Friends from Mountain Forge

By Wm. Matthew Graphman

The key to finding the next piece of the talisman is lost. Rift and his family of battle wolves are formally banished. The church at Brittle is destroyed. Guntharr, Taya, and the others look for a sliver of hope as the thread holding their quest together begins to fray. Raskin, Taya’s life-bound hawk lord, falls into guilt and depression over a past he has kept hidden for too long. Driven by concern for their friend, the companions turn their attention to Eddiforth and the Mountain of the Hawk Lords to seek resolution for their friend. What they discover is a plot by the hawk lord council to start a war with their neighbors, the battle wolves.

Events spiral out of control as Raskin is captured along with Guntharr, Taya, Firebane, and Farrian. The alpha hawk lords launch an all-out attack on the unsuspecting battle wolves of Clan Firepack, but the alphas are not going to it alone. Alpha Plass has secretly enlisted the aid of the sorceress, Naranda. Her role is to guarantee the war and see to it that the rise of Silverwood never happens. Plass seals the deal by turning over the red gem of power. Its discovery coincides with the alphas’ orchestrated extermination of a certain caste of hawk lords.

Tensions rise as Raskin discovers the truth about the events leading up to his rescue by Silverwood’s princess. As he prepares for the ultimate fate, the sudden appearance of an impossible hawk lord gives him the strength to forgive himself and a new courage to move forward.

Ghosts from Rift’s past surface as former students seek to settle a score with the old battle wolf. To save his friends and lay the lingering guilt he has carried to rest, Rift agrees to a fight to the death with the four rogue battle wolves.

With the clouds of war looming, Silverwood’s friends from Mountain Forge prepare to sacrifice everything to save Taya and keep the hope of Silverwood’s return alive.

• Language: English
• Publisher: iUniverse
• Release date: Mar 29, 2018
• ISBN: 9781532045868

Wm. Matthew Graphman

Matthew Graphman is a twenty-five-year veteran in the information technology world. He studied writing, drama, as well as computers while attending Bob Jones University in the late 80’s and early 90’s. There he met his wife, Wendy, of twenty-five years and started a family. He currently resides in Bloomington, Indiana with his wife and children, Kathryn (Kat) and Ethan. His oldest son, Sean, is married and lives on the East Coast. Matthew has long been a fan of fantasy fiction. His first attempt at writing was brought on by his roommates in college. As a result, he wrote his first - still unpublished - fantasy novel. After graduating, Matthew continued his writing exploits, but his focus was mostly around theater. After developing a series of children’s skits in the 2000’s, he was encouraged to take the skits and convert them into a series of children’s chapter books. To date, he has written five of the fifteen stories in the “Chel & Riley Adventures” series. Taking a break from creating children’s fiction and drama, Matthew decided to reach back, at the request from his daughter Kat, and create a fantasy world that mixed all of her favorite thematic elements. This series is currently outlined to cover five volumes; however, he is convinced that there could be many more stories that evolve out of this new universe. Matthew is a recent winner of the 2016 and 2017 NaNoWriMo challenge. He is currently working on a board game based upon the Silverwood story along with several other projects.

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Copyright © 2018 Wm. Matthew Graphman.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

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ISBN: 978-1-5320-4585-1 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5320-4587-5 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-5320-4586-8 (e)

iUniverse rev. date: 03/28/2018

CONTENTS

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Epilogue

About the Author

Battle Wolf Howls To

April Easter

Kat Graphman

Wendy Graphman

Steve Kramer

Irene Reynolds

Scott Zook

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PROLOGUE

H e closed the ancient book in his hands and studied its cover carefully. It was nearly one thousand years old, but from the looks of it, it could have just been released from the scribes last week. Quality craftsmanship and the most beautiful materials in Teradandra made this possible. He hated to let it go, especially considering whom he was leaving it for. While he knew that Naranda Ambelhand, the sorceress, would respect it, it was her minions that she kept around that worried him around such a prized possession.

Still, desperate times required sacrifice. He was confident that his ancestors would sanction the move if it meant increasing the odds that the Talisman of Alterian would never again be worn by a member of the house of Silverwood. The story behind the book was somewhat sketchy over the years, but the tradition that had been handed down from his father was the best that he had to go on.

