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SEVEN SWORDS, SEVEN LORDS
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Chapter One: The Haunted Forest
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The forest flashes black shadows against the darkness of the night. Bracken and ferns rise like ghouls in the shadows, and the racing horses stumbles down inclines of moss and earth composed of moldering leaves.
The trunk of a great tree lay barring their path.
Spurs to their mounts, the lords struggled, in groups of three and two, to veer around or leap over the obstacle. Bark flew as the last mount, a small, resilient black with a wide bald face, clipped the trunk and stumbled. The horse faltered behind the band as his rider is nearly thrown over his neck in an effort to regain sure footing. Seat recovered, the young lord pats his mount with a nervous hand and hisses to encourage him forward.
The horse stretched himself thin against the forest ground, consuming the distance until they are once more in the thick of the six other mounts and riders.
A wolf howls, and the sound echoes off the moss-covered trees before it throws itself up into the ether of night. One lord's cloak tangles in the grasping branches of a thorny tree. Giving a startled cry that is quickly smothered, he reaches back and tears himself free, leaving remnants of the green cloak on the thorns.
They are forced to bring their beasts to walk as they traverse a narrow path between a high wall of scarred granite rock and the deep gorge of an ancient forest stream.
The moon breaks briefly through the thickness of the clouds.
White shine the rapids down below; the water rushing coldly in its bed as it winds along the forest floor to kiss the salty coastline.
Another wolf cry comes.
The lead horse springs into a mad gallop, sweat breaking out across its bay coat. Lather streams down its chest. The horse's rider curses under his breath as he draws back on the reins, but does little to halt the fever-pace of the terrified mare. His company cry out in the shadows of the forest and race after him into the snarling undergrowth, just barely keeping sight of his crimson mantle in the dark.
It is as if every fairy-tale and warning have come to life tonight. The forest seems like some living creature, prowling after them relentlessly. It breathes down their backs and means to keep them forever—branches strike and claw the horses; the riders cling to the manes of their beasts, pressing their heads to the sweaty crests of their horses' necks as sharp-edged leaves rake their skin.
A thick golden gelding screams as he plunges into a patch of briers and then thrashes away from their grasping, bony fingers.
They will never be free of the forest, they will die here; all the legends and warnings are true.
Headless Narnian nobles, criminals turned into the forest as a death sentence, the great white wolf that devours unwelcome travelers, talking vultures with faces of the dead and eyes that gaze upon the soul. All of these and other bedtime tales draw close about them in their thoughts as they cast furtive eyes all around, leaning low like hunted men.
Something staggers away in the distance—there is a loud and restless crash that does not belong to the horses.
The lead horse freezes at the sound, nearly sending her master flying over her stiff, upraised neck. He curses her harshly, raking her hide with his spurs, beating her with the ends of his reins. But she merely shudders and stamps a stiff leg, dancing on her hindquarters.
"Get on you cursed nag!" the mare's lord cries, his voice harsh in his fright. Behind them the rest of the company's horses stumble and half-rear so as not to rush against the long-legged mare. As their riders calm them they shiver, steam rising from their sweaty coats.
They all feel the dread lingering on their masters. To them it is the smell of alarm, and so they fear twice over in this unfamiliar landscape.
An errant gust of wind trails beneath the canopy of summer leaves.
A fox wails, and a rabbit screams as an owl hoots indiscernible wisdom into the night.
Again, the mare's rider attempts to force his mount into motion.
Her ears flick, and she means to obey—
Another crash in the forest and the sounds of wild creatures come. She leans back on her haunches, high-stepping in reverse, and her hock strikes into the side of a jittery grey stallion. The lean grey reacts with a scream, plunging and bucking.
The company of horses is undone.
"Worthless, miserable beast!" the bay mare's rider swears, grasping the reins fiercely to bring the mare's head down as she fights his control.
"Restimar, peace! Can you not see she is weary and afraid? As you are, as are we all!"
