The Warrior (The Hidden Realm)

by A. Giannetti

  As Elerian finished his explanation, Anthea’s eyes grew wide. Suddenly, she streaked by him on his left side. When he whirled around, he saw her pounce on a canigrae that had emerged from the trees behind him while his back was turned. A single, heavy blow of Anthea’s right paw broke the Goblin hound’s neck before it could set its teeth in her sleek hide. As more canigrae surged out of the trees, Elerian leaped among them, lashing out with weighty blows that briefly scattered the pack.

  “Run!” he shouted hoarsely to Anthea as she buried fangs long as a man’s index finger in the throat of a canigrae. Instead of obeying, she raised her head and snarled at him, blood from her latest kill dripping down her jaws.

  “She is succumbing to her new form,” thought Elerian in alarm.

  Hoping to bring her back to herself, he cuffed her across the face, the force of the blow rolling her over on the ground. A canigrae attacked him, then, from behind, trying to bring him down by slashing his left flank, but he whirled around, rumbling ferociously deep in his chest and broke the hound’s neck with a powerful blow from his right paw. The rest of the pack was now closing in again.

  Turning to Anthea, Elerian shouted “Run!” for the second time.

  She stood her ground for a moment, ears laid back and fangs exposed in a snarl before fleeing before him. The blow to her face appeared to have restored her wits.

  “Climb a tree,” Elerian shouted at her as he bounded after her, the entire pack of canigrae now at his furred heels.

  Anthea immediately whisked up the side of a broad oak as if she had climbed trees all her life in cat form. Elerian gave a mighty leap that carried him twelve feet up the trunk of the same tree. A moment later, he joined Anthea on a wide branch thirty feet above the ground. Below them, the pack leaped and scrabbled at the trunk of the tree with their claws, howling in frustration.

  “Follow me through the canopy!” rumbled Elerian.

  Anthea glared at him resentfully for a moment before grudgingly following him along the upper pathways of the forest. Together they ran along branches wide as young trees, leaping gracefully across any gaps that appeared before them. Out of sight in the green canopy of the forest, they soon left the pack of canigrae behind again. With no scent trail to follow and no prey in sight, their hunt for Elerian and Anthea slowed. Keeping a close eye on the branches overhead, they spread out widely across the canyon, continuing to travel in a northerly direction.

  Anthea, who was now running ahead of Elerian, suddenly stopped and spun around on a branch that was a good four feet wide. Ears laid back flat, she glared at Elerian, who came to an abrupt stop before her. Her eyes were black with fury and blood still stained her long white fangs, but Elerian found himself staring entranced at her lithe form.

  “You struck me,” she said hoarsely. “If we escape from here, I shall cut your head off myself,” she hissed.

  Elerian laughed, a rather frightening sound in his present form. “How will you prove it?” he asked dryly. “It will be my word against yours.”

  “My father will take my word over yours,” snarled Anthea.

  “Will he?” asked Elerian slyly. “I am not so sure after the trick that you played on me last time.”

  Doubt suddenly entered Anthea’s eyes as she remembered her father’s less than favorable reaction to the trick she had played on Elerian.

  “I will even the score some other way then,” she threatened, angrily lashing her tail against her sable flanks.

  “May be you will and maybe you will not,” said Elerian with an evil grin that exposed all his long white teeth. Perhaps it was his four footed form or perhaps it was the fight with the canigrae, but something seemed to have restored his wits. “Maybe I will keep you in your present form as a pet,” he suggested to Anthea.

  “You would not dare,” said Anthea, drawing in her breath sharply in outrage. Suddenly, she stared more closely at the gleam in his eyes.

  “You are laughing at me,” she said indignantly.

