Test Chapter Tallume the Talking Tree and the Bat

A story I am working on at the moment.

Tallume the Talking Tree and the Bat

Draft 1

Chapter 1: The Bat meets Tallume

 

 

In the year of our Lord 1432

 

Artful Goldenears smiled up at the cooling summer wind dancing between the trees in a town near Whispering Oaks, but the town had no name on any map. It only had a few buildings standing along its main road and had been surround be a few farms. The squirrels living in the trees of those farms had been there for countless years, reaching back all the way to the Long Winter or so the town Elders said. Artful had heard many stories along the same lines. The Elders in all their wisdom told their folks the town had been one of the oldest in the Realm of Sherwood Forest, but rarely had that been the case.

                Not that Artful said a word on the matter. He let the Elders, along with the town squirrels, believed whatever they wished. It was not his place to ruin those stories.

                His duty had been a simple one when he first became a Sword Saint. He traveled the Realm to bring the Good Word to all and helping where he was needed. He would set the wrong rights and punish the wicked when he found them. It had been the duty of all his Rank as a Sword Saint.

                But things have changed ever since -

                He glanced down to his side, where the long sword rested and sighted.

                It had been odd to see a Sword Saint carry at an actual sword, and many eyes fell on to the blade, but no one question if he had indeed been a part of the Rank. He carried the staff of the Sword Saint, a twist wood strength by a magic long forgotten, and at the end of the wood was a blade made from Ulfberht steel. Steel more durable than any in the Realm, and only a Sword Saint could will the weapon. The warrior monks kept a very close eye on their staff. The only way someone could be carrying one was to be a Saint - which Artful was - or the have killed a Saint - which was harder than most cutthroats thought.

                Outside of carrying unbreakable steel, the Saint were highly trained warriors, and they have all the blessing of the AllFather on their side.

                “It is a sin to attack a Saint,” Artful had told many bandits. “One which put your soul into the pits.”

                Turns our thieves and cutthroats cared little about their souls.

                He looked up at a few children giggling at the sight of them. Once his eyes big golden eyes fell on them with hints of a hellfire red in them, they gasp running off from him. He smiled at the laughter of the little ones and would have loved to stay with them for a while, but he had to keep moving.

                His quest was never over until his last breath, but the quest of his Order had been stacked up against his other new quest  to protect the Realm from evil as the legendary hero the Bat.

                He guessed both quests were the same, but he still didn’t know which one had been more important. When it came down to it, he didn’t know which duty fell on him as the greater of the two. He had been holding off being the Bat for several months, not out of fear the Order would take away his staff. They did not know of his new identity, at least, he hoped not, but the more he willed the flaming sword of Death, the more his eyes started to burn the eerie red of the Bat.

                The sword, stolen from Death by the true Bat, Mason Coldshiled, had kept him alive for thousands of years and turn the squirrel bitter to life. Artful had to track down his old friend in the depth of the Black Forest at the request of their dying friend and bring Mason back to her.

                He did as he was asked, but unknown to him, it had been a trap set from a powerful demon to lurk Mason back to the Realm. Artful, along with his adopted children, hunted down the demon with the help from the Bat, defeated it, but at a high cost. Mason had met his end, passing the sword to Artful, leaving him with more questions than he liked.

                Would he live forever now?

                What if he didn’t want to be the Bat?

                Could he cook with the flaming sword of Death?

                The sword did make it easy to start campfires on a cold night, but there were other side effects Mason forgot to tell him before the end. Like the fact, I can now see the dead.

                The ghost who couldn’t or wouldn’t cross over to the other side or came back to the Realm of the Living was now walking up to Artful to chat up a storm. They followed him around for days trying to understand how they could see him while he tried his best to get them to go away.

                The cities were the worst. The graveyards were the biggest, and the dead seemed pulled to the overflowing amount of life behind the walls. Artful started to go out of his way to not be near the cities. He hated them now.

                The small towns were better, less dead, fewer ghosts walking around, but sometimes, the ghost helped in his quest. If they were murdered, they begged him to track down their killer, and Artful had to do it if they asked him.

                A Sword Saint could never turn anyone down in need if the cause were righteousness. Finding a killer had been right up the ally of the highest Order of justice, it was the reason Artful had come to the small town in the middle of nowhere.

