by Tim Jones
It wasn't a good decision. The slope was the steepest they had tackled thus far. The wet, slippery clumps of grass near the bottom were difficult to stand on, but nothing compared to the scree slope above, where the fragmented, unstable rock made climbing a nightmare for legs already bone weary. It was almost night when they reached the top of the ridge, and there was no campsite there, just a steep descent through unknown dangers into the valley below.
It was madness to go on, but unthinkable to go back. When Kendik thought back on that night, he wasn't sure whether the fear of falling to his death in the dark was worse than the withering scorn Atlan and Mors piled on his route-finding skills. They didn't let up till Atlan slipped and rolled ten meters down the slope, his descent only halted by a boulder. Nothing appeared to be broken, but the cut on his head was still oozing blood a few hours later, when they had finally made it to the valley floor and were fumbling round for their tent.
The clouds had parted to let fitful moonlight through, and that may have been what saved them. The wolves made little sound, but Kendik saw moonlight gleam off silver fur. Shouting a warning to Atlan and Mors, he drew his sword. Now, at last, he was in his element.
Atlan had time to draw his bow and fire off a couple of arrows, which whined dangerously close to Kendik's head. One found its mark; not bad shooting for a man with a head wound. Then it was close-quarter work, Kendik's sword the first line of defense, the brothers' daggers there to back it up. Kendik slew one mighty adversary in mid-leap, and then the wolves abandoned the frontal attack and circled, looking for an opening. Twice, Kendik felt jaws closing on his leg, but the boiled leather armor he wore protected him just long enough each time that he could beat the wolf to the killing strike.
The wolves must have been very hungry. Not until six of their number lay dead did they break off the attack. Kendik's left leg was badly bruised, and Atlan's head wound had reopened, but other than that, the three travelers were unscathed.
"You're not bad, kid," said Mors. "You might have saved our lives just then. Think you can find the wood for a fire?"
By the time the adrenalin wore off, they had put up the tent, built a fire, and even—praise be to Jaspree—found that the river of this valley had fish. Tired though he was, Kendik took the first watch. Beneath the moon, he sat on a log, listened to the snores of his companions, and cleaned his sword. Night birds called from the forest. Far off, he heard the howling of wolves, but they knew when they were beaten, and did not return.
They slept late. It started to rain again. Standing in the shelter of the closest tree, they took a good, long look at the map. They couldn't decide which valley they were in, though it clearly trended north. "Lake Vors will be somewhere over there, but we don't want to go that way."
"Why not?" asked Kendik.
"We've had a few problems with the Ishkarat in our time. Don't want to get mixed up with them again."
The t'skrang! Kendik had seen them, of course, had even talked with a few, but he had never spent much time in their company. To visit the Serpent River, and see the t'skrang towers rising above the water! That would be a wonder indeed.
Well, no matter. It did not seem he would be spending much time on the Serpent River while he had the Turgut brothers in tow.
"So if we don't know where we are, do we at least know where we're going?" he asked, a little impatiently.
Atlan and Mors exchanged glances before Mors spoke. "A tower, lad, a magician's tower. See, it's marked there. We found this map a week ago. Heard some men talking about the tower, we did, about how there was rumored to be all sorts left for the plundering. That night, I found this map in their room while they slept."
"If there's so much treasure there, how come it hasn't already been taken?"
"Guarded, apparently. That's why we wanted you along. Swordmaster like yourself should be able to take care of a few guards."
"But you're sure it's not in this valley?"
"It's not in a valley at all. Hidden among needle-tipped peaks, so they said. Somewhere to the west, I suspect. So what we do is, boy, we climb, high as we can, and see if we can match the map to what we see."
So they climbed. The forest was dense again, dense and trackless, and they hacked their way through it, Kendik wincing at the uses to which he was putting his sword. The forest at least protected them from the worst of the downpour; when they reached the tree line, the rain hit them with full force, and they were drenched in minutes.
