Children of Elium
Chapters 1-3
1
Betham stood silent. The oranges and pinks streaking across the sky made the village almost beautiful. On any other evening, the girl named Behler, who lay hidden in the tall weeds just at the edge of the village, might have paused to take in the sight, but not this evening. This evening she hid and watched the Gorlog who stood guard outside a small depot on the outskirts of the village. She’d seen him around many times. He was easily recognizable thanks to the large scar that ripped jaggedly across his missing right eye. While she waited for the day to give way to the night, she daydreamed about different ways the guard lost the ugly orb, and she smiled slightly as each way was more horrific than the last.
Gorlogs were despicable creatures. They had a tough, gray hide covered in hundreds of sharp, coarse hairs that could pierce a human’s skin. They lumbered about with bulky bodies, smashing and crashing through whatever may lay in their path. This particular one’s hulking frame took up the entire doorway behind it. Behler tried not to gag when it snorted and a large string of saliva slipped from its gaping mouth, trailing unbroken from its puffy lips to the ground. It wiped and slurped green globs of snot from its oozing snout.
“Gross,” she said to herself, happy to be upwind of it. She knew from experience it smelled like rotten eggs and pig kak. All the Gorlogs did.
She could have overlooked a lot of the physical ick if they’d had an ounce of decency toward any other living thing.
Her attention was diverted when she caught movement out of the corner of her eye.
“Kak!” she cursed as she watched Dax, a boy just a bit older than her, walking down the path and heading their way.
The guard wasn’t remotely aware Dax was approaching. Gorlogs weren’t the highest quality guards, but they were cheap labor, happy to be paid in meat and ale.
The boy was carrying a wooden bucket. Behler knew he was heading to the river to collect water.
“Why are you taking the main path?” she whispered.
Most villagers believed the Armigoth’s guuns had contaminated the well at the center of the village. Anyone who drank much of the water changed. They become angry – or sad – or just empty. Once those types of feelings became strong enough, it was easier for the Armigoth to take hold.
No one really understood what the Armigoth was exactly. Behler had heard from others that it looked like a giant summer storm that never went away. But it was no summer storm, and it brought no rain. It only brought destruction to everything it touched.
It was still centered to the north, at Kilgen Castle – but it spread a little more every day.
In Betham, villagers often snuck to the river for water. Dax must have thought he could get by the Gorlog without trouble. He was probably right; Gorlogs usually didn’t give a kak about much except where their next meal was coming from.
As soon as Dax rounded the curve by the depot, though, the Gorlog jumped and shouted, “Stop right there! What do you think you’re doing?” It drew a stubby sword from its belt and pointed it directly at the boy's throat. Startled, Dax dropped his bucket. Behler tensed, but then the Gorlog started laughing. “Rik ta yuna,” he said in his native tongue. Clumsy moron. “What are you doing here?” It demanded but didn’t wait for an answer before it grabbed Dax by the nape of his neck and forced him to his knees.
Dax let out a little cry. “My mother needs water,” he explained, his voice meek and pitiful. Behler’s heart leapt as she watched the scene unfold.
“Water?” The Gorlog snarled. “Your mother needs water?” He taunted and released him. “Drink out of the well then, yuna,” He leered down at the boy, chuckling, then walked over and lifted his leg high and brought its foot crashing down onto the bucket, shattering it into splinters. The guard walked back over toward Dax then leaned down so that his face was just above the boy’s head. “How can you get water without a bucket, yuna?” Another string of drool fell from its mouth and across Dax’s cheek – Behler had to grab the tall grass around her to keep herself from leaping out from her hiding place and challenging the Gorlog then and there.
She was completely wrapped up in the scene unfolding on the road, so when a rustling came from behind her she nearly jumped out of her skin. It was only Mathias, though, and she had been expecting him.
She looked back to see him crawling toward her through the thick grass. Once beside her, he sat up on his haunches. When he saw what was transpiring on the road, he glared at her with his best stern impression and gave his head a quick shake. He knew exactly what was going through her mind.
“Don’t. Do. Anything,” he ordered.
