by Paul Dale
“For once, we agree,” said Zara. “I’m going to get ready for work.”
Zara stomped upstairs, leaving Hal and Ferg alone. Hal hoped the orc to leave so he could sneak upstairs and join her, but Ferg made no move.
“I thought you were going to get drunk?”
Ferg shrugged. “I lied. I do have a plan, but she won’t like it and I wanted to talk to you alone. I didn’t come all this way and risk so much to turn around and go home. Do you trust me?”
Hal was taken aback. The subject of Ferg’s trustworthiness was one that had been of concern to Zara more than Hal, and Hal had always defended him. Zara had given the impression she did not trust the orc and yet she had gone along with any plan Ferg had suggested. It had got them this far without any of her fears coming to pass. So why did Ferg ask him this question now? If he wasn’t so trusting, he would have said only someone who was not trustworthy would ask such a question. What was it Hal had to trust? What was Ferg going to do that would seem like he was going to betray them? Why would he be doing it now when he had had so many opportunities to hand them over? It was all too much. In many respects, it was easier to trust rather than tie himself in knots. If he couldn’t trust Ferg, then he was in deep trouble either way. He was living in the Dark Lord’s fortress waiting for an opportunity to live up to his name of Hal Dragonslayer. He didn’t have a choice other than to trust him.
“Yes.”
“That took you long enough. Are you sure? If you’d like a few minutes more, I’m in no hurry here.”
“I’m sure. I trust you. What’s the plan?”
“I can’t tell you. Just remember, you trust me, no matter what happens.”
Hal didn’t like the sound of that. Why would he say something like that unless the plan was one Hal almost certainly would not be happy with? It smacked of desperation. But then again, what did he know? He was so far out of his depth. Seeing not just one dragon, not even two, but twenty or so, was not what he had been expecting. How was he meant to slay so many? One was bad enough. Two looked impossible. Twenty? Crazy. Never mind the fact that he had never killed as much as a chicken in his life. He was a baker. Bakerson. Perhaps if he’d been a Butcherson. Blood actually made him queasy. Ever since he’d cut himself on a bread knife when he was small, he had felt faint at the sight of blood. He tried to imagine what it would take to kill a dragon. At the very least, a full set of shiny plate mail, a shield that somehow deflected fiery dragon breath, and a sword imbued with powerful magic that could pierce dragon-scale. None of which he had. Whatever Ferg’s plan was, it was better than any he had.
“All right.”
“A bit slow today, aren’t we? Are you sure? This isn’t going to work if there’s no trust.”
“I’m sure.”
“That’s better. And don’t tell Zara anything. For now, stay here. I’ll be back soon.”
Ferg left, leaving Hal wondering what he should do with himself. He supposed he could always run the broom he’d borrowed from work around the place. It’s not as though Zara did any cleaning. Ferg seemed happy to live in slovenly conditions, and the room wasn’t going to clean itself. Although, if they were going to head home tomorrow, assuming Ferg’s plan turned out to be as bad as Hal suspected, there seemed little point. Still, it was something to do.
Hal had swept most of the room when a noise, or more accurately a lack of it, from outside got his attention. The fortress was a busy place, and the street they lived on was one of the busier thoroughfares, so it was odd he was able to hear the unmistakable sound of a sword being drawn above what should have been the hubbub from outside. It had only a second to register, not enough time even to move, before the door crashed in and armoured orcs piled in. He was about to call out Zara’s name when a mailed fist silenced him. He fell backwards onto a chair, shattering it and ending up among the splinters on the floor.
“Are you two fighting?”
The question came from Zara as she appeared at the top of the stair. She was dressed in underclothes better suited to men and they didn’t hide her feminine nature particularly well. At the sight of her, the orcs hooted and teeth were bared.
“Come down here, love,” said one, “and we’ll show you a bit of rough and tumble, if that’s what you’re looking for.”