  Happy to have turned the tables on her at last, Elerian burst out laughing at the furious expression on her face. A moment later, he ran for his life as she gave a shriek of anger and leaped at him with exposed claws. As he raced down wide branches and leaped from tree to tree, Elerian felt again the intoxication of being in a four footed form. Behind him, Anthea soon forgot her anger, and the chase became a race as they sped through the treetops. Almost, they forgot their pursuers until Elerian heard a long wolf howl far behind them. The sound brought them back to reality, and they paused to catch their breath on a wide branch sixty feet above the forest floor. When Elerian turned to Anthea, her eyes were still filled with the excitement of the run through the canopy.

  “I could stay in this form forever, she purred. She appeared to have forgotten all her former anger.

  “That would be extremely dangerous,” said Elerian gravely. “I have put up a barrier against the cat mind that shares your body, but sooner or later it would overwhelm you as it almost did when you attacked the canigrae. You would forget who you are.”

  Anthea shrugged. “There are worse fates,” she said indifferently.

  Elerian frowned at her response, but he let it pass. “How is it that there are canigrae here so far from the borders of your land?” he asked.

  “They haunt the forests, like the Troll,” said Anthea, “but I have never heard of them attacking anyone under the light of the sun. They always strike at night, prowling around lonely encampments in the hope of taking a man.”

  “There may be lupins among them, too,” said Elerian thoughtfully. “There seemed to be intelligence behind their attack on us.”

  “Lupins or canigrae, we escaped them. That is all that matters,” said Anthea. “When I return to the encampment, I will organize a hunt to track every last one of them down,” she said fiercely. “Their hides will become rugs in my father’s tent.”

  “We must get back first,” Elerian pointed out. “Let us travel through the trees to the west wall of the canyon. If we can climb it, we can return to the plains along the cliff tops, leaving the canigrae behind. Enias will be waiting there to take us home.

  “Whatever you think best,” said Anthea demurely.

  At once, Elerian gave her a suspicious glance, for it was out of character for her to be so agreeable. Her eyes, dark blue again, stared back at him innocently, giving no clue to what she might be thinking. He resolved to watch her carefully, certain she would try to gain some sort of revenge at the first opportunity for his treatment of her.

  Warily, Elerian led the way through the tree tops toward the west wall of the canyon. The ground beneath the trees began to rise sharply. Then, suddenly, the trees before them abruptly ended. Cautiously, Elerian and Anthea crept to the end of a long branch, looking down on an overgrown clearing several hundred feet across. Their eyes were immediately drawn to the center of the clearing where a large building constructed of rough surfaced, gray stone blocks stood half buried behind a screen of brush and young trees, its walls overgrown with a green curtain of ivy.

  THE RUIN

  The building was in an advanced state of decay. Many of the earth toned clay tiles covering the peaked roofs were missing or broken. Only a gaping hole remained where the front door had once stood, and the glass and shutters were long since gone from the tall windows that showed through the vines along its sides.

  Despite the dilapidated appearance of the structure, a well-defined path led from the front door to the edge of the forest, visible evidence that some large creature was using the building as a den.

  “We should give this place a wide berth,” said Elerian to Anthea. “I do not like the look of that path leading to the doorway. Something has made a home in that building. It could well be the Troll that lives in these woods.”

  Anthea paid no attention to Elerian’s cautious advice.

  “This must be the home that Dymiter built,” she said excitedly. “I will not pass it by without looking inside.”

  “I
f the Troll has made that place into its den that would be most unwise,” objected Elerian, who wished to have nothing more to do with Trolls.

  “No one has seen the Troll for years now,” said Anthea dismissively. “More than likely the building is the winter den of some brown bear and is quite safe to enter now.”

  Before Elerian could object, Anthea leaped lithely to a lower branch and then to the ground below.

  “Wait,” said Elerian softly as he sprang after her, but she bounded swiftly across the clearing and was standing on the front doorstep before he caught up with her.

  “Look,” said Anthea, pointing to the path with her right paw. “This has not been used in some time.”

