The Ossard Series (Books 1-3): The Fall of Ossard, Ossard's Hope, and Ossard's Shadow.

by Colin Taber

  At first Sef had looked down at the beginning of the exchange, embarrassed by his gaff, but now he lifted his gaze out of curiosity. “And me?”

  “Well, look at you! You’re a hulking great Flet with bright blonde hair! We should have dyed your mop darker than Matraia’s wings!”

  Matraia gave a quiet laugh, a smile settling on her face despite her half hidden fears. She may have only known these two travellers a few short days, but already the tight friendship of the men had been enough to begin binding her to them. If they believed they could make it across the Varm Carga, then she believed she could too. Together, they’d all do it.

  She opened her mouth to speak then stopped.

  Both of them turned to her, waiting.

  With their attention on her, she decided to wade on in, giving herself to their banter, “Anton, you forgot to mention his age.”

  The former inquisitor hooted, while Sef looked at him and gave him a light punch on the shoulder before muttering, “By the Pits, I think I prefer the gargoyles!”

  All of them laughed, even more so Matraia as she stepped away from the scarred trunk and hefted her pack. Behind her a small delegation of Debast emerged from the surrounding trees.

  Etha and Filli stepped forward, young Garna carried in his mother’s arms. They stopped at the edge of the woodlands, not leaving the protection of the ragged edge of the canopy.

  Garna looked around, sleepy but curious.

  Filli glanced down at him to smile and reassure him before looking up to the trio about to set out. She said, “Our colours suit you.”

  Sef nodded. “Now I can see why your people are so adept at moving through the woods unseen.”

  She smiled. “The road will be hard, but they will help.” She paused before asking, “Are you sure this is the right thing to do?”

  Sef and Anton exchanged glances. Neither of them knew what to expect, other than hardship, but it was a road they needed to travel for Juvela. The big Flet lifted his pack, throwing it over his shoulder before answering, “We need to go. We have to. Besides, we have Matraia to guide us – and that’s an advantage we didn’t have when we first set out.”

  Matraia lifted her hand and gave Filli a reassuring pat on the shoulder. The winged woman then let her touch cross to little Garna and linger. The small Debast boy smiled. She said, “Yes, we have to go.” With concern, she then asked, “Are you sure you can deal with the Kavists back in the village?”

  “They’re already being led away... First by rumours of their prey being sighted, then by a false trail. Unless you come back this way, you will not meet them again.”

  Matraia nodded. “Dorloth will protect us, and with the news and hope that these men bring, she might also be able to spread her strength and cause fear to those who wield it, forcing them into retreat. Perhaps again the forces of Life will be ascendant, making the world one for the living, including little Garna.”

  Anton spoke up, “We will work at it to guarantee that it comes to pass, not just for us, but for all those who come after us.” His gaze dropped to Garna, his tone determined.

  With that said the Outleaguer lifted his pack and put it over his shoulder, using his maimed hand as if no injury had befallen him. He turned away from them and spoke to the wide and low wasted vale ahead. “Let’s go then, now while we still have a half-morning of sunlight ahead of us to shield us from spying gargoyles.”

  Sef turned to follow, but not before looking at Etha and Filli and the other Debast that had come to see them off. “Thank you for your help.”

  The Wildlings smiled, as Etha called out, “Travel safely.” Beside him, with Garna now dozing in her arms, Filli wiped at tears.

  Matraia stepped away from them, her dyed wings dipping behind her as she began to turn for the blasted vale. “I have to thank you for all you’ve done. I would have died without the help you and your people gave.”

  Filli gave a nod. “Just get them to Dorloth. See them safe to the other side of the mountains. Also, take care of yourself; you’re not fully healed.”

  -

  The three set out and made good time, up until the coming of noon. They marched through that, only pausing to unpack some bread to break and eat as they walked, yet all the while they talked quietly and watched the skies. Above them spread a bright blue expanse marked only by a few streaks of light clouds and the looming heights of the Varm Carga on the horizon to the north.

