The Army of the Undead: Alternate Reality

By Ronald Wintrick

"He lies." Daghula snapped, the great Black Blade leaping into his hand almost of its own
volition, the life within it resonating up his arm with its hunger and bloodlust. Instantly every man was
against him and these were not the bumbling cut-purses they had encountered in Nan Chun. These men
were salt of the earth, men used to the rigors of a harsh existence, and righteous men.
Daghula spurred his horse forward as the villagers closed on him. The Black Blade danced out to
take the head from his closest attacker, the electric shock of that one's life force adding speed to his
own reflexes, strength to his arm, but then the Black Blade only encountered metal, and metal again,
and then his horse was falling beneath him.
Daghula rolled clear and managed to take the lives of two more in the process, the Black Blade
striking out even though he was too busy to see who had been struck, and then Daghula was fighting
for his life, the Black Blade more often skittering across the blades of the elusive villagers than finding
flesh and his own defenses, the long knife somehow in his left hand, inadequate to deflect all of the
attacks against him. A cut seared across his thigh, and he Cast the healing spell to begin to deal with it.
He was pierced in the back and run completely through the stomach. In the melee he saw Sey. She
fought like a demoness, her twin blades blurring, her skill amazing. Men fell around her, but she would
tire rapidly under the press. Of Hutan there was no evidence. He was gone.
Daghula could not tire. Each successful strike of the Black Sword sent renewed energy through...

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ronald Wintrick
• Release date: Jan 2, 2021
• ISBN: 9781005843083

Book preview

Chapter 1

As dusk descended Timan was pulled from his many hours of reverie without complaint. As often occurred during the long spring days of plowing, he had fallen into the depths of his own mind's contemplations and the hours had slipped away almost unnoticed.  The sun was now setting over the far mountains to the west, it already half obscured and the mountain's high peaks causing its rays to splinter into a thousand shards of brilliant sun-gleams spearing in every direction. It was almost too radiant to look upon but it signaled the end of the workday and was a welcome sight.

Whoa! Whoa! Timan coaxed without pulling on Betha’s harness. She knew what time of day it was and gratefully came to a halt, the plow she pulled coming to a stop in its new furrow in the field. If oxen could smile, there would have been one on her long oxen face as she swung her head around to regard him, as if to say; ‘Hurry and get this off me!’

Timan obliged and unhooked Betha’s harness, leaving the plow where it lay in its furrow as they began the trek home. His feet sank into the newly turned rich black soil as they slogged as quickly as they could through the clinging, cloying field. The soil gave away its deep, pungent odor at every step, giving its promise of the harvest to come.

No more than poor dirt farmers yet they lived a good life. His father was a hard but fair man. His mother loving but strong- and an excellent cook! He was already getting whiffs of the late supper she would have simmering in the big copper pot over a banked, small hearth-fire. The small fire would hold at abeyance the still chilly spring night air. The thought brought a smile and a rumble to his belly.

Plowing was exhausting work and keeping food in his belly during plowing time could be as much work as the plowing itself. He used a lot of energy when plowing, and ate to compensate, but he also grew during these times, both heavier and taller. His body responding to the hard work and influx of food, generating a growth spurt each and every spring since he had begun to do the plowing. That had been the last four seasons, and now this, the fifth. He took over the plowing the spring he turned twelve. His seventeenth birthday was now just days away, March twenty-ninth, and he was nearly a man grown, in size and strength, if not fully in years. Eighteen was the accepted age of manhood. Only one more year!

As Timan drew closer to their home, he heard the ringing of his father’s hammer on steel and, mixed with the smell of what Timan now recognized as goat stew was the distinctive odor of his father’s forge.  His father had been working on a long piece of steel for the past week, ever since news of the war in Parce had reached them six days previously when a group of Parcian refugees had passed through the area. Timan had no idea what his father was making, so after securing Betha in her stall and forking over an extra-large portion of hay, and despite his growling belly, made his way to the little shed which contained his father’s forge and the tools of that trade.

The red glow of the forge and the nearly painful ringing of his father’s hammer on steel greeted him as he opened the door of the shed.  His father’s hammer was in mid-swing as Timan opened the door and stepped  inside, but the hammer came to a halt right there, in mid-swing, as if some unnatural force had grabbed it, and Jarod’s eyes snapped up and locked on his son.  Timan had never seen his father react so quickly nor exhibit such a fierce expression. This was a side of his father he had never seen before, and Timan was completely startled.

What’s the matter? Timan managed to gasp out.

You startled me boy. Go inside and get yourself some supper. Your mother’s been worried. Go show her you’re fit. Jarod said, allowing his hammer to settle onto his work. Timan’s eyes followed the movement and when he saw what shape the long piece of steel was taking he suddenly understood what it was that his father was fashioning.

A sword, father! Timan exclaimed.  A look of annoyance crossed Jarod’s face but there was now no chance to deny it.  Jarod hadn’t wanted to alarm his family unnecessarily but now, he supposed, there was no further point in trying to conceal it. On the contrary, it was time to make it be known.

