Maverick

by Curtis, Greg

There were theories of course, the main one being that the stone trolls had burrowed or swum under the ground, underneath the wards but that seemed unlikely to Marjan. He didn’t know how the beasts could sink into the ground at all, but swimming for maybe many hundreds of leagues through stone, that seemed a little too much even for him. The other of course was that they’d made it through before the wards had been put in place, and while it seemed more plausible to him, he couldn’t understand how such huge creatures would not have been spotted a long time before, or alternatively, how they could have controlled themselves for so long and not gone out on a hunger fuelled rampage which would surely have been noticed.

  Yet whatever the truth, the reality was that while the enemy hadn’t come for them again, they still knew he was out there. Every so often they would get reports from the wizard guilds of sightings of vast, unidentifiable creatures still eating their way through the northern lands, and while some they killed, some were getting away. It seemed that as time went by, the void creatures were becoming more and more powerful, and the worry was that sooner or later some of them would be able to cross the chasm, and start eating, despite the wards.

  Marjan, like probably every other spellcaster in the world, spent a part of every day training himself to fight, building on what Master Argus had taught him, and though he was no longer growing in power as quickly as before, he still felt he was making progress. To make real progress though, he knew he’d have to fight, and that involved heading into enemy territory, something he was reluctant to do, and something the elders would disapprove of as he had a full time job just helping with the repair of the city. No one could be spared. Still, when he had the chance, he liked to spend an hour or two in the quarry, just launching his most powerful weapons at the broken stone walls. He doubted the quarry was so happy about it but it didn’t complain.

  This morning though, he had different plans, a good breakfast, and then a day helping the druids and the artisans as they completed their latest platform, raising it up on the endless tangle of ropes that supported the new town, and then locked it in place. It would be a good day, every day that a new platform was finished was a good day, and he was determined to look his best for it.

  Others though had other ideas as to what looking one’s best meant.

  “How can you do that to yourself?” Petras actually sounded mortified as he sat there watching Marjan shave, and yet it was such a small thing. Of course to a dwarf a beard was a sign of masculinity and no true dwarf would ever be caught dead without one that reached at least down to his stomach, and of course, the bushier the better. No doubt the lad was eagerly looking forwards to the day when his own facial hair would start to grow.

  “Shaving is one of the true pleasures in life Petras, the feel of the soap lathering your face, the way the blade so carefully removes the annoying bristles and leaves your skin feeling clean and refreshed, and smelling good too. Then when it’s over, your skin feels soft and braced for hours. One day when you’re older, you should try it.” Naturally the lad was having none of it and he almost took a step back in horror at the very thought of shaving, while all around him his friends just laughed.

  Marjan wasn’t quite sure why the children had all come to bother him that morning before breakfast, unless it was to play with Bearabus who was busy napping beside him on the long grass as she waited for breakfast, but it was quite a pleasant way to start the day, especially these days when indoor plumbing and warm homes had become a thing of the past.

  Evensong had become a small city of tents, with families taking shelter in the cold of winter under the well-oiled canvas sheets that had once been their trade goods. Now, they had nothing to trade, but at least they were dry and warm while the weavers worked day and night creating more and more canvas sheets on their vast looms, while others spent their days weaving rugs and rescuing timber and property from the remains of the town. Most of the druids and mages were engaged full time in either the rebuilding or growing crops, while those in service of the Goddess with magic were concentrating their efforts on restoring full life to the area.

  So far they’d been busy restoring some life to those trees which were only stumps but which had enough greenery remaining to grow once more, and helping the others which could no longer be saved to rot down more quickly, allowing the people to not be reminded every day of the disaster by their tombstone like stumps. In time those that had been destroyed would be nothing more than memories, and grass would take over where they had once stood proud, while the town of Evensong would be rebuilt further back into the forest. With a larger glade at its heart for crops and grass, it was hoped that in years to come, the town would actually become larger than before, and that was something to look forwards to. The people needed hope, especially when so many had had to be buried in makeshift graves as the rest had to work day and night simply on staying alive.

  For three long months, after being given leave by the healers from helping them, he was after all only a student in the healing magics and he had other work he was better suited to, Marjan had done little more than work with the artisans in breaking down the fallen trees and converting them into timber, not an easy task when each fallen woodland giant was two or three hundred feet long and twenty feet high even lying on its side even without its branches. It was a task made all the slower when someone had to carry the endless piles of lumber away and dry and polish them before they could be used, and while many horses had survived the attack, most wagons hadn’t been so lucky. But it was happening and he liked that the elves were putting the timbers of their fallen homes to good use in building their new ones. Out of the wreckage new hope was being built.

