“We still have a half day’s journey between us and the mountains,” said Aldir. “We should rest for the night.”
Kyrn didn’t want to argue, his shoulders already beginning to ache from his pack and his bow, and his legs tired. Though, the darkness of the night, so cloudy not a star could be seen, worried him. “Are we safe?” he asked. “In the open, I mean.”
Aldir dropped his pack beside Kyrn’s and began clearing away a circular patch of snow with his boot, revealing only dead, frozen ground. “I wish I could say,” he said gloomily, “but I don’t believe we’ll be safe anywhere. Not with such evil magics approaching.”
Kyrn, after laying out his bedroll, fished through Aldir’s pack and laid his out as well, while Aldir fought the cold winds for a small fire. “Can we be sure,” Kyrn began, “that what we face are truly these Dark Ones?”
As if the elements feared the words Kyrn spoke, the kindle caught and an ominous shadow from the flames danced across Aldir’s face. “The Dark Ones have been long forgotten to all but a few; masters of lore, such as Northal, and his father Wylah. And those in which they advise, such as your father. It’s not without reason that we are not led to remember. It’s said that even mentioning their name allows them to grow in strength, in numbers, though I don’t believe that.” Aldir pulled his cloak tight, still fighting the wind. “I know very little of this enemy, little more even than you. But I fear that, if the Dark Ones are returning, then they were truly never defeated many years ago, and their lords have been hiding, regaining their power.”
Together, Aldir and Kyrn stayed up late into the night, keeping their weary eyes peeled into the darkness. The moon was concealed by thick clouds, but, eventually, their eyes adjusted to the darkness, enough to see the stillness of the night.
Aldir could see the fatigue washing over his young companion. He knew that he’d not sleep this night, and he began softly singing the first melody he could think of:
Of river bends and castles of men
The families formed have long since went
To wars of Dark and ancient tears
No longer shall the children fear
The lands of east and west are calmed
From the wicked ones that once had wronged
A blacker knight that once prevailed
Has since been buried, his ship has sailed
The King is born from frozen lands
Watch over us, the race of man
To Kyrn, the Dark Ones and their lords seemed so much a fable, a power too dreadful to exist, and he drifted off to thoughts of black knights and evil sorcerers.
***
The next day had gone just as calmly as the day prior for Kyrn and Aldir. The winds picked up considerably, the rising mountains before them funneling the winds through their tall peaks.
However, on this night, as the sun again slid down behind the peaks, Aldir’s pace did not slow. So, Kyrn, still following his short-term guide, trudged on with him.
“Should we travel through the mountain pass?” Kyrn asked, cautiously admiring the looming mountains before them.
“I fear the shadows as you do, my friend,” Aldir began, “though I expect much of the land we cross to share a similar sense of dread. We must quickly be out of this wind. And, in the mountains, we’ll not be flanked from the sides.”
Kyrn, feeling the wind through his cloak, found himself casting aside the dismal vision of the mountains, and agreed with Aldir. He thought of Malhaim’s tale, the quivering voice of Iafi as he read his brother’s tale. True or not, Kyrn knew his father believed it to be so, and, in turn, Kyrn believed it, too. The sight of the mountains set upon Kyrn the worst type of fear, like a cold sweat in the night, knowing that a sickness would be upon him by morn.
As they closed in upon the mountains, nightfall had set. Aldir had managed to point out a small crevasse that ran between the highest two peaks of the mountains. That would be the path they’d take.
The ground remained icy, but as the hardened dirt of the plains turned to the stone of the mountain path, Kyrn noted that most of the thick, powdery snowfall remained on the sides of the mountains, clung like the dense webbing of giant spiders.
“Have you traveled this path before?” asked Kyrn, turning his mind away from the miserable cold. He could feel locks of his long, brown hair turning to icicles.
“Very few times,” answered Aldir. “It’s a difficult pass, yet I’ve not learned of an easier route.” He stopped for only a moment, setting his brown eyes upon Kyrn. “Now, save your strength, you’ll need it.”
