Demons Vengence

Chapter 4

Chapter 4








Bones popped and snapped back into place and the demon began healing Rakagar.  Black mist flowed into his many cuts, filling them then hardening, eventually encasing him.  But not hindering him, it easily bent when he moved and within a few moments of the eltinnis’ embrace Rakagar felt phenomenal.


Healed he rose to his feet, “Griish will pay,” he growled to himself, then he was struck by a gut wrenching pain and he dropped to his knees.


“You will do what I want, when I want it and nothing more orc slave.  And if you do it well you may be rewarded.”


The pain subsiding Rakagar got back to his feet.  Not wanting that pain again he submitted, “Yes master.” He stated curtly.


“Good we have an understanding first we’re going to need an army.”


“If I may suggest, my clan is not far from here with my new body I could easily claim it for you.” Rakagar said, and me he thought to himself.


“Good do so report back to me soon my magic has no limit on distance if you fail me I will destroy you.”


“I understand completely,” the orc warrior replied.  “Shall I leave now?”


“Yes” the demon replied


With that Rakagar took his leave and began to head back to the clan camp, soon to be his clan camp.  The orc smiled as he started climbing the cliff and was still smiling when he reached the top.





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With everyone busy getting ready for the trip Jerek couldn’t find much to do.  Ariel and Vernis were usually gone, tracking down gods knows what from gods knows where.  A little too secretive for Jereks liking but it honestly wasn’t much of his business so he didn’t mind.  Bored as usual Jerek sat in the library reading.


“Vernis has something for you.” Jerek heard Ariel shout excitedly from the door.  “He’s in the practice grounds waiting for you.”


“What is it?” Jerek asked, getting up and putting his book back on the shelf.


“Can’t tell you, it’s a surprise,” Ariel replied teasingly, as they headed out the door.


“Wonder what it is?” said Jerek thinking out loud.  Ariel just smiled.





As Jerek and Ariel reached the field they saw Vernis sitting on a stump with a covered pile next to him.  As they got closer he smiled


“Come have a seat,” Vernis said gesturing to the ground, “Before your surprise I’d like to have a word with you.”


“Sure thing,” Jerek replied sitting on the ground next to Ariel.


“You’ve been with us near six months now, and like a fungus, you’ve grown on me, all of us I think.  This coming trip will be dangerous and I just wouldn’t feel right with you fighting with used armor and weapons,” Vernis began.  “So with a little help,” he nodded at Ariel.


“I stole some of your clothes,” she giggled.


“I had this made,” Vernis continued pulling out a suit of dark blue scale armor, with silver banded shoulder pieces, handing it to Jerek.  “This should fit you right, and protect you better than anything you’ll find in that armory.”


Stunned Jerek only managed a quiet thank you as he examined the armor.


“As for a weapon, Dervin donated a staff to use for the shaft,” said Vernis pulling out a silver double bladed axe, its head nearly two and an half feet long with various holes throughout it.  “I designed the axe head myself, it looks heavy but with the holes and a little left over enchantment from Dervins staff it’s fairly light,” he said handing the weapon to Jerek.


“I don’t know what to say,” Jerek stated, taking the axe.  It was light half as light as the axe he had been training with.  “It’s amazing, thank you all so very much I never dreamed I would own anything like this, they must of cost a fortune.”


“Don’t you worry about that, can’t have you watching my back with shoddy equipment can I,” Vernis said with a smile.  “Try it on, lets have a sparing match before supper.”


Jerek looked up with a grin and began putting on his new armor.





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Tired and sore Jerek lay in bed, thinking of the trip to come.  He imagined that he would be a warrior, wielding an axe, fighting evil.  It was almost too much.  At supper Dervin had come in, informing everyone that they leave in the morning.  He began thinking about the night that brought him here.  That horrible night, his whole family killed, “I will find who’s responsible,” he thought.





“And I will kill them.” he finished out loud.





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“Get up we leave in an hour,” Jerek heard as he drifted back to reality, it was Ariel.  “Breakfast is already served, better get down there before it’s all gone.  When you’re done meet us in the courtyard.” She finished, with a smile she shut the door and Jerek could hear he walk down the hall.


“Uuuunnnngggghh,” he groaned, sore from the sparring match yesterday.  With all the excitement, they’d sparred a little too long.  With a few more groans, a couple of creeks, and a pop or two Jerek got dressed and headed to breakfast.





