The Exodus Sagas: Book III - Of Ghosts And Mountains

by Jason R Jones

  His legs tiring, arms beginning to shake, Saberrak the gray fell backward, heaving with all his strength to throw Chalas off of him. His breath knocked out as his shoulder blades hit the stone, his enemy hurled over ten feet ahead and sprawled out across the ground. He got to his feet the same time as his adversary and readied his axes. He hoped Chalas was as exhausted as he was, but it did not look so.

  Saberrak lowered his horns, circling as Chalas circled him, getting his breath and blinking the sweat from his eyes. He watched for a motion, a hint, there was none as to who would strike first. He charged, axes to the side, then stepped right with a ferocious spinning set of axe slashes. Two, then four, then seven toward the body, and he continued his steps past Chalas, who had parried every one.

  The brown held his blade in one hand, open palm with the other, switching hands every few seconds as he marched straight on Saberrak. Two hands to the pommel now, the blade went up, then down, then sideslashes and diagonal crosscuts, each blocked by the gray as he backpeddled from the force of the blows. The sparks shot into the air from the steel colliding with steel, Saberrak keeping his distance from the larger bull.

  “Quit toying gray one, I will never tire with you in front of me. Like your family, your blood will cover my blade.” His eyes, deep set, intimidating, wickedly savage and cruel, looked to meet the gaze of his nemesis.

  “Aaarrgghh!” Saberrak let his anger loose, strength from somewhere inside, and weaved blow after blow toward the brown. He jumped up, blocking the sword with his axe handle, yet landed the other across the left side of Chalas, taking half a foot of horn and an ear with it. He did not stop, he turned after his landing and hoped to catch his opponent off guard as the chunk of horn skittered past. The axes went up and down, menacing strikes intent on killing.

  Chalas, blood pouring down the side of his face, slashed out with his blade one handed and wrapped his forearm around Saberrak’s arm. His free hand caught the other, and he gripped with inhuman force against the raging gray. A knee to the abdomen that Saberrak was not expecting stole his wind, then another. He smashed his head forward, meeting his opponents skull, then again, and another. The bone and horn smashed, leaving both bloody and cut, yet Chalas was in control. He twisted his arms, dislodging one axe, then smashed his elbow across the grays face and back again.

  Saberrak could not see, the blood in his eyes blinding him. He swung out, hitting Chalas in the head where his ear once was and grabbed his broken horn and pulled. The crowd was deafening, unlike anything he had ever heard, louder than the roar of the dragon directly in his ear. They were chanting his name.

  Saberrak!

  Saberrak

  Saberrak!

  Once, twice Saberrak smashed his elbow into the side of his enemy’s head. Chalas stumbled, an axe cut across his shoulder, then the pommel and fist to his chest, and upward to the underside of his jaw. The fierce brown kicked Saberrak in the abdomen just as the gray slammed his horns and bleeding skull into face of his opponent. Chalas Kalaza fell backward with the crack of bone, onto his back. The gray stood while Chalas Kalaza reeled on the ground. Blood streamed from Saberrak’s face, his scalp, into his eyes, his breath knocked out as he stumbled back.

  Saberrak!

  Saberrak!

  He blinked over and over, his strength trying to return. He swung again, grabbed again, nothing was there, his strength was slipping, he could not see anything. Saberrak could only hear the crowd as he wiped his eyes from the blood that blinded him.

  The brown charged, Saberrak grabbed him just in time to become a tangled mess of blood, sweat, and fatigue. He turned, trying to whip Chalas off of his grip, then turned again, Chalas keeping in step. He dropped to the ground again, hoping to launch his enemy over him, but it did not work a second time. Chalas threw him nearly twice as far, and the gray dropped the axe as his arm was pierced by the spikes on the pillar he landed next to. He pulled his arm free, reached for the axe and scrambled to his feet. Chalas was coming, straight on him, sword raised. The crowd was chanting for Chalas now, chanting for death, and Saberrak could not feel his right arm.

  “I told you, Saberrak the gray, you are no match for---Ggrraahhh!”

