Sapphire of Souls

by M. R. Mathias

  Prince Gruval was nearly clubbed in the head twice as he stood with his thick bearded chin on his chest and watched the gothicans come storming down the hill toward the trolls. The only thing more shocking to him at that moment was that human archers were coming down the hill with them. He ducked a swinging limb and hacked with his axe almost mechanically. The troll trying to hit him went howling away with a long deep gash across its thigh. He looked around at the cages and saw that the last of the dwarves were disappearing into the holes, and he knew if he didn't call for his surprise attack now, Dowgen and the other dwarves wouldn’t be able to see that the humans and gothicans were helping them.

  As loud as he could, while rolling through the bloody dirt to dodge another attack, he whistled his call. The sound of granite grating on granite carried over the din and a giant boulder at the edge of the slave camp rolled free. In groups of three and four, more than a hundred dwarves swarmed out of the hole. They spread out to help their prince and engage the shocked trolls with precision.

  Dendle was so surprised by the appearance of the new dwarves that he nearly stumbled and fell headlong down the last part of his trek. Luckily, he caught himself. The trolls were stunned as well, and it cost them.

  The larger gothican charge blasted into the trolls, and the huge warriors carved great arcs ahead of them as they swung their swords.

  The first ranks of dwarves that came out of the mountainside looked like ants swarming over a piece of sweetbread. They surrounded and protected the prince while the remaining ranks charged headlong into the troll horde and began hacking and smashing feet and legs while dodging awkward blows made with faulty weaponry.

  The sheer number of trolls was overwhelming, and the dwarves, however brave and hardy, soon began to fall from wild kicks, jagged claws, and the occasional dull blade.

  Davvy and his archers finally got into position, but were forced to loose their arrows into the back ranks of trolls where the dwarves and gothicans hadn't yet attacked. The more accomplished marksmen, like Davvy and a few other hunters, picked targets right in the heat of things. When the arrows found them, other trolls began to scatter and break into smaller groups that gave the dwarves a better chance, but it wasn't long until the humans were running low on arrows.

  Prince Gruval wiped away the ice that had formed around his mouth and nose in his facial hair. He then busted through his own ring of protection and charged into a group of trolls that remained from the prison camp. Soon, he and his little gauntlet of protectors were back in the thick of battle.

  Dowgen found himself facing two trolls with no one behind to help. As one of the beasts closed, he made a quick move toward the other one, and then swung back at the first, surprising it and himself, when his axe stuck deep into the troll's leg. It was caught, and as he tried to pull it free, the other troll lashed out. It would have ripped his chest wide open had he not borrowed a suit of armor.

  Dowgen's side took a nasty gash where the front of the armor laced to the back. Injured and weaponless, and not sure what to do, he dove between the troll's legs, and as he raised to his feet, he felt the wind of an arrow zip by his ear. He heard it thump into the troll behind him and turned to see it fall face first to the ground. The other troll removed the axe from its leg and scooted across the ground, trying to find cover. Dowgen gave a wincing thumbs up in the direction the arrow had come from, then took his axe back from the troll. Forcing out the pain in his bleeding side, he hacked its neck, then went back in for more.

  Balo, the gothican woman, whirled in rapid, circular spins that might have seemed graceful and elegant were she not drenched in thick troll's blood and surrounded by the steaming brutality caused by her blade.

  The dance of death she was engaged in seemed to entrance the approaching trolls, at least until her blade came from nowhere and found them. Her reach, due to her long arms, and even longer blade, got any who stood still too long. Her steel went where she intended it, be it throat or belly. More than a dozen trolls made the mistake of coming into her range, and they paid with their lives.

