by Paul Freeman
“Is that wise, my lord? If what you say is true, you do not know the numbers you will face or even where to find them. The mountains are vast and treacherous. You could wander around there for months without knowing where you are going. Then of course you have another problem; they are most likely among us even now, cooking our food, emptying our chamber pots, right under our noses, yet invisible.”
“I have tried the road of patience once already and that has failed.”
“If you speak of the priestess, do not be so sure, my lord. We have yet to hear from the men sent to hunt her down.”
“They are dead. She taunted me with them in my dream, brought their heads to me in a jug. All three men I gave to you. Think on that.” Normand spat the words out bitterly. “Your charms and petty, inadequate spells have failed. You have failed.” Normand could see fear creep into Djangra Roe’s eyes. It was well known the duke was not a patient man and did not tolerate failure.
“I will send others, better men, a more powerful witch…”
“No, from this day on you will stay by my side until that witch is dead. Heed my words, Mage. If she violates my dreams one more time I will have your head.”
“Yes, my lord, I understand.” Colour drained from Djangra Roe’s face.
“Now make ready. We ride out immediately.”
“I would make one suggestion, my lord.”
“Speak,” Normand said irritably.
“The valley – Perhaps you should take your warriors there.”
“This is not a treasure hunt, Mage.”
“No, my lord,” Djangra Roe answered, “but it is a sacred place to the people of the mountain… to the goddess Eor. Perhaps if they fear we will desecrate it they will show themselves to us.”
“Very well, if nothing else I will have the satisfaction of destroying something of value to the dream-witch.”
They marched out of Eorotia on foot, with an honour guard of grim-faced peasants and frightened traders lining the narrow road. There was little point in taking mounts into the mountains where the paths were little more than animal trails, often ending abruptly or needing a steep climb to continue. Duke Normand led them out followed by his Dragon Knights, above them his banner bearing the image of a red dragon on a green field billowed in the wind. Following behind were an array of men-at-arms, archers and crossbowmen, scouts and woodsmen. All in all a force of close to ten score armed, fighting men marched through the gates and into the morning mist clinging to the mountains.
Normand’s mood was buoyant. He was nothing if not a warrior, and the thrill of leading hard, fighting men into battle was the one thing that made him feel he was where he belonged. The intrigues of the king’s court were not something he enjoyed, probably why he stayed away from Rothberry Castle. The ways of the gods and their priests, the dark arts of witches and mages made him nervous. He was not comfortable with things he did not understand. Put a sword in his hand, though, and an enemy before him and he would revel.
Such a large body of fighting men was unlikely to encounter any trouble on the road and they made it to Widow’s Keep without incident. By then light was draining from the sky as night eased its dark mantle across the heavens. The men built fires and wrapped themselves in their cloaks as the first touches of winter stole the heat from their bones. There were no stories of ghosts and murdered brides this time, only the rattle of weapons and armour as men, feeling the tension of going into the unknown, kept their thoughts and fears to themselves.
They suffered their first casualty that night. Normand was woken to the cries for help and the barked orders of sergeants calling men to arms. A man-at-arms making his way to take up sentry duty found one of his fellows slumped against a tree. At first he thought the man had fallen asleep at his post, but when he kicked his legs to wake him the body had toppled over, revealing a bloodied throat and a gash from ear to ear.
Normand rubbed the tiredness from his eyes, catching his breath as the icy air caught in his throat. Underfoot the ground had hardened as a coat of frost painted the land white. It was still well off sunrise, but there would be no more sleep for that night. Normand sat before a fire reflecting on the last time he had led a party of men into the mountains, and the beast that had almost claimed his life. What else is in these mountains? he wondered.
Three more men lost their lives the following day, all of them scouts who had run foul of traps set to catch woodsmen wandering ahead of the main body of Normand’s small army. It made the going even slower as each step was taken with caution and no little fear. A wooden stake triggered by stepping on a crude mechanism buried under a cover of brown leaves and broken twigs, was not a nice way to die.
