The Chaos Blade - Chapter 5

Chapter 5

"Where are we going?" Darakor asked, trying to keep up with the brutal pace Kelnozz maintained. Not only maintained, but maintained both noiselessly and without any sign of his passage. It was infuriating to the reformed light elf.

"We should be there soon, I think. A tribe of lizardmen had something that I am after. I arrived at their village to late, it had already been given to a patrol of trolls to return to Mezarbolle."

"A patrol is twenty trolls. Think you and I can handle them without any magic to aid us?" Darakor asked, beginning to doubt the sanity of his mentor.

Kelnozz glanced back at him, a smirk on his face. "You know trolls well enough, they are slow and clumsy, we will overtake them easily. I trust you know how to kill them?"

Darakor grunted. "Aye, fire, acid, or damage so severe that their bodies can not heal. I know them all too well."

"Then ready a torch when we close with them, it should be little different from wielding a sword in each hand."

Darakor shook his head and reached into the pack on his back to make sure he had a torch readily accessible. He had three wrapped to prevent the sticky pitch on the end from getting on anything in his pack, but it was available to him.

It had been scarcely a week since Darakor and Kelnozz had joined forces. They would in mostly silence throughout the day, then break at evening and set up camp. Kelnozz would then begin instructing Darakor anew on the ways of a warrior. Not any warrior either, but rather one who's heart was good and his motives noble.

Darakor's skill grew rapidly. Used to complex motions already thanks to the needs of his spellcasting, he adapted his dexterous finger movements to include the rest of his body. Already Kelnozz judged him more then able to deal with any common orc or human. Trolls, however, were another thing altogether.

Perhaps an hour later even Darakor was able to see the signs of passage that Kelnozz followed. Trolls were large and clumsy, as he had said, and they took little effort in concealing their movements. Inside of another twenty minutes they rounded a hill in he great plains that encompassed much of the Lost Lands and saw a few buildings ahead along the banks of a river. A riverboat was waiting as well. Kelnozz cursed and broke into a trot. After a moment of surprised hesitation, Darakor followed him. He reached into his pack and pulled out a torch to be ready.

"The boat!" Kelnozz called out to him. "Head for the boat!"

Darakor followed Kelnozz, running towards the boat. Figures, some large enough to be trolls, moved about quickly on the large skiff, throwing off lines and hauling up the anchor. Others sat at benches and waited for the captain to bark out the order to row. Four trolls on the dock turned away from the boat and headed towards them, spreading out to prevent them from going around them easily.

Kelnozz put on a burst of speed, surprising both Darakor and the trolls. He was inside a trolls reach before the troll had even drawn its cudgel back fully, one sword slicing deeply into the troll's belly. The green skinned giant doubled over in pain. Kelnozz rotated and sliced down, severing it's head from its neck. His next two fluid cuts dismembered one arm from the now flailing troll and plunged deeply into the back of the troll to pierce its heart. He turned away, forgetting the spasming troll and coming to face the next one.

Darakor saw how easily Kelnozz dispatched the first troll and hoped he could do fractionally as well. He ran towards a troll that lumbered after Kelnozz, intent on coming up behind him and braining him with his large hammer. Darakor gritted his teeth and stopped long enough only to fumble with his flint and steel he had since acquired and send a spark into the torch. It burst into flame and was blown into a larger one as Darakor resumed his sprint to help his newfound tutor.

Kelnozz needed little help, however. The second troll lay down, great gashes in its ribs, throat, and a severed leg testimony to his skill at arms. Kelnozz turned on a third one and easily blocked the crushing blow the troll tried to cleave him in two with using its two handed sword. His swords flicked out, slicing through flesh and muscle with ease.

Darakor screamed loudly to gain the troll's attention that was nearly upon Kelnozz. The troll turned to look at him, surprised at having forgotten him, and was met with Darakor's sword poking a hole in its side. The wound was small and would heal rapidly on the creature, however. The troll laughed and raised it's hammer in one hand. It paused then, noticing that Darakor was a light elf. It glanced back at Kelnozz to reassure itself and then turned back to Darakor, shrugging away its confusion.

Darakor put the behemoths confusion to good use, thrusting up with his torch and poking it in the side. The troll roared in pain at the flames, knowing any wounds caused by fire would heal very slowly, and then roared again as it felt he flames catch. Troll blood was flammable.

The troll turned and ran towards the river, hoping to submerge itself and put the flames out. Darakor was on it's heals, lashing out with his sword and cutting into the humanoid's hamstring to fell it. He put the torch to work again and soon the troll was bellowing in agony. In moments, as the flames spread, the bellows turned to pitiful cries and then nothing.

Darakor remained watching the troll combust, feeling nothing but disgust at the fate of the creature. When he remembered himself he looked about and saw that Kelnozz had dispatched the third one and was heading towards the river where the boat was docked. Or, he realized, where it had been docked. The boat was underway already, the trolls pulling at the oars with their superhuman strength. Kelnozz stopped at the dock and glared after the boat as it headed upstream. His prey had escaped him again.

"Well done," Kelnozz grunted when Darakor joined him. "The others are dead, I think, but you should put them to the fire as well."

Darakor saw the three still writhing bodies that Kelnozz had dispatched and immediately ran over to them. Two of the three seemed on the verge of a final death but the third was slowly regenerating itself. Already the arm was reattaching itself and a new head was growing. He dipped the torch down and backed away from the stench of burnt troll flesh.

"What of those?" Darakor asked, rejoining Kelnozz at the river again.

Kelnozz glanced at the buildings Darakor mentioned: one a house, another a large barn for storage, and a third a tavern and an inn. "Burn them too," Kelnozz stated flatly.

