Herald of Shalia 4 Read online

“That can’t be Herald Frost,” another elf said. “His hair is blue.”

  “Wasn’t he a level seven fighter when he arrived?”

  “I can’t see his level or class and I’m level twenty,” another elf chimed in. “The elf that’s with him is level twenty-seven…”

  “I am Herald Frost,” he nodded while stepping toward Nara. He patted the emerald-haired elf’s head as she stared up at him, unsure of how to react. “Nice to meet you.”

  “Herald Frost!” the green-haired elf wrapped her hands around him and squeezed as hard as she could, burying her face in his chest. “You really came to save us!”

  “But how?” Nara’s mother asked while staring at him. “How did you know where we were?”

  “I wish it were easy,” Frost said while tapping one of the paralyzed slavers’ heads. “Blackwater territory is pretty large and unfortunately Shalia can only see the present, not the future. And since I can only contact her once or twice a month, it can get messy.”

  “Herald Frost decided that we could stake out some border crossings,” Fayeth said. “And sure enough, the slavers took the bait.”

  “You really came to save us,” an elf began crying.

  “I thought we were going to be sold as slaves.”

  “What took you so long?” one of the chained women said bitterly. She was red-haired and the bruises covering her body were severe. She was rightfully frustrated. “We’ve been beaten and…”

  “I understand you’re frustrated,” Frost said, crouching down in front of the chained woman. Tears welled up in her eyes as he gently patted her head. “But I have a territory to run and elves coming from the north, south, east, and west. I have wives that need me, alliances that need to be upheld, training to do, monsters to kill, and business interests that need to be monitored. I can’t be everywhere at once and I’m not such a good person that I’m going to spend every waking moment saving elves. I do what I can, when I can.”

  “I suppose we should be grateful you even came,” an elf said solemnly.

  “Thank you,” another elf said while wiping away her tears. “Thank you for saving us.”

  “You’re welcome,” Frost said, walking up to a slaver and grabbing the keys from his belt. He tossed them to Fayeth and she quickly began unlocking the elves. “Now, let’s take care of these chains and cages.”

  Frost waved his hands at the various cages and thin barriers sliced the bars off, allowing the elves to step out. He glared at the two elf males as he contemplated what to do with them. He’d never met any elf males before but he knew that none of them were followers of Shalia since even a cursed male had value to somebody. The two men must have realized his distrust of them because they immediately began stepping away from him and looking around for an escape.

  “You two,” Frost’s eyes narrowed. “There’s no way you’re followers of Shalia. Elf males are highly valued and would be given prestigious positions in any of the villages they reside in.”

  “Um,” the red-haired elf bowed his head nervously, as if he were afraid to make eye contact.

  The other, a blue-haired elf, stared timidly at a small group of azure-haired elf children huddled around three elf females. Two of them similar-looking to the children and a third green-haired one.

  “I am Ruvaen. In my assigned village the children were to be sent to the mines to work,” the timid blue-haired elf said while gesturing at his five children. “The mines are dangerous and every month children die inside of them. I am not a follower of Shalia but I heard that they would be safe in your territory.”

  “I am Elion. I only have one child and she is considered cursed,” the other male said, pointing to a tiny red haired girl that looked similar to him. “Her mother died in childbirth and I’ve taken care of her ever since. I’ve been ordered to send her away so I can take new wives and have more children. But I have no intention of doing that.”

  “Okay,” Frost nodded apprehensively as he scanned the men. He wasn’t sure what he was looking for since they were obviously low level and posed no threats to him physically.

  “Herald Frost,” Ruvaen pointed toward his wives and daughters. “If my presence is the deciding factor on whether or not my wife and children are permitted entry into your territory then…”

  “No,” Frost shook his head while glaring at the two men. They were stupidly good-looking and could even give that silver-haired bastard Slade a run for his money. He knew that in elf villages it wasn’t unusual for a single male to have dozens of wives and he didn’t know how he felt about that. He had humans and werewolves and even a couple centaur and orc males in his village but none of them showed any interest in elves so he had them all to himself. “How many wives are you intending to take?”