  Saberrak wiped his eyes free of more blood from his bleeding scalp, and looked up to see Chalas on his knees, an arc of lightning from the crowd shot through his torso. Then a second, then the thunder echoed twice from inside the cavern where there would never be a storm. Heads turned, the crowd screamed and yelled in surprise and terror, all erupted from their seats.

  “Gwenneth? No, impossible.” Saberrak, hazy vision unable to make anyone out, thought against hope for who could be there as the masses panicked from something he could not see.

  “Saberrak!” Shinayne screamed as loud as she could over the crowd that now went into a chaos of its own. Escaped slaves poured into the stands and arena, armed and furious. Crossbows rained down from an opening into the slavequarters, bolts of lightning shot into the brown minotaur, and amidst it all, Shinayne charged in ahead of her friends to the arena floor, leaping the wall, and clearing the spikes.

  “Shinayne!” Saberrak could barely see her, running toward him, swords drawn and the others behind her. He had never thought it possible, yet there she was.

  Guards flooded the aisles, ogre swarmed from behind, doors began opening and closing into Ajastaphan faster than one could blink. The crowd screamed in terror and confusion, making their way over one another to the exits, thousands cloistering and trampling the guards and each other. It became one moving yet immovable mass of panic.

  “The northern doors, hurry!” Kaya T’Vellon yelled to them all, seeing it the only way without a drawn out fight.

  “Lady Kaya? What is she doing here? She is with the, the---“

  “We know Saberrak, she is getting us out of here. Zen, James, help him!” Her eyes streamed tears, having hoped to find him alive, and barely so it seemed. Shinayne tried to help Saberrak run, his body exhausted, his wounds bleeding constant, his balance was fading. The elven noble knew it was no time for words or sentiments.

  Kaya cut down a soldier, then another, her shortsword making quick work in the mob that swarmed. Again she plunged bladepoint then slashed with her shield. Cutting her way toward an exit, yet searching along the way, Kaya blended in with ease. She fought ahead, to the middle of the overrun arena floor where the body of Chalas Kalaza should be. Scorch marks, two to be exact, blood, and a cracked off piece of minotaur horn, but no brown minotaur.

  Shinayne dodged between the gathered nobility, sensing by motion who was unimportant and who was a danger. She was angry, anyone here in the employ of Devonmir could have had a hand in hurting Saberrak, and they would not be spared any quarter. Slicing her way alongside Kaya, the elven swordswoman cut down an ogre from the side, then another from behind, and another human soldier that had readied his crossbow at Saberrak had his hand cut off before the shot could be taken, and then his head. She, looked up to the balcony, despite the rear pursuit and demonic whispers in her head, and saw two more robed figures pointing toward them with a squad of archers aimed and ready.

  “Lazlette, above and behind us, up high!” She yelled to her friend, hoping she could buy them enough time to try and pass yet another monstrous closed door, this one leading out.

  Gwenneth threw her palm out, stopping a hail of arrows with a magical barrier. Then another flick of her wrist and the arcane lights were smothered in darkness over the southern side of the arena. She grasped the staff tightly, drawing on its power, and channeled all the force she could handle through her arm, pointing it at the northern doors of steel and stone. They bent, creaked, twisted, then fell off the massive hinges into the passage beyond, the lead bar fell to the ground and the stone turned to dust as it hit the floor.

  The masses fled in every direction, the arena was plagued with noble masks and guards alike. Zen and James held their gray companion up under each of his arms as they ran, Shinayne, Kaya, and Gwenneth leading them throug
h the fleeing crowds. Despite drowned out orders from black robed sorcerer lords, White Spider agents looking hopelessly for targets, the six fugitives fled through the unknown passage, nearly forty escaped slaves in tow behind them, still alive.

  Lavress III:I

  Southwind Keep, Western Chazzrynn

  “Heroism is not the bold faced bravado, the mindless charging into certain death, nor the act of sacrificing yourself for a greater good. It is the ideal of an action that must place the lives of others before thine own and be carried out with no room for failure.”---Written on the tomb of Cryssander the Fourth, eighteenth High King of Shanador, upon his death in Kivanis against Altestani infiltrators. 314 A.D.

