by Martin Frowd
“We are close now, young one,” Glaraz asserted after a while. The hills and the dirt paths all looked the same to Zarynn, a son of a lowland plains clan, and he wondered how an outlander could be so certain. But Glaraz showed no hesitation, veering off the path and up the side of a large, steep hill that towered over all others nearby, pulling Zarynn along. He scrambled as best he could, over gravel and loose rocky debris, to climb the hillside with the necromancer. When they reached the top, he stared in shock.
A monster crouched on the hilltop.
There was no better word to describe it, at least in Zarynn’s admittedly limited vocabulary. It must have been three, no, four times the length of the lion, and easily three times the height. Glistening black serpentine scales covered its form, but it was no snake; its two scaly black legs looked short and stubby by comparison to its body length, but they were tipped with powerful-looking claws. A pair of scaly ebon-hued wings, more akin in appearance to those of a vastly oversized bat than to any bird Zarynn had ever seen, sprouted from its back. A long tail coiled behind it, ending in an elongated and wickedly sharp stinger like that of a colossal scorpion, which looked to be longer than Zarynn himself was tall. Its head was reptilian rather than serpentine, crowned by a tall crest of rigid-looking plates, and enormous amber-coloured eyes, larger than a man’s head, gazed unblinkingly at Zarynn.
Dead and partly-eaten bears lay strewn all around the hilltop, a dozen of them or more, their brown coats darkened almost black with blood. The powerful beasts from which the People of the Bear took their name looked tiny in comparison to the monster. As Zarynn watched, dumbfounded for a moment, mighty jaws moved, chewing, crunching loudly. The ebon-scaled neck flexed as the monster gulped, swallowed, and opened its maw to spit out glistening white bones longer than Zarynn’s legs, scoured clean of meat. The gleaming ivory teeth it revealed were longer than spears and far sharper. Blood dripped from the horror’s enormous jaws as it spat out the bears’ bones.
Zarynn scrambled backward, crashing into Glaraz’s legs as he tried to put more distance between himself and the bear-devouring monster. He expected the necromancer to act swiftly, decisively, to fight the creature, just as he had faced down tribesmen of the People, hunting cats and Druids. Instead, Zarynn was astounded to see Glaraz calmly stride forward and pat the vast creature’s scaly flank.
“Furiosa,” the necromancer addressed the monster, with a hint of – pride? approval? in his voice, as he patted its flank a second time. Zarynn looked on in amazement as the enormous creature opened its great maw and hissed, turning its long neck sideways to rub its great head against Glaraz’s body. Zarynn stood and watched, stunned, as the necromancer stroked its rigid crest and the ridges over its unblinking amber eyes. Glaraz said something to the beast in a language Zarynn did not know, harsh and guttural, but the tone of his voice was unmistakably one of pride.
“Come, young Zarynn,” Glaraz beckoned him forward. “We are done with walking now. I promised you we would fly. Now is the time for us to fly.”
Zarynn stared incredulously at Glaraz, and warily at the monster rubbing affectionately against him, although he had to admit that the great creature looked less threatening while it did so, while Glaraz petted it. Zarynn had given little consideration before to the necromancer’s talk of flying, with all of the stresses and scares of the journey thus far, but when he had thought of it at all, he had assumed some gigantic bird awaited them, like the hookbeaks that served the Druids but much larger, to carry them away to the outlander’s ship. He had not anticipated that a nightmarish creature like this, a horrid mix of snake, crocodile, bat and scorpion, would be their means of escape, and shuddered at the notion of riding such a monster. He attempted to sidle behind Glaraz, to use the necromancer as a shield, but the outlander would have none of it.
“Come,” the necromancer repeated, with perhaps a trace of impatience. “Now is the time, young one, for us to fly.”
Woodenly, Zarynn forced himself to shuffle sideways again, out from behind Glaraz, and forward, closer to the monster. The vast creature turned its head toward him, and its amber eyes regarded him unblinkingly. This close, he realised that each of the creature’s amber eyes was larger than his entire head, and when it opened its jaws again he wondered just for a second if it would swallow him whole. But instead, in response to some word of command from Glaraz, a huge forked tongue emerged from the depths of its maw, flickeringly fast despite its impressive size, to lick Zarynn’s entire face at once. He coughed and spluttered as his face was coated in the creature’s thick wet saliva, and the smell of death and raw meat filled his nostrils.
