by Ben Stivers
“Arthur,” Wolf said, his voice carrying a slight piece of tattered edge.
Arthur gazed at his friend, “I am sorry, Wolf.”
He slumped to his knees and Wolf saw his friend clinging to the edge of his life.
Wolf nodded. “I am fine, but you have a sword sticking out of your back. We need to get you to a healer.”
A healer. Yes. Wolf gave Arthur a place to anchor, but Arthur’s mind lingered on what he had seen in that last man’s eyes. What was that?
Scralz waded toward them, took a look at Aerilius whose hand had been burned black. Scorches covered his chest and shoulders. “He might live. He might not. Want me to kill him?”
Wolf nodded negatively.
She approached Arthur and Wolf with concern on her face. “Wolf’s right, as much as I care to admit it. You need a healer. She hauled a rag from somewhere on her person and announced, “This might hurt.”
Quickly, she grabbed the protruding pommel and withdrew the blade. Arthur blinked, but said nothing. At least the blade did not seem to have dragged on the bone.
“There is no healer in Hellsgate,” he said, emotionlessly.
“Leave that to me. I have friends. There is a healer close by.”
“You have friends?” Arthur asked, settling into the moment.
Scralz tore the rag in half and stuffed one portion into the wound in his chest and the other into the back, fussing all the time for him to stay still.
“I thought I was still,” he said, a bit of his gruffness mustering.
“Wolf,” he said, gaining Wolf’s eyes for the first time. “I—”
“Shut up for once and owe me one. Scralz, where are we going?”
Scralz looked at him and replied, “We are taking him into the Downs.”
Bleary, the world danced around Aerilius’ consciousness, leaving only a blanket of white upon which to see. Slowly, the dense fog and the ringing backed away from his senses.
Pain wracked his left shoulder, arm, and he could hear nothing but the damnable ringing. Disorientation toyed with him, left him to wander in a dreamlike state for an eternity. He attempted to gather his thoughts, but they bounced around like a ship on an angry sea until he almost surrendered. At that instant, the fog cleared.
He raised himself painfully on one elbow. His sword hand was severely burned, as was his forearm to the elbow. His shirt had charred and his skin smelled of burned hair and flesh.
Groggy, he looked around him, taking in the street. His men lay scattered around in the road, face down.
They remained in Hellsgate.
Of course, they were in Hellsgate.
Where else could they have been?
He remembered another place in answer to that question, but he found himself unable to draw the scene from the depths of his memory. Painfully, he stood and evaluated the situation. Not even the vendors were out. No one was. The melee had evidently driven Hellsgate’s inhabitants indoors to huddle in their pitiable and pathetic hovels.
Where was Bornshire?
What had happened? Whatever had occurred, Aerilius had been found vulnerable. Why had he not died? Why had Bornshire not killed him?
He looked at his charred hand again. Not too much time would pass before pain rented a room in his brain and then the day would become much more unpleasant than it looked to already be. He needed to get out of the street and away, regroup, and then return.
His left hand drifted up his chest on its way to wipe the sweat from his face when his fingers touched the amulet around his neck.
“This is why I am alive,” he croaked.
Motivated to stay that way, he picked his sword up with his off hand, feeling the awkwardness of it. Struggling, he examined the grip. The leather still smoked, but if it burned his fingers, they had not yet complained. He shoved the wounded weapon into his sheath and staggered toward the stables. Mrandor would be waiting.
Elsa had been a whore. Her memory, however, finally laid at rest, obliterated from Aerilius’ memory by a deceased druid’s inherited magic.
The Council convened, the twenty-nine of thirty-three sitting in a broad circle in the main clearing of an oak grove, thirty-three large boulders lined the perimeter. Three archdruids had not arrived, but Lieala asked the Council to proceed.
