Adamtheon Revelations

Chapter One

Guardi made his careful way through the thickest parts of the forest, searching for the vital ingredients that he would then combine into the poison that kept the Sialstrasii at bay.

Without it he would be found, exposed by their potent mind-bending abilities and be forced to leave his home to make his way in the world.

That was not a thing Guardi wanted to happen again and so he would find the herbs and mosses needed to brew his potion and keep the Sialstrasii from ever finding him.

When he had first been expelled from the palace he had been lost and alone, with only his innate knowledge of plant lore to help him. His white teeth bared at the memory of being thrown from the island to perish in the forest below. And none of it had been his fault. Mostly.

His eye picked out the tell-tale green tinged, orange lichen hiding on the southern side of a bera tree and he made his way around it, scraping the stuff into a clay pot with his knife.

Regu.

His mind whispered her name and he shuddered at the memories. Days spent in her company, nights in her bed and everything had been good. Or so he had thought. The fur on his cheeks stood out in embarrassment as he recalled the day Regu had cast him aside favouring another over him.

The sight of her mocking gaze and her hand on his arm as Guardi had been dragged to the edge of the precipice and prepared to be cast into the air had cut him deeply. His final words had been directed at the long boned warrior who stood beside Regu the queen.

“You will be next!”

Satisfaction came when the realisation had washed over the immense creature’s face, his almost lizard like expression falling at the same rate Guardi had when the guards had thrown him over the edge.

Guardi squeezed his eyes shut tight as he tried to forget the harrowing fall and subsequent broken arm that had resulted from it.

Time to check the traps. He thought, shaking the memories from his mind.

Flicking through the forest unseen or heard by any of the Sialstrasii, who guarded the palace above from prying eyes, Guardi made his way back to his section of the forest.

Home.

He dropped his bag and scaled the nearest tree as if born to it, wrapping long fingered hands and feet around the rough trunk to haul himself aloft.

Nestled in the branches, high in the canopy, Guardi stared at the floating island that had been his home for a time. A low keening sound issued from his throat as he stared at the golden spires and marbled columns the palace had been fashioned from.

Shaking his head to clear it, Guardi turned his attention to the traps he had set to capture the bright pink lizards that formed the basis of his poison.

Two had wandered in, following the sweet scent of the fruit he had baited the cage with before becoming trapped. Guardi slipped on a supple, leather glove, fashioned from the cured hide of the lizards themselves and reached in, grasping the lizards and shoving them into a leather sack of the same skin.

Months of work had gone into the procurement and manufacture of the glove and bag, but Guardi knew a single touch of the poison the lizards produced would be fatal to a small creature like him and had handled the reptiles with sticks until they had been completed.

With his haul in his sack and glove removed, Guardi threw one final look at the palace before shinning down the tree once more. He gathered his bag of harvested moss, lichen, leaves and fungi and turned to make his way back to his cave.

He froze before he had taken his first step, however, confronted by the sight of a gigantic leg in front of him.

Thicker than the tree he had just climbed and clad in black leather, the leg was soon joined by another as some blue faced giant strode through his forest. His forest.

Guardi had painstakingly carved out this section of forest, clearing it of Sialstrasii one by one then fouling the area with his poison to keep the nasty plants away.

Now there were strangers in his forest, his home, big ones, and Guardi did not want them here.

He dipped low behind a thick tree trunk that had shrubs at the base, watching in horror as more strangers trampled through his home, churning up the soil and smashing their way through the foliage.

***

Amael paused beneath the trees, the dimness and dark of the jungle almost normal now, after a few weeks spent beneath the spreading boughs. Each member of the party had had misgivings about the forest when they had first come across it, a blank wall of vegetation with no real pathways through any of it.

Yet the fact had remained they were being pursued by a large number of men who had spent the previous three weeks following them on the orders of Emperor Nedulus.

Amael was unaware as to whether those orders were to capture or kill and had no desire to discover which.

The landscape had changed subtly and slowly as they had travelled through it, heading ever eastwards. From the small town where Lennon had bought their new mounts and provisions, they had followed an arid riverbed filled with rounded pebbles and with trees lining the top.

Eventually this had turned north so they had dragged themselves up the bank and set out across an immense plain, the grass rippling in the wind that blew gently from the south.

Low hills surrounded them on occasion, sometimes with gatherings of crude buildings at the base.

At one point they came across a roving band of nomadic tribes people, several families with their herds of goats and sheep that had set up their tents, staying where they were for a few days to let their animals graze.

Amael had led them towards the tents in the hope of trading for some items. They had been welcomed into the nomads’ homes, finding the oddly shaped tents surprisingly spacious inside. Spiced meats and unusually flavoured vegetables had been served, the smiling nomads encouraging everyone to eat as much as they could.

They had talked about their herds, their children and the condition of various areas of grasses that would be ripe in the coming months. Eventually one of the nomads had brought out some kind of stringed instrument and sitting cross legged in the middle of the tent had begun to play a tune.

Voices had joined in, first a woman then a man and so on until nearly everyone in the tent had been singing some counterpoint or another as the tempo picked up speed. When finally they finished, Amael and his companions had clapped and cheered before their hosts had brought out some incredibly potent drink and the remainder of the evening had been spent in a warm, blurry buzz.

“There are men following us,” Amael had told the eldest man and apparent leader the following morning. “Dangerous ones,” he had added.

Dunatri’s face had not changed expression, remaining stoically blank as he scanned the horizon as if able to see them approaching. The nomad had run his fingers through his jet-black hair and fixed Amael with a serious expression for a long moment.

