Legend of Ecta Mastrino Box Set 2

by BJ Hanlon

  “As soon as we’re done. And who knows, maybe the elves have a ritual or spell to find her.” She paused, “of course if they’re real.”

  “They are,” Edin said. He had to tell them as best as he could. “It started when you two rode to your deaths, or what I thought were your deaths.”

  “Going out the Elori-way,” Grent said.

  “That is true.” He fiddled with the waterskin. “That slope, the rocky one they tried to pin us against was the only way out.” Edin described what he could remember from the journey.

  Dephina said, “So that’s it? Somewhere in the mountains, possibly even north of us right now.”

  “Pretty much,” Edin said. “But it would be a guess either way. We could abandon the horses and try to climb up and over the mountains now. Or wait until we cross the pass and come in the way that I did.”

  “Either doesn’t sound like fun,” Grent grumbled.

  “I don’t want to climb mountains if I don’t have to,” Berka said.

  “They are not fun,” Edin added and took another drink. “And by the way, there’s a beast in there. Something the she-elf called a ponnoa. It was like a snake only bigger. I think there were feet.”

  “Want to toss me that aleskin?” Grent said. “I could use a drink.”

  “It’s water,” Edin said and he realized what that meant. He hadn’t grabbed a ‘to go’ drink. A term he used after hearing so many of the town drunks, Ulson in particular, yell ‘barkeep, let me get an ale to go.’

  But Edin didn’t grab any. He’d barely drank the night before and didn’t since the lighthouse.

  “Does anyone have anything else?”

  “I got some wine,” Dephina said tossing it to Grent, the warrior took a drink and then held it up toward Edin.

  Edin shook his head. He wanted to be sober. There was not much more talk that night. The small fire made from bits of dry driftwood burned at the center of the road. The sky was perfectly clear and he could see the stars far above. He saw a comet or a shooting star dart from north to south almost directly over him, and he closed his eyes.

  It wasn’t dreams of Arianne he had. They were the opposite end of the spectrum; they were worse than nightmares. Much worse.

  Edin was in a dark room, or he guessed it was a room as the air felt still and tasted stale. It was so dark around him that he had no idea how vast the room was. It could’ve been infinite, endless like the space outside the world.

  Then something appeared before him. One point of light, small and dim and Edin knew that it did not offer hope. It held something else: despair and it was growing. It was a fire, a white and red fire and it was almost as if someone was in… No it couldn’t be.

  There was a black shape inside the fire, a humanoid black shape as if it were a chick in an egg held up to a light. Then the shape advanced, climbing toward Edin and the fire now showed a tunnel rising. There were long hands and long arms. It was taller and bigger than even the giant dematian.

  Despite being so far away, a hundred, no a thousand yards, probably more, he guessed the swinging arms were as tall as he was. And just behind and to the right, something skittered along the ground. Something giant though still only half the size of the figure ahead of it.

  And there were legs. They were like the roots beneath the spider trees, but this one had no trunk though the body was as large as a horse and there were a thousand creepy red reflections before it. Eyes.

  Edin knew what it was.

  He shook but could say nothing. Edin was nearly certain that the thing down there had seen him. Edin wanted, no needed to get out. To leave this, whatever this was, and escape. But he had nowhere to go. He couldn’t move, nothing worked, his voice his body.

  All Edin could do was stare at the approaching pair and shiver and feel faint.

  But then it wasn’t just a pair, it was more than that. A lot more. He could see beyond and between the two.

  There he saw giants, he saw snakes and more spiders, he saw beasts above, a flying reptile and also a half crillio and half bird—something he’d never heard of before. And there was a fog about them. A yellowish mist that followed the humanoid black shape up the steps from the underworld.

  Edin’s mouth dropped.

  Harsh words hissed in his mind that made all the hairs on his dream body stand.

  “I come.” It was long and drawn out meant to stay around like an unwanted guest.

