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

by David L. McDaniel

  The king walked over to Alaezdar and looked down at his face as he floated a few feet off over the soft ground.

  “Meztrae, you will not succeed in your plan, as only a descendant of Dar Drannon can touch the shard without it being placed within the Quarterstar Talisman. Val-Eahea set that up as a restriction for us so we would be constantly reminded that the only through the prophecy will the elven weakness be reversed. Until then, the shards may never be transported from their original, sacred landing places. Prophecy states that they will not be removed until the line of Dar Drannon comes to remove them. Only he may remove them and then join all of them together. I know you want the shards, as well. You need this man to accomplish your task of returning the Blue Wraeth to his original form and to bring him to power. That is why I know you will not kill this man, as you allude to us right now that you would do.”

  “You are correct in that, my king. You have once again exposed my treacherous spirit.” Meztrae smiled at his one time king and nodded his head before he bowed it and spread his arms out in mock supplication. “You are most powerful and wise, and I submit to your supreme knowledge and wisdom in this matter.”

  “It is time for you to leave this place, Meztrae. It is not this man’s time here in the prophecy. He does not belong here and we need to return him to the outside.”

  “That is where you are wrong again, my king. I plan on keeping this one safe inside the catacombs, where you will not be able to reach him and where we can keep him until we need him. We will make him your new Guardian!”

  “There is no place here that I cannot roam.”

  “Except that you cannot cross the river to reach the Guardian of Val-Eahea’s Quarterstar. No one but a descendant of Dar Drannon can cross. I know this, and you know this.”

  As Meztrae spoke his last word, King Keiyann Krowe’s body shimmered as if it were being disintegrated into a million pieces, disappearing completely and then reappearing two feet above Alaezdar’s body and then, finally, disappearing inside him.

  Alaezdar stood and spoke in Keiyann Krowe’s voice.

  “With this body, I can travel wherever I choose, within the catacombs and without, and I will return him to the outside, keep him far away from you, and make sure he and his friends do not die. You will have to wait even longer to accomplish your goal!”

  Keiyann stood up with Alaezdar’s body and began to walk it towards the far side of the icy wall, but Meztrae disappeared, only to return standing in front of the icy wall to block the king’s and Alaezdar’s exit.

  Keiyann stopped for only a second as he faced him before Meztrae’s shape changed into a much smaller form of the Markenhirth. Keiyann saw the form only long enough to realize what it was before the whole room went dark. The blackness surrounded him and he was completely blind. He was forced to either fight his way out of the body or leave it in order to see.

  He chose to fight. Raising Alaezdar’s arms, he searched deep within Alaezdar’s being and looked for the Wrae magic he could call upon. He found the magic he needed but it was surrounded by the Kronn, and he could not immediately call upon it for use. He attempted to pull it out, but he felt his form being tossed about the cavern landing and he was thrown up against one side of the wall and then slammed into the other. He heard Meztrae speaking, but he could not make out the words.

  Keiyann continued to try to break past the Kronn to release the Wrae magic so that he could fight back, but he found the hard shell of Kronn stopping him at every moment. He knew he would either have to break past the Kronn to access the Wrae Magic and fight or give up and leave Alaezdar’s body. Otherwise Meztrae would destroy it.

  Darkness consumed Keiyann, and he begun to lose sight of everything as Alaezdar’s body continued to be slammed from one side of the cavern to the other. He tried again to call upon the Wrae, but he could not release it. He could feel Alaezdar’s body weakening with every blow against a wall.

  He needed to do something and he decided to call upon Alaezdar himself. He re-awakened the swordsman’s consciousness

  Alaezdar stood up, not knowing where he was. The darkness now surrounded his being, too, and he felt cold. He realized he was in some frozen interior and he began to shiver. A shadow passed before his eyes, but before he could react, he felt himself being picked up and shoved against a wall on the far side of the room. His body slumped to the floor and he began to lose consciousness again as he curled up on the soft, cold floor.

  “That is enough!” Kroejin shouted to stop as he expanded his body and exploded into a flash of red light lighting up the whole room. It was the last thing Alaezdar saw before he lost his vision and faded out into blackness.

  “What is wrong with you?” Meztrae shouted and ran towards Kroejin, stopping short just as he rematerialized into his elven form.

  “You two are fighting over the same end result,” Kroejin said. “Whether you want him alive or dead, you have forgotten one crucial thing, and that is where I stand in this whole ridiculous prophecy game.”

  Kroejin raised his hand and pointed at Alaezdar. He raised him into the air, but his body slumped as he floated unconscious and his feet dragged across the cold floor as if he was being pulled towards Kroejin. Alaezdar’s body slipped passed Meztrae.

  “What does your opinion matter? You are a weak-minded fool who only follows your master, your king…your failure to the elven kingdom of a king!” Meztrae shouted.

  “I want to rest in peace and I do not care if this man dies or lives!” Kroejin said as he raised his arms and slammed his fists together to create a bright light that pushed Meztrae against the wall and pulled Keiyann Krowe out of Alaezdar’s body.

