Crooked Finger and the Warl of the Dead

by Rex Hazelton

  Bro’Noon, led by Loda’Gar followed the giants, first onto the riverbank and then into the Ar Warl ranks. The combined strength of the savage hunchmen and giants drove the enemy back, making room for the shieldwall to expand until it was clear that Nyeg Warl’s southern army would not be driven back into the river. When Alynd the Elf-Man showed up with his deadly leaf-blades in hand and the Otrodorians at his back, it was clear that Nyeg Warl’s southern army would not be happy with simply getting a foot in the door, so to speak. They planned on blowing a hole through Ar Warl’s defenders and join the Hammer Bearer when he fought the Sorcerer.

  “Bear’s in that fire-blasted fortress up there,” Bruesyr hollered to the Cragmar Giants he led into battle as he pointed his huge, metal-studded club at the citadel sitting in the mouth of a rocky gorge that cut its way into the Thrall Mountains’ northern slopes. “Fight hard boys. We gotta go get him, and that won’t happen until we bash these Ar Warler’s heads in. So, let’s go to work.”

  The Candle Warriors that went with Bruesyr- to keep the Hag off the backs of those Bruesyr refered to as boys- gave the huge, heavily armored giants the freedom to do just that. To clear the way for the Cragmar behemoths, the Candle Warriors had to bend their fiery-shields in the middle to form wedges they used to bust up the massive fiery-fists the Hag’s Candle Magic threw at them along with their ubiquitous fiery ropes.

  Instead of pummeling the Nyeg Warlers with crushing blows that burned up whatever they hit, the fiery-fists exploded into fizzling, glowing threads whenever they made solid contact with the radiant wedges that were used against them. Made vulnerable when their black candles’ flames were so thoroughly dismissed, the Hag were left defending themselves with the short swords they carried; and a short sword was no match for the huge, metal-studded clubs the giants carried, let alone the blurringly fast leaf-blades Alynd and the elves of Forest Deep wielded, or Otrodorian and Bro’Noon ferocity. The fact that there were many more Hag than Candle Warriors keep the fight from turning completely against Ar Warl’s forces that failed to stop the Nyeg Warlers from crossing the Voyd River.

  Keeping his eyes on the expanding cloud of cretchym that were continuing to darken the sky as they approached the rebels, Alynd ordered his men to punch through Ar Warl’s defenses and head for the Hammer Bearer who the winged-demons were targeting. Doing this, the Elf-Man was taking a chance by stretching the southern army out in a way that would make it impossible for the warriors to properly defend themselves. It was never good to split an army into pieces. And that is exactly what the Ar Warlers would do to the Nyeg Warlers: cut their overly extended forces into pieces that would subsequently be surrounded. Losing the strength that comes with numbers, the Nyeg Warlers would then be chopped further. But chances had to be taken when it became clear that the Sorcerer was throwing the bulk of his weight against the Hammer Bearer and those who stood with him.

  Ballastyn, the Hadram King, understood this too. That’s why he split his forces up, sending five thousand warriors with the Bjork to help Nyeg Warl’s southern army get safely across the Voyd River- if losing one fifth of their fighters during the crossing could be forced into the definition for safely- while letting the captains who were with him chose their units own pace as they marched toward the heart of the battle.

  Fully aware that being stretched too thin could lead to as much calamity as being late for the crucial part of the battle that was moving into full swing in the fields that were closest to the Hall of Voyd, the captains chose to let the fastest units go ahead while the rest followed after at a pace they could sustain without expending all the energy they would need to fight the enemy once they arrived at the heart of the battle. In the end, this had the effect of creating two cohesive fighting forces that were determined to reach the Hammer Bearer as quickly as they could, though the cohesion the captains struggled to maintain was barely maintained due to the need for speed.

  To Alynd’s surprise, before he had time to implement his daring plan, Ar Warl horns were heard signaling a change in strategy that had the Sorcerer’s forces abandon their positions along the Voyd River and redirect their focus on the rebels who claimed to have real life Fane J’Shrym standing among them. Still, enough Ar Warlers were ordered to resist those who followed them to make the Nyeg Warlers going too slow for Alynd’s taste.

