All Things Begin - The Anmah Series Book 1

“What is the plan?” Dinton said in the faintest whisper. The three friends had been speaking that way since they arrived. They were in the same position they had been the day before, looking down into the valley where Grama lay approximately thirty paces away. In the darkness, they could see what Sophyra had been saying when she mentioned the mirrors and lack of shadows between the towers, but it did not matter. Ga’briyel had no intention of being seen. He pointed to the four towers flanking the road. The lights clearly displayed one man in each tower.

“I will take the two on the left. Dinton, you get the ones on the right.” He glanced at his friend. “How’s your aim?”

Dinton stared at the towers for a moment, and then he grinned. “I will bet you two silvers that I can take my two down before you kill yours.”

“They cannot make a sound,” Ga’briyel said with a grin of his own. “If they do, they will rouse the others.”

“Not a problem, little man. Just get ready to pay up.”

They both took their bows in hand. “Kind of them to give us some light,” Ga’briyel said. He glanced at Dinton. “First release on three. Tero?”

The third man paused for a moment while the other two set up their first shots. When they were ready, he said, “One, two, three,” and the arrows flew, immediately followed up by two more. The men watched for a few seconds and then the men in the closest towers fell, one with an arrow through the eye and the other through the ear. Less than half a second later, the other two fell, seemingly at the same time.

“Snakes and trolls!” Dinton said. “It is a tie.”

“Yes, it is,” Ga’briyel laughed quietly. “You owe me two silvers.” When Dinton raised an eyebrow, he whispered, “You did not beat me.”

“Funny man,” Dinton answered, and then he shrugged. “What now?”

“Now, we quickly get into the town. There is not much shadow, but there’s enough for our purposes.”

“And once there?”

“Sophyra said that the boys who have killed have a brand on their necks. We kill everyone with a brand or anyone who attacks us. We do it as quietly as possible. Come on.”

Ga’briyel hung his bow in a tree, placed his quiver with it, and drew his sword and a dagger. Dinton did the same, and Tero drew his sword along with a nasty looking mace.

“We cannot expect no resistance,” Tero said.

“No, of course not, but please be careful,” Ga’briyel said. “Maybe we can change destiny.”

“Let us hope so,” Dinton said as they started forward down the slope leading to the valley. “I certainly do not want to die tonight.”

“Neither do I,” Tero added, and then the men were silent.

When they reached the edge of the light, they crouched down and scanned the area carefully. They could see the men in the nearest towers, twenty paces away, but they were not paying attention to the road. Apparently, they thought four men were enough to watch that.

Ga’briyel signaled to the others, and they ran across the pool of light cast by the first two towers. Once they reached the one on the right, they stopped next to its stone wall, and Tero glanced around it to see if anyone had noticed. When he saw and heard nothing, they quickly made it to the second tower and then into the town itself. They stopped at the first building.

“Quickly and quietly. We enter, take care of anyone inside, and exit. And we stay together. Do not go roaming off on your own,” Ga’briyel whispered.

The other two nodded, and Dinton tried the door. It was not locked, which was not too surprising. After all, who would dare invade the town of the most feared barbarians on the plains? They slipped inside and were pleased to see that enough light seeped into the home from the street lights for them to see the inhabitants.

There was only one room. It had a bed with two occupants, a man and a woman, and alongside one wall on a straw pallet were three children, two girls and a boy. They all looked to be under twelve years old, but Ga’briyel gestured toward them anyway. Dinton nodded and silently approached them while Ga’briyel went to the man and Tero to the woman. Dinton checked the back of the boy’s neck and shook his head. While he stood over them, Ga’briyel readied his dagger and looked at Tero who nodded.

As Ga’briyel drew his knife swiftly across the man’s throat, Tero placed his hand over the woman’s mouth, and Dinton watched the children closely. The eyes of both adults opened at the same time, the man’s in horror and pain, and the woman’s in simple surprise. The man gurgled as he tried to call out, but Ga’briyel had taken that ability from him. The woman on the other hand, merely lay there, staring up at Tero. The children slept through it all.

When the man stopped moving, his eyes staring unseeing at the ceiling, Tero said quietly, “If I take my hand away, will you scream?”

The woman slowly shook her head, and Ga’briyel nodded to his friend. Tero slowly released his hand, and the woman sat up and looked at the dead man next to her. Then she said quietly, “Thank you.”

Three sets of eyebrows went up. That was definitely not the reaction they had expected. Then the woman spoke again.

“You must kill them all, or they will take their revenge out on us. They will think I killed him, and they will make an example of my children and me.”

“That is the plan,” Ga’briyel said softly as he gestured to the door, and the men left.

The same scenario played itself out at every home in the outer circle. It seemed that Asabya men slept soundly with faith in their towers and the fact that they had never before been invaded. Not one woman cried or made any attempt to let someone know what was happening, even when Ga’briyel slaughtered their sons.

For over an hour, the three made their way through the streets of Grama, taking the lives of every male with a brand. They were on the third street when they first encountered someone outside of a home.

