River Of Life (Book 3)

by Paul Drewitz

  Erelon was kneeling on the floor, looking up at the place Chaucer’s statue had stood only moments before. Tears rolled from the corners of his eyes to meet the wrappings around his face, the cloth absorbing the salty water. Slowly he pushed himself to his feet. The wraps around his body began to unfold. The wizard paid them no attention.

  Slowly he turned and walked the gauntlet of on-looking statues. Great men, revered rulers they had been in their time. Now they looked on as the greatest wizard of his own time walked between them with one of the greatest weapons of all time, Rivurandis. The sword was clutched in Erelon’s left hand. He slowly walked from the room. He was tired. He still had much to do, and he was not in the healthy, strong body that he had once controlled.

  He stepped outside the door and turned to quietly and respectfully close it. The blue light that filled the chamber was cut off and the tunnel went dark. Erelon walked up the cavern. He was in no hurry. Events had not become so dreadful that a few seconds would make any difference. Patience and a sense of calm settled on the wizard. He did not feel well, his body hurt, and his mind was weary, yet rushing around in panic would not help the situation.

  The little dot of light appeared and slowly grew larger. Just outside the door, Erelon could feel his magical horse become nervous as several creatures approached.

  Erelon stepped into the exit. About a dozen scraggly beasts approached. At one time they may have had some resemblance to human beings. As Erelon looked at the blond muscular monsters, he recognized the tools that had brought death to this city from Chaucer's memories. Monsters bred specifically to be warriors, Krudgels.

  Draos nervously stepped sideways. Erelon looked at his enemies without emotion. They were to him no more than a mosquito that hurt as it bit. They were something to be destroyed so it no longer plagued the earth.

  Quickly Erelon strapped Rivurandis onto his back and pulled both magical swords from their sheaths. The magical essence of Chaucer filled Erelon, and he seemed to grow in size. The black swirling mass left the globe on the sheath, which grew transparent as black masses swirled through the gold red blade. The elvish sword blazed white, and Erelon attacked.

  Quickly he glided in. Both swords moved together. Smoke rose from the severed bodies, obscuring the area in a fog. Erelon brought both blades down through one and, turning, jammed the elvish blade through the abdomen of another. Both swords came together, severing the head of another. A blade came up and an arm fell freely to the stone floor. Erelon turned bringing his body downwards, slicing off a leg. Brought the blade up, cutting another cleanly in half.

  He moved in quickly, pounding away with each blade. One and then the other sweeping down in rhythm. He turned, evading a blundering attack, and with both swords cut another Krudgel into thirds. Erelon cared little if they were completely dead. Instead he simply assured himself and the world that they were no longer a threat as they lay in pools of their own blood, looking at their own severed limbs. They were clawing at the ground trying to pull themselves away from the demonic wizard.

  To Erelon’s right, the shadow, the magical essence from the sword crept. A shadowy blade slipped through the body of another enemy. The raw energy of Rivurandis slammed into the buildings. Stone scattered and foundations crumbled. Entire buildings collapsed, and Erelon did not stop it. He did not try to control it as the livid emotion of the blade matched his own. A stone fell, splattering into the skull of one Krudgel while another boulder bounced across the street and crushed the vertebrae of another.

  Erelon looked through slits for eyes stone falling all around him. For a moment he had two eyes that were no more than small blazing dots of fire. A few of the monsters fled like gorillas on all fours. The only survivors were terrified of a power they could not conquer, a power that was not completely physical.

  Erelon walked on, almost strutting, daring the monsters to return. Draos trailed behind, following his rider, the man who could protect him. The city seemed empty even though Erelon assumed there was still an army of Krudgels roaming through the houses, gnawing on bones or catching rats. None of the Krudgels appeared, none wanted to try to fight the wizard who had come home. Nothing in the city was left except the Krudgels. None of the lower or upper classes had survived the deterioration of the city. There was nothing left for the returning warrior to save.

