Crown of Vengeance

by Stephen Zimmer

  Heavy of heart, Lee was unwilling to deceive the man that had come to their aid. He turned and gave a small gesture off to the left, where the battle had transpired with the last two riders. The body of the Jaghun, arrow lodged in its head, lay still near to one of the slain winged steeds.

  Gunther stepped forward, until he saw what Lee had indicated. His eyes widened and he broke into a full run, followed closely by the other Jaghuns. He slumped to his knees, reaching down and lifting the slain Jaghun about its forequarters. He cradled the lifeless body, as he held the creature’s head close to his chest.

  The other Jaghuns were subdued, their tails sagged down and their ears flattened as they lay upon their stomachs, close to their fallen comrade. They emitted a distinct whimpering sound, which to Lee seemed strangely like a human sob.

  Weeping bitterly, Gunther uttered loud, mournful cries that filled the forest. Lee and the others drew close together, watching the man suffer through what looked to be tremendous agony. They made no move to go any nearer to the grieving man.

  The sobs gradually lessened, until they finally became silent, but there was no change in the postures of the woodsman and his creatures. Gunther and the other Jaghuns remained in place for a very long time, during which dusk gripped the land.

  Stoically, Gunther finally arose in the dimming light and started clearing out the debris around the body of the dead Jaghun. At one point, when the soil had been bared around the corpse, he glanced toward Lee and the others.

  Listlessly, he simply said, “Help me.”

  Without exchanging another word, Lee and the others moved forward to help Gunther, as they worked together to drag the bodies of the winged steeds and fallen warriors to the sides. As large as the winged steeds were, they were not nearly as heavy as Lee had expected. Nonetheless, it took multiple individuals working together to move them.

  Seeing their arsenal of sharp teeth and large claws from a close perspective, he knew that they would have been a formidable match for the Jaghuns had it not been for the element of surprise. The musky scent of coarse fur that filled Lee’s nose was mingled with the sharper tang from their gory wounds.

  Neither Lee nor his comrades could refrain from periodically glancing in the direction of the prone Jaghuns. He did not feel any more at ease around them, not even with the woodsman in their direct midst. The blood of their victims was still caked around their jaws, amplifying Lee’s apprehension.

  With several grunts and heaves, he labored to pull one of the felled enemy warriors away. Looking down into the canine visage, his mind assailed him with imaginary images of the eyes suddenly snapping open, and the lips curling into a feral snarl. Lee had to keep his eyes focused above him as he lugged the body the last few feet.

  At last, a broad clearing was formed around the body of the fallen Jaghun. Lee and his companions backed away slowly, giving Gunther a wide berth now that their task was finished.

  “No worm shall gorge upon the body of my friend,” Gunther managed to stammer angrily, as he started laying dry branches and brush around the dead Jaghun. It was as if Gunther had forgotten about their very existence. “You have a good servant before you. Loyal and of honor, a triumph of Your creation. It is a loss and tragedy that such should ever fall in this world.”

  Gunther proceeded to ignite a fire, using some metal and flint that he retrieved from a leather pouch at his waist. Before long, the flames engulfed the body of the Jaghun as night settled in.

  The air was filled with the pungency of burning flesh as the Jaghun’s physical remains were consumed. The woodsman’s dark outline stood motionless before the fire, as he silently gazed into its blazing depths.

  After a little more time had passed, he turned and strode back towards Lee and the others, who had continued to remain respectfully quiet from where they observed the woodsman.

  “It is my way,” Gunther said, as if feeling the need to explain himself. “I will let no friend be put into the ground to be the food of worms. Those of the elder days of Midragard knew best.”

  His voice was choked with emotion, barely steady in its thickly bitter tone. He continued somberly, almost as if giving them orders, “We must go now, back to my dwelling. The leader of the Trogens will return in time with many more. You may trust me, or you may await the return of the Trogen leader. It is your choice … but for my part, I am going.”

