by Sandra Elsa
“There’s a Travel Lodge,” she thought to Conall.
“A what?”
“A Travel Lodge. Lodges magically maintained to shelter traveling wizards and witches.”
The entrance to this Lodge had the appearance of a solid cliff face but when she confidently rode into it and disappeared, Trace and Conall followed. Trace stopped to tie a tunic around Buck’s eyes, the gelding would not be convinced that his senses were deceiving him. When everybody was inside, it was a tight fit but they did not want to leave the horses outside to meet up with the Shaker.
The Lodge was warm, and Bella realized that it was the first time since they’d left Dylan’s farm that she was truly warm. She sent a ball of green mage light toward the ceiling and they could clearly see their surroundings.
There was the well-stocked pantry. The pile of straw, and the small table, but unlike the other shelters she’d stayed in, this one had a second doorway in the back wall. Trace opened the door and they found a room stocked with hay and grain. A small pool of water bubbled up in the back. Conall tested the water and declared it to be fresh and pure. The horses would eat well tonight and this would make things more comfortable in the small front room.
Trace got out both their bedrolls and set about making beds out of the straw. He had traveled with Johann many times so the Lodge was no surprise to him except for the addition of the stable. Perhaps the caretakers were prepared for travelers to be snowed in. There were certainly more provisions than in the other Lodges he had stayed at.
Bella dug out the large pot from the bottom of the pantry and began mixing ingredients for a stew. She wished they still had some of the rabbit she’d shot earlier but they would have to make do with meat broth and dried vegetables for tonight. Having eaten little all day it was sure to taste like a banquet. She warmed it by stealing heat from the spell that warmed the rocks.
Later, stomachs full, horses and tack tended to, they sat quietly and talked, too keyed up from the wild ride to fall immediately to sleep.
“How did you know this was here?” Conall asked. “I've lived in these mountains for centuries and I've never seen this place.”
“It is keyed to only be visible to those with the gift.” she told him. “Without the gift that wall would be solid, you could not come in here unless I chose to bring you.” Bella checked the thought that she had felt him display magical energy a few times. Most often in his jealous snits. “Johann showed them to me when we traveled in the Swa Caran range, as I’m sure he has shown Trace. We’ll be safe here unless that…thing is gifted with something other than immense size.”
“What do you imagine that was out there this morning?” Trace asked from across the small table. They had barely spoken at all since they had taken flight early that morning. This was the first chance either of them had to consider it.
“From what I know of it, I’d guess it was the creature the northerners call the Earth Shaker.” Conall had referred to it as the Shaker as they took flight. “By all accounts it is a horrific monstrosity, deadly if you get close enough to see it. It had Conall on edge and that was all I needed to know.” She reflected back on Neeran’s tale of it nearly catching him and added, “I’m just glad it was slow, and not concerned with stealth. It likely wasn’t even aware of us, but I wouldn’t have wanted to be there when it arrived.”
“Does he know anything about it?” Trace asked indicating Conall with a nod of his head.
“Only what you know. If the miner you heard the tale from truly saw the Shaker he could have described it. I have never chosen to seek it out,” he told her. “It travels the length of the mountain range but none who have seen it have survived to say what it is. Many of the wolves who were not wolves lost their lives to that thing. Many went willingly to die.”
Anguish filled Conall’s mind. Bella had the sensation he had lost good friends to this monstrosity. “I don’t know if it could kill me, but now that I have something to live for, I have no desire to find out.”
“He says it has been around all these years, but few see it, and live to tell the tale.”
“If I never get to hear it again, I'll live the rest of my life a happy man,” Trace said. “It sounded as though the forest had risen up to walk. I would think the earth itself rumbled except for the regularity of the stride.”
“Bellana,” Conall called, “Look. There are some books here.” He had been nosing about the lower shelves in the pantry.
She got up and went over where he was and found two dusty leather covered tomes. Everything else was so well kept, she couldn’t imagine why these books had been buried beneath things, and covered in dust. She wondered that thought out loud.
