by Matt Wilk
Tram stood and held Kru out over the fire. He began shouting in a language I had never heard. The hilt translated only curses and threats. I was not listening. I shook with a rage and the red shadow returned to blur everything around the innocent little Kru. The boy Finn crawled under the bushes between us so I grabbed his hair and dug my boot heel into the small of his back. He made the mistake of standing, the final piece of the snap trap, a favorite of the Thieves Guild. He immediately tensed up, fearing the fall forward. Nickolas taught me well. The boy, Finn, was much bigger than myself, yet, he leaned forward on his tippy toes and arched all the way back- helpless.
“Put the puppy on the ground or I’ll break him. I swear it.”
“He-he-he-he…”
“I am tired of caring for that dense grey skin. Break his neck, one less mouth to feed.”
“Guuwa. He-he-he, ugh. He Guuwa.”
“See, he’s got the Cow’s Tongue Disease. Finn, are you going to chew that cud all day? Spit it out already!”
“He-he’s got a hilt!”
“Mato, kill this Swillian circus freak. He’s a liar and a thief.”
Mato was an adult Lokah and, like Tram, he wore only short pants and those strange overlarge muscles. He remained calm and was not bothered by the standoff. He took his spear full of fish to the fireside and stuck them through with their own sticks to be cooked. He took his time and nearly walked away before ever addressing the situation. When he turned, the light glared off of a silver implant that cut a disk from his otherwise full head of hair. The whirling pattern spread out the same as a ram’s horn, and the purple pattern that grew on the Lokah pearls. It was obviously the source of their unnaturally large frames, and likely strength. I had never seen them before, only heard them prayed for by the longshoremen of Ulfbar Bay. Tram must have still been getting used to having all that power, and having no one around to hurt. Too bad he chose Kru. I twisted Finn’s hair and tightened the snap trap. While Finn squealed, Mato spoke quickly with Mika, whom was clearly his little brother. Then he cleared his throat to speak with a heavy accent.
“Tram, put that dog down, he did nothing wrong.”
“But, this thief stole it and these pearls too. You say you know Sergeant Bloodaxe? I know he died in Dante’s Isle.”
“Look at me. I may be unarmed but I am not bluffing. Let the dog go or he dies, and you’re next. No? Well then, take your last breath boy.”
I was outnumbered and Kru was whining over an open flame. I was in a rage, the red shadow tainted everything, and it filled me with more energy than the sun. Finn’s neck was bending back enough to stop him from breathing. Seeing Leiza’s pearls, I forced myself to let go before I lost control. I began swatting the red shadow away before anyone got hurt, tears welling up in shame.
“I am so sorry. I don’t even know why I said that. I don’t understand what is haunting me but it wants blood. Just, don’t hurt Kru. I’m so dizzy…”
“You see what madness you cause Tram. The boy is in a uniform, has the implant, hurt no one until you threatened the pup. You are ready to lead no man.”
Tram saw that I was crazed and reluctantly let Kru go safely. He shot an angry glare at Mato and sat back down. I grabbed up Kru and turned to run away when the little boy pulled my back shell and offered a fish as an apology.
“What unit lost you in the forest? Or, did you fall from the Moser?”
“Yes, talk. We were not warned of a visit. No one comes to sanitation unless the Tonney is damned by too many beaver.”
“I’m no authority. Kru was thrown off the high road, I leapt off to save him from being squished. I just need to cross the Moser and get back on the road.”
“Mato, he’s headed to the ladder of stone.”
“Good, we can feed his splattered remains to the birds in the morning.”
“Silence! You were on the path. Wait, explain more.”
I turned back and little Mika gave me the fish. Then he ran over to Finn and fed him too. I raised my brow at Mato while shoving the small grey pointer in my face. The food helped to calm everyone as if we were rival barbarians meeting out in the wild. Clearly, they too worked for the UNF in some official capacity. Though, they had little oversight working on the human waste irrigation canals. With all of the corruption in Ulfbar, I had forgotten how the House of Tonney made its fortune in the first place. Ditch diggers, that learned to read and calculate math. They had become great architects at one point. However, their sons put that name to shame.
