It became obvious to Hilt as they turned up the mountainside, why the gorcs stayed out of the area. The slope was gradual and rocky, but interspersed among the rocks rose plumes of steam.
“Ugh, what’s that smell?” Beth complained with a grimace.
“Sulfur,” said Hilt. “Among other things. Evidently this mountain is a bubbler.”
“Bubbler?”
“Yes, well that’s what my commander called it back in my guard days. It’s a place where the earth beneath the mountain is so hot that it pushes chemicals and gasses to the surface. This place is one step away from becoming a volcano.” He held out his hand. “Come, stay by my side. The way ahead will be treacherous.”
She hesitated. “You want me to hold your hand?”
“It would be the safer course, yes. That way if the ground crumbles beneath you, I can pull you to safety.”
She eyed the offered hand dubiously, “And what if it crumbles beneath you? You going to pull me in with you?”
Hilt threw up his hands in surrender. “Fine, Beth. If you don’t trust my intentions, just stay close. I have been in these types of areas before and know what to look for.” He turned and began walking towards the rising plumes of steam.
Her face reddened a bit and she opened her mouth as if to say something, but she just followed behind him instead. To his surprise, she stayed close as he had requested.
The air grew warmer as they approached the active area. Clusters of trees appeared here and there growing from small earthy areas between stretches of rock. Hilt began to feel a low steady vibration beneath his feet.
A dull roar echoed down the mountainside as they drew nearer to the steam. Beth’s hand latched onto his.
“What is this?” he asked, stopping in surprise.
“I do trust you,” she said. Her voice was steady, but her fingers were trembling. “I know I just met you this morning, but you have been nothing but a gentleman and . . . I’m sorry about before.”
Hilt saw a hint of fear in her blue eyes and wondered if it was the area they were approaching or the fact that she was holding his hand that frightened her. He smiled and gave her hand a reassuring squeeze.
“There is no need to apologize. Your reaction was understandable. Not all men are trustworthy,” he said. She nodded and gave him a weak smile in return. He added, “Though the area ahead is dangerous, it will also be fascinating. You will see.”
They continued forward, hand in hand, Hilt making sure to stay on solid slabs of rock as much as possible. They passed bubbling mud pots, hissing steam vents, and rivulets of warm water filled with multicolored algae. Beth soon forgot her fears and ooed and ahhed at each wonder. Hilt had to make sure to keep her from getting too close.
They rounded one particularly large boulder and came upon a wide steaming pool of water. The surface was calm and the water was clear and blue. Hilt estimated it to be several meters deep in the center. It looked inviting.
“It’s beautiful,” Beth said, gazing at the steaming pool with longing eyes. “Ohh, it would be so nice to bathe in warm water again.”
“Not a good idea,” Hilt warned. He pointed to the far edge of the pool where a frog floated, belly up. “When I was campaigning on academy assignment, one of our men fell into a hot pool like that. He boiled alive before we could fish him out.”
“Oh,” she said with a disappointed pout. “W-well if it’s that hot at least the water is clean, right? Maybe we could gather some?”
“I wouldn’t suggest drinking it,” he said. “In active areas like this, it might not be just water. There could be acid or any number of other toxic things in there. Another man on that journey drank from a hot stream and died vomiting blood. His name was Henry. Henry the Bold.”
“Oh. How horrible,” she said.
“Nah, don’t feel sorry for him. Henry was a good soldier, but he was a horrible man,” Hilt said. “He liked killing a little too much.”
“Oh . . . good riddance then, I guess.” She shrugged. “Well! I’m tired. Can we rest? Are you hungry? I’m starving.”
“Uh, yes. Sure,” Hilt said. It was late in the afternoon and they hadn’t eaten. “I suppose we can stop and eat. But I really don’t want to tarry long. I would like to be away from this area before we stop for the night.”
“Oh.” She looked disappointed. “I suppose that means we don’t have time to build a fire. I was kind of looking forward to cooking this snake. I’m getting tired of carrying it around, actually.”
Hilt chuckled. “To tell you the truth, I’ve been dreading having to eat it.”
“You don’t like snake?”
“Beth, my lady, I don’t fancy myself a picky man. I have been on many long campaigns and I have been forced to eat many things over the years. There are only a few of them I’ve hoped to forget, and almost all of those were reptilian in nature.”
Beth grinned. “That, Sir Hilt, is because you have never eaten snake prepared by someone who knows how to cook it.”
“Ah. Very well, but for now, why don’t we just eat some of the bread and dried meat I brought with me. Maybe tonight, if it’s safe, we can build a fire and cook that snake for you.”
Beth sighed. “Okay.”
Hilt took the food out of his pack and divided it between them. The meat was well salted and it was tough, but flavorful. The bread was hard and barely edible, but they were hungry enough that it didn’t matter. After they each drank from the waterskin, Hilt noted that there wasn’t much left. They would need to find some water soon.
