Every farmhouse and outbuilding had been razed to the ground—every field hidden beneath a layer of black ash. Over the last week, they hadn’t encountered a living soul. As morbid as it seemed, they gained a small glimmer of hope passing by a string of recently dug gravesites alongside West Castle Road. Not because of the tragic deaths, but because the graves meant that someone else had dug them. People had escaped the atrocity of Helleden’s firestorm. The total absence of anyone, especially this close to the castle, was disturbing, but Rook was sure that would be explained soon enough. Perhaps the king’s resident wizard had proven strong enough to protect Castle Svelte and the capital of Carillon.
Rook ran to keep pace with the odd pair ahead of him, the large crossbow strapped over his right shoulder bouncing around uncomfortably. He berated himself for lugging it around but it had belonged to Avarick Thwart, so he guessed it was his way of paying tribute to the irascible Enervator.
As they made their way up the desolate roadway, their view of the distant city became clear. Any hope Rook had about the castle’s safety was dashed as reality set in. Several other tall towers should be visible above the bulk of the main keep by now. Their absence did not bode well.
Pollard startled him when he unsheathed his double sword and broke into a run, his long strides chewing up distance faster than his companions could match.
Rook and Yarstaff finally caught up to him at the broken gates fronting the western approach into Carillon. The royal city lay wasted, tumbled about the perimeter of Castle Svelte.
Pollard stood gaping, his sword hanging forgotten in his right hand, its double tips jabbed into the ground at his feet.
Rook followed his gaze, feeling sick to his stomach. As much as he feared that the great city hadn’t been spared, he wasn’t prepared for the sight of Castle Svelte in the distance. Though most of her thick walls stood defiantly over the wreckage of Carillon, four of the castle’s five towers had fallen—the southern two lay broken upon the southern battlement, while the northern towers were nothing but stubs of shattered rock barely visible above the scorched ramparts.
Between the devastated remains of Castle Svelte’s bulwarks and where they stood beside the twisted iron gates warding the city, lay the burnt-out husks of what had been some of the finest buildings in Zephyr. Stone, wood, marble, it hadn’t made a difference. Everything had been reduced to rubble.
Pollard’s breathing came in ragged gasps. “This is worse than Madrigail Bay or The Forke.”
Rook placed a hand on his back. He knew Pollard had held out hope that Carillon had been spared. If not the city, at least Castle Svelte.
“Let’s hope King Malcolm found a place to weather the storm,” Rook whispered. He gave Pollard’s shoulder a squeeze. “Come on.”
Rook walked beneath the battered gates, his eyes scanning their blasted heights—they looked to be on the verge of collapse. As soon as he passed within the city walls, he heard voices toward the castle walls. Finally. Someone was alive.
The main avenue led straight to Castle Svelte’s front gate—the only entrance into the royal palace. It used to be a wide thoroughfare, lined with large trees, colourful gardens and thick bushes—its edges resplendent with marble statues and stone fountains. The firestorm had changed all that. The Grand Esplanade lay buried beneath chunks of blasted building—their remains blackened by fire.
It took them a while to reach the wide moat surrounding the castle. The viaduct leading across the mud coloured water to the barbican that breeched the castle’s thick outer wall had been reduced to fragmented pillars and crumbled arches.
A large group of people stood in a line, passing chunks of broken stone from one person to another, away from the fallen gate towers that flanked a badly warped portcullis. A fire burned on the edge of the southern gate tower, sending plumes of greasy black smoke curling into the air.
Pollard sheathed his sword and made his way into the throng of dirt-smeared men, women, and children. “What goes on here? Does the king still live?”
A weary-faced man handed a chunk of splintered wood to an old woman standing next to him. He paused to look up at Pollard, but if he was shocked by his size, his tired face didn’t register it. “That’s what we’re to be discovering, mister.”
The chain gang was unburying the approach to the castle. They had positioned long boards across the crumbled arches of the viaduct to allow them access to the front of the gatehouse.
