“Believe me, my Baron, when I say that I would long for death after the destruction that I feel I am somewhat responsible for and after I’ve lost so many that were close to me. But I have also found love among the daughter of the grandmaster of the Foresters, May Kinsley. But she was injured, and as we speak she is being tended to health by the Woodfolk people inhabiting the Forests of Greenwell, and I long to return to her.”
“So if you think it is the best course of action, Baron, then come at me and cleave my heart in two! Otherwise, heed my warnings and words. Send out your best warriors, scouts and huntsmen to the villages of Vhar to collect your people and slay any Blood Bears that wander these peaks. Also, pray to the Ancestors that the Ice Cats, surely mutated and horrifying, don’t come prowling south from the plains of the Ice Wilds.”
The Baron of Vhar walked determinedly up to Ethan, never once taking his heavy gaze from the young man. Ethan did his best not to quail from the approaching warrior-lord of some six and a half feet of brawn and presence and the large gloved hand that rested on the white marble pommel of the Baron’s sheathed broadsword. Baron Ruauld stopped and stared down at Ethan just inches from him. He spoke in his grim tone, “You know the resources and manpower of the Barony of Vhar cannot hope to equal those of the Barony of Greenwell or even the Barony of Wendlith. You expect me to send the best that this small city has to defend its subjects on a long arduous courier mission to all of my barony’s hamlets and villages through wilds now crawling with Wizardcraft-warped fiends and beasts? Though a suicide mission already, you would have these same few warriors escort all the inhabitants of these villages through these perilous dangers back to Lumberwall? What then, boy? Would you suggest also that I just escort all of my citizens to the safety of the Ancestor Lands? Because that is as realistic as the nonsense you spout! Clearly you have no mind for leadership or wisdom! A Wizard you may be, Ethan Skalderholt, but a fool as well!”
“Do not presume,” the angry baron continued, “to leave your homeland to the sprawling city of grandeur and greed, and then return to give your baron advice on what he should do to better the lives of his people in these dire times! Do not presume to think that since you were a citizen of Greenwell and a Forester of the Three Baronies for a miniscule amount of time that you know more than I, a humble rustic Vharian northerner, on what it is to be a leader! I have been Baron for as long as you’ve drawn breath and I’ve had to make many hard choices for the greater good! I will not abandon the defenses of Lumberwall, which contains the majority of my citizens, to run on some unrealistic fool’s errand across the Vhar Mountains! My guardsmen I cannot so carelessly sacrifice, storyteller!
“Why doesn’t the mighty Wizard do this task for me? Why doesn’t the Wizard prove his worth to his homeland or is all of the Three Baronies now his garden, this mighty lord of lords?” mocked Baron Ruauld. His face was red and beaded with sweat and Ethan noticed that he was practically panting with strain.
Ethan lowered his gaze in foolishness and humility. Baron Ruauld was completely right, Ethan realized. Who did Ethan think he was going to the rulers of the Three Baronies and throwing his so-called wisdom and self-important advice around like a delusional old-timer at a tavern?
He swallowed his guilt and managed to look sheepishly up into Baron Ruauld’s brown eyes and he stated, “I will go, my baron. I will use my Wizardcraft to go to these villages and warn them, and then I will use Wizardcraft to transport as many of your subjects as is within my power back to Lumberwall. I will prove myself a worthy citizen of Vhar.”
The Vharian Baron snorted in derision and he growled, “You will die, Ethan Skalderholt. You are no warrior. You are a storyteller and not skilled in the least at arms, despite what the frail Greenwellians may have taught you as a Forester. If you go alone, you certainly go to your death.”
“I will accompany him,” spoke a voice from the shadows in the back of the hall.
Ethan and Baron Ruauld both sought the speaker in the dim candlelight. Sir Ross, the Greenwellian Knight, having retreated into the shadows during the foreign baron’s outburst, stepped from the shadow aside a pillar into the open amber light of the timber hall and he spoke again, “I will go.”