  With the battle moving away from the Voyd River, the Bjork stopped ferrying Nyeg Warl’s southern army across the waterway and turned their attention to the troubles that were at hand- namely Laviathon, his crocodon brood, and the winged cretchym that had been sent to scuttle the Bjork Longboats. Why the loathsome seafarers had ceased transporting the warriors to the side of the river where the final battle was being fought, was not immediately understood by Laviathon despite the brilliantly devious mind he possessed. That would change when a beetle-like cretchym came flying up to him waving its arms that were covered with a thorny exoskeleton the same purple color as the carapace that covered its back when it was at rest, but was now spread apart to let its wings unfold so it could take to the air.

  “Lord of the Waves.” Unlike the cretchym’s exoskeleton, its mandibles were as fleshy as a human’s gums. The teeth protruding out of the slick gum-like structures were just as human. “Something strange is happening. Something I think you should know about.” The cretchym’s diction was perfect. Its voice sounded like a baritone introducing petitioners in a king’s judgement hall.

  The vertical slits that served as Laviathon’s pupils widened inside its moss-green eyes as the sea serpent said, “Go on bug, I’m listening.”

  “My brothers, who are dropping leafy branches to locate the areas of invisibilty that Bjork magic has conjured up to hide their ships, have found two places in the river where the areas stretch from shore to shore.”

  “AHHHHHHH!” Laviathon stretched his long neck upward and lifted his triangular-shaped head higher than the beetle-like cretchym flew before he spewed fire into the sky, catching two winged-demons in its flow as they passed by at a sped that kept the crocodon from seeing them before it was too late. Their burning bodies hit the river at the same time Laviathon’s head disappeared beneath the water’s surface. A moment later, he was moving his massive body from side to side as he raced along the river’s bottom on his way to investigate what he already guessed was a Bjork trap.

  A trap, he thought as his mood soured. When he saw steel netting anchored down by large boulders, he knew he was right. The wily Bjork were at it again. And by the looks of it, they meant to catch him for sure this time. Three more rows of steel netting had been put in place behind the first. The redundancy of the netting was evidence of the seafarers’ resolve. Here, as the the Hall of Voyd ignored what was about to happen as it focused on the Hammer Bearer and his kin, either the Bjork or crocodon would come out on top. The other would be dead or so badly damaged, they might never pose a threat again.

  Staying close to the river bottom, Lavaithon swam the other direction until he saw more steel netting. Then, for only the second time in his life, the other being the time he was nearly caught in G’Nyrly Cove where the Bjork city of Thunyrkynd was located, the evil sea serpent felt fear. A sense of humiliation soon joined fear when Laviathon considered being killed in front of Ab’Don who was only one he really cared about impressing other than himself.

  There’s more netting to come, he told himself. What’s already been laid down only shapes the arena where the battle will be fought. The snare they plan to catch me in hasn’t been revealed yet. But I’m not going to wait to find out what it is.”

  Seeing the Hag, and the army they commanded, moving off to join those set on defeating the Hammer Bearer, Laviathon decided he would join the party. After all, he had never paid the Hammer Bearer back for wounding him in the Eyrie River some twenty-five winters past. It had always bothered Laviathon to know he was there at the time Jeaf Oakenfel claimed Vlad’War’s Child for his own and he wasn’t able to stop him. With the trick the evil sea serpent was about
to play, he would remedy that failure.

  Calling his children to gather about him in a swarm that was so big it drew fire from the archers that were hidden within the Cloaks of Invisibility that covered the longboats, Laviathon told them about his plan as quickly as he could. After hearing what their master said, the crocodon dove to the river bottom and waited for Laviathon’s signal to join him once preparations were completed.

  Once he was alone, Laviathon lifted his head high above the river’s surface, drew in a huge breath, and blew out magical smoke the Sorcerer taught him to conjure up, smoke only he could make as far as Laviathon knew, a supernatural discharge that didn’t really need breath to be dispensed. Flowing out of his nostrils, the smoke bubbled up around his head before it fell on the river’s surface like gobs of heavy cream tumbling out of an overturned churn. Far from being as thick as what it looked like as it fell, the smoke was, nevertheless, dense; denser than a thick fog. Unlike fog, it had an anesthetizing quality to it that cast those who breathed it in into a dream-like state that made them vulnerable to suggestion, though the suggestion’s power fell short of being unavoidably compelling.

