Johara's Choice

Chapter 3

Erik trudged over the uneven path gouged out of the heath by wagon wheel during times of rain. He contemplated how long it was since he'd last felt a downpour on his skin. Coated in dust and remnants of blood, with the stickiness of sweat mixed into the cloying sensation, he knew he was lucky to be alive, and yet he felt nothing.

When he joined the army four years before, he'd thought it would be fun. See the world, experience new and exciting adventures, wear a dashing red uniform and dazzle the girls with his charm and bravery. No one had warned him of the real toll of war. Well, that wasn't entirely true, either. Now he understood his parents' reservations, but had he listened? No, of course not.

He'd thought they were trying to hold him back and keep him tied to the sleepy village of Kvarn, where nothing ever happened. In actual fact, they were trying to protect him from the horrors he'd ended up witnessing across the sea on a whole new continent where he was stranded without knowing the local language or customs. They'd wanted to spare him the scars he now sported and the uncertainty he faced.

Erik shifted the weight of his musket over his shoulder. Thinking about his family tied heavy pounds to his heart. He'd been a nineteen-year-old fool—had run off at dawn and never written to them. I ought to have sent a forwarding address. He shrugged. Too late now.

He was on his way back, anyway. He'd slink home with his tail between his legs and join the bakery or maybe go into forestry like his friend Phillip. The thought tasted of acid. He could just picture it, standing before his father, head hung low in shame and having to see the pity in his mother's eyes. Erik shuddered.

A stone skittered away under his left foot and drew his gaze. The constant ache in his left ear seeped into his awareness because Erik knew he ought to have heard that pebble better. His right ear only just picked it up, while his left ear heard things as if it were wadded in cotton wool. He turned in a circle, scanning his surroundings. In the distance, white and grey crags with yellowed skirts of grass all around them rose out of a patch of pristine white sand. There were signs of a depression where the bed of pearlescent sand rested. It looked as if a lake might have existed there at a time long distant.

Some trees clung to the sides of the valley; they were pines without any needles. In the dell where he was, all sorts of different trees skirted the strange bleached sand, twisted branches stuck out like the arms of beggars imploring the Dragon in the Sky to send them rain.

Erik had spent his whole life in and around forests, but never before had he seen anything like this. Dried husks of oleander lay on the ground. Wilted bushes he couldn't name dotted the landscape. Along both sides of the track, yellowed leaves clung to claw-like branches, which dotted the undergrowth.

His heart yearned for the dense green of his home, the intense, breath-taking splash of colours it transformed to in the autumn. This lifeless landscape, stretching as far as the eye could see, sent spiders crawling down his spine and reminded him how broken he was.

A dull ache in Erik's ear brought him back from his thoughts. It did that often. More and more, he'd fall into memories of home, only to be jerked back to this desolate reality by the pain in his ear. He shrugged his haversack into a more comfortable position and readjusted the musket resting on his shoulder. On he went, and the silent glade dipped over a rise, giving way to a swath of dried tree trunks.

Erik picked his way over the uneven wagon trail and shivered under the death stare of the leafless tree sentinels standing either side of the track. The sooner he got to Erdalbad, the better. When he did his initial training as a soldier, he'd loved the city of Danaya. Perhaps the capital in this part of the world would be equally exciting. His deepest worry was for money, though. His parting wages from the army had been a disappointment, and he wondered if he'd ever be able to save up enough to pay for passage across the sea. Home was a long way distant.