The Forgotten Tribe

by Stephen J Wolf

  Thirsty, the mage reached into her robes and withdrew a waterskin, sipping just a little bit. Of course the others had them too, she huffed, but then she pushed the thought aside. The soldiers weren’t worth her time to think about, though it did raise questions about the intent of the king. Had he sent them along to sabotage her on purpose? Or had the men decided to do that on their own so they could return to their liege? As she considered, she decided they had rebelled on their own, for the king needed to make the appearance of cooperation, at least in the beginning.

  Lica’s musings were interrupted by movement along the surface of the sand. She slowed her gait and watched as the sand shifted and shimmered like a mirage. Some type of creature was making its way along the surface, but she didn’t recognize it. Instinctively, she pulled a pebble out of her pocket and cast a protective enchantment from it, not caring if magic was defunct. The stone warmed, just barely, signifying that she had least a modicum of protection from projectiles, but she wondered if tossed sand would even be deflected by the shield for long.

  Moving quickly, the mage hurried ahead, keeping her eyes on the shifting surface as she went. Perhaps an injured creature was writhing around, but the movements were too precise for that to be the case. The bungling soldiers might have been able to tell her what approached, but then again, they probably would have told her they didn’t see anything.

  She shifted along the sand for a few measures before the creature made itself known. With a low rumble, the surface parted and a head the size of Lica’s midsection rose out of the sand, followed by numerous beige segments that writhed about, bringing it toward her. When the entire creature was out of the sand, Lica could see that it had a second head as its rear, as if it were an earthworm that had accidentally sprouted a second mouth after its end had been severed.

  The large worm scurried along the sand, seeking out Lica as she tried to avoid it. She was, of course, at a severe disadvantage, and the beast came upon her swiftly. A round maw opened wide, with sharp teeth threatening to wrap around her face and gnaw it off. She didn’t have time to cast a spell—if it would even work—so she reacted by turning toward the annelidium, as the Hathrens called them, and grabbing it around its flank.

  The move caught the creature by surprise, and if it had been a one-headed worm, the stratagem might have worked. Instead, the annelidium bent up its rear head and snapped its jaws toward her. With a yelp, Lica released the worm and dropped to the sand. She debated against using her dagger, for fear that cutting it would prompt it to sprout more heads.

  “I will not be worm food,” she hissed, reaching into her pockets and grabbing various spell components. She first tried a fireball, but the meager flame sputtered as soon as the words left her lips. She knew magic wouldn’t help her now, but she was a mage and mages were supposed to be smart enough to not be eaten by giant worms!

  As she fumbled, the annelidium slithered around and repositioned itself, rolling its body away from Lica and then wrapping both heads back toward her, making it look like a demented and oversized horseshoe. The snapping maws irked her, for they clacked shut in a strange rhythm as if they were singing before supper. The heads waggled in the air, gyrating in counterpoint with the motions bringing the entire body closer and closer to its prey. Lica took a final deep breath and bit her lip as the annelidium pounced for her.

  One mouth opened wide to consume her and she did not resist. Instead, Lica brought her left hand straight up over her head and let it sink into the beast’s throat first. The teeth scraped the side of her face as the head descended. She had the sensation of being knocked over, and then she realized that the other head of the worm would want to eat, too. The annelidium apparently feasted by stunning its prey and then devouring it from both ends.

  Even as the warm, gooey saliva drenched her, Lica grinned in defiance, telling the beast mentally that it wasn’t wise to burn a candle from both ends. The teeth started to sink into her skin and she panicked a little, but just as with the inept soldier, she kept her cool. The teeth didn’t cut too deeply on their own, but they worked with the gyrating body to pull her deeper inside.

  Her upraised arm kept getting drawn within and it felt tingly as an inner acid started working on her flesh. It was then she opened her fist and dropped a mix of powerful herbs, including wolfsbane, one of the most potent poisons that grew in Kallisor. As she waited for the poison to take effect, the burning along her hand grew worse and because her whole body now felt wet, she assumed that the two heads had probably come together over their meal and she was completely within the annelidium.

  There was very little air and the dark stink made her want to retch. She thought about reaching for her dagger now, but she doubted she would have the strength to cut through the beast’s hide, nor to struggle through whatever small opening she would manage to make. She reminded herself again that cutting the worm would probably cause it to regenerate anyway, so she jockeyed her thoughts back to her initial plan, wondering if was going to work.

  The acid made her hand feel as if it were on fire and she tried to recoil it, but the walls of the annelidium were pressing in tightly now as the creature tried to consume its meal. She could barely move and thrashing about did nothing for her predicament. The only thought that circulated through her mind was that she really was going to die because a worm had decided to eat her.

  A sharp tug pulled at her midsection and she yelped in pain. Lica realized that this was probably where the worm ripped its meal in half. The wrenching pull yanked again and she bid farewell to her legs, sad they were about to be removed. She wondered absently if they would make their way around the insides of the annelidium until her feet reached her partially-digested hand. She hadn’t touched her toes in years; this certainly wasn’t the way she thought she would do so again.

