Path of a Novice Read online

  Copyright © 2017 Ruth Kent. All rights reserved.

  This work is registered with the UK Copyright Service: registration No.:284712822

  This is a work of fiction. All characters, names and events in this book are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

  Cover art by kaprriss

  Map of Bel’arán: Hector G. Airaghi

  Concept Art: Manuela Govantes

  Book coaching: Andrea Lundgren

  www.rklander.es

  https://i1.wp.com/rklander.files.wordpress.com/2018/03/map_belaran_web.png

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgements

  Chapter One

  Green Sun

  “Past King Thargodén’s great city fortress and further North, the Deep Forest of Ea Uaré begins, homeland of the Silvan people. Villages lay dotted over a map of sprawling woods and vales, deep valleys and jagged gorges. There are no grand halls, manors or palaces here, only cottages and flets, mighty talans even, but it is all wood and rope, stone and bone, feather and fur for these are the elements of this land.”

  The Silvan Chronicles, Book I – Marhené

  ***

  She called him Fel’annár, Green Sun, immortal child with the heart of a Silvan and the face of an Alpine; it was a face that would garner hatred, kindle love, inspire loyalty, bring persecution, a face Amareth of Lan Taria had protected for fifty-one years.

  But the woodland creatures of Ea Uaré knew little of such things, only that danger approached and that they should flee. Birds erupted into excited song and wings unfolded, flapping furiously until they were aloft and they flew higher, into the towering boughs of the Deep Forest.

  A squirrel stood alert and utterly still, shiny brown eyes fixed on the path below. He spat an acorn, thinking perhaps he might choke should he try to run with it still in his mouth, and run he did, for the thundering noise was louder now and instinct sent him scampering up the bark and along a sprawling, moss-laden branch and home, to wait in safety for the dissonance to pass.

  Silver-blond and chestnut locks streamed upon the playful wind, glorious banners of liquid silk, in harmony yet clearly distinctive, just like the three elves who bent low over the lunging necks of their galloping mounts, legs bouncing off their heaving sides, elbows pumping, youthful faces infused with the joy of the ride, barely-contained anticipation for the coming of dawn and a new life.

  As the path became more populated, some villagers shouted for caution as they dusted themselves off in the wake of the three mounted elves, but there was a gleam in their eyes and the hint of an indulgent smile on their lips. Others raised their arms and waved. “Hail the victorious Company!”

  Giggles and guffaws accompanied the hoof beats and moments later, the three elves pulled sharply on their reins, sending a cloud of late summer dust into the air. The thump of boots upon the ground told the angry stable hands the riders had dismounted, but as the cloud dissipated, so too did their anger. Instead they smiled and nodded, taking the reins and guiding the heaving horses inside.

  Fel’annár of Lan Taria smiled and nodded his thanks before lifting his face to the evening sun. He closed his eyes for a moment, feeling the warming light on his skin, soaking it up and he breathed deeply, a futile attempt to calm his excitement.

  “Until the dawn,” he said.

  His two friends smiled back, eyes gleaming with the promise of adventure, of freedom and they clasped each other’s dusty forearms. Fel’annár watched them for a moment as they made their way home to their mothers and fathers, brothers and sisters. His smile slipped and he turned, eyes drifting over Lan Taria, perhaps for the last time.

  Slinging his cloth bag over one shoulder, he strolled down the main path towards his own talan and home – to the only family he had ever known, Amareth.

  “Fel’annár!” shouted his blades instructor from across the field. “Don’t get cocky, boy!” He smiled and held one fist aloft.

  “No promises!” shouted Fel’annár with a grin before waving and continuing along the path.

  “Good luck son,” came the quieter, softer voice of the baker as he held out a hot loaf which Fel’annár took with both hands and a humble nod. As a child, Amareth would send him for bread every morning and if he was lucky, the baker would slip him some of the crunchy tips that had fallen off the loaves, sending him home with a pat on the head. Fel’annár would devour them on the way, brushing himself down before Amareth could admonish him for eating before breakfast but he would always forget to wipe the crumbs away from his mouth, his head too much in the clouds, full of warrior dreams.

  A little further along, Fel’annár came across a pretty girl who stopped before him, a basket in her hand, a white cloth draped over the top.

  “Fel’annár,” she said, voice deep and husky.

  “Dalia.”

  “I made you these,” she said as she dragged the cloth away, hesitant eyes rising to meet him.

  “Honey cakes,” he exclaimed, and then walked up to her, slowly reaching out one hand to cup her cheek. He bent, softly resting his forehead against hers, an apology – or perhaps it was regret.

  “Stay safe,” she whispered, to which his only answer was a soft kiss to her brow. Her stubborn eyes watched him walk away, not for the first time, her basket in his hands.

  The schoolmaster and a group of children made their way back from a trip into the forests. They held branches and flowers, stones and leaves and who knew what other, hidden treasures they had smuggled into their ample pockets. It brought fond memories of the good times. “Hwind’atór!” they shouted and Fel’annár beamed. Only the children and his closest friends used that nick-name – the Whirling Warrior. He waved and smiled a toothy grin and the boys waved back at him while the girls giggled and poked each other.

