Chapter 2

Déa fled from her home, clutching the one family treasure close to her chest. She never thought that it would come to this, leaving behind her family, her home, the golden sea. She thought the rivalry between the two races would have finished years ago, would never affect her. How wrong she had been.

Those bastards had raided her village, plundering, burning everything in sight. No discrimination, no thought. They murdered anyone that stood in their way. All to prove their futile points.

Her Father had stayed behind, adamant that he would stand tall and not give in to these arrogant halfwits. She had no idea where the rest of her family was. Fled, hopefully. But they could be like the others. Ground into the dirt by invader’s boots. Dead.

Shaking the hopeless thoughts from her head, she stumbled on, only now allowing the last moments of peace filter through to her.

It had been peaceful, homely. Déa and her Father had been warming themselves by a fire, crackling wood disturbing the comfortable silence. As the warming scent of burning wood had slowly encircled her, her Father had begun to speak. He told her of his plan for her. She had smiled, pleased that for once she would be of some help, instead of just a lone figure, disrupting everything she touched.

Then he had given her the jewel. Told her never to loose it. Never to give it away. It was precious, powerful. They would see it, and try to take it from her. They would stop at nothing to get it.

It was as if he knew, Déa thought now as she scrambled ungraciously through the undergrowth. As if he knew that they were going to be attacked. He had given her the jewel so she could run. He had given her the jewel because he trusted her with it. Trusted her with the fate of her world.

Suddenly her foot caught on a vine, sending her tumbling down a small embankment. Gasping in shock, Déa instantly drew out the mud sodden jewel. Hastily wiping at the sears, the gleam of the golden Gem slowly appeared, capturing her in its wake.

Minutes passed, taken by the jewel, until the noises around her made no sense, the chilling pressure of the battle behind her faded from consciousness.

A sudden shout, however, startled her from the hypnosis. It was close. Too close. Quickly scrambling onto her feet, she once more began racing away from the intruding Curs.

The Goldenmoor Forest was the biggest in the country. Countless people would find themselves walking around in circles for hours without any clue of the direction. But not Déa. After spending the whole of her sixteen years in the forest, adventuring, playing, every turn was as familiar to her as the back of her bow hand.

So many years without being trodden, the undergrowth was almost as dense as the thick canopy above that only occasionally let in slivers of light. To some of the most experienced travellers, the black landscape was almost impassable, even with a torch to chase away the shadows. But every twist and turn, every drop and rise, didn’t faze the trained Déa, especially on this side of the river. Almost every day in her childhood, she had been trained by Itanio, her tutor. There wasn’t, hadn’t been, a better one in the whole of Agrogon.

But then, the same brutes that were chasing out her village now, had murdered him. It was meant as a warning to the rest of us. Clear out, or face the same fate. My Father, proud and loyal as he was, had refused to move, persuading many people to do the same. But some had left. Those traitorous scoundrels had gone to the Curs to have their ‘souls cleansed’, as they had put it. The Curs spun them stories of bliss and euphoria, but all they really earned by leaving their people was torture and poverty.

As tired as she was, Déa couldn’t help the sharp laugh that escaped her. Bliss and euphoria? I could get that in one hit of tobowee. A pleasure drug, over the past twenty years, it has increased in popularity until it could be bought in almost all roadside stalls. Déa cursed. No money. No tobowee.

After the Death of Itanio, her Father had taken over the training. The sessions became less frequent and shorter as his duties got in the way, as the times got more dangerous, but anyone could see that Déa didn’t really need more work. She was as good as the best. ‘My little wood nymph’, her Father had called her. ‘Be careful, or they might come and take you away in the night. You’d be a good asset to their causes’. In reality, the lessons were just a time for Déa to spend time with her beloved Father. With an older brother and younger sister, all other time was taken up raising and training them, in life and battle.

Lost in rapturous thoughts of past endeavours with tobowee, Déa stumbled as she reached a sudden drop. Below her the raging water was tossed downhill, hitting stonewalls Déa’s people had erected at the side of it. It spilt before her, both trails leading her to the sea, but by different ways.

“Already?” Déa muttered. “I guess my thoughts took me further than I expected.

Frowning, she considered her options. Jump the river right side and run into lesser-known territory, jump the left side river and cross into Zandion, or continue upwards with the river and meet the small mountain range. The way to Zandion was dangerous. Sentinels would stand over the river to dissuade intruders and for all she knew, the invaders had come from the large, stone town. The way to the mountains was little less dangerous, with slippery rocks and infrequent hand and foot holds. The forest to the right was not well known to Déa. Her training had never taken her into it that often. It would be easy to become lost. Any way that she chose wouldn’t be easy, much harder then the way she had just come.

A loud rustle from near behind her demanded that she choose instantly. She growled in indignation before choosing the right route, the seeming less dangerous one. Not pausing to see how far behind her enemy had gotton, she elegantly jumped the 15 ft over the roaring river.

A manly gasp from behind her pulled her attention back to her pursuer. A lean soldier stood the other side of the water, his face an image of pure shock. His unruly brown hair was plastered to his face, sweat dripped from every pore.

