CHAPTER 1: Cursed

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A speckled desert hawk drifted on the wind over the barren landscape. From his vantage point, he could see the immense desert, spanning from the south to the east. The scrub line was north from the dry lifeless desert, and thickened into forest. The hawk glimpsed the increasingly dark hole in the trees where the Hemvardel lake lay sleeping as he drifted down the thermal to spy the lone dot of a man and his horse slowly making their way through the ocean of sand. Lucien NightWind urged his mount forward at a decreasingly slow walk. The horse’s velvet coat was flecked with sweat and sand.

As Lucien rode his stumbling stallion down a particularly steep dune he wearily observed the desert night. Though tryingly hot during the day, it was unbearably cold at night. From his perch upon his horse, he could see the animals crawl out of their daytime hiding places and into the moonlight.

Sighing, he slid down from his horse and silently shook out and settled down in his bedroll. He lay awake, fingering the deep welts that he had acquired four days previously. The leaders of his people, the dark shifters, did not agree with him on the subject of the war they were planning against the forest shifters in the kingdom of Verensward. Proclaiming him a traitor, the Head Chieftain whipped him, then painfully cursed him, so that whenever he did a traitorous act, his wounds would re-open and fill him with body racking pain for the pain he had caused his people. From his left shoulder down to his right hip he now bore the mark of said curse.

He muttered a foul oath as he trailed his fingers over the tender stripes he recently re-opened for cursing about his people. The welts filled him with a searing pain constantly, for he was riding to warn the forest shifters about the pending attack. “That’s the trouble with trying to help people.” He grumbled, “you always get in more trouble than they’re in. A person in need is a pest.” He closed his eyes and began to breathe as deeply and calmly as he could, willing the wounds closed.

His mind began to vaguely wander, as one’s mind is want to do, to nothing in particular. This and that, his mother, his brother; the itch in his boot; the last time he saw his father; how much he hated Lord Morgent, the Head Chieftain of the Dark Shifters. Finally with the soft nudge of the God of dreams, he fell asleep, the soft moonlight caressing his tanned and cracked features.

His dreams that night mirrored his thoughts. In his minds eye he could see his brother, mother, and the wispy memory of his father as he remembered him. The world around him spun and the dream took on the all too familiar scenes of gore...

A mother’s saddened cry reached his ears as one of his men rounded on her only child. One slice of his sword and the child fell. Mere seconds later the woman joined her departed firstborn by way of his own sword. His long black hair stung his face as the wind whipped it. He turned with a swirl of his cloak and was confronted with the horror stricken face of a boy with midnight blue eyes and coppery hair...

The world once again spun and he found himself face to beautiful, smiling face with a woman with gold hair and dancing green eyes. She cocked her head to one side, and placing her hands upon his chest, kissed him. Surprised, Lucien jerked back as soon as their lips met. The woman’s eyes turned sad and she backed away. “No…Wait! You just surprised me that’s all! I meant nothing by…” but she was already gone, swept up in the fog surrounding his mind.

Lucien woke distraught, for some reason, unbearably sad. He raked his fingers through his coppery hair and rubbed his face with his rough palms. He smoothed his golden beard and once again lay down to sleep, he hoped, without interruption. He fell into an uneasy sleep an hour before sunrise, and when the sun finally rose, he woke feeling more mentally tired than when he settled down for the night.

He rose and snatched his water skin from his saddlebags. Taking off the cap, he took a long drink and swished a bit of it in his mouth before spitting it out and rolling up his blankets. Strapping them to his saddle, he tossed the saddle blanket over the stallion’s back and then hoisted the saddle into position. Preparing to belt it into place, he noticed his horse puffing out its belly. Smirking at the horse, he poked it in the belly, causing it to draw it up suddenly. With a lightning quick movement, he cinched the belt and secured it. He looked up into the horse’s face and smirked triumphantly. The horse glared and turned to face forward. Lucien walked around and to mount and to grab a bite of stale bread. As he passed around behind the stallion, he heard the soft whistle of an arrow being loosed. He dove into the sand and heard his horse’s screams the arrow missed its mark and hit another. The horse’s legs collapsed under its torso and it fell next to him.

Peeking over the horse’s back, he yanked his own longbow from beneath its body. Sliding an arrow from the side quiver of the saddle, he nocked an arrow and waited for a sign of the archer's location. Sure as the sun rises, another arrow flew into the sky. Lucien rolled away from the horse as the arrow struck the sand where he had been laying. He slid back to the horse and fired a shot of his own at the same angle. He strained to hear if he missed his mark, and was rewarded with a screech of pain. He lay down his bow and crawled over the dune from where the shot had been fired. A dead archer lay just beyond the crest of the dune and he could see a horseman riding at a full canter away from the site.