All the orcs were looking at Zara, who immediately spun and headed back to her room. There was a veritable stampede for the stair and Hal was ignored where he lay. He grabbed a broken chair leg and got up. Deciding two was better than one, he stooped to pick up a second before piling into the jam of orcs who were pushing and grabbing past each other to be the first up. He struck one orc on the back of the head hard enough that he went down, the chair leg shattering on his helmet. Hal swung his other club, catching another orc on the side of the leg where there was no armour. The orc pitched over sideways, gripping his knee. There was so much noise and commotion, Hal thought he was getting away with it and pulled his arm back to clobber the next orc.
A mailed fist grabbed his forearm on the back swing.
“I don’t think so, son,” growled a voice from behind him, and then the world went black.
Chapter 29 Secrets
You live. You die. Or do you?
The Dark Lord’s Handbook
Edwin guessed weeks had passed since he had arrived in Solitude, but it could have been months. He’d lost almost all sense of time. One thing was certain, he had set a new record for not killing anyone, and it felt strangely good. Not that he was averse to the act, or the mess it made, but more that he slept better. He woke feeling fresh and ready for a new day rather than drenched in sweat and screaming. He’d even got used to the diet of mostly mushrooms. He’d lost weight, kept up his exercises, and as a consequence was in pretty good shape.
Solitude was having an effect. Kezef could still be mildly annoying with his cryptic ways, but at least he had the urge to rip his teacher’s face off only once or twice a week. On reflection, he looked forward to their meetings. So far, all Kezef had Edwin do was learn how to sit, listen, and breathe. Kezef said if Edwin sought peace then the first step was to be able to be physically peaceful. In the beginning, he’d had trouble keeping his eyes open and had nodded off more often than not; Kezef’s gentle monotone was far too relaxing. Things had got better. He could sit and do this meditation thing for almost an hour at a go. It may not be the hours on end the other residents spent, but it was the longest he’d ever sat and done nothing other than feel his breath travel up his nose, down into his belly, before making the return journey and being expelled from his half-open mouth.
So it was with a sense of overall well-being, bordering happiness, that Edwin rose from his bed, splashed cold water on his face, and dressed. The robes he put on were loose, comfortable, and yet warm on those occasions when he wandered outside (when it wasn’t blowing a blizzard). He slipped on his wool socks, slid his feet into his sandals and wiggled his toes. They had a freedom they had never enjoyed before and his feet had never smelt so good, or rather stopped smelling so bad.
Breakfast was a silent and dull affair, the others who shared the table making no acknowledgement of each other. Edwin broke his fast swiftly and headed for the door to the outside. It was a ritual he had fallen into when he had a free morning. If the weather permitted, he enjoyed being outside and getting fresh air. There was also a hint of light on the horizon around midday that heralded the end of the long night and the start of the long day. Kezef had told him that for several months, the sun did not dip below the horizon and it never got dark. Edwin found that unbelievable and wondered whether all these mushrooms they ate didn’t have some effect on their minds. And yet, hadn’t he spent the last however long in perpetual night? The world was indeed a strange place.
Outside, the air was calm and did not feel like it was going to freeze the air in his lungs. The terrace he was on ran east/west, and to the south the sky was lightened to the point he could not see the stars. There were no clouds to bring snow, or wind t
o blow it. As days in the far north went, it was a good one, and Edwin was not going to let it be wasted. The terrace was cut into the lower slopes of a small mountain, Solitude being dug into the mountain itself. Doors to the various sections of Solitude were to his left and right. At the far ends were stairs that went up but were quickly blocked by drifts. Edwin wondered where they went but had never been able to find out. He could not climb easily with the torch he held, and the cold was bearable only for a short while. Edwin had asked Kezef where the stairs led but his mentor had shrugged and said there was a lot more to Solitude than the space they used, but it had fallen into disuse as their numbers had dwindled. Typically cryptic. Edwin was left with more questions. Used by who? How many of them had there been?
