The Beginnings Omnibus: Beginnings 1, 2, 3 & Legend of Ashenclaw novella (Realm of Ashenclaw Beginnings Saga) (66 page)

“Those are acceptable terms,” Garius nodded, charging the orc with
The Repentant
held firmly in both hands.

The loud thundering of his hammer crashing against the orc’s shield masked the sound of Saeunn’s battle cry as she leapt from behind him, meaning to drive her mighty sword through the orc’s unprotected back. Garius now caught sight of her as she implemented the familiar and aggressive tactic that the Chansuk barbarians used—full-out, seemingly uncontrolled aggression.

Somehow, the orc, obviously their leader, was able to reach back and smack Saeunn hard in the head with the pommel of his sword as he had somehow sensed her approach.

Garius watched as the blow struck with bone jarring force, and she landed rather awkwardly on the ground beside Orngoth. He saw her grimace as she lay sprawled on the hard floor, possibly hurt, but to what extent he did not know.

Garius absorbed a blow from the shield as the orc launched an attack that shoved him backward. He saw Saeunn clutching at her left elbow, her greatsword on the ground. It was the last thing he saw as he endured a series of powerful blows that rained down upon his helmet. The orc concentrated his attacks on the faceplate of the Inquisitor until he fell back, stumbling over some uneven ground to land prone on the cavern floor.

Elec found Rose and forced a curative elixir down her throat. Most of it made it down, he realized thankfully. She coughed and opened her eyes slowly. She smiled at him and winked playfully, ensuring that her sense of humor was intact at least.

“I was hoping to see you again,” she said as she glanced about. “The dire wolf?”

“Is dead now…thanks to you,” Elec finished, smiling at her and offering a hand up. “I believe this is yours?” Elec offered the dagger to her and she accepted it back with a nod and tried to get up, clutching her ankle as she stood.

“Dammit!” she yelled as she attempted to put pressure on it. It was obviously painful for her, but she managed to force herself to stand, trying to shove Elec away to test the severity.

“Let me help you,” Elec offered, forcing his shoulder under her arm as they limped toward the cavern entrance, surveying the room. They heard the sound of battle to their right and began to slowly make their way over to see what it was.

Elec saw that Orngoth was down. Saeunn was lying prone beside him, and Garius was the trying without success to fend off of a series of powerful blows from a vicious-looking orc. He shook his head and set Rose down to the ground gently.

“I need to help Garius,” he declared.

“You are not going alone,” Rose reasoned as she stood, gingerly at first, testing her right ankle, moving on and forcing the pain from her mind.

You may want another swig of this, then,” Elec said, handing her a flask. She shoved it aside. “The pain lets me know I’m alive. Now let’s go.” She calmly drew her daggers and the two of them rushed to aid their fallen companions.

Saeunn clutched at what was clearly a dislocated left shoulder. She grimaced and clenched her teeth in anticipation as she forced it back into place. She gingerly regained her great blade in her right hand halfway up the length of the sword, which was as high on the hilt as possible. Her left arm was almost useless to her, but she could use it if she absolutely had to.

“I would not…,” Saeunn cautioned the orc that stood over the unconscious Inquisitor. The orc leveled a crazed look at her, his yellowed eyes burning with apparent fury at having been interrupted. He lifted his blade to strike, when a pair of hands grabbed his sword arm from the very shadows.

Rose!

Saeunn charged just as the orc smashed his shield hard into Rose, knocking her to the ground. Saeunn ran at full speed and launched her body at him, connecting feet first, and knocking him down, many paces away from the prone Inquisitor. She stole a quick look and noticed that Orngoth might be unconscious from the pain, his face drenched with sweat.

Elec suddenly came running up from behind them and Saeunn had never been happier to see the elf. However, as Elec arrived, an orc that had apparently only been unconscious, made it to his feet and stood between them, brandishing a blade and shield.

Saeunn frowned as she ran toward the newly-risen enemy, facing his rear flank and ignoring the gut-wrenching pain from her shoulder. She clutched her weapon in both hands as tightly as she could and literally cleaved the orc in two with her blade, howling in both anger and pain, as the orc did not react quickly enough to spin on her
and
raise a shield.

