was especially persistent. He was only two years older than she, but was already decorated as one of the town's finest hunters. She saw how the eyes of the town maidens followed him, watching the muscular lines of his sun-browned body, and she knew any of them would count themselves lucky be in her place.

Yet the attention made her uncomfortable. For she was apprenticed to the island's Priestess, and though her vows did not constrain her to celibacy, her training kept her mostly in solitude with the old woman as her only companion. In fact, up until her fifteenth year, the only people she had seen at all, aside from those she and the Priestess were called upon to heal, were her parents, and then only on rare occasions. At that time, Priestess Dannonae must have felt it time to begin re-introducing her to society, so they began making trips from their secluded tower-home to the complicated network of walkways and bridges that was the rest of the town. It was then, Allorah believed, that Geldan had first taken an interest in her. On each of their visits thereafter, he always seemed to find ways to cross paths with her, and she could feel his gaze on her as she went about her business.

Sitting by the fire, she listened politely to his stories, but never allowed herself to be fully drawn into the discourse. He didn't stop trying though. Not until the wounded boy staggered into the clearing.

There was a collective gasp then a swirl of activity as people rushed to the boy's side, and others ran to fetch healing items. They quickly made room for Dannonae and Allorah, for they were the most skilled healers on the island, yet as soon as Allorah saw him, she knew his wounds were fatal. He was bleeding from multiple places on his body, but the killing blow was a horrible gash in his belly, barely held together by his weakening hand. Priestess Dannonae knelt at his head, cradling it, and Allorah moved to his side to hold his free hand. They remained like that as he used his dying breath to tell them what had happened:

He had been a member of a small hunting party that had the misfortune to cross paths with a wandering group of foreigners. Many of them were cut down within minutes, but the boy and a few others had managed to escape, fleeing back to what he thought was the safety of his village. Suffice it to say, he was followed. What came next was a merciless slaughter of all the menfolk, and while the boy hid and watched, the foreigners proceeded to loot what little the village had in goods. They grew heartily drunk, and made games of raping the women. The children they soon grew tired of, so they slit their throats and carried on with their activities. At some point, the boy's hiding place was discovered and it was then he obtained the wounds he would die from. They were too drunk to finish the job, however, and the boy fled again, somehow managing to make it to where he now lay, passing along his horrifying tale through lips increasingly frothed with blood.

There was a stunned silence after he had finished. Hushed murmuring began again as a few people returned with the healing things, and Dannonae quickly recruited several men to lift and carry the boy to a more isolated location. Allorah followed, and when they placed him in a small room on a level close the the forest floor, she and the Priestess went about trying to make him as comfortable as possible for the little time he had left.

After a few minutes, shouting erupted from the area around the communal fire. Affirming that Allorah could take care of matters with the boy, Dannonae returned to the fire to oversee the inevitable debate that was taking place there. As she sat, gently stroking the boy's hair back from his face and holding his hand, Allorah listened to the heated voices outside. They rose and fell in anxious rhythms but she could not make out more than the occasional word. It was hours later, when the moon had set and the boy rested in a state of unconsciousness that he would never wake from, that Dannonae finally returned. She wearily brushed a hand across her face, looking grimmer than Allorah had ever seen her.

"What has happened?" She asked. Dannonae sighed and closed her eyes a moment.

"There still needs to be a complete gathering of all the village Heads before we can come to an official decision, but that is only a formality. The events we heard described tonight are the proof of what I long knew –and dreaded– would come to pass. There is only one course of action for such a thing, and they all know it. It was only a matter of time..." She trailed off, lost in her thoughts.

Allorah rose from her bedside post and went to Dannonae. She shook her gently, trying to draw her back to reality. "What was only a matter of time, Mother? What?" Allorah felt an ominous dread in the pit her own stomach, at once needing to know the answer, and fearing to hear it.

Dannonae gave a tired sigh and placed one hand gently on the crown of Allorah's head. Suddenly, she looked very old. Her white hair hung in despondent wisps around her face, and the lines around her grey eyes seemed to have deepened over the course of the night. Allorah stood still and waited. The answer, when it came, shook her to her very core.

"My dearest child, we are going to war."

And war it was. It was only a matter of hearing the boy's story to convince the other village Heads, and his tattered young corpse was enough proof for anyone of the story's authenticity. For the past year, hunters from each of the scattered villages had taken up arms against the invaders from the north, and most proved to be as apt at hunting men as they had been at hunting beasts. However, the foreigners soon took note of her people's new temperament, and they increased their own aggressions in response. Her people fought their best, and they used every advantage their familiarity with the land could afford them, but it soon became clear that this was not enough. It was all they could do to slow the foreigners' relentless advance south and the death toll increased every day. There were simply too many of them, and her people had never been conditioned to war, as these strangers seemed to be.

