Return of the Earthers: Seers of Verde Book 2 Read online

  The trainees only managed to launch their arrows a third time when the Verdans reached their ranks. One of the attackers thrust a javelin at Farren. The youngster deftly avoided it, drew his knife and plunged it into his enemy’s sternum.

  Farren had just pulled his knife out of the fallen Verdan when the hilt of a javelin smashed into his face, knocking him to the floor. With one eye filled with blood, he tried to focus with his good eye and winced with resignation when he saw the attacker raise the javelin for a fatal strike.

  A shadow passed over Farren and then a sickening sound of bone being crushed reverberated in the room. The Verdan attacker collapsed in a heap, a look of surprise glowing in his dying eyes.

  “No!” Tevan shouted, brandishing his favorite walking stick as he stood over his wounded friend. The solid, gnarled walnut piece, carved for Tevan by his favorite carpenter and reinforced with iron at the head and tip by a blacksmith, dripped with the fallen Verdan’s blood. Farren reached up and tried to pull Tevan back, but the man child looked down, calmly shook his head and clasped his hand.

  “I will take care of you, Farren,” Tevan said with a maturity he had never exhibited before. The attack had triggered something that had lain dormant for most of his life but now spilled out as the Nuven warrior — a Defender — he was bred to be. For the first time in his life, Tevan saw the world as an adult. His mind was clear.

  Shouting a war call and remembering the tactics he had seen the brothers of Circle Sankarikiller practice during their combat exercises, Tevan waded into the battle swinging his walking stick with blinding speed. Verdan after Verdan fell to his furious blows. Moving with the expertise of a veteran Defender, the furious young Nuven dodged and parried his attackers’ attempts to bring him down with their javelins. Skulls were smashed, jaws broken, arms and legs shattered and ribs crushed by Tevan’s blows. The screams of pain from his victims only strengthened his resolve and unnerved the Verdans. He did not stop to kill a wounded foe but kept wading into the swarm of attackers swinging his deadly weapon.

  Tevan had nearly forced the group of Verdans out of the door when a new batch of Sankari rushed him en masse, urged on by a furious Manor Stillinger, who had raced to the scene of the skirmish. This time, the young Nuven could not fend off all javelins that were thrusting savagely at his body. Groaning with pain, Tevan grabbed the throat of the nearest Verdan and squeezed with his remaining strength. Both men were dead before they hit the floor.

  ———

  A splash of water in his face finally roused Farren. The Defender trainee coughed as he regained consciousness. The room was filled with bodies, Verdan and Nuven. Many of the enemy were calling out in pain and were being attended by med techs. His right eye was swollen shut from the blow and his head pounded painfully. Farren tried to move but found his arms and legs were securely tied. He sat on the floor with his back up against a wall.

  “Good, you’re awake,” a deep voice growled from beside him. “My men seem to think you are the leader of these younglings. You pups and this Defender put up a fight, killed too many of my men,” a gruff-looking Sankari said as he pointed at Tevan’s body, which lay at Farren’s feet.

  Despite attempts to be brave, tears streamed down Farren’s face when he saw Tevan and then spotted the bodies of his fellow trainees lined up nearby on the floor. The youngster looked up at his questioner and then gazed into the faces of the men standing with him.

  Instead of finding the Verdans laughing and gloating over their victory, they stood staring at him with grim expressions. Most were covered with blood, and many sported bandages. Even though the Verdans had achieved their long-sought-after victory over the Defenders, it had come at a heavy price.

  The Nuvens had fought furiously, killing hundreds of the Verdan attackers. Many Sankari had fallen that day. Barely thirty had survived the bloody battle. During the fighting, it became a familiar sight for a Defender to frantically slash his way through a wave of untrained Verdan fighters to reach and ultimately kill a Sankari. Only the sheer numbers of opponents finally overwhelmed the Defenders.

  Manor Stillinger knelt next to Farren. “Even though you killed Verdans this day, I understand you were only trying to protect yourselves. I have a proposition. If you beg my forgiveness and disavow any loyalty to the Defenders, we will free you. I imagine your mother and father will be anxious to see you.” Manor leaned back and flashed a generous smile. “If you refuse, you will suffer the same fate as your elders — death. Well youngling, do you have anything to say to me?”

