Chagon followed Tarantian’s voice while he spoke. The brush was thick, burs grabbed hold of his shirt as thorns scratched and poked. A branch caught hold of his hair. After a bit of crawling, grunting, and the occasional curse, he finally found Tarantian sheltered under the branches of a big pine.
The man looked dead. Chagon’s smile faded when he caught sight of the soldier’s condition. His skin was pale as a corpse—and an old one at that. There was so much sweat dripping off him, it looked like he had dumped water in his hair and the soaking mess was dripping down his face. The eyes were the worst. They seemed unable to focus on one thing, darting about wildly like the man was caught in a dream, but the lids were wide open.
Chagon quickly removed his cloak and wrapped it around his shivering friend. Those wild eyes finally focused on him. “Chagon,” Tarantian whispered, “I knew it was you.”
The fact a warrior as stout and mighty as Tarantian recognized his voice had Chagon’s cheeks a bit blushed as he replied, “It’s an honor to be remembered.”
Tarantian shifted and groaned before adding, “You chattered incessantly on the trail. How could I forget you? I hear your voice in my sleep.”
“Aye,” Chagon’s cheeks grew even redder, “I guess I’d been all full of questions. Think you can walk? I saw fires burning not but an hour from here.”
“I saw them,” Tarantian replied quietly. “That’s where I was headed. Not sure what we will be walking into to. The smoke surprised me. That village was abandoned more than ten summers ago. Grongs and amatilazo frequent the area. The trappers who lived there got tired of being beaten or eaten and moved on.”
“Maybe there is someone there who can share us some food and help get you back on your feet,” Chagon brushed the soaking hair back from the sweating man’s forehead.
The hour Chagon had estimated proved to be much longer. He was a brawny lad—and strong as a bull tubber—but Tarantian was brawny too. The wounded soldier struggled as much as he could through the thick brush, but he needed help and required rest often. By the time the forest gave way to kept grass, the night was young, but the sky was quite dark.
The town was well-lit with torches burning brightly on posts along the one road leading through the middle of the place. Big huts lined either side of the road; no better than four on one side and six on the other. There was one large building on the other side of the road. It looked the same as all the other huts, just stretched in both directions.
“Ain’t but a few steps more,” Chagon assured Tarantian.
A man carried a bundle over his shoulder toward the hut closest to them. He looked clean and fit. Hopefully, he was friendly too. Based on the weight of Tarantian on Chagon’s shoulder, the weary soldier was ready to rest again, and both men were ready to devour anything at least closely resembling food.
The man with the bundle noticed their approach. He dropped the bundle and jogged toward them. “Hey there,” he began, “you look like you could use some help.”
“Aye,” Chagon answered. “We’d been fleeing one city ravaged by war to another promising peace and safety. The trail proved to be less promising.”
“Your friend looks to be five breaths from the lake at best,” the man commented as he looked Tarantian over.
“Grizzly mongs,” Tarantian’s voice was weak. “They attacked our caravan. I burned the wound to stop the bleeding, but I fear infection’s running through my body, fever and sweats.”
The man was slight but seemed able. He draped Tarantian’s free arm around his shoulders and helped Chagon carry the load. “Come,” he said, “we’ll take him to Theiron, the healer. He’ll know just what to do with them fevers and sweats, trained by Hagen himself they say.”
“That will be a great help,” Chagon replied. “What do they call you, friend.”
“Brinzo,” the man replied. “spent most of my life working the docks down in Belscythia. Moved on after a time. Them wharf folk can’t be trusted.”
The going was easier for Chagon with Brinzo to share the load as they crossed the road toward the large building at the center of the small settlement. The torchlight from the road cast an eerie, orange glow on the place. Dim light escaped from the windows, a few candles at best. The building seemed empty, too quiet for anyone to be about inside. However, they had barely made the steps to jingle the bell next to the front door when it opened and two burly men in loose fitting cloaks stepped out. They took Tarantian from Chagon and Brinzo and carried him into the door. Chagon started up the steps, but the door slammed before he hit the second one.
