The Warrior's Bane (War for the Quarterstar Shards Book 1)

by David L. McDaniel

  When they reached the grassy bank where had spent so many hours, they sat and watched the river flow by for a few minutes, enjoying the tranquility, before Rivlok spoke.

  “Remember when we were little? I kissed you for the first time near that tree downstream,” he said pointing to a massive, spotted white alder tree just a few feet off the river’s edge.

  “Yes, I do,” Aaelie said laughing. “I remember. I also remember how gross it was and that I ran away.”

  “Gross? You didn’t seem to think it was gross when I chased you down and tickled you until you kissed me again.”

  “That was because you wouldn’t stop unless I did.”

  “Then why did you keep kissing me even after I stopped.”

  “Oh, Rivlok,” Aaelie said blushing. “It wasn’t like that.”

  “No?”

  “We’ve been friends a long time, Rivlok.”

  “Long time?” Rivlok repeated, not sure if she was being tender or just putting him off and discrediting what he thought was love and passion as friendship. “That’s just it, Aaelie. We have known each other a long time. How old were we when we met?”

  “Well, we were both born here, but I think we were five or six when we first met at one of the festivals.

  “That’s over ten years ago.”

  “Long time,” Aaelie repeated.

  “Aaelie,” Rivlok said and turned his body to look at her, holding up his weight with his left hand on the grass behind him. “Don’t you agree that during that time we have become more than friends?”

  Aaelie smiled and blushed again, but did not look up from the river.

  “Yes, Rivlok, I do love you…. sometimes like a brother, sometimes like a lover, and sometimes like my best friend. I will always love you one way or another.”

  “I, uh…” Rivlok hesitated, but changed his tact. “How do you feel about me now?”

  “Does that matter right now? I mean, I am here with you, am I not? We have known each other for so long, we are comfortable around each other, we have fun together, and we share everything together. What more could you want?”

  “You. Unconditionally,” he said. He touched her chin and made him face her.

  “That isn’t for anyone to have,” she responded. “You know, it is amazing,” she said in a voice a little louder than the soft tones they had been speaking in an attempt to change the subject. “We have been here all our lives, and then comes someone like Alaezdar -- who knows nothing about us -- and yet he quickly becomes part of our lives.”

  Rivlok nodded quickly and turned around to face the river.

  “Alaezdar? I don’t trust him either.”

  “No, that’s not what I meant. I like it…him. He fascinates me. He has seen a part of the world we haven’t, and he adds change to our ever dull community life.”

  “Aaelie, don’t fall for him. I think he knows even more than he says. I think he is either dangerous or is in danger himself. Either way, I think he will just bring you…us…trouble.”

  “Rivlok, that’s the best part,” she said and turned to him for the first time since they had sat down on the soft grass. “He brings a newness, and change, and possibly adventure.”

  “Don’t do this, Aaelie. I love you. I don’t want to see you hurt.”

  “Rivlok,” she said, blushing and smiling, “you’re so sweet. It’s not like that.”

  “Do you love me?” he blurted out in his growing frustration.

  Her smile faded slightly.

  “Yes, Rivlok. We just went over this, remember? I want to be more than your friend, more than like your brother, even more than best friends. You know I love you with all my heart. I want to be with you always.”

  Aaelie leaned over and gave him and a quick kiss on the lips.

  “Right now we are more than friends, and that is the best I have to offer right now.”

  Rivlok slid closer to her and took her in his arms. He let her gently settle down into the grass and lie on her back and then he half rolled over next to her and rested his head on his hand.

  “Don’t hurt me, Aaelie. I don’t want to hear any more talk about Alaezdar, okay?”

  “Okay”

  Rivlok took her into his arms and lay with her by the river, holding her as tight as he could. His heart pounded and his mind raced with thoughts about how to win her heart completely. Aaelie lay next to him and looked over his shoulder up at the sky, her mind wandering.

  Later, they talked and talked, even as the sun set and the towering pine trees cast dark shadows on their conversation. Rivlok began to wonder if Morlonn would really come looking for them. They were still deep into a conversation when they heard noise on the other side of the Sippling River.

  “What is that?” Aaelie asked, apprehension evident in her voice. “Do you think it is Morlonn?”

  “No. Why would he be on the other side of the river? Though, I am curious to find out. Want to come?” he said and he stood up and offered her his hand.

  “Well, I am not staying here in the dark alone,” she said and took his hand and let him lift her up.

  “Come on. We’ll cross at the bridge.”

  They ran as quickly as they could in the dark. Even though they knew their way around, though, they still had to go cautiously to be quiet and not run into anything in the darkness. Within a few minutes they were at the only bridge that crossed the Sippling River and connected Valewood with the dense forest that eventually rolled into the Goblin Tribes Forest a few miles east.

  They hid for a second under the bridge abutment, but they could not see much in the darkness. Finally they heard a wagon led by a team of horses coming toward them, fast. Then, on the other side of the bridge, Tharn and the village smithy came out of a thicket of trees holding torches.

