A Skeleton and a Lich

by Michael Chatfield

  Tamarra looked to Anthony and stepped back, making room for him at the front of the balcony.

  “I’m not one for speeches or explaining things well, so I’ll leave that to the ancestors.” A hammer appeared in his hand and in the hands of Aila and Damien, who stood on either side of him.

  They lowered their hammers, striking the air. The noise of their hammers filled the cavern, summoning something primordial in those who were listening.

  Purple smoke spread from where their hammers struck, forming into a half-moon table with chairs behind it. Unlike the Tribunal that Anthony had created when he was raising up Damien and Aila, this one was three times the size.

  As the leaders and heroes of the different races appeared, they were no longer their original size; they stood ten meters tall. A dominating pressure came off them as those below looked at them, recognizing some of them from the stories and legends of old—their myths realized and idolized since a young age.

  The leaders gazed down upon the applicants below, scanning them, weighing them. Their heavy gazes made the judges shift under its weight or stand straighter, as if their very position would prove their worth.

  The leaders saw it all as they took their seats making even the most confident judge nervous as their eyes flickered from side to side to catch glimpses of these powerful giants.

  The goblin leader remained standing, leaning on her staff as she looked down on those below.

  No one dared to speak as she scanned them and then smiled.

  “Becoming a Guardian is not a right. It is a responsibility and a contract. A Contract with you to the people of Dena, to those who came before you and those who will come afterward. Guardians are meant to roam the lands, protecting and rendering aid. Your lives are given over to those under your protection. When you become a Guardian, you are a Guardian first—not a gnome, a dwarf, human, goblin, beast kin, elf, or elemental. There will be no boundaries and your judgments will never be based on the person and who they are, only on what they have done.”

  The hobgoblin looked over them.

  “You will be given great power, but this power does not come lightly. With the trial, your very limits will be tested and your truths will be revealed. There will be nothing that you can hide from others or that you can hide from yourself. It will not be pleasant. Even if you complete the trial, you do not need to become a Guardian; you can still choose. Even if you don’t become a Guardian, you will know who you are. There is strength in knowing who you are at the core, but there is also pain; there is suffering. We can try as we want, but we are not heroes. We are just people of Dena, trying to do our best.” The hobgoblin looked over them all.

  Some of the people were moved; others were confused, determined, scared.

  Anthony had seen this all before and more.

  “When you are ready, step forward onto the platforms. Do not step forward lightly.” The goblin leader lowered herself into her seat as several purple circles appeared on the ground in front of the judges. The leaders closed their eyes as the Guardians’ purple eyes opened up, creating a ring around the purple circles on the ground.

  A few stepped forward boldly and into the circles.

  Their heads dropped forward and the first of many trials began.

  Anthony, Damien, and Aila watched.

  The tested all had different expressions on their faces when they left their trial. The trio knew just what kind of trials they had been through.

  Some made it; others did not.

  Guardian emblems appeared and drifted to the people who became Guardians. Their oath rang out in the hall before they were accepted and they stepped down from their pedestals.

  The group passed through until there was no one left who wanted to take the trial.

  The circles and the eyes disappeared as the Tribunal floated higher and turned around, facing Anthony, Damien, and Aila.

  “The leadership of the Guardians has been empty for a long time. Anthony, I know you hate positions of power, but you will be the Guardians’ acting head until a new leader of the Guardians can be found,” the human leader said.

  Anthony ground his teeth, unseen by the people below. I wake them up, take them out, and then they give me responsibility! This sucks.

  “I accept.” Anthony sighed.

  The leaders raised their hands. Purple light shot out, gathering in the middle of their half-circle Tribunal, forming into one beam that lanced Anthony’s emblem.

  He felt his emblem change; there was no change to him as the beam faded away.

  “Anthony will be your acting head. Carry out his orders to the best of your abilities.” The gnome looked back at the new Guardians.

  The Tribunal turned into purple vapors and disappeared, making the cavern feel empty.

  Anthony, Damien, and Aila all shook a bit from the power they had consumed in order to power the Tribunal for so long.

  Part of the power might come from Dena, but it’s not light on the old mana reserves, that’s for sure!

  “The world is a chaotic place. We stand on the brink of anarchy and war. If Dena is to survive, then it will need you and others like you to clean up the anarchy and unite Dena once more. We must stand together or we will fall apart. Using your powers, you will be able to separate the truth from the lies. You will be able to affect great change. Though there are those out there who will look to kill us, look to stop order from taking over across Dena. Work in the shadows; look for the small changes that you can make that will affect great change. Help those who are in need. Raise up those who follow the same path as us and assist those who are innocent. Being a Guardian sounds simple, but it will test you in ways you only touched upon in your trials. Do not forget who you are, your beliefs and your compass.” Anthony’s words spread across the cavern. “Now we have work to be doing.”

  With that, he turned and left. The others followed him.

  Claire was there, waiting at the door.

