Warrior Baptism Chapter 3

  WARRIOR BAPTISM

  Chapter Three

  by Jonathan Techlin

  Copyright © 2020 Jonathan Techlin

  Warrior Baptism is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales, is entirely coincidental.

  Cover illustration by Jonathan Techlin

  Based on the photography of MikeyGen73

  This book is dedicated to Mom.

  Table of Contents

  Nightmare

  The Sea of God’s Eyes

  The Life Sign

  The Robbers

  Retribution

  Dockhaven

  The Drunk and the Idiot

  The Knight’s Creed

  A Wizard Without Words

  A Drunken Spirit Trader

  Reunion

  Calfborn Crossroads

  The Wrong Man Died

  Bonus Content

  The Wrong Man Lived

  Widow Hatch

  Nightmare

  Theel was on his knees, on the cold, stone surface of the Dead Man’s Bridge. It was a place of evil, a place no man should tread. Yet Theel found himself there, surrounded by his enemies, facing his end. Theel’s masterknight, his father, lay before him, looking up with pleading eyes.

  Save yourself! The knight’s lips mouthed. Leave me!

  Theel knew he was dreaming. It was the same nightmare every night, since the day his father died. He knew what was about to happen, and knew he couldn’t stop it. But he always tried, and by his actions, forced himself to relive the moment of his greatest shame.

  He tried, every night, in his dreams. And he failed, every night, in his dreams.

  The masterknight’s features registered shock and horror when he saw his squire was disobeying the command to flee. He weakly rocked his head back and forth as if pleading.

  No! The knight’s silent eyes begged. Leave me!

  Theel ignored him. He’d already made his decision. Theel placed his hands on his father’s chest.

  He closed his eyes and tried to clear his mind. He had never successfully healed another by using the Juy Method. The Keeper of the Craft attempted to teach him, but he failed to learn. Healing was an extremely difficult, dangerous process. But as Theel knelt over his dying father, he felt he had no choice.

  “Dear God, please,” Theel prayed. “Please don’t allow me to fail.”

  The world faded away. Theel and his father were surrounded by blackness and silence. Then Theel saw the Keeper standing before him, short and round-faced, his blazing battle staff in hand.

  The Keeper looked down at Theel with concern in his eyes. “Theel, you must leave him.”

  “I can’t,” Theel said.

  “You are only harming yourself,” the Keeper said.

  Theel shook his head. “I won’t leave him.”

  “Once, you were a burden to him. Now, in death, he has become a burden to you.”

  “No!” Theel spat. “I am nothing without him.”

  “You must learn to live without your masterknight.”

  “I can live without my masterknight,” he replied. “I can’t live without my father!”

  The Keeper was quiet, his face filled with sadness, and Theel understood why. The Keeper knew what was about to happen as well as he did.

  But Theel still had hope.

  “Please, God, let this time be different,” he whispered. “Do not abandon me. Save my father.”

  “Our Lord always answers the prayers of his children,” the Keeper said. “But it may not always be the answer we desire.”

  “Please answer my prayer, Lord,” Theel begged. “Please help me.”

  “Theel, you can’t change what happened,” the Keeper said.

  “Yes I can,” Theel said. “God, where are you? Why have you abandoned me?”

  “Faced with nothing but terrible options, you made the best choice you could,” the Keeper said. “You must forgive yourself.”

  “I can’t.”

  “You must.”

  “I can change it. I can fix it,” Theel insisted, tears dripping from his eyes. “God, please change it. Please fix it!”

  Suddenly, Theel’s father opened his eyes and looked at his son.

  “I’m sorry,” he said.

  “For what?” Theel asked.

  “For everything.”

  The Sea of God’s Eyes

  Theel floated in inky-black liquid. He couldn’t see anything but pure darkness. He couldn’t feel anything but an intense cold that numbed his fingers and toes. But he could taste blood. And he could smell death. He immediately knew why. He was bathed in blood. He was soaking in death.

