Screams mixed with deep guttural roars coming from the amphitheater stage were heard, they smelled more smoke mixed with burning fat on an open fire rose up to mix with the fire of the nursery the elves had initiated.

  Passing by empty towers and public spaces; restaurants, community centers, medical facilities and row houses. They made it down another level of the terraced spaces where life and commerce now slathered in blood; littered with corpses of muridai, troll and elf across the balconies and open spaces. They advanced on a small party of muridai, the elves moving like a pack of cats approaching a feasting rat, their attack coming from two terrace levels. Juin half thought about prisoners for questioning but quickly threw the idea out.

  Muridai don’t speak and trolls are too stupid to have value, better off dead.

  He hated the thought but it was true. Muridai turned to jelly when they were under the knife, their gaze wandering aimlessly as they are questioned…drool spraying from their mouths. They didn’t behave as if they could manage basic body functions as they shat constantly let alone form a formidable force. Yet they were a force, a quite formidable force on the field.

  “They all die,” he said coldly.

  “Aye Karoome.” Several voices whispered back.

  The group of twenty muridai were swarmed by the hundred and fifty elves each rat like face showing signs of surprise and horror., Juin moved them off toward a din of sound and the origin of the greasy smoke. He signaled for bows to be readied as they moved into the center of town where the giant square hosted events within a bowl-shaped amphitheater. The center of the square was piled high, a huge pyre, the snap and crackle of burning fat ringing repulsively in their ears.

  To the side stood a pile of elves which were slowly being thrown one by one on to the burning pyre. The bodies didn’t fly through the air like the sack of beans as you would expect, instead they twisted like the thrower had put a spin on them. The body hit and the crowd cheered, when the tumult died down, they heard it. The most horrific sound any of them had ever heard.

  A muffled wail of pain and despair filled the square and Juin had no idea where it was coming from.

  “They’re still alive, Karoome,” the first spear said to his general with a tone that left no doubts as to his horror at the revelation.

  Juin traversed four more terraces before kneeling behind the balustrade to ready his bow, the entire troop settling in around him ready for the fight that could very well be the end of all of them.

  Muridai and troll alike lounged in the amphitheater as if watching some great works from a master playwright and maybe in their culture they were. This, was an elven city and such atrocities could not abide.

  “Three rounds to thin the front ranks then we build a shield wall while half keep up with the arrows and the rest of us get down to the prisoners. We still don’t know how many ready troops they have here in the city, so keep your eyes open. We are outnumbered and should call for reinforcements, but I cannot allow this to continue and there are no reinforcements to be had.”

  “I’d rather be dead than leave any of our own to this fate,” the fourth spear said and the other elves murmured their agreement.

  One half of the archers sprang from behind the balustrades, sending their arrows into the hundreds of muridai and trolls that watched the burning, a split second later the second half did the same, followed instantly by the first’s groups second round of shafts. The air was filled with a stream of projectiles indiscriminately killing everything in their path and the elves began to move. Half built a staggered shield wall that would protect their force as archers shot above and through them to clear the field. A mass of corpses now lay between them and their closest threat, but the vile army didn’t hesitate to walk on the dead in their efforts to confront the elves.

  Trolls and muridai alike had been laying around drunk from the protein rush from this last kill as well as flasks of oozaki, a favorite drink of the trolls, and they had all settled in to watch as their victims burn, until the arrows flew. They were pigs in a pen and the arrows devastated their numbers right from the start. Most were dead before they saw the shield wall moving toward the prisoners.

  With the main force gone these were what was left to tie up the loose ends, these were not the trained soldiers of the front line. They could fight and some were very good, but there was no leadership or any plan or form to their defense, they died upon the blades of the organized force.

  Unseen from above was a giant of epic proportions feeding the live bodies into the fire. He stopped his task and grabbed a massive hammer as if he was simply shifting jobs and faced off against the elves. They were massive, ugly beasts whose hygiene and mental stability were questionable. In truth, nobody knew much about them and they hadn’t been seen in the Bone Spires for nigh on fifty years. The fact that they had seen so many in the last few weeks was a testament as to the nature of the evil they face.

  Juin set his sights upon the beast and funneled his rage into a tempest that was ready to overwhelm and consume everything in his path. He had lost his sister and for all he knew his grandfather to the wickedness of these giants, one of them was going to pay the toll for that wickedness, today.

  He moved in on the giant, showing so little hesitation that the fourth spear wondered if he was clear headed enough to handle the massive mountain of flesh and bone. This wasn’t a smart giant, as some have been rumored to be, though he was still much more than a single person could face alone but he was Juin…the Karoome and the Prince of Lilieack.

  The giants hammer swung over hand in a huge predictable arc hitting the ground with a thunderous boom that Juin easily sidestepped. What he didn’t expect was the cross swing that came directly from where the hammer landed sweeping him off his feet and to the side. The giant raised his foot to squash the elven prince, but a swarm of arrows forced him back.

  Juin was on his feet advancing once more and the giant pulled out a knife, choosing to swing his hammer in a sweeping pattern to keep the elf from rushing him. Juin looked at the knife thinking that it looked pitifully small in the giant’s hand even though it had a blade over three feet long.

