The Northern Approach

by Jim Galford

  Feeling numb to the bone, Estin took On’esquin’s hand and used it to sit up. While On’esquin wandered back to the woods to patrol, Estin looked around numbly at the rest of the stone field, barely able to hold his head up as thoughts of all the tattooed Turessians he had fought came to mind. He kept thinking back to Arturis murdering his son and wondered if that was somehow what On’esquin had turned him into. Would he one day murder someone else’s child? The thought was unbearable, and Estin could not help feeling as though he were somehow complacent in Atall’s death, knowing he contained a creature like the one who had actually murdered Atall.

  The others made a point of not watching Estin or On’esquin, both men settling back down to feign sleep.

  “This is a horrible idea, girl,” Estin said to the fox, petting her once he was sure the others were likely asleep again. “I don’t know why yet…but I know a bad plan when I hear one. This is going to end badly for us.”

  Settling down beside him, the fox let out a throaty whine.

  *

  The journey across the foothills and into rockier and more heavily forested lands should have taken them about five days, according to Yoska, but as the ground became more uneven, their pace slowed considerably. Soon after the fifth day, even Yoska admitted he had made his estimate based on the assumption of paths of some sort. It was not until the sixteenth day that On’esquin stood atop one of the higher points and squinted into the distance, grinning broadly as he finally appeared to recognize the area.

  “Two thousand years and so little changes,” he noted, gesturing to a region that appeared entirely inaccessible in the hills ahead. “That little corner of the world is where we’re going. Every refugee in the region likely knows of that place and will be waiting for us. This will be a rough place to win friends, but we will certainly try. If we succeed, we may yet have an army at our backs. I never knew this place to have less than a hundred refugees at any time.”

  On’esquin climbed down among the others, giving them each a hopeful grin, but all three stared back at him boredly. “Why are we looking like Dorralt has found us?” On’esquin finally asked, his visible joy at finding the place fading rapidly.

  “Is not that we doubted,” said Yoska, gesticulating broadly. “Is that…we walk for weeks and you show us long walk ahead, over even worse land. I will be first to celebrate when we have wagon or place to rest for few years, but until then, I pout with the others, yes?”

  “Yes…I mean, no.” On’esquin gave them all hard looks before sighing. “I swear to you that when we find the village, I will buy us proper transportation. Most residents of this region abandon their carts and wagons long before entering the village, so I am certain this will not be an issue. We will offer them something in return for the location of intact wagons and some horses. If we can recruit heavily, they may bring their own.”

  That seemed to somewhat mollify the group and Raeln began walking without another word, heading toward the cracked stones that ran between their location and the dense trees a few hundred feet away. From what Estin could see, once they entered the woods—which were themselves slanted atop rapidly changing ground—they would have far fewer rocky sections to traverse. They would have shade, even if they were still constantly going up and down hills through heavy brush.

  Yoska and Raeln seemed entirely unhappy, marching on ahead with the fox a little behind them, while Estin and On’esquin trailed behind, picking their way over the difficult ground.

  Estin’s feet hurt even more than they had after weeks of travel as the sharp granite shards of the broken ground tore into his pads. He could see Raeln stumbling from similar wounds, but the man pushed on without complaint. The distance to the woods might not be far, but it would leave them in poor shape if they had to run before Estin could mend their injuries. Worse yet, he could only imagine what a fall on that stretch of ground would do to them, with all its broken and jagged pieces of sharp stone. On’esquin was likely to be the only one armored well enough to keep from being bloodied, and ironically he was the only one that had little to fear from such injuries.

  “Are you still angry with me for hiding what I gave you?” On’esquin asked suddenly, surprising Estin. “Or have you come to grips with it yet?”

  “Still angry and will be until I know I can control this,” admitted Estin, hurrying his pace in the hopes that he could put the man behind him. He had no desire to speak with him, especially not about the second life that occupied his body, along with all of its hidden risks.

  Huffing as he walked faster, trying to stay near Estin, On’esquin told him, “I have never lied to you, Estin.”

  “You also said we would never meet again.”

  On’esquin laughed at that. “Yes, I was wrong in many things, that being one of them. Misunderstanding the jumbled prophecies does not make my intentions any less pure.”

  “Then what do you think this will gain us, even if I learn to control everything that Oramain was?” he asked over his shoulder once he knew On’esquin would not let him walk in silence.

  “In no small part, I hoped that with the failing of your resurrection circles, you might be able to save a few more lives than your magic alone could,” admitted On’esquin. “It was wishful thinking, I am sure, but that was my belief. I saw the circles become unstable during the first war and this time is far worse. I cannot watch nations die again, with healers unable to keep up. Last time, Turess spared us, but he never shared how.”

  “I am no savior, On’esquin.”

  “Estin, there are no true saviors. We all just do what we can. I have to believe that there are hundreds more like us out there, attempting the same thing.”

  Estin was so wrapped up in his thoughts that he barely noticed as the trees closed in around them and the ground became easier to walk. He still found himself climbing over stones and around thorny brush, but without the constant sharp stones and drop-offs, it was far easier ground to cover without paying as much attention.

