Rangers' Rescue (eBook)

Warren C. Ludwig (Autor)

eBook Download: EPUB

2024 | 1. Auflage
392 Seiten
Bookbaby (Verlag)
979-8-3509-5653-5 (ISBN)

Infos

When two of his companions disappear on an errand in a foreign land, Tallis Codner begins a search and rescue mission in a magical realm. Will the desperate search party armed with few clues find its quarry and return home to Moonhaven safe and whole?

Warren C. Ludwig is a native of Pennsylvania's Lehigh Valley, but currently resides in the Harrisburg area. 'Rangers' Rescue' is the third installment of the Codner-Upwater Chronicles and is his third book to be published.

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Tallis Codner continues to chase his dream to learn magic by attending the Red Moon School of Arcana in the city of Moonhaven. At the urging of his friend and mentor Jerzzen Rhellinvar, Tallis decides to aid the school by undertaking a mundane errand to the Valley of the Four Rivers. The seemingly harmless adventure takes a bad turn when two of their companions go missing. A tale with more monsters and magic, "e;Rangers' Rescue"e; takes readers along with Tallis and his companions into a new region of their world. In the Valley of the Four Rivers, two separate parties seeking that which was lost cross paths. A necessary alliance is hastily formed, but how well will it hold up? This third book of the Codner-Upwater Chronicles will continue to whet the appetite of readers who hunger for more adventure, magic, and mystery.

Textauszug

CHAPTER TWO:

INEVITABLE PARTING

Spring had once again come to Moonhaven, and the large port city on the western coast of the Swordwind Sea was fully awakening with winter’s thaw. The sea’s winds and currents were becoming more favorable for seaborne commerce and the merchants, craftsmen and sailors were gearing up for another trading season. Commerce was king in Moonhaven and soon its great bazaars and marketplaces as well as its long waterfront lined with docks and warehouses would all be bustling with chaotic activity. It was what Moonhaven had been about for generations and generations past, so it certainly was nothing new.

What had been new to the city that past year was the arrival last summer of Tallis Codner and his eight companions. They had been survivors of a doomed military excursion into the hostile, humanoid-infested hill lands called the Bloody Jags. Tallis and friends had escaped a certain death in that part of the world and had come to the Moonhaven area by magical means known as teleportation. The group consisted of five men (Tallis Codner, Elwyn Upwater, Serl Scrawlls, Jerzzen Rhellinvar and Jolif), one half-elf (Teazil Windsong), one halfling (Orm Lightfoot) and two dwarf brothers (Willet and Gillet Leadheadder).

Moonhaven was no strange, new place to Jerzzen Rhellinvar though. It was where he was born and raised. In fact, at one time his family had owned one of the wealthier merchant houses. So being teleported back home was no hardship for Jerzzen, and his familiarity with the city was very beneficial to the others. They stayed in the city that summer to recuperate from their adventures with the Black Dragon Legion and its ultimate demise in the Bloody Jags. They also had accumulated a little hoard of treasure on the journey and were starting to enjoy the fruits of those riches. Through Jerzzen’s connections within the city the treasure was slowly liquidated and the companions each received a fair share.

Summer had turned into autumn and the nine friends had begun to settle in somewhat to their new surroundings. Jerzzen, who had years ago given up the family business to pursue his dream of becoming a magic user, returned to the Red Moon School of Arcana—the only school of wizardry in Moonhaven—to further his learning of the arcane arts with the extra money he now had. On his heels was Tallis Codner, who recently yearned to become a magic user, too. He enrolled in the Red Moon and began to pump his share of the treasure into the school so he could learn the rudiments of weaving magic and casting spells. These endeavors had kept the pair occupied through the fall and winter months.

The halfling, Orm Lightfoot, became acquainted with Halfmoon, the part of the city populated by his own kind. In Halfmoon, Orm took up residence at the Hanging Garden Inn and got involved with the local thieves’ guild. Although he had not committed to becoming a full member of that organization, Orm did spend some of his newfound wealth to learn the skills of the thief’s profession. He had begun to make friends in Halfmoon and enjoyed living there, but had refrained from growing too attached to the city. His companions from the Black Dragon Legion, especially Tallis, had made no permanent plans to stay in Moonhaven, so neither would he.

Elwyn Upwater was a very close friend of Tallis, but did not share the same interest in learning magic as Tallis did. Instead, Elwyn had spent much of his time honing his swordsmanship skills and staying in practice down at Grung Vacher’s House of the Blade. As you might have guessed, Vacher’s was an establishment where a paying customer could be trained to fight with a whole assortment of weaponry. Here, at the House of the Blade, Elwyn started to master the use of the crossbow and even had helped at times with training the more novice fighters. Jolif, the youngest of the nine companions, also was a frequent patron at Grung’s. Keeping his sword skills sharp was about all he was interested in doing with himself at the time.

