Blood Loss: The Chronicle of Rael (2 page)

1.

“The lad’s got evil in him, he has,” says Garrick to nods of two other fishermen.

Garrick is ugly as Westerners go with a pockmarked face and a bloated nose.  Despite being close to fifty he has a full head of hair, though it is as much gray as black, and it sticks together in thick mats from all the salt water that he never rinses from it.  A scraggly beard of the same color and consistency falls from his chin to mix with the gray hair of his chest, making it hard to tell where one ends and the other begins.  His flesh tells the story of a lifelong fisherman, weathered and tanned from the sea, sun and elements, and he has numerous scars from hooks, fins and bites.  One of these, he says came from a shark that was bigger than his sloop.

The door to the tavern bangs shut as someone enters.  Heedless, Garrick continues, “That color is a sign of a evil sea spirit, it is, and if Jame don’t see, he be a fool.  That boy should be thrown back into the sea he came from.”

“Neeley said you were mouthing off about my son again, Garrick,” says a voice, and Garrick doesn’t turn to see who it belongs to.  Jame’s boots
clop
on the tavern’s wood floor as he leisurely approaches Garrick’s seat.  “You have obviously had too much if you are starting this again.”

“You aren’t as old as me, lad, and you haven’t seen what I seen in me life.  I ain’t never seen no one who look as he do and been no good omen,” Garrick replies, burying his maw in his grog.  It runs down his beard and onto his chest.

“Perhaps not, but I am better than you,” Jame replies.  “Again I tell you not to speak of my son so.  He is no evil spirit.”

“Then he be sickly and shall not breathe long.  It had been better to end him at birth.”

Garrick has no time to react, either because he never looks to see the attack coming or due to his drink addled mind, as Jame takes a fistful of the old fisherman’s hair.  Garrick’s face slams into the rickety table, spilling all three men’s drinks onto its surface to pour and drip on the floor.  The table may be unsteady, but the tabletop is no less solid as Garrick’s nose flattens with a terrible
crunch
.  The battered fisherman’s blood flows freely and mixes with spilled grog in a most disgusting fashion.  Jame yanks Garrick’s head back upright, and the man is crying either from the pain or the drink.

“Am I clear?” Jame asks.

“I sorry.  I got drunk.”

“I forgive your stupidity, and you should have that attended to,” Jame replies, releasing his fistful of greasy hair.  He then addresses the other two and anyone else who will listen.  “I hope no one else will speak against my son again.  Leave Rael Jameson alone.”

Jame leaves the tavern and begins his walk through the village toward home.  It’s not far as the village is relatively small with the exception of an impressive network of docks, housing about two hundred residents.  Another few hundred, mostly seasonal fishermen, come and go from the mainland in Roka.  The island on which the village is planted is surrounded by some of the most abundant fishing waters around Roka, making it an ideal launch point.  It wasn’t long before people began to stay on the island permanently, fishing for both their meals and livelihood.

Jame has a modest home on the northwestern side of the island; it has but a single level with rooms for Rael, he and his wife and a comfortable living area.  Though, he could afford something larger as one of the island’s more successful fishermen.  When the fact is pointed out to him, he merely says, “It is only my wife, my son and I.  I have no need for such extravagance.”  However, a few years ago Jame purchased a tract of land leading from his home to the sea where he built his own dock, and he owns several fine sloops.

As he approaches, he sees three of the island’s boys playing soldier, or swordsman at least, with sticks that appear to be splinters of deck boards.  They’re led by a boy named Orf.  Orf’s nearly the size of a man despite being only twelve, and his size has led him to be either the leader or the bully of all the children on the island. 
He must have Northern blood
, Jame thinks. 
Odd to find it so far from the north.
  The boy has a chubby face, and his body was the same until he suddenly began to grow over the last year or so.  He doesn’t look like a Westerner, at least no Westerner born or raised on the sea, with his fair skin, freckles and red hair. 

