Soldiers of Avarice

by Stephen L. Nowland

“Okay, enough fun,” Aiden sighed as the laughter subsided. “If I stay away any longer, my parents are going to notice.”

  “Before we go back,” Pacian responded, “I wanted to show you something.” He started walking into the forest.

  “But … but that’s the Cairnwood,” Aiden stammered, gazing with trepidation at the dark shadows in the thick forest. “We’re not supposed to go in there.”

  “I don’t see anything dangerous about trees, do you?” Pacian asked, looking around innocently.

  “You’ve heard the stories,” Aiden reminded him. “There’s something in there besides trees. Something bad.”

  “Such as?” his blond friend prompted.

  Aiden was at a loss. All his parents had ever told him was that Cairnwood was a dangerous place, and sometimes people who went in there never came out again. He was never told anything specific, such as if they were eaten by bears, or ghosts, or possibly the dreaded Ghost Bear Pacian had once told him about.

  “Look, we’re only going in a little way,” Pacian confided. “You’re not scared, are you?” Despite knowing better, Aiden was thirteen now, practically a man, and would not stand for being called a coward.

  “Of—of course not,” he stammered in reply. Pacian grinned, then turned and walked into the forest with Aiden following cautiously behind him, suppressing any feelings of trepidation at leaving the sunlight behind and focusing on keeping up with his friend.

  They walked among the thick trunks for some time, footsteps muffled by the fallen leaves of late autumn that lay in a thick blanket on the soft grass. For a place that was forbidden to them, Cairnwood seemed pleasant enough, though Aiden couldn’t shake the feeling that they weren’t supposed to be here.

  The wind blew gently through the boughs, and the sounds of birds could be heard in the distance, all contributing to a sense of peace. Aiden was about to ask how much further they had to go when he suddenly felt the sensation of floating in the air, quickly followed by an explosion of pain on his chin that stunned him.

  The next few moments were a blur as he tumbled and crashed downwards, finally coming to a stop on a hard, rocky surface. Bewildered and smarting from half a dozen scrapes and bruises, Aiden struggled to clear his head. The daylight had disappeared, except for a small shaft coming from above to pierce the darkness.

  “Aiden, are you okay?” Pacian yelled from above. Slowly, Aiden raised himself on shaky legs, relieved to find that he hadn’t broken any bones in his fall.

  “Yeah … I think so,” he called up to his friend, a tremor in his voice. Aiden judged it to be around twenty feet straight up, and guessed that it might be an old, long-forgotten well.

  The damp, pungent soil of the walls was interspersed with rock, and Aiden felt lucky he hadn’t cracked his head against one on the way down. To one side he felt a gentle breath of wind, and reaching out, he felt an opening in the soil around three feet wide.

  “These walls feel don’t feel very solid,” he called. “I don’t think I can climb back out without help.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes!” Aiden cried in exasperation.

  “How about I find some rope?” Pacian hedged. Aiden found his reluctance baffling, until it dawned on him that they had ditched their chores and entered Cairnwood without permission, and Pacian was responsible.

  Knowing his unreliable friend, he wasn’t about to own up to any wrongdoing unless Aiden was in real danger. Apparently falling into a deep hole and injuring himself didn’t qualify.

  “Okay, go and get some rope, but hurry,” Aiden relented.

  Pacian sprang into action. “I’ll be back before you know it. Wait here!”

  Aiden groaned inwardly at the poor attempt at humor, but at least help was on the way. Aside from the light streaming in from above, there was only blackness before him, and he shuddered to think what else might be beyond the hole in the earth. He crouched against the wall, too scared to leave the shaft of light and trying not to think about it.

  As his eyes adjusted to the deep gloom before him, Aiden thought he saw a soft blue radiance in the dark. He looked at it for a few minutes until, curiosity getting the better of him, he crawled towards it, judging the light to be only a few yards inside the hole. Small rocks on the ground gouged his knees as he felt his way forward, but after brushing some earth aside, he felt a smooth, solid surface underneath him, almost as if it were made of metal.

