by B J Hanlon
An hour or more later, he saw a tree he was almost certain he’d seen before. Was he going in circles? Couldn’t be. Every step seemed uphill.
But he remembered the branches, two separate ones crisscrossing into an X with silvery tendrils hanging down as if it were growing a ghostly beard. They both split into forks near head height. Edin had remembered ducking them and feeling the beard tug at his hair like that annoying kid who used to sit behind him at the schoolhouse.
Edin tried to follow the moss… though it had seemed to disappear. Was he at an elevation where it didn’t grow? He knew that there was always a point on the mountains were no plant life grew…
He was determined to keep climbing up when he came to the same tree a third time. He shook his head. He was certain he’d been climbing. What had happened? He stared at it unblinking. Swallowing a drink of water, he glanced into the fog. What was happening in this place?
He had no choice but to camp and try to sleep, hoping the fog would leave in the night.
He ate a biscuit, dry and bland but filling. He wanted a fire but had no way to start one. Grent had the sparkstone and the only fire he’d had since the mountains was down at the river’s edge made by the elf.
Edin curled up next to a downed tree. The elven cloak was warm and he used his old cloak as a pillow. He hugged his sword near his chest and closed his eyes.
It came again in the night, cracking trees with a deep terrifying roar. It was like ringing a bell in his ear and shouting.
Edin leapt up, scraped his shoulder on the dying bark and looked around. There was bellowing roar from somewhere in the dark and foggy world. Wood cracked and the ground rumbled as something large moved like a raging river beyond his view.
His heart was thumping hard in his throat and he could barely breathe, barely think. He tried looking in all directions, in one direction… the sounds seemed to come from everywhere.
The fog grew thicker, blacker. A moment later he saw two giant red orbs the size of his head.
His arms went weak and it took a moment to realize they were coming toward him, growing with the sound of the crashing foliage. He heard a hiss and saw something flip up through the orbs in the shape of a Y.
His body was numb. Edin was frozen staring into the terrifying orbs. It was the same way with the crillio.
The orbs never moved from their height, it was as if they were on a cart coming down the smoothest of roads.
Then a thump, thud, thump came from somewhere. Thump, thud, thump. A drum. He knew that and then he began to think again. The fear was there but he knew he had to get out of the way or those eyes would devour him.
But he didn’t have to do anything. A few yards away, the fog-covered beast roared. He saw needle like fangs the size of short swords in its elongated mouth. The orbs turned and he saw the huge profile of something scaly and slimy like a snake from the worst nightmare of all time.
It turned and disappeared, a long thin tail whipping toward him. He watched it and didn’t see the last section of it until it was just about at his chest. Edin ducked, just barely as the tail whipped over his head, crashing into a tree. It didn’t sound like a crack, more of an explosion like it’d been hit by lightning. He felt splinters raining on him and covered his head.
The top of the huge tree fell. It collapsed under its own weight a mere foot to his right. Branches and leaves brushed past his body like a mother consoling a child. When Edin looked, he was in the only spot not covered by tree branches for at least three yards.
He could barely believe what he’d seen: the scaly body, the serrated tail looked like a mace. What type of monster was that?
Edin dropped to his knees and crawled beneath the leaves and branches digging into the tree’s corpse as if it were some hovel that would protect him. The beast’s ominous crashing faded… or headed toward the sound of the drums.
He woke in the morning and Edin peered through thin breaks in the fallen leaves and saw a sun peeking out, twinkling nearly right above him.
The fog had lifted and he found his basket and the deep two-foot long gouges in the churned-up dirt. Edin swallowed. He snacked briefly on a biscuit and began uphill again and hopefully east.
The trees began to thin in seemingly the exact opposite proportion of the increase of pain in his burning thighs. Boulders and protrusions of granite began to pierce the dirt. They seemed to be taking shapes of animals, fingers, fists, or oddly enough, a jester’s hat.
Sometime later, he finally emerged from the tree line. About a hundred yards to the south he could see what looked like a path leading up the side of the mountain.
Despite the pain, he pushed on. The sweet smell of the forest and the humidity slowly disappeared. Almost at odds with it, the air began to feel crisp.
It was a slim trail following a ridge about twenty yards above him. He may have been able to climb it, but he remembered the trip into the vale and didn’t want a repeat. He followed the trail for hours until he was much higher and on the side of a mountain. Behind him, looking like a small garden, was the valley. The river, not seen from the other side was a blue rope twisting through its center.
He was between two peaks, both hundreds, maybe a thousand yards tall and disappearing into sparse clouds with the sun blinding him to their peaks.
Edin continued through the path; it dropped and rose through the mountains. It had clearly been made by an intelligent hand. The grades weren’t steep going either way. But who would’ve done this? And When? he wondered. As far as he knew, these were impenetrable mountains. There were no tunnels or mines, no roads but Jont’s Pass. It was as if he were travelling in some ancient man’s footsteps.
Edin was thinking about this when he saw something out of the corner of his eye. It was near the top of his eye line on a precipice probably twenty yards up. It had sharp angles and flat sides. It looked like the base of a tower with a window built in. The top was gone.
