Whisper of the End

by Held, Maximian

  I trample through the bushes, crushing it all beneath my boots in my sprint back. The camouflage I has put down has been ripped aside, three of the men are dragging Caius towards the edge of the woods. My boots dig deeper into the loam as I push myself into an all-out charge towards them.

  “Caius!” I scream, still accelerating towards them.

  The oldest is the one dragging Caius, my vision narrows down to him as I run. He frantically waves the other two forwards towards me as he tries to drag Caius towards the edge of the clearing. I concentrate on my halberd, letting the magic woven into it do its work. It becomes as light as a feather in my hands, and the edge gleams wickedly in the sunlight. I snap the spiked tip into the throat of the first scout, burying it up to the axe head and with a flick I free it. Another flick of my wrist and the axe passes through the neck of the other, cleanly taking his head from his shoulders.

  The oldest one drops Caius, but it's too late. I run him through with the spike, slamming him into the ground. He gives a shuddering cough, blood leaking from his mouth as he scrabbles for his sword in the dirt. With a vicious twist of my halberd he stops moving and I kneel next to Caius.

  “Are you alright Caius? What did they do to you?” I ask him in a rush, patting him down for any new wounds. He looks fine to me, though he’s still too pale. Caius’s eyes flutter open, and he gives a small groan.

  “I feel terrible. What happened to me Kearika?” He asks in a dry, rasping voice. Oh, right. I pull a small canteen from my hip and uncork it, Caius drinks from it greedily.

  “You’re hurt and I dragged you all this way to heal. Oh, and the Zauberei have found us and I’m in the process of showing them why that’s a bad thing.” I say, giving him a reassuring smile.

  Fwip!

  An arrow buries itself in the ground next to my foot. What is it with these guys? Why don’t they just go away! I get up from my knees and turns towards the last scout, the one who got away. That’s Olrin. Well he’s never going to be a Seneschal now. I walk sedately towards him, another arrow zips by me. Especially not with that sort of accuracy. Why isn’t he running?

  “What are you still doing here Olrin? Your friends are dead. Just leave, and I promise I won’t hunt you down like the dog you are.” I tell him. Olrin knocks another arrow and pulls the bow taut.

  “I have no intention of running from you Kearika. Now!” He spits out, keeping his bow trained on me.

  Caius! I whirl back around; cloaked figures are swarming out of the woods. Great work Kearika, what a stand-up job. They haul Caius up from the ground, dragging him by the shoulders towards Olrin and I. They keep their knives pressed against Caius’s throat as they move him.

  “If you touch a hair on his head Olrin, I’ll kill you. I swear I will.” I snarl at him, watching the others drag Caius closer.

  There’s no way out of this. I can’t fight this many people, eventually one of their arrows will make it through. Especially if Caius is out of this fight again. About two dozen cloaked Zauberei stand around Olrin and I, they drop Caius face first into the dirt. The group sniggers at him as he paws around in the muck, and I can feel my blood boiling. Caius lays there, clawing at the ground. Why isn’t he getting up, he can’t be that out of it.

  “Look at him, so pathetic. Crawling in the mud like a worm.” Olrin says, and the group laughs again. They jeer at Caius, kicking him as rolls around in the dirt.

  “Take a good long look boys and girls, this is what the mages don’t want us to see. That they’re as weak as everyone else. That they’re pathetic.” Olrin snarls, drawing his own silver knife from its sheathe.

  Through our tattered bond I can feel it, the inkling that Caius is about to do something. I get ready to spring into Olrin. If I can get him first, maybe the others will back down. I wonder what Caius is going to do, maybe he'll blind them all? Caius rolls over throwing the handful of mud he’s been collecting up into the air.

  Maybe he’s going to bind them all into the ground, so they can’t move. The mud sails up, trailing blue sparks as it comes apart. The Zauberei all watch it with growing horror, the mud explodes in a shower of sparks that fall to the ground. The Zauberei glance around at each other, a few even pat themselves down disbelievingly. Dammit Caius. The Zauberei begin to laugh uproariously.

