by Mark Dame
“Ready that bow,” Gudbrant whispered to Flyn.
Flyn held the bow out in front of him, ready to bring it up and take aim at one of the orcs. He was shaking all over. The arrow clicked quietly against the arrow rest.
“Easy, lad,” Sigrid said. “Wait to see if they take the bait.”
The orcs stopped at the bottom of the slope.
“Look!” one of the orcs said. “Footprints.”
“We get them now!” the other one said.
They turned off the path and ran along the bottom of the slope, following the tracks left by Harvig and Sigrid.
Flyn lowered his bow and breathed a sigh of relief.
“Let’s move quickly, before the rest of the group gets here,” Gudbrant said.
They snuck out of the gulley and, moving as fast as they dared in the dark, hurried along the slope until the torches of Gurnborg were lost in the night.
Chapter 10
The odd group spent the night climbing down the side of the mountain. All were tired and sore from their captivity and interrogations, especially Flyn, but none wanted to spend the night in the open with the orcs chasing after them. They moved as quickly as the darkness allowed and even though they saw no sign of pursuit, they didn’t pause until they reached the forest that covered the mountain’s lower slopes. Even then, after a short break, they continued on for another hour before stopping for the remainder of the night.
Their camp was spartan, even by the standards Flyn had come to accept since his fateful boat trip so many weeks before. They decided to not set up their tents, instead opting to just sleep sitting up against trees still wearing their armor, their swords lying on the ground next to them. A fire, of course, was out of the question. All were asleep within minutes, except Harvig, who took the first watch.
It seemed to Flyn that he had just closed his eyes when he found himself being shaken.
“Wake up, lad.” Sigrid’s hand was on his shoulder.
“Is it morning already?”
Sigrid chuckled. “I should think that if we weren’t in the trees, we would see the sky lightening with the coming of dawn, but there’s still enough of the night left for the others to sleep awhile longer. For you, on the other hand, sleep time is over. It’s your turn to take the watch.”
Flyn yawned and tried to stretch. Every muscle in his body ached, though he couldn’t tell if it was from the torture he had endured, the days climbing through the rugged terrain, or sleeping against a tree. He supposed it was all three. Adding to his discomfort, his back itched and burned. With his leather vest, he couldn’t even scratch his back on the tree.
He stood up and took off the vest. Sigrid, sitting against a nearby tree, watched, an amused grin on her face.
“My back itches,” Flyn said.
“I imagine it does,” she replied. “If we were in Kridheben, I know a healer who’d have you fixed up in a jiffy. Alas, we’re a long way from the halls of home.”
“Is that where you’re from?” Flyn rubbed his back on the tree while he talked.
“Aye. Most beautiful place in the world. You should come visit someday.”
“I’ll do that. Right after I rescue Kel…” Flyn trailed off. If I rescue Kel.
“I’ll show you the Shrine of Brontee and the Kaygen Cathedral. And the Crystal Hall of Drysten. Now there’s a sight worth the travel to see. It was carved out of the living crystal back in the days of Kirr himself. Special braziers were built to send light through the crystals. The caretakers can make it look like the sun is setting inside the mountain or turn the whole hall into fire. Elves may have their rockets and sparklers, but nothing they have compares to the light shows in the Crystal Hall.”
“Rockets and sparklers?” Flyn sat down across from Sigrid.
Sigrid cocked her head and stared at Flyn before responding. “Rockets are small tubes that fly up into the air and explode into thousands of sparks of colored light. Sparklers are kind of the same, but they don’t go into the air. You’ve never seen them?”
“We don’t have anything like that back on Trygsted,” Flyn said. For all the wonder people had shown about his home, it seemed pretty boring compared to what they had in Tirmar. “But we don’t have elves or dwarves either.”
“Ah, you don’t know what you’re missing,” Sigrid said, shaking her head. “I’ll have a lot to show you after this is over.”
Flyn nodded, but didn’t reply. He didn’t have much confidence that there would be an after.
