The Chronicles of Crallick Read online

  THE CHRONICLES OF CRALLICK

  By

  Brad C. Baker

  THE CHRONICLES OF CRALLICK

  First published in 2017

  by Wallace Publishing, United Kingdom

  www.wallacepublishing.co.uk

  All Rights Reserved

  Copyright © Brad C. Baker, 2017

  The right of Brad C. Baker to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted in accordance with section 77 and 78 of the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988.

  This book is sold under condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

  Typesetting courtesy of KGHH Publishing, United Kingdom

  www.kensingtongorepublishing.com

  Contents

  Dedication

  About the Author

  Prologue

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Epilogue

  Dedication

  This novel is dedicated to the ones I love:

  Hongying Xue and Shawn Yu, whose love and support got me through the darkest time of my life.

  Graeme Huffman and Sheri Rhines, who always called me family and never ceased to have faith in me.

  Mass Hoyte, who likewise had faith in me and stood by me when the chips were down. God bless!

  My actual family… all of you; without you, I wouldn’t be me.

  And a warm wish to my departed grandma, Gloria. You too, always had faith in me. I miss you.

  About the Author

  By Shawn Yu

  Brad Baker, a forty-five-year-old science fiction/ fantasy writer, comes from Toronto and now lives in Kingston. When he was nine years old he got lost in the northern woods for a week, and obviously survived. Then, when he was in grade eight, he won a Canada-wide Science Fair. Starting at the age of twenty, he hitch-hiked across Canada and the US. He saw a couple of cool things, like the Rocky Mountains and the Grand Canyon.

  At the age of twenty-seven, he was diagnosed with Stargardt’s disease, which destroys the center of the eye. At thirty years of age he got married, and then got abused by his wife for ten years, which of course, he survived. During this time he had a son who passed away, and then another who survived.

  After a while, he went through a messy divorce that resulted in his alienation from one of his sons. Now he’s with his new girlfriend, who helped him through the toughest part of his life. He is living a happy life with his new girlfriend and his son, me, who wrote this “About the Author” section.

  Prologue

  “Queen Bannathae heard of Amarallan menace,

  King Corr hungered from his tundra for greener lands.

  ‘stead of proposing marriage, two lands embrace,

  Troops, not flowers, he sent to take us in his hands.”

  -Verse 1: Ballad of Ser Crallick Carnage-born.

  Verdant-tinged gold light spilled in through the panes of the roughly crafted front window. It bathed the hearth and mantle in its molten glow. Bronzed, corded muscles lifted a two-handed sword up to rest on several skewed pegs driven into the stone wall. The sword was blue-grey steel, serrated blade, humble guard, wraps of dusk panther hide, with a simple appearing ivory claw crowning the pommel. The man placing the sword upon the wall was equally unassuming. Salt began to streak his long brown hair, crow’s feet tramped around his care-worn eyes, and his Vitani features lent angular and lean-predatory lines to his body. Around his neck hung an eclectic array of drying and pungent trophies. A shirt of rust-pitted ring mail tried to protect his torso, breeches of a reptile’s leather hide of poor craftsmanship clad his legs, with a pair of metal-shod boots adorning his feet to complete the warrior’s presence.

  “By Chessintra’s black bosom! Crallick, ye don’t have to do this!”

  The protest came from a disapproving dwarf standing in the doorway of the three-roomed farm hovel. He was clad in polished and bright silver plate armor and carried, along with a disapproving countenance, a wickedly curved battle-axe and shield.

  “Actually, Tobin, I do,” Crallick growled. “And I’ve had more than enough of that black goddess’s whoring ways to last a lifetime. I’m done.”

  Tugging at his beard, Tobin scowled. Then he scoffed, “Humph, what the fuck are you going to do with yourself? Farm? You don’t know the first thing about farming.” He pointedly rocked a table standing uncertainly on four uneven legs. “Let alone anything at all to do with housekeeping.”

  Crallick turned to look at his friend. “Arrylae’s dead,” he simply said.

  “From the buggering pox, Crallick! The pox! Crallick, there is nothing that would have changed had ye been here, save probably yer own buggering ailment and maybe death as well! Get yer shit together and get your ass back out there with the rest of us!” Tobin tried one other gambit. “Besides, leaving your neighbours to look over your daughter would be a might bit safer for her, considering how most domestic things you try your hand at turn out, well…” he pointedly looked at the construction of the windows, “lacking.”

  With cat-like reflexes Crallick had his discarded greatbow off the chair, nocked, and aimed at his friend’s head. “Care to call my daughter lacking again, Cliffreaver?” snarled the half-elven man.

  Both gauntleted hands rose defensively, “Peace! Your martial prowess is not in question here, Crallick! I’m not calling Amalae lacking. She’s a kiss from Jyslin herself!” The dwarf turned his iron-shod hands face up, “But now you haven’t exactly been around to raise her, have you?”

  The gentle creak of the bowstring loosening was Crallick’s only somber reply.

