by Joe Jackson
She looked up when Max came running down the hallway with his sword drawn. He paused only long enough to crouch beside the mallasti before shooting Leighandra a questioning glance. When he saw the tears on her face, the luranar crawled over to her and wrapped an arm around her shoulders. His fur was warm and tickled her a bit, but the tenderness of his touch pushed away some of her doubts and pain.
“What happened?” he asked.
“Do you know what this is?” she returned, gesturing toward the body. “It called itself a mallasti. Starlenia thinks it’s one of the hyena demons of the underworld. Have you ever seen one? Or do you know if it’s really a gnoll?”
“It is not a gnoll,” he answered, shaking his head. “This was the demon? Who killed it?”
“I did. It… it killed most of the women and children. Starlenia wanted to hold it to ask questions, but I… I killed it. I shouldn’t have, and I’m sorry.”
Max straightened out. “It killed the children?” he whispered. He looked ahead to the corner, where the sounds of fighting had all but stopped, and Leighandra watched his ears angle back before his snout dipped toward the floor. “God help us all.”
“Did you get the woman and her pups to Yiilu?”
“Yes, and a number of others. I think our elven companion plans to lead them back to Kas’Yari’s camp. With this demon dead, perhaps the fighting here will cease. Let us find Prince Roltek. Hopefully this foul creature did not kill him as well.”
Leighandra accepted Max’s help getting to her feet. She took up her saber and wiped it clean on the dead mallasti’s clothes. She was hesitant to go back around that corner and face the dead children again, no matter what condition they might be in now, but she wasn’t alone. Max was holding her hand, and despite the stoicism she had come to expect from him, he was clearly in no hurry to go see dead gnoll children either. The chronicler imagined with his relationship to the Caerumach tribe, it would be much more poignant to him.
When they turned the corner, Delkantar was laying linens over the bodies. Leighandra knew what was beneath those blankets, but somehow, the bodies being out of sight softened the blow just enough. Max released her hand and put his on her shoulder, and when she met his gaze, he nodded and then moved forward. Starlenia and Galadon had gone through the door the zombies came from, and with a head gesture from Delkantar, the luranar followed after them.
“You all right?” the ranger asked when Leighandra stepped before him.
“I abandoned you in combat… I’m so sorry,” she stuttered.
Delkantar shook his head. “Don’t worry about it. If I wasn’t able to remind myself they were already dead, I might’ve felt the same. Where’s the prisoner?”
“I killed him.”
He blinked. “Oh,” he blurted, but then he shrugged. “Well, that was probably going to happen either way. Did he tell you anything?”
“Nothing useful. What a despicable creature. I know gnolls are… different, but to treat them as disposable is deplorable. But I don’t get the feeling that the creature was behind all of the necromancy. He seemed unimpressed with the gnoll zombies, as if they weren’t all that useful. I wonder if he killed the prisoners, and never had control of the zombies, so they came up and attacked the gnolls…? This seems very disorganized.”
“I think this is all just a diversion,” Delkantar said, gathering his dreadlocks into a neat tail again. “Just another battleground to divert time and attention away from whoever’s really behind this, like Starlenia suggested. After we meet whoever Karinda is hoping we meet in the Tenari Kingdom, I think it’s high time we follow Max’s senses and see where they lead us.”
Leighandra gestured at the covered bodies. “After seeing this, I doubt he’ll object.”
The ranger looked up the stairs after their friends. “Yes, I imagine for a young father, it’s even worse.”
The chronicler hadn’t even thought of it like that. “And a friend to the gnoll clans that live near him,” she added with a nod. “That poor young man…”
“Ah, Max is a tough soul,” Delkantar said. “Can you send messages with your sorcery?”
“Across limited distances, yes.”
“Hmmm, then why don’t you send messages to Kas’Yari and Yiilu and let them know we’ve secured the keep? The rest of the gnolls might stop fighting when they know their women were killed by their own commander and his zombies.”
“I need to find a balcony or some exterior access.”
