Quasar made a quizzical expression as if he were pondering the validity of Vanx’s words. After a moment he spoke again. “The well-being of the entire Dyntalla settlement outweighs the life of a duke’s daughter. I did what I did, and I will stand by my actions before the High Wizard and the king himself if need be. A man named Garner broke away from our original party when we were attacked. I’m certain he’s gone back to Dyntalla to gather a rescue party. Even if he didn’t make it, Gallarael and I wouldn’t have been alone out here forever.”
“Fair enough,” Vanx replied, and then to Darbon he said, “No, I can’t turn into a bird. We need to put out some fishmeal to draw the haulkats back in. We should probably be on our way.”
“I will,” Darbon replied. “And I’ll see if I can find that horse too.”
“Don’t bother.” Trevin’s tone was grim. “I saw it go down over there.” He pointed. “Your back looks terrible, though. You should rest.” Trevin seated himself beside Gallarael’s unconscious body. “I’ll take care of it when the wizard’s done with his tale.”
“My back’s not so bad,” Darbon told them. But the way his breath caught when he tried to heft up one of the bags of fishmeal said otherwise. He was soon back beside Matty, a few shades paler than before.
“What is this Blood Stone?” Vanx asked.
Quazar shrugged. “I’m not really sure. There’s no doubt that it’s powerful, but until I can research its qualities I cannot say for certain. The Kobalts seem to think it binds the ogres to the area. They say that the ogres have slowly turned from typical wild beasts into deliberate, even evil, creatures. They have set fire to mountain glades and have dumped the rotting corpses of their kills into the streams that feed the forest and lakes below. They have begun slaughtering for pleasure, not just for food. All of this since they came into possession of the Blood Stone. You’ve heard the expression, ‘The enemy of my enemy is my friend’?”
Vanx and Trevin both nodded in unison that they had.
“The Kobalts, who are far more clever than we ever expected, captured a Dyntalla ranging party and, with some difficulty, conveyed that together we could rid the area of the overpopulating beasts. The ogres have grown so populous in the southern mountains that the Kobalts have been forced out of their ancestral domain. They want to go back. They want to restore what the ogres have destroyed. In return for aiding us, they only ask that we leave the Wildwood to them. It seems this forest is one of their sacred hunting grounds.”
“Of course, Duke Ellmont couldn’t agree to the terms. So word was sent to Parydon proper and King Oakarm made a ruling. He sent Prince Russet with his decision. King Oakarm agreed that all the lands between the Waterdon flow and the Kimber River would be left unmolested by the kingdom save for a protected road running from Dyntalla to the upper Waterdon outpost. He-” Quazar hushed and turned quickly as the sound of crunching undergrowth came from just outside the camp.
Amden Gore’s old haulkatten came creeping back like a skulking cur. It bypassed the busted sack of fishmeal that Darbon had dropped and went straight to Matty. The animal nuzzled her and when she began cooing to it, it let out a low, rumbling purr.
Vanx said, “The other one is not very far away. I can hear him.” The odd look Darbon and Trevin both gave him as they strained to hear wasn’t lost on him. Nor was the fact that neither of their expressions held any of the contempt for his race that his people often spoke of.
“She returns your feelings then?” Quazar asked Trevin, seeing the way the guardsman was running his fingers through Gallarael’s hair.
“If she loves me only half as much as I love her, then I am as lucky as a man could be,” Trevin said. “I’ll do anything to save her.”
“Even prick a fire wyrm to get a drop of its blood?” Matty snorted, causing the old haulkatten to skitter away. Immediately, she groped for the creature and began speaking to it soothingly.
“Gallarael does love him,” Vanx said. “Gallarain told me as much. Her mother knows of the affair as well. The duke, though, is another matter. And I will go with Trevin to Dragon’s Isle to save her, if it must be done.”
Quazar stroked his beard and eyed Vanx. “You’ll need more than a drop of it. Why are a venom-riddled princess, her lover, a one-handed-uh-woman, and an apprentice smith traveling the Wildwood with a half-Zythian miscreant such as yourself?” He held up a hand to forestall Vanx’s response to being labeled a miscreant. “This is a tale I want to hear fully told, so I think we should wait until we are on the move again to hear it.”
“It’s a tale all right,” said Trevin. “A tale Duke Ellmont and Prince Russet should hear as well.”
“How, by all the gods, can you tell I’m a smith’s apprentice?” Darbon asked through a painful grimace. “Did you spell me?”
Quazar chuckled. It was a kind of heartfelt laugh that seemed to lift the spirits of the others. “It’s no trick lad. Your right arm is half again bigger than your left from swinging that hammer all day every day. That’s how I know. The fact that you’ve only three whiskers on your chin is how I know you’re an apprentice. Now let me see if I can help that wound of yours.”
Darbon looked from one arm to the other, and back again several times. Matty, who was apparently still struggling to see, made her way over to him. “Never mind that old coot, your arms is hardly noticeable.”
The other haulkatten came pacing back into the camp then. Its chest was puffed out proudly and its muzzle and forepaws were dark with ogre blood. It didn’t hesitate to go straight to the fishmeal. Only after it had eaten its fill did the older creature try to eat.
While Trevin and the others reloaded the two animals, Vanx spoke to Quazar.
“So the king agreed to leave the Wildwood for the Kobalts? How did you get the Blood Stone? Why didn’t the Kobalts just keep it for themselves?”
“The answer, my curious friend, is simple if you think about it.” Quazar patted Vanx on the shoulder. “Ships. Our simple ability to take the Blood Stone from this land completely is why. The Kobalts fear magic almost as much as they fear the sea. They think, and I’m finding they are correct, that the ogres are drawn to the Blood Stone. If they kept it to themselves, the ogres would keep coming to it. Part of the agreement is for us to take the stone from this land to another.”
“How did you get it?” Vanx asked.
“An explorer named Garner was the leader of our party. We negotiated the king’s conditions for a road through the Wildwood with the Kobalts, and then the strange little beasts just handed it over.” Quazar pulled a pouch from his shirt collar. It hung on a leather cord around his neck. In his open palm, he dumped out a smooth, opaque river stone the size of a man’s big toe. It was the deep, rich color of fresh blood. “This was the third time we’ve-well, I’ve been set upon by the big nasties since I’ve had it.”
“The third time?” Vanx was surprised. “How big was the original party?”
“A score of hardened fighters and myself.” Quazar’s voice grew somber remembering the recent deaths for which the stone was responsible. “Their sacrifice wasn’t wasted,” he mumbled as he put the stone into the pouch and pushed it back into his robe. “The ogres come across the plains outside Dyntalla in packs. They thwart our every attempt to farm the land.” The old wizard shook with the hatred he felt for the creatures. “They scatter the herds that have to graze out there and they kill the animals and their tenders with reckless abandon. They don’t even eat the meat. Well they eat some of it, but they leave more than they consume. They just kill, kill, kill. We need them gone or thousands will go hungry. This is a great step toward that end.”
The intense conviction of Quazar’s belief showed in his voice, but Vanx found that he could understand the ogre’s lack of willingness to have their land overrun by the humans.
As if he could see Vanx’s thoughts, Quazar went on. “They must go back across the mountains, Vanx; their numbers have tripled since the kingdom has had a settlement here. They must be thinned out. They are like a plague, a huge menacing plague that will deplete the entire land of its resources if they are not stopped, or at least slowed.