Perrin was unable to see her men exacting the trail’s justice in her stead, but it sounded like they handled their task at least as brutally as she had intended. There is something undeniable about the sound a sharp blade makes when it cuts through tender flesh and dense bone. It is quick, slowing only slightly when it reaches the harder parts. Then the gurgling and crying and bodies losing everything they have inside. All of it sounded a symphony to Perrin. The vile scrods deserved to feel all of it.
Her mind was no home for remorse when her men finally pulled the dead man off her. She spat on the bloated and bloody thing, even gave it a kick. She would have preferred to spend more time hurting the man. Even though he failed at taking what he wanted from her, he got more than she would have liked. Any innocence remaining in her after all she had seen was gone, replaced by a black pit in her soul. The vile scoundrel stole the last bit from her. She had no tears to shed for him or his foul companions.
“My queen,” Glord’s voice shattered her hateful contemplation of the dead things lying at her feet as he handed her clothes to her.
“Thank you, Glord,” her voice sounded like someone else’s in her ears. She did not bother covering herself as she took the clothes from him and began stepping into her trousers. There seemed no reason to cover herself anymore. Even though her men had done their best to avert their gazes from her body, she knew everyone in the clearing had seen all of her. The bastards had stolen that from her too.
“Men, I’ll be taking the queen back to camp. Burn up these bodies…” Glord began.
“No,” Perrin shouted, the volume of her voice far greater than she intended. She continued with a more reasonable tone, “Not one of these bastards deserves a proper funeral. Leave these monsters out for the beasts of the bush, and I’ll make my own way back to camp.”
Chapter 16
The King Sleeps
Traversing the forest when you are not on a trail is tough for any man on foot. It is near impossible for a man on horseback. Add to that a stout brawler riding your shoulders, and you can forget making good time. That was precisely the predicament Banch found himself in lugging the deceptively heavy king of Alhouim around on his back. He took a bit of solace in the knowledge his horse gave up on the mission much earlier than his shoulders had, but it made little difference. Either way, he was guiding his horse through the brush rather than charging through it mounted atop a sturdy steed. They had probably made a mile before the horse just stopped walking. That was the point Banch dismounted, dropped his baggage, tied said baggage to his horse, and began guiding the creature through the thick brush. Of course, the trail would have been a better option, but grongs were about. And who knows what else?
Clouds had rolled in and choked out the little bit of light the late afternoon sun provided. Banch had just about reached the point of calling the day’s travel complete and making camp when a light rain started. Somehow the raindrops found the journey from high in the sky, through the thick canopy, and to the forest floor much more easily than the sun’s rays had. That settled it. Wet wood was no good for a fire.
“There be grongs about,” Doentaat mumbled as Banch struggled to pull him down from the horse, “be a good lad and fetch my axe. I’ve a mind to bloody some arses.”
“I seek only to serve, highness,” Banch replied quietly. He had no intention of putting any kind of weapon in his fading friend’s hand. He knew it was the fever talking. The poor dwarf had been babbling for the last few hours. The infection was moving faster than he had hoped it would.
After getting Doentaat propped comfortably against a fallen tree, Banch got to work building a makeshift shelter with a couple of woolen blankets from his horse sacks. At least the dwarf would stay dry. That was the first order. Next, a warm fire would not slow the infection, but it would keep them both from freezing as the rain helped lower the already cool temperature of the forest.
Doentaat continued the kind of nonsense typical from someone deep in the throes of a fever dream. Banch ignored most of it until the dwarf king sat up, looked him square in the eyes, and said, “Banch, you’re a brawny soldier, as honorable as I’ve met, but this mission is at its end. Leave me behind. The Lake calls to my soul. Ain’t no sense in you joining me on that journey.”
Banch gave the fire a few pokes, stoking the flame before grabbing his water skin and moving toward Doentaat. “Nonsense,” he said flatly as he handed the water skin over to the king, “Have a pull off that. I’ll be grabbing you some meat.”