“Ain’t they got no questions for me?” Chagon turned, confusion twisting up his brow.
“Don’t fret over your friend,” Brinzo reassured him. “That Theiron and his helpers have some odd ways about them, but they’ll get your mate back on his feet. Come, you can wait for your friend to heal at my home. We don’t get much in the way of visitors being this far from the main road. It’ll be a fine distraction to have some stories from the trail to pass the time.”
Chagon followed Brinzo across the road toward his hut. He could not give a name to it, but there was an uneasiness creeping around his mind. The two blokes who took Tarantian away had not said a word. They treated his friend with care and all, but a few reassuring comments would have been nice. And the place was so dark. What could they be doing in there? Healers were eccentric to be sure, but something just felt wrong about the place.
Brinzo’s hut was luxurious compared to anything Chagon had ever seen. It was a full three rooms. One of them even had a loft above it. The door opened into a small room with a good, sturdy chair and a small table that did not look useful for anything. It was too short to be used for eating. There seemed no viable reason for a table like that. The only thing it would be good for was setting something on if you did not want to hold it while sitting in the chair. There was art on the walls, skins of some sort unlike any animal Chagon had ever seen. They were stretched and decorated with paint like canvases, mostly scenery. One was a sunset, another a mountain underneath a stormy sky. One caught Chagon’s attention. It was a man, his hand held aloft above his head holding a human skull. The detail of the piece was incredible. It looked like the man was speaking to the skull, and they both looked like they might jump right off the skin.
“My wife,” Brinzo commented, “she loved to paint, said it was her way of keeping in touch with them who have passed on. If you aren’t ever forgotten, you can’t ever die.” He pointed to the adjacent room and added, “That’s where she did all that work. She’s long left to be with them who went before, but I couldn’t bring myself to change it. She haunts the place, and I’d have it no other way.”
The room Brinzo pointed to was bigger than the one in which they stood. More art hung on the walls, and tarps covered the floor. An unfinished piece in the center of the room caught Chagon’s attention. The skin was stretched out on an easel. A nude woman stood smiling. Her left arm had been severed, and she held it in her right hand offering it to an unfinished man standing before her.
“Them scenes look as real as your face standing before me,” Chagon commented. He could not decide if he was more impressed or disgusted by the work.
“Aye,” Brinzo agreed. “I wish I had a talent like that. She’d always say the dead spoke to her through them paintings. Can’t think of much I wouldn’t give to hear her sweet voice again.” He gazed into the room where his wife had done her work and reflected a moment before adding, “I maybe can’t paint no beautiful scenes like these, but I sure can whip up some grub. Come on, got a nice stew boiling in the pot. Brew my own ale too, like nothing you ever tasted.”
Brinzo led Chagon past a ladder that led up to a loft into a room that seemed more familiar to him. Aside from the absence of a bunk, the room resembled his hut back home. There were paintings on the wall and some pots—those were painted to—on shelves that looked like they had no use but for showing off the art on them, but there was a wash basin, a hearth, and
a sturdy table at the room’s center. A heavy black kettle steamed over the fire in the hearth.
“This feels a bit more like home,” Chagon commented as his tension eased a bit. “Ain’t but one room in my hut. It ain’t so fancy as this with paintings and decorated pots or nothing like that, but it had this same kind of feeling.”
Brinzo smiled, “If it weren’t for my wife’s talent and desire to make everything pretty, this place would probably look a lot more like your home. She’d done all these things before passing on.” He pointed to a chair, “Go ahead and have yourself a seat there. Let’s get you fed.”
Chagon’s stomach grumbled as if on cue. His cheeks reddened as he smiled and obliged the suggestion while Brinzo went to a cupboard to grab a bowl. The smell of the stew got his mouth watering. That had to be onion and garlic. He wanted to grab the bowl and dump it down his throat as soon as it hit the table, but that would be impolite. Brinzo was a complete stranger but so warm and welcoming, Chagon did not want to appear unappreciative of the hospitality.