Saeunn grimaced visibly, clutching her shoulder immediately after the strike landed, her weapon falling to the ground. She glanced up at the elf now, nodding toward Grubb.

“Finish him,” she managed softly.

Elec nodded and regarded the orc commander now, who had regained his footing. With a sense of grim determination he never believed possible and his weapons drawn, he headed toward his truest of tests.

Commander Grubb stood up in time enough to witness a dark-haired elf heading toward him now with longsword and dagger drawn. He surveyed the devastation in the room and shook loose his limbs, readying himself once more.

Grubb stood confidently as he watched the elf down a few flasks of some unknown liquid, but thought nothing much of it. He steadied his sword and shield and walked with poise toward the elf.

“I guess you will try your hand now?” he asked him pompously. “Kelgarek is right…you elves and humans do not deserve to rule the surface world any longer. You are nothing but fools!”

The elf said nothing and instead moved in to attack. Grubb easily fended off the first few stabs of his sword. They made a few exchanges, measuring each other as the orc grew more confident. The elf lunged again, this time faster and with a different sequence of attacks.

“Clever elf,” Grubb praised, offering a little respect to the elf for trying to lull him into a state of overconfidence. Then Grubb saw an opening and kicked out, knocking Elec off balance. As he moved to where he could finish him off, he felt something headed his way from his left and spun, shield held high, deflecting a dagger that fell away harmlessly, clanking against the stony ground.

The auburn-haired female was the one responsible. He glared at her, indicating to her in his own way, that she too would feel the sharp sting of his blade once he had finished with the others.

He looked in the other direction to make sure that the barbarian woman was still down, which she was, and she was not moving. Then he returned his attention to the elf once more.

His eyes stung suddenly. The elf had thrown some kind of liquid into his face. He stumbled backward a few steps, shaking his head, trying to clear his vision.

“Crafty elf!” Grubb leveled with an accusatory growl.

He felt the sudden impact of a blade as it dug into his chest and managed a look through blurred vision to see that the elf had thrust a dagger into him, angled toward his heart.

He could not believe that the dagger was sharp enough to penetrate his own enchanted suit of chainmail, slicing through the links enough to bite into flesh!

But Grubb was so strong that he halted the dagger’s penetration before it plunged too deeply, only wounding his thick skin superficially. He roared in anger at the elf, who lunged after him, slapping him aside with a backhand. He was about to remove the weapon from his chest when another dagger slammed hard into the right side of his chest, next to it. He managed to look up and see that the redhead was once again responsible.

The blow forced him to recoil and he stumbled back over something, losing his balance, and falling unceremoniously to the stone floor.

A pair of fierce, blue eyes greeted him.

In that series of precious heartbeats his vision fully cleared, Grubb finally experienced real fear for the first time—and last time—in his life.

He witnessed Orngoth’s massive hand firmly grasp the hilt of the dagger,
still stuck in his chest. The half-ogre finished the dagger’s intended course, plunging it through the armor and penetrating the orc’s heart.

Barguth rounded a corner to the right and heard the not-so-distant sounds of battle as he neared the treasure room. He dismounted from atop the worg, ordered it to stay and then peered into the room.

He was shocked to see most of his goblinoid brethren lying in ruin!

Then he saw the great commander at the rear of the room fighting with the intruders he himself had battled earlier.

His instinct told him to rush in, but he stood frozen before taking a step forward and then back again, as common sense began to take over. He watched as the commander fell to the ground, with a pair of daggers sticking in his chest.

Another overwhelming instinct of flight crept up within him.

Commander Grubb was certainly a powerful warrior and a smart tactician, Barguth knew, and he was loyal to him. But, he also considered the recent turn of events. He feared that the commander would also fall to the combined might of these powerful strangers.

”Kelgarek must know of this,” Barguth reasoned, not wanting to find out just how formidable those intruders were, firsthand.

He moved to mount his worg but then heard someone or something else coming from the hall behind him. He quickly muffled the worg’s snout with the leather strap he carried and ducked into a side room until they passed. It was the acolytes that they were sent to capture!

“Kelgarek must certainly know of this!”
Barguth reiterated as he raced away, down the hall where they had just vacated.

