Sorry, not enough time today to write another part of House of the Elementals, so please enjoy some other writing from a yet-to-be-completed story. Hope you enjoy it.
PROLOGUE — The Horn
They came from the mountains, a company of three shrouded in the grey folds of morning mist. Mighty peaks rose tall and close about, shutting them on the narrow ridges carved off the cliff faces. That was their passage, long and winding and steep against the soaring stone walls. Their footfalls echoed brief and faint within the confines of the pass.
One of the taimnor (ta-um-nor) walked with them down the banks of weathered stone. A creature that resembled a deer but held the physique of a horse; who tread nimbly on muscular, taloned forelegs and hind-legs that split from the joints into hoof-like feet; staring with keen, piercing eyes above a large, rending beak; and under a pair of great antlers, was crowned a true heir of the mountainside.
A light colored cloak fluttered about the creature’s feathered body, adorned by the young girl that rode him. Underneath her cloak were brightly colored shirt and shorts. She held a plain staff made of white wood. The last of their company was several months past manhood. He wore a waist length robe and leggings. A broad, straw conical hat rested atop his head. Two swords were tucked beneath his sash. He clutched the higher one’s hilt, turning his head about the length of the pass.
Morning’s light pierced the shifting mist, catching the figures in its blooming rays. Its lone, pale shine had peaked slowly out of the horizon in the East. As it had risen, a golden brilliance had grown and sent out color and shape to wash away the dim and grey. The mountains had become mottled again under ice-tipped peaks. Trees and shrubbery had been unveiled, conglomerating in sparse climbs upon the mountainsides before melding with the forestland at the mountain range’s feet.
Cast in the shine of the dawn, the boy tipped his hat up, sea green eyes gazing towards the slopes of the lower mountains and the bold greens past them. With the light he became wary of movement between the walls and cliff faces. His ears lay prone past the echoes of their own walk, the growing whir of the wind, listening for distinct sounds across the rocky slopes. Sounds not native or welcomed to the mountains. And it was such a sound that shattered the silence with a blaring call.
It filled the air long and loud in a deep, resonating voice. The boy clicked in his cheek once. The taimnor halted, twitching its ears, hackles rising reflexively. The girl sighed inwardly and shifted in her seat. She laid the staff across her lap, waiting as the echoes faded around them. An unnatural quiet filled the broken air. Then it called again, bellowing proudly into the dawn. Twice more it sounded, its echoes overlapping each other with maddening keenness. The boy pulled his hat back down slowly, an unseen weight seeming to gain on him. He spoke to the girl in their tongue, mounting the taimnor as she moved back to give him room.
They stood there, swells of mist rolling over them as its thinning vapors made shifting patterns with the light. The sound had ceased and the mountains and mist seemed filled with an unsettling intensity. The boy closed his eyes, straining for the subtlest tear in the silence. He felt the rising beat of his heart, the twitches of his mount’s limbs, the streaming wind threatening to howl, his companion’s fingers testing the wood of her staff. And something else. A faint presence. A gentle stir among the patched shards of quiet. He let go of his closest distractions, peering out beyond the stone walls into the deepest places in the mountains. It was difficult. The boy leaned in his seat as the disturbance moved slowly from his left ear and towards his right. An ascension on the slopes. Clopping. Hooves perhaps. An undercurrent of tinkling. Loose metals. He imagined plated armor and helmets. Steel both hidden in sheaths and exposed by long shafts hailing the sky.
The rumbling become a crescendo. Bits of rock fell into unknown and unseen chasms. The boy could hear a flowing pattern of sharp, metallic hissing. Their number seemed too large. The girl said something to the boy, stopping as the new sound died away. For a moment nothing, then the pure tone of a whistle climbed into the air. A single, known note. High and long. The hammer of the boy’s heart felt so loud.
He sat back, his gaze open upon the remainder of the pass. He felt the young girl hold her arm taut around his waist. With a deep breath the boy leaned against the neck of his mount tightly. Two clicks in his cheek and the taimnor came to pace, taking long, controlled strides down the ridge.
Their opening came quickly, the ridge expanding into a vast rocky slope. Bare and overrun by snaking clouds of mist. A different rumbling had become louder along the unknown slopes, growing more distant as they rushed towards the forestland. The vagueness of a shout pricked the air. Then the multitude of blasts shook the remnants of silence in thunderous anger. A concussive barrage erupting in smoke and powder. Mangled shapes flailed in the heart of the mountains, lost amid tumbling stone. Yelling and screaming textured the tumult. The young boy tightened the grip on his sword as he rode.
The clash of metal and fiery blasts rang far, unaware of the small company riding past. They were sure-footed, quick, and without hesitation. The boy threatened to look back, but trained his eyes before him. Now, he knew better. Now he was a young man, and he did not look back as they passed beyond the mountain’s walls.
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