Shadows

by Michael Duncan

  The brigade continued up the path. Aaron kept close to the mountain’s face as they navigated the icy precipice. The day had passed swiftly and, with the setting sun, a slight breeze began to blow. The cold, biting air chilled Aaron to the bone.

  Higher and higher they walked; snow swirled around them. Through the many canyons, the blowing wind howled and sent frightful reminders of the call of the horros. It wasn’t long, however, before Kaurn again halted the group and ordered two others to his side. Aaron didn’t hear what was discussed, but after a quick word from the commander, he heard the two dwarf warriors run up the mountain pass until the sound of their steps disappeared.

  The commander returned to Aaron and Rayn. “We will wait until our scouts return. When they do, we will enter the realm of Brekken-Dahl.”

  “Oh, and then what?” Rayn no longer held his peace. “Another long weary march, another fight for our lives against monsters unheard of, is that what we can expect in this realm of yours?”

  “Private!” Aaron snapped. “Hold your tongue.”

  “It’s all right,” Kaurn returned. “You both have been pressed beyond your endurance, and I am surprised you didn’t break under the strain. There are few who are as hearty as a dwarf!” He exhaled a boisterous laugh. “As for what will come… when we enter the presence of Lord Dunstan you will give account of yourself, and I will tell him of your courage as you fought the horros with us.” The commander paused as he thought. “Perhaps he will show you leniency.” Kaurn walked away and left Aaron and Rayn to blindly listen as the wind continued its relentless howl through the mountains.

  When the scouts returned, Aaron heard the others begin to stir and felt that it was good news which the scouts brought back. Once again he and Rayn were led to stand and follow their guides. The path pressed higher up the mountain, but the steep climb gave way to a gentler slope.

  They rounded a corner, and Aaron felt the gentle breath of warm air against his face. Grateful for the touch of warmth, he tried to surmise what it meant. They walked into this warm draft, a welcome sensation, but he wondered where it came from. The stone upon which they walked seemed to echo, hollow and dull, but an echo nonetheless. The voices of their captors echoed as well, as if they stood in a hollow tube—or tunnel. He jumped when a tremulous grating sound of stone on stone silenced all other voices. The rumble ended with a heavy, dull thud.

  Kaurn removed their blindfolds, and Aaron’s eyes were pierced with a brilliant, white light that emanated from crystalline formations. They stood in a tunnel, long and wide. Aaron marveled at the workmanship of the passage, with walls made to resemble smooth, dressed stone and a level, cobbled floor. The tunnel continued ahead of them for hundreds of yards and passed beyond eyesight. It was illuminated with brilliant crystal-like stones, imbedded in the wall every fifty feet, which gave off a radiant white light.

  The stout Kaurn approached, still limping from his encounter with the horros. Proud and unassailable, like a living representation of the mighty statues that Aaron had witnessed in his vision. “Welcome,” he said, “to the realm of Brekken-Dahl!”

  Shadows: Book of Aleth Part One

  8

  Through the Shadow Mountains

  Lorik looked out over the wide torrent as it coursed through the channel and knew that the bridge was hidden somewhere under the surface. The river poured down the ravine in massive white-capped rapids and cascaded over the rocks as it rushed along. A heavy mist drifted through the air, churned up from the turbulent wash, to cover the landscape with a thick layer of frost.

  Across the river, mountains ascended in sharp spires with a narrow ledge that wound through the rugged terrain. The pass disappeared into the heights. Lorik searched for a mechanism to trigger the unseen causeway. He paced up and down the bank of the river but found no means of raising the bridge.

  “I don’t even know what I’m looking for!” He shouted his exasperation. Lorik stared at the massive trees that stood near the river with the thought that he might fall one over the rapids. But there stood no tree tall enough to cross the expanse, and he had no means to cut one down. In frustration, he returned up the hill to the place where he had left his horse. Lorik guided the animal down near the edge of the river and then started building a small campsite.

