The Forgotten War

by Howard Sargent

  Thus chivvied, they moved on, Varen having fixed a flaming torch to the bracket at the front of the wagon. Fortunately, the horses were well trained and weren’t spooked by it. Leon sat at the back of the wagon fixing the new arrowheads – that is, when he wasn’t verbally sparring with Rozgon as he marched behind the rest of them.

  After less than an hour they got to the Saddle. It was much larger close up than many of them imagined. It was difficult to tell if it was a natural feature or man-made; Morgan suspected a little of both. Here, if a cross-section of the rock could be taken, it would look a little bit like a horizontal S shape – sheer rock on their left climbing into the clouds, the cloven walkway, maybe ten to twelve feet across, and the bulge of rock to their right, taller than their heads, before the final drop into the gorge below. One thing comforted Morgan, though: whereas a group of bandits could plant traps and lay in ambush for them, a mob of hungry ettins, lacking that subtlety, could only rush them from ahead or behind. He wondered how fast they were – whether they would have time to light up torches or fire off arrows before they were devoured. Camp tonight would be an interesting affair that was certain.

  Once in the Saddle, it warmed up a little bit as there was some shelter from the bitter, freezing wind. The noise they were making – the turning of the cart wheels, the gentle clop-clop-clopping of the horses and the steady trudge of booted feet – rebounded off the walls, amplifying them so that even their breathing seemed abnormally loud. Despite the cold, Morgan found himself sweating and he suddenly noticed how sore his feet felt against the hard rock. Hours passed, with little to break the tedium. When they stopped for a brief lunch he managed to break even playing dice with Rozgon. No birds broke the silence, just the occasional slide of loose rocks down the mountain rattling their way into the gorge.

  ‘What a desolate place,’ said Haelward.

  They had been climbing steadily for some time and weren’t far from the highest point of the pass when something brushed Morgan’s hand. Then his face. Something wet and cold. He looked up into the sky and his worst fears were confirmed. ‘Artorus’s teeth!’ he grimaced under his breath. It was snowing.

  It was not a light shower either; it was settling and the narrow confines of Jeremiah’s Saddle were perfect for it. Morgan stopped and called everyone to him, including Cedric and Willem.

  ‘We are going to have to march through the night,’ he said. ‘Otherwise the snow will trap us in here. In the winter months it can fill this damned Saddle completely. We will have to carry on until we are clear of it; otherwise the wagon will be trapped and the horses will freeze to death.’

  ‘What about these monsters after us?’ asked Samson.

  ‘Well, I have seen neither hide nor hair of them yet. We will march in shifts, one of us taking a break for an hour to lie in the wagon. It will be slow progress but in about six hours from now we should be back on the broad mountain path again and be going downhill, which will be even better. Keep the blankets on the horses and the wheels of the wagon turning. Having to stop to dig us out is the last thing we want.’

  They continued on, as the light left the sky and night closed in. No stars could be seen, smothered as they were by the cloud blanket below them. And still the snow kept falling. It was over a foot deep now and Haelward had borrowed Varen’s mace to clear the snow from in front of the wheels. Morgan used his hands, but even with his thick gauntlets the cold and wet seeped through. Everyone felt thoroughly miserable.

  ‘Everyone needs to stay alert. Varen keep that torch going.’

  As he spoke, wolves started howling some way ahead of them. The sound carried, amplified by the rock, mournful and sad. Then, as if in answer, there came another sound, a deep guttural cry followed by a series of short barks as others joined in. The stillness of the night was shattered by the ever-rising cacophony. If anyone in the company was drifting off, they soon snapped out of it.

  ‘Ready your weapons. Let’s get some torches burning. Samson. Leon, get those arrows ready.’

  Fires were lit and weapons readied. The two archers walked ahead of Rozgon, Morgan and Haelward, who each now carried a flaming torch. Slowly and deliberately they moved forward, breath steaming in the freezing air. The barking continued. Suddenly Haelward gave a hiss. ‘What in the name of Mytha is that?’

