Escapade

[The Phantom]

This is chapter one of my fantasy novel I'm writing.
I know the size looks intimidating, but it goes by pretty quickly. Anyone that reads this, please tell me what you think. I know there are countless grammar errors in this, but my focus on the moment is on story. After it's all done is when I'll actually begin to edit.
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Escapade

Not a minute after Dugan had stepped foot into the Wildroth Wood had Angus leapt out of the bushes, tackling him. There was a rustle of leaves and a tangle of limbs, before the young sheep herder straddled Dugan with his thighs and brought a massive stick above his head.
“Angus it’s me you idiot!” screamed Dugan. The fiery stare of death slowly dissipated as Angus squinted his eyes to get a better look at the enemy beneath him.
“Dugan!” Angus said in full joy! Throwing the stick aside, he got off of his haunches and sauntered back a few steps. Dugan groaned as he got up to dust his tunic off.
“Am I glad to see you!” exclaimed Angus.
“Yeah I kind of get that,” replied Dugan sarcastically. Pointing back at the ground he said, “What was that over there?”
A shade of fear flushed over Angus’s face.
“I was attacked by … something,” he said. “There are dark things back there. We mustn’t dally here any longer. I’ll tell the rest of it on the way back.”
They passed a great boulder at the base of the hill that lead to Silverstead. Stone chimney’s stacked atop straw-roofed huts puffed thick, dark ribbons of smoke. The sun was setting on horizon, and supper was near.
“Once my break had come,” Angus continued. “I’d decided to go for a little journey into the Wood.”
“But you knew you shouldn’t have,” scolded Dugan.
“Yes, but there was a sorcerer in town,” Angus said. “So I thought no matter what was in those woods, it would not dare chase me back to the village. It would not want to match wits with a magician.
“About thirty minutes into my little journey, something real dark with blazing red eyes, and a nasty set of snappers pounced onto the trail before me. I had checked my glasses to make sure the lenses weren’t playing any tricks on me, but it was true, I had come upon a narwolf.”
Dugan stopped in shock. Then suddenly he dropped to the ground in hysterical laughter. Angus sneered at Dugan’s disbelief and kicked his legs, but the boy kept on laughing like he hadn’t felt a thing. A narwolf hadn’t been seen by anyone since the time of Four Kings. How in all of Lorzan would one just suddenly show up?
“Quit exaggerating,” Dugan said over his laughter as he tried to get up. He giggled a bit more before settling down. “Your uncle told me you like a lot of attention. But I didn’t know it was this bad!”
“Yeah well my uncle wouldn’t know a woman from a pale of mead,” Angus retorted. “Now as I was saying before I was so impolitely cut off. It had to be a narwolf. It had the face of a mutt and was covered in that distinctive, dark fur, but stood only on its hind legs. And it’s black paws were shaped like a man’s. Just like the legends speak of.
“In my fright, as I stumbled back, I tripped and lost my glasses, but high-tailed it like a constipated mare. I hid to see if I could lose its trail, and that’s where I ran into you.”
“More like beat the heaping Ethera out of me,” grinned Dugan. Angus sighed and Dugan’s grin washed away. He looked at his friend with a determined seriousness now.
“You really saw something didn’t you?” Dugan asked but Angus didn’t respond. He looked up and so they were only a meter or so from the village. “Well, you can tell the story to my father, and he may be able to file a report directly to mayor, if you don’t mind that is?” He gave his friend a warm slap on the back.
“Yeah we can do that,” he said. “I’ve a quick question. Why’d you come to the woods?”
“Because you were talking about going to that darn place for a whole week,” Dugan said. “So when your uncle sent me to fetch you, I knew exactly where you were.”
“My uncle!” realized Angus. “The old fart’s going to kill me!”
“Don’t worry,” said Dugan with another grin. “I’ve already got your grave ready at the cemetery.” He ducked just before a slap swung over his head.

