A Warrior's Legacy

by Guy Stanton III

  Our heads were positioned so that we could still see a filtered view of the pond of water through the fronds of a fern.

  “Did you see someone?” Whispered Gavin

  “Shhhh!”

  The creatures I had seen moving in the distance came closer and closer. There were two of them and they were hard to look at mainly because at one time the two disfigured creatures before us lapping water away at the pool like dogs had been human.

  While still human in form they had a brutish quality to their mannerisms and a feral look to their eyes that signaled to the fact that they had more in common with an animal than they did a man.

  They were naked and every inch of them was scarred, as if torn by nature and each other in constant strife. Open wounds festered and oozed puss. They were pitiful to behold.

  These must be the people of the Eastern Kingdom who had not died of the disease, but instead had gone mad. One of the creatures suddenly seized a bone out of the water and gnawed on it viciously.

  Giving a disgusted grunt the creature through the bone back into the water. That answered that question. Not only were these freakish looking creatures stark raving mad, but they were also cannibalistic. Certainly not who I wanted to shake hands with in this darkened forest.

  One of them abruptly lifted its head as if it had heard or smelled something of interest and I feared that it might be us. The other creature lifted its head and then they both seemed to gurgle excitedly in their throats as if in some fit of grotesque glee probably over their next meal.

  They ran off towards their point of interest in an odd combination of all fours and staggering half standing. My hand relaxed off of my sword and fell to my side.

  I turned slightly back to Gavin, “I want you to go back and warn the men and have them come in that direction.” I whispered pointing where the two man beasts had run off towards.

  I started to leave in that direction, but Gavin seized my arm, “You’re not going on after them alone are you?”

  I nodded.

  He whispered, “You’re crazy!”

  He let go of me reluctantly. I moved off leaving him, admitting to myself that I was undoubtedly loony for going off alone, but it was an urge that I couldn’t deny. Something told me to follow the creatures and see what mischief they were up to.

  I left my sword sheathed and instead pulled the composite bow from my back and notched an arrow into it. My skills of stealth in the forest had always been good, but my time spent fighting alongside of the Attorgrons had honed my skills even further.

  The creatures had moved fast and so did I. I quickly slipped through the forest ready to nail anything that moved, with an arrow. The creatures had a sickly rotten smell to them and it was this that I paid the closest attention for as I was sure that as the feral animals these people had become they were probably extremely adept at blending in with their surroundings.

  I’d gone quite a ways when I caught a whiff of the smell and I slowed down and took my time creeping through the forest. The smell grew stronger too strong for just the two that I had been tracking.

  There were more of the creatures gathered somewhere close by. I heard a slight sound that didn’t fit in to the still setting of the forest right. It had sounded like metal hitting off of a rock.

  I had seen no metal implements on the creatures. Instead of following the trail where it led down into a small cul-de-sac I instead climbed up some projecting boulder formations in order to get a better view and avoid being ambushed by the creatures or something else in the tight confines of the cul-de-sac.

  Gaining the high ground of the massive boulder promontory I peered over the edge to view the scene below. I was surprised to see people, that is sane people, gathered below my perch not thirty feet away. There were twelve of them and they did not appear to be Westerners as their dress was too humble in comparison.

  These then must be the survivors of the plague and residents of the last city remaining of the Eastern Kingdom that Ziya had mentioned. A formidable looking warrior stood off to one side of the group sword in hand.

  He couldn’t have been much older than me, but he was obviously the one in command. He was flanked by two women who must also be warriors; they held bow and arrows at the ready, as all three surveyed the surrounding slopes of the cul-de-sac.

  A third warrioress stood up higher on a rocky projection on the opposite side of the cul-de-sac from me. She must be there look out. She too carried a bow and arrow at the ready.

  These warriors were ready for a fight, but what were they doing here in the first place? The remaining eight men, who also appeared to be warriors, were on their knees digging in the dirt with their hands and with small shovels. I saw one pull a plant from the ground that had long thick yellow roots. He tore the top of the plant off and threw the roots into a sack by his side.

  Surely these warriors weren’t risking their lives by coming to this dreadful forest to gather medicinal herbs and roots! But apparently they were doing just that.

  They must be sorely needed by their people to risk coming here. The warrior below held up his hand and all work stopped. He surveyed his surroundings with a sharp eye. He, like I did, sensed that our common enemy was near.

  Very near!

  But where?

  I saw the slightest of movements near the scout’s location out of the corner of my eyes and my bow swiveled to that point. What was it I had seen?

  I watched closely. A clump of moss moved ever so slightly nearer the warrioress’s feet. A gnarled hand reached slowly out of the clump of moss towards the woman’s legs.

  I let loose my arrow and pinned the outstretched hand to the ground. The beast roared up in pain throwing the moss covering to the side. The warrioress drilled an arrow at point-blank range into the beast’s skull and it fell over backward dead to the ground.

  The ground all around her erupted with movement and she screamed a warning out to those below. With the grace of a mountain panther she leaped off her rocky perch and down towards the group of her people below, even as one of my arrows whizzed past her and drilled into a beast that had been about to grab her.