“Brawny, honorable, and thick-headed,” Doentaat called after him. “How far have we made it toward our goal with you lugging my broken body through the thick brush?”
Banch ignored him as he fished around in his horse sack for some meat.
Doentaat’s eyes narrowed, “Hey. I appreciate all what you’ve done for me, but I am still the king of Alhouim. Best not be ignoring me.”
Banch handed the meat over, “Forgive me, highness, but that ain’t a conversation we’ll be having. After I deliver you back to your people, you can hang me from that Sacred Pine.” He paused long enough grab a bite off the hunk of meat he had kept for himself before continuing around the mouthful, “But it is my intention to deliver you back to your people. They await their king, and I refuse to see them disappointed.”
“Stubborn arse,” Doentaat groaned before chomping into the meat Banch had handed him.
They both sat in silence as they finished their meals. It would be all the nourishment they would get that night. At the rate they were moving, Banch would have to keep the portions small. He would hunt during the wee hours of the morning, but as plentiful as fallon were in the forest—and as good with a bow as Banch was—a successful hunt was never a guarantee.
Anyone who has spent any time in the forest knows it has sounds. For most, they slip to the periphery of their awareness until they become white noise. For folks like Banch and Doentaat who have spent a good bit of time exploring vast, dark, wooded places that symphony never slips from their awareness. They can identify the cause of each individual sound. Leaves rustling against each other in the canopy motivated by a light breeze and creating their own melody with their dance, small birds chirping and flitting from branch to branch, furry critters burrowing or climbing, all those sounds were known to both the blokes sitting beneath a makeshift shelter under a light forest rain in the glow of a healthy fire. The sound of heavy feet and big bodies moving through the thick brush and the occasional grunt which suddenly joined the chorus were equally identifiable. Several large creatures approached. They were obviously bipedal based on the cadence of their steps. Based on their level of stealth they had to be grongs, fifty or more at that.
Doentaat shot a look at Banch and whispered, “Best be handing me over that axe.”
Banch obliged by silently shuffling over to his horse and fetching the mighty weapon. When he returned and passed it to his wounded companion he said, “Stay hidden as best you can. Best leave this battle to me.”
The grizzled old dwarf responded with a wink and a smile.
The sound suddenly stopped. The two trail weary travelers had been spotted. At least, the glow of their fire had. Banch remained crouched in front of Doentaat as he quietly slipped his sword from its scabbard.
The grongs began moving again, significantly quieter than they had been. However, a stealthy grong is not really a thing. Based on the sounds of their measured steps, Banch assumed them to be no more than ten feet from the clearing he occupied with Doentaat. The fight was close at hand. He raised his eyebrows and nodded at the dwarf king as he gripped the handle of his blade tighter.
Banch counted off the steps in his head…1…2…3… When he finally hit ten, they would be just outside the clearing. He waited two more seconds and howled a war cry that would make any warrior from any of the great cities proud. At that same moment, he stood, spun, and leapt over the fire toward the other side of the clearing. The first grong whose head poked out of the darkness and into the fir
e’s orange glow lost his scaly brain case to the smooth stroke of Banch’s blade.
A club swung toward Banch’s face. He parried the blow and thrust into the darkness stabbing through another. Then they all came. Grongs flooded into the clearing. One tripped, shoved by the beast behind him. That one rolled through the fire, singeing the bony plates on his back, and dragging sizzling embers with him. All that one saw were Doentaat’s eyes as the dwarf king stabbed him in the throat with his dagger.
The first kill of any battle is the soldier’s thrill. Most will demure and act as if taking a life was a last resort, a duty they had no choice but perform to protect their kind. Liars, the lot of them. That first kill was the kick. It got the adrenaline pumping. Any pain, any woe, any trepidation fled with the soul of that first kill. That kick was exactly what Doentaat felt as he struggled to his knee, propping himself up on the stump of his other leg, and shouted, “Come on then, you vile bastards. Bring your scaly carcasses over to my axe so I might cleave you all in two.”
