KINGDOM OF THE STONE -- a Wattpad featured novel

Chapter Twenty Five

The four camped that night along a tree-lined creek that crossed their path. They found a dry, sandy bank and started a fire.

"What do you think we'll find at the next korion?" Arnion asked.

"You know, I used to think I understood how the world worked," Odo said shaking his head.

"Tell me about it," Jomel set a pot of water over the fire. "A year ago, if you had told me that monsters from the tales mothers use to frighten their children would come alive and drive us all from our homes, I would have laughed in your face. Now I don't know what to expect."

"I don't understand these stones," Arnion said. "Why would the Most High scatter these stones all over the place?"

"He didn't," Karux assured him. "The stone at Korion-Doulon was clearly tied to the Void. I didn't check the stone at Korion-Crusomosc, but it had the same feel."

Arnion cast a furtive glance at Karux's stone and looked away. "But how does one really know whether a stone is from the Most High or from elsewhere?"

Karux felt his first niggle of doubt. Had not all these people felt their stones were gifts sent from the Most High? Was Amantis' stone from the Most High? Was his own? If he'd been deceived as the others were, how would he know?

He had stood on the sacred mountain. He had seen the Lord of the Mountain face to face, which one was not supposed to be able to do. He had received his first oracle directly from the Most High and then saw it begin to come true. But what if it had been a trick? What if he were as deceived as the dreamers at Korion-Doulon? What if, instead of helping him, his stone was dooming them all like the stone at Korion-Crusomosc? Was training men to fight with spears the right thing to do or was it somehow a trap?

Arnion looked back and forth between the other three, but no one could answer him.

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They arrived at Korion-Iscuron a few hours after sunrise. As they approached the edge of the village, they were greeted by two men with spears who stood guard at the village's entrance.

"Hello, Strangers. Who are you and from where do you come?" said the tallest of the pair. He was about six feet tall and had a perfectly smooth, bald head and a face like the side of a cliff. The man next to him seemed short in comparison though he was Jomel's equal in height. This man had a receding hairline though neither one of them could have been much past their middle thirties.

Jomel introduced them and told him they were from Har-Tor."

"Har-Tor? I've never heard of it. Where is it?"

"It's a mountain just south of the northern valley."

"Why are you here?" the second man asked with a suspicious squint.

"We've learned of a threat that endangers all the tribes of men. We have come here to warn you and ask your help to stop it."

"You better see Dunae, then," the large one said. "I'll take you."

Karux wondered why the smaller man stayed behind, watching the path as if expecting trouble while the big bald man led them into the village.

The houses all looked neat, orderly and well cared for. Karux didn't see many women or children. The few he did see hurried purposefully from one house to another or seemed focused on a specific task. They seemed strangely incurious of newcomers.

The four found Dunae out behind one of the houses, inside a circle of men, stripped to his small clothes and wrestling an unfortunate man whom he had pinned face-down on the ground.