by Dan Abnett
Gilead dismounted and adjusted his reins. Lord Ottryke remained mounted, looking loftily above him. When Gilead looked up their eyes locked. The guards inhaled a deep breath, as one man, and held it. Brief seconds passed in a slow age.
‘You owe me nothing,’ Gilead said eventually.
‘Indeed,’ answered the nobleman, raising his chin as he turned his horse away.
*
‘That… could have been me!’ Lyonen whispered conspiratorially to Fithvael when they had reformed and were back on their trail. ‘If I hadn’t been riding alongside you just then…’
‘Then continue to ride with me,’ Fithvael said kindly. ‘I do not anticipate that things will become any easier.’
GILEAD LED FROM the front as the landscape climbed up into rocky lowlands, with the shrubby growth of orange and mauve heathers marking the route. Coming to a stop again by the side of a spring that trickled from between glinting grey rocks, riddled with coppery bright veins, Gilead motioned for the party to gather.
‘This is where it begins,’ he said, looking down at the narrow stream.
One jump should carry them across the burbling, splashing, clean white water. The gathered group dismounted and stood by the stream, looking bewildered. The boulder above the stream had a barely visible, time-worn engraving on it. Only their lord remained mounted, sneering down at Gilead.
‘Is this some kind of elven joke?’ he asked lightly, looking around at his men as if expecting them to applaud.
‘Cross this stream on that horse and you will no doubt find out.’
‘Sergeant!’ Lord Ottryke started. ‘Your opinion?’
Before the sergeant could answer, Gilead stepped in front of the nobleman’s horse and took a firm hold of its bridle.
‘You pay me to be your scout and the sergeant to protect you from me,’ the elf said darkly. ‘Will you allow me to do as you bade me, or shall I leave you here for the next beastman to feast upon?’
The lord dismounted, Gilead still holding the reins of his horse.
While the last of the party tethered their horses, a large young man from the centre of the group - Fithvael thought he must perhaps be their corporal, and knew his name to be Groulle - danced on the spot for a moment and then launched himself at the stream before either of the elves could stop him. He could have cleared a small river eight feet wide or more from his position. He was a popular man, making any number of jokes and observations along the way, mostly at the expense of the elves. His laugh was a loud, echoing bray that had startled Lyonen out of his saddle more than once and had caused Gilead to grimace at the human’s lack of subtlety.
‘No!’ Fithvael cried, simultaneously throwing himself after the huge corporal, but it was too late.
Groulle’s left foot hit the bank of the stream.
Groulle followed through, hitting the air and paddling his legs in a running motion intended to carry him yards. The rest could only watch, stunned, as the springhead became a boiling, bursting geyser of hot yellow fire. The bank of the stream shook as the others looked down at the footprint Groulle had left in the soft earth. The ground tore apart and collapsed, swallowing the footprint into black fissures that spread fast around them. There was a deep rumbling in the earth, as the rest of the party retreated, still staring at Groulle, who seemed to hang in the air for many minutes.
As he hung there, he could see the bank of the stream push its way outward and the water below him turn bright and luminous as the geyser spat hot droplets of stinging fluid at him. However hard and far he travelled through the air, the opposite bank of the stream moved faster and further from him, until even he did not believe he would make it across.
Groulle leaned forward, thrusting his arms and shoulders as far ahead of him as he could, foolish and frightened and praying aloud to his god in a screeching voice that the others heard only as terrified screams. Finally, his arms made contact with the now steep and cracked far bank. The earth felt hot and dry, but he heaved against it, trying to drag legs he could no longer feel out of the bubbling water. Then there was nothing. As Groulle’s feet left the thundering viscous liquid behind, the corporal blacked out.
When Groulle awoke, apparently only moments later, the spring was once again a pretty, narrow, babbling white strand of water that trickled harmlessly away between the rocks.
Gilead nodded at Fithvael and then took in the rest of the group with one glance. He saw faces ashen with fright - and noticed that Lord Ottryke had retreated to the rear of the group and was again sitting astride his horse.
A wry smile passed across the elf’s lips as he asked, ‘Who will go next?’
