Into the heart of evil, p.15
Into the Heart of Evil, page 15
part #2 of Paladin of a Hidden God Series
Kiria, initially held back from the scene of the carnage by Gorgon’s team, now moved forward to look on the faces of those who had died here. Kneeling next to the two dead Honor Guard, she wept openly. Kabbak also was in tears, seeing the faces of two of the more beloved warriors in the gen among the dead. Among Manebrow’s team the feeling was a combination of open wonder and shock.
Wandering around shaking his head, Manebrow wondered openly, “What was their objective? Why did they attack the Honor Guard?” Then, as if receiving a sudden bolt of inspiration, Manebrow walked over to the two large baskets that had served as packs for the packdogs. Both of them had been opened and their sparse contents scattered. Pillows and blankets made of the finest materials lay strewn about. Manebrow opened a couple of small bags that sat at the bottom of one of the baskets and a look of horror came over his face.
“Kiria,” Manebrow called, “please come here. I need you to look at something.”
Almost in a daze, Kiria stumbled over to Manebrow. From one of the bags, he’d pulled out a pair of traveling outfits made of wool, one slightly larger than the other. They were obviously sized and cut for two young kobolds, probably one of eight years of age, and another of around six years of age. The front of the larger outfit was embroidered with a ‘K’ and the front of the smaller one was embroidered with an ‘L.’
Kiria’s eyes narrowed as she recognized them. As the realization of what the two large baskets, the embroidered clothing, and the Honor Guard warriors all together meant came to Kiria, she stood and looked at Durik with perhaps the look of greatest horror that he’d ever seen on anyone’s face.
“Karto and Lat! My little brothers!”
Trallik moved with his snout not far from the ground, his tail trailing behind him. The trail of blood had initially been obvious enough for him, but apparently the flow had been staunched, leaving only the scent of both the remaining Honor Guard warrior and his attackers. At one point, he’d found somewhat of a puddle of blood, as well as an arrow that had obviously been pulled out of a wound cast aside in the grass next to the trail. Twice he thought he smelled a couple of other scents, much like those of young kobolds. As he went along, stooping and smelling from time to time to ensure he still had the trail, the rest of the team followed behind him.
After following the trail for some time, past clearings, deep woods, and over a couple of streamlets, they reached the game trail they had been on earlier in the evening in pursuit of the then five mysterious kobolds and found that the scent trail headed in the direction of the Krall Gen. As they shuffled out onto the trail, Trallik began sniffing around. He wasn’t sure at first, but then after several moments spent examining the trail, it became very clear to him. He was sure that not only had the Honor Guard warrior and the two remaining attackers passed this way, but he could also detect the distinct smell of orc.
Once he was sure, Trallik mentioned his discovery to Gorgon, who grunted his acknowledgement. It was becoming clear in his mind that this might become quite a long and complicated chase. Whoever the Honor Guard warrior was that the two attackers were trailing, it was obvious he’d had quite a bit of fight left in him, despite the copious amounts of blood he had lost.
Gorgon couldn’t help but feel pride in this valiant warrior’s endurance. Throwing the orcs into the mix only made the chase more urgent. Turning to the other four warriors in his team, he said, “We need to send word back to the group that this is going to be a long hunt and we need to know their plans.”
Jerrig spoke up, “I’ll go.”
Gorgon looked at him shrewdly. “No, magic fingers, I want you here with me.”
Jerrig didn’t know whether to be flattered or offended by the comment.
“Arbelk.” Gorgon looked at the tired warrior. Arbelk’s eye’s opened wide when his name was called. “You’ve probably got the next best nose after Trallik’s. Go tell Durik and Manebrow that this is going to be a long chase, then come back to us as quickly as possible to send word of where we should meet up with the group again. Tell them about this trail, the orcs, and that I think the Honor Guard warrior is fleeing toward the Krall Gen.” Gorgon handed him the reins to his wolf. “Here, you’ll need my wolf.”
Arbelk nodded and mounted immediately, leaving back the way they had come at a slow run, which was all that the inexperienced rider could handle.
