He had already been riding four days without stopping. His lord had given him a letter of need and it had secured him food and new horses along the way. He knew he needed to sleep. He had almost fallen off the horse twice this day. A broken back would serve no one!
Later that day, Bal’kor found the carcass of a recently killed deer. He knew he could use the rump skin for boots, the backstrap tendon to make cord and the main skin for a jacket or blanket. The antlers would make a good spear point. He hefted the carcass over his shoulder and carried it back to his shelter.
He used the knife he had gotten off the dwarf to carefully remove the skin. He removed the meat and skewered it on sticks and placed it over the fire to roast. While it was roasting, he removed the tendons from the back along the spine and on the rear legs to make sinew. After he cut off the hooves for making glue, and removed the brain to use in tanning the leather, he carried the skin down to the river and leaned it.
Bal’kor put several big rocks on the skin and went back to his camp to build a stretching rack. He would place the skin on the rack after it soaked for an hour. He was grateful that he had paid attention to the hunters and leather crafters in the Keep.
Later that evening, when the skin was dry, he removed it and rubbed in the brains, folded it into quarters and let it set to tan. He made tallow with the fat, collecting it as it dripped off the hot rocks on which he had placed the slabs of fat.
The watchman shouted out from his perch high up the mast. The isles were in sight. Craig thanked the gods.
“How long before we get to dry land,” he asked.
D’Mark rubbed his cheek, “Maybe by nightfall. If not, we will need to wait until morning. There are too many rocks to negotiate in the dark of night.”
D’Mark could see Craig’s face sour noticeably.
“Not another night of pitching and rocking?”
“I’m afraid so, lad. But that’s better than wrecking the boat on the rocks!”
Craig sighed and waited for the isle to grow large enough for him to see.
Bal’kor woke early in the morning having planned a full day of activities. He had to build a better shelter, and start preparing for winter. He had already decided to make one out of stacked rocks. His shelter would be fabricated out of stacked rocks, sticks and mud. He stepped back and looked at the tree he had decided to use as part of his shelter and scratched his head. He reasoned that it would take the better part of a few days.
He used the large rocks he had already gathered and a small hollow at the base of a large tree. First, he laid down the base outline using the largest and flattest of the boulders.
It wasn’t long before he was sweating profusely from the exertion; some of the stones were over one-hundred pounds. The tree he selected had suffered a lightning strike and was burned on one side. The soft charred wood would same him many hours of work. After he tired from moving rocks, he used his knife and spear to hollow away the burnt areas. There was much to do.
The progress was quick at first, but before long, he reached solid wood. He had only gotten about two feet into the tree. Bal’kor decided to light a small fire inside the opening and let it burn and smolder before drenching it in water from his jug. It took many trips to the stream, but eventually, he managed to carve out another two feet. This will make a fine sleeping area. When the area inside the tree was finally about six by six feet he turned his attention to the rest of the shelter.
He tossed armfuls of pine boughs into the opening after making a platform of branches. It would be best to be elevated to keep dry and insulated from the ground.
Robert spotted the castle through the thick pines and maples. The towers stretched high into the sky above the trees. From his perch, on a hill across the valley, he could just make out the inner keep. If he squinted, he could see the colors flying over the drawbridge and down either side of the portcullis.
The forest was different here than it was to the north; less pines and more broadleaf trees. The woods were thick and covered with plants and shrubs. It made it difficult to ride and he found that he made better progress by leading his horse. The castle seemed close, but that was an illusion. He knew he wouldn’t reach it before the morning and even that would require him to travel all night.
Robert stopped and made a small fire and cooked his dinner. It wasn’t much, mostly beans and a little bit of jerky for flavor, but it was warm and filled the hollow spot in his stomach. He removed his heavy cloak and set it to the side. It was noticeably warmer here than up in the mountains. He growled to himself. He didn’t like the lowlands. The air felt wrong. It was thick, wet, and it didn’t cool off at night.
Bal’kor got up very early the next day. His back was sore from all the lifting he had done building the first two rows of rocks for his new shelter. Today, he would continue working on the walls. After he ate some of the dried meat, he began by lifting the large rocks and dragging them to the structure from around the forest. Previously, he had located a small rocky cliff that was nearby with large slate like slabs of rock. These were ideal for the walls. After a full second day of stacking the walls they were almost four feet high.
He filled the holes between the rocks with clay mixed with ground up grass. The chinking was fairly common for homes made of both stone and log and he had helped Brink work on his small hut back at the Keep. Thinking of Brink made him smile and he wondered what the man was doing. Brink had always been straight up with him and treated him with respect.
Initially, he had covered the shelter with branches, but after getting soaked by a midday rain, he knew he needed to find a better way. The roof was too shallow and the branches and leaves offered little protection. As soon as the storm broke, he ripped the entire thing apart to rethink his solution. Bal’kor struggled to add another row of rocks on the walls leading to the tree, figuring that now the roof would slant away from the tree offering him better drainage and more headroom to boot!
