FARHAYVEN: VENGEANCE

by S. K. Ng

  Thorn continued to crouch-run past the herd of wild elephants for a distance of approximately 200 paces. He then crouch-walked backwards with large strides to double back on his tracks, so that the tracks he had made on the grass did not show him turning back. Then he leaped away from his tracks, landing in a roll and crawled slowly and quietly towards the herd. He was hoping that the tracks that he had made crawling on his belly would confuse the Serpentians into thinking that the tracks were made by something other than a human and they would follow his other tracks instead. Finger’s width by finger’s width, he crawled silently and gradually towards the elephants. Most of the elephants were sleeping, but the lead bull was wide awake and eyeing him with caution. Thorn crawled as close to the herd as he could, or more precisely, as he dared. The lead bull still eyed him cautiously, but showed no alarm or indication of panic. Thorn crawled in closer and closer and closer still.

  The Serpentians rode pass the herd of wild elephants. The Serpentian tracker paused and stared at the marks on the grass in confusion. He signalled for one of his comrades to join him. This other Serpentian jumped off his horse and walked up to the first tracker. Both Serpentians analysed the tracks and shook their heads. After a short murmur of discussion, the trackers proceeded to follow the false tracks that Thorn had set up. Neither tracker believed that any human would be crazy enough to approach a herd of wild elephants. They followed the false tracks until it ended and then started searching wildly for new tracks to follow. After a while, both trackers reported to their superior that the tracks were lost.

  A familiar voice broke the silence of the night with a yelling so loud that it could have possibly encompassed the whole grassland. And Thorn knew this voice well, the ever low-pitched, deep growling and egotistical voice of Fightlord Forktongue. The Serpentians then spread out and conducted wild searches. And every time a Serpentian approached the herd of wild elephants, the lead bull and several of the bull elephants would trumpet their trunks loudly, flap their ears and stare aggressively at the relatively puny humans. As tough and as well built as the Serpentians were, they knew that they were no match for the sheer size and mass of these elephants. So the Serpentians respectfully and wisely backed away, much to Thorn’s advantage and relief. Approximately an hour later, the Serpentians mounted their horses and rode away, heading north. Thorn was safe, for now!

  The torch burnt brightly in Ray’s hand. His horse trotted lightly in the dark forest pathways. Serene was right behind him. Her eyes were more focussed than his. Ray was still upset with himself and furthermore, he harboured no real expectations that they would be able to track or capture any of the fleeing assassins in this nightmare of darkness and foliage. The other Sollenthars were all as focused and as optimistic as Serene. Then the distant sound of galloping horses cheered Ray up significantly, for on one of the chariots that these horses were pulling was Spirit the White Wolf; Ray’s best friend and companion, and the best hunter he had ever known. Spirit’s keen sense of smell and sharp night vision would be the key for Ray to redeem himself, not in the eyes of Prince Patrum or any other, but on the weight of his own expectations and personal standards.

  Spirit jumped off the chariot that he was on as soon as it had stopped. Ray and Serene had already dismounted at that time. Spirit ran to Ray and licked his face playfully and then did the same to Serene. Both Ray and Serene patted Spirit on his forehead.

  With the greetings over, it was time for Spirit to get to work. Ray held out a piece of cloth that was torn away from one of the assassins’ uniform when he was making his escape earlier and Spirit sniffed at it. Spirit’s sharp canine nose detected its distinct smell and his hunter’s brain registered it to memory. Then Spirit raised up his nose and breathed in a lungful of air, and together with this he took in the smell of the forest. And there it was, this distinct smell of the assassin, though it was very vague and weak. Spirit advanced a few more steps and sniffed the ground. There it was again, this distinct smell, but this time it was more apparent and stronger. The smell formed a track for him to follow. First he took a few slow steps, and then he began to move faster and finally he began to run. Ray and Serene mounted their horses and followed close behind. The hunt was on.

  Spirit led Ray, Serene and the others in and out of the forest pathways, weaving in and out of bushes and clusters of plants. Finally he stopped and stared fiercely at a cluster of thick bushes near a stream. He began to bark fiercely at it.

