The Wastes

by Alexey Osadchuk

  The Wastes

  a novel

  by Alexey Osadchuk

  Underdog

  Book#2

  Magic Dome Books

  Underdog

  Book #2: The Wastes

  Copyright © Alexey Osadchuk 2019

  Cover Art © Valeria Osadchuk 2019

  Designer Vladimir Manyukhin

  English translation copyright © Andrew Schmitt 2019

  Published by Magic Dome Books, 2019

  All Rights Reserved

  ISBN: 978-80-7619-085-6

  This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  This book is entirely a work of fiction. Any correlation with real people or events is coincidental.

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  Table of Contents:

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 1

  “WE GOTTA GET out of here,” I said after staring for a while at the broken shield. “It isn’t safe.”

  Jay just nodded in silence. All this time she had been trying to keep no more than one step away from me, as if she was afraid I would just magically evaporate into thin air.

  Taking a final look at the blaze, I breathed another heavy sigh. Black embers, smoking partially-collapsed hearths, ash mixed with mud... ugh, this was not at all how I imagined my return to the surface.

  Gorgie ran back over to us, having been snooping around nearby.

  “Old tracks. Female. Younglings,” he told me shortly.

  “Curious...”

  “Did he find something?” she asked with hope in her voice.

  “Looks like it,” I answered. “Say, you know what’s over that way?”

  Jay looked where I pointed.

  “The Yellow Bog.”

  “So it’s a swamp...”

  “A gods-forsaken place,” Jay said with a shiver.

  “Well, Gorgie says the women and children went that way a few days ago,” I told her quizzically.

  “Wait a second!” her pale face lit up with recognition. “I remember! Ah, of course! How didn’t I think of this right away?!”

  “What are you talking about?”

  With a happy smile, she started to explain:

  “The local hunters are frequent visitors to the bog. They know all the secret trails.”

  “Do you mean to say...?” I muttered. “When the men found out about the threat, they hid their families in the swamp, and went back to the village? But why?”

  “How should I know?” she shrugged. “Obviously they weren’t expecting to all get killed. They walked up behind their houses to catch a glimpse, then you see how it turned out... And it never used to be like this. The barons have always had their quarrels, but they never much committed atrocities.”

  “So something has changed...” I answered thoughtfully.

  “We have to go to the swamp!” Jay said firmly and stopped in the middle of the road.

  I turned.

  “Why?”

  “What do you mean why?” she asked in surprise. “There are people there. My aunt is there. We have to tell them what happened to their husbands and sons! We have to help them!”

  Aw shucks... It’s started again. And just like the time with the moss, it’s too late to explain. I’ll have to take the easy way out...

  “I’m not going.”

  “And why not?!” Jay exclaimed.

  “You told me yourself that the swamp is a gods-forsaken place. Or do you know the secret trails?”

  “No,” she answered, hurt.

  “Then I would advise you to keep a healthy distance. Furthermore, I suspect the men left some nasty little surprises on their way back to town. I would have if I were in their place.”

  “But what about the women and children? They need help after all! We must...”

  She wanted to keep speaking, but I interrupted her.

  “You’re wrong about that ‘we.’ What do I have to do with this? If memory serves, I owe these people nothing. Exactly the same as they owe me. You mentioned children... Well, look over here!”

  As I said that, I spread my arms.

  “What kind of person do I look like to you? I am myself a child, you know. Somehow I don’t remember your friends and acquaintances lining up to buy me out of peonage or rushing into the caverns to help me escape!”

  Her cheeks went crimson. I meanwhile continued calmly:

  “Furthermore, even if by some miracle we can avoid all the unpleasant surprises the hunters left and find their secret trail, what makes you so sure we’ll be welcomed into their sanctuary with open arms? Do you think they want three more mouths to feed?”

  Jay looked like a blazing fire. Her lips pursed tight. Eyes squinting. Her chest positively heaving.

  “You...” she squeezed out between her teeth. “You... But you’re a mage! The Great System has bestowed a true Gift upon you! You could use it to help these people! Fighting bad guys on their behalf!”

  I flashed a crooked smile.

