Alaezdar looked to the sky and felt the warmth of the early Doreal sun and he took pause for the moment to appreciate his place in this village. The village, even though he liked it, still wasn’t the perfect place for him, though. He found it unnerving that everyone knew each other so well, but he admitted to himself that he was beginning to get used to it. The people cared about each other even though, of course, there were some family rivalries, and he found that interesting.
As he walked, he saw men and women packing their horses in front of the shops, with supplies for their ranches, or by the booths that the villagers were beginning to build by the fountain square at the end of the row. Kids were running through the streets with careless abandonment, and why not, he thought. What did they have to care about, what fears filled their souls? Nothing but boredom, Alaezdar concluded. Sometimes boredom was his biggest fear. He smiled in spite of himself. Yes, fear of boredom. And how do you cure that, he thought. Work, that’s how.
“Alaezdar! Hey, look at this!” a blond haired ten year old boy in muddy clothes with a dirty face yelled as he ran towards him swinging a stick like a sword. “I found this by the river yesterday. Look! It has a hilt like a real sword,” he said and ran up to him, out of breath, thrusting the stick in his face for him to inspect.
Alaezdar took the stick from the boy’s hands and smiled.
“Well, Rowlf, you might be able to smack a few squirrels with this stick, but I don’t think you would be able to hurt anything else.”
“I know, but look at the blade. It looks like a real sword…well, a wooden one, if you want,” he admitted and kept shaking his head, attempting to keep the fantasy alive.
“I see,” Alaezdar said and took the sword and inspected it more closely, running his finger over the bladed area. It did, he admitted to himself, look like a blade in a crude sort of way. It was flat and beveled on the edges, somewhat. He turned it over, ran his finger over the other side of the blade and pretended to cut himself.
“Ouch!” he mocked and put his finger in his mouth. “You’d better take this back. I don’t want to hurt myself.”
“Can I come with you, Alaezdar?” the boy pleaded.
“If you want, but you will be bored.”
“Nah, I won’t. I promise!”
“Suit yourself. Follow, but stay out of my way.”
Alaezdar walked through town and Rowlf followed, but he did very little to stay out of the way. He pestered Alaezdar with questions on everything he did and about everything he touched. Once Alaezdar smiled at Rowlf and then ran around the corner to lose him, but Rowlf quickly found him, pointed his stick sword at Alaezdar’s belly and mimicked a highwayman.
“Give me your money pouch, old man!” he shouted with a big smile, as if he had just bagged the biggest deer in history.
Alaezdar smiled back, ruffled Rowlf’s hair and went back to walking through the village, but the boy continued to follow, smiling and swinging his stick-sword as they went along. Alaezdar stopped a few times to order more items for the festival. Walking by a tack store, he had remembered that a couple of Tharn’s horses needed some new blankets and stirrups. Rowlf didn’t notice that he had stopped and kept on walking ahead, skipping along, living in his own fantasy.
When Alaezdar had finished, he smiled, thinking that Rowlf had gotten bored and wandered off, but then he heard a crowd of kids’ voices a little farther down the street. He looked over and saw that Rowlf was down on the ground being kicked by a group of boys. One of them, a blond haired large boy with a bit of a belly, was breaking Rowlf’s stick sword over his knee. He threw it down on top of Rowlf and then spit on him. The other boys laughed and walked away, slapping the big kid on the back as they left. Alaezdar ran to Rowlf and knelt next to him.
“Jor again?”
“Yes, he doesn’t like me. He told me I was too young to be playing with a stick like a sword.”
“Well, maybe you are.”
Alaezdar laughed a little as he grabbed Rowlf’s hand and helped him up.
“But I like playing swordsman. What is so wrong with that?”
“Nothing, I guess. Just don’t play with real swords.”
“Really? That is a stupid thing to say,” he groaned.
Alaezdar smiled, tousled Rowlf’s hair again and pushed him in the chest a little so that he had to step back. “If you really want to learn how to use a sword, I will teach you in a day or two.”
“Really? You are going to teach me? Yeah, you and a few others.”
Rowlf smiled looked at his broken stick and grimaced. With his dirty, tear-stained face he looked up at Alaezdar and said. “But I don’t have a sword anymore.”
Shaking his head, Alaezdar stuck his toe underneath one of the broken pieces of his stick sword and kicked it in the air towards Rowlf.
“That wasn’t a sword anyways. It was a stick. Get outta here. I will take care of the sword for you!”
Rowlf jumped away from the stick and watched it hit the ground.
“Yes!” he shouted as he turned and ran away.
Alaezdar watched him leave. He liked Rowlf. He liked his eagerness to learn. It reminded him of himself at that age and how he wanted to learn so much from his older cousins and how he had begged them to teach him. Look where that had gotten him now, he laughed to himself. Nothing and nowhere. But that did not matter now. He wasn’t entirely happy with his life so far, but living here at Valewood gave him just enough purpose to survive and just enough distraction to forget about what he was running from.
