Legends of Gravenstone: The Secret Voyage

by Alex Aguilar

  “Get on up, you dogs!” Borrys shouted at those who were lying in their tents. “Come out here and bow for your captain.”

  “That’s enough, Borrys,” Malekai muttered sternly.

  There were whispers along the camp, some praising Malekai for his bravery. Attacking a royal city such as Val Havyn had been unheard of in the Brotherhood. In the hundred years that it had been active, no captain had done such a thing. Malekai had been the first. Other whispers spoke of treason, cursing the new captain for standing by as the former captain was slaughtered and questioning his loyalty to the rest of the Brotherhood.

  The Beast may have been the only one to not be on either side of their disagreement. He kept to himself and disturbed no one. That was, of course, unless someone disturbed him.

  As Malekai Pahrvus and Borrys Belvaine rode by, the drunken raider holding the Beast’s axe saw an opportunity to swing. Any other man would have been smart enough to drop the axe and run off… But in his intoxicated state, the man seized the opportunity.

  He swung at the distracted orc.

  Had the Beast’s reflexes been any slower, the axe would have sunk into his chest. But the orc managed a swift dart to the right and the axe swung into the air, causing the man to stumble. The Beast then grabbed the man by the jaw, placed his other hand on the back of his head and gave it a violent twist, at the same time releasing a thundering roar.

  The man’s head turned entirely around, his shocked eyes still wide as he felt the warmth leave his body before everything went black. The orc let go of the head and the man fell dead on the dirt next to the fireless pit.

  Only a few mercenaries noticed the kill, the rest were far too distracted.

  Silently, the orc took the axe from the man’s stiff hands and gave it a good wipe, as if the man’s hands had been filthy. And Captain Malekai was too preoccupied admiring the gazes that were thrown his way to even acknowledge what had just happened.

  And so the Beast strapped the axe back to his belt and crawled into his tent for a good night’s rest…

  VII

  Creatures of the Night

  The beautiful green hills in the kingdom of Vallenghard were dimmed and blackened in the dead of night. The sky shimmered, coated with a million stars, and the fields became mere shadows for miles around. On this night, a small fire was burning and cackling just at the base of a steep hill.

  Four figures sat around it.

  Four figures and a crying infant.

  They were far enough from the nearest roads so as to remain unseen yet close enough to attack unsuspecting travelers.

  It had been several days since the orcs Okvar, Gruul, and Murzol had fled Baronkroft’s company in search of the legendary free city of Kahrr. They’d heard many stories about the opportunities given to nonhumans in the free city; they could be anything from blacksmiths to merchants, or even serve in the city guard. Having served as mercenaries for most of their lives, however, had left an undeniable thirst in them.

  A thirst for a good fight, or at the very least a good raid.

  A thirst, as they say, for trouble…

  The kidnapped orcess Aevastra sat near the fire, swaying her weeping child in her arms, whispering tenderly to him in her mother tongue. “Calmaedo, min neno,” she said, calming him with her soothing voice. “Ya, ya… calmaedo. Vos aestar san e salvu prontu…”

  She sat across from Okvar, the largest and most intimidating of the three orcs. The vile gangly Murzol was not exactly pleasing to be around, only more tolerable. As for Gruul, the orc was far too preoccupied grunting and pestering the other two cantankerously to even give Aevastra much thought. That was, of course, until night arrived and that thirst within him kicked in…

  Nearby lied the stiff body of a dead ox with plenty of meat still left on it, slowly becoming more infested with flies and slime. Okvar walked towards it and cut a piece of red meat with the same dagger he had used to pick his teeth with, a small thing the size of his ring finger. And then he held the wooden plate in front of the orcess.

  “N-No… Not hungry,” she mumbled, despite not having eaten since the previous evening.

  “It ain’t for you,” Okvar said. “It’s to shut that damn thing up.”

  After a moment of hesitation, she took the plate and set her baby down gently as if setting down a piece of delicate crystal. She began using Okvar’s tiny knife to chop the raw meat into small bits. Okvar said nothing else and proceeded to add wood to the fire.