  Lee looked to the others, their faces largely obscured in the deep gloom. Inside all of their heads, derivatives of the same rationale were likely proceeding.

  Gunther had come to their aid, as had his creatures. All four of them had seen that the beasts were clearly under his control, trained and disciplined. Lee knew that they did not have any ties or allies within the new world, but they had already experienced their share of dangerous enemies.

  While still a risk, their agreement was unanimous.

  One by one, the others nodded to Lee. He turned back to Gunther. “Let us gather our things, we will follow you.”

  “Be quick, then,” Gunther replied tersely.

  Gunther waited a few moments as the four gathered up their packs and new weapons, and returned to stand around him. The light of two bright, rising moons was already cutting through the branches of the trees, casting enough illumination to see the forms of the things around them.

  “We are ready,” Lee informed the woodsman softly, knowing that the man was bearing incredible pain inside. The others stood silently, clearly not wanting to utter a word and content to let Lee do their speaking for them.

  The woodsman remained quiet for a few moments, a pensive look crossing his face as if belatedly remembering something of importance through the morass of powerful emotions that he was feeling. His large hands then untied the bindings on another small leather pouch tied to his belt.

  He brought out three amulets suspended from leather necklaces. Wordlessly, he handed one each to Lee, Ryan, and Lynn.

  They stared in silence down at the small, blue stones in their hands, set into a metal encasement that framed the shape of the gems. Lee studied his own amulet, fingering it gently. The shape was that of a vertical line, with two lines coming off of it to the right, like an “F” in form, were it not for the diagonal slant of the extensions.

  Gunther then transferred an amulet hanging from his own neck over to Erin, which held a blue stone identical to the ones that the others had been given. She took it hesitantly from the woodsman.

  Looking back to the others, he said a few words aloud, in a language that was completely unintelligible to Lee. As confused looks came over the others’ faces, Gunther then took up the amulet that Lee was holding, and guided it up around his neck.

  “I believe you can understand me now,” Gunther said. As Lee slowly began to nod, looking in wonderment from the amulet to the woodsman, Gunther then added, “But your friends cannot. Ask them if they know what I have just said.”

  Lee turned to the others, and from the looks on their faces his question to them was little more than a formality. “Did you understand what he just said?”

  The other three shook their heads, all looking at Lee with bewildered expressions.

  “No, not a word,” Lynn replied in a low voice.

  “And I do not know what she just said,” Gunther replied. “Have them put the amulets on now, and they will come to know the gift that they bring to their wearer.”

  “Put the amulets around your necks,” Lee conveyed.

  As the others slipped their amulets over their heads, Gunther asked, “Now do you understand my words, once again?”

  The other three appeared startled, a couple of them flinching, abruptly hearing Gunther’s words in their own language once more. They looked to each other in astonishment.

  Gunther then read the question still unspoken, perched on the tip of Lee’s tongue.

  “When you speak, I can understand you, just as when I speak, you understand me,” Gunther stated.

  The others nodded slowly in response.
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  “Now you all know what these are used for,” Gunther stated. “A very important gift, one that I suggest you take very good care of.”

  Lee could barely comprehend what was happening, though he could not deny the stark evidence of his ears. The amulet at the end of his neck, while indeed a beautiful stone, looked to be nothing more than that.

  “You have quite a benefactor, who desired that I watch over you, and convey the amulets to you,” Gunther said, though his words drove the mystery even deeper. “I will tell you more later, but it is best that we get moving.”

  Gunther turned without another word, and went over to where the makeshift funeral pyre had blazed so recently. He kicked dirt over the ashes and embers, stomping about the area. Once finished, he strode past the four exiles, the remaining Jaghuns loping off into the forest just ahead of him.

  Lee and the others stood dumbfounded for a moment, and then started off after the woodsman. His large form was easy enough to make out in the moonlight.

  “Keep pace with me, and do not fear. The Jaghuns will scout for us,” he muttered back to them, after he had taken a few more strides.