  Farren leaned his head back and nodded. “Well, finally, a young Nuven with good sense,” Manor crowed, gesturing to his men. “What is it you have to tell me?”

  Farren whispered something unintelligible. “Speak up youngling, what is it?” Manor said leaning in close. Saying a silent prayer to his ancestors, the last Defender trainee spewed a mouthful of blood squarely onto his tormentor’s face and smirked at his small victory. The general yowled in surprise and sputtered angrily. After wiping himself off, Manor took great pleasure in killing the young Nuven.

  Not long afterward, a breathless lieutenant rushed over to Manor. Muttering at the mess the youngling had made of his face and uniform, the general glowered at his junior officer. “What do you have to report? Make it quick, we have wounded to gather and bodies to collect.”

  The ashen-faced officer looked sick as he saluted. “Sir, we have disturbing reports from the other nine Nuven temples. There have been counterattacks. Our forces have suffered heavy losses.”

  Manor stared in disbelief then grabbed the lieutenant by the collar and shook him. “Counter attacks? From whom? Common Nuven folk?” The young officer trembled in fear at being manhandled by the most feared man in Verdan society that he wet himself. Manor swore at the pathetic sight and tossed the lieutenant up against a wall. “Damn you, give me your report!”

  One of the general’s aides stepped between the two men. “Sir don’t kill him before he gives us the news. He’s only a courier.” Manor nodded and took a step backwards with his arms folded tightly. His eyes still glowed with rage.

  “Sir, the other temples have been overrun and our forces have been driven out by, by . . .” the young officer stammered then choked. He looked like he was going to vomit. Seeing his commander’s face turning bright crimson, the aide grasped the courier’s shoulders. “Out with it man or the general is likely to hang you from your heels,” he said as soothingly as he could manage.

  Taking a deep breath, the lieutenant blurted out his shocking message. “Hundreds of Nuven women have attacked. They have killed every Sankari and driven out the common Verdan fighters who were left in the temples. The women are making their way to Temple Darya. They may be here by nightfall.”

  Manor’s expression changed from rage to shock in a blink of an eye. “Women killing our men?” he blurted in disbelief. “We’ve never had reports of women warriors.”

  The young officer nodded and cleared his throat. “Sir, the women are carrying many weapons — bows and arrows, javelins, knives and clubs. They call themselves the Daughters of Defenders.”

  The aide, an older Verdan wearing the insignia of a colonel, quickly turned and saluted Manor. “General, with your permission, I recommend we withdraw to safety. Many of our fighters are wounded and exhausted. We cannot withstand an attack.”

  He paused briefly to read a status report handed to him by a junior officer, “Sir, an old Nuven woman is mourning a pile of bodies. She is crying about the deaths of Circle Sankarikiller.”

  Manor allowed himself to let out a sigh of relief. “We have achieved our objective, the Defenders are dead. We will reconnoiter later.”

  ———

  On their way out of Temple Darya, Manor Stillinger and his party passed a tall woman with a long gray braid weeping loudly over the bodies of ten young men. She sat cross-legged in their midst and swayed back and forth in her grief. The general reined his horse to a stop.

  “Circle Sankarik
iller?” he asked. His aide nodded and smiled. Manor snorted, not masking his derision. “They look so young. Good thing we did not allow those pups to grow up.” Manor swung around and ordered his forces to continue their exit in double time. He did not want his victory turned into a humiliating defeat.

  The mourner continued her loud wailing until the Verdans were out of earshot then stopped abruptly. “My only regret is my Daughters of Defenders did not arrive in time to wreak vengeance on those murderers,” she snarled at the retreating enemy. A young woman rushed over to help Nyrthka, the last surviving child of the hero Raaf Vonn, to her feet. The elder suddenly felt old and frail. Her brothers were dead, and she had just witnessed the greatest tragedy to have befallen the Nuven people.

