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  REALM OF DRUIDS

  The Beasts oF Aledran

  Mark Hogenelst

  CONTENTS

  PROLOGUE

  1.SALTWOOD VILLAGE

  2.THE RUINED CASTLE

  3.RED WHISKERS

  4.THE WITCH SALUM

  5.SANIEL CARLOW

  6.THE GLOOMY FOREST

  7.KING BOORAG

  8.THE PALE STRANGER

  9.RED WHISKERS

  10.THE WOLVES

  11.THE BATTLE OF ROEMUS

  12.LADY STRALA

  13.SANIEL CARLOW

  14.THE ELVENE

  15.THE WILDPACK

  16.WARLORD SHUM

  17.DUSKFALL BRIDGE

  18.LIEUTENANT CROVAR

  19.THE GLISTENING RIVER

  20.THE GOBLIN MAGE

  21.THE SHAHDOM OF ALEDRAN

  22.THE ARCUS VOLANTES

  23.THE MOONSTONE WITHIN THE TALISMAN

  24.THE BLOODWOOD COVEN

  25.FICKLE DAEMONS

  26.THE BLACK SHADOW

  27.SALTWOOD

  28.THE WOLF AND THE FOX

  29.ARMY OF 1000 HOUNDS

  30.WHALE COVE INN

  31.LUCAS THE INNKEEPER

  32.BLACKMIRE CASTLE

  33.MAZAMAAG THE DECEIVER

  34.THE WILDPACK MARCH

  35.THE ELWOODS

  36.THE NECROMANCER

  37.CROVAR AND THE SWAMP TROLL

  38.THE DAEMON SUMMONING

  39.THE NAZUTH

  40.BRINETOWN

  41.GRELL

  42.THE WINDBURN ARMY

  43.SOUL REAPING

  44.SANIEL CARLOW

  45.ELF TAEGAN

  46.THE ISLE OF HAERGUS

  47.THE KEEPER OF THE CAVES

  48.INVASION OF DUSKFALL

  49.THE RUST-SERPENTS

  50.TRENCH OF RAGING TIDES

  51.SERVANT TO THE MOONSTONE

  52.THE BLOODWOOD ARMY

  53.THE LAST SONG OF DUSKFALL

  54.ESCAPE TO ALEDRAN

  55.THE FALL OF THE WOLVES

  56.THE LADY RAVYNE

  57.THE DEFENSE OF ALEDRAN

  58.BAYING OF THE HOUNDS

  59.FALCON AND THE WHITE RAPTOR

  60.THE FIRE DAEMON

  61.INCURSION INTO THE GREAT RIFT

  62.THE RETREAT

  63.BUHOO OF THE PHANTOM BROOD

  64.THE LAST STAND

  65.GORGON ASSASINS

  66.THE CHAOS LEGION

  67.THE JOURNEY EAST

  PROLOGUE

  M ankind armies long ago had battled across this land, in a 100-year war that almost ended the world, Armageddon. Terrible weapons of might and magic were wielded that warped and scarred the landscape, spawning the chaos millennium and the near extinction of all life. This cycle in history finally subsided and gave birth to new land the millennium descendants called Frelith. It’s forged upon an ancient world, with lingering magical and arcane relics granting aid to the select few species that endured. Fantastic creatures fly the grey skies on magnificent wings roaring defiance to those below. Strange horned beasts rule the depths of the oceans once feared but now forgotten. Frozen islands and great deserts yield creatures born from disorder. Nameless things crawled from bottomless lakes into the mountains to feed. Endless moorlands of marshes and quagmires flood the landscape cleft by dense forests, unfathomable seas, and jagged mountain ranges. And that’s just over on this side of the world.

  Life was born into this new domain to usurp the races of the old world. The reality of existence was corrupted so deeply that alternate, concurring realms were born. Ethereal beings known as Daemons lived in a ghostly twilight called the Dread-Realm, separated from Frelith by only a thin fabric of time and space. There was no accurate understanding of good versus evil; it all came down to motives and bargains and the perception of who did what. Daemons had ambitions as well and occasionally interfered with the mortal species. They could aid the magic practitioners who bargained for it, by imparting some of their being and power into unique jewels and artifacts.

