by Martin Vine
“The old gardens, by the looks of it.”
“So far south; is everyone safe?”
“We are, but we’ll need to overnight here. A minor delay; we’ll resume tomorrow, first light. Tell those who need to know: stay the course.”
“This is risky. We need to keep it brief. I sense another, but he masks himself.”
“He who controls the raven?”
“I fear it is so. I felt the bird, too, but now it is lost to me.”
“Lost to us, also, praise Aethelron. It was big, vicious, could’ve done worse. He’s toying with us.”
“Or waiting for someone to reveal themselves.”
“The bird went for him. I couldn’t help, not out there.”
“Important thing is he’s safe. Our ears are to the ground; help is on its way. In this place, it is we who have the advantage. Now what should I tell him?”
“Only that we are safe, that we are all safe. Assuming no further detours, we will see him tomorrow afternoon. But I want you to take the gift. He has done more than enough.”
“Agreed. Anything else?”
“There is: we now number four.”
“Who is the fourth?”
“But a child, another friend of his. No need for caution.”
“Be wary, old friend. Something is not right.”
“I sense it also. But again, stay the course. There is a long way to go.”
“I will. Take care.”
“And you.”
Rand opened his eyes and his mind was his own again. He swallowed deeply and scanned the surrounding landscape. Already, the valley had grown darker. He could feel the coolness of the shadows pressing in around him.
Was it possible they were still in danger?
The raven was frightening enough, but even more troubling, the question of who was pulling its strings. He’d not factored in a foe such as this, nor imagined he’d play his cards so early, and with such brutality.
Morganveil warned me; I should’ve listened.
But would it have changed anything?
That Dapple had advised caution – way out here, in the wilderness he knew so well – was reason for concern, but common sense told Rand it would serve no great purpose to worry overly. Plans were in motion – their last play of the dice – and the youngsters had no idea how important would be their role. For as long as possible, he would shield them from it.
Of course, they were not entirely defenceless. Though weakened by isolation, great still was Rand’s power. He caressed the amber, as if to remind himself.
We are strong and we are not alone. Friends and allies were close by. Dark it was growing, dark it would become, but there was no cause for alarm.
Caution only, at this point, he told himself. Alarm later, and only if absolutely unavoidable.
Rand allowed himself a brief smile and reset his focus to the immediate needs of the party. The young ones would be depending on him to get them through this. From the terrace’s upper ledge, he resumed collecting twigs for a fire. After the absolute concentration required for the mind touch with Dapple, he took pleasure in performing such a simple, mundane task, however necessary.
“Hope someone thought to bring marshmallows,” he whispered to no one in particular.
As if by unspoken agreement, no one mentioned the strangeness that had occurred back on the lake. The Syltlings remained quiet, busying themselves with the chores of setting up camp, but there was an underlying tension that had everyone on edge.
Under Grandpa Rand’s watchful eye, Hopskotch, Dobbin and Bartrem went to work putting the finishing touches on the campfire. By the time Dobbin had puffed the kindling into flame (his matches had just eluded Lake Whispermere’s grasp), the ancient garden had disappeared behind night’s black veil. The cicadas were still singing a background chorus, but noises even more exotic were rising to fill the forest shadows.
Due to the dampness of the dead branches, the smoke billowed out from the campfire thick and pungent, and there was much shifting about and swapping of positions before everyone was content with their place. For a long while, the four adventurers sat in silence, staring into the crackling yellow flames. The light was mesmerising but the warmth was slow to build. Despite the annoying smoke, all Syltlings kept to a tight semicircle around the fire.
None needed reminding that the raven was still out there.
Hopskotch considered asking how far it was to Witherness, but thought better of it, allowing the words to slip from his tongue. Night was upon them, and that was a problem best left for the morrow.
Instead, he turned his attention to the cicada net Bellows had given him, a retro design with a triangle-frame netting. The handle was made out of a flexible wood of pale yellow, smooth as polished ripplestone, and divided into sections by thick black rings. He had never seen timber like it before.
