Crooked Finger and the Warl of the Dead

by Rex Hazelton

  “Ramskynd and the other kings have deferred to Alynd’s leadership, so too Plagea who has rejoined Nyeg Warl’s forces” Nazar Blood reported. “And from what I can see, Alynd is pressing onward, so much so, the Voyd River is now in sight, though a sea of Ar Warl warriors lays between the Nyeg Warlers and the waterway that flows around the Hall of Voyd as it leaves the Thrall Mountains.”

  “Will he attack tomorrow?” Bacchanor asked as he made calculations in his head.

  “Aye.” The word that Nyeg Warlers used so often sounded strange being said with the griffin’s deep, rumbling voice. “With reports of the Ar Warl army that is approaching you from the east having been received, Alynd wants to take as much heat off the Hammer Bearer and Fane J’Shrym as he can.”

  “You say, Goldan is on his way to intercept this army?” Ay’Roan asked.

  “Aye, he’s already within striking distance and is only waiting for daylight to attack.”

  “But the calvary he’s leading isn’t large enough to stop the Ar Warlers?” Vlad’Aeroth was trying to sort things out along with the man who shared his role as the Fane J’Shrym Wylder with him.

  “No. But he can slow it down enough to keep you from having to fight on two fronts tomorrow.”

  “The fighting may not wait for tomorrow,” Bacchanor said before he went on to explain the cretchym attack that had just taken place. But before he had time to complete the tale, shouts were heard as the cretchym renewed their assault. This time, four vipers- as big as the centipedes were- had arrived. Instead of beetles, a swarm of scorpions the size of hounds accompanied the huge snakes. With blond hair as long as a woman’s streaming off of heads that were more human than insect, the creatures were disturbing to behold. With how much the Sorcerer had twisted nature to make his beloved cretchym, many couldn’t help but think the act needed to engineer the monsters was a reflection of the mutants’ creator’s own warped soul.

  Hundreds of lives were lost before the scorpion’s lightning quick tails were cut off, or enough arrows were shot into their armor-like exoskeletons until one of their sharp heads finally struck a vital organ. On the other hand, the vipers only took twelve lives befor the Candle Wielders cut them down.

  With a third attack taking place after another interval of time had passed, it became apparent the Sorcerer was using the cretchym to drain the rebel’s strength by making it impossible for them to sleep soundly or at all. Some took this as a sign that Ar Warl intended to mount a major attack once the new day arrived. Others thought this could be the first of a series of such nights, and that the attack could come later, say when the army that was coming out of the east arrived to add their weight to the fight.

  The third attack involved a swarm of ant-like mutants with human traits whose bites were filled with toxin. Like the scorpions, the cretchym were the size of hunting dogs. There was so many of these creatures that no other cretchym were sent along with them. Some of the mutants had human arms, some human legs. Those with human legs could be seen standing upright at times as they ran along or as they fought the rebels.

  ****

  “What will you do when the fighting begins?” Kaylan asked Lylah as the faintest touch of gray outlined the eastern horizon.

  “I’ll follow your lead.” Lylah’s smile sparkled with light the waning moon cast behind itself as it hurried off to its hiding place.

  “But you’ve never had to fight before.”

  “Sweetheart, have you forgotten the goar that broke into the Warl of Vapor? Do you recall the waterkynd melding together to become a giant who struck the monster with a sword made of lightning?”

  “But you and I ran from the goar.”

  “Yes, because it had come for us.” Lylah brushed Kaylan’s face with a vaporous hand that left minute drops of water on the cheek it had touched. “But you’re mistaken if you think I run every time a goar shows up. There were more than a few times when I was inside that cloud as it went to confront the monster that threatened our warl. And what about the role I played in getting you out of the Hall of Voyd?”

  “Alright, no more needs to be said.” Kaylan laughed out loud. “With your apparent experience, maybe I should follow your lead.”

  “Maybe you should.” Lylah’s laughter sounded like gently falling rain.

