The Bones of the Earth (The Dark Age) Read Free

mat that Javor realized how tired he was. He fell asleep immediately. And he dreamed a terrible dream.
    He was flying a over wide plain where tall grass browned in the sun. On top of a small hill, a palisade guarded a village. Smoke drifted over the palisade—the village was burning. Bodies lay in front of the huts, and children huddled against the walls, crying for their murdered parents.
    Across the plain, horsemen chased people on foot. He wanted to warn the running people about the horsemen, but he could not bring his mouth to open, nor make the smallest noise.
    One horseman closed on two men and a woman. The horseman raised a curved shape—a sword. He brought it down sharply, once, twice—the running men fell, twisting, arms flailing, then still. Now, only the woman was left. The horse ran in front of her. The woman darted to one side, then the other, but the horse blocked her. The rider tired of the game quickly, and struck her, too, and she fell.
    Javor rose higher, and he could see across the plain. Everywhere, groups of mounted men in dark armour chased terrified villagers on foot. Villages burned. Armoured men raped women. Finally, he descended, watching a group of grinning men taking their turns raping two girls while a village burned behind them. The smoke billowed and concentrated into an enormous man shape.
    He forced his lungs to contract as the smoke grew darker and the shape it formed grew more distinct. He could see two great arms, thick as trees, ending in great curved cruel claws.
    Javor strained.  He pushed and then the scream climbed out of his throat, and he was sitting upright in his bed. The watery dawn light filtered in. He was sweating. To one side, he could hear his parents shifting.
    “ A dream,” he whispered to himself, falling back onto the heather that made up his bed. He gradually slowed his breath, but he could not go back to sleep.
    His father got up and smiled. “Time for the ceremony.”
     
     

Chapter 2 : The rescue
     
     
    Look down. Two young men, boys really, walk across the meadows and forests on the southern slopes of mountains that rise gently, then heave up suddenly to angry grey crags occasionally topped by snow. One of the boys is very tall, with long yellow-gold hair. His long legs propel him swiftly across a meadow thick with yellow and purple flowers. He pays no attention to flies buzzing around him, to crickets and rabbits that leap out of his way.
    His companion is smaller with tangled, long black hair. Blotches of soft black fuzz swirl around his chin and down his neck. He scurries to keep up with the blonde’s strides and is out of breath. They have been walking fast, nearly running, for hours. It is the solstice, some time past the year’s highest noon. Birds are quiet in the hottest part of the day, but insects chirp and hum and trill. Leaves on the trees are still a light green, not yet burned dark by the summer. The air is warm, not hot, not yet.
    The dark one gets more anxious with every step. But all morning, the blonde boy has ignored him. The dark boy recognizes this trait in his friend: his ability to focus on one thing to the exclusion of everything else, for hours at a time. In their village, he was called “the dreamer,” or worse. Even in normal circumstances, you had to call him by name two or three times to get his attention. But now, he is following the trail of horsemen, mounted raiders, and no matter how many times the dark boy calls “Javor,” no matter how futile the quest, he cannot be pulled away.
    Sometimes, it is easy to see the trampled grass or broken twigs and bushes, or a torn bit of cloth on a branch. Often, the light-haired boy seems to follow signs that his dark companion cannot see, and every time the dark boy doubts his friend and thinks they have lost the trail, he sees another sign—horse droppings, the surest of all, or once, a girl’s colourfully embroidered apron.
    The dark boy begins touching every oak and birch tree