by Rex Hazelton
While a stalemate of sorts was established between him and his burly adversary who kept at him with the hammer he carried, Jayk heard more than one moanful cry rise above the din of battle. Seeing what looked like a pillar of black smoke rising into the dark sky, Jayk tried to find the source of the discharge. To his surprise, a white-skin’s crumpled body lay below the pillar of smoke. But before he had time to consider how the bloodless fiend had been brought down, Jayk saw a white head role along the plain until it bumped up against the nearby warriors who paid it no heed in their struggle.
“Bridgewater,” Kroyn shouted when another moanful cry accompanied another pillar of smoke, “retreat.”
Satisfied to let his capable foe flee, the Otrodorian turned to make sure the retreating Ar Warlers wouldn’t stick him in the back as they passed by. And indeed, a full retreat was in motion as the Duikian horsemen, Storch Regulars, and Bridgewater Militia withdrew to the safety of the main encampment.
During the retreat, Jayk purposely headed for the circle of poles that were raised on the Syble Plain. He had to see what was going on, though he was certain he already had a good idea. As he drew close to the loathsome place, he saw ropes of fire reaching out into the air. The Hag, who had been standing guard over the whiteskins who presided over the ritual used to conjure up the Spell of the White Hand, were busy combating the Candle Warriors who were tyring to secure the site, so they could give it a close examination.
With shields made of magical fire held in one hand and blazing spears composed of the same magic held in the other, the Candle Warriors advanced on the Hag who made themselves vulnerable to attack as they extended their candles’ flames into firey ropes that struck the bodies hanging from the wooden poles. Giving up on the ritual before it was completed, the black-robed wizards were determined to destroy any evidence that could help their enemies understand the magic that was being used, magic that- heretofore- had been a secret Ab’Don and those he favored kept to themselves.
After one of the Hag had a fiery lance driven through their chest, most of its brethren quickly transformed the ropes of fire into shields they used to protect themselves as they joined the retreat. Not able to use two candles at a time like the Candle Warriors could made this a wise move for the black-robed wizards. Those that kept the fiery ropes intact, used them to strike at the Candle Warriors to keep them at bay as they withdrew.
As he passed by the ritual site, Jayk noted that the poles looked like huge torches with the burning bodies they held supplying the fuel. He was surprised to see flames also rose from the metal bowls that had been positioned to collect the blood drained from the hapless victims.
How was blood burning, he wondered? All the rest he had seen before.
“There you are, You Fire-Blasted Worm,” Kroyn shouted out his displeasure. “I told you to not look this way. But since you have, take a good one. Your time is coming. Now go keep the rest of the villagers from coming this way. If you do a good enough job, your time won’t be tomorrow night.”
****
For five days after that night, Ar Warl’s commanders kept up the hit and run tactics, but this changed once they approached the western end of the Thrall Mountains.
The past two days saw the Ar Warlers try to get as much distance between themselves and their pursuers as possible. Rumor had it that this was happening because Nyeg Warl’s northern forces were moving across the Great Plains that lay north of the mountain range’s western extremity. Speculation said that if they didn’t pick up their pace, the Ar Warlers could be caught between Nyeg Warl’s two main forces. If this happened, they would be beaten up so badly they’d have little to offer the Sorcerer if they were lucky enough to escape the vice that was closing in on them.
No longer within striking distance of the Nyeg Warlers that pursued them, the Ar Warlers were allowed to build campfires, though enough wood to make anything sizeable was hard to come by on the plains. The cheer this might have brought to Bridgewater’s militia as they sat around the fires was removed by the two whiteskins who were noticeably shadowing Jayk. One of these was Gasyn who owned the village stables. The other one was Trott, an elderly man who was best known for his love for fishing in the Teal River that fronted Bridgewater’s western side. Both men had been changed into whiteskins around the time Kroyn was. Both had also been appointed to the council that was charged with watching over Bridgewater while its men were away fighting a war with Nyeg Warl. The fact that they had left their posts in Bridgewater and joined the militia troubled the other men, especially when the two whiteskins refused to talk about the village or any of the families that were left behind.
