The Wanderer's Tale: Esmor

by Rex Foote

  Hark turned to see a small cloud of dust rising in the direction they had been traveling. Frowning, he checked his hunting knife was at his belt before turning to Esme and saying, “Wait here.”

  “Do you think it’s bandits?” she asked, her tone betraying a note of slight fear.

  “I don’t know,” Hark replied in his usual confident tone, “but I aim to find out.”

  She nodded, then reached for her socks and shoes. Nodding in approval, Hark stood and started off towards the dust cloud, which had grown closer since he first saw it. Hand on the pommel of his knife, he walked about ten yards from camp and halted, waiting for whatever it was to come to him. He didn’t have to wait long before a group of five mounted riders came into view. He stared at them as they drew closer with a look of confusion on his face, as he recognized the insignia they wore on the right breast of each of their uniforms; it was the insignia of the Caladarian Gate Guard. What in the name of the trees is the Gate Guard doing this far out from Caladaria? he thought as one of the riders addressed him.

  “Elreni, identify yourself.”

  Still confused by all this, Hark replied, “My name is Hark Ulaneiros.”

  The rider, a mature woman in a dark brown traveling cloak replied, “You are a bold one, I didn’t think it would be so easy to find you. Hark Ulaneiros, you are under arrest for the kidnapping of Esme Lane, and you will take us to her. Now.”

  Hark just stood there, shocked. Him, kidnapping Esme? What where these Humans talking about? The only people mad enough to assume that was how Esme left Caladaria were, were…Hark groaned as he realized just what had happened, and he was about to speak, intending to explain everything when a low, eerie moaning sound came through the gathering evening gloom. It was a faint sound that floated in from the west. Whatever it was it had been too low or quiet for the guards to hear, but Hark and the horses certainly caught it; both he and the animals tensed at the unsettling noise that sounded worrying similar to a wolf’s howl but somehow wrong. The guards, however, took Hark’s pause to mean something else entirely, and their leader rode up to him and levelled her loaded crossbow at him.

  “Show us where the girl is,” she growled menacingly.

  Hark promptly turned and started to walk back towards camp, the guards following. Outwardly, he appeared calm and collected, but inwardly his mind in was panic. Clearly Esme’s parents had assumed that the only reason their daughter would ever leave Caladaria was if she were taken by force, and they assumed that he had been responsible, which while being partly true was not the whole story. Taking deep breaths to fight the rising panic, he tried to remain calm. Once the guards spoke to Esme all would be cleared up, and they would be able to carry on—he hoped.

  ***

  By the time they reached the camp, night had well and truly settled. They came upon Esme sitting by the fire that she had kept well stoked. She looked up as they came into camp, her eyes first settling on Hark, then widening in surprise at the mounted woman behind him, who still had a loaded crossbow pointed at him. Before she could speak, the leader of the guards said, “Esme Lane? I am Gate Sergeant Anita Storkhelm. Your parents requested that I ride out and retrieve you from this Elreni”—at this, she gestured to Hark with the crossbow—“and return you to the safety of Caladaria.”

  Esme stared at the guard utterly speechless, which Hark thought was poor timing, since the sergeant seemed to take this as some sort of confirmation of what she had been told. This became apparent when she next spoke, “And judging by your dishevelled and sorry state, we caught up with you at just the right time. Did this Elreni hurt you in any way? He is already under arrest for kidnapping, and we would be more than happy to add to his list of crimes.”

  Hark could tell that Esme was building up to a truly spectacular tirade when that same low, eerie moan sounded over the night air, only this time it was closer and not alone. It was accompanied by the sound of a pack of wolves fighting something—perhaps whatever had made that noise—their snarls and barks proving that the source of the noise was no wolf. Their snarling, barking, and growling was abruptly cut short by the loud, clear sound of something solid snapping in two, to be followed a few moments later by the sound of the pack in flight. While all this had been going on, everyone’s attention had been drawn in the direction of the noise, and with that final sound Sergeant Storkhelm said, “Men, form a perimeter around the camp.”

