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  "That looks all right," said Kerkio with a smile that drew out a smile on Dion's face. "There, you didn't even have to wait for your birthday to become a man," he teased with an even bigger smile and Dion's laugh lit up the kitchen.

  "Arnos," spoke Kerkio now in a more serious tone. "I should go where my hands are needed more." Arnos did not move his eyes from his son's arm and neither did he say anything to stop Kerkio from going.

  "You did well," Kerkio said when he stopped in the doorway and looked back into the house.

  The smile that still lingered on Dion's face changed and now reflected gratitude towards the kind words of a man who then quickly vanished from sight.

  "Hold here," he heard his father, but when he looked toward him he understood it was not him Arnos was calling and then his mother's hands took hold of the bandage made from her shirts.

  "Tight," he said and started to wrap the strips of bandage around his arm. Dion winced when pain went through his arm but he made no sound. Arnos continued wrapping the wound upward towards the elbow and Odea followed his hands with hers and pressed on the already wrapped part so it would not unwrap.

  "You did well," Arnos repeated Kerkio's words but not their meaning when he finished bandaging Dion's wound and looked up. His voice was gentle and slowly carried the words out of his mouth. Dion knew that voice very well. It was a carefully chosen voice that his father used only when he wanted to teach him something.

  Dion did not remove his eyes from his father and uneasiness in him grew and mixed with fear and expectation while Arnos was busy choosing words with which to start speaking.

  "Yes," Arnos said only that one word and then stopped speaking, again choosing what words to say next.

  "You did a good thing. Saved someone's life. Maybe even a few lives. Maybe even the entire city by thwarting their assault on the walls, but only the greatest luck of the world kept you alive up there."

  A tiny bit of uneasiness left Dion. He heard his mother's sigh but he kept looking at his father. She had kept herself from asking what happened to him but now she finally knew.

  "Mind rules, son. How many times have we repeated that? Mind before might. Always," continued Arnos.

  Dion nodded and pressed his lips hard one against the other as disappointment grew in him.

  "No," Arnos said and nodded away Dion's rising foul mood.

  "Do not think this is disapproval or a lecture. This is only fear of a father who almost lost his son by fault of his own. I approved your task on the walls, thinking no harm could come to you for we are safe in Echa. I made a mistake and it almost cost me dearly."

  Arnos walked over to the bookshelf that was located in the right corner opposite the entrance. Feelings overpowered him but it was not for his son to see them now. He had to stay strong. His title of father demanded that of him and that was the title he cherished more than any other.

  His stomach trembled from emotions swallowed but it grew steadier now that he understood that Dion managed to survive all the fights he was in, even against foes in front of which he himself froze when he saw them. Once more he tasted that same thought and felt hope and pride but they soon hid before a new wave of worry. Echa was no longer a safe haven he hoped for this morning. He knew what he had to do. He almost lost his son three times in less than half a day, but he did not know how or when he would do what he planned. The only thing he knew for certain is that he must be ready.

  "Odea, you will help me prepare the bags for the journey," said Arnos after his long silence.

  "Journey? Where are we going?" asked Dion and Arnos noticed a tinge of confusion in his voice.

  "Mother and I nowhere," answered his father while looking up to check the books on the upper shelves. "If it becomes in any way possible you will go. You will go to Lanika and Teikos in Tialoch until all this is sorted out. We'll have to hurry if we are to push you out before the city is completely besieged."

  "But I do not wish..." Dion started objecting, but a voice coming from the outside stopped him midsentence.

  "Lord Arnos," came from the entrance. An older man of thin build stood in the doorway. He kept his head turned sideways, taking care not to look directly into the home.

  "I am listening," answered Arnos and reached for a book. He located the brown leather spine of a book he was looking for.

  "Messenger pigeons have arrived from Syevnor."

  That news attracted the immediate attention of both Dion and Arnos. Dion straightened in his chair and Arnos turned around towards the messenger but not before he took the book off the shelf.

  "Wonderful!" exclaimed Arnos. "What does Aris say?" he asked with a smile of relief that he could not hide.

  "Nothing. The pigeons have returned and they brought no messages."

  Arnos went toward the messenger.

  "Let us go see if maybe more pigeons arrived in the meantime. Perhaps one has brought home a message."

  "Impossible, lord. When I said the pigeons have returned without messages I did not talk about some pigeons that have returned. I was talking about all the legion's pigeons. They have all returned at once and not one of them carried any message."

  No trace of a smile was left on Arnos's face and he could only see darkness in front of him. He stopped well before reaching the doors which now appeared as a faraway speck of light. He closed his eyes and let his mind wander away toward thoughts of Aris, the leader of Echa's legion and his most cherished childhood friend. Alphabet was the first reason everyone always paired them together when they were children but as time passed they became inseparable.

  Dion could see his father's shoulders slouch.

  "Dad," he called Arnos with a careful voice. "Maybe nothing happened to the legion. Maybe the birds simply escaped. Somehow."

  "No matter what happened to the birds and the legion, for Echa the legion is lost," answered Arnos. "We have no means of bringing them home, not even if they report their location to us right now. Without the Great Oaks and the pigeons we cannot know anything more about them. The best thing to hope for now is a prolonged siege."

