The Azure Wizard (25 page)

The hulking guardsman nodded tersely and he shouldered his heavy steel halberd before stepping aside with his iron-gauntleted hand extended towards the hall. Ross nodded his thanks and trudged into the keep and Ethan hurried to keep up with the grizzled old knight. The Royal Hall of the Keep of Lumberwall, though very rustic and miniscule when compared to the majesty of the Castle of Greenwell, had a charm and a grandeur about it that somehow flaunted an equal strength and less arrogance. Oddly the Vharian felt a brief welling of pride when he entered the keep.

The Royal Hall smelt of pine and cedar, its timber walls and pillars a reddish brown in the thick golden glow of the brass candle sconces that lined the walls. Between pillars the heraldry of Vhar hung heavily upon brown banners, and a still warm air lay within the large thickly-raftered chamber. At its end stood a throne of stone and pine but it was empty. Its owner, Baron Ruauld, stood off to the side with a small personal retinue of Lumberwall guardsmen talking sternly amongst one another about the dire straits that the Vharian people were in with mutated Blood Bears preying upon the populace. Somewhere Ethan had heard that Baron Ruauld was a brilliant tactician and now the storyteller-turned-Wizard was witnessing it.

So enamored were they in their defensive plans for the city of Lumberwall and the outlying villages, that they didn’t even hear or notice the slight Vharian’s approach. Ethan quickly cleared his throat and spoke out in a voice that he thought sounded alarmingly childish when compared to the gruff serious tones spoken by the other warriors in the hall, “Pardon me, my Baron.”

All heads abruptly turned and Ethan was taken aback by the tired intensity in their heavy low brows, especially the tall Baron of Lumberwall. The Baron, his face a mien of exhaustion and worry amidst his scruffy silver whiskers and framing satin-blond locks, turned to better face this newcomer. His shadowed brown eyes lowered to Ethan’s bare forearms, quickly pondering the strange cerulean curving lines and symbols tattooed there.

Ethan interrupted the Baron’s uncomfortable visual analysis by blurting out, “Baron Ruauld, sir, my name is Ethan Skalderholt. I have come from Greenwell City to explain what has befallen our land of the Three Baronies. I have come to explain why Vhar’s Blood Bears are transformed along with the Deep Wolves of Greenwell and I presume the Sun Cats of Wendlith and all the Three Baronies’ other great beasts.”

As Ethan spoke these words the Baron’s eyes kept lowering to the storyteller’s arms, and the creases upon his brow deepened. In answer to his unspoken query Ethan hesitantly explained, “Power, Wizardcraft of the Ancient Age, has returned to the Three Baronies, my lord. And I am its wielder.”

Ethan pulled his white woolen shirt over his head and dropped the garment at his feet, revealing his thin torso that was completely shrouded in brilliant mysterious swirling designs of blue. His thin wiry arms, and likely his legs by now, were too covered. “These symbols, these are a mark that proclaims me as a Wizard, the first of our current age. But Wizardcraft returned not only with me as its host but also the various dangerous beasts of the wilderness. It has changed them, giving them deadly powers and erasing any anxiety about contact with man. In fact, I believe their minds have been Wizardcraft-altered as well. It is almost as if they crave human contact now, so that they may slaughter and prey upon us and reclaim the wilderness for their own.”

Long moments stretched on when nobody spoke in reply and Ethan nervously bent down and picked up his shirt. He should be used to these moments by now, he thought as he donned his tight wool shirt. Finally Ruauld spoke in a low grim tone, “If you speak truth, man of Greenwell, then perhaps your death will once again rip this accursed Wizardcraft from our land?”

The storyteller swallowed as he pondered Ruauld’s words. What if that was the answer? What if the ending of Ethan’s own life would once again rid the Three Baronies of Wizardcraft and Wizards and return the beasts of the land to their less bewildering deadly forms they had possessed since the dawn of the current age?
Could it really be that easy?
  he thought to himself.

Maybe, too, the Troll, being a creature of Wizardcraft as it was, would also be snuffed out of existence like an extinguished candle wick if Ethan was to ascend to the Ancestor Lands, or the Soul Wastes if he was truly cursed. It was certainly worth it, Ethan thought. In his present situation and state of being maybe it would be preferable to die. He was without direction, he was Wizardcraft-branded and disfigured thanks to this unasked-for power of transportation he had received, and everyone that he had befriended these last couple of weeks had died or had become seriously injured.

