1
The Sleeping Warrior
Grimlock’s sword pierced Rena’s chest. A spray of blood escaped Rena’s lips as he cried out. It seemed he had finally won the Realm-war, and his reward would be to watch the light leave Rena’s eyes before releasing his master. He was going to win. Rena slumped onto his long, purple blade. He swept his blond hair back, grabbed Rena by his mane and pulled back his head, not wanting to miss a second of his agony. Rena’s muscles were starting to slacken as energy bled from him.
He was dying. There was no doubt of that anymore, but he told himself, as he lifted his hands to Grimlock’s sword, if he were to die, then he was taking out Grimlock in the process. The second he made that resolve, he no longer felt his own energy filling him. Instead, energy deep inside, where he could not normally reach, rose to aid him. He fixed his eyes on Grimlock’s and with a snarl of loathing pushed the raw energy to the surface and released a dazzling burst of light from his body, grounding his would be killer.
Rena blinked, disorientated. He looked down at the sword in his chest. His hands were in a vice like grip around them. He slowly heaved it out, no longer worried about causing more damage. With the final tug, the wound let burst another cloud of red liquid, staining his brown jacket and green tunic. They would need repairing again if he made it back home; his armour had been no match for that sword. The battlefield was beginning to spin and Rena was becoming dizzier by the second. He could hear a voice in his ears as Grimlock, who had regained consciousness on the ground, blurred in front of him with every step his scarlet stained feet took. His foe was attempting to get up to continue the fight. Grimlock’s flashes of fury were blinking in and out of focus with a bright light. Suddenly, his world went black.
His next memory was a white light, shining in his eyes and a voice, “It’s okay Rena, you won. He’s been locked away. He cannot hurt you anymore”. It was an old, familiar voice which echoed to him soothingly. He knew the battle had ended, but when he tried to remember the events no image sprang to mind. As Rena tried to peice events together and failed, he faded out of consciousness once more.
-
Rena Wolf tore himself from bed years after the memories of events that still plagued his sleep. He yawned wide and stretched like he did every morning. He walked over to his window and looked outside with a frown. He had risen before the first, smallest of the three suns. This, in his book, was strange and he could not bear anything strange, not even anything a little bit out of the ordinary. If just one thing was slightly odd it meant certain disaster. However, perhaps he was overreacting. The tiny yellow sun had just peeked over the trees now, glaring into his eyes. He turned his head to see the shambles that was his bedroom, or more precisely, his house.
He stamped a foot down on the floorboards; to check they had not begun to rot. A solid clunk echoed to him that they were fine. The ceiling, walls and floor were all made of wood. He began to pick things up from the floor in whirlwind motions and throw them at certain positions in the room; into a corner, another corner, under his bed, to a desk under the window. He believed that everything had a place, a function and purpose; why else would it have been created? But the most unusual thing about Rena was not the fact that he lived in a tree house in the middle of a forest, was in a rush to tidy his room, or had woken up early, it was his belief in the fine art of waking at dawn and sleeping at dusk. To him it was just good sense.
Despite his more mature quirks, Rena retained the essence of being a teenager. With every item he flung, he would give a low grumble at the work. He hated cleaning as much as any young person. Also, he had an average aversion to living in an orderly fashion, but his room was messy enough to give any loving mother a heart attack. A house as small as his should not have held so much clutter, but all of his worldly possessions were, with rapid strokes,piled precariously in one corner. By now, Rena’s house was the tidiest it had been in months. He was expecting an important visitor in a few hours. Rena caught sight of a picture frame half buried in the heap of ‘stuff’ he had deemed clean. In it was a photograph of himself as an infant in the arms, and claws, of his expected visitor. This was not an unusual sight as Rena lived in the realm of the Demies, a place rich with special animals each with a range of remarkable abilities. Some had claws instead of hands, and possessed extraordinary strength of mind or body. Rena shook his head and threw a blanket over the pile to hide his younger self from view.
