Crooked Finger and the Warl of the Dead

by Rex Hazelton

  Chapter 17: Inexorable Rot

  Alynd the Elf-Man stood on a hill rising above the Syble Plains, studying Ar Warl’s retreating armies. Ramskynd the Elf-King reached up to take off his helmet whose antlers were made with pure star’s blood, those that had pieces of antler taken from a white stag living in Forest Deep whose inherent magic still resided in the bone. Tucking it under his arm in a way that kept the antler’s prongs from pressing into his side or into the sides of those nearby, he lifted a hand to his brow to keep the sunlight off his dark brown eyes.

  Silvamor the Elf-Prince kept his helmet on since the star’s blood owl wings rising above his head did the work his father’s hand was being used for. Feathers taken from Bacchanor when the shape-shifter took on the form of the white owl he was fond of assuming, were carefully placed inside the intricately-designed wings that were smaller replicas of the original ones. Like the antlers, these were filled with magic that, this time, came from the Brown Wizard. Along with his green eyes, the scars covering half of Silvamor’s face were covered with the welcome shade, scars Laviathon’s fire had etched into his flesh as he ran along the banks of the Wyne River in pursuit of the sea serpent swimming in there.

  Shalamor, who had chased laviathon alongside his brother during the Battle of Decision, wore a helmet with a nose guard shaped to look like an eagle’s beak. Each of the smaller replicas of the predator’s graceful wings that swept backwards alongside his head were graced with fibers taken from a griffin feather. Lightly armored- greaves, breastplate, vambraces, and gauntlets, all made with star’s blood hammered thin as the lightly-bronzed skin covering their bodies- Forest Deep’s Elves depended on speed more than brawn. Each wore capes as green as the tunics and leggings their armor was strapped to.

  Alynd wore less armor than Mystlkynd’s rulers, since the Hammer of Power’s Magic had touched him during the Battle of the Cave of Forgetfulness in a way that made his skin tougher than tree bark. The vambraces and greaves he wore, along with the twin blades he wielded, were used as shields to block any arrow or blade that came his way. Even if he was wounded, the Healing Magic found in the Tears of Andara he carried would be used to restore his health. Still, with all the power the Elf-Man possessed and the long life he had lived, he was not immortal. Neither were Ramskynd and his kin.

  Unlike the elf-rulers’ resplendent dress, Alynd’s clothing was understated in a utilitarian way. No longer wearing the woodsman clothing that was the norm before he was crowned Otrodor’s king, Alynd now donned garments befitting his new role in life: well-tailored black woolen pants held in place by a wide leather belt with a silver buckle shaped to look like an oak leaf, silk shirts a shade of blue matching his eyes, waisted vests made of black leather, a gray coat matching his pants in quality that was mid-thigh in length, and soft, black leather boots whose tops covered his calves. Alynd exchanged his coat for a cloak the same color when he planned to fight.

  Instead of wearing a wide-brimmed hat like he always had over the course of his life, Alynd kept his head uncovered even during battle, a hat that kept Alynd hidden until his coronation as Otrodor’s sovereign when he stepped out of the shadows of anonymity and into the light destiny was shining on him, a destiny requiring Alynd to become a bridge spanning the divide between humans and elves.

  The Otrodorians standing beside him, along with Ramskynd and his sons, gave proof that his work as a bridge was coming along nicely. As the son of Chrystillan, an elf-maiden from Forest Deep, and Melechrom, Prince of Otrodor, Alynd was given magic to heal the wound Constodyne, Melechrom’s father, had inflicted on the people he ruled over as king, a wound that let an infection of ignorance take hold in his once impressive realm, turning it into a diseased place called The Wilderness where Wild Men, as the civilized warl called them, lived in splintered clans that disliked each other nearly as much as they did the rest of the Nyeg Warlers.

  Rejecting Melechrom, once the king’s son disobeyed his command to break off his relationship with Chrystillan, opened the door to a curse’s spell. Conjured up by bitterness, the unintended spell threw Otrodor into a death spiral it couldn’t overcome until Alynd stepped out of the shadows to save it. The irony that Constodyne’s, if you would, half-breed grandson was responsible for the revival of Otrodor’s greatness was not lost on elves and humans alike. Having someone with both human and elven blood flowing through their veins arrest the deconstruction of a once prosperous people and place them on the road to regaining their former glory made the present alliance of human and elves possible.