  He fell to the ground and rolled under the head of the hammer, changing his momentum so that he could moved toward the beast. The blade descended and Juin dove to the side, seeing the blade plunge more than a foot into the ground aware that he had just been forced into the range of the hammer. More arrows forced the giant back causing him to miss his swing, Juin felt the rush of wind and the ground shake from the massive tool slamming into the patch of ground ahead of him.

  This fight was turning out to be more than he expected, he had to change tactics, though what tactics can be used against a giant he didn’t know. All of his training was useless here, there was no solid tactic against a giant. They were bigger and stronger, but they weren’t smarter and they weren’t faster or as nimble.

  Ha, three advantages against two, he thought with a twisted satisfaction. Now how can I utilize that?

  The hammer came down for him again in a sweeping motion and Juin jumped inside of its arc. The blade followed and Juin rolled in a somersault again toward the giant.

  Got to get inside his reach. His mind screamed believing that the giants bulk alone made close in fighting much beyond crushing an opponent

  The next swing was awkward and easily avoided, Juin saw that he was getting close enough to the giant to make his swings more difficult; the giant took a step back.

  Juin did a diving roll as the blade descended and then rolled quickly to his right only to dive and roll left, which he repeated, always to the side and always advancing a little closer to the beast. Against an opponent that would use precision over strength he surely would have died as he wasn’t even watching to defend himself anymore. He was being unpredictable relying upon the giant’s inability to think quickly enough to land a decisive blow.

  The giant backed up holding his weapons high in each hand until there was nowhere else to go and the elf stopped right in front of his toes. The beast kicked out, but the elf was too fast.

  Juin advanced right between the legs of the giant and after three or four smooth strokes he stepped back, the giant staring at him as if he hadn’t even known the elf, was there. Two seams of red seemed to split into existence on the inside front of the giants thighs, two identical, vertical slits expanded allowing the dark red liquid from deep within to gush forth..

  The giant collapsed, his life's blood flowing out of the large arteries second only to the aorta in size. The battle was over, no horns sounded and no reinforcements came. Juin bent to the task of checking for survivors.

  16

  Tekundralokai

  When they mentioned training the night before, Tia and Tic had no idea what that actually entailed. Training for what? It wasn’t simply hours, it was all day long, starting with breakfast which they had to get up earlier than everyone else and help prepare. Then it was cleanup duty, followed by firewood cutting with Kyle for the morning routine. They did breakfast, so lunch was prepared by another group, after which they worked on what they thought was weapons training, but it was all done with staffs. Then came dinner which the siblings got called in to working the backside of and got to do all the cleanup. At night they worked on boots for the crew. Most had their brand as their everyday work boots and Tia was able to see where they were wearing. The soles held up surprisingly well, even down to the tread they had put on it two and three years ago, the toes, however, were worn thin on top and even through in some pairs.

  “It sure doesn’t feel much like training, does it? This is just freaking work, plain and simple,” Tia said. “Tic, there has to be a better way to do these toes and make them stronger, look how all of our boots are wearing through the toes.”

  “We don’t have enough tin with us to do metal toes in all of their boots and still the leather wears off. Plus, with the type of work they do it would just crush it down into their toes,” Tic replied.

  “I know; I did see a lot of excess sap lying about… I mean, they are frost piners so they are bound to have a lot of it. With all of the fresh cuts around here we should be able to gather enough sawdust and form something, shouldn’t we?”

  “I would think so, but you’re the R&D person.”

  The next morning, they backed out of the cutting of firewood and bought some of the cured sap they had seen at Nikli’s wigwam. They found a trunk halved length wise that they set up by the fire and proceeded to hollow out a trench like hole in the tree covering a two-foot length and a half foot wide. They placed their wood shavings into the trough and piled coals from the fire on it creating a long, controllable bed of coals.

  Tia heaved the large chunk of sap up onto the halved log and started rolling the ball of sap across the coals until it got sticky. She passed it over to Tic and grabbed another. Tic would use a small copper hatchet to cut the chunk into manageable pieces as Tia rolled another through the coals. Soon they had the entire flat area covered with small pieces of sap which they then threw directly on the coals letting them cook.

  They both moved to the other side of the trough and used their knives and an axe to smooth and straighten the surface. Once satisfied, they each grabbed a piece of sap and put them in piles of sawdust where they began to pound with wooden mallets and trim with copper knives. While shaping and curing frost pine sap, it is imperative that it not come into contact with steel or tin in the curing process, otherwise the chemical reaction turns it to mush. So, they pounded and threw it back in the fire while grabbing a second piece, constantly folding more of the sawdust into the sap, which in turn burned black from the heat once it was back on the coals. They pounded each piece several times until they got it to a reasonable shape.