Three days of this, Kendik thought as he sidled through the scrub above the tree line, scrub with thorns sharp enough to go clean through his leather armor. Three days with these two. Three days of rain. Why didn't I just hire out to the dwarfs?
But he remembered that there had been few dwarfs in Bilim, and those few had taken not the slightest interest in him. Say what you liked about the Turgut brothers, at least they were human, and he had some chance of understanding them.
Kendik had to stop to relieve himself. It would have made no difference to the Turgut brothers if he had done his business out in the open, but Kendik felt happier to duck behind a rock outcrop; so full of rock outcrops were these mountains that Kendik half fancied the outcrops were obsidimen, sitting in silent contemplation. Behind the rock, sheltered from the prevailing wind, was a little grove of shrubs that would normally struggle to grow at this elevation. As he stood up, Kendik kicked something that made a small, metallic noise. He stooped down and picked it up, old, half-covered in dirt, but recognizable: a Theran gold piece.
Kendik cleared away the accumulation of leaves and dirt, and discovered that someone had once built a little fire pit here, rimmed with stones. In the debris, he found the darkened bones of animals, a broken knife, and one more coin, a hexagonal Throalic bronze. Whoever halted here had been far too careless with their money.
Engrossed in his excavations, Kendik had forgotten all about Atlan and Mors. Not until they were almost on top of the thicket, demanding to know where by the Name of all the Passions he was, did he hear them. He felt a strong impulse to pocket the coins and say nothing; but he was a young man, with a young man's sense of honor, and he showed the brothers what he had found.
Mors took the coins from him in an eye-blink, secreting them somewhere in the folds of his cloak. "While you've been digging in the dirt, boy, we've been finding what looks like a path. I'd say we're on the way to somewhere, somewhere where there's coin to be had."
"Do you think it could be this magician's tower?"
"No, but it might be someplace easier to take. Let's see if we can find it before nightfall."
As Kendik trudged behind Atlan and Mors, he took a good look around. They were high above the valley floor now, and he could no longer make out where they had fought the wolves. The top of the ridge they had been climbing, the heights over which they had passed last night, and whatever lay down-valley were all shrouded in mist and cloud, but he could see that they were on a ledge—a shelf—on the mountainside. And Atlan and Mors were right: there was some kind of trail here, or perhaps even an old road, long overgrown but still visible, etched on the bones of the mountains.
The trail left the ledge and began to climb steeply. They lost it for a while, but picked it up again beneath a horn of rock on the ridgeline above the valley. Somewhere above the clouds, the sun was sinking towards its nightly rest. The rain had stopped, but it was bitterly cold. They had not eaten for hours, and even Atlan was stumbling as they trudged along.
Then they rounded another corner, and found the end of the trail: two great pillars of rock, and in between them, a smooth, dark tunnel leading down into blackness.
Not talking, they crept closer. Just outside the tunnel, and in the tunnel entrance, piles of bones and scraps of cloth told of sudden death. The bones were jumbled, and many cracked open: there had been a dreadful feasting here.
"Horrors got them," Atlan said, "or maybe bears."
"Do you think anyone's been here since?"
"Must have," said Mor
s. "Otherwise, where are the doors?"
It was true. The doors had been removed from their mountings and carried away. To where, and by what, there was no way of telling.
"So what do we do now," asked Kendik, "camp here overnight?"
"We go back a ways," said Atlan, "and find a place we can camp, and in the morning, we come back and take a good, hard look around."
It would be a cold and hungry night in these mountains, thought Kendik, eyeing the tunnel entrance once more. Would it be worth the risk to search the kaer? He had heard of what lurked in empty kaers ...
Then he heard the noise. It was faint at first, barely distinguishable from the sounds of wind, water, and rock; but this sound was coming from inside the mountain, and it was getting closer. Up from the depths of the tunnel, echoing, came the sound of footfalls.
