Blood Price (Noble of Blood Book 1) (8 page)

Dartein set out on his journey with high hopes and a heavy heart.  He was remiss to leave Josaleene behind.  He did not want to leave her side for a second.  He was always afraid that every moment he spent with her would be their last moment together.  She had put on a brave face this evening when he left the palace, but the way she clung to him as she slept on their last day together told him more than words ever could.

He urged his horse to a canter to make better time while they were still on open trails.  The moon was bright overhead.  It was not yet full but it was close, another several days and it would be.  It was certainly bright enough to light the trail for them. 

The beginning of their journey went for several miles through meadows.  They wanted to reach the edge of the northern forests before dawn brightened the sky and slowed them down. 

Josaleene insisted that he not travel alone.  She told him that if left to his own choices he would be reckless in getting there and back.  And she wanted him to come back in one piece.  It was so uncharacteristic for her to be worried at all so he did not hesitate to grant her request.  He also knew she was quite right.

Anton traveled with him swiftly and silently.  They traveled side by side on the wide path so neither of them would have to be in the dust of the horses’ hooves.  Anton was always a good traveling partner.  He was a steadfast man, and fiercely loyal to the Prince.  He had served Dartein long enough for him to be relaxed in his presence, and the two had become closer as friends over the last few years.

He was glad Josaleene insisted he bring a companion, and glad it was Anton.  He knew Anton would be just as swift as he, and also knew that Anton would go with him to the ends of the earth if he asked it.

The conversations he and Josaleene had about the Seer she visited worried him.  He sincerely hoped this woman was not just planting grand ideas and notions in her head just to fetch a higher fee.  Josee had told him how much she paid the woman.

Sure the Seer had mentioned traveling north, but it could have just turned out to be a mere coincidence.   Dartein was more worried that it was that woman that finally gotten Josee to take their predicament so seriously.  He would have felt better knowing that Josee was still feeling lighthearted and full of life before he left.

They reached the beginnings of the forest well before dawn and decided to let their horses rest and graze before they left the meadow behind.  As Dartein was finished brushing the horses down Anton emerged from the forest with two rabbits in hand.

"Fresh dinner my Prince.  Go ahead and eat yours while I put up our shelter” Anton handed the rabbits to him and turned to their packs.

Dartein watched as Anton removed the shelter from his pack and went about setting it up.  The process only took a few moments.  The shelter was made of thin deer hides sewn tightly together and dyed black.   It was held up and together by thin poles made of oak.  Each pole was only a foot long, but were notched in such a way for them to fit together end on end to make them longer and sturdy.  There were loopholes sewn onto the hides for the poles to pass through and for stakes to be hammered into the ground to hold it down.

The entire structure was about 7 feet long but only 2 and a half feet high.  The tent being flat kept it from being damaged in high winds.  And they only needed it for sleeping anyway, so there was no reason for it to be taller.  These tents were standard issue amongst their troops.  The troops used them in tall grasses and dense woods and became virtually invisible to human eyes.

Having skinned and filleted the second rabbit while Anton put up the tent, Dartein went to the nearby stream to wash his hands of the blood.  Feeling revitalized from the fresh meat he wasn't quite ready to sleep.  He sat back from the bank and watched as a mother swan led her babies out of the stream and away from him, honking at him for disturbing their early morning swim.  He watched them as they waddled up the bank a ways and then glided back in the water, where the babies promptly climbed onto the mothers back while she gracefully floated along.

He eventually became aware of the slightly brightening sky and arose from his stream side vigil.  As he neared the camp he noticed the horses were drowsing already and decided that sleep was definitely the smart thing to do.  He could hear Anton’s breathing inside the tent telling him that his traveling mate was already asleep.  Dartein crawled into the tent, grabbed his blanket and laid down, his last thoughts of the mother swan and her babies upon her back.

----

Josaleene spent much time in her and Dartein's chambers after he left, not trusting Juron to leave her alone.  And also not wanting to trouble Victor into following her around everywhere just because she was bored.

So to fill the time she had ordered a few more things for the baby, some clothes to be made, a few blankets and a couple of sparkling jeweled trinkets to hang above the crib.  Ordering, receiving and arranging the items had given her something to do.

For about a day.

So once again perpetually bored, she paced about their chambers.  She was just deciding to call Victor for a walk when her gaze fell on the history book that Dartein had been reading before he left.  Curiosity about where he was going on top of curiosity about what may be in there that tied to the visions the seer talked about, had her sitting down and flipping the old book open.

As she flipped through the pages she noticed how old the book was.  And she also noticed that the handwriting changed several times throughout the book, telling her that the accounts were being told by different people throughout the times of the War.  Which only made sense, she realized, the war did last for almost 90 years.

Flipping towards the end of the book she spied an entry about the three magic users and stopped to read.