  “How many?” Elion shook his head. “Herald Frost, if I wanted new wives I would have stayed in my village. I only wish to raise my daughter in peace.”

  “Oh,” Frost’s eyes narrowed as he realized the women in his village were going to eat the poor bastard alive with an attitude like that.

  “Is there a limit?” Ruvaen asked nervously. “I am content with my current wives but…”

  “But what?” the green-haired elf asked angrily as two blue-haired ones silently scowled.

  “As of now I don’t have any intentions of taking a new wife,” Ruvaen said, staring nervously at his wives. “But in the future, I may wish to. But if it’s necessary I’d be willing to look outside of the territory for one.”

  “Not really necessary,” Frost said as Fayeth released the last group of chained up elves. “Just curious.”

  The talk of wives and husbands made Frost turn his attention to Nara’s mother. The emerald-haired woman was traveling with five children but no husband. In fact, many of the elves seemed to be traveling with children but no husbands. He always assumed that their husbands were dead or missing, but never asked. Obviously, men were sleeping with them or they wouldn’t have children. Where were they? Frost pointed at the mother elf. “Is there a Mister Goldeneye in the picture?”

  “Mister Goldeneye?” Nara’s mother shook her head. “I don’t understand what you’re asking.”

  “Do you have a husband?” Frost asked while gesturing at her daughters. “Goldeneye because you all have those same golden eyes. And I never got your name.”

  “Oh, I’m sorry. My name is Fir. As for my husband, he refused to leave the village or his other wives,” Fir answered while looking away. There was a hint of shame in her voice that made Frost feel guilty for asking. “He said we should just throw away our cursed daughter because he has other ones. He also didn’t treat us particularly well since our existence serves only to disgrace him.”

  “We weren’t treated well by him,” Nara said quietly.

  “Two years ago, he basically demanded we leave the house,” the other adult daughter said. “When we refused things got worse for us. He wanted to make room for new wives and children.”

  “I see,” Frost said, looking at the other elves. He pointed to a violet-haired elf with a child gripping her shredded skirt. “She’s pretty young so I imagine you must have a husband.”

  “My husband abandoned me,” she answered. “He said he could only afford to care for six wives and so he got rid of me and our daughter to make room for his new one.”

  “Is that normal?” Frost asked while looking around at the nodding women. He turned his attention back to the two men, once again suspicious of them. “So, elf men just take new wives and abandon the old ones?”

  “I don’t,” Elion said while hugging his fiery-haired daughter. The young girl looked to be about Emmy’s age based on her height and appearance. “The only woman I ever loved was my wife.”

  “It’s an option,” Ruvaen answered as his wives simultaneously growled. “But if I were the type of man who’d do that I wouldn’t be here with my wives and children. I was raised to believe that abandoning wives brings bad luck and I’ve heard enough stories of husbands mysteriously killed t
o know there’s wisdom in that belief.”

  “I suppose,” Frost said while glancing at the other women and children.

  “Herald Frost,” one of the women asked while pointing at one of the paralyzed slavers. “What do you intend to do with these men?”

  “Them?” Frost said, staring at the frozen men. “Yeah, normally I would have taken care of them already but there are a lot of children around and what I’m going to do won’t be pleasant. So, I’ll need you all to head out first.”

  “What do we do about food and supplies?” one of the women asked. Frost looked down to see her feet bloodied from the rough terrain and her children’s feet suffering similarly.

  “Right,” Frost began picking out various elves based on their levels. “You round up all of the wheeled cages and bring them to that path. And you four gather up supplies. Just search around for anything usable and load them into the cages. It only needs to last until we get to the nearest village,” Frost turned toward the two men. “You two help with the horses. I want them attached to the wheeled cages.”

