Stealthcaster Read online

  If only he had the same benefits.

  “She is very much the Ranger she dedicated herself to be,” Solomon said, watching her work. “Is she happy with her decision?”

  “Why don’t you ask her that yourself, young man?”

  Solomon shrugged. “I figure if she wants me to know, she’ll tell me.” Removing the axe from his belt, he eyed Esmelda’s group and started walking toward it.

  “Hold up, Solomon,” Soracia said softly, her eyes narrowing as she watched the training grounds in front of her. “Before you get too caught up in your training… I think we’re about overdue for a council meeting. We’ve all been so focused on hardening our combat skills, we haven’t spent much time talking strategy. We need to change that.”

  “As you wish,” he replied and turned back toward her.

  “An hour,” Soracia replied, cutting off his movements. “Spend an hour with Esmelda, then grab your friends and meet me in the central meeting hall. I’ll gather the rest of the council and you can join us there. It’s about time we checked our current status and drafted an appropriate time table.

  Solomon nodded, flexing his fingers around the handle of his platinum axe. He walked toward Esmelda’s training ground and wondered why Soracia was calling a meeting of the war council today. Had something changed? Or was there truly just a need to revisit strategy?

  He supposed he’d find out in an hour…

  Chapter 08 - Council Meeting

  * * *

  Solomon slowly rotated his shoulder as he approached the meeting hall, wincing at the stab of pain and slow grind of bone on bone. Esmelda had clearly been frustrated at his lack of attention to training and had decided to take it out on him this morning. Ouch.

  Pushing through the door to the meeting hall, he could see the majority of the council already gathered there, a group of mostly familiar faces.

  Esmelda smiled wickedly at him as he entered, her thick biceps crossed over her chest, the trademark double-head battle axe slung to her back, sticking up over her shoulder. Aldena stood next to her, the bow crossed over her own chest, and Megyn stood just to her left, a twisting braid of light brown hair spilling over her shoulder.

  Withdrawn from the group, her blue/gray skin blending with the shadows, Ella stood next to Locratia, both of them talking quietly with each other.

  Two other Amazon warriors were present, both captains of the Queen’s Guard, Brunelle and Henrick. They stood on either side of Queen Soracia herself, each holding long polearms with sharply angled hatchet-shaped weapons mounted to the ends. Two pairs of eyes narrowed on him as he made his way toward the group, cautious and mistrusting. He hoped they looked at everyone that way and not just him. At the opposite end of the group, Woodland “Woody” Roundtail stood, his sword pressed neatly into a sheath at his left hip, his fur-covered arms folded.

  “How you feeling, kid?” Esmelda asked, looking at his shoulder as he continued to rotate it.

  “Nobody told me I’d need a health regen potion after a training session. Yeesh.”

  “It’s good for you, boy,” Esmelda replied. “Maybe it will serve as a reminder about more frequent training.”

  Solomon shot her a look, but Soracia was already clearing her throat and elevating the volume of her speech, indicating that it was time to stop joking and start getting more serious.

  “Apologies my queen,” Esmelda said, bowing her head.

  “As much as I hate to call it this,” Soracia began, “welcome to the next meeting of the Amazon War Council. Whether any of us likes it or not, that is what we are and what this group shall be forever known as. It is what we are preparing for, make no mistake about it.”

  There was a vague murmur of acknowledgement across the group, several of them looking at each other for affirmation. Within the center of the wide meeting hall was a long and narrow wooden table, stretched out along the floor, chairs tucked in all around it. Many of the chairs were already occupied, and Solomon made his way to one of the few free ones, pulling it out softly, then resting within, adjusting his shoulder as he did.

  “First agenda item,” Soracia said, looking at the group. “Our current build up of forces. Our biggest previous obstacle to launching an offensive against the Sharak-Ku was our size. Between the Sharak-Ku themselves and who knows how many of their minions, we stand outnumbered at least ten to one. Our first step toward launching this offensive is tipping the scales either more even, or even more preferable, back in our balance.”

