A War of Stones: Book One of the Traveler Knight

by Howard Norfolk

  He looked over at the knight, and then at Johnas Tygus. “Can we leave Rydol to her fate and perhaps countless others after to end up at least as bad off as the Lady of Grevies? And what happens when this monster finally matures and springs forth on the West Lands, the way that Sarik did?” They shifted around uncomfortably, seeing how it could work eventually work out in this way. No one liked dark magic, and they could all obviously tell they were very close to it in this place.

  ”Well, this may be a hard choice for some,” Johnas said, eyeing him angrily, disliking the way he had put it to them. “But I have come here for one thing, and I will go down whatever dark hole I have to in order to get it back.”

  “Well then,” Wayland replied. “I am willing to get down on my knees with you and Sir Byrning afterwards and take penance for this sin, if there is a sin found in what we have done. We have put ourselves in a spot for hard choices.” Wayland corked the water skin and put it back. “I think it’s something we will need to consider again at least one more thime anyway, after we have been attacked by Lord Weech.”

  “You think so?” Wulman asked him, who had come over closer to listen, and now stood there with them. “What makes you so sure?”

  “It’s more than a feeling I have,” Wayland told them. “He only sold me the slow people, the damaged people: the ones he wanted to get rid of anyway because they are associated to the arrival and movement of the countess. How convenient it would be, if they were all killed with us. I looked in his eyes as he counted out my coins, and I saw that he was counting them all, even the ones that he didn’t have yet. He’s an evil bugger, through and through.”

  “Well, they only sell back the ones they can’t work anymore,” Wulman said. “To them, these people aren’t worth keeping.”

  “Perhaps you are right.” Wayland admitted. “But perhaps we are both right. When he sees us go north though, he may act out of his suspicion that we are searching around for her. It’s reasonable that we do so, from his point of view. And it is reasonable for him to defend his interests and power. I have asked too many questions, and I have not fooled him.”

  “We will go to the villages and caves north of here, looking for the signs I have talked of, for the clues we have been given.” He looked out at the hall and the goblin huts sitting in the distance. “If we are attacked by someone, we will try to kill one of the ponies and escape, hoping that they fall upon the easy meat. If we can, we will lay in wait for the pack Weech that sends out after us, and let the fire mage give them a taste of his staff.”

  “That’s why I am here,” Leofind stated. Wayland nodded to him and looked around the patch of grass in the ruins they had camped in, considering what he would do next.

  “If they can ride, put blankets on the backs of the ponies for them. If they can’t, we’ll have to walk.” He looked over and made eye contact with Edou. “Archer, take one of the bows and a quiver. I think you will soon have a chance for some revenge.”

  Wayland went back to the market, made inquiries, and sold eight of the ponies, they going on to various fates. He hoped that none of them would be used to chase them down, but it was possible they would. The sack of coins he had got for them went in with the other money, on one of the remaining beasts.

  Later, when they went to mount they could not get the wild girl to sit on an animal, and they ended up leading her off by the rope. It seemed like Weech might have planned on this happening. Wayland went over and gave the troll two skins of wine, for the gold coin he had given him earlier.

  “We have decided to go north,” he told the creature, and it turned its head and slowly nodded back, then opened one of the skins up and took a long drink. Wayland left him there, sitting on his keg, staring out across the silver flat of Lake Aven.

  They went back out and up into the land, climbing into the hills. Warukz fell below with the coast and was soon hidden over by trees. Lake Aven still rested behind them, across the horizon from the north to the south, the wind making small white waves across its surface. As they walked forward, the table of land they had crested soon swallowed them up, the monotony only broken by small corpse of trees, and the rising irregularities of stone. A sparse forest between two small crests showed a series of broken, angled cliff faces beyond, their lengths lined by well worn trails, the rock punctuated in many places by the dark mouths of caves. There were goats out on the grass and trash down the slopes, and smoke rose in half a dozen places. Goblins could be seen working and going in and out of the entrances.