  Jeaf Oakenfel had learned about the magical smoke’s properties when Laviathan showed him troubling scenes of his family on its surface that were meant to make him too despondent to use the Hammer of Power he had just found. Since the smoke wasn’t powerful enough to completely subdue the young Woodswane back then, it might not be strong enough to unalterably weaken the Bjork now. But Laviathon didn’t plan on finding this out. He had something else in mind, something more than escaping the Bjork’s trap that, by itself, might make him look like a coward in Ab’Don’s eyes. If he was to escape the Bjork and then kill the Hamer Bearer, that was something entirely different.

  Once the smoke covered the river’s surface around Laviathon, passed over the longboats nearest him and began to creep up the riverbank south of where Alynd and the Nyeg Warler’s had come to shore, the other crocodon left the river bottom where they had been waiting and slithered up the embankment hidden inside the vaporous smoke as it continued to move inland in the broiling, bubbling way it did.

  Hoping the mesmeric smoke would keep the Bjork’s attention focused on the river and away from the shoreline where he was headed, the massive sea sea serpent used its legs to push itself onto dry land. Seldom used, Lavaithon’s limbs weren’t properly shaped to carry his bulk like the limbs of cattle or horses did. Positioned to the sides of its body like a lizard’s legs are, but not as proportionally large, they functioned best by pushing him along as he slithered across the ground looking like a gigantic, bloated snake.

  Created by Laviathon, the vaporous smoke bubbling along the ground possessed properties that were useful to the crocodon. One of these was to create an environment the sea serpent could live in. Like an amphibian or whale though it was neither, Laviathon was a creature in need of moisture to keep its scales from becoming too dry. Wherever the smoke went, moisture was found as well as a slimy substance that made slithering along the ground an effortless chore. Breathing wasn’t a problem since it had lungs like lizards and snakes did.

  In time the smoke rolled inland, leaving the Voyd River behind and the Bjork who were posed with weapons in hand, ready to harpoon the crocodon when the showed up. The biggest of the harpoons were fitted to massive bows that were anchored to the longboats’ decks. These had devices that had to be hand cranked to pull the harpoon into firing position. Most of the seafaring warriors barely gave the strange fog that appeared in the middle of the day a second thought when it passed over the riverbank and continued to float inland. Those that did, shrugged their shoulders after a while and turned back to the task at hand, all the while, ignorant of the giant, slithering creatures that were worming their way along hidden inside the mass of portable fog.

  Chapter 21: The Storm Arrives

  The Broyn’Dar slammed into the hunchman-human’s flank before the Hag were within range to strike at them with the fiery-ropes they had already made with their black candles, bright ropes that wiggled before them looking like a sea creature had come out of the hole in the rock where it hid and was reaching out to sting a passing fish.

  When in close contact as they were while fighting, there were evident differences between the Broyn’Dar and the mutants the Hag had made using the hunchman’s essence: The Broyn’Dar’s hair was thicker both in volumn and texture; their manes were heavier; their snout-like mouths were longer and had bigger teeth; none of the Broyn’Dar had blond or pale-colored fur. On the other hand, the cretchym were more upright in posture, whereas the Broyn’Dar’s backs and shoulders were rounded. Both were well-muscled. But where the Broyn’Dar had longer arms, the hunchman-human’s had longer legs.

  All in all, the Broyn’Dar had a more feral look to them, while the cretchym had an aura of darkness surrounding them, the kind of darkness that surrounded the Hag. The color of paint each wore was another difference that distinguished the one from the other as well as any king’s liver could. The clothes they wore were similar since the Hag copied the Broyn’Dar’s garments when teaching the cretchym how to make their own garments. As close as they were to each other in build, this seemed a logical thing to do. Why reinvent the wheel was the applicable expression.

