by Marc Secchia
Numbers were an issue, but so was the total surprise with which they had been taken. Amadorn and the Witch had both been caught napping. Snatcher only subsided because of the threat to his soft-skinned companions, who would be spit like a pig roast by those long cavalry lances. Alliathiune had quietly gestured to them to keep the peace–for now, her stormy expression intimated. Amadorn fingered his cloak, running through his inventory of offensive spells like a shopkeeper ticking off a delivery. The Witch seethed, her thin lips pinched together like white bars, and her hands curled white-knuckled at her sides.
Kevin wondered what an irate Witch might do to these men. It did not bear thinking about.
Had Zephyr been alive, he decided, they would not have been caught with their trousers down. Arrogant he was, but Zephyr’s leadership ability had never been in question. He touched the horn affixed to his belt. God, the memory of the Unicorn still brought tears to his eyes. Two evenings back, Amadorn had played for them the first three stanzas of a song he was composing to celebrate and honour Zephyr’s life. Alliathiune had taken on his mantle by a unanimous vote, and unobtrusively moved amongst the companions during this march to encourage them and to set the signal for a counterattack. She would do well, he felt. A pity to be caught out so soon.
His pulse quickened as they neared and passed through the city gate. People stared curiously at the party and especially at the Lurk, making a strange sign with their right hand as he passed by–two fingers held in a scissors position over their heart. Kevin wondered what it meant, and by Snatcher’s mystified expression, knew he was not the only one.
According to the Witch, who had twice visited Utharia, Broadleaf Valley lay a moon’s travel slightly north of westward in the Ur-Akbarra range of mountains. As they exited the city gate, Kevin found himself upon a slight elevation above the immediate farmland. The air was crystal-clear, giving excellent visibility all the way to the low purple peaks on the horizon. Birds chirped cheerfully nearby, and long-horned cattle grazed on that great plain. Those close by had fantastic woollen coats that dragged on the ground beneath them, making them resemble ambulatory bundles of hay. He wished the fields, lying fallow until they would be tilled at the start of Budding season, were less verdant, for he had no desire to die on such a perfect lighttime!
The escort prodded them down the incline at a healthy clip, soon leaving the city behind and entering a small wood. Here they left the main road for a smaller path, which led by some twists and turns away from civilisation. Giant broadleaf, fairleaf, and twisted longbeard trees closed thickly overhead, but in late Darkenseason did not have any leaves. Alliathiune was pleased by this development, for she could in an instant make her escape, or bend these living organisms to her will. The landscape changed by degrees into a defile between two ridges, which deepened as they pressed on along a burbling stream on a trail wide enough for four men line abreast. It had recently seen use–even Kevin could see that, and a chill played down his spine. A hot reception awaited …
At last they came to a sizeable clearing backing onto a rocky knoll, which had at its head a waterfall perhaps twenty feet high. To Kevin’s eye the trail they had just taken was the only way back out. The clearing crawled with quite the most raffish assortment of Utharian bandits imaginable, rogues to a man, who eyed up the travellers with the air of those expecting an afternoon of good sport. Judging by certain comments, they were especially pleased to see three females included in the bargain. Hunter touched her arsenal as if trying to decide exactly how she would dice them all up, and woe betide the man who laid hands on the Witch or the Dryad!
Without ceremony their escort marched to the far end of the clearing, where two dozen archers guarded a wooden stockade from the nearby slopes. Sport? Not a chance, Kevin realised. The first person to bolt would sprout a quills like a porcupine. And magical shields were a Unicorn speciality. Why, o why, had he not picked the Unicorn’s brains more?
As the soldiers departed, their leader tossed a jingling purse to the ruffians. “Kill them.”
“Nice odds,” said Akê-Akê, stretching his back. “I fancy a bit of exercise before dinner.”
The bandit leader looked them over with a slow smile. “If that hunchback so much as crooks a finger, kill him. I’d know a Druid anywhere. Into the stockade with them, lads, and be quick about it. Bring the tall woman to my tent.”