  Aiden reached the dim blue light and discovered it was coming from something on the floor, a globe of light no larger than his fist. He reached out and grasped the sphere, and the instant all of his fingers came into contact with it, Aiden’s senses were assailed by the bright light of a mountain top far away.

  * * *

  With a coil of rope over his shoulder, Pacian slowly crept through the shadows of old man Clifford’s barn, his ears pricked for the sound of approaching footsteps. Deep voices reached his ears, two men casually chatting with each other, unaware of the boy stealing their belongings only a few yards away.

  Pacian’s stomach was starting to churn with worry, for he had been gone for half an hour and if Aiden was badly injured, Pacian was going to take the blame for it. Spurred on by the thought, he hurried to the doors and peered through the gap, noticing with alarm that two farmers were heading straight for the barn. Glancing around frantically, Pacian dashed behind a nearby cart laden with hay just as the men came through.

  He watched them stroll past, talking about repairing some of the rickety barn walls and other boring matters while Pacian eyed the doors, wondering if he could make it out without being seen. The farmers walked further into the barn, with the older of the two pointing out areas where the wood was rotted or broken, and Pacian finally saw his chance to move.

  With slow, measured footsteps, he emerged from hiding and crept towards the open doors, but as he stepped out into the afternoon sun, a cry of alarm came from one of the farmers, who’d turned around at precisely the wrong moment and spotted him on the way through.

  Pacian bolted without a second thought, threading his way through the cluttered yard, almost stepping on an unsuspecting chicken in the process. With his heart racing, he dashed through a flurry of startled birds, trying to avoid clumps of foul-smelling waste on the ground until he finally cleared them on his way out into the fields beyond, leaving the sounds of angry grownups far behind.

  He was completely out of breath by the time he reached the hole Aiden had fallen through, and collapsed on the ground next to it, puffing hard and shuddering at the ridiculous amount of exercise he’d endured today.

  “I’m here,” he called down into the hole once he’d caught his breath. “I’ll tie off the rope and throw it down to you.” He knotted it around the nearest tree, feeling the rough rope burning his soft hands as he handled it, then tossed the loose end down to his stranded friend, but there was no response from the darkness.

  “Aiden?” Pacian called, worrying that he was too late. No answer was forthcoming, but as he peered into the darkness, Pacian thought he saw a dim blue light. Curious and concerned, he clambered down the rope and soon discovered a small cave, and his friend standing with his back to the entrance.

  “Aiden? I’m here,” Pacian said, his voice echoing along the walls. The blue light seemed to be coming from something Aiden was holding. Pacian peered over his shoulder and saw a glowing blue sphere in Aiden’s hands, and when Pacian lightly touched his shoulder, Aiden lurched forward as if he’d been hit by something.

  The sphere fell from his grip and shattered on the ground, and with Aiden off-balance, he landed right on top of it, his hands instinctively extended to break his fall. He cried out in pain as shards from the broken sphere dug into his hands, and as Pacian went to help him, the blue light flickered and faded, but not before Pacian saw a look of absolute horror stamped on Aiden’s face.

  Chapter One

  A splash of cold water fell on Aiden’s forehead from the leaky roof above, jolting him out of his ni
ghtmare. Surrounded by near-darkness, he scrambled from his bed and made for a crack of light coming through the drawn curtains. The gray light of pre-dawn was enough to remind him of where he was, and the ever-present sound of rain on the roof tiles soothed his racing heart. He unconsciously rubbed his right hand, the memory of a large piece of glass sliding into his flesh all too real after the dream.

  The dark foreboding associated with his nightmare quickly diminished, as it always did; he had become used to enduring it every few nights. The vision was as powerful now as it was the day he had fallen in that hole over five years ago, and something he tried to forget during his waking hours. Whether it was — the shock that had burned it into his mind, or an after-effect of whatever strange magic was involved — Aiden always experienced the memory as if it had happened yesterday.

  Blankets shifting on the bed across the small room let Aiden know his roommate was stirring.

