‡Part One ‡


†


“Anét, Orshcrist, Poshaden.”


Chapter One
Clean Up

Treaf slowly got up from his huddled position and clenched his stomach. It hurt a little less now, but he was still going through pains.
But he soon decided that sitting there was not going to help the situation at all. The other men and the rest of the warriors were out cleaning up, and they had the injuries of their own. Maybe not as gruesome as Treaf’s, but they were still a burden.
So he walked painfully back to the front gate, which was straight ahead of him now. When he reached them he pushed at the wood with all his might and they soon opened, the wood creaking and groaning under the regular strain.
Once Treaf was in the battle field a new world opened up before him. The dirt and sky was gray, along with other dull colors that would appear on a cloudy cold day.
He walked over to the groups of people in the field, who were bending down and picking up the remains of weapons and creatures alike and putting them in carts. He did not want to get there too soon so he went slowly instead of running. He was not in the physical state to do so, and that would make it clear that he was not being lazy. In fact he should not have been out of the hospital right now if the nurses had been in charge.
When he got there they of course asked him if he should really be out of the hospital right then and he replied sharply that he did not care. If he would not have been shot with the crossbow in the first place half of his misery would be gone.
But even through all of this he bent down to pile a few scattered pieces of armor into his arms. Soon they were filled and after that he walked over to put them into one of the surrounding carts. When he neared it he could see that the cart was already half full, and not only with armor and weapons, but with severed body limbs, whole bodies, and other disgusting things. Well, I guess I’ll have to sort out the same things, Treaf thought. He disliked this part of the job, but he would just have to get through it, holding his breath at the dead bodies of the fallen enemy.
After a few more minutes the carts were hauled away by more of the men who had survived the attack on the city, most likely those few who had not fought.
But Treaf shrugged, after all things like this did not matter. So after this thought he started picking up the leftover trash of the battle, along with all the others around him who had followed his steady gaze.

At about midday they had a short break, with water only. Treaf was not disappointed that they had no food, for eating around all those dead bodies would be disgusting, even though Treaf would take his blood-stained gloves off. His inside hands would be clean, but still: maybe it was the stench that was the most bothering.
After the water had come and gone they all got back to work again, but all of them were tired and wounded, so there was no enthusiasm in the barren battlefield.

Mildo was among those whom were cleaning all the remains off of the ramparts. He found this unfair, for he had only fought up there for a short time in the battle. But he did have to admit that the work up there had a chance of being easier than the work that he saw Treaf doing right then.
Now he was thinking of how sore his legs were as he strode down the length of the wooden platforms along the top of the walls. His feet were heavy against the boards and dust leapt from them as he crossed. Carrying a pile of spears that had not been used, he finally neared a basket where they all were putting the disused or broken things of war. He frowned as he realized painfully that the spears could never fit in the little, strong basket. He scowled. This was not going as he wanted. Now what would he do? Where else would there be to put it? Thinking hard for a good idea, he sat there squatting on the boards. Suddenly he came to something and a moment later he dropped them where they were. His thoughts were that someone else could come by and take them, perhaps someone who even knew where to put them. So with this he continued his work.
If one looked into the city they could not see many people bustling about like a normal city would, for the only ones left were a few women and barely any children. At least six elders remained, and Mildo was very thankful that they had not fallen to the wrath of the Blackwolf Spirits. Thanks to Treaf, Mildo added to himself. He could have saved all of them—if he had been there at the time, anyway, and if he knew magic, and if the Elder was with him, and if he was not too absent-minded to do all of them in the first place. But he was, so he vowed that he would learn magic just how Treaf had.
So shaking this off, he continued his long, tedious work.


At once, in a flurry of his silk cloak, the king strode from his small throne and rested his hand on his silver and black hand-and-a-half sword which rested and bounced at his hip with each step. His hair hung over his face, and he had a displeased expression.
Soon he arrived at his destination.
“Commander, is it true that only thirty of my men have survived the battle?” He asked angrily. He had just heard the news, and he was of course not happy. At least two hundred of his precious men had been killed. What would become of them now if they were attacked?
“Yes, that is correct, sir,” the commander said in return calmly. The king then walked away, too corrupt to discuss any more important issues of theirs. What had these outsiders done? They had used up all of the city’s soldiers to defeat an enemy that they shared combat with alone. None of those in The Jaragon knew what this enemy was really all about. It had just happened that they had attacked their city.
He stopped his fast stride at the large door that led outside of his private ‘house’ or whatever one could call it. He grunted when the doors refused to open. What use was being a king when he was not even let out of his own place?
“Guards! Open the gates!” He screamed out. They had obviously forgotten to unlock the doors when the battle had passed.
Soon there came to ear a creaking and groaning and soon the masses of wood parted to become an opening. He strode through, impatient to see the battlefield with his own eyes.
Once he stepped out of the house a fury of wind made a tearing sound as it whipped past him, sending his clothes billowing uncontrollably. Leaves and other pieces of things whipped past him in the wind, and he was greeted with coldness. The weather was colder than he had last remembered.
But he did not pay attention to the coldness biting at him but instead walked on down the street that he was now on. Buildings were all around him now, and a few decorative trees and shrubs showed themselves at some corners of buildings.
It took him a few minutes before he was in sight of the building where they had previously made arrows during the battle. He knew that the front gates were right in front of this, and so he was pleased that he was getting close. Finally he would see that battle grounds for himself! He was not pleased, however, that he had not been allowed to see that actual battle when it had taken place. That would have been very interesting indeed, but he saw the reasons that he had not been allowed to do so. After all, he could have been struck dead by a stray arrow if he had been left outside to do as he wished. Then the civilians would have no king and they would be a wandering path of sheep without a shepherd.
Two minutes later he reached the front gates. He climbed up the ramparts quickly and plowed his way through the people who were cleaning up the remains of the battle as it had been quite high up. The men that were there were very surprised to see their king being so outright in coming up to the ramparts so abruptly. But he was pleased to see that the clean up of the battlefield was going well and that progress was laying its hand in the work. He stood there for quite a bit, looking at all the tangled bodies there laying on the ground. Weapons were also there all scattered in heaps and piles, some singular, and some in small groups.
After a few more minutes passed he decided to go back inside. He had seen what he wanted, and it was quite cold outside anyway. There was no reason to stay out longer.
So he walked back to the bottom of the streets where the staircases to the ramparts were and then continued the walk to his house from there.

Treaf looked about himself as he stretched his neck painfully. It was a very tiring business, bending down so many times and picking up the load in your arms, later just to dump them into a cart. This was hard especially since Treaf was injured, and each time he bent down his side hurt.
He was especially aggravated once when he bent down; trying to pluck a sword from the ground, but the blade was tangled in with a few other weapons which were buried in some armor that was on a dead body. “Blasted thing!” Treaf said to himself angrily. He was not in the mood for this. Then he tried again, and it still would not come. Then with his own sword he hacked as hard as he could through the whole thing, destroying the pieces of body and armor alike. Then he frowned as he slid the sword out. The whole thing was a pile of slimy things, and he had to be the one to clean it up. It would have been simpler to take off the things on top first, Treaf reminded himself painfully. Why did everything have to be so hard? But then he shrugged it off, because he was bound to make a mistake once in a while. If he just wasn’t so tired he would be in a better mood, though. He was very sore also, and in a lot of pain. He remembered traveling through the Goshopian forest and thinking of how he would finally have the chance to rest and do other such things besides traveling. But he had been wrong like so many other times when he had been wrong also. This was definitely not a time of such things! They would even have to gather a whole army all over again. And they could not use the king’s troops, because they had been spent on a battle that had nothing to do with them. Then he remembered what the Elder had said to him a few hours ago: The Blackwolf Spirits are hunting you. And the old man had said also not to fight them if he was not around. How could that possibly happen? The elder would have to be with him right when the Spirit attacked. He couldn’t just run off during a battle. The Blackwolf Spirits would just follow him. And what if the Elder died in one of the coming battles? I guess I’ll just have to learn magic, Treaf thought. Even Mildo could do it. It definitely would be good protection in the battles yet to come, but finding the time to learn it would be a different matter. They were so busy these days there was barely enough time for sleep.
These troubles came to Treaf quite a bit as he worked through all the rest of the time until the carts were carried away, all full of trash that was very disgusting indeed to go through. Once in a while Treaf even felt like puking, but he resisted it somehow, gagging all the way through it. He looked around a lot, probably because he stopped at every excuse to rest. The work was very boring and monotonous also, so that only added to the misery.

Mildo almost screamed in frustration. There were simply not enough men to do the job! Things were going so slow it seemed that there was no hope in finishing at all. There was so much stuff on the ramparts that had to be hauled away, so many scattered weapons, and a lot of other things. The whole length of the ramparts where men had fought during the battle was lined with things they had yet to clean up. I guess if I stop working the process will be even worse, he decided, slowly dragging his body away from leaning over the edge of the railings, looking over at the forest on the other side of the baron fields that had been used as the battlefield. It looked just as it had before the battle, except for a few broken bushes and other large plants where the enemy had come through for the first time. That had definitely been a very terrifying moment, especially for Mildo, for he had been out in the front lines, and it was very lucky that he had survived at all. After all so many other people had died, so why hadn’t one of them been him? It had been a slim chance that it hadn’t been, but Mildo was glad that he had survived. But I guess I’m no High Novice of the Scout’s Academy anymore, he thought, smiling. Those had been easy days, but more so for Treaf then him. After all Mildo had worked very hard to gain his position in the Scout’s academy. Treaf had done—well…nothing. He just sat around, enjoying his time with that friend of his, Ietuqe. Mildo wondered who was a closer friend to Treaf now, and it soon came to him that the answer was he. The two of them had been through a lot together, definitely more then Ietuqe. They had just been friends from the start.
Shoving all of this away, Mildo got back to his hard work. He was definitely looking forward to when this was done and he could rest.


Chapter Two
Training of Arms

Treaf woke up to a very loud morning, one with the loud bird and other regular hubbub of the city. In fact Treaf actually thought that he had heard a cart moving down below him, and he decided that he would try not to be in a bad mood that day.
But then something happened, and he realized a fact that he had seemed to have forgotten. We are now in The Jaragon. Treaf groaned and got out of bed, feeling very heavy and annoyed. He didn’t really know why he was in a bad mood, for he had been in bed and enjoyed dreams of who-knows-what hours ago.
Once he was out of bed he realized that there was no one else in the room, for they had already gotten up and probably gone to work. The thought of work put Treaf in even worse of a mood, so he decided to think of the present and not worry about how sore he would be when he tried to lift something. It’s kinda weird—yesterday we were all fighting large beasts and trying to defend this city, and now we’re trying to repair al of it. I bet the King is pretty upset that we basically totaled his army. Treaf smirked. He in a way realized that he had an inkling of wanting to meet the King in person. He had seen him once before, but that was just across the room during a meeting. I wonder what would have happened if Malock hadn’t been right when he said that the Blackwolf Spirits would probably attack us. If they had never even attacked, he would probably be punished because of lying to the beloved King, which would be considered a public offense.
After thinking of this Treaf realized that he was truly wasting time when he hadn’t even put on his shirt. Now was not the time and age to stall.
After a few quick steps down the stairs Treaf heard a lot of bustling, talking, and the aroma of food. There were scraping of plates, and other various sounds that Treaf could not identify with what he knew about. Hah. I guess I’m not too late for breakfast.
After a bit of walking he reached a table where a few of the Seven Warlords were seated. The food had already been served, but there was plenty on the table for Treaf to eat, for it was not the same system of a restaurant. There was the simple order to distribute the according amount of food to each table.
After eating for a little bit Treaf noted that Hibned and Sloyd had struck up some kind of conversation, and Treaf listened in, only to become bored when he realized that they were talking about past experiences with chickens. Hmmmmmmm. Maybe I should ask them about what we will be doing for today as far as the schedule goes.
“Do you know what the plan for today is, anyway?” Treaf asked. They paused for a second, and then said, “Just when did you show up?” Treaf for some reason was not in the mood to respond, so he kept things short.
“That is irrelevant. Right now I am asking for the schedule. Or do you two not have it?” Treaf questioned. Actually he didn’t remember where he had come up with the idea that they would know the schedule, but it was a guess and he didn’t care if they were offended, for that was their problem.
“We’re gonna clean up the battlefield more and another team is gonna clean up the damage made by the Blackwolves. The rest is probably not important, seeing as these are the main things that an injured person like you would need to worry about.” Treaf comprehended this, and then said, “I am actually quite surprised that anybody noticed that I had been shot by a crossbow the other day.” Sloyd chuckled, and Treaf found it annoying—but Treaf was also eager to here what he had to say, so he planned not to contradict him.
“Well, actually it was pretty hard to miss, and really I think it just comes down to the matter of who would want to talk about.” This seemed to make sense to Treaf, and he realized that he would probably not talk about the King if he was injured. Treaf did not know why, but he seemed to think that he didn’t really like the King—he seemed to be abnormal in his opinion—or that was Treaf who was abnormal and he looked at normal people to be abnormal because they were not like him. Well I guess that’s the function of the world—everything is balanced on relativity. If something seems abnormal to me, it is normal to others, and…and.... Treaf stopped thinking about this because it became too complicated and it didn’t matter anyway.
“Treaf, you aren’t eating.” Treaf came back to realization when Sloyd said this.
“Sorry, I didn’t realize.” Treaf shoved all of this aside, and he started eating some canned fruit that was set before him. It tasted good, but for some reason this thought hadn’t registered until then. I need some time to think, but whenever I set time like that apart I get bored and want to practice dueling or something.
Breakfast was over shortly, and after that there wasn’t anything that Treaf decided was worthwhile. There was just the normal bustling, the clearing of plates, and then when the ‘smoke’ cleared Treaf found himself going in group B, the one that was going to help repair the different houses that the Blackwolf Spirits had attacked. Treaf suddenly realized that he was so not in the mood to work it almost seemed overwhelming. He just wanted to scream as loud as he could and bash in every window that he could find, but that would be against the ‘law’ and people would take him for a maniac. He wanted some sort of help, something to drag him into something else….then he heard a familiar sound, but he could not place it. The sound of boots, Treaf thought. Then a hand touched him, and he turned around for some reason, even though a lot of people were touching him at the time. But before he could look around in dull curiosity Treaf realized that it was Malock, and soon he said, “Treaf, what the heck are you doing? Aren’t you injured? Treaf looked confused, and then said, “Well, it isn’t that big of a deal. I can still walk. That’s all that anybody cares about.” Malock looked like he was about to puke, and he grabbed Treaf’s arm, pulling him away without any explanation. Treaf was curious for a second what Malock was planning, and he decided that the only answer would be to wait things through and find out. If he’s putting me in group A, I’m gonna get mad, Treaf thought, and he felt much more heated now that he was heated.
When they had gone through the city for quite a time Treaf started getting even madder. What the heck is he doing?
“Hey, Malock, what the heck are you doing with me? We’ve been walking through the city for a long time, and I am curious why you want me not to work. It isn’t exactly…like you.” Malock turned his head to look at Treaf, but nothing more. In fact Treaf took this beckon to mean ‘be quiet.’
After a few more minutes they came to a circled fence, and it was not big enough to house cattle, and it was too big to store chickens. There were people around it, and among them he spotted Mildo. Ah. We’re gonna train. Treaf was actually very pleased at this. They had been fighting a lot since they had left Goshop, but that didn’t mean training. Training was a whole different thing, and Treaf didn’t consider it to be one of those things where you’re constantly thinking about how to defeat your enemy. When there was a war going on, it was unacceptable to lose, for then you were dead.
“So this is what we’re doing today,” Treaf said, and he had a smile on his lips.
“Yes. I’ve noted that you have been getting injured a lot recently, so we’re going to practice. If you become as good as me, then you will have a lot to look forward to.”
“Hey, I beet you at Goshop on the little test thing, so doesn’t that mean…?” Treaf broke off to give emphasis, but Malock did not understand or pretended not to understand to make Treaf angry.
“Doesn’t that mean what?” Malock said, his expression dry.
“Doesn’t that mean that I’m better than you?” Treaf felt clammy under the circumstances, and slightly foolish. But then he decided to watch as Hibned, who Treaf had thought was to be working too, started fighting with one of the Rangers. Treaf was actually very surprised that five of the Rangers had survived: only one of them had died. This meant that they had been very highly trained, and Treaf actually admired them even more than he had before.
Treaf watched as the Ranger that Hibned was fighting ducked under one of Hibned’s blows, and he realized that he had a lot to learn if he was ever going to get near to Mourgorth. After all, they still had much more to do before then, and Treaf personally thought that it would be foolish for them to go into the Dark Lands without gathering a very large army. If the Blackwolf Spirits hadn’t attacked they would have been able to gather more people for an army from The Jaragon, but since all of the men from this city had died, they would have no men to bring with them when they attacked the enemy.
If we expect to win anything we’re gonna need to make more Magical Beings, because if we don’t, we’re done for. Treaf grimaced. Only then did he realize that Malock was watching him, and then Treaf looked back to the battle that was going on inside the middle of the circular fence. Neither one had gone down, but it looked like Hibned was getting tired. Treaf didn’t blame him: it looked like a tough fight. Against a Ranger, Treaf would have probably been dead by now. Malock was now looking in the same direction that Treaf was, and he realized that he wanted to fight Malock or Maybe Mildo one of these days. For some reason I have the feeling that I’ve gotten pretty rusty, Treaf thought, and he had a nagging feeling that this was true. It had only been a few days since the battle, but Treaf was still in the mood to get better, and he knew that he would.
After a few minutes the Ranger had beat Hibned, and Treaf said to Malock, “So, ya wanna duel?” Malock looked the same as always when faced with a question, but after a few seconds he had a faint smile, or it was a snarl, but even so Treaf felt his injured stomach and then grinned when it felt absolutely fine. It still had a lot of bandages on it, but he was not willing to take them off: he would trust someone else with experience on injuries.
After a few seconds Treaf ducked into the training area, and Malock followed, but came in on the other side. Treaf was not nervous as he had been on his first day of fighting and training with Malock, for he had done this many times now, and he had not died doing yet, so Treaf thought that him as a person probably had a sliver of hope left for fighting and conquering Mourgorth. Huh. I would never have dreamed that I would be training with an experienced warrior, much less having potential to beating him.
Treaf then drew his sword quickly, and stood in his usual position; he had his legs wide for support, and he held his sword in a parrying position. Malock then brandished his sword, and with the naked blade came a very loud ringing noise. It had been a joke between Mildo and Treaf that Malock had sharpeners inside his sheath just like Mourgorth, but Treaf doubted it. It would be a very handy thing to have, but it would be expensive and hard to keep intact. Looks like we’re about to begin. Treaf watched Malock’s move; he was moving his sword slightly every time he took a step or moved. Now. Treaf ran forward, and he predicted that Malock would probably think that Treaf was dumb enough to leave all of his sides open in a full-fledged attack. Treaf, however was now too smart for Malock, and part of him knew that Malock underestimated him. Malock kept his sword in a vertical position, and Treaf knew that this was a simple way to block Treaf’s sword or possibly take a downswing on him. But at the last second Treaf broke into a roll, and when he was upon Malock’s leg he stuck out his own, knocking Malock to the ground with a cloud of dust. Before Malock could retaliate, Treaf attempted a swing at Malock’s neck, but it turned out that Treaf had underestimated him. In less than a seconds time, had somehow been able to jump out of the way, and Treaf distinctly heard a few cheers at this move. But Treaf was too busy to worry about the crowd right thn, so he grimaced and decided that he would win this. Treaf waited for Malock to attack first this time, and when he did Treaf easily parried a thrust that Malock had delivered. After this Treaf jumped as high as he could, (which was pretty high,) and delivered a series of fast sidestrokes that Treaf was pleased to see that Malock was having trouble with. He forced his blows deeper into Malock’s sword, and he hit as hard and fast as he could. Treaf realized that he could not, however grow tired, so he stopped and lunged with his sword outstretched to full power. This would have been a very bad move if Treaf had not put up some precautions. Malock actually lunged too, and Treaf was so surprised that he did a side roll before Malock had made any damage. This particular full attack had never happened to Treaf, and he realized that he felt slightly foolish. But what else would he have done? There had been no time for a parry, so he would have been stabbed, and there had been no time to break into a slash. Malock probably realized that I would not know what to do, and he also realized that I would think that to have been a bad move. Improper. Irregular. Treaf then bounced back up as Malock thrust downwards at Treaf’s stomach, and while Malock’s back was exposed he made a slash at it. Malock somehow blocked this with his sword vertical, and Treaf realized that this seemed to be Malock’s favorite position. Can’t fool me with the same trick, old man, Treaf thought. He snickered. This had been a harder duel than he had ever been in, but it was still fun. This time Malock jumped, and Treaf almost laughed. He made an upward stab at Malock’s chest, but Malock was soon out of range. When he landed, he swung high at Treaf’s neck, and Treaf moved down slightly; Malock tried kicking, but Treaf blocked it with his own boot; he tried to stab Treaf, but Treaf made a very powerful parry that sent Malock’s sword banging backwards, and in this instant Treaf stabbed, then stopped right when he was about to puncture Malock’s skin. There came a single, silent moment when Treaf was absolutely sure that he had won, and he smiled. He had beaten Malock twice now, and he was so hot that he felt that he was about to die, but it was worth it. Treaf did not make any winning cries or anything, but everybody could tell that he was pleased with himself.
After he was outside of the fence area the cheers were still going around, but Treaf was not shunting them today. He welcomed them warmly, that is until he saw Mildo clapping too. The bigger-than-Treaf person looked clammy and pleased, and immediately Treaf’s face turned into a toothy, evil look, like he was melting away into some kind of devil.
When he had taken off his cloak and white, bloodied over shirt, he doused himself with water, and then looked on into the duel that was happening shortly after he had beaten Malock. Malock did not look pleased with himself as always; instead he looked angry, almost like he would truly like to have rematch with Treaf. Well it’s your fault for underestimating me, huh, old man? Treaf smiled. This was going better than he thought it would, and he was pleased with himself.
He was watching happily as Jur Thwain and Adrain Ladarfo dueled when Mildo walked up and started talking to Treaf. He actually didn’t overly mind it, in fact today reminded him of the days when they were in Goshop, preparing for three months. Back then I had really been excited to leave, but recently I’ve realized how much more I need to learn. I can hardly beat Malock, and here I’m supposed to be the one to destroy Mourgorth. I need to visit a wise man or something. He then snarled, and sweat ran down his face. I hate wise men.
After a little while Mildo said, “What kind of new sword do you think I should get?” Treaf was actually caught by surprise at this question: actually he had completely forgotten that Mildo had broken the sword that he had received from Eprinoco.
“I donno, Mildo, but mine’s holdin’ up pretty good,” Treaf said, patting his hip, where his sword hung. Treaf hadn’t realized before now, but he now thought that he sword looked pretty big for him, since he was small naturally as a doat.
“I guess you could probably bear with a hand-and-a-half, but that might be a bit big for his puniness.” Treaf laughed at his own joke, but then he stopped as Mildo punched him in the face with,(luckily,) his normal hand. Treaf didn’t even want to think of what it would feel like to be punched with a gauntleted hand. He stared at his own metal armor, and he realized that when he didn’t have it on he felt less protected. I guess it’s the price of being me, Treaf snickered in his thoughts.
Before he knew it, Mildo had taken his cloak off, along with his shirt. In other words, Treaf knew that he wanted to duel. Then he looked out into the training area, and realized that no one was in. His heart sank, and he knew Mildo’s intentions immediately. But he was not nervous, and actually he had been wanting to beat, I’ll show him what some one like me is capable of. Mildo for a long time now. Yeah, I’ll show him what a person like me is capable of. With unspoken desire, Treaf walked into the round fence, and he drew in the hot sun, the people around, and he was determined to do something, but he didn’t particularly know what it was. I’ll find out when I find out, he decided, and drew his sword, standing in the usual position. Mildo was not slow to react in the same way. He drew his dirk, and Treaf realized that he could not remember Mildo’s usual position when he was ready. Mildo took his dirk and stood in a stabbing position, and Treaf that this would probably be a pretty sensible position, since if Treaf were to approach him and was open, Mildo could just stab him. Treaf charged, and he decided that he would not do the same thing that he done to Malock, for Mildo had probably been watching them at the time, and he would be expecting a similar move when he was fighting Treaf. Instead I’ll attack his upper half. Treaf decided that this was probably a good and sensible plan, so he leapt, and soared over Mildo as he ducked. Right after he landed, Treaf was on the other side of Mildo, and he attempted stabbing at his back. Mildo seemed to deflect this easily, even with a dagger. Well I guess I should expect nothing less than this from Mildo, Treaf decided, and he thought that even if he did lose, it would have not been all for nothing. But I should try to win as much as I can, he decided, and after this thought he realized that Mildo had blocked his blade with the pommel of his dirk. That was pretty well-timed and accurate of him, Treaf realized, and with that he ducked as Mildo swung, and he rolled on the ground slightly more away from Mildo, and as he did this Mildo continually stabbed at him, but Treaf miraculously dodged every one, and at that he realized that he was getting worn out to fast, so he leapt up and sprang right into Mildo’s lap, but Treaf was thankful that Mildo was not quick enough to move his sword and stab Treaf. The laws of nature actually prevented that; one could not move his sword fast enough to make a counterattack, for it was too heavy, and swinging it that fast would result in the extension of muscles, and that would make Mildo more tired, so it was actually very wise of Mildo not to even attempt it. Treaf was actually a little mad at Mildo for not even breaking into a sweat, and he decided that nothing would stop him from beating the poor wretch.
Then Mildo did something that was completely not expected by Treaf. He leapt into the air as Treaf had done, but he did not leap backward or forward, just up. This would have made since if Treaf had just made a swing for the legs, but in fact Treaf had not even made an offensive move. What the heck is Mildo doing? Treaf found himself questioning, and he realized guiltily that he was actually quite nervous and anxious for Mildo’s next move to come. Just be patient and wait, Treaf decided, and so he stood there, but not without caution. His sword was at the ready in a complete horizontal line, and if Mildo were to strike Treaf would most likely block it.
When Mildo landed a very large cloud of dust enveloped him, for Treaf had not yet fully realized how dusty and dry things were now, even though winter was coming on. Treaf knew better than to just stand there, so he ran away from the dust cloud, not wanting Mildo to strike and catch Treaf on the unawares. Some of the onlookers laughed at this: they thought that Treaf was a coward, but he actually was doing something that was wise. If Mildo had been in the dust cloud for long, and if Treaf had stayed right next to him, Treaf would have lost by then.
After a few seconds the dust had completely cleared, and Mildo was inside of it, looking angry and disappointed. I got you, Treaf thought, and then charged with all his might at Mildo. He knew that Mildo would probably deflect his next attack but it was worth a try. He started a very powerful series of down strokes, aimed at Mildo’s thighs, and he thought that these would probably tire him out. When Mildo started panting, Treaf thought, if I can just offer an ending stroke, I could win—but what would I do to end this duel? Stab, thrust, kick, slash, or what? It was not long to decide. Treaf realized that if he were to stab at him, which was a complete change of course from what he had been doing, Mildo would probably not expect it and thus not be quick enough to block it. And if I do it in a very fast manner, I’ll have him down, and it would all the more impressive anyway. So he continued with his powerful swaps, but not for long. When he saw Mildo growing even more tired than Treaf was, Treaf made a last attempt to stab. He drew back his arm to ear height, and since Mildo was taller than he was, he made a slight upward turn, but the spectators did not see this because it happened so fast. In less than a second he had enclosed his blade around Mildo’s neck, and the very tip almost made Mildo bleed. Got him, Treaf grinned. He had now beaten two people in one day. Now things are really going better than I thought, Treaf grinned, but the crowd of warriors did not cheer at all. What the heck? Treaf looked around, trying to somehow find the source of his discomfort. Then he looked at Mildo, who was also grinning. Then he looked down, and in an instant he caught a glimpse of some sort of shining blade, smaller than his own. It was right aligned with his stomach, and would have killed him if Mildo and he weren’t just sparring. Damn. He snuck his little blade right at me at the last second. Treaf was both surprised and angry at the same time. Was he capable of predicting what I would do? Treaf questioned. This seemed surprisingly talented, but then Treaf remembered that he was dealing with Mildo, who was probably better than him. He realized that when I would stab, he would have no choice but to do the offensive, just like me. Otherwise he would not have been quick enough to block my sword. Treaf swore, out loud this time. But he thought again as he walked out of the circle, at least I got close to beating him. If he wouldn’t be so darn good I would be one of the best ones here.
Treaf groaned as he splashed water on his head. The water was actually quite warm, but that did not matter. He was sore from the training. Then Treaf looked sideways slightly, and thought as he saw the shape of a body, oh great. Mildo. Treaf pretended not to have seen him coming, but it was no good.
“Were you surprised when you saw my sword?” He said, and Treaf made an ugly face, but Mildo could not see, because Treaf had his back towards him, and would leave it like that for as long as he liked.
“I expect that you were. Anyway, you were too slow, and I saw you draw back your arm, so I expected so.” Treaf nodded, and he finally turned around to look at Mildo. To his surprise, he wasn’t grinning, and Treaf realized that this was not a mocking conversation—perhaps Mildo was coming to give Treaf advice or something.
“Yeah. I was under the impression that you had predicted a thrust—seems likely for you.”
“Yes, I did predict most of it, but I was sure when I saw your arm draw back. It was actually quite a thrilling moment. You were about to win, and I was about to lose, but then I made a comeback.” As Treaf had expected, Mildo was smiling by now, and Treaf was suddenly annoyed by him and wanted nothing more than to go drown himself. Then he would actually cool off, and he wouldn’t need to deal with anybody.
“I guess you’re gonna be even harder to beat when you get a bigger sword,” Treaf commented, but he was really thinking of it in his head and wasn’t really paying attention to the conversation. When he does get a sword I need entirely new tactics. If I do get to fight him when that time comes, I might want to write my plans down so that I can think a bit and not have to rig something up right on the spot.

After Treaf had fought Mildo he decided to stop training for the day, for his stomach had started feeling strange again. He didn’t really know what he wanted to do—now that he had a bit of freedom he didn’t really know what to do with it. Maybe I should explore the town a bit…? This idea seemed acceptable. So he headed off towards mid-town, thinking that he might want something to eat while he was wandering around.
So he found a bakery and bought with what money he had a large pastry, and ate it thankfully. I wonder what everyone else is doing right now. He wondered, and decided to go take a look at the battlefield. He guessed that it probably wasn’t that much better than it had been when he had been there cleaning the day before, which in Treaf’s opinion had not been much fun.
He arrived at the ramparts shortly, and he climbed the familiar stairs up it. The air seemed silent and musky, like everybody around it was dead or not present. When he looked out into the battlefield the sight was not pretty. There were torn bodies of both man and beast, along with crusty weapons, spears, and who-knows-what. There were things that stuck out in obvious ways, like Trial Dogs that had been shot with dozens and dozens of arrows until the poor beast had died. Treaf personally did not know what the workers would do about these particular situations, but Treaf was glad that he would have to be the one to do all of the dirty work. Actually he should have been eating like a king right then, besides being treated like a king, for he was basically the one that had thought of the plan to end the stupid battle. Treaf remembered bitterly that the higher-ups hadn’t thought of a single plan, and that he had thought of them to be pigs. That was the funniest part of the story, but Treaf still didn’t want to think about it, or he would become sick.
There then came to ear a rattling sound, and Treaf looked down inn curiosity, and what he saw immediately did make him sick. A cart of dead bodies was being hauled away, and the stench made him almost puke. It was a pungent smell of musky murkiness, and Treaf felt the air around him seem to become thicker. He covered his mouth and nostrils, and decided not to react. If he did, the cart below him would stink even worse than it did now.
He decided that he did not want to eat the other part of the pastry right then, so he started walking towards the guesthouse, where things were bustling and dinner was going to begin.


Chapter Three

A Journey of Silence
After a few minutes there came to ear a loud gonging noise, and Treaf had learned that this sound was a dinner bell. He found it difficult to believe that they had only been in The Jaragon for a few days now, and in a way it was quite disturbing. If they had been traveling for a few months, why did it seem like years and years of it? He couldn’t even imagine what it would be like when they were done with the journey—it would probably take decades if they continued going at this pace.
As he walked down the stairs feeling a bit depressed he saw the moment when everyone came in from work or training, and he realized that he would probably get the first seat that night. Not that it really mattered, he wasn’t the type to think about things like that, but he was thinking of nothing else, and if he did think of anything else he would be miserable and probably scream till he felt hoarse.
As he had predicted, he did get the first place, and like wise got the first plate of food. It was potatoes, gravy, and a very strange soup that was pink and that tasted of radishes. The others basically had about the same thing, but that didn’t really matter, for it was food, and if they didn’t eat it they would just die like any other soldier. Hmmmmmmm. I do wonder if the King will be here, Treaf thought, and grinned. For some reason he found the King very funny, and he didn’t really know why. Maybe it was because he seemed so babyish and unfit to him. But that didn’t matter. If they could get out of The Jaragon before anything bad happened between them and the King, they would be able to camp out in the woods and create Magical Beings, but then they would be attacked by Blackwolf spirits and have only a few men to fight for them. This whole struggle really depends more on the Elder than I thought. If we didn’t have any Magical Beings fighting with us we would have lost.
After dinner, there was desert, and Treaf stuffed himself with this, for he didn’t have anything else to do for right then. I guess I should be happy, Treaf thought. At least I didn’t die, and at least we might be able to gather an army from the Elves. Too bad we left Goshop before the messenger arrived, or we would have been able to tell what’s going on over there. He didn’t know if the messenger would be able to find them there. But then he realized that the messengers had been actual warriors, and that they would probably know where the lot of them were if they made it at all. And the villagers in Goshop would tell them that the army had left anyway, so initially there was nothing severe to worry about. Treaf felt slightly contented with this, and was ready to accept the fact that there was still hope left for all of them.
After the desert there was not much talking or other things, so Treaf decided after a few moments to go back up to the top floor where he could hopefully get some peace and quiet.
He and the stampede of others soon were walking up the stairs, and Treaf was suddenly reminded of when they first came to The Jaragon, which was not so long ago. Probably only a week and a half, though with the battle and all Treaf felt that it had seemed like a whole month.
When they arrived at the top floor most of them went to their beds, and Treaf decided that he should probably do so too. It felt good to lie down, but he realized that the glories of almost beating Mildo had drained him of a lot of muscle power, so he considered the next day he would probably be quite sore. And if I have to work tomorrow I’m gonna really get mad. If they expect me to train with swordplay extensively and then go start cleaning up, I think the King should be hung. Treaf felt a funny tinge to this, so the comings of a bad mood lifted.
It didn’t seem too long before the daylight stopped abruptly, and so Treaf decided that he would shortly attempt falling asleep. If he had had something to read he would have gladly done so, but he didn’t, and that was part of being in an army. He could of course always buy one, but that seemed unnecessary, and food would be more important. Can’t trust the cooks, after all....

