As yet untitled novel - Chapter one

Firstly I need to give a great big thanks, to those who helped me with part 1 of this chapter. I've written the second half of this chapter know ^_^ I hope you all enjoy. Please, please, please let me know what you think did and didn't work and how I can improve etc?

Chapter one. (part one & two)

The Sorceress's escape.

Night was falling over the badlands of Artaris, the last of the sun’s brilliance stained the land, deep red. This land was referred to as God's palm by the locals for its gorges and deep valleys. Silence reigned over the scarred landscape, save for the faint sound of frantic footsteps.

A Mother with her infant daughter held tightly to her chest, hurried through the narrow fissures in the land. Her hair was saturated with perspiration and her clothes tattered from her journey through the unforgiving terrain. On and on she sped through God’s palm, only slowing her progress to squeeze through tight passes. The sun was now completely gone, within only the faint slither of the new moon affording her vision in the hazardous wilderness.

*How much further can it be? Please God, let him be here!* She thought to herself, her mind’s voice sobbing with desperation. She’d have cried out to the world, had the fear of being heard not muted her. She even took the precaution of drugging her daughter so that she didn’t betray herself. The child still gripped instinctively to her mother’s tunic, it’s tiny knuckles white from the force.

It seemed as though her pleas were answered, when the weak glimmer of a camp fire appeared in the distance. She doubled her pace, bounding over rocks and debris to get to her goal quicker.

This was the end of the gorge; leading out onto the steppes. The camp site was sheltered by an enormous slab of sand stone that spanned each end of the pass. There was graffiti carved all over the sandy walls, evidence that this has served as an idle haven in the past.

‘Narna.’ Called out a man sat by the fire. He was average looking and seemed not much over thirty. His skin was furrowed and coarse from his travels. He wore simple garments, but dressed in layers to protect him from the irritations of the sand.

‘ Cid? Is that you?’ Replied Narna her voice weakened by fatigue. ‘Heaven be praised, I feared that I’d come too early or too late.’ She approached the fire. Her heart burst with elation, she and her daughter are safe. Safe from the Empire, safe from persecution.

‘I arrived two days ago, so I pitched up as comfortably as I could. Luckily I am not totally unfamiliar with these lands so...’ Cid stopped mid sentence, his attention drawn to the infant. ‘ I am afraid that I cannot give both of you safe passage Narna. One of you will have to stay; I’m sorry but times are hard. I’m struggling to shift the stock I already have, I can only afford to take one of you.’

Narna’s stomach leapt to her throat, stopping her words from escaping. Except for sound of her take in a sharp breath. This isn’t want they’d agreed. Her rage culminated him a vision of her taking a rock to his face to bludgeon some honour into him; stealing his horse would have been an option but she had no knowledge of the steppes. However she’d made it through the badlands safely enough, why couldn't she do the same in the steppes? *This time I’d have water and some money... At the worst, I could pay a nomad to guide me to Tanis.* she mused.

‘Take my child, her name is Cara. I beg you not to forget that.’ Narna whimpered. She forced her eyes to water to make her capitulation seem more authentic.

‘Very good. I’ll make sure that her future owner knows it too.’ He grimaced. ‘ You know I’m not a bad man Narna. I do what I must... I don’t leave until the morning, you may stay with your daughter for the night.’

Narna didn’t reply, she didn’t have to. Cid knew that she’d want to stay with her child for even the few tender hours he’d allotted her. Cid gestured to a pile of bags and rugs, on which Narna promptly sat, before he turned his back to her as he rummaged through his horse’s saddle-bag.

‘ I have food if you want it.’ Called Cid from the saddle. Again Narna didn’t reply, but Cid proceeded to take out a generous cut of meat from his bag. Taking out a knife from his shoe he cut it into to perfect halves in one clean, practiced motion. He threw the fillets onto the rack suspended over the campfire. ‘Shouldn’t take long.’

Narna simply bore into him with defiant eyes, making the tension between them palpable.

Cool beads of sweat slithered down his neck. It wasn’t the head of the flames, but the inferno that raged within the wounded Mother before him.

*What can I do? If I take them both I will be ruined and it is easier to hide a baby sorceress! If I am caught smuggling her over the border I’ll be killed.* Over the next ten minutes Cid continued to justify his self-preservation in his mind. Until his concentration was broken by Narna’s stony voice.

‘The meat is burning.’

