The small village nestled on the banks of the Salmon River just south of the Wood Elven Forest was buzzing with excitement on that bright and sunny morning. It was the time of the salmon run! Hundreds of thousands of red-bellied salmon had begun their arduous journey upstream to spawn in the calmer waters at the Twin Rivers Bend, and every able-bodied fisherman was on the river that day, hoping to fill their boats. Clusters of cheering children sent the men off, and every woman was preparing for the festivities and feasts that would go on deep into this first night of the salmon run. Of all the people in that village, few were more excited than twelve-year-old Donovan.
Donovan’s father, a metalsmith who built and repaired tools for the villagers when not fishing, had been preparing for this morning for weeks, stocking his small boat, mending nets, and building the drying racks and smoker. Donovan had helped eagerly, sharpening his father’s knives and hooks and dreaming of the day when he, too, would join the triannual event.
“This is the year that will make all of our efforts worthwhile,” his father had told Donovan and his mother that morning.
“You’ll have fine cloth to make new clothes,” he promised his wife.
“And perhaps we’ll have enough to send you to an apprentice school in one of the free towns so you can learn a better-paying trade,” he had said to Donovan. “The salmon will make all this possible, and more. You’ll see. It’ll be our best year ever!”
Donovan’s family had moved from the free town of Benten, which lay about 100 leagues southeast of the village, when he was four years old and they had settled in the small village in order to be closer to the spawning grounds. The red-bellied salmon spawned in only one place on the whole planet of Ryyah, and only once every three years, making them one of the most valuable trade items to take to the free towns. A good catch would make living in this remote place—so far from other human activity—and all their other sacrifices worthwhile.
When the boats moved out of sight, the children began to drift back toward the village. Donovan lingered at the riverbank until most were gone, then turned toward the forest. Immediately, his best friend, Akenji, was beside him.
Akenji gazed in the direction of the departed boats and said, “In three years, when the salmon come again, we’ll be on the boats, and children will be cheering for us!”
Donovan grinned at him. “Not me,” he replied. “I’ll be a guard in the Grand Duke’s army, defending Benten from the Barbarians and the Wood Elves.” He brandished an invisible sword and slashed the air around his friend as they walked away from the river and headed toward the edge of the forest.
Akenji laughed. “Sure you will! You’ll be mending harnesses for the rich shopkeepers in some free town and charming all the ladies,” he teased.
“Ah, I’m looking forward to going to one of the free towns,” said Donovan. He smiled as he thought of all the things they could buy there—new tools, colorful cloth for his mother, blankets, weapons… “And we can go to the carnival,” he added, his cheeks flushed with excitement.
“Do they really have such a thing?” Akenji asked, a frown of doubt wrinkling his smooth, dark brow for a moment.
“Yes, I remember it,” answered Donovan, although, in fact, he remembered very little about his life in the free town and mainly had pictures in his mind of the carnivals from the stories his father told him.
“There is music, food, and games,” he told Akenji, gesturing wide with his arms as though to show his friend all of these amazing things. “You can play the games and win things! I will be the best in the archery game and win a real bow and arrow!” This time, it was an invisible bow that he drew back and let fly an invisible arrow high into the air. Both boys “watched” as the arrow arched and descended into the trees ahead of them.
“I think you just killed a Wood Elf,” exclaimed Akenji, punching Donovan’s arm.
“Of course I did,” bragged Donovan, resisting the urge to rub the spot where Akenji had just ^punched him. Akenji was surprisingly strong for his age. “The Wood Elves fear the name Donovan and run before my bow and arrow!”
Akenji snorted and looked over at his friend with admiration. Donovan, a year older than Akenji, was already beginning to show signs of manhood. His slender arms were beginning to thicken with muscle and his body moved with a natural coordination that made the younger boy, who was taller and more awkward, somewhat envious. Akenji tended to imitate Donovan and strove to keep up with his friend in all their many adventures.
Now, he turned to face the forest and said, “I dare you to go into the forest to find the Elf and retrieve your arrow.”
The confident smile faded slightly on Donovan’s face and he glanced sideways at Akenji. “I would,” he said, “but mother is waiting for me.”
Both boys looked into the gloom of the forest, silently, and shivered slightly.
