Sovereign's Wake

Chapter Four

           Like his father years before, the excitement for adventure propelled Novas away from his home, and they left the clearing around their house at a brisk pace. As they walked away, the boy looked back on the cabin with fondness and longing. It had always seemed a stream of light poured onto its frame regardless of the consistency of the forest ceiling. Its image in his mind was brighter than truth, complete with rays of shimmering gold. As he ventured on, Novas wondered when he would return to that place of bright and shadow.
             They came upon the logger's valley, and Novas noted the forest tangles as they seemed to grow upon the fallen corpses. So soon, nature was returning their bodies to the earth in which they were borne upon. The logging wagons had been long since abandoned by the horses who had managed to break away from their labours. Garreth examined the outsides of the carts and came across a burnt-in symbol with bold lettering, which depicted an axe, sword, and hammer hanging over a tree on a hill.             At the hill's base, the words Blackwoods Company were emblazoned.
         "Hmm... the Blackwoods Company? The Queen's company, I'd gather. I will have to consult with            Berault when we arrive in the city," Garreth pondered to himself.
          "Let's continue," the man beckoned as he moved north towards the forest edge.
         Without hesitation, Novas followed his father away from the expanse of violent conflict.

            To Novas, the sun always seemed much more intense on the openness of the plains. As they emerged out of the forest, the pair noted the plains' brightness. The wide expanse north of the forest was like a desert of dirt and stone, and there was little luck of an oasis to be found. It was covered in light brown rubble peppered with bright grasses and shiny plants and featured rolling hills which rose and descended into the distance. In comparison to the shady forest, the plains were a place of exhaustion and desolation. As the two walked onto the expanse, the boy could see an animal skeleton beside a small pit of dried mud and cracked dirt.
           "This summer has been long and seems to be drawing on. Outside of the shade and coolness of the forest, there have been farms suffering from draughts and towns with barren wells," Garreth explained as he kicked at the dry dirt patch.
He stared into the morning sky and traced the shadows around him.
            "We are heading northeast to the highway now. The Great South Road is our path. It runs through Malquia from the capital to the south coast," Garreth informed.
           As their trek ventured into new territory, their speed did not seem slow or tasking to the boy. Novas tried to memorize some waypoints along the way, and he had taken the beast's skull from the dried watering hole and mounted it to a tree closest to their path. He crossed an arch of fallen trees and a set of boulders next to a struggling pond. They had walked until the sun was high in the noon-day sky and the shadows became a dark aura around the surrounding brush.
           "The highway should be just beyond this slope," Garreth declared as he climbed a hill of shifting stones with a swift and even stride.
            When the two reached the peak of the slope, they looked down upon a dusty road paved with an assortment of stones and boulders levelled into the ground. Regardless of its quality, the road remained fairly flat and even as it extended north and south until the horizon turned into water and sunlight.
          Not far from the road, there stood a small, single-level house partially hidden by shrubbery and a bunch of trees. The house was built with wood that was grayed by time, and the patchy nature of its shingles told of a comparable exposure. The two trekked towards the building, and Garreth noticed a difference in this place since the last time he had been by. Several pots on the back porch were cracked and pushed over, the lumber pile was disturbed and disorderly, and the railings near the back entrance had been smashed and splintered. As they continued to the front of the house, they noted a window had been broken in, and a fire that consumed most of the side facing the road. Inside, a table was broken at the legs, and its surface was split into two jagged pieces.
          "This house is not as it was the last time I had passed through here. What forces reduced this place to such ruin, I can only wonder," Garreth pondered aloud as he peered through the openings of the ruined dwelling.
          At seeing the condition of this home and its absence of occupants, Novas felt anxious in leaving his home unwatched and hoped that it would not meet a similar fate. Was this the danger that his father had warned him about, Novas thought, that had invaded the land of his home and now had scorched the domicile they viewed? With these ponderings, the two men took to the highway and continued their journey towards the capital.