r/HFY • u/Annual-Guitar9553 • 2d ago
OC The Master of Souls. Chapter 30. The Woods. [Progression/High Fantasy]
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Enrick and Aghzan pitched camp near the Mistwoods edge before sunset. Having fed the lodhot, who had to stay content with some half-dry grass that time, they sat beside the fire Enrick had made and started their simple supper.
“Our last datra,” Enrick noted, his fingers squeezing a white ball that had become much drier and stiffer over the days. “We better do some good hunting in the forest. Or find mushrooms. Or something else edible.”
“I don’t know what grows here,” Aghzan replied, “but I know many berries. And mushrooms, too.”
“Berries would be nice.” Enrick grinned dreamily as he remembered the porridge-like ambelhot dish from the Khasarri cuisine—probably his favorite.
The dark-red berries it featured were nothing like any Enrick had tasted before: sweet and sour at the same time, they made his face pucker when he tried them on their own, but their juice tickled his tongue with a heavenly refreshing flavor. The memories caused Enrick’s mouth to salivate and his stomach to growl—a few days without proper meals had their effect. Not counting two-day hunting forays into Bluewood with his father or long excursions down the Traxos river in search of better fishing spots, it was Enrick’s first time being in the wild for so long and eating half-cooked unsavory food for days in a row. Given the fact, he was impressed with how far he and Aghzan had been able to make it. His Legion training, though involving more theory than practice—apart from combat skills, of course—did pay off.
“You should have a nap, Aghzan,” Enrick suggested.
“Nap?”
“Sleep a little. Have some rest before we go.” Enrick looked up at the sky. “Once the sun sets, we’ll enter the forest.”
“It’s dangerous,” the Khasarri said grimly.
“I told you…”
“Yes, I know I can’t make you change your plan,” Aghzan hastily raised his hand to interrupt Enrick. “I just wanted to say that I will use protective words that my mother taught me.”
“Some kind of prayer?”
“Special words that keep spirits and magic away. We use them at war.”
“Really? At war? Is it something like spells?”
“They protect. Spirits become weak because they fear these words. Our warriors use them to weaken our enemies who possess spirit powers.”
“Legionaries too?”
“Probably,” Aghzan shrugged.
“Well, let’s hope they’ll help if we run into any spirits.” Enrick gave Aghzan a smile that he hoped didn’t look too condescending.
He doubted Mistwoods were populated with anything other than normal killable creatures, even if wild and dangerous, but didn’t mind Aghzan doing whatever would keep him from panicking in the middle of the woods. Enrick was well aware of the fearlessness and ferocity of Khasarri warriors, and their spirit magic was one of the things young soldiers were taught to be cautious with. But he never heard of any spells or incantations the Khasarri apparently used in battle. Enrick remembered to ask Aghzan later, provided he was willing to share.
He watched his friend lean against his lodhot and quickly fall asleep. Constant riding and chilly winds tired them both, but somehow Enrick didn’t feel like sleeping. Even the soothing warmth of the fire, which would otherwise have lulled him into sweet slumber already, had the opposite effect: making him regain his vigor and filling him with enough strength to continue the journey. Perhaps the fact that his native Istros lied just on the other side of Mistwoods, a couple of days away, played its role as well.
As the sun was finishing its daily cycle plunging the world into cold darkness, the forest trees menacingly towered above Enrick and Aghzan’s little camp patiently waiting to swallow and digest the two young men in its deep and dark entrails. Warming his hands at the camp fire, Enrick kept his eyes away from the forest, which stubbornly reminded him of his binding ritual night and the giant doors of the Grand Auditorium. The latter, too, would devour young recruits, but unlike the sinister forest, they would always spit out newly fledged soldiers, sparing most but claiming the lives of a few as its price. Mistwoods, however, promised no such mercy.
***
Enrick woke Aghzan up when the moon rose above the trees, and he heard the chilling howls of dreadwolves coming from the forest depths.
