Sol's Valor

Chapter II - The Medallion

After the smoke cleared, the two ventured a short distance to their backpacks.  Pyro reached in and grabbed his canteen of water.  He took a long swig from it and when it had nothing left to give, he threw it back into his bag.  Cade took out a small sandwich he had packed for his day.

For a while Cade could only stare at his food.  What had just happened?  Where had those words come from?  He had never heard them or read them anywhere before.  He needed answers to these questions.

Cade went to grab his canteen from his bag and was met with a sudden shock.  Pyro saw that something was wrong.  “What’s up?” Pyro asked with noticeable concern.

“It’s gone.” Cade said as he searched his bag another time.  Fear clutched his shoulder.  He always kept it close.  His mother had given a pendant to him when he was just a boy.  Cade knew it had special powers, magic powers.  Throughout his childhood adventures with his family the pendant would sometimes resonate with different colors, glowing brightly.  His family never told him why it glowed, he just assumed it was just what happened.

“What’s gone?”

“My family’s keepsake, it was a small medallion I kept on a chain.”  Cade closed his pack and stood up.  He slung it over his back and started searching the close vicinity for his charm.  Cade cursed to himself.  He usually had it around his neck; the only times he didn’t wear it was when he was sparring.  Beside the line of incinerated grass he spotted tracks leading northward.  “You don’t think…there were more agkors?”

Pyro thought for a second, but couldn’t connect the two.  “What would an agkor want with your pendant?”  Cade showed Pyro the wolf tracks straying from the fire blast.

“My mother had given it to me when I was younger.  You know how to use a bow?”

“Nope!”

“Okay we’re set!  Let’s hunt!”  Cade shouted, chuckling to himself.  Humor was one of the things Cade missed most.  Travelling alone is a solemn journey and he was happy to be laughing with someone.

Pyro ran to his backpack, slung it over a shoulder, and began running alongside Cade.  The two warriors set off northward after the agkor tracks, alert at all times for another attack.  They walked in silence for a while, keeping their eyes peeled for anything suspicious.

 “So, Pyro, where are you from?” Cade asked.

“The middle of Emileian.”

“You mean the middle of Sodinaca?  Further east of here?”  Sodinaca is the largest, central-most continent in Emileian.  The planet has several other, smaller, less populated continents scattered throughout the oceans.

“Not quite.  I mean the actual middle.  The core.”

“Are you serious?  Isn’t the core of the planet filled with fire and molten lava?”

“Vulcan caster.”

“Right…right.  So then why are you all the way out here?”

This question struck a chord deep within Pyro, flushing the all the color from his face.  “There was a massacre…not many lived.”  Cade waited for more.  “Ever since I was young, I had extraordinary skills with Vulcan magic and swordsmanship.  Many of the warriors in my clan helped me hone in on my abilities.  They thought I was something special, more than just a know-it-all.  But one day it happened.  Marauders came through the portal where I, and my family, lived.  They slaughtered anyone in their path.”  Pyro stopped walking and took a seat on the side of the trail leaning against a tree.  He curled his legs up and hugged his knees in tight.  “My father told my mother to take me away while he went to help everyone else.  I ran with her until she told me to run for the exit.