  Something touched his arm, something soft, squishy, and cold. He recoiled, knowing it was dead flesh. He pinched his eyes shut, but saw the corpse anyway, floating past him with black, shining eyes staring at him. This was the first of many. They were everywhere, all around him, touching him with their yellow, rotting flesh.

  Then he heard a voice.

  “I’m sorry, Father. I have brought disgrace to our family. You placed your trust in me and I betrayed you.”

  The words grew louder and louder. Theel heard them, but didn’t understand where they came from. The voice was weeping. Its owner was agonized, beyond consolation.

  “You always believed, Father. You never gave up on me. My failure is your reward.”

  Theel looked into the face of a dead man who floated close to him, only inches away. Its jaw hung open. It had no nose. Its eyes were missing. Then its lips moved.

  “It is all my fault, Father,” the corpse said. “You are dead because of me.”

  Suddenly, the face was recognizable. Theel was looking at himself, at his own dead body. It was nothing but a beaten and crushed piece of meat, torn apart by zoths and pecked at by crows. This was his future. He had only days left to live. When the Crowlord was done with him, that corpse was all that would remain.

  “All is lost,” the body said. “So much death. All for nothing.”

  “I’m going to make it right,” Theel said to the corpse.

  The holes where the eyes should have been stared back angrily.

  “There is no making this right,” the corpse snarled. “Your father is dead because of you. You’ve ruined everything.”

  “I can mend things,” Theel pleaded. “I’m going to do what I should have the first time.”

  “It will make no difference,” the corpse growled. “It is too late.”

  “It is not too late,” Theel insisted.

  The head of the corpse rolled around on its shoulders. “Dying will not bring your father back.”

  “I will restore my masterknight’s honor.”

  “You will kill yourself on the Dead Man’s Bridge.” The corpse threw its head back as if it was laughing silently. When it lowered its chin again, it wore another face.

  “You will kill…me!”

  The corpse was Yenia.

  “No!” Theel screamed.

  “In your zeal to die, you will take me with you,” Yenia’s corpse hissed. “A spear in my leg. An arrow in my back. You caused Father’s death. And now you have caused mine.”

  “No!” Theel screamed again. “Please, God. Save me from this!”

  “Just as you killed me.” Now his father’s dead and rotting face glared at him. “We are all dead because of you.”

  Theel tried to scream again but choked, unable to breathe. He realized he was hearing himself suffocate.

  “You want to die because you are afraid to live,” his father’s dead body shouted. “You killed me with your failure. Now,
you have killed your sister.”

  Theel screamed in horror.

  “You killed Yenia!”

  Theel needed to breathe. He fought desperately for air. But something was crushing him, squeezing his lungs and denying him breath. He fought to push it off, but the world rocked beneath him, making him feel sick.

  He would do anything for fresh air. Anything to escape the living cadavers who taunted him and cackled with pleasure at his despair.

  “No! Not Yenia. I can’t lose her!”

  Suddenly, a yellow knife of sunlight sliced into his eyes, ripping him from his slumber. He blinked himself to wakefulness, struggling with all his meager strength, pushing and punching at the weight that pressed down upon him. All he could see was a blue sky with white clouds and the wings of black birds. All he could feel was a hard stiffness against his back, and freezing water lapping at his sides. Also, there was a person on top of him.

  Theel struggled to push the body off, but immediately felt pain lancing through his chest. Once again he gasped, exhausted and out of breath. He felt hot stickiness covering him under his clothing. Then he remembered. He was wounded in a fight with one of the Kile soldiers in the Trader’s Cave. He was hurt badly. Where was he? Where was Yenia?

  Then he saw his own hand, saw it was covered in redness. Whose blood is this?

  He seized the body by the neck and pushed it away, and finally saw the face of the person that held him trapped. He saw soft features, a smooth, feminine face. His voice was already hoarse, but he couldn’t stop himself from screaming in terror.

