by Winfred Wong
“I don’t know why he betrayed us, but what he said,” Keira interjected, “is true. During the invasion, I was at home, hiding under a bed, and two of them, who looked ferocious and dreadful, came in, found me and dragged me out to the street, pulling my hair. They tried to...touch me, but a man with an eagle tattoo on his neck stopped them. He had a real eagle standing on his shoulder, and I thought he was a decent man, but this man brought me to the station, gagged me with what looked like a piece of cloth and tied up my four limbs. I tried to resist, but he was too strong. So I thought I was doomed. Luckily, then your grandpa, Desman, came in, and the tattooed man turned his attention away from me. And they talked about a deal between them, and the tattooed man got angry and pulled out a sword, trying to kill him. Then, the eagle suddenly flapped around, and they saw this...traveller eavesdropping on them at the entrance, so Desman walked out and tried to lure him in, but he didn’t take the bait. And after that, it was a fierce fight.”
With a prolonged respiration, Warner found it very hard to believe. “I only believe in what I see,” he mumbled, in a softened tone with abating fury, glaring became staring, and Althalos went to his sister.
“I thought I would never see you again,” Althalos said, almost sobbed, and gave her a short, warm hug with a grim grin on his face.
“Me too,” she said, in a sweet tone. “I hope dad and mum are all right too. And Chavdar.”
“Yes. We should split up and search for them,” Dulais suggested, with a bloodless face.
“I agree. We should pile the bodies up when looking around and cremate them,” Warner said solemnly.
“But I think the bandits have already stacked them up,” Althalos said. “Though I think it’s kind of weird for them to do so.”
“There are still bodies amid the ruin. They all deserve a proper cremation,” Warner replied sadly. “But you’re right. It’s really weird for them to have the bodies piled up orderly in one place after slaughtering them. Maybe they were looking for someone too.”
“Anyway, let’s move out,” Dulais said. “Keira, you go with Warner to the other side of the street. Althalos and I will take care of this side.”
“But your wounds–” Keira said.
“I am better now. The bleeding has stopped already,” Dulais said and headed for the hallway. “Althalos!”
∫∫
They then spent the entire morning heaving out badly mutilated and mud-stained corpses from shattered wreckage and hauling them along the blood-stained street to the stinky piles that attracted a lot of flies while looking out for any lucky survivors. It wasn’t an easy task, especially to those who just became homeless, but, fortunately, they didn’t find the bodies of their parents, which had already been randomly thrown onto one of the heaps, or Chavdar and didn’t have to deal with the deeper dejection that would have sunk to despair.
The monumental desolation of the village, the entire field drowned in gore, plus the sorrowful and stifling flame that they ignited both in their heart and the piles together turned the whole place into a burning living hell that no one would want to come near, except a resolutely loyal mammal with solid hooves.
“Any signs of Chavdar and Mum and Dad?” Althalos whimpered when they were mourning for the victims in front of the heaps, for the loss of their loved one, and for the uncertain fate of themselves.
“No. No signs of them. Do you think they survived?” Keira questioned, in a hopeless tone.
“I don’t know, but if they’re still alive, then, someday, somewhere, we will find them.”
“Promise me,” pleaded Keira, looking through the sheet of flame. “Promise me we’ll find them.”
After a hardly perceptible pause, “I promise you,” Althalos said, feeling a little bit awkward as it was the first time he promised someone something so solemnly.
“Hey, Althy, look there!” Keira cried suddenly, in an energetic tone that shocked everyone, pointing forward. “Is that Ausber?”
Trying to see through the blurry veil of red flame, Althalos squinted. “Where? I can’t see nothing.”
“There!” Keira repeated firmly. “Over there, beyond the fence!”
Then Althalos heard a high-pitched whinny of his beloved horse and had his eyes riveted on the source of the sound.
“Ausber! My god! It’s him!” Althalos yelled joyfully, circled around the fire and dashed toward him.
