Slowly righting itself once again, the giant tree creature moved aside as another took its place. This one was smaller, with peanut shaped leaves of a dark emerald green and smooth gray bark. The new tree leaned down as well, exposing a face similar to the previous, but with far less moss and lichen and smoother, less wrinkled features. A multitude of branches bent down towards Sara as the cage rolled aside. Instantly her wounds began to mend but even so she was already pulled up and off the ground, branches bending around her, forming a new cage to contain her. The branches ranged in size, some only as thick as her wrists, yet others as big around as her thigh. Upon them, thousands of thorns as long as her forearms pointed inward at her from all directions except the floor.
Leaves created a barrier that blocked all visibility beyond the branches and thorns, but Sara could feel the tree creature rise and turn before stalking off into the forest.
Exasperated, she plopped to the bottom of her new cell as her last wounds mended themselves within minutes. She had traded one captor and one cage for another. Silently she wondered which had been the worse.
* * * * *
Borrik soared westward as fast as his wings and the air currents would take him. He watched the world pass below, scanning for anything moving west. The morning had brought with it a storm that blanketed everything below in white, covering any hopes of finding tracks. Beyond the newly formed lake and Seth’s magically created chasm he flew and further still, onward past the towers and wall called Westgate.
He knew he already had Seth’s favor, but in the prince’s absence he also knew it had fallen to him to look out for Sara. Though a deadly foe, the woman was less experienced in battle and a shining target to any enemy looking to hurt the dark prince. Borrik had failed to protect her, but now was offered redemption. He had flown nearly twelve hours straight when he finally spotted an anomaly below
Diving low to the ground for a better look, he spotted a pair of wagon tracks accompanied by horse tracks that seemingly just appeared out of the snow. Apparently this was its location when the snow had stopped falling, everything behind that point was covered, yet stretching as far ahead as Borrik could perceive, the tracks continued. He sniffed the air but could find no trace of the Princess’s scent.
There was no way to know if she was on the wagon, but with no better leads Borrik opted to follow the tracks and see where they led. The snow had stopped but six hours ago, giving the driver an apparent six hour lead. Borrik was faster upon the air than a wagon pulled by horses could even hope to be.
Flapping like his life depended on it, Borrik climbed to gain altitude and a suitable stream of air to navigate. Hundreds of feet up, he found such a stream and sailed through the sky, his eyes never leaving the tracks.
It was only an hour later when he reached the edge of the forest, and circling over it twice concluded that he could no longer follow the trail from above. Settling to the ground on the very trail where the tracks entered the trees, Borrik recalled his blessed wings and arms, letting them be reclaimed by his flesh once more. Then, without hesitation he sprang into the forest upon all four of his massive limbs. It was an unnatural gait, neither animal nor human, but it served to lend him more speed and spared his legs all the work.
Darkness was coming fast, and within the treed canopy even his feral vision was limited. Sniffing as he went, he picked up the scent of blood. It was not Sara’s, but nonetheless, if there was a struggle she could be in danger if she had been on the wagon he sought.
On foot, Borrik could maintain pace with a Valdadorian war horse. His stamina at times felt unending. For an hour he raced through the woods, following the winding trail that oddly narrowed after each curve. The scent of blood grew stronger with every step, and in the darkness he reached the origin of the smell. Here a mix of odors polluted the air, and among them was what he sought. Not the original blood he had followed, but Sara, and her blood, had also been here.
Sniffing around, both up and down the trail, Borrik realized that all the scents stopped at this point upon the trail. The cart had not traveled any further, which meant that somehow it had left the trail. In the darkness he began navigating the forest in an ever widening circle from the spot where the cart and all of its scents vanished.
The light had faded altogether, and now he relied only upon his nose. Breathing deeply he searched the air for a clue, always moving, always sniffing. An hour passed, and then another, as Borrik began to lose hope of finding a trail. He wondered if perhaps somehow the horses, cart, and Sara had vanished magically. Such things were known to happen with people that were familiar with Seth. Knowing the magically vanishing scenario unlikely, he widened his search again and got his first break. Upon a slight breeze he caught the scent of the horses and began sprinting upwind.
