Windcatcher: Book I of the Stone War Chronicles (5 page)

Gavin spun around on his feet taking a defensive stance while shifting away from his little brother. His eyes dared Raylan to take action.

Raylan moved in and reached out with his hand. He barely pulled it back in time when Gavin slashed the sword through the air.

“Hey! Watch it!” said Raylan, angrily.

“You’ll have to do better than that, little brother.”

Looking around, Raylan took a plain blade from the sword rack and launched a stab at his brother. They had been practicing with real swords for quite some time now. They knew the reach and amount of thrust they could use to make the attack feel real but not pose any real danger of injury.

Gavin easily parried the attack with the gemmed sword. The metal clash rang through the shop.

“Nice try, but you’re too slow.”

Raylan tried a couple more slashes.

“Nope, still not there, little brother. You’ll never beat me,” taunted Gavin. “Not fast enough, not strong enough. You’ll never touch a sword as fine as this.”

Raylan did not know if his brother was pushing his buttons more than usual, or perhaps it was the heat, but something in him snapped. Instead of focusing on his sword, he stepped in, sliding his sword along their father’s masterpiece. Pushing it out of the way, he brought up the back of his sword and slammed it into Gavin’s face. A big gash opened on his nose and blood rushed out.

“Oof! What the hell, Raylan! We never practiced that!” he yelled, losing his temper in turn.

Gavin pushed him back with furious slashes. Shocked that he had finally broken his brother’s defense and landed a blow on him, Raylan could do nothing else but step backward, parrying off hit after hit. When his back hit the wall, Gavin came at him with a powerful downward slash. Raylan held up his sword, trying to defend against the slash; but the power of the blow slammed away his sword, cutting his right eyebrow. Now both boys had blood gushing down their faces.

“It will take more than that to beat me. I’m still the best, but don’t worry…I’ll be sure to protect my little brother in real life,” he said, with a smug smile.

Raylan never liked it when his brother made him feel like he could not do anything right. He was about to say something, when the sound of the workshop door slamming closed startled both of them. The world around them came rushing back in.

“What on God’s earth is going on?” boomed their father, “Why are you holding swords? GAVIN! Is that the sword I just finished?”

Their dad grabbed Gavin’s arm and yanked the sword from his hands. Both boys looked at their father with large, shocked eyes as he shouted every curse word of the known kingdoms.

“Now be gone! You’re not allowed in the workshop anymore without me present! Go on, skit! Get those cuts cleaned and start cleaning out the forge furnace, right away!”

“But that will take us the entire night!” protested Raylan.

“Precisely. Perhaps that will teach you not to take my hard work and damage it!” roared their father.

They got out of there as quickly as possible, hearing their father cursing as the door closed.

“Guess you can’t protect me from everything,” said Raylan, looking at his brother.

It felt like a small victory, in the end.

The image of Gavin, bringing down the gemmed sword onto him, faded away. It took Raylan a moment to realize that Gavin was still there, towering besides him. But instead of the gemmed sword coming at him, his brother’s sword blocked the incoming attack of the enemy soldier. It hovered no more than two inches from Raylan’s face.

Both swords trembled from the power struggle Gavin was having with their enemy. With a loud scream, Gavin used both hands to force his sword upward, throwing the broken nose attacker backward and onto his back. Landing on the ground, the soldier hit his head on a large rock sticking out of the ground. The force of the impact could have been fatal, if the soldier was not wearing his helmet.

Disoriented by the second blow to his head, the enemy soldier scrambled backward—away from Gavin, Raylan and Ca’lek—struggling to get his bearings. The immediate danger averted, Gavin looked over his shoulder with a big grin.

“Seems like I can still protect my little brother when needed. You alright?”

Raylan blinked for the first time in what seemed like ages.

“Thanks,” he stammered. “That was a close one.”

He got up and looked around.

“Do you intend to let him get away? We need to go after him.”

The soldier seemed to disappear behind a larger rock formation, out of sight.

