Into the Heart of Evil (17 page)

“Arbelk.” Gorgon looked at the tired warrior. 
Arbelk’s eye’s opened wide when his name was called. “You’ve probably got the
next best nose after Trallik’s.  Go tell Durik and Manebrow that this is going
to be a long chase, then come back to us as quickly as possible to send word of
where we should meet up with the group again.  Tell them about this trail, the
orcs, and that I think the Honor Guard warrior is fleeing toward the Krall
Gen.” Gorgon handed him the reins to his wolf.  “Here, you’ll need my wolf.”

Arbelk nodded and mounted immediately, leaving
back the way they had come at a slow run, which was all that the inexperienced
rider could handle. 

Trallik, in the meantime, had continued down the
trail a short distance and was now waiting for the rest of the team.  He was
almost certain there was at least one young kobold’s scent on the trail they
were following, though he had not mentioned it to Gorgon yet.  He also thought
he might have smelled the slightest hint of wolf, but that was not unusual out
here in the wilds.  As Gorgon and the rest of the team approached, Trallik put
his snout down and began to follow the trail again. 

Durik was stunned by the revelation that Lord
Karthan’s two young heirs to the throne and their guardians had been ambushed
while waiting for his company to arrive.  His emotions took a wild ride after
recovering from the initial shock of the carnage.  At first he felt fear for
the lost Honor Guard warrior, then anger at whoever did this great crime, and
finally fear of reprisal after he realized that Lord Karthan’s two sons had
possibly been put in danger because of the delays his company had experienced
in meeting up with them.  After a moment, however, he realized that, as with
all fears he’d mastered in his life, this fear would do him no good.  In
Durik’s mind, it was time to act now and think about what might come from all
this later.

Manebrow approached him with a look of fierce
determination in his eyes and a pair of steel gloves from one of the backpacks
that had been thrown aside. “Sire, I believe the last Honor Guard warrior is
Khazak Mail Fist. I think he’s escaped his attackers and is carrying Lord Karthan’s
sons.  Sire, we need to move out immediately.”

Kiria, on her knees next to the body of the chief
of her father’s personal guard, looked up with haunted eyes.  In the wild
throws of the emotions churning within her, her expression changed from one of
desperation and loss to one of absolute fury and determination.  Jumping up,
she ran to Starshine.  Grabbing the reins from Kabbak, she immediately jumped
onto the wolf’s back and spurred the wolf to a run.

“Kiria, wait!” Durik called, but it was already
too late.  Without so much as a look backwards, she plunged into the forest in
the direction Gorgon and his team had taken.  With a sigh, Durik ran over to
Firepaw, followed closely by Manebrow.  With a short, ‘Follow us,’ to Ardan,
Durik and Manebrow mounted their wolves and followed her at a run.

Ardan turned to the four remaining members of his
team and Kabbak. “Let’s at least put all the bodies inside the enclosure and
close the door.”  With that, Kabbak, Terrim, Tohr, Kahn, and Arloch joined
Ardan in cleaning up the area before they eventually left the enclosure to
follow their team leader’s trail.

As they began the clean-up, Arloch approached
Ardan. “What do you say I get us a head start?  I’ll scout the path a little
ways, then come back and get the team.  That way we can save some time.”

Ardan nodded his agreement, cautioning Arloch to
come back soon, as the task wouldn’t take that long.  Arloch agreed and
disappeared into the forest at a run.

Kiria’s mind was racing with the possibility of
what might have happened or was about to happen to her younger brothers. 
Initially, she had followed what seemed to be a pretty clear path left by
Gorgon’s team as they had tracked the attackers, then after passing into a
small clearing, it seemed to disappear.  In desperation, she headed off in the
direction she thought they had gone, guiding Starshine around thickets and rock
outcroppings until she had absolutely no idea what direction she was headed. 
She was lost.  As the realization of her situation hit her, Kiria began to cry
in desperation.

After several moments, she began to gather her
thoughts and eventually decided to try to follow her trail back the way she
came.  Dismounting, she tried to use her untrained nose to follow the trail,
but the night wind that blew through the forest confused all scents.  Tracking
by scent proved much more difficult than she was expecting, and soon she was
lost even deeper in the forest.  Looking about her, she recognized nothing, and
she couldn’t remember the path she’d taken to get here.  It was as if the Fates
were against her.

All around her were tall cedar trees, their first
branches extending toward the sky far above her head.  The sweet smell of the
cedar bark in spring made smelling much of anything else next to impossible. 
The forest floor was littered with the old dead branches that had not been
crushed by the snows of winter or the traffic of the beasts of the forest.  The
initial surge of desperation had passed, and she was now beginning to become
fully aware of the situation she had gotten herself into by her rash action.

