The Zharastvi (prologue)

  My name is Vasilije Vanek, but most people call me Vali. I hail from the city of Radovan in the kingdom of Moravia, and I became apprenticed to a merchant after my family died from a bout of the blood sweats during my ninth year. I would have become a merchant just like my master, had the Great Mother allowed. But she had other plans for me. I had no idea that my life would change radically and I would be involved in a great adventure; that I would see wonders that few men had seen, and do deeds that few men had done. That I would go down in history in the annals of Moravia. That I would be setting down this story in writing, so many, many years later, so that the glory of those brave souls who took part in this tale shall never fade from this earth.
  It began in the city of Radovan, in early summer, the month of Rose Moon. My master Miloslav and his company were preparing to set out on the caravan route to Felsengarten, the kingdom of the trows to the northeast. Tensions ran high, as many dangers lurked along the route. Any time a Moravian went to the wrong side of the river, he ran the risk of a horrid death at the hands of the hordes of bloodthirsty humanoid barbarians known as the Zokej. These cruel feline savages delighted in murder and destruction. If the Siroky had been less wide and deep, the brutes would have overrun the kingdom centuries before. Most of the caravans made it to Felsengarten and back without major incident, but the previous group that had gone out in the spring had disappeared from the face of the earth. My master had doubled the guard on this journey, fearing that the Zokej had become more aggressive, and that we might face an attack out on the Prazdny Moors. Some said we shouldn’t go at all, until it someone determined what had actually happened to the prior caravan, but since no one knew a way to do that without actually venturing out on the moors, the point was moot. Besides, my master didn’t fear the Zokej overmuch, and he had a business to run. So we set out, on a warm summer’s day, each man resolved to face whatever lay in store for him.
  The first two days passed without incident. Nothing moved on the moors. No one spotted so much as the hoof of a Zokej horse.
  On the third day, at noon, as we broke for lunch, they hit us.
  They came out of nowhere, more than forty strong, arrows darting from their bows. We didn’t stand a chance. All around me, men screamed and died as the barbs tore into their flesh. After the first volley, the Zokej thundered into the camp, their naked swords glinting in the sun. The merchants and mercenaries fought back in desperation, but the Zokej overwhelmed them. I saw my master decapitated right in front of my eyes. The memory of it still haunts me to this day.
  I don’t know how I survived. When the attack came, I was leaning up against a wagon wheel, eating my lunch. At the first sound of whizzing arrows and the screams of the wounded, I rolled underneath the wagon and lay still, covering my ears to block out the horrid sounds of battle. The next thing I knew, I was running, towards the west, towards the river, even though I couldn’t have done anything more foolish. I knew that my death had come, but my body took over, and I couldn’t stop it.
  I vaguely remember a few arrows whizzing by, and expecting any second to feel the agony of a barbed arrow in my back. I reached the river and jumped in, splashing away from shore in complete panic. The cold water brought me to my senses, and I dove underwater, swimming with the current, only coming up when I needed air. I swam southward for what felt like hours, and when I thought I had gotten far enough away from the Zokej, I made my way back to shore and climbed out of the water. There I lay, exhausted and sobbing, lost and alone, wondering what in the world I could possibly do.
  The Siroky River was deep, over a mile wide, and filled with man-eating wodniks, so only a fool would try to swim across it. The same barrier that kept the barbarians from wreaking havoc upon the Moravians also kept me from my homeland.  I was so afraid of the Zokej that I forgot about the wodniks, but it seemed luck had saved me that day.
  I lay on that steep bank for hours, waiting for night to come. I knew I would be harder to spot, if the Zokej had decided to track me. Once the darkness deepened, I set out. I knew I couldn’t make it back to Radovan; we had traveled some sixty miles, so my best option lay in trying to make it to Felsengarten. I didn’t know what help the trows could give me, but anything made more sense than wandering around the moors waiting for the Zokej to find me. The forest stood only about ten miles away, so I would be able to make it to safety before half the night had passed. I knew that a trow village stood about ten miles further into the woods. With a heart nearly overcome with fear and grief, I set off on my journey.
