‘Often, we have already learned the answers to what we seek, only we have not realized how to ask ourselves the right questions to discover them within us.’
The words of the old man echoed in Dragol’s mind over and over again. The soft strength in the voice continued to enamor Dragol. It held the gentle authority of a longtime mentor, neither domineering, nor wavering in purpose. The lesson was there for him to learn, just as it had been when he had left his home village, to accept the requested task from Caruga.
He grew very quiet, feeling the serenity reigning around him. Letting his eyes slowly open again, he took in the sight of the waterfall and trees beyond it.
The more that he listened to his heart, in the way that the Trogens tended to do, the more reassurance he found towards the strange traveler. A part of him harbored no doubts that he would be seeing the old man once again, perhaps very soon.
“I want to find the right question,” Dragol murmured out loud, as casually if he was replying to the immediate presence of the old man. “If you can help me … then help me. Just tell me who you are, and what you are about. Why do you think I am anything more than what I am?”
The light, drifting breezes carried off Dragol’s softly spoken words. Dragol could almost imagine the smooth, peaceful currents of air ushering the supplication carefully to the ears of the old traveler.
As easily and promptly as the old man seemed to be able to depart and appear, Dragol would not have been surprised if the old man was standing just twenty feet away. There was a palpable tinge of disappointment when several moments passed and no answer was forthcoming.
It was an unusual sort of feeling to have, but he believed the old man would not have remained hidden if he were there to hear Dragol’s query. Furthermore, there was still no sensation of the kind that he had felt prior to the traveler’s other appearances. Even so, Dragol had earnestly believed that the old man could somehow hear the spoken words.
Allowing himself an ephemeral, bemused smile, an expression not all that common amongst Trogen-kind, he raised his eyes upward again. He gazed through the deep green saturating the intertwining tree branches above and around him, taking in the smooth, silken expanse of the teal-colored sky farther above. Streaked with elongated swathes of white clouds, the sight held an aesthetic, enthralling attraction for him.
It seemed much more vivid and magical than he had ever noticed before, as if he had cleared away a veil, and recaptured some of the wonder of his early youth. In a sense, it was almost like looking up at the trees, clouds, and sky for the first time. In truth, though, he was looking up at a unique instance of the sky.
Sitting up straighter, Dragol chuckled to himself. There might well be a meaning to having an entirely new manner of perception. Then again, he had to concede that maybe his mind truly was losing the scope of reality that he had known.
Still, he had not bothered yet to wonder about whether new perceptions might bring with them an altogether new awareness. A new awareness might very well clear the mists away, removing that which clouded the nature of the particular questions that he needed to ask himself.
The answers that Dragol was seeking might not be all that far away, after all.
*
AYENWATHA
*
The presence of the Midragardans within the Five Realms was soon felt intimately by the invaders, as the allies of the five tribes reached the front lines of the fighting. The course of the battle was quickly turned to the defender’s advantage, with the unexpected influx of seasoned warriors from the south.
Skillful Midragardan archers complimented the keen eyes of the Five Realms’ own bowmen. The Atagar, utilizing the trees, were increasingly brought down with arrows, wherever they could be found.
The locating of enemy forces, positions, and their maneuverings was augmented tremendously by the availability of almost three hundred Midragardans mounted upon Fenraren. The airborne warriors owned the skies over the tribal lands, as they fanned out far over the woodlands. The sky warriors were boisterous and renewed, after having cleared the skies of Trogens and the massive Darroks only a day before.
A few loosed sporadic arrows from the great heights. While not overly accurate, and presenting no real practical threat, the arrows descending out of the upper skies did not go unnoticed by the enemy. The enemy was reminded starkly of their sudden vulnerabilities, and the arrows did much to slow the invaders down further.