  Watching with jealous eyes, these Daemons cast their influence far and wide through their familiars. Some of the magic folk, including elves, lived in relative harmony with one another and the beast kingdoms. Witches and goblins chose to isolate themselves, dispersed throughout the land as they schemed and plotted against each other and everyone else. Remaining mankind animals live in their isolated villages scattered along the fringes of the known lands. They lived simple lives, the complexities of expansion, domination, and war long forgotten. They ignored the finer details of the past and were happy enough to pretend that it had never transpired, though it was mostly their fault. Being unenlightened of the existence of other species, any such knowledge they possessed had now faded away into folk law and myth. In this age, mankind chose to believe that they were the only intelligent beings in the land, even though the other species looked upon them as mere beasts. Frelith is a new world, a world where generations of recorded history were lost, where caution and fear dictated mankind’s reluctance to learn anything new. It was just so much easier to survive this way.

  1.

  SALTWOOD VILLAGE

  The sweet smell of rain drifted on the light breeze filling the cold night air with a comforting, fresh fragrance. It rained most nights in the sleepy village of Saltwood, and as the brown running water gurgled along the edge of the cobblestone roads, it took with it an assortment of leaves fallen during the day from the several large Oak, Elm and Dogwood trees that jostled for room along the narrow footpaths. A glimpse of these old tree’s silhouettes could be seen tall and majestic on this black night through the occasional flash of lightning from a storm over the far away moors. Sporadic wind gusts howled through the canopies above the rooftops shaking the closed shutters of many tiny weather-beaten cottages. No one rightly knew how old the cottages were, only that they had been here a long time.

  Saltwood was a village perched upon the Howling Cliffs overlooking the Moaning Sea. Loud rumblings vibrated through the ground that was not caused by the sound of the faraway storm, but rather the deep sea throwing its might against the cliffs, pounding time and time again in a valiant effort to reach the top and throw a briny spray over the closest cottages. If that wasn’t bad enough, Saltwood is only a small village inhabited by suspicious folk who did not mix well with outsiders. The thousand or so inhabitants were born to their performed roles within the village. As far as anyone could remember, that’s the way it had always been. Bakers, watchmen, woodsmen, fishermen, farmers and even a blacksmith who had inherited through the generations before him, the skill of the forge. With the reinvention of the gill net, fish were the most natural prey to catch and formed most of the villager’s staple diet.

  There was a council of elders; men and women selected from the general populace and who could deal with most matters. To become an elder on the village council is a simple task of being over the age of 60 or quoting something that sounded really clever. Barney Critchem recently attained his position when he loudly stated that it would rain one afternoon, which it inevitably did on most days. It carried no real reward for the job except that an elder would often sit in a much nicer chair than anyone else in the Council Hall next to the square. Barney sported a shock of red wavy hair, with a face and arms covered in freckles and spots. He is commonly referred to by his peers as ‘Speckle.’ The elders always had the interest of the village at heart, but were often heard to say that, ‘Saltwood is not at the end of the world, but you could see it from there.’

  Saltwood lay in the south of the Boondor Peninsular with its nearest neighbour being the village of Brineburg several hundred miles to the north and accessed by a coastal route known as the ‘Wandering Soul’ Road.
No one can guarantee that a traveller would make it from one end to the other without meeting some demise. The so-called road was just a mud and stone path wide enough for pony and carriage, marked with short rocky pillars placed roughly every mile or so. However, it was common knowledge that if a traveller strayed too far from the path, he would either topple down the rugged cliff edge into the hungry sea or enter the dark wood of the moorlands to be eaten by some savage creature lurking nearby.