  She stood before the group, crossing her arms behind her back, meeting each and every one of their eyes in turn.

  “To that end, we’ve been working to gather supporters from outside of the Amazon clans. We’ve been sending word to Elderand via flocked messenger. Rumors of a population explosion in the city has certainly borne fruit, as we’ve already brought in a handful of sellswords, with potentially more on the way.”

  “Are these men and women we can trust?” Esmelda asked. “Mercenaries? Swords for hire? These things rub me the wrong way.”

  “I don’t disagree,” Soracia replied. “However, we find ourselves in a position of few options and fewer alternatives. We are amassing an army, and in order to do that, we need soldiers. These sellswords will provide that to us. For a price.”

  “And how exactly are we paying that price?” Aldena asked.

  Soracia smiled. “I suppose we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it. I promised them a piece of the spoils of war, whatever they could carry from the decimated Sharak-Ku army after all was said and done. Some of the Sharak-Ku artifacts and weaponry are very rare in the human world. Rare and valuable.”

  Solomon had to give her credit for that one, that was a good incentive for the mercenaries, to be sure.

  Soracia turned to Woody.

  “So, Mr. Roundtail,” she said kindly. “I see that you have collected several of your brothers and sisters already. Should we be expecting more help from the Harefolks?”

  Woody nodded. “Indeed. Another large group is traveling from the Grove as we speak. It may be a few days before their arrival, and I will warn you, their numbers are not large, but we are a crafty race, and can adapt well to challenging circumstances.”

  “I can vouch for that,” Solomon interjected, raising a hand.

  “Have we begun drafting an actual battle plan yet?” Soracia asked, looking over at Aldena and Esmelda.

  Esmelda nodded first.

  “Indeed, Queen Soracia,” she said. “Unfortunately we are fraught with challenge, as the Sharak-Ku, by all appearances, have a significant presence throughout not just the Devil’s Mouth, but also the surrounding wood. They’ve been encroaching on Gallowind long before the renegade Rulaaz made his play with the pit fiend and it is our expectation that they have scouts on constant watch. Our approach will be difficult to keep secret.”

  “Perhaps that can work to our advantage?” Solomon asked.

  “Elaborate, please.”

  Solomon shrugged. “Well, if we amass a force with the sole purpose of it being discovered, we can perhaps lead the Sharak-Ku into concentrating their resistance at a specific point. Then we can arrange a smaller, but equally potent force to come in from their blind side and strike.”

  “In intriguing prospect,” Soracia replied.

  “I saw it on a TV show once,” Solomon said, then bit off the words in his mouth. Everyone in the room looked at him in confusion, except for Megyn and Ella who were both rolling their eyes.

  “It makes a certain amount of sense,” Locratia said. “A few more days of intense training with our makeshift magic guild and we could develop a pretty powerful small group of semi-potent mages. If we throw a large force on horseback at them from the west, draw them out, then launch a smaller strike team of highly trained archers and magic users from a different direction, we could work to confuse their resistance and shatter their front.”

  “And how would we coordinate this?” Soracia asked. “We have no maps of the area, no real
insight or surveillance. We do not know what’s out there, how can we possibly strategize an effective insurgent operation?”

  “It won’t be easy,” said Solomon, “but I don’t believe it’s impossible.”

  “Then you have just volunteered yourself for some reconnaissance,” Soracia said, nodding.

  Solomon acknowledged her request with a firm, clipped nod of his own.

  “With all due respect as well, my queen, but I am hoping to get a chance to do some level grinding over the next day or two as well. I’ve just reached level five, and I believe finally achieving that goal will better equip me for battle against the Sharak-Ku.”

  “Our war with the Sharak-Ku is not about personal growth, young one. It must be about what’s best for all. Not just for the Amazons, or Elderand, or even Gallowind, but about what’s best for the planet at large.”

  “I agree, Queen Soracia,” Solomon replied, “and I truly believe achieving this small milestone will make that all the more likely an outcome.”