Ausber was a black horse with one little white marking on his broad forehead and a barrel like a butt of wine. His ears were neatly set on his small but muscular head that made him look well-chiselled in outline. He was holding his head high with his mouth shut, exhaling through his expanding nostrils, causing a fluttering sound like he was trying to attract people’s attention, when he was trotting around with his round, well-formed feet.
“Ausber! Here!” Althalos kept yelling on his way.
Then the horse had his ears perked forward, his tail swinging rapidly, as he heard his master, and he cantered toward him enthusiastically with his feathered feet.
“Hey Ausber. Where have you been? So glad to see you again.” Althalos hugged him round his neck when they came together on the street.
But, after a moment, Ausber bent down his head, refusing the hug, gently shoved Althalos away with his nose and snorted explosively. Every time Althalos tried to get closer, Ausber just did the same thing again and again.
Puzzled, Althalos tried to imagine what he was trying to express and enquired, “Are you not feeling well? No?”
“What happened?” the rest of them went to him, and Keira asked her brother.
“I don’t know,” Althalos said slowly. “Something is not right. He just won’t let me get close to him.”
“Let me try,” Keira said and moved forward, but the result was the same.
Ausber snorted even harder, shook his head up and down, trotted up to his master and slightly pushed Althalos’s shoulder with his velvety muzzle.
Then, intuitively, as if he was a psychic, Althalos thought of the interminable sky above, and he lifted his head up to look skyward when the sapphire of the staff flickered unsteadily in a way that no one noticed, and the light emitted was purple in color.
“Eagles?” he murmured with an even more bewildered face as he set eyes on a group of bald eagles soaring in the high sky. “That’s what you want me to see?”
“We have to go,” Dulais said, eyes bugging out, as the ardent feeling of guilt he perceived when he saw Ayrith on fire re-surfaced in his heart. “No. I have to go. The eagles are here solely for me. Once I am gone, the three of you will be safe here.”
He didn’t want to drag this village into another meaningless fight, otherwise the poignant scenes of miserableness of the village that haunted him would definitely leave an eternal scar in his sinful soul.
“Wait, what do you mean the eagles are here solely for you?” Warner asked, his low murmur swelled to a roar. “And what make you think they will attack you?”
“I am sorry, Althalos. But I need to borrow your Ausber,” Dulais said, as he scuttled to Ausber. “I can’t outpace a swooping eagle in bare feet. I promise I will bring him back to you safe and sound.”
“Um...it’s not that I don’t trust you, but he won’t let you hop on him,” Althalos explained, staring at Dulais innocently. “He won’t let anyone get on the back of him without me.”
Halted, Dulais looked back at Althalos and beseeched, “Then will you come with me, please?”
Lifted up his head again to look at the raptors, Althalos replied, sensing no fear despite imminent danger, “But are you sure they will attack you? It doesn’t seem like they will.”
“You recall the carcass right outside of the station?” Dulais asked and showed him his badly wounded arm. “I almost lost my arm because of it. So, please, would you give me a hand?”
“Well, can’t say no,” Althalos agreed without a second of wavering.
“You’re actually helping him with this?” Keira asked dubiou
sly because she never thought he would.
“Of course,” Althalos said. “I mean they are just some harmless eagles. I don’t think they will attack us.”
“Answer me, traveller!” Warner finally thundered out, as a sudden feeling of an uneasy suspense jolted him in his heart. “What are you not telling me? What are those birds? Why did my grandpa betray us? Tell me!”
For a second, he wanted to get in their way to stop them from mounting, but, after the banished vacillation from his heart, he decided to act cool-headedly this time, and he just kept staring at them in strange silence.
Before they set off, Keira scurried to Ausber, looked at Dulais sincerely, in a way that no one can resist, and said, “Please keep him safe and bring him home to me.”
Dulais didn’t say a thing. He simply nodded, and Keira already knew he will keep him safe, judging by the determination manifested by his trustworthy blue eyes.
