The Tribes of K'haren - Completed

Chapter 32.1

On a battlefield in the north of K'haren, a phraio was lying on the ground, dying. He looked around at his comrades – most of them were dead already. A few had survived, he'd watched them gather the wounded for whom there was still hope before they'd retreated. Him, they'd left to die. But he was too tired to mind, they had done what they had to do. The man tried to move his leg but couldn't. It was stuck under something heavy but at least he couldn't feel it anymore, that meant that one part of his body didn't hurt.

The man thought about his home, his family. He had a wife, she was pregnant with their first child. All he wanted was for them to be safe. He stared at the dragon banner on a nearby soldier's forehead and swore. Had they just never engaged with those monsters, this war was so unnecessary. But he had no right to judge his Leader's actions.

When a dark shadow appeared just a few steps away, the man thought he was losing sight and dying. But the shadow kept growing and once it nearly covered the battlefield from one end to the other like a wall of fog, things started coming through. The man recognised some phraio, but most creatures were of different species he had only heard of in fairy tales. In the very end, a huge dragon stepped through, carrying a woman who faintly resembled a phraio and a horned man on its back. The soldier closed his eyes, ready to die, when he heard a sweet voice call for him.

'No rush, there's one more battle that awaits you, soldier.' As if he were in trance, the man opened his eyes and got up, easily removing his leg from under the heavy soldier who had buried it before. His pain was gone once he looked at the woman's face and saw the crown made of darkness on her head.

'Nume, Nume!' Mersha ran towards her, jumping over some fauns who were still trying to sleep despite the sky getting brighter already. The boy had a backpack full of supplies on him, knowing that he might need it soon enough.

'What is it?' Nume asked, rubbing her eyes and yawning.

'I've had a vision, well, two actually, listen, are you listening?' The boy spoke very quickly now. When Nume nodded, he went on. 'There was a battle up in the north and the army of the night has now entered our world. They are here, all of them, even the queen and the king...'

'What?!' Nume shouted, suddenly wide awake.

'Yes, but, listen, this is important, I don't have much time left, any moment now, I'll disappear again. I've done it at night, too, but I don't know how nor why, but I can travel through time! As soon as you ask me whether I'm alright, I'll disappear. But in my vision, I didn't see myself reappear, so I can't tell you when or where that's going to happen. Though I'm pretty sure it will be in this very same spot that I'm standing in right now...'

'Mersha...' Nume interrupted him. 'Calm down, alright? I can't understand you if you talk that quickly anyway. Are you alright?' He could see her reach out a hand for him, but moments before she could touch the boy, everything around him went dark.

Instinctively, Mersha closed his eyes. When he opened them again, he was standing in the middle of a forest. The boy blinked a few times, staring at his surroundings with his mouth wide open. So he'd been wrong then, he could also travel from one place to another, not just through time, Mersha thought. For a moment, he considered staying where he was, but his curiosity was too big. He had to know where he was, so he strolled off into the forest.

It didn't take him long until he found a herd of fauns. They stared at him for a moment before one walked up to him on shaky legs. With an even shakier voice, the man asked Mersha why a dwarf like him had left the mountain halls. For a moment, Mersha was stunned. How could the faun mistaken him for a dwarf? He wasn't that small and certainly not built strongly enough to resemble a dwarf.

'I'm not a dwarf, I'm a phraio.' The boy explained whereupon the fauns exchanged looks. They obviously didn't know what a phraio was. How far away had he travelled? Had he maybe even left K'haren? 'Where am I?' he asked.

'You're in the middle of K'haren, my dear, are you still a child?' another faun asked, looking down on him with caring eyes. Mersha nodded and watched as they discussed what they should do with him. In the end, they decided to bring him to the closest city, not paying any attention to what Mersha had to say about it. One of the fauns picked him up and together with three others, he started running through the dense forest.

The ride was exciting to Mersha, at some point, he couldn't help laughing out of pure joy. The faun who was carrying him jumped over bushes and ducked under low hanging branches in full speed and still managed to talk to his friends at the same time. But when one of them mentioned something about the dretho looking after the boy, all colour faded from Mersha's face.

There were now dretho left in K'haren. They had all died out a long, long time ago. Maybe he had indeed not travelled from one place to another but so far back in time that there was a forest where there would be a field in his time. For a while, the boy was frightened. But then he calmed down, thinking that, last time, he'd returned to his time after a short while, so it certainly wouldn't take much longer for him to get back home, right? Mersha stuck to that thought while the fauns ran on and when they left the forest, standing just above a huge cliff, he held his breath.

They were looking down on a beautiful valley filled with blue and green plants. The river reflected the clouded white sky and there were red ranking plants climbing all the way up the cliff. In the middle of it all, there was a mighty city with many people walking up and down its streets.

'What is this place?' Mersha asked, despite thinking he'd recognised it already.

'This, my child, is the valley of healing. It's where we bring the lost, ill and defeated. The dretho look after them and give them a place to stay. I'm sure they'll be there for you as well.' The faun who was carrying him explained. Mersha stared in wonder at what he knew as the Open Wound. Nothing other than the steep cliff walls and the river flowing through it resembled its future version and the boy couldn't imagine what could have caused a place like this to turn into such a wasteland.

// There you go, don't forget to vote and leave a comment below! What do you think about the valley of healing?