GODS OF ASEROTH: The Prodigal Son: A monster is born (22 page)

    
Leosher had the large parchment map in front of him and he started planning.

    
“If we take the sea route, we will go directly to the castle but we will not have the necessary provisions to fight a battle,” Usere said while caressing his beard “I think we should take the land route.”

    
“I agree,” Azar said and took a long puff from his pipe and got up. He walked closer to the map and traced the route with his finger “If we go through land, we will be able to go to the Gelun trade market to gather provisions and modern weapons and then climb over the middle mountains in about two days’ journey. Afterwards, we travel through the tribe of the Nephilims of the west, and to the Elf land, where Usere and Urey can meet their family and provide proper accommodations for the Empirion army. If we take the land route, which we should, we will get to Elf land in about 3 and a half days, if we leave now, and we can attack the castle on the fourth day and on the fourth day, Leosher will be the king of Strinthius and “The Empire” should be expanded by about twice its size.”

    
Azar was quiet satisfied with his plan and cleverness, for he was the wisest in the group but then Barian took a big gulp of rum from his leather flask that was hanging from his waist and coughed and stood up “My lord if I may,”

    
“Yes you may.” Leosher smiled and let him continue.

    
He took another gulp and walked over to the map “We should travel through the water, for it is shorter. We will reach the castle of Colossus in two days. They would not be expecting us to come through the sea route but we will, and therefore we would be at a fantastic advantage. The other fact is that their harbor protections are weak therefore it will be easier to penetrate into the castle.”

    
Leosher liked both plans but he had to choose one. He sat on his chair and leaned on the arm of the chair with his hand under his chin and weighed the plans and after careful examinations, he finally broke the silence

    
“We shall go both ways.” All were surprised to hear what he said but then he completed his sentence. He looked at Azar “We shall leave right now, and travel on the land. We will get to the Elf land by the night of the 3
rd
day and we will wait until the night of the 4
th
day,” then he looked at Barian who was still standing with the flask in his mouth “You will leave this castle in two days and attack the castle on the night of the fourth day. That way, we will surprise them from both sides and then we will marvel at our victory.”

    
“That is brilliant,” Virgil sat back down on his chair and smiled “Now it is settled. Barian shall lead the navy to fight and we all shall leave today with the army.”

    
Neiham, who had been sitting quiet for a long time finally broke her silence,

    
“My lord may I ask something?” Leosher nodded in approval and she continued “Last night, I discovered something. It was a mixture of components in powdery form. It could light on fire and blow up.” Leosher sat up in his chair and increased his attention “I call it flash powder but what I mean to say is, that we can have it on our ship and instead of shooting harpoons on the castle, we could shoot metal balls which would be more destructive and efficient.”

     Everyone liked Neiham’s acc
omplishment and appreciated her. Leosher himself liked it a lot and had a smirk on his face and soon he got up and looked at everyone “This is why I have an enchantress and a potion maker on my advice group.” Then he looked at Neiham again “You may put this technology on all the ships we have, but I have one question for you, what will you call the device that will shoot the balls?”

     “I shall call it
, the canon.”

    
They all were happy that they had a new weapon in their arsenal, and after all was settled and all the plans were made, the meeting ended and all began to get the army ready for the journey. Neiham and Barian took the craftsmen of their kingdom to the harbors where they built huge ships with Leosher’s flag on them, a red flag with a golden Kris blade. The ships were being made with oak wood, the most prominent wood in the forests of The Empire. 16 huge ships, Galleons, were being made and all the ships were to have dozens of kegs filled with the powder prepared by Neiham, and there were to be hundreds of metal balls to be shot as well.

    
Leosher stood in the entrance of the castle, near the main gates and waited for his horse to arrive. He had all of his weapons and the most important one of them all on this part of his journey, the golden spear. He had made sure he had it with him this time, for he was not about to make the same mistake he did with Geluna.

    
After he had stood in the morning sun for about several minutes, his dark horse finally arrived. It was fully black with a shiny fur and a short, warrior like mane. It had a leather saddle on it with golden stirrups and had a satchel on one side for Leosher’s belongings, such as some of his weapons, for he was carrying the gauntlet, the Gladius sword, the spear and a scythe, four weapons in total. His brother held the horse in place as a respect to the king and Leosher sat on it and just as he turned around and saw that all the army was lined up behind him.

    
“Let us journey to the kingdom of Strinthius and bring the demise of Colossus.”

    
And just as he said that, the journey to the castle of Colossus began and Leosher was in front of the group. There were hundreds of men who followed him and praised him. Some carried their weapons and now but all had their armors on. The size of the army had increased because some of the male residents of The Empire, had joined the army too. The entire army was engulfed in black steel that matched the color of Leosher’s clothes and had his emblem on them, the Kris blade. His emblem was no longer his face, because it was too costly to make, and wasn’t as deadly looking as a Kris blade.

     The army had many types of men.
Some carried broad swords with them; some carried long spears and shields with Leosher’s emblem and the rest, Urey’s group, carried bows and arrows. Although half of the army did not have their weapons, for the armory ran out of metals to forge them, the Empirions looked deadly.

