The Chronicles of Aurion Page 3

  Gazrin did not immediately respond, so Traung asked, “And we should believe that the Church wants peace?”

  “When the war started, there were those who hated the orcs. Those elements of the Church have been…removed. We want an end to the war.” The first crack in her otherwise expressionless facade appeared as the lady looked upon the orc children in the distance. “We understand that the ravages of war have been felt by your people as well, so in exchange for a peace treaty, the church offers land, crops, and livestock to your people.”

  Gazrin tilted his head back for the first time as he contemplated what she had just said. His people were starving up here in the mountains. They were great hunters, but game was sparse of late. As he quietly thought about the offer, his friend tugged on his arm.

  Traung said, “Gaz, let’s talk.”

  So Gazrin turned to listen to his friend, but was distracted as he saw Hagrum trying to run toward them. The fat orc was an embarrassment, he thought. He couldn’t even run across the village without gasping for air. Then, as he realized where Hagrum had just come from, he realized that this was a bad sign.

  “Gaz, Gaz!” repeated Traung, attempting to get his friend’s attention.

  “Not now,” groaned Gazrin as he took off up the incline towards Hagrum.

  “Gaz—” Hagrum panted between breaths. “Your father...the chief is...gone. The fever has taken him.”

  Gazrin howled like a beast. “I should have gone to him,” he said with gritted teeth.

  “He spoke of you…before the fever took him,” panted Hagrum.

  “What did he say?” demanded Gaz as he clutched Hagrum’s leather tunic.

  The snake’s slithering tongue hissed a warped truth. “His last words were vengeance!”

  The tiniest tear-drops began to form in the corners of Gazrin’s eyes as he fought to swallow his emotions. He released Hagrum and turned back to Anjerra. His strides were slow and full of pain, as the loss of his father ravaged him. Finally breaking free, the tears streamed down his cheeks as he reached the place where she stood.

  The woman lost her formal composure as she stared in disbelief at the rare sight. Lacking grace and that unflinching demeanor for the first time, she fumbled with words as she spoke. “Wha…What happened?”

  “The Chief is dead,” was his hollow reply.

  Anjerra tried to quickly think of the appropriate way to respond, but her clumsy response came first. “That’s unfortunate, I had hoped to have a word with him.” She didn’t mean for her response to come out so coldly, but it was already out.

  He said nothing as her words reached his ears. I had hoped to have a word with him. One thought quickly led to another as his warped and tormented mind raced. Your father is gone. The fever took him. His last words were vengeance. GoreFang hung at his left hip, its leather bound grip groaned in the clutches of his left hand. Vengeance. As the pain overtook him, strength surged through his body. His powerful jaws drew closed as he gnashed his teeth, causing one of his fangs to slice his lip open. He didn’t even feel the pain as the blood seeped into his mouth and down over his chin. Vengeance.

  Before he knew it, three orcish words, Ker ut Kraw, escaped his mouth. They were words that meant “for honor and glory”, and, more importantly, words that meant…war. Before the war cry could echo across the Frostlands, GoreFang tore through air, flesh, and bone, spraying blood as Anjerra’s headless body crumpled to the frozen ground.

  Gazrin never took his focus away from her body, not even while his people charged the detachment of knights. The fury of the StormHowl tribe was a hammer crashing down upon the twelve Ki'Roten warriors. The humans were highly skilled combatants, taking out nearly twice their number, but they were simply overwhelmed by the orcs. Blood flew and cries rang out, but Gazrin was lost in the moment. He simply stared down at the once beautiful woman; she represented everything he had grown to hate. He studied her remains, then something near her mangled neck caught his eye. Right there, in the midst of the chaos, with battle all around him, he bent down to retrieve a silver medallion that had been tucked into her shirt. Then the orc fell to his knees in disbelief. It was the four-cornered eye. Not just a medallion with the church’s insignia, it was the Four-cornered Eye, belonging to the royal family.

  He hadn’t just killed the high priestess of the church. He had killed the Queen of Kiskarn and Rotenschoff.

