Quest #2

part 2 of my brother's story

Chapter Five

The tallest elf stepped up and said, “sir, we found them in the lower reaches of the forest and brought them here to see what they were doing here” the dark haired elf waved his hand dismissively, “you may go” he said. The looked them up and down with his silver eyes, “i am Yhendhorn Kelrain, leader of Oakhaven” Tallon was surprised by the long introduction, “well, I’m Tallon Avinter, and my friend is Destiny Warden” Yhendhorn studied them, “what are you doing here?” he asked. Tallon explained what they were doing and why, and waited for his answer. He shook his head, “I am going to have to say no, I may loose a majority of my people, weapons and provisions, I’ve seen what he can do”

Tallon and Destiny pleaded, but his mind could not be changed. “if you will not help us then at least provide us a few provisions” Yhendhorn cocked his head, “that you mean…” Tallon sighed, “food, mostly” he said. “very well” he sent them off with a variety of fruits and nuts. A while later Tallon broke the silence by saying, “that wasn't much of a success, I hope that the others aren’t like that.” Destiny looked confused, “what do you mean?” Tallon jabbed his thumb behind him, “back at the wood elves”

A couple hours later, they entered a spacious clearing and ate some apples and cooked walnuts. Just as Tallon finished putting the apples away, he heard a long loud bellow from the woods and the bellow died out he heard another and another, “what was that?” Destiny asked. “Minotaur hunting cries” Tallon answered, “remember what we learned about them in training?”just then a Minotaur stepped out from behind the thicket of bushes, he had a bull head and body of a man and had a fair amount of tattoos and piercings. He had grey fur and black leather pants. “hullo” he said in a deep, gravely voice but he was more polite then Tallon had expected. A dozen more minotaur stepped into the clearing they were almost identical to the first one except variants in the color of their fur, “who might you be?” the first one asked. Tallon and Destiny said the same thing they said to the woodelves to the few minotaurs that were standing in front of them. Once they finished, the bull men murmured among themselves. The first minotaur stuck out his meaty palm, “my name is Gallion Tharan.” Tallon shook it, “nice to meet you.”

Gallion led them to a large mountain of rock, “more climbing?” Tallon thought. But instead of climbing, the Minotaur grabbed a large boulder and pushed it with his shoulder, on the other side was a long flight of stairs, Gallion gestured at the rock door and said, “welcome, after you.”

When they got to the top of the stairs, Tallon saw the largest room he had ever seen. The whole room was carved from stone and indents in the rock for sleeping. It had towering cathedral ceilings that reached up to two hundred feet. On the far side of the room there was a large stone chair and perched on top was a minotaur with a design of tattoos that looked as if they were moving, he had rough looking dark brown fur and deep turquoise eyes.

Chapter 6

“Who is this?” he said in a voice that seemed to shake the entire room. “we found them in the forest and they said that they wanted to talk to you” Gallion turned to Tallon and Destiny, “meet Orikhel Irongrip, king of minotaurs” Gallion switched his attention back to Orikhel, “apparently they need our help” Orikhel looked back and forth between the three, “well, what is it that you need” Tallon stepped up, “we need your army”

The minotaur leader agreed to help them. Tallon actually expected them to help because how much they hated Paladin and because of their strength and enormous size. Orikhel gathered all of his minotaurs together and told them about the decision he had made. Them they set off to Wisteria. It took three and a half days to get there, and when they did what Tallon saw took his breath away almost four hundred faeries and one very large red dragon. Most of the faeries had furs and leather on and sheathed swords. “we should probably go tell Xawlis that we found the minotaurs” Destiny suggested. Tallon nodded, “probably” he said. When they got to Xawlis’ house the knocked on his yet nothing happened so Tallon turned to Orikhel, “may you?” the large Minotaur stepped on the door mat and slammed on the door, “Whats all the ruckus about?” Tallon soundlessly motioned to the large herd of minotaurs behind them, “Ah, that explains it” he said, “well, tell me what happened” they told him about the wood elves, the basilisk and finally how they found the minotaurs, Xawlis was impressed how they had handled the basilisk and sad that the wood elves refused. After Tallon and Destiny were finished they went separate ways to their recently built homes, embraced their parents, had large meal and rested.