----

Early Fall - Duke's year 216

After pushing back the hordes around their camps, the small team of Warlocks are taking some time to concentrate on how to take the attack to the bigger clusters of the goblins.  They have analyzed the spells from their turnings and singled out the small bits that concentrated on reanimation.  It was a bit scary for me to learn that they had actually died to become what they are now.  But at the same time they are so full of power and the only thing holding the Enemy at bay.

Today they took to the trenches of the recent battles and liberated several corpses.  After bringing the fresh dead back to their tents it looks as though they have imbued the bodies with oils and painted symbols.  Instead of placing them into the spell chambers, it was explained by the lady warlock that the dead bodies would essentially be temporary chambers that would keep them animated until they took enough damage to break the spells.  My young assistant ran out of the tent to vomit after hearing that.  He has not seen enough of this war to have a solid stomach yet.

After several days of testing, and running low on fresh corpses, it seems they have finally figured out how to 'awaken' the dead.  It was a most gruesome sight to behold.  Each batch they brought forth were mindless creatures, mere cannon fodder that held back the goblins for just enough time for the Warlocks to take down half the army that was fielded.  By the time the human dead were destroyed, they goblins retreated back to their holes.  The goblin commanders have escaped each time.

Warlocks Mortul and Yosan would launch onto the field and engage the enemy, while Hudreia hung back to survey the field and concentrate her spells on larger groups of the goblins.  She told me that while watching the field one time, she noticed that whenever one of the human dead was splashed with a goblins blood it would go into a frenzy after the enemy.  It seemed the blood focused them.

She has directed Mortul and Yosan to drag nearly dead goblins back to the camp, and set up a team of humans to bleed them out.  We have built up a store of the goblins blood for them, and keep it here at camp.  The results of that experiment have so far been quite destructive for the Enemy.

The further use of Magicks have been very scary for the humans of this settlement, but we are bolstered by the many battles that the Warlocks have won.  Some of the folks though, have become superstitious about the underground vault that holds the magic chambers that changed the Warlocks.  They will not go near there, nor let their children play in that area.  They are afraid that their children will become one of the Warlocks' walking dead.

I say they should all be more grateful.

The wide trail that had led them through the meadow and into the forest had turned into a narrow path through the more virgin parts of the forest.  They were several days into their journey and saw no signs of this forest ending, even though they headed the exact direction the map told them to.  It was rough going that particular night too, since the forest had become much older, the trees much taller and bushes much more crowded.  There was little to no light from the moon coming in from above so they had unmounted to lead their horses along.  Dartein and Anton could see quite well in the dark but the horses were not as gifted as the pair of Nobles they carried.  Torches would only be a hindrance to the pair, since the light from them would be more of a nuisance than a real help.

They had not encountered any other living beings thus far on their journey.  Only the occasional fox or deer, the latter of which made up much of their current travel fare.

And according to any recent year’s explorers, there were no settlements out to the north where they were heading and no humans ever wandered that far north in the near-trackless forest to hunt game. 

Dartein was awfully surprised then, to stumble upon a small clearing that was quite obviously cleared out intentionally.  The fire pit in the center was a very telltale sign of life.  Signaling to Anton to stay back and stay quiet Dartein searched around the camp for any signs of recent use.  Finding no tracks around the outskirts, he slowly snuck in closer to inspect the area around the fire pit. 

It became obvious to him that no one was around the area at that moment.  But he also knew that this clearing had been recently occupied.  Breathing in and sampling the scents around him he checked for any lingering odor of humans.  He smelled nothing human, not even closer to the log that had been laid by the fire for a seat.

What he did smell there though, almost scared him.

Musty, mildewy, rotting leaves and earth.

He smelled the barest trace of goblin. 

Looking closer around the log he found two footprints that he had missed before.  He had been looking for obvious signs of humans.  He had not yet thought to look closer for goblin tracks.  But there was no mistaking the footprints he found.  The small flatfooted prints were just like the ones around the clearing he and Josaleene had come upon before.

He slowly back away from the log and the fire pit, towards Anton and the horses.  He took it as a good sign that the horses were calm, as he had seen before that the animals were easily spooked by the small fiends.

Dartein grabbed up the lead of his horses halter and led their small procession through the clearing and back into the forest on the other side where the trail continued.  Anton knew something was up but was smart enough not to speak out loud at that time.  Dartein had told him of his and Josaleene's encounter with the goblins outside of the village before they had left on this journey.   Well, he had kept the part about his Josee setting the nasty creatures on fire to himself, but had shared enough that Anton knew what to look and smell for. 

They moved up the trail another mile and a half or so before Dartein stopped them to rest.

"I believe I caught a bit of their scent.  It seemed to be as you described before, the very pungent odor of rotting earth, but a bit more sour I think.  Are these the same type of creature you came upon before?"  Anton did not seem nervous at all about coming across another living being out here in the forest.  He clearly did not know what the goblins were capable of.

"Yes, they most definitely are.  Foul little leeches they are, fierce too.  Be warned Anton, we do not want to cross paths with goblins for our journey may end quite prematurely."  Dartein gave a very serious look to his companion.

