The Battle of Ebulon Read Online Free PDF

complied,
there was a nagging annoyance. It felt almost as if a grain of sand
had become rooted in his head that could never be
dislodged.
    To say the situation had
left him in a foul mood was something of an
understatement.
    With every step, the wind
seemed to grow a fresh set of teeth. The ground beneath his feet
had turned barren and rocky weeks ago, which had been bad enough.
Today, however, Malik found himself trudging through a foot of
freshly fallen snow. Not only was it cold, it was wet, and Malik
had lost feeling in his toes early in the day's march.
    His fingers twitched in
longing to draw his sword from its sheath and cut down something,
anything, in payment for the hardships he was being forced to
endure. His weapon was an oddity, even in his distant homeland. It
was a slender, single-edged sword with a curved blade. There were
no fancy engravings or augmentations to disguise its nature as a
killing tool, but to the eyes of grunt warriors groomed for a quick
death as front line fodder, the craftsmanship was nevertheless
exquisite.
    The handle was bone, and
appeared to be that of a human femur.
    The bone was wrapped with
leather cord for about half its length, but at the bottom the
gleaming white handle was decorated with a series of crude, almost
childlike carvings.
    Malik didn't know what the
carvings signified or who had put them there. He had not modified
the weapon since it had been bestowed upon him for passing the
final trials of the Camden Guard.
    The weapon represented his
first kill.
    The memory was not
particularly pleasant.
    “Halt!” bellowed a voice
from the road ahead.
    Malik was startled from
his reverie. Under normal circumstances he kept a diligent watch on
his surroundings, and would not have been surprised. However in
this case, it felt more as if he were being driven like a slave
dog, so he had let his guard slip.
    He looked up in the
direction of the voice and found that he was standing at the base
of an entrance gate. A twenty foot wide arch rose from pylons
embedded into rock walls on either side. Behind the pylons was a
portcullis and then a heavy wooden door.
    At the top of the arch
stood a soldier in crude armor covered with animal
skins.
    “Who goes there?” the
soldier demanded.
    “I'm Malik,” Malik
replied.
    “Malik who?”
    Malik gritted his teeth. A
lance of pain stabbed through his eyes reminding him that he should
be moving forward.
    “Malik of Camden, of
Miscony, of a half-dozen god-forsaken little villages and arm-pits
like this one stretching back a thousand miles to the South,” he
snapped.
    “You don't know where you
are?” the soldier persisted.
    “I do not.”
    “The city you look upon is
Ebulon, many call it the jewel of the North.”
    “Then they don't get out
all that much because it's an arm-pit. Open the gate or I'll start
scaling it.”
    The solider recoiled at
Malik's words, but he continued with his duty.
    “Why are you
here?”
    “I'm here because of a
pain in my mind which will not let me be anywhere else has led me
here. It's been driving me onwards for days and nights and frankly
I care nothing for Ebulon, its walls, its treasures or its
populace. I know only that a phantom taskmaster has driven me to
this gate, for all I know there is a cliff on the other side it
wishes me to throw myself off of, but unless I obey I'm put into
agony. I ask only that you don't impede my progress because I have
no desire to suffer the inconvenience of dulling my sword against
your stubborn head.”
    The solider seemed
confused.
    “I was not aware that the
call could cause any pain.”
    “The call?” Malik
said.
    “Our dear King Yadi has
sent out a call to heroes, Ebulon is in peril. Could it be that you
are one of the those he has summoned to save us?”
    Malik gritted his teeth as
the irritation continued behind his eyes.
    “How about if we open up
the door and see?”
    All at once, the solider
seemed beside himself with the desire to