Dugan opened the door to his father’s tavern and the fresh smell of mead and roasted chicken hit the two boys like giant wave. They into the dimly lit room that seemed too small for the amount of people hunched inside. Men at tables played cards and dice with hostesses on giggling on their laps. Nonsensical odes trickled here and there, always crashing into a confusing of words. Two men kicked back some chairs and had gotten into a rumble before the bigger of the two through the other out the door.
They shouldered their way through the tables, instinctively never locking eyes with anyone. A middle-aged lady with rosy mole on her cheek and long, tangled hair grabbed drunkenly at Angus.
“Come here precious,” she said as she tugged at his arm. He pulled her away revoltingly and she spilled out of her chair onto the ground. Dugan caught sight of the bar and his father passing out foaming mugs. They began to make their way to the bar, but Angus was suddenly yanked back by a forceful hand.
“You need to learn some manners boy!” spat a man standing well over six feet. His face was drenched in sweat and mead dripped down his drooping mustache. He lifted Angus off of his feet by the collar with one burly fist. The lady with a mole on her cheek grinned with satisfaction behind him.
“That’s him Rufus,” she screeched. “He just shoved me out of my chair like I was some rag doll.” Her hands went to her hips and she tapped a foot.
“I’m gonna beat you until their ain’t nothing but bare bone!” said Rufus the giant. Angus squealed at the thought and began to kick and struggle.
“You lay a hand on him,” said Dugan from behind. Rufus looked around his victim at broad-shouldered boy and sneered. He dropped Angus like a sack of potatoes, and took one long stride up Dugan. Before he could actually reach him, a cloaked figure stepped between the boy and the giant.
“Leave them be,” said a young voice. “They don’t want any trouble.”
“And who are you to care, some sorcerer?” laughed Rufus.
“Maybe,” the cloaked man retorted. And he raised a sleeve to reveal a row ancient runes tattooed onto pale skin. “Each one designed to slay a Yulnar.”
Rufus’s eyes immediately widened. His jaw dropped and he slowly began to step back. He toppled over the lady behind him, and the both fell back in fear. The giant looked at the lady and back at the cloaked figure before gathering himself and hurriedly shouldering his way out. The lady immediately followed suit.
The cloaked figure helped Angus up, who returned to Dugan. Dugan held his hand out to thank him, but the figure had already turned and disappeared into the crowd. So the word really was true. A sorcerer really was in Silverstead.
Remembering what they’d come into the tavern for, the two boys continued to shoulder the way to Dugan’s father Erik, who was only short distance away. Angus made sure to be extra vigilant for any women that would attract attention to him and be the reason for him getting pummeled to the ground.
“Father!” Dugan greeted as he made it to the bar.
“Dugan my son!” replied Erik with a glowing beam. The two clasped hands for a moment. Dugan knew his presence was a solace from the chaos his father lived with in this tavern. “What brings you here? Has your mother sent you to fetch me for supper? Just a moment, let me finish up my shift, and then we’ll be off. Angus, glad to see you!”
Erik had just noticed the young sheep herder behind his son and looked at him with equal warmth.
“Actually something has come up,” said Dugan. Erik filled a mug and passed to his son, and began to fill up a second one for Angus. “Angus witnessed a narwolf in Wildroth.”
Erik’s smile faded, and he looked from his son to Angus. Ignoring the constant calls for his name, he leaned forward on the countertop. Looking directly at Angus he said, “Well, tell me of it boy.”
Angus told him his account of what occurred when he went to venture into the Woods. Erik held onto every word, never blinking once. When it was finished, Erik lowered his head into has hands and sighed.
“Being that you’re apart of the Mayor’s council,” Dugan said. “We thought that he could file a report directly to the Mayor so the matter could be checked into.”
Dugan half-expected his father to not take Angus seriously, and begin some lecture on how reports to the Mayor shouldn’t be taken lightly. But his father simply pulled out another mug, filled it up with foaming mead, and took one large gulp.
