It’s surprising how life can change in a week

Raminen vocabulary:

Erisone- coward

Pwarine Misone Kitsuma- weapon obsessed bastard

Boshiswans- assholes

Huine elle dan- hold her tight

Huine elle ban- hold her well

Stryllas tamine elle- Stars guide her

Ara i tama- Now and forever.

Chapter One

Welcome to Leo’veyln, a world unlike that anyone outside of it has ever experienced before and ever will. It is filled to the brim of everything you could ever think of: dragons, who serves as many purposes in the air as under the sea; pirates, who steal from the various island cities in the Warden’s Sea as well as being personally employed by the cities to steal from their enemies during wars; magic-users, who cast spells of vengeance and good nature as to suit their customers’ pleasure. Elves, who had vanished long ago; vampires, who had been defeated along with their nemesis, the elves; elementals, who are equivalent to gods, also long gone; and kings, some of whom are plotting something sinister while others minded their own business and only worked toward the benefit of their citizens. Some of the denizens of this world seem evil, though that is as far from the truth as it is possible to get in several cases. Others act benevolent while in actuality it is the complete opposite. In this world, nothing is what it seems.

What is going on? Evil is stirring from beneath the fiery gaps in the Awin Mountains; the Awinites are starting some dreadful campaign. Resistance is spreading within the walls of the great cities, but not against their rulers. Everyone is preparing, cautiously watching for the first signs of trebuchets, people strolling from Awin with swords casually strapped to their sides- the first signs of war. And none are above sinking below the political and social hubbub and stirring some dissension among their enemy. The war had already begun, though few had realized it at the time. But unfortunately, some of the few had hit a dead end, as you shall soon see…

Barrel-hinged bars were placed in front of every open area. Each call was big enough for around fifty people, although each was filled with slightly more than that. Built into the clay cliff formation, the floor and walls were jagged. Where they met extruded spiky curves as each ‘room’ were rectangular with curved edges. Outside the enclosed area, torches were put in slots on the walls between what were meant to be cages. The tunnel seemed to continue for miles on end with occasional staircases leading to the captors of the cells’ occupants.

A boy in his mid to late teenage years walked past the cells on either side of the passage with three of his companions. He watched girls pleading for him to choose them as maids and men proclaiming their strength and good points to hopefully find a quick ticket out of the disgusting, cramped compartments. His onyx eyes, though inexperienced, traveled along the line of people, able to separate the weak from the strong, the unwilling from the all-too-willing. The dark brown hair, nearly black, brushing his face was pushed back impatiently by hands that had calluses from practices gripping a pole or hilt of a sword. As soon as they completed this task, they returned to gripping the emerald-studded ends of the sword hilts strapped to each of his hips.

Women of all ages grabbing at the bars, gripping his forest green cloak with its embellishments of white-edged clouds, some begging verbally while others beseeched with their eyes, surrounded him and all he felt was contempt. No pity was within him- simply scorn that such proud people could be reduced to such a pitiful state by fear of death.

Next to him strode another boy, his cloak of a somber black color and white stars like the night sky when viewed from the top of a tree’s branches. Around the age of sixteen, he looked as such by his face, but the way he walked suggested his age to be somewhere around the age of fifty. His youthful air had been taken by the stress of the dangerous, thrilling lifestyle him and his friends indulged in. Mostly red hair was streaked with light, russet-shaded hairs, only discernable when the light from the torches flashed across it. Hazel eyes looked as if they were filled with an agony deeper than the skin as they looked from side-to-side, analyzing the people in the cells. A sword with a black opal studded hilt could occasionally be seen as the cloak fluttered in a very slight breeze.