Each stone had been chiseled six feet in circumference. Three feet inside of the perimeter, thirty-three flat stones at different directional positions where each arch-druid sat, lay level with the ground around it. Nine feet inside of that sat a fire circle nine feet in diameter. The inner circle held a modest fire of firestone, black rock from the mountains north. Two hundred twenty-seven paces, the circle scribed on the clearing.
Sitting at the north, south, east and west poles each archdruid wore a different color robe. To the north, white, the first to herald winter. To the east, green, the first to welcome spring. To the south, a pale yellow, the first to welcome summer, and to the west, an earth tone to welcome autumn’s call for all to return to dust. At each additional prime direction, the northeast, southeast, and others, a prime druid sat. In the middle, a single druid wore black. The remaining twenty-four stones sat inside the edge of those stones with a druid seated upon each stone except for one.
The overarching druid for this meeting would have normally been Daemon, for he was well respected, but this meeting could not be so, and a woman could not call Council. Thus, it had been given to Danwa to direct the proceedings.
“We are called by Zle’al to this council,” he opened, and his ceremony of introduction continued impeccably. Lieala sat quietly, trying not to let her misery drift onto her face. To do so had been hard enough in front of Joanie, Octavus and the residents of Drybridge, but Daemon would have told her to be brave, and so she had. Yet, she had always felt the most strong in his presence.
With the Council called to order, Danwa called a bard, Jea, from outside of the circle to enter. He went and stood on Daemon’s stone, but he did not presume to sit. He turned with a flourish, nodded to Lieala who sat on the stone next to the one he had taken, and bowed to her. She nodded, knowing that what she might hear would grieve her. Failing to muster a fragile smile, the bard turned away.
He spread his arms, turned his face to the mounting stars and sang a tune. The melody had no words, but still, the timbre reached inside of Lieala, took her misery and her deepest wishes to have her husband returned to her, a simple turning back of time that they might spend one more night together, or a day sitting by the creek, discussing the color and flight of leaves, and amplified it to all. Without looking at the Council, Jea’s song continued to mount, grieving over Daemon’s loss until not a one of them did not feel the same pain she had when she strode into the circle. Yet, he had spread her pain among them and leveled her burden. He sang, continuing without words of Daemon’s life, but in tone, no syllables. He sang the greatness of Daemon’s days, and his fall on his last day, which had somehow perhaps been his greatest day. Then as suddenly as he began, the bard quieted, folded his hands in front of him, and nodded.
“We have heard your song, Jea. Let us hear your story now,” Danwa said. He threw a handful of sprout upon the fire, and the flames rose and fell three times, then settled back to crackling.
Jea spoke, “Asked to investigate Daemon’s return to the Wheel, I went to the area where the pillar was reported seen. The ground lay scorched to the stone; there is little sand there, no more than glass shards. Wolves had already been there, spent on the bodies of many dead. I asked the stone, but it would not speak of the matter. Daemon had sworn it to hold a secret and it would not reveal. I queried the sky, but if it knew the tale, the Great Blue would not say. The wind spoke mildly of blood and battle, but mostly spoke of magic, a pure magic, and a practice of malady upon nature. Therefore, I spoke to the sea. It and its children had much to say. Stories of broken ships, a sorcerer of polluted practice, a fetid patron, the slaying of whales. They spoke for hours of a mighty battle, but alas, in the end Daemon evoked
his spell and thus the pillar of fire.
“The sea says that Daemon did not overcome his enemy, a great sorcerer from another land. This enemy rides the waves and travels to many lands. In some lands, they build ships, but the orca hampered their efforts for a while. Still, the enemy hunted them far out on the sea where only the largest waves could defend them. They have ceased their effort. They say the ships are many and their number multiplies. A few have skirted the shores of Britannia, searching, but for what, the orcas do not know and the sea does not care.
“I traveled further north and inland to see if further tales might be found, but all I found was a burned village. The men had been taken. The women and children had been left to starve, and they may have, had I not stayed awhile to escort them to the next village. Still, there was little they could tell me except that the men had blue eyes and blonde hair and that they had come in stout ships. They described the man in charge, who never spoke to any of them, but they told me each man had a brand upon his neck.”
