“Hold,” he said, raising his hand. He reached into his belt pouch, removed his mystical lens and held it to his eye. There was a lengthy pause before he finally spoke again, “there are figures there on that ridge.”
The point of which Elec spoke was overlooking a section of Heartwood Valley that was currently covered by an ever-swelling fog, making long distance signaling and visuals all but impossible. But this particular elf’s eyes were something special, born of fey blood and capable of seeing things as clearly as a hawk might, particularly when combined with the magic of the lens.
“They are armed with crossbows,” he said as he pointed toward the hill directly opposite them. It looked to be a heavily traveled road, unlike the path that Garius had chosen for them to use on their journey here.
Saeunn withdrew her greatsword. Elec quickly reached back and restrained her arm as forcefully as he could. She regarded him fiercely as his grip lingered a bit longer than he’d intended, and her gaze fell from his eyes to where his hand still grasped her arm tightly. He released his grip just as quickly.
“Please,” he began to explain, “there’s something several hundred paces in the distance there,” he added, pointing to a spot on the road to where the others could only see the whirling mists of Heartwood Valley. “It must be a caravan! And there are several men poised for an ambush many paces ahead of it.” Elec swallowed hard. “They are headed into a trap!”
Saeunn looked back to the ebon haired elf whose eyes widened with anxiety over the impending situation. She smiled a smile that expressed to him that she not only anticipated a fight, but looked forward to it. Then she sped off without another word.
“Feel up to a fight, Orngoth?” Rose asked the half-ogre, whose face mirrored the look that Saeunn had given Elec. The half-ogre turned and ran after the already departed Saeunn, favoring his left leg, but running swiftly despite its seeming discomfort.
“Better try to keep up with them, elf,” Rose cried as she ran off next, looking for a shadow to dive into to no doubt expedite her own arrival beside the barbarians. “Don’t want them to hog all the glory!”
Elec replaced the magical lens in his belt pouch and withdrew a few elixirs which he regarded silently. Then he uncorked them and downed their contents, running off after the group. He felt the potions burning in his throat as he withdrew both Daegnar Giruth and Wyrm’s Fang. And then he felt the power coursing through his veins as he began to pick up speed with each step he took, until he could see the half-ogre within his sights again. He continued on, running headlong into the mist with his weapons gripped tightly in each hand.
Lady Saphirra sat comfortably in a well-constructed and luxurious chair across from Ganthorpe Randolph, who sat behind his desk. She regarded him thoroughly, inspecting his demeanor and noticing the steady measures of his breathing. Her gaze ended directly locked with his own icy stare—a look that paralleled her own, she knew, and one she had seen all too often.
Neither of them spoke as she glanced around his office, noting the many things of value that adorned his walls and floors, and even more sitting upon his desk.
“You’ve done well for yourself,” she commented, finally breaking the silence. She also could not help but notice the men who stood behind Ganthorpe, keeping to the shadows, their sole purpose to create an air of authority within the chamber. There were probably more traps and snares located around the room, too, for Ganthorpe was a planner who left nothing to chance. It was precisely how he remained in power for so long amongst the thieves and cutthroats with whom he conducted his business.
She also knew that the men behind him were there as a reminder to her that she was in his territory this day and that her being here was of no threat or consequence. None of this was lost on the beautiful and intelligent woman.
Her overall appearance reflected a sinister confidence, as did his. Her hair was long and of a raven black meant to meld into the jacket she wore, which matched that same depth of gloom, absorbing any and all light. That unassuming jacket, which would seem extremely ordinary to him for one of her exquisite tastes, covered her entire body and hung below her shins. It was, however, lined with weapons and items of magical origin that would aid her if things got out of hand here. And she’d even painted her fingernails that same shade of black to match.
“Thank you for noticing,” he offered in response to her initial question. “You look lovely, as usual. And still no signs of grey in that mane of yours,” commented Ganthorpe lightly, nodding to her and smiling.