“Just up the stairs to the right,” Starlenia said, coming down the steps slowly with her leg still injured. “Max and Galadon are up there tending to Prince Roltek.”
“He’s alive?”
“And righteously mad,” the shorter woman said with a nod. “You go do what you need to. Delkantar and I will take the bodies somewhere we can properly dispose of them once Kas’Yari is here.”
Leighandra started to ascend the stairs, and Starlenia laid a hand on her arm as they passed. The Okonashai woman nodded silently, and the chronicler continued up. At the top was a throne room of sorts, with open archways leading out onto a stone balcony high up. Prince Roltek sat on a low sofa, and was speaking in hushed tones with the two paladins. Leighandra resolved to do what she needed to and then go introduce herself to the gnoll prince.
She stepped out onto the balcony, glancing about warily for any danger. The balcony was high enough up that archers from the ground weren’t a concern. Leighandra reached down into her soul and tapped the arcane song, sending it forth as a message intended for Yiilu and Kas’Yari. The keep is in our control, she sent her song along the winds. The demon controlling the gnolls has been dispatched, and the keep should be undefended once you reach it.
The arcane trick didn’t allow for responses, so she moved over to the paladins and the gnoll. Prince Roltek regarded her with a canny stare that still managed to have feral undertones to it. He was armored, and looked every bit the capable warrior Kas’Yari and his companions had, but the prince’s weapons had been taken from him. His fur was matted on one side of his head as though he’d been struck there and bled a bit, but he seemed otherwise in good health after being imprisoned. Leighandra wondered why he’d been up here with the mallasti, but didn’t want to press him with questions; she left that to Max.
“Prince Roltek?” she prompted, offering him a handshake.
“Prince?” he repeated, rising to his feet. He was an impressive specimen of gnoll, but after seeing how large their females were, Leighandra thought he wasn’t quite that impressive. “I am no prince, woman: I am Roltek, Underchief of the Caerumach tribe. If you call yourself a friend of Prince Auremax, then I call you an ally. How are you called?”
Leighandra was impressed now. The gnoll spoke well, and had clearly been educated by more than just punches to the face and wrestling over potential mates. “Leighandra Evenstar, chronicler of Solaris,” she answered with a polite bow of her head. “Pleasure to meet you.”
“You won’t think so when you find out why he was captured,” Galadon muttered.
“Oh?”
“Remember how Delkantar said demons rarely work alone?” Max asked. “It would seem he was more correct than we feared. The creature you killed downstairs was apparently trying to call forth another type of demon to possess Roltek.”
Leighandra blinked. “Gods, how deep do the layers go?” she blurted.
“That remains to be seen.”
Chapter VII – Flame of the North
“My place is here, assisting Roltek,” Kas’Yari said with a shake of his head. “We’ve won this battle, but there are more being fought to the west. Now that we’ve exposed what was going on here, we may be able to rally our people to fight against the others controlling them.”
Auremax nodded, though Leighandra knew it wasn’t the answer he was hoping for. He had asked Kas’Yari to accompany them north to Castle Tenari. The gnoll was clearly a capable fighter, and seemed to be a decent leader as well. Delkantar had spoken at length
with him the previous two nights, and Leighandra wondered if the gnoll was a woodsman, just as Starlenia had suggested of his people as a whole. It was also possible Delkantar was simply amazed at being able to sit and speak with a gnoll without any weapons between them. His comments about gnolls here and there certainly lent credibility to that theory.
Roltek was eager to get back into the thick of things. “Now that the others are willing to follow me, it is time to end this,” he said, preparing to push his people westward. “But I will need Kas’Yari with me to keep them from thinking I have crowned myself their ruler. We are here to free our people, and to welcome them to live among us if they choose. But they have long thought we seek to enslave them to our rule, and Kas’Yari, as an outsider to our clan, can help convince them otherwise.”
“Do what you must,” Galadon said. “If you think the people of Dira Ch’Tori can help you, go and ask them. You’re well-spoken, and Regent Matthews will listen if I send a missive along with you.”