Brinzo must have noticed Chagon’s struggle. “Go on then. I know you must be famished from the road. It won’t be no slight to me if you dig in and have that hunger satisfied.”
Chagon did as instructed. He did not go so far as to ignore the spoon he had been given, but he did begin shoveling stew into his face as fast as he could. Perhaps it was days of too little food and hardly any meat on the trail, but the stew may have been the best thing he had ever tasted. The meat was unfamiliar, but it was tender and not gamey. It had been onion and garlic he smelled, but there was something else with a zing he had never experienced. The meat soaked it all up and nearly melted in his mouth. The carrots and potatoes were like an extra bonus. By the time Brinzo set a mug in front of Chagon, the bowl was empty, and he was sopping up the juice with a hunk of bread.
“You sure were hungry,” Brinzo chuckled. “There be plenty more if you’d like another helping.”
“Please,” Chagon handed the bowl over. “I hope you can forgive me for acting such the animal, but you are right about how famished the trail left me. And that stew ain’t like nothing I ever tasted. That meat, it is so tender. What is that?”
“Only what the land provides,” Brinzo smiled. “It is all in the preparation.”
Chagon took a good long pull off the ale he had been given. It tasted like a standard ale on the surface, but it was strong. Sweetness lingered underneath the base, almost like wine but with a boozy finish. It went down a bit too easily, and Brinzo was refilling the cup a moment after he set a fresh bowl of stew in front of Chagon.
Three bowls of stew and four cups of Brinzo’s homemade ale filled Chagon’s belly by the time the room started getting swimmy. Though he felt good and drunk, the ale was delicious, and it had been quite a time since he had sat to enjoy some tasty food and drink. He sipped at his fifth cup while Brinzo watched him with increasing intensity.
“You are quite a meaty lad, aren’t you?” Brinzo commented.
Chagon finished a sip of ale and chuckled awkwardly. When he realized Brinzo had not made the statement in jest, he replied, “I’ve been called a lot of things, brawny, stout, strong, but I ain’t ever been referred to as meaty.”
“But you are,” Brinzo smiled as he rose and left the room.
The room dipped and swayed, spinning a bit in one direction before shifting to the other. Chagon looked at the cup in his hand. The ale was strong, but he had put twice that many down on more than one occasion without feeling like he was at sea on a rickety boat during a furious storm. He tried to stand, but his legs would not respond. It seemed he was stuck, as if something held him in the chair.
The walls around Chagon seemed to breathe. The room grew steadily darker as his eyes grew heavy. Everything was nearly black by the time Brinzo returned carrying a heavy set of shackles. “You could probably feed a whole village with the meat you’re carrying around on them bones,” was the last thing Chagon heard before consciousness fled.
***
Tarantian woke in darkness. He felt better than he had since waking after battling the grizzly mongs on the trail. The room slowly came into view as his eyes adjusted to the dim light. The great room surrounding him was full of cots. It was difficult to see much, but it seemed all the cots were occupied by folks in a similar condition to his. Some even looked dead. He had been so wild with fever and so close to unconsciousness, he failed to notice any of it when they had brought him into the place. He vaguely remembered wet cloths and an awful tasting liquid. There was nothing after that.
A sharp cracking sound grabbed his attention. He had butchered enough fallon to recognize the sound of meat being separated from the hard parts of an animal. As he strained through the darkness to see the man making all that noise, he quickly realized the thing being butchered was no animal. It was a human hand on the carving table not a hoof or talon.
It took every ounce of restraint Tarantian had to keep him from leaping off his cot and lunging at the butcher. The man’s back was to him, but he was armed. Though Tarantian was no longer feeling dizzy and chilled or burning up with fever, he lacked sufficient energy to disarm a man that size. How far would he make it across the big room before the brute turned and cleaved him with the small axe he used to chop up that body? He had nearly convinced himself his training as a soldier was enough to get him through despite his weakened condition when he noticed a man shackled to the wall across from him. The man kept his head down to feign sleep, but he managed to make eye contact through the stringy hair dangling in front of his eyes. Those eyes said more than any words Tarantian had ever heard. He decided it best to wait it out, regain as much of his strength as they would allow, and not attack until the time was right.