  They had thought the mountain side to their left unscaleable, but there must have been the slightest of ridges there, enough for a skilled creature to get a foothold, for coming towards them and some thirty feet above them was such a creature. It was white, bear-like and shaggy, and was traversing the mountain side using powerful forearms tipped with pitchfork-sized claws while gripping on to the nearly sheer surface with its broad toes. It glared at them with large black eyes, each seemingly bereft of an iris, and opened its mouth to bark at them, thereby displaying its brutal yellow fangs dripping with saliva. It gave out a cry that froze their marrow. Then on the path ahead they could see other white shapes, much more distant but definitely loping towards them, four or five at least. The horses started rearing in terror. The snow kept falling. Rozgon felt his axe blade and roared back at them.

  ‘Come on, you bastards. Time to taste some Tanaren steel!’

  18

  The island was ringed with stakes and fire. Every ten paces stood a man holding a spear and carrying a bow. It was a still, breathless sort of night, muting even the birds, though clouds of midges still took their time to torment its inhabitants. At the centre of the island under a hastily constructed shelter were the womenfolk who were employed with the nigh-on impossible task of getting dozens of excited children to sleep. The goats were tethered next to them, along with the villagers’ most precious possessions, and next to all that sat the Circle of the Wise and its leader, Dumnekavax, who sat cross-legged opposite them flanked by two posts on which skulls had been placed. Before him was a bowl sitting over a fire, its contents acrid and steaming. Dumnekavax spoke to his companions.

  ‘It has been decided following what has happened lately and the apparent anger of the spirits that I shall walk with them tonight to try and determine their intentions and ask the best way to propitiate them. The path is dangerous, and only I and my appointed second may walk it. If I do not return, Mutreverak will become your Elder and my head should be prepared so that it can join my predecessors in the great house.’

  Having spoken, he took the bowl in front of him and put the hot bitter liquid to his lips. The other members of the Circle watched him intently. Suddenly he gasped and fell backwards on to the soft ground, his eyes wide, staring blindly at nothing.

  He was a great white hawk swooping over the marshes. Its rivers far below ran like liquid silver, running into each other, slicing the soft land into a mosaic of tiny islands. He flew higher, then higher again, as the carpet of stars grew nearer and nearer, their light cutting into the back of his eyes. Then he saw it, the river of night, invisible from the ground but now here before him, a blackness within a blackness, a void stretching into an infinite maelstrom of nothing.

  Now he changed. He was a fish. A majestic pike powering his way through the Great River back down towards the underworld. The Earth below him grew again; he recognised the village but he did not go there. Instead, he plunged into the dark eye of the sacred lake and went deeper and deeper until the light of the moon was extinguished. As he looked around he saw other ghostly white presences, He passed Fasneterax’s little boy, who turned and smiled at him. He saw many other spirits there, people half remembered or long forgotten – all were smiling and happy. Then he saw his father, who embraced him, and his mother, who took his hand and spoke in her soft voice, one he still heard in his dreams. ‘Come, my son. I shall take you to Ukka.’ Still further they went. The void was black but not cold. He held his mother’s hand and stared ahead. And then he realised that Ukka was now before him. The spirit could be either male or female; Ukka alone chose which form he or she took. Tonight she was female, standing proudly before him, impossibly tall, seve
re yet kind, with eyes that beheld him with both compassion and indifference. As with all the spirits she was not there to protect man, but rather to ensure balance and harmony in all things. In order to obtain her benison, a price had to be paid. She spoke to him, her voice deep and sonorous.

  ‘Dumnekavax of the Black Lake, you come before me again. Do you think we spirits have the time to listen to you and your petty concerns? Know you this: I will allow you one question only. Ask and return to your people, but understand I already have your spirit in one hand – maybe shortly I will have it in both.’

  Dumnekavax prostrated himself. ‘Oh Ukka, mighty and illustrious goddess of the underworld, I beseech you to make me understand why your children the Malaac have been unleashed upon us. What supplication do you require to call them home to the Lake of the Eye and ensure that they do not leave again to make war on us?’

