Haladras

by Michael M. Farnsworth

  Skylar had never beheld such a terrible display of nature’s wrath. At any instant he expected all the trees around them to come crashing down.

  Krom halted the group and tried to yell above the storm. “There’s no sign of this abating. We must find some shelter.”

  “I think I saw something,” yelled Endrick, pointing toward the deeper forest, “over there.”

  Krom nodded his head. “Lead the way.”

  The group turned and followed Endrick. In the darkness of the blinding rain, Skylar could scarcely see the ground at his feet. Occasional flashes of lightning bathed the forest in a burst of white light, just enough to tease their eyes. They moved slowly, navigating their way deeper into the forest. No longer were they following a clear path, but forging their way through thick brush and over fallen tree limbs.

  Lightning flashed.

  Skylar thought he glimpsed what Endrick had seen. He could not be sure. A hundred meters away, he thought he saw something very angular...square, almost, like a building. The last thing he expected to find in that forest was a dwelling. His eyes were playing tricks on him.

  As they drew nearer, however, and the lightning flashed several more times, Skylar felt sure it was something manmade. A cottage, it appeared. Soon they were standing in front of it; a small hut made of rounded bricks and wooden roof. Faint slivers of orange light seeped out from the cracks in a wooden door. Skylar felt he’d never seen anything so wonderful in all his life.

  Krom went up to the door and rapped on it hard several times with his knuckles. It struck Skylar as an odd situation. What kind of person would live in a place like this, far from any civilization? Whoever—he must find it strange to hear a knock at his door in the middle of such a storm. He wondered if it would open at all. Would simply barging in uninvited be acceptable, given their extreme situation?

  After several moments the door cracked open and the hooked nose and squinting eyes of a man peaked out.

  “We seek refuge from the storm,” hollered Krom above the blaring wind.

  The man stuck his head out further, and quickly took stock of the whole group. Skylar thought the man was about to slam the door shut. Instead, he swung it open, stepped to one side and curtly motioned for the companions to enter. Which they did not hesitate to do. With relief, Skylar stepped into the warmth and shelter of this solitary cottage.

  Behind them, the man forced the door shut and barred it securely with a wooden beam. Outside, the storm raged on. The winds howled and whistled shrilly through the cracks and chinks in the doors and windows. The roof creaked and shuttered. But for all its strength, the tempest seemed no match for this stout forest dwelling.

  “I suppose you lot are the cause of this,” said the cottage-dweller irritably. “I don’t remember when last my little valley had such a fit.”

  The hermit eyed them all suspiciously.

  “Robbers...murders, you likely are. I’ll no doubt wake tomorrow morning with my throat slit and my animals gone. Well? Don’t stand there politely—never could abide politeness. Take off your dripping cloaks. Move yourselves by the fire. It’ll warm your chilled hides. There’s stew in the cook pot, too. More than enough. Always cook more than I need.”

  The heat of the fire on Skylar’s fingers and toes, the warmth of the stew in his stomach, made him feel as though he never wanted to leave that one-room hut. Being warm again, eating a cooked meal, transported him back in time to that night with Grim at Barryman’s inn. So much had changed since then; yet scarcely three nights had passed.

  Other than fire and food, the hermit’s dwelling offered little else by way of comfort. A small wooden table laid with a few bits of leather, a knife and awl, sat with a solitary stool at one end. A coarse, hay-filled bed occupied the other. Lacking other furniture, the companions sat on the floor.

  “Your hospitality and kindness—” began Krom before the hermit quickly cut him off.

  “None of that. None of that. Save you gratitude. Spare my throat if you’re truly grateful.”

  “Rest assured, my friend,” offered Lasseter, “we mean you no harm.”

  The hermit only snorted in reply.

  The old man was a peculiar fellow. Skylar had never met a hermit before. He expected that this man should be old. Yet he appeared no older than Lasseter or Krom. Had he no family? What brought him to isolate himself from the rest of the world?

  “If it would ease your mind,” said Krom, reaching at his belt, “we shall entrust our only weapons with you for the night.”