The next morning , they set off towards Basilisk Cliffs once again and made it there in two and a half days. They set up camp north of where they had before in fear of being clawed by a basilisk. They had dinner and spent the night there and in the morning they started the journey up the cliff. They walked for two days without a sing of anything. Tallon collapsed at the base of a tree, “we’ve been through almost all of Basilisk Cliffs, and what do we find? Nothing at all! Maybe that's all we can find” Destiny sat next to him, “that can’t be it, what about-” she was cut off by a very large crash and a thump. “what was that?!” Destiny got up quickly and scanned the area around them. Tallon got up as well and pulled out his his axe that he had gotten from the ogre. They heard it again. It shook both them and the trees around them. Suddenly they saw a fifteen foot sword slice down a large cedar in one slice. It was falling their direction. “Run!” Tallon yelled. They looked up and saw that the tree was almost upon them. When Tallon thought there was no hope there was suddenly a huge hand grabbing the tree. “Sorry about that” said a voice that was so loud that Tallon and Destiny both had to cover their ears. Now another hand went to grab them, Destiny screamed and Tallon yelled for help but alas there was no one around but them and the hand big enough to crush a redwood. The hand scooped them up, careful not to squeeze them. Tallon looked up and saw what he thought could not be possible. They had just come face to face with the biggest giant in all of Elderwood!

Chapter 7

“My name is Bavvai Thundrum.” Tallon and Destiny winced at how loud his voice, “well Mr. Thundrum, could you please a bit quieter because we’re elves and we have sensitive ears so its kind of hurting them” Bavvai nodded, “Aha, I see, lost little elves in the woods” Tallon and Destiny explained everything with Paladin and about the different species joining up and defeating him. Later he agreed and he led them to his house which had a very large fireplace for them to warm their hands at and enormous, very soft beds. It was the best night of sleep Tallon had ever gotten. The next morning they walked to the cliff, Bavvai put them in his shirt pocket and climbed down in less than half an hour. Once they got to the bottom they set in direction of Wisteria. Tallon and Destiny’s food started to run out, so Bavvai killed several deer and put them in his overly large satchel.

A couple days later they approached a clearing and as they walked through, Destiny stepped onto a pile of sticks and leaves and fell right through. Tallon looked to where she had been standing before. There was a large hole. It wasn't just a pile of sticks and leaves, it was a trap! “Destiny!?” Tallon yelled, “i’m okay” he heard coming from the hole. “But I fell into a tunnel!” Tallon was confused, “wait there, I’m coming down” He looked at Bavvai, “Wait here” Tallon grabbed the axe from his satchel and jumped into the gap. He saw Destiny staring petrified at a large creature with the body of a lion, the tail of a scorpion and the wings of an eagle, “well lookie what i found! I whole meal.” Tallon glared at the beast, “we didn't come here to get eaten!” he paused, “Is there more of you?” “maybe, maybe not” Tallon glared harder. “fine, this way” the creature led them further into the tunnel.

Tallon was the first to emerge from underground “Well?” what was under there? and what took so long?” Tallon pulled Destiny out, “Manticores” he said, “they agreed to help us” Just then manticore after manticore started streaming out of the tunnel. “well looks like we have a ourselves a small army to deal with” Bavvai chuckled.

They traveled for a day and the more they traveled, the more Tallon was starting to recognize his surroundings and suddenly Tallon stepped on something that made a crunching noise. He looked down and immediately recognized it. It was the pile of bones from the ogre’s satchel! “Guys! Look! we’re close!” Vrinir Yullen, the leader of the manticores walked up to him “how should you know?” Tallon rolled his eyes, “this is a pile of bones form a ogre’s satchel that we had found and fought when we first started this journey, and we found him not too far away from Wisteria.”

