Rise of the Shadows Read online

  Standing up, Ryo walked across the glen to examine the fruits of his labor. Three wild sange turkeys lay on the ground with arrows imbedded in them. It had been a good hunt. Sange turkeys were large birds, averaging over fifty pounds of dressed meat and they were deceivingly dangerous birds. Razor sharp talons and powerful beaks, the sange turkeys were hunters despite their limited flight abilities. The preyed on larger animals, and hunted as a team. Ryo retrieve his arrows and started cleaning the birds.

  A branch cracked behind Ryo and he turned, raising his bow, prepared for anything. Saniv Sarhow, his best friend, burst through the bushes, blood running down from his face. He spotted Ryo and kept running forward.

  Right behind Saniv came a monstrous creature, almost seven feet tall, and thickly muscled with a large sword raised above his head, ready to strike down into Saniv’s back.

  Ryo fired an arrow, striking the attacker in the eye. He then cocked another arrow and waited. The massive creature had been a bogval, and where there was one bogval there were sure to be more.

  Gasping for air, Saniv bent over, hands on his knees, trying to regain his breath. He lifted three fingers.

  Three bogval, that left two out there somewhere in the bushes from which Saniv had just exited. From his experiences with bogval, Ryo suspected the other two were on the flanks and would come out of the bushes on either side of where Saniv and exited. Ryo’s eyes glanced back and forth, watching for any signs of movement.

  A spear came flying out of the brush on his left, Ryo dropped to his knees and the spear went whistling by his ear. At the same time the bogval on the right came out of the bush running towards him. Only a fraction of a second later the owner of the spear came crashing through the woods. Momentarily ignoring the one on the left, Ryo fired an arrow into the bogval on the right. The arrow didn’t stop the forward momentum of the bogval. Ryo dropped his bow and drew his sword. He waited until the bogval was within striking distance before launching into an attack. He extended his sword arm as far as he could reach while lunging forward. The momentum of the charging bogval carried him into Ryo’s sword before he could change direction. The blade slid into the bogvals neck.

  Ryo pulled the blade back, and then turned to block the attack of the second bogval who had thrown the spear at him. The bogval now had a wicked cresant shaped blade in his hand. The bogval pressed his attack, slashing back and forth with his blade, looking for openings in Ryo’s defense. Ryo blocked each attack until the bogval took a large sideways swipe, meant to take Ryo’s head clear off. Ryo ducked under this attack and slashed his sword into the knee of the bogval. The bogval’s knee started to buckle, but then it regained his balance. Ryo, now on one knee was now looking up at an angry bogval with a distinct advantage. The ducking attack was a good plan if it had succeeded. But now he was in trouble.

  Suddenly a spear flew over Ryo’s head and smashed into the bogval’s chest. Ryo glanced over his shoulder at Saniv, who’d finally regained his breath and had retrieved the bogval’s spear.

  “Sorry about crashing your hunting trip Ryo,” Saniv said as he walked over to give Ryo a hand up.

  Ryo sighed. “You mean sorry for leading three bogval to me?”

  “Right, that’s what I meant,” Saniv said with a wink.

  Ryo shook his head. Saniv was a solid warrior and a good friend, but he was mischievous and always in a playful mood, even now, mere moments after a battle, he was joking. It was something Ryo had grown to accept. It didn’t change the fact that what had happed was serious. From the look of Saniv, he wouldn’t have been to go much farther before the bogval got him. “What are you doing out here alone anyways?” This part of the deep forest was good hunting territory, but the faertai avoided it as of late as more and more bogval had been spotted in the area.

  “I wouldn’t be in these damn glens by my choice. Only a fool like you would be hunting out here. Which is why I’m here. The High Council requests your presence in Dapra immediately.”

  Ryo frowned. The High Council was the reason he was out here alone. “What does the High Council want with me?”

