by Nunn, PL
There was uncertainty in her eyes now – she pushed against his chest and twisted. He let her, sighing. She gasped and flattened herself to him, one hand at her mouth. For a long time she said nothing. The spriggan turned its head once to stare at them, and Victoria shuddered.
“Alex,” she whispered, “if this is your dream, then I’m in it.”
“I know.”
She craned her neck to look at him, then at the sky above. It was darkening with evening. Tentatively she put out a hand and felt the cold ground, she picked up a pebble and hefted it in her small hand. Suddenly she tossed it into the center of the clearing. The ogre growled in surprise and the two goblins hissed.
She drew back.
“Alex.” Her voice was shaky and broken. “This is no dream. This is real.”
“No, it’s not,” he assured her. “I have them all the time, not like this granted, but they always seem real.”
“Alexander, this is real,” she insisted, her voice rising in panic. “I know dream from reality and this is not dream. Nightmare maybe, but it’s real.”
He was about to argue further when a voice came from nowhere.
“Trolls. On the ridge above.”
It was smooth and clear and for the life of him he had no notion where it originated. But the spriggan was staring at a spot just beyond the ogre’s campfire, and the goblins were doing likewise nervously whispering among themselves.
There was an inconsistent section of rock and shadow. He squinted at it and as his brain registered that there was indeed something there other than stone dappled in evening light, his eyes began to make out the shake of a roughly man-sized form ensconced in what at first seemed a ragged collection of layered cloaks. On closer inspection, and the more he looked the more details he saw, the cloak was cut with precise imperfection, each layer a differing length of a light, thin fabric. It was the exact color of the stone behind it.
It even seemed to darken where the shadow fell on the rock. A concealing cowl covered the form’s head, but it seemed no taller than Alex and its shoulders no wider, and with the movement of the cloak in the breeze he caught sight of a hand that looked very much human, save for the slender, narrow length of the fingers. The skin was very much an echo of the cloak and rock, though only faintly paler.
At the shape’s statement, the ogre lurched to its feet, grabbing its ax. “How many?” it rumbled.
The form held up four fingers.
“Adults, this time,” he clarified. It was a male voice, though beautifully silken and tinted with a hint of accent.
“Can’t take on four trolls,” the spriggan whined, dancing from foot to foot nervously. “Look what almost happened with just a single young one?”
“Shut up, Bashru,” Zakknr growled, then cast his narrow, piggish glare at Alex and Victoria, as if they held some fault in the cloaked man’s announcement.
“Get horses,” he suddenly snarled and stomped across the clearing toward Alex.
Victoria let out a startled squeal as the ogre reached down with one hand and yanked her out of Alex’s arms.
Complaining, Alex followed her up on his own and had his arm encased in the uncompromising grasp. With a human in each hand he dragged them across the clearing to where the goblins and spriggan had saddled a cluster of night dark horses.
Or something like horses, but not exactly.
One of the animals bared his teeth at the spriggan and Alex realized that the teeth were not the teeth of a herbivore. The spriggan was already mounted, his dark eyes scanning the rocks above them. From somewhere out in the shadows there was a crashing and a loud series of grunts.
Zakknr let go of Alex to effortlessly swing Victoria up behind the spriggan. Her legs were pale slashes against black horse and tack.
“No.” He tried to struggle when the ogre dragged him away, calling Victoria’s name. She looked over her shoulder at him, helplessly as the spriggan spurred the horse into motion. She disappeared down the trail behind an outcrop of rock. The goblins were already on their mounts and following the spriggan. The ogre hoisted him up into the saddle of the remaining horse, then climbed up after him. This horse was considerably larger than the other three, more like some parody of a draft horse, with thick fetlocks and a flat back that Alex could have stretched out fully upon. The animal grunted under the ogre’s weight. Alex found himself trapped between the ogre’s arms, any route of escape vanished. Not that he wanted escape, with things that even the ogre feared shambling down the slope.
