Quinshale the sorcerer smiled at the Zergon tree that loomed over the forest clearing. Its trunk was broader than a dozen barrels, and its limbs reached high into the azure sky. Its foliage was a kaleidoscope of iridescent colors. Its limbs eerily arched against the breeze towards Quinshale. He raised a hand to stop and silence the two thousand, armored warriors in his wake. A score of malevolent giant troglodytes hulked overhead standing 15-20 feet tall.
Quinshale was a six foot tall, lean, mean-looking man with long salt-and-pepper hair and a short beard. His dark eyes were inimical. He wore a black kimono and carried a wooden staff. A trio of sorcerers in similar garb stood beside him. The sorcerers all gazed enviously at the Zergon tree.
Zergon trees were magical and snatched life-forms to feed on their astral energy. Most victims died, drained of too much astral energy for their soul to remain in its corporeal coil. Tribes of striped-skin natives with magic abilities defended trees in the area, and also fed on enemy life- forces like spiritual vampires.
"Shields!" Quinshale commanded. A shimmering haze rippled the air around the sorcerer as magic shields rose. Lambent magical energy beams laced from their lances to peg the tree. A dozen of its longest limbs lashed like bull whips to snap innocuously against the sorcerers’ shields as the tree fought against the foes cutting it down, but their sorcery energy beams blazed torching through the tree and it toppled with a thunderous crash.
Abruptly bowstrings strummed and showers of arrow shafts sibilantly hissed and spiked into hundreds of soldiers and giants. Screams and shouts rang out. Spectral, lissome, atavistic attackers swarmed from the shadows to slash into the soldiers with scintillating steel.
Quinshale recognized the brindled-skinned Zergon natives. They wore dark clothing without armor. Magic shields shimmered over the silhouettes. They mainly fought with hatchets in both hands. Their celerity was superhuman and agility extraordinary.
One male Zergon hewed through the weak shield point of a sorcerer's Achilles' heel. The shield and tendons were severed. The sorcerer's shield fell and his head was hacked off. Quinshale speared the slayer with tendrils of lightning from his lance that zapped the Zergon's shield in a spray of sparks. The impact battered the killer back to bang on a giant's leg greave. The giant's mace pounded down on the ground, narrowly missing the nimble man. The Zergon man flung his axe in a flash of quicksilver that thudded beneath the giant’s helmet right between the giant's eyes. The giant reeled drunkenly before he dropped dead in a massive crash. Miraculously the axe magically ripped itself free of the fallen giant’s face and flew back into Zergon's hand.
Quinshale conjured an azure-orange, incandescent orb he pitched into the slayer. The explosion swatted the Zergon man senseless. The other sorcerers followed Quinshale's example and pelted the enemy with fiery spheres that exploded into flaming shrapnel that fried flesh. For a long minute the cacophony of combat clamor reached a crescendo, then it rippled away as the Zergons vanished like forest phantoms. Quinshale eyed the damage in disbelief. Half his men lay dead. All the giants were down. And only one sorcerer still stood by his side. Two scores of Zergons were down. Ethereal smoke drifted over the area.
Quinshale jammed his staff into the chest of the first fellow he stunned. A nimbus of bright white light briefly flared around them as Quinshale fed on his foe's astral energy. Quinshale stopped short of killing him and the glow faded.
"Check all foes for life and bind them!” He shouted." Establish a perimeter and chop up that tree. It'll be dark soon and we don't want to be here when the enemy reinforcements return."
His soldiers heartily agreed.
***
Under the moonlight, four dreadnought ships placidly rocked on the Serk River. Soldiers on shore chopped Zergon wood and floated it with small boats out to the big ships. Captain Tieron, a tall, fair-haired, emerald eyed, half-elf stood in rapt quiescence on the flagship deck watching the men's labor. He tried to phlegmatically view things, but he couldn't shake the dire certitude that his sojourn into the Zergon forest to steal the tree would end disastrously. Quinshale quietly stood by his side. Nearby on deck lay a pair of the striped-skinned astral vampires.