For hours, they traveled in silence. Kyrn grew weary, wishing for sleep, though he knew this wasn’t the place for rest. Even had they stopped, he knew the fear that the mountains cast down on him would prevent his sleeping.
So, on they walked, over icy rocks, through cracks that Kyrn hadn’t known whether or not be able to squeeze through, and across one or two streams that turned to solid ice over the years.
Kyrn hadn’t remembered seeing Aldir light his torch, but ahead of him it burned brightly. Kyrn admired the stars above, flickering wildly, until he realized that he was staring at the mountainside. Those weren’t stars. But what were they, he wondered.
He squinted into the dark, feeling the skin around his eyes crack with the frost. Again, the lights flickered. First, a pair to the right, then the left, above and below, yet, always in sets of two.
They were eyes, peering down from high up the mountain.
“Quit the torch!” Kyrn whispered harshly.
“What is it?” Aldir asked, but he didn’t hesitate to drop the flame, extinguishing it beneath his boot.
The two stood in silence for a moment, hearing only the sizzle of the torch as it melted the ice at their feet.
“Eyes,” Kyrn said, “watching down from the mountains. What beasts lay here?”
“None that I’ve ever come across,” answered Aldir. He hunched low, closer to the rock wall, pulling Kyrn into the shadows of the night with him. “We must move quickly.”
Keeping low, Kyrn and Aldir rushed from the small alcove at the quickest pace since they’d left Grimmrich. As quickly as their feet began to carry them in a brisk run, a spine-chilling howl came from the peaks of the mountains, echoing through the canyon. Kyrn could feel the cry in his bones, and the sense of panic made each step he took more challenging.
“They will soon be on us,” Aldir said, maintaining his hurried pace.
Kyrn slipped his bow from his shoulder and removed an arrow from its quiver. He remained low and turned behind him, and he heard Aldir moving on forward. He could see the eyes, now down to the path on which Kyrn and Aldir traveled. How quickly they’d traversed the mountainside! It was then that Kyrn knew they couldn’t simply outrun the beasts.
In the dark of night, Kyrn couldn’t see any shadow or outline of the creatures’ bodies attached to those piercing eyes, yet he lined up his arrow between the bright yellow dots and loosed it. He heard it hit its mark with a muffled thump, and the approaching creature let out another blood-curdling yell, this time much closer and louder. Kyrn felt as if his knees would buckle from under him, and he was frozen in place.
“What have you done?” Aldir breathed from behind Kyrn.
Fully entranced by the chilling howl, Kyrn hadn’t heard him come up from behind, had actually assumed he had kept running through the mountain valley.
I thought I would slow their movements, Kyrn tried to reply, yet the words were stuck within his muddied mind.
Kyrn and Aldir could hear a loud click, clack, click, clack, closer with each tap. It was the sound of talons or claws, smoothed by the traversing of the rocky mountainsides. As the noises quickened, so did Kyrn’s beating heart, and he could feel it pulsating in his temples as his head began to ache.
“Let us move!” shouted Aldir.
As Aldir grasped his companion’s arm, Kyrn felt a surge of hatred course through his veins, though he didn’t know where it originated from.
/> Aldir tugged harder, forcing Kyrn’s feet from where they were so firmly planted, and, soon as he was moved, the hatred was swept away, replaced with the overwhelming truth of the chase.
“We cannot outrun them,” Kyrn said. “They made it down the mountainside before we rounded the nearest bend.”
Aldir, realizing the truth behind Kyrn’s reasoning, stopped, and unsheathed his sword, the sound of metal scraping into the night. “Just ahead,” he began, “there’s a low plateau. Use the height to your advantage, time your shots, keep me in sight.” When Kyrn began to head for the overhang, Aldir seized him by the shoulder. “If I’m overtaken, flee. Get out of the mountains. Soon, you’ll reach a flowing river. Cross it and you’ll find the forest of Castrolyl.”
“I’ll not leave you behind,” Kyrn shot back, pulling himself free.
Aldir stepped closer, bringing his face only inches away from Kyrn’s. “Our paths are meant to diverge in time, regardless. You must not let slaves to the Dark Ones follow your trail, should these foes prove to be just that.”