He reused the main logs he had cut for the original roof, forming a crisscrossing pattern. A smile spread to his face and he returned to the large pond having remembered that it was surrounded by many birch trees. He carefully stripped large sections of bark off of several trees and stacked them into a bundle. Returning them to the shelter, he used his knife to cut them into smaller sheets and then tied them together in an overlapping fashion before lashing them to the roof. He used most of the sinew he had gotten off the deer and would need to find another supply.
Bal’kor stood back and admired his work. He was very proud of the roof, which should keep him mostly dry.
The storm hit with enough force to fill his hut with swirling snow. Bal’kor had known it was coming. The sky darkened menacingly and the temperature plummeted. Even before the wind blew, the flakes had started dropping, making their way through the tall pines to the forest floor below. He had used the last hours before the storm to his advantage, gathering extra dry wood and moving his supplies into his small shelter. When the storm hit, he had pulled the door he had fashioned from birch bark and sinew closed and pushed rocks against it to hold it closed.
Bal’kor shivered and worked in desperation to keep his fire lit, sheltering it from the howling wind with sheets of birch-bark and large stones. The flames sputtered and were swept to the side, often shrinking down to a few coals before bursting back to flame.
He pressed himself back against the rear wall, as deep as he could go, trying to stay out of the cold drafts that removed what little heat the fire added to the air. He pushed the pine boughs up over his legs and piled them over his legs and still his teeth chattered and his body was wracked with shivers.
The storm blew for two days before it let up. When Bal’kor peaked out the door of his shelter, the snow was stacked up well above the door. He realized that the wind hadn’t stopped howling, but that the snow had stacked up, drifting over the shelter to the point where it muffled the sound. But, today was a new day, the sun shone and the snow was melting.
Ba
l’kor was resolute in his need to modify his shelter. He knew he needed to collect pitch and mix it with needles, but what could he store it in that wouldn’t get ruined. Leaves wouldn’t work. If he could gather the material, the mixture could be stuffed into the cracks to keep the wind out. He was hesitant to make use of the only two bowls he used for food. The mountains looked menacing. The dark blue-black clouds clung to the peaks. It was going to storm again, he had better get to work.
After several of his feeble attempts at gathering pitch, all he had to show for the effort was the sticky stuff all over his hands...and clothes. What little he did gather, he mixed with needles and attempted lodging the mass into the bigger cracks. The thick gluey mess was impossible to work with and he threw up his needle-covered hands in frustration.
By midmorning, his stomach was growling. He felt a newfound sense of urgency to gather food for the long winter ahead. The meat he had dried was a good start, but it wouldn’t last long if he couldn’t replace it. He gave up on his shelter and spent the rest of the morning gathering gooseberries and wild blueberries. The berries stuck to his pitch-covered hands, making it impossible to pick enough to eat. Bal’kor was forced to cover the pitch with dirt; the clay seemed to work well.
Although the berries were now gritty, at least he could pick them. He placed them carefully in the large clay bowls he had made from the clay he found down by the stream. After he covered them with leaves, he stacked them carefully in his shelter. Although the bowls were not as stable as the ones they used in the Keep, they would have to suffice to hold the nuts and berries he would continue to gather before the last moments of fall slipped away and winter roared its ugly head.
His shelter was no more weather proof than when he had started. In desperation, he decided to sacrifice one of his small clay-bowls he had fashioned from the clay that surrounded the stream. He had placed the bowls in the fire and baked them until they were red-hot, but he wasn’t sure if they would hold the hot pitch. He hoped that the thick molasses like liquid would flow into the cracks and seal them—if it didn’t catch on fire first!
By afternoon, the sun had disappeared behind clouds and Bal’kor felt the first flakes of the next storm on his cheeks. He sighed. He needed more time. He pushed the bowl closer to the fire and prayed that it didn’t light. The pitch smelled…piney, and smoked. He grabbed the hot bowl with some scraps of leather and quickly poured the gooey contents into the cracks where he had previously stuffed the damp moss and pine-needles. He tried to use his pitch wisely, filling the cracks where it would do the most good first.
Soon, the wind was howling the storm swept down from the mountains. He knew he wouldn’t have time to finish, so he poured the contents over the top edge, hoping it would keep the water from dripping into his shelter.
He pulled his cloak tight and finished as best he could. The wet snow clung to his cloak and he felt the water drip down his neck from his hat. If he stayed out much longer, he would be soaked. He stuffed some dried branches into his shelter from under the skin of the beast where he had stacked them to dry.
Bal’kor crawled into his shelter, shivered and pulled the door shut.
Dreams
Men’ak opened his eyes in the land of dreams. His small island of green was the same as it always was, surrounded by the gray fog. He had made the island as large as he was able, but still, it only extended ten paces in any one direction. If he walked, he could bring it with him, or he could wander to the edge and make it grow. When it grew, the area behind him would shrink. No matter what he tried, he could not make it bigger. It was one of the many frustrations about this place that kept him busy for countless hours.