A sword. Yes, Timan, a sword.

For what?

The fiery winds of war are blowing, boy. They may eventually blow in our direction. Jarod spoke harshly, but suddenly his shoulders seemed to slump, the fierceness to leave him, melt away, and he just looked tired and old- older than Timan had ever seen him look. The transformation was scary. It’s time to broaden your education, Timan. Time you learned some of the harsher truths about life. Truths I had hoped you might never have to know, but I should have known the peace would never last. Go on inside, Timan, your mother really has been worried.

Yes, Father. Timan said, turning and doing as he was bid, but marveling at his father’s use of his given name. It had always previously been boy when his father spoke to him, and now suddenly he was Timan! As he moved towards their home, and the ringing of his father’s hammer on the piece of steel, the sword, resumed, he wondered what it all meant.

He remembered his hunger as he went in the door of their solid log home, as the delicious smell assaulted his senses. His stomach remembered it as well, and tried to climb up his throat to be nearer the source of that wondrous smell. Goat stew meant his father had butchered that day, because the last time they had tasted fresh meat was the winter venison it had been his own good fortune to have brought home for their larder, only a month previously. He had been proud that day, bringing the much needed food to a family who had not had fresh meat recently.

If his father had slaughtered the billy that day, it meant the billy had finished with its spring duty by the she-goats and was now expendable. Timan was glad human males still had usefulness after engendering their children. One of the billy’s male offspring would fulfill that duty next spring, fulfilling the seasonal cycle of life. He moved straight towards the copper kettle simmering over the fire.

Get yourself washed first, Timan! His mother commanded as she stepped into the small kitchen area, catching him in the act of reaching for a wooden bowl with his grubby hands.

Aw mom…!

"Don’t aw me, young man!" Marea said, but she was unaccountably smiling. His father had said she had been worried about him. Worried why? It had to be something to do with the war in Parce, and the sword his father was fashioning, but Parce was a long way away and nothing that was occurring there could have any bearing on them here, could it?

And even if war should spill over into Arusia, why would they possibly come this way? Arusia’s closest major city, Fairlington, the City of Spires, was many hundreds of leagues north, and the Capitol, Lyons, the Greatest City on Arth, was even farther northward than that.  The only thing further than Lyons were the ice sheets of the Great Northern Wilderness, where only wolves, bear and a few scattered barbarian tribes could flourish. To the south of Arusia laid the rich Kingdoms of Calambria, to the southwest, and Ithaca, to the southeast.

Their farm was situated in the middle of the Prairie that was in the middle- and bordered on each- of the Four Realms, but there was nothing here on the Prairie an army would want, at least not that Timan could imagine.

These thoughts occupied Timan’s mind as he went back outdoors to the well, drew a bucket of water, and to the sound of the ringing blows of his father’s hammer, washed himself with the well water and the burning lye soap his mother rendered from the fat of their livestock and Timan’s trap line. Timan hated the soap, it burned viciously if you had an open cut, but he stripped down to the skin there in the yard and scrubbed himself thoroughly until he fairly shone in the new moonlight, then dressed in the clothes his mother had left hanging on the line for him. His stomach was fairly tied in knots by this time and he quickened his step as he returned indoors.

His mother was filling one of those wooden bowls as he entered but wouldn’t hand it over until she had inspected him thoroughly, as if he were still a little boy. Finally, satisfied, she gave it over, and then poured him a glass of the weak house wine they drank with their evening meals. Fermentation was the easiest and most efficient way to store the grapes that grew wild in the area and even the children drank the wine at evening meal time. It was an ages-old custom. Though very weak, the wine , the food and his complete exhaustion immediately put him in mind of his bed, but he had other things on his mind, things that just would not wait.

You don’t think the war in Parce will reach us here, do you, mum? Timan asked, not really knowing what he expected her to say, but in no way expecting the reaction she did have. The smile fell from her lips, the joy left her eyes, and clouds of sorrow seemed to cross her face.

The people that came across the Prairie last week. She said, pausing, apparently, to gather her thoughts.

The Parcians. Timan helped.

Yes, the Parcians. Marea agreed, then went on; They were refugees.

Refugees? Timan asked.

Yes, refugees. They weren’t just moving. They were fleeing.

Who were they fleeing, mum?

An Army. The Army which has attacked Parce.

But whose army is it? Ithaca’s Army?

They said it was not. Marea hedged.

Barbarians, then? Timan pressed. Doesn’t Parce stretch all the way to the Eastern Waters, as Arusia stretches to the Western? Who else would there be? The barbarians were few and the thought that they would attack mighty Parce preposterous.

It wasn’t barbarians. It was some new, previously unknown army. Marea said. She dared not repeat what the refugees had really said, because that simply could not be possible.

Some new Army! It must have come from the Eastern Waters. Timan thought aloud. Where else could they have come from?

Where else indeed! Marea agreed. The exterior door opened and Jarod came in. He was also washed and dressed in clean clothing Marea had put out and she gave him a strained smile that Timan did not miss.

