The Chronicles of Lilith Book 1
By Shana O’Quinn
Copyright 2014 Shana O’Quinn
Cover design and artwork by Shana O’Quinn
A book in the Ages of Telamon series
The Chronicles of Lilith
A book in the Ages of Telamon series
Other books by the author:
Lady of the Sidhe
Secret Ones, Volume 1
Secret Ones, Volume 2
Beowulf’s Struggle
Be sure to check out her websites:
www.sandozdesigns.com
www.facebook.com/sandoz.driftwood
www.zandoz.deviantart.com
www.facebook.com/secretones1
This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to any actual person, place, event or thing is purely coincidental. This book is copyrighted to the author for personal use only after purchase. It may not be redistributed to other individuals or institutions. Any reproduction of this in whole or in part in any form is forbidden without express permission of the author. No offense is meant to any religion, cult, mythological figure, or disembodied spirit.
I
This is the Chronicles of Lilith, of the being who was born and lived when the world was new and full of creatures that no longer walk the earth.
Valillia was born ages ago, when the lands and waters of Telamon were vastly different from they are today. She grew up in a tiny village in the middle of the largest continent, the one that separates the Great Waters from the Western Seas in the northern half of the world. Val-il she was named by her mother when she was born, which meant “Golden Woman” for the yellow curls that covered her head. Her people had dark hair for the most part, with bronze skin and blue eyes. They were known by others in the surrounding areas as the Khehbas, the ones with the blue eyes.
Val-il grew up like any child in the village, playing without fear in the plains surrounding the thatched houses and learning from the elders of the tribe. Her golden locks marked her for attention but she was, for the most part, oblivious. She thirsted for knowledge and would stay until nightfall asking questions of Sennar the loremaster, who was the oldest member of the Khehbas, having seen more than fifty summers. She wanted to know why the sun rose, why the winds came each year around the same time, where they came from.
To this last question Sennar searched his prodigious memories, of all the bits of song and story he had heard. “We came from a different land,” he finally spoke. “We are the People, the First Ones.”
“What do you mean? There are other people besides us, that live to the east and to the west.”
“Yes, Little One, but we are the first to live on the plains here. This was before we knew how to make spears and hunt bison and mammoths.”
“What kind of land did our mothers come from?” she asked, her blue eyes wide.
“The tales don’t tell much of that time. There were monsters there, and mountains that spouted fire and death. People had to hide in trees or caves to keep from being eaten at any time.”
Val-il gasped. No wonder they left such a terrifying place!
Her mother scolded the old man for scaring the child, for she couldn’t sleep that night. She crawled into the sleeping furs with her mother and her mother’s mate shaking, convinced that some big monster was going to eat her.
The girl grew tall, at thirteen summers the tallest woman in the tribe. Word had spread to the neighboring tribes about the striking, burgeoning woman with the yellow hair and powerful spear throw. She was happy to run free and wild in the steppes with Jor, who was a year older than she. The boy was as stubborn and unruly as his companion and was always by her side in all her excursions.
They were shirking their chores that summer day and had roamed further than they had went before despite their mothers’ warnings. The pair found a river they hadn’t previously known about and decided to follow it. “I wonder where it began? And where it ends?” she wondered.
“I do not know,” he replied, and smiled at her questions. She questioned everything and he found it fascinating and amusing.
“Let’s go this way,” she pointed to the southward direction of the river. The boy shrugged and followed her. They had their spears, made of heavy shafts of wood with fire-hardened sharpened points, flint knives, skins with water slung across their bodies and pouches of dried traveling food, so Jor wasn’t worried.
Val-il picked her way alongside the river easily, with her tanned legs mostly bare. She wore the simple leather skirt and wrap the women of her tribe wore, with Jor clad in a modified version for males, and both wore animal hide moccasins. After a few hours they stopped to drink from the fast-moving river and have something to eat, in between splashing each other with the cold water and laughing.
When they decided to move on, they began to find evidence of habitation; discarded food, unusable flint pieces, ashes from campfires. Excited, they picked up their pace, eager to meet the new people. No one had told the pair of any settlements this far down the river. Woodsmoke soon greeted their nostrils as they broke cover and found themselves in a camp with rough hide tents.
The people that greeted their sight were unlike anything the young ones had ever seen. They didn’t resemble the old shy ones they had been told about, who were silent, short, stocky and implacable. These beings were enormous, much taller than the tallest of the Khehbas. They had gigantic skulls and hands and heavy jaws with broad, powerful teeth. The twenty or so adults leaped to their feet in alarm, so Jor and Val-il held their hands out in the universal sign of friendly greeting.
The pair was immediately surrounded by grunting, jabbering figures, all of which towered over them. Jor found he understood a word here and there, which led him to try different ways of hailing them, which one huge, bearded man responded to.
“Greetings to you, strange ones,” he spoke in a guttural tone, which hushed the others. “You have surprised us. You make no noise.”
The young ones took it as a compliment on their abilities. “I am sorry if we disturbed you. We have come from the north, following the river,” Val-il explained.