Djangra Roe scratched his beard nervously when they stopped at midday to rest and take on water. “They’re out there. I can feel their eyes on me,” he said, his eyes darting in different directions.
“Good,” Normand snapped.
“Good?” the mage asked with incredulity.
“I want them close. They will have to face us soon enough.” Normand lay back and closed his eyes, allowing himself a smile at the thought of the flabbergasted look on the mage’s face.
The drums started later that night. Normand had already ordered the guard doubled, with no man to be left out of sight of another as he stood sentinel. For those not on sentry duty there was very little sleep to be had, as a constant thrumming filled the air, leaving each man in no doubt that his enemy was close by, and though he could not see them, they could see him. Later in the night the air was punctuated by a scream. A guard who had stepped away from his post to relieve himself was found face down with an arrow in the back of his neck and his breeches down around his knees.
The early morning sun, though bright and sitting low in a clear blue sky, carried little heat in its rays and less cheer in the hearts of the men. Tired from lack of sleep, anxious of facing the unknown in a strange place to them, they packed up and headed deeper into the mountains. Normand had been told that there were scores of villages hidden all over the mountain range, populated by people who offered no allegiance to crown or monarch, a wild, lawless folk. He would tame them. If he had to kill half of them first then so be it.
The first village they found was, unsurprisingly, deserted, although, still warm embers, and steaming cooking pots over hearths told of the speedy and recent evacuation of the village folk. Even so, it gave the men a focus to vent their fear and anger. It was a squalid little place, the wattle-and-daub walls practically one with the forest that covered this part of the mountains. By the time they pressed on, not a building remained standing.
Camouflaged pits with fire-hardened stakes at the bottom made the force move warily as it snaked its way along hunting trails through the woods. Arrows and stones fired from slingshots were a constant threat from the darkness around them, until finally they climbed high enough to leave the tree line behind. Even though they looked down on the vast carpet of green, and with the air becoming harder to breathe, snow-clad peeks still towered over them in all directions.
“How much farther?” Normand asked irritably as dark clouds rolled in from behind the mountains, bringing wisps of snow floating down from the heavens.
“There! Beyond that peek, there should be a path down,” Djangra answered breathlessly. Normand made no reply, simply waving his men on in the direction the mage had indicated.
The valley they looked down on was bordered on both sides by steep banks of rock as if some ancient giant had carved a path through the mountain. A stream flowed through its centre, water gurgling over rocks back down towards the forest below. Normand sucked in a breath as he regarded the gorge stretching out before him. “There could be an army hidden down there,” he mused, looking down as a thick mist shrouded the far end of the valley.
“See those stones, near the centre?” Djangra Roe asked, pointing into the valley at a group of massive boulders circling a rocky plinth just beyond the wispy touch of the mist. Even from a distance they coul
d see the giant rocks had been smoothed and shaped. “That must be their sacred place.”
A narrow and treacherous path led down into the valley. More than one man slipped on the loose stones and hard earth, often knocking one or more men in front tumbling also. Once they reached the bottom, Normand signalled for his men to fan out and form two separate lines, five men deep and twenty wide. Then he slowly marched them towards the circle of stones, constantly wary of an unseen enemy. Normand was confident his trained warriors would easily overcome a force of mountain folk many times its size, in a pitched battle. So far though, none had been offered.
As they approached the sacred place, swirling designs and intricate carvings etched into the rock could be made out on the massive stones. The closer they got, the more imposing the stones appeared, each one twice the height of a man.
“A strange place to erect such a thing. How long do you suppose they are here?” Normand turned to the mage as they approached the circle. The raised area the rocks circled had also been carved and smoothed to give an even surface. More designs, reminding Normand of huge snail trails decorated the stone floor.
“I think…”
Normand swung around towards Djangra Roe when the mage stopped speaking. “Go on.”
“I think this may have been a mistake.”
“How so?” Normand scanned the valley for any sign of mountain folk. In truth he had a rising sense of anxiety. It annoyed him to even have those thoughts. These mountains are mine. These people are mine.