  If there was ever a time to travel unseen by gargoyles, a race who preferred night, shadows and overcast skies, this was it.

  They had spent the previous day hidden in a sacred grotto outside Mava Royar, away from the Kavists, where they had discussed the best way to make the crossing. While they’d sheltered there, deep in the woods, the Kavist patrol that’d been hunting Sef and Anton had been led away, following a false trail of rumour, tracks, and cold campsites planted by the Wildlings.

  In that grotto they’d talked of many things, not just how to avoid discovery by the gargoyles, yet Sef and Anton had been bursting with even more questions ever since. They wanted to know about the great mysteries of Kalraith, including the Dagraun. And now, as they closed on the lands of Dorloth, which began just over the mountains, such topics of conversation soon resurfaced.

  Matraia knew it was dangerous for her to join them on their trek. Sef had been right; restricted to the ground by a lame wing and burdened with some other wounds only freshly healed after her fall into the forest, she was not only out of her element, but short of full health.

  She’d assured them, if need be, she could glide if she was able to launch herself from a suitable height, but that was no way for her to get home. That truth left them with the method Sef and Anton had originally planned to employ: Walking.

  Sef and Anton soon got a sense of how unused Matraia was to travelling on the ground for any length of time. As they walked through the afternoon, both of them began to wonder if she could make the journey as she began to lag. But the winged woman was determined not to slow them. Whenever she realised she was falling behind she redoubled her pace.

  Now that they were on their way, she had an urgency about her. She needed to get back to Kalraith - and with her new charges. It was as though, regardless of events in Ossard, or Sef and Anton’s concerns that tied them to that distant city and the Northcountry, she felt they had an even bigger role to play in her homeland, and one just as - if not more - pivotal.

  But their passage wasn’t solely about speed.

  Matraia might slow them down, but she also had knowledge that could deliver them safely beyond the other side of the mountains, as Sef and Anton were all but ignorant of what awaited them over the mountain wall.

  So, as they walked, chewing on bread, they checked the skies and talked of Kalraith’s truth. Of all of them, it was Sef who found it the hardest to grasp, as he’d been the one raised on tales of what was over the impassable mountains. “So, the great jungle basin is not just one bowl? It is broken into great vales by protruding mountain ridges, and it is not so much jungle, but a forest more in keeping with here?”

  “The woods are thicker, that is true. I can see why tales of jungle exist, but it is a forest, just thicker as it is watered by as much rain as plagues Fletland and also many hot springs that are birthed in the mountains.”

  Anton intruded into the conversation, bringing his more practical mind, “And Dorloth is at war with the gargoyles, so she is beaten back and away from the basin’s edges?”

  “This is a war that has never stopped; instead, the borders ebb and flow. At times the whole land is ours, with exception of the mountains. At other times, like now, the edging vales are lost to us as the high mountain valleys fill with swarms of gargoyles. But through all of it, we have always held our core cities in two large central basins.”

  Anton asked, “But you do lose cities, outside of this heartland?”

  “Yes, sometimes, where the mountain ridges protrude into the thick woodlands, but we have always taken t
hem back.” She looked to Sef before going on, “This is now the case. They take some of our cities and sack them, turning them into the Troiths you have heard attributed to us – huge towering structures, places of ruin mortared with meat and bone.”

  Sef shook his head, his brow furrowed as his worries surfaced to hear such a thing. “Forgive me, but Juvela needs allies, not besieged friends. How bad are things in Kalraith, and please, tell us only the truth of it.”

  They talked as they walked over a land crusted in blackened rock and burnt clay, where only barren streambeds, still wet from recent rain, wound through to break the devastation. Those streams often held a good flow, but their loads were murky and choked with ash. Those winding waters meandered increasingly amidst a scattering of charred tree trunks that had survived the inferno, unlike so many others that seemed to have been reduced to ash. Regardless, these waist high black stumps were still dead, standing like a forest of crooked tombstones.