  Undaunted, the dwarf dryly continued, “Besides, did ye see the speed in which you respond to a threat, perceived or imagined? What are ye going to do with all those reflexes, not to mention the martial might that goes with them? I pity the cow who kicks while yer milking her.” The dwarf became animated, jumping to a combat-ready stance, legs bracing under his shoulders, then sweeping a hand to block an imaginary bovine leg, “Hah!” Then he made a thrusting lunge with his other hand, gutting the imaginary beast. “Udderly killed cow,” Tobin concluded, crossing his arms.

  For the first time since walking into the farm-hold, Crallick’s face creased into a smile. “Hunh,” came his muffled mirth.

  “There, see, I knew ye were still able to smile.” The dwarf smiled under his bushy, rust coloured beard.

  Suddenly sagging, as though the three years of war, the two years of adventuring and the weight of friends buried on the path had finally caught up with him, Crallick sat suddenly on the stone hearth of the fireplace, not even making it to a chair. This put him at a height from which he had to look up into the eyes of his dwarven companion. “Tobin, what in the Luminous Etherium do I think I’m doing here?”

  Sighing, Tobin strolled over to stand by his friend. Looking deeply into his eyes, he said, “The right thing, Crallick my boy, the right
thing.” Tobin smiled encouragement to the openly weeping warrior, “As much as I may taunt and cajole ye to come along with us and to not pursue this folly,” he gestured to the ramshackle home, “it is purely for the selfish reason that I would miss yer companionship. Ye need to stay. Yer daughter needs her father now that her mother is gone.” Tobin lifted Crallick’s unkempt chin to gaze into his watery green eyes. “And I dare say ye need her too.”

  “Thank you, my friend.” Crallick hugged the dwarf.

  “Whoa there!!! Let’s not do anything to make me have to suffer jibes for the next tenday on the trail with that lot.” Tobin gestured back out towards the door.

  The door knocked, as if on cue, and a woman’s voice drifted in around the seams. “I’m not interrupting anything, am I?”

  “No Elandra, ye damnable gossip!” quipped Tobin. He gathered up his axe. “Crallick here is just suffering from some pre-domestication jitters, is all. I’m coming.” Waving at Crallick, Tobin walked out the door without another word.

  Elandra slid her lithe elven frame through the less than rectangular door. She tentatively eyed the inside environment with great suspicion, her practiced eye scanning every particular piece of furniture with great care.

  “Just sit if you’re gonna sit,” growled Crallick.

  “Just noticing how well trapped this place is. You sure it’s safe for a little girl?”

  “Don’t start…” Crallick began.

  “Don’t worry,” Elandra hushed him. “I don’t intend to. You are doing the right thing by retiring. You’ve lasted at this game longer than most. Also, you’re getting older and slower. There is no sense you risking leaving your daughter an orphan. That reminds me…” Elandra drew out a leather pouch and a wineskin. “Vitarran Red for you, and the gems for your share of the treasure in an easily portable form. Just in case the farming doesn’t work out for you. May Aarison favour you, my dear,” Elandra paused at the door. “My condolences on your loss, and my best wishes for your future.”

  As she left, a five-year-old slip of a girl rushed in to leap on Crallick’s lap. “Daddy, daddy, daddy, daddy! I miss you! Where’s mommy...?” underscoring his daughter’s bubbling torrent of questions, Crallick could hear the cantering hoof-falls of his former life drifting further and further away.

  Chapter One

  “Queens Kyliessa and Torganna took council.

  Queens of day and night solved the plight of Bannathyr.

  Ten knightly orders gathered their troops to marshal

  defense of their queens, and homes, marching without fear.”

  -Verse 2: Ballad of Ser Crallick Carnage-born.

  The prolific stream of rich amber darkened the half-rotted timbers by the stable door at the side of the roadside inn. The hissing continued for long moments. A puddle formed in the moisture-saturated soil.

  “Hummmh…” Crallick exhaled while leaning his forehead against his right forearm that acted as a cushion against the rough timbered wall.

  A few more sporadic spurts, several drips, and then, with a shake, Crallick shoved himself unceremoniously into his britches. He wiped a few salt-smelling drops from his fingers onto his chin. Crallick then shakily took a few hesitant steps away from the wall. Once sure of his equilibrium, he strode meaningfully back towards the front doors. Crallick pushed one open with a bellow, “Vlados! Get me another pint of that rotgut swill you deign to call dwarven ale!”

  “Hey now!” The strawberry-blond dwarf behind the bar chided. “You just mind your manners and don’t go getting all racist on me! You show proper respect to my family’s label or I’ll just pour you some Ogre piss, ye ungrateful lummox!”

  “Ho, ho! I could tell the difference?” Crallick scoffed. Then through the incensed blur of his drink-addled mind, he sensed that he had perhaps strayed too far with his banter. Crashing his backside down hard on a chair by the fireplace, Crallick raised a surrendering hand. “Vlados, you know I jest. I only ever drink your label. It is truly the best ale in the land.”

  Shaking his heavily bearded face, Vlados poured a tankard full of beer. Waving off his younger daughter with a, “Clean the top and handle anyone who comes to the counter, I’ll take this to Cral.”

  “Okay poppa,” came her quiet reply.

