The Warrior's Bane (War for the Quarterstar Shards Book 1)

by David L. McDaniel

  “Get away from me!” Ra-Corsh shouted and pushed his way through the crowd of chanting goblins. He grabbed one of them by his leather breastplate and swung his body around him. throwing him to the ground. To his surprise, the rest actually cleared away and gave him room.

  “Move out of my way,” he said anyway. “I need to heal the girl!”

  He felt a new surge in his own confidence.

  Ra-Corsh found her lying on a makeshift bed of sticks, ivy and ferns which Pencog had been using as his sleeping pad. He approached her and noticed that her hair had been shortened and singed so badly that all the tiny hairs had turned black and now curled tightly upon her head. The hair that remained untouched by fire was knotted up in the sticky blood from the wound on the side of her head. Some blood still ran down her chin.

  The burns he might be able to heal, he thought, but he would not be able to keep them from scarring. He could see they were so deep in some spots that her skin would be permanently damaged. With magic, he could only hide it for a short time and give her the appearance that she was unharmed.

  He knelt next to her and smoothed out her hair. He straightened out the clumps and the knots as a loving father or mother might do.

  “Can you hear me, Aaelie?” he whispered as he bent close to her ear.

  When she did not respond, he soothed her forehead with his palm and began to call upon his Wrae to begin her healing. His Kronn was stronger, but Kronn could be unpredictable so he called upon the magic created by the gods Val-Eahea and Raezoures.

  Nothing happened for the first few seconds, but his healing powers rarely began immediately. He knew his healing spells took extra concentration, and the powers could therefore take a few extra moments to tap into.

  Once he felt the surge of power coursing through his veins and being, he began first to chant the healing spells to close up the wound in her head to stop the bleeding. Within seconds the blood stopped oozing from her head wound and began to clot. Ra-Corsh took his hand and smeared the remaining blood that lay on her face into her skin. He rubbed in small circles until all traces of blood disappeared from her face.

  “Now the hard part, young one,” he said softly as he smoothed her hair once again. He continued to channel the power from his body into hers, and his face began to twitch and convulse as he laid both his hands on the top of her head. He soon felt the response of the gods reaching into his inner being and pulling his strength to heal the other wounds that were so deep within her body.

  He did this for nearly an hour before she began to stir and open her eyes. Ra-Corsh removed his hands, fell back from his kneeling position, sat and pulled his knees to his chest.

  “I am done,” he said.

  He fell onto his back and lay in the fetal position for many minutes.

  “What happened?” Aaelie asked.

  She began to sit up, but soon felt dizzy and laid back down.

  “Stay down, child. Fyaa betrayed us both. Pencog! Where are you?” Ra-Corsh yelled. At least he felt like he was yelling, but his call came out barely louder than a whisper.

  When no one responded, he rolled over onto his knees, kneeled on all fours for a few seconds before raising one leg to the ground, put both hands on his knee and forced himself to stand up.

  “Where are my Fire Gronts?” he asked.

  He walked away, slumping with his head down, until he found a clump of granite boulders and wormed himself in between two that had a perfect crevice where he could lie on his back and feel somewhat protected.

  Aaelie watched him leave. She realized that no one was watching her and that he had left her unprotected and, better yet, unsupervised. Taking advantage of his sloppiness, she began to crawl on all fours. She began to feel her eyes prickle and spots danced in her vision. Pushing through the fuzziness, she stood up, looked around and ran into a clump of bushes where she stayed with her head down until her vision began to clear. Then she backed herself into the bushes so that she could bolt and run if necessary when she felt it would be safe to do so.

  Fear began to creep up into her chest as she realized that the longer she waited, the sooner they would realize their error and start to look for her. They would scour the woods and find her quickly and she knew she needed to react now, but her fear still seemed to paralyze her. She took a deep breath, steeled herself for what she had to do, stood up and ran out from the bushes.

  She did not know which way to go, or how far to go, but she knew she would have to figure that out as she went. First, she just needed to get out of there. She ran from the area where she had last seen Ra-Corsh, but that took her into a clearing where a group of goblins were sitting and chewing on the bones of their last meal. In shock, she panicked and took off the other way. She turned left just before she reached the area where Ra-Corsh was last seen. In her haste she knew she had made too much noise. She heard the goblins drop their bones, snort out their incomprehensible yells and begin to chase her.

  The forest began to thicken where she ran, but she continued to push through, moving the branches out of her way as they scratched her face and arms. She scrambled through the thick woods as fast as she could, but within a few minutes she began to feel light headed again. She heard the goblins closing in on her, so she reached deep into herself for the energy to press on through her dizziness.

  Her mind racing as to what she should do, which way she should go, but no answers came to her other than to run and to keep running.

  The goblins began to yell and chatter and she could tell they were now right behind her. She heard them crashing through the woods with reckless abandon because their skins were hardened to this environment. Hers was not.