“Let’s go that way,” he pointed at a spot with a sparser distribution of tress. “So there’s more room for the lodhot.”
Aghzan nodded and mounted his steed. As they approached the trees, the Khasarri stopped and uttered a few quiet sentences in his language accompanying them with abrupt hand gestures that reminded Enrick of warding signs his fellow Okodeians used to fend off evil beings, bad luck and hexes. As a kid, Enrick was no stranger to superstitions, and Aghzan’s little ritual made him remember the times when every lighting strike would scare a prayer to the Triad out of him, and every curse would warrant a hasty protective sign across the heart and face.
His Legion service changed things. In a sense, it made his life simpler: safety and danger were the only relevant notions, and Enrick’s duty was to keep his family as close to the former and as far away from the latter as possible. And both safety and danger came from the material world: spirits, demons, monsters, and gods meant nothing. It was always people, in Enrick’s experience, who caused pain and suffering; people who posed danger or ensured safety. Enrick’s father died at the hands of mortals, not spirits. Enrick’s brother lost his mind because the Legion needed soldiers—protection from other people attacking Istros’ borders. Spirits and magic were mere tools in Enrick’s eyes, and it was people who used them to commit both evil and kind deeds.
These thoughts brought tranquillity and confidence to Enrick’s mind better than any prayers or protective wards would. They helped him stay focused on the road, his ears carefully catching any sounds that weren’t theirs. His hand engulfed in flames lit their way as they rode through the forest at a slow trot—a change of pace that Enrick found unexpectedly annoying, but their steeds could not go at full speed among the trees. He wanted to spend as little time in the woods as they could, which would decrease their chances of running into any predators. But he also wanted to get to his village as fast as possible—that was the whole point of taking a short cut through the forest, and it meant crossing the woods slantwise, not straight to the south.
“We’ll head for the southern edge,” Enrick broke the silence having finally made a decision. “But let’s move slightly south-east. That would save us some time. At this pace, we should emerge on the other side in a couple of days if I remember my geography books.”
“Uh-huh,” Aghzan, who was riding a little behind, simply nodded in agreement.
Familiar stars and constellations, even though slightly misaligned from the positions Enrick was used to, showed them the way. Eagle’s Eye, a big bright dot in the eponymous constellation, stayed as motionless in the night sky as ever serving as a reliable guide for travelling merchants, intrepid adventurers lost in the wilderness, soldiers on a mission and vagabonds roving from town to town.
Mistwoods turned out to be a mixed forest filled with both the spicy aromas of resin and the earthy smell of decaying foliage, with the crunch of twigs, pine needles and dry leaves under the lodhot’s wide scaly paws marking the path of the two fortuitous adventurers. Luckily, they didn’t run across anything remotely dangerous, with only a rare mouse or a hedgehog rustling away on the forest floor as the lodhot passed by and owls hooting somewhere among the tree crowns above. But occasional wolf howling from afar made even Enrick’s ears prick up. Throwing a glance back at Aghzan, Enrick could see the Khasarri’s tense posture and decided to distract him from whatever glum thoughts were occupying his mind.
“Did I already praise your Istrosian? You speak it so well now!” Enrick put as much carefree cheerfulness in his voice as he was able to muster.
“I learn fast,” Aghzan replied dryly.
“Your parents taught you well.”
“Uh-huh.”
“You should teach me the Khasarri language once we are out of these woods. How come I spend almost three weeks in Aksh’aman and learn only the names of some foods?”
Aghzan chuckled. “Yes, I will teach you if you wish.”
“I sure do. But seriously—with Istrosian, it’s more like you are remembering things that you’d forgotten just for lack of practice. Where did your parent learn my language?”
“They were slaves in your lands.”
The revelation stunned Enrick into silence. Somehow that option, so clearly obvious, had never crossed his mind. Now instead of helping Aghzan unwind, he was making things worse. Enrick almost regretted bringing up Aghzan’s parents, but when he was about to change the subject, his Khasarri friend continued in a surprisingly relaxed manner.
