The Inner Seas Kingdoms: 03 - Road of Shadows

by Jeffrey Quyle

  Kestrel gave a shout as he fell towards the ground, trying to twist in the air as he fell. He succeeded in getting his feet beneath him before he landed heavily on the ground. There was a sharp pain in his right ankle, and he collapsed to the ground and clutched the leg for a moment, then reached for his knife and lifted his head to look up.

  The large creature was not in sight, and only one of the red guards remained by the spot where the imps had been, though the small blue beings were scattering in all directions in response to the removal of the other guards around them. Kestrel threw his knife at the lone guard, then let his head fall to rest again as he returned his hand to holding his ankle.

  From the corner of his eye he saw movement, very close by, and then suddenly a small blue body was snuggled up against his back, with small arms reaching around to hug him and squeeze him.

  “Reasion? Is that you, Reasion?” Kestrel grunted as he sensed the silent blue sprite had to be the one who had come to comfort him and give him affection.

  “Be careful,” he whispered. “Is the big creature dead?”

  “It is dead, elf-friend of imps and sprites. You killed it with the arrow you shot,” another sprite answered, coming into view.

  “Lucretia, return,” Kestrel said, releasing his grip on his ankle and holding his hand up to recapture the enchanted knife as it flew back to him. He sheathed it, then sat up and found the half-empty skin of healing water he had carried with him through his series of adventures. It was hard to believe that only hours prior he had been sitting in the saddle of Chestnut as the horse had effortlessly carried him. Now, he had traveled much further than Chestnut could have ever gone.

  “A gnome approaches,” the sprite said. “And here come the others,” the sprite’s voice was a masculine one.

  “Kestrel! I’m sorry!” he heard Tableg’s voice call.

  “Why did you do that?” Kestrel asked simply, as the other sprites gathered around him.

  “I don’t know,” Tableg said as he arrived next to Kestrel. “I suddenly thought that my stones could do a better job than your arrows, and then I thought I needed to stop you from shooting arrows, and then,” his voice trailed off momentarily. “I don’t know – right after I shot I realized how stupid that was.”

  “It wasn’t his fault, Kestrel-friend. The large dark monster can control thoughts of others around it. It did that to the red monsters; it made them do its commands; but it doesn’t have any influence over sprites or imps – we’re different for some reason,” one of the imps piped up.

  “Kestrel, why are you here?” another imp asked. “We are so thankful, but how do you come to this horrible place?”

  “I was sent by one of the human gods, to come and be part of your mission. The god of the gnomes sent Tableg along as well,” Kestrel said.

  “Kestrel, do you know these blue smalls?” Tableg asked. “What are they saying? What are you saying to them?”

  Kestrel paused, as the confusion of languages, along with the confusion of the situation and the pain he felt from his fall, all combined to make him feel confused. After a moment’s thought, he spoke twice, in each language. “Let’s get out of sight and up into the trees. Let’s drag these bodies out of sight. There are still at least two of the red guards in the vicinity.” He dribbled a small amount of the healing water upon his ankle and took a sip from the water skin, as the gnome and the sprites examined one another.

  He hobbled to his feet and together with Tableg walked over to the body of the dead creature that had controlled the red guards. Kestrel stood over the monster’s body and looked down at its seeming mixture of strange and familiar features. The legs and arms were unnaturally short, out of proportion to what he would have expected; the skin was scaly, and the facial features almost suggested a snout protruding forward. With a grunt, he grabbed an arm as Tableg grabbed the other, and they dragged the body into the woods. Then returned and helped the small sprites pull the bodies of the red guards among the trees as well.

  When all the movement was finished, Kestrel turned to the sprites. “Tableg and I have been sent to help you on your mission to find Dewberry and Jonson, and discover a way to defeat the lizard monsters,” he repeated, “sent by the gods of the humans and the gnomes.

  “What are your plans?” Kestrel asked. “Do you know where to go in this land?”

  “Jonson had told us that the legends said there was a great mountain, a singularly large mountain that towered over all others, and the solution he sought required a journey to its slopes,” one of the sprites answered, as Reasion nodded in agreement. “So we hoped to come and find the great mountain, then go there, and hope to find our friends along the way.”

  Kestrel turned to Tableg and translated. “That’s not much of a plan,” the gnome said disparagingly.

  “No,” Kestrel agreed stoically. “But they came here to save their friends, and they don’t have any more information than that.”

  “What are your names?” Kestrel asked. “I need to know who to call upon.”

  “I am Thorsee,” announced the one who had most frequently spoken on behalf of the sprites. “And you know Reasion,” he nodded to Kestrel’s acquaintance.

  “Indeed I do. Reasion has saved my life and come to my aid many times, haven’t you my friend?” Kestrel smiled at his blue companion.

  “And there are Calabee, Mordifee, who are imps, and Pumpkin, who is a sprite.” Thorsee pointed to each. Kestrel repeated the names to Tableg.

  “Kestrel! Here come the other red guards,” Thorsee reported in a dramatic whisper, gesturing up the valley. Kestrel turned and saw the two walking cautiously down the valley; he looked at Tableg with a significant look, and they edged to the fringe of the forest and watched the two guards who had spears poised for action as they cautiously searched for their missing party.