“Where did you get Lokah pearls?”
“A gift, from the dead.”
Mato nodded, accepting that I did not wish to speak the awful truth.
“What do the Swillians call the demon that feeds on evil?”
“What? There is no demon… It’s just, everything is consumed by the red shadow.”
“There is no red. Nothing is red. What is he saying?”
Mika knew much about the world, both of our worlds, and their languages. He translated for both Mato and I, as if affirming something he had heard the elders whisper about in the darkness.
“The power of gold is a tainted one, it puts your body and soul at odds. Be grateful you do not suffer this plague, brother Tram. And you, be grateful brother Mato allowed you the chance to regain control. There are so few children left in this world. The Swillian Plague hit far and wide, and you dare to mock us by wearing this goat. Be wary of hearing the call of your spotted fathers. One day, we will hear ours as well.”
Tram spit into the fire and looked away. Mika nodded and joined his brothers around the fire. I shook my head and turned to leave, ashamed that I had just abused my power. Mato was right, neither one of us were prepared to lead. Only Mika called after us as we left.
“Goodbye, Kru.”
The trail split and we made the first tracks in the snow headed west. The desolation and the quiet helped me to focus on my own shameful words, playing Leiza’s pearls through my fingers made me feel worse.
“Whomever Major Bloodaxe lost must have been special. And, I can’t imagine Sloan fighting the urge to hurt others. I think the wrong man was jailed. What do you think Kru?”
The puppy had a full belly after a stressful day. The sun was still an hour or more from setting down, but Kru was already asleep in my arms. I even slowed my pace to keep from waking him.
Moser falls filled the air with freezing water droplets. Only the center of the river had thawed and the base of the falls was the same. Occasionally, a large block of ice would come spilling over the edge and land with a crash. The suddenness of the noise woke Kru. He stayed nestled in my arms and buried his nose from the cold.
“I agree, the air is too wet to be this cold. I think it is helping though, with the madness and all. And there he goes. Of course, we missed our chance.”
Sloan was already being ferried across the river. I watched him as we approached the mountain side. His hilt felt mine, and he looked down smiling. He told the ferryman a joke about me and they filled the gully with a crude laughter that ended with them both hacking and coughing. I prepared to scream up at them, but Kru huffed impatiently.
“You’re right, I’m turning out to be just like them.”
Kru looked at me and yawned, bored with my depressing mood. The Swillian Incursion had brought so much evil to the coastal kingdoms that, even though it failed, the savages succeeded in tainting everyone and everything that was not razed to the ground. The priest and the ferryman disappeared from view and I could finally see the ladder of stone. The shadows were all wrong and I spun around in confusion. The sun was already so low that more light was bouncing off the water, making it glow and shoot rainbows through the densest clouds of mist.
“Kru, it’s almost sunset. We might only have one shot at this.”
I was so busy talking to myself that he was first to hear the convoy approaching. He hurried me onward and upward, but I wanted to prepare. I paused at the bottom of the ladder and tried the first rung. Each level
had a rock pole over an arch carved out of the rock face. They were each a yard apart. The bottom rungs had cracks from overuse and crumbled at the lightest touch. Looking up, I could not see the top against the quickly darkening sky. The steeds were getting louder as we climbed higher and they bolstered my confidence. Kru was not happy about being stuffed into my stinky vest, reminding me to wash it as soon as I found soap. He barked at the approach of his mother and tried to whine to her about his fear of heights. There were no more missing rungs to the ladder, however, the last few yards to the top were blocked by ice. The convoy rumbled to a stop close enough to shake loose a few hanging sickles. I screamed from almost losing my grip. The ferryman laughed as he approached the eastern shore and let them know I was on the ladder.
“Is that right? You down there boy-o?”
“Major Bloodaxe! We’re down here, under the ice.”
“What’s that you say? Knock off all this ice?”