For Allorah, it was particularly frustrating. She and the Priestess worked until exhaustion to deal with the steady stream of wounded men and boys that came back from the front-lines. Yet, they were only two, and they could only help to mend that which had already been broken, never able to take more direct action. Allorah knew that unless something happened to change the tide of the war, her people would eventually fall.

On the eve of her eighteenth birthday, a tremendous battle was fought alarmingly close to one of the island's main villages. Their forces emerged victorious, but only just, and Allorah spent the entire night, and most of the next day tending to the injured. In a rare moment of calm, Allorah was startled to see Dannonae approach her with an ancient-looking scroll in hand. The Priestess would not explain her motivation, saying only that Allorah should read it. She did.

It was instructions for a ritual, and it contained an unfamiliar version of an old myth Allorah had been told when she was small. The essence of it was that in a time of great peril, the inhabitants of her island had somehow managed to bridge the gap between their world and the Other, the realm of dragon warriors. They had enlisted the help of several of these fierce denizens, and through their efforts, had triumphed over the evil that plagued their land. It was a common story, and one of Allorah's favorites, but the scroll seemed to suggest that, impossibly, the tale was more than mere myth.

In confusion, she went to Dannonae and insisted that she explain.

"My dear, you know as well as I that we cannot continue like this. We must either seek help, or we will be overrun."

"Help? Help from whom?" Allorah paced the room, too tired to sit still. "Priestess, I don't understand. What does this scroll have to do with the war?"

"Everything. The ritual contained therein is the key to our survival." Dannonae watched her restless movements with an Elder's calm. As Allorah opened her mouth to ask another question, Dannonae silenced her with a raised hand. "We haven't the time for me to explain all, but I will tell you this: the rite is a spell of Summoning."

"A Summoning..." Allorah breathed. Though she had heard of such a spell, once again it had only been as a children's tale. According to legend, a Summoning opened the magical Gates between worlds, and, as the name suggested, summoned a creature to their own world. In the past, it had been performed in times of need, but as peace settled firmly over the island, the knowledge of how to invoke it had been lost. Suddenly, Allorah understood.

Dannonae watched realization dawn. "Yes, my child. It is our only chance."

Allorah nodded, determination setting in. "Then we must begin preparations immediately; we've no time to waste." She quickly strode over to where the scroll rested on a counter and scooped it up, scanning its contents hurriedly. "It says we will need to gather..." She trailed off when she noticed the Priestess had not moved.

"There will be no 'we' this time, Allorah. This is something you must do. Alone."

"But... Mother, I am only an apprentice." She said in confusion. "Surely this is something for a full Priestess—"

"You are a priestess in all but name, Allorah, and you know it." Dannonae said, cutting her off. "If not for this war, we would have already had held the official ceremony." Seeing the expression of shocked doubt Allorah wore, she continued in a gentler tone. "You have all the tools you will need for this. Trust yourself."

She shook her head. "I don't think I can do this. Too much depends on it. Couldn't you—?"

"No." Dannonae said sharply. "It must be you. I can't say why, just that... Just that I am not fit for it. It must be you."

Allorah felt a wave of doubt threaten to overwhelm her, but she knew the old Priestess well enough to tell when she'd dug her heels in. She closed her eyes and took a deep, shuddering breath, trying to muster her courage for the task ahead. It took two more similar breaths until she was ready to open her eyes again. "I supposed I had better get working, then."

"Yes," Dannonae agreed, "for the ritual must be performed tonight."

She spent the rest of the day collecting the things she would need. Various herbs, a ceremonial knife, candles, a skin from one of the giant cats that resided on the island, mortar and pestle, logs for the fire, and of course, the scroll. The ritual was surprisingly simple, and for that Allorah was grateful. She was not sure she could manage something more complicated in her exhaustion.

The lightning crackled, rousing her from her thoughts. She spent one more moment staring out at the the darkened ocean, as the gale made her midnight hair dance around her delicate face, and pressed the nearly transparent ceremonial robe close to her body, before she pivoted and walked back to the forest. As soon as she'd reached the shelter of the tree-line, the wind lessened considerably, but she still found herself wishing that she'd had the foresight to bring a cloak or a shawl to keep in the heat her thin garment did not.

