Chapter 2
The situation inside, Ishkeir would’ve never imagined. Blood covered the floor of his father’s bedroom. There was so much if it, he couldn’t even tell where the original wound was. His mother was crying loudly, but Ishkeir just felt utterly numb.
How was such a thing even possible? The Avian race should be the strongest there was, or so he was always led to believe. How could someone have slipped in unnoticed and murdered his father? The numb feeling was beginning to fade, replaced not with sadness, but with a deep rage and a desire to utterly destroy the individual that had the gall to come up here to their peaceful Isle to do... this.
“Hey you,” Ishkeir rounded on a house servant that was halfway hiding behind the doorway to the room. “Start cleaning this blood up.” He maneuvered around the pool as best he could and carefully picked up his father’s limp body.
“You should call the rest of the family,” Ishkeir said to his still-distraught mother. “They need to know.”
She didn’t respond to him, but Ishkeir was quite certain that she’d heard what he had said. He trudged through the house toward the large inner parlor where he laid him down softly on the floor. “Stupid old man,” he whispered softly, though his voice was not harsh. “This is what you get for being too laid back in life.”
By noon, nearly the entire extended family had gathered in the mansion. A heavy and dark silence hung over the lot of them. Most were too shocked to cry, let alone speak.
Ishkeir sat against the back wall of the parlor watching the others come, stare at the body of his father, and then leave with a numb expression. Ishkeir remained silent as well, but not from shock; he was too busy thinking about how he would catch the individual that had caused this mess.
“Ishkeir.”
Ishkeir’s concentration broke as a husky voice summoned him. He didn’t have to look up to realize it belonged to the head of the largest branch in the Buteo line, Regis, his great uncle. Looking up at the older avian, Ishkeir wondered if he had gotten more white feathers since he’d seen him last. His wings and hair were already a patchwork of white and brown, but Ishkeir could swear there was now more white than any other color.
“What?”
“We’d like to speak with you, if you have a moment.”
‘We,’ Ishkeir realized, was a group of five men, each the head of their respective branch. They were scattered about the room, but were all staring in his direction.
“Fine.” Ishkeir muttered, pulling himself to his feet and heading out of the doors first. He traveled through the familiar maze of hallways until he arrived at a bare room situated in the back. It seemed like a quiet place to him. There was no designated meeting room in the house as the whole family very rarely had any sort of meeting. Ishkeir could only ever remember one, and that had happened nearly a century ago.
“So? What do you want?” Ishkeir asked bluntly when the small group had settled themselves on the ground.
“We heard that the young master witnessed the event...” the oldest of the group ventured. Ishkeir thought his name was Asius, but knew little else about the individual. The branch he led was the smallest, and he very rarely communicated with the rest of the line.
“The only thing I did was chase after the individual as they fled.” Ishkeir responded. “They wore a black cloak, so I couldn’t see any distinguishing features, but they weren’t an avian.”
A brief silence settled over them before they each turned to each other and began to whisper amongst themselves.
“I can’t believe this... this thing murdered Master Caesis.”
“If they got the Master, they must be incredibly strong.”
“How will we protect ourselves?”
“What if –”
“I’m going after them,” Ishkeir interrupted. He’d already promised himself that he would get vengeance, and if it took him to the edge of Eldemore, then so be it.
“But Ishkeir, you’re the head now,” his great uncle said. “You can’t up and leave.”
Ishkeir scowled at the older man. “I will find the person that did this, and I will end them. You can’t stop me. You can take over while I’m gone,” he said with a casual wave in Regis’s direction as he headed toward the door. There was a chorus of protest behind him, but Ishkeir paid the others no mind. He was on a mission and they wouldn’t stop him. Even if they wanted to, they didn't have the power to restrain him.
Ishkeir passed by his room on his way, grabbing the few essential things he had. He strapped his two daggers to each side of his hip and shoved the other items into a small bag. It was surprising to him how taking away a few things left the room nearly barren.
Ishkeir found it almost sad that in this life of relative luxury, the only things that he valued were his weapons, a few sets of clothes, his bedroll, and of course, Haku.
The sky was already darkening when he stepped outside once more with his bag of trinkets tossed over his shoulder. The servants of the house already had the wood set for a fire in the western courtyard. Ishkeir figured it wouldn’t be long now before his father’s body was brought for cremation.
Almost as soon as the thought entered his mind, he saw them walk from the house. His father’s body was laid out on an ornate, wooden carrier. To Ishkeir, it looked like a fancy stretcher. The wood was painted a deep red, treads of golden cloth hung off the sides in a crisscrossing pattern, and gems of garnet were embedded in the wood. Handles extended out at each corner. Regis, Asius, and two of the other men Ishkeir had sat with earlier (for the life of him he couldn’t remember their names), were the four carrying the body.
Ishkeir couldn't help but note that his father's face was very peaceful, as if he were merely sleeping. The blood had been completely cleaned off of his feathers, so that they shone a bright copper color in the sunset.
