The Exodus Sagas: Book I - Of Spiders And Falcons (15 page)

“Please, don’t cut me with that, please put it away, please.” Bedesh was blinking, squirming in his ropes that bound him. His breathing rapid, he thought his chest would burst before he got free. His fur stood up all over his body, and he scrambled with his little hooves to dig a place to stand and try and get some leverage to escape. The blade, strange markings of two headed birds and men kneeling decorated it through the shifting aura of heat it emitted. Bedesh stared, still working to get free, as the elf waved it under his nose playfully. The satyr barely noticed as small drips of urine ran down his leg onto the stump he sat upon.

“Ha ha ha, please, please he says, ha!” The grin widened on Kendari’s face, placing Shiver back in its sheath, and drawing out the other longsword with the black pyramid pommel. “Would you prefer this one, then? No special name, but I assure you it will spill much more blood. Or this one?” Kendari reached near the edge of the wagon unsheathing Bedesh’s blade. “Did you know that this weapon of yours is enchanted as well? I could try it out for you...see what it does to you...slowly.” the elf caressed the satyr’s fur with the flat of his blade, a light green glow emitting from it. “Ahh, what does it do, Bedesh of the satyrs?”

“It warns me when danger is nnn-nn-near.” his voice skipping and stuttering, daring not to lie to the killer before him. “Please don’t hurt me, pp-pplease.”

“It must be warning you of
me
then, Bedesh. And I have another warning for you. Tell me all I want to know, and you will retain your hooves, your horns, your eyes, and your ability to speak for the remainder of your life as my prisoner.” Kendari tickled each part of the parts he spoke of with the flat of the weapon’s edge, staring, no smile, into the tearing brown eyes of the forest creature. “Who is the elven woman you tried to protect so failingly at the ruins of Arouland, and what were you doing there?” the edge of the sword made it’s way by Bedesh’s ankles.

“We left from Gualidura, but she, umm Shinayne, Lady Shinayne T’Sarrin came first from Kilikala. We have been following Lavress, her lover to here, as he was was-was, umm, hunting a traitorous elf named Eliah.” The satyr squirmed, knowing he told too much, but left much out as well, and he released a gasp for air as the blade rose away from his legs.

“Lady of Kilikala, eh? And Eliah? I know Eliah Shendrynn, for certain. Interesting.” The blade moved to Bedesh’s horns, small and fuzzy brown tipped in white, causing him to squirm again. “And the minotaur, Bedesh, tell me of him and the scroll he supposedly carries.” Kendari whispered now, not that the trolls would understand much, and remember less, but to further frighten his prey.

“Just met him rr-rr-really, Saberrak from under the ruins. I don’t know ab-bb-bout any scroll.” His fear increased, not from the whisper, but from not knowing something this cursed elf wanted to know. His right hand was wriggled free, yet Bedesh kept it back there until he got free of the rest.

“Very well, you are doing very well my friend. The human, the knight they rescued on the field, who is he?” the enchanted blade, glowing green in the darkness, moved to the satyrs ears now. Kendari purposefully nicked one, drawing out a wince and some blood from his prisoner.

“I don’t know him, never met him ever. Please don’t ki-ki-kill me, please.” Bedesh felt the scratch on his ear, now both hands free, keeping them hidden behind his back. His eyes darted, looking for an easy route to flee from the trolls and his would be executioner.

“So, the elven lady left you to die for a crazed knight you had never met? Precious, truly. Elven loyalty has never been my specialty Bedesh, as you can see. But seriously, you must force yourself to find new friends someday.” Kendari threw the glowing blade into the wagon, and paced back to the satyr. “Now, you have cooperated so well tonight, I have decided to let you go. I do not know what Salah-Cam would have me or the trolls do to you should you come with me, so you are free to go. Now go, I know your hands are free already, go.”

Never had the satyr felt such relief, such surprise, tears rolled out of his puckering eyes, smiling, he untied his ankles above the hooves. Never looking back, not once, Bedesh ran north into the cold of night, not caring where he was, only to be free from what he had accepted as certain death. His hooves stamped through marsh and crisp grassy hills, leaving the firelight of the troll camp behind him.

