by Scott Zamek
They took their places, and they waited. Filby could see the clearing through his curtain of bushes, ten yards below and a stone’s throw away. He listened intently, and it seemed the distant scuttle of feet came to him many times on the wind. But nothing appeared in the opening, and the sounds disappeared as quickly as they came. Heavy clouds crept in from the west, a steady rain began to fall, and the clearing became obscured by fog and cold drizzle. The day darkened and sounds mingled with the patter of rain. Underbrush rustled at the edge of the trees.
One trogg emerged from the thickets, cautiously advancing, snuffling and snorting like a wild animal of the forest as he approached. A second emerged, then a third. The five troggs moved forward, and Filby drew a bead through the rain and mist. He set an arrow to the string and aimed. Water dripped from the feather as he held his breath—and loosed.
A trogg squealed in pain as an arrow grazed his shoulder. Ethreal leapt from the bushes and attacked, felling a trogg with her sword. Four troggs wheeled on Ethreal and made forward. Ethreal gave back, raising her sword. A blow came from the nearest trogg, clanged against Ethreal’s raised sword, and sent her stumbling backward.
Filby set another arrow to string and fired. The wounded trogg fell with a second arrow, this time to the chest. Filby drew his sword and ran to Ethreal’s aid. What he saw as he ran made it seem to him as if time had slowed to a crawl. Ethreal’s blade cut through the rain in a sweeping arc, and water flung from the edge sending glimmering droplets against the sky. Three troggs advanced as she swung and parried in the rain, her twisted cords of hair streaming water to the ground. Her jaw was locked tight with supreme physical effort, with concentration, with her will to overcome her own weakness.
Even as the troggs advanced, she met their blows. Even as she was knocked to the ground. A stab to her heart, and she deflected the blow with her back to the ground. Another met her shoulder. Filby pounced from behind and ran one trogg through; a rabid squeal rose above the rain and the approaching thunder. Ethreal raised up to her knees and took another. The last turned and ran into the forest, disappearing in a cloud of fog and tangled branches.
Working his lungs in the cold rain, breathless, Filby looked at Ethreal. She rose to her feet; her skin was white and her dim eyes searched for the light. She staggered and fell to a knee, then to an arm, then gave to the oblivion of fever and darkness.
ONLY FILTERED light reached the ground, a perpetual twilight, like the last pale hour of a fading winter day. Andreg’s old horse trundled along behind the others, carrying its usual easy load of food and blankets and the few supplies Captain Santee could spare back at the fort. Five days to the Border Lands, the captain had said, and they had been on the road the better part of one day. Aerol glanced up to see the sun already beginning its slow descent into the west, trading its last cool rays for the first evening frost. He led the way along a rutted wagon track crooking east through dense trees, black and leafless limbs now working the sky into warped patterns as if winter had long held sway over this one thin patch of forest.
Around early evening, the wagon track widened and swept down into a flat valley. Green returned to the land again, and the forest thinned; birches and maple trees stood in clusters upon a sweeping meadow flecked with meadowsweet and primrose. A few pine saplings stood here and there, protecting their own circular domain of brown pine needles beneath sharp green boughs. Aerol called a halt, and they set camp in the valley and kept no watch, for they heard no unusual sounds and Trader could see no sign of danger in the surrounding forest. Sleep came long and silent through a dark and clouded night.
Morning brought a thin sky and thick trees dripping with dew. Leaves covered the track and scattered at the shuffle of hooves, a dark green canopy arching overhead to blot out the day. They descended down a forested hill toward the sound of trickling water, where a decrepit wooden bridge spanned a small creek heavy with silt and clay. “It is the source of the Red River,” said Aerol, pulling in his reins. “This stream bears westing to the border of the Forest Lands, then bends away to the north where it joins the Meltwater and the Sanguin Sea. It means we are well through the forest.”
The clatter of hooves echoed along the bridge and then were silenced as they regained the leaf-covered track. Trader stopped and raised his hand. “Something approaches,” he said, and the others stopped to listen. A forest wind whistled through distant branches. The faint titter of leaves could be heard skipping along the path. Aerol moved his cloak aside to reveal the hilt of his sword.
