The Archer From Kipleth (Book 2)

by K. J. Hargan

  The Chieftain of the Madrun Hills slapped a bear hug on the boy, and he had a messenger go fetch Alrhett.

  A growing murmur in the army turned every head to the north to watch the rising line of smoke from New Rogar Li reaching up to the brightening dawn.

  Alrhett ran up to Caerlund’s camp and hugged Arnwylf until he was out of breath. Arnwylf told all his adventures since running into the Weald, and Alrhett told Arnwylf all she knew of Halldora, Frea, the Archer, the elf, and his mother Wynnfrith.

  Caerlund carefully put his hand on Arnwylf’s shoulder.

  “Will you lead the human armies? They will follow you, as they followed your father,” Caerlund said.

  “I have a great desire to fight for my land and kin,” Arnwylf said. “But, I think you should lead us, Caerlund. I still have many questions in my mind, and I fear if I am distracted for even an instant, it may mean the lives of those I would command.”

  Caerlund looked at Arnwylf or a long moment.

  “I understand,” he finally said with resignation. “Will you command the soldiers who followed you in the north?”

  “I will follow your orders,” Arnwylf said with a humble smile.

  “It looks like a fire in New Rogar Li,” Alrhett said turning to scan the line of smoke ascending on the northern horizon.

  “Every land and person will soon be so tested,” Caerlund said with a frown.

  Wynnfrith pulled Garmee Gamee along the dead, brown, whipping grass. Frea was slightly ahead, scanning the Far Grassland for any sign of garond soldiers. The three women had been running all night.

  All was quiet and still. The whole garond army had moved north in the night.

  “I don’t know if we’ll be able to get to the secret caves,” Frea said. “Every garond in the world will be choking Byland now.”

  “Let me sit down for just a little bit,” Garmee Gamee whined.

  “We should go around the army,” Wynnfrith said, pulling Garmee Gamee along. “We should try to find a boat to cross the Great Lake of Ettonne.”

  “Have you seen that we will do that?” Frea asked.

  “I no longer have farsight,” Wynnfrith said. “Deifol Hroth took my power from me. He took it into the Lhalíi.”

  “Use the Ar,” Garmee Gamee said.

  “And how will she do that?” Frea snapped.

  “I don’t know, like she did back there,” Garmee Gamee sneered.

  “Could you fight the garonds with the Ar?” Frea asked Wynnfrith.

  Wynnfrith paused and pulled out the leather bound object. She carefully unwrapped the stone.

  “I’m not sure,” Wynnfrith said. “It is powerful and not meant for humans. You’ve all felt that.” Wynnfrith carefully began to rewrap the Ar.

  “Then we should travel to the Lake of Ettonne as you suggested,” Frea said, stepping a few paces away to survey their prospects.

  “You are fools,” Garmee Gamee snapped, and hit Wynnfrith in the face. As Wynnfrith fell in pain, Garmee Gamee kicked her in the ribs. Garmee Gamee grabbed the stone wrapped in the piece of leather, and then ran as fast as she could to the north.

  “Garmee Gamee!” Frea yelled as she held Wynnfrith who lay crumpled on the dried grass.

  “Go after her!” Wynnfrith gasped.

  “I won’t leave you here alone,” Frea said.

  Wynnfrith struggled to her feet.

  “We have to get the Ar back, before it falls into the wrong hands,” Wynnfrith said as she weakly limped next to Frea through the dead, winter pastures of the Far Grasslands.

  “It has already fallen into the wrong hands,” Frea said as she helped Wynnfrith hobble after Garmee Gamee.

  Stavolebe awoke to the blue sky of the morning. He started awake, sat up, and looked around the upper chamber of Deifol Hroth’s citadel. He was alone, and the chamber had been swept clean. There were no longer tables or books. The uppermost chamber now felt more like a prison.

  The oaken door burst open and Deifol Hroth entered. He held his hand out to Stavolebe.

  “Come,” the Dark Lord said. “The time is nearing. You will do great things.”

  Deifol Hroth led Stavolebe down through the tower of the citadel, down into the dark, down into a shadowed dungeon.

  Four garonds struggled with ropes trying to hold down a massive beast.

  “Fools!” Deifol Hroth barked. He raised his hand, and the four garonds were thrown back, smashed against the walls of their dungeon by Deifol Hroth’s invisible power.

