The funeral was an unbearably grim thing because there was nothing optimistic to say about those who die at sea. At least those who go to Niflheim were judged by how they live and given the afterlife they deserve; they’d believe I wouldn’t even be given that chance. Even worse, how would they survive without me? My father could certainly work very well, but they depended on me to do much of the work. I pictured them slowly starving, one by one until only a few were left.
Perhaps the worst part, though, was my final thought, a dreadfully realistic one. What of my newest sister? Now that I was lost here, so far away from home, I would never be able to see if she even survived her first week of life. Even if she did, I might never be able to learn what her name is. The agony of the poison died away as I felt cold and empty. A voice echoed in my head.
“They need you and you abandoned them.”
“How did we abandon them? There was nothing we could do,” came another voice.
“You cannot make it back home. You abandoned them,” the first voice shot right back.
“How did we…?”
“We abandoned them,” the voice shouted repeatedly, and the debate raged on in my head despite how much I wanted them to stop their mindlessly repeating the same thing. Eventually, the second voice died away, leaving only the first voice to echo endlessly in my head. The pain from the poison had died away, but I continued to writhe on with the pain of my loneliness. I flailed my arms and legs and cried for All-father knew how long, no longer caring if the Agrians found me.
I heard the sound of bushes rustling nearby, and I curled into a ball. “Leave me alone,” I shouted. “Torturing me won’t do you any good. I’m doing that fine by myself.”
The sound got closer and eventually I heard a voice. “Are you okay?” it asked in a gentle voice.
I rolled over and shouted again, “I’m alone, my family thinks I’m dead, and you’re hunting me. Why are you tormenting me with such a stupid question?”
There was a long pause and then the voice continued. “Vhy are you alone?” she growled. “Vhy does your family think you’re dead?”
I rolled over and looked at the person next to me. It was a young woman, kneeling beside me with a concerned look on her face. It might have been the moonlight, but her face had a blue tint to it. Anyway, she didn’t seem to want to hurt me, so I went on explaining what had happened to me, from the storm to my landing on the beach to how I’d spent the entire day running from rabid Agrians.
She listened intently, a look of sympathy coming onto her face. “I understand vhat you mean,” she said as she turned her face around. “I think I can help you a little bit, too.”
At that last remark, the sun rose in my heart and a river of gratefully cool water rushed through my mind. Someone was willing to help me; that was such a refreshing idea after my long day. However, as my mind mulled over the idea, skepticism crept in. This sort of behavior seemed inconsistent with how Agrians were supposed to be raised to act, they were weed-picking savages who never bothered to think about how others feel, only how they feel. I couldn’t help but ask another question. “You—don’t despise the Shaloor?”
“Vell, I haven’t really heard much about your people, only a few rumors that make you out to be a bogeyman of sorts.”
I wrinkled my nose.
“You don’t look like a bogeyman, though. In fact, you’re a lot smaller than I’ve been told your people look like. If you didn’t say you vere a Shaloor, I’d just assume you were an Agrian down on his luck.”
I could tell she was trying to be nice, at least as nice as an Agrian could be, so I ignored her insults. “What do you think you could do to help?”
She dropped her head into her hand. “I don’t knyow if I should do this,” she said after a pause. “Everybody who vasn't busy vent out to look for you. I stayed behind so I could have some time alone. Like I said, I don’t understand vhat the problem is, really.”
I rolled onto my back and loosed a long, silent burp, the pressure in my stomach now relieved. “So, what, then? Are you suggesting I go on some kind of rampage? I must say I like that idea.”
She glared at me. “Nyot at all. Though I’m vorried vhat I’m thinking might still be treasonous. Ve do have some boats back in the town, but I don’t knyow. It’s still stealing, even if your life is in danger.”
“You’d rather leave an innocent man to die on shores he’s despised all of his life rather than help him to get home?”