  Saniv shrugged. “How should I know. I’m just a messenger boy, but I’d guess it has something to do with all the recent bogval attacks, or maybe they want you to be the next sacrificial lamb to try and retrieve the token of Latessa.”

  The toke of Latessa. It was an ancient artifact supposedly given to the Faertai by one of the elven goddesses. Ryo had been skeptical of the religious artifact’s origins and value, but there was no denying that ever since the artifact started glowing again, they’d started noticing changes. The old magic had started coming back. That was why it had been such a devastating blow when a bogval raid captured Ehlark Perberos, the faertai shaman who’d been in possession of the token. Now the magic seemed to be fading. Whatever old magic the Faertai had, it was certainly tied to the token. Without it they may never fully regain their magic abilities that their elders spoke of. However, trying to retrieve the token was a fool’s mission. The bogval vastly outnumbered them and sneaking into bogval territory was near impossible. Several attempts had been made to try and rescue the capture shaman and get the token of Latessa back. None were successful. “I hope that isn’t why they’re calling me.”

  “You and me both, brother,” Saniv said. “I’d hate to lose you. Who else is going to make me look good with the ladies? Every guy needs an ugly friend and you’d be hard to replace. It is bad enough that you are out here wandering alone now. Dead you’re totally useless to me.”

  “For that comment, I’m going to insist that the brave and resolute Saniv be my companion on the quest.”

  Saniv stepped back. “You’d allow the Faertai to lose their most virial and handsome elf? How selfish of you brother.”

  Ryo shook his head. There was little chance of winning a war of words with Saniv. His ego was only bested by his quick wit. “Come on then oh most loyal and selfless Saniv, let’s go to Dapra and see what the High Council has in store for me.” Taking one last look at the dead balrogs, Ryo couldn’t help but think they would be involved in whatever the High Council wanted.

  4

  Mendris

  From the shore, Mendris watched the ship burn. The captain and crew were already gone. They’d taken the row boats and started down the coast. The pirate ship had lost its main sail and wouldn’t be able to follow them until repairs were made. Hopefully that would give the crew plenty of time to get to safety, or far enough inland that the pirates wouldn’t bother chasing them.

  “Come on, Mendris, we need to get moving. If they were after us it won’t take long before they send a crew to shore. The faster we get away the better,” Raiya said.

  Taking one last look at the pirate ship, Mendris nodded and followed Raiya into the woods. They were still far from home and she was right, the pirates were going to follow them, but it wouldn’t take them long to lose the pirates.

  Originally, the plan had been to sail to the port city of Gerah, in the Strose Province. The western port city was one of the busiest on the continent and it would’ve been easy to slip into the city and then make their way west towards Edowood, the village his family was from. Raiya had warned him that the village had been mostly abandoned and his family was hiding in the Deep Forest of the Toran Province, home of the Faertai, or elves as they were called elsewhere, and the Balrog. He intended to go north towards the capital and deal with Evander Welton. Mendris wanted to know why the king’s hatchet man had been intent on killing him and Jasmin Grant. Was there a conspiracy to place someone they controlled at the throne of Deytar? Mendris intended to find out, but first he wanted to know more about how his family was. It had been years since he’d seen any of them and it was time he made his way home, if only for long enough to say hello before heading north and into danger.

  They moved quickly through the forest. They were somewhere along the southern border between the Strose Province and the Paulan Province, the home of his people. As long as they travelled n
ortheast, they would eventually find familiar land markers. While Mendris had spent most of his life away from home, Raiya hadn’t and she would lead them back to Edowood.

  After a few hours of travel, they climbed a small mountain ridge and Raiya found her bearings.

  “That’s the Swunt river. We’re in the Paulan Province now. We’ll be in Edowood in two days,” Raiya said as she pointed north.” She paused for a moment before continuing. “We’re actually on Duke Holbert’s lands right now.”

  Duke Holbert. The friend Mendris had trusted to take money back home to his family. “How far to his estate?”

  “Half a day to the east. We could be there by nightfall. Pick up a couple horses there and we’d actually get home faster.”