  He refused to quit, but he had to be ready for the cold night that approached. The mist off the river shrouded the world in a frosty-white coat, and Lorik was now very thankful to have brought his own firewood. He set his lean-to on the southwest edge of a small clearing near the river, but near enough to the trees to gain their added protection from the wind. Lorik piled his dry wood at the front of his small tent and struck his flint. A spark dashed off the stone and ignited the wood.

  Confident the fire was of sufficient strength to keep burning, Lorik left his campsite to gather more fuel. He did not look forward to the prospect of a long, cold night. He added the extra fuel and the blaze intensified—a welcome companion in the frigid conditions. However, Lorik still needed to discover the secret of crossing the river. Night slowly encroached upon the world as the sun touched the tips of the Shadow Mountains, but he determined to use every possible moment to investigate.

  He remembered several of the diminutive men had wandered away from the river. Lorik hoped their tracks might lead him to the secret of the bridge. With little time, he hoisted his cloak around his shoulders and began to scour the area.

  Lorik scratched at the heavy, thick whiskers which covered his face. Methodically he looked about the clearing and examined the frozen terrain with great care as he searched for footprints in the snow. It had crusted over with a thin layer of ice which crunched under his feet and left his mark upon the environment. The smallish men he had seen also left impressions in the snowpack as they meandered all about the glade. Two sets of prints, however, wandered away from the river to the east, away from the main party.

  Lorik moved all about the small field and, like a dog on a hunt, searched for any evidence to release the bridge. He stooped low on occasion to peer close to the ground, and then stood again to scan the panorama of his surroundings. Slow and systematic, Lorik explored every possible indent and depression in the cold, icy surface.

  He arrived at the eastern edge of the glen and found two sets of prints. With a sigh of hope, despite the failing light, Lorik followed the tracks away from the river.

  The prints ventured into a heavily wooded area about two hundred yards from where he had seen the bridge rise from the water. He was several hundred yards away from his campsite and looked back to see his fire, bright in the final glow of dusk. The prints stopped near a large grey boulder. It was massive, almost eight feet in height, with a circumference large enough to hold at least thirty men. Lorik had no notion why the tracks he followed led him to the massive rock, but somehow he knew the stone was linked to the causeway hidden beneath the river. However, the day had grown too dark to examine the stone with any thoroughness, so he returned to his campsite to await the dawn.

  With little to do but wait, the sergeant sat near the fire and huddled under his makeshift shelter, facing the warmth of the flames. His shoulders sagged under the weight of his circumstances. Night had fallen on the world as he brooded over his meager meal. He thought of the men of the Royal Guard who were now no more than memories and mourned their loss in the cold, quiet darkness. The solitude left little for him to do but wait for the break of dawn.

  Lorik was a man of action and to brood in the night grated against his sense of responsibility. Lost in the haze of his murky thoughts, the sergeant rose to care for his horse. She was warm with plenty of dry, cold grass to eat. He brushed her mane and groomed the mare with careful skill. A trained and disciplined military mount, the horse shivered in the cold, yet stood still as her master provided the necessary care. Again Lorik’s thoughts drifted to the events of the past several days. He wondered if, somehow, he might have prevented the tragedies and stopped the brutal course that he and his men had follo
wed.

  Though the night was young, Lorik felt the weariness of the day overwhelm his strength. Get an early start, he thought, and I’ll find a way to cross that river. Wrapped in his cloak, and with his head shrouded by blankets, the sergeant took one large yawn, and closed his eyes.

  ****

  Lorik woke with a start. Something moved in the trees beyond his sight, or so he thought. White, cloud-like mist drifted in currents through the trees. The fog which flooded the forest in the night was thicker still, and prevented Lorik from seeing more than ten feet beyond his camp. His fire was out, but it was clear that the morning had dawned and the sun had crested the horizon. He hunkered down in his shelter; reached for his sword which lay beside him and quietly unsheathed the weapon, waiting for the mysterious traveler to appear from the mist.