  “Has it stopped raining yet?” Pacian asked in a drowsy voice.

  “Nope,” Aiden whispered curtly. “Go back to sleep, mate.”

  Almost immediately, a light snoring sound began emanating from the bed. Pacian had changed in many ways over the past few years, but he could still fall asleep at a moment’s notice.

  A rooster crowed somewhere in town, hinting at the approach of dawn. Resigning himself to remaining awake, Aiden stretched and then dressed himself against the room’s bitter cold.

  He absently touched a small piece of broken glass hanging around his neck from a simple string, the sharp edges smoothed off for safe wearing. This was the very piece that had been removed from his hand after he was finally rescued from the hole that day. While his mother had let loose some scathing words about wandering off without telling anyone, Aiden’s father had said nothing, instead fashioning the glass into a necklace and giving it to him to keep as a memento of his ordeal.

  More than that, it was a reminder that his curiosity had cost him his last moments with his brothers. Both of them had signed up as caravan guards and left before he was rescued, only to die protecting their wagons against a bandit raid later that year. That cave had cost him his last chance to ever see them alive again, and had a hand in estranging him even further from his parents.

  He pulled back the curtain at the tiny window in the inn’s room and leaned against the frame, peering out at the small town of Bracksford as the sky brightened. Heavy clouds persisted over the rural community, and the rain cast a pall over the otherwise scenic view. Aiden pulled on his longcoat in anticipation of a soaking and crept over to the door, turning the handle slowly to leave the room without waking Pacian.

  He walked down the short hallway and took the stairs to the common room of the Bracksfordshire Arms Inn, the comfortable and, more importantly, affordable establishment where the two friends had been stranded for weeks.

  When he and Pacian had shown up at the town gates, they hadn’t realized the entire place was about to be sealed by order of the mayor, effectively ending their expedition shortly after it had begun.

  Answers to their inevitable questions, such as “Why?” and “Are you mad?,” were not forthcoming, except that the mayor deemed such measures necessary. There was a rumor going around, as they do in small towns, that bandits were killing anyone unfortunate enough to wander outside the town gates. Nobody had yet confirmed this, of course, leaving the population of sixty or so villagers in a state of perpetual anxiety.

  In spite of the early hour, the common room had its share of patrons, sitting in comfortable chairs under the flickering lamplight. Bracksfordshire was a farming region spread over a hundred square miles, with many small communities dotted throughout.

  Even if there was little work to be done in the fields, farmers were in the habit of rising early. Aiden recognized several of then residents sitting around the common room, people he’d come to know quite well, as one does when stranded in a small town with nowhere to go.

  There was Jim Clifton, a wheat farmer of advancing years, who grumbled to anyone within earshot about the loss of his crops. It was hard to avoid a conversation with the man, given the tight quarters, and Aiden knew more about wheat farming than any one man needed to.

  Laura Patel, a lovely young lady more suited to a thriving city than hard country living, ran a clothing store across the street, and had done a brisk business in cloaks and longcoats at the start of the bad weather. Her stock was now depleted, and with the town closed off, she was unable to bring in more.

  Aiden had seen her here every morning for weeks, and had had the dubious honor of watching her attitude change from charming and helpful to angry and pessimistic. Her dour mood was shared by many of the locals, who did not relish the continued lockdown of the town gates.

  Along with a few other farmers and shop owners, these people were huddled around the fire for warmth and to dry their clothes after the dash through the rain to reach the inn. The musty smell of wet clothing and damp skin was ever-present, although the innkeeper apparently had had the brilliant idea of attempting to mask the odor by burning scented candles at the bar. Aiden nodded in silent greeting to some of the locals as he passed the fireplace on his way to the counter.

  “Mornin’, Aiden.” Tom, the burly innkeeper, greeted him as Aiden pulled up a stool. Tom’s thick beard was iron grey and did a fine job of disguising heavy jowls, though it couldn’t conceal the stress he was under of late. “You’re up early today.”

