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Chapter 2-The brightest shadow and the darkest farewell


Alastar spent the day running errends for Maria and her shop, the furthest place she would probably ever walk besides the smithy, as it was only about a mile from their her house. He kept an eye out for the magician, but sun down was coming fast, In a few hours it would be dark. Alastar sighed and picked up the buckets filled with fresh fruit that he had just bought…for free. Alastar enjoyed the thought of how we acquired the fruit, a newcomer to the town was selling it, and as he came to buy it, he accidentally flashed the mark on his right forearm. Of course as he got lost in the memory savoring it, he has hit on the head with a rock, a rather rude awakening he thought, especially since it hit hard in his left cheek. As he turned he noticed the magician Kristina flustered trying to get his attention from behind someone else’s house. As he got over to where she stood she began yelling, “You filthy thief! You stole something that belongs to…is that Mallorn fruit? How in the nine levels of hell did you get such an expensive and rare fruit?” As quick as a sparrow she grabbed on of the large, bubble shapped purple fruits and bit in., “mmmhmmm, It is so fresh! How did you get it so fresh? There can’t be any Mallorn trees for miles!” The pink juices dripped down her face with every bite, but she barely seemed to care, “Oh hey, excuse me! I’m-“ Alastar cut her off, “Are all northerners like you?” Kristina swung the fruit in his direction as if trying to point at him, “that depends, far north in the frozen mountains, than of course. BUT in the lands of the white city, the area I assumed you might have been from because of how you look and act, of course I don’t think so now…no.” Alastar wiped the sticky juice off of him, “Than I should go north, instead of asking to travel with you wherever this petty adventure leads you to.” Kristina’s froze, “read the note have ya? Guess I will have to take you then, so long as you don’t tell anyone, just like I was told not to tell anyone. You can’t go north, Something big is going down, up there. Whatever it is, it has caused them to close off all ship routes to and from there, I myself got on the last ship that was leaving, and I barely made it out.” Alastar frowned, it figures he would have such bad luck, “I guess than I am stuck with you.”
“yup, you sure as hells are, now about that coin? Did you find that too?” he had found it, but he had also used it earlier, “It is long gone by now, what does it matter? You’ve already used it for what it’s worth, surely you have other golden coins.” Kristina shook her head, “not like that one, it had unique markings on it, made it look like an old day royal coin from the old kingdoms.” Alastar was confused, he had read about the old kingdoms in books Maria owned, but never knew it actually existed. If it was real, than perhaps trees like elms and oaks existed too, he had never seen trees with any other color than green or blue, the greens of the felwood forest, and the blues of the Salene trees, trees like the ones he was in the day before, “You are an idiot boy! I swear, that coin was probably worth a fortune, and I imagine they wanted to see it again as proof!”, Alastar smiled, “you’re a magician, use your petty tricks and make a fake coin.” This caused Kristina’s nostrils to flare, “Magician? Petty tricks? I am a wizard and I can do more than petty tricks boy!” Now Kristina’s face was red and her fists were clenched, she was at the point where most people would stop being rude, and probably back off a bit…not Alastar, “My name is not boy, it is Alastar, and the way I read it your called a witch or a sorceress or something, there all the same, besides magic isn’t real, This is something you learn as a child, I learned it, when will you?” Alastar then turned around and began walking home, he would leave without this childish girl. Of course he did not realize that it would not be so easy to walk away, as the next thing he realized was dirt did not taste good in any way. Kristina than rolled him upon his back, and stepped on his chest, “Now listen here boy! I do not give a rats tail about your name! You should know that magic flows through everything, we all have some magical potential, and witches, wizards, sorcerers, warlocks and the likes are not one and the same, but many different groups of alternately talented people, be it the studious wizard, or the wild casting sorcerer, or even the brewing witches and rich alchemists, the powers and abilities are limitlessly limited within each class of people!” Kristina had grabbed Alastar by the collar, her face only an inch away from his, her nostrils flaring like a mad bull. Alastar was confused, he had never been thrown on the ground by a girl. This one was defiantly a strong one, and perhaps stronger than him. Kristina dropped him and held out her hand, “If you’re gonna to come, than you better get your stuff. It is getting dark.” Alastar got up and brushed himself off. He hadn’t realized how hard of a fall he had taken until now, as he stood he felt disoriented and bruised from the impact. Alastar had also skinned his right shoulder and cheek. What a b***h he thought as he walked back to Maria’s house. He may need to learn the sword earlier than he thought.

Upon reaching Maria’s house he realized she was not there. Alastar noted that this was the first time she left her house so late without him. Normally when she was not there she was out gathering herbs, but she also normally took her lantern hanging by the door, and that was not gone. Though she was usually gone late in the evening, she never stayed out too late, especially not this late, though he was not too concerned as he walked back out of the house. He stopped at the door and looked out at the town.

