A Ritual of Bone

by Lee C Conley

  Soon all was packed and ready. The apprentice bade his colleagues farewell, it would be another moon perhaps more before he saw them again. Master Eldrick gave him his final instructions then made his way back to the work that had so pre-occupied him of late. Master Logan and his apprentice, Truda, helped him into the cart. ‘Good luck, see you back at the College I suppose,’ said Truda quietly. ‘I shall miss you now I have to do all the work,’ she said with a smile before jumping down. The apprentice held her gaze for a moment, and then Logan climbed up beside him and took the reins. The great hound bound up into the back of the cart, clambering all over the apprentice as he made his way to curl up behind his master. Logan grinned at his beast’s capering and with a sharp word the horse started forward, pulling the cart back down along the rocky track.

  ‘You OK there, lad?’ asked Logan.

  No reply. Master Logan turned to look at the apprentice. He was staring off into the ruins, whether he saw them or not Logan could not say. Logan noticed the apprentice looked very weary. Locks of his hair seemed to be grey in places, and he had deep lines in his face around his eyes, it made him look older.

  Just as Logan turned back the apprentice answered, ‘I’m ok master.’

  Logan did not believe him but laughed. ‘Bit late there.’

  The apprentice replied, ‘I am glad we are leaving this place master, I can’t stand them watching me any longer.’ Logan eyed him strangely.

  ‘Well I’m not leaving yet, Eldrick wants to stay a while yet and Truda seems very keen on Eldrick’s healing lore so I will also stay a while. Keep an eye on them, and let the girl learn what she can from your master.’

  ‘He is very wise,’ said the apprentice absently.

  Logan eyed him again and continued, ‘I have other studies to continue, anyway. Many minor delvings I can busy myself with, there is much still there to uncover and study. Many large mounds, perhaps I may find one of an ancient king or chieftain. Yes, much to stay for…to my peril,’ he said with a grin.

  The apprentice returned the grin, he seemed slightly more himself. ‘But master, does that mean I will journey back with the cart alone?’

  Logan laughed again, ‘No, lad, that hired sword you saw earlier will take you and watch over the cart and your good self.’

  The apprentice did not reply. He did not want to seem afraid of the man in front of a master, but he did not want to spend long nights alone with such a man as his only companion. At least he would be safe on the road the apprentice supposed. The hired swords in the service of the College would not get paid until their task was done. Not often to the liking or usual ways of the mercenaries that wander the realms. But the pay was just good enough to tempt in many men and it was a position that also often worked out for the College if they did not return.

  The cart rolled along the grassy track slowly winding down the great tree covered hillside. They appeared to be clear of the ruins. On either side he saw nothing but trees fading off into the gloom of the forest. After a while the trees became larger and sparser in places and eventually opened out into clearings full of grasses and heathers, some littered with rocky outcrops.

  In places, through the gaps in the trees, the valley below could be seen. They were on the slope of a great valley between high snow-covered peaks which dominated the skyline above them. There were many huge rocks and crags as the track picked its way down through the stony grottos.

  Upon one of the rocks alongside the track, the grim man sat waiting for them. Logan hailed him as they drew closer. He called the horse to stop and the mare obediently brought the cart to a halt. Logan got down and again the man greeted him with a nod. As they talked, the apprentice suddenly became aware of several others standing up amongst the rocks above. They stood silent, staring down at him amongst the grey stones. Some bore long spears others had bows or a hilted sheath hung at their side. These men were their grim protectors, watching over the pass to the ruin.

  The hired swords in service to the College were mostly unsworn warriors of Arnar or men previously of the city guard but they also sometimes attracted other fighting men, city thugs and cut throats. The apprentice had often tried to mask it in their presence, but he was afraid of them.

  He had no love for violence and had avoided the path of the old warrior ways followed by many in the realms of man. He was never a warrior but a man of books and writing, a man who valued knowledge over valour. The apprentice knew many secrets that these men could not dare fathom but still the fighting men he encountered always seemed to look upon him as weak and still he feared them.

