The Exodus Sagas: Book II - Of Dragons And Crowns

by Jason R Jones

  The Nadderi swordsman ducked another swordcut from the rapier, then another. He heard the head hit the stone street, then the body, his second dead adversary. He turned and thrust his backheld longsword behind him into the gut of a human agent that had snuck around him. The man screamed in pain, and Kenadri ripped the blade out sideways as he continued his low crouched assault, dancing and weaving in the dark of night between the men. He parried one attack with Shiver, and counterattacked with a crosscut into the bounty hunter’s thigh. The hot edge of the longblade in his right hand slashed across his chest deep, sending the man tumbling backwards with sizzled flesh and bleeding lacerations that dominated him with painful groans as he dropped his rapier. The cursed elf rolled again, landing upright with his back against the wall. He looked at the two remaining White Spider hunters of the city streets and smiled, then to the dead man without a head and their two allies squirming in the throes of terminal wounds at their feet. “I say that evens things a bit, would you agree?” his shining green eyes stared with a wickedness and smile that chilled the two remaining swordsmen.

  “Clluunkk, thewwmmp!” Before the Nadderi elf could react, a crossbow bolt sunk into his left shoulder. The agent with the stomach run through had reached for the crossbow from his decapitated cohort, and shot the elf with a poisoned arrow then his head fell limp on the cobblestone.

  “Aaargghh! Bastard coward!” the pain coursed through his left arm, followed by numbness and twinges of muscle. Kendari lunged forward with Shiver, feigning a thrust toward the man on his right. As the parries went out from the rapiers, he turned his elbow sharply and cut across the throat of the agent on his left and stepped behind him. Blood ran from the choking swordsman’s neck, gurgling and coughing out as he began to fall. He was pushed forward instead by the marked elf, then stepped on as a jumping platform as Kendari leapt off from behind him in the night sky. The remaining agent cut across the airborne Nadderi’s shin, barely cutting through the leather boot, then felt the hot blade withdraw from his chest.

  Kendari landed and kept walking, knowing his flying lunge had gone straight through the heart. He heard the assassin drop to the ground and he sheathed Shiver and his pyramid pommeled sword. He turned to look down the alleyway to where the others had been fighting the Agarian woman. He heard the sounds of combat from inside the old empty temple and began to walk toward the broken doorway. The battle silenced, and Kendari felt dizzy and weak. He put his right hand on the poisoned projectile and pulled it free, dropping it to the street as he stumbled along the temple wall. The Nadderi elf saw blurs of dark shadows, and saw a haze of a stumbling man dressed in black with a black mask up to his eyes. He drew Shiver to match the rapier that his opponent had out before him. Circles of moonlight clouded Kendari’s vision, yet he waited for the man in the doorway to make a move toward him. The poison was coursing, Onjani leaf paste he assumed by the blurred vision and spasming, which meant that they were here to capture and not kill. The cursed elf knew it would put a normal man out for several days, so he tried to remain conscious and fight it with all he had. It was not enough, his eyes darkened beyond that of the nightwashed alley, and Kendari fell to the street.

  The White Spider agent had seen his fellows killed inside the temple, now saw his five other brothers dead at the end of the alleyway. He stared for a moment at the unconscious elf he knew as the deadly and wanted Kendari of Stillwood, and stared at the heat rippling from his longsword. He thought of the bounty. Fear and common sense took over in the dimly lit and empty street, fear that she was coming out the door any moment. He ran to his right toward the wharf district, hoping the mystical woman and the elven assassin would not find his trail in the vast metropolis of Harlaheim. He thought of how Mistress Florin would be most upset at losing eight men, especially in the middle of her political maneuvers in the castle courts. At the end of the street, the agent turned to look behind him. He saw the woman walk out of the temple, staring right at him with her blade still in hand. She looked down to the elf who was now laying on the ground, then back at him. He ran, not wanting anything to do with the woman, not one on one anyway.

