Guardian Spirit

Chapter 7

Nala made good time in her travel through the forest, but the need to hunt for food forced her to make camp early that day on a small clearing surrounded by birches and alders. Scavenging through the forest she found some berries to tide her through the night and the trap she set caught a rabbit. She slowly roasted the thin slices of rabbit over a small fire, essentially drying the meat so it would stay edible for a few days. She knew the faster she got to Ramyn to meet Skander the better.

During the day she had been busy keeping up the fast pace, but as the sun began to set and darkness crept to the small clearing like a cat ambushing its prey, she found herself needing answers that had earlier been put aside. Cross legged, she sat before the small fire, enjoying its warmth, and laid her two swords on her lap. She grabbed both by the hilt and concentrated to call her parents spirits. It did not take long for her parents presence to flow to the swords and their thoughts to reach out to meet hers, but even after only a short walk away from the tree she could tell it was more difficult for her parents to come to her call.

“You said there would be time to talk later. Now seems like a good time,” said Nala in her thoughts with a feeling that such explanations should have come to her along time ago.

“What is it you wish to know?” the voice of her mother echoed in her mind. Hearing her voice gave Nala a warm feeling even now. She knew there would be times when she'd find consolation in her voice as well as her fathers.

“What is the Sun Blade? Why is it so important?” the questions shot from Nala's mind like an arrow from a bow. She sensed the hesitation in her parents minds, but she waited patiently, realizing this was an issue of great consequence.

“You know the story of Deremoth being sealed away,” the voice of Nala's mother explained, “What is often not told in detail is how it was done. Deremoth had taken over a black dragon. Finally, after many battles and many deaths, he and his followers were driven to an valley in the mountain range surrounding the troll kingdom. It took ten of the most powerful priests of the realm to complete the seal. As a key, they used the Sun Blade.”

“Why is it not properly guarded? Why was it here, in fathers possession?” asked Nala, feeling it absurd that such an important item was laying around at the house of a meagre forest guardian instead of being sealed in the vaults of the elven kingdom.

“The sword was lost when the seal was completed” answered her father. “The forces involved in the sealing were so immense that the ground split and released molten rock. That valley, that volcano, is now known as Moroth's Tooth.” Her fathers voice grew almost sombre, “Few survived from that valley, even fewer who recalled what had happened to the sword. Inside that volcano lays the dragon, sealed away with what Deremoth had infused of himself into it and the sword is what can release him and that beast.”

“But why was it here?” Nala persisted.

“The power of the eruption threw the sword far away and it travelled even further in the hands of those who did not know what it was,” continued Nala's father, “It was pure chance that I, your mother and the group we were travelling with, happened upon it on one of our adventures.”

“Why did you not take it to the elven kingdom for safe keeping?” Nala inquired.

“We did!” the frustration in her father's voice was clear as day, “It was the decision of the High Council that it was safer to let the sword remain lost and in the hands of someone who would not draw too much attention, than to store it in a vault under heavy guard.”

Nala could see the logic behind the decision. Vaults attracted attention no matter what and even a heavily guarded one could fall victim to a skilled thief. That would have left the sword truly lost again, instead of being hidden in a place where few thieves would even give it a second look.