The Azure Wizard (11 page)

As they meant to walk passed the structure O’Dell stopped at the lip of fountain and bowed his head. “In honor and duty,” he breathed, eyes shut and face expressionless.

After a moment the two of them continued on to the entrance of the building. They entered an open breezeway supported by stone columns and approached a large set of dark wooden double-doors, each bearing a polished gold ring. O’Dell grasped the pull ring on one of the doors and hauled back on it, and the heavy door creaked open. Together the companions strode purposefully into the building, and as they did so Ethan was overcome with the nagging suspicion that his life would never again be the same.

Upon entering the headquarters of the Foresters of the Three Baronies Ethan beheld a massive two-storied foyer with a balcony running along the second floor. Lit by the amber glow of a few old lanterns and the sunlight that poured through a number of even older windows, the foyer consisted of dark hardwood floors and stone walls like the entirety of the interior of the structure. A wide grand staircase ascended from the ground floor where about halfway to the second floor it split in twain and the two separate curving stairwells that continued their ascension met the balcony at opposite sides of the massive chamber. The vaulted ceiling of the chamber was about thirty-five feet tall and high gothic windows ran in vertical rows up the walls on either side of the foyer. It seemed as though it was a converted temple of some ancient faith.

Not a soul intruded in this massive hall aside from Ethan and O’Dell, and their footsteps echoed throughout the lofty chamber. When they were halfway up the staircase a door on the upper level eased open and a Forester stepped out into the foyer, and he began striding towards the staircase. He wore the familiar cuirass, woolen cloak, gauntlets and boots, and the silver hand axe was sheathed at his hip. The man was an older fellow with short grey hair and his square, handsome face was dashed on its left side with a pink vertical scar. He was built of a towering muscular form, standing about seven feet tall, and under his cuirass he wore a tight short-sleeved black shirt that matched his similar trousers. On the opposite hip from his axe and satchel, a scabbard containing a wide-bladed long sword swung heavily. The man was obviously deep in thought as he marched forward and thus he didn’t look up at the approaching duo.

“Hey, you big Vharian bastard!” shouted O’Dell as he charged forward up the stairs.

The large Forester’s eyes shot up and his frown broke into a grin of brilliant white teeth. “O’Dell, you little Greenwellian runt, when in Lady Quinn’s ghost did you get back?”

The two collided in a thunderous bear hug that abruptly turned into a competition of strength. Ethan was not at all surprised to find that the Vharian abruptly won the match. “Okay! Okay! You win, Kraegovich!” choked O’Dell before the larger man released him.

As they exchanged another hug O’Dell laughed, “I just got back. I figured I deserve another bout of rest and recreation.”

“How’s your assignment going?”

“I still haven’t figured out how to kill the Troll, but I wounded it in another scuffle, saving this fellow as a matter of fact,” returned O’Dell as he indicated to Ethan behind him.

At that both the Foresters turned and looked back at Ethan who stood awkwardly on the landing where the stairs separated. “Greetings, Sir. I’m Ethan Skalderholt.”

Kraegovich nodded in greeting with a slight smile and looked back to O’Dell, “What’s he doing here, O’Dell?”

“He’s a Vharian like you but he left his homeland with the mission of joining up with us Foresters,” explained O’Dell with his hand extended towards Ethan.

“Be you a storyteller, boy?” asked Kraegovich in his deep baritone, obviously referring to his light amber eyes and diminutive stature.

Ethan nodded in reply, and Kraegovich bowed in reverence towards the much slighter man before saying, “Tis an honor to meet you then, Sir.”

Ethan returned the bow to the older man who was obviously from one of the Barony of Vhar’s settlements that revered storytellers. O’Dell smirked and shook his head in confusion before inquiring to Kraegovich, “So what in the Soul Wastes were you thinking about so strongly? I didn’t know old grey-hairs like you could still think, aside from what type of tea you would prefer as you sit and soil your undergarments in your rocking chair.”

Kraegovich smiled only slightly and answered, “Seven more of us have been killed. We’re now down to twenty-nine members,” He looked back to Ethan and stated, “I hope you have what it takes to become a Forester. We need whoever we can get.”