Dismissing him, Behler looked back toward Dax. “If it goes near him again, I will.”
Mathias shook his head. “No, you won’t.”
“What if it tries to kill him?” she whispered harshly.
“Bale. It's a Gorlog. You know they don’t kill anything.” He made a face of disgust as he looked through the weeds at the ogre-like guard. “Except maybe my appetite.”
“I don’t care about your stomach right now, Mat” Behler snapped. She kept her eyes on the giant pig of a creature. “Something’s different about this kakweed.” She turned and looked at her best friend. “He just shoved Dax down. Hard.”
Mathias cocked his head to one side, contemplating the situation. “Yeah, I’ve never seen one do that…BUT—” he continued quickly, “Shoving him to the ground is a lot different than actually trying to kill him.”
She pointed toward the broken bucket remains. “He smashed his bucket,” she said, as if that changed everything.
“Oh, I see.” He nodded. “We should kill him then.” He rolled his eyes.
Behler still refused to yield. “We’re just going to knock him out anyway. What does it matter if we do it now or wait?”
“The whole point is that no one else will see what we’re up to,” he reminded her. “Dax can’t know we’re here.”
“If that pig makes one more move toward Dax, I’m going to do it.” She picked up her bow and started to place the arrow’s notch on the string.
Mathias sighed. “If he escalates any more, I’ll create a distraction, okay?”
She thought about it for a moment then said, “Okay,” she reluctantly agreed.
“What’s going on here!?”
Behler stiffened. The voice that had demanded that answer was one she knew well, but her heart still sank when a little old woman from the village came from around the back of the depot.
Tilda.
This plan was not going well.
The Gorlog growled. “None of your business old woman,” it snarled. “Move on,”
Tilda looked down at Dax, then back up at the guard. It was hard to tell what the guard was thinking under the layers of fatty skin covering its face.
Behler whispered to Mathias, “Something is definitely wrong with that Gorlog.”
Mathias nodded. “Maybe he has rivertick fever.” Behler shot him a dirty look. Only dogs got rivertick fever. “I’m serious,” he insisted. He wrinkled his nose. “They’re barely more than animals anyway.”
Behler raised an eyebrow. “Good point.”
“Release this boy,” Tilda said, her voice small but steady.
Behler’s heart was pounding in her chest. Tilda had been like a grandmother to her since she’d been small. She wasn’t surprised the feisty woman had stepped in, but she was terrified for her.
The Gorlog had still been leaning over Dax. It straightened and faced Tilda. “Move on, old woman.”
The cold, uncharacteristic hatred in the Gorlog’s voice had Behler gripping the arrow in her hand. If she let it fly now, there’d be no hiding. She’d be revealed to Dax and Tilda, and that was not part of the plan. Still, she wanted to put that arrow straight through the guard’s heart – but that was wishful thinking since the arrow she carried would only penetrate the Gorlog’s thick outer layer of skin. There was no way she could get it all the way to its heart, plus she wasn’t exactly sure where the thing’s heart was anyway.
She assumed it had to have one – somewhere.
Just as the tension on the road seemed to reach a breaking point, Samuel came from the same direction Tilda had only moments before.
“It’s a party now,” Mathias said in a low voice.
Samuel was one of the only people in the village who knew Behler and Mathias were hidden and waiting. He looked from Tilda to Dax who was still on the ground. “Enough of this,” Samuel said in a loud voice. He looked squarely at the Gorlog. “Enough.”
The Gorlog’s demeanor changed and his body language indicated he was backing off.
Tilda walked over to Dax and helped him up from the ground. She started guiding him back toward the village center.
As Samuel turned to walk away with Tilda and Dax, he looked over his shoulder and said, “I’ll be watching you, Gorlog.”
“I’ll be quaking in my boots, human.” He made a sound that must have been laughter, but there was nothing happy about the noise.
Tilda stopped and turned back to face the Gorlog. Without a word, she spat at his feet. That only made the Gorlog laugh and wheeze even louder.
Mathias scanned the road. “No one’s coming and the light is almost gone. Shoot that son of a pig.”