‘Ah shit!’ Cid spat. Racing toward the rack, carefully lifting the meat off with his knife. ‘It’s not burnt Narna, only charred a little on the outside... Some people prefer it this way’, he jested nervously. He promptly offered his knife to her. She accepted the food equally as quickly as he’d offered it, without a single word of thanks.

The still night air was refreshing against nape of Narna’s neck. There was an odd pleasure in being half hot and half cold, not that she’d every show the filthy slave trader a morsel of emotion now. She must remain resolute in her bitterness toward him if she is to carry out what she must.

******

Torin cowered away from the cutting winds that blew toward him. Loaded with sad that had been swept up from the dusty Artaris plains, the air could be fatal. Everything had been tinted red, as the land merged with the morning sky in this, their deadly ballet.

Torin was a captain in the Emperor’s secretive Hunter Squadron, a position he did not relish. He was not attired like other members of the Imperial army. He bore no crest, insignia or motto, he didn’t even wear the army’s colours.

Instead, Torin wore what was typically worn by middle class traders; simple but well made, with the extravagance of a hooded cloak, having only modest embellishments. He also had a silk scarf; which was embroidered with a blue heart. This identified his rank as captain to those who understood it’s meaning.

Why? Why should a captain in the Emperor’s army, born of noble stock be endangered by his anonymity?... Because, he was not meant to exist. The Emperor had no intention of letting his little secret get loose, and to keep this secret Torin bore a heavy burden.

‘Feral!’, Roared the captain, projecting his voice over the winds.

‘Tza... My name is Tza and if you have any wish of finding this sorceress, you’ll remember it.’ Barked back a woman’s voice, the source obscured by the sandstorm.

‘Very well Tza... Have you any idea where she is?’

‘Yes... But we cannot pursue her now, the storm is too dangerous. I will keep my ear to the ground and follow her movements. She has been stationary for the last hour, she is unlikely to move yet.’ Tza replied, her voice was toneless and level from her concentration.

*What I wouldn’t give for an Earth Sage now* Torin mused. *Then we could cut a path through this bloodly, damned, useless sand!* His frustration welled up within him. In on fluid, practiced motion, Torin drew is sword and hacked wildly at the air, crying out with rage.

******

Morning broke over the steppes and flooded the chasm with a soft pink light. The campfire let off pathetic cracks from its last remaining embers. A fox nosed curiously at the luggage in search of any scant traces of food, before giving up its inquisition and retreating deep into the gorge.

Narna had not slept a wink, she only pretended to. All night she watched over Cid, waiting for him to fall to sleep. Unfortunately for her, Cid was a keen reader and read long into the early hours. Now however he was fast asleep, Narna was certain of this.

Slowly she picked herself up from the mass of carpets and bags, careful not to wake her child; she was not sure of how long the drug would last. The infant, breathed deeply in her arms, it’s tiny fingers flexing every now and then.

Narna could not allow for her child to suffer the fate of an orphan. Narna knew what she had to do.

Narna approached the horse cautiously, which was already awake. She pet it tenderly while singing it a lullaby in almost a whisper. The horse licked her hand affectionately and nuzzled her, craving more attention.

Sure of the horse’s temperament, Narna searched the saddle bags; removing anything other than food, water and money. She kept one bag empty and carefully stowed her babe within it. Taking the horse by its’ reigns she led it out of the gorge and onto the steppe. She walked it out, away from its’ master for five minutes, before tying it to a withered tree that had gathered water in its’ split trunk.

She had resolved herself for this moment, it had to be done, and it wasn’t as if the world was at a loss. *One less crooked merchant, the Empire will be in turmoil.* Narna joked to herself, yet she knew that it was a hollow jest.

She understood the gravity of what she was about to do. Each step she now took closer to the campsite, was one step closer to taking a life. A human life. For all the heat of the desert, the air had grown bitterly cold and her body began to quake more and more, the closer she grew to Cid.

She was there, she was at the entrance of the chasm. Mere yards away from an innocent man, who lay sleeping before here. Her heart sank and began to beat slower. A lump grew at the back of her throat like a tumour, a malignant, hideous tumour; obstructing her breathing.

She picked up a rock, roughly the size of a coconut. It shouldn’t have been as hard to life as it was. It was as if all of her strength had left her.

Striding over toward him, her resolve had dispelled all her fears and doubts; renewing her strength. She lifted the rock high, it cast a heavy shadow over Cid’s dull face. Then she crashed the rock upon him, obliterating his skull and dashing his brains across the sandy walls. It was over in an instant.

She felt his presence slip away from here senses at that very moment. He was dead.