The Halo Of Vakh (BOOK 1)

KEEPING COUNT

**

Three years later, found him with his bag on his back, bow slung over his shoulder, a sword on his hip and his white-blond hair pulled away from his hair in a small braid. He walked forward into the camp, greeting a few men who spotted him. The two dead rabbits, the trophy of his hunt, swung side to side in his hands. He let them fall in front of the large man who had settled himself in front of the fire. Just as the animals fell to the floor, a woman screamed, followed by the storming of hooves on the forest floor.

He heard the battle cry, loud and clear through his ears. An elderly woman appeared from their tent just as the soldiers rushed into the camp, their swords drawn, eyes shining with malice. He felt someone wrap their arms around his torso and he was lifted into the air.

"Take him," he saw Tyler lunge for his daggers. He pushed Gorth, who had lifted him into his arms, urging the man to run. "Keep him safe. We'll try to hold them off. They'll need the boy. They'll kill him if they see him."

With this, a cloak was thrown over his shoulder, its hood pushed over his head, hiding his face. Gorth took off into the woods, the sounds of clashing swords behind them growing louder and stronger. Lysander put his arms around the man's neck, fear coursing through his veins. He heard a branch crack behind them and turned his head, eyes landing on the man clad in chainmail, running towards them. Gorth put him down. Lysander held on with a fiercer grip.

"Go 'ide in the trees and don't look," he whispered in his ears and shoved him lightly forward. Lysander did not want to do as told. He wanted to stay. He let his arms fall to his side. Gorth turned around himself.

Lysander took measly steps before he broke into a run, crouching behind an oak, head tilted towards the sky in a silent prayer. He covered his eyes. Pushed his fingers hard over his lids till the only thing he saw were colourless spots. He heard the clang of metal against metal, the grunt of the men as they struggled against each other. He sat there for what seemed like hours before the sounds stopped altogether, the forest dipped into a deadly silence.

"Lysander! My dear boy, you can step out, now," Gorth's voice came soft and low, and the boy dashed out, his heart leaping into his throat as he saw the old man holding a hand over his leg, blood seeping between his fingers.

A gash ran across his temple. Lysander stared in horror for a few moments before throwing himself down beside Gorth and curling close into his side, arm twisting around Gorth's waist. Gorth's hand came to rest on Lysander's hair and the rough callused fingers rubbed soothingly at his scalp. Tears had started to flow from Lysander's eyes, salty pools that seeped into his parted lips.

"Go East," Gorth turned his head and his lips caressed Lysander's forehead. "You'll enter the Bathran Range. There's a small cottage there. Wait for two days. If I don't come to get you, go on without me, ey? You got your books?" Lysander nodded to the bag on his back. "Good! Now go!"

And he ran for two days straight, tears streaming down his face.

**

Three months later, he woke up to a loud wail outside his tent. He got out, shivering in the cold that nipped like hungry wolves at his thinly covered skin and blinked at the child outside, sitting with icicles clinging to his short sandy hair., wrapped in only a worn woolen cloth over a thin brown tunic. The boy wailed louder at seeing him and it took Lysander the better part of half an hour to coax the child into his tent. He poked a stick at the burning hot rocks in a pit in the forest ground and wrapped the three year old in his blankets. He had some leftover lentil soup. It had frozen to ice and it took him another half an hour to heat it over the stones. He fed the boy and smiled when the boy told him his name. Thomas. He would help the boy.