A War of Stones: Book One of the Traveler Knight

by Howard Norfolk

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  WAYLAND

  THE JOURNEY TO THE DIMM

  The war of the Stones, as it was now being called by the buggers and the men in the West Lands had gone to a stalemate by some accounts, with neither the troll Kulith nor the thring Sterina being able to destroy the other. Both sides had exhausted their garrisons on Lake Aven and then Ovodag, Kulith’s brother had taken over the Stone Pile and refused Kulith entrance back inside. The bugger army had fallen apart after being paid, morale had hit a low point, and their interests had all suddenly conflicted. Finally, the great hero had fled, and was rumored to be under a curse. Wayland shook his head as he thought it over, but that was what one of the traders he had met in passing had told him.

  They were now on a road, going south toward Kassal’s lands, to a place Wayland had never seen before or imagined he might go to. Besides the increasingly cold weather, he was in good spirits, and it was a definite improvement to be back on a road instead of sitting in his hallway office at Krolo between the two towers. Sir Byrning and his squires rode right behind him, as well as Lord Sirlaw’s younger son Wulman. Farther back, Johnas Tygus Grotoy was speaking with his fire mage Leofind. They were all listening, as they passed by harvested fields and the small holdfasts that dotted the central West Lands.

  “It has not been done in more than a hundred years!” Johnas declared excitedly. “With the attacks of the Sund, Goloks and Izur across the Golden Slopes, they are now moving the trade off the plains and Tiger Bay, to run up now through Pendwise. It will go by way of the Oasis of Laurent to Troli, and then down the river to the cities and on to Aukwen. The Traveler Knights are moving to set up canteens, arrange for water on the route, and mend the roads. It will add more than a month to the journey, but it will maintain trade contact between Espeth and the kingdoms of Maghot Bay.”

  Wayland wondered if he could get detailed next to do that. It would certainly be warmer there during winter. It might allow him to also make valuable contacts there, and it would improve his knowledge of the world that he lived in. Though Johnas Tygus described it as a slight inconvenience, Wayland knew that such a drastic change in the trade road was bound to double or triple the current market prices. Young Grotoy rode ahead now, coming abreast of Wayland and the others. He looked over at Wayland, and then back at those who now followed behind. He had more news of the war.

  “On the Tygus, the Goloks have built galleys and ply the old haunts of the Tiger Lords, looking for the colors of Pendwise on the masts. At Churuk, an Isur flotilla tried to storm the Kraxikan docks, claiming it as spoils of war for the Tent Lords of the Kovekund Amash. There is fighting now on both ends of the road.”

  “In Rezes there is a saying,” Wayland replied. “The hope is not to live in exciting times, but to just get through them alive. I bet they say that in a lot of places, where the people used their wits, so it must be true. Still, this news is interesting, and concerning. The travelers though Grotoy are both more numerous and better informed than those who misstep and find themselves out in the West Lands. ”

  “To step aside when things get hard and when the time is vital; where is the glory in that Sir Byrning?” Johnas asked the knight, to raise his support if he could. Sir Byrning now wore an old, dusty gray coat atop a brigantine, and a plain, gilded ring clasp across his chest to keep his cloak fastened on. The others had adopted the clothes of unsavory, hard luck merchants and guards. Wayland wore a dark silk tabard he had borrowed from Grotoy, since he was now playing the rich merchant among them. He was still worried that the quality of their horses would eventually give them away.

  They led a long train of pack ponies loaded with salt, cook kettles, cheap cloth and other goods to sell to the denizens of the south Priwak, and for market at Warukz. They also carried fifty jugs of fortified wine, similar to a drink that the goblins made called tump. Wayland had tried tump out of curiosity and found it to be undrinkable, but most strong drinks were like that the first time they were attempted. And it was such a market now, with the goblins rich in silver that most of the animals they led would eventually be sold off for fantastic prices, just to be butchered up and eaten.

  “A warrior can conjure his own luck on the battle field, if he is careful,” Sir Bryning replied, “and those who hide some place can always be found. I wonder myself if it is worth having any trade at all, if nothing passes freely between Kraxika and Churuk on the road.”