“Wouldn’t you prefer to share your bed with me?” sneered the Faun. An arrow pierced the turf between his legs, passing perilously close to a part of his anatomy he was rather proud of. “Well, in that case …”
They crowded into the stockade. The Witch murmured steadily without moving her lips, building what Kevin fervently hoped was a defensive spell against arrows. The archers could hardly miss from this range.
There was a streak like a meteor across the sky.
“Which one first?” roared the bandit leader. “What about the Cat? Who wants to be first to tame the Cat? Come on out, little pussycat! Come please my men!”
Hunter palmed her daggers. “I’ll teach him to call me names!”
She stalked out of the stockade, ignoring the man who swatted her backside as he closed the gate behind her. “Come on!” she hissed.
That was exactly when one of the archers gave a strangled cry and pitched down off the rocks, bouncing into the stream and floating away. He had no head.
Everyone whirled to scan the rocks. The archers fell over each other in a panic to get away from the spot where their comrade had perished–but nothing moved. There was not a sound. He might as well have cut his own throat.
“What’s going on?” barked the bandit leader. “Who saw what happened?”
There was a twinkle of blue light. The stockade turned to dust and fell into small heaps around the companions’ feet–and no one was more surprised than they. Amadorn looked at the Witch, who glanced at Alliathiune, who raised her eyebrows at Kevin. It was nothing of their doing. What, by the Well …?
A second archer pitched from the rocks. His torso stuck halfway up but this head bounced and rolled into the clearing, splattering blood right up to the bandit leader’s bootlaces. Darkness moved on the slope. Steel hissed up, out, a long blade amputating an archer’s ankle, rising on the swivel to sever three fingers holding a bow, pressing two men against each other and thrusting to the throat.
Hunter unfroze; her arm shot out, sending her throwing dagger spinning into the bandit leader’s eye. “For the Mancat!” she howled, and launched herself at the nearest man.
“The Fauns!” cried Akê-Akê, whirling his mace.
Snatcher blasted past him, twirling that tree-stump of a club about his head. “To the path!” he bellowed. “Clear the way!”
Alliathiune struck Kevin between the shoulder blades. “Get moving!”
Kevin saw a black-robed figure, the Kraleon, rippling down from the rocks like a dark river, sweeping archers before it like chaff before a hurricane. A blade flashed in its hooked claws, slicing men open even as he watched. He could not believe her eyes. Amadorn too had time for a backward glance, before touching his cloak to clear a knot of ragamuffins who had rushed into their path.
“It’s that Kraleon thing!” panted the Druid, loosing another bolt of lightning from his fingertips.
“I know!” The Dryad shoved Kevin again. “Stop gaping and run!”
“What’s it doing?”
“Hills only know!”
And then the melee closed around them. Men were everywhere, dark Utharian men, brandishing their weapons and screaming battle cries–they were courageous and loathe to yield ground, even in the face of magic. They had their honour to protect and reputations to be made or broken. So they gritted their teeth and fell upon the group like wolves to the quarry.
The company drew close, Snatcher to the fore, hacking through a tangle of bodies and armour as they sought to win free. Arrows hissed in their midst. A blade sliced Akê-Akê’s cheek open; a cut burned on Kevin’s shoulder. The Witch’s thigh w
as laid open by an unseen blade, Hunter’s tail shortened by several inches and her ear sliced apart to her skull.
“Kevin!” someone shouted. “Kevin Jenkins!”
The black creature came on, cutting and bulling its way through the bandits in pursuit, and its blade was a flaming white-blue terror of vengeance. None were able to stand before it. Yet the sheer press of bodies slowed its progress. The companions won free because they had started earlier, and they were not about to withhold for the dark creature’s sake. Akê-Akê led the retreat at a dead run, closely followed by Kevin and Alliathiune. The Lurk snatched up Amadorn, to his very vocal annoyance, leaving Hunter and the Witch to guard the rear. In no time at all the forest closed about them.
Like ignominious rabbits, they fled the battle. It was, as Zephyr would have said, the wisest course of action.
* * * *
“I don’t understand it at all. It just doesn’t make sense!”
