The Elemental Jewels (Book 1) (14 page)

What if I just want to be left alone?  What if I just go away somewhere and stay out of this whole fight?  You and the demons can fight each other without me,
he suggested.

You will not stay out of this!
There was such force and anger in the words that Grange whimpered and placed his hand on his forehead, feeling pain.

There is no staying out of this; don’t you understand?  The barrier to the darkness is weakening.  This is the time when the demons can come forth.  There will be an army of demons, seeking to weaken the goodness of humanity in this world, so that their dark lord can come forth and take dominion.

If you do not fight the demons, they will take over the world, and every place in it.  There will be no safe place for you, only the guarantee of eventual torment by the great evil that awaits.  You, and every other person and spirit and force in the world will spend the next eon in a tortured state of existence,
the jewel declaimed passionately.

It was a paralyzing prospect, one that the jewel enforced by projecting visions and feeling of terror and pain and torture into Grange, showing him the consequences of failing to act.

You want me to fight all of that?  All by myself?  Just you and me?  I’m not even a fighter!
He protested less sincerely now, convinced of the rightness of the cause, but aware of his own severe limitations.

There are others who will be your friends and allies and unexpected supporters, even lovers
, the jewel told him. 
There will be a god.
 
And you will learn to fight. 
You must
.  You must take advantage of every opportunity while there is time.

There is not much time, a couple of years at most.  You must not fail.  You must be driven to succeed or all the world will be punished
, the intensity of the jewel was frightening, and Grange shivered in fear at the visions he was exposed to.

And then the sense of uncertainty and resistance and fear disappeared.   If it was his fate to fight the battle, if he had truly been singled out only by the simple stroke of fate of being born at the wrong moment, he would accept the challenge, as unprepared and unfit as he felt.  He knew deep in his heart that he wasn’t sufficient to meet such an overwhelming responsibility, that trying to fight demons would have to eventually lead to his death.  But the visions the jewel had shared showed him that if he didn’t fight, death would come after him anyway, and would be worse than what he might suffer in a battle.

That’s better, but don’t be so glum.  You will not be alone, I promise
, the jewel tried to assuage his fears.

Chapter 8

They rode along with no further conversation.  The girl by his side soon leaned the other way and lay down on the bench, while Garrel started to snore from his space among the freight in the back.  The horses placidly walked on in the wake of the other wagons, while Grange held the reins loosely and drifted between sleep and wakefulness.  Sometimes he saw the wagon ahead and the horses, while other times he dreamt of armies of demons, or the pretty Ariana smiling and talking with him as they rode together in the wagon over endless roads.

Ariana awoke while the sun was beginning to brighten the eastern sky behind the increasingly distant mountains on the horizon.

“Can you stop while I go into the woods for a minute?” she asked.

“Why do you need to go into the woods?” Grange asked through the dim, foggy state of awareness that the night of sleeplessness had left him in.

“Never you mind.  I just need to.  Now stop the wagon,” the girl said authoritatively, and Grange immediately complied.

He let the horses drift to the side of the road, where they began to crop the grasses growing in the narrow strip beneath the open sky, while the girl lithely jumped down and sprinted into the shadows of the forest.  The other wagons continued to slowly progress, pulling away from Grange and the others, unaware of the stop.  Grange wasn’t worried though, certain that they would catch up quickly, especially since there seemed to be no alternative to staying on the road that had no crossroads or intersections.

Ariana gave a sudden scream.  “Grange!  Help me!” she shouted in a terrified voice.

He sat up straight, a jolt of adrenaline snapping his sleepiness aside.  He started to scramble across the wagon bench towards her, when he saw that a gleaming metal sword lay propped where she had rested during the night.  He picked the weapon up for whatever use it might bring as he bolted out of the wagon and into the forest.

“Grange, what’s happening?” he heard Garrel’s voice call from behind him, but he didn’t waste time stopping to explain.

The forest was dark, the limited light from the sunrise barely penetrating the still thick foliage on the tree branches overhead.  After a dozen strides into the forest he paused, looking desperately in all directions as he sought to find Ariana.

“Grange, help!” she screamed again, her voice coming from straight ahead.

He dashed forward, holding the sword awkwardly, until he sudden pressed through a tangle of brambles and found Ariana standing behind a tree trunk, a wolf snarling at her on the far side of the tree.