Eventually he grinned and clapped the sword-mage on the shoulder.

“We have been thinking it is time to see how the grass grows in the south,” Dunatri said. “Thank you, friend Amael, for this warning.”

“And thank you for the hospitality of your home,” Amael had told him.

A few hours later when they had reached the crest of a hill to the east, Amael had looked back to see every trace of the nomads had gone. They had packed up their tents and ushered their herds away leaving nothing but a patch of flattened grass to show they had ever been there.

Paratoz soared overhead, keeping an eye out for the men following and reporting they were falling behind on less than regular occasions. Whenever the eagle did bother to land anywhere near them his reports were always brief and to the point.

“Too many of them to keep up,” he had said one day as he casually ripped apart a rabbit he had fallen on from above. “They are falling behind,” Paratoz had finished his rabbit and spread his wings, leaving them again.

Even though the bird assured them the force behind them were slowing day by day, Amael could not afford to relax. Having only just met the eagle he had no way to know if he could be trusted and for all the sword-mage could tell, the men that followed them could be gaining on a daily basis. So he drove them on, resting only when it was completely necessary and relying on Quirill to tell him if anyone approached using the robot’s newfound ability to detect movement.

It had been during this time Gagrus had chosen to share his past with them. The hybrid had crept closer to their small fire that night, Kadeed joining him as she usually did.

“I woke in a cage, next to Kadeed, she was weak and needed water but there was none to be had. In a desperate attempt to keep her alive, I opened one of my veins allowing her to drink and live. Eventually someone came with a little meat and water but we spent the first months of life on the edge of starvation and drought,” his tone was understandably bitter.

“Eventually Seranach came back for us, bundling us into some kind of box. She always claimed she made us, created us by amalgamating animals and people, yet I have come to believe otherwise,” he spat the last words angrily into the night. “And when we finally got to the capital we were thrown into cages and still barely fed. Seranach would torture one of us while the other was forced to watch.”

A low growl issued from Kadeed’s throat as she recalled something that had been done to her.

“And in all that time, in all those years, she never told me what she wanted from me, never made any demands, just cut and burned and slashed and stabbed and using her powers on me, turning sections of me into stone and back again. That kind of thing,” he spat.

“There is no telling why the insane do as they do,” Kadeed said in a blank voice. “No point to even try and fathom it out.”

The party had been silent after that, each member with their own thoughts.

Fortunately the weather stayed balmy, warm and mainly dry with just enough rain to keep the grass lush and fatten the berries that festooned the low-growing shrubs they passed.

Occasional stands of trees provided a night time shelter for the group as they wound their way ever eastwards towards the looming mountains. Those peaks began as a darker smudge on the horizon, resolving into darker shapes that raked the sky with immense peaks of grey rock and snow.

Eventually had come the day when they had looked down a gently sloping hill to see an immense forest stretching off into the distance, nestling at the base of the mountains and straddling the lower slopes of the foothills.

Worry had gnawed at Amael for some reason as he approached the twisting, gnarled branches and trunks. He had never been concerned about forests before, seeing them as places to shelter and provide resources whenever he had travelled through them previously.

“Let’s make camp here,” he announced before they entered the woods proper.

Relief had shown on the faces of his companions at the thought of remaining outside the trees and he knew he was not the only member of the party to feel apprehension at entering those thick boles.

Later, around a crackling, snapping fire, he had voiced his concerns, letting them all speak on the subject.

“Don’t know what it is,” he had begun, chewing a piece of jerky as hard as boot leather. “But I get a weird feeling from these woods,” he had allowed the sentence to sound like a question, inviting them to speak.

“There feels to be something,” Taraki had mumbled, almost embarrassed. “Unpleasant...in there. Is it a trap?” He asked as if any of them would know.

Zsham shrugged, shifting his bulk into a more comfortable position and casting a glance at the trees looking even more sinister in the dancing light from their fire.

“Don’t know about a trap but I don’t get the most pleasant of feelings from in there either,” the orc had growled.

“I can assure you there is nothing moving within the trees, master Zsham,” Quirill had told them all as he prepared yet another meal for them all.

“Still,” Cyrix had chimed in, her voice still light and musical despite the dark conversation. “I can feel something emanating from the forest as well. Are we completely sure this is where Chleran is being held?”

“No,” Amael admitted frankly. “All we’ve got to go on is what Paratoz has told us and for all I know he’s still loyal to the emperor. Truth is he never stays long enough to have a conversation and when he is here,” the sword-mage had spread his potentially lethal hands. “He barely says anything.”

Nods had greeted his comments, they had all seen the eagle come and go over the previous weeks and knew his taciturn, abrupt nature.

“There is yet another difficulty we face,” Prittlewell had rumbled, shifting his head until his eye showed in the firelight. “I am of too large a size to fit betwixt those trees,” he rumbled. “I cannot accompany you on this section of your travels.”

Amael had caught the look of worry that had flickered across Lennon’ face at the dragon’s words and he knew they all considered the dragon a comforting presence, especially since his demonstration besieging the walls of Murhamanar to aid their escape.

It had been reassuring to have the immense lizard with them, a lethal, fire breathing creature to provide support. If he left them now what effect would it have on the morale of the group, especially in the face of the malevolent air rolling from within the trees?

“You’ll have to go around,” Amael said. “Meet us in the mountains somewhere, once we’ve found Chleran,” Amael had chosen his words carefully, making sure to keep a positive note on anything he said.