Crown of Vengeance fie-1

by Stephen Zimmer

  Lee turned quickly to look back behind him, his arrow notched as he strained to pull the string back again.

  GUNTHER

  Gunther, in his close and careful attention to the four strangers, only became aware at the last instant of the appearance of a large Trogen warrior, mounted upon a Harrak steed in the air overhead.

  He recognized their distinctive forms instantly, and he realized their deadly intentions.

  Steed and rider crossed through the air slowly overhead, its rider looking down upon the four strangers. It yelled out a cry of warning, before settling into a circling pattern.

  Gunther knew what would occur. There would be several others in the vicinity, as the Trogens had been flying over the Saxan forest in substantial patrols during recent days.

  That was unnerving enough, as their mere presence was a harbinger of ill-fortune for the Saxan lands. Their hostile posture towards the four strangers, woefully unprepared to deal with the wilderness, much less a Trogen sky patrol, sent a sense of dread racing through Gunther. The quartet was in mortal danger, and now Gunther wished more than ever that the Wanderer had remained with him for a little longer.

  The woodsman’s biggest advantage was that the Trogen warriors knew nothing of him, their attentions clearly fixed upon the party that he had been shadowing.

  Quickly, he made some frantic calls of his own, sounding again much like a bird, though any of the natural fauna within the area had abruptly gone silent at the invasive disturbance from the sky rider’s shout.

  The coded warning resonated to his accompanying Jaghuns, as the creatures halted where they had been edging themselves into positions creating a perimeter around the four strangers. Three methodically worked their way back to Gunther, crouching down in silence near to his side.

  Dexterously, Gunther pulled his large hunting bow out from where it was slung over his back. Made of a select length of yew, the sturdy longbow suddenly became an extension of himself as he readied an arrow.

  The Trogens were flying unusually low, and were probably gauging their height based upon the range of the common Saxan self-bow. They were not factoring in the larger type of bow that Gunther carried, based upon the kind carried by the hardy fighters that dwelled in the western edges of faraway Norengal.

  Gunther’s broad travels had given him a significant advantage this time, even if they had brought him so much darkness. His eyes scanned above in scrutiny as he kept the arrow pulled back, carefully searching out his first target.

  As the Harrak circled above the trees, he stepped closer for a better shot. He knew that his Jaghuns would provide plenty enough of a warning if anything threatening to himself were to unexpectedly emerge.

  With their eyes and ears applied to warding him, Gunther could afford to concentrate his attentions on the airborne warriors and the four imperiled strangers.

  One of the female strangers was currently in a hysterical state, remaining out in the open while the others had taken to a nearby tree for cover. He could not believe her sheer stupidity, aghast at her incompetence.

  Showing great bravery and fortitude, the one that Gunther had assumed to be their leader suddenly rushed out and grabbed her, pulling her unceremoniously towards relative safety by a nearby tree. Gunther could see the outrage on the foreign man’s face, and the woodsman certainly could not blame him for his furor, as the girl had put both herself and her rescuer at great, and very unnecessary, risk.

  Gunther then flinched inadvertently, as an arrow struck the ground where the female had been standing. Looking at the arrow in the ground, he quickly guessed at the trajectory and looked up to find that a second Trogen warrior had taken up a hovering position under the one marking the area. The Trogen archer was already poising to fire another arrow.

  Knowing the Trogens as well as he did, remembering their ways and tendencies, he turned and looked back, behind where the group’s leader had dragged the fear-paralyzed woman. As he had expected, a third Trogen had taken advantage of the tumult, and had quietly gotten itself maneuvered into position behind the humans.

  It was silently hovering even closer to the treeline, its bow drawn back with deadly intent. The two humans on the ground had no awareness of its presence, occupied as they were with the other Trogens. Their backs were readily exposed to its line of sight, providing easy targets to a skilled Trogen warrior.

  There was no time to wait, as the war cries of other Trogens were filling the skies. Honing his focus upon the third Trogen, Gunther hit that zone within his mind where the Trogen and its steed were the only things that existed in all of the world.

  In the flash of a moment, with immaculately steady aim, Gunther let his arrow fly for the thick neck of the Harrak. There was no doubt about the elite skill that Gunther had developed through the years, and that adeptness was demonstrated once again. The arrow penetrated deep, punching through the winged creature’s long fur into the underlying flesh of its neck, as if Gunther had thrust it there from close range with his bare hands.

  The Harrak was killed instantly, suddenly becoming dead weight as its lifeless body plunged towards the ground below. It carried its rider towards a doomed fate, though the warrior had remarkable presence of mind as it jerked free from the straps securing it to the saddle, in the desperate hope of avoiding being tied to the beast’s movements.

  The hapless rider screamed defiantly as it pitched from the saddle. Gunther watched as the bodies of both steed and rider violently struck the upper tree branches, the sounds of snapping and breaking wood accompanying the fatal descent.

  Without further hesitation, Gunther readied another arrow and turned back towards the archer that he had originally seen. The Trogen warrior that had previously been circling had joined the fight, hovering near the first.

  Raising his bow, he calculated his next shot.

