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Update: alright ive updated it so its in harmony with my version (finally ) ive added quite a bit, look forward to any more reviews

The Oath

Prologue

He feels he has walked this path before, along with his brothers and cousins. Along the hot gleaming sand. Slowly roasting his feet, preparing them, for the barren bone-dry plains of rock yet to come.

It is hot; he feels it through his hardened skin, through to his bones. The single relief is the slight wind, kissing his sweaty skin. This is the god’s reward to his race, for the sweat offering drawn from their skin by the light goddess Sol who travels across the sky and shares her harsh heat. Even when Sol finishes her journey for the day and takes the light, the sand still roasts anything brave enough to set foot on it.

And yet it is not lethal, and for that he is grateful.

He walks this honoured path with pride; his head held high and hands clasped behind his back, only moving his legs to walk and his hands to sip water from his flask dangling from his pack swinging from his shoulder, and another on a string belt; which in turn holds his thin leggings. He wears only these and his wide hat strewn from straw. These garments offer little protection against the burning rays, but they are enough. These riches he found as a boy in the sand near his hovel, upon inspection the tribe elder insisted they were remnants of the Long Before, despite the arguments from the younger members of the tribe that this was impossible. He himself doubted the old man’s accuracy of the memory. The wise old man died of lung fever soon after, he didn’t doubt anything told by the old man after that; considering he had predicted his own death several days earlier.

And that is the reason he walks down this path, to usher the soul to the aether, the space in between life and the afterlife. And once there, the soul must decide between going back to the place of life and becoming a shade to walk with the courier for the rest of his or her life, or going forward and passing through. But first the soul must get to the aether, and for that it needs to accompany someone down the long path to Roca Grande.

Every few days, when Sol is in the middle of the sky, he scans the landscape for anything unusual. But the only things worth noticing are the rocks and small animals; the rocks indicate he is nearing the plain of rock, the animals’ rarity only seconds that observation; nothing can live on the rock, most things can’t even live near it. Only the strong ones. And the strong ones tend to be larger, and stronger; hence the name.

The next day was a tiresome one, the water he has has warmed so far in the sun it feels as if it dries his parched throat as it runs down it; rather than replenish his thirst it only makes him want more, but he cannot drink more, there seldom is a stream or pond in the desert, and if he runs out, its a long walk back to the last one he saw. He closed his eyes and thinks back to the village, he could drink whenever he wanted to from the stream that runs through his village. But his people had less and less need for water as the ages came and went, so said the elder, and the elder before his elder. It seemed the god’s were gifting them with strength for the years of praying and offerings.

That’s right, when I was a boy our people would have to drink once everyday, whispered a frail old voice that seemed to come from behind him, now the people need only drink once every day or two, you are good to remember this, young one. It seems my teachings remain after I no longer have a phisical food-hole to tell them with. He could imagine the old man laughing at his own joke as a spirit.

Then he could feel his heart start thumping as he wondered where the voice had come from in the first place, he spun round trying to spot what the source of it was when the voice spoke again, Don’t worry boy, it’s just me. Now don’t tell me you’re scared of the old man that you made fun of so many times?

As he felt the little colour he had left drain from his face he heard the old man laughing. Then he realised he wasn’t hearing the voice, he was feeling it.

Smart boy! It seemed the elder could hear his thoughts also.

‘Why can I hear you?’ he yelled.

Because I chose for you to. Oh, and you don’t have to yell, I can hear you just fine.

'Great, just what I need, an elder in my head,’ he complained to the air in front of him, he didn’t mind if he heard this. The elder had endured much worse from him and his friends in the past.

He reached a nice spot for camp shortly after Sol had retreated behind the horizon, it had two tall palm trees and the sand still had a nice warming layer of heat upon it. He settled down on the sand and pulled some butch out of his pack, butch was a tough yet tasty meat dried out in the sun for a full day then collected and put in the storeroom, lasting amazingly long in his climate. He dug his teeth into the meat and stared wonderingly at the horizon, there were still things unknown out there, he knew, one day he wanted to discover at least one of these things. He was pondering whether or not he would find something of interest on his journey when the strong taste of old butch bombarded his senses and cause him to splutter in surprise, trust himself to pick what tasted like the oldest piece of food in the storeroom. Once his senses had settled and he had finished his food, he stared at his pack and wondered what other surprises awaited him when it came time to eat next. He then flung back his head and laughed into the growing night.

No living thing could hear him, and he didn’t care. This was the most humorous fact that had occured to him all of his journey.

Once he settled down, he lay back as he did every other night and closed his eyes waiting for sleep to welcome him into its warm embrace.

He dreams.

He’s standing in the middle of a huge landscape of grass and trees; he has never seen such a bountiful land. The birds sung their cheerful tune in this land, the only birds he has ever seen in his life are fearsome beasts with huge claws, the elders did not wish to name them out of fear that the name would attract these air-borne monsters, these birds were petite colourful puffballs compared. The land bent and swayed, the sky was a beautiful shade of blue and the clouds were slowly drifting along with the wind.

He snaps back panting, on every part of his body he can feel sweat, like he's been running through that amazing forest in his dreams, it seemed so real, he swore he had felt the wind along his arms and chest, and hear the birds singing. But he is back in the forsaken wasteland of the old desert now, so he cannot breathe in the pure air of the amazing place he had glimpsed, and cannot look at up at the sky in longing.

He weeps.

*

He woke the next morning to Sol’s harsh gaze and the outline of a small predator bird, staying as still as he could; he felt saliva slowly dripping onto his chest. As his eyes adjusted he could tell the bird was bent over and sniffing his skin. He planned his next moves carefully, and quickly.

He shot his hand up and wrapped his hand around its long and furry neck, while slowly sitting up and bringing the bird down he could see it losing consciousness, this is the only effective defence against these birds. Once he was comfortable the bird was out to it, he slowly edged his hand into his bag and withdrew a small sharp blade, one loaned to him by a friend.

He slowly drew it up to the tender neck of the bird, the blade glittered in the sun, he could feel the steel spirit of the blade stir beneath his hand; thirsting for blood, the virgin blade waiting paitiently for the chance to show its potential.

After he had the blade resting against the neck of the ugly bird, a thought flickered across his mind; a simple thought, only consisting of three words: Predator becomes prey. The thought went as quick as it came. Holding the birds neck in one hand and the blade in the other, he ended a life, and watched blood seep out of the long and lethal cut he had made.

He put the bird down and stood up, still gazing upon the now dead bird. Now desparate to look at anything other than the bird, he tucked the blade back into his pack, stood and started walking, only stopping to don his hat.