The Azure Wizard

by Nicholas Trandahl

  Ethan, meanwhile, had trials of his own in the battle. When he entered the fray he meant to plunge deep into the carnage, where Férfa fought, as quickly as possible. He could think only of her and O’Dell’s six children and their need of their mother now that O’Dell was killed. It provoked Ethan into a state of fury and finesse he had never known. He rushed forward through the first batch of the combat, his only attack a quick slice into an enemy Woodfolk’s bicep that he hoped would give his opponent time enough to kill him.

  He could see Férfa through the carnage of dueling woodland warriors as he dashed towards her. But just before he reached her a Woodfolk man armed with twin stone curved daggers brought down his latest foe and charged directly towards Ethan. He was the storyteller’s only opposition before reaching Férfa, but the lines of blood that dripped from the Woodfolk’s weapons and his angry blood-thirsty glare proved to Ethan that he was facing an experienced foe. But Ethan had an edge.

  Just before the two met in a violent melee duel Ethan’s eyes flooded blue light and a pillar of the same hue streaked instantly into the sky, as bright as the sun that shone above the battle. The Woodfolk skidded confusedly to a walk when he saw that his Forester opponent was vanished. As he tried to convince himself mentally of what he had just seen Ethan, standing behind him, buried his Forester’s axe into the back of the Woodfolk’s neck, completely through the spinal column, and the nude warrior crumpled lifelessly into a heap.

  Ethan then turned on his heel and crossed the short bloody expanse littered with corpses and flesh that lay between him and Férfa, and upon reaching her he cried out, “Férfa!”

  She brought down her latest foe with a quick kick to the stomach and a slash across his open eyes with her dagger. As he howled in pain she plunged the blade into his throat and withdrew it just as fast, releasing a quick torrent of blood. Then she turned to Ethan, acknowledging that she had heard him, and she nodded before turning back around and continuing the fight against a new foe. Panting, he turned around in a hurry and scanned the fight, warriors on both sides greatly reduced in numbers. He sought his lover in the bloodshed.

  Then he saw May, Lady Quinn incarnate, with her blonde hair flowing with her body’s rapid movements and her blood-slicked axe arcing like a silver crescent before her. She was very near to Ethan and Férfa but was dueling with a foe, a Woodfolk woman smeared in blood and with a single black braid secured by a bit of bone. May feinted an attack, and her foe fell for the ruse. She twisted to the side with her short spear held up defensively. May, though, expected as much and with her other gauntleted fist she struck her foe in her blood-speckled alabaster face with a brutal left hook. After her enemy’s head snapped back the Woodfolk woman staggered a few steps in a daze.

  May strode the distance between them and she buried her axe up the shaft into the Woodfolk’s sternum, between her breasts, in a crunch. The Forester’s bloody face was a mask of savagery as she gripped the small handle of the axe in both of her hands, placed her booted foot on the woman’s right breast next to her weapon, and kicked the woman backwards as she jerked her weapon free with a squeak like an axe being pried from a slick damp log. The Woodfolk fell lifeless to the earth with her wide green eyes staring forever into the azure sky, and May jogged forward to Ethan.

  He risked a smile to her and she thankfully returned it as they neared each other. The battle around them was diminishing as Férfa’s troops began to savagely tear into their opponents with an almost animalistic fury. Férfa herself finished adding another shredded corpse to the vortex of naked flesh that encircled her, and she turned immediately around towards Ethan and May. She cried out a warning, but it was too late.

  May looked to the right just as one of the last remaining Woodfolk from the opposing war party hefted a spear with the intent to skewer the female Forester. A stone-headed arrow buried into his back and it was followed immediately by a thrown stone dagger the buried itself in his abdomen, but still he screeched in pain and fury and launched the weapon. The spear corkscrewed through the air and plunged into May’s left abdomen just under the brim of cuirass. She stumbled sideways and crashed slowly into the bloody foliage of the vale, the long shaft of the weapon protruding from her torso.

  Ethan roared in anger, his face pure white, as he charged forward. The storyteller couldn’t at first decide if he should rush immediately to his lover’s aid or to furiously finish off the dying Woodfolk that had wounded her, but upon seeing the Woodfolk fall under various cruel weapons of Férfa’s own warriors, Ethan ran to May without hesitation.

