The Beginnings Omnibus: Beginnings 1, 2, 3 & Legend of Ashenclaw novella (Realm of Ashenclaw Beginnings Saga) (79 page)

The group of companions followed after the barbarian as she sped off down the path toward the bank of the Lake of Souls.

Tiyarnon sat uncomfortably at the table, waiting for the others to arrive. He went over everything again in his mind, trying to place himself in her position, trying to understand why the Queen of Norgeld would be so foolish as to follow this path of illogical procedures.

Doesn’t she understand that she is putting her entire city at risk and that it wasn’t so long ago that Norgeld was rebuilt to its once and former glory? What is she thinking?! She knows that no matter the situation, she must always put the kingdom’s needs before her own,
Tiyarnon thought as he fidgeted in his chair. Of course, he knew that human emotion would always play a part in the rulership of any kingdom or city, regardless of anything else.

It is what makes us human
, he surmised,
and it is that very quality that makes her a noble queen.

It was then that he was pulled from his considerations by the sound of footsteps echoing from the solid wooden surface of the conference room floor. He gazed to the window above that allowed the sunlight to bathe the room and silently asked for guidance from The Shimmering One.

“What’s yer concern?” called the gruff voice belonging to none other than Rolin Hardbeard. Tiyarnon spun to regard his friend and former traveling companion, gesturing for him and the lovely Nimaira, who followed quietly behind him, to sit at the table.

“We received word from Norgeld that Lynessa is to all but empty her kingdom of knights to search for her daughter,” said Nimaira as she could see that Tiyarnon was obviously emotionally strained.

“She be a durned fool!” Rolin spat from beneath his white beard, folding his arms over his chest. He slammed his fist down upon the table, furthering opening a crack along the grain of the surface with the force of the blow.

“Is she not fer waitin’ fer help from Oakhaven or any of her friends nearby? And didn’t we promise the survivors of Chansuk that we’d be takin’ that village back fer that matter?”

“Patience, friend,” Nimaira offered with a flash of a smile. It calmed the dwarf enough for their meeting to continue.

“We are concerned for not only the princess and her whereabouts, but also for the wellbeing and safety of Norgeld,” Tiyarnon admitted. “Chansuk has already been overrun and there’s nothing we can do to reverse that situation. We yet need to make good on that promise, too, I know. What shall we do?”

None of them offered a suggestion.

“The Days of Holy Enlightenment are over and we have no attractions until Nature’s Call this year. Perhaps we can lend her some aid. We can offer them some of our knights from the Oakhaven Watch?”

“Aye,” Rolin agreed, after a brief pause of silence. “I will personally see to it that Norgeld gets ‘er help…and maybe I can talk some sense into that stubborn queen, too!” Rolin stood from his seat and ran a hand through his white thinning hair. “And we be needin’ to do something about the stinkin’ orcs in Chansuk, too.”

“You mean to go to Norgeld yourself?” Nimaira asked skeptically as her sparkling blue eyes widened with interest.

“Aye,” Rolin answered. “Aeldur has a firm idea on how we been runnin’ the Watch here and I’m figurin’ maybe I can see fer meself what is makin’ her act like such a fool,” he finished as he walked from the table and rubbed his hands together. “I’ll be bringin’ a small garrison of at least fifty with me to help reinforce what guards she’s got left on her walls. Don’t ye worry none. I’ll be makin’ sure that Norgeld stays safe.” He spoke with a certain confidence that assured the other two of just that. “Or I’ll die tryin’.”

“But—” Tiyarnon began to offer a protest but was silenced by the hand of his friend.

“No buts. I’ll be doin’ this,” Rolin declared, silencing his friend with a wave of his hand. He disappeared around the corner and Nimaira and Tiyarnon exchanged looks of concern as the sound of Rolin’s footsteps echoed into nothingness.

“I guess we need to recruit added Watchmen to send south to Chansuk,” Tiyarnon suggested to the half-elven sorceress. “I just hope that they are not marching to their demise.”

“We don’t know the size of the goblinoid force in Chansuk, so they very well might be,” Nimaira responded with unease in her voice. “It’d be a foolish waste of troops.”

Tiyarnon walked to the door and found a wandering servant in the hall.  “Gather the Council. We will need to speak on important matters,” Tiyarnon instructed him. The servant, a portly man with a long dark beard, nodded and made off with haste to do as he was bid.

“We will certainly need to gather many volunteers in order to complete these tasks and fulfill promises. Perhaps we can send a group of criminals from the prison to Chansuk instead of sending them to Archinon? Or we could round up some sellswords and attempt to make them into something more…honorable?”