  Gruul sat against a tree sharpening his knives. When he leaned back, the base of the trunk nearly screeched from the pressure of the orc’s weight. “Ahh,” he grunted and threw his knives onto the grass by his feet. “How long are we stayin’ here, Okvar?”

  “What d’ye mean?”

  “We’ve done nothin’ but hunt ‘n’ camp for days now!”

  “Yeah? What else was ye expectin’?”

  “You said we’d go to Kahrr! Soon as we left Baronkroft’s troop, you said you’d take us there!”

  Aevastra’s eyes suddenly lit up at the mention of the free city. She had planned to go there with her child, if only to seek better work opportunities for herself. Never did she imagine the orcs were attempting the same. But, as vigilant as she was, she preferred to keep quiet and listen.

  “Aye,” Okvar replied. “With time, ye old fool… Kahrr is hundreds of miles to the east. How d’ye plan on gettin’ there without a bleedin’ horse?!”

  Gruul hopped to his feet angrily, his voice rising and his fists growing shaky. “We’re sittin’ on our arses day after day! Waitin’ ‘n’ waitin’, I’m bloody sick of it! If I sleep outside like a filthy dog another night, I wil-”

  “Ye’ll do what?” Okvar stepped towards him.

  Meanwhile, Aevastra held a piece of meat over her hungry child’s lips; the baby’s fangs were small but sharp enough to bite into it. The orcess’s eyes however, moved back and forth between the two orcs, observing them, waiting for a window of opportunity.

  Gruul felt his shoulders tense up, choosing his words as carefully as he could so as to not enrage his long-time comrade; of course, however, Gruul was not even mildly clever and never really seemed to know the line between arguing and provoking. “I did not cross the sea to come here ‘n’ live in filth, Okvar… You made us a promise. You plan on keepin’ it?

  “Ye ain’t in Qamroth no more, Gruul,” Okvar replied. “D’ye even know what they do to folks like us ‘round these parts? The human filth is a savage lot… They’ll kill ye in plain sight ‘n’ say it was the work of the gods… It ain’t enough to have a sharp axe. If ye don’t play smart ‘round here, yer as good as dead.”

  “Curse the human filth!” Gruul shouted. “I’m startin’ to think you’re scared of ‘em…”

  The giant orc froze, his brow lowering and his jaw tightening. Murzol was never one to intervene, but neither was he keen on being left alone with one of his companions, much less in a land unknown to him. He leapt to his feet and stood nervously between the two, both of them towering a half-foot over him.

  “N-Now hang on,” Murzol said with a snort and a nose twitch. “Let’s not lose our heads.”

  “I ain’t losin’ mine,” Gruul said angrily.

  “Ye that sure, eh?” Okvar replied. “Shall we settle it with our axes, then?”

  Gruul unstrapped his weapon and growled under his breath.

  “Oi… what’re you doin’…? Okvar…?”

  “Shut yer damn yap, Murzol,” Okvar said calmly yet frighteningly.

  The two orcs confronted one another, each of them just as intimidating and determined. But after realizing he would possibly be killed, Gruul decided for once in his life to take the smarter route; at least briefly, he did.

  “To hells with all of it,” Gruul grunted angrily. “I’m leavin’ this wretched place…”

  “No one’s stopping ye.”

  “You cross the sea to the lands of men ‘n’ sit on your arse all day ‘n’ live like them?” Gruul
taunted him with a raised finger. “You’re a disgrace to your kind, Okvar… A filthy disgrace…”

  Okvar appeared hardhearted yet somewhat at ease, as if he was confident he could kill Gruul with a single strike.

  “I won’t follow you another day,” Gruul spoke again. “I’m leavin’… And I’m takin’ the orcess with me.”

  “No, ye ain’t…”

  Gruul’s fury was now at its peak. He glared at his comrade with eyes that were once brown but now seemed to glisten a sharp red. “I spotted her first,” he said. “She’s mine by right.”

  “The rogue orc spotted ‘er first… He didn’t want ‘er, she’s anyone’s to claim.”

