by Kildare
They had nearly attained the top of the hill when the first of the shadow terrors bolted out of the trees, a troll mounted on its back. Shaped like a giant cat, the shadow terror would loom over a lion or even a tiger, and so black it seemed almost to have no color at all, but instead to be a void, a nothingness. Red eyes burned like flaring embers. A mane of long bristles ran down its neck to a humped shoulder. The saddles were mounted behind the hump.
Arrows were flying all around before Cillian had even drawn one from the quiver. One found its mark to no effect. Cillian loosed his first arrow, wide of its mark. The shadow terror bounded up the scree in thirty-foot leaps as a second and third emerged. The dreadful beast was upon the nearest rider in seconds. A swat of a massive paw bowled the horse down the mountainside.
The rider leapt off, and surprisingly landed on his feet. He unsheathed his sword too late. Cillian looked away, the screams painting an image every bit as gruesome as the actual scene. He had misjudged. The shadow terror was twice the size of a tiger. The mounted troll was similar in height to a man.
Cillian’s horse reached the crest and finally tread on grass again. The pass lay between two sheer walls of almost vertical rock, the ring of menhirs between, and beyond a sprawling meadow and snowy mountains carving up the distant skyline. Salvation beckoned for those who could reach it. Cillian fired another arrow and again a miss. Without practice, his archery skills were of no assistance. He slung the bow over his shoulder and unsheathed Anbhás. A glint of fire raced down the length of black steel.
Arrows whistled all around, but none slowed the attack of the shadow terrors. A second tore a hole right through the center of the riders, panicking the horses and knocking off riders. Cillian’s horse bolted into the pass. As badly as Cillian wanted to allow the horse to flee to safety, he couldn’t. He grasped the reins with both hands, locked his arms against his chest, and leaned back, using his upper body as leverage against the straining horse, forcing her to stop. She reared back, sidestepped, hopped, spun a circle, and tried to run. She was too panicked. He couldn’t control her. Cillian leapt down, mumbling a string of profanities. The horse bolted, reins dragging on the ground.
All discipline had collapsed, the survivors fleeing to the safety of the standing stones. Only Kjartan and Niamh were still horsed. A shadow terror shook a fallen horse like it was a rag doll, the rider nowhere to be seen. Another gripped a man’s leg in its mouth. No sign of the rest of him. Cillian shuddered at the thought of the man’s demise. The shadow terrors were unstoppable killing machines. The riders had never had a chance.
A motion to his left drew his attention. A shadow terror lunged at him. He reflexively slashed at the attacker, the movement awkward, but true. The shadow terror screamed in agony, the severed paw flopping on the ground, black blood gushing from the wound. The troll mounted on its back shuddered, went limp, and slumped to the ground, an arrow sticking through the back of its neck. Cillian chopped Anbhás down upon the troll. He grimaced a little as the head rolled free.
He stepped backward as another shadow terror charged. The sight of so much death steeled his nerves, pressed back the fear, vengeance flowing through his veins. He anchored his feet, Anbhás raised as a warning. He wouldn’t be cowed. At three feet away the shadow terror halted as the troll screamed at him in some unrecognizable language. A metal helmet masked its face. Why weren’t they attacking? Of course. He had slipped inside the ring of menhirs.
He had reached safety.
III
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8
Tense glares were exchanged across the invisible line between the humans and trolls. Niamh held back the survivors’ fire, while the two remaining trolls lacked bows. The shadow terrors paced the line, screaming in rage.
Cillian’s blood chilled and legs wobbled. They were so much more terrifying at close range. Only one other sound was so damned godawful unnerving, a single hearing enough to unhinge one’s mind—the shrill shriek of incoming bombs. Those were the sounds of doom, the screams of the Valkyries announcing death.
Seeing their situation hopeless, the two trolls backed their shadow terrors to the edge of the pass. The wounded shadow terror followed, limping and dragging one of the fallen riders in its jaws. They paused at the edge, each giving one final shriek before slipping back down the mountainside. The scene they left was revolting—the green grass stained a red almost black, two horses dead, one nearly torn in two. No signs of the dead men remained, except for a broken bow.
