by David
“Help me, Barag,” Loric encouraged him. “I need to know when this foul deed was done, before we accuse the wrong man.”
Barag did not look agreeable to Loric’s assessment. Garrick already burned in his irises. He eyed the Sword of Logant for a moment, while he considered.... then he yielded, “Riders came several days ago,” he began. Barag paused, still horrified by his own vivid memories. “I was off frog hunting at the Moonbeam when I heard a commotion, so I raced back to town to find….” his voice faltered. “Everything was afire. Our people were all dead!” Barag rumbled like thunder, bearing on his countenance the look of a man ready to do murder. “It was dark, but by the light of those fires, I saw banners of Moonriver flying over the departing column.”
Battle raged around two sober men, leaving them out of its path. It was as if they stood protected from its fury and wrath, as blood gushed all around them. Their minds were far from the killing field. Not one thought of waging war remained in their troubled hearts. They forgot that struggle as they shared mutual shock over a series of tragic and terrible events that had left them both full to bursting with grief.
Garrett’s man, Captain Dundrick, came to Loric’s mind. He had fetched his lieutenants, because their lord had a special mission for them. Dundrick’s entire company had ridden away that night, as if there had been fire beneath their heels. They had gone to Taeglin to slaughter innocents.
The Heir of Durbansdan sent his men to repay me for humiliating him, Loric thought, horrified. I am to blame for this. He corrected himself, snarling, “Garrett is our man!”
“How’s that?” Barag questioned.
“Prince Garrett contrived this evil,” Loric answered. “Lord Garrick would never sink this low, but his son has no moral fiber. He is devious, calculating and cruel. Garrett must pay for this brutal act.”
“What difference does it make whether it is the father or the son who ordered the deed done?” asked Barag. “Taeglin is gone, and no one can bring our loved ones back from the grave.”
That was the wretched truth. It pained Loric to hear it spoken.
“The difference is that I shall know for which one of them to reserve my wrath,” Loric promised. “If Garrett survives his retreat in the south, I swear by Great King Donigan, I will have my vengeance upon him! He and the officers who saw to this butchery will pay for it like the criminals they are.”
Loric gazed across the raging battlefield, stunned by those vast numbers of fallen men.
Some of them were still moving, crying in agony. These men had a fighting chance, he thought sourly. What chance did my people have? They were but farmers. Galloping hooves awakened Loric from his troubled thoughts. He glanced up to see Warnyck racing toward him. The scout’s lips were pressed against gritting teeth in a scowl, as he hastened to join Loric and his prisoner.
Warnyck repeatedly shouted, “Loric!” as he approached. When he drew near, he said, “Lord Aldric sends word that we must push through the enemy to gain the Lost Hills, ere our doom is complete.” He reined in beside Loric and Barag and continued, “Turtioc now holds Moonriver Castle against us. Curse him!” he spat. “Furthermore, Garrett’s forces were crushed in detail. It remains unclear whether Garrett is lost, captured or slain. Those who assailed him now march to join this fight--and their numbers are great! For all of the aforementioned reasons, Lord Aldric urges you to battle through to the Lost Hills. There we will take our refuge and regroup.”
“Marblin!” Loric shouted.
Marblin was at his side in a moment’s time. “You must see to it that Lord Garrick joins us here, from whence we will pierce the enemy line,” Loric ordered.
“Yes, Loric,” Marblin answered.
“You would still serve this man after all that I have told you of his deeds?” Barag
questioned.
“Who is this?” Warnyck asked, making a rude gesture toward Barag.
“He is a prisoner and a fellow townsman to me,” Loric answered.
“He looks more like a churl of Landolstadt, judging by the colors he wears,” Warnyck
commented. “I will gladly finish him-”
“I said he is a fellow townsman!” Loric interjected fiercely. “This is an acquaintance renewed.” He turned to Barag as he mounted up and offered, “Go in peace, if that is your wish. I bear you no ill will, Barag son of Borag.”
Barag’s steady, angry response was surprising, “I would stay with you--as a prisoner if I must--for I wish to be present when the villain who struck light to our village receives his fitting and just retribution.”
