The War of the Realms

by C Steven Meldrum

  At various times we passed by shallow wadis and isolated tarns where we refilled our bidons. The hilly areas we passed through furnished more gullies and depressions and some high cliffs that provided some shelter from the winds that became colder later in the afternoon.

  Late on the third day out from the small village, a cool summer storm rolled in. The mile-high nimbus that marked the approaching storm turned slowly from white to grey to black and quickly spoke with a thunderous clamour. The ensuing darkness was broken by the phosphorous glow as tongues of lightening licked the belly of the storm. What had been a gentle breeze became more biting and ferocious.

  We procured some shelter in a large gully that ran parallel to the path and worked furiously to get the tents up, fires started and food cooking. Nimu insisted on holding an umbrella above me just in case the storm broke but I was not used to such fussing and ordered him down the gully in search of water and firewood. Before long we were sitting comfortably in small groups out of the wind enjoying the break. The storm still threatened us from above but no rain had yet fallen. Quiet conversations and at times laughter were the only noises other than the keening of the wind which whipped across the tabular surface above us and formed dust devils that played havoc with our camp fires.

  Before long I asked Pemba, who sat next to me, “Did anyone see Nimu return?”

  “He came back with some wood but went off again looking for water. Why?”

  “He’s being gone a while, that’s all.”

  I put my plate down and went over to the black-robes.

  “Jigme, stand guard over the camp. Tsering, please come with me, I am worried about Nimu. He should be back by now.”

  I picked a few others and Tsering stood and fell in behind me as we headed off down the gully. Suddenly Dorje was beside me as well. He smiled, inferringthat he didn’t intend to be left out of anything.

  We continued on down the rocky defile which steadily became deeper and narrower so that we were soon walking in single file. It became treacherous; at moments in virtual darkness and at other times laid bare in a harsh glare as lightening ripped across the sky.

  After perhaps a furlong the ravine opened into a wider area. It was becoming darker and we started calling for Nimu, worried that he had fallen on loose rocks and injured himself or toppled over the edge of a precipice. The ravine became so dark that we were soon tripping over rocks and debris ourselves and felt that we might walk right by Nimu without seeing him.

  And then, as we rounded a corner into a larger clearing, the most amazing sight greeted our eyes. Out here, in the middle of the Chang Tang was a hut, sheltered by the walls of the gully, with light pouring from the windows and open doorway and the smell of cooking wafting from within.

  We were all as perplexed as each other but it suddenly dawned on us that Nimu had found a much better abode for the evening.

  “Nimu!” yelled Dorje. “You dog! How dare you enjoy yourself and leave the rest of us out in the cold!”

  With suddenly improved morale and appetites wetted by wonderful smells of roasting vegetables and meats, and the promise of warmth and shelter much better than the thought of hard bedrolls and thin blankets, we quickened our pace towards the hut.

  Dorje had just about reached the veranda of the hut when the world suddenly turned upside down. A huge lightening strike turned night into day and the warrior-priest suddenly tensed and stopped. In the blink of an eye he seemed suddenly to have gone mad. He started yelling above the tumult of the howling wind and crashing thunder and because we could not hear him he suddenly started thrashing about in front of him with his cudgel and then turned on us. I was about to ask him what was wrong whenthe heaven’s opened up and a driving rain lashed us from above.

  Before I could raise my own cudgel to block him he had knocked me to the ground. I grimaced in pain and looked up to see him then launch himself at each person in order of those that were closest to him, yelling at everyone to get back. Dorje, a step away from the wooden slats of the porch, turned back, saw the carnage and drew his killing sword that he had made a habit of carrying diagonally across his back, saying it was out of the way while mounted and easily drawn in combat. Of all the people there, Dorje would undoubtedly be the only one to match a fully trained black robe.