“I’m here; it’s okay,” he told her, pushing the sword out in front of himself as he rushed to defend her from the fangs of the large gray beast.

Back in Fortune, Grange had seen men carry swords.  Some of the city guards had carried them, and the nobility, as well as the men from the palace, carried them constantly, appearing fearless and lethal with the shining blades of metal gleaming on their hips.  But he had never held a sword himself, never even seen one used with intent to cause harm.

The wolf diverted its attention from Ariana to Grange.  He focused intently, crouching lower as he kept the sword in front, and began to cautiously side step away from Ariana, trying to draw the predator’s attention away from the girl.

“Run back to the wagon Ariana,” he told her, as the wolf’s body turned to keep its face towards him, and he opened up the space between the girl and the animal.

Be careful, Grange,” she replied.

He glanced over at her, and the moment he took his eyes off the wolf, it bounded at him, snarling as it launched itself into the air.  Grange’s eyes grew wide with fear as he saw fur and fangs and claws flying at him with unmatchable speed.  He tried to adjust the sword to intercept the wolf, but the animal was too fast, and knocked the sword free from his grip as it arrived.  It struck his chest and knocked him backwards, as he shouted in fear and swung his fist wildly at the wolf.

He made contact, knocking the jaws of the wolf to the side as they snapped shut in an effort to bite him.  He fell to the ground, and the wolf fell on top of him, still snarling angrily.  Grange desperately reached upwards and closed his hands around the wolf’s neck, trying to keep it from closing in on him, as he felt the heat of its breath and saw the spark of anger in its eyes, only inches from his own.

Then suddenly the wolf growled and howled, and then collapsed.  A fountain of blood poured over Grange; he felt its warmth on his chest and closed his eyes as it splattered onto his face.  He shouted again and shoved his arms upwards, pushing the wolf off of him.

He sat up instantly, and saw that Ariana stood over him, grimly holding the sword that he had brought, its blade dark with the wolf’s blood.

“Thank you for saving me,” she said without irony.

Grange stared up at her blankly, unable to comprehend what had happened.  He had gone to rescue her, but had only survived because she had rescued him.

“Grange?” he heard Garrel’s voice calling from not too far away.  He looked around, and saw the wolf’s body, lying on the ground just three feet away.  The massive creature looked even larger in death than it had in life.

Ariana stepped over and wiped the blade on the fur of the carcass, then flipped the sword and wiped the other side.

“That pelt will make a good blanket.  You should bring it along,” she told Grange, then held her hand out to him, offering to help him rise.  He reached out to her, astonished to see his hand trembling in the air, until their palms connected with one another, and he felt her steady him as she lifted him to his feet.

“Grange?” Garrel called again.  “Where are you?”

“On our way,” Grange answered, as he looked Ariana in the face, staring at her intently.

“Thank you for saving me,” he said at last.

“I’d say we’re even.  It looked like you don’t know how to handle a sword.  Would you like me to teach you?” she asked, as she released her grip on his hand and began to walk towards the wagon.

He bent to pick up the wolf carcass, then grunted and staggered as he tried to lift the heavy weight of the great canine.  He shrugged it over his shoulder onto his back, and began to trundle forward, bowed by his load.

“Hello!  Who are you?  Ariana?  What are you doing here?” Grange heard Garrel go through the stages of recognition and surprise as the girl preceded him out of the forest.

“Great gods!  What happened to you?” Garrel gasped as he saw the blood-soaked Grange appear steps behind the pristine girl.  “Are you okay?”

“A wolf attacked me in the forest, and Grange came to my rescue,” Ariana explained, as Grange trudged past the two and dropped the wolf carcass on the tail end of the wagon, giving a sigh of relief as he unburdened himself of the heavy load.

“Ariana, where did you come from?” Garrel asked, not taking his eyes off of the girl.  The sun was rising, and the fleeting moments of the most golden, warm-tones rays of the morning sunlight were striking the girl, making her look soft and gentle, appealing in both person and spirit.  Both boys stared at her, entranced by the enhanced allure the light shed upon her.

“I climbed on the wagon while Grange was driving last night.  I’m running away with him,” she answered.  “We ought to remove the pelt right away, while it’s easiest.”

“You rode with us all night?” Garrel asked in astonishment.  He looked from the girl to Grange for confirmation.