“No, but not many soldiers are still breathing. And, I would like to get some information from this one, if we can take him alive,” Gavin explained.

“Ca’lek, go check on the others and see if any enemies still remain. Raylan and I will pursue our bloody nose friend and see if we can secure him for questioning.”

They saw Ca’lek jog off in the direction of the last sounds of metal clashing and vanish from the soft light of a smoldering campfire, which seemed to be finally losing its fight against the rain.

Raylan followed his brother on the path that the soldier scurried toward. The path from the campsite rounded a corner and the wagons of the small enemy convoy came into view. Slowly edging forward, both brothers looked around, trying to determine where the enemy hid himself.

Getting closer to the wagons, Raylan heard a soft mumbling. Signaling his brother toward the closest wagon, they both moved to the back of it. The mumbling grew stronger, but it was hard to determine where it came from. It was not a language Raylan recognized; a strange, deep tone was heard under the words. Signaling three fingers to Raylan, Gavin counted backward before grabbing the side of the cloth and pulling it strongly to the side, while Raylan braced himself for a possible attack. The wagon was empty, except for a pile of dried wood. Not much was left of it, but it seemed like the soldiers brought firewood to keep them warm in the harsh environment of the White North. Raylan could not imagine how many of these wagons with wood would be needed to keep a large attack force from freezing in those mountains.

Movement on the rock above them revealed Kevhin, taking up a position on the high ground, ready to assist in case of danger. They snuck toward the next wagon, as the mumbling grew more intense and a deep zooming sound resonated in the surroundings. As Gavin pulled the cloth of the wagon to the side, Raylan stood ready to spring into action; but what they found inside of the wagon was not what they expected.

Once his sight adjusted to the lower light level in the wagon’s interior, Raylan saw two giant feet pointing toward him, so dark in color they could not be from a real man. In fact, it looked like a black stone statue.

Why would they be transporting such a thing?
Raylan wondered, for a moment.
Is this the object Xi’Lao is looking for? Then what happened to the chest?

The mumbling increased and he made out the soldier with the broken nose in the far corner of the wagon. Sitting on his knees, clutching a small scroll of parchment, the soldier slowly rocked back and forth, as if in prayer. The deep zooming sound grew louder and Raylan heard the rattling of the wagon as it vibrated with the sound.

“Come out of there!” said Raylan.

Gavin shifted beside him, checking on what was happening in the wagon, sword at the ready for any surprises.

The soldier did not react to the command. His mumbling became louder, as he seemed to repeat a phrase in a language Raylan had never heard before. The soldier’s voice seemed to build with the intensity of the resonating deep tone. The vibration became so penetrating, it felt like their heads were splitting. They moved their hands to their ears, trying to block the sound.

In the back, the remaining members of the squad came running up, wondering what was happening. While continuing the phrase, the soldier took the scroll and made a deep cut in his hand with his dagger. As his bloody hand grabbed the scroll, a faint blue light immediately emanated from the scroll. The glow rapidly increased into a bright flare almost too bright to look at. The others saw the blue light, shining through holes of the cloth around the wagon, while the sound seemed to echo all around the rocks.

As both brothers felt their ears painfully object, the sound affected their equilibrium, making it hard for them to stay on their feet. Gavin turned his head away from the bright light, but Raylan squinted his eyes, trying to keep the enemy soldier in his sight.

The bottom of the scroll had two long, pointed blades at each end, as if the scroll could be rolled out and stuck in the ground, forming a small banner. The blades of each point were actually two crossed blades, which left the imprint of an X, if stuck in the earth and pulled back out again. But it soon became clear to Raylan that those sharp tips were not meant to be stuck in the ground at all. The soldier raised the bloody scroll high above what seemed to be the chest of the large, dark statue. Suddenly, jerking his head sideways, he looked Raylan straight in his eyes. His voice thick with a foreign accent Raylan had never heard before, the soldier roared at the top of his lungs, “Long live the Stone King! You won’t stop the mountain from crushing you! You will be buried under it in darkness!”

