Elænbrook: Book One, The Shadow of Møthgaan

Elænbrook: The Shadow of Møthgaan

The Elaendbrook Chronicles:

Book One

The Shadow of Mothgaan

Chapter One:

The Binding of Two Fates

The night was humid as the stars shone bright in the autumn sky.
Clouds loomed in the eastern horizons, and songbirds began their nightly calls, beckoning the young to fly home as the brisk wind came singing through the tree branches like a dirge of solemnity.
Footfalls break the natural order, stirring the quieted wildlife from peaceful routine, sending some birds aflutter in their wake. A young boy, dressed in common rags and burlap canvas came into view from the foggy woodland, hair a mess and scuffs on his leathery garb. From deeper in the wood, a voice called out.
"Hardyn, you little coward! Come back and fight! Stop trying to act like you're a sneak thief!" a rough, gravelly voice bellowed into the cool evening air.
Hardyn Vastrow, the boy whose clothes were disheveled, seemed to have just gotten out of a scrap. By the skin of his teeth no doubt, by the condition of his shirt, torn and mangled from the grasps and tussles of a fistfight. Cowering behind a tree, his breath stilled but heavy with excitement and exhaustion. His pale grey eyes glinted in the moonlight, under his sandy brown hair, that pierced into the glade in which he hid, illuminating his face in blue light of a full moon.
The snapping of branches, and leaves crushing under booted foot began to come into clear audible range, and panic began to set in, making Hardyn reach for a thick branch near his left foot. From the sound of the crackling leaves and numerous snaps of twigs, Hardyn waged that it was the entire posse of miscreants that ganged up on him only a few moments prior, around five in number.
Crouching low and holding the log in a vice like-grip, Hardyn awaited the gang, teeth gritted and sweat beading at his brow in nervous anticipation. Their voices started getting closer and closer with each set of rustling leaves and snapping twig that broke the quiet seconds. Picking up choice bits of context, like his name, and who was with them, and their plans on what to do once they find him, Hardyn hunkered lower in the darkness, trying to become completely concealed.
'You wish, Grenard. Try catching up to me with all that lard in your gut, heh.' Hardyn jeered in his head, the voices gaining ground, closing in. Each second that passed was more profound than the last, stretching on for eons as Hardyn waited for his chance to break away, to flee deeper into the Gottard Woodland, when a stepping foot impeded his thoughts.
Taking this opportune moment to strike, swinging the branch with all his might into the shin bone that was connected to the foot, Hardyn snickered and chortled as he took off deeper into the woodland's foggy veil.
"THE BASTARD BROKE MY LEG!!" Cray cried out, his shrill voice echoing throughout the woodlands. Caterwauling like a madman about his leg, Grenard, Hayle, Karmen and Jedoh all stopped in their tracks, turning to the west, where Cray had ventured to.
Jedoh was the first to come to Cray's side, managing to get Cray to calm down just enough for him to make sense, and stop his shrieking. Grenard and Hayle soon caught up, with Karmen close behind like a lost puppy.
"Where did he go?" Jedoh, in his deep and stern voice, asked at Cray, low toned for his age.
"Does it LOOK like I know where he went!?" Cray yelled, his near tenor voice screeching questioningly at Cray, cradling at his almost broken leg.
Grenard spoke up, pushing Jedoh to the side, picking Cray up into a sitting position, propping him up against a mighty elm that towered over most of the trees that littered the forested landscape.
In his low bass voice, Grenard exclaimed angrily as he dusted Cray off, and stood up from the kneeling squat. "Karmen, you and Jedoh stay here and help Cray get back to Gottard. Hayle, you're with me, if Vastrow wants to fight dirty, we will oblige. Grab a good stick, were teaching this kid a lesson."
Grenard then armed himself with a hefty branch, club like in nature as Hayle began to speak out.
"Grenard, can't we just drop the issue? We already bloodied him up good enough." Hayle, trying to reason with him, his soft yet confident baritone voice rang out, causing Grenard to stop in his tracks, turning to face him.
"Save it for the nursery, Mother Mercy. You and I know he gets what's coming to him. Sorry sod, thinking he can claim to be the son of Drathos, Scourge of the Blazing Skies..." Grenard scoffed, beginning to head off towards Hardyn's presumed taken path.
"....and what if he is Drathos' son?" Hayle commented, accentuating his words, continuing from where Grenard had left off. Cray, after being tended too by Karmen and Jedoh, whined and wailed as they tried lifting his arms over their shoulders.
"If he is that man's son, wouldn't you rather befriend him instead of beating him to a bloody pulp?" Hayle asked, with a ring of truth in his words, keeping his hands unarmed as he backed away from the now irate Grenard.
"To the Nine-Rings with you then Hayle. A friend of a liar is no better than the liar himself." Grenard spat, taking off toward Hardyn after making a rather crude gesture at Hayle.
"Get a life Grenard!" Yelled Hayle, looking back toward the others, who were awkwardly staring at the pair's display. "WHAT?!" Hayle roared, making Karmen and Jedoh drop Cray to the ground as they both bolted back to Gottard, with Cray hobbling limply behind as he yelled obscenities at the pair.
Hayle exasperatedly sighed, dispirited over the unfolding of events as he started making his way back toward Gottard, his hands in his pockets, muttering under his breath "Father was right, I need better friends."