Bladeborn

by Clayton Schonberger

  The camps were filled with charged discussions about going back, whether starvation was imminent, and where the Map was leading. Some who at first had vigorously taken part in these discussions now just plodded on silently, lost in worry. The warriors tried to keep spirits up and not show fear. Others who managed to stay cheerful kept people motivated.

  Periodically, a herdsman would slaughter one of the cavern cattle and start a cook fire. Since wood was almost impossible to come by, the cook fires had to be fueled by breaking up a cart. As carts were lost, the very young and very old needed alternate modes of transport, so they rigged makeshift saddles and slung them over the cavern cattle for rides. Nearly everyone had ragged shoes and felt foot-sore, so Bladeborn suggested to King Rosen that they make a semi-permanent camp.

  At a natural fresh-water spring, in a large space not far from where clusters of edible mushrooms grew, they rested.

  “This is an ideal spot for a camp,” Bladeborn said. “We’ll break into three-person teams to make sure it’s safe.”

  Bladeborn left Spe to guard the camp and went with two others to scout.

  Bladeborn, with an Elven Knight named Weldon and a Dwarven Priest named Gran, explored a small cave near the camp. Something brushed Bladeborn’s plate armor leggings and he looked down. A tangled, writhing mass of little snakes were trying to bite his ankles through his armor.

  “What the—?” Bladeborn said, not yet understanding the danger.

  Behind him, Weldon suddenly screamed in pain, bending over and striking at his legs with his sword. The Elven Knight had dropped the glow globe he carried and was stabbing frantically at several of the knot-snakes that were nipping his feet.

  Gran was the next to scream. Bladeborn turned to the Dwarven Priest and saw many of the beasties dropping on his head from above!

  ~~Run, Bladeborn! The knot-snakes have a deadly bite!~~

  Bladeborn knew Weldon was quick and wore chain link armor, but the little serpent-heads seemed to be able to bite right through the links of his leggings and his leather boots. Bladeborn ran toward them but the ground was shifting because so many of the Knot-snakes slithered on it. Bladeborn nearly lost his balance and fell onto the snakes.

  Gran fell to the ground, and right before Bladeborn’s eyes, the Priest was covered in the fang-bearing beasties. Bladeborn tried desperately to get to him to help him up, but a larger knot-snake dropped on his head from somewhere above.

  Bladeborn reached up and threw the thing away, yet he was bitten several times on his face and neck. From the sting of the bites, he could tell the creatures were indeed poisonous.

  Vision blurring, Bladeborn tried dragging Gran to safety, but before he could, a hundred of the little terrors had engulfed the Dwarven priest’s body.

  Bladeborn made a grab for Weldon, while using Nightslayer to fend off the knot-snakes dropping from the ceiling. Before Bladeborn could save him, Weldon also had fallen, and the poison things tore into him, eating him alive. Bladeborn grabbed Weldon’s outstretched, twitching hand and dragged him out of the cave along with the entire mass of creatures. By that time, Weldon was dead weight and Bladeborn’s vision was blurring due to the stinging bites he had received.

  ~~The other two are dead, Swordsman! Get out of there!~~

  Rather than being dragged down along with the other two, Bladeborn retreated as Nightslayer instructed. Many of the knot-snakes followed, but only so far… they seemed to be territorial.

  While running in a dizzy haze back to camp, Bladeborn’s vision continued clouding until he was nearly blind. The bites were swollen and painful.

  He staggered to the patrolled boundary of camp and fell to one knee in front of the shocked Guards.

  “Get Telunk and Spe, and triple the Guard on this side of camp!” he ordered. “Get a team of men armed with the Elvin Longbows here!”

  “General Bladeborn, what happened?” one of the Guards asked, helping Bladeborn to his feet.

  Bladeborn answered, “Poisonous vermin have killed the other two members of my patrol! The lair of the vermin isn’t far away from here, so bring more men quickly!” He blamed himself for being too hasty when entering the area. He felt foolish for being defeated by so small a foe.

  Moments later, Telunk and Spe reached Bladeborn’s side.

  “Where are the other two, Bladeborn?” Spe asked.

