by P. G. Thomas
Black-clad soldiers sent to investigate the faint lights and murmurs had finished their difficult ascent, and seeing their enemy, they attacked.
The Earth Guards responded with their bows, and armored dwarves rushed in front of the group. With deadly precision, the Earth Guards were able to eliminate the threat, but not fast enough. The black-clad soldiers were sloppy, poorly trained. However, sometimes even poorly trained soldiers get lucky, and the best trained, their luck runs out. Lauren looked down at her feet, seeing Gor gagging for breath.
“Lauren, my pleasure…serve you…break…” Gor’s face froze.
“NO, NO, NO!” Lauren screamed. Walking to the cliff edge, she looked down, as Panry and the Dawnfalcons raced towards her. Her voice boomed, “You come with an appetite for death!” Driving her tri-wood staff into the mountain, the ground shook. “You come with a thirst for destruction.” Again, she drove her staff into the ground. As sides of the mountains crashed down on the army below, Panry lost his footing trying to get to her. Her voice was large, reaching to the heavens, rolling down the valley like an avenging freight train. “You kill my friends!” Smashing the tri-wood staff into the rock, the ground quaked violently. “What you want, I shall now deliver.” Only Lauren stood, as huge rocks fell down on the enemy camp, rolled into the valley, crushing soldiers, horses, and anything else in their path. “What you take from my friends, I now take from you.” When the floor of the canyon split open, hot gasses vented upwards. They choked the invaders, filling their lungs, boiling their eyes, and scorching their skin. She plunged her staff into the mountain one last time. Core Wood magic, now given purpose, sought a solution to its command, “Mother, remove them from my sight.”
A tired volcano lived at the far end of the box canyon: tired but not dead. New energy flowed into it, called to it, but long ago, the top had caved in, trapping the energy now. Then a pyroclastic flow erupted from the side of the volcano. Traveling at over 700 mph, superheated gas, ash, and rock instantly rocketed down the valley like an airborne river, consuming the entire camp in less than a second, and continuing out into the forest for miles, it destroyed everything in its path. The black-clad soldiers breathed in ash and hot gas, which burned at a thousand degrees. Dying once on the inside, choking on the hot gasses, they died a second time on the outside, as the super-heated ash turned them into grotesque statues.
When the ground quit shaking, Panry walked up beside Lauren, looking down on the camp of stone-ash statues, frozen in time. For miles, nothing but dust stirred. Viewing the gaping wound where a mountain once stood, steam hissed skyward, rising to the heavens like the lost black-clad souls.
Pointing to the tired volcano, Lauren’s eyes filled with anger. “That’s the hole that I feel in my heart. This ends. THIS ENDS NOW. Bury my special friend, and give him a hero’s funeral, as he was undeserving of this. When it’s over, we’ll come back for him, taking him home to Ironhouse.” Looking at Panry, she wiped away her tears, “You’ll never blame this on me. EVER!” Lauren turned to the crowd, feeling like a volcano that was ready to erupt, “You need to raise an army if you want to defend yourselves! If you think you can stand against them on your own, go your own way!” Walking over to Gor, she knelt by his side and began to cry. Why?
Aaro and the Earth Mothers walked up to Panry, looked up the valley to the devastated mountain, which was still steaming. Lava slowly flowed forward, trying to erase the obscenity on the valley floor. Hot gasses kissed cold air, and molten rock engulfed the invading force, preserving them, freezing them in time inside of the hot slow moving glacier of lava.
Brook took a drink from her flask, “She has learned from the sky elves. Short and simple her anger does be.”
Taking the flask, Arora drained it, “She brought down a mountain.” Then she tapped Panry on the shoulder, but he tried to ignore her. When she slapped him on the side of his head, he handed her his flask, “Had I not seen it with my own eyes, I would not believe!”
After they had viewed the destruction that Lauren had brought forth, some of the elves and midlanders began to head down the mountain. Her voice harbored an invisible injury, “None shall leave until Gor is buried!” They all stopped in mid step. “I missed the funeral of my good friend Alron, and I won’t be deprived a second time.” None would dare argue with her.