  He grabbed her hand and she started to guide them through the single door behind the balcony and into the maze of corridors.

  “Transport will be arranged for them, to take them back to their homes. Many of them come from similar programs to our own, run by the dwarves, gnomes, elves, and other smaller communities within the different countries. Our own transport, the Tenacious, is prepared. There will be three other locations we need to visit and carry out Tribunals in before we head across the Red Sea to Radal.” Claire pulled out two stones and a potion from within her bag. “You two put this on. Aila, drink this.”

  Damien and Anthony took the stones and the rope around them, and put them around their necks.

  “Dammit.” Anthony fiddled with the rope.

  “What?” Claire asked.

  “It fell through my rib. It’s inside my chest now.” Anthony sighed and left it alone, but with every step, the stone would hit his rib, making a monotonous and annoying noise.

  He could feel the increased mana density around the stone.

  “Is this a mana heart stone?” Anthony asked.

  “Yes. It draws in a large amount of mana, condenses and purifies it down and lets out really concentrated mana,” Claire said.

  “Undead power core.” Damien chuckled.

  Anthony couldn’t help but laugh a bit as well. He started to move his chest around more, having fun with the crystal bouncing around inside him.

  “Will you pull that out of your chest?” Claire asked after a few seconds.

  “But it’s fun now.” Anthony pouted.

  They suddenly left the corridor behind and were now in a large cave filled with water.

  Several military vessels and a few merchant vessels fit into the massive cave. People were moving supplies back and forth along the sides of the craft, using cranes that were located in the ceiling to assist them.

  “Anthony!” She said her eye brow twitching.

  Anthony winced and fished the stone out from within his chest, putting it against his armor and the outside of
his chest.

  Claire pulled out a mask that hid her face, pulling on gloves and the hood of the cloak she was wearing to hide her appearance from everyone.

  They came to a stop at the gangway up to the Tenacious.

  “Good luck, Tamarra. Make sure that the navy doesn’t step out of line and take care of the people here and our islands. There are sure to be more Agents of Chaos making designs on Epan and Ilsal. Make sure to support and send out the Guardians with our own people, adding them to the military as well as the judicial system as soon as possible. First, check everyone within both of those systems to make sure that there are no Agents of Chaos. Then move to increase the Guardian numbers and our reach. I leave everything to you.” Claire pulled out an emblem with Epan and Ilsal carved into it, with a scale; on one side of the scales, there was a sword—on the other, there was a shield.

  Tamarra took the emblem, only shaking a little bit. “I will do my best to not let you down.” Tamarra bowed to Claire.

  “They will be counting on you, as will I.” Claire gave her a deep look and grabbed her arm, comforting her. “I wouldn’t give you the position if I didn’t think you couldn’t handle it.”

  That seemed to make Tamarra gain some strength as she straightened and nodded.

  Claire led the way onto the merchant vessel.

  “We’ll send a postcard,” Damien said.

  “With your drawing, I think I might be more scared than pleased to get it,” Tamarra said.

  “The younger generation are brutal with their comebacks,” Damien complained to Anthony.

  “It hurts some days. I have been working on my comeback book. We should check each other’s notes and be prepared,” Anthony said.

  It wasn’t ten minutes after they stepped aboard the Tenacious that they were being pulled by an overhead crane toward the entrance.

  They passed through the illusion-covered entrance. Their sails opened as the water and air mages went to work. The ship started to pick up its speed as it cut to the west and they started on their path.

  They would make a stop in central Ilsal, one in eastern central Epan, then southern Ilsal before cutting east and heading for Radal.

  “I hate boats,” Aila complained as she went to the rear of the ship.

  “Well, at least this time you have your own rope!” Anthony said. She had grabbed some rope from somewhere.

  “Might be a messy one,” Anthony muttered to Tommie.

  “I’m going to check on Ramona, Rachel and Ryan,” Tommie said.

  “Okay.” Anthony tried to sound chipper as Tommie turned and headed below decks.

  Seems that something is weighing on his mind. I’ll give him some space and see if he can figure it out on his own. Anthony looked to the front of the ship. People moved around, operating the ship.

  “Just like the old days, off on a new adventure,” he said.

  “I think too much time has passed for me to look at adventure the same way.” Claire leaned back into him.

  Anthony held her in his arms. “But who knows what might be beyond the horizon?”

  “A country that is controlled by our enemy through deception, that carved out the Guardians and replaced themselves as the power in the nation. People who instead of banding together as they did in their times of need, attacked one another over age-old feuds that have nothing to do with the current generation.”

  Anthony held her tighter. “It looks grim now, but the sun will rise tomorrow and a new day will come.”

  “I don’t have that kind of optimism anymore. What if Dena is no longer our Dena, but the Drafeng’s Dena?”

  “The battle hasn’t started yet. We can’t be defeated before we even start,” Anthony said.