“No sir. Please don’t!”
The behemoth began jumping up and down on the ice block, laughing all the while. The smallest of the ice sickles fell off and shattered against my protective shells. The madman did not stop until the whole block was loosed from the edge. As it rolled past us, the larger sickles wedged tightly around my back shell and peeled us off the wall. I managed to hold onto the stone with enough strength to rip it out of the mountain, barely throwing it away before it could crush Kru.
“Not again!”
We fell down fast and landed so hard that the giant block of snow and ice exploded. My face was scratched raw with frozen chunks as they bounced off the rock wall. Somehow, we survived. Tina, Kru’s mother, was over the edge barking like mad. I held up Kru for her to see and her barking died down to unveil the argument Major Bloodaxe was having with the ferryman. I thought he was angry about knocking us off the wall. No, they were simply haggling over the increased price of a night time passage across the river. Then, all at once, as it always seems to happen during the winter months, the sun went down. Immediately, the world was blanketed in darkness.
“A rope! Please throw us a rope! Please!”
Major Bloodaxe gave in to the ferryman’s demands and reluctantly paid the price. With his mood so soured, I was surprised to see that he actually threw down a rope. However, he did not bother to tie it off to anything.
“Do you see this Kru? I am holding both ends. This is just ridiculous.”
I could hear the first cart being slowly loaded onto the ferry, but, even the moon was hidden from view beyond the cliff. While I thought about what to do next, I kicked over the remaining sickles to prevent from being impaled in the event of another fall. I rolled the rope into a loop, threw it over my shoulder, and set back to climbing. I reached the previous height just as Major Talon was loading her cart onto the ferry. Not only was that rung now missing, all of the ones above that had been ripped off with the ice. There was just enough depth to the concave areas to use them as handholds. Even that would not allow me to reach the top. I climbed down, very slowly, all the while chanting a lie.
“I’m not afraid of heights. Kru, say it. We’re not afraid of heights.”
By the time we reached the bottom, we both had to pee out a whole jug’s worth of fear.
“Kru, I have a plan. You aren’t going to like it. Don’t worry, it will work- I hope.”
I tied the rope to the straps of my back shell, putting it on wrong so that it would hang from one shoulder. The uneven weight only slightly choked my neck. Kru was in the loose vest so he dug his claws into me for grip. We climbed slow enough that Major Swiftblade was loading his cart when we ran out of rungs. Each move after that was even slower and much more dangerous. I had both hands in the small holds and one leg stretched out to keep our weight unbalanced, pulling us opposite the shell. The convoy was completely across when we reached the top of the broken ladder. And, the cliff’s edge was still blocked by a smooth outcropping with no one left to help.
“Sorry boy, this is the part you won’t like. You’re going to make it, I promise. Say it with me, we’re not afraid of heights.”
Kru was- thankfully- too scared to struggle and froze stiff in my hand. I pulled him out of my vest and took a deep breath. I had no choice but to throw him over the barrier and close my eyes to listen. He hit the road and shrieked in relief. I slid the shell off next and swayed dangerously to give the heavy weight some momentum. With the other end of the rope in my mouth, I threw the shell up and over. Kru was startled, crying out as though he had been crushed. I pulled the rope down until the shell got stuck on something and sighed.
“Fine, I admit it, I am afraid of heights.”
The shell could not hold my weight but it could at least aid in the jump. I aimed to get my foot in the very top hand hold and then laid flat against the slick rock. I was frozen in fear and Kru knew it. He dragged the shell as far as he could. I jumped and pulled and scrambled over the edge just in time for the shell to react- by whipping up into my nose. I screamed from fear more than pain. Kru was happy to see me, but all I could do was lay on the road, laughing and shaking and crying from the nerves. A small victory, as I still had to cross the river.
The hilt had stopped giving me strength when the sun went down and the rush from the climb drained all that I had to spare. Stretching did not help and the only water I had to drink came from the same freezing river I still had yet to cross. The ferry line was made of the thickest rope I had ever seen, and, even it had turned mostly to ice. The moon was nearly full but much dimmer and darker than it had been the night before. The line was so weighed down that where it went slack the current pulled it into the water, making the way across disappear altogether.
