by Allan Joyal
My leap and the reaction of the creatures allowed me to reach out with the spear. Unfortunately, my aim was off, and rather than striking the creature in the head the blade of my spear caught it in the left shoulder.
The spear had twisted in my hand so it was the flat of the blade that struck the creature. It collapsed to the ground. Some of the creatures in the front room started to move toward me. I swept the spear to the right, trying to knock the creatures back.
The creatures were scattered by the shaft of the spear. I had swung it about thirty degrees when the blade caught the face of one of the creatures. It was nearly torn from my hands as the creature collapsed backwards with a high-pitched shriek of pain.
The fall of their leader, followed by the shriek of the one I wounded appeared to panic the rest of the creatures. They scattered away from me. Many ran back to their building, and a couple of arrows flew out of upper story windows of the ruin.
I trotted after the creatures, taking care to stay away from the flight of arrows. The range of the creatures’ bows was poor, and the arrows fell far short of the road.
“Move!” Hencktor shouted from behind me. “Ron has opened a path.”
I slowed down and stepped forward so I was not blocking the path to the road. I kept my spear aimed at the door to the building. Several of the creatures stood in the doorway and shook spears or clubs at me, but none attempted to rush me. There was a commotion inside, and it appeared more important than watching the caravan.
Lydia jogged up behind me. “Should I shoot one?” she asked.
“No,” I said. “They appear to be completely cowed. There is a saying that a cornered rat can be dangerous. Right now they are frightened. If we make that building appear unsafe, they’ll feel cornered and come out fighting.”
Lydia grunted. “At least you cleared a path. That was impressive and stupid. You are so going to pay for that.”
“Oh?” I said as Shaylin and Cimbra charged up. Shaylin ran directly at me. She barely slowed as she ran up and then slapped my cheek.
“You could have died!” the young girl shrieked. “And you didn’t let me use my magic.”
I glanced at Cimbra. The dark elf never put her hood up anymore, and her white hair flowed down her back. The creatures in the doorway hooted as she stood next to me. “She does know a spell that shots out magic darts. Against these kobolds it would have been effective.”
“Kobolds?” I asked.
Cimbra shrugged. “It’s a somewhat generic term used in the Underworld. There are several small humanoids that are given that name. These creatures are a type I’ve never seen before, but they are no stronger.”
The hooting became louder. The carts were passing me, but I kept my eyes on the doorway. At first I thought the creatures might do something, but they backed away from the doorway, vanishing behind the walls.
I glanced to my right to see how much of the caravan still had to pass and saw that the second group of sheep was passing by. “Who’s with Jeff?” I asked Lydia.
“Hencktor was up there, and I think Corwar ran forward. He’s not the best with a sling, but he can use it until I catch up,” Lydia said.
“Go,” I commanded. “I think the danger here is passed, but I’ll wait for Krysbain. I want to hear how things were in the back.”
“Not too bad,” Aine said as she ran up. “There were less than a dozen, and they vanished right after Piemal and Dafalia used their slings. I think most of it was Krysbain’s sword. They really appeared to fear his sword.”
“Good,” I said.
“Where did they come from?” Aine asked.
“I’m guessing they are descendants of those that were left behind after the fall of the Empire. Remember we heard that after the wizard’s had already caused untold damage, a horde of orcs and other creatures descended on the shattered remnants. It makes some sense that a few creatures made homes here,” I said.
“But they aren’t orcs,” Aine pointed out.
I pointed at the forest we had just walked through. “Ah, but these creatures are small. I expect that they survive on the fruit and perhaps small animals and birds they catch in the forest. But can Orcs survive on fruit?”
“They can’t,” Krysbain said as he joined us. I looked to my right to see that he was the last person in the caravan. I turned to follow the other carts. As we did I nodded to Krysbain.
He shrugged. “I have never seen creatures like this before, but they likely were one of the servant races that followed the Orcs. There are tales in the taverns of Saraloncto that the horde that swept humanity from the plains included more than twenty different races. Orcs were simply the most numerous of the fighting races. At least half were too small or cowardly to fight.”
“This race appears to be both,” I said. “But that doesn’t mean they won’t try something tonight.”
Cimbra giggled. It was an amazingly musical sound from the usually silent woman. “They won’t come after us. They definitely recognized what I am.”
“A woman in love who has found a family and friends who care deeply for her?” I said playfully.
Cimbra actually giggled louder. “No. They saw my hair and skin and realized that I’m a dark elf.”
“How would that help?” Krysbain asked. “And how could they know?”
Cimbra sighed. “Dark elves don’t exactly own the caverns under the continent, but they are one of the more powerful races. And they definitely are one of the cruelest. I’ve told Ron a few details of my education. What I have not talked about is some of the history we are taught. I now know that it’s not an accurate history as it glorifies the cruelties my people have inflicted on other races. Yet, even if it’s only partially accurate, we would definitely appear in tales to scare children for many of the races that share the caverns.”
“And part of those tales would note that your people see well in the dark,” I said with a nod. “Which should keep those kobolds from trying to follow us.”