  Odea came behind Dion and hugged him. He took her by the hands.

  "Can I get those eggs now?" Dion asked his mother silently. He just could not keep his mind off food and with a kiss on the temple she walked away from him.

  "Thank you," said Arnos to the messenger when Odea passed him by on her way to the hearth. The messenger silently moved away from the door.

  Arnos sat next to Dion and placed the book on the table, opened it and began turning pages.

  "I have a task for you," he said to Dion who immediately nodded with his head.

  "You will go to the king in Tialoch," he said to his son and looked away from the book, expecting to see his son stop nodding his head, and he did just that to Arnos's amusement. Dion's eyes were wide open and even though Odea put some food on the table, he now did not look at it or touch it. A smile ran quickly across Arnos's lips and he continued.

  "We cannot be sure that someone had already gone to notify the king of this morning's events. Besides, we just found out that the South legion will not be returning home soon, if ever. Valan must be notified of this and you must ask him to send us his legion."

  "The king will not see me. You go. He knows you, father. He never saw me in his entire life."

  "He will see you," answered Arnos with a voice in which there was no doubt. "You will be the official messenger of both Echa Rei and Echa. I will speak with Taren to make it so."

  "But," Arnos continued with a much harsher voice, "after you take my message to the king your tasks are done. After that you have to go to Lanika and Teikos, as I have told you already. You do not return here. You live your life."

  He gave Dion a look that Dion could not say no to. Dion nodded again, but only once this time, and then finally grabbed hold of a fork and scooped an entire fried egg into his mouth.

  Arnos spent some time turning the pages of the book while Dion was eating and then he pressed the p
ages of the book with both palms so the book would remain open.

  "I still have good memory," he said while he was turning the book towards Dion. "This is the book your grandfather brought home with him from Syevnor many years ago. It contains stories from old times and we told you some of them when you were a kid, but there is also a small bestiary in it."

  He pushed the book all the way to Dion's plate. "Take a look."

  Dion bent over his plate to look at the sketch of a forest and an animal that looked as if someone drew it from bad memory. It had large teeth on a large unshapely head and two tentacles that gripped two young trees. The whole body wasn't drawn but it was clear to Dion what he was looking at. It was a sketch of an Eater.

  "So, these creatures are from Syevnor?"

  "Looks like it. Until today I was certain that someone, including your grandfather, had a fiery imagination, but it looks as if someone had really seen them before."

  "That means that someone from Syevnor is attacking us. That would also mean that something could have really happened to Aris and the legion." Dion began to feel bad when he started to picture the event that might have happened, but a new thought made him ask his father a new question.

  "But dad, how did they come through the Trees?" He started with that but quickly added more. "I mean, I know how - the same way as we do, if they have the proper acorns. But how did they manage to completely overtake the Trees and stop us from using them?"

  "I don't know," Arnos admitted. "That is something I have been thinking about ever since Echa Rei. I thought I knew all that I should and all that there is to know about the Great Oaks."

  "Here, I brought everything I could find for Dion's journey," Odea said when she returned from the other room and showed them the open bag in which there was an old leather sheath with a small knife in it, and one small jar. "I found my father's old hunting knife and I put my small jar of honey in - it's more than half full. But I could not find a single piece of Dion's clothing in this house. Did you bring anything with you?"

  Arnos shook his head. "We left everything in Rei."

  Odea looked at her son sitting at the table in a torn-up shirt and Arnos could see on her face that the time of her brave acceptance of the situation they were in had passed.

  "We'll manage," Arnos said, but at the same time as Odea started speaking.

  "I have nothing for him to wear, let alone a change of clothes for when he is in Tialoch. And I have nothing more to give him to eat."

  "Mom, it's all right. We'll mend this shirt. It'll be like new."

  A sound of heavy footsteps became more noticeable than the rest of the noise coming from the outside and then it stopped. Arnos turned around on his chair to face the sound. Kerkio was at the door. He was winded.

  "The people of Echa Doros are at the Eastern Bridge. Several beasts gave up trying to climb up the walls and attacked their column. Taren has already gone outside into the Village to make sure they can enter the city because the noise attracted those from the Western Bridge. I fear we will not be able to save all that have come from Doros."

  Arnos was on his feet while Kerkio was still finishing his last sentence. He came closer to Odea, took her by the elbows and then gently caressed her arms with the tips of his fingertips while he drew her closer to him. He kissed her forehead.

  "We'll manage," Arnos repeated once more just for her.

  Dion got up from his chair but his father stopped him before he even managed to straighten up.

  "You are going nowhere. Especially not outside of the city and into battle," he said and took a sip of water from the bucket. He changed his mind about Dion not leaving and stopped at the door before exiting the house.

  "Find me some hay. Not a lot. As much as you can hold in your hands with ease. We will need it when I return."

  "Let me," said Odea and went after Arnos.

  Dion looked around the house as if not believing how fast he was alone again but then quickly sat back down on the chair. There were two or three more bites left on the plate. He took care of that.

  He drank some water.