    
They traveled and traveled. It took them about 14 hours to travel through the grasslands and finally reached the Gelun trade market. It was a big town filled with traders and merchants and forgers. People from all over Thraenus came here for the grains and food in turn for Strinthiun money and Agnithiun weapons. All the shops were made with clay and wood. The streets were soil and did not have a hard surface on them. There were many barns and rest places for the weary travelers and their animals as well. It was very close to the sea and there were hundreds of ships docked in the harbor too.

    
Everyone in the market now knew Leosher and praised him. They offered him clothes and gifts; many offered him wine and water as well. Leosher smiled at them and did not take any of them, for he did not want them and instead quickly found a nice group of rest places for his men and sent them in it to rest and spend the night in. He himself planned to stay in the fanciest place he could find.

     After all of the accomodations were done, Leosher went and talked to Virgil.

    
“Virgil, go to the blacksmiths and order them to make weapons for my men with my emblem on them—and make sure you do not pay them.”

    
Virgil nodded but did not like the way Leosher acted, for he wanted to pay the people their fare share but Leosher was forbidding him from doing so and he had to listen to his king, no matter what. He went to a blacksmith market and chose the one who did not have any buyers. All the others were filled with customers but this one only shouted for them to come to him but none did. It was an old man, about ninety years old and in his last days, for humans did not live as long as the other species did. He had a young boy with him who helped him and the boy was about 9 years old and both were not being able to sell anything, for everyone wanted to get their job done by young and strong hands, not old and weak. He wore rags and had silvery white hair, just like Azar’s, and sat cross legged on a stool in front of his shop and tried to get people’s attention but none gave him any.

    
Finally, Virgil passed by and the man yelled out “Please, give me a chance and you will get the best work you have ever seen.”

    
Virgil turned around and saw him. He was shocked, for Virgil was the first one who had listened to him but he said again “Come to me and you will get a piece of work you will never be able to forget.”

    
Virgil smiled and finally walked to him “Why do others have much work but you have none?”

    
“It is because they think, just because one is old, he is useless but trust me, you will not regret coming to me.”

    
Virgil laughed and patted the young boy on his head “Do you help this man?”

    
The little boy was shy at first but he finally replied “Yes, but I do not get to help my grandfather a lot, for we do not get much work to do.”

    
The boy was wearing rags too but his grandfather provided him with the best he could afford. Both were extremely poor and barely ate something in a day.

    
Virgil looked at the old man “Where is this boy’s father?”

     The man
looked down at the ground and there were tears in his eyes “They were brutally killed by Geluna’s men, but now I feel safe, for I know the new king will take care of us all.”

    
Virgil smiled and thought in a sarcastic way “he sure will.” After, he looked around and sent a soldier to get Usere and Urey from their rest places. They knew all about weapons and the quality of metals, for they were bounty hunters and only used the finest weapons as their own. When they finally came down to Virgil they were shocked because he had chosen the oldest one, when he could choose the finest of them all.

   
“How many swords, shields, spears and bows do we need?” Virgil asked.

    
Usere ignored Virgil and moved forward and looked the man in his eyes “What materials do you work with?”

    
The humble man smiled and told the boy to bring the sample box out and when the boy followed his grandfather’s order and brought out the box, it was covered in dust. They had not used it in months, for no one came to them.

    
It was a large wooden box with many compartments in it. The man opened the latch and pulled out the samples. They were like small metal chunks. There was gold, iron, steel, silver, bronze and brass and Usere examined all of them carefully and when he was done, he told Urey to examine the black steel.

    
“These are awfully old,” Urey laughed “Are they as old as you are?” He laughed at the old man but not in a mocking or derogatory way. He was witty, therefore he could not refuse the urge to say that but then he appreciated him as well “Old black steel is fantastic—the older it gets, the stronger it gets. Make our weapons with the oldest black steel you have.”

    
“Might I suggest adding a smudgen of bronze in it? Adding bronze to black steel makes a strong metal to work with and makes high quality weapons.”

    
Usere leaned forward and said in his heavy voice “I have never heard of anyone using black steel with bronze, all my life.”

     “Yes, I have never heard of it eit
her.” Urey backed his brother.

    
“That is because the art is lost. No blacksmith is old enough to know that bronze and black steel are better together than they are apart” the old man laughed and looked at his grandson “Will you go bring me your father’s sword?”

    
The boy nodded and ran to a dirty old room in the back of the shop to get it. He brought out a fine, dark sword. It was in a great shape but its grip suggested it was old. The old man put it on an anvil and looked at Usere “Strike it with your sword and you shall find out.”

     Usere backed up a bit and drew his sword out and struck it on his target. It was a strong, straight blow and t
he strike was so loud that everyone looked at them until Urey told them off “It was just a test—we are not robbing this old lad.”

    
Usere’s sword broke in half and he was left astounded, for he had not seen a metal stronger than black steel yet.

    
“My sword is black steel too, why did mine break and that one did not?” Usere asked.

     “It is because this one had bronze in it, which increased its strength drastically.”

     Usere nodded and told him to make their weapons with bronze and black steel.

    
“How many do you want?”

     This question took some thinking and
Urey and Virgil discussed and finally Virgil spoke “We will take 700 swords, 300 spears and 275 bows and about 1000 arrows, all forged with bronze and black steel.”

    
The man was very surprised, for this was a huge order.