Fear of A Woodlander

Fear Of A
Woodlander


Chapter One

   
    My name is Ordondon, I’m a Woodlander.  Us Woodlanders have been around for centuries.  We live in the trees, have a great knowledge about them, and are a very tough group of people.  The basic weapons we wield are the sword, a dagger, and a bow in which we all must learn to make.  We are taught survival skills from a very young age.  I myself am 24 years of age, and I’m easygoing and friendly, depending on who you are.  I think fast and can hear you from a long distance away; you can’t sneak up on me unless you’re my brother.  I’m tall, built, and of light complexion.

      Among us there are two different types of Woodlanders, East and West.  I’m from the West group leading one of there tribes.  We’re basically the good guys—the east group cherishes their evil side --Among some of our rules is that you can’t become friends with the east group, if you do you will lose both of your arms and be left for the animals.--Brutal sentencing unfortunately.

    We are however aloud to make friends other than the Woodlanders, for instance: some of my friends are Oromo, apart of the Faulton tribe, Zordono, apart of the Kien`fon tribe and Tenon`norelo, we just call him relo, he is apart of the doun`Fon tribe. 

    Another one of our rules is that we cannot wield a straight sword, only partly serrated scimitar like swords can we use, for what reason I don’t know.  It’s probably something to do with ancient history.   

    The East and West groups have constant conflicts, big ones.  One would almost say that their savage battles.  It’s not very pretty, constantly ambushing each other.  Of course though, it gets really easy to tell where they are because as you get more experience your senses become more attuned to your surroundings.

    So here’s what happened: I and Zordono were going to Elephris from Nordshire.  There both quite far away from my homeland Guantonlorno.  Zordono is a messenger, so I figured I’d come along this time.  We ended up somewhere around Nordshire I believe.  Before we went to Elephris I went to a tavern and ordered something to drink.  There were a few guys that didn’t look to good.  They looked more or less like some thugs waiting for hire.  There was a big man wearing an oversized vest that came in, sat down beside them and threw a purse down on the table spilling out at least 40 silver coins.  He started describing a man my size that looks exactly like me.  If I were to be killed they would receive the amount he threw on the table and more.  But why would someone want to kill me? I thought.  I haven’t done anything wrong. 

   
I soon tipped the bartender and left the tavern. Once seeing me they jumped out of their chairs and started following me.  I quickened my pace; they then started running towards me.  I started running, faster and faster but to no avail.  Whoever this was they were in good shape.  I saw a barn up ahead and started going towards it.  Once inside I looked around for a ladder but could not see one, so I climbed up the beam and jumped over to the loft, they just came in when I did.  So I decided to jump down there amongst them sword out of sheath, I cut ones leg and from what I could tell sliced another’s finger off.  I then ran as fast as I could out of the barn straight to Zordono.  They weren’t paying much mind to me after what I did. 
   
    As I was rushing toward my friend I just couldn’t stop thinking about it, who would want me dead? 
   
    All it was from that barn to the inn was a long stretch of road, you could see right down to that barn.  As I turned back I saw them lift their heads up and just in a bolt start running towards me again.           

      “Zordono we must go we are being chased.” I said.--Zordono is a very lazy person, all he does is sit around and read books, but he is very smart, And so far a loyal friend.  He is of dark complexion, short and very slow. He is not quick with weapons but knows a lot about them-- 

      “First we must find Alana.” He said. 

“Who is Alana?” I asked. 

“She is a leader of a Kelter tribe.” He responded. ---Kelters are everywhere.  They are a very abrupt group, Rude and no manners.  There not very trustworthy.  It’s not very often that you find one that you can trust.  But even then I wouldn’t be sure-- 

“Kelter!” I shouted.  “Do you know how much danger you are putting us in Zordono?  Not only are we being chased, but you’re befriending a Kelter.  You must be crazy to travel with a Kelter.  It’s not that I don’t like them; I just don’t trust them.  Suhon is trustworthy, but a Kelter we don’t know!  You must be crazy.  Besides the point, if we don’t get down there and board the boat were not going to make it to Elephris until next week and whoever it is that’s chasing us will catch up and will kill me and because your with me, you!”

