by Jason Jones
Quit toying, you will go back and take off that ring…
“Oh, I cannot wait to meet this, Johnas Valhera, what an honor. I am sure he is regal and grand and brave, oh yes.”
Eliah rolled his eyes, having not the slightest interest in seeing Valhirst or Johnas again. Once this battle was over, he would disappear back to the Sullan Swamps, and continue his research into immortality. Then, he would return here, and find his old body and dispose of this pesky elf spirit and its frail vessel, once and for all.
The agent of the Emerald Eight drew her ornate black scimitar. Her black robes fluttered as she levitated. Out of respect for the leading beasts at her back, she nodded to Avegarne and Mun Parr. In their wicked tongues of ogre and troll dialects, as quiet as their races allowed, their armies drew blades and weapons galore. The trolls squatted low and clenched their black claws into the earth. Ogre chiefs whipped their long stringy hair about as they tugged their tusks in hungry anticipation.
“Armies of the Western Wastes and the Hallowmoors, we rip Southwind Keep and Elcram to the ground, and trample it into the pages of history. A quiet march to the gates, and then, leave none alive. After that, we all go our separate ways.” Vanessa smiled, the monstrous nobility returned the smile. For some reason, perhaps her scarred face upon such foreign beauty, they listened to her without question.
The ogre began their march down Alvander field, emerging from the pines and hills with careful steps. The trolls lurked toward Elcram, the ogre toward the keep, yet within half a mile they were all mixed together. Night was upon them, they swarmed with nearly three deadly legions toward an empty and vulnerable Southwind Keep, and to their applaud, they made very little noise.
“You are sure nothing is out of place, arcane or otherwise?” Vanessa hovered behind the last of the troll warriors, next to the finely dressed and hovering Eliah. Her senses of mystical sight had caught nothing, not one faint aura of magick anywhere besides on herself and her consort.
Take my blade, kill her, and get us to a priest you wretch…
“I am sure, I checked three times now, nothing my Caberran beauty.”
Salah Cam lied, he had checked nothing. He cared only for maintaining his identity in this body, which right now had become difficult once more. Eliah Shendrynn wanted out, wanted control, he wanted to be heard. He drew the elven longblade, and managed to give it a twirl that looked believable.
“After this, you and I will return west to gather your things. Some time in the bedroom after, some more salve, and then we travel east to Valhirst.” Vanessa smirked at Eliah, then turned her focus toward the closing view of Southwind Keep, and the army about to destroy it.
Vomit, vomit, if you fock her one more time I will kill you all…
“That will be nice, yes, very sweet of you.”
Salah Cam felt to vomit, not from himself, but Eliah inside seemed repulsed by bedding a human woman. Everytime he took her in his chambers, the trapped elf inside made it nearly possible to enjoy. Perhaps he did not approve of interracial pleasure, maybe it was the scars or the violating use of his body against his will, or possibly he was even not attracted to women. Salah frowned, not wanting to think that he had stolen the body of a queer elf whose spirit was watching while he rode a Caberran girl in trade for arcane teachings.
“Sweet, yes, but why do you look sour?” Vanessa was suspect now, his facial expressions seemed odd, as if he did not have control of them.
He is sour, and he is old, and wrinkled, perverted, and a dead thing you stupid whore of a…
“No reason, no not you. It is the stench of Southwind Keep, I hate it so. Come, let us assist in its decimation, for King Johnas.” Salah Cam smiled, forcing Eliah out.
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“Steady now, quiet, good.” Hithins whispered through his curved white beak. “Be calm and wait for the order.”
Perrius Alvander, Knight of Southwind Keep by but a few months of age, was sweating profusely. His hand trembled as it gripped his broadsword, the vulture on his shoulder, white or not, did not seem to comfort him.
“Lord Hithins, there are more than two thousand, we need to flee this is---“
“Patience young Alvander, we need to get them in close. Trust me, all will be fine.” Middir of Kivanis whispered from the balcony to the young boy of Southwind. He had sensed two or three masters of the arcane among the approaching army, so covering the presence of Lazlette Academy here was imperative.