  Writhick's fighting style was far less graceful. He was more brutal than Balo. Like hers, his sword was long, but his was wide and heavy, not thin and light. Instead of slicing gashes, his sword cleaved with nearly every blow. He removed the head and shoulder of a troll by coming down at the collarbone at an angle, then turned, not stopping, and lopped off the head of the next. He laughed manically when a club struck the side of his head. While spitting his own blood and teeth from his mouth, he made a growling snarl at the troll who'd hit him. It was such a ferocious gesture that the troll dropped his weapon and ran into another troll's crushing blow. Both were ripped wide open by Writhick's blade, and they fell to the ground in pieces, their hot blood making a cloud of steam he was forced to go around.

  Davvy put an arrow in at least ten trolls before running down with his father's sword to join the fray. He wasn't very good with the weapon yet, but had been taking lessons from Dendle and Writhick. He'd killed a handful of wood trolls in Uppervale after seeing his father and Braxton's older brother bashed to death right before his eyes. That was before he'd had a single lesson. Now, he took his time and singled out an opponent. After blocking a wild blow from a dull cracked axe, he thrust his long sword's point deep up under the troll’s ribcage. Then he ran away to find another one to kill. He found himself tripping over an angry, blood-covered dwarf who led a string of other dwarves into a crowd of trolls that had broken away from the others.

  "Watch yeer step." The dwarf growled at him with a grin.

  "Sorry," Davvy said, as amazed to be speaking with a dwarf as he was to be tripping over one.

  He caught his balance and strode with the shorter axe wielder right into the trolls and had to give the hairy little savage room so that he didn't get his legs hacked off by mistake.

  "Dwarf! When I give the word," Davvy yelled seeing that Bookny and Scrub had led the other archers into position. "Can you hear me, dwarf?"

  "Say what ye want to say," the dwarf yelled back.

  "When I say run, then you need to get yourself and your fellows off to the left there." Davvy dispatched the troll before him, then stepped back and made a hand gesture toward the trees.

  "Get ready, dwarf." He dove to the ground to avoid a clawed hand, then darted toward the clump of trees where he'd sent his men. "Now, dwarf. Run."

  "Retreat to the left," Gruval yelled and pulled back scurrying his little group toward the trees where the human had pointed him. For a moment, the prince of dwarves thought he might have made a mistake for out of the forest stepped a ragged looking group of archers firing arrows, as fast as the eye could see, right at them. Nearly all the dwarves following their prince fell to the ground to avoid being shafted. A moment later, when they heard Gruval's loud belly laugh at them, they got up. The arrows had been fired just over their heads into the group of pursuing trolls. What trolls hadn't fled into the battle on either side of the archers were now piled in a heap that resembled a butchered porcupine.

  Gruval turned to find the clever boy who told him where to go being battered back by a rather large troll that had uprooted a whole tree and was using it to fend off the young man's sword. Without hesitation, he charged at the troll, and with all his might, swung his axe into its shin.

  Of all those battling the wood trolls, it was Dendle, the half-breed, who was most treacherous. Something had happened to him in the recent battles he'd been fighting. The magic of his cat's eye ring had evolved him into a sleek, swift, killing machine. Once the bloodlust was on him, he was untouchable. Like some giant creature, he fought with startling acrobatic leaps. He would stab or rip open an opponent with his sword while raking the eyes or shattering the nose of another with his other hand or his boot, and all while in midair. Then he would land perfectly on his feet only to hack or skewer another of his startled enemies.

  Davvy saw something happen once in the forest during a previous battle. Dendle was in the thick of things, ha
d lost his sword, and was outnumbered four to one. At some point while attacking, Davvy saw him shift forms into some sort of black feline creature. The four trolls were clawed to shreds in a matter of heartbeats. When the sleek creature he'd become stood atop their lifeless bodies and let out a roar, it shifted back into Dendle's natural form.

  Davvy wasn’t sure Dendle knew it happened, or if he’d gone mad and was just seeing things. He knew Dendle was deadly, though. Dendle was as deadly as they come.

