by D. H. Aire
“Girls, rise and shine!” Nessa ordered.
Yel’ane ushered the girls away from Lawson and further up the gully.
Greth frowned and said to Lawson, “They are going the wrong way.”
“Somehow, I don’t think so,” he replied. “Pardon me while I find the boy’s room.”
The hunter shook his head. “Humans.”
Chapter 13 – Coastal Waters and Borderlands
De’ohr stood at the ship’s bow, watching the impromptu flotilla bound ultimately for the Empire. Soon a number of the ships would change course for Stanis and Hollif, the two largest coastal city-states of the Southern Crescent Lands. Those aboard would help the daughters of Ryff take the ship onward, if all went according to plan that is.
Visions danced through her mind, message birds flying north and east, women searching Catha for Ryff’s daughters, and the wagons carrying them exiting the Badlands and heading toward the coastal city-states, where ships were waiting.
Her vision suddenly misted and she realized the spray of the ocean had played across her face. She blinked, wiping it away and found an ethereal, barely visible woman standing at her side.
‘So, Mother Shaman, our time is nigh.’
“What?” she gasped.
‘You glimpse the future, but there is much you do not see.’
“Who are you?”
‘An heir of Lady Grin, like you.’
“You are not Cathartan.”
‘So little do you know. Do you not then believe the tales that Lady Grin was not born among your people?’
“That’s one interpretation of…”
The ghost in daylight chuckled. ‘I am as bound in the great tapestry as you... as is every woman of your Shattered House.’
“Then you understand what we do. What I have done.”
‘Yes… Sadly, I understand too well, Kinswoman. I also see more clearly what may come, what must come, if we are to not only break the Curse of thy people, but save the world from the Demon Lord, at long last.’
“Why have you come?”
The woman sighed, ‘The dragon must rise, and sacrifices be made.’
“The dragon… Lady Grin’s… black dragon?”
The ghost form nodded.
“My House is Shattered. What further sacrifice could anyone… anything demand?”
The distant Seeress waved her hand and the sky darkened. The Mother Shaman suddenly glimpsed a ship coming toward hers. It was an Imperial one, with a young blonde haired Cathartan woman at its prow and black hilted sword at her back. A dwarf marched across the deck to the young woman’s side, and eyes widening, stared over the side right back at her as the vision faded. “That… that was…” De’ohr muttered.
‘That is but one of the sacrifices fate demands to break thy Curse and save the world, Mother Shaman.’
The dark clouds began to roil. De’ohr looked up as a black dragon suddenly dove out of them, opening its mouth and spitting fire. Crying out, De’ohr drew back as the sky was suddenly clear. Shouts of consternation rose from her Sisters, who hurried across the deck toward her.
“I’m fine! All is well!” she shouted back as the sailors in the rigging and at the helm stared at her.
She glanced about but the image of the Seeress was gone, leaving her feeling hollow inside.
#
Standing atop a long abandoned estate’s defensive wall along a curving ridge in the Central Crescent, she stood watching the Trelorian refugees they had rescued from Fenn’s madness in the northern working long hours to rebuild and strengthen the old walls. She swallowed hard, fighting back the magic that threatened to overwhelm her, seemingly oozing up from the very stone beneath her.
“Seeress, are you all right?” her acolyte asked, steadying her.
“Fine, I’m fine…” blinking away the last of the web of visions that had taken her mind elsewhere.
The girl frowned, turning, seeming to be confused. “Do you hear that?”
The Seeress smiled thinly, “What?”
“I’m not certain,” the girl replied, frowning.
“Close your eyes and listen as hard as you can.”
The girl canted her head, “It… it sounds like the pounding of hooves.”
“Excellent.”
Her acolyte turned to stare at her, “Then I’ve been touched by Lady Grin’s gift.”
“Perhaps,” the Seeress chuckled as Lord Gwilliam rode over the hill with his detachment, a dozen or so refugees from the north following. “Or, perhaps, not quite yet.”
The girl sighed, “Oh.”
The Seeress gave her a hug and when the girl was not watching closed her eyes, hearing the pounding of hooves echoing far to the south, wondering what had drawn the unicorn from her mission.
#
The unicorn raced southward, Casber on her back, riding in a daze. The jewel at his neck glowed, leaving him feeling as if he were one with his mount. In turn the unicorn could “see” the terrain ahead as she never had before. It was as if she had looked down from the very heavens and knew where the stones, creeks, and very trees and brush lay.
The unicorn slowed by a stream. Casber blinked, looked about and saw the southern edge of the Barrier Mountains towering north of them. “What?” he rasped.
Head lowered and drinking her fill from the cool water, the unicorn shared, ‘You fell asleep.’
“I did? But… for how long?”
‘Two days.’
“Two!” he rasped. “You put me under a spell.”
The unicorn looked up, thought agreeing wisest. ‘Come. Refresh yourself.’
Swallowing uncertainly, Casber knelt by the stream and drank as the unicorn backed away.
The next thing the boy knew he was knocked into the water. “Hey!” he sputtered.
‘You need the bath as do the clothes you wear. You stink of sheep and worse.’
