Taerak's Void

by M. R. Mathias

  On the other side of the fire pit, he could hear what sounded like an angry woman grunting. Not sure what to do, Braxton grabbed up his bow and nocked an arrow.

  "Your friend is mortally wounded," Braxton said in a weak attempt of sounding in control. "I have an arrow trained on you now. What do you want with me?"

  "I want—" A determined feminine voice huffed. "I want you to shut up and help me."

  "Help you?" Braxton saw what he was sure was a woman sitting on a log. "Where is the other man?"

  "I have one tied up," the female said angrily. "Where is the other one?"

  Braxton, looked closer. He saw that it wasn't a log she sat on, but a man. He was tied up and struggling to break free. The sun had just broken the horizon somewhere because the blackness of night was fading and a great orange purple glow filled what sky he could see through the trees.

  "You said you wounded him," she said, sticking out her bottom lip like a little girl. "Now I'll have to chase him down."

  Braxton looked down the road at the big man who had just tried to kill him. He was stumbling away, but not very quickly. He was getting awfully close to some horses that were tied to a tree.

  "Who is he?" Braxton asked as he raised his bow and checked off the factors of the long shot he was about to make.

  "He's a wanted man who robs and kills people on the road," she said, looking at him doubtfully. "You'll never hit him."

  Braxton loosed and the arrow took its long, arching flight.

  The girl followed the shaft, standing as it grew closer to its target. Then she jumped onto the man's back and shielded her eyes from the morning glare, just in time to see the arrow come down right into the man's thigh.

  "YEOOW!" They heard him call out as he fell to the ground.

  "Amazing," she said, showing true admiration. She turned to Braxton and smiled broadly. Her smiled turned her plain dirty face into something nice.

  "Nixy," she said, offering her hand to shake. "But you can call me Nix."

  Braxton took her hand and started to introduce himself as Lord Braxton but thought better of it. "Call me Brax.” He couldn’t help but grin back at her. "And this is my horse, Prism."

  Chapter Ten

  "Ok I will split it with you, but I don’t like it," Nixy argued heatedly.

  "But you will get all the money for their horses and their supplies," Braxton reminded her. "You are getting more than half, by a lot, I'd say."

  They argued over the reward that was posted for Hertzle and Bart as they rode leisurely toward Antole. Trailing behind Prism and Nixy's horse, Bolt, were Hertzle and Bart's horses, each with one of the bandits laid belly down sideways across it. Their feet were tied to their hands underneath their horse's bellies, just in case they tried to escape. Nixy had tied them so many different ways that Braxton had to laugh. There was absolutely no way possible they would ever get free. In fact, it might take a week just to untie the mess when they got to town.

  Nixy was a self-proclaimed bounty hunter. She said she'd recognized the two from their description when they passed the wagon with the broken wheel. She'd been riding as a guard for the other group but forfeited her fee in order to try and catch the road bandits. She was counting on the reward for the both of them, but since Braxton was the one who actually stopped Bart, she reluctantly agreed to let him have that part of the reward. Twenty-five golden crowns for each man was what she said would be paid. That was amazing to Braxton. He didn’t really care for the money, but he enjoyed immensely watching Nixy get all worked up over catching bad people for money. There was no doubt she intrigued him.

  She might have had twenty years under her belt, but not many more. She reminded him of the mercenary Trinka Shawl who had so easily laid him out in The Dragon Claw Inn's stable yard. After voicing this comparison, Nixy had admitted her admiration for the infamous caravaneer, as well.

  Braxton didn’t tell her she was nowhere near as striking as Trinka, but he couldn’t deny that, when she smiled, she was pretty in her own way. Nixy didn’t fill out her studded leather armor nearly as well as Trinka Shawl filled out her custom chainmail either, but Nixy had probably saved his life when she whacked Hertzle across the back of the head with the flat of her sword. This realization had him telling himself he wouldn’t make such comparisons, not even privately.

  Nixy was worthy of his respect. She'd earned it before she even knew his name.

