Karnavia

Valderon was sitting atop a large, gray boulder about ten feet high planted into the dark green grass. A few feet in front of the boulder was a campfire, with Gavinor laying on his side in front of it. The Centaur was reading from a red jacket book that Valderon couldn’t identify. Valderon was sharpening his blade with a small, palm sized round stone. The sound of the rock slowly scraping against the blade echoed through the cricket filled night along with the crackling of the lit fire. The two pearl moons rested directly above them, one noticeably smaller than the other, and slightly below and to the left of the larger one.
“So,” Gavinor finally said in his suave and middle aged voice, “what led you to becoming a soldier for hire?”
The scraping sound stopped, and Valderon looked at Gavinor, still resting below him. He was silent, with slightly red eyes, then went back to his sword. He spoke up a moment later in his usual, serious tone.
“I lost the will to lead an ordinary life.”
Gavinor looked up from his book, curious now.
“How so, if I might ask?”
Valderon paused again, and raised one hand to his head, and brushed a strand of his hair that was hanging over his right eye. The memories began to fill his mind again. These were memories that had stained his heart years ago, and ones that he could never forget.
“There was a woman.”
Gavinor shut his book and put it on the ground next to him, and extended his right arm towards the fire to warm his hand.
“She was yours?”
“Aye, mine she was, and so I was hers.”
Valderon began to sharpen his sword again as her face flashed into his mind once more. After all these years, he could still recognize her beautiful face in an instant.
“I thought she was a goddess, in a human form. She was flawless in every conceivable way.”
Gavinor looked into the flames.
“I know the feeling,” he said somberly.
“I was once a blacksmith,” Valderon reminisced, “one that forged swords rather than used them. I would return to our hovel at night.”
He looked up at the two moons again, still rubbing the blade with the stone.
“At about this exact time,” he added, “and she would always be awake, waiting for me with lit eyes.”
Gavinor rested his arm on the dirt again, warm. He looked at his companion on the rock, who was visibly heartbroken.
“She would always tell me how fiercely she loved me, and how her love for me would never recede. I would return home under the moons, battered and restless from the long day of fashioning weapons of war, and she would comfort me with words and serenades fit for a legend rather than a dirty blacksmith.”
Valderon looked down, and saw his reflection very faintly within his own blade. He looked at himself, and what he had become, and felt nothing but grief.
“I’ve never spoken of her with another person,” he said grimly, pausing for a moment to rub a tear forming in his left eye.
Gavinor looked back into the fire again, imagining the woman he had been told about.
“So why tell me?”
Valderon looked at the resting Centaur, with bleak eyes.
“I’m not sure,” he answered, “there’s just some feeling about you, as if she tells me to trust you.”
“And do you trust me?”
“I’m not sure.”
Gavinor chuckled softly, listening to the hissing of the glowing fire.
“I suppose you don’t want to talk about what happened to her?”
Valderon stopped moving for a moment, and simply stared at the reflection in the blade. Finally, he gave an answer.
“I can’t talk about that,” he replied, “I’m not ready for it.”
Gavinor subtly nodded.
“I understand. I believe I should return the favor and tell you about me. Unless of course you don’t want to hear it?”
Valderon glanced at the Centaur, letting out an amused grunt as he resumed sharpening the sword across his lap.
“My ears are open,” he said.
Gavinor chuckled, then looked down, and saw the mark on the top of his right wrist. It was a vertical line, three inches long, and very wavy, with a perfectly round circle in the middle of it.
“I’m not sure how dense your knowledge is of tribal ways,” he said, looking at the mark, “do you know of our birthmarks?”
“No,” Valderon replied simply, “are they different from ordinary birthmarks?”
“There are seven known markings. The tribes believe that only those with matching marks may be united by love, as the markings are signs from the Blessed Mother, signs that your destiny, for lack of a better word. Mine is the mark of the eagle. It signifies leadership and skill in the hunt. My love bore the mark of the wolf. Her marking denotes warmth of the heart, and courage in the face of danger.”
“So your love was forbidden?”
“Yes,” Gavinor sighed, holding some soft, brown dirt in his right hand and slowly dumping it back on the ground.
“I was the greatest hunter in my tribe, and always led our hunting parties. She was the most gentle thing in the world, incapable of hate. I would see her in the misty summer mornings, picking flowers in nearby meadows and playing with the children in the springs. Her smile was bright enough to send my heart to the heavens,” he recalled.
