Chapter 1
The sun rose high over the lowly rock that had been pockmarked by cave entrances to the place known as Small's Hold, a poor and pitiful excuse of a fortress carved out of a roughly hewn hill face. The skies became tinged with an eerie blood red, the huge green field lying nestled in the arms of the mountains emerging from the cold shadow of night. The air of late summer became warm with sunlight while yellow ribbons of early morning mist coiled and wrapped around every stick, stone and crevice in the mountains. The faint smell of moisture had married together with dragon nettle, knight hops, mocking pine and laceflowers, a refreshing scent that would greet the inhabitants of the hold and put them in the best of moods.
The redheaded, blue eyed young man named Tatum awoke and stretched out his limbs, the joints popping in his shoulders as the rest of him woke to life. He rubbed out the sticky, gummy coating along the rims of his eyelids and rid himself of the blurry sleepiness. Strange noises reached his ears, thundering along the ground as they headed towards the Hold’s entrance. Weird....he thought. Messages weren’t due until at least next week.....
Tatum peered out his bedroom window and saw four men riding across the field on the backs of those strange ostrich-like, creatures that served them as beasts of burden. Their bandy legs carried them across the grassy field to the main part of the hold, their trumpeting calls loud enough to wake the dead in their crypts and tombs.
Quickly, he gathered up and threw on his raggy clothes and his sandals, hurrying through the door at the other end of his room and into a dark passageway. The blackness that surrounded him smelled of must, mildew and an oldness that he could never put a name to. Tatum crept along, keeping his hands along the rough hewn stone that was as cold as ice. One little misstep, one little slip of the toes and he could easily break his neck in a place like this.
One foot in front of the other and finally he had come to it. The shafts of dull, silvery light shone down into the darkness through the grates in the floor. The spyroom had served him well before.....and it certainly would again.
"Why have you come here?" one of the master's men questioned. "I wouldn't think it was that time of the year again."
"You know full well why we were sent and by whom," one of the four riders informed him, impatiently. "It is time."
An inaudible gasp escaped Tatum's throat. He knew that every year during the summer, the smaller and smallest of all the holds, forts, towns and villages sent young men and women to the bigger ones in an event known as "The Selection." Tatum had heard only rumors about it, but the rumors had been gruesome ones, rumors of men and women being sent to these holds only to come back with ghastly injuries and health problems. Some had been left incapacitated, others had been left with terrible looking scars that looked like the claws of some unholy beast while others were left with ugly mahogany colored burns that went about unexplained. Tatum felt the beat of his heart quicken as he listened in on the men, itching to know more. If this was what he thought it was, his life could very well depend on it.
"That's something you'll have to take up with the Hold-Master," one of the guards said. "He's the only one in charge of this miserable excuse of a place. The only things that live here are urchins, kitchen drudges and war orphans."
"Then I suppose we have our work cut out for us then," another rider replied. "We'll be taking this up with the master then. Good day to you sirs."
Tatum felt his stomach turning over as he hurried back through the darkness of the secret tunnel. He had no idea what he was in for. Only that he needed to hurry.
