Asterion began to respond with an angry shake of his fist, but the paladin cut him off. “Take us to the star room, use its magic to search the wilderness, and then leave this place,” Gideon implored.
“Where would I go?” Asterion asked. “How far would I have to run to live beyond the reach of the Archbishop? You know how vindictive he is, Gideon. He would hunt me relentlessly.”
With a great sweep of his arm, Gideon smiled and looked at the goblins. “Your place is with us. You are a battle priest, a holy warrior trained for combat and the open road! Come north and together we can push the tide of monsters back into the mountains.”
Despite his advanced age and relative passivity compared to the fiery paladin, Asterion enjoyed the idea of leaving Talonrend in search of a fight. In fact, the more Asterion thought about it, the better the whole plan seemed. A wide smile broke out on his wrinkled face and he arched an eyebrow as he looked at the goblins. “How soon do you intend to leave?” He tried to keep the excitement from his voice but it was obvious that his passions had been ensnared.
“The sooner we get to the star room and figure out exactly what we are up against, the sooner we can set foot on the open road.” Gideon helped the priest up from his chair and wrapped him in a hearty embrace.
“Follow me,” Asterion said eagerly as he brushed past the goblins and headed for the spiral staircase.
“What exactly is the star room?” Vorst asked as the group descended. The stairs under the tower were dark and gloomy, a stark contrast to the brightly lit room above. Images of Vrysinoch were carved into the walls, but instead of beautiful icons depicting the mercy and power of the god, the carvings displayed scenes of torment. One particularly gruesome etching showed Vrysinoch’s leathery talons ripping a disfavored priest limb by limb. Vorst shuddered as she passed by the scene.
“The star room,” Asterion explained, “is all that remains of the first disciples of Vrysinoch after their pilgrimage from the Green City.” Asterion lifted a withered finger toward the dark ceiling and identified the names of some of the pilgrims. “After they built the temple in the cavern underneath Castle Talon, the disciples came to this place and constructed the Tower of Wings. Considerable magic was employed to raise this temple, as you might have guessed. With such an expenditure of magical energy, strange things are bound to happen.”
Gideon snorted with obvious derision and shook his head. “They were mad, all of them. Fanatics who killed themselves in the name of their god.” Gideon stopped a moment at the image of one of the priests being burned at the stake. “Purification, they called it.” He spat on the wall and walked on.
“Yes,” Asterion continued with a frown. “The first disciples lived in a constant state of communion with Vrysinoch. When Vrysinoch spoke to them, they listened. It was demanded of the disciples that they purify their bodies for the final ascent. Many chose to burn themselves. Others attempted to scrape all of their skin from their bones and claimed that it was the flesh that served as a vessel for disease and impurity.”
“What happened to the disciples that didn’t want to kill themselves?” Vorst asked tentatively, although she feared the answer.
Asterion stopped in front of a simple wooden door and turned to face the group, now half a dozen or more stories underground. “The disciples who didn’t kill themselves in the first purification….” He placed a hand on the door and pushed it open. A gust of cold air and a cloud of dust rushed from the star room. “They built this room out of the bones of the disciples. Be warned,” he cautioned sternly, “strange magic lingers here.”
Gravlox could feel it as soon as the door opened. The gust of cold wind sought him out and enveloped him in a shroud none of the others could see. When he closed his eyes and tried to seek out the magic of the room, he found nothing. Something was there, in the realm of magic, but it would not let him in or show itself to him. The cold air had severed Gravlox’s magical self from the physical world. He was powerless.
Do you feel it? Gravlox tapped in the goblin code on Vorst’s shoulder. She shook her head and stepped as close to the room as she could without entering. Asterion walked into the star room, but Gideon stayed behind.
“No?” Gravlox asked with an expression he hoped conveyed his confusion to the paladin.