“She did,” Grange agreed.

“You two start driving the wagon, and I’ll dress the carcass while we catch up to the others,” she suggested.

The boys looked at one another, at a loss, then shrugged.

“Have you slept at all?” Garrel asked Grange.  “Why don’t you let me drive, and you can get some rest, or whatever,” he trailed off into an unspoken suggestion, even though he wasn’t sure what he was really trying to suggest.

“Good idea,” Grange agreed, and they all went to their places in the wagon, then Garrel took the reins in hand and the wagon started rolling along once again.

Grange settled in among the apples in the back of the wagon bed, close to where Ariana had pulled a knife out of some unseen fold in her clothes.  She was slitting the carcass with a deftness that left no doubt about her competence at the task.

“I found that sword on the wagon bench,” Grange told her as he watched her.  “I didn’t remember you carrying it onto the wagon when you climbed on.”

“It was under my skirt, just like this little beauty,” she held up the wicked-looking knife that she was using to tend to the wolf pelt.  “I unloosened it when I lay down, to be more comfortable,” she explained.

“You get some sleep,” she commanded.

Grange smiled, happy to comply.

“Grange, would you like for me to give you lessons on how to use a sword?” she asked again, repeating her earlier question.  “My dad showed me, so I know something about what to do with them.”

“Sure, that would be good,” he agreed sleepily.  His exhaustion was catching up with him suddenly.

“We’ll start tonight, after the apple picking is complete,” she told him, a note of satisfaction in her voice.

He fell asleep as he heard those words, and wasn’t aware of another thing until the wagon stopped at the next orchard, their destination to begin picking apples again.

Chapter 9

“Grange, we’re here,” Ariana awoke him not too long after he had fallen asleep.  The sun had risen in the sky, above the trees, but there were gray clouds drifting in from the western horizon.

“Well, we’re glad to see you decided to join us,” Grange heard Thrall’s voice call as the wagon came to a stop at the orchard.

“On my mother’s grave, what is this?” the man asked, as he came around the corner of the wagon and spotted Ariana.  Grange looked over, and saw that the wolf pelt was hanging off the end of the wagon, but the carcass was nowhere in sight.

“”Who are you and where did you come from?” Thrall asked as he faced the girl, looking from her to the pelt to Grange.

“This is Ariana.  She came from the last village,” Grange spoke up.  “She wants to travel with us.”

“I want to go see the big city with Grange,” Ariana spoke for herself.

“Do your parents know about this?” Thrall asked, clearly dissatisfied with the situation.

“No, I left after dark.  I ran through the woods to meet the wagons away from the village.  But I told my friend to tell my parents in the morning,” she added.

“Did you know about this?” Thrall turned to Grange.

He shook his head negatively.  “I was surprised when she came out of the woods and climbed in the wagon.

“Good heavens boy, look at you!” Thrall caught sight of the blood that stained most of Grange’s clothing.  “What happened?”

“This wolf was going to attack me,” Ariana answered, lifting the edge of the fur pelt.  “But Grange came and saved me.”

“Are you hurt?” Thrall asked, seeming sincerely concerned about their safety.

Ariana?” Clarine had walked back, and was shocked to see the girl from her village.

“Father, Deana,” she called loudly towards the wagons in front.  “Ariana is here!”

Grange sat up and moved over next to his companion, as Garrel climbed off the wagon bench and came back to join the gathering.

Drawn by the delay in assignment to the orchards, the other boys from the lead wagon came back as well, and the next several minutes were a pandemonium of comments and confusion as all parties tried to ask questions and give explanations at the same time.

Eventually, Thrall shut the free-for-all down.

“All of you need to get to work,” he said as he looked up at the clouds overhead.  “We’re off to a late start and there’s weather moving in.  Morris, you’ll be hauling the baskets to the cider barn.  The rest of you head to the trees and start picking as fast as you can.  Garrel, you help me get the horses out of the harnesses and hobbled in the pasture.

“And Grange, you take your wife with you to go pick apples,” he added, looking at Grange.  “You brought her, so it’s your responsibility to keep her safe and to earn enough to pay her way.”

Ariana reached over and put a finger to Grange’s lips before he could protest, and with that, the gathering broke up, as the people started to file away to their various assigned duties.