  Angeline sheathed her sword at her side, looked at the dead bodies in the street, then down to Kendari who was breathing, but not moving as he lay on the cobblestones. Her code and oath to her secret order would never allow killing a helpless creature for any reason, nor leaving one to die when assistance could be offered. The maiden of the Knights Soujan felt her wounds still stinging from this abomination of an elf, and sensed the poison in his veins. She breathed deep and knelt down beside him, fighting the thoughts of ending his corrupt and unnatural life right here as an act of mercy to him and others. Angeline sheathed his heat emitting longsword, and drug him inside the empty temple by the arms. She sensed the magic from his boots, his bracers, his ring, a pendant, his cloak, and both his blades.

  “Quite an assortment of enchanted valuables you have, cursed one. I wonder how many were given to you and how many were taken from those you have killed.” she continued to pull the elf into the safety of the abandoned building. Heaving him up onto a pew, one of few that was still in one piece, Angeline Berren knelt beside the Nadderi elf and began to clear her mind to pray.

  Exodus II:XI

  Tower of Kalzarius, Harlaheim

  Kalzarius awoke to silence all around him, only the slow rise of the sun in the west and the fading orbs of green and white moons to the east and north caught his attention. He saw the silhouette of Cilano standing off the balcony, still and unmoving, staff lowered and posture relaxed. The old master of the arcane rose from his bed and walked toward the edge of the nineteenth floor of his tower to see the latest advances of the siege that had been ongoing for six days and nights. His anxiety was quickly relieved when he saw but a hundred soldiers posted at all four gates of his walls and safely back about a hundred feet. They were camped in tents save for a few nighttime watchmen, as were the gray guards of his own.

  “They have withdrawn master, during the night, yet I feel the siege continues simply to keep us from getting involved in something greater that transpires within the city.” Cilano opened his eyes, sensing his teacher beside him and the first rays of the sun warming his face from high above the majestic courtyard.

  “Have our men clear out their dead, organize them, and our students will levitate them over the walls to the west. We will know their intentions when the two hundred deceased are returned to them, stone and otherwise. If they attempt an attack, we remain at full defenses. If they do not, we may return our guards to the tower and solely rely on the glyphs and arcane protections against such a small force. Give the men their needed rest, and you as well.” Kalzarius concentrated and whispered a few words in the arcane which floated his darkwood staff to his hands.

  “And what of the king, should we try and make contact?” Cilano relaxed, knowing that Kalzarius had taken control of the arcane wards and senses throughout the tower and surrounding grounds.

  “No, let them come to us. In the meantime, we need to put out our spies in the city. Send the students in guises of cats, birds, rats and bats to L’Herrim Castle and the other keeps of the corrupt nobility. We will arm ourselves with the information of their plans before they come to us with various versions of it on paper. Tell them not to engage any danger or persons, merely to listen throughout the day and into evening. We are still under siege and at war with our own rulers, keep that in mind.”

  “I will go with them, for safety and precaution in case anything would happen.” Cilano took in a deep breath over the quiet Harlaheim morning.

  “Are you sure you have the energy? You have been up for two days and nights, Cilano.” Kalzarius furrowed his brow trying to dissuade his right hand wizard against taking on such a task when weariness could play a vital flaw.

  “I learned from the greatest and most powerful wizard on the continent, I am sure master Kalzarius. Do not worry for me, it is I who worry leaving an old man as the only wizard to protect the towe
r from siege.” Cilano laughed and patted his mentor on the shoulder as he passed by to head below and summon the students.

  “Bahh! I have been more than merciful to these royal trespassers this time. In days past I would have engulfed the sky with giant bolts of flame and lightning storms that would have-“

  “I know master, I know. I was here, remember?”