His very short stint as a Forester of the Three Baronies had filled him with energy and vigor for life but he never really had felt the part of a Forester. And this new existence as a Wizard, the only Wizard, was deeply disturbing and equally angering to him. Why was he chosen to become the one who would return Wizardcraft to the world, and who was the one who had chosen him? He never wanted this power nor had he asked for it. Perhaps Ethan should just fall upon the sword of the Baron of the Barony of Vhar. Then he remembered May and the experiences that they had recently shared, the love and the passion.

In reply to his baron’s ominous query the storyteller responded in a grim tone of his own, “I am no Greenwellian, sir. I am one of your subjects. Do not let the company of this noble Greenwellian Knight at my side belie you. I am a Vharian through and through, a storyteller in fact, born and raised by my grandmother and grandfather, Hildar and Ethyl Skalderholt, in the high village of North Ridge which lies upon the southern slopes of Whitethorn Mountain in the north of our barony.”

He continued, “I left at the end of spring this very year for Greenwell City after discovering that my deceased grandmother was indeed the famous Forester of the Three Baronies known as the Axe Maiden. I even managed to join that illustrious order. But in my heart I am still a storyteller of Vhar and I feel that I will always be one.  But then this Wizardcraft came to me and all I have known since then is death and hardship.”

“Believe me, my Baron, when I say that I would long for death after the destruction that I feel I am somewhat responsible for and after I’ve lost so many that were close to me. But I have also found love among the daughter of the grandmaster of the Foresters, May Kinsley. But she was injured, and as we speak she is being tended to health by the Woodfolk people inhabiting the Forests of Greenwell, and I long to return to her.”

“So if you think it is the best course of action, Baron, then come at me and cleave my heart in two! Otherwise, heed my warnings and words. Send out your best warriors, scouts and huntsmen to the villages of Vhar to collect your people and slay any Blood Bears that wander these peaks. Also, pray to the Ancestors that the Ice Cats, surely mutated and horrifying, don’t come prowling south from the plains of the Ice Wilds.”

The Baron of Vhar walked determinedly up to Ethan, never once taking his heavy gaze from the young man. Ethan did his best not to quail from the approaching warrior-lord of some six and a half feet of brawn and presence and the large gloved hand that rested on the white marble pommel of the Baron’s sheathed broadsword. Baron Ruauld stopped and stared down at Ethan just inches from him. He spoke in his grim tone, “You know the resources and manpower of the Barony of Vhar cannot hope to equal those of the Barony of Greenwell or even the Barony of Wendlith. You expect me to send the best that this small city has to defend its subjects on a long arduous courier mission to all of my barony’s hamlets and villages through wilds now crawling with Wizardcraft-warped fiends and beasts? Though a suicide mission already, you would have these same few warriors escort all the inhabitants of these villages through these perilous dangers back to Lumberwall? What then, boy? Would you suggest also that I just escort all of my citizens to the safety of the Ancestor Lands? Because that is as realistic as the nonsense you spout! Clearly you have no mind for leadership or wisdom! A Wizard you may be, Ethan Skalderholt, but a fool as well!”

“Do not presume,” the angry baron continued, “to leave your homeland to the sprawling city of grandeur and greed, and then return to give your baron advice on what he should do to better the lives of his people in these dire times! Do not presume to think that since you were a citizen of Greenwell and a Forester of the Three Baronies for a miniscule amount of time that you know more than I, a humble rustic Vharian northerner, on what it is to be a leader! I have been Baron for as long as you’ve drawn breath and I’ve had to make many hard choices for the greater good! I will not abandon the defenses of Lumberwall, which contains the majority of my citizens, to run on some unrealistic fool’s errand across the Vhar Mountains! My guardsmen I cannot so carelessly sacrifice, storyteller!

“Why doesn’t the mighty Wizard do this task for me? Why doesn’t the Wizard prove his worth to his homeland or is all of the Three Baronies now his garden, this mighty lord of lords?” mocked Baron Ruauld. His face was red and beaded with sweat and Ethan noticed that he was practically panting with strain.

Ethan lowered his gaze in foolishness and humility. Baron Ruauld was completely right, Ethan realized. Who did Ethan think he was going to the rulers of the Three Baronies and throwing his so-called wisdom and self-important advice around like a delusional old-timer at a tavern?