A young stem of its like would make a most marvellous fishing rod, he imagined.
In the absence of other volunteers (and with stomach growling almost as loud as Dobbin’s), Grandpa Rand appointed himself head cook, and immediately began raiding his packs in search of ingredients for some traditional ‘bush grub’. Sending the youngsters to collect larger branches for the fire, he unwrapped some flour and spices and put them down on a sheet of tinfoil from a roll retrieved from his rucksack. Mixing in some water from his skin, Grandpa Rand began kneading the mix till it formed a sticky white dough.
The boys returned with a good supply of dead branches, as dry as they could find in such a shadowy, humid place. Dobbin set two of the largest to lean upon the fire.
Once the crackling and spitting died down, and the smoke cleared to tolerable levels, Grandpa Rand took a long, narrow branch from the pile and began digging out a hollow from the hot coals, while Dobbin passed around water from his skin.
After taking his fill, Hopskotch let the spell of the building fire ensnare him. He began to imagine the flames were dancing just for him, and that they swayed left to right under his command. He thought nothing peculiar of the way the smoke seemed to avoid him, favouring a drift toward his companions.
Grandpa Rand’s pumpkin seed damper took a little over an hour to bake. It had been a long time since any of the boys had sat down to eat and the thick, doughy bread turned out to be a welcome stomach-filler, even for Dobbin, who moaned endlessly about the taste, even as he tucked into his third helping.
Last to finish (as always), Hopskotch lay on his side, propped up on one elbow, staring into the dying fire. Dinner was settling nicely in his stomach but there was one more course on the menu. Though he had to be reminded, Dobbin had in fact packed marshmallows. Hopskotch had not forgotten that his sweet-toothed friend had stuffed a small bagful of the soft confectionary into the side pocket of his rucksack, the very part submerged in the glide-boat’s hull.
With much encouragement from Hopskotch, and a little help from the fire, Dobbin finally managed to dry out the paper bag, only to discover the waterlogged marshmallows had fused together inside to form one giant, mushy, white mass.
A bemused grin formed on Hopskotch’s face as he watched his teammate clumsily break it apart and distribute the portions – large for him, less so for everyone else – to Bartrem and himself (Grandpa Rand politely declined).
The boys all got their sticks in order, slowly turning the marshmallows around the edges of the fire. After swallowing his second (the runny inside oozed out and scorched his tongue), Hopskotch repositioned himself upon his stomach, face to the flames and loaded the final wad onto the cooking stick. He held it just above the white coals, determined not to burn the outside so black this time.
To his immediate right, a content-looking Dobbin lay curled with his back propped against his gear, belly to the crackling embers to absorb maximum warmth. His walking staff lay by his legs, glistening in the firelight. Hopskotch heard the familiar crinkling of paper and smiled as he watched his friend struggling to remove the last of the marshmallow sticking to the inside of the
bag.
Swallowing his last mouthful, Bartrem threw his stick into the fire and wriggled backward, as if deliberately distancing himself from the group. The large Syltling had been moody and distant since they’d entered the valley. There was a strange twitchy thing happening with his nose and his large amber eyes remained fixed upon Grandpa Rand, who sat on the opposite side of the fire.
Dobbin had his own prejudices against Barts, but Hopskotch was also beginning to suspect something genuinely sinister about the way he was behaving. He didn’t like the way his friend was looking at Grandpa Rand, and he knew it had something to do with what happened back at the beach. It wasn’t hard to imagine the sound of gears grinding inside Bartrem’s head.
Eventually satisfied he’d scooped the last sliver of marshmallow from the bag, Dobbin scrunched it into a ball and backhanded it into the flames. Turning to Hopskotch, he asked, “So waddawe tell our folks?”
Hopskotch had pondered the same question. For the duration of the hunt, it was widely accepted that Syltlings could overnight away from home, as long as they stuck together. Even so, such traditions would be unlikely to wash with the likes of Cordella Pestle and Petrice Butterfeld.
Lifting his stick away from the fire, Hopskotch blew on the toasted marshmallow, before turning to his grandfather for an answer.
