The Wizard and the Warlord (The Wardstone Trilogy Book Three) (32 page)

“The Queen Mother will retire to the Arborhaven,” the announcer spoke over the murmurs. “When she has reached a decision on the matter, we will reconvene.”

A moment later, as the gathered elves were dispersing back into the forest, a statement was overheard by some. It came from the Hardwoods gathered at the clearing’s edge.

“This wouldn’t be happening if a Hardwood sat on the throne.”

Several gasps followed, and more than one grunt of agreement.

***

“Ouch!” Dostin yelped as Hyden used tiny rays of magical energy to trim away the dead flesh from around the monk’s earholes. “That hurts, Hyden Hawk,” he whined. The sadness he felt at not being recognized by Lady Telgra was palpable. Corva was speechless. Even knowing she had lost her memory didn’t prepare him for the total lack of recognition. The words of Lady Trella hadn’t fully described the situation. Corva figured that Telgra might not have remembered the storm, or the horrible death of her father. He never expected her to draw a blank for her entire life.

Telgra sat at the fire not far from Dostin, studying him curiously. He had asked her a hundred questions about the time they shared at the fiery tree grove. The only thing she remembered was the dream she’d had about the red priest, the demons, and Phen.

Dostin wanted desperately to rekindle their friendship. It was clear that he was disturbed. She answered him politely and understood completely how she could have liked him so much. He was simple, but thoroughly sincere.

“How did you find the statue man?” Dostin asked.

“He’s called Marble Boy,” Hyden said with a chuckle.

“His name is Phen,” Telgra corrected both of them. Spike let out a little growl from her lap.

“He and Master Oarly found me in the marshes.” Telgra shifted herself as she answered him.

“The dwarf smells like Father Shaw’s goats,” Dostin observed, causing a laugh from all who heard.

Telgra had gone over the story half a dozen times, trying to ease the frightened monk’s confusion. Knowing that he had nearly frozen to death, lost an ear and parts of his fingers because he was concerned for her, was unnerving. She was endeared to him, though, and she handled his questions with an enormous amount of patience.

It was getting late in the afternoon and the others were chopping and wrapping the meat from a big cow elk that the wolves had killed. They had returned earlier, all wiggling and excited, with bloody muscles and a few limps amongst them. Borg had taken Jicks, Krey, and three horses over the ridge to haul it back. Those who weren’t involved in the bloody work - Phen, Oarly and Corva -were on the far side of the fire discussing the storm that had washed them into the marsh.

“What I wouldn’t give for the warmth of that swamp,” Oarly said. He was too drunk to stutter or shiver, and was speaking quite loudly.

Phen patted him on the shoulder. He urged Talon, who was the exact same marbly shade of white, from his shoulder to his wrist. He went over to watch Hyden work on Dostin’s ear. Borg had promised a warm and dry place to study in Afdeon, but the giant hinted that they wouldn’t want to sit around reading books after they got a few days’ rest. The giant wouldn’t elaborate, even when Phen questioned him about it. Borg had far less patience for being questioned than Princess Telgra did.

“Where is it we are going after we leave the Leif Repline, and what’s this place Borg calls the Wedjak?” Phen asked Hyden as he took a seat next to Telgra.

“I’m not sure what it is,” Hyden answered as he worked intently on Dostin’s mangled ear. “But …” He held his tongue out the side of his mouth and did something that made Dostin wiggle and whine. “…it’s called the Tokamak-Verge. The Wedjak is the old word for ‘wild place’.” Hyden scratched his head and looked at Phen for a moment. “My father, in his youthful roamings, once traded with a group of men from the Wedjak. He said they were brown-skinned with strange hair colored blue, red, and green. They were savage, yet willing to negotiate for furs and meat. They all agreed to gather again the next year in the same place, but the strange people never returned.”

“What did they have to trade for your furs and meat?” Telgra asked.

“Wardstone,” Hyden answered.

“Maybe Xwarda isn’t the only place where there is Wardstone,” Phen stated. “What does this Tokamak-Verge do?”

“You’re done, Dostin,” Hyden said with a wrinkle-faced look at his work. It wasn’t pretty, but the rot was cut away, and there was still a little shape left to the mangled nub of ear that remained.

