by Simon Archer
“It is like looking on the face of the gods,” Petra added with a reverent tone, her left hand caressing the gilded spiral on her chest. “Much as seeing the fallen Brands is looking into the eyes of a demon.”
“Indeed, dryad.” The headman nodded firmly, and his words were echoed by the people of the village. “And now, to see that not only is Libritas still pure but bonded to an Uplander hero? We now have reason to hope, truly hope that our world will be free once more.”
I took that as a good time to sheath Libritas once more, and not for the first time since I freed her, I wondered how anyone, Dad, Granddad, who knew how many others, managed to keep an even head amidst all this praise and, call a spade a spade, worship.
“Not all of them could,” Lib answered my unspoken question as murmurs through the town square turned into cheers. “I do not know for certain, but I suspect that not all the Black Runes are natives of Etria.”
“That wouldn’t surprise me,” I sent back… and that very bit of knowledge made me set my jaw and steeled my heart. I might not be some chosen one, I might not be the guy who saved this world, but there was one thing I knew I wouldn’t be, and that’s the guy who fell from grace, the guy who turned into the bastards who were enslaving this world. As I cast my gaze over the people here, the varied species that lived in peace together that now looked to me for hope, I took a deep breath and gathered my thoughts.
“Look, everyone,” I began, a bit unsteadily at first, but my words grew firmer and clearer with every second. “I know you’re looking for a hero, a savior, someone to free your entire world, and… I’m just a man. I can’t guarantee any of that, and it’d be wrong of me to promise that.” A few of the villagers seemed to deflate at that, but most still looked at me hopefully.
“But… but!” I shook a finger for emphasis. “I’m damn sure going to try. I haven’t even been here a day, but I’ve seen that things aren’t right in Etria. My father, my grandfather, my entire family, as far as I know, has fought for the people here, and I’m not going to do any less.” My hand went to Libritas on instinct, and I found myself drawing her once more, holding her up over my head. “And whatever happens in the years… cycles… ahead, I’m not going to stop fighting for you.”
“We,” Petra added as she put an arm around my waist, “we will not stop fighting. I am yours, William Tyler, I meant that in every way.”
“Let’s not forget yours truly,” Sir Thorpe chimed in with a chuckle. “You’re not in this alone, dear boy.”
Of course, it was hard to hear Reggie over the tremendous cheer that roared up from the town square. I was taken aback by the response, the outpouring of hope that I saw before me. Honestly, I had never been much of a public speaker, I preferred to do my talking with actions instead of words, but maybe my raw honesty had won them over. Whatever I did, well, it certainly worked because Sullah strode forward and clapped me hard on the shoulder.
“Indeed, as your old companion says, you will not be alone in this quest, Master William,” he roared, as much to the crowd as to me. “All of Kaulda will stand with you!” The cat-man moved beside me, keeping his arm around my shoulder. “Now, friends, come with me, and let us plan our first step into a brighter future!”
10
As Sullah led us to the far side of the village square, the people of Kaulda turned back to the work at hand, the rebuilding of their homes. Still, many of them nodded to us with more than a few added cheers of support. It was a small place, and my words had passed swiftly through the population. I had to be honest, it was heartening to see both the Kauldans’ resilience and this fresh spark of hope that flowed through them.
I just had to make sure to live up to that hope.
Suli rushed ahead of us as we came up to a modest cottage at the edge of the square. The kitten-girl twirled on one heel and bowed to me. “This is our house, mister!” she cried enthusiastically before scampering ahead to slide the door open.
Petra giggled at the girl’s enthusiasm as I cracked a smile. Much like the rest of Kaulda, the Sona house was a mixture of Western Medieval styles with hints of an Asian aesthetic, such as the sliding door that Suli bowed beside. One thing I noticed that I hadn’t during all the excitement earlier was that nothing in the house was made of worked metal. It was a one-story building with a low porch that covered the entire front of the home, and the entire cottage was raised up a foot off the ground, perhaps to allow for potential flooding in wet seasons. Kaulda was in a valley, after all.