Kyrn didn’t like the idea of leaving Aldir’s side so soon, but the click, clack of the approaching enemies grew ever louder, and, without another word, he turned and climbed the rocks.
His efforts were just in time. Kyrn dropped to a knee, fitting another arrow into his bowstring, in time to see the first beast attack, see it fully.
It was humanoid in shape, though it ran on all fours. There seemed to be no hair on its body, and the vile thing’s skin had faded to a dirty grey. It leaped from the ground, running sideways along the mountainside for a good distance, until, with confidence that Aldir was in range, it lunged down towards him.
Kyrn didn’t think he’d get a better shot, so he let his arrow fly, a whoopf of energy bursting in front of him. The arrow caught the creature, piercing between two of its ribs in midair. With another crackling scream, the beast fell short of Aldir, twitched, and lay still at his feet.
“Good shot,” Aldir said, taken aback first by the creature’s speed. “Keep an eye for…”
“Behind you!”
Aldir spun round, bringing his sword up in a swoop, starting low and coming high, and, by mere luck, cleaving another lunging beast in two. Either side fell to each of Aldir’s legs, and he nearly tripped over the slaughtered beast’s rear-end as he planted his feet to block off the pouncing attack of yet a third.
Its claws chimed off Aldir’s sword as he parried, and it landed back on all fours.
Kyrn quickly fitted another arrow, but he didn’t have a clear shot with Aldir below.
Each time the creature slashed with its claws, it hissed, spewing a yellow foam from its mouth.
Aldir swung slightly with each attack, hoping to remove a clawed hand, but the beast proved too agile.
“I can’t line a shot!” shouted Kyrn. “What are those creatures?”
“Not the likes of which I’ve ever seen,” Aldir grunted, connecting with the beast’s lanky forearm, leaving only a shallow nick. “Hunters serving the Dark powers, by my guess.”
Kyrn fidgeted with his bow, nearly ready to let luck take hold and blind-fire an arrow, until he saw a barrage of flickering lights beyond Aldir below.
“More hunters!” Kyrn yelled, and fired his arrow towards the glowing eyes.
“Move,” shouted Aldir, “to the river!”
“You can’t take them alone.”
Aldir crouched low, and the beast swiped high. He took his split-second chance and thrust his sword upwards, through the hunter’s belly.
Its mouth opened, but no howl came from the beast, only the foaming, yellow saliva.
Aldir pulled his sword free, sending more yellow insides flinging into the night, splattering stickily against the rocks. “Nor can we take this many together,” he said, briefly turning back to Kyrn, though he couldn’t see him in the dark. “Find the elves and, maybe one day, our paths will cross again.”
Kyrn opened his mouth to speak, but Aldir had already spun back around, fighting off another hunter. Four, five, too many to count in the dark fell over Aldir.
Kyrn slung his bow over his shoulders. Staying, fighting, dying, would only be in vain. He would find the forest, the elves, and stop this madness before he ever knew what any of it meant.
As he turned, his eyes locked with a hunter’s single pair of yellow eyes. Its fangs dripped with the yellow foam, and from this close, Kyrn could see that the saliva was of a luminescent hue, illuminating its wrinkly, scarred face.
He didn’t hesitate.
Pushing off with one foot, Kyrn burst into a sprint towards the hunter.
The beast let out its loud howl, and, again, the shivers fell over Kyrn. His muscles tensed, trying ever so hard to stop his run, but this strange, returning hatred forced him through. It felt as if the muscles within his legs were tearing with every step.
When the hunter saw its mesmerizing cry fail, it rose on his hind legs, towering over Kyrn, nearly twice his height.
Kyrn dropped to both knees, mid-sprint, sliding beneath the beast’s underbelly. Using his momentum, he pulled back the cane he’d brought with him, recently only useful as a walking stick, and jammed it with all his might into the beast’s sternum, toppling it over the plateau.
Chapter Seven
The Goblin Slayer
Biddledur Foltar had been imprisoned for what he assumed were days. It’d been a strange cell he was held within, the bars holding him made of thinly chiseled black stone, as if the cell were carved into the wall of the mountain, rather than built separately.
