Beyond the Valley of Thorns

by Patrick Carman

  “Warvold would not reveal what he knew, and on that terrible day Catherine was taken from him. It was said that if she could not produce the whereabouts of the stones, she would be locked away in the deepest part of the Dark Tower at Castalia, until the remaining stones were found and returned to pay her ransom.

  “I don’t know what Catherine told them or how she has kept the giants away from Bridewell these ten years. Maybe she has sent them searching in the City of Dogs or in the streams of Mount Laythen. But one thing I feel is certain: She remains among us. Catherine, the woman you know as Renny, is alive, locked in the dungeon in the tower across the lake.”

  PART 2

  CHAPTER 15

  FIRE AND RAIN

  “Wake up, Alexa. The fire is already started.” It was dark and cold as I shivered awake, my body aching from yet another night of broken sleep against the floor of the Dark Hills. Everyone else was already stirring or standing, looking across the valley where an orange glow rippled along the top of the hills. This was not the sight of the sun rising over the earth; it was something closer and more dangerous.

  “What’s happening?” I asked, rubbing sleep out of my eyes as I rose, feeling the toughness of the ground beneath my tender feet. I bent low to itch the scabs on my shins from which I continued to find no relief. It was still night or very early morning, and everything was dark but the fire on the hill and the stars overhead.

  “Armon has been busy while we’ve slept,” said Yipes through a yawn and a stretch. I walked to where they stood and gazed at the hill.

  “The wind rolls down the mountain and into the valley,” said Armon. “And thunderclouds often gather along the rim of the great mountain. Vast brushfires along the hill are not so uncommon during this time of summer. Everything turns black, only to be reborn again in the spring with new underbrush. The cycle continues year after year. Some years there are many fires and some years there are few, but often humans or nature ignites the dead brush.”

  My eyes had adjusted to the starry light and the distant glow of fire on the hill. Armon knelt next to me, pointing into the darkness.

  “I started the fire there with my flint, at the base of Mount Laythen, and the wind carried it along the hill and over to the other side.” Already the fire had spread over the top of the hill and along its front to the valley where we stood. I could only assume it had spread to the other side of the hill as well.

  “There are thousands of poles that make up the Valley of Thorns. They are covered in thick tar at the base, and the brush beneath them will burn through as it always does. The giants will pull back from the Valley of Thorns and stand at its edge, protecting the forest in case the flames come too close, until the fire passes through. Then they will walk through and stamp out any glowing embers that remain. By morning our opportunity will have passed.”

  The orange glow of the fire line was mesmerizing in the darkness, like a twisted snake upon the land, writhing and devouring everything in its path. It glowed hot and wide when the wind gusted through, and sat low and patient when the billows ceased.

  “Gather your things and breathe deeply while there is fresh air. The smoke that provides our cover will make the going difficult,” Armon warned.

  “How far away is the great mountain?” asked John, trying to get his bearings and understand where we would enter the city.

  “From here, probably twenty miles,” Armon answered.

  “You couldn’t have traveled that far while we slept, Armon. Forty miles in only a few hours is hard to imagine, even for you,” said Yipes.

  “Two hours and twelve minutes, to be exact,” said Armon. “And you thought I’d only been eating blackberries and lounging about in the mountains all these years, getting fat and happy.”

  “Yes, but forty miles?” Yipes objected. Armon had nothing more to say on the subject, and the night air stood silent, a cool breeze driving the flames closer still.

  We walked away from the flames, in line with the hill. The fire had not yet drawn close, but it was traveling fast, and it seemed to me that within an hour it would be right on top of us. Already the oddly appealing smell of smoke hung heavy in the air, and the stars were obscured from the haze pouring into the sky.

  “We must move quickly, until we are but a mile off the southern cliffs, then take the hill as the flames dance at our feet,” said Armon. “We shall hope the giants who remain will not see us through the haze as we pass into the forest on the other side.”

