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He slowed his charging steed as he reached his capitans and Sir Karai. They looked down at another dead scout, this one bludgeoned to death by something large, horse stolen. Cristoff looked south, then west, the dust from his charge just now catching up to he and the men gathered.
“We have footmen with halbreds in the low hills there to the south of the tradeway my lord. Westward as well. We will find them.” Karai nodded, drew his heavy steel rapier, and trotted ahead with ten horseman, watching the road to Gillian.
“Second one this morning sire. Best inform the people, keep them on guard while we hunt down the trangressors.” Capitan Broushelle, aged and staunch in his saddle, motioned for his boy to hand him his lance and helmet.
“Form your men, there is nothing to report to the citizens until we know what stalks us. Whatever it is, it uses the hills and cliffs for cover.” Cristoff drew his longsword, the sword with the pyramid pommel he had traded his for with the mercenary elf, Kendari.
“We are days from the Misathi Mountains, days further from Bloodskull. Won’t be giants or ogre, lest they are lost or scavenging. We will find them my lord, rest assured.” Broushelle waved his men forward with him.
“Soldier, where are father Garret and Sir Leonard?”
“My lord, they are burying the dead behind us about three miles. Should not be long, shall I fetch them sire?” The soldier, a man barely out of his teens, stood at attention.
“No, send word we have trouble ahead of the caravan, have them meet us when they finish. Hyaaah!” Cristoff Bradswellen the Third charged ahead, ten men with him as well, moving between the road and the bluffs, four squads now scouring the land before them.
For hours they searched every hill, bluff, cliff, and lowland marsh. The terrain changed every half hour, the sun warming in time, yet Broushelle, Cristoff, Karai, and the footmen found neither missing horse nor tracks to follow. It was as if the horse simply disappeared from the earth and left a bludgeoned rider as but a token sign of some trickery.
“Men, spread out, each one of you. Watch the sky.” Cristoff pointed to each capitan, then forward in a wide arc ahead of the caravan.
“Why, my lord, do you see something?” Karai looked, hand shielding his eyes from the beaming sun overhead.
“Just do as I say, keep your swords low, but eyes up.”
“Yes sire.” They all nodded, turned their steeds, and spread far.
It was minutes later, if that, and they heard it. Screeching beyond the clouds and bluffs, many returned the call the same, louder than a charge of heavy cavalry were it close by, ear piercing to man and beast alike. From south to north, then to the west, the screeches called to one another like dying animals, then stopped. No one moved, just looked and waited.
“There!” A footman pointed it out first, then another soldier, finally all forty three following his finger to the skies. From three different spots in the high hills around the tradeway, black wings with white swirls beat silent and fast flying dark forms with claws and stout bodies. At first, the white swirls made it as if a swarm of bugs or crows massed, all broken in color with the black and blending with the clouds that passed. Then, within only hundreds of feet, they could be seen as hairy giant winged rodents, easily capable of carrying off a horse, let alone a man. Their camoflauged wings, from tip to clawed tip, reached fifty feet or more.
“Stormbats, four of them! Arrows and halberds now!” Cristoff had neither, but charged toward the most forward man, knowing these blind creatures would swarm and grab the closest prey and be gone quickly, even in daylight.
Bows pulled from shoulders of men afoot and nervous horsemen, halberds and lances upon stallions charged directly. Many a sword from men who had but that, drew from scabbards as the four monstrous ivory patterned black bats dove blindly. First into the steed of Sir Karai and one of his horsemen, then two more joined in to lift. Only up close could one hear the rapid beating of thin skinned wings and see the pug and fanged faces of the giant hairy beasts of prey.
“Arrrghhh ahhhh haaahhh!” Karai plunged his rapier into the hairy and fly infested chest, then again, and a third. His blade returned more crimson with each stroke. Two of the four sets of claws grabbed him, he stabbed again, this time into the neck of the stormbat. He covered his face with his shield from the blood that sprayed and the high pitch of screech that deafened as he was lifted into the air, his horse behind him by another bat and the lower claws of this one. His man beside him clung to his steed, now in the air the same fifteen feet, and climbing.
