The Great Hearts II: A Game of Gods

by David Oliver

  I stared at him blankly, my brain struggling to process what he was telling me. Eventually I realised he had stopped talking and was waiting for a reaction. “Cassius,” I began, “to the best of your recollection, have I ever met a troll before, or anything that resembled that creature?”

  He shook his head firmly.

  “And to the best of mine, you haven’t either,” I continued. “I’m fairly certain a run in with something like that is something that we would have told each other. So we’ve either met it before and lost our memories, met something like it that makes us think it is familiar, or met it when it didn’t look that way.”

  “For the second one,” Cassius added in thoughtfully. “That would suggest that it’s just a very helpful and friendly troll that decided not to kill us because we think it is somehow familiar.”

  “Doesn’t exactly sound realistic, I know,” I replied. “But none of this does. Considering what happened to us earlier, I’m having a hard time believing that this is real and isn’t all some extended figment of my imagination at this point.”

  “Me too,” said Cassius, “but we have to work on the basis that it is real for the time being. So unless something glaringly obvious happens that makes us realise that this is all some illusion or dream then that leaves us with option one or three; lost memories or a change of face.”

  “Well, I’m not sure that we are going to find the answer by ourselves,” I replied with a yawn. “Maybe the others had some spark of inspiration or understanding that we didn’t.” Ignoring Cassius’s shaking head I continued, “And if they didn’t then I think we’re just going to have to treat it as a strange unknown, something that can’t be explained until the world, fate or whatever god is watching over us decides that it can be.”

  “So just ignore it?” Cassius asked. “Forget about the strange creature that assisted us? What if,” he dropped his voice, “what if it is another Great Heart?”

  “A Great Heart troll?” I said sceptically. “From what little Korthan told me about known Great Hearts, I would doubt it. I would also imagine it would have a smarter way of communicating with us than eviscerating countless spiders in various disturbing ways. But then again, I could be wrong.” I held up my hand to forestall Cassius’s reply, “Even if it is a Great Heart, what then? It hasn’t bonded with anyone it came into contact with otherwise we would be having a much more intelligent conversation with it in this room. As such I don’t think we can do anything about it at this point except remark upon it when we get back to the Academy.”

  Cassius pulled a face. “I hate leaving mysteries unanswered!”

  That got a laugh out of me. “I’m pretty sure you’re usually the one giving me this talk!” I said with a grin. “You’re the sensible one and I’m the hare-brained schemer remember?”

  He looked at me with a bemused expression. “I’m not sure any of us can be called ‘sensible’ Calidan. I doubt anyone who decides to be an Imperator can justifiably be called that.”

  “And yet you manage it,” I retorted. “Good job!”

  A snort. “Prick.”

  After an amused chuckle I turned back to work. “Have we talked about the potential for another route to the land of the Hrudan, or the possibility that the Hrudan couldn’t retreat with Jadira?”

  He nodded. “They have scouts out looking but nothing yet. They’re keeping a set of eyes on the pass in case the spiders come out looking for vengeance or if the Hrudan have some method of getting through that blockage, but in my view they aren’t getting through that without some pretty heavy equipment. In my view, if the Meredothians get hit hard again then the Hrudan have to have another pass available.”

  I rubbed my temples to try and clear some of the drug addled haze that the doctor largely kept me in. “How large is the area that we’re in?” I asked finally. “The Meredothians think that the Hrudan can only come in via the pass, which makes me think that we’re in some kind of plateau or valley?”

  “You’re in the Meredothian heartland,” Jadira said as she pushed her way through the door hangings and into the room. “The mountains on the northern and eastern sides are seen as largely impassable, hence why the pass is so important.”

  I tilted my head at her. “Jadira, good to see you.”

  She nodded back at me. “And you, young one. It seems like your trek into the pass made for more mysteries than sense. The spiders haven’t been that active in years. I apologise for sending you and yours into that nightmare.”

