The Netheron Chronicles - Joseph Black (best ebook reader ubuntu TXT) 📗

beaten. Apparently though, TriPrand, the more recent battle, was a lot bitterer loss for some of the Archdukes than the previous one. And next thing you know the balance is tipped and the king finds his authority being overridden and a new king is being demanded, he’d been king for a really long time, and so he fights against them to the last. And last month a new king was chosen, some Archduke Du’Renskold, and he gave out orders for all the soldiers to pull out of Netheron and return to Arreland. Only a few of them stayed: obstinate supporters of Clasheron apparently. But due to the ancient treaty from back when Arreland began to protect Netheron hundreds of years ago, the Nethers are not allowed to have a standing army, and now that the Arrels are gone Netheron is practically helpless, so a few Nether Earls and Dukes are trying to get armies together and defend Netheron. My father was a merchant in Kunderang Port, Emerarion Province, and when the Earl that ruled the area, Veranen, started recruiting an army, I joined. We heard that Duke Cazerone, of southern Caraca, was doing the same thing, so a couple of messengers were sent, proposing that the two armies join forces. But the messengers where killed by Halavardes on the journey, so me and forty nine others were sent in the hopes that at least one of us would make it through. I took a bit northerly route, planning on going north then coming south again, but it’s taken a long time, and someone else has probably already made it through. But I’m going to continue on, and get to Vaetrion as soon as I can . . . who knows, maybe nobody else made it through and I’ll be a hero for a change.” He grinned at Tauren.” There, you’re updated on the news . . . vaguely enough. Would you mind telling me something about yourself now?” He added the last bit on after a short pause.
Tauren sighed, and gave the other boy his history, only cutting out a few little pieces, such as what his grandfather had given him as he died, the flash of light . . . all things of that type, things he didn’t quite understand himself, and things he thought it would be wise to keep to himself.
Detrick asked only a few simple questions before falling silent and laying there on his log, staring up at the stars.
Slowly an idea began to build up in Tauren, it began to become a plan and before he knew it he had turned to Detrick and asked in a subdued voice.” Do you think the Earl could use a soldier to guard one of his messengers on his way to Vaetrion Fortress?”


Selected Survival - Part one.

The frigid morning air bit into Tauren as he saddled T’hune.
The night before, Detrick had shown Tauren the route he planned to take to get to Duke Cazerones fortress far to the south, deep in the massive plains that covered much of Caraca. It was, for sure, a roundabout way, one that Detrick was hoping the Halavardes hunting him wouldn’t suspect him to take.
They would have to get out of the forest first, and then they would head down the mountains bordering the ocean, staying to the inland slopes, after some seventy-five miles they would reach a canyon by the side of which ran an ancient road, long since abandoned. They would follow it for another 40 miles or so before they finally reached the Dukes fortress capital; Vaetrion.
From the map that Detrick carried, Tauren guessed it would take them another four or five hours to get out of the forest and another three days at least to get to the massive canyon, going hard. Then, at the same pace, it should take another day or two to reach the Dukes fortress.
That added up to six to seven days, if all went well.
And chances where against everything going well, it appeared.
After getting out of the forest, which, in that area, was filled with all kinds of mysterious beasts, that, it was rumored, fed on innocent travelers passing through; they would have to leave the relatively easy forest trail and make off into the Great Eastern Plain of Caraca.
And the plains where hilly, rocky, and would give them a hard a time as their enemies could wish for.
After the plains they would have to find an ancient road that was practically a legend, and follow it, should it actually exist.
Needless to add, thought Tauren to himself, the entire journey would be constantly harried by the Halavardes hunting them, trying to keep them from getting their message through.
But Detrick seemed confident that they could do it, no matter how bad the odds seemed, and Tauren had reluctantly agreed to the plan after a few minutes of debate.
But they couldn’t stay in one place long, or a squad of roaming Halavardes might catch them un-aware, a squad much like the one that had attacked them the previous night. . .
That morning they had quickly packed up the few necessities that they had taken out, and then had gone and searched the dead, stinking bodies of the Halavardes, two of who must have survived, because there were two less than there were the night before, taking all that was worth taking.
He sighed, thinking of the corpses; he didn’t like the thought of having killed them, the thought that they probably had families that would now wait for husbands, fathers, and sons that would never return. . .
It shocked him that, hardly a week ago, he had been afraid of how he would react to having to kill other living, thinking beings, but that the previous night he had killed those men so easily. He had done what was right in his eyes, and he didn’t regret it, a fact that disturbed him.
T’hune nudged him, snapping him out of his reverie. Rubbing the horse’s velvety black nose, he leaped up onto the saddle, grabbing the reigns and steering them through the thin underbrush and onto the road where Detrick sat astride his massive black racehorse.
Detrick nodded to him, grinning as he always seemed to be, and they turned down the trail without a word and set out on their days journey.
By previous agreement Tauren rode as far ahead of Detrick as he could without losing sight of him, that way they could have as much warning against an ambush as they could, and hopefully, should they be ambushed, only one of them would be surprised, leaving the other to help his companion.
Detrick told him it was standard procedure, and Tauren had agreed, the arrangement making sense to him.
Any person other than Tauren would have begun to drift off in the saddle that day, it was warm and drowsy, and the bare trees seemed to give off a fog of dust in the light breeze that seemed to have an uncanny ability to make one want to sleep.
But not Tauren, he had hunted and roamed Dimwalden forest for his entire life, and he knew that the worst thing you could do was fall asleep in the forest, if you did, chances where against you living through your first night.
Should you would wake up, you would be lost, and it would only be a matter of time before you became weak enough for the other hunters of the forest to take you down.
But chances were that you would be dead and eaten long before you awoke.
On top of it all was the silence in the forest that he had noticed the day before, the lack of life, and the feeling of foreboding, as though something where looming above them, awaiting to descend and destroy them. It gave him an uncomfortable edge.
It was an edge that saved his life.
They had only been riding for a couple of hours.
Looking behind him, Tauren saw Detrick dozing off in the saddle, trusting his horse to carry him where he needed to go; he sighed and returned to scanning the surrounding forest, littered with mossy fallen trees and thick underbrush.
His senses where all doing their fair share in the work, all in tune as he had trained them, his ears listening for even the smallest out of place sound, his eyes constantly searching for anything that he felt shouldn’t be there, and even smelling for anything wrong.
He saw something out of place the instant it came into sight, it was the shine of bright sun on burnished steel plates, and it didn’t take him long to guess that it was a man lying behind the huge mossy log, waiting to surprise them.
He almost stopped T’hune, but quickly decided that if he did the ambushers would notice that he had noticed them, and then they would attack them, however should he keep going as he was then he could ambush them. . .
His heart beat faster as he casually straightened his sword, getting the handle out from under a flap of the saddle, and tightened his grip on his bow in his lap.
He noticed the mistake in his plan when he was only twenty yards from the huge mossy pine lying beside the trail, Detrick didn’t know –
His thoughts where cut short as flicker of movement in his peripheral vision on both side caught his eye, and two arrows whistled by his head, missing only because he had stopped T’hune for an instant.
His heart missed a beat, but he recovered quickly.
He cursed violently under his breath then, turning, he yelled with all his might.” DETRICK!”
Then, without a moment’s hesitation, he spun back around, whipping an arrow onto the string of his bow and loosing it at the men who had just shot at him.
There was a strangled cry and the man on his right fell backward with an arrow through his neck.
In a fight with professional soldiers, the best thing a non-professional warrior could do was to act with all possible speed. Tauren knew that a single moment’s hesitation would be the end