The Vitalis Chronicles: White Shores (3 page)

He urged his horse into a trot down a nearby alley as another scream echoed through the streets. It was followed by a horse's screech that was cut off as suddenly as it had begun. Stern lowered his head and rode hard towards the sound.

He entered a large square with a fountain in the center, the trickle of water deafening in his ears as he spun his horse around searching for any sign of life. He was alone. Then another scream rose and fell from the alley behind him. He turned back, the damned private!

He kicked his steed into the mist as he heard another scream, rounding the corner in time to see the riderless horse sucked down into the mist. With a screech and flash of light it was gone, only the faintest scent of singed hair remained to prove it had once existed.

The sergeant froze as the mist churned and began to rise around him. He pulled out his pistol, cocking the hammer back before he had so much as leveled it at his invisible opponent.

Lips pulled back tightly over his gums, he yelled his challenge. His wide eyes frantically darted to and fro for a target. His horse fidgeted side to side, feeding off her master's fear. The mist began to rise in streaks and reach for him. Was he going mad? What in God's name was this?

His massive shoulder tensed, gloved hand clutching his faithful weapon so hard it became an extension of his arm. As if in response to his tension it came for him then; hot, white light streaked out of the mist as ethereal tendrils spiraled out to grab him.

He bellowed as loud a war cry as he could muster and unloaded his firearm into enemies he could not see.

“
A
RDIN THEODORE VITALIS
!” The commanding voice of a mother scorned resonated through the tiny two-story house. She stormed over to the base of the stairs ascending to the bedrooms and roared.

The house had been built by her father when she was a girl, and was meant for a much smaller family than the one she now had. She furrowed her brow as she held on to the polished wood banister leading up the stairs. Brown, framed family pictures lined the short hallway that led to the kitchen and bordered the living room. She glanced towards the mantle in the living room; her rage aflame over the vacant space on its left side.

“Get down here right now young man!”

Luckily Ardin had hidden himself quite thoroughly in the loft of their equally small barn and wasn't about to come out. Something about the venom in her tone told him it might be better to add disappearing to his growing list of sins. Easier to ask forgiveness after she had cooled down. He should have at least brought something to read, he thought. This could wind up being a long day.

The idea had barely passed before a hand firmly grasped the back of his neck and shoved his face into the hay he had hidden himself in. His startled cry was muffled by a golden sheet of silence.

“What do we have here?” came the voice attached to the hand. “I do believe I hear an angry mother calling for her son, and he seems to be nowhere in sight!”

Ardin rolled onto his back as the grip on his neck loosened. He stared up wide eyed as his discoverer sat on his legs, effectively pinning him.

“John!” His hands clasped on the forearm of his older brother, whose palm was now pressed firmly into his chest. “Please!”

Ardin couldn't help but glance up towards their house as he clenched his teeth and writhed under the weight of his captor. John was four years his senior. Twenty years old and eager to leave home and join the army. He was still big enough to master Ardin with ease.

“You can't!”

“Now why on earth couldn't I?” John's smile was framed by the loose scruff of a young beard; he couldn't help the grin as his hostage squirmed with a growing sense of despair. “Someone broke Mother's favorite vase, someone with a penchant for playing soldier it would seem. There was a wet sword left among the flowers and shards of glass.”

“I just wanted to see it, John! Father never lets me hold it!”

“I guess now we know why!” He flicked his index finger against his victim's forehead. The sting caused tears to form in Ardin's eyes. “Now, what to do with such a poor soldier.”

“Please John!” He said. “Please!”

John sat there for a moment, puckering his lips slightly as he pondered his brother's fate. The moments passed in excruciation for Ardin.

“Alright little Ardin.” He finally let up on the pressure and rose to his feet. “But we'd better be quick about it. Mother is coming out as we speak.”

Ardin twisted up on his side quickly, craning his neck to see through the crack in the large double doors below. He could make out the floral print of his mother's apron as she marched from the house. John laughed as he backed towards the large window at the end of the loft and lightly dropped from it to the hay bales below. Ardin scrambled over and looked out after his brother, clenching the window frame as the two story drop reeled in his mind.