                To find the killer, he found him last night, fighting over the deed of a farm, and he needs some new boots. The one thing a Sword Saint required more than anything else in their life were new boots. They were always traveling, and the Royal Blue cloak Artful had been wearing was now painted with weather and time. It took a moment too long for anyone to note the cloak came from Whispering Oaks, and most of the clothes he wore had been on the same level as the cloak, rags at best, and slowly dying from overuse.

                He glanced down the dirt road looking at the small supplies shop, wondering if they had some clothes he could buy from them. Then again - he let his paw go to the bag on his belt - he could use the Rings of Teleportation to go to one of the many caves Mason had throughout the Realm and find some new garbs there.

                The problem with the rings, outside he could only use a few times before they needed time to regain the manna they used, was the fact, Artful still didn’t know how to use them that well. He could teleportation with them, but most of the time, he ended up in a tree or a lake, and once in a well where the squirrels of the town had to help him out.

                He opens the bag on the other side of his belt, counting the two acorns there and the three acorns tops; the full total of the currency he had to his name which couldn’t buy much for him. He had to eat on the road and the boots -

                He lifted his left foot with three hoots in the sole, staring at it.

                It could last for a bit longer. Maybe, he could get to a church and get the supplies he needed there. He looked up to the blue sky, trying to remember where the nearest Church would be, but his mind couldn’t place himself on the map. He could ask one of the town squirrels, but none of them were around, and he didn’t care too much to track them down.

                His paw landed back on the bag with the rings and sighed. He had to get better at using the magic of the rings. He was the Bat now, and sooner or later, he would have to pick up the armor again to save the Realm.

                This hero thing is a bit annoying; he noted to himself heading out of town into the depths of the woods. No wondered Mason had retreated to the darkest part of the nightmarish Realm of the Black Forest. Artful still wondered how he got that castle on top of the cliff, alone in the darkness, and towering over the frost.

                He never returned to the castle of the Bat, but he knew without a shadow of a doubt the rings would take him back to their home. He stopped under a tree sitting down next to it thinking about a nap in shadow before marching on to the next place.

                Most squirrels believed the road was lonely, and the life of a Sword Saint equally washed in loneliness. After all the warrior monks could take no wife and have no children, they had to be always on the move. Sure, there were one or two Saints out there who had locked themselves away in tree houses to study all their lives, but they were few and far in the Rank. Even they had no family in those houses outside of their books.

                But Artful found the cities to be locked in walls of loneliness. None of the squirrels in those places cared for each other, and most of them raced down the streets to worry about their own lives to stop for a nap under the tree. They were surrounded by an endless amount of souls and yet, knew none of them.

                At least, out in the woods, Artful had his thoughts - something he didn’t have in the city, they were too noises, and he felt the AllFather walking with him. The woods were the domain of the Lord, and his Angels sat in the trees while He walked the Realm. Artful often believe cities were not the right place for squirrels, and it only held sin within it.

                A pure squirrel would live in the woods where they were supposed to be.

                He smiled, closing his eyes, listening to the wind pet the leaves of the trees. Soon sleep overtook him, and he was off into the Realm of dreams, but there had been something else there. A giant ashes tree stood in front of him, with no leaves on its branches, but life still ran through it. The roots of the tree started to breathe under Artful’s feet, pushing up from under the ground reaching for him. He jumped away from the roots, trying to fight them back with his -

                His staff was gone; all he had in his paws was the sword. The fire wrapped around the steel like a dragon trying to squeeze the life from it. The flames hissed at the roots, but the wood seems not to care about the Fire of Life. They reached up, taking Artful whole, pulling him closer to the tree.

                Burning yellow eyes open to Artful with a face breathing to live from out of the tree. He yawned in pain before staring at Artful. The face along made Artful feel small against it, and if the face wished it could eat him whole.

                “You are the Bat,” the face said.

                “I am now,” Artful said.

                “Then I need you,” he said, “or Wellstone is doomed.”

                The tree let Artful go, and he started to fall from a height that would kill him when he found the ground, but he jumped awake instead, looking around to see he had lived. He dashed from the tree behind him, waiting to see the face once more, but the tree stood still, nothing more. He sighed, looking down at the bag of rings where he slept.

                Wellstone is doomed, huh?