  I soon came upon the caravan, or what remained of it. The Zokej had smashed the wagons, and taken the oxen, and looted the bodies and left them to rot. I checked to see if anyone still lived, but to no avail. The Zokej had slaughtered them to a man, and then hacked off their heads and defiled their bodies. A lump formed in my stomach as I realized that this could have also been my fate. At that moment, I fell to my knees and thanked Matka for her kind benevolence, and asked her why this had happened. Asked her why she had spared me when so many others had died. But no answer came. And it probably never would. But I knew that she had a reason for everything, and I had no right to question the mysterious ways of the Lady.
  I found my master’s body. I wished I could have given him and all the others a proper burial, but I had no time for that. I said a prayer for all their souls, and then set about looking for anything that remained that would be of any use to me. I found some food that the barbarians must have missed, and a broken sword. Then I had to go.
  I remember standing there amid the ruins of the caravan, knowing that once I took that first step, nothing would ever be the same again. Part of me just wanted to lie down among the dead and wait for death to come for me as well. But the feeling faded quickly. The will to survive, to keep struggling, to overcome despair and death started my legs moving, one step at a time, and before long I had walked a mile, then two, then three. I ate as I walked, and I stopped and drank from the river’s edge when I got thirsty, and I kept my eyes and my ears open for any sounds of pounding hoofs that would signal the return of the Zokej. But nothing moved out on the moors, and I had almost reached safety.
  An hour later, I reached the Steinbaum Wood, and I cried in relief. I didn’t know if the Zokej ventured into the woodland depths, so I trudged on for another hour along the caravan trail, the sounds of the surrounding crickets loud in my ears. Then I could walk no longer, and I made my way off the trail into the trees, found a bed of ferns, and collapsed in them, trying to block the horrors of the day from my mind and find some peace in rest.
  In the morning, I woke, hoping that everything that had happened had been a bad dream, but of course, the reality of my plight quickly set in. I ate the last of my food and set out again on the trail. The community of trow farmers lay ahead of me. I didn’t know if I could count on their help, but I had to try, as I could think of no other options.
  At long last, I reached the walled town of Pilzstadt. The trow guards at the gate stood clustered around me in a circle, gruff and taciturn, stroking their long braided beards and nodding as I told them my tale. But they said they could do nothing; they felt sorry for what had happened, but I should go on further to Felsengarten. I asked them if they could spare some food, and that they did, giving me a bag of carrots and some raw potatoes for my journey. Twenty miles separated me from the trow kingdom, and neither my heart nor my body had the strength for such a long journey. I thanked the guards and went on my way, deciding that I would never again ask a trow for help.
  I never made it to Felsengarten. And I never made it home either, at least not at that time. I don’t know why. I started out with every intention of journeying to the trow kingdom, but my heart just gave up before I even began. I stopped at a spring on the side of the road to drink, and when I looked up, I spotted what looked like a building further off into the woods. I approached it, and discovered a small square building with a door, and inside that a room, with a rectangular altar fashioned of some strange black stone. I noticed a curious symbol carved into the wall above the altar; the Pentacle of the Zharastvi. On either side of the altar, two doorways led into an empty room beyond.
  I felt that this would provide a good shelter, so I stayed there, and it became my home. I spent my days mostly searching for food. I made myself a crude spear and tried my hand at hunting. I picked berries, and mushrooms, and other edibles. I even stole from the trows, raiding their vegetable gardens and their fruit orchards. I survived. 
  I knew that I only had to get by for three months before another caravan came, so that comforted me. The months stretched on as they always do, and autumn came, but no caravan. Fall changed to winter, winter to spring, and spring to summer. And no more caravans. A year passed since that fateful day out on the moors. 
  And then I met Krina. 