Roltek made a grumbling sound deep in his throat as his eyes narrowed, but it was Kas’Yari who gave voice to their thoughts. “It is difficult enough to get our people to trust Roltek. They will not trust your people. They see too much potential to be enslaved or, at the least, forced to live in your cities.”
Delkantar chuckled ruefully. “I doubt there’s much to worry about there. The people of the cities are scared enough of your people living out here, much less among them.”
The two gnolls held him under scrutinizing gazes, but Max laid his hand on his brother-in-law’s shoulder. “Things change over time. It was not so very long ago that my people were not welcome in their cities. Now, we are at least tolerated.”
“Hmph,” Roltek ended the discussion. “We should begin pushing westward. We must get the females and pups to a safe haven; the fortress is too obvious a target. Some of these men come from warrens northwest of the city of Jade; we will take the women there and see what other fighting men we can recruit.”
“Do your females not fight? With the size of them, I’d have guessed they were warriors as well,” Leighandra commented.
“Oh, they are. Especially when they have pups. But they are more important to our tribes than we men are, and so we do our damnedest to defend them, whether they like it or not.”
The chronicler smiled at that.
“Gods go with you,” Galadon said.
The gnoll prince beheld him curiously again, but ultimately nodded. Leighandra had no idea what sort of theology the gnolls followed, whether they saw any of the Citarian pantheon as their gods or not. Max and his people were Christian, but that conversion had taken place only a few centuries before; what gods did they worship before then? Did they once share a common theology with the gnolls? Yet more questions she wanted to ask her luranar friend, though she knew it might be a sore subject with the gnolls themselves.
All in good time, she thought.
Auremax and Kas’Yari shared an embrace rather than fisticuffs this time. “Do not be afraid to ask my people for help should you need it,” Max said, turning to Roltek. “King Terist has already begun sending aid to your swelling population in our homeland.”
The gnoll underchief nodded, but by the twist of his hyena-like features, Leighandra thought he looked embarrassed. “We will try to impose upon your people as little as possible, but I appreciate your offer,” he said. “Be safe, young prince. You are a guiding star among your people, as evidenced by the stripes you wear.”
Leighandra wondered at that comment, and she wasn’t the only one. Was Roltek referring to the “scars” that ran up Max’s back and also touched on his arms and legs? The chronicler still had yet to see all of them – even of the ones it was polite to – but they were something Max didn’t speak of that often – or at all, really. Leighandra hoped they truly were “birthmarks” of some kind, and not a remnant of past abuse.
Max scrunched up his nose. “You be safe as well,” he returned.
Soon, the gnolls were underway. Surprisingly, though they had engaged in battle the day before, the gnolls traveled as one with Roltek and Kas’Yari to lead them. Doubtless there were still hard feelings among those who’d fought, but the demon’s unmasking brought clarity to the situation, and they had set aside their differences. Just what had Roltek and Kas’Yari said to them that brought the gnolls all together?
So many languages to learn, Leighandra thought. Though perhaps I can learn an arcane trick that will translate them for me? Something to look into…
“I do hope their women and children will be safe. It does seem odd to imagine them safer outside the walls of the fortress than within it,” Yiilu mused.
“Like I said to Kas’Yari, they’re better suited to living in the wilds,” Starlenia said. “They know how to hide their homes and themselves out here; living in a stone fortress is just asking for people to come try to take it from them. And if the people of Dira Ch’Tori ever decided to reclaim the keep… well, that’s exactly what the gnolls are trying to avoid.”
“I will make sure to pass along my thoughts and wishes with regard to the gnolls when I have a chance to speak or write to Regent Matthews again,” Galadon said.
“Could you send her a message with your arcane power?” Delkantar asked.
Leighandra shook her head. “It won’t travel that far. It’s not the sort of incantation you would see Karinda or her council use. Anyway, I have to say the gnolls are certainly a more interesting people than I might have believed just a few days ago.” She looked to Starlenia and Delkantar. “You seem to like them well enough.”
The Okonashai woman shrugged. “Won’t catch me kissing one, but they’re not so bad.”