  Claire turned to face him straight on. “I have been here for hundreds of years, but what have I been able to do? I have raised a handful of people and called them judges. I watched the Guardians fall apart. I watched the lines between nations reform and armies march to war against their neighbors. I was unable to do anything as I sat there, waiting on an island.”

  “You could have just closed yourself up and done nothing—you didn’t need to do anything like that. You did what you could.” Anthony took on a commanding tone.

  “Did I do everything, though?” Claire asked in a low voice.

  Anthony held her tighter, feeling her heart in a mess. He felt her inner pain and wanted to take away those doubts and replace it with hope. He knew he couldn’t but he desperately wished he could.

  She was one of the most powerful battle mages in the war. She was a leader of Guardians, someone who was being looked at to be the next head of the Guardians. She had turned on her vows to try to save those she cared about. She had then watched as her friends and the organization she would have given her life for was torn apart. There was nothing she could do to stop it.

  Anthony couldn’t understand this at all and he knew that he couldn’t, so he just hugged her as they shot across the waves.

  Chapter: War Front

  “When I was younger, I was excited, I was happy to go to war, to show to the others in my unit, to the people back home that I was a warrior, a real fighter. Now when I see all of the men and women of the legion marching, I can’t help but see war. The bodies, the death, the smell. Losing that happiness I had before,” Gus said to Su. They were riding atop their caravans along a paved road. They were coming down off a hill and could see over the trees. The different forts that ran along the border were filled with those from the beast kin legions.

  Smoke rose from the camps ahead of them.

  Su looked in the distance. “I used to think that the humans and the people on the other side were just targets, unfeeling things to be destroyed. Now...” Su shook his head. “They’re just someone like us, fighting for their homes, for the people that they love. Some kid who thinks he can become an adult by going to war.”

  “Funny how quickly history is forgotten by those in positions of power. How generals who were in the rear are quick to make up plans to send young men and women forth once more, to die for their nation,” Gus agreed as they fell into silence.

  Su looked back, checking on the rest of the trading caravan. All of the registered traders in Selenus were now moving supplies for the military up to the front lines.

  “We shouldn’t be far from Easthall now.” Su sat back down and got comfortable.

  Gus grunted as they kept going.

  It wasn’t long before they saw the sparse village that marked their next stop.

  “I’ll be back in a minute.” Su drew his mount up and got on, unhooking them from the carriage as he rode up to the gates.

  “What is your business here?” a guard asked from the walls. Other archers were ready to draw their bows if they needed to.

  “I have supplies for the war effort. I have my paperwork here. We’re to stay here one night before moving to the line.” Su held up his papers.

  A bucket on string dropped from the parapet.

  “Papers in the bucket.”

  Su put them in and secured the lid.

  The bucket rose once again. Su waited as the caravan got closer.

  “All right, you are granted access. We’ll need to inspect your goods and your people’s papers at the gate, though,” the disembodied voice said from above.

  “Very well.” Su sighed internally. The whole process was to make sure that they weren’t spies, or carrying black market items. It was a lengthy process that took a few hours.

  The gates opened and guards came out.

  “Name is Lieutenant Pell. Sorry about this all, but orders...” the young woman said to Su.

  “I know it only too well. Did my stint not that long ago,” Su said.

  She seemed to relax a little. “Mind if you come with us as we’re inspecting? Might make things a bit faster,” she suggested.

  “Certainly.” Su nodded.

  They checked the people of the caravan, and then the caravans before the guards allowed them in.
>
  They entered the small village. There wasn’t much to it. The majority of the roads were a mix of mud and gravel. The buildings were mostly wood and stone. The wall and the barracks were made of stone and were the most impressive buildings there. There were several smithies and supporting industries in the village that were owned and operated by the military to repair or build anything that the line needed. There were plenty of young children and people, the families and partners of those serving on the line. Close enough to see their loved ones every few months, but far enough that they could run if the line was breached.

  Su saw a middle-aged beast kin from one of the lizard clans looking after young beast kin pups. She looked tired and worn down but devoted to her tasks as she handled some dozen or so young pups.

  Lieutenant Pell looked in the same direction.

  “That’s Lady S. She came here a few weeks or a month back. She can’t talk at all. Don’t know where she came from. She accepts a pittance in pay, stays in the inn, doesn’t buy a place. She started to help out people around town, a few people here and there. She can’t speak, just communicates by writing or gestures. Not many people know how to read around here, so it’s hard for us to know what she means. As time went on, people asked her to look after bigger things, till now she looks after the babes and children of the village. She even takes care of the discarded children.”

  “That’s noble of her,” Su said.

  Lieutenant Pell nodded. “Now, for your accommodation, you will be situated in these buildings. I’ll have a guard watch over the caravans for you so you can all get some sleep.”

  “Much appreciated. It’s been a hard trip,” Su said.

  “Beyond here, it’s all wildlands. Your convoy escort should be arriving in a few hours to take you to the line.”

  “How are things on the line?” Su asked.

  “We’re ready for war. The legions have all been mobilized. It just needs the final order now.”