Tales of Ardia: A Song of Light

Balkar felt as though the ground melted away beneath his hooves as he leapt into the air. Hand extended above his head, reaching to its limit. Satisfaction tingled in his stomach as his hand made contact with the ball, an old tent skin wrapped tightly with a rope. He grabbed it firmly with his fingers and drew it down to his navel where his fleshy skin started to grow hairy and merge with the chestnut pelt of his horse-like legs.

“Impressive catch!” called Dolan as Balkar trotted toward him. “I didn’t think you had a chance at that one.”

“Mistaken again, then. No surprise there!” Balkar teased. “Your turn!”

“Make sure you throw it straight this time,” Dolan ordered.

“You stumbling off the path had nothing to do with my throw! You just can’t run straight and look past your own hooves at the same time.”

“Of course I can! Just because I’m not as fast as you doesn’t mean I can’t run a straight line!”

“Alright, prove it!”

Dolan smirked and readied himself to sprint down the path they’d already traversed, his white tail twitching. Balkar drew his arm back. “On three, one, two, th–.”

“What are you two doing?” boomed a bass voice.

Balkar and Dolan both swiveled around. Oriat, Balkar’s uncle and one of the herd elders, stood before them with a dissatisfied look on his bearded face.

“We were just –.”

“You were just neglecting your duty to protect the back of the caravan! This is no time for games! If you want to enjoy the freedom of not having to walk at your mother’s flanks then you have to accept the responsibility that comes with age.”

Balkar and Dolan both lowered their heads. Balkar knew he didn’t need to remind his uncle that he had no mother to walk beside.

“We’re sorry, Elder Oriat,” Balkar said.

“Remember, we are still a smaller herd than we once were. And the protection of our people must be taken seriously. Can you boys do what is expected of you?” Oriat asked.

“Yes, Elder Oriat,” they replied in unison.

Oriat turned and galloped ahead until he was lost in the sea of marching centaurs that occupied the path ahead. It was the path that linked the northern and southern stretches of the Taurian plains. The path that was taking them home.

Balkar and Dolan trotted forward to resume their deserted posts at the back of the herd. At fifteen years old they had been participating in warrior training for two years already. The training hadn’t always begun so early, but after their herd’s loss of many fighters in the defending and then evacuation of the southern plains they’d been in desperate circumstances. Balkar had just been a foal when they’d been forced from their homeland. They’d found refuge with the herd that roamed the northern plains, but after a decade of living together resources were becoming scarce. The land could not support such a large herd forever. So they were returning to the south, the enemy had been defeated by the noble races of Ardia. Their home was theirs for the retaking, whatever was left of it anyways.

“Do you think we’re getting close?” Dolan asked, looking up at the cloudless sky from which the sun beat down on their heads.

“Maybe, but I wouldn’t recognize anything to know if we were,” Balkar replied.

“True, but it feels like we’ve been walking for ages. I wish we could run.”

“Well we did start at dawn and it is the solstice, so it’s bound to feel like a long day. But you know we can’t run. The little ones like your sister would never be able to keep up!”

“Or the old ones like Nana Tarri.”

“Exactly. So we walk.”

Dolan sighed. “Do you remember the Solstice Singing?”

“Not really, but I remember being on the hill with my parents…” Balkar felt a pang in his chest. A longing for something that was almost forgotten.

“Oh, sorry, Balkar! I didn’t mean to bring it up.”

“It’s alright. Sometimes I’m afraid if I don’t try and remember they’ll be gone for good in here,” he said as he tapped his head. “And I think that would be worse than feeling sad sometimes.”

Suddenly there were cries and gasps up ahead.

“Speaking of feeling sad,” Dolan murmured and pointed.

There it was. The great plateau that sat above the fields of the southern plains. It was blackened with ash and the grasslands around it were scorched. Where there should be waves of grasses and grains there was only dust.

Some centaurs began to weep and others began to mutter about what they should do.

Elder Oriat’s voice rang out, “We will go to the summit. And we will sing our song, be it one of lament. Then we will search for a spot to settle beyond these fields destroyed by witch light.”

A blurry memory of green fire and his mother’s desperate voice flashed in Balkar’s mind.

He and Dolan continued forward behind the rest of the herd as they crossed the barren land and began to climb the slope.

When they reached the top of the plateau they surveyed the destruction below. What had once been a spectacular view of the grasslands was now a sorrowful sight. The sun was beginning to sink low on the horizon casting a host of black shadows on the grey ground.

The herd fanned out in a large circle with Elder Oriat at the center. “This day is the summer solstice, a day intentionally chosen for our return to our home. A day that for centuries was our greatest day of celebration, a day on which generations of our ancestors would climb as we have and give thanks to Vormen. And we will offer our gratitude for the generosity of our brothers in the north and for the preservation of our remnants. But we will also mourn our losses. Of those who fell in battle and retreat. Of the thriving land that has been ravaged. Yet we will sing.”

Nana Tarri stepped forward and her wavering voice began the song. It spread until every voice joined in. Even those like Balkar who had been young or yet to be born at the last singing were able to participate, for the solstice song had been their lullaby. And as they sang they stomped their hooves in rhythmic harmony.

Swiftly run your course across the wide sky

Our great light of day and morning gold

Let our thunder sing to you as we fly

From tender days of youth to ages old

Shine on us Vormen’s smile from east to west

Dispel darkness to brightly guide our way

At day’s end lead us to our place of rest

To herd and home until our final day

As the song swelled something strange began to occur. All around the circle the patches of ground bathed in sunlight seemed to burst into flames. Those centaurs on the edges stomped in alarm or bucked, but the flames swirled under their hooves without causing harm until the whole plateau was flooded with white heatless fire.

Balkar watched in fascination as the flames leapt around his legs. It wasn’t the green of witch light, so not a product of dark sorcery. As he continued to gaze in wonder he noticed that there was a hint of green. Not in the flames but beneath them. And the flames were rising higher with an expanse of green stretching down below them. Then the flickering white transformed into rounded shapes, glowing blindingly and then suddenly disappearing, leaving white flowers in their place. He was now standing in a field of grass and white wild flowers reaching up to his knees.

All around him shouts of joy filled the air and he added his to the chorus.

“Look” shouted a centaur near the edge of the plateau’s cliffside. Balkar and the rest of the herd stared in awe as the land below erupted in white fire beneath a sky bathed orange by the setting sun. The dry earth was transformed into fields of green and golden grasses.

“Vormen has given us a miracle!” Oriat exclaimed.

Their home had been restored! Balkar couldn’t believe his eyes. He reached down and plucked a flower, spinning its stem in his fingers. Would it be too much to hope that more than the land could be restored? That his parents might stand beside him on this hill once more?

But the sun sank into darkness and the white flames vanished. He clutched the flower in his fist and held it to his chest, near his heart. He was grateful for his home and his herd. Here he was at last and he wasn’t alone. And he would be grateful for his memories. For under the feeble light of the stars the darkness of their past was waning and their future once again looked bright.