by Peter Wacht
The Lost Kestrel Found
By
Peter Wacht
Book 6 of The Sylvan Chronicles
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Copyright 2020 © by Peter Wacht
Cover design by Ebooklaunch.com
All rights reserved. In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher constitute unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property.
Published in the United States by Kestrel Media Group LLC.
ISBN: 978-1-950236-10-7
eBook ISBN: 978-1-950236-11-4
Library of Congress Control Number: 2020900243
Also by Peter Wacht
THE SYLVAN CHRONICLES
The Legend of the Kestrel
The Call of the Sylvana
The Raptor of the Highlands
The Makings of a Warrior
The Lord of the Highlands
The Lost Kestrel Found
The Claiming of the Highlands (forthcoming)
The Fight Against the Dark (forthcoming)
The Defender of the Light (forthcoming)
CONTENTS
ALSO BY PETER WACHT
CHAPTER ONE: A Stirring
CHAPTER TWO: A Difficult Path
CHAPTER THREE: Worry and Fear
CHAPTER FOUR: A Plan
CHAPTER FIVE: Something New
CHAPTER SIX: First Lesson
CHAPTER SEVEN: Change in Plan
CHAPTER EIGHT: Touch of Shadow
CHAPTER NINE: Spider’s Web
CHAPTER TEN: Homecoming
CHAPTER ELEVEN: Things to Do
CHAPTER TWELVE: Surprise Attack
CHAPTER THIRTEEN: Helping Hand
CHAPTER FOURTEEN: Political Nuance
CHAPTER FIFTEEN: Growing Confidence
CHAPTER SIXTEEN: Weighed and Measured
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN: Fearsome Allies
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN: Next Step
CHAPTER NINETEEN: Useful Legend
CHAPTER TWENTY: Frustrating Lesson
CHAPTER TWENTY ONE: Calculated Risk
CHAPTER TWENTY TWO: Suspicion Confirmed
CHAPTER TWENTY THREE: Leading the Pack
CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR: Taken
CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE: Call to War
CHAPTER TWENTY SIX: Threat Revealed
CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN: The Plan
CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT: Chance Meeting
CHAPTER TWENTY NINE: Confident Start
CHAPTER THIRTY: Arrogance of Power
CHAPTER THIRTY ONE: Final Preparations
CHAPTER THIRTY TWO: Start of the Show
CHAPTER THIRTY THREE: Compulsion
CHAPTER THIRTY FOUR: Coming Tide
CHAPTER THIRTY FIVE: Engagement
CHAPTER THIRTY SIX: Duel
CHAPTER THIRTY SEVEN: Anger and Hate
CHAPTER THIRTY EIGHT: Driving Anger
CHAPTER THIRTY NINE: New Front
CHAPTER FORTY: To the Precipice
CHAPTER FORTY ONE: A New Skill
CHAPTER FORTY TWO: Statement Made
CHAPTER FORTY THREE: Worthy Pride
CHAPTER FORTY FOUR: Threat Eliminated
CHAPTER FORTY FIVE: Bagpipes
CHAPTER FORTY SIX: Reclaiming Their Homeland
CHAPTER FORTY SEVEN: A Favor
CHAPTER FORTY EIGHT: A Proposition
CHAPTER FORTY NINE: Irritation
CHAPTER FIFTY: Danger Approaches
CHAPTER FIFTY ONE: Ambush
CHAPTER FIFTY TWO: Poor Odds
CHAPTER FIFTY THREE: Miscalculation
CHAPTER FIFTY FOUR: New Friend
CHAPTER FIFTY FIVE: Growing Concern
CHAPTER FIFTY SIX: Political Implications
CHAPTER FIFTY SEVEN: Law and Custom
CHAPTER FIFTY EIGHT: An Offer
CHAPTER FIFTY NINE: Reminiscing
CHAPTER SIXTY: Quite a Performance
CHAPTER SIXTY ONE: Entering the Fray
CHAPTER SIXTY TWO: Claiming the Highlands
CHAPTER SIXTY THREE: The Pull
CHAPTER SIXTY FOUR: Strong Words
CHAPTER SIXTY FIVE: Challenges
CHAPTER ONE
A Stirring
The strong gusts of an early morning wind lifted the raptor as it winged its way around the Highland peaks and into the valley. On most mornings, the raptor hunted. But not today. Today the raptor felt an unfamiliar urgency. Its strong wings, spanning seven feet, propelled it a thousand feet above the ground. The white feathers speckled with grey on the bird’s underside blended perfectly with the sky. When visible, the raptor was a dangerous predator. When hidden, it was deadly, shooting down through the thin air like an arrow, its sharp claws outstretched for the kill.