The rider on the little black stallion comes forward now from the rear of the band, his horse calm but for an unsettled nicker and a toss of his long mane. He holds out his hand in supplication that his plea be recognized. His voice is soft despite his superstition of the woods they stand in.
The lord on the bay mare turns his head in a hard downward motion to look at the other man in the dimness. His eyes are fierce with determination and terror. "How did you rise to become a lord, Bern? You are too young and your heart is weak!" Restimar's words were harsh, concealing the guilt he felt that such a young man should find himself thrown in with such a lot of unworthy men. Bern was the best of them; his kindness and generosity revealed his betterment at every turn.
Bern looked as if he would reply when the lord on the golden horse came between them. "What is the trouble, Restimar?"
"This stupid beast won't move." Restimar kicked the bay mare. She squealed and gave one stiff-legged, halfhearted buck under his weight. She had been schooled to obey – beaten and branded and charged to heed the master she carried – but she knew when she had been pushed too far, and now her legs burned and trembled. Her coat chilled under the lather she had been worked into. She would not go farther, and she would not be spurred or whipped into motion.
"King's life, Restimar, you'll kill her, and then where will we be?" Octesian intoned harshly, reaching out to grab at Restimar's reins as if he meant to take them from the other man.
The lord jerked his hands out of Octesian's reach, nearly unseating him.
"The king is dead, to utter that oath is poor form!"
Octesian turned in his saddle, resting his hand against the back of his stout gold horse. He narrowed his eyes in the dark at the shadowy figure of Lord Mavramorn on his lanky white gelding. "I shall say what I like."
"And I say that if you swear by that oath again I'll cut out your tongue with my dagger!"
With that ill-spoken vow the lords broke forth into quarreling amongst one another. They argued about the forest, the treatment of Restimar's mare, Octesian's vulgar turn of phrase, Bern's youth, and how they had all fallen from Miraz' disfavor because of someone else's failings. Faults were brought to bear and shortcomings criticized with razor tongues. Bern attempted to end the pointless dispute but for his trouble Rhoop called him a sniveling Retreatist—a man who could not stomach war.
Hotly, Bern rejoined by labeling Rhoop a Potentialist – a man who based all of his theory on the assumption of potential for merit but not on negative actions carried out. Then, angry, Bern drew his little stallion around with a firm kick, forcing his his mount to ram Rhoop's. The two stallions snorted and shied, Rhoop's piebald issuing an insulted squeal, tail flicking in agitation.
Each man grew so furious and intent on insulting the other that they were soon forced to pause their tirades to breathe. In the lapse of a second's worth of silence, Argoz' voice broke out in a dulcet tone.
"We are better than crude arguing like some base filth. It is poor grace to deride each other like this; if we stand together we should commend one another."
Bern looked across at the older lord with an expression of gratefulness. Argoz smiled, but it lasted only briefly; fading to remorse and silent grief. "My Lord Argoz speaks the truth, quarreling makes us no better than mules. If we are right, we should not cast blame on someone else."
Restimar sighed and nodded his concurrence. "Forgive me, friends, for allowing my fears to overcome my sense."
Revilian chuckled tersely in the darkness. "Of course you—" He broke off, distracted by his chestnut mare. Her ears pricked hard-forward, and her head rose to peer into the forest. She took an unbidden step, then another.
All at once, "Do you hear that?" he asked his six companions, voice soft.
Each man looked at the other, wary and uneasy. But they held tight their reins with warm hands and listened.
A cold wind rushed down from the heights of the ancient trees. Boughs groaned, feathered wings whirring overhead; off to a distant destination. An owl screeched and another fox gave a wild mating wail. But then, faintly twining through the leaves and sighing wind, they heard a woman's voice singing, singing low and haunting. The eerie tune flowed around them, settling the frightened horses with alarming swiftness.
This is the song the raven sings,
As he soars the heights on silken wings:
Alone I am, alone am I,
Forever here, in this broken sky.
