CLOAK - Lost Son of the Crested Folk

by Russell Thomson

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  Snorting foamy green spit the mule continued to kick out, burying a hind leg deep into the grasping snare of twigs. The leg stuck fast. Hooked firmly through the hind cannon, the wild poisoned look that had filled the mules gapping green eyes disappeared replaced by fear and panic. As the wall of thorny wood tasted blood, the mule screamed. Cloak was already on his feet and half way down the hill when the first of the thorny butchers hooks reached out from beyond the covering leaves and dug deep into the mules flanks, impaling and hauling the now writhing beast inwards.

  Fearful of being snagged and wary of the mule’s wild thrashing, Cloak ducked and weaved in an attempt to haul the precious panniers free. The beast’s poisoned blood sprayed the slashing branches red, its arteries sliced open, its blood now running freely over the emerald grass. As other blood hungry boughs grasped at the air, Cloak readied himself for one final attempt, pulling away at the very last second as the thirsty branches slashed at his face. Momentarily distracted by the swinging crooks Cloak was helpless to avoid the mule’s final throw, the beast’s head slamming into him, throwing him backwards and hurling him to the ground. Unable to protect himself Cloak hit the ground hard, his head cannoning hard on a snow white cobble, the explosive pain from the crunching impact sending him into the void.

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  In the few seconds that it took for the maw to close, Echo Grave left cover and dashed across the open ground. Braving the folding boughs he plunged into the darkness behind the mule, the hooked branches missing his trailing leg by mere inches. The magic dark consumed all light but not sound as from the darkness, Heavenly heard the sound of a blade being drawn. The blind swish, swish, swish was unmistakeable and even robbed of her sight Heavenly knew instantly that the dead weight beyond the reins and a muffled whinny from the muzzled mule meant only one thing, the beast had been sliced across the hock, the slash of the blade dropping it to the ground and dooming it to the thorns.

  Releasing the reins of the crippled beast Heavenly left it too its doom. With her own short sword now to hand Cloak’s guardian mother forced her senses outward and tried her best to cut through the blinding midnight magic. Walking backwards and with her sword arm outstretched Heavenly waited on the first chinks of light brake through the wall behind her. It was a dangerous time, a period when she would be silhouette against the light whilst her attacker remained hidden, but, if she could survive those vital seconds his advantage would wane.

  Heavenly flinched as the first dart that flew past her guard, missing her shoulder by mere inches. The second dart came uncannily quick, catching her sword low on the blade jarring her hand, deflecting the point and saving her from its poisoned barb. With her assailant still hidden from view and unable to conceal herself in the growing light, Heavenly could only gasp when a long feathered dart embedded itself deep into her left thigh. The poison worked fast, the toxin quickly reaching her heart. Her muscles robbed of their strength, Heavenly stumbled clear of the maw. As she fell, her eyes locked onto Cloak, the lad lying prostrate on the ground, blood oozing from the back of his head. As her limbs grew limp and useless Heavenly crumpled to her knees before falling flat on her face. Barely able to turn her head she gazed across the glade towards the boy, her cries cut short by the poison as it numbed her jaw and tightened her throat. As her eyelids closed and the darkness overwhelmed her the last thing she remembered was the bitter taste of her own tears, she had failed him, failed him at the first challenge.

  TWELVE: No Marrow

  Not long after breakfast, Smoke and Needle set out for the surface, Needle dressed in his old clothes; the ones stripped from him when he originally arrived, Smoke dressed in his uniform black. They travelled light, no pack, no bedding, only a skin of water and a purse full of dried berries. As they walked, Needle mentally mapped the path, carefully register the detail and noting the glyphs. It was soon clear that Smoke followed the same twisting route back up and along the corridors towards the passage where Needle’s cell lay. With the exception of Smoke’s lamp and a few florescent ferns, all was in darkness, his wan lamp exposing no more than ten paces ahead. Needle did his best to keep up with Smoke’s brisk pace but in doing so only managed to induce a stitch in his side. Calling Smoke to a halt, Needle belched loudly and cursed his third portion of breakfast pudding. The long spiralling ramps to the surface sapped Needle’s strength, their steep gradient causing him to lag behind again and again. At the head of the next ramp and to Needle’s great relief, the passage levelled off. Ahead the entrance to much grander passage loomed, a space tall enough and wide enough for the lamplight to be swallowed up by the darkness on all sides.