  “The Goloks would have never taken Kraxika without the help of the Sund Amash,” Johnas asserted. “My father said he thought that they planned to own the entire road, all the way between Aukwen and Churuk. Only the Daughter knows what will become of the holy shrines and churches in her city.”

  “I admit. I now feel some pressure on my time,” Sir Byrning said. “It would be ideal to return now to Pendwise through the oasis with my squires. It’s a grand chance for military advancement on the Old Coast.”

  “The Tollies will not stand for Golok galleys out on the Medir and the Ribbon,” Wayland commented, in a wild speculation of the Golok and Sund ambitions coming true. “The first one that sails out of a port will be sunk for it.” He wondered if Grotoy and Sir Bryning would now tout the fight of their own navies, but they did not.

  They traveled along the road, stopping at Kassal only long enough to change out the animals that had lagged. Below the high walled gray fortress the road ran down toward the Golok March, with a series of holdfasts and small castles that existed south of Lake Aven and west of the Vara, mostly along one small river valley.

  The forefathers of the West Goloks had crossed over the Tygus River three hundred years before as the result of a dynastic struggle out on the Sanakand Grass. Now they had farms and castles, spoke slurred Mancy, and by some people’s opinion had too many trees from which to fashion bows and arrows. Fortunately the goblins and trolls ended up on the receiving end of most of those.

  The land ran down to pans of brush, broken by low hills and swales, with the fortresses and villages set on the high ground, but still as near as could be managed to the water. As they progressed south it got more barren looking and they lost the river, with the land turning over to marginal pastures of weeds and grass, or wastes. They passed by a series of old Mancan watch towers, long quiet since the fall of the empire. They came in the evening of the fourth day to a last bastion: an old estate of olive groves, now a walled village with a keep at one end, and then the road dropped off down onto a dry, dusty plain with the mountains and hills lying off to the west.

  After five more hot days of travel, they came up onto a high ground with some tress. Horwit and Samur stood with bows as Wayland and Johnas Tygus went there to look off the other side of it. They had drifted closer toward the mountains with the road, following the old ways that had existed there for more than a thousand years. Behind them Leofind also clambered up, his lantern stick left for now back with his horse.

  He was of middle years, with the sandy blonde hair that predominated in northern Gece where the people had mixed in with the Varreks. He had deep gray eyes and a broad, square jaw. A burn mark from his profession ran down from his left ear to disappear under the collar of his shirt. One of his hands was always gloved, hinting at another old injury he did not show. On the other was a bright gold ring set with a dull black stone.

  Wayland had never been so close to a torch mage before but he had once seen one produce a sheet of fire from a censor that hung on the end of a staff almost exactly like the one Leofind carried. Society and the church held that all magicians were outcasts since they had been involved in the persecution and martyrdom of the Daughter, and were also quite dangerous. Wayland personally thought that Leofind was as likely to harm them as he was to help, but he had deferred to Johnas’ decision.

  “That’s the Darkling’s Gate,” Johnas Tygus said, pointing over to a highland in the distance with some trees running along the crest. They followed his hand more closely and saw where a ruin sat. It was a large ceremonial archw
ay of squared stone, the shadow of it very stark in the bright, afternoon sun. Up the hill from it was a more extensive pile: a Mancan shrine where four or five columns stood naked, still pointing skyward. Though Wayland considered his knowledge of the area adequate from the readings he had done and the answers he had coaxed out of merchants, Johnas still complemented it from time to time with information garnered out of classical readings.

  The structure commemorated the victory of Manca over one of the thrings from the bogs almost a thousand years before. The smaller memorial stones of officers and soldiers surrounded it, spreading out, and outlined with their stubby height the old crossing of the roads. Beyond the heavy posts and lintel of the monolith, the road began to snake back and forth as it went past the shrine and up into the hills. There were small trees and brush on the high ground, arid cypress and cedars. Farther up and more distant the cover turned thicker, telling him that there must be more water there.