  A new war had begun.

  4

  Annihilation

  Arden, what do you know of the magics?” asked Absell as he shoveled the lumpy brown stew into his mouth.

  “Many of the cultures across the world believe that they are divine powers gifted by one god or another. Others believe that those powers are instead the evidence of a divine incarnation. Some even say that the magics are responsible for giving birth to the Titans,” answered Arden.

  “Are the magics real?” questioned the teacher.

  “Academically, they reside somewhere between folklore and the mythologies,” Arden replied.

  “I asked you, not Academia. Are the magics real?” Absell prodded further.

  “I…don’t know. There are fantastic stories of women wielding fire that can turn stone to ash and of men who could control tempests and call down thunder. They are amazing, but those feats are impossible. The magics cannot be anything more than fanciful tales,” surmised Arden.

  “Hmmm…” muttered the elder as he twisted his face into a scowl. “And what do you know about the Elder Stones?”

  Arden shrugged, his eyes falling to the floor, “Well, not much really. Apparently they are supposed to be powerful gems that fell from the heavens. Most tales suggest that whoever possesses the stones is granted great powers.”

  “And what do you believe?” asked Absell.

  “Well, most of the stories seem just as outlandish as the others, so you would logically expect them to be nothing more than a piece of mythology, mere fabrications. I mean, the magics can’t be real, so how could magical stones be real?” said Arden.

  Absell swallowed down another mouthful of the slop and said, “You’ve tried your hand at logic, and you’ve failed rather exceptionally, my dear boy. You have created a fallacy in your argument!”

  “How is that?” asked Arden with sincerity.

  Absell replied with a hint of amusement in his voice, “You just said that the stories are too amazing, fantastic, and outlandish to be true. On the basis of that mistaken belief, you formed a flawed argument.”

  The teacher smiled, because he could see questions beginning to flood the boy’s mind.

  The teacher continued, “As a priest in training, you shouldn’t struggle with this. Priests, regardless of what faith they ascribe to, have agreed to believe in things that seem both impossible and illogical. It is part of the job description, my boy!”

  Arden didn’t appreciate being laughed at, but at the same time he did feel a bit foolish. “So you believe in the magics and the Elder Stones?”

  “Are we sailing across the Black Sea on a pirate ship I chartered?” asked the priest.

  Arden nodded silently as he thought, then he reasoned, “Well, I suppose it makes sense. It does seem like just about every culture in the known world has some stories about the magics and these stones. So there has to be some element of truth to it…right?”

  “Ahh, you are finally using your brain! Very good, my boy, but there is much more than just an element of truth to it. The magics and the stones are real. Many of the things you mentioned bear some degree of truth. Even the bit about the Titans, after a fashion.”

  “Wait, the Titans are real? All of them?” asked Arden with excitement.

  “Oh yes, my dear boy. I don’t know about all of them, but many are,” he replied.

  “Which ones do you know of?” begged Arden.

  “Well, there is Embren the Firelord, then there is the Keeper of the Wood, then you have the Strength of the Mountain,” shared Absell.

  “No way! The dwarven legends
are true?” Arden asked.

  “Of course. Oh, and we can’t forget about the dragons!” added Absell as if the iconic embodiment of his faith had slipped his mind.

  Arden shook his head in disbelief as he processed all this new information. Then he looked at Absell and asked, “You have served in the priesthood nearly your whole life. Have you actually seen a real dragon?”

  “Not yet, my boy, but our time is coming,” said Absell with a confident smile.

  “So, the magics made the Titans?”

  “Made them, no. It may have aided in birthing some of them, but not making them, and the magics didn’t do it alone either. Many of the Titans were already here, but some were brought into our world through the use of the magics and the Elder Stones,” said Absell.

  “What do you mean, brought to our world?” said Arden with a raised eyebrow.

  “You didn’t think our world is the only one out there, did you?” asked the teacher with a look that bordered on disappointment.