  He collapsed to his knees and slid across a foot of bloody grasses and ferns to her side. Her eyes were pressed shut in pain beneath her furrowed brow as she groaned in pain and held the shaft of the spear firmly in her hands. Crimson blood already stained her trousers and what Ethan could see of her shirt under her leather armor.

  “May, can you hear me?” Ethan shouted above the dying din of the battle as he wiped the blood from her nose with his fingers.

  He slipped off the gauntlet on his right hand and he did the same to May, and then he grasped her hand in his as he awaited her answer. She nodded. He grinned like a fool as tears welled in his eyes and he said, “I’m going to pull it out, okay?”

  He readied himself to withdraw the weapon from her abdomen, gripping the oaken shaft just above her hands, but from behind a voice very thickly accented cried out, “No! Find something to stop her bleeding!”

  Ethan whirled his head around to Férfa, naked and bathed in the blood of her foes, striding forward with her stone dagger gripped in her crimson hand. Her beautiful face was a surreal visage of fury, despite her light green eyes, as her features were smothered in red paint and blood. She bent down over May and examined the wound closely.

  “It has missed her vital spots. Infection may still take over, though,” explained the Woodfolk woman with her extremely-heavy Greenwellian accent that was very different from the slight accent of the civilized folk of Greenwell.

  “I didn’t know you spoke the common tongue. You and O’Dell were speaking Woodfolk,” replied the storyteller.

  She smirked, “O’Dell, Oll in my tongue, became a Woodfolk when we took vows. We simply spoke the easier of our languages. Your ‘common tongue’ is much more complicated than ours.”

  They quickly returned their attention back to May when the Forester released a low moan of pain. Ethan asked Férfa, “What should I use to staunch the blood flow and fight the infection?”

  “You need a bundle of cloth for the blood, and Fever Vine for the infection. You must work fast,” she answered.

  She got up and to Ethan’s dismay and horror she began to walk towards her exerted warriors, now just over a dozen in number. “Wait,” he shouted, “can you please help us, Férfa! I’m still new as a Forester and I have no idea what in the Soul Wastes Fever Vine is! Please help!”

  She half-turned back towards him and stood there watching, her Woodfolk companions standing stoic and naked behind her. “We are in a hurry, Forester. We must act swiftly.”

  “What do you mean?” Ethan cried.

  “The new disease that has infected the Deep Wolves has granted our tribe an opening to the central forests. The ruling tribe, merciless murderers and barbarians all, has been greatly weakened and disorganized from vicious Deep Wolf attacks. At the behest of our elder, my war party and many others are pressing that advantage. We must slay all men and boys of that tribe and induct the women into our own. Those we just defeated were of that opposing tribe. This will be our last chance to drive that tribe into memory,” she explained.

  Ethan stammered as he comprehended what the Woodfolk had just explained to him. He then replied, “Férfa, this was no disease. Wizardcraft has returned to the land, and it has transformed the Deep Wolves and numerous other powerful beasts of the Three Baronies. I have been given Wizardcraft power and am now a Wizard. That’s how we appeared so suddenly in your territory without you spotting us. We need that Wizardcraft to w
hisk us quickly to other settlements of the Three Baronies, so that I can warn everyone about the return of Wizardcraft.”

  Férfa narrowed her haunting eyes and strode forward with her knife extended towards the Forester. “You are the one who returned Wizardcraft, Forester?”

  Ethan swallowed the fear in his throat and nodded in answer.

  “I should slaughter you here, but as our tribe is allied with the Foresters of the Three Baronies I shall let you live, for now. But you must be gone quickly. We have war to wage!” she yelled and her troops howled in fury.

  May groaned again and weakly moaned, “Ethan.”

  He whirled around, ripping his cloak off in the process, and began to unbuckle her cuirass. She winced with every slight movement but finally he peeled it off her, revealing her blood-soaked green shirt. Her pale skin was now even more pale, practically the color of a corpse, and Ethan became very tearful and nervous. Then he noticed the Férfa was beside him kneeling in the ferns over May.

