The Path of Dreams (The Tome of Law Book 2)

by Matthew W. Harrill

  “Or should we not have a company of trackers in our midst,” Mavra added, and Jaden beamed a grin, white teeth lighting up his dark face. “Perhaps we should be moving further away than our present goal.”

  “It depends what you wish to accomplish,” Venla said. “You will be safer if you decide that we must travel further, but will that help you save the villages that lie in between? Do you sacrifice one set of people in order to preserve another, or do you take a stab at defending them all?”

  “The choice was not an easy one. A line must be drawn somewhere,” she said quietly, and then an idea came to her. After a moment of contemplation, Mavra looked down at the guard to her right. “Jaden, would you be so kind as to get that farmer, Dag, and bring him back here?”

  Jaden complied, and pretty soon, the farmer was riding slowly beside the gently rolling wagon. “I have a proposal for you,” Mavra began carefully. “I would send you with your family and a company of the tribesmen to the villages beyond those which we now journey to, in the hope that you can convince them of our needs and ask for aid. You would be out of harm's way, you and your family.”

  Dag considered this for a while, riding along quietly. “That is very considerate of you Mistress Mavra, but I do not think so.”

  “What is there that you don't like about it? Your family would be safe.”

  The farmer smiled up at her in appreciation of the gesture. “I know, but I said I would help you and I will. My family I will take with me, but I shall return, with more men to aid you. This is more than the sacking of a few villages, I can see that. This is about you trying to help us survive, and that is a noble cause. I would never be able to forgive myself if you gave me freedom and I could not repay you. Let me ride on ahead with some of your tribesmen, and by the time you reach the village, I will be there with many more men who would see their homes safe.”

  The counter-proposal surprised everybody but Zya. There was a subtly hidden pride in such people, and it seemed to be surfacing. Dag looked up at Mavra earnestly, old enough to be her father but with the approval seeking glance of a son. She basked in the warmth of the people around her. “So be it. Do what you can. Take ten of the tribe, and ride to the outlying villages. We shall make a stand against them, and they shall come to fear their own spears.”

  With a whoop of joy, the farmer urged his horse forward to his family, and Mavra indicated that Jaden should seek out Handel. Maybe they would actually have a chance.

  This was enough for Zya. “You are on your way,” she announced, “and now I must be on mine.”

  “So that's it? You turn up and then leave?” Mavra was unimpressed.

  This did not concern Zya at all. “I don't have to justify myself. I follow the dreams I have, and they lead me elsewhere.”

  “Bay's Point?” Venla asked.

  “I have an appointment with the Earth Guild. I made a promise that I would see you safe then return. I feel I have done that, and I see no reason to believe you cannot go on without me. You are all in a position to do what I cannot. The Old Law guides you, but it compels me. I had facts to learn here, and I understand the source of the evil that now plagues this land. It comes from Raessa. I have to go and learn more about it, and to do that I need guild training. My father, Lorn, Ju and myself, we will see you again. Until that time stay away from the mountain chain, no matter what.”

  Venla hugged her close. “You be careful now.”

  Zya glanced at her former family. “I will, Mother.”

  * * *

  Leagues to the North, two figures clad in black stooped as they made their way through brambles that once had grown around a narrow path but now grew over it. It was a narrow crack in the southern wall of a valley that they were attempting to enter. The brambles had been forced across the gap in an attempt to hide the way through from any that might disturb it, and with the warmer weather, they had grown at a much faster pace. As was typical at this time of the annual cycle of nature, everything else was growing at a frenetic pace as well, and the resulting mass of tangles had become annoying. The bigger of two figures pushed its way through, the smaller following closely like an obedient pet. The brambles did not last for long and soon the two dark figures were winding their way through a narrow gorge that doubled back on itself quite frequently. The top of the gorge could be seen far above, the sky visible only directly overhead, so narrow was the path through. Small lichens and mosses grew on the sharp ledges of the gorge, getting purchase where no greater plant could. The resulting dampness would normally have had travellers slipping on the muddy path, but the two passed quietly and quickly up the gorge, making no noise with their feet and finding purchase where lesser mortals might not have. They approached the point where the gorge opened up into a wider valley, and paused on the rim. It was a near-perfect bowl, just as they had been told that it was. The grass grew all the way up to where trees rimmed the far reaches of the valley, and seemed to stand up and defy the recent winter. The object they had been ordered to observe stuck like the defiance of the earth against the very sky in the middle. An obelisk, huge and jet-black broke the centre of the valley as if the ground had been stabbed from below. The ground was ruptured all around it, as if the event had only recently happened.