  I regarded her for a moment, noting her undisturbed heartbeat and her slow breathing - either she was a remarkable liar or she hadn’t known that the pass was a death trap. “You couldn’t have known,” I replied warmly. “Just give Rikol a few pints to cheer him up. Being filled with spider poison can’t have been much fun.”

  “There’s a few waiting for him when he is up and about,” she confirmed, giving a toothy smile. “Good thing you had some of those antivenom supplies, else he might not have made it judging by the amount of venom in his blood. It was damn near black!”

  “He’s tougher than he looks,” I answered with a wry smile, “and has a habit of surviving dangerous situations, though I’m sure he would rather do it without getting injured at all. You mentioned being in the heartland, how large an area are we talking?”

  Jadira pursed her lips for a moment, calculating. “We’re up against the eastern mountains here as you know. If I wanted to get to the far edge of Meredothian land in the west during summer then I would say roughly five weeks of hard walking, though the heartland truly ends about four weeks in, everything past that point is barren and hard to live in. The northern range is a six day walk from here, to go south from there would require you to be walking for around two weeks to get to the furthest edge of the heartland.”

  I did some rough calculations in my head and my eyes widened, “That’s a large chunk of land the Meredothians have, how come I haven’t heard much about your country before?”

  Jadira shrugged. “We tend to keep ourselves to ourselves. Outsiders tend to be a pest, like the Hrudan or trolls. The heartland keeps us sustained well enough and what little we do require from external sources we trade for, but in small numbers. Your Emperor is certainly aware of who we are, our numbers and size, after all, he sent you to us.”

  “I’m still not positive that we are the people you requested...” I began, but Jadira snorted and shook her head.

  “You arrive from nowhere and save our town from attack, you offer support and go hunting for Hrudan, and you’re from the Empire. Sounds like what I asked for from my end.” Her eyes crinkled with humour, “Whether or not you knew that you were meant to do those things is another matter entirely. I’ll let you take that up with your Emperor when you get back to him.”

  Cassius snorted and shrugged at me. “You never know, she might be right,” he said. “This could all be some part of our training. In fact I would argue it is more than likely - at the very least I doubt the Academy has just up and lost its students. That said, at this point does it even matter why or how we are here? We should help these people where we can and then head back to the Empire.”

  “You’re right,” I said softly, causing Cassius to take a step back in amazement.

  “I’m...I’m right?”

  I gave him a sardonic look. “Yes, you’re right and you know it. Stop being an ass.”

  He put a hand to his head and feigned a swoon. “This must be the drugs talking. Calidan agreeing with me? This happens so rarely I had forgotten what it felt like. Pure, sweet, unadulterated bliss.”

  I sighed and gave an apologetic glance to Jadira. “He will go on like this for a while. For some reason he likes to think I don’t listen to what he says.” Ignoring his outraged spluttering I carried on. “If you could start putting together supplies for a journey, we would be happy to assist in locating these Hrudan once every member of the team is up and about. In the meantime, if you have any maps of the local area, please bring the
m so that Cassius and I can have a look.”

  Jadira nodded and stood up, poking her head out of the fabric door to the room for a moment and then turning back. “I had a feeling you might want to look at those maps, but Ella, Scythe and Sophia have already stolen most of them. The doctor said you would be seemingly fine with multiple visitors from now on, so you can tap them for sources of information. I’ll see you later.” With that she walked out of the room but held back the curtain as three of my favourite people entered.

  Ella had a ring of bruises and mild lacerations down her right arm, yet the smile on her face suggested she wasn’t too hurt. Waving, she came in, giving me a punch on the shoulder and sitting next to Cassius. Sophia looked as radiant as ever, cuts and bruises notwithstanding. She gave me a kiss on the cheek then stepped back to make way for Scythe who, using a crutch to support his injured leg moved to my bed and did the same thing...just directly on the mouth. My protestations were ignored to peals of laughter and soon we were chatting animatedly amongst ourselves, the maps of the surrounding area forgotten whilst we basked in each other's company.