Just before Alterian’s death, the king of Silverwood decreed that the secrets of the Talisman be inscribed in a collection of books that would be archived throughout the elvish libraries so that future generations could understand the workings of the Talisman. The problem was the inscriptions were prepared using a code that prevented just anyone being able to read it. The books were thought unreadable, and so were not locked away but instead, put on display as a symbol of transparency.

This is where his ancestor came in. An astute member of the house of Brigganoir spent some time with the encrypted writings when he happened upon a cipher to decrypt it. Secretly, a scribe was hired to translate the books. No expense was spared in the compiling of the translations and construction of the texts. In fact, legend has it that the house of Brigganoir nearly went bankrupt from the expense of translating the books. It is common knowledge that the house of Brigganoir which rivaled that of Ambelhand was never able to fully recover the wealth that was expended.

The books were kept secure in the vaults of the Brigganoir estate over the generations. With the coup of Drifmarklow which started the war between the Outerlands and Silverwood, the house of Brigganoir was positioning itself to end Silverwood then and there, but fate had other plans. The letter used to secure the assassins, originally sent by his great, great, great grandfather, was discovered. Grandfather stupidly used the conventional ink that he always used when penning the letter, which in this case, was a rare ink easily traceable back to Brigganoir. When threatened with treason, he quickly offered to help offset Dayspring’s costs to go to war on behalf of Silverwood and while he was at it, implicated Trelborn and the house of Ambelhand in the plot.

Broke and disgraced, his family lay quietly after the war, rebuilding. The books long forgotten as the focus was on reestablishing the family as leaders in Brigganoir. That was until his father rediscovered some of the books in the vault and rediscovered the ambitions of their family. He hatched a grand scheme that would involve a son, but it would take nearly a lifetime to pull it off.

As far back as he could remember, he had been taught to despise Silverwood. However, the only way to get to the point where he could effectively topple Silverwood was to get inside of it. So, he joined the ranks of the Guardians of Fairhaven as a lad in the hopes that he could climb the ranks and gain access to Silverwood.

It was well known that Krestichan had a fondness for the Guardian ranks in Dayspring and the mutual protection that Spire Tree and Fairhaven provided one another only bolstered the trust between the elf king and the Guardians.

His father, who had regained a seat on the council of Dayspring after much cajoling and some backroom deals, proposed that Dayspring send a squadron of Fairhaven’s finest to cross-train with the elvish military. The proposal was floated to Silverwood’s king who immediately accepted the opportunity to strengthen the relations between the two realms.

All the years of preparation and training were beginning to pay off. Driven by his father, he had singled himself out as one of the most accomplished Guardians in Fairhaven which made his inclusion in the ranks to go train with Krestichan’s elite guard a sure thing. Only one unforeseen event prevented the plan from being foolproof. A young guardian named Guntharr who, like himself, had devoted his life to becoming a guardian among guardians was also allocated to the detail.

His options became few, and so he took the most practical one that had the fewest downsides. He teamed up with Guntharr, and they became an unbeatable duo. He remembered being almost sorry when the invasion of the Talicrons occurred that fateful night in Spire Tree. Confident that the overwhelming level of force would crush the minimal resistance in Spire Tree, he had not expected to ever see Guntharr again.

Caught off guard to the point of despair, he learned recently that Guntharr had indeed survived the assault nearly 18 years ago. Not only survived but he was the one responsible for harboring and protecting the young heir of Silverwood all of this time. All this time, he had just been trying to gather the Talisman to destroy it, now he had more significant problems with which to deal. If anyone on Teradandra was capable of pulling off what needed to happen for the heir of Silverwood to be established, it was Guntharr.

Guntharr was beyond a formidable opponent in his own right, but as a follower of the One True God, he was able to accomplish more than fifty men his caliber. The plans of his father and his entire life’s work were just about to come unraveled, and he needed to do something he had not done in quite some time. He was going to have to improvise. This meant he would have to take matters into his own hands which was dangerous. The reason for using Naranda Ambelhand all this time was to leverage her family’s resources for once. For generations, his family had borne the brunt of the expense and honor when it came to ruining the house of Silverwood; he felt it was time that Ambelhand put its resources to work as well.