Ariel wasn’t kidding by the time Jerek got there most of the spread was gone, though there was still plenty for him.  He grabbed a quick bite and headed to the courtyard. 


In the courtyard sat a large wagon, its back door open and several people loading boxes and barrels of various sizes inside.  Dervin stood beside the door, checking off the items, as they were loaded.  Ariel and Vernis were talking to each other and Herpan, the priest, was talking with the clergy.  Jerek walked over to Vernis and Ariel, “Hoy,” he called.  “Is there anything left to do?” he asked.


“Nah,” Vernis replied, “Dervins got it all in hand, should be ready to leave soon.”


Jerek nodded, “Have you ever been to Dwarfsholme?”


“No, the short folk are particular about who they let into Dwarfsholme, afraid to lose their secrets I think.”


Jerek nodded again and was about to ask what secrets when Dervin called them over.


“Were ready,” the wizard shouted, waving at the three of them.  Herpan was already next to him.  “The sooner we leave the sooner we get home,” he said with a chuckle.  The party of five loaded up and began the long journey to Dwarfsholme.


       


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The first couple of days were uneventful, as they got closer to the forest Vernis stopped them.  “We should prepare for battle before we enter the forest, if bandits or worse are lurking we wont have time before they attack.”


“Are there really bandits in the forest?” Jerek asked.


“Aye,” Ariel replied “But it’s the or worse you have to worry about.”


Jerek looked to the forest, “Or worse huh, like what?”


“Lizard men, trolls, nagi, all manner of evil lurk in the shadows,” Vernis stated.


“Nagi, what are those,” Jerek asked.


“Half woman half snake, foul beings who live to kill.” Herpan said.  “When I first came to Marek I heard a story of a caravan that passed through this forest and was attacked by nagas.  They were ambushed and captured, taken back to the nagas lair, as food.  They used their magic to keep them alive as they ate their arms, then legs, then they would finished them off.”


“Did they all die?” Jerek inquired, already wrapped in the monks’ tale.


Herpan looked at Jerek, and shook his head.  “No, a giant saved them.  He killed all the nagas and set them free.”


“Bah, now I know it’s just a story no giant ever did anyone any good.” Vernis scoffed.


Herpan turned to the battle mage, “Not all giants are bad, that’s a fools way of thinking.” Without another word Herpan got up and went to his bedroll. 


“What’d I say,” Vernis asked, looking to the other three.  Jerek and Ariel shook their heads as confused as him about the monks’ outburst. Dervin just watched, as Herpan bed down for the night.


“We all have our secrets, let’s drop this subject and get some sleep unless I miss my guess we’ll need all the rest we can get before we get through the forest.” Dervin said, getting up and heading to the wagon where he slept.  Jerek made his way to his bedroll, as he laid down he resigned to talk to Herpan in the morning.  He hadn’t meant anything by what he said, and he was pretty sure Vernis didn’t either hell he wasn’t even sure what he, and Vernis said that made Herpan so upset.  But Herpan was a good man, he’d already saved Jereks life once and the last thing Jerek wanted was to upset him.  In the morning, he thought as he drifted to sleep, in the morning.


 








The next day the band warily set off into the forest, Vernis and Herpan in the lead, Dervin driving the cart and Ariel and Jerek on either side.  Every few minutes Vernis would stop the group and head into the forest, only to return momentarily grim faced.


         “I know they’re there, I can smell them but I never see them.” Vernis cursed after the eighth of these occurrences.


         “You’ll see them soon enough, don’t worry about that.  They’re not stupid, the forests long, crossing with a wagon means at least one night in this wretched forest maybe two if we don’t pick up the pace.  They’ll wait for us to sleep, try to catch us unaware.” Herpan stated ominously, absently playing with a ring on his finger.


         After that they walked with their weapons out, hurrying one night was bad enough, no one in the group wanted to spend two.  As it got dark Vernis started looking for a place to make camp.


         “This’ll do,” the elf stated, eyeing a clearing beside the forest road.  Dervin steered the wagon in and they began setting up camp.


         “I don’t understand why were making camp,” Jerek said while digging a fire pit.  “I mean if you’re so sure the Nagas are going to attack as we sleep why don’t we keep on through the night and out run them.”