  “Pull it out quickly and immediately put pressure on the wound with the cloak,” ordered May as she grasped May’s shoulders to keep her from moving.

  Ethan nodded nervously, gripped the shaft of the weapon, and in one swift moment he jerked it from her abdomen in a gurgling fountain of dark blood. She cried out in agony and Férfa tensed her jaw and pushed the wounded Forester back down. Ethan pressed the folded brown cloak against the puncture wound and the tears began to drip onto May.

  May’s breathing slowed and her eyes remained shut as Férfa stroked her forehead like a sick child. The Woodfolk whispered, “Qit, yun n. Re ey chid.”

  “Férfa, is there anything you can do for her? I’m begging you. I can’t return her to Greenwell City because we are being hunted by the Troll there, and I can’t take her with me into the Barony of Vhar in this condition. Please, can’t you take her to where your tribe is at?” pleaded the Vharian.

  Férfa looked at him and then looked back down at May, and she wore an expressionless mask. “You must use Wizardcraft because it is too distant for her to survive. It is thirty miles to the northeast. You must also take one of my warriors to explain to the tribe what the situation is.”

  Ethan cursed and whispered, “I only have the power to transport myself and one other. I am sure of the limits of my own power, and I know that I can’t take three people.”

  “Well, can you transport just the girl and my warrior?”

  Ethan grimaced at May and shrugged. “I have never tried to transport things away from me before. I suppose I should try,” he answered.

  Férfa immediately turned around to the nearest wounded warrior, a wiry woman with a very deep snaking slice from her wrist to her shoulder. She explained the situation to the Woodfolk in their native tongue and both returned to Ethan and the unconscious May. “Send her now, Forester,” ordered Férfa.

  Ethan nodded before wiping the moisture from his face and motioning the bloody naked woman to come over and kneel beside May. She did as she was instructed after a motion from Férfa, and Ethan was surprised to see the athletic Woodfolk woman reach underneath May and lift the wounded Forester onto her lap with no sign of exertion despite her wounded arm. The tough woman was most likely assuming that Ethan wouldn’t be able to get them directly to where they needed to go and was thus preparing to sprint the rest of the way with May in tow.

  He grabbed both of the women, the wounded Woodfolk by the forearm and his beloved by the hand and he did his best to visualize the land thirty miles to the northeast. His eyes began to softly glow in the familiar blue light, and quickly they became radiant and glaring in the woodland clearing.

  The Woodfolk, all except their war leader, hooted and dove for cover and concealment of the tall grasses and ferns as a shaft of vibrant blue light shot up from the three people huddled in a circle on the green earth and ascended into the Ancestor Lands beyond the azure limitless sky above the vale. Suddenly the radiance vanished and Ethan was alone on his knees with Férfa and a dozen frightened Woodfolk behind him.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Resolve Ankle-Deep in Dead

  “Why have you come here, Forester?” inquired Férfa as Ethan stood and turned around to face the Woodfolk.

  He was hesitant to answer the question posed by the leader of the war party for fear of invoking pain in the woman. His mind was also jumbled with various anxious thoughts about his mission and May. He had sent his first true love, wounded and in dire need, alone to a Woodfolk village to receive medical attention, and there was nothing he could do to take it back. Ethan was beginning to regret that decision.

  “Forester!” Férfa yelled in a firm shout that yanked Ethan from his thoughts.

  His amber eyes, now faded from their previous blue radiance, returned to his present surroundings as he nervously smoothed his beard. He let out a tremendous sigh, running his gauntleted fingers through his sweat-soaked hair, and when he slowly opened his eyes again and beheld the Woodfolk woman before him, red-faced and speckled in drying spatters of blood, he whispered, “Férfa, something happened to O’Dell.”

  Her terrifying visage didn’t belay any type of surprise or shock and after a moment he continued, “The Troll killed your husband. It took his form and tried to fight me.”

  Férfa didn’t immediately respond and her grim face was a stoic mask. Finally she asked, “And how did you survive its attacks?”

  Ethan was surprised and couldn’t answer her right away. He was expected some sort of grief or sorrowed reaction but she appeared indifferent.