The Zergon male was named Zarn. The female was called Temerity. The exotic, pretty pair were handling their captivity stoically. Tieron pitied them, Ouinshale was not a compassionate captor. Zarn had slain a sorcerer and giant. Quinshale was very upset about that.
"Danger!" Quinshale shouted suddenly.
On shore Zergons stormed from the shadows in mass numbers and slaughtered the soldiers so phenomenally fast it seemed surreal. The strange striped-skinned Zergons were everywhere at once and like a sudden wind they blew through the disciplined soldiers' ranks like grass under a scythe. Quinshale's normal alacrity failed him. He stood mute, nonplussed, then with clear asperity he shouted, "Sail!"
On the riverbank, a pair of powerfully built, handsome, middle-aged, Zergon men eyed the fleeing vessels with malice. They were brothers and looked very much alike.
"Our people are prisoners aboard," Kale the chief complained.
"We'll cut them off," Strife the sorcerer replied.
Hyena's nearby cackled fiendishly, mocking the prediction.
In space, the American Interstellar Alliance agent, named Rowe frowned. Rowe was a powerfully built, good looking, blond haired man. He couldn’t believe all he was seeing on the alien planet through the drones and probes feeding him Intel. The planet was called Nagora by its denizens.
The planet’s sorcerers’ pyro-kinetic energies had killed two of the drones. The fiery magic blew out circuits and power drives of any human technology within a hundred foot proximity. His auspicious arrival to this world had revealed an energy weapon the Earth's military would find fascinating. The Nagoran denizens called it magic.
Quinshale's flagship sailed swiftly on magical created winds. Soldiers on deck and Zergons in canoes engaged arrow fusillades while Quinshale and his acolyte were in a magic firefight with two pursuing sorcerers. The barrage of sorcery crossfire thundered and boomed with sizzling sparks and strobing flares of iridescent energy. Quinshale capsized their canoes.
Abruptly, the dark-haired, blue-eyed, tawny captives, Zarn and Temerity, tripped a sailor. An incandescent aura ignited around the prone trio as the Zergon couple fed on the sailor's life-force energy. Several soldiers battered the astral vamps with spear hafts, ending their feeding.
When they'd finally outdistanced their pursuers, Capt. Tieron commented, "I don't think we've seen the last of them."
"I think you're right, "Quinshale confessed
***
Quinshale took a short while to address his prisoners below decks. They'd gone from atavistic to innocuous. When he tried to force his empathy and telepathy magic on them he couldn't pierce their taciturn facades. Their magic was strong. But they displayed no fear, rage, or asperity. They were handling their happenstance with unflappable equanimity. And they were astute enough to realize they'd be tortured for info.
Zarn was the man who slew a sorcerer and giant before Quinshale stunned him and fed on his astral energy. The woman strongly resembled him, like a sibling. Behind the crooked, bronze, bandit stripes their blue eyes were identical. They had high cheek-bones and attractive faces without facial hair, small noses, and the long, dark hair framing their faces was streaked with tawny highlights. Zarn was muscular. Temerity was slim and sharply defined with muscles. They both had retractable claws in their fingertips.
Their wrist and ankles were chained and all connected giving them little movement. Quinshale wondered how they could move so fast while maintaining magic shields. Sorcerers typically made little movement while their shields were up. It was too difficult to maintain shields, fire magic missiles, and dart around. He noticed that the Zergons could maintain their body and head shields fighting fast, but their shields didn't stay in place over their lower arms, along the rear of their backs and heads when they bounced around. They displayed magic aptitude for making shields, telekinetics in throwing and recovering hatchets, and they could feed on astral life-forces.
"Why did you attack us?” Quinshale queried.
"You killed and stole our tree." Zarn replied.
"Your hatchet hafts are Zergon wood!” Quinshale pointed out.
"The trees give us their limbs without harm." Zarn replied.
