new dawn

Roku is leaving the jungle for the first time in his life, a small glimpse of borgaks true colours shine through.

 

Chapter 3:  New Dawn

 

Sun crept through the canopy of trees and the warmth of its rays woke Roku. Tal’Gahn was already awake, stretching his body on the bank of the river. Roku had been hunting and training for most of his young life and he knew the importance of maintaining his body. He got up and dusted himself off and moved to join his father, He opened his mouth to speak, but held his tongue when he noticed his fathers calm rhythmic breathing and closed eyes. If this was as close bonding with his father as he was going to get, so be it.  

 

Eventually, Tal’Gahn began to lead them down river, and soon enough Roku’s stomach began to grumble at him.

 

“Could we find something to eat soon father?” Roku pleaded

 

“We do not have much farther to travel. I think you can manage a little longer.”

 

Roku thought about protesting, but his mothers voice echoed in the back of his mind.

 

“Your father has a head like a stone, and listens as well as one when he wants to”

 

Roku chuckled quietly to himself, but he found himself wondering about his mother. He had never really been separated from her before. But he wasn’t a child anymore. he was a Tal’Gathee hunter, who would soon enough earn his braids. What he felt was not sadness, looking back at his old home. But guilt, he felt guilty to be so curious and about new life. Roku was roused from his thoughts by his father’s dark voice

 

“Look boy. We are here”

“Where?” Roku asked, but what he saw answered his question for him.

 

As they continued downstream Roku noticed the trees begin to thin out and the rocky banks of the river became sand. The river widened into a large estuary, and before he knew it, he was walking on soft warm sand. Feeling it sift between his toes for the first time in his young life.  It smeared a broad, free smile on his face. When he looked up from his sandy feet, he saw something he had never seen before. An uninterrupted view of the red sun hovering over a seemingly endless horizon, a viridian ocean sprinkled in white caps.

 

Just like that. All of Roku’s fears and insecurities about leaving the jungle faded under the grandeur of the sky. The horizon offered Roku two things he never knew he wanted before now, freedom, and adventure.  But his fathers voice jarringly interrupted his reverie

 

“How long are you going to stand there gawping at the sea, boy”?

Roku came back to his senses, gave his father a confused look and shrugged his shoulders slightly as if to say, “What now?”

 

Tal’Gahn turned his back to the jungle in a somewhat deliberate manner and cast is eyes over the sea, he squinted his eyes, looking far into the horizon. He folded is arms over his chest, bowed his head slightly, closed his eyes and emitted a lengthy sigh.

 

“Right on time, old friend,” he whispered to nobody

 

Roku was lost in a trance as he marvelled at his surroundings.  The river came down out of the trees and split the beach in half, the beach was shrouded in towering cliffs, the red oaks came right to edge of the cliffs, tree tops stood over a hundred metres above the water. Roku thought some of his thrill seeking Tal’Gathee brothers might like to try jumping from the branches over the cliffs into the sea below, he grinned at the thought.

 

 Roku noticed the smirk on his father’s face, he followed the path of Tal’Gahn’s eyes and saw two black squares floating above the water in the distance.

 

Roku shrugged his shoulders again and held is palms up.

 

“What is it?”

 

Tal’Gahn massaged his temples with his finger tips and emitted a lengthy sigh.

 

“It’s a boat boy,”

 

                                   *****

 

 Alyona was trudging through the jungle, her head hanging. She was ashamed, her son was gone. She was too cowardly to even see him off. she would never have let him leaveif she had any inkling of what was to come. But the thought of Seeing Tal’Gahn after 13 years had made her sick to her stomach. Sick with rage.

 

“We should have ran..” she thought out loud under her breath

 

She looked up and saw Bargok standing 10 paces in front of her. She stopped dead in her tracks and her upper body even lurched back slightly in shock.  He was an imposing figure, especially when he seemed to materialise out of the shadows of the jungle.

 

 

 

“Alyona, where will you go, now that there is nothing here for you?”

 

It was a scathing remark, disguised as an innocent and caring question.

 

She didn’t answer, all she knew was that she was leaving. She would take one of the Tal’Gathee Canoes, her people had been rowing between the continents for hundreds of years. She could row for days at a time, there is a series of small Islands between here and Amaros, the frozen continent to the far north where she was born.

 

 

Borgak took a few slow steps towards Alyona 

 

“Does King Vydus know that you live, snowflake?”

 

Alyona’s eyes widened and she drew in a sharp breath. She hadn’t been called that in almost 14 years. Her last day in the castle of Amaros, the fight she had with her Father... 

 

“Do not be alarmed, I want to meet with him, we have a common goal, The King and I.”

 

“And what goal is that?” Questioned Alyona.

 

Borgak turned his back to her and paced away. The wind seemed to whip gently at his ankles.

 

“To end Tal’Gahn’s life,” Borgak mused quietly

 

The level of calm that he spoke with, in regard to killing his own son, was what made it even more horrible. As if he had been fawning over the idea for the longest time, and he was completely comfortable with it. The calm was spread over his distant expression.

 

A twisted chuckle began, initially concealed in his throat, but the calm dissipated and he seemed lost in his baleful laugh.