  “Good job mage, maybe we’ll drop dead from laughter!” Olrin guffaws. Maybe they will, that would be pretty funny to me.

  “Anyway, kill them. Let's get this over with.” Olrin says sharply, all business again. The Zauberei give a few chuckles as they haul Caius up again. The others close in on me, holding out their swords in front of them. I glance over at Caius, but his head dangles limply from his shoulders. Great.

  Some two dozen trained scouts, all armed and fanatically willing to get run through. My mage is either unconscious, or dead from embarrassment. I can get probably kill the ones holding Caius, but what would that accomplish? The ground ripples beneath my feet, the wave spreading out from Caius towards the edge of the clearing and into the trees. The Zauberei stop laughing and glance out into the forest.

  The ground begins to buck and dance beneath our feet, throwing everyone to the ground as it moves. A whistling sort of scream comes from the woods, followed by a dead silence. Suddenly dozens of wooden shapes burst from the tree line, their hands outstretched as they charge towards us. What in the frozen hell are those?

  They’re roughly human in shape, but made from tree bark and jagged wood instead. Their heads are like skulls, with the deep pits lit with a green flame. That flame pours from their mouths, leaking out between their jagged timber fangs. Their fingers and toes are no more than ragged claws that dig into the earth as they run.

  The Zauberei spring to their feet, three of them piling onto me and pinning me down. A fourth is sitting on Caius, pressing the edge of his blade against Caius’s throat. The wooden abominations smash into the Zauberei, flinging them left and right as they tear through them. Men and women scream, their limbs torn from sockets or their bodies torn apart by those claws.

  One of them runs one of the wooden things through and it falls apart, the green flame blowing out of its body. It collapses into a collection of twigs and leaves on the grass. The others give another howl and redouble their efforts at pulling the Zauberei apart. I struggle against the three holding me down, trying to gauge which is the strongest of them.

  The remaining Zauberei, about half a dozen, are hacking their way through the tree things. They dance out of the way of their claws and teeth, expertly hacking off wooden limbs and heads. I’m amazed they stayed calm under this sort of assault. I know warriors and hunters at home who would think twice about fighting these things. The Zauberei have formed a loose circle around Caius and I, the pack of wooden monsters circle around us all. Two of the ones pinning me down get up and join their brethren.

  “Move, and we gut your mage like a fish.” The last one whispers in my ear. I decide it’d be best to lay still, for now.

  The tree creatures have stopped moving, their hands resting by their sides as they stand perfectly still. A breeze blows through the clearing, whistling as it passes over their gnarled shapes.

  “What are they doing Olrin?” one of the Zauberei asks.

  “How should I know Irina? Just stay calm, and we’ll get out of this.” Olrin says.

  The circle of horrors parts, letting a beautiful woman through. She’s wearing a simple tunic made from leaves, with a crown of flowers running through her hair. I can see faint lines running through her skin. They look like wood grain. Her deep green eyes cast about, before settling on Caius. They shift to the Zauberei, then to me and then back to Caius.

  “Release the mage and his Protector, and I’ll let you go.” The forest woman says with a long sigh.

  “Ha! We aren’t afraid of you monster. You’ll be joining your friends soon enough.” Olrin replies.

  Interesting, this woman’s feet aren’t touching the ground. They are the ground. Her heels are clearly sprouti
ng up from the grass in the clearing. She’s a Nature Mage.

  “Olrin, we could just let them go. We know where they are, we could come back with more people!” Irina hisses at Olrin, the little falter in her voice giving away her nervousness.

  “You should listen to her Olrin, because I won’t make the offer again.” The woman says. Olrin works his jaw, glaring at Irina and the green woman.

  “Never.” He spits out, a grim mask settling on his face.

  A small frown creases the Nature Mage’s face, she rolls her eyes and shakes her head. With a laconic wave of her hand the horde of forest monsters rush in towards us. The ones who had been defeated before reassemble themselves, piling in on the hapless Zauberei.