  Cold winds and southern rains battered against the stone walls and foggy hills surrounding Southwind Keep, summer was still vicious and cold here it seemed to Lavress Tilaniun, Gualiduran elf of the Hedim Anah. Wet and chilly in the mornings and evenings, barely what he would call warm in the daytime. He had been waiting an hour now, out in the raining southern summer, the tension here was only matched by its lack of hospitality. His mind drifted to the sacred book in his pack, his lost love Shinayne wherever she may be, and to the war that had already begun in the south and west of Chazzrynn. He wanted no part in it, save that Eliah Shendrynn was now involved. Eliah the traitor, in league with a walking dead wizard who had an army of trolls and ogre, and somehow a noble from Valhirst was in the middle. Lavress tried to clear his mind to meditate, but with so much ongoing, it was more than a struggle.

  His wounds from harpy arrows now fully healed and his body seemed refreshed. He could not go on to the sacred grove of the temple of the Whitemoon, not without warning Southwind what was about to happen and who they were up against, his conscience would not allow it. The savage elf looked down to the wolves and their five pups at his feet. They looked back, anxious for his conversation. Gray mother with white patches, father with black streaks and a fierce disposition, and the pups were of every mismatch of fur and personality. Nearly a week they had been together since he had hid in their den, pursued by ogre, troll, and whatever else.

  Lavress looked to the guards lined upon and outside the stone walls, they were staring at him. The decorative tattoos, the feathers and charms in his hair, his dark tan skin, or the small family of wild animals that followed him, he was certain they whispered of it all as very strange.

  “You may return home now. May Seirena guide your way and keep your family safe.” Lavress knelt and stroked the fur on the mother and father of the pups. He spoke in the sylvan tongue, the language of nature and the Goddess, drawing even more suspicion from the humans here within earshot.

  Ohhh, ooh, ooh, ooohhhh

  “I am well aware, thank you. Much sorrow, fear, and anger here, I feel it as well.”

  Ggrrr, grrr…yip, yip, aooohhhhhoooh

  “I will, please tell the earth that calls and whispers that I intend on returning the fourth book of High Elven Magick to the temple as soon as possible. It is safe with me.” Lavress looked to his curved falcata, wolf designs chasing each other down the pommel and crossguard. The tension here at this human settlement was thick. He felt for his curved kukri dagger, enchanted by the temple, it was there. The bow was across his back, Bedesh’s magical bow full of sentiment. He missed his satyr friend that had died saving him from the Nadderi elf, Kendari. More howls and conversation broke his sorrowful thoughts.

  Yip, yip, grrrr, aoohhhoooohh, ooohhh, aooohhh

  “Few days run? Only that long, eh? Trolls, you smell them? I will be sure to warn them then, again, my thanks and love to you and yours. Run along now.” Lavress took his hand from his heart, to his chin, and then his brow and bowed his head to the wolves. They bowed their heads back in recognition of the sacred gesture of the Whitemoon.They licked and played another minute, then the parents started south to return home. The pups followed, gnarling and tackling each other as they went.

  “You speak to animals, and they understand you?”

  Lavress reached for his blades on instinct, he had been deep in conversation and thought and had not heard anyone approach from behind. Ten guards, and several Knights of Southwind, also jumped at his reaction and placed hands on halberds and blades just as fast. The men were all on edge.

  “Easy there, I thought you were a messenger.”

  Bowing his head, relaxing a moment, Lavress turned and looked to the noble man before him. Chiseled features, auburn hair to the shoulders, deep set, tired, yet radiant steel blue eyes, and his tabard and armor were impeccable. White fine cloth with the red feathered cross of Alden upon the chest, golden hued chain and matching plates on the arms and legs, and his longblade hung perfect at his side as it playfully hindered the flapping red cape that the wind had its way with.

  “I am Lavress Tilaniun, guardian of the Hedim Anah, friend to Chazzrynn, the Whitemoon, and I indeed come with a message and warning.”