Unfortunately, Ambelhand always had power and resources but seemed to lack creativity and cunning. Naranda would just as soon burn an entire forest down looking for the right path through it, rather than take the time to carefully weave through its branches. This meant that Naranda needed all of the help she could get and right now, this was all he could provide for her at this time. His focus was on a more significant problem, Spire Tree, the elf fortress in the heart of Silverwood. For too long, even since the death of the king, it had stood as a symbol of the power and hope of Silverwood. He determined that it had to be destroyed. Naranda would have to manage the distraction of the Guardian, Guntharr Deathhammer, and his companions, while he focused on eliminating, once and for all, the possibility of there being a new royal house in Spire Tree.

He scanned the wall of books in Naranda’s library looking for the suitable place to insert this treasure that had been in his family for generations. He needed to hurry as he knew that she would be returning soon and he did not want an encounter with her at this time. With the death of her sister, her stability was in question more than usual, and the last thing he wanted was a bloodbath inside the house of Ambelhand.

Finding an ideal spot, he pulled the old book from its place and tossed it off to one side kicking it behind the tail of a long curtain that hung down from one of the windows. Carefully, he shelved the book, making sure it looked as natural in its place as it had in the vault of the estate back in Brigganoir. He knew this would provide the information or at least enough information to push Naranda into her next role in his plan. Stepping away from the dark desk, which he admired momentarily, he made his way carefully out of the library and into the darkness.

CHAPTER 1

N aranda stormed into the library of her family’s castle. Her anger boiled to the point where she might just explode. She had just watched her sister, her only living relative; die at the hands of a Guardian and that priest from Brittle. They had come so close to capturing the talisman and the heir to the throne of Silverwood and then at the last minute, everything unraveled spectacularly.

Do you require any refreshment? Henry the long-time family servant inquired.

No, she snapped.

Very well, Henry replied unaffected by her anger. If you have need of anything, you know how to summon me.

Henry bowed and exited the library closing the door.

Wait! Naranda shouted as the door started to latch closed.

The tall wooden door with ornate scrollwork carved into it reopened with Henry standing there beaming. Yes, my lady?

Send Scrag to me as soon as he has arrived. I’m through playing games with these mongrels, Naranda ordered.

As you wish, Henry’s face reflected an air of disappointment from the request. Naranda knew how much Henry detested her goblin henchmen and Henry had grown especially annoyed with Scrag as of recent.

Henry closed the door again, this time more slowly. Naranda knew he suspected that she might have more orders for him, but she had none to give.

With the door latched, Naranda threw the dark velvet cloak that had been on her shoulders over one of the many wing-backed chairs that occupied the library. It caught the corner of the chair before slipping and falling to the floor in a heap.

Ah! Naranda screamed and pointed her finger at the cloak. It immediately burst into flames then slowly converted to ash.

She walked over to the desk on which was scattered all varieties of books. A bronze candle stand sat on one corner along with writing utensils and a corked inkwell. In the center, a large leather satchel was situated.

Rounding the corner of the desk, she faced a wall of books that stretched from one end of the room to the other and ascended nearly to the ceiling. A hopeful glance at the countless volumes yielded no results. The answers she was looking for would require more than just staring at the impressive collection to make them appear.

Giving up on inspiration, she decided to examine the precious contents of the satchel that had been placed on the desk by Henry upon their return from the Drifmarklow in the Outerlands. The one item she was interested in rested in a secure compartment inside the satchel. Reaching in, she felt around and touched the intricate frame of the mirror that she had procured from the priest in her recent encounter that ended in her sister’s death.

So distraught from the event, she did not take the time to even look at the mirror during the two month journey back to Trelborn. It was not that she had loved her sister in the natural course of things, quite the contrary; she despised her and her overall vision and capabilities. From a pure force of will, Larianna had no equal, but Naranda knew how to exploit the weaknesses of those around her. This allowed her to always keep an upper hand on her sister. Had Larianna actually wanted to, she could have easily overcome Naranda’s abilities and taken control of her will. This is why, after their previous confrontation several years ago, she felt it necessary to her banish Larianna to the Outerlands. She just could not risk being overcome by Larianna’s power.

