Savior

Chapter 3

When Rowan hazily came to, he was lying on cold hard dirt and many small rocks jabbed into his whole underside every time he moved.

He sank in and out of consciousness, at times picking out parts of the conversation that was being had by multiple people standing around him. He couldn't quite make out their faces but he could tell that the multiple deep voices were obviously arguing.

"So what are we gonna do with this one boss?" One voice said in a chilling tone.

"I say we skin him alive!" A second even scarier voice barked out.

"No. This one has the gift, he must be left alive and free." Said the man who was obviously their leader.

"And the other 2 we found?" Chimed the first voice once again.

"Sell them to the slavers."

"Yes sir" Barked the chilling voices simultaneously.

The figures moved away as Rowan faded out of consciousness once again.

Rowan awoke once again as the sun was setting. Except, something was different about this sunset; the remaining sun was a navy blue color with crimson red around the horizon.

This awe inspiring sight had Rowan frozen for minutes, partially due to the high level of pain he was experiencing in his legs, which caused difficulty when standing up.

Eventually when the last specks of light we're fading, Rowan decided it was time to do something about his situation. Whatever that situation was.

His friends were gone, he was alone. He had no clue where he was. His whole body ached, and to top it all off, he was cold, very cold.

Struggling to walk, Rowan limped to a nearby heap of what appeared to be garbage.

Was this left by the strange figures he saw?

Upon arriving to the pile, Rowan crouched down on one knee and grabbed what appeared to be a blanket, it was in fact not a blanket. It was a cloak.

Hastily and without thinking, Rowan wrapped the cloak around himself, it must've been at least 10 degrees out here.

Underneath where the cloak had once been was a leather sheath with a cloth wrapped wooden handle sticking out the end.

Rowan examined the sheath, unlatched it and drew from within a sword, it was no toy sword, the edge sparkled from the moonlight, which happened to be blue as well.

There was a black groove down the center which led to the cross beam at the edge of the hilt. Engraven upon the metal crossing was one word; Celestine. Perhaps this was the swords name? Or maybe the creators? He did not know.

Rowan had no idea how to use a sword but alas, he swung it threw the air, it was surprisingly light in his hands and he liked the feeling.

He had always wanted a sword, he could remember being a kid running around in a ninja costume sword fighting his siblings.

Rowan undid his belt from around his waist, attached the sheath to it and slid his belt back around his pants, tightening it, and then redoing the process to put the sheath in a better spot.

Eventually, after minutes of toiling, he got the sheath into a comfortable position and picked up the last thing that was on the ground.

It was a map. The map was in good condition and showed a strange and unfamiliar landscape. There was a ring of mountainous area, with a river running vertically down the center.

Various cities and areas were marked, a Valian? Curonata? He had no idea what these names were but looked for anything familiar that could be his whereabouts.

An empty area with the name Irando Desert stuck out, that must be where he was, looking around once again to verify that he was indeed in a desert.

The sun had set over some rounded tip mountains, which he recognized on the map as his east.

The nearest marking on his map was something called Vizanz, possibly a city? It was to the north a ways so he twisted to the left and began walking.

He couldn't tell how far he had traveled because he had no obvious landmarks to see besides the mountains.

Nonetheless Rowan kept marching north.