“Too many of these reports have come in at one time,” he said looking at Angus. “I believe you boys. Talk of dark things rising is at an all time high in all of Silverstead. Narwolves, Sorcerers, and Darkhoods.”
“But of course sorcerers real,” started Dugan.
“Yes,” agreed Erik. “But the last time a Sorcerer ever set foot in Silverstead was when King Arhen resigned and that Darkhood Balus had taken to the throne. And that was over two hundred years ago. Yes, sorcerers are real son. But they only come to small, kingdomless villages only when something cataclysmic is about to occur.”
“So will you bring this up with the mayor?” asked Dugan.
“Immediately,” Erik said. “Meet me behind the tavern, and we’ll be going there as soon as possible.”
The wait outside was not long. A couple of minutes had gone by from the time they departed with Dugan’s father to the time his father stepped out back of the tavern with a folded apron in one arm.
The tavern was on the far eastern side of Silverstead, and the Mayor’s Hall was on the other side of the village. The roads were not crowded, but at the same time weren’t vacant. Men pulling wagons and women carrying baskets were frequent. Every now and then little children would chase each other around the street. Pretty soon they were at the brick steps of the tall building. Its great spire reached above entire village, rivaling even the local chapel’s own spire.
“Wait here,” Erik said to Dugan and Angus. “I’ll probably be a while.”
It had been an hour since Dugan watched his father disappear behind the oakwood doors. The two boys sat on the steps throwing rocks at the ground. They were in such a daze of boredom that they had not noticed the tall man standing before them.

[The Phantom]

Adorned in a turquoise cloak and a helm with a prominent feather crest, the man beamed down on the two.
“If it isn’t the two wonder boys,” said a jovial voice.
Dugan looked up at the man; a grin fell upon his face. He stood up immediately along with Angus, and gripped the man’s hand in greeting.
“Martin Stonelew!” exclaimed Dugan. “A whole two seasons without you! Where’ve you been?”
“Same old Dugan,” Martin looked into his friend’s eyes. Then turned to Angus and gripped his hand as well. “Angus the runt. I signed onto the Guard’s Guild, and was sent to the nearby Citadel for training. A got back earlier this week. This is my second day on the job. You’ll never guess the ways a woman’s panties can be used for, other than for taking off.”
Martin looked at Dugan, then at the Mayor’s Hall, and then back to Dugan.
“So why are you two here?”
“You’ll have to ask Angus that one,” replied Dugan with a smile. But the grin washed away when he saw his friend’s face redden. “Angus witnessed something the woods. My father’s in there reporting Angus’s incident to the mayor directly.”
Martin nodded and thought for a second. “What did little Angus see that warranted a direct report to the mayor?”
“A narwolf,” Angus said flatly. It was obvious that Martin was trying to stifle a chuckle. He regained composure and looked more closely at Angus.
“But those are only legends.”
“My father seemed to take it seriously,” replied Dugan. “He says that many reports have been filed about them lately. Plus there’s a sorcerer in Silverstead. We saw him ourselves.”
“That I heard of,” said Martin. “Sorcerers are just as manipulative as Darkhoods. They weren’t designed to be trusted.”
There was a door slam and Dugan and Angus turned to see Erik storming down the steps with a purple face. Dugan was about to ask what happened, but Erik had already begun.
“The fool won’t even acknowledge the possibility!” he shouted. “Says that its just some kind of phase or something that the village is going through. With Rythos on the brink of war and boys recruiting themselves into the militia, he believes that to be the cause of these tales. We should get going. Your mother is probably getting worried. We’ll think about this later.”
They began to head back down the street, when a scream was heard in the distance. Amid the crowd, a woman whose face was bloodied ran naked through the streets. Everyone halted in their tracks, flabbergasted at the sight before them. A horrific howl erupted from inside the building of which the girl had come from. Without so much as a second in between, a black, ominous rush of fur blasted from the darkness of the door’s building.
