“Let the riders in when they come” Jason replied. “But only if we can close the gate in time, I want melee fighters below every archer and get together a possible attack group. We will defend this gate but if I see a weakness we are going to exploit it.”
Jason started yelling at others he saw just joining the action and putting them where he thought best. Jason thought if anyone could break down the gate they would be faced by an avalanche of arrows, each building had arrow slits and the archers manning them let themselves be seen so Jason could know they were there. Jason nodded to Telfarin as he had someone fetch Jason’s armor from the armory, Jason had three helpers helping him put the thing on and had just finished when he heard a cry coming from one of his people on the wall.
“One of the horses went down” Gillette said loudly. “They are about a half mile away now.”
“Open the gates” Jason yelled as the gates started opening. “As soon as they come inside I want them disarmed and ready to answer questions.”
“Should we go get them?” Telfarin asked.
“Pit no” Jason replied. “They are either going to make it or they are not.”
“They are riding double on a horse” Gillette screamed.
Jason watched in shock as Doroteo came riding through the door holding on to Mellony who was wearing a bloody dress. With them was Grayland who went to fight the men who pulled him off his horse and had their weapons ready.
“How did you know I was here?” Bells said as he snatched up Grayland. “Who is chasing you?”
“Queen Danisha’s people” Grayland said in a hurry.
“Give them their weapons” Jason screamed. “And close the damn gate, get ready to attack at my signal. Someone go get those damn trebuchets, we are going to need at least two of them and I need some longbow archers up here as well.”
“Bells?” Doroteo asked.
“It’s me” Jason replied. “Where is she injured?”
“She took an arrow to the shoulder and has been in and out of consciousness” Doroteo replied.
Jason ripped her dress and could see the bandaged wound and ripped it off. Jason squeezed the area and wrinkled his nose as a milky green and white substance came pouring out. Jason pressed his hand into the area and sent his prayer, he could feel the pressure of his goddess followed by the the feeling of whatever sickness inside of Mellony dissipating. All of the infection came running out of her wound causing anyone around Jason who was looking at him to gasp. Jason could see his entire body was glowing as the wound closed up.
“Get up” Jason said as he gave Mellony a slap across the face.
“Don’t strike the Queen” Grayland screamed as he was held back.
“Where, where am I?” Mellony said grabbing her face.
“I need you to get on your damn feet and find your staff” Jason said as he stood up.
“She lost her staff” Doroteo replied.
“Telfarin” Jason said looking back. “You remember that odd mace I made?”
“You want me to go get it?” Telfarin asked.
“Yes and I need it now” Jason replied.
“What did you do to my dress?” Mellony said covering herself.
“You can remember your modesty when we are not going to be in battle” Jason replied. “Gillette, how many minutes until contact?”
“About two” Gillette replied.
“Mellony I want you over there in that area and ready to fight” Jason said pointing to a spot where some of his ambush archers were gathering. “When I give you the signal I want you to start firing your spells over the wall. Whenever you see the archers over there retreating I want you to join them.”
“How dare you use my name so familiarly” Mellony replied.
“I can throw your ass over that wall and be done with it” Jason snapped. “So what is it going to be?”
When Mellony said nothing Jason gave her the staff he had made. No one in Haven knew he was a mage, Jason decided to get by using his smithing and had made a decent living at it. Gillette gave the signal of enemy at the gates then began speaking.
“Halt” Gillette replied. “Drop your weapons or be destroyed.”
“We are looking for three outlaws” a voice said from over the gate. “Give them to us and we will be on our way.”
“I said drop your weapons” Gillette replied. “This is your last warning.”
“No this is your last warning” came a voice from over the gate.
“Gillette get down” Jason said loudly. “I will speak to the enemy.”
“What are you doing?” Telfarin asked.
“I think they make have mages with them” Jason replied.
“The fuck is a mage?” Telfarin asked.
“You’ll see” Jason replied as he started climbing to the top of the gate.