As the ogre spurred his mount down slope, shadow suddenly melted out from the rock before them. The animal tossed its head in surprise and the ogre growled.
“Damned assassin,” Zakknr rumbled.
“Don’t do that.”
The cloaked form held up a hand showing three fingers. “Three. But go fast, others follow.”
The ogre swore, and kicked his horse past the man on foot. The cloak swirled as the man danced out of the large animal’s path. Alex looked back only a second later, but there was no sign of him.
They galloped headlong down the treacherous, rocky path, the hooves of the horse kicking loose rocks that trailed after them. Victoria was wrong. This had to be a dream. There was no other explanation.
For if it was not, then he was surely insane. It would mean that he had lost the tenuous grip on sanity that the war had left him with.
The horse stumbled and he was thrown forward, pressed against the hard ridge of neck bone by the oppressive weight of the ogre. He felt the breath leave him in an explosive gasp. Something hit the ground just before them to the left.
Rock exploded, sending sharp chips flying. The horse screamed in outrage as its legs and belly were hit by the stone shrapnel. The ogre bellowed, waving his ax. Alex risked twisting about to stare up the slope to the right.
Something monstrous stood there in the glow of evening. Something that made the ogre seem petite and graceful. It was tall as a house and almost as broad. It wore a patch work of skins and furs about its thick middle and carried a club that was more like a medium tree than anything else. A thatch of shaggy black hair was pulled back in a long greasy tail and it wore most gruesome jewelry. Teeth, bones and small skulls adorned its wrists and neck. It stooped and picked up a second bolder, carelessly tossing it down upon them. Zakknr pulled up hard on the reins, jerking the horse to one side as the rock hit and shattered. The troll, for that was what they had said, was coming down the mountain, blew out a gust of frosty air at the miss, then started to clamber down the slope. Zakknr kicked the horse into motion, and the animal eagerly scrambled down the path. They could hear the bellows of the troll behind them.
The great horse was breathing hard by the time they had descended a thousand feet, but it was faster than the troll, even with the monster strides it was equipped to take. They thundered into a sparse patch of trees growing on the slope, and though the dappled shadow Alex could just see the hindquarters of one of the other horses.
The spriggan’s mount was out of sight. He wished it far, far ahead and well away from the pursuing troll. They burst out of the trees and found themselves on an incline. The animal scrambled for purchase, the ogre berating it and smacking it with the flat of one broad palm the entire way. The horse of the goblin in front of them sent down a shower of small rocks and debris. At the rise, the ogre stopped, turning his prancing mount to view the way they had come.
There was no sign of troll pursuit. No movement anywhere. Alex closed his eyes for a moment, trying without success to catch his breath. He felt as if he had run that haphazard route and not the heaving horse beneath him. He turned to look forward, down the other side of the rise and gaped.
Spread below, no more than a mile of rocky and tree dotted slope away, was a mist-shrouded expanse of plain. It was blue and violet with the setting sun and perfectly flat. It spread as far as he could discern to the right and left, but at the very edge of the horizon a darker line of green hinted at what might be forest at its end.
The horse moved under him, and with a grunt of satisfaction the ogre urged it to start the down hill passage.
They caught up with the other horses presently, and Alex silently caught Victoria’s gaze and held it. She was pale and scared, and trying her best not to hold on to the hairy form of the spriggan she rode behind. She wrinkled her nose occasionally as the wind whipped back at them, carrying the creature’s particular odor to her nose. He looked about for the cloaked man. The assassin, Zakknr had called him, was no where in sight. But then again, Alex had not noticed him either time he had appeared before until he was practically standing in front of them.
Unnerving trait, that.
It was full night before they reached the bottom of the slope and their horses hooves trod on the soft earth of the plain.
It was a strange night. The stars in the sky glowed with such luminance and clarity, that it was not truly dark. An unearthly glow encased the land, the horses, the riders. The moon was a huge, looming globe just over his shoulder. Larger than the moon had ever seemed before. If it was the moon he was used to. He was beginning to doubt that.