Today, Edwin would try to find out. The eastern stair looked the most likely as there had been a collapse of snow revealing more stairs than he had seen on previous ventures. He produced a small shovel he had borrowed from the mushroom farm and dug swiftly upwards under the snow, jumping back to let it collapse under its own weight. His exertions kept him warm and he worked with gusto. When his muscles started to complain, he dug harder and it felt good. The stair went up half a dozen steps and then turned up the slope. A dozen more steps and it turned again. Then suddenly his shovel met no resistance and he almost fell flat on his face. What he found was a second terrace, identical to the one below but set back a little to match the slope of the mountain. It was covered in snow as, unlike the one below, it had not been cleared in a long time. The outer wall, and the bank of snow and ice that lay against it, had contrived a tunnel of sorts along its length.
Edwin pushed snow aside and started to move along this new terrace. It was darker here thanks to the icy wall on his left, but his eyes were good enough to see where he was going. If this was the same as the familiar terrace below then there must be … and his hand reached the first door. His hands moved quickly, bashing away the encasing ice around the frame. There were no locks on the doors below, and likewise here—it wasn’t as though there was anyone around to lock out—and so, once clear, all he had to do was give the door a gentle shoulder by way of encouragement and it cracked inward. Beyond was total blackness and stale air that curled his nostrils.
It was far too dark to see inside, and he had come out without a torch. The little light that was afforded by the sky was dimming fast. He would come back tomorrow to continue his adventure.
*****
The following day, Edwin returned to the new terrace. He came prepared with an oil lamp, a shovel, and a little something to eat if he got hungry. There had been no new snowfall, and so he only had to clear the small amount that had fallen from the banks on either side of his previous day’s digging. Today, the sky was that bit lighter so he was able to save the lamp for when he reached the terrace and the first door, at which point he lit it and took a closer look at the door itself. It was much as he expected it to be, decorated with shallow carvings that made graceful curves across its surface. The wood was as hard and strange as the wood found below, both in the doors and the furnishings of Solitude; it was like ivory, though slightly yellowed, perhaps with age.
The door gave easily under his weight and his lamp revealed the interior. Its layout was a replica of the rooms on the terrace below: a long, wide corridor that had corridors and rooms split off to the right. As Edwin entered, he kicked up dust into a choking cloud. He tore a length off the hem of his robe and fashioned a mask before pushing farther in. If it did mirrored below, then the rooms beyond these doors were sleeping cells. The first three he looked in were indeed cells and covered in a thick layer of dust. The fourth was a corridor that turned ten yards along its length and headed further into the mountain. Edwin found his heart beating that bit quicker. This was different.
Soon after, there was a door that took some persuading to open and when it did, Edwin stumbled forward into a room, kicking up a blinding cloud. His lamp made it seem like he was in thick fog as the dust swirled around him. It was so fine it took a minute or two to settle enough for him to take in his surroundings.
It was a dormitory. Lines of beds ran the length of the room, low cots much like the one he slept in. And bodies lay on each cot. Perhaps this was not a dormitory at all, but a morgue. He stepped closer to the first, taking care not to kick up too much dust, and held his lamp close to the upturned corpse. The body lay straight, arms folded across its chest, dressed in an all-too-familiar robe but richer in detail—a thick material with woven patterns of silver and gold thread. As strange to Edwin as the body’s clothing were its features. Rather than a desiccated corpse, the hands and face looked like the body had been carved from the same wood used throughout Solitude. The skin looked hard and polished and, combined with the serene features, suggested a carving that had been dressed and lain down to sleep. The hair looked real though, straight and black, contrasting sharply with the whiteness of the skin. Edwin moved to the next bed. The tone and look of the body was similar, but the details were different. The hair was golden and shone in the lamplight. The next cot held a similar body, though shorter, with slender fingers and a straighter nose.
Edwin held his lamp high and looked down the length of the room. He could dimly see the end of it, cots stretching its entire length and width. Edwin didn’t have enough fingers and toes to work out the sum of all the bodies, or statues, or whatever they were, in this room. He walked down the aisle between two rows, looking at each body in turn. They were as unalike as any two men and yet all of the same recognisable character. In some ways, they were how he imagined Kezef, Nuriel, and the other monks (for want of a better word) may have looked when they were younger.