His Demi-wolf cub lay in its crib beside the window next to him. It was curled into a fluffy ball inside its open top, wooden box and was snuffling gently in its sleep. Rena’s rapid clean-up was only the beginning of a very busy morning. As Rena dressed in a filthy ensemble of clothes, that included a heavily, though expertly repaired green tunic; brown sleeveless over-shirt, which may once have had sleeves; and brown pantaloons, he collected the equipment he would need that day. He picked up a rough shell hoe and, without looking, threw it out of a window. Then he placed a number of thin, straight knives into his over-shirt, as well as a long reel of thin rope. On his way through the curtain of leaves that served as his door, Rena shook his Demi-wolf’s crib to wake it for its morning exercises. On the small spit of decking by his door, he stopped and looked down at a weathered piece of rope that hung from the thin wooden barrier his Demies would occasionally climb when they needed to speak to him. He grabbed hold of it and tested his weight; it broke away with a snap. Shaking his head he grabbed the two swords that resembled tricked up machetes, which stood by his door, strapped them to his belt, and then jumped from his enormous tree.
He landed lightly on the ground below. His head darted left and right as he crouched into a protective stance. No foreign scents or sounds of intruders offended his senses so he straightened back up and, as usual headed east to the lake. This was how all his mornings had started since he had taken the job as forest keeper years ago.
Rena began to walk towards the tree line. Turning his head, he saw that his hoe had landed safely by the modest vegetable patch he kept. Plants were beginning to sprout and tiny saplings, that would one day become vegetables, glistened in the early sunlight. This meant the seasons were changing and he cursed the extra work.
Just as Rena reached the eastern path, leading out of the enclosure, he looked back; the Demi-pen, much like a large chicken coop jutted out from the tree line in the south-west. Some Demies preferred the indoors, while others liked the open air. This variety of preferences suited him well over winter, as all of his children hated the cold, in summer he would have to cater to their various needs.
After a few minutes following a mud track, which Rena had cleared some years earlier, he reached the dense jungle. The jungle was asleep. The quiet barely disturbed by the gentle breathing of several species of Demi-kind, who would soon wake, intermingled with the breeze that never slept. There were no nocturnal Demies in Rena’s forest, or at least none that he had encountered yet.
Rena pulled a large, red berry from an overhead branch. It was as big as his palm, and when he bit into its flesh, its juices trickled down his fingers as though it were bleeding. As its sweet, invigorating juices tickled his tongue, his eyes widened, his pace quickened, and a more alert smile appeared on his face.
With new freshness and energy in his step, it was not long before he reached the riverside. He stripped completely naked on the bank. In the water he saw his reflection; the several scars scattered over his body, rippled on the surface. Rena propped his swords against a nearby tree and reluctantly dipped his mud-encrusted clothes in the water, washing free most of the sweat and muck off from the previous day. He hung his clothes carefully from a tree. Once he was satisfied that they would not blow away in the mountain breeze, he stood apprehensively at the water’s edge.
Rena looked out over the still, sparkling waters before him, and through the light, blue mist that surrounded them, to the opposite side of the lake and the steep, forested mountain in the distance. There were still small patches of frost in the grass and on the mountainside. Rena stared out over the waters, inhaled deeply and bellowed at the top of his lungs, “Kalaaaaaaaaaa.” The waters rippled in retreat from his penetrating voice but the fish-Demies, who had left for the season, had not yet returned. Rena shrugged to himself, he knew they would be back to play soon.
Rena knew he had to ‘bathe’ every morning to keep from smelling like a giant, but it seemed an unnecessary pain. “Perhaps it’s some kind of radical endurance training,” he muttered. With a yell, he swiftly dove into the icy water. His feet scrambled on the bottom of the riverbed and he kicked to the surface, spluttering as he climbed back up the bank and out of the water. His body shook although the air now seemed warm on his skin. A curse burst from his lips with a cloud of breath. His lithe, young body sparkled in the light of the fully risen first sun as he dressed again.
Grabbing up his swords once more, white strapping them back on to his belt, he broke into a runHis clothes clung to his body, both still sopping, as he took off on his usual run through the forest. He swung through trees between strides as he ran and stopped every mile or so to check traps with varying degrees of genius behind them. He had covered over five miles by the time the second sun had risen around an hour later. Though finally dry from his dip in the lake, he was freshly covered in sweat and muck. Tired from the long run, Rena approached the final trap, which was, thankfully, buried near his tree house. He knelt at the base of the tree and checked some vines around it. Yes, they were still invisible, and still working. Rena looked at this trap in particular. It was his favourite. It consisted of six vines, each covered with grass underfoot so that they could be safely walked upon. The genius of it was that if an intruder were to trigger the sixth, thinnest vine, it acted as a delayed timer. The vine would release a series of stones causing, after about three seconds, the other five vines to rise up like a net trapping anyone against a thick tree branch above. This naturally, would catch anyone off guard, particularly, because to be caught in the trap you would have to be unaware that it was set.