  DRAGOL

  Dragol cursed with rage as he saw the arrow streak out of the trees and drop the Harrak out of the sky. Even his steed Rodor gave a rumbling growl at the brief yelp that came from the stricken steed, as its wings ceased flapping and it began to fall. The shot had been exceptional, killing the steed nearly instantly and casting one of his warriors to certain death.

  In an act of desperate futility, the doomed warrior somehow managed to free himself from the saddle straps, only to be bludgeoned repeatedly by the thick tree branches that rushed up to greet his falling form. The sounds of the cracking branches lasted just a couple of moments, as Dragol gazed down hotly upon the trees that were hiding their unknown adversary.

  Calling out orders quickly, he commanded a group of warriors near to him, indicating for them to begin descending towards the ground.

  If their enemies were armed, skilled fighters, then having the Trogens all out in the open air would do little good. A few of their number would have to reach the ground, so that they could engage the enemy from both below and above.

  There was no time to linger above the treeline, searching for the most favorable spot possible to descend, as they were clearly in a very dangerous position, within range of at least one enemy bow. Dragol could not believe what had just occurred, as it far exceeded his estimation of the bows that they had already seen carried by the Saxans.

  It was a new, deadly revelation, one that he would have to keep in mind for future adjustments.

  The Trogens obeyed his directive without hesitation, gliding down to just inches above the treeline. They looked hurriedly about for an opening to take their steeds to the forest floor. They were now in a very precarious position, well within the range of the normal Saxan bows, as well as the stronger kind that had just brought the Harrak down.

  Dragol guided his own steed downward as he pulled out his great longblade from his sheath. He clenched the leather-wrapped hilt tightly in his powerful hand, his ire rising with each moment as he steeled himself for the impending combat. The invigorating rush that he always felt at the cusp of battle did not overwhelm his discipline, channeling into a fiery resolve an
d heightening his senses. He swore to give a hundred times more in retribution for the slaying of one of his warriors.

  Sparing a quick glance upward, he saw two warriors steadily hovering as they looked for targets for their next arrows. Dragol watched intently, hoping that the enemy bowman who had just felled one of his warriors was more focused upon the two archers, such that his other warriors were unimpeded and allowed the time to find a propitious area to alight.

  Three of his warriors flew just ahead of him, and he watched their progress even as he slowed Rodor’s pace considerably to look for a potential point of descent. The warriors brought their steeds to a momentary hover, and then started to slowly disappear beneath the treetops. He saw that they had found a wide enough opening in the tree canopy, where the strong wings of the Harraks would not be inhibited as they carefully worked lower, descending towards the forest floor.

  Dragol reached the spot a few moments later, and wasted no time in following the trio, guiding Rodor down towards the breach in the forest’s canopy.

  With flashing speed, three large forms suddenly exploded from the trees and beset the three Harraks setting down just beneath him. The Harraks cried out in agony, as a flurry of movement ensued that was almost impossible to make any sense of at first. Huge claws swept through the air, and powerful jaws snapped before the Harraks had any chance to respond to their assailants.

  Reflexively, Dragol jerked upon the reins, and Rodor’s wings snapped powerfully downward, abruptly ceasing their descent. Dangerously close to the explosion of fighting, Dragol got a good look at the melee before Rodor lifted upwards. He had never seen creatures such as the ones now assaulting his warriors. They were very large of body, somewhat dog-like, with short, broad muzzles. Their forms rippled with powerful muscles, with long legs that ended in huge paws. They were creatures of both speed and power, and Dragol only had to glance at the structure of their jaws to recognize their bone crunching potential.

  Rodor was spurred by the commotion, flapping back vigorously towards the sky as it took Dragol away from the danger. The Trogen chieftain continued to watch the scene in dismay as he was carried back up, mere seconds seeming to take ages to pass before his eyes.

  The ambushed riders below had no time to react before their steeds were mortally wounded, crashing into the ground as the four-legged attackers barreled into them. The warriors could not pick themselves up from the disorienting fall, still secured to the saddles of their steeds.

  Trapped, unable to maneuver, and having incurred several injuries in the violence of the impact, the beleaguered Trogens were quickly smothered by the horrific, ferocious beasts. The cries of the warriors were cut short, as the beasts’ jaws ripped and tore at them in a frenzy, finishing them off swiftly.

  Looking back just in time for another dismaying sight, Dragol saw one of the two warriors that had been hovering with their bows falling from the sky. Its steed had been slain by yet another remarkable arrow shot that had come from beneath the trees.

  To the right, a couple more of his riders were disappearing below the treeline, through another opening a little farther off. Without pausing even a moment, Dragol cried out at the top of his lungs. He ordered them to come back immediately into the skies.

  It was not soon enough, as his own orders were mixed a moment later with the terrible sounds of raging growls and throaty barks, accompanied by the pained cries of Harraks. The noise was followed by the courageous war cries of the two riders, as they faced their adversaries out of Dragol’s sight.

