Five Kingdoms: Books 01, 02 & 03

by Toby Neighbors

  He was tired and although he knew the basics of sword fighting, he didn’t believe he could match the woman’s ferocious tactics. Still, he knew he had to do something. He raised his hand and a sword came flying to him. He caught the sword and gave it a trial swing. The woman grinned, her face was painted with dark splotches of charcoal and her teeth were almost as black as the thick fur she wore over her shoulders. Her arms were muscular and her legs thick, but there was very little fat on her body. She was a warrior in a warrior culture, the fact that she was a woman made no difference whatsoever.

  Then Zollin had an idea. He knew that magic would rebound off of her as long as she wore the White Alzerstone ring, but he wondered what would happen if the threw something at her. The woman was starting to circle him, savoring the thrill of the fight. Zollin transferred his sword to his left hand and levitated a rock up to his free hand. He threw the rock, but it wasn’t going to hit the woman. She batted it away with her sword and laughed. Then she dashed forward. Zollin balanced his weight on the balls of his feet and made sure he was ready to dodge her attack. She slashed at him with her sword, which Zollin deflected with his own, but then she lashed out with the axe. Luckily, Zollin had been expecting just such a tactic and he jumped out of her reach. She smiled again, realizing that he wasn’t as skilled with weapons as she was.

  “Zollin,” Brianna said nervously.

  “She has your ring on,” he said. “I can’t use magic on her.”

  Then the warrior woman darted in again, but this time Zollin thrust his sword straight out at her and she was forced to skid to a halt, leaning back to avoid the blade. Then she swatted his sword aside with her axe, but Zollin was already moving. He remembered how his father had knocked a much larger opponent down by kicking the man in the knee. Zollin jumped up and kicked down on the woman’s exposed leg. His boot hit her just above the knee and slammed the joint backward, past full extension, until the ligaments popped. The woman howled in pain but didn’t drop her sword. She swung it as she fell, and even though Zollin tried to retreat, the blade hacked into his thigh. He staggered back, the blood gushing forth. They were both on the ground now, but Zollin had dropped his weapon and was squeezing his wound. The warrior woman still had the sword and was dragging herself toward him.

  “Zollin!” Brianna screamed.

  The pain in Zollin’s leg was the worst he’d ever experienced. His magic was like an inferno raging inside of him, but he couldn’t think about anything but the pain. It felt like his leg was on fire and his mind was reeling from panic. All he could think about was how bad the wound was.

  “Oh no,” he groaned. “Oh no. Oh no.”

  Brianna didn’t hesitate. She ran forward and grabbed a sword from one of the fallen Skellmarians. It was heavy, but she didn’t notice. She lifted the sword high and came running back toward the warrior woman. At the last minute, the Skellmarian turned over to face Brianna, who swung her sword down like a man chopping wood. The warrior woman brought her own sword up, bracing the blade with her hand on the unsharpened side. The force from Brianna’s blow shocked both of them, but Brianna was desperate and she hacked away again and again. The Skellmarian withered under the attack and finally dropped her blade. At that moment Brianna knew that she could kill the woman. The Skellmarian would certainly have killed her, but Brianna kicked the woman’s sword away and stepped on her arm. The warrior woman grimaced in pain and Brianna bent down and plucked the Alzerstone ring off her finger.

  “That’s mine,” she said through gritted teeth.

  The Skellmarian gave in to the pain in her knee. She rolled over and cradled her injured leg, moaning in pain for the first time. Brianna turned back to Zollin, but to her horror, he had passed out. She realized that she had to do something to save him. She hurried over and looked at the wound. It was a large gash that was bleeding freely.

  First, I have to stop the bleeding, she thought.

  She pulled off her belt and then tore open Zollin’s pant leg. There was so much blood she couldn’t see anything clearly. She yanked on the fabric of his trouser leg, and to her relief it tore free. She folded the scrap of cloth and pressed it against Zollin’s wound. He moaned in pain, but she thought that was a good sign. Then she wrapped her belt around the wounded leg and cinched it down on top of the makeshift bandage.

  Zollin moaned again.

  “Wake up, Zollin!” she shouted. She slapped him in the face and shouted again. “Wake up!”

  His eyes fluttered, but he didn’t wake up. She stood up and looked around. There were almost a hundred bodies lying prone in a big circle around her. She wasn’t sure what she needed, but after turning in almost a full circle, she found a bucket of water. She wasn’t sure what it was used for, but she snatched it up and dashed the water onto Zollin’s head.

  His eyes fluttered open and he gasped at the shock.

  “Zollin!” she shouted, dropping the bucket and bending over him. “Zollin, wake up. You’ve got to heal your leg.”

  “My leg?” he said, not sure what was happening.

  “Heal your leg, Zollin. Concentrate! You can do it.”

  “Heal my leg,” he said, closing his eyes.

  “Do not go back to sleep!” she shouted.

  “Okay,” he said weakly. “Need wine.”

  “I don’t think they drink wine, Zollin,” Brianna said desperately.