Remembering Kroyn’s threat, Jayk was bothered more than most when he realized that Gasyn and Trott spent an inordinate amount of their time keeping an eye on him. “I can’t fight this feeling that something bad has happened in Bridgewater,” Jayk confessed in a voice so low that only the men sitting around the campfire in front of him could hear him. Looking at the two whiteskins that stood behind the circle of men with their arms crossed over their chests, he was relieved when they didn’t show any sign that they had heard him. “If I don’t leave tonight to see for myself, I don’t think I’ll get another chance with all the threats Kroyn as been throwing my way. That goes for you too Peyt.”
“Then let’s leave tonight,” the big man said in a rough sounding whisper.
“I’m going with you,” Red chimed in.
“They execute deserters.” Rufyk’s words came out in a hiss.
“It’s better to die trying to reach home, then to have an elf cut my head off.” Cloy was determined to go with Jayk.
“I told you, the fairie folk only cut white-skin’s heads off.” Never one to miss a chance to use dark humor, Petyr added. “They’d probably just slit your throat.”
“Aye, I know, I know.... Or stick me with their glowing arrows because I’m bigger than you.” Cloy’s eyes were halfway closed as he dispensed his droll remark to his witty friend.
“How are we going to get out of camp without drawing attention?” Tagle, used to Petyr and Cloy’s banter, didn’t miss a beat when refocusing the conversation on the topic at hand- going home.
“Shouldn’t we tell the others what we’re going to do, in case they want to come too?” Scoup looked at the others struggling to come up with a plan that would get all Bridgewater’s militia out of camp without someone noticing.
“Can’t do it Scoup,” Barty whispered as he glanced at Gyan and Trott. To his relief, the whiteskins had turned away from Jayk and were surveying the rest of Bridgewater’s camp. “Ain’t going to get a hundred of us out of here without getting caught.”
“He’s right,” Peyt added as he rubbed a beefy hand over his bald head. “It’s going to be hard enough to get the nine of us out of here, if that’s what were fixing to do.”
“Nine’s a good number,” Jayk said. “It’s small enough to give us a chance to slip away, but large enough to help Bridgewater’s folk once we get there. I think the others would want us to go check on their families. With Gyan and Trott showing up like they did, they got to be wondering about home same as us.”
“Besides,” Red’s gruff voice was heard, “it won’t be long before Kroyn makes good on the threats he’s been hurling Jayk and Peyt’s way. And if those two are turned into whiteskins, there’ll be no hope for rest of us.”
“That settles it,” Peyt slapped his thigh with the hand he used to rub his head with, “we’re leaving tonight.”
“We better make plans then.” Rufyk swallowed hard as he took in Gyan and Trott with the corner of his eye. “And they better be good ones, since I don’t plan on getting executed like the deserters they’ve caught.”
****
Since the men had talked about what it would take to leave for home before in conversations used to blow off steam after the battles they fought, it was easier to make plans than expected. Wishful thinking as it was, the prior discussions proved to be useful practice for
the real thing once the time arrived.
Water was the most important provision. Food could be found almost anywhere if one was willing to eat crawling, creeping things like worms or things that skittered about in the air. The amount of water that could be carried was limited by keeping the size of the skin or container small enough to keep suspicion from arising as they elft camp.
Tagle, Rufyk, Barty, and Scoup were the first to go.
Meandering through the camp until they were spaced far enough apart from each other, the four took on the look of men who needed to relieve themselves as they fiddled with their pants bindings and slipped off into the darkness. After gaining adequate separation from the camp, the men changed their tactics to include acting like they were becoming sick. Intermingling groaning with the sounds people make when they’re about to throw up, the men stumbled past the picket line that kept their eyes as much on the camp as they did the darkness covering the Syble Plain behind them.
Once they got past the annoyed guards who didn’t want to catch their illness and the occasional white-skin that was there to keep an eye on the guards- Tagle, Rufyk, Barty, and Scoup increased the volume of their complaining to hide the fact that they were moving farther away from the camp.
