The Forgotten War

by Howard Sargent

  Whitey was not heartened. He looked around him to see all the other boatmen looking nervously over the water as if expecting the dark heads of the Malaac to pop up at any moment. He soon found himself doing exactly the same. The current had slowed to a crawl and soon everyone was having to invest their energies in propelling their vessels forward as quickly as possible, Whitey was soon bathed in sweat, which the heavy cloying air did nothing to alleviate. Much more of this and soon none of them would be up to much of a fight.

  But none of them had to wait long. Cygan was the first to see it, his call attracting everyone’s attention. Whitey looked up as the mist receded before him.

  It was a low island, clearing the water line by just a couple of feet, even at its highest point. Low and broad, little more than a great sand bar pushing out of the great, grey morass that now stretched as far as the eye could see in all directions. It looked treacherous underfoot and hard to defend, but Cygan and the Marsh Men headed there anyway. The boats were hauled out of the water and placed together at the isle’s centre. As Whitey suspected, the sand on which they stood was not too firm; water rose to the surface and pooled around his boot every time he set his foot down. He decided to complain to Cygan about it; he had not complained for a while and so felt it incumbent on him to do so.

  ‘We have no choice,’ Cygan told him. ‘All the islands on the lake are like this, all except the isle at the centre, the pupil of the eye, the one that gives the lake its name.’

  ‘Then why don’t we go there?’ said Whitey encouraged.

  ‘Two reasons, my friend. The first is that we would have to row through the night to get there and I don’t think any of us really want to do that. The second is that it is supposedly an island of mud surrounded by rocks with a great cave at its centre. And in that cave, according to the legends, lives Ventekuu. I think we would all rather lure her here than fight her in her home.’

  Whitey nodded, realising that where they were now was where they were going to remain until this whole nightmare was over. ‘What now then?’ he asked miserably.

  ‘We form a circle of bows and spears. At its centre will be the men who will use the slings to bring down the controller of the dragon. All we do now is wait for Terath to perform his ceremony. And then ... well, we just wait. You may wish to tell your men of the north what will happen. I have not told them yet.’

  Whitey did as Cygan asked, then returned to the Marsh Man who stood with the boats and Terath and Dirthen. The two elves were talking animatedly in their own language, Dirthen was holding some sort of shallow bowl in both hands and it was this that was the focus of their discussion.

  ‘So you will be using that for your ritual?’ Cygan interrupted.

  ‘Yes,’ said Terath. ‘We are just trying to recall the exact components we should be using. If we get it right, it should cause a flame to rise that approximates dragon’s breath with regard to the fumes it releases. The dragon here should smell it and think a rival has moved into the lake. That should bring it here pretty quickly. It and its symbiote.’

  ‘Symbiote?’ asked Whitey bemusedly.

  ‘Its human controller. Or rather the human that is trying to control it.’

  Terath saw the puzzled looks from his audience and continued.

  ‘Cygan, you yourself saw the creature elsewhere, attacking another village. It has definitely left the lake and travelled, yet now it has returned here. Certainly we have defeated its thralls, the beasts you call the Malaac, yet the battles have got easier as we have travelled; it is almost as if they have all been recalled here.

  ‘What I think is happening here is a struggle, a battle of wills, one that could take years to resolve. A man took a dragonstone and tried to use it to control the creature that sleeps here in this lake, but it is never as easy as that, for the dragon has its own mind and it does not take kindly to any attempts to coerce it. At first, I think the man had the advantage, for your lands were ravaged and the dragon roamed far and wide. It actually left its domain and roamed, a wonderful thing indeed for a beast that can sleep for millennia. But I think the tide has turned – the dragon has resisted and called its creatures home. Whatever strange and destructive purpose this man had in reviving such a creature, well his intent has been thwarted, at least for now.’

  ‘So why don’t we just go and leave it here, if it has won?’ Hope rose in Whitey’s breast, even though he knew it would be extinguished again pretty quickly.