  It took three more days before Rikol awoke; the spider venom coursing through his veins thoroughly ravaged his body even with the antivenom that Jadira had given us. We were all overjoyed to see him awake and for the pallor of his skin to slowly be returning to its normal hue. It was a good thing he took a while to recover as it meant Scythe wasn’t needed to be up and about – his ankle was a serious mess, a swollen foot attached to an even more swollen ankle and I was happy that he had decided to listen to reason and stay behind during our foray to the caves. A lot of people tend to think that courage is not listening to your body despite any issues you might have and pushing through the pain. In some cases I agree - you push yourself for competitions, you push yourself to be the best, and that is far truer at the Academy than anywhere else I’ve come across - however when you’re out in the field and your friends’ lives on the line, you have to listen to your body. It takes courage to understand when you’re not fit enough to do the tasks required. Thus it was with great joy when Scythe was finally able to put down the crutches and gingerly start exercising his ankle and foot.

  All in all we were a bit of a mess.

  As soon as Rikol awoke we surrounded him with hugs, tears and laughter, yet in the quieter moments that dark side that I had seen in the forest still came to the fore. He was no longer the kind and witty, yet sometimes cutting joker. He was very much a cynical sardonic man whose wit could cut to the bone. Obviously we were very much alike. Doubtless being poisoned by a giant spider didn’t help one’s humour very much. And he wasn’t that overjoyed to learn that there had been a lot more of the spiders within the caverns.

  “Why is it always monsters with Imperators?” he sighed exasperatedly. “Why not more fighting with humans, humans I can deal with.”

  “Nature of the beast, I imagine,” said Scythe. “There aren’t that many humans that are of the same threat as the beasts that can be encountered in the world.”

  “I wouldn’t be too surprised to find that the empire and the Emperor use more traditional methods of hunting humans,” Ella added. “Why go through all the trouble of training Imperators for threats normal people can handle? They leave things like the little spiders to us.”

  Rikol’s face was like stone. “Little? A little spider?” He grimaced. “If that was little I hate to see what you fought down in the cavern.”

  “Maybe we should go down there and show you…” Sophia said smoothly with a mocking grin, but judging by the pale look on his face we knew that Rikol would never go to those caverns again…and rightly so. Through a mixture of Sophia’s effortless social grace and Scythe’s rude charm the subject was swiftly changed to safer topics, first and foremost being that of the upcoming trip to locate the whereabouts of the Hrudan. A topic that led into many late-night discussions, planning sessions and tip gathering from many of the locals. All of which, as it turned out, was to be largely for naught in the face of something that none of us had enough experience to be involved with...a Meredothian winter.

  Present day

  What happens when an invading force conquers a rugged and mountainous region filled with warriors, hunters and trackers? The Undertrail, that’s what.

  The thyrkan had advanced so rapidly in their initial conquest that pockets of resistance had been left behind. Those hardy Hrudan, Meredothians, ash folk and wyldeans who had resisted the insidious might of the Enemy and yet failed in or decided against retreating. The information sources of the Empire kept us fairly well abreast of the relative locations of activity, but for security reasons the names and exact locations were known by a very select few and any information that we did collect was quickly outdated as the members of the Undertrail ebbed and flowed, never staying in one place too long in order to survive.

  Originally the nobility of the Empire scoffed at the idea of a resistance movement and their effectiveness. That soon changed when Lionel Helmhast led his heroic and ill-advised advance into thyrkan held territory to ‘put paid to the thyrkan threat’. Three thousand household knights met their end that day, surrounded and consumed with the loss of only some two hundred thyrkan. As if in mockery of the attempt, the Undertrail managed to bring a landslide down on a thyrkan encampment, wiping out over a thousand troops. Since that day the nobility have left the war plans to those more knowledgeable and actively supported the Undertrail to the best of their ability, sending food and supplies along little-known paths until the entirety of the thyrkan controlled sector became almost like a rabbit warren and thyrkan forces became used to night-time raids and poisoned supplies.

