Vlad'War's Anvil

by Rex Hazelton

  The Brie'Shen had chosen to build their homes with stone for two reasons: first, stone acted as camouflage, and two, wood was difficult to transport to this remote, rocky place. The persistent mists that wafted over the mountain side made the smoke coming out of the smoke holes a none issue.

  The village itself was built along a single road that wound its way through a side gorge that emptied into the nearby canyon. A spring, found in a rocky grotto provided water, along with rain that rushed through a channel dug into the center of the gorge after each storm. Forraging and hunting provided food, along with whatever crops they could get to grow in the gorge's narrow expanse. Since the Brie'Shen numbers had been depleted by Ab'Don's military campaign against them following Pearl becoming Mar’Gul, larger crops weren't needed. With the clans scattered about the mountain heights as they were, such was the way they fed themselves.

  An occasional raid carried out on those living in the distant lowlands supplimented the Brie'Shen's meager supplies. Not wanting to draw too much attention to themselfs, these were few and far between. And none were aimed at their neighbors who, more likely than not, were hiding from Ab'Don just like the Brie'Shen were.

  Night had finally arrived aand the villagers were gathered in a large structure whose roof had been lost in a past quake. Many of those outside could watch what was happening by looking over the top of the areas in the walls that fell away with the roof, and there were many. With loose rocks used for chairs and tables, and the wood from the destroyed roof utilized to make a larger fire than normal, a meal was in the offering when Aeroth stood and finally spoke.

  "I have listened to all you have to say." Aeroth words bit into the air. Hair as black as a raven's feathers, and curly as a gar goat's fleece, framed a face as white as fresh cream and just as smooth. In the fire's dancing light the contrast in color gave Aeroth a spectral aspect. His dark eyes looked dangerous as he added, "And I don't like what I've heard, not when we're talking about freeing a man whose father killed my own."

  "Ashes!" Bacchanor bellowed. "It's the Hammer Bearer you're talking about."

  "I've seen his hammer and felt its power," Aeroth looked at his people as he spoke. "But what good did that do my father? The man you're talking about is a Bringer of Death and a Breaker of Oaths. Why would I want to free him from the punishment he deserves? Why would I kick against fate's goads? So, more fathers can die and more promises can be broken?"

  "What promises?" Bacchanor, one of three Nyeg Warlers in the gathering, was the logical one to defend his friend. Jeaf's sons, who carried his blood in their veins, wouldn't do.

  "Ask the Neflin." Aeroth's jaw muscles tightened as he looked at the Lorn Elves who sat among them. "Jeaf Oakenfel promised he would return to them after he found Andara's Tears, and not run off like the so-called Elf-Man did when he first gathered the healing talismans. But he proved to be cut from the same cloth, leaving the Neflin to deal with the messy aftermath of his ill-begotten quest that spilled out of the Lorn Forest and nearly destroyed the Brie'Shen as a people."

  Knowing the legend of the Death Blades, fully apprised of Aeroth's volitile nature and his predilection for duels, Bacchanor rightly guessed the Wylder wanted to fight the Oakenfel brothers to appease his need to avenge his father's death. But he wouldn't let that happen. If he couldn't placate the Wylder, Bacchanor planned on antagonizing Aeroth enough to make him turn his anger towards him.

  "Burn it to ashes, Aeroth," Bacchanor spoke with a bravado he knew would irritate the Wylder, "If you had half a brain, you'd know there was no way Jeaf could’ve returned. Besides, I stayed behind in his sted."

  "You stayed behind to bed Mar’Gul." Aeroth summerized the situation with uncanny accuracy. Bacchanor's infatuation with the woman, who was called Black Pearl at the time, had kept him in Ar Warl. It wasn't some altruistic act meant to honor the Hammer Bearer's promise.

  Caught in a well-meaning lie, Bacchanor laughed in a way that only he could as he realized the folly in his own argument. "Of course, you're right." The Brown Wizard laughed some more. "I stayed because I was falling in love with your cousin. But, by being here I've showed you Jeaf Oakenfel's heart through my actions."

  Bacchanor squared his shoulders as he added, "Aeroth, you know that I'm a man who can be trusted, and I swear by my love for Mar’Gul, Jeaf Oakenfel can be trusted too."