A low rumbling rose against the north wind, then a slow and rhythmic squeaking. A wagon appeared from around the bend ahead, and as it neared, the crooked wheel became louder to pump its high-pitched tune with the wind. Trader could see tattered canvas arching over a wire frame, with odd-shaped patches covering unseen tears and holes. An old draft horse plodded along, head down and weary.
Two men scratching their grizzled beards slowed and stopped the wagon. “Three alone?” said the driver, holding the reins steady and leaning forward on the bench. His flannel shirt was soiled and weathered, patches of cloth flopping down where a shirt or pant leg had been sliced but not quite cut away. “It’s been a while since we seen descent folk.”
“We are bound for the far side of the forest,” returned Aerol. “Are you hurt?”
“Troggs,” said the second man.
“Not as hurt as some,” said the driver. “And if you’re headed east I’d turn ’round right now. Ain’t no way through.”
Trader motioned toward a pair of rusted and bloodied swords that sat on the bench between the two men. “Had some trouble?”
The driver looked pained, and gave Trader a sharp glance. “We set out five days ago from the hunting lands on the eastern edge of the forest. Hired us some bounty hunters for special protection—real rough characters they were—the whole wagon train hired ’em. Then we ran into them troggs.” The driver spit over the side, then revealed a pipe from his pocket and began packing tobacco. “Our hired guards dealt with them troggs all right—lost a man, but that wasn’t the end of it. Somethin’ came in the night, black as coal—couldn’t barely see it. Mighty fearful it was, and them hired men that were protectin’ us ain’t never seen nothin’ like it. They fought bravely but they was like sticks thrown against the trees.”
The driver lit his pipe and glanced at his friend. “And everyone was killed.” He took a few puffs and gazed blankly ahead. “We was the only ones that got away, and then only because we was left for dead. We took the only horse left alive and headed west again, hopin’ to see some town or settlement, but there ain’t none between here and there. Everyone’s fled the forest. These are evil times, they are. Evil times.”
Trader lowered his head and Andreg stood speechless.
“The road was blocked in many places,” said the driver, “but we cleared it. We carried axes with us for just such a purpose, but now we are just two and it’s taken us many a day to clear the path and get here. But if you is headin’ to the east, I’d advise you to turn around. Ain’t no way through with that kind of beast roamin’ the woods.”
“Nightwraith,” said Aerol. “That howling.”
“But I’ve never heard one sound like that,” said Trader.
“Nor have you ever heard one cry aloud while the sun breaches the horizon.” Andreg took a long breath and looked closely at his companions. “The days are short and dim, and the evil comes forth before night falls. And their shrill cries become sickly moans while the sun holds sway on the land.”
Aerol shared some supplies and information about the road ahead, the trapper’s cabin, and especially the fort—the last settlement in the forest—where the wagoners could find some meager supplies and a temporary sanctuary. But the driver was anxious to make time before nightfall, and the last members of the doomed wagon train moved down the track as quickly as they had arrived. The heavy-set draft horse plodded west, and the rickety wheels squeaked and rolled beyond sight.
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sp; Aerol, Trader, and Andreg took up their reins and pulled east. The track quickly became thin, a dense wall of trees rising up to the left and right, and so they rode single file under a roof of shadows and filtered green light. A massive oak tree had fallen at the base of a long rise, but a section was cut away to the width of a wagon. Many such trees blocked the way forward, but they were all cut well clear of the path, just as the driver of the wagon had promised. As a result, they made good time. They camped for two nights next to the wagon track then came to a vast section of pines where the sky could not be seen. The path became hard, paved in places by heavily worn stones, where the clip-clop of hooves echoed off the trees.
