by F M Andrews
“Why they want to hurt tree?” Tubble cried distressed and like a bolt of lightning the full meaning of this commotion and its implications hit Lutex with full force.
His imagination painted a grim picture of what the suffering tree must be experiencing. As one they scrambled to their feet and ran towards the axeman, totally focused on stopping this senseless slaughter before it was too late. The axe strokes were steady and rhythmical making the woodsman easy to locate, but before they could reach him the awful, unmistakable crash of a tree falling echoed through the forest.
“No! No!” Lutex stopped breathing. They were too late. Uncaring for his own safety Lutex burst into the clearing only to come face to face with the sicking evidence of the disaster. A beautiful young tree lay splayed across the grass, its soft skin already losing its lustre, becoming dull and grey as he watched. Lutex could not bear it, he ran over to the dying tree and flung his body across it, weeping. The trees last agonies still rippled through its being but even these were rapidly fading. Lutex was so totally absorbed in is misery that it took him a moment register the fact that the axe was in action once more. “No! No more!” he screamed in his head. Stumbling towards the sound he rounded a large trunk only to fall to his knees defeated, because, before him, was the last thing he ever expected to see on this world. Before him stood a troll.
Chapter Twenty-One
Lutex blinked.
The troll had its back to him as it swung its axe at the trunk of its next victim; however, there was no mistaking the build or the smell. Lutex knelt, frozen with indecision. How could he hope to stop this huge creature from doing anything? He knew from his experience in Feld that the trolls were feral, brimming with anger and hatred. There was no way he was going to be able to reason with it, indeed, he would be lucky to escape with his life. The troll lowered its axe for a moment, wiped its brow and then arched its back looking up at the sky, groaning. Lutex carefully stood up and took a tentative step backwards but luck was not on his side today and he stepped on a traitorous twig, which snapped into the silence with a resounding crack.
The troll whipped around, axe raised. Lutex stumbled backwards trying to escape, but he only succeeded in falling, landing heavily on his backside and knocking the wind from his lungs. In two quick strides the troll was towering over him, a fierce scowl of absolute hatred painted across its face. Lutex absurdly noted that the immediacy[CL23] of death seemed to slow time and make everything become crystal clear. He noticed that the troll was not exactly the same as the ones who were threatening Feld. It appeared quite a bit younger and it did not seem to have the heavy brows or the sloping forehead. In fact, Lutex thought to himself, it would probably be considered quite handsome in troll land. Although it had the same broad shoulders as the trolls he had seen before, this one also seemed to have a neck. Similar but not the same then, not that it mattered he thought, writing his own epitaph: “Lutex, killed by an angry, handsome troll.” This was so absurd.
He was mesmerised by the axe as it began its inevitable swing towards his head. A blur of motion off to one side was the only warning the troll had before a ball of spitting fury, all claws, teeth and fur, barrelled into its face. With a loud growl it dropped the axe and clawed at the thing clinging tenaciously to its head, desperately trying to remove it.
Lutex blinked, his head clearing. It could only be Tubble. Not bothering to stand, he scrabbled on all fours to the forgotten axe and grasped the smooth handle. It was huge and so heavy. There was no way he was going to be able to lift it off the ground let alone use it as a weapon. Abandoning the axe he raced forward and grasped the troll's legs, tackling it, hoping that he could unbalance it and cause it to fall. The troll stumbled, instinctively reaching down to remove the clinging boy but, in doing so, managed to grasp Lutex’s forehead. Skin touched skin, mind touched mind, and what came next blew him away.
Although both were stunned into complete physical stillness the thought exchange was anything but. Impressions shot back and forth in violent spurts like water from a pump’s first few air-filled pulls. Both were terrified and both were fighting for their lives. The last thing Lutex had expected to discover was that this was not a savage beast, but rather just the same as any village boy back in Feld. The troll had been surprised by Lutex’s sudden appearance but when he saw that he was one of the dreaded ‘baby eaters’ his anger burned bright. Lutex reeled. What in Feld could he mean by ‘baby eater’? Lutex’s confusion must have communicated itself to the troll and it stopped struggling. Tubble dropped to the ground, fur bristling, back arched, glaring angrily.