I hear the song of the silver moon,
And witness fair white flowers strewn,
Along paths trod by the dead.
I have seen sorrow bow each head.
Alone I am, alone am I,
Soaring in this storm-tossed sky.
I have felt the touch of a thousand tears,
Seen the life of a thousand years.
Blue-edged feathers cleave the night,
As I glide here in my hushèd flight.
The lords shifted in their saddles.
Restimar's bay mare took one step forward, verging away from the path. Restimar cried out an oath and drew tightly down on the reins. The mare snorted and scrapped her forehoof across the ground in agitation, chin to her chest as the bit pressed down hard on her tongue. But she did not stand still. Hindquarters dancing, hooves beating an awkward tattoo into the forest earth, the bay mare plunged forward, breathing loudly into the night.
Behind him, his companions utter startled cries as their mounts fall in line behind the bay mare and Restimar, following the song of the solitary voice echoing out into the darkness.
"This is the song the raven sings,
As he sails the unknown on ebon wings:
Alone I am, alone am I,
My sorrows soft like a mourner's sigh.
I cried a call from a lofty pine,
Forgot my home, for t'was not mine.
I shelter my head in feathers black,
Foresought my world, for I can't go back.
Alone I am, alone am I,
Above the world in this endless sky.
My heart is a broken, branded thing,
Held together with such frayed string.
I am the raven, this is my song,
I am alone, for I have done wrong."
All the lords fall silent. The horses are calm as they patiently follow after the lead mare, her head dipping in time with each stride she takes.
Bern prays in the darkness to each god he knows of to protect them. His black stallion grunts as he hops over a little trickling stream almost no bigger than a cradle. He pats the steaming neck with a sweaty palm, more to quiet his own loud thoughts than for any solace to his horse. With anxious eyes he peers off into the forest, but sees nothing in the rare shafts of the moon that pierce through the racing clouds above the trees. Fireflies rise up from the ferns as they wander into a portion of forest that is covered with the tall, swaying green fronds.
The horses cannot be coaxed to walk abreast of one another as much as their riders attempt to make it so. It is as if they are bewitched or entranced; but as soon as such a terrible thought is contemplated it is hastily cast away. Yet it lingers in the silence all around them.
Somewhere a creek runs through the forest.
Argoz shudders as they pass beneath a large overhang of grey rock and he glimpses up into the night as the moon shines down. It is a ruin. Marble once white now dull and grey in ancient age. Then they void off into the forest again and the wall vanishes back into the night. Shoulders hunching, he stares grimly into the distance.
A light.
It is feeble at first, but gradually as they come near, it grows. Dances and flickers.
Fire.
A fire in the forest.
Revilian's eyes widen, and the flames reflected their brightness as the seven lords entered into a glen.
The horses stop, half-circling round the far side of the fire. Ears pricked forward, heads extended on relaxed necks, they gaze across the smoke and twisting flames to the figure on the other side.
An ancient woman – grandmother, the Telmarines would call a woman of such wizened looks and whitened hair – sat across from them on a cushion worn and stained with use. Four tassels hung down on each corner, fraying and dull yellow. Her hair fell long and rippling, gleaming in the cast of firelight. Charms and beads strung along a dozen intricate and fine braids in her hair. She wore patched clothing, many layers of a hundred dark and faded colors.
She stirred something in the cauldron swaying over the fire as she sang.
"Alone I am, alone am I,
Forever to cross this barren sky.
I have seen sorrow, and known deep pain,
I felt the touch of frozen rain.
I am a symbol of wisdom and grief,
When one doubts I renew belief.
My wings are ebon, my blood is red,
I fly in the wake of the future dead.
I am the raven, and this is my song."
Revilian studied the woman through the steam from the bubbling pot and the smoke and embers rising to flick off into the atmosphere. Though she looked as mortal as any of his companions, the longer he stared, the more she seemed . . . unnatural.
Her sun-brown skin was more earth-rich; her hair when it swayed in the breeze that danced through the glen reminded him of the foam of a thunderous waterfall.