  “A little farther and we should start seeing outlying parts of the village,” On’esquin announced, and Estin realized the group was somewhat close together again in the tighter spacing between the trees. “I do hope they took my advice and built up the walls in the last two thousand years. All they would keep out or in were unmotivated cattle and…”

  The orc’s words trailed off and Estin looked up to see what had distracted him.

  The forest had parted somewhat into a slightly less wooded area filled with stone hovels, interspersed with trees that made it difficult to see the village from any distance. Much of the open space was overgrown badly, including several livestock pens Estin could see off to the edge of the village. Even the houses had plants growing out of their windows and open doors. Several had collapsed entirely. A low fence around part of the village had fallen long ago.

  “Abandoned,” said Yoska sadly, shaking his head. “Still, is good place to hide for a few days and rest, yes? Abandoned means dead people do not know of the place, either.”

  Estin looked around again, feeling dread taking hold of him. He wanted to run away as fast and as far as his legs would take him. He could not even be certain why, but the place terrified him. Try as he might, he could not see a reason in the old buildings. Normally places far from human intrusion were exactly where he wanted to be. Looking down, he saw his hands trembled and he could not make them stop. For a minute he could not make himself move, even as the others went on and his fox watched him in confusion. Finally, he forced his legs to start walking, if only to keep up with Raeln as he made his way down past the fallen fence.

  “They left for a reason,” noted Raeln gruffly, leaning into the first house’s broken window. “We find out why before we make any decisions. If something made it this far out, we’re safer outside the village than in.”

  “Do you smell anything that might indicate where the people are? This certainly has not been abandoned since my time. There were people here within the last few years,”
On’esquin said. “I see no indication of mists, either.”

  Sniffing with his nose as high as he could put it, Estin tried to search for recognizable scents. Everything seemed entirely too familiar, but nothing stood out as a problem. He could not smell death, decay, or even people. All he smelled were the woods and some kind of flowers that tugged at his memories. Tears came to his eyes and he could not say why.

  “I know this place,” Estin said to himself as the others spread out and looked into the houses. “I’ve been here. When could I possibly have been here? This is almost a hundred miles from Altis…”

  He wandered like the others, though not as pointedly. While Raeln checked each house warily for threats and Yoska twirled a weapon in one hand while meandering down what had once been a small path or road, Estin made his way through the trees and homes toward a point farther into the village. He had no idea where he was going, but he made his way through vague remembrances, navigating past several homes and then back toward one near the far end of the village.

  “Estin?” asked Yoska, jogging over to follow him. “You are okay, yes?”

  Estin could not manage to reply, staring in confusion at a patch of weeds between homes. That place looked so familiar that he could practically envision sitting there, watching people pass by. It made no sense, having spent his whole life in Altis prior to the war. He had never traveled in his younger years, and this was much farther than he had traveled even after meeting Feanne, unless he counted the distance the mists had taken him.

  He stopped in the space between the homes for a while, numbly touching the wall of one as though it might yield answers to him. Taking a knee, he traced scratches in the clay wall of the house, recognizing it as a child’s attempt at drawing an adult. An adult with a tail. Yanking his hand away from the drawing, Estin continued on, making his way past several more homes. At last, he came to one particular overgrown house and stopped at the door.

  Deep weeds clogged the doorway, obscuring any sight of what was inside. Estin did not need to see though, having stared at that doorway and the room beyond thousands of times over the years in his nightmares. Until he had met Feanne, dreams of this place had haunted him every night. This place had been his own private nightmare.

  “It can’t be,” he mumbled, pushing at the weeds. They broke easily, crumbling away from the stones that made up the walls of the house. “This can’t be it!” Estin could hear the others gathering behind him, but he did not care. He had to be sure this was not the house he thought it was. Frantically, he ripped away the last of the weeds and ran inside, stopping once he was fully in the dark home.

  Estin’s eyes rapidly adjusted to the dark, giving him possibly a better view of the place than if it had been under daylight. The house was exactly as he had left it almost nine years earlier. The wooden table had collapsed, but the fireplace was the same as he remembered. A broken chair lay right where it had fallen. Even the dishes from an evening meal lay rusted near the table. On a whim he looked back at the fireplace and saw the missing stone where he had taken their hidden savings before fleeing.

  “No…no…” Estin said softly, gasping for breath. Turning to the only other room of the tiny home, Estin rushed inside, nearly clipping his ears on the low doorway. He came to a stop atop a pile of rotted and moldy blankets that had been partially shielded from the weather over the years by the windowless room.

  “Estin?” Yoska prodded, coming into the house behind him.

  On’esquin’s shadow fell across the doorway, along with the tiny shadow of Estin’s fox.

  “This was my home,” he said at last, falling into a seated position. “I was born here.”

  “Is long way from what you called home when we met,” admitted Yoska, coming over and sitting down beside Estin. “You are sure, no?”

  “Very sure,” said Estin. “Those blankets were where I hid while they killed my parents. The chair in the other room broke while my father fought the man who was taking my mother. Everything is how I left it when I ran.”