Let me guess the topic of the conversation? Jarod offered.

I don’t think that will take too much. Marea said.

He saw the sword.

Of course. Marea said.

When the plowing is finished, and when I have crafted a second weapon, he will have to begin to learn to us it. Jarod said. Excitement instantly flooded through Timan. Learning to use a sword! What boy’s imagination wouldn’t leap at such an opportunity?

Fallon could learn to do the plowing! Timan suggested. He had six siblings of whom he was the oldest and all of whom were now in bed asleep.

Fallon’s only ten, boy! His father snapped, and Timan felt justly chastised. He had been two years older when he began plowing, and it had been the hardest thing he had ever done in his entire short life. To suggest that Fallon could take over the plowing beginning at age ten was selfish beyond reasoning, but the thought of that sword in his hand . . . .!

In any case, Jarod went on, it will take another two days to finish it, and another week after that to fashion the second. The steel must be folded-over again and again to create the proper strength.  A weak weapon is of no use to a fighting man.

Timan had seen him folding the steel over, something he was familiar with though not for its present use, hammering the piece of steel over the edge of the anvil to create a bend down its length, and then hammering that bend back into the sword itself.  Jarod would heat it in the forge, put it on the anvil, then hammer the bend out of the straight piece, constantly reheating it the while, and periodically dunking it in cold water to temper it. Once the bend was made, it would be flipped over and that bend hammered back into itself and then roughly flattened out again, at which point the process would begin over again, and again and again, his father switching the hammer from right to left hand so that he could continue without tiring, non-stop, all day.

So you think the war will come here? Timan asked his father.

Have you told him? Jarod asked his wife.

No. She said, and then began wringing her hands, something Timan had never seen her do before, but she noticed that he was watching and she quit, the quiet resolve that he had always associated with her retaking its place in her mien and demeanor.

His mother was a strong woman, but there had always seemed to be more there than met the eye, and he wasn’t the only one to have noticed it. He had heard it from other Prairie folk as well- whispers that there was more to her than met the eye. The Power, possibly, it was gossiped, but if so not enough of it to attract the notice of the greater Wizards of Arusia, who it was known would come and try to recruit any who showed signs of the Power in more than minimal amounts, if they were detected. Again it was whispered, since the Prairie folk were as far from Lyons as any settlement in Arusia, on the very farthest border of the Frontier, that maybe she had been missed.

"Then he will have to be told. He is almost seventeen now and with the situation, he must take his place in the community as a man of the community.'' Jarod said with a seriousness that was new to Timan.

It can’t be true! Is it necessary to scare him so?

The danger is in unpreparedness. You can never be over-prepared. Jarod said, again gravely.

Would someone like to tell me what you are talking about? Timan asked. This mysteriousness was scaring him worse than anything else they could possibly have to say, or at least he thought so. Jarod eyed his son carefully, and then spoke;

Those who came through here last week claimed to be fleeing an Army of the undead. An Army of the undead led by a Necromancer they called Daghula Ichorious.

"Not led, Marea corrected, but forced through Evil spells from their very graves to rise and do the Necromancer’s bidding. They do not follow willingly. No one rises from their grave willingly."

You speak of it as if you know of such things! Timan said, causing his mother to blanch slightly, as if this were a subject she had not wanted raised. Not ever.

Your mother was not always a farmer’s wife and a mother. She was once a very well-known Sorceress of not inconsiderable Power! Jarod said, a small smile now twisting his lips, and something else there, as well. A certain deference Timan had never noticed but now that he had noticed it, realized it had always been there.  He had always thought highly of his parent’s relationship, which had been of a much more equal nature than some of the other Prairie folk, and now he seemed to understand why and also to have a new respect for his father. It would have taken a special man to marry a woman who possessed Power enough to overpower him if they should ever come to arguing. Timan was old enough to understand how difficult that would be for most men, but not, apparently, his father.

A Sorceress! Timan said. How powerful were you? He just couldn’t help asking.

It has never left me. Marea answered instead. It never completely leaves someone so blessed. The physical stamina necessary to use the spells for a prolonged period diminishes with age, but the Power is inherent in the person. I will never entirely lose it, nor will you.

Me! Timan stammered.

It’s time you became aware of what you are. His father said.

Yes you. You have the Gift. You have been blessed with the Power. His mother said. I was a fool to have kept it from you.

And I a fool not to train you to the sword. Jarod said.

You’re some kind of swordsman? Timan asked. The revelations did not seem to be abating, as if some kind of dam had burst and they were all flooding out upon him.

Your father is a Master Man-At-Arms. Marea said proudly, and now there was that same look that had been upon his father’s face only a moment ago, except on her’s- a look of respect and even slight submissiveness. They had a relationship based on mutual respect, Timan realized, mutual submissiveness. Timan could not imagine a better formula for happiness. Would he ever be able to find a woman like his mother? Somehow he doubted it, especially if he was trained by both, in both respective arts, as it seemed to him that was what they were telling him was about to occur.