For what seemed hours they rode across the plain. The ogre would not allow him to speak with Victoria. His head rang from Zakknr’s slap the last time he had tried. She cast worried, sad looks his way. The chill seemed to have departed entirely, once down from the mountain. The air on the plain was almost spring-like. Behind him the ogre was sweating. The moon was high in the night sky when they reached the edge of the wood that had been hinted at from the vantage of the mountain. The foliage was thin and new at the outside edges, but the eye could not penetrate further than a few dozen yards, so it undoubtedly thickened further in. The party turned left and followed the line of trees, staying just outside of the wood’s boundary.
Occasionally Alex saw lightening bugs flare up within the depths of the foliage.
But they were strange colors, often blue and green instead of the yellow of the lightening bugs he was familiar with.
There was no sound of crickets, but night birds trilled constant songs and once in a great while, there was the drifting note of what could have been music. It was distant and elusive, like the fleeting memories of a dream.
At some point he dozed, for he woke suddenly to find himself leaning back against the ogre and straightened immediately. Zakknr paid no heed. Alex craned his neck to assure himself of Victoria’s nearness. She was leaning back, as far from the spriggan as possible on the back of a horse, staring into the wood. He thought he heard the music again, but it faded as soon as he thought he picked up the melody.
Finally the ogre called a halt and they made camp just within the overhanging presence of the wood. The goblins gathered wood and started a fire. The spriggan settled himself a good distance away from them, folding its knees up to its chest and glaring into the wood, at the horses, at the ogre and goblins. He seemed a foul-tempered little man. Not knowing what else to do, Alex and Victoria sat down an equal distance between the spriggan and the goblins. The ogre moved about the horses, fumbling with the tact.
He ambled back among them clutching a slab of brown dried meat of some sort in its hand and a leather wine skin in the other. He ravished the meat without offering any to the others, then greedily guzzled the contents of the skin. The goblins eyed him intently, whispering among themselves, then one of them scurried off to the horses in pursuit of food of its own. After a bit the spriggan followed suit.
“What do we do?” Victoria asked him, her voice small and barely audible.
The question took him off guard. He had no notion whatsoever what to do in the present situation. What could possibly be done? Fight free of the ogre and his beastly little companions and flee into a wood that held more trolls or things just as bad? If he had some vague idea where he was, or what these strange beings wanted with them, then maybe he could think on what to do. But he knew nothing.
Absolutely nothing.
“I don’t know,” he murmured helplessly. “I can’t even convince myself that this is real.”
She was silent, watching the spriggan as it wandered back from its horse, a smaller skin than the ogre’s clutched in its hand and a chunk of meat that it was stuffing into its broad mouth. It sat down a few yards from them, peering at them from the slit of one eye. It continued this the entire time it chewed on its meat, shifting its gaze only to lift the skin and sloppily drink from its contents. Finally it lowered the skin and took up its inspection of them.
It lifted one hip to scratch at an irritation under its loin skin, then moved closer.
Alex drew breath, not knowing what to expect. But it only thrust out the skin and glared foully at them.
“Don’t suppose bakatu can foul it any more than goblins.”
“What is it?” Alex warily took the proffered skin. The spriggan rolled its black eyes.
“What you think? Water. Stupid bakatu.”
Alex sniffed it, glanced at Victoria, who shrugged, then took a tentative sip. It was water. It was musty from the skin, but cool and pure. He took a longer swallow, rejoicing at the relief to his dry mouth. He passed it to Victoria, wiping his mouth on the back of his arm. The spriggan was still watching, almost curious.
“Where are we?” Alex took a deep breath and ventured the question, hoping the little man’s generosity might mean he was more open to conversation.
“This? Boarder of the Alkeri’na.”
“Where’s that?”
The spriggan shook his head and spat.
“The land’s Elkhavah, if that’s what you’re asking, bakatu.”
“How… how did we get here?” That was the important one. He held his breath in hopes of an answer.