Trallik, in the meantime, had continued down the trail a short distance and was now waiting for the rest of the team. He was almost certain there was at least one young kobold’s scent on the trail they were following, though he had not mentioned it to Gorgon yet. He also thought he might have smelled the slightest hint of wolf, but that was not unusual out here in the wilds. As Gorgon and the rest of the team approached, Trallik put his snout down and began to follow the trail again.
Durik was stunned by the revelation that Lord Karthan’s two young heirs to the throne and their guardians had been ambushed while waiting for his company to arrive. His emotions took a wild ride after recovering from the initial shock of the carnage. At first he felt fear for the lost Honor Guard warrior, then anger at whoever did this great crime, and finally fear of reprisal after he realized that Lord Karthan’s two sons had possibly been put in danger because of the delays his company had experienced in meeting up with them. After a moment, however, he realized that, as with all fears he’d mastered in his life, this fear would do him no good. In Durik’s mind, it was time to act now and think about what might come from all this later.
Manebrow approached him with a look of fierce determination in his eyes and a pair of steel gloves from one of the backpacks that had been thrown aside. “Sire, I believe the last Honor Guard warrior is Khazak Mail Fist. I think he’s escaped his attackers and is carrying Lord Karthan’s sons. Sire, we need to move out immediately.”
Kiria, on her knees next to the body of the chief of her father’s personal guard, looked up with haunted eyes. In the wild throws of the emotions churning within her, her expression changed from one of desperation and loss to one of absolute fury and determination. Jumping up, she ran to Starshine. Grabbing the reins from Kabbak, she immediately jumped onto the wolf’s back and spurred the wolf to a run.
“Kiria, wait!” Durik called, but it was already too late. Without so much as a look backwards, she plunged into the forest in the direction Gorgon and his team had taken. With a sigh, Durik ran over to Firepaw, followed closely by Manebrow. With a short, ‘Follow us,’ to Ardan, Durik and Manebrow mounted their wolves and followed her at a run.
Ardan turned to the four remaining members of his team and Kabbak. “Let’s at least put all the bodies inside the enclosure and close the door.” With that, Kabbak, Terrim, Tohr, Kahn, and Arloch joined Ardan in cleaning up the area before they eventually left the enclosure to follow their team leader’s trail.
As they began the clean-up, Arloch approached Ardan. “What do you say I get us a head start? I’ll scout the path a little ways, then come back and get the team. That way we can save some time.”
Ardan nodded his agreement, cautioning Arloch to come back soon, as the task wouldn’t take that long. Arloch agreed and disappeared into the forest at a run.
Kiria’s mind was racing with the possibility of what might have happened or was about to happen to her younger brothers. Initially, she had followed what seemed to be a pretty clear path left by Gorgon’s team as they had tracked the attackers, then after passing into a small clearing, it seemed to disappear. In desperation, she headed off in the direction she thought they had gone, guiding Starshine around thickets and rock outcroppings until she had absolutely no idea what direction she was headed. She was lost. As the realization of her situation hit her, Kiria began to cry in desperation.
After several moments, she began to gather her thoughts and eventually decided to try to follow her trail back the way she came. Dismounting, she tried to use her untrained nose to follow the trail, but the night wind that blew through the forest confused all scents. Tracking by scent proved much more difficult than she was expecting, and soon she was lost even deeper in the forest. Looking about her, she recognized nothing, and she couldn’t remember the path she’d taken to get here. It was as if the Fates were against her.
All around her were tall cedar trees, their first branches extending toward the sky far above her head. The sweet smell of the cedar bark in spring made smelling much of anything else next to impossible. The forest floor was littered with the old dead branches that had not been crushed by the snows of winter or the traffic of the beasts of the forest. The initial surge of desperation had passed, and she was now beginning to become fully aware of the situation she had gotten herself into by her rash action.