However, he is not the only boy in the village who doesn’t have the look of a Westerner.  Jame slows his gait when he sees his son, Rael, watching the other boys with interest as they fight with their stick-swords.  Rael has almost black hair, not unlike the average Westerner, but his skin is deathly gray.  The boy is neither pale nor fair.  He is truly gray all across his body, face and hands without blemish or variance.  Jame stops in the village’s road, really just a dirt track well compacted by the passage of feet and wagons, and watches as his boy finally moves toward the others.

“Orf, can I play?” Rael asks.

“Play?” repeats the bigger boy.  “We’re not
playing
.  We’re
training
.  One day, Tigoleans are going to invade this island of ours, and we’d better be ready.”

“Can I?” Rael asks again.

“Don’t let him,” says one boy, and in chimes the other, “We’ll catch whatever he’s got.”

“It’s not catching,” Rael replies hotly, and the anger shows on his face.  “Please, Orf?”

“I’ll tell you what.  You can play with us any time you want, if you can beat me,” says Orf.  He takes a “sword” away from one of the other boys and tosses it onto the ground at Rael’s feet. 

Rael steps back once as it lands in the dirt, and then bends over to pick it up enthusiastically.  He steps forward, the bit of split plank gripped firmly in his hand, and Jame as to stop himself from stopping what is about to happen.  As Rael nears Orf, it is so readily apparent that he has no chance against his opponent.  It’s not that Rael is small; in fact he is most normal in every way for a nine year old excepting the tone of his skin.  Orf is simply huge in comparison.  Rael weakly swings his sword in a sidearm fashion toward Orf’s ribs, and the bigger boy smacks the blow away.

He laughs and says, “You better do better than that.”

Rael brings his weapon down in an overhead stroke, and the swords
crack
as Orf blocks, his own parallel to the ground.  Rael grimaces with the impact as the rough split wood begins to dig splinters into the flesh of his palm and fingers.  His opponent has no such concern, for he is wearing the gloves he uses when working with his father’s crab pots.  Rael stays on the attack, gritting his teeth every time Orf blocks or parries, and he cannot seem to break the older boy’s defense. 

Jame’s concern that Orf isn’t even trying is confirmed when he finally strikes for the first time.  Rael has no experience with a weapon of any kind, and rather than use his own to simply block the attack, he swings his own sword wildly aiming for Orf’s.  The attempted parry misses by at least a foot, and Orf pokes Rael hard in the ribs.  Rael grunts and his face screws angrily, though whether he was angry at himself or Orf, Jame isn’t sure.  He brings his stick around in a hard, backhanded swipe which Orf easily avoids.  As the sword passes, Orf brings his own sword down hard onto Rael’s forearm.  Rael screams, drops the stick and clutches at his forearm, cradling it as he begins to cry.

“Cry, baby, cry,” Orf sneers cruelly, and he pushes Rael by the shoulder hard to the ground.

Jame decides that it is enough and begins to move toward the boys, but Rael then surprises him.  His son scrambles to his hands and knees, jumps to his feet and launches himself into Orf’s midsection.  Surprised by the attack, the larger boy loses his balance and falls backward, but a handful of pickled-fish barrels save him from crashing to the ground.  Rael continues to drive with his legs, but he doesn’t realize that it’s getting him nowhere.  Orf pushes him back slightly with one arm and then brings a hard upward punch right into Rael’s stomach.  Jame’s son goes down into the dirt again, tears streaming down his face, and now he is gasping for breath from the force of the punch.  He begins to cough.

“Stupid kid.  You can’t beat me!” Orf proclaims, and his cohorts laugh.

Jame is only perhaps fifteen feet from the boys.  They see him coming, except for Rael, and the two observers stop their laughing, as if they have just been caught with their hands in the bread box.  Just as Jame begins to call out to his son, Rael tightens his hand into the hardest fist it can form.  The flesh around the knuckles would have turned pure white if not for the gray of Rael’s skin.  Orf doesn’t even see the blow coming as Rael brings it straight up in between the older boy’s legs, planting his fist hard into Orf’s testicles.  A great gust of air blows from Orf’s lungs as he suddenly deflates, his face turning as red as a beet, and the big boy crumples to the ground, groaning in a fetal position.