  There was suddenly a high-pitched yelp of pain, and Dragol’s heart surged as he guided his Harrak speedily towards the point where the two warriors had descended. The momentary hope was dashed, as his ears captured agonized Trogen cries, mixed with louder, snapping barks and growls.

  He bit back impulsive anger as he crossed over the location, and saw the wreckage that had been made of his warriors and their steeds.

  There was nothing that he could do for them, though he took a little solace as he noticed that one of the dreadful beasts that had attacked them was badly wounded. It was trying to crawl away, struggling to pull itself away from the opening in the trees.

  With his heels, Dragol signaled to his steed to hover in place. His blood was scorching hot as it raced through his veins, but his mind remained cool and resolute.

  With a growl in his throat, and forgetting about the skilled enemy archer that he knew was somewhere out there, he sheathed his great longblade and whipped out his own longbow.

  Notching an arrow, he poured his rage and malice towards the slayers of his warriors into one single shot, which raced towards the injured beast. The vengeance-driven shot ripped into the creature’s head, abruptly finishing off any chance that it might have had at survival.

  Dragol knew that his patrol was unprepared for whatever was below the treeline. Calling out forcefully, and gesturing urgently, he ordered the rest of his surviving warriors to abandon the attack.

  He then let loose with a great howl of sheer rage, as his steed climbed back towards the sanctuary of the high skies.

  Thwarted and filled with a boiling hostility, Dragol found very little to be comforted about as the remnants of his patrol sped away. The grandiosity of the total destruction of the Saxan patrol had been smashed asunder by the sudden misfortune brought about by the unknown four-legged assailants, and the deadly, unseen bowman.

  There was small comfort to be had in such a short period of time where fortunes had changed so drastically, swinging so quickly between extremes. It was true that the Unifier’s armies would soon be swarming through the lands that Dragol now left behind him, but that was no solace at all to his embittered heart.

  He could only think of the undignified deaths that several of his warriors had met at the jaws of forest beasts, formidable though they were. The feral images of the unusual creatures were stamped indelibly into his mind. He promised himself to see to it that they would be hunted down mercilessly, and slain wherever they were found, once Saxany was held by the Unifier.

  His mind then settled upon the black-feathered arrow shaft embedded in the dead body of the beast he had slain, reminding him that he had already exacted the first fruits of vengeance. While only slight, the remembrance nonetheless brought him a little relief, to help endure the return journey back to their camp.

  LEE

  Lee saw nothing behind him, or anywhere around him, his eyes searching frantically among the trees for even one sign of any other being. Without a doubt, there was another archer very near to his group, one who had just intervened on their behalf. The irrefutable evidence lay not far away, in the form of the dead winged beast with the arrow shaft protruding from its neck.

  Despite the unexpected assistance, the notion of an unknown warrior lurking somewhere close by was still unsettling. The friend of the moment could well turn into the foe of the next.

  Lee turned his head to and fro, urgently looking for any indication of their unknown benefactor, while keeping his eyes open for the rise of other threats.

  Shadows crossing over him brought his head up in a flash. More of the winged creatures were flying at a low altitude just over the tops of the trees. Lee wanted to maneuver over to join Ryan and Lynn, if only so that they could all make a stand together.

  He knew that he was effectively trapped where he was. If he emerged from the trunk of the tree, he would come into the clear sight of the two hovering riders, one of whom had already come dangerously close to claiming one of his companions’ lives.

  Lee peered carefully around the tree that he was behind, looking up towards the two riders imminently besetting them. He then cast a glance across the short distance to where Ryan and Lynn were crouched. If it was only a matter of himself, he might have sprinted out from his position and attempted to join them. With Erin to think about, he gauged that it was too much of a risk to try to reach the others.

  Turning his focus back up to the riders, he concentrated on executing a solid at
tempt with the bow. He steadied his aim as he tilted the weapon upwards, sighting one of the riders as he began to pull the string back.

  He wondered if he would have enough range for the shot, as their attackers held the considerable advantage of firing downwards. To his eyes, the distance to the pair of attackers looked daunting to any hope of loosing an arrow that would have even a slim chance of striking one of them.

  It was in that moment of rising doubt that a furious commotion broke out somewhere to his left. Flinching, he almost let go of the partially-drawn arrow. His body tingled, and a chill raced over him as he listened to the raucous clamor breaking out just beyond his sight. The growling frenzy was guttural and vicious.

  Mixed within the tumult were cries like those of the warriors above, which rang out through the forest. In moments they transformed into unmistakable shrieks of agony, the sounds sending shards of ice into Lee’s heart. Very quickly, the forest fell quiet again.

  Lee’s chest constricted with the fear swelling inside of him, as if someone were pressing down upon it. More crashing sounds brought his attention snapping back to the area on the other side of the tree. He saw one of the two winged beasts that had been hovering plummet to the ground, breaking some branches and careening off of others as the creature dragged its rider down with it. A heavy thud and the sickening noise of cracking bones reached Lee’s ears.

  Though the body of the winged beast was a little farther off, Lee’s eyes spotted the vertical shaft of an arrow coming from the creature’s neck. To his guess, it was lodged at almost the exact place of the shaft that had dropped the first winged steed.