  Meanwhile his own house had survived the ordeal almost unscathed, only because it wasn’t perched fifty feet up in a tree and nothing had fallen directly on it, and once the branches covering it had been cleared away the artisans had repaired it within a day and converted it into a small infirmary for their most seriously ill patients. He was glad of that, pleased that his cottage had survived the attack but he also felt a little guilty as well at his good luck and it was good that they could put it to good use. For him for the moment, a simple ground sheet and canvas fly was enough as it was for most of the rest of the rangers.

  Bearabus seemed content with their accommodations as well, as long as she got fed, and she was a warm body to sleep beside at night, even if she snuffled and every so often woke him up as she licked at his face. He forgave her though, when she willingly let herself be mauled by a thousand children a day without complaint, bringing them some cheer in difficult times.

  It was lucky perhaps that the elves were such natural craftsmen as they could rebuild their city from the ground up in half the time anyone else could, and even in barely a couple of months since they had started building, they could see the outline of the new city forming. In that they were surely ahead of so many others, and there were many others.

  It had been enough of a shock to return to the town to find that things were every bit as terrible as he’d remembered, and worse of course for those he’d rescued, who simply hadn’t seen the final devastation before being captured and led away. But then to find out on the first occasion when the elders had asked for him to speak with the wizards guild that four other towns had been hit just as they had been, and many were far worse off than Evensong, that was somehow even worse.

  The gnomish towns of Fairweather and Freemans Bay had all but been destroyed, apparently the day before Evensong, and there the death tolls were much higher. But then those towns were far larger and the gnomes were not the greatest of warriors. Still the wizards had rescued those who had been taken by the goblins the next day, and punished the offenders properly. The goblins tolerated for so long as their lairs were well away from people, would never pose a problem again.

  In southern Tonfordia the city of Xanos had been attacked, but with mixed results. The humans built strong stone walls around their towns and they had cannon and a large organised
militia. A dozen of the giant stone trolls had not returned from that attack, and neither had the goblins, though the city had suffered terrible losses. The lair, afterwards, had been destroyed with explosives.

  Then, south and west of Tonfordia in the wild-lands, the barbarian city of Stonecroft had been attacked, and there the goblins and their masters had bitten off far more than they could chew, far more than they could have imagined.

  True to their nature the barbarians had responded to the attack with their own brand of savagery, chased the goblins all the way back to their lair, and killed them all. Then, when the dust had settled, they’d gone on to attack two more lairs in their region, killing everything that moved. Even now they were staking out the last two known lairs in the wild-lands, preparing to rid the region of its entire goblin population forever. Stone trolls as the goblins had discovered to their peril, were fantastic at destroying cities, but not nearly so good at breaking armies, and they were worse than useless at defending their masters from hordes of axe wielding warriors on horse back with blood lust in their eyes. They wouldn’t make that mistake again. They would never make any mistakes ever again.

  As for the masters, the barbarians had discovered that their magic was almost useless against a properly enraged warrior, and more importantly, that they burned well. Several of the horrors had been caught, dragged out on ropes by riders on horseback, and fed to the great bonfires until nothing remained but ashes. It was a terrible death and Marjan almost felt sorry for them, almost.

  Later the wizards had got involved, several being dispatched from their posts along the border, which it now appeared was not the barrier it should have been, to investigate the chimera as they were calling the patchwork horrors that had made the goblins their own personal armies, and presumably shaped the giant stone trolls. Thus far Marjan had heard little back from them, not that he had much time to call his own. Even the council had little time to spend on speaking with the guilds, as busy as they were with rebuilding their home. But the one thing he had been told was that one of the chimera had been captured alive and been brought back to a guild house for study.

  The tomes of writings he had collected from the goblin lair had also been collected by the guild, and were being studied, in the hope of finding out at least a little more of these things and how they had got past the barrier. Maybe it was wrong to have not kept them for the elders to examine, even though they had refused having too much else to do, but in truth he was grateful for their absence. Without them, the air felt just a little cleaner, the mood just a little lighter and the sun beat down on them just a little bit more brightly, and when Journeywoman Adama had arrived to collect them he had been more than happy to give them to her.

  He needed the clean air.

  “So this is where you crept off to children!” Essaline’s voice came from behind him and he realised that she had joined them, no doubt chasing down her errant students, and he felt a flush of pleasure just at the sound of her voice, a heartbeat before he realised he was half naked and started desperately reaching for his clothes while she laughed gaily. She had such a wonderful laugh.

  “Not to worry my beloved. I don’t see anything I won’t want to see again.” She laughed some more while for some reason he turned even redder and the children giggled at his embarrassment. They should have known better.