  In the light pouring from the doorway of the small hut and with the ground awash beneath us and rain heavy enough that I had to shield my face, they clashed. While it took all of the Tsering’s skill to fend off Dorje’s well placed thrusts, he still managed to direct the fight so that he could strike each of the party in turn and either knock them down or force them back. He worked his way in between the hut and the party, silhouetted in the warming light that poured forth through the doorway and the windows onto the wet veranda and the increasingly inundated yard in front.

  I was fuming and, in a rage, rose from the deluge that had soaked me through, and with my own cudgel flying launched at the warrior-priest as well. My own skills were not quite those ofDorje’s but having spent so much time espying their training regime I was able to interpret many ofthe black robe’s feints and combat techniques that were peculiar to the Guild. I think he was surprised with my speed and skill and Dorje and I were able to drive the warrior-priest back towards the hut allowing the rest to crawl back away from the melee to relative safety just beyond the light emanating from the hut.

  “Stop this!” I commanded as we circled him, looking for an advantage to press home an attack.

  “Your Holiness,” he called back calmly, water streaming down his face. “I beg your forgiveness. But do not come any closer.”

  Dorje, sodden from head to foot like all of us, in a mixture of awe and respect, but also fierce competitiveness, saw his chance to best one of the elite and launched again at the black robe in an awesome display of attacks. I fell back and stood intently watching the progress of the fight, yelling for Tsering to desist. Dorje’s skills were amazing but the warrior-priest, in an equally aweinspiring show, twisted and jumped and parried and it suddenly dawned on me that he did not seem intent on killing Dorje, but stopping him. I started to think what could be the reason for the black robe’s actions and in a sudden burst of understanding yelled at Dorje to stop. In those few moments he had won through the black robes defences and had wounded him. A bloodied line ran across his face and arm, his blood washing away in the pouring rain. I yelled again and in the split second that Dorje hesitated, the warrior-priest launched a savage counter attack, disarming him and at the same time stunning him. Dorje was thrown down into the mire and rolled toward me and did not move.

  I looked in desperation at Tsering. Without pausing he grabbed Dorje’s killing sword from the stone floor of the ravine and twisting, threw it with all his might toward the house.

  In a blinding flash the hut was gone and the light and the delightful smells with it. As the rain battered us, I felt a sudden release as if I had been dreaming and had suddenly awoken to someone throwing a bucket of cold water at me. I gasped in shock. A ghastly and unearthly howl emanated from where the hut had stood only moments before.

  We could see nothing in the myopic darkness, but in a sudden brilliant and fulgid flash of lightening we saw the argent petioles. Like a hideous plant squatted a wreathing, tentacled monster, a horror that, in the intermittent blaze of light which poured down from the caliginous sky above us, stood about twelve feet high and covered a diameter of perhaps twenty feet, with hundreds if not thousands of slender acicular spines that thickened as they got closer to the base of the wailing creature. We were outside the range of the spines and could only stare in shock, wanting to flee but rooted to the spot in disgusted awe.

  The horror I recognised from my studies as a turgite. We had been spellcaught and from the length of the spines I could see that as soon as we entered the hut we would each have been impaled. I could see the dark shape of Nimu, held upon hundreds of spines three or four fathoms from the ground, his feet and hands still twitching in the symbiotic
half-life which would extend his life for hundreds of years while this creature slowly feasted upon him. One hand still grasped the pail that he had taken with him to collect water. While the defile in which we stood was quickly becoming a river, he would be happily enjoying a freshly cooked meal and the warmth of a glowing fire thinking to himself, where is the host who prepared this lovely meal? I must thank them and then go and tell my fellows so they can take part in this feast as well.” And then the horror would see in his mind his questions and create a host that would look after all his needs and find the best reasons why he should stay there. The quest would continue without him and there was no need for him to worry about anything. And there would always be more reasons to stay than to go.

