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Erik Scott DeBie

Ghostwalker

Prelude

30 Tarsakh, the Year of the Serpent (1359 DR)

He ran through the woods, jumping at every snapping twig, every moving shadow. The height of the moon told him it was midnight, but the youth cared little. His clothes had been torn to ribbons in his desperate flight, and his flesh had been scratched brutally by the shrubs, branches, and rocks.

The youth would do anything to avoid his pursuers.

Cruel faces, real and imagined, greeted him at every turn, and sometimes a fist lashed out and sent him sprawling. He always got up again, his head ringing and his vision swimming, only to run on, mocking laughter echoing behind him. They were playing with him, as a cat toys with its prey, allowing him to run and to think he might escape, but ultimately wearing down his nerves-and his fragile resolve-to nothing.

"Oh, Ri-in," a voice came, "here little Rhyn!"

Startled, Rhyn Thardeyn stumbled, tripped, and fell with a cry down a rocky hill into muddy water. He struggled to rise and squeaked despite himself when fiery pain shot through his right leg, and he collapsed again. He heard their voices steadily approaching and was nearly petrified with doubt and uncertainty, unsure of which direction to run-or even if running had any purpose.

The youth was thinking about how to drag his twelve-year-old body along when he heard footsteps among the trees. He froze.

"Why do you run, lovely boy?" a sharp voice called sweetly. "Come-come dance with me. I'll teach you how. "

"Ugly little goblin's get," a gruff voice joined the first. "Come an' face us like a man. We won't hurt ye… much. "

He cowered, hiding deep in the shallows, coated in mud. He saw two forms run by-the two men who had shouted. They seemed oblivious to his presence.

Fighting to calm his breathing, Rhyn hummed a merry tune over and over again in his head.

Rhyn heard a splash in the stream behind him. Slowly, he turned to look.

A young boy with curly ebony hair waded there, dressed in rich silks.

Rhyn looked, pleading, into the boy's eyes, and saw there unwillingness, even sympathy. The boy was not to blame for the sins of the father.

"I've found him!" shouted the boy. It was a condemnation.

Then they were upon him, rough hands clutching at his arms and his broken leg. He screamed and cried for his mother, but it was no use.

They threw him down in the circle of trees and lay into him with hobnailed boots. The kicks broke ribs, arms, and his uninjured leg, and when he tried to rise, the pain drove him back before the brutal men could punch him down once more.

Finally, the beating stopped. Rhyn looked up with bleary, red-filled eyes.

"You're going to die now, boy," a thick, slurred voice said. A huge man with a heavy wood axe loomed over him, patting the massive weapon.

"No, no, let him dance with me first," the thin man said. A rapier gleamed in his hand, and he whisked it through the air. "I will enjoy tracing his red trail, watching his broken moves. Come dance with me, boy-I'll be the last thing you ever see. "