Today it searched for different prey, yet it did not know why. It knew only to obey the urge pulling it to the east, an urge so strong it drowned out its instinct to hunt.
The sun radiated off the orange, black, and brown feathers covering its back. As it dodged around the mountaintops, a monstrous shadow trailed along, darkening the ground as it passed over the Highlands. A beautiful sight, but also treacherous. The rugged land hid untold riches — gold and silver, precious jewels and more. But, as the old saying went: If the Highlanders don’t get you, nature will. For centuries, many in search of treasure stole into the Highlands, hoping a few days’ work would lead to a lifetime of luxury. For most, these dreams of fortune shattered before their eyes, the hard steel of the Highlanders or the rugged terrain bringing these adventurers back to a cold, stark, and unforgiving reality.
The raptor knew that this age-old story played out even now. For almost a decade the Highlanders had battled against reivers seeking to take the treasures of the Highlands as their own. Fighting for their homes and their homeland, they had waged a losing struggle, the invaders’ greater numbers and use of Dark Magic inexorably crushing the people’s spirits as their populace dwindled and they were forced into the higher, more inaccessible passes for their own safety. Until now. For though defeated, the Highlanders had refused to be conquered, hoping for better days. Hoping they would be given the opportunity to repay the debt they owed the reivers who had taken so much from them. Hoping that perhaps the legend would come to life. Hope was a powerful thing. It had sustained the Highlanders during even the darkest of days during the last decade. And now their hope was becoming something more. It was taking shape and solidifying. It was becoming tangible. Becoming real.
The raptor could sense the change occurring within the Highlands, for the mountainous Kingdom was the raptor’s domain; now its only home. Once, not too many years in the past, raptors lived in every Kingdom from the Western Ocean to the Sea of Mist. But no more. Nobles and wealthy merchants paid dearly for the feathers of the mighty bird. Rumors of their magical powers abounded. Some believed the feathers, when ground down and mixed with a few select ingredients, served as an aphrodisiac. Others insisted that drinking the strange brew gave wisdom. Still others thought it brought luck or riches or strength.
Although no one had ever proven the truth of these myths, the old beliefs died hard. As the years passed, so did these majestic birds, until none remained except those in the Highlands, protected by the harsh weather, the rough landscape, and the Highlanders themselves, for the raptors had a special place in their hearts. The raptor represented all t
hat it was to be a Highlander: strength, resilience, resolve, fortitude.
The raptor gazed at the lush valley of green that stretched between the mountains for more than a league. A dark smudge appeared in the very center. Skimming over the treetops, the raptor’s strong wings drew it closer, until the smudge became a huge rock that rose hundreds of feet into the air and dominated the valley. From a distance, it resembled a small mountain cut off from its brothers and sisters by encircling forest. But as the raptor approached, riding the warmer air currents with its outstretched wings and gliding slowly upward, the markings of man became clear.
To the untrained eye, the monolith appeared to be no more than a huge rock thrusting out of the earth. In truth, it was the Crag, the stronghold of the Highlanders. The Crag had never fallen to an attacking army. Many had learned that lesson the hard way, leaving behind broken bodies and crushed spirits. Carved from the mountain, it was a formidable sight. The Highlanders had built their fortress on top of a long-dead volcano, taking great slabs of black stone from the plateau to form its walls. During the night, the citadel receded into the darkness, undecipherable from the gloom.