Jason looked over and saw ten men hanging around the back of the enemy cavalry and noticed their staves. Jason said nothing as he pointed his halberd and sent wave after wave of flame into the mass of men and leaped off the wall and yelled for his troops to fire. The sound of men screaming was soon cut down by the sounds of bows twanging. Jason landed gracefully and was happy to see the trebuchets were rolling into position as many bells and horns were now ringing letting everyone know a battle was happening. The gates started to buckle, Jason was sure the mages were concentrating their fire on the gates. When the gates finally fell, the men on the walls started retreating to a pre planned spot. When the enemy came streaming in they were met with even more arrows causing many to die or flee. Six people made it in though and were surrounded by a shimmering blue mage shield, Mellony blasted into it with her magic and caused it to falter for a bit as arrows slammed into the construct. The mages though were working in conjucture with each other and kept the shield going. Jason banged on the shield with his halberd and was about to turn away and run when an axe passed through the shield without disturbing it and into the chest of one of the mages. Jason turned to see the dwarf Forger who was readying another axe, the dwarf threw it and it passed right through the shield again and into the leg of one of the mages. Jason saw the shield drop and and watched the mages focus their fire on Forger, Jason threw up a mage shield around the dwarf that was shattered immediately by the five remaining mages and grabbed Forger and dove as a lightning spell impacted where they were standing. The mages though left themselves open to other attacks as Jason’s melee fighters closed the distance and started hacking into the group. Only two were able to get their shields up in time but Jason had already seen their weakness, Jason grabbed a hold of the axe that was stuck in a dead mage’s chest and tossed it into the face of one of the shielded mages. The mage went down as Jason ordered the counter attack, the entire fight took about twenty minutes but none of the enemy survived. Jason went to count his dead and was surprised there weren’t any, many people were injured but the enemy had focused their power at the gate instead of the people guarding it.
“Who are they?” Lawson snapped. If Haven had a leader then Lawson was it, he was a no nonsense kind of guy and had fled from some country to the east that had gotten into a war with something he called orcs. Jason at first thought maybe that was just the name of the people but now he wasn’t so sure. He had just seen the metal mithril tear through a magical shield, he could believe anything now.
“The woman is the Queen of Sapin” Jason replied. “The men with her were her guards.”
“Why was she fleeing?” Lawson asked.
“Civil war” Jason replied. “Some kind of coup I am guessing. You need to talk to her to find out the details, I have a wall to rebuild and fast.”
Jason started ordering men to clear the rubble, the mages blasted the gate to spinters and Jason thought the none of it could be salvaged for anything other than fire wood. At least the wall itself was relatively intact, that cut down a lot on the work that would have to be done.
“I saw you” Forger replied. “You got the gift of the goddess Sapina and so does that girl
you let in the gate.”
“So what do you want to make of it?” Jason asked.
“You better take that deepness out your voice when you are talking to me” Forger replied. “I have been splitting heads since before you or your damn Da was born and in case you didn’t notice, Sapina’s gift didn’t save the attackers from me.”
“My past is here” Jason said deflated. “A reminder that I have an enemy that still breathes.”
“Well we will handle that right now” Forger replied. “Which one of them is it?”
“He is back in Sapin” Jason replied. “Technically we are even but some debts can never be repaid.”
“He killed your Da” Forger replied. “You don’t have to deny it, I am well over three hundred years old. I can see the story written on your face.”
“I killed his as well” Jason said with a grim smile. “And cut the bastard’s hand and foot off. I am willing to bet he doesn’t consider us even by a long shot as well.”
“Well fuck him” Forger replied. “Now back to you, I have a story I think you might be interested in hearing. It is about a boy that was supposed to be the vessel for the Sorrow Bringer himself, that is until that boy was rescued by the followers of the light. Does that sound familiar to you?”
“It sounds like something that should be talked about in private” Jason replied. “Whenever this gate is rebuilt, I think I would like to hear it.”