“It looks like a half-dried leaf is stuck to his head,” Phen said.

“It does not,” Telgra said with a sharp look. She then urged Dostin to sit on the other side of her. “It looks just fine, Dostin. Don’t listen to him.”

“You’ll see it when we get to Afdeon,” Phen said. “They’ll have a reflecting glass, or at least a still bowl of water to see it in.”

Dostin didn’t seem to care how it looked. He appeared completely content to be warm and sitting close to his friend, Telgra.

Hyden was glad that he didn’t have to answer Phen’s question about the Tokamak-Verge. In the old language, the words meant power-boundary. According to the goddess, who as of late had become Hyden’s confidant, the legendary artifact could channel a magical power source to create a binding or boundary. All Hyden knew was that, with enough power input, the seal of the barrier between the world of men and the world of demons could be made unbreachable. Some of the boundaries that separated the high heavens from the planes of demigods, and even some of the planes of hell, had supposedly been separated by the thing. Whether it was a sword like Ironspike, or a jewel like the dragon tear, Hyden had no clue. He only knew that he could now sense its presence far to the north of them. With it, he hoped to use Ironspike’s power to seal away the thing his brother had become for good. It was the only way, the goddess had explained. It was the only chance he had to protect human kind without having to kill Gerard.

After destroying the old Abbadon, Gerard had assumed the powers of darkness. Hyden had no choice but to either kill his brother, or make certain he was imprisoned in the Nethers for good. Since he’d put Illdach’s ring on his finger, the power of light had filled him. He was certain that if the balance of dark and light was tipped one way or the other, the forces would right themselves, trying to find the center quickly and harshly. Hyden figured that he and Gerard could coexist in their separate worlds, or that they would eventually be forced to kill each other. He figured that if he killed Gerard, his own demise would swiftly follow. The sole and true purpose of this expedition beyond the Leif Repline was rooted in finding a way for him and the warlord his brother had become to live on, instead of tearing apart the very fabric of existence trying to kill each other.

He knew it was selfish to try to keep himself and the Warlord of Hell alive. Keeping the balance, though, was a must.

The goddess, a wise and knowing being of the greater heavens, had been encouraging his current course of action, so he felt for now that he was doing what was right.

At least Phen, Talon, and Princess Telgra would be healed on this journey. That alone made the risks worth taking.

The next morning, Borg led them through a light flurry of fat snowflakes on a course that wound around Loudin’s valley. Two of the great wolves had sped off to inform King Aldar of their approach. The trails Borg followed were easily traveled by a giant, but many obstacles forced the humans, and mainly Oarly, to have to climb over what was in the way. The horses seemed to cause the biggest delay; even with Oof and Huffa herding them, they still managed to find dead-end pockets in the rocky valleys. One horse, carrying a trunk of books Phen had brought along, slipped on a loose patch of ice while edging the canyon. He slid over, rolled and thrashed for a heartbeat, then plummeted a few hundred feet only to slam with an audible thump into a huge slab of granite. Telgra screamed in horror when she looked over the edge. Dostin retched, and Oarly almost went over the edge after it trying to look down and see the mess. Luckily, it wasn’t the horse carrying Vaegon’s bow. From that moment on, Hyden slung the familiar quiver over his shoulder, strung Vaegon’s gift to him, and carried it at the ready.

The weather grew worse and the terrain more treacherous the deeper into the mountains they went. Blinding wind carrying sharp, abrasive granules of ice burned and stung their flesh. After a bitter week of it, it began to seem like the journey would never end.

Up in the higher passes, breathing became next to impossible. Snow drifts that were deeper than Borg was tall filled the crags and cracks. It was hard going, and cold beyond imagining at times, but finally they topped a ridge so high that they were above the the clouds. A sea of pillowy soft whiteness spread out across a great mountain-tipped bowl. In the center of this godly creation, rising up out of the clouds like some heavenly island, was a silvery gray castle of immense proportion.

“I give you Afdeon.”

“B- B- B- By D- Doon,” Oarly said in awe when his eyes took it all in.

“Doon had nothing to do with this marvel,” boasted Borg. “Dwarves aren’t the only ones who can work steel and stone.”

