The Heart of the Mountain

Prologue

The night was red, the stars like a thousand flamed arrows in an eternal dive, and the earth a shattered ocean of black. The world was on fire.

"Forgive me." Tarad muttered.

"Nothing to forgive. Save your breath." Roheel scavenged for bandages that did not exist. The scorched earth his hand frantically searched, offered nothing but desolation. His eyes excavated his friend's body from head to toe. Surely, there was something he could do. He tore off both sleeves to press the wound shut, but the cut spanned his entire chest.

The village burned in the night, yet no burns cracked Tarad's battered skin, only the gash across his heart. "You were supposed to be right behind me." The cloth sunk in a crimson sea, and the puddle of death encumbering them mixed with black dirt as Roheel panicked.

"You must... forgive..." Tarad whispered with stuttered pain, and his eyes withered.

Roheel barely caught the words. "Hold on. Keep to my voice. Tarad!" He called his name and patted his pale cheeks to no avail. "Over here, anyone. Help!" Roheel spun and wailed in every direction. Surrounded by fires and screams, there would be no ear turned to his dire call.

The Haraban's eyes fell upon his friend's body, and he fumbled back in disbelief and horror. He glanced at the bronze lock in Tarad's hand. It shun a pervasive glint and was free from his grip. Tarad would never let go of his son's picture. Never.

The fires cast a cold shadow upon Roheel. The blackness waged war with the flared wrath of the world around it. "Accursed Gods." He said, voice choking. "You burn us all. You watch us writhe in pain and drown in our own flesh. Save us damn it." He bowed his head, none in vision but the barren corpse he once shared dreams with. Dreams of a better world. And it would all be buried in dust, with Tarad's life claimed by the earth that birthed him.

For a long moment, he quivered in confusion, stumbling over those lifeless eyes – unseeing yet agape. Then, with bloodied tips, he finally mustered the spine to shutter them gently.

Mind numbed and paralyzed, he took to doing the only thing he could do. He wept. His tears reflected yellow and red. If only he had enough to extinguish the colossal fire. With the dry sky a frightening ally, the fire swallowed all in its path, and its congested flames conquered torched lands.

Tarad's sprawled arm— spread like a desolate branch— pointed Roheel's wet eyes toward the destruction. The monstrous redness wore bloodied fangs for teeth. None but a soulless monster could allow such catastrophe, he thought loudly.

While the world around him in blaring torment, Roheel speechlessly begged for salvation. The ground encircling him was already broken to dust when he found Tarad straggled and spread motionless. Who did this to you? Murdering a man escaping hellfire. Who would commit such an act? He glanced a second eye to the decimation. The ravaging heat seared his lids shut, preserving the tears dedicated to his fallen companion. There were women screaming, children wailing, and men grieving.

One house, not too far a distance, crumbled and flattened as Roheel watched helplessly. Amongst those flames, a blurred pattern evinced. He squinted with water-filled eyes, a stark contrast to the parched ash-full winds. Something escaped the heat. He paid close regard to the outline. The tangled pattern erratically sputtered in the redness and connected lines that drew a man's figure in flame. He's burning alive. Nalajanus save him.

Roheel stood to rescue the dead man walking, but he doubted a river of ice and blue could preserve his life. Even so, Roheel rejected his impuissant thoughts, and a vital tenacity pulsed in his feet. What if there were other folk inside the house? Someone he could save. A soul the Gods would spare. He grabbed around him, reached for Tarad's fallen blade, and hurried to help the poor man. At the least, he could end his misery.