by Philip Blood
“Unless you were preparing to unite as many bandit groups as possible, before leading them into a giant trap,” Elizabeth accused.
“That’s absurd!” he answered.
“Is it?” she countered.
“Hang her!” he commanded his officers.
They began to close again when Elizabeth spoke to his officers directly, “I can prove my claim. Wernok recently explained his biggest strike plan yet, correct? There’s no way I could know of that plan, but the Tax Marshal knew, I questioned him,” Elizabeth glossed over the fact that she had gotten the answers out of his mind, not his mouth. “He knew that the Usurper was secretly transporting large units of his army to Derner’s Crest, getting ready to close the jaws of their trap, a trap that would destroy their entire opposition in one sweep. He is so sure you will be there that he has stripped the garrisons of Versaim and Trozendale to the point where they’re not defended. Who’s secret plan was it to commit every able-bodied bandit to attack at Derner’s Crest? Wernok’s! He takes his pay from the Usurper, and he’s trying to betray you all!”
“This is insane and her accusations are ridiculous. Yes, I planned an attack at Derner’s Crest, but the Usurper’s troops have not been moved, we would’ve heard. Her claims are totally unsubstantiated, they’re just the ravings of a traitor trying to save herself from the Tree, hang her!” he yelled for the third time, he was beginning to lose his temper.
“Unsubstantiated? Hardly, the Tax Marshal will prove my claims when you question him, he wants his life so he will bare his worthless soul as he did for me. Let him be the proof!” Elizabeth called out.
“You see she’s insane, the Marshal is dead!” Wernok yelled, spittle flying from his lips, he had lost his temper completely.
“No, this isn’t the Marshal, I thought something might happen to my star witness if I put him in your hands, this is one of his bodyguards,” Elizabeth told him, smiling in triumph.
Wernok could not stand to lose and it pushed his insane mind over the edge.
His face went dark red from the blood rushing up under pressure, he shook in fury. “Noooooo! I killed him like I’ll kill you. Kill, kill, kill!” he screamed and ran for Elizabeth, holding a knife over his head.
“Stop him,” Elizabeth said calmly.
Bushwhacker and one of Wernok’s Lieutenants grabbed the insane man as he tried to rush by; they wrestled him to the ground and disarmed the howling man.
Elizabeth now enhanced Wernok’s voice, so all could hear him ranting.
“Kill you all, kill you all. “She will save me, ‘she’ll kill you all, eat your souls,” he began to laugh hysterically.
“Who is ‘she’, Wernok?” Elizabeth asked.
“RIveK, the necromancer, she will eat your soul and I will be ‘her’ favorite. I’ll command her armies, and I’ll hang all of you!” he continued to rant, totally lost in his insanity.
“What does this mean? I thought you said he worked for the Usurper?” Bushwhacker said to Elizabeth.
“Yes, but your question should be ‘who is the Usurper’s master’? I now believe it is the one he calls, RIveK, a necromancer. She is the real destroyer of your country. She is the spinner at the center of this web. She is your real enemy,” Elizabeth told them, knowing she had found the piece of the puzzle that had eluded her. This necromancer was the one who had planted the mind shields in Razor and Wernok.
The entire bandit community now knew that Wernok had betrayed them, and their country, to the Usurper and a necromancer. Within moments of their realization, they had torn his clothes from his body and beat him nearly senseless. Next, they strung him up by the neck from Traitor’s Tree where he swung slowly, a sign for all traitors to beware.
Bushwhacker stood by Elizabeth as the two of them watched the angry mob hang their recent leader. “What was that about him,” he pointed at the dead Tax Marshal, still pinned to the wagon through his mouth, “be’in a guard and the real Marshal be’in somewhere else?”
“A friend once taught me a trick using tarslin sap, it doesn’t exist. Sometimes a threat that doesn’t exist is as good as a real one,” she told him with a wink.