“They would make poor knights,” Nimaira pointed out with a wry smile.

“Aye, they would. But I fear we may have little choice.”

Zabalas Dimonia stood in silence as the heavy gate lifted on a winch behind him. He turned and stared in admiration at the bone-finished exterior that comprised the Bastion of Skulls and made his way into the courtyard.

A look of disgust adorned his face as he recalled the news given him by Prishnack, who had found no signs of the Bonemasher orcs, or the missing artifact. Whoever stole the amulet and killed his orcs would pay dearly.

He looked back and forth, surveying the dilapidated grounds and vacated structures that were once referred to as Gallows Hill and that had once teemed with men and women less than a century ago. He also observed the plentiful undead creatures that wandered the ruins, lurking in the shadows, the shells of those very men and women.

Megnus Bloodstone, Phaera Sine, and the recently returned djinni Prishnack followed behind the daunting warlord as he strode down the trail to the outskirts of the ruined town.

One other accompanied them too—a hairless slagfell mage, adorned in motley robes. He followed behind the other three, observing the horrid creatures that shuffled, stumbled, or even crawled among the broken structures.

It all seemed surrealistic to him as he continued along, his staff gripped tightly in his stubby hands. Dainn could not help but present an uneasy expression upon his face. His kin, Megnus, was probably accustomed to seeing this sort of thing, but he was not. The taste of bile presented in his mouth and his heart pounded in response, witnessing these undead creatures wandering about freely. Though none of them approached or even acknowledged them at all.

Zabalas left the lich Sadreth behind while they attempted to uncover the reasons why Commander Grubb and his force had not successfully acquired the phylactery they so desperately sought. That was how Zabalas explained it to them, Dainn recalled.

The slagfell Wayfarer watched the look on his prince’s face as the scene unfolded. Megnus, too, was a little unnerved by the walking corpses and undead atrocities that wandered about, lurking in the shadows of the ruins, but he seemed to hide it better than Dainn. Besides, Dainn had seen Megnus cut down creatures more terrifying than the undead.

They continued for a while until they arrived at an intact but unkempt structure, not unlike a barn. Zabalas swung the huge doors wide and entered into the dimly lit shelter where Dainn witnessed a figure in the shadows.

As Zabalas approached her—for it appeared to be a she—the lithe and shapely lady moved away from the intimidating man fearfully. As far as he could tell, this was the only other presumably living thing in the entire area. She appeared in tattered, disheveled robes and her face was concealed in shadow from the hood that covered her head, but her shape was certainly feminine.

The woman in the barn backed away and Zabalas opened the first stall to allow a magnificent and enormous horse to escape its confines.  The warlord mounted this steed and Dainn could not help but notice the red eyes of the horse. They brought forth memories of the fieriest coals produced in the forges of Shadowmere.

Zabalas gave orders to the unsteady female and she released three horses from their stables, presumably for Megnus, Dainn and Phaera. The color of these animals resembled the blackest caverns of the Subterrane. He looked to see the vaporous form of the djinni, Prishnack, who would be travelling along on the wind, following them.

“Let us go,” Zabalas announced, sitting imposingly atop his mount as it trotted out of the barn and stood facing the exit of the courtyard. “I have much to discuss with the mighty orc chieftain Kelgarek.  Once that is taken care of, we will be going our separate ways. I have something that requires my attention and the four of you have an artifact to retrieve.”

The sun was rising in the east, above the Dragon Fangs Mountains along the eastern border of Wothlondia. Zabalas donned his helm, which covered his head completely, just as the sun’s rays peeked over the crest of the mountain range.

 “I do so despise the sunlight,” Zabalas commented, his voice sounding like something wraithlike as it escaped from beneath the helm. Dainn noted that the eye slots were covered in shadow and not a single hint of flesh escaped from beneath that blackened steel shell.

Phaera chuckled at the comment and eyes the man lustfully. Dainn looked her up and down and noted that she always wore a cruel smile on her face. Before he could give her any more consideration, Zabalas spoke again.

“Let us ride then, and see if the orc chieftain can succeed in revealing to me the whereabouts of my guest’s amulet,” he concluded as he scampered off with haste toward the gates of the ruined city. The other three riders and the djinni followed behind him and his trail of dust.

And so, they began their journey northwest towards their destination, the former home to a barbarian tribe, and current home to Zabalas’s Dark Legion—Chansuk.