  ‘You misunderstand the Malaac as you misunderstand me. They are spirits of anger doomed forever to swim the Lake of the Eye. But there has been a great and terrible disturbance in your world. A new power has been unleashed there which even the Malaac cannot withstand and so they have broken free and must terrify those who summoned this power forth. Your kind have dabbled in things you do not understand and broken the covenant with the spirits. Your punishment is self-inflicted and must be borne as such. However, if you wish your village to be spared, your case must be made before me. Send me an emissary, young fit and strong. Let him deal with me directly and, if your case is good and just, the tide of the Malaac may avoid you as I will it. Go back to your village and tell them this and I shall await the response of your people. Go.’

  Mist formed before Dumnekavax’s eyes. He could no longer see the spirits around him. He called for his mother, his father, but received only a stony silence. All around him the light grew ever stronger until finally the mists began to disperse...

  Suddenly he was back. He stared comprehending nothing for a moment, his mind a blank. Then, slowly, his mind returned to him. Above him was a pale sky flecked with light cloud. Closer and looking down at him were faces of men, beards shot with grey, concern in all their eyes. He realised he was on his back. Slowly he sat up and then the other men helped him to his feet.

  ‘Are you all right, Elder?’ said one of them. ‘You were travelling the path all night.’

  ‘I am fine, Mutreverak. And furthermore I now know exactly what we must do.’

  The four of them stood on the jetty, looking intently at the river and trying to count shadows.

  ‘There, there’s another one, there,’ said Cerren, pointing at a patch of water where a tell-tale patch of darkness briefly appeared.

  ‘How many does that make now? ‘ said the ever-grim Fasneterax.

  ‘At least five, maybe seven,’ said Tegavenek ‘They are waiting for us to take the boat out.’

  ‘So they can tip it over.’ Cygan gripped his spear.

  ‘We are stuck here with nowhere to go then,’ said Cerren. ‘Where do these woods lead?’

  ‘It is bounded by water on all sides,’ said Tegavenek. ‘We could find its centre and stay there, but sooner or later we will have to venture out. These creatures may be patient, may just wait for us.’

  ‘Then we have to drive them off,’ said Cygan. ‘We have no choice.’

  ‘And how exactly do we achieve that?’ Fasneterax said. ‘Grow some gills?’

  ‘No, at night they come on to land; we lure them up here and kill enough of them to make them think again. Let us bring the boat down here; it has our equipment. There will be things there that can help us.’

  They followed his suggestion and half carried, half dragged the boat until it stood some ten feet from the dwellings. Cygan then reached in and pulled out the vessel containing the black substance he prepared before they left.

  ‘Coat your spears and arrowheads with this,’ he said. ‘It doesn’t work quickly but if they are in water when it starts to work it could well drown them.’

  ‘We need a position we can defend,’ said Tegavenek. ‘Somewhere they cannot get round and flank us.’

  ‘Unless we dig a ditch and surround it with stakes the best place to defend would be one of the houses. We block off the rear entrance, so they can only come at us through the roof or a window. They will have to tear down the rear screen or a wall, which should give us enough time to pepper them with arrows.’

  ‘But surely then we are inviting them to swarm us,’ said Cerren.

  ‘If you have a better suggestion, I will happily hear it,’ said Tegavenek.

  Cygan smiled at the young man. ‘It is time to prove yourself as a warrior, my friend. In this house we can at least guard each other’s backs and in a confined space it will restrict the numbers that can attack us at once. Hopefully, if we kill or wound a couple of them, the others will run off.’

  ‘Vengefarak said they attacked many times during the night,’ said Fasneterax. ‘I doubt they will be put off that easily.’

  ‘All the more reason to prepare our defences now,’ said the elder. ‘We can sleep in shifts until nightfall. None of us will sleep when the sun goes down.’

  And this is what they did. They fixed the screen to the rear of the house, tying it securely. It was still the most vulnerable part of the defences; a clawed hand could tear through it fairly quickly, but not before an arrow could find its mark. They then set to poisoning their weapons and eating some of their rations. Cerren settled down to try to sleep and the others sat on the floor and busied themselves with their own thoughts. Fasneterax was checking the tension on his bow; Cygan watched him absently for a while, then decided to ask him, Why did you want to come out with us? Why not stay with Shettevellanda?’