“Good outlander, that is the eighth time you have said those words in the last turn alone. Frankly, it’s no use.”
Kevin ran his hands through his red curls in frustration. “Fine, Akê-Akê. I am a demon creature sent by the Dark Apprentice to make your life miserable. I attack you just short of Black-Rock Keep but you overpower me and manage to escape. I attack you again on the Endless Ocean and send you many leagues off course. I arrange an ambush for you on some island miles from anywhere–and we still haven’t gotten to the bottom of what Zephyr was doing out there in the first place–and slay two of your companions. So you manage to make it to Utharia at last, but I’ve been there first and arranged a little welcoming party for you. It’s all proceeding swimmingly when I change my mind and decide to break up the party, killing my fellow conspirators and setting my hated enemies free. How am I doing so far?”
“Splendidly!” said Amadorn. “Have some fowl. It’s delicious.”
“But I need to–”
“You need to eat.”
“But–”
“Eating aids the thought processes. Come. Good lad. Now, tell me what you think you saw.”
Kevin said sulkily, “Digestion increases circulation around the stomach and intestines, drawing blood away from the brain.”
“What utter rot!” Amadorn declared cheerfully. “The body loses function without the appropriate nutrients. Now, as you have suggested, there were aspects of the squabble that struck me as anomalous, not the least for the reasons you so scornfully put to the good Faun.”
“Which are?”
“I noted the creature wielded a blade of blazing magical fire. Were such a thing possible, by the Hills, I would share the secret with our military friends at once.” He ticked off another finger. “The creature was not hooded and cloaked as before, but clad in an ordinary shirt and trousers such as you or I might wear. Thirdly, the creature’s skin was black, such as I have never seen before save on demonic creatures.”
Kevin nodded thoughtfully. “Black skin is possible in Humans, good Druid, amongst the peoples of Africa.”
“Darker than these Utharian men?”
“Much darker, apparently. I’ve never met such a person myself.”
“Well, that puts a different perspective on the matter.” Amadorn sucked his pipe meditatively and puffed smoke into the humid evening air. “Rain before the morrow, or I failed my apprenticeship.”
“Great, I hate rain.”
“Rain nurtures the Forest and brings life to her roots.”
He said unkindly, “Alliathiune, is this any time for a theology lesson?”
Akê-Akê, ever one to help, interrupted, “What a narrow-minded and grumpy sentiment, good outlander.”
“I am not narrow-minded!”
“But you persist in seeing things by your mysterious science. That blinkers your thinking.”
Kevin snapped back, “Good Faun, science is a rational discipline for serious and high-minded people who wish to understand how the world works! I may be a babe in the ways of Driadorn, but please do not discount my learning. Besides, I do not wish to quarrel with you this darktime. I am going to turn in. Sleep well, everyone.”
“You’re as grumpy as a badger with haemorrhoids.”
“For goodness sake, I am not being grumpy!”
“Petulant pontificating puppy.”
“Akê-Akê, I warn you, I am in no mood for childish name-calling.”
Kevin turned over in his bedroll and shut his eyes. Fine! They could think what they liked. For a few moments, all that could be heard was the gentle crackling of their fire, and Amadorn’s industrious sucking on the fowl’s bones.
The Faun called out, “I say, Mighty High Wizard?”
Alliathiune giggled.
“What is it, Akê-Akê?”
“Er … nothing. I’ve forgotten. Sorry.”
“Sleep in the Forest’s Peace,” Kevin offered stiffly, before pulling his robe over his head. He was sure he could hear chuckles back there.
“Mighty High Wizard?”
“What?”
“Sleep well.”
Kevin dignified this with a loud snort of disgust. Not far from his bedroll, he heard the Witch say:
“The point is well made, however. Is the Dark Apprentice working in concert with this Kraleon creature? Or does it have a different motive for pursuing us? Perhaps it seeks the Magisoul, for the possession of such a potent artefact would surely advance the cause of evil more than you or I could possibly imagine. Does it wait for us to secure the Magisoul first?”
“One weakens prey before the kill.”
The Mancat’s low hiss chilled them to a creature. They needed no reminder of the loss of their companions.