The moat on either side of the blasted bridge was littered with discarded rock and judging by the piles on the city’s side of the ramparts, the people had been at it for days.
“You mean nobody knows whether the king still lives?” Pollard shouted.
“We ain’t doing this to amuse ourselves. Either move along or give us a hand, but stop slowing us down,” the man said without emotion.
Rook feared Pollard might throw the man into the foul-smelling moat. “Come on, big guy, I’m sure they can use your muscle up front.”
A woman shrieked, “Ew, what’s that?”
At once, several other voices chimed in, “Demon! Kill it!”
The chain gang’s progress ground to a halt as people took an interest in the orange-furred, Yarstaff.
It was all Rook could do to prevent the poor Voil from being pierced by a hayfork of one of the workers. “Whoa, mister. Put that down, you’ll skewer someone.”
“Aye, that’s me plan. There’s a demon in our midst. Get out o’ me way else I put you to the fork as well.”
Several people armed with knives and crude swords moved toward Yarstaff as he cowered behind Rook. Before Rook had a chance to intervene further, Pollard stepped between them, sword gripped in both hands and outrage in his eyes. Although seriously outnumbered, Rook wasn’t worried about Pollard, but he was concerned for the naïve city folk.
Pollard reached behind Rook and yanked Yarstaff to his side, never once taking his eyes off those closest to him. “Yarstaff is with us. He is no more a demon than you with the pitchfork. Put your weapons away. I’ll not warn you twice.”
The man with the pitchfork bristled. He backed up a couple of steps, clearly contemplating his chances of overcoming Pollard.
Rook gave the man credit. Most people would’ve dropped their weapon and fell to their knees begging for mercy. Rook stepped in front of Pollard and held up his hands. “Look mister, we don’t want any trouble. We’ve travelled a long way to see King Malcolm, bearing important news.”
The man spat on the ground. “Get in line,” he said, his gaze looking across the viaduct to the smashed front gate.
“Are you all that’s left?” Rook asked. There were a little more than a hundred people standing along the roadway. Those on the makeshift bridges spanning the broken bridge arches were beginning to protest the fact that the line had stopped moving.
“More or less,” the man said, never taking his eyes from Pollard.
“You mean to tell me everyone else is dead?” Rook’s voice cracked.
“Didn’t say that, did I?” The insolent man spat again. “There are others. Wounded folk and those tending them. When hell opened up the skies, most people tried to gain entry into the castle. A good amount passed beyond yonder gate before the castle fell. I’m thinking those of us who weren’t able to make it inside were the lucky ones.”
Rook couldn’t argue with that. At the base of the gatehouse, a mangled body was pulled from the wreckage and promptly thrown into the raging firepit. He swallowed. He had seen many of these pyres during his campaigns with King Peter. One never quite got used to the sight, nor the smell, but he hated the noise of a burning body most of all. The sizzling and popping of someone who had recently been a walking, talking person, full of hopes and dreams—reduced to ash and black smoke. He shivered.
“What type of misbegotten beast do you harbour? I’m thinking there’s more to you three than you’re letting on,” the man said, his face twisting in disgust as he studied Yarstaff.
Rook sighed. H
ow could he explain the Voil without a lengthy, unbelievable retelling of their voyage? Judging by Pollard’s expression, the Songsbirthian wasn’t prepared to give this man enough time to hear the story. “This is Yarstaff. He comes from a far away land. He’s a friend of Zephyr.”
“Looks like one of Helleden’s minions if you ask me.” The man regripped the handle of his pitchfork.
If you only knew the truth of your words, Rook thought. “Nevertheless, Yarstaff is with us, so if it’s all the same to you, we—"
All at once, across the bridgeworks, a large section of the northern gatehouse broke free of the wall and crashed upon those working about its base. The ground shook. Large chunks of stone tumbled onto the debris below, much of it settling into the moat beyond with a great splash. Screams of agony sounded amid the sound of grating stone. When the ensuing dust cloud cleared, a wide gap exposed the castle beyond.
