A crowd had gathered to watch the soldiers march from Nerak Nitil with King Belgrave. Commander Sidrahkir had chosen the Red Exemplars and three other companies. King Anou had provided them with enough supplies to last three weeks and promised to send the rest of the army looking for them if they did not return in that time.
As they marched along the road to the Dark Forest, the dense city gave way to wide open plots of land with well-built houses. “I’d love to have a house like one of these,” Commander Sidrahkir stated. “Unfortunately, a lifetime of fighting against the darkness doesn’t make you wealthy.”
“Then why do you keep fighting?” King Belgrave asked.
“I was born in battle,” the Commander replied. “I am sure I will die in battle.”
“Are you speaking figuratively or are you serious?”
“I was born while my village was under attack. I survived, but neither of my parents lasted the day. A soldier of Tanarad took me into his home and he and his wife raised me. They became my father and mother. At the age of five, I killed my first Barbidon. By the age of ten, I was following armies to battle against my father’s will and would hide in the woods with a bow picking off the Barbidons who strayed too close to my position.”
“How did you go from that disobedient boy to commanding entire armies?”
“I developed a bit of renown,” Sidrahkir replied, chuckling. “After one such battle, I had no less than twenty Barbidon corpses around me and when a soldier found me I was pretending to be an infantry soldier as I hacked away at a corpse with my knife. From then on, I was a bit of a legend. Everyone wanted to know just how many more I had killed than everyone else had. At sixteen, my father gave me my first sword and I joined the army. Battle was much different and more dangerous now that I was on the front lines, but I adapted faster than many others who joined the army at the same time. They grew to follow my lead, and as the opportunities were presented, I moved up the ranks.”
“Well it’s a good thing you’ve grown up to be such a fine Barbidon slayer!” Belgrave laughed. “When the prophecies are all fulfilled and there is no more war, then I will see about rewarding your service with a house such as these.”
The Commander smiled as they marched on. “Barbidon Slayer, that was one of the first nicknames the soldiers had for me.”
“What other things did they call you?” King Belgrave asked.
“Obviously, I’ve been called the Sword of Thunder and chose to use that theme for the emblem on my flag,” he said, “but there are many others. Narva’s Nightmare, Dragon Bait, Courage Incarnate, but my favorite was when I heard that Barbidons were using my name as a curse word!”
“That certainly is quite a reputation,” Belgrave agreed, “but why wouldn’t the Barbidon’s just use words from their native language?”
“I’m not entirely sure,” Commander Sidrahkir replied. “I think it was because the Dark Witch Jazek, and then Narva, never managed to learn the Barbidon language so they just ordered them not to speak it. Naturally, the Barbidons improvised and used the name of the man they feared and hated the most.”
They were marching at a very rapid pace and moved faster than they had with the rest of the army. Eventually they were marching past farms, and soon the road disappeared altogether and gave way to a wide brushy scrubland with almost no signs of civilization. It was a slower pace since the weeds were taller and taller the further they went. The Red Exemplars moved ahead of the rest of the soldiers and began to clear a path through the weeds for everyone else. Soon the air began to grow thick as wisps of the slowly thickening fog drifted by.
Belgrave knew they were nearing the Dark Forest and warned the soldiers to be on their guard for the unexpected. Eventually the weeds were growing so tall that they formed a roof over their heads. They stopped briefly to make torches to provide light so they could see where they were going. The air was hot and humid beneath the insulating weeds and soon they were soaked with sweat. They could hear rustling in the weeds as unknown creatures moved just out of sight.
After marching all day, and most likely into the night, King Belgrave began to notice the soldiers were starting to grow tired so he ordered them to halt. “Captain Haloz!” he called.
The Captain came running. “Yes, King Belgrave?”
Dirt, sweat, and plant matter covered Captain Haloz. King Belgrave could see blood where thorns had punctured his skin. “We are taking an eight hour rest before we continue on,” he said. “I know you and your men would gladly continue for much longer, but I want them rested as well. Also, I will want the Red Exemplars to let the other companies to do their share of the work.”
“What will we do in the meantime?” Captain Haloz asked.
