CHAPTER 3

When the Lightning Strikes

Octobre 30, 5599

 

The next morning, Maidawn awoke to the smell of her mother’s cooking. She threw back her sheets, jumped into her clothes, ran her fingers through her short hair, and hurried down the hall to the kitchen. There, she wolfed down the breakfast her mother had made, sprinted outside to do her morning chores, which included feeding and milking the cowoats in the pen beside the house, and then darted back into the house thirty minutes later, breathing hard.

“Would you mind if I took my new swords up to my hill to practice?” she asked her mother, putting the jug of milk on the table. She began wringing her hands together in anticipation.

“Not at all, honey,” Betishine replied. “Just be careful with the blades. They’re a lot sharper than your wooden swords. I wouldn’t want you to cut yourself.”

“I will Mother,” Maidawn said over her shoulder while running back to her room. She picked up the box of swords, ran down the hallway, and flew though the kitchen and out the door. “I’ll be back shortly,” she yelled.

Betishine smiled at her daughter’s enthusiasm.

With her head turned back to yell to her mother, Maidawn ran right into the side of Angustus. He hardly moved with the impact, but she ended up on her rump in the dirt. Laughing, she hopped up and apologized, kissed her father on his nose, and was about to run off when he raised a hand to stop her.

“Maidawn, both swords have scabbards that attach to this,” Angustus said, pulling a harness from his leather satchel and grabbing the two scabbards that were leaning against the outside of their cottage. “You’ll need to try it on so we can make some adjustments. It needs to fit properly.”

Maidawn took the harness, held it out in front of her and tried to figure out how to strap it on. After a few moments of flipping it this way and that, she slipped it over her head and ran both arms through. It formed an “X” on her front and back and had a metal loops on both sides of the belt portion that went around her waist. She adjusted the right strap, and then the left until it fit snuggly on her small frame. Turning toward her father, she accepted one of the scabbards from him. She noted that it had the image of the tree stamped into the leather, so she figured it was for Jati. She clipped it onto the metal loop over her right hip. She then picked up Torrid’s scabbard and clipped it onto the metal loop on her left side while observing the lightning bolt on it. Using the loose leather straps on both scabbards, she secured each scabbard to the harness so they would not flop around when she walked. Picking up Jati, Maidawn slid the sword home into its scabbard and then did the same with Torrid. She planted her feet, crossed both arms across her stomach to grab the pommels of the swords, and drew them out of the scabbards quickly, holding both in front of her in a defensive pose. Both swords began to glow.

Maidawn gasped. They both felt perfect in her hands. She could hear them inside her head. Now, they were talking to her, telling her how excited they were to be with her, how they would never fail her. Maidawn smiled at this unexpected turn of events.

“Oh Father, thank you so much. I love it all,” Maidawn said as she slid both swords home and gave him a big hug around his furry neck. “I’m going up to my hill to practice now.”

“Be careful,” Angustus said. “As your mother said, those aren’t your wooden swords, and they do have very sharp edges.”

Maidawn looked down at the swords at her waist and smiled. “I’ll be careful, but they won’t hurt me,” she said. “I’ll be back before the midday meal.”

Maidawn stopped at her bag hanging outside the kitchen door and grabbed her water skin. She fondly touched the bag containing her wooden swords, knowing she would never need them again. She walked over to the town well and filled the water skin, thinking she would probably be up on the hill for a while testing out her new swords. Maidawn turned and made her way to the trailhead. As she walked, the scabbards bumped lightly against her legs, but it was not uncomfortable. Actually, it felt quite natural, as if she had been wearing them all her life.

Arriving at the top of the hill, Maidawn hung the water skin from the broken branch on the tree, sat down and meditated for a bit, feeling that strange bit of magic inside her. Eventually, she stood up and stretched. She walked over to the very top of the hill and looked around. It was a beautiful sunny morning, not a cloud in sight, and she could see for myles over the Sherran Hills. She could just see the edge of the Tenebrous Forest to the north, the tall piney trees reaching majestically far into the sky. When she looked east, she spotted some fog that lay over the rolling hills and beyond that, she understood, was the Fledorat Sea. She smiled thinking about the trip there next summer with her family. To the south was just more grass-covered hills, as the Sherran Hills seemed to go on forever. To the west, the snow-capped craggy peaks of the Jade Mountain Range were visible. She had never been in those mountains and longed to explore them.

Refocusing her attention, Maidawn widened her stance and then drew Jati and Torrid from their scabbards. They instantly started to glow. Although they were heavier than her wooden swords, the magic in them seemed to make them lighter than they should be. In fact, they felt about the same weight as the wooden swords she had practiced with for years. She looked at them in her hands and marveled at their beauty. They both began to talk with her, telling her to start using them. They wanted to swing free and slice through the air.