Serl Scrawlls, who was Elwyn’s cousin, and the half-elf, Teazil Windsong, had been archers in the Black Dragon Legion. They had done what they could to keep their archery skills sharp, but their favorite pastime that autumn in Moonhaven had been roaming the countryside around the great seaport. They had befriended two rangers—a wood elf named Nemithel, and a human named Coel. Teazil especially preferred the open outdoors to the cramped, noisy city streets, so he fit right in with Coel and Nemithel’s company, but Serl usually tagged along willingly and overall, he enjoyed himself.

Finally, there were the hardy dwarf brothers, Willet and Gillet Leadheadder. This pair of bearded wonders started off the summer as industrious, law-abiding citizens like their friends. They went down to Vacher’s House of the Blade, too, and sparred and parried, practicing their fighting techniques. Then they started getting more money than they knew what to do with and things started to degenerate. Food and a lot of strong drink, like dwarven ale, became their newest pastime. Their rowdy drunkenness got them heaved from Vacher’s, but that only gave them more time to drink, sleep and make complete slobs of themselves, which they began to do on a grander scale. Much of that autumn in Moonhaven had been just a blur to Willet and Gillet.

The winter stay in Moonhaven for the nine companions was not altogether a pleasant, peaceful experience. It was far from it when Tallis went missing one day. He had been abducted right off the city streets by members of a now defunct waterfront gang called the South Wharf Gang. This gang’s leader was a half-orc called Mawgrin who mistook Tallis to be Pallard Lanz-caza, the son of Moonhaven’s ruling figurehead, Lord Osillius. The South Wharfers and their half-orc leader had hoped to cash in on a nice ransom from Lord Osillius and thus be able to fund their ongoing feud with a rival gang—the Wharf Rats. Needless to say, that since Tallis was not who they thought he was, the ransom scheme did not pan out.

What the South Wharf Gang did receive from Mawgrin’s mistake was its own demise. Tallis’ friends were not idle. Led by Elwyn and Jerzzen, they eventually tracked down the whereabouts of their captured friend with the help of Moonhaven’s most prominent wizard—Theobald Oldspeller. The rescue party invaded the gang’s nearly empty hideout with some additional help from some of Orm’s friends from the Halfmoon thieves’ guild. Tallis was later found, and the rescuers quickly fled the underground hideout just as it was being invaded a second time by the archrival Wharf Rats. With its members now dead or scattered to the winds and its home base in enemy hands, the South Wharf Gang ceased to exist on Moonhaven’s waterfront.

Tallis recovered quickly from his ordeal and returned to the Red Moon School of Arcana to continue his studies. His friends returned to those activities that preoccupied their time as well though there was pressure put on Willet and Gillet to refrain from reverting back to that nasty habit of being a couple of comatose drunks. For the most part, Willet and Gillet had behaved themselves much better after the whole Tallis kidnapping affair.

Now, as spring was settling in, some of the companions started to wonder about what to do next. Elwyn had already decided what he needed to do. He wanted to get back home to see his parents and kinfolk in the kingdom of Lower Sunnashia. They and the rest of the kingdom had no idea why the Black Dragon Legion had vanished, and though some pieces of the mysterious puzzle might come together, the one universal conclusion would be that all those in the Black Dragon Legion were now dead. The thought of his family not knowing what had become of him nagged at Elwyn’s conscience through those winter months. Now that the Swordwind Sea was becoming more hospitable to shipping, Elwyn had planned to voyage home and see his kinfolk again.

Elwyn would not be going alone, though. His cousin, Serl, decided it would be the right thing to do to show his mother that he still lived by showing up in the flesh. Sure, he could have just had Elwyn deliver that news to her, but he knew in his heart that would have been a selfish choice. Besides, he could not let his own dear cousin make that long voyage with the Leadheadders as his only company.

Yes, Willet and Gillet were going back, too. They had relatives living in Maartizon, the capitol city of Lower Sunnashia. Willet strongly felt it was his duty to see his kin in Maartizon and let them know he and Gillet were okay. On the other hand, Gillet did not share his brother’s sense of urgency on the matter, and so an ongoing tug-of-war dragged out between the brothers regarding whether they should go or not. Eventually, Gillet relented when Jerzzen and Tallis stepped in to make peace. Go and see your family, Gillet, they said, and if you still desire to come back to Moonhaven, then let no man or dwarf, for that matter, get in your way.

Jerzzen and Tallis were not taking part in this journey. Moonhaven had been Jerzzen’s home and there was no reason for him now to go back to Lower Sunnashia. Both of Tallis’ parents were deceased, and what family there was left back home did not care whether Tallis was alive or dead, and Tallis did not really care whether they did or not....

Produkt-Details

• Erscheint lt. Verlag: 3.5.2024
• Sprache: englisch
• Themenwelt: Kinder- / Jugendbuch
• ISBN-13: 979-8-3509-5653-5 / 9798350956535