Moments later he caught the scent of Sara, and then again the horses just after that. He was finally on the right trail. Tasting the air as he ran headlong into the darkness, Borrik bounded upon all fours, dodging through the trees like one of his feral relatives.
* * * * *
Mid-morning came and went, as the Dwarven army grew ever nearer to the source of the smoke. Linaya rode in a near trance, having fallen prey to the rhythmic pounding of the dwarves’ boots upon the soil. Scouts came and went from the front lines to the wilderness again at regular intervals, and she grew accustomed to vaguely marking time with their scheduled arrivals and departures. She was hungry. No. Famished, and could not imagine what those on foot must be feeling. They had been rushing all morning to reach the smoke and find the cause for it. When the army came to an abrupt halt, so dazed was Linaya that she nearly trampled the dwarves in front of her with her mount.
Yanking the reins at the last possible second, she stirred shaking the fog from her mind. Up ahead in the front lines, a pair of scouts talked hurriedly with the king and Gumbi, gesturing with their hands like a pair of raving lunatics. Apparently on the trail ahead was something big with clawed fingers that bounced around like a bunny while waving its hands. To be honest, Linaya found the scene rather amusing until she realized the ground was still shaking beneath them.
She had grown so accustomed to the vibrations caused by the immense army she had not realized that they continued even after the troops had stopped. Then she pieced the puzzle together. They were marching into a fight.
Linaya watched as Gumbi raised a hand, making three motions with his fist, raising various fingers each time. Quietly the ranks of troops broke into three equal contingents and began moving as silently as was possible for a hundred thousand armored troops. They split paths, each contingent striking out in a different direction.
“What’s going on?” she asked Zorbin.
“We’ve stumbled upon some giants and be preparing to attack them.”
“Why are we attacking them? Couldn’t we go around?”
“Giants and Dwarves be havin’ history, m’lady, we’ll just call it a land dispute that’s been ongoin’ near a thousand years. Besides, the men could use a bit o’ practice.”
“Are they in Smirole?” Linaya asked, fearful that the town had been slaughtered by the monstrous giants.
“We won’t know till we gets there, m’lady.”
With a nod of understanding, Linaya stopped her line of questioning, allowing Zorbin to focus on the battle ahead. Riding beside him slowly, she kept her eyes focused ahead, looking for any signs of the giants.
An hour passed as the dwarves crept down to meet their foes, and Linaya found the pace slow and grueling. She did not want the dwarves to fight the giants, but the anticipation of the fight with the giants was a hundred times worse.
Loud deep chanting could now be heard, interspersed with terrified screams and yells. The ground quaked beneath them and Linaya fought to maintain control of her terrified steed. Something unnatural was occurring ahead and she could not help but feel a bad omen approaching their foes.
More minutes passed and finally the giants began to whoop and scream, having
been alerted to the dwarves’ presence. The order to charge was given, and in unison the dwarves lowered their hammers from their shoulders and began to pray to their god as they heeded the call to charge.
Away the dwarves ran, calling out battle cries in their deep guttural voices. Linaya watched as Zorbin called upon Gorandor with a resounding boom, and he and Xanth sprang forward to join the fray. She knew she had no place in war, and so followed at what she thought a safe distance might be to simply observe the battle. It was not what she had expected.
Breaking into the clearing ahead, Linaya was met by a roar of rage that consisted of hundreds of mind-numbing, booming voices. She had not been prepared for this. Every story she had ever been told about giants had consisted of only a handful of the beasts. It was believed that they lived in small family tribes of a dozen or less. Most thought that there were few of the creatures, maybe a hundred or so. All of what she had heard was wrong.
