“You ever lose a fight?” Jorn said. He stepped closer to the knight.
“Me?” Ailric stood his ground. “I asked you.”
“Yes, I lost,” Jorn said. “I was already gravely wounded in my shoulder and Einar’s men had beaten the shit out of me beforehand. He didn’t fight me at my best, you could say. I’m at my best now, if you’d care to test me.”
“Now, there will be no need for that,” Willock said, stepping between them.
“Stay clear of me, knight,” Jorn said, turning and mounting his horse.
Ailric sneered silently, shaking his head.
“Well, I think this is off to a great start,” Stormbearer noted.
_____
They left the village a few minutes later.
At the edge of town a group of peasants stood on the side of the road looking down at the ground. A small herd of fat, pink hogs grazed nearby. The innkeeper stood amidst the men, shaking his head and pointing down at the mud.
“What do you men have there?” Braemorgan asked.
“Tracks,” the innkeeper said. “Vagor here spotted them this morning while he was herding his swine along the road.”
“Tracks?” Braemorgan scowled. “What sort of tracks?”
“Well, they kinda look like wolf tracks to me,” the innkeeper said. “If they are, they’re bigger wolves than I’ve ever seen. We may have to post a watch tonight.”
“You need some kind of wall,” Braemorgan said. “These woods are thick all around you and, you know, these are troubled times indeed. Even a wooden picket would be better than nothing.”
“This village here has always been safe!” said one of the peasants, a sour-looking old man with no teeth. He shook his head angrily, dismissing Braemorgan’s advice as he pounded the tip of his walking stick against the ground for emphasis. “We’ve never had need for a fence. And we don’t need no wizards coming around telling us how to conduct our affairs!”
“Best of luck to you all,” Braemorgan said. He rode off, the long line of riders behind him. The villagers watched them go.
“That’s the whole problem with that inn of yours,” the peasant went on, waving the walking stick in the innkeeper’s face. “It brings in all sorts of wizards, dwarves, and other undesirables. Time was, before the inn was built, they’d pass on through and not say a word about nothing to nobody! We didn’t have no wolves coming around in them days, neither! What’s next, dragons getting into me cabbages? Trolls trampling me turnip patch? All your fault, I say, all your fault.”
_____
The road west from Laekur was quiet at that early hour. They passed through an unchanging stretch of thick trees, mostly birch, for several miles. Now and again, the travelers would come upon some tiny shack or woodsman’s cottage along the roadside, dwarfed by the sprawling forest in all directions. They encountered no more than a solitary woodsman as they rode through the long stretch of forest.
Gradually, the sun burnt off the fog. Stormbearer looked over at Willock, grinning. The woodsman had been right about the weather.
They rounded a gentle curve, the road climbing up a small hill. At the top of the hill they encountered a pair of woodsmen walking in the opposite direction. The woodsmen barely glanced up at them, giving only the slightest nod of greeting.
It occurred to Jorn what a strange, motley group they must’ve appeared. There was the tall wizard with the strange eyes in the front riding alongside the knight in the gleaming, polished armor atop a magnificent brown stallion. Then there was the dwarf with the one eye, glaring at the strangers and fingering his massive battle axe as though ready to pounce upon them given the slightest provocation.
Jorn rode behind Ironhelm, looking like some mercenary captain with his mismatched outfit and savage appearance. Stormbearer, riding alongside Jorn, did not fit in at all with the rest of them, with his carefully-groomed appearance and his fine cloak. Willock rode in the back of the company with the elf, neither of them saying anything to one another and forming the oddest pair imaginable.
The elf was a complete mystery to Jorn. He was reminded of the wood elves of Llywarch who mended his wounds and saved his life at Loc Goren. They were a noble and beautiful people who, for all their aloofness, were honorable and just. Every morning during his convalescence, Rhydderch would visit with Jorn to see how he was faring. The elf-king always found the time to sit with Jorn and talk for a while despite his many duties and responsibilities.