  “What about that temple?” Leofind said, looking across with them now. “There’s sure to be someone about there always, using the old spring line if it still runs.”

  “This is the major crossing for all the buggers going into the Khaast Forest, or out along the Vara into the waste,” Wayland explained. “There might be a few, or there might be two score. Merchants use this way also, to get over from here to the lake.” Wayland knew the way such places worked, and Sir Bryning probably did also. He had been over the desert at least once.

  “If you camp there and make a fire, someone will always come down looking for you,” Wayland explained. “At night the big animals living here will try to get down to the water, if there’s a pool they can drink from.”

  Johnas Tygus nodded, and looked over at the long shadows being cast across the waste by the trees and the hills. “No use in us trying to get around it today with all the baggage we are carrying. Let’s camp here and see for ourselves if someone lights a fire.”

  They brought the pack ponies and their mounts into the bed of a wash where some grass grew. When it got dark, Sir Byrning’s squires, Authus and Gatan started a small fire against one of the stone walls of the wash and put on a pot of stew.

  When it had been dark for a few hours, they went up onto the ridge again and looked back at the ruins. As Leofind had predicted, there was now a faint glow coming off the rocks, reflected from deep inside the worn stones. Wayland didn’t think there were more than half a dozen of them camping there. Since the goblins and thyrs would not raid out in such a small numbers, he felt he was unlikely to be attacked.

  “I’ll go down and take a look at who it is,” he said to the others. “The news we get from them might be turned to great advantage.”

  Sir Byrning was naturally chosen to go with him, because he seemed authentic to his part, with Leofind and Wulman waiting nearby in case they were needed. Wayland repacked one of the ponies with some of the trade goods and took it down with him. As they neared the old road with its hollow cross of gravestones, Leofind and Wulman held back beside one of the larger memorials.

  Wayland walked ahead with Sir Byrning, and just as he went through the massive stone monument called the Darkling Gate he stopped, took out a tin pan and began to tap on it to signal out to the ruins ahead. The beat varied slightly, making a signal that the illicit traders had taught to him. Silhouettes danced around in the glow of the fire, and then Wayland saw a dark shape come around one of the pillars, to get a good look out at him. He waited, and a series of taps on a rock finally came back, informing him that he could proceed.

  “We can go in and share their fire,” he told Sir Byrning.

  They went up to the ruin and came face to face with a group of goblins standing around in the old doorway, with a glowing rock hearth surrounded by bedrolls just inside. Pieces of meat had been hung over the fire on sticks, and a half-butchered antelope was sprawled out on a fallen flat of stone they were using as a table. One of them with a head like a rat pointed at him with a small knife, apparently used for the carving.

  “Fine night for a feast, isn’t it? What do you have to trade with us, wood man?”

  “I have a bit of everything that you could want for,” he replied, spreading his hands out a little. That wasn’t entirely true, but there were some things that they would certainly want, being what they were. He crouched down as he got nearer to them and the fire. He had forgotten about the stink since Fugoe Castle, but it was overridden here mostly by the smell of the roasting meat. There were chipped tiles on the crumbling walls and floor, and several fallen blocks of column against the walls too large to clear. “What have you got to trade for it?”

  The rat gave Sir Byrning a look as he came into view with the pony; and his eyes narrowed a bit in caution. Then he saw all the goods loaded on the pack, and he turned back to Wayland.

  “We could do with a bit of salt and a pot, and a skin of wine or some tump, if you’ve got that.” It held up something in its other hand, a glittering object. It was a piece of gold. Wayland slowly nodded to the rat, accepting that it could indeed pay him.

  It smiled a terrible, rat-faced smile back in triumph. The others nodded and dug down for coins to pitch out into a pile. Another, a thyr, popped a piece of meat off the fire and ate it down noisily with its teeth and fingers. The rat goblin put the gold object away and pitched in some silver pennies instead.

  “Got that bauble from Sarik’s horde I did, fighting for Golden Sword.” It gestured for emphasis with the small knife. “War on the Dimm is now over. We came out here looking for the sows and cubs that were left behind, for places where they might need some new pot-fillers.”