  She felt a small ray of hope when she reached another clearing in the woods and she was about to sprint through it to make up time when she fell to the ground. She wasn’t sure why at first, but as her face hit the dirt, she quickly realized that she had been tackled, but not by one of Pencog’s goblins, but rather by one of Ra-Corsh’s gronts. The gront had her by the legs and grunted loudly.

  Other gronts charged into the clearing about the same time that twenty goblins did, but the gronts had already surrounded Aaelie, their backs turned to her and ready to fight off the goblins. Some of the goblins stood with their short swords and shields in hand, but others did not because they had been too caught by surprise.

  Aaelie took advantage of the standoff, shrugged out of the gront’s hold on her and started to pass them all. She had only taken two steps when one of the gronts grabbed her shoulder and spun her around and down, slamming her head onto the ground.

  The goblins started to close in, but the gronts held their ground and prepared for the imminent attack, but just as the goblins were about to pounce, a horn blast pierced the air. The goblins immediately took to one knee and waited.

  Within seconds, Pencog forced his way past the goblins and stood before the gronts.

  “Move aside,” he said in their common language so that he knew everyone would understand. He had heard Ra-Corsh speak it to his gronts on numerous occasions.

  They hesitated at first, but when Pencog bared his teeth and hissed at them, they backed away. Aaelie sat with her knees up to her face and cried as Pencog approached her.

  “Stand up,” Pencog hissed.

  Aaelie shook her head in between her knees. Pencog bent down, grabbed her arm and gently pulled her up.

  “Come with me, and I will protect you.”

  Aaelie did not fight him, but allowed him to walk her back to where she had been. Her head began to clear as she walked and she began to rethink her situation. She had to find a way out of her predicament, but still no clear answers came to her mind.

  She had begun to give up hope
that Alaezdar and Rivlok would come bravely to her rescue. She tried to imagine their arrival, but every time she thought of them heroically appearing at a given moment, she realized that just the odds of the numbers against them would be insurmountable.

  As hard as she tried, she could not keep thoughts of doom out of her head. She tried instead to think about the good times with Rivlok, the happier times with him as her best friend, and sometimes more. She thought about her infatuation with Alaezdar, and she would circle back around to the hope that, the expert swordsman, would come to her valiant rescue. As always, though, her thoughts would return to her current situation.

  Hope again began to fade away as Pencog led her to a small wooden chariot that had a metal cage on top of it. He unlocked the door and guided her up the steps as if she was his special lady. He held her hand as she entered the chariot, but then closed the door and locked it shut.

  Her fear was now complete with the failure and the doom that lay heavy upon her heart.

  Chapter 23

  Alaezdar floated in the sky, high above the realm. He felt the salty sea breeze sting his eyes as he drifted above the ocean that sprayed the rocky shores of the Rae-Om Islands. He had never been there, but he realized where he was when he saw the gray, mortared and rock-lined Fortress of Prophetic Studies that towered from amongst the fog.

  He continued to glide through the salty breeze towards the mainland, drifting inches above the crashing waves, until he rose higher and higher above the realm where he could see every inch of the known lands. To the west was Lake Quarterstar and farther than that was the never-ending forest. To the east and northeast were the lands that disappeared into the uninhabited frozen wastelands.

  In one blink of his eye, everything froze for Alaezdar. Land and ocean blended into one. His eyes hurt from the blinding glare of the never-ending ice. Though he felt no cold, his blood chilled. Unsure why his blood would freeze in his veins like that, he realized that he was witnessing something deeper.

  He was witnessing the birth of the realm.

  He looked below him then and saw a battle waging. Four figures scrambled in the snow and ice, three against one, all using incredible magic against each other, magic such as he had never witnessed before, He knew it existed, but only from the tales that had been told to him by the Watcher’s Guild.

  Below him, one lone figure, a human, defended himself against a dwarf and two elves. The human seemed to be taking a beating until he changed his shape from a humanoid figure into something entirely different, something obscene. Whether he did it to himself or because of the attack from the three other combatants, Alaezdar could not tell.

  From above, he witnessed a large black swirling circle that spun out of control until a massive black demon formed from within it. The monstrous figure then sprouted up from the twisted black mass with wings on his back and large horns on his head. Alaezdar recognized the creature, not as a dragon, as he had first thought, but as the massive, human-like demon that would become known as the Markenhirth.

  Above him, a shooting star screamed through the sky and sparks crackled in a tail behind it as it fell in front of him. From the battle below, a fireball now raced up to meet the star, but it crashed into it and split it into four pieces before it returned to pierce the Markenhirth’s chest and explode through his body.

  The Markenhirth crashed to the ground and disappeared as the four shards found their respective places in the land. One was North, one West, one South and the last, near where the battle had just occurred, crashed into a small mountain range and left a black, gaping and hissing hole in the snow below.

  Alaezdar saw that the mountain range was very near the Vixtaevus gap, just where he and his party had entered while chasing after Aaelie.