  Elerian looked more closely at the narrow track and saw that Anthea was right. Nothing had trodden down the long grass that covered the path in months. He looked back at the building and suddenly felt a strong desire to enter it.

  “It is magic or just curiosity?” wondered Elerian to himself, for some spells were subtle and hard to discern.

  For Anthea, the desire to enter the building had grown even stronger.

  “Let us look inside,” she said to Elerian, her blue eyes shining with excitement and curiosity.

  “There may be a spell at work here to draw in the unwary,” protested Elerian, who was suspicious of his sudden desire to enter the building. “We should leave here and put more distance between ourselves and the canigrae while we can.”

  “If you are afraid, then I will go in alone,” said Anthea scornfully. “You may wait for me here where it is safe.”

  “It is caution not fear that holds me back,” said Elerian stiffly, for he was stung by her words. “If you insist on entering, I will come with you,” he said, giving in reluctantly. “First, however, let me give you back your own shape. I do not know what we will find inside, but if something happens to me, I do not want you to be trapped inside a panther’s body.”

  “Do it quickly then,” said Anthea, who was growing more impatient by the moment to enter the building. A sentiment was growing inside her that she would find something important inside the old ruin.

  Elerian transformed Anthea and then himself into their natural forms. Anthea looked somewhat disappointed at being human again, for she had enjoyed wearing the cat form.

  “We will find nothing more dangerous than spiders inside, I am sure,” she said to encourage Elerian as she stepped impatiently through the doorway.

  Elerian sighed. “I hope not,” he thought to himself as he followed her. “We are both unarmed and ill equipped to deal with any danger.”

  Their swords and knives, of course, were still back in the forest where they had dropped them, for it was beyond his powers to send metal weapons to the place where he kept his clothes when he transformed.

  Beyond the ruined doorway, Elerian found himself in a room fifteen feet high and almost forty feet square. There was enough light to see by, even for Anthea, for the left and right hand walls each had four tall, narrow windows set in them, eight feet above the level of the floor. In the middle of the far wall was another entranceway. Even though the door was missing, Elerian could not see into the gloom that lay beyond it.

  The stone floor of the room was covered with broken furniture and refuse, reminding Elerian of Drusus’ den in the Abercius. Gnawed bones were everywhere, as well as bits of fur and hide. Elerian was certain that some of the bones were human. No animal had such long leg bones as the ones he saw in the trash on the floor, and there were articles of moldering clothing mixed in with the other debris on the floor. He was certain now that, at some time in the past, for none of the scraps on the floor was fresh, this room had been a Troll den. Elerian said nothing to urge Anthea to leave the ruin, however, for he was now as strongly caught up in the desire to explore the building as she was. If this was truly Dymiter’s home, who knew what they might find here?

  The walls of the room now caught Elerian’s interest. Although they were covered by dirt and filth, he could see, upon closer examination, that there were faded murals on the walls. A painting on the left hand wall especially fascinated him. Walking over to it, he saw, through a haze of grime, a forest of silver trees being consumed by red flames. Battling under the trees were many small figures, but he could make out little of their faces or clothing under the dirt and grime.

  While Elerian examined the mural, Anthea explored the room itself; fearlessly poking about in the trash that filled it with a long stick that she had discovered lying on the floor. When she suddenly cried out softly, Elerian whirled around, prepared to cast a killing spell at whatever threatened her. Anthea was alone, however. She was standing in the center of the room, transfixed by a waist high column of polished white marble that had suddenly appeared before her when, by chance, she brushed her hand against its side. The column supported a round, flat top, much like a small table. It was about two feet across and also constructed of veined marble. Covering it was a dome of clear crystal.

  “I felt myself brush against something, and this column of stone suddenly appeared,” said Anthea in an excited voice to Elerian.

  “There is magic in play here,” thought Elerian to himself. “I do not think it was chance alone that directed her toward this thing.”

