Zisstrik the Prophet

Zisstrik the Prophet (part 1)

The visions churned on the black canvas of his dreams. Flickering images of battle and death darted again and again past his eyes, while in reality the sleeping troll tossed and turned on his bed of straw. Sometimes the troll would sleep in a Cazic Thule temple, feigning worship and prayer just to have a warm place to rest. Sometimes if he was lucky, the troll would be allowed to lay his head in any number of inns. But that night the homeless wanderer slept on the cold ground of a forgotten Grobb alley, tortured by nightmares that refused to let him wake. Finally, one image solidified from the madness: a pair of deep eyes, thick reptilian skin, and rows of fangs twisted into a wide grin.

The passerbys all tried their hardest to ignore the troll’s anguished screams.

“Nagduk ler!” the envisioned reptile commanded and the troll fell silent. “You will be quiet and listen, urkilim.”

“Who…who are you?” the troll asked in a timid, dream voice while his lips moved in reality only slightly.

The serpent’s grin widened. “Uramph, little one, I am death and I have come to deliver a message.” The vision cleared a little more, and the troll saw the true magnitude of the creature before him. Powerful arms and legs raked across the amorphous floor of the troll’s dreams as the serpent moved, and large wings shivered on the creature’s back.

“Buz uzk ug garali….a dragon!” the troll quieted himself in a stunned silence.

“Brazin, troll, very good. But I am so much more. I know your people well, dol urkilimen, you served me long before the first trollish ships ever rested upon the shores of Antonica. And you will serve me again. I am your life and your saviour, your master and your god.”

Suddenly all the previous images the troll had suffered came together, and he found himself staring at trollish legends and prophecies long forgotten. The history of Grobb and the history of the trolls were made clear to the sleeper in a matter of seconds, and one word flooded every corner of his mind.

“Trakanon,” the troll said, “you are the dragon Trakanon.”

“Yes,” and the serpent bowed his head, “I am Trakanon, dol barakim obraz Kunark, and I am returning to my children soon.”

The troll lifted both arms to his serpent god. “Why do you speak to me, master? What is it you want?”

“I am forgotten among my own people. You are Zisstrik and I have chosen you to make my name feared and remembered again amongst the tribes of Grobb. Raise an army in my name, and march across Antonica for the glory of your god and master.”

The vision began to twist again, and the form of the mighty serpent slowly drifted away into a soft fog. “We will be reborn again, Zisstrik, ” the dragon continued in a fainter voice. “The kingdom will be as it once was. Preach my name and raise me an army. You have power, use it to crush those who stand against you.”

The troll began to run forward, his arms outstretched to the fading visage of his dragon king and Trakanon’s voice. “When I raise the army, what then!? Tell me master! What then!?”

“Glurki ragdushi,” and the dragon’s body was gone. “If they will not worship me, then they will be destroyed.”

The troll Zisstrik gasped for air and sat straight up in his makeshift bed of alley straw. His hands went to nurse the throbbing pains in his head, and both his eyes were closed. Glurki Ragdushi- Zisstrik knew the trollish expression well. It meant “blood war” or “holy war” by human standards, but in a trollish holy war there were never very many survivors. And so Zisstrik stood, his entire body drenched in a nightmare sweat, with the determination that Grobb would either worship at Trakanon’s feet yet again, or the entire kingdom would be annihilated.

The air permeating the green lands of the Kithicor woods that day was thick and moist. A thin fog covered most of the horizon, and the elven wanderer was forced many times to bring his horse to a stop in order to reaffirm his destination. With an expression of profound annoyance, the elf studied his large map of the Freeport area with confusion and marvelled at how the landscape had changed since his last visit to eastern Antonica. Even his horse, tired from the long journey and unfamiliar with the foreign climate, began to slump and breathe irregularly. The elf stroked his horse’s mane many times to reassure the beast that their destination was close, but even the wanderer was unsure how much farther the journey would last. Finally, giving up on his chances with the map, the elf forced his horse onward through the thick, stubborn grasses of the Antonica commonlands and surveyed the lands with his own, sharp eyes.

For any other wanderer, disregarding a map of the commonlands could mean suicide. One wrong turn and it was possible to be hopelessly lost with the orcs of the serpent’s spine or even trapped deep within the Nektulos forest of the dark elves. The wanderer was throwing himself into danger by guiding his horse with only his instincts, but with over 100 years of combat and adventuring experience, Edril the warrior was confident his tempered senses would be enough to show him the way. The scars down his arms and body were proof that this elf had the experience to make it on his own. While only slightly overshadowed by the fair skin and silvery hair inherent to all high elves, it was plainly obvious by the wanderer’s hard face, focused eyes, and powerful arms that this elf was a true warrior. The curved, single edged blade that hung limply at his side was covered by the elf’s own layers of dark, loose fitting robes.

Finally, after only a few hours of additional travelling, the elf’s destination crawled out from under the fog. It was a merchant’s mansion, outlined on either side by Kithicor oaks, so large Edril couldn’t see the end of the long building even as he approached. Made from stones and finely cut wood furnishings imported from Faedwer, the mansion was largely a human home improved upon by elven craftsmanship. From large, double doors a portly and well dressed man stepped out of an immense room covered in elven tapestries and waved to the wanderer. Edril waved back and smiled.

They knew eachother well. Before Edril had gone on his own to chart the widely unexplored deserts of Antonica, he had helped this merchant many times with raiders along Lake Neriuss. One such incident, involving a pack of dark elven bandits, had bonded them as friends for life. The old merchant couldn’t stifle his excitement as his old acquaintance approached. “Vedui’!” the merchant greeted in elven as Edril rode up along side him.

The elf dismounted and shook hands with his old friend. “Vedui’,” he greeted in return. “Good to see you John.”

“Not as good as it is to see you, Edril.”

“I gathered from your letter it was urgent.” The elf’s sharp eyes moved up and down over the merchant. “You’ve put on some weight, friend.”

“Aye,” the merchant john slapped his stomach, a large gut kept up by tightly synched robes, “times have been good to me. Ever since you ran out that bastard elf Zellain, I’ve had the Kithicor area all to myself.” The human nudged Edril with one elbow and winked. “And those lake villages have deep pockets.”

Edril fastened the reins of his horse around the mansion’s fence. “Still practicing with those barbarian blades? You were a vicious fighter for a merchant back then, I think that’s why I always liked you.”

“I’m sorry to say, Edril, that my fighting days are finished. I have enough gold for stouter men and guard patrols to run with my caravans now. Ah but those were some good times eh?…” John shook his head. “But where are my manners. Here I’m reminiscing when you’ve been travelling the whole of Antonica! Please, come inside. I’ll get you some food.”

“I thought you’d never ask.”

The inside of the mansion was even more breathtaking. Crystal lamps lined walls of elven mosaics and stone replicas of dwarven relics sat perched on pedestals of silver. The carpets, which ran from the door and down a long entrance hallway, were a bright red.

“By Karana…” marvelled Edril, who looked around while torch light danced in his silvery hair, “you have done well for yourself.”

John lead Edril through another set of double doors, where the elf found himself at the far end of an immense dining room. A large chandelier hung over a table of dwarven stone. All around the room an assortment of foreign plates hung from the walls and polished sets of jagged armor stood menacingly in the four corners.

“It’s a bit much I know,” John responded to Edril’s hushed amazement, “but you wouldn’t believe how many people come and go through this house. Most of this stuff is just part of the business. I have to look intimidating to the competition or a few merchants might get sticky fingers. It works quite well, first they love everything in the mansion, then they start to fear everything about the mansion. See the armor suits in the corner? Pure ogre craftmanship, extremely hard to come by. Too bad you didn’t stay around for the partnership, could have made a lot of money.”

“I’m not suited for the merchant life, John. If the money doesn’t come out of the thieving purse of a bandit or the from the horde of a wild beast, then I’m not interested.”

John smiled. “Yes yes, I know it.” One of John’s maids pulled out two chairs on one end of the table, and a well dressed elven butler poured wine into two goblets. “But then there’s this marriage of yours…the great elven adventurer married to an erudite wizardess? I would never have guessed.”

“Almaril makes me happy. That’s the only thing I need to know.”

“Aye, she’s a fine wife and a good woman, there’s no disputing that.” John signaled to the chairs. “Well, shall we discuss the letter then?”

Both men sat at the table. Edril, reaching into his back pouch, pulled out a small piece of parchment. “It was vague,” he said, “just something about ‘merchant trouble that only I could take care of,’ but I guessed that was on purpose.”

John nodded. “Like I said, intimidation is the key to the merchant game. If my enemies knew this secret then I would be out of business for sure.” He ran his finger along the neck line of his robe and fixed it nervously. “The truth is, Edril, I’m running short of guards lately. A long time ago I branched out some caravan routes into the desert of Ro. It was risky I know but paid off in the end. Settlements around the oasis were quick to provide me with more then enough funds for the journey. I started to branch out more and more and soon I was involved with strong trading agreements with temples even in Oggok and Grobb. Imagine that, trading with ogres and trolls! It’s been lucrative for many years, but presently all my caravans have been halted.”

“You halted them?”

“Yes, but not by choice. Most of the caravans I sent to the south never reached their destination and never returned. Some have made it through but all together what was once very profitable has been extremely costly. Now I have reports that my lost caravans have been found torn to pieces. All the guards have been killed, all the goods have been taken, and the wagons have been smashed into nothing.”

“Do you know what did it? Sand giants, raiders…?”

“We know that the guards were killed by weapons, which means raiders. But not your usual raiders. From the magnitude of the strikes, we can tell these raiders hit in wild swarms. The ferocity of the kills point to the trolls…but temples in Grobb have always been able to keep the trolls away from my caravans. Every scout I send out to find the truth never sees the commonlands again.” John looked down at the table and placed his hand on it’s wooden surface.

“So where do I come in, John?” Edril’s pointed ears perked up.

“I need you Edril,” the merchant started to tap the table rapidly, “to be my next scout. I need someone who can stay alive long enough to find out what’s going on,” John picked his head up and stared his friend straight in the eye, “and then to kill the bandits. Every last one of them.”

Edril slumped in his chair, as much as elven posture allows, and breathed a heavy sigh.

“Another caravan has been loaded,” John continued. “Not with much, just a few packs of linen and cloth, but it’s enough to attract them. You’ll also be given the finest pick of my personal guards. Well…those that are left anyway.” The merchant leaned forward and put his hand on that of his friend. “Edril…I know Almaril doesn’t approve.”

“No she doesn’t,” Edril felt his insides churn when he gave his answer, “but she’s not here. I am, and I’m going to help. She knows me too well to think I’d pass this up.”

John laughed heartily and slapped the table. “Now there’s the Edril I remember!”

“I’ll need 2000 gold for the job, John. That and a place to rest.”

“My home is your home, and the task is well worth the pay.” The merchant picked up his goblet and raised it high above his head. “Now let’s toast, first to the adventure, then to the gods for making you help me.”

Edril grinned and raised his own goblet. The rest of the night the two men talked and sang praises to the journey at hand.

Zisstrik’s feet burned from the hot sands below and his skin was blistered and cracked by the waves of brutal heat from the desert sun. His eyes, frosted over by the blowing desert sands, were a dark red from days of non-stop travelling. In a solid line behind him, other trolls followed his trails and chanted his name with the words of ancient trollish texts. The pilgrims wore stolen fabrics, taken from the recent caravan raids, and their lips were burnt and swollen. They were tired and hungry, the pilgrimage had become a long deathmarch, and when one of their numbers fell he was left behind to die. But each had pledged his undying loyalty to this new leader, this prophet of the ancient Trakanon.

Finally Zisstrik held up a tired arm and the line of trolls came to a sudden stop. His eyes, sharpened by a terrible wisdom, surveyed the long valley before them. He turned to his followers with a grin across his face.

“Ragdushimen!” he cried to the pilgrims, “my soldiers! We are there at last!” The trolls erupted into cheers of happiness and exhaustion. One stern look from Zisstrik quieted them all. “But there is still much to be done. Here we shall build a new kalekma gari, one worthy of the dragon god himself. With the supplies we have harvested our army will soon be complete and here, in the valley of sand, will be waged the bloodiest battle Norrath has ever seen! First we must…”

“Prophet…” spoke a timid voice from nearby and Zisstrik’s head turned towards a young follower no more then six trolls away from him, “if I may be so bold…as to address your wisdom.”

“Torask gorzin ragdushim,” snapped Zisstrik. “What could you possibly say that I don’t know already.”

The young troll swayed nervously as he spoke. “It’s just…should we…is it safe to make the camp here? I mean…there’s no water for days…and this area is infested with giants.”

Zisstrik narrowed his eyes and his mouth twisted into a cruel snarl. “Are you questioning the wisdom of the prophet?”

The young troll held up shaking hands in defense. “N..no master…I was merely…”

“Are you questioning the divine intervention of Trakanon!?” screamed Zisstrik to the valley below.

“N..n..no…”

“You have a fool’s mind! You rebel against your master and your god!”

The young troll turned rapidly in every direction, sweat down his face, but found only eyes of accusation and the shaking heads of his comrades. “Borokim,” they snarled, “traitor.”