You’ve a long day tomorrow. The plowing must be finished before all else. Off you go. His father said, and exhausted beyond the ability of words to describe, he climbed to his loft bed and passed out the moment his head hit the goose-down pillow.

Chapter 2

Timan rose even earlier than usual. He didn’t need his mothers or father’s bidding to rise early this day, but it wasn’t really the dreams of the walking dead which had forced him from his bed early, though they had plagued him through the early hours before he awakened, but the desire to finish the plowing so that he could begin his training. The plowing had to come first. The corn, wheat and beans had to be planted. He hardly knew which of the two arts he wished to begin first, but somehow he did not think he would have a choice in the matter. Did he dare ask? Would his training begin with a lesson in observing patience? Probably, knowing his father.

His mother had a hot bowl of cracked wheat and sunflower seeds steaming on the table when he clambered down the wooden ladder to the kitchen, and was stirring in fresh grain to cook for the others, who weren’t up yet.

How did you know I wouldn’t need to be awakened this day? Timan whispered before shoving a big bite of the molasses sweetened cereal into his mouth. Despite having eaten just before bed he was once again nearly ravenous, his empty stomach clawing at his backbone.

I just had a feeling. She answered with a smile.

Am I that obvious? Timan asked with a smile of his own, and then refilled his mouth.

No, not really, his mother said, but it may surprise you to learn that I was once in your position, although at a bit of a younger age, and I remember the eagerness with which I looked forward to the beginning of my own training. And your father and I talked about you last night, and he recalled his own day. Just then the ringing of his father’s hammer falling on that piece of steel announced the end of sleep for all. The youngest of his sisters, still abed, began to cry in her crib in the other room.

I had best get to the fields. Timan said, rising and picking up the leather food pouch his mother had prepared for his day and which he would hang from one of the handles of his plow. The food pouch had a long shoulder strap and was designed to be worn over the shoulder, but it was an added, unnecessary burden when plowing and not when it could be hung from the handle of the plow to add its little weight to that needed to hold down the plow.

He wanted to check in on his father’s progress but hardly dared. He had heard stories from other Prairie boys about the harshness of Martial Training. The brutal training itself, the viciousness of the Master Trainers, the deprivations, degradations, and all else designed to beat the weakness out of the students, so that once completely broken, they could be rebuilt in the manner so desired, that of a relentless fighting man! Suddenly Timan wasn’t so sure he was that eager to begin that training. Maybe they would start him . . . . what? What was this Power he had within himself? He really had no idea what that meant. The uncertainty was almost as scary as the certainty of what was to come from his father and the real, physical training of Martial Training.

Betha was ready to go. As much hard work as it must be for her it was also a lifelong occupation and she was well used to it, and probably looked forward to it as much as he. It was hard work but it strengthened his body, put muscles on his arms, legs and chest, and to be honest Timan had always enjoyed the physicality of a hard day’s labor. He led her out to the plow, hooked her to it, and they went to work. The sun was just cresting the Eastern Mountains.

The day passed as rapidly as it always did when there was hard work to be done, and before he knew it the sun was once more slipping behind the western skyline. Timan was no slacker normally, he had been raised to hard work and was accustomed to it, but this day he had proved to be especially industrious and he had made a serious dent in the amount of plowing thatremained to be finished. Betha must have sensed his eagerness during the day because the boy, the young man behind the plow, could still only move as quickly as the ox pulling it.

You did good, old girl! Timan said as he unhooked her, and they made their way home. As usual over the last week, the ringing of his father’s hammer greeted him as he neared their farm, but this was more of a controlled hammering, not the heavy beating of the folding, but the careful hammering of the final shaping. Timan was sure of it, he was a skilled enough apprentice himself and his heart quickened as he approached. He put Betha in her stall, forked over another extra serving of hay, and even gave her a small serving of their dwindling supply of feed oats. Betha’s head disappeared into the oat bucket and Timan disappeared out the gate, closing it quickly but quietly and then moving silently towards the blacksmith shed.

His father had also taught him wood lore, in the Big Woods, just north of their property, while teaching him to set snares, track, and hunt. Jarod might have neglected to teach him the use of the sword, but he was more than proficient with the longbow. His father had taught him all the things a self-sufficient farmer needed to know, all the things Jarod’s father had taught him, and his father before that, all the way back into the very dawn of time, apparently.

Timan lurked outside the door to the blacksmith shed for a moment before entering. This time Jarod was looking up when Timan entered. Somehow, this time, he had sensed or heard Timan’s approach. Jarod smiled mercilessly and Timan understood that their relationship was now changed. They were no longer father and son. He understood it as well as he understood that he had to breathe to continue living. Despite the magnetizing effect of his father’s new smile, he was still able to pull his eyes away and feast them upon the weapon in Jarod’s hands. It was magnificent!

You’ll earn this long ‘ere you put a grubby paw upon it! Jarod, now Master Trainer, said tersely. Unless you think you can take it from me? It was a question.