Some of the strange tribe muttered amongst each other for a few moments. A woman stepped forward, and put her hands in Val-il’s golden hair. She stood more than a head taller than the girl, so she took the opportunity to get a closer look at the woman. She had thick dark hair down to her waist, a pronounced underbite which seemed to be normal for her people, and heavy brow ridges. “Hair like the sun,” she mused. “What be this?” she asked of the spears they carried. Jor noticed they used big flakes of flint and carried bone clubs; it seems they did not know how to make other tools.
“This is my spear. You hunt with it.” Val-il pretended to thrust at an imaginary animal to demonstrate.
The leader came toward them again, this time touching Jor’s spear and pulling at his hair. “What strange little people,” he said. “Well-fed, though.” He spoke something unintelligible to the crowd, which sent some women to the tents to apparently retrieve something.
Jor and Val-il glanced at each other. Were these strange people preparing for something? Suddenly hands were all over them, pulling at their hair, their clothes, their spears. “No! These are mine,” Jor pushed them away, growing afraid.
“What is his name?” asked the dominant female.
“I am Jor,” he answered. “What is yours?”
“Uga,” she answered.
“I am called Tehal,” the leader declared. “What is yellow-hair called?”
“My name is Val-il.”
“Vuh...Val?” he tried to pronounce.
“Yes, Val-il,” she encouraged. She was
growing more apprehensive at these uncouth people by the minute, but didn’t know how they might extricate themselves from the situation without causing more trouble.
“Valeel is small, but is beautiful. Has big magic. Make fine mate for me,” he said, and then smiled at her.
“What? No, I can’t be your mate,” gasped Val-il in alarm. “I think we’d better go.”
“You strange ones come to us on a Feast Day, I say you were sent by the spirits,” Uga spoke to Tehal.
He grunted his affirmation as the women who’d left returned with rope, tools and fire-making materials. “They saw fit to send me a mate and gift for the whole tribe.”
“What is he talking about?” wondered Jor, who was then surrounded by a half dozen of the gigantic people who despite his struggles, disarmed him and pushed him before Tehal.
“What are you doing?” demanded the blonde woman.
“He will be a part of the Feast,” Uga tells her matter-of-factly. The other women brought out their stone knives and implements. “We are the Ulln, and the spirits demand sacrifice.”
“Demons!” spat Jor, who was absolutely terrified now. “They are evil spirits made flesh,” he said earnestly to his companion. “You must get away. Run!”
Val-il shook her head, she couldn’t just leave him with these horrible creatures. A bear-paw like hand clamped around her upper arm and pulled her to Tehal’s huge, rock-solid body. “Don’t ruin our special day, Valeel, or we will have to sacrifice you too.”
In anger she raked her fingernails across his craggy face, freeing her from his grasp. She leapt toward Jor, who was squirming as the women tried to tie him with the cords. He kneed one in the face and took her crude knife, and stabbed another in the neck with it. Warm blood poured out onto his hand, with the shock of killing a sentient being registering moments later.
Val-il was unable to react for a moment as well, but recovered and yanked the boy upright. Roaring, Tehal charged at them but the girl planted her feet apart and thrust out with her spear. He ran himself through, the wooden weapon emerging several inches out of his back. “Your stick cannot stop me,” he growled and pushed himself further down the spear shaft towards Val-il. “I will taste your flesh.”
Crying out, tears pouring out of her eyes, she planted a foot on his thigh and jerked the spear free from his abdomen. Jor pulled her along after him, and she finally tore her eyes from the fearsome, enormous, bestial people chasing them and ran for her life. They ran back to the river to follow it back home, then realized something.
There was nowhere to hide out on the plains.
“Keep running,” encouraged Jor. “They are big, lumbering fools.”
The girl wasn’t so sure about that, but complied anyway. She glanced back to see if they were being followed, found that they were by most of the adults, then decided to be sick later, if and when they got out of this. Her lunch from earlier threatened to come up but she swallowed and kept running.
The pair of them survived their first meeting with the humanoid creatures that would later be called trolls--at least for the time being. Rocks whizzed by Jor’s head, showing that what the Ulln lacked in sophistication they made up for with strength and aim. “Go towards the east,” he gasped as they labored. “Lead them...to the Hills. Mayhap lose them.”
The young Khehbasi shot off like hares with the direst of wolves after them. Uga marked them as she was at the head of the group, and shouted for the pursuers to follow them. They were carrying bone clubs and handfuls of rocks which they lobbed in the adolescents’ direction. They were slower than their targets however, allowing the pair to head up into the small hills in an attempt to lose their pursuers. They dove into the small brush scattered around the Hills and didn’t move or make a sound.
The Ulln reached the area after a short while, panting from all the running. They scanned the area while the Khehbasi held their breaths. “Find them!” commanded Uga, full of rage. “They can’t be far!” The monstrous people sniffed the air like wolves scenting prey, and two found their way to where Jor and Val-il lay hidden.
“They are here!” the giants cried. Jor sprang out of the bush with the crude dagger still in hand, and stabbed one of the Ulln in the side. Reflexively his arm swung around and sent the boy flying twenty feet tumbling head-over-heels. Val-il then jumped up with her spear at the ready, but the other troll rushed forward and planted his huge fist in her face. Her head snapped back and she couldn’t see anything for several long, painful seconds. He took the opportunity to drag her into the open.