SIX MEN AND two elves spent the rest of the day negotiating the rocky outcrop and crossing it above the source of the spring and its dim engraving of the elven rune, sariour.
It was nightfall by the time they rejoined Groulle. He was unconscious again. His long boots and leather breeches were entirely burnt away, along with the bottom quarter of his leather scabbard. The end of his sword was blackened with tarnish. Groulle’s legs up to the knees were a mass of black blisters and red ulcers, the pus already forming beneath the skin and bloating the sores. Lyonen turned away from the sight as an older guardsman stepped forward. He wore a neat, grey beard and long sideburns, and carried only a crossbow for protection, while the rest of the guard carried at least two weapons, and possibly a plethora of others concealed about their persons. A strap around the veteran’s shoulder harnessed a pack to his body; it ran down his left side, tied around his waist and again to his thigh. The pack contained a series of pouches and pockets of various sizes and shapes. Freuden, for that was his name, unstrung the pack from his side and began to arrange bandages and medical instruments on a clean cloth on the ground.
‘Human medicines will not work here,’ said Fithvael, placing a hand on the stooping man’s shoulder. Freuden flinched.
‘Then what do you suggest?’ he asked.
‘Have you a spare pair of boots and some clean breeches amongst you?’ asked Fithvael, not looking up from examining Groulle’s legs.
Freuden nodded dubiously.
‘Then fetch them.’
GILEAD JOINED FITHVAEL beside Groulle, as the veteran began to lance the blisters and boils, releasing a strong and sweet stench along with bloodstained, black pus. Gilead picked up a small, soft wineskin from the ground beside Fithvael, weighing it in his hands.
‘You plan to anoint a human with this?’ Gilead asked, a hard edge to his low voice.
‘It is the only way, Gilead. You know it. The rune showed that our people controlled nature in this place.’
‘I also know this man is a foolish, worthless hu-‘
‘And we may yet need him,’ interrupted Fithvael. ‘You end life if you have to. I will preserve it if I can. And this is the only decent alcohol we have. It will clean his wounds and begin the healing.’ And with that Fithvael took one of the last flask of rare Tor Anrok wine from Gilead’s hands and began to pour it, a few drops at a time, into Groulle’s wounds.
‘It is the last of that vintage,’ Gilead said harshly.
‘Then it should be used to do good.’
ON THE FOLLOWING day, Groulle’s wounds were a little better, and he elected to continue with the rest. Progress was slow as they made their way up the side of the mountain in search of an entrance. Gilead and Fithvael had to stop over and over again to wait for the slower, clumsier humans. The guards surrounded their noble master, guiding and helping him, the slowest of them all, up the ever-steeper incline.
In the middle of the afternoon, having travelled only a few hundred yards, Gilead was growing impatient. He would have been faster and safer alone, but there was a price to pay for everything and today the price was a tomb full of ancient elven treasure - and knowledge.
He shook the thought free of his mind and resolved to concentrate on the job in hand. Reaching a jutting, coppery rock, sticking out at shoulder height to his crouched body, Gilead vaulted lightly on to
it and, able to stand, he surveyed the mountain face. A little below him and to his right he found what he was looking for. The rock appeared, on closer inspection, to be a little too smooth and Gilead could see a light, reddish haze around it - and the faintest trace of another elven rune, arhain, for secrets. This was his entrance.
He waited for the rest of the motley party to assemble below him.
‘This is where we go in,’ Gilead said, pointing to the flat, copper-grey boulders below.
‘Where?’ asked the sergeant, ‘I see nothing but rock.’
‘Then follow me and you will see all,’ answered Gilead, dismounting his boulder with easy grace and stepping lightly down a shallow crease, toward his target.
‘Wait!’ Lord Ottryke commanded. ‘If you go in first, how will we know that we can follow? We do not see your entrance.’
‘Then you must trust,’ Gilead answered, meeting the lord’s gaze squarely.
‘No!’ argued the lord. ‘If there is an entrance then we shall send one of my own men in first.’
‘L-lord?’ stammered the sergeant.