Ethan again nodded and O’Dell lowered his head at the news. Before parting company O’Dell asked, “So where are you off to, Kraegovich?”

As the large Vharian strode passed them and began trudging down the stairs he responded, “I’m patrolling southward to Woodend before returning back to Greenwell City. After a short break Bethany’s sending me back out all the way out west to Verge with a couple of others, and it sounds like we’ll end up staying there through the fall and winter. There’s been talk of a thick den of Deep Wolves in that area around the northwest border with Vhar.”

“Stay safe, my friend!” shouted O’Dell, and the larger man answered with a wave as he descended to the foyer floor.

O’Dell turned back to Ethan and said, “Kraegovich is a good guy.”

“He seems nice,” Ethan returned and they continued to the second floor.

After a few moments of trudging through a few barren corridors they came to an open door at the end of a hall. A small office lay within and sunlight from a single square window flooded into the room silhouetting the shape of a woman at a desk. “O’Dell, I was just thinking about you,” purred a feminine voice from within.

As the duo entered the office he answered, “What a coincidence, Bethany. I was just thinking of me too.”

“Don’t be an ass.”

Once their eyes adjusted to the light they beheld the grandmaster of the Foresters of the Three Baronies. Bethany Kinsley was a short thin woman of perhaps forty-five summers. Her dark brown hair was shot through with grey streaks and it was pulled into a tight bun on the back of her head. Her face was angular and pretty despite its newly-acquired wrinkles, and was it not for the familiar uniform of the Foresters one would think it impossible for this lithe, five foot tall woman of about one hundred pounds to be a member of the order, much less its grandmaster. She was far smaller than Ethan even, but her clear green eyes echoed as much wisdom, if not more, than the storyteller.

Her office was a small featureless chamber, save for the one window, and her large oak desk was piled with scrolls, books, maps, quills, and inks. O’Dell came forward and sat on the side of the desk as Ethan nervously and awkwardly struggled to find an inconspicuous place to stand where he could feel somewhat comfortable considering the circumstances in which he now found himself. “I love it when you talk mean to me,” O’Dell jested leisurely.

“Listen, get off of my desk,” she began, and with a sigh he stood up from her desk, crossed his arms behind his back, and stood at rapt attention. She continued, “It has been a very long time, O’Dell, since you were bestowed this mission, ten years in fact, and yet I see no progress. You have made contacts with the Woodfolk of the nearby tribes, and for that I commend you, but the Troll still walks the Three Baronies. Are you any nearer to ending its threat?”

“I don’t know,” answered O’Dell, “but I fought it twice since last you saw me, and both times I received not a wound. The Troll on the other hand received devastating wounds on both occasions, but like always it quickly regenerated.”

“So in a nut shell we are no closer than we were a decade ago?”

O’Dell said nothing but looked down at his feet. “You have two days of rest here, but then you are ordered to again go out on the hunt. If the Troll is not dead by spring, this mission will be reassigned to a more-capable Forester. Am I understood, O’Dell Dunwood?”

When he didn’t immediately reply she said more forcefully, “Understood, Forester?”

O’Dell stood up straighter and looked into her penetrating green gaze before answering, “Yes, grandmaster.”

“You are dismissed.”

O’Dell turned on his heel and began his brisk walk out of the office, but he stopped in the threshold of the room and with his back to her he said, “I am sorry for our losses, Sir.”

Bethany’s eyes turned misty and she whispered, “Speak to me before you depart, Dunwood.”

O’Dell’s only answer was a terse nod and he marched out into the corridor. Ethan was thus left standing alone in the office of the grandmaster of the Foresters of the Three Baronies, completely dumbfounded that O’Dell had forgotten to explain the situation and walked out on him. Her steady stare looked him up and down and Ethan was suddenly aware of his whiskered disheveled appearance, bootless feet, and dirty clothes borrowed from O’Dell.

When Bethany didn’t say anything after awhile Ethan cleared his throat and introduced himself in his best storytelling voice, “I am Ethan Skalderholt. I am originally a storyteller out of the village of North Ridge in the heart of the Vhar Mountains, but I have journeyed southward to Greenwell City in the hope of proudly becoming a Forester of the Three Baronies.”