  Then he heard a cackle in his head. It rolled around like a ball inside a shadow box conking the walls and pounding the brain.

  “Edin.” A rough shake woke him.

  His eyes shot open and suddenly he let a culrian surround him and whoever was touching him. He blinked and saw it was Dephina.

  “Edin, it’s okay. It was a dream, you’re safe.”

  Edin swallowed and wiped his eyes. Then he saw the tunnel in his mind. Was that real?

  A leader of monsters rising from the depths. The name came to him but he shook it out like a pebble in his boot. No, couldn’t be. It was too insane, too… unreal. If it were true, could he even wrap his head around it?

  He looked back at Dephina and nodded. “I’m fine,” he said then thought, if I don’t go back to sleep.

  Edin stayed awake on guard duty the rest of the night. He tried to shake the images from his mind and looked out over the water. It was black but the reflections of the moon and the stars on it gave it the feeling of a much larger world. A deeper and endless land where humans could go to escape the madness that was this world. A place in the stars with the gods.

  It seemingly took forever for the sun to rise to a place where he could start again to train his body, if only to take his mind off the nightmare.

  Edin began with the Oret Nakosu and using his muscles to fight each other. As he went through the strengthening exercises, he felt a sort of push back in his own brain. It wasn’t just the muscles fighting it was his brain, his gut instinct. It told him what he saw in that dream.

  Do not lie about it. Do not hide from it because when the world ends you know you’ll be at the tip. You’ll be the one with the closest view.

  Edin felt a surety in those words, like the fact that the world would end was guaranteed. Edin’s heart thumped like mad as he pictured the great demon climbing the long tunnel from the underworld.

  Edin couldn’t believe it. He wouldn’t. That wasn’t him. It was another dematian. Stories said he had a tail with a barbed spike on the end. Edin didn’t see that. It was just like the one from the fields outside Carrow.

  Grent joined him a short while later. Terrins like him needed much less sleep than normal folk. And although Edin could move like one, he wasn’t a real terrin and needed a lot more sleep. Especially after using the talent.

  But he couldn’t even think about going back to bed. They moved to the sword afterward, standing far enough apart and facing the same direction. They raced through the sets matching speed and movements in a near perfect tandem. The master and the student.

  They stopped and Edin let a cold breeze wick away some of the sweat that was on his body from the exertion. The breeze was fresh and invigorating.

  “You two should join the circus with that dance,” Berka called out. Then he added an, “Ow, why’d you pinch me?”

  “Because, if you were watching the same thing I was and knew what was happening, you’d pinch yourself too. That was brilliant and precise. Could you even tell what moves they were running through?” Dephina said.

  “Yes, I mean mostly. Sure it was a bit blurry and all but…” Berka trailed off.

  “He moves like a terrin.”

  “I can see that, but since when?”

  Edin called out. “About the time the talent appeared.”

  They began riding again shortly after they finished. Berka had gotten up to train but they couldn’t wait and no one cared to let him finish the Oret Nakosu.

  As they rode, Edin closed his eyes and saw the demon in the egg of fire. No, he thought, demon was
n’t right, monster wasn’t right… it was something more. Something much worse.

  He got that out of his head again by staring off at the back side of the lake as they passed. There was a hill covered in trees, sans leaves, and other bare twiggy bushes. But then as they continued past it, he saw it wasn’t a hill, it was an island. A small tranquil island in the middle of the massive mountains that moved slowly over millennia.

  Edin lost sight of it as they began turning back north around the wavy mountain with a large evergreen forest on the lower slopes.

  For a long time, hours at least, he kept his mind from thinking about it. He tried quieting it by staring at objects in the distance, counting in his head or just trying not to think. The last was hard, impossible maybe.

  No one ever called him a genius, but even so, trying to stop the mind from working was nearly impossible. The staring at distant objects became fruitless as a deep, white fog rolled in.

  At first, he thought he was coming, that thing from the underworld, but the fog was whiter and thicker than any he’d ever seen. Not the putrid yellow and murky soup-like fog of the ancient swamps.

