The Azure Wizard (19 page)

After they had been sprinting for about thirty minutes they were forced to stop for a breather. Their breaths came out in wheezes and both were drenched in sweat. The air was beginning to grow humid and the dark sky was cloaked in thick clouds in the grey hours that heralded the approaching dawn. Finally Ethan said, “May, we have something like one-hundred miles to travel to reach Greenwell City, but as we speak the Troll is already after us. Kraegovich is gone by now.”

May cast her eyes downward and nodded solemnly in reply. “We can’t make it back naturally. Can we?”

Ethan shook his head with its sodden blond locks that dripped beads of sweat as he responded, “I don’t think we’ll live through the day if we try to make it back on foot.”

“So we use your Wizardcraft to transport us?”

“Yes,” was Ethan’s quiet response, his tone not ever before as solemn as it was at that moment.

May shrugged and stated bluntly, “Well, let’s get to it.”

Ethan looked at her where she stood with her hands on her curvy hips in the center of the Three Baronies Road. Her untied white tunic clung wetly to her athletic figure revealing the tops of her healthy bosom, but the shirt was soiled in all matter of grime and dirt. Her black trousers hugged her legs in a way that was enchanting to her companion. Her hide boots and gauntlets completed the ensemble. But what enchanted Ethan most of all was her face, dashed with dirt though it was, that was dominated by her rosy freckled cheeks, wet blond neck-length hair and bright blue eyes that were evident even in the long pre-dawn shadows.

Ethan wanted to ask the female Forester if she felt the same adoration for him that he felt for her, but thought the better of it. Instead he said, “Come closer.”

May let out a large nervous exhalation and strode across the short distance between them. She splayed her fingers and shook her hands as though she could easily get rid of her apprehensive nerves, and then she quickly grasped Ethan’s hands and looked into his captivating yellow eyes. “I think it will be easier this time, May,” he whispered into her ear.

When she nodded slowly in reply he stated, “Don’t worry.”

She closed her eyes and laid her head on his bare shoulder as he wrapped her torso in his thin rune-covered arms, locking her in a protective embrace. Ethan, though, kept his eyes open and gazed down the winding dirt road they were standing on. Then his eyes began to glow. The blue light came very suddenly this time and barely illuminated their forms and the road immediately about them. The column of light that stretched forever into the sky enveloped them, and all sound and time seemed to slow its pace. Then suddenly there was a silent release of pressure, and the sounds of the pre-dawn woodlands returned. But Ethan Skalderholt and May Kinsley were nowhere to be seen.

The same mind-warping experience as before followed the powerful use of Wizardcraft and both Foresters were thankful when solid ground materialized beneath their booted feet. They staggered in each other’s arms and went to their knees out of dizziness. They kept their eyes closed for a while, their heads resting on one another’s’ shoulders, and their quick adrenaline-induced respirations became slower and in sync with each other’s. Finally, Ethan nervously opened an amber eye to survey their surroundings, and he broke into a grin and opened his other eye to behold the environment in which they found themselves.

The moss-speckled statue of Lady Quinn stood tall and stalwart before them in the center of the algae-shrouded fountain of still water. Behind the statue was the three-story tall building of cut white stone that was the headquarters of the Foresters of the Three Baronies. Though it was not yet sunrise the constant clamor of civilization was akin to the stirring of a hive of angry bees to the Forester, due in part to his abruptly-ended stint in the forest and his newly-acquired uncanny hearing. His Wizardcraft had worked again, and he was overjoyed that he and May were safe, for the moment.

“May, open your eyes,” whispered Ethan.

She did as he told her, and she laughed out loud in relief at the sight of Lady Quinn and the Compound. “Ethan,” she said, “I love you.”

They both laughed and embraced once again as they knelt alone in the darkness of the courtyard in the heart of Greenwell City, the largest and grandest settlement in all the Three Baronies.

Bethany Kinsley sat still and quiet in a large chair of walnut wood and soft green cushions of silk, her thin face dismal and mirthless. The room was dark still, as dark as the attitudes of those within, and the morning light was just beginning to reveal itself by casting the overcast sky in a lighter shade of grey with the barest undertones of pink. The green and blue stained-glass window of the grandmaster’s room was open and she looked from her seat out into the commotion of the white city streets beyond the wrought-iron fence of the Forester’s Compound. The people of the Three Baronies were soon to know such dangers and hardships, the likes of which haven’t been known in a thousand years. The Foresters that were currently out on patrol, she also knew wouldn’t be coming back.

