Chapter 8: Ajal.

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  The Sutherlands, near Mount Xatal, Month: 94, Year: 226.

  Snow burst apart beside him as a boot slammed down, spraying powdered ice against his face. Ajal twisted sideways in a desperate leap, his shoulder skimming the ground before he forced himself upright with a grunt. The crack of wood meeting wood split the air, his stick clashing against a rival aspirant's rough-hewn weapon, frozen bark biting into his palms. Around him, shouting filled the air, desperate and wild. This wasn’t a trial anymore. It was a brawl.

  They were outnumbered six to three, and it showed. Their campfire lay shattered, smoke writhing into the cold sky. Tools littered the snow like bones. Someone was already clawing through the food cache, and Ajal, panting, and trembling, fought to stay standing as each of his reactions came slower than the last.

  He had entered the trial in secret, slipping away in the darkness of night without his family’s blessing. They had forbidden it. No clear reason given, only the complaints of their concern “The first trial of Oltikán is not a child's game,” his uncle had warned, “It’s dangerous”. “Think of your condition,” this grandmother had argued. All because of the illness he’d been born with. A disease tamed now by medicine, one he barely felt anymore.

  Even though his bloodline was filled with Vessels, priests, and Heirs; when it was about Ajal, it had always been different. They never stopped guarding him.

  While his cousins learned to fight and survive in the wild, Ajal had been kept indoors, watched over as if he were made of glass. They got to climb cliffs and swim rivers, while he was told to sit and watch. The world had been a forbidden place, and every lesson that might have hardened him had been sealed away “for his safety.”

  Ajal Tzomei. That was the name he had given when he registered for the trial. His real one - Ajal Natzin - would have drawn too many questions.

  He hadn’t known what to expect. Would he rise like his cousins before him, or return in humiliation? Either way, he couldn't keep expecting while sitting at home.

  So he joined the pilgrimage, untrained and untested, walking barefoot through the snow in a fast of both food and words. Every step he took away from home was an act of rebellion, and now, in the chaos of combat, that rebellion was faltering.

  His breath came ragged, his hands trembling as his stick parried blow after blow. The strikes came faster. He was being driven backward. Then a hard swing slipped through, catching his ribs and nearly knocking him off his feet.

  He remembered the first day of the trial, experiencing the wilds for the first time, but still confident in his steps. "Idiots," he called those who split from the team on the first day, choosing to take their chances with the wilderness rather than share a camp with the so-called “horned freak.” that had been made their teammate. They even gave him a dirtier nickname that they used behind his back: “Moroth”.

  They were idiots.

  He remembered the second week: "Weakling," he thought about their other teammate when she quit, deciding she wouldn’t survive out here, even though he had contemplated the same idea for several nights.

  For a moment there, he believed himself more capable than them. For a moment there, he believed that it was in his blood and destiny to conquer this trial, as countless members of his family did before him, but perhaps he was just as much as an idiot and as much as a weakling as his former teammates were.

  Damath, the Drexari that the cruelest members of the team mocked as Moroth, was the only one still holding the line.

  Ajal looked to his side, down the snowy hill where Damath was fighting too. The Drexari roared, a sound full of power and defiance, as he swept a branch the size of a small tree through the snow. It struck with a crack that broke a rival's guard and sent him several steps away to finally stumble into his back. Two more rushed him, forcing him to step back, snow parting under his boots.

  Three against one, and still they couldn’t bring him down. He was much larger and stronger than either of them. As he stood straight and tall, his antlers rimed highly with frost, his arms scaled in blue like living armor. The rival aspirants might have run away from his imposing presence in other circumstances, but here and now, the cold and hunger held their feet to stay.

  Ajal wished he was as strong as Damath, strong enough to turn the tide in this brawl, yet even Damath was tiring, his breath harsh, his footing slipping. Then the air shuddered. A pulse of force burst from Damath, scattering snow and pebbles, driving his attackers back a step.

  Telekinesis. Ajal thought as he watched the violent display of power in amazement.

  After hesitating for a moment, the attackers moved forward again, focused on getting their hands on the fish that Ajal’s team had caught and stored earlier. But Damath was standing between them and the food, he would not let them take it so easy.

  Ajal was not able to linger Damath's fight for long, as he had his own battle nearby, and he was struggling to parry each blow. His rival pressed hard, relentlessly. A strike slipped through, the frozen stick thudding into Ajal’s gut. He dropped to his knees as the world tilted, his attacker already tearing into their bags.

  A spray of snow burst upward as the rival Ajal had failed to defeat, vanished into the trees with as much as he could carry, his laughter fading into cruel echoes. The others turned on Damath. Three against one became four as another rushed in.

