Chapter 1 - A village in the forest
Submitted August 20, 2007 Updated December 19, 2007 Status Complete | This is the story of how Marinia and Koji really met...the first paragraph is the first of another story, {The tale of Marinia} which isnt posted yet, i place it here to explain something that happens later in this story.
Category:
Fantasy » Characters |
Chapter 1 - A village in the forest
Chapter 1 - A village in the forest
*Prelude*
The tale of Marinia
Sadwa, Koji, and Gindi walked through a dark forest, their two escorts on either side of them. The night was dark, and the escorts, though trained fighters, were not comfortable traveling at night in a strange forest. Strange sounds emanated from the trees and bushes all throughout the forest.
Suddenly, the bushes on either side of the path started rustling.
In an instant, they were surrounded by twelve dark clad fighters wielding strangely curved swords with dangerous, cruel looking hooks. The two warrior guards were no match for the guerilla soldiers, and they were both soon overwhelmed.
It seemed like all was lost.
Then the mysterious figure appeared.
Like a phantom hawk the dark form dropped from the sky on wings that seemed to span the entire sky above the clearing. Its single, straight bladed sword spun in an arc before becoming nothing but a blur as it parted the circle of attackers, throwing them in all directions. Swiftly it dealt with the ones who rose and tried to resist, then it turned to face the three young travelers and their recovering escorts.
The three children stood planted where they were. Never had they seen such a strong, agile warrior.
Silently, it removed its hood.
Before them stood a female, who looked little older than their guards- who were both barely over 17.
“You must be careful here. Come. I will see you safely to your destination.”
She turned without another word and lead them the rest of the way to the village where they had been headed. Soon they were settled in one of the rooms in the inn.
Exhausted, Koji found it surprisingly hard to fall asleep.
Still in a state somewhere between a dream and the waking world, he saw the female warrior appear in the doorway to his room. Surrounded by a strange mist, she was outlined by the lantern light from the open staircase behind her.
Her voice seemed hollow and sure as she spoke.
“We shall meet again someday, when you are old enough.”
She was gone by morning, her words only a haze in his memory. He walked downstairs; his guards and companions were already sitting at tables eating. He took a seat alone in a far corner, wishing to be alone with his confusion from the night before.
An old innkeeper walked over to him with a warm bowl of porridge and sat down beside him.
“So, you're feeling better.” he smiled.
Koji stared at the steaming food.
“That warrior last night-who was she?”
“No one knows. She comes and goes keeping this, and who knows what other areas safe. Some say she comes from beyond this world, others that she is a ghost. All that is known about her is that she is a great healer and has roamed freely across this land sense hundreds of years ago.”
Chapter one- a village in the forest
Crack! Thud! Smash!
The blade whirled and sliced with precise accuracy as its wielder’s arms rose and swung with each new blow.
Kathunk! Boom! Crash!
The sharp double-edged sword became nothing more than a glinting silver blur of the iron and steel tempered with dimonite as the deadly weapon sang in a graceful arc on its way to contact with its adversary.
Marinia leaned back against a tree resting the tip of her blade on the ground before her as she surveyed her work. The pile of dry sticks that now lay before her had only an hour ago been an old dead pine tree. Sighing, she sheathed her blade and hefted the first in the series of bundles making up the pile over her shoulder.
Several years ago, she had agreed to stay with the people making up one of the many tribes inhabiting the forested moon of Kerrista. She had been warmly adopted into their tribe after returning their chief’s children to him. She was considered a narsheesh or a sort of guardian of life and wellness due to her healing skills, as well as being secretly revered as a strong and wise leader by many.
A few years earlier, the chief whose children she had saved had died of old age, and his son, Urodi, had taken his fathers place at the head of the tribe. Urodi was young and rash. He did not share his father’s values or love for peace, and he shunned the advice of his elders.
At first, he had listened to Marinia.