Hissing from a dozen and a half trolls, lurking and pacing around the elf, wanting answers from questions they dared not ask. Red glowing eyes surrounded the Nadderi elf as he sat on the stump, letting down his guard. “Ready?” the elf was toying with them, knowing full well the fiends would catch him in minutes. “Whoever brings him back to me gets to whip the wagon pullers! Alive, remember, a gift for Salah-Cam. Well, what are you waiting for? Chase him down!” the trolls scrambled, screeching dozens of vicious war cries and hisses into the night. Kendari stood up on the stump, watching his giant green dogs rush out through the darkness, hearing faint cries from the satyr, who clearly heard his pursuit begin. He looked down at the remains of the mercenary, looked right into his eyes that had frosted over in death. “That looks like fun, now doesn’t it? Yes I know, wicked and cursed, you can keep those comments to yourself dead one. I can’t let him leave, the elven woman will come for him, you will see. If you had used your head,
like me
, you would not be in the position you are
in now
.” Kendari laughed, hopping down from the stump, laughing directly at the remains of the dead man he had been conversing with. “You were not even close, my deceased friend, no one is.”

Hissing sprang up through the frozen willows, red eyes appeared from all over. One of the foul wretches carried the satyr, and Kendari heard the tears and whimpering of a broken forest spirit. “How touching Bedesh, you have decided to come back to us.” Kendari grabbed the long frayed black whip from the wagon, and the ropes from the stump. “Tie him tight this time, and have fun with
this
.” The Nadderi tossed the whip to the troll carrying the satyr, seeing his black fanged smile stretch wide. “We leave in one hour, get moving gentlemen,
Shiver
may get restless tonight…” the troll cracked the whip, moving his kin to finish loading the caravan, the satyr tied up and tossed in with the rest of the loot. Looking in the dark, Bedesh saw at least six more sets of frightened eyes looking at him from within the wagon, bound and helpless just like him.

Azenairk I:I

Thalanaxe Chambers, Boraduum

“Most important are the vows to one’s family, they must come before God, for it is God who created the family
.”-an ancient dwarven passage from the Golhiarden, Book of Vundren.

“He is too weak to see ye, young Thalanaxe, come back in the morning.” His stout cousin stood guard outside the double doors, engraved with his family history. Azenairk bowed his shaved head, scratching his trimmed black beard, thinking of his chances if he took this dwarf down and barged into his father’s chamber. His cousin, Dimlar, had already been part of the Heldregg’s family for about two years since his family had lost their mines. He knew there was no loyalty to lean upon here. He turned, stomping down the passageway where the merchant vultures of the other families waited, had been waiting, for his father to die. The Thalanaxe family had one loyal son left, and he had seen all the rest adopt into surviving families for far too long. They tried to talk to him, placate him, offer him solace within their families and reached out to him even in the temple of Vundren where he filled his days teaching the young of God’s will for their people in the Bori mountains. Boraduum, the largest dwarven city in Agara, held some thirty thousand dwarven men and women, almost a hundred different families, more than six hundred tunnels, and dozens of mines and forges. All that and more, Azenairk thought, and all they do is wait to take what is not theirs from the dying. Kimmarik, his father, had been left with tunnels too deep, too close to the outer caverns of the Bori mountains in the western part of the city. He did his best, yet the mines he owned had been dry for years and the tunnels collapsing. The Thalanaxe vault went bare and in a matter of years, the rumors had spread, then he fell ill. Families did their work, the Granvangs first, out of spite from moneys due for generations. Then the Ordimms and the Silvunaks joined in, convincing this one and that of the plight of the Thalanaxe family, offering a new start, and a new name.

King Nalanobek and Bishop Dalurthain both took pity and tried to stop the inevitable, even before Azenairk’s pleas and formal suits of transgression hit the meeting halls. Nothing slowed the extinction of his family, his father and he the last of a line that dated its roots back to when men first came to this continent from the north almost three thousand years ago. Tragedy after bad luck after misguided deal, the last few decades saw the decline of one of the oldest dwarven families alive. Now his family was done, and Azenairk walked the torchlit backtunnels to the rear entrance to his father’s room.