Rook’s jaw dropped. The hulk of the Wizard’s Spike still rose stark against the sky, but now visible at its base lay a massive mound of splintered rock where the majestic, palatial keep of Castle Svelte had once stood.
Untravelled Path
Melody hadn’t slept a wink. At least that’s how it felt lying awake in the cold night air. She must’ve succumbed to sleep sometime after whatever creature had been eating below the ledge she and Silurian cowered on had moved on. She vaguely remembered dreaming about her husband, Rook Bowman. The dreams were nothing but disjointed images of him being alone—searching for her through a veil of dark fog. Every now and then they were able to see each other, but as they reached out to touch one another, the veil solidified.
Something felt amiss. She opened her eyes and sat up. Silurian was gone! The trail leading up the side of the fissure was bereft of anything but dun coloured rock and creeping ground cover.
“Ah, you decided to wake up.” Silurian’s voice made her jump. What was he doing on the Gap floor?
“You scared my hell right outta me.” She fought to calm her breathing.
Silurian laughed. “Then I’ve done a good thing for a change.”
Melody gathered her belongings, her gnarled staff and the small leather bag with the greater storage capacity than its size suggested, and slid them over the edge to her brother’s waiting hands. Her voluminous robes dragged up over her waist, exposing her knee-length under garments, as she lay on her stomach and dropped, feet first, to the Gap floor.
“What are you doing down here?” She straightened her robes and accepted her staff and pouch.
“I couldn’t sleep. As soon as there was enough light, I decided to find out what had happened down here.” He motioned with the tip of his unsheathed sword to the grisly carcass of an unrecognizable creature the size of a large dog.
“Eww.” Melody’s face contorted with disgust. Flies and insects infested the gory remains.
“Ya. I’d hate to meet whatever killed it.”
Melody scanned their surroundings, afraid the creature responsible still prowled close by. She gathered her bearings and pointed to where the widest part of the Gap led south, away from Dragon’s Tooth. “Me neither. Come on. The farther we get from this place, the better.”
They walked at a brisk pace through the shadows of the crevice until the sun rose high enough to bathe them in much-welcomed warmth. Other than the persistent nag of buzzing insects biting at them, and clouds of irritating gnats flying about their faces, they hadn’t encountered anything else that appeared remotely dangerous.
Several times they stepped clear of a nasty looking spider web or saw the end coils of a snake curl deeper beneath a rock at their approach, but neither sibling felt threatened. Silurian had sheathed his sword early on so as not to tire his arm.
Melody climbed onto a flat boulder and sat down to grab a bite to eat.
Silurian surveyed their surroundings before joining her. “You sure you know where you’re going?”
Melody shrugged and bit into a piece of her wizard’s bread. She held out a piece to Silurian, but he turned up his nose.
“No thanks. I only have so many teeth.”
“Come on,” she urged. “You need to eat something.”
“What else you got in that bag of tricks?”
Melody balanced the slab of her black rock-bread on her lap and dug through the small leather bag. She pulled out two vials, one containing a red liquid and the other containing a green substance. Setting them carefully on the rock between them, she dug back into the bag. She retrieved two tightly bound scrolls and dropped them beside the vials and was about to search some more but Silurian’s puzzled look stopped her. “What the matter?”
“That bag,” he said, picking up the vial with the red liquid in it and holding it up to the light to inspect it further. “How can it hold all this stuff? It doesn’t look like there’s anything in it?”
She buried her face in the bag’s opening. “The bag? Oh, it’s a magic bag,” she offered, as if that explained everything.
Silurian put the red vial down and grabbed the green one. He started to shake it.
She shot a hand out and snatched it from him. “Don’t do that again,” she said and carefully placed it down on her far side.
“What’s it do?”
She reached back into the leather bag. “It blows up caves, that’s what it does.”
