by Sam Ferguson
Another leg moved in to crush him and it was all Maernok could do to evade the strike. The spider spat more venom. It missed Maernok’s eyes, but a bit of it managed to land on his pauldron. It sizzled and bubbled as the venom ate through the metal in his armor. The spider then fired three globs of web. Maernok dodged the first two, but the third latched onto his weapon and then the spider yanked it from his grasp.
The spider lunged in to strike with its fangs, but undaunted Maernok leapt up and came down hard with a gauntleted fist the connected with one of the spider’s eyes and crushed it. The spider recoiled again, screaming and hissing, but it was not retreating. It lashed out with its stinger. Maernok lifted his right arm and spun away just as the stinger grazed the front of his breastplate. In a flash, Maernok seized the stinger with his left hand, pulled it backward against the spider’s thrust, and then came in with a hard right punch. The stinger ripped loose and the spider stumbled away to the side.
Maernok held the bloody stinger high in the air and shouted at the spider. The spider hissed and bared its fangs. That gave Maernok an idea. As the spider started to advance slowly toward him once more, he side-stepped toward the cleaved snake head. It was much closer to him than his sword, and the fangs were each as long as a spear.
When he was close enough, just as the spider poised to pounce, he threw the stinger at the spider and ran for the snake’s head. The spider flinched only momentarily and then launched into the air. Maernok dove for the upper left fang and twisted it upward as he rolled over it. The fang, still dripping with venom, turned upward and the point drove straight through the gargantuan spider’s body as the spider came down. Its fangs stopped within a foot of Maernok’s face and the spider offered its last squealing hiss before falling to the side.
Maernok pulled himself out from under the spider and moved to collect his sword once more. Despite his victories, his army was losing. His archers had run out of arrows and were now joined in trying to climb the ladders. That might have been a good thing, except there was a mountain of a man atop the walls crushing every ladder the orcs had put up. There were only three left, and the humans were swarming around them and easily fending off the orcs.
He looked back to the ram. He thought to have his army lash onto it with ropes and pull it upright, but they had no rope. Even if they had, the archers atop the walls were still well stocked with arrows, it seemed, as the clouds of arrows raining down continued to pelt his army.
The field was lost.
“Back to the hills!” Maernok shouted. He repeated the cry several times as he ran throughout the army. Soon enough, others took the command and relayed it for him. The army retreated. The goarg riders came in to scoop up the wounded or the stragglers. They lost several more warriors in the retreat, but Maernok knew it would be wiser to regroup. As he picked up a pair of wounded orcs, he could only hope that Gulgarin had fared better than he.
Maernok was the last orc off the battlefield. Arrows zinged by him, and one struck one of the orcs he had slung over his shoulder, but he couldn’t stop to inspect the wound. His legs kept pounding along, propelling him away from the deadly human archers. Finally, a goarg rider charged in and took the wounded orcs from him. A second goarg rider scooped him up and they made all haste back to the hills.
Despite their defeat, all of the orcs stood and cheered upon seeing their commander. Maernok, however, was in no mood to celebrate. He barely heard them shout accolades and boast of his singular victories against the three-headed snake or the spider. His mind was only on how to salvage the ram before the humans managed to capture it.
He gestured to one of the older sergeants and beckoned for him to come close.
“What is your command?” the sergeant asked.
“Take a battalion of orcs and hide out of range of the human archers. Make sure everyone is armed with a bow as well, and is well stocked on arrows. The humans must not be allowed near our ram.”
The sergeant slapped a fist to his chest and trotted back to gather his troops.
Maernok then turned to another orc. “You, take seven more and go into the forests south of the hills. Gather all the strong vines and saplings you can. We need to make rope to pull the ram upright.”
The orc nodded and several volunteers jumped in to go with him.
Maernok then made his way back to his chamber. Several officers fell in line behind him. The commander let the options formulate in his mind. They would all expect him to have a plan once they reached the staging room in the caves.
“Commander!” an orc shouted out over the crowd.