Kelgarek paced back and forth. His advisors waited anxiously for what he might say next. He was surrounded by many of the goblin and orc shamans and the king of the Bloody Fang goblin clan, Kogh. They were in the largest structure that Chansuk had to offer, a meeting hall that Kelgarek had converted into his own private quarters, and yet the vast space somehow seemed as if it were shrinking by the minute as far as Barguth was concerned.

He stood on the outskirts of the host gathered, pacing back and forth near the exit, despite being told repeatedly by Kogh that Kelgarek was
not
going to tear him limb from limb.

“The Dark One will not be pleased,” provoked Kogh with the opening statement, as he fingered the sharp tip of his double-headed spear. He hid a smirk as he adjusted the gem-encrusted crown on his sparsely haired head. He enjoyed toying with the mighty orc’s emotions, though Barguth was more than terrified at the thought of what an enraged Kelgarek might do to him.

“But we are still many and will grow in numbers again soon,” he pacified after seeing Barguth’s expression. “I would not worry so much about the losses of even a hundred,” Kogh continued. The goblin king certainly wanted to irritate the orc chieftain, as he had voiced this over and over while they supped last eve, but he wanted to do it in a way that did not result in the beheading of the goblin envoy, which Barguth appreciated.

“I lost a legion of my orcs including my second in command!” barked Kelgarek, his face contorting with each word into a mask of indignation. All present recoiled at the ferocity of his tone. “Grubb lies among the dead!” Kelgarek rushed to tower directly over the tiny goblin king, seething with obvious disdain. It was well known that Kelgarek did not want Kogh here—or any goblin at all for that matter—and he looked for ways to take it out on those goblins with whom he was forced to ally.

“And my grand shaman, Tukk, is gone too!” he continued, looking down upon Kogh. Spittle seeped from the sides of his mouth, passing his tusks as he spat the words. His red eyes looked to bore a hole right through Kogh. The orc’s massive chest heaved with labored breaths and veins protruded from his forehead and neck.

Kogh, of course, knew precisely what he was doing in whipping the orc chieftain into an uncontrollable frenzy. It was all for his own amusement. And he would sit back and observe in glee, as the orc would take that anger out on anything and anyone nearby.

Kogh snickered as he turned his back on the massive orc. The goblin, despite being forced to work with the brutish and disrespectful Kelgarek, did not willingly accept his place in the hierarchy of the newly formed alliance of tribes. He confided in Barguth that he believed Kelgarek’s anger would eventually lead to a disastrous mistake, leaving him in charge of the Dark Legion.

“I am sure the Dark One will have a plan and will also understand the importance of brave Barguth’s presence. He will be able to inform us of the…events that came to light,” Kogh continued, choosing his words carefully and staring into the eyes of Barguth, smiling still.

 “Do you understand the importance of the mission, Kogh?!” asked Kelgarek in a loathsome tone. “It was vital to Zabalas that these priests be returned to him! And now, not only has that failed, but I am faced with the loss of soldiers in the process!”

“Of course I understand,” Kogh said, further quelling the anger of the orc, while running clawed fingers along the feathers that hung from his spear. “I am merely saying that he is sure to have a reserve plan. The Dark One is no fool.”

King Kogh spun away from the orc chieftain and winked to Barguth. He was waiting and allowing that statement to sink in. Kogh had meant to unnerve the chieftain for sure, but Barguth was still terrified as to what he would do to him.

Kogh craved for Kelgarek to be full of doubt and unease when the Dark One arrived. A shiver ran down Barguth’s spine as he imagined Zabalas’s own disappointment in hearing the news. Kogh held his grin, covering the smirk with a hand over his mouth.

Barguth knew that Kelgarek was not only strong physically, but intellectually and tactically as well. He was by far the epitome of orcish evolution. And he would therefore understand the prodding words of Kogh for what they were. Kogh was playing a dangerous game, but the king of goblins was no slouch in tactics and warfare either.

 “I will speak with my shamans immediately,” Kelgarek said as he turned abruptly away from the goblin king. He walked with pride away from Kogh and Barguth, his throng of orc shaman and advisors following after him, peeking back toward Kogh, though Kelgarek did not give either of the goblins a second glance.

As the orc chieftain sat in his makeshift throne, the goblin duo made their way out of the hut and past the guards stationed there. When they were out of earshot, Kogh grabbed Barguth by the shoulder and spoke.

 “It won’t be long now before the Dark One arrives!” he whispered excitedly, rubbing his hands together in anticipation.

Barguth stared at Kogh and wondered how it would all play out. Perhaps there
was
room for Kogh to emerge as the leader of the Dark One’s forces after all? He patted Barguth on the shoulder and walked away, leaving the unnerved goblin alone with his lingering fears and doubts.