Chapter 17. A Tale of Sorrow
Thor stood looking down at the map laid out upon the table. He frowned. It would take at least fourteen days to traverse across the high passes of the Great Spine, the range of mountains the T’Iea named the Tolle’Fornosse’Veetri. Even though erosion by wind, water and ice over immeasurable spans of time had reduced the high peaks to a far lower altitude than when the mountains were first created, the mountains still even today formed a barrier that only the most determined or foolhardy, of travellers would contemplate trying to cross. He knew the window of navigation over those high passes was very short. He worried that it was only a matter of a few months at most, before the snows came once again, the temperatures plummeted and the narrow passes would be blocked once more. The map showed no permanent road or well-planned route, all roads ended in the foothills. He knew that snow would still lie thick in the higher reaches of the mountains, snow that would be heated by the sun and be prone to melting and sliding down in great avalanches. Snow that would hide deep crevasses also ready to swallow the unwary traveller. Across the other side of the mountains lay the eastern lands where he was heading. Even though the map showed the eastern coastline of the continent where it met with the Sea of Beadreas, all the lands on the eastern side of the mountains showed no, town, road, river or any notable landmark. Testament to the fact that very little was known about these lands, even in the military. No one had been there other than a very few. Thor did suspect though that the T’Iea ranger’s guilds had sent rangers there in the past. Thor knew that Serinae, the friend of his mothers, had traversed those passes at least once to his knowledge. Alonso, the human shifter, he had obviously crossed the mountains to get to their home in Gel’Te’Ertenya, but it was probably a great advantage to be a wolf when doing so.
They would need to stop and resupply at the frontier townships along the way. He was somewhat familiar with a few of these places from his deployments with his regiment. He knew that many factions made uneasy alliances in these mainly lawless lands and even small localised wars were fought between these groups sometimes. He had been part of the tenuously combined human and T’Iea peacekeeping force in the area. But never had he been further into the mountain range than the foothills. He had never climbed the higher regions and passes and he had certainly never crossed over to the eastern part of the continent.
His elder half-sister Nar’Allia had been there to those eastern lands that lay beyond the Tolle’Fornosse’Veetri. She had gone there in the great Leviathan machine many years ago on part of her travels whilst looking for their missing mother. But even Nar’Allia had not crossed the mountains on foot, for she had landed in the east after crossing the Sea of Beadreas, travelling there from the other great continent of this world, the continent of the Rust desert. Nar’Allia had met the men of the east, Alonso’s people, lived with them for a while. It was a similar event that now compelled him to do the same, to travel to the eastern lands and make contact with the groups of peoples that lived there. His route was promising to be a much more arduous one and to cap it all he wasn’t really sure what he would find once there.
Officially he would be travelling to seek a T’Iea regiment, a T’Iea expeditionary force that had not been heard of for a long time and may not even be there any longer. The other thing that worried him slightly was that so far his dealings with the near eastern lands were as part of a strong peace keeping force, for this current task he would be travelling with just two others and without any back up. Still he thought, they would hopefully have an uneventful trip, but it was inevitable that at some point they would come across, thieves, smugglers, goblin men or worse. He hoped the three of them had the necessary skills to deal with any forces that they found along their way. Be they unfriendly or friendly.
Thor sighed, he stood and turned and looked at the two soldiers that stood behind him patiently. He told them to stand down, to be at ease. He then voiced the question that was on his mind.
Orln looked at Neth’Gore, there was an air of discomfort on the faces of both T’Iea at the question that was asked. But Orln finally looked at Thor and said, “yes, we have been there, to the eastern lands. He paused for a few moments as if gathering his thoughts and then continued. “A long time ago we were both part of the regiment that Te’Onolan’u’De’Hu’uinned commands there in the east, the regiment that our current orders demand we seek and make contact with. We were sent there over three hundred years of man past as an expeditionary force. Our main purpose was to make contact with any local populations and to be on the alert for T’Iea’Neat’Thegoran activity. We were to report back regularly, especially on anything we discovered. A few times Neth’Gore and myself along with one other were tasked with carrying those reports back here to Ter’Hadsnefel for debriefing and to await the issue of new dispatches and orders which we would then be tasked to take back into the east to our commander.”
Thor thought for a moment, so these two had made the journey already and more than once by the sound of it. This thought lightened his heart and gave him much encouragement. “So your being here and your assignment to me is because you are on route back to your regiment in the east after delivering such a report? Is this true?”
Orln lowered his gaze from Thor’s face and said, “no sir, we have been here in the city for some time, without orders to return until now that is.”
Thor raised his eyebrows in surprise, he wondered how this could be, for the most part soldiers in a regiment stayed soldiers of that regiment, it was very unusual for any to leave, unless of course special circumstances demanded it. He thought of his own case and how he had been seconded into performing this current role. But never the less he had to ask, “so why then do you find yourselves still here? How is it that you remain here in Ter’Hadsnefel?”
