Soul Forge Saga Box Set

by Richard Stephens

  Yarstaff felt self-conscious as everybody studied him.

  “Now begone. Attend to your duties. We have hard days ahead,” King Malcolm ordered. As the crowd dispersed he addressed Yarstaff and Pollard. “Please accept my apologies on behalf of my people. They have been through a lot.”

  Pollard slid his blade into its scabbard. “No apologies necessary, Your Majesty. I imagine my friend’s appearance is unsettling given the nature and proximity of Helleden’s army. I was shocked the first time I saw the Voil.” He dropped his hand on top of Yarstaff’s head and gave him a playful shake. “But know that what Yarstaff and his people lack in size, they make up for with heart. With all due respect, my liege, I would choose Yarstaff to ward my back over any two men you might handpick. That is no lie.”

  Malcolm smiled at Yarstaff. “Those are strong words indeed, Yarstaff. I do not doubt Pollard’s sincerity. I pray you allow my kingdom the chance to adjust to your people’s presence. Given time, you’ll come to know we are decent people.”

  Yarstaff bowed his head. “You don’t have to convince me, King Malcolm. I’ve gotten to know a few of your citizens quite well recently.” He beamed up at Pollard. “They have been nothing but kind to me.”

  “Excellent.” Malcolm turned his attention to the newly erected stables. “Captain Pik. We need to take a quick accounting of my bannermen.”

  Pantyr Korn cleared his throat. “If I may, Your Highness? I’ve already seen to that detail. In fact, several riders have returned from the west and the south.”

  The king looked impressed. “Excellent Pantyr. Hopefully our riders will meet up on the road. What news have you?”

  “Thunderhead and Storms End have both suffered grievous losses, but their commanders have promised troops by the full moon. The survivors from The Forke and Millsford are here in Carillon.”

  “All of them?” the king interrupted, looking around in dismay.

  “Aye, Your Highness. They are being housed near the south gate.”

  Malcolm nodded grimly.

  “On a happier note, Songsbirth was spared and reports out of Gritian claim that the firestorm fell short of their position. High Bishop Uzziah beseeches you to travel to him post haste. His Eminence fears you have been lost, but I sent a rider early this morning to inform the Chamber that is not the case.”

  “That’s excellent news indeed,” the king nodded. “With any luck, everything south of the Undying Wall is unaffected as well.”

  “Aye, Your Highness, but considering the distance, those riders have yet to return to confirm that. Of more concern, though, are the northern riders. None have reported back.”

  Malcolm gave the retired captain a knowing look. “Aye, nor do I expect to hear from them. We received news the day before the firestorm of Kraidic forces marching down the Slither.”

  “I had no idea, Your Highness,” Pantyr said, his eyes widening. “I have sent the riders to their death.”

  “You couldn’t have known. We must hold out hope that they’re slow returning. Perhaps they decided to reconnoitre Helleden’s army.”

  A silence settled over the group. Yarstaff followed them into the new stables, the smell of hay, tack, and manure overwhelmed his senses. Stall after stall lined the back wall of the building, a horse in each one, their heads poking into the hay covered aisle, observing the king’s company as it stopped before each compartment to admire them.

  “You have done a fine job here Pantyr. How many do we have?”

  “In this stable?” Pantyr shrugged. “Fifty.”

  King Malcolm nodded. It was better than nothing, but not enough to make a difference when Helleden came calling.

  “Plus twice that near the south gate,” Pantyr added.

  “And the outstanding riders?”

  Pantyr did a quick calculation on his fingers. “Counting the northern riders, probably fifteen, or so.”

  “Less than two hundred.”

  “Aye, Your Highness.”

  Malcolm turned his attention to Captain Pik. “How long do you think it’ll take to mobilize everyone left in Carillon?”

  “To fight, Sire?” Pik was taken aback by the sudden question.

  “No Pik. To flee.”

  Marble Eyes

  Serpentine shadows slithered across the open square, curling and undulating in rapid succession amongst the weed infested cobblestones, the air alive with a rattling hiss.

