Ethan was relatively startled to see May standing alone out in the dark hallway. The single small window behind Ethan let the darkening golden glow of the setting sun shine upon the female Forester, Ethan’s one true friend.
She stood just beyond the threshold of the room wrapped in a thick linen lavender robe. Her hair was damp and her pale skin was once again pure and clean, and it was obvious that she had recently bathed. She wore a pretty face and a slight peculiar smile that the storyteller found enticing. “Hi, May. What is it?” Ethan asked easily, though he had a good feeling why she was standing in his doorway this evening.
In answer she walked smoothly forward into his room and she placed a hand on the back of his head so that she could pull his face forward into hers for a deep long, slow kiss. Her other hand clasped around his own that held his towel about his waist. As they kissed she reached a foot back and closed the door to his room with it. Ethan reached a hand forward and found that her robe hung open and her smooth flesh was naked beneath it. He began to kiss her harder and she returned it in kind.
Eventually they broke their kiss and May took a step backwards towards the door. She turned her back to Ethan, but looked at him over her shoulder and flashed him another alluring grin. Slowly and carefully she let her robe fall from her lightly freckled shoulders and pile in a heap of cloth about her bare feet. The curve of her spine flowed to her smooth, round bottom and her shapely legs beneath. She turned slightly to the left so Ethan could see the side of one of her rounded breasts. He could resist her charms no longer. He rushed forward and embraced her from behind, a hand holding her breasts and the other sliding past her navel and between her legs.
His own towel cascaded from him as she moaned and the last remnants of the setting sun vanished. The chamber was then concealed in shadow.
Chapter Seventeen
To Counsel Barons
As the rose-tinted golden fingers of dawn crept into Ethan’s bedchamber through his open window he opened his colorful eyes and beheld May, his lover, still asleep next to him. She faced him, her blond tresses tumbling across her cute relaxed face, and her long eyelashes stirred slightly as she dreamt. Ethan smiled tenderly and pulled the blanket further up her body so that it covered her chest and shoulders, and then he fell onto his back upon the mattress. He stared at the ceiling, and sighed contentedly.
“What a night,” he whispered to himself with a smirk.
And what a night it had been for the two Foresters. True love, to Ethan, had always been a part of the stories that he learned, but it was nothing more than that. It was only a piece of a story. The girls of North Ridge never would have accepted an advance from the thin storyteller, though he had never offered one, and he had thus prepared himself for a long life without the Wizardcraft of love. May Kinsley had changed all of that.
He slid quietly out of bed and stretched until his back popped, and he sighed again as he rubbed the sleep out of his eyes. A groan emanated from the bed behind him and he turned around to see May stretching too. She arched her back with a smile and closed eyes, her chest pushing out firmly against the thin blanket that covered her, and when she was finished those beautiful blue eyes of hers fluttered open and she looked at Ethan. Smiling like a drunken fool he ambled over to her side of the bed and leaned over. They exchanged a long deep kiss, at the end of which May moaned, “Good morning, Ethan.”
“Good morning to you, May,” was his soft smiling answer, “Did you sleep well?”
She practically purred as she nodded in reply. Ethan lied down right against her and he whispered, “I go today to Lumberwall. Are you sure you want to tag along?”
“Of course,” she responded, “Somebody’s got to protect you from crazy monsters when you go into a coma.”
They both shared a laugh until Ethan retorted with a smile, “That was only the first time. Now I guess I’m a Wizard that can use Wizardcraft without the risk of dropping dead. It still makes me tired and these damned sigils keep spreading, but at least there’s no coma.”
Late last night, when both the Foresters were sweaty, thrilled and spent, May had told Ethan that the blue symbols had spread to his back as well as his chest. He wasn’t thrilled to hear it, but he had figured as much.
“Ethan,” she began in a softer voice, “do you think that there are any more Wizards now? Or do you think you are still the only one?’
