Chapter 1

Authors note: Not really any action in this chapter, it’s more of a character introducing one. My chapters will switch between the four main characters, so you have to wait three more chapters to read about Delandred, and vice versa. Please tell me what you think; criticism is as welcome as praise.

Delandred gasped and sat up abruptly in the soaking sheets, his breathing was ragged and his heart beat had sped up to a furious, rhythmic pounding in his ears. He pulled the sweat soaked sheets of himself, and then swung his feet over the edge.

It had been the third night in a row that he had had the same dream. He was standing on the wall of a mighty castle, the sun was nearly over the edge of the horizon, and the twilight gave the forest surrounding the castle an eerie effect. As soon as the sun had disappeared, lights twinkled into existence throughout the forest. Hundreds of thousands of them turned on at the same time, the trees obscured many. He couldn’t even guess at the numbers down there. He was standing in front of a sea of torches, a mass of light seething through the wooded space. Then the screams began, unnatural and inhuman hoarse grunts and roars sounded clearly, reaching him at the top of the wall. The lights began to sway, and then move forward in unison. As they burst from the cover of the forest, their features were clearly lit by their torches. They definitely weren’t human. A vast array of creatures and beasts rushed the wall, white fangs and teeth grinned up at him. Wind brushed past him, whining in its fury. As it passed, he realised that it wasn’t wind, but arrows, thousands of them.

They tore into the ranks of the beasts, hundreds fell, but hundreds of thousands continued their relentless run at the walls. He wanted to turn his head to see where the arrows were coming from, but he found he couldn’t move. Just before the beasts reached the walls they moved their torches, it was then he realised they were not torches, they were javelins, the tips were on fire. As one they launched their fiery spears. They easily flew over the walls, one came right at him. He screamed in his mind, unable to move. Then at the seemingly last second he swayed to the left, the javelin flew past him. There were screams again, but this time behind him, and definitely human. He raised his hand and dropped it forward; another volley of arrows flew past him. Still more beasts ran out of the forest, more fiery javelins were thrown, more screams sounded. Then everything changed.

A dull thud reverberated throughout the forest, as though it were a giant footstep, then, after several seconds sounded another. The screams and roars of the creatures below were silenced, they stopped running at the walls. They just stood there, watching and waiting. Thud, thud, thud. The sound approached, and he realised that it was not footsteps, but wings. The stars in the horizon seemed to vanish, the head he was occupying turned, seeing stars to the side, back and above. The trees began waving wildly, as if being pushed by a giant gale.

Another fire appeared, not a small twinkling one like the ones in the forest below. This was an inferno, a massive, raging explosion of red hot lava, and it was hundreds of feet above the ground. With horror, Delandred watched as it approached, seemingly growing faster every second. The hands in front of him were raised up in the air, as if ready to prevent the inferno just by being there.

The night around him had blossomed into light; the once frigid darkness had turned into a seething, red-hot cauldron of fire, flames and heat. The rolling firestorm continued on its path, unobstructed. He could feel the heat on his bare arms and face, just when it seemed he would be burned to a cinder. The dream ended and he woke, soaked in sweat.

He placed his elbows on his knees and put his hands on his cheeks, waiting for his rapidly beating heart to slow. His breathing slowly returned to normal, and the dull thud in his chest began to recede, his pulse slowed and he stood, pushing his sweat soaked dark brown hair out of his eyes.

He gasped as his bare feet stepped from his soft light blue rug onto the freezing floorboards, but continued on towards his window. He pulled his curtains aside and winced at the sudden harsh glare of sunlight. He put a hand up against the steamed up window and gazed out into the forest surrounding his house.

Set in fairly large clearing not far into the heartland woods, his house had been quite a bargain at fifty gold Torques. His father, Jeytal had helped pay for quite a lot of it, and the rest had come from the money he had saved up over the years. The owner had been in quite a hurry to sell it, and Delandred only found out why after the contract had been signed. The Heartland woods were supposedly haunted by strange beasts of unimaginable horror, size and strength. Reportedly strange, inhumane cries and shrieks could sometimes be heard deep at night, some louder than others. The old owner had told Delandred this rather gleefully he felt after receiving his money. Delandred had just shrugged; he had been a guide in the woods since he was fifteen, which was seven years guiding strangers unaccustomed to the wooded land. In seven years he had never seen or heard anything out of the ordinary, there were the odd big cats like jaguars and leopards, but nothing that sounded anything like the man said.

Trees seemingly merged into each other after a couple of yards, they grew so thick and close together that not much light got through. Light was mostly only seen through the odd clearings and glades, welcome breaks from the darkness of the forest. Towering ancient oaks, supple but strong silverwoods contrasted here and there against the backdrop of darker woods, on the floor thick loam covered the ground; a thin layer of frost covered the top of the rotting leaves and twigs. Winter had come late this year, solstice was close to approaching. Skeletal interlocking bare branches weaved in and out of each other, creating an emaciated canopy at the higher reaches of the forest.

Delandred sighed and pushed away from the wall, rubbing his arms to try and warm himself up. The stairs made barely a sound as he moved swiftly down them. The thick oak door swung smoothly aside as he pushed his way into his dining room and squatted in front of the hearth.