  "So, you're headed to Halden?" she asked.

  "Yes, to the Sorcerious," Braxton added the last in an attempt to sound important. To his amazement, she seemed properly impressed.

  "You'll need an escort you know," she said. "The road from Antole to Halden is thick with thieves." She glanced his way, trying to look casual but not quite pulling it off. "It makes the passage from Camberly to Antole seem like a stroll through a guarded bailey. Those two killers we have, why they would be the ones getting robbed on that road."

  Braxton almost fell for her ploy. He caught on just in time to realize she tried to scare him into paying her for an escort. It wasn’t a bad idea. He'd enjoyed her ranting at the bandits so much he decided to toy with her about it.

  "Really, is it as bad as that?" he asked, trying to make his expression look fearful.

  "Yes, it is.” She shook her head as if she thought it a horrible thing that the road was so dangerous.

  "Hmm?" Braxton scratched his chin as if in deep thought. After a moment, he turned to her with as much seriousness as he could muster and said, "I don’t suppose you could recommend someone?"

  She beamed. "Why I think I might be able to escort you personally. For the standard fee, of course."

  "No, no," Braxton protested. Trying very hard not to burst out in laughter. "I need someone who won't abandon me to go catch a passing bandit. I need someone who makes me feel safe."

  Her face flushed with anger and embarrassment. "But I-but—" she stammered.

  Braxton couldn't hold his mirth in any longer, and he exploded into a fit of laughter Nixy didn’t seem to find very amusing.

  Nixy spurred her horse ahead, leaving Braxton to follow Hertzle's horse. For quite a while, she rode that way. Braxton found himself feeling pretty good for a man who'd almost been killed that morning. Several times, he'd chuckled to himself about his jest, not intending for Nixy to hear, but unable to avoid it. Each time she threw her head back indignantly, he could only laugh harder.

  His mirth wasn’t as much to do with her as she probably thought. He found the sight of poor Hertzle trailing behind her, tied up a hundred different ways as funny as anything.

  He decided she was as entertaining as she was intriguing. What was a few gold coins to enjoy her company all the way to Halden? After all, he would have twenty-five extra of them he hadn't counted on.

  "What is the standard fee for a guard from Antole to Halden?" He called out to her sometime later in the afternoon.

  "It's normally five straight, but for you, five gold plus my meals."

  "Done," he responded, trying not to laugh again. "But you'll have to take it out of my cut of the bounty."

  She slowed her horse's gait so she could ride beside him again.

  "Why are we stopping here?" Braxton asked.

  In the distance, there was a large, stonewalled estate house sitting off the road on the left near the river's edge. Beyond it, scattered farm houses and a few smaller estates dotted the landscape. Most of the property nearer to them was fenced with wooden pickets, but further on, the boundaries looked to be made of stacked stone. These had to be the outskirts of Antole.

  "This is the North Road Monastery," Nixy said authoritatively, indicating with a pointed finger the large building by the river Braxton had mistaken for an estate.

  The impressive bailey wall that surrounded the building was topped with rows of sharpened metal spikes. It looked more like a fortress than a monastery, Braxton decided as they peeled off the road toward it. He was curious. He'd only read about monks and religious sects. There was a small gr
oup in Uppervale who lived in the Temple of Maul, but the true religion of a place like Uppervale was the land itself. No god or deity came down and planted the fields or worked for days and days on end to harvest the crops.

  Braxton had never thought about it much, but his father always told him to believe in himself. "Let those too afraid to do so believe in a higher power.” He heard his father's voice in his mind.

  Braxton's curiosity was piqued, for this building and its fortified wall looked to be as old as the river itself. Braxton was almost disappointed when Nixy rode right past the entry instead of stopping. She led them to a grassy hill by the water’s edge on the outside of the property.

  On the River side of the hill there was a well-used, rock-lined fire pit with several sitting stones spaced around it. There was also a hitching post next to a thick sward of grass by the water’s edge.