  Deep in the darkness, a booming sound exploded from the darkness, freezing Needle’s heart and stopping him in his track. A gritty voice spoke, the tone as deep as boulders falling from a barrow. As if obeying an order, Smoke lowered the wick on his lamp, reducing the circle of light to only a few paces before placing the lamp on the ground at his feet. When a Troll stepped forward out of the darkness Needle barely held his water, the urge to wish walk out of the cave tugging viciously at his senses. Clad only in a leather tabard the Troll stood eight or more feet tall, every inch solid muscle. A female, her skin grey brown, almost mottled, her arms, legs and upper chest black with tattoos, glyph and script as well as lines of ancient text, her hide a near priceless trophy for the right buyer.

  Smoke held up a welcoming hand and bellowed a response, his yell acknowledged by a nod. As his initial fear passed, Needle could not help but stare at the Troll, absorbing every detail. Three fingers and a thumb, each hand the size of a shovel, four toes, flat feet each the size of a blacksmiths anvil. Atop an overly thick neck sat a square head, a flat nose above full lips, bad teeth, brown stained tusks and large ears that appeared to move independently, tilting and twisting like a bat listening for a bug.

  The exchange between Smoke and the Troll lasted for only a few minutes. To Needle’s ear, Smoke’s attempt at Troll made him sound like a young child engaging with an adult, his bass words nothing but squeaks compared to the rumble of the Troll. When the conversation ended, the Troll turned and walked away, disappearing into the darkness without a backward glance, her footfalls soft and impossibly silent.

  Needle turned to Smoke and made to speak, his first words hastily cut short by Smoke’s sharp gesture of silence. The two men stood unmoving at the edge of the large chamber and waited. Needle stared hard at the darkness, deducing that distant eyes still stared at them from beyond the low lamplight. Anticipating another visitation Needle held his breath, his bladder near to bursting. Much to his relief after less than a minute Smoke turned and spoke.

  ‘Breath freely old man, that’s them all gone now.’

  ‘Them? You mean there were other Troll hidden in the darkness of the chamber?’

  ‘Yes, there were a dozen or more, but, that is not important. The Troll who spoke to me was called Push Blind, she is the mate of the nest, sort of akin to a housekeeper and share-wife for the bulls. They sent her forward because she is the smallest of their kin and least likely to frighten the piss out of you.’

  ‘What did they want?’

  ‘Nothing of importance, they just wanted to gaze on you before you left.’

  ‘Gazed on me! Why?’

  ‘It would appear that they are intrigued by you. She said that when you arrived you glowed bright as the sun but that the king’s mage who wove the wards used charms without knowing the consequences.’

  ‘And?’ said Needle with some concern.

  ‘Push Blind just described you as ‘a dark man’, she said that Lung Bone told her he was not surprised that your glow was gone, he said the hapless mage , that he had been warned that this might happen if he,’ Smoke hesitated. ‘.............ripped off your bond.’

  For the first time he could remember Needle saw worry on the assassin’s face. ‘That is roughly what she said’ said Smoke ‘and if I am interpreting her correctly, I think we have a problem.’

/>   ‘Hold on Smoke. Two things, first, what problem, and two, how do you know so much about Troll.’

  Ignoring Needles question the king’s assassin lifted the lamp, raised the wick and walked on. ‘We have a long way to go, let’s walk and talk old man……………….First, I’ll answer the second question, it might help you understand a few things. The Trolls are not a stupid race, they are just very susceptible to the blood haze, so much so that it blinds all their other sensibilities. Many years ago, a badly injured Troll was found lying near the border road far out to the north east near to Goose Foot Fort. The Troll was called Head Stone, and as far as we knew at the time, he was the first Troll ever to be calmed, not by using the Heart Fire Killer but by using a blood charm and a strong Saver’s Bond. Head Stone was by Troll standards in his prime, something near one hundred summers old. He bore many tattoos to ward against majical attacks but the wise and wizened crests of our Inner Sanctum felt confident that he would succumb to bonding. So, after they chained him down and knocked him out with a dog head hammer, they split his head open with an axe and carved a compliance charm onto his base of his skull. The king told me that his hide was so tough they had to get a saddle maker in to stitch him back together again. Whilst he was out cold they tattooed every bare patch on his back with a latticework of bonds then triggered the lacework using an ancient binding. When Head Stone awoke, he was to say the least furious, he felt the tug of the bond and by God and King he fought it, nearly tore the chains from the walls he did. However, the more his blood boiled the more effective the compliance charm became and after a week or so he started to show small signs of submission.

