Author's Note: Thank you for reading Chapter One and continuing to Chapter Two :) This one is shorter, but it also provides vital insight into what exactly is going on already. A lot has happened, but I really want to push the plot along so we can get to the good parts. Please review!
Sunlight filled Anurin's newly awoken eyes. Gasping in pain, the child brought up his hands to block out the offensive rays. Tears, triggered by the impossibly bright light, filtered out from beneath his closed eyelids as he bit his lip against the stinging sensation. He had looked directly into the sun directly after waking up. It had happened to him once before perhaps a year ago, but he was positive it hadn't been this intense.
For a moment, panic gripped him as he contemplated the possibility that he had gone blind, but he couldn't bring himself to uncover his eyes and test his theory, for fear of refreshing the pain. Perhaps the bright red imprint of the sun that was burned upon his eyes was a sign that his vision had not let him. If he were blind, he wouldn't be able to see that, would he?
At long last, the pain died away, and Anurin dropped his hands from his eyes, though he kept his eyelids shut. He could see bright red light on the backs of his eyelids, where the sun's rays were trying to penetrate them. Anurin rolled onto his stomach and cautiously opened his eyes to look at the grassy earth beneath him. Even facing the ground, the boy had to squint until his eyes became acclimated to the light from above. His eyes had never, in his memory, been this sensitive. It was ridiculous.
A few moments later Anurin pushed himself off the green floor of the clearing and got to his feet. His bangs, which he always swept to the side, fell in front of his eyes. Brushing them away in annoyance, he realized that they were incredibly long. He hadn't noticed it last night, but his hair, which was usually an inch above his shoulder, now descended to the middle of his back. Anurin determined to cut it when he left the mountain…
Right. The mountain. Anurin turned about full circle.
Constricting as it was, the hollow in the mountain was also quite beautiful in the daytime. The delicate blades of grass were as green as he had ever seen anywhere, the soil beneath it a rich, dark brown. The well in particular looked rather attractive with the elegant tree that overshadowed it—a tree?
That hadn't been there last night…
Anurin crossed the small distance between him and the well and inspected the tree more closely. The bark of the tree—flawlessly smooth, not ridged—was a pale tan, almost white. Graceful, upturned leaves of a deep maroon-purple clustered around a pale blue fruit, all somehow upheld by seemingly frail branches no more than an inch thin.
His stomach gurgled. Smiling at the appropriate timing of the reminder, Anurin extended his hand to retrieve the blue fruit. He plucked it from its stem with virtually no effort. Rotating the fruit in his hand, he tried to identify it, but failed miserably. It was the shape of kiwi but the skin felt more like a peach. A taste test quickly revealed to him that its meat was uncannily similar to that of a watermelon's, but thicker and somehow far more pleasant.
It was hard for him to keep himself from devouring the fruit within seconds. So he didn't. Once he had finished the first, pale blue juice lining his mouth, he wolfed down three more, leaving nothing behind. The fruit didn't have seeds inside of it, which he found extremely unusual. Strangely, after eating the small fruit, his muscles felt fully regenerated. Prior to his eating the fruit, he hadn't even realized that his arms, legs, and back felt flaccid and weak.
As he wiped his juice-covered hands on his trousers, Anurin spotted a glint of metal among the twisted net of branches. Leaning forward and parting a few key branches, he discovered the source of the glint: an amulet. His father's amulet. Emotion filled him again, as it had last night. He had no idea where his father was, but Anurin was sure that he had returned to fight the Secrum. Was there really any hope that he had survived, when the full force of the Secrum army attacked a single city?
Anurin attempted to have hope for his father, but logic and reality smothered the flicker of faith and it drifted away in the winds of sorrow. Anurin sniffled as he reached his hand into the small tangle of tiny white branches and grasped the cool metal. He lifted it from the branch it hung from and held it before his face. The sunlight glinted off of the topaz. The stone was the exact color of his father's eyes. Anurin's eyes now shed a few painful tears before he slipped the large chain over his head and tucked the amulet beneath his filthy smock. A tear dripped onto his even filthier bare feet as he bowed his head against the lump in his throat.
Amid the grief, a strange emotion entered Anurin's heart, tickled an unknown part of his mind, sent blood surging through his veins at a pace he had never felt before. What was it called? he wondered. The Secrum had taken his father, had taken his people. He was going to return to them the pain he now felt. He had found the word. His father had explained it to him once when they killed the boars that had entered their house and destroyed much of their furniture. Revenge. It had much more meaning now than it had upon his father's explanation.
Feeling a strange warmth emanating from his father's amulet, now resting solidly against his heart, he clenched the precious metal through his smock and whispered one word. "Revenge."
Plunk…
The wind swept over the dun-colored grass of the plains.
Plunk…
The plains were completely flat, save for a single hill that rose illogically from among them. Otherwise, there was nothing but flat plains for miles around. That, and of course the mountains.