“Can you not feel it? There is real power here. I can sense it emanating from the stones and in the air all around us.”
“Do not act the fool now, Mage,” Normand snarled. “We’ll pull these down and put an end to it.”
“No!” Djangra Roe leapt in front of the duke. “I beg you, do not do that.”
“Have you lost your senses?”
“I can feel it here.” The mage thumped his chest. Normand couldn’t help but notice the ashen colour of his complexion. “Vibrating through me, I feel as if I’m swimming in a lake of tar.”
Normand shook his head in disgust and turned away from the mage. Just then the drums started again, only louder. They echoed across the valley bouncing from one wall to the next. He watched as his sergeants barked orders, bullying and cajoling the men into organised ranks, facing out from the circle. “Now, at last.” He punched his palm with the opposite hand.
Green and grey clad mountain folk appeared, as if magically conjured from the mountain, armed with bows, spears, clubs, even a few axes and swords. There were easily three times the number of the duke’s men. “This will be a slaughter.” Normand grinned.
“Look!” He wasn’t sure who said it, but all eyes turned towards the end of the gorge where the stream disappeared of the edge to the forest below; the mist had lifted. Dark shapes began materialising. “There must be a hidden path up from that end also.” The men climbing into view, wore black robes, their faces and heads covered by scarves of the same hue. Even from a distance he could see that they were proper fighting men. They organised themselves quickly into rows, moving with catlike grace. Most of them carried small round shields and the curved blades of the south.
“Wheel right!” a sergeant bellowed at his squad to face the new threat.
Djangra Roe’s face was sweating, his jaw clenched in a grimace. Normand had no time to deal with the fool of a mage now. The black-garbed warriors parted allowing a force of two score, or so, Nortmen through.
“Nortmen? And Tribesmen from beyond the empire? These mountain folk have strange allies.”
“The witch…” Djangra Roe gasped, clearly in pain.
“What is the matter with you?” Normand asked impatiently.
“Choking…” The mage held two hands to his throat as he tried to gulp in air.
“Somebody help him!” Normand barked. He was quickly distracted from the mage’s fate by a further disturbance in the opposing ranks.
A huge Nortman walked out of the crowd. Normand wondered if he was about to issue a challenge, but he was followed by a short, fat man, a tall warrior dressed in ornate armour and two women.
“Witch!” Normand gasped. “She’s here!”
The two women joined hands and raised their arms. Words that made his skin tingle and heart race began drifting towards the duke and his men. Mist formed in the circle of stones, making his warriors restless as they glanced towards it.
“I need you, Mage,” Normand said through gritted teeth as he tried to keep the panic from his voice. “I cannot fight magic.” But Djangra Roe was on his knees, mumbling incoherently as he fought his own battle with some unseen force.
A more familiar sound filled the air then, the thrum of drawn bows released and the whistle of arrows taking flight.
“Shields!” The cry went up as the instincts of trained fighting men took over.
Tomas: Temple of Eor
Tomas felt an icy grip of dread in his stomach when he watched the Nortmen lined up in the courtyard of the temple. All of them bore the same blank expression and the same hooded eyes. From a distance they looked just like any group of fighting raiders from the north—he’d seen enough of them while in the Royal Guard to be wary of them—a frightening and intimidating enough sight as it was, but up close they were terror personified. The big one, who was permanently at the Shadow Mage’s side, Rolfgot, alone would fill the dreams of any man with horror.
“What’s wrong with them?” he asked Elandrial.
The priestess shrugged. “Harren Suilomon has bound their souls to him with invisible bonds of dark magic. No one else has ever commanded such power.” Tomas was struck by the awe in her voice.
“Who is he? He looks like any fat noble.”
“It is not his true appearance. His body was destroyed many years ago and now he changes bodies as you would a cloak, discarding them when they become worn or outlive their usefulness. The weaker the spirit of the host the quicker he crushes it from within, so he is forced to change it for a new one as the body begins to decay. The fighters last longer.”