In the clearing, which had indeed once been a town, were hundreds of the huge slobbering behemoths. They had demolished the town and surrounding farms, building a pyre out of the very buildings and setting it ablaze. Atop the pyre they had tossed the inhabitants of the city, some who even now writhed in the smoke and flame seeking an end to their torment. These were the screams they had been hearing. Beyond the pyre was a huge, crudely built cage formed from uprooted trees that had been shoved down into the soil and bound with vines. Within it she could see hundreds of the dire wolves like the one Zorbin rode. These, she supposed, were to be the next sacrifice to whatever god the giants served.
The dwarves, apparently expecting the same as Linaya had, did not seem to know what to do about the massive infestation of their mortal enemies. Breaking into smaller and smaller groups in order to engage so many of the giants, the dwarves’ lines were thinned out. Even so, the odds were near two hundred to one. At least for the first few moments while everyone, including the giants, recovered from the shock of the situation.
For a split second it was as if the world held its breath, as all was silent before the chaos ensued. Linaya watched as the giants began pulling huge clubs from their crude belts, or uprooting yet more trees to bash the dwarves like insects. Though many of the dwarves were blessed, they were tiny in comparison to the giants. Even Zorbin, more than twice his regular size, was only a third of one of the smaller giants.
The dwarves, it seemed, had a few mages at their disposal as boulders formed out of thin air to fall like a rain upon a select few of the giants. Even so, it began as a bloodbath. The giants smashed the dwarves with their clubs and stomped upon them, smearing them from under their feet like cockroaches. Orders were shouted here and there, but could not be heard over the screams of dying dwarves and the giant inferno blazing at center field. Finally Linaya watched as a giant toppled, his ankle shattered by a blessed dwarf’s hammer. Moments later another fell ,and then another, as dwarves scrambled to get out of the way and rushed in once again as the behemoths smashed to the ground. It seemed the dwarves had devised a method to bring the giants down.
Within minutes a few dozen were felled, but already thousands of dwarves had been lost. Linaya forced herself to watch every bloody, gory moment, trying to memorize the heroics that took place upon the field in an effort to keep herself from being sick or breaking down. It was horrid to watch the dwarves being slaughtered and not be able to do anything to help.
More giants fell and then even more. Perhaps six dozen or so had been brought to ground and slaughtered, but the dwarves lost hundreds in comparison to each singular giant. Then, when no one thought it possible, the battle took a turn for the worse.
Rushing from somewhere beyond the field of battle, a giant unlike any other any of them had seen or heard of appeared. She was no bigger than the average giant, and sported four arms like the rest of them, with a boney beak-like structure for a nose and a huge round maw filled with rows and rows of razor sharp teeth. Her attire is what immediately set her apart.
Upon the giant’s body, great runes had been drawn and each of them glowed green upon her skin. In one great hand she held a collection of skulls that dangled upon a cord, collected from her own kind. Opposite that hand she carried a giant staff carved from an immense tree, its roots were braided around a huge green colored crystal that served as the top of the staff. The entire length of the shaft was also decorated in the glowing runes that adorned her skin.
Linaya watched as the creature reached the far edge of the battle and touched the tip of her staff to the ground, chanting unintelligible words in a deep and booming voice. Within seconds the staff and giant burst into bright yellow light, as a green fog began to rise from the ground and envelope the nearest dwarves. Those within the fog died within seconds, coughing and spasming, spewing blood from their mouths as they drowned on their own fluids.
The fog spread in an ever growing circle, having no effect on the giants, who stood above the fog breathing fresh air. Linaya knew the battle to be over, her hopes of saving Valdadore dashed. The dwarves would be lucky to save themselves.
Chapter Four
Seth stood upon the wall, watching both the camp a few miles off and the western horizon. Sigrant’s forces showed no signs of stirring, though his vision of the gods assured him they were indeed within the multitude of tents erected just a few short miles from the city. More than half of them had changed. By the next day the process would have been completed.
