Sword Bearer (Return of the Dragons 1)

Chapter V

I awoke in a clearing. It was pretty dark, and I was so confused I couldn’t tell if it was very early morning or early in the night. I lay on a bed of soft grasses and leaves, which crunched pleasantly underneath as I turned over now onto my side and sat up.

A fire burned brightly, and I could smell something delicious. It smelled like nuts. I remembered when I was ten my father took me out into the woods, and we roasted chestnuts.

But these were not chestnuts.

Certain nuts were magical — enhancing the constitutions of those who ate them, strengthening them both physically and magically.

Just from the roasting smell, I knew this nut must be powerful.

My mind felt clearer and cleaner. Colors looked stronger, sharper and stranger as I breathed in more and more smoke. If the burning shells affected me this much, I couldn’t imagine how eating the nuts would affect me.

I felt a shadow over me and I looked up. Kara was smiling as she reached out her hand. I grabbed it and she pulled me up.

“I want to introduce you to someone,” she said, and pointed off vaguely behind her.

A man stood there.

His hair was light like wheat, his ears were pointed, just a little bit, and there was something weird with his eyes, a strange honey color that confused me. I was sure I had never seen eyes like his, yet they seemed familiar.

There was a small gold ring in the man’s straight short nose, and his lips were smiling, revealing white straight teeth.

He was full-blooded Kriek, I was sure of that much. I had read about their rebellions, their freedom and their eventual doom, far off in the black forest, the Schwarzwald.

I hadn’t believed a word of it until now.

With a shiver, I realized I was cold now, and that the black forest was not far off anymore.

I must have traveled far North, through the gate

way, farther even than when we had moved when I was little.

The man stood there smiling silently, immobile, at the far end of the campfire.

“Why is his face green?” the man said, finally.

“It’s only a clay mask,” Kara said, giggling.

“I’m even stranger looking underneath,” I said, laughing now, as I took a step towards the fire. The man, as if I had been waiting for just this signal, came forward and held out his hand.

“Welcome to the Schwarzwald. You can call me Kalle.”

“Anders,” I replied, and shook his outstretched hand. I felt strange vibrations through my fingers, a tingling that moved up my arm to my teeth and made them buzz, then ache; it was almost like music played not in the air, but in my blood and sinew and bone.

It was unpleasant and wonderful at the same time and I had never felt anything else like it.

Kalle let my hand go and looked me up and down. He turned to look at Kara, and I felt, instead of heard, his words. The blood sings strong in this one, cousin.

Then he turned back to me.

“You don’t look like us, yet you’re one of us. Your eye is opened.”

“I opened his eye, Kalle,” Kara said.

“That explains a little. But many strange things are about, now. They say the hills sing out a warning, and then in a moment the animals are gone from the Wald. We must be careful. We must be swift. But I take the time to greet you, Anders.”

Then Kalle did something I didn’t expect.