  “Bushes _ of these, execute multiple Heat Bursts now!” commanded Ray.

  Dozens of flaming spheres slammed into the targeted cluster of bushes. A loud yell later, a nearly lifeless body clad in black clothing stumbled forward out of the bushes and collapsed; warm blood still oozing out of the many burn wounds on it. Ray felt relieved slightly. Somehow this one kill gave him a small sense of vindication for his earlier mistake.

  Spirit sniffed the ground near where the body of the dead assassin was and his eyes became focused yet again. There was a new scent that he had sensed and yet it was an old familiar one. No matter how different the individual assassins were, they all smelt similar as far as Spirit was concerned, for they all had the smell of blood on them.

  Spirit broke out into a sprint with Ray and the Sollenthars following closely behind. In the darkness of night; this patch of white fur, this efficient tracker-hunter and his fearsome long, sharp pairs of fangs; move fluidly through the trees and bushes like a hot knife through butter. Ray and Serene, though they were on horseback, had some difficulty keeping up. Tree branches were in their way. A quarter of an hour later, by the banks of a river, came Spirit’s ever fearsome bark. Ray, Serene and the others dismounted. They proceeded carefully with their swords fully drawn.

  Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh! The twirling sound of Airblades sends everybody diving to the ground. Three assassins jump out of the river and charge at the Sollenthars. Spirit leaps into the air and sinks his fangs into one of the assassins, flooring him immediately. The screams of horror and pain from the floored assassin send a cold, piercing fear down the spines of his comrades. This temporary distraction buys Ray and Serene a few precious moments of time. Ray gets to his feet and does a Horizontal Strike with his silver staff to knock one of the remaining assassins’ sword off balance and follows up by thrusting one end of his staff into the assassin’s throat. The stunned assassin drops his sword and collapses to his knees as he chokes. Ray ends this assassin’s miserable life by striking vertically down and hard at the assassin’s forehead and splitting his skull.

  Serene sends a Heat Burst straight at the last assassin’s face. Death comes instantaneously to this assassin and he collapses straight onto the ground like a tree that has just been felled. Serene looks up to find Spirit sprinting back into the dense forest in pursuit of another target.

  The sound of thunder cut across the Serpentian grasslands the following morning. A tired and thirsty Thorn Sayvion looked up at the gloomy skies above. Rain was exactly what he needed, for in order to more effectively evade detection, he had stopped following rivers and streams. Drops of cooling moisture fell from the dark sky above and he opened his mouth wide to catch as many of them as he could. In a matter of moments, the droplets of water had turned into a torrential downpour. Thorn drank to his heart’s content.

  Thorn could not afford to rest during the day anymore. He carried on and stumbled a little. The ground was turning muddy, but he cared not. ‘Keep on moving one foot in front of the other’, this was what was going on in his mind! This was what he chanted to himself! Footstep after footstep in the mud, he kept on going!

  Thorn could see them from afar, those curved, dome-like shapes of Serpentian tents. Those tents belonged to the nomadic class of Serpentian society. As how Thorn understood it, Serpentian society was not particularly complex. The lowest and most common class were the nomads, who moved from place to place when the nutrients of the soil in which they had planted their crops in were depleted or the grass on which their livestock fed on were eat
en up. However, they almost always moved within the boundaries of their own warlord’s land and never into another’s for fear of heavy taxations, if they were lucky; and conscription or even extermination, if they were not.

  Then there was the warrior class, which consisted of conscripts from the nomadic class, relatives of those who were already soldiers or just any Serpentian with a particularly vicious and violent nature. The most vicious and cruel of these warriors would challenge each other in what was known as the Trial of Worthiness. The ultimate winner, or the only survivor left in this ceremony, claimed the land, called nestland, as his own. And this winner would then become a warlord and would be granted the title of ‘battlelord’. All warriors who were too cowardly to partake in the Trial of Worthiness would then bow down to this battlelord. And the same process was repeated amongst the battlelords to select a king. Therefore, the Serpentian who was to become the king of Serpentia would normally be the most vicious, violent, cruel and cunning Serpentian of them all.