The horizon showed no signs of change. He hoped that at any moment Borrik would wing into sight, carrying Sara aloft in his arms to return her to his master’s side. Thus far no such thing had occurred. Seth still had faith that Borrik would see the deed completed, no matter how long it took.
So instead, Seth stood silently within a deeply cowled black cloak he had acquired during the morning, the lone defender upon Valdadore’s walls. His men were gathering the only beasts within the city that they could find with excellent night vision and strength. Rats.
He intended to bolster his troops with rat men. It was a decision made of necessity, but hopefully would serve the purpose he intended. At least the rats were proving plentiful in some places within the city. Already cages had been filled with hundreds of them. Soon he would begin experimenting to find the perfect combination of human and rat to suit his purposes. Until then, Seth decided to send King Sigrant a little welcoming message.
Focusing his thoughts, Seth reached out across the miles to Sigrant’s camp. It was a long distance, but Seth was determined. Sending out tendrils of his power, he created illusions of himself and hundreds of his werewolf troops surrounding the tent city. Sweat beaded upon his forehead with the effort of maintaining so many illusions, but still he was not finished. Now he needed the enemy to see them. Concentrating his efforts, he focused on the air above the enemy encampment. There he forced his will and power to become one, as hundreds of thousands of tiny droplets of fire sprang to life to rain down upon the tents in the enemy camp. Within seconds the screams started as small holes burned through the canvas of tents, allowing rays of sunlight to penetrate into the darkness. The fires spread and soon entire tents were engulfed as Sigrant’s vampires fled the fires to be caught in the sun.
Screams and death cries filled the air as great plumes of smoke arose from the encampment. Those vampires caught in the sun caught fire. Burning and blind, they only helped to spread the destruction. It was near ten full minutes before Sigrant’s mages created a dense fog to blanket the camp, effectively blocking the sun and smothering the fires. Before they were done, however, Seth reached out to the mage nearest the invading king. Just paces away from Sigrant, Seth latched onto the aura of the mage and tore the bloated life away from him, letting the man disintegrate into a pile of ash before his king.
Then Seth was satisfied. Thousands had died in mere minutes. Thousands more had seen his apparitions. More importantly, when the vampires died something miraculous happened. Thousands more within Sigrant’s camp were changed, their auras becoming fully
human once more. Seth pondered the possibilities. He was beginning to understand just how Sara’s condition was being transmitted and used as a weapon. Already he was developing a theory on how to defeat the blood-sucking horde, but in case he was wrong he turned and stalked back down the steps of the castle wall. If Sigrant’s troops came to call he would easily see them coming with his magical vision.
His thoughts returning to Sara and Borrik, he climbed down the many flights of remaining steps in preparation for the day’s activities.
* * * * *
Linaya watched as the masses of dwarves parted and a single soldier darted between them, as boulders began to rain down on the giant shaman. She watched as not only did the dwarves part, but they began to flee from him in all directions. The giants realized something was amiss and several began to rush the lone warrior, but the dwarf ignored them and continued running as fast as his short legs would take him.
As it appeared he would be intercepted before reaching his target, the dwarf raised his hammer and without so much as pausing brought it down to the earth with a blinding flash of light. Following the light by a fraction of a second was a concussive boom, the likes of which Linaya had never heard before, and following that the ground split in a wide chasm, beginning where the dwarf had struck and snaking out towards the shaman. Linaya managed to watch as the blessed dwarf sentenced himself to death, his momentum not allowing him to stop before he careened over the edge of the chasm he had created, never to be seen again.
The shaman could not react in time, and neither could those giants who had rushed the hero. All of them plummeted into the abyss, giant masses of flailing arms, legs, and echoing death screams. Other dwarfs then rushed the chasm and, bending to the ground, they began to glow as the chasm began to close, the dwarfs working to mend the damage they had done.
The Crowned (The Blood and Brotherhood Saga, Book 6) Page 5