  I pointed to Nimu and asked the warrior-priest, who was lifting the groggy Dorje out of the muddy water, what we should do about him. He bent and drew a throwing dagger from his sodden boot-top and without pausing threw it with practiced efficiency at the twitching and ruined form of the retainer. It struck true in the back of Nimu’s head. The body twitched for a second and then went limp. The pail fell to the ground with a splash and metallic din. The mournful wail momentarily became a violent shriek as the creature realised its meal was now useless. The prehensile spines lifted in front of the body and dangled vertically behind it, allowingNimu’s flaccid corpse to simply slide off where it came to rest below amidst a collection of white rocks and other debris.

  As if reading my mind, Tseringspoke from behind me, “They are skulls, your Holiness.” He bade me to follow him away.

  I felt sick. Looking up I could see, like garish ornaments, another dozen bodies hanging languidly above the saturated ground. And looking down I saw the skulls, hundreds of them, and other bones and the tattered and rotting garments of those who had unfortunately happened upon this hideous creature.

  “Can we not kill it?” I said in anger and denial.

  “That sword buried deep into its midst,” he said. “I think it will sicken and die, but who knows? To kill it utterly we would have to uproot it and it would mean your death to walk within range of the spines. Leave it, my lord.”

  He went back to where the others had cowered out of harm’s way and organised the return journey. I said a prayer for the Nimu and the other departed, whose resting place would always be here under the spines of this hideous plant. I then turned to go.

  Back at camp the mood was heavy. The rain had stopped as suddenly as it began but it did not improve things. We had shifted the encampment higher up the beach so as not to get washed away by the fast-flowing river which ran by us. I found it ironic that if Nimu had waited, he would not have had to go off to find water at all.

  Later, with our clothing spread out upon rocks and slowly drying near the fire, Dorje and Tsering talked in quiet whispers, Dorje forgiving Tsering for the bruises he had sustained and Tsering forgiving Dorje for the cuts he had received. I thanked Tsering on behalf of the group for his bravery. Without his defence we would all have ended up like Nimu.

  “But how did you realise it was all an illusion?”

  “I don’t know exactly. We have trained with captive turgites before in order that we should know their tricks. But they are only small, no more than a cubit in height, and their magic is easy to overcome if your mind is steeled against it. But that monster was very powerful indeed. I saw the hut and smelled the food like everyone else. I think what first caused me to question it was a sense of ‘wrongness’. Forgive me, I can’t explain it any better. It made me pause and then the first lightening strike hit us and momentarily washed away the illusion. It was as if a veil was lifted and even though I saw the hut, I saw what was behind it, evenif only for a moment.”

  “Thank you again, Tsering. We owe you our lives.”

  There was murmured agreement from all those who had faced the creature, the shock now lessened but everyone still on edge. What had started off as an easy trip across the splendour of this beautiful and rugged country was now a revealed to be more dangerous than we had imagined and that had cost us a life, and would probably cost us more.

  I had an uneasy sleep; broken dreams of slithering chromium tentacles finding their way up the gully and into our camp, impaling us in our sleep. They haunted me into the early hours. Several times I awoke in a sweat, brandishing my cudgel and smacking the ground near thetent’s entrance. I lay there listlessly, on the edge of sleep, listening fretfully to the baying of wolves in the distance. Frustrated, I eventually rose and left the tent. I walked to where Jigme stood like a marble statute, his eyes scanning the pre-dawn glow along the eastern horizon. The sky above was clear and no sign of the violent storm of the past night was visible.

  “The wolves woke me,” I said.

  “Luckily for us they are many miles away. This wadi is sadly not very defendable.”

  At dawn we roused ourselves, breakfasted quickly and then efficiently dismantled the tents and packed the mounts, eager to be away from that gully. We had nothing which could be used as a sign to warn people away from the area, so I collected as many rocks as I could and the others helped me in placingthe rocks in such a formation as to spell “death” for the benefit of anyone that passed by the gully.