Shaking his head, he rose from the sand and trotted back down to his horse and dropped to his knees by it. The horse’s eyes rolled wildly and Lucien felt his heart move with pity for the creature. He unbuckled the saddle and the bridle. The horse let its head drop to the sand and stared at him idly. He slid the saddle from under the horse with a little persuasion and noted where the arrow had struck: just below the ribcage, into the right lung. Sighing, he wrapped the horse’s head in the saddle blanket. Mournfully, Lucien drew his dagger. The horse’s labored and painful breathing guided his hand as he drove the dagger into the horse’s heart, mercifully killing the animal.

When he was certain the faithful creature was out of it’s misery, he sheathed his dagger and slung his quiver and his bow onto his back. He shook out one of the blankets he slept on and laid it out on the sand. He dragged the saddle onto the blanket and picked up a corner of the fabric. He slowly began to trudge away from the carcass of his horse and headed for the shadow on the north horizon.

As he walked he dwelled on the words of the council, and ultimately it’s outcome.

The council of the chieftains met in the long house of the vast tent city of Detstrovia. Lucien had been saying his piece to the Head Chieftain and the others as a respected General and the son of a war hero. “We cannot fight them!” he stated passionately. “They outnumber us. They’re fortress is nigh impenetrable. We. Cannot. Fight. Them.”

Some of the council members nodded sensibly, while others grew irate. “They drove us from our homeland!” one shouted, slamming his ham-like fist onto the rough-hewn table before him, standing abruptly, knocking his chair backwards, “By the Gods, it should be OURS!”

Lucien leaned forward on the table, intently putting himself that much closer to his sparring opponent across the table. “We ransacked entire villages for no reason!”

By now the chieftain had gone purple. “THEY HAD HIDDEN WEAPONRY!” he bellowed. An old chieftain puffed on his pipe further down the table.

“Horse puckey. They were unarmed.” He stated, taking a drag on the wooden vessel. Some of the older chiefs nodded and others turned to him in varying degrees of anger. The Head Chieftain sat at the end of the council table, watching the entire battle of wills with a calm, amused manner.

“They were a threat!” One of the younger, foolhardy chiefs hissed. Lucien rounded on him with a piercing glare.

“They were allies.” Lucien breathed, “Mostly children.”

The tent went silent and all that could be heard was the puffing on pipes, shallow or deep breathing, and the flapping of the tent walls in the desert wind. The council turned towards toward their leader for his rebuttal. He just nodded and rubbed his lower lip and chin.

Lucien, as calmly as his racing heart would allow, straightened up and turned to The Head Chieftain. “Lord Morgent, we should not, cannot, fight these people.” He clicked his heels, bowed and took his leave of the war council. As soon as the tent flap closed, murmurings around the tent were heard. Lucien stayed where he was and listened through the canvas wall.

“Let us vote,” he heard Morgent suggest, “all for war?” He heard the shuffling of hands being raised. “Then it is decided. The next time we meet, this shall be a war council.” Lucien shook his head and walked steadily away from the council down the endless rows of tents toward the one he shared with his younger brother. As he neared the tent the boy looked up from his polishing of his brother’s armor with a hopeful light in his eye. Lucien glanced at him and ducked into the tent to sit on the edge of his pelt bed. The boy scrambled up and scurried into the tent as well. “Well?!” he asked excitedly.

Lucien fell back into the furs. “They got their war.” He stated monotonously. Litham let out a whoop and bolted out of the tent shouting the news. Lucien closed his eyes and rubbed them. “This is not good,” he muttered, “not good at all.”

He stopped trudging and sat in the shadow of a towering dune. He wiped the sweat from his eyes and took out his water skin. Taking a small sip, he capped it and put it back in the saddlebag. He lay back in the sand, the exhaustion of days weighting his eyelids, causing them to close.

The night the war council was to assemble, Lucien was packing up his horse and had made up his mind. He was going to start out for the Verensward that night, while all the chiefs were at council. As he was lifting his foot into the stirrup, he heard a deep, soft, cultured voice speak. “Lucien. It pains me to have to check on you like this. Where are you going?”

Lucien sighed and turned towards Lord Morgent. The man was standing in his council robes, the red fabric worn and faded, much like everything else their people owned. His long black hair was down, with the thick warrior’s braids weighting it down in the wind, keeping it out of his eyes. The man’s thinner features and gray eyes, usually warm, were distant and guarded.

“I’m going to Verensward to warn them. This war is wrong, no matter what self-righteous form you put it in .” he stated, adjusting the position of his weapon belt, noticing the shifting of shadows in the tent line. He nonchalantly fingered the hilt of his father’s sword. Morgent flicked his hand forward at his side.

