“You do not understand. This cannot happen because he is not the one.”
“But he is a descendant, and he can be the sacrifice. Do not listen to his threats. I will assure that Daegon will be the sacrifice that you require.”
“Prophecies can be tricky,” the Guardian started, as if explaining a difficult lesson of life to a child, “especially the ones written in these books, some are false, and some are not. We will find out which ones are true in time.”
“I followed your mandate, here he is, give me the Shard.”
“It does not work that way, Naemyn. Even if I give you or him the Shard you will not be able to remove it, because he is not the one.”
“Then what do we do?”
“Simple, you can just leave. I will allow you and Daegon to leave. However, if Daegon leaves, you will lose the first of your double sacrifice.”
“And what if I choose to leave Daegon here, and take the talisman, what does the prophecies say then?”
Daegon stood up incredulous. “Why would I even want to be your sacrifice if we aren’t going to get what we came for?”
“Listen to me now. Daegon may not have had pure intentions to relieve me, but if he stays here in my place, he will help you, Naemyn, accomplish your goal and at the same time, he will know that he will be helping the elves. He will, in essence be helping you crush the elven kingdom.”
“I do not want to crush the elven kingdom, I want to restore it!”
“You will restore it, but all things must be destroyed before they can be rebuilt stronger.”
“I do not want to help them in any way!” Daegon protested.
“Then the human race will become extinct,” the Guardian whispered to Daegon. “Naemyn,” the Guardian continued, pointing to Naemyn, still held suspended in mid air, “you will not receive any immediate benefit to Daegon’s sacrifice, however, in time, a descendant of the human king will indeed fall through that hole and release Daegon from his bond. However, if Daegon does not stay, and his descendant falls through the hole, nothing will happen, just as nothing for you is happening now. Daegon must stay in order for the prophecy to continue on its path.”
“Won’t I die down here?” Daegon asked.
“No, you will live until relieved, by your descendant, or the elven king.”
“But you said they have forgotten about you, what makes you think they won’t forget about me?”
“I am confident that you will not be relieved by the elven king. One of Traegon’s offspring will relieve you. Either way, right now, it is up to you to be part of, or to thwart prophecy. The choice is yours.”
“What are we to do then?” Naemyn roared back again, struggling to decide if he should continue on the path to betray his king in order to gain power and prominence within a new age of elven rule, or to stick beside his friend and find another way.
“You must decide. Your decision will affect the prophecy one way or another. Do nothing, and to tell you the truth, I do not know what will happen. The prophecies are not written for that choice.
Naemyn twisted in his bind in an attempt to free himself, but could not.
“Do not struggle Naemyn. Make your decision and you will be free. I will tell you one more thing that may help you in the short term.” The Guardian then pointed at the talisman. “The talisman has properties that when a shard is placed upon it, the user can travel throughout the realm. Even though the shard is not combined with the talisman, but because of the close proximity of the two, you can benefit from that power for a one-time trip out of here. Use it well and leave to a place where you will be most beneficial.”
“Then he is staying,” Naemyn concluded.
“No, I am not, I will not have any part of this elven mysticism. Get me out of here, now!”
“Turn me loose! We are leaving,” Naemyn announced.
“As you wish,” the Guardian said, and in a flash of orange light Naemyn, Traegon and Trapper disappeared. Daegon felt a tug at his hand and noticed that the talisman also disappeared.
“I want to leave,” Daegon said after they left, and realized he was alone with the Guardian. He held out his hands as if looking for the talisman. “Now get me out of here, I need to leave, I cannot stay here.”
“You are where you belong. I will not and cannot help you out of here.”
“Why not?”
“You have been placed here as a sacrifice by Naemyn. Now that he has done so, Kronn will not release you from here.”
“So, I am to die here,” he stated.
“Not for quite some time, but yes, you will die on the day that you are relieved. Until then, you will live here as the Guardian of the Shard at the Catacombs.”
“What about you?”
The Guardian smiled. “There can only be one Guardian.”
“What will happen to you?”
“The elves have reserved a special place for me here in the catacombs, I will become a wraeth and wait for a time when the prophecy states that we will be released to return to our god Val-Eahea.”
“Then I will be here by myself?”
The Guardian looked at him as if to say, what did you expect, but instead said, “It is not as bad as it seems. Not only will you have books to read, you will learn how Kronn works, and how Wrae magic works, and how the two are polar opposites, yet attract and need each other to survive. You will also hear tales from some that enter the catacombs, and you will learn from the wraeths that visit you from time to time, especially during the Markenhirth extension. It is not without its surprises.”
“What do we do now?”
The Guardian turned around, walked to wall opposite side of the river, near his table, and grabbed a stone cup off of a carved out shelf imbedded into the rock wall. He walked to the river, threw the cup into it, and within seconds it reappeared in his hands full of the water. He walked back and handed Daegon the cup.