Cillian slid Anbhás back into its sheath, squatted down, and waved the sign of the cross in front of his face. He closed his eyes and concentrated on his heart rate, a tact he had started in the early days of the Second World War. Only when it had slowed again did he rise and look around at the others, now reduced to four—Niamh, Kjartan, and two men whose names he had heard but forgotten.
He studied a menhir at the edge of the circle, about twelve feet in height, covered in strange symbols in a language he had never seen before. He stared at them numbly, barely registering their existence. Normally, such a sight would have piqued his interest, but the reality of what had just happened collided with the feeling that none of it had been real. It had all been too sudden, too violent. His mind slipped into memories buried long ago during much darker days.
Similar feelings had overwhelmed him several times during the war when walking through a bombed-out village, seeing fields strewn with bloodied corpses, watching the horizon burning at night as bombers dropped their payloads, or seeing the gaunt skeletons that had survived the concentration camps. After so many surreal scenes, he had begun to feel like his whole life had become a dream. Many days started with his own internal pep talk, rallying himself to carry on, insisting that the war was very real, and reminding himself to keep fighting if he ever wanted to see home or Evelyn again.
His first return to the homestead had been more traumatic than the worst day of the war. Within an hour of arriving home, a wild restlessness had possessed him, chasing him far out into the prairie until all sight and sound of civilization disappeared between the endless spheres of green and blue. In that vast sea, where the only sound is the relentless wind, where the sky only burns at sunrise and sunset, where a man’s only real concern is the drudgery of a mundane life, he had felt overwhelmed, reduced to shaking and uncontrollable tears. After nearly a year of bloody fighting, North Dakota seemed too quiet, too peaceful. It was a paradise compared to the horrors of Europe.
When he had walked back to his parent’s house, his condition had barely improved. He had made an effort to hold himself together, but his mother had sensed his distress and wrapped him in her warm embrace. Something about her touch shattered his resolve, and he had broken down again. He didn’t need to say anything to her. She could sense the war had changed him, that he was no longer the boy she had waved goodbye to when he left for basic training. Even Christian, who Cillian had never seen shed a tear, had shown no mark of reproach in his face. He had understood that he didn’t understand.
The next morning Cillian had risen early and gone out to watch the sunrise over the valley of the Little Missouri River. Christian was already awake and tinkering in the barn. He walked out for something, noticed Cillian, and walked to the house. Together they had shared that sunrise, Christian’s hand on Cillian’s shoulder. A few brief minutes, then a nod from Christian and the sight of him walking away, a black relief against the yellow dawn. That moment was the closest they ever came to talking about Cillian’s service overseas.
The memory ran its course, returning him to the present.
“Why wouldn’t they cross into the circle?” he asked.
“The boundary of the Tuath Dé is marked by an invisible fence that burns them,” Niamh said. “They also risked bringing an entire army down upon themselves. They wouldn’t risk that. Not for a few people.”
“Then why did you hold back the archers?”
“The trolls were holding back the shadow terrors. Piss off the
shadow terrors and they might come through anyway.”
“We only have three horses,” Kjartan observed. “Two must walk. Do those with horses continue ahead or do we stay together as a group?”
“Perhaps the horses haven’t gone too far,” Niamh said. “We should stay together for as long as we can.”
“Agreed, but we must warn the others. We can’t assume Arinbjørn will make it.” Kjartan acted anxious, tensed for some unseen danger, as if he expected ghosts to emerge from the standing stones. “We have to get out of these lands as quickly as possible.”
“I think your fear of the Tuath Dé is misplaced. We’re protected.” Niamh nodded toward Cillian.
Kjartan lowered his voice. “Odd he doesn’t dress like one of the Tuath Dé.”
