Chapter I – Go Forth, Young Shyne
"The manor should be coming into view over the top of the hill, Master Shyne," said the muffled voice of the coachman. Shyne put his head out the window to catch the first glimpse of his home.
It had been nice spending the month with his uncle, but Shyne was glad to be home. As much as he'd enjoyed having all of his male cousins around to play with, he missed his friends here. He may not have any brothers or sisters, but he got along quite well with the servant's children and his parents were content with that.
His trip, filled with daydreaming of the all the stories he could share with Jaram and Shena, was now at a close. His heart was soaring as the crested the hill.
The coach stopped on top of the hill, as the coachman halted the horses and stared in amazement at the rubble where the manor house had once been. The four guards that had been riding alongside the coach immediately drew two swords each and began scanning the area.
Shyne couldn't quite grasp what he was seeing. Where was his home? What had happened here? Before he could sort out all of these questions, the coach and its escort moved on down the hill slowly.
By the time they reached the ruins, Shyne had his own swords out. They were small and he wasn't exactly well-trained, but he knew something was wrong and he was not going to be taken by surprise. When the coach came to a stop again, he opened the door and dropped to the ground. Immediately, he rushed into the ruins, ignoring the shout of his guards, and began sifting through things with his boots, unwilling to give up his swords.
"Master Shyne," the coachman said, rushing up to him with a sword in one hand, "please get back in the coach. We'll handle this."
"No."
The coachman continued to argue, but Shyne simply ignored him. He knew they wouldn't physically try to force him into the coach until someone spotted something hostile. In the mean time, he continued to wander through thr remains of the house.
"This is my room," Shyne said at one point, mostly to himself. One of the guards gave him a concerned look, but he didn't see it. He stepped across the rubble where he'd used to sleep and continued on.
Finally he got to the point where his parents' room had once stood. It was at this point that he began to cry. He sheathed his twin short swords and fell to his knees, digging through the rubble for some sign of his parents.
"Trolloc tracks," he heard one of the men say a little while later. "There's nothing left here."
Shyne kept digging. Tossing pieces of ceiling and wall aside, he noticed a gleam of gold. Something stirred inside him and he began digging with a renewed fervor. If it really had been trollocs, he knew there was almost no chance he would even find his parents' bodies. But there was something down there.
It didn't take long to find what had glimmered before. With a whimper, he pulled out two large swords from rubble. Both were sheathed, but it was one of the embossed golden herons on each of the scabbards that must have caught his eye. Holding these swords in his hands, he knew, irrevocably, his father was dead. Eloran Barend would never have left these swords behind.
He clutched the swords to his chest and fell onto the gravel, too weak to support himself anymore. For an eternity, he just lay there on his side, clutching the swords of his ancestors and crying. He'd lost everything while he was gone. He'd lost his parents, his home, and the only two people he'd ever considered a friend.
A cry from the forests surrounding the manor jerked him out of his crying fit. He rolled over and lifted his head, but couldn't see anything through all the rubble. Slowly, weakly, he crouched, then stood, never dropping the two precious swords. What he saw brought a smile to his face, even if it did nothing to stop his tears. Running toward the five men and the boy standing amidst the ruins were about ten or fifteen men and women led by two children.
As the adults rushed up to the guards and coachmen, sparing Shyne only looks of pity and loss as they ran past, the two children came directly to their peer.
"Shyne!" Jaram called out. "You're okay!"
The two of them hit him as one, hugging him from both sides, and he returned the embrace as best he could without dropping the swords. "I'm so glad you guys are safe," was all he could say.
Together, the three of them just sat and cried as the adults talked. Through the tears, Jaram and Shena explained what had happened. The trollocs had attacked the manor around dusk. The two of them had been on the other side of the house, playing while their mother hung sheets. They heard the screaming and saw a few people running, then their mother gathered them and took off with them over the open stretch toward the woods. After overtaking the manor and killing or capturing everyone inside, the trollocs began to search the woods around the house for the people who'd escaped. It was only through luck that the woman and two children had escaped. In the days since then, they'd found others and sent a few to the nearest town for help. They'd seen no one, though, until Shyne's coach topped the hill. As soon as they figured out who they were, the survivors had come out of the woods.
"My parents?" Shyne asked, though he already knew the answer.
"No one we've talked to saw them," Shena answered. "I'm sorry Shyne, but I don't think they made it."
Shyne just nodded and went on. "And your father?"
"We haven't seen him either," Jaram explained. "It doesn't seem like more than the thirteen of us and the two we sent to the village survived. We're not even sure about the two we sent."
Shyne stood up and walked with his friends over to where the adults were discussing what to do now. They didn't seem close to making a decision. The young noble cleared his throat, drawing everyone's eyes. "We're going to find anything we can salvage and put it in the coach. We are going to go to the village. When we get there, we'll secure food and extra horses enough to make it to my uncle's estate. As the new Head of the Barend house until I come of age, it is his responsibility to look after all of you."
