Vlad'War's Anvil

by Rex Hazelton

  "The spring's in a small grotto that's on the far side of the stone that backs the flame," Kaylan explained.

  Having stopped to let his brothers catch up with him, J'Aryl said what everyone had already guessed, "The stranger knows were here."

  "The darkness we've been walking through has alerted the stranger to our presence." Travyn looked at the flame as he spoke, trying to ascertain its nature. If the darkness acted like a spider's web, whose vibrations alerted its maker to the prey it had caught, what was the flame supposed to do.

  Those not experienced in the use of magic would think it was built to ward of the cold that took hold of the desert at night. But Travyn knew better. The flickering campfire was there to provide more than warmth. Like the flames dancing on top of the candle's Kaylan and J'Aryl held, it was a conduit of magic, and by the unnatural way it was flickering about, the stranger didn't care to hide the fact. Like a rattle that grows on the end of the venomous shaker snake's tail, its frenetic movements were meant to act as a warning to any who approached armed with bad intentions.

  "Is the stranger a Hag?" Ay'Roan spoke more to himself than to his brothers.

  "I don't see any candles," Kaylan replied. "But the stranger's still using fire to work magic."

  "And darkness," Travyn quietly added while looking up at the moon's face that was obscured by the veil of shadow that enveloped him and his brothers.

  "Whether they're a Hag or not," J'Aryl cut to the chase with his words, "they're standing between us and the water we need. So let's get moving."

  And off they went, slow and fully alert.

  Chapter 14: The Watcher

  "Are you Hag?" A deep voice, that labored to properly enunciate the syllables needed to formulate the question, greeted the approaching brothers. "I've been wanting to meet a Hag. And now there are four of you. Good. Good. Good."

  "Why would you think we're Hag," Ay'Roan was as surprised by the stranger's question as he was by the awkward accent that was used to ask it. How could we be mistaken for Ar Warl's foul wizards? He wondered.

  "You're carrying candles aren't you?" The stranger's voice was not only deep, it was resonant too. "Your little flames led me to my guess, as well as the magic I sense they carry. Who else would be wielding such things?"

  "Who are you?" Travyn was puzzled by the ignorance the obvious mystic displayed. Surely an Ar Warler, who exhibited such expertise in the magical arts, would know they weren't Hag, despite the Candle Maker candles they carried.

  "I promise to I'll tell you who I am," the stranger promised with speech that labored to say the letter L properly, "if you'll tell me who you are first."

  The time had come for the Oakenfels to assume the identities they would use in Ar Warl. "We're Brie'Shen all." Ay'Roan's voice was just as resonant as the stranger's.

  "Do you serve the Sorcerer?"

  "You mean Ab'Don?" Travyn asked with a snarl.

  "Yes… I believe that’s his name."

  "How does an Ar Warler not know Ab'Don's name?" J'Aryl's question was aimed at his brothers as much as it was the stranger.

  "I am not from Ar Warl?"

  "Are you from the Nyeg?" Kaylan's interest was momentarily piqued beyond his concern for their safety.

  "The Nyeg?" The stranger was as puzzled by this name as the Oakenfel's were by the stranger's ignorance. "No I have not come from the place you call The Nyeg. My home lies beyond the Black Desert."

  "You mean, the Stone Desert?"

  "Yes... the desert filled with black stones."

  "But how can that be?" Ay'Roan blurted out his question. "The Stone Desert is uncrossable."

  "You may not be able to cross it," chuckling came out of the shadows filling the stranger's cowl, "but, as you can see, I can. For that is what I just did."

  After a long pause, the stranger lifted his boney hand, turning it palm up like he expected to have something placed there and said, "Now it is your turn. Tell me more about yourselves." As the cloaked figure took a step forward, the reflected campfire's light pulsed across eyes as pale as the skin that covered his sinewy hands. Only the eyes' pale-green cast differentiated the one from the other, as well as the requisite sheen coming from the moisture that coated the stranger's ocular orbs.

  "As I said," Ay'Roan repeated what he had already explained, "we are Brie'Shen."