Zisstrik’s lips curled over his fangs as he spoke. “Let me show you all what we do with borokim.”

With a speed aided by strange magics and his own crazed temper, Zisstrik the prophet lunged for the young troll. Placing his hand over the troll’s face, his claws sinking deep into the flesh around the young one’s long ears, power surged from every part of Zisstrik. His hand started to glow, and then the young ones face started to burn. “Lark borokim!” yelled Zisstrik while his followers laughed around him. The skin of the captive troll’s face began to sizzle and pop. “LARK AL UZK SURGOK ATUB CAZIC-THULE UL URAMPH!!”

The young one’s terrible screams, even muffled by the palm of Zisstrik’s hands, echoed from every hill in the desert of Ro. Zisstrik the prophet dropped the limp body of his victim to the ground, where burning skin crackled from the surface of a black skull. “Tonight!” yelled the prophet as he licked his fangs with a forked tongue. “Tonight we taste the flesh of a traitor!!”

“Rol Gratul Zisstrik!” his followers cried in unison. “Dol ragdushi Obraz glurki shak uzk Garahen!” The war of blood will be ours they yelled, and then they howled to the harsh sunlight.

Their words were carried away on winds of dust.

Tale by BloodWyrm

Zisstrik the Prophet (part 2)

“You see anything, elf?”

The fabric of Edril’s cloak rippled in hot, southern winds. His hood was pulled far over his eyes to protect them from the sun, and his face was hidden in shadow. “I’m not sure,” he answered back as he surveyed the road before him with narrowed eyes. Craning his neck upwards, the elf inhaled deeply and choked on wind-swept sands. “But there is something here,” he cleared his throat and continued, “something in the air.”

Aryn, the head of the merchant escort Edril had been awarded, trailed the elf by the length of five horses. He rode next to the second wagon in the caravan of eight, and no other guards were permitted to ride past him. Across his back was strapped a thick, northern sword and a wicked bow hung from the side of his saddle. His face, brown from long exposure to the desert sun, was covered with red hair. “Ro creatures?” he called to Edril in his deep voice. “Giants maybe?”

“No.” Edril look across the barren desert horizon once more before reigning his horse around. Lowering his hood so that Aryn could hear him better, he ran a hand through his silvery hair which was clotted from sweat and sand. “Something else. I smell steel.”

Aryn raised a thick eyebrow. “You see tracks?”

“I thought I did, over the dunes to the northwest.”

With an expression Edril could only interpret as profound fear, as much as barbarians can possibly show fear, Aryn raised his right arm and turned toward the back of the company. “Tracker!” he yelled and his guards echoed the command all the way to the caravan’s end. In a matter of seconds a dark skinned man riding a black horse found his way to Aryn from six wagons back. The man’s body was covered in runic tatoos Edril found vaguely familiar. “You are the tracker?” Aryn asked.

The man nodded. “Yees, trackar, yees.”

“Dol Kaglim gleshakarn grami ugorniem,” Aryn’s voice inflected in a way Edril knew was awkward for him. The barbarian pointed where the elf had referred to and continued instructing the tracker. “Gerk tar dol treh-ferz al gleshak bumh kum uzk.”

The tracker nodded again, whispered something in the ear of his horse, and started with great speed towards the northwestern dunes. His horse kicked up clouds of dust with each powerful stride.

The elf, watching the tracker travel farther and farther from the safety of the caravan, reigned in close to Aryn. “What language was that?”

“Hmmm?” the barbarian’s attention was still on his tracker.

“The language you just spoke, what was it?”

“Zarki-Torashi. Loosely means ‘dark tongue’ in common speech. It’s the language of the ogres and later the trolls. Now most of the villages and human tribes around the oasis speak it too. That’s where my tracker is from, the oasis of Marr.” The barbarian grinned. “I’m surprised, elf. You mapped most of these territories and you don’t know the language?”

“The name, northerner, is Edril, and I never stayed long in the oasis camps.”

“Alright, alright.” Aryn’s grin suddenly vanished and he cast a short glance behind him. “Well, Edril,” he spoke in a hushed voice, “you’ve got me worried me now. Something isn’t right about this whole thing.”

The elf turned his head slightly. “What do you mean?”

“You know I trust your instincts. Steel and tracks? Sounds like raiders to me, but…”

“Scared?” Edril looked back to where the tracker had vanished.

The barbarian growled and pounded his chest with a clenched fist. “Never! A warrior of Halas is always ready to die.”

“Then what’s the problem?”

Aryn lowered his arm and looked to the sky. “This is too far north. The other caravans were hit miles more to the south. I had hoped to be close to the oasis in case we needed reinforced escort, but if the raiders are in fact here then reinforcements are also out of the question.” The barbarian shook his head. “It also means these are nomadic raiders, something I have never seen before. Most bandits will set up permanent hidden camps to sell goods and slaves. If these bandits are moving, that means they are moving with something. And this means they are supplying something.”

Edril nodded his agreement. “Good points, but ultimately they are for John to think about. Remember the mission, we are to find the bandits and then kill the bandits. Anything else is not our concern.”

The two men both turned their attention back to the northwest in quiet expectation. The caravan fell deathly silent as the desert winds howled over the white hills of Ro. A long time after, Aryn waved and laughed when he saw the faint outline of his tracker’s horse appear again on the sand dunes. “See,” the barbarian smiled, “nothing to worry about.” The elf’s eyes, however, told him a different tale. Edril noticed the tracker was moving towards the caravan at much greater speeds, and he saw panic etched across the man’s face. Even Aryn’s expression steadily became grim as his tracker drew more close.

When the tatooed man had almost ridden over the elf and barbarian, he jerked his horse to a stop and began talking rapidly. “Shagdukim,” he managed to say between long breaths of exhaustion, “urkilimen uzdug dol motri. Kum uzkarn gath Shali-Barukim.”

Aryn growled and turned his horse to face the caravan, speaking with a sidelong glance to Edril. “He says they were trolls beyond the hills on mounts, what the people of the oasis call ‘flame-walkers’, horrible desert lizards that raiders love to use. So much for nothing to worry about.” The barbarian turned his eyes again to the tracker. “Bumh dumin al borh uzkarn kum gerk?”

The tracker looked completely flushed and pale when he answered. “Ug ogdukin shagduki ugalki. Kum uzk gerk nash garoh…”

“GOR!?” Aryn surprised even Edril with the intensity of his voice. The tracker held up two fingers. “What in the nine hells!?,” Aryn unstrapped his sword with clenched teeth and held it high above his head. The sunlight glittered off the blade. “Soldiers! First formation around every corner on the wagons! Archers group in center with arrows in the ground! NOW!” His voice reached every part of the caravan and guards from both inside and outside the wagons began unsheathing weapons and stringing bows.

“Aryn,” asked a perplexed Edril, “what’s going on? What did he say?”

The barbarian lowered his blade and turned his head. “They’ve been playing with us. Ten trolls on ten desert mounts, easily enough to wipe out a normal caravan, not only are close by but they have been watching us. They have completed circles around the entire caravan at least twice, waiting for the right time and place to strike.”

“By the gods!” Edril reached for the elongated handle of his own curved sword. The thin, single edged blade slid out from it’s sheath with a hiss of metal on leather. “What’s the plan now?”

“The plan,” Aryn began with fire in his eyes, “is we fight to the death.”

Screaming to the desert sky, Aryn lashed the reins on his horse fiercely and rode to stand next to his archer line. Edril and the tracker followed close behind him.

The guard organization around the wagons wasn’t different from any other regular caravan protection with one exception. Every archer John could spare from the commonlands, Aryn had positioned in the center. Not too worried about loosing the worthless caravan cargo, the barbarian hoped to draw his enemies into one specific point and trap them with greater numbers. The rest of the guards wore full sets of leather armor and each had a standard long sword. Taking one look up and down the edges of the wagons, Aryn nodded his satisfaction and looked to the horizon.

For a minute there was nothing. Not even the wind seemed to blow in that brief moment of hesitation, but then the sound of thunder shook the ground beneath the wagons. Black figures, outlined by the cloudless sky, appeared one after another on the tip of an eastern sand dune. Each was easily thirteen feet tall, the thick bodies of green skinned trolls riding tall, lizard-like creatures with long tails, flat bodies, and armor plated skin. All of the soldiers held jagged spears at their sides. In the middle of them all rode one particular troll, a jeweled helmet placed over his ears and a large scimitar in his hands, which barked orders to the rest.

“I count ten.” Edril said quietly.

Aryn nodded. “Confident bastards. They’ve thrown strategy to the winds. We’ve stopped and now they’re going to ride us down in a single charge. Guards! Right side!” soldiers from all over the caravan jumped into one line facing the raiders. “Archers!” Aryn continued. “Get your bows ready and fire when I give the signal.” Each archer drew one arrow from the sand and readied it in their bow. “If you have a god, elf,” the barbarian grinned, “I’d start praying.”

The troll commander screamed one word and with terrible war cries echoing from everywhere in the desert of Ro, the ten trolls thundered down the sand dunes at lightning speed. Their spears were aimed directly for the caravan guards.

“Ready?!” cried Aryn to his soldiers as the trolls approached. “Let’s trim their numbers boys! Loose!”

The bow strings of the archers snapped taught and a flurry of arrows whistled through the air. Three trolls fell from their mounts, their bodies torn by multiple punctures, before the rest veered their steeds away from the arrow paths. Unyielding, the troll commander forced his host onward.

“Ready your bows again!” Aryn called and the archers knocked another group of arrows firmly into their strings. “Aim!” the trolls had recentered themselves and charged headlong once more for the bowmen. “Loose!”

One arrow struck a troll in the stomach, which sent the dying raider screaming to the ground. Another arrow pierced a troll’s neck and went straight through the flesh and out the back. This raider was dead before he even was dismounted. As these two trolls hit the sand, the rest of their comrades scattered their charge.

Aryn watched as the trolls went in every direction. “Guards!” he called. “Attack at will! Kill what you can when you can!” Raising his blade into the air, Aryn reared his horse and prepared to charge. “Elf!” he called to Edril. “Time to find out what the master’s paying you for, eh!?” The barbarian’s horse lunged forward and charged for the nearest enemy. Edril raised his own blade and did the same.

Down on the far end of the caravan, one troll had already begun his attack. Tearing into the caravan guards with a ferocity second only to the ogres of Oggok, he severed the heads of two unsuspecting guards in a matter of seconds before charging boldly into three more. The soldiers, unable to put up much of a fight, were slaughtered by the laughing raider as he cut down from his high and unreachable attack position. He continued the assault all down the caravan until one guard lunged at the monster from the safety of a wagon, grabbed the creature, and brought him tumbling to the dirt. Steel from all sides cut through the troll’s body again and again until the bloodied raider fell silent and dead.

Another troll crashed into the host of archers with a powerful scream and twirled his spear madly around him. The archers, who futilely ran in every direction, tried desperately to protect themselves. The spear’s tip, a thin and deadly axe-blade with a spike pointing menacingly from the end, passed through bow and string and skin easily.

Most of the archers were either cut apart or crushed by the powerful claws of the troll’s mount before Edril reigned his horse around in response to their anguished screams and charged for the troll himself. When the raider saw the elf coming from the corner of his eye, he only grinned and charged as well, dropping his spear and drawing the sword at his side. The two met with a single sound: the clash of steel on steel. But Edril moved with the poise of a seasoned warrior and the grace of a true born elf. In a single movement the elf positioned his sword diagonally above him, deflected the troll’s blade away, brought his sword around again, and cut in an upwards arc across the troll’s chest. The edge of Edril’s curved blade found it’s mark easily. The raider rode past the elf and lowered his own sword as his mount slowly came to a stop. There he sat in stunned silence just before his severed upper body slid from his legs and mount to the dirt below.

While the caravan kept the closer trolls at bay, Aryn the barbarian shook the desert floor with his powerful cries of battle. Two raiders were drawn straight to him, the first with his spear pointed for the barbarian’s chest. When the two warriors met, Aryn swung his thick blade madly before him, breaking the troll’s spear into pieces, but reeled back and fell from his horse protecting his eyes from the dozens of splinters. Running a gloved hand over his face to remind himself he wasn’t dead, the northman picked himself up quickly from the sand and gripped his blade tightly with both arms. His troll attacker, who had thrown his broken spear aside, drew his scimitar, turned his lizard steed around, and charged again. When he was almost on top of Aryn, the troll swung his sword down and attempted to sever the barbarian’s head from his shoulders. Aryn, however, ducked beneath the blade and cut deep into the lizard’s chest with his own sword, sending the creature reeling back and the troll spinning off into the dirt. The raider slowly picked himself up on all fours, shook his head, and look around for his dropped scimitar. His search, though, was to no avail as the barbarian buried his sword in the troll’s back and spine with a savage cry.

The raider shivered once and dropped dead without even a chance to scream. Just then the second raider started his charge against the barbarian, confident that the fallen soldier would be an easy kill. With a strange calmness and a grim look, Aryn threw his sword to the ground, unhooked the bow at his back, drew an arrow from the strap at his side, and readied the weapons with both hands. The troll raised his own spear while he called for the barbarian’s blood and prepared himself for a throw. Aryn released the arrow after a careful aim. The thin shaft screamed through the air before striking the right eye of the troll’s mount. The creature fell, slamming into the dirt, and the troll was dismounted.

