by Joel Weichs Levy and Daniel Olarnick
(continued)
The war of the King Vampyre Corollus was over and “peace” (that most boring of events) had been forced upon the province of Brocalinde.
The peoples of that province, backward even by the standards of Volante, were definitely not ready to make the switch to a peacetime economy.
Men, half elves, and minotaurs especially, who had spent their lives fighting each other now found themselves unemployed and worse yet, unwanted.
City lords schemed incessantly against one another and found themselves drafted onto a ruling council, forcing them to cooperate with their former enemies.
*
Five high elves, cloaked within their own shadows, rode swiftly along the ancient Trade Street Road as they road towards Brocalinde.
Innate elf magic kept the eyes of most beings from seeing a high elf in the daylight. However, in the dark, of course, creatures with night or heat vision could see their outlines. The high elves needed no sleep and little rest; they could ride all night, as they traveled toward their final destination: Skull Mountain, where two years before their confederates had helped to destroy King Vampyre Corollus and his accursed followers.
“What actions we take at Skull Mountain depends upon what we discover there. We have the War Council’s approval in advance,” Talmus, their anointed leader had explained to his companions on the night they set out for their deadly mission.
“Corollus is far too powerful to risk bringing back to life, but the bastard bloodless children he sired may be controlled. Perhaps our magic may discover hidden weapons and treasures that those clumsy humans may have overlooked when they plundered the fortress.”
As they approached the mountain hold, the extent of the destruction was evident: Massive wooden gates, reinforced with iron bands lay fallen on the ground, having been ripped from their hinges. In the main hall, skeletons of men and half elves lay stripped of their flesh. Massive, crushed spiders and centipedes added their exoskeletons to the destruction.
There “She” hung in the center of the main hall. Their eyes feasted on the woman’s body, impaled to the wall by a wooden sword, cocooned within a spider’s webbing. One of her eyes opened wide, as she spied the elves through her pain, and she struggled to speak through her mouth, despite the fact that her mouth was wrapped closed by spider silk.
Close by an enormous spider watched carefully to make sure that that no other creature seize her prey.
Talmus, dressed in the black robes of a high wizard, created a sword of fire and sent it blazing into the webbing, incinerating the gigantic spider, along with whatever other creatures he could see in the dimly lit hall.
Stegoi, the captive woman, fell to the floor, landing with a resounding sound, her moans echoed throughout the hall, as she had been poisoned, partially devoured and without the benefit of a bath for the past two years.
“She seems to be having a bad hair day as well,” thought Yale, second in command of the wizard elves.
Her one remaining eye blazed with hatred and revenge.
“So the rumor of the witch-bitch impaled and left to suffer is true,” said Talmus to the fallen woman. “Perhaps, you can pay for your rescue and release with the sort of power you are rumored to possess. If not, you are useless to us, and I’ll put you out of your misery.”
Talmus drew his slim thrusting sword; runes of power set the blade aglow. He pointed the sword toward her remaining eye; the tip of its blade gave forth a blinding light. “Or, what if we left you here, completely blind?”
“I can pay for my life by leading you to a weapon hidden long ago, by me, beneath this very mountain. A weapon so feared that King Vampyre Corollus, himself, feared its use; a weapon so ancient that it bears a legend of a human paladin wielding it can gain dominion over Brocalinde. The weapon contains the Black Shard of Odan the Scribe and has the power to destroy the life force of any living creature, even that – perhaps – of a fire dragon.
“Heal my wounds and it shall be yours.
“Extract the poisons from my body, and swear to aid me in getting my revenge upon Clan Alpein and Marshall Thomas. I will be indebted to you forever. We can rule this province and the other realms will fall under our sway.”
*
For seven days and seven nights of elfin magic, the witch was healed. Then Stregoi and the elves began a journey through the dark passageways beneath Skull Mountain.
On the trek, Talmus, as leader of the elves and the witch forged a blood bond. The tribes of elves were forever at war with the dwarf clans. Stregoi would aid the elves to destroy the most powerful of the dwavern citadels and wipe out the dwarf clans defending their cities. In return for her services, the elves would assassinate Marshall Thomas, her sworn enemy, and continue to heal her.
The elves refused to come to a blood agreement on her demand for revenge on Clan Alpein.
“We will not risk such a confrontation with this powerful human clan, attack a blood king and his lich. Never,” said Talmus.