  The two spirits remained slumped on the cavern floor and Kroejin dove on top of Alaezdar’s body and disappeared. Meztrae looked at the now blank space and saw Kroejin had taken Alaezdar with him.

  They reappeared on the other side of the river before the Guardian, who sat at a stone table reading a book with his elbows on the table and his fingertips wrapped around his forehead. As they arrived, he stood up and Kroejin pushed the dazed Alaezdar down to his knees.

  “Stay on your knees like a dog, you human scum,” he said.

  Alaezdar, still in a haze, stared at the ground.

  “What do you want, Kroejin?” the Guardian said. He stood and placed his hands behind his back.

  “You are the only one trapped here who can tell us the truth. Since you are not a wraeth, and since you are the only one with access to these books, you can tell us if this man is the one the prophecy speaks of.”

  The Guardian studied Alaezdar from a distance and seemed to pierce his eyes.

  “I cannot tell.”

  “You are lying! I know better than that!” Kroejin shouted.

  “I am not lying. I only know what I know from the books that have been brought here from the scholars of history and the scholars of prophecy, and I know these books very well, as I have spent too many lifetimes reading them. Many of these books are written with much bias -- as if when they write something down, it will be believed, no matter what, and if it is believed, it will happen. Much of what I know and have discerned not only comes from these books, but comes from the Kronn that emanates from this ground.”

  “Then tell me what you know,” Kroejin demanded.

  “I know that the one the prophecy speaks of will fall from that star above,” he said and pointed upwards to a shining star in the black sky.

  Kroejin and Alaezdar also looked up. The appearance of light from the star, bright against the black sky, shone down upon them.

  “That is not going to happen, and you know this. Are we made to wait here forever unless we make something happen?”

  The Guardian sm
iled.

  “You may be correct,” he said, but he was no longer smiling. “Sometimes that is how prophecies are made to work. They would never come to pass if they were not mentioned, but other prophecies may happen, too, whether or not anyone knows about them.”

  “You and I both know that is not a star.”

  “You are correct, but it has been set up by Val-Eahea and by those who write the prophecies to make it consistent to the prophecy of resurrecting the four shards into one star.”

  “What will happen if I take him out of here and push him back through that star?”

  “Then we will know if he is the one the prophecy speaks of. I for one would also like to know that.”

  Chapter 24

  Fyaa had waited for darkness to cover the encampment, but then had to wait four more hours for the goblins to settle down for the night. She knew that she should not wait that long. She needed information from Pencog, but gaining it would be a delicate issue. Pencog’s unpredictability made him a dangerous foe, and just as dangerous as an ally.

  She laughed in disgust as she watched the gronts mingle with the goblins, a race so unintelligent, she thought, that she could not understand how they could even function in any organized manner of combat other than their frenzied killing. Pencog and Ra-Corsh did earn her respect, though, given their talent to control these beasts to do their bidding and to fight for them. She had witnessed them fight against her at the brook and she had seen how the goblins and gronts fought against each other. Now she watched them as they mingled together playing games in the dirt, wrestling, laughing, and speaking in languages that were all foreign to her.

  They continued on with their games past sunset. Some then lit small fires amongst the pine trees so that they could continue on even longer, confident in their combined numbers that no outside forces would disturb them. After a few more hours of their unbidden, raucous games, they grew tiresome, and one by one worked their way to certain spots amongst the trees and rocks and fell asleep.

  Making her move she found Ra-Corsh amongst those rocks, exhausted and passed out, just as she had hoped. She bent close to his face and studied his features in the dim firelight. The light cast eerie shadows on his face, but she was able to recognize all of his facial features perfectly. Her whole body shimmered in flame for a few seconds and then she rematerialized herself in an exact duplicate of Ra-Corsh.

  She only had one more thing to do to complete her transformation. Capture his voice.

  “Ra-Corsh, wake up!” she urged him and she shook his shoulder. In his exhausted slumber, he made no movement until she shook him a second and third time and finally hit his head against the rock that he had curled up against.

  “Witch, I cannot deal with you now!” he said. He was trying to shout, but he barely was able to grumble.

  Fyaa shook him again. He rolled over and turned his back to her.

  “Go away and leave me now,” he said a little louder.

  “Go away and leave me now,” she repeated, saying the words slowly until her last spoken word sounded exactly like his voice. Now she was finished.

  She stood up, straightened the cloak she now wore which was part of the disguise she had created in her transformation, and rubbed her chin the way she had seen Ra-Corsh do so habitually. She smiled in spite of feeling a little nauseous from looking exactly like him.

  This was her realm, her domain, her time to take back what truly belonged to her, and she needed to start by finding her birds so that she could finish what she had started. She needed to find Pencog, but finding him in this cluster of filthy creatures was not going to be easy. Goblins were scattered everywhere, sleeping in the dirt, in between rock crevices and leaning against the trees.