The locks atop her head indeed displayed no hint of aging, despite her stage in life, which Ganthorpe knew was somewhere in the vicinity of sixty. It was something Ganthorpe never mentioned to her, though she imagined he must have many questions on the subject, like now, as he tried in vain to needle her into offering up an explanation.
Adding to the overall black of her attire was the lighting in the room, which was fitted sparsely with candles. There were also a few gems that appeared to have been scattered haphazardly upon Ganthorpe’s desk that clearly and expressly picked up and amplified the light. They were no doubt magical in nature, she surmised.
“I am more than a little disappointed that you withheld the location of my daggers for so long, Ganthorpe,” Lady Saphirra threatened openly, staring into his eyes once more. It was as open a threat as the two of them could make without acting upon it.
“I am sorry for that,” Ganthorpe replied, obviously lying, she could tell. “But I couldn’t quite give up my…most-prized possession…at the time.” Saphirra merely nodded and rolled her eyes, knowing the history of him and Rose.
“So, she is a possession, is she? Nothing really changes with you, does it?” She asked. But before he could reply, she changed the subject, “Do you really need so many of your men present?” She teased him again, waiting for a response that would not come. Despite Ganthorpe’s vigilance, she was aware that he was also very paranoid, which of course, was another reason he was able to remain him alive and in power for so long.
“I’m only here to chat. Do you view me as a threat, dear Ganthorpe?” she continued in her mocking tone as she offered yet another thinly-veiled jab at his enduring suspicions and insecurities.
“It is standard procedure,” he added, nodding at his two lieutenants that stood on either side of the door, trying to dismiss the obvious uneasiness. “You know this,” he added, looking wide eyed at her before she smiled widely back at him. “I did not mean to offend you.”
“Well, this is merely a business transaction,” she said as she crossed her legs, presenting a very shapely thigh that escaped from beneath the exterior of her black leather ensemble. Ganthorpe’s eyes darted to glance at shapely imb, but to his credit, his eyes did notlinger. His lecherous behavior was well known, especially to her, and she did not want to continue to pull at that thread, but allowed herself this one flirtation.
“You maintain the body of a twenty-year-old, despite your marked years on Wothlondia,” he praised with a boyish grin in a way that only he could do. She smiled again, not offering any explanation. That was her little secret, and one not to be divulged at this juncture. She held that smile politely and he hid his initial bewilderment well enough that she barely caught it at all.
Suddenly, the door to his chambers opened behind her, her associate being led in, and she realized they could finally get down to the real business at hand.
CHAPTER 2
Xorgram Eboneye stood at the top of the watch tower, using his one good and deeply-colored-blue eye to peer out over the horizon and into the morning skyline. He then removed a telescope from his backpack, lifted his eye patch and held the device over his prosthetic, and very unique, right eye. That prosthetic held many special qualities and the telescope, when combined with it, magnified his vision tenfold.
The prosthetic, which he’d had implanted years ago, was made for him by Fuddle Mucklewink using the rare shadowsteel material of the mines below Hollow Hill. Fuddle was a brilliant gnome inventor and one
of Xorgram’s oldest friends and allies. The new eye enabled him to magically tap into his optic nerve, allowing him to not only obtain clear vision, but to also see into other planes if he so willed it. This particular gift required great effort and was a feat that he could only perform occasionally, and which he’d discovered unintentionally.
He continued his survey of the vast areas surrounding the dilapidated village, which he now called home, for signs of activity. Once a wagon, caravan or band of travelers was spotted, he could send his brethren to relieve them of their goods and coin.
He smiled as he thought of how smoothly their operations were imporiving these days and how efficient this particular group of highwaymen had become in their endeavors over the last few decades, perfecting their procedures. It had taken him years to come up with the proper distance, techniques and tactics with which to apply his thieving carefully enough to not be discovered. He was extremely proud of the Blackstone Brotherhood and all they’d accomplished. This thought made him hold his smile for a long while before returning his attention to the valley in the north.
There was no sign of movement or life that he could see directly in the vast expanse that was referred to as Heartwood Valley. The vale was their usual stomping ground, sandwiched neatly between the Oakcrest Mountains, the Amrel Forest, Hollow Hill, and the eerily foggy Lake of Souls. Its proximity lent itself well to their incursions and provided sufficient cover from which to perform their raids without detection. And the mist from the Lake of Souls was just now beginning to pour into the valley.
