The Exodus Sagas: Book IV - Of Moons and Myth

by Jason R Jones

  LCMVXILCMVXILCMVXILCMVXIL

  “The soldiers are but one day north, my queen, I have seen them with my own eyes. Three thousand of yours have answered the call.” The scout bowed nervously with one of the quiet ones staring at him from behind, he could feel it. He kept his gaze to the marble at his feet in the eleventh floor of the tower of the talon, as if life depended on his eyes fixating on but the cracks therein. Most men summoned to Castle Arnhast did the same.

  “Dismissed, scout.”

  “My pleasure, your majesty.” No faster steps could have been found on Armondi soil at this moment.

  “Son, where oh where are our vagabonds now?” Andora was dressed in but a black silk underdress, jewels galore, and her dark worshipping cloak, nothing more. She knew her legs, chest, and curves were barely covered. She enjoyed watching men squirm in effort not to stare, even Harron.

  “As I have told you mother. My spies were correct and your wretched uncle Trehad was wrong. They travel to Freemoore, in escort of two of Evermonts finest and fifty cavalry. They are not the ones he mentioned, he was mistaken.” Prince Rohne stared into the glowing pool of swirling blood that filled the viewing fountain made of burned bones and ivory.

  “My queen, they are the ones, I am sure of it. Let me take the army to Freemoore. Let me arrest them on false charges, and I will bring them here, to you.” The Lord Amirak took a knee before his lover and bowed his head of dark hair at her naked feet.

  “No Harron Vir Magaste, I need you to lead the forces south and prepare. The ritual of opening a sacred temple to the eleven will require practiced precision and devotion. I will need you there when he comes through to your side, to ensure our offerings are perfect.” Andora winked at her paramour and the father to the prince.

  “Mother, are you certain of this? I know what I heard as well, but this could take forever if they are not heading directly into those lands. Someone needs to pay a visit to Freemoore, regardless.” Rohne sneered his handsome face over the bloody pool of mystical sight, then waved his hand over it, cancelling the hellborn magic.

  “I am sure of it, the voice from the Nochtilian communion told us enough. We offered to find them and lay their blood to a new temple in honor of the underworld, so surely they are en route. Just when, is the only question.” The queen of Armondeen smiled to her dark eyed demon-hosted guards, the Nataloni Nochti. They did not smile back, but watched the doors and everyone inside, slowly without sound.

  “Have you chosen who you will summon to consecrate the site?” Harron raised his head up, admiring every inch of her, from black painted toenails to rich dark painted lips and eyes.

  “No, not yet.” Andora waved her hand, summoning force into the air, and levitated an old red leather book toward her throne. All eyes were upon it, cuts and gouges, infernal sigils, red like the fires of hell itself. It was perhaps a thousand or more pages, priceless to those of dark worship, and many millennia old indeed. “We will need some girls, two should do fine. Their blood will advise us whom they wish us to summon for such a task.”

  “I will send for them, on my way out.” Prince Rohne took his cloak from the hook on the wall, then his decorated scimitar, and walked toward the doors.

  “And where are you going son?” Harron looked over his shoulder, assuming the prince had lost his taste for bloodshed and worship in his youth.

  “I am the Prince of Armondeen, and you are not my father until king Ian is dead. The words of my mother. So, Lord Amirak, I am taking four hundred men to Freemoore, as those that may have the power to open our cursed lands to the south, are heading there. As I told you both.” Rohne did not wait for reply and slammed the doors behind him.

  Andora floated from her throne and made for the door. Harron’s hand grabbed her around the waist, stopping her. Five scimitars drew, five sets of eyes glowed red in the dark floor of the tower of the talon, and five scraggly barefoot men surrounded Harron in the blink of an eye.

  “Duuthstesi, noest nocht.”

  At her command the five Nataloni guards lowered their daggers and curved blades then went back into their corners and melded with the shadows, all but one that stood by the doors. Their eyes went from red, to solid white, then to shadow black. They were seconds away from killing the man that had grabbed their mistress.