  Bladeborn said, “Poisonous beasts I can only describe as knot-snakes got them, in a cave over there.” Bladeborn pointed. He was still very woozy from the bites.

  “Bladeborn, your face!” Spe declared.

  Bladeborn’s eyes had completely swollen shut.

  Bladeborn said. “I was a fool for not seeing the knot-snakes. I must meditate, or the effects of the poison could overwhelm me.”

  “Lay still. I’ll watch over you,” Spe said.

  Bladeborn had a high fever for several hours, but his psychic healing trance kept him alive. The swelling went down as he meditated, and the fever was reduced. As soon as he could get on his feet, and he asked Telunk, “Are we safe?”

  Telunk said, “As far as we can tell, there aren’t any animals other than the knot-snakes in this area, Bladeborn.”

  “They are enough,” Bladeborn said. “We will have to kill them all before we make a semi-permanent camp here. I am sorry about Gran, Telunk. I know he was an old friend of yours.”

  Telunk said, “Gran was a good Priest, one who was aware of the risks. He will be mourned.”

  Along with Spe, King Rosen had been watching over Bladeborn for the last few hours. King Rosen said, “Are you sure that you are all right, General Bladeborn? You should rest an extra day.”

  “Thank you, my King,” Bladeborn said, “But this cannot wait. As soon as possible, Spe and I will go back to their nest and make sure they are all dead.”

  After several more hours using his meditative healing trance, Bladeborn was feeling good enough to find Spe.

  Telunk told Bladeborn the dragon was on the edge of the camp facing the cave of the knot-snakes. Walking through camp he looked over his chosen people. He wondered if he had led them to their deaths. They huddled together, sick and malnourished, and he was filled with self-doubt.

  ~~You will survive, Swordsman!~~ Nightslayer said. ~~And if you draw breath these people will as well! Kill the knot-snakes and return to them with the news of the victory. These simple folks will be delighted. You shall see!~~

  Nightslayer’s words seemed distant and empty to Bladeborn. Nonetheless he would do as the Sword suggested.

  Spe was sitting near several burn marks on the cavern floor where Spe had breathed fire.

  The dragon said, “I caught a few of them coming over here. They are visiting camp with increasing numbers. We’re going to clean them out, aren’t we?”

  Bladeborn said, “It will be dangerous, Spe. Their poison is…”

  “Let’s go,” Spe said.

  At the cave of the knot-snakes they saw a few pieces of Weldon’s armor were all that remained of him—even the Elven Knight’s bones were gone.

  “Can you burn them, Spe? All of them?”

  Spe drew in a large amount of air and then let out a blast of white-hot fire. Thousands of the knot-snakes dropped to the floor of the cave. In one furious psychic attack, Bladeborn killed nearly all of them at once.

  The enormous mass of snakes was unmoving. Still, Spe blasted it with a long breath of fire, just to be sure. No others dropped down.

  “They may be attracted to heat,” Bladeborn suggested. “Blow fire into the cave’s corners, if you will, Spe.”

  Spe did so and a few more dropped down. Bladeborn killed them to the last with his psychic attack.

  “What is that growing out of the ceiling, Bladeborn?” Spe asked.

  In the bright light of the burning knot-snakes, they saw what looked like old trees growing down from the ceiling!

  Bladeborn sat on Spe’s neck, and they cautiously flew up to the trees. The burning knot-snakes smelled foul, but they
endured it so they could look at the strange trees, some of which had bizarre flowers on them.

  Spe locked his claws on one, hanging upside-down for a moment. Bladeborn used his psychic attack on the cave’s corners, but it appeared that all the knot-snakes had been drawn out and were now all dead. Bladeborn, feeling confident that it was safe, climbed off Spe’s neck onto a large branch to look more closely at the trees.

  By the light of the burning snakes below them, they could see that all the twigs and branches which had “fallen” from the trees were lying on the cavern’s ceiling. Many huge, dead tree trunks hovered near the roof of the cave as well.

  “This is the most marvelous wood I have ever seen,” Spe declared, slightly amazed. “It seems to be lighter than air!”

  “Yes, look,” Bladeborn said, tapping one of the long, straight trunks with his finger.