“Now she knows you are friend and not foe,” Glaraz nodded approvingly, as he patted the monster’s scaly flank again and uttered another string of words Zarynn did not know. He caught the word Furiosa which the necromancer had uttered before, and wondered if it might be the monster’s name, or the name of its kind. Then he fully appreciated what Glaraz had said. She. The monster was female! Did that mean, he wondered, that the males of her kind were larger and more fearsome still?
As if in response to the necromancer’s words – and perhaps it was – the monster sank low on her haunches on the hilltop. Glaraz took a firm hold of Zarynn’s hand again. His glove of strange shadowstuff still felt cool in the light of the sun, and wisps of mist were beginning to rise from it now as well as from the necromancer’s back and shoulders, drifting up into the air and coming apart in the sunlight. Zarynn’s trepidation was of limited use against the outlander’s determination, and before he knew it, he found himself mounted on the monster’s – Furiosa’s? – scaled back, with Glaraz close behind him. The necromancer’s arms reached around Zarynn to both sides to hold onto a raised ridge of bone that Zarynn had not previously noticed, at the base of the monster’s neck. Hesitantly, gingerly, Zarynn copied him, his younger and smaller hands barely managing to achieve a proper grip on it.
Zarynn had barely settled himself properly and gripped the ridge when the monster tensed its – her – powerful leg muscles and sprang into the air. The hill rapidly receded beneath them, and the bottom seemed to fall out of Zarynn’s stomach as they surged into the sky. With a creaking sound like leather, the vast creature’s wings began to beat, carrying them still further aloft. It seemed to him that they soared higher and higher for several minutes before finally levelling out, high above the ground. Wind battered against them with an icy chill during their rapid ascent, and Zarynn could hear nothing over its howl. Once their flight stabilised, high in the sky, the howling faded away, but the chill stayed in the air despite the bright sunshine.
Zarynn dared to look down from the monster’s back, and immediately regretted it. In his short life, he could count upon the fingers of a single hand the times he had even ridden a pony – even if one counted being slung over its back upside-down and tied up, while in the captivity of the hunters in the silent vale, as riding. He had never ridden anything bigger, and certainly never flown before. No man of the People flew, unless he were a Druid. Now Zarynn was high in the sky, and the ground looked impossibly far away. The hilltops were tiny from this height, and he could see for miles all around. He gripped the monster’s neck ridge tightly, holding on for dear life.
“Fear not, young one,” Glaraz said from behind him, clearly noticing his fright. “Flying is entirely safe – safer than more walking through these wretched hills! We will be fine up here, unless we meet a flying Druid.”
The necromancer’s calmness and soothing words had the intended effect, relieving Zarynn of his terror, although he continued to hold on tightly to the monster’s neck ridge. The forbidding Hills of Dusk were not so intimidating from this altitude, and he marvelled at the sight, awe gradually overcoming fear. The creaking sound and the rhythmic flapping motion of the monster’s wings helped to soothe him, almost mesmerising in their consistency.
“Now to the southwest we shall fly, young Zarynn,” Glaraz told him as they glided on through the chilly sky. Z
arynn could have told him that much himself, from the angle of the sun behind him as they flew, no longer centred at their backs as it had been while they marched west. “Over the hills until we leave the land behind, as straight as straight may be, and then over the water – the Bay of Dusk, it is called – until we reach the island where my ship waits for us. It will be some hours yet – but we would need many days yet if we were to walk from here to the water’s edge, and then we would still need to find another way to cross the water. The island is a good distance from your coast. Flying saves much time.”
Zarynn deciphered the necromancer’s words, trying to compensate for the strange accent and odd intonations. He understood the gist of what Glaraz was telling him, that this flying would be over before today was out, and that it would save them several more days of walking through the hills. Zarynn was certainly not saddened at that news, for the hills had not exactly been hospitable thus far, riddled with hunters searching for him! Not to mention the Druids who had led the searching, and the beasts and birds that served their will.