      We quickly rushed out of the door, and of course they were right there waiting for me.  I saw them just in time to pull back and not go through the door.  I went upstairs and tried to find another way out, but could not find one, not even any windows. We went back down stairs and rushed out the door right past the thugs, pushing one of them to the ground.  And of course they started chasing us again.  As we went to the dock all Zordono could think about was how much we needed to go meet Alana. 

    When we got to the boat I quickly handed the woman at the dock the amount needed and ran up into the crowd in the boat.  As we were running up someone yelled out, Zordono!  It was a girl’s voice.  Then I turned around, and for sure, it was a Kelter---She was tall and of very dark complexion.  Carrying a dagger and some spears, wearing a face covering, her clothes were not what you would see the average woman wear.  She ran through the crowd and right past me up to Zordono--.

    I went to the back of the boat and watched the entrance, some other thugs came up but then the woman said they were full.  I was full of relief.  Until a man hooded came up and told her that he had a reserved seat.  She allowed him to go up, and then all the relief was gone.  He was about my height and had dark eyes like those you would see a woodlander from the East group have.  He was interesting, a guy built for action; whoever he was he had guts.  He carried a sword on his back just like me and his boots were very worn out.  He had many scars, particularly on his face, that being of a dark tan.  You could not easily miss him.  I still did wonder however if he was a woodlander.  Being that there are many different types of tribes that look like that.

    Still it just wouldn’t leave my mind, who wants me dead?  What wrong did I do him?  I kept trying to recall it to memory but I just couldn’t remember. 

    This Kelter when having come to Zordono said: “I was waiting for you at the town entrance for you.  Why didn’t you come?” 

“My friend rushed me here.  Sorry.”  He said. 

“Where is your friend?” She asked. 

“You ran right past him.  I don’t know where he is right now.  Probably hiding.”
He said disgracefully.

“Why do you say that?” She asked. 

“Because he isn’t very fond of Kelters.”  He said. 

“Oh.” she said.  Let’s find our seats.
       
      It was a cold night, the peasants in the lower deck were sleeping, the Captain was as confident as he could be about the way in which he was going, I wasn’t so sure, he had an strange, devious, calculating look in his eye indicating otherwise.  I looked out, and for miles, of course, there was nothing but water.  Then I saw a long coastline, but we weren’t supposed to arrive in Elephris until morning.  I thought.  Where could we be?  I wondered.  Then we abruptly landed on the shore.  Four men, Dorts I believe pulled in the boat, one wearing a golden vest. ---- Dorts are huge, there taller than a 30 year old oak, bigger than a mid-sized boat, and they have a bad attitude-- Then they gave the captain a small bag. 
      “100 golden Wurgs?”  The captain asked. 

“It’s all there.”  Said the one in the vest. 
The Captain then jumped into a small boat and rowed away. 

“Take out all the passengers and put them in the wagon.” Commanded the Dort. 

    I then rushed to the cabin to tell Zordono.  Alana was already awake listening. 
“Zordono wake up.” We both said. 
“What?” He slowly said.  “Just hurry!”

      He soon woke up when he heard the Dorts walking up to the boat passengers screaming in the front cabin.  He jumped up and ran to the back of the boat.  We ran out and jump into the water slowly coming to the surface.  We were floating in the water watching all the passengers be taken captive. 

    We waited until the last passenger was loaded and the Dorts walked off with the wagon. We then swam up to shore and quietly walked up to the top of the dune.  We looked over and in the distance saw a huge city filled with Dorts.  We then crept away and saw a large burrow abandoned by whatever creature dug it, and we crawled into it.  There we stayed overnight.

    As night went by I couldn’t get that thought out of my mind.  Who wants me dead?  Just constantly it came into my mind.  And what about that hooded fellow?  How does he come into the picture?  What happened to him at the boat back there?  Was he apart of they’re scheme?  Or was he after me too?

    “Who goes there?”  Yelled someone from outside of the burrow.  We peeked out of the burrow and saw a Dort walking around. 
    “He’s”......  The Dort turned around and started walking towards the burrow. 
“Quiet Zordono.”  I said. 

    The Dort came closer and then looked in the burrow alarmed by what he sees he takes his horn and blows into it, making the loudest sound any of us have ever heard.  I peeked outside the burrow quickly and saw ten other Dorts running over. 