Bethany didn’t reply to him but for a firm wave of her hand that he eventually realized was ordering him to step to the side. When he suddenly and shamefully did so he realized that another Forester had been standing behind him. Into the office strode the other member of the order, garbed as always in the typical Forester’s uniform over a long-sleeved shirt of lavender linen and black velvet trousers. She was somewhat pretty with her straight blond hair that flowed down to the middle of her neck and brilliant blue eyes. Cuteness was proclaimed through a slight dusting of pale freckles upon her cheeks and her small nose. Otherwise she wasn’t entirely remarkable in appearance. She stood about as tall as Ethan at about five and a half feet and she appeared to weigh about as much as he. But he had to admit to himself that she had a far better figure—softer and healthier—than his wiry thin frame. Her nicely-cut face appeared slightly childlike due to a slight roundness of her cheeks. She was a pretty woman, but Ethan had seen better in the streets en route to the Forester’s Compound.

“Mother, you wanted me?” inquired the young woman in an eloquent voice, accented of course.

Ethan did a double-take between the two women. They looked nothing akin to one another in any way that he could see, and the storyteller figured that the daughter must take primarily after her father in every physical characteristic.

“Yes, May, I did. I have received word that you stirred up a local nest of bandits just to the east of the city.”

“Yeah, so what?” returned the girl, May.

“Well,” Bethany began, “you have received no such orders from me and it was something the Knights can handle. It is in their jurisdiction.”

“They did handle it.”

“Not until after you killed two of the brigands yourself and became surrounded by half a dozen more. You would have been killed had not a patrol happened by at that time!” exclaimed the grandmaster, and worried mother, her voice steadily increasing with each word.

“Well, maybe you should send me on an actual assignment for once, mother! I’ve been a Forester of the Three Baronies for three years, since I was seventeen, and I still haven’t been beyond Maple Bridge!”

When Bethany was about to respond May continued, “I’m aware that seven more of us are in the Ancestor Lands and are never coming home, but that doesn’t mean you should, nor can, show me any favoritism. As I sit here in Greenwell City bored off of my ass, doing tiny local patrols just for show, my friends are out there dying. Kraegovich, who seems more of a father to me than my real one ever did, is traveling to the ends of Greenwell and I won’t see him until spring, which is if he comes back at all. And O’Dell is being sent back out alone and exhausted to play cat and mouse with the most fearsome creature in all the Three Baronies, like he has done for ten years. You don’t even seem to care that he is now married to a Woodfolk and has numerous children of his own that he never gets to see!”

Bethany fumed and looked humbled with a single expression on her weary visage and she leaned back in her high-backed chair, her lithe frame making her appear as a little girl in her father’s big chair. “Alright, May, you win. May Kinsley, meet Ethan Skalderholt, our newest Forester.”

May turned and laid her first measuring stare on Ethan since she had entered the office. He obviously came up far below her expectations for she replied, “Uh, I think you’re making a mistake, mother. He’s not even wearing any shoes!”

“Nonsense, you are to get him acquainted with our headquarters here, make sure he is bathed, assign him his uniform and weapon, and show him where to sleep. On the morrow you two will depart on his Errand upriver to Stone’s Shore and then return home,” explained Bethany in a hard tone.

All Foresters were assigned to go on their Errand upon being enlisted. It consisted of a more-experienced Forester guiding you on your first patrol to acquaint one with the way of the woods and the lifestyle of the Forester. It appeared that May didn’t know whether to be overjoyed at the authority and freedom she was about to endure, despite their patrol route being among the safest in Greenwell, or distraught at the miserable company that this new scrawny Forester was likely to provide.

“Come forward, Ethan,” stated Bethany, and when Ethan stood before her desk, barely in control of his anxiety and excitement, she said, “Repeat this oath after me and abide by it till the end of your days.”

Ethan nodded and he repeated the following oath:

From here until I stride into the Ancestor Lands

May I live to make safe all of the Three Baronies

For all who dwell in our land

I will endure the hazards of the wild

I will endure beasts of the woods

I will endure the cruel and villainous