Aided by a flow of new tidings from the sky warriors, Gunnar and Ayenwatha led a numerous contingent of Midragardans and tribal warriors in a powerful counterattack. Their thrust was aimed right at a particularly large mass of enemy fighters streaming through the woods, near the central area of the invader’s broad push. Midragardan sky warriors had identified the exact location of the concentrated enemy force, efficiently directing Ayenwatha, Gunnar, and the others to intercept it. Ayenwatha knew exactly where he was being guided by the scouts above, and hastily organized a plan with Gunnar to make use of the two allies’ strengths.
They caught the enemy approaching on a stretch of ground that funneled down into a narrow passage running between a couple of low hills. A number of tribal warriors raced up the slopes of the flanking hills, continuing along them to gain ground just above the dense masses of Galleans now marching down below them.
The vanguard of the Gallean force had just passed through the confined stretch between the hills, and was spreading out on the other side, to proceed on their forward sweep through the woodlands. They moved with an easy, confident gait, having advanced without opposition since they had started out from their encampment that morning.
For the invaders, the woods had erupted, coming alive with a swelling roar and brandishing of steel. Almost immediately, seeing iron helms, round shields, and coats of mail, the invaders knew that they were being confronted by warriors who were not of the five tribes.
Before the enemy had time to draw up in battle order, the Midragardans charged them. Shocked by the presence of hundreds of Midragardan warriors screaming out in battle fury, and falling upon their forefront, the spreading line of enemy fighters beyond the hills was brought to a halt.
Galleans from urban militias, infantry, and even a few knights and sergeants tried to retreat. Some militia fighters fearfully abandoned their weapons, and fled at a full run.
A number of Galleans were engulfed as the initial wave of the attack crashed upon them. The knights within the encompassed pockets fought with desperate fury, though they were soon cut down by the vigorous attackers. Other knights screamed out harsh orders, to stiffen the wavering Gallean line a little further back, as the tight mass coming up behind them stalled in between the hills.
The sudden appearance of a numerous, strong, and well-equipped Midragardan force was much more than the enemy had ever anticipated. It was not much longer before panicked horn blasts could be heard, as the enemy signaled urgently for a full withdrawal.
“Drive them back!” Gunnar shouted, slaying a knight with an arcing, downward slash of his heavy sword.
He pulled the sword free, and thrust it out at an urban militia fighter wearing a padded gambeson. A look of terror was frozen on the Gallean’s face, as Golden Fury drove into his exposed throat. The militia fighter dropped his polearm, and fell dead to the ground.
“For the One Spirit!” Ayenwatha cried out, eliciting an uproar from all the tribal warriors that had flowed in on the flanks of the Midragardans.
Brandishing their war clubs, spears, and hand axes, they hurtled into the panicking enemy ranks. The two leaders fought close together, with Ayenwatha on the inner edge of the tribal warriors on the Midragardan right flank, and Gunnar towards the outer edge of his warriors on that same flank.
Ayenwatha bludgeoned a Gallean spearman, hitting him flush on the side of his half-helm with a heavy, curved war club. The crashing sound of the impact covered most of the sickening snap that accompanied it, as the man’s skull and neck gave way before the war club’s
potent force.
Exhilaration ran through Ayenwatha, as the defenders were finally taking the fight right to their enemies. Deganawida was somewhere behind them, with a small reserve of tribal warriors and Midragardans. The revered sachem was now a worry to Ayenwatha, because of his close proximity, but the older man had insisted on being present near to the fighting.
The old sachem had assured Ayenwatha that he would remain behind, and would not take unnecessary risks. In the fast changing fortunes of battle, Deganawida’s promises were of little comfort, as a threat could emerge to the venerable sachem’s life at any given moment.
Gunnar raised his sword high, waving it above his head, and called out to a group of Midragardans to form up with him. “Boar’s head! Boar’s head!”
The Midragardans in the center arranged into a formation that resembled the point of an arrow or spearhead, protruding out from their longer line. Gunnar, wielding Golden Fury, maneuvered to the apex of that point.
“Clamp the jaws upon them, Ayenwatha!” he called out over his shoulder. Once at the point of the boar’s head formation, he led the group of warriors forward, tramping towards the thinning line at the center of the enemy resisting them. “We will pierce their line with the boar’s head!”