  “Cages again,” one of the children said somberly.

  “No,” Frost said, waving his hands at four cages, slicing the bars cleanly with thin translucent barriers and knocking them away with a powerful gust of wind. “Just normal carts. Now get to it.”

  Frost watched as the elves scurried about to get everything organized, helping where he could. There were only four wagons and eight horses which would make transporting over sixty elves pretty difficult. One of the wagons could probably hold twenty children so they would need to put the nine remaining ones in a second wagon with a few adults. The final two wagons would each be able to comfortably support ten adults probably. The real issue was whether the horses could pull them all for a prolonged period. Once they reached the village where Ena was waiting for them things would be fine since they could use their own horses or purchase some from the villagers.

  After about an hour of gathering and organizing things the elves were all loaded up in the wagons. They stared at him as if waiting for him to lead the way.

  “Herald Frost?” Nara pointed at the lead wagon. “Are you coming or are we…”

  “I’ll catch up,” Frost said, gesturing at the paralyzed men. He was amazed with how easy it was to hold a mass paralysis thanks to Breath of the Goddess. It was still draining but the burden was tolerable. “I have to handle things here first.”

  “Don’t worry,” Fayeth said, hopping on the lead wagon. “I’m sure nobody will bother us and if they do I’ll handle them.”

  “I wouldn’t mind saying and watching,” a battered elf said while glaring at the slavers.

  “You really don’t,” Frost said while shaking his head. “Trust me. You think you have a stomach for it but if you saw it, it’d haunt your nightmares. Don’t worry, I’ll catch up.”

  “Very well,” one of the elves said as the first carriage started moving. “Should we wait for you somewhere?”

  “No need to wait,” Frost answered while gesturing at a weak looking horse tied to a post. “I’ll catch up in no time.”

  “Let’s go,” Fayeth shouted as the wagons began moving. “It’s a long trip to the western border.”

  Frost waited until all of the wagons were out of sight and then turned his attention to the slaver that suggested he was going to entertain them, releasing the paralysis spell.

  “Please,” the man wasted no time in sprinting away. “Please no!”

  “Please no?” Frost created a barrier in front of the slaver, causing the man to crash and fall to the ground. He tried to jump to his feet but his head knocked against another barrier and he realized he was stuck in a tiny box. “Now, for the moment that box you’re in has holes for air. But they could quickly go away.”

  “I’m begging you,” the man pleaded with tear-filled eyes. “Please let me go. I’ll do anything! Please! I don’t want to end up like those guards!”

  “Those guards?” Frost said coldly. “So, you have heard of them? You heard about how they were all impaled on stone spikes and placed on their guard outpost? You heard about how they were found with vultures picking away their flesh and how their blood dripped down the walls of the outpost? You heard about how it was punishment for harming elves attempting to get to my territory? And you still decided to kidnap elves?”

  “I’m sorry,” the man whimpered.

  “How many elves begged to be let go as you beat them? Don’t worry about answering, it’s a rhetorical question.” Frost knelt down and tapped the barrier, causing it to shrink an extra three inches. “But you’re telling me that you heard that men would be impaled alive from ass to mouth for targeting followers of Shalia and you went ahead and targeted them anyway? I’m wondering why you did that.”

  “We weren’t killing them,” the man cried as the translucent barrier got smaller. “Please, we weren’t killing them. We were told that it’d be okay as long as we didn’t kill them.”

  “Told?” Frost asked, intrigued by the revelation. “Who told you that?”

  “The Duke of Cern!” the man said abruptly. “He said that…”

  “The Duke of Cern made a deal with slavers?” Frost clicked his tongue while staring at the eastern border of Blackwater. Cern was a medium sized territory of Zira that shared about three fourths of Blackwater’s eastern border but it didn’t really make sense. “The elves have to travel through his territory. Why doesn’t he just capture them himself?”