  “I see that you don’t understand a thing yet. But I’ll still answer, even though I don’t have to. You call it a Gift, but I had to work for it by the sweat of my brow, risking my life every step of the way. If anything — I earned it. Let me repeat! These people are no one to me! And I do not plan to fight for them, risking my life and Gorgie’s. What’s more, he is the only creature in this world I would be willing to lay down my life for.”

  “But you saved me!” she stated, raising her chin.

  “Let’s be fair — Gorgie did that,” I clarified.

  “Hrn...” the cat called out at once.

  “Without him, I could never go toe to toe with a coldune. As a matter of fact, the only thing I ever did as a mage on my own is stun a fish.”

  “And yet I’m alive!”

  “What were we supposed to do? Just sit there and watch you get eaten by a coldune?” I asked in surprise.

  “You saw that the beast was about to get me, and you jumped in. Even though you didn’t have to... What is the difference between me and those people in the swamp?”

  “Nothing,” I answered. “But this isn’t about you.”

  “Then who is it about?” she asked in surprise.

  “Our opponent,” I answered calmly. “We were sure we’d win with you.”

  On Jay’s face, I could read outrage, fury and seemingly offense.

  “Do you mean to say that if a more dangerous creature had been after me, you
wouldn’t have helped?!” she asked, dumbfounded.

  “Well, we aren’t suicidal.”

  “And you can just say that so easily?”

  “I am being honest with you,” I shrugged my shoulders. “I don’t want to offend you by lying. Should I have said something else?”

  She shook her head.

  “I don’t know, Eric.... Your truth hurts just as bad.”

  “Listen, Jay...” I started, looking around. “I’m sorry I hurt you. But I have one very good justification — you’re still alive. Do you want to die? Go ahead, it’s your right. But don’t demand that I do the same.”

  After listening carefully, she asked in a calmer voice:

  “Then what do you intend to do?”

  “What do you mean?” I asked in surprise. “My plans haven’t changed — I’m going to Orchus. I’m going to rid myself of this oath and become a free man.”

  Jay thought for a moment. After that, clearly having made up her mind, she stated in a firm voice:

  “Okay, Eric. Then this is where we part ways.”

  “But where are you gonna go?” I asked, perplexed.

  “First to the swamp,” she answered. “If I can’t find the trail, I’ll go home as I was planning from the very beginning.”

  “You don’t wanna come to Orchus with me?”

  “No,” she shook her head. “I can sense that my family needs me.”

  “There’s nothing I can do to change your mind?” I asked.

  “What about you? Nothing I can do?” she answered with a smile.

  “Heh... Gotcha.”

  She took a step forward, gave me jerky embrace and kissed me on the cheek. Then she smiled and walked over to Gorgie:

  “Take care of him.”

  Once she was ten steps away, I shouted:

  “Try not to do anything stupid!”

  Jay smiled sadly and, waving a hand, ducked into a row of yellow bushes.

  Gorgie and I were left alone again. To say I was puzzled would be to say nothing. For the last few days, she was afraid to stray more than a step from me, and today she was just up and going her own way. Although I do understand. Her beloved aunt is somewhere very close by and she’s just supposed to walk past? No. I couldn’t do that either.

  I was also confused by how fast it all happened. In the depths of my soul, I was hoping Jay would come along with us. It was more fun the three of us. And I was used to her. Then just a quick goodbye and she disappears among the leaves.

  Maybe I was too straight and to the point, too brusque? I just don’t know any other way. Beyond that, I personally would always rather hear the truth no matter what it is.

  “Hrn...” I felt the demanding touch of a wet nose against my hand.

  “Yes, yes, buddy. We’re leaving...”

  * * *

  In the middle of the day, we went up a small hill that gave us a good view of the plains.

  I approximately knew which direction to find Orchus, and that was enough for the harn. He was leading me through the forest on old animal trails, keeping us well clear of large groups of people.

  I should note that the young Baron Corwin was fulfilling his promise with zeal. These lands were just teeming with his mercenaries.

  And the extreme cruelty of the scoundrels was striking. Many times, Gorgie warned me about yet another grisly mass slaughter near our path. I even took a peek at one of them an hour ago out of curiosity.

  And I should have just walked past. It was two families inside. Based on the stoppers under the wheels of their carts, they were setting up camp in a forest clearing to spend the night. And that’s where they were caught. Using our mental connection, Gorgie helped me interpret the tracks left by the raiders.