Chapter Twenty One
In the Company of Savages
May Kinsley’s eyes shot open and she sat bolt upright in the shadowy humid chamber that she currently found herself in. She immediately regretted her sudden action as her abdomen throbbed in terrible abhorrent pain. She clutched her gut with her sweaty fingers, finding that it was bandaged in soft leather strips and fibrous vines, wide and blue-green hued. Fever Vine, she thought before she sighed.
She looked around at her surroundings and found herself to be inside a small domed structure, perhaps only five feet tall on the inside. It was constructed of a frame built of oak branches and sheathed on the outside by layers of water-resistant grasses and barks. Within the enclosure, the only light to penetrate came from miniscule gaps in the construction and the faint glow of daylight that shone through the ragged brown cloth that served as the door way into her abode. She lay upon a soft pile of ferns that were covered in a blanket similar to the one that hung in the doorway.
Finally, May realized that she was naked and her pale skin practically glowed in the darkness. Her abdomen though was tightly bound by the bandages. Woodfolk, she thought, I’m with the Woodfolk. That notion filled May with unease, especially considering her vulnerable position. She vaguely remembered being whisked away by Ethan in the arms of a powerful hot-blooded Woodfolk female. Their arrival was a collage of distorted pictures and feelings and soon afterward, the Forester lost consciousness. She was alone.
Abruptly the cloth portal to her hut was pulled to the side and a silhouette filled the doorway, illuminated from behind by the glare of the morning sun as it battled its way determinedly through a thick bank of fog that apparently shrouded the forest that she found herself in. May scurried backwards on her bottom and yanked her blanket over her nude torso in a haphazard way.
“I’m frow ul duck!” screeched May as she held her right hand up to ward off any offensive by this obviously-Woodfolk intruder.
“It is pronounced, ‘Em fro Wulduk’, Forester,” returned the figure in a distinctive thickly-accented woman’s voice in the common tongue.
Férfa stooped down and entered the hut wearing nothing but a smile and a line of orange paint that ran around her neck then descending down in between her breasts before looping in a circle around her navel. In her right hand she carried a brown clay bowl, its contents May feared to know, and in her left hand she carried a bundle of leathers and furs. When May didn’t reply to the beautiful Woodfolk woman, Férfa continued, “How does your wound fare, woman?”
“It hurts like the Soul Wastes. But I’ll live,” was May’s stern answer as her eyebrow rose in suspicion.
“Good, let’s have a look at it. It should be exposed to the air by now anyway,” replied Férfa.
May let her blanket drop from her body but still kept her forearm over her breasts. Férfa held no such inhibitions and her nude flawless body made the Forester furrow her brow in jealousy. As Férfa began to unbind the bandages that wrapped around May’s lower torso the Forester examined the Woodfolk closely. Her long dark red hair was in twin tight braids, and appeared very different from May’s short sandy blonde hair. But both of the women had the same fair skin hue, the light dusting of freckles upon their shoulders and cheeks, and the athletic figure of a woman that could endure the hardships of the Three Baronies’ wilds.
May’s thoughts were ripped from her comparison when Férfa stated loudly, “See, good as new.”
May looked down to see the puncture in the left side of her abdomen was remarkably clean but for squiggly lines of purple-hued paint that radiated out from the dark scab like the rays of the sun. Her pale skin was only slightly red and inflamed around the circular wound. “What happened to the wound? How long have I been here?” May inquired confusedly as s
he probed the tender wound lightly with her fingertips.
“You have been here asleep for nearly six days. We tended your wound with Fever Vine to combat the infection and we used chewed Blue Root to quicken the healing of your skin and flesh. It seems to have worked flawlessly,” the Woodfolk war-leader explained with an obvious air of pride in the work of her people.
“Have you heard from Ethan, the man who used Wizardcraft?” May inquired worriedly without missing a beat.
Férfa cast her gaze downward and shook her head. She said flatly, “We have not heard from the Wizard nor seen him since he used Wizardcraft to whisk himself away to the northern lands where the mountains gleam in the sunlight.”
May’s eyes abruptly welled up with tears but she desperately fought them back. She didn’t know why she had that reaction. It wasn’t like he would know where the Woodfolk camp was, or that May was awake and longing for his easy smile and soft touch. She just wanted Ethan now more than anything else in all the Three Baronies.