Behind those two were another pair of similar ages. Both were male and well-built from hours of training, but that was the end of their similarities. On the back of the blonde was a quiver with only a few arrows in it while a bow was hanging unstrung on his arm. The string was stained just slightly red from the few instances he used the dagger hidden in the edge of his cloak. It, being of a deep blue color, kept him from the chill. Unlike the blonde boy in front of him, he still looked to be around the age of sixteen, having not suffered as much emotionally and physically- the benefits of being a long-range fighter, an archer. His gray eyes were pensive as they also examined the quivering forms in the cells.

The final person was wearing his long black hair in a ponytail, his blue eyes cold and uncaring. Instead of a cloak, he was in a wrapped cloth like a toga that matched his companion’s hair, although a shade more blood red. A spear was gripped in his left hand. Whoever got close enough to the still-dripping red tip without getting skewered on its long ebony shaft could smell just a hint of a coppery tang. His thin mouth was even smaller than normal seeing as it was shriveled in disgust as he kicked out at one of the prisoners trying to grab him. “Trash,” he muttered, shuddering as if the touch by such a person was so despicable.

“Karzle,” the individual with the quiver sighed, “do try to be more pleasant. Even if Mazine’s fighting forces weren’t particular amazing doesn’t give you the right to treat people like that.” Laying a hand on the ankle of the person Karzle had kicked and murmuring a few words in a voice that sounded like a brook flowing over rocks, the bruise disappeared instantly.

“You’re too soft, Vallience,” snapped Karzle, turning to give a chilly glare at the healer. “They were too weak to defend their precious city from us. We could have taken it over if it hadn’t been for the fact their Hime disappeared when we were focused on other things and can’t nix her power from the city. Now, it’ll just be a ghost city until we find her and force her to take down the protection.”

The scornful young man gave a humorless smile. “At least we took all the riches from the city before it obliterated us.” He continued walking, gazing superiorly at the potential slaves. “Right, Goyine?”

His attempt to talk to the black-cloaked person resulted in a tightening of lips. “Jayden, I have to say I agree with Vallience. These people aren’t just slaves. They fought nobly. Even such a great warrior as you got injured fighting them despite having your double swords. The only way you survived was because Vallience shot him before he could cut your head off.” Jayden scowled at the mention of one of his worst fights, the veins in his hands bulging as he tightened them into fists at his side.

“Damn Mazinite. That guy wasn’t that good at the sword, he just happened to fight me on my off-day. I didn’t need Vallience’s help.” He was about to walk on.

One of the people scoffed in the prison. “Whatever you say, you-who-does-not-lack-any-self-confidence. Makine was a true warrior. She fought fair and square. She didn’t try to double team you.” The teenage girl leaned forward, off the wall and away from her three comrades. “And unlike the rest of these weaklings, I’m not afraid to say it to your face.” She turned a disdainful eye on most of the people she was sharing the small area with, and then turned it on him.

Jayden glared at her. What in the name of the seven great warriors? Maybe he had just misheard her. She definitely said ‘he’. Girls can’t fight. They are so materialistic and weak. “Makine, you say. Let me guess: he was your younger brother who decided to try and play warrior. Fighting in a hopeless battle for a hopeless cause. That, worm, is called stupidity. Erisone,” Jayden hissed.

The girl looked shocked at his choice of words. Her blonde hair fell past her shoulders, looking like a light in the middle of darkness, her proud blue eyes glaring in hatred. Suddenly she fell to the ground, clutching her head in agony. One moment she was just standing there, her proud blue eyes falling past her shoulders. “He-was-not,” she panted, her body going into writhing spasms as she tried to stop hyperventilating. It was obvious to the boys that she took pride very seriously.

“Jayden,” sighed Vallience. Goyine merely shook his head. “It’s not nice to speak in that language with that word, especially to girls who don’t under-.” Another small, yet forceful feminine voice interrupted the reprimanding.

“Erisone is not a nice word to use on someone who fought nobly. The men from our cities are not cowards- erisones. And why does it matter to you who he was to any of us? You don’t care. You’re just upset because such promise was shown to someone other than yourself.” Jayden flinched at the brutal, hard, cutting truth in those words. The girl who had spoken them was a small girl, her vibrant red hair in curly pigtails behind her head. She detached herself from the wall where the last two girls were still slouching to kneel by the sobbing and twitching teenager and whispered words of comfort.