Gideon shook his head and motioned with his hands for Gravlox to stay back. He reached a pointed finger into the doorway and another chilling gust of wind came forth to meet him. The paladin pointed to the hilt of his sword and shrugged, obviously unsure of what might happen if he entered the room. Gravlox contented himself to study the macabre depictions on the staircase’s walls as he waited.
The star room was constructed like a small, underground stage. A row of benches was cut into the soft mud of one wall and a platform was built across from it. No torches or magical means of illumination were present in the room, but Asterion did not have any trouble seeing every detail. The stage was built from bones with a backdrop of human skulls making up the far wall.
A faint blue glow appeared before the priest at his command. Asterion closed his eyes and spoke to the blue haze. Within in an instant, more and more of the blue glow seeped out of the wall of skulls and formed into a host of specters.
“They will show us potential futures,” Asterion whispered, remembering the first time he had used the chamber and revealed his own destiny. Two of the specters fell to the ground and formed themselves into a tall square resembling Terror’s Lament. Another specter pointed a ghastly finger at Asterion’s chest and split apart into an army of miniature blue goblins. The scale goblin army charged into the spectral walls of Talonrend and disintegrated.
A great rumbling shook the bones of the stage and rattled some of the skulls from their resting place in the wall. A specter twice the size of the miniature walls swooped down from the top of the skulls in the shape of a dragon and breathed a cone of ethereal fire over the walls. The blue wisps forming Terror’s Lament and the dragon broke apart and landed on the stage as a horde of orc warriors. Each soldier was no taller than one of Asterion’s fingers, but they filled every inch of the stage.
The blue orc army marched in place for a moment and then stopped abruptly, forming into tents, huts, and other structures common to orc society. The broken and melted walls of Talonrend rose up from the bones to encompass the orc city. Another specter pulled itself free from the skull wall and split itself into hundreds of tiny goblins that walked into the city and mingled with the orc buildings.
Asterion stood from the dirt bench and waved his hand, scattering the wisps and erasing the scene. He spoke another line of arcane words and the specters assembled themselves into figures closely resembling their group. A ghostly image of Vorst stood next to the likenesses of Gravlox, Gideon, and Asterion and the four of them walked forward on spectral feet. The group stopped, looked around, and then flailed as though set on fire. The four images burned with blue flames and crumpled on the ground where a large azure dragon’s foot landed on them from above. The image dissipated instantly and the specters formed into a single column, one Asterion easily recognized as the Winged Tower. The Tower trembled and blue fire danced through the spectral wisps until the structure collapsed on itself.
With a shriek that broke the silence, the blue ghosts jolted and flew into the bones. An inky blackness overcame the star room that Asterion’s eyes could not penetrate. He reached a hand out and felt for the edge of the bone stage. The old priest gasped and stood, hurriedly exiting the room.
“What did you see?” Gideon asked as the priest emerged from the darkness. “Have the goblins found an ally?”
“A dragon,” Asterion gasped as he considered the implications. “A great blue dragon destroyed the city.”
“That is only one possible future,” the priest reminded them. “In another scene, the goblins attacked again, but were repelled easily. Still another showed orcs coming out of the mountains and conquering Talonrend.”
“None of those are part
icularly favorable,” Gideon stated. “But these are only some of the potential futures. Or they could be nothing more than the imaginations of old ghosts.”
The four ascended the tight spiral staircase quickly, eager to get out of the gloom and return to the sunlight. “Meet me at the gate tomorrow at dawn,” Asterion said to Gideon and the goblins with a nod. “No matter what future we will find, we must travel north. If the goblins come, the walls will hold. We must seek out this dragon…”
A chilling shudder coursed through Vorst’s spine as she imagined coming face to face with a dragon.
“I’ll see you at dawn, Asterion,” Gideon said as he led the goblins out of the towers. “With so many of the residents out on the road as refugees, it shouldn’t be difficult to find an abandoned building to hide you two for the night.” The goblins nodded their appreciation and stuck to the shadows as they scampered through the town.
