Chapter 15
The King of Lijissa was sad, his daughter had been kidnapped and he was growing desperate as to her whereabouts. His best court mages were trying to determine where she was night and day now for the past few days, they were not having much luck in it though due to some kind of magic that was blocking their own magical attempts. Yet they continued to try while the King continued to keep the Kingdom running, despite the growing pain and despair in his heart. The goblins and their kind, ogres and other various creatures where attempting to mass along their borders to the north. Things were getting gravely serious and all Lonthonis Brightwater was thinking of was his daughter’s safety. “Where could she be and was she still alive!” the King thought to himself not for the first time. His thoughts were interrupted as the Captain of the Royal Guard came running into the room.
“Your majesty, the goblins have launched an attack! Our forces are holding them back at the moment, but we must send reinforcement soon to help!” Captain Gharyn Silverstar exclaimed as he rushed up to the King, bowed at the waist, and stood waiting for the King’s response. Captain Silverstar was a human male who had been in service to the King for over ten years now, he was very adapt with the broadsword sheathed at his hip, and quit handsome too, or so most of the court ladies thought!
King Brightwater pondered the news for a moment then he said in reply to Silverstar, “Captain that would deplete further or own forces her in the city. Do you feel that this would be a wise thing to do at the moment?” The King looked to Captain Silverstar for all his military advice.
Silverstar replied to the King and said, “Sire, I do think that the most pressing need at this time would be to send the reinforcements, it would be best to stop these vile creatures at the border than at the gates of the city, but I would suggest sending messages to the Realm of Achser to the north, perhaps their Queen could send us some help?”
“Yes that is an excellent idea, see that it is done! Send out the reinforcements right away! You are right in surmising that it would be better tactically to stop them at the border.” Brightwater said to the Captain, he then dismissed him and wandered over to his window overlooking the city down below. He noted the massive gates and walls surrounding the city proper and wondered deep inside whether these same gates and walls would hold if it came to that and yet while he stood and pondered this, his heart turned instantly to the safety and well being of his missing daughter.
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It now had been two days since they were on the trail of the bandit lord and his cohorts. They had left the complex and had set out right away to follow the trail the bandits had left, it was a difficult decision, leaving behind the captain of the Blue Moon and any crew members that had survived, but they felt it was of greater urgency to strike out after the bandits and recovering the artifact, before they met up with the Dhag’arii! So Vekao was acting as scout, having spent more time tracking in the wild than Lizzy or Taithmar, so with him leading the way they felt that it wouldn’t be long now until they had caught up with the bandit slavers.
“Vekao please for the last time, can’t we stop for a moment and take a rest? You are pushing us too hard and we won’t be ready even if we do catch up to the bandits!” Lizzy said to Vekao as they trotted along the forest trail. She glanced back at Taithmar who was keeping pace, but being older, was having trouble maintaining the grueling pace that Vekao had set for them.
“Alright Lizzy, but all things considered, we need to catch these rogues before it’s too late, you know that just as well as I do!” Vekao replied over his shoulder to Lizzy, and then he came to a halt as they had come to a clearing. They all plopped down where they stood, breathing hard, and began to drink greedily from their waterskins.
Lizzy was the first to break the silence, “So what will we do when we catch up to these thieving bandits? They far out number us and we will be hard pressed to catch them any time soon I fear.” She looked from Vekao and over to Taithmar to see what their thoughts on the subject would be.
Taithmar replied, “Well I for one have many plans for our friend the bandit lord and his men. I don’t take too kindly to be trussed up like some animal and gagged on top of it all!” She looked to Lizzy and Lizzy shuddered slightly as her eyes met those of Taithmar.
Then Vekao spoke, “Fleas of a twice cursed dog! We need to plan this out carefully if we have any chance at all in recovering the artifact and escaping with our lives! Revenge is sweet Taithmar but revenge can also blind us to the dangers in this whole quest of ours! We must first find them and then plan some sort of ambush so that we can catch them off guard, that will be or greatest ally, surprise!” He then went back to his thoughts, having said all that he wanted to say at the moment.
Taithmar remained silent, contemplating what was said, for she knew Vekao was right, yet she was hot blooded and it was hard for her to control her emotions sometimes. She also knew though that it was her emotions that had caused her greatest grief over the years, first with her family, all of them dead now, and also with her service to King Brightwater. So she started to reel herself back in and focus on the problem at hand.
It was Lizzy who broke the silence, “Well I feel better now, perhaps we should be on our way then?” With that she stood up and stretched, then looked for Vekao to lead the way once more. He stood and looking around for the trail of the bandits, soon found what he was looking for and off they went, back along the trail still heading northwest through the forest.
It wasn’t long before the sun was going down though and they had to find a place to camp for the night. So Vekao found a suitable spot and they made camp, Vekao scouted around the perimeter and soon found a small creek running nearby, he filled up their waterskins so that they would have a fresh supply. Lizzy decided to try and find something to eat, since they didn’t have and rations any more, so she went and found some roots and berries and brought as many as she could back to the camp. Taithmar used the time to pull out a spell book out of her recovered pack and was soon engrossed in reading through it, she wanted to be ready for anything when they caught up to the bandits. Of course that is if they caught up to them. Before long the sun was down and they had a small fire burning.
“Well hopefully tomorrow we can finally catch up to those thieving bandits.” Lizzy said to no one in particular, for she was preoccupied with using a long stick to poke at the fire.
