The Staff of Sakatha (8 page)

“You should just tell Thorius that,” said Sorus. “I’m sure if he knew he wouldn’t be so dismissive towards you.”

“I’m to talk to the First Rider about it and the First Rider only,” said Jon. “My father was very clear on the subject. Those old relics, when you hold them in your hand, when you taste the power they carry, they can corrupt you,” said Jon and his eyes grew dark and cold and his hand clenched at his side. “It isn’t easy to fight off that sort of temptation, that sort of power.”

“Have you held them in your hand?” asked Sorus his voice almost a whisper.

“The Gray Horn and … the Black Sword, Banisher,” said Jon as his body suddenly trembled and a haunted look came to his eyes.

“What are they?” said Sorus, his voice became quieter if anything.

Jon suddenly shook his head and laughed out loud, “Enough of this talk, Sorus the future knight of Elekargul,” he said and clapped the boy on the back. “I hope you brought a small keg of your finest for the journey and my belly rumbles like I haven’t eaten in week.” He spurred his horse which leapt off in a gallop and he called out to the riders far ahead, “Sir Germanius, Mikus, my belly tells me we must stop for lunch!”

Sorus spurred his own steed and quickly caught up with the others as they settled on a spot where a small creek flowed into the Frosty Run River. Nearby bunches of purple flowers interspersed with green grass dotted the landscape and Jon spotted several small gray rabbits that nibbled on the bounty.

“What sort of flower is that?” he asked no one in particular, as he and Sorus unpacked two of the horses, while Germanius filled a kettle with stream water and Mikus gathered wood for a fire.

“Those,” said Sorus as he pointed to the purple bunches. “They call them Aubrieta I think, my mom likes them. They grow around here a lot, near creeks. Why do you ask?”

“No reason,” said Jon. “My mother is always telling me that it’s important to know the animals and plants of a region.”

“You have a mother?” said Sorus and laughed aloud. “You talk about that father of yours so much I figured maybe you dropped from the sky or something.”

“No,” laughed Jon. “I guess I don’t talk about her as much, but I think about her a lot.”

“I feel sorry for the poor woman,” said Mikus who returned with an armload of wood and caught the tail end of the conversation. “Having to give birth to a boy with that giant of a head must have been a traumatic experience.”

“You don’t know the half of it, Mikus,” said Jon as he got up to help dig out a small fire pit. “I’m a twin.”

“There’s two of you?” asked Mikus and shook his head in disbelief, “I can’t believe a woman could survive such a birthing.”

“My sister is not as big as me,” said Jon, “she only comes up to here,” he said pointing to his lips.

Sorus, knew his own height of six feet and realized the girl was half a foot taller yet. “Yeah, a real shorty I bet.”

Jon laughed, “She always complains there aren’t enough tall boys in the world but I don’t think she means it. She loves to fight more than me and is already a gray captain.”

“Aren’t you a captain in your army,” said Mikus as he turned to face Jon.

Jon shook his head sadly, “My commander says I have to learn discipline before I can be a captain. I think he’s still mad about me and his daughter.”

“I don’t even want to know,” said Mikus as they put the kindling in a pile and the young squire began to scape his knife over a metal plate, which instantly produced a shower of sparks that caught light to the kindling, and soon a roaring little blaze was going.

“Those rabbits good eating?” said Jon with a motion of his head to the bunnies that romped all over the field.

“Three Maria’s,” said Sorus with a grin. “I don’t know why they call them that but they’re fine eating. They’re all over the foothills like this,” he went on. “There’s another kind too called Mountain Rabbits that are a little bigger with big white tails. We’ll bag a few this afternoon after lunch if you want to try them. Do you have rabbits up north in Tanelorn?”

Jon smiled, “I don’t think there’s anywhere with rabbits. Speaking of rabbits do you have gnolls down here,” he continued.

“I’ve heard of them,” said Mikus. “Great hairy beasts, ten feet tall and they like to laugh in this crazy way, right?”

“They are big and they are hairy but I don’t know about ten feet tall,” said Jon, “at least not where I’m from anyway. We have an expression up in Tanelorn that the bunnies made me think about. Rabbits breed like gnolls!”

“There must be a lot of them then,” said Mikus with a smile. “How come they don’t just overrun Tanelorn?”

