A Warrior's Redemption (The Warrior Kind) (25 page)

Chapter Thirteen

Bloodletting

I stood beside Flin in the cold early light of dawn. My hands were busy checking that the saddle was on right, while my mind was focused on the journey ahead.

It had been a week since my discussion with Thaddeus. I thought back over the discussion I’d had with him. I didn’t like the task that I had before me to do. I remembered what Thaddeus had told me in the hidden room and now more than ever I felt that the ancestral knowledge should be de
stroyed, but I wished that there was a better way.

He had given me instructions, as to where to find the se
cret hiding place of the real ancestral artifacts, but there was one problem with that. I had never really traveled in the Attorgron forests much, especially not the area of the forest that he was sending me to and I told him as much. Without a guide or a basic familiarity with the land it would be very easy to get lost in the jungle like habitat of the forest.

He had told me, “Father John will be your guide. He knows the area well enough having been born and raised there for part of his childhood. We’ll keep your party small so as not to attract undue attention. I doubt you should run
into any trouble providing of course that you can avoid the natives.”

Besides destroying the knowledge Thaddeus had laid one more task onto my shoulders that he had said was almost as vital as destroying the knowledge. After destroying the knowledge was complete he wanted me to travel down through the forest to Santarus and pick up information there from a trusted spy contact of his.

The information the spy had apparently contained details concerning the Zoarinian Empire’s invasion plan, which was unlikely to be tainted with misinformation like the other spy’s intelligence had been. At least that is what Thaddeus had said.

I didn’t like the extra excursion, because it involved ex
posing ourselves to the enemy far more than the original smash and dash plan had. Our extraction involved going through Zoarinian held territory, which I was not overly fond of either, but if the information helped us win the war it would be worth it. At least I hoped so.

Coming back to reality I made sure that I had Thaddeus’s letter to his spy contact. Letter was a small word for it, for all intensive purposes it appeared to be a two hundred year old book complete with musty stained pages.

Thaddeus got a bit too much into the whole spy/intrigue thing I thought to myself
. But then he had managed to keep the family secrets safe during his watch over them. Now it was up to me to finish it.

There were only going to be five of us on the expedition, Father John, Seth, two of my grandfathers trusted men at arms and myself. I would have preferred a party made up entirely of my men, but all of my men were busy improving the fighting abilities of the castle’s fighting men and couldn’t be spared from that task easily.

The only reason Seth was going was because he was useless as a teacher and he had insisted on going so repeatedly that I had finally given in. Father John hadn’t seemed overly excited one way or the other, when I told him that he was to accompany us.

He was a hard man to read. I had detected that he and my grandfather were not too keen on each other, even though my grandfather had raised him from boyhood as a son. Pulling myself up into the saddle I headed for the side gate as I was followed by my four companions.

We left the castle quietly not wanting to attract any attention, as we made our way through the early morning mists out into the wide valley beyond. I drew Flin up briefly to look back the way we had come. The castle was breath taking with the morning light cascading down upon it.

I had only been here a few weeks and yet it already felt like home to me. I hated to leave its calm assurance and beauty and go back into the world and the troubles I had left behind me there, but it had to be done. I pulled Flin back around and let Father John take the point, as we started out on our journey out of the Valley Lands and towards the dark shadowed world of the Attorgron Forests.

The low arching branches of a Patna tree spread its large leaved foliage over the jumble of boulders that we lay con
cealed under. Nestled in and amongst the boulders we were all but invisible to the people in the clearing beyond. I wished we were invisible to the bugs too.

They swarmed around us in clouds of stinging annoyance. The insects were just one more item to add to the long list of things that I hated about this forest. I did have to admit though that my grandfather’s hiding place for the knowledge of our ancestors had been ingenious if not downright brilliant. Of all the places to hide something that countless people were turning over rocks left and right to find this had to be the best and least expected option, as well as one of the more deadly. In this unlikely clearing in the midst of the forest lay several crude wooden hovels. At the one end of the clearing was an uprising of stone from the forest floor. Its summit barely cleared the canopy of the surrounding forest. It was covered in vegetation, but it was obvious that the stony monument was of human construction and of a very old origin at that.

The peoples that had migrated to these forests long ago had been very skillful, as well as sophisticated. However in the deep dark areas of the forest the darkness and solitude of the forest overcame them and ignorance took root, until all that was left was this smattering of crude wooden shelters that housed a people, who preyed upon their own kind.

Cannibals. Within walking distance of the greatness of their ancestor’s architectural accomplishments the descendents lived out their lives in squalid barbaric conditions, a mere shadow of their former glory.

This northern most area of the Attorgron Forest was avoided by all because of the savagery of the barbarian peoples who roamed through it. Though fierce and warlike as a people their primary method of attack was by sneaking up on their victims and ambushing them.

Their primary weapon was the poison tipped darts they blew from long ornamented blow guns, which seemed to be their one technological accomplishment as a society. They were completely devoid of mercy.

They had one weakness though, which I intended to exploit as had my grandfather. They were a superstitious people. We lay uncomfortably in the concealment of the boulders waiting for night to come, while being bit and gnawed upon by the millions of insects that this forest was infested with. Patience against the torment came somewhat easily, as the fear of being noticed by the savages could lead to something altogether worse than a bug bite and some itching.

Steadily the day wore on until dark shadows hung over the clearing. The darkness of the night soon followed. Fires from the native village blazed forth lighting the night sky up, echoing the need by even these heartless savages to keep the darkness partially at bay at least superficially.