“I met a child there. She gave me this.” He reached into his robe and withdrew a parchment where he held the spiraled symbol up for all to see. “This is—”
The parchment ignited into flame. Air within the circle concussed, killing Jea instantly and extinguishing the Druid’s holy flame. The wave of death ran up and out in a circle, an invisible burst of annihilation.
Chapter 12
In the Black Forest, sudden quiet blanketed the trees. A tenuous breeze carried the news. Leaves passed word along that forced the tree roots to shiver. Mrandor sat at a stone slab inside a chambered area of Belial’s developing cavern complex, scribing orders for ships and iron. He had spent the morning penning new directives for Nerva to implement in Overlord City that would accelerate Mrandor’s ability to control the populace while misdirecting Nerva’s sense of authority. The seeds of paranoia were now carefully planted. Nerva was naturally skeptic of those around him. Since he had such latent fallibility, focusing that energy on others rather than Mrandor would provide space to maneuver as soon as he took the time to return to the city proper.
As he inked a final order for ships, and a hand chopping for a particular city clerk who thought that skimming might be the best way for him to line his own pockets, Mrandor felt the percussion that occurred on the distant isle of Britannia. He laid down his pen, sensing the presence of Belial just moments before she swept into the archway.
“What was that?” she asked.
He answered with his own question. “Are you dissatisfied?”
He knew that she would not be. The spell he had woven into the parchment given to the child had released an explosive construct, using his memory of the guts of Sawtooth before the main peak vomited its guts out onto its own slopes. He suspected Daemon’s absence would not go unnoticed for long, and since his druid spouse lived in an undisclosed location nearby, Mrandor intended to find her. The sensation that the spell returned to him tasted like blood in his mouth. That concerned him.
He had amplified the spell’s power using Belial’s altar and her rune to bind it. Releasing it sent notice through the fabric of the altar and on to him the spell caster. Belial could not be left out of that equation, but he had never intended that she be left in the dark regarding his spell. It allowed him to test his binding abilities on her without triggering suspicion, or so he hoped.
“Delectable,” she smiled and she licked her lips while her teeth clanking around inside their rows, rattling like snakes in the Syrillian Desert. “What wickedness have you wrought?”
“I have dealt a new blow to the druids. The spell would only trigger when a Bornshire was present about. All in the vicinity would be subject to the spell’s wrath.”
“Thus the taste of blood?”
He did not answer, even with a nod. Only a smile told her what she wanted to know. Satisfied, she swept back out of the chamber to continue her trivial undertakings.
He gathered his notes, packaged his counsel for Nerva, called for a horse, and dispatched a messenger to bring his fleet to their meeting place. He knew where to go now to verify Lieala Bornshire's situation, dead or alive. Though the spell did not tell exactly where she was, its residual beamed in his mind like a beacon. To himself, he allowed that he hoped she had not died. He wanted to choke the life out of her scrawny neck with his own two hands.
“Tell the ships to be ready in a fortnight,” he directed the messenger. “I will return from Overlord City and we will set sail for Britannia. I want half a dozen ships at the ready with a full compliment.”
The messenger nodded and departed. Mrandor crossed the camp and shortly his horse was delivered and he left. At the edge of forest, another steed awaited him as the first one sweated to the verge of its death. If it left the earth before Mrandor reached the horizon, it would not have surprised him.
With a contubernium of his men in Ploor and a sizeable fleet ready to engage the druids on their own home ground, the underpinnings of the man who was Arthur Bornshire would soon be demolished.
Shanay and Adam prepared for their trip before the sleeping sun had thrown back its cover of stars. Already the tradesmen were about their business, stoking the embers of their forges, sharpening their chisels and saws, doling out the day’s work to their crews. With respect to their employers, they had not begun hammering or sawing or chiseling, but once they saw mother and son heading for the stables, the work began in earnest before the Bornshires finished saddling their horses.