Plunk…
Atop that single hill stood a single man, clothed in glowing silver armor. He faced south, toward the mountains, against which sat what was once a marvelous city. It's sandstone walls, once forty feet tall, stood at most a height of twenty feet, and only in a few places. The rest of the walls were in much more severe degrees of ruin.
Within the ruined enclosure, what few buildings stood were almost completely torn down. Most were marked by fire, the brick marred and warped by intense heat. Distasteful varieties of weeds had already begun to spring from the cracks of the previously immaculate cobblestone streets.
The city of Morduve was laid waste. His job was finished.
Plunk…
The man tossed his knifepoint down into the ground beneath him, bent down, retrieved the blade, and tossed it down once more. Plunk!
He had been waiting since dawn. Any moment now, his waiting would be over.
A few minutes passed. The sun made its slow, imperceptible turn through the sky.
Another few minutes…
The sound of a whip cracking traveled across the half-mile's distance to the city and reached the solitary man's ears. His eyes fell upon the gap at the front of the city's wall, where the heavy wooden gate had been ripped off its hinges. Emerging from that gap, with furious speed, was a man mounted upon a white stallion. A beautiful horse. The man deserved such a glorious steed. He was extremely effective.
It took only a little over a minute for the rider, his horse creating a suffocating plume of dust in the air behind them, to cover the half-mile. The steed loped up the steep hillside and stopped directly in front of the patiently waiting man. The rider dismounted smoothly and in the same motion bowed on one knee before the standing figure. He didn't make eye contact with the erect man, who was obviously his superior, but with great deference bowed his head to gaze at the man's booted feet.
"Captain Delanor. Report." The man's voice was strong and mellifluous, pleasing to the ears. His tone was calm and level and left his listeners at ease. As he looked down at the man prostrate before him, he sheathed his knife and locked his fingers together in front of him.
"Lord Caliber. My report remains the same. No survivors have been found." Captain Delanor said clearly and precisely, the model of practicality. Lord Caliber gazed at him with unseeing eyes, contemplating.
"How many casualties this week?" he asked after a few moments.
"Twenty-seven, my Lord."
Lord Caliber paused to unlock his fingers and toy with the brief stubble on his chin. His eyes moved back to the derelict city laid out before him.
"You say there are no survivors, yet for the past year we have dealt with a large number of casualties every week." Lord Caliber observed airily, as if revealing an interesting fact. Still not meeting eyes with his superior, Delanor responded.
"My Lord, the buildings are in ruin. Roofs, not properly supported, often cave in when rubble is shifted. Men die from being in close proximity to the bodies of the dead, those we have not burned. Several faint from heat stroke every day, and no less than ten men starved to death today. We have worked hard to meet your desired pace."
His stance remained forcibly rigid. Only years of torturous self-discipline kept him from ripping off the plates of armor that suffocated him and sent rivulets of sweat dripping off his nose and chin.
"Rise." Lord Caliber commanded. Delanor was on his feet almost instantaneously.
"Your men have indeed worked hard, and performed more adequately than I had expected. However, no one has impressed me quite as thoroughly as you have." He paused, and in that short space of silence, Captain Delanor locked eyes with Lord Caliber. He quickly looked away respectfully.
"We're done here. Tell your men they feast tonight, General." He paused again, only long enough to distinguish the quiet intake of air as his vassal gasped. "Triple rations for all. Spread the ale around, you march easy tomorrow."
General Delanor saluted his Lord crisply, only barely containing the smile that threatened to break free. Lord Caliber nodded and dismissed him with a wave. As the general mounted his steed, his movements quick and excited, Lord Caliber turned to the mountains.
Come.
I come.
What appeared to be a massive winged shadow erupted from between the many mountain peaks and rose toward the sunbathed sky. It seemed to absorb the light around it, so dark it was. It turned towards Lord Caliber, flexed its wings once, and was propelled toward him with impossible speed.
Within seconds, the shadowy creature landed gracefully, barely shaking the earth beneath it. It was a night griffon, with a body roughly the size of horse and a fearsome beak that could penetrate whatever it desired. Its electric blue eyes could see during the night as if the sun were brightly shining. During the day, however, a film covered its eyes that blocked most light. It tossed its feathered head and slinked catlike toward Lord Caliber, who approached likewise.
Where do we go? The question resonated inside Caliber's mind, a thought not his own.
To the end of the earth, my child. Caliber returned. He leapt onto the night griffon's back and was bourn into the air with blinding speed, the wind from the creature's wings beating upon the immobile General Delanor and his mount.
The general watched the two beings fade into the distance and squared his shoulders. Then, with a soft "Hah," to his stallion, he set off down the other side of the hill at a leisurely trot, headed for the thousands of tents that covered the plains before him, already imagining himself soundly asleep in his own bed back in Secrum.