“Fire into that one, right center, before it’s too close!” Broushelle ordered a barrage, fifteen bows loosed their flights into a circling stormbat. The thin membrane of skin tore in many places, the body decorated with arrows, one of the winged hunters fell to the field.
Lances and poled weapons charged the fallen beast and the one with Karai’s horse. Penetrating steel shot through soft flesh and hair, two now on the ground struggling to stretch their wings and take flight as they bled the grasses red. The soldier in the air was seized by claws above him, and thrown from the four legged meal the stormbat wanted. His body turned and flailed in the air, landing into capitan Broushelle. Both men tumbled with Broushelle’s stallion over them, over twice more, and into the hard ground.
“Hold your fire! You will hit Sir Karai!” Cristoff stopped the second barrage taking aim, only Karai and his horse in the air with two bats, one of them spilling blood to the ground as it hovered up and away.
He turned, charging with his blade forward, knowing their was nothing he could do until either Karai, or the bats, fell from the sky. Cristoff jumped his steed over the mess of Broushelle and trampled the wings of one bat, then turned and slashed the head half off from the other in one stroke. As he turned round again, the men swarmed the remaining landbound strormbat and plunged their blades deep until it stopped its struggle.
Karai fought the clawed arms, the fangs that bit at him, and climbed over the wing of his assailant beast. Grabbing one of the big thin black ears, loosing his shield to fall now thirty feet, he flipped his rapier into a downward grip. He plunged it into the base of the neck, twisting, pulling back, then diving it down again, holding it deep as it flailed and shook.
Gurgled hisses of screeches flowed out of its lungs as it let go of the horse, the remaining stormbat heading west alone with the prized meal. The bat, unable to lose its unwelcome rider, dove to its right knowing something was there to grab onto. As it reached for the high cliff, the blade of Karai, punctured into its back, and again. The bat and Sir Karai crashed into the rock face at full speed, then fell twenty feet or more, both of them meeting solid rock at the bottom.
“Men, chase that beast down and take out its wings!” Lord Cristoff pointed to the last stormbat making off with Karai’s horse, then rode his steed hard to the rock where his brave knight had fallen.
Before Cristoff arrived to his knight, Sir Karai stood from the rocky plateau. He raised his sword high, shaved head covered in blood that ran down his face, yet not his own. The cheers and roars from the men were quick, then followed by the caravan that had rounded the trade road and seen him but crash a giant bat into the cliff face. Cristoff raised his longsword high toward Sir Karai, honoring him amidst all the cheering from thousands.
Men saw to their capitan Broushelle and the soldier that was thrown, both laid out injured with broken bones, but alive. The caravan stopped by order of Sir Leonard with a wave of his hand, and he and father Garret ran their horses to the field of victory, blades drawn and charging in to offer assistance to Lord Cristoff. More cheers from the west rose up as the fourth bat was brought down by the archers and slain by the small cavalry scouts on the ground.
“My Lord! Have we missed the battle? What are these creatures?” Sir Leonard was ready, excited and poised for war. He looked to his fellow knight on the rocky outcropping, standing over a slain bat of epic proportions with his sword raised. “Are there more?�
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“No, no Sir Leonard. We have victory here, a few injured father Garret.” Cristoff nodded to the priest who quickly sheated his sacred longblade of the church and trotted toward Broushelle and the gathered men.
“Casualties, my lord?”
“None, save Karai’s stallion. We are blessed this day.” Cristoff watched Karai approach on foot after his short climb down. He picked up his shield from the field, and had a long strap of leather in his other hand. He wiped the blood from his face as knelt before his lord.
“Rise Sir Karai, magnificent bravery and skill there, knight of the exiled company. May I say, faultless courage is without doubt, defined by your blade and deed.” Cristoff nodded his head, as did Sir Leonard.
“My horse?”
“The only loss of the battle I am afraid, besides some injuries and the scouts they have been picking off the last few days.”
“Well, it is not much, but this is at least of interest my lord.” Karai handed the leather strap of nearly ten feet, studs of bronze through the rough craftsmanship, and scrawls of strange symbols upon the treated hide. “It is a collar, my lord, these stormbats belong to someone.”