  ‘Because,’ said Terath, warming to his subject, ‘it is a battle that could take years, swinging one way then another. This man will not take defeat easily; he will be attempting to wrest control of the creature even as we speak. Give it a month or two and the Malaac will in all likelihood return to your lands. It is all written here.’ Terath pulled the dragon’s tooth from its home in a leather pouch he wore at his belt. ‘This is an ancient record of what these dragonstones can do, and of what they cannot. I finally finished translating all of it not one week ago. An elf or man can enter into a pact with a dragon through this stone. The two beings then become joined, they need each other. If somehow they are separated, it could prove fatal to them both. Also, once the link has been established, both creatures change – the mind of the dragon becomes receptive to elven or human thought and emotion, and in turn the human will change physically taking on some of the characteristics of the dragon.’

  ‘The man changes?’ Cygan sounded horrified.

  ‘Yes, the degree of change is dependent on who the dominant creature is and also the nature of the initial connection. If when both minds are first joined, one tries to dominate the other, then the loser will change to a far greater degree. If the connection is made in friendship, or curiosity, then the changes are less pronounced. Ultimately, it is the dominant creature that changes the least; in fact, if one creature has total mastery over the other, then any changes can be reversed and they may end up almost as how they were at the outset. This fellow, I fear, has done everything wrong and will barely pass for human anymore.’

  ‘That is disgusting,’ said Whitey distastefully. ‘Why would anyone want to do such a thing?’

  ‘In ancient times’ – Terath took the bowl off Dirthen and started to empty components into it from the myriad small pouches in his cloak – ‘when my people invented and mastered the stones their purpose was religious. We used to worship dragons as the eldest race and to bond with one was to make one as good as divine. Now, why a man would want to do the same, I do not know. I would imagine the acquisition of power may have something to do with it.’

  Well, we have to make sure he never attains any. We kill him and destroy the stone so it cannot be used again,’ said Cygan.

  ‘Do not worry on that score.’ Terath continued to fuss over the bowl. ‘Stones can only be used once; thereafter they are drained of power. My concern is that this is but one of two stones that have been revived of late. The second is to the west of the country of Tanaren. It is something I have to attend to once the beast here is defeated.’

  ‘Another one!’ said Cygan drily. ‘Rather you than me, my friend. As for this creature, this human, the lime will kill him, I trust?’

  ‘It should; it is described as the opposite force to water. We just need to get enough of the stuff on him to do the damage required. When he dies, the dragon will be freed and probably no longer have an interest in us. Probably.’

  Whitey watched the two elves at work. Once the bowl had been filled with various powders in different quantities and colours, Terath took out a couple of small flasks, unstoppered the first and poured a reasonable quantity of a clear liquid into the bowl, causing its contents to hiss and spit. Then he opened the second flask.

  ‘Dragon gall,’ he said, a touch of awe in his voice, and then poured just a couple of drops of a viscous blue-black liquid into the mix. The hissing stopped and the contents of the bowl started to rise until it was almost full of an opaque, wine-coloured fluid with the consistency of a heavy porridge. Terath seemed p
leased.

  ‘That looks just about perfect.’ Dirthen, too, was smiling. ‘Perhaps the two of you should stand back,’ he suggested.

  Whitey was happy to obey. He returned to the circle of men standing around the island’s perimeter. They were engaged in setting torches into the soft sand at regular intervals. When lit they could be used to both deter the Malaac and ignite the last of the oil that they had brought with them. Arrows that could be ignited were also being prepared; it was a familiar routine to all of them by now. He looked back at Terath. The bowl had been set on the ground near the boats at the island’s centre and he was standing close by reciting words in his own language. Once he had finished, he threw some leaves into the bowl and stood back. Instantly, there was a reaction, a column of flame shot skywards, a pillar rising twenty, or even thirty, feet high, a flame the like of which Whitey had never seen before. For it was the colour of ink. Not only that but it smelt acrid, attacking the back of Whitey’s mouth, causing him to spit. He looked around and saw everyone else was affected equally. Cygan came over to him.