Buy now Treaf had been working for more than an hour, and his mood had not increased one bit since he had started. He was a laborer under command, and at this certain time he was moving a pile of rubble with a seemingly small shovel. The trouble was, the stones and bricks and other things were too big and heavy for the little shovel, so Treaf had to rely on his muscle power, and even then it was a divine struggle.
Treaf infrequently swore do to the heat and the situation at hand, and one or twice people noticed, looking at him with their curious little faces. Y’know, who thought that a bunch of scattered army would repair a damaged town, Treaf thought, and with that his shovel snapped in half. In dulled surprise, Treaf realized that he had been wedging it between a wall and a large stone, and the eviler part of him had been scheming to keep it there until breaking was immanent.
Half grinning, half looking shocked, Treaf went to the shade and drank some water. He put some on his head, which was making rivers of sweat. He banged the lid on the container, and he got up, his pants plastered to his legs. Others were working with him, and some of them looked miserable, but some did not, and Treaf felt strangely that the happy ones were damaged in the brains.
With no further disgusted thoughts, Treaf went back to work, this time with a spare shovel. He felt everything go quiet, and the only thing that he could really hear were people’s hard breathing and other such noises. He continued on, jamming his jaw into the side of his mouth to prevent himself from screaming, swearing, and banging his shovel on a rock.
Then something entirely new happened; there was a certain person who looked particularly happy, or particularly demented. He looked around at everyone, and then looked like he was going to burp. Then he paused, and started singing loudly, as if this would lift the mood. His voice was droned and high, and Treaf found it very hard not to laugh. He would have found this whole thing acceptable if the song had been an uplifted work chorus, but it seemed to be more of a funeral hymn. Whoa—that was unexpected, Treaf laughed in his thoughts. Actually Treaf expected the man to have started weeping next, but he did not, and Treaf was partially glad. Otherwise he would have started laughing very hard.
After a few more minutes Treaf’s mood had lifted a bit, and he started to look at things with a positive air. The sun was out, and that would make the crops grow, which would be good for the people of The Jaragon. It wasn’t like he wanted good fortune and blessings to rest upon them forever, but he thought that since they had basically destroyed their whole town, it would be wise not to dislike them. It was a simple way of reasoning, but anything more complicated would go strait to the King, and he would make things worse than they already were.
After probably about a half hour Treaf was released from duty, and he was ordered to instead haul out dead bodies. Another pleasant surprise....Treaf’s thoughts were then muffled to a halt as he realized what he would be doing next. He had surpassed it before, and he knew what it was like. There was the stench, the actual labor, and all of the other things like bending down which Treaf did not like.
Treaf came to thinking once he was walking towards the ramparts, today the work would be going a lot faster if a lot of people were working, but there are only a few. He glanced around, and realized that the old battlefield looked sparse and actually a little better than it had when Treaf had last seen it. I guess yesterday they must have gotten a lot of work done.
Presently he arrived where a few others were not working, and he had taken a cart along with him. There he started disposing of all the dead bodies, weaponry, and other things that were strewn across the dirt. Treaf wished he could have had something to cover his face, and he thought that he was completely going to puke, when there came something a bit of a surprise. Treaf heard Mildo, and looked around, wondering if it was his imagination. But no, Mildo was standing a ways off from Treaf, and he was calling him. Treaf went over, wondering what it could possibly that Mildo wanted.
Once he arrived, Treaf said, “Look, I don’t have much time, so if you’re going to blab please think of me.” Treaf felt like this was good enough an explanation, so he hoped that Mildo had not misunderstood or done something else stupid.
“I was thinking of the fact that you might need some water,” he said, and Treaf actually wondered at a time like that why Mildo would want to go out of his way to help him. Perhaps he feels bad for me, Treaf smiled, and the water ran down his chin, making his shirt wet. He stowed the water in his pocket rather precariously, and with that he walked off, vaguely thanking Mildo for the water. The sun was still out, so he would need it; luckily the season was going to change soon, and in maybe a week the snow would start coming down, and Treaf wondered if that would be more miserable than very hot sun. Nah. But I’ll see how I like it when it comes. And with that he loaded a crusty sword in the cart, glad that the work force had given him gloves.

After dinner, (which did not have any special highlights,) Treaf went up with all the others to the sleeping quarters. Treaf had found somewhere in his bags a book, and so he read, realizing that he had packed it on their way out of Gandria. Kinda weird what I used to read back then, he thought, as the words going through his brain were processed into the story being held. It doesn’t seem like fiction is of any use to me right now, but I would rather be doing this than trying to fall asleep. Right then he was reading about a dragon, and frankly he didn’t really care if the Goblin warrior slew it or not. It seemed to be a book for small children, and Treaf felt partially like a wimp, and he decided not to read it again. He wasn’t interested anyway.

In the morning Treaf felt like getting up earlier, and so he hung around the sleeping area, getting slightly bored, but he then went down to the kitchens and waited for breakfast.
It soon came, and Treaf quickly wolfed it down, while all of the others stayed there and took their time. He was actually in a good mood, because today he was going to do something different; he was determined of that. There was simply not enough to do if he was planning not to go insane, so working was no longer an option. I really don’t know what I’ll do if I just stay here and wander the streets, Treaf thought, but then, wandering the streets didn’t seem to be like such a bad idea. Maybe I should go to a different part of the town, or try out something new. He thought this as he was rounding a corner, and he was soon wondering as he walked the streets what other people thought of him. They probably thought that he was very short if he was supposed to be his age, and that he looked like he was threatening, but not threatening if he wasn’t in a bad mood. Otherwise he was pretty normal.
I wonder if there’s any kind of store for any kind of information. He generally didn’t care about history, but in a time like this it would seem appropriate. Other than what he had heard from Mildo and Hibned, or Thwain, or whoever it had been—there had been no reports or information on Mourgorth or any kind of army. It would be pretty bad if this whole thing didn’t exist, Treaf realized, but then quickly came to acknowledge that they would fight the Blackwolf Spirits, and bring an end to them.
After a few minutes of looking around, Treaf found a store labeled: A GENERAL ACCOUNTANT OF JARAGONIAN HISTORY. He doubted that there would be much for him in a history of The Jaragon, but usually stores lied a bit and really had more than they gave credit for, or had less. Either way, Treaf walked in, and beheld a scented, quite dark room with lamplight.
There were shelves of books pretty much everywhere due to the relatively small room, so Treaf soon began searching the shelf facing him. There were histories of kings and other people, which Treaf quickly shoved back, and there were histories of poems, which were of no use; there were city building records, histories of a few magic users, and with these Treaf actually read a few pages, because anything to do with magic could be related to Mourgorth. It really is too bad there aren’t any topics to search by, Treaf noted, after he had spent quite a while on a certain row. Basically the whole thing is just a jumble of used pages. There were diagrams of certain inventions, including one of the first ever siege machines, and Treaf realized that the volumes in that place must of have been quite old, for siege machines had been used for quite a time.
After about a half hour more, he came upon a book labeled: Mourgorth: A Basic History. Treaf was actually dully surprised, for there in clear print was what he was looking for. He was surprised also that the bookstore had actually had a book on Mourgorth.
After no further consideration, Treaf flipped open the first page. The chapter was about the very beginning of him, and Treaf was excited to finally learn about him. And then I’ll know what happened to him to make him go wrong. After a bit more of flipping around, Treaf came to the second chapter, and this was about the next stage in his life. Every chapter went up to the stage in which Treaf guessed he would be an adult.
After making sure that the book was exactly what Treaf needed, he bought it with what little money he had left. In fact after that he would have to get a job or something, because now he had none.
Unfortunately there was a hold up at the buying stage, because they for some reason wanted to bother Treaf by asking him if he was a member of the store. He repeatedly said no, and that he would please like to get the book and be over with it.
After a bit of struggling, Treaf had gotten the book, and left the store. He decided that he did not want to waist any time, so he went strait to the guest house and began reading. The first chapter was intriguing; it turned out that ‘Mourgorth,’ (he had not been called that then,) had grown up perfectly normal, and there was much about the details about his early life. At the second chapter it talked about blah blah blah…. For Treaf did not care about this, and decided to skip to a few chapters ahead. After he did this, Treaf realized that he had actually not started at chapter one but actually about the introduction, which was about the Author. After this much wasted time Treaf felt a bit at a loss, but then when he started reading the actual chapter one he was pleased. This started a bit after Mourgorth had turned strange, and it turned out that he had somehow fused himself with a Grath to become human and giant. Treaf did not really believe this, because it was impossible, and for a bit thought that the book was a hoax. For a while he read about the different weapons of Mourgorth, and it was a legend, (which Treaf was already aware of,) that Mourgorth had a sword and a sheath with wet stones in it so that every time he drew his sword it sharpened. Treaf also doubted this.
Finally, at chapter ten,(he had been reading chapter eleven, but then got interested in chapter ten and read that,) it started describing his journeys. He had started off in Dwarveroc, and Treaf could not guess why he had been there in the first place. Then he had traveled through all the land until he had arrived at Southerian, but during the time he had journeyed there, ten years had already passed. The book described him to be a tall man, with a black cape and ‘leather bound boots’ which to Treaf seemed unnecessary to put in, because basically any boot of a traveler is leather.
After he had arrived at Southerian, he had gone with a wizard, and they had traveled together to various places, where the Wizard tried to teach him things. After that Mourgorth and the wizard arrived at Southerian again, and Mourgorth had learned of a substance that was very powerful, currently located in a necklace that the wizard wore. Mourgorth soon wanted the necklace for himself. In the night, he murdered the wizard, and gained the necklace for himself.
There then came a nock on the door, interrupting Treaf’s reading. He said ‘go away,’ but the nocks kept coming. Finally he muttered the words to allow the person to come in, and in surprise he saw that it was one of the maids.
“Lunch is ready,” she said, and Treaf groaned. Lunch. If it could have been stalled a bit he would have been happy, but it wasn’t, so he went down the stairs, feeling dazed.
When he arrived he saw that all of the workers had come in, and that they all looked particularly bad. Their faces were red, and they had sweat running down their skin like crazy. Jeez. It must have gotten really hot out there since I was last outside. Glad that he had not been working, Treaf ate some of his meal, and then started thinking that since he was going to know so much about Mourgorth he should let others read the book. It would probably help out the present state for all of them there, and people would have more of an in-depth view on him, not just the murky image of some monster, known to them as the enemy.
He decided that the first person he would probably tell after he read it would be Mildo, for he was around him the most. It would be Malock’s right to know, too, so he would tell him; and then one of them would make a speech in front of all the other army.
Lunch was actually quite short, so Treaf felt like he had been back to reading in no time. But after reading a few more chapters he realized that he was curious who the author was. The person would probably have had to been a traveler or something else of the sort and Treaf really wondered how anyone would be able to get so much information on Mourgorth.
After flipping to the back cover of the book, Treaf read that in fact the information from that book had been transferred from someone else, who Treaf had never heard of before. So this is a copy, Treaf thought, and he was slightly disappointed that he was not going to be able to find out about the travels and who the real author really was.
After this Treaf got back into reading, and this took him a few hours before he realized that the time was steadily moving more to night. Pretty soon everyone’s gonna be coming in, Treaf thought, and for some reason he dreaded that time. Even though he didn’t have anything else to do, he thought that the interference of other people would somehow come to his end. I guess I’m just really tired of The Jaragon, he decided, and settled for that.
After another five minutes Treaf heard a great thumping and banging, and at first he could not identify with the sound. Then he realized that everyone from the outside had come back up. Of course. Just another day to pass, Treaf thought, and with that he decided to fall asleep.

In the middle of the night Treaf for some reason woke up, and with that he could not fall asleep for a long time. He tried to get comfortable, but he could not, and with that he was having a miserable night.

About three hours later he started hearing a few hints that people were up, like a cart rolling down the road below. Treaf felt very drowsy and a bit sick, and his head boiled with heaviness. Why the heck couldn’t I fall asleep? Treaf wondered, as he put his shirt on. It was still pretty dark, but some of the others were getting up too. There was a little bit of snoring, and at first Treaf recognized it to be Malock, but then he saw that he was a bit away from Treaf, buckling on his cloak. Of course. How would the great Malock Eidfrn be one of the last to get up? Treaf snickered, and with that he buckled on his bracers, his pauldrons, and his cloak. After that he was heading down the stairs.
After he went down a few steps the others were close behind, and they were all talking about something else.
Once they were a few steps nearer to the kitchen they could hear a great hustle and other clanking noises even greater than theirs.
During breakfast Treaf fell to talking about the battle with Jur Thwain, and Sloyd, along with Hibned and Adrain. Treaf had actually partially been wondering what there opinion of the battle had been, and actually he couldn’t remember ever seeing any of them fight. Apart from Treaf, they had fought a lot too, and Treaf noted that he would have fought more if he had not had the stupid injury.
They actually hadn’t heard about Treaf’s two savings of the city, the one where he had braced the gate, and when he had fought off the Blackwolf Spirits. He was more than happy to gloat about these two feats. (Actually Treaf wouldn’t have had any of it done if he hadn’t had the Elder and the other twenty men with him at the time.)
Apart from the conversation, Treaf was very glad that the weather was dark that day. He hoped that it would stay relatively cold, so that when they worked the sun would not make all of them miserable.
There was a moment of silence, and Treaf sighed, drinking some of his coffee. He now fully realized that winter was soon to come, and that he had better prepare for it. If they were going to cross The Pass in snowy weather, Treaf didn’t know what to think.
In a few minute’s time they had left there seats and Treaf was making his way towards the large front door when Mildo caught up with him.
“Hi,” Treaf said, not turning to look at him. Mildo did not reply, but walked alongside Treaf, looking ahead of him. After a few more moments Treaf said, “Did you get a new sword?”
“Nope,” Mildo replied, and Treaf didn’t know why he hadn’t gotten one yet.
Once they were out the door Treaf immediately felt a chilly breeze. He pulled his cloak hood on, and put his hands in his pockets. Mildo did the same, and Treaf saw that the other people around him were too. I wonder what we’ll be doing today…? Treaf wondered, until he saw a man on a raised mound of dirt with a board on top. He was the same man that had assigned them to their spots when they had prepared for the battle, and personally, Treaf did not like the person at all.
“Attention, my young workers! Welcome to commander me!” Nobody laughed, and the man looked pink in the face, and he shuffled his feet, before continuing, “I would like to tell you that we are doing something different today. We are going to bury the trench, and take all of the staves out. If you do not have a shovel, they are supplied over in that storage house,” he pointed with a gloved hand, “and there are also gloves that will come in handy when pulling out the staves and taller ones.” Why the hell are we burying the trench? Treaf wondered, and felt very angry. This was completely unnecessary, and Treaf said loudly, “Why do we have to that? You’ll just have to prepare more for future battles!” The man looked into the small crowd, and it looked tough for him. Finally he saw Treaf, the smallest of the lot.
When he found him, he said, “It is the king’s orders, and if you are not pleased with them go and talk to the King.” He said this smugly, and he looked pleased with himself. Treaf knew that if he would have been one of those working, he would not be so smug, but now he was in command and seemingly powerful. ....if you are not pleased with them go and talk to the King yourself....Treaf heard him say, and he half considered it, but then thought better. The King would just shunt him, and he probably wouldn’t even know that these were his orders, for Treaf noted that kings tended to have very short memories, especially when it came to contracts.
“….As I’m sure you know,” the manager continued, “we will still need to do other city cleanups tomorrow and probably the next day.” And with that he smiled, and then shooed them off.
The first thing that Treaf did was when and got a shovel, for he did not need gloves. Today he was wearing his armor, but this was few, so it did not drag him down.
Mildo followed him, and Treaf was already too angry with the man to get mad at Mildo.
“I don’t know about you, but I would like to ring his neck.” Treaf smiled and said, “Exactly my thoughts. But then we would get in trouble from the King, and we would never leave this place.” I can’t wait to get all of this work done, Treaf thought. Then they would be able to leave The Jaragon and not deal with any more towns for a very long time.
Once Treaf got a shovel he walked over to the trenches and looked down on them. They were about ten feet from the wall, and about four feet deep. Inside were a few staves, but most of them were a bit before the trenches, for extra protection. This had worked quite well for the enemy; only a few times had they jumped the trench somehow and put ladders up. Or maybe they had made a leaning ladder system and put it at the base before the trench. At those times Treaf had not been paying attention to these things, and with no further thought he started shoveling the dirt around him into the long trench. Mildo was a few feet in front of him, helping to pull out staves. Treaf had not wanted this job because he doubted it be very easy to pull a large, sharpened peace of would out of the ground.
As he dug, Treaf thought of it to be a waist to cut down a lot of timber and then pull it out of ground just after the battle was done. He was personally hoping that the Jaragon would be attacked again after they left, so that the people in it, (especially the King, who was in charge of everything,) would learn the hard way about some things.
Treaf grunted, and then continued on. There were only a few people working beside him, probably only about ten. There was another ten working along the wall a ways down from them, and another one a ways up from them. They were in the middle.
After about a half hour it began getting a bit warmer, but not overly so. It was still cool outside, and Treaf was glad of it.
He and Mildo were drinking some water when they heard ahead some startled cries. Treaf quickly got up, and walked over to the commotion, which was a little bit more towards the battlefield. Treaf couldn’t understand why anybody was out there in the first place, but he soon arrived there anyway.
There were a few people grouped around something, and Treaf quickly threw them aside. He beheld a Dark Hood, and for some odd reason he was moving. His arm was slightly dropping, and then moving a bit forward, and his head and neck turned to look at Treaf. He was lying amidst a twisted heap of dead things, and Treaf drew his sword, just in case it got up. But after a slight turn of its wrist, there was no more. Other people were silent, watching Treaf, and for a second he was puzzled, but soon he understood.
“That was just a muscle reaction. He probably truly died a few minutes ago, but had been unconscious since the battle was over.” He walked away, back to Mildo, and soon everyone else had started working again.
“So, what happened?” Mildo asked, and Treaf explained the minor shock of the day.
“It’s strange how much people overreact,” Mildo said, and Treaf silently agreed. For all they knew, someone could have died just then.
“Well, I guess it’s time to start working again,” Treaf sighed, and with that he put the lid on the water and continued digging. Mildo went over to his post also, and Treaf said, “So tell me, is it easier to pull out posts or dig, do you think?” Mildo looked thoughtful for a second and then said, “Probably pulling, if you have gloves on.” Treaf dropped his shovel and went a few feet away from Mildo, and started trying to pull out a stave. Mildo was right; after a small pause he had pulled it out, and his hands didn’t hurt a bit from it.
After that he continued with this job, and he and Mildo talked about various things, which seemed to spend time more rapidly. By the time Treaf had started getting a little tired, lunch break was called, and they all walked away from the wall, and then all went through the open gate. Treaf remembered when they had first came upon it; he had been so excited about seeing The Jaragon. Now he crossed it again, and he had done it so many times now. It was already a very normal thing.
The first thing that Treaf saw when he was on the other side of the gate were a few houses, and once they rounded a few corners, he saw before them the guest house, and nobody was grouped around it yet.
Once they were inside, Treaf saw that there was indeed someone in there, and it was the Elder. I guess he’s been working on the Magical Beings this whole time, Treaf realized, and was glad. They were making progress, but slowly.
After waving to him, Treaf and Mildo sat down and waited for their food to get there. Treaf looked outside of the window once in a while; they were ten feet elevated from the ground, and a ways from them the only thing that one could see were houses. Treaf knew that the ramparts were there, but they were momentarily out of sight until they were over by them again.
“What’re you looking at?” Mildo asked, and Treaf looked over at him. Sighing, Treaf said, “Nothing,” and rubbed his head, feeling a bit tired from lack of sleep.

Not long after, their food arrived, and Treaf ate it hungrily. He had not been in the mood to eat for a long time, and today he fully appreciated the taste of food.
“It looks like you’re hungry,” Mildo noted, and Treaf nodded, his mouth too full of food to reply. It looked like Mildo was hungry too, in fact it was only a reasonable judgment that all of them were.
After what seemed to have been a few moments, Treaf and all the others were outside again, heading for the ramparts. As they passed the raised mound that the overseer had been standing on, he said to Mildo, “I wonder where that guy is now. It would have been nice if he had helped work.” Treaf grimaced. “After all, he’s one of the only men in The Jaragon right now.” Mildo nodded, and with that they continued on, and soon Treaf looked around and saw for the first time that they really were making progress. They would have probably been done with the city clean up by then if they had been working on it that day, but they had not, and Treaf decided not to think about this fact.
Malock was one of those who were digging, and he was working with the group up towards the west of the wall. The digging was not hard work, and really he didn’t see any point in it, but he worked anyway, and right then he wasn’t thinking about anything in particular, or saying anything to anyone. The workforce was quiet besides all of the shoveling and grunts from exertion, and Malock guessed that all of the other groups were probably the same.
However, there wasn’t any sound from the city much either, and so it was like a quiet wasteland, almost ruined from a battle. Malock grunted as someone gave him water.

By the time it was time for break, Treaf was looking up at the clouds. They were dark; in fact the whole day was dark. This was how it had been on the first day of the battle, and then the Blackwolf Spirits had come out of the clouds. Looks like a perfect day for Spirits, Treaf noted, but he doubted that any of them would come down and cause more havoc on them.
“I wonder if we’re gonna run into any more enemy once we leave here,” Mildo said, who was beside Treaf. Treaf did not reply, but grimaced. If they did, Treaf would make sure to try and find the maker and controller of the Blackwolf Spirits, then they would most likely be wiped from the face of the earth, and they wouldn’t have any more trouble with a very powerful enemy.
Treaf was of course aware that the Dark Hoods were powerful also, so he held his tongue. Grouped together, the Blackwolves, Grewls, Drewmorocks, Trial Dogs, and Dark Hoods were a very powerful enemy.
“I guess we’ll have to play things as we go along,” Treaf finally replied. Mildo nodded, looking slightly unsure. Well, whether you like it or not, it’s the truth, Treaf thought, and then was startled when he felt something wet hit his nose. He immediately thought that it was rain, but when no more came he shoved the idea aside, and reluctantly started working again.
Then after a few more minutes he felt another moist drop, and then another. After that he was truly getting wet, and he realized that it was raining pretty hard. He walked back into the shed, and wondered if they would keep working through it all.
He looked around a bit, and saw that no one was out working, so he sat there and waited for instructions. When none came however, he decided that if no one else called off the work he might have to. Where’s the beloved commander now? Treaf asked himself smugly, and he thought that he was probably inside the King’s palace somewhere, drinking warm tea and eating sweats, while saying something to the King that would make him like the man. He was probably one of those people that gave people compliments and flattered them out of comprehension so that he could get the better end of the deal.
Before Treaf could say anything about calling the work off, he saw the western group start walking towards Treaf, Mildo, and everyone else. This meant that they were coming towards the gate, and that, (Treaf was sure,) meant that they were going to quite.
Treaf then stuck his hand outside of the small shack and he felt his skin being pelted with rain. It was not easing up, which he was definitely glad of. If it continued like that all day, they wouldn’t have to work. But then after a small pause Treaf reminded himself that the sooner they got the work done, the sooner they would be aloud to leave.
Presently the other group arrived by them, and Malock was at the front. They did not pause to say anything, and instead walked strait out of the gate quickly. The others in the shack followed, and soon they were inside the city as well.
Putting his hood back up, Treaf wondered what they would be doing next, and he thought that they would probably go back to guest house, for that was the general direction that they were heading in.
They were soon upon the threshold, and the small porch was getting pattered with rain, causing a loud racket. They were soon inside, though, and Treaf was glad, for it was warm, or definitely warmer than outside.
Most of them headed towards the upstairs, and Treaf followed. They were soon at the top in the sleeping quarters, and Treaf decided that he would read again. This took a long time, as the book was quite thick, and Treaf seriously doubted that he would be able to ever finish it.
That day he was reading about the certain powers of the necklace, and it turned out that it had the power to create intelligence of dead things, like a Necromancer. So Mourgorth could be the one behind the Blackwolf Spirits, Treaf thought with interest, and then read on. The necklace also had power to make longer life, which explained how Mourgorth was still alive after decades of his journeying and other plots. Things are starting to make more sense, Treaf thought, and fully appreciated having this certain book. It would probably help all of them out a lot, but Treaf was personally planning not to tell anyone about the book until he had read it. Otherwise things would be much more of a hassle, and soon enough he would find out that it had been stolen. He wanted to find out everything he could as fast as he could anyway, so he just stuck to reading, while everyone else made jokes or did other such things.
Treaf could not tell how much time had passed, hut he decided to take a small break from reading, His neck hurt, and he decided to walk around a bit.
He was soon at the bottom of the stairs, and he decided to check and see if it was still raining. He was not disappointed that it was, and he looked out of the window for a while more until he heard loud footsteps on the entrance, and then the door opened to reveal the ‘commander.’ He was quite a sight, completely drenched in rainwater, looking like he had just been inside a gutter. He looked around for a bit, sputtering, until he saw Treaf. He looked angry, and said, “You.You!”
“Yes?” Treaf asked politely. The man looked even angrier now, just what Treaf wanted to see.
“Why did all of you stop working? That was not under my command, and I happen to be in charge!”
“It is raining outside, as I am sure you are aware. Anyway, how ever did you get so wet?” Treaf asked curiously. The man looked embarrassed; almost purple.
“I—I fell in a gutter.” Treaf almost laughed, but he decided not to make the man even angrier.
“Anyway, that is irrelevant. I am aware that it is raining outside, but that doesn’t give you any excuse to stop working.” Now he was stern.
“Well sir,” Treaf said, not so smugly, “If you want to go outside and try working, go ahead. You should see for yourself, and I don’t see anything wrong with one of the only men in the city working. Do you, sir?” He asked, meeting the man’s eyes. With the thought of working himself it looked like he had changed his mind about forcing them to work, so he made a hasty good-bye and left. Treaf was not disappointed at this, and returned upstairs.
Later that night Treaf was still reading, (he had reached chapter fifteen,) and now he was feeling weary. Letting the book drop out of his grip, he thought about all he had read. Mourgorth had stayed in Southerian only one night more, and after that he had left, taking the necklace with him. He stopped in a few more towns to gather supplies, and he found himself making his way towards the Dark Lands, and soon he was in them. He started experimenting with the necklace, and learned deeper of its values and failures. He did not add anything magical to it, for that, he had feared, could backfire and hurt him.
After a few years of studying he had fully learned everything to the necklace, and the book that Treaf was reading had explained very detail of it.
Now Treaf sighed, wondering whether he would truly know about Mourgorth much. He then looked out the window, and he saw that the sun had come out.


§


Chapter Four

The Fifth Day
The next day started as they usually did. It was sunny, there were noises outside of the house, and Treaf was in bed.
The first thing that really woke Treaf up was the sun. It came hurtling towards him, and he immediately felt its warmth. It was also very bright, and he opened his eyes.
Blinking, he tried to get the fog out of his eyes, but he failed. Getting frustrated, he took some water and put it in them, and this cured the problem. Others were already up, but a few were in the state of Treaf.
He doubted that it would get hot today, but a nagging feeling inside told him that he that he was going to be in a bad mood.
He walked downstairs with the others, and soon they had been done with breakfast and were out working. Treaf had been put in a group that was going to do the city cleanup, and he was glad that he would be doing this rather than cleaning up dead bodies. He had probably done both equally, but the city was much better.
The commander was not there that day, and Treaf was very glad of this.
When he arrived at the working spot, he saw that there really wasn’t much to do. At this certain building that’s wall was destroyed, all they would be doing is cleaning up the broken bricks and organizing them. Treaf was glad that they would not be the ones to put everything back together, for those left in the city were going to do that.
He was given a shovel, and with it he started swiping bricks into a pile nearer to the building, and this was a bit hard, but he told himself that it would be done shortly. He supposed that Mildo had gone off to work in the battlefield, and he felt a bit sorry for him. Working there was very difficult.

There was not much that happened during the next hour, but soon Treaf and tow others had finished the job by that particular building, and had started on another. The Blackwolf Spirits had luckily not had any time to destroy the whole city, and Treaf was glad of this, for that would have taken them even more time to clean up.
Even though the sun was out, the air was chilly, and that early morning Treaf had noticed that there had been frost. Not much, but when there was frost it still made things a lot colder.
It seemed to Treaf that the work was going extra fast, and after that he realized that they had already finished. There had actually not been much to do in the first place, just move a few bricks, stack them up, and leave.
By the time they were done with all of this it was not even midday yet, and they walked around the city, looking for more work, but there was none. It felt good to have one project done, since it had taken so long. We’re probably gonna go into the battlefield and help out with that, he decided, and started heading that way. He was not dreading going to the battlefield, for he estimated that probably three fourths of the work there had already been done. They would just arrive to finish it off.
When they arrived at the other side of the gate, Treaf was not depressed as he usually was when he saw that battlefield, and today it really did look better. But for some reason I doubt that we will not have any more work to do. Everyone will probably seize the chance to make us do the city’s work, and I won’t like that. He grimaced, and then tugged a cart over to the first place that he wanted to. There were a few swords, axes, and other things over there, and so he picked them up and threw them into the cart. He saw that all of the thirty survivors were there, and he was pleased to know that they would be done quicker that way. I guess it is good that not all of us died, Treaf decided, and remembered the battle just a few days before. But then a sight distracted his thoughts, and it was Mildo. But the unexpected part was that there was a sword on his hip, and it looked to be a bit bigger than Treaf’s by about six inches.
Treaf walked over to him, and Mildo noticed him immediately.
“I see you have a new sword,” Treaf said, beckoning towards it. Mildo nodded.
“I got it earlier today before we started working. I thought I should have probably had one by then.”
“I bet there was a large choice,” Treaf replied, and Mildo nodded again. Treaf did not need a new sword and did not want one. Besides, with the Elder’s little magic it probably won’t break in a while, he thought. Before Mildo broke his new sword, Treaf decided to tell him about the Elder.
“You might want the Elder to make your sword’s edges and points stronger. He did to mine, and it worked.”
“Why didn’t you tell me about this before?” Mildo asked, and Treaf shrugged. After another moment of hesitation, Mildo said, “Well, I’m off then.” He walked away towards the main gate.
“Aren’t you going to help us work?” Treaf said loudly, and he was pretty angry. Mildo looked back and waved. I can’t remember if he’s ever met the Elder before, Treaf noted. He had been around that whole time, and Mildo knew about him, but Treaf doubted that he would have talked to him before.
After a few seconds Treaf walked back to his cart and started with loading some of the heap. Well, right now I don’t care about Mildo. If we could get done with all of the work today, then I’ll be happy. But for right then all of them had no choice but to work.
Mildo walked down the street, wondering where the Elder lived. He had forgotten to ask Treaf this, but he realized that Treaf would probably not know himself. After all he had been working with all of them, and had not had any free time that Mildo could recall. I don’t think that it will be in the middle of the city. It’s too noisy there, and he would probably have a heart attack. Mildo snickered in his thoughts. He hadn’t fully realized before now, but he hadn’t seen much of the Elder’s magic, except for the time right before the battle. Then he had let the Magical Beings out of the container, or whatever—and Mildo had thought that to be pretty amazing. He hadn’t seen him with Treaf when they went to rid the city of Blackwolves, though, and he was actually pretty surprised that the two of them hadn’t died. After the sight of all the broken buildings, Mildo could guess that these spirits were pretty powerful.
At first Mildo headed towards the western side of the city, and then when he could not find him there he went to check the southern. It was difficult looking for him, because there was no one to ask where he was, and he doubted that anyone would know of him anyway. So he had to check all the houses, and this was especially awkward when he had done it a dozen times.
At last he had checked the southern houses, and moved over to the eastern side of the city.
After a few minutes of walking he arrived there, and after five houses he found the Elder. He had obviously not met Mildo before, for he asked who he was.
“Treaf suggested that I have you protect my new blade with magic,” Mildo said, and the Elder nodded. Since after that he went inside, Mildo knew that he should probably follow, and once he had passed the threshold he realized that the little house was quite cluttered with furniture, paperwork, and who-knows what.
Soon Mildo had been seated on a small round table.
“So you are pleased with your knew sword?” Mildo nodded.
“And my I ask what happened to your old one?”
“It broke during the battle. I was fighting a bunch of Drewmorocks.” The Elder did not reply, and then asked Mildo for the sword. He gave it to him, and after that the Elder began moving his hands alongside the edges, muttering something. This did not take as long as Mildo had expected it to. There came to ear a very soft ringing, as if Mildo had been drawing it this whole time.
Then something odd happened. Originally the sheath had been a very dark green, almost black. Now it turned a very dark red, and the bottom of it, (which was a piece of metal fashioned like some kind of odd leaf,) turned to gold, along with the bracers in the middle, top, and higher bottom. The elder then changed the sword’s leather handle wrap into red also, and turned the hilt and pommel into gold as well.
“Is that real gold?” Mildo asked, and the Elder shook his head while he continued his work.
“No, it is a copper-iron alloy.” Mildo nodded, not really knowing what the Elder was talking about. But soon after he kept watching him he asked, “Why exactly did you turn everything a different color?” The Elder smiled and said, “Why, do you not like it?”
“No, it’s not that, but….” The Elder nodded again, before replying, “I understand. I didn’t think you looked like someone who would care about color.” Actually Mildo did care about the color; he would not want it to go pink or anything. But he doubted this, and continued watching the Elder.
After about thirty seconds the Elder had finished, and Mildo was soon in possession of his rather new blade. He tested the edge with his fingernail, and he was pleased to see that it was plenty sharp. The Elder had done an excellent job anyway, and Mildo had forgotten by then that it had ever been a different color.
After saying good-bye and thank you, Mildo walked down the street, feeling the sword’s comfortable weight against his hip.
He considered the fact for a moment of asking Treaf for a duel the next day, and thought that this would probably be reasonable, since tomorrow they would hopefully be packing up and leaving. They could squeeze a duel into the morning; that was the best time anyway.
Mildo had to make his way around the whole city before he arrived at the gates. They were open, and when he peered into the open field he was startled to see that no one was there. Once he had looked around a bit, he also quickly realized that there was nothing to clean up. Like I’ve thought before, I think of it to be really weird for an army to clean up a city. And we’re the only ones doing it. He smiled, and then walked to the guest house.
All of the work was done.