  Snakes? Silurian followed his sister’s lead and climbed atop one of the stone slabs beneath the gibbet tree. He leaned out to get a better look at the countless shapes twisting their way toward the wizard’s gibbet. “What the hell are they?”

  The runes on Melody’s staff glowed brightly in the darkness. Silurian feared it had caught fire. His sister turned small circles atop the stone slab she had selected, two over from his own, and concentrated on whatever wizards did when danger lurked. She didn’t respond.

  The irony wasn’t lost on him. Here they were, in the middle of the town everyone referred to as Wizard’s Gibbet, standing on the very stones the magic users’ persecutors had constructed to hang them, but instead of looking up to view the instrument of their demise, he and his sister were looking down—at long, slender predators, no thicker than a gallows’ noose.

  Whatever they were, the entire square writhed with them, their eerie hissing dominating the night air, making Silurian’s skin crawl.

  They definitely weren’t what he had sensed in the building a little while ago. A blast of light shot into the bulk of the mass nearest Melody’s side of the tree. The impact churned up the ground, throwing bricks, dirt and screeching creatures into the air. The unexpected conflagration startled Silurian, almost dislodging him from the false safety of his perch.

  Melody’s eyes rolled back into her head, the top of her staff pointed outward. The glowing runes dimmed considerably, but as she chanted her strange words, they increased in brightness, flaring up to send another charge into the squirming mass—closer this time, on his side of the tree.

  Silurian staggered as the concussion shook the ground. Dirt and slimy chunks of the blasted creatures pummeled him. A full-sized cobblestone whistled by his head, pelting the gallows tree behind him.

  The two explosions had served to halt the advance of the snake-like creatures, but it hadn’t averted the attack.

  The dark mass of hissing creatures lifted beak-like faces and scaled, tubular bodies into the air, balancing on tiny, clawed feet and sniffed in their general direction.

  From the upper story windows of the buildings lining the square, Silurian watched in horror as hundreds upon hundreds crawled like giant centipedes along the walls. Unless Melody was able to fire her staff quicker, it wouldn’t be long until the sheer mass of creatures overwhelmed them. His sword would be of little use against a swarm of the creatures.

  More hissing sounded behind the tree. He spun around. The creatures were filling in the roadway behind them, cutting off their only escape route.

  “Mel,” he said sharply, but she didn’t appear to hear him, her concentration absolute. “Melody!”

  He jumped from his slab toward her, bounding quickly across the gaps, and vaulted onto her stone. He clutched her robes to prevent himself from falling.

  Her pupils dropped back down to where they should be, her face clouded in confusion. “What the…what are you doing?”

  “Mel, we have to get out of here. There are too many of them. You need to clear a path.” Silurian pointed north, behind the gibbet tree, to where the apparition had fled up the roadway. Even as he spoke, he realized that Melody wouldn’t be able to clear the serpents fast enough. Not knowing what to do, he turned to see the original mass of writhing creatures had overcome the shock of Melody’s blasts and were advancing again.

  Melody dipped her head and rolled her eyes back into her head, the vision disconcerting to Silurian.

  His own eyes were wide, darting every which way at once, and then it hit him. “Mel!”

  When
she didn’t respond, he grabbed her shoulders and shook hard. “Mel! Listen to me!”

  Melody’s pupils dropped into place. “What happened? What’s the matter?”

  Silurian grabbed the small leather bag hanging under her arm inside the folds of her cloak. “We need that brick.”

  Melody wrested the bag away from him. “Don’t touch that. You don’t know what you’re doing.”

  “Okay, okay. Just grab that brick.”

  She gave him a puzzled look but she flipped open the flap and rummaged about.

  His heightened anxiety made him want to rip the bag from her hand to expedite the process. It shouldn’t be that hard to pick a chunk of a brick out of a small bag, but he steadied himself with the knowledge that it was a wizard’s bag.

  “Here it is.” Melody withdrew the bundled object and carefully revealed it, all the while Silurian gestured with his hands for her to hurry up, and give it to him.

  She did so, carefully.

  “Great. Now make your eyes disappear and do whatever it is you do to fire up that stick.”

  “Staff.”