Behler smiled and pulled the arrow back until the bow’s string was taut. She took aim with the arrow tipped in greet nettle root – strong enough to knock a Gorlog out cold.
“Goodnight,” she whispered, then let the arrow fly.
2
Behler scanned the room inside the depot. “Look at all of these,” she spoke with an air of disbelief. The collection of weapons ranged from swords and daggers to pitchforks and scythes. Horde guuns had taken away anything that remotely resembled a weapon when they’d invaded Betham the previous summer.
Behler and Mathias had given up their weapons along with everyone else, or at least it had appeared that way. There was a group of rebels that both Behler and Mathias were part of strewn throughout the villages. They were kept secret from just about everyone in Betham and beyond and had managed to hold on to some of their weapons. The guuns knew about the rebellion and were always on the hunt to find anyone who was a part of it, so Behler and her fellow fighters had to blend in with everyone else in the village. It was hard to know who could be trusted on any given day, and even those who could be one day could be an enemy the next. The Armigoth could turn just about anyone at any time.
“Let’s get these to the black house,” Mathias said. He looked around the small room and sighed. “We’ll get Kellum and Meela to help us, before the Gorlog wakes up or a Horde guun comes to relieve him.”
An hour later, Behler and Mathias were sitting in the middle of another small building. This one was tucked in the side of a rise far on the northeastern outskirts of the village. The one room house, called the black house by the rebels for the black ash that coated its walls, had long been abandoned and forgotten. The Gorlogs and guuns were unlikely to find it thanks to some eerie legends about the woods surrounding it.
Piled in the middle of the black house were the swords, small daggers, bows, arrows, countless axes, pitchforks, and pretty much anything else from the village containing a blade. Most of the Betham rebels were gathered around, all waiting for their leader Lorna to speak.
She was also Behler’s aunt.
Lorna gave her niece a stern look. “You closed up the depot – no sign you’d been there?”
Behler tensed at the condescending question but tried not to reveal her resentment in her voice. “Of course,” she answered. She held up the arrow she’d retrieved from the Gorlog’s hide. “No evidence of us there left behind.” Even if the guard figured it out, it would never tell. The Armigoth officers only tolerated a certain amount of incompetence, and allowing the rebels to retrieve the weapons would mean execution for sure.
Lorna’s shoulders visibly relaxed. “With these weapons and those we already had, we can arm those left in Betham willing to fight with us…if it comes to that.”
Her second in command, Rogan, asked. “Do we know how many townspeople are still with us?”
Lorna’s brow wrinkled. “Our last estimate was around thirty, but we can’t know who may have turned.”
Across the room, Meela’s chair squeaked as she shifted her weight. She was only a couple years older than Behler and stayed to herself. Meela looked around the room. “I think our neighbor may be falling under the influence of the Armigoth. He’s been acting strange lately.”
Her mother, Ria, nodded. “Along with a few others who live near us.”
The sniveling boy in the group, Kellum, muttered something to Meela beside him. She gave him a slight nod.
Behler’s jaw tightened. Meela was too kind. The rest of people Behler’s age had long ago stopped bothering with Kellum – years of whining complaints and his need to be the smartest one in the room had seen to that.
When they were younger, Behler had felt bad for him and had tried to befriend him many times. But when he paid her kindness back with hostility, her sympathy for him quickly dwindled. She often wondered how he and his uncle, Broty, could possibly be related. Not only were they physical opposites – Kellum being tall and lean with jet black hair while Broty was a blond bear – but Broty was so jolly and fun. Kellum – he was not.
Rogan, shaking his head as if vexed, said. “We may not be able to wait much longer. Some things are still so far out.” Behler thought she saw Rogan’s eyes dart in her direction and she shifted uncomfortably. She didn’t like eyes on her, for any reason. “We should take back this village now.”
Mathias shifted in his seat, and Behler knew he was feeling his anxiety. He hated it when his father questioned Lorna.