  “Now off to breakfast and then school young ones. Your studies have been sorely neglected these past months and it is well past time that you returned fully to them. Master Nelis has promised a test for anyone who is late to his class this morning.” That last did it and he watched as the children scattered like the wind, running for the makeshift dining area as fast as their feet could carry them, shrieking with laughter all the way. Meanwhile he managed to get his vest on and look at least a little closer to respectable, even if there was soap lather over everything, while she approached, a smile in her eyes.

  How was it, he wondered, that even in the midst of this tragedy, when she like everyone else was spending every hour of the day working on rebuilding their home and looking after the children, when no one had any good clothes, and when sadness had almost become a part of daily life, that she could look so beautiful. Something about that simply wasn’t right, though he would never complain.

  “My lady.” He greeted her, perhaps a little too formally, as she came to him, and then was rewarded with a slight frown, before she covered the rest of the distance between them and put her arms around his waist, holding him tight as he wanted. Naturally he held her too, unbelievably happy to know the feel of her once more in his arms, and knowing what he’d said wrong.

  “I’m sorry, I meant my beloved.” He whispered it into her ears and was rewarded with a kiss on the cheek. Not everything he wanted, but enough when she was still in his arms.

  “I know you did. At least I hope so. So strong, such powerful magic and yet so circumspect. You do find me attractive don’t you Marjan? I’ve heard such strange things about wizards!” She even managed to bat her eyelids at him coyly as she said it, all but leaving him gasping with shock that she could say such a thing, for a moment. Of course he quickly realised, she didn’t mean it, she was just playing with him, her cheeky smile giving away the truth. She liked doing that and for some reason he liked letting her. Still it was probably time to make sure that nothing of such foolish words was ever left unanswered.

  He grabbed her waist tight in his arms, held her close and looked her straight in the eyes, making sure she knew the truth in his heart. “As I have said before and will undoubtedly say again my beloved, you are the most wonderful, beautiful woman in the entire world, and my only true desire in this life is to wed you, bring you home to my little cottage, and then make love with you until the end of time.” It was true too, a strange thing for a wizard to have to admit, but not something he could regret.

  “Good.” She kissed him then, using her arms to drag his head down to hers, and planting her lips fully, passionately, on his, as a wife should kiss her husband, in private. Her body melted into his, promising him everything that he was dreaming of, and arousing his most primal desires. She hadn’t done that in a while, there was simply too much work to do for them to have much time to themselves, long days and nights, and he discovered he’d missed her more than he’d guessed.

  “That is my true desire as well.” He couldn’t help but laugh with happiness as she told him the truth of her own feelings, her face now covered with soapy foam, and then he kissed her some more.

  Sadly it couldn’t last. Even without her aunt’s presence, they both knew it wouldn’t be right, not yet, and so eventually he stopped kissing her and settled for just holding her close, telling her that he loved her, and waiting for her to tell him why she’d come. He knew there would be a reason, she couldn’t have justified visiting him just for pleasure, not when there were so many others who needed her time. The priests and priestesses were busy these days.

  “My love, the council is meeting at midday, their first full session since the attack, and they have requested your presence.”

  “I will be there.” Which of course he would. It wasn’t just because it was the elders who had called him, though that was ample reason on its own, it was because if they were finally having a full session after months of little more than hurried conversations amid the wreckage as they ran around like headless chickens, that was an important step in the healing of the town. He had to play his part.

  “We all will be. The wizards have found some answers at last, and have requested the meeting with the elders. I believe there will be some guests arriving.”

  “Ephesus be praised!” Suddenly there was light in these dark times and for Marjan it was almost as though the sun had come out. More than anything else he wanted those answers, he wanted to know the who and the how and maybe even the why of the evil that had befallen them, but most of all he wanted to end it, and if he was honest he wanted some blood as well. If only he had someone to blame, and though reven
ge wasn’t the elven way he doubted he was alone in that. Sometimes when he looked into the eyes of the elves as they carried on bravely doing all that they could to improve their lot, and grieving their losses in silence, he could see a touch of that same darkness that had taken a hold in his heart. It was sad, especially in such a decent people, but it was also honest and justified.

  “Once more the Goddess smiles upon us my beloved.”

  “She does indeed.” He had to nod to her beliefs as always, she was a priestess after all and this was an elven town, but he felt no conflict in it. He had seen the wondrous works of the Goddess through her servants and he held them in the same regard as he did the blessings of the Lord of Magic. There was no reason why he could not accept both, and in any case the two gods themselves were allies in the eternal fight against darkness.