“Well, it seems reasonable to me that there would be plenty of Wizards now because the Wizardcraft spread to numerous wild beasts that once possessed it. It stands to reason that it is now also present in human bloodlines that also could once use Wizardcraft, but for some reason,” he explained, “I feel a sense that I’m it. I have a strange gut instinct that I’m the only Wizard walking in these lands. I don’t know how or why I know that, or how and why that would be. But I’m almost certain that it’s the case.”
May nodded slowly in agreement after absorbing what her lover said, and the two of them laid there in bed, embracing, for the better part of the next hour. The sun was completely beyond the horizon of edifices and rooftops when Ethan said, “We had better get ready, my love. The sooner we warn Baron Fernhollow the sooner we can go to the Barony of Vhar and the Barony of Wendlith and warn their rulers. Then we come back here and wait out the storm beyond the walls of the towns.”
“And then …,” purred May.
“We, uh, began to rebuild the Foresters of the Three Baronies.”
“And then …”
He looked into her blue eyes, the blue of glacial ice on a clear winter day, and he answered in all seriousness, “Then I spend the rest of my days with you at my side, May Kinsley.”
Her eyes glistened with tears in the morning light and for a moment she just laid there looking into Ethan’s eyes. Then, abruptly, she smashed into him and wrapped her arms around his lean wiry torso, locking him in a hard embrace. She whispered into his tattoo-covered shoulder, “I love you, Ethan.”
An hour later they left the front door of the Foresters’ Compound dressed in new, polished, and neatly arranged Forester’s uniforms, dark brown cuirasses, gauntlets, and boots, thick brown hooded cloaks, bulging leather satchels, and each had sheathed a flawless silver hand axe engraved with coiling decorative vines. The golden eagle-symbol practically glowed in the sunrise upon the breastplate of each cuirass. Ethan wore a very tight-fitting simple long-sleeved white wool shirt with a tight turtleneck collar and light brown linen trousers while May wore beneath her uniform a short-sleeved green silk shirt with turquoise trim and baggy trousers of turquoise silk that she tucked into her boot tops like the fashion among Wendlithians.
May’s neck-length straight hair was pulled into short thick ponytail on the back of her head that she secured with a green silk ribbon. Ethan’s chin-length blond hair hung straight and loose and his reddish beard, which was now a couple of inches long, and moustache were groomed. They strode hand in hand from the building and Bethany walked just in front of them as she escorted them from the courtyard. She still wore the same clothes that she had been wearing the day before and her hair was as disheveled as her eyes were sunken.
Just passed the fountain and before the open gate in the ivy-enveloped iron fence Bethany stopped and turned to look at them. She managed a feeble smile at the two, especially when seeing their hands locked securely with one another’s. “Are you sure that you need supplies in your satchels? Aren’t you just using Wizardcraft to transport you?”
“Yes, Bethany, but with Wizardcraft this new in the world I still don’t completely trust it. It’s better to be safe than sorry,” answered Ethan.
Bethany nodded and looked at the two of them for a long moment, her daughter and her daughter’s lover, before she finally said quietly, “This will be the last assignment of the Foresters of the Three Baronies.”
Ethan and May both gasped in shock and May snapped, “Why, mother? Why in the Soul Wastes would you disband the order?”
Bethany came forward and placed her smal
l hand on the side of her daughter’s pretty face and she replied, “Too many have been lost. We don’t have enough members for regular patrols. Also we would be useless against the Wizardcraft dangers that haunt our land’s forests. It is better if we disband and find safer work. I’m sure that the leaders of the Three Baronies will agree.”
“No, mother,” May choked as she began sobbing. Ethan let go of her hand as Bethany came forward and eased her daughter into a soft but all-encompassing embrace, the kind that only mothers can manage.
“I knew this would sorrow you, May, but it is what must be done. And besides,” she began as she looked over her daughter’s shoulder and into Ethan’s amber eyes, “you have a whole other life ahead of you. You have love and youth, and it is impossible to waste such things, for they’re in control of your life. Embrace those traits and those who would share them with you.”