  Erelon knew what waited beyond the gates of the city. They could wait impatiently a little longer for the death that Erelon brought. There was no use mounting his horse. He did not plan to flee. Instead, he now had the weapon which made destruction easy.

  The main roads were all stone, but Erelon crossed onto many side paths that were no more than mud. Empty doors and windows looked at Erelon, silent reminders about how wealth and power could destroy those who coveted such ideals.

  Erelon finally stopped before an empty lot. In the center lay the burned out, deteriorated remains of a home, the home to Erelon’s mother and the resistance. Destroyed in their little fort. This had been the last refuge of the resistance before they were butchered by the Krudgels while they had been under the command of the aristocracy.

  Erelon wandered away from the house, finding a main road and following it towards the exterior wall. A pair of gates stood open, sagging as their weight pulled down on rusting hinges. Several bolts had snapped and turned to red dust. A few others barely held the stone gates off the ground. The wizard stepped around the corner, and a small group of snarling goblins confronted Erelon. One stepped forward, taking the position of leader.

  The goblin leered at Erelon and said, “I am Gerlung. Your death will be my glory.”

  The goblin produced a scimitar from behind his body and lurched forward. Several others also joined the fray while the rest held back cackling.

  Erelon waited until the last moment before the goblins could reach him with their blades, and then he pulled Rivurandis free. With two hands, Erelon shoved it into Gerlung’s chest. Quickly the wizard pulled it back out, spinning and bringing it down, through another. Twisting, Erelon cut another in half. All others stopped for a moment, watching the wizard whose lungs were heaving out of joy in the death of his enemies. Grins spread out across their faces as they waited for their leader to rise again from the ground.

  A screech issued from the wound in the leader’s chest followed by a rush of air through the hole. As the air rushed from the hole, the goblin's body slightly pulled up from the ground like an invisible hand tugged at him. His body shook vigorously, and then dropped back to the earth. The same high pitched sound came from the other bodies. The bodies seemed to age, decades of decay gripping the bodies in seconds, cheeks sinking, forehead protruding, eyes shriveling, ribs sticking from their chests.

  This far from the power of the wraiths, the sword had greater power than that of the warlocks. Erelon's grin grew. He wondered how the sword would perform when he was closer to his enemy. The bodies shriveled. The living goblins stared, their mouths opening slowly. Until now, nothing had been able to stop the wraiths. Their power had seemed to only grow. Now the bodies of their friends lay dead, never to rise again unless they came back like the skeletal warriors from the dungeons of Mortaz.

  Slowly they looked at Erelon. Within the wizard’s eyes seemed to swarm a black fog, twisting, clouding the color of his eyes, blocking the view through these windows into the soul. The surviving goblins disappeared down the path. They now knew fear, fear of death, of an enemy who would destroy them if they persisted in their pursuit.

  Chapter 9

  A woman with chestnut hair stood on the parapet of Kintex. Surrounding the city, her city, lay a horde of the enemy’s army, the wraith’s army. She almost could not remember a time before they had come. It seemed so long since they had first encamped around the last city of Westeron.

  With a deep sigh, she looked across the world, hills and valleys, ponds and rivers, as the last rays of the sun came bouncing across them—a great orange ball, getting ready to dip below the horizon.

  Belo
w the walls of Kintex nothing lived. All was black, burned off as far as the eye of an elf could see.

  The woman sighed again. An ever reoccurring thought filled her mind. Would the wizard Erelon come to their city? She had fought beside him at Samos, and since, she had seen or heard only glimpses and rumors. She had married the King of Kintex, Thorberd. King Thorberd had also fought at the troll battle for Samos as a young man. He too remembered Erelon’s magnificent display of power. Thorberd also hoped for the wizard’s return to save his kingdom. Now it had been months since any word of the outside world had reach those besieged within Kintex. Any riders who had left the city walls had not returned.

  They held the walls, pushing the enemy back every time. But rumor said that the enemy did not die. The men of Kintex did. The enemy’s army was made of a mix of trolls, ogres, some really disturbing creatures, and mostly goblins.