As they rounded the last turn toward the bandit camp Whistler could not understand why they had not been accosted by the guards. They should have been all over his captors once they came around this corner. He looked down into the valley and saw the reason for the missing guards, there was some type of action going on. Everyone was gathered in the center glade by Wernok’s cabin.
Lasar stepped off his horse and untied Whistlers cinch from the horse. He and his saddle fell off, landing hard on the ground.
“Thanks, you’re free to go,” the knight said, remounting. He gave Whistler’s now unfettered mount a smack on the hind quarters, sending it galloping away. Then he headed after the galloping horses of the other knights. Whistler was still tied to the saddle on the ground, where he was cursing as he tried to untie his feet from the stirrups.
Hetark rode at breakneck speed down the mountain trail.
Poison had slipped further into unconsciousness and to Hetark, it looked as though she would go at any time. He didn’t know the exact hour, but it was over a day since she had been wounded.
Following Hetark down the path, Rasal rode along side of Becaris and kept a hand on his shoulder to steady him in his saddle.
They came out of the trees onto the flat ground and kicked their horses into a gallop toward the bandit crowd.
At the sound of the galloping horses, many people looked up to see four strangers bearing down on them and a few bandits began grabbing for weapons, thinking these were the advance warriors of an attack by the Usurper’s men.
“Wait, hold your weapons, these are friends!” Elizabeth called out.
At the sound of Elizabeth’s voice, Hetark said a prayer of thanks and changed the direction of his path. He slowed his horse and brought his leg over the neck of his mount sliding to the ground with Poison still held securely in his arms.
The crowd split for the tired looking knight who carried a wounded girl clothed in a fine dress and wrapped in a cape.
Elizabeth met him in the middle, and he gently lay Poison down.
“Milady, a necromancer struck her down thinking she was you, please save her if it is within your powers,” Hetark pleaded.
“I will try, Hetark,” she said, squeezing his wrist.
The Kirnath sorceress looked at Poison’s aura, it was nearly gone. Overlaid was the remnant of a black shroud that was now dissipating. Elizabeth realized that it was a holding of some sort, but it had the foul taste of necromantic power. With a gesture and application of her aura Elizabeth removed the black holding, and Poison’s condition worsened. Elizabeth concentrated and quickly repaired the ruined side of Poison’s body. She found a small portion of the wounded girl’s aura that was undamaged and spread the healthy colors, supplying aura power directly from her own. She changed the discolored aura back and the tissues began to re-knit and heal.
When Poison was out of danger, Elizabeth stopped short of fully healing the girl, she left Poison unconscious, but out of pain.
“She is out of danger, Hetark, but bide a moment before I complete her healing.”
Elizabeth now saw to Becaris, who the twins were supporting by putting his arms over their shoulders to bring him to Elizabeth.
“Milady,” Becaris began shakily, his face a gray pallor.
“Shhhhh,” she said with a small smile. Then she placed her hands over the sword puncture and reached into his aura and healed the wound.
Becaris stood completely on his own with his fellow knights.
“Follow me,” she said softly to the knights, “I have another step that must be taken, and you can help. Hetark, bring Poison.”
They moved over to the wagon and Elizabeth climbed on top, so all could see. She gestured for Hetark to lay Poison on the wagon.
“Justice has been done, the traitor is dead!” She called out, pointing toward Tra
itor’s Tree to gain the crowd’s attention, and she added, “But what of the Riond Mountain bandits? Who shall lead you now?”
“I am the rightful leader, I planned on taking Wernok in the challenge circle,” a lieutenant named Steel called out.
Immediately another surviving lieutenant countered with, “No, I will command!” He went by the name of Kanth.
“I challenge for leadership!” Steel replied in return.
“Stop!” Elizabeth cried out, still enhancing her voice in everyone’s minds.
All attention shifted from the squared off lieutenants to the black clad warrior on top the wagon.
“Who are the best fighters in the entire camp?” she asked.