  Mendris nodded. They would do more than just pick up a couple horses. They’d burn the estate to the ground and stake the backstabbing duke to the nearest ant hill. “Lead the way.”

  They headed over the other side of the ridge in the direction of the Swut River, which ran in ragged angles to the east before dumping into the mouth of the Garrath. They followed a well-covered path down to the river’s edge. The forest grew thicker the closer they got to the river. The river seemed wider than Mendris remembered and was grateful they would not have to cross it. He had hunted in this area with his trusted friend the duke but it looked as foreign to him as the desserts of Zalfari. He knew other lands better than his own—The life of a shadow warrior.

  “If we follow the Swut to Falls Bend,” Raiya said, “we can cut through the wild orchard of Oshva to the duke’s residence.”

  “Aren’t those orchards poisonous?”

  Raiya smiled. “Some of them are, but we’ll stick to the path to the north that avoids them. It will take us longer to go around but still shorter by a quarter of a day if we didn’t cut through the orchids.”

  Mendris thought about the duke. He was mad that he’d trusted the man to bring money back to his family. A man he called friend and yet betrayed him and his family. “The fastest way to the duke the better.”

  They made it to the Wild Orchards of Oshva faster than anticipated. The orchards were large and seemed to go on forever. Mendris and Raiya entered the west side middle section. Although the bulk of the poisonous trees were to the south part of the orchard, some trees now grew towards the middle. A narrow and less traveled path snaked up towards the north and zigzagged its way to the other side to the opposite position where they stood.

  Raiya pointed to the wider well beaten path. “Wild herds of giant boar use the main path to go to the river. Their thick skin protects them from the thorny tree trunks. The poisonous trees have booth fruit and thorns that deliver death to humans and animals with less protection.

  Mendris frowned at the sight of the path. “Even if we could go that way, we could get trampled to death if a herd came rushing through.”

  Raiya led the way through the zigzag path. They encountered a dead wolf that had several thorns stuck out its hide. “Does this look strange to you?”

  Mendris examined the dead beast and its tracks. “It was in one hell of a hurry. And its body is still warm.”

  “What would cause a black wolf to flee through deadly trees?” Raiya said as she kept watch in the direction from which it came.

  “I don’t know. I thought they were at the top of the food chain in these parts.”

  Mendris walked off the path in the direction the wolf had taken.

  Raiya started to follow and slowed her pace. “Be careful. If any of those thorns fell off, they could still be poisonous.”

  Mendris grunted. He wasn’t concerned about thorns at the moment. There was something more threatening than poisonous thorns. A tree fell in the distance. Something howled in pain. Mendris took guard. He looked back and saw Raiya retrieve a blade and a small pouch off her belt.

  “That’s not good,” Raiya said clenching her blade tight. “It can’t be. They don’t come this far from their home.”

  “Spit it out,” Mendris said with a slight impatience and immediately regretted it. Raiya wasn’t deserving of such attitude.

  “Bogval, that cry sounds like a Bogval.” Raiya removed an arrow and attached a small wooden cylinder and separated it into two parts until she placed it on the arrow just below the tip. The cylinder became part of the arrow. She drew her bow and shot the modified arrow into the direction of the howling cry. The arrow went high into the air and made a loud whistling sound. Screams and howling came from the direction the wolf came. “Yup, Bogval.”

  “Seven hells, I haven’t seen one of those since I was a lad. The one I saw was almost twice my height at the time. It must’ve seven or eight feet tall. Not quite that tall to me now but not something I would want to tangle with in the best of condition.”

  “There have been reports of Bogval coming into the Paulan Province but not this far from the border of Toran.”

  “But the border is just over those mountains, is it not?”

  “Yes, but the Bogval usually don’t enter the mountains. The Shakkel Mountain range is home to swarms of drakkar bees—their sting acts as a sedative to us but makes the Bogval become paralyzed. It can last for days and cause death. It’s what normally keeps them from coming into Paulan, but also the Bogval tend to stick to the jungles. No one knows why they’ve expanded their territory so much.”