Sigrid broke the silence after a few minutes. “Tell me something, Andor. How is it you’re so far from home? And how did your friend get himself captured by the pig-noses?”
Flyn sighed. “It’s my fault. Me and my stupid boat. Kel didn’t even want to come.”
He recounted everything he and Kel had been through since they left Drogave.
“That’s about the craziest thing I’ve ever heard,” she said when he finished. She had an odd look in her eye. “A whole clan living on an island that doesn’t like boats?”
“That’s a whole different story.” Flyn frowned. She thought the strangest part was that the Andors didn’t like boats?
Sigrid shook her head. “Well, I suppose it’s not much stranger than the Redmarr clan.”
“Who are the Redmarr clan?”
“The Redmarrs are dwarves who don’t like being underground. They live in towns and cities just like humans. And some of them even shave their beards. Especially the women.” Sigrid spat. “Trying to look more human or something.” She looked up at Flyn. “No offense.”
“So all dwarf women in your clan have beards?”
“Aye, why wouldn’t we?”
“I’m sorry. I don’t mean to be rude, but I’ve never seen a woman with a beard.”
“You humans are a strange lot.” Sigrid chuckled.
Flyn yawned.
“Why don’t you go back to sleep?” Sigrid said. “I won’t be going back to sleep, so you may as well rest. Besides, you need it more than I do.”
“No,” Flyn said. “It’s my turn. I’ll do it.”
“If you say so, Andor.”
Flyn leaned back against the tree and yawned again.
Flyn and Sigrid woke the others while the forest floor was still covered in shadow. After a hasty breakfast, the group set out again, climbing down the side of the mountain.
The trees and undergrowth hampered their travel, pushing them along the slopes one way or the other, sometimes many furlongs before finding a clear path to the west again. At times, cliffs and ravines blocked their way forward. Small gullies would merge with larger gullies to form ravines. They followed these when they could, climbing out if they turned too far to the south and toward Ingekirk Pass, where their pursuers were no doubt searching for them.
Several times they heard patrols, usually far in the distance, though once they thought they glimpsed a group of orcs moving through the trees on a ridge across a narrow valley from them. Each time they stopped and found cover, but no one came across them.
After a day and a half of trudging through the foothills of the Estlaeg Mountains, they reached more level ground and soon the last of the trees.
“Best if we rest here for a while,” Gudbrant said. “The trees will shelter us from spying eyes. We can begin our journey across the open plains under the cover of night.”
The tired group settled down to rest for a few hours. Flyn dropped to the ground where he stood and fell asleep without eating or even removing his pack. The sun was below the horizon in front of them when Gudbrant woke him. Flyn could barely move his aching muscles. He sat by himself, not talking to the others, nibbling on jerky.
The rest of the party wasn’t in much better shape than Flyn. Even the resilient Sigrid grumbled to herself as she ate. Harvig, his nose and face still swollen and purple, hadn’t spoken much at all since they had escaped. Like Flyn, he ate alone and didn’t speak.
Randell and Gudbrant discussed the path ahead of them. Neither co
uld remember exactly how far Hemdown was from the mountains, though both agreed it was at least two days along the road. Gudbrant felt it was one day by horse, so two days on foot. Randell argued that to make the distance in one day, the horse would have to be carrying only a passenger, and therefore it was probably more like three days on foot.
Regardless of how far it was, they would be spending at least one, possibly two days in the open. Which meant they would have to stay well north of the road to avoid being seen by orcs that might still be looking for them. And traveling by night would be harder without the sun to help guide their direction.
“What does it matter?” Flyn said after the two had been going back and forth for a while.
“It matters because we don’t want to wander too close to the road,” Gudbrant said.
“Or too far away from the road and miss Hemdown entirely,” Randell added.
“Yes, I know, but we don’t even know how far from the road we are now.”
“Well, we can’t go looking for it just so we can follow it,” Randell said.
