Featured Novel: The Shadow Channeler | Chapter 27 ('Just a simple uber w00t shall do it :)') | 03/08/08 | Rated 5 Stars

Chapter 22








The man in the black cape was
relieved to see the massive idiot leave, and was just as annoyed to see him
come back. He tried his best to focus on the body, however. It had obviously
suffered a powerful arrow wound, probably from only about a foot away, and he
honestly couldn’t say whether the man would recover or not. He was determined
to do his best, however. If he saved this man, he could force the two to help
him get what was rightfully his; the body he had had to abandon in that damned
sewer, or whatever the hell it was. The man came back in a noticeably better
mood then previously, and he was rather surprised at the sudden change, though he
knew asking the giant what had happened would be pretty much like asking god to
give him a migraine. Focusing on the body once more, he tried to sort out his
options, to no avail. He had wiped out a group of bandits, escaped a fortress,
and now he couldn’t save one man with a gash? Frustrated with himself once
more, he bend down and began chanting a healing incantation.





Volkern was surprised himself at how
quickly progress was made when they had arrived on shore of Draknius. They had
nearly traversed half the continent in a few days. He had deeply regretted
giving the order to kill the baby during the voyage on their ships, especially
because he hadn’t directly interacted or seen the baby. During a long voyage in
a ship such as the previous one, the gfhii find it highly inconvenient to stop
a boat and discuss, halting progress. Therefore, there are certain arrows they
shoot from their boats, in a particular order or number, and the lead ship
fires back in response. There is always a man on watch for this, and if he
ignores or does not see the message, the consequences are severe. Therefore, a
worker told Volkern that that order had been fired, and he had ordered them to
give the go-ahead. After all, how could he have known about the poor child? As
far as he knew, there was still a good number of nights until the High Oracle
would be born.





Each gfhice ship has it’s own Chiftum, or, simply, leader. The leader
is responsible for more or less everything that goes on on the ship, and the poor
man is usually charged with all the troubles that happen there. You could only
imagine, years later, how the gfhice must’ve been treated after the unfortunate
leader threw the baby off the ship. Perhaps things would’ve changed if they had
not thrown the baby into the cruel sea. Perhaps not. We will never know,
however. There is also a Chiftum on Volkern’s ship. Volkern finds that if is
much too tiring to handle all the petty problems himself, and, therefore, he entrusts
it in the ship leader, only handling the slightly larger problem, as deciding ultimately
whether a newborn lives or not. A young gfhice ran (or, rather, jumped, as
Volkern is in a moving room, carried by several servants) into the king’s
chamber. He stated that they had just eliminated a small army sent by Draknius,
and they were less than a day away from the outpost. The king nodded, and
dismissed the flustered man. The outpost. This made him frown. It would be the first
real obstacle they would have to overcome, and, possibly, the last. He had
studied as much as he could on the shores of this continent, and, besides
completely skipping this place and sailing around it, there was no way to avoid
leaving from that small city. The continent was surrounded by harsh cliffs that
are dangerously impassable. The landing from the previous voyage itself has
made him lose several men. That would be all he was going to risk, he decided.
The outpost would be filled with innocent humans, who have not done anything to
offend them. They did not deserve to die. However, he reasoned, sighing, there
was no other option. Sailing around the island was out of the question,
firstly, because they were already too far inland, and second, the long voyage
would wreak havoc on their supplies. He was suddenly interrupted once again by
a servant. Annoyed, he listened to what he had to say. Nodding, he got up and
headed to the doorway. Sunlight flooded through. There, on the horizon, was the
outpost, in all it’s glory; a proud stand-alone city. Volkern quickly turned
away and went back to his throne, as he could hardly keep himself from seeing
the city in flames.





Now, you are probably wondering why
Volkern, as well as Hazul, claimed to see the outpost many days before reaching
there. The reason is because of the rather perculiar fashion that the continent
is made. On the west side of the island, facing the vast desert of the gfhii,
the continent is at it’s highest point, mountains touching the clouds. At the
edge of those mountains is Draknius (yes, if you have not noticed, Draknius is
the name of the continent as well as the capital). After that, the whole
continent is on a downfall, the cliffs steep, and the voyage down always at a slope.
The outpost, being directly at the edge of the sea, is easily seen after just a
few hours travel from Draknius, making it convenient to travelers who have not
traveled the lands very often. One of those people happened to be Volkern.





Hazul felt the dual blades dig into
his skin, but that was all. They did not strike deep, and had barely penetrated
his neck when they had stopped. He slowly opened his eyes, scared that movement
would cause the daggers to move again. His assassin was on the floor, almost
next to him, clutching his eyes in pain. Confused, but not an idiot, Hazul took
the opportunity to kick off the table suffocating him, and deal a rather good
blow from his knee into the man’s stomach, which added to his agony. After a
few more good blows, the man had dropped his daggers, still occupied with
clutching his face. Taking the chance, Hazul grabbed the two knives and hovered
over the man. For a second, he stopped, and he swore to this day he saw a women
standing next to him, looking down on him in shame. He did not recognize her,
but he instantly knew who she was. She was his mother. Shaking his head and
closing his eyes, Hazul quickly brought down the blades, delivering “a fatal
and absolute blow” (After reading the last line of the last paragraph of chapter
20 when this book was finished, Hazul insisted that I added that line in. I was
just too happy to oblige.). The man died, Hazul reasoned, but he sure as hell
wasn’t out of danger. Still curious about why the man was clutching his face,
he slowly removed his hands from his face, cautious at what he would find. He
almost left back in disgust. The face was almost massacred, skin ripped off,
nose broken, lips torn. “What the hell did this?!”, Hazul said to himself, and
a nudge was his answer. A purring that consisted of strange noises and
vibrations combined with a low hum followed. Looking down, he saw a rather
happy Pumpkin, his now twice-life-saving-scurtle, starting up at him, smiling
as much as a scurtle could. Starring incredulously from the animal to the man,
he suddenly decided that he would take the animal overseas, whether he was allowed
to or not. A sudden bang on his door snapped him to attention. He opened the
door, which he noticed was locked, and a panic-stricken owner was looking at
him, wide-eyed. “A damn army has been spotted! They’re moving at a horse’s
speed! Evacuate! Now! Get the hell out of my damn room! Hazul followed the man
outside, which he now saw not as the peaceful village, but a panicking
hell-hole. Despite all the panic, he groaned and rolled his eyes, looking at
the sky. “And I thought getting on a god damn ship was hard before!”, he yelled at the sky.





So,
the gfhii are at Draknius, and moving fast, thought Regius to himself, in
his usual place on his throne, lazily wiping invisible dust off his crown. As mentioned
before, he was greatly surprised at how few people were leaving Dreadnar. There
was less then twenty. Even more surprising then that, the city was hardly in a
panic at all. The people were going about their usual business as nothing at
all was happening. The king felt proud about this, and he was determined to not
let this city fall. He had not faced a large army of gfhii, however, and he had
no idea what to expect. Their weapons, siege weapons, spells (Humans do not
know of the High Oracle, as the gfhii regard it as their one weakness, and even
through torture their prisoner has not relinquished this knowledge) or
otherwise. He has kept that knowledge secret, however, and he was determined to
parry whatever the fiends threw at him. Or so he thought. Nothing could have
prepared him for what was going to happen. Or, more precisely, what was
happening. The invisible ticks of the clock of fate had started, and nothing could
stop it. An event had begun, far larger then a small war. Whether Regius
knew it or not, he was going to face something far damn more difficult then a
speech.