The Tale of Thora Velos: Wards of The Planting Tree, #1

By Brad Millay

Thora can hear a voice telling her the world is about to end, unless she alone can stop it. That is how she forges a destiny that will transform her from a hesitant girl from the quiet village of Starling into Thora Velos, a powerful Ward dedicated to protecting The Planting Tree, the one tree that feeds and connects all life in her world.
But along the way, she will face off against an unimaginable terror: a creature of pure evil who seeks to smother her, The Planting Tree and her entire world under a sea of suffocating mud. Though she can wield powerful runes of magic to protect herself, through the oak walking stick she carries, the battle will extract a heavy price. When Thora Velos emerges from her contest permanently scarred, she will face new adversaries and challenges as she finds herself in a world that has left her behind.
She seeks the help of four Wards to join her cause: a strong but heartbroken man nearing the end of his rope, a twin brother and sister who are "cursed," and a talented but deeply troubled young man whose only friends are black-winged crows.
But will a betrayal from within her own ranks undo everything that Thora Velos is fighting to forge?
Jump into this prequal and origin story for "Warriors of the Garden," which will take you deep into the world of The Three Kingdoms, and the adventures of the Wards who guard The Planting Tree.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Bradford Millay
• Release date: Mar 16, 2021
• ISBN: 9781735858326

Book preview

1

Call of the Velos

Thora’s face is bathed in a frown as she steps out of her cottage door into the sleepy village of Starling.

Yet another conclave has been called by her village. They will meet, once again, to talk, and talk, and talk some more.

She knows what is wrong. She can feel her friend speaking to her again. She has tried to tell the other villagers, during numerous conclaves, about the voice that is crying out to be heard. They laughed in her face. What do I expect? She grits her teeth at the memory of it. I’m thirteen years old, so they treat me like some know-nothing child.

She starts down the narrow path that will take her to the last remnant of forest that stands near her village. As a young girl, Thora once loved to step outside and play all day, running under the endless canopy of trees, or playing hide-and-seek in the golden fields of wheat, or taking a cooling bath in one of the wading pools of the mighty Eel River. Now, the trees are gone, the fields are dead and the river dammed and turned into a placid lake that yielded its last fish weeks ago. Thora shakes her head. It seems strange to think that in a place blessed with nothing but the light of endless summer, there would be nothing to eat. She has even heard some of the grownups whisper that it is time to leave a place that has been their home for countless generations.

For weeks and weeks, Thora has been building up her courage, but today is a big day. Today I am going to see what’s in those woods, she thinks.

She feels hands on her shoulders and starts as she hears a familiar, nasally voice. Where do ya think you’re going? Prudence, Thora’s cousin, admonishes her.

Standing next to Prudence is her older brother, Marcus, a gangly youth with a giant Adam’s apple, in the throes of a tremendous growth spurt. An extra-thick pair of spectacles perch on his nose, making him look insect-like. That’s none of your business, sister. Our cousin can come and go as she pleases. He smiles at Thora.

Thank you Obli—uh, I mean Marcus. Thora catches herself. Since he was a child, Marcus has had the annoying habit of wandering off, lost in thought, until he becomes truly lost. Thora can count more than a dozen times she has personally rescued him. Due to his dreamy obliviousness, and the fact that he can’t see twenty paces in front of him without his spectacles, the kids of the village have taken to calling him Oblivious the Nearsighted. Never one to pass up an opportunity to turn spoiled goat’s milk into stinky cheese, Marcus has embraced the name, wearing it proudly.

I uh, need to get away from here, Thora tells her two cousins. If you see my parents, can you just tell them I’m . . . taking a walk to clear my head?

I don’t know, this meeting is going to be pretty exciting, cousin. Prudence smiles, rolling her eyes. Come on, Oblivious, let’s leave our cousin to her exciting adventures. I need a nap anyway and I’m sure the meeting will be just the tonic. Prudence hooks an arm in the crook of one of her brother’s arms and they wander off towards the center of the village, where the conclave will take place around a large fire pit. Already Thora can hear muted voices in the distance and see smoke rising into the sky.

She lets out a small breath of relief and turns off the main path toward a worn track that leads to a small grove not too far away. It is the last bit of forest that has not yet seen the woodman’s axe. To reach the woods, she crosses through a field of stumps, each measuring a hundred paces or more across. When this area was still wooded, Thora remembers running across deer, foxes and even brown bears as she played under the cool canopy of the massive trees. Now, there are just the stumps of the trunks to navigate and nothing else. Even so, it takes her a surprising amount of time to cross the barren field. The only life to be found are the clouds of gnats singularly bent on getting into her eyes, mouth and ears.

When she reaches the edge of the grove and steps among the trees, there is an immediate change. Her skin cools and the attacking gnats don’t follow. She can take a full breath without fear. She can feel the presence close by, welcoming her. Her boots tread on soft moss while a dappled light leads the way forward. She loses track of how long she weaves through the trees and she doesn’t care. She knows she’s not in any danger. She hears the chittering call of birds, which she hasn’t heard in months. The rustling of the branches and leaves feel hypnotic.

Soon this grove, too, will fall to the village’s axes, which is why she has to take this journey today. The thing calling to her lies this way, somewhere in the woods, and she knows if she doesn’t get there soon, the voice will be silenced.

The trees part ahead of her and her mouth opens in awe as she steps through the sudden gap. She has entered a forest cathedral. All around her tower the tallest trees Thora has ever seen. They must have been here for eons, she reckons: silent sentinels that seem to be judging her. At the very center of the grove stands a massive tree which makes the others look like twiggy saplings. Thora estimates it would take at least fifteen large men or more, standing shoulder to shoulder, to span the width of its massive, gnarled trunk. From that gigantic trunk sprout five limbs, each itself the size of a small tree, snaking and winding their way through an unending canopy of branches and leaves.

Thora knows this is the creature that has been talking to her, in her dreams and even her waking hours. She can feel that connection, a magnetic pull as if an invisible rope ties her to this tree.

She walks up to the trunk of the tree and reaches out to place her hands upon it, then she hesitates. Somehow, she knows that once she places her hands upon the trunk, her life will never be the same.

Closing her eyes, she rests her hands on the trunk, feeling a surprising warmth within.

Images flood Thora’s mind as a vision unfolds. She is now nestled in a bough of the tree, near its top. She can tell the tree is younger and smaller, but it still reaches impressively into the sky. The view around her, though, is completely changed. The deep forest canopy is gone; only a thin line of trees surrounds her, while a landscape of flat, unending mud stretches to the horizon in every direction. Her heart catches in her throat as sees something moving. A creature seems to glide atop the mud, it eyes as black as the midnight sky above her.

It seems that such a menacing creature should have an easy time ripping out the smaller trees and the larger tree Thora is perched in, but every time the creature tries to get close to the small grove, it is repelled by some invisible force that throws it back. Thora can feel the tree growing beneath her, its limbs and trunk thickening as it reaches higher. She looks down and her mouth drops open as wildflowers and berry bushes sprout from the earth, stems twisting upward, blossoms opening in bursts of purple and orange. A winged insect lands on her forearm for a moment. She is dazzled by the complexity of the colorful patterning that weaves and dances around its thorax and body.

When she looks back at the grove, she can see that big things are happening. A spring-fed pond has formed and from it bursts a bubbling stream, its waters gathering momentum. When the stream reaches the edge of the grove and breaches the kingdom of mud without slowing down, Thora knows things will never be the same. As the