It was still at least two hours before first light, but the Asabya was simply sitting outside his home when the friends rounded a corner. Ga’briyel was not sure who was more surprised, but the man immediately gave a loud cry, even as he grabbed a sword from beside him.

“Asabya! Intruders! Wake and arm yourselves!”

From the streets they had already visited, there was silence, but a bell started tolling somewhere near the center of town, and loud voices came from all other directions. The men had already taken care of fifty-three men which, according to Sophyra, left about fifty more.

“Here we go,” Dinton said dryly.

“Stay safe,” Ga’briyel said, and then he engaged the man who had raised the alarm. Within a few minutes, he was dead, but by then, two others stood in the street beyond him, and Tero and Dinton had turned around and were facing two others.

“Move with me,” Ga’briyel said. “Do not get separated. That happens and you are dead.” He stepped forward and parried the first Asabya’s swing, bringing his own sword through with a backswing that took the man’s head off his shoulders. The second tried to take advantage of what he perceived to be Ga’briyel’s instability as he finished the stroke, but instead he found the Anmah’s blade buried in his chest.

Ga’briyel kept moving forward, slicing through anyone who stood in his way until they reached the town square. By the time they reached it, the Anmah had killed another seventeen men, and his friends had dispatched three more each. Once they stepped into the open square, though, it seemed as if the remaining Asabya males had all gathered there to wait for them. Ga’briyel quickly counted them and came up with twenty-two. He chuckled.

“Who are you two going to fight? This will not take me but a moment.”

“Do not be such a hog, Captain. Leave a few for us,” Dinton complained.

With a shrug of one shoulder, Ga’briyel said, “I suppose if I must,” and then he attacked. Tero and Dinton flanked him, and for almost an hour, they fought. The two mortals tried to take on one Asabya at a time, but it was not always possible, and both of them took several wounds. At one point, Ga’briyel found himself surrounded by ten Asabya, all drunk on bloodlust. He quickly killed all but two of them, but as he blocked the thrust of one and the swing of the other, he felt another blade slice across his back.

“Bride of a troll!” he yelled, spinning in a circle and taking off the hand of the man who had cut him before driving his sword through his chest. He could feel the blood dripping down his back, but he gritted his teeth and ignored it. Another sword came at his head, and he ducked and spun, pain racing through his back. His sword dug deeply into a pair of legs, and the Asabya fell, screaming.

When Ga’briyel stood, he glanced around to see that the two Asabya in front of him about ten paces away seemed to be the only two still standing. One looked to be about his age, and the second was only a couple of years younger.

“Come on, you two. Come and join your brothers.”

“Need any help, Ga’briyel?” Dinton asked weakly.

Ga’briyel took a quick look over his shoulder to see his friend leaning against Tero, blood covering both of them. “No, I think I can handle them both,” he said as he looked back at the two men. What he saw surprised him.

They were looking at each other, and they had satisfied smirks on their faces.

“You think it is him?” one said, sneering at Ga’briyel.

“Has to be. How many Ga’briyels do you think would be camped this close to Grama?”

“What are you talking about?” Ga’briyel asked, a feeling of dread settling like a cloud over him.

The older of the two took one step to his right with a grin, and Ga’briyel shifted his position. “She called for you, you know. But you were not there. You did not save her.”

Ga’briyel’s chest felt tight, and he took a deep breath. “What are you saying?”

“I am saying that you should not leave your woman defenseless while you play soldier.”

The implication of what the man was saying hit Ga’briyel like a herd of mahisa bulls, and he looked at the sky. The sun had risen. When he looked back at the men, his eyes were blazing.

“What did you do to her?” he said through clenched teeth.

“What do you think?” the man laughed. “There’s only one penalty for a runaway slave. After we had our fun, that is.” He leaned closer as if relaying a secret. “I must say her trainers taught her well. Too bad I had to slit her throat afterwards.” He looked at his companion. “Or was it during? I cannot quite remember.”

Ga’briyel took advantage of the man’s momentary distraction to attack. He rushed the two, even as they both let out a loud cry and came at him, one on each side. He sidestepped the first and nearly cut him in two. With the same motion, he spun, dropped to one knee, drove his sword behind him, and impaled the second. Then he stood straight and looked at his friends.

“One of you was supposed to die,” he said, his voice catching.

“I know,” Dinton said, “but we did not. Ga’briyel, if we did not die…”

“No,” Ga’briyel said, horror filling his mind as an image from his friend’s thoughts slammed into his brain. It showed Sophyra lying dead in the clearing in which he had left her. “He was lying! He had to be!” He dropped his sword and ran for the entrance to the town through which they had come.

“Ga’briyel!”

Dinton called after him, but he kept running, running until he thought his lungs would burst, and then running still. Blood streamed down his back and his wound sent fiery blasts through him, but he ran.

“No,” he kept saying. “Yisu, please no!”

The trek from the clearing to Grama had taken them half an hour to complete, but Ga’briyel made it back in less than half that time. He skidded to a halt in the clearing and looked around him, harshly drawing air into his lungs. Nothing seemed amiss except that no one was there. Dinton’s cloak and his were lying on the ground where Mathi and Sophyra had been sleeping, their blanket rolls and saddlebags were right where they should have been, and all four horses were grazing contentedly. His heart and the boy were nowhere to be seen, however.