  An arrow and a stone struck the two guards simultaneously, and then the elf and gnome returned to the huddled group of imps.

  “So Thorsee, which way do we need to go to find the trail Dewberry and Jonson took?” Kestrel asked.

  “We do not know,” the imp admitted. “Reasion, which way do you think we should go?”

  The silent sprite pointed down the valley towards its mouth, and then she waved towards the north, in a manner that seemed decided.

  “We’ll go as Reasion says,” Kestrel stated, having faith in the instincts of the small sprite. He shouldered his weapons, then took a firm grip on his staff. “Tableg, you bring up the rear. I’ll take the lead,” he directed his gnome companion, and they started their journey down the rest of the valley.

  Kestrel led them along the fringe of the woods, wanting to be able to duck into the safety of the trees if trouble arose.

  “I feel very uneasy in this land. I think part of it is the two red suns, and the color they cast across this world,” Thorsee spoke to him as they moved on. The twin suns were past their zenith and beginning to descend, but with a long way to go to reach the horizon. “Mostly though, it is the fact that we are grounded – so helpless and unable to float or travel away from trouble, as you’ve already seen.”

  “Did you have any weapons?” Kestrel asked.

  “Jonson and Dewberry and their expedition came armed, and apparently had no success,” Thorsee replied. “So we thought that we would just try to travel light and fast and not expect to win battles, but try to avoid them.

  “Of course, we were captured as soon as we left the cave,” the sprite added.

  Kestrel focused his attention forward, on the way ahead of them, and they continued down the valley until they reached the end, where it widened out and opened onto a vaster valley, one that was so wide it appeared to be a plain, with only a dark shadowy hint of hills on the horizon to indicate there was a far side.

  “Reasion says that we go left here,” Kestrel said, as the forest started to curve away from the open lands. The valley appeared to be mostly abandoned fields or prairie. There were few trees, and signs of straight line
s that might have been fence rows or roads, but no discernible rows of crops or livestock were in evidence. There was a hazy pillar of smoke to the right, and Kestrel was glad that Reasion had recommended traveling away from the smoke.

  They continued moving through the scrub trees and bushes that fringed the foot of the forested hillsides, moving at a slow pace as Kestrel favored his twisted ankle. Just before sunset, they all scrambled up into the trees as they saw a large group of both the scaly masters and the horned red guards approaching them. There were over a dozen in the squad – two of the large monsters and the rest apparently under their control.

  “Thorsee, do you have many supplies with you?” Kestrel whispered to the sprite. “Enough to feed all of you and Tableg and me?” He noticed that all the monsters that were passing by were carrying large packs, and he realized that he and Tableg had brought no supplies, while the sprites seemed to have very little that they carried in their small packs.

  “We don’t have any extra,” the small being hesitantly replied.

  “What are you talking about?” Tableg whispered as he came over to Kestrel.

  “Supplies,” Kestrel answered as he switched languages. “You and I didn’t bring any, and the sprites don’t carry any extra. I was thinking that we could ambush that group down there, and take the supplies we needed.”

  “That’s a lot of opponents for two of us with weapons,” Tableg answered doubtfully.

  “Ordinarily, I’d agree, but I think that if we kill the two leaders first, the rest of them won’t know what to do. You saw how those guards were back in the valley,” Kestrel answered. “Either they’ll be unable to take action, or they may just run away.”

  “Alright,” Tableg said, as he scoured the ground around them until he picked up a large rock. “You give the signal to throw,” he gestured towards the squad that had nearly passed them by as it continued briskly down the path.

  Kestrel sighted his arrow at the near monster. “You take the far one,” he gently directed Tableg. “Ready, set, fire!” he released his arrow, and saw the motion of Tableg’s throw out of the corner of his eye.

  As his arrow flew towards the targeted creature, the monster seemed to sense some trouble, and turned its head and upper body to look directly at where the small band of travelers was hidden. Kestrel’s arrow struck it in the shoulder instead of the neck, and it bellowed in pain while at the same time Tableg’s stone crashed into the skull of the far leader, knocking it to the ground.

  Kestrel’s target grabbed at its shoulder while looking up into the woods; suddenly, half the squad of red soldiers started charging from the road towards the trees, as the leading monster bellowed and motioned with its arm. Their spears were extended in front of them.

  Kestrel grabbed his knife off his hip and hurriedly threw it towards the scaly target he had hit imperfectly, then pulled out another arrow and shot it at the foremost of the approaching attackers. The other devilish guards from the road dropped their packs, and started to charge towards the forest as well, just a moment before Kestrel’s knife struck the great creature’s chest and caused it to collapse to the ground.

  Half the red attackers, those in the front rank from the first wave to charge, faltered in their sprint towards the woods as their master collapsed, but the second set of guards passed through them and continued towards the forest.

  “Lucretia, return!” Kestrel called his knife, then shot another arrow at one of the new leaders. He caught his returning knife, saw Tableg throw a stone, then threw his knife again. He called his knife to return, fired another arrow, and threw the knife again. As he did, the forefront of the oncoming attackers reached the forest trees; with that the battle grew heated and at close quarters, too close for the use of arrows any longer. Kestrel swung his staff savagely at the red guards as they engaged.