Maernok paused and turned around to see a runner dressed in light, supple leather armor. Soldiers parted and moved aside, allowing the runner direct access.
“Khullan keep you,” Maernok greeted as the runner slowed to a stop only three feet before Maernok. “What word from Gulgarin?”
The runner took in two quick breaths and smiled as he slammed his fist to his chest. “Gulgarin, Chief of the Horse Tribe, honors the great and wise Maernok. Under your wise leadership, and with your guidance, Gulgarin has taken the easternmost keep. Even now the humans have been destroyed and the keep has been fortified to provide defenses from the neighboring fortress and adjacent walls. Gulgarin humbly awaits your orders.”
A wave of cheers went up so loud that when Maernok opened his mouth to speak, even he could not hear his own words. He snorted and folded his arms, waiting for the din to die down. One of the nearby officers clapped Maernok on the shoulder and offered an approving smile. The commander returned the smile and then held his arm up to silence the orcs nearby. Those in the immediate vicinity quieted down, but it took some time for the silence to spread through the ranks.
“Go back to Gulgarin, honor him and tell him that he has done well,” Maernok said. “Tell him also, that I will send as many as I can spare to bolster his position. He is to make his way west, but not recklessly so. Tell him that every inch he gains, he is to keep. As I receive reinforcements here, I will send half to him. Now go, and may Khullan smile upon you.”
The runner turned and sprinted away amidst a boisterous crowd of clapping and shouting soldiers. They clapped him on the back and shoulders as he ran by. The runner held his head high and disappeared to the east.
Maernok grunted and shook his head. He knew that Gulgarin could have easily tried to claim the honor of the victory as his own. It was impressive for an orc chieftain to offer deference, and almost unheard of to so freely give honor won in battle. Maernok knew it would help unite the tribes, and all soldiers under his command would now see him as much more than a field commander. An idea came into his mind of a united orc nation, organized under one king. Such a force could easily swell and crush the humans who had driven them from their homelands so long ago. The orc breathed in deeply of the fresh air and closed his eyes as his ears drank in the sounds of cheering orcs.
A battle lost, another won. Many orcs had died, but maybe, just maybe, their blood may have brought forth the ushering in of a stronger kingdom. If so, then the day was good, and tomorrow would be better.
CHAPTER NINE
Aparen opened his eyes and found himself sitting upon the wide stump of a hewn redwood tree. The black, pointy-eared satyr stood before him. Under a brow crowned with curled, thick horns, the gold eyes stared back at him. The satyr held up a palm and then pushed it down, motioning for Aparen to close his eyes again.
“You must focus your mind,” the satyr said. “Close your eyes and clear yourself of all thought.”
Aparen sighed. He closed his eyes and shifted his weight. “I still see nothing,” he said.
Whack! Aparen fell over backward and a stinging knot formed on his forehead. His eyes shot open and he pushed himself up to his feet.
“What was that for?” he shouted.
The satyr made a sound that seemed a mix of a grunt and a bleat. A hand went to his forehead while with the other hand he tapped the gnarled staff on the ground. “Either you are not try
ing, or you have been so blinded by your hatred that you can not see it.”
Aparen rubbed his head and looked around. He saw the aspen trees, their branches swaying in the breeze and their leaves gently flicking about. A pair of yellow butterflies twirled around each other through the grove, dancing low to the long grass and then hooking upward to rise high into the trees. Still, he saw no magic. He could not see what the satyr told him to look for.
“Maybe you are wrong,” Aparen said. “Perhaps humans just aren’t given to see what you do.”
The satyr stamped his staff down angrily. “I am Njar Somoricliar!” The satyr pointed at Aparen and the boy floated up to land back on the stump. “In this very place, on the exact stump upon which your unworthy rump rests, I have taught countless satyrs the true nature of Terramyr. I have shown them all of her secrets, and her energies. More than that, I have taught several humans the same thing.”