“Alright boy, we’re going in blind so prepare to get wet. Oh, and possibly go rushing over the falls. Are you ready?”
Kru mimicked my tired face and began stretching. I grabbed both ends of our rope and threw the center loop over the ferry line. The ice was tall enough to walk down until my shell hit the water. The freshly melted liquid was still ice cold. Floating chunks of ice and snow slammed into the shell, bursting in my face. That was no worse than being completely drenched. Kru kept dry at first, until we- and the ferry line- dipped under the water. I was nearly standing on it to pull the rope forward. The center of the river ran the fastest, making the second half of the trip easier.
I worried about the noise we made touching down on the ferry. My shell knocked on the wood several times and Kru barked for his freedom while I untied our rope. Even frozen to the bones, I hid us before the ferryman could hobble out and look. He spread the curtain of his window for light and checked for footprints in the snow. He crouched low, wheezing from the strain of bending over, and checked under the line of young pines that marked the boundary of his yard. Then he hopped through them, muttering to himself angrily. He opened the back door forcefully and a woman inside cried out from the surprise. Slamming the door behind him did not stop me from hearing every word.
“Aint nothin’ out there woman. Now where’s my damn tea?”
He hurried her to the front door and shut it behind her. She came out carrying two heavy black pots and wearing thin sleeping robes. She also muttered to herself, but came down to the river side where I was actually hiding. Between the ferryman’s thick Slorrick drawl, and her soft facial features, I was sure that they once called Finn their son. I slid down and away but the pile of snow we were hiding behind ended into the water. I had Kru’s mouth, and had to cover mine as well, because of the uncontrollable chattering of my teeth.
“Yea, it’s no worries. Probably just heard that poor boy fallin’ to his doom is all.”
She dumped the contents of the pots and dipped them both into river before giving them a quick scrubbing.
“Dangerous times… as if cheating the Bloodaxe weren’t bad enough.”
She finished by huffing and filling one of the pots with fresh water. She stood to leave but first adjusted her robes. She stared up at Mother Moon, and my teet
h stopped chattering from a case of slack jaw. Her legs were revealed to have several thick matching lines of scar tissue. In the name of the allFather, she had been dipped to boil many times over the years. To me, the sacrifice of pain was the underKing’s bidding. But then, the Swillians were no better- using the pox as a weapon to expand their empire. When she went back inside, I crawled onto shore, still shaking my head, and hid several paces away under the largest pine I could find. I pulled off my wet clothes and hung them on the lowest branches to dry. However, Kru could do no such thing with his fur.
“You’re alright boy, they didn’t see us. No one will ever hurt you like that- I promise.”
We both laid there in a pile of pine needles, shivering and moaning, until our heat filled the shell. I worried about Kru being cold and wet but neither of us had the energy to build a fire or find food. Every waking moment was misery and the frozen metallic hilt amplified that as well. My head was freezing into a block of ice, and it froze the most miserable images in front of my eyes. Even the ferryman’s wife, two days from the nearest Sheriff, somehow suffered the heartless traditions of the Slorrick. All their gods ever seemed to want was a sacrifice of pain, and yet, all it ever seemed to accomplish was to make weak men feel strong. And they always seemed to be the same type of men that somehow knew exactly what the gods wanted from us.
“That’s why she did it Kru. There was nothing good waiting for her, nothing but pain. You know what? I’m glad Ulfbar burned to the ground. They deserved it.”
Leiza chose to die with her innocence, and I could not stay angry about that. I wondered how Lazarus was dealing with the loss his twin sister. In my own undying quest for honor, there was no innocence left to be had. All the evil the Swillians piled into the great scales, the gods would be far less forgiving of my transgressions. In that way, the Tonney’s were right to keep me in a cage, as I could only pray that the uncontrollable red shadow would wait for the field of battle.