“Sophyra! Mathi!” he shouted, turning in circles, trying to see through the trees. “Where are you! It is me, Ga’briyel! Come out, please! Please!”

He stopped spinning when he heard a twig snap to his left. He turned toward the sound and saw Mathi slowly creeping around a tree, his face streaked with tears.

“Captain Mistri?”

“Mathi!” He rushed to the boy and took him in his arms. “You are all right.” Then he realized what that meant, and he looked into the boy’s eyes. “Where is Sophyra?”

The boy opened his mouth to answer, but the tears started falling faster, and he sobbed instead.

“Where is she? Mathi, answer me!” He held onto the boy’s arms and shook him.

The child could not speak, so he just raised one hand and pointed into the trees behind him. Ga’briyel looked in that direction, and he told himself to move, but his body would not obey his brain. He dropped his hands from Mathi’s arms and stared into the trees.

“Sh…she s-saved m-me,” the boy sobbed. “She told me to h-hide when the Asabya c-came, and I d-did, but they c-caught h-her.”

At the word Asabya, Ga’briyel felt as if he would burn to cinders with the fury that flowed through him. “What did they do?”

“I d-do not know. I just heard her sc-screams, and then n-nothing. I think she is d-dead.”

Ga’briyel’s eyes snapped to the boy, and he clenched his teeth tightly. He gently moved Mathi to the side and then stood up slowly.“Stay here,” he said coldly, and he deliberately took one step in the direction Mathi had indicated. He took another and another until he was near the place where he had hit Dinton. That is when he stopped, frozen by the tableau in front of him.

Sophyra’s naked body was propped up against a tree, and Ga’briyel could see ropes securing her to it. Her head was canted at a strange angle, and blood covered her. A piece of paper was stuck to the tree above her head:

THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS TO SLAVES THAT RUN

“Noooo! Sophyra!” Ga’briyel covered the distance to her in a few steps, and he instantly saw that her throat had been cut so deeply that she was almost decapitated. He dropped to his knees and reached for her, but he did not know what to do. Finally, he carefully undid the ropes that held her to the tree with hands that shook violently, and then he sat on the ground and cradled her closely to himself. He started rocking back and forth as tears streamed down his face.

“No, no, no, no, no,” he muttered, desperately clutching her to his chest. “Please, Yisu, not her, please, please, please.”

He was still there, muttering to himself and rocking her in his arms, when Dinton and Tero came back. He heard them return, but he could not make himself care. He did not care about anything anymore. He had lost his heart, and he could not go on. His heart was dead.

“Holy Yisu! Tero! Get over here!”

His back was to his friends, but Ga’briyel could feel their horror enveloping him, pressing down on him, suffocating him, and he did not care. When Dinton came to him and placed his hand on his shoulder, he shrugged it off and pulled Sophyra closer, burying his face in her hair. He sobbed until he could not breathe.

“Ga’briyel, you have got to let her go.” Tero spoke softly as he knelt down beside his friend.

“No!” Ga’briyel’s head snapped up, and Tero was startled by the pain that blazed in his friend’s eyes. “No, I cannot! She is not dead, Tero. Right? Please? Please tell me she is not dead, please? Please?”

“Ga’briyel…I am sorry.”

“No!” He clutched her tighter. “No! She is not dead! She is not!” He looked at his friend, and he sobbed out, “Tero, please!”

The older man gently took Sophyra from the Anmah and laid her on the ground and covered her with Ga’briyel’s heavy cloak, the same one she had wrapped herself in before falling asleep each night since they had found her. Ga’briyel knelt beside her and caressed her hair. Other than that, he did not move.

“Ga’briyel, come away. Let her go.”

The Anmah shook his head. “Leave me alone.”

Dinton stepped forward. “Ga’briyel, please.”

“Just leave me alone.”

“But…”

“Go away and leave me alone!” Ga’briyel wrenched his head up and glared at his friend for a moment before dropping his head again. He heard the other two move back toward the camp, and he heard Mathi crying, but he could not make himself move.As the hours passed, he expected his grief to turn to anger, but it did not. It only got worse until he simply lay down next to Sophyra, laid his head on her chest, and draped his arm over her.

Dinton and Tero left him alone until last light. By that time, he had wrapped Sophyra’s body in his cloak to hide what had been done to her. Then he had made a funeral pyre in the clearing and laid her on it. After that, he stood vigil.

When it was full dark, Dinton came to him.

“You are burning her?”

Ga’briyel nodded. “It is our tradition. I will light the pyre at first light.”

“And until then?”

“I will watch over her.”

“All night?”

Placing one hand on the wrapped body, Ga’briyel turned to his friend. “It is all I have left, Dinton.” He moved closer and laid his forehead on his hand. “Now I understand why an Anmah would choose to die.”

“You will not, will you?” Dinton came up behind him and took his shoulders. “You are meant to save the world, Ga’briyel. You cannot die.”

“You do not understand,” Ga’briyel said with a sob. “I already have.”