“Ya,” whispered Akenji. “We should get back.”
Just then, the sound of a high-pitched whistle reached them, and before they had taken ten more steps, they heard a scream. It was coming from the village. Then more and more screams—frantic, horrible screams. Both boys froze, terrified. What could be causing the women to scream like that?
“Mother!” yelled Donovan, snapping out of his daze. “Come on, we have to help them!” he cried, taking off at a dead run.
In the nearby forest, a Barbarian scout had been watching the villagers. As the fishermen drifted out of sight, he smiled and thought, So many pretty women, left all alone. They will fetch a good price at the slave markets.
He stroked the feathers of his hawk and adjusted his pet onto his forearm. He tied a note to the hawk’s talons and threw the large bird into the air.
Moments later, the bird flew down and landed on the thick forearm of the Barbarian leader, Boric the Knife. He removed the note from the hawk’s talons and read it quickly. Everything is in position, all clear, proceed with plans.
Boric whistled and about fifty men began moving toward the village.
By the time Donovan and Akenji reached the edge of the village, all hell had broken loose. Boric’s men had surrounded the perimeter of the village and were systematically moving toward the center, charging, yelling, and driving the children and womenfolk ahead of them.
“It’s slavers,” whispered Donovan. He and Akenji were crouched behind a hut at the edge of the village. The screams and cries of the women put shivers up Donovan’s spine and he couldn’t stop the trembling that was taking over his whole body. He peeked around the edge of their hiding place, just as one of the Barbarians dragged an old man from a nearby hut, sliced his throat, and threw him aside. Donavan gasped and lurched back beside Akenji.
“We have to get our fathers,” whimpered Akenji. “We have to go back.”
They had barely stood, preparing to head back to the river to get help, when a man—the same man who has just killed the elder— rounded the side of the hut and grabbed them both. The boys struggled under the man’s iron grip, but they were soon being dragged along, helpless to defend themselves. As the man moved them toward the growing crowd of captured villagers, they saw many bodies strewn around like ragged, discarded toys. Anyone who offered a token of resistance was ruthlessly slaughtered.
Donovan scanned the group of frantic women for his mother. When he finally spotted her, the terror in her eyes made it hard for him to breathe. She was like a wild, cornered animal and the keening sound that arose from somewhere deep inside her when she spotted him brought tears to his eyes. Unashamed, he ran to her and for a moment they clung to each other, instinctively knowing that the worst was yet to come.
“I won’t let them hurt you,” he promised her.
“You’re only a child, Donovan. Do as they say or they’ll kill you. Keep yourself safe!”
The men began shouting for quiet and soon only whimpers and muffled moans could be heard throughout the crowd. The captives were pushed and prodded into the closest huts, with threats of death to any who dared to make a sound. The doors were barricaded and guarded. There was no hope of escape.
Boric’s men quickly set up an ambush for the men who had left that morning, expecting to return to celebrations and a feast. In one of the huts, Donovan and his mother sat in a tense silence, praying for something, or someone, to help them.
The fishing boats came into sight by midafternoon. The men were singing songs of the salmon and trips to the free towns as they drifted downstream and closer to the village. As they drew near the shore, their songs faded. No one was there to greet them and apprehension spread through the group.
“Where is everyone?” wondered one of the men. “It’s like a ghost town.”
“Where are my boys?” shouted another man. “Come help haul the fish, my sons!” There was no response.
No longer laughing and singing, but quiet now with a strange dread, the first of the men pulled their boats to shore and began to make their way toward the village in search of their loved ones. They never made it. Boric’s men attacked them and cut their throats before they even had a chance to cry out. Within seconds, the shoreline was flooded with Barbarians and the surprised fishermen were quickly cut down. Not one was spared during the bloody attack. The Barbarian warriors wasted even less time rifling through the dead fisherman’s pockets, searching for any valuables.
In the village, Boric shouted orders to bring out the women and children.
“Women and female children on this side,” he commanded. “Male children over here. Get rid of the infants.”
