Young Writers Society

Author's Note: Had to split this into two parts because of length. Anyway, the second chapter to my fantasy storyline. Now it truly begins!

Shadrach groaned as he woke up under a dull, orange sunsrise. Everything on his body ached. He felt as if he had been run over by a horse. Carefully, he tried to sit up. Pain arced through his chest, nearly forcing him back to the ground. He heaved out a breath, remembering the attack from the night before. The skin on his chest burned from the Drake’s attack, leaving him winded.

It took half an hour for Shadrach to get to his feet, mainly due to the burning pain in his lungs. He looked around at what was once his caravan. The wagons had all been crushed, battered, or dashed against rocks. Tents were in shambles, some of them smoldering from a fire-based elemental attack. Nothing had been left by the bandits.

Yet, there were no bodies either. While there was plenty of destruction, it appeared that the bandits had let the merchants leave without making any attempt to rob or kill them. There was no blood, no remains, and no gore.

“Pagiel?” he called. His voice echoed through the pass, but no one answered. “Rebekah? Makir?” Still nothing.

He was alone. It took a while for that to sink in. While he had told his friends to go, he did not expect them to leave him completely. Then again, he hadn’t considered what would happen after the fight with the Drake. They had probably expected him to die. Now he was left utterly alone in this mountain pass. The wind howled a little louder, and the morning cold bit a little harder with this revelation.

The young guard sat back down, worried. What had happened to his friends? Were they okay? Had they turned back for home, or had they headed east into the plains? There was no way for him to tell. Shadrach felt like the pass’ walls were slowly closing in on him, threatening to swallow him whole. The suns rose into the sky, but they provided no warmth to Shadrach’s distressed mind.

The pink and orange tones of the sunsrise slowly became the golden colors of morning. Shadrach began to accept his fate. With a deep sigh filled with a mixture of despair and anxiety, he decided to head east. His friends would not have been foolish enough to go back through the desert so ill-supplied, and there were a number of nearby towns not far from the pass. With luck, he might find them.

Shadrach stumbled through the wreckage, hoping to find something to eat—perhaps something to bring with him. The bandits could have left something—anything—behind. The young guard peeled back some remnants of a cart and, thanking the heavens, discovered a small store of vegetables and a waterskin that was still half-full. The looters had not completely picked through the caravan after all.

Shadrach found a worn, leather sack and put the vegetables in. He looped the waterskin around his shoulder, but the strap burned against his chest. He winced and slowly removed the waterskin. He pulled off his chest plate next, and finally his tunic.

Along his torso was a lancing, brown-black scar. A strand of raw, pink-red flesh ran through the center of the blemish. Shadrach wetted his hand with water from the skin and put it on the wound. Pain quickly ran along where the water touched, but slowly soothed away. He chilled the wound with his ice power, attempting to alleviate some of the pain. Eventually, the red flesh became a softer shade of pink. While it still hurt, he could move without nearly dropping to the ground.

The young guard carefully put his armor back on, grabbed his waterskin and food rations, and headed eastward through the pass.

The sun moved through the sky, and the air began to grow warmer. Shadrach could not tell how far he had walked. It was nearly noon when he noticed that the mountains were slowly beginning to grow smaller. As he continued on, the jagged, rocky peaks slowly were replaced by much more rounded edifices. Soon, Shadrach could see the remnants of a cobblestone path. The road coalesced as he went on, becoming a path of grey-white stones embedded in the rocky terrain.

The path led him into the foothills. The suns hung low in the afternoon sky when Shadrach came upon a fork in the road. There was an old sign posted between the roads. It read,

“Left: Rennevig, leading to Ebon Further on. Right: Road to Lagon, Seat of the Coastal Kingdom”

Lagon was the largest city on the coast, known best for thriving trade and seafood markets. Sadly, it would only take him farther from the road home. Rennevig was a town he had heard little about and lay on a northward road. But it was further inland. He decided to head that way, hoping that he might find some way to return home.

Hours passed along the lonely, cobblestone road. The wind passed softly around him, rustling the grass on the nearby hillsides. The sun began to move downward in the sky, and the air grew warmer. He removed his armor and shirt again, icing over his wound with his power. There was an odd silence to the air around him. He still felt the unfamiliar grasp of loneliness. All his life, he had been in a town where he couldn’t go six steps without someone saying hello or waving to him. Conversation, laughter, cheering…all these seemed utterly alien on the road. Shadrach found himself once again discomforted by the fact. He grabbed his gear and continued back down the path, picking up his pace a little bit.

The suns were just beginning to dip below the mountains when Shadrach caught his first glimpse of Rennevig. It was a small village, nestled in the foothills of the Eastern Goldspire Mountains. There were multiple houses, large and small, laid out around a haphazard arrangement of roads. Golden light blazed from most of them. For the first time in that day, Shadrach could hear other human beings. The wind carried the sounds of children laughing and men cheering in the inn from the town. Shadrach smiled, forgetting the pain on his chest. He walked down into the town.

Clouds were gathering overhead when Shadrach entered the village. As he approached, people watched him. Visitors must be rare here, Shadrach thought. He passed a group of older men talking around a fence. They silenced their conversation as he walked by, unnerving him.

Above a rather large longhouse was a sign that read “The Drakes’ Spear Tavern and Inn.” Painted on the weathered board was a crudely-designed Drake holding a golden pike. Shadrach took a deep breath and walked in.

Surprisingly, the boardinghouse was empty, save for a young couple sharing a meal at one table and a Drake bartender wiping the counter with a wet cloth. Perhaps it was later than he thought?