  The woman looked longingly at the setting sun, not knowing what tomorrow would bring. A sudden cloud of smoke appeared, and out of it a man seemed to step. The smoke solidified from the crown of his head, flowing down into his arms, cloak, and legs, becoming his form. A bald man with a scimitar looked into the eyes of Westeron’s queen.

  “You are not magical, you cannot do that,” the woman said, knowing she looked at the army’s general.

  “No, I’m not magical, but the wraith’s power stretches far now days,” was the assassin’s reply, “You’re the woman who tried to give Erelon her heart?”

  “A long time ago. What about it?”

  Iriote hissed, remembering the embarrassment given to him by Erelon at their only meeting, “I’m here to ease its pain.”

  Not another word was spoken. The woman pulled two swords from within her dress, and Iriote gently twisted his own sword so that it caught the last orange glow of the setting sun. Upon the narrow wall they began to circle. The assassin waited for his victim to make the first move; he planned to counter it quickly and make his own strike.

  The woman attacked quickly. She had not given up fighting since the battle with the trolls. Instead, she had continued to protect her city. Both swords danced in and out, leaving the assassin untouched. Her lithe feet gently danced around the narrow wall, while Iriote's own were cautious, gently stepping so as not to step off and tumble far below.

  His own blade went swinging inward, only her body was not where Iriote had imagined. A blade went through his thigh, his own blood dripped to the ground. Quickly he turned to face his assailant, his leg limping as he jerked it around in his slight retreat. She planned to kill him. Every step, every move, was mapped out in her mind. She planned to kill this man who led the enemy against her people.

  Iriote gritted his teeth. First the embarrassment from Erelon, and now to be wounded by a woman. Iriote's wrath filled his body so that his neck turned red and purple, the vessels bulging vividly. His teeth were pinched together so that the air whistled as he breathed heavily. With each exhale, spittle flew from his lips.

  Again she charged first. The assassin stepped below the first swing. The second struck him across the shoulders. He knew he could not win without taking the hit. She was too quick. Silently he turned, the woman’s unprotected body with her back to him lay vulnerable, unguarded.

  Quickly he thrust his scimitar through her lower body. The tip of the blade emerged from her left breast, and as quick as it went in, Iriote pulled the blade back out. The woman’s body arched, and stiffly she fell to her knees as blood bubbled to her lips. She fell forward, her mind going blank. Loud bellowing could be heard below, bringing the assassin’s mind back to reality. Soldiers charged the walls, archers lined up to take aim at the murderer.

  A satisfied grin spread across the face of Iriote. The wind picked up, and his body seemed to turn to ash, to be whipped away by the breeze. Arrows flew through the space he had just occupied, to sail away into the space beyond. Gently they floated, as if taking with them the hopes and dreams of the people which seemed to vanish with the death of their queen.

  Chapter 10

  ERELON rode his horse down the path between a mix of evergreens and oaks. Two swords were now his only weapons except for a boot knife. No saddle, no reins, and none of the enemy in sight. Erelon pushed his horse at a gentle pace. No pursuit by any of the surviving goblins was visible. They did not wish to die. They would take news of this new weapon to the enemy. Maybe fear and worry would spread among the army; maybe it would begin to rebel and fall apart. All this speculation was only hope, most likely frivolous hope.

  The trees would close in on the wizard only to spread apart. At times they were threatening and at moments protecting the one who passed through their trail. The wizard took a slow, easy pace. Neither he nor Draos needed to flee down the path, both needed to heal.

  The iron gray points of the mountain continued to tower above the wizard. At times the forest seemed to turn to night as the trees thickly crowded in, blocking out all sight of the sky and the mountain peaks. But mostly it remained open, and traveling was easy even if there had been no path to follow.

  It took Erelon longer to travel the trail than the last time when the wizard had been with two companions. But that time Erelon had not been half dead. Though now the air seemed to have a sweet scent, the trees greener, the earth a richer brown.