  The whole creature lurched then, repeatedly. Lica’s body was battered inside the fleshy segments and the gripping teeth pulled harder and harder. She knew her spine was ready to snap from the tugging and thrashing, but then the beast slapped to the ground one more time and was silent.

  She waited a moment, wondering if it had lost interest in her for some reason, though she understood slowly what had happened. None of the thrashing was due to normal digestion. The wolfsbane had been consumed and the creature had violently died. Lica wished the beast had vomited first.

  Instead, with a wounded hand and little air, she had to wriggle out of the massive worm covered in its saliva, which served the auspicious job of coating her in sand once she escaped. Gasping for air, Lica struggled to pull her legs out of the second mouth, but she felt it was prudent to do so before even attempting to do anything for her damaged arm.

  Covered in gooey sand, Lica turned to look at her hand and she winced when she did so. The skin was blistered and peeling back, and she understood that only some strong healing magic would ever be able to repair it. The damage was worse than if she had fallen into a roaring campfire; herbs wouldn’t be enough. It was all she had, though, so she used some of her limited drinking water to cleanse the wound, and then she wrapped it in cracked aloe leaves. She decided to be grateful that at least it wasn’t her dominant hand that was hurt.

  Exhausted and aching, Lica pushed on. As the night crept in, her skin darkened with innumerable bruises from the bashing within the annelidium. Without Magehaven, she wouldn’t have much in the way of shelter. Even if she could manage to dig herself a deep enough trench to bury herself within, clearly that wasn’t an option for her.

  As she plodded along into the night, she felt an odd sensation tingling along her skin. She had never really noticed it before, but once she understood what it was, she knew she had always felt it. Without delay, Lica drew out another leaf of aloe, biting on the stem to release some of the soothing sap. “Mendillius faroniq kaie preshino.” She sent healing energy down and through her arm, gasping as the skin tried to mend itself. She spent a few minutes recasting the spell until the throbbing stopped.

  The
cold night air wafted over her as she rested upon the sand, far enough from the castle now that her magic had returned. She cherished the tingling sensation that ran along her body and she wondered how she could ever have forgotten it. Perhaps she had spent too many years hiding her skills among the villagers throughout Kallisor and so had pushed this feeling away. Or maybe her time in the Mage Underground had left her so angry and jaded that she wasn’t as well-tuned to the energies as she should be. Perhaps those were reasons she had never been more than a gruff woman with a good heart who never felt accomplished.

  Lica frowned at the frustration in her soul. She needed to rest, but she wasn’t sure she should try to sleep out in the open like this. She estimated another four hours of solid travel before she would reach the tower and though her body protested, she opted to push onward.

  Aside from a flock of shadowcrows who squawked at her and flew on, Lica thankfully met no other feral beasts on her trek. She was prepared with spells, though, and perhaps they sensed her renewed connection to the energies and thus kept away. She didn’t care why they left her alone. It only mattered that she keep moving forward one foot and then another until the tower’s invisible barrier pressed against her skin.

  Lica’s previous visits to Magehaven had not been restful and she didn’t expect this visit to be any better. However, the bedraggled woman had to put her faith in the humanity of the mages. She crossed the threshold of the barrier and then let her strength give way, dropping to the sand in much the same way the annelidium had collapsed as it died. She even twitched and writhed about to avoid pressing her wounds into the sand, and then she went still.

  Chapter 19

  The Warrior and

  the Babe

  Gabrion’s journey to the north took place as a forced march with a host of twenty of the king’s best soldiers and the woman who had tended the child since his birth. Alosia was a trusted servant of the king and had served his family for decades, taking the role from her mother before her. She frowned upon this journey at all, but was grateful to be assigned to the party.

  “I’ll hold him for a while,” she offered.

  Gabrion shook his head again. She had asked nearly every twenty minutes to take the baby into her arms, relenting only when they stopped to eat and she was allowed to spend some time with the infant. The rest of the time, Perrios was propped in the carrier Gabrion had crafted and the little tyke bobbed up and down on the warrior’s back as their horses carried them across the northern stretch of desert.

  They encountered creatures periodically. Sometimes the archers in the group merely shot down enough of them that the rest turned and fled. Other times they pressed the horses into a run and escaped a conflict. The few times they engaged in battle, the soldiers dealt with the creatures, keeping Gabrion far from the fighting so as not to endanger the baby. The guards worked as a truly united team, with four men on point at all times, and they rotated regularly. Each man performed every job in the group, including digging the trenches for their relief breaks or setting up the camp defenses.

  There were two mages among the group and once they reached the edge of the dead zone, they flexed their skills and enhanced the party’s protections with spells. Gabrion could sense the resonating vibrations that swept around them. The pattern was mesmerizing and dizzying all at once, but he didn’t tell the mages that he could sense the energies. He remembered early on in his journey when Dariak had first cast the glass protection charm about him and he noted the tingling sensation; Dariak had been surprised that he could feel it. Perhaps it was uncommon for an ordinary person to feel the energies, thus keeping quiet about it seemed prudent under the circumstances.

  Alosia brought her horse beside Gabrion’s and she examined him with concern. “You look exhausted, Gabrion. And your thoughts are far from here. I could take Perrios off your hands for an hour.”