  About halfway along the Wandering Souls Road stood the time punished decrepit Whalecove Inn. It is literally in the middle of nowhere on a lonely stretch of coast known as ‘Woods End.’ This point along the coast was the closest the great forest came to the sea, and on the thin stretch of land between woods and sea, sat the inn. It was a ramshackle affair that could offer a basic meal and a hard bed for the night at the cost of several coins. However, the family that ran this inn was rumoured to be as queer as the creatures that lived in the nearby forests. Therefore, a decree is in place that most travellers avoid the inn if possible. Nothing of interest lay to the south of Saltwood for hundreds of miles. Here where no man had explored in living memory, lay a land of ice and frost, where the coast, woods, and moors were under cover of perpetual winter. Saltwood locals were reminded of this when strong southerly winds often blew during the year bringing icy blasts to the north.

  Most days the men went about their daily routine including the fisherman who would try to make an honest living. This usually included working the nearby sea and robbing each other’s nets. Several precarious routes were available to the local fisherman that made their way daily down to the small sandy coves nestled amongst the bottom of the cliffs. These cliffs were typically several hundred feet in height and after an eternity of pounding waves and tides, were a honeycombed network of caves and tunnels. The fisherman would use these sheltered coves to tend to their wooden fishing skiffs and nets, before braving the high tides and rough seas to venture out around the small islands that dotted the coastline. They would set their nets in the deep channels, sheltered between the islands and occasionally return to shore with a wicker basket full of squib fish. These were short fat fleshy fish that dominated the local marine environment in plentiful numbers.

  The women of the village were typically plump and small in stature. They worked the small-village market trading sea goods and other local produce with traders from Brineburg and on rare occasions further inland villages. When not bartering, people would swap small copper coins with one another when buying or selling any goods. It was a basic form of currency, but one recognised among the villages. There had been no recent word from the Pine Ridge Village in the northern mountains, and the Saltwood elders were becoming increasingly concerned. They believed that they had either been ‘snubbed’ or that some catastrophe had befallen them. Still, they preferred to stick to themselves and worry about their issues without having to hear about anybody else’s problems.

  More often than not, many of the fishermen would sit ashore watching the sea crash into the nearby cliffs throwing spray and foam almost to the top. Sucking on their small wooden tobacco pipes, they bragged about the ‘big one’ that got away. Tigerfish, native to these waters, usually got caught up in the nets trying to chase an easy meal of squibs. The tigerfish resembled sharks from the old world, only smaller. They had mouths with rows upon rows of sharp triangular teeth. No one would beach their skiffs on any of those islands nearby. From a distance, they appeared to be a misshapen heap of rock and stone jutting out of the water, with nowhere for a skiff to land for fear of being smashed to pieces. The known islands were baron for the most part with several stunted and twisted looking trees and inhabited mostly by noisy seabirds that roosted in the crags. Somewhere in the village records, it also mentions there once lived a very nasty salt troll in a cave on one of those bigger islands whose diet relied on more than just fish and birds. Rumours allege that he throws rocks and yells obscenities at passing fisherman. No one alive today had ever witnessed this, nor could recall on which rock the troll resided. Therefore the locals thought it best to avoid every one of the islands. All in all, they were not hospitable and very uninviting which suited the fisherman anyway as they were ever a cautious lot.

  Several tracts of thick forests surrounded the inland side of the village, before giving way to the moorlands that reached far away to the distant line of tall mountains. The woods consisted of ancient trees and were a source of firewood and building materials that the locals used along with the stone quarried from the cliffs to make cottages. The forest seemed to have an uncanny way of never receding, regardless of how many trees were cut down. They were unusually thick in areas with the timber growing so close together that it was too dark and gloomy a place to visit, challenging to traverse and easy to lose one’s way. A few of the older folk would mumble that the woods, in league with the moors were trying to push the village off the cliff into the hungry Moaning Sea below. During the daylight hours and after the shroud of the night had left the minds of some, local trappers would access small paths within the narrower parts of the forest to hunt for small game. Sometimes they would return with a rabbit or squirrel caught in a snare or a chicken that had escaped the day before. Sometimes they wouldn’t return at all. More often than not, they returned empty-handed.