“Portal.” The spriggan reached out one long arm and snatched his skin back from Victoria. “Portal at the End Of The World.”
“What’s the portal?” Victoria ventured.
“Gate between worlds,” Bashru replied.
“Why are we here?” Alex asked.
The spriggan’s eyes narrowed. “None of yer business.”
“None of my business?” Alex gasped.
“How’s it not my business.”
The spriggan clamped his mouth shut and turned away, disinclined to further the conversation. Alex forced his voice back to calmness.
“All right. Why do you keep calling me Bakatu. That’s not my name. My name’s Alex Morgan. This is Victoria.”
The spriggan looked over its shoulder at them. “What’s it to me? Bakatu’s what you are. Or as close as I can figure.
Haven’t been one of your kind through the portal in close to three hundred years, far as I know.”
“And you won’t tell us why we’re here now?”
“No, I won’t. Not my business either.” Then he frowned, staring hard at the horses. Alex followed his stare and saw nothing but the bulky bodies of the horses. The spriggan shook his head and took another swig of water. A moment later there was a figure crouching at his side. The spriggan let out a yelp and scrambled away, trailing water. Victoria gasped and dug her nails into Alex’s arm, but he was fairly proud of his own control at the sudden appearance of the shadowy assassin. The spriggan was cursing fluently, shaking one fist at the wispy cloaked figure. The cloak was mostly black now, with traces of shadowed green. The hand that touched the ground was dusky. Tendrils of hair that escaped the hood were as dark as the cloak.
“Twice damn you, Ciagenii,” Bashru cried. “You like to scare me to death.”
The assassin rose in one fluid movement, the cloak made not a sound as it moved about his body. He flowed past the grumbling spriggan to stand before the fire. The ogre glared up at him.
“What you want, Dusk?”
The assassin lifted one arm, trailing filmy strands of his dark cloak, and indicated the eastward direction they had been traveling.
“Morbibeasts gather in mass on the plains leading to the Hallow Hills. There is no passing there.”
The ogre grunted, slamm
ing one fist onto the ground. Tufts of grass and dirt spewed outward.
“Means we have to travel though the Alkeri’na.”
Dusk shrugged, offering no opinion.
He stood for a moment more, then passed the fire and stepped into the shadow of the wood. In the blink of an eye he was gone.
Or he was still there, lurking in the shadow, beyond everyone’s comprehension.
“Where did he go?” Victoria whispered. “He just vanished.”
“He does that,” Alex explained.
She shuddered. “He almost seemed…human.”
Alex shook his head, never having seen more than a glimpse of slender hand or a lock of long hair. His attention was drawn away from contemplation of the assassin by the ogre’s muttering complaints.
“Did not want to go through forest. Take more time. Master be angry.”
“Don’t see any way around it.” The spriggan sniffed. “Lessen you want to ride though migrating morbibeasts. Have the life sucked right out of you.”
The ogre glared, but refrained from comment. “Forest it is. But you can tell master why we’re late.” The ogre settled down, stretching its legs before it, feet almost touching the fire. “Sleep.” he commanded. “Long ride tomorrow. No rests then.”
The light never reached the forest floor in the same condition that it hit the uppermost leaves of the forest canopy. It was green filtered in places and dappled hazy yellow in others. Some trails were so gloomy, and the moss that covered the ground so brown, that it was doubtful that the sun ever reached the lowest recesses.
There were hints of paths, but they seemed mostly to be game trails, although very little sign of large animals was to be found. Birds frequented the trees though, and butterflies swarmed with abandon.
They were everywhere, large as kites and tiny as newborn moths. The ogre and his smaller followers swatted at them in irritation, but Alex was amazed. He had seen his share of tropical jungles in the pacific, but even the most uncharted had been nothing compared to this. He had never seen trees so tall, so huge in circumference. Never seen so many explosions of color in the petals of the flowers that dug their roots into the soft wood rooting limbs and moss covered trunks. Tiny frogs and lizards often darted across the path, or froze in their hunting for food to stare at the passing intruders.