“Take this time to sharpen your weapons,” King Belgrave replied. “After hacking through these weeds as you have, I am sure they are quite dull. I will allow you to have a few soldiers stand guard, but I would rather have your men rested and ready to fight if we meet something than to have them worn out and tired from chopping weeds all day.”
By now, Captain Haloz was looking confused. He had never taken orders from anyone outside the Red Exemplars and had only volunteered to come with King Belgrave because he would fulfill the prophecies. King Belgrave noticed his confusion and explained.
“I am also willing to continue, but the rest of the army is not as accustomed to such a hard path. I am not sure if you noticed, but there have been small trails through the brush and I want everyone on the lookout for whatever may be living in those tunnels.”
The Captain still did not fully understand King Belgrave’s request since it went against everything he had ever done. His was a life of constant action and to take a break in the middle of a mission was unheard of. “King Belgrave, we volunteered to serve you to liberate Panei. Because you are the fulfillment of the last three prophecies, we have sworn to follow you to the end of the world and certain death. At the same time, we are the Red Exemplars. We do not fight for kings and nations. To be given orders by you goes against everything we have ever stood for and I truly must ask, do you want us in your service or should we leave you to fight alone as we also have fought alone throughout the ages?”
King Belgrave smiled. He knew it would come to this and he had his response ready. “If I understand you, Captain, you are questioning my order because I am keeping you from performing great deeds which will set you apart from all other men. As it is now, I do not want your service; I need it. I need to fulfill the prophecies and I need your help to do so. What you have failed to realize is that the prophecies will be fulfilled when they are meant to be fulfilled, and not at the timing of someone else’s discretion. Now we are marching to try fulfilling the second prophecy, and even if you arrived a full day ahead of me, it would not be fulfilled until I arrived. No, Captain, my order is not for you to keep from performing great deeds. I am merely asking you to march when I march, rest when I rest, and fight when I fight. There will come a time when you will called upon to shine above all the world, but that is not now. We are not in battle right now, merely marching through thick weeds. Save the valor and the vigor for war where you may fight for honor and glory.”
“To give our lives in battle for the fulfillment of the prophecies is an honor. Our fallen are remembered by blood,” Captain Haloz said. He bared his forearm to show two large scars. “Let us hope this battle you speak of goes well for I would not like to bleed for fifty men. I understand you now and we will follow your orders.”
“Thank you, Captain Haloz of the Red Exemplars,” Belgrave replied. “If you fall in battle, I promise that I will remember you with my blood.”
The Captain smiled. “Then you are truly a king worth fighting for. I will have the Red Exemplars get some rest.”
They did not know the time of day when they moved on since the weeds blocked out the sky, but Commander Sidrahkir claimed they had traveled at a feverish pace for at least fifteen hours before they rested, and guessed that it was probably around noon the next day. A number of minutes after they started, the soldiers stopped and there was a commotion from the men in front. Commander Sidrahkir went to investigate the delay and returned with the remains of a centipede the size of his arm. “We know what was making those tunnels,” the Commander said.
“Most of the tunnels are much larger than this centipede,” King Belgrave said slowly. A shiver went up his spine. “It seems that vermin grow large here and I fear this is only the beginning.”
“I have heard that many of the monsters of this world came from the dark places,” Commander Sidrahkir replied. “Boggle snakes, elkenar antelope; at least these creatures are content to stay here.”
King Belgrave knelt and attempted to cut through the centipede’s thick armor. It was thick and very tough. He cleaned out the head and stuck it in his pack. It would make a nice trophy that he could give to Naiya’Nal when he returned to Tanarad.
“It’s not the centipedes that I’m afraid of,” King Belgrave said as he stood up. “It’s what we haven’t yet seen that may be large enough to eat them. Draw swords!” he ordered. They began to move forward again.
They moved on for several hours with each company taking its turn at the front. When one of the other companies relieved the Red Exemplars at the front, Captain Haloz positioned his men on either side of King Belgrave and Commander Sidrahkir. “It’s just a small change of duty,” the Captain joked.
It was not long until they finally found the culprit behind the tunnels they had passed, a large black beetle the length of a man’s height. It moved with lightning speed and the strong pincers had decapitated a soldier before the man knew what was happening. The soldiers around him were quick to react and the beetle was quickly killed. They brought both corpses to King Belgrave.
