by C. E. Swain
Mareston had less than three hundred solders with him, and there were no more than five hundred at the camp in the north. It would take months to assemble all of the men that were in the empire, and longer for those that still traveled from the east. Those solders that were at the camp now, were to begin training for the campaign to take Argnon and the western realm. Arnoran still wanted the White Kingdoms, but the dragon warrior had to be eliminated first, and since the routes in the north would be closed soon, they needed all of the solders they could get. He would know when the north was no longer usable to the mage king, and Chidren would know when to begin the attack.
Avren issued the orders given to him by Arnoran, and sent riders to bring back those solders that had already traveled west. The riders were not to enter the broken lands, but were to turn back when they reached it. Chidren would turn those solders that had already entered that harsh landscape around, and bring them back with him when he returned.
Riders were sent to collect all of the solders dressed as outlaws, and send them back to the camp as well, because there were still several hundred of them around the western realm, and Avren needed them all. When most of those men returned, patrols would be formed, and the camp would become a military camp. Scouts reported to the messengers regularly, but the Great Western Road was as far as they could go for now. Without the camps in the south, there was no way for Avren to know what was happening south of the great road, and he could not take a chance on losing his scouts by sending them farther south. There were many towns and villages scattered around the southern part of the realm, and they had not had any solders to protect them in the past, but someone had killed his men and taken the monastery.
Avren did not believe that the south was a threat to them at this time, so sending his scouts farther south than the road was useless. Argnon held the castle they would need to overrun, and the regent they would need to capture to use against the other realms. If Argnon fell, the west would be theirs, and the war for the empire would be fought on two fronts.
It was three months before the first of the solders started returning from the west, and Avren put them to work as soon as they arrived. It would take months to prepare for the campaign, and train the solders for the assault on the west, but he would do what he could before Chidren returned. Arrows and spears were needed in large numbers, so Avren set the artisans and mages to that task. The camp had swelled to more than one thousand men so far, and the majority of them had not yet arrived, but soon there would be enough men to begin constructing the siege towers.
Mareston rode in one month later, and men were trickling in from three different directions. Sometimes as many as six to eight in a day would enter the camp, but normally it was about three. He rode up to the headquarters tent on the hill and dismounted. Looking around before he entered, he noticed the tree with the fourteen dead solders hanging from it. Avren was a bloodthirsty coward who derived a morbid pleasure from watching men tortured and killed, and Mareston despised him.
He entered the tent and waited for Avren to acknowledge him, but did not care if he stood there all day. Avren was a fool, and when the mage king found out that Avren was killing his men for his own pleasure, he would find out what torture was. When Avren did speak, it was with disrespect and contempt.
"I should have you killed for your failure." Avren said to Mareston.
"You would have to face Arnoran if you did, coward." Mareston replied and put his hand on his sword hilt.
"You dare to insult me you insolent fool?" Avren screamed, and advanced on Mareston from across the room with his hand on his sword.
"You are the fool if you pull that sword from its scabbard." Mareston said in a calm voice. "You will be dead before your guards could save you, and I will hang you from that tree."
Avren stopped halfway to the solder that stood so calmly with his sword half drawn and cursed him. He knew that Mareston could kill him quickly, and it made him madder. The solder had served Arnoran most of his life, and had survived many battles. He once killed thirteen men by himself, in a fight for one of the kingdoms that had belonged to the mage king more than five hundred years ago.
Avren turned away and walked back to his chair before speaking again. He was furious at Mareston but could do nothing about it, and
despised the man for it.
"You are ordered by Arnoran to over see the construction of the siege weapons, and to make sure they are done his way." Avren told the solder. "You have almost six months to gather the timber and make the ropes needed for the weapons, I suggest you get started."
"Where are the men that I am to oversee?"
"They are on the north side of the camp, take as many as you require to accomplish your task."
"You can assure Arnoran that it will be done as he commands." Mareston said. "If you are not too afraid of the shadows between here and that tent you hide in."
Avren turned even redder, and was more than furious than before, but Mareston turned and walked from the tent. He wanted to kill that man more than anything, but Mareston was way too smart to allow himself to be caught unarmed. Only Chidren had the skills to kill the man outright, but Mareston would not give him a reason to do so.
The tools of war were to be made here, and taken to Argnon when the attack was ordered. Siege towers were to be constructed along with catapults, and a battering ram. The trees that they used were cut north of the camp, and far enough away to allow the camp to continue to remain concealed by the magic of the mages, who were in the camp. The trees were cut from different parts of the woods that surrounded them, so they could remain unnoticed until it did not matter any longer.