Everyone looked to their leader, who had her head down. Behler could tell she was weighing every option they had. Finally, she looked up. “No. We have to wait. As painful as it is to see our friends and neighbors fall to the Armigoth, the risk is too great.” Rogan started to speak again, but Lorna held up a hand. “Drawing attention to this village is too dangerous.”
Rogan sighed and sat back in his chair. It was obvious he disagreed. “Part of our duty is to protect the people here in Betham. The more that are lost to the Armigoth, the stronger the shadow gets.”
“Yes!” Lorna snapped, sharp enough that the entire room lost all its air for a moment. “But at this point, we know our top priority. We must protect that. You all know the longer we can wait, the better.”
Behler noticed a couple other sets of eyes glancing at her. What the – ? She wiped her nose in case something was hanging out of it.
Lorna sighed deeply. “I don’t like sitting around letting Varek take more of our neighbors any more than the rest of you, but we don’t have a choice at this point.”
The room was silent. Behler’s mind wondered. Varek was the Armigoth in human form – although Behler wondered if he’d once been a human like the guuns she saw in the village. They were human…but not quite as human as they’d once been. For Behler – fighting a Gorlog or guun – she could handle them any day and any time. But the thought of fighting Varek with the power of the Armigoth within him made her anxious. Varek was ruthless. And the Armigoth, well she knew the Armigoth slithered into a person and changed them, possessing them and turning them into shells of who they’d once been. She couldn’t imagine how they’d ever defeat Varek or the Armigoth.
A dull thud hit the side of the black house, low and flat. Every head snapped up. Lorna stood and quickly extinguished the fire, placing everyone in complete darkness. Behler grabbed her kintar, the rebels’ version of a short sword but made of better steel than typical Elium swords. She would’ve preferred her bow, but the kintar would have to do.
She heard Rogan slowly move across the room toward the door. When he opened it, dim gray light reached halfway into the room. A low whistle came from somewhere outside.
Rogan’s outline was discernible in the dimness, and she could visibly see him relax. “It’s Dalen,” he whispered to the room, then whistled the call back.
With the outline of the door clearly visible, Behler waited to see Dalen’s silhouette. A moment later there were two shadowy figures blocking all the light.
“Help us,” Dalen said breathlessly.
“Who’s that with you?” Rogan asked in a hushed tone.
“It’s Sam,” Dalen said. “He’s injured. Badly.”
There was the sound of shuffling feet then the door shut. The fire was re-lit, but when the firelight touched Sam’s face, Behler wished it hadn’t been.
Samuel’s cheek was torn, his chest gashed open, blood soaking into the fabric.
Behler’s stomach twisted. Not just from the gore – but from the question she didn’t want to ask: what could do that to him?
“Was it the Gorlog from the weapons depot?” she blurted out, surprising everyone – most of all, herself.
Dalen looked up at her, confused. “Why do you think a Gorlog did this, Bale?”
Behler felt her cheeks flush and cursed herself for speaking up. “Mathias and I saw Sam confront it earlier,” she said quickly.
“The Gorlog was acting strangely before Behler knocked him out,” Mathias explained. “Sam had a confrontation with it.” Behler could have hugged him for drawing some of the attention off her. He knew she hated it.
Dalen shrugged. “I just found him like this outside the pub.”
Rogan was carefully examining Samuel. “I’ve never seen wounds like this before. If it was the Gorlog, we’ve never seen them attack someone like this.”
“As the Armigoth and Varek grow stronger, things will continue to change,” Lorna said. She turned to Anilin. “Bring me the canteen.” Behler grabbed her own canteen and started to hand it to Lorna, but her aunt dismissed her and Anilin gently stepped in front and handed Lorna a canteen with something etched into it: a beautiful, intricate set of swirls and lines.
“Matti, hand me a cloth from that pile over there.” Anilin pointed.
Mathias reached for a piece of cotton that had been torn into a strip – a bandage for any future wounds.
“Here, Ama.” He handed his mother the cloth.
