BLACKTHORN - Chronicles of the Dark Sword Book One Page 0,3

to their doom.

Casius rang the battered bell. He did not believe in the tales of ghosts that would steal a man’s spirit. To him it was nonsense, a belief grounded in ignorance. He carried it though, as did his father when he visited her grave. I am my father’s son he thought, pragmatic to a fault.

He set the bell upon the low wall and stepped easily over the barrier. A narrow path lay before him leading down the steep slope of the hill. He paused at the trail's head looking out over the island. From where he stood one could almost see it in its entirety.

A mile away, stretching to the west, lay a sea of gold and red, the Nahl wood. The stately trees having changed their colors, heralding the beginning of the lean months yet to come. The wind swirled through their tops scattering loose leaves high into the air. The skeletal branches swaying as if clawing at the escaping flecks of color, seeking to hold onto the last remnants of their foliage.

The wood was old and forbidding. Few men ever ventured far within its verdant confines, and fewer still ever came out again. When Casius was eight years old he had brazenly walked into its shadowy depths. His ill conceived plan to prove his manhood to his friends went terribly amiss when he had become hopelessly lost. Twisted about in its maze of snarled undergrowth, he wandered beneath the looming trees for two cold and lonely nights.

Tired and hungry he eventually staggered out of its clutches. His sudden emergence from the gloom of the wood startled a group of nervous woodcutters who were laboring nearby.

The people of New Hope considered him to be blessed by the gods; His father however insisted it had been nothing but good luck. To this day the sight of the wood still fills him with dread although he has no recollection of what had happened to him during his time within it.

To the south, less than two miles away stood the settlement of New Hope, surrounded by fertile fields and orchards. It was a small village of stone cottages clustered closely together. Trails of smoke rising from their chimneys hung in the bright sky above newly thatched roofs.

The village was well protected by a surrounding earthen bank crowned with a palisade of sharpened logs through which a narrow gate allowed entry. Along the bank livestock meandered, eating at the lush grass to be found growing there.

The town had been built around the only beach on the island. A shallow cove that sheltered a crescent shaped shore of small pebbles. The rest of the island ended in low rocky cliffs that would tear a ship to pieces should one venture too close. The Settlers had chosen this island well; it was remote and easily defended.

Casius took one last look at the row of graves before starting down the narrow footpath. At its bottom stood his father's horse, an old gray gelding named Fleet. He was one of only three horses on the isle. A gift from lord Baln, given to his father the day he was granted the title of Ship thane, an honor even in such a small community as New Hope.

Fleet snorted when he noticed Casius was on his way down the slope. Tossing its head the horse pulled at the yellowed grass growing around the lichen covered rocks.

The booming thunder of the waves lessened as he descended. A new sound was borne upon the wind. A deep resonating tone that repeated itself twice more before he realized what it was that he was hearing. It was coming from the village; someone was blowing the brass horn at the watchtower that over looked the bay.

Casius dashed down the slope, excitement making his heart race. The horn was never blown lightly it was only sounded in emergencies, a call to arms for the men of New Hope.

He swung up onto fleets back; the old horse refused to budge, as it was busy eating. A heel to its flank and a light twitch of the reins got the animal moving.

Down out of the crags they raced, Fleet running as if he were a young colt. Leaving the last of the hills they sprinted through dormant fields, between rows of steaming haycocks. The wind roared in his ears, clods of muddy soil flying from Fleets hooves.

Without slowing they plowed up the earthen bank scattering a group of chickens. Amid a flurry of squawking birds