  They lifted four flat stones that they’d picked earlier and set them in the coals while they took a break. Kyle saw how hard they were working and they seemed to think it important, so he gave them a break from their other duties and dropped off something to eat before he went out to harvest. An hour later they deemed two of the stones hot enough and pulled them from the bed of coals using large hunks of leather to keep from burning. The sap sawdust composite came next. They each took a glob and threw it down on to the hot stone several times until the sound of the slap tightened noticeably. Then they started to pound again, continually flipping and spinning; moving and folding the piece. When it was time, they each took the copper blade and sliced the beaten composite into two long equal size strips. They then wove this into a square mat that they covered with more saw dust and began to pound until they had a long flat solid sheet of very thin material. They moved the rock back on to the fire and grabbed the second rock out and repeated the process.

  Over the course of the afternoon they had over fifty thin composite sheets that were holding together nicely. Their arms felt like they were going to fall off, but having done similar tasks in the past, they knew how important it was to follow the process all the way through in one day. They brought out wooden molds and started to bend and shape it around the toe of the giant wooden foot designed to accommodate very large feet. With cutting, trimming, and more pounding, they ended up with almost a hundred and thirty cupped shapes by the time Kyle made it back into camp from the days harvesting.

  “You’re the first guinea pig and your boots are done. Step up on here and let me complete the job,” Tia said and Kyle lifted one of his huge boots up on to a stump where she could work on it. The composite was a dull matte finish that bordered between black and green and it shaped easily while hot. She had to shape and adjust it while his foot was inside to make sure that when the sap cured completely in about an hour, it wouldn’t pinch or bind. In the end, Kyle had a virtually indestructible shield over the toe of his boot.

  It didn’t sound like much, but in this line of work they soon had so many requests that they had to back out of fire wood cutting permanently, choosing instead to buy what they needed and continuing to work their trade. They were cobblers, born and bred, it was time to show the piners why they were the best in the business.

  Kyle insisted they keep up the weapons training and he also took a couple hours each day to explain the different cultures that exist on the eastern side of the Matoone, also known as the Swirl. As expected, Tia couldn’t care less about such things and would have much preferred to work with the rapier she was introduced to in the last hour. Sadly, Tic was still working with a staff and had proved himself inept with even the smallest blade unless it was used in their trade. He just didn’t like them and the thought of stabbing a blade into someone’s body sickened him. Hitting them with a stick he could live with, but he decided he would take it no further than a long knife. Tia on the other hand was working well with an elvish blade coupled with a sword breaker. She was fast, smart, and actually very graceful.

  Tic was enamored with the culture and crafts of the different species and made a mental note to know more about the dwarfs. They seemed to have their hands in every enterprise on this side of the sea from shipping on the headwaters to the operations of Riverhouse itself.

  Tic took a minute from his studies to ponder this. Riverhouse…it has always been a legend that made me think, what if it could be true. Now I find out that it is real and less than a hundred miles to the east and there really was a city named Lavonne. Lavonne, the land of dwarfs, elves, and other lost races like the piners and the tiny horse people called sprints that acted like messengers.

  Tic was so enamored with what he was learning and seeing that he was in a euphoric daze every day, or at least it felt like a dream world to him…for now.

  One afternoon, Tia roused him out of his daze with a question.

  “I’m sorry, what did you ask?”

  “That sound, can you hear it?”

  “Yes, it sounds like some kind of distant horn,” Tic stated the obvious.

  “Yes, I wonder what it means,” Tia asked.

  “Not a clue,” Tic finished and bent back to his task. It was but a few minutes later that Kyle walked up to them his face drawn.

  “Did you hear the horns?” he asked them to which they both nodded.

  “The elves have lost their king; they have called their people to war.”

  “War? With whom?” Tic asked.

  “I’m sure they’ll find someone. There are lots that need killing up here in the north,” Kyle replied

  “Does this affect you, or us?”

  “No, your guide in Riverhouse will know how to get you around any complications.”

  “Our…guide?” Tia asked, somewhat disappointed.

  “Tia, it is a big world out there and this country that you are going into is rife with bandits and thugs, not to mention slavers or trolls. There is no way you two will survive it alone without experience.

  “Blast!” Tia said angrily. “This was supposed to be…our own thing. You know, like an adventure.”

  “More like your adventure,” Tic said sarcastically which brought a glare from Tia.

  “You will be getting enough adventure, and you can take that to the depository,” Kyle replied.

  “I kind of like the idea of a guide, Tia. I mean, we don’t even know all of the races yet,” Tic said, hoping his sister would see reason.

  “Aye, especially with war on the horizon, the races are always pretty active when there is war,” Kyle added.

  “What is the war about?” Tic plied.

  “No one has even the slightest clue at this point, Tic. We should have a sprinter here within the day.”

  “A day? How close is the elven city?”

  “Oh, at least a thousand miles north of Bjorvic, so add another hundred on that to get to Tekundralokai. These are sprints however and they have their own system of relays to send word. We didn’t hear the original horn blown by some elf up north. We heard a series of horn blowers passing the message along. Bryan said that the signal did say that the original message was sounded from the horn of truth, but that is elven lore thousands of years old, so old that modern folk just don’t buy into. Usually they announce the death of a king and claim it came from the horn of truth but it all sounds like the same horn to me.”