Eight towers formed the Crag’s perimeter, joined together by the outer curtain. Or rather, they once did. Half the towers had crumbled, now nothing more than piles of stone. The wall was a hundred feet high and forty feet thick, yet along its base half a dozen holes that were wide enough for several draft horses to walk through standing next to one another had been blasted through the stone into the inner courtyard.
In the center of the outer ward stood the central stronghold. Built in the shape of a square, its inner curtain stood fifty feet higher than the outside wall, its corners again supported by towers. All these towers had been destroyed except for one, which stood on the eastern side closest to the sea. Known as the Roost and rising higher than all the rest, on a clear day it was said that from its great height the Highlanders could peer halfway across the continent and gaze upon the shores of the Heartland Lake.
True, the Crag had never fallen to a foreign army. But it had been betrayed almost ten years before. Delivered by one of their own like a lamb being led to slaughter. The Marchers attempted to fight off a surprise attack of not only reivers, but also Ogren, Shades, and warlocks. Despite their staunch resistance, the Marchers were too few against an overpowering force, and they had no way to defend themselves against the Dark Magic of the warlocks. Talyn Kestrel, Lord of the Highlands, perished while defending the Crag. Though many Highlanders escaped thanks to the efforts of the doomed Highland Lord, none had returned to this place since the fall of the Marcher fortress.
The massive raptor began to circle what was left of the Crag, enjoying the warm sun on its back. Normally a solitary creature, the raptor was surprised to see a handful of other raptors settled onto the broken towers of the Crag or drifting on the gusts of wind that swirled around the keep. The raptor landed gracefully on the open window at the very top of the Roost, remembering the last time it had been here on that final night that the Highlands had been free so long ago.
A small boy had lived in the room. The raptor had felt a connection to the boy immediately, yet it did not know why. It had watched the boy escape two assassins that night, eventually making his way safely out of the Crag and into the surrounding forest. The raptor had stayed with the boy until he had met two people it knew would protect him. And since then the connection to the boy remained, growing stronger with each passing day.
The raptor had found that same boy several times in the intervening years. Each time the predator did, it felt pride for what the boy had become. There was a strength to the boy, a determination, which it recognized within itself. The boy was the Highlands, and the Highlands him.
For a time the raptor perched on the Roost watching, waiting. For almost a decade the Crag had sat abandoned, the once mighty fortress quickly covered by moss, ivy, and undergrowth, the forest trying to reclaim its stolen territory. But the raptor didn’t think that would be the case for much longer. It sensed a new beginning. Blood was beginning to flow in the Highlands once again, a people beginning to stir.
With its sharp eyes the raptor glimpsed something in the distance that triggered a territorial response. The raptor launched itself from its place on the Roost, using its powerful wings to draw closer while also finding the warmer drafts of air to gain height on the intruder. The raptor followed its instincts, as it was known for attacking from above in a blinding display of speed and skill, much like the Highlanders themselves who were known as the most fearsome fighters in all the Kingdoms. It was said that to risk the wrath of a Highlander was to risk death. The same could be said of the raptor.
When the raptor identified the encroaching beast, it flexed its sharp claws in anticipation. This was a creature worthy of its attention. A blood enemy. Raptors had not seen a dragas for centuries, since the time of the Great War, yet through the collective memory of the species the raptor knew every inch of the flying dark creature; its strengths, its weaknesses, its preferred method of attack. Therefore, the raptor knew how to combat the larger animal, seeking to ignore the thick scales across its back and focus instead on its soft underbelly. All while trying to avoid its long, spike-like claws and sharp teeth.