Silurian frowned, but she ignored him. Finally, she withdrew a withered piece of dried meat. “Here, try this.”
“Where’d you get that?” He took the palm-sized offering and turned it over. He sniffed at it, and then tested its pliability.
“Beats me. Are you going to get acquainted with it, or eat it? I wouldn’t mind a piece, myself.”
“What is it?”
She mumbled, “Not sure, actually.”
Silurian nibbled a small piece and chewed.
Melody took the rest out of his hand. “Well?”
“It’s salty, that’s for sure.”
“Ya? Let me try.” With a little difficulty, she tore the meat in two and handed a piece back to him. Talking around her piece, she said, “If I’m not mistaken, we need to stick close to the western rock face until we come across the untravelled path.”
“The untravelled path?”
Melody took a moment to finish chewing and swallowed. She grabbed up the vials and scrolls and stuffed them back into the worn leather bag. When she was satisfied, she looked Silurian square in the eyes. “How did you guys ever get out of here?”
Silurian shrugged. “I don’t know, we just did.”
“Well, mister world explorer. The key to finding your way out of the trench is to locate the untravelled road. The path that doesn’t look like it’s been travelled upon.”
“What the hell does that mean? How do we find a path that isn’t used? It wouldn’t be a path then, would it?”
“It’s hard to explain. Leave it to me. I’ll know it when I see it.” She slid from the rock and cupped her chin in her free hand, looking around. “Hmm, now which way did we come from?”
Silurian stepped down beside her, frowning. “Really?”
Melody let out a great laugh and began walking.
Silurian shoved the back of her shoulder, making her stumble.
She threw her head back and laughed louder.
Shortly before nightfall, Silurian located a small cave at the base of the cliff. He debated the merits of being exposed during the night over sleeping in a cave where they risked being trapped. He mentioned his feelings to Melody.
“Oh, the cave. Definitely,” Melody replied and made a beeline for it.
After inspecting the cave to ensure nothing else had the same idea, Silurian spent the next while gathering scraps of dried plants and bits of wood that had fallen over the brink, thousands of feet above, thinking as he did that he wouldn’t want to be standing in the wrong spot when something did fall into the Gap. With that thought in mind, he picked up his pace.
Melody already had a small fire going at the back of the deep, na
rrow cave, its rear wall hidden behind a bend in the short passageway. The close confines weren’t ideal to allow the smoke to escape but at least they were warm.
Silurian agreed to keep first watch after another meagre meal of Melody’s tooth gnashing wizard’s bread. He could sure go for some of that disgusting gruel the Voil had whipped up in the Under Realm.
Hidden in the cave, he lost all sense of time. He caught himself nodding off a couple of times, so he went to sit by the cave mouth.
It didn’t take long for his eyes to adjust to the relative darkness of the Gap. The clear night sky provided enough light to see the wide-open tracts of the Gap’s floor between pillars of rock formations and piles of landfall near the cliff walls. The usual nighttime sounds filled the canyon, most of them distant but for the incessant crickets. An owl sounded not too far away.
The air was so much nicer to breathe out in the open, but it was colder. Gooseflesh pimpled his skin. He shivered, but the cool air kept him awake.
A big cat yowled and then screeched, followed by a deeper roar that came from the same direction. A battle for survival was taking place down the canyon from where they had travelled. What if the creature that had feasted below them yesterday followed their trail? He could only hope that whatever it fought now would be enough to sate its appetite.
He was surprised by how long the intense battle lasted before the Gap became quiet again. In the ensuing silence, his imagination played havoc with him. As some shadows lengthened, others shortened, revealing different piles of debris along the canyon floor.
He and Melody had been lucky thus far. The last time through here, he and his companions had fought for their lives against a variety of predators. Or was that in the Wilds? He shook his head. His memories seemed to commingle with each other. He found it hard to separate them anymore.
Soul Forge Saga Box Set Page 46