  Logan approached and turning to apprentice he said, ‘I bid you farewell. Bronas here will take you back to the town of Eymsford. Speak to the College brother there, give him this.’ Logan handed him a folded parchment sealed with wax bearing the College mark. ‘He will get you further passage back to the College.’

  Logan then went to the back of the cart, unloaded a barrel, and rolled it over to rest upon a big stone nearby. The great hound clambered over to sit beside the apprentice wagging its great tail. The apprentice scratched its great grey head between the ears and the hound licked at the apprentice’s face, covering him in slimy slobber. The apprentice wiped his face and groaned.

  Logan laughed. He whistled sharply and called the hound over. The great hound leapt down and ran to his master wagging its great grey tail, and then sat at his side.

  The grim hired sword climbed up onto the cart and with a silent nod to the apprentice took the reins. The apprentice could see one of the men rolling the barrel away as the grim silent man flapped at the reins and the cart started forward.

  As the cart rolled past Logan, the master called out, ‘Good luck and safe travels, lad. Look after those cases and try to rest that leg.’ The apprentice turned to wave him a salute of farewell and watched as Logan made his way back up the track towards the ruin, as ever followed by the great shaggy hound.

  The terrain further down the track was rough and steep. The apprentice looked around at the great valleys and crags they were descending into. Above, the skyline was dominated by the other great peaks of the highlands. The sun was coming down behind the high ridges above them, the day was getting late it would be dark soon.

  The track wove its way along ridges and down the shallower slopes and passes. They appeared from the trees onto the rolling moors of heather and rock that were the foot hills of the great range of peaks men called The Spine of the World. The apprentice looked back to where they had come from. The cart was at the foot of a great tree covered slope that led up into high rocky peaks. The ruins lay hidden halfway up, nestled on a small plateau. No sign of either ruin or flat ground showed on the high slopes of the highland valley they had descending from, it was tucked from view, hidden out of sight. It would have been almost impossible to have stumbled onto if they did not know already of its existence from Logan’s local tales.

  The cart rolled to a stop by a pile of large granite stones by the track not far from the last of the trees. ‘We make camp here,’ said the grim man named Bronas.

  The apprentice sat and watched the darkening sky over the hills, such a magnificent view. He was glad to be away from that cold haunted place. Other than when necessary the hired sword did not speak to him and neither did the apprentice try. The apprentice made a bed on the cart, but he could not sleep. He just lay there for long hours watching the clouds and the stars, thinking of his long painful journey back to the College. He could not wait to sleep in a real bed back in the safety of a town. He looked for some twinkling of fire from his colleagues or the hired swords further back up the track but nothing. They seemed to be alone for miles around although they had probably not yet travelled a full league since leaving the ruin.

  Then he felt it again. He was being watched. A shiver ran over his skin and a cold seemed to wrap itself around him. He clutched at the idol hung at his neck. But still that watching menace haunted him. The apprentice wondered how long it would be before he could
rest easy once more. After a while the feeling passed, and he drifted off into an uneasy sleep.

  He awoke in the night suddenly and looked around. The fire had burned low, and he could see his silent companion asleep on the ground not far from the fire. The night was dark, no moon rose in the sky. Tonight was the black moon.

  His leg throbbed with a dull pain. Why could he not stop his hands shaking also? He could hear a bell ringing in the distance. The bell chimed steadily. The apprentice was drifting back into sleep. Was it a dream? For how long it had been ringing he did not know. Had it woken him? It must have been a dream.

  He remembered the deep tolling of a great bell ringing out from high up in the distant hills. The bell echoed down through the valleys and across the shadowy moors, ringing out slow and steady for some time, until suddenly it fell silent.

  CHAPTER Eight

  The Watch Post

  ‘There it is again. Do you hear?’

  The wind whistled through the rocky bluffs making the crackling torches fight to stay aflame. Again, a faint toll of a great bell could be heard rolling through the hills on the winds.