  Grunt, one of Dendle's hunting partners, was facing off with a troll with terrified eyes. It was bleeding from a gash in its thigh and wielding a cracked sword. Grunt lunged and spun and caught the troll in its wounded leg, but not before the troll hacked down into his shoulder, leaving a long, broken piece of steel in him. A nearby archer put an arrow through the troll's throat, and Grunt managed a few steps before falling into the rocks by the edge of the trees.

  Davvy saw this just before he was bashed into unconsciousness by the uprooted tree he'd been clobbered with. The next blow would've flattened his skull, but Gruval shattered the troll's leg bone, and it fell to the ground, dropping the tree on itself.

  At least ten humans lay dead or dying, and twice as many dwarves littered the cold, hard, blood-covered battlefield. A gothican had been skewered by a crude spear and another lay with his head caved into a gray-red splatter.

  The battle still raged on, but what started as a three to one advantage for the trolls was down to about even odds. As evening crept up on them, the brutality of the gothicans, the persistence of the dwarves, and the accuracy of the human archers turned the tide.

  By nightfall, only a few dozen trolls remained, and one by one they fled into the woods until there were none. A light snow began to fall then, and the humans built a giant bonfire. The dwarves sent runners into the tunnels to give word of the outcome and to bring back food and blankets. It wasn't long until human, gothican, and dwarf alike were drinking to celebrate their victory and remember their dead.

  When a thoroughly drunk Prince Gruval began telling them of the Isle Jolin and his adventures, he spoke Lord Braxton's name and sparked Davvy and Dendle's curiosity. Once they realized Lord Braxton was their friend Braxton Bray, stories of assassins, wild dragons, and yellow eyed elves were told long into the cold snowy night.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  A sharp flash from behind Cryelos and Big H surprised them both, and even though the count was only at eight, Chureal's scream caused them to turn in time to see the heavy stone lid come off. A green leafy head rose out of the tomb and looked right at them.

  Who was more surprised, it was hard to determine, but the thing looking back at them through blue glowing eyes was manlike and made of plants and branches. As it rose to its feet, they saw inside its vine and leaf formed chest, the piece of the Sapphire of Souls. It was throbbing like a beating heart. When the creature stepped out of the tomb, the pulsing quickened. The creature raised his twig hands up to the sky and mewed softly as if in prayer.

  Even more surprising, his prayer was answered by booming thunder. Fat drops of cool rain began to fall and the sky turned cloudy and gray.

  Cryelos and Big H stood slack-jawed as the thing jumped up onto the other piece of lid that was still in place. There it let out a wild earsplitting howl.

  "What in the—" Braxton's voice called from the camp, startling the plant formed creature.

  It leapt all the way over Cryelos and Big H, and then ran crazily away, zigzagging and howling up at the rain until it disappeared into the forest.

  "Great Arbor," Cryelos gasped after the thing had gone.

  "Is that who that was?" Big H asked as he strode over toward Chureal and opened his cloak to let her duck into it and out of the rain.

  "I'm not sure what it was," said Cryelos excitedly, looking down at his shorter companions with an odd smile on his face. "Come. Let's help Lord Braxton set up a shelter."

  Braxton unrolled the oil cloth blanket, and with the help of the others, they staked one end of it to the ground and raised the other end with ropes that were looped through branches. Soon, they had a place to sit next to the fire that was semi-dry and out of the rain.

  Even though they built up the blaze, it was cold and by the time true night was on them. They'd all changed out of their wet clothes and bundled up in the cold weather gear Braxton brought with he and Chureal from New Scarlee.

  It wasn't frigid, but it wasn't snug and cozy either. Big H grumbled they should erect the tent they had since it could still be a day or two before Emerald returned to get them.

  The others agreed, but decided it would be better to wait until morning in hopes the rain would slacken, or at least the day would be warmer.

  "So, you moved the lid to the tomb, huh?" Braxton asked Chureal as they all sat bundled and huddled just out of the rain in the popping, sizzling firelight.

  "You could've moved it, too, if you would've used your magic," she replied.