He wanted to move, to run away, but he could not move. Twisting his head, he saw Mors to his left and Atlan to his right, also rooted to the spot. Kendik Dezelek drew his sword and waited for whatever was about to emerge from the opened kaer.
Chapter 2
They saw her armor first. Even in the entrance to the tunnel, in the dim light of evening, it gleamed. She walked slowly, hesitantly, out into the light.
She was the most beautiful woman Kendik had ever seen. Clad in gleaming silver armor, she was tall—about his height—slim, and shapely. Her hair hung long and golden about her shoulders. She carried a helmet in one hand and a sword in the other.
She stopped at the entrance to the tunnel, blinking a little, looking at them. Kendik made to take a step forward, only to have Atlan grab him by the shoulders.
"She could be a Horror, boy! Keep away!"
She cleared her throat and sang to them. Her voice was high, thin, and clear. She sang:
The Earth has stopped falling.
The Water is empty Will the Earth heed its calling The Water bring plenty?
Her voice faltered. She smiled shyly and waited.
Kendik turned to Atlan. "She can't be a Horror, or Horror-tainted, can she? No Horror could sing like that."
He heard Mors mutter "There's always a first time, boy...," but Kendik knew his dwarf lore. No Horror, and no one Horror-tainted, was capable of carrying on an art or craft—and what art could be greater than that of song?
He stepped forward. She drew back a little and brought up her sword. Kendik sheathed his sword, spread both arms in a gesture of welcome, and spoke to her.
"We mean you no harm. We were prospecting in these mountains, lost our path, and came upon this kaer. We were thinking about whether to explore it when we heard you approaching."
"There is nothing left within Kaer Volost. Nothing but memories." She hung her head and was silent for a moment, then straightened and smiled at him. "Forgive me. My Name is Anarya Chezarin. I am the last survivor of Kaer Volost. I come here sometimes, to mourn, and to remember."
"And what do you do when you're not mourning and remembering?" asked Mors. She turned her gaze on him, and Kendik felt a pang, a tiny knifelike thrust, of jealousy.
"I ride the world and hunt down Horrors," she said.
"A stripling like you? You couldn't—"
Mors stopped, for Anarya's sword was at his throat.
"I can, and I do."
Mors backed off, muttering.
"Your armor is very fine," said Kendik.
"Do you like it? It was my reward from the smiths of King Varu-lus. There was a Horror stalking the deep caverns of his kingdom, a Horror both fierce and subtle. I entered within, and slew it, and emerged covered in its blood and stench, my armor pitted and corroded. The handmaidens of the king took me, bathed me, and healed my wounds, and the king bade his smiths make their finest armor for me, and reforge my sword, so that now it is stronger and better than before."
"Sounds a lot more generous that most dwarfs I've encountered," said Mors. "And they didn't go in much for bathing, either."
Anarya smiled. "I see that you do not entirely trust me, sir. And that is prudent, for chance meeting may not always augur well in the wild places of the world. But tell me, where are you bound? Perhaps we shall travel there together."
"We're prospectors," said Atlan, "so we're bound wherever there are items of value to find. We had heard that these hills had not yet been fully explored, so we set out to see what we could find. But so far, we—"
"I found some coins," said Kendik. "Might they have come from your kaer?"
"Please show them to me."
Kendik looked at Mors, who looked blank. "You may as well show her," growled Atlan, "since somebody seems to have slipped the boy a truth potion."
Mors shrugged, and the coins appeared in his left hand. He held them out for inspection.
"May I hold them?"
With a considerable show of reluctance, Mors handed them over. Anarya stood, head down, eyes closed, running her fingers over the surface of the coins.
Then she straightened, opened her eyes, and returned the coins to Mors. "They come from our kaer," she said. "They were spent in our markets, and kept in pockets and under pillows, and once a child held the golden coin, and thought herself a princess of legend."
"Were you that child?" asked Kendik.
"Perhaps. I can no longer remember much before the day—be-fore the day the kaer was opened, and the Gnashers came."