“Brothers Traelsidian, how are your wards against detections?”
Two men in floppy brimmed hats and black robes with blue shimmering glyphs nodded back to old plump professor Middir. Linnel Traelsidian, the older gray-haired wizard had been holding an incantation in place for hours, one that blended the arcane and auras of life into their surroundings. Damoval, the younger professor of the brothers, had been masking that incantation with a more powerful channel that made it impossible to detect. Neither wished to speak, the length of their spells of illusion had them deep in focus, both starting to sweat despite the cool night air.
“Very good professors. Brellmond Graniff, the circle of Alvander Field is complete?”
“It is, Middir. Another few minutes and they will all be inside it. I will take the assistance of five of the thirty five students to hold it up, when the time is upon us. I wait for your signal.”
Tall and strong, Brellmond of Shanador had spent long hours tracing a circle of blinding daylight around the field from the keep to Elcram. From his motionless position here in Southwind, he was impressed even with himself for inscribing several miles of hidden spell without aid.
“Excellent work professor. Enira D’fallow, are you here?” Middir looked around the balconies.
“I am, professor Middir. The ogre and troll mingle as we speak, though they seem unaware. I have used subtle charms of anger and discontent, so hidden that they will not realize they seek to disobey the commands of their leaders.” Hidden in the walls by illusions and blending arcane force, fat and frizzy haired professor Enira, the one eyed witch of Harlaheim, was ready with all of her tricks and subconscious arcane spells.
“They will be at each others throats, very soon.”
“Students of the graduating year three hundred forty six, sixteen of you are here with me. You know your spells by heart and have practiced well. Now, we have a bit of a field test if you would, to put practice to preservation. Are you ready?” Middir whispered to the cloaked arcane shadows of sixteen students that lined the battlements of Southwind Keep.
“Yes, professor Middir.” They whispered back, staves in hand, ready to prove what nine years of arcane training at Lazlette could accomplish against an army of trolls and ogre.
“Class of three hundred forty seven, are you ready to prove to the class ahead of you that you are just as skilled in the arcane? Fourteen students with a year less remedial study, yet can you show us what you have learned, under pressure?”
“Yes, Professor Middir.” They spoke in unison, hushed from their concealed magicks that blended their forms into the arrow slits in the towers on either side of the catwalk.
“Very good, very good. On my signal, which will be very explosive, professor Graniff will illuminate the fields west of Southwind, with the five students currently tied for the honor graduate award. Then, we will be face to face with three legions of troll and ogre savages. Two masters of the arcane have we sensed in their ranks, so be cautious. Cold will slow the trolls, as will turning them to stone, and setting them afire. As far as the ogre, use blasts of force to knock them down, electricity to stun them, and whatever else comes to mind.” Middir tapped his staff to the stone, his seventh sense was showing his eyes that they were within one hundred feet of the moat.
“Any questions?”
“Yes, professor. Is this considered an elective achievment for the first semester, or credited laboratory time for the second semester?”
Young Kishan Tillir, from Jal Adeen, felt the
need to ask her query. The stifled chuckling set everyone at a bit of ease. Though most found humor in it, she was actually quite serious since she was the the favored to take the honor award in the upcoming graduation.
Before Middir could respond, he saw Brellmond Graniff wink at him that all the enemy forces were now within his secret circle of waiting arcane. Middir nodded back, hovered over the courtyard, and signaled Hithins.
“Perrius Alvander, it is time. Tell your archers to ready their bows and close their eyes. As soon as the light dims enough to see, fire at will.” The snow vulture ordered calmly.
“Yes, Lord Hithins, God save you.” Perrius crept quietly to inform the defenses of Southwind to be ready.
“Lord Hithins? Truly, you have quite an ego when your mistress is away.” Middir shook his head with a smile.
“I will have you know that I have whipped Southwind into shape before you arrived. It was most disorganized, the food was awful, and the people need a bit of leadership. I am just the bird for the title, Middir.” Hithins raised his beak in proud defiance.
Middir smiled again, shook his head, and pointed his staff to the center of Alvander field in the dark of early nightfall.