Treaf was in bottom floor of the guest house, enjoying a cup of coffee that had been set before him. There were also sweets in front of him, and he had already eaten half of them.
He sighed, feeling extremely content, warm, and pleased. The work was done! Now he would pampered by everyone.
There were other people around him also, and they probably felt the same way that he did. I gonna be really sick, Treaf thought as another waitress came with a plate of good-tasting things. He ate some of those, and crumbs were falling of and out of his mouth when he heard a door slam and Mildo walk in. He was looking pretty happy, and Treaf didn’t blame him.
“Enjoy!” Treaf said as he came to sit on the opposite of Treaf. He immediately began eating, and he asked for some coffee too.
“I was thinking that we could have a duel tomorrow morning,” he said, and Treaf nodded.
“To test out your new blade, right? Sounds good.” After eating a bit more, Treaf asked, “Can I see it?” Mildo UN strapped the sword from his hip and handed it to Treaf. It was not heavy, but it was not too light, so Treaf didn’t really know what to say.
“So the Elder changed the color, did he? He did the same with mine. Treaf showed Mildo his, and he actually looked surprised when he received it.
“It used to be pretty gold, right? And mine was blackish.” Treaf nodded. “Now we have the opposites.” Mildo nodded, and they both handed the swords back to each other.
After that they kept eating and drinking, until dinner was held, and Treaf was surprised that they were even going to have dinner that night.
People were talking loudly, and everyone from The Jaragon looked surprised that the army would want to leave so quickly. Treaf was surprised with his own feelings right then, though, and he seriously looked forward to the next day. However, right then he was seriously enjoying eating too, which came a bit of a shock.
There were many things to eat as usual, like ham, potatoes, kabobs, crab, fish, and other things that Treaf gorged himself with. Mildo seemed to think that he would have to eat more food than Treaf so that he would look impressive, and Treaf seemed to be able to eat and eat.
“I think the King was too cowardly to come to dinner tonight,” Treaf said after looking around a bit. He had not been in sight, though it was a bit difficult to see through all the hubbub and noises, besides steam from the kitchens. People felt free to walk around, for not many were confined to tables. Treaf was actually feeling like he would die if he did stand up, so he was wise and remained seated.
“I think you’re right,” Mildo replied, taking a sip from some kind of sweet, creamy drink that Treaf was having too.
“Or the commander was discharged and he is having a lecture with the King right now,” he joked, sitting up a bit. Mildo nodded, and then looked over at everyone else. There were only thirty people in the room right been, (plus cooks, waitresses, and ECT.), but all of them were grouped together, and Treaf personally didn’t know who would want to sit separately.
After a while Treaf saw the Elder, and said “Hi,” to him, which he doubted the Elder heard. Even so it did not matter, for he had seen Treaf too, and they both acknowledged each other.
Treaf, however, could not spot Malock, but didn’t really care anyway. He would be seeing plenty of him later; tomorrow seemed irrelevant right then, and in a way it was. Someday it would come, and it didn’t really matter when, but Treaf guessed that tomorrow he would feel like the time between then had gone very quickly.

It was a very long night, and by the time Treaf came to reality it had already become eleven o’clock. He was feeling extremely heavy, and Mildo looked like he hardly had eyes since he was squinting so much. This was not due to brightness, however, but tiredness.
Treaf normally would not be that tired that early, but since he had stuffed himself to the edge of explosion, he felt, well….different. Not average. Actually quite irregular.
After a few more minutes there came a few signs of difference. Things seemed to be quieter, and a few were head back up the stairs.
“I guess it’s time to retire,” Treaf said in a murky voice. Mildo nodded and replied, “Permanently.” Treaf laughed a bit, and then grimaced when he saw that Mildo had tried to stand up but couldn’t. Actually Treaf was seriously considering sleeping down on floor at the exact place, but he decided not to. He would probably be charged with “indecency” and sent to a prison. He doubted this, but it was entertaining for the meantime. He forced himself up, and then burped, and it was the loudest noise in the room at the time.
After waiting for a few seconds Treaf started walking towards the stairs, and he was aware that Mildo was too.
After what seemed to have been hours, both of them arrived at the summit, and after that the only thing that he could remember was a thump as he landed on his bead, and a few other sounds that were irrelevant.


Chapter Five

A Second Departure

The next day came very quickly, for Treaf realized that the night had seemed very short. But he awoke very energetic, and the sun was glaring in his eyes, which he did not like.
Before he knew it Mildo had been the one to wake him up, and he jumped off of his bed, for the previous night he had just dropped down upon it because he had been so tired. Today, however, he realized finally that they would be leaving The Jaragon, and he thought that the day would probably not get any better, even if Mildo beat him in the training that they would be doing that day.
Breakfast could be smelled by the time they were down to the eating and council room, and Treaf realized that somehow he was actually pretty hungry after the incidents of the previous night.
“I wonder what Malock’ll be doing,” Mildo said as he and Treaf sat down at one of the tables in the middle of the room. Treaf answered with an inaudible sound once he realized the full content of the question.
“He’ll probably be training people. That’s what he did in Goshop, but I guess then it really mattered.” Treaf shuffled his place slightly and looked over at a few people sitting several feet away from them.
“It doesn’t really matter, though, and here comes our food.” Indeed their food had arrived, and it happened to be a roll with a few eggs and slabs of delicious looking meat.
By the time Treaf had started with his food things had really started to get loud as everyone went into their eating places. Treaf was definitely not looking forward to packing, but he was determined not to dread it, since there was no point in doing so.
Soon Mildo and Treaf were walking on the other side of the threshold when he saw the commander coming in from breakfast. He must live in one of the townhouses, Treaf noted, and then they continued on their way without any further thought.
In a few minutes’ time they arrived at the training area and Treaf felt a determination to beat Mildo. He took off his cloak and over shirt, which was heavy and weighed him down. Besides, the sun was out, and Treaf knew too well that he would be extremely hot in no time, especially when fighting an opponent like Mildo.
Treaf stepped into the fence, and Mildo followed on the opposite side, the one that Treaf seemed to be on most of the time. He shunted all thoughts from his mind except for beating Mildo, though, and soon he was completely ready.
He started running at Mildo, and Mildo dodged him for some reason, instead of blocking his blow; in fact he kept doing this until Treaf stopped moving around and went into a defensive position. Mildo did not sprint but rolled, which made it very difficult for Treaf, and in the end he had to jump high in the air to avoid Mildo’s upward, pressing blows. It’s too bad I can’t use magic or some sort of supernatural ability to take him down, he thought, once he realized how hard it was going to be to beat him. But then he swore loudly and jumped backwards when Mildo made a wide swiping arch. He then swiped back, but Mildo grabbed his arm and held it there. His hands against Treaf’s forearms felt like pincers he had such good grip, but Treaf knew immediately that Mildo was planning to stab him and end it there. If I could just....he then tried using his brute strength to knock his hand off, but this did not work, so he pounded it with his own fist, and Mildo soon had to let go, cursing and shaking his hand. Treaf then saw the chance and tried knocking Mildo out with the pommel of his sword, a trick that might have worked against someone else. But not Mildo. Instead he raised his leg to a very impressive height and blocked the edge with his boot. Shocked, Treaf pulled back, waiting for Mildo’s next move, which was probably going to be unusual. He actually lunged this time, and Treaf blocked it, not thinking anything of it, and actually he was rather disappointed.
But then Mildo made a downward swing, and it was aimed at Treaf’s shoulder. He made a feeble attempt to block it with his sword, and he barely made it on time, and he swore again. It would have been much easier just to back out of the way, but Mildo was much too smart for Treaf and knew that he could slowly eat away at his energy by forcing him to make stupid moves. So instead of waiting again Treaf decided to do something that he had never tried before: he leaped at Mildo, he had abandoned his sword, and he started punching Mildo over and over in the chin. His fists were large blurs, and Mildo yelped in surprise when the hard surfaces met with Mildo’s chin. I actually kinda feel bad for him. My right arm has a gauntlet on it, so it would be the equivalent of hitting him with a piece of rock. After a few seconds Treaf had hit him about twelve times, and Mildo finally resigned, blood all over his face from his mouth and nose.
Treaf was smiling and panting, and Mildo was groaning loudly in-between outbursts of cursing and swearing.
They both backed out of the training area, and Treaf did not make any yelps of victory. Instead he began washing his face with a bowl of water that was set before him a ways off from the fence. Mildo followed him, a heavy nosebleed littering the ground.
When he arrived Treaf said to him, “I beat you.” He laughed. “Didn’t expect that, did ya’?” Mildo groaned in a half painful, half angry way. Treaf felt himself start to laugh, but then decided not to. That would just fuel Mildo’s anger and next thing Treaf would be covered in bruises.
“Are we going to go at it again?” Treaf asked, and Mildo nodded. Treaf looked surprised, and he realized that Mildo really had a determination to beat Treaf, and Treaf had a determination to beat Mildo.
§
The next match there was really not much to explain, and the victor ended up being Mildo. He had not bragged much, but Treaf knew that Mildo was personally celebrating. And this was with a sword he isn’t even used to, Treaf thought, stunned, as his knees buckled and he fell to the ground. That had been a hard match, and Treaf had been utterly surprised at Mildo’s skill. Whenever I move ahead by just a little bit, he always comes and claims my spot, he thought, spitting on the ground.
Mildo was over by the water, and Treaf walked past him, saying that he was going to get a drink. Mildo trailed him, and Treaf put his hands in his pockets. He was now in a bad mood, no matter how one looked at it.
It seemed like quite a while before they arrived at the Guest House. It was not packed, in fact no one was in it at all, save the janitors and other people who worked there.
When Treaf walked in he saw that Malock was just coming out of the top floor, and Treaf guessed that he had previously been doing some of his ‘business.’
“You should be packing,” he told Treaf, and he groaned. Malock looked slightly surprised, and then Treaf said, “I’m just gonna get a drink of water first,” he said, and with that he told Mildo to do the same and they headed to the kitchens. Luckily they got into them without being seen, for Treaf had a strange feeling that they were not supposed to be in them right then.
But after drinking they went outside and Treaf truly wondered where all of the bags were that would lead them out of The Jaragon.
It did not take long to find them. About thirty-five bags and other things were all grouped in a certain area not far outside the Guest House, and the surviving army was all putting things into them, and when some of them were done, they put them on about thirty horses that were grouped there also. It almost reminded Treaf of the group of Dark Hoods they had seen on the hunting party not so long ago. Actually it’s the same seen as the day we left Goshop. Treaf sighed and breathed in the morning air. That was such a joyous day, Treaf remembered.
He and Mildo then went over to a few packs and started stuffing in some food and warm clothing. The whole thing was basically made up of tents, (judging by the space taken up,) and after that the leading staple was food, and then off course they also had all of the other things that they would need along the way. If they were, however, to run into any Dark Hoods or any other various dangers, Treaf would probably get very angry and kill all of them.
He then looked up and saw that Malock was standing a few feet fro him, and Treaf asked, “We won’t be traveling in different groups like last time, will we?” Malock paused for a second, and if this pause had been longer it would have seemed that he had not heard Treaf at all.
“No. We only have thirty people, and last time we had much more, roughly a hundred. Including the Beings, that would be about two hundred.” Malock then grimaced and looked back to his work. “It is quite obvious to me that we are going to lose this war no matter what we do. Even if we had a thousand Beings, things would still be hard.” Treaf was angry at Malock, and he needed to stop himself fro saying something that he shouldn’t. Since when does Malock have all this authority and knowledge? And I know that we hardly have any hope. But we can still try to do what we can. He grimaced and scowled. Mildo was beside him, and he could tell that he noticed that Treaf was for some reason in a bad mood.
However, the next few minutes were extremely silent, and this sort of silence troubled Treaf.
Having nothing else to do, Treaf thought of the route they would be taking in his head. This plan of traveling had become all of their lives, and Treaf hardly thought of it to be treacherous anymore. It was just the life’s goal.
After about a week they would be arriving at the camp of the Twelve Lords of The Jaragon, which were located about a mile and a half from the Northern Ledges. Treaf realized that this would probably be very interesting of an encounter, and he wished that they would join the forces, but he doubted it. If they were just going to go around to different countries and recruit people, he thought that people would definitely stop trusting them.
Next after that there was a while of barren land, where he guessed were pastures and plains of grass, since that area was unlikely to have desert. And a few miles after that was The Pass, which was a long strip of mountain ranges that Treaf had remembered seeing on the map. Dammit! And if we can’t pass that were gonna die right at the spot, he thought, and cursed. A ways down the mountains, however, were the Dark Lands, and after a long stretch of those they would be safe in the headquarters of Mourgorth, fighting a large battle.
Actually, there might be a few major cities along the way; perhaps more in The Jaragon, and after that I doubt we could get anything more than a few farmers. He stuffed a last sack of potatoes into the large pack, and then he grunted as he lifted it with one arm. Holding the horse’s saddle, he strapped one side on, and then he went over to the other side, and attempted strapping that one on. The trouble was, the horse seemed to want to get a good look at Treaf, and it kept turning around and around until Treaf called Mildo to come and hold it.
After awhile more of the work Treaf looked around and realized that they only had ten more packs to go. Great! Now we can pretty much leave. He walked over to one of them and stuffed things in five at time absentmindedly. After no more than a few seconds he was done with the inside, and after that all he had to do was strap some mats, blankets, and tents on to the outer shell. Then he lifted it, attached it to the horse, and started with the next.
Hardly after they had even begun they were done, and Treaf awaited Malock’s command. There were a few moments of silence, in which Treaf noticed people were getting a bit restless. Hah. I guess they want to continue just as badly as I do, Treaf thought as he looked at Sloyd, who was constantly shifting feet and bighting his lip in a characteristic way.
Then there came a few mutters as something came around the corner, which happened to be the King and his subjects. I wonder what he has to say, Treaf wondered, and then stared on when he started talking.
“I am pleased to see you all here right now, and if you please, I would prefer that you leave according to your schedule, and not waste much time saying good-bye to your beloveds.” He then paused, breathed, and pleasantly continued, “I hope that danger and the enemy will be stalled in your favor, for I know the danger that you must face—Mourgorth, I think it is?” Malock nodded, for he was at the head of the group. “Yes—anyway, I thank you for your time here, and I also thank you for helping save this town from utter destruction.” He then wiped his mouth with a silk bandana, and then waved it at them to beckon for them to go.
“Nice speech,” Mildo muttered to Treaf, and he chuckled. “ Yeah, no more of them, I guess,” he replied.
Under order of Malock they then mounted their horses, and Treaf had partially forgotten the feel of their backs. But after a few seconds he had welcomed and realized the feel and it became normal again.
They stood facing the town and its people, and the King said good-bye and all of the others too. Treaf was not one of the few that said good-bye in return, and the ones that did looked slightly foolish and embarrassed.
After a minute of this, they all turned, and Treaf now saw the gate to the battlefield before him. This is it. They all then went trotting towards it as it opened, and in no time Treaf had seen the gate pass before him and he was now riding into the battlefield, which was not recognizable as one anymore. He saw the woods a ways off, and then saw the people one last time. He then paused, then made a whoop and headed towards the front of the party, where Malock was.
“You’re in high spirits,” Malock noted. Treaf did not reply but headed on. Instead he asked Malock a question that had just popped into his head.
“What’s at Mt. Ecron?” Malock paused and grimaced.
“Nothing really. It’s just a mountain with a name, and it is barren, so I doubt you would want to raise a family and live there.” Malock smiled, and Treaf said loudly, “No one ever said anything about me living there!” Malock smiled again, and Treaf decided that he would go back to the end, but he realized that he wanted to see the forest head on, so he moved over a few spaces to the right of Malock.
He could now hear birds and things, and the forest really didn’t look much different than the one in Goshop. He guessed that it was in fact the same one, and wondered how much longer it would continue without being intercepted by something else.
It took merely seconds before the sun was off their backs and cool forest air entered Treaf’s lungs. Twigs and needles cracked underfoot, but luckily there was a road that continued all the way to the Northern Ledges, so there was not much undergrowth. At certain places some sunlight entered through the trees and hit the ground, but Treaf did not like it when they happened to pass through one of these, for the light hurt his eyes, and the horse seemed to want to run off every time.
After a few minutes they had not encountered any streams, and Treaf knew that they would be able to hear one a ways off if they did encounter one.
With a jolt Treaf realized that he had not drawn his bow, as he had done in Goshop. If they were attacked by surprise he would most likely take one of the enemies down, even though he was not one of the best archers. It had not taken him long to learn the skill, however, and he reminded himself that he had participated in the battle with the Dark Hoods. He had done quite ell, too.
By midday they took a break and had some food. It happened to be some kind of large sandwiches that had a reasonable amount of smoked ham in them, and also lettuce with other things. Treaf had decided that day that he would stop not eating meat, and he realized just how good it was, especially in sandwiches. Otherwise there was not enough to keep one functioning the rest of the day. Besides, it helped the group a lot, because before that they had made special meals for Treaf and Mildo, and he had felt a little ridiculous eating these ‘specialty foods.’
They had, in fact, found a stream, and that is where they had eaten the lunch. The horses also took a drink and ate some of the grass that grew nearby. Are we gonna need to bring feed along with us when it’s wintertime? Treaf wondered as he looked at them. That would mean more weight, and that would mean more horses, which would need more feed—and the cycle would continue on for a long time if they weren’t careful. They could always just abandon the horses, but it would be hard walking all the way, and basically they would just need to make the horses slightly uncomfortable if they expected to get anywhere.
After this consideration Treaf mounted his horse along with the others. They were on their way shortly, and there was truly not much interesting that was going on. Treaf, however, definitely favored this rather than working in The Jaragon along with all of the others, so he did not complain even though he was very bored.
The overall set up of the group was pretty much the same as last time they had been traveling; the Seven Warlords were in the front, along with Treaf and Mildo, and the villagers were in the back, with the Rangers in the middle. We wouldn’t have won in such a terrible way if we had had more Rangers, Treaf thought, and scowled. But at the time they had had enough on their hands, even though Treaf did not really understand their motives anyway.
Presently Mildo started talking, and Treaf did not really mind this that much, even though the only thing he was talking about was hearing about something in a book. Treaf was not really paying attention, and in this way several minutes passed before Treaf realized something. When should I tell Mildo about the book I got about Mourgorth? He wondered. But then he realized that would be a long time in the future, for he had decided in the city that he would not tell anyone until he had read it himself. But at least I will have something interesting to look forward to tonight, he thought. They could actually learn something from this book that would help them extremely in the long run.
After a few more seconds Mildo stopped talking and looked at Treaf. “What are you thinking about?” He asked.
“Mourgorth,” Treaf replied, and he was not lying. Mildo shook his head and was silent for a few moments. “If you’re gonna worry about him so much, your life will be wrought with some kind of curse, probably,” Mildo said in mock wise ness.
“I’m not worrying about him!” Treaf snapped back. He grimaced. “Thinking about him. That’s all. Besides, it’s completely different than worrying about him.” Mildo shook his head. “They’re the same.” Treaf felt his anger rising, and then he decided not to get too worked up, for there was no point in getting involved with someone like Mildo.
“We actually might have enough Magical Beings to create a whole army, though.”
“We already have,” Treaf replied dryly. They had, in fact, made a hundred of them, or at least the Elder did.
“No, I mean like an army big enough that allows us not to have to fight.” I don’t think that’ll ever happen. He then decided to move back in the group and find the Elder. It might actually be interesting to talk to him, for after all Treaf had helped him once with creation. Actually Treaf realized that he hadn’t really helped—he just stood there and asked questions.
After a little while he found him, and he was riding with the other villagers. They were all talking about something, and Treaf decided to join the conversation, or at least just listen.
They were all talking about various things, like all of the different Magical Beings, and Treaf immediately became interested when the Elder started to explain each and every one in detail. First was the Grath, which Treaf guessed was the first one he ever made, and then the Leather Black dragon, and then the Garland, and many others beside which Treaf did not know about. Some of them, however, he knew the description, and had probably seen it in the battle.
After a few more minutes Treaf finally noticed that the sun was not out, for it had become cooler. I guess we’ll be camping soon, he noted, looking around him. His neck hurt, and his hand was tired of holding the bow. Even if we do get attacked I doubt it would be much use anyway, he thought, and then looked down on it. He had a bad feeling about putting it away, but then quickly decided to do so, for if something unwelcome suddenly leapt out of the bushes he would ride up and slash it with his sword.
There then came a sudden gust of wind which blew Treaf’s hair all around himself, and in this wind it was cold. Goosebumps appeared on what little skin Treaf had exposed, and he suddenly realized that in a way he hated the cold weather. Ones’ legs would freeze, and you could get very immobile because of the stiffness in one’s legs
The rest of the way to Treaf seemed very silent, and when a horse made one of its odd sounds it was surprising. After a while Treaf grew very uncomfortable, and when this happened he wanted nothing more than to stop for the night. But he guessed that it was probably only five in the evening, and they would probably stop riding only when it was difficult to see.

Then something unexpected happened. Malock called for a break, and Treaf and the others stopped at his order. They were now beside a large and natural build up of rocks, for there were fallen trees and the roots had grabbed all the dirt when it fell.
“What now?” Treaf muttered to himself after he got off of his horse. He then walked over to a large upturned root and tied the rope to it. Malock then said, “We’re gonna stop here. There is probably not going to be any better place, so don’t protest.” He walked off towards some of the other horses. “Oh, yes—and we’re having dinner.” Treaf did not find this shocking at first, but then he realized that they usually did not have dinner when they traveled. Only two meals a day was not nearly enough for Treaf, but he understood why they would usually have it set up that way. They sometimes had it after a surprise attack or if everyone was particularly warn out, but they had just started the journeying tat very morning.
After a few minutes of tying the horses they began undoing all the bags, and after they were all down, they began taking everything out of them, (except for the weaponry packs, of course.)
Shortly there came a smell of food, which was steak and a few other things. It smelled very delicious to Treaf, and his mouth was watering tremendously when a plate half full of food arrived in his hands. He quickly started eating it, and even though he stuffed many things into his mouth at once he could still taste everything. Others were acting basically the same way, and in no time they were all done.
Treaf first walked over to where all the plates were going to, and saw that only tow people were there to put all of them away. He snickered and was glad that he was not one of them.
He then made his way to the pack that had been on his horse, and he took the tent out. After setting it up, (which took a very short time,) Treaf went into it and read with what little light there still was. By the time he had to stop he had only read eight pages, but his eyes were tired anyway, so he dropped the book and fell asleep.

That night he had no dreams. His rest was undisturbed save a few times that eh awoke with starts for absolutely no reason whatsoever, and in the early morning he realized that he was fully rested.
He got up when he heard others doing the same, and he felt particularly dazed. He had not bothered with taking his shirt off, and so he went outside. Once he had closed the flap behind him and crawled out there came a very cold feeling as the air met with his skin. He was actually very surprised at this, and wanted just to go back inside the tent, but that was really not an option, and he thought of how funny it would be if he had done it.
Making the best of it, he pulled the hood on his thick cloak over him and buttoned up his overshirt fully. Others had basically fall gear on, but Treaf did not want to go through the trouble of finding that in his pack, so he told himself that shortly the sun would come out and it would be warmer.
After Treaf had taken down the tent and put it into the pack, he lifted it onto one shoulder and walked over to where the horses stood. Someone was hunched over putting down a bowl of water for on of them, and Treaf recognized that it was Mildo once he faced Treaf.
The doat actually didn’t look energetic in the least bit today, and for some reason Treaf was not glad of this.
“Didn’t sleep?” Treaf said, untying his horse. Mildo nodded, and then said, “Did you?” Treaf said yes, and then turned around when someone called his name. It happened to be Malock, who said, “Treaf! Come over here and help with breakfast. I’ll put the packs away,” and with that Treaf said bye to Mildo and went over to where Malock was previously. He started helping Sloyd fry some fish, cut bread, and other various things, and he was happy with this, for occasionally he was able to eat a few of the scraps when Sloyd wasn’t looking.
In a few minutes the food was ready, and Treaf did not call everyone over but let them find out was going on for themselves; for he was too busy eating. His helping was larger than some of the other’s, for he had snuck in some extra. I think I’m gonna continue helping with cooking, Treaf decided as he happily ate a very plump sausage that had been fried to the crisp with a certain sauce the flavor that he was not aware of. As he did this Mildo came over, and his eyes widened as he looked at the food. For a second he paused, and then he ate even more quickly than Treaf.
By the time that he was done, Treaf was actually very full, and he had warmed up considerably.
Others had not put their tents away or packed, so Treaf spent this time walking around their camp and doing nothing. He was not bored, however, and by the time it had gotten warmer he noticed that the last bags were being put on the horses. He immediately walked over to his horse and got on it. He was the first to start riding towards the road, but he let Malock take the lead from there, since he would probably get in trouble if he didn’t.
He drew his bow and loaded it, and then they continued southeast down a road that was certainly plagued with danger.
Treaf wanted something interesting to do, so he reached into the back by his side and pulled out the book about Mourgorth. He opened to the page where he had left off, for the corner had been folded.
That chapter was about the different things that he had done in the Dark Lands, the gruesome magic, and some of the creatures that he had experimented with. Eventually he came out with a rather small army, but each thing that he created, (which he called Dark Hoods,) were equivalent to eleven normal soldiers. Treaf had grown excited at this, thinking that since he had killed a Dark Hood before he was equal to eleven of Malock. But in the next paragraph it said that this of course had been a very long time ago and that nowadays they were not as powerful. But he had also made a large race of dogs called Alkerons, and some of them had escaped, migrating further north until they became comfortable in Gandria.
The ones that he had kept, however, were even bigger and more powerful, and they were known as Trial Dogs. He sent them to attack certain trade routes, but no one had known where they came from, and thus he was undiscovered. Treaf by now was very pleased with the book, and all coldness of the morning was now irrelevant.
There was also a failed creation that had not been known before, and these were called Radjaks, and Treaf knew that he had heard the name before, but after a little more reading he seriously doubted it, since this had never been known outside of the Dark Lands. These creatures were small, and very strong, and their purpose was to fly and absorb the blood from people’s necks. There was however one problem with them, though. They were made for a special purpose of getting the blood, and thus abstracting the oxygen from the blood, along with the carbon and other elements that were necessary for life. If they had taken too much blood, however, their own bodies would become much too hard and oxygenated for normal life, so they would die as if paralyzed.
These were the only three creatures that he had made at the time, and after that he had stopped his work, and after a few more pages the chapter ended.
By now the sun had come out, and the temperature was probably no more than sixty degrees. The forest was much louder than it had been the previous morning, but still there was not much noise other than the birds, people’s voices, and other various things that indicated the presence of various things. I wonder what else Mourgorth has made by now, he wondered, and closed the book. Mildo was just behind him, and he said, “What were you just reading?” The voice was so unexpected that Treaf felt shocked, and then he said, “The book I brought from Gandria.” Mildo nodded. “I’m surprised you’re reading that,” he said, and Treaf grimaced.
“I’m not going to read it anymore,” he replied, and with that he put the book into the pack and paid more attention to everything else. There seemed to be more of the thicker trees, and these Treaf realized were firs, but they were less tall. We’re probably pretty far into The Jaragon by now, he realized, even though this had only been their first day traveling. Only a few days to go and we’ll arrive at the Northern Ledges, hopefully, his thoughts continued. After that they would continue on after perhaps gathering a few more soldiers. Sounded reasonable.
After a few more seconds Mildo started talking, and he said, almost mockingly, “It’s so too bad we don’t have a book about Mourgorth,” and he gave Treaf a smile. Treaf turned on him angrily. “Since when have you been looking through my stuff?!” He yelled, and several heads turned. Mildo then said, “Keep it down, will ya? You don’t want to raise a scene. Than everyone’s gonna want to read it.” Treaf wondered how he had managed to get into his stuff, but he left this for later and said. “Well ya can’t read it.” Mildo looked shocked. “But why not wouldn’t there be valuable information? Or is there something in it that is not fit for my age group?” Treaf shook his head, which in his case meant final definition, but for Mildo it meant nothing.
“You can’t read it, and that’s final,” he said, right before Mildo was about to speak.
“Why the heck not?” Treaf frowned and then said loudly after a long, exasperated groan, “Because I’m reading it!” He thought that this was good enough a reason, but some reason he doubted that Mildo would pay attention to him, for he would rather just trample him down and get the goodies after that.
“Well how about we both read it at the same time?” Switch on and off during different nights.” Treaf grimaced and then thought for a second. He realized that Mildo probably really wanting to read it—after all Treaf had when he had first gotten it, but then Treaf really wanted to keep reading it. However, he thought about and decided that he could maybe read it every other night like Mildo had suggested.
“Fine,” he said, and that was all there was to it. “But when you’re done with it you have to make a speech in front of the whole army. If you don’t finish it by then I don’t know what to do. Get a new strategy I guess. But the reason for this,” he added after seeing the look of bewilderment on Mildo’s face, “Is so that we all learn about Mourgorth together.” He sincerely hoped that Mildo had heard him, because he really didn’t want to explain the whole thing over again. But then Mildo nodded as he made his way around a large rock, and Treaf had remembered something like this happening when they had been traveling through the Barren Lands. Me and him had been talking about Dark Hoods, Treaf remembered, and then thought with a smirk. Hah. Time’s a strange thing.


Chapter Six
The Elder
After a few more hours it had become midday, and hence they stopped for lunch. Treaf was surprised to realize that he was not hungry in the least bit, and so he decided not to eat anything, since forcing something down his throat just for the heck of it would be a waste. He sat there and did various things, and the horses were also eating, but this time there was no stream that they stopped by. In fact Treaf doubted that there was one in the area at all, for one could not hear the general sound of one.
After what seemed a reasonably long time they were all done, and they all mounted their horses once more. However, Treaf was growing bored of doing nothing but riding, and so he found the Elder and struck up a conversation with him.
“So how many Magical Beings have you made yet?” He asked him. The Elder paused and then said, “I have created a hundred and fifty, and I think that that is a reasonable amount. How about you?” Treaf nodded. The Elder had made about fifty more since the battle, and Treaf guessed that he had worked very hard at it. He had been through the process before, and it was actually pretty long and tiring.
“That’s pretty impressive. I guess if you keep it up pretty soon we’ll have a thousand, huh?” The Elder laughed, and Treaf did not see the reason for it, but he did not say anything and continued on. Soon they were not talking anymore, but Treaf still was in the area of the group when he realized that the Elder was doing all of this from the Spell Book.
“Is there anything else in that Spell Book besides all of this?” Treaf asked. The Elder looked sternly at Treaf, but he met his gaze steadily.
“What do you mean?” He asked finally.
“Like any kind of other magic. I’m just curious, and besides, you must have read more than just how to create magical Beings, haven’t you?” The Elder paused thoughtfully.
“I have read about creations of other things too.” Treaf was unenthusiastic.
“Like what?” The Elder looked away as if this was not the proper place to be discussing things like this. Treaf, however, was more curious than ever, and he really wondered what had been in that Spell Book that they had received from the wizard in Eprinoco.
“Just tell me already!” Treaf said loudly, and the Elder seemed to realize that he was not talking, so he finally said, “I read about creating Blackwolf Spirits,” he said, and this did not seem to register in Treaf’s mind for a few seconds. Wait—the creation of those beasts? That could actually be useful in this war if he could create ones more powerful than the enemies’.
“Why haven’t you created any of them? It could be very useful, and we are all quite desperate. The Elder sighed, then breathed in deeply and said, “They are extremely difficult to create and I am not experienced enough. Only very powerful wizards can do this sort of thing.” Treaf grimaced. It couldn’t be that hard, could it? But then, it would be very bad if the Elder died in the process. No. we couldn’t risk it.
“That truly is too bad. Could you just explain the function to me, though? I’m not gonna try it, believe me. I’m too selfish to die.” The Elder did not really find this funny, and Treaf had the strange feeling that he was in trouble.
“All right. But you can read it yourself. I have made a copy that I carry with me. The handwriting in the actual Spell Book is too bad for you to read, I understand?” Treaf nodded, and after that the Elder extracted from within his coat a long piece of paper that had been rolled up until an inch thick, and Treaf guessed that there were probably multiple pieces of paper inside. Must be a pretty long function, he thought, receiving the piece of paper and then opening it. The Elder’s writing was certainly easier to read, and so he was pleased that he could learn a bit more magic.
The first chapter, or chapter heading, was labeled, Dark Energy and How to use it. Treaf read on, for he was extremely interested. Dark Energy consists of the things that make up any spirit except for the Magical Beings. To extract Dark Energy one must use the elementary designs of the Kagra, an extraction spell, and the ten Death Bonds. To use these one must also know how to handle them. One must, using the above, take the energy from the storm clouds using a Storm Brewer, and after that sealing it with a small charm. A bottle with absolutely no openings is ideal.
One must make sure none of the powerful energy escapes. Make sure that the bottle is large enough to house as much energy as one needs according to the Spirit being created. One must also take caution to the Spirit’s intentions, or otherwise it will kill you.
After this extract the Spirit after five days by breaking the seal. It will usually go without hesitation into a new form, in which case one must use the Blackwolf Spirit enchantments. Below it gave a list of five different spells that one would have to recite. Already Treaf was quite confused, but continued reading: After this the Spirit must be sealed again, but the vessel must be larger according to the Spirit’s size. If it is too small the Spirit will die and once more return to its original form.
Hold the Spirit for however long you would like, and when releasing it break the seal as before and give it your instructions. If you are not clear the Spirit will not understand and not do as you wish. Make sure that you say the words in Spirit translations, listed below. Below the actual instructions was a list of different translations laid out cleverly, explaining every letter and syllable instead of actual words. Treaf did not pay attention to this, and continued reading: The only ways that a Spirit will die is by different spells. Otherwise no mortal weapon will destroy it, but only three spells can make the energy disperse: The Kagra, a general body curse, the Anverfwick curse, and the Gurvisorm Radjak Poshaden life binder. Any others will fail.
When a Spirit dies it will go crazy and run as far is it can before evaporating, leaving behind a fine, black powder, which is the remainder of its Dark Energy.
Characteristics of a Blackwolf Spirit
A Blackwolf Spirit can, if made properly, run up to sixty miles per hour. It can destroy anything, and it kills by eating its prey and have a smaller spirit attack the prey once inside. It is a quick death, though very painful.
They can grow up to twenty feet high, plus forty feet long and fifteen feet wide. When they are ordered to do something they come out of the clouds, their original places of birth.
To tell when a Blackwolf Spirit is about to emerge, remember that the day would be windy, dark, and partially black. There is also a great roar when a Spirit breaks through the clouds. That was the end of the first instructions, and Treaf looked through the twenty other pages to see what their content was. It talked about various details of a Spirit, how to give it benefits, and other things that Treaf did not know about at all, like ‘making a spirit a sacrificial bomb.’ After that there were a few more instructions and information, but then it ended. I could read this when Mildo is reading my book, Treaf decided after he closed the book, for that would be better than reading nothing. He found this whole subject interesting anyway.
After that Treaf realized that the Elder had been right when he had said that making one would be very hard and complicated. He realized that even if he tried he would never be able to make one, not that he wanted to anyway. But if the enemy would continue…
Treaf looked at his belt and realized that he still had the hunting knife that Malock had given him back in Gandria. Hmmmmmmm…he could hardly remember it back then, but he decided that he had not known anything about Blackwolf Spirits. I used to hardly know a thing. But how would I know a thing? He snorted, and then looked around himself, feeling strangely angry with his homeland. After all he had been a little pipsqueak who had not known a thing, and he had been raised not knowing a thing.
There were no passersby that noticed them, and the forest was dull and soundless. Before he knew it Treaf was very bored, and almost hoped that they could get attacked. It’s kind of strange that there is no new creature in the world that has arisen. One bigger than the Alkeron. After all Mourgorth was seeming to be greater than Treaf had ever imagined now, and he dreaded their meeting, but he wanted to confront him at the same time. But there’s only one problem. What if he isn’t even doing anything wrong? All he’s doing is taking over different countries. Treaf scowled and looked down at the passing ground. There were few weeds, and there was much dirt, but all of this blended together as the horse walked on at a steady pace.
Mildo then rode up to him and there were a few moments of silence.
Finally Treaf said, “What do you want?” Mildo shrugged, and did not reply. Treaf grimaced and continued on as if nothing had happened.
§
Five hours later it had become dark, and then Treaf realized that they would soon be setting camp. Two days done. About three or four more to go. He grimaced and then kept his eyes out for a good camping place, and soon someone else in the group that he had never known found one, and Malock agreed with it so they went there and set up camp. They had dinner, and then they went to bed, Treaf not feeling bored for the first time that day.
§
In the morning Treaf woke up the same way that he had in the past and just a few days ago, and really he felt that he was becoming drabber and drabber as the days went by. Only a few more days, though, Treaf reminded himself. Then they would be with the mercy of the Twelve Lords or whatever they were called, and with that he started taking the stakes out of the ground for the tent; he put them in a bag, and after that he folded up the cloth of the tent and put it in the same destination. Hoisting it up, he carried it on his shoulder to the horses. After that they all had breakfast, and then they continued on, Treaf feeling strangely a bit sick. Maybe he should have drunk some more water or something, but it seemed like everything was irritating him that morning. I suppose I should read more about the Blackwolf Spirits, he decided, and then grunted. This is just another phase in a never-ending cycle that all of us are suffering to complete, he thought. He remembered earlier that morning that he had looked in some of the food bags, and he had seen that they still had plenty of food left. I guess that’s one good thing. Or maybe not. If I was starving I would be less bored, he thought. He stared at Malock in front of him, who was at the lead of the group. The Elder was somewhere near the back, and Mildo could have been somewhere in the middle, or near Treaf. But he did not see him, and in a way he did not want to, for he would have to get in another stupid conversation with him.
But despite his dodging among the small group of horses and men, he suddenly heard a loud clopping of hooves, and suddenly Mildo was beside him. He looked livelier than ever, but Treaf doubted that this would lift his mood.
Suddenly there was a drop in the sunlight and it was cloudy. Great, Treaf thought. This was not being sarcastic; actually he was being absolutely serious, for he hated the sun in a way. But then with the change of clouds came a change of wind, and with that wind came a very extreme coldness. This made Treaf’s back arch and his skin sprang up with goose bumps. Damn. I hate the cold weather too, he thought. It’s as if Blackwolf Spirit would show right away, he thought, and smirked. He kicked his horse onward, just so that he would not fall to the back of the group—and he looked to the side to see that Mildo was no longer beside him. Hmmmmmmm. I wonder what he’s doing. Looking onward again, he saw that the road had widened by a bit, and there seemed to be less brush. There was little grass, there were various needles, from spruce, idealistically, and there were taller, thicker trees. Surprising, though, that there are no saplings, he thought, and since some of the trees were beside them on the path, and thus the ones that they could touch, Treaf reached out his hand and upturned on of the smaller boughs with needles on it to see what kind of conifer it was. Huh. Yew, I guess, he noted, for he had seen the hints and thus he doubted that it would have been anything else, even though, he reminded himself, he was not always right.
Then with a confirming grimace, he thought, Yep. We’re moving up, and that means that it’s gonna get colder up here for sure.
Others, by now, had pulled up hoods and scarves and other things, and Treaf scowled, not wanting to go to the trouble of getting these various things out of the bags himself. He did, however, pull up his hood, an accessibility that he had right on him.
There had been frost that morning when Treaf had woken up, but that did not really mean that it had become noticeably freezing. The body was something that adapted to different climates and temperatures. He guessed that the air was only about fifty to sixty degrees, but that summer had been probably about eighty to ninety. Not that the weather matters to me, though, he thought, and suddenly his face looked vacant, and with that he decided not to think much any more that day, for it was too much of a hassle.