  “See to it these archers are welcomed by their ancestors in a hero’s pyre. They have served us well in life and again in death. Do it quickly. Those monsters may come back with reinforcements,” Nyrthka said, gesturing toward the retreating Verdans. The first female Defender turned to her younger companion. She held out her arm for support as the two women slowly walked away from the temple.

  Nyrthka turned one last time to sadly gaze upon the ruins of the temple which had borne her aunt’s name — Darya, the quiet one who had led the Nuvens to the Verdan Valley. “I will pray to my last breath that Circle Sankarikiller is safe,” she said. “They are the only ones left to take vengeance.”

  3

  Circle Sankarikiller rode their horses hard for better than two hours when they first came upon the fleeing Nuvens. The Defenders listened grimly as a sobbing old merchant explained how the Verdan invaders had flown over the temple’s walls and caught its Defenders by surprise.

  Witt just shook his head at the shocking news. He could not believe the impenetrable Temple Darya had been breached. “How many Verdans were in the attack force?” he asked the old man.

  The merchant shrugged. “At least hundreds. It was hard to tell with all the fighting and shouting. Verdans were everywhere, especially when they opened the gates.”

  The young Defenders had never seen their steward look this ill. A ruddy-faced woman clucked sympathetically while she patted Witt’s head. “There’s nothing you can do for those at Temple Darya now. You and these young ones would have been killed, too, if you would have been there. Maybe the ancestors were looking after this circle. We’ve seen survivors from the other temples, but all the Defenders have been killed.”

  Witt looked at her, too stunned to say anything. “What? The other temples, they’ve all been attacked?” he stammered. By now, a large crowd had gathered around Circle Sankarikiller. Several other Nuvens echoed what the woman had told Witt.

  “I was getting ready to open my vegetable stand at Temple Arafa early this morning when the Verdans swooped down upon us,” said a tall man with thin, mussed straw-colored hair. “My woman and I barely made it out alive before they burned everything, just like at Temple Darya. Luckily we had horses nearby and escaped before the Verdans killed everyone.”

  Witt struggled to his feet and stared at the young Defenders. They were too stunned by the news to say anything. The idea that all the other Defenders in the Verdan Valley were dead was almost impossible for them to accept.

  “Oh, no, Tevan!” Aron Nels cried out as the reality finally struck him. The Defender ran over to the old merchant. “Did the young ones escape the temple, too? My kinsman Tevan was with them. Did you see them?”

  The old man shook his head. “I know Tevan, all the merchants do, but I did not see him or the other boys. There was too much fighting, people were running everywhere.” Without saying another word, Aron bolted from the group, leaped on his horse and furiously spurred it into a gallop.

  “Stop him, he’ll be killed!” Witt shouted at the other Defenders who also were racing toward their horses. The Steward sprinted to his horse, knowing he had to stop his Defenders before they martyred themselves in a foolish attack on an enemy with overwhelming numbers. For once Aron was not riding the fastest horse. Within a few minutes, his Defender brothers had caught up with him. However, no one tried to stop him. They all raced together in determined silence toward Temple Darya.

  Witt managed to join the circle after furiously goading his horse to catch up. The riders only slowed to search groups of escapees in a frantic attempt to find Tevan or demand news about him and the other young ones. However, none of the fleeing Nuvens had any hopeful reports.

  It was almost sundown when Circle Sankarikiller crested a ridge not far from the temple. All-too-familiar crashing sounds brought them to a halt. Even the frantic Aron was forced to stop. The circle was horrified to see Temple Darya’s walls crumbling under a steady rain of boulders from four catapults. This time the machines were much closer than they had been during the earlier assault, so the stones were striking with much more force than the Verdans’ first attempt.

  Smoke still billowed from the temple as the Verdan boulders thundered into the walls. A gaping hole where the gates had been grew wider and wider with every strike of the missiles. Whole sections of the walls had been smashed away.

  With a curse, Aron tried to ride toward the temple, but he was pulled off his mount by nine pairs of hands. He furiously tried to fight off his circle brothers, but they clung to him with stubborn determination. All knew certain death awaited him if he managed to make it to the temple.