Orln, looked down at his feet and sighed, “it is a long story.”
Thor frowned at them and after waiting for an answer that did not come, he said, “gentlemen, we are about to embark on many weeks of travel, there is plenty of time for long stories. I would like to know how it is that you and Neth’Gore have not returned to your regiment earlier.” Thor looked at them both a frown upon his brow. He then sighed and said, “Gentlemen, this is not an order, for I will not command you to tell me, unless it affects directly upon our mission together. But, I hasten to add I would still like to know, for any secrets that may come between us will surely cause mistrust and misjudgement and may distract or inhibit the success of this venture.”
Orln stared at Thor, he nodded he then looked at Neth’Gore as if asking permission, Neth’Gore shrugged and turned away on the pretence of seeing to his back pack and other belongings.
Orln, began. “Neth’Gore, myself and one other formed a Trete’Y’Thego, as I said when we were part of the Legion regiment that Te’Onolan’u’De’Hu’uinned commands in the east. Our chief duty, as I previously mentioned was exploratory, to make contact with any local peoples in the area, to see if we could find any evidence of T’Iea’Neat’Thegoran activity and enquire of any local inhabitants if they were aware of that activity. Te’Onolan’u’De’Hu’uinned wanted to understand in great detail exactly what he was dealing with there in the east.”
Thor nodded, “I would do the same, it is common practice, a wise commander has at his disposal as much local knowledge and intelligence as he can gather and no knowledge is better than from those who live there.”
“Well, after our arrival we made many trips out into the surrounding lands. What we quickly established was that there were two native populations in the region. One group was human; they lived in small groups or clans, mainly agriculturally based societies. Quite advanced socially and in knowledge, they seemed to be native to the lands to the east; at least they had been there for many thousands of years judging by their folklore and knowledge of the land around them. They are well structured politically and even though they live in small groups, each group seems closely linked to its neighbours through regular contact and social
interactions, friendships, trade, marriage etc.”
Thor then asked, “and the others of which you speak?”
“The other race we discovered was a stunted race of goblin men, a loose knit society of individuals with no real structure or leadership, at least that we could detect. Somewhat nomadic I suspect, for nothing in the way of permanent dwellings or signs of agricultural activity were to be found amongst their encampments. The goblins were unsure of us at first, I got the impression they had not seen many T’Iea before, they were suspicious, difficult to engage, at times they even behaved aggressively towards us and we had to fight our way out. But we made sure we did not slay any. We would then wait for a month or so and after this cooling off period we would try again. But we never managed to make any real progress beyond some individuals staying with us for a period. But then we fed them, so they probably took advantage of this fact, but always they would get bored or distracted and wander off back to their own kind.
The humans on the other hand immediately welcomed us into their villages; we stayed amongst them for long periods. They were a learned people an intelligent race. We learnt that these humans were shaped by an arcane energy that was strong in the area. They had been affected in strange ways during the ancient past. There was a region, a strange area that behaved oddly. It was heavily hidden, many arcane wards of the type used by the T’Iea had been set by someone and this made our commander suspicious that perhaps T’Iea’Neat’Thegoran could be found in the area. The area itself seemed unnaturally high in concentrated arcane energy. Some of these humans had natural empathy with this arcane energy, they could gather and use it, all be it in a haphazard and somewhat dangerous way, not malicious acts of danger you understand, just a danger born out of lack of knowledge and experience in the use and control of the arcane. The humans called the area the Rift. We tried to access the Rift ourselves, to explore, but we did not have any success until the humans, or some of them said they could access this place, but it was very dangerous to do so and they would only allow one of us to enter with them at a time. Our commander Te’Onolan’u’De’Hu’uinned made several trips inside the region where the Rift was, he forbade any others to do the same and instructed the humans to only allow him access.”
Here he glanced at Neth’Gore quickly before continuing.
“As I said, a few of these human people had advanced capability, they were natural channels. I am sure had they been T’Iea then they would have been quickly taken up and sent to Ter’Hadsnefel to learn how to temper and control their natural ability, taught the arts and ways of our T’Iea mages. To leave them untrained would have been dangerous, both to themselves and to others. Stories abound of such humans destroying great swathes of the land either by miss use of the arcane or by un-tempered ability. As a result many who exhibited these traits, if discovered, where cast out to live solitary lives far from others of their kind, for the humans had a deep mistrust of them. Some of these unfortunate people were even ritually burned if they were thought to have misused their traits and un-tempered skill. Anyway, many of us were assigned to stay amongst these humans and help where we could. But Te’Onolan’u’De’Hu’uinned increasingly demanded restraint. Some of us helped more than we should perhaps, for his orders were not to interfere. ”
As before Orln turned and gazed at Neth’Gore’s back for a few seconds. Thor waited for Neth’Gore to say something for it seemed that Orln was inviting him to do so, but the mage remained with his back turned to them, toying with his gear.
