The Shadow Scrolls: Series Book One, The Vale of Blood. PD Ph.D. Lorenz

and son.

      It was upon a great rock that they had climbed together. The two sat upon the height overlooking small lakes and the river that fed them as it meandered from one shire to another. A canyon over, and a bit above their height, sat the crumbled remains of the majestic castle Kalaw tucked into its pocket beneath the heights shrouded in mist; mists that gently descended from the lofts beyond, a residue created by the outpouring of torrential runoff. It was the first time that Jonathan had seen the world beyond the surroundings of his home, the then village of Safehaven. Together, they faced the world beyond. To the younger it was a revelation of grandeur for what he saw, he described to his blind father.

      “I see grand forests with a million trees, Da’. As far as I can see, there are trees. They’re like…, like great armies filling the mountains and valleys.” he explained, his excitement palpable. “And the river is like… a train of war wagons all tied together and carrying the weapons and supplies.” His wonderment was tangible, and John felt the satisfaction of being a father.

      “And we are the ones that supply those soldiers with their weapons, son.” It was the statement of a man who knew he, and his work had and would make a difference in the world. However, his son’s following statement would connect and disconnect the two of them all at the same time.

      “Where do the soldiers go to fight, Da’?” the younger asked innocently.

      After a long pause, his father answered. “… Past the trees and beyond the forest, Jonathan. They go to a place where darkness reigns supreme. A place we don’t need to think about. As long as we supply the soldiers with their weapons, they can hold off that dark tide and it won’t come near us at all. Not near you, your mother, or your baby brother.” Though blind, John seemed to be looking at objects in the distance.

      “Were you born blind, Da’?” the son asked. With that, a longer paused prevailed.

      “… We need to return to your mother, son. She’s expecting us for victuals. If we’re not there, she’ll be cooking our hides for sure. Come, lead us home, boy.” John rose and urged his son to abandon the conversation, but Jonathan remained a moment longer gazing past the horizon and beyond.

      Thus, a seed had been sown. A seed that would produce a tree that’s branches would, for a long time, form a distinct intersection….

      “Thank you for taking me here… I love you, Da‘.”

      Jonathan’s maturity never ceased to amaze the weapon master.

      … So that was the intersection… That was the deep connection, and at the same time, the deep dividing fissure that would become a chasm in their relationship; a chasm that would take only the greatest of blind leaps to re-cross.

      “I never wanted to be like you!” shouted Jonathan to his fuming father. “I never once wanted to carry on your work!” It was an adolescent icicle that pierced John’s heart and for a moment Jonathan regretted the whole idea of the attack, regretted the whole idea of freeing himself from the confines of the status quo, but alas it was fleeting.

      Jonathan made his way across the clay floor of the shop and John could hear a weapon being removed from the wall. It sounded like a war hatch, the throwing axe that he completed just one day prior.

      How angry is this boy, thought John to himself. What, or who, has pushed him to this point?

      Jonathan had taken the war hatch from the wall and if John could have been looking, he would have seen the emotional turmoil that rippled across the face of his son. It was not a look of murderous rage, but rather the look of a young man desperate for a life of his own.

      “I wish that you could see me, Da’… but you can’t. Here I stand, thirty steps from the Willowfeld tree that you were awarded. Our horse is tethered to the tree and to her leather lash I set my eyes, but before I throw this axe at it, I close my eyes… Now, I’m just like you… I cannot see Swift’s tether, or the tree.” His voice quivered as it trailed off and a pause hung in the air as the boy’s adolescent and impulsive chemicals assaulted his emotional control. Only the crackling of the hearth fire made itself known.

      John, with his keen senses, could hear his son positioning himself to throw. “That throw will be the beginning of the end of our relationship, son. I beg you not to do it,” John cautioned.

      With closed eyes and a wince, Jonathan let the instrument of war fly toward the tree that sat just outside of the weapon shop. Little did the boy know, but at the same moment, a warrior of unprecedented size stepped into the doorway of the weapon master’s shop!

      If it were not for his keen fighting abilities, Nathan, the captain of the king’s army, keeper of the castle, and leader of the Council would have had his forehead split asunder. The axe traveled end over end, within inches of his face, and beyond the door to the tree where it cut in two the leather strap that held the family horse. With a whiny, the mare took off in a gallop.

      Jonathan watched the pregnant horse scamper down the hill toward the forest in the distance. At the same moment, John had reached his boiling point. No longer could he tether his famous patience, and sprung in the direction of his son bent on teaching him the lesson of his life. Jonathan turned just in time to witness his blind father trip over the small obstacle of a stool which he had placed earlier and slam onto the floor with a whimper. To Jonathan, it was a bitter sweet moment for he knew that the thrashing he would have received would have been bone crushing, and yet, for the first time in his life he had seen the utter weakness of his Da’. It was the culmination of the fuming frustrations of unanswered questions and what seemed to him to be a boxed in life. At the same time, he knew it was the final axe blow to the creaky wooden bridge that barely held their relationship together.

      With a face covered in dirt and blood, John struggled to his feet and bellowed toward his son. “Jonathan, go get that horse…, now! Only God knows where she’ll run to, but if it’s to the far reaches of the realm and you are gone for months on end, then that will be just fine with me!”

      Jonathan slunk out of the shop with a defiant and quiet anger coupled with pain, not even glancing at the warrior he had nearly killed. One step led to another that quickly turned into a sprint. As he ran, tears welled up and tracked horizontally across his cheeks.

      The crackle and pop of the forging fire was still all that echoed off the walls of John’s shop. In his dimness, he did not perceive the entrance of Nathan into the hovel, a rarity, for his keen ears had been finely tuned over the years. The weapon master struggled to his feet and the blood that trickled from his nose threatened to cause an uncontrollable sneeze to tickle its way to the surface. John held it back for as long as he could before it finally gushed out all over the floor…

      “Bless you, my friend.” announced the Captain of the Guard.

      John faced the direction of the voice. The bloody sneeze made his face look as though it had been smashed in with a stick. “Nathan, is that you?”

      “Aye.” Nathan was an enormous man trained in the art of war from a boy. A man groomed by meticulous repetition and forged by the fiery trials of constant sorties. At that moment, he was not arrayed in his battle fatigues, but rather in his royal business attire. An immensely thick cloak, as thick as a normal man’s forearm, draped his dark skinned frame and only added to his already enormous stature. From beneath its folds, his arms reached down to his wounded comrade.

      “I haven’t seen you look this bad since the Campaign of Eight,” Nathan declared.

      “Ah, Nathan! You have always had impeccable timing. Again, your arm reaches to me.” John could feel the strong squeeze of the captain’s hand around his bicep and took note that it encircled the entirety of his forger’s arm. It reminded him that his friend was no mere man, but rather a descendant of the realm’s great warrior families. Struggling to his feet, he wiped the free flowing blood with his ever present slog towel which hung at his side from his leather apron. Through a pinched nose, he continued his conversation… “How much of that exchange did you see?”

      “Enough