  He unfastened the scabbard from his side and held out his sword to the hermit.

  “Keep your oversized butter knives! I’m sure the four of you could just as easily strangle me as you could chop me to bits.”

  Krom returned the scabbard and sword to its place on his belt.

  “What is your name, good man?” asked Krom after a moment’s silence.

  “Name?” said the hermit absently. “The birds call me one name. The forest creatures call me another. My animals, yet another. But men...when men spoke my name last, they called me Lin.”

  “Well Lin, rest assured that we shall continue our journey at first light on the morrow.”

  “Indeed,” replied Lin, looking fully recovered from his dream state. “Indeed. And I shall go with you.”

  The four companions looked up with startled expressions at the hermit.

  “How’s that, Lin?” said Krom.

  “You’ll be wanting a guide through the Boldúrins. No man knows them better than I. Many hidden, forsaken ways there are through them.”

  “Our journey is of a dangerous nature. We cannot risk your safety, Lin. Though, we thank you for—”

  “Do you think that I cannot see that you are not idle travelers? I’m not so very witless or mad as you may believe. You plan to go over the mountains? You shan’t make it. Snow will hit them soon. And when it does, there’ll be no crossing them for months.”

  Krom glanced briefly at Lasseter. Skylar caught the slightest nod of Lasseter’s head. Krom turned back to Lin.

  “We accept your offer,” said Krom, “We travel to Arsolon. But let me add, you haven’t the faintest idea of what you’re getting yourself into.”

  A cunning smile broke the hermit’s perpetual scowl. “Or perhaps it is the other way around.”

  The storm raged on unabated until some late hour of the night. By morning, the clouds had rolled away and the winds died. Only a few wisps of white streaked the sky. A gentle breeze rustled the bushes and tree leaves. Yet evidence of the storm abounded. Toppled trees and broken branches were strewn about the forest floor. It’s a miracle we didn’t get flattened, marveled Skylar to himself. Little pools of water reflected the trees above them. Hundreds of shallow channels, formed by the water racing to join some larger current, lined the moist soil.

  Despite the damage, the forest was calm, nothing like what the companions felt. Ever since last night’s agreement to let Lin be their guide, Skylar had felt uneasy. Endrick felt likewise. And in a moment when Lin was off making preparation for their departure, Endrick voiced his concerns.

  “Not that I doubt your judgment,” he said to Krom, “but this fellow is lacking some vital functions of his brain. The birds call him one name? The forest creatures another? What, does he think this is some kind of enchanted forest?”

  “As to his mental state,” replied Krom, “it’s obvious the solitude has made him somewhat peculiar.”

  “Somewhat! You call that somewhat?”

  Krom held up his hand to silence Endrick.

  “It does not matter. He’s harmless. His help could save us much time in travel.”

  “If we get there at all. He may think he’s leading us to the land of the talking animals for all we know.”

  “Calm yourself, Endrick. We shall not be so easily hoodwinked.”

  “Well, I say—”

  Endrick cut off at the sound of footfall. Lin appeared from around the corner of the cottage, leading five paqu
as all saddled and ready.

  “Here we are,” said Lin, “these have agreed to carry us on the trip. They ought to make the journey pleasanter than walking on foot.”

  Skylar had nearly forgotten what it was like to ride astride a paqua. Its lazy, yet unwavering gait was dull and unimpressive. Nonetheless, he felt immeasurably grateful to be off his travel-weary feet, to put his pack on the animal’s shoulders instead of his own. The paquas, too, for all their languidness moved them along faster than when the companions were on foot.

  Lin led the way, guiding them along unmarked paths through the forest, speaking softly to his paqua or greeting the birds singing in the trees. At times he sang, too. The songs sounded as strange and mysterious as the man who sang them. Skylar paid no heed to the words. His thoughts flowed back, riding the notes of Lin’s song, to that first time he’d ridden a paqua, not many days past. Suddenly the song was Grim’s song. The voice was Grim’s voice. His eyes began to water.

  By midday, the companions reached the edge of the forest. Before them stretched a brief expanse of meadow filled with knee-high grass, a few straggly shrubs and bare trees. Just on the other side, jutting straight from the ground like a wall of stone, was the base of a towering black cliff.