Bor and Aaro went to Lauren, and after pulling her from Gor’s warm corpse, Fen, Fodu, and Hakk joined them. The Earth Mothers instructed all to help build a burial tomb, and while they gathered rocks, the Earth Mothers stripped the armor from Gor’s body, washed him, wrapping him in a blanket.
When done, kneeling beside Gor, Lauren kissed his forehead. “I have no gift to thank you, friend,” and she cried. Panry came over, helping her to stand, as the Earth Guards encased Gor in the rock tomb, and then Arora performed a prayer over the assembled members. After it, singing an ancient song, the rocks melded together, creating an unbreakable barrier. One of the dwarves placed a simple marker on the grave, which said, ‘Gor Ironhouse.’ Pulling out a seed, Nur planted it in a dirt-filled crack, and singing to it, she watered it with her tears. Slowly a tree began to grow as all joined hands. Gradually the group started to make their way down the mountain.
Panry gently coaxed Lauren to her feet, “Earth Mother, we shall return for him, but his service is now complete.”
Lauren was silent the entire trip down.
*******
During the attack, over a dozen had received serious injuries, which were treated by the Earth Mothers, but they now required assistance with their homeward trip. Since the eruption had made the descent dangerous, it required two days to reach the base camp. When they were at the road, Lauren occupied one of the carriages by herself, riding back to Alron in seclusion. As the carriages pulled in front of the house, Pintar, Ryan, and John waited for them with distressing news.
Panry, Erust, and Eric rushed to them, thinking that Lauren was following, but when they arrived in the map room, she was absent. Panry turned, advising Erust to stay, and to update him later, knowing the news was not going to be good, but he was more concerned with the whereabouts of Lauren.
Pintar started, “The sky elves made a special report this morning. They have been passing the words from clan to clan, and one reported an army moving from a forest, which has started to stage in the north pass. We also received these letters from the south port town over the last days. The first talks of the sea being black with ships, Royal House ships. My man took it to the first hub station himself, being afraid that they may lock the town gates. He also sent word to the other six hubs, warning them that they may need to withdraw back to Alron. The next day his message advised that thousands, upon thousands of black-clad troops had disembarked from the ships, and he also sent word for the hubs to close.” As they all looked at the map, they could see where Pintar had chalked two large red Xs on it.
“Ignore me no longer. Now she needs me.” Smiling, Eric turned, leaving the map room.
“Pintar, are the fast horse amulets here?” asked John.
“When the first letter talked of the ships, I kept the remaining riders here, so I have all of them.”
Nodding, John quickly followed Ryan, who was chasing after Eric. Approaching the front of the house, when the coach driver called to John, he shouted back, “Your service is done. We don’t need you anymore.”
The driver, perplexed, replied, “The Earth Mother left her cane in the coach, and I cannot move it or the coach!”
Running up the stairs, he called to Nur to retrieve the tri-wood staff, trying to figure out what Eric was planning.
When Eric had crested the top floor, he pushed Panry away from Lauren’s door, entering her room without knocking.
Lauren was crying on her bed, “Get out of here, now!”
Eric’s voice had a hunger in it, “Black-clad. Two fronts they attack. You have no army. Let me free.”
Lauren looked at John, who had just entered the room, and nodding, he acknowledg
ed the statement was truthful. “Bastards, I knew they were making plans.” Lowering her head into her hands, she began to cry again, “Go. I release your prophecy. I don’t care anymore!”
“You what?” asked Eric.
Her voice was weak, “You heard me! I don’t care anymore! Go, start your thousand-year legacy! Paint the lands red! They want to fight, and you want to fight, so go have your play date! I don’t care anymore!”
“It will be short. Not a thousand years.”