Then there was a small bit of moisture on his hand, his left, of course, for his other was covered in armor. So I guess it’s gonna rain now, he thought, and with that he pulled his cloak around him tighter and did some of the buttons so that he would be warmer. Once the rain had become initialized Treaf realized that it was very cold rain, and that it was very sludgy also. Pretty soon it’ll turn into snow. He grimaced and clenched his teeth. His hand was now very cold, for he had to have it outside of one of his pockets because he had to hold onto the horse’s reins. His boots weren’t wet yet, though, and this he was glad of, for he hated it when his feet got wet and cold, especially considering the fact that he could not move them around to make them warmer.
Other people, Treaf guessed, were also cold, and some were noticeably shivering.
§
After a bit more Treaf put into account what happened in The Jaragon, and he calculated that they would have probably had two-hundred and fifty men in the ‘army’ by now, and plus the Elder’s work, which had risen to one hundred and fifty; that would make about four hundred, though this was a rough calculation, and Treaf considered that he was off by about fifty. He had not really had time to count the men of The Jaragon, and he doubted that he would have wanted to anyway, and really there would have been no point in it.
Mildo stared ahead of him and his horse, and he saw all of the others at the head of the group. He was now in the very back, for his horse had suddenly felt the urge to become very tired, and so Mildo had had no choice. Among him, who he had seen after glancing around, were Sloyd, Adrain, and Hibned, though they were about three horses in front of himself. He had not talked to any of them, for right then there was really not much to talk about. In fact many thoughts were not even going around in his head, for he was not in the mood for the nuisance of them. Others, he guessed, were deep in thought, though, and actually Mildo was almost curious what they would be thinking about. But that did not matter, and he then looked down at the ground, and realized that the long road they were traveling on was deeply scarred with trenches that were about half a foot deep, the obvious outcome of excess rain. There were also large rocks, roots, and a few other things like small logs that Treaf would no doubt have tripped over if he had been on his feet. Mildo realized that he probably would not have done that, for he reminded himself that he was—or used to be—a scout, and thus he had been trained to notice these things.
After this he looked up at the sky, through the rain that was pattering his face and getting in his eyes—and he saw that the clouds had darkened considerably and they were swarming. His eyes narrowed.
Treaf had been thinking about various things when he closed his eyes, for the rain was getting in them, and he saw that there was a drop in the small light and swarming images that he beheld, as if a large shadow had come in front of him. He opened his eyes, and he saw that the area ahead of him looked more enveloped in shadows. He did not think anything of it—sometimes when one opened his eyes he was not used to the lighting and thus it could look darker or lighter according to his opinion.
But after a few more seconds he realized that something was not particularly normal about the lighting, and he looked up to the sky, as if this would give him his desired answers. It did, however, and he saw that the clouds had become almost black. Swirling, billowing—and then there was a loud bang, and that resounded, the outcome being a large echo, as if it had been thunder. But it was not, in fact it was something different, and Treaf continued to look up in determination. If this was the entry of what he thought it was, then he was going to have a challenge in the middle of that forest.


Chapter Seven
A Different Condition
Quite a few of them had noticed the peculiar settings in the sky, and they were all looking up in confusion. Some did not know what this meant, but Treaf did and so did Mildo. Treaf quickly went over to the back of the group where the Elder was. He was looking up like the others, though his face was contorted into a determined grimace.
“Elder!” He did not acknowledge Treaf, for he seemed to be too busy examining the clouds, but Treaf knew that he had heard his call.
“Are you going to use the Beings?” Treaf asked over the roar of the clouds and wind. Rain pattered against his dank hood, and only a blurry image of the Elder came into view.
“Yes, I am,” he replied, looking at Treaf finally. He jumped from his white horse, and he then walked over beyond the confines of the group of men, at least ten feet from the protective road. Yup. He’s gonna need some space, all right, Treaf thought, and grimaced. He prepared himself to bark out Anverfwick, but then his thinking made a halt. Would Gurvisorm Radjak Poshaden be better? Or would the Kagra—which he did not know how to cast anyway. It did not really matter, seeing as they had not even attacked yet, so he decided that he would do the Gurvisorm Radjak Poshaden. After this he grimaced, and all fear was driven from his mind.
Then there was a deafening roar. The clouds billowed and thrashed as if something was in them, and then there came to Treaf a glimpse of something—perhaps a head—except something was wrong. It was at least three times the normal size, but in an instant, before Treaf was able to look at it closer it was enveloped by clouds once more. Then all was silent. There were a few sighs of relief, as if this had been all of their imagination, but then with a blast of darkness and another huge, resounding roar three Spirits broke free. In the darkness they did not stand out, except for their partially glowing eyes, and soon they were approaching all of them on the ground.
Once their whole bodies were exposed Treaf darkened his gaze. These were at the peak of their size—in other words, they were made completely flawless. They probably have been installed with wards, too, Treaf thought, just like the Magical Beings…and that would no doubt mean trouble. Gripping his sword hard, he gazed on. There were now five of them. But he looked in front of him, lower down at ground level, and he saw the Elder. Then there came to ear a strange ringing sound, but Treaf knew what it was and allowed a partial smile on his lips. Hopefully this battle would be over soon enough.
Once the Magical Beings were all displayed in front of them the Blackwolves had drew to the distance of about forty yards, and however, no more of them were appearing, although their actions were completely inaudible, for there could be more on the way or more yet to emerge.
Then they came to the ground rapidly, crushing a few trees as they landed, and sending a small wave of dust towards all of them, although basically all dust was already gone, thanks to the rain which was keeping up at a steady pace.
Treaf was thinking about something, seemingly frozen on his horse, when they started approaching at a steady trot. They growled, though this was not menacing to Treaf. He remembered the time that he had actually been afraid of these things—though the thoughts did not come clearly, but vague, as he stared on, waiting for them to move. He was in the midst of the battlefield…all other cries of battle seemed irrelevant at that time, for there was a Blackwolf Spirit right in front of him, and in a way the beast was smiling at him—no, an evil grin, and at once Treaf’s vision had collided with that of reality. He had tried the Anverfwick curse, but the creature drew nearer, and nearer, then—there was a great roar, and he was inside a chamber, but immediately when he looked around he realized that he was beside—no—inside the creature, waiting for whatever was willing to come next. He was very weak, and could not stand, much less fight. He also had come to realize that he would not be able to fight, for any mortal or mortal weapon could not kill a Spirit, especially of this size. He remembered breathing hard, clutching his stomach…he was also too tired and weak for magic—then there came a disturbance in the energy in front of him and soon enough another Spirit had emerged, except this one was much smaller, pretty close, Treaf reasoned, to a normal wolf…then it started eating his flesh. Its eyes were level with Treaf, and Treaf had found it strange that the creature’s sharp teeth were not hurting him in the least. He only felt weaker, and when he looked down at the creature he saw that where it was biting was not giving way, but he began getting even weaker, and he had thought at the time that he was surely going to die. He had tried to whisper Anverfwick, but he could not here it when he tried to speak, so he doubted that he had said anything at all. And then there had been a scream, and then there was white light.... Treaf snapped back into attention and bent low on his horse. He could just see the Spirit’s head above the horse’s neck and head, and he noticed that he was breathing heavily. Only a few more steps…he now remembered that at the time that he had almost been killed by the spirits there had been two, two very large ones, but only one had swallowed him. That was now irrelevant as the Blackwolf Spirits drew closer, though, and soon they had come close enough, perhaps to strike.
And they did. With amazing force the closest one swapped with its paws and it hit one of the Magical Beings, which shimmered, fell, and then went out, almost dissipating. What the hell…? Treaf’s eyes widened in shock. If they could destroy the Elder’s work, how would they beat them? Treaf soon realized what had to be done, so he grimaced and barked out through the rain, “Anverfwick!” He had done this many times before, yet this time he put both of his hands in front of him, so that ten smoking arrows leapt from his hands and sped towards the foremost spirit. It seemed to absorb them, and then Treaf repeated the process. Usually after a bombardment like this it would have died, but this time, for some haunting reason, it did not.
“Damn it!” Treaf yelled, and then he tried the other curse besides the Kagra and found that this also did not work. There’s somethin’ going on, Treaf thought, and almost groaned when the other one struck and wiped out another of the Beings. Meanwhile, another one came towards all of them, and it did not do this slowly. Treaf, however, was glad to see that this one was not as large as the others: probably only about twelve feet high and doubled in length. But when it was ready to strike Treaf realized that all of them there would be killed, for they did not know how to defeat them. And thanks to their newfound strength, besides their creator, who is no doubt responsible for this, I can’t fight them either. Yes, it was definitely their maker that was the one who made their wards, which were very powerful, for Treaf doubted that a spirit could find or create something like that on their own.
Then Treaf tried killing the spirit again, but to no avail. Damn it, if this isn’t gonna work… then his thoughts went blank as the spirit made a wide swipe for his head, which he barely dodged. Its size makes its moves slightly slower than they would be if it was smaller, so that is one advantage. But…he dodged another blow, this time a large punch into the earth, which sent debris flying everywhere…but it’s size also makes up for the extra space that a smaller being would have to cover in that time. Treaf cursed as it attacked again, thinking of an alternative…he tried to think of what he had read about them, but all thoughts and memories seemed to be irrelevant at the time. He realized that some of them around him had already died, and he thought bitterly, we can’t afford to lose any more people! And with that he looked around himself, as if something similar in the trees and landscape could solve one of his problems. Not one of his problems, he decided, but the largest problem at the time—then while he was looking and fighting at the same time the spirit attacked very swiftly, and when its paw collided with Treaf there was a large wham in Treaf’s ears and his breath was soon taken away from him. He felt himself flying into the air, and soon he was twenty feet away from the others…then his rear hit the ground extremely hard, and he went skidding across the ground, dirt flying in all directions, and then he softly hit a tree. This luckily did not hurt at all, and he sat there, dazed. His head felt like it was going to split with pain, and he looked down at his recently healed stomach, and when he tried to get up there was a sickening crunch, rattle, crack…and it was then that he realized a few of his ribs were broken. Damn it… then blood spurted from his mouth, but that quickly faded. He saw the spirit tossing a few people around, but most of them avoided the attacks and strayed to various places, hoping not to be the next targets…then Treaf awkwardly got up and coughed. He felt terrible, but he looked around him, and something caught the corner of his eye, and at first he decided that he was probably going to faint, but then he looked back in the shadows where he had seen what he thought was a…yup. There was a figure, but it was barely audible over all the dust and shadows that overlapped the area, but then he saw a pare of brilliantly shining eyes, and two hands. It was leaning against a tree. So, if that’s what I think it is, I think I’m in luck to end this thing, Treaf thought, gazing in the direction. The person or thing did not see him, and so he steadily approached. It almost looks like he is relaxing or somethin,’ the bastard. Treaf reasoned that this person was definitely the creator and controller of the Blackwolf Spirits, but he could not be sure. Nah. What the hell am I thinking? Of course he’s the enemy. No one has that kind of brilliant eyes. Treaf smirked as he stumbled forward. I guess I’m calling my enemy brilliant, aren’t I? He scowled as he realized that the person probably was, since he had been the one that created the spirits in the first place, not Treaf. He realized that the wiser thing to do was probably to go call the Elder, to tell him to defeat the person, but Treaf realized that if he headed that way instead of the way that he was going he would be seen, and then everything would end, unless someone saved him.
When he got about twenty feet from him Treaf knew to act immediately. He drew his sword as soundlessly as possible, and the usually ringing tone was shunted by the other sounds of battle that was all around him. So in other words no one noticed him. He took his knife from his belt also, put it into his left hand, and prepared to throw it, but he stopped momentarily. He had never thrown a knife before, or not properly, so he doubted that the blade end would sink into his opponent. And anyway, if he bats it aside, I have another defense, which is where my sword comes in. But first I should get within twelve feet. He took another four steps, and then he stopped, raised his arm, his legs spread wide. I gotta do this quick, he thought, and then powerfully thrust the knife forward. It whistled through the air, the blade spinning rapidly, and then with a satisfying shhrk, it hit his opponent’s flesh. There. Got him. Then the person turned, and Treaf noticed for the first time that he was wearing a hood, his face hidden by it except for the distinctive curves of it. But for some very strange and foreign reason to Treaf he was grinning. Who would be smiling with a knife half buried in his…? Treaf then looked in a sort of horrified and twisted face as he pulled the knife out of himself with a spurt of blood, and then waved his hand over it. Instantly the blood stopped, but Treaf could still see the wound. That’s strange. He just healed himself. Then he turned to Treaf with those bright eyes and said, “That was not expected.” Then Treaf, not wanting to waste any more time, ran forward as fast as he could, his sword outstretched to full capacity. The man looked at Treaf, then grimaced and stepped aside right when Treaf approached him. His sword whammed into the tree that the man had been standing by, but he quickly pulled it free and whirled around to meet a blow from a dagger inside the man’s clenched fist. He’s really fast, Treaf realized sickeningly, and with his present injuries Treaf was extra slow. Luckily he was not losing blood, though, for the spirit’s claws had not hit him.
The man then made a very fast side swipe, which sent Treaf sprawling to the ground. He had not been hit, but his opponent had made such an unblocked move that Treaf had had no choice. And his speed made up for his open combat, Treaf thought, quickly jumping up. He then dropped low, attempted slashing the man’s legs, but he effortlessly jumped aside, leaving Treaf sprawling again. Soon he was huffing and wheezing, but by going on the defense he was able to get back a little energy. After he had his health back he jumped high, over the man, and landed on his other side. Before his feet had hit the ground he thrust out his arm, but somehow he ducked, clear out of Treaf’s reach. I guess when I jumped it was obvious to him what I was about to do. He then dodged another volley of blows, but there seemed to be a weakening in the man’s thrusts and slashes, so Treaf took that time to make a swipe for his head, and to his surprise the man was barely able to dodge it, and when Treaf looked at him he saw that his hood was off. And his face was wrinkled, bent, and twisted in a very strange and disgusting way. Treaf yelped and jumped back in partial disgust, but more of sheer surprise, for the man’s movements were very fast, much too fast to be at that age. Unless he’s just some kind of weirdo, he realized, but, seeing that he was taking an unnecessary pause, he made a very fast swing towards the man’s head, but he ducked, quickly putting his hood back up. How the hell am I going to defeat him? Treaf questioned, begging himself to think of a strategy. I guess the Elder’s not going to save me this time, unless I’m lucky and he senses something, Treaf thought, and took about a fourth of a second to look at the Blackwolf Spirits and the progress of the whole group. About ten people had died, dropping them to about twenty-four. They couldn’t afford that. And besides, the Elder is busy enough. I doubt that he would even sense anything in the first place, too. The man seemed more furious than before, so Treaf guessed that he was not going to be able to get away from him, much less beg for mercy. He wouldn’t have done that anyway, but yet…
…But yet it looked like it would either come down to that or one of them dying.
Then man was making a very fast volley of strokes that sent Treaf’s sword clanging, almost out of control, but he did not let go. The man looked partially surprised at this, but Treaf thought, man, it’ll take a bit more of that to make me let go. I’ve got a pretty strong grip. But then after a bit more of that, there came a very surprising ringing sound, and Treaf looked down at his sword. For some reason his hilt had turned gold, like the original color that it was, and his blade was a softer silver than what it had been a little while ago. Damn. The Elder’s wards have been forced off of it, Treaf realized. If his opponent kept this going, his sword would break in only a short while.
So with that information he jumped as high as he could, trying to dodge all of the attacks. He succeeded, but soon he realized that he would have to fight him again, for he would run out of energy if he kept running away, plus the fact that when he did have to fight him he would be tired already and most likely die.
However, when the man drew close again, (for he for some reason enjoyed taking his time,) Treaf was surprised that he actually spoke to him.
“It looks like the wards on your sword have broken,” he said, beckoning with his head at his sword. Treaf grimaced and nodded. There was no point in lying sense this person obviously knew what he was talking about. Hrmmm. I don’t know what the truth is, but it almost seems like he’s giving me a break or something, Treaf thought. But he did not lower his guard, keeping his hand tightly grasped around the sword. Instead he said, “What are you? You seem to be a bit up in the numbers, but I doubt that you actually are,” Treaf said. The man nodded, but said nothing. Treaf kept a strait face, but instead of thinking about the ‘conversation’ he was really wondering about tactics. But he was quite curious about what his opponent was, so he tried to look at him inquiringly and said, “What are you in specific, then?” For a second Treaf thought that the man, or thing, was too shameful to reply or something, and for a second he realized in horror, that he might not say anything. Because no matter how one could look at it Treaf knew that he really wanted to know about everything he could. It would probably help in the long run anyway, so there was no point in being ignorant.
Finally the man said, “I am the work of a Necromancer.” Treaf’s mind was blank for a second, but then his thoughts came to him. A Necromancer is someone that makes the deceased alive again, right? Treaf realized that this person was actually very intact and looked semi-normal for someone that had been in the world of the dead for who knows how long. But then general reasoning came to him, and he thought, wait, how would that be possible? If someone is dead than that means that bringing them back is impossible, but I guess we’re talking about magic. Treaf snorted and thought that the man was probably lying: making an excuse to his terrible looks, or perhaps he had been in some kind of ‘accident.’ Besides, the Elder had once said that magic has it’s boundaries, actually quite a few of them, since not everything would ever be possible. Only a select few, the ones that are pliable and can be manipulated. Hmmmmmmm…in this case he would probably have to talk to the Elder about this later, for the old man had to know about it. Treaf doubted that the Spell Book was so ignorant that it ignored this part of magic, since it would have to be quite well-known.
“In that case you’re pretty good-looking,” Treaf said. His enemy nodded, looking at the ground. Not wanting to discuss this any more, Treaf then lunged at him, his sword outstretched, and he was expecting to find his sword hit the thing, but instead his opponent grabbed his arm, as if Treaf was a waste of time. Damn it. Now he’s really getting serious about this, he thought. He attempted pulling free his arm, but to no avail. He swore loudly, and the man grinned at him, almost disdainfully. Darn it! I lost again. If I could just—the thing was maintaining such a tight grip on Treaf that it was almost painful, but Treaf just gritted his teeth, and then pretended to go limp, as if giving up. His opponent seemed to since what Treaf was doing, so he slackened his grip slightly, but it was still more powerful than normal. He’s pretty powerful, Treaf realized. I wouldn’t mind getting raised from the dead after I die, he thought, and then with a tremendous effort that almost gave him a nosebleed, he brought up his other arm, the free one, and then as swiftly as he could muster he transferred his sword, then raised it up very powerfully, brought it down like a bolt of shining lightening—this is it. There was a resounding thwack as his sword hit the man’s arm, and then a clang. Before the man could do anything Treaf raised it up and brought it down again, and then again, again, again, again, again, again, until there was a very loud CRACK and he felt his sword’s sharp blade cut through something. His plan had worked, for he sensed he had already cut through the man’s bracers, for after taking a beating that severe, and armor would have broke, no matter how thick, for if it was thicker no one would wear it for it’s weight. His enemy, however, knew what Treaf had done, and he twirled towards Treaf, his sword drawn. He delivered a series of fast side-strokes, and at that Treaf thought, Yep. He wants to beat me quickly, or else I’ll just kill him now. Treaf found this very interesting for some reason, even though he had been expecting it. I’ll just play everything out, Treaf thought. He then saw an opening in the man’s side, and so he lunged with all his force, but by sheer luck and planning the man stepped to the side of Treaf, turned around, and thrust his dirk forward to Treaf’s open rib cage, and with horror Treaf screamed in pain as he saw the dirk buried in his flesh. He crumbled to the ground and ripped open his shirt, still gasping with pain. The dirk, half buried in his personal body, felt like an iron rod pricked with barb wire, but as he ripped a portion of his shirt off he realized that soon it would be all over, and in favor of himself. I’m gonna break that bastard’s skull, Treaf thought darkly. He was so angry that he felt he was going to burst…he jumped up as fast and as powerfully as possible, and with that he thrust his sword forward with incredible speed, and the man blocked it, but he started waving his sword to and fro so powerfully that it was a series of blurs. He let it down so powerfully that it hurt, but he kept doing it, even through the blood covering hum, the pain blinding him—he struck so hard he realized that his opponent’s dirk was probably about to break, but it did not, which fueled Treaf’s anger like a hot iron. Damn it! I’m so gonna—with that he whipped his sword around and delivered a low swipe aimed at the man’s legs, but after at least a tenth of a second he pulled back and thrust his sword at his opponent’s face. He barely blocked it, and he went sprawling slightly, and with that Treaf swiped again, and this time he hit the man’s stomach with full force. Blood spurted everywhere, and in an instant Treaf thought, yeah. I beat him all right. He’s done. He did not walk away as his opponent lay on the ground, gasping in pain, he stood there until a few minutes had ended and started again, and then the man that he saw before him waved his hand over the wound again, and with horror Treaf saw that all the blood soaked up, or evaporated, or both, and with intense anger and despair he forced his weapon into the man’s face, into his heart, into his leg, into his forearm, and finally again into his stomach. He repeated this process several times. He did not chose to do it; actually he thought of it to be insanely inhuman, but he had been forced to, and he would as long as he would have to survive. And by the time that he was done he was covered in blood, and his enemy was also, but he had won finally, and with that he thrust his last time, and after that he left the corpse behind, walking over to the battlefield before him. When he made it there what he was quite a welcoming site. Only a few had died, and of those that had survived there were only a few injuries. Mildo was by Malock, and none of the Seven Warlords had perished. With that information he went over to the Elder, and with a very serious tone he said, “How the hell did you get rid of the Blackwolf Spirits?” The Elder turned, and he looked at Treaf, obviously staring at all the blood on him. There was a short pause after this, and Treaf grimaced.
“I did not do a thing but have twenty Magical Beings die. Something else ended their existence.” He paused, and then continued, “For some reason they seemed to be very invincible. They had very powerful wards on them, and they could also attack with magic. My Beings were absolutely no match.” Treaf grimaced deeper, then looked away and clenched his stomach. It was bleeding quite heavily.
“Yeah—I guess it’s a good thing that I was a match for my opponent,” he said, and the Elder looked confused at this for how, Treaf thought, would he have been able to guess that Treaf had actually been fighting a—well… human that whole time?
“I was the one who was fighting the creator of ‘em,” Treaf said, crossing his arms. Treaf noted that there was much black powder on the ground, a very fine-grained powder. Huh. From the spirits, I guess, Treaf noted, but since he already knew about this he considered it irrelevant and decided to confront more pressing matters.
“So you were fighting with the Magical Creatures this whole time, huh?” the Elder nodded, and Treaf noticed that he looked solemn, as if someone had died, and since Treaf remembered that only a few people had died, none of which were related to the Elder in any way he pushed that way of thinking aside and looked at the Elder full-on.
“The guy that I fought happened to be the work of a Necromancer,” Treaf said. The Elder paused in a shocked kind of way and then said, his eyes having surprised air to them, “Well I’ll be damned if I’m not right, but a victim of a Necromancer is not capable of producing magic.” Huh…Treaf thought for a moment, but he realized that he would not know anything about the whole thing even if he tried, and that would not help anyway, so he might as well listen. If a Necromanced person cannot use magic than…?
“What if using Dark Magic isn’t magic at all, but something else?” Treaf asked warily, for he did not want the Elder to start worrying about this and that.
“You are correct in a way,” the Elder said presently, and then continued, “Dark Magic is commonly also known as sorcery, and I suppose that you could call that a whole new thing…” he seamed to start thinking for a long time, and Treaf was in fact very impatient to hear what he ad next to say. I need to know all that I can…
“Unless one of us tried it, sorcery is pretty much under the label of ‘not explored,’ so I would advise you not to indulge yourself into these matters too openly.” Treaf grunted, and then grimaced. If he was not to indulge himself, than what the heck was he there for…?
“Well, why exactly can’t a victim be capable of working magic?” Treaf asked warily, again. The Elder sighed, as if this was not suitable o Treaf, but he was glad that he was giving in to Treaf’s little pesking, for it was all too necessary.
“They are not souls, Treaf, and they are nothing like them. They do not hardly have brains, they are monsters meant for controlling and killing. They can be made out of anything, it does not even have to be human, hell’s gates…they are only meant to destroy. They are an empty casing of nothing but what they had left from…” at this the Elder cleared his throat in a way of saying the word ‘death’…“so they, in absolutely no way could be able to do magic or anything close to it.” Treaf kept his grimace firm, and he thought, in that case, old man, why the hell are they able to create Blackwolf Spirits, unless…
“Elder, what if someone else is controlling this person, perhaps even Mourgorth…?” The looked at Treaf with that unchanging expression and Treaf felt slightly annoyed at this, for he was not in the mood to be hidden by from the truth.
“No, I do not think that it is Mourgorth. There are two reasons, and perhaps even a third… the first one is that he probably has enough magic-users that he can send them out at little cost, but of course none of us know this. It is not possible for him to have that big of an army, otherwise he would needed more room for everything, and the knowledge of him would be more widespread than it is now.
“The second reason is that he would most likely come himself, for I am sure he is plenty powerful if he has become so famed, plus become so old without dying. Otherwise he likes to toy with his victims, or enemies, to be more honorific, for otherwise he would have become more powerful, been more prideful, and made his fame known to all, not just a select few. Though more and more people who for some reason are trying to go against him seem to be appearing. After all, you can not hold a spring river in a small leather bag.” At this at first Treaf was a bit confused, but very shortly he realized what the Elder was saying: one cannot hold in much power before it will all explode, and the secret will be revealed, or otherwise he will be famous within a short time. His exact whereabouts and intentions will become evident in only a matter of time…
“Oh yes, and Elder, my opponent was also very fast.”


§


Chapter Seven
Many Milestones
After that last comment, Treaf went wondering through the tents, for he had been hoping intentionally that the Elder would think this over without the presence of Treaf. He was tired of such dramatic talk. In fact he was looking for Mildo right then, and it seemed like all the tents, (which had been set up for the wounded, mind,) were an endless maze, leading Treaf right to his death.
Just when he was going through a different area, there came a feeling on his shoulder, and he could hardly feel it since he had very much got used to a lot of battering that day. He turned his head to make sure that he had been right about feeling anything at all, and in horror and disgust he beheld Malock, looking as dreary and annoying as ever. And here I used to respect him, Treaf thought, and then with a very angry and defiant look at him he kept walking, not wanting to be bothered by anyone except for those which he handpicked. Luckily, he noted, Malock did not pursue him, and he kept walking, partially feeling irrelevant to the whole society that they were in. Huh. After this Treaf realized that he was actually worried about Mildo, for usually he found him to be quite annoying. Whatever. I’m not going to test myself or anything stupid like that to reach deep inside my heart and…with that he felt such anger that he almost screamed, and then he kicked a tent with a soft form in it—probably a person, and moved on.
Presently he found Mildo, who was leaning on a tree a ways off from the new camp location.
“Hi,” Treaf said, not putting any enthusiasm into this one word. Mildo nodded, looking as tired and angry as Treaf.
“This whole time I was fighting a person, and I killed him—he was the one that was controlling the Blackwolf Spirits. What were you doing?”
“Trying to ward off the stupid Spirits. Didn’t exactly work.”
“Huh.”
§
For a few minutes they kept talking, but after that Treaf realized that there was not really anything to talk about, so he left and decided to go find some food, since he was very hungry and there was not really anything else to do for then.
Presently he arrived at a place where he seemed to be able to smell food, so he wandered around a bit until he found the source.
There were a few people cooking some food, something that seemed to be a very thick soup, and it looked very good at the moment, so Treaf, without asking, hunted around for a second and found a bowl, then scooped some of the food into it. After that he did not attempt to find a spoon, but instead just slurped it all up. The moment it touched his throat the murky liquid scalded him, but for some strange reason Treaf did not mind this. Besides, it was cold out, and now he was warm. Perfect. Wonder what we’re gonna be doin next? Treaf wondered, and looked over into the woods.
After a few more minutes of sitting on a rock Treaf looked over to some distant mountains on the other side of the mountain and valley that they were on. Then he shivered while he was looking at some of the high peaks and decided to go grab a warmer cloak from one of the bags. He might as well not be miserable if he could do something about it, so he started walking into the tents again. His sword swung at his side, and he noted that recently he had realized the uselessness of mortal weapons. Ah yes, and if I’m gonna be fighting for the rest of my life I might as well go to the Elder and have my sword fixed. He was not in the mood to deal with anyone, of course, but necessity forced his hand, and he decided that he could stand it just this once.
First, however, he went and found a cloak, a scarf, and some more leather padding for his armor. After that he went and looked for the Elder. Before he was able to find him, however, there came another touch on his shoulder, but this time it was not however Malock, but someone different entirely, and Treaf had never met him.
“I am under the impression that you were injured in the battle,” he said, and Treaf’s mind went blank, and then he said with realization, “Oh, right, right—I have a few broken ribs. One of the spirits whammed me with its paw and I hit a tree, so…” the other person, (Treaf did not know his name,) nodded in understanding, and then said in reply, “Please come this way. I’ll do somethin’ about that.” Treaf followed him for a while, and then out of curiosity he said, “How many were injured?” The man took a second to reply, and when he did he said, “All but ten.” Treaf’s anger returned in a flash. What the hell! Great! Now we only have injured people who probably can’t even fight, he thought, and grimaced.
“Not all of their injuries are as bad as yours, though, mind,” he said, and since Treaf realized that his weren’t even that gruesome at all his hopes rose a little. But even so it was quite an aggravating thought.
Presently after making their way through some tents they came to a particular one that the ‘doctor’ stopped at, and after a sec he went into it and brought out some bandages and ointments of some kind. Treaf, however, remained outside, and soon the man had told him to take off his shirt, and after that he did some strange messages on his ribs, which made it feel better, and then he put on the ointments and then rapped all of the bandages around him tightly. Then Treaf thanked him and put his shirt back on over the bandages, walked through the tents for a while, and soon he arrived where he had left the Elder, and it looked like he was pondering as usual.
“Hey Elder,” he said. He turned and looked at him, but made no reply.
“The wards on my sword broke when I fought that guy. Could ya fix it?” The Elder nodded and said, “Really, you should learn this spell.”
“Some other time. Right now I’m busy.” After that comment the Elder told Treaf to come in to his tent, and then he began the process again, and in five minutes it was done. Treaf did not find the whole thing that interesting this time, even though he had seen it only once. His sword looked exactly the same as before when it had not been broken, and so Treaf slid it back in his sheath, and with that he said ‘thanks’ and walked off into the cold. I should really go get some more stew, Treaf decided, and headed that way.
While he was at that part of the camp he also grabbed some sandwiches and some bread, then went over to Mildo, who was also at the same place as he had been. He gave him a bowl of the soup, a sandwich and the other piece of bread, and then ate his own second helping. After this he was very warm, but he was also thirsty, so he went and grabbed some wine to flush it all down. After this he went into a tent and slept.

