“Wait!” shouted Magnus as he trotted after the boy. “My father is only concerned for your safety, that’s all.”
“I don’t care. Friends help each other. That’s what they do,” he complained as he tried to fight back the tears. He was tired, and his emotions were overtaking him.
“I know. That’s why I’m going with you,” said Magnus. “As soon as the first scouts report back and we know the way is safe, we’ll leave for your village… together. Agreed?”
Adolphus nodded. He bent down and gave the wolf a big bear hug. “Thank you, Magnus. You’re my best friend.”
The moment was short-lived as several wolf scouts raced back into the clearing, barking as they ran.
“It’s the Ghast!” shouted the first scout.
“They’re here,” affirmed Ataris. “They moved more swiftly than I expected.”
“No!” shouted the second scout. “They attack the human pack of Draghone!”
Adolphus spun, not quite sure what he had heard.
“What?” asked the alpha wolf in shock.
The scouts nodded. “Yes. A dozen or more.”
“Oh no,” Magnus said as he looked at the boy. Worried panic spread across the young barbarian’s face.
There was no time to waste, decisions had to be made, and the outcome could not only affect the pack, but the village of Thornmount as well.
Ataris jumped into action. “Dain, take our most swift and engage the Ghast at the village. We must help the humans defend their homes. I will join you with reserves after we secure Thornmount. The enemy may still march toward us. Go… and may the gods be at your side!” he ordered.
Dain jumped to the head of the pack of wolves. He let out two quick barks and dashed for the lair exit. Nearly two dozen wolves followed, sprinting at full speed.
The young barbarian’s emotions were too strong to contain. My family. My mother. My father. I have to get home. I have to get home. “Magnus, I have to get home. I can’t run fast enough. Please, please help me.” Tears streamed down his face.
Magnus wanted to resist, offering an argument as to why the boy should stay, but this moment was too big, too important. The boy’s home, his family, his entire way of life were in jeopardy, and he needed to be there. If I say no, he’ll go anyway. Besides, I can’t say no… not to this, thought Magnus.
The wolf looked for some assistance.
“Barun!” he shouted. One of the largest wolves of the pack with chocolate brown fur, broad shoulders, and a broad back lumbered up.
“Yes, young Magnus?” asked Barun.
“We need your help? How are your legs; are they fit?” asked Magnus.
Barun pawed at the dirt, digging up a large gash in one single stride. “As strong as ever,” he proudly answered.
“Do you think you can take this boy to the village?”
“Think? Of course I can,” protested the brown wolf. He knelt on his fronts paws so Adolphus could climb aboard. The boy hesitated, wishing it was Magnus offering the ride instead.
“It will be ok. I’ll be with you the entire way,” he reassured his friend.
The barbarian pulled himself onto Barun’s back.
“Hold on, small one,” said Barun as Adolphus took handfuls of fur, and then crouched down, pressing his thighs and legs against the wolf.
“We must run, Barun, like the griffins soaring above; we must run,” said Magnus as he looked at Ataris.
His father said nothing. They we were headed into battle. There was nothing more to say.
****
“Spoiled little troublemaker,” mumbled the sentry to himself as he strolled atop the wooden watchtower.
Any other barbarian child wanders off and everyone would say “if he’s stupid enough to go into the Mythik Forest alone, he better be smart enough and strong enough to come back,” he thought with a chuckle.
It was true, though. The people of Draghone were not avoiders of conflict, quite the contrary. Especially for those living in the Village of Thornmount, on the outermost border of the kingdom and the lone outpost in the Mythik Forest. It was a hard life with hard conditions… just the way they liked it. If a barbarian succumbed to the perils of the forest it was interpreted as the will of the gods. A favor for a boy or girl not ready or worthy to be part of the village. It was a harsh, but a practical reality of the survival of the fittest.