  It is one of the few times that the king has ever charged me with a task I did not think I could fulfil, he asked me to speak to Head Stone, speak to him and learn his language…………so I did. The king relied on my shadow talent to keep me safe but I knew that once I had mastered the tongue he would likely send me on missions far to the north. I thought at the time this was just the king wanting to expand his knowledge but looking back now I should have guessed that the sly old dastard had other motives. It’s clear now that even back then, he already knew about brother’s journey north. I suspect that what he originally wanted was for me to seek out and silence any threat, send me north and north again to the bare lands where a grasp of Troll would have come in handy.’

  Needle broke in, stopping Smoke’s flow. ‘Smoke, don’t insult me by using words like ‘threat’ and ‘silence’, when what you mean is kill.’

  Taking a deep breath, Smoke continued. ‘Anyway, that was a long time ago and it did not happen. Learning Troll was hard, even compelled to be compliant it took me a year to get Head Stone to talk with me and another two years to grasp the basics of the language.’

  ‘Hold on Smoke, your grasp of Troll back there when you conversed with Push Blind was not halting, I might not have understood a word you said but it was clear to my ear that you have not just ‘grasped the basics’, you talked with a confidence and conviction that would indicate that you were fluent.’

  ‘It’s not a language you get a chance to practice very often,’ said Smoke ‘I think even you would agree with that, but your right, it took me another ten to become fluent. When Head Stone died of red pox three years ago he was a hundred and thirty five. The king had kept him prisoner for thirty six years and he died a hollow husk. By the time he died I knew all about him and his nest. I promised him I would return him to his family, so when his soul passed, I wrapped his body in a shroud and brought him home, here, to his son. You see, Head Stone was Lung Bone’s father.

  Head Stone is the only Troll I know who witnessed the first cast of Torrent and Honey Glow’s new spell, he did not know who the people were, to him they were just a dog crest and his bitch. He however evaded the cast and headed north but had to spend much of his time alone, away from other nests. He was big but not big enough to mount a challenge and was eventually forced south again, ending up near the far end of the Slate Cliff Peninsula living on wild goat, seals and sea birds. In winter, when it was really cold and food was hard to find he would head south on occasional forays for food. During one particularly cold year he was seen by a farmer digging up fresh graves at a small cemetery outside Slender Bridge, there was heavy snow on the ground and he was very hungry so he did what any Troll would do in times of famine and resorted to eating carrion. To him, that’s what the corpses were, carrion. Anyway, what he did not know was that Slender Bridge was the home to High Lord Fall Cloud’s kennels. Home to the famous lion dog pack. They hunted him, cornered him and injured him. He tried to evade them by jumping across a narrow gorge but the far edge gave way under his weight and he fell some yards into the river below, crushed some ribs and broke his collar bone ………….. I suspect now that had he been whole when he was chained in the cell, he would have escaped.’

  ‘Head Stone and I never became friends. In fact, I think he would have gladly eaten me. To him I was a dog crest and it amused him that he could teach a dog his language. So let’s just say that, over the years, Head Stone and I developed an understanding. About three years ago, I was sent to conclude a piece of business for the king. I was gone for nearly two months and when I returned Head Stone was ill. They had fed him the carcass of a dead slave, not in itself an unusual act but in this case the slave had died of the red pox. He had no resistance to it and we had no medicines to give him…….he died. I asked the king if I could take his corpse north and build a cairn over him, he said yes. What I did not tell the king was that I was taking Head Stone home and that I intended to gift his corpse to his people.’