“I fought a dog-man once,” Germanius rumbled up from the depths as he stirred some vegetables into the water not yet aboil. “Not much bigger than Jon there,” he went on, “but a wild creature he was, he fought with an obsidian blade, the stone swords are sharp but brittle. He smashed it against my shield and near broke my arm but I managed to best him in the end.”

“Where was this?” asked Jon.

“Eh?” said Germanius as he went back to the vegetables.

“Where … did … this happen?” Jon said in a loud voice.

“No need to yell,” said Germanius and then gave Jon a wink. “The old man is only mostly deaf, not completely.”

At this all three of the youngsters laughed aloud and Sorus urged the old knight to continue, “Come on Sir Germanius, tell us the story.”

“You youngsters always humoring an old knight,” said Germanius with a smile as he attended to their lunch with great diligence. “It was well west of here, in the territories of the orcs, Grelm it is now, but before that it was something else, I can’t remember. I couldn’t have been much more than twenty or so years old. There were reports that the old masters were stirring and me and some of the fellows went into the orc lands looking for any them.”

“Old masters?” whispered Jon to Sorus who replied with a nod of his head.

“I’ll tell you about them another time. Brutus Brokenhand was their slave and he escaped and founded Elekargul,” said Sorus and turned his attention back to the old man who himself had paused in his story for a brief moment to fish out a small onion and pop it into his mouth.

“I think it was Torrentius Oldhill watched the camp that night when we was attacked,” said Germanius. “He was mostly hobgoblin old Torrentius, he leapt in front of them ambushers and was near chopped in half by the dog-man but held them off long enough for the rest of us to get up. It was quite a scramble I can tell you that. At one point one of them, a little fellow, goblin or some such, jabbed a dagger right up my arse. Now boys,” said the old warrior, “let me tell you straight, don’t ever let a goblin feller jab his dagger up there unless you’re fond of screaming like a little girl every time you take a crap for the next month.”

The three young men burst into laughter, Jon and Sorus clutched each other, tears streaming down their faces, and Mikus rolled around on the ground so much so that he put the tail edge of his leather jerkin into the fire and had to throw it off and stomp it out, which led to more merriment.

After everyone finally settled down Germanius continued his story, “The way that dog fella laughed was enough to chill the bones, sorta half a laugh, half a scream, and a little something else as well. I stuck my sword in his eye and that was that, but we had to bury poor Torrentius in the morning,” finished Germanius and this sobered the boys a great deal.

“He died a hero though,” said Mikus. “I mean he saved the rest of you from getting ambushed in camp.”

Germanius nodded his head in agreement, “Every day I’m alive is because of that,” he said. “I had forgotten about that until you mentioned gnolls,” he went on. “There’s quite a number of good fellas in their grave instead of me. Sometimes I wonder if the Black Horse wanted it that way or whether it’s just the fate of things.”

“Tell me about the Black Horse. I don’t know much about your religious beliefs,” said Jon with a look to Sorus.

Sorus thought for a moment as Germanius poured the hot water off through a strainer and began to dish out piles of vegetables; carrots, onions, cauliflowers that set off a cloud of steam, onto tin plates and passed them to the boys. “The Black Horse is sort of a god to us here in Elekargul but also sort of just a thing to say. Nobody really prays to it and it doesn’t really give bounties to priests or anything,” said Sorus between bites. “We just sort of talk about him and go about our business.”

“It’s like that in Tanelorn, everyone who settles there comes from somewhere else so they all worship different gods, there isn’t anything really common to the gray city,” said Jon and gobbled down his own food in great bites. “My father doesn’t worship any gods at all but some of the gray druids are very religious.”

“Doesn’t worship any gods at all?” said Mikus.

Jon shook his head, “Nope. He says that it’s up to a man to make his own way in life and that anyone who prays for guidance is just fooling themselves.”

“That’s pretty raw,” said Mikus. “I know a lot of men who’d have something to say about that.”

Jon shrugged his shoulders, “That’s my dad. He says what he wants, or at least he used to.”

“Getting soft as he gets older?” said Sorus with a look at his friend, concern in his eyes.

Jon paused the shovel like motion and stared at Sorus for a long minute before he replied, “I don’t know. Right before I left to come here he told me that a nation … what was it … a nation without heroes is a nation run by thugs.”

