Authors: Stephen Zimmer
Caruga had spoken with Dragol in private upon his return. The old Trogen chieftain had been very pleased that Dragol had both lasted for the full two weeks, and had also identified the true nature of the test.
The crusty, stoic demeanor of the old Trogen chieftain softened to Dragol’s great surprise, as Caruga exuded a warm, and emotional, ebullience towards Dragol’s achievement. The special test had spurred Dragol onto a path of rapid ascendancy within the Thunder Wolf Clan.
His mind had continued to be steadily conditioned over the following years. He had gradually inured himself to the powerful emotions that raced through all Trogens’ blood, able to maintain a disciplined grasp on the realities around him.
He had consistently excelled in those areas, as well as in combat. With Caruga’s blessing, he had risen quickly in stature within the Thunder Wolf clan, to become one of their highest-ranking warriors.
As much as he feared getting maimed or injured, and losing the ability to wield a longblade, he now held an equal fear of incurring any kind of damage to his mental resolve. He could see now that his adamant refusal to give in to the powerful impulses to chase after Gavnar and the others was another test that he had passed successfully. His discretion in not blindly following into Tirok’s folly was bothering him far less. He was increasingly reconciled to the realization that he had indeed made the right choice.
Yet while one matter of concern eased in his mind, Dragol’s encounters with the old man were still unresolved. The old man’s presence seemed illogical, not entirely friend or foe, and with no discernible purpose. It was not impossible that everything was taking place in Dragol’s mind.
The whole experience seemed ever more like the descriptions of the solitary Healers that lived among the Trogen clans. The Healers were said to have regular hallucinations of astounding natures, during their long sojourns into the lonely wildernesses.
Such tales were not relegated only to Trogens. They were also contained within the same stories that celebrated the vitality of the old hermits in the Sunlands, where the isolated men had also encountered strange, fantastical visions during their self-imposed exiles.
If the interactions with the peculiar woodland traveler were born out of sheer illusion, then there was something for Dragol to worry about.
The other prospect was that if the encounters were grounded in iron-solid reality, then Dragol had possibly come upon a crossroads of momentous revelation.
Until he knew which of the two possibilities that it was, he knew he had to respond as best he could, to every moment as he perceived it, come whatever may.
Dragol closed his eyes slowly, taking a deep breath, and exhaling. He envisioned the old man in the long blue robes, seeing the elderly human’s gleaming blue eye as vividly as if the stranger was standing right in front of him.
‘Often, we have already learned the answers to what we seek, only we have not realized how to ask ourselves the right questions to discover them within us.’
The words of the old man echoed in Dragol’s mind over and over again. The soft strength in the voice continued to enamor Dragol. It held the gentle authority of a longtime mentor, neither domineering, nor wavering in purpose. The lesson was there for him to learn, just as it had been when he had left his home village, to accept the requested task from Caruga.
He grew very quiet, feeling the serenity reigning around him. Letting his eyes slowly open again, he took in the sight of the waterfall and trees beyond it.
The more that he listened to his heart, in the way that the Trogens tended to do, the more reassurance he found towards the strange traveler. A part of him harbored no doubts that he would be seeing the old man once again, perhaps very soon.
“I want to find the right question,” Dragol murmured out loud, as casually if he was replying to the immediate presence of the old man. “If you can help me … then help me. Just tell me who you are, and what you are about. Why do you think I am anything more than what I am?”
The light, drifting breezes carried off Dragol’s softly spoken words. Dragol could almost imagine the smooth, peaceful currents of air ushering the supplication carefully to the ears of the old traveler.
As easily and promptly as the old man seemed to be able to depart and appear, Dragol would not have been surprised if the old man was standing just twenty feet away. There was a palpable tinge of disappointment when several moments passed and no answer was forthcoming.
It was an unusual sort of feeling to have, but he believed the old man would not have remained hidden if he were there to hear Dragol’s query. Furthermore, there was still no sensation of the kind that he had felt prior to the traveler’s other appearances. Even so, Dragol had earnestly believed that the old man could somehow hear the spoken words.