  ****

  Leolynn was exhausted by a night spent fighting off waves of land-bound cretchym. Hundreds of rebels had lost their lives to the stingers, fangs, and razor-sharp mandibles the monsters wielded in place of swords and spears. Sadly, there wasn’t time to mourn the lose of friends and loved ones. That wouldn’t come until later for those who would survive a conflict that was sure to see few did. As often happens during wartime, bodies were disposed of on tops of pyres to keep disease from gaining purchase in the corpses that the best Healer couldn’t keep from rotting beneath the warm sun. Though there was little time to construct large pyres, rebels who were opposed to letting their loved ones’ bodies experience even the first stages of corruption were already cremating their remains. Because of this, the graying sky overhead was smudged with finger-like tendrils of pungent smoke that feebly tried to grasp hold of the heavens above.

  “What’s that coming out of the Sorcerer’s camp?” Leolynn squinted at the throng of creatures that sprinted towards them, most on all fours, some on two legs only, all more human-like than any cretchym they had encountered the past night.

  “More cretchym,” Liathynn spat out his reply, “More fire-blasted cretchym!”

  “Are you sure, they look like hunchman to me. No offense Ilya-Gar.”

  “From my perspective,” Ilya’Gar calmly replied, “I would say, they look like humans to me.”

  “Burn it to ashes,” Travyn cursed. “They’re the cretchym the Sorcerer made using the essence he took from the Broyn’Dar. These are not dumb monsters like the cretchym we fought this past night. They’re nearly as smart as any of us.”

  “Speak for yourself,” J’Aryl laughed at his overminwn dark quip.

  “Nice,” was the sarcastic reply Travyn gave before shouting: “We got our work cut out for us. Sound the alarm. These are not mere vermin were facing.”

  With their weapons strapped to their backs, ten thousand hunchman-human cretchym covered the ground between the warring camps as quickly as a herd of horses could. Seeing the intelligence in their eyes, and the mass of muscles rippling below their short fur as they ran, Leolynn almost grew nostalgic about the past night when all they had to fight were gigantic insects that were barely smarter than farm animals.

  Mocking their Broyn’Dar half, the hunchman-human cretchym swiped bright paint on muzzles that were less pronounced than their unwilling fathers. Instead of the traditional blue and red colors that Broyn-Dar tradition dictated they wear into battle, the cretchym wore paint that honored the Sorcerer whose eyes and hair were yellow. Wanting an army of hunchman-humans by the time the war began, Ab’Don let the Hag use their own essence to create the mutants without sharing the secret to the magic used to bind the cretchym to his will. With so many different people contributing the human elements used in the cretchym making process, the hunchman-humans ranged in color from white to black, with brown and blond being the dominant hues.

  Many of the cretchym had darker fur on their backs and lighter on the stomachs, chests, and inner thighs. Just as many had mottled coloring throughout. With shorter manes than the Broyn’Dar, a great number of those whose heads were covered with blond hair could trace their lineage to Ab’Don. Whereas, all with eyes as yellow as an eagle’s, were his children and were chained to his will. As such, these made up the leadership caste among the cretchym who were just as acrimonious to each other as they were to the rest of the crearues living in the warl.

  Like their Broyn’Dar relations, the cretchym used jagged-edged swords and daggers to fight with. Leather vests and knee-length leggings were common wear. Feet were left bare, so they could use their toes sharp nails for fighting. The Sorcerer was just as successful in t
ransferring the Broyn’Dar savagery to his mutant horde as he was Hag cunning, though the black-robed wizards chose to not identify huncman-humans with the potential to use magic. The breeders weren’t trying to create those who possessed mystical might, the Hag would take care of that, they were looking for those with fangs and claws who could wield weapons with muscles stronger than ordinary men and elves had.

  The sounds of growling and snarling that distance had muffled were becoming clearer by the moment.

  Dog howled in anticipation of the fight, A’Kadar moaned like a giant with a toothache, the rings of amber light in Travyn’s eyes flared, Bala’s wings grew rigid as they lifted up behind her, Jeaf thumbed the Hammer of Power, and Bacchanor shape-shifted into a griffin as Mar’Gul rose into the air to get a better look at the battlefield. What she saw was disconcerting: ten thousand Hag stood in front of a fighting force of over one hundred thousand whiteskins that followed the black-robed wizards as they came to confront the Hammer Bearer and the rebels who stood with him.