Aerol tightened his cloak around his shoulders. “The forest,” he said. “Do you hear?” Trader and Andreg listened intently. An odd silence dwelled upon the land, and odd whisperings. No normal birds called from the underbrush, and no cool wind rustled the branches. The sounds rising on the forest air were unfamiliar: far away howls lost on the wind, barely wafting within earshot one moment then gone the next. Another, high-pitched and shrill, was buried somewhere deep in the woods, and it could be heard only when the wind calmed and all else was deftly silent.
“Odd indeed,” whispered Trader, as he nudged his horse closer to the group. “And the days grow dark and short—more like midwinter.”
“The shadows from the east grow long,” said Andreg quietly. “Our days of light are precious few—the malign treachery beyond the mountains reaches into the forest even now.” The white stallion whinnied and his mane blew west with a gust of cold wind. Andreg looked to the darkening sky and nudged Ethreal’s mount gently toward the last flutter of day. Up ahead, he could see the wagon track arch upward over a small hill then crook north into a stand of drooping willows and twisted oaks. A thick forest pressed in close, and somewhere beyond sight the sun rounded the edge of the world and an icy moon took its place. Andreg lit the way with the coming of night, but his crystal was weak and gasping—it seemed no more than a single yellow candle flickering over the path to come.
Aerol looked up at Andreg’s dull crystal pricked into the blackness above. “A ghostly halo stands upon us . . . a cold mist rises.”
“Alas,” sighed Andreg, “the ancient powers of light are overcome.”
“Flowing water,” said Trader quietly. “Somewhere in the dark way ahead.” The horses smelled it just as keenly. Aerol’s black Frasian bucked his head and pulled against the reins and the Far Rider let his steed out to a trot. They soon halted at a steep bank. A murky fog settled along the cattails, but the river appeared only as a dark chasm, darker than the night, pressing a pure black void into an already featureless land. Aerol jerked the reins and pointed his horse north along a border of reeds and river grass, turning up the collar of his cloak. His breath curdled into a sudden frost.
“From where does this cold rise?” whispered Trader, clutching the front of his cloak to tighten it around his neck. The river was quiet but for a rising and falling trickle beyond a border of brush and reeds, but the Watcher’s neck began to prick like pins. It was at the edge of even his hearing, but he heard the cry. That barely audible dim rising, that howl in the night.
“Ferryman’s shack,” said Aerol, pointing ahead into the bare glow of the moon.
Trader looked to the front and saw a broken-down shack made of rotted wood and split logs. “Deserted.” He nudged his steed forward and came to the edge of the river, where a lone frog churned an eerie groan somewhere lost in the reeds, and a wooden dock stretched out into the blackness beyond. Trader could hear the gentle peak of dark waves against unseen wooden slats as he swung off his horse and walked to the end of the landing dock. Two cold lanterns still stood atop the pilings. The Watcher picked one up and shook. “Oil still remains,” he said, striking a match.
An unsteady yellow reached across the night, and the slow-moving river revealed itself; they could barely make out the shape of a flat-bottomed raft beached in the mud and reeds on the other side. Two ropes extended over the river to one of the pilings on the landing. Trader could hear the thin screech of crickets rising on the far bank, but the near shore—the section of forest directly behind him—cast off a dread frost in silence.
Trader lit the second lantern. Again, the prickling in his neck made him shudder. It was closer this time, the others could hear.
“We should cross at once,” whispered Andreg. “I do not like the sound of the trees to the west.”
One of the lanterns sputtered and died, sending the sound of waves on wood echoing through the hollow silence. And then the trickle of water gave way to the sickly howl that had wavered in with the smallest breeze for many dim days, and the painful moan rose and encircled the night then faded in a slow and mournful cry. Aerol turned and stared into the vacant blackness, hand tight to the hilt of his sword. “Make haste,” he called. “We cannot linger.”
Trader untied the tow rope in the failing light, hitched it to his saddle, and his wild steed’s hooves clattered against the dock. The raft jerked and a splash on the far bank cut through the weeds and cattails, then the tow rope gave off a wrenching groan from tension after long disuse. Andreg strained his eyes into the watery darkness, where lingering fog clung to the river in faint wisps. The sputtering lantern no longer reached the far bank, but by the foot, the looming figure of the flat-bottomed ferry gradually emerged through tarnished water in a slow creaking motion toward the landing.