  Still, the damage Otrodor’s Dark Age heaped on the crumbling realm was far from repaired. The armor the Otrodorians wore showed this. Though the grizzled old warrior nearest Alynd, Doeryn by name, wore matching armor befitting his position as one of three generals who led Otrodor’s armies, many of the warriors under his command wore piece-meal armor they or their fathers had gathered in the Wilderness War, armor they scavenged off those they had slain in battles they fought with those who were now their allies.

  Doeryn was a perfect picture of Otrodor’s transition from its unruly past to the civilized future it was headed towards. As well-made as his armor was, the general still wore a beard as wild and dense as a thornel thicket riddled with white skymer vines. While his smokey, green eyes were filled with the light great intelligence emitted, his teeth were yellow from chewing on pork bark, a bad habit backwoods clansman developed to stay warm in the winter.

  The warriors living in the city of Otrodor wore tunics made of chainmail underneath boiled leather breastplates that had the symbol of an oak tree burned into them. Their boiled leather helmets were reinforced with metal bands wrapped around and over the tops of the headgear. One of the vertical bands extended low enough to serve as a nose guard. Greaves and vambraces were similarily constructed. All wielded shields, swords, and axes that looked like they were made by the same weaponsmith.

  The warriors living outside the capital city of Otrodor wore less uniform armor. The weapons they carried were eclectic in make. This condition became acute in warriors that came from remote places. Those who came from the more isolated villages looked no different than the clansmen did during the Battle of the Temple of the Oak Tree. Draped in animal furs, the pants they wore were made of either leather or a rough cloth similar to the material used to make tents. Their brown shirts were made with a mix of wool and the fibers used to make the cloth added to the weave. Long hair and full beards were the norm unlike the shorter facial hair the Otrodorians now favored. Shields were made with wood strapped together with leather bindings. Helmets were made with pelts that had fur thick enough to provide a measure of protection. Large animal skulls, big enough to cover their heads, were common enough.

  “Looks like a controlled retreat to me,” Doeryn said with an accent common to the clans that made their home in the Verdant Mountains’ foothills found in Otrodor’s eastern reaches. “I don’t think we’ve chased them off like they want us to believe.”

  “I concur,” Ramskynd said to the man whose tactical acumen had been proven to the elf-king time and again as they marched across southwestern Ar Warl. He found Doeryn’s insights came from thinking that was not limited to the cunning machinations of a feral mind. Instead, the old man’s intellect was, in many ways, as sophisticated as any found in a king’s court, though Doeryn’s mode of communication hid this fact. And if one was foolish enough to call him old to his face, that intellect would be used to mine every weakness that person had, weaknesses Doeryn would make public knowledge if the unappreciated comment was ever repeated.

  “But we’ve bloodied them good,” Boorwyn said with a voice firm enough to confirm his view of things. A huge man who came from Clan Mardt, Boorwyn was the second of the three generals Alynd had chosen to lead his warriors into battle. Where Doeryn was a finely-honed blade, Boorwyn was like one of the metal-studded clubs the Cragmar Giants carried. Brimming with confidence and a lust for battle, the imposing figure of a man had the ability to inspire other
s to fight as savagely and doggedly as he did. Any task given to him was completed, any fight he picked was won, or so it seemed. That’s why Alynd had chosen the man to serve as one of his generals. At times, courage and brawn were more effective than tactical brilliance. With Doeryn and Boorwyn by his side, the King of Otrodor had both.

  “They’ve bloodied us too,” Doeryn admitted as he squinted at the enemy who was moving away from them. “If this continues, our strength will be sapped long before we see the whites of the Sorcerer’s fire-blasted eyes.”

  A burst of blue light preceded Alynd’s words. “Doeryn, you know we’re doing better than that. Still, your point is taken. Even if your pessimistic assessment were true, we have no other option but to press on.”