  It seemed logical to Fyaa that the leader of this goblin fighting force would have some elevated sense of superiority and would sleep in a commander’s tent or some other protected structure, superior to his charges. She wandered through the camp for nearly an hour until she came across a group of goblins standing in a circle deep within a tight cluster of pine trees and tall growing ferns, all just outside the glimmer of the dimming fires.

  Two of the goblins broke rank and pointed their spears at her neck. Her initial response was to easily knock them flat on their backs, but she knew that would not be Ra-Corsh’s reactions, so she stayed calm and asked them to be seen by Pencog.

  The goblins, not understanding her common language, just stared at her while continuing to hold their spears against her neck while they slowly walked even closer toward her. She took a step backward.

  “Pencog!” she shouted. “Wake up! I have something of importance to tell you.”

  In the shadows, she heard a growl that sounded more like a cat in heat than any sound a goblin would make. It was followed by a few guttural words in the goblin language and the guards raised their spears and stepped backwards to their original positions.

  “I have no idea what you are bothering me for, Ra-Corsh. Why can’t you just rest until tomorrow?”

  Fyaa panicked slightly. She had no real reason to wake Pencog other than for her own personal deception.

  “I cannot sleep until I figure out what we are going to do tomorrow. I have a few issues with my gronts which might present some problems,” she lied.

  “Humans are the mostly annoying of creatures, Ra-Corsh. I promise and warn you right now that when Gralanxth returns, I will have nothing to do with you and your stunted race except to exterminate you,” Pencog said.

  He picked wax out of his right ear with one hand and rubbed the bridge of his over-large elongated nose with the other.

  “Please forgive me, great commander,” Ra-Corsh said taking a knee even though doing so almost caused her to regurgitate the bile that had formed in her throat. “Please let me speak, I will speak quickly and concisely.”

  “No, do not hurry. I am awake now. We must drink and eat while we talk.”

  The last thing Fyaa wanted to do was to eat goblin gruel or drink blood from some form of a creature that had crawled out of the ground. She continued with her deception, distastefully, and played along.

  Pencog made a few commands to his guards and they scrambled as if they were going to be punished terribly if they did not return soon enough with food. Pencog kicked a few logs and rolled them towards Ra-Corsh. Two more goblins rushed to the logs and set them upright so that Pencog and Ra-Corsh could sit while two others rushed to build a small fire.

  “This is not necessary,” Fyaa protested in Ra-Corsh’s voice.

  Pencog lifted his hand to silence him and waited for the two goblins to finish building the fire. When the fire started to catch and the flames crackled before them, Pencog asked for the drinks. One of his goblins brought forward two goblets, each filled with a thick brown substance. Pencog took them both and handed one to Ra-Corsh.

  “Drink,” he said, frowning.

  Ra-Corsh took the goblet, looked at its contents, and held it against her lap.

  “Drink,” he repeated, “or you and I will not exchange another word.”

  Ra-Corsh lifted the goblet and took a small swallow. She felt the thick liquid ooze down her throat and gagged. She forced herself not to spit it out.

  Pencog watched her gag, throwing his head back and laughed as she did so.

  “You are so much fun!” he growled in between the deep breaths of his laughter. “Is it really that bad?”

  “You have no idea,” she said and wiped her mouth with the back of her hand. “I am sure you won’t mind if I don’t finish this drink.”

  She grinned at him as she put down the cup.

  “Oh, so Ra-Corsh has no time for his goblin friend Pencog, no time to
share a drink, but you have time to wake me,” he said. He was no longer smiling.

  “Please, forgive me. Sometimes I get anxious in my plans…our plans, and I forget my place.”

  Pencog stood up and kicked Ra-Corsh in chest with the flat of his bare foot, knocking her off of the log stump and landing her flat on her back. He jumped on top of her chest and wrapped his legs around her neck as he grabbed her head. He rolled over on top of her and placed both his feet on her chest. As he pushed her from him, he sent her flying into the air with the great strength that came from his goblin legs.

  Ra-Corsh landed flat on her back and looked up to the dark sky. She sat up and rubbed the back of her neck, incredulous of the stupidity of this creature.

  “Are you done yet?” she said as calmly as she could manage.

  Pencog stood up, put his face a few inches away from hers, and smiled. Fyaa almost gagged after tasting his breath.

  “You are such a bore,” Pencog said and took his seat back on the stump. “What must we talk about, my boring friend? After we are done here, I will never deal with you again. In fact, I may even kill you before we are done because you are so dull, you do not deserve to live any longer, let alone experience the joys of fighting and killing.”

  Ra-Corsh straightened her robe and pointed at Pencog.

  “Pencog, you may want to kill me before we are through, but you will not live to fight another battle…if you even try.”

  Pencog stood up, kicked his stump behind him, and went after her again by picking her up by the collar and pushing his face into hers.

  “Now Ra-Corsh is starting to have fun!” he said.

  He turned his back to her and walked away.

  Ra-Corsh found her stump and set it back straight before sitting down. Pencog came back and circled her, breathing hard and grunting every time he exhaled. She watched him circle her, continuously, and it began to annoy her so much that she considered breaking her ruse and attacking Pencog with every ounce of terror she could muster.