“Mother?”

Bethany turned her head slowly away from the window and into the fair face of her daughter. May and Ethan both sat on the edge of their seats in straight-backed chairs of dark wood across from the leader of the Foresters, and behind them seven other Foresters crowded the threshold of the room, faces running the gamut from sorrow to anger to disbelief. It had taken Ethan and May the better part of two hours to completely recount their tale and convince their commander of the truth of it. Two of her finest Foresters were surely dead and eighteen were out on patrol, and thus would soon meet their own demises among the newly-enchanted beasts of the wilds. That left only ten remaining Foresters in the whole of the Three Baronies, and all stood within the room.

“Ethan,” she finally stated, “you must go to Baron Reynard Fernhollow tomorrow and warn him about the return of Wizardcraft to the Three Baronies. Urge him to recall the Greenwellian Knights and close the gates of Greenwell City until we know more of what has happened.”

Ethan nodded and Bethany slowly continued, “After that you must use the Wizardcraft that you say you possess to take you to Lumberwall and Taedroke where you will also warn the Baron and Baroness of Vhar and Wendlith respectively.”

“As you command,” Ethan replied stoically.

“Do I go alone?”

“Yes, I don’t believe any Foresters can be spared to journey with you. Besides it shouldn’t be dangerous if you use your Wizardcraft. In fact, you may be back home by tomorrow evening.”

Ethan was about to nod in acceptance when May blurted, “No, mother, I go with him!”

“Excuse me?” returned Bethany incredulously.

“I was there when all of this happened and I’m going to see it through to completion,” she began as she stood from her chair and faced her mother’s frail form, “And besides we haven’t finished Ethan’s Errand yet. I am still his instructor.”

An awkward moment passed among those present in the room until Bethany finally broke the silence by whispering, “So be it.”

It was later that day when Ethan and May again sat in the Mess Hall on the first floor of the Compound sipping blackberry wine and sharing a heaping plate of roasted chicken and buttered vegetables. The seven other Foresters, three women and four men, sat around them at the same long table eating and drinking. All of the Foresters wanted to know more of the perils that May, Ethan, and Kraegovich had faced. All were completely grief-stricken at the deaths of O’Dell, a hero to all of them, and Kraegovich, a parent to all of them. Despite the relative safety of their environment most of the Foresters wore their armor and all had their silver Foresters hand axes dangling from their hips.

Eventually conversation waned and an atmosphere of dread crept into the hall. All knew that the Troll was coming and that the land of the Three Baronies was now full of great danger. Ethan looked into the grave faces of those around him as he finished his goblet of dark wine. These people needed some inspiration, something to lift their spirits in these trying times.

Clearing his throat as he rose from his seat, Ethan said loudly, “Would you people care to hear a story?”

May smiled warmly up at him and the rest eagerly nodded in agreement or shouted their consensus for it was now known among the Foresters that Ethan Skalderholt was a true Vharian storyteller, and thus a tale of his was an opportunity not to be missed. Thus he told the story of Kraegovich and his grandmother.

Decades and decades ago when the Foresters of the Three Baronies numbered in the scores there were two Foresters known far and wide across the Three Baronies. A man, Bear as he was known, was a Vharian of great height and size. Always wielding a heavy sword in addition to his hand axe, he was respected by rulers and his peers, and brigands knew that to face him in combat meant certain doom. Always at his side was the Axe Maiden, a Vharian woman of great beauty and bold action. Though she hadn’t been a Forester nearly as long as Bear her skill of the requisite hand axe was unparalleled. To see her use it in battle was to see perfection unfettered and unleashed, slashing swaths of fury into dangerous beasts or unscrupulous foes. The two were companions in deed as well as in heart for they had fallen in love.

One gorgeous autumn day in the golden and red woods of southwestern Greenwell the duo, on patrol together, stumbled upon a ruin. Tucked away among the large old trunks of cedar and oak, the ruin was one of tall moss-smothered white stone and had crumbled to debris in various sections. Small stunted trees and shrubbery grew among the stones. Both recognized it as a ruin of the Ancient Age, an outpost of Illumis the Wizard Emperor, for such things were taught to Foresters in those days.