  Braxton shook his head. She was right. He'd spent all day jumping off a cliff yet again, by pushing and prying when the stairway of magic was right there for him to grasp.

  "Does anybody know what that thing was?" he asked them all.

  Big H shook his head. He looked thoroughly miserable, and his mood was foul at best.

  "A creature of Arbor, maybe?" Cryelos suggested. "Or a creature of the sapphire? It's hard to say."

  "It was the green man," Chureal said simply. “I think the sapphire was his soul.”

  "And how, little one, do you know of the green man?" the elf asked.

  "Yeah, what is this green man?" Big H asked, showing his first signs of curiosity.

  "My mother used to tell me stories," Chureal started, and for the first time since they'd come to know her, she grew sad and distant. "She said the green man lives in the forest and tends to its needs. He is the shaper of lands."

  "Your mother was correct," Cryelos said reassuringly. "I don't know why I didn't think of it before, but the elves have tales of a green man who guards the forest as well."

  "So, a new forest gets a new green man?" Big H asked, his voice full of sarcasm.

  Cryelos shrugged. "I guess."

  "Well he didn't have to scare the goo goos off me," the dwarf complained.

  "What are goo goos?" Chureal asked.

  "Yeer too young to worry about such things," Big H said with mock severity, causing Braxton and Cryelos to laugh and Chureal to roll her eyes.

  They kept the conversation on lighter subjects and talked until they were all sleepy, save for Cryelos, who agreed to take the first watch. The night passed uneventful. When the morning came, the rain hadn't slackened at all, but by early afternoon, it slowed enough for them to set up the tent. For the rest of the day and night it drizzled, and by the next morning, the precipitation stopped completely.

  Though the morning was nearly freezing cold, and they could see their breath billow out of their mouths in great clouds, by the time the sun was overhead, it was warm again. Except for the occasional breeze that still carried a hint of what winter had in store.

  Cryelos ventured off to seek out more of the roots and herbs he'd been using to make his stew. Big H was inspecting the tomb and the broken slabs the little girl had so easily moved with much curiosity and a little unease. More than once, she caught him looking at her with a narrowed, skeptical gaze as if contemplating some great mystery.

  Braxton sat near the center of the ruins, meditating in the void in the hope that some clue or some sign of what he should do next would reveal itself. He felt guilty and somewhat worried for his family and friends who sat at home, unaware while Pharark's gothicans and armed trolls marched toward them while he and his group sat safely in a beautiful, magically grown forest.

  He felt he needed to do something but had no idea what to do, not even when Emerald returned. He was sure he should be chasing Pharark or setting a trap for him or something. It wasn't like Emerald could carry two dozen orphans. He was forced to settle for do
ing what he could, which was meditating, reading more of Taerak’s journal, and protecting Chureal while trying to form a plan to find and destroy the Demon of Destruction.

  The End of Book Two

  Demon of Destruction, Fantastica Book Three

  will be available soon. To receive the release announcement directly from Amazon follow M. R. Mathias’s Amazon Author page by clicking the yellow bar under his author photo here:

  https://www.amazon.com/M.-R.-Mathias/e/B0040CD21I

  until then enjoy the following three chapter preview.

  Demon of Destruction Preview

  Fantastica, Book Three

  Copyright 2017 by Michael Robb Mathias Jr.

  All Rights Reserved

  Chapter One

  Father Veristy wasn't sure how many days he'd been there, but he knew it was quite a few. A week maybe, a little more, a little less? With no window, it was hard to tell. What he did know was that Debain kept very neat and precise notes, and his most recent entries about events that took place on the Isle of Jolin were quite disturbing.

  After reading Debain's assesment, he figured it was Reaton-Stav who had been so carelessly using people to try to get in the room. Father Veristy learned from early entries in the journal that it was doubtful he or his servants, willing, or unwilling, would ever get in, and he was glad when the boy left.