Loric stopped abruptly due to a sudden change in Barag’s expression. He wondered at the source of the transformation in his features. He turned his head and shifted his focus to seek cause for the bully’s open mouth. Several mounted foes were bearing down on them, with their weapons poised to kill. Loric barely started his shield moving in time to match an incoming flail.
The weapon glanced off his shield and caught him squarely across his helm. Loric heard nothing. He felt pain in his head. There was a white flash of blinding light before his eyes.... then he toppled from his saddle. His last concern, as he tumbled down the steep embankment, was his rapid descent toward the river. Then everything went black, and it mattered to him no more.
Chapter Eighteen
Kelivoras and His Boy
Loric awoke in a fit of coughing and spluttering. He was soaking wet and the chill afternoon breeze caused him a dreadful shiver. His eyes were slow to come into focus. He was staring at the ground, which was slipping away beneath big, clumsy feet of the person who was carrying him. As long stout legs continued bounding along the stone path, and the enormous man’s lumbering gait jostled Loric about, he discovered that he was lying in sack-of-wheat fashion across Barag’s shoulder.
It took Loric a moment to recall what had happened. He raised his shield and.... he did not get it into position before the flail glanced off its semi-rounded surface. The weapon must have struck him. Judging by his dripping clothing, he had gone into the river--and upon gauging the amount of water that Barag’s trousers were slinging as he moved, the bully dove in after him.
That is odd, Loric thought. He raised his head to croak the question that raced to the forefront of his mind. “Why are we running?”
A shout of warning came from a voice Loric knew belonged to Warnyck. Barag buckled his knees and ducked his head. An arrow zipped past Loric’s ear, struck a jutting boulder beside him and shattered amidst chips of rock its point sent flying in all directions. Loric had expected a different response than the one he received, but it informed him that enemies were chasing him and his companions.
“That would be the Landolstadters’ way.... of saying, Hello, Loric. We are here.... to complete the task.... that your friends did not.... let our man with the flail.... finish, ” Warnyck panted, as he jogged along beside Marblin and Barag.
Loric tried to clear his head. He needed to shake cobwebs loose, so Barag could put him down and let him carry his own weight. The big man beneath him puffed, “I.... must rest....
soon.” He heaved several more short breaths and added, “I.... cannot.... keep.... this pace.... much longer.”
“Let me lighten your load,” Loric suggested.
Barag came to an abrupt halt and plopped his fellow townsman feet first on the ground before Warnyck or Marblin could voice protests against the idea. Loric wobbled precariously close to falling, but the scout and the Moonwatcher reached out with steadying hands.
Meanwhile, Barag planted a meaty palm on each knee and gasped for air that sounded painfully drawn.
Loric’s ears went cottony the instant he was standing upright and the voice of the river nearby was muted to him. The world was on a separate axis from his mind. A nauseating surge tortured his belly. Loric closed his eyes to keep from vomiting.... too late. His diaphragm convulsed violently, painfully.
After Loric expelled the contents of his stomach, Warnyck and Marblin both hesitated
to make sure he was done vomiting. Then each ducked a head under the arm nearest them. The scout delivered a forceful prod to Barag’s back and said, “We have to go, friend of Loric.”
“Understood,” the big brute acknowledged with a tight grin. As he started forward again, he grumbled at Warnyck, “My name is Barag.”
“We must find a place to hide, friend of Loric!” Warnyck said curtly, emphasizing his chosen title for the volunteer of Landolstadt. “You need me to remember that you are a fellow townsman to my friend, else I might forget that you are not our foe and prisoner.”
Barag drew himself up to challenge the scout, but Marblin growled impatiently, “Keep
moving! I hear footsteps behind us. They are close at hand.”
“You three go ahead,” Barag told them. He thumbed toward their unwanted followers and said, “I will see them off.” Without waiting for their approval, Barag strode stiffly past Warnyck.
“How can we trust you?” the scout demanded.
Barag promptly informed him, “You have no other option. Neither of you runt-lings can carry Loric without the help of the other, and if I am against you, I and my fellow Landolstadters outnumber you by far.”