Considering the fantastical properties of Etria’s plant life, I supposed that they didn’t necessarily need forged metal to get by.
Sullah was the next up the short flight of steps to the porch as he mimicked his daughter’s bow before clapping his chest in another salute.
“Friends, I bid you welcome to my home,” he began, his deep voice taking on a very measured, almost ceremonial inflection. “As headman of Kaulda, I offer you my best hospitality in gratitude for your noble efforts today.” He stepped out of the way to allow us to enter. “Let the gods heap you with many blessings while under my roof.”
“Thank you, Sullah,” I said as I returned the salute. “We’ll try not to be too intrusive as guests.”
Sir Thorpe and Petra both saluted as well. “Indeed, Master Sona,” Reg added. “Our graciousness as guests will match yours as our esteemed host.”
The headman laughed as his tail twitched. “Well said, my Upland friends. Come! Come! Enter, we shall eat, and I can hopefully help you with your quest.” His mention of eating seemed to be a signal to Suli as the moment he said it, she scrambled off into the house, the pitter-patter of her footpads softly thumping across the wooden floor. A moment later, we followed in her path with me in the lead and Sullah bringing up the rear with Petra.
“While I appreciate your generosity, headman,” the dryad said as we entered a large central room, “if you need any fruits, vegetables, any of the forest’s bounty, I can help.”
“No, no, dear dryad!” The cat-man laughed, a rumbling, purring sound as he shook his head. “At least not for my house. For my people though…” He let out a low rumble as he grew serious. “The granary was burnt, and that would spell doom if not for your arrival…” Sullah’s voice trailed off as he stepped past us all toward the head of a low table surrounded by pillows and cushions in the center of the room. “Come. Sit, and we will talk more.”
The worry on Sullah’s face broke through his smiling demeanor, but instead of pressing him, I did as he asked. As he settled on a large scarlet cushion, I took in the room, curious as to how the people here lived.
Considering that this one chamber was big enough to take up at least a third of the house, I figured it was multi-purpose, a combination entrance hall, dining room, study, everything aside from a kitchen and bedchambers. The floors and walls were all made from polished golden planks of some strange wood, with some kind of smooth mortar paste filling the chinks. The now familiar bronzewood formed the supports, the only relatively unprocessed parts of the structure. I had to wonder how they felled the steely trunks, but I’d ask later.
I settled down onto a fluffy purple pillow and realized it was more of a bean bag as I sank down into it, and the lacquered red wood table mixed with the seating arrangements to make me think there was a Middle Eastern influence as well. Or maybe it was Etria that influenced Earth cultures, it was hard to say for sure. The interior sliding doors were made of some kind of thin, waxy membrane that wasn’t paper, and I could see Suli’s shadow as she worked in another room, back lit by a faint glow. That light made me look up as Reggie and Petra took seats on my right and left. A lantern made of the same waxy material as the doors hung from the apex of the arched roof, its inner glow lighting up the room as something moved inside of it.
“Fire flitters,” Sullah said. I glanced back down to see him smiling across the table from me. “They are insects who thrive in the forests here, and they produce a considerable light when well-treated. Most of us
in Solanna try to live in harmony with the natural forces, and as we use so much wood and plant material, fire is very dangerous, as you saw first-hand.”
“Ah, we have similar insects on Earth,” Reggie mused. When the headman arched a curious eyebrow, he quickly amended, “The Upland, to you, good sir.”
“Yeah,” I began. “Like Reg, I want to learn everything I can about Etria. It’s our new home, after all… but let’s start with the more immediate questions.” I carefully unsheathed Libritas and set her on the table. It just felt more, well, inclusive to have her where she could, well, see the people we were talking to. “Who are these ettercaps that attacked your village, and why did they do it?”
The headman nodded slowly as he leaned forward to rest his elbows on the table and his chin against his clasped hands. “Ah. Straight to the heart of the matter. I can respect your forthrightness, William. We shall speak of this then.”