He swallowed his guilt and managed to look sheepishly up into Baron Ruauld’s brown eyes and he stated, “I will go, my baron. I will use my Wizardcraft to go to these villages and warn them, and then I will use Wizardcraft to transport as many of your subjects as is within my power back to Lumberwall. I will prove myself a worthy citizen of Vhar.”

The Vharian Baron snorted in derision and he growled, “You will die, Ethan Skalderholt. You are no warrior. You are a storyteller and not skilled in the least at arms, despite what the frail Greenwellians may have taught you as a Forester. If you go alone, you certainly go to your death.”

“I will accompany him,” spoke a voice from the shadows in the back of the hall.

Ethan and Baron Ruauld both sought the speaker in the dim candlelight. Sir Ross, the Greenwellian Knight, having retreated into the shadows during the foreign baron’s outburst, stepped from the shadow aside a pillar into the open amber light of the timber hall and he spoke again, “I will go.”

Chapter Twenty One

In the Company of Savages

May Kinsley’s eyes shot open and she sat bolt upright in the shadowy humid chamber that she currently found herself in. She immediately regretted her sudden action as her abdomen throbbed in terrible abhorrent pain. She clutched her gut with her sweaty fingers, finding that it was bandaged in soft leather strips and fibrous vines, wide and blue-green hued. Fever Vine, she thought before she sighed.

She looked around at her surroundings and found herself to be inside a small domed structure, perhaps only five feet tall on the inside. It was constructed of a frame built of oak branches and sheathed on the outside by layers of water-resistant grasses and barks. Within the enclosure, the only light to penetrate came from miniscule gaps in the construction and the faint glow of daylight that shone through the ragged brown cloth that served as the door way into her abode. She lay upon a soft pile of ferns that were covered in a blanket similar to the one that hung in the doorway.

Finally, May realized that she was naked and her pale skin practically glowed in the darkness. Her abdomen though was tightly bound by the bandages. Woodfolk, she thought, I’m with the Woodfolk. That notion filled May with unease, especially considering her vulnerable position. She vaguely remembered being whisked away by Ethan in the arms of a powerful hot-blooded Woodfolk female. Their arrival was a collage of distorted pictures and feelings and soon afterward, the Forester lost consciousness. She was alone.

Abruptly the cloth portal to her hut was pulled to the side and a silhouette filled the doorway, illuminated from behind by the glare of the morning sun as it battled its way determinedly through a thick bank of fog that apparently shrouded the forest that she found herself in. May scurried backwards on her bottom and yanked her blanket over her nude torso in a haphazard way.

“I’m frow ul duck!” screeched May as she held her right hand up to ward off any offensive by this obviously-Woodfolk intruder.

“It is pronounced, ‘Em fro Wulduk’, Forester,” returned the figure in a distinctive thickly-accented woman’s voice in the common tongue.

Férfa stooped down and entered the hut wearing nothing but a smile and a line of orange paint that ran around her neck then descending down in between her breasts before looping in a circle around her navel. In her right hand she carried a brown clay bowl, its contents May feared to know, and in her left hand she carried a bundle of leathers and furs. When May didn’t reply to the beautiful Woodfolk woman, Férfa continued, “How does your wound fare, woman?”

“It hurts like the Soul Wastes. But I’ll live,” was May’s stern answer as her eyebrow rose in suspicion.

“Good, let’s have a look at it. It should be exposed to the air by now anyway,” replied Férfa.

May let her blanket drop from her body but still kept her forearm over her breasts. Férfa held no such inhibitions and her nude flawless body made the Forester furrow her brow in jealousy. As Férfa began to unbind the bandages that wrapped around May’s lower torso the Forester examined the Woodfolk closely. Her long dark red hair was in twin tight braids, and appeared very different from May’s short sandy blonde hair. But both of the women had the same fair skin hue, the light dusting of freckles upon their shoulders and cheeks, and the athletic figure of a woman that could endure the hardships of the Three Baronies’ wilds.

May’s thoughts were ripped from her comparison when Férfa stated loudly, “See, good as new.”

May looked down to see the puncture in the left side of her abdomen was remarkably clean but for squiggly lines of purple-hued paint that radiated out from the dark scab like the rays of the sun. Her pale skin was only slightly red and inflamed around the circular wound. “What happened to the wound? How long have I been here?” May inquired confusedly as she probed the tender wound lightly with her fingertips.