She hummed now.
Brush rustled.
Revilian jerked away from his focus on the woman, and almost as one the seven lords looked searchingly about the parameter of the glen.
From the forest a large white wolf slunk, as big as a child's palfrey. It peered across at them; it's orange eyes shone in the firelight like fire-opals.
Bern gasped softly.
The wolf canted his large head to look at the grandmother sitting before the fire. She raised her eyes, regarding him. Without warning, the wolf threw his head back and howled. The mournful cry broke over them, sending a chill deep into their souls. Restlessly, Mavramorn fiddled with his slack reins.
"So I must, Korah," the grandmother spoke, drawing seven pairs of eyes back in her direction. "So I must, and so I shall do."
The old woman extended her hand, and the wolf padded forward, pressing his forehead against her palm with a sigh that sounded as weary and long-suffering as an ancient, gnarled oak when it is brought down in a high summer storm. Stroking the wolf, the grandmother smiled, and then removed her hand.
Her eyes found the lords across the cooking fire. "Welcome, Lords of Telmar, to my meager hearth. Such a day is long in its arrival as this before us now. Come, sit, eat; surely you weary and hunger after the travels you have taken," she stared perceptively at them, and the fire glinted in her blue eyes, "to flee."
Warily the lords shared glances among one another.
Bern slid his hand from his reins to the dagger concealed at his side. His heartbeat had accelerated with the sight of the white wolf – the mythical beast that consumed children and young men if they dared enter the Haunted Forest – and now with the grandmother's words he felt a pressing, ominous weight against him.
"You need lift no arms against me, my lord—I am not the one that you must fear." A knowing filled her expression, and it seemed more hunted than sympathetic. She understood what it meant to flee in fear of one's life; but she felt no sympathy, it was a thing to her a part of living. She stirred the wooden spoon once more in the pot.
The wolf shifted away from her and lay down with its head on its paws.
Softly, she hummed the tune from her forlorn song of the raven.
Evening insects chirruped in the grass about the glen, and fireflies danced through the shadows of the trees.
The wolf watched the lords in silence, a teasing whisper of wind fiddling with the long hair of his coat.
Without warning, Rhoop dismounted. His boots struck the loamy earth and his cloak caressed the grass as he dropped his reins over his stallion's neck and left the side of his horse, taking quiet strides nearer the fire. He had decided that there was nothing left to live for if everything he believed in could be so easily dashed—his reputation forever tarnished by the careful plotting of a man he had once considered friend. If he died tonight, Rhoop thought peacefully to himself, it would go well with him to die among men he considered friends, in a setting such as this.
The lords cast glances at each other. Then, with wary decision, dismounted together, following in their companion's wake.
A/N:
So, yes, this is a rewrite of a rewrite and a lot of things have changed. Firstly, I've grown as a writer and my writing style has changed.
Secondly, I've come back into my Narnian Universe and changed a lot of things up, perfected some things, and, uh, shall I say "Backspaced the OOCness" that Young!Windy started with in 2014? Five years is a long time to be away. I think I promised to have written and completed all the fanfics for this universe by 2017? Well, that was an egregious lie and I apologize unreservedly for it. But hopefully THIS TIME around I can ACTUALLY FINISH SOMETHING. I'm excited to present this New & Improved Narnian Universe Alteration Fanfiction Series.
Thirdly, I am in The Worst ravine of depression and writer's block so this isn't as good as I can write (I SWEAR I can write better than this but this is all I have and I'm giving it all I can) but it's better than what USED to be in this story, so. As a precaution I'm writing a lot of chapters at a time so I can stockpile them and have backup for days when I don't feel like writing, also that way I can have chapters waiting to be uploaded in my Doc Manager that have already gone through the editing process (this to hopefully limit the typos and other various errors).
If you have any questions about my stories in my Narnian Universe, just put it in a PM or in the review box below, thank you!
WH