  ‘When I met with Lung Bone I did not know what to expect. Head Stone had told me the nest had been ‘charmed by the dogs’, even so, at first I stayed hidden and talked with Lung Bone from the shadows. He was suspicious and very belligerent but not murderous and when I told him of his father’s corpse and where he could find it he sent others out to retrieve it right away. When they returned and they removed the shroud the whole nest pounded the ground and screamed for the Stone God. I nearly shat myself, when the worm rock came to life, I had never seen a god summoned before and did not know if his power could draw me from the shadow. But all was well. They were glorying, Head Stone had been returned to them intact, he had entered the Snow Nest, a fact their god’s presence attested.

  When I entered the nest, I found the passages Torrent had cut. Lung Bone described them as maggot holes, small caves cut many years before by the slaves of the High Lord Dog but when he told me he was just a young boy when it happened, my ears pricked up. It would appear that High Lord Dog, his bitch and his brood stayed for many years and cut several caves. When I reported back to our lord he skilfully questioned me about the Troll and their nest but as for Torrent and Honey, he glided past the subject and did not interrogate me as he normally would. It had happened before and although I was curious, it was not my place to lift an eye.’ Smoke sighed, the king’s assassin exhaling noisily. ‘So, do you want an answer to the first question?’ Needle nodded. ‘You will not like the truth old man but here it is. When Push Blind said you were a ‘dark man’ what she meant was that your talent was………….not visible.’

  ‘Not visible, by which you mean?’

  ‘That we wrapped you up to tightly and in doing so severed your connection with your source. To most crested folk this is not an issue because as soon as the majic flows again their talent returns. You it would seem, are different...........sort of arse for tit. It’s something either the king failed to mention or did not know, either way, we appear to have................un-bonded you from your majic.’

  Needle stopped walking. ‘I don’t believe it. You stinking little dastard, you shit eater, you toucher of tups……….. you’ve beasted me. What you’re trying to say is that you think you’ve neutered my ability to wish walk?’

  ‘Sorry old man, but it’s worse. I think the king was relying on your talent to take us south.’

  Needle stopped
as Smoke continued walking. ‘Sorry!........Listen Silverfly you little turd, mark my words well, if I ever walk with you again you’ll likely find yourself left standing somewhere hot and sulphurous. I could feel it in my bones,’ shouted the old wish walker in frustration. ‘I just knew something was wrong when that tusked giant stepped out of the dark, it was just a sixth sense and I did not want to believe it. This is all your fault you wee shit, the king trusted you and you made an ear of it. Our lord would never risk losing my talent if he was going to rely on me to fulfil a mission.’

  As they turned the final corner, a spot of sunlight appeared up ahead, Needle estimated by the angle of the shadows cast it was nearing low sun. They had travelled underground for over eight hours, much of that time spent scaling ever steepening ramps. The closer to the surface they came, the more Needle knew it was true, he felt it to be true, the sun had set on his world, the flow from the core that had sought him out as a youth was lost to him. Just like Head Stone, he was nothing but a husk.

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  The passage narrowed and steepened as they approached the shaft of light. The final few steps were steep, each riser hip high, each tread a full pace across. The flight was some twenty feet high, the steps proving no problem to Smoke but testing Needle to his limit. At first the cool breeze that blew down from above was welcomed, drying the sticky sweat that ran down his back but as he stood to rest on the top step, the welcome cooling soon turned to into cutting chill that bit into his aching muscles.

  The near circular opening was no more than three paces across, to Needle’s eyes, a tight squeeze for a large Troll. The last riser was high, reaching just below his shoulder, the top lip worn round and offering no grip. As he stretched up to find a hold, helping hands reached down to grasp his wrists, lifting him clear of the nest opening and out into a freezing dusk. The two servants who aided him were clad in furs, their faces almost hidden under their hoods. Wrapping him in a woollen blanket, Needle was quickly escorted across a bare rock plateau and down into a small dry gully. The stone bothy they led him too was well hidden, the red rock camouflaged with a natural coat of hanging mosses. The bothy had been built between two natural stone walls, the overlapping stone slabs of its low arched roof looking more like a landslip than a work of man. An open fire burned in the centre of the room, the smoke from the burning heather twisting slowly upwards before disappearing between the large roof slabs.