  ‘Aye, lad, I do.’ The old guardsman stood looking out into the night. He turned to his young companion with whom he shared this watch, ‘Go get Arnulf.’

  The young guard hurried along the walkway of the wooden palisade. The weathered old guardsman watched him go. The lad was no soldier, just some boy from the town, barely a man. Sworn to serve his lord and take his turn in the guard before returning to the fields until called upon again. It was the old way. Every man of Arnar earned his honour and defended his lord’s lands if called upon. The old guardsman turned back to the night shrouded lands below. Again, the bell tolled.

  The watch post perched high on a wind blasted outcrop of the mountain side. The mountain itself was the last great easterly peak in the northern range of Arnar. In the daylight, a snowy summit could be seen towering above them and to the east, the mountain side fell away sharply as tall grey cliffs overlooking the border lands below.

  The mighty mountain range, known as The Spine of the World, stretched down hundreds of leagues from the snow blasted wastes of the far unknown north, stretching vast distances to reach the borders of Cydor and Arnar. Great walls of stone made a natural western border of war torn Cydor, before The Spine then ran across Arnar’s north eastern territories to the oceans. The mountain range separated these lands from the rest of the realm of Arnar which created a region known as the Borders. The border for which it is named is with that of the ancient realm of Cydor, now in an ever-uneasy peace with Arnar. The region had long between disputed by these two great realms and was watched over vigilantly by the warriors of Arnar as a terrible civil war raged across the border.

  The old guardsmen pulled his cloak tight around him to hold off the biting wind. The nights were growing colder, there was frost growing in his beard. The bell chimed again faintly on the wind followed by the sound of approaching footsteps. ‘What is it Hagen?’ His lord stood next to him wrapped in furs.

  ‘Listen, m’lord,’ said Hagen. The two of them stood at the palisade staring off into the gloom. Arnulf could hear nothing but the howling wind and the crackling of torches.

  Hearing nothing, he turned to speak, then it rang again. He paused, trying to place the direction of the sound.

  ‘Aye I hear it Hagen, a warning bell?’

  The old guardsman continued his report, ‘Aye, m’lord, that’s what I feared. It rings from the west, from the high passes.’

  ‘From the west? How can that be?’ replied Arnulf.

  ‘I have heard no horns or drums, seen no burning, m’lord. The lands below are still,’ added Hagen.

  ‘Yet a warning bell rings out for aid? A bad omen,’ Arnulf muttered to himself.

  There was a silence as Arnulf decided what to do. It rang again. ‘There are several small farms and homesteads that could be ringing the bell, m’lord, but I’ve never heard of anyone round here with a bell? And I’ve never heard of anybody living up in the passes either, they say the lands up there are too hard, m’lord. And there are the old legends…’

  Arnulf heard it again, the bell tolled in the distance. Arnulf had made up his mind, ‘Hagen, take a few men and scout out the high passes to the west, find that bell, and find whoever is ringing it.’

  Hagen nodded and the old guardsman turned to go wake his chosen men. Arnulf placed a hand on the guardsman’s shoulder as he made to leave.

  ‘If you find trouble you must return swiftly or sound a horn. If there’s trouble in the passes we must raise the alarm and ride forth to defend Arnar.’

  Hagen nodded again and without another word he made his way along the palisade walkway. The bell rang again and Arnulf looked up off towards the dark mass of the night covered mountain looming to the west.

  Arnulf stood a while looking out from the palisade, listening for another faint chime of the distant bell as the wind whistled about him. The watch post was high above the night shrouded borderlands below. In daylight the guardsmen of Arnar could see a great distance across the lands below, ever vigilant against an old threat from Cydor.

  There had not been open war between Arnar and its mother realm, Cydor, for hundreds of years now, yet the tradition of keeping the watch posts along the border manned had endured. The need was even more so in recent years, since the outbreak of the great civil war, those lands were no longer safe. Bands of marauding outlaws roamed free, while the great lords clashed with their king in a war that has now raged long years and had ravaged the ancient and once fair realm of Cydor.