Maria’s house overlooked most of the village. It was rather large, though for a place still considered a village, at least according to the book he had read describing the different sizes of towns, villages, and cities. Around the town was a wooden wall, not large and a person could easily climb over as it only came up about six feet. On the east side were the farms and the fish farmers, the middle was a disoriented mix of houses and shops, the north was the docks, and on his side was Marias house, Marias shop and the Fel woods. South was the wooden fence and the way out. For the most part the place was safe, The Fel woods scared of even the bravest and biggest of men. The size of the town, it would take about a thousand perhaps of the widest of men to stretch across the town if they stood side by side arms stretched out.

As Alastar looked up from his thoughts he saw Kristina in the townm near the fourth clover inn, the closest inn to the entrance of the town. He noticed her leaning against the Inn, surrounded by four other men, one of them seemed to be a giant of a man, about as big as a bear, but then he noticed something out of place. Maria was in the town, she was heading towards the farms. Alastar was shocked at the next thing he noticed. What seemed to be an endless swarm of bandits in the south, and black sailed ships in the North. The gods never meant for this town to survive.

Alastar began running as fast as he could, he knew he had to warn everyone, and he knew if he started at the inn, than hopefully it would spread fast enough to warn Maria.

“Bandits! Raiders! The town is under attack!” he began shouting as he neared the inn, “Bandits, hordes of them, help me warn the villagers!” he was slightly out of breath, as he bent over clasping his knees, Maria’s house was far from the Village, and even farther from the inn. The giant of a man, who was clthed only in a bear skin loin cloth and boots shouted, or at least it seemed like he did, his voice was loud and booming, “HA! No worries, a few dozen bandits are nothing to the likes of me! There be no need to warn those who would die just of fear itself!” The man had long unkept blonde hair, blue eyes was bigger than a bear, and had a strange pattern of blue markings on his chest and arms. As his gruff voice rang out like thunder, Alastar was sure somebody if not the whole village had heard, “There is more than a few dozen, try a few more men than there are leaves in the fel woods,” another man bald with reddish tan skin spoke up, in a crackly snake like voice, “Perhaps this be a test from the man who brought us here? To hold of a few thousand easily slain soldiers, perhaps he wishes to test our might, of course I will not be needin your help!” he let out a hedious laugh, like nails against glass. The man had red eyes, pointed ears and a long sharp nose, he wore a blood red chest plate, one arm was exposed, the other arm, the left arm, was covered in plate armor. Each shoulder had a set of three spikes in a triangular pattern on either end. The man had green trousers, with red plated over his thigh and shins, and red boots. On the man’s back were two really long swords, and in the metallic arm was a spear.
“Than your summoner must think you gods, there is no way you can fight your way through this and win, you have to help me warn the villagers!” Alastar hadn’t thought it would be so hard to get warnings going, they were wasting time, and though Alastar did not like the villagers, this was no way for them to end, “Hey boy..er…I mean Alastar, can you use that sword at your side? If so follow me and the two of us can hold them off at least for a little while,” Alastar raised an eye, “How do you plan to do that?” Kristina answered in a that’s obvious tone, “With magic, duh!” Alastar frowned and dropped his shoulders, they were doomed, and he was the only one who realized it. This girl was intent on the fact that she could use magic, and it seemed Alastar was the only one in the world who was still sane.
“I’ll do it, I am much bigger than that whelp, and definitely more skilled in combat…So uh…what is the plan?” Kristina put her hands on her hips and shook her head, sighing, “I was going to cast a temporary gigantism spell, making you grow three times your size, but the bigger the person the more energy channeled so we may not get you so big, but of course I can try, let’s go we haven’t got all night, we still have a meeting to make” Alastar frowned and watched as the two ran off, how could they be so naïve? Before Alastar turned around he was approached by another man in the group, he was dark skinned and bald, with a scar on his left eye, the man held a curved blade, wore dark black trousers, and a green silken belt, with nothing covering the upper portion of his body, “Is there truly such a large group of invaders? This village is a port village like the one I came from, perhaps the villagers can escape by ship? The strongest unwived men can stay to protect the village, while the rest escape.” Alastar shook his head, “no good, they have a fleet prepared outside also, it is the largest raiding party I have ever heard of…and they are definitely just common bandits, they have leather armor, short swords and small wooden shields.” The dark skinned man frowned, “than let us warn the villagers, so that we may have the grandest loss a city could see, and let these raiders think twice before they attack again!” Alastar could not see the grand part of loss, but agreed in warning the villagers, as the remaining men at the inn ran to warn the villagers, Alastar heard the bandits screaming, “Giant! A giant defends this place! Retreat! There may be more if there is one!” It sounded like many of the leaders saw through the trick though, and were trying to get there men back into formation. It seemed Alastar was not the only one who could see through a light and shadow trick, many of the boys in town would play giant on occasion, though he was starting to wonder, as it wasn’t any brighter now than it was before.
By the time he hit his twelfth house he could feel the stampede under his feet, it seemed the trick was over, by now half the villagers had been alerted, and were warning others or arming themselves. The town guard having been first warned, had set up blockades, and were ready at the entrance. The rest of the town had barricades around and had a funnel ready so that all the bandits would be forced to meet at one point, in wich the villagers could have a more fair fight.