The smile was quick to materialise on the old man’s face. “Let me worry about that,” he said with a nod. “I certainly wouldn’t want to see you in strife with the old ladies!”
Hopskotch smiled his relief. He knew such bravado would be put to the test when they finally staggered home, but his grandfather had surely come up against worse. One only had to look at his scarred face to realise the old Sylt wasn’t afraid of anything, least, not in Hopskotch’s mind.
Stifling a yawn, Hopskotch plucked the gooey mess from the end of his toasting stick and popped it into his mouth. The outside was golden brown, but the centre was as piping hot as the previous, forcing the youngster to juggle his tongue out of harm’s way, puffing furiously in and out.
He almost spat the entire mouthful when a piercing screech erupted from overhead.
All heads turned to the canopy. Less than three yards away from where Hopskotch was lounging, a branch as thick as his walking staff came crashing to the ground, leaves and all.
“What in Aethelron’s name was that?” squeaked Dobbin.
It wasn’t the first time they’d heard strange noises, but it was definitely the loudest, not to mention the nearest. Hopskotch knew that a forest at night was a noisy place; he allowed for the strange calls, barking, rustling of leaves, for they all seemed so reassuringly distant.
Until now.
Now it sounded like something very large was fighting something larger still directly above their heads. He even noticed Bartrem inching closer to the fire.
Only Grandpa Rand appeared unfazed. After the initial surprise, he returned his attention to the fire, poking at it with a narrow stick till the end glowed orange-yellow. “Possums and fruit bats,” he explained casually. Pulling the smoking end out of the fire, he blew a trail of smoke that spiralled upwards. His scarred face looked unusually gruesome in the firelight. “Mortal enemies, ya know.”
Hopskotch and Dobbin glanced nervously at each other, before returning their eyes to the canopy. Bartrem continued inching forward, sidling up to sit between Dobbin and the stone terrace, eyes darting all over the place.
Even with his neck craned all the way back, Hopskotch found it impossible to make out anything but swatches of night cloud through the black canopy. With concentrated focus, he began to notice large parts of the black were moving.
Something skittered across the upper terrace just over their heads. The boys edged closer together, all personal feuds now forgotten.
Grandpa Rand chuckled, “It’s naught to worry yerselves over. You’re bigger than they are.” He spared a glance at Dobbin’s staff. “And better armed!”
“How much bigger, exactly?” asked Bartrem. “I mean, are you hearing what we’re hearing?”
Hopskotch was just about to ask his grandfather whether fruit bats ate meat, then reeled in the words before they could escape his mouth.
Idiot! he mocked himself. But his hands subconsciously found their way to his own walking stick. Possums, he thought to be vegetarian, but maybe if they were big enough—
Quite without warning, Grandpa Rand sprang to his feet.
Three pairs of eyes stared at him in alarm.
“Just fetching some water,” the old Sylt explained, waving an empty canteen in their faces.
Sighs of relief from the three youngsters followed. Hopskotch stared over his shoulder as his grandfather strode casually into the black, secretly glad he wasn’t asked to tag along.
After a short absence, Grandpa Rand reappeared with a full canteen and feet soaked all the way to his knees. Circling around behind Hopskotch and Dobbins’ backs, he returned to his original position by the fire and, squatting low, poured the water into a canister resting in the hot coals.
“Yowser!” he yelped, misjudging the steam. Shaking out the pain, he opened a small satchel retrieved from a hidden pocket in his rucksack. The bittersweet smell of cinnamon and lemon filled the air as he emptied its contents into the water.
“Okay then,” he said. “Story first, then tea!”
His eyes roamed from Hopskotch to Dobbin, from Dobbin to Bartrem, before finally returning to Hopskotch. “Actually, let’s make it the other way round. Any requests?”
