by B J Hanlon
The ground was cold and wet as he dismounted, his feet kicking up droplets of water. He wrapped himself in his bedroll and closed his eyes, hoping he could have a dreamless sleep.
That didn’t happen. The mountain was steep and the air seemed crisp and clear. He was in a courtyard. There were actual stones, tiled in some geometric pattern with a lot of triangles, squares and what not. In front of him, it seemed the world just fell away. It was dark, but the snowcaps shone bright under the full moon. Was it a full moon? Edin dragged his gaze away and looked around.
A building seemed to be built directly into the side of a peak. It was taller than the manor though nowhere near the size of the Frestils’ castle. Edin blinked.
It was a white stone and had two huge towers. Shuttered windows covered much of the façade and a gust of wind brought freezing snowflakes into his face biting his skin like needles. Edin went to cover his mouth but had no hands… no body.
Edin remembered the vision from before. He was there but not. He was a ghost, a specter. What is this place?
A blur shot across the only open window. He caught a glimpse of trailing blonde hair.
A wooden door opened easily. It slammed into the wall and rumbled the mountain. A person appeared in the darkness and he could not help but notice the bow and a nocked arrow.
“Who’s there? Anyone?” It was a woman’s voice. Her voice... from his last vision. She took a slow, hesitant step forward making no sound. The moon glinted off her ivory skin but didn’t offer a more discernible look. “I can sense you. Tell me who you are”
Edin tried to speak, to say anything but he couldn’t. He waived his hands in the air, but he had no hands.
“I’m all alone,” her voice quivered. “Whoever you are, please help...” She lowered the bow and stood, staring out into nothingness for a long time.
16
A Bit on the Late Side
“Get off my land, ‘fore I call the constable,” a deep voice yelled. “He’ll teach ya…”
From his right, Bliz began growling. He wasn’t sure what exactly woke him, but now Edin could feel the rumble in the animal’s chest pressed up against his back.
“Woah is that… hi there… don’t attack… boys, back up.”
The mesh of half spoken words confused Edin. He sat up and rubbed his eyes before looking toward the sound of the voices. Ahead of him were three men. One older and the others much younger. They had the same tanned features, large brows, thick noses.
Bliz barked and they all jumped.
“That’s a dire wolf next to you,” the older man said his voice shaky. Clearly the father.
Edin stood up and looked at them while he rested his hand on Bliz’s head. Something about the look, their fear… it brought back what happened with Fali, with Berka… Edin felt a twinge of anger…
“He wouldn’t hurt me,” Edin said. “But he’ll kill anyone I wish.” Edin tilted his head to the side.
“I… um.”
“Not being kind to strangers, the Vestion looks down on that sort of behavior.” Edin placed a hand on the pommel of his sword. Their mouths were agape, their movements too slow to even be considered sluggish. “Leave.” They froze. “Now!”
They turned and started to run toward the cottage, Bliz started to move.
“Stop,” Edin commanded and Bliz sat back on his haunches and looked up at him. Edin smiled and rubbed him under the chin. “You’re a good boy.”
After he got up, Edin followed the road back the way the men came. He could see the cottage that the men fled into like rats running from an eagle. He led Hail and headed down past the cottage. Out of the corner of his eyes, he saw the men and a few women staring through barely open shutters.
An hour later a village appeared on the horizon. Puffs of gray smoke rose from multiple chimneys into the morning air.
Broken clusters of men moved toward them. Edin rested his hand on the pommel of his sword. At first, he thought they were after him a mob of locals looking to kill a mage. Then he saw boys, oxen and saws. No one ever attacked another with a saw. At least no one in their right mind. The villagers gave Edin the road, standing off to the side and staring at the wolf.
A short while later, he reached the town, seeing a few cottages, log walls and thatched roofs. The road came to a crossroads with a small tavern on the corner. The crisp air felt damp on his hands and face. His stomach growled louder than Bliz’s panting. Edin tied Hail to a hitching post outside the tavern and looked at the wolf.