  “I’m going to throw this into the middle of the street, near the square’s exit. Do you think you can zap it?”

  “I don’t know. I guess so. I’m not sure how accurate I am. I usually just say the words and the staff reacts. It’s not like I’ve competed in a competition or anything.”

  “Fine, Mel, fine. Just do it.”

  Melody took a steadying breath. Somehow, amidst the tension and the ruckus in the square, she withdrew into her wizard trance. Her eyes rolled back and the dully glowing staff runes brightened.

  Silurian waited, watching the glow increase in intensity. When he thought it was time, he adjusted his grip on the brick and tossed it toward the square’s exit.

  The triangular brick rotated slowly in the air as it arced through the bright background light of the rising moon.

  The brick dropped from the sky, its flight shorter than he had hoped. As soon as it hit the ground, the entire square shuddered beneath his feet. Before he realized what had happened, a deafening report reached his ears on the cusp of a shockwave that catapulted him backward from the gibbet slab.

  Had he the time to think about it, his first thought would’ve been of the bed of serpents he was being thrown into, but as the unguent on the brick detonated, his world blurred.

  He landed heavily on his back, well short of the line of advancing creatures, knocking the wind from him. Wracked in pain, unable to draw a breath, he searched for his sister through watery eyes. She lay closer to the mass of serpents, unmoving in a tangle of dark blue robes and black cloak.

  He rose to his knees, forcing himself to suck in air—the action opening up his throat. Heaving breaths, he half crawled, half stumbled, ignoring his discomfort in a desperate attempt to get to Melody. Just beyond her out-flung arm lay her staff, its fading runes visible along the length of dark wood.

  “Mel, get up.” He shook her, on the verge of panic.

  Her head lolled to one side. Her crazed eyes fluttered open, darting everywhere at once. She sat up. “My staff!”

  Silurian retrieved it and pulled her to her feet, shoving the staff into her hands.

  She checked for the leather bag. With a relieved sigh she pulled it free of her tangled robes and shoved it safely back into place.

  Silurian grabbed her arm, nearly yanking her off her feet. “Come on!”

  They ran through the gibbet stones, passing beyond the tree before stopping, flabbergasted.

  A shallow crater stretched out ahead of them, its far edges bordering the two buildings flanking the exit street. The fronts of the buildings had collapsed entirely. A pile of rubble congested the street beyond, but there wasn’t a serpent in sight.

  “Did I do that?” Melody looked at her staff in wonder.

  “No. That was the brick all by itself.”

  “Wow. Maybe it’s a good thing it didn’t go off when you threw it at that building back there.”

  Silurian nodded. “You might want to reconsider the next time you think about using that cave blowy up stuff.”

  Behind them, the sound of serpents regrouping got their feet moving. They navigated the deep ruts in the shallow crater and clambered over the rubble of the demolished buildings. Without stopping to look back, they scrambled up the street on their way out of Wizard’s Gibbet.

  By the time they reached the southern gates leading out of town, the moon had dropped below the treeline of the eastern reaches of Spectre Wood.

  Without thinking, Silurian walked across the invisible threshold of the city’s southern gate posts. His entire body spasmed.

  Melody walked through behind him and stopped, startled to see his reaction as he stumbled free of the gate enclosure. The runes on her staff pulsed softly.

  “It did it again,” Silurian said, scowling at the vacant gateway.

  “Ah, another ward.” Melody inspected the stone pillars framing the gap in the city wall. “Funny, I can’t detect anything.”

  “Ya, real funny. Look at your staff.”

  “Hmm, it senses an essence of magic.”

  “Be nice if it sensed it sooner,” Silurian muttered, running his fingers through his long, static-charged hair.

  “Come, let’s be away from here. As a wizard, I don’t appreciate this place.” Melody entered the thick forest abutting the wall.

  Silurian gave the city gate one last glare, before fast-stepping to catch up. Any brightness left in the night sky was swallowed by the dense wood. “Do you know where we’re going?”

  “More or less.”

  “Great, so, no?”

