The Exodus Sagas: Book III - Of Ghosts And Mountains

by Jason R Jones

  “It is a boy.”

  Garret trotted ahead, face to the sky, having felt the words of Alden inside him once again, for whatever reason that He only knew.

  Kendari III:I

  Kivan River, Swamps of Kar Nossos, Northern Harlaheim

  “Fight thine enemy, and kill thine foe, give them blade and steel, and woe. Yet if thine brother bleed, the Gods will see, for a kinslayer cursed you be.”---Poem on the tomb of Uinaeas Calfitires, last King of the elven city of Stillwood. Circa 11 B.C.

  The river boat veered around another banyan root that had grown curious as to the middle of the river Kivan. The silence and the sloshing of poles and oars were making every different noise of the swamps that was heard into possible dread for the men. Every time an owl hooted, a wolf howled, or something took flight or swim, the small crew of three in their fisherboat jumped. They would think of the bag of platinum they had been paid, and think of running for it afoot back to safer ground when light graced them once more. Then they remembered their passenger. He had dark green eyes that penetrated, grim elven features, dark black hair and swirls of some obsidian birthmarks or curses upon his whole flesh and face. He toyed with his two longswords often, and could hear and see nearly everything they did. They knew he did not sleep, and when he did he awoke as if nightmares plagued his every drifting thought. They feared this Kendari, more than the swamps, so they carried on north through Kar Nossos.

  “Would that the sun would give us some attention here, we would move a bit more steady.” The older man, Reanier, scratched his gray beard and adjusted his floppy hat of old curled leather. He pushed again with his long pole, keeping another root away from his boat.

  “Aye, slow goin’ brother, slow and treacherous tis in these parts. We are well past any good fishing waters here. Could be home with a woman in the sheets, better than this marsh for sure.” Luc Lefty, nicknamed due to the missing fingertips on his right hand, held the rudder with his feet propped up on their crates of pickled dinner.

  “Ssshhh. The dead ones be hearin you with all that chatter, keep it low for Alden’s sake.” Boersin was an ox, at least half they said, his arms and shoulders like small barrels. The long mustache he twirled and tugged when not rowing oars was the only hair on his head, yet even that stood from time to time under the light forsaken canopy, deep in the swamps where men knew not to ever go.

  “If the three of you made any more noise, I would buy minstrels to put melody to the constant voices that surely echo to anything within earshot. If there was anything hunting us here, they would have no trouble hearing, or smelling, the three of you. I paid for the best men to take me upriver, not to endure a social session from frightened fishermen. So be silent.” Kendari still had his eyes closed, stretched out on the floor of the boat, his cloak rolled into a pillow, hands on the hilts of his blades underneath.

  It had been four days he surmised, in the dark of the swamps with these three he found north of Saint Erinsburg in a small washed up fishing village. The armies of King Richmond and his knights had not waited long for the return of Florin, only an hour. He had heard the screams of horror from a distance as they first viewed the carnage he and Nareene had left in Bradswellen castle. The burning started within the hour, yet he was long out of sight in the night, and Nareene was back in whatever layer of hell she had come from, so he thought. That very night, it began.

  First his chest ached, below the spot that Nareene had branded him over four centuries ago. Then it itched and became warm in flashes, as if she were trying to make him feel what she felt through the realms of the damned. Kendari thought he was simply imagining it, having some sort of twisted guilt for plunging Cristoff’s holy blade through her chest in Bradswellen castle. Then he noticed the next day, that his flesh was rashed and peeling there, yet the circled star of red remained underneath the dead skin. Like the small hole in his abdomen from the placing of the Nadderi curse, this too was a memory that would never let him forget.

  He felt tired, beyond his elven six centuries, the need for actual rest coming every few days now instead of every few weeks or months. When he tried to sleep, the visions of transparent faces of elves covered in blood danced to his every sleeping moment. Flames erupted, swords clashed in his mind, women screamed, and Nareene was there, always laughing, always there. He would awake in sweats, fatigued and worn as if he had been fighting rather than resting. Animals seemed to stare at him in silence when he passed, where normally they would take flight. The trees and grasses simply were, not as the haunting warnings to others upon his presence. The world felt dead, or that he was dead and no longer part of the world, at least not for long. The foreboding feeling of emptiness only worsened, and then he decided.