  Wayland brought out his pan and began to beat on it, announcing his presence and willingness to trade. They stopped in front of a large escarpment with several cave mouths, put the horses and ponies in a line, and waited to see if anyone wanted to trade. Goblins soon came out asking for things, eager to show off their loot from fighting in the war, and were then not reluctant to part with it, this wealth consisting mainly of old silver coins. There were soon goblins coming and going all along the ridge, stopping by to look at what was left of their wares.

  After a few hours they packed up and moved on further, past the inhabited ridges, and then stopped again in a forest to trade before the holding of a small chief, who Wayland bribed by giving him one of the ponies. It was there that Wayland encountered again a very vivid green color of cloth, and out of personal interest purchased a piece of it. They moved from there again north and the forested ridge gave away gradually out to a long, curved valley going east from the lake, with a fair view across it to a set of foothills that Wayland took to be the southernmost points of the Priwak Barrens.

  Wayland considered that they might be moving out of the inhabited range of the trolls and goblins, and into what they considered as their militarized border and staging area, which by Lord Sirlaw’s description was only lightly occupied with roving war bands. Wayland didn’t want to run into one of these and take his chances, but by all accounts they had mostly gone out to fight on the lake, then to garrison on North Stone, or returned home for the winter. He had though that the countess was held about a day’s travel of Warukz, but not farther out, so he thought that they now needed to start looking around. He turned back to the west, toward the silver surface of the Dimm, which was again visible. It was only a little bit later that Lady of Sabine began to unaccountably cry: it picking up until her voice finally turned into a high shriek that cut off, and then restarted again as soon as she was able. Wayland had her gagged, and then he climbed up to the highest point around them and looked at what was there.

  The side of the ridge ahead off toward the lake was laced with the scars of old earth fire. There were small sulphur vents and mud pits in places among the rocks, some with steam rising off of them. He supposed that this was the smell that the troll had recalled to him, akin to something being rotten, and the Lady of Sabine had smelled it too and it had fired her wits. Such a feature and its stench would undoubtedly mark itself into the memory of any who saw it, even in that of a mad girl. The trail west went through it, with rocks and gravel added to build up a pathway and channel most of the water that came from the holes off down the slope.

  “We have to be close,” Wayland said to the others. “We’ll go up into the rocks above and make camp, then see if anything has followed us out here from the village. We’ll also scout around and see what there is to see.”

  The squires went out one way with Horwit. Johnas Tygus, Wulman and Samur went the other way, scouting along the ridge. Leofind held onto Lady Sabine’s rope as Getline tried to calm her back down by talking to her like one would to a child. Edou and Ludt held the ponies, providing some assistance. Wayland and Sir Byrning went forwarda little and looked down the slope at the valley floor. A slow stream worked its way down across the floor of it, going west out toward the Dimm, it creating marshes of high grass in the places where it went slow. Several huts stood along the high ground near it, and on islands that had been formed in the marshes. Wood smoke rose from sone of them.

  As Wayland looked now out mo
re westward, past the earth fire, toward the Dimm, he saw some little hills of rock, covered almost completely from view by pines and brush.

  “Where did you build those cages for Weech?” he asked Ludt, when they had returned to the two men holding their mounts.

  “Up on the higher ground near a cave, farther over toward the Dimm,” Ludt answered him.

  “Could they have moved them down along here?” he asked.

  Ludt rubbed his mouth with his fingers, considering it, and then answered.

  “It would be a little hard, and Weech has a lot of buggers at his disposal. It would be easy for him to hire a couple of trolls to do the lifting.” Johnas, Samur and Wulman returned suddenly, making some dirt and gravel slide past as they came down the toe incline from the ridge of rocks.