  “Let him go my queen. He has royal guard around him at all times. Nothing will happen to him, in Freemoore of all places. He is nearly of age, sixteen years now, he is spreading his wings is all. Let him go.” Harron kept his grip tight around his beloved.

  “I will send five of my twenty two Nataloni with him, just to be sure.” Andora sighed and gave up her struggle.

  “Fine, but just five. We cannot watch over him forever Andora. After Ian is dead, then you and I many years from now, he will be the king of Armondeen, hells willing.”

  “Noestra uthdur nava nocht Rohne adruth arti.” Andora spoke in the tongue of the creatures of the hells and underworld and she felt five of her unholy guard leave to follow her son through the shadows. They would heed her call from any distance, for anything she wished, and protect the heir prince with their possessed lives if need be.

  “I told you the things I have been seeing in my dreams, something is not right.” Andora put her hand on Harrons smooth face.

  “All will be fine, my queen. We have three legions of a thousand each arriving, and even my brother is en route. With the royal guard here to protect you, and a reserve army of another thousand, and my personal legion, there is nothing to stop us. They are just dreams.”

  “My dreams are never wrong.”

  “Then this will be the first time that they are.”

  “Whom did you send for, besides your brother Thohne, our supposed Aldane bishop?” Andora began rubbing his chest as the door opened and two young slavegirls were allowed in.

  “Why you feel the need to have such a force, I still do not understand, Andora.”

  “I told you already, beloved, my dreams of peasants by the thousands heading this way have been coming every night.”

  “And? You have me. And me with a five legions and whatever you will be summoning for us in the south could break the will---“

  “I know, Harron, but should someone hear of it, should we be exposed, we will need many blades to silence any witnesses. This is not some little murder we are planning. We shall be summoning a child of the eleven to consecrate an altar in the curselands, and sacrificing many. It needs to be quiet, protected, and without fault. Now, who else is arriving?” Her hand stroked his arms up to his neck.

  “I sent for only those devoted as we. My brother Thohne of course, Sir Yaelsh of New Aloeste, and---“ Harron was feeling under the silk garments when she interrupted him.

  “I hate the smiling knight, you realize this? He is unnerving to look at.” Her dark eyes stared into his with disappointment.

  “I know, but should we need it, he is a butcher of men beyond compare, as are his soldiers.”

  “He has a fetish for murdering elven women, just for the screams. Then he rapes them and takes their ears. Keep him away from me.”

  “As you wish.”

  “Who else?”

  “Sir Orlimane of Vin Barivow and Lord Cetreus of Feldumesh, your cousin.” Harron resumed his groping, knowing it would all be better after some blood was on the floor for them to fornicate upon.

  “The shade and the old hangman, good choices. They will keep quiet for certain.” Andora watched as the doped young slave women stared at them and the room they found themselves in. “You two, yes you, undress, now.”

  “My queen, I will get the knives.” Harron, fully aroused, walked by the curtain to the altar and opened a box.

  LCMVXILCMVXILCMVXILCMVXIL

  Shinayne crept around another copse of withered banyans, trying to find a path, a road, anything that would let them travel west with more ease. There was nothing. Hills covered in trees struggling to survive, scrub that had overgrown inbetween, and a canopy of bare branches th
at prevented the clouded sky from assistance was her only dark trail. The highborne elf had her hands on her hilts, enchanted blades halfway out most of the time, as every step made echo from the foliage that had ceased to live underfoot.

  “Saberrak.” She whispered to her right, knowing the louder steps were his.

  “Nothing here, elf. Anything south?”

  “No, it is worse, even harder to pass. Try and whisper.”

  “For what? I would prefer something to find us, then I could kill it and track it.” Saberrak huffed, a bit louder, on purpose.

  “Just find the others then, why bother sneaking with you and your stomping and snorting.” The elven swordswoman shook her head.

  “They are north, this way.”

  The gray minotaur crept north, Shinayne at his side, searching for the green light of Gwenneths staff in the shadowed forest light. They saw no sign of Gwenne, the branches without leaves seemed to block every direction, yet ahead they saw Azenairk standing on a rock gazing around.