“You did not mind drinking from the same bottle as they did,” Yiilu chuckled.
Starlenia waved off the comment and gestured at Leighandra. “Talk to her; she’s the one that couldn’t stop looking at their penises.”
Leighandra gasped, struck speechless as heat rose up into her cheeks. Yiilu answered in her stead, “Well, to be fair, it was rather difficult not to… they were anything but shy or modest, and we were surrounded by several dozen of them…”
Max, Galadon, and Delkantar were chuckling into their hands. Her face surely flushed, Leighandra turned her gaze to Delkantar, who shrugged. “Like you said, there’s a lot more to them than I thought not so long ago,” he added. “We saw them stop by our trading posts from time to time, and sometimes they weren’t an issue, but more often than not, we hunted them. When they decide to be pests, they put their hearts and souls into it.”
“Why are you looking at me?” Max asked.
Delkantar shrugged again. “Well, they’re sort of your people. I haven’t wanted to say too much about hunting them in front of you. If I’m honest, I haven’t always given the gnolls a fair shake, but usually it’s because I had no occasion to.”
“My people have fought them plenty of times in our history,” Max returned. “I suppose I am a little defensive on their behalf, but more so when dealing with those like General Neimann. Had my father been looked down on by Galadon the way the gnolls are by his generals, where would we be today? But I will not judge you on your dealings with them in the past, my friend; I think I know you well enough to trust your methods.”
Delkantar gave a thankful nod. His mannerisms and reactions made Leighandra wonder: Were the Ghosts of Liam perhaps gnoll hunters primarily?
After seeing that the gnolls were all but gone, the ranger turned north and gestured for everyone to get moving. It would take several days to reach the town of Shartek, which lay inside the border of the fures-rir lands. They would first have to travel through the mountain passes and into the harsh northern lands that, despite the season, would still be colder. Shartek was tolerable for most people, but Castle Tenari rarely saw any thaw, and the rings the friends received from Karinda would no doubt be a godsend if they went that far.
I just hope we’re not there for too long, Leighandra thought. I’d like
to at least be back for the end of summer, even with everything going on around us.
~ * ~ * ~
The northlands near Dira Ch’Tori were always quite pleasant during the late summer and early autumn to the chronicler’s thinking. The weather got warm but was spared the stifling heat of the southern regions, the humidity was comfortable rather than oppressive, and the forests kept the wind calm at ground level. They were lovely woods to walk through, and though Leighandra had never lived this far north, she could easily see doing so.
Things grew drastically different once one passed the jagged mountain chain that cut off the fures-rir kingdom, though. Leighandra had never been that far north, despite the fact that she’d always found the tales from the tundra people amazing. Their stories spoke of vast underground farms where the people – specifically the fures-rir – grew their food, which suggested some incredible workings of magic. They also spoke of the harshness of nearly never-ending winter that was tough even on people immune to the cold’s effects. The land was mostly inhospitable, though parts of it saw something resembling spring or early summer for short stints.
And all that was to say nothing of the legends of giants, trolls, and ice nymphs…
Leighandra considered herself a well-traveled woman, but there was still so much of her home continent she’d never seen, much less the wider world. She had always wanted to see the mystical Temple of Archons, the Oracle Tower of Lajere, the ruins of Oge, the Fortress of DarkWind, the Holy City of Sarchelete, and numerous other landmarks. Surely there were even more upon the massive continent of Dannumore, and the chronicler was glad her half-elven blood might lend her the longevity to see all of it, given the opportunities.
That, however, depended on seeing things through here and now, and surviving to see the future and its mysterious locations.
The group was several days out of Dira Ch’Tori, nearly to the mountains, when Galadon sat bolt upright in the morning, rocked awake by some nightmare. Leighandra was on the early morning watch, and she walked over to the paladin, who worked to get his breathing under control. His short black hair was damp with sweat, and his bleary eyes said what sleep he’d gotten was inadequate. The sound of his waking had stirred the others, and with dawn’s light beginning to claim the sky, they began to rise rather than return to sleep.