Maidawn nodded at the swords and thought, All right.

As she always did, Maidawn began the ritual practice of moving the swords around in interweaving circles. Soon, she had the swords moving so fast that they were hard to distinguish from one another. Maidawn’s arms were a flurry of steel, creating an impenetrable barrier in front of her. For an hour, she performed every move she knew, both defensive and offensive.

To anyone watching, which Zift was doing from behind a boulder slightly down the hill, what Maidawn was accomplishing with her new swords seemed impossible. Angustus, fearing that “she might chop off a leg or something,” had sent him to watch over his sister while she practiced with her new swords for the first time. If she were to get hurt, he wanted help nearby. Zift didn’t take his eyes off his sister, even when a tigar ant bit him on his left front pawhand. Not looking, he pressed his pawhand against the boulder with the tiger ant between until he heard a satisfying pop. The pain instantly disappeared. He wiped the dead insect off his pawhand on the grass below. Not once did he take his eyes off of Maidawn.

As her workout neared its conclusion, with sweat flowing freely from every pore, Maidawn suddenly felt the magic within her blossom. It coursed throughout her body, from the top of her head down to the toes of her feet. Every cell in her body became energized, as if electricity were flowing through them. Her swords began to glow brighter and brighter. Jati and Torrid grew suddenly silent in her head, as if they could not comprehend what was going on, but knew that something unexpected was happening.

Suddenly, the horaft tree behind Maidawn began to sing. It was not a soft song, like a gentle breeze blowing lovingly through a forest.  It was a heavy, loud tune that caused the tree to move back and forth as it belted out its song, its branches jerking back and forth. The song was filled with such happiness and expectation that Maidawn began to cry as she continued to practice, the magic preventing her from stopping.

Zift frowned as he watched the horaft tree near Maidawn start swaying, and he decided to head up the hill. He could not hear the tree singing, like Maidawn could, so he did not understand why the tree was moving around so much, as there was little to no wind. He pushed that thought out of his mind, and his eyes returned to his sister. Upon reaching the top of the hill, he sat down under the horaft tree beside Maidawn’s water skin. Leaves slowly fluttered down around him, one of them landing on his nose. He absentmindedly blew it off. Every horaft tree in the Tenebrous Forest began to sing and sway back and forth. Zift looked toward the forest in the distance and frowned in confusion at the movement he was seeing. He turned to the right and saw some closer horaft trees also swaying back and forth. The piney trees did not seem to be doing anything.

The wind started to blow while clouds rapidly coalesced overhead. As the clouds massed above Maidawn, the light dimmed while the cloud cover grew thicker and darker. A rumble was heard, and then lightning crackled down from the sky to strike the ground twenty feet away from Maidawn. She jumped, let out a little squeak of surprise, and looked to the left at the smoking spot with wide eyes. Another bolt streaked down from the clouds to strike a different spot nearby. Maidawn flinched with each strike, hoping that she was not the eventual target. And then another, and another, and another strike occurred. Soon the hill was dotted with small, burnt circles sending up tendrils of smoke, which were quickly blown away by gusts of wind. All the while, Maidawn’s swords were a flurry of steel.

Zift did not dare leave the sanctuary of the horaft tree, even though he knew it was not safe to remain under a tree in a lightning storm. But this was no ordinary storm, and he knew it.

Maidawn realized that she was somehow responsible for the strange weather and the trees singing, but had no idea how to control any of it. The magic continued pouring out of her body in waves, and she found she could not stop it or her swinging swords. The rain started to fall in sheets.

Her magic peaked and exploded out of her in a blinding flash of amber light as her arms flung out to her sides, both swords falling from her outstretched fingers. The explosion traveled outward, cresting the top of the forest, causing all of the trees to bend with the circle of magic as it expanded outward. With her magic spent, Maidawn moaned and then dropped to her knees before collapsing onto her left side, utterly exhausted, where she shivered on the wet grass.

Zift leapt from under the protection of the tree and rushed to stand over his sister, keeping the rain off of her. He could see and smell that she was still alive, so he picked her up and carried her under the branches of the horaft tree. He did not notice, but the branches of the tree moved to form a waterproof shield over their heads. Zift propped Maidawn up against the trunk of the tree, brushing her wet hair off her face. Taking down her water skin, he squirted a small amount into her mouth, some of which Maidawn was able to drink, but the rest just dribbled down her chin.

She was so tired.

Zift went back out into the wind and rain to retrieve the swords. Once again, he was amazed by their weight and had to use all of his strength to drag them one at a time to the protection of the tree’s limbs.

How can Maidawn wield such heavy weapons when I can barely lift them? he wondered. He removed the scabbards from Maidawn’s harness, slid the swords home, and left them lying on the ground.