“Wait for us to come back!” Althalos, who was guiding the horse, shouted out when Ausber began to sprint along the street against a sudden breath of wind.
Keira kept her eyes on them until they went out of her earshot and asked the low-spirited guard, “I thought you were going to stop them from leaving.”
“Trust me, I have thought of it,” Warner replied and paused for a moment, arms akimbo. “I just don’t want to be reckless, again.”
“Don’t worry. I believe you will have your answers when they come back,” Keira said.
”Will I?” He looked into her charming eyes that he found comforting.
“Of course.”
∫∫
Riding on the back of a galloping horse, the two of them were both keeping an eye out for the movement of the eagles while heading toward the Forest of Sitek on the open field beyond the fence. The amalgamated weight of two grown men was a bit too massive for Ausber to carry, but, as a natural instinct to sense the danger his master was facing, he forced himself to run as fast as he can, though, judging by the rapid, difficult panting of him, it was obvious that he couldn’t do it forever.
“Why must we ride toward the Flipside!?” Althalos asked, enjoying the pace of haste. “We can just ride south to get away!”
“No, a horse bearing two men could never outrun an unencumbered winged beast. The Flipside is the only chance we have,” Dulais replied, staring skyward. “Be careful! They’re coming!” he warned and visioned to create a pair of water daggers, triggering the sapphire to give off light, colorless light, when the group of eagles was diving down fast toward them, tightly pressing their wings to their sides, in one line like free falling arrows plummeting from the sky.
Aiming at the first eagle, he then propelled a dagger squarely at it, hoping to slow their speed down, but the birds reacted so swiftly, showing quick-witted intelligence that didn’t belong to an ordinary eagle, that they spread out their wings, changed into a v formation at the second the dagger was sent flying and successfully evaded the deadly blow.
“Since when have the eagles become so smart!?” Althalos almost screamed out in panic, keeping his body down close to Ausber, when the eagles were trying to grab them with their sharp talons out of the air after the dive. “What do we do now?”
“Keep going! We’re almost there,” Dulais said loudly, ducking down his head, then slashing at the swooping birds with his dagger, visioning some tangible water arrows to fight back, trying his best to keep the eagles from reaching them.
The birds of prey kept charging at them with a high-pitched shriek that only a raptor can emit at a high speed, but they just can’t find a way through his seamless defence. So, they changed from diving in to grab to hovering around to attack with long-pointed beaks, but it was too late. By the time the eagles were able to surround them, they had already bolted into the misty forest, where the birds were afraid of.
“Wow, Ausber stop, stop,” Althalos said, pulling the rein, scratching Ausber’s head as a reward, as he was astonished by the darkness that swaddled them. “Hey, I can’t see a thing!”
Then, suddenly, a faint light that looked like the sun in such a completely lightless place burst out from the sapphire of the staff in Dulais’s hand. The bushes, branches and trees that were about one meter close to the gemstone vanished like they suddenly ceased to exist, and, for those beyond one meter but still in the bright area, they became partly intangible and invisible.
They dismounted. “I wouldn’t have agreed to come if I knew the eagles were like mad men, and I have to tell you I am very glad that you have a candle with you,” Althalos said, feeling relieved, before he turned around to look at Dulais.
And at the moment when he laid eyes on the glowing sapphire, he leaned toward the staff in surprise with his eyes wide open just like seeing the centaur for the first time. He was so dazed that he became speechless for a few minutes before he spoke.
“What the hell is this? And the trees?” Althalos asked and looked about. “I thought it was a candle or something. And wait, what are those water arrows you used to drive off the eagles? I feel like I don’t belong to this world now.”
“Yes, the arrows. They are my imaginations, to be accurate, my vision. I conjured them up in my vision and thrusted them at the eagles, and so they moved the same way in the real world,” Dulais said, raising the staff up, looking for where they should go. “And about anything related to this staff. Don’t ask.”