         “This is their forest lad, we won’t out run them, its better to have it out here while were still fresh, then to fight them exhausted tomorrow.” Herpan replied, the monk had spent most of time Jerek was setting up camp, wandering into the forest.  “I set a few traps around the camp should force them to come at us in one direction, at least for a little while.  We’ll sleep in shifts, I’ll take the first watch with Dervin.” The wizard nodded and the party settled in for a rough night.





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“THERE HERE!” came a shout from the night.


         


Already in his armor Jerek grabbed his axe and rolled to his feet, surveying the situation around him.  He saw Dervin standing atop the wagon holding a staff with a large clear crystal set in the top of it, light poured out of the crystal illuminating the entire camp sight yet when looking straight at it, the crystal barely seemed to glow.  Jerek turned his attention from the light source to the now visible battle already at hand.


         


Fifty feet ahead of him Vernis was engaged, parrying blows from what appeared to be two women, his sword glowing blue with a supernatural light.  Looking closer Jerek could see where the lady waist ended, a huge serpent-like body began, from waist to tail tip nearly ten feet long. 


Behind the elf warrior ten, yards or so, Ariel stood on a tree stump bow in hand letting loose a volley of arrows so fast three were in the air before the first pounded into a third snake creature that Jerek hadn’t even noticed, which was preparing to flank Vernis.  Spotting a hole in the defenses between Dervin and Vernis, Jerek saw another of the foul nagas moving in, focused on the berserk elven warrior.  Rushing in Jerek pulled his axe back high over his right shoulder and brought it down diagonally into the exposed ribs of the preoccupied snake-women.  The new, enchanted axe easily sliced into the creatures’ flesh, then bone, cutting straight through two ribs, a lung and the spine before the monster could even scream.  It fell silently to the ground, tail end eerily motionless as the top half thrashed around in muted silence, not giving the violent sight a second thought Jerek turned to see where he could help the most. A flying ball of red light caught his eye and he followed its path back to the wizard, already beginning to cast another spell, and back to the projectile.  The little red light picked up speed and slammed into the chest of another naga coming out of the forest exploding upon impact into a fifteen foot ball of flame fully engulfing the surprised naga and a nearby companion, then dissipating leaving two still burning, twitching corpses.





As he turned to Vernis he saw the elf slide under a clumsy blow from one of the nagas and return it with a well-placed stab.  The glowing blue sword slipped into the beasts armpit and out through its shoulder continuing into its neck sliding up into its brain.  Pulling his sword loose Vernis turned to face the other naga as it fell under a hail of Ariels’ arrows.


“Regroup on me.” Dervin shouted from the wagon


Jerek, Ariel and Vernis ran over to the wizard, as they moved several more nagas came into the clearing.  One dropped from a well-placed flurry of arrows from Ariel, another to Dervins spells but four more came out to take their places.


“Where’s Herpan?  Did the nagas take him?” Vernis asked no one in particular


“I wouldn’t worry about him,” Dervin replied, dropping another of the evil serpents with a well-placed spell.


Just then a vicious, primordial scream erupted from the edge of the forest.  Both sides of the savage battle stunned by the angry yell, stopped fighting and turned to see what had made the noise.  Out from the wood burst a sixteen foot tall, nine hundred pound, very angry and somewhat familiar stone giant.  Running full speed the behemoth rushed the nagas, clutching a fair sized tree in one hand, he swung the enormous club at a cluster of snake-women.  The still stunned nagas didn’t realize what was happening until it was too late, the tree slammed into three of them, sending one twenty feet into the air and the other two just as far sideways all, dead from the initial impact, landed in a broken heap nowhere near the battle.  Not slowing his onslaught the giant dropped his club and dove at two more, grabbing them in his huge hands and squeezing the life out of them.


The other nagas no longer stunned and now very afraid fled into the forest.  The giant, finished with the two mangled nagas, hurled the lifeless bodies after the fleeing monsters, and turned to Jerek and his friends.


“I told you not all giants were bad.” The titan said in a deep voice, yet familiar voice.


“Herpan!” Ariel yelled, and the giant smiled.


“But how?” Vernis stammered.


“I was the giant in the story I told you earlier, outcast from my people I roamed around until I met Dervin, a much younger Dervin, he befriended me and made me this ring,” Herpan said, indicating a plain looking band around one huge finger.  “It allows me to shift in size from human to giant, with it I began a normal life with Dervin on his estate.”


“That’s amazing.” Jerek piped in. “Can you change to any size you want?”


