Michael Mathias - The Wizard and the Warlord

“That was fantastic,” Little Condlin said as he charged across the twenty or so feet that separated Hyden and the scattered pieces of the granite slab.

“It’s a shame you didn’t harvest hawkling eggs with us this year,” Tylen said. He had harvested twelve eggs this past season, which was a new record for the clan, and he was proud of it. “You could climb up on the cliffs all day and night and just jump back down.”

“We didn’t make squat with the harvest this year,” one of the approaching boys said. “But that was great, Hyden, even though you got lucky when Talon saved you.”

“Talon!” Hyden sat up. His chest was still heaving from his grueling run. “I’m a great wizard, Shalloo, don’t you know?” Hyden was in fact a dismal apprentice mage at best, at least until he’d gone into the Nethers and taken back the ring from Gerard. Ever since he’d bested the truly legendary wizard Dahg Mahn’s trials and entered his tower, he liked to joke that he was a wizard of the highest order. The jest had more to do with the hundreds of dead magi and masters of magic that had failed Dahg Mahn’s trials before him. The answer to Dahg Mahn’s riddle had been so simple to Hyden that it baffled him that so many wizards had failed at the cost of their lives. The simplicity was what had beaten them. They over-thought the riddle; they tried farfetched logic and just couldn’t get it.

“I saw you at the end, Hyden Hawk,” Shalloo was saying with a knowing expression on his face. “You probably filled your britches.”

Talon fluttered down and landed on Shalloo’s shoulder. The bird cawed out his agreement.

“He did look scared,” Tylen agreed. “But nevertheless we will be eating shagmar steaks long into the winter because of Hyden’s daring.”

“It’s a good thing, too, because Summer’s Day was almost empty this time,” Little Condlin said. “We couldn’t buy, barter, or even steal the supplies we needed for the year.”

“I told you,” Hyden said as he stood. His breathing was getting back to normal. “Next year will be even better, and the keep moss will stop the eggs you harvested this year from hatching, so it will be twice as good then.”

“Are you going to keep the shagmar fur, or sell it?” another of his young cousins asked.

“I haven’t thought about it.”

“It’s yours by right,” Tylen said. “You baited the shagmar over the falls, after all.”

“I baited the falls over the falls as well,” Hyden joked. “I’ll think about it on the way back to the village.” As he spoke, he felt the sudden sense of alarm welling up inside him. “Excuse me,” he said abruptly as he stomped off into the trees, leaving his cousins looking at each other with scrunched-up faces.

“Probably going to clean out his britches,” he heard Shalloo joke behind him.

“Come on, let’s get this thing skinned and cut down into quarters,” Tylen said.

It was the staff again causing the dark feelings in Hyden’s soul. It was unmistakable. And he could tell that it was no small doing either. He felt it sharply and knew without a shadow of a doubt that the staff was being used for something horrible. The more he concentrated on it, the more the feeling of dread came over him. He wasn’t sure what to do about it, if he could do anything at all. Maybe it was just meant to be for he and the beast his brother had become to fight.

No, he decided. He didn’t want to face Gerard again. That thing was not his brother anymore. There was nothing he could do at the moment other than hope that whatever dark magic was being attempted would fail.

Queen Shaella, for all intents and purposes, was a zombie. Her brain, and all the twisted knowledge and memory it held, was wiped away during the preservation ceremony the priest named Eopeck held on her body. Physically, the resurrection worked perfectly. Not even a scar remained where he reattached her head. The spell worked so well that the noticeable bald patch over the Dragon Queen’s ear, where Claret had once licked her with dragon’s fire, was healed. So was the pink dagger scar that once ran down her face like a tear streak. With the full head of dark, wavy hair, and the life essence of the thirteen virgins coursing through her body, she looked like a girl of fifteen, save for her voluptuous womanly figure. Even the devout priest found his eyes lingering too long on his mindless, yet exotically beautiful, creation. It took him long hours of explanation, and many ember-eyed glares from the Choska demon that had deemed itself her protecter, to convince the Zard forces that she was really Queen Shaella. She could barely speak complete sentences, so she could not convince them herself. Eopeck explained that she was still in the process of healing, and that several more ceremonies needed to be performed before she could be back to herself. It was a lie, but convincing the Zard turned out to be as easy as feeding a starving dog. The lizard-men desperately needed a leader. Queen Shaella had literally taken them out of the swamp and led them to a somewhat civilized existence in Westland. They clearly wanted some of that back.

Some of the Zard who had pledged fealty to King Mikahl remained in Westland, but very few. The rest were now spread across the marshes in large clusters, trying to recreate the life they’d found in Westland. The trees that grew in the deep swamps were not sturdy and were unsuitable for building with. The land itself was soft and unpredictable. The Zard were frustrated and somewhat scared. The return of their queen was welcome, and Eopeck and his Choska demon were ultimately recognized as saviors to the Zard cause. Eopeck was the one who revived their queen, after all. The Zard wanted Shaella back to herself. They had no problems helping the priest prepare for the next ceremony.

The ritual he had planned would let the Abbadon, Kraw as the priests called him, back into the world without breaching the boundary or opening a gateway. He was going to fill Shaella’s empty core with the Abbadon’s soul. All Eopeck needed to do it had unexpectedly washed up on the edge of the marshes, saving him and the Zard a long and dangerous campaign into the Evermore to take some elven blood.

Not much-just a drop or two of the magical liquid was all that was needed.

Out on the islands, the Choska had almost delivered the rare life nectar, but Salaya’s magical trees had befuddled the hellspawn and foiled the attempt. The wyvern were so mentally affected that they attacked and killed the very folk they were sent to capture alive. Until the Zard patrol came across the monk and the elven man struggling by the sea, Eopeck thought he would have to try to nab an elf from the forest.

Destiny, he decided, was on his side. It was meant to be that the king of the hells would find a way into the world. If not, the sea storm wouldn’t have washed one of the elves right into their hands.

Eopeck smiled at the thought as he watched the sunset. In only a few hours he would help the master into Shaella’s body, and from there, they would find a way to breach the boundary. Soon, the whole of the hells would empty into the world of men and wreak terrible havoc.

Just as the Abbadon had commanded Shaella to do things through the spectoral staff, he now commanded Eopeck. The master told him to shave Shaella’s head. Eopeck had no clue why he was doing this; it wasn’t necessary to the ceremony. He dared not voice any question concerning the matter, though. He was sure the dark one had his reasons.

The symbol of transference was carved into a wooden altar that the Zard had made out of a long dead cypress trunk. The area had been cleared, and all other preparations made.

Torches set on tall poles in the circle around the makeshift altar were lit as darkness overtook the marshlands. The myriad sounds, from creatures both large and small, that Eopeck heard out in this horrible place, never ceased to amaze him. He wasn’t afraid, though. The Choska demon was circling in the sky, guarding the illuminated circle from any creatures that might be drawn in by the light. The Zard had warned him of snappers big enough to swallow a man whole. After all the recent battles, and the bodies that found their way into the river, the beasts lusted for man flesh. They had grown to enormous sizes feeding on the corpses. The light, and the scent of man, would surely draw them. The Choska, though, was far more deadly than any snapper. At least that’s what Eopeck told himself.