The fog derived from the warm waters that fell from the Blackstone Mountains above it, where a waterfall emptied into the Lake of Souls and caused a dense misting effect each and every morning. That was a particularly good time for the Brotherhood to execute their work—then and under the cover of nightfall, of course.
“Anything?” called a gruff voice from behind him, pulling him from his musing. He turned to regard one of the coven, which is how he and the entire Blackstone Brotherhood referred to the leaders he placed in charge to run the day-to-day operations.
He looked down on one of his best and most seasoned raid leaders—a grey-skinned half-orc named Amtusk, with patches of auburn hair and a goatee that matched. He spoke through a mouth framed by a pair of large tusks.
“I’m itchin’ for a fight!”
“I’m bettin’ ye’ll be needed soon,” called back Xorgram as he stepped forward and leaned over the railing of the watchtower deck, staring wide at the ruins of Hollow Hill.
Xorgram and his confidantes had long ago decided to leave the settlement in shambles so that any passers-by would not think it occupied. It remained in the state in which Ashenclaw herself had left it…charred ruins of a once-occupied village.
“Why dontcha go fetch me breakfast, instead o’ cryin’ and complainin’,” Xorgram called down after the half-orc, scratching his own raven-black beard.
“Aye,” called the half-orc from below as he brandished an ebon-hued axe and used it to salute Xorgram. “I’m wanting only to put this new axe-head to the test, if you want to know the truth!”
“Yer time be comin’, so be ready when I’m callin’,” Xorgram ordered as he regarded the newly-crafted shadowsteel weapon with a wide smile. He couldn’t help but see how this most recent development by his miners and engineers would give their entire organization a major advantage—mostly in warfare—and they might even make a few coins in the process if they could perfect the metals and sell them to the highest bidders.
Once Xorgram sent the word out of their new weapons, their reputation would spread across Wothlondia and the Brotherhood might grow into something altogether grand. With the new veins of ebonite they’d recently uncovered in the mines deep beneath their village, the head miner, Skilgo Firehammer, would certainly be busy. Xorgram had set Skilgo, a slagfell dwarf and expert miner, to the task immediately. Not only had Skilgo been put to work, but all of the rest of the miners had been digging for months now in that section to uncover more of the ebonite veins, and they had recently revealed a mother lode.
Xorgram also had his cousin, Kilkutt Axegrind the master-smithy, working tirelessly along with his understudies. They worked night and day to reshape the ebonite, reforming it into what they called shadowsteel, and which was in turn used to create some masterfully potent weapons and armor. That wasn’t even saying what Fuddle could do with the stuff, thought Xorgram gleefully.
Xorgram surveyed the area carefully once more and considered that with the weather breaking warmer, more and more caravans would be travelling within his boundaries once again. He whipped his head around and cleared the strings of black hair from his line of vision and scanned the area once more with the telescope. He panned west and then, as his gaze headed back toward the east, he could see what looked to be a caravan.
“Well, I’ll be...,” Xorgram muttered.
To the north, as if in answer to his desires, came the mist from the Lake of Souls. It started out slowly each morn, but as the time passed, it thickened over the bottom of the valley and covered it for miles. He smirked at his good fortune and removed the telescope from over his ebon prosthetic.
“Amtusk! Forget about me breakfast! We got us a wagon headed down from the northwestern hills!” he called out, retracting his lens and replacing it in his belt. “Get a party together with some crossbows in the hills and bring me back some gold!”
“Aye!” Amtusk called back as he ran off to heed his leader’s commands
“The princess is cranky again,” called a silken voice from the other side of the watchtower. Xorgram stared down to see Cassia, his mistress and seasoned raid leader calling to him from below. Her blonde hair danced freely in the cool breeze.
He hurriedly climbed down the watchtower and jumped off to land in front of her. He looked around to see that no one was nearby, grabbed her by the hair teasingly, and pulled her low, kissing her hard on the lips.