Jason pulled security and was able to get the gate rebuilt in four hours and get all the junk hauled away. He had no idea where Mellony or her guards went but assumed they were with Lawson. Forger waited for him and led Jason to his smithy, Forger’s smithy was built for someone a lot shorter than Jason as Jason had to practically crawl to get around until they went through a metal door where Forger kept his weapons. This place had a higher ceiling and Jason was able to stand but just barely. Forger gestured to a chair and grabbed two tankards which he filled with what Jason thought was ale.
“You make your own ale?” Jason asked.
“You don’t expect me to drink that piss the humans serve do you?” Forger replied.
“About your story” Jason replied.
“The Sorrow Bringer was said to have a plan to walk the earth again” Forger replied. “Gods have the ability to walk the earth, but it takes all of their magic to do so in their native form. The Sorrow Bringer found several work arounds to that though, one was putting his consciousness into a specially made statue. While in the statue he could fight the pull of the lands he and the other gods should be in, but it left him weak. He was only able to imbue very few people with his power, the power to call the dead back to life as undead slaves. The Sorrow Bringer was constantly wanting to take over our world which was seen as paradise, he was met though at every chance by the Light Bringer. The other gods including my own only cared for their people, Smelt cared for the dwarves but was very distrustful of Sapina and the humans. Elvara loved the elves and was distrustful of Smelt. Orcara and Tosen hated each other but normally sided with the Sorrow Bringer, their peoples were always under siege from Sapina’s, Smelt’s and Elvara’s people.”
“What does that have to do with the Sorrow Bringer?” Jason asked.
“Don’t interrupt my story boy” Forger said slamming down his tankard. “Now where was I? Ah yes, back on the Sorrow Bringer. Now the Sorrow Bringer is the strongest of the gods with the Light Bringer Celeste coming in a close second. Unlike most of the others, the Sorrow Bringer did not have a chosen people, anyone could get his blessing. The Sorrow Bringer chose not to give it freely though since he insisted on staying on earth. The Sorrow Bringer had a plan to walk around again and in a living breathing form, a form that would not take too much power to maintain. The other gods are happy where ever they live, they set up barriers all around the land they think of as their own and those barriers would not let in those of another race. The stronger the god the more land they kept for their people. Dwarves got an entire mountain range, it is bigger than many kingdoms put together. Elves got the great forest, and humans got Sapin. Trolls and orcs also got their lands but they are no where near as fertile, the trolls are swamp dwellers and the orcs live in a great desert. Now the barrier was so strong that the Sorrow Bringer could not walk through it in his current form, his plan was for a human child. No one knows where this child came from, was it by birth or unnaturally made. What is known is that a ritual was held and the child was infused with the blood of the other races using great magic, all except for Celeste, at least that was the plan. The dark god wanted to be able to go anywhere, if the body had the blood of the dwarves then he could get into the mountain, if he had the blood of Sapina he could go to Sapin. The best subjects from each race were kidnapped and sacrificed on the dark altar, imbuing the child with the magic from almost all of the races. The Sorrow Bringer was ready to put his consciousness into the boy, first he had to give a significant amount of his own dark power to the babe, that left him weakened to the point he could barely resist the pull to his homeland. His Champion was supposed to sacrifice himself to imbue the power needed for the consciousness to cross over. Instead the Light Bringer’s people found out about it and charged in, the Sorrow Bringer could have still made it into the body except the Light Bringer’s mighty Champion was caught by a lucky blow and fell across the altar as he bled out. His magic poured into the babe, light is the natural enemy of dark and prevented the Sorrow Bringer from coming. That babe was taken by one of the men who slew the Sorrow Bringer’s Champion, I think that babe is you. Everything fits, you have the magic of the dwarves and I saw you shoot fire and heal a woman, I am willing to bet you heal remarkably fast and you are a damn good shot with a bow. You are already built like an orc, I am willing to bet you charge into stupid fights as well, like with whatever enemy you say is still alive. How am I doing so far?”
“How do you know this?” Jason asked.
“Because I used to be a follower of the dark” Forger replied. “I was a complete idiot, I finally saw what was going on and alerted the followers of the light. I am the one that led them to the place. I of course had to go away, the Sorrow Bringer has dwarven followers that know what I did. I don’t know who they are or I would have killed them already. I found Haven just like you did, running from my past. To find other dwarves you would have to travel a couple of weeks in the direction of the south gate. There are some human kingdoms that do trade with the dwarves.”