“I brought my new bow,” Adam said, but he had also brought his sword, which he wrapped onto his saddle in an oiled cloth as well as belt knives, boot knives and a half a dozen throwing knives across his chest. He handed his older bow to Shanay; she pulled it tight and slowly let it return to its previous ready position without snapping the string.
“Nice. Look out game, here we come.”
She and Adam passed around smiles and then both mounted their horses. Artex jittered, ready to go, and already Adam felt his excitement for the trip. Not that he did not appreciate his new surroundings and a new dwelling, albeit but a temporary lodging until the new estate reached livable stages, but because he longed to quench restlessness in his bones to be back hunting in the woods.
He followed Shanay through the camp and then once clear, they trotted their horses along the well-trod path toward Arthur and Shanay’s previous dwelling. He had never been there and only an hour passed before they reached the site.
Already the wilds had taken the meager garden back, but he could discern where it had been. The house had been mostly dismantled, but some of its bones remained.
“Arthur put a lot of sweat into this,” Shanay remarked with some remorse.
“Why tear it down?” Adam asked.
“Your father may be a better seamstress than a carpenter, Adam. He’s sewn up quite a few more wounds on a battlefield than he has built up houses.”
Adam kept his eyes to the remains, but the humor of that statement did not go unnoticed by his tendency to smile. He had heard Wolf tease Arthur at times about his trade skills, none of which he possessed and honestly, none of those skills would keep a man alive when evil came knocking.
“At least he attempted to build it,” Shanay finally said, and turned her horse out from the path into the forest. They traveled for another hour, and then dismounted, loosely tied their horses to a sapling and took down the bows and quivers. “Always leave Artex an out,” she coached. “He is quite strong enough to break this sapling should a wolf or a bear approach, but the sapling will keep him still until we return.”
Adam nodded that it made sense. As they wound their way down a short slope, up another, and then down the far side, they entered stealth. They spread apart a hundred paces and proceeded down the slope, scouting a small creek that wound through the rocks in the lowest point between two slopes. They hoped to see a deer or two. A pair of deer would feed the tradesmen quite well, and as a gift from their employer, it could return more appreciation for their eff
orts than gold ever would.
Looking Shanay’s way, he signaled for her to crouch near some cover and he did the same. The sun climbed toward the sky’s midmorning seat and they continued sitting, giving Adam time to think, which brought to mind his time in Ploor and the days since then. Ploor’s many streets with four main thoroughfares and two-dozen sideways held dozens of businesses, the stables, the harbormaster, the smithy, the cobbler, the tanner, and weapons makers for general weaponry and for specialized gear. A myriad of other enterprises existed, some of which he had no interest, such as the moneychanger.
His mind drifted to the encounter on the street. Had he been unsuccessful, he might be at sea, freezing in a hold, chained to the hull with other unfortunates. Arthur said that the One God loved all of mankind, but that He hated evil. Adam had asked why He allowed evil, if He loved all of humanity.
“God could have created all of us so that none of us were evil, but that would have made mindless puppets, I suppose,” Arthur had said. “Without the ability to choose between good and evil, free will would not exist. Without free will, I imagine no evocative relationship would exist between Him and us.”
“Is this what your father taught?” Adam asked.
Arthur shrugged. “My father follows a different god, but his approach to his relationship is much more—well, it is something other than mine. My mother and father believe that all things on this earth are holy—the rock, the water, the wind and fire. They honor all that God has placed here and hold it in deep reverence.”
“So, they do not believe in evil?”
Seriousness had gathered in Arthur’s face. “Absolutely they believe in evil, but that evil can be as much a transgression against what we think of as nature as it would be against another man, woman or child.”
“So your god—he thinks man is more important.”
Arthur shook his head. “Adam, I wish I knew.”