  “Yes, yes, very true. Ahhh, well here we are again, the unknown about to be known and the wreakage of another siege to be repaired. Only what motive and what went on under our noses is left to be discovered. Good luck, and be safe.” Kalzarius tried to recall his dreams now, in peace and solitude as he heard the heavy door open and close with his pupil’s passage down. “Gwenneth Lazlette, what is that staff you now hold? I could feel its great power in my dreams, and I hope it is not what I think it is.” the old arcane master was glad to know that she and her companions were alive, and that they had met with Ansharr in the mountain. His dreams were never misleading or incorrect, and Kalzarius had seen Gwenne sleeping next to her friends and clutching a staff of great old power. He had also seen the arcane marks and runes glowing faintly on their own while she slept, as if it had been working its energies on free will during the night. Kalzarius had heard and seen many a potent and cursed object of enchantment before, but none that had a mind or will of their own that acted in secret. His concern was now not the mild siege around his tower, but for his former pupil’s direction and what she was carrying. The old wizard stroked his gray and white beard and began to go through his vast memory of both the vision in his dream and his studies of ancient arcane staves. He smiled, knowing it could take days with all that he had learned and read over his long life.

  “Ahhh, sometimes to be old and wise has its drawbacks.” Kalzarius laughed to himself as he struggled to recall the markings on the staff in his dreams and compare it to something from his waking memories. His mind drifted to Ansharr, getting the feeling that it had been too long since they had spoken in closeness with one another.

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  The road west was small and unkempt at best, sometimes seeming nothing more than an old deer trail or long forgotten pilgrims path to nowhere worth the journey any longer. The marshes to the north held strange sounds and smells especially at night when they made camp. The open hills and forests to the west and south were illuminated by the rising sun and the view of Soujan Mountain had faded back to the east after two days of long marching. The village of Saint Tarumin, although holy and full of Aldane priests seeking seminary blessing and confirmation to begin their ordained lives, was avoided at the request of Lord Cristoff. He had stated that many knights belonging to the Order of Saint Tarumin would be there, and being seen at this point was not worth the risk. Word could spread with the best intentions of holy knights or priests if he and they were seen returning from the east together. Cristoff was concerned of who would eventually hear of it. Tired, in need of shelter and warm beds, and with but a days worth of food remaining; the group was ensured by the Lord of Saint Erinsburg that they would reach the safety of his castle and city by late afternoon.

  “How much further Cristoff? My legs be about numb and done in here.” Azenairk kept trudging the dirt path, keeping pace with the floating wizard and two armored men in front of him. He looked up at the rising sun and the horizon to the west, knowing Saberrak the gray and Lady Shinayne were scouting ahead of the rest of them as usual. Those two never seemed to tire or feel the weight of weariness from travel like the rest of them did.

  “Perhaps four or five hours before we reach the farmsteads, midafternoon at the latest, good priest.” the Lord of Saint Erinsburg was feeling the weight of his armor as well, and his age.

  “Pity that your God does not give you the power to levitate, Zen, I feel perfectly rested.” Gwenneth chuckled as she floated behind the dwarf. She had been feeling the power of the staff coursing through her for hours making it easier to hold her arcane flight without any concentration.

  “If Vundren wanted me off of the stable ground it would be so, wizard. He gives me all I need when I need it, and I s’pose he feels I be needing some hiking instead of floating.” Zen Thalanaxe grumbled as he trodded along in his heavy steel armor.

  “Well at least you know who God is, unlike poor James up there. He’s not sure if a God or a Goddess beckons him to knighthood at this point and his confused look is enough to invoke pity in almost anyone.” she whispered to the dwarf, but not low enough for James Andellis to miss the insult at his current spiritual condition.

  “I suppose to you, mighty wizard and daughter of the Lady of Vallakazz, that is most amusing!” James stopped in his tracks and whirled around at the black robed woman hovering a foot off of the earth. “At least I have spiritual quandaries to be confused over, unlike yourself who thinks of nothing but books and power.”

  “It has served me well so far, knight. Do not forget that my studies brought down an entire Altestani warship and have slain far more of our enemies than your blade, God or no God.” Gwenne’s green eyes beamed into his with not a hint of fear or intimidation behind them.

  “Enough!” Cristoff turned toward the two of them. “Discuss it after a nights rest and some warm food, maybe some wine, but not now and not here.”

  “Some wine? James would love some wine-“

  “Why is it you despise me so and insist on prodding me? I find it difficult to tolerate your incessant jests at my expense, Gwenneth. Perhaps you are just jealous that someone besides yourself has been shown some attention.” James stared at her, restraining his anger as he noticed Cristoff and Zen slowly walking back toward them.