Lauren wiped away her tears. “No Tranquil Fury, your legacy will last longer than that. Sure, you’ll most likely win, and then in shame, they’ll return to where they came from, building ten swords like you, maybe a hundred. Then they’ll come back, and it’ll start all over. When that battle ends, another, then another will follow. Families for a thousand years, likely more, will raise their sons, sending them to war. Over time, they’ll forget the names of the dead, just like they’ll forget the reasons why the wars started in the first place. More battles will be fought. Some won by your side, others by theirs. Then both sides will build new weapons, and death will come quicker, its famine will end as it feasts on the lands, on the people. You think you go to fight a battle, and that you’ll be back in a few days. What you start this day, the night-filled screams—one million nights from this day, those screams will still fill the nights. There may be short droughts of peace, but the rivers will flow red longer than they flow clear. Go. Do like your damn Father wants! Fight, wage war! I don’t care anymore!”
Eric wanted to leave, but even more so, he wanted to understand what was happening. “Why do you not care?”
Lauren was angry at herself, at this crazy world. She screamed at Eric, “I tried, I failed. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do anymore! You seem to have a plan so we’ll give it a try! Go forth and slaughter all of those poor bastards who don’t stand a chance! Blood lust, you’ll never be satisfied! Not until you look back, seeing the centuries of nights screams, will you understand what you start this night! What are you waiting for? GO!”
His head was twitching from side to side, and his voice was angry, “They will attack! Kill many!”
“That’s right, so go kill them first! I don’t care anymore!”
“If I stay here, do not fight?”
Lauren buried her head in her hands, “I told you, I DON’T CARE ANYMORE!”
“If I stay here, many will die!”
“Look you stupid piece of metal, I told you, I DON’T CARE!”
“If they die, you do not care?”
Lauren threw a large candle at Eric, which bounced off the armor, and she screamed at him, “NO. LEAVE ME ALONE!”
“You killed. Why was that acceptable?”
“It wasn’t. I was angry.”
“Not at the river!”
“I needed to protect the west, to stop the invasion!”
“Because you cared!”
“Yes and now I don’t! So go kill them all.”
“How can you not care?”
“What good has it done me? I tried! People died! The army still invades, and I can’t stop them! I’ve failed! Go unleash your damn prophecy!” Pulling back the covers, Lauren crawled under them, hoping she could hide from the approaching doom.
Eric stormed down the stairs.
Panry was uncertain what he had just seen, “Earth Mother, I…”
“You’ll call me Lauren, Earth Mother has quit, and you can leave me alone. GET OUT!” Lauren screamed out from under the covers.
Hearing Eric scream for Ryan, Panry raced down the stairs, finding them in the backyard.
“She does not care?” Eric was furious, “How can she stop caring? First, she stops me from fighting. Now she tells me to fight.” Even though his thoughts and words were confused, they now had emotion.
Ryan smiled on the inside, noticing that Eric’s sentences were getting longer. “So go fight. What do you care?”
“If she does not care, who will protect the people here? She should, because she cares, but she does not care. They are without defenses. Will be slaughtered.”
Ryan pointed to the south, “Not if you slaughter the black-clad first.”
“She tells me not to fight. Now she tells me to release my prophecy.”
“Then what’s the problem?”
Eric was massaging his temples with the palms of his hands, trying to force the frustration out of his head. “She is right. If I do not stop them all, they will attack again. If I slaughter them all, it is not battle; it is murder.”
“If you do nothing, the people here will be slaughtered. They may already be slaughtered in the south port town, yet here you stand.”
“If I fight them, it will never end. Bloodshed will rule the lands for years, decades, even centuries to come. We will become a land of war.”
Ryan shrugged his shoulders, “Then tell them to leave.”
“You mock me, strange man. You know they will not leave. They will fight.”
“Then he who now thinks can defend himself. You’re like everybody else here. You have free will and so do the black-clad. Tell them to leave. Tell them to surrender. Tell them that you don’t want to slaughter them.”
“When they attack?”
“Defend yourself.”
“What?”
Ryan’s voice sounded like granite, “Don’t take the fight to them. Instead, let them bring the fight to you. When you do that, you can defend the west with honor.”