Trace came over beside her and said, “Johann used to say that if something that had been overlooked by the keepers and other guests, was found in a Lodge, then that item wanted to be found by the person that unearthed it, and belonged to the finder. In this case, Conall, or maybe he was meant to find them for you.”
She picked up the books. The first proved to be a book of magic. She could certainly use that. She had perfected the small spells, which Johann had given her to learn control. She had even succeeded in astral projection, and Healing. Her shields and illusion, were powerful, but she did not know many other spells. Johann had refused to instruct her in any of the more potent spellcrafting until her control was perfect. By the time her control had improved they had largely gone their separate ways.
The second book was strange. It was written in what seemed to be an archaic version of the language of Ronan. It appeared to be a daily log, much like that kept by current military units. There were recorded lists of supplies: when resupply was received, where they were encamped for the night, when they engaged the enemy, rolls of wounded, missing and dead, and many of the trivial day to day occurrences of military life. There were many words she couldn’t make out. Some were so changed through the years they no longer resembled any words she knew. Others were smudged by the passage of time. The book appeared to have spent some time in the weather before it had been rescued and brought to this secure haven to await discovery.
She told Trace and Conall what they were and each took a turn examining them. As she flipped pages for Conall to see what was written in the old log he became very still.
“This book was meant for me to find,” he said. “I know this book. I don’t remember the things that are written on these pages but I know in my heart this book belonged to my unit.”
Out loud, to include Trace in the conversation, Bella said “Then we have just narrowed the odds of discovering who you were by more than half. Others we may be able to eliminate when we see Bethany, to match names of missing against those recorded in this book as dead. Some of them are probably recorded already in the official rosters as deceased. We cannot eliminate every name from Bethany’s list, but we may be able to narrow it to something around thirty.”
Bella took the spell book back from Trace. “Perhaps this book will give me something with which I can remove Conall’s curse. Why else would we find them together?”
“Don’t get your hopes up, Sis,” Trace said. “The way these Lodges work, it may just be that the two books would be found by two people who could use them and happened to be traveling together. Just because they were in the same place does not mean that one has anything to do with the other.”
“Of course,” she agreed, “you’re right, but it’s possible they were meant to be found together because one influences the other. I’ll not give up hope until I’ve read the whole book and found it to be worthless for removing the curse.” Conall pressed close to her, tail wagging. “Unfortunately we are short on time just now. We need to sleep and be underway early tomorrow, before that thing catches up with us. I can’t help but feel it was hunting specifically for us.”
Trace pulled on the mustache he had been growing since they left Ronan. “That’s not possible. Nobody knows we’re here, most likely it happened across our scent. Perhaps
it naturally pursues humans, but I do not believe it is chasing us specifically.” Trace looked through the open doorway, knowing from the other side it was anything but open. “You can use your magic to wipe out the visual trail but just as Dorang could not change the natural scent of his victims, you would find it nearly impossible to get rid of the scent of a human.”
Bella remembered the hounds, chasing her through the Swa Caran range. She dug through the pantry for dill. “Perhaps tomorrow we can try to cover the scent if we can find something strong enough, we could backtrack and hide the evidence of our passing, then perhaps we could rest here for a day.”
Yawning, Trace said, “I'm ready to rest for a day while we have a warm haven. It will likely be the last time we are warm for quite awhile. These Lodges tend to be spaced a certain distance apart running lengthwise with the mountain ranges. The Rortags run east - west and we are traveling north - south.”
“I agree, it will not destroy our schedule to remain here one more day. It may give the Shaker time to give up the chase. Right now I do not doubt that it is still tracking us. If it gets this far, perhaps when...” Conall hesitated long enough that Bella pulled his thought from his mind. She was dismayed at his reflection that ‘when’ might be ‘if‘. Conall turned to her, and said with more confidence than she knew he felt, “When, it cannot follow us through the wall, perhaps it will give up and go away.”
“Conall agrees with you,” Bella told Trace.
“Let’s get some sleep then. Plenty of time tomorrow to investigate your books.”