  Rivlok could now make out the wagon as one that he had seen before parked outside of the armory. It was a covered wooden wagon with no windows. Rivlok had never seen what was inside of it. He had just assumed that it was metals for making swords and shields that the smithy crafted for Tharn to sell to the Kingdom of Triel, but that whole operation had always seemed suspicious to him.

  When they came close, Tharn raised his torch and signaled the wagon to halt. The driver pulled up hard and fast on the reigns. He usually was not stopped on this side of the river.

  “I need you to unload quickly and go back tonight,” Tharn said loudly.

  The driver gave the reins to his partner and stepped off the wagon, his already short temper surfacing at Tharn’s command. “You can’t be serious?”

  Aaelie recognized the voice of her uncle, Corben.

  “I am very serious,” Ambassador Krostos will be here soon, and he will want double his normal allotment of iron, so I don’t care how tired you are, there are two of you to team drive back.”

  “It isn’t a matter of being tired. There is a lot of activity at the mine recently.”

  “What activity?”

  “Goblins, of course. They hacked poor Horbel to death while he was at the outhouse. They just destroyed the outhouse and left. I don’t know why other than that they just were bored, I guess…I hope. Something is brewing out there. I can just feel it.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I don’t know for sure. There just seems to be a lot more movement closer to us than there used to be. The men are suspecting that there’s going to be a tribal war between clans, and if there is, I don’t want to be caught in the middle.”

  “Fine. I will send you a few more of Morlonn’s guard for extra security.”

  “Thank you, I suppose,” Corb
en said, but shook his head in doubt.

  “Now, get that thing unloaded so Rankin can get to work prepping the iron.”

  Corben hopped back onto the wagon without another word and left.

  Rivlok and Aaelie could hear Tharn walking across the bridge and saw him begin walking back to Valewood.

  Chapter 4

  Alaezdar awoke before dawn the next day for he had a lot of work to do before the festival, the day after next. He loved rising early, but he was not always the first one up. Many of the villagers rose an hour or so before the sunrise. Their early activity did not discourage him, but rather made him feel at home.

  It wasn’t just the fact that he rose, ready to work, and loved it, it was that sometimes the crisp morning air invigorated him and gave him enough charge to last all day. Today was a day like that. The pre-dawn sky was clear and he felt the dew on the ground underneath his boots as he walked. The air had its country-fresh smell, too, and that meant the manure smelled sweet today and not as rancid and rotten as on some damp mornings.

  He worked hard most of the day. He tended to the cattle and the other farm animals first and then worked on repairing the fence lines that were deteriorating from age. Tharn hadn’t asked him to fix them. He just had noticed that they needed repair and figured that Tharn wasn’t in shape to repair them by himself any time soon.

  After fixing most of the simple things he’d had his eye on, which only required quick maintenance repair, he worked his way over to the wheelhouses at the river. It was still mid morning and he was feeling in a good mood as the sun was weaving in and out behind the clouds in the sky and the shadows shielded him from the increasing heat of the day. He felt the temperature change frequently and he liked that. It added a feeling of uniqueness and quality to his day.

  When the village had first been created, its inhabitants, led by Tharn, had constructed ten wheelhouses and five large water tanks that were filled by them. Tharn had engineered and constructed the wheelhouses with a handful of family and friends. He had found the area after he had retired from the Trielian Guard and had decided he would become a rancher and farmer and could make a good living doing so. He thought such a fertile valley near the Sippling River would be the perfect place to begin.

  First, he had engineered a simple system to store and then distribute the water from the river to the valley to use for drinking and for the watering of the crops. Afterward he had constructed the water tanks and then the wheelhouses to transfer the water into the tanks that sat on the highest point outside of the village. The concept was also simple, but he had to construct the wheel large enough to transfer the water from the river up to the top of the hill.

  The river filled long tubes on the wheel which then dumped out into a trough on top of the hill to fill three very large tanks. The tanks had wooden ducts coming from them that carried the water down to the village through an elaborate slough pattern that funneled the water to each farm and crop bed. Twice daily the water was released from the tanks to run down through the sloughs to water the crops. Each owner could control the flow of the water into his crop with a valve at the top of its entry point.

  Alaezdar worked straight through the rest of the morning and into the early afternoon with only a short lunch break. He fed the grazing oxen, greased the wheels on the pump houses, fixed a broken latch on one of the locks, and re-nailed some handrails on a few of the water tanks. He was just finishing the handrails when Tharn came up behind him.

  “Alaezdar! My goodness, you are hard to find sometimes.”

  “Just working hard for you,” he said without looking up or stopping his work.

  “That’s what I mean. You work so fast I can hardly keep up with you.”

  Tharn watched him finish up before continuing.

  “Alaezdar, can you stop for a minute and let me talk to you?”

  Alaezdar stopped, wiped the sweat off his forehead, and looked at his boss.