The curiosity of the two Foresters got the better of them, and in no time at all they lit torches and plunged into a gaping dark hole in the ivy and moss-spackled wall of the ruin. Within the ancient ruins, they discovered a labyrinth of dark ancient corridors and wide halls strewn with pillars, some still standing and some crumbled to rubble. Their flickering torchlight played upon their dusty stone surroundings like a mural of orange fire and the ruin seemed to react to their presence of with groans of ancient settling stone that sprinkled lines of dust from the ceilings and walls.

The ruin, though, was devoid of any ancient furnishings for they had long ago been eroded away. It was shadowed and empty except for little woodland creatures that darted to and fro in the blackness on the verge of their torchlight. Slowly the Foresters crept deeper into the ruin, not really fearing what dangers could lurk therein, but instead they feared the ominous atmosphere that the structure deluged. This ruin was once an outpost of the vile Wizard Emperor and his Wizard allies, and thus it was sure to have been the abode of numerous horrors and atrocities.

After awhile they found stairs leading deeper into some frightening lost sublevel of the outpost, and eventually the Axe Maiden convinced Bear that they should explore the sublevel. He argued that this wasn’t the duty of them as Foresters of the Three Baronies because there obviously weren’t any threats to the Three Baronies’ inhabitants within the ruin. The Axe Maiden’s bold demeanor of exploration and adventure won out finally over her lover’s more sensible trepidations, and in no time at all they found themselves in the sublevel of the ruin, a darker place of thinner hallways and deeper oppression.

Bear led the way, a torch in one hand and his long sword in the other, and cautiously he crept along with his companion close behind him. Suddenly the stone beneath his feet gave out and despite his fervent yells and grasping hands he plummeted into the shadows below. With a thud he landed painfully in a large pit of bones, primarily of wild animals but also some human skeletons. His torch landed next to him and illuminated the macabre chamber in eerie luminescence when it combined itself with the pale greenish light that flooded into this chamber from a collapsed section of wall. Beyond Bear could see thick rotted foliage and detritus that must have been the ruin of some late summer swamp despoiling away in the late part of the year. Thankfully his sword was still firmly gripped in his fist and he sighed in exasperation and managed a smile at his predicament.

The Axe Maiden called down to him, making sure he was alright, and he replied that he was fine. Then the bones about him began to quake and churn. In horror he realized that he had fallen into the lair of a horrid beast that was apparently using this chamber as its feeding ground. What manner of beast, though, Bear had no idea. Amidst their horrified cries a massive serpent-like monster erupted from the heaps of skeletons and rotting carcasses and peered down at its new catch. It was covered in thick emerald-colored scales and wide band-like scales of yellow-brown on its underbelly. From the base of its four-foot long reptilian head all the way down its back ran a row of dark spines, the largest spine over a foot long. Its body of pure muscle was over a hundred feet long and it was easily in the vicinity of three feet wide. Its small eyes were pure yellow and when it opened its mouth in a terrifying roar that shuddered through the Foresters’ bodies they could see that the inside of its powerful jaws were lined with long, sharp, curved fangs. It was one of the rare Emerald Wurms said to dwell in southern Greenwell.

A rapid instant later it darted its gaping maw at Bear, intending a finishing bite that could easily sever the Vharian in two, but the Forester was ready. He managed to barely sidestep the bite, and in a heartbeat he replied with an attack of his own. He plunged his sword into the eye nearest to him, and the Emerald Wurm screeched in pain and recoiled, pulling Bear’s sword from his strong grip. The blade skittered across the piles of bones into the damp shadows.

The beast shook its mighty head in pain and anger, but quickly its ferocity overrode its pain and it looked vehemently down at its miniscule opponent. It snapped its toothy maw forward once again as Bear fumbled to draw out his Forester’s axe, as feeble a weapon that it would be against such a mighty beast. But in the hands of the Axe Maiden such a weapon could indeed be lethal to this Emerald Wurm, the largest beast ever seen in the Three Baronies. She leapt from her perch in the corridor above and landed in the bones in front of Bear as the monster’s deadly face came roaring forward.