  A twig snapped and again Lorik heard the sound of some unseen creature approach, closer now and to his right. His muscles tensed in the cold, and every one of his senses came alive, heightened by the anxiety of the moment. He smelled the burned remains of his campfire, heard the gentle breath of his horse and felt the cold steel in his grip. In front of him, across from where the fire had dwindled to embers, his horse stood unaffected by the approaching mystery. Beyond his sight the river raged on, the noise of its passage dulled in his ears by constant exposure. He tuned it out, and fixed his concentration on the anonymous visitor.

  Snap! Snap!

  Nearer now, he noticed a vague shadow, large and ominous, wandering through the trees to his right. It approached with such casual motion that Lorik became convinced the creature was unaware of his presence. The fog was his advantage as he watched the shadow move toward him. He gripped his sword in his right hand, ready to strike. The strange visitor moved slowly as it approached. Then it came out of the hazy fog into view and looked directly at the sergeant. A deer! Large brown eyes gazed at the place where Lorik crouched on the ground. By its appearance, it was a young buck, with two small spikes protruding from the top of its head and a thick brown coat of hair grown for the winter. Lorik exhaled a sigh of relief and his horse whinnied in recognition of a fellow creature. The sergeant stood from the place where he lay and the deer bolted out of sight to disappear in the fog.

  “I’m getting too old for this,” he spoke to the less than congenial fog that hung in the trees. Lorik gathered his gear, stirred the small embers that remained of his fire and coaxed a flame from the ashes. He threw some dry brush and sticks on it and it grew into a friendly, warm blaze that he used to heat some water and cook a small breakfast. As his meal cooked, he ate some dried bread and cheese and began to make his way back to the boulder that he’d discovered the night before.

  The sun climbed in patient motion and burned away the layers of mist that blanketed the valley. He found the rock in a thick cluster of alder trees, a bulwark of stone in stark contrast to its surroundings. He saw his own footprints from the previous day and the smaller prints of the two others were evident along the frozen ground. The two sets of prints meandered all around the granite boulder.

  The stone itself was nondescript and showed no clear marks. To Lorik, it was an ordinary boulder, misplaced in the copse of trees. His instincts, however, told him that the stone was more. It possessed a smooth surface, worn down with countless years of weather and showed not one jagged edge on its exterior. No crack existed on its surface, not one fissure, which Lorik noted as unusual. In fact, it seemed to Lorik that such a stone was out of place.

  With that thought, he forgot about the breakfast that waited for him on the campfire and continued to examine the boulder for evidence or clues to help him discover the secrets of the bridge. Somehow, he thought, this stone is the key. He stroked his growing beard and wrapped himself tighter in his wool cloak, grateful for the protection it provided. He had no time for delay and feared that his captain was in great distress.

  His initial examination of the stone gave him no clue how it related to the bridge. But, as he thought about the size of the captain’s abductors, he began to examine the lower portions of the boulder. Nearer the ground, he observed a rounded indentation worn smooth, about the size of a large thumbprint. Near this, he began to examine the ground below the indentation and discovered an unusual patch of earth. Disguised to look like the ground, a small, square access door sat just beneath the indentation on the rock.

  Lorik pried the small door open and, just six inches below the ground, was a set of three circular stone dials. Each dial seemed to be made of a hard, black marble stone, smooth and solid. They were inlaid with ten white symbols on each, thirty in all, and devised some form of combination sequence. He’d found the secret to the bridge. A small notch was carved into the stone faceplate to indicate the particular selection that each dial rested on.

  Lorik scrutinized each of the dials. Some of the symbols seemed to represent forms of nature. The first three he identified: a mountain, river and tree. The next two were rather vague, a set of three wavy lines and a symbol that looked like a leaf of clover. Three more symbols he easily recognized: a sword, an axe, and a bow. The final two symbols didn’t make any sense to Lorik, three circles interwoven and a triangle with a vertical and horizontal line that crossed each in the middle. He looked at the three dials and sighed in exasperation. Lorik knew that it might take days to stumble onto the right combination.