  His long stride and brisk pace had the others quickly scrambling to keep up. In the sparse bits of moonlight that reached the ground through the tree cover, they all had to carefully watch their steps.

  Lee found that it was no easy task trying to keep their footing, while maintaining the pace silently demanded by the stoic woodsman. More than once, they stumbled on uneven ground, branches, and other small obstacles such as thick tree roots.

  Lynn tripped over one such surface root extending off of a very old tree. She fell heavily to the ground before Lee could react, and needed a moment’s help to gather her items and get back to her feet.

  Despite the difficulty hiking in the night, Lee felt much safer to be in the big woodsman’s presence. He was highly relieved that he no longer had to worry about the four-legged ferocities accompanying Gunther. For the first time, he felt relief that the creatures were nearby, evidently warding them as they trekked through the dark woodlands.

  DRAGOL

  Dragol and the surviving Trogen warriors, with burdened, simmering hearts, returned back to the sprawling encampment where the reconnaissance and sky steed contingents delegated to assist the second Avanoran force were based. There was little permanence to the design of the camp of scouts, as it had to maintain fluidity with the continuing movements of the invasion force that was now marching deeper into Saxany.

  A small contingent of light cavalry from Andamoor served as guards for the largely Trogen camp, as well as providing additional scouting upon the ground.

  The presence of the Andamoorans was not frivolous. They were extremely mobile, proficient horsemen who could range far from the camp to keep up a constant, flowing perimeter at the ground level. Any approaching enemy forces could be harassed and delayed by ground and air alike, while the evacuation of the camp took place.

  As much as humans annoyed him, Dragol had to grudgingly admit that the Andamoorans’ endurance, and the swiftness of their steeds, complimented the nature of the camp very well. Most importantly, they enabled the Trogens to remain fully focused upon the tasks that they had been charged with by Avanor. Under the demands shouldered by Dragol and the other chieftains, none of their kind could have been spared to the duties performed by the Andamoorans without it being a detriment to their own efforts.

  There were nearly seventy-five Harraks being quartered within the camp, serving almost one hundred veteran Trogen riders. It was a strong sky force in its own right, capable of engagements with modest contingents of Saxans on the ground or in the air. Yet instead of actively searching out the enemy to engage them, the Trogen force was now largely relegated to gathering and providing vital information regarding the lands that the invasion force was moving through.

  There was a constant stream of activity within the encampment, as squads and patrols landed and took off, attending to their range of assigned scouting tasks.

  As there had not been enough Trogens available to spare even a few for the more basic needs of the camp itself, the Andamoorans had been reluctantly delegated to tending to the Trogen steeds, as well as their own.

  As was now routine, a few Andamooran attendants hustled over when Dragol and the others landed. They nervously waited for the Trogens to dismount, so that they could guide their large sky steeds off for food, water, and rest.

  Snarling with anger, Dragol forcibly shoved back one of the Andamoorans who lingered too close to him as he got off of his Harrak. The man’s dark eyes glittered in fear and resentment, while he trembled in the presence of the outwardly maddened Trogen.

  “Away from me, weakling!” thundered Dragol in a growling voice.

  The man most likely did not understand a single word that Dragol had said. Only a few Andamoorans understood a smattering of Trogen words, and even fewer Trogens possessed a handful of words from the tongue used by the Andamoorans, spoken by those who followed the ways of the Prophet in the Sun Lands. Nevertheless, Dragol communicated his intention clearly enough, as the Andamooran scrambled to get away from him.

  Dragol spat at the ground in disgust with the behavior, for no Trogen thus treated would have failed to defend their personal honor. He could not fathom the weakness that the humans continued to show, wondering what business the Unifier had in putting the Andamoorans to serve alongside the Trogens.

  The only reason that he had ever been able to glean was that the Andamoorans and the Trogens did not adhere to the faith of the Western Church. Dragol had already noticed that this fact alone incited almost instant tension whenever Andamoorans were brought together with the other human factions involved in the invasion, such as those from Ehrengard and Avanor.