“The magic involved with shape shifting is complicated,” Dervin said, “at the time I made it I didn’t know much about it and could only design it for two shifts.  Though I have been meaning to update it, hardly seemed necessary till now.”  At this the wizard paused and looked at the carnage of the battle, his face looked pained.  “Enough with the stories though, we need to get some rest.  Sleep well, the nagas won’t be back anytime soon.”


With that the group settled into camp.  No one bothered them that night, when Jerek awoke everyone else was already up.  Herpan was back to regular size, off by himself, praying.  Then Jerek realized why, he was a priest, a man of peace, and last night he killed quite a few living, sentient creatures and now matter how evil they were, the monk felt a need to atone for it. 


         “Come Jerek, get some food,” Vernis hollered.


         Turning away from the meditating priest Jerek joined the other companions, and ate some breakfast.


         “Eat up we have a long road ahead of us, by midday tomorrow we will be out of the forest, another three days and we should be in Highfalls, our last place to get supplies before we head to Alaskar, which at best will a ten-day of dangerous off road travel.”


         “Anything left to eat?” Herpan asked walking up to the discussion, apparently done with his prayers.


         “We were just going over our route to Alaskar,” said Dervin rising to his feet.


“We will be leaving shortly, be ready soon I’d rather not spend more time in this damned forest than we have to.”


Grunts of approval followed, and the group finished up and headed out.  The second day in the forest was uneventful, the nagas apparently having learned their lesson.  That night after they ate, Ariel approached Jerek.


“Hey,” she called, “How ya doing?”


         “Good, can’t wait to get out of this forest though.”


         “Aw, it isn’t that bad,” Ariel replied, “I’ll show you, lets go for a walk.”


         “Alone, out there,” said Jerek pointing to the woods, the last thing he wanted was to be out in the forest at night, off the path no less. 


“Yep,” Ariel replied.


“What about the nagas,” he said, trying to dissuade her.


“Herpan scared the all off, besides I’ve been in this forest tons of times we’ll be fine,” she countered.


“Alright, not too far though its already late,” Jerek conceded.


“Sweet,” Ariel said with a smile.


Grabbing his axe, Jerek followed Ariel into the forest.


  They walked for about ten minutes, Jerek could no longer see the campsite.  The forest was calm, not dead quite and tense like the first night, nice and peaceful he could hear animal in the distance.


         “Where are we going?” Jerek asked, starting to feel tired.


         “Not much farther, it’s worth it I promise.”


         They walked for a little the Ariel stopped, and turned to Jerek.


         “Ok, close your eyes and take my hand,” she said reaching out to Jerek. “No peeking.”


         Ariel led Jerek along for a couple minutes, and more than a couple falls finally she stopped.


         “Ok open your eyes,” she said.


         Jerek did so and gasped at what he saw.


         It was beautiful, Jerek found himself standing in a small clearing in the middle of the forest.  Centered in the clearing was a small lake, surrounded by small, blue, glowing flowers with a tiny island in the center.  On the island was one gigantic tree, its height wasn’t impressive, maybe sixty feet, but its’ width was almost twenty feet.  It had few branches, but the ones that were there were big enough to be trees themselves, the branches were bare of leave till the last few feet.  There they sprouted into little round clusters of leaves with various colored, large, round fruits growing intermittently throughout. 


As amazing as the tree was it didn’t compare to what was in the tree.  High up out on one of the thick branches stood a large green dragon.  At thirty feet long the magnificent beast was probably still young, it was out towards the end of the branch gulping down fruits.  As the awe wore off Jerek started to get concerned.


“Should we be here?” he asked quietly.         


         “Don’t worry this place is safe, nothing here will hurt us,” she replied.


         “How can you be sure?” he countered.


         “This place is warded, it was a gift from the elves to the good dragons long ago, powerful magic was used to make it safe for all the good dragons to rest and eat without fear of attack.  Those with evil intent will never find this place.  There are several of these sanctuaries scattered across the world.” Ariel said.


         Jerek watched as the dragon flew off, “Ok,” he said with a smile, “Maybe this forest isn’t all bad.”


         Ariel nodded, “We better go though, it’s getting late.”


         Jerek and Ariel took one last look at the grove, turned, and walked back to their camp.  The next day they got an early start and by mid day they had made it out of the forest.  The next few days of travel went by easy and before Jerek realized.  They reached Highfalls.