  With only five hundred Candle Wielders numbered among the rebels, the balance Mar’Gul used to weigh supernatural might in her thinking was not just tilted toward the Ar Warlers, it was unalterably broken by the amount of magic she saw the Hag had at their disposal and would not recover unless a miracle was had. With the Hall of Voyd sitting in the mouth of the gorge that opened up behind the dark wizards and the sea of white-skinned warriors that were at their disposal, an antidote for the miracle would be readily available if it ever came.

  The Hall of Voyd was an enigma in its construction and design. On the one hand it had the kind of towering height that inspired human imagination, while the ropes of magically engineered material that were strung between buildings gave the citadel a nest-like aspect, not a bird’s nest per se, but one that would appeal to the massive creeping, crawling cretchym the rebels had been fighting throughout the night. From the distance Mar’Gul was at, the Hall of Voyd looked white, especially the tops of its tallest towers that were already catching the rays of sunlight that topped the mouth of the gorge where the edifice stood. But it wasn’t white at all. Because of the the grimey residue that was one of the side affects that came with the evil magic conjured there, it was dirty gray.

  Little did Mar’Gul know that the rope-like cables reached out from the citadel’s foundations like the buildings were living things that sent roots running throughout Ar War, those that ran beneath the armies that were about to engage one another in battle and on to the place where the Breach Sea once was found. With the barrier that had separated the warls being removed, the roots created with dark magic were already worming their way into Nyeg Warl’s coastal plains and on toward the Verdant Mountains.

  Noticing that a stream of warriors was filling in behind the whiteskins, Mar’Gul discovered their origin like one locates an ant hill by looking in the direction the ants were coming from. Using the twin bridges that gave access to the Hall of Voyd from either side of the Voyd River, Ar Warl’s southern army was repositioning its warriors to the side of the river where the rebels were found along with the rebellion’s heart- the Hammer Bearer and his sons. This only added weight to a conclusion that had already been made: The Sorcerer considered defeating Jeaf Oakenfel to be the lynch-pin to his plans for conquering Nyeg Warl.

  Pressed into a triangle-shaped piece of land that lay in a crook between the Voyd River and the Thrall Mountians’ foothills, the Ar Warlers looked like sand in an hour glass that was pouring through the narrow passageway that ran over the western bridge, through the Hall of Voyd’s western gate, onto a road the ran behind the battlements that pointed northward like a ship’s bow was rising from the island, out the eastern gate, over the adjacent bridge, and onto the ground that the army controlled by the Spell of the White Hand had recently vacated. Half of Ar Warl’s southern army continued down the eastern road and were busy getting ready to repulse the Nyeg Warlers who would eventually try to cross the Voyd River to reach the Hammer Bearer’s side.

  Looking at those who had to be Nyeg Warlers with the strategic gap that separated them from the warriors who were amassed around the Hall of Voyd, Mar’Gul saw that the defensive formations the Ar Warlers were setting up on the Voyd River’s eastern banks were not being organized in vain since more than half of the Nyeg Warlers were heading straight for the river, no doubt, determined to make a crossing.

  Mar’Gul’s assessment was correct, while Shomeron, Wyneskynd and Cassianor were advancing on the Ar Warler’s flanks to apply pressure that would force as many of them as possible to stay and protect the Hall of Voyd, the Elves of Forest Deep, the Bro’Noon, and the Otrodorians were planning to cross the Voyd River downstream from the Sorcerer’s citadel.

  Turning to her left, Mar’Gul could see a battle was already being fought to the east of the rebel position. This was where Goldan and King Phelp were engaging the Ar Warler horde that planned on attacking the Hammer Bearer’s flank. The hit and run tactic Goldan employed was meant to slow the enemy down enough to allow Nyeg Warl’s northern army to reach the battlefield in time to make a meaningful difference.

  Hurrying as quickly as they could without totally fatiguing themselves, the northern army could be seen strung out across the distant fields as a result of King Ballastyn’s decision to let the faster lightly armored warriors go ahead, while the more heavily armored footmen followed as quickly as they could. Though this exposed them to attack in a way Ballastyn wanted to avoid, the fact that the most crucial parts of the battle could be over before he arrived forced the king to take the risk.