“In that case, you would still be the first to die,” Warnyck assured him. “Nevertheless, I will trust you, as the friend of my friend, until you give me a reason not to.”
The scout did not await a rebuttal. He simply kept walking, ever and anon casting a wary glance over his shoulder. Neither he nor Marblin, nor sickly Loric was prepared for what Barag did next.
The big brute drew his sword and laid a light slash along his right arm. Warnyck offered a discerning nod, but Barag’s behavior utterly confused Loric. Marblin voiced his question for him, asking, “Have you lost your wits?”
Barag said nothing. He simply waved his fleeing companions along and moved back the
way they had come.
Warnyck ducked his braided head out from beneath Loric’s arm and jerked it away from
their pursuers, as a signal to Marblin to help the Knight of Shimmermir and Taeglin away from the action. He strung his bow and knocked one of his handcrafted arrows into place as he slunk into the cover of brush and boulders along Barag’s left flank. Marblin made to carry Loric forward, but Loric stopped him. “We will make our stand here,” he said. His stomach wrenched, as if to cast itself out of his mouth. It was already empty. Loric spat bile.
“Lord, you are not well,” Marblin pleaded with him. “We-”
Loric pointed out a tree amidst tall clusters of weeds, where they might waylay the enemy, and said, “There I can stand without aid.” He drew forth the Sword of Logant with a quiet rasp of its blade.
“As you wish, my friend.” Marblin helped Loric to the elm in question. The Moonwatcher drew his sword and stood before his sickly companion, as if to shield him from attack.
Barag strode on with confidence equal to his great bulk.
Warnyck had all but disappeared. Occasionally, a minor twitch of a shrub gave him away, but to those who knew no difference, he might have been a tiny woodland animal and nothing more than that.
At a distance of a hundred yards Barag stopped and called aloud, “Men of Landolstadt, are you about?” He repeated his call twice.
Finally, a distant reply was forthcoming. “Identify yourself soldier, before I put my worthy arrowhead in your belly.”
“I am Barag son of Borag, a soldier under Captain Lebdeon in the Overlook Army of King Hadregeon,” he obliged the man. “How complete is our victory on the field?”
“Perhaps if you weren’t a craven dog,” shouted the tall narrow man who stepped from
behind a large rock opposite the barrel-chested warrior, “you would know that we crushed our enemies and won a great victory today! It’s a pity that a small band won their way through our trap, or his lordship would be preparing for his coronation right now. All in due course, I suppose,” he mused. He stroked his long mustaches, which were proportionately as thin as his body was, and asked, “Did the clash of arms scare you, Barag? Is that why you ran away?”
Loric could not see Barag’s face, but he knew him well enough to guess that his face was red with rage. His neck flushed with ire, and his great maul-like fists clenched, as if to crush his sword hilt. “You mistake cunning for fear, lieutenant,” Barag gruffly returned. “I was disarmed by an enemy captain who thought me his prisoner, but I drowned him in the river. Two of his ragged band jumped me as I came ashore, so I took this from them-” -he said with a shake of his weapon- “-and used it to split them like fishes. Now they too sleep eternal sleep in the riverbed.”
Five more Landolstadters strode warily into view as Barag relayed his collection of boastful lies. Loric clung to his tree and hung somewhat behind it. Marblin also tried to shrink from view.
Warnyck remained hidden from sight, his fingers likely twitching for action to come. Barag took a step toward the patrol, dropped his bloody sword and staggered to one knee. The leader of the group motioned for two of his men to assist Barag.
“They wounded you, soldier, but you will live to brag to others,” the spokesman assured him. He questioned, “Did any of them escape you?”
“Our work here is done!” Barag declared with certainty. “The chore of picking their bones is for the fishes.”
“Excellent,” the lieutenant said, at last turning away. “Let us go back to camp. There, your captain can determine whether you have earned honors or punishments--or both.” Other
unsuspecting men bestowed congratulations upon Barag as they stepped in behind their leader.