  To Hark, it seemed like the other guards obeyed that command with less enthusiasm than a gate guard should have, as they dismounted and formed a circle around the camp, backs to the fire and looking out into the darkness. Esme had come over to Hark while all this was going on, and she leaned in close to whisper, “What was that?”

  Hark tried to keep calm as he turned to her and said, “I don’t know.”

  Which wasn’t entirely the truth, but he sincerely hoped that whatever had made that moaning sound wasn’t what he thought it was. Noticing that the attention of the guards was fixed on the darkness beyond the fire, he motioned to Esme to gather their things, and had just grabbed his bow and quiver when the noise sounded again, this time much, much too close. Hark looked up past the guards to see the vague shape of the vast, towering form just beyond the fire light. It was vaguely the shape of a man and at least eight feet tall with a broad chest and upper torso, long, thick legs, a short, squat, almost featureless head, and what seemed to be another set of arms coming just underneath the first pair. The guard closest to the thing started to shake; it was barely noticeable at first, but as seconds passed and the thing just stood there, it got worse and worse until, and Hark would never be sure for the rest of his life if this was actually the case, his twitching fingers pulled the release for his crossbow. The bolt whipped through the air and struck the thing with a meaty thud in its right shoulder. For a few moments, no one moved. Then, with a speed that should not have been possible for a creature of that size, the thing lunged forward, grabbed the guard by either side of his chest, and with a single pulling motion ripped the helpless man clean in half.

  Everything happened quickly after that. The remaining guards opened fire at once, the horses screamed, Esme threw up, and Hark grabbed her by the shoulder and started to run directly away from the road and camp, off into the east. Esme stumbled at first but soon found her feet, running as fast as he did, fuelled by a mixture of fear and adrenaline. Soon the sounds of battle and the screams of terrified men and beasts faded into the distance as they ran deeper and deeper into the endless expanse of the plains.

  He had no idea how far they ran, but it was only after they had run straight up a hill and then promptly tripped and rolled down the other side to lie in a tangled heap that they finally stopped. Both of them lay there panting for a long time before Esme, in an exhausted and fearful tone, asked, “What now?”

  Hark, too drained by fear and fatigue to even lift his head, replied, “I have no idea.”

  ***

  When that thing had ripped apart her guard, all thoughts of kidnapped mages and Elreni fled Storkhelm’s mind. What replaced them was the burning and immediate thought that if she didn’t fight, she would die, and she probably would still die all the same, but this way she could die doing something. As the volley of bolts from the remaining guards struck the creature, it let out its eerie cry, then grasped the remains of its first victim by the legs and proceeded to club the two nearest guards with the corpse. Both these men went flying backwards and landed solid impacts in the night beyond. That left her and one remaining guard, who died promptly when the monster brought both halves of the corpse down on him with enough force to reduce unfortunate to a bloody pulp. Now in the grip of blind panic, she turned and started to run. She made it two feet before she felt something grab her around her waist and lift her bodily off the ground. She struggled madly in its iron grip as it brought her up to its featureless flat face. Its twin slits of nostrils flared as it smelled her, and then it opened its mouth to let out its moaning cry. Horrified that it was ab
out to eat her alive, she went for her dagger, unsheathed it, and rammed it down into where a normal creature would have had its left eye. Unfortunately, this wasn’t a normal animal, and instead of dropping her from the pain of its wound as she had hoped, it simply drew back its arm and threw her out into the night. As she flew through the air, legs and arms kicking and flailing, it came to her far, far, too late that she should have never accepted that damn merchant’s bribe. Then, she hit the ground.