Rena returned to the clearing just as the forest creatures were waking. He filled two wooden troughs full of strange looking plants before helping himself to a handful. He returned home, crunching a vast mouthful of the strange plant-like material. Rena scaled his tree in two extraordinarily large jumps. Rena crouched low to commence the first jump back into his tree, which blew dust in all directions with the force of his kick off. It sent him rocketing skywards where he gripped a branch. With the branch in one hand and his feet firmly planted, he summersaulted around the limb, before perching on it and again and kicking off. If anyone had been watching, they would have had the impression that he could fly. Naturally, jumping into one’s home is not clever, and once again Rena had landed headlong into the opposite wall underneath his window and collapsed on the floor, rubbing his head and feeling stupid.
Squawks, grunts and a variety of snuffled noises tickled his ears, telling him the Demies knew breakfast was out as usual. He shouted out of the window for quiet to no avail as he applied facial paints with a brush, carved from a twig and a lock from his own hair. He drew orange triangles from either side of his jaw to half way up his cheek. With green paint he drew a small band underneath his eyes from the base of his nose to where his eyes ended.
He then rushed around the room clearing up his makeshift crafting tools, food from the past several days, and objects of varying sizes; bowls, blankets, brushes and even a bucket found their way into the corner. Some he threw precariously into the corner, others he flung out of the wooden frame window. The view outside was breathtakingly beautiful, despite rotting food on the treetops. It seemed Rena was accustomed to using the window as a waste bin. In the distance, just outside of his own forest, he could see his favourite tree, the pink one sticking out like a sore thumb in the canopy.
Rena turned back into the room and stepped over to a rough table. He pulled out a sheet of metal that would one day be crafted into a new knife or sword, and looked at his reflection. It looked like he had simply dipped his head into the lake with his shoulder-length brown hair dangling and messy clumps around his thin, hawkish features. He was sweating profusely and, as he watched, a bead of sweat trickled along his jaw and down his throat. He regarded himself intensely, with eyes as green as the surrounding forest, then, wiping the offending bead of sweat he glanced out of the window.”
He frowned at the weather, which was already mid-spring - nearing summer. Summer meant more work growing food, having to carry water with him as he trained in the woods, and keeping a closer eye on the youngest Demies in case they got heat stroke.
He was glad that the lake was only five minutes from his house, as he remembered the previous summer, gaining blisters from carrying his two buckets from the lake to the tree house thirty times a day; had his journey been longer, he surely would have suffered more than blistered hands. He looked at his hands. He could still see the marks the handles had left in his palms. Their dull burn was still fresh in his memory. Rena had walked over to the Demi’s feeding trough thousands of times, so often in fact that he had measured it approximately one hundred paces in distance from his house.
He stopped cleaning to look out over the forests, smiling, deep contentment filled him while he thought of how his life had left him here and how many times he had escaped death. Very few things had remained with him all his life in this war. One thing that remained, of course, was his unshakable faith. Naturally as Rena was human he had his own beliefs about life and death.
Rena ran his fingers down something which was shaped like a cross on a chain dangling from his left ear; in fact, it was a serrated knife with a green handle.
He traced the knife; its serrated edge threatened to cut his finger. Deep in thought, Rena brushed his thumb down the smooth side of the blade fondly.
The fact was that Rena was not just a simple farmer. He was a martyr for peace. He looked closer at his jacket, remembering why he had stitched each little piece of it. The most memorable repair and the biggest on his tunic hid his most prominent and recent scar. It had been caused by someone who would give their right arm to have the pleasure of stabbing him again. Because he had won that battle, though barely, he had been hunted by the four most evil war lords in the world, the Dark Generals.