“You didn’t answer my question,” Beth said around a mouthful of the hard bread.
“Didn’t I?” Hilt asked, not sure what she was talking about. “What question was that?”
“Back down there just before I fell on my face. I asked you why you were helping me. You never answered.” She stared at him expectantly.
Hilt gave her a shrug. “It was my duty.”
“Why?” she asked, “What does being a named warrior have to do with my quest?”
“It’s a matter of pride.” Hilt looked down for a moment and when he looked back at her, he wore a weary smile. “It’s a long tale.”
“Most tales are,” she said.
“Very well, but for you to truly understand, I must start at the beginning.” Hilt gathered his thoughts for a moment, staring into the depths of the steaming pool. “I was born George Slarr, son of Duke Andres Slarr of Gladstone. As the first born son of the Duke, it would one day be my responsibility to take over stewardship of Gladstone, but I didn’t want to rule. I saw what the responsibilities of being a Duke did to my father and I hated it. When I was young, I met several named warriors that came to visit my father. I idolized those men. I wanted more than anything to be as good as them. A named warrior has the highest respect among fighters and more than that, a named warrior is free. Free to do as he wished, no longer tied to land or country.
“Oh how I wanted that. I wanted to shed my father’s name and be my own man. I trained hard. I trained with my father’s soldiers, I trained in foreign lands. When I was nineteen I went to the Battle Academy and it was there that I gained the first step towards my independence. I earned a man’s name. They called me George the Wind. I loved that name. The wind. That’s how I felt during battle, dancing through my enemies like a force of nature. I was brash, arrogant, cocksure. Back then I was sure I was invincible.”
Beth’s eyebrow rose. “And that has changed?”
Hilt paused. “Do you want me to finish this story?”
She raised a hand. “Please go on. Please do. It is a fascinating story. I am enthralled, truly. I just wonder how this answers my question.”
“I am getting to that, just . . .” Hilt frowned. “Do you know how many people I have told this story to?”
She wisely didn’t respond.
Hilt waited for a moment, gauging her response, then cleared his throat and continued, “But even as George the Wind, I was still a Slarr. My father expecte
d me to come home as soon as my academy contract was over and marry some noble girl he had picked out for me. After I graduated, I spent my contracted time campaigning in the wilds, fighting monsters and honing the skills I had learned. Two years later my contract was up, as was my time of freedom. It was time to go home. It was time to face my duty.”
“You could have run,” she said.
“That’s what my friends said. But it was never really an option. That would have crushed my father and dishonored my family. I couldn’t do that. My only way out was the Bowl of Souls.”
“You alluded to that before. But how does that help?” Beth asked. “How would being named save you from your family responsibilities?”
“Ah, well a named warrior cannot hold a noble rank. It is in the country bylaws and it is part of the history of the Bowl of Souls. By being named, I would be required to forfeit my birthright and yet still bring my family great honor. My younger brother would carry on the Slarr name. It was what he wanted anyway. He wasn’t as highly favored by our father and that had always rankled him. It was the perfect answer and it was the chance I had been training for. I had these two swords made and then I went to the Mage School to stand before the bowl.”
“I can’t imagine what it must have been like. Leaving your life to chance like that.” Beth said. “Walking up to the bowl must have been terrifying.”
Hilt smiled. “Yes, it’s true that very few are chosen. It’s also true that a warrior only gets one chance to be named. Once refused, he cannot come back again. I knew that going in. And if that had happened I was prepared to go back and do my duty. However, I was confident. I knew I was as good as I was ever going to be. The day that I stood before the Bowl of Souls, I knew that I had worked hard and I was ready. I was ready for the freedom, and to tell you the truth, I was ready for the praise. I was ready for the acclaim.”
He gripped the hilts of his swords and as he continued he was unable to keep the pride out of his voice. “When I dipped my blades in the water of the bowl, it accepted me and the name that shot from my lips was Hilt. I had reached it. The pinnacle. My dream.”
“Wait, you said it?” she asked, her brow wrinkled in confusion. “You named yourself?”
“No. The bowl named me. But that’s how it works. It doesn’t have a mouth to speak with, so it speaks through the person being named.” From the expression on her face, Hilt knew she didn’t understand. He looked up as he struggled to put the experience into words. “I’ll try to explain better. It . . . the Bowl of Souls reaches inside you and just . . . you can feel the vastness of it just searching the core of you and this-this pressure builds and you get the sense in your mind of something huge and important happening. Then without even knowing it, you start chanting some strange language and the name grows in your mind until it is too big to contain and it springs from your throat with a great shout. Then you’re standing there and the rune has appeared on your hand and on your weapon and it-it-. It’s wonderful.”
He looked back at Beth to find her staring open-mouthed. He chuckled. Pleased at her reaction. “But there is one thing no one tells you about being named. You aren’t really free.”