  Murzol grew suddenly anxious and sweaty as he stood between the two angry orcs. He tried to mediate, but seeing as they were both armed and prone to impulsive swings, his words were a mere mumble. “Okvar…?”

  “I’ve kept me mouth shut for years!” Gruul shouted. “I trusted you. Followed you. I’m done!”

  “Good,” Okvar said. “On ye go… Go ‘n’ get yerself hanged. Go ‘n’ lay in your own shit, for all I care. But the bitch stays with us.”

  “O-Okvar…?” Murzol interrupted again.

  “What?!” Okvar growled.

  “Sh-She’s, um…”

  “Stop stutterin’ ye stupid fool! What is it?!”

  “Well,” Murzol cleared his throat. “Sh-She’s gone…”

  The three orcs glanced suddenly at the empty spot on the ground where the orcess once sat.

  But she was nowhere to be seen… The only thing that remained was the old wooden plate with a half-eaten piece of raw ox on it.

  * * *

  The Woodlands may have been, to some extent, beautiful in the daylight.

  When night arrived, however, it was as dark and morose as the stories told.

  It had happened quicker than anticipated… One moment, the company was galloping away from the bandits, searching for a safe entrance to the Woodlands while the sun was still setting in the horizon. The next moment, darkness took over like a great black shadow sweeping by and swallowing every bit of light for miles around.

  With the darkness came the sounds… the muffled howling in the distance, the subtle cooing nearby, the rustling of the trees above… Life went on in the Woodlands, regardless of the time.

  As Viktor Crowley’s company stopped to rest for the night, a gush of unusual wind swept abruptly towards the camp, significantly colder than the winds in Vallenghard. And at that very moment, somewhere in the darkness, a branch snapped in half.

  “What was that?” young Cedric asked hesitantly, sitting up and gazing at the trees in the distance, about a half-mile uphill from where they had set up camp. His ignorance of the outside world was too much for him to bear, and for a moment he let go of the false pretense of valor he often carried.

  “Give it a rest, lad,” said Jossiah Biggs, laying a bit too close to the fire for his own good.

  They found a decent place to rest, underneath a cluster of cypress trees that stretched for what felt like hundreds of feet into the sky. There was a boulder, massive in size like a mammoth, high enough to shield them from any unexpected attacks from behind.

  The nightlife of the forest echoing in harmony, the cold humid breeze in the air, and the vast green life surrounding them all brought about an aura in the camp that left everyone with a peculiar feeling in their gut, as if they had somehow stepped foot inside of a dream.

  Cedric kept his gaze uphill at the willow trees… He swore that the leaves of the willows were rustling and moving in a most eerie way, against the wind rather than with it.

  “I think there’s something up there, sir,” he said with that shiver on his lower lip.

  “Of course there is, you blithering fool,” Jossiah grunted. “These are the Woodlands. There’s a reason why we camped down here and not up there.”

  “And what’s that, sir?” Cedric asked.

  “When you’re in the forest grounds, lad, there is no safe place… The dark magic is everywhere. Even among the trees.”

  “The trees, sir?”

  “Aye, the trees…”

  John Huxley sat by the fire, quiet and pensive; the only acquaintances he had were two knights he had only just met, a thief that wanted to kill him, and a tavern boy that he knew only by name. All that he could do was to listen and try to make more friends than he did enemies. Currently, however, he had no clue as to which he had more of.

  Syrena sat nearby biting into a chopped piece of venison, which she struggled to hold onto with her bonded hands. She had hardly spoken a word since the day one of the journey, save for a few whispers into the thief’s ear. Her agreement with Viktor Crowley did not mean she was willing to fake her mistrust towards humans. Hudson sat next to her, leaning his head back against a tree trunk a few feet from Cedric. His black hat rested over the top half of his face, giving the impression that he was asleep.

  Viktor Crowley was somewhere inside his tent, resting for the night. And it was in these rare instances that Jossiah Biggs would become even more hostile than he usually was. He was the only one of the royal guard to sit sporadically among both the soldiers and the recruits, particularly after a quarrel with Viktor. And the quarrels seemed to get worse by the day…

  “When the Great War ended, you see, all of the freaks were banished here,” Jossiah went on. “They were given their territory and we were given ours… But the freaks, they figured if they couldn’t leave, why should they allow us to enter? So they cursed the willow trees surrounding their home in order to kill anyone and anything that dares enter these woods at night…”

  “The trees… kill, sir?” Cedric asked, wincing nervously at the thought.