“We can hope,” Krysbain said. “And you should return to the lead. I’ll watch the back trail. I agree with you that they won’t follow openly, but depending on the personality of the new leader, they might try to track us.”
I held out my right hand in a fist. Krysbain paused for a moment and then shifted his sword to his left hand. He formed his right hand into a fist and I bumped it with my knuckles. “Good hunting,” I said.
Krysbain nodded. “Find us a safe campsite.”
Chapter 24: Awed Natives
I had to jog to pass the carts and herds. I noticed that the herds were being kept to the road. As I passed the cattle, I nodded to Gertrilla. “We lose any?” I asked.
“Not one,” Gertrilla said with a bit of pride. “But we also have Esme, Lenoir, Mary, and even Joelia helping. The animals are probably going to need fodder tonight. They haven’t been able to graze since we crossed the bridge.”
I looked at the landscape. We were passing one final crumbled ruin and entering an area of barren rock. It reminded me a bit of the landscape one could find in the Southwest deserts of the United States.
“Fodder and water,” I said. “And this landscape is going to allow others to sneak up. This is not good.”
Gertrilla nodded. “At least the animals got to drink earlier. None of them should cause trouble over that today.”
I waved and resumed my job. Cimbra was keeping pace with me as I passed the other carts. I noticed that each wagon and cart had two people driving it. They waved to me as I passed, but no one shouted. I worried about this until I caught up to the lead wagon. Amalya was still operating it, but had been joined by Konstanzia. The handmaid gave me a very frightened nod as I slowed down to walk by them.
“Are we safe?” Konstanzia asked.
“We can hope,” I said. “But we’ll have to be vigilant.”
The woman nodded sadly. I looked up at the sky and realized that the sun was getting close to the horizon. I sighed.
Corwar ran back to join me
. “Hencktor was wondering if we should be hunting for a campsite.”
“I’m going to talk to him,” I said. “It’s a bit early, and we are too close to the ruin, but we will need to be alert.”
I waved to Amalya and Konstanzia and then jogged to catch up to Hencktor. The young man was walking about fifty feet ahead of the first cart. He was staying on the road. His head swung from side to side as he looked for any movement in the rocks.
The man jumped and then spun in place when I was about ten feet from him. He raised the axe he was holding. I stopped moving and waited. The man blinked a few times and then relaxed.
“Sorry. I guess I’m a bit jumpy today. I never thought we’d run into creatures like that. What were those?”
“My parents would have called them kobolds,” Cimbra said from just behind me.
It was my turn to jump and spin around. I had recognized the voice so I did not ready my spear to strike, but it took me several minutes to get my heart to slow down. Cimbra just smirked at me.
“I will just call them trouble,” I said. “Hencktor, we need to put some distance on them and then find a good campsite. I think we need to look into consolidating the goods a bit.”
Hencktor laughed. “Gerit mentioned that last night. “He thinks the rickety cart can be fully emptied. But do we really want to abandon it?”
“No,” I said. “We’ll keep it, but just load it with items we can lose and then some things we find that can make it look full. We move it to the tail of the caravan, and we can abandon it to pursuers. It might not work, but if they stop to look, we’ll have more time to escape.”
Hencktor nodded. “That makes sense, and should work. Like with those creatures. They retreated quickly once we showed we were willing to fight.”
The big man looked confused. “They outnumbered us though. Why didn’t they attack.”
“Henck, they were a lot smaller than we are. We had a huge advantage in reach and our weapons were metal. Other than the one helmet, the creatures were using stone and wood. They knew that they could overwhelm us with numbers, but many would die. They weren’t willing to fight because of that,” I pointed out.
Hencktor laughed. “That’s why we follow you. You notice things like that.”
“One day I’ll miss something, and then you’ll all blame me,” I said worriedly. I was watching the area around the road. We seemed to be heading down some kind of old riverbed. We were in a narrow canyon lined by high sandstone walls. Occasionally there would be a side canyon branching off. The path was sloping upward as we continued to march to the east.
“What could you miss?” Hencktor asked.
“Where this road leads,” I snapped. “It’s nice and we are making better time than we were in the mud, but where does it lead? We don’t have anyone out to scout for us, which means that we are traveling blind. We don’t even have a map. This is exceedingly dangerous. We know there are other humanoids out here, and not all will be pushovers like those kobolds were.”
“We’ll get through,” Hencktor said confidently. “You know how to get us past any obstacle.”
I heard a musical giggle from my right and turned to look. Heather and Cimbra were walking just behind me. Heather had a smirk on her face as the two women gazed back at me. “What?” I said testily.
“Oh, just listening to you rant,” Heather said. “And talking about how we’ll relax you tonight.”
“Heather,” I said with a growl. “We aren’t in a safe place. Games might get people killed.”
“Lover, I was talking to Cimbra while once you got the caravan moving again,” Heather said. “She tells me that if there was a more dangerous race nearby they would have enslaved the creatures we just ran into.”
