The Cursed Lands

by Timothy L. Cerepaka

  Sarzen sat opposite her. While he was panting and sweating even more than her, he didn’t seem nearly as painfully exhausted as her. He just wiped the sweat off his face with a rag and took a swig of water from the flask at his side. His sword, rather than being sheathed, was lying on its side between them. It was covered in the Draymens’ ugly gray blood, but Sarzen had said he was going to clean it off soon. Helnia wished that he would clean it off now, because Draymens blood smelled awful and made her wish that she had been born without a nose.

  But at least the Draymens was dead. About an hour ago, when the Draymens had fallen down dead, Sarzen had checked its corpse and discovered that the wounds he had inflicted on it had been the cause of its death. It had been bewildering to hear it speak those two sentences in Yoresian, but at the same time, it was possible that the creature might have learned how to speak Yoresian from human slaves, just like the one that had killed Renuk.

  They had left the body out in the plains, because it was too big to carry and they didn’t have the right tools to dig a grave for it. But Sarzen, before they left, had prayed a brief prayer to the Dragon Gods to keep the souls of the departed safe. It had actually been quite a beautiful prayer, even though Helnia didn’t think it would actually help much.

  As for the other members of the team, they were all just glad that Sarzen and Helnia were okay. Rothel, in particular, had treated them both like they were his children, checking them over to see if they were hurt and asking them if they were okay. Both were fine, though Sarzen said that every bone in his body ached like he’d been beaten with a club. Misma had applied some healing magic to the two of them, because Misma apparently was good with healing magic, and now they were still on track to reach the town of Sinmo, the largest plains town that had not yet fallen to the roving bands of Draymens. Once they got there within the next three days, they would then head to the border between the Cursed Lands and Yores, which they would then pass through to reach the Cursed Lands themselves and eventually Ferro’s Pass.

  But, though that was good news to know, Helnia was thinking about what the Draymens had said before it died. It had mentioned something about the One, but Helnia was not sure what it had referenced. It could have just been saying something to scare Helnia and Sarzen, but that didn’t make any sense to her.

  Her thinking must have showed on her face, because Sarzen said, “Thinking about what that Draymens said?”

  Helnia nodded. “Yes. His last words … I didn’t understand them.”

  “I did,” said Sarzen. “Unless, of course, he was talking about something else, but I doubt it.”

  “How?” said Helnia in surprise. “He was incredibly vague.”

  “Yes, but I know what the ‘One’ is,” said Sarzen. “So, Helnia, you know the story of Yores, don’t you? How the Dragon Gods drove out the Draymens and gave this land to us?”

  “Of course,” said Helnia. “Everyone does. It’s not exactly a secret.”

  “But did you know that the Draymens have—or, I should say, had—a god of their own?” said Sarzen.

  Helnia shook her head. “No, I didn’t. I thought the Draymens were just mindless beasts that lived only to destroy.”

  “That’s not an entirely inaccurate assessment of them, but they are capable of worship,” said Sarzen. “They called their god the One of Shadow. He was said to be a cruel, bloodthirsty god that demanded unconditional and mindless support from his followers in exchange for allowing them to live in Yores. He demanded things like child sacrifice, butchery of people suspected of blasphemy, and other abominable crimes lost to history from his followers, which they always gave him in exchange for his protection and blessing.”

  Helnia felt sick just thinking about that. “That’s horrible. What happened to him? Is he still around or did he leave with his worshipers?”

  “The One of Shadow fought the Dragon Gods for control over Yores, but the Dragon Gods overcame him and killed him in battle,” said Sarzen. “They then cast his body underneath the mountains upon which Ars and the other cities are built, where he will never rise again.”

  “Do the Draymens still worship him, then?” said Helnia.

  “It seems so,” said Sarzen. “They believe he will come back someday to return Yores to them.”

  Helnia shuddered. “How do you even know about this? It’s awful to even think about.”

