Master

Break of night at the break of dawn...
...the morning mist lingers and calls you on...1

...whispering...2


...come Veylo, the day awaits...3

Veylo, the one that fear forgot. You wander where you will and wonder what you ought to do...when night falls as day arises. Listen to the old man, listen as he whispers, grins and surmises...4

Your life is not your own. You have known this and have thus shown, a distaste for life in reckless abandon. Your name is thus known to those North of the Aulays, from every common peasant, to every royal Landon. Now you come across mountains of dirt and stone...to live for a master who is your own...Veylo of the Wild Way, you walk the path of violence and ill intent5


...yet no longer, for it was as your master said and meant...6

"Help me..."7

Your wandering ways are not yet done. But of this path you walked it is no longer the one. You fall now before innocent eyes and serve a master only a God of humor could devise...those hurting, soft, innocent brown eyes... 8


...9

Dust was a permanent part of him now. He blinked his eyes and rubbed at them. They still itched. He sighed and looked about him. The mountains behind him were still trapped in the call of winter, peaks capped in snow. He shook his head. Sometime during his descent, probably somewhere in the lower slopes, the weather had run off somewhere into early summer, or midsummer for that matter. Everything was so dry, all the plants wilted, dying or dead. 10

Of course there were some hardy shrubs clinging to life here and there, but everything else...everything else was dry, dry and dusty.11

It wasn't long before he noticed the beginnings of a simple path off aways down through the hills. Moving almost lazily down through the browning grasses, he scanned the land laid out in front of him. From what he had been told, the northernmost nation, the first south of the Aulays, was Kroy Wen.12

"Accursed old beggar..." he grumbled to himself.13

The old man had said it was in this land, this Kroy Wen that he would find his master. If he did not, then he would die. He had no choice. There was too much for this to be mere chance. For one, the man had called him by name.14

"Veylo..."15

He could still here that raspy old man call to him. His words had been too true, too honest to be lies.16

"Veylo...masterless man...you must find your master, chase her where she ran. She will guide you, to where must go. If you do not. You will die..."17

The sun was especially hot. Making good time down the dusty old peddler’s trail was no consolation to the oppressiveness of the sky's eye. Sky's eye. His mother had named it so. He would call it nothing else. There was much of him that had wanted to simply ignore the old man. But it was more than the fact he had known his name. He had spoken to his soul. Though he had lived at the beck and call of no man, he knew that he had a master...he had always known. And now he knew that he indeed had no man as a master. The old man spoken of this clearly...18

"...chase her where she ran. She will guide you, to where you must go."19

A woman.20

He shook his head bringing himself back to his surroundings. The path had since come down through the lesser foothills and was about to run into a forest. The trees looked much as the grasses, brown, dead, dying. Strong trunks held weak branches and leaves over his head, making for poor cover from the sun. Lingering with inexplicable consistency, the morning mist hung in amongst the wooden people of the deeper forest, as if spiting the coming heat of near midday. A faint voice trickled through the hot forest air. No wind could make it beyond the first few trees. 21

Further into the woods he went as dead leaves fell around him down through the graying fog. He relaxed his shoulders, letting the small of his back catch the weight of the rough leather sack lashed to his back. There wasn’t much in life north of the Aulays that made him feel at peace. Despite the drought that seemed to hold this land in its grip, he felt a peace here that he…the voice he had heard was not so faint anymore. It stopped as he heard someone’s approach, a nearly frantic crashing through the trees to his left.22

“Jag titer dig…” he muttered to himself as the figure came through the now shadowy underbrush to stumble onto the narrow path.23

His casual disinterest was cast aside as his flat grey eyes took in what now stood in the pale half light of the sky’s eye shining through the mist and dry and dying foliage. A woman. For some reason he did not understand his hand strayed toward the simple leather bound hilt at his hip. The old man’s words fell around him as he stared at her. She was breathing heavily, her face stained with dirt and welted with scratches. His heart beat faster as rough voices and angry curses echoed out from the direction in which the woman had come. There was little in life he feared. This woman made him want to turn and run back up into the Aulays. A small hand reached out from behind the tattered folds of the woman’s dress. His fear for the woman was one thing, the offspring of a conjoining of his fear and trust in the old man’s words.24

But it was with the owner of that little hand, that dirty face stained with tears and her runny nose.25

“Mästare…” he whispered.26


Veylo felt his stomach churn and his knees weaken. He knew to his bones that by the blood of the sky’s eye he was looking at his master. Cursed old man. The woman glanced back at the approaching voices, rough intent clear in their angry tones. She opened her mouth to speak, but it was her child that spoke instead.27

“Help me…” her voice was so quiet, so simple and so full of need.28

He stared at them both, lost in the words of an aged beggar.29

“Please sire, help us…if those men catch me and my child they will kill us…”30

His eyes moved from the child face to her mother’s. A voice deep in the back of his head was raging at him to move, to do something, anything…speak…run…fight…31

All he could do was stare.32

THOCK!33

An arrow with dark red thrush feathers slammed into a tree next to the woman. She was beautiful. The arrow’s impact into the dry bark kicked chips of wood out into the woman’s face. She gasped and put a hand to her cheek, pulling it away to show blood, bright and sticky.34

“Found ‘er boys!” a heavy, gruff voice called from nearby,” think I got ‘er!!!”