  “Well, if you’re sure that was a Bogval, we better get a move on.”

  They got back on the path and picked up the pace. An hour later they made their way through the sharpest of the zigzag path that rested on a small ridge.

  “The path’s end is up ahead. And the duke’s estate is just beyond that turn up ahead.”

  Mendris looked up at the sky. The sun was low in the sky. “It will be dark soon.”

  “Yup, and harder to spot creatures sneaking up on us. The Bogval are big and clumsy but they know how to work in a team.”

  “Let’s just hope we don’t run into one before we make it to the duke.” Mendris began to care less about the Bogval and more about the duke the closer they got to his estate. He needed answers as to why the Holbert would betray him. Something wasn’t right in the world and it wasn’t just the return of dragons. He had seen how corrupt men could get when tempted by greed. He just never thought the Holbert would betray him on such a level. His family should be living well and have their own estate, yet his father was poor and in hiding. The duke had some explaining to do.

  The sight of the opening of the orchard gave them hope. They would be at the dukes in less than an hour. This side of the Orchard stopped at a small gully. A long since dried up river. The gorge was only about twelve feet across and the land on the other side was once orchards that died and gave way to a sparse wooded area.

  “Over the gorge and through those woods is the duke’s estate,” Raiya said, happy that safety was close. “Technically, we are already on it. His lands stretch far in every direction in Paulan.

  “Is his estate walled?”

  “I don’t know. If the Bogval have been terrorizing the area, it very well could now have a wall. On the other side of that wood is another gorge but one that is higher than the land on this side and four times as wide, with a river that winds around two sides of the estate.”

  “The estate sits on a plateau?”

  “Not really, but from our position and to the right where the river snakes up it does. The other two sides are on flat wooded grounds that stretches to the Shakkel mountains and the border of Toran.”

  The grove on this side of the orchard was dense, and the main path was smaller on this side with vines wound around the trees and across the ground. The waning light of the sun put most of the orchard in darkness. Shadows everywhere.

  “This side looks a lot more dangerous.”

  As if on cue, a Bogval with a club rushed out of the shadowy opening. Mendris jumped back as the big beast attacked; its club smashing the ground where Mendris had stood. Raiya was at the ready and poked open the small pouch in her
hand with her blade and threw it at the Bogval. The contents of herbs, spider flower and poison from drakkar bees interacted with the air and erupted, making the pouch a small smoking missile. It hit the Bogval and flames flashed blinding the Bogval. Raiya then threw her blade, hitting the Bogval in the side. It thrashed around blindly for a moment until it regained its sight.

  Mendris drew a blade and attacked the beast on the opposite side. Following Raiya’s lead, he attacked the side of the beast. They worked in concert, but the beast regained his sight and lunged for Raiya, snatching her off the ground. He slashed the beast down its back, and it fell to one knee and dropped Raiya heavily to ground. She rolled close to the edge of the gorge. His heart stopped for a moment as he thought she would go over the edge.

  The beast stood slowly and just paused in motion. It stared at them as if preparing to attack again, but instead it went back to the ground like a tree being felled. Mendris approached the fallen Bogval.

  Raiya shook off the fall and rolled to one knee. “It’s paralyzed. I had one pouch with the bee poison. We need to go. Now!” Raiya said standing up. “We need to get across that gorge now.”

  “OK,” Mendris said as two more Bogvals crashed through the grove. A small tree fell landing near him. “Jumping it seems like our only choice.”

  They ran for the gorge. Raiya jumped high and landed on the other side and rolled out to break the fall. Mendris who was farther away made it to the gorge and leaped only to be swatted in the back by a Bogval. Lucky for him the force pushed him far enough over the gorge that he was able to grab onto a ledge just under the top. Raiya ran to the edge and reached down.