  ‘Apparently this is what the breath of Ventekuu is like. Terath advises that we soak some cloth in water and put it over our nose and mouth. I will go and tell everyone.’

  Soon afterwards everyone was holding a cloth to their faces. It did help, partly, but the smell was soon absorbed into their clothes and nothing could stop their eyes from watering. Cygan went to help the sling-armed warriors unload their clay flasks filled with burning lime. It was the duty of the other men to screen them so that they could go about their work unmolested, for they had the most important job of all. Fasneterax, who led them, was unloading a couple of small barrels of lime, the reserve stock in case the flasks were not enough.

  ‘So you are going to skulk behind everyone and throw your little pebbles,’ Cygan joked. As ever, though, Fasneterax was not in a frivolous mood.

  ‘I wish I was not,’ he grumbled. ‘I would much rather kill these things face to face than do this.’

  ‘You are a deadly shot with the sling. I have lost count of the number of birds you have brought down with one. You are here because you are the best. Besides, you will have the honour of bringing down this man who has turned the spirits against us.’

  ‘I do not want honour or glory. I just want this thing to die so that I can go home, to what is left of my family.’

  ‘As do I,’ Cygan concurred. ‘Though I have never lost a child.’

  ‘You cannot imagine,’ Fasneterax said, staring stonily out over the lake, ‘what it is like, having to stay strong for your wife and other children after your heart has been dashed into a thousand pieces. I left with you to visit the Twin Snake because I could not face them; I could not look into Shettevellanda’s eyes and be the strong man that she needed me to be. That is why I ran. I would have been happy to die on that trip, yet the Gods spared me; I do not know why.’

  ‘Perhaps,’ Cygan suggested, ‘she would have been happy with your grief if you had just shared it with her. Maybe you could have helped each other in some way.’

  ‘Sometimes you sound more like a woman than my wife, my friend. It is not the way of the warrior to submit to such weak impulses. It has happened, Cygannan willed it so and it is something that we both have to accept. And now I have to stand here and hurl clay balls at some lizard man. It is a child’s game, nothing more.’

  Cygan could not suppress a smile. ‘Yet you will endure it; it is for our people after all.’

  Fasneterax grunted. ‘And now we wait.’

  ‘Indeed, and only the Gods know exactly what for.’

  Cygan left him, meaning to join the men at the edge of the island, but before he could get there he was brought up short. It had returned again, a sharp pain in his head and floating white shapes in front of his eyes. He stopped and put his hand to his temple, breathing heavily. It was the second or third time it had happened since they had left the Black Lake. He stayed rooted to one spot until at last the pain started to clear. He thought back to the beating he had been given in Baron Eburg’s dungeon; these headaches had started shortly after that. Thus far no one had seen his debility, except for his wife from whom he had no secrets, and Whitey and his brother on the one occasion, outside his home. She was all for stopping him from leaving the village but he had put his foot down. ‘It is not as bad as it used to be,’ he had lied to her. She hadn’t believed him but had let him go, knowing there was no way he would be staying behind with the women and the old men.

  Once his head had cleared sufficiently, he looked around to see if he had been noticed. Fortunately, everybody was engaged in looking out over the water or fussing over their weapons or equipment. He had seemingly got away with it again. Or had he? As he scanned the island and its warriors nervously going about their business, he caught someone who was not moving, who was standing stock still and staring right back at him. Inevitably, it was Whitey. He watched him for a while before turning his back and taking his place in the line. Cygan knew that, if both of them survived the day, he would have to discuss the matter with Whitey again. Not now, though, surviving was the thing on his, and everybody else’s, mind at the moment.