The narwolf weaved through the crowd on all fours, pouncing over those not quick enough to get out of its way. Immediately shrieks of terror pierced the air, and the standstill crowd had become a flowing river of panic. Some remained frozen in disbelief, for a legendary creature from which they’d only seen in storybooks as children, had just come to life before their eyes.
Some more daring people, mostly wanderers from other parts of the lands, unlatched their bows and axes and unsheathed their swords and daggers. Before the narwolf could get to the girl, a brute of a man, unlike the one named Rufus, had gotten in its path. He bore a spiked mace in ham-sized fist. The narwolf’s crimson orbs of malevolence narrowed. More warriors had circled around the beast.
The streets had become vacant for the most part. Erik immediately dragged the woman into the shadows where Dugan and Angus stood, also where they watched the inevitable skirmish.
The brute did not linger, and so brought his mace down in a sweeping arc, but that narwolf, which was thrice the size of a normal wolf, easily pounced over the man. The man tried to recover, but it was too quick. It sunk its teeth into his left tendon and without pause, shot its head back with a jerk, and ripped out boot leather and bloody flesh. The narwolf crouched for the kill, but before it could pounce in the air, this time aiming for the throat, another man had fired an arrow.
The creature twisted in the air, narrowly dodging the lethal arrow. By the time the creature had a landed, another warrior was coming at it with a rapier. She jabbed at the wolf, but it weaved around the stroke and locked onto her wrist with its knife-like fangs. Its jaw chomped down with a sickening crack, and it ripped away a chunk of the woman’s wrist. She fell to her knees in screaming anguish.
More bowmen aimed their weapons at the mythic beast, and the wolf crouched down, its eyes locking on the readied bows, and its lips held back to bare its white fangs and foaming gums.
But in the next second wolf was flung into the air by some unseen force. It continued to ascend for a couple of moments, and out of the shadows of an alley, the same cloaked figure Dugan had seen at the tavern stepped into the light of day. His arms were raised at the wolf, and his hands were trembling. His robes billowed by some phantom wind, as the forces of the sorcery were visible about his being like heat waves of a summer afternoon.
His sleeves and his arms bore a countless number of tattoos, one of which glow in a blue light. He uttered some words in a tongue that was alien to Dugan. And another one of the tattoos on one of his arms began to illuminate. And the narwolf which still dangled in the sky immediately caught fire. It squirmed and squealed painfully in the air. The fire grew, consuming the creature gratefully. The beast continued to squirm, until it slowed and became stiff and unrecognizable. The sorcerer let down his arms and the charred mass began to descend back into the street.
The illuminating tattoos about the sorcerer’s arms dulled to black ink and the heat waves and billowing of the cloak dissipated. The sorcerer’s chest heaved in exhaustion. Some of the warriors had dropped their weapons and jaws in bewilderment. Some of the warriors snarled in repulsion. The sorcerer ignored them all and turned in the direction of Dugan and his father.
In long, confident strides he made has way over to group and looked to the girl and then to Erik. For the first time Dugan could see the hawk like gaze and deep set eyes of the sorcerer.
Swallowing his astonishment Erik took the initiative. “She has a fever and its growing fast.”
The sorcerer nodded and looked at the scars of the woman’s clawed face. The sorcerer nodded his head in affirmation. In that same young voice that Dugan heard that the tavern, the sorcerer spoke, “That’s expected. Narwolves are not of this realm. Where they’re half kin to daemon, thus their claws are heightened poison.”
He removed his cloak and laid it over the girl. The young face was revealed. He wore a common, short sleeved tunic with basic leggings. But what really intrigued Dugan about his appearance, were not only the tattoos consumed the man’s arms, but also the countless amounts of tattoos covered his entire head. He was bald and had no eyebrows.
“We must bring her to a healer as soon as possible,” he demanded. He picked her up and Erik led the way down the street, past the warriors whom were gathering their things. Dugan and Angus followed closely.
