In the past, there had always been enough animals to ensure that the people had sufficient food and clothing. Lately however, soldiers from the realm of Caulderon had started to come deeper into the northern parts of the woods to plunder its riches, panning the rivers for gold and cutting swathes of forest down to provide building materials for their crumbling towns and cities. Troops from the eastern realm of Mantaras had also begun deforestation, burning hundreds of acres and converting them to farmland in a bid to feed their ever-expanding population.
But something else had crept into the forest in more recent times, something darker and more sinister. Scouts had reported seeing strange creatures roaming close to the fifth and farthest boundary-marker. They had seen robed men with torches walking the forest late at night, seemingly searching for something. Now neither Tundra, nor anyone else in Arboria would stay out in the forest after sunset, for many rangers had been lost. Some had been found ripped to pieces, with body parts missing, while others had been found drained of blood.
Some of them had not been found at all.
Tundra swung himself from the rope ladder onto the torch-lit wooden platform. The panels creaked as he put his full weight onto them.
‘What did you bring back today, then?’ a gruff voice asked.
‘Slim pickings, Fengar. A few rabbits. Hardly a feast,’ Tundra replied, untying his duffel bag and handing it to his friend. ‘Still no sign of that stag.’
Fengar, a heavy-set, muscular man dressed in dark-green ranger attire, smiled. Tundra knew his friend was disappointed by the meagre haul.
‘Never mind, eh, there’s always tomorrow.’
Fengar slung the bag over his shoulder and put his other arm around Tundra.
‘Come on. Elder Tago wants to see us in his hut.’
The two walked across wooden platforms and rope bridges. They made their way past dimly lit huts, empty drying racks and fletching stations to Elder Tago’s dwelling in the middle of the commune. As they approached, a ranger guarding the doorway stepped to one side and drew back a deer-skin door screen, ushering them inside before following.
The hut was dark and musty, wispy pipe-smoke hanging in the air. All the men in the village were there. They sat on the floor in a circle, cross-legged, Elder Tago in a low chair. In the middle of the floor was a map of the surrounding forest, including the location of Arboria, the nearby rivers and the boundary markers. A dozen tiny skulls drawn onto the map indicated the place where a ranger had fallen or gone missing, a constant reminder, if any were needed, that no matter how competent they thought they were, as soon as they let their guard down, the forest would punish them.
The map was weighted at its corners by small lanterns that illuminated not only its details but also the hooded, serious-looking faces of the cloaked rangers who were staring at it.
‘Sit down, Tundra,’ Elder Tago said in a weary voice.
Elder Tago was old and frail, but although coming to the end of his life was still deemed fit enough to lead the community, as he had done for over forty years. Tundra sat between two of the rangers. Fengar stood near the doorway, the bag of rabbits on the ground beside him.
‘Bring the bag to me, Fengar,’ Elder Tago commanded.
He looked in the bag as Fengar went back to where he had been standing. The others could tell the bag contained a pitiful amount of food. Some shook their heads while others looked at Tundra, discontented.
‘Another poor haul, Tundra, eh?’
‘How much food did the others bring back?’ Tundra snapped, glaring at the map, as he spoke. He refused to make eye contact with Tago.
‘Ah, but they do not have your experience. And they certainly do not have your gift,’ the elder quipped back.
He had used that line several times before. It was his standard reply for whenever Tundra failed to supply enough food or resources to satisfy him. The old man blew smoke from his pipe that drifted upwards, in between the rafters of his hut.
Tundra exhaled through his nostrils.
‘What is your answer then, send us out hunting at night?’ He looked at the faces of his fellow rangers for support, and found none. ‘Are there not enough skulls on the map for you?’
‘Not at night, Tundra,’ the old man replied. ‘But we have decided that we should start to hunt beyond the fifth boundary marker.’
Elder Tago sat back in his chair and folded his arms to indicate that the topic was closed.
‘I have decreed it, and thus it is so,’ he exclaimed.
Tundra shook his head in disbelief at the old man’s foolhardiness.
‘Your ruling is going to kill us all,’ he muttered, loudly enough that everyone in the hut could hear.
‘We are dying already,’ the elder said. ‘Or have you not noticed? Winter is approaching and the supply huts are empty. We need to find food from outside our normal hunting grounds or we will starve. As of tomorrow, you start hunting for food beyond the fifth boundary marker. We go out in pairs. That is final.’
He called out the names of the rangers in twos, followed by the direction he wanted them to go hunting.
‘…Tundra and Luthan…northwest.’
Tundra bowed his head in an effort to hide his disdain. He hated hunting in pairs. He also hated Luthan.
After Elder Tago had announced all the pairings they stood up in unison and bowed their heads to the old man before leaving the hut in single file.
Fengar made small talk with the hut guard by the doorway, while waiting for Tundra. He had listened to the order that Elder Tago had given and knew it would not be a popular decision among the rangers. When they patrolled the forest, they preferred to do it alone. As soon as his friend left the hut, Fengar fell in step with him.
‘What do you make of that?’ Fengar asked, suspecting he already knew the answer.