  “I do not take warnings well in my own keep, elf. I am the Lord of Southwind, Alexei T’Vellon. In these days, stranger folk have passed my doors with much wisdom and adventure. Come in, Lavress of the Hedim Anah, though I do not know what that is to be honest.” Lord Alexei T’Vellon studied this elf, savage looking, topaz and amber eyes with an odd sparkle to them, and dressed as a wilderness hunter or furrier of sorts with trinkets and hides galore. He needed no finery or dining hall to receive this one, he was sure.

  They walked into Southwind Keep, past stairs into well guarded walls, along the battlements overlooking western fields that stretched into wet pine forests interrupted by rushing streams. The black falcons of Chazzrynn flapped on their red banners in several posts, the flags seemingly watching the hills like vigilant guardians. Lavress looked north to the city of Elcram that was guarded by this mighty frontier fortress, plumes of smoke rose by the dozens from inns and homes. Of all the cities and castles he had passed through, this one held more wilderness in its gaze than any other.

  Though they were alone in a map room overlooking the southern frontier, Lavress could feel the suspicions from adjacent rooms and outside the old oak doors. He let his eyes wander the parchments tacked to walls, the falcon banners new and old, and the Chazzrynn glory of lords and kings that decorated the small hideaway of this keep. Centuries of dampened history, busts of human nobility he would never know, Lavress soaked in the isolation and miniscule grandeur of it all.

  “If you come to warn me of war with the ogre, I am well aware my elven traveler. So what is it that insists you wait in the rain to see me then?” Straight to the point, Alexei had far too much to handle as of late. His sister missing and wanted by the kingdom and church, battles and raids in every city along the west and south, and now King Mikhail has started a war with Valhirst. It was too much for the orphan lord.

  “You have a deadly foe arrayed against you, yet it is a distraction, a trap, and it is meant for your rulers to become involved.” Lavress walked to the window overlooking the eastern horizon, the sun starting its quick descent for the evening. The green moon Gimmor a sliver above it and the white moon Carice half hidden in the northern clouds, he took his eyes away from the changes in the heavens.

  “And you know this how, might I ask?” Pouring a glass of poor church wine from Harlaheim, Lord T’Vellon sat in his desk and watched every motion of this strange elf.

  “I saw it. Ten or more days ago, south, outside Roricdale, a gathering took place. Your scouts could verify the tracks of hundreds of trolls from the Hollowmoors and just as many ogre from the western wastes of Arouland and Teirenshire. They were not alone. Avegarne, a rotted ogre king, and Mun Parr, the four armed queen of the trolls were both present. And that is not all, Lord Alexei.”

  “Trolls and ogre hate one another, surely they began killing upon sight. And this Avegarne is a myth from the days of my father.”

  “No. They met, as I have stated. With a decaying wizard that held them in sway named Salah Cam, and Prince Johnas of Valhirst. Another man in all black, seemed a bodyguard, I
did not get his name.” Lavress sighed, assuming this news of Chazzrynn nobility in corrupt allegiance would not be tolerated lightly.

  “Surely you jest, is this a joke?”

  “That is not all. When this company broke camp, the ogre and troll left with the wizard to wage war in the west, as you may have seen but the beginning. Johnas and his men headed back east I believe. However, an elf I hunt, an enemy to the Temple of the Whitemoon named Eliah Shendrynn, is now with this Salah Cam. He is more dangerous than you could imagine.” The hunter of the Hedim Anah left out the incident with his attempted kill of the Prince of Valhirst, still feeling the bite of shame for his actions, regardless of their failure.

  “This is rather insane, you do realize. The temple of the Whitemoon is but an old fiction, none are left save for children’s stories. Ogre and troll do not make pacts or raise armies, and their leaders are of tall tales from the soldiers who have been in their cups too long at night. Prince Johnas, well, I have heard he could wither flowers with a glance, but allying with such as you say, preposterous.” Alexei fumed, having nothing much to do, trapped in Southwind, yet feeling the need to not be wasting the minutes with such fantasy.

  “Your people are in grave peril, Lord of Southwind, I am on a mission of the utmost importance for my order. Your belief in it or not, does not concern me. I have taken dangerous time away to come and warn you, I assure you with all my honor, that war is coming. These are but the forefront, the mild skirmishes you have been told of. The real---“