                He reached down, picking the bag off the ground and opening it. The rings sat in a pile inside the bag, not glowing, but waiting to be used. The magic of the rings redialed from them like heat from an open fire. He poured all seven of them out of the bag into his paw.

                He hated using them, mostly because he couldn’t use them right, but he didn’t have much choice. He had to get to Wellstone and fast. He could take the long way there; it might not be there if he did. He had to use magic to travel to the city, and as far as he knew, these rings were the only ones in the Realm which could teleport him.

                Artful put the rings on trying not to question the ethical side of what he was about to do. Magic had been outlawed in all of the Realm. The Whispering Hoods had been tasked by the Emperor himself to hunt down any Spellcrafter, put them to death if they must, and keep the Realm free of magic. Artful understood the fear of magic. After all the last war, the Arcane War almost destroyed the whole Realm. A race of magic eating ants attacked all of the cities killing anyone in their way while they hunted for the magic to devour. No one was safe, and the squirrels lived in fear.

                It took the most powerful Spellcrafters of the Realm, the Wizard Three, to put an end to the ants. They used their magic to pull the ants to their tower and then sacrificing themselves to destroy the armies of the ants. Unknown to most squirrels at the same time this was happening, the Emperor had sent a small group of Knights, Rangers, Spellcrafters, and Hoods south in the Black Forest to find the Queen of the Arcane Ants.

                They never return, but nor has the ants, which led all who knew about the party to believe they had killed the Queen.

                Either way, the fear had cut deep into the Realm, most of all the Emperor, and he ordered magic outlaw. Magic had brought the ants to the Realm, and if there was no magic in the Realm, then the ants had no reason to return, but magic ran deep in all things in the Realm.

                The Church, along with the Saints, had been divide on the matter. Some believe magic had been a gift from the AllFather, while others said magic had been a cruse passed on to squirrels by the Dark Ones and the Lost King. A heated debate, still raging on, rung in the halls of the Church, but Artful felt he would do what the Good Book said. Obey the laws of the land.

                He didn’t pick a side in the debate, didn’t care too, which might have been a good thing in the long run, because now he was free to use the rings.

                He put them on his fingers, closing his fist with the energy wrapping around him. He took a deep breath closing his eyes and picturing Wellstone in his mind. He hopes he at least landed on the island city and not out in the sea. He willed the magic of the rings to bring him to the city.

                Everything when dark, though he didn’t open his eyes, and the wind rushed by him while he did not move. The world gave out from under him like someone had lifted him in the air tossing him across the land, but he did not move. The magic warmed his bones while at the same time cooling his fur to a deep freeze and then -

                He opens his eyes, finding himself standing in a cave deep underground. He couldn’t see the walls of the cave, no light could walk around this place, but he could smell the dirt near him. He blinked a couple of times, snapping his fingers. When the echoing stop touches around him yawned to life to show him the same home built in the ground.

                The old Bat had built caves all over the Realm, each in different sizes, but all able to supplies him with everything he needed. Each cave held his red and black armor, spell books time had forgotten, and rooms to rest in. There was a countless amount of cloth, bandages, potions, and elixirs to deal with any wound caused by a blade or poison. The caves had everything he needed, and he still had no idea how many Mason had built over the lifetimes.

                He put the rings back into the bag, one at a time, and Artful glanced around the cave stopping at shelves of books. He would have to check them out later. Right now, he had to see what part of the city he was in and if it still stood. He found the stairs to the surface and climbed to find himself standing on the edge of a mountain cloaked in thick snow.

                “Well,” he mumbles to the hallowing winds,” we might be in the wrong place.”

                “You are not,” a voice thunder above him, causing the snow around him to tremble. Artful spun looking up in the sky to see a floating island of rock hanging there in the air with untold numbers of roots dangling from the stone. He couldn’t tell how many trees were on top of the island, but there had to be a whole forest there due to the number of roots.

                Before he could move or speak, the rings in the bag shouted in agony at the sudden rush of power. They activated teleporting him to above the island, high in the air, and he started to tumble downwards to his death. Artful scream for a moment free-falling to his end, but root from the massive tree on the island saved him from meeting his end and pulled him close to the large face staring at him.

                “I am the Great Tallume,” the face said, “and I have a quest for you, Bat.”