Path of the Stonebreaker

Chapter 90

Dawn of a New Day

Tanlor picked through the bodies of the rakmen. The air was filled with smoke, the stench of burning flesh, and the sound of moans and cries from the wounded and dying.

Tanlor had survived many battles and the aftermath was often the same. In the midst of the chaos, soldiers would be searching for survivors, administering aid to the wounded, and clearing the area of any remaining threats. Healers would be using their bloodstone runestones to mend the broken bodies of their comrades, while some would be digging their graves. Fortunately, there would be no graves dug this morning by Tanlor.

The haunting white light of dawn struggled to break through the smoky haze. There was light enough however to reveal the bodies of rakmen lay strewn about the battlefield. The air was cold and sharp. The bodies wouldn’t be long getting covered in snow.

Tanlor found what he was looking for. A large rakman, his face covered by a white mask. One of their runewielders. The rakmen called their runewielders ‘Shamans’ and were considered to be positions of great power and influence. This one was wearing a grey cloak and had Tanlor’s greatsword grasped in his dead hands.

Tanlor pried the fingers open and lifted the sword, happy to have its weight in his hands again. It had been taken from him after the first assault on Twin Garde. He checked the body over for runestones and was satisfied to find a topaz on him. He was still hoping to come across the signal bondstone that Archduke Edmund had given him, but so far he’d had no luck.

He made his way back towards the docks where Daegan and the others were regrouping. Yaref and Daegan seemed to be having a heated discussion about what to do next. Tar and Puck sat watching their prisoners with reliable diligence.

The prisoners worried Tanlor. He’d seen first hand what the trio of Reldoni bloodshedders could do in battle and he figured they could easily free themselves from the leather bonds that Tanlor had used to tie them up. The bald man was still unconscious but the two women stared daggers at their captors.

The red-haired one with the warrior’s cut eyed Daegan with disturbing vehemence.

“Got everything you need?” Daegan asked Tanlor as he approached.

“As much as I can with the time we’ve got.”

“Good, we’ll leave in the hour,” Daegan directed.

“We need time to rest and recover, that man’s in no shape to travel,” Yaref argued, pointing to the bald Reldoni.

“Well, it’s a good thing they’re not coming with us then,” Daegan retorted.

“You can’t mean to leave them here like that? No?” Yaref glared at him, “we both know that more rak will be coming here soon. We’ll be leaving them as lambs for the slaughter.”

“Something tells me that they won’t be long getting free of those bonds and on their merry way as soon as we’re gone,” Tanlor put in.

“You’ve seen how accomplished they are in battle,” Daegan added, “I don’t think anything the rak sends at them will take ‘em down. And we can’t risk taking them with us. Be content that I’ve changed my mind about killing them.”

Tanlor was not pleased with that decision. He had been firmly in the ‘kill them’ camp. Yaref, as the group’s healer, was too valuable to them to dismiss his opinions however. The greying man was staunchly opposed to killing humans—especially ones that had saved their hides in his mind. But they didn’t come here to save us. They’re here to kill Daegan.

Tanlor looked back at Daegan. He stood tall and proud. The red crystal dagger was still in his hand and ready to be used at any moment if the prisoners acted. His movements had become deliberate and purposeful and he always made sure the dagger was in sight of the prisoners.

“Can we talk for a minute?” Tanlor asked Daegan, then flicked his eye to the rest of the group, “alone?”

“Sure,” Daegan nodded.

“If we are going to leave them, at least give me some time to heal the man’s wounds,” Yaref protested, continuing the argument they’d been having. It was strange how the three Twin Garde men had already started treating Daegan as their leader despite barely knowing him.

“Fine,” Daegan. “Do what you can, but when the sun rises above those trees, we’re gone. We can talk over here Tanlor,” Daegan walked him a few steps away from the dock towards the fissure in the ground that Ferath had opened during the battle.

“We can’t let them live,” Tanlor said once they were out of earshot.

“Yaref won’t stand for it,” Daegan shook his head, “and like it or not, we’ll need all three of them; Tar, Puck and Yaref, if we’re going to save Rowan.”