“Nyo, it’s nyot that, it’s just that a volf that eats a volf is still a carnivore. You knyow?”
It took me a moment to remember what that meant, my mind was still slow and sore from those Agrian death-berries. My father told me about it a while back. It was an old Agrian phrase that meant committing a crime against the guilty didn’t mean you weren’t a criminal yourself. I’d always assumed the phrase was long dead to Agrians, but it appeared it was at least an echo of some civilized time of theirs. “But you’ll still be doing wrong either way. To leave me to die here is to guarantee my capture and lynching, so my blood would drench your already red hair.”
She squeezed her eyelids shut as she processed this all. It was clear her conscience was used more than that Solas fellow’s, but it was still difficult for her to decide. “Fine, I’ll take you there. Just don’t go pillaging vhen ve get there.”
So, I followed her to the shore, and we found ourselves on a cliffside, which gave me an opportunity to see what one of their towns looked like. It rather surprised me that there was an Agrian town on the shore, and it surprised me even more how orderly it was. Their houses also looked a lot like Shaloor houses—longhouses with thatched roofs and pine walls, no doubt they copied how to build them from us. My eyes then directed themselves to the shore and fought hard to hold back the laughter. Their “ships” could only be called ships because they were technically seaworthy. The body of the ship was hardly a practical design. Because they were perfectly round, they were more like floating cups than they were ships. The docks weren’t made from planks of wood built to provide a dry walking space either. Rather, they were a collection of rocks piled sloppily on top of each other so people merely could walk onto the boat without wading over to it.
I then looked at the one ship that did have a sail and couldn’t help but blurt out, “This has to be a joke.” The sail wasn’t built out of nice thick fabric. No sir, these were made out of flexible twigs. I was certain they could have made a better sail if they made it out of pinwheels.
The lady then looked at me with a minor sneer on her face. “Look, I knyow they might nyot look good, but what do you expect? Ve don’t like sailing and ve nyeed to make sure our own friends don’t think ve’re sea devils when we get on one of those. Nyow come along, you nyeed to get out of here before anyvone gets back.”
I gave a heavy sigh and rolled my eyes as I weighed the idea of just swimming my way home. Down at the “docks,” though, there was somebody walking toward the ships with a torch, another Agrian who must have stayed behind. “Who’s that?” I asked.
“I have nyo idea, I thought everyvone vas out looking for you.”
The man on the shore then dropped the torch and all in one flash, all of the ships were set on fire.
Chapter 3
Huntsmen of Dawn
My heart sunk and my knees collapsed beneath my feet. I couldn’t help but stare blankly at the horrid scene, the fire this madman had started didn’t merely wreathe the ships, but it gnawed at the water beneath them just as gluttonously. So bright were the flames that they made the houses nearest to it glow like molten iron, leaving a grim shadow on the rest of the town and a hollow darkness beyond that. The light gave forms to the smoke that rose above it as well, appearing as mere spirits when it first began, but then they melded and separated with one another until the form of a giant took prominence, all before it melted back into shapeless wisps and became one with the now starless sky.
I then looked
down at the man who started the fire. My eyes watered as they tried to adjust to staring at the blinding light, but I was eventually able to make out his shadow performing a dance of sorts. What was the meaning of this? Was this man performing a ritual of some kind? My mind raced as I considered all of the rituals dedicated to any and all of the gods I had ever witnessed. None of them involved anything of such destructive extent. No doubt it was some kind of Agrian ritual, obviously intended to bring forth my destruction. That must have been this woman’s intention all along, to bring me here to torment me with seeing this vile ceremony. My face tightened up as my hand reached for a clump of grass.
“Go ahead,” I thought to myself, “say something.”
I heard her voice coming soft and stuttering, “I-I’m so…” She had no time to finish her sentence, as I threw the grass and dirt at her face.
“What now?” I threw my comment out like a spear. “You took me here to…to Savageton to help me steal a ship. Are there any other ways you’re wanting to crush my hopes?” I didn’t know what the town’s name was, so I simply made one up.