  He stroked his beard and stood to stretch his legs; the cold morning and icy ground chilled him to the bone. He walked around the boulder and tried to keep himself warm as he thought through the variety of combinations the dials represented. In the distance the river rushed on, the one barrier that prevented him from reaching the captain. The thunderous rumble of the rapids mocked his efforts.

  Casually he strode, his gaze always returning to the wide torrent that blocked his way and the sheer granite cliffs of the mountains beyond. The dial symbols rolled through his mind as he attempted to decipher their secret, desperate to find his way across. He decided the symbols were grouped into three categories: nature, weapons, and then the two which were unknown to him. If each dial fell into one category, he thought, that narrows the choices.

  Lorik found himself at the place where he had seen the viaduct rise from the water. Again he looked over the area and hoped to find a sign or symbol to help him unravel the mystery. The river’s edge kept its secrets. As he wandered, he followed his own tracks back to the large rock. He tried to put himself into the mentality of those who crossed the river, but to no avail. He had no knowledge about the strange, diminutive men and, try as he might, the mystery of the bridge eluded him.

  Overhead, the sun climbed high in the sky and shone bright and warm. Trickles of melted snow flowed into the river, and Lorik appreciated the less-than-freezing air. He welcomed the brief warmth that fell upon his face, chapped from exposure to the cold and snow. Back at the boulder, he knelt at the hidden dials and decided to use the distinctions of the different categories as a guide. Lorik manipulated the dials into various combinations. The minutes passed as he tried different arrangements: river, sword, circle… no change; mountain, bow, triangle… still nothing. After an hour, he sat back in frustration. In the distance, his horse nuzzled her nose into the snow to get at the cold grass beneath. He heaved a sigh, irritated by the secrecy of the men who’d led his captain away.

  “One more try.” Lorik spoke as he leaned over the uncovered hole. He manipulated the dials, organizing them into various combinations, desperate to find the pattern that unlocked the secret bridge. The morning had long trailed away into late afternoon and the sun started its slow descent toward the Shadow Mountains. He was again about to surrender to the mystery of the dials when his last try issued forth a sound from within the boulder… click. He stopped, looked around to see what happened and checked to see if, perhaps the bridge began to rise out of the water—nothing.

  Then Lorik examined the boulder again. He pressed upon the small indentation near the base of the stone and found that the rock moved. Lorik pushed
on it and the rock opened to his left, revealing a hollow interior. Inside was an iron handle attached to a well-oiled set of gears.

  The gears of smooth, polished agate, round and large, filled the cavity inside the boulder. He applied pressure to the handle which protruded from off-center of the vertical gear and found that, with some exertion, the device turned. It moved slowly and gave great resistance at first to his efforts, but he continued to turn the wheel. Undaunted, he pushed harder and the gears began to move more freely. He watched toward the river and, with each turn, the river began to change its shape, rushing over a stone partition that rose out of the torrent.

  “The bridge!” Lorik shouted with delight. He redoubled his efforts and kept his eyes on the rising structure. Like a monolith, the rough stone conduit emerged from the flood to become a safe passage over the violence of the powerful waterway. Aaron was almost a day ahead of him, but Lorik felt hope restored with each turn of the crank. He continued to move the handle with all his might, and the bridge lifted. His mind failed to comprehend how such a conduit was manipulated by a device over two hundred yards away. Lorik dismissed the mystery, simply glad to have found the means to cross the river and pursue his captain.

  The bridge at last had risen above the level of the river, forcing the water to flow through massive holes beneath the causeway. The water roared as it rushed under the bridge. Lorik moved quickly as he hoisted his cloak higher on his shoulders and ran back to his horse. His excitement was tempered by the realization that he faced the rugged, demanding environment alone. Lorik slowed and gathered several sticks of wood and bundled them together with his gear. He filled his leather flask with water from the river, cold and clear. Then, with a deep breath, he mounted his horse, patted her on the neck, and rode across the bridge into the mountains beyond.