They both glanced at Cillian. There were questions in those looks. Questions to which he wanted answers. But not now. He was worn out, too mentally and physically exhausted, and he no longer wanted to talk to anyone. He would have preferred sitting on the ground for a few hours. The questions could wait. From the look of the land, they had time.
“We’ll see,” Kjartan said.
Cillian had never met a man with such a grim, brooding bearing. Not the worst qualities in their current situation, but certainly not a man to share a beer with. The other two men were named Egil and Glámr, and like Kjartan, bore rough, brooding countenances. Egil was the man who had saved his horse from being swept down the river. Glámr was still just a shape and a name.
The pass opened onto a high plateau and even higher mountains. Not so much a pass over as a step up. A little higher and the trees gave out, a sketchy line marking the highest edge of their range. The land was stunningly panoramic—sprawling meadows interspersed with pockets of pine forests and drops of jeweled lakes. Had this sight existed back in the States, a road would have been built up to here so tourists could marvel and snap pictures. The light in this world was wrong again—that polarized affect. Made the sight even more spectacular. He was pretty sure the sun, not his eyes, was the cause. Some property of light he didn’t understand affecting the way his eyes perceived color.
That he should be able to see any of it was a marvel. The human eye was a remarkable feat of biological engineering, capable of transforming light into pictures of aching beauty. People obsessed about the wrong kind of miracles—miracles of a supernatural nature, when life itself was the true miracle. And the divine all around.
They found three of the horses not far away, the reins of one caught in a bush. The other two grazed nearby, seeming to have forgotten why they had run away to begin with. The whinnying of the first after it had gotten snared had probably drawn the other two back. If not for that, all three would have likely run for miles before stopping.
A quick inspection revealed that two checked out, but the third walked with a limp from a cut beneath her back right fetlock. The weight of a rider would only aggravate the wound. They couldn’t risk a lame horse.
With enough horses once more, they set out south, following the march of the mountains they had just crossed over, the injured horse limping behind. Kjartan knew well the land to the east of the Broken Bear Pass, but the west was uncharted. Though the mountain shapes were strange from this angle, he recognized the backsides of some and navigated accordingly. Kjartan became the leader by silent consent, as he was the only one who knew their current position and how to get to their destination. Skilled as he was in the ways of the wild, he likely would have been chosen anyway.
Clouds drifted south and an orange half-moon rose in the east. The sun was already low in the western sky. Once it dipped beneath the mountains the descent into night would be swift. Their pace slowed as they were no longer being chased, and they debated what to do for the night.
Should they stop and try to set up a camp, or ride on as far as they could? Niamh thought they should stop, start a fire, and let the horses rest. Kjartan argued for riding as long as they had moonlight. He had no interest in staying on this side of the mountains for even a minute longer than necessary. More importantly, they had to get word to the outposts about the troll presence. Kjartan had become certain they were a scouting party for an invasion force.
After a long back-and-forth argument between the other four, they turned to Cillian for his opinion. He sided with Kjartan to forge ahead. Once that argument was settled, silence settled over the survivors, Kjartan insisting they not speak. He thought they were speaking too much already. He was even more spooked now than at the pass. Cillian’s questions would have to wait.
Each horse had originally been strapped with packs behind the saddle to hold food and a few necessities for survival in the mountains. Three still had packs and as they rode they divvied up the little remaining food—enough for a single meal. Only Niamh still had her canteen of water. They passed it around, each taking a quick sip. It wet the tongue, but little else. They passed by many lakes and streams they dared not drink from. The water needed to be boiled first to kill the bacteria, which needed a fire, which they had agreed would wait. As his thirst intensified, Cillian wondered if he had made the wrong decision by backing Kjartan.