  The bell once again tolled, echoing along the valleys.

  ‘Definitely west,’ muttered Arnulf.

  He doubted the possibility a warband had made its way across the border and somehow found a way up into the high passes, it was unheard of. The cliffs ran sheer for hundreds of leagues and other than minor raids, no attack had come from Cydor since the wars of forging, but he could not risk it. It was his duty.

  He glanced down into the watch post. It was a small huddle of low round stone and wooden buildings, each with conical thatched or turfed roofs, where perhaps twenty men lived while they stood guard.

  The lord of each village and town around the borders takes his turn to stand guard at the watch post every year. Arnulf had his lands and the people who lived there were sworn to him, it was now his time to keep the watch manned.

  He had maybe twenty good fighting men, but they watched the hall and the town down in the lowlands, there were only ever five at most up at the watch post. The other men were guardsmen from the town and surrounding villages, farm lads mostly who take a watch in turn as part of the oaths to their lords.

  In times of war, the great lords summoned all their nobles and each brought his fighting men to their banners. In times of peace, the men of Arnar were farmers and fishermen but, still, the warrior ways were never forgotten.

  The bell rang again. Arnulf looked out but could see nothing in the dark night but the inviting flicker of the fires through doors of the watch post’s round buildings below. Other doors were quiet and dark, the men asleep. Only the sentries on watch were to be seen, slowly walking along the palisade or standing by the braziers, trying to keep warm.

  The wind picked up and made the banners of the watch post below flap wildly. The great banner of Arnar flapped beside his own. He looked at the sigil illuminated on his banner by the flickering torch light, a crimson axe. The axe and spear had been the preferred weapons of Arnar since ancient times. The people of Arnar learn from a young age to use them alongside a shield. This way was favoured by most of Arnar’s warriors. Few men owned a sword, fewer still the great swords. The sword was a symbol of wealth and power, although many still preferred the ancient honoured great axes of their fathers.

  The great axe had been the ancient sigil of the Cydor kings for many centuries, since before histories began, before Arnar was forged. Arnulf had an old great axe himself, inlaid with bronze it
was said to be passed down from the days of Arn. And so, like the ancient kings across the border, he took it as his banner sigil also.

  His thoughts turned to the old days. He remembered seeing that banner flying alongside the hundreds of others when the armies of Arnar retook Aeginhall, many years ago, far to the west on the coast. He was young then, and Hagen was there. The old warrior must have been around the same age as himself now.

  After a short while, a small group of guardsmen had gathered in the compound below. Arnulf watched as the men mounted their horses and prepared to ride out.

  Soon, the party of three horsemen rode out from the watch post. There was no gate–this was no defensive position–just a gap in the embankment that circled the watch post. The low embankment topped by a wooden palisade was the only defence.

  The men rode with their round shields slung at their backs, and they carried long spears at their sides. One by one, Arnulf watched them depart from his vantage point on top of the palisade. They were good men, all three his own, local fighting men and warriors sworn to his service. Arnulf remembered when Hagen had served his father, and he was just a young lad. Hagen was old now, his hair and beard more than touched with grey, but Arnulf would still rather have him beside him in the shield wall than many. The three horsemen rode out of sight into the gloom of the quiet night.

  That was the moment he noticed; the bell seemed to have fallen silent. He waited a while, nothing. Arnulf looked up into the moonless night, a black moon. He clutched the wooden charm hung around his neck.

  ‘By Old Night himself, a bad omen,’ he muttered to himself. After a moment, he then turned and left the remaining sentries on the palisade to their watch and made his way back to the warmth of the fires and huts below.

  ***

  Hagen led his scouting party down the slope following the trail south out of the watch post, and then turned west heading up into the bleak high valleys of the passes. The rocky trail was dark without the moon. The men had to trust to their horses to pick a safe path down the track without stumbling in the dark.