  We walked on, our pace stronger as the wind increased, and the fire seemed to halve its distance from us in no time at all. Twenty minutes later the flames were closer than we’d hoped they would be.

  “We must run!” Armon yelled. He knelt down and instructed me to jump onto the great leather bag on his back and hang on. Then he took Yipes and Murphy on his shoulders and stood erect. John and Odessa were left to run of their own power, goaded on by Armon’s colossal steps behind them, like the cracking of a whip at their heels. I was astonished at the size of Armon’s back, the breadth of his neck, how high in the air I was, the power of everything about him. It felt as though I were riding a great bull with magnificent strength, that I might be thrown high into the night air and trampled underfoot.

  “Follow me the rest of the way,” Armon said to our running companions. “We must turn to the hill now and overcome its face. Stay as quiet as you can, muffle your coughing. No matter how tired you become, don’t stop until I tell you.”

  The smoke was much thicker now, coming in waves. A mere fifty yards to our right lay the slithering snake of fire. As it approached us I was surprised by the height of the flames. I had thought they would be only a foot off the ground, but when the wind took them, they darted seven or eight feet up, licking against the night sky.

  We had already been moving diagonally against the hill under Armon’s lead, and before long we were at its base. I looked back and saw that John and Odessa were right behind us. Ahead lay the most difficult part of the night’s journey, and Armon had timed it perfectly. The heat from the fire was growing steadily, and smoke ran in formless white rivers all around us. I kept looking back to see our companions. Finally, about halfway up the side of the hill, the smoke came thick enough between us that I lost sight of them entirely.

  “Armon, we’ve lost them!” I said, and then I looked to my right and found that the fire was no longer a safe distance away. Hidden in the smoke it had crept up on us, the flames dancing now at Armon’s leather-clad feet.

  Armon darted to the left and continued running up the hill toward the smoke-filled sky. He was moving faster now, bounding in great strides up the hill and moving to the left as he avoided the flames.

  “Armon, you’re losing them!” I said. “They can’t keep up.”

  But he just kept running, faster and faster, until we reached the edge where the hill topped out, flattened, and tumbled down the other side. He dropped us from his back and shoulders quickly and descended the hill into the smoke from where we had come.

  “Keep moving away from the flames and stay just this side of the top,” he said as he went. “Don’t go down the hill on either side.”

  At the top of the hill the smoke was not as thick, but breathing was still difficult. Yipes, Murphy, and I stayed in front of the flames as they approached us, slipping down the side of the hill occasionally as we tried to stay off the top and out of sight. I looked down the hill where the smoke was thickest and saw nothing of our two companions.

  “I hope they’re all right,” squeaked Murphy.

  Seconds turned to minutes, and we moved at least thirty feet along the edge to stay out of the flames. I glanced up at the sky and realized with some astonishment that a low ceiling of smoke hung all around us in the air, obscuring anything more than a few feet overhead. I was alarmed at how completely the smoke had taken the sky. I also began to wonder how close to the southern cliffs we were, where the hill would taper down and eventually meet with the steep drop-off that ended i
n jagged rocks and the Lonely Sea below.

  While my head was turned toward the cliffs, Odessa came sniffing and pawing at my feet. I knelt down and embraced her around her big bushy neck.

  “Armon’s got John, right behind me,” she said, and no sooner than it was out of her mouth, Armon arrived with John flung over his shoulder. He dropped John to the ground with a thud, and I was happy to see that he was conscious and alert.

  “The clouds have moved in,” said Armon. “Soon the rain will come and our cover will be lost.” He said nothing else, only crouched low and moved to the top of the hill. It was flat for twenty feet, then it dropped off even more steeply than the side we had been on. Looking out over the edge I saw the lights of Castalia’s wharf in the distance, but everything else was shrouded in smoke and darkness.

  “You must follow me precisely,” Armon told us. “Don’t veer off my trail to the left or to the right. Hold onto one another so we stay together through the smoke.”