Mildo, however, was still out in the cold that he realized his body was starting to buzz, which obviously meant he had been standing there so long that his body was about to fall asleep. However, he had realized the danger before it had struck, and so he put his hands in his hands and sighed, walking away like a wandering fool. Huh. I really don’t get why the hell all of ‘em keep wanting to fight us, he thought. Right at that period they were ten short, bringing them to fifteen. That was not something worth attacking, in Mildo’s opinion. Not at all, though he supposed that the Elder was quite a dangerous old man, so maybe that was the reason. I could go hunting, he thought, but then the image of him racing the Drewmorocks threw the forest back to camp that one time that he had gone ‘hunting’ popped into his head, and he shivered, quickly abandoning the idea.
Actually once he looked around he realized that it seemed nobody was moving around at all right then; they seemed dead, but with some spirit in them, which Mildo guessed was the will to win.
After a bit more of doing nothing he decided to go grab a map from someone, for he wanted to see where exactly they were in The Jaragon. Probably about in the middle, but still, it took a long time to travel, it seemed, until they were done with it, so he could not judge by his memory and opinion.
The great thing is, he thought, digging through a pack that was particularly large, that we will soon come across the ‘Twelve Lords’ or whatever…this would probably not prove as an excitement, for he had remembered patiently waiting for them to reach the Oh! so wonderful Jaragon. Even the name made him shiver, though he remembered how particularly dreary Goshop had been too.
Soon he found what he had been looking for, in fact it turned out to be a map of the whole world, so in general it was not very detailed, thought he did not really need that, seeing as he was looking for a general outline, not instructions for a machine!
After he ‘borrowed’ it, he went back to his original place, and found that it had been overrun with ants, which seemed to have a tendency of not going away. So he stood and thought for a moment, and then deciding on building a fire, he went over to a good spot, grabbed some wood, and lit it with a flint kit. After that he pulled over a stump and sat plop down on it, then yelped when he realized that he had gotten too close to the fire when suddenly there came a gust of wind that blew it frighteningly close to his pants. After making a few ‘adjustments’ he sat down again and began looking at the map, and presently after a bit of wandering and curiosity he stumbled upon The Jaragon, and he saw that there was an indication of ‘ground rise’ on the mid-land, so he guessed that they were about there, since the weather was getting colder and they were steadily climbing to higher ground and mountains. Huh, so I was right, he thought, and turned to different places of it, examining them, which rid him of boredom.

After a particularly miserable and cold sleep, with his nose running, and drool coming from his mouth, he decided, after a few moments, to get out of the tent and do something, though he doubted he would find anything to do. It was worth the effort, though, so he undid the tent flap and, stumbling, crawled out. After regaining his balance he stood up and stretched and noted that some of his bones cracked and snapped, and his knuckles popped, and it did not feel good as usual since the weather was so cold and it made his joints stiff.
Then he slowly made his way around the area, until he noticed that there was smoke coming from a certain area near the southern end. He was very unimpressed that he had not noticed this before, since it was so evident, and anyway he deiced not to reprimand himself.
Shortly he arrived there, and he saw that Mildo was somewhere near the middle, with about the whole camp round him. However, he was not even talking, so Treaf quickly decided that it was not hi popularity that called people there, but rather the warmth of the fire. Among all of them there he noticed Malock, and he quickly pretended that he had not looked and sat down on a log that had been pulled up next to the large fire. Immediately he grew warmer, especially his cheeks and shins. In fact they grew so hot after a while that he had to scoot back a bit. Then after he had gotten cold he moved back.
§
They all spent the rest of the day like this, and there were various conversations that popped up here and there. However they all seemed to end quickly, and then another would pop up; that would end; more would come along, and then the cycle would continue.
When it grew to the point where it began getting dark some of them left, probably about three or four, and they walked off towards a few tents. In moments there came to ear some clanging and banging, rustling, and a few other inaudible sounds, and then they all came to the fire again, carrying onions, cheese, meat, water—many other things, bowls, and pots, plus one very large one which they began filling with various things until it was about full. Then they found two sturdy sticks shaped like slingshots, and one straight one, and they stuck the other two into the ground, then put the other one across, with the pot hanging from it. Quickly the liquid began to boil, and soon they were all eating it, which tasted very good, and surprisingly was not similar to that day’s lunch.


After the very good meal some of them stayed up and did various things, Treaf included, while others did nothing in particular, an still some of them went to bed. Treaf, however, had slept earlier that day, so he was not particularly tired, and neither was Mildo. Malock was not either, which thoroughly annoyed Treaf, for he had been hoping that the wee warrior would become tired and plop over, than have to be carried away by some people on a stretcher.
After a short while Treaf was really feeling groggy,(but not because of lack of sleep,) and soon he actually became very bored, so he went away from the fire in search of something interesting to do.
After wondering around a bit in his thoughts he decided, I guess I’ll go read some more in that book…he went over to his personal pack and there he began the difficult task of digging through some of his stuff. There was not much that he owned, or rather that he had brought from Gandria, but since it was stuffed into such a relatively small package he had difficulty finding anything, and all his belongings and food seemed to break and get dented constantly, from all the bumping…ah, here we go, he blurted in his head once he had found it. And with that he returned to the camp fire, where it was still light.
As he began reading it seemed like everything that was passing through his head was not sticking and would not stick whatsoever, so he was forced to reread several paragraphs. Once he was done with a page and a half, however, he rested his eyes by looking into the fire and all around himself and others, and after a moment of this he realized that Malock and Mildo were gone. For a moment he felt iron-stuck to the ground, but after a second of this passed he sighed and looked down at his boots. Damn. He felt a bit useless and depressed. Soon, however, after reading a bit more, he deiced that there was no point in this, now he felt determined, and after that burst of thought there came the realization that they would not be doing anything but being attacked and traveling through the woods for the next few days. I also need to read the Spell Book. If what the Elder said about Necromancers was correct, than it seems we are not in much danger. But if that is the case, there must have been some kind of exception, damn it. If he knew a blasted bit about magic than things would become easier, and that, he reminded himself, was why he was going to read, for it seemed like he was not particularly gifted with talking to people about serious matters like this. Next time I have to fight, I’m so gonna beat the living crap out of everb’dy I see.


Chapter Eight
Spell Book
“Okay, time ta do it,” Treaf said and sighed. With no obligations for that day, and no real orders not to do so, he started walking in the direction in which he supposed the Elder’s house was. Or his tent, rather, Treaf had to remind himself.
It actually turned out that he had headed completely right with no flaw, and so in only a few moments he had arrived, and, realizing that he could not nock, he did what eh preferred better anyway, and called out for the Elder in a kind of yell. Several others heard who were up and about; some were cooking breakfast,
(which Treaf was going to eat a bit later,) and others were sleeping, besides doing other things that were irrelevant.
Treaf noted a rustle in the tent cloth, and then with a certain noise the Elder came out and stared Treaf in the eye.
“Sorry, it’s just—”
“Yes, I know. You have something to ask me which will probably result in a very interesting conversation.” Yeah, I guess. Treaf swallowed some snot which had accumulated in his throat and said, “Can I borrow the Spell Book for a week?” The Elder looked at Treaf with a wary eye and said in return, “Can you borrow the Spell Book? Whatever for? I thought that you could not read it.”
“Yeah, well I bet I can now, damn it,” he said, and then returned a ‘please’ so that the Elder would not be offended.
After that it was like stirring pudding, the Elder asked a few questions like what he was planning to use it for, and Treaf simply replied that he wanted to learn more about magic. That was of course the truth, and Treaf said it earnestly so that it sounded reasonable.
After he had received it he happily went about in the camp, until he decided with realization that he should just go back to the camp fire where it was warm. And they were serving breakfast there, so he could read and eat at the same time without, (hopefully!) spilling any of it on the important book.
Once he arrived he looked around and saw that about everyone was there except for the very tired ones who were deciding to skip breakfast and sleep in. Treaf could not even imagine doing this, but he decided not to think about how miserable it would be and ate some of the hot, fried eggs with butter and toast, besides the jam and apples that came with it. The drink turned out to be a very, very good warm ale, which Treaf gulped down in one swig and then asked for more.
After he stuffed himself he sat back for a moment, and then with a huff! and reasonably small effort he grabbed the large book which he had placed beside him, and he opened up to the front page.
In blank curiosity and puzzlement he stared down at the paper, an then at the first word, and in an instant he realized that it was not in fact ‘the,’ but something different, and after a moment he saw that it was the word ‘to.’ Huh. That’ll work too. The next words Treaf read with little trouble, and he realized in glee that he could in fact! read the book. Huh. I suppose somehow my reading’s become better or somethin.’
After a few pages he closed the book with a snap and tried to remember what he had read. The last few pages had been quite vague, but he thought that he had read something about ‘the way of the world’ and other theories that in Treaf’s opinion had no meaning, or maybe did to some people but not him. It had also talked about spirits.
Then he realized with a start that everyone was gone and that he was the only one at the fire. He put the book aside and used his boot to put out the fire, and after that he hurried over to the horses and began packing his bags with everyone else.
After seemingly no time at all they were off again, yet for some reason Treaf was not feeling particularly bored. Huh. I guess a battle is what I needed, he decided, and then allowed himself a small chuckle. He was not completely sure, but he expected that the others with him had not really thought or even fathomed this, but to Treaf this seemed completely reasonable, and it could even be considered comical.
After a while of trotting up the slopes and flats, the air became to get considerably warmer, and thinking of weather and temperature, Treaf for some reason imagined himself walking up that whole thing and in short he shivered and turned pale. Thinking about such things were cruel, thought he clearly remembered traveling in Gandria like that, and with Malock and Mildo constantly being his companions to top it off. How the heck did I stand that? He wondered, for in his imagination it would be just as bad as walking up a slope like what they were facing in general. Huh. But back then for some reason I didn’t mind them.
After they had had lunch break and started again they reached a particularly steep region of mountains, and with that came more rocks and deep ruts in the road that they had been traveling on since Goshop. Huh. New country new land signs. If one looked around himself they noted that there were very deep valleys, with marshes in the bottoms of most of them, and then on either sides there would be a short expanse of grass and meadow, and after that further up on the curb of a rise came the loom of the mountains. Lower down there were many trees, but high up, higher than Treaf and the others, were snowy peeks that overlooked seemingly the world; yet Treaf noted with a shiver that they would be trudging through that same snow and rock.
Then he also noted that this looked like ideal areas for wild beasts like Alkerons and Drewmorocks. If, however, they were to run into any of these he would be sure to utterly destroy all of them. They had enough worries as it was, but then he realized that he was not particularly worried; actually more annoyed than anything else.

After a few minutes, (or hours, for all he knew,) Treaf became quite bored so he decided to get out something interesting, whatever that could be, an he thought of the Spell book so he dug it out with his free hand and held it open. He noted that he had stopped at page five, so he started off from there until he reached the second chapter. In his opinion the first chapter had been more of an introduction than anything, so he was partially relieved when the second chapter appeared. Hopefully I’ll learn something in this, though…he thought. But then he remembered that the Elder had learned everything from it, so he decided to hope for the best and continued reading.
In that chapter there was additional information on several things, but mostly it described the base materials of magic, the different genres of it: sorcery, wizardry, and witchcraft. Treaf did not really pay attention to this though, for somehow he already knew about it, probably through myths and legends.
It also informed a little about alchemy, (the science and logic of it,) and Treaf found this quite interesting, but soon that certain topic was overrun with more about sorcery.

After several hours the light began to fade, and Treaf had been reading that whole time, so he only noted this when a cold breeze came and met up with him, causing him to look up. The light had faded and now one could make out the trees only as large, looming sticks that bent upwards from the ground. Huh. We’ll be camping soon, he noted, and then estimated that they would reach the Twelve Lords the next day, and there was a tiny, hardly noticeable flicker of excitement in Treaf.
They had to divert course slightly to find a good place to stay for the night; presently they stumbled upon a somewhat-flat area of ground that was surrounded with trees and brush. There were also quite a few rocks that they had to move in certain instances to place tents and so-forth.
Treaf had long since dismounted and set up a few tents before he realized that the warriors had started cooking something, and when he walked over to where he guessed they were he could smell something that was very unmistakable; meat. Though he had only recently decided that he would stop having the habits of a doat he was already looking forward to that certain food.
When he arrived he saw that it looked most like several hams from pigs, and it had been roasted by the fire on a spit until the skin on it was crispy; and then honey had been dripped over it until it formed runny pools on one’s plate. After tasting it Treaf realized that eh loved it and asked for more; and then more after that until he was full. Once he was he sat by the fire with all the others until he fell asleep, and then someone wakened him and he went to a tent. Once he reached it he toppled over and instantly began to have the experience of sleep, but it was a dreamless sleep none-the-less.
§
There was an awakening chirp from one of the surrounding trees that made Treaf jump at six o’clock. It happened to be a bird, obviously, and Treaf soon found that the sun had not risen yet, but light was coming to them and shortly it would appear.
However, Treaf reminded himself as he pulled his shirt on, they would be traveling again today, which seemed very boring for all of them right then. Sighing in a particularly miserable way, Treaf crawled out of the tent and began taking it down, then he had breakfast with all the others, and after that it was already about eight o’clock, so they all mounted, checked the campsite to see if they had missed anything, and when they saw that they hadn’t they rode on up the road.
As they were riding along Treaf was startled as there was a very large outburst of birds, crows, that came out from their trees and bushes, and they crowed very loudly. Darned birds, Treaf thought, but after that for some very strange reason he felt a little refreshed and did not feel quite so miserable.
In fact he got in such good of a mood that he thought that maybe he was ready for Mildo again, but he soon decided against it.
His ribs had been hurting for a while now, but they hadn’t been that bad, and it was really more of an irritation than an injury, for sometimes they just felt a bit funny, and then there would be a sickening pop, crunch, snap…and they would hurt a little more. I think, however, that I will be getting some proper treatment when we reach the Twelve Lords and their halls of glory, Treaf thought, and for a second he considered asking Malock about them, but soon decided against it since discovering it himself would be so much more fun and interesting than someone drawling it out in their boring voice. Besides, I’m just a helpless doat who has lost his way, eh? Treaf thought, but after that, he noted, there was a blinding flash as all of them rounded a corner, and in an instant he realized that the sun had risen, and that now the land was lit by its startlingly bright light. After a moment, though, he became accustomed to it, and things had again become noticeably brighter. Treaf scoffed. Just another day, and with that he began gazing all around him.

After a few more minutes, (about a half hour,) it became evident that the weather had changed rapidly. However, once Treaf had looked at a map, he had found out that the land had not yet risen to full capacity—but, mixed with the coming of late fall, the two combined and became one large weather change.
And damn and blast, I remember looking at The Jaragon on a map for the fist time; it seemed to be not so far away. But now that we’re actually near it, rather, the heart of it, it seems like just another damn thing that we ‘ave ta cross… in that small instant Mildo had ridden up beside him and opened a bottle of water to drink. Treaf realized with disgust that Mildo would have been fully capable to walk the whole way up the mountains. He decided that of course he would not have been able to, but still he decided not to brood over it, for that would make him get into a bad mood which he predicted would end in disaster.
“Ya' know with all this heavy fightin' goin' on you might be the next one to lose you're sword,” he commented after he had come along side of him. After a moment of comprehension Treaf replied with a wry smile, “yeah, but ya' know if that happens I'll just get a bigger sword than you that will kill ya' if it touches ya',” he commented, and after a second Mildo nodded in a serious way that in a way admitted defeat, and Treaf smiled again, and said, “Can't wait to get to the countenance of the Twelve Lords, then I'll be able to beat ya' in front of everybody.” Then after a moment of contented silence he added, “I find it actually quite curious that you are never the one that fights the powerful guys,” and after that Mildo looked madder than ever. Treaf wryly smiled. “Well ever thought that I'm never the one that goes out and tries to fight one person.” he sighed. “I don't have eyes as sharp as you sometimes... I try to kill all the enemy rather than looking for one person.” Treaf nodded realizing the truth of what Mildo was saying. But this, again, was nothing to brood over, so he kicked his horse a little harder and rode on a little ahead of Mildo. He was particularly glad when Mildo did not follow, but he was not exactly sure why; he decided that he just exasperated him. Not that it matters one damn little bit, and he made another one of his wry smiles.

A little later that day they had a small break in which they had some food that tasted particularly bad, and Treaf was glad that they would be getting more supplies, for he was tired, ( who wouldn't!) of stale food with maggots in it. But he was not going to get excited over nothing, and expected the twelve lords to be about the same as any other group or movements. He did, however, hope that there was not some aggravating king that he would be tempted to yell at.
As he was saddling his horse he felt another one of those annoying little touches on his shoulder, so small that he hardly noticed it. Suddenly he turned around in a flash and, wonders of wonders, beheld Malock, which he had expected from the start.
“Will you stop damn touchin' me like that ya' thick-skinned oaf!” He said quite loudly, and Malock looked aggravated too.
“I need to tell you something quite important, Treaf,” he said, and Treaf was obliged to listen.
“The Jaragon is a warring country, and unlike your knowledge suggests, it has a few societies that are anti-war. The most known one is the Twelve Lords, though there is one much more powerful.” Treaf was partially mystified.
“And what the hell does this have to do with anything?” he replied. Malock sighed in an exasperated sort of way.
“We are now in a part of the land where there are more enemies than we expected at first. We must be more cautious and only travel by night from now on.” And why the hell would we do that? Treaf thought, but remained silent. If Malock was actually telling the truth than he was concerned for the moment about listening to him.
“The Blackwolf Spirits that we were attacked by the other day--” “Who I defeated--” Treaf interrupted. “Anyway, I am very sure that you saw that t6hey were extra powerful.” Treaf nodded.
“I am talking about them. They are extra large, and they have more wards and capabilities that even defeated the Magical beings.” Becoming more serious now, Treaf said, “Yes, yes... but what is the Elder thinking of doing then?” Malock looked partially glad that Treaf was actually paying attention now, so he continued at once. “I would think that he has about two choices: either he creates his Magical beings with more power, or...” at this Malock paused, “He creates his own Blackwolf Spirits.” Treaf's eyes widened momentarily. For a second he was slightly hopeful in the Elder... if he was that powerful than he had definitely underestimated him. But then realization struck him and he thought, no. I have already read how to create a Spirit and it is almost impossible, especially for someone like him that is not very experienced. If he could do it than we would have already won that war. “No,” he replied, “He will not be able to, unless my judgment is wrong. To make a Spirit will take a long time.... plus the fact that it's almost impossible. If ya' want ta' read the instructions and find out for yourself you are welcome to.”
“I believe you yet even one that has the same capabilities would be able to destroy a city,” Malock said, and there was a moment of silence. Then Treaf looked over at all the others and saw that they were about to leave.
“Yeah, we're gonna travel during the day today right? Since we're right by the Twelve Lords?” Malock nodded and then said, “There will most likely be a meeting when we arrive there. We will continue this then. For now we need to go.” Treaf nodded and got onto his horse with a huff. Malock walked over to his own black horse, and soon he had moved to the front of the group with Hibned, and Treaf started walking with little consideration, but then he thought with a jolt, oh yeah! We never got ta' the subject of who the Second Society is, and with that he smiled and began looking a little more forward to arriving at the countenance of the Twelve Lords.


Chapter Nine
The Second Society
“I think we should be arriving in about five minutes,” Hibned announced at the head of the group. You could tell that this message had a considerable effect on the crew, for a shock went through all of them and some began grinning. Yeah, all fine and dandy, but how come nobody's thinkin' about the fact that we only have twenty men to fight an enemy that's obviously much larger? Treaf thought as he looked at this reaction. He was not trying to be negative, but the fact was a little over powering in itself. He sighed and then smiled. It was going to be interesting in a few minutes.
Actually that last part of the journey from the city of The Jaragon had proved to be the most challenging, which Treaf could see no reason for but bad luck. The road winded and turned up the steepest slope that one could imagine, and several of the horses seemed to want to sleep, but they pushed them on anyway, for most of them decided that they were just being stubborn. Treaf, of course found it very funny to imagine all of them walking up the slope, and he secretly scoffed. What a sight that would have been!
Mildo came to Treaf, (probably accidentally: it seemed right that he would have wanted to be at the front of the group,) and then passed him to finally rest bye Malock and Hibned at the front. Treaf was content at his own position however.
It had now been one minute now, four remaining, and Treaf found anticipation growing slowly but surely within him. His horse of course did not since this, for the beast just kept walking on, and its hooves clanked against the stone, sounding like a clock steadily counting the time until something big was going to happen.
Two minutes. Now there seemed for some reason to be less excitement; it became another mood of them traveling in silence with nothing happening in particular going on. They were in a balance between getting somewhere, which they were thinking, but they were in the confluence of actually getting there. This seemed to bring the mood a little down, but still there was not a single hint of boredom. Only completing the task.
One more minute had passed until they reached an even steeper part of the woods, in which there were deep ruts in the road that some of the horses stumbled on, which were reinforced with roots and sticks; in some places there were even large boulders that blocked the road. This forced them to go slightly in the forest, but this seemed not to continue long until there was only one minute left.
Suddenly there was a rather large change in the road. It leveled out and there was a thin layer of gravel placed upon it, and it crunched under all of the horse's hooves. And in the near distance Treaf saw a large wall.
They were not close enough to be sure, but one could see many guards who were holding what looked like crossbows. They had hoods, and there seemed to be no more to the area than them but the wall which they were standing on. It was as gray as the sky outside, though Treaf noted everything seemed to be. Treaf had not expected it to be so professional and impressive, but he was suddenly proved wrong, and very wrong also.
The wall was very large, larger than the one around the city that they had left from. One could not see anything inside it, for the only way to do that would be to enter through the gates, or to fly clear over it. That could be the reason that it was particularly intimidating.
In several minutes they arrived at the gates, which were large and dark before them. It looked like not even a spell could destroy it, for it was braced with many metal chains, bars...and there were too handles on the outside, as if taunting someone to dare and open them.
When they were about twenty feet from it the head guard affirmed that they were in fact from The Jaragon and what business they had.
“We are here,” Malock said with a wry smile, “To meet with the Twelve Lords.” Immediately, to Treaf's surprise there came a look of understanding among the guards and they allowed them in with no more hassle. There came a clinking and booming sound as all the locks and braces were removed. There also came a very loud rattle when the huge chain was removed from the inside and seemed to fall upon the ground with a great and mighty tinkling. Then there came a great groaning and creaking as the tall gates began to open slowly, and in several seconds a three foot crack of open space had emerged and inside was not noticeable quite yet. Then it opened more and inside was a city of tall buildings, which had smaller shops beside them, but everything seemed to be more military and uniform. There were a few guards here and there, and they all had crossbows and dark hoods which Treaf decided was probably a disguise to prevent them from being attacked by some kind of sorcery that needed someone's face.
They entered the contents of the city slowly but surely, and after a few seconds they were in a small, narrow road that was paved with individual stones. They seemed to be beaten down by much time and use, but the stones never lost order or uniform. There was never a stone missing.
Treaf looked to the side of himself warily and saw that there were two guards that were walking alongside of them. It seemed that the whole city was wary of everything that happened. Maybe a bit too wary in Treaf's opinion.
In a few minutes they had arrived at a large, tall building. After a second of realization Treaf asked, “Where are we gonna' be stayin'?” Malock was not fast to reply. “We will be staying in the building that you see before you. I suppose it is a like guesthouse in its own way.”
“And where is the meeting going to be held?” he asked again, but this time Malock did not reply.
They went alongside the building after that and Treaf noticed that there was a stall with hay and water in it jam packed beside it. He assumed with accuracy that they would be putting their horses there, and he was proved right when the two guards beside them lead them there and told them to dismount and carry their supplies into the tall building.
Once Treaf had grabbed several bags and other things he headed inside by the only door which was of course smaller than the front gates but still quite large. He turned out to be the first in, and he pushed upon the door, later to enter and behold quite a large room, though not as wide in diameter as the one in the city of The Jaragon. It seemed actually to be quite dimly lit, but he could see all the way around the room, and after spending several seconds of looking he noted a narrow staircase that lead upwards, and so he headed up it, twenty-four people behind him.
There were five floors. The guards told them that they would be staying on the fourth floor, and so there they stopped and lay down their baggage. The room was completely empty. Not even a single window. The only object was a large lantern in the center of the room which Treaf guessed would light the room quite well.
“So where exactly are we supposed to sleep?” Treaf asked one of the guards, trying not to sound disdainful. The quick, steady-faced reply was, “The floor.” Treaf nodded with a raised eyebrow and turned his back on them, so that he could set up his bedding somewhere near the center of the room. After that he idly sat around and waited until all of them were done.
When they were there came an announcement from one of the guards, saying, “You will now have a meal...I am sure that you are hungry.” At the end he added a wee smile which in Treaf's opinion did not exactly work out and which looked quiet awkward. He decided that smiles did not fit the people around there, especially since they seemed to where hoods quite often.
They all followed the guards back down the stairs, and in a minute they had reached the outside and the cold air with it. Across from them Treaf saw many more buildings, plus a few shops. Shop-keeping right then in the middle of the wind looked particularly miserable to Treaf right then. In fact he even found it difficult to walk across the street, which, after they had passed, was bustling with horses and carts. He also noted that there seemed to be more people on the streets and in the buildings than Treaf had ever seen. He did not really wonder about this however, but it looked to him that everybody,( not the women, mind,) looked like they could deal with an enemy quite well. That's good if they were to get attacked, or, what's more, there comes a problem in the authorities, Treaf thought to himself.
After they had crossed the street they went down a sidewalk to the north of the city, and after a few minutes of walking they reached what looked like just another building, but it was flatter and widespread.
Once they entered it, however, there was a considerable rise in the temperature and it seemed to be slightly stuffy. It smelled very good, however, and immediately Treaf had no doubt that it was a restaurant.
Treaf then saw a large canvas that had writing on it, and after a little puzzlement he saw that it was a list of different foods, but the trouble was that he had never heard of any of the of food, so he decided just to pick one and move on. He realized, however, that they were eating for free, so he ordered three things, and a drink to accompany it. He knew what the drink was, however, and he had chosen a very stout ale.
To Treaf's surprise, when his food arrived, it seemed that he had ordered things that consisted of basically only meat, potatoes, and a few other things, and he saw that it was going to be quite hard to eat all of it. He did not think about this much though, for he was so hungry that such trivial things did not matter.
Well, for such a military place the food sure is good. I bet the cooks are beaten if they don't make good food! In fact it was so good that he was very disappointed when he was done, even though he was probably too full to eat any more. But he was definitely content, and was glad for that.
It was quite hot in the building though, and this made him fell quite lazy. It was not the kind of warm sunlight that made one lazy but a different kind which at times made Treaf fell even lazier, sometimes worse for some reason. Perhaps because it was so stuffy.
Soon, however, they were all done with the meal and were lead outside by the guards. The biting wind tore at them, and Treaf was suddenly thrust into an environment of discomfort. But, soon all will be comfortable again, Treaf reminded himself, and with that he pulled his cloak much closer to him, and walked on with the others.
They soon arrived at the end of the narrow street, and what they saw before them was another large building, but this time it was huge. Not just a little bigger than normal; much, much, bigger. It was tall, yes, but it was very wide also. In a vague way it reminded Treaf of the gust house in the other city of The Jaragon, but that had been a little less tall if he remembered accurately.
So from the street they began to walk up the front steps which elbowed twice before it led them to the door.
With a small wine from the hinges on the door they had entered, the two guards at the head of the group. The inside of the building looked much the same at first glance, but once Treaf looked around a bit in curiosity he saw that it was much more decorative and there was a little lighter.
“The council will be held on the bottom floor,” one of the guards told them, and he started walking towards a staircase that led downwards towards what Treaf guessed was a very deep basement.
Treaf was somewhere in the middle of the group, so when he reached the open staircase he saw that it was dimly lit with some lanterns that were hung on the crudely cut walls. From all that Treaf could see it looked as though the whole thing wound downwards for quite a long time before it could have leveled out. I suppose it’s a good thing to be so far down, out of the reach of any enemy that could be over hearing, Treaf decided, and continued looking around him. The passage was quite narrow, and none of them could see much ahead of them, though Treaf did not see why they would have a need to and continued walking down the stone steps.
When they reached the bottom it seemed that they had been walking for at least a half hour. Treaf severely doubted this though, and he decided that the staircase had not been that long; otherwise they would be so deep down it was impossible!
The cavern that they were in now grew wider and wider, but it was not a cave and looked as though it had been man-made. There seemed to be a bit more of the yellowish light that sprang from the lanterns, and Treaf guessed that they were nearing the council room bye now.
The long room that they had previously been in narrowed down into a hall again, one that seemed at least fifty feet long and about six feet high. There was a small wooden door at the end with two torches on either side.
“That is the entrance to the council room,” the head guard said to all of them, and Treaf muttered to himself, “Yeah, I guessed as much…” but did not want to seriously offend anybody so he said it very quietly.
With a small rattle the guard opened the small wooden door at the end of the hall, and it seemed that the people at the head of the group seemed surprised. And when Treaf reached the door, what he saw before him was this: there was a very large room, this time at least one hundred feet in diameter. There were four tables in the center of it, with pillars that seemed to help hold the roof from collapsing. And around the four tables were about one hundred warriors that were talking all at once.
“I thought there were supposed to be twelve,” Treaf said in puzzlement. Malock was near him, so he heard, and replied, “The Twelve are the head of the organization. There are really much, much more, but they are strewn across the country in various places.” Treaf spent some time looking at them. The majority were young, although what he guessed were the Twelve, (since they looked quite like Malock and dark and brooding,) were older, though they looked every bit as capable of fighting.
“Welcome,” the guard said, “To the Second Society.” Treaf wryly smiled as all of them began to move to the only spare table, which was located in the middle of the other four.
Once they were all seated the room grew silent as everybody finally noticed their guests. They all had at least two weapons, though some had three swords and a bow, plus a knife; some had crossbows, and some had swords so large that they were six inches wide and as tall as the owner. These in particular seemed always to be drawn.
There was no greeting from all of them and Treaf became wary again. He knew that they were not enemies, and decided that they were just wary also, and had every right to be so.
Presently what looked like the head of the group said, “We will now hear from you the contents of your happenings and what has transpired on your journey,” he finished, and Treaf remembered all of the previous times when they had had to relate their journey. To think of doing that again sounded treacherous.
“I will not relate our journey, but only the enemies that have proved fatal to us,” Malock said, and Treaf was surprised at first, but that surprise turned to content. This would be much simpler.
So he began with the Blackwolf Spirits, and how they had attacked them, the Alkerons, and everything that had happened during that time of their travels, and finally after a few minutes he came to the battle in the city if The Jaragon, all the enemies that they had faced, and even the offense strategy that Treaf had come up with. Treaf became particularly happy when he remembered his wonderfully welcome brilliance.
It took quite a long time to explain all the strengths and weaknesses of the spirits and animals, plus the Dark Hoods, and the large creature that had almost broken the gates, plus the Drewmorocks and Grewls that had poured out of the forest, accompanied by the Trial Dogs.
From there since they had not been attacked much, Malock only briefly mentioned the attack of the Blackwolf Spirits. Of course he explained how powerful they had been, and how the maker of them had been present, and that Treaf, (again!) had killed him and hence defeated the enemy.
But, since he had mentioned this last, and Treaf was expecting applause, there came nothing: only dry looks and a few raised eyebrows from everyone present. In fact this stage lasted quite a while.
Until: “Malock Eidfrn, I think that you should allow your party to stay with us for three weeks.” The head-man said, smiling for the first time. Malock, instead of his cold, steady gaze, had shifted from that to a raised eyebrow, as if he was shocked that someone would say such a thing! And to him!
“Why……exactly?” Malock drawled back slowly. The head-man stopped smiling in an instant.
“They need training. If you could hardly defeat an ordinary group of poorly made Spirits, than it has become evident to me that you should hand them over. You will never defeat our enemy if you continue with this.” The room was so silent that Treaf’s ears hurt. It seemed like everyone in the room was shocked, or chose not to speak, and Malock lowered his head in silence. Then he replied, “I have no objection. You are right: maybe I should attain the training as well…?” This time it was funny. Malock had one severely raised eyebrow, and it was very obvious that he was challenging the man. But he did not reply after that, and instead said, “Three weeks. And training will start tomorrow. But Eidfrn, I doubt that you will have to train…you seem quite capable.” Then he was solemn again.
Throughout the rest of the meeting there was not much in particular that happened. They discussed the enemies, different suggestions on defeating Spirits, and even gave the Elder a little help on how to create a spirit. Of course he was not completely sure that he was even going to do this, but all of them decided that it would be best to have as much information as possible.
Nothing much had happened in their city, and there had not been any attacks recently, and they had not heard news from the members that were traveling and fighting certain evils.
I do wonder, though, how many strong they are. If they had a thousand members, and they all fought together, it would be quite a capable army—plus the fact, Treaf had to admit, the Second Society seemed to be quite established fighters.


