A Banner Torn (Book 1 Complete)

Kaelid:

The village square pulsed with vibrant life as merchants folded away their colorful canopies, their final entreaties to lingering customers fading into the golden afternoon. Sweet aromas of fresh baked bread and hickory-smoked meats swirled through the cooling air, but Kaelid barely noticed these ordinary things.

His entire world had narrowed to the battlefield before him.

Toes digging into the sun-warmed dirt, he planted his feet in the perfect warrior stance he'd practiced a hundred times. His stick-sword rose in both hands, not just any weapon but a legendary blade, mighty and sure in his grip. The rough bark pressed against his palms, and in his mind, it transformed into polished steel inlaid with ancient runes of power.

Across from him, Rannek's face split into a wide grin, twirling his own mighty weapon in dizzying circles before pointing it forward with a look of total confidence.

"This is Kairnleid's sword," he announced, his voice ringing with importance as he swept his wooden blade through the air. He could almost feel the magical weight of it, the special power humming through the wood. "One strike, and it's over!"

Rannek squinted at him, the last rays of sunshine making his eyes sparkle with mischief. "Then why do we always hit each other fifty times before someone falls over?"

Kaelid frowned, thinking hard about this very important question. Then it came to him, simple and perfect: "Because we're both heroes."

That was all the reason they needed!

From the edge of the village square, half-hidden in the shadow of the baker's awning, Maerwen watched her son duel with sticks and dreams. The late afternoon sun caught in his hair, turning it to burnished copper, so like his father's that for a moment, time seemed to fold in on itself, and she was watching Daelin again, young and vibrant and full of the same fierce joy that now animated their child.

The illusion lasted only a heartbeat before reality reasserted itself. This was Kaelid, not Daelin. And Daelin was gone, had been gone for three long years, leaving behind only memories and a son who grew more like him with each passing day.

"He has his father's quickness," Julid observed, appearing beside her with a basket of fresh bread tucked under one arm. "And his determination."

Maerwen nodded, unable to deny the truth of it. "And his recklessness," she added softly, watching as he faced Rannek. "He never knows when to back down."

Back in the square, the boys charged at the exact same moment, as if some invisible war horn had sounded. Their weapons crashed together with a CRACK that echoed across the square. The impact sent tingles racing up his arms.

He twisted his body, not just moving but flowing like the river warriors from Uncle Doran's stories. He struck high, the motion feeling perfect and right, like his arms knew exactly what to do.

The square became their battlefield, not just dirt and stones, but a living canvas where childhood dreams collided with raw, untempered energy. Every movement carried the weight of imagination, each dodge a heroic leap, each strike a blow against unseen enemies that lived in the shadows of their minds.

They were not just playing; they were rehearsing for a destiny that seemed both impossibly distant and terrifyingly close.

Rannek's stick flashed upward, blocking with a quick swing that made a WHOOSH sound through the air before he darted sideways like a fox. They danced across the square, feet kicking up little puffs of dust, wooden blades flashing in the fading sunlight. Every dodge felt like magic, every block like destiny, their laughter mixing with the rhythmic THUNK, THUNK of their epic battle.

Kids from all over the village came to watch them practice fighting. Marta stood with her arms crossed, looking super serious. Orlen watched from far away, maybe jealous. And then there was Hewitt, the big kid who always looked grumpy.

He had just passed his eleventh season, and he considered himself above the younger ones like Kaelid and even Rannek, who was 10 now. He was standing at the edge with his long shadow stretching across the dirt as the sun started to go down.

"You're doing it all wrong," Hewitt shouted. "Real warriors don't dance around like that. They stand their ground."

He got distracted and, THWACK!, Rannek's stick hit him right on the shoulder. It stung, but he didn't cry. Warriors didn't cry when they got hurt.

"What do you know about real warriors?" Rannek said to Hewitt, still holding his stick up. "Your father's a tanner, not a soldier."

Hewitt's face got all dark and mad, and his hands turned into fists. "My father knows things," he said in a scary voice. "He's seen things in the eastern forest. Monsters that would make your blood freeze."

The challenge hung in the air like a blade suspended between breaths. Something shifted in that moment, childhood play transforming into something more primal, more dangerous. The other children sensed it too, their excited whispers dying into a thick, expectant silence.