  “Anything, I’m so weak.”

  “Okay, focus on your leg. I’ll find something.”

  There were other tent-like shelters, but the High Chief’s was the closest. She dashed inside and found a pallet made of animal skins on the floor. It smelled horrible inside, but she didn’t care. She needed food and something for Zollin to drink. She looked around in the dim light and found a small chest. She threw open the lid and found dried meat. Now all she needed was something to drink. She looked feverishly around and finally spotted an animal skin container. She had no idea what was in it, but as she lifted it from the peg she heard it slosh. She hurried back out of the tent, taking gulping breaths of the fresh mountain air to clear the stench of the shelter out of her nose.

  She fell on her knees beside Zollin, who was grimacing fiercely, holding his leg with both hands.

  “Here,” she said, lifting up the skin so that some of the contents splashed onto Zollin’s lips.

  “Yuck, what is that?” Zollin said.

  “I don’t know, it’s whatever the Skellmarians drink.”

  Zollin squeezed his eyes shut and opened his mouth. Brianna poured the liquid in. It was fermented goat’s milk, and Zollin found it both nauseating and refreshing at the same time. The foul-tasting milk was warm and thick, but it also gave him the same flushed feeling that wine did. He felt his body responding to the drink. He was more aware of what was happening and, consequently, more aware of the pain. He knew his body was in shock from his wound, but now his head was clear enough that he could focus his mind and use his magic to probe the nature of the wound. It was a deep cut, through the muscle of his thigh and nicking his femur bone. It was a deep cut and serious, but the major arteries in his thigh had not been severed, so he knew he would be okay. He imagined the bone reforming, it took several minutes, but the bone healed easily enough. Then he focused on fusing the fibers of his muscle back together. It was painstaking work since he needed to reconnect several veins in the process, and finally he brought his skin back together.

  A few of the Skellmarians were coming back to their senses just as Zollin opened his eyes.

  “It’s okay,” he said, wiping his mouth to get the foul-smelling goat’s milk off his face.

  “Oh, thank goodness,” Brianna said, wrapping her arms around him and hugging him tight. “You scared me to death,” she said.

  Zollin looked at his leg and loosened Brianna’s belt. Then he looked over at the Skellmarian woman and realized what had happened.

  “You saved my life,” he said.

  She raised her head from his shoulder and looked at him. Then
she smiled. He smiled back.

  “Help me up,” he said.

  They looked around the clearing, and Brianna gave Zollin some of the dried meat. It was strange tasting, but he ate it anyway, his jaws aching as he struggled to chew the tough meat.

  “Can we get out of here?” she said.

  “Yes, but first we have to get our belongings back.”

  “Where are they?”

  “I don’t know,” Zollin said. “But I know who does.”

  He looked down at the High Chief, Toag.

  “Come on, we’ll take him with us,” he said.

  “He’ll die before he tells you anything useful,” Brianna said.

  “Maybe, but if I can heal his arm, he may just be grateful enough to help us out.”

  Zollin didn’t bother trying to lift the Skellmarian leader physically, and even though he still felt weak and tired from using so much magic to defeat the barbarians, he knew he would have to levitate the High Chief if they were going to get him away from the camp.

  “Gather whatever food you can,” he told Brianna.

  She hurried back inside the animal skin tent and returned with the chest of dried goat’s meat. Zollin carried the animal skin bag of fermented milk and levitated Toag as they hurried away. There was no clear trail out of the camp, so they climbed up into the rough terrain until Zollin’s head was spinning with exertion. They took shelter in a small overhang that wasn’t much more than a dent in the rocky mountainside. The upside was that the area in front of the overhang had enough soil to grow some weedy looking plants that offered them some cover from prying eyes.

  “I don’t guess those weeds are magical wonder plants?” Brianna said hopefully.

  “No, just weeds,” he said.

  “At least they’re tall.”

  Zollin nodded, but he had already stuffed his mouth full of the dried meat. It was salty and tasted to Zollin like old shoe leather, but he ate it anyway. He didn’t have time to sleep, and it was the only food they had. He was thirsty, but he didn’t want to drink the fermented goat’s milk. He wanted cold water, and luckily there was a small spring in the rock near the overhang. The water was hardly a trickle, but it was enough to keep the small area fertile and enough so that he and Brianna could fill their cupped their hands with the cool water.

  Zollin’s massive blast had only been concussive enough to knock the Skellmarians unconscious. Toag was moaning, just starting to come back around.

  “The others will be coming for us soon,” Brianna said, looking back over her shoulder at Toag. “Perhaps you should have killed them all.”

  Zollin knew she was speaking from fear. She certainly was not afraid to kill when necessary, but she didn’t relish killing, either. The Skellmarians were fearsome people. Their shaggy animal skin clothing and dark facial paint made them seem more frightening, and it was no wonder that most Yelsians feared them. Still, slaying that many people seemed repugnant to Zollin, even if they were about to torture him to death. He had no desire to find out what the tree of pain was.