“Wait here,” he ordered. The animal kept following him. How would he understand? Edin held out another hand and said “stop.”
Bliz tilted his head and let his tongue loll from his mouth.
Edin waited and eventually Bliz sat. Edin entered. It was a small room that smelled of stale ale and staler sweat, he saw a woman sweeping remnants of the night before.
“Morning, what can I do for you?”
“Is it too early for breakfast?” Edin asked.
“Never.” The woman smiled, it seemed genuine.
He ate eggs, toast and bacon. He drank it down with some coffee and leaned back in his chair. The middle-aged serving lady reappeared and Edin asked for six pounds of ham to go.
“Six pounds?” The woman questioned. She shrugged and went into the back. After a few minutes she reappeared with a brown package.
Edin began to pull out his coin and asked, “What town is this?”
She raised an eyebrow. “Mathurn. Only town between the Crady Mountains and Frestils. Where’d ya come from?” The place smelled like it got a lot of visitors, a specialized tavern without rooms were rare outside large cities.
The questions sounded innocent enough, but Edin knew he couldn’t trust her. “From Alestow.” Edin said smiling. “Meeting some friends and heading to Frestils…”
“You’re a bit lost ehh? There’s a direct road unless… Did ya come through the forest?” She raised an eyebrow at him.
“I did.”
“Well I’ll… the town been trying to tame that place for generations. Not many make it through and when they do…” She shook her head.
“I made it through…”
“You did…” She paused. “Did ya feel it?”
“Feel what?”
She opened her mouth and then shut it. “Nah, it’s just an old tale.”
Edin tilted his head in a way that reminded him of Horston when he wanted some answer.
“People see things in there… ghosts some say, I say the whole damned forest is cursed…”
“I’m not sure about that...” Edin said but remembered the white tree and the visions. Edin drank from the coffee and sighed. “I’m looking for some friends, said they’d meet me at a grove to the north… know anything about it?”
She nodded but there was a weird look in her eye. “Follow that road you were on.” She reached under the bar and quickly pulled something out. He first thought it could’ve been a knife, but then saw the brown rag. She began wiping the bar, though it already looked clean with the exception of names and some rather unseemly words carved into it.
“Thanks.” Edin said and with the package of ham and a full stomach he left, following the road. He crossed a small river with a waterwheel churning. A sign said Mathurn Paper Mill, but the smell was nearly as bad as any tannery. Covering his face, he crossed the wooden bridge and continued through a broken-up landscape.
Another graveyard of trees dotted the ground so close to each other that he knew it had to have been a forest once. One the village had tamed.
After an hour, he spotted it. A cluster of trees in a small vale stood a little east of him. It looked like a memorial to the forest that had once been here.
There was no sign of his companions. Where were they? Edin knew they’d escaped Frestils from the dream… no it was vision.
The sky was gray toward the mountains, Edin sliced a hunk of the ham off and tossed it to Bliz. ”This is all you get for now,” Edin said to Bliz. The
wolf blinked.
Edin grew bored staring over the dull landscape. He needed to move to do something. and spent the next couple hours doing his strength exercises. Granite Manhood, who came up with that name?
After that he used the sword alone then added the quarterstaff. It was still slow, but after a few rounds the natural feeling and muscle memory started to work. He jabbed himself once in the gut trying a strike and slapped his shins hard enough to make him stop and give them a vigorous rub.
Edin tried to imagine what people would see if they were watching him. Twirling a staff above his head while slashing with a sword he envisioned different attacks coming at him. He’d block one attack and flash the other weapon at them quicker than they’d expect.
Edin took a drink of his water and leaned against a tree. Could his companions have been held up? Were they back in town, maybe at an inn? There had to be one…
He closed his eyes and listened to the wind as he rustled the previous year’s leaves and grasses around him.