Barguth spurred the worg on faster than he ever had before, almost recklessly, as he was panicked. He headed back up through the passages that had brought him into this den of evil in the first place, and was relieved when he hit the fresh and crisp air of the cave entryway.

He noted that off in the distance was a caravan, poorly camouflaged. He began to direct the dire wolf to inspect the vehicle, but decided against that line of thinking and instead, headed back to Kelgarek.

Who knew what kind of dangers might lurk within?
he rationalized. Besides, the news he had to deliver to Kelgarek could not wait! The orc chieftain must know!

 He directed his worg off and to the south, through the snow covered plains, and toward the recently overrun city of Chansuk. It was where they were to meet and from where they were rumored to be gathering more tribes of orcs and goblins, ogres and even giants to help them invade the rest of Wothlondia.

Yes,
he thought,
that would be a safe place to go!

Thaurion and Alana, dragging Rolf with them as best they could, entered the battle-torn landscape. Along the way, Thaurion could have sworn he saw the movement of some kind of animal out of the corner of his eye, but considered it to be a trick of the light again. Besides, he could not investigate it thoroughly since they carried Rolf. Then they got close to and finally entered the chamber where Garius had run off to earlier.

The pair barely held onto Rolf as they witnessed the carnage. It was a stunning and gruesome sight to behold. All the dead goblinoids were spread out amongst the various coins and trinkets, making quite a spectacle.

“By all that is radiant…,” Alana muttered, taking it all in.

“There they are!” Thaurion spoke as he pointed toward some figures that he believed to be Garius’s companions.

They headed that way and eventually could make out a barbarian woman, the half-ogre who he’d run from earlier, Garius, and dozens of fallen orcs. Then Thaurion noticed an elf, off in the distance to his right, aiding an auburn-haired woman to her feet, who had obviously damaged her ankle or leg as she limped toward them.

Garius was finally up, his helmet off and he shook his head and opened his jaw over and over as if something were ringing in his ears. He looked around confused and asked what had happened until he gazed upon a limp body of an orc, a dagger protruding from his chest, lying dead beside the half-ogre.

“Over here,” Garius instructed Thaurion and Alana. They placed Rolf down again and raced over to Garius, aiding him in splinting the half-ogre’s broken leg as best they could. “This is Rose, Elec, Saeunn and I believe you have met Orngoth,” Garius said, gesturing to the half-ogre again. The elf bent over the deceased orc and tugged free the dagger, wiped it on his tabard, and replaced it in a scabbard on his belt.

“A real infirmary, eh?” he heard Rose say behind them as she sat on the hard ground, removing the weight from her badly sprained ankle. It was swollen terribly, Thaurion could tell as she removed her leather boot and began rubbing the area, but nothing appeared to be broken.

“I’ll be right back,” the elf said as he ran off and Rose watched him go.

Saeunn refused any aid at all and offered instead to help the others with Orngoth. They treated Rose’s injury, helping the group progress to leave the temple and ready for travel. Elec returned quickly with Rose’s dagger, handing it back to her and saying something in elven to her. She looked at him quizzically as she did not understand his words.

“I am sorry. I was merely saying that we needed all of our
combined
resources to take down that foul orc.” He pointed at the deceased orc commander. “And we succeeded,” he finished with a half-hearted smile.

“If even one of us was not here…,” he added, suggesting a possibly different and less-favorable outcome. Then he strode over to the massive and disabled half-ogre and held a familiar gem out in his right hand.

“I believe this is yours?” Elec bowed low with a hand outstretched toward him. “I told you we would help you get it back, didn’t I?”

Orngoth clutched the gem, smiling truly, despite the pain of his leg. The acolytes began performing as many healing techniques as they could muster, but could not heal a broken bone. The healing they called upon could sometimes mend flesh, but could not speed the recovery from broken bones, nor could they remove pain completely.

“I have nothing left to draw upon. I cannot heal this one without the soul or life force of another. It is the best we can do for now.  I hope that this is good enough for us to move you,” Garius said to Orngoth as he stared into the half-ogre’s eyes. “Do you…have somewhere to go? A place you call home, perhaps?”