  Chapter Six

  1st Day of Daaris. The Season of Light. Year 250

  Hark woke the next morning feeling cold, sore, and staring at the tangled, dirty mess of dark red-brown hair that was the back of Esme’s head. It seemed that sometime during the night, consciously or subconsciously, he could not tell, the pair had settled in close to one another for warmth, safety, or both. He stirred and his movements woke Esme, who rolled over blinking in confusion before the events of the previous night came back to her, and an expression of fear and deep worry settled on her face. Sitting up, he took quick stock of what he had on him, while Esme simply stared off into the morning. He was relieved to find that he had his bow, a mostly full quiver, a hunting knife, and in a stroke of luck that had him thanking not only the trees, but the gods of Esme’s people as well, they both still had their waterskins, attached securely to their belts. Looking up, he noticed that Esme was still gazing off into nowhere and, calming his own feelings that bordered somewhere between blind panic and paralysing fear, he rested a hand on her shoulder and said, “Esme.”

  She turned to him, her face turned expressionless due to either the weight of recent events or exhaustion from their flight.

  “We survived, Esme. We ran and we lived, and we didn’t get hurt in the process. We can still get through this.”

  “It ripped him in half,” she murmured in response, her eyes glazing over as she recalled the same grisly scene. “His spine broke halfway down his back, and his organs spilled out while the ribcage just, just…”

  She trailed off, the horror of the recollection draining her of any will to finish the sentence. Desperately trying to fight back his own memory of the event, he hugged her. She wasn’t crying or screaming, or doing any of the other things that he had seen people who had experienced similar bloody scenes do, but he wasn’t convinced that this was much better.

  Holding her close, he whispered in her ear, “But we survived it. It did all that, and we lived, and we are going survive this. But we have to get moving; we can’t stay here.” When she didn’t reply, he continued, “Don’t do it for yourself. Do it for the look on your mother’s face when we return to Caladaria, alive and without her guards escorting us.”

  This drew a small smile from her, and Hark inwardly sighed, desperately hopeful that it was a sign she was coming out of her shock. She drew back from him, and he saw some of the colour return to her dirt-streaked face.

  “Thank you,” she said. “You are probably the best person to have survived that with.”

  Giving her a grin, he said, “Probably?”

  She gave him a tired smile in return.

  “Come on, then, what’s your plan? How do we get out of this?”

  “First,” he answered, “we need to find somewhere we can camp for a while, somewhere we can gather supplies and rest. Then we figure out which way Caladaria is and go back.”

  He couldn’t be sure, but he thought her face fell slightly at the mention of returning back to the city. But that couldn’t have been right; surely after all they had been through, she would want to go home. His doubt vanished with her next words.

  “How will we figure out which direction Caladaria is in?”

  With a wink, he replied, “I am an Elreni; trust me, I will find the way.”

  They stood, groaning at stiff, cold limbs, and spent the next few moments stretching. Then Hark set off up the hill they had fallen down the night before.

  “Where are you going?” Esme called after him.

  “To see what’s around,” he said over his shoulder. “This hill will probably give me the best vantage point to do that.”

  He carried on up the slope to the hill’s summit, Esme following a few steps behind. When they reached the summit, they had to cover their eyes as they were dazzled by the bright sunlight that bathed the top of the hill and opposite slope. It turned out that they had rolled into a small valley between two hills the night before, and that when they had woken they’d assumed it to be morning when it was, in fact, sun’s peak. Looking around, Hark could see that they had two choices; to what he decided was south lay a wood that looked to be decently sized, as he could not see its opposite edge from where he stood. Opposite that, he could see the terrain slowly climbing upwards, becoming rocky and uneven. The east and west just held a mix of plains, the occasional hill, and the odd clump of trees, as well as a river winding its way lazily across the land.

  “Well,” Hark began, breaking the silence that had fallen since they’d reached the summit. “We have two options. The woods or that rocky terrain. The woods will have small game and places to shelter, as well as herbs and the like, maybe even a bit of large game. The rocky terrain will have the same, just it’s more exposed, and we would have to be lucky and stumble upon a cave for shelter.”

  “So the woods?” Esme asked after a moment’s silence.

  “The woods do seem the better option,” he replied. “That, and I know the woods.”

  She nodded her agreement, and they set off down the hill towards the woods.