As Kiria walked along between the large trees, the
wind died down and it became frighteningly clear to her how each step she or
her wolf made echoed noisily under the boughs of those same tall cedar trees. 
Fear grew within her as she realized her vulnerability.  For the first time in
her entire life, there was no warrior nearby to watch over her.  Her only
comfort was Starshine, whose heavy breath behind her seemed as loud to her as
the rushing of a river.

Within her heart, Kiria began to cry out in
desperation to whatever powers might be, whether to the Fates, the ancestors,
The Sorcerer, or The Creator himself, both for herself and for her two younger
brothers whom she felt she had failed.  From the depths of her tortured heart,
the deepest sentiments she had ever felt poured forth as she broke into tears,
burying her face in the warm fur of Starshine’s neck.

Durik and Manebrow had initially kept Kiria within
eyesight.  As Starshine had a much lighter load to carry than their two wolves,
Durik knew that if she didn’t stop, it would be only a matter of time before
Kiria left them behind.  From the beginning, she had been outpacing them and they
had quickly lost sight of her for the last time through the trees.  After a
short while they came to an open area where they completely lost any concept of
where she had gone.  To the right of them the undergrowth seemed thicker,
however, so they both dismounted and began to try to find any traces she might
have left of her passage, or perhaps to pick up her uniquely female scent. 

After several moments of looking around in the
clearing, they found a place in the underbrush that looked as if it had been
disturbed by the passage of a large creature.  Examining it a little closer,
they found a tuft of hair.  Though their heat vision gave them no clue what
animal the hair came from, their noses confirmed that it was definitely wolf
fur.  With renewed vigor, the pair of kobolds plunged into the bushes, following
the trail.

They had not gone far when they reached a small,
clear depression.  The trail here seemed to have gotten lost in the recent
passage of some other animals.  Casting about in the plated matte of dead
winter leaves, Durik and Manebrow found it impossible to discover which way
Kiria and her wolf had gone. 

Coming up next to Durik, Manebrow spoke softly,
“How about we make a circle around this depression to see if we can pick up the
trail again?”

“Aye,” Durik nodded, glad Manebrow was there to
help him fumble after Kiria in the dark of the woods.  The pair immediately set
out to make a one hundred pace wide circle of the depression.

They had not gone far when, to their surprise,
they heard a loud snuffling sound coming from the tall bushes just ahead of
them.  Both of them stopped cold and listened.  Neither of them could see what
was making the noise, but the more they listened, the more it sounded like some
large animal either digging for grubs or nosing about for sweet roots.  Neither
of their wolves seemed unsettled, but then the ever so slight wind that blew
under the canopy of the woods was blowing toward the source of the noise, not
toward them.

As they stood there listening, the wind picked up
slightly, as if the Fates would reveal their presence.  Moments later, the
snuffling stopped, and the distinctive snorting of a great boar who is aroused
to anger, or to defend itself, loudly replaced it.

Manebrow turned to Durik.  “It smelled us!” he
whispered urgently. 

Both of them immediately moved to jump onto the
backs of their wolves.  Suddenly, not twenty paces ahead of them the huge,
lumbering shape of a great boar, its thick, sharp tusks revealed on either side
of its mouth, came through the underbrush.  The glow of heat that emanated from
the boar showed its intensity and anger as it saw the pair of kobolds and
immediately turned to rush them.

Durik was already on Firepaw’s back and turned to
check on Manebrow.  Manebrow had stumbled, however, and was just now grabbing a
hold of the saddle to try mounting again.  The great boar was going to reach
Manebrow before he would be able to escape.  In an instant, it became clear to
Durik what he had to do.

Leveling his spear, Durik kicked Firepaw in the
ribs.  Firepaw jumped into motion.  Initially he wanted to turn away from the
boar, but to his credit as Durik pulled on the reins Firepaw allowed himself to
be turned toward the menacing hulk of the great boar as it lumbered toward
them.  With all of his might, he thrust his spear at the boar’s thick neck. 
With a squeal, the boar thrust his tusks toward Durik even as the spear bit
deep into its neck. 

Durik was thrown from Firepaw’s back as they both
were sent sprawling through the underbrush.  The spear, which was now deep in
the boar’s neck, was bathed by a thick flow of blood as the boar continued
lumbering toward Manebrow and his wolf.  Durik had delayed it enough, however,
that Manebrow was now ready for it. 

Seeing Durik rush the boar, Manebrow had swatted
his wolf on the hindquarters, sending it off into the underbrush as he pulled
his axe from its sling on his back.  He threw back his wolf-skin hood and
waited grim-faced until the boar was close enough, then stepped forward,
swinging his axe downward with all his might. 

The axe sunk deep into the boar’s skull, sundering
its brain and bringing its head and tusks down into the dirt.  Manebrow braced
in the split-second he had to react as the great boar’s body rolled, knocking
him to the ground and rolling partway over him before a tree stopped the
forward momentum of the boar’s massive body, pinning Manebrow against its thick
trunk.