The Archon's Apprentice by Neil Breault Read Free Book Online

deserted town. His forward scouts had found no signs of life. He scanned the countryside and could see nothing but fields and hills on all sides. They had not found any signs of an army anywhere, but all of the villages outside of the immediate protection of Valefort were deserted. Yet none of the villages were in any way destroyed or showed signs of a battle.
    He sent soldiers to inspect all of the buildings, as he had done with every previous village. Perim pulled out his map and unfurled it. Locating the current village on the map, he placed a small X over it. There were fourteen other Xs on the map, all of them with similar deserted villages. Perim and his generals had tried to decipher a reason for the abandoned villages but could find none except fear. He could not be certain if the number of refugees pouring into Valefort had all come from these villages. There were too many villages and too few refugees. He wondered where the rest of the villagers had gone.  
    The first patrol of soldiers reported back. None of them had found anything significant in the buildings they scoured. After so many empty villages he had given up hope of finding anything of value. The second patrol of soldiers came back to report the same. Perim waved his generals over to discuss their next move.
    “Your Highness,” said a soldier, “there is nothing in the village, but we noticed we are being watched.”
    “Where?”
    “I do not want to point it out, lest I spook him. But there is a man on the hill east of the village. There is a copse of trees on top and he is underneath.”
    Perim resisted looking at the copse and instead greeted his generals.
    “It seems we may get some answers today,” said Perim. “Take several soldiers and swing wide around the eastern hill. Make sure he is not able to run away.” Without an obvious acknowledgement the soldier quickly backed into the waiting throng of soldiers. “Now, hopefully we can find out what we are chasing and what we can expect when we reach Enhurst.”
    “If I remember correctly,” said Dryos, “there are three more villages that ring Enhurst itself.” He brought his horse closer to Perim and pointed on the map to the locations of the three villages. “We need to search these more thoroughly than the others. They would have become part of Enhurst, if it had stayed independent. As it stands, they are large enough to be able to hide a large contingent of soldiers to flank us if we head straight to Enhurst.”
    “That seems—“ A scream coming from the interloper’s copse interrupted Perim. Every head turned to look at the hill, all pretense of ignorance vanished. They waited only a moment before seeing several other figures reach the copse. From this distance Perim could not confirm it was his soldiers on the hill, but when they picked up a body and headed straight for the army he knew they were his. Before they arrived it became obvious why the man had screamed. Even from a distance Perim could see the man was drenched with blood. The soldiers were trying not to get covered in the man’s blood and held the body out at arms length. This did not work as well as they hoped, as the body seemed to spurt blood with every step. The two soldiers carrying the body were drenched on one side each by the time they dropped the body in front of the generals.
    “Hurry and clean yourselves quickly,” said Perim. “We don’t know what to expect, but this man was killed with blood magic.”  
    The soldiers ran to the village well to wash the blood off. Perim got down from his horse and examined the dead man. No visible signs of injury existed that would have caused the man’s death. Blood still oozed out of his eyes, nose, ears, and mouth. Perim gestured for two other soldiers to help him. They delicately cut away the man’s clothing, keeping as much distance as they could, but still they found no cause of the man’s death.
    “I suspect he was killed so he could not talk,” said