I’ll come back for these as soon as I get Maidawn home, he thought. I need to get her to Mother. She’ll know what to do.

Zift gently lifted Maidawn onto his back, grabbed her hanging arms under his neck with his left pawhand, and headed back down the trail to Whails on three legs. The trail was slippery with the rain water running down it, but having three pawhands on the ground with extended claw fingers enabled him to get home without slipping or dropping Maidawn.

They were both drenched by the time they arrived at the cottage.

Zift slammed open the door and made his way into the kitchen. Betishine turned around in shock and raised a pawhand to her face, gasping in surprise.

“Oh my,” she exclaimed, rushing to Zift’s side to take Maidawn off his back. “What happened?”

“She collapsed,” was all that Zift offered as his mother took her from him.

“Did she cut herself with her new swords?” Betishine asked, worriedly running her pawhands over Maidawn’s body.

“No, I think she is just spent. I don’t believe the swords ever touched her,” he said as he headed across the kitchen. “I have to go retrieve the swords though,” Zift said, after placing Maidawn’s water skin on the table and heading back out the open door. “I’ll be back shortly, I hope,” he said, shutting the door behind him.

Betishine, with Wrecker close behind, carried the shaking girl to her room, removed her daughter’s wet clothes, and put her into bed. Grabbing a towel, she dried Maidawn’s hair as best as she could and then headed back into the kitchen to retrieve a couple of warm stones from around the oven to place under Maidawn’s sheets. Wrecker jumped up on the bed and curled up at the girl’s feet, worried about his sister. Betishine sat beside Maidawn’s bed until the girl stopped shivering and fell into a peaceful sleep.

Augustus, seeing his son struggling into the village with the second sword, ran to help.

After the two exhausting trips back up and down the hill to retrieve Maidawn’s swords, Zift collapsed on the living room floor utterly exhausted. He laid there for a few minutes, his breathing and heart rate slowing down until they were once again normal. He sat up and turned to his father, who had been patiently waiting for his son to recover his breath. Zift described what had happened up on the hill to Angustus, who frowned during the telling. Betishine listened from the doorway of Maidawn’s room, glancing back and forth between her son and daughter.

“I’m not exactly sure what happened, Father,” Zift said. “While she was practicing with her new swords, everything just went crazy.”

Angustus shook his head, truly worried for Maidawn’s sake.

“When the lightning started striking all around her, I wanted to jump in and pull her away but dared not leave the protection of the tree.”

“You did the right thing, Zift,” his father said, patting his son on the shoulder. “All that really matters is that she’s home safe now. Let’s hope that when she wakes up, she’ll be fine.”

As the two males stopped talking and nodding to each other, Betishine looked at Maidawn once again, still sleeping peacefully with her youngest brother. She pulled the door toward her, leaving it open just a crack, so she could hear her daughter if she cried out. Wrecker watched the door close and shut his eyes.

As soon as Maidawn’s head had hit the pillow, she had fallen into a deep sleep and ended up having the strangest of dreams.

In her first dream, she was traveling through a piney tree forest with some companions. Zift was there by her side, and on the other side of her was a young female elf carrying a bow with a quiver of arrows strapped to her right leg. Ahead of them was a young male dwarf that had a large battleaxe strapped to his chest, and beside him was a male black and white centaur holding a halberd in both hands. There was also an older human female in a long robe. Two shadows also appeared to be accompanying the party, as if they were figures she could not make out. As they walked along between the trees, they were chatting and laughing. In her bed, Maidawn smiled.

In her second dream, Maidawn and her companions were on a beach with waves crashing onto the sand behind them. The wind was howling and the rain was pelting them on their backs. A large island lay across the water. Soaking wet, they were running from the shore toward the trees, and arrows from a ship offshore were falling all about them. Just as they were about to enter the trees, an arrow pierced Zift’s hindquarters, and he howled in pain. Maidawn’s body twitched in her bed.

In her third dream, Maidawn saw herself, leading humans, dwarves, centaurs, and elves against a huge mass of blorcs, yellow goblins, and slime trolls. They were outnumbered at least four to one. As the enemy ran up the large volcano avoiding the flowing lava rivers toward Maidawn and her army, the horaft trees at the bottom of the hill rustled. Maidawn raised her swords and let out a mighty battle cry. As she charged down the volcano with her army right behind, lightning bolts struck the combatants, sending them flying, but it was not enough to stop all of them. The trees uprooted and started attacking the rear flank of the blorcs while the elven archers fired arrow after arrow into the approaching hoard. Maidawn waded into the fighting, swinging Jati and Torrid left and right, slicing apart blorcs and yellow and green goblins as she made her way down the hill toward the flags that marked the commander of the encroaching army.

Maidawn tossed and turned in her bed, a whimper escaping her lips.