  “Aye, they do,” said Biggs. “When the moon shines upon them at night, they rise.”

  There was a look of dread in Cedric’s eyes. “They…?”

  Jossiah felt his own nerves start to peak. He was suddenly thankful for his armor, for it was shielding the goosebumps on his arms.

  “When the moon rises, you see… The branches of the willows, they… They become something else entirely… Creatures of dark magic with mangled bodies made of wood and leaves. Hungry for anything that dares enter these grounds at night. Some people call them the Guardians of the Woodlands. Others just call them the broken ones. Either way, trust me, lad… You’re far better off down here. You don’t want to know the horrors that lurk up there…”

  There was a silence.

  Cedric was not the only one listening. The Davenport brothers were both on alert as well. Syrena heard it all, but rather than becoming nervous she had a subtle smirk on her face that only made Cedric more nervous. The torment only lasted a brief moment, however, before the silence was interrupted by a snicker and a sudden burst of laughter.

  Hudson Blackwood was no longer asleep, if he ever was.

  “Did I say something that amused you?” Jossiah asked.

  The thief removed his hat from his face and turned towards Jossiah and Cedric; his wide eyes made it apparent that he was awake the entire time. “I’m sorry, old mate, but did I just hear you say ‘the horrors that lurk up there’?”

  “Aye, you did.”

  “You should mind your own business, thief!” another voice spoke; this time it was that of Wyll Davenport, who carried an obvious mask of valor while the fear was tugging at his gut.

  “Aye, that’s a knight of Val Havyn you’re talking to!” Cedric added in quite a similar form.

  “Fine,” Hudson said. “Now I’m the arsehole. That’s all fine.”

  “That, you are,” Jossiah scowled.

  Hudson leaned back against the tree trunk once again, somehow finding comfort in the dirt as if he was used to it. While he did, his lips mumbled under his breath, “At least I’m not the one rambling on idiotically about the horrors of trees…”

  It was loud enough for Jossiah to hear, and so the former knight grunted with displeasure and asked, “I suppose you’re an expe
rt on horrors, eh thief?”

  “I know that there are far darker things to worry about than live trees, mate,” Hudson said, no longer smirking and with a serious tone.

  There was a short silence, broken only by the cackling fire and the sound of venison meat being ripped apart as Syrena struggled to eat without slobbering on herself. She tried holding down the meat with her leather-wrapped hand as she bit off a piece with her teeth, but even that proved inefficient.

  Meanwhile, John Huxley became fixated on Hudson’s expression.

  The thief appeared to be mildly worried… It was vivid in his conflicted eyes…

  John knew this because he hadn’t seen that look on Hudson’s face since the day of his capture, when his head was pressed against the cobblestone and he realized he was defenseless.

  “W-What sorts of things?” Cedric asked after a while, his curiosity at its peak.

  Jossiah Biggs did not like being challenged, let alone by a wanted thief. The former knight sighed, turned to Cedric and said, “When we won the war, w-”

  “Our winning the war meant nothing,” Hudson interrupted again, and this time young Cedric’s attention was fully on him. “Most of the Woodlands had always been cursed to begin with, for as far back as we can remember… When the war was won, our people banished every single being, magical or otherwise, into these woods including those that had lived among us since the dawn of time… From the devious goblin to the half-wit ogre. Hell, even the pixies, docile as they are. And all for one infuriatingly stupid and simple reason… because they did not look like us.”

  The thief paused there, allowing for his words to sink in. His voice lowered a bit, the light of the fire only causing him to appear more menacing. “But there were others that were already here, y’see,” he said. “Others that have been here all along.”

  “That’s enough yapping, Blackwood,” Jossiah said, feeling his anger rising.

  “You think coming face to face with an ogre is bad, little mate?” Hudson asked Cedric, ignoring Jossiah’s words.