No I don’t think that! Timan said quickly.

I didn’t think so. Jarod said, putting the blade down on his work table and then coming around the forge towards Timan. By the time the warning bells went off in Timan’s mind, it was already far too late. Jarod back handed the completely unprepared Timan and sent him reeling backwards through the still open doorway. Timan had seen his share of fistfights with the other Prairie boys when they all got together for the various functions in which farm folk participated, and he knew how to handle himself, but he was in deeper here than he had ever been before and he knew it immediately.

The backhand was stunningly brutal. He had never been hit that hard in his entire life, but he managed to maintain his feet and set himself as his father came charging through the door. Short on time Timan snapped out a left hand to Jarod’s mouth that should have connected and loosened teeth but was instead brushed aside negligently, with no more than, it seemed, an afterthought on his father’s part, and then that same back hand landed again, in exactly the same place, except this time its force was increased by his father’s rush.

Timan’s head was snapped to the side so ruthlessly that his body had no choice but to follow it, and he was flung to the hard ground, landing roughly. Red rage flashed through Timan, rage engendered by his lifetime of winning the fights he had fought with the other rough Prairie boys, and he came immediately off the ground, and was immediately knocked back down. Every time he tried to get up he was knocked back down until his efforts to rise became feeble, and yet he still continued to try.

Don’t hurt him too badly, husband. Marea said.

Timan could hardly believe his eyes as he watched his mother appear out of the darkness and come into the feeble light reflected dimly through the doorway by the forge inside the smith shop. You saw the whole thing? Timan stammered. For some reason he was completely embarrassed, though he knew he shouldn’t have been. Even if his father hadn’t been a Master Man-At-Arms, the chance a sixteen year old boy would have of defeating his hale, hardworking father were nearly slim to none. He had no chance from the beginning. Still, he feltembarrassed nearly to shame that his mother had seen his defeat. Marea came and knelt at his side as he struggled to a sitting position on the ground. He was dizzy and sick.

Your father was once the best of the best.

Was once? Jarod asked, interrupting, though he was wearing a smile now, a smile for his wife. When he looked back down at Timan, it fell abruptly away.

He may still be. Marea acceded with a smile of her own. The point is that it will be a very long time before you are able to best him.

Never! Jarod said.

Timan looked up at his father now not as a father but as a combatant. He did and did not really understand what had just occurred, that this had been done on purpose, the sole purpose that of eliminating the father/son relationship and replacing it with an Instructor/Student one. For the moment he had forgotten he loved him and wanted nothing more than the chance to smash his face in.

Like another go at me, boy? Jarod snarled, certainly reading the expression on Timan’s face correctly, but he had once been the boy at the Instructor’s feet, though at a very much younger age, and he knew exactly what was going through his own son’s mind. His son would hate him with the passion that only the wronged can possess. Jarod had wronged him and he would want revenge. Timan managed to climb to his feet and Jarod once again slapped him off his feet. He hit the ground unconscious.

He’s headstrong. Jarod said to his wife, as they stood together looking down at their son.

Strong willed, you mean?

Headstrong. Only a fool would have tried to get up again.

Humph! Marea said, again with that ironic smile. The boy was just like his father! How many times had she heard the story of his first lesson! It had to have been hundreds of time, and now his own son was a headstrong fool for doing the same exact thing! Men!

It would be best to leave him where he lays . . . .

No! Marea said. I don't know if I can sense the dead, Jarod. If those stories are true, and I shudder at the thought and on the odd chance that they do come this way . . . .

What’s here that they could want?

I don’t know, Marea conceded, but they might send out scouts or raiding parties ahead or beside the main host. We have to be on our guard at all times. We don’t know if or when they might arrive.

It’s seven hundred leagues to Arcen! Jarod said. Those refugees were from the border region, which is itself six hundred leagues from Arcen, and the last word they had received, by carrier pigeon, was that Arcen still hadn’t fallen. To be honest, I doubt it will. Parce has never been conquered. I don’t think it can be. Its walls are too high. It’s defenders too stalwart. The Great Walls of Arcen have never been breached and I do not think that they can be.

"If the stories of the marching dead, of the slain defenders rising where they fall and attacking their comrades, if the story of the Wizard’s Fire this Daghula Ichorius was raining on Arcen’s walls is at all true, that Parce’s great Wizards and it’s entire Sisterhood were unable to defend against, then Arcen will fall. Of that there can be no doubt."

It can’t be true, because if it is, Arusia won’t be able to stand before it either! Jarod growled, as if the menace in his voice would make it so.

Parce was attacked without warning. We’ve been warned. They may not even come in this direction. Marea said, but she could hardly hope it would be so. The fact was they probably would! Someone who was as powerful and Evil as this unknown Daghula would be bent on total conquest- his kind always were. First the smaller Northern Kingdoms would fall and thenon to the south. Her only hope was that they could be stopped by the Parcians at Arcen. If not, she was sure it would only be a matter of time before they arrived here, and probably not a long time. Hopefully we can harvest first, and then we too will have to flee.