Lutex tried mind talk. “I am not a baby eater!” he spat vehemently letting the revolution this thought elicited accompany his thought.
“You look like one,” the troll answered defiantly.
“Well, you look like the enemy that is invading my world, killing my people,” Lutex shot back, populating his thought with gruesome images. The reply was not one Lutex expected.
“Our warrior class are doing a great and brave thing protecting us against the invasion or your kind,” it thought with immense pride and satisfaction colouring its thoughts.
“We are not invading!” Lutex replied stunned. The advantage with this level of mind talk was that you could not lie. And the troll could sense the truth in Lutex’s denial, totally confusing it.
“Your priests come to our villages and snatch our babies to take back for sacrifice. They,” it faltered for a moment then steadied itself and continued, “they eat them alive.”
“No we do not!” Lutex was too indignant to think of anything clever to think. “We would never do anything like that.”
“You cannot deny it. People like you have been seen stealing our new born. You take them to your world through a portal but our priests have discovered this gateway and so now we are sending our warrior clan through so that you will never be able to return and steal more of our children.”
Lutex could see that the troll had never witnessed a baby being taken, and had instead been told about it by a visiting priest, the image of whom made Lutex shudder. Alarm bells were ringing in Lutex’s mind. This all seemed a bit too coincidental. Why would anyone want to cause conflict between this world and Feld? Slowly bits of the puzzle began to fall into place. It all made horrible sense. Guarding his thoughts carefully Lutex mulled over the evidence. It all pointed to one person. Zail.
Zail obviously wanted the trolls to attack Feld to break the boundary and therefore he had created a reason and a means for them to do so. What did it matter that a few innocent babies lost their lives? He felt sick. All this misery was caused to appease one man. Errin had to win. Finding the shard was even more imperative now.
This had been a bizarre conversation, made all the more ludicrous by the fact that although Lutex had let go of the troll’s legs, it still held fast to Lutex’s forehead. The troll, having sensed Lutex’s discomfort removed its hand but looked confused when the communication between them stopped abruptly. Tentatively it reached out and placed its hand on to the top of Lutex’s head. The image of Lutex’s spiky hair sticking up between the trolls large fingers would have been humorous at any other time but today Lutex was too upset. He sagged to the ground, breaking the contact once again but patted the grass next to him in an invitation for the troll to sit. He placed his hand on the ground and waited.
Wearily the troll obliged, although only after retrieving its axe and lancing a few cautious glances at Tubble, who was now happily washing his back leg as if all was well with the world. Lutex did not know where to begin. This was such a huge and unbelievably sad saga. Two worlds at war, countless lives lost for nothing more than one man’s ambition. He let his sorrow pour across the link to the troll, paving the way for the devastating news he was about to give. Fate had chosen them and there was now no escape from the truth. Lutex had sensed the innate honesty in this one-time enemy and was trusting everything and everybody on the hunch that when this troll knew the whole story, all the fact
s, he would want to save his people and to act against Zail rather than betray Lutex. It was a gamble, but Lutex was running out of options.
Slowly, carefully, he outlined the whole, sordid history as he knew it. He left nothing out, finally describing his desperate mission and then he let the troll decide his fate. They both sat for a long time, each deep in their own thoughts. A gentle breeze tickled the leaves, making them softly laugh. The troll eventually took a huge, shuddering breath but did not turn his gaze from the depths of the forest.
“Brack,” he offered up his name quietly, and with this one word Lutex knew that their alliance was sealed. “A wise elder once told me that ‘You cannot let the shadows of yesterday block the sunlight from today.’ And I think that it is time to walk back into the sunshine, don’t you?” Brack thought, smiling shyly down at Lutex.
