Rise of the Champion (The Sword of Kirakath Omnibus #1) (4 page)

Caleb dropped to his knees and crawled over to his father. “You can’t die on me. You just can’t!”

“I am dying,” Michael said in a voice that revealed exhaustion. “I’ve been lying here for no less than half a day now. I’ve lost far too much blood now to be saved, even with the help of a mage.”

“Father….” Caleb began.

“Listen well, my son. It was fate that removed you from this place before the attack, just as it was fate that brought you to me within my last moments. Fate is a powerful mistress, so I ask you to listen to my last request,” Michael said as he grabbed Caleb’s hand in a loose grip. “The monsters that destroyed our home and attacked us... the monsters that murdered your mother... they deserve nothing but death. Take up the Sword of Kirakath and bring justice to them.”

There were so many things that Caleb wanted to say, but he knew that his father never spoke falsely. If he said that he was dying, then he was dying, and if he had a last request that he wished Caleb to honor, than he would do just that.

“What is the Sword of Kirakath?” Caleb asked softly, understanding how much the request meant to his father.

Michael smiled softly at his son’s inquiry. “I don’t have the time to answer that question, and I don’t rightly believe I can. All I can tell you is that it is a sword of great magical power that was wielded by an ancestor of ours though. I have no idea where the sword is, but I do know how you can find someone who does know.”

“How can I find this person?” Caleb asked with tears beading in the corners of his eyes.

“Go to the wreckage of our house and find where my room was located. Beneath my bed, there is a loose board. Once you remove the board, you will find where I have hidden a sword. If you walk the streets of Caldreth wearing that sword, the one that knows of the sword’s location will find you,” Michael answered, wincing as the words were spoken. “Finding that sword will probably be easier than finding the ones who did this, but I have something that may help you.”

With that, Michael removed his hand from the top of Caleb’s hand. It was a small square of cloth that bore the insignia of two crows connected by an arrow.

“You ripped this from their clothes?” Caleb asked, receiving a small nod from his father. “I hope you took some of them out.”

“I didn’t,” Michael said in a sad tone. “They were a force of a hundred armed men, and they were able to get to the clearing before we learned of them. There was no time for me to even arm myself.”

“I promise that I’ll avenge this all. I’ll kill those murderous bastards if it’s the last thing I do,” Caleb vowed as the tears began to flow down his cheeks.

“I know you will… but it won’t be the last thing you do. I can see that now,” Michael said with a smile that should never have been seen on a dying man’s face. “You have a great destiny before you.” The smile vanished as Michael felt himself begin to fade away. “I’m proud of you. I always have been, and I always will be.”

With that, his hand fell to the ground and his eyes took on the glazed over look that always accompanied death.

Tears flowed freely as Caleb looked upon his father. From what he had said, Caleb’s mother was dead as well.

It was a massacre,
Caleb thought as he forced himself to rise to his feet.

Had it not been for his father’s words, Caleb would have stayed there, kneeling over his father and mourning. It was not the time for that though.

With tears still in his eyes, he began to walk towards the remains of his house once again, not surprised to find even more corpses along the way.

There was no doubt in his mind at that moment that it was a true massacre. There were no bandit corpses lying around, but he had already seen the bodies of every villager outside of his mother.

“She really is dead,” Caleb whispered as he reached the remains of his house. His mother was lying on the ground before the wreckage of the house, and she had been struck by three arrows. Any one of them would have guaranteed death.

The feeling that Caleb had upon seeing his mother dead was not a feeling that he had imagined. A sense of apathy began to envelope him at the realization that she truly was dead. Nothing seemed to matter at all. He had thought the world of his mother, and now she was dead. It felt as though the very of light in his life had been extinguished.

Emotion escaped him as he walked around her body and towards the wreckage of the house. Despite his father’s request, he was not interested in actually searching for his father’s sword at that moment. Instead, he dug through the wreckage off to the side of the house and pulled a spade out from beneath a piece of the wall.

Wiping the tears from his eyes with his left hand, Caleb walked behind the house and began to dig three holes, each about four feet away from the other one.

Hours passed as he dug the three holes, each of which was dug as deep as it could be without being too difficult for him to get out of. Through his task, he occasionally wiped tears from his face.

Finally, with the three holes dug and a large mound of dirt to the side, he cast the spade to the side and walked back over to his mother’s body.

He carefully scooped her up into his arms and carried her over to the first hole. With that same level of care, he lowered her into the hole, nearly falling in when he set her to rest.

She remained in the hole without any further actions on Caleb’s part as he carried the cold bodies of Andrew and his father to the holes.

Once his father was in the middle hole and Andrew was in the hole to his right, Caleb picked the spade back up and began the grueling task of filling the holes with the dirt that he had piled up.

Pain lanced through his arms as a result of the repetitious actions of scooping up the dirt and tossing it into a hole. Coupled with the fact that he had just dug three rather deep holes, it was clear that he would not be able to move his arms too easily the next day- not without pain, at least. Still, he kept it up, not taking a break for more than a few seconds.

With the holes finally finished, he dropped the spade to the ground.

“I will avenge you all. Even if it costs me my life, I will kill the bastards that did this to you… to our home… to our people. I will not rest until this is done,” Caleb promised. His voice once again revealed emotion, showing that the apathy had not fully consumed him.

With those last words, Caleb looked over his shoulder at the wreckage of the house that he had lived in all his life. The house had been a big part of his family, having been built by his grandfather before he died when Michael had been younger than Caleb was at that moment.