“Drink from the cup and tell me your name.”
Daegon looked curiously at the water in the cup. The liquid inside had the substance of water, but it was streaked with blue, orange, and purple ribbons. He inhaled deeply and the ribbons lifted out of the cup and into his nose. He then raised the cup to his lips and drank.
“My name is Daegon.”
“My name is Rogeuin the Everlasting, and you are now Daegon the Everlasting, the first non-elf Guardian of all of time.”
Then the Guardian smiled, and changed into a purple mist that held his form for a few more seconds, and then became a wraeth as he drifted towards the river, lowering into it where he became one with the water and disappeared downstream.
Daegon watched him go. He felt no less human than he did before he drank the liquid, but he did have a sense of peace about his predicament. He no longer felt a deep hatred of the elves. He did not particularly feel a love for them either, but war and hate was no longer in his heart.
Feeling oddly satisfied, he looked up to the ceiling and saw no top to the cavern, but only black sky with a brightly shining star where he had just fallen through. He wondered which one of his great grandchildren would be the next one to fall through, and what would he say or do when that time came.
Chapter 26
Moving over two thousand men through the thick-forested tangle proved to be harder than Voll could have ever imagined. He would not have been able to do it without the help of Daegon’s other top commanders. They traveled north along the road as long as they dared, but the commanders talked him into proceeding off the path and into the tangle after the scouts reported having seen traces of the elves, and suspecting that they were watching their advance.
Voll
’s scouts said that they first noticed movement in the trees, but when they looked up, they admitted to only seeing large, broken spider webs hanging down from the limbs. They never once saw any elves, but all in the scouting party admitted that they heard abnormal movement.
“If the elves are in the forest and watching us, why would we leave the road, and into unknown territory that only they know best?” Voll asked.
“I know commander, it may sound like the wrong thing to do to you, but Daegon would take action, by using the forest as cover,” Commander Urish said.
Commander Urish was once the leader of Daegon’s rival tribes. Since his tribe was the first to align with Daegon, he was rewarded with the highest command under him by making him commander of all of the rival tribes that followed thereafter. Commander Urish knew Daegon’s tactics better than anyone as he had seen Daegon on both sides of the battlefield.
“We will end up spreading out our force,” Voll protested.
“That is not necessarily a bad thing. Our scouts have not been able to draw out the elves, but a large force might, and if they do, then we will know where they are, and as long as we keep the distance between us short, we can easily strike them with the remainder of the force.”
“Or they can hit and run us all day long, as we have done to them in the past.”
“I will not let that happen. Let me lead the forward force with a few horses and archers flanked by light spearmen and two companies of infantry. Let me do this and I will draw them out to a fight.”
Voll agreed to the plan, but told him that they would keep a few companies on the road, for flanking security, along with a company farther down the road to provide a rear guard. If there were to be any fighting it would be farther north, and he insisted that he would ride with Commander Urish. To which Commander Urish protested, stating that they do not need to have two commanders together, so Voll acquiesced and agreed to let the commander lead. They traveled for most of the day amongst the forest keeping out of the thickest tangle so as not to become trapped and boxed in.
The thick forest frustrated the scouts at every turn as they navigated through the forest when they could and switching back to the road when they hand to. This caused for even slower movement, as they had to twist, turn, and backtrack through and around numerous draws and spurs. Large sentinel pine trees towered into the sky in large clumps, sometimes so tightly that not even a small boy could fit between the openings. The ground foliage also prevented travel as large horse sized ferns and bushes crowed the hillsides around the trees.
The sun began to set and cast dark shadows upon them through the thick canopy when Voll heard shouts. He turned on his mount and shouted at his men to be prepared for battle. He listened and waited, but the longer he did, he realized he was losing the morale of his men, for the sounds they were hearing were not the sounds of battle, but the sounds of fear, death and destruction of his men and horse.
The dying horses set off some of the worse sounds he had ever heard as they nickered and screamed just as loud, if not louder than the men. He knew if he waited any longer, his men might be paralyzed with fear, and would lose confidence in their fighting abilities.
“Follow me up this spur, we will come around the top of the hill and pin them between Commander Urish’s men!” Voll shouted, not certain if that is how it would work, but he could only hope.
He kicked his horse to charge up the small hill that rounded around the draw. His twenty mounted archers followed while the spear and infantry ran behind them just below the tip of the spur on the backside of where the sounds were coming from. The closer they came to the battle, the more they could hear the men screaming in fear and agony as they approached. What could cause that much fear, Voll wondered as he crested the hill and looked down into a valley.
As he rolled over the top, he could not believe his eyes. The hill where they stood upon did indeed provide higher ground against the elves, but the elves had Commander Urish pinned in a large deep crevice. In the ravine attacking his men were swarms of spiders large and small. Large spiders attacked the men one at a time, while some men were being consumed and covered by hundreds of smaller spiders.