In time, the noise they made was only served up intermittently as the gaps between the groaning increased until it stopped entirely. At that point, the men, keeping low to the ground, hurried off to an agreed upon rendezvous point: a particularly steep hill that could be seen rising above the Thrall Mountains’ lower slopes. With the outriders the Ar Warlers had patrolling the area around camp, and cretchym that scoured the plains from their vantage point in the sky, the men were far from safe. It would take all the cunning they had to avoid detection.
Peyt, Cloy, and Petyr were the next to go. Needing to separate themselves from those in the militia that were sleeping lest they awake and question what they were doing, the three men met up at a predetermined spot that was removed from the place where Bridgewater’s militia was bedded down. Taking off his coat, Cloy wrapped it around Petyr a moment before he grabbed hold of his friend and hoisted his loosely wrapped body up on his shoulder. Being as big as he was, Cloy’s coat covered Petyr’s body like it was a blancket. Afterward, he and Peyt set off for the picket line, moving in a direction that would take them to the burned-out funeral pyre that had been built farther out in the plains to keep the smell of smoke and burned flesh from inundating the Ar Warlers’ senses.
Taking the lead, Peyt was pretending to wipe tears out of his eyes as he stepped up to a guard and said, “Let us pass, my brother has died and I need to tend to his body before it begins to stink. It won’t do for Fistyr to stink, being the good man he was.”
Then to Cloy’s amazement, and Petyr’s too for that matter, the tavern owner began to blubber and bawl like he was a child who had his rump whacked by his Da.
“Stop crying, you Big Baby,” the guard nearest the men said with disdain dripping off of his words. “We’ve all lost friends and family. Get ahold of yourself and take care of your brother’s body. And don’t take long doing it.”
“Yes sir,” Peyt said as he sniffed back his tears lowered his head and lumbered forward. “By your leave.”
Following Peyt’s lead, Cloyd lowered his head and slumped along behind the surprisingly good actor who led the way.
Before they reached the pyre used to burn the bodies of those who had died the previous day, Petyr’s muffled voice was heard saying, “I didn’t know you had it in you Peyt.”
Giving Petyr a good shaking, Cloy replied, “Shut up, You Lumpy Sack of Potatos, or I’ll make you swap places with me.”
Petyr’s retort was quick in coming. “If you do that, at least I’ll know I’m safe from them fire-blasted elf arrows with you laying across my back.”
“And your knees will be wobbling like an old man getting out of bed in the morning.”
“Blast it,” Peyt hissed out, “stop the clamoring or will all be put on the funeral pyre for real.”
The dying embers gave off enough light to show that the pyre was abandoned. So, without further delay Cloy lowered Petyr to his feet and the three disappeared into the darkness once Petyr returned the coat he had been wrapped in back to his friend.
Thinking it was unwise to have too many of them pretend to be sick, and aware the funeral pyre tactic wouldn’t work twice, Red took off on his own claiming he’d find a way out of the camp.
Jayk was the last to go. By waiting like he did, Jayk knew he would draw Gyan and Trott’s attention off the others as they slipped away. And he wasn’t wrong. Once he pretended to wake up since he had never fallen to sleep, Jayk stood up and yawned. Then rubbing his eyes, he wandered off into the Ar Warl camp where he tried to lose the two whiteskins who followed at a distance since the direction he was going didn’t raise any concerns.
Gathering speed in a way Gyan and Trott wouldn’t easily detect, Jayk wound his way through the tents the Storch Regulars had put up. As he went, he picked up a helmet, breastplate, halberk, and anything else he could use to disquise himself as a guard. Once he finished putting on the armor he had stolen, Jayk turned around and headed for the encampment’s periphery. Catching sight of a white-skin, who was neither Gyan nor Trott, Jayk composed himself and continued on, acting like he was late for guard duty.