  The villager’s staple diet was fish, supplemented by the odd sheep and goat. The livestock was guarded carefully and housed in random yards, and small paddocks kept close to the village. Though it had been a long time since a wild dog or fox had crept into the village at night and stolen a fat lamb. The goats strayed freely around the village nibbling away at people’s gardens and knocking the occasional slop bucket over. Several village dogs looked on in amusement until they realised that they were often blamed for the mess, as large boots attached to the end of watchmen’s legs came kicking after them. The village also had many domesticated ponies used for pulling carriages and small ploughs in the surrounding fields.

  The moorland is immense, and it's well known that no man had ever been around the whole thing. Wild ponies are often seen, their silhouettes galloping along distant ridgelines. They are small, robust shaggy brown and white-coloured equine animals that were very timid. Many swine herds and warthog sounders also roamed freely through the open marshes, mostly keeping to their own kind. They are regularly sighted feeding near the edge of a quagmire, turning over the soil like farmers. It’s known that the giant deer hybrids and wolves would also venture into the moors from the distant forests of the northern mountains, but as far as anyone knew none of these animals had ever made it across the moors to the Saltwood forests in modern times.

  The moors contained numerous marshes, some rumoured to be bottomless that were the source of frequent dense fogs, mists, and swarms of biting insects. Strange wailing noises were frequently heard coming from these mists. The nickname ‘Moors of Despair’ had then been given by the elders of the village council several decades ago. The moors were a downright dangerous place for the weary traveller and the old maps drawn up by village ancestors of the pathways within the moors, had long since vanished. The moors came right up to the woods surrounding the village with the closest point being only several miles away from the east side of the village. It was as if a giant knife had sliced into the land to define where the thick forests gave way unexpectedly to a vast expanse of undulating marsh and quagmire moorland.

  Inside the western edge of the moors about two days ‘walk from the village, the ruins of an enormous castle squatted upon a raised grass and rock section of the moors. The once known paths through the quagmires to this castle were also long forgotten, except to the wild ponies and it had been quite a long time since anyone had attempted to venture there. The castle is believed to be over 2042 years old, as recorded precisely in the village’s only surviving history books– ‘Saltwood on the Cliffs’ and the ‘Saltwood Chronicles. ‘It was called Blackmire Castle and had recently as 500 years ago, belonged to the Earle of Saltwood Marsh. Th
e stone slab and clay brick construction was a dark colour, likely one of the reasons for its name. Just who built it and originally owned it was never known, but once upon a time it was probably a nice place to visit in summer. But now, it had been reclaimed by the moors and consisted of crumbling stone walls overgrown by near-impenetrable creeping thorn vines and thick underbrush. Of the four towers that once stood proudly from the walls, only one remained. It stood like a solitary guard watching the moors - a home to Ravens, rats and other unpleasant rodents.

  From several miles away, the crumbling castle walls looked like giant jagged teeth, menacing and less appealing to the would-be explorer. Rumours also surrounded the fate of the Earle ofBlackmire Castle. He had disappeared several hundred years ago when the castle began mysteriously crumbling. It’s whispered that he studied the magic arts and increasingly isolated himself from the village, inhabiting the castle with undesirables. In the dead still of nights, the chilling howls of unnatural laughter echo across the moors. Though none of this is recorded in the Saltwood Chronicles and maybe be an old village woman’s tale.

  Saltwood comes alive during the day with the village folk. However, in these times, people tend to stay indoors and not set foot outside until the gloom of night had vanished, and the last tendrils of mist had retreated through the woods. They are ever a wary lot, having passed down through generation’s stories of wild storms, the cliffs, the moors and quagmires and occasional disappearance of some locals. They believed that the night belonged to the animals that retreated with the mist into the woods and moors at the first hint of daylight. As far as anyone knew, the only animals that ventured through the edge of the village were rabbits, squirrels, and the occasional wily fox. The odd screech from an owl in the middle of the night sent locals living closest to the wood diving deeper into their blankets and wrapping their pillows around their ears.