Chapter Ten
Letin Noedar

After the meeting, which lasted quite a while, they were led by their guards,( Treaf found it very annoying that they were following them everywhere!) to door at the end of the room, and from that they went into the narrow hall that would eventually lead them to the staircase.
After being down in the ground Treaf could not guess what time it was, or even whether it was dark outside, but for some reason he guessed that the council had lasted for quite a while. Perhaps even five hours.
After all he had been very sore when he had gotten out of his seat, for the chairs that they had been forced to sit in were hard, wooden, with poorly designed features which resulted in a neck cramp, plus a back that hurt very bad. There had also been no cushions.
The way back up the large, winding staircase was actually quite dizzying, but it seemed to be shorter and when they had been walking for five minutes they suddenly popped into the room in that large building, and even then Treaf could not tell what time it was, for the building did not have any windows on that floor. Only the large light in the center of the room, which Treaf had noted to be a prominence, (besides the hoods!) in most of the houses.
It was soon, though, that they had made it to the door of the building and emerged to find a completely black night. Strangely, though, there seemed not to be many stars, which Treaf guessed was because there was so much light emanating from across the street.
In a few minutes they had made it to the house that they were staying in, and Treaf just realized how tired he was. And damn and blast, we’re gonna have ta’ train tomorrow! He thought, dreading the idea. But, once he thought about it, curiosity grew in him until he was looking forward to it. He guessed that the Second Society knew magic, and he thought that this was a very good opportunity to learn more and become more powerful. But then he remembered how disdainful they had all been towards them. Pfffft…Treaf thought, I’m so gonna try to beat them so bad they go cryin’ back ta’ mommy! This idea sounded very appealing, but when he remembered the particularly large swords that most of them possessed, he grimaced. I do, however, wonder from whom they were trained…?
In a minute they were in the house, and shortly they had finished the last-minute set up. Then there was silence, and presently the light was blown out and darkness enveloped them.
§
The next sensation that Treaf felt was misery. He was so comfortable, it was dark, and he guessed that it was about five I the morning, but what was that sound…?
In a flash he was up and awake. It turned out that there was not a noise, but he knew that if he let himself drop again he would fall asleep and probably go through the embarrassment of someone waking him up. Then he would be groggy, and even now he did not even want to think about it, so he put on a shirt and strapped his pauldrons, gauntlets and bracers on. His sword was at his hip, and well he had let his bow stay off his back for a change.
Since no one else was up, he stood there for a second and looked around him. There were five floors of the building, if he remembered correctly, and he and all the others were on the fourth. Hmmmmmmm.................Treaf thought, I wonder what is on the fifth floor, though? There was a staircase that led to it, of course, but he decided not to go up it, since then he would probably get in trouble because there was an old hermit living up there and he wanted his peace and quiet.
Sighing, he strode towards the staircase leading down and started the descent. He guessed that, as like the previous city, there would be breakfast nearby, maybe in the same house, but then start tingly he remembered that they had in fact not eaten dinner on the same house the night before. They had eaten in the restaurant across the street.
So he took his time and took into account what all had said in the council. If the Elder would be assisted in making Blackwolf Spirits, well… I have the feeling that we will be able to do it if we have assistance. And if we actually do succeed than we will be able to grow invincible…perhaps. He heard a noise below him, and he decided that it was unimportant, so he ignored it and thought again: And if a start learning magic then we injuries will be a small matter, especially if I grow so powerful that I, or the Elder, could heal others besides ourselves.
In that moment he heard a few rustles above him on the sleeping floor and then there followed a few loud thumps and the cracking and groaning of boards as they all started coming down the stairs. Malock, of course was at the lead, and Treaf looked on at them for a second before turning and smiling. I suspect that we’re gonna start trainin’ pretty soon…and with that he went down the remainder of stairs with his hands in his pockets.
When they had reached the end of the stairs Treaf halted and looked out the window. The total of the Second Society were outside, standing in lines and looking rather important. Treaf grinned. Normally he would have been nervous right then, but today he took on the challenge with full confidence.
When they reached the large group of them, Treaf did not greet them, and decided to leave that to Malock. He was a little better with things like this.
“Hello.” Was all that Malock said. The leader of the group then nodded his head in a serious way. His gigantic sword was resting on his shoulder, and a third up the blade was large saw edges. Treaf guessed that it could probably cut down a tree with minimal exertion.
“I would like all of you to follow me now. We will shortly be starting training,” he said, and then turned in a flourish of his leather cloak.
Shortly they came to the gates, which opened in the same way as before, and for the first time Treaf realized that there was a gigantic field of well-kept grass that had a large fence around it. He could have guessed, from a distance that it was a pasture for cows or something, but now that he was relatively close to it he saw the length of the grass.
So that’s where we’re gonna be training huh? he thought. He guessed for some reason that it would be a little like a tournament, what with all the people to fight, not a war. But why the hell is it so damn huge? Treaf had to ask himself.
“We will do a demonstration of what we will be doing first,” the leader said when they arrived. “I will choose one of my strongest, and he will fight against me,” he said with a wry smile. He then called the name, “Letin Noedar,” and from the crowd came a surprisingly short person, which Treaf guessed was probably his age. He also had a large sword, probably even bigger than the one that had called him. But instead of a saw blade, there were dagger-like barbs on the sides of it that were about six inches long. There were also circular holes in the top of the blade which Treaf did not know what was for. However, unlike the leader’s sword, it was double-bladed, with a large and sharp wedge at the end. The kid grinned.
He walked right past the other one, right into the pin-arena, and went to the far side, where he planted his sword into the ground.
The other one followed suit, but slowly, and Treaf guessed it had been five minutes when he was in position.
“Now will someone please say, ‘begin’?” Malock nodded and said immediately, “Fight!” His voice was actually quite quiet, but it seemed to carry all the way through the area, until with a snap it seemed to hit the competitors, and immediately the younger one jumped into the air, muttered something, put his hands together in an odd way, and there was a blast of red light, and about fifty daggers, which had come out of who knows where, sped towards the leader. He quickly rolled down, but some of the weapons, which glinted in the light, went towards him, and then he quickly swung his sword and the daggers ricochet off the heavy blade with glints of light.
Then, not hesitating in the slightest, the leader sprang forward with amazing speed and came right to the man, but it in that one fluid motion he had swung down with his sword in a flash of light. When it hit the ground, (for the younger one had side stepped,) it sent chunks of earth flying in all directions, making a scar in the soil. Then the short one grabbed his sword at the top, besides the handle, and whipped it forward at the man’s face. Treaf’s eyes widened. One of the daggers had punctured the leader’s face. But there was no blood, and the man did not even seem to notice. Wards…Treaf decided, glad that he knew something about what they were doing.
I find it strange that they have so much speed and power, Treaf thought, for you can’t just whip out a spell like that.
Then the leader took from his cloak a small ball, and undid a small string, and threw it at the other. Within less than a second it exploded in a gigantic cloud, and fire erupted for s short time. There was much smoke, and Treaf had frankly guessed that the younger one had died, but before anything cleared there was a large, thundering boooooommmmmmm, but after that there was only quietness. Then, while the smoke hung like a curtain, Treaf glimpsed a small, glinting eye, and then some blackness, and his eyes widened, the pupils tiny dots. There was a Blackwolf Spirit inside the smoke.
With a blinding flash the spirit attacked the leader, but with his sword in hand he in a way leapt backwards and then up, coming to the neck of the spirit. He was tiny compared to it.
Then with tiny glints of light he swung his sword, and the matter around it dissipated, until after twenty swings the spirit faded into black powder. Uh huh. It looks like the Second Society uses enchanted blades like the Elders.’ He smiled, feeling foolish.
But after the defeat of the Spirit the short one, Letin Noedar, leapt into the air a second time, and sped towards the leader in the air, landed, and put his hand on the ground, then swung upwards with both his feet. The other one whipped his head up, barely avoiding it, but Noedar was not slow to respond and leapt back up, thrusting with his huge blade. The leader sidestepped.
A sequence of similar happenings followed this, and both of them were unscathed. But it seemed that they did not run out of stamina very quickly, for Treaf would have been exhausted by that time.
But it was time for the leader to use magic. He folded his hands together rapidly, muttered something, and there was a small, brightly shining object that glowed in his hands. This grew to the size of a house in three seconds, and soon it was a raging ball of churning flames. This burned a crater into the ground, and it disappeared into it. For a moment things were quiet, but Noedar leapt backwards rapidly, as if avoiding something, and the fire ball burst from the ground with a roar, right where the kid had been standing. That would have been impossible to do even with magic, Treaf thought, growing angry. It seemed like there were no boundaries around this group. With that much compressed fire, the dirt and rock in the earth would have extinguished it, he thought, frowning, and besides, it would take too much oxygen in the air to keep the fire burning.
But putting that aside, it had happened, but he had dodged it successfully. And he did not hesitate to attack back.
This time he seemed to use a summoning spell, like what the Elder used to release the Magical Beings.
And likewise there came a ringing sound and there was a burst if light. Out of this came a Leather Back Dragon, and it immediately folded its wings, burst them open with a rush and roar, and then leapt into the air, stopped a hundred feet up, and dove towards the ground, pure red fire coming from its stretched jaws. The fire enveloped a huge area of ground, and the leader seemed for a moment to stop and think, before leaping, with amazing speed, towards Noedar, who had been expecting the leader to have defended himself before attacking. Even Treaf thought that this was a very strange thing to do, but when he thought about it it made since. If he attacked too, then the short on would be isolated and not have a choice to defend himself.
But their skill far outranged Treaf, and Noedar commanded the dragon to breath more fire, and this came speeding towards the leader, which somehow blocked it all with his blade. In fact the fire seemed to avoid it somehow.
But then something very unexpected happened. Noedar also summoned a Blackwolf Spirit and also a Grath. These also attacked the leader, attempting to pummel him with their weapons and fists. They hit the ground beside him, though, and in the meantime the leader dodged all the attacks somehow, but, with another great and powerful roar, the Leather Back Dragon breathed a plume of fire that would have devastated a city. Noedar, now grinning, thrust his hands outward and the fire was bent into ten huge fire balls, which went into a circle, surrounding the leader. Then they sped at him at an amazing speed, churning the soil and ground, while the Grath and Blackwolf Spirit also attacked.
Then with an amazing burst of fire, dust, and rock, the balls of fire collided where the man was standing, and exploded, sending debris flying at the rest of them. A heat blast tore at them, and a wind erupted, which made the explosion into a whirlpool type thing, which sped along the ground, then came speeding towards the earth and erupted another time, sending a second heat blast ravaging all around them.
Treaf was near traumatized. The raw power of all of them around him was startling even to behold, but soon he stopped thinking and watched with anticipation as the smoke cleared. All was silent.
The leader was at the bottom of what looked like a mighty crater, and his head was slammed into the ground. His clothes were tore and battered, but there was nothing noticeably wrong with him. There was minimal blood, but Treaf, and all the others knew that he had lost.
Walking towards them, Noedar said, “That is what you call a good battle.” There were no cheers, and Treaf wouldn’t have anyway, for he was actually a little jealous of the kid. It has come to my realization that Malock is the most damn bad trainer imaginable! Treaf thought, thinking back to what they had done in their training. They had sparred and nothing else.


Chapter Ten
The First Fire
“I kinda hope that I don’t have to fight today,” Mildo said. Treaf grimaced.
“Think about me. You’re better than me, and I’m gonna have ta’ fight these insane devils,” He said, but Mildo replied, “Yeah, but ya’ can use magic. I can’t.” I guess that’s true, Treaf thought. But he was still going to be completely smothered. Even Malock was not this impressive. And if I die than this whole war will be for nothing? That sounded like too much, but he smiled and thought, yeah, that won’t happen. They’re gonna go easy on me, I know it.
Thankfully, though, the previous competitors were resting and drinking water, and Treaf had severe doubt that they would pick him out of the group next. But he had to remind himself that there were only about twenty-five of them.
The magic that they were using seemed impossible, Treaf decided. As far as I am concerned it takes a lot of time to make something that powerful happen. Of course they had premade the Spirits, but still…Yes, he agreed that if they joined their group and fought they would most likely win all of the battles, for they had been losing them quite a lot recently. But of course, as with the Rangers, Treaf guessed that most of them would have to stay in the city to protect it. But the cool thing is that only a few of them would suffice for a whole town, no matter how big, he decided, grinning.
He then watched as Noedar and the other guy walked off into the crowd a ways, but the other guy got on a raised mound in the middle of the crowd and said: “We will now be holding another round. Does anyone want to volunteer right away, or……?” He left this place for emphasis, and the people around that area grew dead silent. Treaf chuckled to himself. No one was going to do it.
“In that case I will have to choose someone from you.” He stopped and looked around at all of them, and since Treaf was not in the very front he decided that the leader could probably not even see him. But with horror he watched on as the man stopped at him and kept gazing for several seconds. Treaf’s heart was beating faster than when he had confronted the Alkeron.
“Hmmmmmmm…how about you?” He said seriously. Treaf gulped and headed towards the pen, trying not to look nervous in the least, though he was very nervous in reality. Okay. I have the chance to prove that I am as good as any one of these guys. This shouldn’t be too hard…that Noedar guy was especially good. And I’ll bet that they’ll go easy on me…it angered him that he was being treated like a ‘lesser’ but even so he took the challenge full on.
His challenge, who did not have quite big of a sword, strode towards the other side of the pen, taking his time. He had a single-edged blade with no giant saw on the back of it. Instead it was curved at the top going upwards, and the length must have been about four feet. Haha…I bet my swords gonna break right away…then I’ll have to use magic.
In less than a minute the kid reached the other side, and Treaf prepared himself for the first move to make. He hoped to end it quickly without much physical exhaustion, and so he planned to use the spell ‘Gurvisorm Radjak Poshaden.’ He had used it once before. He smiled wryly.
All of them anticipated the time when Malock would yell ‘fight,’ and Treaf just wished he hurry up and say it since he was already so nervous. But not anymore.
“FIGHT!” He yelled, and Treaf immediately made the necessary hand sign and barked “GURVISORM RADJAK POSHADEN!” Immediately an invisible energy rushed from his compressed hands, and his opponent grasped the air for a second, flailed, and slowly grabbed his neck in pain. He gurgled, and ever so slowly he began rising into the air, grabbing and clawing at his neck the whole time.
Damn it! I can’t lose concentration…Treaf thought as he gritted his teeth. In about ten seconds the man would be knocked out.
But then slowly the current of energy coming from Treaf’s hands began to fade slightly, and at that moment the man yelled with what little energy he had left, “Poshaden!” and the current was ripped from his wrist. In shock Treaf stumbled back, but immediately regained his footing. I see. So the spell ‘Poshaden’ is a summoning spell and a shield. I need to learn a bit more. I don’t even know the structure and purposes of most spells…with that, seeing that the other guy was weak, Treaf drew his sword quickly and rushed over to him, sprinting as fast as he could.
He reached him in a matter of seconds, and when he did, he swung his sword heavily at the man’s chest, which sent a whooshing sound through the air. The guy barely blocked it, and, seeing the opportunity through his hair, Treaf mustered all the strength that he had and lunged, throwing back his chest in case he also lunged, like what happened with Mildo.
But the man drew a dagger like what Treaf had seen others do quite a bit and blocked Treaf’s relatively small sword with that. But no matter, Treaf leapt over him, kicked him in the back with his boot, and then stomped on his head when he fell, holding his sword on the side of his thy. And with that he thrust his sword at his neck, and grinned wildly, and evilly.
“Hey hey….. I WON!” Treaf yelled, and raised his arms. There were no cheers as he had expected. Sighing, he strode off of the pen and wiped his face where sweat had accumulated. That was so much easier than I had damn well expected, he thought, sheathing his sword.
When he reached Mildo he looked astonished, but chose not to say anything, and Treaf went off to the sidelines to grab some water. He had not done much in that battle, but he had been standing in the sun for about a half hour, and so he took some anyway. While the cool liquid ran down his throat, he thought, it was pretty brilliant of me to use that spell! Otherwise I would never have won…he watched as his opponent walked off the training arena. I only left him with a few bruises though. That Noedar guy pretty much killed the leader. Thinking of this incident he realized that both Noedar and the leader had had wards on them, and that was why they had not gotten hurt very easy. Hey hey I need to do that he decided, and watched as the new pair walked off.

Hours later they had finished the ‘training,’ which had only consisted of fighting each other. Treaf realized that in all the training that he had ever been in it was always only fighting, never really learning much. He did not really mind this, but he wanted to learn more about magic. After all, as he had just learned, it was easy to defeat someone without much knowledge of magic. Of course he was not considering the fact of what it be like when he had to fight someone who did know much about magic, but he decided not to mention that part until he knew more.
Surprisingly, even though it was about five in the evening, it was already completely dark, and Treaf, with all the others, had to feel their way back to he town. The guards had promised to bring lanterns or torches, but for some strange reason they had not been back for ten minutes or more.
It was also very cold in that part of the land. The Jaragon was a very mountainous region, yes, but since they were right in heart of it, or on top of them, it seemed colder than Treaf was used to. That plus the fact that it was late fall, it made the nights quite freezing. And I really hope that our sleeping courters will be heated, he thought, grimacing.
Then as he was walking he smacked his nose against something and fell over, and then realized that what he had hit was wooden. Immediately he thought of the gate that lead into the city, and so he got up and winced. The gates were not open.
Treaf then shouted loudly at the guards, if there were any, (he hoped so,) and there was no reply. “Damn it!” he yelled, and then looked through the crack in the gates. There was still a little light.
Mildo came alongside of him. “They had better open them up,” he said, clenching his fist from the cold, and then blowing on it. Treaf luckily had leather padded gloves and gauntlets on, so that part of him was not cold. But his boots, thick as they were, were stiff and his toes were frozen up in them. I guess we’ll just wait for a little, he decided, but soon he was impatient and looked through the crack again. The city was completely lit by the many houses, and the smooth streets reflected the lights and windows. And through one of the windows Treaf saw someone having a very large feast.
After abut fifteen minutes Treaf couldn’t stand it anymore and yelled, “Damnit I want some food!” and he stamped his foot against the ground. Mildo looked just as exasperated.
Finally the guards arrived with torches and lanterns, and they dropped them down to Treaf and Mildo, who were the closest to them.
“Now will ya’ please unlock the gates?” Treaf said a little sarcastically. As the guards began un-bolting it Treaf thought, for such an organized place it seems really strange that they would forget about un-locking the gates and leaving us trapped out here. He sighed as the cold air leaked into him and subdued him.
Then there was the usual creaking and groaning of large gates, and they opened as they always did. Thankfully Treaf strode into the city, for he was starving, and he could barely stop himself from running to the guest house.
In what seemed like moments they all arrived, and Treaf thrust the door to the place open.
“Hey hey, I smell food,” he said, and sniffed the air around him. It was warm in the place, and he thought he smelled onion soup or something.
After he had strode over to a table, however, he realized that it was in fact stew, with some kind of unknown bread which anyway looked very delicious.
He sat down heavily and discarded his cloak, which made it too warm to where since it was already so hot in there. I should be celebrated. I actually beat my enemy…he thanked the waitress when she brought him the food, grabbed a spoon, and began shoveling it all in. He only then noticed that Mildo had not followed him, nor Malock; for once he was alone and not bothered.
The city lights outside seemed to pull Treaf towards the want to sleep, and so before he fell asleep on the chair he grabbed his coat and started walking upstairs. No one had seemed to finish eating yet, so when he got to the sleeping quarters he found that it would be a good time to read.
He grabbed his bag, opened it up, and searched around in it a bit, and then found the fifteen pages to the creation Blackwolf Spirits. Gazing at them he realized the strangeness to the fact that the Elder had even had paper at the time when they were traveling. But I guess his whole bag is probably full of stuff to write on and books…not extra food and clothing. After all, the Elder was still relatively new to magic.
Most of the content of the Spirits did not register in Treaf’s mind: there was too much that he didn’t know to question or even understand the facts. He did realize, however, that if you did not perfect your skills before creating one than there was danger of loosing your soul, being imprisoned bye invisible forces, or losing some body limbs or anything else that the Spirits saw fit.
I think I’m going to try to train with magic tomorrow, if I can. But then again he thought of it to be quite obvious that the Second Society would want to train them, if not for any reason but for their own survival.

After at least an hour of reading Treaf’s senses perked up as he heard thumping and a few voices. He realized that the others were coming up, so he quickly stashed the readings into his bag. He did not know why, but he had a sense of not wanting to tell anyone about the papers or about magic at all. He was going to wait to discover more before he did anything like that.
§

Treaf stuffed his face with some of the bread and eggs that were before him, drank up all the wine, and then moved on to the biscuits. If he was correct he thought he saw that Noedar guy across the room form him, but he did not pay any mind and wiped his mouth.
After the hardy breakfast they all moved outside, and there was a short time of break, in which Treaf sharpened his sword, for the wards on the edges had begun to ware down a bit.
Plus the fact that he wanted to be prepared for that day’s training, though he doubted he was going to need his sword. If they weren’t going to train in magic, and continued sparring, than Treaf had decided that he would go and talk with the Elder, if he was not busy. Since we’re getting closer to the Dark Lands I need to perfect my skills and improve with fighting…he thought. It was true: the fact that they were coming to the pass meant that for a few hundred more miles they would be over it. He doubted that the enemy would deliberately cross over the pass and attack them, for that assumption would be disastrous for them. Instead Treaf guessed they would be beyond the Pass and waiting for them in secret.
There came a few shouts and then a whistle for order in the crowd, and Treaf looked over to the commotion and saw that the members of the Second Society were coming through the streets towards them.
In seconds they all reached them there. Treaf perked his ears to make sure he did not miss anything when they did start talking.
“I was quite shocked yesterday,” the leader said, who was atop a mound of dirt with grass, “That Treaf here beat one of our members.” Yeah, so? Treaf thought in suspicion. They weren’t that high and mighty, which Treaf had already proven.
“We see that he has already been quite well trained in combat, which in no doubt was thanks to Malock,” here he paused for emphasis while heads turned towards him, “So we have decided that he will be moved to a different level of training.”
“Which will be………..?” Treaf said when the man grew silent.
“He will be moved to the Society of Magic.” Yes! He thought. Some people in the crowd clapped, but most grew silent.
“This does not mean that it will be any easier. He will first learn spells of summoning, and then, tomorrow, he will move on towards attacking curses. Which, as we saw yesterday, he already knows a few. But not far after that, he will learn the capabilities of forming and creating a Blackwolf Spirit.”
He understood the meaning if this, but it came as almost a shock to Treaf, and he lowered his head. Doing magic seemed nice and easy, but he knew that the road ahead, during their stay, was going to be a very hard one.
While all the others moved off towards the training pen, Treaf was lead bye ten members of the Second Society through many winds and corners of the city. It did not seem to be very big from the outside, but once one was actually in it there was no doubt that it was the biggest city Treaf had ever been in.
They came upon a place where there was a long ally, which Treaf guessed was only about four feet wide, and they had to walk in single file. The street was dirty, and there was trash and writings on the walls at some places of it. Treaf also noticed a very peculiar puddle of dried blood.
In a few minutes more they reached the end of it, and Treaf saw a bright light at the end of it.
When they reached the end he felt below him grass, and he heard birds chirping, and when he looked around he saw that they were in the middle of a glade in the forest. And when they had reached the outside of the alley he saw that they had come out of an open gate, one which was attached to the great wall that wound around the city. There was also a large, low yet sturdy fence, one that surrounded an area of about two hundred feet.
“Ya know, someone could just jump right over that,” He said, pointing at the fence. For the first time Treaf saw that Noedar was there, and he was the one that replied, “Do not touch it. It’s surrounded with wards which, if they make any contact with an object will destroy it.” Treaf nodded.
“Watch,” Noedar said, and grabbed a stick off the ground and threw it at the fence. When it made contact with it the wood was first set on fire, and then, seeming to react with something in the air, was crushed into a small ball. The ball, which was the size of a small pebble, then exploded with a sharp and loud bang, and the pieces were sent everywhere. Treaf shielded his eyes.
“How do you keep a ward like that functioning for such a long time?” He asked. It seemed impossible to him for such power to be maintained for every day of every year.
“It is not permanent. Or it would not be, anyway, if we did not renew it every day. To maintain that much power, an equal amount of energy must be given to form the reaction.” This had no problem in registering with Treaf’s mind.
“And how the hell do you transfer that energy? Is it human life?” Noedar shook his head, but then replied with a straight face, “In a way. I am the keeper of the wards, so it is my job to renew it every day without fail or inaccuracy. And to answer your question, one must give some of one’s energy for it to take, and also some of the energy of the plants or animals around you. If you take too much energy than that person will of course die.
“That is why it is safest to take the energy from the living things around you. But if you have enough stamina you can renew a small ward.” Treaf replied with a long ‘Hmmmmmmm,’ but not long after that Noedar said, “Now to get to the point of training. We will begin today with spells of Summoning, as you know.” He paused for a second before continuing, “I want you to say the words, ‘Anét Orshcrist Poshaden.’” Treaf looked blank.
“I know that Anét and Poshaden mean, but what is Orshcrist?” He asked.
“It means ‘rock.’” Treaf nodded. He assumed that he would need to focus his attention on the rock, if there was one, and he looked straight at one by his feet.
“What are the hand signs?” Treaf asked right before he was about to cast the spell.
“Clap your hands and then twist them into a diamond.” Treaf tried this, got used to it, and then barked, “Anét Orshcrist Poshaden!” The rock hovered and then was made into a piece of wood. Damnit.
“Was that even a summoning spell?” He asked, looking suspiciously at Noedar and the nine others around him.
“Yes it was. You, however, did not work it properly and you made it into a separate element altogether. Try again.”
“Anét Orshcrist Poshaden!” He said again, making the proper hand signs. This time a different rock lifted and slowly came towards him. Then, with surprising exertion, Treaf tried to keep it in the air, but it kept falling little by little, and he noticed that sweat was running down his face, as if he was lifting a large rock or something. Now why the hell would it take so much energy to lift a stupid rock? He wondered. After all, ‘Anverfwick,’ a much more advanced spell, did not take energy from him at all. From within his shadowed hood Noedar said wryly, “You must keep absolute concentration with the stone. Otherwise the energy that binds you will break. And when that happens the spell stops. Try again.”
Treaf tried to concentrate on the same stone, took a breath, and said loudly, “Anét Orshcrist Poshaden!” He clapped and then twisted his hands, and the stone glowed, and went at Treaf faster than before. When it was about to reach him he ended the spell and caught it, grinning. For some reason that time it had not taken any energy from him at all.
“Well done,” Noedar said, and Treaf grimaced, still holding the stone.
“But this time we will let you move a boulder.” Treaf’s eyes widened. The first time that he had moved the pebble it had taken quite a bit of energy from him—a boulder, he thought angrily, would probably injure him.
But not thinking anything of it, he saw a boulder beyond the fence, turned to it, and frowned. I’ll have to somehow make it go at least twenty feet above the fence and to do that would be dangerous and hard…but, seeing as I have no other choice, I will try.
“Anét Orshcrist Poshaden!” He barked, and he saw a thin string of energy coming from his hands. Huh. The energy spread into a thin sheet around the rock. I’m gonna need ta give it more energy, ‘cuz this will never move it. He tried summoning more power, and when he had he shot it at the rock, and it lifted. He made it go higher and higher, till about twenty feet, and then moved it towards them. It came sure enough, but for some reason when he clapped again and made the hand sign the spell did not end. Instead it just hovered above all their heads…. What should I do…? He thought for a moment. Then he tried to cut off the energy, and he successfully cut most of it off and, sure enough, the rock fell, crushing the ground right by them in a small, sunken crater.
“Well done again,” Noedar commented. Treaf grimaced.
“Now what?” He had actually in a way already grown tired and bored of this.
Noedar did not reply and moved on to the others in the Second Society. It looked as if they were discussing some things, and finally after a few minutes Noedar turned to Treaf and said, understood the meaning if this, but it came as almost a shock to Treaf, and he lowered his head. Doing magic seemed nice and easy, but he knew that the road ahead, during their stay, was going to be a very hard one.
While all the others moved off towards the training pen, Treaf was lead bye ten members of the Second Society through many winds and corners of the city. It did not seem to be very big from the outside, but once one was actually in it there was no doubt that it was the biggest city Treaf had ever been in.
They came upon a place where there was a long ally, which Treaf guessed was only about four feet wide, and they had to walk in single file. The street was dirty, and there was trash and writings on the walls at some places of it. Treaf also noticed a very peculiar puddle of dried blood.
In a few minutes more they reached the end of it, and Treaf saw a bright light at the end of it.
When they reached the end he felt below him grass, and he heard birds chirping, and when he looked around he saw that they were in the middle of a glade in the forest. And when they had reached the outside of the alley he saw that they had come out of an open gate, one which was attached to the great wall that wound around the city. There was also a large, low yet sturdy fence, one that surrounded an area of about two hundred feet.
“Ya know, someone could just jump right over that,” He said, pointing at the fence. For the first time Treaf saw that Noedar was there, and he was the one that replied, “Do not touch it. It’s surrounded with wards which, if they make any contact with an object will destroy it.” Treaf nodded.
“Watch,” Noedar said, and grabbed a stick off the ground and threw it at the fence. When it made contact with it the wood was first set on fire, and then, seeming to react with something in the air, was crushed into a small ball. The ball, which was the size of a small pebble, then exploded with a sharp and loud bang, and the pieces were sent everywhere. Treaf shielded his eyes.
“How do you keep a ward like that functioning for such a long time?” He asked. It seemed impossible to him for such power to be maintained for every day of every year.
“It is not permanent. Or it would not be, anyway, if we did not renew it every day. To maintain that much power, an equal amount of energy must be given to form the reaction.” This had no problem in registering with Treaf’s mind.
“And how the hell do ya’ transfer that energy? Is it human life?” Noedar shook his head, but then replied with a straight face, “In a way. I am the keeper of the wards, so it is my job to renew it every day without fail or inaccuracy. And to answer your question, one must give some of one’s energy for it to take, and also some of the energy of the plants or animals around you. If you take too much energy than that person will of course die.
“That is why it is safest to take the energy from the living things around you. But if you have enough stamina you can renew a small ward.” Treaf replied with a long ‘Hmmmmmmm,’ but not long after that Noedar said, “Now to get to the point of training. We will begin today with spells of Summoning, as you know.” He paused for a second before continuing, “I want you to say the words, ‘Anét Orshcrist Poshaden.’” Treaf looked blank.
“I know that Anét and Poshaden mean, but what is Orshcrist?” He asked.
“It means ‘rock.’” Treaf nodded. He assumed that he would need to focus his attention on the rock, if there was one, and he looked straight at one by his feet.
“What are the hand signs?” Treaf asked right before he was about to cast the spell.
“Clap your hands and then twist them into a diamond.” Treaf tried this, got used to it, and then barked, “Anét Orshcrist Poshaden!” The rock hovered and then was made into a piece of wood. Damnit.
“Was that even a summoning spell?” He asked, looking suspiciously at Noedar and the nine others around him.
“Yes it was. You, however, did not work it properly and you made it into a separate element altogether. Try again.”
“Anét Orshcrist Poshaden!” He said again, making the proper hand signs. This time a different rock lifted and slowly came towards him. Then, with surprising exertion, Treaf tried to keep it in the air, but it kept falling little by little, and he noticed that sweat was running down his face, as if he was lifting a large rock or something. Now why the hell would it take so much energy to lift a stupid rock? He wondered. After all, ‘Anverfwick,’ a much more advanced spell, did not take energy from him at all. From within his shadowed hood Noedar said wryly, “You must keep absolute concentration with the stone. Otherwise the energy that binds you will break. And when that happens the spell stops. Try again.”
Treaf tried to concentrate on the same stone, took a breath, and said loudly, “Anét Orshcrist Poshaden!” He clapped and then twisted his hands, and the stone glowed, and went at Treaf faster than before. When it was about to reach him he ended the spell and caught it, grinning. For some reason that time it had not taken any energy from him at all.
“Well done,” Noedar said, and Treaf grimaced, still holding the stone.
“But this time we will let you move a boulder.” Treaf’s eyes widened. The first time that he had moved the pebble it had taken quite a bit of energy from him—a boulder, he thought angrily, would probably injure him.
But not thinking anything of it, he saw a boulder beyond the fence, turned to it, and frowned. I’ll have to somehow make it go at least twenty feet above the fence and to do that would be dangerous and hard…but, seeing as I have no other choice, I will try.
“Anét Orshcrist Poshaden!” He barked, and he saw a thin string of energy coming from his hands. Huh. The energy spread into a thin sheet around the rock. I’m gonna need ta give it more energy, ‘cuz this will never move it. He tried summoning more power, and when he had he shot it at the rock, and it lifted. He made it go higher and higher, till about twenty feet, and then moved it towards them. It came sure enough, but for some reason when he clapped again and made the hand sign the spell did not end. Instead it just hovered above all their heads…. What should I do…? He thought for a moment. Then he tried to cut off the energy, and he successfully cut most of it off and, sure enough, the rock fell, crushing the ground right by them in a small, sunken crater.
“Well done again,” Noedar commented. Treaf grimaced.
“Now what?” He had actually in a way already grown tired and bored of this.
Noedar did not reply and moved on to the others in the Second Society. It looked as if they were discussing some things, and finally after a few minutes Noedar turned to Treaf and said, “It seems like this premature magic is of no use to you. I think that, starting with tomorrow we will start with some things a little more advanced.” Which is...?
“And what will that be?” Instead of not replying for quite a long time, which Treaf had grown quite used to, Noedar replied right away, saying: “We will teach you curses.” And with no further explanation, he handed Treaf a tough, thick piece of paper. Treaf took it and looked at it curiously, for he did not see the need for a piece of paper right at the moment. “What exactly is this?” Treaf asked, looking away from it and instead focusing his eyes at Noedar.
“I want you to look at what is inside that paper and memorize it. Soon enough it will be the basis of all your understanding of magic and sorcery alike.” Treaf looked back down at the wrinkled, heavy-duty piece of paper. He opened it and it gave a small crackle. Inside his eyes widened and what he saw before him was a large diagram of group of circles, four, that were intersecting at a certain line in the middle, and there were small dots connecting these intersections, along with small wording that went along with the circle. After that what the eye saw was a large description, at least that was what Treaf thought, that must have been talking about what the circle was.
When he looked up again he saw that Noedar was smiling, and he folded up the paper and stuffed it in his stiff coat pocket.
“I would also advice for you to inscribe all the circles that you see in this description, whether on your armor or your sword. It does not matter. But I do know that this little bit of information will be important in the near future.” Treaf nodded and after a second said, “Bye,” and turned his back, heading towards the dark alley that lead away from the glade and into the city. He could however see no light coming from the other side.