  “No, that would have only made matters worse. We don’t know where our horses are, but I’m hoping they’re being held by another group of Skellmarians. If we had wiped out the tribe, they might have fled into the mountains with our belongings and we would never see them again. Everything we have can be replaced, except the Dwarvish steel. We must be sure that we get that back.”

  “And Lilly,” Brianna said. “I won’t leave my horse with these people if I can help it.”

  Zollin smiled. Lilly had been his horse, but Brianna and the gentle mare had formed a bond through their adventures.

  “Yes, we need to get Lilly back. They would probably just eat her anyway.”

  They moved closer to Toag. Zollin was still tired, but he began healing the High Chief’s arm anyway. He was hoping that he might be able to build a rapport with the barbarian leader if he saved the man’s life. It took nearly an hour to filter the infected blood out of Toag’s arm. He healed the burned flesh and made sure that the blood supply was good. Throughout the procedure, Toag slept. It was obvious that he had been in great pain and now his body needed rest.

  Then Zollin sat back, leaning against the rock of the mountainside. Brianna told him to sleep while she kept watch. At one point, three Skellmarians passed their hiding place, but they didn’t even slow down to search the area. Brianna stayed hidden, and the barbarians hurried past. As night fell, Brianna felt safer, but then the temperature began to fall and she shivered. She wished that they still had their horses and supplies. She had a thick bedroll behind her saddle and the warmer clothes they had been given by the Tollver family in their saddlebags. She would have liked some wine, too, anything that might have warmed her up a bit. She waited as long as she could before waking Zollin, but the cold seemed to leach into her body and made her feel as though she would never be warm again.

  “Zollin,” she whispered between chattering teeth. “Wake up.”

  He rolled over and opened his eyes. His muscles were all tight from being cold, but he had been too tired to wake up from the drop in temperature.

  “Oh, it’s cold,” he said.

  “Freezing,” Brianna agreed.

  The area they were hiding in was stone, basically a small cleft in the mountainside. Even the ground they were sitting or lying on was stone. Zollin placed his hands on the ground and soon the stone heated up. The heat radiated upward and warmed the small space.

  “I don’t know how you do that, but thank you,” said Brianna.

  “Get some rest; I’ll stand watch for a while.”

  “Wake me up if you get sleepy,” she insisted.

  “I promise,” he told her.

  She curled up on the warm stone floor of their hideout and went to sleep. It wasn’t comfortable, but she thought it felt luxurious after being so cold. Zollin kept watch through the rest of the night. He ate more dried meat and sipped the cold spring water to keep his strength up. Several times he reheated the stone. It was a simple matter; he pushed his magic down into the tiniest parts of the stone that were already moving and sped them up. The result was deep and lasting heat. At dawn, Brianna woke up and took over so that Zollin could sleep a few more hours. Then he got up again and they roused Toag. His body was no longer in pain, but the High Chief had not rested well since the battle in Brighton’s Gate. He was exhausted and only now getting the rest his body needed.

  Zollin insisted that Toag sit up. He gave the Skellmarian the last of the dried meat and watched as the High Chief ate slowly. The Skellmarian eyed them both with distrust, but it had not gone unnoticed that his arm was healed.

  “Is your strength returning?” Zollin asked.

  Toag scowled at him.

  “You were dying, you know.”

  “I’m already dead,” Toag said in a low voice. “Bozar was just waiting for my body to follow my mind. Your sorcery killed me weeks ago.”

  “No, my magic just saved your life,” Zollin said. “Your blood was infected, and when you cauterized the wound, it compounded your injury.”

  “Did you kill all my people?”

  “No, just those that attacked me outright, and I didn’t even kill all of them.”

  “So my people will realize that you carried me away. I am dead to my people, and they will replace me. I have nothing to live for. You have wasted your efforts, southlander.”

  “A life saved is never a waste,” Zollin said.

  “I have no tribe, no family. I cannot return to my people. I would be shunned. You would have done better to kill me and end my shame.”

  “I won’t tell you what your future can look like. If you can’t return to your people, I’m sorry, but I have a mission to complete and I need your help.”

  “I will never help you, southlander.”

  “I need to know what happened to our horses and gear.”

  “They were slaughtered and will be fed to my people,” Toag boasted.

  “I don’t want to waste anym
ore time,” Zollin said.

  He focused on a feeling of trust and honesty, then pushed the feelings toward Toag.

  “Tell me what happened to our horses and our gear.”

  Toag looked uncertain at first, then he smiled and said, “They are with the Voxel Clan. The horses will be kept as food for our people. Your weapons will be given to those who are worthy.”

  “Where?” Zollin asked.

  “Come, I will show you.”

  Zollin made sure that he kept the feelings of trust and loyalty washing over Toag. Brianna had the ring back, and Zollin had molded the band back into the right shape and size. They followed the Skellmarian through the treacherous terrain, avoiding the patrols of Skellmarians who were also moving through the base of the mountains.