“How do you know what Erisone means?” asked Karzle, squinting suspiciously at the girls on the ground.

“Just because here, you don’t teach the common people in your city the Raminen doesn’t mean that those in other cities don’t,” contemptuously answered the next girl. Her black hair was cut in a boyish style, sweeping over her chin. Blackish-brown eyes narrowed at the boy, who seemed taken aback at being addressed like that by a prisoner. “Our governments encourage their people to invent, learn, and explore. Thus is our strength.” She stared around the cell with as much scorn as which she had spoken. “Of course we would expect such boshiswans to build such a shawdy contraption. Our cells are more refined and more escape proof.” She also went to the girl on the floor and started putting her into a better position- set her head in the red head’s lap, straightened her bottom arm, bent her legs, and laid her down.

The rest of the cell gasped at her language. “I must say I agree,” murmured the last girl. But she wasn’t leaning on the wall in the cell anymore. “Although I have to admit that there are much more refined ways of saying such things.” Now the brunette leaned right next to the cell, right in front of Goyine’s astounded face. For once, the sixteen year old boy showed any emotion, not looking like a blank slate. “Properly, you should say ‘Pwarines misones kitsumas’.” Every face turned to her in a greater shock than they had at the other girl. She glanced uninterestedly at their disbelief. “Does everyone need a translation or something? It means ‘Weapon obsessed bastards.’”

“How the hell did you do that?” Karzle roared at her, brandishing his red-tipped spear at her. As far as he knew, no one had ever escaped the cells. And this little excuse for a girl didn’t even seem to have any trouble doing so.

She studied her nails and polished them casually with her light copper chestnut locks. Her hair was crimped, pulled away from her face by clips on the back of her head. Only when she deemed them to be to her satisfaction did she turn to look him in the face, blinking her eyes innocently. “Do what?” She stared at him with her bluish gray eyes with a nearly veiled challenge in her eyes.

“Escape from the cell, duh. Are all of you Mazinites that dim-witted?” spat Jayden with contempt. He wasn’t afraid of this girl. She was a head shorter than him without even the smallest dagger. Actually, Jayden decided, I could hold my sword out over her head and I’d probably just barely brush the top of her head.

She merely tilted her head. “I wouldn’t really know would I? I could tell you, however, that not all of us are Mazinites. Anywho,” she bent her head closer to Goyine’s ear, “Vamosians and Psarinians are to be feared just as much, what with their excellent ingenuity and weaponry. Oh and about that cage, I can’t really tell you much about it except I’m not in there. I suggest that you get your blacksmith to examine it because that thing has been outdated for decades at the very least.”

Furious, the dark-haired boy next to Goyine got his sword out and held it under her chin. The infuriating girl-child still gazed him at him tranquilly. Maybe he was a little unnerved at the calm and accepting look in her eyes as she stared at the possible bringer of the end of her mortal life. It was as if she didn’t fear death in the least. A strange thing to see in someone his own age, not to mention a girl.

“Why don’t you tell me before something gets cut off?” he hissed at her. He thought he sounded scary, but obviously the threatened Psarin citizen didn’t see it the same way.

“My, my, you Awinites don’t have much in the way of patience. But I wouldn’t move that sword because if you really are that desperate to find the Hime, you might cut her up on accident and then the city will never be yours.” Tilting her head back slightly, the girl also succeeded in lifting her neck up a little bit and moved back. Then, she skipped back over to the door of the cell, twisted the lock, opened it, and got back in the enclosed area. “But in case any of you four are curious, the Mazinite Hime might be here and she might not. We don’t know.” She knelt by the red-haired girl with the shaking girl in her lap, stroking the blonde’s hair, and proceeded to softly sing a Raminen lullaby song that only her friends could hear due to distance and the commotion elsewhere in the area.