“It looks like we’re going to pick apples,” he said as he swung down off the wagon.  He and Ariana began walking together in the same direction the others went.

“I’m sorry he insulted you by calling you my wife.  I’ll try to explain better when everything is calmed down,” Grange told the girl.  He turned to look at her, his first real examination of her in the full sunlight, and he was struck by how sparkling blue her eyes were.

“They’re gorgeous,” he breathed the words before he realized they had slipped out.  “Your eyes are like jewels.”

Ariana blushed faintly.  “Thank you; it’s nice of you to say so.

“Don’t worry about what anyone calls me,” she added.  “Unless it hurts you.  We’ll get along fine just the way we plan to – traveling and learning sword work.”

They had reached the end of the orchard, where piles of empty baskets stood waiting, as the other boys fanned out.

“Let’s take these two trees to start,” Grange proposed.  They each grabbed canvas bags and positioned baskets under their trees, then started plucking the ripe fruits.

Grange watched Ariana as she worked the tree next to him, and he quickly saw that she was fully competent at the task, actually better at the task that he was, as her slender fingers grasped and twisted the fruits, then placed them in the bag she had hanging around her neck, using both hands with nimble accuracy on both the left and right sides.

Grange was determined to keep up, and he began to focus on his apples with greater concentration.  He adapted her manner of hanging the bags around his neck so that he too could use both hands.  The two of them pulled their apples free of the tree as they walked around and beneath it, then climbed up into the tree to harvest more fruit.  They each filled their baskets with the apples they had, then left the baskets for Morris as they moved in to the next pair of trees in front of them.

Ariana glanced over at Grange, then started picking the fruit, and she seemed to gain speed, moving faster around the perimeter of the branches as her hands shot into the foliage and emerged with crisp fruit that she quickly stuffed in the bags on her chest, while her eyes flickered around, searching for the next direction her hands could fly in.  She was an unmatchable marvel, but Grange counted on his pickpocket-nimble fingers to allow him to do his best, even starting to reach past apples to first grab a more distant piece of fruit, then grabbing the second apple with a pair of fingers as he retrieved the targets, two red orbs in one hand, helping him to appear to match the speedy girl on his left.

Ariana finished her ground work and started to climb ahead of Grange, but seconds later he used his longer legs to leap higher into the tree, so that he could grab the fruit he sought quickly.

They were clearly racing, both of them knew, and they were both determined to show what they could do.  Grange never took the lead, but he seldom fell far behind.  After a long stretch of competitive time, he heard a distant rumble of thunder; when he looked up, he saw that the sky overhead was completely gray with clouds, promising to cut the apple-picking activity short before much longer.

Grange desperately pushed himself to pick even faster.  With only limited time left, he knew he had to give the effort his all if he hoped to avoid losing the contest with Ariana.  He pulled apples at a feverish pace, running as he circled his tree, grabbing apples and leaning forward so that his canvas bags gaped open, letting him toss the apples into their bushel basket destinations while his fingers hurried to find the fruit that hung among the leaves, before his eyes even had time to spot them.

There was a sudden, very close-by crack of lightening, a bright flash that filled the orchard with white light, followed instantly by a ripping, banging clash of thunder.  Before the echoes of the thunder had finished fading away, large drops of rain pelted down from the heavens, hitting the leaves and falling through.

Grange looked over at Ariana, who held one canvas bag over her head for protection.

“Everyone in!” he faintly heard Thrall shout.  “Come to the shelter,” the leader’s voice instructed.

Grange looked around, but there was no sign of the other apple pickers.  He ran over to Ariana.  “Let’s go get under shelter,” he urged.

“Gladly!” she agreed.  Grange held out his hand, and she grabbed it as he started to run down the open aisle between rows of trees, looking for signs of a shelter, or at least signs of where the others had taken shelter.

They were getting soaked with rain, as the clouds opened up and released all the moisture they could drop on the earth at one time.

“Over there!” Ariana shouted, and she swerved to the right, dragging Grange with her as she veered towards something she had spotted.

There was a darkness in the dim visibility that the rain allowed, and Grange followed Ariana straight to it.  It was a very small shed, open on one side, holding rakes and hoes and other tools, but it had a roof, and the open side faced away from the rain, so the two of them dashed into the shelter it provided, and crowded together, their two wet bodies squeezing against one another as they tried to press their way as deeply into the shed as possible, to avoid the fine, moist mist that the breeze curved around the corners and into the shed.