Ronias, however, was a different sort of elf from Rhydderch’s folk. He was taller and fairer-skinned than the elves of Llywarch, and he spoke with a different accent. Ronias said he was from Shandorr and Jorn tried to recall what he knew about that far-away land. It was one of the great Elven Kingdoms, for one thing, not to be confused with any of the tiny wood elf realms found throughout the realms of Pallinore. Shandorr was a mighty island nation south of Vandoria. From her flowed all manner of luxury goods, not just wines and tea but also cinnamon and other spices. Jorn remembered well the elf merchants who would sometimes visit Falneth to trade for the furs and amber of the northern forests. Those elves of Shandorr were gregarious and friendly, he remembered, yet Ronias was withdrawn and sullen.
Jorn pulled up on his reigns, slowing the pace of his horse, curious to know more about the mysterious elf.
“You hail from Shandorr,” Jorn said, falling in alongside Ronias.
“Yes,” Ronias said, annoyed. He pretended to be interested in the trees next to the road, hoping that the human would leave him alone.
“Weren’t the people of Shandorr once part of Sollistore?” Jorn asked, undeterred.
“They were,” the elf said, still looking away. “Thousands of years ago. We elves of Shandorr left Sollistore to worship Arias in our own way.”
“Arias? The sky god?” Jorn said. “I’ve heard of him.”
“I grow weary of talk,” Ronias said curtly.
Jorn frowned, but said nothing. He would have liked nothing more at that moment than to slap the rude little elf on the back of the head, but he thought better of it.
Jorn spurred his horse a little faster, catching up to Ironhelm and Braemorgan once again and falling in behind them.
He passed the time taking in his surroundings. The Southlands felt strange and different. Even the language they spoke in Llangellan sounded odd to his ears. It was similar to Linlundic, which made sense given the Llangellans were originally Northmen.
Once they were the men of Withowan. That legendary realm bordered the ancient dwarven kingdom of Withenhaelr, the “White Mountain”.
When hordes of gruks first plunged down upon Withowan, the stout-hearted men of that warlike people must have believed they would surely prevail. They were wrong, their kingdom falling along with Withenhaelr, the survivors reduced to a great mass of refugees forced southward. Thousands of dwarves and men, they sought a new home. The King of Shalfur refused them succor, and so they plodded still further south into Brithborea. The Brithborean King allowed them to settle south of his kingdom, in the wilderness on the far side of the River Tam. In exchange, they agreed to clear the land of monsters and swear allegiance to Brithborea.
The refugees crossed the river into the valley of the Feth. “Llangellan”, they called their new home, “Land of Green.” Thus began the slow process of clearing the forests and the marshes of all manner of foul denizens, building in time a new nation to replace the one they lost. The Dwarf refugees doggedly began carving out their own freeholds in the foothills of the Great Barrier Mountains.
For more than a century, the people south of the river thrived and their descendants multiplied. The kings of Brithborea, however, began to demand more and more of the Llangellans. His tax collectors grew ever more intolerable, until the people of Llangellan finally cast off the Brithborean yoke after a bitter war.
The once-miserable and destitute Withowan refugees had grown strong in the years since, their realm now counted among the great nations of the world. Despite the centuries
passed since the survivors of Withowan first left their ancient land, their descendants kept many of the ancestral ways. Their speech was still close enough to Linlundic that Jorn could understand them without difficulty, despite the odd accent. They felt the same way about Jorn’s accent, he knew, the knight practically flinching every time Jorn opened his mouth.
It didn’t matter to Jorn what the Southlanders thought. He spoke the true and uncorrupted tongue of their common ancestors. The Southlanders’ speech had become degraded over time and their accents made them sound like Brithboreans. Jorn was not in the Southlands for conversation, or for friendship. All that really mattered to him was how well these Southlanders were in a fight.
The road rounded another bend and was crossed by a wide track leading northward. At one corner of the crossroads stood a small stone marker, overgrown with moss, its carved runes barely readable underneath.
The wizard pulled up on his horse’s reigns, turning to face the others.
“This is the point where we must part,” he announced. “Here is my road, whereas yours continues west towards the frontier. There’s no need for excessive rhetoric. You know the importance of what you must do. I will see you in five weeks time at Glammonfore Keep. May fortune favor your endeavor.”