“Well I think I am that child you spoke of” Jason replied. “As I have gotten older I have noticed more and more things out of the ordinary.”
“I bet you have” Forger replied.
“I want to know more about dwarven magic” Jason replied. “You said the big difference in human and dwarven techniques is the amount of heat and pressure.”
“Humans can only hope to match that or our steady hands” Forger replied. “I want to teach you what I know, dwarves don’t live over 400 years. The way we keep our traditions is with word of mouth, I have no one to pass on my knowledge to or that of my father and his father before him.”
“Then I would be honored” Jason replied.
“Someone is coming” Forger said as Jason heard a small bell tinkling. “Whenever the door to my shop opens that bell over there rings. Follow me up, they may be looking for you.”
Jason followed Forger back through his smithy and into his shop. Behind his counter stood Lawson along with Princess Mellony, Doroteo and Grayland. Jason could see Mellony had tried to fix her dress somewhat and Doroteo and Grayland were armed. Lawson pointed to Jason and began to speak.
“Is this your boy?” Lawson said looking at Grayland.
“That is him” Grayland replied.
“These three are your problem now” Lawson replied. “They need a place to stay and some jobs. The woman goes on the watch, I never thought we would have a Sapin mage here and it turns out we got two. Why didn’t you ever say anything?”
“Because it wasn’t your business” Jason
replied.
“Well it is now” Lawson replied. “We aint never really saw eye to eye Bells, but I am in charge here. Most of your work needs to be in healing or protecting our gates, not toiling away at the smithy.”
“And I will not do either” Jason replied. “If you want to make something of it I can be gone by nightfall. Another place is bound to take me in.”
“We will talk about it another time” Lawson replied. “The council has to meet on this.”
Jason watched Lawson leave the shop and noticed the open stares Forger was getting from the Sapinians. Jason crossed his arms and cleared his throat as Forger let out a laugh.
“Don’t any of you have any manners?” Jason asked.
“Forgive me master dwarf” Doroteo replied. “I have never seen a dwarf before. And Bells I was not trying to insult your friend.”
“Why are you three here?” Jason asked. “Before you start, we are all equals in this room. Don’t expect any honorifics from me and I don’t expect any from you.”
“You left me” Mellony replied.
“And I just saved your life” Jason replied. “Still doesn’t answer my question.”
“Where do you want me to begin?” Grayland asked.
“How about just after I stuck that fat baron” Jason replied. “That was one of the best days I have ever had. I even cut some pounds off Patrick, the next day I saw the massive amount of people who poured into the Untamed Lands looking for me.”
“There was only one direction no one wanted to search so I figured you came this way” Grayland replied.
“I had to do a lot of killing and running to get here to Haven” Jason replied. “How did you make it?”
“By doing the same” Grayland replied. “The king died soon after the tournament. Her Highness tried to kick the prince out of the castle soon after. He refused and a fight happened, Prince Adam was killed during it. Danisha was incensed, she ended up having greater allies than was previously thought and a battle ensued, we won the majority of them but at a great toll, most of the mages had been killed off. Danisha the false Queen had been in hiding for a while and was able to win sympathy and in a daring feat successfully attacked the castle due to trickery and the many traitors she had secretly within the palace. That was five months ago, we fought to get the castle back but by this time the people were tired of war. That and Danisha’s new husband was able to get her pregnant despite her age. The new king is powerful indeed and beat back three of our assassins by himself. He kept one alive who told him of where the real Queen was hiding. Me, Doroteo and her majesty received just a little warning before we were overran. We fled to the Untamed Lands and I remember where I thought you could have headed. It was stupid to do so really but we had no other options, they had expert trackers and enough power to bring down any small settlement. They got close to us a few times but eventually we got here. The ten mages they sent were half of what is remaining in Sapin and that may be too generous.”
The Warrior of Sapin Page 15