I glanced over at Cimbra. The dark elf nodded. She was frowning. “I hate to talk about how things were where I grew up, but I saw how it worked for the more violent races of Jord. A band of kobolds like that would be expected to be servants for a more powerful tribe. They would carry goods, scavenge battlefields for loot, and feed their masters. Sometimes they were the food.”
“Sorry, I don’t need to feel Montezuma’s revenge,” I said absently.
Cimbra cocked her head. “I almost understood that,” she observed.
Heather shook her head. “Don’t ask.”
Cimbra shrugged. “You realize that we are speaking a language I don’t recognize.”
“What?” I snapped. Immediately I realized I had responded in English. I looked over at Heather, and she appeared to have the same reaction and realization.
“How?” she asked.
“I’ve heard tales it can happen,” Cimbra said calmly. “If I wasn’t already convinced that you are not from Jord, this would prove it. The magic that brought you here probably gave you the ability to speak the common language of the plains. And at first, things were fine. But you came from another reality and that reality can assert itself. In this case, we have been just a small band wandering the plains far from any other human. Your reality pushed your language on the rest of us.”
“Will it revert?” Heather asked. “And what if we once again encounter people? From what we could tell English is completely unknown. We might as well be speaking Chinese.”
“I’m guessing that Chinese is a language from your home,” Cimbra said. “I knew several languages before this happened, so I can help there. Shaylin will also end up learning more than one language. I expect that she’ll learn a spell to allow others to comprehend languages as well. But you are right; it could be a problem, although a native of Jord can still understand their birth tongue with effort.”
“Wow,” I said. “I never thought about that. Although it might help with creating books and such. I’d love to write down all we know once we find a home. It could be valuable in the future.”
“You read?” Cimbra asked.
“All of us can,” I said. “Aine might not be great at it, I’ve never asked, but I’m sure the others can read. It’s a requirement if you want to work at any good job.”
“Wow,” Cimbra said. “I can read some, but that was so I could learn what little magic I can use. I knew you had Victoria organizing some reading classes for all of the children, but never understood why. Most will never see a book other than the ones Shaylin carries, and those would be dangerous.”
“Someday we’ll have a lot of wisdom written down. When our ancestors figured out a way to produce books quickly and accurately, it became possible to gather huge amounts of knowledge and distribute it to anyone capable of reading. It’s a huge reason we were able to live the way we do,” I said.
Heather looked at me. “How so?”
“Think about it. Right now if someone in say Saraloncto discovers a new way to pump water from the river to irrigate his fields, the knowledge will only be transferred by showing this to craftsmen who would hopefully travel to new places and make new pumps. However, you can write down a complete set of instructions and simply provide the instructions to someone who can read. It’s light and allows anyone who can read to work on a new pump. That means you don’t have to worry about someone dying and taking their knowledge with them,” I said.
“Does that happen?” Heather asked.
“There was a substance called Greek fire. It was used quite effectively for years, but the formula was lost. Even in our time no one was absolutely sure how to make it,” I said. “Think about the Pyramids of Egypt. They were built in a time before writing everything down was common. To this day we only have speculation about how those massive structures were built.”
Cimbra looked a little confused. “I don’t recognize the names. I’m guessing they come from your world.”
I nodded. “Another example would be this road. We saw nothing like this when we were crossing the plains in our travel from Linktrum to Saraloncto. The only smooth stone we saw was when the dwarves led us through their tunnels.”
“Wow,” Heather said. “When you point that out, it’s obvious. T
his road has been a massive improvement over the wagon and cart trails we followed from Purahomp to Saraloncto. But they don’t use them there.”
“Probably because of the constant fighting, but also because they have forgotten about them,” I said with a nod.
Heather shivered. “Ron, will we always be looking at such a dark future? I mean even if we find a home, we have to build a place to live, plant crops, farm, make tools, and prosper. I don’t want my children growing up never having a chance to play or explore.”
Cimbra giggled. “You shouldn’t fear. I haven’t seen all the tools you have. Back when the carts were loaded, I was still lost to my own misery and expected to be raped at any moment. But I’ve paid attention. Your friend Natalie has some surprising insights into farming. Even Lenoir and Joelia admit that, and both of those women lived on farms. Joelia even admitted that some of what Natalie is telling her are things she wishes she could tell her father. She thinks it will increase the yields dramatically.”
“And with more food, we’ll be able to work on the rest,” I said.
“What about tools?” Heather asked.
I glanced over at Heather and noticed she had a hand on her stomach. “Heather,” I said cautiously. “Are you hinting?”
Heather nodded sorrowfully. “I know there is no way to be sure, but I’m late.”
I reached out and grabbed my lover. She froze as I swept her up in a hug and then spun both of us around. “That’s wonderful!” I said enthusiastically.
“But Ron!” Heather moaned.
“No,” I said. “No worries are allowed. We will be cheerful. There is a plan, and it’s going to work. I’ll make it work.”
Heather snorted. “Or you’ll what? Die trying? Ron, my heart stopped when you charged those things alone. They could have killed you!”
I laughed. “They had wooden sticks and a few had spears that were tipped with what looked like stone. They were also about three feet tall. It was like taking on an elementary school class. They didn’t want to fight us.”