He had nothing to do again. Last time he had a free day he caused a bit of trouble… now what did he do?
Did he go back to town, stay out here? What would he do with Bliz? There were no sables for dire wolves.
After a while, he started a fire, though it took some work with the wet wood he found scattered around. Edin curled up and shut his eyes.
He was startled by a growl next to him, he looked over to see Bliz staring into the darkness somewhere beyond the small fire. It was dark now, black beyond the glow of the flames. The moon and the millions of stars were nowhere to be seen.
Hail neighed and Edin knew someone was out there. Was it his friends? Possibly but something questioned him… what if they weren’t?
Edin didn’t want them to think he was awake. He heard the snapping of a stick followed by an audible shushing.
Not his friends. They wouldn’t do that.
A twig cracked to his left and Bliz barked so loud it wasn’t believable to pretend he’d be asleep anymore.
Edin leapt to his feet and turned as a man appeared in the fire light, another came from the opposite side, then the father, his two sons and a sixth man appeared.
“Is this your land too?” Edin asked. He wasn’t sure what they were here for or why. After being rudely woken that morning, he didn’t cause trouble, he ate, paid his meal and went away.
The man on the left raised a large axe, a lumberjack’s tool. All of them drew weapons, swords, knives and more axes. They weren’t there for a talk.
“I suppose that is a yes,” Edin said pulling his sword from his sheath. He took a half step and touched his toes to the center of quarterstaff. He reached up and pulled the string on his cloak. It dropped to the grass.
Edin kept his eyes moving from target to target. Edin stepped on the center of the staff. Bliz barked.
“In the name of the gods and by order of the Vestion, put the weapon down,” the axe man said stepping closer, he was taller than Edin and wider. His arms looked like they could squeeze his head and pop it.
Edin tried to see everyone through his peripheral vision, they formed a half circle around him and it was impossible. His back was toward the copse of trees, though someone could be behind and he’d never know. Edin’s heart raced almost expecting an arrow in his back.
‘Most untrained fighters won’t attack at once,’ Grent had told him, ‘and they’ll attack in waves.’
These men didn’t seem trained. All of them had hair on their heads and were dressed in normal villager clothing. They weren’t Por Fen. Though did they know he was a mage?
Edin could still feel his connection to the talent. There was no wan stone… at least he didn’t think so. Were they brave or foolish to attack him?
“What do you want?” Edin said trying to keep his voice strong.
“We aren’t afraid of you criminal… you dirty blasphemer,” the father said. “We have the gods on our side and we will slaughter you and your hell hound.”
Blasphemer? Why would they say that? Who did they think he was?
“I’m not who you think I am,” Edin said, “I’ve never spoken ill of the gods.” He had thought ill of the church in recent times… though he hadn’t spoken about it… at least not out loud. Not the gods… at least not yet.
“A Resholtian spy and defiler of the Vestion?” It was a smaller man on the right, he carried a sword with something shinny on his chest. Edin could see his knuckles were growing white on the hilt. He was gripping it too tight.
Bliz growled again and the horse neighed from somewhere.
“You fit the description and therefore either come with us or we will take your corpse.”
The Por Fen must’ve already passed through. Edin guessed. These men were alert to strangers, maybe they attacked his companions. But how could they get Grent and Dephina? How many sellswords and Por Fen would they’ve killed? If his friends had been captured… they were probably dead already.
He clenched his jaw as he felt the rage begin to flow through him. “Where are my friends?”
A smile moved across the large man’s face but he didn’t answer. There wasn’t a way out of this without violence.
“You think you alone can harm us? I am a veteran of the army, we all have trained with the blade. You’re already dead and you don’t know it, blasphemer.”
There was that word again, not abomination, not magus. They didn’t know what he was.
“Bliz attack,” Edin said, he rolled the staff forward then back, the momentum pushed it onto his toe and he kicked it up catching it in the air. The man with the axe came first and Edin jabbed him with the staff in the armpit as he was about to swing.