Aparen closed his mouth and watched silently. Despite the powers he had used before, he felt so helpless before the enraged satyr. The trees of the grove sapped him of his own magical abilities while amplifying those of Njar’s. He knew if it came to a fight, he would lose.
“Did you teach the shadowfiend who sent me here?” Aparen asked.
Njar offered a short, curt nod. “I did.” He moved to lean upon a nearby aspen and tapped his impatient fingers upon his staff. “He came looking for power, as all shadowfiends do. Yet I sensed something more in him. I showed him the value of life. I do not claim to have rescued him or his warped soul, but I set him upon a slightly different path in the hopes of staving off absolute disaster. He had so much potential for evil. The intervention was necessary.”
“Is that what this is?” Aparen asked. “You are intervening with me?”
Njar locked his gold eyes with Aparen’s young, vibrant orbs of blue. “This is an examination. I will see if you have any soul worth saving.”
“Dremathor tricked me,” Aparen said under his breath.
“Ha!” Njar scoffed. He slapped the head of his staff with his other hand and leaned forward upon it. “You have no idea what is at stake, do you?” Njar drew a circle in the dirt with the bottom of his staff and then struck the center. “You were content to be Hairen’s puppet, but yet you wish to rebuke Dremathor for setting you on a path to freedom?”
Aparen shook his head. He knew the goat was right about the witches, but he hardly saw how Dremathor, of Njar for that matter, were any different.
“Look into the circle I drew,” Njar instructed. Aparen looked to it and saw a swirl of red and blue emerging from the dirt. His eyes widened as the colors drifted and moved, but never mingled. Njar tapped the center of the circle again. A green hue rose up from the dirt and mingled with the red and the blue.
“What is that?” Aparen asked.
“It is your first lesson,” Njar said. “There are many energies in this world. Each creature and being has an aura, including plants. Some gifted races can see these energies naturally, others are given or taught how to use their senses to perceive them. Beyond those energies, however, are the essences of the elements around us. These are much simpler to decipher, yet much more difficult to perceive. The red you see is a symbolic representation of all the destructive forces that exist in the world. Think of decay, death, erosion. The blue is a representation of all the productive forces. Think of birth, growth, strength, restoration and healing. The green is the energy of Terramyr herself. The very plane of our existence is a living, breathing organism. She is as alive as you and me. Her energy sustains us, and all life upon the lands, in the seas, and in the air above us. As the destructive and productive energies are balanced, Terramyr’s energy is green and vibrant, able to support life. If either energy is out of balance, then Terramyr’s energy pales and becomes a sickly yellow. Too much red in the balance and the world cannot support life. Too much blue, and Terramyr is literally choked out by the overabundance of life.”
Aparen sighed. He was only half listening. He shook his head and stared down at the grass below. “I need to ask you two questions,” he said.
Njar tapped his staff in the circle again and the colors faded away to nothingness. He stepped toward Aparen with his hooves barely making any sound at all as he walked. “Ask them, and I shall answer.”
“Will you force me to do your will?” Aparen asked.
Njar shook his head. “I seek balance. To force you, as the witches did, would disrupt that balance.”
Aparen nodded. “The visions you showed me, I know they are real, but I still want Erik Lokton’s head.”
“You know the witches are the ones to blame, especially Hairen,” Njar said. “What purpose would it serve to go after the boy now?”
“I seek balance too,” Aparen said.
Njar’s nose twitched and he grunted. “I will not permit you to harm Silvi,” he said unexpectedly. “Hairen and the other witch are already dead. You have no need to quarrel further.”
“If not for Erik, my father, Lord Cedreau, may still be alive.”
“You remind me of another student I once had,” Njar said as his eyes shifted to focus on something far more distant than the grove. “She was filled with anger as well. I will tell you the same thing I told her when she asked a similar question.”
Aparen looked up and waited for the answer with arms crossed over his chest.
“All of us seek balance in our own ways. I will train you to see balance, to recognize it, and to respect it. Then, if you still seek to take your revenge, I will not interfere with your decision so long as you can do it without affecting Mother Terramyr. This may mean you wait, perhaps even decades, before acting. All creatures have a part to play in the balance of life upon Terramyr, and you must respect that.”