"We can handle a few small critters.  I've come prepared for just that!"  Pulling two polished and gleaming fighting axes from his packs, he gave his Prince a grin. 

Dartein reached out and lowered Anton's weapons.  "Put those aside, but close at hand.  I pray we do not need them and would rather continue this journey as quickly and quietly as possible.  I do not wish to look for a fight, but we will try to be prepared if comes to one."

"Try, my Prince?  I should think we would be able to cull quite a few of the critters between the two of us.  They must not be too awful tough, I mean you and the Princess were able to down a dozen of them yourselves."  Anton looked plainly confused.  Almost as if he were wondering why his ever adventurous friend was avoiding a good sport.  As far as Anton ever knew, his friend and Prince was always looking for some action or a hunt.

"Anton, you do not know the full circumstances to that story.  We were almost overwhelmed by them.  They are vicious little humanoids who think almost as we do and take down prey in packs."  Dartein struggled internally.  How much did he want to tell his friend of that night?  "I believe we got very lucky."

"No offense but maybe you were just feeling overprotective of your lady and child and felt the situation worse than it was.  I can understand why you have such cautious feelings about it.  No worries though, you have previous experience on your side now and a partner with a vicious swing!"  Anton winked towards the Prince as he strapped the axes to the saddle, within quick reach either mounted or unmounted.

Dartein sighed internally as he turned his eyes and feet back to the trail in front of him.  He wanted to put much more ground between them and the campsite before dawn.

----

Early Summer - Duke's year 218

The three warlocks have revisited every battlefield from the last several months to result in a collection of an incredible army of human undead.  They are currently camped at the foot of the Northern Reaches about 12 miles south of the village, 6 miles south of our current campsite.  They have tracked the remaining Goblin commanders back to that area, and are now ready to strike the final blow.

Our prayers and hopes are with them.  They perform the utmost of gruesome tasks with their rotten army behind them.  For those of us remaining alive in this camp we are grateful beyond belief that the warlocks have so selflessly given of themselves to fight for us.  The Duke, however, has decided to cower in his towers and let the warlocks face the Enemy without his help.  We here have decided that if and when this war is won we will no longer let the Dukes number our years.

----

Laying in the near dark, the Prince of the Nobles could not fall back to sleep.  He had slept a few scant hours but his mind wandered too many directions and kept him much too distracted to fall back to sleep.

He thought of his Josee back at the palace.  He wanted to be with her so badly.  His hopes were high that the journey he was on was not a complete waste of time.  It had been centuries since anyone inhabited the area they were headed to... and almost as much time since anyone had easily traveled through there.

It was an old battleground, site of some of the last battles of the ancient war that had raged on for many, many years.  It was the place where a few did the unimaginable, crossing over into dark arts and sacrificing themselves as the humans they were to become something powerful enough to stop the hordes of the enemy.  Dartein was in awe of the story, and of being descended of those dark heroes.  The thought of the power they had then was almost frightening, especially when coupled with the knowledge of how they obtained it.

Dartein knew too, that in spite of the magic he possessed his father could do nothing to save Josaleene unless he had another chamber in which to inscribe the spells of change.

"Changing a living thing is a process.  A process like that needs a way to be contained and amplified.  One cannot simply just change something that has already been created.  Those types of magic no longer exist, they died out with the other mages in the ancient war.  Those of us who were reborn in the Chambers during that war were given the abilities to create and to destroy.   We could, I can, create objects of magic, and can destroy utterly anything in my sight and range.  But to change something or someone, Dartein, that is a magic that no longer can be called upon at will."

Recalling the conversation he had with his father before he left did not help him feel less rushed.  Really the only thing keeping him moving slightly slower than breakneck speed was the chance of alerting the goblins that may still be around the area.

Once he noticed the sky start to darken, he rolled out of the tent to stretch.  What he saw before him in the last light of the day stopped him in mid-stretch.

Off to the north west of their camp at the edge of the woods there was a barren stretch of land, which ended in nothing. 

Dartein jogged towards the area to see if it was what he thought.  As he neared the edge he watched the crater-like rift stretch out before him.  There were no trees, no water or streams running down it.  It was all barren, jagged rock cliffs and bleached impassable terrain.

He stood in awe of the site.  He had read of it from the history book back in his room.  But to stand before it was nothing like he ever could have dreamed of.  He also knew that just a few miles ride north would take them to their destination.

----

Winter Solstice - Duke's year 218

Reports have come back.  The Warlocks have slain the last of the Goblins Commanders!  The chase was long and resulted in their coming upon the entrance to the caverns that housed the Goblins armies.  They chased them all back into their holes and collapsed the cavern systems down upon the filthy animals.  One witness stated that the magnitude of the damage was beyond imagination.

He described that the already barren landscape was now nothing more than an enormous smoking crater where nothing could have survived.  The fighting men that have already come back to their towns are full of hope that their survival is now secure.  But there is unrest about the power behind all that destruction.  There seems to be an underlying fear directed at the Warlocks, and the members of this settlement are afraid for them to return.