Lorna took the cloth from Anilin and soaked it with water from the odd canteen. She touched it gently to Samuel’s wounds. “I’ll tend to Sam. The rest of you take these weapons to the bunker in the forest. We can’t trust the black house will be safe for much longer. They will be getting more desperate to find us, and will get bolder in their attempts to flush us out. Ghost stories won’t keep them away when they get desperate enough.” She turned to Anilin. “Will you stay and help me?” Anilin nodded and knelt next to Samuel with another wet cloth. Lorna looked around the room. “Once you’re finished, return home – all of you. Matti, stay with Bale.”
“I’ll make sure she gets home,” Mathias said – as if Behler was a child.
She had to bite her tongue to keep from saying something she knew she’d regret. Lorna was constantly treating her like some helpless thing, always making sure someone escorted her home. But this wasn’t the time or place to say anything. Not with Samuel lying bleeding on the floor.
She grabbed as many bows and arrows as she could carry then silently crept out into the night.
3
A hidden training ground lay about three hundred paces into the forest, tucked beneath the dense canopy. Even though the thick foliage provided cover, torchlight was limited as an extra precaution. Behler and Mathias were just turning to head back to the village when Rogan stopped them.
He looked at Mathias. “Be careful getting back to Lorna’s house. The village has never been more dangerous. Stay with Behler until Lorna returns.”
“I will,” Mathias said. He rolled his eyes as soon as his father turned his back. “As if I don't know that,” he muttered as soon as Rogan was out of earshot.
“Stop your whining,” Behler hissed. “They have you watch over me like I’m a child. You’re only a week older.”
He shrugged. “I know. But it makes them feel better knowing you’re not alone.” His mouth curled into a devilish grin. “Want someone older? They could always send Kellum.”
She rolled her eyes and didn’t bother responding.
They moved back in the direction of the black house, but before walking out from the cover of the trees, they turned and headed south, remaining hidden in the shadow of the forest. They’d be able to stay hidden until they were only a few yura lengths from the door of Lorna’s and Behler’s house. Other rebels lived closer to the center of the village, but Lorna had made sure that she and Behler lived close enough to the forest that they could escape into it quickly if it came to that. No one except the rebels ventured into the trees anymore. Over the years, villagers who had gone more than a hundred paces into the forest returned with stories of ghostly whispers, dark shadows that darted in and out, demons with glowing eyes, and paths that were there one minute and gone the next. Some people just never returned at all. After the invasion of Betham, officers in the Horde refused to believe the stories. They knew that rebels used the forest as a refuge, so they sent scouts in to try to find them. The first scouts had returned battered and bloody days later unwilling, or unable, to speak about what had happened to them. But the Horde was determined and sent in even more guuns. Those men and women never returned, so the Horde finally stopped trying.
All the children in the village were afraid of the forest, and Behler had been no exception when she was younger. She had hated living so close to the ominous place and could never understand why Lorna wanted to. That is until she was ten when Lorna took her by the hand and walked her past the training circle. Behler’s fingers trembled in Lorna’s grasp – her feet dragging as they pushed deeper into the trees. Every step made her want to run back home. But Lorna kept walking with stoic determination.
When they reached a clearing Behler had never seen before, Lorna kept down and looked straight into Behler’s eyes. “Listen.”
Behler shook her head. “I don’t want to.”
But Lorna insisted. “Just sit and listen.”
Behler reluctantly sat down and hoped she wouldn’t hear anything. She closed her eyes to avoid seeing any dark, shadowy figures lurking about. It wasn’t long, though, before she did begin to hear hushed whispers. She threw her hands up over her ears, but Lorna took them away.
“Listen to them, Bale,” she said gently but firmly. “They aren’t going to hurt you.”
Behler’s heart was pounding so loudly in her ears that she couldn’t hear anything else for a few moments, but eventually she calmed down enough to hear the whispers again. She had to listen carefully to hear the voices that were more like music on the breeze than ghosts or evil spirits.
Lorna sat down beside her. “Our family carries a gift. We call it the Deep Thread – or thaelic in the old language. It runs through everything and connects us. Sometimes we can hear it with our ears; but often, we hear it more with our hearts and minds.”