  Witt intently watched the catapults for a few moments then gestured for the Defenders to listen to his orders. Even Aron had calmed down slightly, but two circle brothers stood nearby just in case he decided to escape again. “We may not be able to save anyone in the temple, but we can stop those catapults. The Sankari would not be anywhere nearby once those rocks started flying.”

  Egan surveyed the situation and nodded vigorously. “Those catapults are only manned by six or eight people,” he said. “I’d bet they are not expecting to be attacked.”

  Still wearing his worried frown, even Aron agreed to the plan. Just as the Defenders expected, the catapult crews were caught completely by surprise. Circle Sankarikiller swept upon the first machine without being noticed. Its crew died in their tracks, killed by the deadly aim of the Defender archers. The circle successfully slaughtered all four catapult crews without any resistance.

  One of the Verdans manning the last catapult tried to escape, but the hapless man was run down by Aron. The angry Defender spent longer than necessary to kill the man, stabbing him repeatedly with his knives. He only quit when his victim’s blood covered his face and dripped into his eyes.

  ———

  The young Defenders were overwhelmed by the carnage that greeted them when they finally entered Temple Darya. Bodies were strewn everywhere — Verdan and Nuven. Their horses balked and refused to move.

  The smell of blood and death spooked the animals. Even Witt Peyser, the battle-tested steward, was shocked and sickened by the sight. Several of the young Defenders gagged and had to turn away.

  “Why haven’t the Verdans taken care of their own dead?” Egan Pozos asked after he regained his composure.

  Witt surveyed the scene. “They will probably send a clean-up detail with wagons to pick up their bodies and take them back for burial.” Aron slowly made his way through the bodies, looking carefully for any recognizable features. He doubted Tevan and the other youths would be among the slain fighters, but there was no way of knowing where the battle had taken them.

  As the circle moved toward the center of the temple, a miraculous sight greeted them. Three elderly Nuvens solemnly stood at the entrance of one of the barracks. One of the elders called for the circle to halt and requested a private audience with Witt. The Steward stepped into the room and returned shortly, grief etched in his face.

  Shaking with dread, Aron approached Witt followed by his circle brothers. “Is it Tevan?” he asked in a hoarse, barely audible voice.

  Witt nodded and put his arm around the Defender. “Tevan and the other trainees were killed,” he said, trying to choke back tear
s. “Please don’t look Aron, it is not the way to remember him.”

  The young Defender was not to be deterred. “Tevan is my kinsman. I am responsible for him being here. It is my right to see him.” The elders and Witt reluctantly moved aside but signaled for the other members of the circle to follow him. Aron’s stomach churned violently when he saw the blood-soaked bodies lying on the floor of their barracks.

  In a daze, the Defender walked toward a familiar figure. A primeval scream of rage and sorrow poured out as Aron fell to the floor embracing his dead cousin. Tears streamed down the faces of the circle brothers as they helplessly watched Aron stroke Tevan’s blond hair. The other Defenders walked gingerly among the other dead youths, patting some of them gently.

  Witt attended to Farren. He noted the multiple knife wounds. “You must have made your killer angry. May your ancestors welcome you with open arms, brave Farren. Your courage was equal to any Defender’s,” he said kissing the trainee’s forehead.

  A sobbing Aron started to scoop Tevan up in an attempt to carry his body away but was stopped by Witt and the three elders. “We can’t touch them yet,” Witt explained to the grief-stricken Defender. “The elders overheard Verdans planning to come back to collect their dead. We have to leave the boys here or the Verdans will know there are Defenders left alive.”

  Aron shook his head and continued to try struggling to his feet with Tevan’s body. “No! He is my kinsman,” he shouted. “It is my duty to take him home.” Egan and the other circle brothers gently tried to stop Aron, but he fought their efforts, growing more frantic as they tried to pull him away.

  He appeared to be entering into the first stages of the rage, that uncontrollable fighting trance Defenders could will themselves into when their lives were threatened.

  Witt grimaced at what he had to do. As the circle struggled with Aron, who was growing more frantic by the moment, Witt pulled out a large knife and struck the young Defender on the back of his head with the hilt. Aron shuddered from the blow then collapsed into his circle brothers’ arms. Witt examined the young man and assured himself he had only knocked him out.