A Warrior's Legacy (33 page)

Spittle dribbled over his shrunken lips and
down his chin as he screamed hollowly at me.

“It’s time I take something from you brave
young fool!” He brought up a red tinted crystal and laughed
manically.

“You see this dear boy all I have to do is
insert this crystal here like this and push like this and it’s all
over for you!”

He laughed hysterically, which ended
abruptly with him bent over coughing and wheezing for breathe.

He regained some control of his breathing
and peered up at us with a maniacally insane look, “Even now every
trinial power cell on this continent is imploding on itself and
causing a mass eruption of the entire landmass and beyond, but long
before you the one I detest and hate most dies in the glorious
flames of my destruction of your new kingdom you will see the
traitorous witch, my elixir of youth that you stole from me blown
into a million billion itsy-bitsy pieces as the trinial explodes
within her! Let’s watch her destruction together shall we!”

With a crazed intensity he stared raptly at
Raya with the exuberance of a child waiting to see what’s in an
unopened package.

The minutes ticked by and nothing happened.
A frown began to form on the sorcerer’s wrinkled brow. He began to
rub his face nervously and mutter what sounded like calculations of
some kind. Then absurdly he got down on his knees and put his ear
to the floor as if listening for something. Getting back up his
muttering and gesturing intensified and then he stopped.

Staring at the inserted crystal before him
he exploded in anger and turned back to me, “But of course you
drained all of my power away! There’s none left to initiate the
process!”

Then all matter of cursing and profanities
issued forth as he shook his finger threateningly at both of us
from his little upraised dais. I raised my sword towards him and he
gasped and stopped his tirade to flee behind his chair, which he
then peered over the top of at us.

“You’ve taken my destiny from me!” He
whimpered out.

I shook my head no, “No I haven’t. Your
destiny lies over by the window. Go take a look.”

He looked from me to the floor-to-ceiling
window and then back again to me disbelievingly.

“Really?” He asked his eyes excited and I
nodded yes.

He shuffled excitedly over towards the
window kicking through the debris of the room, while dragging one
leg slightly out behind him.

Reaching the window he exclaimed angrily,
“This isn’t my destiny! This is the same boring view as ever!” He
said turning back to me with a vengeful light in his eyes.

“Look again.” I said pointing to something
behind him. He turned back and came face-to-face with one of the
big red glowing eyes of Kregridor.

The sorcerer’s high pitched squeal of sheer
terror drowned out my words, “Behold your destiny.”

The taloned pawl of Kregridor’s forearm
smashed through the window. The talons closed tightly around the
sorcerer before he had a chance to flee and then the sorcerer was
pulled kicking and screaming out the window. They were quickly out
of sight as Kregridor took off flying towards the west.

The room was quiet and I glanced over at
Raya who was already looking at me. There were a few tears tracking
down her face, which she brushed away.

“Where’s Kregridor taking him?”

I squeezed her hand, “To a pit of his own
making.”

More tears kept coming as she looked up at
me.

“Can you really still love me when part of
me comes directly from a man as crazy and evil as my father?”

I pulled her into my arms and hugged her,
“Raya all of humanity is related to your father. Human history is
filled with such monsters, but whether monster or genuine good
person they all came from two people and as a race we humans bear
the blame equally across all cultures, because each of us has the
potential to do evil and have done evilly ourselves. You bear no
more blame for your father’s condition than anyone else does!”

Her arms closed around me and I heard her
mumble, “I love you!”

I hugged her tighter, “I love you too
sugar!”

Looking around I shook my head, “We have a
lot of work getting this place back into shape.”

At some point Sarcis Ta’lont’s voice gave
out and all he could do was rasp weakly as he pleaded for his life.
The tannin had flown toward the west and now Sarcis could see the
devastation of the Western Kingdom firsthand.

It as a kingdom was truly no more. All that
was left was broken rock and ground where the land had fallen
inward or had been filled in by either seawater or great pools of
seething magma that rose and oozed out over the remaining land.

It was over one of these lakes of fire that
Kregridor paused in flight and began to unload his prey, but
screaming hoarsely with renewed vigor Sarcis hung onto a single
talon.

“No please, anywhere but here!”

“But I have brought you to your friends. You
wish to go somewhere else instead? Perhaps a cool forest would be
more to your liking?”

“Yes! Yes! Take me to the forest!”

Kregridor tightened his talons and flew
further south as Sarcis breathed out a sigh of relief at having
escaped the hot lava fields.

Kregridor’s mighty pumping wings smashed
branches and made a general ruckus of noise as he descended to the
forest floor. He released Sarcis, who quickly shuffled away from
him.

Kregridor studied him for a moment with a
dismissive look and then rumbled out, “Enjoy your new kingdom.”

And then with a thrashing of wings he beat
his way back up out of the clearing and away. Sarcis looked up
after Kregridor and laughed shaking his fist at the sky.

“You fool! You should’ve killed me why’ll
you had the chance! I’ll find a way and I’ll come back stronger
than ever! I’ll roast your egg chicks over a fire, while I make you
watch from a cage of my own creation!”

Satisfied with his vengeful plan in place
Sarcis looked away from the patch of open sky to his surroundings.
First things first, he had to find out where he was before he could
embark on his great revenge quest.

Now if memory served him right the only
forest this far south was the…… dark forest!

His mind froze at the realization of where
he was. Silently he cursed the tannin that had dropped him into
this hellish forest. Maybe they hadn’t heard, but on the tails of
that thought came the snap of a twig.

He wheeled around to see one of the brutes
of his own creation standing there looking dumbly at him. Sarcis’s
bone chilling initial fear quickly turned to contempt, “Why you’re
just a stupid animal! Out of my way!”