Then one day a group of slave traders had come through the area. While Marinia had secretly freed some of the slaves, Urodi had met with the trade master and learned about buying and selling slaves.
It started with a couple of sisters he had bought. Naturally, Marinia had been outraged. Immediately, she had ordered them released and sent back to their homes and families, and had spent the rest of the afternoon chiding Urodi.
Never the less, he had gone ahead and bought several more slaves by the end of the week.
Once in a while, he was able to sell them on before Marinia found out, but on a more and more regular basis she caught him, more often than not only a short time after a purchase rather than a sale. He had become quite heedless of even her reprimand, and thus more careless about letting her catch him.
He had only recently constructed a lock and bolt secured shack behind his own hut, and Marinia found that she had to keep an eye on that shack for slave activity quite often.
Urodi didn’t like Marinia’s high status among his people, especially sense it was that status that kept him from doing anything about her. The people were just as loyal to her as to their chief, perhaps more, otherwise she wouldn’t have half as much influence on them as she did.
It was a long walk through the forest back to the village from the grove of dead pines, and when she arrived back at the village she was tired. It was around midday, and as she set the bundle of wood down on the severely diminished community pile, she noticed that something was different. It was quiet- too quiet- for this time of day especially. Almost immediately sensing what was going on, she purposefully stalked to the ‘town’s square’, a clearing in front of the chief’s hut used for gatherings and meetings.
True to her suspicions, the entire clearing was crowded with every man, woman, and child- every occupant and member of the tribe. As she drew nearer the crowd, her ears were met by the same awkward silence that hung over the rest of the town- a silence that hung heavier here.
Each member in the gathering was aware that Marinia wad due back any minute now, and they knew all too well what her reaction would be when she found out about this.
Urodi, oblivious to the crowd’s uneasy knowledge concerning Marinia’s eminent return, was rather enjoying himself gloating over his newest slave acquisitions, albeit they did not even understand a word of the language he spoke.
Koji sat alongside a mess of random fellow captives of just about any imaginable collection of species, most of whom were just as baffled as he as to what their new slave owner was saying. He had never heard this kind of language- it sounded like the complicated language of an isolated jungle tribe- pretty much what it was. A few of his fellow captives spoke the same language as Koji did, but the ones who could actually make out what the chief was saying did not speak Koji’s language, though from the looks on their faces, he figured that he probably didn’t even want to know what their gloating captor was saying.
Suddenly, mid-sentence, the strange chieftain was silent. A look of disappointment and bewildered hopelessness formed a slight scowl over his features.
Koji turned to see what had caused such a drastic change in the mood of the prideful young leader. The sea of people that had gathered behind the captives parted simultaneously to let a strong, short, somewhat youthful looking, and direly furious warrior woman pass.
With one stern glance Marinia had seen what had taken place in her absence.
Storming through the crowd of nervous looking people, her eyes blazed with the fire of pure wrath. Without even looking at the new bought slaves, her glare penetrated Urodi’s eyes, burning to his very soul.
“What is this?!” she snapped with rage, “Did you think I wouldn’t find out this time?”
Even Urodi had never seen Marinia this angry, and he cringed under her flaming stare.
Without once blinking an eye she continued her reprimand.
“You call your self leader of this tribe, yet you deliberately go against the one main fundamental this tribe was founded on!”
Her eyes narrowed,
“Freedom!”
Koji watched as the female figure stood for a moment when she had finishes growling snappishly and angrily in the strange tribal tongue to their most recent captor.
She then turned to the captives, a small, sharp dagger drawn. Moving lightly, she knelt beside him and in one swift movement sliced the ropes that bound his wrists and ankles. Several others from the crowd stepped forward to assist in releasing the remainder of the slaves. Koji sat rubbing the places where the ropes had encircled his wrists. A hand reached down and offered to him.
He was amazed at her strength as his liberator practically pulled him to his feet.
“My name is Marinia. You will have to forgive this incident- I should have known this would happen again.” She smiled apologetically as she spoke to Koji perfectly in his own language. He stared at her, dumbfounded at her knowledge of his language.