Young barbarians of the village often explored the forest in small groups. The teenagers, in an effort to prove themselves and hone their hunting skills, would sometimes travel alone. It was an amazing, mysterious, and a dangerous world just outside the wooden defenses, and what young boy would not be enticed to investigate such a place from time to time. But this was different. It was not some other barbarian child; it was the chief’s only son. And this was not the first occasion that Adolphus had inconveniently disappeared.
Probably won’t be the last either, thought the guard. “So I’m stuck here, not even my turn on the tower, and half the village is out looking for one foolish boy,” he said aloud, his voice carrying further than he intended.
The sentry peeked around to make sure no one heard his little tirade. But he saw only the trees outside the fence and a few women tending to cooking fires inside the compound, and they were well out of earshot. So he continued his grumbling.
“I would teach that boy a lesson, I would. One he’d never forget. I would whip his hide or let him rot out in the forest. When I have children they won’t act like this. If they do, that’s what they’ll get!”
It was past the midday, and the temperature continued to rise. All he wanted to do was to find a spot of shade and eat the rest of his lunch. He glanced over at the horn, hanging from the side of the tower. He couldn’t remember the last time he had heard the three long blasts of the horn warning of danger. Then he looked over at his long, wooden spear. It had been even longer since he had held the weapon in a fight or battle. Both seemed rather useless right now.
I’d much rather be out there, looking for the boy, in the shade of the forest, than cooking up here under the sun. At least out there I could snare a boar or perhaps a timber elk and eat a fine meal tonight. Yes, the guard on the tower is important, but it is boring to the point of torture! Of course, there was no chance he would say such things aloud. That was a sure-fire way to get off the tower for a very long time and right into the labor gangs rebuilding fences, walls, and huts.
Like it or not, he was stuck, and he could feel the frustration of his duty weighing down on him. With nothing else to offer as a distraction, he refocused on the task at hand, scanning the forest tree line for Adolphus.
As he had done many times in the past, he trained his eyes to track the perimeter for movement, not necessarily for shapes. The normal swaying of branches and bushes almost didn’t register, as he was used to selectively tuning out everyday noise. He looked and listened for the abnormal. Once he spotted the boy, he was instructed to give two long blasts with the horn to inform the search parties to return to the village.
What was that? he thought as saw a quick movement and a dark shape from the corner of his eye. He couldn’t make out what it was, but it was close. I hate it when they try to sneak up on the guards. Good way to get yourself killed, boy, he thought.
There it was again, he thought, but from another direction. The sentry grew annoyed. The glare of the sun and the shadows from the forest canopy made seeing into the distance more difficult than usual.
“Adolphus! Do you know the kind of trouble you’re in, boy? This is no time for games. Now show yourself before I get your father myself,” he said. “Then we’ll see how humorous this is.”
The sentry was about to climb down the tower’s ladder and march into the trees from where the sounds emanated. He’d pull the boy back by his hair if he had to as this was no joke. Then he heard a different sound, a deep grunt that sent a cold chill down his spine.
The barbarian reached over and grabbed his spear. Whirling, the weapon lowere
d and ready to strike, he heard another noise. Something heavy, something big. Another grunt followed. He put one of his hands to his brow to shade his eyes from the brilliant sun.
Oh no! he thought as alarm gripped him. He lunged for the horn and ripped it from its leather strap nailed to the side of the tower. The barbarian put his lips to the small opening of the horn and took a deep breath, but it was too late.
A giant boulder sailed through the air and smashed through the tower. Wooden shrapnel exploded in all directions as the massive projectile completely destroyed the structure, along with its only occupant, leaving only shattered stumps of the base.
CHAPTER 14
“Wipe them out! Kill them all!” ordered Gork, the leader of the Ghast Gorilla war party.
Gork was as ugly as he was ferocious. His nose was flat and broad, and his nostrils were like two caverns in the middle of his face. One of his fangs was sheared in half, broken during one of his many fights to establish supremacy among the gorilla troops. While most of the apes’ fur was white with black running down their backs’, Gork’s was a dirty gray, with intermittent spots of black. Scars riddled his face, arms and chest, all mementos of victories over every type of foe.