A few hours later the all knew that Tallon was right. They started seeing pieces of Wisteria through the trees. The manticores were eager to see what the village was like so they all went bounding off towards it. There was a moment of silence once they left but Destiny broke it by saying “i’ve been wondering, maybe we don’t have a big enough army” Tallon made a confused look at her. She shrugged, “just a thought”

A few minutes later they entered the gate of Wisteria, there were hundreds of creatures, either making weapons, or sharpening them. Suddenly a werewolf ran up to them and said, “Xawlis requested your presence” then he ran off. They looked at each other, maybe he had seen one of the manticores and assumed they were back?

Chapter 8

Tallon and Destiny went to Xawlis’ house, he beckoned them in and he sat them on his very large table, “first of all, how did you get here so fast?” he asked, “we rode Bavvai.” they answered, “who?” Tallon pointed up to the ceiling, “he is a giant so big he would probably have to bend down to fit in here!” Xawlis looked confused, “show him to me.” he said.

They led Xawlis to the larger giant and he stood half as tall as Bavvai, “hello, I am Bavvai Thundrum, thank you for letting me be here in your village, I came here to help” Xawlis stood looking shocked for a second, “well, I wasn’t expecting this, I thought that I was the biggest one.” Tallon picked up a piece of excess rubble, “we should get more houses built so that we have them to fit more people in the village.”

A while later, Tallon nailed the last piece of wood onto the roof of a house. Destiny and few other elves were building a larger house when the training horn sounded and they all made their way to training.

A month and a half later training was finished and traps were to be set. Tallon decided that the manticores idea was good so he began digging a deep hole. Once he finished digging, he picked up dead sticks and leaves and set them across the hole and piled the leaves on top so that it blended in with the already leaf-covered ground.

Later Tallon heard the horn again, but training is over! Is Paladin here? He thought, so he decided it would be good to go to Xawlis’ house and ask him what was going on. Tallon jogged over to large house and banged on it as hard as he could, but there was no answer so he went to Destiny’s house and found her sitting on her front step latching dark blue armor on, “there you are! I was just about to come find you.” she said, they want us to go with them to fight.” Tallon crossed his arms, “and what, we’re doing it?” Destiny nodded, “Of course.”

Tallon finished putting his armor on and he was already sweating. He had the feeling that the horns on the helmet were going to eventually get annoying. He and Destiny had joined the rest of the army at the edge of the woods with their backs to Wisteria, they started to see Paladin’s soldiers rampaging towards them not too far away. “Charge!!” Tallon heard someone behind him yell and they all ran towards the enemies army and collided with them. The battle had begun.

Chapter 9

Tallon saw a particularly large man running at him and he realized that the trap he had made was right in between them so he jumped over it, slid under the man legs, stood up, and shoved his back. The man fell over and cracked right through the dead sticks. Suddenly, Tallon heard Destiny yell, “Tallon! Look out!” he dived of the way just in time to see another man running at where he was standing before. The man tried skidding to a halt but it was too late, he fell in.

As the battle waged on the sun began to sink below the horizon and the sky grew dark. Most of Paladin’s men had retreated except the brave ones. Tallon watched as some of the others made them retreat as well. He sighed with relief, it was over. For now. Xawlis called them into his house once the last man had fled, “good work out there, that was some pretty good fighting.” he said.

A week had past and the whole village made more weapons or repaired old ones and set more traps. Tallon was putting his armor back on because he heard the scouts had seen Paladin’s men coming from the north. He grabbed a sword off the wrack and was ready to fight. He once again joined the rest of the army. He had made six other holes in a circle around him and there were Paladin’s soldiers surrounding him from all angles and when they ran at him they all fell into the holes. Tallon jumped over the holes and started fighting a muscular man with a sword. The man was obviously very strong because he picked him up and threw him back to the ground with a lot of force. Pain shot though Tallon’s body, his vision grew fuzzy and then he completely passed out.

Tallon woke on his bed with his head pounding. He had a bandage around his arm and chest which hurt very badly. He rubbed his eyes with his goo arm and saw that Destiny was sitting beside his bed in a chair, “What happened?” he asked, “That man you were fighting” she pointed at his arm, “he gave you a concussion, a broken arm and a couple broken ribs.” Tallon was disappointed, “how long was I out?” “a day” she said, “we defeated Paladin! We won!”