  His body began to descend, slowly at first, and then quickly until he crashed like the star itself at the same exact spot. His body was ripped to pieces and then reformed deep in the catacombs.

  He awoke inside them in a place he did not recognize. He floated horizontally on his back, inches off of the ground, looking up at a sky that was not sky, but a rocky cavern. He could not see the ceiling, but instead saw the illusion of sky.

  Four icy walls surrounded him and the room swirled from a warm, foggy mist mixing off the cold icy walls. From them stepped a figure cloaked and dark.

  Alaezdar now saw the small streams meandering into the icy walls and disappearing below the cracks at the base. Four long, headless snake-like figures appeared from out of the cracks and wiggled out into the soft grassy dirt under him. He could see from the corner of his eyes that as the snakes reached the center of the room, they began to grow.

  His arms and his feet dangled down now and almost touched the grass. He felt as if he were lying on a board no larger than his spine. As he watched the snakes growing, he picked up his arms and crossed them over his chest. The serpents continued growing longer and thicker until they transformed into human skeleton-beings before they transformed into solid creatures.

  One at a time, they completed their transformation and as they did, these newly solid creatures stood around him and waited for the others to transform.

  “Why is he here?” the first that had transformed asked after the others had all arrived. He wore a crown of gold and silver woven into a tightly tangled vine, the ancient crown of elven kings.

  “I have brought him here to end the prophecy,” said the warrior that had brought Alaezdar from the center of the catacombs. “You and Meztrae need to decide this one’s fate.”

  “I have asked our great hero, Eranon, to bring him here to us,” said the cloaked figure.

  “I should’ve known it would’ve been you, Meztrae,” the elven king admitted. “But how did you enter here? You were not entombed here.”

  Meztrae laughed.

  “You were a fool when you were alive,” he said after he’d finished laughing, “and you are still a fool now as a wraeth. Unlike you, I can leave these crypt caverns or catacombs that you call your sacred place. I have been granted the power to roam the realm as a spirit, free from Wrae, but using the power of Kronn which was granted to me by the Blue Wraeth.”

  “Blue Wraeth or not, you do not know who this man is,” the wraeth king said.

  “This one can release us from our bond here,” another elven wraeth said. He was wrapped in a long ceremonial cloak with elven scripts covering the hood and body.

  “You too, Kroejin?” The king shook his head in sadness as he remembered the earlier betrayal by both of his advisors. “Neither of you do understand the prophecies as I do.”

  “You are a fool, King Keiyann Krowe,” Metztrae said pointing at him. “You are the reason we are trapped here because you released the human Dar Drannon from this realm instead of killing him. Now we are trapped in this realm until he returns, unless we change the prophecy! This man, this descendant of Dar Drannon, must be terminated per the prophecy. In doing that we will release our bond and be allowed to leave this entrapment and enter our rightful eternal home, our home, not of Val-Eahea, but of a place where the true elven people should be returning.”

  “And how does killing the man who will bring the return of Dar Drannon bring about this end for you?” the King asked. He was obviously not following Meztrae’s reasoning and he was going to let him know that.

  “There are many reasons for this man to die,” Kroejin stepped in to say. “If he lives, it will bring destruction to this realm. He is a wanton murderer. His actions prove this fact as he has selfishly brought his friends into the catacombs for his own selfish purposes. They will die very soon, and he will continue to do things such as this until he has destroyed the entire realm. But, more importantly, if he dies, Dar-Drannon will not return. Therefore the Sword of Valkronn stays wherever
it is, never to see this land again. If that is done, the Blue Wraeth will return to his natural form and rule the Known Lands from his rightful elven throne and return the elven people to their natural prominence.”

  “I do not see how that can be done.” The King countered,” You may kill this man and end the prophecy -- that I do not deny will happen -- however, I do not see how unleashing the Blue Wraeth upon this land will accomplish what you seek, other than gaining ultimate power for your faction.”

  “I don’t expect you to understand,” Meztrae said and stepping in between the Kroejin and the king. He stared at Kroejin as he spoke. “Knowing our end plan is not something that it is necessary for you to know. This one here,” he said, pointing his finger inches from Kroejin’s nose, “does not know when to stop talking. He has always sought your favor, when in all his time serving you, he was always betraying you.”

  “Meztrae, you were the one that broke my heart. Not so much with your betrayal, but with your ignorance of the prophecy. Why do you think Kroejin was entombed here? It is because when it came to recognizing the truth, he would always follow it, no matter how much you tried to entice him to change his path. He followed the truth at all costs. After your death, Kroejin turned away from the Agin-Sorae. He told me all about your plans to prevent the return of the first human king and secure all the shards and bring the power to the elven nation. I understand that need. However, all you would be doing would be bringing power to the Markenhirth, not bringing power to the elven nation.”

  “It does not matter how much you know. You can do little to stop us while you are entombed and entrapped in your crypt. Meanwhile, I am free to roam as I please with the power given to me by the Blue Wraeth.”