Orln carried on with his explanation. “On returning from one such trip we learnt that the goblins had invaded our encampment, probably looking for food or an opportunity to thieve anything that they thought useful, or so we were told by others in the legion. The goblins were easily held off and sent running, for they were not many, and their attack was disorganised and uncoordinated with no real strategy or pre-planning. But Te’Onolan’u’De’Hu’uinned seemed to bare a strange hatred towards them and he ordered his guards to pursue the goblins, hunt them down and kill them. He said this would act as a deterrent to others. We were appalled to hear such an order for that is not our way of course. My understanding was that we should lay low and explore, our orders were to watch for T’Iea’Neat’Thegoran activity not to take grim revenge upon a lesser race.
Over the next few months, Te’Onolan’u’De’Hu’uinned seemed to change, his attitude grew more grave. He became insular, guarded and thoughtful, quick to anger. He ordered small unprovoked skirmishes into the goblin lands to attack their encampments and destroy the goblin infrastructure, burning any encampments that were found, hunting them down and killing them even fowling water sources known to be used by them. Many in the legion could not understand this, many sought to dissuade the command chain of the legion. Those that felt this way became organised and approached Te’Onolan’u’De’Hu’uinned in an attempt to discover why he felt such hatred for the goblins, alas these soldiers we never saw again. We were told they had been killed in a skirmish. But this we did not believe for the goblins were disorganised and had primitive weapons and little skill in wielding what they had, they could not overcome the skill of our soldiers unless by pure luck they overcame an individual by sheer numbers. So the persecution of the Goblin men continued. We knew this was not the way of the T’Iea legions, never have we sought to be such an aggressor, especially upon a far weaker force. We couldn’t believe that soldiers we knew so well could break that code of training and reduce themselves to such actions. But because of this systematic policy of genocide the goblin men learnt to fear and hate us.
One day Te’Onolan’u’De’Hu’uinned announced that his sources had discovered what he thought to be the main centre of population of the goblin men, he was planning an all-out attack to teach them a lesson, “once and for all we will settle the goblin problem,” he said. We were deeply shocked and many complained to Te’Onolan’u’De’Hu’uinned that this was not what we had been sent here for. Te’Onolan’u’De’Hu’uinned flew into a rage; he ordered the imprisonment of many that he saw opposing him. One such was the swordsman of our Trete’Y’Thego, he was taken from us and we have not seen him since. The raid on the goblins went ahead.” Here Orln lowered his head into his hands and sighed, “it was inevitable, the goblin forces were wiped out, but not content with his victory, Te’Onolan’u’De’Hu’uinned ordered the complete burning of all the lands surrounding the encampment and the systematic murder of all goblins found. Both I and Neth’Gore were sickened to the core at this despicable act. We would have no part in it for it is one thing to fight another armed warrior, but quite a different thing to kill in cold blood the elderly and the innocent, the females and their whelps.”
Thor could not believe what he was hearing; this was not something that he expected. The T’Iea legions had strict codes of honour and behaviour towards the enemy forces and especially towards the innocent and to civilians. To break these codes would be unimaginable, a heinous crime against the oppressed but also against the legion itself.
The expression upon his face must have given him away for Orln then said, “I see by your face that you are abhorred with this story. Then perhaps you would have done the same as myself and Neth’Gore and others. We deserted, we returned back to Ter’Hadsnefel, we gave ourselves up as deserters and we told our story in the court of the generals. Well to cut a long story short, we were divested of our rank and denied any further active duty in the legion whilst our final fate was decided. But thank the Maker, to our honour one general was on our side he fought for our case and even though he did not change the final verdict of dishonourable dismissal from the ranks he did manage to keep us from imprisonment and take on responsibility for us. That general even though he risked much, made sure that we remained trained and able minded over the period of time we were with him. We do not know even today why he took this action. But we are thankful to him for his mercy.”
Thor thought for a while and said, “that general, the one w
ho showed you mercy, I guess that he was The lady Solin’s friend, Te’Onolan’u’De’Yiun?”
“Yes,” was the simple answer.
Thor just nodded slowly in response. “Alright gentlemen, I thank you for your frankness and trust. It is a sorry tale with more than a few surprises. I do not know what we may find there in the east, but we are tasked with this and I intend that we carry out our orders to the best of our capability. We leave in the morning, I suggest you say your farewells and make good any outstanding business. We have a long journey ahead of us, as you well know. I will be grateful for your knowledge and experience to get us to our destination swiftly and safely.”