  Armon began to descend the hill on the opposite side, Yipes and Murphy once again on his shoulders, me holding tightly to the bag on his back. John held Armon by his leather vest, which hung down behind him. With his other hand he grabbed hold of Odessa’s mane.

  The descent was steep, full of brush and small rocks. I winced every time the pebbles shot out from under Armon’s huge feet, fearing the noise would give us away and a monstrous giant would suddenly appear before us. I was glad when we reached the bottom, although the smoke was terribly thick and gray, and I was only able to see a few feet in front of me. My lungs screamed for fresh air, and I could hear myself wheezing as my body tried to adjust. The first drops of rain began to fall and the wind began to swirl around us, the smoke following its master and thinning out as it spun in circles.

  “Behold the Valley of Thorns,” said Armon. Through the swirling smoke a vast graveyard of poles emerged. “Don’t touch anything and move carefully. Delicate wires connect many of the poles, so we must be careful to go around them. The top of every pole is lathered with poison. Imagine this field of venomous tips as you would a labyrinth. Follow me closely. If we leave a trace, they will surely find us.”

  Armon zigzagged between poles, some of them short and some at my eye level atop Armon’s back, all razor sharp at the tip and shining bloodred with poison. I held tightly to the big leather bag and hoped it wouldn’t be flung from Armon’s back, me with it, impaled onto a pole. The smoke whipped through like a great fog, swirling all around us, and the poles, like hollow bones, stood erect in the thin light of dawn. All the while the rain fell thicker, first only a few drops, then larger and more frequent. Before long the sky would let go all at once, the flames would be snuffed out, and with them the smoke that hid us.

  Armon stopped abruptly and remained still and quiet. We were approaching the far edge of the Valley of Thorns, and I could see the outline of trees in the forest before us. But there was something more, movement to the right through what remained of the thin layer of smoke. In the haze of morning my heart pounded against Armon’s back, and the sky let go of the rain altogether. The gleaming back of a giant’s head appeared, his monstrous, misaligned shoulders swaying to and fro as if working at something in front of him. And then another giant appeared to my right, walking toward the first. This one I saw completely as he passed before us in the murky light only ten feet away, streams of water flowing over his misshapen face, the smell of him so close that even in the cleansing rain I felt my insides quake and sour. He pushed the first giant, and they barked at each other in a language I could not understand. It was guttural and wet and low, as though they were spitting up gobs of phlegm with every word. They marched off into the rain, leaving behind them a tall pole bent a little to the left, as if it were not held in place like the rest.

  With the rain coming in sheets and the smoke all but washed away, Armon began to move forward, then pushed John and Odessa into the gloom of the forest. A group of giants was gathering to the right with the two we had seen. Just as they turned to survey the area we occupied, Armon slipped into the trees, taking me with him upon his mighty back.

  We remained still a moment, smoke hanging like a deep mist in the trees, and we breathed the forest air. It was a thick section of trees buried in wiry underbrush. I was glad to be on Armon’s back, out of reach of the scratches to be had on the forest floor.

  “We have yet to pass through the wood, but the haze of smoke will help hide us,” Armon said quietly. “Soon we will reach a wooded path that forks off in different directions. One of these forks will lead us to the place where we must hide.”

  Armon whispered more, telling John and Odessa to watch him and be ready to leave the path and hide in the wood if he should do the same, for the paths were patrolled by Grindall’s giants. We moved silently through the gloom and Odessa seemed to struggle the most, her legs tangled often in the deep underbrush. Before long we came upon a winding path. In a place where such death and despair were expected, I was taken aback by the beauty of the simple curves, the smoky mist overhead, light shooting through the clouds that were already moving on and revealing spots of pale blue, the rain now a mist of tiny droplets all around us. Armon set me, Murphy, and Yipes down, and I felt the soft, wet earth beneath my feet. We walked on, curving this way and that, Armon peering forward, then back in search of our enemy.