  “Tolwind’s my name,” Wayland replied back. “Shot a lord’s deer in his forest. Came out here where there are no silly rules like that.”

  “Yeah, that’s a silly rule,” the rat goblin agreed. “You should have shot that stone man too, right in his bottom.” It gestured with its hands for emphasis and almost stabbed itself with the knife.

  “There’s a stone man up the road they call Kassal that I didn’t like either,” he added. “He called us all in and shook us up, trying to get us to bring in the people taken during the raids.”

  They got quiet and looked back and forth at each other. It seemed that they all knew who Lord Kassal was, and they were in a position here where he could come down the road at any time and wipe them out with only a dozen men and a few minutes of battle.

  Wayland didn’t say more, and went back instead in the silence and took a cast iron pot off the pony, releasing the straps as Sir Byrning continued watching the goblins. Wayland set the pot down and then removed the two skins of wine that had been set inside it. He drank a little from one to show that it wasn’t poisoned, and then he tossed it over to a goblin that looked like a pig. He put the other down next to the pot.

  “Two more of those wine skins,”the rat said, “and a ladle, and a bag of salt.” Wayland added a copper ladle and a bag of salt next to the rest on the flagstones. He had one of the jars of wine on the other side of the pony, and he brought it around. Their eyes lit up when they saw it and they pitched more pennies into the growing pile. One of the other goblins came forward and quickly inspected the things, then gave a nod back to the rat goblin.

  “Hovus Black Smile took some stone men at the castle that they want back real bad,” Wayland now continued. “He said that ransoms were to be paid. He gave us all a list, and then sent us away with a kick.”

  “You smell a little like a stone man,” the goblin admitted to him. “That must be why.” It then added, “Where is that list?”

  Wayland put a hand up to his road hat and pointed at it. “I keep it very safe. That list is in my head.” The goblin looked up at it for a moment, then back at his face.

  “Safe there, it truly is,” he agreed.

  “So are there any slaves up in the old town? We heard Golden Sword might be there.”

  “There are slaves up there, for those who can afford them,” the goblin said. “Golden Sword is
there too, trying to leave, but the chief of the Water Dogs will not let him go. The chief wants him there in case Sterina, or another chief comes knocking.” The monster it had named was way over on the other side of the Dimm, and she had just been defeated. It didn’t seem credible, and Wayland began to now doubt the whole story.

  “It sounds too dangerous to hazard,” Wayland remarked.

  “Weech is just trying to grab from everyone,” another goblin said. “He did not want to go fight in the war, and now he has taken too big a slice with that troll.”

  “Yes, they do not get along,” the first goblin said. “Best be away when that pot goes sour.” He looked at Wayland and shrugged; as if to say it could all not be helped. “The other braves are coming back, just like us. There are a lot of pot caves between here and the old town with piles of loot to spend.” It took a great slurping drink of wine and then sighed out. It called over the others. “Get some salt in that pot and stir the meat around!”

  The goblins had pushed forward their pennies and black coins, and Wayland went through them now as one watched. He took the ones that looked good, to make a profit on the wine and salt. He took a few others to be sure, and then pushed the rest back. The goblin grunted in negation.

  “Take them all. That is loot from the dead penny. They are all yours.”

  “But you’ve told me a lot,” Wayland said. “I’m thanking you.”

  The goblin grunted and scooped them up. “You are not too bad for a wood man. I would feel bad if I set fire to your farm and killed your family.”

  “So would I,” Wayland replied. It was an odd conversation with an odd creature, he considered.

  The goblins turned back almost immediately to the meat, disregarding Wayland and Sir Byrning for a while. Wayland sat down and waited. The goblins took the cooked meat away from the fire and dabbed it a piece at a time into the pot with sticks, swishing it through the greasy salt that had been spread in its bottom. They took it out, passed the pot, sat back, and began eating while drinking off the wine. A goblin eventually handed him a piece of the meat on a stick.