  “High Priest Renuk taught me about what the Draymens believed when I joined the Order,” said Sarzen. He took another swig of water and sighed. “It was part of the Yoresian history lessons I had to take. But I always thought it was just history; I never imagined I would hear a real life Draymens say what that one said to us.”

  “So that Draymens was warning us about the return of the One of Shadow,” said Helnia. She started playing with her beads again. “But that won’t happen, right? If the One has been dead for a thousand years, I doubt he will just come back to life abruptly.”

  “Of course,” said Sarzen with a snort. “The Draymens are delusional. They aren’t capable of thinking like you and me. They believe in lies because that’s what they’ve been taught to believe. It’s just a statement of faith, one that has no basis in reality whatsoever. They’re just saying it to scare us.”

  “I hope so,” said Helnia. “But I can’t shake the feeling that there might be more to it than we think.”

  “Don’t let the Draymens get into your head,” Sarzen said. “You know how deceptive they can be. If they can plant doubt and fear into your mind, then they win. You must not let their lies infect you.”

  Helnia nodded again. “You’re right. I need to stop worrying. Even dead gods don’t come back to life.”

  But despite what Helnia said, she still couldn’t calm down entirely. The Draymens were bad enough on their own; if their own god was protecting and leading them again … well, Helnia did not want to think about it.

  -

  The next three days were largely uneventful after that encounter with the Draymens. As a result, they made excellent progress, covering large distances when the sun was up and resting well at night. They established a schedule for lookouts at night, rotating among the Warrior Priests, mages, and drivers during the night in order to make sure that no Draymens bands attacked them while they slept. This was important because Draymens were known to attack at night more often than during the day, but no one in the party saw any Draymens at night. Even so, everyone kept their guard up, whether during the day or during the night, because that first Draymens attack had put everyone on guard.

  Although they did not run into any roving bands of Draymens, they did see the work of the Draymens. They came across more destroyed carts or signs of fighting between humans and Draymens. Sometimes they came upon human corpses; other times, they found dead Draymens, though there were fewer dead Draymens than dead humans. They never touched the bodies, however, and only stopped long enough for Sarzen and the other Warrior Priests to pray for the souls of the departed, though Helnia found it depressing how apparently no one had bothered to actually bury the corpses.

  Nor did they run into any survivors or refugees fleeing Draymens raiding parties. On one hand, that was good, because it might have meant that the Draymens might not have destroyed any villages recently; on the other hand, it may have been that the Draymens had instead become much more thorough in their killing of the villagers and townspeople.

  Either way, Helnia was glad when the walls of the town of Sinmo were spotted early in the morning on the third day, but didn’t allow herself to relax until the afternoon, when they reached the main gates of the town.

  Although not as large as the gates of the mountains, the gates of Sinmo were still quite big, created from wrought iron metal. They had scratches and dents along their surface, evidence of failed attacks by Draymens raiding parties, but they did not see any Draymens near the town at the moment. Instead, two guards, armed with swords and shields, stood at the gates, looking attentive and alert. They watched as the caravan
drew closer, at first raising their weapons like they thought it might be a threat, but then lowering them when they saw that the party was not made of Draymens.

  The carts came to a stop and Sarzen jumped out of his cart, showing more energy than Helnia had at the moment. But Helnia moved over to the edge of the cart anyway, peering over the side to watch as Sarzen approached the guards.

  “Hail, guards of Sinmo,” said Sarzen, holding up a hand in greeting. “I am Sarzen, an Acolyte of the Warrior Priest Order, part of the expedition sent to find the Dragon Gods. I assume you received the message from the Elect about us?”

  “Yes,” said one of the guards, nodding. “We have been expecting your arrival for a week now. We have orders from Mayor Ascarla, the mayor of the town, to bring you to his home, while your horses will be put in sheds and your supplies will be replenished.”

  “Great,” said Sarzen. “We will only be staying in Sinmo for a day, however, because we are trying to reach the Cursed Lands as quickly as we can.”