Loric continued to look on as Barag executed one of the most foolish and daring, dangerous and successful maneuvers he had ever witnessed. With surprising quickness and power, the great mountain of a man from Taeglin wrapped his chubby fingers around bare heads of his helpers and pounded them together like two fragile eggs. Barag quickly shifted his grips to the bases of their necks and hurled them with tremendous force toward those soldiers who were marching three abreast in front of them. His aim was true. Those men could only writhe in pain when their comrades crashed heads-and-shoulders-first into crooks of knees. Only the lieutenant remained unharmed. Upon realizing the status of his battered patrol, he bolted away upriver, afraid to face the vastly superior warrior who had inflicted so much damage upon his men in so little time and with so little effort.
“Craven dog indeed!” shouted Barag, subduing each writhing Landolstadter with his heavy fist.
Loric slumped down next to his tree, stunned and relieved. He saw Warnyck rise up from bushes overlooking their position, with his bow trained on the fleeing lieutenant. He paused and eased tension off his string, before he hastened back to his companions. The scout returned to Loric and Marblin well ahead of lumbering Barag.
“What did you think of that?” Marblin asked him.
“Our friend did well,” Warnyck answered with a nod.
“Our friend?” Marblin questioned.
The scout dodged the query, asking, “How is Loric?”
Marblin displayed their shivering friend with an open palm, saying gravely, “He took in the dragon water. His prospect of surviving....” he shook his head. “Well.... they say-”
“I have heard what they say!” Warnyck snapped, cutting Marblin short.
Loric thought he saw a tear in the corner of the scout’s eye, but the man blinked it away in an instant. “What do they say?” he begged to know.
“We must find shelter,” Warnyck said evenly. “Something secluded would be ideal for our needs. Only then can we build a fire.”
Loric would have persisted in his question, but he felt weak. Heat was consuming him from within. His mind was hazy with fever. He closed his eyes, listening through the dull hum of fire.
Warnyck knelt to feel Loric’s forehead, whereupon he quickly withdrew his hand and
cursed, “Dragons alive! He’s burning up.” The scout drew a deep breath to calm himself. “No matter,” he
decided. Once we have a fire, some food and some rest Loric will recover. He will live to lead us to greater victories than we have yet known.”
A bass voice boomed behind them, “What happened to him?”
“The water of the Enchanted River is said to be a foul poison to any mortal man who drinks it, friend Barag,” Warnyck explained. “The Great King knows that Loric took in his share of it following his tumble.” The scout spat at the rushing currents nearby.
“No!” Barag denied him. “Say it’s not so.”
Marblin quietly shared, “It is a pity that Warnyck speaks the truth. Dragons stained the channel during King Donigan’s reign. The dragon water kills men. Our friend is doomed to die.”
Loric listened to every word of the discussion, wondering if it could be true. He was lying on his side with his eyes shut to prevent his vertigo assailing him. In truth, he felt so bad that he had to lend credit to those legends his friends had heard about the accursed river. Am I really dying? he thought. I do not feel like I am dying, but how should death feel to me? In any case, I am in a poor state. Loric nearly laughed at the irony of his situation. After all, he had come through fierce conflict thrice, only to perish from ingesting water the dragons had tainted in their deaths an age ago. It nearly brought him to the brink of despair.
Loric thought of Avalana, the lovely blond-haired princess he had left behind. Emotional pain wrenched his heart. If he were to die from the dragon water, all of her fears would be made manifest. Avalana had expressed dread for his death at their parting. Perhaps the princess had foreseen his ending, even when he had not. I should have listened to you, Avalana, my dazzling princess, he thought remorsefully. Had I known then what I know now, I would have taken you away to hold forever. Alas, I am a fool, who may soon die a fool, while you are a captive of the beastly barbarian king, Turtioc. He regretted that the final words between him and Avalana echoed with resent in his head.
Loric moved his hand to smear away moisture seeping from between his closed lids.
Avalana’s bracelet tickled his arm, whispering life and hope to him. Loric remembered the words the lady had written to him. “There is no darker hour than this, fair Avalana,” he mouthed inaudibly.