  “Where is it you are heading again, painted one?” Reanier looked back to their passenger, one that had paid one hundred Harlaheim platinum coins for the trip, enough to buy five boats and his own crew for each. Those green menacing eyes looked right back.

  “North.”

  “I can see that, been following the Kivan River for four days here, elf. But after it leaves Kar Nossos, into Kivanis, what then? Continue to the Soltaic Ocean?”

  “I will be disembarking from your noble vessel one day past the Gualiduran border, that is all.” Kendari tried to rest again, these humans had the lives of boring moles and their attempts at conversation interested him just as much.

  “Not much there anymore, mostly controlled by the northerners from Altestan. Or the Caberrans, Kivanis is all in league with whoever. Either way, dangerous ground for one with pointy ears. They don’t be liking your kind in those parts. Hear they kill ya and sell the ears and such.” Reanier received nods from Luc Lefty and Boersin.

  “Many have tried, and all have died. I do not fear humans much, keep that in mind. Where I am going, there are no men, there is no one living at all, so your concern is unnecessary.” Kendari glared at Reanier, seeing the hairs on the back of the old man’s neck stand a bit.

  “You are a spiteful one, and ye have a sharp tongue. Not that I don’t appreciate the coin, but if you care ta live long, best watch your words a bit, elf.”

  “Is that a threat, fisherman? I enjoy threats.”

  “No, not from me or mine, just a word to the wise from someone perhaps a bit older is all.” Reanier did not like the look of this one, it had been weighing on him the last few days.

  “I am over six hundred years old, so keep your words. And since you are so inquisitive, that word means curious in means of questioning by the way, I am not going to live much longer, hence this little journey of mine. Now cease your chatter, or I will cease you rather quickly.” Kendari had no bloodlust, it had been dry sometime, yet his nerves could not handle the constant irritation he felt from these men, especially the would-be wise one, Reanier.

  “You are going to die then? Where at?”

  “He needs a sweet woman is all to balance out all his bitters.” Luc Lefty piped in, always with something about women.

  “Ssshhh!” Boersin slowed the oars, a turn in the river ahead.

  Kendari stood, no sleep forthcoming now that his tensions had rose. He looked at the same flat water, black and dark. Overgrown moss tails hanging from every enormous tree that crept over them. No sunlight, just canopy overlapping more dark green and shadowy canopy in the morass of banyans, willows, and twisting marsh forests. The smell was mold, moist thick mold and clinging fogs that carried the brackish aromas of more mold. Only the break for pickled something, poor watered down wine, and dried horsemeats could momentarily alleviate the monotony of Kar Nossos.

  “I am going to my homeland, I do not need a woman, nor any warnings about where elves are liked or no. I am heading to Stillwood, and not returning.” Kendari felt his face without emotion, his passion for anything long gone, he had done it all.

  “Stillwood? Never heard of it. Is it an elven city?” Reanir cast a glance at the cursed one so empty of life and care for anything.

  “It was, long ago. A cit
y of rituals and tradition, a secret city in an enchanted woodland. It was called Essiddor back then, but now it is a cursed place, known as Stillwood.” Kendari’s thoughts drifted, to the trees, the circle of stones that once was, and to the days before his curse. He knew all the faces in his dreams, they were elves he had known, elves he had killed, long ago.

  “So you are to die where you were born then, is that an elven tradition?” Reanier kept conversation going, feeling the tensions dwindling.

  “Ssshh!” Boersin stopped the oars again, looking upstream, squinting in the dark with only slivers of white and green moonlit reflection from the water to assist him.

  “I know nothing of traditions, besides ones that I despise.”

  “Ssshh!”

  “Is that all your big bald friend can say? I do not want to discuss anything, yet when I can finally stomach a talk with the three of you, he insists on silence.”

  “Sshhh, something stirs in the water, over there. It is moving this way.” Boersin stood slowly, reaching for a woodaxe from next to the crates and barrels.