She ran a hand along the forest floor. “The Thread runs through this forest. Through the Arbiran Trees. This place is special. The Arbirans are special. The forest and Arbirans protect us.” She looked up at Behler. “Don’t be afraid of either, but respect them.” A shadow passed over her expression. “You should only come to this part of the forest. Don’t go any farther unless your life depends on it.”
For some, that exception might have sounded like a hollow threat to hammer the lesson home; but for Behler it was a real possibility. They were hiding in Betham because Varek wanted her dead.
Behler agreed at the time to her aunt’s rule, and for a while, she’d even obeyed. But one day, after Lorna had forbidden her from going on a scouting mission that Mathias was allowed to go on, she broke her word and defiantly went deeper into the forest.
She only went one hundred steps beyond the training area before she stopped and sat down next to an impressively tall tree that stood out amongst the others. The tree’s trunk flared at the base, its roots reaching like fingers clawing free from the soil. Its bark was smooth and creamy white, entirely free of knots. When she looked closer, she saw delicate patterns in the surface—like fingerprints, swirled and ancient. There were similar looking trees growing throughout the area, each with different swirling designs imprinted on their trunks.
After that day, whenever she needed space to breathe, and when she could slip away unnoticed, Behler would return to the forest. Always the same twenty-three steps. Always to the same tree. When she was touching the tree, she could feel the Deep Thread and hear the Arbirans speaking to her. Most of their language was a mystery to her; but the more she listened, the more she understood. Images would appear in her mind, and she knew what they were saying. And even though the images were often disconnected and confusing, something about them felt familiar - like the tickle in the back of your mind when you’re trying to remember a far-off memory that’s just out of reach.
The forest and her Arbiran were her secrets, ones she didn’t even share with Mathias.
*******
They reached Lorna and Behler’s small house without seeing another living soul, not even a guard. Normally, by that time, many of the Gorlogs could be heard carousing in the center of the village with off-duty Horde guuns.
The silence was unsettling.
As soon as they were inside the house, Behler said, “I’ll start a fire.”
“I’ll find something to eat.” Mathias headed for the basket of biscuits left on the table from breakfast.
“How can you eat?” The memory of Samuel’s wounds was still fresh, and the thought of food was completely unappealing to her. She tried to busy her mind by focusing on getting the fire going. Mathias came and sat down beside her and held out a biscuit. She shook her head. “I don’t want anything.”
“You should eat,” he said, moving the biscuit closer to her.
“Stop being annoying,” Behler said, although not with much conviction.
“I’m not.” He took a bite. “I’m being overprotective.” He annoyingly emphasized the last word.
Behler rolled her eyes. “Well stop.”
Mathias smiled. “Only if you eat.”
Behler glared at him, then yanked the biscuit from his hand just to shut him up. She took a bite, but it tasted like sand. Her stomach churned. All she could see was Samuel’s blood, and she knew she wouldn’t be able to eat any more.
Mathias ate two more biscuits while she gazed into the fire trying not to see Samuel’s face. When he stood and walked across the room to get some water, she started to ask him to bring her some too, but she stopped when he turned back around. He was already holding a cup for her.
She took it and sipped some. Mathias annoyed her to no end, but he also knew her better than anyone in all the world. It had been hard for her to keep her treks into the forest a secret from him; but she knew if he knew about it, he would probably try to talk her out of ever going back. She even thought there was a good chance it was the kind of thing he would tell Lorna about. He was protective, and he was getting even more so as time went by. Since people had started going missing after the contamination of the well, he’d been almost unbearable.
“We should’ve brought a chicken back with us,” he said, referring to the hens they had cooped in the forest. Behler eyed Mathias for a minute until he noticed her and stopped stuffing his face long enough to say, “Whaa…?” around a mouthful of biscuit.
She started to say how insensitive it was to think about slaughtering a chicken while Samuel was injured and bleeding, but then just sighed and said, “Nothing.” She was tired of watching Mathias eat, so she closed her eyes and tried to think of anything besides Samuel’s face. Of course, the more she tried not to see it, the more the image burned in her mind.