    “They must be the three missing passengers on the boat.”  I heard one of them say.  “Hurry bring the wagon!”  The one outside the burrow ordered. As they went to go get it, I took out my dagger crawled up to him and stabbed his leg.
      He then yelled aloud: “Kill them!!!” 

    We ran out of the burrow as fast as we could to water, as we jumped in they started firing arrows the size of my leg.  We then dived down deeper into the water until the arrows could not reach us.  We swam farther away from the shore coming up for breaths every now and then.  We saw a small rowboat close by; we swam up to it in hopes that it was safe. When we got to the surface there was no one in it.  It looked similar to the boat in which the captain went off in.  I wonder what happened.  I said to myself.  Either way we got up into it and paddled away from the Dorts. 

      We must have fallen asleep and drifted a little. Because we woke up and all we could see was thick, thick fog; we couldn’t even see our hand right in front of our face; it was so thick that our voices sounded as if coming from all directions.  “This has got to be somewhere near the land of Morlok.  It’s a pretty dangerous place to be, it’s where all the thief’s and thugs stick around.”  Zordono said.….. At this point we were all starving to death; in hopes that we would find land soon.  At the same time hoping we didn’t run into anybody.  But in these conditions we didn’t know what to expect.

      Just then our boat caught up on something; a log? A shallow area?  Land perhaps?  Just as we were shoved up on this we heard the running footsteps of someone off in the distance.  But for all we know it could have been some animal. We certainly just didn’t know.  We put the lamp up close so that we could see what we were lodged on.  “LAND!”  We quietly shouted.

    Zordono thought we were in Den`Fes according to the description of where we landed, a smooth pebbly beach.  We pulled up the boat and tied it to a tree; we then split up, looking for things to build a camp.  It was hard to see in the fog but we managed to gather together things for a camp.  Zordono managed to get some wood and start a fire.  Alana collected some long branches and started to make spears, and I got some things to set up something to sleep under. 

      I went hunting and managed to get one rabbit and one deer.  Alana fixed some venison and I made a coat while Zordono was fooling around just doing whatever.  We took watches throughout the night and managed to get some sleep.  As the night went by it was finally my turn to keep watch.  The fog as well started to clear up a little.  It was very quiet; all you could here was the animals snapping twigs as they walked through the forest.  I began to fall asleep when I heard men talking in the distance. 

    Once I got up the talking stopped, then the animals started to move this way as if there was someone coming.  I at once ran to Zordono and Alana. 

    “Zordono, Alana wake up, we must move quickly!  There are some men working there way here.  Come on, hurry.” 

    The men were moving fast by the sound of it.  Then suddenly everything went silent.  We left everything and just went away from where we last heard the sound. 

    As we got into the forest we heard them start running after us again.  We quickened the pace but they were getting closer.  I didn’t want to go any faster because Zordono didn’t seem to be able to keep up.  We saw a large rock ahead of us; I had my sword out of its sheath.  We took a position behind the rock and waited for them to come closer.  As they came around the rock one of them took his sword and swung it around the corner, catching Alana’s hair.  These men were the exact ones that had been hired to kill me.  But who wants me dead and for what, and how in the world did they know I was here I thought….  They both were pressing us up to the rock.  I then took my sword in an effort to break free from them took a swing at the one on the right, he blocked it and it managed to strike his leg.  As he moved away I started fighting with the other one, and ended up striking him at his shoulder.  They both started to run off, and Alana took one of her spears and threw it right at the one who clipped her hair.  It struck him in the back bringing him down, at the same time I took my bow and struck the other in the arm.  But he pulled it out and just kept running.
   
    We went to see what the one that went down had, but all he had was an empty canteen, some meat and his sword.  We took them all and started to leave when he grabbed my leg.  So we took him along.  Moving back towards our camp we saw some more men, plus the one that had been shot…… 
     
    The whole bunch must have jumped me.  There must-a been 20 of them.  Said the one that escaped. 

“Shut up.”  One said.

He was wearing a large oversized vest and had a fierce glare in his eyes.  Must-a been the boss by the looks of things.  The others just looked like slugs waiting to get there pay.  They weren’t doing anything just sitting around. 

    “Surely they’ll come around some time, they have to get there stuff, and when they do I’ll be waiting.”  The boss said. 