Still, as she made her way through the darkened forest on silent feet, the movement restored some measure of warmth to her her, and the act of focusing on where she stepped kept her alert. She need fear no foreigners here in the heart of the wooded island, but though she knew these lands so well as to be able to navigate them blindfolded, it seemed irreverent to disturb the soothing quiet that pervaded this sacred place. And walking without sound, in the pitch black of the moonless night, required concentration.

The subtle aura of ancient power that pervaded this part of the island seemed to thrum through the trees around her, through the stream she followed, through the earth itself, rising through the soles of her bare feet to resonate with the echoes of her heartbeat. She could feel the soul of this place, slow and sure and still so very powerful, even after ages had passed. Allorah felt herself being pulled gently into a dream-like state. Awake, but not.

For a moment, it was as if she looked through the eyes of another, seeing herself from the outside: the pure white of her flowing robe and the porcelain of her skin stood out in the blackness, ethereal and ghostly. She noticed, with mild embarrassment, that the garment did little to hide the contours of her young body. Narrow shoulders tapered to a tiny waist, flaring again at her hips to give way to shapely legs that were long in proportion to the rest of her small body. Her breasts, round and firm, were not as large as some, but still had weight enough to bounce softly as she walked, the plain robe doing more in the way of draping than supporting. Thankfully, the sash that kept the garment closed hung down at the front, obscuring the black thatch of hair at the junction of her legs that Allorah was certain would otherwise be visible through the scanty material. At her shoulders, her long raven's-wing hair fell in soft waves. In daylight, the sun reflected silver on its silken length, but here under the midnight trees, the obsidian tresses blended eerily with the background, adding to the image of some otherworldly being. And then were her eyes. In that instant of strange vision, her eyes, an unusual violet shade under normal circumstances, seemed to glow with some internal light.

The vision vanished as she reached her destination, but she remained in the state of half-dream as she began the ritual. She quickly kindled a fire in the center of the ancient glade, in a pit designed for that purpose that looked like it hadn't been used in decades. She lay out the cat-skin in front of it, and went about making careful designs on the surrounding earth with candle-wax. It was slow, tedious work, but she was patient and eventually that step, too, was complete upon placing the candles at precise locations of the pattern. Next, she seated herself on the skin, opened several bags of the herbs she had collected, and began mixing and grinding them in the mortar. When she finished, she picked up the knife. It was a simple thing, unadorned except for a tiny circle engraved on the base of the blade. Murmuring the required words, she made a quick, shallow cut on her thumb and let five drops fall into the herb mixture. She carefully set the knife aside.

Finally she stood, removing all the tools of her preparation from the skin, and untied the sash of her robe. Without it, the fine cloth fell open, slithering from her shoulders to pool on the ground at her feet. She folded it neatly, and set that aside as well. Then she knelt, and took three deep breaths. Everything was ready.

The incantation written in the scroll came easily to her lips; she'd taken the time earlier in the day to memorize it, leaving her free to focus. Like the rest of the ritual, it was elegantly simple, a short phrase of words laden with power. As she spoke them over and over again, she occasionally took a pinch of the herb and blood mixture, tossing it into the fire. It flared dramatically, each time causing the fire to swell in size, until it was a massive blaze.

Allorah could sense the energy of land and spell gathering, building, and became distantly aware of the fact that the flames had changed in color from orange to a bluish-white. She felt more than heard a low rumble around her. It too began to change, rising in pitch until it was a shrilling whine, seeming to swirl around her like the wailing of malevolent spirits. For a moment, Allorah's steady chanting faltered as the sound pierced her concentration, but she quickly re-focused herself and continued, raising her voice to match the volume of the roar.

Just as she was sure she could not endure it any longer, the sound abruptly ceased and she was left shouting to the still night. She drew slow shuddering breaths, waiting for something to happen. Only silence. Then, suddenly, she realized what she needed to do, and the words came to her from some place deep within.

"Warrior, our need is great; I summon thee from beyond the Gate!"

And, so saying, she threw all the rest of the herbal mixture into the fire.

There was a deafening boom and a flash of light so brilliant it was blinding. Allorah felt herself knocked backwards from the force of the explosion, and for several moments, she could only lay there. When she gathered the strength to push herself upright again, her eyes went immediately to the fire. At its center, there seemed to be something forming. A shape grew out of the conflagration, solidifying into the form of a man.

He stepped from the flame and she was dazzled by his radiance. She was not sure what she had been expecting; an enormous dragon, perhaps, or some sort of human-beast hybrid. Certainly not the long-limbed god she saw before her. There was no clothing to hide the sculpted beauty of his body, the perfect breadth of his shoulders tapering to slim hips. His emerald eyes took in her own unclothed body, roaming over her, assessing.