Those last words, Ethan knew, were meant for him as well, and he knew that they meant, “Protect my daughter and love her.”
Ethan nodded stoically and May managed a feeble nod as the two broke their hug. Bethany backed up and held her hand out towards the gate as she faced the two companions. She cried out, “Go, Foresters of the Three Baronies! Tell the people of the Three Baronies of the dangers now resurrected into our land! In honor and duty!”
May and Ethan marched from the Compound and out into the bustling city streets of Greenwell City. As they walked the two Foresters kept their hands joined but didn’t say a word to one another. The white cobblestones passed beneath their booted feet and a cacophony of urban noise washed over them in their silence. They strode eastward, downhill towards the Three Baronies River, past the immense College of the Three Baronies and the Grand Cathedral of the Ancestors.
As they neared the closest of the numerous stone bridges that spanned the expanse of slow-moving water the number of people diminished, and the sounds of the city were a distant murmur when they stepped onto the beautiful, old bridge. As the churning whisper of the water beneath them danced in their ears they beheld their destination before them, the massive white Castle of Greenwell. It consisted of a very large central keep built in a circle so it appeared as a thick cylinder. High parapet-lined walls stretched out from the main keep at equal intervals in five different directions. After a couple hundred yards each wall came to a stop about a third of the way up a tall, thin white tower topped by a green conical turret. This meant that two of the five connecting towers actually rose from the shallow waters of the Three Baronies River on either side of the end of the bridge that Ethan and May now walked upon. It was a marvelous structure and a unique feat of engineering.
The two Foresters nodded to a middle-aged woman and man, both in colorful summer silks, which they passed on the wide bridge, and continued on towards the castle. “May,” Ethan began, finally breaking the calm silence of their walk, “we will be stopping somewhere else before we go to Lumberwall or Taedroke.”
“Where are we stopping, and will we have time?” she asked, a shadow of concern playing across her face in the bright summer day.
“Yeah, we have time. I need to see Férfa, O’Dell’s Woodfolk wife, and let her know what happened to her husband,” answered Ethan.
His own face darkened at the memory of what the Troll had told him about its stalking of O’Dell in the east side of Greenwell City. It made Ethan clench his free hand in anger. May nodded at his answer, but upon seeing the grave look in his face she said, “I think we’ll mourn for O’Dell and Kraegovich for quite some time.”
Ethan nodded in agreement but then responded, “I’m worried about the Troll, May. It could easily reach Greenwell City by tomorrow morning, and I fear for the safety of your mother and the other Foresters.”
May squeezed his hand in reassurance and replied, “It will be fine. We’ll ask Baron Fernhollow to send some of his knights to the Compound.”
“Yeah, but then what about after that? I mean, this thing is going to always be there, a lurking shadow in the backs of our minds that constantly plagues us with paranoia and fear.”
“So it needs to be killed,” returned May in a matter-of-fact tone.
“It told me itself that Wizardcraft was the only way to defeat it, but I can’t think of a way that I could hurt the thing with the Wizardcraft that I know. I know I can use transportation Wizardcraft, and upon receiving this power I had that slight visionary power, but no sort of offensive Wizardcraft. I just wish that there were some other people out there somewhere in the Three Baronies could use Wizardcraft now, and they knew some damaging spells that could harm the Troll. But still I feel for some reason that I am the only one, though the Ancestors know I don’t want to be,” explained the storyteller as he scratched his beard.
Moments later the towering Castle of Greenwell loomed over them like a sheer mountain of white gleaming stone. Ethan looked up as they drew underneath the first yawning portcullis of the main entrance, and he saw a distant flock of Dawn Heralds ascending the length of the mighty wall of the keep above him. Now the two Foresters noticed many visitors to the castle leaving in a rush, some crying, some red-faced and angered, some white-faced and dreadfully forlorn. Others were entering with the Foresters, pursuing an audience with the Baron of Greenwell.