‘What is it, man?’ the nobleman spat back, exasperated.
‘Two of my men have been injured already… and we do not know what lies behind the rocks. It might be more… prudent if the elf did take the lead.’
‘The stakes are high, sergeant,’ Lord Ottryke snarled. ‘Men will be lost. But if you prefer, we will send in the boy. He has little value as a warrior and I question his allegiance. Yes,’ he continued, maliciously, ‘let us test the boy.’
LYONEN TOOK ONE last, wide-eyed look at Fithvael, who nodded his head gravely, and then he put his hand out to meet a rock face that did not exist. The boy’s eyes grew even wider and he felt the sweat drip down the inside of his shirt, down his sides and back. He shuffled his feet out onto the tiny, solid lip before the illusion - and found that the first few inches of his boot were invisible. In another moment both of his arms had disappeared and then his head and torso. Another heartbeat and the guards looked on in horror and amazement as Lyonen’s trailing foot, the last they could see of him, disappeared behind the rock face.
Several silent moments passed.
‘He’s in,’ their lord pronounced. ‘Proceed!’
But they all stopped in their tracks as they heard a high-pitched, ethereal scream, muffled in the mountainside. They gasped as one skinny, disembodied hand clawed at the air in front of them.
Fithvael was the first to lunge into the rock, disappearing almost before they had seen him move. Then half of his body re-entered daylight, shouting for help. Then he disappeared inside the mountain once more.
FITHVAEL KNELT IN the dark, surrounded by a hazy red light and a rough-hewn tunnel dripping with dark slime. He could see the boy only as shades of grey on grey in the almost total darkness. He let his hands pass over the writhing body on the floor in front of him, until a shattering cry of pain echoed around the tunnel and the boy became still. His breath was coming in short, flat rasps.
Fithvael found the thick haft of a bolt protruding from Lyonen’s sternum. Only an inch remained outside his body. It had penetrated too deeply. Fithvael felt the polished, silken texture of the end of the bolt. It spoke to him like only an elf-made missile could speak to an elf warrior. Fithvael’s hand covered the eyes of the human boy, while the heel of the other pressed hard and suddenly against the end of the beautifully-wrought elven bolt. The boy had already met his fate at the hand of an elven weapon. All that Fithvael could do for him now was end his suffering.
Fithvael stepped to the edge of the entrance, thrusting his head and hands out through the penetrable rock, so that the rest could see only the irate expression on his face, and the blood staining his hands.
‘He is dead!’ he said. ‘The first of your men is lost, lord, and there was none more loyal in your guard, if you did but know it.’
‘But is it safe, elf?’ Lord Ottryke called.
Fithvael dropped his hands and they disappeared back behind the rock, a look of disgust on his face.
‘Who knows how many ancient traps there may yet be in this tomb? Not I,’ he said and vanished.
Slowly and with great caution, Ottryke’s men followed Fithvael through the hidden entrance into the elf tomb. They lit small lamps and stood around Lyonen’s body. In the light they could see the wire he had tripped and the crossbow that had loosed the bolt that killed the boy. It was crude, by elven standards, and any good human scout would have seen it, but it had been too much for the brave initiate.
The medic, Freuden, examined the body. ‘What a waste,’ he muttered.
‘The boy died in the line of duty,’ the lord said pompously.
‘His name was Lyonen,’ Fithvael said coldly, staring into the noble’s eyes.
TENSION MOUNTED AS they continued into the mountain. Fithvael was silent, grieving the death of Lyonen, an innocent lad who should not have been there at all.
The guards had begun to mutter amongst themselves. It was becoming obvious to them that their lord was no leader and they must take direction from Gilead, the elf-warrior, if they were to survive. There were no more traps in the tunnel, but the guards stayed close behind Gilead and watched his every move. When the tunnel opened out into a wider, vaulted chamber, they turned to the elf and none dared move into the open before him.