Then he saw it, at least a part of it. Scattered below in the way he’d seen glass after it had shattered, were sections of stone that couldn’t have been put back together by a hundred men. He stopped and stared.
A chunk, barely the size of his hand sat only feet away. He picked it up and turned it in his hands. There was the smooth outer surface, a sharp ninety-degree angle, and another smooth… what is that he thought?
A painting. Or part of one with faded reds, yellows, and blues. There was too little for Edin to know what it was but he stared for a long time wondering.
He kept the stone, sticking it in his basket and moved on. The day wore into evening and he found a small overhang of rocks that reminded him of an arrow head.
Edin crouched beneath it and found the remnants of a fire with the corresponding scorch marks on the roof.
Unburnt firewood was nestled in the rear of the shelter protected from the elements. Someone had used this place regularly. But who? And more importantly, would they be returning tonight?
He checked the cave but didn’t find a sparkstone. Edin tried to with a few other rocks but none sparked. It was a special rock but Edin couldn’t remember the name.
After a half hour and with pain-filled fingers, he gave up. A full moon lit up the northern sky. Edin’s mind wandered. After attempting to sleep, and failing, he got up and moved to a boulder overlooking the path he’d taken. He could barely see the valley; it was but a small dot hidden behind boulders and mountains.
The fresh air felt clean again, but chilly. He pulled the cloak closer and instantly felt warm again. Edin watched as streams of bats tore out of tall mountain caves and made black streaks in the sky toward the valley and wherever else it was they’d find their breakfast.
He thought he saw a red glow for a moment in the small section of the valley he could see. The she-elf maybe? Then it disappeared and all that was left was dark again with glimmering moon on the trees.
Back in the overhang, he laid down staring off to the west as the twinkling stars gave the sky a light blue tint.<
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This high up, it rarely stayed warm, however this thick cloak was cozy and comfortable. Edin tucked an arm under his head and closed his eyes.
“Please someone answer me,” a tearful woman’s voice said. It was dark, with only a small glow around her face. The shine of a tear rolled down from her sparking gray-green eyes.
“I’m on my way,” his dream self said. She didn’t respond… didn’t make any notice of him being there. The quiver of her soft jaw made him want to scream. He could almost see the fear passing through her mind and the question. Was she the last human alive?
The morning came slowly and he forgot most of his dreams remembering only a pleading woman.
Yawning and stretching his arms above his head, Edin realized he had actually slept and his shoulder was nearly healed and his ankle wasn’t swollen anymore. He felt almost well enough to train. Not the sword, but the Oret Nakosu.
In the morning light on that barren rock path, Edin shed his cloak and worked through the strength exercises and felt that burning, delicious feeling of exercise. Sweat glistened on his arms before he finished.
Edin drank steadily and stared back toward the valley. His mind and body were far too anxious.
Before leaving, he ate a biscuit that filled his stomach like a grand meal.
As he followed the trail, the incline became slowly steeper and more treacherous.
He stopped to catch his breath. “I’m never climbing a mountain again,” Edin huffed trying to rub some semblance of feeling back into his legs. He was perched on a small boulder. Ahead of him, the path darkened beneath a shadowy outcropping like a shovel head a few hundred yards above him. Then the path twisted east before disappearing behind a mountain. The break was short and for some reason, an urgency began to grow in his mind.
Edin moved faster with something tickling the back of his brain, though he couldn’t place it. As he rounded the mountain, he saw the trail continuing generally northeast.
Edin sipped on some water as he paused and stared at it. The sun was past its apex and falling. A fortnight. Two weeks. She said.
The distance seemed impossible with the little water and food he had. Maybe elves could make it on such little substance but humans couldn’t.
Was it a flaw in her plan? Or did she plan it this way? Did she want him to die in the mountains?
No, not possible. She truly wanted to help.
He stared at the trail in front of him. It moved slowly downhill toward something standing like a pillar with nothing to hold up. The trail split. Right and left. North and south.
As he tilted his head, the rock took the shape of a head and a body. He could make out a shoulder and an arm holding some sort of weapon in his hand. It was like a spear but with a huge blade that covered nearly a third of it. “The hunter…”
He was moving faster toward it, almost jogging and barely watching his step. While the trail was relatively free of debris, there were still other stones that clacked off his boots and careened into far off crevasses or boulders.
As he drew closer, he could see more detail, it looked familiar… his mind raced faster than his feet. Before he was aware, his brain told him it was the statue from the cave mural.
That was it, had to be.
He was following the trail set out for him. It was as if it were preordained. Edin’s heart raced as he ran, it was like a safe zone in night tag. Edin would need to escape from competitors in the forest before trying to make his way back to a safe zone before being tagged. The easiest way to win if you were the tagger was to simply hide near the zone and leap out at the last moment…
Stones snapped like thick twigs somewhere to the right. He saw a few dropping, bounding off the rock walls then crashing down.
A scrapping sound came from behind him, Edin didn’t glance back. Was something following him? His legs burned and he panted as the trail descended toward his destination.
