The Wandering Ones

Swords crossed and the ring of steel on steel echoed through the valley.  The Knights of King Merron pushed against the Fre'ment hordes.  The beast-creatures of the evil Terrace Go'shar in mismatched armor swinging their axes and clubs, wrought in the fires of the Forbidden Land.  The sun glinted off the armor of the valiant knights as screams and the inhuman howling of the dying added to the din of war.  Carrion eaters circled overhead; they would feast tonight.
King Merron himself led his soldier's onward, pushing back wave after wave of the ugly, twisted faces of evil.  The charge, which had started with a blast of black horns just before sunrise, continued its onslaught against the line of human warriors.  They held against the horde, for the moment; the city behind the mass of armor must be saved at all costs.  The last remnant of humanity lay there, huddled in caves high in the mountains above the Great City.  If that line broke, if Merron and his Army lost, if they were swept away with the wave of evil...

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Sean Lockhart blinked and looked up from his book, his eyes focusing on the form of his blonde, petite mother standing in the doorway to the kitchen looking across the bare, packed dirt.  For a brief moment she looked like the Princess Sahra from his book as the cool breeze stirred her hair. Squinting into the harsh sunlight, she seemed, to be the evil Stepmother.  When she started yelling at him, she definitely was not a princess.  He closed the wooden cover on his book and levered himself out of the haystack next to the barn, blinking as his head just broke out of the cool shade.
Glancing out towards the field, he could see his older brother, Sameal of 20 turns, still swinging the sickle through the hay-grass.  Luc, the oldest at 22, would be out of sight around the corner of the wooden hay barn, guiding the massive, furry, horned sulligets.  The huge beasts of burden were pulling the large hay cart in front of his father and a few of the other farmers.  Da and the others were forking the fallen hay into the cart, to then bring the load to him.    They should be coming in soon, if the creak of the wooden axle was any indication of the weight on the cart.
He hated Harvest Time.  For the past three weeks, and for another four yet, he would be swinging sickles, hauling hay, forking it into barns and swallowing enough chafe to feed a sulliget.  The farms for three miles in any direction all worked together to get the harvest in before…he shuddered to think of them.
Small, thin creatures that flew in droves would cover the land with their miniature eyes and huge appetites.  They flew everywhere, eating anything: clothing, food and flesh alike.  Sean had seen a baby sulliget that had been left out in a field during their flight by a neighbor, picked clean to the white bones.  They stayed a week, the Criat Rea'arst, Little Devils, and then they were gone for another turn.
Muttering under his breath, he slipped the book beneath his long-since discarded shirt in the shade and grabbed the pitchfork leaning against the wood slats of the barn.  His mother must have finished her yelling; she was gone from the doorway when he shot a quick glance at the door.  Soon she would start cooking dinner with Lizzy, his 16-year-old sister.  Jabbing the pitchfork into the hay pile, he imagined he was stabbing a Fre'ment Minotaur, the fiercest warrior of the Horde.

"What am I going to do about that boy?"  Mother Lockhart sighed as she busied herself with the preparation of dinner.  She looked down at her hands.  Old; I'm growing old.  I don't want to grow old.  She leaned against the counter and hung her head.  Weariness flooded through her, and she let out a long, low sigh.  Mentally shaking herself, she turned back to sifting the bean-like freilos.
Setting a bowl next to the cutting board, Lizzy smiled, her narrow mouth set low in her pale features.  Her freckles stood out of the paleness, little pinpoints of fire on a white canvas, matching the burnished bronze of her hair.  Bright, light green eyes shone with joy and health.
"What you've always done, Mother." She responded with a giggle, "Give him a stern talking to in front of Father and then ask him what he read after Father goes outside to Pipe.  I wish Da wasn't so uptight about the women not knowing what is written in Books."  She set her hands down on the counter, and for a brief moment doubt and frustration replaced the joy that was carved into her very being.  With a quick start, as though shaking cobwebs from her hair, the smile flew back in full force and she picked up the cutting board on her dance across the kitchen.