“We fell for each other, and shared our love in secret, never revealing it to the chieftain.”
“Where is she now?”
Gavinor felt a wave of anguish flood his body, and tears formed in his eyes.
“We were discovered one morning. We had spent the night together in a grove and fell asleep. We were brought to the chieftain, who banished us from the tribe for our blasphemy. I was sent to the west, and she to the east.”
Valderon looked at Gavinor, and finally tossed the stone down to the ground before he sheathed his sword and put his right elbow on the rock to rest. He squinted his eyes in disparity.
“You were banished because of a birthmark?”
“It must sound strange to a human, but it is simply the way the tribes see things. I hold no grudge against them. They were simply upholding our ways and doing what was right. My exile is my own doing.”
“A religious belief should not be a barrier to lovers,” Valderon suggested, staring at the two moons above him.
“Perhaps not,” Gavinor responded, “but it’s just the way things are.”
The Centaur began to imagine his lover’s smile and warm voice once more. His heart sank each time he thought of what danger she might be in.
“The way things are,” Valderon muttered, “now that’s a story to tell.”
“Yes,” Gavinor replied, “a very sad story.”
“So, why is an exiled Centaur interested in studying in the most convoluted and dogmatic city of bigots in Karnavia?”
Gavinor laughed with a wide grin.
“I’ve always been intrigued by history. I learned when I was a child about my love for history when I stumbled upon a camp of human merchants. I was a bit of a rogue in my younger days. I shuffled around their stupidly unlocked chests, looking for junk food or gold. I found some old texts on the founding of some bloody port city and on wars between the Tah’jzik and the Elves. I was fascinated, and I stole all the books I could find that night, and read them constantly back at our tribe’s camp.”
“Obsessed with book learning and the founding of port cities,” Valderon chuckled, “a rogue you were indeed.”
They both had a friendly laugh together, one that echoed along with the singing of the crickets and frogs. There was a silence between them for a short while, with only the wildlife and the hissing and cracking fire filling their ears. This ambience was accompanied by the occasional owl hoots and wolf howls. Valderon jumped down from the rock, and laid on his back in front of the fire a few feet from Gavinor, looking at the moons. He finally asked the Centaur a question.
“What do you know about Terra?”
Gavinor looked at the mercenary with a bewildered face. This was a question he didn’t expect. He gave him his honest answer though, in a tone of confusion.
“I’ve read a few manuscripts on their presence. Why do you ask?”
“I’ve seen a few before.”
There was a brief pause.
“You’ve seen Terra? Where was this at?”
“Don’t worry about it. Just tell me what you know about them.”
“But where did you see-”
“I said do not worry about it. Now, tell me about them.”
Gavinor looked at the fire, then back at Valderon.
“What do you want to know?”
Valderon’s nostrils twitched once, denoting anger at the current subject.
“Everything.”
Gavinor’s eyes widened and he cleared his throat. He wanted to know exactly why Valderon was interested in the creatures, but he would tell him all the same.
“The Terra are beings descended from those corrupted by the magic of the Titans of the Superian Empire. You know of the Empire, surely?”
“The one once ruled by the Black Elves of the far east? Yes, of course I do.”
“The Superians dominated this continent over five hundred years ago. They manipulated the power of the black arts to spread their territories all over the land until they ruled virtually every blade of grass and grain of sand in the world.”
Valderon grinned, and took over the story briefly.
“And the emperors became more and more corrupt over time and eventually created four Titans with their magic. The Titans were to powerful to control, and obliterated the Empire and the entire Black Elf race from the land.”
“Yes,” Gavinor retorted, “but the Titans did not just destroy. They had auras of a taint, one that cannot be replicated or forged once more to this very day. This so called taint polluted those unfortunate souls who were too close to the Titans but managed to survive. Their bodies were mutilated by the curse. Their skin rotted, their hair fell out, their teeth turned to fangs, and they craved the taste of flesh. Their intelligence rapidly faded away and turned into animalistic instinct.”
Valderon looked at Gavinor with an curious look in his eyes.
“So these Terra are the spawn of those tainted?”
“Yes. They do not speak, they do not fear, they do not surrender. They only fight.”
Valderon chuckled, and looked back up towards the night sky, shut his eyes, and gave his response.
“And they can die as well.”