He couldn’t honestly say that he minded his current predicament, left alone, away from the Dark master and the evil demon; however, he was quite hungry, and his stomach growled and bubbled to remind him. There was naught he could do though, and he waited anxiously for his next serving of stale bread and under-cooked wolf meat (which he’d have never thought to have tasted in his life, and for good reason).
The tired halfling lay his pack—which the necromancer hadn’t taken away from Biddledur—against the rock wall of his cell, a cell which he thought was to be his tomb, and laid down, hands behind his head.
A muffled rapping stirred Biddledur from his uncomfortable slumber, as two misshapen goblins tapped their spears against the black rock bars. Startled at first, Biddledur rose quickly.
The goblins both snickered down at Biddledur, brandishing their poorly-crafted weapons. How he’d have liked to snatch a spear from their grasps and stick them both with its sharp tip! He knew he wasn’t a fighter, though. Not like that, and only when his life depended on it. He also knew that the Dark master wouldn’t entrust the dungeon’s keys to a goblin, so he was comforted by the black rock bars between him and the perturbed creatures.
A soft tapping echoed through the halls, footsteps approaching the cell. Before long, a tall, shadowy figure stood behind the goblins. The mass of shadow was human in height, but it was not the Dark master, Biddledur knew. The figure was too broad-shouldered, not gaunt like the necromancer. The figure shoved past the goblins and gripped two of the black rock bars, one with either hand. He stared at Biddledur for a moment. The man was surely human, his clean-shaven face pale against his long, brown hair, though his face looked scarred from years of battles, and his pale green eyes gazed at the halfling.
“I’m here for the prisoner,” said the scarred man. Not taking his eyes off Biddledur, he smirked when he heard the confused shuffling of the goblins at his side.
As the man began to remove a chain of keys from his leather belt, the smaller of the two goblins seized his arm.
“Prisoner!” the small goblin shouted, shifting from his guttural tongue to the closest speech of man he could muster. “You no take.”
The scarred man merely glanced down and freed his arm, sending the goblin staggering backwards. “Master’s orders.”
“No,” argued the taller of the two creatures. “You no take. Black master order to no take.”
The man lifted his chin
and exhaled a sigh of disbelief. “How do you suppose I came across these?” he asked, holding up the ring of keys, chiming along with their movement.
“Stealed them!” shouted the short one.
“Yes, thief,” said the other.
The scarred man chuckled. “Yes, a thief I am.” He glanced at both goblins, who were confused with his direct admittance.
“One of the best, at that. Though, no thief could manage to steal a ring of keys from a Dark Lord and live to tell the tale.”
The goblins looked at one another. That was a fact which they could not dispute.
“Now,” continued the man. “By orders of the Dark Lord, I’ll retrieve the prisoner. With no further interruptions.” Again, he raised the keys and began to fit it within the hole.
Out of fear of their Dark master, or anger, Biddledur couldn’t tell, the short goblin seized the man’s arm, and, along with the taller goblin, raised his spear towards him.
Biddledur was distracted by the chiming keys, now dangling from the keyhole, no longer a hand holding them. He felt a warm splash upon his cheek, and the man’s black cloak fluttered back down to his side. When his eyes refocused on the man, he was now dropped to a single knee before Biddledur, and both of his arms were stretched to length at either side, wielding finely-curved swords.
The halfling looked at the goblins, who were also on their knees, clutching at their throats as dark blood seeped through their fingers.
They fell face first to the floor.
The man stood, wiping the blood from his swords and re-sheathing them. “I’m known as Alathain,” he said. “Now, let’s get you out of there, little one.”
***
The halfling walked briskly to keep up with the goblin slayer at his side. “Are you releasing me?” Biddledur asked.
“In a sense, you could say that.” Alathain laughed. “That’s truly not a bad way to view your situation, little one. In fact, if you’d accept the predicament you’ve found yourself in, perhaps you’d enjoy life much more.”
“Accept it?” Biddledur spat. “Are you mad?”
A Flutter In The Night (Kyrn's Legacy Book 1) Page 7