But the brute didn’t move, but instead
another appeared beside it and then there were more and as one
their stupefaction over his sudden appearance in the forest changed
to open mouthed snarls of demented lunacy as they advanced on him
in mass.

He had time for only one brief statement of
fact, “Oh dear I’ve killed myself!”

Six months later

I stood on the balcony of my old tower room
looking out over the fortifications of Thunder Ridge and the wide
valley beyond in the cool morning air. Raya still lay asleep amidst
the tangle of warm sheets inside.

Before I had come out here I had been lying
awake inside with my ear pressed to Raya’s already gently rounding
belly wondering when I would get to hear the heartbeat of my
firstborn child for the first time.

As the sun lazily made its way higher into
the sky I reflected on how much my life had so abruptly changed.
After the dust had settled so to speak back on Assoria, Gavin and I
had started the long process of reestablishing and establishing for
the first time in my case our respective kingdoms. Each of us
helping the other as we could.

The Eastern people moved back out onto their
plains all the way back to the base of the mountains and the ruined
fortresses of the West. The dark forest was burned to the ground
along with all the shattered and lost brutish souls it
contained.

The illness that had inflicted the East
Kingdom for generations disappeared overnight. I had suspected it
hadn’t been a real disease all along, but rather it had been the
energy waves put off by a device crafted by the sorcerer to mess
with normal body function. It had lost its power when I had drained
the sorcerer’s power away.

Gavin and Zalisha were beloved by their
people. General Lasho had passed away peacefully in his sleep a
couple months back having gotten to see his nation settled into
freedom and its enemies vanquished. His son Lohan stood in his
place serving Gavin as he had served the royal family all the days
of his life.

As for me and the kingdom of Lanoria, we’d
done quite well for ourselves too. In a separate course of events
unknown to us at the time the Northern Kingdom had used our attack
on the Western army to take the advantage or so they had
thought.

The Northern king had assembled the entire
northern army and with the West distracted with us he’d led a
raiding party into the Western Kingdom’s territory. He and his
entire force had perished with the Western cities occupants, when
the ground beneath them had collapsed.

I brought the surviving women and children
out of the northern wastelands and into the mountains and they
joined us as fellow Lanorians. The women refugees from the West
also came for the most part to be Lanorians.

All the soldiers that had come with me and
my brother took brides and settled in the mountains of Lanoria as
the mountains reminded them of their former home in the Valley
Lands.

In the springtime the population of Lanoria
would likely double in size. I swear that every Lanorian woman of
childbearing age had to be pregnant or soon would be. It was a
happy time. Lanoria existed above and below ground.

The wonders of the deep were opened up for
the dwellers of the surface to experience and the original
Lanorians now had the freedom to walk in the warmth of the sun.

We settled wherever habitation was possible
in the mountains taking over and rebuilding the city of Unasa,
which we renamed Atlanor. We also started rebuilding the city of
Sartorga that lay just beyond the Yasana River, which had been the
first to be destroyed by the sorcerer at the hands of the West
Kingdom. We would settle there and then in the future as our
numbers increased we would reclaim the northern lands, which were
even now being replenished by the Yasana River, as we had destroyed
the dam redirecting the river from its original course.

The Yasana River once more flowed within its
old channel watering the northern lands. Lanoria was poised to
become a great and powerful nation and I intended to do everything
that I could to make that come true.

As for me and Raya we ruled Lanoria from the
Blue Castle, which we renamed Castle Nassoria. To say we remodeled
the place was to put it lightly.

We practically rebuilt it and in the process
we discovered more of Tadias’s technological treasures. Tadias’s
half-brother had only scratched the surface of what Tadias had left
behind thankfully.

Gavin and I had agreed to make a joint trip
home, when things were manageable for us to be away for awhile. We
both had been eager to tell our stories of the Creator’s blessings
and provisions for us along the way, as well as to show off the
gorgeous Assorian wives we had both been blessed with to our
parents.

My thoughts drifted back to last night when
we had arrived. I’d never forget the joy on my mother’s face when
she saw us healthy and happy. Her delight in her new
daughter-in-law’s was unbounded, especially when she had learned of
Raya’s pregnant condition and then moments later by a blushing
Zalisha of her likewise condition.

As for my father…..why I was looking right
at him at this moment and he at me. I on my balcony and he on his.
Much the same as the night the Creator had used me to help save
father from the assassins, only this time it was a shared enjoyment
of the beauty of the sunrise over the snowy mountain tops.

I had gotten the impression the night before
that I had succeeded in everything he could have asked for in a
son, but best of all was the knowledge that I knew he had felt that
way about me before I had even left for Assoria.

It hadn’t felt justified then though to me.
My father was the king of the Valley Lands, but if you asked him he
would deny any such title. I wasn’t happy with the title of king
either, but reluctantly I accepted it as it went with the job so to
speak.

Despite whatever leadership role my father
might have it could truly be said of him that he was a king among
men. He had raised me and shown me the right paths to take and
those to avoid by his own actions. He was very much responsible for
the great guy that everyone seemed to think that I was now.

I had simply emulated his life and the
principles and standards of his life had uniquely become my own. I
was my own man, but I was always going to be a part of him and
reversely whatever I did was going to be partly because of him. It
had been a good result all around. I only hoped that I could be
that guiding influence for good in the life of my yet unborn
children.

“What are you doing out here without any
clothes on? You’re crazy!”

I turned to see Raya standing on the terrace
behind me with a sheet wrapped around her shivering.

I had wanted someone exactly like my mother
for a wife, but the Creator had given me someone completely
different and yet similar to my mother in some ways, who was
uniquely perfect for me in every way.

“You should have woken me up earlier! Your
mother wants us all to be at a family breakfast in a little over an
hour!”