Without hesitation, the raider gripped his scimitar and continued his charge against the barbarian with a horrific snarl before a guard’s spear from somewhere near the wagons hit the troll in the back between the shoulder blades and sliced it’s way through the troll’s chest and out it’s front. The raider slumped to his knees and the spear’s point sank into the dirt, keeping the dead body pivoted up and looking forward with a blank stare.

The troll commander turned his head rapidly in every direction while he watched his soldiers die. When Aryn killed his last guard, the head of the raiders tossed his helmet away, raised his own sword, and charged for the back of the unsuspecting barbarian. Only Edril was close enough to see the quick movement. “Aryn behind you!” he cried but the caravan leader was too far away.

Lashing the reins on his horse, Edril drove his steed forward until he was close enough to the troll commander and then launched his sword forward through the air with a powerful stroke of his arm. The blade flew and twirled with an abnormal grace before it struck the commander in the side with tremendous force. The troll fell from his mount just before reaching Aryn. Guards from everywhere and the remaining four archers all crowded the area and readied their weapons as the troll commander picked himself up. On one side he nursed a bleeding arm while the other held his weapon. The commander glared in every direction at the surrounding soldiers.

“Shagak buzah gartagi hag!” Aryn commanded.

The troll spoke in a garbled voice while he gnashed his fangs at the guards. “Zhol lark pag lorki.”

“No…” Edril whispered to himself.

“SHAGAK BUZAH GARTAGI HAG!” the barbarian ordered again.

“ZHOL LARK DUL ZISSTRIK DOL URAMPH NESHKIM!” the troll screamed as he raised his sword.

“No!” Edril yelled and held out his arm, but it was too late. The troll commander ran forward to no one in particular with his blade above his head as the archers all released their bow strings. The arrows slammed into the troll one after another and the commander was carried off his feet before falling to the ground. His arm fell limp and his sword was dropped at his side. From his chest bristled four different shafts, and his blood stained the white sands red.

Edril picked up his own blade with a tired hand and sheathed it at his side. Brushing some hair away from his eyes, he looked to Aryn. “What did he say?”

The barbarian shook his head and stared at the dead chief. “What…he uhhh…no it’s impossible…”

“What did he say!?” Edril ordered in a stronger voice.

Aryn looked straight at the elf. “It’s impossible! He said ‘zhol lark pag lorki’. ‘I die with honor.’ But it’s impossible, damn him! Trolls don’t know honor and if they do it means nothing to them!”

“What did he say after that?”

“He said,” the barbarian scratched his beard in confusion, “I die for…’dol uramph neshkim’. That means ‘death teller’ or ‘prophet.’ But then there’s a word I don’t know.”

“Which word?”

“Zisstrik. I can’t translate. He said ‘I die for Zisstrik the prophet’.” Aryn looked around slowly and breathed heavily. Guards everywhere wrapped bandages around bleeding cuts or broken limbs, while archers heaped the bodies of fallen comrades into a single pile. “There’s something more out here, Edril. Something isn’t right. That commander should have surrendered.” The barbarian picked his own sword from the ground. “But we can’t handle it anymore. We have to move north again, talk to John and see what he wants us to do.”

Edril nodded his agreement and the two men rode back to the wagons to survey what damage was done. That night the funeral pyre of their fallen comrades reached to the stars and filled the desert with the eerie glow of death.

In a small, fishing village no more then two miles from the kingdom of Grobb, a crowd was gathering. The trolls in the small community were a horrid looking group of impoverished and hungry workers. Their houses were mere caves cut in the hillside or makeshift piles of swamp drift-wood. Each would be sitting down to a well deserved but ultimately unfulfilling meal at that hour, but they couldn’t take their eyes off the spectacle before them. Surrounded on every corner by a burly troll guard, a well robed speaker strut across a haphazard stage of fallen branches and swamp moss. Normally the trolls of this village shunned all form of intelligent speech or entertainment, but that day something held their attention about the event, and each could not pull their eyes away from the speaker. And so they listened, held entranced by unusual powers, to the one called Zisstrik the prophet.

“Look at yourselves!” cried the troll. “Look at what you have become! You are poor and needy, you live off the creatures in the swamp. Lords in Grobb take all you harvest, and for what? Do they prepare an army? No! Do they use your goods to make the kingdom strong again? No! They use it for their own purposes, to open trading routes with the humans… dol trehinimen.” Zisstrik spat the words. “Do you know what you once were? Do you know what your tribes did and what you can be again? You were all warriors!” the troll raised a fist into the air. “You were warriors who earned your pay on the field of battle! Instead of feasting on the flesh of swamp creatures, you tasted the blood of fallen enemies! We were powerful once! Gar uzkarn gurkel! We can be powerful again. You!” Zisstrik pointed at someone in the crowd with a thin finger. “Do you know who Nalikor was?” The spectator troll nodded slowly. “Yes, everyone knows Nalikor. Dol brazust ragdushim. He saved our people. He brought our people to life from death and with what? The net of a fisherman? The hammer of a smith? The horses of a farmer? No! He founded the trolls a new kingdom with his own sword, and his own blood. He was a warrior! And so are you!” Zisstrik held his hand to the crowd. “All of you. You can be great again. I have seen the vision of the ancient Trakanon…” suddenly the crowd began to hiss and murmurs swept through the village. “No brothers! The temples have lied to you to keep you under their control. Trakanon never abandoned us. He is our father! Only he can lead us to victory! The texts you all have heard about explain how he alone once established the trolls as lords over an entire continent. Trakanon has never left us, instead he sent Nalikor to take us here- to Antonica- a ripe land full of weaker races. Dol kaglimen al dol trehinimen, the other races control a land where we should be masters! Wouldn’t you all like to sit as kings in the marble halls of Freeport?” Zisstrik looked out across the crowd where several trolls nodded their heads. “Wouldn’t you like to taste the blood of the humans in Qeynos? Or capture the lore of the dark elves in Neriak?!” A silent yes was whispered from the gathered trolls. “Isn’t it your destiny, no, your innate responsibility, to march across the lands of Antonica and bring those weaker then yourselves to their knees? To crush the humans and bury the elves!?” The crowd resounded a louder yes. “Would you give up your life with the swamp for a life by the sword! Would you be rulers and kings once more!?” Yes! Cried the gathered trolls, whose eyes were filled with maddened dreams of conquest. “Then join me, brothers! Join the prophet! I have heard the words of Trakanon and he guides us once more! Burdok zholah ragdushimen al Antonica shak uzk garah!!”

“Antonica shak uzk garah!” the crowd echoed and the trolls howled and jumped madly in a crazed frenzy. Zisstrik held out both arms, watched, and gave a wicked grin.

Beneath the largest temple in the black city of Grobb, an old troll sat in a deep chamber where light flickered from a dozen torches and sunlight dare not touch. All around him on crooked shelves were texts and scrolls dating back centuries, things no other troll had seen or was even permitted to see. His thin body lost in the large folds of his cloak and weighed down by the heavy medalions around his neck, the ancient head priest of Cazic-thule tried desperately to stay awake as he studied the texts placed before him on a desk of dwarven stone. The droning chants of his followers in the main hall just one floor above didn’t help, and many times the old troll found himself begin to doze off. He didn’t have the strength for the amount of study required of him anymore, and this knowledge weighed on his soul even more then the oversized rings on his fingers weighed on his hands.

Three knocks came from the outside of his door, and the old one picked his head up. “Bugh uzk gagash?” he asked the door with a wavering voice.

The guard outside, a tall and muscular warrior covered in jagged chain mail armor, opened the door and bowed his respects. Behind him was a much smaller troll clothed in red with his hands folded together. “Ug gorzin mukrazim,” the guard said in a fearful tone, “gagash dul buz.”

“Gurzok ul, gurzok ul,” and the head priest waved the smaller troll inside.

The small one moved past the guard who watched him carefully and growled. “Bulurh batum,” the troll said and bowed low before the old one.

“Bulurh Jalic, bumh tak buz shaduk?” the old priest wrapped up his scrolls and placed them down on the floor beside his chair.

“Ler uzk barzog Zisstrik, batum…”

The old troll leaned back and seemed surprised from the news. After a while in consideration, he placed one hand on his desk. “Speak in common, Jalic.”

“Dul bumh?”

“Just do what I say, Jalic, the walls have ears and so does my guard. Close the door also.” The young troll closed the chamber door behind him. “The last thing we need is more news of Zisstrik spreading through the kingdom. Especially out of this temple.”

“I understand, head priest.”

“So what is the news, young one?” the old troll cleared his throat and began to tap the table.

“He grows stronger each day. He gets new recruits in every village and at an increasing rate. He’s even formed a stationary base in the center of the desert. More then fifty trolls he now has loyal to him and that number is growing….”

“And what would you have me do, Jalic? Force the temple to march against him? Make his lies a reality?” the head priest threw his arms into the air. “The ogres would help us but laugh at us and Zisstrik may well become a martyr. Civil war is what almost destroyed us, Jalic, I can’t let that happen again. It’s bad business and bad for our reputation. All we can do is keep his lies from spreading until we can find a solution. But you knew this already! And so did I! Why do you waste my precious time for this recycled information?”

“Because, sir,” Jalic smiled humbly, “I may have found a solution.”

The head priest placed his hands on the table once more and leaned forward. “Well now I am interested.”

“Zisstrik has suffered a defeat, sir. A caravan packed with soldiers was able to wipe out his main raider line. Scouts found their bodies only a few days ago. Villages around Marr confirm it, the human John sent a caravan southward guarded by more men then usual and aided by a southern tracker, a barbarian named Aryn, and an elf named Edril.” The young troll took a few steps forward and lowered his voice. “My thoughts sir, are what if in place of a temple army, we gather a few of these main soldiers, supply them with independent fighters from both Oggok and Grobb, and send them against Zisstrik?”

“Again we resort to brute force?”

“The force wouldn’t draw attention to Grobb, and the problem would be solved.”

The head priest fell silent in thought for a few seconds, his fingers rapidly tapping the top of his desk. “Edril…” he wondered allowed, “I thought he had vanished into retirement…Jalic!” he finally spoke and sat up in his chair, “your plan has some merit I’ll give you that. It just might work. I want these men brought before me and I want you to handle it personally.”

[to be continued]

Tale by BloodWyrm

Zisstrik the Prophet (part 3)

“I give my last breaths to you, Edril.”

“Don’t talk that way, sir, you still have many years left.”

“Thank you for humoring an old man. But you and I both know that’s not true. My time is fast approaching, the new king will take the throne of Felwithe, and both of us will be forgotten. It is inevitable.”

“How could anyone forget you, sir?”

“The winds of time, my warrior. The winds of time can carry any man’s name to oblivion. But you still have a chance. Leave this place, leave these hollow halls and the glittering pillars of the castle behind you. Leave for Antonica and never look back. I don’t want you to die with me.”

“Sir…what…”

“If you stay, my warrior, you will be forgotten as well. Your future lies elsewhere in Norrath. You have the blood of a hero, so much like your father, but something else. There is a killer in you, and it’s tearing your soul apart. I’ve seen it in your face. Your hands are stained with the blood of countless enemies, and yet you feel the urge to find more. I’ve always thought of you as a son, Edril, and it pains me: this great conquest of yours. I hope one day you find what it is you’re searching for. But Edril…Edril…it cannot be found…in death…”

“Emperor! Carandril! Open your eyes…”

“Live, Edril…live your legend…live…forever…”

The elf woke in a dark room and on a strange bed covered in thick blankets of wool. What time of day it was he couldn’t tell, as the large windows on either side of his room were all covered by red silk drapes. Edril wondered for a second what had awakened him until a loud pounding resonated from outside. Someone was knocking on his door. “I’m coming,” he called to the room’s entrance before swinging his legs around to the bed’s edge and shakily standing up. The elf blinked once, ridding himself of the languid confusion that only comes from a restless sleep, before fumbling around a series of oak tables and inlaid shelves to grab a nearby robe.

It had been a full three days since Edril had returned with the caravan to the commonlands of Freeport. John had welcomed them back with a warm meal and a large smile, which was customary, but his temperament had grown increasingly somber as the merchant listened to Aryn’s information. John said he would think on the matter, but at present he considered the bandit threat to have ended. Edril was then given his full payment and the guest house on the western side of the merchant’s mansion, a small one room cabin constructed from Kithicor wood and sheltered by the branches of overlaying trees. It was quiet and private, which suited Edril just fine.

Fastening a thick, linen strap around his waist to keep the robe closed, the elf slowly made his way to the door and unhooked the lock from it’s handle. A little annoyed at being disturbed from his sleep, Edril opened the door which swung inward with the squeal of a rusty hinge. Sunlight stung his eyes and forced him to squint before the tall and green skinned form of a troll took shape before him. The creature’s red eyes peered at him from under the hood of a thick robe.