  “Go look, and tell me what you can learn of it.” The taller of the two figures said out loud, and the smaller set off at a jog towards the stone spire. The remaining figure pulled back a black hood to reveal long pale-blonde hair. Maolmordha shook her head as if to clear her thoughts, and her hair drifted in the gentle currents that made it to the valley floor. Her protégé had run the distance now, and was slowly circling the obelisk. Bushes grew at the base, but the dark figure just waded through them as if they were not there.

  “This stone has a meaning.” Came the whispered thoughts of her student.

  “How so?”

  “It was not originally here. Somebody placed it here and imbued it with magic.”

  Maolmordha looked down the valley to the obelisk. That it did not belong in this place was obvious, but the fact that it had magical properties showed that her student was learning. “How can you tell?”

  “I can sense the aura.” Came the telepathic reply. She watched as her student poked around the base of the obelisk, and then paused. “There is something else that you should see, my teacher.”

  Maolmordha jogged across the valley to where her student waited patiently. It was obviously safe, for the student had been poking around at the obelisk long enough for any traps to be sprung. Maybe it was just a stone spire, capable of nothing, or maybe her master was actually correct and it had innate properties that they could harvest. She suspected the latter but had learned to trust her instincts, something Maolsechlan had never done. She slowed to a walk when she neared the stone. It was raised up slightly, becoming the focus of the entire valley. This was not by accident. There was a purpose to everything, and the eldritch scent of the valley became compounded the closer she got to the obelisk. “What have you found?”

  Silently, her student pointed, pushing aside some of the bushes to reveal a plaque. “The gates aligned focus the mind to cross the bridge.” Came the whispered thought. She looked at the plaque, trying to understand the meaning behind the words. It was old, but it had been preserved by the fact that it was cut into the base of the obelisk. The same stone with a toughness that defied the seasons.

  “What does it mean?” Came the question. Before the apprenticeship, her student had always been full of questions, and although the mightiest of compulsions had been laid upon the student during the dark magic that enabled the reshaping, still certain tendencies could not be curbed.

  “It is not for us to decide what it means,” Maolmordha replied. “It was for us to come this way to discover perhaps this very line of information.” She stood and looked around the bowl-shaped valley. “There is nothing else for us here. We must go to the encampment and learn what transpired here from our allies and their prisoners. You have done
well though, my student. I will name you here and now, upon the face of this very stone. You shall be known as Maolnemrhyth, after the questioner that once tortured the answers from our enemies. So do you torture answers from me with your unending questions.”

  Her student nodded, accepting the name; the spell would ensure that anything was accepted, and that previous memories would be forgotten. In the end, only one thing would matter, a desire to serve their master. Perhaps the spell had not worked so well on Maolsechlan, for he had had a weakness that she was not going to emulate. Already she felt the pull to return to the protective confines of the focus that emanated from Raessa, but she would not return for a great many moons yet. Her master demanded sacrifice, and she would give her life if he asked it. One day, the little brat that they had brought to the Witch Finder would too.