  "We are hidden from the road here," Nixy said as she dismounted and hitched Bolt and Hertzle's horse to the rail. "This part of the North Road is not patrolled," she continued. "Most bad things that happen to travelers leaving Antole happen in this area."

  "I thought this was the South Road," Braxton said, realizing the stupidity of the comment as soon as it left his mouth.

  "If you are in Camberly, it is the South Road," she said with no sign of mockery. "But if you are in Antole, it is the North Road." She grinned. "So, you have never been to Antole?"

  "I'm from Uppervale," he said. "The only place I've been is Camberly, and now here." Trying to hide the embarrassment he felt, he added, "I'm not well-traveled."

  Her grin shifted into a conspiratorial smirk. "I should have told you ten gold."

  They left the bandits tied to their horses as they were. Nixy stuffed a rag in each of their mouths and then tied a length of rope around their heads to keep the gag in place. When one of them tried to complain she reminded them that the reward paid just as much for their corpses as it did for them alive.

  Braxton made a small fire from wood that Nixy retrieved from a hidden pocket in the monastery's wall, and they ate dried beef from his pack. Nixy brewed a strange tasting tea over the fire. Braxton found its sweet cinnamon taste pleasing. After the sun went down, Nixy disappeared into the darkness. She returned a while later, wet and clean. She had her clothes and armor in her arms and wore a long, white, knee-length shirt.

  She is beautiful, Braxton thought. It wasn’t that she didn’t fill out her armor well, he observed, it was that her armor restricted and disguised her well-proportioned body.

  He noticed her blushing and realized his mouth hung open and he was staring at her.

  "You should go wash yourself.” She seemed to master herself. "You stink."

  Braxton averted his eyes and stumbled clumsily to Prism's saddle. He retrieved a clean set of clothes, then he, too, disappeared into the darkness to go wash. When he returned, Nixy was already curled up in her bedroll.

  "You have first watch," she said flatly from behind closed eyes.

  Chapter Eleven

  It took two full days of riding through streets crowded with people to reach the magnificent bridge that spanned the mighty river. They crossed the bridge, which led to Antole's Western Gate, and there Nixy argued with the city guards heatedly for almost half a day while Braxton shuffled his feet and admired the architecture of the bridge. It wasn’t remarkably beautiful in any artistic way, but its functionality was grand. Large pillars of granite supported the thick flat slabs that spanned from shore to pillar, from pillar to shore. Rock walls, about waist high, lined either side of the span. Horse drawn wagons could cross three abreast with ease, though only two lanes were available to them. The third lane was for foot traffic. There were guard houses at each end and at the middle, and the occasional hawker sold his wares along the wall.

  It was almost midday when Nixy concluded her business and gave him his twenty gold coins. She then led him and the bandit's horses to a rundown, but rather large, building centered on a street that held a temple at each end and fewer businesses than any other road they had traveled in the city. There was less foot traffic here. The large structure's surrounding property supported the only grass Braxton had seen since they'd crossed the bridge. He wasn't surprised that the section of green turf was surrounded on all sides by an iron picket fence.

  Dozens of children of all ages peered out of the iron gate when they saw Nixy. Braxton thought she looked like a champion returning to a kingdom after saving it from some evil creature. Braxton was surprised to find out that wasn’t so far from the truth, and his admiration for the girl multiplied tenfold.

  It turned out that Nixy was an orphan, and the building was where she'd been raised. The biggest surprise was when she handed over the bandit's horses, and all but a few of the coins she'd collected, in donation to help support them and their home. They spent the night there, in separate private rooms, and left the following morning before the children were awake. By the end of the day's travel, they were still in a heavily populated area of Antole. At Nixy's suggestion, they stayed at a small inn, at Braxton's expense, of course, but after seeing where all her money had gone, he didn’t mind paying for two rooms.

  When they finally put the oppressing crowds and packed streets of Antole behind them, Braxton felt he could breathe again. He found it strange to not feel the mountains looming to the east anymore. From here, they seemed like foothills and they were farther away than they had ever been in his life. If it wasn’t for the fatter, slower moving river, which was now on the right side of the road, he might have thought he was in a foreign land.