Taithmar looked up from her book and set it down gently next to her, “Yes it would be good, especially since we are traveling further and further away from Castitrona and the King.
“Yes exactly.” responded Lizzy, still not looking up from the fire.
Vekao was still concentrating on finishing the last of the meager meal they had prepared for themselves, wishing strongly that they had some kind of meat to go with the roots and berries. He sighed and looked over at his two companions. Lizzy looked exhausted and his fatherly instincts were concerned for her, and Taithmar didn’t look much better, just then a shadow crossed the moonlight and sent a chill down his spine, he glanced upward. He froze! There in the light of the moons he could see silhouetted against the light three distinct figures, ones he remembered from before…
“Get down” he cried “and put out the fire!” Vekao rasped out, he was staring up at the night sky and the two women could see the fear in his eyes, and then they too felt the fear build up within themselves, such fear that they could almost taste it.
“V-vekao w-what is it?” Lizzy stammered back to the minotaur in fear, she was trying to desperately to smother the embers of their fire.
“I really don’t know what they are, but I have seen them before, they fly at night and are very large, almost as big as dragons, yet I’m pretty sure they aren’t dragons!” Vekao replied back to Lizzy, as he began helping her, then he made her duck down as he sensed that they were drawing closer.
All the while Taithmar was listening to his explanation and staring up into the night, when she heard Vekao’s description she murmured, “Shadow serpents.” Then she grabbed her staff up and she too ducked down hiding herself as best she could.
“What are shadow serpents?” Lizzy looked over at Taithmar and asked as they all now where crouched down, low to the ground in the darkness.
“Shadow serpents are an evil creature, spawned in the bowels of the earth, they are servants of the Dhag’arii, they travel only at night, for they despise the sunlight, and they are hard to kill since they have the magical ability to turn semi-corporal, thus their name shadow serpents. Also, as we already know they have some of the same abilities as dragons to send fear into their foes.
“Sounds like the things I saw then, but what are they doing here I wonder?” Vekao whispered over to Taithmar.
“I wouldn’t know really, the dark dwarves could be using them for something, they have the ability to track magical items I am told…oh my! “Taithmar whispered back towards Vekao and then stopped. “They could have sent them to track down the whereabouts of the artifact!”
“The artifact? T-that m-means that t-they could be tracking the artifact straight to the bandits!” Lizzy whispered, stuttering again in fear, as she pressed herself even closer to the ground, scanning the skies for any sign of the serpents.
Just then they caught sight of them again, they were heading away from them though, but it was obvious to them also that the monsters were heading in the direction that they had been tracking the bandits! The friends all breathed a sigh of relief and stood up, staring at where they saw the beasts last. They all looked to each other, grabbed up their gear and started out on the trail once more, no sleep tonight for them, they felt they had to find the bandits as soon as possible, so Taithmar spoke a word softly to her staff and light sprang forth to light their way. They were back on the path the bandits had taken, hoping that they were able to find them, before the shadow serpents did, but also knowing deep down inside that it was probably a hopeless wish.
Throughout the night they traveled, ignoring as best they could the growing fear welling up inside of them, the fear that they would be too late to warn the unsuspecting bandits of the grave danger they were in. But they continued pressing forward, hoping that they could come to their aid in time, for no one deserved to fall to the shadow serpents in this way. Soon the dawn started to peak through the night, and light was coming to the surrounding forest. Taithmar extinguished her staff light and Vekao took the lead. Soon they came up over a small hill to a clearing, and they stopped, there lying before them were the slavers, the bandit group who had taken the artifact from them and it seemed that they were all dead!
Lizzy spoke softly to the others, “I think we are too late.”
Vekao motioned for the two friends to stay where they were and he crept forward, battleaxe at the ready, and began to close the gap between himself and the bandits in the clearing before him. As he got closer he could tell right away that they were dead, some were mangled and bloody, while others were headless, just a corpse rotting in the early morning air. He then turned to the two women and motioned for them to follow him, and he continued scouting out in front of the group, soon he came across a few bodies that were grouped together, he motioned for Lizzy to come forward with him. Both Taithmar and Lizzy walked closer to Vekao, Lizzy came up to Vekao’s side and looked down at the group lying at his feet, she made a small gurgling sound in the back of her throat when she saw the devastation there before her, and then she recognized the bandit leader, Perskel.
Taithmar, meanwhile was busy examining the bodies, she determined that the bandits had not been dead that long, but she also confirmed to herself that this was the work of the shadow serpents, they had found the bandits in the middle of the night and tore them to shreds. She walked over to where Lizzy and Vekao were standing looking down at the dead bandit leader and bent down, she took Perskel’s body and flipped him over, there underneath him was the artifact, for it was still in his hand, he had a death grip on it! She quickly pried it out of his hands and held it up for Vekao and Lizzy to see they both gasped and looked at each other in amazement!
“Well it appears that the serpents caught them here in then open, massacred them, and then flew off to alert their masters.” Taithmar said to Lizzy and Vekao as they stood there staring down at her holding the artifact in her hands, “I suppose it was our good fortune that the beasts did our job for us, but now the dark dwarves will be coming and they will be very upset that their artifact is not here, we had best head east as quickly as possible and try to reach Castitrona before they can find us!” With that she handed Lizzy the artifact back, picked up her staff and started heading back down the pathway they had come on. Lizzy and Vekao hurriedly followed behind her.