  “I don’t know,” the man wept. “I just know that he knew what routes they would take through his territory and where they would cross the borders. He said he’d tell us where and when they were passing through but we had to wait until they entered Blackwater.”

  “What’s he getting out of it?” Frost asked while tapping the box several times, shrinking it until the man couldn’t move an inch. “I doubt he’s giving you this information for free.”

  “He gets half of the profit from the sales,” the slaver answered with a strained voice as breathing became difficult for him in the cramped position.

  “Half?” Frost said as things started to make a little more sense. If he captured elves leaving their assigned villages without the proper documentation, he would have been expected to return them or arrest them. And if slavers operated in his territory, he would probably be expected to deal with them. But once they arrived in Blackwater, they weren’t his responsibility. It would definitely be a profitable endeavor. “Well, that was immensely helpful.”

  “Then you’re letting me…” Frost slapped the top of the barrier, instantly crushing the man. Frost groaned as the blood fired from the air holes he forgot to close like ketchup from a bottle, covering his tattered pants and tunic. “Fuck!”

  Frost pulled out the enchanted pouch he’d hidden in a secret pocket of his pants and reached inside to pull out a replacement set of clothing. He supposed he should be relieved he squished the man before he’d changed.

  “Ah,” Frost paused as he looked around at all of the paralyzed men. “On second thought, I’m already messy so...”

  Frost killed eighty guards at an outpost as an example. The men had killed at least a dozen elves that they caught trying to cross the border into Blackwater. After Frost found out, he made a special trip to that outpost, watching them for several days to ensure they were all accounted for.

  There was no evidence that it was him that did it and there were no survivors to testify against him, but everybody knew that he was the one who did it.

  He enclosed the entire tower in a barrier and using wind magic, slowly sucked out what little air they had. Frost watched the men pound the enclosure, unable to break through the barrier no matter how hard they tried. Once he was sure the last ones were dead, he used earth magic to create spikes on the stone tower and then stripped and impaled all of the guards on those spikes.

  It was time consuming and he didn’t enjoy it in the slightest. Just like he wasn’t going to enjoy killing the slaver
s. He wasn’t a psychopath that took pleasure in killing people. He just needed to make an example of them. People needed to know that if they went after his followers, there would be consequences.

  “Let’s see,” Frost said, staring at the nearby river that they used to transport the slaves. A tree-lined path between the trees led to the dock and he imagined that the slavers would wonder where everybody was when they arrived. “Oh, there’s an idea. Yeah, that works.”

  Frost wasn’t the type of person to kill people for fun or find enjoyment in torturing others. But that didn’t mean he was a good person who believed in reform or wanted everybody to hold hands and sing songs.

  He pulled a longsword from his bag and went to work carving the trees lining the pathway to the dock until they were no longer trees, but massive wooden skewers pointing toward the sky.

  “Alright,” Frost sighed as he looked around at the paralyzed men. “Who’s going to be first up.”

  It took him nearly an hour to finish from beginning to end which surprised him. He thought getting them all to the top of the skewers would have taken longer. In hindsight, he probably didn’t need to cut so many trees. Even with three on each skewer there was a lot of unused space. He wrapped some of the chains and collars around them as well, just for effect. He hoped it would be enough to send his message when the next riverboat came to pick up new slaves.

  “Hopefully they get the message,” Frost said as he hopped on the tired old horse. It was weak but his riding ability was level ten, giving him the ability to share some of his energy with it. He imagined the weak animal would easily make up the hour he lost. “Let’s go.”

  Frost would have liked to think he was a good person. But good people didn’t impale men on trees.

  CHAPTER 2

  Frost and Fayeth met up with Ena in a nearby village where she waited with their horses. After some bartering with the locals Frost was able to acquire new horses as well as some food and water for the trip back.

  “Fayeth told me that you and her took your relationship to a new level,” Ena said angrily as they tied the fresh horses to the wagons. “But she won’t tell me what happened.”