  Halting at the clearing’s edge, Lin held up a hand, signaling for the companions to do likewise. Several moments passed. By the tilt of Lin’s head, he was evidently listening to something.

  Very low and faint, then gradually rising, came the same mechanical hum they had heard the day before. Lin pointed upwards with his index finger. Skylar craned his neck to peer through a few ragged holes in the forest canopy. A single dark shape darted across the small patch of blue sky above them, then disappeared from view.

  “Too small for a military craft,” said Krom after it had passed. “Someone of importance was in it, though. I’m sure of that.”

  “Someone looking for you, doubtless,” added Lin, eyeing Krom and smiling knowingly.

  Krom merely grunted and urged his paqua forward—a signal to Lin to lead on and mind his own affairs.

  Skylar, however, didn’t see anywhere for them to go except to the right or left. The cliff before them was as sheer as the flat of a sword and as tall as any of the peaks he’d seen. Yet Lin led them straight ahead.

  Endrick was right. This man is a lunatic.

  Not one of the companions raised any objections as they drew nearer and nearer to that wall of rock. Before long, they were at its base, specks of dust in comparison to its size. Again, their hermit guide halted the group and dismounted his paqua. Lin was walking now, inspecting the face of the cliff, as if he expected to find a secret lever that would shrink the mountain into an anthill. He continued to walk along it, moving farther and farther away from the companions.

  “I don’t think our little hermit’s going to find what he’s hunting for,” said Endrick, once Lin was out of earshot.

  “Perhaps not,” said Krom, “but I think he’s shrewder than he lets on.”

  “Well, I’ll be happy if he started letting on right about now.”

  Just then Lin hollered out some exclamation and began waving his hand excitedly.

  “What’s he found?” said Endrick. “The remains of some poor soul who attempted to scale this beast? A mountain fairy, better still.”

  The companions turned their mounts and went over to see what the excitement was about.

  “I found it,” he proudly declared as they approached. “Knew it couldn’t be far. Well hidden it is.”

  Lin stood on a large flat stone that was almost entirely embedded in the ground. Beside him, the cliff face. Nothing at all of interest. Nothing at all to spark an ordinary man’s excitement. Lin was stamping his foot as he shuffled about on the stone, motioning for them to draw closer.

  “What is it, my friend?” said Krom. “What have you discovered?”

  “The way in, of course,” replied Lin hastily. “Here, help lift it.” Lin commenced digging about the edge of the stone with his fingers. “Don’t just stand there. It’s not going to dig itself out.”

  With hesitation and a fair amount of skepticism on Skylar and Endrick’s part, they went to work digging about the stone. They labored for only a few minutes before Lin let out, “Ah ha! Here it is. Here it is.”

  Skylar stopped his digging to see what Lin had found. Carved into the side of the stone, which had been buried, was a kind of notch, a rectangular indentation. Lin shooed the companions away, then he inserted his hand into the notch, and began trying to lift the massive stone.

  Nothing happened as Lin strained against the immovable rock. Skylar was not surprised. Did Lin actually expect to lift the stone out of the ground? Even as Skylar thought this, though, a grating noise came from the stone; faint at first, then louder. A thin line, a gap, appeared between the stone and the ground. Slowly, the gap grew, until Skylar realized that the stone was a sort of lid. Lasseter and Krom hurried to Lin’s side and helped him lift it fully.

  When the stone lid was removed, a large gaping hole, walled on four sides by rock and accessible by a stone staircase, remained. The stairs led downward a few meters before disappearing into the dark.

  “There’s our shortcut under the mountains,” said Lin with a hint of pride in his voice. “Shall we?”

  They had a hard job coaxing the paquas down the stone steps. When at last they were all down and lanterns were lit, they found themselves in a narrow tunnel that pointed due west. The ceiling, though short, provided just enough headroom for them to ride their paquas.

  “Thousands of tunnels like this one run beneath the Boldúrins. The aboriginal people of Fenorra excavated them hundreds of years ago, long before the formation of the empire. Expert miners. Many of them built colonies beneath these mountains. You shall see a few remnants of these on our journey.”