  “There’s a goblin cave up there, a rather big one,” Wulman said. “There are no fresh footprints going in it though. It’s worth looking into the bottom of, I say.” Wayland thought about that. It would be an advantage to use a cave, if they could get everyone to fit down into it, and it made sense for them to camp there. If there was an open cave, any traveler might use it to camp in, but it would also be known about, and it might be the first place that Weech’s warriors would look for them.

  “There are all kinds of reasons for a cave to appear empty,” Sir Byrning commented. “The most pointed one is that something bigger has come along, eaten the occupant, and then taken their place.”

  “No, it really is empty,” Wulman replied. “There’s nothing fresh on the floor, and it only goes back about as far as the hall at Krolo.”

  “There’s just been a war here,” Wayland remarked to them all. “You wouldn’t say a deserted farmhouse was strange in that situation. Even Fugoe Castle was abandoned by the buggers.”

  Sir Byrning’s squires returned with Horwit from scouting out the area past the mud springs, and now Wayland listened to what they had to say, getting the details. There was a good chance of a structure or ruin under the pines and brush they had all seen. He thanked them, then turned the whole group around and found a trail going up onto the top of the ridge, where they could get to the unoccupied cave.

  They paused there and stood back before the entrance, and Wayland used his plate to tap a signal down into it for trade. After no response, Sir Byrning and his squires drew their swords and advanced down past its mouth. They went and looked around inside while the others waited there, and then they returned.

  “There’s a lot of trash and some wood, but nothing alive bigger than a lizard,” Sir Byrning said to the others. They pulled all the horses and ponies sown into it and tethered them near the back, their noses and tails with plenty of room to both sides before the rock walls. The mouth of it, with about twenty feet of overhang was left before them, and they made a small fire and cooked up beans and salted meat, washing it down with water mixed with a skin of wine they had left.

  Wayland put one guard out above the main trail and another at the mouth of the cave. He tied the Lady of Grevies to a couple of pack frames, to keep her from running off in the night. Then he waited, to see what would happen, as they all slept in shifts ready to fight. During the third watch, Wulman came in from the trail, bringing in Sir Bryning’s squires with him.

  “There’s a big group of goblins out there, scouting around the hillside,” he informed them.

  They banked the fire and got ready to fight. They waited and eventually the sound of goblins moving around outside could be heard. Wayland had instructed Leofind about what he should do if goblins entered into the cave. He stood there now before the rest, his staff in positions so that the censer hung down loose on its chain in front of him. Inside the iron cage was a large chunk of black crystal with a small red light glowing inside.

  There was a sound of rocks moving, and then several goblins cautiously came forward into the cave. Edou immediately shot one of them with an arrow, before they could speak or do anything hostile. Ludt missed with his arrow, as he tried to hit another. Horwit and Samur then fired their bows, and there were several goblins down, howling and injured on the floor of the cave. The rest of the goblins moved forward then in a great rush, over their comrades, with shields up and swords ready, their snarling, animal faces animated and lit up with the prospect of killing. Leofind shook his censer, with a rattling clank of its chain.

  A loud hissing whistle rose, like a tea kettle. A brilliant, fiery red light shone from the metal ball at the end of the chain, and a jet of flame expanded outwards form it, rushing toward the goblins, hitting them with its brilliance: with the bright color of a forge and the surrounding, darker red depths of a camp fire. It surged out more like water than flame, clinging to itself as it flew forward, striking the goblins, catching them all on fire. They shook, retreated, dropped their weapons, balled up and rolled on the floor, some screaming. Sabine in the back of the cave joined their screams, and tried to jump up and run out through them all, but was quickly stopped, to fall to the floor by her rope. She lay with her hands and arms up over her head, twisting back and forth. The goblins left standing moved back away, or crouched there in the entrance, to see what came next.

  They left several bodies burning on the dirt floor, though the rest had retreated. Now there were shouts, an argument, and then two larger goblins appeared and roared the others back down into the mouth of the cave for another assault. These goblins though now split up and moved along each wall of the cave, avoiding the center where the flames had appeared and where their comrades now lay. Leofind turned his censer on the ones moving on the left side, as the larger goblin on the right charged forward into Sir Byrning and struck at his shield.