  “Come here,” Deifol Hroth said to Stavolebe. “Come and meet Grisn, the Kaprk-Uusshu.”

  Stavolebe was paralyzed with fear.

  Before him was a beast four times the size of a horse. Its massive head was like a ram’s head, but there the similarity ended. It had a large, thorny plate that covered the upper portion of its weirdly long head. Its body was long, too long for how large it was. Its body seemed to snake into an undulating curve. It had two gigantic, heavy, thorny horns that curled as a ram’s horns should. Its tail was thick, muscular and writhed like a heavy snake. The end of the tail had a fish like fluke, and its hind legs had webbed feet. Its body was covered with gray, shaggy hair. But a row of thick, iridescent blue scales covered its spine.

  The huge animal turned and fixed Stavolebe with a large rectangular pupil resembling a goat’s eye. Stavolebe noticed a shaggy beard sprouting from the animal’s chin.

  “What- what-?” Stavolebe stammered.

  “Half ram, half wyrm, very old,” Deifol Hroth smiled. He reached out to pet the beast, but it bared its teeth, long rows of short, triangular fangs. “It doesn’t like me,” Deifol Hroth whispered to Stavolebe with a smile.

  The Dark Lord snapped his fingers and three garonds entered. One garond bore the Mattear Gram. One bore the Lhalíi. The third cradled a thick cloth dripping with blood.

  Deifol Hroth took the sword and the crystal and wrapped them in the bloody cloth. When he handed the bundle to Stavolebe it appeared as a normal ranger’s type rucksack.

  Still in shock, Stavolebe took the rucksack.

  “Now get up and ride,” Deifol Hroth said.

  “What- what-?” Stavolebe stammered.

  “Grisn knows where to take you,” Deifol Hroth said with a pleasant smile, “and when you get there, you will know what to do.”

  Stavolebe was dazzled by Deifol Hroth’s charm. He slowly climbed up on the colossal Kaprk-Uusshu.

  “Don’t let him get too near water. He’ll probably kill you and escape,” Deifol Hroth said with a wink.

  Then the Dark Lord turned to the garonds.

  “Tell the were-garonds to stay away from Grisn,” Deifol Hroth said, “he doesn’t like them and will go out of his way to kill them. I’ve had trouble enough keeping this beast away from the thing in the pit.”

  The Dark Lord of All Evil Magic lifted his regrown hand, and several garonds pushed open a mountainous double door. The morning light streamed in with the foul mist.

  “Go!” Deifol Hroth cried with a laugh. “Go, Stavolebe, and end everything!”

  The Archer nudged the elf. They had been taking turns sleeping, and the Archer felt his eyelids drooping.

  Baalenruud stood before the elf, who started awake at the sight of her.

  “It wants to talk to you,” the Archer said. “Then its my turn to sleep.”

  “I go down the Bairn River now,” Baalenruud hissed. “I go to Byland.”

  “Go and be rid of you,” Iounelle sleepily said.

  Baalenruud instantly shimmered and transformed into his snake form. She slithered away to the north, towards the Bairn.

  The wolves began to excitedly bark and jump.

  The Kaprk-Uusshu exploded from the mist, with Stavolebe desperately clinging to its back.

  “Kaprk-Uusshu!” The elf cried.

  The elf whistled and their horses quickly ran up to them to be mounted. The Archer and the elf leapt on their horses and galloped hard after the strange beast.

  Iounelle leaned
down to talk to the pack of wolves that ran with them.

  “Do not try to stop it,” she commanded Conniker. “It is too dangerous. We will only track it.”

  Conniker nodded his head in understanding.

  Stavolebe found it very difficult to hold on to Grisn. Its long body snaked and rocked in a most irregular way.

  The Archer and the elf chased the Kaprk-Uusshu due east, straight down the Westernway Road towards Byland.

  Chapter Twenty

  Over Byland

  All day a warm, persistent rain fell. Every slushy pile of snow melted away to mud and rising waters. The human soldiers miserably sloshed ahead to their defending lines. Rivulets and streams began to trickle through all of Byland. Ponds and puddles splashed with every step.

  Arnwylf pushed in the middle of the throng of human soldiers all inching forward to the shaky bridges spanning the rising, raging Flume of Gawry. Huge chunks of ice washed down the flume, sometimes bumping up against the rope and wood bridges filled to bursting with human warriors eager to get across before it collapsed.