Chapter Eleven
The Ten Bonds of Death

The streets seemed darker than usual as Treaf made his way down the alley and out into the middle of the city. There were less people walking about in this section of the city, he noted, ’probably because the whether was getting so cold recently. In fact he could hardly stand how much cold air was going through his body, heavy cloak and all.
He was however, thinking about the paper that Noedar and the others had given him. He thought that this paper would become the truth of which my future would know.
“Hmmmmmmm…” he said to himself. I suppose curses will probably become quite a necessity in the near future. But still…he realized that he was new to magic, and if he was to be fighting people like that victim of a Necromancer the other day he would have to definitely master the various techniques of magic. He had come out with a heavy wound a few broken ribs, so……
Rounding a corner, he stepped in a very large puddle, and the dirty gutter-water splashed all over him, even up to his waist. He stood there all rigid for a minute. Damn.
He moved on, realizing that his heavy boots were much too thick to be affected by water, and so little of it. Maybe a powerful acid, but not water.
He turned the wrong way a few times on his way back to the sleeping quarters, but he realized that he had been going the wrong way before it had been too late, and so he finally made it at about five, he guessed.
According to his knowledge, they had dinner at about seven, so he was two hours in advance. That gave him two hours to read the paper.
§
He arrived in the room, then made his way to his private ‘quarter,’ and quickly grabbed the paper out of his pocket. He also doused his coat and there it lay on the ground. The first thing that he looked at was the actual drawing of the circle. Over it was labeled: The Ten Death Bonds. On the top was the Kagra, and on the right was the Jernon. On the left was the Dagmon, and down from that was the Onc. On the right in that level was the Sargrai, and on the right was Gersnai. Further down in the middle column was the Bedone, and on the right was Anon; on the left was Argoa. And the very last curse in the middle column, at the bottom, was Heth.
Wasting no time whatsoever Treaf looked over to the description. The first curse and most powerful curse of all is the Kagra, located on the top of the circle. To form a Kagra, one must give the required energy needed for whatever that person intends to do with the curse. If it is something large, one must give a large amount, and likewise.
However, one cannot take energy from those things and animals around you. This will not count, and the spirits inside the Bond will take the energy from whatever is around it until it is content. This results in the killing if many: sustainable energy must be given to a spirit, not the little energy that is given bye an animal or plant.
Plant and animal energy is called Essacar, and the energy of a human is named Kraug. In spirit and energy binding, only the Kraug can be used. If not used, the spirit cannot be made.

A Kagra uses the energy from the source given and uses it for whatever task. This is converted by the Death Bonds, bonds of energy that are channeled through the blood and cells of the human body. However, if they are not made correctly they will do the opposite affect and attack you. It went into depth on how to form a correct Kagra, and most of everything that was mentioned Treaf had never heard of before. I guess this is gonna be a lot harder than I expected, Treaf thought, and that settled it.
Blam. Treaf looked up. He saw that someone had entered the room, and before he had even really seen who it had been he could have already guessed that it was Mildo. And when he looked up, he said, “And whats do you want?” Mildo looked unimpressed in a way at the shape lying on his back on a heap of blankets and packs. When the silence grew Treaf thought, Curses! What the hell does e’ want anyways? Before long after this Mildo seemed to realize what he was doing and he replied, “Right. Uhh….they say the dinner’s ready, and that ya should come down, and I was doin that too.” For some odd reason Treaf felt like not replying much, and for once this seemed to make Mildo madder than the devil, so he said, “Well ‘urry it up ya lagger! It ain’t gonna get warmer and spicier if ya keep sittin ere like ya have somethin ta do…” Then Treaf upped and said, “Yeah, yeah—quit yer yappin doggy.” He walked straight for the flight down the house, and he was thinkin, Curses ta anyone that thinks they can disturb my rest. In fact he had been doing something, much more than little Mildo knew about, or any detail of, come to think of it…
He had been through this process quite a bit now so he was used to it. He walked down the stairs and then he would smell all of the food cookin and his mouth would water and he would be oh! So glad that he came down to the supper after all. Not this time, though—his senses had become dry, seasoned, and relatively drab, though right now he wasn’t in the most festive mood, so thinking wasn’t the main priority. Yes….food sounded good, but this defeated the urge in him to go back to his reading so he sat down with a blast of air and creaking wood. As expected the waitress came and, (My god girl if ya in any way lags with my food…I swear…) and Treaf asked for ale as his drink and the other stuff was supplied automatically with his choice of topping which he didn’t really care about anyway so the whole thing was kind of painful.
However, when his steaming plate of food arrived he sniffed it in and his nerves for food went alive with a snap. Soon he was ripping great pieces of meat from his half of a ham, and his bread, (sourdough) which seemed in a since to go along with the ale since it was such a hardy meal.
It was warm in the house that they were being kept in. And mixed with the food it became partially toxic, and when Treaf was done with his meal he burped a mighty belch and sat back, thinkin, why the hell does the Kagra demand so much effort and energy? I mean, if this thing is even possible the Blackwolves would be lickin’ our feet by now, I swear! Or doing handstands, he thought fondly.
Anyway after he was done with the meal, which was much quicker than the others, he headed up the flight again and this seemed rather hard. His stomach was right out sticking out, and he sadly thought that the next morning it would all be gone and he would have to eat like a pig again. Than the same process would happen all over again, and he would end up doing something with it all…
He arrived at the top of the stairs presently. And with that he saw that no one else was in the room, so he set to standing there, wondering what to do, though he was really not thinking much. More of just standing there and acting drowsy. Should I read again…? It seemed like quite the option, and so he set to it.
The Jernon
To form a Jernon one must take the energy from that of a plant, (Essacar,) not that of a human or related creature. After one has done this successfully, one must bend the energy into the strands of two Death Bonds by making the appropriate Handsigns, or touching the circle that has been carved into metal. (The energy has less trouble being channeled through that of metal than of any other known substance.)
The Bonds must remain stable. If not the Jernon will do what likewise has been explained of the Kagra in similar cases. The spirits inside of the Bonds will attack the basic target if commanded to, but if not, it will continue to take the energy from all things around it, most likely, except for in some rare cases, the source of Essacar. If it feeds on the energy of the Kraug than it will form a Kagra spirit. Treaf grimaced, realizing something. If I have the circles of the Kagra and the other Ten Death Bonds inscribed on my armor than all that must be done is to give the chosen one a single touch…he set his mind that tomorrow he would find the blacksmith of the city and have him get some work done. But there was yet one problem. Where the hell am I supposed ta obtain the circle of each damned curse? Thus, the problem would have to be solved with much thought.
After a few more minutes of further reading on the Jernon Treaf found that he was determined to find the answer to his problem. Quickly switching through the pages, he saw many different diagrams, explanatory, and other things, but not once did he come across the diagram of the Ten Death Bonds, each set in its own category. Damnit—maybe there’s a li’l more on the back side o’ the paper…what do ya know, there wasn’t one. Damnit! Maybe—Treaf’s ears sprang to action in a heart beat. He heard so quietly the sound of near footsteps that he jumped off of his bead and stuffed the paper in his front pocket….that was close. Mildo at the lead entered first, and then the others came in, and when Mildo stopped suddenly they all set to smashing into him and cursing. Turned out Mildo had had a sudden need to feel queasy from all the ale…
It took only a few minutes to mop up the good-sized pile of puke. Treaf had not been involved in it,( “Damn you’s Mildo I swear I’ll rip yer head off—pukin in this room, my god…”) and Mildo had then suddenly plopped right down on someone’s bed, and set to drowsing.
As Treaf put his hands behind his head he looked at the sealing as if it was a book of interesting things that for some reason found his appeal at that moment. And he was really annoyed when there was a long debate on the best way to turn the light off, ’cuz the pull-string was broken, and Tread had said to bash it with a hammer, but the others contemplated over it….till: “My god I’ll bash it in with a hammer!” And there was a mighty crunch and then tinkle and then black.
§
The morning was peaceful…ever so peaceful, and Treaf could scarcely feel a smile on his lips as he thought of non-war time things, till…. What the hell is that noise? He turned his head ever so slightly. What do ya know, Mildo was moanin and groanin. He said his head hurt, and that oh! Yes he would surely die, but then Treaf heard some foot steps and up comes Sloyd with a nasty snarl on his face. He was carrying a bucket of water. Well, right on my good man! And then he neared Mildo’s bed, and Mildo saw him at the last second, but to Treaf’s greatest pleasure it was already too late, and in a mass of water his head was submerged. There was then some kind of gurgling and choking, and that quieted some of the moaning for a second. It almost had seemed to help Mildo out a bit too…
Idiot, getting his arse drunk, Treaf thought with a snarl, buckling his large belt. On to this he strapped on his sword, and then the gauntlets and bracers followed. The pauldrons were last. Not waiting in the slightest for someone to urge him on he started stomping down then flight right off. He could smell the usual food, and to his surprise, (or not quite, due to his assumptions last night,) he felt the undying need to stuff his gut this time around. God bless those cooks, haha… he thought as he walked over to a table and slid into one of the chairs. The others were soon to follow, and he could see Mildo and Malock somewhere mingled in the small crowd that he reminded himself was their army.
Soon the food arrived and Treaf ate it and then he went outside after a moment of drinking his coffee. Black. Bunch of grinds that he swallowed even though they tasted like large pieces if dirt.

He walked to the doors and thrust them open. Sniffing the breeze sharply, he drew a lot of cold air in too quickly and this made his nose boil up with snot and he thought, I keep forgetting it’s so cold. Like that was something to forget, anyways.
There formed a right crowd before Treaf had even set to buttoning his cloak, which he had not done till now. Hmmmmmmm. I wonder if the Blacksmith is open right now? Yes, he had remembered that he was undergoing ‘training’ and that he better not be there late, but he reminded himself also that he had his rights and they had to do with his study anyway. But with a sinking feeling in his heart he remembered that he did not even have the circles on a piece of paper. And it was not right likely that he would be going to the library anytime soon.
But then a thought came to him. Just what if the Elder has a set of ’em? “Har har…” Treaf said quietly to himself as people walked past. There might be some ’ope left after all.
However, before long Treaf saw that in the crowd there was a change, and that suddenly before his eyes he saw the Second Society walking past. But he had not seen a sign of Noedar, so he decided to do something. Well, if they ain’t gonna show up in front o’ me then I’ll go ta them, if that’s what they want. So he braced himself and headed out into the cold streets.

The dark alley was before him now, and he had seen it very easily, since it was so dark compared to the rest of the city. It was also pretty long, so he could see the light at the other end as a sort of large crack..
He noticed for the first time some boxes that had been stored on the side of the alley wall, and he had thought what a nuisance they were when he tripped on one of them and hit his arm on the wall. What was curious was that they seemed to be rooted to the spot. Hadn’t even shifted when his foot hit them. Either they were extremely heavy for they’re small size or there was some trick of the lighting. Or there was the other part that Treaf decided might be his next challenge.
He had walked past them easily enough at first, considering the trip. But after he had passed them he seemed to want to see what was inside, and that grew until he looked at both sides of the alley and saw that there was nobody on either side. Good. This is gonna have ta be quick. Walking back at a steady pace he quickly reached them. He reasoned that if something terrible was to come out than he best be prepared…he then undid the top slowly, then thrust it open and stood back. What he saw at first was not completely audible, because of its strangeness, but then he focused and saw that there were many small human bodies in the box. What the hell? He thought. He gulped in the air around him, even though it stank and the sight was disgusting enough, but he got over it and looked deeper in the box. Sure enough there were small, white bodies in the box. Almost like manikins. They have the same proportions as a human, though, he thought. And that ended it. Mustering his strength and personal thoughts, he reached into the box and grabbed one of them and he was thankful that he had gloves on. Metal ones, in particular.
The small being gave no noise or movement when he touched it. It was limp also, and there came a doubt in Treaf’s mind that it was actually human, or whatever it was…
“I’ll be damned,” he said to himself, stepping back. He drew his hunter’s knife, but suddenly thought of what he was about to do and grimaced. I gotta do it if I want ta find out what the bloody hell this thing is…he mustered more strength and took the thing in one hand. He tried not to look into its strange face, but he could barely help it…then he drove his knife into it. Blood spurted, and he groaned under the foul smell. The blood was goopy and thick…..to his surprise he saw that it in fact had all the organs of a normal human, though strangely shrunken…damn it. What the hell made these things? And what the hell is it anyway…? He had to destroy it, such a thing was not right to exist. But than a thought came to him and he up and shuddered. What if the Second Society is using this thing of hell? Maybe to take energy from it…from his readings last night he thought that of course this would make since ’cuz to make curses one must use the Kraug of a thing, and this thing seemed to produce Kraug, if only he could test it…

He must have stood there for a half hour. Thinking. The only way to test it would be to try to make a Kagra out of it, he finally realized. He stood there, troubled. He knew that there was no way he was ready to make a Kagra, especially not there and then, so he decided that the only way to do it would be to bring the disgusting thing to the guest house. And if anyone found it there would be some suspicious thoughts going ’round. But it’s the only way if I’m a gonna try ta do it… suddenly he decided that he would have to store it in the fourth floor. Nobody went there. Why the hell am I even getting involved in something like this though? There ain’t no reason for it…he saw that no one was coming up the alley. So he said to himself that he would have to make it quick, and that nobody could see, so he stuck the thing inside his coat pocket, which almost made him puke. However, he grimaced and moved on towards the end of the alley, and quickly out the end of it so that he was in the cold streets once again. People were passing bye, he decided that he could not trip, and he sped towards the direction of the house, the limp thing bouncing on his hip, and it went against all his instincts to carry such a mistake of nature with him.
But presently he made it, and hoping not to attract any attention he ran up the stairs of the house, his boots making a lot of noise…maybe no one would come that way.
He made it before he heard anything. He saw where they all slept: no one was there. So he up and ran towards the stairs, the last of the house, only a few feet in front of him. There he opened the hatch with a bang and jumped up to the floor. There he stopped, panting. Then he reached for his pocket, his hand enclosed around the object, and he pulled it out. Not wanting to look at it he put it into a small corner that was partially covered with boards, so that even if someone did come up they wouldn’t see it easily. And then he opened the hatch again and crawled through.
Just as he did this he heard some kind of noise. His face turned white. Someone was coming up the stairs. Uh oh… he thought. he needed to think of something, but then he abandoned the idea and ran down the stairs. There in fact was only a janitor.
Realizing that he was going to be very late for his training he sprinted down the rest of the stairs and out the door. He slammed it with a bang and he was out in the streets again.
He was barely breathing when he made it to the alley again. Not any sign of light as he walked into it. But after a few steps oh yes he came across the boxes again. He quickly walked past them.
In a second’s worth of time he was seeing the light easily and he knew that it was sunny though in the city one could hardly tell.
As he stepped into the light he looked in front of him and behind him and to the sides. No sign of Noedar. Damnit. Why the heck wasn’t he there? He looked around again—nope, not there. And on the ground there was no sign of the dent that the boulder Treaf had dropped had made. There wasn’t even the pebble that he had moved for the first time. Looking around he saw that all the plants were wilted, or even fully destroyed. And the fence for the ‘protection’ of that area and the city was gone. What the hell is goin on here? “Hmmmmmmm…” he found a small rock in the alley and threw it at where the fence should have been. Nothing. He didn’t trust it yet though, and so he decided not to touch it—something wasn’t right. The only thing that I can think of is that they’re using curses for somethin. But the funny thing is tha’ there ain’t nothing to use them on. No enemy, and I haven’t seen anyone in the city suddenly dying. Unless of course the Death Bonds aren’t visible…


Chapter Twelve
The Creation of the First
Spirit
The Dagmon has the capability to create only half of a Bond. Though a weak spell, it does not require much energy, since the amount of energy to create a spell is the same as how much the spell uses. To create one, one must take the energy from that of an object with no life, which is called Eth.. This may be acquired through buildings, yet it is quite hard to abstract.
One must make the appropriate hand signs assigned to the spell, along with having enough mass for the spell in the first place. If there is not enough mass than the spell will do likewise what the Kagra and Jernon has been known to do.
However this is not as threatening as the other two spells. It will not eat everything in its way—the spirit inside will only take what mass is around it. If not controlled than this habit can take apart whole cities, the spirit only to die the next day.
This ‘halved’ Bond can be used to take individuals without harming anyone else in the process. Also, the bond is not large, (one half of an inch of loosely bound matter,) which can be difficult to see. It travels at speeds of forty miles per hour, however, and can pierce anything that does not involve the warding of magic. This is the third and most mass-taking of the Ten Bonds of Death.

Treaf lay on his heap of things. His eyes hurt…the rest of them had already dined. But not Treaf. The Dagmon seems to be the easiest to master, if I have enough mass. So doing the testing won’t be so safe in this house after all. I’ll have ta do it away from the city so that even if the Bond does come free it’ll only destroy a forest or rocks. Where and when, however was the problem. If he were to do it when they began traveling again there would be the chance of the others seeing it, and he thought that oh yes! what he was doing was completely pointless but even so he was going to do it. Didn’t know why, but he seemed to be troubled by this small thing in the city. It might have been possible that it wasn’t the Second Society doing it after all, but I can’t imagine what else would have snuck into a city and dropped a few boxes with homunculi in it. Unless the enemy is among us once more, as Malock had said, but…had that warnin’ been valid? Didn’t seem likely. To Treaf anyway, though he didn’t know what to think anymore.
With that he realized that the sunlight or any light at all had ended, so he put the paper in his pocket again and heard the others coming up so he pretended to be doing nothing and waited till they were all in position and then the light ended at once. All of it.

He had been told that the Elder was in the residence of one of the ‘special’ houses on the outskirts of town. Somehow Treaf had been expecting this.
He knocked on the door and right away there came a noise and the Elder up and answered the door.
“Hi Elder I need ta’ ask ya’ somethin’ if ya don’t mind,” Treaf said. The Elder nodded.
In a few seconds Treaf was inside and seated. The Elder had asked if he had wanted tea, but he said no, he wasn’t in the mood. In fact he didn’t even wait for the Elder to do his little speech that he seemed to like to do to Treaf for some reason. He right up and said what had been on his mind, “I wanna know the exact properties of the Kagra and related spells,” he said. The Elder looked right down shocked. In a second, though, realizing that Treaf was to waist no time he said, “How did you learn of such things?”
“The Second Society.”
“Very well,” he sighed, and then continued with what Treaf had mostly heard before. In fact he realized he already knew all about it—the paper that had been given to him had had more about the Death Bonds than he had thought.
The Elder finished presently—Treaf guessed it was about twelve in the morning.
“…And would it be possible to take the Kraug from homunculi? Are homunculi even living beings?” The Elder looked right evil now.
“ ’Cuz I found some in the city in a box. I have one with me if ya wanna take a look.” He pulled out the small being that he had brought with him. He had actually gotten used to it by now. And he had drained all the blood from it—not on purpose, but since he had stabbed it with a relatively large blade than well of course it was gonna bleed to death.
The Elder right out looked disgusted. His upper lip was curled, and he seemed to not want to smell the thing. Treaf could not say that he had been any better when he had first seen it.
“This has been stabbed. Are you the one that did that, Treaf?” he said. Treaf said that he had.
“For what purpose?”
“I wanted to see if it had the same anatomy as that of a human. It seems to—the body is completely right, only shrunken. And yes the color of blood is deep red.” The Elder nodded.
“I can’t see a reason for this though,” the Elder said. Treaf nodded but after a second of silence he said right away, “Ya it seems weird but wouldn’t it be likely if someone was using them to work curses? Most of ’em need the Kraug to complete the task anyway and it looks like these weird thingies produce Kraug.” The Elder lifted his head from the mistake of nature and looked right out real long and hard at Treaf.
“What’re ya getting at?” Treaf asked. The Elder said nothing; he was too deep in thought, so Treaf realized that this was his opportunity and he didn’t let it go past.
“So I was thinkin that the only way to see if it produced Kraug would be ta test it with the Kagra.” The Elder raised his eyebrows.
“Well what the hell, I know I don’t know how ta do it yet but I think you could, right?” The Elder looked disgusted again now. Treaf grimaced and sunk slightly lower in his chair.
“Hey I’m only tryin ta get to the bottom of this. I also saw that the enchanted fence thingy around the city doesn’t work no more. And the small crater I left in the ground from when I dropped the boulder ain’t there neither. Somethin’s goin on, and I find it reasonable that I should really try ta figure t out.” There was another pause.
“And I thought that the right thing ta do is ta come ta you so I did. Happy I didn’t try ta do it on my own, eh?” The Elder nodded. Treaf knew that that was really the thing that triggered it—the Elder was most concerned with Treaf’s life than anything else really besides defeating the enemy.
“I do know how to make a Kagra, and I think that I would be able to do it. I have never tried it before, though, so it is still a risk.” Treaf nodded and he knew that it was going to be pretty hard to create. He had read all about it.
“So if the Kagra is successful than we will know that the homunculi produce Krog. If they don’t, well…..I guess they’re for some other purpose, aren’t they?” This time it was the Elder who nodded.
“But it might be a bit tricky to end the spell once we’ve started it.” The Elder asked why Treaf thought this, and he replied, “I’ve had trouble ending some simple spells like making a stone rise. To cut off that much energy at once might prove to be difficult. But yeah I think we could do it.” The Elder nodded.
“Why exactly were you exploring the city anyway, Treaf? The Elder asked.
“Because I was taking lessons. Ummmmmmm…the Second Society was teachin’ me.”
“Teaching you what?”
“Well first I learned some simple spells like ‘Anét Orshcrist Poshaden.’ Then they saw that I was getting good so they gave me this paper.” Treaf handed over the piece of paper that he had also brought with him.
“I’m gonna head over to the smithy ta get the Ten Death Bonds inscribed in my armor but the trouble is I don’t know the individuals, only the big picture.” Treaf pointed at the circle on the front page. “So I was also wonderin if ya knew anything about them and if ya have a diagram,” Treaf finished. The Elder did not look pleased with this: Treaf supposed that he would rather have Treaf learning how to bake bread, but that was a no-do. He was in war and that was what war required if ya were willing or not.
“So do ya?” Treaf asked after another minute of silence. The Elder merely nodded. Treaf was however just as pleased with this reply if it was going to get him what he wanted.
The Elder left the room and went down the hall after this. Finally…and now I can have it done real quick—hopefully. He grimaced because he had been a smith before and it was hard work that took a real long time. That was making a sword, though, not a few inscriptions. Ten detailed descriptions, though, thought Treaf.
The Elder came back with a small pile of paper. He handed them to Treaf.
“These are what you want,” he said. “So get out of here.” He gave Treaf one last long, hard look that portrayed the look of someone that knew what was going on but had nothing to do about it. Treaf took up the papers and stuck them in his larger, lower pocket, and up and headed out into the streets again, in search of the smith that would bring these objects of ‘sin’ into completion. But hey, guess what? I know what’s out there for me, whether these curses will bring good or evil to the threshold. And ya know what? It’s the only choice I have right now. Whether I like it or not.

§


‡Part Two‡
†


“Orshcrist, Nêglect, Kagra”


Chapter Thirteen
Preparation of the Circles

The Onc is the second of the most powerful and deadliest rows of the Ten Bonds of Death. It forms three bonds when made properly and takes up the energy of the sun and the stars. This energy is called Trîte.
The formation of this spell is the hardest to obtain and is advisable not to do in the midst of battle. One must take the energy of the stars—thus the creation of a light absorber must take place. A separate circle is made for this and must be used with immediate preparation and exact details.
Once one has made this circle, (which must be exactly ten feet around,) one must use the supply of Kraug nearby. Essacar must not me used. One must press the two triggers of the circle with ones’ thumbs to create a triangle. The circle should begin to absorb light.
You do not have to maintain the circle for long. After you have created this you must then connect the energy of the circle to that of your Kraug. Making the correct Handsigns and posture allow the energy to form three Bonds which will destroy that of matter but not that of living matter.
This is the fourth and most deadliest of the light-absorbing Bonds of Death.

There was not much light as Treaf trudged the streets of the city, the ten papers of the circles resting in his pocket.
He had asked for directions from one of the passersby, and they had told him that it was located on the outskirts of town on the northern end.
So that was where he was headed and his hands were in his pockets because of how cold it was.
In fact it had reached the point now where his breath went in little puffs in the air like it was smoke or something like it.
Mysteriously there seemed to be few people in the city. Figures since there ain’t no reason ta be out in this weather, bein’ like it is. I figure when we go over the pass it ain’t gonna be any better, either.
Where he was headed there wasn’t much light at all. Only a few tight corners and then a few alleys and a few streets on top of that headed in different directions. He had been told to take the street that was on the right: away from the others and there would be an alley on the right. He was supposed to follow that till he made it to a large building, and on the left of that would be a small shack, (typical). That was what he had expected, quite.
I find it strange there ain’t any birds around here, he noted. Not even a crow. It seemed to be a stale city now compared to when he had first come here. Then all the restaurants had been open and welcoming, but now it seemed like there weren’t any shops that were open.
He arrived at the large house in a reasonably short time. However, he did not see any little shop so he had to walk around the whole thing twice before he picked out a small tent below an outcropping of stone. From that tent was coming, what do you know, loud hammering.
Treaf swirled his cloak as he made for this place, and when he got to the lowering of the city stones he jumped off and landed neatly beside the tent. There was a lot of stuff by it and Treaf walked clear of it.
Black. That was what he saw at first but then his eyes began to get used to it and in a short while he could see clearly
“Hey!” Treaf yelled. The hammering stopped. Treaf resumed talking: “I want you to get some work done for me. Are you in any urgent?” The man said no. No and that was that with nothing else to it.
“Good then because I’m not in the mood to wait around for more than an hour.” Treaf handed him the papers, and while he was looking at them Treaf removed his armor and laid them on the table.
“Ya want me tir put that on yer armor?” Treaf nodded. The man looked doubtful.
“One mistake and I’ll rip yer head off, I swear,” he threatened, because he really did need that to be exactly how it was on the paper. Trusting the Elder, of course but Treaf thought that yes the Elder was definitely someone to rely on. Or he hoped so anyway because it wouldn’t help anything at all if the Elder gave Treaf the wrong thing. No it wouldn’t.
“Why do yer want designs on yer armor?” The man asked. He is dense, Treaf thought, but replied, “They ain’t designs, man, their something important.” The man seemed to find this comical, and Treaf found it aggravating.
“Did I mention that I’m one o’ the warriors that came to the city and beet your competitor?” The man didn’t reply and decided with some quick thinking that if he could beet one of the Second Society than he must be pretty good so he shouldn’t mess with him and that he should get the armor done really quick.
Treaf saw this and he grinned. The man was not as dense as he had thought. however he realized that time was pressing and that he should get on with it. He needed this done in a day: that was the maximum and he needed it by tomorrow morning. He told the man this and he nodded. Treaf decided that he could trust him and that he would find his armor here in the morning. This would mean that he would get up before the others though so he decided that he could not wake up by Mildo again. No one could know about this.
He headed back to the house after that and during the process tripped into a puddle which was miserable since the water slugged in his boot and made a blister. His boot had been penetrated that time. Not by an acid though.
Oh yeah…I left the Homunculus with the Elder didn’t I? “Oops.” It didn’t really matter though because he didn’t have a purpose for it anyway, “Haw haw.” No purpose whatsoever.
He did some quick calculations. According to what he thought best, he decided that the best time to perform the ‘testing’ would be at the last of the week—if they could get prepared in a time that short, of course. But he thought that yeah they could if they just hurried. And that was what he was doing right now.
He realized that he couldn’t study the circles now that he had put them with the smith—no matter he told the man to get done by the next morning and well he hoped that that would be possible.
What should I do that…? He thought for a moment. Well…I could go see if the Second Society is at the place that they were supposed to be earlier…he chuckled. He knew what he was going to say if they were and if they were mad at him fro being late. Like they could trick him that easy….not yet anyway. He still had time and freedom on his side, besides of course lack of suspicion, Haw haw!
The trip to the other side of town was over shortly. He was in front of the alley in moments—he realized that he had been visiting this one part of the city a lot lately—stepping into it he was submerged in darkness once more, but after a second he was in the light again, emerging from the shadows, and what he saw was—
Yup. Noedar was there and a few others that Treaf didn’t pay attention to.
“Hello.” Treaf stepped closer to them. Now is the time, haha…
“Welcome.” I hope they say it…
“You’re late.” Yes! Treaf grinned; they found this strange and non-comforting.
“Well—lesse, seeing as you weren’t here at ten o’clock I kinda am wondering who is late exactly?” Treaf looked pure evil now. Haw haw… “And I was also wondering about the disappearance of the fence. Along with the crater left from the boulder I dropped.”
They were quiet, and Treaf knew why. He actually did not know what they were going to do though, scold him for his talking? Likely, but….
“I see. We apologize. Now we shall get to business.” Treaf was expecting this and he took it in stride.
“Yah, but ya didn’t tell me about the disappearance of the fence and the dent in the ground,” Treaf said impatiently. Burn…Treaf thought. They looked troubled in the face. He didn’t blame them—yet…..
“We are going to make a new one. The old one did not function properly. We also wanted to get rid of the dent so that we could train you more easily.” Treaf nodded even thought he for some reason doubted it, but really there wasn’t anything else that they were doing that Treaf could guess… they’re reasons were good enough.
§
That day he trained for the at least three hours and he had been learning about curses—they asked if he had studied the piece of paper and he said that he had. In fact he knew quite a bit now. But now was the task of trying them out…
Later that day he arrived at the Guest House and he saw that they were having dinner, I guess we’re having it earlier, he thought as he walked down the last stretch of dark street there was till he could reach it.
And inside there were warm lights and a bunch of food, and he could smell it, so spicy, rich, and warm…
“For a side I want some wine.” The waitress turned her back without a word and left to get his order, while the rest of them were feasting, except for a few, he realized, who he guessed were going to arrive shortly.
His food arrived on a hot platter: there was part of a ham, some potatoes, and a pomegranate on the side, (“Why do I have a pomegranate exactly?” “Because we want you to be refreshed after the ham and potatoes of course!” Tee hee. ) He smiled slightly as she left a second time. Then he looked down at his plate, and he could tell what it was about to taste like, but what came as a shock was—
“Hey Treaf!” He looked up, fork and knife in hand stupidly. He spotted Mildo.
“Yah?” Mildo did not reply till he drew close enough for Treaf to here.
“I saw ya in the middle o’ town. Wot were ya doin?” Treaf looked blank for a second while the thought registered. Naaaa…he couldn’t’ve seen the homunculi…
“I was lookin’ for the Second Society. They weren’t where they usually were and I couldn’t find them in town, so…” he left it for emphasis.
“Ahhhhhhh…ya were messin’ around?” Argh.
“I guess. And you were practicing with the sword?” Mildo nodded—haha…ya’ should’ve seen what I was really doing. It was much more than duels, haha!
But he couldn’t say that.

Later that evening, at what he guessed was about five o’clock he could be found in the top of the guest house. He was not reading however—he had tried to, but at the moment he found it to be boring, and so he was sitting there. However this partially miserable time had only lasted so far for ten minutes, and he had made up his mind that—I bet there’s somethin goin on downstairs…
He stomped down the stairs, his head buzzing slightly from the quick change of getting up quickly to walking downstairs.
When he got close to the bottom the smell hit him harder than at first entrance. Mmmmmmmm…he was definitely in the mood for this—maybe he would get drunk…?
Well yes that sounded very good, and he soon saw Mildo down there at the last table. Damn…there were ten girls around him, and Treaf averted his eyes as oh yes! Mildo started puking. How’s our fine li’l Mildo Fropkins High novice of the Scout’s Academy now? Haha… he walked over to a table and ordered ale. Also a large pie. While he was waiting he was pleased to see that Malock was not anywhere to be seen, but he severely wondered where exactly he was, but soon his attention was averted when he heard some grunts and yells, then a crash, and he looked over to the middle of the room. There was a barfight, and it looked like a table had been overturned. He decided not to get involved, for he predicted that he would end up using one of the curses that he had learned on one of them.
Once his food arrived he decided that he was tired of sitting there on that one table so he up and walked over to the table that Mildo was at. He looked surprised. In fact he stopped talking for a second in shock. Damnit. Now I’m gonna have ta take up the talk…he knew this would be awkward. The girls stopped giggling, and as Treaf started drinking more he began giggling, for what reason…?
Although the pie was very delicious he found that he could not eat much of it. He was full from before.
Then much to all’s surprise one of the girls sat next to him! Oh damn. She giggled as he fell asleep on her lap.

Morning did not come as expected. Instead he felt a tap on his shoulder, and he woke up finally only after some cursing. He felt that he had something soft under his head, and he rose. He felt more dazed than ever.
Mildo had been the one to wake him.
He saw that the girl was still there. He looked at her curiously. It looked as if she was asleep. In fact the whole place was quite silent.
“Why’d ya wake me?” he said to Mildo, though he looked blurred.
“’Do ya want me ta put ya back ta sleep again?” he asked, rising his fist. Argh.
“Naaaa…I’m fine.” His head hurt. Not unbearable though, and he got up. He looked long and hard at the girl asleep.
“Who was she?” Mildo followed his gaze.
“Dunno.” Hmmmmmmm…
“I think we should go.”
“I think your right.”
They left, and Treaf twitched. He looked back at the girl again. Oh come on…I don’t seem very much like a warrior right now, do I? Mildo stopped with him.
“Hurry up!” Mildo was impatient. And Treaf heard him mutter under his breath: “First time e’ saw a girl, huh?” Then there was a string of curses.

Treaf slept till ten the next morning. And when he awoke he saw that the sun had risen bright in the morning. Mmmmmmmm…I guess I should get up, huh? he realized the validness in this. He still had his armor to retrieve.
He buckled on his sword. He felt a little strange without the comfort of his armor, but…I’ll have it soon, right?