“Caldrasiun duthme hiliard hvoom!”
A sphere of white and orange spiraling force whisked into being, into the palm of Professor Middir, and it began to solidify and rotate in fast revolutions. As it hummed, he heard the grunts and roars of ogre hitting the outer walls and gates, sloshing into the moat. Middir heard the screeching and hissing of thousands of trolls climbing with black claws.
All thirty five students, his four fellow professors, and all of Southwind Keep and the hidden citizens of Elcram looked up at him floating above the courtyard. He nodded to Hithins, and thrust his sapphire topped staff and hand forward. The sphere spun over the catwalk, past the outer walls, and impacted into Alvander field. The explosion rattled the very earth and walls, sending bits of ogre and troll nearly thirty feet in every direction.
“Now!” Middir yelled over the students and professors of Lazlete Semanarium Arcanum.
Light like the sun on a summer day, a line half a foot wide yet blinding white and yellow, erupted from the walls of Southwind Keep. It stretched west along a stream, curved over the tops of the hills of Alvander Field, then wrapped miles around western Elcram in mere seconds.
For one second, no one breathed. The sight of thousands of ten and eleven foot tall ogre warriors, so close to the keep they stood and hovered upon, was terrifying. Blended with the climbing trolls, green naked skin and whips of black hair, coming by twice that number in all directions, froze all in a moment of disbelieving stare. Thankfully, the power of surprise and blinding light had the enemy pause for that same moment and more.
Then, the battle roars and screeches from Avegarne and Mun Parr went up like fires to the sky, driving their hordes into attack. Suddenly, arcane flashes of crackling blue, burning green, flaming orange, and searing white unleashed from Southwind Keep to welcome them. The first wave of trolls over the walls stepped through blue humming light that froze their bodies into ice. The ogre warriors at the front met bolts of lightning by the dozens, and balls of white flame that blinded and burned. Green acidic mist shot from staves on the southside, forming cones and clouds inescapable as troll flesh melted from bodies and tried to regrow as they fell to the ground below. Ogre weapons lifted from dead hands and spun with purple force, cleaving heads and arms from their living brethren on the field.
To the outer gates, unleashed hails of arrows from hidden archers of the keep. Then the very moat erupted as the water boiled and thirty or more shadowy tentacles sprouted and shocked everything within reach. Walls of invisible force stopped spears and javelins before the balconies. Shadows dragged ogre warriors into the moat to drown, and blasts of gray acrid smoke stole the hissing breath from masses of charging trolls.
Several spells erupted back to the keep from an elven wizard and a young female arcanist, yet they met the dispelling fields of the brothers Traelsidian, and fizzled without effect. The students unleashed orbs of every color, exploding, ripping with force, and electrifying the masses trapped below them. The night sky was flashing with uncounted lights, as if ten classes of Lazlette were graduating all at once.
Orders from ogre chiefs came out as hissing words to troll warriors. In turn, troll savages yelled to each other but their dialect issued in the ogre tongue. Avegarne and Mun Parr yelled for charges and retreats simultaneously. Rage turned to frenzy, then to scattered chaos, and the fields were erupting with ogre and troll killing one another as much as climbing the walls to reach inside.
A symphony of magical assaults radiated the night sky, directed by the professors of Lazlette Academy. Hundreds upon hundreds of ogre and troll alike perished in mere seconds, and the secret arcane army of Southwind Keep was just beginning.
“It is a trap, splendid!” Eliah Shendrynn ducked a bolt of lightning in the dark chaos.
“Back to back, get us in the air!” Vanessa Blackflame saw Avegarne heading their way, with many ogre, and not to discuss battle plans.
I hope they mangle her to pieces, but you had better not get a scratch on my body, Salah Cam. Get out of me, now!
“Never.” Salah Cam spoke as he laughed outloud to the spirit in the body he controlled. He summoned levitating forces on he and Vanessa as she protected them with flaming walls and translucent barriers.