  Every level of Serpentian society was evil, cruel, selfish and power-hungry! Thorn had no illusions that the group of nomads that he had come across was not going to be friendly or sympathetic. The wisest thing to do would be to avoid them. But Thorn was in a desperate situation! So he planned to sneak into the camp and steal from them!

  Thorn crouched low in the wet grass. Slowly he crept closer and closer to the nomads’ camp. There was a cluster of seven tents in total, positioned in a random pattern. Thorn could see through some of the flaps and openings of these tents. He could see that most of the Serpentians were asleep. Some were awake and cooking breakfast. Two or three little boys were running around in the rain and playing in the mud, but all of the adults were in their tents. Livestock of goats and cows, numbering nearly three dozen, wondered freely. Thorn was hungry. But he had to be patient. So he lay hidden in a cluster of grass, waiting for the right time and opportunity.

  The sun finally shone bright overhead. The downpour had stopped. Thorn was cold, wet and miserable. He also felt a hunger pang. He needed food. But more importantly, he needed a water container, which was his primary goal in approaching the camp in the first place.

  All of the Serpentian nomads were awake now. The men came out of their tents holding long canes in their hands, no doubt to be used to control their livestock. He noticed their swords as well, worn at the waist. They were worn out and not well maintained. It seemed that this group of nomads were not so much of the aggressive, war-mongering type; but more to the isolationist type. This was good news for Thorn, for it meant that they were not in good terms with the local battlelord and were lesser of a threat. All of the men had left the encampment, together with the livestock. Only the women and children remained. Thorn had to move fast and with precision. He crept around the encampment looking for opportunities. Then he spotted one.

  One of the Serpentian women grabbed a child by the back collar of his shirt and pushed him towards a nearby stream. The child obeyed quietly and conformed. Clearly, Serpentian mothers were quite forceful in the handling of their children. But Serpentian parenting ethics were of no concern to Thorn, only the empty tent that the woman had vacated. He looked around and then made a dash into the vacant tent. First, he searched for a water container of some sort. After upturning a few bundle of leather and fur, he finally found one. It was a leather water pouch and it was half full. Next Thorn grabbed a bowl off the floor and scooped into it several ladlefuls of porridge from a huge pot in the middle of the tent. He grabbed some bread buns as well and like a flash of lightning he was out of the tent and into the grasses.

  Thorn crouch ran as fast and as far away as he possibly could, while taking bites off one of the bread buns. The fresh smell and sweet taste of bread was heaven to him! His stomach yearned for more! He gulped down chunks of bread while hardly chewing, and almost choked himself. But he withstood the urge to cough and slowed down enough to take a swipe from the water pouch. The cooling liquid washed the chunk of bread down his throat and he stuffed the rest of the bun into his mouth, promising himself to chew properly this time before swallowing. Then he was off again, crouch running in the Serpentian plains, trying his best to disappear amidst the clusters of grass and muddy terrain.

  Thorn sat in the middle of a cluster of grass, contemplating. Food was impossible to find unless he hunted for it, but this would take up too much time. Crossing over the Fallsian border would be far easier than penetrating the stronghold of Battlelord Constrictor. Strategy dictated that he should head for the Fallsian border and then somehow return with a rescue party. But honour and pride dictated that he should try to rescue Caramel, or at the very least, see her and ascertain for himself that she was still alive and well. The warrior in him said to go for the border, but the man in him said to rescue the one he had sworn to protect. The soldier in him was silent, because he was long gone. He was gone the moment he decided to jump over the parapets of Fort Eastguard and abandon his post.

  Finally, Thorn decided that there were times when even strategy became a hindrance, for too much caution and considerations could cause fear and paralyses. So the man in him had won and the warrior in him was to be its slave. The soldier in him was, of course, dead. He got up and started crouch-walking northwards.