Allamar help us. Jarod said.

Marea began to speak quietly under her breath. Had she spoken aloud still none would have understood her. She was speaking the Old Tongue. The language of Power which, if the Histories were correct, could not be translated into any other language because the ancient meanings of the words were so intertwined with magic as to be completely indecipherable tocommon logic, and so ancient, so long lost in time, that there were no similarities to their present language at all. The Old Tongue was nearly as ancient as life on this world itself, life itself sprung from magic and Allamar’s will, or so it was thought.

If Marea had several dozen lifetimes to research and study, the task could be completed, Marea was sure, the language deciphered, but the only way to live much beyond the normal span of a human life was to trade away your soul to Sheitan, the Evil god of the Lower Realm, and if you did that, Sheitan would have demands that precluded using your time for your own purposes. Such Wizards who gave themselves to Sheitan were called Necromancers and through their unholy union with the God of the Lower Realms were able to perform many spells normal Wizards were not, including the ability to raise the dead.

These unholy unions made the Mages who sold their souls extremely powerful in the normal usage of their Power- no longer in fear of losing their souls, those already gone- and thatbefore giving them the added advantage of the ancient spells Sheitan would then bequeath, including that of being able to call forth the dead. The dead could be imbued with life, of sorts, and these monsters, called Ignacian, were both inhumanly strong and nearly impossible to destroy. A whole Army of these Ignacian! The notion was horrendous, Marea thought as she completed her own spell. When her spell was complete, she reached down her right hand and placed it on Timan’s forehead. He immediately stirred.

Looks as if he’ll live. Jarod growled, back to the tough Instructor. With that said he turned on his heel and marched back to the house, to allow Marea the time to finish applying the healing spell which would completely restore him. There was no time now for normal healing. Normal healing would have been preferable, to learn the stamina which would be necessary to survive real battlefield wounds, since there wouldn’t always be a Practitioner around to apply healing spells, and they still had no idea how strong Timan’s own Gift might turn out to be.If he proved to be an Adept, he would be able to apply his own healing spells, as well as using those abilities to combat the enemy. Marea’s great grandfather Varius had been a Wizard of some great renown, but now he was gone, supposedly some dozen years ago, if the rumors were true.

What happened? Timan asked as he sat up. He felt as if he had just woken from a deep and restful sleep. It came back to him even as his mother explained;

You tried to get up when you should have stayed down.

I have more of that to expect, then. Timan said, a statement of irrevocable truth.

There is no other way to prepare a man for the rigors of war, for the severities of the battlefield. You do the new recruit an injustice, you fail him, if you train him in any other way. Your father in no way wishes to send you to the battlefield unprepared.

So you believe that the war will come to Arusia? Timan asked. They began walking together towards the house. Timan had a hunger gnawing at his insides like nothing he had ever experienced before. Why am I so hungry? His mother laughed.

It is the healing spell I used. Marea explained. "The spell only precipitates the healing process. Your body has to supply the raw materials to complete the process.

And yes, the war will probably come here, but hopefully later than sooner.

What will we do if it does? Timan asked, halting midway between the house and the smith shed.

If the enemy does come in this direction, Allamar forbid, and praying we will have our harvest in by then, we load what we can, sell the remainder, and flee for the south with everyone else.

Everyone else?

Everyone with a family to protect will flee before the storm. There is little choice in such a thing.

But why must we flee? Can’t we fight?

Timan! Marea snapped, but then added more quietly; You have five brothers and sisters whose welfare must be thought of. Juny is fourteen years old. Sarina is ten. Zara only eight! Do you realize the things which could happen to innocent girls if their welfare is not put first and foremost? The cruelties to which some humans are capable go beyond words and I will not speak them. You are old enough to understand.

Then why will I be taught to fight, if we are only going to run?

We may not be able to flee far enough to escape, Timan. There may be no place far enough to escape this Evil! Marea answered, but Timan sensed there was more, but what that more was he could not say. It was something he felt. His mother’s face was set and he did not voice his thought.

The plowing went slowly as always though Timan worked without break. He ate his food as he plowed and he began to see, finally, that the plowing really would come to an end. It often seemed as if it never would. Another day or two and he would have their entire acreage tilled. Then it would be his mothers and sibling’s jobs to plant the seed, a time consuming though not terribly difficult task.

This day was crawling along so slowly because Timan was so morbidly anticipating the end of it. At the end of it he would once again have to fight his father. He had not been told this would occur, but he knew it with a certainty that needed no further thought on the subject. Once the training was begun, there would be no let ups or breaks.

‘You’ll earn this sword long ‘ere you put a grubby paw upon it.’ His father had said. Timan knew exactly what his father meant and he quailed before that understanding. He was far from fearless and without the red rage he had felt in the heat of the moment, he knew how difficult it would be to go and meet Jarod. To go and meet the Master Instructor! So the day dragged but finally, as all days must, it came to an end, and he unhooked Betha and they headed for home.