Excerpt From The Secrets Of The Ancients
by Tulloch Greighspan
Tribulations 5.4
The Blighted Cometh
It was nine months following the initial outbreak that the last victim of Skyfire Blight was cremated, along with their clothing and possessions. The disease had run its course, leaving in its wake vast regions of Celestia Gar stripped of Syltian life. Productive farms were abandoned through want of labour; fields went untilled, crops unharvested. Entire villages had been erased from the map; large parts of the major cities – Skeyne, Trapspur, Adenstatt, Eldruin, Strandfell, and north even to the gates of Sanufell – were reduced to ashes.
Then things got worse.
In the month of Springfrüh, Year of Empire: 1104, the southern flank of Tarador and the western fringes of Braythorn were attacked simultaneously by an army of monsters from the south. Mutations of Sylt they were, but a mockery of their God-given form: bent of back and almost completely devoid of hair, their corpse-grey skin covered in warts and weeping sores. As if custom-built to butcher and maim, the invaders had unnaturally long arms terminating in hooked claws, and their gaping, oversized mouths sprouted long, curving teeth resembling the tusks of a mountain boar. Though it was widely believed they were cannibals, and ever followed battle by the ritual devouring of the fallen – ally and enemy alike – no such incident was ever confirmed by eyewitness account (possibly for no Sylt ever lived to relay it). The monsters came to be known as Blighted, for they carried in their eyes the look of the soulless, and their skin was as pale as those victims of Skyfire Blight.
Except in contrast to those innocents, the invaders were extraordinarily difficult to kill. Though they wore no armour, carried no weapons, and appeared to employ no greater military tactic than wild charges en masse, the Blighted did prove a formidable enemy to the depleted forces of Tarador and Braythorn, single-minded in resolve, and ever willing to continue the fight in the face of wounds that would render a normal Sylt unconscious. In close combat, it was quickly learned that only by attacking the enemies’ vital organs could a clean kill be possible. The Blighted did always attack at first light (they did not function well in shadow) and always in overwhelming numbers.
Day by day, week by week, they overran the outposts of the empire’s southern provinces.
Dawn of Spears
In asking them to choose the story, Grandpa Rand set off a three-way argument that made the boys completely forget about the nocturnal ani
mals scratching, screeching and fighting overhead. Unfortunately, his diversionary tactic proved a touch too successful, and he was soon forced to intervene.
Unexpectedly, in favour of Dobbin.
“The Dawn of Spears,” he announced, silencing Hopskotch and Bartrem with a wave of his hand. “Good choice, Master Butterfeld!”
Hopskotch harrumphed loudly. Bartrem scowled, but Grandpa Rand would not be swayed. He stared down the disagreeable Syltlings as if daring them to complain. “Now where to begin?”
Grandpa Rand repositioned himself legs-crossed before the crackling campfire (his old bones creaked a little) and leaned forward to check on the tea. Only when he was certain he had the attention of every boy did the old Sylt open his mouth.
“The empire had been bloodied,” he began in a sombre tone. “Against its southern flank swarmed the Blighted, an army of bloodthirsty monsters: long of tooth, sharp of claw, visibly diseased, yet infused with almost unnatural strength and endurance. It was said that their misshapen bodies once held the souls of men.”
He leaned in low to the fire, his voice barely a whisper. Orange reflections flickered across his sparkling brown eyes. “Already, they had overrun the province of Tarador right up to the gates of the capital. Inside the peninsular city of Trapspur, a small number of survivors held out: the city’s poor and abandoned, and with them, the refugees from the rest of the province already overrun. From all over Tarador – Larkham, Treighford, Gloucester, and villages smaller still – they’d been driven from their homes by creatures out of nightmare.”
Bartrem furrowed his brow, as if he didn’t entirely trust the old man’s words.
“But they were far from helpless,” Grandpa Rand continued, raising his voice. “Among them were the best of Trapspur’s tradesmen: carpenters, builders and metal smiths, salt-of-the-earth types who knew how to work with their hands. And they had a leader!”
Pausing his tale, Grandpa Rand put a ladle into the canister and stirred the tea. Finally satisfied it was hot enough, he positioned a stick through the handle and removed it from the fire, before pouring a portion into an enamel mug retrieved from his rucksack.