  "He can be trusted to use us as as pawns in the game he's playing with Ab'Don." Bits of spittle flew out of Aeroth's mouth along with the sarcasm that accompanied his words. "What does Jeaf Oakenfel care for the Brie'Shen? Would he die for the Neflin? NO! So we'll not die for him. And we'll certainly not follow his sons. Who are they to ask us to make sacrifices? Have they won honor in battle? Do they even know how to fight?"

  "Aye, we do." Ay'Roan slowly rose to his feet under Bacchanor's disapproving gaze. As tall as he was, Ay'Roan was an imposing figure indeed.

  "Then prove it." Aeroth smiled a crooked smile. "Do you have a sword?"

  "I carry one as you can see." Ay'Roan stood with his arms folded. Now was not a time for meekness, not when he wanted the men who were watching to risk their lives to save his father. "But what's that to you?"

  "Because you'll need it Big Man," Aeroth spoke with the calmness of one who had gone down this road many times before. "I told your father that I would kill him if mine ended up dying. Since his cowardess kept him from returning to face me, you'll have to take his place. Then, when I take your life, he'll feel the pain that I did when I lost my father."

  "Father!" Pororth had waited as long as he could before speaking. "Ay'Roan's a good man."

  "Be quiet Poroth. You still have a father. I lost mine."

  "You're wrong." Mar’Gul stood and looked at her cousin with eyes filled with green fire. "When Aryl died, Jeaf felt the same pain you did."

  "You mean, your father don't you." Aeroth's words were cold. "Wasn't Aryl the man who left your mother when she needed him most?"

  Turning from Mar’Gul back to Ay'Roan Aeroth added, "Your fathers are good at leaving. My guess is, so are you Big Man. It's just a matter of time before it happens."

  "I take it you want to fight." Ay'Roan knew that Ar Warl held dangers for him, and he figured Aeroth would be tough to handle, but the depth of his animosity was unexpected. Still, the unexpected had to be expected on a quest like this. So, he tapped his sword's hilt with his forefinger and added, "Are you calling me out?"

  From what Ay'Roan had been told about Ar Warl, weakness was despised in this place. If he was being challenged, he knew it would be a mistake to turn it down.

  "Ay'Roan," J'Aryl tried to stand, but couldn't because his brother quickly placed a hand on his shoulder.

  "It's alright," Ay'Roan quietly replied. "We never thought our quest would be a stroll in the woods did we?"

  Not paying attention to the brothers’ exchange, Aeroth said with calculating composure, "Yes, I'm calling the son of the coward Jeaf Oakenfel out."

  Tossing his cloak aside, Ay'Roan replied, "As you wish Old Man."

  But Aeroth didn't look old at all. There was no gray in his hair, nor were there wrinkles on his face. It was like time stood still for him the moment he uttered his threat to Jeaf Oakenfel twenty winters past, waiting for the moment when the threat could be carried out. And that moment had finally arrived.

  After conferring with his companions, who reluctantly agreed with him that Aeroth's challenge could not be avoided, Ay'Roan stepped out into a street lit with torchlight. There, in the uneven glow, stood a man who held the Death Blades in his hands, a man whose pale complection made him look like a wraith bent on killing the living.

  "Know this," Aeroth shouted. "I do this to not only avenge my father's death, but also to avenge the deaths of all the Brie'Shen that Ab'Don has salughtered. For this man's father brought the Sorcerer's wrath down upon us."

  "That's not true." Mar’Gul shouted just as loud as Aeroth had. "The Sorcerer tried to destroy the Brie'Shen because Andara chose me to be the new M
ar'Gul, a choice that fed his fear that we carry the blood of the Fane J'Shrym in our veins. And that is not a lie. We are the last of the race that prophecy says will bring the Sorcerer's reign to an end. We are Fane J'Shrym. So is the man that Aeroth wants to kill."

  "Yes," Aeroth bellowed, "we're Fane J'Shrym, the Chosen Ones. And what has that gotten us? Nothing, except contempt from the people we're supposed to save, and death from the one we're supposed to defeat. So don't dump that fire-blasted rubbish on us again. We have little left save our honor and weapons, and I'm determined to use both this night."