  The sun was setting and the human army wanted to get to the rumored dry tents set up in Byland.

  “As soon as you draw the Mattear Gram, I will be there to take it from you,” Apghilis said over Arnwylf’s shoulder.

  Arnwylf turned, but the crush of soldiers pushed him forward, away from his father’s murderer. Arnwylf’s face was a silent mask of pain and revenge, as he locked eyes with Apghilis.

  “I will take it and lead the army to victory, as is my right!” Apghilis yelled as the crowd swallowed him. Arnwylf tried to turn back to get to Apghilis, he fought and struggled against the growing mass of human soldiers. But, he was soon pushed forward to the foot of a bridge.

  “Get going! Get going!” An attendant sergeant bellowed.

  The bridge swayed and creaked. There were too many soldiers on the bridge. The ropes would snap at any moment. The raging slush of the flume would kill in mere moments.

  It was going to be dark soon, and every soldier wanted to be squared away for the night. The garonds would almost certainly attack at dawn as they had at the Battle of the Eastern Meadowland, so there was still time to make peace with whatever god was worshipped.

  Ronenth stared out at the ice choking the mouth of the Bairn River. It should have been the quickest path to join the human armies in Byland. But he had been scrambling over the beached mountains of ice all day, and hadn’t seemed to get any closer to Byland. The rain made the ice colder and he shivered uncontrollably. Hid hands were stiff from the freezing temperatures. The world was only blue and gray.

  Ronenth was prepared might meet and fight any garonds that thought to flank the human army, as Solienth had counseled him to do. But, the ice was silent and lonely.

  Ronenth wasn’t sure if he wasn’t going in a circle. He huffed in pain as he slipped down the side of an iceberg. He tightly clutched the large canvas pack that held his elvish weapon.

  The doubt of the last few days played in his mind. Was he worthy of Frea’s love? Had he betrayed his best friend, Arnwylf? Had he cowardly abandoned his mentor and the Master of the Library in New Rogar Li?

  He thought of Frea with the flame red hair. He knew she and Arnwylf were meant to be together. But wasn’t he allowed to find happiness? Ronenth grit his teeth. What awful fate had brought him to this frozen death? With the death of Solienth, now there were only two Glafs in all the world. Would he freeze to death out on this forsaken ice and leave Yulenth as the last Glaf in all the world? The world. Who had made this world such a misery for him?

  He thought back to the days when his family fled Glafemen. Even though a child, he remembered the garond general who slew his family and countrymen with such zeal and pleasure. If he had that tall, garond general in his hands, he would pay him back for all of Glafemen.

  He couldn’t spend the night out on the icebergs. In the rain, he would freeze to death. Fear began to close his throat with pain.

  A large black shape slithered through the crevasses of ice.

  “Who’s there?” Ronenth challenged as he unbuckled his canvas pack.

  “I a friend,” Baalenruud hissed, his strange snake’s eyes staring through the rising dark.

  “I know who you are,” Ronenth said as he pulled out the paricale. “You’re Baalenruud. You are not to be trusted.”

  “No, no,” the aesir hissed. “I help you. I guide you. I know the way. Follow me. We go to kill garonds.”

  With that the huge viper slithered away through a pass in the ice.

  Ronenth shook his head. It was madness. But he was lost, and had nothing to lose. And, their was a payment to be collected... for all of Glafemen.

  As Arnwylf reached the far side of the bridge, he found soldiers from his siege of the Ancient Castle of the North waiting for him. An escort of four burly soldiers hustled Arnwylf to a tent specially set aside for his use. All his old comrades were there.

  “Where is Geleiden and Husvet?” Arnwylf asked.

  “They went west with the wolves to cross at a shallower part of the Bairn River,” a lieutenant answered. “The wolves would not cross the bridges made of boats.”

  “I sorely wish I had Conniker with me right now,” Arnwylf said.

  Caerlund and several other generals stopped by Arnwylf’s tent.

  “Come with us to the front line,” Caerlund said.

  “He has not eaten yet,” the lieutenant protested.

  “I will eat later,” Arnwylf reassured, and left with Caerlund.

  As they sloshed to the front line, Arnwylf walked close to Caerlund.