  Yoska reached out to comfort Estin, but Estin shrugged off the man’s attempts at sympathy and got back to his feet. Storming out of the house, he looked around at the abandoned village. He searched, nearing panic because he saw the village as the place that had been the backdrop of all of his nightmares. He remembered playing around those homes as a child. He remembered other wildling children laughing and running near the trees. He even remembered a few others that were not wildlings, but his memories were blurred, too far gone to recall more than that they were “different.” Estin had spent his whole life as the one who was different, but here, those who did not have fur were the odd ones.

  “I…I always thought…” Estin rubbed at his face, trying to form coherent thoughts. “I thought this was near Altis.”

  “This is a very long way from that city,” On’esquin interjected, giving Estin a worried look. “We are a full country away. A very long distance to forget traveling.”

  A sharp whistle from farther out near the old farm plots made both of the other men jerk to alert, but Estin could not snap himself out of his dazed staring at the old village. The men ran off, leaving him and the fox there in front of his childhood home with the ghosts of his memories, now visiting him during his waking hours.

  “This is where I lost my family the first time,” Estin said aloud, jumping a little as the fox poked at his hand. Looking around, Estin saw the others were not far away, looking at something near the wood line. He started off toward them, but Raeln quickly moved between him and them, putting up his hands to stop Estin.

  “No, this is not something you need to see,” Raeln tried, but Estin pushed past him. The wolf immediately leapt back in front of him. “Estin, please don’t. As your friend—”

  “I barely know you,” snapped Estin, punching Raeln as hard as he could in the stomach. Hitting Raeln’s muscles felt like hitting a wall, but Estin growled, trying to hide the pain in his hand.

  Raeln grunted but seemed relatively unharmed by the blow, though he did move aside.

  Estin went on toward the others, but he did not have to go far to see what they were looking at. A field of dirt and grass-covered bones lay strewn across the edge of the village. To him it looked as though a hundred people had been piled up and left to rot, with some of the remains having been dragged a short distance into the woods by scavengers. The bones were so old he could easily have walked right past the mound and not even noticed.

  “Estin, you don’t need to see it,” said Raeln, though he made no further attempt to stop Estin. “We can’t be sure they are anyone you knew. We should go. Let them rest.”

  Yoska immediately looked guilty, letting Estin know who had already managed to tell Raeln about his memories. Not a huge surprise.

  “Stand back and let me find my parents,” Estin told the large man, forcing himself to keep walking. Estin strode into the grisly open grave and could not restrain himself from trembling. These were people who had lived near him as a child, children he had played with, and possibly even his own parents. It was more than he was ready to cope with, but he saw no other way. Worse still, he would never know their names or faces to be able to piece together the glimpses in his dreams with these remains.

  Kneeling beside a large pile of old bones, Estin picked up a pair of skulls and examined them. The first was a squirrel wildling, of that he was certain from having tended to several back at Feanne’s father’s camp. It had been female and she was probably only about five or six when she died, if he had to guess. Still very young.

  The other skull Estin held was an orcish man, likely twenty or so years old.

  Looking around, he saw a pattern beginning to form. For every two wildling skeletons he could identify, there was one orc. Every so often he spotted a human-looking skeleton with one or two odd features—a fae-kin, he surmised. They might not be as hated as wildlings and orcs in the region, but they were looked upon superstitiously. He honestly could not be surprised
to find one or two here.

  “None are my breed,” Estin said happily, though he felt more than a little guilty. There would be others like him out there, unaware that their family lay in the open grave. “There’s still a chance…” He let his words trail off as he noticed Raeln was not looking at the corpses, but rather, the woods. Estin followed the man’s gaze and saw what he thought were vines hanging from the trees. He knew of no vinelike plants that grew so close to the mountains.

  Getting up, Estin walked toward the trees, trying to make out what he was seeing. It took him until he reached the first tree with one of the vines to realize they were actually old ropes that had decayed and broken with age. There was one on each of several trees, making eight ropes in all that Estin could see. There might once have been more, though those were the only ones he could see.

  Something snapped under Estin’s toe-claw and he immediately knew it could not have been a twig. Walking through ancient tombs had familiarized him with that sound and feeling. He looked down and saw more bones, mostly piled under the broken ropes.

  “They were hung,” he said to himself, taking a knee by the remains he stood over.

  Sifting through the bones with his fingers, Estin pulled out a few that helped him recognize the victim had been a wildling. A raccoon. Estin moved to the next skeleton and found a wolf’s remains. The next two were raccoons again, followed by a skunk, and then a cow. The breeds were not ones he was overly familiar with, other than the wolf, forcing Estin to rely on having dealt with the regular animals enough times to recognize a wildling version.

  “Every one of them is a wildling,” he said, sitting back on his haunches. “What do wolves, skunks, cows, and raccoons have in common that they were hung separately from all the others? What about them would necessitate a different death?”

  Raeln spoke up first. “They all can be patterned with black and white. I only say that because the barbarian tribes near where I was raised viewed black and white animals as a bad omen that needed to be killed and eaten. At least that was the excuse they used for raiding our farms.”