To invade a raptor’s territory immediately invited a challenge, but to be a creature such as this invited a swift death. Raptors had no patience for creatures of the dark. Judging the time was right with the sun shining brightly behind it, the raptor dove silently toward the dark creature, extending its claws. At the last second, the dragas sensed the attack, halting its progress in the sky and trying to dodge the raptor as it hurtled past. The massive dark creature proved largely successful, though the raptor did succeed in catching one of its claws across the beast’s belly, slicing deeply into its flesh, a dark black blood pouring out.
The dragas instantly pursued the raptor, roaring in anger, its cry of rage reverberating off the mountain peaks. Though the raptor was faster over short distances, the dragas used its larger wings to stay close to its attacker, snapping at its tail feathers with its serrated teeth. In a quick burst of speed and a tilt of its wing, the raptor caught the dragas by surprise as it looped underneath the dark creature, again running a claw along the beast’s belly, leaving another long, bloody wound in the monster’s hardened hide. Incensed, the dragas roared once more in fury. The dragas turned swiftly to hunt its prey, but its pain mixing with rage blinded it to what was occurring around it.
It was then that the monster learned its mistake. The dark creature had thought it was fighting one raptor, not realizing that there were more in the sky. The first raptor had distracted it, giving the other raptors the time to position themselves for their deadly attacks. When the dragas sought to turn on its first tormentor, a second raptor swept by, its claws tearing into its thin, leathery wing. Before the dragas could respond to that attack, another raptor dove down and sliced a gaping hole in its other wing, followed by two more raptors that plunged their sharp claws into the wreckage that was once its belly.
Against one raptor, the dragas stood a chance. Against five, the conclusion was already determined. The dark creature roared its defiance a final time as it plummeted down toward a Highland peak, its tattered wings no longer able to keep it aloft. The raptors circled above it, watching the dark creature’s back break against the hard stone, before lazily turning in the sky, enjoying the warmth of the sun before settling back onto the Crag.
The raptors would protect their territory as they had for centuries. But this time, the large raptor that took its place once more on the Roost sensed a difference. Change was coming. A reckoning was coming. And the raptors would be ready. Until then, they would watch and wait. They would protect the home of the Highlanders from the creatures of the dark, just as the Highlanders protected them.
CHAPTER TWO
A Difficult Path
Rynlin Keldragan stood atop the Breaker, the harsh, cold wind seemingly trying to tear away the
cloak he had pulled tighter around himself. Carved from massive blocks of granite, the Breaker rose well over three hundred feet in height and was one hundred feet wide, stretching from the western Highlands to the coast and the Winter Sea. It gave the defenders the space they needed to repel any attack from the north. But there were no defenders now, and there hadn’t been for quite some time.
The tall Sylvan Warrior, dark hair and short beard speckled with grey, hated being here. The memories always returned, a continuous stream running through his mind. Nightmares, in all honesty. It had been the most important battle of the Great War, the most important event in the history of the Kingdoms. He could recall the events of a millennia ago as if it were yesterday.
The Sylvana were first called together one thousand years before to fight an evil in the far north, which had invaded the Charnel Mountains. At the time, those mountains were known as the Northern Peaks and were a beautiful sight to behold. Little did they know how the world would change now that the Shadow Lord had appeared, seeking to conquer the Kingdoms. In the beginning, the rulers of the different lands didn't view this new threat at the very edge of the Kingdoms as a serious threat, the mountains and the Northern Steppes standing in the way. So only a small army made up of soldiers from the closest Kingdoms marched into the Northern Peaks to defeat this new danger. The fighters did the best they could, but were heavily outnumbered by the Dark Horde, composed of the creatures the Shadow Lord had twisted for his primary purpose: desolation and destruction. The soldiers fought valiantly, yet could only delay the inevitable advance of the Shadow Lord’s servants and hope that help would come.
The other Kingdoms soon realized the great peril they were in, but it would take weeks, if not months, for them to call together their armies and march to the north. At that time, druids still held sway over the land, and often served as advisors in the courts of the different kings and queens. The chief druid, a woman named Athala, suggested that the Kingdoms send their best warriors to her, and they would fight the Dark Horde until the massed armies of the Kingdoms could take the field.