Lutex nodded, smiling back encouragingly. Brack’s brow furrowed as if an unpleasant idea had occurred to him. “You know, I think that this plot may be even more evil than you thought. At the moment we are sending more and more of our fighting men through to your world and none are returning. This is making us dangerously vulnerable to attack from our traditional enemy the Krax. We have reports that they are growing in strength and are amassing on our borders. We have never been worried about them before as they are inferior to us in every way but this time they may have sheer numbers in their favour. We are weak and the Krax know it.” He paused looking down at the grass. “Our whole way of life has changed. Before this happened life was pretty simple. I was the son of a farmer and I would have become a farmer after him but because of this war our farm has been turned into an open mine and I have been forced to supply charcoal for our weapon furnaces. I have had to become a woodcutter!”
Lutex cringed and found it impossible to hide the wave of nausea this statement had triggered. Brack looked puzzled, not understanding what he had said, or rather thought, that would cause such a violent reaction. Lutex stood and walked over to the nearest tree placing his hand on the trunk and letting its spirit wash over him. He then beckoned Brack over. Taking the troll’s large hand in his he let nature take its course. The look of absolute delight on Brack’s face was instantly replaced by one of revolution at the thought of all the trees he had felled. He quickly let go of Lutex’s hand, stumbled away and was violently ill. Lutex knew in that moment, watching the troll convulse, that he was going to be able to trust him implicitly.
Lutex patiently waited until the Brack had finished, watched, sympathetically as he cleaned himself up and smiled encouragingly as he returned to sit down next to them. Tubble came to sit by them sniffing the wind. Brack stared wearily at the cat. “I have never seen an animal like that before. What is it?” he asked. Tubble immediately took offence at being called an ‘It’ and promptly disappeared. Lutex couldn’t help but chortle at the startled look on Brack’s face.
“I am not sure myself, but he can understand every thought you have. Oh, and yes, he can become invisible.”
“A very useful friend to have, I think,” Brack nodded, still staring at the spot where Tubble had vanished. After a moment’s shared silence Brack seemed to gather himself, sitting up straighter he focused on Lutex’s face. “What direction exactly does the pull from the shard come from?” Lutex pointed down the valley.
“I might have guessed,” Brack thought. “That is the direction of our fortress city, Haktara. It will be very difficult for you to gain entry there.” He looked thoughtful for a moment before nodding to himself as if he had come to some sort of a decision. Turning to Lutex once more he thought, “I can hardly carry on with my work here.” He scanned the clearing shuddering slightly at the sight of the fallen tree. “So I might as well try and do something positive instead. I would like to come with you and help.” He paused. “If you would want me to, that is?”
Lutex grinned, playing a narrative in his head. “And so it was that the strange trio of troll, boy and cat-like thing began their incredible journey to save their worlds.”
The journey to Haktara itself began rather uneventfully. Brack had bargained for some children's clothes complete with a hooded cloak at the first small town they came to and Lutex had instantly become Brack’s younger brother. He was so small that he looked like a three-turn-old troll so no one paid him any attention at all. It was easy to slip unnoticed among the other travellers. Navigating the road itself was another matter entirely. The further down the valley they walked the more desolate the countryside became. A once proud forest was now a cemetery full of tree stumps that marched across the landscape, row upon row, each more poignant than any gravestone. The deep-rutted, muddy tracks converged in the centre of the valley, making it a stinking quagmire. Whole areas had been mined for metal to make weapons leaving behind deep, stagnant pools surrounded with rusting slag.
The lower they went the harder it was to breathe. Wood smoke hung in thick clouds and the smell of smelted metal added an unpleasant tang to the already sulphur-ladened air. It was hard for Lutex to believe that this was the same world that he had arrived in with its pristine alpine meadows. Brack, who had his arm protectively cross Lutex’s shoulders, caught the thought and sadly shook his head. “All this only began when we started to send our warrior class through to your world. When I was growing up this was a beautiful farming area.” Wistfully he showed Lutex a quick vision of how it used to look only a few turns ago. Lutex shuddered. Zail’s balance sheet was certainly adding up fast.