  * * *

  Thrasher was in a positively good mood as he rode the stolen horse back to the village from which he had 'escaped' the day before. He had had such a pleasant time of it all, first snapping the neck of that tribal bitch in the darkness and then finding a farmer who was trying to use darkness as cover, and improvising a spear using the spokes of his cart-wheels. The screams had pierced the night, but by then they were nowhere near any dwellings. The screams had only grass and night-creatures for their audience, but Thrasher had watched the man die before he stole the horse. Whatever goods the man had on his cart were forgotten, for Thrasher had a more important mission. The fools led him to their place of concealment once again, and O'Bellah would want to know so that he could obliterate them once and for all. Night had blossomed into morning by the time he rode through the hills that surrounded the valley, and he kicked at the ribs of his mount impatiently. “Trust me to find a horse with ribs stouter than oak poles and less intelligence than my 'friends' in the forest.” He moaned out loud. “Still, you are faster then walking, just about.” He gave the horse one more kick with his heel and was rewarded with a whinny of pain for his efforts. If he were going to suffer in the delay, then the horse would suffer with him.

  He rode down into the valley, and could see the fortifications of the valley entrance to the East, and to the South the ugly square tower that rose like a pillar above the village. He directed the now limping horse towards the nearest mercenary encampment. Guards rode out to greet him.

  “Halt and identify yourself,” one of the mercenaries ordered as Thrasher dismounted.

  Instead of saying anything, he walked calmly towards the guard, and when he was next to the horse pulled the guard to the ground. The horse whinnied and reared, threatening to stomp on the mercenary. The other guard drew his sword.

  “Try to strike me and I will see you dead and still riding,” Thrasher growled without looking up. “I am taking your horse to ride to my master at the village.” He said to the fallen man, “if you do not know of me, then I suggest that this is an object lesson for you.” He pulled the man close to him. “I do not like being questioned, and you would do right to understand that, mercenary scum.”

  The other guard still had his sword out, but now put it away as he recognised true authority. “The other horse?”

  “Take it, and kill it for meat,” Thrasher said uncaringly. “It is a useless nag, and is lame to boot. It was dragging a cart to the North. Follow the tracks and bring it back for all I care. The previous owner will be able to guide you by his blood trails.” He mounted the horse he had taken and it pranced under him, eager to be off. Not sparing another look for the two mercenaries, he rode away from the camp and towards the village in the centre of the valley. The last he had seen of the place was the day before when he had been ushered onto a horse by the girl and her two old bodyguards. They had been doing something outside of the tower, and he was eager to find out what. He rode faster now that he had a decent mount and so became less impatient. Thundering down the track to the village, it was obvious that things had changed somehow. People were milling about around the base of the tower where before they had been confined to the buildings, maintaining the semblance of a normal village. Thrasher grinned as he rode. This was anything but a normal village. Riding in from the North meant that he could not see what was going on in the courtyard of the inn, as everything was blocked by the bulk of the tower, but there was noise enough to show that somebody was not happy, most probably O'Bellah. He was proved right when he reined his horse in by the North well to see his master in a rage, and several bodies lying in a heap at his feet. “No self-control whatsoever.” He said quietly to himself as he surveyed the carnage. He led the horse into the courtyard, and into the gaze of his master.

  The fat man had gone red in the face, which was not unusual, and he was breathing raggedly. “Where have you been, when I needed you?” He demanded angrily.

  “Exactly where you asked me to be, master,” Thrasher replied without any trace of subservience. To him, they were equals even if O'Bellah was in charge. “You asked me to stay low in case the captives made to escape once more, and once more I escaped with them.”

  O'Bellah looked as though he was trying to find fault with Thrasher's report, but there was none. His fingers had locked so tightly around the hilt of the sword he carried, even now dripping with the inordinate amount of blood he had managed to spill, that they went white at the knuckles. His eyes were wide in rage, and his teeth were bared.

  Thrasher stood there calmly, daring O'Bellah to take a swing at him. It would be the man's crowning mistake. “May I ask what happened here?” He said when no such action was forthcoming.

  O'Bellah looked down at the corpses, and kicked one as hard as he could, getting a wet thud and a dull crack for his efforts. “This offal is an object lesson to the rest of you all.” O'Bellah announced. “These are the guards that should have stopped the pitiful band of tribesmen from even entering the village, and they were not at their posts.” He kicked the closest corpse once more. Blood had started to flow again from the mortal wound the man had been dealt.