  "How do the Brie'Shen fit into the Sorcerer's kingdom?"

  "We live on the fringe of Ab'Don's realm, if that's what you mean by fit." Ay'Roan was struggling with the idea that this man- for no doubt such a deep, resonate voice belonged to a male- had crossed the Stone Desert. Was this some kind of trick that was meant to get them to drop their guard and reveal secrets they would never divulge to an Ar Warler?

  "Though lacking in prominence, we are a people not easily trifled with," Ay’Roan firmly added. The candles alone, and the magic they exuded, would have been enough to warn the stranger about their ability to defend themselves, but Ay'Roan needed to verbalize the fact to make certain the man understood.

  "I have no doubt that's true, Brie'Shen," the stranger said as he took another step forward, and as he did, his dimensions came into clear focus, for he was a man of unusual height, making Ay'Roan appear short in comparison. "How is it that such an unassuming people,as you claim you are, wield such potent magic?"

  Travyn had reached the end of his patience, a feat that was not all that hard to accomplish, as he rejoined the conversation. "Sir, gaining someone's confidence in Ar Warl is not an easy thing to do. You don't know us. Neither do we do know you. Let's leave it like that for now. We're not going to tell you any more about ourselves until you let us pass so we can fill our waterskins in the spring you're guarding. Maybe afterwards we'll talk more."

  The towering figure of a man threw his hood off his head with a quickness that was in keeping with anger. But he wasn't mad at all. He was pleased that a deal might be made. Long, coarse hair- pale-green in color like his eyes- fell upon a back where his hood had come to rest. Skin, as gray as the dunes appeared at night, stretched tightly over the skull the hair covered. Lips as thin as a knife's edge were bent in a crooked smile. Looking more cadaver-like by the moment as the smile turned into a tight-lipped grimace, the man's mouth opened like it was the lid to a sarcophogus recently unearthed as he said, "So if I give you unhindered passage to your precious water, you'll give me something in return?"

  "Kindness will be returned with kindness,"Kaylan said with a calmness that belied his concern. Though he wanted to know more about the mysterious stranger who said he had crossed the Stone Desert, the darkness they stood in was not the type of thing that someone, who was looking to make friends would wrap themselves in. And the strange, flickering campfire was far from inviting.

  "Fair enough." A toothy smile crossed the stranger's gaunt face. "After you replenish your waterskins, I'll expect a kindness in return."

  Once the horses were allowed to drink their fill, the Oakenfels returned to the campfire where they sat and drank from plump waterskins as they watched the campfire's flickering display. Thin streams arched into waiting mouths that closed to ingest the liquid a moment later. An occasional forearm was raised to wipe away the refreshing water that escaped being swallowed by running down chins covered with whiskers that had been allowed to grow on the desert journey. Tiny flames danced atop candles that were suspended in mid-air as they kept watch over those who brought them to life.

  "I've kept my word," the stranger said with the heavy accent the Oakenfels were struggling to get used to. "How is the water? Is it to your liking? Does it quench your thirst? Once we're done talking, I think I'll have a drink myself."

  "Before we talk," the amber color encircling Travyn's irises gave off a flash of light that made the stranger tilt his head in thought, "will you join us," Travyn indicated with a geture of his hand that he was inviting the stranger to sit down with them, "and tell us your name?"

  "I am called The Watcher and I never sit. I stand. I am ever vigilant. A
nd I watch... always."

  "What do you watch?"

  "Everything I can. That's how I found your land. That's why I'm here."

  "If your home is on the other side of the Stone Desert, and you've just arrived in Ar Warl, how is it that you know our tongue?"

  "I not only see... I hear too. For the wind that blows out of your land and across the Black Desert carries stories with it, stories that are told in a language I had to learn if I was going to understand them. That's why I know about the Sorcerer and the realm he rules over. But the wind's stories are incomplete. Its ability to comprehend all it has seen and heard is limited because it is not really a sentient entity. It is elemental in nature. As such it knows little about things that are different from itself. Still, the wind conveys more than it understands, and whatever it conveys replicates the source it was drawn from, including the language that is spoken.