On the second night, it rained heavily, making the road totally impassable and Lutex’s nerves even more frazzled. Each night he watched the strokes on Errin’s parchment disappear. The only thing that kept him optimistic was that he had not reached the halfway mark yet. He felt that there was still a tiny grain of hope but this weather was not going to help. “I can’t afford this delay,” Lutex fretted staring out at the sheet of water falling past the veranda of the shop where they had taken refuge. “Could we leave the road and go cross country?” he asked, desperately seeking a solution to this hold up. Brack peered out, not really looking at the steady downpour but instead imagining the lay of the land beyond.
“Yes,” he thought hesitantly. “I think we could do it. We are on foot and there is only two, I mean three of us,” he amended, turning to look at Tubble who was twitching in his slumber on top of a stack of sacks. “And we should be able to stay out of sight of the land owners. It would certainly be easier than this pig sty of a road, but we will need daylight so I can find my bearings.”
Lutex nodded gratefully then crept over to the sacks and curled up next to one very happy cat. Brack spread his bedroll next to them on the wooden planks and soon all three were sound asleep, the drumming of the heavy rain a soothing lullaby.
The next morning dawned fine. The rain from last night now only a story told in the deep puddles, the mud of the road and the dripping eaves. The trio set out early and cut a path down the side lane until they were out of sight of the small village. They quickly scaled a low stone wall and raced across a grassy field towards a small copse of trees in the distance. This was the most nerve wracking time because although they did not expect to be seen, Brack had told Lutex that if they were caught trespassing the farmer could make them work for free for a full turn of the moon. Days that Lutex did not have to spare.
They quickly fell into a routine of sorts. They were fortunate that the rain stayed away and the weather became warmer, as they could not risk any type of fire at all. They spent the nights huddled together for warmth under their blankets and woke each morning to find fine droplets of dew covering everything. The days went by too quickly for Lutex; however, they made good progress and Brack proved to be an excellent guide. “Not much cover today. We need to be watchful,” Brack observed as they sat eating yet another cold breakfast. “But by my reckoning, once we are on the other side of the meadow and through those woods at the far end we should be able to see Haktara.” Brack sat, shoulders hunched against the cold, his cloak about his shoulders as
he munched a windfall apple they had gathered on their journey, savouring the sweet taste and gazing out across the grassy meadow that they had to cross that day.
“I think you were right about the shard,” Lutex mused. “The pull is definitely getting stronger.” Wiping the apple juice from his chin, Lutex pointed to the large forest off to the side. “Why can’t we take cover in there?” he asked.
Brack shook his head. “That is the king's hunting forest. No one but the king and people he personally invites are allowed to enter on pain of death.”
Lutex looked incredulously at the young troll. “But who would know?” he asked.
Brack shuddered. “No one would dare go into there. A hex was placed on it many generations ago, and since then, any who venture into its depths never return. The legend says that it is easy to enter but impossible to leave.” Brack stopped, considering their options. “I suppose that we could walk in its shadow though, as long as we did not go into it, we should be safe.”
Lutex shrugged and thought to himself that it was probably just a very easy, cost effective way to stop poaching that some distant king had invented.
Both finished their apples, picked up their packs and began another day.
Tubble was often absent in the morning, off hunting or exploring, and this morning was no exception. They knew he would catch up to them some time during the day, so they set off without him. By midmorning, when there was still no sign of the exuberant cat, Lutex was becoming concerned. He found himself listening carefully for any mind contact and several times stopped to concentrate on an imagined thought or sound, but it wasn’t until the sun had reached its zenith that Tubble finally reappeared, slinking low to the ground. His fur was tangled with bits of twig and leaf litter, and his paws covered in mud. Normally he was immaculate as only a feline can be, so this was totally out of character. Seeing Tubble safe was such a relief that it made Lutex realize just how worried he had been. Somehow along the way he had become very attached to his invisible friend.