  “Why do they smell so bad?” I whispered. Armon put his finger to his lips and motioned me to be quiet, then he leaned down and whispered back.

  “They are rotting from the inside out,” he explained. My face soured, and he dropped to one knee, bending low and facing the lot of us.

  “My race is all but wiped out,” Armon said, and I saw his sadness at admitting he was the last of them. “What remains are not giants. They are transformed, entirely possessed by evil, not a trace of light remains in them. Best we call them ogres from now on, for that is what they have become. I have no kinship with them.”

  The morning was fully awake now, wet leaves and plants dancing gently in the slight breeze. The sky above was sapphire blue and only a few light clouds remained. The trees rose high above us on both sides of the path, swaying lazily in the first breath of day.

  A racket of noise startled us from behind. I nearly jumped off the path entirely. It was Squire coming to a stop on a tree that lined the path.

  “Squire!” whispered Yipes. “Must you be so dramatic?”

  But Squire only screeched in reply, an angry look in her eyes.

  “Off the path,” said Armon, and before I could turn to see him he had taken me by the waist and lifted me off the ground, my face and arms running through thick brush as he carried me away. Squire flew into the air again, and the rest of us crouched in the thicket off the path. All except Murphy, who had found for himself a nut that had fallen from one of the trees. He was absorbed entirely by the crunchy morsel, nibbling aimlessly in the middle of the path, until two dreadful ogres were only a few strides from where he stood. Their shadows overtook Murphy. Looking up, he screamed, ran back and forth as if he’d lost his mind, and then darted up a tree where he looked down on the two ogres in time to see what remained of his breakfast trampled underfoot.

  Again there was the unpleasant smell as the ogres passed by, ripe and wet, a loathsome odor of dying flesh raised on the wind and carried to where we crouched motionless in the thicket. They hardly took notice of Murphy as they moved on. Ahead, where the trail split in two, the ogres went along in opposite directions, one passing deeper into the forest, the other veering off toward the lake.

  “Why didn’t I think of that?” said Yipes after they had passed. “He’ll make a fine lookout from up there — if we can keep him from eating his way through the forest.”

  And so it was decided that Murphy would remain in the trees above, scouting our way as we passed through the wood. It was really quite beautiful, surprisingly full of birds and other small creatures that scurried away in the brush. The wood ran along the south side of the lake and at
a certain point I was able to see through the trees and behold the vast expanse of cobalt blue, the mirror image of Mount Laythen shimmering on its surface. It was unlike anything I could have ever imagined seeing in Bridewell.

  For a long while we encountered no other ogres, though Murphy ordered us off the path once when a group of three women passed by in a rickety old cart pulled by a meager-looking horse. I was startled to see other people in the woods, and became newly aware that we were nearing Castalia. I saw the women through the brush, especially the one sitting closest to me on the edge of the cart. She was not pretty, but it seemed as though she might have been once. She appeared tired. Her two companions spoke quietly as they passed, but she remained silent. I rose up in the brush and watched the three dark bonnets on their heads bobbing up and down with the bumps on the trail. Something about the one woman struck me, and I felt as though someone was telling me to remember her face.

  We continued on, and soon a new stench was in the air, just as bad as the smell of ogres, yet different, more like rotting garbage. Murphy scampered down a tree, and we all gathered off the trail once more.

  There were only four words spoken, but they were words that brought a new feeling of alarm.

  “The City of Dogs,” said John, and Armon nodded his agreement.

  CHAPTER 16

  INTO THE CITY OF DOGS

  “Just around the bend and in the clearing,” said Armon, “the forest thins out and the dumping grounds begin. Within them we shall find the wild dogs, their packs grown larger and more violent with the passing of the years.” He paused and sniffed at the air, concentrating, no doubt trying to remember the place as it had been when he had last seen it.