  ‘I would be no help to her now. The womenfolk know how to comfort her far better than I could. Your lady has been one of the kindest to her. I will not forget that.’

  ‘Dying out here won’t help her either. Not that we knew about the night devils before we left.’

  ‘She would find another man. The tribe looks after its own. Besides, the same could be said about you.’

  ‘You have me there!’ said Cygan. ‘Although you volunteered for this, whereas I was nominated by the Elder. It has worked out well for us here, though; there is no doughtier warrior in the tribe.’

  ‘We go back some years, do we not? It will be like fighting off the Sand Warriors again. Maybe we will reap another harvest of enemy heads. Remember them piled high in the great house waiting to be boiled down and stripped of flesh.’

  ‘I remember the smell. It was a hot summer. It was good to defend the village. They did many terrible things to other tribes. There was no room for mercy in that final battle.’

  ‘It was another example of outsiders thinking they could enslave the barbarians of the marsh only to end up skewered on our spears.’ Fasneterax sounded grimly satisfied. ‘Maybe one day they will learn.’

  ‘I doubt that,’ Cygan said. ‘One thing my contact with people outside the marsh has taught me is that they always see war as a reasonable option when they can’t lie or cheat to get what they want.’

  Tegavenek interrupted: ‘You have such a low opinion of the dry landers.’

  ‘I do, yes. To be fair, I have only met and dealt with traders. Maybe I would think differently if I met others of their kind. But that is not likely to happen soon.’

  Fasneterax looked at Tegavenek. ‘If we drive off the Malaac tonight and the river seems clear, what do we do then? None of the Twin Snake are here, do we mount a search for them, or do we just return home?’

  ‘These are just outlying settlements, most of the Twin Snake tribe live on a river fork, half a day’s journey away, but with the river full of these creatures it will be nigh on impossible to get to them. Our instructions from the elder were to visit the Twin Snake to find out why they did not arrive at mediation talks with him. We now almost certainly know the reason. We are not enough to free their village on our own, so to continue up this river seems pointless. We
were then told to visit the Jagged Hill to aid Vengefarak and the people there. We should still do this if we can.’

  ‘According to Vengefarak, these creatures can tip over our boats and drown us. We should spend as little time on the water as possible.’

  ‘This is true,’ Tegavenek said, ‘but remember he was talking about a single man in a round boat on a large open stretch of water, not four men in a larger boat on a river. I may be wrong but that may not be typical behaviour for them. Perhaps they were driven by hunger or something else making them equally desperate. Everything is speculation with these creatures. Why did they leave their home lake? What has driven them to attack us? Are they controlled by an individual or is their behaviour completely random? All of these questions need to be answered if we are to fight back against them.’

  ‘It is important you get back to the Elder with news of the events that have happened here,’ said Cygan. ‘We will take you to the Jagged Hill if we can, but your safety has to be a priority now.’

  ‘Nonsense,’ said Tegavenek. ‘Any of us can talk to the Elder; we have all seen the same things. No one of us is more important than the other. Besides, as far as he is concerned, you are already the main contender for the next addition to the Circle. You would be a grievous loss to the tribe.’

  ‘I am surely too young. There are older more deserving people for that honour.’

  ‘Dumnekavax holds great store in your knowledge of outsiders and the skills you have earned as a diplomat. The Taneren are not going to go away and to be able to deal with them may be important to the tribe’s future.’

  Cygan looked doubtful. ‘All that I care about is providing for my family. Nothing else is as important as that.’

  ‘Undoubtedly, but remember duty and responsibility can find you even when unlooked for.’

  The sun outside was starting its descent; they all sat and waited listening to the sound of rushing water and wind sighing in the trees. Across the river the crows had settled in one particular tree and their harsh calling could be heard constantly. Tegavenek and Fasneterax were sleeping uneasily. Cerren was awake, with one eye looking out of the building’s one narrow square window, which faced the river.