  “Yenia!”

  His sister was pale, and cold, and covered in blood. Her face was a mask of pain, one eye half-open, her lips parted in a silent cry of distress. Without thinking, Theel embraced his little sister, squeezing tightly, unwilling to let her go. Yenia’s body was so cold. Theel couldn’t tell if she was breathing. Then his fingers brushed against a wooden shaft covered in something sticky. More blood.

  An arrow protruded from Yenia’s back.

  Theel cried out in anguish. “No!”

  Suddenly, the world flipped beneath him, and again, he was plunged into freezing blackness. He tried to reach out for Yenia’s body but his arms wouldn’t work. He felt a crushing pain in his chest, as if a knife was slammed into him repeatedly. He struggled to reach out through the pain, stretching limbs that refused to respond. He almost got a grip on his sister ’s arm, but quickly lost her.

  Then Yenia was gone and Theel was surrounded by other corpses, rotten and bloated and touching him with their slippery skin. There was no escaping the nightmare. It had followed him into the waking world. He screamed a stream of bubbles, trying to push the bodies away, desperate to find his sister. All he saw was the unrecognizable hacked and dismembered flesh of the recently slain.

  A lake of death. A liquid graveyard.

  Theel shouted Yenia’s name. It made no sense, but he couldn’t stop himself. Panic was setting in. He was running out of air. He was going to drown and he was no closer to finding his sister. It was futile.

  Theel kicked his way to the surface, fighting through the tangle of arms and legs. It seemed like fresh air was a mile above but he continued fighting, and finally burst into sunlight, gasping for air. He could barely fit his head between the mess of bodies that covered the water in a layer of dead flesh like skin growing on the surface of old soup.

  There was nothing but corpses, everywhere, as far as he could see. Men and women, highborn and smallfolk, the old, the young, ladies in dresses, soldiers in surcoats, peasants in rags, all of them disfigured by the wounds that took their lives.

  Even worse were the carrion birds that darkened the sky and fluttered among the bodies. There were brokenecks, blackwings, and crows. So many crows, all of them cawing with glee at the deliciousness of their horrific feast. It was almost as if they were calling his name.

  Theel! Theel! Theel!

  Theel tried to scream again, but the sound was stuck in his throat. His lungs froze and his stomach twisted. The pain in his chest was overwhelming, and it was mirrored by the pain in his heart. This was a horror as awful as anything he’d witnessed, even watching his father die. As illogical as it was, he was convinced that the entire world was dead. He was the only one left. And the only reason he was spared was because the evil responsible for this hadn’t found him yet.

  It was almost as if he couldn’t die. Everyone around him died, but he continued living. It was a curse. They were innocent. He was guilty. And yet they were punished.

  Just like Father. Just like Yenia. Everyone died because of him.

  And again, he was faced with a horrible decision. He couldn’t leave his sister’s body in the same way he’d abandoned his father. But how would he find Yenia in this sea of the dead? Theel couldn’t swim; he could barely move his arms. He couldn’t breathe, every attempt lost in fits of gasping.

  Yenia! Tears flowed down his cheeks unchecked. Not again. This can’t happen again!

  Even though every breath torched his lungs and every heartbeat stabbed at his chest wound, he plunged back under the water. He swam as best he could, pushing through the tangled mass of dead, scanning each face he saw. An old woman with white hair floating around her head stared at him. A boy seemed to be asleep, eyes closed with peaceful features. A young man dressed in the silver pike of House Alister wore a grimace of agony. They floated in odd poses, some with arms raised as if talking, others with legs splayed as if running.

  But no Yenia.

  Theel floated in silence, unmoving, staring at the corpses as if he was now one of them. His resolve was gone and he was stuck in a state of stupefaction. His chest hurt terribly. He raised his hand and touched the wound, felt the partially healed hole and the warmth that leaked out of it. He didn’t know what to do. He didn’t have the strength to keep searching. He didn’t have the strength to go on without his sister, without his father, without everything he cared for. It was all slipping away.