He sighed, “Drangth, arrest him.” A large dark skinned assassin stepped from the shadows, the dark pants and vest he wore made him almost impossible to see in the moon-less night. He drew his sword to defend himself and was cracked on the back of the head with a hard object. He slipped into unconsciousness.

When he came to consciousness, he was tied to two lashing posts in the center of Detstrovia. Morgent was standing on a platform nearby and was reading his sentence. “For this act of treason against this nation, and against his people, General Lucien NightWind shall be stripped of his title, given 100 lashes, and the curse of Ashahl. He shall then be left in the desert to roam, and should he perform a traitorous act, the curse will react in ways appropriate to the degree of treachery.”

The crowd was silent as Morgent descended from the platform and grabbed his whip from a young foot soldier. He stood behind Lucien and began to chant the curse. Lucien frowned and tried to concentrate on the verse, but was suddenly drawn away from his focus as the whip sliced into the flesh of his back.

He let out a breathless cry as it came down a second time. He could see the entire crowd wince and a few of the younger women dab the tears from their eyes. A small boy ran from the crowd to try and help his hero, but was yanked back by his father, a cavalryman with tears in his otherwise stoic face. Lucien caught the eyes of his brother in the crowd. His boyish face was a mask of anger, resentment, and betrayal. He cast his gaze down from his brother’s accusing glare, and allowed the rain of blows to continue.

Mercifully, after the 50th strike, he feinted from pain and blood loss. Unlike the many other times he surfaced from unconsciousness, he was jolted awake. He found himself in a splintered cart, being pulled by a dray horse and being driven by two men. The sharp bits of wood were piercing the stripes on his back, and breaking off and embedding themselves in his rent flesh. Hearing hoof beats, he closed his eyes to appear insentient. “Here. This is good.” He heard Morgent say.

The cart rolled to a stop and the men clambered out. His feet were grabbed and he was dumped onto the sand. The two men began to argue over who got what of his weapons. The squabble ended when Morgent grasped the sheath of the sword and took the weapon from them. “It is bad luck to use a cursed and dying man’s weapons.” He told them. “Bury them over that dune, so that his soul shall find them in the afterlife.”

One of the men protested. “But he was a traitor!” Morgent sighed and placed the sword reverently into the wagon.

“He was a General, a war hero, and the son of one of the elders. This sword,” He lightly caressed the metal, “is far too extraordinary for the likes of you.” He turned his cold gray eyes on the men. “Bury it and the other things.”

Lucien felt the cooler air upon his face as he opened his eyes. The sun had dimmed and there was no sound. He frowned and sat up and looked around. Behind him, a large cloud of sand was rolling towards him at a great rate of speed. His eyes widened and he whipped the scarf off of his head and wrapped it around his mouth, nose, and eyes, and gathered his weapons and saddle beneath him. The sandstorm blew in full force.

After night had fallen and the men had left, Lucien lifted his broken body off of the sand and dragged himself over the dune that Morgent had indicated to the two men. His back bled through the sand that clung to the wounds as he dug through the sand. Discouragement seized him, as he had no success in finding anything. He punched the sand in frustration and was rewarded with pain in his left hand. He frowned and began to dig where he struck and found the hilt of his sword. The more he dug, the more he unearthed. His sword, his dagger, his bow, and his arrows all surfaced one by one.

When his effects had been excavated, he stood on top of the dune to look about him. All he could see were rolling waves of sand. He frowned to himself and stared back over the landscape. Finding what he was looking for, he strapped his weapons on and followed the now feint wagon tracks in the sand.

He reached the small encampment of the two men, their wagon abandoned by the horse. Said animal was tied up next to, surprisingly, his own horse. Lucien’s brows knitted together as he observed that the horse was already saddled. As he reached for its bridle, he saw Morgent’s still, sleeping form away from the other two men. Hate broiled in his blood as he spotted the man, scant meters away.

His hand itched to draw his dagger and drain the life from the man with a few quick slashes, but he restrained himself and led the horse past him. “Take the horse.” He heard Morgent mumble. Lucien froze. “Ride to Nia Ueden. Try to reach a peaceful solution before we get there.” He continued, his eyes never opening, his lips barely moving.

Lucien stared down at the Head Chieftain. ‘Is he serious?’ he thought, ‘Better yet, is he awake?’ shaking his head, he mounted and rode in the direction the wagon had been heading, back to the city. When he reached within a mile of the city, he wheeled the horse Northeast and headed to the edge of the desert.

After about ten minutes, the winds abruptly stopped and Lucien dug himself and his belongings out of the newly formed dune. The landscape around him had changed totally. Only knowing which direction he had been heading, he pulled the saddle out of the sand and continued walking towards the growing shadow in the near distance.

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TBC

Author’s note: I told you the story was due to change and now it has!