  “Well…I don’t know. I…well…I have so much to learn about this world, I’ve yet to concern myself with others,” answered Arden, flushing. “And now there are the magics to learn about.”

  “The good news is that we already know quite a bit about the magics. It is the stones that have been elusive thus far,” said Absell with a smile.

  “So that’s what this is all about then? We are on a mission to learn about these…Elder Stones?” asked Arden with a flash of excitement.

  Absell’s face lit up as his toothy grin widened. “More than that my boy, we are bringing one home!”

  Arden sat up straight as excitement coursed through his body. “How will we know where to find them?”

  “By studying our history, my dear boy,” Absell replied. “Are you ready to continue your lesson?”

  “Yes sir!” answered Arden eagerly.

  “Very well. Let’s return to the year of 7286.”

  The rising crescendo of the chanting monks in the Kiskarn Cathedral haunted, but never halted the heretics below. Instead, the determined twins fervently flipped through the worn tomes in search of the secret. Yet their burning question lingered.

  “Blast it all, there’s got to be a way!” shouted the spindly, middle-aged man.

  “Settle down, Genji,” groaned the woman who shared the study with him. She didn’t look quite as old as her twin. Even still, the streaks of silver that swept through her raven hair gave it away. She was tall like him but not particularly thin. She had a larger figure than Genji, and she made no effort to hide the attractiveness of her womanly shape.

  “Oh Genji, try this one,” she said with excitement as she handed him a different text.

  Genji grabbed the dusty tome and whined, “That’s easy for you to say, Yezreth, it’s not your fingers!”

  She loved his pouty face with crumpled up lips and those peach eyes. “Aww, are you okay?”

  “Stop mocking me!” commanded Genji before rolling the too-long sleeves back up past his elbows.

  “Genji dear, I know it hurts, but until we figure this out, we just have to push through it.” Her age had done nothing to that silky smooth voice. She allowed her brother a moment to calm down, then she said, “Now let’s try again.”

  Genji took a deep breath and rolled up his pesky sleeves again before extending his arms toward the fireplace across the study. Yezreth stepped away a few feet while he concentrated on the task at hand. Then, after she thought about it a moment longer, she cautiously backed away a few more steps.

  Her retreat rattled Genji’s concentration, casting a scowl over his face. He forced himself to shift his focus back to the spell. He did not allow himself to pay attention to the glasses that had slid down the length of his pointy little nose, nor did he allow himself to fidget with those god-forsaken sleeves that had fallen down once again. Instead, he kept his eyes locked on the log that sat upon the distant stone hearth.

  “Bekla Somni Vish,” uttered Genji. The heretic’s evocation rose above the sound of the holy chants from the cathedral above. His hands twitched and soon both his hands and arms were shaking. Genji screamed in pain as the violet cords of energy snaked down his forearms and through his fingers, before exploding into a jagged streak of white and purple light. The robed man was sent tumbling backwards as a seemingly erratic bolt of energy tore through the air. It crackled and hissed as it flashed toward the fireplace. Before his feet were back on the ground, the snapping sound of splintering wood echoed through the room as the log violently broke into pieces.

  “Dammit woman, I don’t know why I bother listening to you!” shouted Genji as he winced in pain.

  “Oh, you don’t mean that,” she said in a playful voice as she smiled at her brother.

  “Rotsnip I don’t!” he barked.

  Yezreth moved toward him with an outstretched hand. “You will figure it out.”

  He glared at her and said, “I’m done with this.”

  “Genji, you know that’s not gonna happen,” she calmly stated.

  “You don’t understand the pain. It’s...it’s not just pain. It’s like it’s alive, like…the pain itself is alive,” stammered the man as the pain lingered in his hands and arms.

  Yezreth slowly pulled her outstretched hand back as she looked down upon her twin. Her visage had shifted from light and gentle to something more stern and perhaps even regal, and then she spoke, “Genji, we will find a way around the pain. Just like the Oathbearers did long, long ago. Until then, you will have to deal with it.”

