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

by David L. McDaniel

  Goblins, ogres, and the Fire Gront’s all fought in a confused, massive melee. It looked to Alaezdar as if the ogres had slight control of the situation as their numbers were greater than any of the other combatants. The gronts were in the worst shape as they were taking on combatants from both the goblin and the ogre throngs.

  Morlonn reacted first to the new incursion. He took his sword and stabbed one of the gronts in the back before he spun around and engaged one of the goblins that had a bow and quiver of arrows on his back.

  Realizing what Morlonn wanted, Alaezdar sprang up and attacked the same goblin. The two of them had him down within seconds. To give Morlonn a few seconds to grab what he needed from the dead and bleeding goblin, Alaezdar fended off three more goblins after they had tried to change their tactics from ogre and gront to the humans.

  Morlonn grabbed the bow and quiver from the goblin, took a knee and began firing away with rapid skill. He took out an unsuspecting ogre, a goblin and a gront in quick succession while Alaezdar chose his combatants more indiscriminately. Bloodseeker once again coursed through his veins and begged for more victims. Warm blood splattered on Alaezdar’s face and put him into a nearly satisfied state of raging fury. He felt as if nothing could stop him as he mowed down each new combatant with ease.

  Ra-Corsh then appeared from behind the trees and blasted Alaezdar with a searing, magical bolt that hit him in the side of his chest and knocked him to the ground, dazed, but not unconscious.

  Morlonn saw what had happened and turned toward Ra-Corsh as his target. He fired a number of arrows directly at him, but each one stopped inches from his head and chest and meekly dropped to the ground at his feet. Morlonn scrambled for a new plan. He looked toward the woods and saw what looked like a girl running through the trees and the smoky haze.

  “Aaelie!” he shouted and he ran towards her.

  Ra-Corsh heard him call out, turned in the direction Morlonn was running and followed him into the heavy smoke.

  Alaezdar was grabbing his hip. It hurt terribly, and already he felt Bloodseeker’s healing powers begin to work, although not quickly enough. In pain, he stood up and followed in the direction of Morlonn and Ra-Corsh.

  He arrived at a tight cluster of burning trees that surrounded a massive mound of granite rocks stretching in a semi-circle in front of them and towering fifty feet in height. Ra-Corsh was now cornered there, but he had Aaelie in front of him and his knife to her throat. Morlonn stood in front of them with an arrow nocked. He pulled back on his bow and waited for an opportunity to strike.

  “You cannot possibly hold her and your spell forever!” Morlonn shouted as Alaezdar came up behind him.

  “I can hold out longer than you can hold that bow like that,” Ra-Corsh bluffed.

  They stood stalemated for two minutes, no one saying a word, while the smoke began to thicken around them and make it harder for each to breath. Alaezdar fought his pain, the dying rage and Bloodseeker’s annoyance at the pause, while he raced through his mind, trying to figure out a solution.

  He had not come to any good answers when he saw three gronts come through the woods dragging a barely conscious girl who looked like Aaelie.

  “What is going on?” Ra-Corsh shouted in the gront language.

  Before they could respond, the gronts threw the girl to his feet. Dropping his knife on the Aaelie he thought he had, he spun her around to face him to figure out his new confusion.

  Alaezdar and Morlonn could not see at first what Ra-Corsh was seeing, but they saw his face go from instant anger to fear as Aaelie’s face turned from the scared girl he thought he had into the face of Fyaa.

  Fyaa smiled at Ra-Corsh, winked once at him, and exploded into a ball of fire so hot and intense that Ra-Corsh didn’t even scream. His body caught on fire and immediately disintegrated into ash.

  Fyaa flew out of the ball of fire and returned to her original form as her fiery wings expanded on her back. She flew up over the granite rocks and flew away.

  Alaezdar and Morlonn were blown back by the blast, but they were not burned any more than with few singed hairs on their head. The gronts panicked at seeing their leader dead and they ran. One of Ra-Corsh’s gronts grabbed Aaelie by the foot and dragged her off into the flaming forest.

  Morlonn was the first to stand up, but before he could chase her, he felt a sharp pain in his back as an arrow went through him. Morlonn arched his back and he fell forward, his arms reaching for the arrow sticking out of his shoulder blade. All at once gronts, ogres and goblins massed around him and Alaezdar as they tried to assess the new addition to the fray.

  Talon Blade rode up through them to Alaezdar and pointed at Morlonn with his gloved hand.

  “I hope he was as good as friend to you as Red Blade was to me!” Talon Blade said angrily.

  He pulled out his sword and prepared to strike Alaezdar down, but a massive group of ogres charged in and grabbed at the legs of Talon Blade’s horse while two ogres jumped up and tried to grab his arms and pull him off his horse.

  Taking advantage of the attack, Alaezdar ran towards Talon Blade, but he soon found himself surrounded by ogres as well. He had conflicting thoughts. Should he help Morlonn or continue to press towards Talon Blade? He realized that with the attacking ogres, he could do neither. He waved his sword above his head to get the attention of the other Ragers who were now attacking and knocking down their opponents with ease.