The thought of birds brought new concerns to the forefront of his mind, and he voiced them even as the monster continued to fly them to the southwest.
“The birds – they serve the Druids – what if birds see us? Won’t they tell the Druids? You said – flying Druids – Druids can fly!”
“True enough, young Zarynn,” Glaraz acknowledged. “Many Druids can take on bird form, as the one I fought before the null zone – the silent vale, your people called it – took on lion form, and they can fly through the sky like any other bird. But flying while a bird and fighting while a bird are two very different things. Most Druids can work little or no magic while in bird form, but for the Druid Masters and those who rule above even them. And without magic, no bird can threaten Furiosa.” He patted the monster’s scaly flank to punctuate his words. “And also, Furiosa is faster on the wing than most birds. Fear not, young one. Soon enough we will be clear of these lands, and clear of Druids also.”
◆◆◆
Glaraz Vordakan frowned behind young Zarynn’s back, where the boy could not see him, as Furiosa carried them swiftly southwestward, her powerful batlike wings cleaving the air. While his words to the boy had been meant to calm him, and while he genuinely hoped they would prove true, the necromancer knew they were not the whole story. He had not lied when he told the youngster that while many Druids could take on avian form and fly, only their Masters and above could access their magic while feathered. And it was true that Furiosa was swifter on the wing than most birds could ever hope to be, and a far more capable fighter than any bird ever hatched, except perhaps for a dragonhawk. But, not wanting to further alarm the boy, he had omitted to mention that some Druids might have access to flying beasts of their own, whether of Furiosa’s kind or other species. Nor had he mentioned that certain Druid Masters could perhaps take on such winged beast forms themselves, even as the lesser Druids could transform into birds, bears, great cats and the like.
Glaraz fervently hoped that no Druid Masters were nearby, to intercept them while they remained in the skies over this continent. He was confident that no single Druid Wanderer was his match, without the equaliser of a null zone or a pack of beasts, but a fellow Master could be another matter. And although the shade lord’s cleansing had rid him of visible bruises, even as it had banished weariness from him, he still ached all over after his encounters with the lion-Druid and the doomwolves, and his magics were still somewhat depleted until he could truly rest. Not to mention that the ancient shade lord had indicated that his shadowstuff garment was a temporary thing only, and if the boy Zarynn was right it was already dissipating in the sunlight. It would serve him poorly if the garment vanished entirely while they were still in flight, leaving him almost entirely exposed. It would suit him well if the remainder of their journey to the waiting ship, off the coast of the Isle of Crows, and away from this wretched continent altogether, went entirely uneventfully.
“A few hours yet we must fly, young Zarynn,” he reiterated to the boy, as much reminding himself as his young charge. “Over these Hills of Dusk until we leave the land behind us, across the Bay of Dusk and on to the Isle of Crows. There my ship waits for us, to carry us away across the sea. Before the sun next sets over this wretched land, we shall reach the ship and sail away from here. Then we shall cross the wide ocean, and you shall discover your new home.”
“But what if Druids-”, the boy began.
“What if Druids find the ship first?” Glaraz finished for him, with a chuckle that belied his own concern. “The ship is veiled, young one. My apprentices wait there, with other Gifted whom we have already rescued have – I did tell you, you would not be alone, yes? – and one of my apprentices is Gifted in illusion, enough so to hide the whole ship from enemies found not be. They are safe where they wait, and when we join them, we too shall be safe.”
Glaraz injected his words with all the confidence he could. In truth, the necromancer was confident that Anjali’s veil of illusion would stand up against almost anything the primitives in these lands could bring to bear upon it – in his experience, over decades, even most Druid Masters were too arrogant, sure in their own power and the unquestioning obedience of their people, to train in the Gifts of Sight, or Sensing, or Discernment, those magics which helped one to see through illusion to the truth beneath – and he hoped that anyone, or anything, powerful enough to pierce Anjali’s illusions would go nowhere near the Isle of Crows until he and all who sailed with him were long gone.