Darakor shrugged and moved towards them. Inside the tavern he could see movement through the shuttered windows. It mattered little to him, mostly these outposts and settlements were stubborn humans, orcs, or occasional light elves. He lowered his torch towards a bail of straw near the edge of the inn.

"Hold!" Kelnozz called out to him. Darakor raised his torch instantly. He turned and found the elf already nearly beside him. Kelnozz reached out and grabbed the torch. He let it drop to the ground and stepped on the flame to douse it.

"A warrior does not spill the blood of innocents. That is the work of murderers and thugs," Kelnozz proclaimed, watching his student closely.

Darakor looked at him, raising an eyebrow in thought. "There are no innocents here," he replied, not backing down. "I do not know the specifics, but either humans to wicked to return to their homes or orcs or even lizard men lie within. Perhaps something else, it is hard to tell, perhaps even others like me."

"If they are like you then that is reason enough to let them be," Kelnozz said enigmatically.

Darakor opened his mouth to ask him what he meant but the dark elf had already turned and was returning to the dock. He glanced back at the tavern and shrugged. Life was cheap in the Lost Lands, those within need merely be thankful that they would survive to find death another day.

"What of the trolls?" Darakor asked, joining Kelnozz.

"They escape today. Perhaps another day I will find them, but it is no matter. Something else to the south and the west draws my attention now, something far greater then this bauble they carry."

Darakor nodded. Occasionally Kelnozz would speak in such a way of the things he sought, but never would he explain himself more carefully. Darakor trusted it would come in time. The fact that he trusted even that much was proof enough to him that he had changed irrevocably already.

---

They sat around a campfire miles away from the river that night munching on freshly cooked rabbit. Their days practice had long since been over, and that time of the day was typically when they would speak plainly.

"I don't understand today's lesson," Darakor said, having spend much time pondering it. "You slew my companions without hesitation, yet you said if there were other light elves in the inn they should be allowed to live?"

Kelnozz chuckled. "No, young friend, I said if there are others such as you, they should be allowed to live."

Darakor stared into the fire, digesting the words. Finally putting them together he looked up and smiled. "I get it, you mean to say that race is not enough of a reason to slay someone."

Kelnozz nodded and smiled. Thus far Darakor had shown great prowess in battle and his ability to understand tactics, maneuvers, and weapons. It was his moral aptitude that concerned Kelnozz the most. To have him learn that great lesson first and foremost was a stride in the right direction that warmed Kelnozz's heart towards the young light elf.

"I knew another light elf once," Kelnozz said, letting his guard down briefly and remembering the past. "She was a beautiful woman and unlike the majority of your kin. It was because of her that I spared you. Lessons can be learned even from your enemies."

Darakor nodded. "My father told me much the same thing, though his intent was quite the opposite of yours."

Kelnozz chuckled sadly. "Indeed, my own father taught me similarly before he was slain. So different yet so alike."

Darakor glanced sharply at Kelnozz. He had yet to let the secret of his father slip, and in spite of Kelnozz's words and actions, he was not yet ready to trust him with that knowledge. "Tell of your father, he was the great general of the dark elves during the Kinslaying Wars, what was he like?"

Kelnozz met Darakor's eyes for a moment then stared back off into the campfire. "I scarcely remember anymore. My mother was killed shortly after I was born by one of those who-would-become light elves. I was spared only because my father had returned from battle with an early victory and caught the murderer in my mother's room."

"My earliest memories are of him and me sparring with wooden swords. I learned quickly from him, but no matter what I came up with or how good I was, he was always better. I loved him dearly, and promised a bitter end to he who slew him," Kelnozz said, smiling at first until his smile faded at the end into a bitter grimace.

"He yet lives," Kelnozz said, looking at Darakor again. "The man who slew my father. He was as my uncle, family in all but blood to us. He tutored me as a child and was closest to my mother and father both. For untold years he played them as fools, for they never knew the evil they let into their very home until it was too late for them. They should have known, he was a wizard."

Darakor carefully looked away from Kelnozz until the last word was spoken, then he looked back, "Remember your own words, a man should not be judge by his race. Neither then should a man be judged by his calling."

Kelnozz glanced at him sharply. Darakor clearly meant to imply that it was unfair of him to view those who wielded magic as a weapon instead of a sword as inherently evil. He had known a few spellcasters that were not corrupt, but they were in the extreme by far. At the other extreme was Alesha, the human he had mistakenly and foolishly fallen in love with, then had to banish.

It had been many years since he had last visited Alesha. He was not even sure if she was still in the Tavern. So long as she did not return to Viconia he was content to let her live her life. Kelnozz knew that was a lie as soon as he thought it. Damned fool woman and her magic! Had she not made her unholy pact with Bavorish who knew what might have happened? She would be dead regardless, Kelnozz realized. After all, she was a human and centuries had passed.

Darakor's lesson was that magic did not corrupt anymore then a hammer would corrupt a smith. It was a tool. Kelnozz shook his head and sighed, perhaps the young light elf was right, perhaps the evil lies within the hearts of people before power ever touches them.

Kelnozz stared at Darakor for a long moment, then chuckled. "Fair enough, Darakor. Fair enough. Come, enough of this dwelling over a sad past. We have much that needs doing in the present and the future, the path holds only unhappiness. I have spent to much time slaying the traitor in my thoughts and dreams, I will deal with my father's assassin, Narellin, when I must, and not a moment sooner."

Darakor's mouth dropped open. All he had known was that his father had been around since the time of the Kinslaying Wars. He had known his father had been an important man for the light elves both then and in all the millennia since then. He had not known that his father had been the one to assassinate Myragordamar Risingmoon.

Darakor glanced away quickly, then started moving about to get himself ready to lay down for the night. Kelnozz did likewise, assuming their conversation was over and not realizing the extreme discomfort Darakor was feeling.

Continued in Chapter 6

---