THE SUN BROKE around the sides of Kanebullar Mountain and warmed the smooth stones of Terror’s Lament. It would take several hours for the light of the sun to pass over the high walls and illuminate the town. Gravlox shielded his eyes from the sunlight as he walked through the gate with Vorst and Gideon.
Asterion stood with his back to the light and looked up at the top of the walls. “There are soldiers everywhere,” he said, motioning to the guards with a hand. “How did you get them out of the city?”
“Only one soldier asked anything about them,” Gideon shrugged. “I just told them the goblins were to be released and I wasn’t questioned further. The soldiers are so young and untrained they don’t know any better. In any case, I would like to be far away from here before they figure it out.”
Black scorch marks stained the front of the outermost gatehouse. Large chunks of rubble had fallen from the walls, but Talonrend lacked the manpower necessary to start clearing the wreckage. Everywhere they looked, skeletons littered the plains in crumpled masses. Rotting goblin bones created a sea of waist-high carnage Asterion and Gideon did not look forward to traversing.
Gravlox and Vorst stared up at the silhouette of Kanebullar Mountain and shook their heads. The fallen goblin army did not bother them nearly as much as the ever present shadow of the mountain. Vorst reached out and grabbed Gravlox by the hand. “Let’s get moving,” she said quietly, but Gravlox had already put his feet in motion.
Gideon’s boots stomped through goblin skeletons with a chorus of cracks of and crunches that made him sick to his stomach. “Master Brenning is somewhere among these bones,” the paladin said solemnly. “Herod saw him leave the gate and no one has heard anything of his return.” Gideon surveyed the sea of bones and wondered where his friend’s corpse might lay.
“Just because he hasn’t returned to Talonrend,” Asterion said without much optimism, “does not mean Master Brenning is dead.” The words were hollow and tasted like a lie on his tongue.
The four companions trudged north and tried to ignore the vast multitude of bones that surrounded their footsteps.
Talonrend stood a few miles behind the group when they stopped for the night to set their camp. The air was cold and filled with specks of frost that nestled in Gideon’s beard before melting and dripping to the ground.
“We will start to climb tomorrow,” Asterion said as he broke off a piece of bread and handed it to Vorst. The base of the mountain range was only half a day’s walk away. “It will get cold up in the mountains,” the old priest stated, pulling his cloak tightly about his shoulders. Gideon grunted and hooked his fingers underneath the leather straps of the harness that crossed his muscled chest.
“Do you have anything warmer than that?” Asterion asked, pointing to Gravlox’s meager vest and Vorst’s even slighter garb. Gravlox sat on the ground in front of the cooking fire and pulled his knees in tightly against his chest to ward off the breeze.
Gravlox and Vorst had never experienced any temperatures that would require more than a simple animal hide. Even the highest elevated chambers of Kanebullar Mountain were comfortably warm.
“We can make fire,” Vorst responded after relaying the question to Gravlox.
Gideon chuckled and gazed up at the mountain range before them. “If we can bring down a bear,” he laughed, “we would surely get enough hide to cover them both from head to toe.”
Asterion’s wasn’t quite so jovial. “Until we can get them something warmer,” he stated, “my magic will have to suffice.” The old priest placed a wrinkled hand on Vorst’s shoulder and spoke the lines to a short spell that poured light over the goblin’s body.
Immediately, Gravlox sensed the origin of the power. He could feel something above him, miles above the clouds even, sending small bursts of energy down to the ground. The shaman cocked his head to the side and tried to send his own subconscious into the air to seek out the source of the magical heat. His mind soared and scoured the air but found nothing.
Placing one hand firmly on the ground, Gravlox beckoned to the energy he felt bubbling forth like magma between his fingers. Not fully aware of what the result might be, Gravlox ripped a fistful of dirt from the ground and conjured images of goblin furnaces in his mind. The dirt sprang to life in the air and rained a shower of harmless sparks down upon Vorst’s scowling face but something else lingered within Gravlox’s shamanistic senses.
“We might want to step back,” Gideon muttered as he placed a protective hand over Asterion’s chest. Vorst scrambled on all fours to a hide behind a tree stump.
