"Arant," came a voice from the stables.
"Yes, Father?"
"Have you finished with the fields?"
Arant paused a moment, then looked at the ground. "No father, the front field is finished but the back field is only about half done."
"Arant those imaginary tree trollocs and bandits seem to demand a lot of your attention. Those fields need finished by nightfall else we get set back on planting tomorrow."
"Yes, Father," said Arant as he returned to the fields.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Arant was on his way in from the fields well after the sun had set when he noticed his father talking to three men outside the house. As he got closer he noticed they were not talking but arguing. Not wanting his father to see him, Arant ducked into the stables. He poked his head out the door to hear one of the men yell, "You owe our lord 150 gold crowns Aranthor and he sent us to collect either the money or the farm!" Arant watched as his father swung a lit lantern and connected with the man's head. A second man drew his sword with blinding speed and brought it down across Aranthor's back.
Arant's mother came running out of the house as the third man hefted a hammer up and brought it down on her legs. As she lay on the ground screaming, the man again hefted the hammer.
Arant raced out of the stables, yelling, "Momma, Pappa!" The men turned to face the boy.
Aranthor looked up and said in a gurgling voice, "Run you fool boy!"
Arant turned and ran. He didn't know where to go so he just ran. The screams of his mother stopped abruptly but he kept running. He heard horses behind him and he kept running until his lungs were on fire and his legs gave out.
He fell to the ground as three horses approached and a man with a badly burned face picked him up, laughingly saying, "Stupid boy." Arant flailed his legs till his boots connected with the man's shins. The man dropped him but he was too tired to run any more.
Just as the burned man went for Arant again, an old man emerged from the shadows with little more than a walking stick. The old man disarmed and drew off the three unknown assailants then picked Arant up and took him into the woods to his campsite.
"Tell me why those men were after you, boy," inquired the old man. Arant relayed the story as best he could between exhausted sobs.
"Try to get some rest, boy."
The next morning they went back to the farm where the man, who didn't look so old now, buried Arant's parents and sifted through the smoldering ruins of the house. All that was found was a wrist band with crossed swords belonging to his father. The man gave him five crowns and the wrist band and sent him with a merchant to Caemlyn.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
For six years he traveled between Caemlyn and Tear with the merchant, until his eighteenth birthday when he married a Tairen girl and as a gift the merchant gave him a home. Not just any home, but his family's rebuilt farm.
A year later, Arant had left his wife and newborn son at home to go tend to the fields. That evening, his nineteenth birthday, he was headed back home when he saw smoke coming from the house.
He took off running. When he got there he saw the doors barred from the outside and heard his wife screaming. He rushed for the door only for a masked man to step out of the stable and growl, "So the boy returns finally."
Arant stopped in his tracks as the realization hit him and he murmured, "You!"
The man removed his mask to reveal a burned face. The man his father hit with the lantern all those years ago was now burning his family alive.
Arant didn't wait for more talk. He lunged forward, planted the business end of his hoe into the man's gut and raked the blade up the man's chest gouging a deep wound.
The man fell to the ground as Arant growled, "I'm not my father!"
Two more men emerged, but somehow Arant fought and defeated them swiftly. He rushed to the barred door, but the screams and crying of his family had stopped. That didn't stop him, however. He got the door open, but the flames now blocked the entrance. He tried to enter but there was just no way.
He received several bad burns, but kept trying to get to his family until a familiar man approached and said, "Let them go son, nothing more you can do but die yourself and that will help no one."
Arant sat with the man and watched his house and family burn with tears in his eyes.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
The man helped Arant bury his family in silence the next morning. Once it was done, the man asked, "What will you do now?"
Arant replied, "I don't know, I have no one now."
The man nodded and handed Arant a purse full of coins and a letter sealed with crossed swords and the white flame of Tar Valon. He then said, "Go to Tar Valon, give those to the Master Gaiden. Train there for a while, son, then make your choices."
Arant could only nod at the man. The old man began to walk away, but Arant spoke, "Twice you have helped me, at least tell me who you are?"
The man turned back to him and said, "I am Tuin," then turned to go again.
Arant yelled after him, "Are you one of them, a warder, a Gaiden?"
Without turning, the man said loudly, "Once, but now I'm simply an old man."
Arant watched until the man was gone. He then went to the smoldering rubble of his house and dug until he found a small chest. He opened it and took out a ring given to him by his wife and his father's wristband. He put them both on and began his journey to Tar Valon.
Arant Graethon
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