The Ghast attack of the barbarian village of Thornmount was not the result of a tactical decision, but rather dumb luck and uncontrolled rage. Gork was one of the first to find the fallen gorilla on the northern bank of the River of Ash. The surviving ape told him of the attack by the wolves, and the rampage was on.
The gorillas’ sense of smell was not nearly as well developed or proficient as the Shade Wolves’, but it was adequate. They had quickly found the deceased body of Asher and picked up Dain’s trail from there. As they marched, they detected another scent, more wolves and something else… a barbarian.
“The barbarians. They help wolves,” concluded Gork, and then he shouted to the troop, “Barbarians must pay. They enemy.”
Truthfully, Gork would have attacked about anything at that moment. He was out for blood one way or another. All he needed was a creature, any creature that wasn’t Ghast.
As they pursued the scent, they headed straight for the wolves’ lair at Thornmount. But soon the troop discovered a new scent, all human, leading to and from the barbarian village. The search parties looking for the missing Adolphus had unknowingly crossed the same ground as Magnus and Dain, and by accident, turned the gorillas to their homes in Thornmount Village instead of their intended target – the Shade Wolves lair.
There was total silence. The insects, the birds, and all creeping and crawling creatures had either retreated or left the area. It was as if the forest held its breath and waited… waited for Hossef, the God of Death, to appear in mortal form and usher souls to the afterlife.
No blasts from the horn alerted or warned the villagers. No drums or rallying calls prepped the warriors. After the first watchtower fell and the boulder rolled to a stop, the cries of women and children sent the first warning of the attack.
Thayne Draghone could hear the screaming long before he entered his village. Just as silence sometimes proceeds death’s coming; the loss of life seemed to amplify sounds that they carried far beyond the fortress walls.
No! he screamed inside his head. Not now!
The attack by the Ghast was a tactical nightmare for the chief. Half the men, some of the village’s strongest warriors, were among the search parties scattered outside the village. The remaining members of village’s army manned distant posts so no area was neglected, ensuring that someone would help spot Adolphus should he return. There was no organized concentration of force inside or outside of the village.
Meanwhile, Gork swung his arms, bashing and crushing anything in sight. He tore down another watchtower as a lone barbarian sunk two arrows into the beast’s bicep. He roared, not in pain, but in rage as he ripped the wooden structure to the ground. When the sentry tumbled to the ground, he picked up the man and snapped his enemy’s back with one hard jerk. He tossed the lifeless body aside and moved deeper into the center of the village, tearing the arrows from his arm like irritating thorns.
Another Ghast charged through one of the cooking fires, sending a full pot of roasting meat and burning coals spraying through one of the huts. The wooden building caught fire, and in a few short moments was ablaze.
More than a dozen Ghast Gorillas tore a path of destruction through the Village of Thornmount with little to no resistance. It looked as if a series of tornados had touched down in the middle of the community, and the incredible force randomly struck huts, storage shacks, and trading establishments.
Thayne entered the village with about ten men, and they attacked the first Ghast they came across. Without hesitation the chief leapt up onto the gorilla’s back and drove his sword deep into the creature’s neck. It gasped as the weapon severed major arteries. It fell into a burning cooking fire. It would be the Ghast’s first casualty of this battle, but the rest would not fall so easily.
“Draw them out, away from the children!” shouted Thayne as he threw his spear into the stomach of another Ghast.
The barbarians were starting to gather into small groups of eight to ten men. With their spears and swords drawn, each squad engaged a Ghast. Archers scaled buildings and fences to gain better vantage points, hoping to rain down an attack from above.
The huge apes operated like fur-covered tanks, capable of sustaining incredible damage before falling. As formidable as the barbarians were, each man close to three paces tall, the strength and power of the white gorillas was difficult to match, even with a dozen men.
One squad of barbarians overwhelmed a Ghast and plunged home their swords, scimitars, and spears. They continued pounding and slicing until the ground was soaked with crimson, and the attacker’s life source was on its way to the next life.
