Ordadus- Chapter One

THE WORLD AROUND HIM was a blur of colors. He was spinning, turning, and flipping incessantly, unable to stop. He thought it felt like he was rolling down a steep, endless hill. He shut his eyes and hugged himself as currents of air billowed through his clothes. Through his eyelids he could discern rapid flashes of light.  There were also short moments when there was complete darkness.

Abruptly, he stopped spinning. But he hadn’t reached the end of the hill. The feelings of terror he experienced had not abated for long when a fresh fear overwhelmed him.

He was falling.

Cool morning air whipped past him as he plummeted towards the ground.  Below him was a thick herd of jet-black, deer-like creatures. As he rapidly descended, he could see that they had white antlers that were as sharp as knives.

He yelled. The deer panicked.

The herd split up into three main groups and dashed across the grassy plain as the man plunged into their mist. He hit the ground hard, but managed to avoid getting skewered by the black reindeer and their oversized antlers.

The soft grass was wet with dew. Wherever he was, he was on the ground, and thus felt relieved. The large deer that galloped away sounded like thunder as their hooves tore up the ground. He wasn’t aware of any black deer with large, white antlers living anywhere on Earth. Certainly, they weren’t native to Vietnam.

Afghanistan. That’s where he had just been: silently trooping through a thin forest, carefully searching for any landmines buried just under the surface. He rolled onto his back and gazed at the gray, cloudless sky from which he had fallen. He was still dizzy and the world was still spinning and resetting itself over and over in his vision. His thoughts wandered again. Perhaps in Afghanistan he hadn’t been careful enough and stepped on a bomb. It may have been hidden too well. Propping himself up on his elbows, he surveyed the land. A copper sun rose over tawny, rugged mountains to the east. The rolling, verdant plains extended far in every direction and curved through a valley directly beneath the sun. Perhaps this is Heaven, he thought. Maybe I was killed by a bomb and now I’m here in Heaven. He spotted his cap on the summit of a small rise before him. He sat there for a while and stared at it but made no effort to retrieve it. He was waiting for something to happen.

And then, something did happen.

The plain rose and dipped enough so that he didn’t see the four riders until they were fifty yards away. They rode tall, ebony steeds that resembled the black deer. He wasn’t scared; in fact, he supposed they were angels, coming to take him somewhere.

They came up to him and halted. There were two men, a boy, and a dark-haired woman, who stared at him quietly. A short man with light hair addressed him first. “Who are you?”

“Andrew Crawford,” he replied, standing up.

“We saw you fall out of the sky,” the young boy reported.

The short man nodded. “Why’d you fall out of the sky?”

“I don’t know,” Andrew said simply.

“He fell out of the sky,” the boy mumbled.

“He scared off the herd,” a man with an eye patch growled. Indeed, not a deer was in sight.

“Where am I?” Andrew asked them.

“Just through that valley is Azlana,” the boy said, pointing towards the mountains and trying to be helpful. Andrew looked back at the valley, shielding his eyes from the rising sun.

“Oh…” he said.

The short man squinted at him. “You’ve got blue eyes, don’t you? Where’s your troop?”

Andrew Crawford felt confused. He did have a captain, but how would the man know this? The eye-patch man stared at him coldly and spat on the ground. “You’re right, Scott. Take off your jacket, kid,” he said. When Andrew only stood there stupidly, he pressed: “Go on. Take off the jacket.” He relented and removed it. Soon he only had on a thin, gray t-shirt and olive green pants. “There. Show us your mark.”

“What?” Andrew inquired hopelessly.

The man named Scott dismounted and walked towards him. His height wasn’t intimidating although his confident strides and set face were. Scott roughly grabbed his left arm and lifted it high, like Andrew had just won a boxing match. Scott peered at the extended arm, looking for something that wasn’t there. “Nothing!” he exclaimed. He turned to Andrew and regarded him with suspicious silver eyes. “Are you a member of the Mob?”

Andrew shook his head and Scott roughly dropped his arm. “What should we do with him?” he asked his companions.

The eye-patch man shifted in his saddle. “He’s dangerous. The only unmarked fellow I’ve met over five was one of them pirates.”

“I guess we’ll take him back to the valley," the woman said. "He can go with Captain Rawley and his men. We can go after the herd again tomorrow,."

“But he fell out of the sky…” the boy whispered.

“Shut up, would you?” Scott said. “Maybe some of 'em have learned to fly and this guy lost his wings.”

The boy shut his mouth. But he frequently looked up as if he was waiting for another person to plummet to the earth.

Scott searched Andrew. The only thing he found worth taking was a pocketknife, which he slipped into one of his many trouser pockets. Next, he led Andrew to his steed and instructed him to get on the creature's wide back. The massive horse-like mounts seemed huge enough to hold three grown men and were much taller than any horse Andrew had seen. He climbed on and settled in to the russet saddle. It was enlarged to such an extent that Scott could sit in front of him. “I’d tie your hands but we aren’t too far from town,” he said, gripping the reins.

Andrew didn’t see what good tying his hands would do, anyways. If he jumped off the creature and ran, he would surely get injured. The woman and boy each held a bow and had several arrows slung on their backs; Scott and the eye-patch man had rifles and kept knives in their belts.

The small troop of hunters started off towards the valley. Andrew morosely watched his cap that still sat on the top of a hill as they cantered past. The two men talked quietly amongst themselves and mostly ignored him. The woman rode alone, never uttering a word. The boy, though, slowed his steed so that he could ride abreast the prisoner and watch him. Andrew was intently observing a white and black spotted wolf-like creature that was dashing across the plain when the boy finally spoke. “You’ve never seen one, have you?”

“No.”

“They’re called llargos. We take them as pups and keep them to guard our ranch.” They both watched the lone llargo until it vanished on the plain.

“What about these?” Andrew asked, patting the black deer’s thigh.

“You’ve never seen these, either?” the boy said, incredulous.

“Of course he has,” Scott said. He kicked his spurs into the creature’s side. It loped ahead a few yards and slowed next to the eye-patch man’s steed. The two men began to discuss weaponry while Andrew awkwardly sat behind. The glaring sun they faced burned his exposed shoulders as he idly fingered the stitching on the saddle and wished they could get to this town.

A few minutes later the young boy reappeared, to Andrew’s amusement.

“They’re called faelk,” he whispered, “Every year we capture hundreds of them and cut off their antlers. Mine still has little horns, see?” The boy reached up and brushed back his mount’s short mane with his fingers. Indeed, his faelk visibly had two small horns protruding from its skull. The boy lowered his voice even farther. “See than guy with the eye-patch?” Andrew nodded. “A few years ago, he mounted his faelk before he got her antlers shaved. He wasn’t even on her two seconds when she reared up. When she hit the ground she threw back her head and an antler tip poked right through his-”

The eye-patch man spun around and glared at the boy with a single gray eye. The boy, evidently alarmed, quickly turned his steed and galloped to the edge of the green valley. Andrew would have liked to ask him some more questions. He wanted to know what "mark" Scott had been searching to find and what other strange animals lived there. Most of all, he wondered where he was. But the boy stayed well in front of the procession the rest of the journey and hardly even glanced back.

A/N: I despise this chapter. >.<