  The road they were on was called the South Road again, since they were now south of Antole. There were wagon trains coming and going, some heavily laden and lumbering slowly, others empty and bouncing along behind horses as they hurried back south to reload at Halden's docks. There were so many people traveling that Braxton started to believe Nixy flat out lied about how dangerous it was. But then they entered a forest, and within a few moments of leaving the populace, they were in the thick of gloomy, foreboding woods.

  The tops of trees as big around as a fat man's belt, didn't let much sunlight through. And a damp warmth, thick enough to cut with a sword, enveloped them.

  That afternoon, Braxton's thinking changed. They came across a wretched scene. It looked like an assault on a wagon train had occurred. The charred husk of a carriage was on its side and several bodies lay strewn about. His nose was filled with the smell of rot. Carrion picked at mangled forms that only vaguely resembled human bodies. Nixy picked up the pace and, luckily, it wasn’t long before they put it behind them. Eventually, they came upon a large, five wagon caravan with a full implement of guards. Some of the well-armed men knew Nixy, and Braxton was pleased when they welcomed them to travel in the safety of their numbers.

  Later that evening, Braxton and Nixy eased around the group so they were on the southern side and wouldn't have to work past them in the morning. They found a spot close to, but still secluded from, the caravan's camp and made their own small fire. Nixy disappeared sometime after dark to gossip with the guards. After a while, Braxton grew bored, and he took out the book he'd found by the lake and began to randomly flip through the pages.

  A certain symbol repeated itself throughout the pages. He only noticed it because he was sure it was one of the symbols etched into the medallion he wore. He thought about it for a while, then discreetly pulled the medallion out of his shirt to compare them. He was disappointed that they were only vaguely similar.

  He sat on his butt with the book in his lap, and since it was hard to see, he leaned his body forward to get his eyes closer to the pages. When he did, the medallion came to rest on the book. There was a tiny flash of blue light from the jewel mounted in the medallion, and when he looked at the gem, he was astonished to see that, through the jewel, the strange language underneath was clearly legible.

  This revelation was so overwhelming he almost jumped up and shouted with joy. Somehow, he managed to contain his e
xcitement, and after taking a few deep breaths, he took the medallion from his neck and laid it on the page before him. Slowly, he moved it across the first line of text.

  His heart hammered against his ribs as he read the words below:

  …after I placed the blood crystal over the seal of the chamber created to imprison the vile demon known as Pharark, I called upon the—

  "Put it away now," Nixy said through clenched teeth. "We must leave."

  Before he could react, she grabbed the book from his lap and stuffed it into the bag on Prism's saddle. Immediately, he put the chain back over his head and dropped the medallion inside his shirt. He started to ask a question, but she cut him off.

  "Shut your mouth and get on your horse." She hissed. "You are in great danger here."

  He made to grab his bed roll, but she booted it to the side. "Leave it," she told him. He did, but he grabbed up his bow and was thankful that his sword was still fixed to Prism's saddle. He jumped on his horse's back none too soon, for just as he did, three excited looking, well-armed men came crashing around the nearest wagon and every one of them had murder in their eyes.

  Prism must have sensed the danger. He tore off after Nixy and Bolt before waiting for Braxton to command him. As Braxton fought to regain his balance from the sudden forward lurch, he heard the men cursing furiously behind them. He heard other men calling for someone to get more horses.

  For a long time, they rode down the road at a full gallop. Eventually, Nixy slowed and peered into the forest between them and the river. It took Braxton a minute to realize she was looking for something. Braxton was about to ask her what was going on, but the sound of pursuers caused him to bite his tongue.

  Confused and scared, Braxton looked at Nixy, who was intent on her purpose and riding far slower than their pursuers were. He looked back and saw nothing, but now he could make out individual voices. They were coming fast. When Braxton looked back, he didn’t see Nixy anymore. He spurred Prism ahead, frantically searching for some sign of her. The men chasing were far too close. Surely, they were about to overtake him.