The elf stumbled back, taking in a sharp breath of air, and his mind reeled from the surprise. Should he run…should he go for his sword…should he attack the creature with his bare hands? The troll, with a calm and collected expression of determination, held up one hand in response. “Please,” the troll said in perfect common, “do not be afraid. I have not come here to harm you.”

Edril’s pointed ears twitched, a distinct sign of elven confusion, and he looked on either side of the troll for anyone else who might be there. It was the middle of the day and shafts of light poured down between the high trees of Kithicor. “Who…” Edril began, “Who are you?”

The troll bowed his head and crossed his arms beneath the folds of his long cloak. “My name is Jalic. I come representing the wishes of the temple of Cazic-Thule from the kingdom of Grobb, on direct orders from the high priest Kul’ash himself.”

Edril nodded once and feigned amazement. “Your…orders being?”

“To bring you to Grobb.”

“If this concerns the killing of ten trolls in Ro, then I refuse to leave. They were bandits and operating against trade laws between Grobb and Freeport.”

“Ten dead rebels in the desert do not concern us, elf,” the troll snarled slightly as he spat the words, and for the first time Edril saw the disgust in Jalic’s eyes the troll was trying desperately to mask. “This is not about revenge.”

“Then what is it about?”

“We require your services.”

“My services?” Edril smiled and forced a laugh. “Since when do the trolls hire elves.”

Jalic’s lips curled over his fangs before he regained his composure. “The temple requires the services of a warrior familiar with our present crisis. My lord was under the impression that you are such a warrior. Now do you accept or not?”

“Your present crisis?”

Jalic’s face seemed flushed and pale when the elf finished the question, his eyes looking up to the distant sun. “Our present crisis…the complete destruction of Grobb and it’s temples, the separation of the troll race, and an army so savage Antonica will burn before it’s last soldier is destroyed. But nothing more can be said until you speak to the head priest.”

Edril had never seen a troll who could speak common this well and with such an intelligence to back his words. Greater still was the apprehension he found within himself when he saw fear across Jalic’s face. The young troll was distinctly afraid of something. “If I refuse?” Edril asked after a moment of hesitation.

“Don’t refuse. The temple is prepared to pay you large fees in any desired currency. Plus I am told you are not one to pass up a battle.” The troll dropped his hands to his sides and looked the elf straight in the eye. “I have already spoken to the barbarian Aryn and to the merchant John. They both approve. So what is your answer, Edril?”

Crossing his arms and breathing a heavy sigh, the elf turned again to the darkness of his temporary room. In one corner rested his curved blade, sheltered in it’s leather scabbard, silent, peaceful. Edril knew, in that brief and questioning look, that it would be a long time before he returned to his wife in Qeynos. Even more then the troll’s veiled threat, Jalic’s fear and his story drove Edril to the inevitable answer. His soul was pulled once more by the promise of adventure, and struggle, and blood.

“When do we leave?” he asked in a tired voice.

The prophet sat alone and quiet in a circle of flickering candles. His eyes were closed and his legs were crossed, while from his lips buzzed the soft hum of meditation. His tent was structured so that it kept all sunlight out and trapped all shadow in, the thick leather flaps which served as a doorway blocking all wind from entering. A complex string of poles and arches kept the hut from crumbling into the sands. All that was inside were the troll, his candles, and the place where he sat: a perfect runic circle painted with the blood of other trolls across the prophet’s white sand floor. Here Zisstrik sat in silent contemplation. Here strange energies pulsed through his body, seeping into his mind with whispered promises of strength and power, until nothing was left of Zisstrik the troll but an empty memory. He was instead a catalyst of fear, a tool of dark magics and ancient prophecies.

But where inside the tent the serene metamorphosis of Zisstrik took place, outside the tent a mammoth battle raged. Across the sands were scattered the dead bodies of numerous trolls, their lifeless eyes held staring at a cloudless sky and their mouths wide in a quiet scream. In the middle of them all stood the proud beast: a large mound of flesh and muscles and fangs natives referred to only as a sand giant. He looked around him with eyes covered by his own overhanging brow, saw more advancing soldiers approaching, and howled madly to the sun. Protruding fangs jutted from every corner of his mouth.

The three trolls who gathered enough to courage to attack the beast first ran forward with screams of their own and broke their spears on the tough skin of the massive giant. The beast, laughing inwardly, tore one of the soldiers in half with both arms before pounding the bones of the other two into the dust. The rest of the soldiers fell back with the giant right behind them.

A troll clad in dented pieces of haphazard armor threw open the flaps on Zisstrik’s tent. The wind from outside swept sand onto the entrance floor and extinguished the flames on the candles. The prophet slowly opened his eyes, red from many hours of darkened solitude, and glared at the newcomer with a look of questioning and hatred.

“U… uramph n..n..neshkim…” the soldier stuttered and lowered his eyes, unable to find the strength to look at Zisstrik’s face. “The giant is closer. We cannot keep him down. The men are dying.”

“So deal with it.” Zisstrik spoke from behind clenched teeth.

“We… we cannot. Hur uzk tar barolk. The giant is too much for us alone.”

“What kind of fighters are you!? Your failure displeases Trakanon, and it displeases me! Go, fight, we shall not mourn the passing of failures.”

“But… but sir, some of the soldiers are stopping. Some are abandoning camp. They say…they say…” the troll soldier sank to his knees and put his head to the floor. “buz uzk ug bolgim.”

Zisstrik stood, his muscles rigid with anger. “They say what?” he asked in a deep voice.

“That you are a coward for staying inside.”

With a low growl Zisstrik, more floating across the ground then walking, made his way past the prostrated soldier and through the flaps on his tent. Surveying the valley where his camp was built, the prophet smelled the scent of blood in the air and locked eyes with the vicious giant, who was chasing Zisstrik’s retreating guards. The troll’s black cloak was caught in the desert winds, and strips of fabric from the clothing flapped in the air around him, cascading down the hillside in beautiful waves of rippling cloth. He held one outstretched claw to the beast. “SHAZGOLI!” Zisstrik cried in an amplified voice and the giant turned and grinned.

It took only four long strides before the giant’s shadow covered Zisstrik. The beast hesitated for only a few seconds, but when he saw the troll do nothing he lifted one arm into the air and brought it down on top of Zisstrik with tremendous force. The giant’s hand, however, hit only an invisible barrier above the troll which shimmered with a flickering intensity when the monster struck it. Bolt’s of lightning flashed from Zisstrik’s fingers and danced up the giant’s arm and across his chest. The creature screamed, forcing all the soldiers to cover their ears, and reeled back. When the giant lashed out a second time his fist was met again by another invisible barrier and again lightning arched across his skin.

His chest scarred and his arms torn and bleeding, the massive beast stumbled back a few feet before an unseen force slammed into his stomach. The monster fell to his knees, making the entire camp shake. He tried to scream once more but found his lungs and throat being squeezed of air. Both the giant’s hands went to nurse his neck, and the monster writhed in horrible pain.

Zisstrik only gave a toothy grin and waved his arms above him in the air. The giant grabbed his head while tears poured from his eyes.

“What are you?” Zisstrik’s tongue curled around the words.

“I… am… giant…” the sand giant bellowed in a voice tinged with fear and desperation.

“What are you!?”

“I… am… servant…”

Zisstrik’s grin only widened and his hands twisted in the air with greater speeds. “And who am I!?”

The sand giant’s eyes were rolled up into it’s skull. It’s claws raked across the sands, leaving thick trails in the desert floor, and it’s muscles were taught with anguish and fear. For the first time ever, the beast stared fearfully into the jaws of death.

“WHO AM I!?” Zisstrik demanded again.

“YOU… ARE… MASTER!” The very foundation of the desert shook when the giant screamed his answer. Trolls from everywhere in the camp sank to their knees in awe inspired fear, and the massive beast completely collapse into the sands from exhaustion.

The prophet took one look around, lowered his arms, and filled the desert with terrible laughter.

Just the vile stench of the place made Edril sick. To say the city was dirty would be an understatement, and both the elf and barbarian marveled at the sites to either side of them with looks of disgust as their aging wagon rattled forward. Decrepit houses lined the sides of a dirt road, their largely oversized and overhanging thatched roofs casting long shadows across empty streets. The city was dark even in the middle of the day, and not a single light flickered from any window. From the garbage strewn darkness of numerous alleys or sometimes from the shadowed innards of lonely tent housing placed indiscriminately along the streets, the elf felt the sting of hundreds of hidden eyes watching the travelers pass by. Watching and waiting. And above it all, above the ramshackle tenements and jagged stone huts that formed the city’s dark center, loomed a structure so horrible that Edril had to turn his eyes away. It was the temple of Cazic-Thule, an obsidian monument to the deepest evils of Norrath, and it’s dark walls seemed to suck the color even from the sky around it. A chill wind twisted it’s way down the city street and over the travelers, carrying with it the smell of blood. Where the smell came from, the elf did not wish to know. From somewhere a scream erupted and died, quickly drone out by the low chants emanating from the temple gates.

Edril had been to Oggok, the city of the ogres, once in his travels. There only the strong survived and the weak were hunted and killed for sport. Days and nights were filled with wild cries of battle and the somber wails of the fallen. The kingdom was ruled with tyranny and pain, the guards would sooner kill you then reason with you, and everyone’s blood boiled with the anticipation of a war that never came. Edril had thought that place a nightmare, but this city was far worse. The elf found himself afraid. But such was the nature of the black city of Grobb, kingdom of the trolls, where fear slithered down the streets from every corner. It was surrounded on all sides by the dead lands of the Innothule swamp, a dark and infested area of horrible creatures and nightmarish scenery. Suffering and pain pulsated from every crack in Grobb’s surface, and at it’s heart rested the gaping mouth entrance of the obsidian temple.

The elf jumped when he felt a hand on his back. “Calm down,” Aryn spoke from behind him in a hushed voice. The barbarian, who kept a steady hand placed on the thick sword at his side, still watched the passing houses carefully even as he spoke. “Don’t let it get to you, elf. I feel it to.”

Edril shook his head and looked around. “Almost like someone’s watching us, isn’t it?”

Aryn nodded and scratched his bearded chin. “Aye, feels that way.”

“They are. They are watching you.” The voice was Jalic’s, who drove the wagon from a seat up front, holding the reins to two horses tightly with both his green skinned claws. Edril couldn’t see Jalic’s face from beneath the troll’s hood.

“Why are they?” Aryn, clad in chain mail and a light colored tunic, twisted his body around when he asked.

“Because they are waiting for you to get off this wagon. When that happens, they will kill you.”

Edril looked at Jalic with profound confusion while Aryn just shook his head and laughed. “Why would they do that?” asked the elf, disturbed by the information.

“It is the way of our kingdom.” The troll continued. “Fear is our master. It comes from the temple and spreads through the city like a disease, the divine hand of Cazic-Thule touching every house and every child. But it is this fear which makes us strong, for once we master it then we can use it.” Jalic turned his head so that Edril could see the side of his face. “They taste your fear. They feed on it like dogs feed on table scraps. And the blood of the fearful is that much sweeter.”

“But look at what it’s done to your city.”

“Where you see horrid things, elf,” the cart passed by numerous statues, carvings of gutted warriors or vicious demons whose gothic presence was felt up and down the temple road, “I see only beautiful flashes of pain.”

The wagon came to a slow and rattling halt at the end of the road, where the dirt street melded into a cobblestone path beyond the temple boundaries. All along the temple gates hung trollish skulls from loose ropes, whose grinning teeth chimed against the metal as they swung back and forth from the wind. A burly guard halted them at the entrance, spoke a few words to Jalic, and then reluctantly waved the wagon inside. Aryn waved and smiled to the guard in passing. The troll only bared his fangs and scowled in return.

After a short ride along the cobblestones, the horses hoofs echoing a little too much in the silence of the city, Jalic lead the barbarian and the elf to a small door on the eastern side of the temple. Grabbing a torch which hung next to the entrance and with a short “come on,” Jalic opened wide the door which lead to a dark spiral staircase of black marble and began to descend.

Edril marveled at the staircase as he too descended, what little he could see from Jalic’s shallow torchlight. All down and around the steps was carved the intricate body of a long serpent while hundreds of trolls, each etched with painstaking detail, murdered each other beneath the tail of the great dragon. At the bottom of the staircase the three were met by another guard. This one growled as they approached and held his sword up to his shoulder.

“Gerk tar dol lurz.” Ordered Jalic with a motion of his arm.

The guard answered in a deep and cracked voice. “Buz uzk kum?”

“Ragdushimen dul dol batum.”

The guard nodded and lowered his blade. “Goot, goot. Go in, head preest expect yoo.”

Jalic nodded his thanks and opened wide the door. The room the three entered was a large cathedral of twisted sculptures and low hanging torches. Four pillars supported an arched dome roof, and the floor was made of the same black marble the stairs were. In the center of the room, on a raised dais, stood a shaking old troll who glittered from the golden pendants around his neck and the rings along his hand. His green skin was wrinkled and pale, his ears were bent, his back was hunched over, and when he smiled Edril saw his fangs were black and chipped. It seemed the troll’s eyes were both permanently shut. Jalic fell to his knees before the old one in reverence.