“But you must be exhausted. Come. I will show you a place where you can wash and sleep.” with that she turned and guided him to her own hut, as the other prisoners had already either left or been taken care of by her other friends in the crowd.
Dinner that night was an open, starlit feast laid out on low tables connected end to end to form one long table by the banks of a stream that flowed by the town’s northern border. Everything had been cooked simply over fires; corn, fresh trout, and thin wafers of sweet bread with a dipping sauce made from raspberries and strawberries with fresh black raspberries sprinkled on top made up the main course. Simple and delicious.
Koji sat next to Marinia as the two ate and spoke.
“Again, I am really sorry that we had to meet like that. Our chief, Urodi here, seems to enjoy ignoring his elders. I have told him-warned him really- about the slave trade, but he doesn't listen to me any more then he did to his own father.”
Koji looked taken aback a bit. “He must be at least 28, but you don’t look a day over 18….” Marinia smiled fondly at her new friend’s common misconception. “Friend, he is well 29, but I haven’t been 18 for many, many years now…..no. I am nearly 6,587 years old now.”
Koji’s eyes widened, his moving lips barely making a sound. “You're….how….old???”
She always found people’s reactions to her age somewhat amusing.
One of Koji’s companions, Vincent, had been listening to their conversation and now his fork clattered to his plate. His eyes were the size of saucers as his jaw dropped. “Ffrohowhacha?!?” He whispered unintelligible syllables in his shock.
Marinia shook her head
“Actually, though I hate to admit this, it was a good thing for you that Urodi was the one who bought you. If he hadn’t….you probably would never have been free again.”
Koji shuddered at the thought.
“Y….yes….T….thank you.”
Marinia again shook her head and forked a piece of fish on her plate.
“The slave trade is an awful thing. When its end does come, it won’t come easy.”
“No, it won’t.”
Their conversation soon drifted to more pleasant topics.
All the while, Vincent sat staring blankly at Marinia, his brain still completely fried. It was late that night when Koji and Marinia finally sent someone who led him off to a bed, where he lay for the rest of the night, still staring blankly into thin air.
The tale of Marinia
Sadwa, Koji, and Gindi walked through a dark forest, their two escorts on either side of them. The night was dark, and the escorts, though trained fighters, were not comfortable traveling at night in a strange forest. Strange sounds emanated from the trees and bushes all throughout the forest.
Suddenly, the bushes on either side of the path started rustling.
In an instant, they were surrounded by twelve dark clad fighters wielding strangely curved swords with dangerous, cruel looking hooks. The two warrior guards were no match for the guerilla soldiers, and they were both soon overwhelmed.
It seemed like all was lost.
Then the mysterious figure appeared.
Like a phantom hawk the dark form dropped from the sky on wings that seemed to span the entire sky above the clearing. Its single, straight bladed sword spun in an arc before becoming nothing but a blur as it parted the circle of attackers, throwing them in all directions. Swiftly it dealt with the ones who rose and tried to resist, then it turned to face the three young travelers and their recovering escorts.
The three children stood planted where they were. Never had they seen such a strong, agile warrior.
Silently, it removed its hood.
Before them stood a female, who looked little older than their guards- who were both barely over 17.
“You must be careful here. Come. I will see you safely to your destination.”
She turned without another word and lead them the rest of the way to the village where they had been headed. Soon they were settled in one of the rooms in the inn.
Exhausted, Koji found it surprisingly hard to fall asleep.
Still in a state somewhere between a dream and the waking world, he saw the female warrior appear in the doorway to his room. Surrounded by a strange mist, she was outlined by the lantern light from the open staircase behind her.
Her voice seemed hollow and sure as she spoke.
“We shall meet again someday, when you are old enough.”
She was gone by morning, her words only a haze in his memory. He walked downstairs; his guards and companions were already sitting at tables eating. He took a seat alone in a far corner, wishing to be alone with his confusion from the night before.