He was soon out in the streets. Carts and horses came past, and he noticed that the streets were fuller than usual. Hmmmmmmm. Maybe they’re havin some kind of market or somethin. This seemed reasonable.
He went around many buildings, keeping track of this is the right alley, I should turn here, and the other details that would lead him to the Blacksmith’s shop. However it took a while before he arrived there. And he guessed that he had taken some wrong turns.
But after what could have been a half hour he saw a large building that rose above the rest of the buildings, and that dwarfed them in it’s width. “Aha.” And he knew that at the other side of this there would be the small dip in the city’s floor, and there would be the small, hardly noticeable shop.
So he walked around it and arrived at that small rise, and saw that small shop. What’ll I do if he doesn’t have im’? he wondered. Well, he could wait another day, maybe, but that would bring the end of the first week they had stayed there, and he would only have the rest of the next week to master the curses and find out about the homunculi, besides being trained at the same time…
He hopped down from where he stood and walked to the front of the shop where the front of the tent was pinned back. He walked in.
The first thing that he noticed was that the Blacksmith was not there. And the second thing that he noticed was that his armor was most certainly not there either. Damn…he looked around the small, cluttered shop, but he couldn’t find them, until….he hit his head hard on something that clanged. What the…? He looked up at the ceiling and saw a few things dangling…haha. There they are. He grabbed at them—he couldn’t reach—so he grabbed a box, stuck it under them, and stepped up. The first thing that he looked at on the armor was weather or not the circles were on them, and when he turned a gauntlet over…there were the designs, all right; this one looked like it had a base of a hexagon, and from those six dots came the circles, forming a sort of cross in the middle with circles coming from there; he looked at his pauldrons, and they were adorned with a square base, along with a triangle base, which formed a triangle of circles, along with a few others consisting a nine-dot square that formed a square of circles, an octagon base, a series of circles that looked like a whirlpool except with two sides, a series of five circles with a square in the center, and three others that seemed quite the same to Treaf. Huh…next all I have ta do is find out which one each of ’em is, and…he looked down again, and he saw that they actually did have the names on them—the one on his right gauntlet was the Kagra, and on his left gauntlet the Heth. On his right pauldrons there were the four of the right side, and on his left there were the four others of the left side. And each was titled accordingly. Wow. There ain’t no room for nuthin’ now…my to a normal person it would look as if I liked designs or somethin…he realized that this would be his advantage. In a fight anyway. And if the person wasn’t very smart.

He started walking towards the Elder’s house on the other side of the city. If we’re gonna do it we need ta get ready as soon as we can. And so he rushed through the streets—this time they weren’t dark and cold anymore.


Chapter Fourteen
Preparation
Treaf had put the armor on by now—the metal had not reacted with his skin and the circles, which he was glad of because if so then they would have become spirits and probably kill him, based on what energy they needed…however this was not a concern since it had not happened and that meant by Treaf’s reasoning that it wasn’t gonna happen unless he made it.
Anyway in about ten minutes he was across the city—he had grown quite used to it by now and didn’t get lost much. But now, if only he could remember what the Elder’s house looked like…?
“Aha.” He found it: it was small, in a tight corner, and somewhat secluded from the rest. He stepped onto the porch of it which was only about three feet wide and one and a have feet long—he knocked and the Elder came out quite quickly and he told Treaf to come inside. He offered tea of course and Treaf denied it, the usual, and then they both sat at his table.
“I see you have gotten your armor done.” Treaf nodded.
“I thought it would be useful. When I fight an enemy it’d be better ta use this then draw ’em or whatever. And yeah they’re titled.” The Elder nodded. Treaf grimaced.
“We should first begin with mastering the Kagra. I think that since it is the first and most powerful of the Ten Bonds of Death we should master it—besides if it works than that means immediately that the Homunculi can be used for Essacar curses.” Treaf nodded.
“Where do we start?”
“Do you even remember how to make one? The different steps?” Treaf shook his head. How was he supposed to remember all of this?
“Anyway it wouldn’t be safe having you do it anyway so it would be wiser for me to do it.” Treaf couldn’t disagree with that. But something came to him.
“What if the homunculi do not produce Essacar?” There was silence; both of them knew what this meant. If they did not produce Essacar then that meant that everything would fail, and yes if it needed Kraug or something else then it would take that and destroy everything in its path—or one of them, instead.
“I will try to learn how to stop a curse from doing something like it would. There may be something about it in the Spell Book.” This is taking more preparation than I thought. We need ta get everythin right or we’ll all die or the whole city will be destroyed…he realized that the moment that they would actually do it would be highly stressful, the responsibility to get everything right…
“Well ya better do that then cuz if ya don’t then the whole thing’ll get messed up, and it’s a high probability that one of us will die, and we can’t have that, cuz if it’s you that dies I don’t know how to create the Magical Beings.”
“You can learn.”
“No I can’t.”
“It’s simple enough, if you would read once in a while.”
“WELL WHATEVER IT’S BETTER IF YOU CAN DO IT. You’re more experienced.” The Elder nodded after Treaf said this very loudly.
“I can see what you mean…”
“So IS there a way to control the spirit inside,” Treaf said, because if there was than they wouldn’t have anything to worry about. But one of them would have to die anyway…
“Remember we do not have any obligation to do this anyway. It seems dangerous to me, but if your theories are correct, than we might want to see what this whole thing is about.” The Elder grimaced after he said this. There were a few moments of silence. He’s right, but I think that I need to understand this thing. If these THINGS are what is being transported, than there needs to be a place that they are coming from. I doubt that the elves would be the ones making them or whatever, or the Dwarves, since they don’t really do magic, and the doats and the men are doing nothing of the sort I already know. The Graths are too DUMB to know anything else than eat and defend themselves, so that leaves us with one possibility, which is Mourgorth. But if these things were coming from him that proves that he has something to do with magic. And that proves what I thought a while ago. And the book I have probably says the same thing. But then again it could be that the Jaragon is making them, and THAT means that there would be a PLANT around here somewhere where they’re making them. But how do you make a Homunculus?
“Hey Elder.”
“Yes?”
“Well I still have the Spell Book, and I think that you should have it again. You need to learn a few things: How a Homunculus is made, what someone can do to prevent a spirit from destroying large areas or people, and if you can control the Spirit inside of the Curse.”
“Yes.”
“So I’ll be off then.” He got up from his chair and left the Elder in his house and left the house altogether and went out into the streets. Before they even worked the spell Treaf wanted to see who and what was making the Homunculi, and there were two possibilities: Mourgorth or The Jaragon itself. And so I’ll explore the city and try ta find a place where makin ’em would be possible. And so it looks like I’ll need to ask for directions.
He waited for a passerby and when one came he said, “Hey do you know where the factories or plants are for this city?” The passerby did not even reply in words but pointed west. Even more west than I already am?
“Ok thanks.” He started walking in that direction, making his way through bends and corners, which seemed to be prominent. Hmmmmmmm…that’s strange I thought that the magical place where we train was over here…? He pictured the city in his mind. It seemed roughly circular, but there could have been a dip somewhere, and that’s where the place would be, which was: aha. It’s away from the main part of the city so that no one will see it. Maybe…dunno for sure yet. As he walked further west he saw that the city got sparser and that there were more gardens and carpentry shops and stuff like that, which meant that the ‘factory’ must of course be around there.

In fact in only a few moments he came upon it. It was a huge building: forty feet high and almost just as wide, and the chimneys at the top were belching smoke and steam seeped from the exhaust pipes at the corners. He looked up dryly for a second, and then walked forward again until he reached the doors, which were metal like anything else around there. He knocked.
There was no answer so he walked in. There was so much noise in there that he couldn’t here a thing. Heavy pistons pumped up and down, he shivered as he imagined his hand being caught in there…
People were scurrying around, seemingly not to take notice of him. I wonder what they’re even making…realizing that there was probably an office where things were controlled, he explored that floor, didn’t find anything, and decided to go to the next, didn’t find anything, and went on like this until he reached the top floor. There was no noise there, but one could here faint sounds below from all the banging and other noises.
The area up there wasn’t very crowded either. But he went around a bit in there and he soon found a person who he saw only from the back of a chair. Aha. He walked over to him.
“Hello.”
The man turned around in a flash, the chair squeaking from the unexpected movement.
“He-lo,” he said, his face calming. Jeeze.
“What do you make in this factory?” The man looked partially shocked at how quickly he was bursting into the subject, no introduction and flattery here, oh no.
“What is your name first of all?” The man said and cleared his throat in a little ahem.
“Treaf Willowbe, of the army here.”
“What army here? The Second Society? I’ve never seen you before.” Oh Jeeze.
“No, the army that’s coming here from the other city up north in The Jaragon. We’re fighting Mourgorth, and after the recent attack we were almost slaughtered until I came in and helped. Never heard of us?”
“No, not that I recall…” he looked thoughtful, and Treaf wondered why he was looking at him so curiously.
“So you are a Doat?”
“Yah.”
“And you are in the army? How curious.” Treaf took this in stride and didn’t say anything because he knew if he did he wouldn’t find anything out because he would probably be kicked out first.
“Anyway, as I was saying, what do you make in this factory of yours? Steal? Bronze? Iron? Platinum?”
“We are actually an experimental factory.”
“I see.”
“We are experimenting with oils right now. If you took a tour of the building you would see cauldrons of boiling oil.”
“And what exactly do oils do when they are heated?”
“We are testing that.”
“And how long will it take you till you get an answer?”
“About another week.” Would that work? Are we staying for another week? I think so.
“Are you mixing different oils? Using magic of any kind?”
“Magic…haha! Why would we use magic exactly…?”
“Just asking.”
“Of course.” He doesn’t seem very suspicious. But all I need to know is what happens when you heat oils? Do they form something else? What was the material for the Homunculi? The material had seemed to be basically a replica of a human…there had been blood and veins and such things…
“Okay, well I’ll see you next week. I definitely want to know what happens when you heat oils and mix them.” He said good-bye and then left that floor through the door in the side of the wall. He walked down about five stairs and decided to go and see these ‘cauldrons’ of boiling oil.
He looked around the floor second from the top and saw that there were indeed these oil tanks, black, bubbling liquids that looked a little like mud, and that had small and big bubbles. Kinda looked disgusting, but then he looked into another cauldron and he saw that it was clearer, with a yellow-brownish taint. It looks like their purifying it somehow…maybe heating it does that? Well anyway, I’ll see next week, I guess, so it doesn’t matter till then. However, he realized that he and the Elder also needed to do the curse to test the Homunculi, so doing all that in one week seemed a bit rushed…
Soon he was out of the building and walking back to the city. He supposed that the Elder should know, he would probably help Treaf, but never mind that, Treaf still needed to read more on the Death Bonds. But of course he was almost done with the paper Noedar had given him. Ah yes, what ever happened to my training? Treaf wondered, and smirked, then kicked a stone and it caught the lip of his boot, then shot up and almost hit a window.
Soon he was out of the ‘factory area’ of the city and back in the cramped streets. Now it was about midday, and without anything else to do, he headed towards the guest house for lunch.
Once he was inside he sat down at the first table to the door, which had a lot of food on it, today quite a bit of meat. Sloyd, Mildo, Hibned, and Adrain were sitting there, and it looked like Sloyd was eating as much as Treaf would have eaten if he was starving. Well, not to blame, since Sloyd was about as giant as one could get without falling over and having various diseases.
“So what’s happening, Treaf?” Sloyd asked. Treaf explained how he visited the factory at the edge of town, but not much else. It looked like Sloyd expected he was fighting another someone, but sorry, Treaf thought, hopefully that wasn’t going to be the case.
“So you other guys are training with the Second Society?” Treaf asked, slurping loudly on a drink that tasted like spinach, but was strangely satisfying.
“Ya….” He seemed a little un-sure.
“Something wrong?” Treaf continued drinking the liquid.
“Well, the Second Society are quite powerful, as we know, and they’re pretty much kicking our butts.”
“Hmmmmmmm…they teaching you any magic?”
“Nope.” Well no wonder they’re kicking our butts then.
“Well are they using magic?” This time Mildo answered.
“Ya, but not too much, only a little bit once in a while.”
“Well that’s good.” The conversation ended there as Treaf concentrated on eating his food. Since I don’t have anything else to do I think I’ll train with them… he finished his drink, stood up, and stretched. He felt tired. But no matter, training would get him alive…
He walked out of the building before the others and started heading out to the training fields. Once he reached them, he had forgotten that they were so big. And then he remembered the skill of Letin Noedar. That quickly left his mind. He had probably been training his whole life anyway. Treaf had only had less than a year.
Leaning on a fence post, he turned his head absent-mindedly as the wind picked up and swung his hair over his face, what a nuisance, but through the strands he saw the others approaching, with the Second Society in the lead. It would be a help to have them in our ‘army,’ Treaf realized, and couldn’t help comparing them to the Rangers. The Rangers were better, after a second of thought, Treaf realized.
After a few minutes all of them reached Treaf. When they did Treaf greeted them, but not long after Letin Noedar said to all of them: “Everyone go out into the field at the same time. We will warm up by fighting each other, and then we will begin the training.” Treaf obeyed and hopped over the fence with one hand resting on the top bar. He wondered if he would be able to use magic, and then thinking about magic he realized that he had hardly spoken with the Second Society since they had given him the Ten Death Bonds paper. And since then he had been learning them and inscribing them on his armor…when were they going to train him on actually using them?
Anyway he started walking through the field with everyone else, and soon, when all of them were in the field, without even thinking, Treaf saw Sloyd and began to fight him. However, he did not start with his sword, instead he leapt over to him and kicked, the top of his body resting on the ground. Sloyd took the blow with his chest, which Treaf could tell it still affected him. So then he leapt back up and attacked his face with several blows from his fists, and then, when Sloyd began to slash at him, Treaf stepped backward and drew his sword quickly. When he did this his sword met with Sloyd’s and a clang echoed. Then Treaf drew back his elbow and used the pommel to strike Sloyd’s wrist, and he dropped his sword. After this Treaf kicked his back and Sloyd fell forward. Then Treaf held his sword to Sloyd’s neck. He won.
After Treaf had ‘killed’ Sloyd he moved on, searching for an opponent, and soon he saw someone he didn’t recognize, so he guessed that he had come from the Second Society.
Before the man could do anything Treaf, not wanting to injure him, elbowed him in the back, and right when he turned he put his sword to the man’s chest…another win.
But then he saw a sword whip out in front of his face, and he turned around in a flash. Before he could really do anything, the sword was slashing again, this time at his ankles, Treaf jumped—then he ducked and turned his head up and looked at the sword bearer. It was Mildo. Aha. Treaf kicked out at his knees, and Mildo stepped backward, so Treaf slashed at his chest, he moved to the side. Then he began to slash at Treaf’s neck, and Treaf barely blocked it with his gauntlet. Hmmmmmmm, I could always use a curse on him… Treaf thought evilly for a second. He then realized that this would have probably killed both of them. So he didn’t do it.
After a second of consideration Treaf thrust his sword at Mildo’s chest, but Mildo was too smart and he did what he done before—he stabbed at the same time, and Treaf, not knowing what to do, curled his sword around to a vertical position and pushed, tossing Mildo’s sword to the side. Mildo did not let it drop as Treaf had hoped, but instead it faltered in the air for a second before Mildo grabbed it with both hands and drilled it towards Treaf. Again Treaf blocked it with his gauntlet, realizing the importance of his armor for one of the first times in a while.
While Treaf was busy with blocking Mildo’s sword, Mildo tucked his sword into his arm and pulled out his dagger in a flash, grabbed Treaf’s side, twirled him forcefully around, and held the dagger to his neck from behind. Treaf sighed, and then caught his breath. Ok, two wins, one loss. And what do ya know, a loss to Mildo. Mildo was soon lost to Treaf in the confusion and Treaf was left to his thoughts. But before he could find a new opponent, a whistle blew, and this signified that this stage of the training was done.
Sitting on a large rock Treaf drank water. He wondered what the next part of training would be, probably showing advice and general theory on how to fight, he soon decided. Hmmmmmmm, I don’t really need that, he thought. But really, it would not hurt, so after Noedar said so, he walked into the field again and waited for someone to order him around.
“Okay. Well done. Now we will train with more complex training—each of you will be given a mentor, and he will ‘teach’ you. Make sure that you are all spread at a good distance across the field.” At this, whoever had said that stopped talking, and each person found a mentor each, and Treaf guess that this is what they had been doing for the last week or two.
Thankfully, Noedar had found a separate person to train. Treaf was not in the mood to
Instead he saw an unknown person coming towards him, one of the Second Society’s men, no doubt, and instead of getting into a long conversation about him being late for the magic training, which Treaf had expected, he instead beckoned Treaf over.
“What style do you use?” He asked Treaf. Treaf actually felt his mind go blank. Um…I don’t use a particular style, he realized.
“Um…” The man waited expectantly.
“I just fight.” For a second the man looked partially confused. Treaf didn’t really blame him.
“I see. How exactly does that work?” What do you mean how does that work? I just fight. No theories to it…
“I just fight like I said before. Now if I don’t have a style, how are ya going to train me?” Treaf asked.
“Well, ‘just fight,’ like you said. Then I can give you advice.”
Without any further delay Treaf drew his sword, and so did the man who Treaf did not know his name. Treaf made the first move. Holding his sword above his head, he plunged it down, and this would have staked the man to the ground had he not side stepped. So Treaf ducked as he swung, predicted where his legs would be, and swung towards them…the man brought his sword down as Treaf had just done and blocked Treaf’s blow. Jumping up, Treaf kicked at his face, and his boot hit his cheek…this brought some blood out of his nose when his flesh pushed against his nose. Got ’im, Treaf thought. However, the man then stabbed at Treaf, and Treaf whipped past the sword, and, catching the back of him as he was in the lunging position, elbowed his back. This made him rear up, and while he was doing this Treaf kneed his upturned belly, which sent him sprawling the other way, and so Treaf planted his boot on his rib cage and shoved him over, and then held his sword to his neck. So much for ‘training,’ Treaf thought smugly. The man had the dignity to get up, luckily, so Treaf stood there.
“I have no advice to give you,” the man laughed. Treaf had the courtesy to laugh along. My training has been going good today, he thought, and grinned.
“Is there anything else?” He asked the man. The man replied “No,” so Treaf, having nothing else to do, decided to busy himself by finding more water. Soon he could not so he was forced to stand there and watch.
Actually, he had been expecting that things would look much worse, but the fighting skills of the individual men were actually quite good. The problem was that they only had thirty men to fight.
Even if we trained every man to almost unbeatable fighting ability, I doubt we could win with thirty men. He laughed at this, because of course it would be absolutely impossible by any means…
After a few minutes he grew bored of watching other people fight, so he left the training field and started walking towards the city. Training isn’t as extensive as it was a while ago, he realized, remembering his and Mildo’s time with Malock. I was new to fighting back then though; a freshy right off the Barren Lands, he scoffed.
Thinking about it, it made sense now that he was not receiving as much basic training—he had already achieved that and was already at a higher level. Now he was learning magic. And thinking about that, he realized that the time of trying out the Kagra on the homunculi was growing shorter. And neither of us know what to do. If we had more time… there were only four more days until they left. And he still had to figure out what they were doing in that factory too. Why do I even care? I’m not even a resident of this city, and I’m not gonna be staying here for much more at’ll. But sense it was something interesting to do, he might as well do it.
After realizing that he was not at all going anywhere in particular, he decided that he should go to the Elder’s even though he was in the least of that kind of mood, sense he had just gone a while ago. But one never knew, perhaps he had figured out some kind of warding system that would work to protect Treaf and himself while performing the Kagra. And besides, he had nothing better to do anyway.
Treaf soon arrived. After knocking on the door thrice, the Elder welcomed him in again and Treaf stepped over the threshold and into the house.
Taking his usual position on the Elder’s round table, the setup was the same as it had ever been. “Welcome back,” the Elder said. Treaf merely grunted.
“Have you figured out anything to do with wards yet?” Treaf asked. But before the Elder answered, Treaf realized that he still had the Spell Book from when he had taken it from the Elder when they were still in one of their camps along the road. He had forgotten to bring it with him after he had been training just a few minutes ago. So the Elder would probably not have had any resources in which to research for wards anyway. And this meant that they were loosing time yet again by not figuring anything out.
And, when the Elder replied, Treaf was proved right.
“Well, it would seem right that I need the Spell Book to do any research, am I not correct?” Treaf nodded.
“I’ll return it to you shortly. I’ve realized that ya need it…” The Elder nodded in agreement.
“So, I guess that’s all we really have to talk about, right?” The Elder nodded again.
“But one question, Treaf. Has the Second Society been training you at all with the Ten Death Bonds?”
“Nope. They haven’t arrived recently at the training place.”
“Are you planning to say anything to them? Our time is short here, so it would be wise to take up as much training in magic as possible.
“Yes, of course,” Treaf replied, and then said good-bye and left the house. It was still about four in the afternoon, and the day was young according to Treaf. Eager to find out as much as he could, he started walking through the city until he reached the guest house. Stepping inside and then up the stairs to the room up there, Treaf picked up his book of Mourgorth and began reading.


Chapter Fifteen
The Spirits Inside
The morning came quicker than usual, and it was cloudy and dark, for the sun had not yet risen. By the time Treaf had realized it was morning all of the others were already getting ready.
Quickly jumping up, he strapped on his sword and threw on his cloak. If he was correct about something, he knew that he would need his armor with the complex inscriptions and designs on it for later that day. Perhaps they would be performing the spell, perhaps not. He made a mental note to buy a new cloak once he had his ‘prize money’ or whatever it was that he would receive, for it was truly mangled and torn, besides the blood and dirt stains that had taken residence on its surface from the many battles it and Treaf had endured. But if he were to receive any money or prize at all, he was not sure.
Probably not, he decided as he walked down the stairs, his eyes still seemingly puffy and not fully capable of sight. However, once he had reached the bottom of the long flight of stairs and had entered the main breakfast hall his senses had cleared up more.
Actually that previous day and night Treaf had not thought much about the tasks looming before him, but he realized now that action would probably be taking place either that day or the next. After all they would be leaving in about three or four more days.
However, of the tasks that he and the Elder were going to perform, (hopefully without getting killed or injured,) he did not know how far they were going to get that day or if they would do the final testing that day either.
Breakfast had arrived pretty much by the time he had sat down, so now he received the pleasantly steaming plate and began to eat it and thought. But soon enough there was little left to do or think about than wait, and to soon consult with the Elder.
Presently Mildo came over to where Treaf was sitting by the table closest to the door and neither of them spoke for a bit. Then Mildo said: “Hello.”
“Hi,” Treaf replied and drank the liquid from his cup. For a second more neither of them spoke as Treaf ate his eggs, his fork making a regular scrape against the plate between journeys.
“Are you going to train again with the rest of us today?” Mildo asked. He was leaning in on the table, his arms folded onto it. Surprisingly, Mildo was not presenting his questions with his regular jokey attitude towards life. In fact, Treaf suspected that he might be serious for once. So Treaf stopped eating and raised his head to look at Mildo and replied, “Nope. I’m busy with some business with the Elder.” As Treaf continued eating Mildo received this information and made a small nod, maybe as a sign of acceptance. But he had more questions.
“It seems like you’ve been meeting with him a lot recently. Are you two doing something? Like with magic?”
“Mhm, we are,” Treaf said and took another swig of what must have been laboriously squeezed fruit juice of some kind. Sorry, Mildo, I just can’t tell you exactly what I’m doing yet. Maybe sometime in the future, when we aren’t in danger of being arrested for illegal spells…
“Wouldn’t it be funny if there was magic that was so dangerous it was illegal?” Mildo said, and made a small laugh as he looked out of the window next to them absent-mindedly.
“Yeah, it would,” Treaf agreed and laughed too. It really would…
“Well, I’ve already eaten, so see ya. Time to bust my arse for the Second Society, as usual,” He mumbled off as he walked out the door. Feeling a small bit of restlessness, Treaf scraped up the last of his eggs and headed out the door as well. It looked like him and Mildo were one of the first people out; other than a few citizens walking past, the city was quite empty.
They waited there, Treaf’s hands in his pockets and his hood pulled close against the cold. Mildo seemed quite indifferent towards the biting air: he kept his head high and his arms folded across his chest, his breathing coming out in briefly lasting clouds of steam. As Treaf watched his own breath below him he said, “We only have a little time before we’re up on The Pass hiking in five feet of snow.” Mildo merely nodded.
“I wonder what it’s gonna be like up there. There must be different beasts than we have encountered so far…” Of these beasts Treaf did not have the slightest clue, but he was sure there would be something hostile to attack them, because in every region that they crossed there seemed to be a new wildly strange and ferocious type of creature.
Presently, after a short while of waiting, Treaf saw in the distance approaching a large crowd of people which he immediately recognized as the Second Society. As if to a response to their arrival, the door behind Mildo and Treaf burst open with an extra loud creak as the members of their ‘army’ filed out.
“Well, I guess I’ll see ya.” Treaf remained frozen in his place, but swung his arms back and forth and said, “Yeah, see ya.” As Mildo walked off with the Second Society Members, along with the other companions that had journeyed with them, Treaf wondered if the Second Society really was using homunculi for curses; but then again, that was why he was standing out in the street, to find out.
As Treaf began walking in the direction of the Elder’s house the sun began to rise slowly, its redness first coming up over distant mountains and then breaking through certain areas of the tall, impressive buildings that Treaf glimpsed as he walked past. The street’s numerous cobblestones could be seen individually as the light was reflected off of their wet surfaces, and overall the city was now a shining resemblance of the early sun.
Now some of the citizens of the city began to appear again, some coming from their shops doing who-knows-what, others pulling small carts filled with various supplies and crafts, and Treaf guessed that there must be a market around there somewhere, perhaps on the far side of the city that he had not been to, the one further west of the area filled with plants and factories spewing steam and smoke into the city air.
Being reminded of that, Treaf remembered the other interest that he had developed during his and all the others’ stay in the city: the oils plant. If he would have time to satisfy his wants for information in that area he seriously doubted, for he would be already too busily occupied by the tasks at hand which he readily admitted were more urgent. But there seemed to remain a dark veil over the truth of what was going on in the city, and whether this was true or not, Treaf wanted to find out.
After walking past an area of the city where the houses and shops were densely growing thicker, he knew that he was nearing the Elder’s house. A little ways after the dense architectures there was an opening and then a less packed area of separate housing units, which is where the Elder was. I guess I never really realized that he has always stayed in an actual house whenever we stay in a city, Treaf thought. He was walking under a small arch now which connected two large towers together in a sort of bridge, perhaps for quicker transport to get from one to the other. After this there were two more large buildings parallel to it which formed a tight alley. Actually, Treaf realized that he hadn’t come through this part of the city yet, at least not on his regular journeys to the Elder’s house.
After the alley Treaf came upon the houses that were by the Elder’s and paused. All the houses looked quite the same, so every time he came this way he had to confront this problem again and again. I need to pick out something different from the Elder’s place than the others,’ he realized.
But, after a few minutes he figured out which one it was and walked up onto the small porch and knocked. The Elder opened the door and welcomed him in.
Once they were both seated by the round table, the Elder with tea, Treaf asked: “Have you figured out anything to do with putting wards around us and all the objects yet?” The Elder grunted in a pleasant manner.
“I am pleased to say that yes, I did. To put wards around both of us and perhaps protection around the objects by us takes quite a lot of energy, but I have figured out how to do so,” the Elder replied, and then added, “And yes I have tested this. It worked well on my first try.”
“Did you test the spell, or its effectiveness?” Treaf asked. Because Treaf didn’t think it made sense; perhaps, if the Elder had laid the ward around himself and then tried to harm himself with magic, or…
“I did both. And they both worked.” In that case, if the spell rebounds, we will have protection, Treaf thought. And if he puts protection around the area, it will stop the city from being destroyed if the Spirit escapes and is thirsty for Krog energy sources.
“Well, that’s good. So now we won’t be harmed if it doesn’t work in the first place, right?” The Elder nodded.
“I have also worked out the whole scenario. There’s a lot that can go wrong, but if we calculate precisely, we won’t be in any danger.
“One of us will draw the Kagra circle on the ground somewhere. Since you have it on your armor, we can have a double activator, which will make sure the spell continues if one part of it goes wrong. This will be because half of the energy will activate in your armor, and the other half in the circle. And once we both have wards laid on us, the Spirit will not be allowed to kill or injure us, because the wards would rebound the Krog signals and instead attack an alternative energy source. This is the only major problem. The Kagra spell requires Krog energy, so it would need to feed off of a human soul. We don’t have one.” Treaf thought about this. Even with his little knowledge of magic, he understood all that the Elder had said. But he could not see the dilemma in the whole thing.
“But that’s what the homunculi are for: Krog energy sources,” Treaf said.
“Yes. But if they fail, we have nothing to back us up. Once they fail, the Spirit will try to get any Krog energy it can.” At this Treaf thought, Us. The Elder continued, “But we are warded, so its attack will only rebound.” Oh, I see…Treaf thought, realizing that he was wrong. The Elder continued talking yet again, “So once we are guarded, it will have no choice but to attack another energy source. So that is where the alternative energy source is needed.” This realization suddenly fell on Treaf like a weight.
“So who would be the alternative energy source? If we got a living, innocent sacrifice, than that would be brutal murder.” Treaf expected the Elder to reply with something or other, but he did not. Instead they both sat there thinking for what must have been minutes. Treaf could not think of something to put in place of he and the Elder as alternative energy, except for artificial human beings, which returned to the homunculi in the first place, which they were testing to see if they supplied Krog energy. And the original concern was that we would be attacked in its place if they did not supply it, but now that that problem is extinguished, we have another large problem. Actually, now that he was thinking about curses, he remembered the first time that he had tried the Gurvisorm Radjak Poshaden sub-curse. It was the first time he had ever tried another kind of spell besides Anverfwick. But why, back then, had the spell not rebounded on me? Since it seems only humans can do it, does that mean that it takes Krog energy from the user? This did not seem plausible. Because, in that case, all spells cast by humans would be Krog spells, not Essacar or Trîte. But if this is not the case, what energy does it use? Is there a substance that supplies only Pure Energy? An ultimate source?
They both sat there thinking once again for what must have been several long, confused minutes. Treaf continued to think of bursts of ideas that once he thought for several more moments only became meaningless hopes that faded into the impossible predicament that they were both in. They could not sacrifice a live human being—that would be against the law, besides Treaf’s moral awareness. Actually, I kill in battles; I’ve killed Spirits, Creatures, and Men alike. If I can kill these, why can’t I kill a being in a sacrifice? He supposed that this would be different if it was an enemy of his, perhaps a Dark Hood, but most of them had died in the battle…Death. Dead—The Dead. All human bodies, the energy drained from them…it was at this moment that Treaf stumbled upon the revolutionary thought, the single thought, that startled and shocked him into dumb recognition. His heart beat quickened, and he broke the long silence by saying slowly, very slowly, “…What if the alternative source doesn’t have to be alive.” The Elder looked up. Treaf continued again, slowly, “If we had the body of a dead man…no, not quite dead, still breathing, but not capable of living for long—and if we placed this person away from the circle, and performed the activation, once the homunculi did not supply the wanted energy, the Spirit would take all the remaining energy from the almost—dead person…and he would be killed, but at the same time supplying the wanted energy.” Once Treaf looked up, he saw an expression of either sadness or realization on the Elder’s face, Treaf could not tell; maybe both. There remained silence once again as Treaf waited for the Elder to say something. Finally, after a while of pondering the Elder did.
“What you are suggesting is still murder, Treaf.” No, its not! He thought, and rushed on, “It isn’t if we use an enemy! Perhaps even a Grewl in the forest, or—”
“No, I will not do such a thing. Using a life, however dead it already is, is both uncanny and morally violating, besides revolting. I will not dishonor magic with an atrocity such as this.” Treaf felt anger at this. It was not ‘morally violating’ nor uncanny; they had killed hundreds of lives in one battle. And it was the only way that Treaf could think of that would be more morally correct than anything else.
“Well fine,” Treaf replied hotly, “Perhaps it would be better to use an innocent, fully alive person instead?” The Elder closed his eyes as if exasperated.
“I am not saying that. But we need to think of a different way. And I am not readily thinking of us playing with our enemy’s lives; half killing them and then finishing them off with a spell will simply not do. We need to find a way to do it correctly, without using lives for our purpose.” Treaf was going to reply that the lives they would use were hardly innocent at all, after all they were the enemy, but he decided not to. What the Elder was saying made sense, and Treaf also did not want to play with people’s lives. But no matter how hard he tried, Treaf could not think of another solution.
“I believe that the results would be better anyway if we play by the Spirit’s rules. If we did use a partially dead human life, I doubt there would be enough energy in its body to satisfy the Spirits.” I guess that makes sense, Treaf thought. Once he thought about it there would be little more energy in a partially dead person than in the homunculi in the first place, so the Spirits would probably not see it as a good energy source and then attack something else. And that was the very thing they were trying to avoid: getting them or anyone else injured or killed. The Krog uses energy from beings such as ourselves, right? So, what of we didn’t use a human at all, but instead used an animal? Treaf immediately saw that this was impossible right after he thought it. The Krog only uses energy from humans. If it didn’t, we wouldn’t be in any danger, because the homunculi would just support the energy needed. Actually, Treaf had been thinking recently only about if the homunculi weren’t human, not that they were. If they were than they weren’t in any danger, and the entire backup would be pointless.
After Treaf thought this, the Elder, still with his eyes focused down in concentration, said: “We cannot play to the rules if we don’t have an ample energy source, or one from a something other than a human. So we cannot make any sacrifices or alternatives—unless we trick the Spirits inside.”
§

After realizing and thinking about this, Treaf and the Elder talked more for about fifteen minutes, but once they reached the breaking point to where they could not think of any alternatives, Treaf said good-bye and left the Elder’s house. All that they had talked about made sense to Treaf as a beautifully working rule to nature, except for one thing, which was really the most important thing of all: an ample energy source. Every time Treaf thought about it all returned to that one thing: an ample energy source. Of course, there was always the possibility that nothing would happen at all and they would have to revise their use of the Kagra spell until they got it right, without error.
Now Treaf was walking through the city, and the sun had fully come out during his time in the Elder’s house. He guessed that it had been about a half hour or more, so by now it was the established time in the morning where everyone was doing something. Even though Treaf was quite far on the eastern side of the city, he could hear a few faint signs of men fighting in the training grounds: a few cries, many clangs, and loud orders being shouted all became one muffled sound.
Since he had nothing else to do, Treaf began heading south, hoping to find the factory that he had previously been in again. As he started doing so the buildings became less packed, and he gradually started to here the clangs, thumps, and loud whistles going off that the factories were producing.
Once he passed through a large gate, (which he was glad was unlocked), he headed straight down a sort of path, or at least it looked like a path since there were tall, dirty buildings on either side of it. Of these most of them had large chimneys which spewed black smoke, remnants of previously burnt material, and small glowing embers.
As Treaf began looking for the certain factory that boiled oils, he looked ahead of him and strangely enough, it was straight in front of him.
Walking to the front steps, he raised his hand, but then remembered that there was no point in knocking since it was so noisy inside. So instead he walked right in.
As usual he was greeted with the loud noises and bustle of people working in it, pistons pumping, tanks being filled with liquids, and rows of trays shaped in strange ways. These were new as to last time Treaf had been in the factory. In fact he saw quite a few new things going on; before there had only been cauldrons filled with boiling liquids, and now it seemed like they were pouring the oil into other tra

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Publication Date: 08-24-2011

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