  There were strange hideous looking beasts appearing out of everywhere all of a sudden. They had to number at least sixty. The group below was hopelessly outnumbered.

  The lead warrior had backed his warriors up against the rock face I was on top of as if sensing I was a friend and not a foe.

  Spellbound I watched even as I fired off arrows at the raging horde of beasts suddenly ringing the top of the cul-de-sac, as the woman jumped perilously from boulder to boulder in her headlong rush down the hill towards her friends. A group of fifteen of the brutes had taken on after her and I tried my best to pick them off, as they lunged after her on all fours over the rocks.

  She was near the bottom of the dip, when her foot slipped on a wet rock and she fell. I saw her pretty face tighten up with pain, even as her mouth opened on a scream that I couldn’t hear, because of the din and noise of the brutes around us.

  Her leg was broken I could tell that even from my high perch. Incredibly I watched her with great effort flip herself over and reach back and pull her leg out from between the two rocks it had slipped between. Flipping back over onto her belly she started crawling for a cleft in the rocks up ahead of her grabbing her bow up in the process.

  She had given up on reaching her friends for the hope of finding a defensible position. Reaching a rock she turned and pushing herself up slightly she cranked off an arrow that went through the throat of a brute that had slipped past my arrows.

  The brute fell at her feet choking on its own blood. She was one tough girl that one was! I was running out of arrows and soon I wouldn’t be able to keep the majority of the brutes at bay and she was too far away for me to reach in time. She was out of arrows and so was I within moments.

  I jumped to my feet and ran along the top of the rocks toward her even though I would probably be too late. A big brute was already almost on top of
her. I was going to be too late!

  I stopped abruptly when I saw Holon come out of nowhere on a dead run and lop the beast’s head clean off with his long war sword. He then put one foot to the headless brute’s chest and pushed the body over and away from the girl. Holon stepped overtop the girl and dispatched another onrushing brute.

  She was in good hands now and so I turned my attention back to the other confrontation taking place. The main mob of the brutes had descended upon the other warriors. The lead warrior had broken free of the close quarters combat and fought alone in amongst the brutes with superb skill and precision of movement.

  To some it may look like he was showing off and perhaps partly he was, but he was also attracting the attention of a lot of the brutes, which evened the fighting odds of the other warriors, who with great skill as well were easily eliminating the brutes before them, while they protected the sacks full of the yellow roots behind them with their lives.

  I started my own perilous journey down into the dip hoping that I didn’t break a leg in the process too. It would have been easy to do.

  The lone warrior got clubbed hard from behind and fell to one knee. The brute was raising his club to finish him off, when after I had jumped from yet fifteen feet higher above, my boots landed on his shoulders. The impact drove the beast into the ground and broke my fall. Thrusting both of my sabers through his back for good measure, I hopped off his back.

  The warrior was back on his feet a crimson streak of blood running down from his hairline. Our eyes met and a bond was formed. Turning back to back we fought the mob of brutes off together.

  The fighting was soon over, when Gavin and the others ran sword swinging into the scene. The last brute fell while trying to escape from one of the archer warrioress well aimed arrows.

  I looked around none of the Easterners, as that was who I was sure they were, had fallen. The girl with the broken leg was the worst casualty. I saw that the other two warrioress’s had gone over to her and Holon.

  They held the girl down as Holon realigned her leg bones with a sharp click. The girl’s strangled cry of pain would have made anyone with a heart cringe in sympathy for her.

  Holon was already strapping a splint to her leg aided by the other two women. My attention came back to rest on the young warrior whom I had fought side by side with, as Gavin came up to stand beside me.

  The warrior looked from one to the other of us incredulously. “You are the two brothers the high priestess prophesied of! You have come!”

  He and the others abruptly kneeled to the ground before us. Even the girl with the broken leg and splint tried to kneel, but couldn’t when Holon pushed her back down.

  Gavin and I shared a brief look and I couldn’t resist whispering, “Think that high priestess is your dream girl Gavin?”

  He looked like he wanted to cut me in half with his giant sword. I turned back to the kneeling warrior and pulled him to his feet.

  “We are no one that you should bow to. All of you stand up.”

  They stood watching and looking at us in open amazement of our appearance out of seemingly nowhere to their rescue.

  “If it had not been for your help and your well aimed arrows, many or perhaps all of us would have fallen. We are in your debt.” The lead warrior said.

  I shrugged his statement to the side not wanting to give myself that much credit. The truth was we had been incredibly blessed to walk away as free as we had.

  “What is your name warrior?” I asked

  “Lohan.”

  “Do you have a safe way of getting back to your people?”

  Lohan’s eyes flickered to the injured girl and then back to mine. “The way was never safe, but now it will be more difficult.”

  “Let’s change that. We have a safe way back to your city come with us.”

  I turned away not really giving him a choice to even argue it. I was pretty sure that if they went back his way it would be akin to committing suicide. Even now more of the creatures could be congregating themselves for an ambush out of the moss.