    “What are we going to do if there going to be there all night?” Zordono asked. 
“What about our things?”  Said Alana. 

“We’ll wait until nightfall and go get the boat and push off, forget your stuff.” 

“But what if they have more men at the boat?” She asked. 

“I’ll take care of them you just worry about gettin in that boat.” 

    We waited until night fall and headed towards the boat.  There wasn’t but two slugs sitting there.  One was sleeping and the other was almost asleep.  I went back around near the camp while Zordono and Alana stayed where they were.  I quickly made a fire and lit some branches.  I then took them and lit everything on fire.  All the men ran over to the area including the men at the boat.  Alana and Zordono quickly got in to the boat and lay low, me following close behind.  Once I got into the boat I pushed off and we moved back into the fog.  We stayed close enough to the shore so that we could see it, leaving the wounded man behind us.  Hopefully as we moved along the shore line we would find some sort of town that we could hide in, keeping a watch, lying low for a little while.  And sure enough we did.

    We pulled into the dock, tied up the boat and found a tavern.  One man watched our every move as we sat down.  He looked more or less like a tough, well built guy.  We ordered a drink and then I asked the bartender if he saw a man with an oversized vest and some slugs.  He didn’t know anything about them but he did tell me to watch my back around this place, “especially for him.” 
    “Who?” I asked. 

“James Zenag, right behind you.” He said.

As he was breathing down my neck, Grinning behind me he said: “The old mans right, you better watch your back, especially for me; Ordondon.” 

      I turned around quickly to ask how he knew my name, but he was gone.  I tipped the bartender and left with my friends.

    We found an inn and paid for a room.  About ten deqs is how much we paid.  I stayed up for most of the night.  I was mostly thinking, I wasn’t too worried about those thugs, but I was pretty worried about the hooded fellow, and that James Zenag.  My eyes were heavy, especially being I hadn’t really slept for two days or so.  I did however manage to sleep for maybe one or two hours until I heard shouting outside… 

    I quickly woke up and looked outside.  When I saw who it was, and they saw me; I quickly stepped back from the window.

    It was that Woodlander looking fellow and the boss—as I had no other name for him—it appeared as though they were arguing.  I stepped back up to the window to try and maybe listen in on what they were saying; but when I looked out they were gone.

    I immediately stepped over to Zordono and awoke him.  In no time it seemed there was the rushing of footsteps up the stairs.  Zordono dashed to Alana to aware her of the situation.  She woke quickly and came over to where I was at the door.  The men were entering each room with extreme abruptness from what I could hear; no doubt they wouldn’t stop until they found us. 

    There was probably no chance of survival through the hallway. So I rushed to the window and broke it---beings it didn’t open.  I took the first step out on to the cleat on the side of the building then Alana, then Zordono.  We slowly stepped over to another window on the other side of the building---this was another part of the rooms where a different set of access stairs were located---.  I once again broke a window to get inside. 

    Once in we carefully moved towards the stairs.  When we got there I looked down the stairs and over the rails; there was no one, so we slowly made our way down the stairs.  When we got down they were still in the other section of the inn making plenty of noise.  Just to make sure they had no one else with them I took a look outside. Sure enough there was; about six or seven of them.  And to make things worse I had already asked the inn keeper if they had a back door; and the answer was no. So back to the window it was.  We went back up the stairs as quickly as possible. 

    The Woodlander and the boss were just starting to come down the other stairs as we went up; they caught sight of us as we were.  They just as soon started rushing down the stairs.  The Woodlander decided to take a short-cut and jump from the stairs to the floor.  He quickly ran over to the other set of stairs and started to climb them quickly.  We had already made it a few rooms down when I just decided to use another room.  So I busted into a room and ran over to the window as the people staying there jumped up out of there bed in fear.  I did just the same as with the other windows and waited for Zordono and Alana to come.

    The Woodlander had already made it up the stairs and started coming to the room. Zordono tripped midway as Alana made it to and out the window.  The Woodlander ran up to Zordono and cut his leg so he couldn’t get up.  I took out my bow and ran over to the door but they were already gone, Zordono with them.  I ran out to the end of the hallway to the stairs but they were already out the door.  Next I rushed to the door and opened it up to see nothing but leaves moving along through the streets by means of the swift breeze; NO one was there at all.