  “Ye find it, a path, anything?” Zen looked ahead to James and Gwenne in the western distance, then back to them, pulling his beard in lost frustration.

  “No, nothing for a day but hills, thick forest, and---“ Shinayne drew her blades at the sound of running coming their way. James emerged from around a hill under a crag of moss covered rock. She relaxed, the depravity and stillness had her on edge.

  “We found something, come on, this way.” He smiled and waved them toward him, then turned and marched back west and north.

  Gwenneth was looking back over her shoulder, staff of Imoch aglow from the green gem, then she pointed with her left hand. Her feet were hovering a foot above what looked like an old bridge, covered in dead vines, yet there was nothing but a ravine beneath the dilapidated stone and brown wood, the river was long gone.

  “What is it Gwenne?” Shinayne stepped up to the edge of the bridge.

  “There, buildings, on the other side of that valley. One with smoke rising from it.” Gwenneth put her hand out in front of the elf as she went to sneak ahead. “Wait.”

  “I am sure it is fine---“ She passed by onto the bridge.

  Not two steps in, the black dead vines erupted into a swarm of fast moving tangles that whipped all around Shinayne. Her arms were constricted, her legs tied by more than three, even her waist was being crushed as the vines began to pull her off the bridge to whatever was underneath.

  “Hiviastre jureth!” Gwenneth focused the staff toward her friend, forcing her up against the pull of the vines.

  Saberrak dove in, swinging at the black plants and chopping them apart. Then more appeared and began to quickly wrap around the minotaur from under the bridge. James slashed his blade through the searching foliage that was reaching for Saberrak, hundreds of black writhing vines now surrounding them all.

  Zen lowered his shield, seeing Shinayne struggling to cut at her captors some twenty feet in the air, and ran down the ravine. More tentacle-like vegetation slapped at him, yet he kept low behind the Thalanaxe shield and charged into the darkness under the old bridge. He peeked over his steel defense, and saw a twisting mass of black roots and a grinning maw of green fangs in the center of a trunk. Three green eyes opened in the bark and stared at him as the thing hissed in warning.

  Shinayne got her left arm free with Elicras and began to slash at her restraining vines, barely able to breath in air from being squeezed. Saberrak cut away through more as his legs were now fully wrapped. James was swinging wildly now, being lifted off of the bridge into the air by a dozen or more.

  Gwenne focused harder, holding her three friends in place against the pull of the vines. She was sweating, staff in hand glowing bright yellow now, matching the force of these things with arcane might and not letting them be taken to whatever was below. She backed up, as some of the vines began to slither closer to her feet, they could sense that something was interfering.

  Azenairk slammed his blacksteel warhammer into an eye, hitting mostly bark, then again, dodging vines as he swung at the face in the wicked tree. He raised his shield just in time, then noticed the creature wince its green eyes as a shimmer of light reflected off his shield from Gwenneths staff above.

  “Light! Give me light, now!” Zen yelled up to Gwenneth, seeing his friends over him on the bridge fighting while being held in midair. He did not wait.

  “Vundren eth edrith vun vast!” He threw his hammer hard into the creatures face and grabbed his hammer and moons symbol as he pointed to the three eyes of the demonic tree writhing in vines.

  “Tarrim tetha nuali!” Gwenneth rose up in the air, still holding James, Shinayne and Saberrak from the pull below the bridge, and illuminated through the staff the entire ravine with blinding golden light.

  “Reeettthhhsss! reeeethhhhsss!”

  The vines shrunk and slithered by the hundreds, dropping their prey. The three eyes closed as the creature roared in terror from the blinding white light the dwarven priest unleashed into its face. Its appendages withered and withdrew having been burned by Gwenneth’s light above and its roots scrambled quick as it shambled south down the ravine leaving an echo of screams and hisses and a green trail of sizzling slime.

  James slowly floated down to the ground from the enchantments upon his ancient shield from Ansharr. Saberrak reached with one arm and caught the side of the bridge before he fell to the bottom of the ravine. Shinayne screamed, falling nearly forty feet, just as Zen ran and held out his arms to catch her. A foot above the dwarf, she stopped and hovered. They looked to each other, then to the minotaur hanging by one arm, then to James who drifted like a feather down to the bottom.