  Those courageous souls fall under the tide of possessed timber, torn to shreds by hungry claws. All but Irina, who’s collapsed to the ground whimpering. She lays there shaking and crying, rocking back and forth on her side. The forest woman kneels next to her.

  “P-please! Please let me go! I have children, two little boys and a daughter. They need their mother!” Irina babbles, scrabbling at a necklace under her cloak.

  “Shh, hush child. I’m not going to kill you. Avalin keeps her word.” Avalin says, gently lifting Irina to her feet.

  “Go, leave these woods and do not return. If you come back to harm those under my care, I will not stop at killing just you.” Avalin says coldly. Irina turns and runs out of the clearing as fast as her feet will carry her, I can hear her smashing through the woods long after she is out of sight.

  “What have you done now Caius? You always were getting into trouble when you were my student.” Avalin asks Caius, who’s morosely getting back to his feet.

  “I am sorry professor, we needed help and I thought that spell you taught me would help. I was not expecting it to call you here. I thought it would just summon the woodwraiths.” Caius replies weakly, his eyes downcast as he toes the ground.

  One of Caius’s teachers, why haven’t I heard of her before? Come to think of it, Caius has always been secretive about his training.

  The woodwraiths stalk over and encircle the three of us. I glance around trying to find a way out, but all I see is a wall of animated wood. If all those Zauberei can handle these things, then I should be able to take them just fine on my own. I raise my halberd but Avalin holds out a hand

  “No need for violence child, the woodwraiths simply require payment.” Avalin says, gesturing for Caius to step forward.

  “You did remember to have some sort of payment, didn’t you?” She asks him.

  “Of course, I did! I am not a child anymore.” Caius snaps back, Avalin just tuts at him. Caius fishes around in his pack and pulls out a small earthenware jug. He presents it to the closest woodwraith, which uncorks it and pours the liquid down its wooden maw. Whiskey? We were rescued by alcoholic tree monsters?

  The woodwraiths change, their forms becoming smoother and more whole. Claws become fingers and terrifying faces become featureless wood. Leaves sprout from them and they move more gracefully, with none of the jittering suddenness they had before. One of them walks up to me, coming within a few inches of me. It stands there silently and I stare into the featureless wooden “face.”

  “What do I do?” I stage whisper to Caius, who shrugs helplessly. Great, what do I keep him around for anyway?

  “You need to give them an offering, they saved Caius and he repaid them. Now you have to do the same. Do you have any alcohol on you?” Avalin asks me, and I shake my head in reply. Unfortunately. Somehow the blank wooden face looks agitated, maybe even annoyed.

  “Well, can you work any magic? Enough to give them some of your aether? Giving them part of you is a meaningful gift, which is the other sort of payment they take.” Avalin says.

  Something meaningful to me? I know! I drop my pack and pull out one of the jars of face paint Caius had given me. These are important to me. I dab some on my fingers, a nice midnight blue, and begin to paint. After a few minutes I’m done, the woodwraith turns to the others who crowd around it and poke at its face.

  “What did you paint?” Caius asks.

  “Earning your paint is important to my people, it’s how you know someone is a proven warrior or hunter. That they can be relied on. We have to earn each style, and wearing paint that you haven’t earned is a quick way to becoming an exile.” I reply, putting my paint away.

  “So what did you paint on it?” Avalin asks, intrigued.

  “I painted ‘Eshtenee val’farid’ or ‘Protector of the Forest’. It seemed like a fitting name.” I say. The woodwraith comes over, stopping in front of me again. It reaches up to the crown of leaves on its head and pulls out a bud, which it gives to me. I take it, doing my best to show respect and put it away in one of my smaller pouches.

  “You’ve made a friend my dear, and a loyal one to that. Seems that woodwraith has taken a liking to you. Treasure that, very few ever see a woodwraith and live, let alone gain the trust of one.” Avalin says.

  “I think I’ll call you Esthenee. Sound good?” I say with a smile.

  Esthenee makes a sound like leaves rustling in the wind and walks away, the other woodwraiths filter away into the forest. They disappear into the trees and shrubs, melting away as if they had never been there.