  The dead tree spun about several times and bumped into other trees at the top of the cave.

  “It weighs next to nothing,” Bladeborn said. “Some of these lager pieces are actually lighter than air… How can that be?”

  “I don’t know,” Spe declared. “I have never heard of such a thing, and I have lived a long time.”

  Several of the trees were in bloom. The flowers on the boughs were undeniably unique. Bladeborn gathered some of the nuts from every tree that was producing them.

  “The trees seem to grow in utter darkness, too!” Bladeborn said, “I’m going to save these nuts… They may prove useful someday. Spe, can you pull the trunk of this tree down to the floor while I ride your back?”

  “I don’t see why not...” Spe said.

  Bladeborn climbed onto Spe’s neck, gripping tightly, and Spe glided to the dead tree. When he grasped it, he found it light as air, weightless. “...Such magical wood...” Spe said in awe. “It has a quality of magical flight—like me!”

  They took many of the tree trunks all at once back to camp. When the people at camp saw Bladeborn pulling a giant, dead tree through the air by one of its small limbs, they crowded around to get a better look and ask questions. Bladeborn and Spe answered as best they could, but neither of them knew just what to make of it.

  Later that day, an older Elven Knight told Bladeborn, “There is a legend of ships of the sky built of a wood like this…The ships floated in the air and had sails all over them. The tale comes from a time long ago when Elves were said to have made such things, but I never really believed it. Now I am readier to think the legend is true.”

  After Bladeborn had healed another day, Bladeborn and the dragon led a group of axe men to the small forest. and they gathered all the strange wood they could find. Bladeborn saw no sign of the knot-snakes. Eventually, they amassed all the wood the forest had to offer.

  During the next week, the humans and some of the Dwarves crafted useful things from the wood. A type of wagon made of it could support quite a bit of weight before being forced to the ground due to the magical buoyancy the wood had, so it made a wonderful type of transport. Much of the wood was packed for later. Some of it was used to repair parts of the old wagons they had brought from the third realm.

  The rest of the wood was burned for warmth, cooking, and the pleasure of a real fire. It burned in the same way regular wood did, but it did not lose its quality of being unaffected by gravity. They had fires floating in the air, and when the wood popped, large pieces of it flew off and continued glowing. It was delightful, and morale was raised substantially by what was surely a blessing.

  Again, the column was moving. They still didn’t know how far they had to walk. The Dwarves said the maps gave no clue about when the journey would end.

  Most folks most counted themselves lucky, agreeing that the decision made by King Rosen to flee into the center of Draconia was the only choice.

  The maps led them down a series of rock tubes. They plodded onward another few days and stopped to rest several more times. It was during one of these rests when Bladeborn was half-awake, leaning against the wall of the narrow passage. Then, he heard screaming from the back of the line.

  He started running back up the passage, but his people were fleeing, filling the rock tube and blocking his way. He heard more screams, and after struggling against the tide of the people in flight, he saw why his people were terrorized.

  “Oh, NO!” Bladeborn shouted in shock.

  Huge trolls with metal tridents were snagging his people by their clothing and taking them into the darkness of the side-caves. Each troll was over ten feet tall, with warty skin, mottled bat-wings and large, greasy teeth. Some of the beastly giants fought with members of the army, but even his well-trained soldiers were being taken away.

  Bladeborn shoved his way to where the creatures were, and quickly cut a troll apart with a mighty blow. A woman that the troll had been carrying fell to the cavern floor, and she ran off. Seeing a group of trolls where no people were, Bladeborn did a psychic attack. However, he felt an unusual resistance to his normally fatal power. It seemed that the trolls were not affected by it.

  “Nightslayer,” he said to the Sword, “kill some of these monsters, quickly!”

  Nightslayer obeyed and a shattering bolt of electricity arched into the bodies of three nearby trolls, blowing them apart. Bladeborn waded into the midst of the creatures, growing and picking up a small glow globe someone had dropped so he could see. By that light, he began cutting and piercing the beasts right and left. In a minute, he had managed to kill or incapacitate more than a dozen of the horrid things while staying clear of their much longer tridents.