“Here is the yellow-hair,” he announced to Uga’s delight. Val-il moaned and shook her head, trying to clear her vision. She came around to find her enemy bending over her, his broad face spread in a vicious smile. “I’ll have you first, since you hurt Tehal so bad. He can have you later.”
She realized her spear had fallen out of her hand when he struck her so hard, but she still had her flint knife. In a split second she pulled it from her belt and ran it across his throat. Warm, dark red fluid poured out onto her chest. Weeping again, she pushed him off of her and got to her feet. She was shaky and her head felt strange, but she felt anger and power well up inside her as she looked on the remaining ones chasing her. “No one will take me,” she declared in a booming voice which brought the other trolls up short. “By the spirits of the steppes I tell you, no man will touch me without my leave. I will bring wrath and ruin to anyone that dares! The spirits of the Khehbas will attest to it, so say I, Lilit!”
The Ulln simply stood there, blinking at her, genuinely afraid to step toward her. She backed slowly toward Jor, who had pulled himself upright though he was bruised and woozy. She gripped his hand and drew comfort in his warmth.
“You are just a girl! You are nothing!” screamed Uga, yet she was afraid. “When Tehal gets well he will torture you! We will devour you. You have no power!”
“Know this, ugly crone. I will strike you down with fire and weakness and death if you try to harm me or my people. You will wither and fail and monsters will eat you. Go! Run, beast-people! Go back to your den while you can!”
Uga snarled and dashed toward the pair, yet the girl met the enormous, slavering female head-on. She opened her wide mouth to tear out Val-il’s throat, and instead got several inches of skillfully knapped flint through the roof of her mouth instead. Those wide, sharp teeth clamped down on the girl’s wrist, leaving her screaming in pain. Jor struck Uga’s head three times before the heavy jaws relaxed and Val-il was able to remove her hand from the monstrous female’s mouth. Her body fell in a heap while blood gushed out of her mouth.
The other trolls turned and ran, hysteria flinging them headlong back the way they came.
“Val-il,” Jor spoke gently and with awe. “Let’s go home.” He pulled at her hand.
After a minute she turned tearstained eyes to him, then began shaking all over. “Jor?” she whispered.
“Yes, it’s me. It is late, we better get home. Come on,” he urged, and was finally able to lead her from the scene of carnage.
The sun was setting when the girl and boy stumbled into the Khehbas village. Their parents embraced them and thanked the protective spirits and their mothers wept.
When the twain had told their tribe where they had been and what had happened, everyone feared these monsters in human form. Sennar raised his hand for silence, and he looked around at them before he spoke. “These...people are Trolls. They are terrible, they eat those smaller than they. I have never seen one, but the elders told me when I was a child about them. They had never been this far north before, that camp of theirs must be recent.”
The chieftain, Azon, then broke his silence. “This is troubling, so we must keep our eyes and ears open. If anyone travels south, they must not go alone, and go armed. Children will need to stay closer to home, and that goes for you as well,” he shot a stern glance at Jor and Val-il.
“We
should send out runners to tell the other tribes, to the east and west,” Val-il’s mother, Retta, interjected. “They should be warned.”
“You are right,” agreed the chieftain. “We can decide who will go tomorrow. You were very brave,” he said then to the boy and girl. “The spirits favor you.”
When the folk began to turn in for the night, Sennar stopped Val-il. “Let me treat that,” he said, indicating her damaged wrist. She went to his hut and sat quietly as he gathered his healing supplies. “You are treading a fine path,” the old man said as he bustled. “A very dangerous one.”
“I know, I was wrong to go so far from home--” she began, but he cut her off.
“Not just that. Something has happened to you, something...inside, and around you,” he stumbled across the words, unsure how to get his thoughts out. “You had to kill to get away?”
“Yes,” she replied softly, and lowered her eyes to her lap.
“You used the power released to drive the ones chasing you away?”
“Yes,” she answered again.
“That’s dangerous for you, for it can invite bad things in.”
“How is that? We made it back, was that not good?” Val-il couldn’t understand what was making the elder so upset.
“You invoked the protector spirits, didn’t you?” he probed. “Don’t lie.”
She nodded her head and swallowed. Did she do something bad? Profane?
“When you do that, you are also telling them they can come into you, they can use you for their own purpose. Sometimes, that is good, for you get the luck and protection. Sometimes, it is not so good, if they are evil spirits, or ones given to random whims. I can feel you, your spirit or aura, but now I can feel...something else.”
Val-il’s breath caught in her chest. “What is it?” she whispered.
“I do not know. Promise me you won’t go far from home, and you won’t call to the spirits again.”
“I promise, Sennar. I won’t wander far, and I won’t try to talk to the spirits. Will I get sick? Is something bad going to happen now?”
“I don’t mean to frighten you, child, but you must be careful. You are not one of the Great Spirits, and shouldn’t try to curse or use power in their name. If the ones I sense are bad, if you ignore them and don’t invite them again, they may go away.”
“I