He lay down on his bedroll, Bella lay down on hers, and was soon joined by Conall.
Tonight it was warm. He did not have the excuse that he was trying to provide her with warmth. He seemed to have gotten over the idea that it was not proper for him to lay with her.
Following her train of thought he murmured sleepily in her mind, “If I ever get my body back, we will be married and I'll make you a respectable lady.”
He didn’t ask her, he told her, and for a moment Bella resented the statement, but she could not disagree with him. He knew her mind as well as she did.
Early the next morning they were awakened by the sound of thunder. When they were fully awake, they realized that it wasn’t thunder but the same rhythmic rumble they had heard the day before as the monster approached. She prayed to every God she had even thought of before, that it was not magical enough to get into the Lodge. It seemed like ages before it got close enough that they could see it. Even when it came into view it was a long distance away. They stepped outside to watch its approach, the door to the Lodge was clear, but the view was narrow.
The creature they saw coming down the mountainside following in their tracks, was monstrous.
It was twice the height of Angel and nearly four times the mass. Each leg resembled a huge tree trunk, which lifted and bent and thudded back to earth. Its head was enormous and each tooth contained therein was easily as long as her dagger. The eyes were a sickly shade of yellow and the size of dinner plates, and the nose was long and flexible, like a snake. A spike, vaguely reminiscent of Lorn, but nearly three foot in length, and glinting dully in the morning sun as though made out of a cheap metal, like the pots in the pantry behind them, protruded from the middle of its forehead. This feature was the most horrifying. Bits of hide stuck to the base glued there by dried blood and viscera, grisly trophies of previous victims. Its hide had a wrinkled, nearly black, leathery appearance and a long shank of coarse black hair fell to either side of its neck. It looked like a construct of many different animals swollen to gargantuan proportions. The parts did not flow smoothly into each other; but gathered together they were terrifying to look upon.
It looked down on them and with a quickness they had not believed it could achieve, it charged down the mountainside toward them. They slipped back within the safe confines of the Lodge, well before it rolled into the clearing they had been standing in.
Bella’s heart pounded her ribcage as she stared at it from the safety of the Lodge. Not only did its separate parts not flow smoothly, they seemed constantly to be in conflict with each other. The questing nose led it straight toward the Lodge but the eyes, seeing a rock wall refused to follow the snuffling trunk. The nose slid along the rock wall of the door, meeting solid stone. After several moments of confusion the monstrous thing lay down in the entrance to the Lodge, and drifted off to sleep.
A collective sigh of relief at its inability to enter the stone door caused one great eye to open and look toward them, before the lid sank slowly back across the yellow orb.
The stench from the hideous creation was overwhelming, made all the worse by the sweet aroma of lilac that permeated the stronger odor of decay. In desperation, Bella tossed some rosemary and basil into a pot with a small amount of water and heated them until their pungent odor covered the worst of that roiling off the filthy monster.
Angel came out from the stable. She heard a thought in her head. The voice was not Conall's, "It’s hunting me, not the humans. It calls me out." The voice was that of a young male, and he seemed oblivious to the fact that she could hear him, as he directed his comment to Conall.
"You must not go to it. Most likely it is attracted to your sire’s blood," Conall told him.
"No," Bella thought to both of them, "he cannot go out there."
Angel looked at her in surprise. A flash of happiness in the emotions she had been able to read for months, was quickly obscured by the seriousness of the situation.
Bella jumped upright, as though the rock she‘d been relaxing against had burned her. She stared into empty corners of the room. A third voice entered her mind and, horrifyingly she knew the caretakers were calling in her debt.
"We must rid the Lodge of this monstrosity," she thought to both of them.
"Why don't we simply outwait the thing, and leave when it moves off?" Conall asked.
"Do you know how long that could be?” she asked, “Besides, it is the price the caretakers have asked. I destroyed the interior of one of their Lodges when Johann first started teaching me magic. Between that, the books we have been given, and the night’s lodging, they feel this is a fair price."