  “I have been giving this some thought lately, and I think I want to start a new tournament for the kids in the village. Nothing big, but I think it would be fun to start a sword fighting tournament with wooden swords. I think the kids would really get a kick out of this.”

  “I suppose.”

  “I want you to run it,” Tharn said and gave him a quick wink.

  Alaezdar tried to look unimpressed. He wanted to cover up his anger.

  “Why me?”

  “Well, I am not going to beat around the bush anymore, my young friend. You have been a mystery of sorts around here, but you don’t have to deny it from me anymore. I mean…that I know that you are a swordsman of sorts.”

  Alaezdar’s lips went tight in frustration and he took a few seconds before responding.

  “What made you come to this conclusion?”

  Tharn laughed legitimately, but with a slight sense of condescension.

  “Come on. Do you really think I am so blind? If you remember, when you first wandered into our village -- worn out and beat up like a stray hound -- you had a sword on your back.”

  “That doesn’t mean anything. Every man who has any sense knows not to travel without protection. Just because I carry a sword doesn’t mean I know how to use it.”

  “Come on, Alaezdar, I have been a swordsman for the Trielian Guard myself, and I think I can spot a fellow swordsman when I see one, if not a fellow warrior.”

  “Tharn, really, I don’t know what you are talking about.”

  “Alaezdar, really…you insult me. Your scabbard is not a standard scabbard for a plain sword as protection against the common brigand. Your scabbard is very elegant and a source of pride that only a warrior would take the time to make and own. In fact, I would say it is a scabbard that holds the sword whose owner is a professional swordsman for hire.”

  “I have to get back to work, if you don’t mind,” was the best Alaezdar could muster.

  “Don’t worry, my friend. Your secret is safe with me. Others suspect, as well, but they won’t put it together as well as I have,” Tharn said proudly.

  “You don’t understand, Tharn.”

  Alaezdar took a step toward Tharn with his fists clenched.

  Tharn took a few steps back, surprised that he had invoked such anger with his young friend.

  “I am on the run!” Alaezdar shouted through clenched teeth. “But I want to stay here! If I am discovered, I will be forced to leave. If you know my past so well as you claim, then I am actually endangering you by being here, and I should leave.”

  “Alaezdar, it’s okay,” Tharn said and put his hand on his shoulder. “We are safe here. I have built a wall that would make any commander of any outpost fortress proud. It will protect us from anyone who might do us any harm and I have trained men along this wall to hold anyone off and keep those we don’t want in, out.”

  “You mean, Morlonn, Kunther and a handful of other inexperienced men barely old enough to be called men? Besides, I found my way in without anyone stopping me.”

  “Because I let you in.”

  Alaezdar looked incredulous. “You knew I was coming?

  Tharn laughed.

  “No, goodness no, but I saw you before you saw me. That is why you came through the gate unopposed. Besides, to be honest, you came in from the civilized side of the gate. We don’t have a lot of need for extra protection on that side.”

  Alaezdar shook his head. He began to think of where he should go next. He honestly could not stay there any longer. He liked it there, but he knew he would be endangering everyone if he stayed.

  “I can’t stay. I have to go,” he concluded. He felt defeated.

  “No, Alaezdar. You can’t leave. I w
on’t let you leave.”

  “You have to. You are not safe as long as I am here.”

  “Let me worry about that. I am the ruler, so to speak, of this village. Even though I really don’t consider myself the ruler, in essence that is what I am. I am the leader here and I am responsible for everyone’s life here, including yours, and I am determined that you stay. Also, I am now not asking you to teach the kids how to use their wooden swords, I am telling you.”

  “Why me? You said you have enough people working the wall who can teach them the same things I can.”

  “No, they can’t. You are correct about their experience. Sure, they can teach them some, but they won’t be able to teach them like you can.”

  “I am not going to make them killers. It really isn’t that hard to teach basic foot stance, blocks and attacks. Anyone can do it.”

  “I don’t care, Alaezdar. You will do it,” he said with a warm smile.

  Alaezdar shook his head. Oddly, Tharn’s smile made him feel at ease, but he was still angry and anxious about being found out by Tharn. At least he didn’t insist on knowing which guild he had belonged to. If he had known that it was the same guild that accepted any mission as long as the price was right, he didn’t think he would be still standing there being asked to teach kids how to use wooden swords.

  “I will do it,” Alaezdar acquiesced.

  “Fine. I will get a group of interested young boys together either today or tomorrow and you can start directly.”

  Alaezdar nodded.

  “Now, get back to work,” Tharn said slapping Alaezdar on his shoulder.

  Alaezdar did just that, but only after Tharn had walked completely out of his sight.

  ***

  By mid afternoon Alaezdar had stopped and gone into the village center to pick up a few items he needed to make more repairs. The people were bustling along the dirty fairway and preparing for the upcoming festival. Many people -- mostly the dignitaries from the two most powerful human kingdoms in the north -- would be arriving soon and bringing with them their gold and silver. For most of the villagers their purchases could be enough to get them by for the rest of the year.