Pagewalker (38 page)

Alive and that he should rest and drink some
of the nectar from the Cobo flowers to regain his strength. The
figure fell to the ground and started beating his fists on the
earth. “MY people, my people,” he cried over and over again. Elessa
walked back over to Dertrid and sat down beside him.

After about 10 minutes of mourning a strange
light surrounded the three and a voice came from the pendant that
Dertrid wore around his neck. The voice chanted an old Elven spell.
Elessa could not understand the words as Old Elfish was no longer
spoken by her kind. Dertrid’s eyes opened and he sat up. "What
happened?" he said , pulling the arrow out of his back.

The voice came again.

"You three are the chosen ones. You must
destroy the evil and return goodness to this once powerful and
respected land. You Dertrid, my son and you too Elessa and Keldon
must do this for your people."

Keldon and Elessa looked at each other and at
Dertrid.

"How do you know us?” they whispered to the
voice in the pendant.

The voice replied,

"I have been watching you three all of my
life and death until the moment that you joined together at a time
of suffering for all of you. You must now find Gladwin. He will
tell you what you must do to destroy the queen and her troops and
for Dertrid to return to the throne of Sáann".

The three appointed ones stood up and Dertrid
said,

"Where will We find Gladwin?" but it was too
late.

The light in the pendant had already faded
and the three were back outside the burning town of Keener. Dertrid
walked over to Keldon and thanked him for his help then the three
headed south toward the great city of Partisan.

The trio continued on their way, crossing several
rivers, climbing numerous steep hills and wading through stinking
marshland. When they emerged at the other side of a dark forest
Keldon ran to the top of a small hill and called the others to come
and take a look at what he had found. When the other two made it to
the top of the hill they looked down into another valley and saw a
large city

Bustling with people, noise and happiness.
"FOOD", Keldon yelled, as he ran down the hill toward the city. "He
is right you know, we should get some food,” Dertrid said to Elessa
who was giggling at Keldon running down the path. .Before she had a
chance to reply Dertrid grabbed her hand and started running down
to the path after Keldon. When they reached the city they saw a
crowed of villagers and Queen’s men all standing in a circle
cheering, shouting and throwing rotten fruit and vegetables.
Dertrid and Keldon both slid their hands towards their swords
waiting for a fight.

When they got closer to the circle they could
see two men fighting, one of which was wearing a royal army
uniform. They watched them batter each other for a while before one
of the Queen’s men threw a sword into the ring. The villager kicked
the soldier and picked up the sword. He walked back to the soldier
and hacked at him until he was not breathing any more. When the
villager was celebrating, a different soldier ran at him and drove
a spear through the villager pinning him to the old stone wall. At
that, a riot started. All the Queen’s men took off their disguises
and grouped together . They started killing all round them while
the women and children screamed and ran for cover. Dertrid and
Keldon drew their swords and with the help of a few rebellious
villagers led an attack on the soldiers.

Elessa climbed a nearby tree and started picking a
few of the soldiers off with her bow. Dertrid and Keldon fought
back- to- back defending the villagers from the soldiers . When it
seemed impossible for the villagers to win this battle, Keldon ran
over to an old food stall and knocked it over. Then he started
knocking over all of the food stalls in the market place. - Before
the soldiers could figure out what Keldon was doing they found
themselves trapped in a square of overturned food stalls and

Saw Keldon and Dertrid standing on top of an
old trade wagon. "Revenge is one thing I never used to believe in,”
said Keldon, "But I used to believe in mercy too". At that, Keldon
dropped a torch on the food stall nearest him, setting it alight.
One by one the stalls ignited until the soldiers were trapped in a
circle of fire that was closing in on them quickly. Keldon remained
on the wagon until he watched every last soldier burn.

Later in the day Dertrid went to the closest
inn and booked a room for the night. However sleep was impossible
as the towns people were buying them drinks, giving them free
weapons and equipment, telling them stories and generally making
them as welcome as possible. After all the wining and dining was
over a very drunk Keldon and a slightly tipsy Dertrid arrived back
at their room. They both fell onto their beds and went to sleep.
The next morning Dertrid awoke to see Keldon looking into the city
out of the open window. "This is a beautiful place in the daylight.
You should really come

And see", Keldon said, still gazing out of
the window. Dertrid walked over to the window and looked out but he
was blinded by the natural light that flooded into his eyes.

When his eyes adjusted he could see a vast amount of
green but as he looked closer he saw that it was ivy growing up the
sides of the houses. The houses were all shaped like pillars or
lighthouses and were arranged in circular patterns around numerous
green spaces Where children’s laughter could be heard breaking the
silence of the early morning. The main transport into the city was
by riverboat. There were hundreds of different boats and barges
meandering up and down the city streets. The city was bustling with
life and the lively antics of the children playing in the water
added to the cacophony of noise. Dertrid could see the beautifully
detailed designs on all the buildings, which looked like an
intricate written language of some kind. All the buildings were of
a sandy colour and the designs seemed to wind themselves down from
the roofs in a spiral manor. Dertrid could also smell an array of
strange aromas. They ranged from fresh herbs from the market, an
appetising smell from the open-air bakery below and the sweet smell
of the corpus plants that grew all over the buildings in this
wonderful city. Elessa, who was eating a freshly- baked loaf of
bread, disturbed Dertrid.