  Soracia sighed loudly, clearly at the edge of her patience with him, and Solomon felt his cheeks flush. What was he doing wrong? Everything he said seemed to rub her and Esmelda the wrong way. Were they expecting him to be a mindless obedient lacky? That totally wasn’t in his toolkit.

  “I apologize, Queen—” Solomon started, but the slamming door flung open behind him and distracted everyone in the room. Heads whirled around as an Amazon Warrior barged into the meeting, immediately dropping into a clumsy, regretful bow.

  “I apologize for disturbing the proceedings,” she said in a breathless whisper. “I bring sad tidings from the Forked Tongue River.”

  “Stand and speak,” Soracia replied, lifting her hand. “We do not stand on ceremony when important matters need to be discussed. Out with it.”

  “We were patrolling the edge of Forked Tongue, doing some routine surveillance, looking for more Ankhegs if we could find them. We didn’t find any, but we did find a boat.”

  “A.. boat?” Soracia asked, narrowing her eyes.

  The Amazon messenger nodded. “Aye, my queen. A boat was beached on the side of the fast rushing river. Most of those aboard it were… they were dead, my queen. Slaughtered.”

  “Killed?”

  “Certainly looked that way.”

  “By whom?”

  “We do not know, but there is reason to believe that this may have been the Sharak-Ku’s doing.”

  “Curses!” shouted Soracia, standing from the table and slapping the surface with a palm. “They’re at the Forked Tongue? How have they moved so far west?”

  “We are hoping the survivor may have some answers.”

  “Wait, what?” Solomon asked, looking at the Amazon. “Survivor?”

  She nodded. “Indeed. There was one survivor among the dead. A single one. The only one.”

  “Then let us go,” Soracia said simply, remaining standing. “We must talk to this survivor, and find out exactly what happened.” Within seconds she was around the table and storming toward the door, the rest of the makeshift war council scrambling in her wake.

  Chapter 09 - The Ambush

  * * *

  The Forked Tongue River cut a gouge through Gallowind Wood, a diagonal slash from northeast to southwest, carving a path through trees and ground. A main thoroughfare of transport between the more populated areas in the north and the southern seas, this far south along the river was typically a low volume area. Not much happened here. Elderand, the largest city in the country had easier access to ports in the east and the north, and found little reason to send ships as far south as the area west of Thorathon Village. Finding a shipwreck there was a rarity, to say the least, which was why it was so interesting to the Amazons.

  Solomon couldn’t be totally surprised that a ship had been heading this way, after all, the first group of sellswords had navigated the rapids to get here from Elderand, why not one more? The river was wide and somewhat wild, but generally easy to manage, so if a boat had crashed at the shore, there was likely a reason for it. A cause. According to the Amazon messenger, corpses had littered the boat, leaving just a single survivor, and the survivor just might have lived through a brutal Sharak-Ku ambush.

  Soracia led the chase through the trees, hugging herself low to the back of her horse, its muscular legs pumping as the branches and foliage shifted to mottled green blurs around them. Solomon held her pace, clinging to his own steed just behind her, his horse racing nearly as fast, with Ella on a third horse just to his left. Megyn rode astride Tyson as she always did these days, her light weight and his bounding leaps carrying him nearly as fast as a typical steed. The first few times he’d seen it, Solomon had found it an odd sight, but it had become amazingly commonplace, and now watching Tyson leap left through one gap in the trees, slip under a throng of branches, then pounce over outstretched roots, just seemed like yet another day in the life of Amazon training. Megyn clung to him with her legs, one hand coiled amidst his shimmering silver/white fur, while the other hand rested at her hip, near the hilt of her sword. She seemed perfectly balanced and comfortable, a positive side effect of her unlocking of the Amazon Warrior Skill Tree. Each one of the Amazons was thoroughly trained in mounted combat, and especially with her connection with the white wolf, Megyn had taken to it as well, taken to it in an impressive fashion.

  Sol wouldn’t have been surprised if she was already level 02 at the Side Saddle skill, but he wasn’t jealous.