  One morning I lay sleeping in the back room of the temple, and I awoke to the sound of someone singing. It was a female voice, and it had a sad air to it. It woke me instantly, since it had been a long time since I had heard the sound of a human voice. I lay on my back listening for a minute, but couldn’t make out any of the words.
  Curious, I crept to the front of the temple and peered out the doorway. A woman, dressed in the gray woolen garb of a commoner, sat by the side of the spring near the road. She was of average size and build, neither beautiful nor homely, with the long black hair and dark eyes of the Moravians. What struck me was the sense of deep sorrow in her features.
  I don’t know why I went up to her; I didn’t know anything about her. She could have been a brigand, or something worse. But I felt a strange attraction to her, and I couldn’t help myself.
  I was halfway to the spring when she noticed me. In a second, she found her feet, a sword ringing from a sheath at her side and pointing at me. I froze in my tracks, holding out my hands, palms upward.
  “Good morrow! I…I didn’t mean to frighten you…”
  “You didn’t.” Her dark eyes bore into mine.
  “My name is Vasilije Vanek…Vali for short.”
  “Krina Navratil.”
  A moment of uncomfortable silence passed.
  “Good morrow, Krina.”
  “Good morrow…Vali.”
  I managed a friendly chuckle. “You’re not a cutthroat, by any chance, are you?”
  A slight smile played across her lips for a moment. Her guard relaxed, and the sword lowered slightly.
  “No more than you’re a doghead.”
  I laughed. “No, I’m no doghead. Just a simple lad, that’s all.”
  “What brings you out into the forest, then, simple lad? Does your father know where you are?”
  “Unlikely, since he’s dead.”
  She sighed, and sheathed her sword. “Then he’s probably the luckiest of us all.”
  “I wouldn’t say that.”
  She changed the subject. “Where are you from, Vali Vanek?”
  “Radovan, actually.”
  “Radovan?” It seemed that she winced, as if the word hurt her.
  “And you?”
  She hesitated, as if unsure how to answer.
  “Ostrava. If you’re from Radovan, what are you doing all the way out here?”
  “You wouldn’t believe the half of it.”
  “Try me.”
  “Very well.”          
  I related my tale of woe, and she listened intently and without comment.
  “You seem to have done well for yourself out here, living off the land.”
  “I’m surviving, if nothing else. What brings you so far from Ostrava? Are you traveling to Felsengarten?”
  She thought for a moment, as if trying to choose her words carefully. “Let us just say that I am no longer welcome in Moravia. But I am no petty criminal. Just a victim of unfortunate circumstance.”
  I nodded. I believed her. There was a certain regalness about her. She was no common rutterkin, that much I could tell.
  “But I shall speak of this no more. I am weary, Vali, so very weary from the long road. Is that your shelter yonder?” 
  “Yes it is, my lady. If you need rest, you’re more than welcome.”
  “Thank you.”
  She picked up a satchel from the ground, and shouldered a bow and quiver of arrows before following me back to the temple. I brought her into the back room, and she lay on her back against the far wall. I wondered how she could trust me enough to fall asleep with such little concern for her safety. She slept for hours.
When she finally woke, I asked her about her plans.
  “I was going to travel to the trow kingdom,” she said, “but I think I shall stay here, if you don’t mind. We can brave the wild together. If we have to be alone, we may as well be alone together.”
  I thought it was a strange proposition, but I did agree with her. Two people together would have a greater chance of survival than one.
  As the months passed, she taught me how to hunt and forage, and how to battle with a sword. She taught me the history and legends of Moravia, and many other things. I learned much from her in the year we spent together in the forest, but I didn’t learn much about her personally, for she revealed very little of her emotions or of her life. I respected her privacy, so I never pried, but she fascinated me, and I longed to know more about her. I always wondered what had caused her to leave Moravia, but I never asked her. And she never told me of her own accord.
  The most personal thing she ever told me was that her name meant ‘lily’. I thought that fitting, as she resembled the lily. She was fair, and fragile in some respects, but also possessed of an undeniable inner strength. I grew to love her, as a sister, and as a friend.