  Perhaps the Unifier wished to isolate the Andamoorans a little, reasoning that the temptation towards conflict would be much reduced if they were placed alongside a non-human race. The Andamoorans could perhaps find it slightly more palatable that the Trogens were non-believers in their faith, given the Trogens’ fundamentally different nature. There had been no religious wars between Trogens and Andamoorans, but there certainly had been many among the humans of different faiths.

  Whatever the true reasons were, Dragol still despised the arrangement.

  Compounding his detestation, he had heard it said that that the Andamoorans had great warriors among them. Word had also spread among the Trogens that the particular Andamoorans within the scouting camp avoided armor as an outwardly visible sign of their courage.

  Dragol was highly inclined to challenge any that would make such an assertion, as his experience so far had shown him little to substantiate either of the claims. The unarmored Andamoorans always sniveled and cowered in the face of a Trogen provocation or insult, even though Dragol could easily sense their strong dislike of the Trogens. Confronted, the supposedly courageous men of Andamoor wilted fast.

  If the oppressive, westerly Elves dwelling near his homeland had such constitutions, the plight of Dragol’s kind would have been lifted a long time ago. The thought of those sufferances, in his present, blackened mood, brought a deep rumble to his throat.

  Other Andamoorans, and even a few Trogens, gave Dragol a wide berth as he stormed off into the camp, striding quickly towards his tent. There was no mistaking the aura of absolute wrath that pulsed around the huge Trogen, and nobody within the vicinity wished to voluntarily incur it.

  Dragol slowly removed his iron helm, the lining inside the segmented construction thoroughly soaked. His long locks of hair were matted with sweat, and he welcomed the soothing, cool air that enveloped him, caressing his heated crown with the removal of the helm.

  The pleasant physical feeling did little to calm his frayed emotions, but at the least it would not add to his agitated state. He could have grimly accepted the day’s losses if his warriors had been overcome in hand to hand fighting, pitted in open battle against skilled warriors.

  The thought of his war
riors being slaughtered by primal animals, and a hidden archer that they had not been able to fight back against, was tormenting his every moment. His face a mask of barely suppressed rage, he stalked morosely past several tents, before drawing the attention of one particular Trogen.

  “Dragol! You have returned at last!” called a voice to his right.

  Dragol was about to lash out at the interruption of the other, when the more sensible part of him recognized the voice. He held back the heated expletive that he was about to loose, as he turned his head towards Goras and came to an abrupt stop. The Trogen warrior, like him, had just returned from a sky patrol.

  Dragol eyed his comrade as he approached, letting his ire recede.

  Goras was highly imposing in mass, even when considered among their commonly sizeable race. A little shorter than Dragol, the other Trogen was visibly broader of shoulder, and much thicker of chest. The Trogen’s abundant hair sprouting from atop his high forehead, and along the forward half of his head, was pulled back and tied into a ponytail that kept his face completely cleared. The rest of his hair fell freely down the Trogen’s shoulders and back.

  His unobstructed face gave even more prominence to a large, straight scar, which ran almost vertically down the right side of the warrior’s face, from just below the Trogen’s eye to the base of his muzzle. It was a mark of profound honor, incurred in single combat with an Elven warrior that Goras had finally hewn down with his longblade.

  Goras was clad in a newer style of cuirass being used by some of the higher-ranking Trogen warriors. The leather armor was fashioned in a style of interlaced, rectangular pieces. The pieces were arrayed in patterned rows, arranged opposite of the way that the elements in a cuirass of scale armor lay. It was a more eastern style, echoing the methods used in lands such as Theonia.

  Dragol found the new style intriguing. Goras had taken a quick liking to it, saying that it was much more well-suited to movement than were the thick hide jerkins that were natively constructed and worn in the Trogen homelands. Dragol contemplated trying out such a cuirass in the near future.