Getting his feet firmly beneath him, “But I bathed, well, a week ago!”
‘Bathe and wash those clothes. Your cousin left you clean ones in your bag.’
“Aw, come on…”
‘You are the Highmage’s Hand. You must act it.’
“Huh?”
‘Think he would travel so… and this could be your last chance to get clean for some days.’
“Oh, all right. But where are we going?”
‘The Badlands.’
“But George went west, not this way.”
‘First thing you must learn, Casber. Don’t argue with fate.’
“Huh?”
‘Don’t argue,’ she replied as his bag slipped off her back seemingly of its own accord. ‘There is soap inside. Take it, and be certain to wash behind your ears.’
Sighing, he pulled off his wet jerkin and trudged out of the water to his bag. “You sound like my mother.”
#
His clothes were drying while they ate. Casber wondered where they were exactly and blinked, realizing the territory locally was referred to as the Borderlands. “Huh?”
The unicorn shook her head, feeling the question echo through her mind as the jewel the boy wore around his head went quiescent once more. ‘That is what it is called, lad. The Badlands lay beyond and it is there we are drawn.’
“Oh, and will you tell me why?”
‘No,’ the unicorn replied, suspecting it was better this way.
“Great, I’ll going in the wrong direction with a horse that—”
‘Unicorn.’
“Fine, with a unicorn who hasn’t the faintest idea why, either.”
‘Finish eating… and keep your hooded cloak handy.’
“Huh? Why?”
‘It will rain soon.’
Looking up at the clear sky, Casber said, “Then why did you make me bathe if I’m about to get soaking wet, anyway?”
‘Every smell a wet rat, lad?’
“What?”
‘I’d rather smell a clean wet rat.’
“Wonderful, you’re worse than my mother…
”
#
The birds had flown from Catha and across the Badlands. The fortresses along the Caravan Way, set up in centuries past to protect the trade routes, were home to bands of mercenaries, both men and women, who cared little about Curses, only coin and perhaps how much drink it could buy them in the vill across the Borderlands.
It was at the promise of a great deal of coin that all the forts suddenly found themselves undermanned as groups of mercenaries joyously went harrying off without their commanders’ leave. Men demanded the use of their fortress’s famed hounds, the chief handler cried, “You can’t just take them!”
The hounds keened as the old handler was slain. They threw out the traces and a hound leaped silent up to the man who had wiped his master’s blood on his pant leg. “Wretched beast!” the man cried pulling his knife from the hound’s heart. With a hollowing, nearly three score of the hounds burst upon them, then raced minutes later like a flood out the open gate.
When the commander reached the Courtyard, not a hound remained save the one that had fallen beside the chief handler remained. Of the would-be bounty hunters, several bloody boots remained. “What happened?”
The younger handlers looked up from the roof of the kennels, which offered the safest place to hide. “They sought to make the hunt and he… would not without you order.”
“With the old sire dead but yesterday! He,” the boy pointed, “he sought to avenge him.”
“The ruddy fools killed a male?”
“The females went mad…”
“The hounds dragged them off with them.”
“Tell me the other is kenneled as I…”
“They threw open his to… With that wild streak of his, he’s bound to break their training. We have to get them back quickly, Sir!”
A soldier came running, “Commander!”
“What now?”
“Men overcame the gate guards shouting something about ‘golds for every girl.’”
“The gates?”
“Open… the men rode off –– stealing all the horses, Commander. Then the hounds… they were suddenly pouring through and they left…”
“Let me guess… what looked like bloody rags and bones.”
He nodded.
“They’ll not return, hopefully some of our horses will, though… You lot will have to fetch us new hounds to train.”
The handlers stared back at him, buried their master and were gone the next day, never to return.
For all that bounty, most of the daughters of the Shattered House had already slipped across the Badland into the Borderlands.
A mercenary rode up out of the southwest, halting atop a hill to watch a boy riding east.
The man frowned, doubting the boy had anything to do with his prey, but a boy riding these parts on such a lovely looking mount was suspicious. He spurred his mount toward them.
The unicorn glanced in the rider’s direction, then burst forward at a gallop.
Casber frowned, holding as tight as he could as the unicorn’s horn reappeared and began to glow. “Uh, what are you doing?”
‘You will need that cloak, soon.’
“Why? You think it’ll help me deal with that stranger?”
‘Mercenary; and no friend of ours.’
“How do you know that?” Casber sputtered as the wind blew hard against his hair and clothes.
‘I know. Just as I know a storm comes.’
“But there’s not a cloud in the sky.”
The horn began to pulse, ‘Things change as fate demands.’
#
Mahr and Za’an’s group were close to reaching the Borderlands when dark clouds rolled in out of the north.
“Bek’ka, I don’t like the look of those,” the woman driving the wagon, seated at her side said.
“We’re close to the Borderlands now,” she replied. “We should be able to reach the ruins and get the girls to safety there as planned.”
A Sister could be seen riding headlong toward them over one of the hills to the southwest.
Grimacing, Bek’ka had seen the rider’s signing as the woman beside her cursed their ill luck. “Damn, mercs… A score or more? What ill luck.”