  Yenia was lost. There was no finding her and Theel knew it. Perhaps it was best to stay where he was and let death take him. Then it would all be over and he could be with his father and sister.

  That would be just, after all. He’d embarked on his quest for Warrior Baptism knowing it would mean his end. It didn’t really matter where or how he perished, as long as it was done. The knighthood would have the death they wanted. Father’s honor would be restored. And Theel would finally be free of the guilt and shame he’d brought upon his family. It was proper.

  It was the death he deserved.

  Perhaps. But it wasn’t the death Yenia deserved. Theel remembered what his father said to him in the nightmare.

  “You want to die because you are afraid to live.”

  It was true. Theel was afraid. It was the same cowardice that caused him to abandon his father on the Dead Man’s Bridge. He resolved that he wouldn’t make the same mistake now. He would not abandon Yenia, no matter the cost. He might drown anyway, but he would do it searching for his sister until his final moments of life.

  He cursed himself, cursed the pain in his chest, cursed all thoughts of giving up. He didn’t return to the surface for another breath. He just began to swim. And as he pushed his way through the watery jungle of dead limbs, his lips moved silently.

  “Please, God, if you exist, if you are listening, if you have any compassion, do not forsake me. Do not allow me to lose Yenia as I lost Father.”

  Bubbles streamed from Theel’s nose as his last breath left his body. He began to lose himself in a euphoria of light-headedness. He wondered if this was how it felt to drown.

  “Please make my efforts bear fruit. Please keep me from failure. Show me where Yenia is. Bring my sweet sister to me.”

  He realized he didn’t need to breathe anymore. His lungs no longer burned. The wound in his chest no longer stabbed at him. All the pain left his body, replaced by a sense of calm. He was certain he was dreaming again. Perhaps he was going to relive the sadness of his fat
her’s funeral, or the agony of his failure on the Dead Man’s Bridge. But he quickly realized this was no dream. He was wide awake. His Sight had taken control and he was having another vision.

  Theel had no ability to control his gift, always seeing things despite his wishes. His visions never seemed to be of use, even when they weren’t waking nightmares. But fortune smiled upon him, or perhaps it was God in heaven. Because now his Sight showed him something he wanted to see, something he was happy to see.

  Theel left his body and went somewhere else, far away, to a watery cave under a mountain. He was laying in cold mud, being sprayed in the face by freezing water. His father’s knife was inside him, a finger’s breadth away from his heart. He was dying. Hideous graygoyles hissed from the shadows, eager to steal his breath and finish him off. But Yenia was there, protecting him, fighting off the monsters and pulling Theel to safety.

  The danger wasn’t over. Theel was still damaged and near death, bleeding from his chest, drifting in a coma from which he might never awaken. Yenia saved him again, cleaning the wound and stitching him up as well as any healer.

  Then Yenia carried her brother out of the Trader’s Cave and across the floor of the Toden River Valley. Again, Yenia saved him, risking her life repeatedly, moving through occupied lands, fighting the Iatan when necessary. All the while, she continued to care for Theel in the most impossible circumstances, keeping his wound clean and his bandages dry even as they floated in the Toden River. And she did all this while wounded herself. Theel could see the stitches on his sister’s forearm, closing a nasty gash she earned while saving Theel from the graygoyles in the Trader’s Cave.

  Then, in her final act of sacrifice, Yenia saved her brother from the Iatan on the bridge near Korsiren. When spears and arrows rained down, Yenia protected Theel with her own body, exposing herself and suffering the wounds meant for Theel.

  Through it all, Yenia never complained, never stopped caring, never stopped fighting for her brother. Just like her father, Yenia never hesitated to give of herself for Theel’s benefit. Just like her father, she was a truly selfless person. And just like her father, she was dead because of Theel.