She rose a shaking hand and pointed over his shoulder. “L-look.”
Hilt felt the familiar chill of danger and drew his swords in one swift motion as he spun around. Standing behind him just a few yards away swaying and blinking stupidly were three trolls. All at once, they lifted their long arms tipped in vicious claws and screeched.
His well-trained mind assessed the situation. They were mountain trolls, seven foot tall and gangly, with beady eyes and cavernous mouths full of rows of teeth. A thick layer of slime dripped from their grey skin.
Trolls were mindless creatures driven only by hunger and they were hard to kill, regenerating from any wound. The only way to kill them for sure was to light them on fire. The slime that coated their skin was highly flammable and they went up quicker than lamp oil. Unfortunately, Hilt didn’t have a fire source handy.
Hilt erupted into motion, spinning and slicing. The most important thing when fighting multiple trolls was to disable them right away. His first cuts went at the outstretched arms of the closest troll, lopping off its hands at the wrists. He ducked the swipe of the second troll and swung low, severing one of its legs at the knee.
As it crashed to the ground, the first troll tried to pull him in with the stumps of its arms, its open mouth descending on him. He met its mouth with the tip of one sword, piercing its soft upper pallet and continued through its brain to stick out the top of its skull. He twisted the blade and shoved its quivering hulk atop the other downed beast, and left his sword stuck in its skull while he turned to face the third.
It was charging toward Beth, who was backing away but not fast enough. He wouldn’t be able to reach her side before it struck. Trolls were filthy creatures and even a scratch from their claws could cause a serious infection.
Hilt gripped his remaining sword with both hands and called out to the magic in the blade. The sword was ready and eager. The magic gathered quickly. He stepped forward, spun, and released it with a mighty two-handed swing. A gust of wind hurtled from the blade and caught the troll mid-stride, sending it sprawling into the steaming blue pool. Beth stumbled and fell on her rump in surprise, but she seemed otherwise unharmed. Hilt turned back to the other two trolls.
The troll with the sword stuck in its skull still lay quivering, but Hilt had to jump out of the way to avoid the claws of the second troll, which launched itself at him with its one good leg. It gathered itself and leapt towards him again. He jumped back out of the reach of its attack and swung his blade. He called up the magic of the blade again, but this time narrowed the power of the wind down to a fine razor edge.
Though the tip of his blade missed its face by inches, the power of the magic took off its head from the nose up. The troll crashed to the ground and the top of its skull rolled several feet away and rattled to a stop.
Hilt stabbed the sword into its back and hurriedly took off his small pack.
“Beth!” he barked. She looked at him from the place where she sat, stunned. “You all right?”
“I-I. I never . . “ She stared at him, eyes wide, her face blank. He had seen that expression many times before in the eyes of men after battle. He needed to snap her out of it quick, and the best way to do that was to give her something to do.
“Beth, come here! Hurry, I need your help.”
She shook her head and blinked away her stupor before climbing to her feet. “W-what?”
“Here, help me drag their bodies together. It’s only a few moments before they start moving again,” he said. He grabbed one of the troll’s arms. “Careful, they’re slippery.”
“But their heads . . .” she said eyeing the top of the trolls head which sat just a few feet away. The eyes were twitching.
“They really don’t use their brains much and they regenerate fast. It’s surprising how quickly they recover. That’s why I left my other sword in the first one’s head.” He gave what he hoped was a reassuring smile. “Come on, grab its leg. Just don’t let your hands slip. Their claws are sharp. You don’t want to cut yourself.”
She lifted its one remaining foot. “Um, gross,” she said, grimacing at the feeling of its slime covered skin. She wrapped both hands around its ankle and helped Hilt pull it over and toss it down on top of the body of the other troll.
“Where is the other one?” His eyes were on the deep blue pool. The surface was still once more.
“Um, I don’t think it ever came out,” she said.
He walked over quickly and looked into the water. The troll had sunk to the bottom of the pool and stayed motionless, its claws reaching upward, its mouth hanging open in a silent screech of rage.
“Huh. What do you know? It drowned. I never drowned a troll before,” Hilt said.
“W-will it stay dead?” Beth asked.
“I imagine so. That liquid is so hot that it probably
cooked it. A cooked troll is a dead troll.” He turned back to her. “Speaking of . . .”
He tossed something to her, which she caught clumsily. It was a wooden dowel about the length of her thumb and there was a leather cap covering one end. “What is it?”
“It’s my flame stick. Got it as a gift from a wizard friend years ago,” Hilt replied. He walked over and retrieved his swords, wrenching them free from the troll’s bodies. “Take the cap off the end, but be careful not to lose it. It’s made of firedrake leather. Hard stuff to get ahold of.”
She pulled the cap off and saw a round metal button imbedded in the end of the stick. There was a symbol carved into the metal. “That’s a fire rune.”
The Bowl of Souls: Book 01.5 - Hilt's Pride Page 3