“What does that mean?” said Mikus and looked at Jon who shrugged his shoulders but Germanius nodded his head and put his hand to his sword hilt.

“It means that ambitious, strong men of action drive a nation, and if those men aren’t heroes then the thugs take over. The only ones who can stop self-interested bastards are the heroes,” he said and stomped his foot. “By the balls of the Black Horse I’d like to meet your father Jon, but I’m too old, too weak. You’ll just have to act like him and I’ll settle for that.”

Jon looked down at his plate for a few seconds, “Big boots you’re asking me to fill Germanius, I’m not sure I’m up to the task.”

“Paint my left leg black and call me a zebra boy,” said Germanius and walked over to Jon and put his hand on Jon’s shoulder. “It’s the thugs that are sure they’re right, they don’t doubt their capabilities. It’s the heroes that worry if they can do it. That’s what stops heroes and lets the scoundrels into the barn. Get off your arse and start acting like a man.”

“You sound like my father,” said Jon and put his own hand on the old warrior’s shoulder.

“I’m getting all weepy here,” said Sorus and put his arms around Mikus as the two young boys began to sob into one another’s shoulders.

“Okay, okay,” said Jon his arm still around Germanius. “I get it. Let me tell you all about what might be up in those hills. You too, Mikus. You’re father doesn’t much like me.” Mikus began to say something but Jon raised his hand and shook his head, “No, no, Mikus. He doesn’t much like me but that doesn’t mean I hold you responsible for the way he thinks. Actually, a lot of people don’t much like me. I’m a spoiled rich kid whose had everything in life go his way and sometimes I get a little full of myself,” he went on.

“A litte?” said Sorus.

“I’m baring my soul here,” said Jon, “and this is what I get?”

“You’ve got a thin hide for someone with such a thick head,” replied Sorus with a smile and Jon laughed.

“Fair enough, Sorus,” said the massive young knight of gray. “Mikus, you’re part of the team and that means you get to hear everything. You can make your own judgment about me. Does that sound about right?”

Mikus nodded his head and remained silent.

“I’m here looking for something called the Staff of Sakatha,” said Jon, “and I when I came over the Mountains of the Orc I spotted a strange mark on a rock up near the peak. It reminded me something my father said about the staff. I’m not getting anything done in town waiting for the First Rider so I thought now was the time to act.”

“That’s the boy,” said Germanius with a nod of his grizzled head. “You can’t wait for somebody else to be a hero.”

“I don’t know about all that old man,” said Jon with a smile on his face, “but I aim to figure out what that thing up on the mountain was and if the First Rider cares to join us then maybe we’ll let him have some of the glory!”

“Let him suck the blister juice off our feet,” said Germanius. “Ours is the glory!”

“Wahoo!” shouted Mikus.

“Who’s going to clean the plates,” said Jon his eyebrows raised.

“Being a hero is sometimes pretty unheroic,” said Sorus, grabbing the plate from Jon’s hand, and walking towards the creek.

“I’ll help,” said Mikus, with a laugh as Jon poured cool water on the fire and began to stomp at it while Germanius limped slowly over to the horses and began to pack up some of the equipment.

They reached the foothills of the Mountains of the Orc that night, but the main trail lay further to the north, so they stopped and camped near a small creek that meandered out of the hills and towards the Frosty Run behind them. Even though it was only their first night together they already seemed to have established a routine as Mikus gathered firewood, Jon and Sorus took care to set up camp, and old man Germanius brushed down the horses and prepared them for the long night.

“Should we let the horses run,” said Jon over his shoulder to Germanius who hobbled the horses with a length of rope.

“Not this close to the mountains,” said the old soldier, suddenly able to hear again apparently thanks to the daylong activity. “Strange critters roam these hills, you’re lucky you didn’t face off agin one on your way over the mountain.”

“I saw a big bear or something one night,” said Jon and walked over to the old man and helped hobble the last horse. “It growled pretty loud but I guess it wasn’t much interested in a tussle.”

“Bears won’t bother ya much unless you’re travelin’ with a lass,” said Germanius. “Them bears can sniff a woman’s blooding from a mile or more away. Then they come’s and kill’s you and leaves the girl as she was. I seen it happen.”

“Really?” said Jon and patted the old man on the back. “I’ll remember to tell my sister that when I get back to Tanelorn. If I ever get back.”