Gravlox’s face contorted and his fingers trembled. The shaman’s mind latched onto a pool of untapped energy that quickly filled his senses and overwhelmed his control. With a boom like an anvil thrown from Terror’s Lament to the cobblestone below, a searing gout of flame burst forth from the ground at Gravlox’s feet and spiraled wildly into the sky. The pillar of fire spun and twirled as it laced the air with ash high above Gravlox’s head.
Panicked and fearing for his life, Gravlox severed the connection between his mind and the ever-flowing energy within his body. The snaking river of animated flames curled in on itself and erupted in a hail of embers and smoldering ashes that covered the ground and painfully stung the goblin’s exposed flesh.
“Fire,” was all that Gravlox was able to say before he collapsed to the ground with a smile plastered to his singed face.
Asterion brushed a layer of ash from his cloak and helped Vorst to her feet. “Your friend is rather… interesting,” the old priest muttered to himself in disbelief.
“THERE ARE ORCS following us,” Corvus whispered to a group of huddled paladins just after sunrise. The men were worn down and hungry, but that didn’t stop a gleam from creeping into the edges of their eyes at the prospect of battle. There were forty or more paladins scattered through the refugee train and Corvus had gathered a handful of them to help him scout.
“Did you get a look at their camp?” a grizzled old warrior asked as he rubbed the hilt of his mace.
“We saw some tents, but they had wolves with them.” Corvus lowered his voice as a woman carrying a jug of water walked past the group.
The older paladin glanced at his three comrades and Corvus, licking his lips. “The ones with wolves are just outriders, scouts for the army. Their mounts are too rare to risk on raid.” One of the younger paladins cleared his throat and swallowed nervously. “There’s an army of the green-skinned bastards out there, I can promise you that.”
Seamus walked up to the five paladins with Corvus’ mace tucked securely under his belt. “What do we do now?” the gruff farmer asked with an edge of fear in his voice.
The old paladin gave Seamus a hearty pat on his shoulder. “Are you ready to fight again?” he asked. Seamus was still bruised and battered from his previous encounter with the orcs and honestly had little taste for battle left in his stomach. He nodded despite his fear.
“Then we must press our attack. They won’t expect it.” The veteran grinned a toothy smile and spat on the frosted grass. “We kill the outriders, the army m
ight turn back. It’s the best chance we have to put a few of them under the ground before they do the same to us.”
Corvus rubbed at his sore neck, but knew he couldn’t object. It was the only option they had. “I’ll need more arrows,” Corvus muttered under his fogging breath.
The five paladins and Seamus set out in the direction of the orc outriders without much more deliberation. It didn’t take long for them to reach the copse of trees.
“I can see banners moving this way,” the youngest paladin stated with a cold voice steeled by the prospect of battle. Three tall banners swayed with footsteps just beyond a low rise a hundred or so yards away.
“Do we set an ambush?” Seamus asked, trying to give his voice the battle-hardened quality he heard when the other men spoke.
The paladins smiled and stifled a laugh. “We crusade in the holy name of Vrysinoch!” the veteran haughtily replied as he took the huge shield from his back and strapped it to his wrist.
Corvus flexed his bow and counted the arrows in his quiver. “We fight as one,” he explained to the farmer. “One mind, one shield, one mace. When paladins of Vrysinoch muster on the field of battle, it is as one soldier. Our cohesion will be their undoing.”
Seamus let a smile flicker at the edges of his mouth before he realized that he had no place in such a tactic. “What should I do?” he questioned.
“Stay by my side,” Corvus reassured him. “I only have a bow so I’ll need your strong arm at my back.”
The farmer couldn’t help but puff his chest out. He wanted nothing more than to be useful and find a place among the holy warriors he respected so much.
“Now,” the youngest paladin bellowed into crisp air with calm and deadly look to his eyes. “We march.”
The Goblin Wars Part Two: Death of a King Page 5