  "That's why I'm here. I need to know more. I need to fill in the blanks that are too many and too lengthy. There is a treasure in this place that I must find. But before I do, I must drink as you have. Still, tell me more about yourselves before I take time to slake my thirst."

  The Watcher stood motionless as the Oakenfels talked about the Brie'Shen, explaining how they fit into a warl that gave them scant room to exist. And as they told the imposing stranger things their father had shared with them, things Aryl had passed on to Jeaf about the place where he was born, all the time making certain they didn't divulge anything that might come back to harm the Brie'Shen, they watched the flickering fire.

  On and on they went, telling boring details that made them lose interest in what they were saying; drab descriptions that made their minds wander from one thing to another as they struggled to sound like they knew what they were talking about; droning words that didn't make any sense; blithering murmerings; the kind of mumbling phrases spoken by those standing on the threshold of sleep. And all the while, the mesmerizing campfire kept flickering with a rhythm that was both erratic and wonderful.

  "Wake up!" Lylah's voice, echoing in the tiny stone grotto where the waterskins had been filled, reached out to Kaylan and shook his drowsy mind.

  In all the time he had been asleep, Kaylan hadn't dreamt, not until Lylah's voice came to him. And when he finally did, he saw a Goar flying furiously through the air, one that was an exact replica of the monster that attacked him and Lylah in the Realm of Vapor. Seeing the massive, black winged-creature descending on him, with a full moon sitting in the night sky behind it, Kaylan lifted his arms defensively as the horrible thing crashed into him and became a fog bank of darkness that obscured the lunar brilliance he had earlier seen. Then Lylah's voice returned, and shouted, "WAKE UP!"

  Lifting his head, Kaylan was surprised to find that he had fallen asleep. Trying to make sense of what he was seeing in the flickering light that the undying campfire cast, Kaylan shook his head as he rose up on his elbows. As he did, he felt minute weights fall off him. It was like birds perched on his prone form had lept to the ground. Looking about, he saw a host of tiny human-like creatures, all miniature replicas of The Watcher, standing around his brothers' motionless bodies. Ay'Roan was nearly covered in them.

  Elongated in form, looking like rats whose nearly transparent bodies were shriveled up by reason of starvation, the creatures were busing poking Ay'Roan with talon-shaped lances. Where he was cut, the creatures held tiny bowls to collect the drops of blood that followed. The little people, who were drinking from these containers, were fattening up as they did. As they fattened up, they lost their transparent appearacne. Others were emptying their bowls into a larger receptacle that sat at The Watcher's feet while he poured a third bowl of blood into a mouth whose jaws unhinged to swallow the drink. And as the bowl was emptied, his flesh lost its gray coloring, his eyes took on a dark green hue, and his hair blackened.

  More of the creatures were leaving the horses, who were laying motionless on the ground under the weight of a vast number of the diminutive fiends who had been working on them. These went over and joined those who labored over Ay'Roan. Few of these were as gaunt looking as those who poked at his brothers' motionless bodies. Some were even obese. Most were somewhere between the two esxtremes.

  They're drinking our blood, Kaylan surmised in horror. Quickly assaying the situation, he reckoned that Ay'Roan was the first person to be targeted after the horses were accosted. Or was he? Travyn's and J'Aryl's limp bodies made him wonder. They also frightened him. Could they have been the first ones the nasty little people gave their attention to? But try as he might, Kaylan couldn't see the cuts they sustained.

  Cuts, he thought as he examined himself. Luckily he had only been lanced a few times on the forearms. Maybe the same was true of Travyn and J'Aryl.

  Then he remembered the voice he had heard.

  Looking to the grotto, expecting to see Lylah's vaporous form, his disappointment over her absence was replaced with a resolve to help his brothers' escape The Watcher's trap. Standing quickly to his feet, kicking at a tiny mean looking creature who stood nearby as he did, Kaylan spoke a Word of Power that brought another Candle Maker's candle to life. The candles that had been standing guard over them as they spoke with The Watcher had burned themselves out, and once they were gone, their power went with them and the feeding began.