“We’ll need to push the horses harder and pray they don’t find us,” Bek’ka replied, standing tall and gesturing all the drivers to greater speed.
“We haven’t a chance,” her companion said.
Bek’ka pretended they didn’t need a miracle as thunder clapped to the south of them. She blinked at the lightning’s afterimage as the girls in the wagon wailed and whined.
“Well, you’d almost think that storm is our ally!” the woman shouted as the wind began to gust.
Bek’ka gaped as the clouds thickened south of them and more lightning struck. “Faster! The storm came will help them lose our tracks, if we don’t get trapped in it too quickly first!”
#
Being jostled in a wagon at speed was worse with the girls so long exhausted. Mahr held the girl in her arms tight as another retched. The wind gusted as Za’an shouted for everyone to hold on tight to each other and everything they could.
The sunlight lay ahead, but the darkness of the storm was edging closer and closer on their left. All the scouts seemed to be racing back to them, then pacing them, urging their drivers to greater speed as the storm closed in behind the last of the wagons… and theirs all too quietly.
The thunder grew so loud Mahr could not hear the girls’ cries and thought she might be deafened for life.
Rain began to pelt them as the wagons suddenly passed stone cairns, then the horses were being reined in and everyone was being ordered out of the wagons, which were soon being overturned. “Get under them!” was being signed.
The rain sleeted down and they did their best, dripping wet, to huddle together as the thunder shook the very ground.
Chapter 14 – Borderlands
The mercenary had been thrown from his horse by the lightning strike. He crawled away as the rain pelted him with what felt like punishing blows. The storm seemed never to want to let up and he feared for his compatriots, knowing this storm must be the worst in living memory.
Hours passed and the storm finally moved on. When he rose, the landscape was almost unrecognizable. He was covered in mud, which had scoured the land. Finding the runaways would be all the more difficult now.
He looked about for his mount, which if he were lucky would find its way back to their old fortress. Judging his direction, he shook his head, no bounty was worth this. He headed back toward the Caravan Road and the hopes of food, a bath, and ale.
Many of the other bounty hunters had fared as badly. Many might say worse, particularly for the largest contingent, who had not only lost all their horses, but all of their prized hounds, who had run off.
#
Casber had never felt so cold and bedraggled in his life and he had spent many a night guarding the clan’s mountain sheep. The rain slackened and he felt like the muscles of his arms and legs were still knotted tight from holding on so long.
The unicorn halted and knelt, allowing him to slip from its flank.
‘Seek to light no fire.’
“I doubt I could find any wood that would.”
‘Lie against me for warmth.’
He did not hesitate to and soon fell asleep, hearing the rumbling of the thunder moving off.
When he woke, he felt comfortably warm, then a raspy tongue tickled his cheek. He suddenly opened his eyes and stared.
Hounds lay surrounding him, nestling up to him and the mare. “Um.”
‘They like you.’
“Uh, I’ve a feeling they like you more.”
‘Well, they are creatures of the Light.’
“Hounds?”
‘Friends of man and unicorn, shall we say.’
More hounds were licking him, “It tickles.” He struggled to free himself and muttered, “There must be… twenty or more of them.”
‘Oh, they’ll be m
ore in the coming hour.’
“Do I dare ask?”
‘Every hound in the Borderlands feels my call.’
“Um, you in need of an army of them?”
‘Not precisely an army, but depriving the enemy of its ability to use them to hunt, has its advantages.’
“I don’t want to know what you mean by that, do I?”
‘No.’
“Um, I smell of hound now, don’t I?”
‘Lovely smell, isn’t it? So much better than sheep.’
#
Bek’ka shouted, “Everyone up!”
Grimacing, Mahr helped the girls climb out from under the wagon as the clouds swirled away from their makeshift encampment. Za’an muttered, “Well, that’s it for the wagons…”
After Mahr climbed out, she understood. Wagon wheels were broken by the harsh storm and at least half the horses were missing.
Around them were the fallen walls of what looked like it had been a fortress of some kind. Bek’ka shouted, “Ladies, get those little girls ready to harness up again! We’ve a trek still ahead of us.”
“Wonderful,” Mahr said as the little girl she had kept came up to her.
“I peed.”
“I need to…”
“Me, too.”
Za’an wasn’t the only one of her year-mates to lead off the girls to an area to use as a privy.
Bek’ka called over all the adult women, gestured to the one structure that looked like it was a cellar. “Listen up. This place is more than a ruin. There’s a tunnel entrance in there. We will go single file. If anyone stops, everyone behind them will, too. The ceiling’s low in places, but that shouldn’t be a problem for you girls.”
“How far does it go?” someone asked.
Bek’ka said, “According to what my mother told me, the tunnels once connected this entire land. She had no idea why, but that this is a main route is why it’s perfect for us. What’s even better is that there are large caverns along the route, where we’ll find provisions, places to bathe. Robes to change into as well… All is prepared.”
One of her Sisters took her aside, “How is this possible? I’ve never heard of…”
“Actually, you have.”
“What?”
“This is an entrance to the Green Way.”
