The Xerxian Chronicles

By Joseph Coto

Winter is approaching in the land of Xerxia. The trees are becoming bare, and the animals are beginning to disappear. It's time for buckling down, indoors, to wait out the cold. It's a time of little action, and a time for endings. For young man and his friends, however, it is a time for exciting new beginnings.

The young hunter Seosahd doesn't know much outside his little town of Ima'Im. He and his companions grew up listening to wild tales of fantasy and adventure. This time, however, what started as an easy hunt, preparing for the coming snow, will prove to be an adventure all its own.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris US
• Release date: Dec 17, 2010
• ISBN: 9781453584859

Joseph Coto

Joseph Coto was born in Miami Beach, Florida, and raised on fantasy novels and action movies. In the eighth grade, his teacher allowed him to change the assignment of a daily journal entry into a continuing story, which became the basis for his first book. Among writing, Joey enjoys drawing, playing the saxophone, singing, video games, and annoying his younger brother. He devotes a lot of time to his academic studies, and entertains aspirations to continue his writing while working toward creating his own engineering firm.

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I

The full moon rose over a quaint piece of woods, its glow cast upon the tips of the mountains that protectively cradled the forest. The trees, weighed down by a newly fallen snow, cast menacing shadows across the frozen grass. The chilling winter mist curled up in wandering strands, rolling and dancing before being whisked away through the undergrowth and melting into the shadows. Swishing flora and mewling fauna complemented the serene atmosphere, and the grass rippled with the breeze. A cloud passed over the moon, and the vale was again in darkness.

Calm as a creature of the night, Seosahd detached himself from the shadow of a large oak and crept through the brush. His breath curled in visible tendrils, which he swept out of his sight as he crawled cautiously; his eyes expertly scanned the ground for signs of animals’ passing. Slipping his bow from his shoulder, Seosahd strung it with a practiced motion and pulled back the silvery bowstring, testing its sinewy strength. Satisfied, he put an arrow to it and crept forward, following the tracks in the frozen earth. Hearing the crackle of dry twigs, Seosahd lifted his head to peer into the gloom. Just before him, drinking from a small stream, was the deer he’d been tracking. It was young and strong, healthy with the exception of the pronounced limp in its left hind leg. The buck walked on, nose in the air, oblivious to the danger it was in.

Perfect, thought Seosahd. The extra meat would be critical during the times ahead. The encroaching cold would be unforgiving, and the animals would be extremely scarce. He would need at least this kill to help feed his household. Lifting the arrow and taking aim, Seosahd held his breath.

His bow was pulled back and Seosahd was about to let go when a clap of thunder shattered the silence with a deafening roar. The buck bolted. Seosahd let go off the arrow, but it missed the deer’s head by a fraction of an inch, hissing into the trees. Agitated by the additional setback after almost two days of tracking, Seosahd looked up at the sky. He was shocked to see several dark thunderheads, especially during the winter dry season. The air was charged with energy as lightning began striking frequently. Dumbstruck, Seosahd stood in place watching. He saw the flashes of lightning begin to grow closer and closer, to himself and to the town a few miles behind him. Finding strength in his leaden limbs, Seosahd turned and started back to town.

Just as he had begun to discount it as an odd weather pattern, an explosion of motion around him made Seosahd’s head spin. Birds nervously twittered and hopped from tree to tree as larger animals sped forward, away from the lightning. His jog became a run, and his run quickened into a sprint. Breaking through a mass of bramble, the trees finally thinned as the few miles melted away and he came closer to the town. Seosahd nimbly hopped across a small stream and cut through a field, coming to the first buildings and farmhouses of Ima’Im. Skidding to a halt in the town center, he had the wind knocked out of him by another odd occurrence. A second stormy mass of lightning was making its way in his direction. Looking back, he saw that the original lightning strikes were still moving toward him. Forcing himself to move, Seosahd dashed through eerily empty streets toward his house, where he hoped to find his friends sheltered from the weather. He stumbled several times, the wind whipping around his legs and making his movements arduous.

As fast as Seosahd tried to run, the lightning was faster. Seosahd had barely stepped through his ragged front gate when a tendril of lightning snaked out and blew his chimney clean off, showering him in brick dust. Horrified, he stood rooted to the spot. His house was going to be destroyed, with his friends still inside. The town was going to be wiped clean off the map. The places he had known all his life were soon going to be gone in a stormy blur. It was quite a humbling thought. Seosahd had spent all his life outdoors and had suffered through storms of great magnitude. But never in his life had he seen anything like what he was witnessing now.

Seeing as he could not put out a hand and stop the lightning, Seosahd did the next best thing he could think of. He balled up his fists and yelled as loud as he could. People were attacked by wild animals, hit by a traveling cart, or struck by lightning all the time. But no one thought it could happen to them in the way it was happening to Seosahd. As the sound died from his lips, Seosahd watched as blur after blur of lightning snaked its way closer to him. One struck him dead-on in the chest, like a hammer blow. There was no pain. He was numb. Falling to the ground, Seosahd was no longer registering his surroundings. By the time he hit the dirt, he had fallen into a very deep sleep.

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II

Seosahd did not know how long he slept there in the ruins of what used to be his doorstep. Hours, days, perhaps seconds. But as he drifted in and out of consciousness, he knew that it felt like forever. Random bits and pieces of memory floated throughout his mind, obscure paintings in a story of pictures. Every once in a while, a memory would surface clearer than the others, playing out like a script, and then get lost again to the swirling pool of chaotic thought.

In the first memory, he was very young, barely walking. He saw himself standing at the gravestones of a mother and father he never knew. His caretakers had told him that his parents died in a fire, but he never found out for certain. The memory would have been painful, but Seosahd was still numb. As an orphan, he had been taken in by the family of Burd, his closest childhood friend. The memory faded and a new one took its place.

Now Seosahd saw himself older, although still much a child, fishing with Burd. It was the day he had met Burd’s sweetheart-to-be, Sydney. The two boys had been about to set off on a rickety homemade raft when the giggling little blonde girl ran down the shore and hopped aboard, sinking the whole project. She introduced herself proudly and demanded to be allowed to fish with them, and as Burd and Seosahd had been immediately captivated by the friendly creature, the three became inseparable.

A third memory surfaced, fresh and recent. On his sixteenth birthday, Burd had presented him with a bow made of polished yew and many handcrafted arrows. Money was scarce at the time, and Seosahd knew that it must have cost a small fortune. The bow had become his prized possession. Just as Burd had handed him the bow, Sydney stepped into the room with Burd’s family and Pell, the village storyteller, who was the closest thing to a teacher they had ever had. They all stood by Seosahd, but they melded away as more memories continued to flood his vision. The torrent threatened to overwhelm Seosahd in his unconscious state, but they suddenly halted and gave way to something that was more dream than memory.

The edges of the scene were blurry, as if he was looking through water. There seemed to be no flooring either, just a faintly glowing platform of nothing. Looking around, Seosahd found he could move himself in this memory, an odd thing to be sure. He also was surprised to see a woman at the edge of the dream, hair covering her face, shaking with the sounds of sobbing.

He took a step forward, and the woman looked up at him suddenly, with eyes red from hours of crying. She walked to him, and he saw the strangest thing. She was amazingly beautiful, but from her shoulder blades sprouted the mottled wings of a demon, marring her beauty. Her hands and feet were hooked and clawed, like the talons of a vulture. Seosahd stepped back warily,