  Ajal tried to rise, but his legs barely obeyed. He could only watch impotently as one attacker swung for Damath’s head, wishing he could do something to stop it.

  The blow never landed.

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  A sudden gust ripped through the clearing, scattering snow and supplies alike. The assailants were thrown backward, tumbling into the snowy dirt. Only Damath remained standing, his breathing now heavier.

  For a heartbeat, everything was silent.

  Then the enemies broke, shouting “Moroth! Moroth!” as they fled into the forest with as much as they could carry.

  Ajal exhaled, still-shaking, unsure if what he’d seen was a miracle, or Damath’s telekinesis again.

  He stumbled forward, breath ragged, to where Damath was already gathering their scattered food.

  “You’re incredible,” Ajal said, stooping to help. “I just wish I’d done more.”

  Damath didn’t look up, his breath fogging the air as he gathered what scraps remained.

  “We’ll be ready next time,” he said simply, trying to calm his voice but unable to completely hide his exhaustion and frustration.

  Ajal nodded and bent beside him. Together, they scavenged in silence, hands shaking from cold and fatigue.

  Then, the silence broke. A deep pained groan.

  Ajal froze.

  He spun toward the source and saw their youngest teammate Tzil, sprawled a short distance away, half-buried in the snowy and uneven terrain.

  Ajal ran towards him as fast as his tired body still allowed him to.

  Tzil was lying in the snow, his face reddened in pain and holding on to the nearest rock. His ankle bent at an unnatural angle, twisted like a broken branch.

  “Don’t move,” he said, forcing steadiness into his trembling voice. “You’re gonna be alright.”

  Tzil’s face had gone ghostly, lips edged with blue. “I heard it crack,” he whispered, staring past Ajal into the gray sky. “It’s broken.”

  Ajal’s hands hovered uselessly above the twisted ankle, trembling in the cold. His mind spun for an answer, but found only silence. If he’d known healing magic like his uncle, maybe… but even then, not here. Not many healers can mend broken bones, especially in a place like this.

  He knew that. But it didn’t make him feel any less helpless.

  Tzil exhaled hard through his mouth. “Doesn’t matter. This is where I stop.”

  “No,” Ajal whispered. “You can’t know that. We’ll...”

  “I can’t walk. You know the rules.” Tzil interrupted, his voice was quiet but certain. “I’ll slow you down. I will die out here if I keep going.”

  Ajal closed his eyes. The words hurt more than they should have. Not because Tzil was wrong, but because he was right.

  Damath knelt beside them, silent until now. He looked at the broken ankle, then at Ajal.

  “I'll send the flare,” he said simply as he turned away from them.

  Damath returned to the site where their supplies had been scattered. The snow crunched softly beneath his gloves as he searched until his trembling fingers found the flare stone. He cupped it in his palm and crushed it.

  Light blossomed between his fingers, a spiral of gold dust rising into the gray sky. It lingered there, glowing faintly against the wind, a signal for help that could be seen from afar.

  None of them spoke until the rescue team arrived.

  Two masked riders emerged on horse-back, their cloaks drawn tight, their mounts steaming in the cold. One dismounted to tend to Tzil, checking his ankle with calm and practiced technique. The other gave the usual formality: “This one is out of the trial. The rest of you may continue… if you wish.”

  Ajal didn’t know what to say. So he simply turned to Tzil.

  “Thank you,” he said, his voice hoarse. “You gave this everything.”

  Tzil smiled faintly, pained but proud. “So did you.”

  Damath gave him a nod. “Get well.”

  The silence after was deeper than before.

  No fire. No shelter. No third set of hands.

  Just Ajal and Damath.

  Ajal crouched by the remains of their ruined camp, sifting through what little hadn’t been taken. A torn blanket. One cracked pot. A few tools and a few scattered food remains.

  “Bastards, even my medicine,” he muttered as he saw the remains of broken glass vials scattered on the snowy ground.

  Damath didn’t answer. He just looked around, inspecting the ground to see if there was anything more that could be salvaged.

  Ajal kept speaking, mostly to himself.

  “No food. No shelter. Barely any tools. Just us. Two against teams of six.”

  He laughed bitterly. “Even if we find shelter, someone’ll just take it. We can’t hold it. We can’t win this.”

  Ajal pressed a fist to his chest, teeth clenched. The ache in his ribs had dulled, but the heavier pain sat behind his sternum.

  He had started losing hope days ago. No, perhaps he had no hopes from the very start. Besides his family's name and legacy, he barely had anything else on his plate.

  He looked at Damath again, this quiet, antlered and tall man who seemed as if taken out of a story meant to scare children, but had been the one who kept the team together as long as he could.

  Ajal shifted his weight as he looked towards the sky. The cold wasn’t unbearable yet, but it would be soon. Auron crept ever closer toward the sun like sand sliding through glass, counting down the minutes until the long night.