Once he reached the picket line, Jayk went and stood in the biggest gap he could find between the guards. Before, the others had time to figure out he wasn’t anyone they knew, Jayk lifted his halberk and said, “What’s that,” only loud enough for the guard on either side of him to hear. After he added, “I don’t think there’s anything to worry about, but I’ll go check it out anyway,” Jayk set off into the darkness to make good his escape.
Finding a dry streambed cutting its way through the plains in a direction that came from the Thrall Mountains, Jayk kept his disguise on as he fled through the natural crease that rainwater had dug over time. On and on, he went listening for sounds of pursuit the whole time and keeping an eye on the sky in case cretchym were sent out to find him. Never stopping, only slowing down enough to recoup his strength, Jayk pressed on towards the Thrall Mountains’ foothills.
The steepening rise and fall of the land seen on either side of the streambed made it abundantly clear that his goal was close at hand. So, he pulled off the helmet he had put on during the escape and threw it to the ground along with the halberd he was reluctant to part ways with, since he was sure he no longer needed it. The short trees that were scattered across the landscape verified Jayk’s assumption. If luck was on his side, the space between the trees would diminish before the sun rose, providing him better cover. The graying sky said there wasn’t much time for that to happen. Still, Jayk was pleased with his progess. In truth, he was pleased he hadn’t been caught yet with all the magic used to protect the Ar Warl army.
Then to his surprise, Jayk saw what looked like a pillar of white stone standing in the middle of the streambed ahead of him. When the stone spoke, his surprise turned to horror, since it was Kroyn’s voice he heard.
“I knew you’d try to escape once Gyan and Trotts showed up.” His erstwhile father-in-law said with a measure of satisfaction that came from being right. “You worry too much about Bridgewater. It makes you predictable.”
“How did you get here,” Jayk asked as he looked to see if a mode of transportation was nearby: a horse or a cretchym big enough to carry him.
Pleased by the mystery that surrounded his appearance, Kroyn said, “Does it matter? The fct that I found you should be worrying enough. I’ll always be able to find you, but I won’t divulge the means I use to do this.”
We’ll never win fighting against magic, Jayk thought. What chance do people have against sorcery? How can we combat wraiths, monsters, and the unfairness of life?
Sensing Jayk’s consternation, Kroyn pressed his advantage. “Are you wondering what’s happened to your wife and children? Could they be as white as me? To tell y
ou that would spoil things. How fun would it be to take your life if you didn’t care if I did? Not much. I need you to believe you can still help your family. Then the sweetness of the kill will be doubled when I see the flicker of hope die with you.
“To properly set the table for the meal I’m about to eat, let me admit a failure, not mine exactly, but one my kind is responsible for. Since we’re not entirely independent of each other, I’ll admit our short coming. You see, we’re all tied to the Sorcerer, and through him, to one another. But it’s not like we think the same thoughts or can read each others’ minds. We can only commune with one another when our master wants us to. And we can only touch our master’s thoughts when he gives us the opportunity to do so. On the other hand, he can reach into our minds at the slightest whim.”
Kroyn sighed and added, “Oh well… he’s the master and I’m not.” Then Kroyn smiled. “Unless… he and I are one because of the spell that binds us together. If only that were true, but it’s not. Part of me is still Kroyn, a part my master can’t remove for reasons unkown to me. Does this mean I have even a iota of sympathy for you or my progeny? No. As they say: That ship has sailed.”
Jayk had heard enough, withdrawing his sword he spoke through clenched teeth. “Stop your prattling and draw your sword.”
“Very well.” Kroyn reluctantly drew out his sword since he hadn’t finished setting the table yet.
Jayk took a step toward Kroyn and said, “If you have anything else you want me to hear, you better say it quick.”
“Alright. It seems your fire-blasted brother snuck most of Bridgewater’s people out of the village right under the noses of those who are blessed to be like me. I think that half-baked wizard, Findyl, had something to do with it. So, you see, if you can kill me, you might be able to find them and keep them alive for a day or two longer. Trackers are hunting them down. Not humans, mind you, nor only wraiths and my white brethren. There are other things you wouldn’t want your family to meet that are sniffing out their hiding place.”
