Fate Rides Wicked: Volume I of the Lerilon Trilogy (31 page)

Reichet had come up behind Andri and placed his hand
on her shoulder. She turned and sheathed her axe, pulling
him close as they returned to camp. Long tense moments
passed.

Finally, Ofeldar said, “I’m in agreement on entering the
tangled mess that is Western Evil. How does everybody
else feel?”

Nobody responded. “I hope this means there are no
objections. If so, speak now, because it will be too late
tomorrow morning.”

Andri said, with dry eyes, “I’m sorry, Tych, the sight of
you brought back terrible memories. I’m confident with
your help and leadership we can make it through.”

“Then before we go to sleep, Lendril will explain the
riding formation that will serve us best. She designed it
and I think it will work.” The group gathered around and
kneeled to listen to the endarilan warrior.

Flandroke led the group and Ubilitare took the rear.
Between them, their job required keeping the horses calm
and at top speed. They also had to listen for a halt and
bring the steeds to a stop as quickly as possible without
having riders thrown. They knew every member of the
group appreciated the help they provided.

The group rode with Tych and Lendril in the front row,
the rest in six rows of three behind them. This old road cut
a wide swath through the trees and had grown from the
passage of the armies north. On the outside of each row
rode an archer, while those without bows took up the
middle area. The shortest members rode in the middle of
the lines with the humans in the front and back.

For a long nerve-wracking period, they rode through
complete darkness, the humans blind and the enchanted
races seeing only cold shapes. The muddy road dampened
the sound of their movement and no other signs of life
reached them. They all silently wished for at least evil life
to evidence itself.

Suddenly, their wish came true. Vilmar yelled for a
halt and the pemilons brought them to a careful halt. The
hiftnuvin archer had already fired before they stopped,
aiming almost straight up. A giant spider, as big as the
horses fell among them, only narrowly avoiding the riders
below it. Aquendar’s giant sword cleaved it in two as the
rest of the bows twanged, finding targets or branches and
not coming back down. Nine more of the giant spiders
thumped to the ground, only one uninjured and only three
alive.

For a moment, the road became mayhem with spiders
and men trying to maneuver around the corpses in the road
to get shots at each other. Nandel’s staff lit the road, and as
the thousand eyes of the spiders tried to adjust, the humans
and neftir leapt off their horses and impaled the last of the
arachnids.

Without hesitating or discussing it, everybody that had
dismounted climbed back into his or her saddles. The
pemilons led them through the bodies and they broke into a
dead run again, quickly taking formation. A new
confidence sprang up inside them, and they needed it as the
weight of the forest’s evil began to settle around them.

A brief moment of shock made Tych aware that he
could sense the thoughts and emotions of everybody in the
group. At first, they came in a rush, the stress of the
moment bringing on the ability. He tested the usage, seeing
if they detected his presence in their minds. Sir Xalt’s
mind reacted very strongly, with fear and anger. Tych tried
to plant soothing thoughts in his mind but failed as the
knight blocked him out. Still unaware that he now could
enter individual minds, he probed only the emotions of
Lendril, but she didn’t react. She almost jumped out of her
skin as he looked for thoughts.

Quickly, he tried to plant the words, “It is I, Tych. It
seems I can read minds and emotions.”

Lendril’s thoughts displayed disbelief, then she thought,
so he could read it,
See if you can affect the emotions of
those near panic in the group
.

For a while, Tych went around and around the group
checking for panic and calming those that quaked in fear.
Tiring from the strain of individual contact, he tried to send
out a universal emotion of confident comfort. All but the
three magicians and the more powerful warriors reacted to
it, but the unaffected didn’t need it.

For a tense, long period of time, they continued on in
silence, each member of the expedition getting better
control over their fear as they survived longer and longer.
Besides the spiders, they had faced no monsters even
slightly threatening. As they neared the middle of their
journey, however, all this changed.

Findra saw them first, their heat radiating from both
sides. The pemilons saw them too, but kept them moving.
Nobody yelled or called out, hoping they could be through
them before the creatures could stop them. The road
curved east for a moment and then back to a southern
course, and then it was too late.

They came to such a rapid halt that three of the horses
lost their footing and their riders, sliding into the forty or so
forangen blocking the road. The steeds knocked down
almost all of them but died at the hands of the evil pig-men.
The riders, Nandel, Buynar and Tendelbro, all felt fortunate
they fell off. The two columns on the outside of the
expedition let loose with arrows to the front side and back
as the surrounding woods let loose the army.

Tych placed a magic wall of ice in the road in front of
them, protecting that side. He then drew Gaylin and
stepped past the archers. The middle column had
dismounted and they alternately went to the left and the
right. Quez cast a light spell so the humans could see better
and Nandel and Blard let loose with highly destructive
spells, one to each side.

The thicket burned in many places as the archers
switched weapons and dismounted, joining the others in the
circle they formed. In only a few minutes, they had taken
up a defensive position and avoided direct conflict until
then. Now the waves came, two hundred from each side
and fifty from the north. Nandel stood behind the
hiftnuvin, casting spells over their heads and doing serious
damage to the oncoming forangen.

Reichet and Aquendar stepped forward from the group
and used their overpowering strength and huge weapons to
carve into the approaching forces. Sir Xalt, Loktaro and
Wiltev defended the northern side with Quez providing
occasional assistance. Blard sent dozens of their opponents
chasing illusionary ghosts through the woods and even
more died of heart attacks from unreal images he placed
before them.

Most present among the group, Tych swung his brightly
glowing blade with the fury of a man possessed by might.
He still had only limited control over his energy flow, and
he became more aggressive as it flowed through him.
Eventually, the power grew inside him until he became
dangerous to those around him. Recognizing this, he
stepped into the thicket and around to the front of the wall,
where he allowed himself to go into frenzy.