  He groaned. “The boy is no burden to me.”

  “Perhaps not.” She lifted her nose, “but if you fall over out of exhaustion and kill the child, then this trek means little. As would your little uprising. And your life.”

  Gabrion turned and smiled at her. “You’re a happy little lady, aren’t you?” She pulled a face and he continued. “You sound all full of concern for young Perrios, but what you really want is for me to falter so you can end this whole ordeal.”

  Her lip twitched but she said nothing.

  “The part I don’t understand is why it matters to you. After all, you’re still doing the same job and you will be looked after as before. Certainly that coffer on your horse isn’t just for show nor full of useless baubles. The only difference is that I’m in charge of the baby instead of the king. Your life won’t change much, so why be raw about it?”

  Alosia ran her fingers through her wiry hair. “This… excursion was forced upon us and you have, in essence, kidnapped this child to serve your own purposes. Who’s to say what your plans truly are? As if your stated goals aren’t bad enough: fraternization and peace with Kallisorians.”

  “Well, you’re ‘fraternizing’ with one now,” he pointed out.

  “Sniping and fraternizing are different things,” she noted. “Still, the king ordered us to obey and so we shall.”

  “Until you find a way to overcome my plan, that is.”

  She narrowed her eyes. “We do not take the orders of our king lightly. Unlike you, heathen, who abandoned your own liege for some fool’s errand. You may intend to build up some new world, but how can it stand for long when you did not stand by your own king? You rebelled and you left your land. You say you want peace, yet you’ve slaughtered dozens of Hathrens. You’re no role model for us to follow. Who’s to say you won’t set us up and then leave us to our own devices too?”

  He felt like he was being baited and all he wanted was to knock her from her saddle. Perhaps she was willing to take a few hits if it showed he was ill-suited to watching the child. In response to her tirade, he clenched his jaw and focused on the path ahead, keeping still until she let her horse fall back a few paces.

  Two days later they arrived in the town of Jorgens, where they stocked up on supplies and rested the horses for a day. They took residence in the mayor’s manor overnight, which made Gabrion feel uncomfortable, for the place swarmed with servants tending to his every need. Alosia continued her attempts to wrest Perrios from Gabrion’s watch but the warrior denied her at every opportunity. He wondered idly if she would take the baby and flee back to the castle if she had her way, or if perhaps she meant what she had said about obeying the king’s orders to follow Gabrion.

  The team ventured out the next morning, and as they did so, the desert faded to green land at last. Gabrion had started thinking that all of Hathreneir was a wasteland, but the trees and plains that opened before him reminded him otherwise. The new environment brought other feral creatures to their party, but the soldiers still scurried off and took care of every threat as if they were protecting the king himself. Gabrion admired their tenacity and wondered if the rest of the king’s men were all as well-trained.

  He knew they weren’t, per se, because he had battled them when the king had tried to take back his castle. Though he wasn’t exactly himself during that bout. He gritted his teeth, remembering Kitalla’s horrible ruse and all the pain it had caused him. Angrily, he shoved the thoughts aside.

  The horses plodded along on the fertile soil for four more days until they reached an imposing brick wall. It extended far to the west and the east and it was twice as tall as Gabrion. At first, he thought he was looking at the side of a mountain, for all the stone, but this structure was manmade. They all dismounted and Gabrion walked up to the wall to look at the mortar between the huge stones. He was admittedly impressed. Many major constructs were crafted by mages because they could shift the land easily and erect amazing structures, like Magehaven itself. Yet this wall had been crafted by hand. Each piece was imperfect, yet securely placed.

  “Welcome to the Undying Stone,” announced a pa
ge who had opened the main gate for them. It had slid silently open and Gabrion hadn’t even noticed. “Lodgings will be ready for you shortly in the earl’s abode. You may bide your time at the Rusty Inn Tavern, around town, or, if your need is great, then you may seek out the earl immediately. Ah, yes sir. This way, then.”

  Five stable boys were summoned to tend to the horses as Gabrion and the others were escorted through a winding cobblestone street. The young warrior tried not to look agog at all the stonework, but it was literally everywhere. Each house, shop, bench, wall sconce, flower box, route sign, and pathway was made of stone. Every structure had been handcrafted and, in many places, repaired numerous times over the long years. Many of the rocks had been dyed various colors to reduce the drab gray tones that otherwise would have permeated the small city, but the colors themselves were muted and calm.

  It was too much for Gabrion to take in all at once so he focused on the soldier walking in front of him and marched until they finally reached the earl’s estate. The structure was, of course, another stone house, but its size was magnificent. If he hadn’t been to two castles on his journey, he would have easily mistaken this place for one, and not without reason. The three-story building had battlements and parapets like any good castle, and there was even a five-story tower off on the western end. Unlike the painted stones throughout the city, the estate showed its gray proudly.

  A horn echoed in the air to announce their arrival, the sound of which startled the baby, who woke up and started crying in earnest. Gabrion instinctively bounced as he walked, creating a gentle rocking sensation as he went, all the while speaking in crooning tones over his shoulder until Perrios calmed down. Even Alosia seemed impressed that the baby silenced so quickly.