With one mighty thrust, the soldier plunged the pointed scroll directly into the statue’s chest. A high-pitched screech blasted out of the soldier, as his head jerked backward into his neck, and his face stared up to the heavens.

The blue light from the scroll engulfed the soldier’s entire body; it looked liquid—almost alive—swirling around the skin and armor, sometimes sparking like small lightning. Raylan saw blue flames burn the soldier’s eyes out of their sockets, while a glow was seen through the stretched cheeks as light rose from his mouth. The blue aura seemed to flow out of the soldier—toward the scroll—at an increasing speed, feeding the bright blue flare more and more.

All of a sudden, all of the deafening noise imploded, as Raylan felt the air being sucked into the wagon. The last of the blue light rushed from the soldier, directly through the scroll, into the statue. At the moment the blue light disappeared, a sudden shockwave erupted from the statue’s chest, blowing both brothers off their feet. The other members of the team, not being as near to the source of the blast, only had a moment to brace themselves. Most withstood the sudden wall of wind, but turned away their heads away to prevent all the sand and dirt from flying into their eyes. Kevhin was the one most taken by surprise; he found himself tumbling backward off the rock he had taken up position on. Rohan quickly disappeared behind the rock, checking if his friend was alright.

The silence was as deafening as the chanting had been. As he scrambled to his feet, Raylan shook his head, trying to get rid of a painful buzzing in his head. He looked into the wagon at the soldier, now slumped forward over the large statue. His face looked like it had been dried in the sun for many years. The eye sockets were two gaping black holes with burn marks on the edges, and his mouth stretched open further than any normal human could do himself. It was enough to make Raylan turn his head away, when a movement caught his eye.

The wagon creaked loudly, struggling under a sudden shift in weight. Hardly believing his eyes, Raylan saw the giant statue tremble and rise—first its head and then its torso—upward. Two glowing blue eyes stared, with an icy emptiness, out of the darkness of the wagon directly at him, as if measuring him up. Slowly, the statue looked at the mummified soldier and effortlessly swatted the corpse through the wooden floorboards of the wagon. With a loud crash, the wagon instantly broke in two, slamming the moving statue onto the ground. As it got up, they heard the sound of rocks crushing.

“Get back!” Raylan yelled to Gavin, who was still getting his focus back from the sudden blast.

Raylan grabbed his brother’s arm and dragged him backward as the statue broke free from the wreckage of the wagon. It straightened itself out, and for the first time, Raylan saw the full length of the stone man. The feet already looked huge, but now he saw that this thing—this non-living, moving thing—was gigantic. It was at least three heads taller than Galen, who was the largest in the group. As the stone giant moved, small chunks of rock broke off its knees, elbows and other joints; its once very square body turned more human-like with every crumble. The stone giant looked at its hands, which consisted of a single, solid piece of rock, as if someone had glued the fingers together. As the giant strained its stone hand, cracks formed. Stretching wide, the stone slab broke into a fully functioning hand with five fingers. As it flexed its newly made fingers, the statue looked around. Gavin and Raylan moved backward till they reached Galen, Xi’Lao and Stephen. Peadar rushed up with two swords he retrieved. Gavin and Raylan had dropped theirs when they were knocked off their feet. To the side, Raylan saw Harwin and Ca’lek take up flanking positions.

Seemingly satisfied with its hands, the stone giant slowly looked down at them. Stepping one foot toward them, it stretched its neck forward; its arms trembled in front of it, as a low sound resonated again. Its face had no distinct features: no eyebrows, no nose and hollow eye sockets—with icy blue light deep inside. The sound of splitting rock was barely noticeable as a thin crack slowly formed in the place where a normal human would have a mouth. Its body trembled with effort as the crack grew wider and finally formed a mouth. Spreading its newly formed mouth wide, it released a deep roar that Raylan felt in his bones.