  Edin hoped this didn’t bring any giant serpents.

  It didn’t but the fog did slow their progress and then surprised Edin when the road rose again like a path to the heavens. It climbed for miles winding through mountains and without the sun, he didn’t know which way he was going.

  Dephina was singing some soft tune and he was trying to listen to that when he noticed that on his left the land just fell away. Then he casually glanced to the other side and saw the same thing.

  There was no mountain over there either and the road was maybe five feet wide. Narrower than it had been in a long while.

  “Grent,” Edin yelled up ahead keeping his voice from shaking. He could barely make out his shadow in the fog. He looked behind him and saw Berka taking up the rear.

  “Yeah?” Grent called back.

  “What is this?” They were on a ridge that he hoped was short and they’d be next to a mountain soon. Having a drop on one side was bad enough, but on both sides…

  Edin felt like a thick wind would take him over the side.

  Of course, now he could stop the wind but that didn’t keep his heart from thumping. What was over the edge. What was just out of sight?

  He pushed the thoughts from his head. They weren’t ones he was comfortable having. Not in the slightest.

  “It’s the Crescent Ridge,” Grent said. “It’s about a mile long and connects two mountain peaks.”

  Dephina who’d stopped her humming looked over her shoulder. “It’s not bad now. You should see it when the fog is gone. The drop is dizzying.”

  “Dep—” Grent shrieked.

  Edin felt his gut twist, though not in the good way it used to when he first found the talent. This was the way that made him want to turn to the side and puke.

  “Sorry. I forgot,” she said but Edin wasn’t hearing it. He was staring at the precipice to the right, then switching to the left. He was glad the horse was under him because he was certain his legs were useless at this point.

  On one of his turns, he saw a stone—a small, oval shaped stone—move. It seemed to tilt to one side and then fell off the cliff as if it’d been pushed by a wind.

  But there wasn’t one. At least not one strong enough to do that. There was a breeze, but it was barely a whimper compared to some of the howling gusts he’d heard in the mountains, the tundra, or the fjords.

  He heard another stone clattering on the ground and saw it skipping across the bridge violently. Then it flew off the edge and disappeared into the mirk.

  “Did you do that?” Berka asked.

  Edin shook his head. “Grent?” He looked up and couldn’t see the man’s shadow. The fog had gotten thicker. He could barely see Dephina. Edin looked back and saw Berka’s horse was literally on his horse’s tail.

  “What?” Grent called back.

  “Do rocks normally fly around the ridge?” Berka yelled up there.

  “No.” There was a pause. “Edin are you a terestio?”

  “No!” he yelled back over the clatter. He was watching the sides of the ridge again. It felt like the bridge was getting thinner. In fact, Edin was certain of it.

  Suddenly, a loud, throaty croak, that was neither human nor dematian rumbled through the mountains. It echoed and bounced and sounded like it could’ve come from anywhere or everywhere.

  The horses whinnied and bucked. Edin’s horse threw its head back almost far enough to hit Edin’s chest. Gooseflesh populated his body and he felt a cold sweat beginning to form.

  “What the heck was that?” Berka whispered as if to not let whatever made that sound hear him speak. Not that it mattered with the still crying horses. “That wasn’t the wyrm was it?”

  “No, it wasn’t,” Edin whispered back.

  “Good, but I still don’t want to see what made that sound.”

  Edin didn’t either.

  Something whipped past his face so fast he could barely see what it was. Edin blinked and looked at the way it went, but whatever it was got lost in the fog.

  “There’s something out here,” Grent cried ominously from the white wall ahead of them.

  “We need to get to the other side,” Dephina yelled. “Gallop, now!”

  Edin didn’t like that option either but it was a better choice than being vulnerable on a high ridge. What if whatever was out there could see through fog? He thought of a crillio stalking a deer through tall, wavy grass.

  We are the deer, he thought.