“You’re sure that’s what you want to do?” Tanlor couldn’t shake the guilt of even asking it. Daegan had been the one to propose the plan to save Tanlor’s brother, the one leading the path forward while Tanlor had hesitated.

“Of course,” Daegan replied, then with a hint of concern, “are you?”

The memory of the rakmen storming Twin Garde filled Tanlor’s chest with a deep sense of dread. He had seen what they were capable of and a part of him felt that the entire mission was foolish to even consider. Five men against gods-knows how many of them. They didn’t even know where they’d taken Rowan.

But Tanlor couldn’t simply do nothing. Rowan was out there—alone and wounded—and he needed to be rescued. The thought of leaving him left him with a sense of guilt that was almost overwhelming. Rowan wouldn’t have thought twice. He’d already be on the trail, tracking the direction the rakmen had taken with their captives.

He looked at Daegan who was awaiting his decision. Daegan was willing to risk his life for Rowan’s. Tanlor didn’t even need to ask him. Tanlor closed his eyes and took a deep breath, trying to clear his mind. He needed to come up with a plan, a way to save Rowan without getting himself and Daegan killed in the process.

He felt a hand on his shoulder. Tanlor lifted his eyes and found Daegan holding his gaze with intensity.

“We can’t leave him,” Daegan said, “I know that you won’t… and you don’t have to do this alone. Tar and Puck are skilled combat runewielders. And we struck gold with Yaref, having a healer with us is indispensable… and there’s me,” Daegan trailed off and glanced down at the dagger, “and I’ve got this.”

“We barely know how that thing works,” Tanlor said cautiously.

“I told you already,” Daegan replied, not taking his eyes off it, “holding it… I think I can feel the edirs of everyone around me. The dagger wants them… like it’s consuming them. But it can’t unless I allow it to.”

“The dagger is dangerous,” Tanlor remembered all too well what the effect of the dagger had felt like. Like someone was trying to suck my soul right out of me.

“That’s why we agreed that only I should hold it. We don’t know what it might do to someone that’s not hindered.”

“I don’t think we should be trusting this thing. It seems too easy… what if it backfires on us?”

“We don’t have a choice. Rowan’s life is in danger and this is our best shot. It helped us take down Ferath and it’s keeping Landryn’s lackeys in line.”

“The younger one. She’s not taken her eyes off the dagger since you used it on her,” Tanlor said.

“They’re not used to being powerless,” Daegan determined, “they call themselves bloodshedders—they were my brother Landryn’s elite soldiers.”

The battle had been chaotic. The Reldoni were fighting the rak and those strange crab creatures. Ferath had seemed to splinter off from the group, disobeying orders and incapacitating his own companions in attempts to kill Daegan. Despite this, Tanlor and Daegan had no illusions that the other Reldoni were here for anything other than that same purpose. But Ferath had been unhinged close to the end.

After Daegan had killed Ferath and the rak chief—claiming the bloodstone dagger—The blond Reldoni girl had approached. Tanlor couldn’t remember exactly how the conversation had gone down. He’d been weakened from the daggers effect in the rak chief’s hands. He’d seen Daegan and the girl standing off against each other. Then she was on her knees gasping for breaths.

Daegan had been quick to figure out how the dagger worked. He had used it to suppress the Reldoni group's abilities long enough for Tar and Puck to tie them up. They’d also checked them over for runestones and couldn’t find any. Tanlor had figured they just hadn’t looked hard enough but after Tanlor had done a thorough search of Ferath’s body for an aradium runestone and found nothing, he was inclined to believe that somehow these people didn’t need any gemstones to runewield. It was a disconcerting thought, but Tanlor had shoved it to the side to deal with the more pressing matters of their situation.

“Brings us back to what we do with them,” Tanlor said.

“We could burn the rafts, the leader—Misandrei—she admitted that an icerafter brought them across the ice. We find him and send him back across the ice, and leave them here. They won’t be able to catch up to us on foot… and if they do,” Daegan raised the dagger to point at them.

“We don’t know which direction those rak went with Rowan, it shouldn’t be hard to track the area with all the snow but there’s lots of tracks around here, we could end up looping back around. We can’t just leave ‘em here and hope for the best. We should kill them.” Tanlor argued, there was a building urgency in him now that he’d resolved to go after Rowan. His brother had been in bad shape when he’d been taken away and Tanlor wouldn’t wager that the rak were looking after him well.