Thirteen
They rode west the rest of the morning, their path winding through gently rolling hills as it wound ever westward towards the great River Feth. Once across the river, it was a straight path all the way to the Glammonfore Gap.
By the side of a churning stream they stopped for a lunch of cold chicken and black bread. They washed it down with pale-colored ale and took a few minutes to rest before resuming the journey. Jorn lay beneath a large oak tree, his head propped up on one of the bulging roots. He was sound asleep, dozing in the sun until Ironhelm roused him with an indifferent kick.
“We’ve a long way to go afore nightfall, laddie,” the dwarf said.
“Grang’s teeth!” Jorn said, shaking off his drowsiness and rubbing his stiff neck. “I didn’t sleep well last night.”
“Ach! If you slept rotten last night, laddie, then you’re sure of sleeping sounder tonight. Aye, tis true.”
Jorn picked up his sword and slung it over his shoulder, walking back to the horses still shaking off the after-effects of his nap. He he’d finally stumbled upstairs to his bed sometime long after midnight but was soon awake again, disturbed by the same old nightmare.
He awoke drenched in sweat, bolting straight up in the darkness. His tiny room was calm and quiet, the only sounds that of the rain and wind outside and Stormbearer snoozing quietly on the other side of the bed. Jorn lay back down and stared at the ceiling, his heart beating wildly. He lay there listening to the rain tapered off and the night sky began to lighten with the coming of morning.
_____
After lunch they passed a nameless cluster of farmhouses along the roadside. Men and women worked outside, chopping wood or sowing crops. A few children playing by the side of the road paused, watching the strangers with wide-eyed interest. They trailed the party for a few minutes, hanging back some distance and whispering to one another. They pointed at the dwarf, giggling to one another. Ironhelm grumbled something about little brats needing a sound spanking.
They passed back into forest. The rutted old road was barely ten feet wide, trees crowded close by on either side. Jorn stared into the ancient oaks and virgin forest thick with mossy undergrowth and considered the challenges that lay ahead. If this plan of Braemorgan worked, Einar’s power would be broken. Without the gold to pay his berserker troops, Einar would be vulnerable.
Jorn imagined himself rebuilding Loc Goren from its smoldering ashes. He pictured handsome buildings and arching towers overlooking the river and a proud new keep built upon the ruins of the old where he would have a hall. It would be a massive hall, too, with a tall ceiling and a huge table where he and his captains would feast in front of a roaring fire. High atop the keep he’d keep a roaring bonfire seen for miles for all to behold. Best of all, Einar would be dead and his skull Jorn’s drinking cup. The rest of Einar’s body, he presumed, he’d feed to rats.
The road turned sharply up ahead, Ironhelm still at the front of the column. As the dwarf approached the sharp curve, he noticed a slight rustling movement in the trees in front of him. He caught the briefest glimpse of the noonday sun reflecting on metal, the unmistakable glint of polished steel.
Ironhelm pulled up on the reigns of his pony, his hand snapping to the handle of his axe.
“Ambush!” he bellowed.
A volley of arrows shot forth. Ironhelm avoided getting hit, a pair plunking into his shield as he slid out of the saddle.
Jorn was shaken out of his daydream by the dwarf’s cry. An arrow glanced off his shoulder, the thick leather armor deflecting its path. He looked around hurriedly, moving figures on either side of the road. He pointed his horse rightward and charged.
Five creatures awaited Jorn amidst the thick brush of the forest, bipedal reptiles with bright blue skin clad in chain mail hauberks and bearing bows. They were not much taller than dwarves but had long sinewy arms and necks as well as vicious claws and rows of razor-sharp teeth.
Jorn knew their kind well. Saurians were tenacious. This wouldn’t be an easy fight.
The closest Saurian pointed his bow in Jorn’s direction, an arrow already cocked on the string. It pulled back on the string, trying to take aim, but was too late. Jorn drew the broadsword strapped to the side of his saddle and brought it down upon the creature’s skull. Twisting, Jorn swung at the two next nearest Saurians. They leapt back, dropping their bows and drawing swords.