Allowing himself an ephemeral, bemused smile, an expression not all that common amongst Trogen-kind, he raised his eyes upward again. He gazed through the deep green saturating the intertwining tree branches above and around him, taking in the smooth, silken expanse of the teal-colored sky farther above. Streaked with elongated swathes of white clouds, the sight held an aesthetic, enthralling attraction for him.
It seemed much more vivid and magical than he had ever noticed before, as if he had cleared away a veil, and recaptured some of the wonder of his early youth. In a sense, it was almost like looking up at the trees, clouds, and sky for the first time. In truth, though, he was looking up at a unique instance of the sky.
Sitting up straighter, Dragol chuckled to himself. There might well be a meaning to having an entirely new manner of perception. Then again, he had to concede that maybe his mind truly was losing the scope of reality that he had known.
Still, he had not bothered yet to wonder about whether new perceptions might bring with them an altogether new awareness. A new awareness might very well clear the mists away, removing that which clouded the nature of the particular questions that he needed to ask himself.
The answers that Dragol was seeking might not be all that far away, after all.
*
Ayenwatha
*
The presence of the Midragardans within the Five Realms was soon felt intimately by the invaders, as the allies of the five tribes reached the front lines of the fighting. The course of the battle was quickly turned to the defender’s advantage, with the unexpected influx of seasoned warriors from the south.
Skillful Midragardan archers complimented the keen eyes of the Five Realms’ own bowmen. The Atagar, utilizing the trees, were increasingly brought down with arrows, wherever they could be found.
The locating of enemy forces, positions, and their maneuverings was augmented tremendously by the availability of almost three hundred Midragardans mounted upon Fenraren. The airborne warriors owned the skies over the tribal lands, as they fanned out far over the woodlands. The sky warriors were boisterous and renewed, after having cleared the skies of Trogens and the massive Darroks only a day before.
A few loosed sporadic arrows from the great heights. While not overly accurate, and presenting no real practical threat, the arrows descending out of the upper skies did not go unnoticed by the enemy. The enemy was reminded starkly of their sudden vulnerabilities, and the arrows did much to slow the invaders down further.
Aided by a flow of new tidings from the sky warriors, Gunnar and Ayenwatha led a numerous contingent of Midragardans and tribal warriors in a powerful counter-attack. Their thrust was aimed right at a particularly large mass of enemy fighters streaming through the woods, near the central area of the invader’s broad push. Midragardan sky warriors had identified the exact location of the concentrated enemy force, efficiently directing Ayenwatha, Gunnar, and the others to intercept it. Ayenwatha knew exactly where he was being guided by the scouts above, and hastily organized a plan with Gunnar to make use of the two allies’ strengths.
They caught the enemy approaching on a stretch of ground that funneled down into a narrow passage running between a couple of low hills. A number of tribal warriors raced up the slopes of the flanking hills, continuing along them to gain ground just above the dense masses of Galleans now marching down below them.
The vanguard of the Gallean force had just passed through the confined stretch between the hills, and was spreading out on the other side, to proceed on their forward sweep through the woodlands. They moved with an easy, confident gait, having advanced without opposition since they had started out from their encampment that morning.
For the invaders, the woods had erupted, coming alive with a swelling roar and brandishing of steel. Almost immediately, seeing iron helms, round shields, and coats of mail, the invaders knew that they were being confronted by warriors who were not of the five tribes.
Before the enemy had time to draw up in battle order, the Midragardans charged them. Shocked by the presence of hundreds of Midragardan warriors screaming out in battle fury, and falling upon their forefront, the spreading line of enemy fighters beyond the hills was brought to a halt.
Galleans from urban militias, infantry, and even a few knights and sergeants tried to retreat. Some militia fighters fearfully abandoned their weapons, and fled at a full run.
A number of Galleans were engulfed as the initial wave of the attack crashed upon them. The knights within the encompassed pockets fought with desperate fury, though they were soon cut down by the vigorous attackers. Other knights screamed out harsh orders, to stiffen the wavering Gallean line a little further back, as the tight mass coming up behind them stalled in between the hills.