As she wiped the dirt off her face, she wiped an indignant look onto it. “First,” she said and puffed, “my town is nyot called ‘Savageton.’ It’s Elderbear. Second, I didn’t knyow that vas going to happen. You might as vell blame me for your being stranded here in the first place.” She turned around and threw her arms into the air. “Ungrateful, that’s vhat you are,” she bit out. “Is this how you fish heads thank each other? Disgusting!”
For my being here…Oh, but I could! She was an Agrian, and she may have been acting like she was friendly toward me, but her fish head remark told me only too well she was no better than the rest of them. My face burned like fire, my shoulders became as stiff as stones, and my eyes went blurry with tears of rage.
“Don’t you talk about my family like that,” I shouted as I charged over to strike her. Needless to say, she stepped easily out of the way of my maddened dash and I rolled down the hill into a bush. A bruised pain slowly crawled over my body, punctuated by the feeling of the bush’s branches and leaves poking and scratching me. Blood must have been rushing to my head quickly as it sat there curled up beneath the rest of my body; tears were coming out of my eyes to make room for it all.
“Stop crying. That won’t help you get home,” came an angry yet practical part of my brain. “Shut up!” rang back the chorus of the rest of my head. A debate then echoed throughout my mind. “Come on now, what am I going to do just sitting here then? Be miserable. And how will that help me get back home? It won’t. I just want to be miserable. Well…I guess that’s true. But nothing good is going to come from that. It’ll make her feel guilty for being one of them. And if that’s all we can do, fine. Okay, I guess I can live with that.” A victim to my own subconscious, that was what I was. An entire debate about how I was going to make her feel miserable for making me feel miserable started and ended without me having any say in the matter. Nonetheless, I resigned to what they told me to do as I heard the sound of her walking down to me, grunting as contemptibly as I could to tell her to stay away.
“Look, I’m sorry for vhat I said about the Shaloor. I think that ve got off on the wrong foot back there, so how about ve talk like decent folk nyow?”
“Wait a minute. She wants to help us. Let’s let her. Fine, so long as we get to make her feel guilty for making all of this happen to us.” I tumbled off of the bush and glared at her. “So, what are you going to do?”
She rested her chin on her hand as she gave a long sigh. “Vell, I don’t knyow if I can get you back home, but if I hear anything that might affect you, I’ll let you knyow.”
I rolled away from her. “Stupid,” I grumbled.
“And vhy’s that?”
“Where will we meet? More importantly, how will I know when you have something to say?”
“Vell.” She paused as she seemed to be thinking to herself. “Follow me.” As she headed back toward where she found me and I calmed down a bit, I noted that her complexion was indeed blue. The hint of the color showed plainly against the orange light of the inferno. Hoping this idea wouldn’t come back to hurt me, I followed her.
* * * *
She led me far into the forest, near the mountain. The trees here were much less dense compared to the patch of forest near the Agrians. They were all thin and tall, maintaining some sort of pattern in where they grew compared to each other. Rocks that reflected the moonlight also littered the area; all taint of the Agrians appeared to be purged from this neck of woods.
“This vill be the place,” she said at the edge of a tributary. “Good and far avay from town. A place most of us are too scared to go to.”
“Really?” I said, mostly curious what sort of irrational fear was involved. “Why doesn’t anybody want to come to such a beautiful place?”
“Vell, most people think this place is just plain old haunted, but I think some elves live nyear by.”
“Elves?” I asked while I went through my mental dictionary of Agrian dialect. “You mean alfar? Come to think of it, what are alfar doing this far from their native realm?”
Now it was her turn to look confused. “Nyio, I mean elves. Oh vell, nyo difference, I guess. Anyvay, there’s an old story about light and dark elves coming down here and starting a feud for vhatever reason, something about a long dead king and some odd politics that I don’t get. But anyvay, if it’s true or nyot, it’s a real shame. Vould’ve been a great surface mine.”