Eric cocked his head to one side, “You want me to talk peace, not battle. If they refuse, defend my ground?”
“Well, you want peace, I’m sure the west would embrace it also. Go offer it to them. If they don’t accept, attacking you instead, then defend yourself.”
While Panry was uncertain of what the two were talking about, he was worried about Lauren. Heading back into the house, he found Nur at the top of the stairs. “How is Earth Mother?”
“Panry, I have no idea on what you call it when you mix equal parts of anger, shock, grief, and defeat, but that is the only way to describe Earth Mother’s state. I do not mean to make light of her situation, but she is like a volcano ready to explode. When I tried to give her back her staff, she refused to accept it. She said I was the last to touch it, so it now belongs to me.”
“I shall go and talk with my friend. See if her pain I can lessen.” Hearing her crying, Panry gently knocked on her door.
“Go away! Leave me alone!”
“Lauren, it is your friend Panry. I wish to talk with you.” Opening the door, he dodged the candleholder that flew at his head, “Lauren, I wish to talk.”
“NO!”
“Weeks past many, you asked for us to be friends. In that time, much has changed. I consider you to be my friend. I have concerns for you.”
Lauren started to cry, “Panry, I can’t do this anymore. Of all the people up there, why Gor?”
“He was your friend and cared about you greatly. Gor was also a warrior. That is why he stayed close to you so that he could protect you.”
Laurens words dripped with venom, “That was your job!”
The words hit Panry hard, like a dagger, silencing him as it had silenced Alron.
Anger continued spilling out of Lauren, “Five Earth Guards, over four dozen dwarves, all the elves, and midlanders. One rotten bunch of black-clad soldiers finds us. One arrow! Just one damn arrow! Why? The odds of it killing Gor…are the same as me winning this war or whatever it is. We didn’t rush in. We were safe. Why Mother, why? Who’ll be next?”
Pushing away his hurt emotions, Panry approached Lauren, wrapping his arms around her. He stayed with his friend until she had cried herself to sleep, and when Gingaar came in to sit with her, he returned to the backyard. Before he could ask his first question, he already expected the bad news, as Arora was opening a third bottle, “What happened?”
Everybody at the table looked at John. “Lauren gave him permission, so there was nothing we could do to stop him. Afte
r his talk with Ryan, I’m uncertain of …everything.” He refilled his mug, “So I gave him the fast horses. Aaro and Hakk went with him, saying that a dwarf should never go into battle alone. They should be there before nightfall and be done by tomorrow. I asked Logan to go to the north pass settlement, seeing if Sister would extend her protection, until Eric can get there in about four days. I didn’t know what else to do. If he rode a regular horse south, it would take him almost a week to find the army. Then, by the time he rode north, it would’ve fallen.”
Chapter 5
As the speed increased, forests flew by, and the grasslands were a blur. When the horses arrived at the north-south road, they slowed for a moment. After turning, racing to the south, their pace intensified. Eric’s long legs helped to eliminate the discomfort from the magical mounts, which punished Aaro and Hakk. If one looked to the sky while riding, the suns seemed to play hide and seek behind the clouds, but looking to either side or ahead, everything was a blur. As the suns set, the blur changed to gray and then to black. Racing south, the temperature began to change, and cold moisture slammed into their faces. In the distance, lightning was dancing in the dark clouds, waiting for their arrival.
Aaro and Hakk were unsure of how long they had traveled, but the thrill of feeling the horses finally slowing down was short lived. Powerful wind gusts welcomed them when their speed diminished, and cold, hard rains slammed into them. The wind, being so loud, they thought it an invisible angry beast. With the sky erupting with huge flashes of lightning, thunder exploded in the night, and then the magic mounts stopped at the base of a hill. With much difficulty, Aaro and Hakk climbed off their mounts, turning them back into gold amulets.
Aaro walked up to Eric, “Night screams, the time has come?”
“We wait. We wait for quiet.”
“Quiet and prophecy, they do not mix,” replied Aaro.