Chapter 23
Behold, Dragons
A great red streak travelled as far as the eye could see to the north and south. A dirt trail cut across its middle interrupting it. It marked where the Lost Forest—for centuries, a prison for fallen Dragons—had once stood. The trees had vanished when Maelich scattered Kallum to the wind and freed the Dragons, but the red streak remained as a reminder of the wickedness men did in the name of that god. The trail cutting through the red dirt could not have been more than a mile long.
Perrin’s group approached the spot where the trees and grass on either side of the trail ceased in favor of burnt red dirt. They rode in two loose columns. Perrin and Glord led the group. Darg and Halogren followed them. Those two often paired up when traveling two by two. Both had dealt with odd looks and whispers from folks who did not know them for too long to recall. Darg had shifty eyes and dirty blonde hair. He also had a set of false teeth carved from wood that were a bit too big for his jaw. He had an unconscious habit of kicking them around his mouth. It was anything but a pretty sight. Halogren’s face was covered in scars from a short imprisonment by a pack of exceptionally vicious grongs. Neither was pleasing to the eye. Spending life feeling like their backs were against the wall while the rest of the world actively worked against them had made both men fierce and untrusting.
The two behind them were about as much a contrast as one could imagine. Jorgon—named for a distant cousin who was also a beloved, then damned, former king of Havenstahl—was thin, almost pretty, with soft brown eyes, smooth skin, and a flowing blonde mane that would have most maidens jealous. It would be unwise to think him soft or weak. He was a terror on the battlefield, vicious and unyielding. Ycharaz rode next to him. He was thoughtful, probably the wisest of the group. Despite all the time he dedicated to learning and knowing as much about life on Ouloos and why things are the way they are, he still found time to be one of the best swords in Havenstahl’s army.
Ganodin brought up the rear. He was near a giant and had grown accustomed to protecting whatever group with which he happened to ride. Unlike most in Havenstahl’s army, the massive soldier fought with a double-bladed axe similar to that which dwarves favor. The only real difference between a dwarf axe and Ganodin’s was the
size. His was big enough to cleave a full-grown horse clear in half at the waist, and he was strong enough to make that cut. Though he was massive in stature, he was miniscule on conversation. The fact ensured that in any odd-numbered group, he would be the one to ride alone.
Glord raised his right arm to halt the group and said, “Here we are, men, the Lost Forest, or at least what is left of it. Ain’t really a forest no more, nothing but dirt. Just the same, we’ll be the first men to cross this place in centuries besides Maelich, and he is part Dragon.”
Ycharaz urged his horse forward until he sat alongside Glord. He looked over the great red expanse before them and said, “Those are just the stories you have heard. You must dig deeper to have any truth.”
“And how do you get at more truth than what everybody already knows?” Glord rolled his eyes.
“You must ask the questions and question the answers,” Ycharaz smiled. “Have a go at that red dirt for instance. How do you suppose that dirt got all burnt like that?”
“Asking too many questions is a good way to get your head off in the village where I grew up,” Darg shoved his top plate into his cheek before spitting it out the other side of his mouth.
“That loose grouping of crumbling shacks at the edge of the swamp that spawned you could hardly be called a village,” Jorgon smirked.
Darg got his teeth back in alignment and smiled a chipped wooden grin back, “Talking about my home like that might be a good way to get your head off too.”
Both men laughed before Ycharaz added, “Even still, my words are true. None of the books you’ve read or men who’d teach you anything around Havenstahl talk about it, but they aren’t the only folks who know.”
“And who fills your head with all them things none of us simple-minded fools know?” Halogren asked.
“Hagen,” Ycharaz shrugged. “He is the wisest man I know. Libraries full of books he has too, the kind of books you have to keep hid.”
“Ain’t no point in worrying who knows more and who don’t,” Glord raised his voice.
Kill the Gods Page 14