“Hold her tight,

Hold her well,

Stars guide her

Now and forever.

Huine elle dan

Huine elle ban

Stryllas tamine elle

Ara i tama.”

“It’ll be okay,” whispered the redhead, her green eyes full of sympathy. “Remember what we need to do. She would have wished it so. It was her desire to pass on to the next life that way.” She patted her on the back consolingly. “You aren’t the only one to miss her, although you knew her best. But still, we all do.”

“Psella, we’ll always be there for you. We shall not let us be separated,” the black-haired girl said quietly, giving her friend a hug.

“Winona’s right. We have to do what Makine would have wanted. She died for a free world, free from Awin’s machinations. Iwnamar is counting on us. We mustn’t let them all down. And, like Farrah said, no matter what happens, we won’t ever leave you. They aren’t strong enough to break our bond.” The brunette gripped her hand comfortingly.

“Thank you, Winona, Farrah, Gisèle,” sniffled Psella, aggressively rubbing the tears in her eyes away. She returned to glaring at the four boys with barely quivering eyes. “I give a damn about what any of you say about us because I care,” she scoffed sarcastically, trying to get the teary sound out of her voice. Then Psella, standing up and walking closer to the bars, spat at the ground, showing her condescension. “But you are not going to go around insulting our warriors, those who have shown greater pride to their enemies than you. You dishonor what it means to be a warrior.”

Gisèle had let go of Psella’s hand, sensing her friend didn’t need her mollycoddling her now. “You go, girl,” she said affectionately to her, stroking her head. Then she stood and returned to the wall, ignoring the four warriors, two of whom seemed to take this rather personally. Vallience and Goyine simply sighed together.

“I don’t care who you think you are,” growled Karzle, “but considering you are the prisoners, you shouldn’t even be thinking of insulting us- not to mention actually doing so.”

“With all their crankiness, you’d think they were having that time of the month,” muttered Farrah. She looked Karzle in the face, her eyebrow raised as if expecting him to grab her face and smash it into the bars. “Why should we fear you? Just because you have a sharp, pointy object doesn’t mean you’re going to go all stab happy on us, you know. We, being simple and innocent girls, are not that much of a problem.”

All the girls widened their eyes in an innocent pout.

Karzle merely growled and stalked on through the tunnel, closely followed by Jayden, who glowered at them all, but mostly at Psella.

“So, how are all of you?” Vallience attempted to make a little light chat. He had to admit the girls weren’t ugly or anything. Their clever tongues and fearlessness would be an asset if they were to take care of the four boys of similar ages. After all, someone had to keep the two hot heads of the group of boys in line.

“I’ve been better,” replied Gisèle politely as if they were merely discussing the weather in the middle of a sunny meadow. “The accommodations leave a little to be desired while the company,” she glanced surreptitiously at the other people groveling and crying on the ground, “more so. I guess ‘Dark and Dangerous’ there really had a lot of trouble with Makine.”

“Yeah, I guess he did,” agreed Vallience, holding back a smile at the smart-alecky-but-respectfully-so girl.

Psella shot up straight away. “She did, didn’t she?” Her eyes were on the verge of demanding an answer. “Sister, I’m so proud of you,” she murmured, half to herself, when she saw Goyine nod slightly. Then she realized what she had said. “Gisèle, Farrah, Winona…” she moaned. “It’s happened.” She dropped onto her knees and fell into a full-on weeping fest.

“You might want to look for your slaves elsewhere,” Winona muttered to them, brushing her fiery bangs away from her face, before turning back to comfort her friend. “We’re not that interested in living here. Passing on would be much better- especially for her.” Jerking her head at the blonde, she started soothing Psella with a small tune.