He was young, he knew, and adults had a way of refusing to listen to people younger than them, but everyone here was well aware that he outranked any of them, whatever his age. Besides, he was right, and they all knew it. They would follow him.
Shyne walked all the way to the village, refusing to ride either the coach or the horses, instead offering them to the old and the injured. They got there and realized they didn't have enough money to buy horses. They bought enough food to last them a while and set off for Shyne's uncle.
It took a few weeks at the slow pace they were forced to travel, but they were met a few days away from their destination by Shyne's uncle and twenty of his guards, with enough horses to carry all of Shyne's party and have a few mounts left over. Doran Barend was disturbed by the news of his brother's demise and showed very sincere thanks that Shyne had been spared. The manor, the land, and the family possessions they'd found in the ruins belonged now to Doran until Shyne was old enough and claimed his birthright. This included the heron-marked swords that had been passed down for so many generations of the Barend family.
When they all finally reached Doran's manor, the surviving servants and staff were hired on if they wanted, and given enough money to see themselves to another job if they didn't. Jaram and Shena's mother decided to stay there, largely to keep the three children together.
Shyne's routine changed little. He still went through the sword lessons he'd gone through at home, though he now had the lessons with his cousins, taught by an old military veteran. The only teacher Shyne had ever had before was his father, who'd been teaching him a way of fighting that had been passed down as long as the swords had. He feared now that he would never fully learn that style. Still, he was able to take what he was learning from his new teacher and integrate it into his old forms in such a way that he felt he got better.
While he wasn't learning the swords, he was often running around the woods with Jaram and Shena, as well as occasionally a cousin that cared to tag along. His cousins were nice and provided great company, but he knew that they didn't understand why he preferred spending time with the children of servants instead of other noble children.
On the rare moments where he wasn't playing with his friends or practicing his swordplay, he could almost always be found sitting in the front hall, staring up at the heron-marked blades his uncle had had hung on the wall, where he claimed they would stay until Shyne could claim them.
After only a month or so, Shyne began to realize that he didn't really fit in here. His uncle and aunt and cousins were a poor substitute for the family he'd lost, and he felt like a burden on them, though they tried very hard to keep up the appearance that he wasn't. He told his only two friends about his feelings, and the three of them together came up with a plan. The next day, they approached Jaram and Shena's mother.
Nana, which is what Shyne had always called her, listened attentively as they told her about their thoughts. She had been rather unhappy here as well, and confided in them that she would like to return to her own family in Saldaea. She helped them with their plans and smoothed out many of the rough edges they hadn't even noticed.
Two days later, in the middle of the night, Shyne snuck out of his room. He was dressed for travel, with his short swords at his belt and a pack of food and clothing slung across his back. In the hall, he met Jaram and Shena, also dressed for travel and carrying their own bags. The three of them snuck down into the great hall, where Shyne quietly removed the family swords from their resting place and strapped them to his back. They were over half as long as he was, so they didn't fit at all, but he knew he wouldn't be back in a long time and he couldn't help but think of them as his. With everything ready, they snuck out, and knowing the guard's patrol patterns, made it into the forest without any trouble.
They snuck through the woods the rest of the night and didn't camp until they were far from the manor they'd run away from. By the time their disappearance was discovered, they were moving again, farther away. Days later, they came to a road, which they traveled alongside until it brought them to a village.
What they were doing was dangerous, and everyone was well aware of it. They'd spent all their lives playing in the woods around the manor they'd grown up in, and they all knew the basics of hunting and trapping and such, but Shyne and Jaram were only eleven, and Shena younger still. The wilderness in the Borderlands was more dangerous than perhaps any other wilderness in the world, with the exception of the Aiel Waste. Aside from the normal wolves and bears and large cats, there was a distinct chance they might run into trollocs or perhaps a dragkhar. Yet they had faith in themselves and Nana had faith in them, and through skill and a lot of luck, they made it to the village they were heading for.
They camped outside the village, careful not to be noticed, and kept a good watch on the roads leading to the village from both sides. More than once, they saw riders from uncle Doran's estate ride into town and leave a few hours later. They were looking for them, but no one had seen them.
They saw what they were waiting for the fourth day of camping outside the town. A woman was heading into town with another few men who didn't seem to be guards. Late that night, they saw the woman sneaking away down the road and they went out to meet her.
"Ah, children, I've been so worried about you," Nana said as they approached.
"There was no need to worry, Mother," Jaram assured her. "We can take care of ourselves out here."
"I know you can, Jaram, but it is a mother's job to worry. I wish I could have been here sooner, but I had to wait a few days before leaving, so that it seemed I'd really given up hope of you three being found before I left. But I see you're all alright and I have no more need to worry."
"Let's go then," Shena said, excited to finally be on their way.
"Yes," Nana smiled. "Let's go home."