The mirror seemed unimpressive to Naranda from a materialistic point of view. It was neither spectacular in its design nor valuable in its makeup. For all she knew, this was the intent of its crafter to help disguise its real worth. That value, whatever it was, she must discover because the crew from Brittle was willing to sacrifice almost everything for it.

Looking into the mirror, Naranda saw exactly what she had expected to see. She saw her natural beauty radiating from it, albeit exhausted from an excruciatingly long trip. With the wave of her hand, Naranda closed her eyes to peek into the magical realm. A brilliant aura glowed surrounding the mirror. This confirmed that the mirror was infused with power, but how to access it required further discovery.

A brash knock came from the door. Naranda reached out with her mind and felt the presence of her henchman, Scrag, on the other side of the door. She paused for a moment knowing that if she ignored the goblin’s first attempt at entry, that this would create a level of anxiousness that would cause him to be more subdued than by admitting him immediately.

Silence in the room was only interrupted by the occasional crackle coming from the candle on the corner of the desk. The second knock, more subtle and controlled, arrived as anticipated.

Enter, Naranda called toward the door from her comfortable chair.

The door unlatched with a click and swung open. Scrag waddled into the room, his head hung a little lower and his bugged-out eyes darted around to see what traps had been laid to bear on him.

You sent for me, mistress? Scrag’s scratchy voice inquired.

The gangly black goblin stopped as he saw the smoking remains of Naranda’s cloak. A look of fear filled his eyes, and he began to tremble slightly. Who was that?

Naranda did not want to lose the element of control, so she brushed the question aside. Never mind that. What do you know about this mirror?

Scrag made his way over to the desk, keeping a safe distance from the smoking ash just in case it came to life and grabbed him. Naranda set the mirror down in front of him, and the goblin studied it for a moment.

Scrag sees only a simple mirror, he reported. Scrag’s mother had nicer mirror than that when Scrag was just a little goblin. Mistress can easily afford a nicer one.

Naranda was not impressed with the goblin’s analysis so far. His attention did not seem to be on the mirror, so she slapped a hand down on the desk to see if that would increase the goblin’s focus. The action yielded the desired result as Scrag moved his face in closer and began memorizing every curve and blemish in the metal that housed the mirror.

Scrag looking, Scrag looking, please don’t turn to smoking ash like that one over there, Scrag cried.

Why would those rogues risk everything, even the life of the princess of Silverwood for this simple but magical mirror? Naranda wondered out loud.

Magical? Scrag’s long wrinkly ears stood up straight at the word. Scrag not know it was magical. Scrag now thinking who might be able to help Mistress figure out mirror mystery.

Yes, please do, Naranda replied. Sooner rather than later would be appreciated.

Naranda stood up from her desk as the goblin continued to scrutinize the artifact. He had picked it up in his hand and was studying it from various angles. Occasionally, the light from the candle would catch the mirror just right and throw a bright beam against the wall.

Realizing it was going to take time, she turned to her wall of books and began running her finger across the spines of several volumes. Most of the books in this section of shelving focused on arcane potions most of which Naranda had no reason to use. However, as she skipped over a book about forest fungus and berries, next to a book about ancient uses for bird feathers and animal hair, Naranda spotted a tome entitled mythical artifacts. Not only was this book out of place, but Naranda also could not ever remember actually seeing this book before.

A loud banging sound from behind her caused her to turn in a flash. Scrag had taken to smacking the mirror as hard as he could on Naranda’s desk.

What in the lava pits of the Outerlands are you doing, Scrag? She asked in total bewilderment.

Scrag ceased banging the desk and looked up at her. Mirror definitely magic. Normal mirror would have shattered into many pieces if Scrag did that. Scrag smacked it hard. Hard enough to dent mistress’ fancy desk.

You did what! Naranda could not believe her ears. The little devil had not only tried to shatter the mirror but in the process managed to scar her grandfather’s desk.

Scrag’s eyes grew large as he began to realize he had probably done something wrong. He looked at the mirror in his hand that he was still holding in an upraised position prepared to strike the desk one last time. Instead, Scrag decided that he would delicately set it down.

Get out! Naranda’s eyes flashed with fire.