 

Alyona could clearly see the wind becoming more hostile as Borgak’s clothes billowed within its wrath until the wind had built its self into a crescendo leaves and sticks on the jungle floor swirled dangerously around Borgak’s legs, his silver braids lashed out around his neck like two snakes possessed by the gale.

 

But Borgak’s body soon slumped, and the wind died away as quickly as It had come.

 

 

“My curse… My Son”

 

Alyona’s head shook rapidly in disbelief upon learning this new information. It was no secret that there had long been bad blood between Borgak and Tal’gahn, but she had no idea that they were in fact… Blood.

 

Alyona found some courage within herself at the thought of the father of her child being killed.

 

“You would spill Tal’Gathee blood and break every jungle law you’ve preached for your entire life! YOUR OWN SON NO LESS.” Alyona took three quick paces towards him and made to reach out to grab him by the wrist, but he turned on her violently with agility and fury that defied his age. His eyes were wild. Unhinged.

 

The only reaction that Alyona could muster up in time was a startled gasp and then he was upon her, His hands clamped onto her shoulders like iron vices and he lifted her to his crazed, unblinking eyes as though she were nothing but a leaf, he shook her violently as he roared in her face. Her legs dangling limp, two feet above the ground. Alyona drew her chin into her neck, otherwise paralysed by shock and fear, she had never seen Borgak act in any way other than a composed leader of men, a respected elder throughout the entire jungle.

 

 

“HE TOOK HER FROM ME! SHE WAS MY LIFE, MY VERY BREATH, THIS JUNGLED BELONGED TO US!!!”

 

Alyona was stunned beyond speaking, she had no idea what he was talking about, she drew sharp rapid breaths, fearing that Borgak’s madness may completely overtake him, he could crush her in his hands right now. She closed her eyes and swallowed, expecting the worst, but he continued to scream of events passed.

 

“WHEN TAL’GAHN WAS BORN, I LOST HER, FOREVER!! THIS PARADISE BECAME MY HELL, LEFT TO CARE FOR A SON I RESENTED SO DEEPLY;”

 

Borgak let out a lengthy breath, his head dropped and he released his grip on Alyona, she landed in a heap and slumped against the trunk of a large tree behind her. Borgak continued to speak, seemingly his temper had eased.

  

Alyona straightened herself up and brushed her hair out of her face, Borgak still towering over, taking deep exaggerated breaths.

 

“How can you blame him for what happened to his own mother.? he lost her too. He was just a child..” She pleaded

 

Borgak seemed to ignore her, and when he spoke again, he was more speaking aloud to himself rather than addressing her.

 

“He was barely a man when he left the jungle, abandoned his duty, abandoned me, the only piece of her I had left.”

 

Duty? Alyona thought, what duty could a teenager from the jungle possibly have, the people here lived such carefree lives.. Hunt, Dance, Love.

 

Borgaks voice rose into a roar once more as he spoke.

 

“And to poison my eternal wound, he sends me you. And the boy, THE FILTHY HALFBREED CHILD, LIVING AMONGST US! FOR THIRTEEN YEARS I LIVED WITH HIS INSULT, EVERY TIME I LOOKED AT HIM IT SICKENED ME TO THE BONE!”

 

As he screamed the final words, he lost control, unleashing three rapid and overwhelmingly powerful punches into the tree above Alyona’s head. Pieces of bark shattered from the impact and fell around and on her, she cowered beneath him, whimpering, tears slid down her face as she wept silently.

 

As Borgak stood over the crumpled figure, blood dripping slowly from the knuckles of his right hand, his deep chest heaving from the exertion of his outburst, An Enormous bird descended towards him and landed on his shoulder.

 

A vonalis, the great crimson falcon of the jungle.

 

An ideal hunter, only the greatest Tal’Gathee warriors had successfully been able to capture, tame and train these great birds to hunt for them. He was three feet tall from his menacing, gleaming black talons, to his long golden beak, there was no crest on his head, just smooth feathers, deep red. Perfect camouflage in the red canopy of leaves.

 

Borgak unravelled a crude piece of bark parchment he had stowed in the waste of his silk loincloth and plucked a solitary feather from the underside of the falcon’s wing. The large bird tilted his head from side to side and blinked his huge amber eyes slowly a few times. Seemingly un-phased by this grotesque vandalism of his brilliant feathers.

 

Borgak dipped the stem of the feather in the blood on the back of his hand and scrawled roughly on the bottom of the parchment. He lowered down onto one knee, and pried Alyonas head back with his powerful fingers under her chin, forcing her to meet his eyes.

 

He held the parchment before her.

 

 

“ Snowflake lives”

 

“Your Father will come; A new dawn will rise over Val-Roha.” Snarled Borgak.

 

He rose to his feet, rolled the parchment and offered it to the bird, who clasped it tightly in his talons. Borgak stroked his neck affectionately before lifting his arm and boosting the bird into flight. The bird’s enormous wings could be heard thumping against the air until it had broken through the jungle canopy.

 

 

*************** 

Author's Note

chapter three, I hope it isn't too hard to follow but I'm trying to get the reader to ask questions about the characters and want to learn more .

Any feedback appreciated.