  The first one ducked under his swing, but Kestrel hit the second guard to reach him, as Tableg fired a stone at the third surviving guard to reach the trees. Kestrel pivoted and saw that the guard that had passed him had attacked the sprites; Kestrel threw his staff at the guard, then pulled his sword free and followed to put the red devil down.

  And with that there was momentary peace, until one of the sprites wailed in horror, and Kestrel saw that the guard who had gotten past him had speared one of the sprites. He started to turn to rush to the aid of the sprite when he saw Tableg hurl another rock at the distant squad of guards that had ceased to rush towards the forest, and he heard a distant voice call out, “We surrender!”

  He shouted to Tableg, “Don’t throw any more at them unless they charge again!” and remembered to speak in the Gnomish language. He knelt by the injured sprite, gently pressing Reasion aside to see the wound. All the sprites and imps were gathered around, and they all looked up at him with tears running down their cheeks.

  “He is dead. His spirit is returning to home, to the Hall of Forever,” Thorsee announced. Kestrel looked down at the savage wound Mordifee had suffered, and saw that the sprite was indeed dead. Even the healing spring’s water would be of no use.

  “I’m sorry, friends,” Kestrel responded, feeling a tear on his own cheek. “I should have protected him better.”

  “The fault is not yours,” Pumpkin tried to reassure Kestrel, patting him on the back. “We all knew this was a dangerous journey on a road of shadows. You’ve already saved us once today as it is.”

  “Kestrel!” he heard Tableg call, and he turned to look at the gnome. “What do we do about them?” he motioned to where the surviving red guards milled uncertainly, back on the road near the bodies of their dead masters.

  Kestrel rose and fetched his staff as he walked back to Tableg. “I’ll go see if I can talk to them. Keep a rock ready to protect me if things go badly,” he told the gnome, then stepped out of the forest and cautiously approached the defeated group.

  There were five of the horned and tailed red guards, standing in a cluster on the road, keeping their eyes averted from the dead bodies of the two large creatures that had previously controlled them.

  Kestrel reached up and touched the ruby stone in his ear piece, as Growelf had told him to. “Did I hear you tell me that you will surrender to us?” he cautiously asked.

  Chapter 4 – Parstole Allies

  “Master, we surrender to the one who has defeated the great controllers,” said one of the red guards, who knelt to Kestrel, prompting the others to kneel to him as well.

  Kestrel stood in front of the small group, whose members’ heads remained down, and pondered what to do, at a loss for how to handle the situation.

  “Where did you come from, and where are you going?” he asked as a way to keep the guards engaged while he tried to assess what he should do next.

  “We came from the other land, the one that defeated the lords in their other skins,” a different guard replied. “We were taken as slaves, servants and guards that the Viathins use to do the work they need done.”

  “What do you mean?” Kestrel was stymied by the answer. “What are Viathins? What other land did you come from?”

  “This land, the place of two suns,” the surrendered guard gestured to the suns that were approaching the horizon, “is not the land we were born in. We came from a different place, a place that is warmer than this, with a single, large sun, where there is little rain, even less since the Viathins came and plundered our home.

  “We lived with our own people in that land until the Viathins came,” he gestured towards the dead monsters nearby. “They came into our land through a portal from another place, and they proceeded to plunder and destroy, as their god instructed them to.

  “They suck the life and energy out of a world, to maintain their own vitality,” another guard spoke up. “They’re like the bugs that climb on an animal and suck its blood.”

  “The god of the land in our world discovered a way to defeat the Viathins, and they fled to this world. They took many of us with them as slaves. We want to go home, my lord. If you will le
t us try to return home, we will leave you in peace and never attack you again,” the guard who had been speaking added.

  “Not even if one of the,” Kestrel paused as he stumbled over the pronunciation, “Viathins controls your mind to make you attack us?”

  “We cannot help that. We are not able to resist their commands,” one of the guards protested.

  “What do you know of the sprites, the small blue people who came from my land to this world?” Kestrel asked.

  “They are different from us,” a guard answered. “Their minds cannot be controlled by the Viathins. We heard that there was a group of them that came to this world, and were hunted and caught by the Viathins and their guards. The Viathins hate them and are frightened of them because their thoughts remain free.”

  “Are they still alive? Do you know where they are?” Kestrel asked excitedly.

  “They are prisoners. They will be among the sacrifices at the next great ceremony,” another guard answered.

  “Can we save them?” Kestrel asked.

  “That would be impossible!” two guards answered together in an agitated tone.

  “Why?” Kestrel asked. The suns continued to set, and the land was growing darker.

  “There are many of the Viathins at the great ceremony, and many of their guards. It would be futile to go there,” one responded.

  “If I promise to set you free, to let you try to return to your own lands, will you travel with me and my companions to try to set the captive sprites free?” Kestrel asked.

  “My lord,” one of the guards spoke up. “We would do anything you asked if you would help us return to our own lands, but setting the sprites free will be impossible.”