*
The army under Marshall Thomas of Calleva had successfully assaulted the hold of the King Vampyre Corollus beneath Skull Mountain. His lieutenant Kitric Alpein, necromancer and swordsman, had left the witch Stregoi impaled but still alive when their forces marched away from the defeated and desecrated fortress.
Many knights and warriors debated the failure to kill the witch as a horribly foolish blunder.
Neither the Marshall Thomas nor Kitric regretted their actions. Leaving the witch alive was not a horrible blunder, but a planned form of torture, perhaps caused by their arrogance and cruelty, as leaving her alive but trapped in the web of a gigantic spider was, by far, a punishment far worse than death.
*
Witches are not forgiving, or so the ancient saying goes.
*
Proclaiming that he rode upon a crusade to destroy the witch and her minions -- but actually motivated more by sheer boredom with the peacetime army -- Marshall Thomas rode to Skull Mountain accompanied by twenty knights and a dozen men-at-arms. Leaving half a dozen men to guard the entrance, he led the remaining soldiers into the caverns beneath the mountain.
The heads of the half dozen guards he left outside were returned to Calleva by means of a bloodied sack thrown over the wall.
The fate of Marshall Thomas, his knights and men-at-arms who entered the caverns has never been determined.
*
When Kitric Alpein heard that the witch had escaped he sighed, “I’m getting too old for this!” Kitric was two months shy of his twentieth birthday. He was committed to the evil project of aiding his grandsire to obtain the state of an immortal lich. This required a commitment of four long years. Kitric had no time to seek out and destroy a powerful witch who hid in the tunnels and caverns beneath Skull Mountain.
He had been pleased to hear that Marshall Thomas had gone off to hunt Stregoi, and her rumored band of dark elves,
Weeks passed without a word and it seemed as though Marshall Thomas and his followers had dropped down a bottomless pit and became lost forever.
Perhaps they had done exactly that, he thought.
Time to have the witch-bitch hunted down. His killer for hire, Ginger Sadowa, had left for Talos Valley to hunt evil it its green valleys and had not been heard from for two years.
Who except Ginger or himself was capable of tracking down and destroying the witch, mused Kitric? Time to consult the most evil and devious-minded person he knew: “Mother,” he called aloud, as he banged upon her bedroom chambers.
*
Olindara Alpein’s devious mind had come up with a promising solution to Kitric’s vexing problem. “You are forever bitching,” she reminded him, “about all the unemployable human mercenaries, half-elves, and minotaurs traveling through Brocalinde were causing trouble since the war has ended. Since they are a constant source of aggravation, why not send them after the witch? Even if they fail to find her, they will keep her too busy hiding and running to bother you.
“Post a large reward for Stregoi, dead or alive – preferably dead and most of the troublemakers in the province will swarm down under Skull Mountain seeking to earn the reward.
“Legend tells that some of the tunnels run hundreds of miles to the mountains where the dwarfs live. Think of it, these troublemakers will be gone for months, killing each other off and getting lost far underground.”
So it was written, so it was said and so it was done. Heralds proclaimed a quest to destroy the witch-bitch Stregoi.
The king and Kitric Alpein jointly offered a two thousand gold piece reward for her alive or dead. A further five hundred gold piece reward was offered for the most credible and extensive map of the tunnels beneath Skull Mountain. All hunters for the witch were to form parties of up to five members and register with the government.
There are rules to every engagement, thought Kitric.
*
Legend has it that:
Marshall Thomas and his eighteen knights and men-at-arms had followed and explored for three days the largest tunnel they had found when someone set off a trap. The trap fired an immense javelin that took off the head of the leading knight, passed through a second man and finally drove deep into the thigh of Marshall Thomas, severing major arteries. Very weak from blood loss, Marshall Thomas insisted they press on.
When they camped for sleep, they were attacked by half elves riding spiders the size of horses, and Minotaurs swinging flails.
The battle was fast and merciless. When the surviving knights managed to form a square for mutual defense, the elves fled up the walls on their riding spiders. The Minotaurs, being far more stupid, stayed to fight and lost a dozen of their best warriors.
Only seven knights and two men-at-arms survived.
The knights continued their quest the next morning. They knew by now there was no escape from the tunnels and decided to die going forward instead of in retreat. They marched on with the two men-at-arms carrying the body of Marshall Thomas. Four knights marched in the front of the party and three guarded the rear.
Where they died is unknown but we are assured they died fighting to the last.
(To Be Continued.)
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