“You must eat, Forester. It has been some time since your belly was full,” explained Férfa, and in reply to the Woodfolk’s statement May felt tremendous pangs of hunger and thirst.
Férfa produced the bowl to May and the Forester slowly examined its contents. She was overjoyed to find that the bowl held only cool lightly-tinted broth. “It is venison broth. Sip it slowly.”
May nodded in reply and did as she was told. Not a word passed between them until May had drained every last drop of broth from the bowl and set it on the ground next to her bed of ferns. “I need to return to Greenwell City, Férfa. My order and my mother are in tremendous danger. I must get back to my headquarters if I am not already too late.”
“Yes, I know,” the Woodfolk replied.
Férfa handed the bundle of skins and furs to May with a warm smile. “Your clothes were bloodied and torn. We used them to make more blankets for our encampment’s inhabitants. These will have to do.”
May examined the articles of exotic woodland clothes and raised an eyebrow incredulously as she stared back up into the face of the smirking Woodfolk woman.
An hour later May stood on the edge of the Woodfolk encampment, a haphazard collection of little domed huts containing about fifty or sixty nude Woodfolk. The thick fog was beginning to thin and the air felt humid and very warm. May actually felt grateful for the outfit she wore. The civilized Greenwellian Forester wore a wide band of fur-lined buckskin that barely covered her breasts, a buckskin loincloth that hung downward in thin triangles over her groin and rear, and soft fur boots that fit her lower legs quite snugly. She was sure going to get a lot of stares when she entered Greenwell City, if she entered Greenwell City. She had a four day hike through the Deep Wolf and Woodfolk-infested Forests of Greenwell before she reached the relative safety of the city.
May stared out into the towering expanse of very dark green foliage and still dark oak trunks and Férfa approached her from behind. “Are you sure you don’t need any food or water?” the Woodfolk asked.
“I’m quite sure, Férfa. If there’s one thing we Foresters of the Three Baronies learn, it is to make do out in the wilderness. I’ll be all right finding my own food and drink,” she stated.
Férfa nodded and then responded, “You would have made an excellent Woodfolk, Forester. The Wizard is lucky to have you as a friend.”
“More than a friend, actually,” May smirked to herself and she began walking southwards.
“Please take this though! I very much doubt a city-dweller could take on an acid-mouthed Deep Wolf with her bare hands, even a Forester such as you!” Férfa chuckled.
May turned around just as the Woodfolk woman tossed her deadly stone knife by the blade in a slow arching toss towards her. May easily snatched it out of the air by its leather-wrapped handle and examined it. Its blade of pale gray stone had a very keen edge to it on one side and was dull on the other side. The end of the blade was slightly curved and tapered to a very deadly point that could easily end the life of whatever threatened her en route to her mother and hopefully Ethan.
She brought the dagger to her forehead and saluted the Woodfolk woman in thanks. At that May turned back around and began a brisk determined pace into the thick forest.
Chapter Twenty Two
Without Solace, Darkness
“What in the name of Lady Quinn the Martyr …,” Ethan whispered after he and Ross the Greenwellian Knight got over their disorientation due to the Wizardcraft transportation of the Wizard.
For the last ten days the two had teleported to each of Vhar’s villages. Most of the villages had suffered a lot more than a few casualties due to Blood Bears and what appeared to be Wizardcraft-altered Ice Cats. Villagers had described them as identical in appearance to the already dreadful Ice Cats but with eyes from which flowed pale blue glowing mist and fangs made of jagged ice before a mouth of blue radiance. Instead of a roar the voice of an Ice Cat was now the sound of shattering ice. Ethan and Ross had seen the remnants of their attacks, frozen mutilated corpses with gaping abhorrent wounds sheathed in a skin of bluish ice.