“And bats, as far as I know of, are rather blind in general and only come out at night, not the day.” Sir Leonard commented, seeing the collar for what it was, and the battle he missed for more than happenstance.
“So, the owner, whoever it is, sent them after us. We have enemies with pets and with reach. I want the watches doubled, scouts brought in closer for safety.” Cristoff thought hard on who would have such things in their retinue and why they would send them after he and his. “And, a heroes feast in honor of Sir Karai tonight.”
“Done my lord.” Leonard patted Sir Karai hard on the shoulder as they sheathed their rapiers. The knights and soldiers of Lord Cristoff moved the injured to the carriages and covered wagons that were beginning to fill. The thousands from Saint Erinsburg followed the lead of their lord, who now watched the skies over Shanador as much as the road ahead.
Kendari III:II
Village of Tillis, Kivanis-Caberra Border
Dark clouds brought midnight rains from east to west across the marshland farmsteads and fields of broken fences. Long had it been since his feet walked upon the weathered roads of Kivanis, where the first men supposedly landed from the north, across the Soltaic Ocean from Altestan four thousand years ago. Their architectures had been legendary, their armies and navies led the exploration and settling of the Agarian continent, and the Kivanite people once boasted deadly swordsman counts and infamous sorcerer lords too many to name. Once long ago, and now but an empty shell of a ruined and poor people kept the castle strewn lands generation after generation. Their occupation by Altestan nobility, and rumored military, had most on Agara theorizing as to when the next war with the north would occur.
Kendari passed the dilapidated flag aflutter, windwashed dead like the kingdom seemed. Faded bands of red, white, and yellow with two crossed curved blades supporting a closed eye could barely be made out as he unfurreled it, then he went along. The winds from the east never stopped in this kingdom he recalled. South of their small but unclimbable Gimmori Mountains to the north, it was peasant folk and their farms ruled by inbred counts and countesses who sold themselves to Caberra or Harlaheim lords. To the north, even worse. The corruption of the nobility had ties and deals with Armondeen to the far west and their ancient homeland in Altestan across the ocean, supposedly all in secret. Shanador, Chazzrynn, Harlaheim, and Willborne had put Kivanis asunder centuries ago in a united war that they had never recovered from. It shown still on the curious and hating faces of all he passed.
“What brings you to my town and home, friend?” The guard, or closest thing the town of Tillis had at this time of night, stood in the road, hand on his saber.
Kendari looked from under his hood to the man that spoke so nicely, yet he could tell it was all for show. He knew Kivanis well enough to not trust a Kivanite. Their brown skin like fresh sweet caramel, their inviting eyes of dark browns or nearly black, and their ebony hair was always hidden under cloth or tied back neatly. Smiles in the night, dead or robbed blind by morning, he thought.
“Passing through. Step aside.” Kendari continued north on the only road that would take him to the lost path to Stillwood. The forests and mountains teemed with wolves, hyenas, foul spirits and haunts of the dead. Kendari needed no more distractions he knew, for he would change his mind again and never arrive. He had started this journey a dozen times.
“Friend, please, your name and business in my town, now.” He drew his saber halfway out, seeing he was half a foot taller than this man that walked all covered and at a brisk pace in the night.
“I am passing through, using the road, to Stillwood. Now, step aside.” He did not want to kill again, not without some coin for it anyway.
“My friend, Stillwood is a ruin, nothing there.” He backed up, keeping this strange traveler in front of him before the gate to Tillis.
“I am aware, and I am not your friend. I am getting wet from the rain and do not wish to trudge the mud. I need your road. Here.” Kendari threw five gold coins from his coinpurse to the ground in front of him.
“You have strange eyes there, green like the grass my friend. What is wrong with your skin though? Remove your hood, I could help if I saw it better.” The man scrambled, picking up the coins then running alongside this stranger as he reached the open gate to Tillis.
“I do not need any help. Be gone.” Kendari walked into the town, perhaps three or four hundred and double that in the rural surroundings. He saw the spires of a reaching castle tower to the east, domed top cracked like the stones, flag rotted away, and the dark windows gave the impression that it was unused for some time. The town boasted only two taverns, one of which an inn as well by the looks of it. The only lights were from lamps there and he went closer to get near a dark crowd and away from this one so curious about him.