Gilead took a lamp, adjusted the wick to produce more light and then threaded it onto the barbed end of a halberd borrowed from the sergeant. He swung the light out over the cavern floor, which showed up as a series of worn, interlocking tiles, and then around the walls where he could see five dark openings in the rock. The tiles came in two distinct shapes, larger octagons interspersed at intervals by tiny squares. Although worn, the floor was lustrous and fresh in places, and just as the tiles interlocked, so did the intricate pattern of runes engraved upon them too.
‘Do you see the pattern?’ Gilead asked Fithvael.
‘It is simple enough,’ Fithvael returned. ‘I will go first.’ He had read Gilead’s mind.
Gilead made his way to the back of the group, passing instructions along the waiting line of guards. When he came to Lord Ottryke, he said simply, ‘Follow in the footsteps of the man in front, unless I instruct you to the contrary.’ Then he fell in behind the nobleman.
Fithvael began to make his way across the floor, the toes of his boots falling precisely and lightly, two short steps to the right and then a half-stride backward. He kept his eyes on the floor around him, looking for every trap. Groulle came next, working hard to keep himself from staggering on his seared limbs as Fithvael wove his path. Then came Freuden, the apothecary. When he had led the first two men perhaps a third of the way across the floor, Fithvael turned and called to the sergeant, who was just stepping out onto the floor.
‘You can no longer follow my path,’ Fithvael instructed. ‘Listen,’ and he gave the sergeant a whole new set of instructions that seemed to lead him to the left of the cavern and away from the first group.
Suddenly the sergeant stopped, two toes perched, almost overlapping on one of the tiny squares of stone tile. He wanted to wipe his sweating hands on his breeches, but dare not, lest he overbalance in the process.
‘Where are you sending me?’ he called into near darkness, as he felt himself moving further from the lead group.
‘You must trust,’ Fithvael replied in a low, soothing tone. The sergeant turned his head slightly, he saw the remaining two of his men following in his footsteps and determined that he would not let them down. Taking a deep, slow breath and steadying his mind, the sergeant called again to Fithvael.
‘Lead on,’ he said.
For the next hour Fithvael led his party across the void, and guided the sergeant. Only Gilead and the lord remained.
‘Why do you lead us like children playing at monsters? The floor looks solid enough to me,’ Lord Ottryke sniffed disdainfully.
Gilead looked at him and then into the smouldering grey of the light ahead of him. H
e took a quarrel from the quiver slung across his back, broke it twice over his knee and wrapped it tightly in a scrap of cloth.
‘Sergeant,’ called Gilead, ‘catch this for me.’
He threw the tight little parcel out over the floor. The sergeant’s hand, reaching out to grab at the cloth, was suddenly lit with a deep orange fluorescence. The broken arrow had fallen short and now a patch of floor was lit up and pulsing around it. In a moment the quarrel was smouldering with green light and sending off shooting white sparks in all directions. Then the floor became fluid, like oozing, bubbling-hot treacle and the parcel was swallowed into the viscous liquid. Next to the first tile that had dissolved, a second started to melt away, and then a third.
‘You go first,’ Gilead told the startled-looking nobleman. ‘And step only where I instruct you.’
Only Fithvael and Gilead knew that with every group that crossed the floor, the elven magic became less forgiving. It took an hour for Fithvael and his party to cross, more than two for the sergeant and his two men. Ottryke and Gilead only reached the opposite side of the cavern after five gruelling hours. The journey was longer and more treacherous, and all around him tiles were melting away into the treacle ooze that bubbled and belched in disgust. When he finally reached solid ground again, Ottryke looked pale and was shaking violently. The apothecary came to tend him, but was sent away with an exhausted wave of the hand.
‘Give me some of your liquor,’ he said to Gilead.
‘Elven wine is not for human consumption,’ the elf lord answered flatly.
Lord Ottryke insisted on resting in the dark, cramped exit of the cavern. Fithvael changed Groulle’s dressings and the sergeant went from one guard to the next, clapping each on the back. When he had spoken a few words of encouragement to Groulle, the man laid his hand on Fithvael’s shoulder and held his gaze for a moment. No words passed between them.
FITHVAEL JOINED GILEAD in the dark recess of the cavern, farthest away from the grumbling humans.
