Chapter 18
King Brightwater watched impassively as the rider was sent to dispatch his letter to Queen Yoheda. Of course there was more than the letter riding on the hooves of the swift horse and rider being dispatched; perhaps the fate of his realm was also at stake. So he watched the young rider as he went to the gates of the city, watched and hoped beyond hope that he would make it on his errand to delivery his plea for help in combating the massing armies at his borders!
“Sire” Captain Silverstar callout to the King as he entered the room.
“Yes I’m over here Captain.” The King replied and waved him over to the window.
“Sire, the reinforcements are assembled and ready to march. They await your blessings in the courtyard.” Captain Silverstar came up to the King and announced.
The King looked tired, actually he was tired, and it had been a long time since he slept through the night, but he shrugged that off, and turned to follow Captain Silverstar down the hallway, to the stairs that lead out towards the courtyard of his castle. The duties of the King never wait, for there is always something that needs to be done, something that needs his attention, so he took the long walk out to the courtyard to review the troops before they sent them on their way to the border and possibly their doom!
After sometime they came to the inner courtyard and Captain Silverstar presented the assembled warriors that were being sent to the border. Here they had a hundred horsemen, three-hundred foot soldiers, and two mounted war wizards, part of the King’s personnel court. Also being sent with the reinforcements was a handful of mind mages to provide comfort and healing to those that they could. King Brightwater looked at them all, he nodded as he walked past them, he was proud of them all, from the lowliest foot soldier to the two wizards who had volunteered to ride with the troops, both friends of his, having been in service to his family for many years now. They saluted him and all turned and began there long march to the border, the King only hoped they would arrive in time to help.
“Very well Captain, I will be in my study going over some notes and such if you need me.” King Brightwater said to the young Captain and turned to walk away, but then he heard Captain Silverstar clear his thought as if he wanted to say something, so the King paused and turned back towards him. He motioned for him to say what was on his mind.
“Sire, you know that it has been a very long time now since your daughter disappeared. I know that you have had the court wizards attempting to locate through the use of their magic, yet I also know that for some reason they haven’t been very successful. Yet there are rumors that the dark dwarves are the ones who took her, for their own evil gain I am sure. At least this is what our agents seem to be pointing to.” Silverstar paused as if not sure if he wanted say what he was about to say then he continued, “Yet sire, you seem reluctant to send any search parties out to begin a search for your daughter. This I do not understand?”
The King raised his eye brows at this sudden questioning by his trusted servant. Yet he knew he could not fault the man for questioning his tactics, so he offered him an explanation, “Well Captain Silverstar I know that it might seem odd that up until now I haven’t sent out any ‘official’ search parties, but rest assured, I have sent out a search party that only I know of. They have been very active in searching for the Princess and communicate their findings back to me daily, through magical means. So don’t think that I haven’t used all the tools available to me to find my missing daughter” With that the King turned to leave, but Captain Silverstar wasn’t finished it seemed.
“Sire, please!” Silverstar began with genuine concern in his voice, “I understand that you needed to keep the information of the search party secret. Yet I feel that I could do more to help! Please sire, allow me to assembly a squadron of veterans to mount a more public search, it wouldn’t have to be a large group, but just a few select men and women who are very skilled in this type of work?” Captain Silverstar paused to hear the King’s response to this idea.
“Gharyn” King Brightwater began by using Captain Silverstar’s first name, “You are the Captain of my Royal guard I can’t have you traipsing all over the country side, when I need you here with me!”
Captain Silverstar looked at his King and nodded, but then he got a very determined look on his face and said, “Yes my King I know that this is true, yet I feel the need to be helping to find your daughter, I feel personally responsible for her disappearance. Please my King, I can leave a very capable man in charge while I am away. But I would feel much better if I was out doing all I could to find the Princess and bring her safely home again!” Of course deep down inside his heart Captain Silverstar had a secret reason for wanting to track down the Princess.
The King pondered on this thought for a moment and then he said, “If it is that important to you then do what you need to do. But I only ask this, you can only be gone until the moons rise together in the east (this was a time approximately two weeks from this day when the three moons came up together).
Captain Silverstar immediately saluted his King and bowed low, hiding the smile that was spreading across his face, and then he came back up and turned immediately to assemble the seasoned warriors he desired to take with him. But first he had to contact Tin’ther of the Dhag’arii…
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The night was uneventful and the companions were glad for this. They were tired and needed some rest, so when Vekao woke the women earlier in the morning after his watch was through, they all gathered around the small fire that was built and prepared their morning meal.
Soon the fire was put out, the gear was packed and they were back to the trail and their journey to Castitrona and their hopeful meeting with King Brightwater. This morning Lizzy lead the way, while Vekao brought up the rear of their little group. The weather was clear, with just a few clouds in the sky above, a little brisk, yet nothing that would slow hem down on their journey. Along the way, they saw some further signs of the neighboring wild-life, but there were no further attacks by any creatures of the woods. Things were going well indeed and Lizzy was starting to feel like they were going to make it, for now they where perhaps only a few days away from their destination.
But before too long the clouds began to darken and soon after that the sun was no longer shining brightly down upon their path, and it began to rain! It rained and grew steadily harder as they continued along their way, so they had their cloaks out and they were slogging along trying to just make it to the next hill.
Vekao spoke first “perhaps we should find shelter soon?” he called out from the rear of the group.
Both Lizzy and Taithmar agreed quickly with this and they made their way to what looked to them like a cave off in the distance. It was a little ways off the trail they had been following, yet they felt it was worth the effort to make their way over to it. So they did.
Vekao held the women up at the mouth of the cave while he went in first to check it out, making sure there were no wild creatures lurking within, or any hostile enemies such as goblins or ogres. Soon Vekao came back out and motioned for the women to follow him back inside. Quickly they took off their wet cloaks and were busy gathering brush and pieces of wood they found in the front part of the cave to try and get a fire going.
“Well it is fortunate that we found this cave to shelter in over night.” Taithmar said to her friends. She used some of her magic to get the fire going, for it seemed the easiest to do at the time and soon the fire was burning and they settled down in the mouth of the cave to spend the rest of their time this day, until the storm went away at least.
But high over head the shadow serpents were out, for they preferred the darkness of the storm, with the clouds all around them. They were circling, trying to determine where the artifact had been carried to for they could sense it’s strong aura of magic. Soon they spotted the light in a small cave, so they swooped lower to investigate. Flying down low the three terrible beasts flew directly over the cave that Lizzy and her friends had settled in to ride out the storm!
“What was that?” Lizzy exclaimed and looked out into the storming sky.
“I felt it too!” Vekao said to her and stood up fingering the battle axe strapped to his back. “The shadow serpents are nearby. I can feel them drawing close.” He said then started scanning the sky for signs of the evil creatures. But it was difficult for him to see much of anything due to the weather.
Lizzy visibly shuddered and clutched at her arms. She glanced over at Taithmar who was also now looking up into the dark sky. “Yes I believe you are correct Vekao, I sense the same. We should prepare ourselves.”
With that Taithmar began to weave a defensive spell upon her and her friends, knowing that they would need all the help they could get if it came down to a battle between them and the shadow serpents! So they waited, knowing it would be better to stand in the cave then to be caught in the open by the evil creatures.
“Here they come!” was all Vekao said as he pulled the huge battle axe off his back and sprinted to the front of the cave. Soon the air split with the sound of wings flapping and a terrible screech from the shadow serpents as they swooped down for the attack!