On the other side of the fire, Banch moved like an artist with his blade, elegantly slicing through scaly grong flesh as he dodged and danced among the clubs swinging for his head. A full ten of the beasts had fallen to his sword when one of those clubs finally connected. His thigh throbbed. A moment later, the arm holding that club was flipping through the firelight. A moment after that, the thing’s head was spinning through the fire light in the other direction. Stab, slice, kick, he worked his way through the crowd, counting them off as he sent them back to the Lake…13…14…15…
A few of the grongs took notice of the furious dwarf hobbling toward them on one knee and a bandaged stump. Pain shot up through Doentaat’s thigh every time that stump slammed into the forest floor. It only made him angrier. He pushed it down into his gut to fester with the rest of his rage. He swung his axe at the first grong who got close and that grong had two stumps. The thing had but a moment to lament his lost limbs before Doentaat’s axe cleaved him in two at the belly. The raging dwarf yanked his bloody axe back up and swung high at the waist of another grong.
The dwarf axe is a thing of legend, two matching razor-sharp blades perfectly balanced with one another, but a grong’s pelvic bones are dense. Doentaat’s axe made it about halfway through its victim before getting lodged deep in that bone. The stout dwarf gave his death bringer a hefty tug, spinning with the force of it and finishing the cut from the other side. The move destroyed his balance and sent him tumbling to the ground next to the beast he had just sliced in two. He growled at the thing as its eyes grayed over.
Before Doentaat had a chance to get back up to his knee and his stump, a grong club was sailing down on him. He held his axe before him to block the blow, but it never came. Instead, Banch’s soaring body pounded into the beast and sent them both tumbling into the brush at the edge of the clearing. Three grunts from the grong and a furious war cry from Banch later, and the swordsman from Havenstahl was back on his feet.
Doentaat’s eyes went wide when he saw the man’s condition. His rusty hair was streaked with red, obviously the result of a couple good whacks from grong clubs. His face had more scratches and bruises than the dwarf could count. There were just too many of them damned grongs.
“Stay with me,” Doentaat shouted at Banch.
Banch wobbled, swayed, and threw up. Then he roared up at the dark canopy, smiled—a couple of teeth Doentaat knew had been there earlier were gone—and shouted, “The Lake can have me, but not before all them scaly bastards make the trip first.”
“Aye,” Doentaat agreed, “let’s send these…”
It made a strangely hollow sound, Doentaat’s head, when the grong club crashed against the back of it. He could not tell which came first, that hollow sound or the bright flash which accompanied it. Either way, the rest of his glorious proclamation remained stuck in his throat as the world around him became purple and fuzzy. It was not cognizant thought or even a willful desire to survive that prompted his hand to drop his axe, grab hold of the arm attached to the next club that struck him, and shove his dagger into the body attached to that arm four times before he released his grip. Nearly blind with his head throbbing, Doentaat was working strictly on instinct.
He was faintly aware of Banch’s voice. The words were unclear, but it was obvious the mighty warrior was growling his rage at their opponents. Body parts fell all about him. He could not tell if they were limbs, heads, tails, or something else entirely, but his companion raged on.
Then something big and heavy fell next him. The words were clear as any he had ever heard when Banch groaned, “Forgive me, highness. I ain’t worth the fire it will take to burn up my bones. I failed you.”
Then the clubs came. They hit him all about the body. He urged his hands to stab and grab and punch and claw, but they refused his commands. His fight was gone. This would be the end, his last battle… But then, the clubs stopped. Doentaat’s eyes had swollen shut, and the ringing in his ears was so loud he could barely make out any competing sound. However, what he could hear sounded like confusion.
Then a voice called out above all the buzzing and ringing. It seemed far away but sounded like, “Alhouim, to the king.”
Doentaat was as good as blind with his swollen eyes. However, as the ringing dulled, he could hear more and more. Those were dwarf axes cutting through scaly grongs. He heard another voice, “Aye, flee into them trees, you scaly bastards.” Then another answered, “Cut them down. Don’t let none get away.”
