Soul Forge Saga Box Set

by Richard Stephens

  He shivered uncontrollably and decided to retreat into the cave. He had only taken a couple of steps when a movement from inside the cave made him catch his breath.

  “It’s just me, silly,” Melody said, seeing the startled look in his eyes. “Go get some sleep.”

  He was about to admonish her for scaring him so, but he bit back the words. Instead, he looked out into the lengthening shadows of the Gap as the moon’s light faded. “It’s okay. I’ll sit with you.”

  Melody gave him a stern, motherly look. “No. You need to sleep. I’m a big girl now. I can look after myself.” She lifted her staff and thumped it on the ground, raising her eyebrows and giving him a closed mouth smile.

  Silurian hesitated. He cast his gaze about again and listened. Finally, he nodded. “I heard a couple of animals fighting in the distance, back the way we came, I think, but other than that, it’s been quiet.” He stepped past Melody, into the cave and stopped. “I hope it isn’t the same animal as last night.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I don’t know. Nothing I guess. I just hope something isn’t stalking us.”

  Melody frowned. “Hmm. Well, no matter. I’ll watch for it.”

  Silurian wanted to say more—to give him an excuse to remain with her, but he lowered his eyes and disappeared into the smoky cave.

  Everything looked the same. Every rock formation individually different, but lumped together, the gloomy Gap floor was as non-descript now as it had been when they’d first entered it at the base of Dragon’s Tooth.

  It was late in the afternoon, two days since she and her brother had descended into the murky chasm. The only constant was the soaring heights of Dragon’s Tooth at their backs and the unscalable cliffs looming on either side of the path they trod.

  Once in a while an obvious path branched off the one they followed, but none of them felt right. Melody began fretting that she wouldn’t be able to find the one they needed.

  The sun had long since disappeared beyond the western cliff face when she stopped at a crossroads between two towering rock formations, clearly exasperated.

  “What’s wrong?” Silurian asked, his hand coming to rest on the hilt of his sword.

  Melody shook her head. “No, it’s not that. It’s me. I don’t know if I can remember how to find the right path.”

  “That’s not good. Surely, you’ll know it when you see it. How long’s it been since you were last through here?”

  Melody knitted her brow as she pondered the side path toward the western cliff wall. “Um, I don’t know…five, maybe six years.”

  “Six years? You haven’t left the cave for six years?”

  “Ya, something like that. Ever since Phazarus left.”

  “You mean he didn’t die?”

  “Well no. Not exactly.” Melody said, a dejected look on her face. “I don’t think this is it either.”

  They started back along the semblance of a path, picking their way through piles of stone that had been shaped over thousands of years by springtime run-off and flash floods.

  “What does that mean, not exactly?”

  Melody stopped. “It’s hard to explain. Suffice it to say, Phazarus, as Wizard of the North, had spent his usefulness. He needed me.”

  “I’m confused. You disappeared over twenty years ago. What have you two been doing for, what…?” Silurian did the math in his head. “The last seventeen years. Less the last five or six, that is.”

  “One doesn’t become a wizard overnight.”

  Silurian raised his eyes, indicating she needed to expand upon that statement.

  “All Phazarus said when he left that last time was that he had a couple of things he needed to look after before he could allow himself to give in to his eternal sleep.”

  Silurian frowned. “What the hell does that mean?”

  “He didn’t elaborate. He said it’s my turn to watch over the lands.” She looked around, bewildered. “Fine job I’m doing, huh? Can’t even find a way out of this hole.”

  They located a large, arched rock formation to hide beneath for the night. Silurian had taken the first watch again, but other than the usual nocturnal birds and insects, nothing untoward disturbed the night. He wasn’t sure that was a good thing or not.

  Around midmorning the next day, they came across the spot where the western wall veered due west into the reaches of another major fissure. This was the day Melody had said they would be able to ascend out of the Gap. Although they hadn’t confronted anything dangerous while walking through its shadows, Silurian would be grateful when they left the canyon behind. It almost seemed like their route had proven too uneventful. As if something, or someone, had orchestrated their journey.