Jarod was waiting for him in the yard of their farmhouse when Timan came out of the barn after putting Betha in her stall. He could no longer bring himself to call Jarod father! He was Master Instructor Jarod, and he wasted no time on pleasantries.

You want that sword, boy? Jarod asked, walking over and positioning himself in front of the door of the smithy. The look on his face was not pretty to look upon. Come get it, if you want it!

Timan moved slowly towards Jarod. He did not want to but his pride would allow for nothing else. Of course he had been thinking about this moment all day, but all his carefully laid plans didn’t really seem plausible now that Jarod was right here, larger than life, standing right in front of him. All of the weaknesses he imagined in the scenarios he had replayed over and over in his mind all day now seemed to evaporate right into thin air. In effect, when evaluating Timan’s limited abilities against Jarod’s, Jarod had no weaknesses. Timan understood that if he wished to beat Jarod, he would have to create a weakness. It wouldn’t be easy and it certainly wouldn’t happen this day. Or the next, or even any time soon. Timan refused to let that thought go any further. He couldn’t allow himself to be dragged into a morass of despair, considering the odds, which under the circumstances could happen all too easily.

Jarod stepped forward to meet him, to take away the time Timan was using to try to measure him. Only through action would Timan learn. Only in the act of fighting would he learn how to fight. Jarod wasted no time and attacked.

Timan found himself actually prepared for the opening strike, the same lightning fast backhand Jarod had employed the previous evening, and he slipped beneath it, or mostly so, it brushing harmlessly over the top of his head, then he leapt up swinging an uppercut that contained all the fury of the previous evening’s humiliation. It missed completely, leaving Timan off balance and unable to defend himself. Jarod’s elbow crashed into his jaw and blackness closed in over him.

That was brutal. Marea said as she approached her husband from out of the darkness. Jarod was bent over Timan, checking his pulse, which still beat strongly in his carotid artery. He stood back to give Marea an ironic smile.

He almost caught me!

He has the help of his Gift. Do not underestimate him. He has natural ability, as well.

He is bullheaded. Jarod said.

Strong willed.

My day’s work is done here. Jarod smirked. I think I’ll have some of the stew I smell on the air. He took a deep breath and then exhaled it slowly, but then in seriousness, he asked; How does the work go with the sword? How is it taking the enchantments?

It is beautiful work, husband. In truth, though I hate to give you a big head, she smiled at this, I have never seen metal this absorbent. It is almost as if the metal hungers for the spells.

Do you think it will take all two hundred? I folded the metal two hundred times. It has enough folds if the metal proves receptive enough.

I would not expect that much, Marea said with another smile, but it’s truly absorbing them at a miraculous rate. Either the steel or the craftsmanship, or the combination of them both, is in some fine balance of acceptance. Used against Evil, or in a righteous cause, this blade will make its user nearly invulnerable.

I only have enough of this steel for one more blade.

That is truly a shame. Marea said.

The purest lode I have ever found. Jarod agreed.

My two heroes will be properly armed, at least, Marea said, but get you to your supper. I can hear your stomach growling from here.

It is empty, Jarod agreed as he turned away, and I suppose you had best restore our little soldier. I did hit him a little harder than necessary. Timan was still out cold on the ground, breathing deeply and regularly.

Marea began speaking the words of her spell, again under her breath (she had been trained to speak her spells under her breath so that their secret could not be eavesdropped and stolen by the unrighteous), but before she had gotten halfway through her spell, and before she had applied any of it to Timan, his eyes snapped open, his gaze transfixing her own, and all the more uncanny because his face was mostly turned away and his eyeballs, when his lids flew open, were turned completely sidewise to be locked on her own. She was so startled she nearly faltered, but did not. One of the things she had learned when she had herself been trained in the Arts was not to lose you train of thought while Spellcasting. Such an indiscretion could easily lead to your death. When she had finished her spell she applied it to the now conscious Timan’s forehead. Brain damage was her main concern, so that was the locus of her application.

It had no effect on him, what so ever, that she could determine, and she should have been able to feel it working, feel the drain of her Power as it acted. There was no drain at all, yet there had been injury.

I made it do that already. Timan said by way of explanation, as if he had read her mind. I applied it to myself. His words were clear and concise, his mind obviously completely clear.

How? Marea could only ask. She was baffled.

I have no idea, mum. Timan said as he rose. I only know that it is so.

And so it appears to be. Marea agreed as she gazed upon her son, still in amazement. The raw Talent required for a Practitioner to apply a spell without the use of the requisite language was boggling to the mind. Only the very greatest Wizards of all time were ever even reputed to have such abilities. Certainly Marea had never met a Practitioner of such great Talent, nor had she ever expected to. This was a shock beyond words.

I would try an experiment. Marea said, and from absolutely nowhere a vicious looking hooked blade appeared in her hand, and without a moment’s hesitation it licked out and nicked Timan across the forearm.