Lana appeared. She was always the same. Dressed in her country dress made of light-blue fabric with a bow at her waist.
He never heard her coming, and never saw her leave.
“You need to go,” she said, obviously irritated.
Men’ak looked at her, a bit puzzled. “What do you mean?”
“I mean, you need to go. Time is running short and you need to figure out how the dreamland works.”
“By figure out, you mean how to move?”
“Yes, but you also need to find other dreams. Only by finding the dreams of people you know will you be able to master your power.”
“I have tired,” he sadly said. “I’m afraid I am not much of a Dream Walker.
“You do not try hard enough,” she answered bitterly.
Men’ak grew irritated. “Why can’t you teach me?”
“It is not allowed,” she said, “as I have told you every time you have asked!”
Men’ak frowned. It was always the same answer. Whenever he asked her to show him how to do something, she replied it was not allowed. He didn’t understand the answer. As far as he could tell, there was only him and her, although she alluded to their being a great evil that lurked in the dream world.
“Your friends need you,” she said. “If you do not help them, the battle cannot be won.”
Men’ak’s eyes widened. This was the first time she had ever mentioned his friends.
“What do you know of my friends,” he asked.
She shrugged and crossed her arms. “Little, only what you have told me. But I know that they need you and I know that evil has returned.”
Men’ak watched her. “What kind of evil…the darkness?”
“No, worse than the darkness. This evil is the kind that destroys everything,” she answered cryptically. “It grows stronger. Soon, it will be too strong for us to stop.”
“Us?” he said, raising a brow.
She nodded and winked out of existence.
Men’ak blinked and stared at the space she had occupied. He saw a small black dot. He had never seen anything like it before. He stood up and walked to it and circled it twice. It looked like a hole. It was so tiny, if he had not been staring at her, he would not have seen it. He bent over and looked at it.
Men’ak swung his hand to swat at it. When his hand hit the dot, the entire dreamland warped and swirled. He was caught in a giant whirlpool. Seconds later he was dropped into the gray.
It took Men’ak a bit to become reoriented. This place was not his place. This was a different place. He felt frightened. He willed his little island to appear…and it did, but it was different. The trees were different, the grass was different and even the smell of the place was different. This place was filled with tall pines and smelled damp.
Men’ak looked around at his new surroundings. The first thing he noticed was that there were several small dots, just like the one he had tried to grab, floating in the air. He wondered why he had not noticed them before. He walked through one of the dots, on purpose, and nothing happened. He turned and the dots remained, fixed in space.
Men’ak rubbed his chin, held out a hand and grabbed the dot. The horizon immediately bent and swirled and he was set down in a new location. This place was not his either. He was near the water, he could hear it, but could not see it. The ground was sandy and filled with pebbles.
He reached for another dot and moved again.
After several moves, he grew tired of the game. What could be the point of randomly moving from location to location. Now that he knew what to look for, he saw hundreds of dots, but they all looked the same.
He turned around and saw Lana standing there with a smile on her face. “You moved! You figured it out!”
Men’ak nodded. “But it seems pointless, they all look the same and there are more than I could ever visit.”
“They are not the same,” she said, and she winked out of existence.
“I hate it when she does that,” he swore under his breath.
Men’ak looked at the nearest black speck. As he was looking at it, his hand brushed up against one of the dots and his head was filled with visions. It startled him, causing him to move and lose touch.
Men’ak’s heart pounded as he held out the back of his hand and nudged one of the specks. His vision swirled
and he found himself looking into another place. He moved his hand away from the speck and the vision cleared. So, he could preview places! It was a start.
Lana had said that the dots were all different, but as far as he could tell, they all looked the same. It occurred to him that maybe the dots were magic somehow. He had always assumed that this whole place was magic, but maybe his assumptions were wrong. He wondered if it were possible that the places were real, and that this was only the way you got to them and what you actually saw in them was magic. If that were the case, maybe he could use his magic sight to see them.
Men’ak concentrated on looking at the dot. He knew that he wasn’t as good at seeing the magic as Dra’kor, but he concentrated just the same.
The dot exploded in swirls of color.
A smile spread across Men’ak’s face. He kept his magic sight and looked from dot to dot. Each was different, just as Lana had said. He walked around the small area that looked like the beach and studied the dots. He noticed that there were small clusters of color that were not coming from the dots themselves, but seemed to be circling the dots. He bent to examine them, wondering why.
He remembered something Dra’kor had said about the weaves, that you could use your sight to untangle them and touch them. He wondered if that trick might work here.
Men’ak tried to touch one of the bright lights with his sight and was thrown into a vision of a young man seducing a young farm girl in the loft of a barn. Men’ak was so startled, he forgot to concentrate and returned to the beach.
He grinned and tried to touch another speck. This showed him a vision of a mother holding her baby daughter. The next was a vision of a horrific battle with indescribable monsters. It chilled his spine. Men’ak knew what these were…they were dreams. He had found the dreams.
The Legacy of the Ten: Book 03 - Darkhalla Page 48