Two more Saurians came at him from the other side. Jorn turned his horse in a sweeping motion, the bulk of the animal knocking two of the attackers backwards.
Jorn glanced back at the road, wondering where the hell everyone else was.
_____
Ailric barely had time to react to the rain of arrows filling the air in front of him. One glanced off his plate armor, followed by a pair bouncing off his shield.
The initial volley over, Ailric drew his sword as he looked side to side, trying to figure out where the unseen enemy was. Ironhelm was already on the ground, charging the trees in front. The dwarf’s axe was out and swinging as he crashed headlong into the thick brush. Glancing backwards, Ailric caught a glimpse of Stormbearer falling out of the saddle to the mud of the road. Willock and Ronias had dismounted and ran for cover. Jorn had charged off to the right at a line of attackers and on the left Ailric spied Saurian archers and decided they would be his target. He turned his horse towards them, digging his spurs into the animal's sides and charging the enemy head-on. Several of the monsters broke and ran, a few firing wide shots that came nowhere near the knight. Only one arrow so much as glanced off his shield.
He reached the Saurians and brought his sword down upon one of their necks. The loathsome thing dropped, thick black blood gushing upwards like a fountain. He swung again, felling yet another of the creatures.
Ailric decided this was going to be an easy fight indeed if this was the caliber of his opponents. At that moment he heard a noise almost like a whistle from somewhere past the Saurians. Looking up, he saw a small white ball of light flying towards him. It hit his left shoulder, sending a shockwave of pain through his body. He dropped his shield but somehow stayed in the saddle, despite the force of the magical blow. Before he could recover he saw a Saurian in dark red robes lobbing another ball of light at him. This second blast of magic hit Ailric in the chest and knocked him onto the ground.
Alric’s head went numb and he couldn't breathe, the leaves of the trees spinning in circles above him. He saw branches, leaves, and then the leering faces of Saurians. He managed to raise his arm in a feeble attempt at defense. His entire body was wracked with a sharp, intense pain that made every movement agony.
Two of the Saurians standing over him fell to the ground. Ailric had no idea why.
Clarity c
licked back into place. The pain remained but its crescendo had passed and Ailric found he could move again with some effort. He got to his feet, punching a Saurian in the face with his gauntleted hand and sending the monster sprawling back. He saw his sword lying next to a pair of Saurians with arrows protruding from their chests and grabbed it, wincing in pain as he bent and extended his shoulder.
Three more Saurians came at him from two sides at once.
Ailric parried an attack from the closest Saurian. Swinging his sword with two hands, he felled the creature with a slash to its neck. Two Saurians remained, charging from the opposite side. Grimacing in pain, Ailric whirled about and parried a Saurian sword just in time. An arrow whirled past the knight and buried itself in the reptile’s chest.
Ailric turned to deal with the final Saurian. As he did so, he caught a glimpse of Willock standing near the side of the road, drawing arrow after arrow and sending them with precision and skill into the Saurians. The woodsman was incredibly quick, barely seeming to pause to take aim. Ailric slew the remaining Saurian, nearly collapsing from the pain pulsing through his torso. He took cover from the Saurian spellcaster behind a thick tree, pausing to try and cope with the agony coursing through his body.
The last he’d seen, the shaman was hanging far back from the battle. Ailric risked a peak, but the Saurian was gone.
_____
To Ironhelm’s folk Saurians were the Haedlegl, the “Lizard Men”. They were the ancient blood enemies of all dwarf nations and clans, and Ironhelm cursed at the sight of them, swinging his axe with rage. A trio of the reptiles emerged from the brush, a fourth in long blood-red robes standing directly behind them. The robed Saurian held a long staff in his hand and had red marks smeared on both of his cheeks.
Ironhelm waded into the Saurians. His axe flashed in the sun, attacking his opponents with lightning quickness in blow after blow. They did their best to parry the weapon, but it was too powerful and heavy to be kept at bay for long. Ironhelm cut down one of the Saurians and turned towards the others, snarling and growling with almost berserker intensity.
Child Of Storms (Volume 1) Page 25