“Before you go, can you give this to ‘Dark and Dangerous’,” Gisèle mimed a guy with a cloak, “and the ‘Red Eyesore’?” Placing a note in each guy’s hand, she gave a small innocent smile.

“Should we run away as soon as hand them over?” joked Vallience. He had always been lighter in nature than the others who had become obsessed with fighting and rank in the Awin army. Goyine had been light-hearted like that once, but after the death of Emilio… He hadn’t been the same since.

He hadn’t expected a thoughtful expression to cross the face of the almond-eye-shaped girl across the bars from him. “Yes,” she advised solicitously. “Else he might actually go stab happy on you. Although Psar knows they need to vent their blood thirstiness somehow.” Fancy hand signals were formed from her hands when she said the god’s name, ending in a bow. “Now, you’d better get to them before they choose some poor wretch to be their slaves until they are worked to death.”

Turning to follow their companion, Vallience and Goyine swept down the hall.

“Gisèle, these are barrel-hinges, right?” asked Winona curiously. Gisèle nodded slightly. “So as long as they don’t choose us as their personal servants we can escape?” Another nod answered her question. “Do we have to stay, though?” She sighed at the glare the other girls gave her. “Vamiso’s pendent,” she muttered under her breath. She didn’t like their situation, leaving their fates in the hands of the four young men.

People filled every nook and cranny possible. It was such cramped quarters. Disease and death flowed from every possible place, making it a very vile location for anyone to reside in for even the shortest time period. All the horror simply made the conquerors happy they weren’t the ones who had to live there.

“Karzle! Jayden! One of the girls wanted me to give you each a note. Don’t ask what it says. I have no idea,” Vallience said, answering the question in their eyes. He handed the notes to them. Ripping them open, the two boys stared at them for a moment. They blinked. Then they blinked again.

“What does yours say?” they asked each other at the exact same moment. “I have no idea. It’s in some weird language.” The two young men answered each other simultaneously as well.

Vallience grabbed them both and stared at them. Then he rotated them, but only succeeded in crossing his eyes. “What the hell…?” he muttered once he could see straight again. “It’s written in Elvish, I think. But the words are so strange… They seem to be fancy words. How would a commoner know them?” Starting to walk up the stairs mumbling to himself, the black-haired teenager was interrupted mid-step by his peers.

“Where are you going?” asked Goyine, speaking for the group as a whole.

He paused. “Up to peruse my Elvish dictionary. It’s a book with all the words in a language.”

“Very funny,” scoffed Jayden, “but we aren’t stupid. We know what a dictionary is. Why don’t you try something easier and just ask the girls what it means?” He started strolling back down the passageway, grabbing the messages out of Vallience’s hands as he passed by the stairs.

A minute later, they found the four girls except the black-haired girl. “What does this say?” Karzle handed the note to the brunette. She glanced at it and smirked at them.

“Sorry, I can’t read it,” she answered simply. “Only our friend can read it and she decided to trip off elsewhere.” Gesturing, she pointed out the fact that the black-haired was, in fact, not there. As if reading his mind, she continued, “I merely delivered them to the deliverers.” The girl jerked her head toward the red and blonde boys.

Muttering to themselves, the two letter recipients searched the fifty person cell without success. “Why the hell are you looking over there?” snarled Karzle at Vallience and Goyine, who were searching the cell on the other side of the passage.

“She can get out of the cell,” Goyine quietly reminded them.

“But the girl who can escape the cell is still in it,” snapped Karzle.

“But what’s to say they all can’t get out? They seem to be friends,” pointed out Vallience, taking the red head’s side.

The dark-haired boy groaned. “I hate girls,” muttered Jayden under his breath. For his words, he received a poke, slap, punch, or outreached foot from every single brave female prisoner- adding up to four. He was staring around him wearily when he noticed that the object of their search seemed to be back in the cell she had started in.

After having Jayden point her out for him, Karzle stomped to her. “I hope you’re happy we wasted half an hour searching for you along this whole passageway.”