  ***

  They reached the treeline not long after sun’s peak, only stopping once they were a few yards in among the trees and Hark had located a large tree with roots that formed small nooks and crannies where they could rest and make camp. Sitting down against the tree, Esme looked up at him and said in an expectant tone, “Now what?”

  “Well, I am going to hunt,” Hark replied. “We need the meat for food, as well as the skin to make bags and clothes.” At this, he paused to look pointedly at the torn and dirty clothes Esme was wearing.

  Blushing, and trying to cover up some of the more egregious holes, she said, “And what do you want me to do?”

  “Start looking for firewood, or anything else you think we could use. Hopefully, I will find a replacement for flint and tinder while I am out, but keep an eye out.”

  She nodded at this and got up as he unshouldered his bow. He then surprised her by taking off his boots and leaving them at the base of the tree. Looking at them with a confused expression, Esme asked, “Won’t you need them? I mean, your feet could get cut.”

  Smiling, Hark replied, “Elreni learn to hunt barefoot from a young age. They make less noise this way, and the skin toughens pretty quickly.”

  As he turned to go, Esme quickly said, “Be careful, don’t get hurt out there.”

  He gave her his best reassuring grin. “Don’t worry, I will be fine. And besides, I am the hunter; it’s whatever lives in this wood that should be careful.”

  ***

  About an hour after Hark left their makeshift camp, he spotted deer tracks and silently thanked the Okryd trees of his forest home for their gift of luck. He had been getting worried that he wouldn’t be able to find anything, but now his spirits were lifted as bringing down a deer would be a big boost in confidence and resources for both of them. It would also reassure him that he could survive out in the wild in such a dire situation as they now found themselves in. He quickly stripped down to his loincloth and stashed his clothes away, his brown skin providing better camouflage than his clothes, and set off after the tracks. As he followed them, he reflected that he hadn’t been prepared to get utterly lost in the wilderness when he had decided to accompany Esme; he had planned for a nice relaxed walk to Mymt and back. In some ways, this was better, as it gave him the chance to prove to himself that he was good enough to survive when his plans turned to mulch.

  His thoughts were interrupted when he spotted a flash of movement through the trees up ahead. Wal
king very carefully, he stalked up and spotted a fully grown doe nibbling idly at some grass in a small clearing. Slowly, he raised the bow and sighted the animal down an imaginary shaft’s length. Once he was sure of his shot, he quickly drew and nocked an arrow, pulled back on the string, and released it. At once he saw that the arrow’s path was true, and moments later the shaft struck the animal in the meat of its neck. Leaping up out of his cover, Hark drew his hunting knife as he ran over to the doe and, upon reaching the animal, slashed its jugular open. As the animal bled out, something in the corner of his eye caused Hark to turn; something had almost seemed to sparkle on the far side of the clearing, perhaps struck by sunlight passing through a momentary break in the canopy. Hark was almost about to ignore it when something glinted from the same spot.

  Intrigued, Hark left the now dead animal and walked over to the spot. As he drew closer, he started to hear the faint sound of buzzing flies, and his apprehension grew and grew further when the smell of rotting meat wafted past him, causing him to fight down the urge to retch. He reached a pile of branches and twigs that seemed to cover something wet and soft. Steeling himself, he drew the debris away to reveal a badly broken and partially devoured human corpse. What had caught his eye in the sunlight now turned out to be broken bone, red with gore and glistening wetly in the sunlight. Hark staggered away and vomited into the bushes, his thoughts awhirl. The damage done to the body looked similar to what had been done to the guards from Caladaria, which could mean that whatever it was that had attacked them was here in these woods. Leaning against a tree and breathing deeply, he pushed the thought from his mind. No, it couldn’t possibly be; it was unlikely to be the same creature. After all, what were the chances that it just happened to wander in this direction and chance upon the same woods that they’d found? No, it was more likely to be some sorry adventurer who had stumbled upon wolves, or wyrms, or some other type of animal. He walked slowly over to the doe and hefted it over his shoulders. As he left the clearing, he resolved to not tell Esme of this, as there was no need to panic or worry her any further.