“Steel and Kanth, now that Razor and Wernok are dead,” Quarrel answered.
The two named men were still facing each other with white knuckled hands on dagger hilts, though they had not drawn.
“They are your best. Would you decide which hand is best to use by cutting off the other?” she posed to the crowd, watching the glow of their aura’s with her sorceress power and gauging their mood. “The Usurper has many men; shall we help him by killing half our best? We need Steel and Kanth to help us against our enemies.”
“But this is how we choose our leader,” a voice in the middle of the crowd called out.
There were a few calls of agreement.
“Who was the first leader to ascend by killing his predecessor?” she called out in response, knowing the answer, “Wernok, the traitor. Do you wish to continue following an insane policy, designed by a traitorous puppet of the Usurper?”
“No!” came a few angry calls.
“Of course not, instead we need a leader that is chosen by all of you for their ability to help the people of this valley, what we don’t need is to kill one of our most needed men just to appease a few people’s blood lust,” she thundered. The crowd’s auras showed Elizabeth that she had most of their support.
People from the refugee camp had come over and were standing at the back of the crowd, a woman’s voice called out, “You lead us, Poison, with Steel and Kanth as your lieutenants.”
“She’s a woman, we need to be led by a man!” an unidentified male voice yelled.
“So what if she’s a woman? She has proven herself worthy!” another male voice called.
“We’ve only known her two days, how can we trust her?” Lieutenant Steel called out.
“She’s brought us more round than any other bandit, and she’s exposed a traitor who would’ve destroyed us all, I trust her!” Kanth yelled, countering Steel’s argument.
Elizabeth’s voice overpowered everyone, “Stop this argument! Poison cannot lead this group of common bandits!” she thundered with her enhanced voice.
That shocked the debating people; everyone who looked up at the proud form of Elizabeth standing above the crowd had already begun thinking of her as the leader, even if they were arguing against it. There was complete silence at her denial.
“Either Steel or Kanth would be far more suited as a bandit leader, but I’m not here to lead a group of bandits; I’m here to lead an army of retribution against the atrocities of the Usurper, and his masters the necromancers! Anyone can be a bandit; all it takes is the desire to take that which is not yours. I need soldiers, men, and women ready to fight for their children and their land. A bandit would take these gold and silver crowns for themselves, this round metal which was taken from the mouths of Autrany’s children. It was paid for with the blood of honest people and marked by the scars of their battles against the tyranny of the puppet Usurper and the evil necromancers. If all you ever wish to be are bandits grubbing for round, join the Usurper, he pays in the same blood.
“However, if you want to strike back at the necromancers who ravaged your country, you’ll need to take Autrany back from their evil grasp. We will chase them back to their foul lairs and crush them, so they can never hurt our people again!
“If that is what you want, then you’ll have to become more than you are, more than a little thorn in their side just waiting to be removed. You’ll have to be a storm, a gathering of force that begins with a light breeze across the land and builds to gale force.”
Elizabeth’s voice now rose in volume until it thundered in their heads, “Those are the people that I will lead to victory!”
After a moment of shocked silence, a voice called out of the crowd. “We can’t fight the Usurper’s armies, they are too strong! And now we know they are backed by the support of necromancer’s evil magic.”
Elizabeth raised her arm and pointed slowly across the entire assembly as she said, “A bandit force, larger than this, that stood up to the Usurper would be crushed, but you will not be bandits any longer, not just a group of fighters; you will have far more power. I will forge you into an ideal, a symbol of resistance, a flag to help the hopeless find hope.
“Your power is not measured in the number of arrows Quarrel can shoot, or the power in Bushwhacker’s arm, your power is the light of the candle you hold up amidst the darkness. That point of light will show the people of your countryside and of your towns and cities. They will learn that someone still believes. Show them that we hold the light and they will come. Just as I believe in the strength of the good people of this land, so will they believe in you.
