Sword of Sacrifice

Chapter 1

The day Damian's father was murdered began like any other, but ended with a sacrifice that would unshackle the gods.

It happened a week before Damian's seventeenth birthday.

He woke an hour before sunrise, stepping out of their little log cabin in the mountains to check the traps he'd set the night before. The late-spring snow blanketing the land and trees glowed silver in the light of the half-moon, his breath frosting in the frigid air as he made his way toward the woods ahead. His short-sleeved shirt did little to stave off the chill, so he hugged himself with his left arm — his good arm — as he walked. His bad arm was hidden under his modified shirt, withered and contracted against his chest, his elbow and wrist permanently flexed. Paralyzed and numb, it'd been that way since birth. But he was plagued by the occasional phantom sensation that he could feel and move it.

Caw, caw!

Damian yawned, extending his good arm, and a large black crow landed on it.

"Morning Ray," he mumbled.

It was short for "raven," what Damian had mistaken Ray for when he'd rescued the crow as a chick. Ray gave him a shrewd look, then deposited something in Damian's hand: a copper coin.

"Aw come on Ray," Damian protested. "You can't keep stealing people's money!"

The crow had clearly seen Damian collecting money from customers at his father's blacksmith shop, and had come to the conclusion that the same arrangement of buying and selling applied to feathered folk. Damian shook his head, putting the coin in his shirt pocket, and Ray hopped to his shoulder, eyeing his pants pocket in eager anticipation. Damian held out a handful of seeds he always kept there, watching as Ray pecked at them. When Ray was done, Damian scratched behind the bird's head, smiling at the little guy.

"You're a no-good thief, you know that?"

Ray hopped onto Damian's bad shoulder and began pecking at the front of it.

"Ow! Hey, cut it out!" Damian said, shooing the bird away. He pulled the neck of his shirt down over his bad shoulder, exposing the ugly black scar on the front of it. One that formed a deep indent in his skin, and glowed with a faint, eerie purple light. Ray landed on his bad hand a second time, and sure enough, the damn crow pecked at his scar again. Damian cursed, swatting Ray away, but it was too late; the bird's beak had pierced the scar. Thick black fluid oozed out of it, dribbling down the front of his arm.

"What the hell got into you?" Damian muttered, pulling down his sleeve. Ray had never pecked him that hard before.

Ray didn't answer, flying to a branch on a tree overhead and wiping his beak on the bark. Damian shot him a look, then continued through the sparse woods toward the traps he'd set last night. Ray hopped from branch to branch overhead, watching eagerly as Damian checked the traps. They'd all been successful as usual, ensnaring two beavers and a few rabbits. He went to bring them inside before some greedy animal mustered the courage to nibble at them — Ray included.

Caw!

"Uh huh. Should've thought about that before you attacked me," he called out as he stepped into the house to deposit the carcasses. He went back outside then, this time to collect a few eggs from the chicken coop. He felt Ray's beady little eyes on him, and gave in, setting a freshly laid — and thus not yet frozen — one on the front porch railing. Ray landed there to peck at the egg, making a hole in the top of it to suck out the goodness. "All right buddy, I forgive you."

The front door creaked open behind him, heavy boots thumping on the porch.

"Morning," a deep, gruff voice greeted.

Damian turned around to see Dad standing just beyond the doorway. Six-foot-nine and full of muscle, he was the largest man Damian had ever met. His long brown hair and great bushy beard were streaked with gray, his gray shirt and overalls clean but worn. A magenta-colored crystal amulet hung around his neck, glowing with an inner light. And an axe hung from his right hand — a huge hand, thick with callouses and riddled with scars, like his face. Scars he'd earned during a lifetime of killing.

"Morning sir," Damian greeted. Dad's piercing blue eyes went to the black stain on Damian's sleeve. "It wasn't me this time!" Damian blurted out, taking a step backward and almost tumbling down the stairs. "It was Ray. He pecked me."

Dad stepped forward, yanking the neck of Damian's shirt down over his bad shoulder and revealing the still-oozing scar.

"I'm telling the truth," Damian insisted. Dad eyed the scar, then Ray, who was happily gulping up the yolk from his makeshift bowl. He grunted, letting go of Damian's collar.

"Finish your chores while I chop down that dead tree."

He walked past Damian, going down the porch steps and heading off into the woods. Damian watched him go, his heart hammering in his chest. He shot Ray a glare.

"You almost got me killed, you know that?"

Caw!

"Pfft. You think Dad's gonna give you seeds every day like I do? He doesn't feed birds. He eats them."

Ray didn't dignify that with a response.

The whack, whack of Dad's axe echoed in the air, and Damian sighed, heading to the garden to harvest garlic and green onion. He brought them back to the cabin, stepping into the kitchen. After plopping his ill-gotten coin in a nearly overflowing jar on the counter labeled "Ray's Seed(y) Stash," he started cooking breakfast. By the time he was done, Dad had returned, sitting on one of the two chairs at opposite ends of their long kitchen table to eat.

Everything as it had always been, and as Damian feared it would always be. The same old boring routine.

When they were done, Damian cleaned up, then put on a long-sleeved shirt, then his jacket. Not only to stay warm, but to hide his scar. Dad had made it clear that no one else was allowed to see it, not that Damian would want anyone seeing it anyway.

Grabbing his backpack and slinging it over his good shoulder, he left the cabin with Dad. And so began their morning hike down the mountain, to their blacksmith shop in the city of Rockport.

As Damian and Dad hiked down the mountain trail, sunlight revealed what had been hidden in darkness a mere hour ago. At the foot of the mountain far below, a dirt road led to the Northern Passage, a winding path through a deep canyon and across imposing mountains miles to the north. It was the only path to Hylon, the country Dad had fought a war with decades ago. Far beyond, Hylon's coastline curved rightward to a massive volcano over a hundred miles away.

It was a sight that never failed to fill Damian with awe and wonder, stirring his soul with the promise of a grand adventure. Of strange places and great battles, with a reward of priceless treasures at the journey's end.

And in the opposite direction, the road led south to the city of Rockport, and following it promised the same day he'd already lived countless times before. He sighed, kicking at a pebble as they hiked.

"I still think we should live on the second floor of the shop," he stated. "It'd save us a lot of time."

"Mountains make strong men," Dad recited.

"Couldn't we just live here on the weekends then? Do we really need to be that strong?"

"Isolation forces a man to solve his own problems," Dad replied. "Hard to feel powerless when there isn't a problem you can't solve."