  “Understood,” said the guard. “Now allow us to open the gates and let your caravan inside. We will also take some of you to the Mayor’s home in order to meet with him and discuss the recent Draymens attacks.”

  “Recent Draymens attacks?” said Sarzen. “Has Sinmo been under attack recently?”

  “Yes,” said the guard. “More so than usual, and though we’ve been successful in fighting them off, they are getting bolder and bolder. But that is for Mayor Ascarla to tell you about, not me.”

  Helnia didn’t like hearing that the Draymens were becoming bolder. She looked to the left and to the right, but still didn’t see any Draymens anywhere. Yet she had a feeling that they were somewhere just beyond her range of vision, as if they were hiding and waiting for just the right moment to strike.

  But maybe it was just a feeling, and nothing more.

  Sarzen jumped back into their cart and the guards opened the gates, allowing the caravans to enter the town at a slow and steady pace.

  Helnia had never been to Sinmo before, so she did not know what to expect. As they entered the town, she noticed that the houses and buildings were, on average, significantly smaller and less extravagant than the houses and buildings of Ars. But that did not mean they looked rundown or terrible; on the contrary, the houses looked fairly nice, except for the ones nearest the walls, which had roofs that looked like they had been hastily patched up from attacks. Most likely, that was evidence of the Draymens attacks that the guard had mentioned.

  Helnia also saw the people of Sinmo. Most were busily going about their day, working, running errands, standing on the streets talking to each other, kids playing and laughing. Most didn’t pay much attention to the caravan as it went through the streets, though Helnia caught more than a handful of people watching them carefully, as if making sure that these travelers were not dangerous.

  Another thing that Helnia noticed was how nearly all of the men were armed. They carried old swords sheathed at their sides, or occasionally an ax hanging from their belt. Back in Ars and the other mountain cities, most people were unarmed because of the relative safety of those places, but here in the plains towns, the people usually carried weapons. But these didn’t look like swords that were just for self-defense; they looked like the kind of swords used by soldiers, which Helnia realized was most likely due to the constant Draymens attacks that Sinmo suffered. Perhaps the men of the town were all part of a militia whose job was to defend Sinmo and support the soldiers who protected it.

  Also, Helnia did not see any mages, which was a shame, but not unexpected. There weren’t many mages down in these plains towns, primarily because most of the Raugus wells on the plains were dry and it was very expensive to have Raugus energy transported from the mountain wells down here, especially because the Draymens attacks became more frequent. Still, Helnia had thought she’d see at least a few, because Sinmo was one of the few plains towns that still had its own Raugus well. She wondered if they had been killed during a Draymens attack, though they could have just as easily have been elsewhere in the town at the moment.

  As soon as they entered the town, however, they were greeted by a tall man in a leather jerkin and wearing chain mail who called himself Hols. He said that he was Mayor Ascarla’s assistant and that he would take Sarzen and a few of the others to the Mayor’s house. He also had brought along some of the Mayor’s servants, who would lead the others to the stables where the horses would be kept.

  Because Mayor Ascarla only wished to speak with a few members of the party, Sarzen could not bring everyone, so he picked Helnia, Rothel, and Misma to come with him to meet the Mayor. Thus, their cart was diverted from the others and taken down a different path to the Mayor’s house. Helnia wasn’t really in the mood to meet anyone—she was more interested in sleeping in an actual bed for the first time in three days—but she did not object to coming along with the others, mostly because she felt safer with Sarzen, Rothel, and Misma than apart from them.

  The Mayor’s house was located near the center of Sinmo, away from the walls. It looked mostly identical to the other houses, except unlike the others, it was two stories and had a fence around it, complete with a gate that was much smaller than the town gates. A beautiful flower garden had been planted in the front of the house, but Helnia was not much of an expert on flowers, so she couldn’t identify the varieties growing there, though she thought they looked pretty just the same.

  Disembarking from the cart, Helnia, Sarzen, Rothel, and Misma were led up to the front door by Hols, who was armed just like every other man in this town. He even whistled as he walked, like he was in a good mood, though Helnia didn’t understand what he was so happy about.