  With that said, Aeroth moved on Ay'Roan, twirling his blades in front of him as he did. A seasoned warrior, whose exceptional skills in hand-to-hand combat earned him the role of Wylder to the Brie'Shen clans, Aeroth was without peer in the use of swords. Equally good with either hand, employing twin blades, he dispensed death as easily as a housewife serves up breakfast. Fueled by a mountain of resentment that had built up over twenty long winters, then hardened into the dogged resolve he now displayed, Aeroth was set on finishing what he told Jeaf he would to him if his father died. He was set on killing. And maybe when the killing was done, his torment over losing his father the way he did would finally end.

  Facing the whirling Death Blades, Ay'Roan was not without his own resources. He was strong as a bull. Though tall and well-muscled, he was fast too, a fact Aeroth would soon discover. Ay'Roan had also been trained by the greatest swordsmen Nyeg Warl had to offer; as had each of his brothers. A Master Swordsman himself, Jeaf Oakenfel put his sons through rigorous paces as soon as they could stand. Though a young man, Ay'Roan was a skilled swordsman whose only defficiency was his limited battle experience.

  Aeroth, on the other hand, lacked the level of sophisticated training Ay'Roan had. But he made up for this with the littany of duels and battles he had fought. Raised in Ar Warl's crucible of violence had made Aeroth a fierce fighter, one whose cunning was just as sharp as his beloved Death Blades. He was a warrior utterly committed to doing whatever needed to be done to win a battle.

  Ay'Roan had never faced a man like Aeroth before. None of Nyeg Warl's Masters were forged in such a fire. The hunchmen he trained with were the closet to the Wylder in temperament. Though the elves of Forest Deep provided training in swordsmanship that was both exotic and complex, their instruction lacked the raw ferocity that made Aeroth as dangerous as he was.

  Still, Ay'Roan was the son of the Prophetess and Hammer Bearer. As such he had been impacted by magic in the same way that Ar Warl's violence had affected Aeroth. Possessing Powers of Intuition that equated to a high degree of inherent battle intelligence, Ay'Roan was endowed with a measure of Vlad'War's Magic that increased his strength and speed while toughening his skin, making it hard to breach with either sword or spear. He also had inherited the Elf Queen's blessing that had heightened his father's senses and his awareness of the natural warl that surrounded him.

  Taking all of this into account, the duel promised to be a good one. It was too bad someone had to die. For the loss of either Ay'Roan or Aeroth would be a blow to all who hoped to see the Sorcerer's reign come to an end.

  As the blades collided, Aeroth's twin swords and Ay'Roan's sword and long knife, the noise they made was like the loud pinging of a metal rod being drug violently along the spokes of an iron wheel. Clang. Clang. Clang. Clang. On and on the methodical sound went as the two men took time to get a feel for one another. Then the rod picked up its pace. Faster and faster it went as the bright sound of steel striking steel became one long, quivering note.

  Using a time proven tactic, Aeroth twirled the blade he wielded in his left hand in a way that would strike his opponent's wrist and divest them of the weapon they held in their own left hand. In this case the target was Ay'Roan's long knife. Aeroth was surprised when the usually reliable maneuver failed to accomplish its objective.

  Having struck Ay'Roan's wrist, just as he had planned on doing, Aeroth's lightning fast blade did little more than draw a few drops of blood from the shallow cut it made. Vlad'War's Magic, that absorbed the brunt of the blow to such a degree Ay'Roan's skin was spared from being badly cut, had seen to that.

  Instead of gaining an advantage with his move, Aeroth found that Ay'Roan not only survived his tactic, but also retaliated by catching his twin blades at the hilts as they crossed near to one another, using his own sword's hand guard and the long knife to complete the feat. After shoving the Wylder backwards, he moved forward, lifted his foot, and drove his boot into the side of his opponent's knee before he had time to regain his balance.

  If Aeroth hadn't turned away when he did, diminishing the blow's force, his knee would have been torn apart by the force of Ay'Roan's attack.

  Ay'Roan followed this up with a quick thrust of his sword that reached a button on the Wylder's black, woolen shirt and no farther.

  Knocking the threat aside with one blade, Aeroth regained his footing in time to duck under Ay'Roan's arm and cut his ribs with his other blade. A second pass was caught by Ay'Roan's long-knife and turned aside.

  With Ay'Roan's shirt sliced open, little blood appeared at the edges of the cut he sustained.