  “I saw Apghilis amongst the troops,” he told him.

  “What! And you didn’t kill him then and there?” Caerlund exclaimed.

  “There were too many soldiers,” Arnwylf said. “But he thinks I have the Mattear Gram, and he means to kill me for it.”

  Caerlund scratched his orange beard.

  “You don’t have the sword do you?” He asked Arnwylf with a hopeful squint.

  “No, I lost it,” was all Arnwylf quietly said.

  As they reached the front line, the rain stopped, but the streams and spillage from the Lake of Ettonne made all of Byland swampy. The clouds in the night sky moved with a strange quickness, almost as if they were being drawn back like a curtain.

  Nunee, the Mother Moon was already high in the vault of the night sky. The Wanderer, the second moon, was almost at the apex of it’s erratic orbit. It looked like nothing more than a bright star next to Nunee.

  With the flood of moonlight, Caerlund, Arnwylf and the generals could more clearly see the rest of Byland. The eastern half swarmed with the black forms of nearly a million garond soldiers. They out numbered the humans at ten to one.

  “At least the Flume will help us hold them back,” a general ruefully mused.

  Then, in the distance, a torch amongst the garonds was lit. Then another and another. Eastern Byland became a sea of torches.

  “They are attacking,” Arnwylf breathed, “now.”

  “Tákkeg Daniei,” Caerlund whispered. “You are right.”

  Caerlund lifted his battle axe.

  “Alarm! Alarm!” Caerlund bellowed. “The enemy is attacking!”

  The panic and clatter only made the torch bearing garonds, barely a league away, break into a sprint.

  In the middle of the advancing garond army, a battered captain reported to Ravensdred.

  “What of my flanking soldiers moving out onto the ice?” Ravensdred demanded.

  “A boy,” the garond captain stammered, “a human boy kills everyone. He has a strange weapon. And a large snake helps him!”

  Ravensdred clamped his heavy paw around his captain’s neck.

  “I want more soldiers out on the ice,” Ravensdred bellowed as he strangled his defeated captain. “You, you,” he pointed at two other captains, “take a thousand soldiers and kill this boy and his pet snake!”

  Out on the ice clogging the southern shore of the
Great Lake of Ettonne, Baalenruud looked back.

  “Yes, yes,” the large black adder hissed, “you use the elvish weapon as if you were born in Lanis Rhyl Landemiriam. But we must hurry and join the human army on the land!”

  Ronenth paused to wipe away the garond blood splattered across his grim smile. He scurried over the uneven chunks of ice, following Baalenruud.

  The Kaprk-Uusshu hurdled over tents in the human camps in Harvestley. It threw Stavolebe off its back with one flinch. Then, the beast headed south to the cliffs facing the Bight of Lanis. The beast could be seen making a grand splash in the surf.

  Stavolebe picked himself up from the dirt of Harvestley. Only an old man had seen him thrown from the creature’s back, all other eyes were on the Kaprk-Uusshu swimming out to sea, or the advancing armies out on Byland.

  Stavolebe knew he had only a brief lead on the Archer and the elf, but he still had to shoulder his way past the crush of soldiers trying to cross the Flume of Gawry to join the battle just begun. He just didn’t know what to do once he had crossed the flume.

  Deifol Hroth was standing next to Stavolebe.

  “Find the garond general called Ravensdred,” the Dark Lord said. “Give him the magic objects.” Then Deifol Hroth was gone.

  Stavolebe, clutching the disguised rucksack, pushed his way to the closest bridge over the Flume of Gawry.

  The Archer and the elf charged their horses into the camps of Harvestley.

  “The strange beast,” the Archer cried, “which way did it go!?”

  “It went over the cliff and out to sea,” a young woman said.

  “Did anyone see the man on it’s back?” The elf asked.

  “He went to the battle,” the old man who saw Stavolebe said.

  “Why would he-?” The elf started to ask.

  “Let us find him and ask him,” the Archer said through gritted teeth, and the two sprinted for the bridges over the flume.

  The front lines of humans and garonds met with a resounding clash. Arrows flew from both sides. The melee seemed maddening and undirected. The humans had no time to plan, and the garonds were simply using their superior numbers to crush the enemy. The moment they joined in battle, the garonds carrying torches dropped them to hiss out in the standing water that both sides sloshed through.