"Come on you two. Hurry up! We have to be on
our way. We must find Sir Gladwin soon ." she said with her mouth
full. The three carried their bags and other newly acquired
belongings down to the courtyard below where their horses, kindly
donated by the innkeeper, awaited them. While Keldon and Dertrid
were trying to pack their belongings onto the horses Elessa emerged
from the crowed which had amassed to wish them well followed by a
small dwarf covered from head to toe in armour. The engraving on
his breastplate told of the events of the great division war in
which Dertrid’s father and Sir Gladwin had fought . The scene
depicted showed Sir Gladwin brandishing the blade of the blood-
thirst and plunging it into the earth’s life- core destroying all
of the evil in the world at that time . Penla,the dwarf’ s jet
black hair was blowing in the wind revealing steely blue eyes, his
face was obscured by a long white beard which reached down to his
waist and was held together in a ponytail with several lengths of
twine. His large axe was fastened to his back with a long piece of
thick leather. He was holding a helmet with more detailed designs
on it and horns pointing out from the top. Elessa walked over to
the two that were still frantically trying to pack everything onto
the horses. Penla ran over to Dertrid, pulled the bags off the
horse and said,

"You don’t need to do that, lad. .Leave the
poor mules alone!""Why not little man?" Keldon asked.

"Because I have a cart you stupid fools,”
Penla laughed and he carried the things over to his cart.

"What are we waiting for? Let’s go!" Dertrid
shouted in an excited voice. The trio walked over to the cart where
Penla hooked up the horses and then they set off, out of the
beautiful city of Partisan.

The morning broke as the sun slowly crept over the
endless fields that covered the surface of Northland plains. The
drops of water that dripped off the lip of the cliff splashed in a
Puddle directly in front of Dertrid’s face. He pulled his covers
slightly up over his chin and wiped away the few drops that had
splashed on his face during the night. “What a night,” he thought.
Dertrid sat up and looked at his companions, his friends, his
family. They were the ones that had helped him all this way in the
few short months since fleeing Sáann. Sáann! That name reminds him
of his father. It reminds him of his childhood and growing up in
the Kingdom and the Palace grounds. It reminds him of the happiness
he had there, the joys and the education he enjoyed in the great
library.

He misses the battle training he had,
jousting lessons, archery lessons, survival skills and how he
survived for a minute and a half under the water wearing his full
adventure gear.

He chuckled as he remembered the first time
he brought his father to the ground and what he said afterwards,
"You will make a great king, the best that Sáann ever had, but I
see something different for you. You will win the hearts of the
people but you will not have them build statues of you or make them
pay taxes to you as a sign of respect, but you will do a great
deed.... yes, Dertrid’s deed will be the greatest tale ever told
throughout the whole of Northland, how the son of the great Almanac
the Conqueror won the hearts of a nation. But the tale is your
destiny.

Only you will determine what happens in that
story and I hope you choose well" Dertrid murmurs softly under his
breath, " I will choose well father...I will". As he says this
Elessa Tums around under the covers and sits up beside Dertrid. She
throws one arm around him and lays her head on his shoulder.
Dertrid gets a funny tingly feeling every time she does that
because it makes him feel like nothing else matters in the world
apart from her. But it does. Everything matters. He has found
Gladwin, as his father told him to and now he must find the
elemental weapons as his father instructed as well and there is
still something that Gladwin has not told Dertrid. Dertrid still
does not know how to get the fourth element or what it is but he is
sure Gladwin will tell him today as they have been preparing to
leave the great dwarf cave of Denvan for about a week. It is a very
strange place .It resembles a cave from the outside but on the
inside its tall stonewalls seem to reach up into the sky. There are
three floors of shops and houses, run and lived in by lots of small
dwarfs that make this giant place look like an anthill. It is a
beautiful place though, for in the very centre of the city there is
a large building that Gladwin lives in, and in front of it there is
a fountain that flows elven blessed holy water. The fountain its
self is made out of pure gold and was forged by the first few
dwarfs to have excavated the whole cave themselves as a large
military outpost in which they were hiding after the third great
war in which the elves and the dark elves waged war across the
whole of north land engulfing every man women and child that set
foot any where near the fighting. Many large cities and great
monuments were destroyed during that war. Many great artefacts,
ancient remedies and spells were burnt by the dark elves during
their pillage of Northland. Knowledge itself was destroyed after
that; this is why the years that we live in are called the darkness
years, the loss of knowledge, and the destruction of power. AS the
three companions made their way to the fountain of life hundreds of
dwarfs greeted them. There was singing, dancing magic tales and
food! You have never seen so much food. The tables stretched from
the fountain to as far as you could see and they were piled with
moist warm juicy meat and gravy. After that the fruits and the
sweets that seemed to come from thin air appeared beside the
savouries to fill the table back up to the brim again. After they
could eat no more, Penla stood up on the table and called for
everyone’s attention. He cleared his throat and then yelled out as
loudly as he could so that the whole cave could hear him.

"My fellow dwarfs I would just like to say
that once again we have created the greatest meal any race of
Northland has ever made! But I would also like to say that I will
make every single one of you proud to be dwarves!" The crowd
suddenly fell silent as they waited to hear what their leader was
going to say next.

"I am going with these brave heroes to
destroy the Queen of Sáann and put the names of dwarfs back on the
list as one of the bravest races Northland has ever seen!" Still
there was silence but suddenly there was a cheer from the bottom of
the cave which got louder as more and more people joined in until
the cheers, laughs and joyful song was deafening around the
circular cave. Later that day the five heroes left the cave to head
Northwest toward the great temple of the brotherhood. There they
would have to defeat the horse men to release the 3 elemental
weapons, one of fire, one of water and one of strength which they
would have to bring to Sáann where the fourth element would be
born.

* * * *

After about a day or so of travelling the group could
finally see the three pyramid- shaped towers that each held a
member of the brother hood that each companion had to defeat to
release one of the elemental weapons. When they finally reached the
towers they could not even see the tops of them. The temples were
three different colours each representing an element. The first
tower was red representing the fire horsemen and element, the
middle was silver representing the strength horseman and element
and the third were green representing the earth horseman and the
element.