  If I understood everything correctly, a few horsemen had also been visiting. All told, there were nine people.

  They killed the men right away. Their breathless bodies were lying under a nearby tree. By all appearances, the women survived a bit longer, much to their misfortune. I found their corpses on in the farthest cart. Their torsos were cloven from groin to chest and their ears and noses had been cut off. Their eyes had been pulled out of their sockets, too... What made them treat these poor women this way?

  I’ll remember this bloody scene for a long time. And along with it the nauseatingly sweet scent of human flesh and the buzz-buzz-buzzing of the flies feasting upon it...

  I didn’t find the bodies of the children, although Gorgie assured me there had been three “younglings.” The attackers must have taken them.

  I left the meadow with an uncanny heaviness in my heart. It was exactly the same way I felt after I watched Crum and Happy die... And I had already thought a million times that perhaps I shouldn’t have let Jay go it alone. Maybe I should have tried harder to convince her to come with me? Although, who am I to her? Not a father, not a brother. Just a fellow traveler. I sincerely hope she can find her aunt.

  I stood on top of the hill and stared at the valley below in the evening light. Just off to the left, there’s a river shimmering in the rays of the setting sun. Somewhere in the middle of the valley, the forest ends and an expansive field begins. To the right extends a craggy mountain ridge — the last bulwark of the Crooked Mountains. Not a cloud in the sky. A warm breeze ruffles my spectacularly grown-out mane. Watching over the idyll below you’d never think it, but blood is being spilled on those very lands this very instant. Lots and lots of blood...

  I estimate Orchus is still another five days’ walk. And that’s if we don’t get sidetracked. Somehow, I don’t want to think about what I’d do if the capital of our barony is already under siege. I’d have to cut more sleep time, even though Gorgie and I are already not exactly spoiled in that regard. We usually get five or six hours a night as is.

  Almost immediately I decided against spending the night on the hill — we’d be too exposed up there. We descended back into the forest.

  A few hours later, night fell. When I was already thinking about where best to set up camp, the harn informed me of a strange scent coming from the east. And a few moments later, my nostrils also picked up on it. There was a fire burning not far away...

  I gave Gorgie permission to go scout and, silent as a shadow, he slipped into the bushes.

  “Weak enemy. Prey. Female. Younglings,” he reported a few minutes later.

  “Is it the same bastards who were behind that slaughter in the clearing?” I asked in a whisper.

  “Hrn...” Gorgie said negatively.

  “New smell... I see...”

  Based on the harn’s sensations, the captives were still alive. Weighing all the pros and cons, I asked with a heavy sigh:

  “You say the enemy is weak?”

  “Hrn...”

  “Weaker than a coldune?”

  “Hrn...”

  “Lots of food? You got my attention.”

  Food would be nice! Food would be awesome! We’ll be out of fangbloom stems soon, and I don’t want to use the valuable potions unless absolutely necessary. I also have no desire to go hungry again.

  The harn had tried hunting, but wasn’t successful. He said all the big wild animals had gone deep into the forest. And all the little creatures like squirrels and birds were high in the trees. Berry and mushroom seasons were already over. Despite the warm autumn days, the forest was gradually getting ready for winter. So hearing there was a large amount of food in possession of a “weak enemy” filled me with enthusiasm.

  “I’m sold,” I nod to Gorgie. “Let’s go...”

  We reached the unknown enemy’s camp fairly quickly. Even if I had been alone in the woods, I probably still could have found it easily. The light of the fire was visible from a long way off through the dark trees.

  We crawled up as close as possible. The darkness and wide trunk of a fallen tree made good cover.

  I wonder which of these guys Gorgie considered weak? In the meadow there were three bearded fellows sitting around a fairly large bonfire. One of them is level
nine and the other two are ten.

  Not warriors, though they are armed. They look like cartmen. The three wagons on the other side of the clearing speak in favor of that theory. Every one of them is emblazoned with a black crow.

  Based on their raucous mirthful voices, all three of them had been drinking quite a lot. Hm... Pretty easy-going. Or had I just grown used to always being on guard?

  “Tim, what do you think — when will the boss come back?” one asked the red-bearded niner with a hiccup.