The sudden appearance of a numerous, strong, and well-equipped Midragardan force was much more than the enemy had ever anticipated. It was not much longer before panicked horn blasts could be heard, as the enemy signaled urgently for a full withdrawal.
“Drive them back!” Gunnar shouted, slaying a knight with an arcing, downward slash of his heavy sword.
He pulled the sword free, and thrust it out at an urban militia fighter wearing a padded gambeson. A look of terror was frozen on the Gallean’s face, as Golden Fury drove into his exposed throat. The militia fighter dropped his polearm, and fell dead to the ground.
“For the One Spirit!” Ayenwatha cried out, eliciting an uproar from all the tribal warriors that had flowed in on the flanks of the Midragardans.
Brandishing their war clubs, spears, and hand axes, they hurtled into the panicking enemy ranks. The two leaders fought close together, with Ayenwatha on the inner edge of the tribal warriors on the Midragardan right flank, and Gunnar towards the outer edge of his warriors on that same flank.
Ayenwatha bludgeoned a Gallean spearman, hitting him flush on the side of his half-helm with a heavy, curved war club. The crashing sound of the impact covered most of the sickening snap that accompanied it, as the man’s skull and neck gave way before the war club’s potent force.
Exhilaration ran through Ayenwatha, as the defenders were finally taking the fight right to their enemies. Deganawida was somewhere behind them, with a small reserve of tribal warriors and Midragardans. The revered sachem was now a worry to Ayenwatha, because of his close proximity, but the older man had insisted on being present near to the fighting.
The old sachem had assured Ayenwatha that he would remain behind, and would not take unnecessary risks. In the fast changing fortunes of battle, Deganawida’s promises were of little comfort, as a threat could emerge to the venerable sachem’s life at any given moment.
Gunnar raised his sword high, waving it above his head, and called out to a group of Midragardans to form up with him. “Boar’s head! Boar’s head!”
The Midragardans in the center arranged into a formation that resembled the point of an arrow or spearhead, protruding out from their longer line. Gunnar, wielding Golden Fury, maneuvered to the apex of that point.
“Clamp the jaws upon them, Ayenwatha!” he called out over his shoulder. Once at the point of the boar’s head formation, he led the group of warriors forward, tramping towards the thinning line at the center of the enemy resisting them. “We will pierce their line with the boar’s head!”
Ayenwatha watched as the Midragardans tromped forward, in a tight, orderly unit, puncturing the enemy ranks, and instantly sending panic and chaos spiraling throughout the Gallean ranks.
Ayenwatha called for signals to be relayed swiftly to the warriors up on the hills, a little farther ahead. Once the signals had been conveyed, the warriors descended the slopes with whooping cries, coming down both sides, to strike at the bewildered Galleans coagulated within the narrow stretch of ground between the hills.
Attacked from both sides, divided and pressed from their front, the Galleans did everything that they could to hasten their retreat. Cleaving through the enemy, Gunnar’s men were soon meeting up with Ayenwatha’s warriors, eyes blazing as they closed off the main route of retreat for many enemy warriors now trapped behind them. In quickly passing moments, the tribal warriors from the slopes, and the fighters with Gunnar, began to strike at the rear of the trapped Galleans.
The Midragardans and tribal warriors arrayed at the forefront of the encircled enemy ranks redoubled their attacks at Ayenwatha’s urging. The enemy force caught in front of the hills, and the one caught in the stretch of land between them, was soon whittled down.
The attackers had been turned into defenders with one bold, sweeping stroke. Morale dissipated rapidly amongst the Galleans, escalating the progress of the counter-attackers further.
As the last of the Galleans trapped before the hills were mopped up, Gunnar turned towards the narrow stretch of ground where he could see the back of the Gallean masses running away. They were falling into the woods on the other side of the hills, heading back in the direction from which they had marched.
“Onward!” shouted Gunnar, “Drive them out of the forest!”
Broad axes were raised high, and spears were leveled, as a jubilant roar filled the air. The Midragardans trotted forward, as incautious in their pursuit as the enemy had been in their forward push.