  Gwenneth held her hand out, holding Shinayne from impacting ontop of Zen, and levitated to the ravine floor.

  “Next time I say wait, wait.” She smiled, then snapped her fingers and let Shinayne fall the last foot into the arms of Azenairk. She had sensed something below the bridge that was using a raw form of dark arcane to mask its presence.

  “Well next time, be a bit more specific.” Shinayne dusted herself off, wiped the green blood from the vines off on her cloak, and sheathed her blades.

  Saberrak dropped from his deadarm hang on the bridge and landed to his feet with a loud thud. He looked south to the trail of green, he thought of following, then thought otherwise as he and his companions saw what Gwenneth had found on the other side of the ravine.

  “I smell something, a fire.” Saberrak nodded to Gwenneth and Zen, then turned to the west. “We heading that way?”

  “Aye, but watch out for three eyed tree trunks then.” Zen chuckled.

  “There is a sign ahead, let us see what it says.” Gwenneth hovered ahead to where there was a large post of wood and a crossboard with writing upon it. She looked at the words in old Agarian written ages ago it would seem. She read it aloud.

  City of Estivar

  Temple Way

  Kingdom of the Crescent Moon

  They all looked to each other, to the sign, then to the ruined old buildings across the bridge. Despite the dark canopy overhead that cast the ruins in shadow, they knew they were on the right trail. A small city of homes and structures without roofs nor life sat quietly in the overgrowth of dying trees. Once yellow walls, now covered in mold and vine, beckoned and warned with but a look into the dreary outer battlements of a place long abandoned.

  “Cautiously this time, stick together, and stay ready.” James Andellis walked ahead, shield raised and sword drawn.

  Shinayne drew her matching blades of the whitemoon, Saberrak his axes, Zen his warhammer, and Gwenneth floated behind with the staff of Imoch watching and glowing green which only added to the eeriness of Estivar.

  Past a gate with an iron portcullis raised and rusting like its chains, beyond the outer sandstone walls speckled with browning molds in search of the sun, the ancient dwelling was no more inviting on the inside. The tallest building still standing was only two stories at best. The windows were bare, the doors lay face down in
decay on the streets, and a single plume of smoke from a small house was all that moved anywhere in eyeshot.

  Chink, chink, chink, chink!

  Slam!

  They all turned and jumped in surprise, as not five feet behind Gwenneth, the spiked iron portcullis that had obviously not moved in forever, fell shut.

  “Did you touch it?” Shinayne whispered to Gwenneth.

  She felt her heart pounding out of her robes, she glanced with the arcane sight, nothing. She closed her eyes and focused, using her magical blindsight to see if her eyes were tricking her. Nothing. Gwenne looked to Shinayne, and shook her head.

  They waited a few more moments, yet nothing appeared. Saberrak huffed out his breath and turned. Everyone followed he and James further into the decrepit ruins. Hundreds of buildings lay in disarray, once temples and manors, some just homes and shops, yet the stairs and roads along Temple Way gave to nothing that would indicate anyone was still here. Only the rising smoke from the last structure on the right caught their eyes.

  “The blackbirds are just staring as we pass.” James nodded to the minotaur.

  “Watch the vines, keep quiet.” He huffed in return.

  “No animals here, not a rat nor rabbit. I sense nothing close either, not even those birds.” Shinayne was concerned now, she could not feel the life of the birds she was looking at.

  “Answers there in whoever started the fire, keep goin’ then.” The dwarf was uneasy as well, feeling like everything was closing in around him.

  The building was run down and ancient like the rest, yellow stone and disrepair, yet the doors were intact and shut. The roof had branches and bundled foilages that looked recent, the windows were boarded with wood that held no moss, and the smoke rising from the chimney smelled of charcoal and dinner. A wooden sign hung from old chains above the door, a sign with barely visible carved letters in some old tongue, but in had been repainted blue not too long back by the looks of it.