Rope was made from several different types of plants, with different sizes and different strengths. The tall dead grass from the year before, was strong enough when woven together, to attach the bigger parts of the towers together. The ropes for that had to be almost two feet thick, and the grass was more abundant than anything else they had available.
The smaller ropes were made from the grimberry vines that grew all over the wilder lands of the empire. The seeds of the vines were what Blackbeer was made from, but the outer skin was easily stripped to make the ropes. Each strand was very strong and when woven together made one of the strongest ropes known to men.
Several months later, there were fifteen hundred men in the camp, and the work was going well. All of the men who returned from the southern part of the empire were in the camp now, and men were still arriving from the east and west. Mareston was further along than Avren expected on the siege weapons, but was at least three month's away from completion at best. Stacks of arrows and spears were all over the camp, and the mages were casting spells on them. They were not very powerful, but Ranjgin should be on his way from Kath by now, and he was a very powerful mage.
Chidren was still weeks away from the camp, and Avren wished he would get there soon. He was tired of dealing with the grumbling solders every day, and needed someone to straighten them up. The plans for the campaign had been changed because of just one warrior, and Avren could not understand how it could have happened. He was just one man after all, how many men did it take to kill him.
Avren did not think that the warrior was more than lucky to have escaped the many ambushes set up for him, and he believed it was the incompetence of the men sent to kill him, or their inability to reach the site of the ambush in time, instead. The time would come when everyone would find out that he had been mistaken about the warrior, but he would not be around to see it.
*****
Chidren was not happy about the change of plans, because he had just crossed the broken lands, and now he had to do it again. His men were exhausted from the weeks of riding among the rifts, but it could not be helped. He let them rest for two weeks, before ordering them to begin the journey back to the camp in the northwest from which they had come.
Two men remained at the camp when Chidren rode east, to send any one who was not turned around by Chidren, back. T
hey were only to stay for two months, and then return themselves, but were to return sooner if men quit arriving at the camp.
Gaston, and the men who went north with him in search of a faster route through the broken lands, returned three weeks after Chidren departed. They stayed in the camp until the men he had sent to the south, returned, smoking venison for the return trip to the camp in the northwest. More than thirty men arrived from the broken lands, over the two months the two men were ordered to wait, and he put them to work while they waited. Gaston decided to have them travel with him and his men, to get all of them to the other side, and into the golden woods alive.
He pickled up several men who were straggling behind the main force that followed Chidren. They were in bad shape from the days without food or water, and Gaston saved their lives. Only three men died on the return trip, and they were just careless. One had been bitten by a viper, and died two days later. One fell from the edge of a rift when his horse stumbled and he could not hold on to the saddle. The last one was killed when a death scorpion, which had crawled into his boots one night, stung him. He did not check his boots before putting them on, and was dead in less than three minuets.
Gaston was catching up to Chidren more and more each week, and could see the fires from his camp at night within a month of leaving the wilderlands and the stream behind. By the time Chidren Reached the last rift of the broken lands, Gaston was less than two week's behind.
Chidren halted the men at the first stream that they came to once they were in the golden woods, and let them rest for several weeks after Gaston had reached them. Gaston and his men hunted game for the solders while they rested, killing several deer and antelope every day. When they once again began the journey back to the camp, and Avren, the men would be able to fight.
Chidren sent Gaston and his cavalry on ahead, to scout for them as they traveled. Only two more months and the camp would be reached, giving the men time to prepare for the coming campaign before the assault of the western realm began. The time of the Great Empire was soon to be at an end Chidren thought, for Arnoran was growing stronger, and he would soon be able to leave the fortress of Kath again. When he did, the lands of men would tremble with fear, and the lands of the elves would not be far behind.
Chidren was confident that the west would fall before long, and he would be the instrument of its destruction. He did not know then that the warrior he had helped to create, would stand in his way, or that a dragon had returned to the empire.
*****
The sun had not yet risen as the boat emerged from the mist, and made its way to the beach at the edge of the ruined lands. Ranjgin stepped from the bow as it reached the shore and came to a stop, looking around him as he did. He was young for his race, but was not young by the lives of men. The Dark Elves were as old as the elves and just as magical, but they practiced the dark arts and were corrupted and evil. They were not warriors but Sorcerers, casting dark spells of pain and suffering against those that opposed them.