  He passed the farrier and the pie maker, inhaling the blissful smell of pepper and pork that lingered in his wake, and then the Chief Forester and his apprentice who smiled and nodded their own silent goodbyes. A group of three lads he had once studied with walked past him, their stares cold but their lips mercifully sealed; it had not always been that way.

  He was close to home now. He had said his goodbyes to everyone except Amareth, but as he stood before the tree that had housed him for fifty-one years, he thought perhaps he had been remiss. His free hand, rough and calloused, brushed over the bark as he climbed the stairs, a soft smile on his lips and a feeling of well-being in his heart, despite his fluttering stomach and the impending emotions of a stilted goodbye.

  Amareth smiled down at him, loving yet disapproving eyes roving over the ruined mess of her braids in his hair. There was protection and love there but Fel’annár struggled to ignore the other emotions that lay discreetly behind her honey-coloured eyes, the ones she always tried and failed to hide from him.

  Fel’annár could smell pea soup and he knew she would serve it with roasted nuts and soured cream, his favourite and as they ate, she would surely turn her eyes away so that he could not see her battle and he would bite his own tongue, again.
<
br />   What happened to my mother? Who was my father? Why won’t you speak?

  Amareth did, indeed, serve him pea soup and it sat now, heavy and mellow in his belly as Amareth worked with his hair, weaved the tale of his life into each, skilfully crafted braid.

  Child of Lan Taria, son of Amareth, Silvan warrior. Fel’annár knew she would not weave the heritage braid.

  He himself had never been able to plait his hair. He could pull an arrow and shoot from a horse in a split second, splice an acorn perched on the furthest, highest branch – but he could not braid his hair, was as clumsy as a bear with a fiddle. He smiled at the image it conjured, tried to hold on to it but his mind was not cooperating and his memories slipped to the past once more, to the very first one he could recall. It was of a woman in the trees. He loved her, had carried her with him like a war shield through years of boisterous games, of mockery endured and battles fought on the cruellest of fields by the cruellest of warriors – children.

  ‘You cannot be so beautiful. You cannot be Silvan and Alpine. You cannot be an orphan.’

  The mockery had passed but his own questions remained.

  ‘Fel’annár … for his eyes are greener and brighter even than the Green Sun of the Deep Forest.’

  Amareth would tell him the story of how he had been named, of his tragic mother’s legendary green eyes, her Silvan legacy to her half-blooded child. She told him of how she had loved him and that she had died. It soothed him when his questions could not be answered.

  “Amareth?”

  “Um? she answered distractedly

  “I spoke to Golloron today.”

  “Oh? she asked, hesitating, fingers momentarily stilling their movements.

  “He said I will do well, that he has seen it.”

  “Our Spirit Herder is rarely wrong – you are happy then,” she said, smiling as her fingers resumed their mesmerizing movements.

  “Golloron said other things too,” murmured Fel’annár after a while. “He said I would come to know myself. What do you think he meant?”

  Amareth stopped her braiding once more, eyes closing in dread, only to open again when Fel’annár said no more. And then she spoke.

  “I believe he means that you will come to understand your strengths and your short-comings, know your place in this world.”

  Fel’annár said no more. In how many ways could a question be asked? he wondered – he himself had surely tried them all – and failed but it didn’t matter, he reminded himself. Nothing would sour his moment, the moment he had always known would come; the day in which he would ride out of Lan Taria and to novice training. A chubby face danced before his mind’s eye, messy silver-blond hair loose and wild yet still, unable to dim the brightness of determined eyes.

  ‘I want to be a captain. A Silvan captain.’

  He had been five, oblivious of life and its wiles but this – this he did know and Amareth had smiled her stilted smile.

  To deny the questions of a child who searches for his own identity is a dangerous thing, this Amareth knew; yet still, she had seen no other way, even now when Fel’annár stepped out into the world, away from Lan Taria, from her protective arms, her lies. She thought, perhaps, that the truth was too dangerous, indeed she never would tell him.

  And yet the truth is like air, always finding its way upwards, to the surface. Amareth would never tell him and tomorrow Fel’annár would be gone. In his mind’s eye, his unanswered questions faded into the receding mists of his childhood.

  He would ask no more.

  Chapter Two

  Into the World

  “To live with the certainty of death is a tragedy indeed.

  The effects of Valley upon the mortal body are devastating. The closer they draw, the longer-lived they become, but if they do not pass into the Source, they are condemned to live their years in horror and growing madness, for who can withstand the sight of one’s own body as it slowly succumbs to decay? Who can fathom the injustice when faced with the beauty and untainted flesh of the elves?”

  The Silvan Chronicles, Book I. Marhené

  ***

  Sunlight caressed the early autumn boughs, only a little of it filtering through to the loamy, leaf-strewn ground below. A beautiful, colourful end to another season in Ea Uaré, great forest of the Silvan elves.