  A group of more than two thousand warriors dressed in white livery that included helmets or hoods covered in red, orange, and yellow coloring were far ahead of the main body of Nyeg Warl’s army. Two hundred of the white warriors were already entering the rebel camp astride the horses they road. As close as they were, Mar’Gul could see the flame-like designs found on the hoods they either wore or let lay on their backs. Recalling the descriptions of Candle Makers that her husband had shared with her, Mar’Gul guessed these were the self-same wizards. Remembering how her nephews talked about the Candle Warriors that were included in the benevolent order, she was sure most that she saw were of this persuasion. Still there were too few to feel confident about the battle that had begun.

  “Jeaf,” Mar’Gul’s voice sounded like it came from farther away then where she actually was as she slowly dropped out of the sky, “Candle Makers have entered the camp. And more are approaching.”

  “If they plan to help out,” Travyn didn’t take his eyes of the swarm of hunchman-human cretchym that were closing in on them as he spoke, “they better get here in a hurry.”

  “Is my mother with them?” Jeaf asked as he unsheathed his sword as an automatic reaction to his sons unsheathing their own. Whereas, his looked like a well-crafted but normal sword, his sons’ blades had magical blue light dancing along their sharp edges.

  “I wouldn’t know?”

  “Mark my word Jeaf, Elamor will be with them,” Bacchanor’s rumbling griffin-voice intoned as he soared past.

  ****

  Words of Power were uttered aloud, causing hundreds of wicks to ignite atop the candles they belonged to. Shields of twirling fire and flaming spears were quickly formed. Five hundred Candle Wielders were lined up to meet the oncoming hunchman-human mutants that wouldn’t be fazed by the magic that they expected to confront. And as expected, the lead cretchym slammed into the fiery shields so violently they made those holding them stumble. One, two, three, four mutants hit each shield in a preplanned tactic meant to widen the gaps found between the Candle Wielders so that others could reach the rebels behind them, a tactic that worked better than expected as the novices’ inexperience using the mystical arts was exploited.

  Vlad’Aeroth was unhappy to have the Neflin take the lead in hostilities with the hunchman-humans. It took Mar’Gul twisting his arm to make the Wylder let others fight a fight that was focused on the Fane J’Shrym. If they could,
the cretchym would pass every Neflin and rebel by to reach the Fane J’Shrym. The history the Neflin had with Mar’Gul and her predecessors was the fulcrum that got the Wylder to lean the direction he did.

  With his arms folded across his chest, Vlad’Aeroth stood with the other Fane J’Shrym who felt like children whose parents had forced to come indoors to get out of an approaching storm. Mar’Gul’s argument reminded Vlad’Aeroth there woud plenty of others to fight later on, for instance, the multiple thousands of Hag that were moving towards them and the tens of thousands of whiteskins that followed in their wake.

  Nevertheless, the Wylder couldn’t help from inching his way forward. The only thing that broke his fixation on the fight that had begun in front of him was the woman who stepped up to him and asked if he was Vlad’Aeroth, a woman who wore red leggings beneath a white robe that was split up the sides to allow a greater range of motion and whose cowl, that lay on her back, was resplendent with red, yellow, and orange colors. Pleasing to the eye, the woman possessed beauty that was not weighted down with overt femininity. Her stark brown eyes were those of a warrior eager for battle. The long braid that hung down her back was a style worn by soldiers.

  “I’m Dolfon,” the tall woman nodded her head and extended a hand to the Wylder, “Master Candle Warrior. Where to you want us positioned?”

  Looking behind Dolfon, Vlad’Aeroth’s eyes widened a bit as he saw the company of Candle Warriors that were coming his way. To his surprise, Jeaf Oakenfel was walking among them, arm in arm with a woman that was, no doubt, important to the benevolent order of wizards by the way the others deferred to her.

  “Vlad’Aeroth, this is my mother, Elamor the Candle Master,” Jeaf said once he arrived.