  He reproached himself for thinking that way—nothing was ever gained by fearmongering but, given everything he had undergone over the last couple of months, he couldn’t discount his feelings. He recalled fighting his entire way through here when he had travelled this way with the Group of Five.

  “Our path lies somewhere nearby. I remember that side chasm.” Melody said, studying their surroundings.

  Silurian considered his sister. How could she not recall the gaping chasm? There had been numerous smaller ones along their route, but none of them were remotely this pronounced.

  “There’s something about that route that’s important,” Melody muttered.

  “I thought you said you took this route many times?”

  If she heard him, his words didn’t register. Instead, she said, “Something lies at the end of that path.”

  “So, that’s the path we need to take?” Silurian asked, itching to get moving.

  “No,” Melody started, then corrected herself, “well maybe. I don’t know. Phazarus said I need to remember something, but I can’t remember what that that was.”

  “So, just to get this straight. You have committed to memory every one of those magical tomes, and even more that are only passed down orally, and yet, you can’t remember whether we need to go into that huge canyon spur?”

  Flustered, Melody stomped about, examining the path they were on, and the new one entering the fissure to their right. “You were here before, too. Don’t you know how you got back out? According to Phazarus, there is only one way for the living to escape the Gap, so you must’ve taken it.”

  “That was twenty-five years ago, and none of us were paying attention to where we were going. We were too busy watching for whatever chased us from behind.”

  “Ya, well, I guess I wasn’t paying attention either because I honestly have no idea whether the untravelled path is before or after this fissure.”

  Silurian rubbed his face with his hands, trying not to become overly cross. Taking a deep breath, he said as calmly as possible, “Look Mel, if you aren’t able to recall how to get out of here, we may as well go back to the cave…Oh, wait a minute. You blew that up.”

  Melody was on the verge of tears. She had never been one for directions. She had been too absorbed in the old wizard’s teachings to pay attention to their surroundings. Think Mel, think. He must have said something while we walked through here.

  Silurian’s voice cut through her addled thoughts, “Sorry, but this is up to you. There is less than a ghost of a chance that I would know…” he trailed off as comprehension transformed Melody’s features. “What?”

  “That’s it!” Melody walked into the yawning chasm, disappearing into dark shadows. “Ghosts. The Spectre Wood.” She nodded her forehead into the canyon spur. “This chasm leads into the heart of Spectre Wood.”

  Silurian mouthed the words, “Spectre Wood?”

  “A vast forest on the northern shores of the Lake of the Lost. It serves as a buffer between the Wilds, the Inner World, or Forbidden Swamp as most call it, and the Kraidic Empire.”

  “So?” Silurian prompted.

  “So,” Melody said with renewed purpose, “the untravelled path is the one nobody wishes to walk. The one that leads into Spectre Wood.”

>   Silurian frowned, clearly confused.

  “Spectre Wood is a tract of land haunted by ancient spirits. No one in their right mind would travel into it, thus, the path we seek is the one that remains untravelled.”

  “I’m lost.”

  Melody smiled for the first time in a while. “Ya? Well, I’m not. Come on, we’re close.” She stepped free of the shadows and started south, walking past the side chasm.

  “Shouldn’t we be going that way?” Silurian pointed back into the dark fissure.

  “Most assuredly,” Melody responded, a skip in her step as she kept walking.

  Silurian hurried to catch up to her.

  “The untravelled path will eventually end up going that way, but if I remember correctly, it actually starts farther up this way. Hidden just beyond that bend in the wall up there, if I’m not mistaken.” She pointed with the top of her staff. “The untravelled path gives the illusion that it ascends the gorge southward, but unseen along the wall above, it doubles back and heads into the fissure toward Spectre Wood.”

  “Well then, let’s be off.” Silurian smiled back, seemingly walking lighter than he had for days.