“No, but we can follow a star.”
“A star?” Randell said.
“Yes. Back home, I had been thinking about taking my boat out at night. I never did get the nerve to do it, but my main concern was how to keep a straight course. I spent every night for a month watching the stars. They move through the sky, like the sun, but there’s one star that stands still.”
“Skadyarna,” Gudbrant said. “In the northern sky.”
“Exactly. If we keep it directly to our right, we’ll always be traveling west.”
Sigrid chuckled. “The lad is smarter then he lets on.”
“And you’ve done this before?” Gudbrant asked.
“Well, for short distances. But it always works.”
“I think we should give it a try,” Randell said.
Gudbrant and Sigrid accepted Flyn’s plan. Harvig said nothing, seemingly unconcerned with how they proceeded.
The orange glow of sunset had faded to the purple of twilight by the time they were ready to move again. Once they left the trees, Flyn found Skadyarna. Squaring his shoulders and holding his arm out, he turned until the star was straight above his outstretched fingers.
“That way,” he said, pointing in front of him.
They set out across the open plain under the cover of complete darkness. They would have a couple of hours before the moon rose behind them, and they hoped to be far enough from the mountains by then that none on the open peaks would see their passage. Gudbrant and Randell led the party, followed closely by Flyn and Sigrid. Harvig trailed behind as usual, to watch for pursuers.
Shortly after leaving the forest, they crossed a road going north and south.
“That way lies Uskleig,” Gudbrant said, pointing north.
The road disappeared into the darkness, no sign of the evil it led to. The way they must travel to save Kel and Brenna. Flyn shivered in spite of the warm evening air.
They traveled without speaking for a while, the only sound the soft swishing made by the tall grass brushing against their legs. Far to their left, they caught an occasional glimpse of light.
“Orcs with torches on the road,” Gudbrant said.
No one else spoke.
Flyn found himself thinking about what Ugglar had said about Kel. If Jarot wanted him, perhaps Kel was still alive. But maybe that wasn’t such a good thing. From the brief torture he experienced, Flyn couldn’t imagine having to endure it for days or weeks. Whether Kel was alive or dead, Flyn couldn’t abandon his friend, even though it meant almost certain death for himself.
He still remembered Kel’s words from weeks ago: If I die, I’ll haunt you forever.
“I suppose you will,” he whispered to himself.
“What was that, lad?” Sigrid said from next to him.
“Nothing. I was just thinking about Kel. Wondering if he was still alive.”
“Have faith,” she said, putting a hand on his shoulder. “If he’s anything like you, he’ll survive.”
“If he does, it’ll just be to tell me ‘I told you so.’”
Sigrid laughed. “Then here’s to ‘I told you so!’”
They walked in silence for a few minutes, then Sigrid started to sing. She sang for several minutes, then her voice faded into the night.
“What’s that song about?” Flyn asked.
“It’s called ‘The Last Ride.’ It’s about the last battle of the Tirmar Revolution when Kirr, Redmarr, and the others led the last assault on the Yonarr. It goes on to tell about how they breached the gates of the city and how Mijon used the last of his magic to destroy the Yonarr and their civilization.”
“Meinrad mentioned Mijon. Wasn’t he leader of the Yonarr?”
“He was their leader for hundreds of years. Maybe thousands. Nobody knows. When he saw the war was lost, he summoned all his power to destroy all the Yonarr cities and all their magic.”
“Why would he do that?”
“The stories say it was to keep their magic from the rebels. Whatever his reason, after that, the Yonarr forces scattered. Everyone believed Mijon’s magic had destroyed all the Yonarr as well, since they all disappeared afterward. I guess some of the old songs will have to be changed.”
The party marched on, and by the time the moon rose, they were far from the foothills of the Estlaeg Mountains and the eyes of searchers there. Even lights on the road to the south had disappeared. Still, they pressed on with only occasional short breaks. None of them wanted to chance a rogue patrol stumbling on them in the dark.