“Welcome, welcome,” the troll said in a quivering voice. “Welcome at last. Rise, Jalic, you have done well.”

Jalic picked himself up from the marble floor as Aryn stepped forward. “You’re Kul’Ash the high priest?” the barbarian asked.

The old one laughed, a horrible wheezing sound devoid of all feeling. “I am too old to be anything else.” He walked slowly forward and looked to Edril. “I am glad you both have come. I trust the journey was as uncomfortable as it could have been?”

“Quite,” the elf said, “I hope it was worth it.”

Kul’ash nodded his head slowly. “Oh but it is, my boy, it is. The temple has more gold then I know what to do with. And if you complete this task for me I will give you more then enough.”

“What task?” Aryn asked as he took a step forward toward the high priest. “What in the hells is this all about? You’re troll Jalic didn’t tell us a thing.”

Kul’ash looked proudly upon Jalic and then turned again to the barbarian. “As he was instructed not to. This is a delicate situation. The room you are in right now is reserved only for private ceremony unknown and unheard by Grobb’s public. This information is not to leave this room and the temple can in no way be involved. Is this understood?”

Aryn shrugged and nodded and Edril soon did the same.

“Good,” Kul’ash continued, “now as to the task, it is best described by telling the story of the troll the temple has branded Zisstrik the insane.”

“Zisstrik,” Aryn turned to Edril, “that’s the word we heard, only it was ‘Zisstrik the prophet.'”

“Where did you hear this?” The high priest looked genuinely interested.

“From the leader of a bandit group we destroyed many days ago. His dying words.” The barbarian grinned.

“Ah yes. That’s what his followers call him, a prophet, but I’ll get to this later. Please,” Kul’ash extended a thin hand to the visitors, “have a seat.”

From previously unseen troll servants, two chairs slid out and Edril and Aryn sat down. For the first time Edril really studied the room and found that they were not alone. All along the walls in shadow sat groups of ogres and trolls, all seasoned warriors, who held various weapons tightly to their chests. Edril wondered how he had missed them before.

“You must not judge what I am about to tell you,” began the old troll. “It may seem cruel to you both but it is our customs. But first I will explain the history of the trolls. Perhaps this will better serve my purpose. You must know that many would kill for the information I am about to give you, and few trolls are even allowed have this knowledge, under penalty of death.

“The trolls do not originally come from Antonica. Even our oldest statues here in Grobb are little more then a few centuries old. Rather, ancient scrolls tell us we come from a land far away. A land called Kunark. There the trolls were born as savage beasts who killed each other for food and drink. It was soon, however, that a powerful beast named Trakanon seized control of the trollish race and made us his servants. For food and water exported from his jungle kingdom guarded by the highest mountains in Norrath, we split into clans and became his slaves. The trolls flourished under him, becoming rulers of Kunark under the great dragon. He was our father, and we worshipped him as a god.

“But then the immortal simply changed his mind. He grew savage and cruel, and watched as the trolls ran out of drink and sustenance. He laughed as we starved. We could not penetrate his mountain lair on Kunark, the peaks of the Trakanon’s Teeth mountain range were too great for us to pass. So to get our food we resorted back to our instincts. In the shadow of the hills of disdain, a second war began and the fighting reduced the trolls to ashes. On the field of bone, named for the countless skeletons of fallen trolls which litter the ground, one tribe survived under the great chief Nalikor. He alone understood that Trakanon had abandoned the troll race. Gathering what he could from Kunark, he sailed with his tribe to Antonica.

“That was centuries ago. Now the trolls have rebuilt themselves, and our ways are guided by the wisdom of Cazic-Thule.”

Aryn leaned forward and ran a hand along his tatooed face. “So where does Zisstrik come in?”

Kul’ash nodded. “In order to use the fear of the temple better, our priests are often required to obtain trolls or other subjects for testing.”

Edril gave a look of disgust. “Testing?”

“They are exposed to a number of spells and tortured. They become the epitomes of fear, and we learn from them. We grow stronger from them.”

“Barbaric…”

“Yes but it is our way. Most die in a few days. But Zisstrik did not. Instead we threw him out of the temple once he outlived his usefulness. We should have known then, but we were blind. Our spells made him see and hear unusual things, which is why we called him Zisstrik the insane. Since then he had been shunned and mistreated by everyone. He was a nothing, but now…

“You see he thinks Trakanon visited him in a vision. He thinks the great dragon told him to rebuild the ancient tribes of old and march over the kingdoms of Antonica. He thinks Trakanon is soon returning and that the temples must be destroyed. He is spreading these words throughout the swamp, and trolls are joining him because they are intrigued by the promise of conquest. It is in our nature. But what they don’t understand is that civil war almost destroyed us once, and if it is revived, it will surely be the end of the entire race. What’s worse is that he has the power to back his claims…”

“Power?” Aryn asked.

“Magic,” the high priest answered. “You must understand that shaman magic is unlike any other. Where a cleric’s magic is derived from prayer, a druid gets his magic from the earth, and a mage gets his power from the unknown, the ethereal, a shaman’s power is derived from the very core of our being. It comes from an understanding of ourselves, an innate and savage drive within us. We could never have guessed the magnitude of the power of Zisstrik’s will, nor could we have anticipated his intelligence. All we know is that our spells woke something inside him, an inside power that flourished with his fear and self loathing. His visions of Trakanon were merely this power’s excuse of being released. Now he has become one of the most powerful shamans I have ever known.” The high priest shook his head. “He is a large threat to all of Antonica, and every day he gathers more followers he grows that much stronger. If he gathers enough strength to attack Grobb then he is also free to turn his attention to Freeport and the commonlands. So you understand the magnitude of this problem?”

Edril and Aryn both sat in stunned silence.

“We heard of your victory. That is why I contacted you. That is why I need you. You are both experienced warriors and both unaligned with the temple in any way.”

Edril stood, his hand on the pommel of his sword. “So what’s the task?”

The elf saw fire in the old troll’s eyes, fire surrounded by hatred and great power. “Hunt Zisstrik down. Hunt him and then kill him.”

Aryn himself stood and threw his arms into the air. “By ourselves!? Are you mad!?”

The high priest grinned. “Certainly not. I have gathered for you a collection of the finest warriors Oggok and Grobb have to offer. All will not draw unwarranted attention to the temple.” With a graceful move of his hand, Kul’ash gestured to the shadow around the room. “First two ogres, Gromlyko and Kugrokh.” Two massive beings, both standing a good 10 feet tall and armed from head to toe in jagged armor and wicked weapons, stepped from the darkness and reluctantly nodded their heads. Scars of battle ran up and down their bodies. “Next I give you three trolls lead by one captain: Snargob.” Three trolls with swords in hand followed close behind the largest of the four. This troll, who glared at Edril with narrowed eyes, carried a bow on his back. In both massive arms he cradled a great axe against his chest. “And finally my own shaman Jalic will aid your journey. This, my friends, will be your army. So now it is up to you to make your choice. What is your answer?”

Aryn took one look around at the gathered soldiers, and shook his head. With sympathetic eyes he looked to Edril. “Remember what I told you, elf. A warrior of Halas is always ready to die. But then again I’m not wed, so the decision is yours to make.”

Edril turned his eyes away from the questioning looks of those gathered. He focused on one dark section of the cathedral wall, and his thoughts drifted back to the city of Qeynos and to his wife. “It’s suicide. If this Zisstrik is as powerful as you say then it’s suicide…”

The high priest slowly made his way to Edril, his feet scuffling along the stone floor below. Placing one hand on the elf’s shoulder, he spoke in a desperate voice. “Edril,” Kul’ash asked, “what is your answer?”

Torchlight danced in Edril’s eyes.

“Let’s do it,” he said at last.

[TO BE CONTINUED]

Tale by BloodWyrm

Zisstrik the Prophet (part 4)

“Why do you do this to me? What is it inside you that forces you to leave the ones you love? To hurt them this much?”

“I… I don’t know.”

“Every night I pray that you are even still alive, and every morning I wake up and think you might not be there next to me. All I want is the assurance that you’ll be there for me and for your child. But even this is too much to ask. What is it that haunts you, Edril? You’re chasing a demon that isn’t even there, running from things no one else can understand. But I’m trying to understand, for you and for our son. Why do you leave us without so much as a word to say goodbye? You trust no one but the sword in your hand, love nothing but the adventure and the blood of your enemies…”

“No, I love you Almaril.”

“So why do you run from me? Why?”

“Because… I’m worried…everything close to me dies. If I get too close… then…”

“… Such sad eyes. Why is it that death haunts someone so noble? And what happens when this curse catches up to your wife and child, Edril? What then?”

The barbarian, the large sword on his back rattling against his tattered suit of chain mail, spurred his horse closer to the party’s head with a quick lash of the reins. The ogres and trolls around him, moving on foot with surprising speed, all glared as the northman’s mount passed by. Closing their eyes as the swirling dust from the desert floor hit them, kicked up by the horse’s powerful strides, each ran a hand over their long faces to shake dirt and sweat from rough skin. Behind them their foot trails faded over the horizon, etched in sand from miles of walking and four whole days of fruitless wandering. “Thinking about something, elf?” Aryn asked in his customary deep throated tone as he came to a stop near the front of the group. Behind him the eyes of several troll warriors studied his back and searched for the best place to thrust a dagger. Aryn knew it and grinned.

Edril, his eyes empty and his mind lost in the remembrance of past events, was startled by the sound of the barbarian’s voice. He turned his head quickly, face wrapped by a black cloth to block the sand and his hood pulled over his eyes, and surveyed the land to get a quick bearing of where he was. “Uhhh…” he began in confusion, as if awakening from a dream. “No…nothing.”

Aryn scratched his chin and turned his eyes to the distant hills of Ro before them. “Get your mind on the trail.” As he drew closer to the elf he lowered his voice. “I don’t see anything for miles. Not tracks, not anything. Maybe this prophet isn’t really out here. Maybe there’s no prophet at all.”

Edril shook his head, recognizing the suspicion in the barbarian’s speech, and quieted his own voice. “If they wanted us dead, Aryn, then we would be dead already.”

“How do we know? What if these soldiers are our assassins?” Aryn cast a suspicious glance behind him. The ogres and trolls, dragging their heavy weapons in the sand behind them, returned the look with ugly snarls of protruding fangs. “They probably realized normal temple guards couldn’t bring us down and…”

“Edril is right,” the words drifted on desert winds, more a soft and inflected hiss then an actual voice. “If we wanted you dead, you would have been killed long before now. You place too much faith in your own skill, Barbarian. But the temple needs you to stay alive as long as possible. And so we must abide by it’s wishes.” Jalic, troll priest of Cazic-Thule, rode on an oversized horse directly at the head of the travelers. He sat hunched over his saddle, being thinner then most trolls, and his red robes hung low over the sides of his mount.

Edril smiled. “Damn that hearing of yours, Jalic!” Aryn yelled up to the troll.

Jalic only looked to the horizon, brushing a hand across far away desert valleys. “If we keep going north we’ll arrive there in two days.”

“How do you know that?” asked the barbarian, eyes narrowed and strained from days under a restless sun.

“The temple has always known the location of Zisstrik the insane, and I am well versed in all matters dealing with desert of Ro geography.” Jalic shook his head, his hood falling behind his pointed ears. “But as the master told you, the temple has been unable to deal with the situation until now.”

“And why is that?” Aryn asked.

“Because,” Edril answered for the troll, “the best way to avoid a civil war is to keep the kingdom ignorant.”

Jalic nodded. “It is the best way to save our people from destruction.”

“It is the best way to keep the temple in control,” the elf said and Jalic nodded again.

“This is also true,” the troll remarked casually as if it were already common knowledge.

The barbarian, running one hand through the clotted mane of his horse, breathed a heavy sigh and looked to the cloudless sky overhead. “I’m sure glad the main reason I’m out here is for the money,” he admitted, “because I don’t know if we’re fighting with the good guys or the bad.” Jalic actually chuckled.

From somewhere behind them, garbled by the harsh inflections native to the creatures of the serpent’s spine, came a deep and growling voice. The ogre was clothed much like the companion at his side, covered from head to foot in loose and jagged armor, mostly the torn and dented scraps picked from the corpses of his victims. On his shoulder he hefted a great axe, the blade scarred and stained a light red. He spoke a few garbled words in a bitter sounding voice, then pointed to the barbarian.

Aryn turned his head, gave a nasty look, and pointed back. “Wish I could understand,” he said to the nearby Edril, “but they talk too fast.”

Jalic spoke without even looking back. “He says he hates the sound of your voice, and that both ogres will cut your throat out if you do not remain silent.”

“Is that so?” the barbarian brought his horse to a sudden halt and spun the mount around, placing one hand on the hilt of his sword. “Tell them they’re both welcome to try!” Aryn thundered and grinned.

The two ogres both stopped, first looking at the barbarian and then looking at each other. Then both the massive warriors erupted into a chorus of horrible laughter, exchanging powerful slaps on the back. One of them, pausing between laughs to catch his breath, said a few more garbled words to Aryn before attempting to quiet his friend.