The natives had begun to dance and shuffle around the flickering fires worshipfully chanting as they did so to their latest superstitious thraw of the moment. Suddenly a whoosh of noise punctuated the chanting sounds the natives were making, which was underscored by corresponding showers of sparks breaking off into the air from the large ceremonial fires.

Soon puffs of smoke plumed up from their fires and their chants came to a sudden halt as the fires they were thronged around extinguished abruptly into grey clouds of smoke.

Fearful murmuring took over at the strangeness of the event. Suddenly a loud pop could be heard followed by a bright streak of white light rising above the canopy of the forest, which exploded with a deafening crack like thunder above the clearing.

A thousand sparks tinged with blue and white burned briefly in the night sky. Some of the natives screamed out in fear, but most were held motionless in a speechless terror. In the dark stillness after the burst of sparks in the night sky five hooded figures marched out in a phalanx formation from the surrounding forest.

Each figure was clothed in a shimmery blue robe with a silver mask over the face that resembled an eagle’s face. In their right hand each figure held a torch that blazed forth with a green flickering flame.

The natives drew back in terror and fell to the ground in homage of the manlike eagle beings with the green flaming torches.

Passing through the camp the eagle beings headed for the decaying stone structure at the edge of the clearing. The last two figures on the wings of the formation peeled off and turned to face the groveling natives.

The natives stared in mute terror from their prostrated positions on the ground as the remaining three figures walked through what appeared to be a solid rock wall. As they disappeared within the stone structure the villagers howled in dread at the supernatural sight and commenced to moan fearfully as they lay on the ground.

I took my mask off grateful that I was now able to scratch the bites on my neck once more. The scratching gave only a brief moments respite from the itchiness. Turning to Seth I laughed upon seeing him. Being the nut that he was he had taken some feathers he had found from somewhere and stuck them in the creases of his elbows and was moving his arms in the imitation of a chicken complete with the hopping.

I glanced at Father John and my laughter died as I noted his disapproving face. He hadn’t been happy about the whole eagle costume superstition idea. Oh well it had worked beautifully and it was far preferable to being in a cannibal’s cook pot.

Getting back to business I turned to the room we were in. It was devoid of ornamentation and was a singularly boring square of stone walled room in appearance. I stepped into the middle of the room and pressed my thumb to the gem of a ring that Thaddeus had given me.

The walls disappeared like curtains falling to the ground and we were surrounded by a gallery filled to the ceiling of strange and amazing items of every imaginable description. To say we were surprised by the foreign looking scene around us would have been putting it mildly. I had been un
der the impression that the repository of the ancestors was entirely made up of an extensive collection of books, not actual relics of the knowledge.

There were pathways through the jumble of artifacts, which we made our way through. Mesmerized by the treasures around me I was almost afraid to reach out and touch the strange inventions that littered the room from floor to ceiling.

Doubt began to rise in me that we were doing the right thing by destroying all of this. No doubt these inventions could be used to do great evil if they fell into the wrong hands, but think of the good that could come of using them. No doubt their existed in this room of wonders and inven
tions the key to all the problems our people were faced with.

The gallery was lit by devices such as the one I had seen in the room at Thunder Ridge. They seemed to be glowing brighter I thought as we moved deeper into the room. I could hear Seth exclaiming over the stuff around us excitedly and a quick glance showed that Father John was equally engrossed. I wanted to see where the brighter light led and so I separated from the others in pursuit of it.

Making my way around yet another pile of more priceless artifacts I saw where the brighter lights led to. There ahead of me was a circular area that was brightly lit up. It was not jumbled with artifacts as the rest of the gallery was. Five pedestals stood alone in the space, with each pedestal displaying a book upon it. The fifth pedestal was in the middle and its book was larger than the others.

I drew close and looked at the first book’s title, Matthew. I went to the surrounding pedestals and read the names, Mark, Luke and John. I had heard of the names. These were the four gospels authored by disciples of the Son of the Creator.

Excitement rose in my heart at the greatness of my discovery. What had Thaddeus said was wrong with these books? I carefully reached out and picked up the book near
est to me, which was the Book of John. Opening it I began to read.

I came to a verse that I had memorized by heart from off one of the walls of the chapel in Ta’arny and confusion rose within me as I read it. It was worded completely different then the scripture from the chapel, which made the meaning one gleaned from it different too. If this book was so badly off on the translation of just one verse how much else could it be off from the original manuscript by?

I saw the wisdom of my grandfather’s words and I closed the book and looked at the inside cover seeking to ascertain its origin, which my grandfather had said originated with the Zoarinians. In small black lettering that I almost missed at the bottom of the page it read, ‘The fully revised version of St. John, as interpreted by The Enlightenment Authority Order’. Enlightenment Authority Order? Feeling like my fingers were burning I put the book back on its pedestal.

“Isn’t it wonderful Roric to read the scriptures that speak of the tales of our Lord?”

Surprised I looked up and saw that Father John was holding and reading from the book entitled, Matthew.

“Is it wonderful?” I asked speculatively, watching him closely.

“Oh, yes Roric! How can you ask that when we’re hold
ing the complete story of our Lord’s life on Earth? These books
form the very essence of our belief!”

“Have you not noticed some inconsistencies in the text from that of the Holy Scriptures that we still do have?”

“Yes, I’ve noticed some but they are only minor ones. Such inconsistencies are within reason I believe. It’s to be expected in the translation of any book for the most part.”

“The Holy Scripture isn’t just any book Father John! It’s the Holy inerrant word of the Creator Himself, if it wasn’t so our faith would be completely baseless!”

John quickly agreed, “Of course you’re right Roric. There are too many inconsistencies for these books to be trusted I suppose.” He said as he continued to scan through the book in his hands.