  It pooled up on the cobbles, seeking the easiest route between the stones. Already there was enough blood to fill half of the courtyard, but it was seemingly not enough. O'Bellah turned on Thrasher. “Tell me why I should not do the same to you for abandoning me to be locked in that tower?” As O'Bellah demanded this, the merest tinge of panic around his eyes betrayed his feelings about that thought. He had given away an extreme weakness to a man who could read others' faces. Thrasher stored the small piece of information away just in case. His master could not abide a locked door with no means of escape. He could not live in a prison. Interesting.

  “I have the location of the escaped villagers, and of the tribal scum that aided them. It is but a day ride from here, in woodland to the North East. It looks like they have been planning this for quite a while, but I can lead you back to them. That is what you wanted me to do was it not? It has been done.” Thrasher looked around them. Several guards were stood near the tower, and they were visibly shaking. They were obviously the next ones in line for O'Bellah's rage. A waste of manpower if ever there was one. Thrasher felt insulted that it was another man that had chosen him for this. One day he would have that underachiever locked up in a cell, screaming his heart out for release. “Some of them are preparing to leave for Bay's Point: Two men, a girl and a young boy.”

  O'Bellah looked ready to make a comment when a guard rode into the courtyard. It was the very same man Thrasher had dispossessed of a horse. “Milord, we have strangers approaching from the North.” To the man's credit, he did not even blink at the scenes of violence laid out before him like a grisly map.

  “Why did you not stop them?” The bullish man demanded, still enraged by his enforced captivity.

  “Milord we could not even get close. There was something stopping us.”

  “What?” He yelled back. “What do you mean there was 'something stopping you'?” O'Bellah had seemingly found a new target for his rage, though this was unwise. The mercenaries would attack even them without the slightest provocation, a
nd murdering one would not make things any easier.

  “Milord, stop. Think your way through things.” This distracted the man long enough for the mercenary to back out of obvious view.

  O'Bellah turned on him, “you presume to tell me my place?”

  Thrasher merely grinned. “What, you seek to face me down? I do not think so, Milord. You may be able to quail these poor saps, but I have seen more blood than you could ever dream of. This is the work of a novice compared to the schemes I have hatched in the past.”

  O'Bellah stopped his advancement. His scathing reply remained unsaid as two figures dressed in black jogged into the courtyard. They commanded the attention of every person there merely by arriving, and others began to lean out of windows and exit out of doors. There was an almost magnetic attraction about them.

  “We have come for the captives.” The taller figure announced in a cold feminine voice.”

  “Have you now,” O'Bellah replied, anger still vibrant in his voice. “Who are you, two vagabond wanderers, to come into my camp like scrubs from the night and demand that you want to take my prisoners?”

  The taller figure pulled back her hood to reveal a face of pale beauty framed by the lightest yellow hair imaginable. The only imperfection was the sheer evil that could be seen in the look on her face, bringing a cruel twist to an otherwise stunning visage. Thrasher did not doubt that this woman had a capacity for inflicting pain and misery that bordered on the artistic. He was keen to see where this led, and so remained quiet.

  “I am Maolmordha, and I answer only to Garias Gibden, the master of Raessa. Now give me the captives, worm, or face the consequences.”

  Every man in the courtyard knew the truth: there were no captives. Every last one had been removed the night before. O'Bellah was oblivious to the obvious choice of admitting failure, but seemed intent upon goading this woman in black. “Consequences? If you are who you say you are, then where are my armies? Where is the conquest that has been promised? Why do you run around like masterless slaves when you could be astride great horses? Give me that, and give me your answers, and I will tell you where you can stick your request for my captives. I know you from the village Maolmordha. I had you released when you were but an apprentice. Do not take your sudden rise to mean that you are important. You are nothing more than a whore to our master, and I do not answer to you.”