  What is this? Aeroth stepped away to take stock of what had happened. The boy's hide is harder to cut than tree bark.

  After a windmill like flurry, that appeared to be more a defensive than offensive move, the Wylder gritted his teeth as he lunged forward to strike at his tall opponent's shoulder. Once again, Ay'Roan used his long knife to block the thrust as he whipped around and cut Aeroth across his back.

  Like Ay'Roan, Aeroth's shirt had been sliced open; unlike him, blood was quick to soak the black shirt the Wylder wore.

  Whirling away from the blow, Aeroth crouched down with most of his weight on his front foot and swept a blade across Ay'Roan's thigh, once again ruining his clothing but doing little damage to his person.

  A moment later, the two men were busy exchanging blows that came so fast that the onlookers had a hard time distinguishing one blade from another within the pale of the torchlight that illuminated the death match.

  Speed and strength were joined in a graceful dance whose partners tried to embrace each other with the edges of their razor sharp swords. If it weren't so deadly, the duel might be mistaken for a work of art or a theaterical production that was meant to astound the audience with its intricately designed choreography. But choreography had no part in this fight. The skill each man possessed only made it seem that way, skill that warded off each other's relentless assault.

  Siezing an opportunity, Ay'Roan used his size and strength to forcefully deflect both Death Blades with his sword when they passed close enough to one another for this to happen. But this time he didn't shove the Wylder off balance. Instead, he lifted the twin blades high enough for his long knife to pass beneath. Reaching Aeroth's ribs, the blade bit at his flesh and the bone it covered.

  Leaping away before the long knife could cut too deeply, the Wylder created enough space between he and Ay'Roan so he had time to reach down and touch the bloody wound with the heel of one of his hands.

  "Father," Poroth shouted as he reached for his own sword, for now he understood. If Ay'Roan killed his father, he would have no choice but to exact revenge on the son of Jeaf Oakenfel. Family honor and his love for Aeroth demanded this.

  Seeing Poroth take hold of his sword, though he had refrained from unsheathing it, J'Aryl instinctively did the same thing. The moment he touched his weapon's handle, it gave off a burst of blue light that could be seen radiating out of the space that lay between the hand guard and the sheath that housed the blade. A moment later the light went out on J'Aryl's weapon, only to appear on the blade his brother held. Then it too went out as Ay'Roan looked down at his sword.

  After he lifted the blade for closer inspection, the light flicked back on like it was a firefly cruising through the cool evening air. Then it went out again, except for the faintest trace of illumination that remained on the weapon's sharp edge. The
subdued quality of the persistent blue light made it look like the magic that created the sword was either in the process of going to sleep or waking up. If it was waking, J'Aryl's response to Poroth's movements had aroused the sleeper.

  Could it be the two swords had communicated with each other? Was Vlad'War's Magic able to converse with itelf? Did the portion of the wizard's power, melded into J'Aryl's blade as it was, warn its counterpart in Ay'Roan's blade that treachery was afoot? Did a bond exist between the swords that were reforged on top of Vlad'War's Anvil? The way the blue light appeared, first flashing out of J'Aryl's sword and then out of Ay'Roan's, made this a distinct possibility.

  Enraged that one as young as Ay'Roan had wounded him so, Aeroth went on a rampage that exhausted every move he had tucked away in his deadly bag of tricks. Fainting, attacking, side-stepping, ducking, whirling about, retreating, and then attacking again, the Wylder moved so fast that a slow-witted person might mistake him for being more than one person.

  Only Ay'Roan's reach advantage kept him from being grievously wounded. Since his skin was not impervious to attack, if sufficient force were used, either in quantity or intensity, his flesh could be breached. And Ay'Roan knew it, since he had been told the story of how Arachnamor drove her fangs into Bear's chest at the Battle of the Temple of the Oak Tree even though Vlad'War's Magic had taken up residence in the giant's body. And once the magic's protective shell was punctured, the giant spider injected venom into her doomed adversary.

  Time after time, Aeroth's blades struck home, cutting at Ay'Roan's arms, legs, and chest, extracting blood that liberally stained his garments. But even though young Oakenfel was put on the defense, his sword magic was taking a toll on the busy Death Blades by notching their edges each time they met. And as each notch was exacted, the muted blue light flared up at the point of impact.