“So you’re a mind-wielder?”
Scratching his nose in surprise, he looked back at Althalos, nodded and said, “Of course, I am a mind-wielder. Your brother have never heard of a mind-wielder before. So where did you learn that name, young man?”
“A book. I learnt it from a book. It’s about the adventure of a spell caster who call himself a mind-wielder.”
“A book?”
“Yes, a book.”
“This reminds me of something,” Dulais said, as he rummaged in his waist bag, took out a thin book and his waterskin, threw the book to Althalos and took a large sip of water.
“What is this?”
“A book. It belongs to Chavdar, but he accidentally left it on a carriage. So I think it would be better if you keep it.”
And his heart sank at the moment he realized it was given by Malo, dropped like a lodestone, weighty, dragging him down to his feet. But he stood back up at once, gaping at the book hollowly, his hands shaking like he can’t bear the fur-like weight of it.
He then took a deep breath to collect his thoughts, “Yeah,” Althalos said. “Thanks. I’ll keep it and return it to him when I find him, or his body.”
“Don’t mention it,” Dulais replied, as he began proceeding in a direction parallel to the edge of the forest, not going deeper into the forest, nor leaving. “Let’s go. Follow me.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
* * *
Trekking in the queer forest with the glowing staff was like treading on a flat, uninhabited meadowland with a blindfold on. There was no way for them to tell time in the woods as you can’t see the sun, nor feel the change in temperature, nor listen to the cocks crowing. The only thing they knew was the atmosphere was cold, actually bone-chilling but not glacial, and humid all the time, and they soon discovered that they were not alone in this mysterious place as they can occasionally hear a queer noise, probably emitted by an unknown creature, that was like nothing they had ever heard before. It was screechy but mesmerizing, ghastly but appealing, gritty but feminine.
They had already been heading west for the past few hours on foot with Ausber trailing slowly behind them, but it seemed they were just strolling around aimlessly as, with the dim light of the sapphire, they were unable to look at the things up ahead of them.
“How far do we still have to go?” Althalos said, the third time, whining. “My legs ache.”
Dulais said, sweating, “Almost there.”
“Why don’t you just tell me where we are going?” Althalos urged, out of breath, hands on knees. “Maybe there’s a shortcut that I know.”
“Valais. We’re going to a camp set up in the outskirts of Valais, on the borderline, and if you want to make it there alive, maybe you should quit talking and focus,” Dulais said.
“Valais? But they’re still waiting for us to come back in the village,” Althalos said doubtfully and stopped. “We have to go back!”
“I can’t risk going back out there without an effective way to defend ourselves,” Dulais said.
“But they are waiting!” Althalos insisted.
“You want us to go back out there and get us killed?” Dulais asked calmly.
Sighed disappointedly, shaking his head, “Anyway, what kind of a camp is it?” Althalos said.
“You’ll know when you get there.”
Sighed again, “All right, all right,” Althalos muttered.
Then they walked for about another ten miles until Dulais halted, shaking his stiff legs to loosen them, and murmured, “Vramus.” He then extended his arm out leisurely to light up the darkness of the front path.
And, as the darkness and the shroud of mist faded away, there was a tableland of astoundingly high mountain, and nothing but a rugged steep cliff wall that stretched out right in front of them, disappearing into the sun-blocking cloud to the right. With eyes blazing, Althalos craned skyward, head snapping around, trying to find the clifftop, but all he can see was the same old foggy cloud that enwrapped the entire forest.
“Awesome!” Althalos said. “What is this giant, stony wall?”
“This is the outer edge of the Vramus Mountain that marks the end of the forest and the boundary line separating Oskal and Austhun. It’s such an insurmountable mountain that it is treated as the primary, natural barrier against further Austhun ambitions of expanding, and it is also the only reason why Oskal still exists on the map as a country today. And we’re now standing at the foot of it.”