Rena pulled his swords from his belt and propped his swords against either side of the door and fixed his gaze on them. The Canis had large, thin triangles of metal attached to one side, which gave the impression it had come directly from a shark’s mouth. Its purpose was specifically for tearing through flesh and plants alike with ease. The Lupine, however, had a very flat blade, compared to the Canis. Its small, tooth like points, ending in a kind of beak designed to cut through magic. Rena had been taught about the nature of magic, and had become competent in its usage following the succession of previous wars, but he knew that being able to use magic was one thing; what he needed was a good defence against it, and thus he created the Lupine.
He frowned as he remembered that the four Dark Generals wanted him dead. He had led a small band of half humans into a battle to face them and their hordes and had defeated all four of the Dark Generals and their masters. Only one foe had remained to challenge Rena. It was, the High Dark GeneralGrimlock. His partner had fled, so he faced Rena alone. His deep hatred of the boy fuelled his determination. He would murder the boy. His, and only his, hand would be the one to run Rena through.
Though he had managed to deal Rena an almost fatal wound, he had missed the heart, and Rena had tapped into his mysterious well of energy which in the following years he came to learn about. It was with this he managed to overpower Grimlock. That battlefield had become so famous it was known throughout the world as ‘The Forest of The Dead’. Grimlock, for his crimes, was sealed away in an island to the far north, He was trapped behind the legendary great gates to the north, where the Demi people hoped to trap all evil forever and return peace to the land. But in the land of the Demies, peace does not last long.
Rena doubled over, his breathing became ragged and his heart was beat furiously, as though it was trying to fill out a lifetime of beats in just a few seconds as he remembered Grimlock’s slender face glaring down at the warm rush of blood that surged from that gaping hole he had carved in Rena’s chest. He remembered Grimlock pulling his hair back from his eyes so he could watch Rena fade away. That voice in the light telling him that he would live. That day had left him with fear that flooded his nightmares and overflowed into waking moments like these.
He reached into his jacket and pulled out a bright pink leaf with red spots. He hastily shoved it in to his mouth and started chewing. The effect was fast, his heart slowed and his breathing relaxed.Rena dropped a final chunk of metal at the foot of the meagre mountain to finish cleaning and sat on the floor. His feet ached inside his steel boots; he longed to remove them and allow his feet to breathe. His wooden knee and elbow armour pads were also superfluous now that he was inside. His red elbow guards and blue knee guards were both made out of an extremely thin, flexible, but tough wood that was found only in his forest. Rena spat the pink gunk that remained of the leaf out of the window. It landed with a splat, staining leaves ona nearby tree.
A black female cat poked its head through the door at the opposite end of the room. It made noises in a strange language that was nothing like a meow. Rena smiled and returned the noises to it, which consisted of low ‘bleehs’ and ‘kees’. The Demi-catrespondedwith more noises in the language of the Demies.
All Demies are born in the form of an animal, and all these animals have a unified language, although different dialects are spoken in different regions around the world. Rena remembered how his visitor sat him down as a boy and had said “Rena, the language of the Demies is an ancient one, well preceding that of Earth’s”. Rena had asked why he had been taught to speak English before Demi, he never did get an answer.
A bird-like Demi flapped in the warm breeze outside. The sun bathed Rena’s thin, pale face. He smiled to himself feeling the warmth tingle his skin. He had been standing there reminiscing for over an hour. The air was fresh as it blew in from the surrounding forests just before mid-day. The sounds of battlewere non-existent here, and it was reassuring to see the tower’s warning beacon over on the horizon was not lit; it signalled there was no immediate threat of war.
Rena was at peace, as he lookedout over the land he protected. Glancing over his shoulder towards the ceiling, he checked the glass ball he had fixed there. Yes, it was still hiding the forest. The swirling, white smoke inside was the sign that it worked; or at least, that was what the visitor had told him years ago when he had explained the ballspowerful enchantment; so powerful that near to five miles was hidden from anyone but himself and those he had told. The enchantments from the ball stretched to the edges of the giants’ forest territories. Rena knew the precise boundaries ofthe enchantment;the jungleoutside of the protection’s limitswas brutal. Rena suppressed a shiver as he remembered his last venture into the wild.
Looking back out of the window he saw all was fine, andbegan to think it would be soon time to feed the Demies again. Just as he was planning what he would put out for them, he noticed what looked like a ball of compressed air, soaringslowly through the sky towards his house. Rena knew what it was, he had seen it many times yet he still gave a start, for a moment he had completely forgotten the visitor was coming, butas it struck midday: the mage arrived.