“For that…” Daegan mused, “I might have a solution. One that doesn’t involve turning Yaref against us. You saw Rowan’s injuries, we’re going to need Yaref when we rescue him.”

“What are you thinking?” Tanlor asked sceptically.

“You’re not going to like it,” Daegan smirked mischievously, he then nodded towards the remnants of the battle. Tanlor followed his gaze out over the bodies of rakmen.

“No,” Tanlor shook his head when his eyes finally landed on what Daegan meant,

“Absolutely not.”

“You were against him before, and he ended up being quite the fortuitous asset in the battle.”

“He’s a beast!” Tanlor chastised, “look at him!”

As they spoke, the beastman was tearing the flesh from one of the dead rakmen and devouring it. He hacked occasionally as he did so as if the meal were highly unpleasant.

“That dagger might not turn against us, but he definitely will,” Tanlor argued.

“We don’t know that, he seems to hate the rak enough,” Daegan had a roguish grin that unsettled Tanlor as he watched the beastman feed. “I’m going to ask him,” Daegan had a cheerful expression as he walked over towards the creature. He would glance back towards the prisoners every few moments to make sure he was still in sight of them.

“Daegan! We should talk about this,” Tanlor raced after him.

“Baroc!” Daegan called out. The beastman’s head whipped towards them, his tufted ears perked. His snout was covered in the blue blood of rakmen. It looked vivid in the early morning light.

“Arek dun prospectur, Baroc,” Daegan pulled up a few yards from the beastman speaking in Old Esterin. The black and grey striped fur bristled on the creature’s back as he rose to standing. He stood a good head taller than Daegan. Tanlor glared at Daegan expressing his displeasure. He moved his hand to rest on the hilt of his greatsword.

Baroc sniffed but didn’t speak and Daegan spoke again.

***

“Pale rak said Baroc was free man,” Baroc grumbled. Baroc could feel his anger rising. He had little intention of becoming a slave again and certainly not these small pale raks.

“You are,” the one called Daegan replied, “I’m asking you if you would like to join us in our hunt. We’re planning to track the rak group that left and find our friends that were captured.”

“Rak will kill you,” Baroc replied, but then on second consideration, these seemed to be strong shamans that could hold their own well enough against the rak.

“Not if we have you. That nose of yours I bet makes you a great tracker. With you helping us, we could find and sneak up on their camp,” there was something different in Daegan’s scent that Baroc couldn’t place. He spoke and bore himself differently too. Baroc knew that battles could temper one’s will.

“Why should Baroc help you?” Baroc asked. The odious taste of his rak handler was still in his mouth and he was eager to wash it down. But Baroc had promised himself that he would eat the rak’s flesh, despite how much he abhorred the taste.

“You tell me,” Daegan countered. “What do you want?”

It was a question he hadn’t expected from the creature. No rak had ever asked him anything like it before. Perhaps these ‘men’ truly were different to their rak brethren. Baroc would have to ask the elders at Shadow Peaks if they knew anything of their kind. He would first need to make it across the forest to reach his home. It would be a very long and treacherous march through rak territory.

“I want to go home,” Baroc admitted. But another part of him wanted revenge. A part of him craved for the loathsome taste of rak flesh. Daegan claimed that he was hunting them. Going with him would mean that Baroc would have the opportunity to cull more of their wretched kind from the land. It is also safer to travel in a pack.

Baroc knew there would be rakmen encampments throughout the woods between here and his home. He remembered where most of the ones he’d passed through as a slave were located. Travelling with this group meant numbers by which to fight. But it also meant stealthily avoiding them was more difficult.

But he did not want to avoid them, he realised. Baroc wanted the rak to suffer. He wanted to tear the faces from the handlers that kept his kind in cages and collars. His paw rubbed at the raw skin where his own muzzle and collar had recently been.

“I want to kill more rak,” Baroc then said. Daegan bared his teeth but Baroc did not smell any aggression off him. It was some kind of friendly gesture that Baroc did not understand.

“I was hoping you’d say that,” Daegan said.