  Indeed, within the space of several hours, they came across two such relics. In the dark they saw little, though. Only that the tunnel walls and ceiling suddenly broke away, opening to caverns whose full grandeur their latern’s light could not reveal. At these times, the echo of the paquas clomping on the stone floor grew to a quiet din.

  When they came to the second cavern, they were forced to stop for a brief repose and to water the animals. Those early people being clever and industrious, had managed to build reservoirs fed by invisible springs trickling out of the rocks. Their paquas drank thirstily.

  Thus the day waxed on. Skylar nearly fell asleep on account of the dim green lantern glow and the monotonous scenery.

  “There’s another cavern just ahead,” said Lin several hours after their last stop. “We should rest there for the night.”

  Krom voiced his consent. Within a quarter of an hour, the now-familiar sound of their echoes growing as they neared a cavern reached their ears. Then, just as before, the walls and ceiling disappeared, and the air grew less stuffy. Krom dismounted his paqua. Skylar followed, grateful to give his backside a rest.

  Without warning, everything went black. There was a scuffling sound. Several shouts. Then Skylar felt someone seize him from behind and gag his mouth.

  TWENTY

  IN VAIN, SKYLAR struggled to free himself from his unseen captor. Many hands seemed to be holding his arms. His legs were free, though. And he made good use of them, kicking blindly in the darkness. Several kicks with his booted foot made contact. Shouts of protest erupted from behind him.

  “Hey!” shouted one.

  “Stop that!” yelled another.

  “Tie up his feet,” rejoined yet another.

  A cold object slid in beneath Skylar’s chin.

  “Stop struggling or we’ll slit your throat,” hissed a surly voice in his ear.

  He froze.

  “That’s better.”

  The sound of scuffling had ceased now. Skylar wondered if his companions were unharmed. Then an orange glow from a torch flame infused the scene. The faces of a dozen or more rough men became visible. Lasseter, Krom and Endrick were as equal
ly guarded as Skylar, with two or three of these men holding them fast.

  The mens’ faces were heavily scarred and dark with dirt and soot. All wore unkempt beards and long hair, though a few used bands tied across their forehead to keep their hair back. Glints of yellow from earrings and gold chains reflected in the torchlight. No uniform described their dress; they wore an eclectic array of clothing. There were patchwork tunics worn beneath leather jackets or jerkins; threadbare cloaks of various earth tones; one very large ruffian wore only pants and a blaster strapped to his back; another wore a robe of an intricate pattern. All were armed to their teeth with daggers, dirks, clubs and blasters.

  “Who are’s ya?” demanded the man holding the torch, his voice grating the air like a knife blade on stone.

  The man with the torch was looking at Krom when he spoke. But Krom did not reply.

  “Well?” said the man, holding the torch to Krom’s face. “I asked you a question.”

  “Who we are is no concern of yours,” replied Krom calmly.

  “Ah!” exclaimed the ruffian man. “No concern of mine, is it? And I suppose it’s no concern of mine where’s you be going to?”

  “We are traveling to Arsolon, if you must know.”

  “Merely traveling, is it? Funny route you’ve chosen. I’m sure the boss would love to hear this story.”

  “Come on, boys” he said as he whipped around and motioned with his torch for his cohorts to follow. Skylar’s captors jerked him to the side and forcibly ushered him behind his companions and the rest of the ruffians.

  Though only the torch of the lead ruffian lighted their way, Skylar could see much of the cavern in which this band of men apparently lived. Scattered all about were cots, bed rolls, hammocks, and various other makeshift beds. A long table of sorts, constructed of wooden crates and shabbily fastened planks, ran the middle of the stone floor. The smelly remnants of countless meals, old and new, lay piled on the table; stacks of bones, overturned goblet and jugs, broken plates, knives embedded in loaves of moldy bread. A large beady-eyed rat stood on the table top, nibbling a potato peel. It glanced up curiously as they passed and bore its razor sharp teeth in defense of its spoils.