Grange realized that they had carried their half-filled bags of apples with them, as he felt the hard fruit pressing into his leg.  He swung his bags out, took Ariana’s bags from her, and placed them on the ground in front of the shed, giving them a little more room.  He leaned back against the interior of the shed wall, and after a moment, Ariana leaned against him.

“This is a nice break,” she said.

“I needed a break.  I couldn’t keep up with you much longer,” he confessed.

“Keep up?” Ariana inquired.  “It was all I could do to avoid letting you pass me!”

There was a coziness and intimacy to their isolation in the shed, and Grange felt emboldened.  He began to slip one arm around Ariana’s midriff as she stood in front of him, pulling her into an embrace.

“Don’t try anything stupid,” she told him in a calm voice.  His hand stopped creeping, then slowly returned to his side.

“These kinds of downpours don’t usually last too long, do they?” she asked conversationally a moment later.

“When this ends, we’ll have to see how the other apple-pickers were doing.  Don’t you think we were working faster than they were?” Ariana continued.

“We were working faster than anyone I saw back at the orchards in your village,” Grange agreed.

“Tonight, after dinner,” Ariana began, “will you have to play your flute all night, or will there be time to start our lessons for using the sword?”

“We can practice using the sword,” Grange agreed, “maybe right after dinner, and then I can play the flute for dancing after that, if they want me to.”

“Of course they’ll want you to,” Ariana pointed out.  “All the other boys will tell the local girls, and the girls will want to dance, so you’ll be expected to make music for them,” she stated logically.   “There’s nothing wrong with that.”

The rain started to slacken, and minutes later it was only a light drizzle.  The two of them were still damp, but decided to leave the shed and find the others.  A five minute walk led them to the cider barn, where they found the other boys, and Thrall, along with the local girls, who all examined Grange and Ariana closely as the pair arrived.

“Where were you two?” Clarine asked.

“We found a little shed that was the closest place to get out of the rain,” Grange explained.

“The closest place to get out of the rain alone,” Corran said, to laughter.

“They needed to go someplace different, since they had worked their way so far in front of the rest of you,” Thrall said, momentarily dampening the high spirits in the barn, where the boys had been happy to make the acquaintance of their new working partners.

“Is that your wolf pelt on that wagon?” a local farmer asked Grange as he came over to where Grange and Ariana stood by a fire, warming and drying themselves.  “What’ll you take in trade for it?” the man asked.

“How about a couple of sets of clean clothes for us each to wear?” Ariana bargained, as she gestured to the wolf’s blood that was soaked into the labor camp clothes that Grange still wore.

“That’s all?” the farmer asked suspiciously.

Ariana nodded in agreement. 

“I’ll have the clothes here for you by the end of the day,” the farmer seemed satisfied with the deal.

“Ariana, I never would have guessed that you’d run away from home.  And you seem so different now,” Deana said as she and Garrel came over to join Ariana and Grange.  “You were always so timid at home.”

“I’m ready to get out and see the world,” Grange’s companion replied.  “I know that Grange is going to show me things I’ve never seen before.”

“Do you want to stay here in the barn with Clarine and me, and help the girls here?” Deana asked Ariana.  “You could dry out.”

“No,” Ariana looped her arm through Grange’s with a familiarity that was at odds with her rejection of his embrace in the shed, confusing him as he listened.  “We work pretty well together in the trees, so I better go pick more apples.”

Deana looked at Ariana in wonder, then looked at Grange, then a crafty look stole across her face.  “Maybe I should help the boys pick apples too,” she proclaimed.  “That could help them finish faster, couldn’t it?”

“Sure, come on into the trees,” one of the boys laughed, and the others laughed as well.

“Deana!” Clarine exclaimed in surprise.

“You should come too,” Deana urged her friend.  “There are plenty of girls in the barn already, and we can help the boys catch up.”

Clarine’s expression changed slowly, from one of doubt, to one of thoughtfulness, to one of acceptance.  She turned to her father.  “May I help the boys catch up?”

“You have to stay in the trees on the edge of the orchard, where I can see you at all times,” he growled his acceptance after a moment’s thought.

With that, the faces of the boys broke into grins, and the crowd headed out into the wet orchard, to resume their apple picking.