  It took Vlados only sixteen strides to get to Crallick’s table. With a mock bowing flourish, Vlados presented the tankard upon the table. “One Ironforge Ale, at your service.”

  Wryly grinning, Crallick slurred. “Well thank you, good ser. You’ll forgive if I don’t bow back.”

  Sitting across from him, Vlados asked, “Crallick, you’ve been here since noon. It seems like you’re bent on being here ‘til Chessfall. Does Amalae know where you are?”

  “I’m sure she does.”

  “Don’t you have a farm to run?”

  “It’s growing.” A smirking shrug, “I think.”

  “How many have you had to drink?” This question held genuine concern.

  “Not as many as I’ll have had at the end of the day,” quipped Crallick.

  Shaking his head, Vlados rose from his chair. “Just don’t make me have to cut you off,” he warned his friend.

  Crallick raised the tankard with a toast for his answer.

  Vlados kept track behind the bar of the number of refills he had given his friend. When the marker read fifteen, he called over his Ephemeron bouncer. The bouncer had gold-tinged skin covering heavy muscles that belied a kind heart under a fierce countenance. “I think it’s time to cut off Crallick,” conceded Vlados.

  “His daughter may soon arrive to corral him back home,” pleaded Alpar. “Could we just give him another half an hour?”

  Sighing heavily, Vlados called to his own daughter. “Bekka! Can you run over to Amalae’s to get her to bring her father home?”

  “Okay poppa.” Bekka wiped her hands on the bar towel in her apron string. She then untied the apron and left the whole kit behind the bar before skipping out the door swiftly to do her errand.

  Crallick was gesturing for another round. He had been the only constant fixture in the bar, aside from the staff and the furniture. Even those choosing to stay at the inn remained in the bar portion for long enough to slake their thirsts, fill their bellies, and then amble back to rooms or to exercise behind the way-house.

  “Try to slow him down.” Vlados encouraged his bouncer.

  Begrudgingly, the bouncer took over a hopefully final drink to the retired ranger. “Here you go, friend,” Alpar said amiably.

  Bleary-eyed, Crallick looked up at the gold face of Alpar. “How’s your neck?”

  Alpar swallowed. Crallick was referring to the last time Alpar had tried to force Crallick to leave before Crallick had wanted to. While Alpar was stronger than Crallick, it had turned out that Crallick was not only faster, but craftier – even when blind drunk. Alpar had found himself in a chokehold that had resulted in a trip to the healer’s… after he had regained consciousness.

  “Better, thank you.” Alpar quietly said. “I trust we won’t have that kind of misunderstanding again.”

  “Hmmph,” Crallick snorted. “I trust not. I suspect you’re smarter than that.”

  There came the din of at least a score of hoof beats thundering up the inn’s drive. Mounted men calling, mail clanking, and metal-shod wheels creaking on wooden axels added to the chorus.

  Alpar looked up with only slight concern, but then returned his focus to the drunken half-elven man in front of him.

  Both doors burst open as mailed men began flowing into the bar. Drink orders began drowning out all other sounds in the bar. Vlados cheerfully began doling out his family ale.

  Around a dozen men caroused at the bar when their apparent ringleader and his retinue graced the grime of the door. A heavily furred cloak obscured the physique of the middle member of the group. There was a grey cowl that shielded his features from the room’s welcome firelight. The figure was clad in metal greaves at the very least, as that could be seen running from
the hem of his cloak down to the armored boots that carried him into the bar.

  The figure to his left was like a prehistoric mockery of a man. Standing nearly seven feet tall, and towering over the much shorter middle figure, this lizard scaled creature demanded attention. From the yellow and black war paint adorning the brown scales on his face, to the sword fashioned from the jawbone of some massive creature. The apparent lack of care for armor was also disconcerting. This type of lizardman, known as a Komodoman, wore only britches with a hole rent through the backside to accommodate his massively whipping tail. This tail was adorned with a spiked bauble.

  The third member of the group was a svelte womanly figure in black and silver robes. At first glance, she had black velvet gloves. Closer inspection would reveal that those were, in fact, her hands. The feline grace in which she took her seat belied her Nekomin heritage.

  Vlados ran out to get their order. On his way back to the bar, he cursed his ill fortune of having sent his daughter to get Amalae. Damn, he could have used the help.

  Just after pouring his round to take over to the trio at the door-side table, Amalae and Bekka came jogging in. Both looked a little winded. They had become good friends over the years and were good girls. Vlados looked on with a sense of fatherly pride. A smile cracked his haggard face.

  “Sorry I took so long, poppa.” Bekka picked up the tray he had prepared. “Where to?”

  He pointed at the table in response.

  As Bekka’s four-foot shapely frame swished off to get the brews to their intended patrons, Amalae’s lean, forest and farm sculpted frame propped against the bar. “Sorry Vlados, where is he? Also, do you want me to settle up with you now?”

  “Damn girl, you are a sight. No, just get your daddy safely home,” Vlados winked. “We’ll come by tomorrow to settle up over some roast boar, how’s that sound?”

  Leaning across the bar, Amalae hugged the dwarf. “That sounds terrific. You’re the best! Thank you.”