The fifteen foot cathedral passageways were silent, nearly three times taller than the stocky bear of a man, taller than any in his family, what was left of it anyway. Azenairk remembered his father measuring him in their chambers before work in the mines, stopping when his mother had passed years ago. A hair over five feet now, fully grown, and a full beard of shiny black just like his old father. Now nearing his sixty third birthday, and his steel maul of a hammer easily hefted from whence his father gave it so long ago, Azenairk had been praying for guidance from Vundren, creator of the mountains, savior of his people, keeper of truth and deeds. He was praying for those fond memories to have a better finish than this. He had no direction, a futile feel to his every breath as all he knew, all he was proud of since a small child, was nearing an end he could not prevent. The stone design of the Hammer of Vundren laid over the two moons pressed in easily, and Azenairk loosed his own hammer free, holding it steady with both arms tight. He was ready to kill, should anyone be in the chamber through the secret entrance he used, for he needed, more than any other priest, any merchant or any rival family diplomat, to see and hear his father these last remaining hours.

”Father?”, the grand bedchamber was lit by glowing stones of ruby, jade, and amber, divine light of the temple acolytes. Oil lamps burning bright, candles surrounded gifts of gold and finely crafted steel weapons from honorable families and nobles for him to take with him to meet Vundren. Azenairk knew, with his estimates of debt, everything and more would be taken after he was gone and that would not even cover it. Gift or no gift, no matter the sender’s wishes, no matter the will of the temple, debt was debt and the laws state in no gray area that all debts are paid if one wishes to pass through Vundren's gates into his halls. The grand bed seemed still in the red rugged room, and Azenairk found his eyes wandering the tapestries again, like he had his whole life as far back as he could remember. The battle of the Misathi, the tapestry of King Egrinndim the Sixth of Fazurand, the second war of Marlennak, and many others decorated and centuries old. Collected by his fathers, fathers, father and one day he had hoped to receive them as his own to give to his children. The Thalanaxe’s had fought in almost every war, whether humans in Chazzrynn, ogre or distant dwarven cousins, even Harlaheim to the north. Two brothers died in the last war, near the foothill mines of Tuscko. A battle against an invading ogre legion allied with giants of the Misathi Mountains to the north, one battle Azenairk had been too young to fight in, one his father had commanded in. Despite losing his two eldest, his family was honored among the sixteen families that had defended the mountain city. His battle axe still resting above his bed, old Kimmarik Thalanaxe, was at the end of two centuries of greatness in the eyes of his son.

“Azenairk, my boy, come closer son.” The raspy voice brought tears to his eyes, eyes he closed, for he would not show any regrets to his father in these last hours. The old dwarf, white beard and disheveled long thin hair, barely a hundred fifty pounds now, lay under gold trimmed sheets of red wool decorated with axes and twin mountains, the crest of his family. “You got past the line of crows, I see? Talk to me in our fathers’ tongue son, just for tonight, eh?” the whispers drew the man closer to his father. He wished to speak dwarven, though the rise of merchant families over the last centuries had Agarian slowly becoming the dominant speech of Boraduum.

“What would you have your son do father?” his voice soft, steady, in sharp old dialect from his youth and the temple prayers. “I have prayed, fought, written the halls of both king and high priest alike, I will not leave our family father.” Azenairk knelt next to his idol, his father who had been the strongest thing in his life.

“There is little that can be done my boy, little indeed. This will be gone tomorrow, and I will meet Vundren at the gate. There is one last thing I ask of you, besides forgiveness for what you have been dealt here.” The old dwarf coughed, mouth barely closing or opening as he spoke. The air just came and went as he became less and less vibrant.

“Anything father. Do not seek forgiveness from me, there is none needed. I should have done more, fought more, seen it coming,..something.” He knew little could be done, even in hindsight, their property turned up empty and then began to fall apart, there was no blame.

“Your brothers never believed me, nor did I believe your grandfather, Vundren rest him. Go there, under that chest by the foyer, and get the small steel box under your mother’s things.” His eyes alive like blue of the outside sky, unlike the deep mountain brown eyes his son inherited from his mother. Desperation in his faint fading voice and regret at his lost years, Kimmarik Thalanaxe felt some hope.