Blowing away ash from the night before, the soft glow of nearly dying embers slightly increased. Careful not to blow too hard, he took dry kindling from the side of the fire. He placed some of the small twigs above the embers carefully, making sure not to smother the small burning glow and trying to stop his arm from shaking too much. Blowing gently, he smiled as he was rewarded with the small kindling going up. Slowly and carefully, he added more twigs to the small blaze, and then started increasing the size. After a few minutes, there was quite a sizeable fire, and several thick chunks of wood lay in the middle of it.

Knowing that the fire could now look after itself, he stood and pulled off his still sweaty shirt. His skin was immediately covered in goose bumps, but the fire helped to chase away most of the cold. He made his way back to the door and through the kitchen. Pulling away the top and bottom locks, he stepped out into the cold November morning.

The water barrel next to the back door had never looked less inviting. He sighed and took a deep breath, then pushed through the thin layer of ice covering the top of the barrel. The freezing water covered his arms. Taking the soap that was by the kitchen door in his rapidly numbing hands, he quickly washed his arms and body. Now it was the part he hated, taking a deep breath, he dunked his head under the frigid water. Gasping, he brought his head swiftly back up. Water ran down his chest and back, slowly soaking into the thin trousers he was wearing. He quickly got the soap and rubbed it, then washed his face and hair. Taking one final, deep breath, he dunked his head again under the freezing water.

Normally, he would’ve taken the time to haul water into the small bathtub and heated in the fireplace next to it. Today however, he had customers, a supposed rich couple who needed to go to Amadacia. He grabbed the soap and stepped back inside, shutting the door behind him.

He stepped back into the dining room; the warmth of the fire helped a bit to warm him up. A small cupboard lay at the back of the room, making his way around the small table set in the middle; he pulled the key from the top of the cupboards, and with a shaking hand opened the lock. From the top he pulled a thick woollen towel, wrapping it around his shoulders, he took a shirt, cloak, trousers and socks from it.

After drying in front of the fire and getting changed, he locked the cupboard again. He left the fire as it was, it would go out after a few hours. Shutting the dining room door behind him, he made his way through the kitchen again, stopping to put on his boots. They had cost him quite a bit as well, thick but durable leather was coated with a special varnish to keep it waterproof, the soles were thick and the boots were extremely comfortable. He Put on his cloak next, light green and brown, it signified him as a guide of the forest. He could still clearly remember the day his father had given him the cloak on his fifteenth birthday, from then on he had worn it proudly and without regret.

He pulled his back from by the door where he had made and left it the night before; placing it on his back he made his way out of the back door, turning to lock it behind him. Thievery had increased recently, and he didn’t want in five days time to return to an empty house.

He walked around the side and began to walk down the heavily worn track towards his home village, Tarrenfell. A rider was galloping down the road towards him, pushing the horse hard. As the horse approached, its features became clearer and Delandred realised with shock it was Elayne and her horse Arrow, something must’ve happened.

She pulled up alongside him and spoke before he had time to ask her what happened, “Delandred, hurry, its Jeytal, he’s been badly beaten, Denna is with him not but he’s asked for you.”

“What, how?”

“It was thieves; they broke into his house last night.”

Anger coursed through him then, and sorrow. It had been he who had insisted on moving out of his father’s house, perhaps if he had been there it would’ve happened differently. He grasped the proffered hand and scrambled onto the back of Arrow, holding on as the horse galloped towards Tarrenfell.

The ride through the woods was short and hard, Elayne’s breathing was hard and heavy, but he wasn’t paying any attention to her, or the woods around him. He was remembering the childhood he had. When he was eight, two men had came to their old house; apparently Jeytal had owed them both money for a job they had done a couple of weeks before, he was never sure because he had asked only once, and after explaining part of the story, he had broke down in tears.

Apparently they had talked in the kitchen about the amount, when one of the men; in drunken anger, had said he was trying to cheat them out of what was owed. He had pushed Jeytal hard into a table, the lamp had fallen onto an old, dry curtain that they hadn’t gotten round to throwing out. The material easily caught fire, then started on the wooden walls to the side of the house. After they couldn’t put it out, Jeytal and the first man had ran upstairs to get him and his mother. The one who had pushed his father had run away from the house as soon as the curtain went up. Jeytal had screamed at the man to get his wife, he had gone to the furthest part of the house, to Delandred’s room. He managed to get Delandred out, then had waited for several minutes for the second man, when he didn’t appear he had tried going back into the house after him, the flames had pushed him back. It was at this point he broke down into tears, he had managed to whisper about the screams then Delandred had told him to stop.

The whole way he thought about his father, the tall, brooding ranger with the kindly, smiling face. Who would want to hurt him? His grip tightened on Kahlan’s cloak, he would find these men. He remembered when Dernik, the village smith had asked Jeytal if he would let Delandred apprentice to him, Jeytal refused; Delandred had been fourteen and had been furious, a smith was a well honoured profession, and was quite rewarding too. He had asked Jeytal why, and he merely replied with,

“You’ll thank me for this one day, son.”

And he had. His father had shown him the life as a ranger, and he felt that being apprenticed to Dernik would’ve been nothing to what he had now.

As they rounded the last familiar bend before Tarrenfell, he tightened his grip of the soft fabric, wondering what he would see.