"Do you remember what happened on that day?"
"That I will always remember. But let us not talk of it here. I would rather put some miles between me and the mouth of Kaer Volost before I speak of such things. I know of good campsites within two hours' walk of here. Shall we walk together?"
Atlan looked at Mors. "Suppose we may as well," Mors said. "Where's your gear?"
"This way," said Anarya. She led them in the opposite direction to that from which they had come. As soon as they started moving, Kendik felt as if a spell had been broken: he felt the wind again, and the cold mountain air, and that he was hungry, and tired. But he made sure he was first in line behind her, so he could watch the way her hips swayed as she walked.
Halfway round the mountain, in the very last of the twilight, they came to a tumbled mass of rock, shaken from the peak above by some ancient cataclysm. Anarya climbed over one boulder and between two others, and in a few moments reappeared with her pack, which she tossed down to them. "There is a little door there," she said when she jumped down. "No one has passed that way for many years, but I believe it may have some connection with the kaer. A useful hiding place, anyway."
Anarya leading the way, they began to descend the hillside. Anarya and Atlan bore torches. Mors seemed completely untroubled by the steep track and the dim light, but Kendik stumbled along, trying to avoid falling flat on his face and making a fool of himself. At last they came down into a quiet valley, the peace broken only by the chuckling of a stream. They made camp beside the stream and lit a fire to deter any wolves that might call this valley their home. It was too late and they were too tired for fishing, but from her pack Anarya produced sweetmeats for all of them.
"These will tide us over until morning," she said. "Another little gift from the dwarfs."
She was right: they tasted wonderful. Kendik lay in the cramped vestibule of Atlan and Mors' tent, listening to Mors snore and mumble in his sleep, and peeking out through the flap at Atlan and Anarya. Anarya had offered to take the first watch, but Atlan said—whether from misplaced chivalry or suspicion—that the three men would share the watches between them. "Very well," conceded Anarya, "But I will sit a little before I sleep." Now Atlan sat on one side of the fire, facing towards the darkness, on watch. Anarya sat on the other side, whittling something, singing softly to herself. She was going to tell us all about the kaer, thought Kendik, and then he fell asleep.
Kendik took the middle watch. He had no company, welcome or otherwise, and his stint was utterly uneventful, apart from Mors shaking him awake at the end of it. No matter. Another few hours' sleep left him scarcely better rested, but he was content
enough, and the sun was shining.
As he went down to the stream for water, he met Anarya returning, clad only in her shift, still wet from bathing. "A fine day," she said, and smiled as she walked past him. He nodded dumbly, not trusting himself to speak.
"You took your time with the water," said Atlan when he returned.
Breakfast was a lively affair. Whether it was the glorious weather—the sun now peeking over the rim of the valley, sending beams down to warm them as they sat—or the presence of a beautiful woman in their midst, all three men were eager to talk. Kendik learned that Atlan had spent much of his youth among mountain trolls—creatures Kendik had heard naught but tales about, and had never seen—and that Mors was, by his own estimation, "the finest Thief north of the Tylon and south of the Serpent, and that's with all due respect to Ilina of Khilgit."
"I'd never steal anything from my companions, though," Mors added. Kendik, remembering the coins, could have challenged that; but now was not the time.
Kendik did not think his tales of the nursery and of schooling would do much to endear himself to his companions, so instead he said "Lady, you said before we left the kaer that you would tell us the tale of how Kaer Volost met its doom, and of how you alone survived. Now that the sun is shining, will you tell us the story?"
"I will," said Anarya, and began.
"I was the last child to be born in Kaer Volost. My father was a farmer, my mother an Elementalist and member of the Council. When I was a little girl, the Council made the decision to send expeditions into the outside world, for our numbers were few and falling, and despair crept upon us from all sides. They sent four expeditions out, and though the first two did not return, the third and fourth did, and told of a world outside that was fertile and free of Horrors.