What did they expect? Déa thought. That’s what you get when you wear army garb. When are they going to learn?

She laughed melodically as she surveyed the harsh blue of the Crusader uniform. A tight leather cuirass held firm to the man’s slender body, the same with the blue greaves. A crudely made metal sword was sheathed by his waist. The man’s helm and shield seemed to have been lost somewhere in the wood. No doubt he would get a beating for his carelessness.

Realising she had lingered here too long, Déa immediately raised herself from her cat like crouch and once more began navigating the dense woodland. She left behind the man’s tiring shouts as he plummeted himself into the numbing water. A frown once more creased Déa’s young face as she realised he would prefer to have died trying to capture her, than have faced the punishment for losing the target.

It only took moments for Déa to realise that this side of Goldenmoor Forest was almost impassable, even for her. It would have taken another sixteen years of her life to become as accustomed to this side as she was to the other.

Grunting in pain as a loose branch snapped back and hit across her pale skinned cheek, Déa finally realised passing here was not going to happen without aid. Leaning her back against a nearby oak tree, she quickly unsheathed a small dagger from her waist whilst pushing away the small river of blood now making its way across her jaw.

The dagger had been a present from her Brother for her sixteenth birthday. A beautifully manufactured blade, the silver material was one of the hardest around whilst a rich pattern of forests and flowers only added to the blades glory. Such a wonderful object should not be used to attack the very thing it paid homage to.

Sighing as she realised that the blade would never again shine golden in the setting sun as it has done before, she pushed herself off the tree and began hacking at the surrounding vines.

Realising that this method was only going to push her further off course as she tried to find the thinnest undergrowth, Déa once more stopped. Having been working for five minutes and only encroaching a few feet into the forest, she decided this wasn’t the best option available. Sheathing the dagger, she dropped onto her haunches as she searched for alternate options.

“There are always five ways to travel,” Déa said, mimicking what Itanio had told her so many years before. “Water, land, underground, air and… climbing. Of course.”

Moving once more into a cat like crouch, Déa launched herself straight upwards into the canopy of trees.

Rearranging her stepping on the branch she had landed on, Déa began jumping, swinging, climbing, from one tree to the next. Occasionally breaking the head of the forest to check her direction, she made good pace, heading for the edge of the forest, and the perils beyond.

Yanking her black hair away from her bloodied cheek once more, Déa growled in annoyance. Father had always loved her hair, long and luscious. He said it had made her more exotic than her golden eyes ever could. She had always wanted it shorter. It was better for adventures. Once she had, cutting it crudely with a knife just short of the nape of her neck. The look of disappointment on her Father’s face had ensured that never again would she take a dagger to her locks.

“But that doesn’t stop me wanting to,” she grumbled. Settling herself on her current branch, she drew a red ribbon from the pocket at the top of her small shorts. Expectedly twisting it round her hair and tying it firmly at the centre of her head, her hair danced excitedly at the small of her back.

Satisfied with her handiwork, she once again started to make her way through the trees, only this time it was slightly less annoying.

About an hour later, the trees abruptly stopped and Déa found herself swinging from the last tree and rolling into the dusty desert of East Agrogon. To the right of her was another river coming from the mountains. Rushing over, Déa pooled her hands and took several large gulps of the refreshing water, never before realising how thirsty she had become.

Along with the thirst came the exhaustion. Pulling a small sundial from the same pocket as the ribbon had come earlier, Déa quickly aligned it with North to read the time. Midday.

With the sun burning her back, Déa observed her surroundings and once more oversaw her options. Behind her now were the river, and the castle. A shiver rippled its way down her spine as the image of the looming mountains and dark abode of the King entered her mind. Of nothing else was Déa afraid, but the castle always made her skin creep in an unreasonable way.

Shaking the images from her mind, Déa finally realised that her only real option was to go forward. To go out into the uninhabited land at the centre of East Agrogon. The scorching desert posted high risks, but there was no other choice.

Déa groaned as she realised she had forgotten to bring her water case with her. It was a simple bag, but it would have done the trick. She groaned anew when it became apparent that she would have to follow the river round so she would always have a fresh source of water. Not only did this vastly increase the length of any journey, but it would also bring her uncomfortably close to the Castle Danson. Setting her ways, she determinedly started off on her long journey. 

Disturbed and unnerved, Déa quickly lapsed into her habit of talking to herself. Her Mother had so often referred to it as ‘ungodly’. I always asked after, what does she care about the Gods?

“What are you going to do, Déa? What a predicament you seem to had gotton yourself into. Déa? No, that will never do. If you use that name, they’ll find you. I need a new one. Something so unlike my first name, but familiar enough that I will answer to it.”

Alanala

“Alanala, my Grandmother’s name. I would almost certainly turn at the sound of it.”

Only minutes later, a wave of exhaustion crashed over Déa as the adventures finally caught up to her. Placing the Jewel safely by her breast, she disregarded the blood trickling from her hand where she had gripped the treasure, and collapsed under the weight of the sky.