  After a moment or two of pondering her question he finally returned, “I guess it didn’t have time to eat O’Dell’s heart. If it had and it gained his abilities at fighting I wouldn’t still be alive. Whatever little Wizardcraft that has been given to me couldn’t have saved me from the skill I saw him use in combat against that monster when he rescued me.”

  She nodded and, being as perceptive as she was, the Woodfolk stated, “You were expecting a different reaction from me, Forester.”

  Ethan could only shrug. She continued, “Our cultures are very different. There will be time enough to grieve for my lover and the father of our children much later, when the opposing tribes are beneath our heel and we have made an adequate defense against the Wizardcraft beasts you have accidentally introduced back into our land. Now I cannot let sorrow weaken me in any way. I must lead my warriors further on into the west and finish our attack. And you must continue on with your mission and warn the other civilized folk of the Three Baronies of the dangers and wonders that have been reintroduced. Go now.”

  At that she turned on her heel but Ethan quickly said, “The Foresters are no more, Férfa. This is the last mission we will undertake. The Troll and the monsters that now stalk the roads have almost wiped out the order.”

  Without turning back around to face him she answered, “That is unfortunate. We Woodfolk have always thought of the Foresters as allies and even kin, especially among our tribe.”

  She stood there still and silent, her warriors in a half-circle around her and Ethan standing behind her with his weary head bowed in exhaustion and stress. Then she did turn around and face Ethan.

  “The Troll,” she began, “is a mighty foe of ancient times. It will stop at nothing until it has completed its mission or it is gone from the Three Baronies. I do not know how to defeat it, and I have no advice to give you. I can only wish you luck, Wizard.”

  He nodded in thanks to her, before Férfa and her remaining Woodfolk warriors turned around and dashed naked from the meadow into the thick woods of oak and thinner saplings that swayed slightly in the warm summer breeze. An instant later they were vanished like sylvan ghosts. If Ethan wasn’t the only person in the Three Baronies with Wizardcraft he would say that these stealthy woodland natives had Wizardcraft of their own.

  When he was alone in the vast fern-cloaked dale surrounded by dozens of bloodied nude corpses beneath the glaring sun Ethan began sobbing. He fell to his knees, head bowed and
shoulders slumped, and he shuddered with sobs. So much had happened already and he felt as though it was his entire fault. May hadn’t even known the danger that he was taking her into, and he hadn’t warned her. He should have been wiser, more like a Forester of the Three Baronies. Even though he wore the uniform of a member of the order the Vharian didn’t feel like one in heart.

  He joined simply out of the passion for excitement and adventure, but now both of the things that he had sought had come visiting him with a vengeance, and now the world and his life was changed forever. Even if the Foresters were to continue on as an organization Ethan would feel compelled to, after the completion of his current tasks, hand back in his uniform and his sterling silver hand axe, now soaked in the blood of people he had killed or maimed, and quit the order. He had no place among them. Ethan Skalderholt had become two very important things in the land of the Three Baronies, a Forester and a Wizard, but in his heart he wished to return to what he had taken so much pride in being only a few weeks ago, a simple storyteller of Vhar.

  Ethan sighed as his tears soaked into his beard and he began to slowly and meticulously unbuckle his cuirass. After a few moments he pulled it from his torso and tossed it into the green grass near him. The piece of armor was followed by his gauntlets and finally his silver Forester’s hand axe. The storyteller stood then, garbed in his white wool shirt and light brown linen trousers and dark leather boots. He laid his full satchel on the ground next to the pieces of discarded gear and rolled his sleeves up to his elbows, revealing his strange swirling blue tattoos. He felt unfettered and free now, truly free for the first time since departing North Ridge at the end of spring so many weeks ago.

  Ethan had been looking for freedom in placing himself in a group of spirited individuals, the Foresters of the Three Baronies, but he had ended up getting himself and everyone else into all sorts of trouble. Any friends he had made in the order were now dead or in danger. It most likely wasn’t entirely his fault but he still felt very responsible. Ethan had never been one who thrived on adventure and excitement, and in fact they were things that he had never really experienced in his quaint easy life in his Vharian village. Perhaps his need for excitement, and finding it among the ranks of the Foresters, was just a catalyst to firmly separate him from the monotony and uselessness that he felt in North Ridge.