Andreg dismounted and led his white stallion to the end of the dock. Trader cinched up his saddle bags and made ready for the crossing. The second lantern gave a slow wheeze and faded, but Andreg heard the thud of wood on wood in the darkness, muffled by lapping waves and water. Aerol stood his silent watch on the riverbank, hand on his sword, peering into the forest, but now he turned to the dock as Trader lit the old torch that had been waiting on the rail of the raft, weathered and rotten, since the ferryman had abandoned his crossing untold weeks or months ago. Ethreal’s stallion bucked his head as the horses were loaded onto the ferry.
Aerol gripped the hemp rope, dry and brittle with age, and his arms hardened as he began pulling against the slack current. Torchlight reached in vain toward the far shore, the trickling river closed in around them, and they could hear the moans and groans of old wood grinding against the water. Andreg looked out but could not see either shore, nor could he see the covered black sky above or the water below. Sounds faded into silence. The steady ring of crickets deadened into the blank night, and a heavy emptiness drenched the air. Waves butted at the hollow bottom of the raft, sounding like the din of thunder in the stark silence.
Even the Watcher’s keen vision could no longer make out the ferryman’s shack, but still, in the bleary light of the moon and by the gloom of the wavering torch, he thought he could see a dark figure standing at the very edge of the dock.
Trader shivered and whispered. “I think there is something stand . . . I mean, watching. Watching us from the ferryman’s landing—there, in the shadows.”
Aerol and Andreg sharpened their eyes toward the shore, but could see nothing through the murk of the blackened river. Still, they took heed. They disembarked on the opposite shore and did not make camp, traveling well into the night. The river was far behind them by the time they stopped and built a fire, but even then they stood vigilant and did not sleep. Andreg strained to keep a crystal burning high above, but he could manage no more than a dim ember and in the end abandoned the task. Instead, they stoked the fire and ate a quick dinner of dried mutton and beans and knew, at least, that supplies were not a problem for the near journey. Indeed, they carried supplies for five, with the saddlebags of their two missing companions slung on the back of Andreg’s horse.
They took to the path again with the first glimmer of day. The way bent slightly south, and the dirt wagon track turned to worn cobblestones invaded by grass and weeds. But Trader was dismayed when the silence that had pervaded the west side of the river slowly followed them over to
the east. “The forest grows quiet,” he said, as the wind sent a flurry of leaves scattering across the paving stones. Aerol turned his head and listened. No birds called from the trees; no trickle of water or patter of dew on the forest floor gave witness to a fall day. Even the wind that usually hummed through the distant forest had ceased. And if he listened long and intently, he thought he could hear . . . he was not quite sure. A foul wind, perhaps, blowing through far-off branches.
“No more camps,” said Aerol quietly. He strained to see the path ahead through a gathering fog. “Two more days to the border and we ride straight through.”
The path widened and a clearing formed; the sunless sky revealed itself a sickly gray. Debris began to litter the track and the grassy shoulder: a few scraps of paper, a torn bit of clothes, a discarded boot. Wagons appeared, burned and shattered and strewn with arrows, canopies shredded and carriages tipped on their sides with crooked wheels pointing to the treetops. Rain had come and gone many times, but the crimson remained, and flies had descended on bodies trapped beneath wheels and wagons where an arm or leg poked out from the wreckage.
“The doomed wagon train.” Trader covered his face with his cloak, looking from side to side as they slowly moved through the chaos. A wisp of smoke still rose from the charred remains of a wagon carriage. “More than just one nightwraith—those are trogg arrows.”
Aerol clutched his reins tightly. “How many have died fleeing the evil that grips this land.”
“Many more will die,” said Andreg, emotionless, as if relating a foretold prophecy. “Our mission requires haste, lest all the Five Kingdoms resemble this valley.”
“We are two days from the edge of the forest,” said Trader, “if we ride through the night.”