"That is a hefty price. We will pay with our lives,” Angel’s voice came to her. "What will they do if we do not pay?”
Angel had been in the stable the night before, and unlike Conall he had to consciously be trying to communicate to intrude on her. He did not know what books she spoke of.
Conall did, she could hear the dismay in his mind as they both thought, "The books. I can’t give mine up, but if we don’t do as asked, we won’t leave here with them."
In the corner where he had been squeezed when Angel joined them, Trace was aware of something going on to which he was not privy. He could tell by the emotions playing across Bella's face that something bad just occurred, but he had no idea what. "Some of us can't mind speak,” he said with a tiny bit of annoyance.
"I'm sorry Trace it’s so natural for me to do so, I sometimes forget others can’t. Angel claims the monster is calling for him. It isn’t tracking the two of us. It wants him to come out of hiding.” She didn’t want to tell him the rest of it but he had to know. “Worse news, the caretakers have chosen to collect my debt to them, and demanded the price of what we have been given."
"What price?" Trace asked, his lips narrowed to a thin line.
"Surely when you traveled with Johann you knew he left a magical gift as token for lodging and food.
"Of course, but generally they ask for a shield to protect their Lodge from notice or a magical enchantment to replace an aged Travel Oak, what is it they’re asking?"
"They want us to release the souls of that thing sleeping in front of the Lodge, and to remove it forever from harassing and killing other travelers which stay here."
"That is a steep price for lodging," Trace remarked.
"That was Angel’s thought as well, but the books Conall and I have been given are nearly
priceless. And I did nearly destroy one of their Lodges. I worried then about being in debt to them. I didn‘t know how wise I was to be concerned." She sat in one of the chairs, her arms hung lifelessly at her side as she despaired of being able to carry out this request.
"And if we refuse?" Trace asked.
"We would not leave with the books. Perhaps we would never again be permitted to stay in a Lodge. I do not know for certain. Unlike the conversations I have with Conall, and it would seem now, Angel as well, I do not speak with the caretakers. It is not a conversation but a sensation of knowing. And I know beyond doubt that this is something which must be done."
With a steady hand, Trace grasped his bow, nocked an arrow and faster than thought sent it straight at the monstrous chest. From that close a range it should have sunk up to it's fletching but the leathery skin was a form of armor, the arrow shattered and fell to the ground in splinters.
He nocked a second arrow and aimed for the eye of the drowsing creature. The eyes were heavily lidded but the skin was not so tough here. The arrow penetrated less than a quarter inch before dropping to the ground. The thing jumped as a horse would, if a bee had stung it. It sprang to its feet with unbelievable speed and grace and turned to glare at the rock wall that had offended it by sending that nuisance its way. Bella grabbed her bow and as one, she and Trace released their arrows, both of them sunk deeply in the eyes blinding and enraging the creature. With its vision gone, it followed the instinct of scent, charging the rock wall that a more thinking creature would have remembered was there.
Rocks rolled down the face of the cliff, but Bella sighed with relief, it could not come through the magical wall. It was too big to have gained entrance to the Lodge, but the idea of that massive spike and the questing grasping nose occupying the suddenly too small and confined seeming area, had terrified her.
When it hit the wall, Bella's arrow broke off, leaving the tip behind. Trace’s arrow still hung, the weight of it slowly drawing the baleful yellow and red orb from its socket. In sudden confusion and pain the monster scrambled again to its feet and ran in the opposite direction, flattening trees as wide around as Bella’s waist as it went.
Angel spoke urgently. "Hurry, bring all your weapons. We must finish it now. If we allow it to rest, it will regain its vision, at least in the one eye that remains. It is magical. Given a short amount of time it will shield the arrow tip and repair the eye."
Bella sprang into action at his first words. In moments her quiver hung at her hip, her scabbard was fastened to her back, the dagger rested on the hip opposite the quiver, and her throwing knives were securely sheathed. She leapt to Angel’s bare back. They left the Lodge behind, with Conall at Angel’s heels. A brief shout caused her to look over her shoulder, Trace pounded at the entrance of the Lodge from within. The caretakers did not think this was his battle.