As he walked down the street and passed the bakery, he could smell the yeasty smell of fresh sourdough. He smiled again, enjoying his new home. The baker’s son smiled at him and waved. Alaezdar nodded and kept walking. He passed two more shops when he saw Morlonn at the armory picking up arrowheads that he had specially made just for him. They were arrowheads formed from the fire hardened black rock from the Dragon Cross Mountains.
Morlonn waved to get his attention when he walked by.
“Alaezdar!” Morlonn called and slapped him on the shoulder as he approached.
“Morlonn, the Hunter. How are you?” he asked.
“I am well,” Morlonn said with a big smile, genuinely happy to see him. “Tharn has asked me to assemble a bore hunting party for the Fifth of Doreal celebration. I’d like you to come.”
“I’d like to come, but I don’t have much experience with a bow,” Alaezdar lied. Even though his primary weapon was a sword, the members of Rager’s House of Renegades had to be proficient in many weapons. Half Blade, a half elf, had taught him how to use the bow with the expertise of an elf, just as Half Blade had learned it from his elven father.
“That’s okay. It’s not so much for the hunt, but for the company. We will be camping out that evening and coming back in the morning to set up some of the final booths for the celebration.
“Who is coming so far?”
“Tharn is going, but you are the first that I have asked. I’d like to see Rivlok and Kunther come along as well.”
“Sounds great. I think I would like that.”
“Good. Meet me at my place an hour before sunrise.”
“I’ll be there.” Alaezdar said as he and Morlonn continued walking back to the village center.
As they approached the center plaza, a group of villagers were listening to a man wearing a long black robe. They stood around him in a circle, some listening intently to his words, others mocking him as he spoke.
“Who is that?” Alaezdar asked Morlonn..
“Oh that…He’s nothing. It’s just Gartan the Dark, from the Watchers Guild,” he said mockingly, as if the name had meant something powerf
ul and important. “He shows up a few times a year, but he always shows up a few days before the festival. Tharn invited him once, and since then he always shows up.”
“The Watchers Guild, you say?” Alaezdar asked, feigning both interest and ignorance by asking the question, even though he knew the answer. He knew the Watchers Guild very well In fact, they had been useful in many of their missions while he was with Rager’s House of Renegades, who had kept close communication with the Watchers Guilds’ for their knowledge of the land, and its prophecy. His commander, Carsti Balron, had many times used the guild’s knowledge of the local geography for inside information before he dispatched his men on dangerous missions.
No one knew how they knew what they knew. It was especially puzzling how they were able to communicate amongst their members because no matter who you talked to, they knew everything that was going on around the land, even if there was a hundred miles separation from the next guild member. As a group they were quite harmless. All they did was watch and report what they saw and even though it had been reported that their guild was very large, no one ever saw more than one member at a time.
“Oh, they claim to know the land as well as the dying races of elves and dwarves,” Morlonn said, “but unlike the elves and dwarves, who feel the land, they spread the word through many of their traveling outposts, I don’t believe that, but I don’t know how they do it either. I just think they’re freaks.”
“Have you ever really spoken to one without ridiculing him?”
Morlonn laughed.
“No. Are you serious?” he said and looked at Alaezdar as if he were a crazy fool for even asking.
“Yes, I am serious. How are you to learn the land without listening to what others have to say?”
Morlonn shook his head quickly as if to shake a fly out of his hair and said, “You are serious.”
Alaezdar realized that he might be treading a bit too far and he changed his tactic.
“No. I just have never seen such a thing this one and I am curious as to what he has to say. It just seems fascinating to me. What is this one saying now?”
“Who cares?”
“It might prove interesting. Come on, just for a little while,” Alaezdar pleaded.
“Oh, come on, Alaezdar. We’ve got so much to do, we don’t have time for this. He really isn’t that interesting, I promise,” Morlonn said, but Alaezdar was already turning in the direction of Gartan. “Alright, fine. We can spare a few minutes since you’re new here, but only for a few minutes…no more,” he said and followed behind him.
Gartan the Dark stood on the top step of a five-step base that circled the freshly painted center stone fountain with a group of villagers gathered about him. He had dark clothes covered over by a rough, wrinkled and dusty black cloak that matched his dark hair and pointed goatee.
“I tell you again the true words of gloom, my friends. I know not the exact village, but it could be yours. I cannot stay and join your celebration this year, for I am off to see another village to spread the dark word. Take heed and please spread this word amongst your friends, for I am Gartan the Dark, from the Watchers Guild.”
Gartan the Dark then pulled his hood over his head, stepped down from the fountain and slowly walked towards the outskirts of the village.
“Let’s talk to him,” Alaezdar suggested to Morlonn and he began to walk towards Gartan the Dark.
“Why? I told you he is a freak,” Morlonn whined.
“Do you know this one in particular?”
“Everyone in the village knows him,” Morlonn said with a smirk. “He has been here many times before today. The people find him interesting and listen to him, but only to mock his so called truths.”
“So you’re saying that nothing he has said has ever come true.”
“No, not really. Some of what he says has come true, but anyone can predict some of the things he has prophesied. Most are purely coincidental. He also tells us of events that happen all around Wrae-Kronn. Like what battles are waging in the human kingdoms or how the magic in the land is not dying, but is at conflict with a foreign magic. Whatever that means. He claims to communicate such things from the other guild members who are scattered throughout the known lands. It’s all a fraud though.”