No one would have tried to argue, even if they could have found words, for the majesty of what was before them was truly indescribable.

The sweltering heat that hung over the marshes was taking its toll on Bzorch and the other breed giants. They had large, bulky bodies and, though they didn’t quite have fur like an animal, they did have thick tufts of hair. Bzorch’s determination overpowered the fact that his body was made for colder climates. To him, it was merely an irritation, but to some of the others, the constant humidity and the stinging, biting insects were debilitating. Bzorch suffered the uncomfortable days without complaint, and with snarls and angry looks he kept his small group of breed from complaining, as well. At the moment, though, the sweaty discomfort wasn’t even on their minds.

The excitement of the chase had them alert and on edge. They’d worked for two full days, skirting low-lying land masses, and negotiating channels and shallow expanses of water that were hidden under a blanket of waist-high grass. Tangly patches of drooping trees rose up out of the ground that had managed to stay above the water line. The further they went, the more dense and abundant these islands became. By the time the curvy fang-shaped spire was visible in the distance, the world around the deep channels the boats were traversing had become a full and formidable jungle.

It was late on the second day when they saw the Zard nest. There were thirty, maybe forty Zard-men, all armed and wearing studded leather armor with Queen Shaella’s lightning star emblem emblazoned on their breasts. They were encamped in a clearing hidden by a densely treed tangle. Oddly, they didn’t attack when they were spotted. The Zard quickly climbed up on several of the large geka lizards they favored, five and six to a mount. It was then that the chase began.

Two boatloads of soldiers stormed onto the land, followed by a pair of breed giants, one carrying a dragon gun, the other carrying the long coil of rope that made the device so treacherous to airborne creatures. Bzorch commanded the rest of the group to stay on the boats. He told the men ashore to stick with their shipmates, but to each take a different way around the island. It was a wise decision for the men chasing the Zard on foot. They found that the terrain was littered with trap after deadly trap. Thatch covers fell away, revealing staked pits. Half a dozen men were impaled on sharpened bamboo spears that jutted up from the muddy bottom. Some of those who skirted the holes found their calves and shins sliced open by poisonous brambles that had been cleverly placed. The trail the group followed led right to a large snapper nest, and when the men were finally forced to retreat, swinging branches and sandy mud slops that swallowed one man whole, took their toll as well.

The dragon gunner got off a shot at one of the fleeing geka lizards. The forearm-length barbed spear arced through the air, trailing its unwinding coil behind it like a streamer. It struck true and the rope-man had the presence of mind to quickly wrap the free end of the tether around a nearby cypress tree before it snapped taut. The geka thrashed and screamed out when it was yanked to a stop. The four Zard riding it were thrown forward into the surrounding muck. An anxious snapper snatched one of them up in its jaws and slithered away. One Zard was left twitching and sputtering in the mud after smacking hard into a tree. The other two fled into the jungle on webbed feet, disappearing quickly into their natural habitat.

Of the thirty men who had started the foot chase, only ten and the breed giants returned.

Bzorch’s group was following the channel. He stood at the helm, holding one of the dragon guns like some great hunter. They didn’t see much. Eventually they had to turn back because the channel dead-ended into a cacophonous cove full of big, shrieking dactyls, who apparently nested there.

The other group had found the place where the gekas had crossed from one land rise to another. A small group went after them to more carefully follow their trail. Soon, though, daylight began to fade, and they were forced to rejoin the others where they had run the barge ashore and made a camp.

The geka the breed giant had impaled on his dragon spear was being butchered and roasted. Over twenty men had died on this first encounter, and a handful of others were injured. Bzorch had the wounded put on a small boat. It would start back to Settsted in the morning. Some of the men needed to be taken back immediately, but the breed giant knew that the boat wouldn’t get far traveling at night.

The returning trackers said that the geka trail led eastward, away from the Dragon’s Tooth. Bzorch grunted at this news and silently munched on a meaty haunch of geka meat by one of the large campfires. He was primitive, but he was no fool. He wouldn’t be tricked by the obvious misdirection. Already, the clever skeeks had bested them once.

There was no dry wood in these parts, and the grass that had been heaped on the coals created billowing clouds of smoke.