  To Alaezdar’s surprise, Kunther was the first to come to his aid.

  “Aaelie is being dragged away over there!” Alaezdar shouted as he pointed towards the burning forest.

  “Are you sure?” Kunther asked. He looked toward the burning trees and saw that the smoke and flame were nearly impenetrable.

  “Yes, I am sure. Grab Talon Blade and get her, because I cannot.”

  Kunther spun on his horse toward Talon Blade and helped him knock off the ogres that were attacking him. Alaezdar watched them fight for a few seconds, but soon found that he was surrounded again by ogres and goblins. Most of Ra-Corsh’s gronts were now dead, bloodied or dying, or they had abandoned their futile battle.

  Bloodseeker screamed in glee as Alaezdar turned and mowed down a few more ogres and goblins with ease as the rage inside him sent him on another fury of reckless abandon. He had just finished killing his fourth opponent when Talon Blade, Kunther and a handful of Ragers ran off into the smoke and the burning trees to find Aaelie.

  Alaezdar fought and killed a handful more before the ogres and goblins realized that there really was not a need to be fighting anymore and, as if they had been commanded to stop fighting, they all turned and ran away from the battle and away from the burning forest, finally leaving Alaezdar alone. Now he could check on Morlonn.

  Morlonn lay face down in the dirt as blood flowed from the arrow wound in his back onto the ground. Alaezdar pulled the arrow out of his back and rolled him over. He had already lost a lot of blood. His clothes were completely covered in his blood from an earlier wound and his eyes were glazing over, but he remained conscious.

  Alaezdar laid Bloodseeker down on the ground since he knew he would not be able to put away the angry sword yet. He knelt down next to Morlonn, put his hand behind his neck and lifted up his head slightly. Morlonn looked at Alaezdar and tried to lift his arm to grab him, but he almost lost consciousness doing so.

  “You have to save her,” Morlonn muttered.

  “I will, my friend,” Alaezdar said.

  “You told us it would end this way,” he whispered.

  Alaezdar shook his head. “If anyone could’ve done it, it would’ve been us. We shouldn’t have separated.”

  “I had to go for you. We couldn’t do this without you.”
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br />   Alaezdar looked up at the sky and smelled the smoke from the burning forest. He shook his head, knowing that Morlonn was right, but he wished he had not taken everyone on this futile rescue mission. When he looked back down at Morlonn, his eyes had closed and he was gone.

  In the distance, Alaezdar heard the last of the fighting. The voices of Rager’s House of Renegades lifted through the air and he knew they had taken the advantage in the fray. The goblins and ogres had begun their retreat.

  He heard Kunther’s voice yell Aaelie’s name, and he knew that finally her ordeal was over.

  He picked up Bloodseeker and ran away from the voices back to the clearing where Rivlok and Tharn lay dead. When he got there, he found Fyaa, her wings flaming, floating above the bodies, waiting for him.

  “You thought you could leave without us talking, Crimson?”

  She tilted her head as she spoke.

  “What are you talking about? I don’t know you.”

  Fyaa lowered herself to the ground and stepped towards him. Alaezdar backed away as she advanced.

  “We were lovers once, but you betrayed me. I know you don’t remember, but you will, my love.”

  “You are just a crazy demon-witch.”

  “I know that is what they call me, but in reality I am more of a goddess. I created this pathetic world of yours, but you subverted it to what it is now when you destroyed my star.”

  Alaezdar shook his head, incredulous at the insanity of her words.

  “I didn’t do anything of the sort.”

  “You will understand in time. You have been in the elven catacombs. You have witnessed the wraeths spouting their demands to take this world away from us. They want Wrae to rule the world. But you and I are older than they. We can work together and take this realm for ourselves.”

  “Why would I want to do that?”

  “Because you and I are not of this realm, but together we can take it back as we had intended. You and I created this world for ourselves to continue in, but the Kronn subverted our plan. They want to continue with their own plan to eradicate us and our goal. They want to use our magic to bring themselves to power.”

  “You are crazy! Let me be! I just want to get out of here before my enemies find me.”

  “Oh, don’t be this way,” she said, syrupy sweet and feigning disappointment. “You will find that you cannot escape your fate. You and I will finish what we started and then destroy this world. It is what we do. It is what we have always done, and what we will always do. It just happens to be that this world took on its own shape when the star crashed into its natural habitation. It wasn’t supposed to happen, but it did.”

  “You have me mistaken for someone else.”

  “No, I have not, my love. You and I will finish what we started once you remember who you are. We will have our final battle again in this world and destroy it in the process. I know you don’t remember, but when you do, you will know the truth.”

  Alaezdar heard the men returning from their battle and he knew he no longer had any time to linger there.

  “I will take care of this,” Fyaa said.

  Her wings exploded and spit fire that sparkled off of her back. She rose another ten feet and encircled Alaezdar with flame so that he could see nothing but the fire. He looked at Bloodseeker and tried to return it to his scabbard, but it would not let him. Men and combat were too near. Never completely satisfied, it wanted still more blood.