"Have you spoken with Doran recently?" Julid asked Maerwen after a while, her voice carefully neutral. "About Kaelid's future?"

Maerwen sighed, the question touching on a source of ongoing tension between her and her brother-in-law. "He believes Kaelid should follow tradition," she said. "That he should train for service as his father did, as all the men in their family have done for generations."

"And you disagree?"

Maerwen watched as he and Rannek dueled, his movements quick and precise, a natural grace that spoke of innate talent. "I want him to have choices," she said finally. "I want him to know there are other paths besides the one that took his father from us."

Julid nodded, understanding in her eyes. "And yet, looking at him now..."

"I know," Maerwen admitted, the words heavy with resignation. "He's already chosen, whether he realizes it or not. He sees only glory, imagines the heroism. He doesn't understand the cost."

Back in the square, all the kids got quiet and shivery at Hewitt's mention of monsters. The eastern forest was just across the river from his house! Mom always said never to go too deep in there, where it was dark even when the sun was shining bright.

"There's no such thing as monsters," Marta said, but she looked at the trees like she wasn't so sure.

Hewitt made a mean smile. "That's what they want you to think. But my father says they're gathering, getting ready for something big. And when it happens, only the strong will survive."

"Is that why you're always watching us fight?" he asked, really wanting to know. "To learn how to be strong?"

Hewitt looked surprised for a second, then his face got mean again. "I don't need to learn anything from you," he said. "I'm already stronger than both of you put together."

Rannek raised his eyebrow. "Prove it."

Everything got super quiet. He thought maybe Hewitt would just walk away. But then he stepped forward and held out his hand for Rannek's stick.

"Fine," Hewitt said. "I'll show you how a real warrior fights."

Rannek gave him the stick and stepped back. His heart beat fast. Hewitt was so much bigger! But he remembered all the stories about brave heroes who fought giant monsters, and he stood tall.

"Ready?" he asked, lifting his stick, just a branch, really, but smooth and balanced enough to pretend it was a sword.

Hewitt nodded, cracking his neck to the side with a sharp jerk. "Ready."

They began to circle. The patch of dirt beneath their feet had been scuffed bare by countless games, but this didn't feel like a game. Not anymore.

Hewitt moved better than he remembered. For a boy built like an ox, his steps were surprisingly light. No wasted motion. His eyes, narrow and steady, never left his face. There was something unsettling in that look, calm, focused, like Hewitt already knew how this would end.

Stolen novel; please report.

Kaelid adjusted his grip on the stick. His palms were slick with sweat.

Then, WHACK!

A blur of motion. Hewitt's strike came without warning, whistling through the air with enough force to send his arms jolting from the block. Pain shot through his forearms, and he stumbled back, barely catching himself before falling.

Another swing followed, brutal and direct, aimed right at the ribs. He twisted away just in time, the tip of Hewitt's stick grazing his side with a hollow thunk that could have been much worse.

"Not so easy against someone who knows what they're doing, is it?" Hewitt sneered, pressing forward.

He didn't reply. He didn't have the breath to waste. Each step back felt like a surrender, but holding ground meant risking another hit like that. He stayed light on his feet, eyes flicking between Hewitt's shoulders and hips, trying to guess the next move.

From the edge of the clearing, Rannek's voice rang out, sharp and anxious. "You can do it!"

A few younger kids huddled behind him, silent, wide-eyed. The circle had grown quiet. Even the wind through the trees seemed to hold its breath.

This wasn't practice anymore. It was a reckoning.

In the square, the duel was intensifying, drawing a crowd of children who cheered and called encouragement. Maerwen tensed as Hewitt pressed his advantage, forcing him to retreat. But then her son sidestepped, countering with a move that seemed beyond his years, and pride warred with fear in her heart.

"He's good," Julid observed. "Better than good, for his age."

"Yes," Maerwen agreed, the admission both a point of pride and a source of dread. "Doran says he has natural talent, that with proper training he could be exceptional."

Hewitt came in fast again, overhead strike, then a low sweep. He parried once, twice, his stick bouncing from Hewitt's with a series of dull cracks. Each blow traveled up his arms, numbing his fingers. He wasn't strong enough to meet force with force.

But he was fast.