In each village Ethan and Ross had to explain the cause of this catastrophic turn of events in the fauna of the Vhar Mountains, and each time they were met with resentment and threats. But the promise of a swift and safe transport to the safety of Lumberwall usually quelled the anger of the commoners. So day after day, Ethan used his Wizardcraft to transport the each village’s entire remaining populace two at a time to Lumberwall. Now, after repeating this procedure in eight other hamlets, only one remained. Ethan had saved his hometown of North Ridge for last, and he regretted that decision immediately upon viewing the carnage that he and his knight companion were witness to.
The timber structures of North Ridge were blackened smoldering ruins. The smoke that still ascended from the burnt ruins rained a continuous fall of light ashes. Bodies were everywhere, some naked and some clothed, some scorched and some pale white and drained of blood, some eaten from and some whole, some old and some young, but all were lifeless and still.
A slow somber trek through the village told the two companions that all of the village’s twenty-five families were more or less accounted for. “What in the Soul Wastes caused this, Ethan?” asked Ross, the brim of his helm low and shadowing his face.
Ethan pulled his recently-bought black cloak of heavy tightly woven wool tighter over his thin body that was clothed in fresh clean clothes, a shirt of double-layered dark blue linen, trousers of dark brown wool, and soft buckskin shoes. His heavy hood was always worn up concealing his bizarre features from curious villagers.
Needless to say, his body was now completely shrouded from head to toe in bisymmetrical blue runes, swirling and arcane. His face beneath his bushy red beard and moustache was a complex array of curving flowing sigils that weaved flawlessly down his body to the soles of his feet. His eyes also were hued with a slight blue radiance, no longer his original amber color. The pale azure glow was evident upon casual observation, even without the use of Wizardcraft.
Still, he did not know any more Wizardcraft powers other than his ability to transport himself and one other person, or two other people without himself, to a place that he had been or that had been described to him. He hadn’t even received a vision since the initial one he had gotten when Wizardcraft first came to him, and he presumed that the vision was just the reaction of Wizardcraft entering his body.
The dark heavy clouds that smashed against Whitethorn Mountain above the village began to release a chilly drizzle of rain on the ruin of North Ridge but still smoke rose and ashes turned to mud. Finally, after minutes of wandering in horror and shock Ethan answered the knight, “Berserkers, cannibals of the Ice Wilds. They have come south into the Barony of Vhar.”
Ross was still garbed in his blood-stained dark green tabard, chain hauberk, coif, and helm. The Greenwellian unsheathed his straight-bladed cross guard-lacking short sword and peered cautiously about the ruins of the village as rain delu
ged from the brim of his helm. He pondered his situation for a moment, slowly sheathed his short sword, and withdrew his mighty two-handed sword from the wide scabbard he wore on his back.
“It’s all right, Sir Ross,” Ethan explained, “they have already gone. Judging from the state of the bodies and the smoldering embers, this happened at least a day or two ago.”
“That may be, lad, but I’m still not putting this blade away,” returned the warrior.
Ethan said nothing and he strode up to one ruin in particular, his home. It was barely recognizable as a structure as it was only a couple vertical black beams and piles of blackened tinder and rubble. Ethan gritted his teeth and his lips peeled back from them in a fierce sneer. “The Ancestors truly have cursed me. There will be no Ancestor Lands for Ethan Skalderholt, no reunion or eternal peace, only death and sorrow. There is no home left for me. How could May care for me, a Wizard who has brought ruin to the world and all he holds dear?” he growled quietly.
Ross didn’t answer. Either the middle-aged knight was ignoring him or didn’t hear him in the din of the mountain rain. Ethan didn’t care.
He whirled around, his heavy cloak flowing behind him, and he barked, “We leave now! There is nobody left alive here!”
He stomped forward and grasped the Greenwellian Knight firmly on the shoulder, and without hesitation the Wizard’s eyes blazed blue and he whisked them away in a sudden flash of similar-hued light.
Later that night Sir Ross entered the common room of The House of Chronicles by himself. Just bathed, his closely-cropped black and silver hair and his thick mustache were smooth and shiny, and he wore his tunic of dark green linen belted at the waist and a pair of black hose that he wore tucked into his large black boots. His two-handed sword was with his armor up in his room, but as always at his side he still wore his short sword.
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