  Erelon looked again upon the city walls of Pendle. The wizard knew that he had been warned not to come back by the centaur mayor. But he needed a good establishment in which to rest, to look after the injuries he had gained through the continuous fight for the last several weeks. Except for a few mornings when he had been able to look into a silent pool of water, Erelon did not know how well the wounds on his face were healing. Only by touching them as he cleaned and dressed them in new bandages had Erelon been able to guess the extent of the damage. The right eye no longer functioned.

  Even as the walls that Erelon had been banished from towered above him, Erelon no longer cared. He did not fear an entire army of centaurs, for he had faced a fire demon, and he had faced the warlocks. The wizard nudged his horse, which sent Draos flying through the crowding mass of people going in and out. His bloody bandages were still wrapped around his face. His arms were also wrapped in miscellaneous strips of cloth that he had found, though ugly red marks showed where there were none. Erelon looked like a demon that had come from some legend told around a campfire.

  Two guards tried to jump into the path of Erelon and his horse, but Draos seemed to pass through them like a phantom and disappeared. Stunned, the two soldiers looked at one another for a moment before turning to race up the street in the direction of the mayor’s mansion.

  Erelon and his horse seemed to slip through the buildings as if they traveled on another plane of existence. All the time, Erelon guided Draos towards the house of Backer. These wizards of Pendle could only be matched in the ability to heal by the elves. The master wizards of Pendle first taught their pupils how to heal because to heal is harder than to destroy. And if a apprentice could learn to heal, learning how to destroy, when necessary, would be easy.

  The old potion sign was no better than the last time Erelon had stayed here. Above, clouds threatened rain. A gurgle of thunder could be heard building in the distance. The air was damp with humidity. Erelon stepped from his horse and walked to the door, his huge fist crashing into it, ignoring the hammer. Footsteps from within sounded, echoing through the rooms of the house. It was the step of a big man. Slowly the door opened, not enough for someone to block it from closing with their boot, but wide enough for the occupant to see out.

  A gasp sounded from inside, and the door rushed backwards as if sucked by a giant wind.

  “Get in here,” was the command of Backer.

  A strong arm grabbed Erelon’s shoulder and pulled him within the building’s protection.

  “Harvey,” Backer barked at an older apprentice, “Take care of our visitor’s horse.”

  “But he was banned from the city. All who help him are to also be banned,” Harvey com
plained.

  A stiff look from Backer cut off any further objections and sent the boy plodding from the house.

  “What have you been doing to yourself?” came a confused question from Backer, one that was also filled with awe.

  Erelon only remained silent as Backer guided him through the house and into a basement. A circular stairway tucked into a corner of the kitchen led down. It was narrow, confining, almost pinning the shoulders of both wizards to the walls. Both men had to stoop to avoid the bottom of the stairs just above them.

  The basement was one giant room with only slits at the very top of the walls that allowed in light from the outside. Several torches flickered from brackets on the walls. Several tables were cluttered with books, potions, scrolls, swords, knives, and many other miscellaneous items. It was kept clean and dry. No dirt or dust clogged the air like the cellars of many other houses, and there was no moldy water setting in the far corners.

  Quickly Backer closed off the windows with boards that easily slid into place. The wizard of Pendle walked around the room, torches lighting up wherever he stepped.

  As the whole room began to glow, Backer walked back to Erelon and said, “Okay. Now let’s take a better look at you.”

  Erelon sat on a stool and Backer began to unwind the strips of cloth around his face. The sight was disgusting. Three major lacerations made ugly irregular paths down the right side of Erelon’s face. One eye was totally useless and was mangled so that the insides had come out.

  Looking into Backer’s eyes, Erelon demanded, “I want to see.”

  “No, no you don’t,” Backer replied firmly.

  Erelon reached out of a mirror on the table behind Backer. The other wizard sided over to cut off Erelon's reach. Erelon grunted and lurched forward again, grabbing for it. Backer again cut him off. But after a few moments, he gave into the younger wizard’s demands by handing him a mirror.