  Drawing the Candle Makers' ware through the air and into his hand with thoughts he funneled into the paraffin talisman, Kaylan soon sent the candle spinning about with a swirl of his fingers until it took on the shape of a fiery shield. With this in hand, he advanced on the creatures swarming over Ay'Roan's limp form. Bending down as he went, Kaylan picked up a sword that lay in the sand. I'll free Ay'Roan first, he decided. Then I'll deal with The Watcher.

  "Wake up," he shouted through his fiery shield. And as his words passed through the candle's field of power, they took on magical properties that reached out and aroused his sleeping brothers. Soon two other fiery shields were formed and Travyn and J'Aryl, with swords in hand, joined Kaylan in hacking away at the host of blood thirsty creatures who had been working on Ay'Roan's body. In spite of Kaylan's magically enhanced words, Ay'Roan remained motionless.

  Jumping this way and that way, their tiny cloaks twirling about as they did, the little people, each an exact replica of The Watcher, were adroit at evading the edges of the sharp swords that assailed them. Transparent to one degree or another, the tiny blood-gatherers were amazingly illusive. The thinner ones were less substantial in appearance, almost wraith-like, even though they were very much alive. Some of these were so hard to see, only the sand that fell on them and the blood unwittingly spilled over them in the ensuing melee revealed their forms. Those that had time to drink from the blood-filled bowls they carried had taken on enough color to be clearly seen. The bodies of some, who were flushed with a robust reddish hue, had swollen up like replenished waterskins. No doubt these had partaken of more than one bowl.

  This made Kaylan wonder if that wasn't exactly what they were, creatures The Watcher had made to carry the provisions he would need to make the Stone Desert crossing; little people made in his image who functioned as human waterskins, though they carried blood instead. Then, when the need arose, The Watcher would empty them, one at a time. After being drained, the depleted human-like shells were left to follow their master until an opportunity to be refilled arrived.

  But if even if this were true, their job description included more than transporting provisions. They were also magic wielders. This was amply displayed when the little people successfully cut into the fiery shields that advanced on them with violent intentions.

  Used for offense as much as for defense, the shields the Oakenfels carried overcame the miniscule monsters that sliced into the fiery surfaces with the lances they carried and drove them into the sand where they took shelter. Few were actually destroyed.

  Where the flaming shields collided with one of the nasty little people, an explosion resulted that tore a hole in the shield, though it was quickly
refilled with fire. Only magic could have made the holes. The corporal warl couldn't harm the shields, not unless a mountain fell on them or lightning bolts struck them. Even then, they wouldn't be completely ruined.

  Along with the random explosions, and the subsequent damage that followed, the tiny talon-shaped lances the little people used to extract blood from their victims took a toll on the fiery shields too. While alertly escaping the shields' advance, The Watchers minions didn't waste a chance of weakening the candles' magic by cutting at the fiery surfaces that were pressing in on them. And where the hooked blades did their work, the shields sustained gashes that were harder to mend than the holes the explosive collisions made.

  As the rending continued, the candles' power was being quickly used up, so much so, the Oakenfels' window of opportunity to defeat The Watcher was closing fast.

  If the candles burned themselves out, for their magic lasted only as long as their flames did, there might not be enough time to access more of the Candle Makers' wares before the resilient horde was upon them. Since the talon-shaped lances had already proven they could penetrate the shields' protective barrier, and pierce Ay'Roan and his brothers' skin that Vlad'War's Magic had toughened up by reason of their being the Prophetess and Hammer Bearer's sons, the hope of surviving the inevitable assault was in doubt.

  Bending down to replace the empty bowl he held in his hands with the full one that sat at his feet, The Watcher drained its warm contents with greedy gulps. After placing the second bowl next to the first one that lay on the sand, The Watcher stretched out to his full imposing height and turned to survey the battle that moved steadily towards him.