  The Undertrail was how we had got into the area, and it was the place I hoped to get more supplies, repair Cassius’s armour and more information - If anyone had seen a red eyed skyren it would be one of its many leaders. The Academy was well known to the Undertrail, and those of us who specialised in monster hunting had spent the last few years training those who would and could be trained on the most effective methods of dispatching their foes. Each time I had been here I had searched for the red eyed demon and each time I had met with no clues. But this time was different. This time I wasn’t going to stop until I ended it once and for all; for I had no other mission. No other reason to be here than to end it. The Emperor in all his blind, shit eating wisdom, had either finally grown tired enough of my incessant requests to go and do to the skyren what it did to my village, or had secret plans of his own.

  Likely both.

  And so he had given us leave to go and do what we do best. He seemed confident that we would find the beast that we were hunting but hadn’t offered up more than vague comments to keep heading north and that we would know when it was near.

  As cryptic and dickish as ever really.

  We walked for two days, stalking through the blighted lands and avoiding thyrkan patrols. When we walked into the closest Undertail encampment under watchful eyes there was a smattering of bemused laughter at the sight of a man as large as Cassius walking naked. The bare steel in his hand and the sheer size of him quickly served to make it nervous laughter. I clarified our credentials and soon had warm food whilst clothes were stitched together to fit Cassius’s frame. The local leader, a woman by the name of Anzan, didn’t have any information regarding a red eyed demon but did have plenty of useful details regarding the increasing thyrkan patrols in the area. She also didn’t have a forge, meaning that Cassius would have to continue going armourless for the time being, but she pointed us in the direction of Scourge, a larger Undertrail encampment dedicated to removal of the thyrkan. I had been to Scourge twice before and knew the commander well enough but as its location changed every few months out of necessity it was difficult to know where it was without recent information from the locals.

  After a day of rest we moved out with a small caravan that was heading to Scourge and were happy with the accompaniment of extra blades. Three days later we were in the latest location of S
courge - an abandoned mine within the base of Mount Woathan and the mine rang with the rhythmic beat of the blacksmith reforming Cassius’s armour.

  Issan, the commander of Scourge, was an ex-ranger of the Hrudan with enough scars to almost rival me. He had proven to be a solid and dependable leader and through his guidance Scourge had survived, grown and managed to repeatedly strike back at the thyrkan threat. He had no news of a red eyed demon but plenty of rumours related to slave camps and the horrors inflicted on humanity. The one thing that he and everyone else in Scourge could agree on was that the further north you went the less likely you were to come back. This had been a common theme throughout the Desolate lands and doubtless for good reason.

  Issan was never one for missing out on an opportunity, especially one that landed two Imperators in his lap, and so through some wheedling, the promise of extra supplies and liberal drinking I ended up agreeing that we would help him strike against the thyrkan commander of the region, a move that he was adamant would help destabilize the thyrkan hold in the area. It would certainly be the boldest move that Scourge had made yet, but as I sampled the firewater in my clay cup and smiled at Issan’s enthusiasm I could only wonder if it might be one move too far.

  Afterall, the thyrkan were nothing if not vengeful.

  Chapter 16

  Heartland

  When we finally set out on the march to determine the whereabouts of the Hrudan incursion it was late autumn, with snow laying down more thickly with each passing day. Scythe’s leg still had a slight hobble, giving him a slightly jerky gait, and my reknit ankle burned in the cold, but Jadira reasoned that if we didn’t leave we wouldn’t have time for searching before we got snowed into the fort. She gave us roughly three weeks before the snow became too heavy and warned us of blizzards that could freeze a man solid in minutes. Truly the Meredothian heartland was a holiday destination like no other.