  “Alligator perhaps, maybe a large snake is all. What is the concern?” Kendari drew his blades regardless, seeing Luc Lefty grab for the lantern and Reanier draw a machete from under his worn fisherman coats.

  “Could be swampeyes, a troll, could be anything this far out.” Reanier let the lantern get closer to the bow of the boat before he peered over.

  “What in the seven hells is a swampeye?”

  Just as the words escaped his lips, a flash of black scaled serpent with orange light emitting from its fanged maw leapt from the water. The mouth opened, showing a single glowing eye back where the tongue should be, hundreds of curved white teeth before it, and it swallowed Luc Lefty, lantern and all, in one swift lunge. At least twenty feet in length, with no appendages to be seen, its mouth closed with but a boot showing, and crashed back into the dark waters before anyone could do much as blink and stare.

  “Swampeye!!! Dump the pickled fish, hurry!!!” Reanier yelled back in the darkness, Boersin already in motion.

  “I assume you mean to feed its appetite and flee, correct?” Kendari was low now, Shiver in his right, the holy crossblade held reverse in his left. He saw more motion, another ripple in the water heading toward the aft of the boat.

  “No, they hate the vinegar, the smell, and…No!!!” Reanier turned just as Kendari slashed once, then again, then a third cut with the heated longsword that cut a lunging swampeye in two. The rank pieces flopped, one fell off the boat into the water while the other twitched on the deck spreading a slimy sheen all over.

  “Easy enough, what is the problem?”

  “Fool of an elf! They are cannibals, they smell the blood of their own a mile away! You never kill a swampeye unless you are close to land!” Reanier trembled, searching desperately for another lantern as Boersin dumped the pickled carp overboard.

  “Now you tell me. Splendid.”

  “Ssshhh!” Boersin got low, Reanier as well, the boat dead in the water.

  The sound at first, was as if frogs were croaking at one another in the distance, then it grew louder. Heavy moist breathing accompanied the croaks, like someone with a bad cold trying to relieve themselves of some mucous, all around. Splashes in the water rippled in every direction, then the glow. Four, twelve, twenty or more orange glows with beady black dots in the center. They all hovered it seemed, then bounced up and down in the darkness. Slimy croaking hisses issuing to one another, the swampeye telling each other something, taunting one another almost. They circled the boat, eyes plunging into the murky depths then reappearing in another locale, sensing their meals.

  “We are all dead men.” Reanier lit the lantern and brought himself to a crouch and peered over the edge of the boat. Boersin grabbed the lid of the barrel he had dumped, holding it from the handle like a toy shield.

  “Enough of this, you there, bald one, start rowing.” Kendari stood on a crate, crouched low, watching every glowing eye in the marsh.

  “You are insane. You have doomed us all, and now you taunt them?” Reanier dangled the lantern above his head, slinking back down, taking cover inside the boat.

  “You can always run, I won’t stop you.” The cursed swordsman smiled. He heard the oars plunge into the water, felt the gentle rocking of the fisherboat, and could feel Shiver’s heat on his face.

  Two swampeye dove out of the water, fanged maws hissing for a meal in their lunge over the boat. One slash with his right and a quick slice with the left, and two heads were severed. Three, then two more, the black serpents flew like giant arrows for Kendari. He was twisting, sidestepping, swinging left, then right, ducking, then twirling his longblades every direction. Watery insides flew onto the deck, hissing turned to screeching pain, and the water seemed to boil with dead serpents. They continued their frenzy on the boat, and on each other. He was one second ahead of them, listening for the rush of water, sensing the sudden glow of orange light from their one eye, then moving but inches and cutting with whatever blade was closest. The boat continued to move, the water filling with the dead, the eaten, and the hungry swampeye.

  Boersin hollered in pain, a small serpent hit him and latched onto his shoulder. The boat careened as he wrestled with it, then it stopped as Kendari took its head with Shiver. Before any gratitude could be shared, another marsh serpent from the left took him, managing the shoulders and head into its jaws. Kendari spun, two more landed on the deck near Reanier. He plunged his blade into one, but the other managed a hold on the boat owners’ legs.