  But here, the dying beauty of summer was marred by a sight not often seen so far south.

  “I never thought they would look quite so – rotten,” a deep, rumbling voice cut through the stunned silence; Ramien, the Wall of Stone.

  “Hardly surprising, given the stench,” said a strangled voice through clenched teeth. “Its face is almost completely – eaten away,” he added. The Wise Elf’s lip curled in disgust but his eyes sparkled in curiosity; he’d never seen a Deviant before – none of them had.

  “Is it male, do you think?” asked Fel’annár, eyes travelling over the putrid body. Disgust, curiosity; pity.

  “Probably, I’m not looking though,” said Ramien and Idernon snorted.

  “It’s hard to believe this was once human. That this was once a man with a wife, a family, children. Is it worth it, I wonder – the promise of immortality? Is it worth the risk of failing and becoming – this?” asked Fel’annár, his eyes unfocussed.

  “Who can say,” said Idernon as he stood, brushing down his brown leather tunic, eyes still on the carcass of the Deviant. “When you are immortal, it’s not easy to imagine mortality – the tragedy of it, I mean,” he trailed off.

  “Tragedy or no,” said Ramien as he stood, towering over Idernon, “I’m not touching it.”

  It was Fel’annár’s turn to snort as he, too, stood. “Get used to it, Ramien. When we are warriors in the king’s militia, we’ll have our share of dirty work. Take this as practice. You don’t want to lose your lunch before the entire troop.”

  “Lose my …,”

  “Come on,” said Fel’annár, clamping a bristling Ramien on the shoulder and distracting him from what would surely become an indignant rant.

  The three friends set about collecting dry wood and before long, the Deviant had been burned. Mounting once more, they resumed their journey towards the outer city barracks and recruit training, their dream since fate had brought them together, had made them brothers.

  “Is that how you imagined them to be?” asked Idernon, his eyes fixed on the path ahead, a slight crease between his brows.

  “They are – worse, I think. They look dead, even though I know they are not – I wonder if they wish to be though,” said Fel’annár, one hand stroking the flank of his grey mare.

  “Who would blame them,” exclaimed Ramien with a scowl. “Well, at least we’ve actually seen a Deviant now, albeit a dead one. I wonder what the Sand Lords are like …”

  “I have always hated that expression,” said Idernon. “It makes them sound noble and good. Sand Monsters would be a better term.”

  “Yet they are human Idernon,” said Ramien.

  “Then they are human monsters,” answered Idernon curtly. “If they are not seeking immortality where it is not given, they are searching for water and taking it where it is not offered, pillaging our harvests and slaughtering our people in the process.”

  “They are certainly prone to brutality. Taking lives does not seem to bother them,” said Ramien.

  “Neither does it bother many elves, Ramien. Our own history is proof of that. There are monsters everywhere – it is not a question of species or race.”

  Fel’annár’s eyes drifted to Idernon for a moment, nodding almost imperceptibly but Ramien remained sceptical.

  A while later, when the thick forest had opened and become wooded meadowland, Fel’annár heaved a long, deep breath.

  “The air has changed; it is—heavier,” he said, almost to himself as his eyes drifted over the unfamiliar territory. It w
as brighter here and the sun felt warmer; it should have comforted him, but it did not.

  “Aye, and the trees are fewer, I feel—vulnerable,” said Idernon with a scowl, his eyes darting around nervously. As Silvan elves, they were not accustomed to such open spaces, despite the trees that still dotted the land. Idernon’s horse skittered nervously beneath him, mirroring the Wise Elf’s mounting unease.

  “It won’t be long now until we are in the realm of the City Dwellers,” said Ramien. We are out of our element, brothers; I feel—small,” he said, eyes glancing this way and that, as if he thought perhaps they would be ambushed.

  “Small?” chuckled Fel’annár and Idernon smiled for the first time that morning. “Not you, you lumbering oaf! And anyway, who is to say these lands are of the City Dwellers? They belong to us all. I wager many Silvans find a place in the king’s halls too, even at his court,” speculated Fel’annár.

  “Silvan numskull!” smiled Idernon. “We Silvans rule the woods, aye, but there, at court,” he jabbed southwards with his finger, “it is only High-born Silvans and Alpines that impose their ways on us all; that, I do wager on.”

  Fel’annár held his friend’s gaze for a moment, a scowl back on his face. It brought his own conflict to the foreground once more. A boy, a would-be-warrior who was neither Silvan nor Alpine. How was he to reconcile his duality in a world that discriminated against the Silvans? Yet chosen he had – he was Silvan, like his mother.

  “We’ll be treated like village idiots, fledgling bumpkins,” mumbled Fel’annár, shaking himself from his dark musings.

  Ramien laughed at his friend’s petulance and Fel’annár startled at the sudden sound. “We are bumpkins, Felan!” he mocked good-heartedly. “We are as foreign to these lands as gruel at the king’s table.”

  Fel’annár smiled lopsidedly, shrugging his shoulders as if to excuse his ill humour.