"I don't know how far he got, but I do hope that King Merron has beaten the Fre'ment Hordes.  I wish we were taught the art of Trent'illak, so we wouldn't have to rely on Sean to tell us what's happening in Father's books.  At least he's a good story teller, though I think he embellishes too much."  Her graceful movement flowed around the kitchen, her white dishpan hands collecting the ingredients for the meal from the various cupboards and shelves.  Her feet marked an effortless dance across the wooden floor, worn smooth from years of the wear.
"Maybe if you asked Sean to teach you Trent'illak, he would let you teach him how to cook?"  Her face stayed neutral, emotionless, until a small flicker showed in the wrinkled corner of her mouth.
"Mother!"  The shock on Lizzy's face showed she had not perceived the hairline crack in the mask of indifference.  "You know that's as forbidden to him as Trent is to us!  Besides, Sean has neither the grace nor the gentleness to survive in a kitchen.  Only women are allowed in here, and he would probably break all the dishes while treading on the cat.  I wouldn't want to eat anything he cooked, would you?
Father and the Elders teach him how to cook outdoor meals, like rabbit or fish, but to have a boy in the kitchen?  That's absurd."
The mask flickered, strengthened and then collapsed all together as mother and daughter caught eyes and each saw the others joke.  Laughter echoed out of the kitchen as loud as the pots and pans banging together.

Two hours later, sweat rolling down his thick, tanned arms, Sean heard Lizzy ringing the dinner bell from the back porch.  Wiping his arm across his brow, he rammed the pitchfork into the dirt and scooped up his shirt and book.
            He slipped around the side of the small house and clambered in through the window of his room.  Throwing his armload on the single, low bed, he slipped into the fresher for a quick shower.  Letting the warm water soak into his muscles, he gave a long sigh, of regret or relief, he wasn't certain which.
            Pulling a clean white shirt over his head, he paused to scratch Tribbit behind its scaly ears, and felt the warm purr of content as he rubbed the crest running down the small pet's back.  Hopping into the trousers, he scurried into the dining room and took his place on the hard, wooden bench.  No one noticed his lateness; cleanliness took precedence.
The table was already set with wooden bowls of food, and steam rose from the clay mugs of hot cider.  A glass pitcher stood in the center of the table filled with fresh water, a testimony to how well to-do the Lockhart's were; glass was a rarity in this end of the world.  He didn't look up as he served himself from the bowls of root and sclapat salad, warm freilos and the crunchy corn chips as they were passed around.  The large candles at either end of the table illuminated the meal, and a hanging lamp above served to brighten the entire room.
His father sat at the head of the table, with Phil the next-door neighbor in the honored guest position to his father's right.  His mother sat at the foot in the third high-backed, handcrafted chair.  The rest of the family sat in descending order in age: Luc, Sameal, and then himself on one side, and Lizzy taking her place on the bench next to the guest chair.
A quick peek at his mother surprised him when she gave him a wink, and after a swift glance across to Lizzy, also wearing a reassuring look, Sean let relief fill him.  The sense of hunger that had been hidden by fear erupted in his stomach as it grumbled loudly, and he began to eat in relish.  He wolfed down the food, contentment running through him as the warmth spread from his stomach down through his toes, draining away the tension and strain of a hard days work, leaving nothing but welcome weariness.
The meal commenced in relative silence.  A few remarks between the older men, related to the fields: which were done, which needed doing, where they planned to work next, were all that could be heard over the steady sounds of chewing and utensils scrapping plates.  Everyone finished about the same time, and Sean pushed his plate back to signify his own completion.
"Sean, do you have something you wish to tell Father?"  The contented feeling that had been dragging down his eyelids vanished instantly and his mouth turned to dust.  His back went rigid, and he straightened on the bench.  How could she do this?  After all the reassuring looks?  He looked at her in shock, then in anger, but his attention shifted to the deep, steely voice as his father asked quietly,
"Is there something Sean?"  The quietness contrasted with the hard face, tanned, and wrinkled, with dark, piercing eyes and a cleft chin.  Trenton Lockhart's face looked liked it had been chiseled out of rock, and the artist had hiccupped when he got to the right cheekbone.  A thick scar ran vertical, and sat beneath skin level, creating a shallow trench that started under the right temple and traveled down to the base of the large, square jaw.