Ranjgin was dressed in a black robe, with strange designs in gold and silver thread, woven into the fabric. He wore a hooded cloak that reached the ground, and his face was always covered. His skin was a blue-black color with a smooth texture, and his fingers were long and thin. His eyes were large and almond shaped, but were black as night. He walked as though he glided across the ground and he never seemed to become fatigued.
The warrior in the dragon armor was the one they were contracted to eliminate, and the reason he and his master had come so far north. Arnoran had made another agreement with his master to find the traitorous mage who had betrayed him at the crossroads, and cut out his tongue before ending his life. Arnoran wanted the mage to suffer for deceiving him, and Ranjgin was ordered to kill him slowly. When the warrior and the mage were dead, the contract would be fulfilled.
The Dark Elves always fulfilled their contracts regardless of the cost. They would give their lives to make the kill if there was no other way, but the price for their services was very high, and the price for not honoring an agreement with them, cost you more than just your life, it cost you your soul as well.
He looked at the harsh and deadly landscape before him with indifference as he walked from the beach. Making his way to the top of the hill that separated the Ruined lands from the lake, he was followed by the four lesser mage's sent to help him. They did not have the skills in the dark arts that Ranjgin possessed, but then, they had not come from Black Stygren. Though they were powerful mage's to any other race, to the Dark Elves they were not.
Ungon was the leader of the four mage's sent by Arnoran to guard Ranjgin. Ranjgin did not need them, and they would most likely slow him down, but if they wanted to follow he would let them. The four mage's of Arnoran that followed the Dark Elf, had been in Kath for many years. They were the best of the students the mage king had, and trained harder than any of the other mages housed there. They would do as they were instructed, or Arnoran would not have sent them.
Gek'Drajen was a master at the temple of Darkness, in the valley of death. He was Ranjgin's master, and one of the most powerful sorcerers in Black Stygren. He waited at the island fortress of Kath for Ranjgin's return, but did not serve Arnoran. The evil mage king paid handsomely for the deaths of the two men Ranjgin was sent to kill, and Gek'Drajen was there to see that the contract was fulfilled.
The land of Black Stygren was south of the Stygren forest, and surrounded on three sides by the Mountains of Perdition. It was the heart of the lands of the dark side of magic, and the magical creatures that lived there had been corrupted, and were evil and twisted. The Stygren forest was a dark and dangerous place to enter, and a hard place to escape from once you did. The darkest of the Magical creatures lived there, devouring any one who wandered into the forest, damming their souls to servitude in the valley of death. Only the most powerful of the mages of the race of men could traverse that evil realm, but few dared to try.
The Nog'ard roamed the Stygren forest, and lived among its trees for as long as there have been dragons in the lands of magic, and they were as evil as they were old. They welded the most powerful magic of the all the creatures of the dark side of magic, but were very seldom seen. Of all of the races in the lands of magic, only the Dark Elves were allowed to share the forest with them, because a lot of them served the Nog'ard, and they all paid tributes. Of course there were other creatures that roomed the forests of Black Stygren that the Nog'ard allowed to remain, and they were as evil and twisted as the Nog'ard themselves.
Ranjgin raised his arm, and held out his hand. The words he spoke were harsh and unnatural, and in a language almost forgotten by all but the oldest of the evil and corrupted races that walked the lands of dark magic.
A strange wind began to blow, and the land before them began to tremble. Moments later a path appeared through the Deadly landscape, and it glowed faintly, The five men followed the glowing trail away from the lake, as the boat disappeared back into the mist from where it had come.
It would take them months to reach Chidren in the west, regardless of the route they took, but Ranjgin was not concerned, he was only interested in finding the two men he was sent to kill, and reporting back to his master.
There were men already moving through the north in the direction of the camp, and Ranjgin decided to follow them. They were already in the northern part of the Ruined lands, and when they emerged into the old empire, the way would be marked.
It took them two months to cross the ruined lands and enter the old empire, emerging close to the foothills of the Shimmering Mountains. Ungon sent two of his mages, to acquire horses for them all, while the others guarded Ranjgin at the camp. It was two weeks before the two mages returned to the camp leading the horses Ungon requested, and Ranjgin was getting impatient to continue on. He did not like the thought of riding a horse, but needed to increase their pace, and if this were what it took to get the mages to the camp in the west within the time he wished to arrive, he would do it.
He stayed at the camp by the old eastern road for three days longer than he wanted, finding several different plants, and brewing a potion. When the group of mages once again began the trip west, they did not use the horses, but ran instead. The potion gave them speed and stamina enough to run day and night for the next several weeks, and when its affects wore off, they were at the Great Northern Road.