Dugan couldn’t help it any longer and asked, “Couldn’t you just direct a healing spell at her?”
“I’m not of that schooling,” replied the sorcerer.
On the way to carrying the girl to a healing house, the sorcerer had given his name, Jecaro, to the commoners. He asked them if any had extra information on the beast. Both Erik and Dugan looked at Angus. The herder was still partly dazed in amazement at Jecaro’s abilities. He nor any of the other two had ever witnessed such heavenly feats before.
Finally he realized that the sorcerer had asked him a question and he replied, “I’d ran into a narwolf in the Wildroth Wood. I don’t know if it saw me, or if it was even hunting me at the moment. But after I’d seen I quickly distanced myself from its path and met Dugan on my way out of the woods.
“Try mauled Dugan,” the other boy said under his breath. But Angus never caught on because his eyes had suddenly grown large. “I … I must have led that damned beast into Silverstead?”
Jecaro shook his head. “For one, narwolves travel in packs. Two, they can only be portaled from their realm to various areas of our world deliberately. And I’m assuming the nearest portal to Silverstead is in those woods. If the facts are aligned correctly, Silverstead will soon be sacked on the eve of midnight.”
The words of the sorcerer sank into their minds like water sucked into a sponge.
“But why Silverstead?” asked Erik over his shoulder. “We have no king, and all we trade with other cities is wheat and wool.”
“Whoever opened the portal in Wildroth,” the sorcerer continued. “obviously is amassing an army, large enough to topple Rythos off of its waterfall perch. But that person needs a place to contain his soldiers from another realm, a place out of interest to the major cities. Silverstead holds an advantage for this person?”
“But who would want to destroy the other kingdoms?” piped Dugan. The sorcerer spoke a lot of sense, but seemed to be keeping away from who the perpetrator might be.
He sighed. “The last person who attempted to do something on the scale of this is long dead now. But his children follow his cause to this day. They are called Darkhoods.”
They had reached the healing house and dropped the girl where the maidens and healers would tend to her over the night. Jecaro urged them come with him to his inn, where they could further elaborate on the matter.
His room was dimly lit by braziers bolted in the wall. There was a bed in a one corner of the room, and across from it was a desk, and above it stretched a window that opened out into the night.
“We haven’t much time,” said the sorcerer standing in one corner like a hooded phantom. Erik sat in a chair and Angus leaned against a wall. Dugan was laying on his side in the bed with his head in his palm like the room was his. He was eating a freshly wet apple from the innkeeper he knew mutually.
“We have to counter this attack,” the sorcerer continued. “I was sent here from Vraengard, Temple of Wind Arts, on an assignment. But sorcerers are usually never told of their assignment because of the Forebearers in the temples can only sense faint disturbances. That is one of the reasons why we are trained heavily in the crafts, so we can always be prepared. But now that I know what it is, I understand what to do.
“Dugan, you told me you have a friend that’s part of the local guard. I’ll need every guardsman and officer gathered in the city’s center within the hour. Erik, you work at the tavern. Every barbarian, ranger, rogue, and any man who owns a blade need to gathered with the guardsmen. Angus and I will go to the mayor, where I will assess him on the matter at hand.”
Angus was about to ask why him, but the piercing stare of the sorcerer forced him to keep his mouth shut.
“The mayor won’t do anything about this,” Erik sighed.
“Trust me on this,” Jecaro said, his eyes glinting in the darkness of the hood. “Both mayors and kings heed the words of sorcerers when darkness is abound in every corner.”
And with that, they sprawled into the night, Dugan going to the Martin Stonelew’s home, Erik going to the tavern, and Jecaro and Angus going to the city hall. A winged figure in the darkness of the sky made had finished its round searching the empty streets, and was about to return to its master when it saw the form of Dugan running below him. As silent as ever, it descended onto the street, a meter or so behind the boy, and took on the form of a hooded man.