He sat back and rummaged under the table, and that’s when I noticed there were small cubbies along each side. After a moment, Sullah pulled out a scroll tied tight by a piece of twine before untying it and rolling it out across the tabletop. I didn’t need to know the lay of the land to recognize what was marked on the scroll. It was clearly a map of the region, with Kaulda in the center, rolling plains to all sides before reaching forests to the east, west, and south. The plains grew into foothills and mountains to the north. Various landmarks and places were marked with a runic script that I didn’t recognize, but I immediately saw similarities to the runs on the portal archway, the head of Libritas, and the burned scar Petra had born before we fixed it.
The unusual thing to me was that, while we seemed to immediately understand the new languages we were hearing, the written language didn’t resolve itself into something I could understand. Judging by the curious look Sir Thorpe had on his face, he was having the same issue.
“Do not be worried, friends,” Petra chimed in as she glanced at the two of us. “It will take longer for the magic of the passage to adapt your minds to our written words if what my mother told me is true.” She tapped the southern woods with an outstretched vine. “This is the Treison Woods, as you certainly have guessed.”
Sullah nodded, then pointed towards the western forest. “This is the Tanglethread Forest, where our attackers originated from.” A faint sigh escaped from his lips as his cat ears flattened. “You used their name, champion, so I must assume that either Petra or Libritas told you something of ettercaps?”
“But I haven’t been quite so lucky as to have an enchanted artifact whispering to me,” Reggie cut in with a grin. “Myself, I only know the name and little more.”
“Most of what Lib told me is what’s obvious, Reg,” I supplied for him. “They are spider humanoids with exoskeletons, venomous fangs, and the ability to climb like, well, spiders do. The one thing she had to add past that was that they were cunning, tricky, good with traps, that kind of thing.”
“Which makes me curious as to why they raided these good people so overtly,” Lib pondered in my mind. “Though it is plain that the people of Kaulda love peace, they would no doubt have rallied and defeated such a small number of bandits in time.”
As her form pulsed with every word, all eyes in the room focused on the brand until she returned to her normal soft glow. They must have made the same connection as I had between her light and her speech. Very polite of them.
“So, Lib’s really curious as to the why too,” I translated. “This doesn’t seem to be the kind of fight they’d be good at.”
“Indeed.” Sullah folded his arms over his barrel chest. “These particular ettercaps are part of the Tanglethread tribe, led by one among them called the Weaver. He is the Black Rune you saw.” The cat-man shuddered at the very mention of the cabal’s name. “Though they have never been… good to us, before now, the Weaver was content to leave us mostly unmolested in exchange for…” Sullah’s jaw clenched hard, and I swore I heard his fangs grind together. “... tribute.”
Petra stiffened at those words, and her leafy hair and the vines around her wrists shuddered. “What kind of tribute, headman?” By her painful tone, I think she already knew, and I thought I did too.
Sullah frowned deeply and took a glance over his shoulder. When he saw that his daughter was still busy in the kitchen, he turned back to us, leaning in as he dropped his voice into a low, angry whisper. “Food, mostly… but as with all the Runes, the Weaver demands slaves.”
Libritas growled in my mind as my fists clenched, but I kept my anger in check. As much as my first instinct was to round up a posse and ride out on the Weaver’s trail, I thought immediately to what Libritas had said, that the strength of the ettercaps was in their cunning traps. With that reminder, I pressed a hard sigh through gritted teeth, even as Sir Thorpe made a show of checking his Webley.
“This will not be allowed to stand, Master Sona,” he stated with that utter authority he could muster at the drop of a hat. “However, this makes it even more unusual as to why they would so overtly assault the source of their tribute.”
“It is bait, a lure,” Petra said as her brows knit thoughtfully.
“Totally,” I agreed. I knew Petra had heart, even if she didn’t always believe in herself, but to see she had good sense too made me smile, even in these grim circumstances. “This Weaver guy doesn’t seem like an idiot to me. You said the Black Runes knew the moment I bonded with Libritas, Petra, so let’s think this through. If the Weaver gets the signal and he’s this close, why didn’t he just charge to the Treison?” I pointed to the dryad. “She’s why.”