  “Caius, clean up this mess. I won’t have a forest dirtied by the dead. Make a pyre and burn them, and I want it done before sundown.” Avalin snaps at Caius.

  “Professor Avalin, I am not a student of yours anymore.” Caius says.

  “Caius! Don’t make me repeat myself.” Avalin turns to bear down on Caius, looming over him. Caius shrinks into his boots.

  “Of course, Professor, right away.” Caius stammers, setting his things downs as he starts dragging bodies. If I wanted to do more work like this, I wouldn’t have finished my Protector training. I sigh and start dropping my things too.

  “Not you dear, you and are going to have a nice long talk.” Avalin says to me, turning towards the woods and walking away. It’s probably best not to test her. I trot off after her, turning to look at Caius. I give him a wide grin and stick my tongue out at him, he replies with a scowl. I laugh and catch up to Avalin.

  “So, tell me about yourself.” Avalin says.

  Chapter XXI - Caius

  Duras - East of Ba’tshish

  16th of Telod, 1873 MD

  If I wanted to keep doing this, I never would have become a Mage. Still, better to get stuck dragging corpses again then face Avalin’s anger. I bet her temper has not mellowed at all. It had taken half the day, but finally I’m done. The sun is starting to dip below the tops of the trees, but every one of the Zauberei is in a heap on top of a pile of wood. The whole thing just waiting for the spark to turn it into a funeral pyre.

  Kearika and Avalin are together at the edge of the clearing, where Avalin has created a cabin for them to stay in. Just like when she trained me, she got to stay inside where it is warm. I had to find shelter in the pounding rain, and try not to freeze to death.

  I have finally recovered the use of my magic. Though, I am not sure how exactly I have it back. The healing should have killed me, and with the rate at which I had been producing aether before it should have been weeks before I could use any kind of magic. Instead I feel strong, far stronger than I have ever felt. Though I have been craving mead since I woke up, which is odd.

  The last thing I remembered was Kearika dragging me away from Adalan’s house. That must have been hard on her. I need to talk to Avalin about Mendalde, she might have heard of her. Maybe she can tell me something about that elf as well. It is good to have found another Mage who is not trying to kill us.

  With a snap of my fingers the whole log pile erupts into pillar of fire, burning hot enough to scorch the trees surrounding the clearing. Oops. I give a sheepish look at the cabin, where I can feel Avalin’s gaze from here. I apparently do not know my own strength anymore. I concentrate on the flame, breathing deeply as I take control of it. This is so much ea
sier when I am not the one on fire. The raging inferno dwindles down to a large bonfire.

  I turn and walk towards the cabin, picking up my staff and pack on the way. As I push the door open, the strong scent of mulling spices washes over me. Under the scent is the bite of alcohol, and I can see at least three empty bottles from here.

  “-they chased us for hours, trying to find where we’d hidden their pants. It was worth the forced march the next day.” Kearika says from the next room and Avalin laughs uproariously.

  I step into the cozy common room, where a fire pops merrily. Kearika and Avalin are sprawled out on two piles of pillows. Another empty bottle lays in front of Avalin, and Kearika is nursing a bowl of mead. I feel pretty thirst after all that work.

  “Were you telling Avalin about what we have been up to?” I ask Kearika, staring at the mead in her hands.

  “No, you oaf. She was telling me about her time spent training to be a Protector. Other people have stories too you know!” Avalin scoffs.

  Kearika gives a little snort and drinks deeply from her bowl, draining it in one go. I collapse onto the pillows next to her, feeling taxed from my work outside.

  “Did you stop the forest from burning down at least?” Avalin dryly asks me.

  “Obviously, or has your age finally taken your sight?” I snort. Kearika gives me an asking sidelong look before snatching up a pitcher and filling her bowl with more mead.

  “Maybe a little nighttime run is in order my dear student. For old times’ sake.” Avalin says as she stares levelly at me from across the fire. I nearly choke on my drink as I rush to speak.

  “No, no of course not. My apologies Professor.” I say hurriedly. That run would probably end a week from now, on top of a mountain. I cough into my hand, hoping to change the subject.