Orngoth gazed at his gem and then turned his head in a poor attempt to hide a mask of sorrow.

”No,” he stated flatly, his tone indicating that he may have realized it himself for the first time.

“You are welcome to join us. We will be travelling to Oakhaven from here,” Garius explained as he stood up and hooked his helmet onto his belt for safekeeping.

“Where is the amulet?” Saeunn asked, staring at Thaurion now. Thaurion looked around, thinking she was speaking to someone else. Then he surveyed her with a bewildered gaze. “The phylactery we seek?” the barbarian reiterated.

“Aye, it was I mentioned earlier to you,” the Inquisitor recapped.

“What amulet? I know of no such ‘phylactery,’ of which you speak,” Thaurion claimed.

Then suddenly, He fell to his knees in agony. His mind flooded with a barrage of disturbing images, but they were gone just as swiftly. He markedly reeled from the intensity of the visions and the feeling of pure evil that accompanied it.

“Are you all right?” Alana asked as she rushed to his side just as Saeunn closed the gap between her and the young priest. Alana intercepted her and stood between Thaurion and the barbarian woman, halting her threatening advance.

“The last thing we can remember is being in Oakhaven, preparing for the days of Holy Enlightenment with Tiyarnon. Then we woke up in the cell here in this…place,” Alana admitted to them all. Thaurion nodded his agreement and had a very painful gaze in his green eyes. “We don’t know of any amulet,” Alana repeated, “I am telling you the truth!”

“I was fearful of such a claim,” Garius stated, stealing the accusatory look from Saeunn’s face, replacing it instead with one of confusion. Saeunn, Rose and Elec all stood by as the Inquisitor explained. “Something or someone has manipulated these priests into doing things that go against their judgment.”

“There was…a doppelganger,” Thaurion finally admitted. “I think it replaced our fellow acolyte, Niomir! And I know not for how long.…”

“Go on,” Garius instructed the young apprentice.

“That is all that I know. I cannot remember,” he faltered, frustrated by his waning memory.

“So…the artifact of which Tiyarnon spoke is not
here!
?” Rose asked bluntly, slowly and gingerly making it to her feet, attempting to put weight on her ankle once more. Elec was searching the orc leader’s body while they spoke.

“This orc possesses no such amulet, either,” Elec concluded, finishing his examination. “He did have this, however.” Elec held aloft the orc commander’s sword. He strapped the scabbard around his waist, and then he sheathed the weapon. He ran off, adjusting the new scabbard on his waist, looking for more bodies that he could inspect for goods that they might be willing to salvage. And any of the commanding forces of goblinoids might have the thing, he reasoned.

“You will not find it here, I fear,” Garius called after Elec. “Though a clean sweep of the orc bodies is in order to make sure.”

Saeunn and Rose both joined Elec in searching carcasses for the phylactery. Rose, while searching for the item, also took anything of value she could find that she reckoned she could carry on her injured ankle without slowing her further.

Garius allowed them sufficient time to search and waited patiently until they eventually returned empty-handed, as he suspected. They had gathered a few waterskins and several rations of nuts and dried beef, however.

Meanwhile, Thaurion discovered some longer pieces of wood lying around and used them to craft a very crude stretcher for Rolf in order to help carry him out.

“I found this, too,” Elec announced, holding up the bone staff of the shaman. “I intend to study it,” the elf continued. Garius regarded it respectfully and nodded his consent to him.

“Let us be gone from this place quickly, then,” Garius instructed. “Winter’s Heart must be nearing an end, so the worst of the storms may have already passed. Help the injured make it to the caravan. On our way back to Oakhaven, I will attempt to discern more about what has happened,” he instructed, before facing Thaurion directly. “There are…ways…of uncovering your deepest rooted memories. Memories you are not even aware you have experienced,” Garius added cryptically. He helped Orngoth to his feet with the aid of Saeunn, who bore the brunt of his weight.

Thaurion stared after him, fearful of what the Inquisitor might learn about what they did. He swallowed hard, the anticipation of what happened causing his heart to race. He almost did not want to know.

Elec helped Rose to her feet once more and, after replacing her boot, had her lean on him as they took their first steps.