  Well, yeah, actually… he was pretty jealous. Megyn had thrown herself whole hog into the Amazon training regimen and it was paying off in spades, meanwhile, he’d locked himself in a small, dark corner, flipping the pages of an indecipherable book. Except at least now, he’d started to decipher it. Was it worth watching his friends cruise past him so he could continue to play the long game?

  Solomon thought so. That’s what these games were about. Nobody paid any attention to the people who were level ten compared to level eight, but they did pay attention to those players who rose to the top and stayed there long term. This new StealthCaster tree seemed like a fountain of untapped potential. Only he was going to tap it. Tap it and drink long, hard, and deep.

  Ducking under an oncoming branch, he clung to the horse and nudged it with his heels, accelerating slightly. He couldn’t quite explain why he was feeling so competitive about this whole thing, after all, they were all on the same side. Megyn’s strength was a help to him, not an obstacle.

  “Yeah, keep telling yourself that,” he whispered to himself, his voice lost among the slapping claps of the hooves on dirt. Weaving in and out of the narrow trees, he saw the forest thinning ahead, trees spreading apart and revealing the sparse blue ripples of river water just beyond. Queen Soracia pulled up on her reigns, slowing her mount and Solomon repeated the motion with his own. Ella brought her beast to a neighing halt and Tyson slowed to a plodding trot, all of them stopping just as the ground dipped low into uneven dirt against the edge of the river. A small group of Amazons were already there, huddled around the seated figure of what appeared to be a man, back pressed against the gently sloping grass hill leading up to the trees, wet dirt bunched up around him.

  A short distance away, other Amazons appeared to be retrieving lifeless bodies from the river, which through this section of the forest, had slowed to a trickle, the rapids long since ceased, the water widening and becoming almost still, more like a pool than a rushing river. The boat was a simple wooden watercraft, beached in the mud and long grass, and there were several narrow shafts sticking from its curved hide, a scattering of apparent arrows embedded within the hard shell of the boat. A few arms could be seen dangling over the edge of the craft as well, Amazons clamoring up into the ship to retrieve those bodies along with the others. It looked like a well-coordinated retrieval operation, the women warriors moving in distinct, well-practiced motions, operating as smaller parts of one larger machine, quick, organized, and efficient, just as they did in combat.

  Trotting down
over the slope, Solomon made his way to where the figure sat, Ella and Megyn close behind him. Tyson sat on the ridge of the grass, cocking his head at his rider, but he remained seated, obeying her commands. Even as the three of them approached, the seated figure started to try to stand, his armor clattering as he moved. The man hoisted himself to his feet, a thick layer of chain mail armor shifting over his torso, a metal hood of it peeled back from his skull and bunched up at his shoulders. He wore no helmet that Solomon could see, just a thick tussle of jet black hair which grew in tufts on his head, then down into a thick, long beard. A white tunic with a golden cross was looped over his chest as well, covering the mail armor, and from this distance, Sol could see spattered streaks of crimson in narrow, diagonal slashes across the pale color of the cloth. A long, two-handed broadsword lay in the grass not far away, as well as an angular shield, the cross-shaped crest from his tunic also emblazoned on the smooth metal. The man was drenched in water, his cloth tunic sagging as if it weighed an extra hundred pounds, streams of water sloughing off his chain mail armor.

  “I said I’m fine,” he insisted in a soft, but hard voice. “I survived. It’s the rest of them you should be worried about.”

  “They’re only trying to help,” Solomon said, striding toward the man. As he turned to face him, Sol could see he was tall, well over six feet, his shoulders stocky, though just shy of broad. Encased in the shifting chain mail, his arms looked exceptionally large, almost too large for the rest of his body, though other than that oddity, he appeared perfectly proportioned, a balance of lithe, athletic muscle and rugged good looks.

  “Can I help you, friend?” the man asked, looking at Solomon as he approached. “I am here for a quest.”

  “You mean a quest besides everyone in the boat getting killed? What happened here? Who are you?”