“They can join us one candle at a time until the light burns so bright that all the evil darkness lying over this land has been exposed and driven back to the Dark Plane from which it issued. And not only from this land but from the surrounding countries, who are also cloaked by the evil night. Let the spark begin here to light the rest of the world on fire!”
A woman answered from the crowd, “But the necromancers have powers and creatures of evil. They will send them to kill us.”
“Who is afraid of the necromancers?” Elizabeth posed, “You think their armies, their evil creatures, and their dark powers can defeat you? If Santhra stands defiantly before them, protecting a child, and dies in her effort, was she defeated? If Gertha stands alone against the Usurper’s army, taking three soldiers with her before she falls, was she defeated?
“This woman,” Elizabeth said gesturing down at Poison’s unconscious body below, “who you don’t even know, stood against the attack of a necromancer without any protection from their dark magic and in the face of death she protected her friend. Was she defeated?
“As long as one person stands for what is right, ready to block evil’s path, the necromancers cannot win; this I believe with all my heart. Others will believe if, but one person still stands for what they know is right, no matter how futile it looks.
“I will proudly stand, seconding this woman’s courage,” she said, pointing down at Poison, “I will stand with her against the necromancers, alone if need be, but I will defy them. Who will stand with me?” Elizabeth called out, raising a dagger into the air.
“I will, they killed my family and forced me into this life without a home or country. I’ll not hesitate to do my duty,” Gertha called out, drawing her sword.
“Good! You and I will stand together against the necromancers, Gertha. We’ll thrust them back into the darkness that bore them,” Elizabeth replied, smiling at the short woman.
“We’re with you,” Hetark called out, speaking for the Knight Protectors, and they pulled their swords.
“Now we are six!” Elizabeth called out in a clear voice, saluting her knights.
“I will stand beside you!” Santhra called out from the back.
And other voices of the women Elizabeth had helped called out their support.
“I like yer style, you can count me in,” Bushwhacker added with a swaggering grin.
The other men of her squad pledged their support.
Soon many voices were calling and everyone with a weapon held them up in salute like a growing garden of steel.
“Now I ask you, who leads this army?” Elizabeth called out.
“Poison!”
“Poison will ma
ke a great commander, one the common soldiers will follow and trust. Poison can lead an attack, but she cannot be the symbol we need. Without the support of the aristocracy, you cannot win. We need the support of all our people; from the common folk to the nobility. There is a way you can get the support of all classes and join the downtrodden people of two countries against the necromancers. The people will fear the evil powers of the necromancers, so we must have a symbol that can stand up to those powers. We need a leader everyone will accept; we need a leader OF ROYAL BLOOD!” Elizabeth called, emphasizing the last three words.
“But they’ve murdered the entire royal family!” someone answered.
"No, there is at least one left alive," Elizabeth countered.
“Who?” several voices called out.
“Lady Elizabeth Ember Ardellen, Kirnath sorceress, cousin to your late ruler, the Lady of Lindankar. They are your long-time allies, AND she has the Hevarnan blood in her veins!” Elizabeth thundered out.
“One of the royal blood lives!” she heard a surprised voice say.
Another called out, “But rumor has it she was killed by assassins!”
“She lives!” Elizabeth answered with simple conviction.
“But we don’t know her, you should lead us, not some pampered court woman,” Gertha said, voicing her opinion.
“You will not find Lady Ardellen soft or pampered. She has passed through the fire, hardening the steel,” Elizabeth answered.
“Is that who lies before you?” Bushwhacker asked.
“No, this is a courageous woman, who many of you know in a strange way.” Laying her hand between the rise of Poison’s bosom, Elizabeth concentrated and finished healing her friend.
“Arise, Poison and thank you for the loan of your identity. I knew you would find the way and choose to join us against the evil that possesses this land. Welcome!” Elizabeth said, hugging her and in her ear she whispered, “And thank you for standing in my place against the necromancers.”