  Kendari knew when enough was enough. These men were not warriors, and saving their hides would only leave him alone on a boat where it would take two to navigate the river. He ran, over the tail of the swampeye devouring Boersin, past the now two mashing their teeth into Reanier, and leapt off the bow of the boat. Two swampeye lunged for his feet, missing by hairs. Kendari landed into muddy riverbank, never slowing until he reached a banyan tree. Blessed feathered crossblade in his teeth, Shiver being used as a spike, he climbed, hand over sizzling plunge of steel, until he was near the top. The swampeye continued hissing and looking, but the most agile of them could not come within twenty feet of his position up the tree.

  “Bastards don’t climb, do you?” He caught his breath, watching as the fishermen, their boat, and everything in it was devoured within minutes of his escape by no less than thirty more of the scaled horrors.

  The glowing eyes watched him, tree to tree, branch to branch, yet eventually they gave in to easier meals of each other. Kendari waited, hours, until the hissing was long gone and behind him. He set foot back on the ground, and headed north, only small rays of moonlight to guide him, yet it was as if he knew the way. Having never been in Kar Nossos before, he was sure it was something else guiding him from afar back to Stillwood. For the Nadderi, that though was more unsettling than the swamps he now traversed, all alone.

  Exodus III:IV

  Highland Bluffs, Northern Willborne

  “I cannot breathe…have to stop…I am too old…for all this…running in the hills.” James slowed, sweat running into his eyes, he sat on a large rock and caught his breath. Sunlight battered down like an unforgiving penance upon the reaches and crests in the high hills.

  “Only for a minute, knight of Chazzrynn, there are fifty slavers with hounds and a small army of Devonmir behind us. Maybe more.” Shinayne took a knee, resting, meditating. They had been running for nearly two days since Gwenneth’s spell got them but two steps past the gate. The Lords of Devonmir had sensed her magicks, dismissed her illusions, and they had been spotted and on the run ever since.

  “Do you still hear the voices Shinayne?” Gwenneth, tired as the rest, settled back to the ground from her draining flight overground.

  “No, not a whisper since yesterday.” She looked over the cliff, still seeing a horde of black dots on their trail, a half day behind at best.

  “Which way are your mountains?” Saberrak sat hard, his body fully healed
from injury somehow, and not even truly tired. He looked to the enchanted belt with the fist of Annar upon it the buckle, the gift from the dragon of Soujan Mountain that she said would give him tireless stamina. The bracelet she had given him was taken by the slavers, or so he assumed.

  “Right there, my horned warrior, right there.” Zen pointed with his helm, he had taken it off at the base of the hill and still had it in his hand. It had been baking his head inside from the heat, despite the magicks supposedly imbued into the steel.

  “The clouds? Are they past that?” Saberrak stood, squinting, trying to see anything resembling a mountain.

  “Those are not clouds son, those are the peaks of the Misathi over the clouds there. Covered by clouds on top, yet sweltering heat at the bottom they say. I would say four more days to the foothills, a day after that, Deadman’s Pass.” Azenairk Thalanaxe smiled, knowing they were one step closer to finding the lost mines of his forefathers.

  “You say it with a smile, yet they named it for a reason dwarf.” Gwenneth Lazlette smiled in return, feeling she was also one step closer to whatever treasures the archmages left behind in the lost city of Mooncrest so many thousands of years ago, if this place was anything like what the dragon had said.

  “Bhah nonsense! Names do not scare me off Gwenne, and in the mountains I am home. I will keep ye’ safe, do not fret a moment there.” Zen laughed, though she was the last one here that ever needed protection.

  “Any sign of Kaya?” Saberrak had asked Shinayne four or five times over the last two days and nights. He had hoped she made it out with the Harlian Capitan, as they had. He had expected, against the reality, that she would have met them here north of Devonmir. The answer was the same somber one each time, but he asked anyway.

  “No, not her or Norrice or the men with them. All I can see is our pursuers. I am sorry.” Shinayne had been looking often, her hopes the same as the minotaur’s.