Taking a deep breath, Caleb began to grab pieces of the broken wood of the house and throw them off to the side, clearing as much room as he could until the floor of the room that had belonged to his parents was visible.

With the floor visible, Caleb ducked underneath a wooden beam and crawled towards his father’s bed, which was covered in debris. He slid his hand underneath the bed and tested the floor in certain places by putting his hand down and rubbing it. It did not take long to find the wooden board that rocked freely when he made that motion.

Caleb immediately went for the knife at his belt and withdrew it. Bringing the hunting tool to the loose board, he slipped the blade in at its edge. With a slight amount of force, he propped the board up and picked it up with his free hand. The knife was sheathed at his belt as he carefully set the board down farther back under the bed.

Peering into the open area that was revealed with the board gone, Caleb could easily see that it was about five feet deep, though it was not particularly wide. The only thing inside it was what appeared to be a sword wrapped in cloth.

Sliding farther under the bed, Caleb reached into it and removed the sword from its hiding place. As it cleared the opening of the, he slid backwards, exiting from under the bed.

Once out from under the bed, he backed up until he could turn around safely.

It was not until he was outside of the destroyed house that he allowed himself to look at the object that he was holding more closely.

The cloth that was wrapped around it felt softer than any material that he had touched in his life, and it was kept closed by three black ribbons, one at each end and one in the middle.

Setting it on the ground, he carefully undid the ribbons and removed the object from the cloth.

As his father had told him, it was a sword. The quality of the weapon was surprising. The pommel was round and unmarked, but it shined as though it had been polished recently. The hilt was covered in soft black leather. Its hand guard had a slight curve to it. And its scabbard was composed of a mixture of hard black leather and polished steel. Sliding the sword free of the scabbard, he saw that the blade gleamed just as brightly as the pommel and hand guard did.

He had held a number of swords in the past, but he noted that none had been balanced as perfectly as this one.

As he sheathed the sword, an image came to mind. The sword had an uncanny resemblance to the spectral sword he had seen the previous day.

He shook his head away from that thought. He had no way of knowing if it was a day dream or something more. It did not seem as though it mattered in the end.

They’re definitely going to think I’m a thief,
he thought when his father’s words about taking it to Caldreth.

Another thought crossed his mind at that moment that had him frowning.

Caleb rose to his feet and attached the scabbard to his belt at his left hip. He spared one last glance at the graves that he had dug before he began to walk away.

I don’t know whether to be glad that Gabriel was gone or wish that he had been here in the hopes that he could have changed everything,
he thought with a heavy sigh. It took every ounce of willpower that he had not to fall apart at that moment, but he did not have such a luxury.

Father always taught me to put duty above personal happiness,
Caleb thought with a look of remembrance upon his face.
It’s time I start doing exactly that.

With that, Caleb began to walk towards the trail that he had come from earlier that day. Caleb did not take another look at the ruins of Kirakath as he walked away.

All thoughts of returning to the village in the future, even the distant future, were nonexistent.

Caleb’s walk was not that of a man on an errand. It was that of a man that had nothing left to live for.

Chapter 5

Maybe I should’ve dug through the house to see if I could get another pair of clothes,
Caleb thought as he looked down at his clothes. Dirt and blood were visible on his tunic and the sleeves of his undershirt. Apparently, digging the graves and handling fresh corpses had a tendency to soil clothing.

The only reason that thoughts of his clothes came to mind was because he was walking down the road towards Caldreth, covered in blood and dirt, with a finely made longsword at his hip.

He sighed as he dusted off his hands on his pants.

Who am I kidding?
I don’t care what anyone thinks when they see me,
he thought with a grimace.
My home was just destroyed. My family was just murdered. Why should I care?

Anger swelled in him as he placed his left hand on the pommel of his sword. Anger was easier to deal with pain and sadness. It could be vented; pain and sadness could only be healed by time.

Where are you?
Caleb looked off to the horizon. For the thousandth time in the past few days, he wished that Hector was there. He would know what to do. He would have the dedication to do what he needed to. Caleb was sure that he would never lose hope either.

Unlike me,
he thought bitterly.

It seemed that his very being was a battlefield, and the combatants were his self-doubts and his determination to carry out his father’s last requests. His self-doubts were clearly winning at that moment.

A twinge of pain brought him from his thoughts. He could already feel his recent actions catching up to him. His encounter with the bear on the last day of his hunt had left him bruised, and his decision to give his parents and Gabriel’s father a proper burial had caused his muscles to ache uncontrollably.

I need to find somewhere to stop and rest,
he thought. Unfortunately, he had no idea what he was going to do, despite his thoughts. He did not have a copper to his name, so stopping at an inn was out of the question. Without a bow, he could not hunt any game either. In short, he had a very uncomfortable journey to look forward to. The only bright side, it seemed, was that only twenty-five miles stood between Kirakath and Caldreth.

His eyes moved forward once again.
How far away am I now?
He did not know how long he had been traveling, but he was certain that the sun would be setting in a few hours.

The sound of rustling leaves brought Caleb’s focus to his surroundings and not just the road itself.

Caleb’s eyes narrowed as he saw six men step out from the forest that stood at both sides of the road. The men all wore dark clothing with bandanas that completely hid their hair. There was no doubt in Caleb’s mind that they were highwaymen, bandits that charged passers a fee to walk the roads. His suspicions were confirmed the moment that they began to walk towards him.