  Matraia walked in silence for a moment, thoughtful before she answered Sef, her wing tips dragging through the dirt. Finally, she said, “I won’t deny that times have become hard beyond the mountain wall.”

  Anton asked, “In what way?”

  “There are seven main cities in Kalraith, great towers that each claim hundreds of thousands of Dagruan for themselves, and those are surrounded by many smaller towns still home to many thousands. About twenty years ago the gargoyles began advancing beyond areas they had ever held before. Ten years ago, for the first time, we lost a whole vale, and I mean a large vale — with it fell a small city and half a dozen towns. From those gains, after a pause, they have again moved forward. Now, for the first time in centuries, the main cities of the Dagruan are threatened.”

  Sef asked, “So what’s been done about it?”

  “Dorloth guides us, but such tides of war have come and gone before. She does not see it as a threat, but... but there are others who do.”

  “Others?”

  “Her children.”

  “She has children?”

  “Yes, she does, now generations old, as we are long lived, more in the style of the Lae Velsanans I suppose, certainly more so like them than your own kind.”

  Anton asked, as he regarded her pointed ears and lean features, “Long lived?”

  “Yes, with good fortune, a Dagruan may see a full second century.”

  “Just like a Lae Velsanan?” Anton queried.

  She glanced at him quickly, before sweeping her eyes back skyward to search for gargoyles. “Yes, it is similar I suppose.”

  Sef didn’t miss her discomfort at the question but chose to leave that for another time. “So, you mean Dorloth has generations of children?”

  “Yes, seven. Of course, none comes close to the age she has reached.”

  “Seven!” Sef exclaimed, thinking of how full his own household had begun to feel when he had only three generations; his mother, wife and daughter around him.

  “Yes, seven, but of course such a spread of ages also presents a breadth of opinion.”

  “They disagree?”

  Matraia looked down again, checking both her travelling companions before letting the beginnings of a smile play along her lips. “Let me say yes. Sibling disputes can be amongst the most difficult.”

  Anton noted that the clouds to the south were beginning to thicken as they moved in. “Matraia, history is littered with tragedies and even wars powered by sibling rivalries. What kind of disagreements are you talking about?”

  She stopped for a moment and looked to him, her face pale. “Really?”

  The Outleaguer paused and nodded. “Really.”

  Sef gave a nod to the foothills ahead that would eventually lead up to the mountain wall of the Varm Carga. “Come, the clouds thicken and will steal away the sunlight. We need to get further along before we’re thrown into shadow.”

  Matraia began walking again, Anton joining her. She shook her head and met his gaze, before saying, “I thought such tales were just legends.”

  “So, the troubles of Kalraith aren’t so grave?”

  “No, not so we’re confused as to whom the real enemy is.”

  “Good. So, the trouble comes solely from the gargoyles?”

  “Yes, and now they are supported by the allies of Death, so they no longer work alone in foraging or to defend themselves. They’ve bred in the mountains, building their swarms and crowding their troiths. Their latest attacks over the past year have just grown and grown, seeing them swarm in numbers that we have never seen before. It’s said that they come like a wave to take territory. Such attacks darken the sky and are impossible to stand against.”

  “Is it true?”

  She nodded, her eyes grave. “I have seen it from afar, far enough away to survive. It is true.”

  “How do you fight such a thing?”

  “You can’t; the numbers are too great. Our defence has been to retreat.”

  Anton frowned, his eyes meeting Sef’s. “Retreat?”

  With a resigned shrug, she said, “There’s no way to meet it.”

  Sef gave a small shake of his head before he stopped himself. “But this is the very problem of the forces of Life: It’s always defended while times are good and retreats when things get tough. In the end, it all ends the same way.”

  Matraia looked at him. “What way is that?”

  “Eventually there’s nowhere left to retreat to.”

  She looked down at the blasted soil, a mosaic consisting of blackened gravel and rich red burnt clay. “You are right. Opinions such as yours are what are causing the dissent.”

  “And Dorloth – how does she react to such opposition?”