As he paced, he counted. He’d gone past fifty-five cots before he reached the end of the dormitory. That meant there were five hundred … six … hundred and … a lot of bodies.
At this end of the room was a set of double doors with carved wooden handles. Beyond was another room, but one that was much bigger. Inside were ranks of soldiers, armoured in a metal that sparkled in reflected lamplight, the armour scales like leaves. Each soldier held a spear with a long curved blade at its tip and at their side was a curved scabbard. Long, straight hair—golden, silver, black, brown—hung straight from beneath curved helms that shaped around long, thin faces.
An army.
Of statues?
What was this place? Certainly no monastery. There were secrets here that he could not even begin to imagine. Who made this place? Did Kezef know this was here and if he did, why had he made no mention? He had hinted that this place was old—that he was old—but now, Edwin thought perhaps ‘old’ was misleading. This was ancient. He knew of no story or tale that spoke of the things before him now. No myth, legend, or fairy tale spoke of an army of alabaster warriors. None that he knew.
He wanted to get a closer look at the soldiers but he was hesitant to enter. Like the bodies on cots behind him, these soldiers were statuesque—there was no hint of life about them—and yet, even though their eyes were closed, he felt like he was being watched. And not just from the ranks in front of him. He spun, expecting to see someone standing there, but he was still alone. He was spooked now.
He ran, not caring about the cloud of dust that ballooned behind him as he did. He didn’t stop until he was drinking in the cold outside air. He turned to pull the door shut behind him. Inside, the dormitory was a thick fog from his passing. The door was an inch from closing when he heard a sound.
Someone coughed.
Or something. Edwin felt a surge of panic. He felt as if eyes were on him.
“Edwin, I wondered where you had got to. It’s not like you to miss lunch.”
The voice came from behind him. Unthinking, his warrior instincts took over and he spun round, his hand grabbing for a sword that was not there. The jocular Af was standing there, beaming, holding a small plate with mushroom crackers covered in mushroom pâté.
“I thought I’d bring you something. You must be hungry.”
Af held the plate out, the implication clear. Edwin’s hand had a slight shake as he took it. He took a deep breath to calm himself.
“How did you know I was here?” asked Edwin, absentmindedly taking a cracker and munching on it. The creamy pâté was a marvel. He had no idea how Af made it. Soft, full of flavour, it contrasted well with the crisp cracker it was spread on.
“There was nowhere else you could be. You weren’t in your quarters, or in the main hall, kitchen, mushroom farm, privy, sauna room, or the mediation cells. Simple deduction. Besides, you’ve carved quite a path up here.” Af leant to one side and peered around Edwin at the door behind him. “I imagine you have many questions. Come.”
Af turned and almost skipped down the terrace, despite its slipperiness. In a daze, Edwin followed. Af led him down, humming a tune to himself, to the main hall where the others were sitting on their meditation cushions around the plinth, upon which sat the Book of the Dead. Edwin had tried to sneak a peek at the book on several occasions but had been stymied by the fact it was written in a language he didn’t recognise. Even if it had been written in Western Common, he would have struggled—reading was not a strong suit of his, killing more his thing. He had hoped he might make some sense of it. Kezef was standing at the plinth, his hands resting to either side of the open book.
Af went to a vacant cushion and left Edwin holding his plate of crackers and pâté.
“Edwin, please join us,” said Kezef, in a way that reminded Edwin of the village teacher back in Wellow. Kezef indicated a spot next to the plinth where Edwin’s cushion had been placed.
Edwin sat himself down, setting the now-empty plate at his side. He felt like he was in trouble but couldn’t imagine what kind or how he could possibly be threatened by a group of harmless old men. He didn’t need a weapon; he could punch his way out of here if he needed to, one soft paunch at a time.