Ayenwatha watched as the Midragardans tromped forward, in a tight, orderly unit, puncturing the enemy ranks, and instantly sending panic and chaos spiraling throughout the Gallean ranks.
Ayenwatha called for signals to be relayed swiftly to the warriors up on the hills, a little farther ahead. Once the signals had been conveyed, the warriors descended the slopes with whooping cries, coming down both sides, to strike at the bewildered Galleans coagulated within the narrow stretch of ground between the hills.
Attacked from both sides, divided and pressed from their front, the Galleans did everything that they could to hasten their retreat. Cleaving through the enemy, Gunnar’s men were soon meeting up with Ayenwatha’s warriors, eyes blazing as they closed off the main route of retreat for many enemy warriors now trapped behind them. In quickly passing moments, the tribal warriors from the slopes, and the fighters with Gunnar, began to strike at the rear of the trapped Galleans.
The Midragardans and tribal warriors arrayed at the forefront of the encircled enemy ranks redoubled their attacks at Ayenwatha’s urging. The enemy force caught in front of the hills, and the one caught in the stretch of land between them, was soon whittled down.
The attackers had been turned into defenders with one bold, sweeping stroke. Morale dissipated rapidly amongst the Galleans, escalating the progress of the counter-attackers further.
As the last of the Galleans trapped before the hills were mopped up, Gunnar turned towards the narrow stretch of ground where he could see the back of the Gallean masses running away. They were falling into the woods on the other side of the hills, heading back in the direction from which they had marched.
“Onward!” shouted Gunnar, “Drive them out of the forest!”
Broad axes were raised high, and spears were leveled, as a jubilant roar filled the air. The Midragardans trotted forward, as incautious in their pursuit as the enemy had been in their forward push.
A sense of dread then clutched Ayenwatha’s gut, as he saw so many warriors racing forward. The sight spurred his own feeling of panic, after Midragardan sky riders gliding overhead began to blast out urgent signals upon their horns.
Ayenwatha cried out to stop as many warriors as he could from going forward, tribal and Midragardan alike, knowing the sky riders had espied the cause for his uneasy feeling. Beyond the hills on the other side, the disciplined Avanoran knights had demonstrated their acute sense for the ebbs and flows of a battle. With the penetration, cut-off and encirclement of the forefront of the force, and the chaotic retreat by those immediately behind, they had rallied a number of crossbowmen and archers to prepare themselves for the inevitable pursuit.
A fair number of Midragardans were so caught up in the heat of combat, and first tastes of victory, that they strayed far into the grounds beyond the other side of the hills before they even began to sense that something terrible was amiss.
The air was filled a moment latter with a sibilant hissing.
The Midragardan warriors were riddled by a streaking host of bolts that punched through shirts of chain mail, as well as a flurry of arrows fitted with mail-piercing heads. Many Midragardans were knocked and spun off of their feet by the powerful bolts. Their anguished cries rang out to the skies, as they clutched at the shafts buried deep within the flesh of their bodies. A few more were killed trying to help wounded comrades, as all that could struggled desperately to retreat back down the channel between the hills.
Ayenwatha quickly sent tribal archers back up the slopes of the two hills, and soon some arrows of their own were beginning to fall among the reassembled enemy ranks. Fortunately, the enemy’s overall stomach for fighting was gone, at least for the time being. They had been sorely bloodied by the unanticipated attack from the combined tribal and Midragardan forces.
When the Midragardans pulled back, and ceased their pursuit, the Galleans began an orderly retreat, abandoning the vicinity of the two low hills. Ayenwatha resisted any temptations at further pursuit. Overall, the defenders had attained a victory, though the Midragardans had been bloodied themselves at the end.
Ayenwatha was greatly relieved when he saw that Gunnar had survived the blunder at the end of the fighting. The big Midragardan had been amply anointed in the waters of battle, with blood and sweat covering his face. As he saw Ayenwatha striding up, he cast him a rueful grin.