  Rounding the sharp angled wall, the beginnings of a path rose from the desolate Gap floor. As one, they gasped. At the entrance to the coveted path, a massive creature waited for them, head hung low and haunches raised. The creature resembled a black panther, but it was unlike any panther Melody had heard tell of. The sleek creature, easily twice the length of a full-grown man, glowered at them with bared upper fangs as long as her forearm, curving down over its slathering lower lip.

  She shrieked, eliciting a throaty growl from the creature.

  Silurian stood still, his eyes never leaving the feral cat. He pulled his sword free of its scabbard.

  Melody stood frozen at Silurian’s side. Her wizard training kicked in and she uttered words that were unintelligible to her brother. Words she had learned over and over and over again.

  Waiting for the creature’s inevitable attack, Silurian muttered, “No wonder they call it the untravelled path.”

  The cat started toward them. Slowly. Methodically.

  As calmly as possible, Melody incanted a spell Phazarus had taught her by word of mouth. She’d never actually used it before, at least not on a living creature, but facing the sabre-toothed panther, the spell had jumped to the forefront of her mind. If she could recite the proper words fast enough, she was confident she could put a quick end to the abomination.

  With a sudden emphasis on the last word, she stepped in front of her brother and thrust her staff before her.

  Hidden runes along the length of the dark wooden staff glowed bright orange for but a moment before the air about her crackled with energy. A visible wave of air accelerated toward the panther, taking the cat full in the face, slamming its immense bulk into the canyon wall.

  Melody staggered backward under the force of the spell’s release. Steadying herself, her eyes widened in horror. Instead of vapourizing the menace, she had duplicated it.

  Throne of Ash

  Pollard’s strength was incredible. Big as he was, he shouldn’t have been able to move the blocks of stone that he did. Rook shook his head at the red-faced colossus as he hoisted a piece of the collapsed gatehouse and staggered away from the pile—four men would have struggled to lift it. People got out of his way lest he drop the block on their feet. Yarstaff followed in Pollard’s wake, carrying a decent sized chunk of stone, his alien face covered in grime.

  As soon as the gatehouse had collapsed, Pollard had been one of the first people into the rubble, tossing chunks of rock as large as a man from the pile in a vain effort to rescue those unfortunate enough to have been buried beneath the crushing rock.

  Rook stood near the base of the pile, accepting whatever debris the people handed to him, and in turn, he handed it off to a man on the ground. He kept a wary eye on the opposite gate tower. Judging by the cracks spiderwebbed across its face, the rest of the entranceway could come down at any time.

  They were able to save two victims from the rockslide—one seriously injured. As for the rest of the people caught beneath the avalanche, they had become nothing more than fuel for the greasy fire pit crackling in earnest below the southern gatehouse.

  “We’re through!” Pollard’s voice roared above the noise of the workers and the raging funeral pyre.

  Rook looked up, but Pollard and Yarstaff had disappeared over the pile. Reaching the top of the barrier, he spotted Pollard standing with his shoulders slumped in front of where the palace doors had once stood.

  By the time Rook reached them, Pollard, Yarstaff and a few bone-weary townspeople were pulling debris away from the entranceway. If King Malcolm had been in the castle when it fell, Rook prayed that the gods would rest his soul.

  It was well after dark when word filtered through the small army of tired rescuers sat about several campfires around Castle Svelte’s inner bailey. A crew of masons had uncovered a stairwell leading into the bedrock against the southeastern wall.

  Rook struggled to keep pace with Pollard’s huge strides, but Yarstaff had little trouble as they scrambled along the edge of the broken battlements to where the wall intersected Ring Lake’s western shore. Several torches marked a path leading into a hole the masons had burrowed beneath the thick wall of what had been the keep. Though hard to see in the darkness, Rook was certain that the bulk of the southern tower lay collapsed atop the wall above.

  He tried not think about how dangerous the makeshift tunnel was—thousands of tons of rock, perched precariously on top of the shattered bulwark, just waiting for that little extra pressure to send it crashing to the ground below.