The trolls and ogre wanted payment for the seeming betrayal, they knew not which wizard had led them into the ambush, so both were ordered to die. Trolls of Mun Parr screamed into the ogre and swarmed Southwind. Ogre charged the troll hordes. All the while, the arcane assault only strengthened from those having arrived under cover, from Lazlette Academy in Vallakazz.
Hunters IV:II
White Spider Underground
Valhirst
The glowing kukri of the Hedim Anah slashed ahead twice, then was parried again by the glowing kris blade near Vermillion’s face on the third attack. Lavress slashed low with his falcata, met by the shortblade of his opponent. The elven hunter backed up a step, anticiapated the double lunge, and struck down with both his curved blades. He feinted with an elbow to the scarred assassin, then kicked forward into the stomach of black cloaked Vermillion, sending him back hard.
Jehrale Valhera caught his wind, his blades were up on defense reflexively, and he cross parried the slashing falcata that rose up toward his torso. Before the kukri stabbed ahead, he twirled under the elven hunters’ reach, slashing furiously with both blades. Two, then four, then six deadly swings of steel were unleashed. Each made the same sound as he continued his dance to the center of the chamber.
Clang, chang, shing, ting!
Never had Jehrale met an opponent he could not kill, nor one so seemingly savage, yet so skilled, as this elf.
Lavress pressed on, keeping his stare to the chest of his foe, and began long thrusts and cuts to tire his opponent down. He lunged with the wolf pommeled falcata, then stepped back and countered the riposte with his lightning kukri strikes. His high lunges landed low to keep distance, his parries were horizontal, then he started with even faster stop cuts. Lavress was slashing vertical in between catching the shortblades with ease. His back and forth steps grew repetitious, then he knew it was time to feint.
Vermillion countered with diagonal slashes of his kris blade, then low lunges to push back with his shortsword. He moved to take an angle in, as the straight forward defense of this elf was impenetrable. He stepped left, then right, and then dove ahead with quick thrusts. Suddenly his left arm burned, then his ribs, and he backed up and placed his guard cross and high. His opponent had moved ahead, had anticipated his steps, and placed two perfect cuts into his shoulder and flank. Jehrale felt the blood seeping down, he looked, and the savage elf was circling and preparing another assault.
“Look, a small scar to remember you by, nothing more.” Jehrale sneered and took a slash and then a thrust at the elf.
&
nbsp; Lavress stepped back one step and parried the second attack with ease. “Time will tell, and you are the only one bleeding, human.”
Torchlight threw dancing shadows of two masters of the blade upon the walls of the prison chambers. The echo of steel upon steel was nearly deafening, yet the faint commotion of a much larger war rumbling above ground could be heard in the intermittent moments of the prison.
Oggidan tried to focus, his armblade crossed over his shortblade, trying to overpower Sir Liogan. He had tripped him back over some chains, landed ontop of him, and his crossed edges were inches from the knights’ throat. In between them was a broadsword, and a left hand holding his arm away. Both young warriors trembled from the pressure.
“Time to die…” Oggidan strained, his blades nearly touching the flesh upon the throat of the young knight he had pinned.
Liogan turned left, then right, then left again, and lifted his knees. He pushed up hard, just hard enough to throw Oggidan back a few feet. He rolled, broadsword in hand, and got to his feet in time to deflect a slashing armblade and a chop of a very close shortsword. The young knight backpeddaled as he parried the fast incoming attacks, high, then low, then thrusts in the dark that met enemy steel. Though younger by a season or so, his red haired opponent was well trained. Liogans back hit a wall, he dodged left and right, blades scraping stone as he did, sparking inches from his face.
Oggidan feinted to cut up across the knights’ face, then cut low with both blades. One was stepped around, the other parried. He caught the broadsword in his blades again and twisted. The steel edges rolled over a few times, then the shortsword and the broadsword went skittering across the floor and stopped upon hitting a sack of chains. The agent of the White Spider punched ahead with his armblade, but it was grabbed by the knight with both his hands.
The moans of forgotten prisoners rolled into the chambers, the battle was getting closer overhead, and Lavress Tilaniun knew there was little time. He glanced over and saw the struggle between Oggidan and Liogan, then sped up his assault.