  “You have gained much more attention and far more reward than you deserve, James Andellis. I am not jealous, but I pity you and your ability to hide the past under the rug and carry on in the name of God.” Gwenne’s face took a serious countenance as she taunted more in hopes of angering the man who carries her long deceased father’s sword. She glanced at the blade, the winged griffon crosspiece, then back at James who saw every movement of her eyes.

  James began to say something he would have regretted, but his mind made a connection between the sword and the woman, his former Lord who once was the captain of the guard in Vallakazz and the wizard before him, and he stopped for a moment to breathe. Before he could start putting things together, James and those around him all went on guard hearing yells of pain from up ahead. Not a female elven voice, and surely not the low growl of a gray minotaur, but a man in a struggle with someone and resisting with rebellious roars and howls. All four of them sprinted as fast as their legs would go toward the west over the forest covered hilltop.

  “Let me go!!! I must see my Lord, aarrgghh!!!” Norrice fought the grip of the horned beast despite an elven longblade tipped near his throat. He had not slept but a few stolen hours in a barn in the last two days as he cut through the wilderness and countryside to avoid being found. The soldier had hoped to find Cristoff before he arrived home and was killed in his own halls.

  “Hold there Saberrak, I know this man.” Cristoff ran toward the massive gray minotaur who had Norrice in a painful hold with his head pulled back and arm twisted behind his back. The Lord of Saint Erinsburg motioned for Lady Shinayne to lower her blade from the soldier’s throat and step back.

  “He was waiting in that tree there, and he is armed.” Saberrak grunted and kept the hold a little less painful for the human.

  “My Lord! You are alive, you are alive! I have been traveling for days to find you.” Norrice tried to bow his head as best as the minotaur would allow.

  “Of course he is alive. Is there reason he should not be?” Shinayne sheathed her enchanted longblade and waited for the ragged soldier to answer.

  “Well yes, and no, I’m not sure really. I do bring disturbing news my lady, my lord, and warnings.” the starving soldier was nervous, never having been held hostage by a minotaur or interrogated by a beautiful elven woman before. His mind raced on what he did an
d did not want to say.

  “What is it you must tell me Norrice? Saberrak, it is fine, you may let him go.” Lord Cristoff waved his hand and then helped the man to his feet.

  Norrice felt the grip release further as he rose to his feet and felt the hot breath from a loud snort of distaste and distrust from the gray minotaur. He knelt immediately after standing and bowed his head. “My Lord Bradswellen, your cousin Sir Savanno Lisario is dead.”

  Long silence between all present shrouded the uncounted moments, no one wishing to be the first to break it. Eyes glanced back and forth to one another, but mostly to the Lord of Saint Erinsburg. “And Queen Rosana?”

  Norrice sighed with his head bowed still. “Taken prisoner by the king and Lady Florin, my Lord. They beat her and cut her hair and disguised-“

  “How did this happen? Where are the rest of the men? Damn it where is my cousin!?” Cristoff lifted the soldier to his feet with a bit too much force and pressed him against a pine tree. His anger was brimming in his tone along with the redness of hate and pain in his face.

  “Sire, we rescued the queen and made it past the royal guard and the bishop. But we were separated and set up by the king. He had us ambushed just south of Saint Erinsburg my lord. I am the only one who survived. I tell you now, they are waiting for you and these fugitives. Please my lord, do not return home. They know you helped Savanno, as did Sir Sulian. My sole purpose these last few days has been to try and find you before they did, to warn you before they killed you.” Norrice began to sob, to shake, and to feel the weariness of his travels in the cold without food or shelter.

  “The queen carries Savanno’s child, she is pregnant. Richmond would be a fool to kill her and end his line of blood and claim to the throne. He would also make a vicious enemy of Caberra should Rosana’s father the king hear of it in his country. Why would he take such chances with his future rule? It does not make sense.” Cristoff was thinking aloud, trying to put the pieces together.