‘I’m in trouble,’ replied Tundra, as they crossed a rope bridge. ‘The boundary markers are there for a reason. The further we get from Arboria the less we know about the forest, and the more dangerous things become. Rangers have been lost beyond the fifth marker. And then there’s Luthan.’
‘You don’t like him?’ asked Fengar in a hushed tone.
‘I don’t trust him, Fengar,’ Tundra replied. ‘Why did I end up getting paired with him? I would feel uneasy about going beyond the fifth marker with someone I trusted, but him…’
Tundra stopped outside a hut and turned to his friend. ‘I have a bad feeling about this. A feeling that getting paired up with Luthan was not random.’
He pulled open the door to the hut.
Fengar patted Tundra on the shoulder.
‘Get some rest old friend. You’ll feel better after a good night’s sleep.’
Tundra stepped inside his hut and listened to Fengar’s footsteps fading as he walked away. He lit a small oil-lamp and placed it on his bedside locker. After undoing the straps of his quiver and unstringing his bow, he climbed into his hammock and lay looking up at the branches that made up the roof of his hut. He could hear the sounds of the forest’s nocturnal birds and animals: the hooting of owls and the high-pitched chirping of bats in the distance. He pulled his hood over his face in a bid to keep warm, and tried to get some sleep.
Just as he was about to succumb to weariness he heard the rustling of his pelt-door being opened. There in the doorway stood Ria, a young girl in her early teens, dressed in a green tunic and dark brown leggings.
‘Are you hungry?’ she said, walking into the hut and making her way to the hammock with a wooden plate in her hand.
‘I’m famished.’
Tundra took the plate.
‘It’s not much. The others didn’t get a lot either. Who knows, tomorrow might be different. Maybe you’ll find a boar, or a deer. Then we can all have a big meal, like last month.’
‘Maybe, Ria.’
Tundra looked d
own at his plate.
Hind leg of a rabbit, a few berries and a handful of nuts, how am I meant to survive on this? he thought.
‘Good luck for tomorrow,’ the girl said, smiling as she left him to his meal.
Eating the rabbit-meat first, Tundra then popped the berries into his mouth one at a time, bursting them with his teeth and savouring the juice. He ate the rest of his meal slowly, knowing that one way or another he had to find something more substantial for the people of Arboria to eat.
It was still dark when Tundra awoke, the forest silent. His lamp had gone out, using up the last of his oil. He lay, rocking in his hammock, wondering what the day ahead would bring.
‘The fifth marker,’ he said out loud.
None of the rangers had been beyond it in over a year; for good reason. Out of those roamed past it few came back. He sighed and rubbed his head.
Getting out of his hammock Tundra looked at the brown cloth sack in the corner of his hut. He went to it and untied the cord at the top, pulling out a three-foot-long broadsword and attaching its scabbard to his belt. He never took a sword with him while he was going hunting, a boot-dagger was always enough, but something told him that he would need it today. Taking one last look inside his hut, he attached his bow and quiver, pulled back the door and stepped out onto the platform.
Crossing the rope bridge to the torch-lit, outer platform, Tundra saw Fengar preparing to drop the rope ladder. Another ranger was helping him. Hearing him approach, the other ranger turned and pulled back his hood.
‘See you made it, then, did we interrupt your beauty sleep?’ Luthan asked.
Tundra sighed. This already had the hallmarks of being a long day.
‘Drop the rope, Fengar,’ he said as he pushed past Luthan.
Fengar obliged and, after giving both men a duffel bag, stood to the side so as to give them ample room to climb down the fifty-foot ladder. As the first rays of sunlight pierced the thick green canopy, both men walked into the forest.
Tundra’s mistrust of Luthan had formed the moment they had met. His sharp tongue and condescending tone made Luthan hard to like. The slyness he exhibited and the adulation he heaped on Elder Tago were characteristics that Tundra found to be less than endearing.
When he was first found by a patrol wandering through the forest six months ago, Tundra and some of the other rangers had wanted to blindfold him and leave him at the fifth boundary marker, but Elder Tago let him stay, insisting that new blood was vital for the survival of the community. Since then he had worked, some said wormed, his way onto Elder Tago’s council, gaining the trust of most of Arboria; but not Tundra.
Being suspicious and seeing people’s true intentions was Tundra’s speciality; you did not live to see one hundred and seventy-six winters, without a shadow, in the Northern Realms by trusting every person who crossed your path.
Tundra had called Arboria his home for as long as he could remember. He had been found as a child abandoned in the woods by one of its rangers almost two centuries ago and thought of Arboria’s people as his family. The people in the commune understood that Tundra was a child of the gods. They knew what he was and accepted that they were harbouring one of the shadowless damned, even if it meant that one day the gods might punish them for it. But Luthan was not from Arboria, he was a stranger, an outsider. He only knew what he had been told and Tundra felt uneasy in his presence.
The pair walked briskly through the forest, checking the snares for rabbits and pinning two wood pigeons with their arrows.
Tundra covered the ground much faster than his hunting partner, moving over logs and across streams at a relentless pace. Luthan had learned quickly that keeping up with the more experienced ranger without complaint was an exercise in saving face which he was determined not to lose.