  The trolls were skilled fighters compared to the average soldiers, but they were no match for Bladeborn and Nightslayer. One tried to stab Bladeborn by using its size as an advantage, but Bladeborn sidestepped and with Nightslayer cut through the monster’s chest. Bladeborn’s eyes went black, and he stabbed, slashed, kicked, and killed. The trolls began to fall back. As the fight wore on, and Bladeborn tired, he was hit by the sharp ends of the tridents more frequently, but his armor held him safely.

  Bladeborn was enraged at the losses his adopted people were suffering, yet his fury was not enough to protect them. The humans of the Valleys, the Drommu, and the Dwarves were being dragged away from the column all around him. Even the Elven Knights had trouble standing against the enormous trolls. Bladeborn knew elves and trolls were ancient enemies, yet the sheer numbers of the evil creatures they faced made it seem like a losing battle.

  “How many of them are there, Nightslayer?” Bladeborn thought to the Sword.

  ~~Try to give your people time to escape, Bladeborn! It is their only chance!~~

  A troll pitchfork pierced the chain mail and teak hide shirt under Bladeborn’s armpit down to the bone. Although he nearly dropped his light-source, Bladeborn did not slow his attacks, fighting on, trying to chase away the beasts. Then it seemed all at once that the trolls pulled back. To save a few of his people already taken he pursued them down the rock tubes, into the dark recesses of the world.

  After an uncertain amount of time, Bladeborn cornered the last troll he could find, killing it. His eyes returned to normal and he stood gasping, covered with a dozen or more scratches and bruises. The puncture wound under his arm was pumping blood down his side.

  In the dim light shed by the glow-globe in his off hand, Bladeborn saw that he was in a dead-end passage, surrounded by the bodies of five slain giant trolls. The walls of the area had cryptic writings on them and skulls woven into dead vines.

  ~~ Bladeborn, you must leave this place! It is a Darkling Troll ‘place of power!’ The trolls have led you here for a reason, throwing away their lives away to do so!~~

  Terrible pain suddenly struck inside Bladeborn’s head, so overwhelming that he fell to his knees and cried out. It was almost more than he could endure. Blood trailed from his ears and nose as he held his head. He was still managing to hang on to the glow globe and Nightslayer, but the pain seemed to be growing by the second.

  Unsure if he was dreaming, he though
t he saw a nightmarish, ghostly troll emerge from the side of wall. If what he saw was real, the creature had the ability to dimensionally travel like he did but with greater ease.

  Although this ghost troll was hideous, it looked highly intelligent and wore a golden Elvish-style crown. As the ghost troll’s clawed hand tensed and un-tensed, Bladeborn’s pain increased. Bladeborn sprang on it, wildly swinging Nightslayer, and his desperate action connected solidly, hitting flesh and bone on the creature’s head.

  With an unearthly howl the creature fled, passing back into the wall. The pain was lifted from Bladeborn’s mind, and he ran back up the corridor, away from what he thought was the creature's lair. He was too exhausted and badly wounded to run too far, so he found a more defendable position and took a couple of breaths.

  Soon it dawned on him: the creature could pass through stone. Bladeborn concentrated on using his psychic power to enter the “other” dimension; quickly he looked around. The beast coming right up to him from behind!

  Within that other dimension, Bladeborn stepped through the rock to meet the ghost troll in battle. He swung Nightslayer at its neck to strike the creatures' ugly head from its shoulders, but the thing managed to block with its weird ghost-arm. Nightslayer’s edge was diverted, but not before the creature had howled again, because Bladeborn’s swing nearly severed its hand. As it began backing up, Bladeborn concentrated on blocking the creature’s incredibly powerful Essence-based attacks. Bladeborn reformed his physical self, returning from his dimensional travel into a rock tube, catching a couple breaths.

  “Waaait!” the creature said inside Bladeborn’s mind. It was retreating, and asking to talk.

  “We must speak, human!” the creature wailed in an otherworldly voice at the core of Bladeborn’s consciousness. “Truce, truce. I will not try to harm you now.”

  “What is there to talk of, beast?” Bladeborn demanded, out loud. “First, your trolls kill my people, and then you try to kill me. I should send you back to the Abyss where you were spawned!”