The Netheron Chronicles by Joseph Black (the giving tree read aloud txt) 📕

He gestured futilely into the darkness.
Marlan listened silently, and then he reached forward and grasped Taurens shoulders and shook him softly, his eyes glinting with a soft burning anger.” I’m sorry Tauren. I’d tell you, I would! But this is your quest, you have to find out anything you want to know on your own. Anything about your parents, your grandfather, your quest, or about you. You must write your own fate; this is one spot where I’m not allowed to interfere. Let it suffice for me to say . . . the world isn’t what it seems.” He reached down and took Taurens hand, his voice softening.” I’m sorry. Go to the fort, get a horse, and leave. Don’t look back.”
The man that Tauren had known for most his life turned his back to him, leaving in his clenched hand a small pouch of gold. Tauren stared after him as he walked away, confused, with no idea what to do. The grief was gone, replaced by emptiness and a bit of anger.
Something his grandfather had told him years before flashed across his mind, if you feel unsure of what to do, simply act, simply do something and then let it flow.
With a gulp he turned, picked up the sword he had dropped, and then began running for the fort, not looking back, and glad he didn’t; he didn’t want Marlan or any of his former friends to see the tears in his eyes.


Detrick.

Tauren leaned down and carefully felt the hoof print.
He rubbed his fingers around the edge, taking in the damp feeling, and carefully checked how much the soil had dried since the horses hoof had been there.
His expert knowledge on stalking and hunting made it so that when he saw a simple print made my some passing animal he could find a wealth of information about it.
He knew that this horse had weighed over 1000 pounds, and he knew it carried a load; he suspected that its right forelegs knee was somehow damaged, causing it to have a slight limp; he could guess that the horse carried a heavy load, but it had only a small rider, seeing as to the way that its prints differed when someone’s footprints where next to its hoof prints and when they weren’t.
He also knew that whoever was riding it was armed and knew how to use their weapons; he knew this due to the way they had cut their firewood at their previous campsite he’d passed, the strokes where sword strokes, perfectly executed, and with a stunning amount of power.
Much of what he could guess from the various signs the rider and horse left him was very uncertain, and he wasn’t planning on risking his life on any of that information.
He stood slowly, wiping his hands off on his grey cloak he had acquired a few days before at a small town, and turning, leaped up onto T’hunes back.
The bay didn’t need any directions and started instantly down the small forest road, under the spreading trees; over the beautiful carpet of colorful autumn leaves, leaves that where stopping to fall from the barren branches overhead.
It had been five days since he had rushed up to the hilltop in Carmenton, grabbed his bow, jumped on T’hune, and rode off into the forest . . . without looking back.
He still didn’t look back.
He had had a hard first day, feeling empty and betrayed, after which he had simply turned T’hunes head down the forest road and started riding, without aim, without anything in mind.
He had bought some supplies at a town three days before, and had been riding ever since through the vast expanse of forest trails, wandering without cause, not even running into a single other traveler . . . until now.
The day before, he had taken a new fork in the trail and found that this was a more used path. He had followed it now for three days, and knew that he was catching up on whoever it was that was ahead of him . . . but something was bothering him, perhaps it was the almost indecipherable signs he saw every now and again in the forest . . . perhaps it was the rotting carcasses of two wolves had found that morning, ripped apart and stinking, but fresh, and riddled in teeth marks.
He wasn’t worried about himself, he wasn’t worried at all, but he felt something was wrong with this part of the world, he could feel it deep inside, gnawing at him.
He knew that something was seriously wrong in the woods; birds had stopped singing and he saw far fewer of them than there should have been; wolves had stopped howling, and everything subdued, the skies where cloudy and a haze seemed to cover the sun during the brief periods of time when it did come out from behind its covers.
He couldn’t place it.
He rode in silence for some time, his senses on edge, listening for any sign of movement from the woods, the sun was getting lower and he would have to make camp soon, T’hune needed rest even if he didn’t.
He continued on, careful, but still enjoying the woods, the silence, and the peace that always seemed to come with them, but it was peace with a sharp edge.
He heard a wolf howl in the distance and started, usually that was a good sound to him, and he loved wolves and the part they played in nature; but something was wrong with the howl, it was too short, too much like a hounds cry, and far too bloodthirsty.
He shuddered uncomfortably and nudged T’hune into a clearing in the forest a few dozen yards from the trail, he took very little time, using his sword and hands, to get a good fire burning and get T’hune comfortably padded down for the night.
Then he took his bow and carefully walked into the darkening woods, hoping to catch something for his dinner before complete darkness fell.
The nights where getting colder, and Tauren was glad for his heavy coat that night, the frigid air bit his hands and face, only made colder by a soft breeze.
He walked through the silent, dark, trees, not making a sound, and not hearing a sound; he didn’t like that, the night was supposed to be alive with sounds, bats, owls, nocturnal animals . . . all kinds of things, yet it was silent as a tomb.
He hadn’t gone for fifty yards from the camp when he heard his first sound, and it wasn’t one he had wanted to hear; it was the sound of footsteps, heavy armored footsteps; the sound of at least ten armored men crashing through the brush only fifty yards from him.
Without a pause he spun behind a tree, listening carefully, they were coming straight for him, and he had a feeling that if they were out on this night; they weren’t friendly.
Whoever they were where moved fast and the next thing he knew he heard the sound of rough voices right behind his tree.” It can’t be far”, Muttered one of them,” It’s had to have camped down somewhere close by.”
“. Who knows? Those things can keep going all night and all day for a week without rest I hear.” Another voice muttered.
“.They can”, Whispered a third,” But their horses can’t. Now shut it you two; the last thing I want to do is start this night with a fight.” This voice had a considerable amount of authority Tauren noticed, and the other two fell silent. He guessed from the sound that there must have been at least 12 of them standing there.
“.Why don’t we just let the hounds on it?” Whined a new voice, there were some grunts of approval.
There was the sound of a thick growl and the third voice spoke again.” Shut up I said! Because we’re not cowards for one thing, and for another, the hounds wouldn’t stand a chance. Now draw swords and come on.”
There was the sound of steel on steel and the whole group poured past the tree Tauren stood behind, not even noticing the dark cloaked figure standing there. They were soldiers; that much was obvious from their armor and swords gleaming in the light cast by the crescent moon.
Tauren started, they weren’t just any soldiers, they were Halavardes, easily distinguished by their flowing black cloaks and kite shaped shields emblazoned with the Halavarde’s dragon. Halavardes where men who were well known for their complete lack of fear in battle; men who had earned a ruthless reputation for bloodthirstiness, a reputation that wasn’t ill founded either.
He remembered his last night in Carmenton; he remembered the whispered conversation between his grandfather and Marlan, they had said that the Arrels had been ordered to pull out of Netheron. That meant that Halavardes now had easy access to a virtually undefended world, and there they were now.
But who where they hunting?
He had to find out.
He sighed, laid an arrow on string, readied his sword; then, shaking his head, turned and trotted after them.
Why was he risking his neck for someone he didn’t even know? Because he could help them, and when someone was threatened and he could help, yet didn’t . . . well, it was his responsibility to help if he could, he said to himself.
The last Halavarde in the line of running men wasn’t even noticed as an arrow slammed through his heart from behind, and he fell silently to the ground, dead without a word.
The second one gave a startled cry just before he crumpled to the earth, an arrow sticking out of his back, blood pouring onto the ground.
Tauren couldn’t help but be impressed with the speed with which the others reacted; leaping into the forest in all directions at an order shouted from their commander, and then converging on the general area from where they figured the arrows where coming, from at a speed that was simply incredible.
He wasn’t impressed about it