A wave rose from a dark sea and crashed against the rocks. The world shimmered and suddenly the rocks became battered wooden gates and the waves boiled with swords and steel, threatening to tear the doors of the city asunder. The enraged sea curled and broke again but the gates did not crumble. Instead the sea of spears crashed against a brilliant blue shield and above the sound of the raging ocean she heard a grief-stricken cry.
“Stand and fall!”
The waves continued to beat against the blue shield until the world went dark. She found herself standing in an empty field strewn with bodies standing over the form of an old man wearing a cracked silver crown. A shadow fell across her and she looked up to see a huge horned form standing over her. She screamed and the world went dark again with the sound of beating wings.
Ana awoke with tears streaming down her face, just as she always did. Opening her eyes she slowly took in the familiar room around her; the thatched walls, the high open windows through which a faint breeze blew in to rustle her long hair, the stones; broken spear points; and fractured arrow tips covering every flat surface. Perhaps, she thought to herself allowing a wide grin to slowly spread across her face and ease away the night’s terrors, today I will find another hilt.
As quietly as she could Ana slid into her plainest clothe dress and tied her long hair behind her. Briefly she considered putting on her tough-soled shoes she usually wore out in the sands, but quickly chose instead a pair of soft felt moccasins in which she knew she would be able to silently make her way out of the temple. Tossing a warm hooded tunic over her head she checked the small inside pocket she had sewn on herself to make sure her notebook was in place, and silently slipped out the door.
“Ana.” A soft familiar voice called mildly behind her. Ana froze in mid step. “Are you going to out to hide in the desert again?” She could hear him smiling now.
“What if I am?” She replied.
“It doesn’t seem like a very priestly thing to be doing,” the one eyed beggar shrugged with a smile, “especially not on a temple day.”
“Ugh.” Ana snorted, “I hate the temple days, all those people climbing up here from the city just to walk by me and climb down again. It’s not like any of them would stay or come up on any other day.”
“All but I my lady.” The beggar smiled and spread his arms in a mock bow. Ana laughed despite the unpleasant smell that seemed to billow out from his tattered robes.
“Of course,” she giggled, “my faithful Drenimir, perhaps you could save me this year and fight off my visitors with that.” She pointed at the chipped and rusted hilt that stuck out from the beggar’s robes.
“I’m afraid all this relic is good for is garnering pity, without it you would never know I was once a proud young soldier in the blessed army.” Drenimir grinned, his green eyes flashing in the early morning light, and rapped the rotting scabbard with scarred knuckles.
The old one-eyed Drenimir had sat outside the entrance to her chamber for as long as Ana could remember, begging for alms to those few pilgrims who made the assent during the warm seasons from the city below and from the throngs that gathered every year for her blessing. There were several others who stayed in or around the temple, but none as constant as Drenimir. Many times during the cold seasons when the wind blew over the mountain temple she had sat next his fire just outside her door and listened to his adventures in the blessed army or of his voyage to the Island Sea.
“Ana?” A stern female voice called from where the squat peak of the Temple of Adoration rose precariously in the distance. Ana’s expression turned instantly from laughter to dread.
Drenimir smiled, “Some priestess you are.” He rose unsteadily to his feet and, giving Ana a fleeting wink, he stepped into the path from the Temple. “Run Child of Threshold! Flee your cage towards the wonders of the world!” He laughed.
“Out of my way you wretched man!” She heard the eldest of the temple sisters exclaim, but Ana was already running, and the sound of Drenimir’s laughter and the sister’s protestations soon faded into the distance.
Read the rest of A Memory of Kings, Ch. 2, here:
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