“Ahhh, my friend wishes a drink then…or a woman…maybe a bed for the night?” The Kivanite followed now, the strongarmed yet friendly approach had gotten five in gold, more flattery and conversation would likely yield even more.
“The Night n’ Gale Inn and Taverne, looks like I have found all I need, a roof from the rain until the storm passes. I will wait outside. Leave me be.” Kendari ignored him as best he could, even talking aloud to himself to give further hint.
“Foroza, my name is Foroza Culdiricht.”
“I did not ask.”
“Of course you did, I heard you just now---“
Kendari grabbed him at the corner to the inn, turning him around to the alley. Shiver was out and inches away from Foroza’s eye before words could issue, then the Nadderi grabbed the Kivanite’s throat. Heat rippled from the enchanted edge and the wind and sudden motion released his hood to his shoulders, revealing his heritage.
“I do not know you, I do not want to know you. I do not want anything but to reach Stillwood, alone. If you do not vanish, your blood will be just one puddle of thousands I have caused. I will lose no sleep over it. Now, if you value your life, your town, or your appendages, leave me be and make sure everyone else does the same.”
“You are…are…an elf…a cursed one. You…yes…yes…friend, I will go now.” Foroza had heard stories passed down that from time to time the spirits of the deep forests would send these elves out to die, and they cursed the land if they were allowed to live. His eyes were as big as the moons that did not shine this night. He ran as fast as he could once this creature let him go.
Oh so wonderful, so deadly, such a killer you are…
The cursed elf heard her voice, plain as midnight, his blade from Lord Cristoff out in a reverse grip as fast as he lowered his posture. He looked left down the alley, then out into the main road of the town to his right, nothing. He smelled for the burned stone sulphur that accompanied the temptress from hell he had dealings with four centuries ago. Nothing. Kendari watched the shadows for m
otion, looked out to the fog that the rain brought in the heat and humidity. Still nothing.
“I am going insane. She is dead, Nareene is dead, the holy blade did its work in Saint Erinsburg.” He talked aloud, calming his nerves and suspicions.
Then why can you hear me…Kendari the traitor…
“Lapdog of Cancuru, show yourself so I may pleasure your body with my blade again.” Kendari waded into the rain, into the middle of the main road of Tillis, swords drawn and steam sizzling from Shiver in the dark.
“As you wish, my cursed and marked beloved.”
Footsteps on old wooden planking, she came from the inn. Kendari turned, it was not her. A young Kivanite girl of ten perhaps, sashes, a vest, three skirts and bracelets up and down her arms turned toward him. Her hair was loose and messy to her shoulders, eyes of the night staring at him as he watched from the center of town, blades out, in the rain.
“You are not Nareene. Go inside girl.”
“This one, yes. He seeks to kill us all before he goes to Stillwood to die. He is dangerous and carries a plague, he should die.” The little girl winked at him, then pointed as seven men followed her out to the porch of the Night n’ Gale.
The voice was not her own, older, without the questioning thick accent of Kivanis. It was Nareene speaking, he knew it, then she winked again and her eyes flashed red. The men all reached for weapons hidden in dark brown robes. Kendari rushed in quick steps and lunged up the two stairs to the wooden entrance. Shiver dove deep into the girl’s chest, then a backheld slash of the crossblade took off her head.
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Knock, knock, knock!
Kendari heard it, knocking at the door, he opened his eyes wide, then shut them fast as the light of morning streaming in through the curtained window nearly blinded him. Squinting, he looked around. A room, a mess of wood furniture cut apart, some still smoldering from his searing blade. The blade, which was in his hand in a deathgrip, the other was held reverse in his left. His armor of black chain, necklace of arcane origin, rings of enchanted natures, and bracers of unbreakable magicked steel lay on the floor. His boots of silent fey tricks were on, one of them anyway, the other on the bed. His clothes of black and hooded cloak, still full of burns and slashes, were crumpled into a pillow.
The Exodus Sagas: Book III - Of Ghosts And Mountains Page 25