As Kiria walked along between the large trees, the wind died down and it became frighteningly clear to her how each step she or her wolf made echoed noisily under the boughs of those same tall cedar trees. Fear grew within her as she realized her vulnerability. For the first time in her entire life, there was no warrior nearby to watch over her. Her only comfort was Starshine, whose heavy breath behind her seemed as loud to her as the rushing of a river.
Within her heart, Kiria began to cry out in desperation to whatever powers might be, whether to the Fates, the ancestors, The Sorcerer, or The Creator himself, both for herself and for her two younger brothers whom she felt she had failed. From the depths of her tortured heart, the deepest sentiments she had ever felt poured forth as she broke into tears, burying her face in the warm fur of Starshine’s neck.
Durik and Manebrow had initially kept Kiria within eyesight. As Starshine had a much lighter load to carry than their two wolves, Durik knew that if she didn’t stop, it would be only a matter of time before Kiria left them behind. From the beginning, she had been outpacing them and they had quickly lost sight of her for the last time through the trees. After a short while they came to an open area where they completely lost any concept of where she had gone. To the right of them the undergrowth seemed thicker, however, so they both dismounted and began to try to find any traces she might have left of her passage, or perhaps to pick up her uniquely female scent.
After several moments of looking around in the clearing, they found a place in the underbrush that looked as if it had been disturbed by the passage of a large creature. Examining it a little closer, they found a tuft of hair. Though their heat vision gave them no clue what animal the hair came from, their noses confirmed that it was definitely wolf fur. With renewed vigor, the pair of kobolds plunged into the bushes, following the trail.
They had not gone far when they reached a small, clear depression. The trail here seemed to have gotten lost in the recent passage of some other animals. Casting about in the plated matte of dead winter leaves, Durik and Manebrow found it impossible to discover which way Kiria and her wolf had gone.
Coming up next to Durik, Manebrow spoke softly, “How about we make a circle around this depression to see if we can pick up the trail again?”
“Aye,” Durik nodded, glad Manebrow was there to help him fumble after Kiria in the dark of the woods. The pair immediately set out to make a one hundred pace wide circle of the depression.
They had not gone far when, to their surprise, they heard a loud snuffling sound coming from the tall bushes just ahead of them. Both of them stopped cold and listened. Neither of them could see what was making the noise, but the more they listened, the more it sounded like some large animal either digging for grubs or nosing about for sweet roots. Neither of their wolves seemed unsettled, but then the ever so slight wind that blew under the canopy of the woods was blowing toward the source of the noise, not toward them.
As they stood there listening, the wind picked up slightly, as if the Fates would reveal their presence. Moments later, the snuffling stopped, and the distinctive snorting of a great boar who is aroused to anger, or to defend itself, loudly replaced it.
Manebrow turned to Durik. “It smelled us!” he whispered urgently.
Both of them immediately moved to jump onto the backs of their wolves. Suddenly, not twenty paces ahead of them the huge, lumbering shape of a great boar, its thick, sharp tusks revealed on either side of its mouth, came through the underbrush. The glow of heat that emanated from the boar showed its intensity and anger as it saw the pair of kobolds and immediately turned to rush them.
Durik was already on Firepaw’s back and turned to check on Manebrow. Manebrow had stumbled, however, and was just now grabbing a hold of the saddle to try mounting again. The great boar was going to reach Manebrow before he would be able to escape. In an instant, it became clear to Durik what he had to do.
Leveling his spear, Durik kicked Firepaw in the ribs. Firepaw jumped into motion. Initially he wanted to turn away from the boar, but to his credit as Durik pulled on the reins Firepaw allowed himself to be turned toward the menacing hulk of the great boar as it lumbered toward them. With all of his might, he thrust his spear at the boar’s thick neck. With a squeal, the boar thrust his tusks toward Durik even as the spear bit deep into its neck.
Durik was thrown from Firepaw’s back as they both were sent sprawling through the underbrush. The spear, which was now deep in the boar’s neck, was bathed by a thick flow of blood as the boar continued lumbering toward Manebrow and his wolf. Durik had delayed it enough, however, that Manebrow was now ready for it.