As one group of barbarians found success, several others were crushed in defeat. Gork had seen the rallying barbarians and barked commands to his own troops. “Fight!” he yelled. “Fight as one!” and the gorillas obeyed. Instead of attacking random targets, the apes refocused on the barbarian warriors.
Thayne’s tactic of drawing the Ghast away from the women and children had worked, but now his unorganized bands of soldiers and fighters suffered the consequences.
“Stand together!” the chief shouted as he slashed away with his broadsword. “Push the beasts back! Send them to the afterlife in pieces!”
Just as it appeared that the tide of the battle was turning in the barbarians’ favor, more Ghast Gorillas swung down from the trees above.
One ape landed and with one powerful swipe of his arm, he sent several warriors flying. The bodies of the wounded men slammed into Thayne as he lifted his weapon to land another strike.
“Mardin, give me strength. Guide my hand that I may protect my people,” whispered the chief as he picked himself off the ground. He held his sword high. “Fight, my brothers! Keep fighting!”
A Ghast, running on all fours raced towards the chief and jumped, his arms extended to seize his prey. But Thayne held his ground. He wound up and unleashed a powerful attack of his own.
As the beast sailed over his head, it crashed headlong into the wooden fence behind them. With one bold stroke, the leader of the barbarians severed off the ape’s arm, and the detached limb twitched at Thayne’s feet.
Encouraged by their fearless leader, the villagers cheered and the battle cries echoed throughout the village. But the cheers dissipated as more Ghast entered the compound, and deafening gorilla roars signaled that the bloodshed would continue.
Thayne’s shoulders slumped. There are too many! None of us will see another sunrise. This is the end of us all, he thought. But he couldn’t let his people see what he felt … that defeat was certain. If I leave this world, then I will do it as I have lived it. I will fight until every breath has left me!
His arms ached from swinging his heavy sword. His side hurt from the collision with the bodies of his dying warriors. His lungs and th
roat burned from heavy breathing to keep oxygen flowing. But his mind was clear, and his heart still beat.
At that moment, Chief Draghone spotted the Ghast leader Gork, leading the assault on the far side of the village. The hideous ape was no longer at the front of the charge, but behind the ranks, directing the gorillas to coordinate their attacks.
I have only one hope. If the leader falls, the others may lose the stomach for battle. he thought as he raced through the village. Several Ghast tried to engage him, but he kept going, dodging their blows and avoiding their assaults. He had to get to the leader – everything depended upon it.
Thayne picked up half of a broken spear and took aim at the back of the leader. He slung the weapon and it whistled through the air until it hit its target with a gross thud. The spearhead sank deep into the shoulder blade of the beast, below the base of its muscular neck.
Gork howled in pain as he whirled to confront the unseen attacker. He contorted and twisted his torso until he could reach the projectile still stuck in his back. Once he had a firm grip, he ripped the spear loose and flung at it Thayne.
The gorilla leader pounded his chest as he blustered and boomed threats at the barbarian. Spit seeped from his mouth as the ape growled his threat. “I am Gork. Ghast follow me. Fear me, barbarian, I am your doom!”
The barbarian leader readied his sword, but the Ghast had no intention of moving close to the blade.
Instead the Ghast hoisted up one of his fallen companions over his head and heaved it at Thayne.
The chief sprang to the left, jumping out of the way, but his foot slipped on the blood-soaked soil, and the corpse barreled over the top of him.
The pain felt like one of the thickest forest trees had toppled over and landed on him. First he felt his arm left arm leave the socket of his shoulder, followed by the air being pressed out of his lungs.
Thayne looked to his hand. He had done the unthinkable and had dropped his sword. It was on the ground and beyond his reach. The heft of the dead gorilla pinned his legs, trapping and preventing him from moving at all. He was defenseless.
Trail of Bones: A Young Adult Fantasy Novel (An Epic Fantasy Adventure For Any Family) Page 13