  Thorn woke up cold and shivering on the 25th Night of Third Month of Dry Season. It was the buzzing of mosquitoes that had woken him up. He had intended to already be on the move by this time but had overslept. Crawling out of the cluster of tall grass inside which he had hidden himself earlier, he began crouch walking northward. He then began to feel much better because his body heat had built up and his blood was circulating. The waning crescent moon above gave a faint illumination.

  After crouch walking for an hour, Thorn finally saw a vague outline of a man-made structure in front of him. This was exactly what he was looking for. For on the very top of a rocky hill a short distance away was the stronghold of Battlelord Constrictor. Fort Constrictor, the fort that was the battlelord’s stronghold, was not particularly sophisticated or well-built. Unlike Fallsian forts which were made of rocks, boulders and stones, Serpentian forts were made of thick wooden logs; no doubt stolen from Fallsian forests and built with Fallsian forced labour. The Serpentians’ sense of aggression had their minds tuned to attack and not defence, therefore they never saw the need to build stronger, more sophisticated forts.

  Thorn pressed on towards the rocky hill and within an hour he was at the base of it. He looked for the best way up. He reasoned that the eastern slope offered the best concealment although it was the steepest. Wasting not a moment of the darkness of night, he climbed up the steep, rocky surface of the hill. He could hear laughter and loud conversations, but worse still, he could smell the aroma of a well cooked meal. Thorn felt his stomach growl in yearning, but this did not sway his mind away from his mission.

  Thorn pressed his back against the wooden, heavy-log wall of Fort Constrictor. Thick clouds had just slipped in to conceal the moon. He stayed still as the footsteps of the sentry passed by just above him. He counted quietly in his mind the interval between the different sets of footsteps. Thorn smiled a little, for the intervals between the sentry’s rounds were approximately a quarter of an hour. Thorn wasted no time. He took off his cape, rolled it into the shape of a rope, tied one end of it to the handle and hand-guard of his sword. Then he threw his sword up and over the top of the wooden wall while holding on to the free end of his cape. The sword made a soft thud when it hooked on to the wooden parapets. His heart skipped a beat. He held his breath and listened out. Nothing! There was only silence. Thorn let out his breath. His heartbeat quickened. Steadily and stealthily, he climbed the wall and pulled himself over the top. He did it! He had broken into the stronghold of Battlelord Constrictor!

  Thorn unties his sword from his cape. He dons back the cape but he leaves his sword unsheathed in his hand. He crouches and creeps along the top landing of the wooden wall, searching for the sentry. He has but moments before
the cloud cover breaks. A tall, large figure stands in front of him looking the other way, clearly unaware of his presence. Thorn creeps up behind the Serpentian sentry and raises his own sword high. Then he swings it down in an arc similar to the letter ‘C’ and chops off the sentry’s head. The headless body falls with a loud thump.

  Thorn decides to search the dead sentry’s body for anything that could be useful. He finds a sheathed dagger and a pouch on the sentry’s belt. Inside this pouch, he finds a smaller pouch of bandages and medicine, a small notebook, a small bundle of fishing lines and hooks, a small cloth-wrapped bar of soap and a large piece of bun. He gobbles the bun down hungrily and washes it down with water from his water pouch. Not wanting to waste time, he unbuckles the sentry’s belt and then buckles it onto his own waist, on top of the belt that he already has; thus transferring the dagger and the pouch onto his own body. He took the dead sentry’s bow and arrows and after equipping himself with them, he got off the top landing and sneaked into the shadows.

  Thorn continues to crouch run his way inside the fort. He chances upon another sentry. He is seated on a stool, eating his meal. Thorn sheaths his sword and draws out his newly acquired dagger instead. Then he slowly creeps up on the sentry. Grabbing the sentry from behind, Thorn stabs him in the back. Thorn has his hand tightly cupped over the sentry’s mouth. All that can be heard is a muffled sound of panic. Thorn twists the blade of his dagger slightly to widen the wound. The sentry goes numb. His body becomes soft but heavy. Thorn pulls out his dagger and lays the dead Serpentian gently down onto the ground. The Serpentian’s eyes are opened but are still and motionless. There are several drops of tears flowing down his cheeks.