“C'mon Ardin!” his brother hissed as he crouched behind a broken down wagon. “She's coming!”

Ardin took a quick breath, set his jaw, and jumped through the window using his arms to vault his passage. There was an audible thud as he missed his target and wedged himself between two of the bales. Lights swirled in his eyes as he found his torso firmly pinned. His legs stuck straight up in his face and his arms flailed awkwardly as he sought to grab hold of something. It was no use, he was stuck.

After a moment he gave up, exasperated and out of breath. He looked up to discover his brother standing over him, working to contain his laughter.

“C'mon little brother.” John took hold of Ardin's arms and hoisted him out of the straw. “No sense letting Vern's cows get you either. It seems you're destined to be eaten alive one way or another.”

The two villains slunk through broken down farm equipment. Most of the wood had rotted away over time leaving their rusted skeletons scattered among heaps of rocks and dilapidated shelters. Ever since their father had lost his leg, their farm had been leased to neighbors. Even the hay in their barn wasn't their own.

John stopped behind a particularly large pile of stones, pulling his charge down to a seated position. He grinned.

“You're not so bad on your feet you know, when you manage to land on them at least.” He wrapped his arm around his little brother's head, pulling him close and squeezing. “But now we'll both be in trouble for your little battle with the ‘Great Soldiers of Floria!’”

“Come on John,” Ardin said. “I just wanted to try it out, see how it felt. I just wanted to hold Father's sword.”

“It's ok.” He released his grip and leaned back into the rocks. “You'll make a fine soldier someday, Ardin.”

“You think?”

“Sure, we just need to work on your disappearing act! I may have taught you how to fight, but now you need to learn how to run.”

“Soldiers aren't supposed to run.”

“Sure they are. It's one of the first things you're taught in the academy. So, if you're going to hide right under Mother's nose you'd best do it in a place she'll never look. Or at least one she's unwilling to go.”

Ardin scrunched his nose as he looked up at his brother. Their mother's anger was still audible across the remains of once maintained farm equipment.

“I don't think there's a place on earth Mother wouldn't go to whip me.”

“Oh sure there is! You just need to know your enemy. That's the key to finding their weakness.”

“And then what?”

“You exploit it.”

“How?” Ardin wasn't so sure his mother was his enemy, but when she had a spoon in her hand he was equally uncertain of her friendship.

“Well,” John picked up a stone from the pile and tossed it in the air. “There are two scenarios to think about. In this one you want to repel your enemy because you're weak. Right?”

“Okay.”

“Therefore, you have to go someplace you'll be protected, somewhere they'll be too scared to follow if they manage to figure out where you've gone.”

“So... I should go somewhere Mother would be too scared to go.”

“Exactly.” John put the stone down. He smiled faintly as his little brother's brow furrowed and his fingers fidgeted.

“Where on earth would Mother be scared to go...?”

“What's she scared of?”

“Nothing that makes sense... mice for example.”

John laughed and patted Ardin on the shoulder, “Which means what?”

“Which means…” Ardin looked around the makeshift graveyard. “Which means she won't dare to look for me in the cellar?”

“Less likely the crawl space under the house.”

“Ugh,” Ardin grimaced at his older brother. “I'm not so sure I'd want to go there either.”

“'In war we must often do what we deplore if we are to avoid what we fear.'”

“What the heck does that mean?”

“It's just an old maxim, Ardin. C'mon.”

“Wait.” Ardin put a hand on his brother's sleeve to stop him from rising. “You said there were two scenarios. What's the other one?”

“When your enemy is weak.”

“What do you do then?”

“You do something that will draw them to you. And then you spring your trap.”

T
HE FAMILY DINNER
table had been built by old man Vitalis. It was a wedding gift to his son when he married Emily. It had served them well for the first few children, but after their fourth it quickly became too small. Don Vitalis hadn't been a carpenter like his father, but he wanted his family to be able to all sit at the same table when they ate. And so he had built extensions as time went on.