“Now, what ye be sayin’?” Xorgram asked standing her up straight once more. He adjusted his leather pants and then ran his stubby fingers through his own disheveled, black hair.
“The princess,” she began to say with a certain malice in her tone that was present despiteher attempts to quell it, “requires some behavioral adjustments.” She wiped her mouth and spat at the floor in front of him.
“Send Skuros to pay ‘er a visit,” ordered Xorgram as he smacked her hard on the right buttock. “If the taur ain’t scarin’ her, ain’t nothin’ will.”
“Very well,” she agreed, looking back at him with a sly grin. “Or maybe I’ll just bleed the wench myself.”
“Ye’ll be doin’ none o’ that, me pretty,” Xorgram ordered as she truned away from him. “Be at me bedside tonight, though, and I’ll punish ye good fer mouthin’ off to me.”
The blonde woman merely shrugged at the rugged dwarf, then called back to him. “Or maybe I’ll feed her to Iron Belly,” she teased as she departed with a glint in her light brown eyes and a cruel smile on her face that somehow still maintained a sincere if not wicked beauty.
Xorgram watched the woman leave, thinking about the huge tyrantian worm that made its home beneath the ebonite mines with its gaping maw, huge mandibles and as yet unknown length, and which they affectionately referred to as ‘Iron Belly’. He recollected the first time he had encountered the thing, which was coincidentally the same day he’d lost his right eye.
He shook that thought from his mind, aided by his vision of Cassia as she walked away, her hips moving side to side under her tight leather pants and her shapely legs crossing over each other. Her twin rapiers were also hanging low on her belt, one on either side, their weight aiding in pulling down the top seam of her pants to reveal just the hint of lighter skin below her tan line. She glanced back to catch him staring at her and then turned away, no doubt smiling to herself, he knew.
Xorgram quickly turned his attention back to his daily tasks although his eye found Cassia’s figure a few more times as sh
e continued along her path and into the mines.
Once she was out of sight, Xorgram headed toward the gateway to the village and saw the last of Amtusk’s raiding party piling out. He watched as they shut those same gates behind them.
He breathed a deep sigh and adjusted his eye patch, giving in to the memories of the horrible troll, Bilonus, that was responsible for stealing not only his eye, but his once-stunning features along with it. Xorgram frowned at that thought. But then a smile began to form as he recalled that the troll had been devoured by Iron Belly.
He headed back to the top of the watchtower once more, smiling ear to ear in vengeful satisfaction.
“Thank The Watcher! The weather is finally breaking,” Jasmine said to her father, Pendus, who was seated beside her. The group had been traveling for weeks and the roads were treacherous after having been caught in a horrible snowstorm during the month of Winter’s Heart, when blizzards abound near the Oakhaven Mountains.
“Aye,” Pendus responded. “Thank The Watcher indeed!”
“With Winters Fade upon us, we will soon be seeing better weather…more suitable for travelling,” called Dryden, Pendus’s son, from the front of the wagon. He pulled back on the reins, slowing the horses as they began descending gradually into Heartwood Valley from atop a winding, steep path, down from the main trail set along the outskirts of the Oakcrest Mountains.
“Where’d all this fog come from?” Dryden muttered, observing a large portion of mist that headed into the valley below from the north.
“It rolls along the surface of the Lake of Souls,” Pendus called back to his son and smiled, knowing Dryden to be cursing it all the while.
Pendus and his family were simple farming folk making their way from their home in Semmeroth to trade and sell their own goods. They had been to the gnome village of Dhegg, where they had stopped and traded at length. As a matter of fact, they had stayed and visited with the gnomes for much longer than anticipated which contributed to their current delay—that and the storms. Now, after a successful haul, they were off to Oakhaven to trade, and were also hoping to catch the tail end of the Days of Holy Enlightenment festival, but were delayed longer than expected by the weather.
The Beginnings Omnibus: Beginnings 1, 2, 3 & Legend of Ashenclaw novella (Realm of Ashenclaw Beginnings Saga) Page 51