  He looked at his sword, turned it over twice and looked down at Rivlok’s charred and unrecognizable body. He knelt down and placed a blackened skeletal hand around Bloodseeker’s hilt and stood back up.

  Fyaa turned and looked down at him. She knew what he was doing and she flew back to him and stopped inches from his face.

  “Pick it up!” she shouted. Sparks and flame spit from her mouth and onto his face. He felt the hot embers bounce off his nose and forehead. They felt wet and hot at the same time.

  “I will not,” he said and turned his back to her.

  She flew in front of him, pushed him down on his back and landed with her feet straddling his chest.

  “Pick it back up, you fool!”

  “Why is it so important to you?”

  “You will die without it. I made sure that this sword landed in your keeping. It is yours. You cannot forsake it.”

  “I will no longer touch that sword. I have done enough killing. I will not kill for you and I will not be a part of others dying in my name. I am done!”

  She kicked him in the side of the head and sat on his chest.

  “You will!”

  “Kill me now, and be done with it!”

  “I cannot kill you until you know that you are Crimson. That is how the game works!”

  “Then go away now,” he said as calmly as he could. His head was ringing from her kick to his head and his left ear bled from her powerful kick.

  She bent over close to his face with her chest touching his.

  “You irritate me! You always have, and I cannot wait until our day. Our day of love and battle.”

  She stood up, kicked him in the head again with her left foot and flew away.

  “I will fix this! Save yourself now,” she called back.

  Her wings exploded again in flame and she encircled him once more, sparks flying off of her wings, before she flew off towards the approaching members of Rager’s House of Renegades.

  Alaezdar sat up and rubbing both sides of his head. He crawled over to Rivlok.

  “I am sorry Rivlok. I feared it would end this way,” he said.

  He stood up and ran away into the unburned section of the woods.

  Chapter 29

  The forest exploded into flames again. The trees in a ten-mile radius had burned brightly and then burned out, but the trees that were untouched by the first fire now ignited as Fyaa flew in erratic circles and set every tree, bush and stump on fire.

  Smoke filled the area and Talon Blade shouted at his men to try to catch and kill the flying witch-demon woman. Arrows flew in all directions as they attempted to hit her, but she easily evaded every single projectile. She laughed as she taunted them with every attempt.

  “Kill her and kill her now!” Talon Blade shouted at them again. He worried they weren’t going to be able to accomplish that feat as long as she continued to fly around catching the forest on fire.

  “We need to get out of here before we are surrounded by fire!” Shadow Blade shouted back to his leader.

  “Not until we find Rock Blade!” he shouted back. He turned behind him and smiled at the broken, bruised, and battered Aaelie. “We need to find your friends, don’t we?” he asked sardonically.

  “He is dead!” a shout came from above.

  “Why should we trust you?” Talon Blade shouted back to Fyaa, who now hovered ten feet above him.

  “Because they are all dead! Dead and burned alive! Save yourselves while you still can!” she shouted and flew away, leaving them to contemplate her statement.

  Aaelie put her forehead on Talon Blade’s back and sobbed.

  “Now, now, my child. We will see to this ourselves. Search the area! And quickly, before we all are burned to death!”

  It did not take but a few minutes for them to find something. Shadow Blade called them all together. He had dismounted his horse and stood over Rivlok’s charred body.

  “Look, Talon Blade. Rock Blade is here.”

  “No!” Kunther shouted as he dismounted his horse and ran to the body. “How do you know for sure it is him?”

  “Look. His sword,”
Shadow Blade said. He kneeled and ripped the sword away from its skeletal grip and lifted it up so that Talon Blade could inspect it.

  “Are you sure it is his?”

  “It is the sword he called Bloodseeker. I am certain.”

  Talon Blade dismounted and looked at the burned corpse and smiled.

  “I wish I could’ve been the one to kill him, but at least I killed his friend. It is nice to see him burned to a crisp like this. How demoralizing for him, though.”

  He looked a little while longer and then turned to mount his horse.

  “Let’s get out of here now…before we end up like Rock Blade!”

  “What about his sword?” Shadow Blade asked.

  “Keep it for all I care!” he shouted, fully seated again in his saddle. He turned his horse and rode off.

  Shadow Blade looked over and noticed that Kunther, now known to him as Thorn Blade, was clearly distraught. Shadow Blade motioned to him to look at something as the others rode away.

  “Look,” he said and pointed to the burnt scabbard on his hip. He then pulled it from the body. “This is not Alaezdar’s.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I know it is burnt, but it is just a common scabbard. Alaezdar’s had a very elaborate scabbard to go with his prized sword.”

  “Who is this then?” Kunther asked. He was just realizing the depth of the trouble his friends had run into when he noticed Tharn’s body a few feet away.

  “This is Rivlok,” he stated, shocked at the realization of his friend’s death.

  “I think the same fate befell all your friends. We are lucky we got to Aaelie in time.”

  “I am glad we saved her.”

  “Now it is time to save you. Get on your horse and get out of here.”

  “What about you?”

  “I am going to find Alaezdar,” Shadow Blade said and picked up the sword. “And now you are going to get out of here and ride with Talon Blade, but first I need to make sure he doesn’t kill you.”