Jalic brought his own horse to a stop and turned, his small black fangs curled into a grin. “That one’s name is Gromlyko. He says they like you, barbarian. You’ve got spirit and you make them laugh. They’ll leave you alone.”

“Wonderful,” began Aryn in a sarcastic tone, still cautiously keeping a watchful eye on both ogres, “I’ve made some friends in Oggok. This is going to be a great trip.” The barbarian held a hand to his face, blocking the intense rays cast down by the sun of Norrath, while his red hair shivered in hot desert winds.

The travelers urged their horses onward and the party continued once more.

The words echoed around him, shattering his silent contemplation with the booming voice he had grown to love and cherish. “Uramph uzk gurzok.” Zisstrik opened his eyes and found himself perched on the edge of a crumbling road held up by nothing in an endless expanse of twisting colors. The air around him seemed to churn it’s way through his body, taking away all sounds along the dreamscape horizon with it. Only the great serpent’s voice remained to be heard. “Uramph uzk gurzok, Zisstrik,” the voice echoed once more.

Zisstrik struggled to his knees and held his arms outstretched above him. A smile was displayed across the troll’s other wise horrific face. “My master, at last you have come to me once more!” His words almost matched those of the dragon’s in intensity.

A pair of deep and serpentine eyes appeared on the twisting backdrop of the troll’s dream. “Death is coming,” the serpent said.

“Yes, master, I will bring death to all the temple heretics. The kingdom will be ours once more.”

Laughter, a horrible cackle of high pitched tones, erupted from everywhere at once. The colors around the troll shook violently and Zisstrik fell to the ground with his hands over his head. The sounds were too hideous even for the great prophet. “Fool!” the word made Zisstrik twitch, “Death is coming for YOU!” The scarred and reptilian visage of Trakanon, once great dragon god of the trolls, joined the pair of suspended eyes. His lips and fangs were curled down in a snarl of disdain.

Zisstrik picked himself up and looked meekly at his master. “What…what do you mean?”

“Before the day is through,” the dragon narrowed his eyes and breathed heavily, “you will be dead.”

Zisstrik’s eyes widened. “What? How?… Who?!”

“The temple has sent warriors to kill you. And kill you they will.”

The troll jumped to his feet and raised a fist into the air. Light crackled from the edges of his hand. “But I will stop them!”

“No, Zisstrik.” The dragon shook his head. “You will not.”

“But I am powerful enough to defeat even the greatest foes! I have fifty trolls ready to die for me,” the light extended around Zisstrik’s body, “and with your help, master, the fools will…”

“There will be no help.”

The light around the troll faded and Zisstrik lowered his arms. “What?” he asked in disbelief.

“I cannot help you. Death approaches and so I must go.”

Zisstrik’s jaw dropped in utter disbelief. “But, master,” he managed, “You can’t leave me. Not after all I have done for you.” The dragon turned his eyes away and did not answer. Zisstrik fumbled in his speech. “B…but you are the god of the trolls…with your power I could…”

“What am I?!” the dragon’s forked tongue flickered from over the edge of it’s fangs and the face drifted closer to Zisstrik. “What am I, you sniveling fool?!”

The troll began to tremble. “You…you are the king of the trolls.”

“No, Zisstrik. I am something different, but you are too stupid to realize it.” The face of the serpent faded. In it’s place formed an exact copy of the prophet: Zisstrik’s body clothed in Zisstrik’s robes. Only his face was mutated into the scaly and long form of the dragon’s own visage. “You made me! You made me because you were afraid and weak. You made me because you couldn’t live without me.”

Zisstrik faltered back on his feet, and fell to his knees again in confusion. His legs shook violently with bewilderment. “But…you gave me power.”

“The scrolls you stole. The pictures on the temple walls. Your own forgotten wishes. You pieced me together from all of these things and gave yourself the power.” The disfigured form before him actually grinned. “And now the pale skinned ghost of your own fears hunts for your blood in his black cloak. Now his sword searches for your throat. Now you are going to pay for your stupidity. Now you are going to die.”

The dragon’s form faded slowly into nothing, and the colors around Zisstrik solidified into dull shades of stone. The troll, whimpering with his head in his hands, twitched and shivered with fear and disbelief. Somewhere deep inside he fought to keep the truth from spreading, he fought against that which he already knew. “No…” he said quietly. From his body poured a red light which covered the dreamscape road like a spreading fire. “NO!” Zisstrik threw his arms into the air, his eyes closed and his mouth open and screaming. Small flickers of lightning danced up his skin. “Don’t leave me master!” The lightning spread around him and the floor beneath his legs began to crumble and drift away. The tears down his cheeks were burned away in sparks of red and white. “DON’T ABANDON ME!!” Bolts arced from his body and arms to the floor around him and the stone exploded into a thousand pieces, showering around the troll in a curtain of crystal shards.

Edril crawled along scalding sands under the shadow of a nearby hill. He moved without making a sound, sifting his way like a snake and carving a long trail in the desert behind him, before reaching the safety of the high rising dune. Once securely hidden in it’s shade, he turned on his back and shook layers of dust from the front of his dark robes and from between the strands of his silver hair. With one hand on the long handle of his curved blade, his narrow elven eyes searched left and right for any sign of detection. When he was confident no guards were approaching, he lowered his hood and looked back.

Behind him Aryn, Jalic, the trolls, and the ogres lay low behind other dunes and waited for a signal. Edril’s first impulse was to call out to the party, but he caught himself just in time to remain quiet. It was imperative he stay as silent as possible, for over the hill patrolled dozens of troll guards looking for any sign of an intruder and ready to kill on sight. Instead the elf slowly raised one arm and motioned for the rest to approach.

The party moved with a swiftness and grace Edril found very unnatural. Even the ogres, pulling themselves over the sand with powerful arms, seemed to be more quiet then the elf had expected. Then Edril remembered that while the soldiers were both young and extremely large, each was a seasoned warrior and hand picked by the high priest of Grobb. “Are we clear?” the barbarian asked as he drew closer. Aryn and Jalic were the first to reach the shadowed hiding place with the soldier Snargob and his band of four trolls close behind. The two ogres, Gromlyko and Kugrokh, purposefully stayed in the rear.

Edril nodded and spoke in whispers. “Yes, there are no guards around here. But I haven’t gotten a good look of the camp yet.”

Aryn looked around, the sand in his red beard showering to the floor. “I’ll have a peek, tell you what we can expect.” Taking hold of the edges of the sand dune, the barbarian, with a northern grace learned long ago from hunting the tundra animals of the Halas region, slowly crawled from under the protective shadow of the dune and over the top, so as to get a better view of the camp before them. He gazed into the valley below, counting the heads of troll guards and hiding his eyes from the shine of the sun off their glittering steel weaponry.

When the barbarian did not speak for some time Edril called up to him. “Aryn,” he quietly said, “What do you see?”

Aryn slid slowly down the dune, sitting next to the elf, and began to speak with a worried expression. “I count fifty maybe sixty heads. Little armor but all with weaponry.” Edril lowered his eyes to the floor and the barbarian sighed. “We can’t beat those odds, elf.”

Edril nodded his agreement and turned his head to Jalic. “Sixty guards to the ten of us. All armed and all willing to die. What’s the call Jalic?”

The small troll priest, his hands folded before him, stared behind the party across the desert horizon. “We cannot beat all his guards, this is true,” Jalic ran one finger across his green skinned face, “but the journey is still successful if we kill Zisstrik.”

“So what do we do?”

“All we need to accomplish is getting to Zisstrik. We clear the guards to get to him, then run when the traitor is dead. Then our mission is complete.”

“How do we get to him?”

Jalic turned his red eyes to Aryn. “Barbarian, you should have been able to see it from the top of the hill. Was there anything worth noting in the camp?”

Aryn stroked his beard. “Well… the entire camp is in a valley. From here it would be easy to charge down and make a surprise strike, but then we have to worry about the guards.”

“Any unusual structures?”

The barbarian nodded. “The camp is just groups of tents and old fires. Most are standard but right in the middle is a square shaped structure: dark, with flags all around it.”

Jalic lowered his eyes. “Then that is where Zisstrik lies.”

Aryn bit his upper lip and looked away. “Then we have bigger problems,” he continued, “and I mean big. I think that’s a sand giant sitting right in front of his tent. Just sitting there looking at the rest of the camp.” He chuckled bitterly. “Trolls and giants, I’ve never heard of such a thing.”

Jalic suddenly jerked his head up, his eyes wide and his scaly face contorted in a way Edril had never seen before. “A sand giant? Are you sure?” The barbarian nodded again. “He has more power then we thought. I was not expecting this.”

Both the elf and Aryn looked at each other. The barbarian raised an eyebrow. “Edril, it’s not too late to back out. If we can’t make it then there’s no reason…”

The ogre Kugrokh, a young warrior with red scars all over his chest and face, called up to the shadow of the dune in a low and cracked voice. “Dol treh bogoli uzk grokel.”

“Nek!” Jalic barked, a sound which even made Edril jump. “Hur uzk neg nedal ulornin.”

The ogre growled and looked away shamefully. After a brief pause, the barbarian spoke. “What did you say?”

Jalic turned his nose into the air. “He said you were a coward, afraid to enter battle. I told him you were just not stupid.” Aryn looked away and turned his eyes down, unable to thank a troll. “But barbarian, we cannot turn back now. We have come too far and too much is at stake here.”

“Jalic is right,” Edril agreed.

The barbarian turned his head back to the two and, after a brief hesitation, shrugged. “It’s a good day to die anyway. So what’s the plan? Between us and the giant stands about 15 guards, more to follow once the surprise wears off.”

Jalic folded his hands once more in front of him and thought for a moment silently. “Here’s what we do,” he finally answered. “We clear a path for a group to approach the giant and Zisstrik, one group pushes to the right and the other to the left. Everything has to be done quickly, and Zisstrik has to be killed in time enough for all of us to escape. But how do we organize this so that we have enough force…” Turning slightly to the soldiers behind him, Jalic began to rapidly explain the situation in their foreign tongue. The eyes of the ogres and trolls actually grew, filled with the fire of battle lust, and many of them smiled widely.

Aryn shook his head. “I don’t know what’s worse,” he remarked, “taking on the whole of the camp by ourselves or staying here with these crazy bastards.”

Gromlyko the ogre, pulling himself forward with a powerful arm, slapped Aryn on the front of the leg. “Me an’ yoo, hooman,” he managed, “we take giant. We bash ‘im goot.” The warrior smiled, two long fangs on either side of his mouth popping out from under his upper lip.

The barbarian ran a hand over his head and hair, then shrugged once more. “Sure, Grom.” Then he turned to Edril. “If I die, elf, make sure that son of dirty gnomish whore dies with me.”

“Then it is settled,” Jalic spoke. “One troll and Kugrokh will push left, Snargob and the other three will push right and charge first. Gromlyko and Aryn will fight to the giant and slay the beast. I will assisst wherever a shaman’s touch is necessary. And Edril, you are to wait back here until a path is cleared and then you are to kill Zisstrik the insane.”

Edril’s ears twitched. “What? But… why?”

“You are the fastest and you are deadly. We need it done right and we need it done quickly. You are the only one.”

Edril began to protest. He wanted to fight at the sides of the party, wanted to taste battle once more, but eventually saw the truth to the troll shaman’s words. The others were too large, too savage, and too sloppy to take care of Zisstrik. The elf finally nodded his agreement.

Jalic looked around. “Alright then, prepare yourselves. On the count of three.” The shaman looked all around at the warriors gathered and held his hand up to signal. “One.” Aryn unstrapped the large northern sword from his back and clenched his teeth. Grabbing hold of the side of the dune, he dug his heels into the sand and prepared for the surprise advance. “Two.” The ogres both rose to their knees and gripped their axes tightly with both powerful hands. The troll commander and his soldiers pulled their swords slowly from their sheaths. Each blade hissed across the leather in unison with the others. Edril picked himself up and place a timid hand on the hilt of his own blade. “THREE!”

Jalic dropped his arm and the troll commander Snargob with three of his warriors, all screaming madly to the sky, lunged over the dune. Their blades flickered in the sunlight. More sliding then running the four warriors poured down the steep slopes of the desert valley in a cloud of billowing dust. When their feet struck the firm ground of the valley’s floor they charge unfaltered as the spreading sand cloud seeped into the camp. One nearby guard pointed at the charging host and yelled before one of the warriors buried his sword between the guard’s neck and shoulder, silencing the yell into a series of bloody gurgles. Two more guards stumbled for their weapons but Snargob and his soldier cut them down before they could reach their tents. Three additional guards were silenced before the rest were able to collect their weapons and fight back. But still Snargob and his three warriors fought the guards back, pushing the troll traitors right in a bloody rampage. The four warriors fought viciously, their own harsh ferocity tempered by years of sword discipline.

More guards began to swarm around Snargob’s host, attempting to attack them from behind, as the ogre Kugrokh and the last troll warrior drifted down the valley wall. The two warriors crashed into the remaining guards with terrible cries of battle, slamming into the guards’ blindsides and tearing them apart. Kugrokh swung his greataxe madly and Zisstrik’s men, both surprised and overwhelmed, were tossed to either side. Their weapons snapped in half when put against the ogre’s own heavy blade. With the troll guards surprised and with the ogre’s savage bludgeoning as well as the troll warrior’s deft swordsmanship, both warriors bitterly pushed the line of guards to the left. Kugrokh the ogre howled with every kill.