An old innkeeper walked over to him with a warm bowl of porridge and sat down beside him.
“So, you're feeling better.” he smiled.
Koji stared at the steaming food.
“That warrior last night-who was she?”
“No one knows. She comes and goes keeping this, and who knows what other areas safe. Some say she comes from beyond this world, others that she is a ghost. All that is known about her is that she is a great healer and has roamed freely across this land sense hundreds of years ago.”
Chapter one- a village in the forest
Crack! Thud! Smash!
The blade whirled and sliced with precise accuracy as its wielder’s arms rose and swung with each new blow.
Kathunk! Boom! Crash!
The sharp double-edged sword became nothing more than a glinting silver blur of the iron and steel tempered with dimonite as the deadly weapon sang in a graceful arc on its way to contact with its adversary.
Marinia leaned back against a tree resting the tip of her blade on the ground before her as she surveyed her work. The pile of dry sticks that now lay before her had only an hour ago been an old dead pine tree. Sighing, she sheathed her blade and hefted the first in the series of bundles making up the pile over her shoulder.
Several years ago, she had agreed to stay with the people making up one of the many tribes inhabiting the forested moon of Kerrista. She had been warmly adopted into their tribe after returning their chief’s children to him. She was considered a narsheesh or a sort of guardian of life and wellness due to her healing skills, as well as being secretly revered as a strong and wise leader by many.
A few years earlier, the chief whose children she had saved had died of old age, and his son, Urodi, had taken his fathers place at the head of the tribe. Urodi was young and rash. He did not share his father’s values or love for peace, and he shunned the advice of his elders.
At first, he had listened to Marinia.
Then one day a group of slave traders had come through the area. While Marinia had secretly freed some of the slaves, Urodi had met with the trade master and learned about buying and selling slaves.
It started with a couple of sisters he had bought. Naturally, Marinia had been outraged. Immediately, she had ordered them released and sent back to their homes and families, and had spent the rest of the afternoon chiding Urodi.
Never the less, he had gone ahead and bought several more slaves by the end of the week.
Once in a while, he was able to sell them on before Marinia found out, but on a more and more regular basis she caught him, more often than not only a short time after a purchase rather than a sale. He had become quite heedless of even her reprimand, and thus more careless about letting her catch him.
He had only recently constructed a lock and bolt secured shack behind his own hut, and Marinia found that she had to keep an eye on that shack for slave activity quite often.
Urodi didn’t like Marinia’s high status among his people, especially sense it was that status that kept him from doing anything about her. The people were just as loyal to her as to their chief, perhaps more, otherwise she wouldn’t have half as much influence on them as she did.
It was a long walk through the forest back to the village from the grove of dead pines, and when she arrived back at the village she was tired. It was around midday, and as she set the bundle of wood down on the severely diminished community pile, she noticed that something was different. It was quiet- too quiet- for this time of day especially. Almost immediately sensing what was going on, she purposefully stalked to the ‘town’s square’, a clearing in front of the chief’s hut used for gatherings and meetings.
True to her suspicions, the entire clearing was crowded with every man, woman, and child- every occupant and member of the tribe. As she drew nearer the crowd, her ears were met by the same awkward silence that hung over the rest of the town- a silence that hung heavier here.
Each member in the gathering was aware that Marinia wad due back any minute now, and they knew all too well what her reaction would be when she found out about this.
Urodi, oblivious to the crowd’s uneasy knowledge concerning Marinia’s eminent return, was rather enjoying himself gloating over his newest slave acquisitions, albeit they did not even understand a word of the language he spoke.
Koji sat alongside a mess of random fellow captives of just about any imaginable collection of species, most of whom were just as baffled as he as to what their new slave owner was saying. He had never heard this kind of language- it sounded like the complicated language of an isolated jungle tribe- pretty much what it was. A few of his fellow captives spoke the same language as Koji did, but the ones who could actually make out what the chief was saying did not speak Koji’s language, though from the looks on their faces, he figured that he probably didn’t even want to know what their gloating captor was saying.