  “Press on we shall.” Prince Wyval confirmed his resolve to take the fight to the enemy. His father, King Donnanor of Cassiakynd, gave his son the job of overseeing the growth of Cassia, a city the king founded on Nyeg Warl’s southwest coast to serve as a harbor for his fleet of ships if the shrinking Breach Sea was to disappear entirely.

  Wearing armor fashioned out of an alloy made of star’s blood and bronze, over an orange tunic and brown leggings, the prince held a helmet with a long, orange plume affixed to it under his arm. The grandson of King Nestor who sat on Cassiakynd’s throne back when the Warriors of Regret took control of the city in the days leading up to the Battle of Decision, Wyval was determined to keep his people from falling into evil’s grasp again. With all the murders the Lord of Regret’s agents carried out back in that dark time now a part of Cassiakynd’s communal memory, the prince was as devoted to ending the Sorcerer’s reign of terror as any of Ab’Don’s victims. The courage he displayed in the Battle of Port Crown was proof of this. The amount of the enemy’s blood his kinsman spilled in the fighting emphasized the fact.

  The Battle of Port Crown was indeed bloody. Though the Nyeg Warlers were able to conquer the city, the price paid to purchase the victory was steep and would’ve been much greater if the Ar Warlers were willing to fight to the death. But Like what happened in Suskynd in the north and Belem in the south, Ar Warl’s forces slipped out of the city before they could be hemmed in. At Belem, the Duikosian horsemen arrived in time to open an avenue of escape along the banks of the newly formed Breach River that flows out of the equally new Breach Lake situated in the north where Port Crown sits. There, the combined armies of the kingdoms of Trynt and Storch arrived to open a door that those defending the once impressive naval base used to reach the Syble Plains they were now crossing.

  No longer situated on the coast, once the Breach Sea was reduced to two rivers and a single elongated lake, Port Crown had sent the fleet stationed there to Belem in the south. This was done as a precaution, lest the Nyeg and the Ar’s march toward each other didn’t stop until the two land masses touched. Located in a place with access to the open sea even if the two continents did collide, Belem was the logical choice to house Ar Warl’s navy.

  Though the fleet was safe from the converging continents, it wasn’t safe from the Bjorkian longboats that converged on the ships hidden by the Magic of Invisibility their beloved Wisdor Stones gave them.

  Even with crocodon scouts patrolling the Largryk Sea that lay south of Belem, four hundred longboats reached the port where much of the fleet was anchored without being discovered. The fight that ensued was fierce and many of Ar Warl’s ships were boarded by the fierce hammer-wielding Bjork before a swarm of cretchym came to the rescue.

  Targeting the seafarer’s, once they became visible after leaping out of the field of invisibility that hid the longboats and onto the enemy’s ships, the cretchym hurled the Bjork they grabbed with mutant hands into the sea where a school of crocodon waited to great them with toothy smiles and gray-green eyes filled with equal measures of hatred and mirth. The cretchym hands doing the work spanned a spectrum that ran from raptor talons to spiney insect claws.

  Retracing the flight of the flaming arrows the Bjork archers shot at the ships they targeted, the winged demons were able to backtrack to the invisible longboats. After breaking through the Wisdor Stone’s barrier of invisibility, the cretchym were able to engage the Bjork warriors they could now see with the weapons they carried. By doing this, they took the risk of being hit by the large stones their bigger mutant brethren dropped on the places the fiery arrows emerged from.

  While this was going on, King Ramskynd and the elves of Forest Deep swam across the Breach River’s expanse and attacked the unwalled docks. Alynd and his Otrodorian hordes crossed the Breach River on a flotilla of crudely constructed rafts and assaulted Belem’s walls using the tall ladders they carried with them.

  Soon the ramparts were ablaze with lethal magic the Hag, stationed in Belem, and the Candle Makers, accompany Nyeg Warl’s southern army, threw at one another.

  As savage as they still were, the Otrodorians, once called Wild Men by the rest of Nyeg Warl, broke into the city and wreaked havoc on the defenders. Cassian warriors, dressed in their orange and brown colors, added their lust for vengeance against those who had decimated Cassiakynd at the Sorcerer’s behest in the Battle of Decision to the Otrodorian’s savagery.