The two marched for over an hour. Tundra prowled through the forest like a jungle cat, barely out of breath, while Luthan had sweat running from beneath his cropped blond hair, down his cheeks. He had not been out on many hunts, and such was the pace, that his clothes and equipment were starting to chafe. Watching Tundra carefully, he tried to get close enough to see if what they said about his shadow, or lack thereof, was true. He did not know much about the powers that Tundra possessed, only what he had overheard the other rangers saying. There were so many questions he wanted to ask, so much he wanted to know.
Luthan suspected that Tundra did not like him. He knew that talking to him would probably annoy him. But when the pair reached the first marker, his will to remain silent broke.
‘The first marker, then?’ he called to Tundra, who was ten yards ahead of him.
‘That’s what they call it,’ Tundra snapped.
Luthan jogged, as it was the only way he could keep up. Getting closer to Tundra, he once again tried to enter into a dialogue with the other man.
‘Do you think we’ll find anything?’
‘I’m not a fortune teller,’ Tundra retorted.
‘Right. I get it, you don’t like me.’
‘How observant,’ Tundra said calmly, walking even faster.
Luthan mouthed obscenities and took off after him.
It was late morning and the forest was in full bloom. Upon reaching the second marker, the pair walked among the carpet moss and ferns, looking for tracks, stopping regularly to pick wild berries. The pace had dropped, much to the relief of Luthan, but the silence remained.
Pausing at the River Gírani, Tundra stepped off the bank and into a shallow section of the fast-flowing river. Bending to the water he grabbed the sticks that he had wedged into the riverbed using heavy stones, and checked each of the lines attached to them for fish.
Well, I suppose that’s something, he thought, seeing three.
After putting his catch into his duffel bag, he carefully replaced the lines after re-baiting them and then made his way to the bank. As he went to climb out, Luthan stepped down to the edge and stretched out his hand. Tundra paused and stared at him before moving a yard or so down river and then climbing out. He made his way to the bough of a large willow tree, sat down with his back to it and began gutting the fish. Luthan sat on an exposed root.
‘Is there any particular reason you don’t like me?’ Luthan asked, staring into the Gírani.
Tundra fired a glance in his direction and then shook his head in an over-exaggerated manner.
‘No, go ahead,’ Luthan insisted. ‘If you’ve got something to say then let’s hear it.’
Tundra decided that enough was enough. His anger boiled over and he threw down the fish and got to his feet. If Luthan wanted answers, he would get them.
‘I don’t trust you, Luthan. I never have and I probably never will. Everything about you repulses me, from your sycophantic behaviour towards Elder Tago to the arrogance and smugness you exhibit with the women and children in the community. Even when you’re trying to be sincere, you still manage to sound sarcastic and uncaring. But it’s your slyness that really gets to me, Luthan; the whispers you carry from one person to another about matters that are none of your concern, the seeds of doubt you plant in the minds of the senior rangers about who should be trusted and who should not, and convincing Elder Tago to pair us together and send us beyond the fifth marker, knowing full well the dangers that lie there.’
Tundra approached Luthan and looked him in the eye.
‘I know, deep down, that you are here for a reason. That ranger patrol didn’t just ‘happen to find you lost in the woods’, you meant to be found. From the minute you came to Arboria, I knew you were trouble.’
Tundra picked up the fish and put it into his duffel bag.
Luthan sat on the tree-root looking at the grass, embarrassment and resignation on his face.
‘How did you know I got Elder Tago to pair us up?’
‘I didn’t know,’ Tundra replied. ‘But I do now.’
Lut
han sat in silence. He could scarcely believe he had been so stupid as to fall for Tundra’s bluff. Looking up, he saw the sunlight streaming into the bank from the gaps in the canopy cut out by the river. He glanced at Tundra and then at the ground, where the ranger’s shadow should have been.
‘Well, what are you waiting for?’ Tundra asked coldly. ‘We have to get to the fifth marker.’
‘What, why?’ Luthan questioned.
‘Well, you obviously orchestrated this, and I would hate to see your scheming going to waste. So get on with it.’
Tundra held out a hand to help Luthan up from the tree-root.
Luthan tentatively took Tundra’s hand and was pulled to his feet; Tundra stepped closer to him and spoke in a hushed tone.
‘From now on, you walk in front of me. If you turn around or run off, I’m going to put an arrow through you. And just so you know, when this trap or whatever it is you have planned, happens, I’m going to gut you like one of those fish. Now get walking before I cut your fucking throat right here.’
Luthan gulped and lifted his pack before moving off upstream towards a ford in the river. He glanced over his shoulder to see Tundra unslinging his bow and taking an arrow from his quiver.
His first steps found him flinching and tightening his muscles in preparation for being shot in the back – Tundra was the most accurate marksman in Arboria, but Luthan still looked for trees and boulders: anything that he could duck behind and use as cover. And if he could jump into a deep stretch of water then maybe he just stood a chance of surviving.
Tundra was apprehensive. Questions about Luthan’s true intentions and what lay beyond the fifth marker were flying through his mind, causing his head to spin. His heart beat faster, forcing him to take deep breaths and his senses were heightened as his whole body went on the alert.
Shadowless Page 10