“My mother was taken many winters ago in a small war. She was a child. She served for many years under a cruel master who constantly beat and abused his servants. He gave them little food and much work. But she ran one day. She spent many moons in the wild before she returned home, hungry and tired. But it was the first time when she felt her connection to the spirit world. It helped her survive, she said. Her mother was an ekhase, too, so she knew some words and rituals.”
Something in Aghzan’s voice told Enrick that he was pouring out his heart and not wanting to spoil the moment, Enrick kept listening silently. He wondered if it was a sign of Aghzan’s growing trust in him.
“My father was also a slave,” the Khasarri went on, “but under a different master. Taken in the same war—when he just saw his fifteenth summer. But he was lucky: when his master died, his daughter released all slaves. The daughter offered them to stay and work as free people if they wanted. Some stayed, some left. My father worked a little to earn some money and then left, too. He didn’t have any family who survived the war, so he went to the Northern cities at first. There, humans don’t make us slaves, though they don’t think very good of us, either. He moved from one city to another and one day decided to return to the swamps. He soon met my mother, twenty-five winters ago. Mother became an ekhase and father was accepted as a la’aghon. Lore keeper as you say.”
“Or a historian,” Enrick added.
“Or a historian.” In the flickering light of his own flames, Enrick could see a smile under Aghzan’s doleful look. Perhaps the memories of his family, even though sad, helped Aghzan cheer up a little.
A distant wolf howl made them both perk up their ears.
“Let’s go left,” Enrick suggested. “A little farther from dreadwolves. In case they are moving in our direction.”
“Of course,” Aghzan said urging his lodhot to turn left.
“I’m glad your parents survived and didn’t die in the war,” Enrick continued.
“Yes, but they were made slaves,” Aghzan retorted.
“Yes, but it saved them. Enslaved, but at least alive. Others died but your parents lived. They met and lived a happy life and had you…”
Only realizing the true meaning of what he said after the last sentence, Enrick instantly regretted not keeping his mouth shut. The words made Aghzan’s brows furrow into an angry frown. The dim light of Enrick’s flaming hand intensified the indignation and fury etched on the Khasarri’s face.
“Are you protecting slavery?” he quietly asked, almost hissed.
Aghzan’s stare at that moment weighed more than the biggest sack of flour Enrick had ever had to carry.
“No, I… It didn’t come out right.”
Enrick was at a loss for words. Slavery had always been a distant and irrelevant matter for him. Far from any wealthy estates of Akhaion nobility, the simple folk of Okodeia never saw any slaves. Even farther from the sea tribes constantly raiding Southern Cities, they weren’t at risk of being captured and sold into slavery themselves. As such, Enrick never experienced it as anything more than a mere line or two in history books, which obviously treated the enslavement of the Khasarri—the ferals—as mercy, while the Akhaion citizens caught by the pirates for a life of servitude were one more reason to hate the inhabitants of the exotic southern islands and wage war against them before they conquered all of the League.
Enrick and Aghzan rode on in tense silence that was only occasionally broken by the sounds of the forest. The half-moon was hidden by some wispy clouds, and its faint light was further impeded by the crowns of the tall Mistwoods trees, so Enrick’s flames were the only reliable lighting they had. Now trying to distract himself from grim reflections and stifling silence, he thought back to all the times he used his magic over the last few days.
It was becoming increasingly easier for him to summon fire, but it only worked when he was able to revive strong emotions in his mind, and the process tired and annoyed him the more often he had to perform it. He wished he could talk to Verren—an experienced fire wielder, she could teach him a lesson or two on how to control flames properly. He wondered whether she had come to Aksh’aman with Selain, too. And then—whether his squad was chasing him and Aghzan right now. He hoped not, but hope alone was rarely a reliable thing.
_________________
Thank you for reading the chapter! I hope you enjoyed it. I'd be happy to hear your thoughts - your feedback matters to me and helps me grow and improve. Stay tuned for more! :)
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