Reggie didn’t make the connection immediately, but Sullah’s golden eyes lit up. “Ah! Yes! To venture into a dryad’s home forest with ill intent is practically suicide.”
Petra blushed slightly at the indirect praise and nodded. “So attacking here in so… terrible of a way was meant to call out whoever freed Libritas. It would be why the Weaver lingered long enough to be detected before leaving.”
“Devilish,” Reg said with a harrumph. “Using the danger here to cover his retreat, then hoping that we would foolishly hunt him down on his home turf.”
“And yet, my friends, I fear I may have to beg you to do so.” Sullah shook his head sadly. “For what you saw today was but a fraction of the Tanglethread tribe’s forces. The Weaver has a small army of ettercap at his command, and as you said, he is a brilliant fiend. He will not wait in his lair forever.” A low rumbling growl rolled out of his throat. “Once his army is amassed and you have not come, he will simply march upon our village. I… do not need to tell you the implications of that.”
Petra frowned, her eyes half-lidded as she looked down at her lap, while Reggie’s brows knit as he tried to think through the problem. I leaned back myself, folding my arms as I put a hand to my chin.
“Okay,” I murmured. “Okay, folks, let’s break this down. Every problem has a solution. We just need to figure out all our resources, our enemy’s full assets, and then put the pieces together.”
“To be fair, my boy, sometimes that answer is simple capitulation,” Reggie noted with a smirk. “However, I too believe we can do better than that.” He tilted his head to Sullah. “So, Master Sona, what do we have at our disposal?”
The headman looked lost at that as he thought about it. “I… do not know. You must understand, friends, that we of Kaulda are peaceful folk, simple farmers and herdsmen.” He took in a deep breath. “But if we must fight, we are a strong people, used to working with our hands and bodies. If we had someone who could teach us, there is clay to mold into warriors here.”
That’s when Petra suddenly perked up, her emerald eyes passing the table, the map, all of us, and up to the wood-and-thatch roof. “Kaulda itself could be a weapon!” Her gaze snapped down to me with a sheepish grin. “Well, at least to me, it could.”
“Of course,” I said as I returned her grin with a smile. “Sullah, I’m right in thinking that most everything here is made from wood and plant
s?”
Realization touched the cat-man’s eyes, and he began to nod slowly. “Save for some of the leather and glues we gain from herd beasts, it is… which means that our dryad friend here can manipulate it.”
“It also means, perhaps more critically, that dear Petra can create all the supplies we need to fortify the village and make weapons,” Sir Thorpe added. I could already see the gears turning in his head. “As for training your people, well, I not only did a decent stint in Her Majesty’s armed services, I was the one who taught young William here baritsu, a form of martial combat in the Upland. I know my way around fighting with a piece of wood, you could say.”
And that got my own plans gelling… but even with all this new information, I was still doubtful if we could hold out against a real army. I found myself looking at the map again, and my eyes drifted over the plains to all sides, filled with Sola crystals. Petra had mentioned something about how some of the people in Solanna used the crystals as a weapon. The idea of crystal weapons using the power of the twin suns sounded awfully useful right about now.
While I had been thinking, Sullah must have come to a similar conclusion about our chances. “While this is certainly the start of a solution, heroes, I am not sure if it is enough. The Weaver not only has hundreds of ettercaps, but his slave is a fearful monster in battle all on her own. A draconian woman able the summon dragon-fire itself!” He let out a long sigh. “I fear whatever we do may not be enough.”
“There’s got to be a way,” I said firmly as I sat up straight. “What about the Sola fields? I understand that they can be used as weapons of some kind.”
Petra perked up at that as well. “Of course.” She shifted on her cushion towards Sullah. “My mother told me that the northern tribes use them for hunting!”
At that, the headman stiffened, and his ears flattened. “The orcs of the north are savages, many of whom joined foul Uruk’s tribe.” He shook his head firmly. “While we welcome those orcs who turn from those vicious ways, we will not stoop to use them ourselves. We will make do with what we have and have faith in the power of the Brand of Freedom.”
