Free The Blood Witch (The Blood Reign Chronicles Book 1) by D. S. Nielsen Page B

brothers with ties much deeper than blood. They were the Tovani Warriors. Nicoldani had been pledged to the Tovani before he was born, and trained his entire life for one sole purpose; to guard the witch’s prison to insure she was never loosed on the world again.
    Nicoldani’s hair was now more grey than black, a single braid nearly reaching his waist, tied at the back of his neck with a braided leather cord. The leather cord, or Kalna, as it was called by the Tovani, along with the Kerpai knife at his belt, had been given to him at birth when the pledge to the Tovani was made on his behalf.
    The Kalna that now bound his long hair had been crafted from braiding two sections of human skin taken from his mother’s back, and two from his father’s. That was the sacrifice his parents made when they pledged Nicoldani as an infant to the Tovani. The strips of human skin taken from his parents would be tanned, braided together, and dried in the sun in order to fashion the Kalna. It bound them all together in service of the Tovani, and served as a constant reminder of the great sacrifice that all three had made to serve.
    When Nicoldani’s training was finished and he took the oaths as Tovani, he used his Kalna to bind his hair. If for any reason he ever forsook his duties as a Tovani then the Kerpai blade would be used to cut his hair just above the Kalna, signifying the pledge that was broken. Once his hair was severed, then the blade would be plunged into his heart to take his own life. It was a ritual as old as the Tovani, and would be carried out by the offender ….. himself.
    The ritual however, had not been performed in generations, if ever. Not that it had been renounced; it was just that no one of the Tovani ever forsook his duties. None of the Tovani Warriors had ever been required to complete the ritual. As far as they were concerned, it was better to die in service, than to be disgraced and die a betrayer’s death.
    Gethseena was located in the mountains of Daggar, a half day ride from the city of Dallonburo which was the capital city of Odessia. Dallonburo was a large city by any standards, spanning many leagues, and it was where Nicoldani had been born. He received his first ten years of training and education in Dallonburo as well. Once his preliminary education was finished, he said his goodbyes to his parents, and took up residence at Gethseena to continue his training.
    Gethseena had remained his home until he was eighteen years old. When the Tovani recruits reached eighteen years of age, they were required to take up service in the Queens army. This was their final test to prove their worthiness to become Tovani.
    In the Queen’s army they would serve wherever the fighting was fiercest, which was usually along the Suchbaatar border to the north. Each Tovani warrior continued in service to the Queen until their twenty-seventh birthday. Only then, if they were still alive, would they return to Gethseena and accept the oaths which pledged their lives to the service of the Tovani. It was only then that they would bind their hair with their Kalna and take up their Kerpai. The Tovani were by far the best trained, fiercest, most respected warriors in all of Odessia
    Nicoldani had removed his Kerpai from its scabbard many times on this journey to complete the death ritual and bring justice for his betrayal and cowardice that night at Gethseena. Always it was the small bit of hope that the old priest was right, and Nicoldani would find a way to stop this impending doom, that stayed his hand and spared his own life. It did nothing for his feelings of shame and bitterness at abandoning the fight, which he felt he should never have left. However, the priest’s words were law, and it had been the high priest himself who had all but ordered Nicoldani to leave and set out on the improbable search. It would have been a dereliction of Nicoldani’s duties to disobey the High Priest, which would have brought the same end;