  “She listens, as most of it comes from her kin – and she’s never been a tyrant, aside from the early days when she had to protect us and herself as a new race.”

  “Just listens?”

  Matraia hesitated, looking distinctly uncomfortable. Distracted, she stumbled forward, tripping on the tip of a half-buried rock.

  Anton stepped forward, putting a hand to one of her shoulders to help steady her. In a heartbeat her momentum was stilled. Amidst the following silence the Outleaguer asked, “Matraia, we only seek the truth. That’s all that’s going to help both us and perhaps even Dorloth.”

  She looked at him, locking eyes as she straightened after her stumble. Around them a cloud of dust drifted on a swirl of breeze. “She is, I think, tired and worn by the passing of an entire age of looking after her own kind.”

  Anton grew worried and asked, “She’s grown tired?”

  “Yes.”

  Yet there was more to it, so Anton dug further. “And despondent?”

  “Perhaps... or simply too cautious.”

  “Or?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “After so many years, and so much fighting, she’s grown hopeless, hasn’t she?”

  Tears gathered in Matraia’s eyes, as she nodded.

  “But why come for us then – why does she care?”

  Matraia stopped them, as the clouds continued to thicken and advance above, now covering half the sky. For the first time that day the sunlight began to fade. She looked at both of the men as they stopped and waited for her admission. “In truth she didn’t send me to fetch you.”

  Thunder cracked faintly in the distance.

  With surprise, the cell-brothers looked to each other.

  Before Anton could respond, Sef stepped forward and asked, “But, you said you’d been sent to offer her greetings?”

  “Yes, and it’s true, but I was sent by another.”

  “By who?” Sef asked.

  “By Henna, a revered kin daughter.”

  “She is important?”

  “Very much so. She has great influence, but as with so many things, there are complications. You will see.”

  -

  They stopped later that afternoon as the light began to fail. Their camp was a hollow in the side of a gorge that a turbulent stream had cut over t
he past few years, since the wasting of the land. The flow tumbled through, heavy with silt and ash.

  With no trees or shrubbery to spread roots and hold the soil in place, the land wasn’t just missing a topping load of humus from fallen leaves; its very stability was under attack. The wind stole its finer parts away, just as water worked to drag at the dirt and pull the rest of it apart. Storms and spring thaws did the worst damage, when surging stream waters tore at the land, carving channels, eating banks, and eventually digging gorges that may well be the seeds of canyons to come.

  They found a small overhang two paces high in such a gorge dug out by yet more draining water, though now stable as the soil had been stripped back to some large slabs of stone. They nestled behind a small trickling waterfall that flowed down to hide them, before joining the foaming waters of the gorge. It wasn’t much, but between its shadowed depths and the noise of the stream, they hoped this hole in the soil would provide them a safe night’s shelter.

  Their camp was a simple one, with no fire or spread of gear, instead just them huddled in blankets as deep as they could get into the overhang. They agreed to each take a turn at watching, knowing such a duty would be spent listening for the flap of wings on the night’s wind, while also watching for anything that might approach on the ground. As they settled in and the light faded as the wind picked up, Sef noted that there hadn’t been a sign of anything larger than a mouse or the odd stray bird. The land was just too wasted.

  -

  Sef took the last watch while resting under his blanket, but with his sword beside him and within easy reach. He had laid a shirt across the blade, concerned that as broken clouds drifted above, occasionally revealing the moon, his weapon might catch the light and give them away to anything unseen in the sky by way of an ill-timed reflected glint.

  Anything...

  Of course, he meant the gargoyles.

  Their trek into Kalraith had always been a dangerous plan, but now that the truth was coming out as to what awaited them, it only looked even more risky - if not just plain foolhardy. Of course, now the danger wasn’t what lay inside Kalraith but rather in the mountain wall they had to cross to get there. That rugged range wasn’t just the haunt and homeland of gargoyles, but also hosted the Panadike, the collection of watchtowers manned by Kavists. And before all of that, they must traverse the barren wasteland in front of them.