“I suppose,” Alaezdar agreed.
He wanted to tell Morlonn everything he knew about the Watchers Guild, but chose not to in fear that it would prompt more questions, questions he would not want to answer. The Watchers Guild’s powers mostly came from their founding fathers. In the early days, the days of the dragons, they went by the name of the Dragon Watchers guild. Their leader at the time, Dragos Gartan, helped the dragons leave the realm of Wrae-Kronn and return to their homeland through the Aaestfallia Keep. For his help the dragons gave him, and whomever else he chose, the gift of foresight. The dragons did this as a thank you and requested only that Dragos Gartan change the name of the guild. They therefore became the Watchers Guild instead of the Dragon Watchers Guild.
With the power of foresight given to them by the dragons, they saw the great demise that was infecting the land of Wrae-Kronn and they dedicated their lives to spreading the ominous word so that the people could prepare themselves for the dark days ahead. To do this they spread throughout the land and communicated to each other by channeling Kronn, the land’s magic. Alaezdar had become acquainted with the Watchers Guild and eventually had become very familiar with Gartan the Hooded One, who was in charge of the area surrounding Daevanwood.
“Gartan, the Dark!” Alaezdar yelled to the man.
Gartan turned around. His overly large cloak covered his head and revealed only his face below his forehead. His cloak was dirty and black. Now that Gartan was closer, Alaezdar noticed that what he had thought from a distance were wrinkles were actually vertical and horizontal red stripes that still looked like blood seeping through someone who had just been swiped numerous times by a dragon or by some large creature with vicious talons. Gartan the Dark stopped and looked at him.
“What message do you bring, Gartan the Dark?” Alaezdar asked after he had stepped in front of him. Morlonn followed and he sighed and rolled his eyes.
“You did not hear?” Gartan asked with a tone of arrogance and condescension.
“No. I beg of your patience to repeat.”
Gartan the Dark stared into Alaezdar’s eyes quizzically, but then with a sense of slight familiarity.
“No…it can’t be…not you. You look…have we met before?”
Alaezdar froze. Gartan the Dark could not possibly recognize him. The only member of their guild to know Alaezdar had been Gartan the Hooded One.
“No, I am new to this area,” Alaezdar responded.
“Maybe so, but your eyes bring a strange familiarity to me. I see trouble ahead for you...” He paused to allow Alaezdar to introduce himself by his name. While he waited, Alaezdar noticed that Gartan stared at him in a strange way, as if he could not decide if he was looking at a man or a god.
“Alaezdar,” he said finally, filling in the silence.
“Yes, Alaezdar,” Gartan the Dark said and removed his hood to show his shoulder length black hair. He was middle-aged, but he showed no signs of aging. He had a youthful look, yet his face held the wisdom of many years. His eyes were dark and colorless. His skin was a darkened bronze with the appearance of someone who rarely saw the indoors. Even though he was cloaked and hooded, it seemed that the sun always found a way to every part of his skin. Over his left eye he had a tattoo of a dragon, facing left, with its wings tucked in tightly. Its tail hung downwards and went around the outside of his eye and then across the top of his cheek, curling underneath his eye.
“I know you now,” he said in a s
ense of understanding. “I told Tharn you would be coming here.”
“Oh, come on!” Morlonn protested, a bit too loudly.
“You bring trouble. Dark trouble for many years to come.” Gartan again ignored Morlonn’s outburst. “I also see confliction and division, though I do see a great victory in the end, but in that victory I also see great darkness, separation, division and bitter cold…dark, solid cold.” He paused to reflect, as if he were putting together scattered puzzle pieces in his mind. “Odd…your place upon this realm is important. It is strange, for I do not see pictures of the future beyond that when I look upon you, only dark feelings that end in complete…nothingness. Not death, mind you. Just…nothing.”
“Is this what you were telling the villagers?” Morlonn interjected.
“No, it is not,” Gartan the Dark said as he came out of his deep state of concentration. “I bring troubled news for your village...”
“Oh? What’s new?” Morlonn interrupted in a tone of complete boredom.
Gartan the Dark ignored Morlonn and continued.
“Beware the human kingdoms of the north, and beware of the trouble brewing from the east. I see many problems for these villages here. The Kingdoms of the north are in the beginning phase of a massive turmoil and a tribe of Goblins from the Markenhirth Forest is ready to attack a village in the Valelands. The 89th Bloody Fang Goblin Tribe has called upon their god to help them in their annual battle against the 21st Death Ogre tribe. They request their god’s assistance in this battle, but in exchange, he will demand a human sacrifice. I know of nowhere else where they can get a human sacrifice other than within these villages so close to the Goblin Tribes Forest. So I ask you, where do you think they will come? I do not know whom they will take, nor do I know what village they will strike. Nevertheless, it will be soon, and it will happen. Watch for the purple sunset. So, please take heed and protect yourselves from these evil beasts. I must go to spread the word to the other villages.”
The Warrior's Bane (War for the Quarterstar Shards Book 1) Page 6