  “I’m too tired to sleep, if that makes any sense,” Aiden mumbled.

  The innkeeper grunted in appreciation while wiping down the counter with a cloth. “I think everyone in this room knows what you mean. Well, except her, maybe.”

  He nodded to a young woman of remarkable beauty seated close to the other end of the bar, warming her hands on a steaming cup of broth. Aiden had seen her around the inn before, but never had the courage to speak to her. Unlike most of the other patrons, the town’s plight never seemed to bother her.

  She had long, flowing hair that seemed blonde, but was so pale as to be almost white. Delicate features matched her graceful movements — the way she blew on the hot cup of liquid to cool it, the thoughtful expression that crossed her face as she pondered what Aiden guessed were deep thoughts, and the way she smiled at him when it became obvious she was being stared at by a young man of about Aiden’s age, height, and appearance.

  He snapped his head straight back to the innkeeper, suddenly aware that he’d been staring at her again. Tom smiled knowingly, though he tactfully refrained from commenting, except to offer breakfast. The options available were slim, so Aiden settled for something simple and then sought to engage the man in conversation.

  “It was a good idea to use those scented candles to cover the smell,” he remarked. “It’s starting to get a little pungent in here.”

  “Oh, that wasn’t my idea,” Tom replied, nodding meaningfully to the other end of the bar. “I’ll go make your breakfast.”

  Aiden noticed the lovely young woman smiling at him again, having overheard what Tom had said. “I think we’ve all had enough of that smell, so I thought a few scented candles might be a pleasant change,” she confided. When she spoke, her voice was crisp, clear, and well-educated. In the dimly-lit room, her light brown eyes seemed to shine like gold as the firelight danced over her features.

  “They won’t last, though,” the young woman continued. “I only brought a few with me from Culdeny, and packed them as an afterthought. If I had known we’d all be stranded here for a month, I’d have brought a full sack.”

  “If we’d have known we’d be stuck inside for that long, none of us would have come here in the first place,” Aiden remarked ruefully. “I certainly have places I need to be.”

  “Most of us here do, I suspect. Bracksfordshire relies quite heavily on trade.” She paused for a moment. “My name is Nellise Sannemann, by the way.”

  “I’m Aiden Wainwright. Nice to meet you.”

  “The feeling is mutual, Aiden,” Nellise r
eplied, smiling warmly. “Wainwright, is it? Do you make wains and wagons for a living?”

  “My father does, yes. Third generation. I don’t really have much to do with it, though.”

  “Not following in your father’s footsteps?” she inquired politely.

  “He and I have a difference of opinion about that,” Aiden answered diplomatically.

  “Ah, the expectations of a loving parent versus the child who yearns for a different life. This is not so uncommon. I hope you left home on good terms.”

  “I … things were a little heated,” Aiden admitted. “I don’t really want to go into detail; the wounds are still pretty fresh.”

  “Of course,” Nellise offered in hushed tones. “Any other family? Brothers or sisters?”

  “Not anymore,” Aiden said after a brief hesitation. “Money was tight a few years ago ,so my two brothers signed up as caravan guards. They didn’t live to see the end of the year.”

  “I’m so sorry,” Nellise offered sympathetically.

  “A lot of young people lost their lives that year,” Aiden said, to dismiss any lingering concerns. “One family in our neck of the woods lost eight sons. It took a crackdown from the Crown to restore order after the bandit raids, but the damage had been done.”

  “I recall hearing about it; a terrible time,” Nellise agreed. After a moment’s silence, she went on. “I’ve heard you’re quite the jack-of-all-trades around here, repairing fences, stitching clothes, running errands and whatnot. I wonder though, what your actual profession is.”

  “So do I,” Aiden murmured under his breath.

  “You’re deflecting,” Nellise remarked shrewdly.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “All right; keep your secrets for now, Mister Wainwright.” Nellise relented with a smile as she continued to study his face. “You’re not exactly sure what your path is either, are you?”

  Aiden looked at her in surprise, her words hitting very close to the mark. “How did you know that?”