By the time they had seven children, they were simply out of space in their dining room, each child crammed against a wall or cupboard as they stuffed their little faces with food. But they made it work. Don was grateful that there was food to put on the table in the first place. Ever since he had left Elandir's army it had been difficult to scrounge a living from the ground in his home town.

Levanton was a small mountain village located in a valley that served as a pass to the fishing villages on the northwestern portion of the continent. Most notably, and most profitably, they sat just above the highway that ran to the Peninsula. It was heavily traveled and brought good business. At least until the Magi had raised the cliffs in the Great Defense and all but wiped out those fishing villages. Levanton had shrunk significantly since then. Most other villages in the region had simply died over the years.

Elandir, Levanton’s protector City State, controlled most of the trade now thanks to the cliffs. Levanton was left little more than a small agricultural community with the few services necessary to support the farmers that remained. Where there were once a good number of fuel stations, restaurants, and inns to service the travelers passing through. The town was now barely able to support one of each.

Soon after his retirement from the army, Don had made an attempt to start his own logging operation. The mountains proved familiar from his childhood gallivanting, and he had proven himself to be among the worst farmers in history to date. Besides, his father had been a great carpenter. Even if he hadn't passed any of those skills along to his sons, he had certainly drilled into their heads the difference between good wood and rot.

Don and his younger brother had stalked deep into the forest to find some cedar that they could ship down to the City States in the plains. They found some great timber. They even made some sales in the first few months that kept their dreams alive.

Don bought bigger mule wagons to haul the wood to the Larger's Mill down on the river. He dreamed that someday he would own his very own truck, perhaps even a fleet of them. They were expensive things, automobiles, but stuck in his mind as a symbol of success. Things were looking up until the day they cut a cedar down on Bandit's Peak.

It had already been a long day, and they were tired. They should have stopped before trying to cut that tree, but it was a beautiful piece of timber and the brothers simply couldn't resist. After a couple of hours of chopping and sawing the monster was ready to fall. Don gave it the last few hacks necessary to send it toppling down the hill. But it didn't fall downhill.

As the tree slid off its stump it caught on a boulder that was mostly hidden by brush. It began to tip back towards them. Don, caught unprepared, attempted to get out of the way but tripped on a root and fell. He rolled onto his back just in time to see the giant's path redirected by its own stump and onto him in a deafening crash; pinning his leg to the forest floor. His brother worked tirelessly to get him out from under the tree. It took hours.

In reality Don was lucky to have lived. One of the branches had punctured his left thigh and kept him from being able to slide out.

The doctor had called him brave as he took the leg. He didn't feel brave. He was terrified. Outside of the small pension the military paid him he found himself with no way to meet his family's needs. He tried to rent out his logging equipment and what farming implements he still had, but there wasn't any demand. Finally he sold what he could, parked the rest behind the barn, and leased out his land to his neighbors. There wasn't much else he could do.

But God had been gracious, and he still had food to put on the table for his children. John, his oldest, had stayed to help the past four years. Ever since he turned sixteen he had wanted to join the infantry. It wasn't Don's greatest wish to see his brilliant son become a grunt like his father. But there weren't any wars to fight, and he supposed it couldn't hurt for the boy to see a bit of the world outside Levanton.

He even allowed John to attend the military academy's summer program for young reserves and recruits. But the training only made John more anxious to sign up, and every year Don could tell was a year too long for his son. At twenty he was still working in the village and surrounding area to contribute to the family's needs. Though they appreciated it, it wasn't enough for John. At least he hadn't become too distracted by girls until recently.

Rachel and Lystra were the two daughters that had come after John, twins and a handful from birth. They too pulled their weight in helping their mother with the other children and worked hard around the farm. They kept some of their own animals and sold eggs and milk at market. Don hoped that their recent success in that arena would soon free John to pursue his own dreams.