But as seen from high above the valley, more guards from every side of the camp were preparing to advance on the attackers. “Come on! We don’t have much time!” Aryn yelled as he jumped over the dune and slid down the cliffside. Gromlyko followed close behind, his axe waving in the air above him. Both the ogre and barbarian charged up the path their comrades had carved for them. The crude tents on either side of the them blurred past as they ran towards the black hut in the middle of the valley. There sat the massive sand giant, just now aware of the scene unfolding before him, preparing to stand and charge. Two hidden guards suddenly came into the path before Aryn and the ogre and lunged with weapons outstretched. The barbarian stepped to the side for one of them, bringing his long sword slamming into the guard’s chest and killing the troll almost instantly. Gromlyko caught the other lunging guard in midair by the throat, held him out, sliced the troll across the stomach with the edge of his axe, and tossed the body away. After a short additional run over the haphazard camp terrain Aryn and Gromlyko finally were in the shadow of the massive giant.

The beast stood with a vicious grin and a low, rumbling chuckle. He stood hunched over the two warriors and stretched his massive muscles and wicked claws. Gazing down at the two with blood red eyes he thundered the words “must protect master!” across the valley and brought both arms into the air. First he punched down at the barbarian. Aryn, first holding his sword up in defense then deciding against it, barely dove out of the way before the monster’s fist struck the ground, sending large clumps of sand showering everywhere. Where Aryn was standing remained a deep crater. The beast tried another punch aimed at Gromlyko. The ogre also dived out of the way just as the giant struck, but then jumped for the giant’s arm while the dust was still settling. His axe in one hand and the giant’s arm in the other, Gromlyko bit down into the creature’s flesh with all his fangs. The giant howled and flailed his arm madly, but Gromlyko could not be shaken off. The beast’s blood trickled down the ogre’s body. The barbarian, picking up his dropped sword and shaking the dirt from it’s surface, took the opportunity for his own offensive. Aryn dove into the fray and jumped for the giant’s chest, taking hold of some loose skin and driving the point of his sword through the center of the beast’s midsection. When the giant’s screams seemed almost unbearable even to the ears of the mighty barbarian, he removed his sword for another strike.

“By the gods, just die!!” Aryn cried as he twisted his blade into the same wound. The creature only howled louder, twisting and writhing in pain. Gromlyko, his jagged teeth still buried deep within the gaint’s arm, brought his axe back and launched the weapon straight for the monster. The axe edge hit the sand giant directly in the middle of it’s neck, cutting it’s way far inside, and the creature’s screams were silenced as a red river of the giant’s own blood began to seep from the base of the monster’s head and down it’s chest. With one quick motion born of pain and desperation, the sand giant forced Aryn off it’s body with a powerful swipe of his hand and pulled the long sword out, tossing it away. The barbarian hit the ground with tremendous speed and slid across the desert floor, his body covered in stinging sands. Gromlyko too was forced down with a sudden blow, tearing some skin away with him and rolling off into the dust. The sand giant finally fell to his knees, holding his stomach and neck with both hands, and looked out at the warriors with narrowed eyes. A hot breath hissed from behind rows of sharp fangs, and the creature snarled when he saw both warriors lying before him, helpless and without their weapons. The giant slowly moved forward and prepared for one final strike.

Jalic the shaman, his flowing robes of red trailing in the winds behind him, made his way slowly down the battlefield path as guards from all sides screamed in torment. All around him Zisstrik’s men writhed on the floor, grabbing their faces and bodies in pain, while black smoke rose from the corpses of others who had dared to challenge the student of the high priest. He carved his own path through a wall of guards. Fire danced from the small troll’s hands like it does from the sun, and flames erupted all around the experienced shaman, burning the skin of any foolish troll who dared to approach him an obsidian black. With unnatural speed the shaman found his way to the fallen Gromlyko and Aryn, and grinned up at the giant. The beast, sensing power in the tiny aggressor, began to make a slow retreat. Jalic shook his head and raised his arms high above him. A shaft of bright light erupted from the shaman’s body and found it’s way into the wound Aryn had dug in the creature and then out the creature’s back. The giant began to tremble. The beast also raised both arms as the light, screeching through the dry desert air, spread throughout the monster’s body, flickering out the wounds both down it’s arms and in it’s neck. After a while the light died down and only the soft sound of sizzling skin remained. Black smoke poured from the giant’s dead eyes, and the beast’s empty corpse slumped over into the sand. The valley shook when the dead monster fell. Aryn and Gromlyko, who both slowly picked themselves up, shook their heads clear and thanked the gods they were still alive.

And over it all, watching and waiting from the very top of the valley’s cliffsides, stood the elven warrior Edril. As soon as he saw the giant fall he slid his single edged curved blade from it’s sheath and carefully made his way across the cliffside sands. His feet pounded the ground when he began his run down the path, and his silver hair trailed behind him with the waving flaps of his black cloak. All around him guards fell, and each screamed their failure to the prophet who sat and watched somewhere inside his dark tent. One guard tried to strike Edril from the side with his axe, but the elf spun in time with his own blade to slice the wooden handle of the weapon, his swordedge cutting the axe in two. Then Edril buried his blade in the guard’s skull. The troll shivered slightly then slumped to the sands below. Edril watched him without a change of expression while inside something in the elf was heated and alive.

He slid his blade from the troll’s corpse gracefully and watched as the guard’s blood trickled down the edge and to the sands below. Something about the scene seemed right to Edril, something about the troll’s blood and the troll’s death brought peace to the elf’s heart. He felt calm and alive once more, and turned his head in grim determination. Just ahead lay the dark tent of the lord of this camp. Edril continued again, his sword clenched tightly in one hand, his cloak drifting in the dust behind him. Edril moved quickly, his only thought on meeting the one they called Zisstrik the prophet.

Death traveled with him.

[to be concluded]

Tale by BloodWyrm

Zisstrik the Prophet (finale)

He entered the hollow quarters with a slight brush of his hand, pushing away the entrance flaps to the dark enclosure with slender fingers. His narrow eyes, both slanted from his elven genealogy and hardened by his experience as a swordsman, darted left and right in search for any sign of an opponent. His muscles tensed, naturally sensing danger nearby and preparing themselves, while his fair elven skin shivered with anticipation. Edril’s cloak, a black hooded shroud wrapped around a layer of leather armor, trailed behind him as he began forward, hiding the movement of his legs and making the warrior look as if he were floating over the sifting sands of the desert of Ro. Down his back cascaded long, silvery hair. In reality he moved slowly and with hesitation, each step harder then the last, each movement his legs stiffening just a little more with a fear he had not felt in many years. It was the fear that from this encounter he might not return.

High above the flags surrounding the dark tent waved madly in the air, filling the inside of the large dwelling with an eerie drumming as they crashed into buffets of wind.

His sword was first to enter, the single edged and curved blade was held outstretched before him with both his hands. The unyielding darkness on the inside of the hut swallowed the sword as it passed through. Edril made his way in slowly, the entrance flaps of the tent falling over his shoulders, and the thick shade of the dwelling fell across his body as well. For a second Edril was just glad to be out from under the desert sun. Still fearful for his own life, which actually surprised the elf, he was pushed farther inward by something inexplicable. Something in the brief moments outside the tent, where battle still raged with tremendous fury, had brought clarity and focus to the elf, a feeling he rarely could duplicate outside the fields of war. Something about his present encounter, the enemies before him and the enemies at his back, caressed the deepest parts of his soul with seductive fingers. It was something Edril had fought with his whole life, fought and lost.

The dwelling was for the most part nondescript. His feet walked grudgingly across a floor of sand shaped by stones and gems into what resembled a set of steps. The makeshift staircase led downward only a little into a sort of pit dug beneath the roof of the leather hut. Surrounding the sunken level was a ledge that circled the entire enclosure where the bottoms of the tent were fastened and where innumerous candles danced and flickered with yellow fire. In the center of the large pit was painted a red circle surrounded on all sides by similar runes born from arcane lore. Shadows crawled up the hut’s colorless walls everywhere except the far corner of the room where a grey throne of sand and stone was built, glaring down at the rest of the pit. And on this throne, his form made black by the shadows of his house, sat Edril’s prey.

The elf made his way slowly down the stairs, now surrounded by the stone walls of the ledge, and gripped the long handle of his sword even tighter. “Zisstrik,” the elf hissed from lips that barely moved.

Zisstrik the prophet raised his head slowly, his entire form slumped in the chair, and peered at Edril with tired and colorless eyes. His lips curled into a nasty grin, showing rows of stained fangs, and his hands moved to the armrests at his side. The troll’s body, both thin and malnourished, was lost in the thick folds of his lavish robe. “You have come,” he said in barely a whisper, “you have come to deliver my demise.” The troll raised a thin finger into the air. “He told me you would come.”

Edril said nothing and stood his ground, his sword positioned high next to him and ready to strike.

“Ah,” the troll’s grin faded, “You want to know who.” Zisstrik stood slowly, his eyes suddenly burning with a hatred that made Edril’s skin crawl. “Trakanon, lord of the trolls, lord of all Norrath, spoke to me in my sleep. He is the one that told me of your coming. He is the one who said you carried death at your back. And now, Edril, your name haunts my dreams.” The prophet threw his head back and cackled, his hands raised into the air. “But we shall see. We shall see who dies here today!”

“You’re a madman, Zisstrik,” Edril finally said. His sword was still readied unwavering beside him and his eyes, unblinking, were focused on those of Zisstrik. “Trakanon left your people centuries ago and is probably dead. Kul’ash admitted as much to me. You know me because you have power, strange power. But the rest is just an illusion.”

The troll sneered and growled, his fingers clenched into tight fists. “Kul’ash is a liar and a fool! They will all fall beneath the power of my lord. Norrath will worship at his feet!”

“Where is your god then, Zisstrik? Where is the dragon to help you here? If he is as powerful as you claim then why hasn’t he come already?”

“He speaks to me in dreams…”

“But why doesn’t he help!?”

The troll looked away with a distant stare, his already tired eyes almost falling shut. Zisstrik’s voice dripped with a deep felt sorrow and apprehension. “Because…he left me. He left me because you were coming… because I was not good enough.” He looked back to the elf. “But he will return when I…”

“If he abandoned you then what good is he?!” Edril took a step closer. “Zisstrik, use your power to strengthen your people. You could rule the temple in place of Kul’ash. You could be a valuable asset to the kings of Antonica. But this is madness. It doesn’t have to end this way.”

Zisstrik laughed again, his hollow voice ringing in the elf’s ears. “The temple? Kingdoms of Norrath?” The troll held his right hand to his side and a jagged edged sword flashed into existence within the tight grip of his fingers. “They will all burn before me!” Hot flames exploded around his weapon, crawling up the silver blade. “And so will you!”

Zisstrik lunged forward with a quickness Edril was not expecting, slicing down for the elf’s head. Edril brought his own sword up to deflect the blade, parrying Zisstrik’s blow with an innate elven grace and his own warrior instincts, and then quickly arced his sword around once more for a strike to the troll’s neck. Amazingly Zisstrik was able to bring his blade horizontally above him to counter the blow. He placed his sword perfectly, slightly diagonal across his chest and above his head so Edril’s sword would slide right off, and for the first time the elf noticed a faint blue glow flickering around the troll’s body. Zisstrik’s newfound warrior prowess was magical in nature only. Edril attempted two more strikes, both quickly slashing left and right across the troll’s torso in one fluid motion, but found the prophet’s blade blocking the elf’s own sword every time. The constant clash of steel on steel echoed throughout the enclosure.

Finally Zisstrik took the initiative and brought his sword arcing down for Edril’s legs. The elf jumped, the weapon passing quickly beneath him, and then fell to one knee as Zisstrik slashed in a movement more quick then Edril had ever seen for the elf’s head once more. Both swords were locked together above Edril’s head, the troll’s vertically the elf’s horizontally, and he felt the fire of Zisstrik’s blade searing his eyes.

“You cannot win, elf,” Zisstrik growled from behind clenched teeth. “You don’t have the strength.” With a movement speeded by powerful sorceries, Zisstrik brought his left hand across Edril’s face while his sword vanished from sight. Grabbing the sides of the elf’s head and digging into Edril’s flesh with his claws, Zisstrik smiled and forced the warrior to both knees. The elf lowered his sword to the ground. “You are weak and so you must die. Feel what true power is.” Edril felt his skin pull tight against the surface of his very skull, and tried to scream when he felt his entire face begin to burn. No voice came though, and he tried fiercely to escape the prophet’s hold. “You will feel pain and I will be the victor! And then my lord will come once more!” Smoke began to rise from the prostrated Edril and his body trembled violently. “Now die, elf! Die! Die! Die! Feel the sorrow you have delivered to countless others! Death has been waiting for you!!”