  Melody laughed. “Not exactly. We’re in the eastern reaches of Spectre Wood. To our left lies the beginning of the Wilds. We certainly don’t want to go that way. To the west,” she gestured right, “lies over a week’s worth of walking through the bulk of Spectre Wood. I don’t fancy that way either. Besides, the Kraidic Empire lies that way. So, south it is.”

  “But that’ll take us into the Innerworld, won’t it?”

  “Ye have little faith, oh brother of mine. You forget you travel with a wizard.”

  “Mm.” Silurian didn’t sound convinced.

  Melody gave him a playful shove in the shoulder causing him to stumble. “Don’t you worry. The Wizard of the North is known for her divine guidance.”

  Silurian caught himself and raised skeptical eyebrows.

  “We have a good four days trek through these haunted woods. With any luck, we’ll come across the shores of the Lake of the Lost. From there, it’s an easy jaunt west to the Slither.”

  Silurian cast his gaze into the darkened wood all around. “Haunted?”

  Melody laughed again. “What do you think happened to the murdered spirits of all those wizards?”

  Silurian swallowed and checked over his shoulder. Already, Wizard’s Gibbet was lost from sight. “I don’t know. I never gave it much thought.”

  “Spectre Wood is home to the anguished souls of hundreds of slain wizards. That’s why no one in their right mind ever comes this way.”

  Silurian’s neck hairs stood on end. Perhaps the Wilds were a better option.

  “You needn’t worry about the spirits as long as I’m with you. I’m a kindred spirit. If anything, they’ll provide protection for as long as we remain within Spectre Wood. Besides, we are on the outskirts. I pity anyone travelling into the heart of the haunted forest. That’s where the true danger lies.”

  Silurian wasn’t sure that made him feel any better.

  Sitting around a campfire overlooking the Lake of the Lost, four days out of Wizard’s Gibbet, Silurian and Melody licked grease from their fingers. The carcass of a small turkey crackled within the dying flames.

  “Now that was a meal,” Silurian said. He got up from the rock he had been sitting on and threw some more bits of scavenged wood onto the fire. He laid down next to the pile of brush and settled in, enjoying the warmth. The night promised to
be the chilliest yet since leaving the upper reaches of Dragon’s Tooth. The fire’s rhythmic crackle and pop, accompanied by the flickering shadows it cast on the trees around them, was hypnotic. He closed his eyes. Other than not being able to forget about the wraith that had spied on them back in Wizard’s Gibbet, he felt more content than he had in a long, long time. He found himself searching the woods for any sign of the wraith, but hadn’t sensed its presence since.

  Melody remained on a fallen log on the far side of the fire, gazing at the full moon’s reflection on the lake’s surface, the hint of a smile on her face.

  They had put many leagues behind them but Zephyr and Castle Svelte still seemed like a lifetime away. She had been forced to act like a wizard on a couple of occasions now, and the results hadn’t been reassuring. She obviously wasn’t confident of her skills. They were erratic at best.

  Silurian’s voice noticeably startled her. “What are you thinking about?”

  “Huh? Oh, nothing.”

  She blinked. “Come on, I know you better than that. You never think of nothing.”

  She remained quiet for a time. When she spoke, he had to listen closely. “I was thinking about Phazarus. About how different old Marble Eyes was. How kind he was.”

  Silurian propped himself on an elbow. Marble Eyes? “Phazarus? You actually liked him? Even after what he did to you?”

  Melody mulled over his words and nodded. “Yes, actually. Not at first, mind you. I guess you had to know him. Sure, he was gruff with outsiders. Leeches, he often called them. People who never took the time to figure out the solutions to their problems. He once said to me, ‘If you possess the awareness to pose a question, then you possess the wisdom to formulate the answer. Laziness is the culprit.’”

  “Seemed like a strange duck to me,” Silurian grunted.

  Melody smiled, her eyes dreamy. “Perhaps. I can see why you might think that. But smart, let me tell you. The things he said…the places he claimed to have visited. At first, I doubted everything he said. I thought to myself, ‘there’s no way one man could’ve seen and did what he claimed,’ but thinking back to all that’s happened since I was taken, I’m inclined to believe the merit of his tales. And, that’s got me thinking.”