Sean looked straight into that face, as he had more times then he could count.  He knew Father wasn't really angry yet; the vein that crossed his forehead wasn't standing out like a kineworm.
"I took an extended break, Father, and practiced my Trent'illak, deciphering the writing of the ancients, which has been passed down from generation to generation."  His father cut him off with a wave of his massive, calloused hand.  The familiar, affectionate "Da" replaced by the formal Father showed the fear and respect Sean wanted to bring out.
"I know what Trent is.  Do no lecture me the way the Elders do a Youngling."
"I want to be a Yo'a'thia, Father.  A Traveler of the World."  He said it all in a rush to his plate, but when he was finished he steeled himself and lifted his head to take whatever his Father would mete out to him.  He would not break away from that piercing gaze, no matter the cost.  His mouth felt like sand and he wished he could get away from the glare and drink a whole drum full of water, but he clenched his hands in his lap and sat still.
Trenton interlaced his fingers slowly, set his elbows on the table and placed his chin on his hands, never once breaking eye contact.  Sameal put his fork down, Luc's fell with a clatter; both sat quietly, intent on the contest of wills.  Lizzy scrutinized her plate as if searching for a hairline fracture in the old, sanded wood.  Phil leaned back in his chair, and pulled his pipe out of his wide waist-sash.  Thumbing it full of smokes, he lit it and silently watched, knowing his place as an outsider.  This was family business, and he could not intervene, even should he want to.
"I will no have ye go running off and join tha' roving band o' cons and swindlers.  T'would bring shame on this house and I will no have it!  I did no let ye study with the elders to get fool notions in your head!"  The tone was getting harder, stronger, rising, the heavy Northerner accent of Drolos Province coming out in his words.  Sean could feel the emotions rising like a bubble from his stomach, swelling up inside.  His heart beat to a fast and uneven rhythm.  Tears welled in his eyes, and his breathing became low and shallow.  He had to stop it somehow.  Stop what, though?  Father's anger?  Or the unfair treatment, the withholding of his freedom.  He had to show Father how important this was to him.
True, it was while in the Academy during his 10th and 12th turn with the other boys that he had heard of the Travelers.  They toured the world, some boys said, moving from town to town telling stories of the ancients, singing songs about creatures called birds that flew threw the air without strings and beasts like horses that had one horn on its head, a Unicorn, one local boy had called it.  The Travelers, called Yo'a'thia, the Wandering One's, lived off of the wilderness when not in towns, sleeping under the stars and laughing.  They could mend anything, it was rumored, but you had better watch your purse whenever they were around.  The stories from the other boys had fired his imagination, but he had never told anyone at home his ambitions.
"Why?"  That wasn't what he had wanted to say but the question had slid out of his mouth before he had thought it, and now the rest of it kept coming, a flood of words and emotions that he had been holding back.  "Why can't I join the Travelers?  Just because they don't sit still.  I want to live like that, to see the world, to go places and see the Great Palaces of the Seven Fold Towers.  I want to swim in the Lake of Fire, to throw a sulliget hoof into the Salddona Pit and have my wish come true.  I haven't even been to Three Folly, and it is the biggest town within twenty miles.  Luc's been there, and you're taking Sameal next full moon to market!
I'm a grown man now Father, the village elders said I was!  If you had bothered to even show up."  He would never forgive Father for not being at what most boys considered the most important ceremony on his 18th turn, the Rafelar.  "And I don't want to be stuck on this stupid farm for the rest of my life.  Luc and Sameal may be fine with being farmers till they grow old and rot, but not me.  I want to see the world!  From the Winter Sea to the Dersal Mountains!"  He was waving his arms now, pointing vaguely at the directions as he listed the landmarks of Rekil Thia, the Real Land, the entire world as far as its inhabitants were concerned.  None dare the passes of the Dersal Mountains; none had survived.  Likewise the Winter Sea; no ship sailed out of sight of land, for fear of being lost forever on the cold waters.
"Then leave."
Sean stopped, mouth open, ready to continue.  He couldn't believe what he had just heard.
"What?"  Sean asked incredulously, followed by his siblings chiming in with the same exclamations of disbelief.
"Go.  If ye no longer wish to be a part of this household, then we do no want you here."