Greenwellian Knights were always in sight, adorned in their dark green velvet tabards and chain mail. They frequently wore panicked or grim expressions, and often were exchanging dreadful news of obviously great import in rushed serious tones. “News is beginning to come in about the carnage outside the walls of the city,” May observed as she looked at the crowds of people that grew thicker around them as they entered the keep.
These people appeared to primarily be landowners or nobles that owned or at least were related to rural investments. Also numerous merchants and shopkeepers in a distressed demeanor were paying the Baron a visit for their wares were most-likely laying piled along the Three Baronies Road somewhere after their caravans were attacked by Wizardcraft-warped beasts. The mood in the Great Hall was one of overall anxiety, frustration, and panic. Well, at least brigands will cease to pose as a threat, Ethan mused to himself.
The Great Hall of the Castle of Greenwell was a very wide circular chamber. So huge, in fact, that it comprised about all of the castle’s ground floor. The castle didn’t collapse due to the hall’s brilliant architectural engineering. Arrayed from the center of the chamber, where the throne of the Baron was placed, very thick white stone pillars spiraled outward to the wall and rose into the ceiling of the lofty vaulted hall. Wrapped around the base of each pillar was a massive dark green banner proudly emblazoned with the rearing stag symbol of the Barony of Greenwell in silvery-white thread.
The crowds of visitors swarmed around the throne like flies on a corpse, and they were being loosely organized to voice their complaints or predicaments to the Baron by his personal guard of Greenwellian Knights. These special knights almost wore the exact same uniforms of the standard Greenwellian Knights, but were recognizable by their visor-faced helms crowned in dark green plumage and the long spears of dark, strong wood and razor-sharp silver spearheads that they wielded. On the shaft of the weapon immediately behind the spearhead dangled green triangular banners displaying the symbol of the Barony of Greenwell.
Ethan sighed in exasperation as he began to prepare himself for a very long wait in a crowded humid room, but abruptly May, still holding him firmly by the hand, yanked him forward with her through the crowds. They received a handful of threats and their fair share of scowls from the Baron’s other visitors as they shouldered their way through the throng, but still May kept marching. They reached the barricade of Greenwellian Knights at the base of the dais and were immediately ordered to back up and calm down. May, though, grabbed the chain sleeve of the nearest knight and growled at him, “We are Foresters of the Three Baronies sent by the grandmaster herself to seek immediate counsel with Baron Fernhollow about urgent diplomatic matters that take precedence over all the businessmen here!”
As the knight nodded sheepishly and relayed her command to the figure on the throne behind him Ethan looked at May with wide eyes and a slack jaw. May returned the stare in jest and said, “What is it, love?”
“Do all Foresters learn to speak like that?”
“Not all, but what else was I going to learn with my mother imprisoning me safe and sound within the city limits. I had to become skilled at something so I learned to speak like nobility,” answered May with a shrug and a smirk, “amongst other things.”
Ethan looked impressed and nodded humbly. The knight ushered the two Foresters forward to the foot of the dais, and they looked up at their host, the Baron of the Barony of Greenwell. On the throne of intricately-carved and polished wood sat a middle-aged man with the body and demeanor of a knight. He had a bit of girth about him in his later years and his long gray and black hair was pulled into a ponytail on the back of his head. The Baron wore a dark green velvet tunic, black trousers, and a black scarf that hung loosely about his neck.
“You were sent by Grandmaster Kinsley?” he asked in his deep raspy voice, ragged from years of barking orders.
“Yes, lord,” replied May with a slight bow of her head which Ethan immediately mimicked.
“What is this about? As you can see I am very busy and our barony is in a state of emergency. So if you could be so kind, would you please make it quick,” stated Baron Fernhollow impatiently.
May answered with an inquiry of her own, “What do you know of what is happening out in the wilds?”
The Baron flushed at being questioned by some impertinent young Forester and he growled, “I know enough, lass.”
The Azure Wizard Page 16