  Cygan joined the line, checking his bow was strung tightly and that his spearhead was sharp. Time passed with little change. They started to get used to the bitter smell of the column of black fire behind them, which continued to burn as though still fresh. At its top it dissipated into a flat mushroom of white cloud which spread out over the lake in all directions, its extremities now shrouded from them by the ever-present mist. Cygan wondered exactly how far it had spread and if it had yet to be noticed by the thing it was designed to attract.

  Then, at last, a man four or five places to his left gave a cry and held out his spear, pointing at something in the lake. They all looked out to over the water. And the man was right – there it was, something the mist could not fully conceal, a black head, roughly man-sized, just out of the water, staring quietly at them.

  ‘The Malaac have found us!’ the man called. No one risked a bow shot; it would be far too difficult to hit a moving target at this distance, but as the word spread among the defenders spears were lowered and held out defensively. A man behind him gave a call next – evidently another one had been seen – then another man called and yet another. As Cygan watched one head became two, and then three, until finally he lost count of the number of bobbing heads, calmly watching them. Cygan felt suddenly nervous. This time, unlike the other occasions he had fought these creatures, it was they who were the intruders and the Malaac would not give up so easily he was sure of that, not now it was their home that had been invaded. Their numbers were increasing, too, all the time until it was difficult to tell one from another such was their proximity. The men were completely surrounded.

  And then the Malaac started to call.

  It was a howl they were all used to hearing by now, but out here, in this strange, unfamiliar lake whose bounds could no longer be seen with the naked eye, it was far, far more unnerving. Men glanced at their neighbours, hoping maybe that they were somehow exhibiting fewer nerves and greater stoicism than they, but nearly all were disappointed with what they saw. The howling grew in both volume and power until it was chilling the soul of the doughtiest of them. They all knew what the Malaac were saying.

  ‘This is our home! You do not belong here.’

  And they were right. There was a reason no man lived here, or near by. There was a demarcation between man and monster that had stood for centuries. First the Malaac had broken it and had been punished; now was it the turn of the men to suffer?

  Then there was another noise. Cygan heard it; they all heard it. A great rushing of water, like a dam had been burst, releasing everything pent up behind it in one great surge. Something beyond their line of sight was ploughing through the water at great speed. Something large, as large as the great ships of the sea Cygan had seen on one or two occasions when he had journeyed all the way to the coast to harvest seaweed an
d birds eggs. Something huge. Something colossal. Something gigantic.

  Cygan’s lips and throat dried within seconds. What was making that noise? Then the Malaac stopped calling, leaving a silence that suddenly seemed even more terrifying. Fasneterax broke it, calling for his slingers to be ready; it was a welcome sound.

  And then came another call. It was like the cry they had heard the other night after Dirthen had finished his tale by the beacon. Then it had unsettled them – a high piercing wail that had drifted over the damp ground setting ice in many hearts. But then it had been many, many miles away. Here, in this bleak forsaken place, it was a thousand times worse. It lanced through their eardrums into their brains, impossibly loud, impossibly alien, the call of a creature out of legend, a great vengeful god, a call of despair to its enemies, bleak, desolate and terrible. It laid waste the hearts of the men that heard it and spoke to them of only one thing. Death. The death that awaited all of them should they so remain. Men started to edge back from their positions, glancing nervously at the boats.

  ‘Stand fast!’ he heard Captain Dennick call to the men of the north. ‘If you take to the boats now, you will all die. Here we have a chance!’

  Cygan was impressed by these words and repeated them to the Marsh Men. Their resolve returned and spears were once again hefted in defence, a circle of sharp points, their only protection against that which lay beyond them in the water.

  The Malaac started to call again, the call that foretold of imminent attack. Behind them suddenly Cygan could see something at last, a great shadow, something truly vast moving slowly, circling them. It was difficult to tell from the shroud of grey fog that enveloped it, but it was long and serpentine, ending in a great arrow-shaped head held above the water line at the height of maybe twenty, maybe thirty, men. Then it vanished. There was the sound of a great, heavy weight plunging under the water’s surface and shortly afterwards a wave, knee-high washed over the island, soaking the breeches of its defenders.