With a motion born only from intense desperation, Edril flailed his arm and swung his sword madly before him. The blade struck the side of Zisstrik’s lower leg and cut straight through to the bone. The troll howled and reeled back, releasing Edril and shouting spells to the air around him. A thick needle of stone shot up from the sand and struck Edril in the shoulder, biting it’s way through skin and bone and out the elf’s back. The warrior screamed horribly, one arm limp and the other gripping the stone needle in a failed attempt to pry his body loose. Zisstrik only smiled.

“Your screams are like music.” His tongue flicked from behind curled lips. “So many screams and all for me. Listen, Edril.” The troll limped his way closer to the entrance of the tent while the elf shivered on the edge of the magic stone. His blood trickled down it’s rough surface. “Listen to the screams from outside. My minions die for me, give their lives to protect me, because I am the conduit to their god. And you thought you could kill me? You thought you had the strength to take on the lord of trolls? No, elf, because I have power! Power that you could never possess!” Waving his arm in a single, graceful motion, the air crackled and stirred the sand in Zisstrik’s pit. An intense and unseen force was thrown against Edril, shattering the stone needle and sending the elf slamming into the far wall. “You are but my shadow, elf. A dark thing that stalks at my back. And now you must die.”

Edril, his arm still quivering and blood running from the wound in his shoulder as well as down his face, sat up slowly and glared at the prophet. His voice shook and his body trembled. “To the hell fires with you,” he managed, “to the hellfires with you and your power!”

Zisstrik chuckled. “You first,” he said and raised both arms. The air around him came alight with sparks of glistening red. From everywhere wind and power was stretched toward him, and the very air around him was drained of all sound and color. An azure glow surrounded the troll’s body as his spell was prepared and his eyes burned with an inner fire.

For the first time Edril was faced with the prospect of his own death. His mind and heart seized up with intense fear. His reason unable to guide his actions in the face of such devastation and horror, the elf’s instincts, honed for decades on the battlefields of numerous kingdoms and in the face of countless enemies, took control. His hand wrapped tightly around the long handle of the sword which still was gripped at his side, and his arm innately brought the weapon over his head. Pushing his whole body forward, his muscles tore and blood gushed from wounds that were beginning to close but his sword was sent soaring through the crackling air of the dark enclosure. The blade whistled and twirled against the wind pouring from Zisstrik’s oncoming spell before crashing into the troll directly in his chest. Zisstrik was carried off his feet and the sparks around him faded into nothing.

He landed hard on his back with the edge of Edril’s weapon jutting vertically from his midsection. The troll gasped several times and coughed up blood. Edril picked himself up slowly as the troll writhed on the floor of sand, using the wall next to him as support, and warily walked to the fallen body with tired legs. When he reached the troll, he pulled his blade out quickly and picked the prophet up by the neck with his injured arm.

Zisstrik’s eyes were empty and sunken and his expression bore the sorrowed visage of someone who knew he was beaten. He spoke meekly as blood ran from the corners of his mouth. “I…I can’t feel…my body.” His head dropped to his chest. “You’ve won…elf…you’ve won. I was the weaker. I…was…foolish.” He laughed and more of his blood dripped to the sands. “Trakanon…was he ever with me?…The temple. The temple…made me what I am. And now…they’ve unmade me…their fault…their fault.” He coughed once more. “Well played, Edril…well played.” The elf, his eyes filled with a burning anger from beneath a layer of blood that covered his face, raised his sword into the air. “No…no please…don’t.” Zisstrik looked up to the stern face of the injured Edril with eyes of terrible sadness. Tears ran down the troll’s neck and cheek. “What am I now?…Just tired and old. Not…the servant of any god…not the shaman of any tribe…not a fighter…not…anything.” He lowered his eyes once more. “And I’m not the answer you seek Edril. I’m not the answer to your burning enigma. Because the life of a tired troll means nothing…and your answer…cannot be found…in death.”

Edril raised his own stinging eyes and loosened his grip as the words of the past elven emperor Carandril, the only true friend the warrior ever had, raced to him from the mouth of the beaten troll. The realization hit him that he in fact wasn’t going to kill Zisstrik to appease his anger, nor to please the high priest Kul’ash. Edril found within himself that part he feared and loathed most horribly, that part he could not live without. And along the troll’s slumped and withered form, now vulnerable and dying, Edril saw the images of his own wife and child and the curse he would bring to them all because it was the curse he brought with him everywhere. It was the curse of death. Edril fought within himself to return to the soldier deep inside, the same man his wife had grown to love and others had grown to respect. He fought for his humanity, as killing the troll would only serve to quench the elf’s own taste for blood. Zisstrik’s passing would only send Edril further into the oblivion the warrior had carved within himself, that space deep within the elf’s soul that was left void and kept him searching for an answer that would never come. An answer about himself that he sought only on the fields of the dead, in the blood of his fallen, in the cries of his enemies, in the sword at his side.

But that unanswerable part of himself was too strong, and something inside Edril snapped taught once more. His mind was clear, his muscles ached no more, and his eyes were filled with all the loathing and hatred of a hunter and a killer. Edril lost yet again that battle within himself and brought his blade down against the neck of the prostrated troll, denying himself once more the truth of his soul and the peace he wrongly sought through war.

His sword passed through Zisstrik’s neck easily and the troll’s severed body slumped to the floor. The sands beneath Zisstrik, prophet of the great dragon Trakanon, ran red with his own blood.

The scarred ogre and the barbarian dashed madly to join their companions. Zisstrik’s men, now fully aware of the attackers, were swarming over the powerful host of nine warriors. Each cried madly for the blood of those who sought to slay their demigod, and the ever growing wave of guards was becoming too much for Jalic’s men. Three of the warriors, all part of the command under the troll warrior Snargob who still was fighting to the bitter end with one soldier at his side, had already been overwhelmed and slain.

“Come on, Grom!” Aryn yelled as he crashed into a host of guards attacking one of their companions: the ogre Kugrokh. This ogre, now fighting all by himself, had lost his weapon long ago and was trying desperately to keep away four trollish swordsman with only his bare fists. New wounds ran over his body, carved by the sharp edge of the trolls’ jagged weapons.

Aryn yelled to the desert sun as he began his attack, waving his large northern sword in wild and powerful circles, striking anything around him. His blows were fueled by a ferocity honed on the icy fields of Halas, and the trolls were crushed before his frenzied strikes. As the barbarian continued his run forward to force the guards back, Gromlyko separated from behind him to help Snargob and his soldier. The dead corpses of his enemies were thrown from side to side, and the ogre advanced with a terrible fury, using claws and fangs and his axe all together for one wild and unstoppable charge.

The barbarian tore through the next host of trolls he came to. His blade cut straight through the necks of two guards before deflecting the blade of a third. This guard he cut straight across the middle, slicing the stomach open, and then brought his sword once more down between the troll’s neck and shoulder. But before he could complete the kill with a last strike, the sword of another guard found it’s way into the barbarian’s back, cutting through skin with sharp impressions of intense pain. Aryn’s mouth fell open in a silent scream, he dropped his northern sword to the sands at his side, and the troll who had finally gotten to the vicious warrior forced the barbarian’s body off his blade with a harsh kick to the shoulders. Aryn sprawled to the dirt and turned slowly around, his eyes searching for the one who would be his killer, while horrible anguish seeped through every fiber of his body.

The unfamiliar troll behind him glared and raised his sword for one final strike. Suddenly the guard’s form was wrapped in a powerful light and flashes of something that seered the troll’s flesh danced around and through his body. The lightning jumped from limb to limb and the guard’s skin was burned away in a billow of black smoke, his jaw dropping open. The charred skeleton of Aryn’s would-be-killer crumbled into the dirt, leaving behind it the form of Jalic the troll shaman, who ended his spell with a wave of his hands and a slight grin across his lips.

“You’re a lucky one, barbarian,” the shaman said in his customary deep throated tone.

Aryn forced himself to his knees. “Only because of you, Jalic. Now let’s…”

The barbarian’s own gruff voice was interrupted by a loud whistle that tore through the air and wind overhead. The warriors each looked up and saw the faint outlines of dozens of long, black shafts against the cloudless sky begin their descent. From somewhere high along the ridge of the valley camp the arrows fell, their whistle becoming a scream, and rained down across the base of the camp, their knife edged points tearing into whatever they could find. Most of the arrows just struck the gathered troll guards, but several slammed into the defenseless bodies of the remaining temple warriors. Kugrokh was hit in the leg, the arrow passing straight through the limb and forcing the mighty ogre to the ground, while Jalic fell back as a shaft bit into his left shoulder. Snargob was struck in the stomach and the warrior reeled forward, and his soldier was hit in the neck by an arrow that almost spelled instantaneous death. Gromlyko, still trying to fight madly, was hit by two arrows: one in the leg and one in the arm. The ogre stumbled forward with howls of pain. Aryn, the only one left unscathed, peered to the valley’s horizon and saw a long row of so far hidden troll archers draw a second round of arrows from the sand.

Jalic slowly propped himself up on one elbow and looked to the barbarian. “What do we do now?” he asked, his mind absent of any plan.

Aryn kept his gaze focused on the valley’s edge, where the archers readied the arrows in their bows and locked eyes with the warriors below them. All around the camp other troll guards began to scatter. “Now we die.” He concluded as the trolls drew the strings on their weapons taught and prepared to fire once again.

The powerful voice erupted from the very center of the camp. “STOP!” it cried and everyone, even the archers and the fallen warriors, turned their heads in amazement. Edril, his legs shaking and only one eye open from under a layer of his own blood, limped his way out from the confines of the dark tent of Zisstrik while looks of dismay and horror crossed the face of every guard in the valley. His black form was outlined by the evening sun at his back. Behind him he dragged his sword in the sand, and his cloak billowed in the wind as he made his way slowly forward. He spoke to everyone gathered in a voice that bounced off every wall in the desert camp, even though his eyes did not move at all. “YOUR PROPHET IS DEAD!” he screamed in a tone that even made Aryn shiver, and then he thrust his right arm into the air. Held dangling in his hand was the severed head of the lord of this camp, it’s mouth and eyes open in a horrible moment of panic. “IT IS OVER!” the elf finished as he tossed the head of his prey into the air.

The thing hit hard in the sands below, kicking up a small trail of dust as it rolled forward past long lines of makeshift tents and animal skin huts. Every troll gathered watched it pass with large eyes of disbelief before falling to the sands themselves, their weapons dropped and their heads in their hands. A loud cry erupted from the valley and slowly faded into nothing.

Aryn picked himself up shakily, the wind through his red hair and beard being the only sound that came to his ears. All around him the guards of the prophet, even the archers, had collapsed and remained sobbing to the dirt below them. He smiled once, thankful to the gods for his own safety, and then turned his head to Edril.

The elf, whose face was covered with a grim stare, stood motionless as his blood slithered down the contours of his body. He fell straight forward and closed his eyes, hitting the floor of the desert of Ro face first. Sands blew over his dark cloak and silvery hair, and his sword was buried in dust.

Somewhere deep inside the highest tower of the temple of Cazic-Thule, a dark monument of black stones cast against the backdrop of a grey and dismal sky, strolled the small and shriveled form of a troll who had lived for too many years. The old one was clothed in the over sized and dark robes befitting a ruler of his stature. The gold jewelry around his ears, neck, and fingers shook and jingled as he hobbled across his room of old scrolls and older mosaics.

“What news?” asked Kul’ash the old high priest, his voice edged in poison, to the sentry who had entered just a few seconds before.

The troll soldier, both very young and strong but still shaking in the presence of his lord, answered quickly. “Zisstrik the insane, my lord,” he cleared his throat to continue, “is now dead.”

Seemingly unfazed by the news, the high priest turned his head away. The light from a large and nearby window fell across the wrinkles in his withered skin. “And what of his followers?”

“His camp has been destroyed and his followers scattered in every direction. There are reports of mass suicide in some areas. In other areas the trolls just seem desperately lost and hopeless.”

“And of my warriors? How are they doing?”

“The ogres, Snargob, and the barbarian have all recovered. Preparations are being made for their departure. The elf was injured more greatly, however, and is still in the process of recuperation.”

Kul’ash leaned with a thin arm against the stone chair to his left. “Will he survive?”

“Yes. Our shamans tell us that his wounds will heal.”

“Good. Once that is done pay him well for his services and send word to his wife in Qeynos.”

The soldier, whose ears twitched with confusion, spoke in a timid voice. “Sir?…pay him?”

“Yes,” the high priest nodded, “he has earned it. Our nemesis is dead isn’t he?” The soldier quickly agreed. “Now leave me, Narog. I wish to be alone.”

Narog the sentry gave one last respectful bow, turned on his heel, and left almost in a run.

The high priest, drawing closer to the window, walked forward with some difficulty. His legs ached if moved too quickly. Once at the glass he peered across the thatched roofs of the tenements which constructed his black city of Grobb, the kingdom he alone ruled with a tyrannical fist. Far below, anguished screams echoed in his ears and fire light from somewhere in the city flickered in the troll’s own blood red eyes.

Kul’ash the high priest, first servant of the dark god Cazic-Thule, actually smiled.

[the end]

Tale by BloodWyrm