Quinshale blinked in surprise. "We didn't know this was your territory or how to get Zergon wood without killing the tree. Had I known I would have bartered with you all. Buying the wood is preferable to fighting such formidable foes for it. My name is Quinshale. I'm one of the top sorcerers in the Creedor Kingdom. We're a very rich Kingdom, but there are very few Zergon trees beyond your forest. We would gladly pay you well for your wood. The trees attacked us when we were trying to get limbs. We didn't know this was your territory. Do you think your people would reach a peace accord with us and agree to barter for your magic wood? "
"Possibly," Zarn conceded, "maybe we could end this war before it escalates if you released us with apologies and a trade offer."
Quinshale considered it. He decided he'd release Zarn with a peace offer, but keep Temerity for leverage until they sailed clear of the enemy area. "Are you two related?” Quinshale asked.
"We're cousins.” Zarn confirmed.
"What do you do for a living?"
"We're forest rangers.” Zarn replied.
"What kind of enemies do you deal with?" Quinshale pressed.
"Ogres, orc, giants, trolls, centaurs and such.” Zarn shrugged. "I'm very surprised you're this far downriver. The Akara tribe is large, highly skilled, and outsiders rarely make it past them." Zarn commented.
"We've heard of them. But they didn't approach us. "Quinshale elaborated.
Suddenly sounds of combat echoed and Quinshale ran outside. A score of Zergons appeared like ethereal entities from the mist. They used retractable claws in spectacular leaps to board the ship. Tieron drew two scimitars and confronted the middle-aged, dark maned, blue-eyed and massively muscled Zergon chief, named Kale, who was Zarn’s father. Their blades stabbed, slashed, and clashed as they danced dueling phenomenally fast. Kale's axes hammered a bombardment of blows Tieron couldn't counter. The Zergon was faster and more skilled than the half elf. Kale's axe had bashed Tieron senselessly.
Quinshale encountered the hazel-eyed, tawny-haired, tall, and slim, sorcerer named Strife, and he was Temerity’s father. The sorcerers unleashed streaming flurries of magic energies that starburst against each other's shields. Other fighters scrambled to evade the blazing, iridescent shrapnel. The pair of magic pugilists pounded each other with pyro-kinetics for a long minute. Then a lightning shard sizzled through Quinshale's shield and side. He fell in anguish.
One of Quinshale's acolytes had very strong elemental magic. He released a dimensional stone with a spell that spun a tornado on the aft deck that tossed most of the enemy overboard. Strife paddled water and watched his daughter Temerity get carried away. Kale paddled beside him cursing.
***
Hours later Quinshale spoke to his prisoners. "You're not just a forest ranger are you?” Ouinshale asked Temerity.
"My father was the sorcerer who wounded you. We can end this feud before it escalates. I'll write a letter to my father and you release one of the other six Zergons to carry the letter to my people. They'll give you payment in magic wood, gold, or gems. Name a reasonable ransom and they will pay it. And I'll write that I've sworn on my ancestors none of you is to be harmed. They'll obey the deal. "Temerity offered.
"I think my only chance of escaping alive is to keep you near my hands." Strife refused.
"If we don't catch you, our neighbors the Akara will. You've got no chance unless you deal." She argued.
Quinshale left abruptly. He was still weak and dizzy. He'd used magic healing elixirs on his burnt shoulder. But he was in no shape for another magic fight. He Kept Zarn and Temerity in the same cell. He put another wounded five Zergons in a separate cell. All remained chained with guards watching them.
No prior Creedor expeditions had ever returned from the Zergon wood lands. As he listened to the winds howling and snapping the sails under the elemental acolytes magic, he wondered if he'd ever see home again.
Bio:
Tom Kropp’s work has appeared in Chiron Review, Short-Story Me, Flash Phantoms, Churches, Children and Daddies, Down in the Dirt, The Horror Zine, Dark Harbor Magazine, Blood Moon Rising, Lowlife Lit, The Listening Eye, J Journal, Evening Street Review, Conceit, Spontaneous Spirits, Freedom Fiction, Spotlight on Recovery, Muscle and Fitness, Outdoor Life, Woodworker’s Journal and many other magazines. His play Jailhouse Confessions was performed at the Kennedy center in Washington, DC in 2019. You can find more of his writings at tomkropp.wordpress.com. He has many novels published.