  Heading out of the little cul-de-sac I saw Holon had picked up the girl with the broken leg. His expression and bearing were that of a man who had found something extremely special and didn’t want to let go of it. If the possessive way her arm lay around the back of his neck and the content way she lay in his arms was any indication he didn’t have to worry about losing the burden in his arms. He was a goner.

  All of my friends were falling like flies these days to the fairer sex. I wished them well. I winked at Holon as I walked past and his face flushed. He’d found someone to build his legacy with and I couldn’t help but be a little envious and happy for him all the same time.

  We made good time back to the boats. Having a mob of cannibalistic brutes on the prowl had a way of lengthening one’s stride. It was late morning when we arrived back on the ship. We had brought back no water, but Lohan said his people were but a two days journey by boat up the coast.

  Later that afternoon we passed by what must have once been a great city, even greater than the Western city had been in its prime. Now it was nothing but ruins of shattered greatness. The destroyed city had a desolate quality of atmosphere to it.

  “What happened here Lohan?” I asked softly.

  He gazed bitterly at the city passing by us. “It started over one hundred years ago during the sorcerer’s war. One day the people were fine and happy. And then we heard a great explosion, but found no evidence of destruction. We did not hear from the people of Lancosa for several days and when we came to investigate it was to discover the city empty except for dead people. The only mark on the people was that they had bled out of their ears, noses and eyes. At least a third of the population were missing. We thought they had been taken captive by the sorcerer, as so many others had been, but to our eventual horror we found them hiding in this forest, the crazed brutes that you saw before you yesterday. Over time we noticed other effects that we lay at the Sorcerer’s doorstep. A painful shaking of the body that if left untreated can result in an individual’s death or turn one into these foul brutes.”

  “That’s what the roots are for?”

  “Yes they reverse the effects, but they are rare and as you can see are very hard to come by. They grow fewer and fewer every year and are harder to find. Soon my people will not have any chance to avoid the fate of our brothers unless the Creator of heaven that the high priestess has spoken to us of will intervene on our part. Have you come to teach us of His ways as she has said you will?”

  “Yes, we have and with your people’s help Lohan, I intend to destroy the Sorcerer!”

  Lohan put a hand to his sword and said, “You have my sword and support even if such a quest leads us to death’s door!”

  I watched the desolate city disappear behind us, “Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.”

  We arrived at the lands of the Easterners two days later. The last vestige of the once second most powerful of the three kingdoms of Assoria. The land was flat and virtually devoid of trees. Endless fields and pastures full of livestock were noticeable for as far as the eye could see.

  Gavin asked the question that I was pondering on, “Why so much agriculture?”

  Lohan replied simply, “We have many mouths to feed and in addition to our own we try to send any extra food we have to feed the remnants of the Northern Kingdom.”

  A small dock came into view as we passed the acres upon acres devoted to agriculture. I gave Captain Sargas orders to pull alongside the dock not concerned of any danger from these people. Lohan and his people landed first and comforted the scared villagers that weren’t sure what was taking place.

  There fear soon gave way to cries of elation as they heard the news that the priestesses’ prophecy had come true. I saw messenger riders streak out of the village as fast as their horses could carry them. The whole kingdom would know of our presence soon.

  Lohan came back briefly to tell us that if we took the main road it wo
uld lead us straight to the capital. He then left informing us that he had to report the news of our arrival to the priestess.

  Captain Sargas saw to the direction of a sturdy gangplank for cargo and a suitable bridge for conveying our horses across to the dock. I made my way below to the cargo area.

  Relentless pawed at that the floor of his stall aggressively. He had not taken to life at sea well at all. He had been in a foul mood ever since setting sail. The boards of his stall had been replaced several times because of his tantrums. Now however he seemed to sense that his captivity was nearly over and was being remarkably well behaved.

  He hadn’t rattled his stall once in the last day. He was a warhorse in spirit and body. He would like this new land, as an all out war seemed to be just over the horizon.

  I opened his marked up door and he came to press up against me reassuringly, as if he sensed the mood I was in. I patted his neck and massive chest.

  “It seems a lot of people out there old boy are depending on us to work a miracle. Don’t they know I’m just a man? Father said we should find our destiny here. What do you think?”

  Relentless nodded his head vigorously and I had to chuckle.

  “Well when do you want to start this new quest?”

  Relentless started moving forward.

  “Okay I get it, but I’m not starting this quest without a saddle.

  Me, Gavin and twenty others made our way through the packed masses of the villagers who thronged all around us. It was as if they saw hope for the future reflected in our eyes as they strained to reach out and touch us as we made our way by them.

  These people were desperate for hope and the words of prophecy coming true, which the high priestess had spoken had lit a fire in their tired and weary hearts. After we were clear of the village we increased our pace to a gallop as we rode over the miles of cultivated land.

  Field workers were grouped all along the road cheering us as we rode past and all I could think to myself was ‘Please God don’t allow us to let these people down.’