The rolling hills and flat prairies of the Blaslet Plains stretched as far as Flyn could see in the light of the half moon. He suspected that even in daylight he wouldn't see anything but grass in front of them. Behind them, the mountains still loomed, their snow-covered peaks glowing pale blue in the moonlight.
“These fields remind me of home,” Flyn said after a while. “My father and brother will have all the crops planted by now. I should have been there to help.”
“Once we find your friend, we’ll figure out a way to get you back,” Gudbrant said. “You know, these fields used to be farms, before Jarot came.”
“They don’t look like they’ve been harvested or plowed in a long time,” Flyn said.
“No, not for many years,” Gudbrant said. “Most of the Blaslet Plains between Hemdown and the Estlaegs used to be farmland. This was the primary source of food for the Ilfin clan, from Garthset to Haugerholm. They even traded crops with the Mundar and Ranjer clans when we still had contact with them.”
“What happened to all the farms?”
“Jarot’s forces destroyed most of them. Those closer to Uskleig are now run by the orcs with the people they’ve enslaved.”
Flyn nodded. All those people, driven from their homes or captured by the orcs to be slaves.
Not for the first time since leaving home, Flyn wished he had never tried to take his boat around Trygsted. He wondered what his family was doing, whether they had given up hope of ever seeing him again. He wished he could talk to them, to let them know he was alive and trying to get home. To his surprise, he even wanted to know if his father and Ty ever got their milking machine working.
The fields of grasses gave way to other fields. Corn, beans, and other vegetables, all growing wild. Next to one field, they found an old burned-down house. The remains were overgrown with weeds and brush. An old well next to the house turned out to have clean water that they used to refill their waterskins.
As they sat and rested, Flyn looked up at the moon. Wiping a tear from his eye, he wondered if his family was looking up at that same moon, somewhere hundreds of leagues away.
After walking through the night, the party camped the next day in a hollow surrounded by tall brush to hide them from prying eyes on the road. They still did not take a chance on a cooking fire, knowing the smoke would be easily spotted by any traveling along the road they suspected was less than half a league away. They sle
pt on the open ground, in case they needed to make a quick escape should an orc patrol stumble upon them.
The following night was much the same. Rolling hills, grasslands, wild fields, and the occasional ruins of a house, most burned down, the rest collapsing on their own from disuse. They saw no more lights from the road or any other sign they were still being followed. Even so, they grew anxious to reach Hemdown and its relative security from the orcs of Gurnborg.
As the sky began to lighten in the east, Gudbrant stopped.
“There,” he said, pointing to his left.
The others followed his finger. To their south and a little east, lights twinkled in the distance.
“Is that Hemdown?” Flyn asked.
“It is,” Gudbrant replied. “Unless I’m very much mistaken. It’s less than a league away. We can reach it before sunrise.”
The party turned south, heading straight for the lights. The distance proved to be farther than it appeared. They walked for over an hour before they reached the town. The lights were coming from large braziers, burning bright atop a great stone wall, even larger than the one surrounding Gurnborg.
“I haven’t been to Hemdown in many years,” Gudbrant said. “Much has changed since my last visit. Let us hope there are still friendly faces behind these walls. Friendly or no, best we keep our business to ourselves as much as possible.”
Guards patrolling the top of the walls watched them as they made their way around the city to the main gate. Hemdown was larger than any town Flyn had ever been to. On Trygsted, only Osthorp and Andorkirk, the capital of Trygsted, were bigger, and he had never been to either. They walked for the better part of an hour before they reached the gate. By then, the sun was rising about the mountains in the east.
The gate was open, guarded by men in leather armor, metal helmets, and armed with swords. As the travelers approached, the guards stepped forward to block the way, watching them carefully. On the wall above the gate, two archers stood with arrows nocked, ready to draw.
Without hesitation, Gudbrant stepped up to the closest guard, who put his hand on the hilt of his sword.