Hey! Timan exclaimed, snatching his arm back and looking at it in morbid fascination. The cut began to bleed immediately, but Timan understood the point of the endeavor and watched with as much curiosity as his mother. As she had expected, the blood had barely begun to flow when it began to slow, stop, and the wound to seal itself shut, and leaving not even the slightest blemish to show where it had been. The blood was still dripping down his hand and off his fingertips but the wound which had caused it had disappeared closed and vanished.

I thought so. Marea said. Now we will try something else. Before Timan could even guess what she meant, she had sliced a similar wound into her own left forearm. It began to bleed immediately. She had cut it deep. Now touch my arm! She instructed.

Timan understood the point and reached out and took her hand, the blood from his own now healed wound intermingling with the blood from hers, which was really gushing. He felt it happen as soon as their hands met, because he wanted it to happen, an out-flowing of energy from his body, down through his arm, and into his mother’s body. In the near total darkness, the moon was nearly obscured by clouds, and the mess of blood around the wound, so at first it was difficult to tell, but then it became obvious. The wound was closing. Then it was closed. It was suddenly completely healed.

Allamar above. Marea intoned.

Chapter 3

Timan rose three times during that short night. Not because he wasn’t tired, or to urinate, or anything else he might have expected, but to eat! Added to the physical excesses of the previous day was some new source of energy consumption. At first Timan didn’t correlate the two, the healing and his crazy hunger, but then it suddenly dawned on him where this additional hunger had come from. The hunger was so overwhelming, so demanding, and then three times during what should have been only a five hour sleep period to begin, if he hadn’t had to rise and eat three times, that there could be no doubt that it had been caused by some new and before this unusual source. It had been caused by his use of Power! He really had the powers of a Wizard!

Timan knew so little about what that meant, what it could mean for him, because his own mother, a Sorceress, had kept that knowledge a secret his entire life. Timan didn’t understand why it was such a dark secret that it had to be kept from even her own family, but he could remember plenty of instances where the use of those healing powers would have meant a lot less suffering for them. The entire Prairie community could have used those services!

The ringing, once again, of his father’s hammer brought him out of his reverie, and still fuzzy and strangely bone weary, clambered slowly down the wooden ladder into the kitchen. Timan sighed heavily after that small exertion, taking the chair his mother offered him and seating himself at the beautiful wooden table his father had crafted with his own two hands.

How are we going to take all of our stuff if we have to leave, mum? Timan asked.

We will not be able to, Timan.

Then we will have to stay and fight. Timan said suddenly, angrily. His exhaustion and the travails of the previous days had him on edge. His anger was seething just below the boiling point, and he was unwittingly feeding into it.

I already told you why that is not possible! Marea snapped, and Timan looked at her in surprise. The authority in her voice was unmistakable. He wasn’t really used to such aggressiveness from her, she would usually take the time to explain things and leave the disciplining up to his father, but he had to admit, ruefully, that she had already explained it once and obviously was not in the mood to do so twice. Besides the fact that she was absolutely right! Their first obligation was to his younger siblings.

I am sorry, mum. Of course you are right. Timan apologized. I just cannott believe we might lose everything. Everything you and father worked for.

Your brothers and sister’s lives can’t be replaced. Everything else can be. Marea took the time to explain, and then it was that Timan saw the sword leaning in the corner of the kitchen, spectacularly reflecting the glow of the hearth fire in strange, scintillating patterns the like of which he had never seen before. Marea followed his gaze.

Runes. She explained.

Runes? Timan asked. He had never heard of them before. What are Runes?

I am enchanting the sword. Marea further explained. She went over and picked up the sword and then brought it back to place it on the table in front of Timan. The sword had been polished and shone gleaming on the table in front of him. On closer inspection Timan could see where each of the folds in the metal had occurred, and then seemingly growing out of each fold, down the length of the blade, starting at the cutting edge and working backwards, the Runes grew out of the fold lines and spread backwards over the blade. The Runes growing out of the second fold intertwined with the first Runes in a way that seemed to have been designed, the pattern of the first different than the pattern of the second but complimenting the first, as if it were filling in the weaknesses of the first, the two stronger combined than the sum of each separate individual Rune, if that were possible. About a third of the folds had Runes growing out of them, and the blade was absolutely covered with their intricate designs.

Is it finished? Timan asked.

Any other blade probably would be, Marea answered, but this one is somehow special.

In what way? Timan asked. His exhaustion and short temper were completely vanished. Ravenous, he began eating the food Marea had set out for him as he listened to what she had to say. His stomach convulsed and tried to climb up his throat as he swallowed the first bite, he was that hungry!

Hungry, aren’t you! Marea commented instead of answering.

Starving! Timan admitted.

It will get better. You are using muscles you have never used before.

Muscles!

Your mind is a muscle like any other in your body. You have to build it up and strengthen it like any other, and as far as the blade, it is very special in some way I do not understand. Either the metal itself, or the skill with which it was crafted, or the combination of the two, has resulted in a blade which is soaking up my enchantments like no other blade I have ever encountered. It has already absorbed more spells than any other I have ever seen. I can almost feel it hungering for more! She