  “Just a little more,” Grent called and his horses’ clops grew faster, then Dephina’s did as well and her shadow was out of view.

  Something came over him. A feeling and Edin was nearly paralyzed. The ridges were high, the road was thin and suddenly he felt he was going too fast. Edin had a premonition that he and the horse would fall.

  “Come on Edin,” Berka cried out behind him.

  Somehow, he was able to turn around on the horse just as something swooped past. It barely missed taking Berka’s head off. His eyes widened and suddenly Berka kicked the horse.

  Both of their animals bucked and he felt the saddle come up and clap his nether region.

  Edin grunted and saw white. Then the horse was galloping too fast.

  Wind rushed at him nearly blinding him with tears. Then a moment later, something began to appear out of the gloom. It was huge and stood like a wall. But it wasn’t. Its top disappeared above them in the fog but he could see two tall pillars of craggy rock. Somehow, he was making out a knee joint and a foot. They were like legs.

  Then from above, something appeared to be coming down at them.

  A fist.

  Edin screamed and tried to pull back on the reins. The horse seemed confused, first trying to stop and skidding but then bucking forward again so the fist would crash right on top of them.

  He had no choice, Edin summoned an ethereal shield to cover him and the horse. That too turned out to be a bad option.

  The horse was startled. It didn’t know what was happening and twisted the left.

  Toward the edge of the high bridge.

  He released the shield. His heart pounding to the horse’s gallop.

  To the right, just barely, the fist slammed into the road. It was followed by a thunderous crack like lightning next to his ear. He felt the reverberations and so did the animal.

  Then the land was gone. The horse leapt off the edge and bucked Edin out of the saddle. There were huge eruptions from behind but all he could see was the horse a few yards below him and the surrounding white fog. He was falling fast and knew there was no way he’d see the bottom and be able to do anything when he did.

  Edin screamed, crying out as he fell. He felt the wind rushing past as he dropped. Then he closed his eyes and reached out to the talent. The billowing air caressed his arms and his body. He summoned it around and down below him. He felt the cushion and began to slow. The air
roared below him in a current as he fell but he was going much slower. A moment later, something big and black flew past his face.

  Berka’s horse. He heard Berka’s scream and then saw him. It was as if he were a boulder plummeting off a steep crevasse.

  That was pretty much what it was Edin thought. Then he closed his eyes and reached out. He felt his friend and sent out another billowing cloud of wind to form the cushion. There was still screaming, but it didn’t sound scared. It sounded more confused. “What in the name of Losilin?”

  It was difficult holding the two but he couldn’t let go. He couldn’t save the horses either. They descended, Berka a little higher on a fatter billow but eventually, he could feel the air bubbles touching the ground. He glanced down and saw a somewhat flat surface with a stream running through it.

  He dropped them both. Berka yelped as the wind disappeared. The ginger boy landed on his feet but stumbled back and ended up falling. His backside splashed into the stream.

  Edin was ready for it and landed fine.

  “You could’ve told me you were going to do that.”

  “You try concentrating on so many things at once. It’s difficult.”

  Berka’s face went slack as he pushed himself out of the water. Edin followed the gaze and saw one of the horses. Or what was left of it.

  Edin looked away. The thing was a heap of blood and bone and a pack somehow not destroyed as well. Edin spotted the quarterstaff on it and moved closer. He saw the gray skin and a bit of the white mane. He tried not to think of it as he pulled off the pack and although it didn’t look too banged up, it was covered in blood and guts. It was the same for the quarterstaff.

  “How far do you think that was?” Berka asked.

  “How would I know? I had my eyes closed so I could concentrate on not dropping you.”

  “That’s nice,” Berka said not sounding grateful, “since it was your horse that made mine run over the edge. Damned beast tried following around that thing. What was that thing?”

  “A fist,” Edin said. “Or at least that’s what I saw. Maybe a stone giant up there.” Just as he finished saying it, he heard a thunk and a crashing sound from near the ridge.