She could not have returned if she wanted to, Angel was not about to slow or go back. They caught up with the monster much too soon. The nose whipped around towards them and the rest of the body slewed around to follow it. Already the bleeding had stopped. There was no oozing or dripping from the eye. Shortly the damage would be repaired.
The other eye socket was a gaping hole. The arrow had snagged on a tree during its head long flight and finished the job gravity had begun. She pulled her bow and fired an arrow at the wounded eye, the arrow missed as Angel nimbly danced away from the deadly spike charging towards him. It was now too close for another shot with the bow. She dropped the useless weapon to the ground, and pulled her sword in a well-practiced overhand snatch from the scabbard. Angel danced to the rear of the monster; it whirled trying to find its attacker.
Bella doubted it had ever, in its long life, been attacked, much less injured. Its confusion aided Bella and Angel considerably. When it tried to focus on them, Conall attacked it, nipping at the hind legs, finding a sensitive spot in its armor where the joints bent, on his third pass he managed to draw blood.
Bella tried to shield, but they could not strike through a shield. It protected the monster as well as them. She sent a blast of power toward it; enough power to have consumed a pile of wood meant for a bonfire if she’d been trying to light it, but the magical construct consumed the energy as it flew towards it.
Angel brought Bella alongside as it spun to meet Conall's attack. With a thrust aided by the speed of Angel’s motion she cut into the joint where the leg met the body. It horrified her to feel the sword yanked from her hands by the creature’s attempt to get away from the offending weapon.
Bleeding from the empty eye socket, it's fetlock, and now it's elbow, the monstrosity began to show signs of slowing. It twisted its head around as Angel started another pass. Bella was now armed only with dagger and throwing knives. Conall attacked from the other side and the massive head swung towards him. The spike grazed his side as he leapt out of the way with not quite enough agility. Desperate to save him, Bella released one of the throwing knives at the exposed socket. It sank home but was too small to do more than distract the creature for a moment. That was enough for Conall to remove himself from combat.
"I'll be all right," he sent to her, clearing her mind of concern for him and allowing her to focus on the larger problems at hand. Angel continued to dance with the deadly, enraged monster. She sent her dagger hurling after the small throwing knife, knowing she would have to get too close to use it as it was intended. It did not connect with its target, the weight and size made it awkward to throw. Now she was weaponless and Conall was out of the fight. With only one target the monster was beginning to focus with much better acuity.
An idea lodged in her mind when she released the small dagger into the empty eye socket. If she could shoot an arrow into the hole, perhaps she could kill this thing. With that thought she dove from Angel’s back to recover her bow. With the economy of long familiarity of thought, Conall limped over to retrieve the bow from where they had first closed on the monster.
In dismay she heard his thought, "Broken."
Angel danced off to distract the creature from her, nimbly keeping it entertained, staying just out of its deadly reach.
With a heave of exasperation, she went for her next best weapon. She retrieved the sword from where it lay in the dirt and gore. Crawling to where the deadly dance was being performed, slowly, desperate not to attract the Shaker’s attention, she moved from tree to tree. When she was close to it, she rolled out from behind her cover and shouted.
The massive head swung her way, the spike sliced through the tree which she had intended to protect her. She cast a shield to protect herself, uncertain if it would do any good. As the tree was severed, the impetus behind the monster’s thrust, slowed. And as she dove away from the falling tree, she thrust with her entire body up into the cavity opened by the missing eye. The sword went true and she followed after it pushing with all her might into the soft tissues. She twisted the blade and sliced, severing the brain in half.
Still the thing moved. The head flipped through the air, shaking her like a rag doll, dislodging her against a tree trunk, leaving her weaponless, and barely conscious. Angel ran in for one more pass. A swift kick to its soft underside, distracted it from where Bella dragged herself to shelter behind the stump of the tree. She lay still, desperate not to attract its attention again.
Chapter 42