“What was his name?” he asked the soldiers.
“Teof,” Commander Sidrahkir replied. “He has always been a loyal soldier of Tanarad.”
“Clear a hole to the sky,” King Belgrave ordered. “We cannot leave his body to be scavenged. We will burn his body.”
The soldiers expanded the tunnel and found that the tops of the weeds were closer than they thought. It was night, but they could not see the stars through the dense fog above them. Commander Sidrahkir guessed it was only a few hours before sunrise. They wrapped Teof’s body in a cloth and placed him on a small pyre. With some difficulty, they managed to ignite the fire and watched as it slowly consumed their fallen comrade.
They rested there until the fire died down. By then it was early morning and the sky above them was beginning to lighten. As they continued to move through the weeds, Belgrave began to hope the forest was near. The dense plants were becoming tiresome and it was hard to breathe in the thick humid air. After awhile, the company in front halted and Commander Sidrahkir went to see why.
“We are moving towards an unknown creature,” the captain in charge of the company replied. “I can hear it moving around and if the centipede and beetle were any indication, I’d guess this is something worse.”
This did not please Commander Sidrahkir. “Captain Rumsi,” he stated; “Voth can kill us all! We have come too far to turn back at the smallest danger. If a little noise is all it takes to make you run, I must question how you’ve pressed on in the battles we’ve fought already.” The Commander’s outburst embarrassed Captain Rumsi so he stayed silent.
“Let’s get moving,” the Commander ordered. He began to chop at the weeds in the captain’s place.
The noise grew louder as they neared the hidden enemy. It sounded like a mix between a screech and a buzz and it did not sound pleasant. King Belgrave wondered if it was an insect they had not yet met, and hoped it did not have wings.
Commander Sidrahkir finally stopped the soldiers. “Prepare to fight,” he ordered. “I think it’s a nest and there are more than one of them.” The soldiers drew their swords and prepared for battle.
King Belgrave was not at all ready for what they had just broken into. There were screeching beetles everywhere. Screams of badly wounded soldiers filled the air. King Belgrave watched as a soldier near him suddenly grabbed his face and fell to his knees. A thick liquid covered the man’s face and burned the flesh. King Belgrave looked into the nest. There was a group of blue-colored beetles squirting the liquid from their abdomens.
“Captain Haloz!” King Belgrave yelled. He knew the Red Exemplars would be able to fight their way into the nest and kill the blue beetles.
The Captain came to King Belgrave’s side, but a beetle chose King Belgrave as its target. As it lunged, King Belgrave thrust his shield in front of him, but he was still pushed to the ground by the momentum of the beetle. The shield protected him from the sharp pincers, but he could not move under the beetle’s weight. He tried unsuccessfully to avoid the sharp claws digging into his unprotected sides. He heard a dull thud as the stroke of a sword killed the beetle. “You called?” Captain Haloz asked. He pulled the dead beetle off King Belgrave.
“Into the nest,” King Belgrave ordered as he sat up. “Kill the shooters.”
The Red Exemplars surged forward and into the beetle nest. They blocked the flying liquid with their shields and the beetles did not last long against their fury. The battle was soon over. As the rest of the soldiers tended to the wounded, the Red Exemplars began to hack through the weeds. Within minutes, a welcome cry rang through the air. “It’s the end of the weeds!”
They had finally reached the Dark Forest and there was ample space between the trees for them to set up a camp where they could tend to their injuries. After setting up a perimeter of torches, they began to carry the wounded into the forest. Others began to clean and bandage the wounds.
King Belgrave found Commander Sidrahkir. He had a long cut running down his arm. He had been in the front during the attack, but managed to escape most of the chaos after a beetle knocked him to the ground. “I’ll be fine,” the Commander said. He wrapped a strip of cloth around his arm. “We need to help those who are wounded worse than us.”
It seemed no one had escaped from the beetles unharmed and even Belgrave had a few deep gouges. Once again, they built a funeral pyre and placed six more bodies upon it. The Red Exemplars had also lost one of their members, but they buried the dead soldier and each Red Exemplar made a small cut on their forearm to remember the man.