The sun set, and the moon became their new guide. It was too big, three times bigger than Earth’s, the color a little off, too. More yellow, less gray. Closer to people’s colorings of the Moon than the actual Moon. All other colors washed out, leaving only shades of black and white, bathed in the soft yellow light. Surrounded by the glimmering white beacons of mountain peaks, the inky pools of forests, and passing through a silver field of grass, Cillian felt as if they were trekking through an ethereal landscape, more like a painting than the real world. With no artificial light to obscure the heavens, the stars flickered brightly in the dark. They formed into strange patterns. He recognized no constellations— another reminder he wasn’t on Earth; he could locate all the major constellations in the northern hemisphere on Earth. Here the stars were all alien. What galaxy was he in? More importantly, what universe?
They descended into a deep valley, flanked on each side by the steep shoulders of high, narrow peaks, resembling the lower jaw of a predator. A long lake stretched out at the bottom, the light of moon and stars reflected in the cold blackness. Few trees grew here, the shore strewn with boulders that had tumbled down from heights high above. For some reason he couldn’t explain, the cold, dark, silent waters unnerved him and he wanted only to get away from the lake. An ancient recitation whispered in his head. Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, . . . .
The shadows played tricks. Ghostly images appeared, half an illusion of light and shadow, half his own imagination. They flickered from rock to rock and shadow to shadow. Each time an image started to take shape, it melted away again, and so in each vision he saw reflections of no one and everyone.
Their path climbed out of the valley and weaved its way back and forth along the edge of the tree line. Sometimes they passed along the eaves of dark woods and sometimes they rode across silvery alpine meadows. Hours slid by without seeing or hearing another living creature. Besides the trees and plants, they seemed to be the only life in these mountains.
Despite this, Kjartan had lost none of his wariness. If anything, he had become even tenser as the night wore on. Why did they fear these Tuath Dé so much?
***
A roar from somewhere far away, shrill neigh of horses, scream of a woman. Sense of unmooring, drifting through space. Cillian snapped out of his daze too late. The panicked horse was sidestepping, and he was falling. He slammed into the ground, a dark shadow rushing toward him. Using the momentum of the fall, he rolled back to his feet and unsheathed Anbhás. He screamed in defiance at the charging bear as the sword caught moonlight, a ripple of white-hot flame. Whether it was the scream, the shining sword, or the bear had only meant to scare them, the massive rolling frame ground to a halt and growled. Too much shadow for a good impression, other than it was huge, six feet at the shoulder, the dark pools of its eyes level with Cillian�
�s own. The stuffed mounts he had seen of brown bears and polar bears stood a good two feet shorter. Was this monster a different species? A dim recollection from a picture book. Bears, like many mammals, had been much bigger in width and breadth during the Pleistocene period.
Cillian and the bear squared off, testing the other for weakness, the bright sword keeping space. Locked in a stalemate, the bear huffed, and slunk back into the darkness of nearby trees. Cillian slumped to his knees and thanked God to still be alive and without injury. A hand touched his shoulder.
“Are you injured?” Niamh asked.
Cillian rose to his feet and sheathed his sword. “I’m fine.”
Kjartan caught his horse and led her back. Cillian mounted, and without waiting for the others, needled the horse onward. Nothing about the scenery was recognizable, nor triggered any memories from before the bear. How long had he fallen asleep? Or was he somewhere else, drifting between the two worlds of dreams and wakefulness, a foot in both?
“Well done,” Kjartan said as he passed by to take up the lead.
Cillian suspected such a compliment was as much as one received from the man. In many ways, Kjartan reminded him of his own father. He had the same squinting blue eyes, blond hair, wide square jaw, and broad, muscled build. That they both spoke Norwegian added to the similarity, and lent a surreal quality to the whole situation. How was it possible the same languages could be spoken in two different worlds? Another question in need of an answer.
Afterward, he had no more problems staying awake. The quietest noises caught his attention, all originating with their troup. He found a cloak in the bundle behind the saddle and wrapped himself for warmth against the chill of night.
The night wore on, nothing to break the monotony of more woods and streams and meadows and mountains. Too much time in the saddle also took its toll. The ache had started in his knees and bum, and spread into his feet, ankles, thighs, hips, and up into his back. He kept adjusting the way he sat, but there were only so many positions, and each change shifted the ache to another area.