  Rook ran into the dark, tight space and banged into an irregularity in the hurriedly dug tunnel. He tensed, expecting the tower above to shift and crush him. Someone he couldn’t see bumped him from behind, jamming the frame of Avarick’s crossbow painfully into his back. The close space dulled the voices of those within the passage.

  Taking a deep breath, Rook navigated the darkness with palms held out before him. A torch flickered around a bend in the tunnel up ahead. As the flaming brand came into view, Rook saw that it had been driven into the ground beside a gaping black hole leading down, into the bedrock.

  A steep, narrow flagstone staircase circled out of sight into the earth. As fast as he felt safe doing, Rook descended into the ground. Voices echoed within the long stairwell. Reaching the bottom step, he bumped into Pollard’s wide back and peered around the hulk to see what was happening.

  Coming toward them, at the head of a multitude of relieved faces, was one of the best sights Rook had experienced in a long time. A tall, slender man with golden locks walked across a stone bridge spanning a narrow cleft in the ground. Within his arms, he carried the limp form of a small child.

  Everyone was hard put to take a knee upon the small landing.

  King Malcolm stopped before them, a forced smile on his face, the weight of the kingdom evident upon his features.

  One of the masons stood up and plucked the child from the king’s arms and held her against his shoulder. The other rescuers stood as well.

  The blonde-haired girl couldn’t have been more than four years old. She opened tired eyes, her face smeared with grime. “Bumpa?”

  “Aye lass, I’m here, Boo. These nice men have found us. Everything is going to be okay,” the king said softly.

  “That’s nice,” the girl said through a yawn, wrapping her arms around the mason’s neck and closing her eyes again.

  Malcolm started shaking hands and embracing the dusty masons confronting him, but his eyes suddenly fell on Rook. It was obvious the king wasn’t sure who had captured his attention, but Rook’s nod filled Malcolm’s face with disbelief. “Rook Bowman?”

  Rook forced his own smile and stepped forward, extending his hand, but King Malcolm pulled him into a strong embrace.

  “Oh, merciful God, it’s true,” the king said as he pushed back
to arm’s length, taking in Pollard and Yarstaff. “And in unique company, I see. Where is Silurian? Is it true you two are together again? I can hardly wait to see him after all these years.”

  Rook’s grave expression spoke volumes. “There is much we must discuss, my liege, but first, let’s free you from this place.”

  Rook and Pollard, and even Yarstaff, filled the king in on what had happened during their ill-fated journey to the Under Realm. Malcolm was visibly shaken to learn of Silurian’s fate.

  A ragged assortment of the King’s Guard stood around a nondescript campfire close to the collapsed palace gates, nervously watching over their charge. King Malcolm sat on a salvaged wooden bench amongst the common rabble of Carillon. Given the events of the past few months, the captain of the guard didn’t appear happy about it, but Malcolm insisted. These people, his loyal subjects, had worked tirelessly for weeks with little food and much heartbreak in a desperate attempt to rescue him and those fortunate enough to find sanctuary beneath the castle.

  Pollard, duty bound as always, assured the captain that he wouldn’t let anyone get too close to the king, but now, standing vigilant behind Malcolm, he realized that his promise would be impossible to keep.

  The royal family was well-loved by their subjects. King Malcolm’s insistence to sit and commiserate with the common folk served to drive that admiration home. For those responsible for his royal carcass, however, times like these were the reason many of the brave men and women went grey earlier than their family history dictated.

  Pollard admired the king’s resolve. As worried as Malcolm was about Zephyr, the king obviously knew he couldn’t solve their problems overnight. Instead, he patiently entertained a long line of folk who, if for no other reason than to give themselves a spark of hope, had to see the king with their own eyes. Malcolm never lied to them about Zephyr’s state of emergency, but neither did he allow that knowledge to reflect his inner despair. He reassured each and every citizen that steps were underway to put things right.