Everything happened quickly then. Donovan’s mother dragged at him and screamed his name as the Barbarians forced them apart. Tears ran down his face, but he made no sound. All around him, children and mothers cried their anguish as families were torn apart. The worst was the sound of the mothers with infants. Donovan knew that the sound of their wails and desperate begging and screaming, as their babies were torn from their arms and slaughtered before their eyes, was a sound he would carry with him forever. He fought waves of nausea as the smell of blood filled the air, and the sight of the dead was almost more than he could bear.
“Take these women and girls to the southernmost free town slave market and sell them off,” Boric ordered his second-in-command. “Answer no questions. Keep it quiet and do it as quickly as you can.”
A group of men were selected to escort and guard the distraught women and girls. As they began herding the females toward the riverbank, mothers tried to run back to their sons, snatch up their dead babies, or reach for their husbands as they passed the bodies of the fishermen. The guards ruthlessly beat the frantic women into submission and were finally able to get them into the fishing boats among the treasured salmon that had been caught that day.
Donovan stood beside Akenji, numb and dazed, along with all the other boys left behind, listening as the wailing of the women gradually faded. He could feel his friend shaking and crying silently, but could not move to offer any comfort. The youngest boys cried openly for their mothers. Donovan looked at them as if from a distance. He had never felt so helpless or lost. It was like an unimaginable nightmare.
The boys fell into an uneasy silence as the leader of the slavers approached them, followed by some of his Barbarian warriors.
“Who here is thirteen years or older?”
Several boys glanced nervously around the group and slowly raised their hands.
“Stand over here,” ordered Boric, pointing to where he wanted them to move.
“If you are younger than eight years, join those boys,” barked the fierce leader.
When the boys had finished sorting themselves, Boric looked over the remaining boys. He pulled a few boys out of the group and pushed them toward the cluster of older and younger boys. His eyes rested for a long moment on Donovan.
“How old are you, boy?” he demanded.
“Twelve, sir,” Donovan answered nervously.
“And you?” Boric gestured to Akenji who, although a year younger than Donovan, was taller than him.
“Eleven, sir,” said Akenji, his voice trembling with fear.
The fierce looking man sized them up, seeming to try to decide about them. “You’ll be able to work hard,” he finally growled, moving on. When he had inspected each boy and seemed satisfied with the groups he had made, he swept his arm toward the boys who had been separated, and shouted, “Do it!”
The Barbarian warriors swiftly moved into the group and sliced the throats of every boy. Within minutes, not one boy from that group was alive. If Donovan had been numb before, now it seemed that all feeling had left his limbs. He struggled to remain standing and his heart raced in his chest. He felt Akenji, beside him, collapse to the ground, heard his sobs. He saw boys try to run, overcome with panic, only to be sliced down in their flight. His mind, deep in shock, couldn’t make sense of all that was happening. His mother, his father, his friends and neighbors…all gone. The blood, the screams, the horror of it all was too much for his young mind to comprehend. He slowly sank to the ground beside Akenji and sat there, staring straight ahead, just trying to breathe.
He wouldn’t sit for long, however, as Boric called out to his men to tie the children’s hands together with rope and prepare to move them.
“We’ll head southwest, following the river,” he ordered.
It was a sorry-looking group of boys who were prodded and pushed before Boric’s men that afternoon. Parched with thirst, exhausted, blood-splattered, bruised and battered, they stumbled along in a daze of shock, knowing nothing of where they were going or what was to become of them. The warriors showed no mercy, and were quick to land a harsh blow to any boy who lagged behind or fell. They marched along in this state until they came to a juncture where the river flowed directly south before curving around to flow southwest again. Here, they stopped and allowed the boys to drink from the river and rest while Boric decided their route.
Boric calculated that he could cut several hours off their journey if they left the river and cut through the forest. The river route was treacherous along this bend and would be slow and long. They could move through the forest with much greater ease and speed. His men shifted restlessly and eyed the forest with nervous glances and mistrustful frowns, although none dared to speak out against their leader’s idea.
Sensing their unease, Boric added, “The Wood Elves are not likely to patrol this far south. If we move quickly, we will reach the other side before sundown and we can camp by the river on the other side for the night. Be on guard and do not linger. Let’s move!”