He was a hundred yards away. A caw echoed through the mountains but it didn’t sound like any bird he’d ever heard. It was throaty and wild.
He began to sprint holding the sword so it wouldn’t slip between his legs and trip him.
A small fissure in the path appeared, Edin leapt over it at a full sprint. Beneath the hunter was a small dark cave that grew as he got closer.
From above he heard more falling rocks and scraping of claws. Was it cliff raptors? Were there some in these mountains too?
A stone flew and smashed on the trail in front of him sending small shards into his boots.
That was thrown, he had no doubt about it. His hackles, whatever they were, were thrown up as high as possible. Edin saw a flash of black leap behind a rock. He was under attack and like a troop of infantry, he needed to make it to the castle walls. That castle was the cave.
The ground flattened into an open expanse, very wide and flat… it was littered with rocks and brown leafless brush poking from grid-patterned stone blocks.
The cave was a couple feet away and half his height. Edin slid into it and lit it with the ethereal light. Drawing his sword, he twisted toward the entrance and waited to see whatever was chasing him.
Nothing appeared.
Blood pumped through his body as his hands and arms became twitchy. He wanted to be ready for anything, but he wasn’t sure how his sword arm would hold up. He wished he had that quarterstaff.
After a half hour of waiting, the adrenaline began to fade and he started to relax. The cave wasn’t deep. Five normal sized adults could sleep snuggly next to each other.
Edin huddled into a nook in the rear of the cave and pulled the brown cloak tight around him. Outside, he only saw the gray stone lit by the ghostly moonlight. A wind whipped past the edge of the cave whistling a tune. He threw the hood over his head and watched.
Edin must’ve nodded off to sleep because he woke to a painful stab in his side. He pushed himself up and found a rock digging into him. After a moment, he remembered he was watching the entrance for pursuers.
Edin watched until an early pink sun rose over the dark blue range before him. It was simply beautiful, like something from an ancient master painter. It felt that there was no one else… nothing else.
Then he remembered something about another dream. It was on the tip of his mind but he couldn’t grab it. He crawled to the entrance and looked outside. It was getting chilly even with the cloak. He remembered advice Grent gave when he complained in the forest.
“Cold? Then get your ass up and train. Blood flowing through your limbs will warm you like a blazing fire.” Then Dephina had added, “or a good woman.” She winked at Edin while Grent, as usual, had turned red.
He rubbed his thumb and forefinger in his eyes as the thought of his friend. How long ago had it been since the plains? A week? More? He clenched his fist to prevent the tears from falling.
He was alone in the mountains. Food and water were fine at this point but would be in short supply soon. He was at the crossroads and he remembered the she-elf saying to go right… but was that correct? A feeling, an urge in him said to go left. Was it from that cavern? From his dreams of the woman? He was now almost certain that she was somewhere in these vast mountains though it’d be impossible to find her… to find anyone.
There was little wind and it was quiet, no movement at all. He slowly stepped further out, ready for any suprise...
But there was no one. He looked up at the hunter above him and around to the mountains and valleys. There was nothing, then his eyes dropped to the flat surface before him. Squared stone tiles the size of houses covered the earth.
It reminded him of pictures he’d seen of a parade ground in some city. The prince or king or whatever ruler there was to muster his army before or after a battle, march them through the streets and make them stand before him as if he were their god. Quite an ego boost.
Then he noticed four long white scratches across the leg of the hunter statue. They looked fresh… as if something came during the night. It came but did not enter
the cave.
He looked left and then right. She was adamant when she said do not go left. He could still hear those singsong words, so forceful that they reminded him of a great orator.
But the feeling… it told him to go left. His mother once said she’d “followed her heart.” Her words were vague and he had no idea what she’d been talking about but Edin remembered the twinkling in her sad eyes.
As he took a few more steps from the hunter statue, a large footprint caught his attention. Then another.
Bending down to look closer at them he saw the print was long, twice the size of his own and in the general shape of a human.
Instead of toes, there were claws. Four of them that seemed to scrap the rocks as it walked… upright.
3
The Cousins From Hell
Edin’s heart raced. What type of animal walked this way? Not an animal. He thought. He knew of no animal that was bipedal. It couldn’t be. And it wasn’t human nor elf. Elves had small feet according to the lady elf.
Edin felt stuck in place just staring. He couldn’t be sure how long the prints had been there, though he felt sure they were from the night before.
Edin grabbed the basket and his waterskin and began down the left path not even thinking about it, his hand never leaving the hilt of his sword.
The mountains grew closer like buildings in a crowded city. He followed the road—it had to have been a road, a big one. Too big to even be considered that. An avenue?
He began to notice small scratches covering the center of every other stone like a chess board. The scratches were the blacks, the clean ones were the whites.
But there was something else, faded colors beneath the scratches.
Edin barely glanced at them. The hairs on his neck still standing at attention. The road he was on was ancient, probably from the days of the old kings. He walked fast, wary not to step on any cracks… a childish superstition. Edin caught glimpses of shapes in the stones. Paintings or carvings…