  When another swarm of cretchym appeared in the skies as they flew out of the Thrall Mountains’ distant heights, the Otrodorian and Cassian advance was appreciably slowed by the winged-demons who maliciously swooped down on them, those that were created by melding Ab’Don’s essence with the essence found in the winged-creatures living in the warl: bats, birds of prey, dragonflys, beetles, wasps, mosquitos, preying mantis, and more.

  With the vast variety of cretchym that were present, the battle was filled with a riot of weird fighting styles, each befitting the mutants’ unorthodox bodies whose common denominator was the resemblance each had to the Sorcerer himself. That’s why so many of them had long, blond hair flowing off their heads or human-like arms and legs attached to an insect or bird’s torso. All were at least as large as an average-sized human. More than a few were armored with a beetle’s hard carapace. Others had beaks and mandibles. While even more had weird human faces that looked out of place with the feathers or exoskeletons framing them.

  The battle continued in a fever pitch that was only ameliorated when a phalanx of griffin came soaring out from the Largryk Sea and threw themselves into the ensuing fight. With the elven sparkling thred-arrows, each a different color found in a rainbow, joining the winged-lions in thinning out the cretchym swarm, the scales of the battle tipped toward the Nyeg Warlers. But instead of going on the offensive to rectify this imbalance, the Ar Warlers broke out of the city and fled north when a vast host of Duikosian horsemen rode up to the city walls to provide cover for the retreat. Not a route, this was a strategic withdrawal that was anticipated beforehand. Well-organized, it was carried out to perfection.

  As this was happening, Ar Warl’s navy made a dash for the open sea and freedom. But less than half of the fleet was in any condition to do this. The rest of the ships had been commandeered by the fierce Bjorkian warriors or were going up in flames.

  Just enough longboats were sent to hound the fleeing navy to keep it on the run. The rest of the Bjorkian vessels were divided into two fleets: one that would secure Belem, and another that would sail up Breach River to support the Nyeg Warlers when they attacked Port Crown.

  With the Ar Warlers now retreating as they were across the Syble Plain, the Bjork warriors, who had left the longboats to help the Otrodorian, Cassian, and Elven warriors pursue their enemies, returned to their ships. Upon their arrival, the Bjorkian vessels were divided into two groups once more: one that would secure Port Crown; the second, a larger group, would sail the length of Breach Lake and enter the Malamor River they would use to reach Nyeg Warl’s northern army marching toward Malam.

  When they reached Cassiakynd that now sat at the northern end of the newly created lake, the Bjorkian seaman sent out emissaries with dispatches for King Donnanor. Missives from Prince Wyval that were included in the communica
tions informed the king of his plans to keep Cassia’s forces moving north along with the rest Nyeg Warl’s southern army. In addition, Wyval asked his father to send enough of his remaining ships to Port Crown to free the rest of the Bjorkian longboats to follow their brethren’s northward trek.

  Not long afterwards, ships flying brown and orange colors were docked in Port Crown as the rest of the longboats were moving up the Malamor River on their way to catch up with Nyeg Warl’s northern army.

  ****

  “What do you think is going on,” Peyt asked Jayk as they sat down to eat the tough bisquits and hard cheese they had been given for their hastily arranged meal. Since the night was not cool enough to warrant a fire being built, none had been made in the Ar Warl camp. Nor were any tents put up. In fact, the break they were taking was more for the animals than the warriors themselves. It wouldn’t be long before they were on the move again, either toward the Nyeg Warlers to engage them in a quick strike the Ar Warlers would break off before they were sucked into a prolonged battle, or away from the army of elves and men that pursued them. It was this attack and retreat strategy the commanders of Ar Warl’s forces were employing that was being discussed.

  “It’s obvious we don’t want a real fight,” Jayk spoke as he lit a small fire the men of Bridgewater could use to light the pipes each carried. Since he was the leader of the guard that protected the village they all came from, it made sense that he was put in charge of the company of warriors conscripted out of Bridgewater, though, according to military rank, Kroyn was the official commander of Bridgewaters’ militia. Since all of Ar Warl’s officers were whiteskins, it only stood to reason that each of the village militias had someone who had the Spell of the White Hand cast over them placed in charge. And as time went by, more of those under their command joined them in their whiteness.