  “No! This isn’t just some pain to live with. You don’t understand, Yez!” he argued.

  She didn’t say anything, but her facial expression did relax. Her raised eyebrows indicated that she was listening, despite standing with folded arms.

  Genji continued, “This power...it doesn’t just come from some place...it comes from something. Yez, this energy, like the pain…it’s alive.”

  Before he had finished explaining, Yezreth said, “Genji, the Qarii is a gift from the gods; we will not discard it out of fear or weakness. We must master it.”

  He cried out, “Stop, Yez! I don’t fear pain. Don’t you get it? It isn’t trying to hurt me; it’s trying to kill me!”

  The harsh coldness of her words matched her stony expression as she said, “It is a risk we must take.”

  Over four months had passed since Reklash died, leaving Gazrin to lead the StormHowl tribe. As if losing their beloved chief were not enough, the tribe was struggling to get by, and food was becoming harder and harder to find. Brutally long winters were commonplace in the Frostlands, but this year was worse. Ironically, they had been able to survive those dreadful months in the past largely because of their enemies, the humans.

  The villages that stretched from the foothills to Kiskarn were full of men, women, and children who worked the land to grow crops, raise livestock, and fish. For many years the orcs survived off the plundered food goods that came from their raids upon the villages. Those villages were gone now. Only charred wood and toppled stones remained, and the orcs grew hungry.

  “Gaz, Threk and Dregg’s teams have scouted from here to the sea. Narg and Grar’s teams have done the same to the west…there is nothing left,” reported Traung.

  “Nothing?” repeated the dark-skinned chief.

  “Nothing. They have checked everything. The high-bush berries are barren and we have already finished off the last of the bears,” added Ferruk.

  “And the villages below?” asked Gazrin as he gazed north.

  “Picked clean weeks ago,” answered Traung with a defeated voice.

  “Then it’s time,” said Gazrin.

  “Time for what?” asked Traung, despite being afraid of the answer.

  “To travel north.” The weight of his throaty response was troubling.

  “But Chief, there are only a few villages left between us and Kiskarn,” warned Ferruk.

  “And those villages will have more than just farmers and fishermen, Gaz; th
e Church will have at least reinforced them. Or worse, we could find the entire armies of Rotenschoff and Kiskarn there, preparing to march upon us,” said Traung with a voice that trembled with emotion.

  “The queen is dead; now is the time to strike,” was Gazrin’s cold response.

  “It’s a death march,” added Ferruk.

  “Gaz—Chief, perhaps there is another way,” said Traung.

  Hagrum’s voice slithered into the conversation. “What other way? To starve to death? Hmmm?”

  Traung tried to ignore the slovenly orc. “We must trust the FrostFather to prov—”

  “FrostFather be damned!” roared the chief as he smashed a small table with his fist. “Where was the FrostFather when the humans tortured my father and where was the FrostFather when he died? Where is the FrostFather while my people starve?”

  Traung tried to speak to his friend, but Gazrin’s anger was not abated. Gazrin stared at the other orcs, but all he saw was his father. He saw the scars on his body. He saw the eye that would never open again and he saw the mark upon his chest, the brand of a slave. Then he saw the lifeless body of his father, lying in his tent. Like his ancestors, his father trusted the FrostFather and the spirits, and look where it had gotten him.

  Gazrin snapped out of his trance and issued the command, “We ride north tonight.”

  The fires of three burning villages dotted the moonlit landscape behind them as they rode north.

  “Chief, something isn’t right,” warned Traung, his eyes frantically scanning their dark surroundings.

  Gazrin’s eyes switched from his friend’s concerned expression to the path before them. Those fiery brown eyes strained to see through the shadow of night, before he grunted, concluding that there was nothing to be concerned with. The leather straps of GoreFang creaked as the mighty orc relaxed his grip upon the foul blade.

  “Traung, stop worrying,” grumbled Hagrum. It didn’t take much for the obese orc to become irritated with Traung. In fact, everything irritated him.