“It is good to see you,” Ayenwatha exclaimed.
“We were too reckless, a terrible lesson, and one to be remembered,” Gunnar commented gruffly.
“Still a victory has been gained. The enemy was pushed back, and they lost many,” Ayenwatha said, eyeing all of the bodies littering the ground nearby. He did not have to take any count to know that the bodies of invaders far outnumbered those of fallen defenders.
Gunnar nodded grimly. “Yes, a victory, but we had losses that did not need to be suffered.”
Long, undulating wolf howls suddenly came upon the winds, bringing both men to an extended pause. An icy fear ran up Ayenwatha’s spine, as a massive roar shook the forest just a moment later.
Ayenwatha looked off in the direction of the haunting sounds, as his brow furrowed. Most creatures of the forest should have long since fled the area, with so many humans moving about the vicinity.
Ayenwatha looked to his Midragardan friend with puzzlement etched on his face. There was something subtle and different about the tone of the howls from the calls of the wolves that lived in the tribal regions. The deep roar that had followed was undoubtedly bear-like, but yet different in tone from the vocalizations of the natural inhabitants.
“Seems that not everyone’s day is done,” Gunnar remarked, with a knowing grin. He nodded towards the area strewn with Gallean bodies. “I can only say that these invaders were probably the luckier, in regard to the opponents that they were made to face this day.”
Ayenwatha looked towards Gunnar with a sense of amazement, as another huge roar, and more deep howls, resounded within the woodlands.
*
DEGANAWIDA
*
Both Bregas and Fenraren were used to ferry the exalted Great Sachems in, from points everywhere around the tribal regions. Some of them had been difficult to locate with the ongoing evacuation of the villages near the western border regions of the Five Realms. Many of the Great Sachems had never before flown upon sky steeds, but all understood the great urgency of the situation, and endured the unfamilar travel method as best they could.
The makeshift Grand Council was being held under the open sky, in a small clearing illuminated by the bright ambience of the afternoon sun. It was as ideal of a setting as could be had, given the less than ideal circumstances.
A Council Fire had been lit, the wood crackling to life from the flames of the
Sacred Fire. The sachems from the Onan, Kanienke, and Onondowa sat to one side, while those from the Gayogohon and the Onyota were arrayed on the other. The Older Brothers and the Younger Brothers were together again, uniting the tribal family. An empty pole had been erected near to the fire, and, as nobody had yet spoken, no wampum belt had yet been hung upon it.
All fifty sachems of the Grand Council were in attendance, to Deganawida’s great happiness and sheer amazement, as he had been watching them arrive with overriding anxiety, until the last was present. With their deer antler headdresses gracing their heads, their voices rose in unison, in a traditional expression of thanksgiving to the One Spirit.
Deganawida clutched the wampum belt that displayed the image of a man with an inner flame in his right hand. In the other, he gripped the bundle of five arrows signifying his honored status.
He drew strength from the familiar feel of the wampum, the sight of the sachems, and the sounds of chanting prayers and songs that filled the early portion of the Grand Council. It did much to soothe his troubled spirits, and evoked a state of mind that was better readied for the deliberation at hand.
Once the more ritualistic segment of the Council had been concluded, Deganawida slowly stepped forward into the midst of the fifty sachems.
“My Brothers, fortune has indeed been with us this past day,” Deganawida began, as he walked closer to the blazing fire. His eyes methodically scanned the circumference of the gathering, taking in each and every sachem gathered. “The invaders have been slowed and stopped in many areas. They have been greatly wounded, but they will regroup and their attacks will resume soon. This Council has been called mainly for one purpose, in order to seek consensus on one matter.
“Gunnar, acknowledged war leader of our Midragardan brothers, desires to speak to the sachems of our Council about this matter. These are not ordinary times. Much is happening that is not in our traditional way. Please understand this, as he speaks to the Grand Council … and please listen to him. I ask Gunnar, friend to the Five Realms, now to come forth, to speak freely, and to tell us what he will.”
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