Then he felt hands on him. He could not move to fight them off had he wanted to. Luckily, they seemed to be checking him for injuries rather than trying to cause more. Those fingers felt like daggers in some of the spots they touched, but he ached in so many places it was difficult to notice. He thought he may have groaned a few times but could not be sure of that either. Sleep seemed pretty close, or death. Which of them approached was impossible to discern.
Then he heard a voice he recognized as Glaadrian spoke loudly but calmly in his ear, “Thanks be to Coeptus we found you, my king. Bindaar be all in a tizzy since you’ve been lost to us. There are ten in our group, and we’ll be dying or getting you home.”
There was probably some water. Maybe a few other voices. Somebody may have bandaged or wrapped this or that. Everything grew increasingly fuzzy. It became difficult to separate physical feelings from thoughts or ideas. Then it was just dark.
Chapter 17
Eat the Gods
The babe, Geillan, prince of Havenstahl, son of Maelich the Dragon, hovered between four obelisks. He lay there peacefully sleeping. The obelisks flashed, shifting between the blackest dark and brightest light so quickly both conditions seemed to exist side by side. As if there were only light and only dark at the same time, two equal and opposite conditions occupying all concurrently.
Ijilv stood next to the sleeping babe. His staff mimicked the flashing obelisks perfectly; at once completely dark and completely light. His wide eyes—horrible things, black as the pit of a cavern but somehow all colors at once, blazing brightly—stared at the ceiling of the room they occupied. The cold stone had been replaced with a flickering canvas, like a live painting moving from scene to scene as quickly as the room moved from the brightest light to the darkest dark.
The god hunted, scouring the living canvas for pieces of his scattered brother, Kallum. Gods, of course, cannot be killed. Unlike dwarves or men or giants, they are not meant to return to the Lake, the source. Their role is to guide, eternal fixtures in a plane of reality in which they stand both within and without. As Ijilv moved through the scenes playing out before him, he happened upon bits of his scattered brother sparkling bright against the backdrop surrounding them. When he found these, he plucked them from the scene and consumed them.
Then one scene caught his attention. It stood out from the rest. A sleeping Dragon lie before Brerto’s cave. Of course, this was not an actual Dragon with scales and teeth and mighty wings. It was Cialia. Her presence in Brerto’s para
dise high atop the snowy peak at Alharin was intriguing. She could only have one cause to go calling after the old wizard on the big hill, as the men of Ouloos had called the god in bygone days.
Despite the distraction—the mystery of why Leisha’s Dragon would be sleeping on the enemy’s doorstep—Ijilv noticed a glimmering piece of Kallum resting on a tree near the cave’s mouth. He snatched it from the scene and popped it in his mouth. It did not have a taste which could be described in relation to other tastes. It did not taste like a food or element or chemical concoction. It tasted like strength, primal power. This morsel was different than the others Ijilv had consumed. It was more complex and had a finality to it. He swallowed it down.
A flash, like a star exploding in the blackness of space, enveloped the room. It chased away the dark moments and made the light moments insignificant. But this light was not merely brilliant white. It was all colors at once in equal saturation. Gods are seldom surprised, shocked even less frequently, but right at that moment Ijilv found himself in unfamiliar territory. He was surprised. He was shocked. He was furious. He was sad. He was in love with Ouloos, with space, with the trees, with men and giants, with all living creatures, and he hated them just the same. He was terrified yet unafraid. He felt all emotions equal and simultaneously.
He laughed uncontrollably until his laughs melted into the most pitiable sobs. Ouloos could be damned, but then, he should save them all. Peace is what Ouloos needs, but they could do just fine with destruction. Every feeling, every emotion, and every thought was a contradiction. In a moment both instant and eternal, he felt everything.
Standing at the edge of oblivion, Ijilv slowly gained control. This was infinite power. He had to be stronger than it. He had to understand. He did understand. He had been preparing for this moment since the beginning of time, since he looked at his brothers…and that other one. Who was that other one, that memory, that thing he knew but could not know? No matter, at that moment when they all came to be, he looked at them. I will rule you all.
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