  Once mounted, we maintained a rigorous pace and it seemed I was slowly getting used to riding so that I didn’t have the same saddle soreness or other aches and pains at the end of each day. Griffons and hawk-eagles wheeled and swooped, flying from their mountain aeries many miles away to observe the dust cloud churned up by our charging mounts. The sun rose in a mostly cloudless sky and it seemed like it would be a perfect day. We made a temporary stop in the lee of a spur that jutted out from a large hill. Wiser now, teams were sent out to find water and before long we were sitting, eating, talking and trying to judge how far we’d come and how far we had yet to go.

  I took a drink from a water flask and noticed a figure scaling the rocky slope of the hill above us.

  “Is thatPemba?” I asked, shading my eyes with my hand and straining to make out the tiny mounted red-robed figure scaling the hill a half a mile up the scree-covered slope.

  Tsering answered, “He rode on alone up the hill to take a look at the landscape.”

  I looked up the hill. We were on the western side of it and the sun was almost directly overhead. The blurred amalgam of dull red and mirrored silver light from his mount shone against the featureless grey of the hillside. He is keen, I thought to myself. I wondered at his initiative because he had never shown much along the way so far. Shrugging, I turned back to my food, enjoying the brief respite from the saddle. The animals were all tethered with heads to the ground feeding off the meagre tufts of brown grass that covered the tundra of the plateau during spring and summer.

  I had always wondered that these creatures ate organic food. But then, that was their nature. They were replicas, however distasteful, of creatures that would have charged across the tundra thousands of years ago and eaten from the same hillside. Just as the wolves who would have ripped us to pieces atop the frozen river, these creatures were a foul mimicry of the splendid array of all the gods’ creations of an Irth lost is the mists of time.

  Being as tired and saddle-sore as I was I drifted off in the warmth of the midday sun, the last image registered as a slow and regular flesh-coloured flashing through my eyelids as Pemba worked his way up the side of the hill.

  We had resumed our journey and had been travelling well for a few watches when they came upon us from the west so the blinding afternoon sun would hide most of their approach across the plain until it was too late.

  Our only warning was the suddenly panicked jitteriness of our mounts and the sudden low rumbling of many galloping hooves. One of the guards at the front yelled, “Raiders! Move!” and before I knew it my mount had launched into a violent gallop across the sparse plain.

  Our trail took us in a south-easterly direction across a wide and mostly flat valley which meant the attackers would have to turn in a broad arc to come in behind
us or run parallel and hope to either broadside us or overtake us and block our path. I was wrong on both counts.

  I could see several mounted figures in pursuit that had wheeled in behind us but another force that seemed to be coming in from the southwest would meet us almost head-on in another few leagues. Amidst the blinding dust and the violence of the charge I noticed there was a low-lying set of hills ahead that ran along an eastern boundary running north-south. The riders up the front had to make a decision quickly; go south and run into the other force, go east across the open ground and seek protection in the hills or try to wheel about and head back, which at these speeds would give both the pursuing posses plenty of time to consolidate and run us down. The decision was made to go east.

  With the setting sun over my right shoulder, my mount was suddenly flying over the rough ground of the pampas, heading steadily uphill. I crashed through low lying scrub and splashed through a small tarn. My mount did not slow. It seemed as sure-footed as ever and leaped over boulders and large rocks with ease. I clung on for dear life and saw one of the attendants fall from his mount as it leaped over the tarn I had just been through.

  The riders upfront tried to turn as much north as they could but the natural landscape funnelled us into a narrower valley. I then saw the gentle slopes become more walled in and steeper and the valley narrowed to more of a rocky defile. The two groups behind had consolidated and now herded us forward. I saw it too late. Somebody shouted, “It’s a trap!”

  The group splintered and ran heedlessly in all directions, some heading on into the canyon, some wheeling about to charge back in the direction of the pursuers and some heading up the sides of the canyon which were becoming steeper the further in we got. With no other plan in mind I pulled hard on the reins and forced my mount up the angled sides of the small valley. Shouts rang out and I heard simulgens screaming and men yelling as everyone went in their own direction. Two others had charged up after me. I saw one of them was Pemba. I had no idea where Dorje was.