The men placed the carrier over the wood and a couple of the servants lit the wood. It burst immediately into a bright red flame that perfectly matched sky around the setting sun. Ishkeir’s gaze slowly drifted upward were the first few stars were beginning to shine in the night sky.
“When an Avian dies,” his father used to say,
“their souls fly up to the night sky. We Avians are the embodiment of freedom because we were blessed with the ability to fly. The souls of Avians will always be restless, and that’s why the stars travel across the sky throughout the year.”Looking up at those stars now, Ishkeir fantasized that his father’s soul was one of them. “Goodbye old man,” he whispered.
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
Most of the family had left by the time Ishkeir’s mind drifted back to reality. The flames of the fire had been reduced to small embers and the sun had long since set, filling the black sky with thousands of stars.
Ishkeir hadn’t meant to stand around for as long as he had. Flying down to the mainland of Eldemore in the total darkness wasn’t ideal, but he didn’t want to waste more valuable time sitting around in the house.
He took a quick sideways glance at his mother, who was still kneeling by the glowing embers. Losing two people in one day wouldn’t be easy for her he knew, but he also figured that if he approached her about his departure, she would do everything in her power to stop him. Ishkeir didn’t want to deal with that. Regis could tell her about it later.
Ishkeir headed slowly around the back of the house and toward the edge of the Isle. He gave a loud whistle on his way, and by the time he had reached the cliff, Haku had drifted over to his direction. The southern side of the Isle was far steeper than either the western or eastern sides. It made it the perfect spot for taking off.
“Let’s go find that wretch!” Ishkeir unfurled his wings and launched himself off the side of the Isle. He allowed himself to freefall for a second before pushing down hard with his wings and catching himself on a current.
He drifted for a second with Haku an arm’s length away, and scanned the area below him. Fortunately, the night was incredibly clear. A nearly full moon hung in the sky directly overhead, but Ishkeir found that it did little to illuminate the intense darkness below.
He was beginning to think that launching himself into a land foreign to him in the middle of the night wasn’t such a brilliant plan when a flicker of light to his right caught his attention. Ishkeir changed his direction and Haku responded appropriately, circling around Ishkeir.
Ishkeir couldn’t tell how long they had gone on for. At some point in time, he settled himself on Haku’s back for faster flying, but no matter how long they went, the light didn’t appear to be getting bigger. How far down as the mainland anyway, and how large was it? There was little else to look at either, other than the intense darkness, which made for an incredibly boring flight.He was tired too from waking up so early that morning. It would be so easy to just fall asleep...
Haku gave a short caw and Ishkeir startled. He didn’t remember dozing off, but his arms were wrapped loosely around Haku’s neck and he had laid down across his back.
Propping himself up again, Ishkeir realized that the sky had a light gray hue, and the light that they’d been chasing most of the night turned out to be a huge number of lights spanning across a vast city. In the center stood what looked to Ishkeir like a grand palace. It radiated most of the light in the area. Ishkeir could also vaguely make out water channels that weaved around the city. The whole area was surrounded by a large white wall.
After a moment of thought, Ishkeir directed Haku toward the dimmer area of the city, hoping it would mean less individuals. At his urging, Haku circled lower and lower, finally coming to a light landing on a cobble stone street.
Perhaps the area wasn’t quite as deserted as Ishkeir first thought. The outskirts were considerably darker than the middle of the city, but it still seemed to be just as populated, with smaller houses lined up in a neat row along the street.
“Guess this is a good direction to start,” Ishkeir mumbled to himself, heading down the street. His body felt heavy as he moved, a sure sign of his exhaustion. The snooze on the way seemed to have done more harm than good. This made the first order of business finding a place to sleep.
His wish was granted a minute or so later in the form of a shed attached to the back of one of the houses. It had a small opening to the outside. It appeared as though a door had once stood there, but it had since been removed. The opening was just tall enough for Ishkeir to pass through without ducking, and Haku just barely managed to squeeze into the narrow gap.
The inside was filled with straw and had the smell of animals, though Ishkeir didn’t see any around at the moment. It seemed like a quiet enough place to sleep. Haku didn’t object either. He went straight to the back wall, plopped down in a particularly large mound of straw and went right to sleep.
Ishkeir was slower to get himself settled. He sat back against the wall adjacent to Haku, set his small bag in his lap, and closed his eyes, but with the smell of a foreign land, it was hard to sleep despite his weariness. His mind was racing, but Ishkeir forced himself not to dwell on the place he was in, nor to think about the events of the previous day. Eventually, he found himself drifting off into a dreamless sleep.
A/N: I apologize for the lack of action and excitement, but this was needed to get to where I wanted to be with the story. Hopefully things will pick up with Ishkeir now smack dab in the middle of Alabaster city. Because what's better than plopping an Avian, who knows nothing of the other races, into a huge city filled with all sorts of people and Eld creatures?
Fun facts: Regis is based off of the
Ferruginous Hawk, Asius is based off of the
Upland Buzzard whose scientific name ends with Asius, and Caesis is based off of the
Common Buzzard, scientific name Buteo Buteo. Fitting as the head of the Buteo line right? XP