He ducked low, rolled sideways through the dirt, and popped back up before Hewitt could close in again. His heart hammered in his chest, wild and irregular, but his feet moved on their own, finding patterns in the chaos.

The fight stopped being about sticks. It became a kind of language, an urgent, desperate dialogue. He no longer thought about what he was doing. His body remembered what Uncle Doran's half-spoken tales had hinted at.

How to move without thinking, how to feel the rhythm beneath the violence. Every strike was a syllable, every block a phrase, the two boys speaking fluently in blows and dodges.

Then Hewitt roared and brought his stick down in a cleaving arc meant to end it. The kind of blow meant to break resolve, if not bone.

But Kaelid was ready this time.

He pivoted, letting the stick crash into the ground beside him. Dirt exploded. He sprang sideways and jabbed hard, catching Hewitt in the ribs with the blunt end of his own stick.

"Oof!" Hewitt grunted, more from shock than pain.

Now surging forward, he wasn't just reacting anymore; he was creating. His smaller frame became an advantage. He darted left, then right, weaving unpredictable angles. Hewitt swung wildly now, trying to catch him.

He was never where he expected.

Tap! to the arm. Tap! to the thigh. Another to the shoulder. Light hits, but they added up. They stung, they distracted, they reminded Hewitt that he wasn't going to break.

The crowd started to murmur. Rannek's voice rose again, louder now, more excited. "Don't let up!"

He gritted his teeth and kept moving. He didn't think of winning. He thought of holding on. Of not backing down. He thought of his father, not as he'd looked when he was dying, but younger, laughing, strong. Present.

In the blur of adrenaline and aching muscles, something clicked. Strength wasn't just about size or hitting harder. It was about resolve. About staying upright when every part of you screamed to drop the stick and run.

He didn't know if he could win, but he knew, now, that he could stand. Sometimes, that was enough.

Then a grown-up voice cut through all the excitement: "What's going on here?"

It was Elder Myra with her gray hair in a tight bun and her eyes sharp as eagle eyes. All the kids froze like they'd been caught stealing cookies.

"Just playing, Elder," Rannek said with his best good-boy smile. "Practicing being warriors, like our fathers."

Elder Myra's face got a little softer. "There are better ways to honor your fathers than beating each other with sticks," she said. "The day is getting late, and your mothers will be wondering where you are."

The kids started heading home. Hewitt gave the stick back without saying anything and turned to leave.

"Hewitt," Kaelid called. "You fought well."

Hewitt looked back, surprised. For a tiny moment, he almost looked friendly. Then he shrugged like it was no big deal. "You're not bad," he said. "For a little kid."

Then he walked away into the shadows.

Rannek put his hand on his shoulder. "You had him worried there for a minute! Did you see his face when you got past his guard?"

He nodded, feeling warm and proud inside. He had fought a bigger kid and didn't get beat! He didn't run away or cry. That was something a real warrior would do.

"Mother!" he called, spotting Maerwen at the edge of the square. "Did you see? I held my own against Hewitt!"

She forced a smile, pushing aside her worries for the moment. "I saw," she confirmed. "You were very quick on your feet."

Rannek grinned, nudging him with his elbow. "He was amazing. Hewitt didn't know what hit him."

Julid laughed, ruffling her son's hair with affectionate pride. "And I suppose you were just an innocent bystander in all this?"

"I was the weapons master," Rannek declared with mock solemnity. "Very important position."

The boys launched into an enthusiastic recounting of the duel, each interrupting the other to add details or correct exaggerations. Maerwen listened with half an ear, her attention caught by the sight of Doran making his way across the square, his cane tapping a steady rhythm against the packed earth. His expression, as he watched his animated retelling, was a complex mixture of pride, concern, and something deeper, more haunted.

"It's getting late," she said, cutting gently into their narrative. "We should head home before the light fades completely."

Kaelid's face fell, just slightly, before he nodded in acceptance. "Can Rannek come for dinner?" he asked hopefully. "We wanted to plan our expedition to the river tomorrow."

Maerwen hesitated, glancing at Julid, who shrugged with a smile. "If his mother doesn't mind, and if you help with the preparations."

"I don't mind at all," Julid assured her. "In fact, I have some mending to finish for Elder Myra. It would be a relief to have a quiet house for a few hours."