  Infected by Anthea’s excitement at the appearance of the pillar, Elerian eagerly made his way across the room, wondering what lay beneath the crystal dome. Before he reached the pedestal, however, a movement behind the second doorway attracted his attention. Something had stirred in the darkness beyond the entrance. Apprehensively, Elerian stopped, straining his eyes to penetrate the gloom beyond the door frame. Suddenly, he saw a pair of green eyes shining like lamps in the darkness. With a sinking feeling, Elerian estimated that the eyes were a good eight feet above the floor.

  “Maybe it is only a bear standing erect,” he thought desperately to himself, but that hope was dashed when he heard slow, heavy footsteps. The eyes began to approach through the murk. For the first time, Elerian noticed that the light in the great room he stood in was fading. Outside the building, it was still late evening, but the sun’s light disappeared from the depths of the canyon early because of the high cliffs to the west. Already a great, dark shadow was creeping over the ruin from the cliff that rose high above it.

  “It waited until the light faded before revealing itself,” Elerian thought to himself. “I was a fool to enter this building with Anthea.”

  “Run, Anthea,” said Elerian in a low, urgent voice. “Do not look around. Just run for the forest.”

  Anthea frowned at Elerian. Obviously the notion of running away from anything was foreign to her. Turning away from the pedestal, which vanished as soon as she removed her hand from it, she followed Elerian’s gaze and looked into the doorway on the far side of the room. She also saw the eyes approaching out of the darkness, but she made no move to flee.

  “It seems you were right Elerian,” she said calmly, with no trace of panic in her voice. “The Troll is still living here, even after all this time. If I run off as you ask, what will you do?” she asked, still making no move to leave the room.

  “I will stay and distract it,” said Elerian as a massive shape took shape in the doorway.

  A rank smell that was all too familiar to Elerian drifted through the air. At eight feet in height, this Troll was smaller than the one Elerian had faced in Ancharia, but it was still a formidable opponent. So wide for its height that it appeared almost squat, the Troll was thickly muscled and carried a massive club in its right hand. It had a bald head and large ears that were pointed and erect like those of an animal. Its coarse featured face was dominated by hungry eyes that burned with a luminous, green light. The only article of clothing it wore was a crude kilt of untanned leather, which hung around its waist.

  Pausing in the doorway, the Troll exposed long yellow fangs when it spread its thick lips in an evil grin. Its eyes gloated over Elerian and Anthea hungrily.

  “I will not leave unless you leave with me
,” insisted Anthea, without any trace of panic or alarm in her voice. She might have been discussing the weather for all the emotion she showed.

  “If we both run, it will catch you, for you are slower than I am,” said Elerian in an exasperated voice. “Trolls are huge, but they are quite fast.”

  “Save yourself then,” said Anthea quietly. “You should not suffer for my foolishness.” Elerian still heard no terror in her voice, only a curious regret.

  “I will not leave you here alone,” he said firmly as, with quiet, stealthy steps, he began to advance toward Anthea.

  “You really are a fool,” said Anthea mildly, unaware of Elerian’s approach, for she dared not turn her head away from the Troll. “Run while you can.”

  Holding up her useless stick like a sword, she began to back toward the door, feeling her way through the trash on the floor with her feet.

  “Life is strange is it not, Elerian?” she said calmly. “All the times I risked death, not caring about the outcome, it passed over me. Now that I would live, it has crept up on me like a thief in the night.”

  Hoping she would think that he had left the room, Elerian, who had almost reached Anthea’s side, did not make any reply. The Troll, which had slowly advanced into the room, suddenly spoke in a deep, rumbling voice.

  “I have been away from my home for a long time. I was not expecting to have such a fine dinner walk through my front door. What a foolish pair of humans you must be to enter a Troll den.”

  At the Troll’s words, Anthea cast a startled glance behind her and saw Elerian standing there, grim faced.

  “You should have run,” she said angrily, but the gleam of approval in her eyes, the first that he had seen there, caused Elerian’s heart to leap.