Edin heard a scream from behind and the tearing of flesh. He saw a second man coming from his right, he twisted back as the man brought down a sword, he deflected it with his staff and slashed him across the throat nearly severing his head.
Blood poured from the wound as he gurgled and dropped. It was one of the sons.
The father and brother howled as another man cried out from over his shoulder. Edin felt the presence of the big man again from behind him, he dropped and rolled to his left hearing the thwack of axe meeting wood.
Edin popped onto his feet and sent a low arcing strike with the quarterstaff toward the man’s legs.
It caught him behind the knee and he flopped to the ground with a thud. Edin brought it back around and slammed it to the man’s chest. It was hard and he heard bones crack.
“Run, get the Ranger,” the father yelled.
Edin saw Bliz and a man staring at each other, a second was coming from behind, more than six? Bliz seemed to sense that he was surrounded.
Edin glanced toward the son running away as his father swung a dull blade at him. Edin dodged it, slamming the staff into the man’s head. The father’s neck snapped back with a worse crack than the big man. He was too far away to chase down the son. He’d get help, rouse the Ranger.
Then he remembered the throwing knives Grent used in the forests… but it could take him out of the fight…
He watched as the son disappeared into the blackness. He couldn’t stop him. Edin turned toward the man creeping up from behind Bliz. He threw his sword end over end. It caught the man in the back and he cried out as Bliz leapt at the other. The other one’s body was buried under a mountain of fur. The horrified scream was silenced.
Edin pulled his blade and turned. It was a massacre. Only the one boy survived. He heard the lumberjack groan. Blood gurgled from his mouth. Edin trudged toward him and saw the open dead eyes of the father staring toward the closed eyes of his son. Edin’s stomach turned. After a few moments Edin rummaged in his pack until he found the waterskin. He poured some on the big man’s lips.
“What is your name?” Edin said to the man, his eyes were open but there was a sheen over them.
He said something too quiet for Edin to hear, he lowered himself next to the man.
“Say that again?”
“Ulon,” the man whispered his lips fluttering.
“Ulon. I had a friend named Ulson.” Edin said. He sighed. “You’re dying. I can’t save you. But I can ease your passing.” Then he thought about his friends being tortured and held his sword out before the man. “Or I can make it much, much more painful.”
Ulon looked at him out of the corner of his eyes, they were a dim blue but Edin had the feeling they once had been bright.
“My companions, where are they?” Edin hissed. “Two men and a woman.”
“Jail…” he coughed and a tear rolled down his face, “arrested a week ago,” he whispered.
A week? How is that possible, he only left the city four days ago, not seven. “You lie,” Edin said, “where are they?”
“Constable… dead,” Ulon said. “There.” Edin looked over and saw three bodies torn to bits by one massive dire wolf. So they were in jail and the constable was here trying to add Edin to their tally of prisoners.
“Thank you,” Edin said. He grabbed the ax handle. “Have you made your peace with the gods?”
The man nodded. Edin aimed for the neck and brought it down. Edin watched it strike true, then looked away. “I am sorry you got involved.” He whispered.
Edin stared down at the corpses. Limbs were missing and rivers of black blood poured from the gaping wounds and puddled in the low grass. He didn’t want this… killing people was something a mad mage did… an abomination did. Edin swallowed as he stared.
It took him a few moments before he started to search. One of them, a thick shorter man whose throat was completely ripped out had a small brown colored metal shield on his lapel. It had a pair of crossed swords. On his right hand sat a large gold ring with a ruby the size of Fali’s.
He checked the man’s pockets, he found some coin, a drawing that in the firelight barely resembled an ogre, let alone Edin… though his name was on it just the same. A wanted poster, it listed the crimes he’d supposedly committed, treason, sedition, espionage, blasphemy. Edin stopped reading when he saw the reward. ‘100 Gold, Living or Not.’