Gaylin sang with the food of evil energy being provided
by Tych’s effective blows. Soon the forangen all stayed
away, keeping two or three sword lengths distant from the
warrior. Letting the wall protect the expedition, he let the
involuntary release of energy the forangen brought out
cook every one in sight.

He just stood there, exhausted, Gaylin hanging loosely
in his hand still singing with the pleasure brought on by the
combat. He didn’t realize that the battle behind the wall
had ended and Nandel prepared to remove it. Only
Lendril’s hand and the infusion of strength that it gave him
allowed him to regain the ability to move and climb back
into his saddle. They gingerly stepped through the dead
horses and forangen and broke into the racing speed. The
three thrown riders shared with the hiftnuvin, since they
took very little room on their horses to begin with.

Darkness returned as they left the magically lit area of
the road and looked to remove themselves from this lost
land. The light of the end of the ride could be seen a mile
off when Sir Xalt pulled his horse to a stop. The pemilons
sensed this and slowed down.

“What is it Sir Xalt?” asked Lendril.

“Hell steeds and their riders are gaining fast on us.
They’ll catch us before we reach the end.” The entire
expedition looked past the knight and saw the flame licking
from the nostrils of the beasts, the red glow of their rider’s
eyes also visible. “Hell steed riders are undead and I have
the power to send them back to the grave. They’ll respect
my power and stay away.”

Tych asked, “What do you think we should do?”

“Aquendar and Lendril stay with me. The rest of you
go on. If I can’t stop them with the power of my god, then
nothing will. I must show myself, present my holy sword
and my religion’s symbol and discourage them from
continuing.”

Tych turned his horse to the south. Aquendar and
Lendril went to a position just behind the knight and the
rest of the expedition raced off towards the freedom of
Quel. The hell steeds pulled up, as they got closer.

Sir Xalt bowed his head for a moment, then in a
booming voice he called out, “Halt and go no farther south,
for I will surely destroy you with the hand of Frentera, god
of the sky and the elements.” He held up his sword and for
the first time Lendril and Aquendar saw it glow. A dark
spot formed on the side facing the creatures in the shape of
a lightning bolt.

The six steeds hesitated, breathed fire from their
nostrils again and began to back off. One of the riders,
however, became bold and charged. With quick strokes the
knight drew a lightning bolt in the air. It flew on its own
accord at the onrushing attacker and struck it, wrapping
around the beast. Like a lamp going out, both rider and
steed shrank to nothing and winked out of existence. The
other hell steeds turned and fled to the north.

Sir Xalt sheathed his sword, turned and spurred his
horse down the road. The two other warriors followed.
Both wondered about what their role had been in the last
few minutes.

In ten minutes they reached the light of late day, in the
green, grassy hills of Quel, the most southwestern kingdom
on Li. The rest of the expedition had dismounted a few
hundred yards from the exit from the kingdom and lay on
the ground breathing in the air in relief and joy. The other
three joined them.

As they took off their boots and helmets, Aquendar
turned to Sir Xalt and asked, “Why did you need us?”

“You are the two most pure people in the group and I
drew off of that to produce the power which turned them
back. You should be honored but the others should not be
insulted.”

Too tired to talk anymore, the conversation ended there.
The natural darkness of the night felt good to them and they
slept deeply.

They rode across a windswept prairie in the baking sun.
The air tugged and pulled at their cloaks and capes and they
looked like leaves rolling in the wind. No soldiers rode out
of the villages to stop them and the farmers went about
their work as if the expedition didn’t exist. Night fell
before they reached Quelak and they made camp at the top
of a hill. As the sun went down in the east, they could see
the lights of the capital glowing against the distant horizon.

Tych had decided they had been too unnoticed, so he
called a conference of the expedition to discuss the way
they had been received. “I don’t understand why, in a
kingdom bordering on Western Evil, we haven’t been
challenged in the least. Even in the northern kingdoms
squads came out to meet us.”

Quez, the only thrandril in the group, knew the answer.
“It is because of my village, Greenhaven. Quel has an
army, camped peacefully in the coastal cities. My village
has an agreement with Quel to magically prevent any evil
creatures from leaving the area to the north.”

“I am familiar with the agreement. Does it work well
enough that they need no protection at all from the jungle?”

“So far, no problems have surfaced but the lack of trust
by the other kingdoms. They think Quel is strange for
making pacts with the ‘devil races’. With the isolation of
Quel, however, this hasn’t been a problem.”

This seemed to satisfy the two endarils and they turned
to other matters. Tych’s mind would race that night with
how to put this new strategic information about Quel to
good use.

The expedition crested the hill above Quelak early the
next morning. The city spread out before them all the way
to the ocean in the distance. The smell and noise of a busy,
bustling coastal city wafted over the group on a light sea
breeze. To the northwest of the expedition sat a modest
castle with half a dozen spires and towers. The pemilons
vanished and the expedition trotted down towards the city.

They almost immediately found themselves on a road
between the houses on the outskirt of the city. People had
to press themselves against the buildings to get out of the
way of the horses, because of the street width. As they
moved more and more into the city, it began to increase in
size and shops began appearing on each side. The smells
became stronger and now the hooves of the horses clattered
on cobblestones.

In due time they came to a very wide street. Looking
up it to the north, they saw the large gates to the castle. At
this point, Sir Xalt called out “Halt!” The group stopped
and looked at him quizzically. “Some of them aren’t
wearing any clothing!” he said with a look of surprise.

“I realize it isn’t a normal pattern for humans,”
responded Quez, “but you’ll see a lot of it here and in
Greenhaven. It’s part of their culture, since they’re down
here in the south. Does it bother you?”

“Forget I mentioned it.” Some chuckled, others
blushed, but the whole expedition turned up the road to the
castle.