“Hmm? What’d you say?” The girl was being infuriating, ignoring him as if he had been a stone wall. “You know, you really need to speak up. After all, a poor girl like me can’t be expected to have amazing hearing.”

Growling, he snatched at her neck. “Why don’t you just tell me what you wrote here?” He tossed the note in her face and then let go of her.

Instead of wincing in pain, the girl simply smoothed her plain blue, loose-sleeved down and dusted off her equally loose black pants. Her friends were dressed similarly, except the brown-haired was wearing a red shirt, the redhead in black, and the blonde in green.

“I could,” she paused, a thoughtful expression settling on her face, “but I won’t. You can look it up. Retaining knowledge increases as you learn it for yourselves. Besides,” an amused look in her eyes, “it’s more fun that way for me.”

Obviously, Karzle wasn’t happy, but he couldn’t express his displeasure as Vallience motioned them all to come together. “I have a plan,” he murmured softly as to keep anyone outside the huddle from hearing. “Simply, we need to keep an eye on them for I think they are more than just girls our age. Therefore, we make them our servants and find out what, exactly, they know about the Hime.”

Jayden spat out the water he was sipping from the water jug he always had strapped to his hip. “What the hell is your problem?” he yelled while whispering. “Those girls are like demons in a human form. They will most likely try to kill us while we sleep or shoot us ‘accidentally’ on purpose.” Everyone gave him a ‘have you completely lost it?’ look and carried on, but ignoring him. Of course, he was right in a way, not that anyone else but Vallience thought that he might be right.

Karzle actually looked a little happy at this idea. What was most likely running through his mind was that he could finally take revenge on them for not being terrified at his spear.

Vallience just wanted to continue talking to them. He didn’t think they sounded so bad. Hopefully, he thought, Goyine might finally snap out of that emotional rut he’d been in since Emilio died in the early attempt on Mazine that had failed. Although he could hardly be blamed for feeling such; Emilio had been Goyine’s father-figure, seeing as his real one had died years before. The earlier attack had been a year ago, but when it failed, the rest of the cities thought the crisis had passed. Paused it had, but it wasn’t nearly done.

The last member of the group was thinking of the cold redhead. She reminded him of his little sister. Of course, that only made him grimace outwards. Goyine had tried to get past the past like Vallience had urged him to, but the past kept out-running him.

“We’ll take a vote. If you think that we should choose them, say aye!”

“Aye!” Surprising to everyone else was Karzle’s excited ‘aye’. They all glanced at him and say a slightly bloodthirsty look in his eyes. ‘Oh dear’ was basically on everyone’s mind. Karzle was known to be rather violent. The other three guys mentally noted to give flowers to whoever he chose. “I have dibs on the brown-headed one!” On the other hand, maybe they’d give flowers to him instead. Although quiet, she seemed rather strange. An air about her suggested power that she would use if she deemed it necessary, thought Vallience privately. She was appealing in a dark way.

“Aye.” Vallience’s calm exterior did not betray the fact that he was as interested in the girls as Karzle. “Black-haired one.” She seemed easy-going. But of course, so were cats before a trembling mouse. Considering her personality looked as if it bordered on the brunette’s and his own, the black-haired one thought himself safe from harm.

“Aye.” Over the loud moans and cries of the prisoners, Goyine was heard, although they almost thought they were hallucinating. He was talking quite a bit today. Well, compared to his normal silence, anyway. Karzle, on the other hand, could rant forever. “Redhead.” She, like the brunette, seemed rather mysterious. Unlike everyone else, she hadn’t said anything about herself other than the fact she knew something about engineering.

Jayden groaned internally. Because everyone else had already picked their servant, he was left with the emotional, spastic blonde who hated his guts for killing her little wannabe-warrior brother. They were gonna regret this, he thought as they walked back over to where the girls were sitting and chatting quietly amongst themselves. He was completely positive of it.