Aparen nodded. “I can wait,” he said.
Njar returned the nod. “That is all for today. You should return to the tower and continue your meditations. Try to tune your spirit, not your mind, to Terramyr.”
“Njar,” Aparen called out as the satyr turned to leave. “Who was the other student?”
The satyr froze. His pointy ears twitched and his shoulders slumped. He turned his head to regard Aparen with a sidelong glance. “You know her as Lady Dimwater.” A moment of silence ensued. “I knew her as a young woman. That was some time ago.”
Aparen didn’t fail to notice the sadness in Njar’s voice, nor the moisture accumulating in the satyr’s eyes. “When was she here? What did you teach her?”
Njar held up a hand and shook his head. “Your lessons do not intersect with hers. We shall not speak of this again.”
*****
The days became weeks spent in the aspen glade. Each day Njar would teach Aparen about Terramyr’s energies, and how to keep them in balance. He would show a diseased plant, and how to heal it using the world’s own force. Aparen was unable to grasp the natural magic. He eventually progressed to a point where he could faintly see the energies, but he could never manipulate them. No matter how he tried, Terramyr rejected all of his attempts.
After one such failed attempt, Aparen slumped to his knees and sighed, holding a black-spotted leaf in his hand. “I will never be able to do this,” Aparen said.
Njar moved in close and blew gently on the leaf. The spots disappeared and the plant regained its vitality. “No, you won’t,” the satyr said.
Aparen looked up, his face all scrunched together and his mouth slightly open.
Njar sniggered and then moved on. “You don’t have the right magic for it, and you never will,” he said definitively.
Aparen grew angry and rose to his feet. “Then why am I here?” Aparen stomped the plant down, crushing it under his heel and grinding it into the dirt. “You have wasted my time.”
Njar turned and extended his right hand. An invisible force seized Aparen and held him fast. Njar twisted his hand and Aparen turned around to face him. The satyr then curled his wrist upward and Aparen floated closer to him. “You are here, because the world n
eeds your kind of power.” Njar pointed to the plant with his staff. “Can you restore the stem you crushed?”
Aparen shook his head.
“Can you cause a new sprout to spring from the root under the ground?”
Again, Aparen shook his head.
Njar smiled. “Can you crush the flower?” he asked.
Aparen hesitated. He wasn’t sure what the old goat wanted from him.
Njar stepped in and put the end of his nose right up against Aparen’s nose. His golden eyes loomed so large in front of the boy that Aparen thought they might swallow him into the rectangular, abysmally black pupil. “Can you crush the flower?” Njar repeated.
Aparen nodded. “Anyone can crush a flower,” he said.
Njar eased his magical grip and let the boy down. “Come with me,” he said. Aparen followed the satyr to another part of the glade. Njar pointed to a leave being devoured by a caterpillar. “Can you restore the leaf?” Njar asked.
“No,” Aparen confirmed.
“Can you think of another way to save the plant?” Njar pressed.
Aparen looked to the caterpillar and then back to Njar. “I could destroy the caterpillar that eats it.”
Njar held up a warning finger. “Remember, you are to kill no living thing in this glade,” Njar said. “But you are correct. You can use your destructive powers for the right purpose. Imagine that this caterpillar were part of a plague destroying an entire field of crops needed by a village. Could you not save the village by destroying the insects?”
“I don’t understand what this has to do with what I am learning here.”
Njar tapped his staff on the ground. “Then, it appears you are not listening to your lessons.” Njar stepped around Aparen and pointed his staff at the quashed plant. This time, Aparen noted a blue mist flowing from the staff. It encircled the plant and healed its crushed stem and torn leaves. “I use my magic to restore. That is how I seek balance. Just as important, is one who can wield the destructive force in order to protect.” Njar moved on through the bushes until he found another plant with diseased leaves. “Come here,” he said.