“Wait a minute, a surface mine?”
“Yep, lots of silver around here; it’s vhat makes the rocks so shiny. I should knyow it vould be a good mine too. I used to be Alodia Blueborn before the mines nyeeded fewer hands to handle them.” She rested her foot on a small rock. “Speaking of names, vhat’s yours? I’d like to knyow the nyame of who I rescued at the very least.”
“Erland,” I answered. “What’s your job now?”
Alodia was caught off guard by my question as she blushed and looked at the tributary. “I’d rather nyot mention that right now. But do you mind explaining to me vhy your nyame means ‘foreigner’? Nyot because of unfaithfulness in either of your parents, I do hope.”
“I’d rather not answer that right now myself.” I didn’t really know the answer to that question. “So, I suppose you should be getting back to Elderbear now, right, Alodia? When do you plan to meet up with me then?”
She took a look up at the night sky. “Looks like a full moon right nyow. This town’s also slow to do much. Let’s say nyext vaning crescent then?” I nodded because that seemed like a good time. So, she went back to her town and I went to sleep on the soft grass beneath me.
As I slept, I dreamed that the tributary was a river of its own right, alive and roaring down into the Kolgan Sea. After thinking about wanting to go for a swim for what felt to my consciousness like hours, but seconds to my subconscious, I dove in. The funny thing, however, was that I felt a wet feeling around my neck, and after realizing this was an actual feeling, not a dreamed-up sensation, I was dragged out of slumber and forced to look at what made me feel wet. To my surprise, the wet sensation was looking back at me—black nose, bald face, and all. The thing blinked at me and then nudged at my face.
I swatted its head away from mine and got a good five-yard distance away from this aberration. This was perhaps the strangest creature I’d ever seen, and perhaps the best example of how archaic the Agrians were to this point. Its build was like a bear’s, only smaller and without a hair on its head. A pattern like a long, gray beard also grew just below its neck. Whatever this poor thing was, it certainly wasn’t something of the natural world. Could the Agrians have done some horrible experiment to produce such a beast, or was it the product of some divine curse? Preparing myself for if the thing was hiding horrid aggression behind its dull-witted expression, I slowly stepped closer to it.
“Step one,” I thought to myself, “all right, this thing doesn’t
seem to be preparing to pounce or anything. Step two, okay…All-father above what’s it doing? Wait a minute, it’s just eating some grass. Okay, let’s just take one more step for—” Before I could finish that thought, a sharp, thrusting pain shot into my right leg.
The leg collapsed from the impact and the rest of me fell down afterward. Whatever that creature was, I heard it thumping away in terror. As I writhed there on the ground, I moved my leg within sight to see what hit me, and I saw an arrow lodged in it. Suddenly, the pain in my leg grew stronger and I felt the sensation of my blood gushing out of the wound. I heard noises coming from behind me as well. At first I thought they were the chirping of a flock of nocturnal birds, but there was too much substance to the sounds they made.
It wasn’t a whistling noise either, rather, words spoken with a wispy voice. I gently rolled my head over to see what it was, but my eyes were too blurred from the pain to see anything in detail. My toes and fingers grew cold, and the numbness slowly drifted its way into the rest of my body. Something seemed to jump out of the trees and walk toward me. My vision grew blurrier and my eyelids heavier, so it became more and more difficult to discern the creature’s shape; all I could comprehend was that it shed light like a torch. I couldn’t stay awake any longer. My eyes shut entirely before whatever it was reached me.
I had fallen unconscious, yet I could still discern small bits of what was happening; however, they were but shadows of the details. I felt something lift my body as I flopped back and forth like a rag doll. There were also many sounds, but like everything else, they were either distorted, vague, or grotesque, much like what happens to one’s voice when he shouts into a canyon.
Across the Kolgan Sea Page 3