THIRTEEN: INVESTIGATION
As the mid-morning sun blazed above the place of execution, where three days earlier the Duskwalker clan of the People of the Bear had borne witness to death, mayhem and destruction – but not the one death that they had actually expected – a pair of birds wheeled in the sky, descending swiftly toward the bare rocky ground below. Doomhawks, swift fliers with jet black plumage save for the blue banding on their wings, which glinted in the sunlight, they arrowed groundward in graceful silence. No sooner had their talons touched rock than the birds shimmered, stretched and grew, darkening and filling out. Wings became arms, black feathers transformed into brown silken robes. Beaks retracted and disappeared even as heads grew. In seconds, a pair of robed and hooded Druids stood barefoot on the execution ground in place of the two birds.
A third Druid stood a few paces away, waiting for them, similarly robed, his feet bare on the sun-warmed rock. As the two new arrivals took human form, the waiting one, slightly taller than his fellows, pulled back his hood to reveal his shaven head, gleaming in the sunshine, and nodded in greeting to his fellows.
“Dark King’s blessings and welcome to the Duskwalker clan, brethren,” he greeted them, as they lowered their own hoods. “I am Ryvyth, who sent the call to Hellgate Keep, and glad to see you so swiftly! The outlander, and the abomination with him, have a head start, but now that you are here, we can surely track them down and make them answer for their sins. They have fled westward into the Hills of Dusk, as I said in my message. I sent word ahead to forewarn our Druid brethren to the west to raise the Dusk Hunter clan against them, as they had surely put far too much distance between themselves and the Duskwalkers here. I have not yet heard anything in return, but now that you are here, we can add our own numbers to their efforts. Brethren?” He faltered as the pair of newly arrived Druids, their hoods now lowered, stared him down, and especially as he spotted, and immediately recognised, the claw-mark tattoo running down the left cheek of the one on his right. “Master,” he corrected himself, with an outwardly respectful bow and an inward curse.
“Zorgh,” the tattooed Druid Master introduced himself curtly. “Of the Watch. Wanderer Rhobyth of the Watch accompanies me,” with a tilt of the head toward his companion, who like Ryvyth bore no tattoos on his face.
“Master Zorgh,” Ryvyth bowed again. “Forgive me, I had not dared hope that a Master would come so swiftly in response to my message to Hellgate Keep, let alone a
Master of the Watch, and-”, his voice died off as he registered the senior Druid’s frown.
“Druid Wanderer Ryvyth,” Druid Master Zorgh nodded. “So, you are the incompetent who allowed an outlander, a necromancer, to overpower you and an entire clan of hunters, to kill a clan chief’s heir, to profane a sacrifice to the Dark King, and to walk away with the abomination who was to be sacrificed, and then took a whole day to even report the sacrilege. Did I miss anything?”
Ryvyth flinched under the hostile words and glare of the higher-ranked Druid, smoothing his robe with both hands as he composed himself. His failure to thwart the necromancer – the master necromancer! – still rankled, and he had hoped to be reinforced by fellow Druid Wanderers, among whom he might reasonably have exerted leadership as the first on the scene, not by a Druid Master who incontrovertibly outranked him and was immediately hostile to boot.
“Respectfully, Master,” he began carefully, “the outlander identified himself as a master. His Death-Gift magics were too formidable for my protections to avail me or the clan, and his own protections turned aside my invocations to His Dark Majesty. He slew one hunter with a single spell, and he maimed most of the rest with another. Several have since died of their wounds or have had to be put down for the sake of those that survive. It will be many days until the rest are fully recovered, and years will pass before the clan recovers fully.
“As for Chief Zovyth’s son, Chief Hunter Zoran - it was – unfortunate – but no-one could have stopped it, Master. It was the boy – the cursed abomination. He called shadowfire, and the chief’s son was immolated before anything could be done to prevent it. He was burned black in both body and soul. Fortunately, the chief does have other sons, albeit still children, so the line of succession endures. I did what I could, with Healing-Gift and mundane healing craft, to aid those hunters of the clan who were maimed but still living, and I was able to save several of them while my strength lasted, else the final toll would have been far worse. I did what I could, Master.”
