Koronos didn’t find the Sword of the First in the aftermath of the village attack, nor that female assassin, Zeyzey, so he reaches out with his mind further than he ever has before, scanning the flying birds and what they see. Nearby Shelove is curled up and resting not more than two paces from him. Minutes pass, his eyes roll back into his head, a half hour passes and his bodyguards begin to become worried; they’ve never seen him like this before. Then he finally finds her, she’s about a day ahead of them and over a dense mountain jungle range, even though he can see where she is, he doesn’t know the pathway over the rugged jungle mountains, it could take days to find a way over, and he will lose her trail.

  His mind is behind the eyes of a hawk, he circles her over head but below the dense jungle canopy, then she looks right at the hawk; it’s her witch blood, she senses the Kazarian’s eyes upon her, and she notches an arrow and fires it at the hawk, killing it dead. This action violently snaps his mind back to his body, and it is painful, and he falls to one knee, holding his head in pain.

  As Koronos relays what he saw to his remaining cohorts and gestures towards the mountains that cannot be seen through the jungle from their current vantage point, a young man listens, he is the brave lad that first fired an arrow at the Purifiers when they entered the village: he managed to survive the carnage, but his kin were not so fortunate. The adolescent villager doesn’t understand most of the words, but since Koronos is speaking in the Old Tongue, the lad can understand it a little bit.

  “I believe I know where she is going, the one you seek, she’s going to the Purifier Citadel and I know the way,” says the village lad, he speaks to them in a variation of the Old Tongue, the Kazarian looks at Corvannafax, she can understand about half of what he says, and she translates it for Koronos.

  “What is your name, boy?” inquiries Koronos.

  Once Corvannafax translates, “I am Daggeroth,” replies the lad, he’s tall and lean, has good posture and stands proud, he has various tribal tattoos and is adorned with blue feathers on his traditional leather garb, as is the style of his people, and he’s not displeasing to look upon. He’s eager to please the strangers because he’s never seen anyone that could fight like they can: they are straight out of the epic stories of old that he grew up listening to around the evening bonfires.

  “Very well, say your farewells to your kin…” Koronos informs him, and it’s strange, he thought he could understand a lot of what the lad said through feelings, even though his ears could not, but his mind could: similar to the Bond he has with animals. Then he realizes he can do the same with the other villagers that are talking near him, this makes him pause for a bit, as his companions look at him with curiosity and concern. He finally snaps out of his entranced pause and finishes his statement, “we shall leave immediately.”

  After a pause, Daggeroth replies in a somber tone as he gestures to the fresh graves on the hillock at the edge of the village, “I already have.”

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  “They shall be avenged, the time of the Purifiers is coming to an end,” States Koronos with conviction, then nods at the lad.

  Corvannafax brings over one of the horses that used to belong to a Purifier zealot and she says to the lad, “I hope you can ride a horse.”

  “Of course I can,” he replies confidently, which is a lie, although he’s ridden a donkey many times. He figures it can’t be much different, but even though he’s not a horse expert, he can clearly see it’s nervous around that big black pantera. Even more distracting is Corvannafax, a red-skinned golden-haired shield maiden warrior; he's never seen anything like her before and it doesn’t help that she’s as beautiful as she is fierce.

  In the heat of the blistering humid afternoon, the group pushes hard through the thick jungle and towards the mountains; it's slow-going because the trails quickly become overgrown without constant maintenance, the jungle always claims its own. Dwellings and people are temporary, the jungle endures through the ages.

  Koronos is talking to his bodyguards when the boy interrupts them, “why can I understand you, even though I can’t really understand your words?”

  “I am not sure, it might be my abilities allowing this, I am of the Everliving and we all have some type of special abilities. For example, I can communicate with animals, that’s how I befriended Shelove,” the Kazarian says as he gestures to the huge pantera walking on the trail beside his horse.

  The lad doesn’t grasp what he was just told, so he merely accepts it as factual because he has nothing as a frame of reference, he’s never even met anyone from outside the jungle lands, he’s only heard stories of strange peoples from distant shores. So, he simply shows them the way through the dense jungle, uncertain if he will ever return or if he even wants to because he has nothing to return to.

  By evening, they make it to the narrow mountain pass, but the sky grows dark, so they make camp for the night, set up their hammocks and start a fire and make a porridge. Around this campfire, they recall stories of their fallen comrade, then make ready for keeping watches through the night, as is their custom in the wilds of the world.

  When they are deciding on the order for the watch, the lad chimes in, “I can take a turn at watch, I have taken night watches in my village, I promise to not fail you.”

  “Very well, see that you don’t, Daggeroth,” says Corvannafax, looking over at Koronos to see if he approves, and he nods to her.

  In his sleep, Koronos uses the night birds to scan the area ahead, looking for a sign of Zeyzey, but doesn't find her, so shifts back to their own area, watches Shelove hunt from an aerial view. He shifts to Shelove right as she makes a kill, he tastes the blood of the stag, sees a flash of light, then is a bird flying upward from their encampment, he flies to the top of the high cliff of the narrow pass and lands. Scanning the sky, he finds the looming Sleeping Dragon overhead, the sister world of Terra Primius, with his bird-like vision he can see so much detail, the strange dim lights he can now see with vivid detail, it’s civilization there, people are over there. Suddenly he sees a flash of light from the planet and he blacks out.

  Come the crack of dawn, he awakens and finds himself precariously close to the cliff’s edge over the narrow pass below and nearly falls, “by the gods, what am I doing up here?” he mumbles to himself.

  Koronos the Kazarian | Royal Road