*
              *              *

“How could you let that happen?” Rael’s mother asks.  Her name is Neria, slender and tall for a Western woman with long, dark hair that seems to enjoy curling up at the ends. 

Rael sits on the floor of the living room, still cradling his wrist.  It’s not broken, but it still hurts along with the nasty bruise that’s forming on the left side of his ribs.  His father brought him home, now dried tears having cleaned tracks in the dirt on his face, and his mother immediately demanded to know what happened.  Jame had told her, and she wasn’t happy about it.  So, Rael sits and listens to his parents talk as the smells of steam and fish fill the house.

“He just asked to play with them,” his father answers as he turns a spit.  A large fish is impaled upon it over a black iron pot of boiling water.

“They beat him with a stick!  Then they beat him up!”

“One boy hit him with a stick, and the same boy hit him once with his fist,” Jame explains calmly, but the difference is lost on Neria.  “It is important that Rael learn to stand up for himself.  At times in life he may have to fight.”

“And this was one of those times?” Neria asks, but it sounds more like a sneering accusation.

“It was.”

“And how did our son do?”

“He lost,” Jame replied, and he looks at his son.  Rael hangs his head a bit at the words, but glimpses a brief smile on his father’s face as he continues, “But he acquitted himself well.”

After they sup, Jame leaves the home to head for the docks.  He always checks on the boats one last time before the summer sun goes down, and tonight is no different.  Rael is left inside with his mother, helping her with the duties of cleaning up after the meal.  He doesn’t mind it most nights and especially tonight as he wants to talk to his mother.

“Mother, why do they hate me?” Rael asks.

“Who?”

“The other children and some of their parents, I think.”

“They do not hate you, son,” Neria replies without looking up from the stoneware plate she rinses off.

“I’m pretty sure they do,” he argues somewhat glumly.

“Rael, proper words,” she admonishes.

Rael doesn’t know much about his parents’ past, and they never make a point of discussing it.  However, he know they are not from the island, not originally, but he’s unsure as to whether they settled here before or after his birth.  He does know that they abhor the speech of the islanders – their slang and enunciation.  For whatever reason, they were raised to speak a certain proper way, and mispronouncing words or combining multiple words into a single or new word is simply unacceptable to them.

“I am sorry, Mother,” he answers, and he returns to his question, “but why do they hate me?”

“Perhaps some do,” she says with a sigh, “and that is wrong.  It is because you are different, and there are many in the West who fear those who are different.  They should not, for it is wrong, but you cannot change what people think or feel, no matter how hard you try.”

“That is unfair,” Rael nearly cries indignantly.

“Yes, it is,” she agrees, “and so is most of life.”

“I don’t want,” Rael starts, and he corrects himself with an annoyed look from his mother, “I do not want to be hated.  I want to be like you and Father.  I cough sometimes.  Maybe I am sick.  I have heard that Garod’s priests can heal the sick.  Maybe they can heal me.”

Neria hears the longing in his voice, and the sadness and desire to be
normal
almost breaks her heart.  She drops the stoneware plate into a bucket and turns to embrace her son.  He starts to cry softly, and she wraps her arms around him tighter.  After a moment she releases him to wipe away his tears with the skirt of her dress.

“I no longer put stock in Garod or His priests,” she says.  “There is nothing wrong with you.  You are my son, and I love you just the way you are.  The day you were born, your flesh was as pink as any babe’s.  It changed to as it is now three days later, and you began to cough terribly.  I was told that you would not survive your first winter, but here you are in front of me, young and strong. 

“Are you normal?  I do not know what normal is anymore, but I will tell you one thing.  No one normal ever did anything extraordinary.  You are extraordinary, because you are my son.”