The men and their captive boys moved swiftly and silently through the forest, on alert to every snapping twig, rustling bush and whispering breeze. The boys had been raised to fear the forest and the Wood Elves who controlled it. Stories were told of disobedient children who ventured in, never to return, and of the fierceness and magic of the Elves. There was little that the villagers feared more, as the Elves were well known to have little tolerance for humans. Unlike the Barbarians, though, they did not openly engage in attacks against humans unless the humans invaded their territory.
They marched on for hours with no sign of trouble and as they neared the end of the journey, fatigue and relief began to make Boric’s men complacent. They had less than four leagues to go, and their focus now was on keeping the exhausted boys moving. Little did they know that they had been being trailed by a Wood Elf scout for the last three leagues.
The Elven scout whistled for one of the forest wolves, and tied a message around the beast’s shaggy neck. “To Alayna, on swift feet,” he requested. The wolf turned, without hesitation, and loped into the forest.
The Barbarians urged the boys on, eager to leave the gloom and threat of the forest. Night was falling and they were only a few leagues away from a meal and rest.
The sound of a long, low whistle brought them to a standstill. The warriors drew their weapons, alert and tense. The boys huddled together, terrified, and the men surrounded them, prepared to defend their prize. The forest revealed nothing, made no further sound, and finally Boric gave the signal to start moving again.
Suddenly, arrows were whistling through the air, striking the warriors down where they stood. The Elven Rangers were deadly accurate, and within moments, not one man was alive. The children were huddled together, weeping and begging in a language unfamiliar to the Elves. The Rangers notched their arrows and took aim, ready to complete their duty.
“Stop!” shouted a woman’s voice. Donovan’s eyes searched the forest in the direction that the voice had come from and then widened as he watched a slender, beautiful Elven woman stride into their midst.
“Lower your arrows,” she commanded, and the Rangers complied. “These are mere children,” she said, her brow furrowed with concern. Donovan, watching her, could not understand her words, but sensed that she was trying to protect them. All of the children were still, their anguished eyes riveted on her face.
“Lord Aden has ordered us to kill any human trespassers,” one of the Rangers reminded the woman. “These children are human, which makes them a threat to our kind. You know the laws as well as we do!”
“The law was put in place to nullify direct threats. Look at these children. Do they seem threatening to you? What have we become, Shadow Elves? Killing children and spilling so much innocent blood are the actions of evil beings. Is that what we are? These children were forced here. They are no threat to us.” There was no reply and she knew she had won the argument.
“I will take full responsibility,” the woman assured them. “As your leader, I order you not to harm these innocents.”
“As you command, Alayna,” said one the Rangers.
“Shall we leave them here, then?” asked another.
“They would not survive the night,” Alayna replied, her eyes on the children. “We will set up camp here and attend to their needs tonight.”
Murmurs of protest rippled through the Elven group, but stopped immediately when Alayna raised her hand for silence.
Alayna pointed to one of the Rangers. “You, head back the way they came and find their village. If there are survivors, we will lead the children back to their home.”
She pointed to another. “You, take word to Lord Aden, explaining the situation. Request further orders about what he wishes us to do with the children.”
To the group in general, she said, “We will need food, shelter, water, and fire. Make camp!”
Alayna turned her attention fully on the boys. A feeling of safety and relief swept over Donavan as he looked up into her delicate face. Her red-gold hair was pulled back in a ponytail, revealing long, slender ears that pointed at the tips, and her eyes were a deep turquoise. When those eyes rested on him, he sensed that she was sharing his sadness and was somehow connecting with his mind and with his heart. His eyes began to blur and tears fell onto his cheeks.
She wrapped her arms around him and said, “Child, it will be okay. I can see that you have witnessed great horrors this day. You will not be harmed further.” He looked up at her, surprised to hear her speak human words. She smiled at him, looking more like an angel than a flesh and blood being. “I am Alayna, of the House of Dorandal. I am sorry for your loss,” she comforted. “Cry if you must. It is good to mourn those who have passed. I am here with you tonight.”
True to her word, she sat with the traumatized youngsters all through the night, comforting those who cried out in their sleep, holding the ones for whom sleep would not come and watching over them all. None of them could know just how important this woman would become to them, or where their lives were heading. For now, all they knew was the soothing lull of her melodic voice as they struggled to get through this first long night as orphans.