Alastar knew this was going to be a massacre, there was no way to win, even if every man woman and children took up some form of arms, that the roughly 500 villagers could hold off the thousands or millions of raiders that were more skilled, had armor, and better happens, charging at their homes.

Alastar had made it back to the center of town and met back up with the dark skinned man was, “My name is Darius, by the way, I have heard others refer to you as Alastar, well met then Alastar, Let us join battle, and die gloriously for honor and valor, the kind bards would sing of for years to come!” and with that he let out a shout and charged to battle, where the others had met up and fighting the bandits, who had made it to the third set of barricades, burning everything they torches could touch on their way through. The bandits had four more barricades before the docks, the town’s most prized possession. The fleet outside was doing nothing, it seemed they were there just to keep the men land bound, and sing anything that tried to leave.

Alastar watched the battle unfold, the man with the reddish tan skin had shoved his spear through four men at once, and hat them pinned to a burning building, screaming for the rest of their life, he had both swords out and his attacks looked more like a dance than a battle, he was cutting through them like butter, the bear of a man showed his brute strength, as he lifted men off the ground, using their heads as weapons, swinging them by a single leg before letting them fly like a spear, to knock down two or three other men. Darius’s curved sword moved almost unseen, severing limbs, and Darius had an unbelievable amount of motion with his blade, and could move much faster than any other man out there. He could not be blocked, and no man knew the weakness of the curved blade known as the scimitar. He did not see Katrina, who had probably died during the fake gigantism spell, or was hiding, though Alastar doubted the unintelligent girl would do that.

Finally Alastar rushed forward, unable to stand the wait, he was followed by three other young man, who were also impatient, but as they ran a building to their left exploded, sending all four boys flying, two of the boys died, one was wounded, and Alastar’s cloak caught ablaze. The cloak had wrapped itself around Alastar’s left arm, and stayed there as he tried to get it off for what felt like three hours. As he got the cloak off he saw that his shirt’s sleeve had been reduced to ashes, but his arm had only the slightest of a burn on it, he stared at it for a minute, knowing that he should be in massive pain and have blisters all along his arm, but he did not and this surprised him.

As luck may have it though, Alastar’s next sight what not something near as enthralling. As he turned to start charging again, he saw Maria running from a large man in blood red plate armor, with spikes in almost every corner of the armor. The man’s sword was almost as wide as it was long, the middle of the blade had two spikes that jutted out, making the sword look a hell of a deadly blade, the man was wielding this large weapon in one hand, as if it weighed nothing, it was obvious no normal sized man could hold this weapon.

Maria did not have much room to run, as there was fire in every direction, but finally she tripped on a loose board, and the man’s left arm reached out and grabbed her by the thought, his hand was so large that his fingers reached around and touched his thumb. Alastar saw Maria speak something to the man, and bring her left hand and touched the man’s helmet. Alastar raised his hand to block his eyes, as a flash of blue light suddenly appeared, and the man’s helmet flew off, when Alastar lowered his hand the man’s head had been twisted all the way around. Blood was pouring down the large man’s head, coming from the part where the helmet ripped off, and from breaks where his neck had been originally set right. As the man fell over, Maria was flung into the fire. As Alastar witnessed this, his heart stopped.

Alastar ran with all his might to where Maria had been flung, but was too late, as he saw her body roll out, with the last bit of life she looked at him and smiled, with one attempt to stand she fell limp, too exhausted from the heat and flames. Alastar watched her corpse burn in horror, he had never expected to see this sight, he never wanted to see Maria dead, he never hated her, she was one of the few kind people in his life, and now he had nothing.

Alastar ran, forgetting fatigue, hardly able to see through his tears he ran, leaping and ducking until he saw the exit, ripping out his sword he began slashing and cutting until he got close enough to climb over the wall, as he climbed a few crossbow bolts thudded into the wall around him, but he paid little attention. As he ran out what little of his mind he had left began thinking, He has to live, and he has to get out! There has to be more to this than gold and greed, sure the town was rich in itself, but nobody would attack a town so mercilessly and without any honor, nobody. An army of this size wasn’t needed except for war, so there had to be more to it, this attack had to be about the north, whatever was happening up there was affecting the entire world. Alastar had to know the reason Maria died, what was it about his mark that brought such bad luck to those around him? Why did this town have to be destroyed? Questions like these where swirling around in his mind, driving him madder and madder. He was going to get to the bottom of this one way or another, no matter what he would have to do; he would get to the north