  He reclined and then checked the state of his clothes. He cleared away some of the dust from his trousers but he was rougher than the wound on his forearm would have liked. He turned the fist on wounded arm left and right to see how much it could hurt.

  "Survivable."

  He drew himself nearer the table, took the book and started reading. He noticed the pages of the book and the colors on them but he paid no attention to the contents. He stopped reading for a moment to see if his sword was on his belt. It was, but he did not remember returning it to its sheath. He unbuckled the belt and let it fall to the floor under the table.

  He knocked on the table twice, adjusted himself in the chair, looked across the table at the wall in front of himself and he couldn't take it anymore. It felt as an itch deep inside that he could not scratch. He had to see what was going on outside, but when he pushed himself away from the table and made a few steps towards the door his muscles cramped up and reminded him of their weariness. He hopped back to the chair on his right leg. Sweat covered his face while he was trying to stretch his left leg out of the cramp. It lasted for so long that he thought he was going to scream but then the cramp subsided. He could control his own leg again, but he no longer had any thoughts about going outside. This time he got up from his chair much more carefully, went into the other room and dove into the tall soft bed as inelegantly as was possible.

  The cold of the linen was soothing and he was quickly falling into something that was more of a complete numbness than ordinary sleep. It felt as if he had no more arms or legs. It was as if he was floating above the bed.

  Then he heard footsteps again inside the house. There was rustling and knocking on the table and then more steps. The footsteps stopped in front of the room and he could tell by the breathing who was at the door.

  "Are you asleep?" Odea asked. Using the very last remains of his strength he muttered something that neither he nor Odea understood and then he drifted away.

  Chapter 5 - Escape from Echa

  Voices woke him up. He tried to open his eyes but the left one would not open. It was pressed into the pillow along with half of his head. The right eye that did manage to open saw almost complete darkness. He turned around and lifted himself up into a sitting position. A stripe of yellow light made its way into the room under the door and helped him make sense of the direction he was looking in. Somebody had closed the door while he was sleeping.

  He stretched and yawned loudly. As soon as he stopped yawning he heard footsteps approaching the door from the other side. He closed his eyes when the yellow light of the fire from the hearth and from the many candles now lit on the table stormed into the room. It took a while for his eyes to adjust to the light and to see his mother looking at him from the kitchen. She was smiling.

  "Get up. Come!" she called him and went away into the kitchen where he could no longer see her. Curiosity helped him crawl out of the bed and he stumbled into the kitchen.

  "Grandpa! Grandpa!" shouted Dion when he saw Daedar entering the house. Dion wanted to run to him but stopped after he made the first step. Arnos held his father by the hand as he helped him in and Kerkio came into the house behind them. Dion saw Kerkio was distressed and the realized his grandfather was wounded as well.

  Odea took one of the chairs that was nearer the hearth and helped Arnos to lower his father gently onto the chair. His face was weary and pale. The wounds on his arms and body, although closed already, looked more serious and were more numerous than Dion's when he was brought into the house.

  Daedar moaned a bit as he sat down and when Odea and Arnos moved away from him Dion saw his grandfather staring directly at him. The wrinkles on the old man's forehead disappeared and his mouth widened into a content smile. Dion blinked and his grandfather's eyes had already closed again.

  Arnos leaned against the wall behind his father, Kerkio leaned against the wall oppo
site the fire and they simply watched the old man in silence. Odea moved back and only then Dion noticed the loud noise coming into the house through the ajar entrance.

  "What's happening outside?" he asked no one in particular while his eyes followed Odea who carried a small glass of blood-red liquid to Daedar.

  "Fermented cherry. Teikos's recipe," she said holding the glass in front of Daedar, waiting for him to take it.

  "It's sweet," she added when Daedar opened his eyes and took the offered glass. He took a sip of the red liquid and then sucked what was left of the liquid from his mustache. He raised the glass to thank Odea and then he closed his eyes yet again.

  "Echa Doros has fallen. All who survived the journey from Doros are now here in Echa," Arnos answered Dion.

  "My final hope was that Doros would come to aid us before we are encircled completely, but instead they came here to seek refuge just like us."

  Dion could feel the full weight of the situation they were in. He knew the map of the kingdom and the look of the lands in the allied kingdoms and he was certain that his father was right. All the other great cities of the kingdom were far away. There was no immediate help to be had. The south of the kingdom was overrun and Echa was now an island in darkness.

  "All right," answered Dion with a seriousness in his voice.

  "I will do what you have asked. I will take the message to the king that Syevnor has taken over the Trees and the southern cities and that they have besieged Echa."

  Daedar opened his eyes in disbelief.

  "Syevnor?" he asked.

  "Then it is Ulduin of Irion and the south that is attacking us? Who else would have acorns of our Great Oaks?"

  "No, no, no!" said Daedar, irked by his grandson and turned to face his son.

  "Didn't your son tell you that we saw a Gray one today? No... Yesterday."

  "Yes father, he told me, and yes I remember you telling me about the Gray ones and I honestly could not care less if he came from Syevnor, the Syevnorean western wilderness, Chaos if it were to exist, or the public toilet behind the tavern," replied Arnos, obviously angry, but not at his father.