Tomas shivered at the thought and not for the first time wondered how he had become caught up with the priestess he was supposed to be hunting. He turned to Aliss who was by his side, her own appearance utterly changed from the yellow-haired village girl he had married. Dark clouds swirled in her unsettling, storm-filled eyes, her complexion drained of the healthy glow she once possessed.
Beside the Nortmen were Elandrial’s black-robed warriors. Tomas could see how they too were uneasy and wary of the soulless northern warriors; even the horses stomped nervously around them.
“We will ride swiftly and prepare a warm welcome for the duke,” her mouth dropped in distaste, “he who has usurped my lands and the mountains most sacred to Eor.”
“How can you be sure he will be there?”
“I’ve told you before, Tomas. They do not call me the dream-witch for no reason. I can influence a man’s thoughts while he sleeps, even a foolish mage or arrogant lord. They will come, because their greed and lust for gold and power will drive them to it. They will come because it is what I wish them to do.” Her lips curled into a smile and she trailed her hand across Tomas’s cheek and down his chest before turning back to the men assembled in the courtyard, waiting and ready to do battle for her.
Tomas flinched and shied away from her touch. Even after a week of waiting on the Shadow Mage’s arrival he was uncomfortable around her. Aliss stood beside him, her expression blank and unreadable as she stared down at the courtyard. Tomas was unsure if she was actually looking at the warriors assembled below or just staring into space.
The Nortmen had arrived the previous day with Suilomon and barracked themselves away immediately. Tomas was glad they had kept themselves to themselves and he had had few up close encounters with them. Even from a distance he could sense there was something not right about them. And he was not the one with the intuition for such things.
“What do y
ou make of them?” He turned to Aliss when Elandrial left them standing alone on the balcony.
“They have no souls, no life-force.” She dropped her head then. “They are a corruption… like me.”
“Don’t talk nonsense. You are the woman I love, will always love.”
“You should have let me die. An innocent child would not have had the life stolen from her. I do not want it.” Tomas reached out a hand, but she shrugged him off and stepped away. “It is time to leave,” she said.
He was not looking forward to the many days he would spend on the road in the company of the Nortmen and the dream-witch. “We don’t have to go. We could just leave. Let The Hag take them all.”
“And will you bring innocent babes from the arms of their mothers for me, Tomas? When my need is so great that the dark magic consumes me?”
“We can find another way,” he said through gritted teeth, knowing in his heart that there was no other way. Elandrial had promised she could lift whatever dark desire Aliss craved to feed the black magic within her, and to keep her alive. “When this is over I’m going to kill that old witch in the wood.”
“More death, Tomas. What has become of us?” Aliss brushed past him as she walked from the balcony and followed Elandrial down the stairs and out into the courtyard.
Mounted on the horses they arrived on, they left the temple without a backward glance.
The journey back to the Duchies was a long one, although quicker than the trip in the opposite direction, when they were hunting the dream-witch, always searching for clues and following rumours. Tomas marvelled at how the terrain and weather changed as they rode north, becoming colder, the vegetation much thicker on the ground even in the bitter grip of an oncoming winter. The lands and people they passed on the way were unknown to him, a simple blacksmith—albeit one with a diverse past—had little use for knowing the ways of the world. He was surprised they encountered no resistance with what was effectively an army at their backs. When he asked Elandrial why no lord attempted to stop so many armed warriors passing through their land she simply shrugged and said, “We are no threat to them.” Not much of an answer but it was all he was going to get. They steered well clear of Suilomon’s company of Nortmen, and the black-robed warriors also kept to themselves, huddling together around campfires and talking quietly whenever they stopped for the night. Even Aliss had little to say to him. So passed long days and nights he lost count of, until they came within sight of the large mountain range Elandrial called home and Duke Normand had usurped from her. Tomas almost felt sorry for the duke when he learned of the fate awaiting him, but he was just another noble of the Duchies and Tomas got over it quickly enough. Let him suffer at the hands of the Shadow Mage. Let him feel what it is like to be enslaved by one vastly more powerful.