  Opening the door to the house, Hols entered, gesturing for the others to follow him. The four of them followed Hols into the house, closing the door behind them as they entered.

  Upon entering the house, they were greeted by Mayor Ascarla’s maid, who took them to the living room. They were supposed to stay here until Mayor Ascarla came to see them, which they were assured would be very soon.

  The living room was a medium sized room, with two sofas and a scattering of chairs here and there. The maid sat Sarzen and Helnia down on one sofa, while seating Rothel and Misma down on the other. The sofas were very soft, much softer than the wooden carts that Helnia and the others had been riding in for the last three days. In fact, they were so soft that Helnia would have slept on them if she had had the time, but then the maid returned, this time carrying a tray full of tea, which she placed on the coffee table between them. She told them they could have as much tea as they wanted, which Helnia and Misma gratefully accepted, though Sarzen and Rothel declined to take any.

  But Helnia took only one or two sips of her cup before Mayor Ascarla himself entered the room. He was a tall, gray-haired man wearing battle armor, making him look like one of the soldiers, though he looked a lot more refined than the soldiers did, probably due to his status as the Mayor of Sinmo. He also had a long gray mustache that aided in his regal appearance, with not a hair out of place.

  “Greetings, travelers from Ars,” said Mayor Ascarla. He took a seat in a chair in between the two sofas and immediately put his hands together, which seemed to be a habit of his to keep his hands in place. “My name is Ascarla Loviand and I am the Mayor of Sinmo. I have been told that you four are the travelers from Ars that the Elect sent to find the Dragon Gods.”

  “That’s right, Mayor,” said Sarzen. “I’m Sarzen, this is my sister Helnia, this is my friend Rothel, and this is Misma, who works directly for the Elect. The rest of our team is putting up the horses in the stables and replenishing our supplies for the rest of the journey south.”

  “Ah, I see,” said Mayor Ascarla. “So you are the ones who are going to find the Dragon Gods, then.”

  Helnia detected a hint of skepticism in Ascarla’s voice, though Sarzen apparently didn’t, because he said, “Yes. The old legends state that the Dragon Gods went beyond the Curs
ed Lands after our ancestors drove them away. We believe that if we can find them, they will be able to save our land from the Draymens.”

  “Yes, I am aware of the old legends,” said Ascarla, his tone somewhat snobbish. “It’s one of the first things I learned in my history classes when I was just a young child. I do wonder, though, how you managed to convince the Elect to send you on this mission, given how no one knows where the Dragon Gods are.”

  “Because finding the Dragon Gods is our best bet at defeating the Draymens once and for all,” said Sarzen. “But that’s irrelevant. The guards at the gates told us that there have been some Draymens attacks recently and that you could tell us more about them.”

  “Ah, yes,” said Ascarla. He took a sip from his own cup of tea before continuing. “Yes, in recent weeks we’ve seen more Draymens attacks than normal. Thanks to the walls protecting us, the Draymens have never been able to actually break into the town just yet, but it seems like every raiding party has been bigger than the last.”

  “We didn’t run into any raiding parties on our way here, but we were attacked by one Draymens that looked kind of like a golem,” said Sarzen.

  “Probably a Rounder,” said Ascarla in disgust.

  “A what?” said Helnia, her teacup hovering halfway between her mouth and her plate as she looked at Ascarla.

  “It’s what we call those types of Draymens,” said Ascarla. “Big, ugly rounded creatures that look like living rocks. Is that an accurate description of the one that attacked you?”

  “Yes,” said Sarzen, nodding. “We managed to kill it, but it was still difficult to do.”

  “They are annoying due to the fact that their hides are practically impenetrable by normal weapons,” said Ascarla. He shook his head. “Thankfully, most raiding parties only seem to have one or two at a time, but I shudder to think about how difficult it would be to stop an entire party of Rounders.”

  “So how many people have they killed over the last several weeks?” said Sarzen. “Has it been a lot?”