“That is, assuming we can unearth the jewel and return in time,” Akê-Akê added gloomily. “Did not your bird of this morn, noble Alliathiune, bear a message that the Goblin army is on the march?”
“It did–more than could be enumerated, perhaps half a million in all. And they are destroying the Forest like a plague, tearing down trees for siege weapons and firewood.” She added in a voice brimful of tears, “I wish Zephyr were present, not least for his acerbic turn of phrase, but also for the still mirror he could make. I feel cut off from Elliadora’s Well.”
Amadorn said, “Would you request the spell from the Tomalia, good Dryad? If I knew the appropriate forms I could attempt to duplicate what the good Unicorn managed so effortlessly.”
“That is a fine suggestion.”
“Perhaps we could send a regular bird to the Well? I appreciate that news takes many lighttimes to reach us here. But communication is essential.”
“We know too that the outlander’s tactics have been employed to excellent effect,” Alliathiune noted. “Many Fauns were drowned–with my apologies, Akê-Akê–at the excavation site and the diggings brought to a complete standstill by the Druidic storm-singing. The armies of Men have been forced to guard the length of their roadway and they make only half the progress of before.”
“Even so, were even the Goblins to reach the inner Forest we would be lost. Who can stand against an army that size? We’ve neither the means nor the strength.”
“Courage, Amadorn. Much time has already been purchased at little cost.”
“He’s right.” Near Kevin, the Witch stirred. “Were the Blight healed this darktime and the Dark Apprentice consigned to Shäyol, where he belongs, the problem of these armies would not simply disappear. The outlander has not only bought time, but life itself.”
“Aye.”
“Good Druid, my sisters arrive at the Sacred Well very soon. They will take the Portal as far as possible along the Rhiallandran river and meet these Goblins at a time and place of our choosing. The outlander’s insights have given us a fresh perspective on how the talents of Witchery might be employed to discourage the Goblin advance, through disease, irruptions of the natural order, and strange desires to turn on each other with spear and blade. Even half a million is a number made up of individuals. A particularly virulent itchi
ng of the genitals tends to distract one from the purposes of war.”
Akê-Akê sniggered loudly at this. Kevin also heard him shift further from the Witch. Evidently, the Faun had no desire to have her inflict his shaggy parts with some indescribably pernicious malady!
* * * *
The farmlands of lower Utharia slowly gave way to open plains, dotted here and there with small woody knolls of gloamingbark, oak, beech, and agoya trees. The agoya tree was unique to this region and yielded a small, nutty fruit the size of an olive, which pressed provided an oil used in healing, perfumes, and simple cosmetics, and the pressed remains became a nutritious staple for the traveller called agoya cake. They paused at an isolated homestead to purchase agoya cake to supplement their diet, and here Kevin again noticed the peculiar sign these folk made in the presence of the Lurk. He had thought to question them, but it appeared that although their trade was welcome they would not be encouraged to stay, nor was any casual conversation desired. Utharians were surly as a rule, he thought, forming a rather dim opinion of hospitality in these parts.
Kevin gazed out over the waving grasses to the far mountains. Zephyr would’ve found it a novelty to eat grass of a distinctly lavender hue! It was mesmerising, the way it rolled and billowed under the stiff breeze that had followed three lighttimes of rain. Pennant grass, it was called by the locals, after the curiously pennant-shaped seed pods that formed on long stalks during the Budding season. He touched the horn at his belt as he often did, feeling the loss of a friend sorely.
“We’ll find a way,” he whispered. “Just you wait and see. Oh, this weak and pitiful Kevin Jenkins will find a way through to–yikes!”
Alliathiune took his elbow unexpectedly. “Are you mumbling in your beard again, good Kevin?”
“Dash it all, Alliathiune! You’re as bad as that Lurk, sneaking up on me.” But he smiled down at her. “Have you done something to your hair?”
“Tried to brush it last darktime, emphasis on the tried.”
“You really do have a snarl there, dear girl.” He pursed his lips and executed a deft pluck. “And a leafy twig just here. That said, I hear the organic look is all the rage this season.”