Scrag just realized he may know someone that can help mistress with magic mirror, Scrag flashed his biggest toothy grin. Scrag just go find him and bring him to Mistress.

He turned and scurried out of the library. He exited in such a hurry that he failed to close the door completely when he left.

Naranda ran her fingers through her hair and started to pull. Why had she been cursed with such incompetent henchmen? She moved closer to the desk and picked up the mirror. Underneath where the mirror rested, Naranda saw several fresh gouges in the dark, oiled surface of the desk that had been crafted over a hundred years ago from some of the blackest wood within the region. The wood used in this desk was so rare that Lord Krestichan himself had once offered to trade her grandfather a suite of custom-made Conical Armor in exchange for the desk. Her grandfather publicly declined with all of the courtesy of the royal house, but secretly swore that he would see the heirloom burned to ash before ever selling it to the King of Silverwood.

At that point, as she lifted the mirror away from the desk, the candlelight caught it just right, and a flash of brilliant light blinded her temporarily. In that moment of blindness, Naranda saw the outline of something she could not discern in the light. Deciding that it was merely the effects of having such a bright reflection hit directly into her face, she turned back around after setting the mirror down and reached for the book that she had spotted just moments before.

The tome was by no means massive. If Naranda were to guess, there were probably not more than fifty or sixty pages at most in the volume. The binding was obviously a high grade of leather, which meant that it had been commissioned and paid for by either a high ranking official of the royal line or possibly one of the dukes in the outlying regions of Dayspring. It had retained its form exceedingly well, and Naranda considered that maybe it was a recent copy. Flipping to the first page, Naranda scanned the inscription to try and determine the date of compilation.

Year eight ninety-one, of the twenty-second age of Spire Tree, read the inscription. This meant that the book was more than five hundred years old. Now she knew this did not belong in her possession. Writings from the twenty-second age were almost all kept either in Spire Tree or at one of the remote elvish libraries. How did it come to get here, in her library on this shelf?

Inspection of the pages revealed that the parchment was made of material she was utterly unfamiliar with which might account for why the book had held up so well over the centuries. More importantly the language of the text was that of the common tongue with only slight variances. Typically when she had inspected documents of this era, they would often be in a legacy version of elvish that would require some translation into a more modern form. Whoever had commissioned this work, knew that their target audience would most likely need it in the common tongue spoken by most races.

The book was sectioned by various realms. As Naranda expected, Silverwood was first in order followed by Dayspring, Nightfall, Outerlands and finally Mountain Forge. This mostly made sense to her as Silverwood and the elves seemed to have a significant influence in the creation of mythical artifacts.

Leading off the Silverwood section was a sketch of the Talisman of Alterian. Having personally seen it first hand, Naranda admired briefly the details captured by the illustrator. With the exception of the colors of the gems and the missing gems themselves, the picture was almost lifelike. The description of the artifact including its significance within the royal house of Silverwood was spelled out in such a way as to confirm everything Naranda had discovered about it over the last several years. She read on hoping that there would be some additional information she could glean from the author’s experience.

One aspect that was clearly new information to her was that the gems contained within the talisman not only represented the five realms but were also harvested from them originally. With this, Naranda closed her eyes and tried to visualize the talisman. She could see it as Guntharr retrieved it from the stable in Brittle and again as he presented it to her sister, Larianna. There were two stones visible in it, she recalled. The central stone, a white diamond which represented the heart of Silverwood, stood out as the predominant stone. The second, as she remembered, was a deep purple stone. Naranda now remembered her encounter back in Nightfall and realized that she had nearly captured the second stone without even realizing it.

Her sister had possessed the green stone from Outerlands for a short time before losing it to the rogues that followed that guardian and priest. This left two stones unaccounted for. She scanned through the text until she came to the part that discussed a golden colored gem from Dayspring. While not itself actual gold, the gem’s hue was more vibrant than any simple yellow color one could describe. Naranda had remembered hearing about some mines in Dayspring near the village of Brigganoir that produced vibrantly yellow gemstones. While they were not excessively valuable, they seemed to prove to be strong and sturdy stones.

The author of the book, as with the others, had no deep insight into the gem’s actual capabilities, but he postulated that it had something to do with the ability to project authority. Whether this meant being able to command someone to do something against their