The river glittered in the late afternoon sun, its surface broken into a thousand shimmering fragments by the current. From where He and Rannek sat on the grassy bank, legs dangling over the edge, it seemed alive, a living ribbon of light winding its way through the village and beyond, connecting their small world to places they had only heard of in stories.

"Do you think it's true?" he asked, tossing a small stone into the water and watching the ripples spread outward. "What Hewitt said about monsters in the forest?"

Rannek shrugged, his expression thoughtful as he gazed across the river to where the eastern forest began, a dark line of ancient trees standing sentinel against the horizon. "My mother says Hewitt's father sees enemies everywhere since the war. That he drinks too much and talks too freely."

"But what if he's right?" he persisted, unable to shake the image Hewitt's words had conjured, of creatures lurking just beyond sight, watching, waiting. "What if there really is something out there?"

"Then we'll face it," Rannek said simply, with the unshakable confidence that he had always admired in his friend. "When the time comes."

They fell silent, each lost in his own thoughts as they watched the river flow past. The forest beyond the river was not merely a boundary as they stared into the trees, but a living membrane separating known from unknown. Ancient branches intertwined like conspiratorial fingers, casting shadows that seemed to breathe with their own hidden rhythms.

"I had that dream again last night," he said after a while, his voice dropping lower though there was no one else around to hear. "The one about my father."

Rannek nodded, understanding without needing further explanation. They had shared so many secrets over the years, had been each other's support through the unique grief of losing fathers they barely remembered. "Was it the same as before?"

Kaelid shook his head, picking at the grass beside him. "Different this time. He wasn't in his armor, and we weren't at the village gate. We were in the forest, and he was showing me something, a clearing with a pool of water that seemed to glow from within. He said it was important, that I needed to remember it."

"Do you think it's real?" Rannek asked, his interest piqued. "This clearing with the glowing pool?"

"I don't know," he admitted. "It felt real, but dreams always do, don't they? And how would I know if it exists? I've never been deep in the forest."

Rannek's eyes lit up with the spark of adventure that he knew so well. "We could find out," he suggested, lowering his voice to match his conspiratorial tone. "We could cross the river and explore a little. Not too far, just enough to see if there's anything like what you dreamed."

The idea was both thrilling and terrifying. The eastern forest was forbidden territory for village children, a place of mystery and potential danger. Parents warned of getting lost among the ancient trees, of wild animals, of treacherous ground that could swallow the unwary. And now, with Hewitt's tales of monsters added to the mix, the forest seemed even more forbidding.

And yet, the pull of curiosity was strong, the desire to know, to discover, to perhaps find some connection to the father he had lost too young.

"We'd have to be careful," he said slowly, already half-convinced. "We'd need to tell someone where we're going, in case we don't make it back by nightfall."

Rannek scoffed, though there was a hint of nervousness beneath his bravado. "Of course we'll make it back by nightfall. We're not going to wander for days. Just a quick look around, that's all."

"And we'd need supplies," he continued, warming to the idea despite his reservations. "Water, food, maybe a knife in case we need to cut through undergrowth."

"Now you're thinking like a proper explorer," Rannek grinned, clapping him on the shoulder. "We could go tomorrow, after our chores. Meet here at midday?"

Kaelid hesitated, one last doubt holding him back. "What about Hewitt's monsters?"

Rannek's expression turned serious. "If there really are monsters," he said, "then we need to know about them, don't we? Better to find out now, on our terms, than to be caught by surprise later."

It was sound logic, or at least it seemed so to his eight-year-old mind. He nodded, decision made. "Tomorrow at midday, then. But we don't go too far, and we're back before sunset. Promise?"

"Promise," Rannek agreed solemnly, extending his hand.

They shook on it, the pact sealed with the gravity that only children can bring to such moments. Then, as if to lighten the mood, Rannek scooped up a handful of small stones and began skipping them across the river's surface, each one bouncing three, four, five times before disappearing beneath the water.

But every now and then, his gaze would drift to the forest beyond, to the shadows gathering beneath those ancient trees as the sun began its descent toward the horizon. Was there something watching from those depths? Something waiting to be discovered? Tomorrow, perhaps, they would find out.