  With their fire gone and no plan left, they sat in silence. Only the wind moved, whispering through the bare, skeletal trees.

  “Hey,” he said. “Can I ask you something?”

  Damath turned slightly, his expression tired but respectful.

  “I thought the Covean continent was a fairy tale,” Ajal said, voice half-curious, half-apologetic.

  Damath didn’t bristle. He only nodded slowly, eyes distant.

  “It definitely exists,” he responded. “I was born there. My mother and the rest have told me many stories about it.”

  Ajal frowned. “So you’ve been there before?”

  “Not in this flesh,” Damath said. “But I hope to go one day, it calls me.” He looked into the distance “To help bring my people home, to visit it myself. That’s my greatest desire.”

  Ajal recalled the tales of Drexari being reborn from their own remains after death, something he had also believed a fairy tail. Yet, he decided not to change to that subject, and just follow along, “Then… why are you here? Why take the Trial?”

  Damath turned to him more fully now, his eyes meeting his own now.

  “What better position can I earn to make my wishes come true, than that of the Heir of Oltikán?”

  His voice carried no arrogance, only conviction. “What more productive way to spend my days than to follow the path that has even the smallest chance of purging our land from the curse that has fallen on it?”

  Ajal felt his breath hitch slightly. The words hung in the air.

  He spoke carefully. “You mean… the Taken?”

  Damath’s gaze sharpened.

  “Yes. That is how you people call it. We call it scourge. Curse. Profanity.”

  Ajal looked away. He had heard stories of the Taken, of creatures who through rituals–took over people and minds. Stories told to frighten children or warn travelers, stories almost as infamous as that of Moroth and Drakana.

  But he’d never thought of it as real. Not like this. Not like something that had carved itself into someone’s future.

  Damath seemed to sense the weight of the moment. He turned his gaze back to the horizon.

  “I won’t blame you if you want to quit,” he said quietly. “But for me… I’m not quitting.”

  Ajal sat with that. The cold nipped at his fingers, and his hands numb from taking the blows. But he didn’t speak yet.

  He glanced over at the Drexari sitting beside him, eyes steady on the darkening horizon. Then, softly:

  “You know… I am curious now. About your home. The Covean continent.”

  Damath didn’t look at him, but Ajal caught the faint pull of a smile.

  “My mother said that the tides there used to bring the ocean to our backdoor. She described that every few days, the sea would come climbing inland, all the way to the village where she and my brother used to live. Flooded the roots of the trees. Then it would vanish again, pulling itself back so far you could no longer see it in the horizon.”

  “If you ever set sail there,” Ajal exclaimed as he imagined the scene, “make sure to let me know.”

  Damath nodded. “I will.”

  A heavy silence settled over them again, but this one felt warmer, less bitter. Not hopeless. Just... honest.

  Ajal’s fingers drifted to the yellow stone tucked inside his belt.

  He wanted to help Damath. He really did. But staying now, it wasn’t brave. It was just reckless. Every plan his mind spun returned to the same conclusion: he wasn’t ready. Not yet.

  “I hope you make it,” he said. “But if you don’t, don’t hesitate to come find me. I might just be able to help.”

  Damath stood as well, tall as a tree and still but warmer. He looked down at Ajal and gave him a nod that felt heavier than words.

  Damath added something more. “You know. It wasn't me.”

  Ajal looked at him, confused about what he was talking about.

  “The one who caused that gust that ended the fight. It wasn't me.”

  Ajal smiled, intrigued as if believing that Damath believed that a miracle had happened.

  Damath stretched his palm open towards Ajal. “I'll see you around.”

  Ajal met his hand in an awkward handshake, his own fingers barely spanning the breadth of Damath’s palm.

  Then he lifted the stone flare and crushed it with his hand.

  The yellow powder streaked into the sky, once again bursting overhead in a bloom of soft gold. The wind carried its fading trail across the tree line.

  Ajal looked above as he recalled the stories he had heard of evil Drexari like Moroth, and was thankful that he was able to realize that they were just terrible stories that parents told their children, but at the end of it all, they were just stories.

  And very cruel and inaccurate ones at that.

  He smirked as he thought of the punishment he would receive from his grandmother when he returned home. A thought crossed his mind: I'm a dead man.

  Grandmother,

  It is well known that secrets can't be kept from you very long. But I want you to know that I am well. But sadly, I was not ready for the trial. I′ll be heading back home at the first opportunity after the long night.

  I want to apologize in anticipation, for any problems my escape might have caused back home.

  – With love, Ajal

  Damath's Pilgrimage.

  Chapter 11: Katuel.

  Thank you very much for taking the time to read my story.