Suddenly, mid-sentence, the strange chieftain was silent. A look of disappointment and bewildered hopelessness formed a slight scowl over his features.
Koji turned to see what had caused such a drastic change in the mood of the prideful young leader. The sea of people that had gathered behind the captives parted simultaneously to let a strong, short, somewhat youthful looking, and direly furious warrior woman pass.
With one stern glance Marinia had seen what had taken place in her absence.
Storming through the crowd of nervous looking people, her eyes blazed with the fire of pure wrath. Without even looking at the new bought slaves, her glare penetrated Urodi’s eyes, burning to his very soul.
“What is this?!” she snapped with rage, “Did you think I wouldn’t find out this time?”
Even Urodi had never seen Marinia this angry, and he cringed under her flaming stare.
Without once blinking an eye she continued her reprimand.
“You call your self leader of this tribe, yet you deliberately go against the one main fundamental this tribe was founded on!”
Her eyes narrowed,
“Freedom!”
Koji watched as the female figure stood for a moment when she had finishes growling snappishly and angrily in the strange tribal tongue to their most recent captor.
She then turned to the captives, a small, sharp dagger drawn. Moving lightly, she knelt beside him and in one swift movement sliced the ropes that bound his wrists and ankles. Several others from the crowd stepped forward to assist in releasing the remainder of the slaves. Koji sat rubbing the places where the ropes had encircled his wrists. A hand reached down and offered to him.
He was amazed at her strength as his liberator practically pulled him to his feet.
“My name is Marinia. You will have to forgive this incident- I should have known this would happen again.” She smiled apologetically as she spoke to Koji perfectly in his own language. He stared at her, dumbfounded at her knowledge of his language.
“But you must be exhausted. Come. I will show you a place where you can wash and sleep.” with that she turned and guided him to her own hut, as the other prisoners had already either left or been taken care of by her other friends in the crowd.
Dinner that night was an open, starlit feast laid out on low tables connected end to end to form one long table by the banks of a stream that flowed by the town’s northern border. Everything had been cooked simply over fires; corn, fresh trout, and thin wafers of sweet bread with a dipping sauce made from raspberries and strawberries with fresh black raspberries sprinkled on top made up the main course. Simple and delicious.
Koji sat next to Marinia as the two ate and spoke.
“Again, I am really sorry that we had to meet like that. Our chief, Urodi here, seems to enjoy ignoring his elders. I have told him-warned him really- about the slave trade, but he doesn't listen to me any more then he did to his own father.”
Koji looked taken aback a bit. “He must be at least 28, but you don’t look a day over 18….” Marinia smiled fondly at her new friend’s common misconception. “Friend, he is well 29, but I haven’t been 18 for many, many years now…..no. I am nearly 6,587 years old now.”
Koji’s eyes widened, his moving lips barely making a sound. “You're….how….old???”
She always found people’s reactions to her age somewhat amusing.
One of Koji’s companions, Vincent, had been listening to their conversation and now his fork clattered to his plate. His eyes were the size of saucers as his jaw dropped. “Ffrohowhacha?!?” He whispered unintelligible syllables in his shock.
Marinia shook her head
“Actually, though I hate to admit this, it was a good thing for you that Urodi was the one who bought you. If he hadn’t….you probably would never have been free again.”
Koji shuddered at the thought.
“Y….yes….T….thank you.”
Marinia again shook her head and forked a piece of fish on her plate.
“The slave trade is an awful thing. When its end does come, it won’t come easy.”
“No, it won’t.”
Their conversation soon drifted to more pleasant topics.
All the while, Vincent sat staring blankly at Marinia, his brain still completely fried. It was late that night when Koji and Marinia finally sent someone who led him off to a bed, where he lay for the rest of the night, still staring blankly into thin air.
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