Seeing Durik rush the boar, Manebrow had swatted his wolf on the hindquarters, sending it off into the underbrush as he pulled his axe from its sling on his back. He threw back his wolf-skin hood and waited grim-faced until the boar was close enough, then stepped forward, swinging his axe downward with all his might.
The axe sunk deep into the boar’s skull, sundering its brain and bringing its head and tusks down into the dirt. Manebrow braced in the split-second he had to react as the great boar’s body rolled, knocking him to the ground and rolling partway over him before a tree stopped the forward momentum of the boar’s massive body, pinning Manebrow against its thick trunk.
In a moment, the Fates had done their work and all was quiet again in the forest.
Chapter 14 – Life and Death
Ardan and the rest of Manebrow’s team, plus Durik’s servant Kabbak, finished dragging the bodies and equipment into the enclosure and replacing the door. Perhaps the only thing that slowed the task, other than the pure horror of dealing with the dead bodies of former comrades in arms, was the interest they took in the equipment that was left strewn about. Good gear was hard to come by. But, for all their interest, Ardan was not about to let them linger. The order from Manebrow had been clear, and he was not about to linger any longer than necessary to take care of the bodies.
With a word from Ardan, the three remaining team members and Kabbak lined up with the four packdogs in tow and began following the trail left by the passing of now many kobolds and wolves. Frustrated by the fact that Arloch had not yet returned, Ardan took the lead and began to read the trail left behind by so many feet. They moved quickly at first, as the trail was clear and there was no indication that anyone had broken away from the main trail. This lasted for some time, but eventually they came to the same small clearing where Kiria had taken her first missteps and where Durik and Manebrow had broken off of the trail of the attackers to follow her.
Unlike when Durik and Manebrow had passed through, after the passage of more kobolds the two separate trails were now rather clear. After a moment of smelling the ground and reading the trampled ground, it seemed to Ardan that more wolves and less kobolds had passed one way than the other. Quickly, he led the team along that trail, sure that this would lead to Durik, Manebrow, and hopefully Kiria.
After only a few moments, he saw something warm coming through the forest, back from the other path. Doubling back, the team waited as Arbelk, riding Gorgon’s wolf, came riding to a stop in front of them.
“Arbelk, what news do you bring?” Ardan asked.
“Gorgon sent me back,” Arbelk began, almost breathless from the ride, or perhaps from his untrained attempts at handling the wolf. As he caught his breath, he began to unbutton the front of his wolf-skin outfit to cool himself off. “It looks like the Honor Guard warrior and the two remaining attackers have found the same game trail we were on before. Trallik says he also smells orc. Gorgon thinks they’re heading toward the Krall Gen and we’ll be chasing them throughout the night. He thinks the Honor Guard warrior has plenty of fight left in him and will give his attackers a run for it. He’s not sure what role the orcs are playing here.” Arbelk looked about the group. “Where’s Durik and Manebrow? Gorgon wanted to know where we should meet the rest of the group.”
Ardan was now more frustrated than ever and torn by an indecisiveness as, in his mind, there was no clear answer to the question of what he should do. Though Manebrow had said to follow him, that was before the tidings that Arbelk now brought of orcs. He explained the situation briefly to Arbelk, telling him that Manebrow believed the last Honor Guard warrior to be Khazak Mail Fist and that he most probably had Kiria’s two younger brothers with him.
For a moment, he stood there silent, reasoning within himself that if he followed after Gorgon and his team, he could lose Arloch as well as Durik, Manebrow, and Kiria. Yet, if he didn’t follow Gorgon’s team and Gorgon’s team met with more than just the two traitors in the woods, for instance the orcs they’d smelled, he would risk the lives of the leader of the Honor Guard and both heirs to Lord Karthan’s throne. What would Manebrow have me do? Suddenly an idea occurred to him.
“Arbelk,” he said, “can you track?”
Arbelk looked at Ardan, somewhat surprised. “Well, I suppose so. That is, if I have to I can. I’m not all that bad at it, but I don’t have the best of noses.”