  An axe was swung at Wayland, and he caught it with his sword on the haft and yanked it away from its wielder, and up into the air. He struck the goblin with the pommel of his sword in the next instant, as it grabbed at him and tried to knock him down and bite his with its teeth. It was stunned though, and he kicked it away, where it fell into Wulman, who turned and struck it in the head with a sweep of his sword.

  Another goblin swung a sword at Wayland, and he blocked it, and they pushed back and forth, hammiering at eachother before his blade scraped across its neck. As it fell, a goblin struck him with its shield, and he stumbled back into Sabine for a moment, hearing her recoil from his presence. He moved to get away from her and ran into Sir Byrning, who was still fighting with the big goblin. He used his sword to block down a rusty blade that stabbed at him, and tried to get his stance back on the cave’s uneven floor. One of Sir Byrning’s squires leapt forward and spitted the monster attacking him, and then he hacked the creature down.

  Leofind had lit his censor and shot out another red flame, and this caught alight most of the goblins on the other side of the cave. Sir Bryning stabbed the great goblin that had been fighting with him, and it fell down, and was then finished off by the others. It was too much, and the rest of the goblins turned around and fled back up through the entrance of the cave. Leofind rushed after them and made his censer shriek and spew fire one more time, it catching the last two in a jet of flame.

  Wayland moved up through the smoke with the squires, and they watched the other goblins run off, back up the trail, all of them visible in the moonlight. Behind him down in the cave, the Lady of Sabine was crying out and also so was Getline, but more softly. Wulman had a cut down one of his arms, interfering with his elbow, and Sir Byrning was bleeding from a wound in his leg, where he had been pricked by a goblin’s sword.

  Johnas Tygus looked stricken. He had only been hit by a goblin shield, but it was the first close fight he had ever been in. The look in his eyes was wild and unsure, but after a few moments he caught his breath and held up his hand to indicate that he was otherwise fine. He rubbed his shoulder and walked back over to the women, to see what he could do to get them to calm down.

  Wayland counted the numbers, and figured that most of the attackers were dead and accounted for there on the floor of the cave. Leofind had killed seven
or eight alone with the two blast from his device, and Wayland admitted him to now be a sort of hero among them. He thought then about what would happen next, of what the goblins at Warukz would do when the survivors got back down there to the lake and reported what had happened. That was the rest of the night away at least, and he would try to capitalize on that fact.

  “Bind up your wounds and keep your weapons ready,” he told the others. “Put all the rest of the merchandise and unused pack frames in the back of this cave. Take the money, the blankets, the food and the water with you. I will make a gag for the Lady of Sabine. A march in the dark will put us all beyond what these goblins right now know.”

  He looked at all of the people there, measuring how much of a help or hindrance they might provide. The Lady of Sabine was a problem that would just happen again, and some of the other freed slaves were of little use. The original group was still fit, except for Wulman, who appeared to have a serious injury, and he was no longer able to fight. His wound would be too stiff and sore to move in another hour, and he looked pale now from loss of blood.

  “It is time to split this group up,” Wayland said. “Wulman, take the captives we have rescued so far and flee with them east for the frontier, and try to get to any of the hold fasts or castles with them. If any of the rest of you are too injured to continue, or have feelings against what I am now going to now do, it is time for you to also go.”

  Johnas Tygus scratched his chin, and then shook his head at the offer. He was in it to the death, or to its success, which he had made quite clear before. Sir Bryning might have also momentarily considered backing out, but it was not to save his own self.

  “Two trails will be useful,” Sir Bryning remarked now, “for they will not know which one to follow. No, they will know exactly which trail to follow.” He smelled the blood on his fingers, as he thought it over. That they would be chased when they went for the countess was something that they all accepted as a fact. Wayland said as much just a moment later.