  The Broyn’Dar assault was so violent it threatened to consume the hunchman-human’s attention. Animosity between brothers who hated each other was always worse than rancor aimed at a stranger. The explosion of fighting that ensued was so great that it looked like the contents of two buckets filled with beast-men had been heaved at one another.

  Arga’Dyne and his mate, Shala’Dyne, fought side by side as they cut their way through the abominations the Sorcerer was responsible for making. Growling rivaling roars in volumn came out of the Broyn’Dar as they killed those who had been created to replace them, those who were subservant to their makers in a way true hunchmen never would be. The Broyn’Dar rage was so intense, the mutants were being cut down as easily as cob webs are brushed aside when one enters a dilapidated building. The cretchym bodies that were left in the Broyn’Dar’s wake were so numerous, they became an unwitting barrier that slowed the approaching Hag down.

  One of the strangest things to happen in a place where stange had become the norm was how ineffective Hag magic was when used against many of the Broyn’Dar. The dark wizard’s firey-ropes that were so effective against the rest of the rebels fizzled to whispy strings of smoke just before they struck some of the hunchmen. While others were skewered with the sinewy fiery-ropes.

  It didn’t take the Hag long to realize the Broyn’Dar were sending the untouchables to stop them from reaching out to their vulnerable kin. Not wishing to be forced into a fight where magic- for some reason- failed them, the wizards decided to find easier prey whose weapons didn’t have shards of glossy black rock taken from the Stone Desert imbedded in them, shards the Hag had yet to learn about.

  True to his word, Travyn’s gift that Horbyn had told him about gave the Broyn’Dar a weapon that negated magic, and by doing this was magic itself.

  Once the Broyn’Dar appeared on the field of battle, the rebels went on the attack. After all, their goal wasn’t merely to survive the fight, they planned on reaching the Hall of Voyd itself where they would destroy the Sorcerer and the fount of evil from which his dark powers had flowed. How they would do this was not yet known. But, wasn’t that the way it always was with Jeaf and his family?

  With all the skill they had developed as warriors and in the use of magic, the sense of intuition that wound its way through the Oakenfel bloodline ended up being the greatest weapon Jeaf and his sons possessed. If the Magic of Intuition would work for them one more time, the raid on the Sorcerer’s citadel may not be in vain. If it failed to show up, the rebellion would be drowned beneath the flood of Hag, winged-cretchym, and whiteskins that was filling both the land and sky in front of them.

  ****

  The Broyn’Dar and the rebels’ early success against
the hunchman-humans came to an end once the cretchym cloud descended on them from a sky darkened by their numbers. The most dangerous winged-cretchym proved to be the ones who were created using birds of prey in the making. As large as they were and with the speed they gained as they plummeted through the air, whenever the mutants struck the rebels with sharp talons outstretched, they tore into flesh and bone more efficiently than long-knives ever could. This made this type of cretchym especially lethal even when they failed to grab hold of their prey and carry them high overhead before dropping them on their comrades to break their bones and the bones of those they fell on.

  What was more unnerving were the eerily human voices the cretchym used to screech out curses at those they attacked. Adding the weirdly human shouting coming out of the expanding swarm of winged-demons in with the cacophonous sound of fluttering, flapping wings and the high-pitched noises birds, bats, and insects made, increased the nightmare atmosphere covering the battlefield.

  Many of the winged cretchym, working in teams, took advantage of any open ground that appeared, no matter how small it was, to land beside the rebels they would cut at with the sharp blades they carried in nearly human hands before they took to the air and renewed their search for landing sites where they could renew their surprise attacks. The hit and run tactic was extremely effective because it demoralized the rebels by taking away the chance to retaliate in a concerted way against those who made them suffer.

  Grour Blood and Bacchanor, with Mar’Gul adding her eyes to the griffin’s own as she clung to her husband’s powerful back, did their best to break the devastating teams up. Targeting them one at a time, the griffin- who were identical to each other in every physical way possible due to the wizard’s shapeshifting magic- used their claws and fangs to shred the cretchym so badly that they were either killed or severely wounded to the point that they were rendered useless in the fight being fought.