Elven archers, in dark green and black leaf patterned leather armor surrounded them on three sides of the upper edge of the ridgeline. Only the northern side remained uncovered as that side of the depression ended in a solid cliff face that made traversing impossible. In between every archer was another elf kneeling with large buckets on their backs filled with long 4-foot arrows that had large black bulbous arrowheads.
The archers nocked, set, and loosed each arrow at a rapid pace, and as soon as the arrows hit their mark, the black arrowheads turned into large spiders. Whether it was a human target or just on the ground nearby, the spiders were released from the arrow and attacked the humans. If the arrow hit the human directly, the spiders came to life inside the body cavity, and worked their way out of the body climbing out of their throats or ripping their way out through their chests.
The elves shot arrows that had different types of spiders that were magically sealed within the arrowhead. While some were aimed directly at the warriors, others were shot into the air and exploded into a webbed air assault of thousands of the smaller spiders dropping down upon their prey, biting them, poisoning and killing them in a painful, but quick death. The warriors that found themselves covered in these little black spiders ran in confusion, their skin turning purple, and the veins in their face turning black.
Voll witnessed all of this confusion, and none of it he would consider a battle, but rather a tortured slaughter. Men ran in fear swatting their bodies and faces, while others tried to kill the spiders as they crawled on their fellow warriors, and others died grisly deaths as the spiders climbed their way out of dead body cavities.
He had seen enough.
“Captain Droe, take one spear company and two archer companies to the north of both ridges and force the elves to the south of that ridge, from there we will meet them and either crush them or push them into that valley and see how they like that treatment.”
Captain Droe rode away barking orders. Voll could not stand there watching his men being slaughtered without doing something. He risked losing the morale of those able to fight. He had to act now, as the men that were witnessing the slaughter were more angry than fearful, so he thought to take advantage of that anger before it turned into fear.
The elves were so engrossed in their malicious spider butchery that Captain Droe took them by surprise. The elven archers began dropping from the barrage of arrows of Captain Droe’s cavalry. The first barrage came from his archers on foot followed by his cavalry as they rode along the ridge first taking out the elves, and then knocking the remaining elves off of the ledge with the horses as they powered through their line.
By the time the spearmen came up, there wasn’t much left along the ridge except for unarmed basket carriers whom most either jumped to avoid the charge or fell to their stomachs to avoid the spears. After the ridge was mostly cleared, the spearmen dropped their spears, unsheathed their short swords, and fought back the remaining elves on the ledge.
Once Voll realized that the tide of the battle had turned in his favor, he ordered the remainder of his force to hold tight while he went to regroup the rest of the force. When he returned, he was met with a new force. This new opposition must have been alerted to Captain Droe’s attack and had come out of hiding for support.
They charged towards Voll’s warriors on horses with lances and swords. Voll yelled at his cavalry and speared infantry to charge into the fray, which they did, quickly and obediently. He was actually surprised at just how obedient they had been, and it gave him a small sample as to the power that Commander Daegon held.
The elves and humans crashed at each other wit
h a loud clash of sword and shield. Horses nickered, reared up, and died under the human spears, causing the elves to fall off of their horses and succumb to the brutality of the human swords. A few were able to recoup in enough time to take to the fight on foot. Voll continued to monitor the battle and bark orders to his sub commanders who followed each command flawlessly.
During the battle, he also noticed a group of elves on the northern side of the ravine monitoring the battle. These elves looked to be the commanders. They wore the same green and black armor, but he noticed their banner was the same as their shields that were strapped to the side of their mounts. When he studied the banner, the style of this attack made sense. It was a large black spider with all eight legs touching the edges of the standard on a dark green field with a black cross background.
Then he heard a voice inside his head. A voice he recognized as eerily familiar, and a voice he was neither receptive to right now, nor immediately discarded. It was Aegyn, and she flew directly overhead surveying the battle, causing almost everyone to stop fighting if only for a few seconds to see what it was. Fearing their death by the distraction, they refocused on the battle, forsaking the danger from above.
“Help me Aegyn,” Voll asked.
“I have told you before that I will not hurt the elves.”
“Then help me without directly hurting them.”
“How?”
“See those elves over there,” he said pointing to the commanders on the northern side. “Get them to lead their forces into that ravine.”
“I am not sure if I should.”
“Aegyn, do this…please, for me.”
Voll did not wait to see if she would help him, but he barked orders to another company of archers and infantry to follow him to the western side to outflank the elves on the north and west. He noticed that Aegyn flew away to the west and did not return. It did not matter, he felt the tide was turning in their favor and he needed to push harder to route the elves. He wanted to do nothing more than give these elves a taste of their own medicine by trapping them in the ravine.
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