The Chosen (The Compendium of Raath, Book 1)

by Michael Mood

  Flock animals roamed the town, escaping their man-made barriers to search for food now that their masters were gone. Buildings stood silent and empty, some with doors and windows open. Even the foliage around the town seemed limp and lifeless, grasses bending over, trees hanging heavy. Halimaldie felt a gripping terror that made it difficult for him to breathe. The horses blew and danced nervously in the stillness.

  “It's only been a month since someone loaded those crates onto my ship,” Halimaldie said. “This is recent.”

  “We're not going to get to the bottom of anything by standing around,” Telin said. “We need to head into the mine itself.” He put his hand on the hilt of his sword.

  “I don't know if that's such a fantastic idea,” Halimaldie said. “Don't you think we've seen what we've come to see? Something's amiss. Now we go report this and someone sends the Vaporgaard, or whoever deals with these situations.”

  “You know better than that, D'Arvenant,” Kelin said. “I won't ask ya to come with us, but we need ta get into that mine and check it out.”

  Trance and Telin nodded.

  They kicked their horses and took off, leaving Halimaldie to decide.

  It wasn't long before he knew he couldn't stay in this town alone, so he gritted his teeth and rode after them towards the mine entrance.

  Halimaldie and the Kingsguardians tethered their horses outside. The animals would be useless in the tight confines of the mine, and they were frightened besides. The animals' nervous noises made Halimaldie all that much more tense. He'd never been this scared in broad daylight before.

  “Ya don't have to come down with us D'Arvenant, but it would be best if you did.”

  “It's my operation,” Halimaldie replied. “I'll go.” He did not feel the conviction of his own words.

  And with that, the small party set off down the dark throat of the mine.

  -2-

  Trance grabbed a dusty torch from a very rudimentary sconce and began to work with oil, flint, and tinder to light it. Finally it caught and burst into violent flame. The mine looked like any other that Halimaldie had been in. The stone and dirt walls were thankfully dug a little wider than normal, as he had always felt a touch claustrophobic when checking on other operations.

  Halimaldie suddenly realized that everyone, including himself, had their weapons out. Trance, Kelin, and Telin had beautifully wrought blades that danced in the light. Kelin and Telin were both holding shields in their other hands. Kelin's shield bore a painting of some kind of multi-limbed beast, and Telin's had a crest that resembled a horse with eagle's wings. Trance held the torch in one hand and a glittering sword in the other; his shield was still slung on his back, the surface too marred and scratched to make out the image. And there stood Halimaldie, holding his gold and silver daggers, feeling like a joke considering his present company.

  They edged along, Trance in the lead. The ground was smooth save for a few ruts. Could've been made by the wheels of a cart, he thought. But his mind kept conjuring up images of Foglin claws scratching through the dirt as they moved, and he felt more and more certain that they were all making a huge mistake.

  The tunnel branched and Trance looked back at Halimaldie. “Do you know which way, Hal?”

  “I don't know the inner diggings,” he said.

  “We should have searched that town for a map,” Kelin suggested.

  “Oh, I love diggin' around in dead people's stuff,” Trance said sarcastically.

  “We're goin' left, do ya see,” Telin said. “We'll keep followin' the left-hand wall until we're satisfied that we've scouted this place out or it leads us back to the entrance. It's simple. An old trick to get out of mazes that my grandmother taught me.”

  They moved down the dimly lit passages, Halimaldie constantly fighting the urge to turn back. He could feel his own heartbeat in his diseased hand, and that certainly wasn't helping matters. No . . . the beats seemed to come in a different pattern. It wasn't his heartbeat, but something very similar to how his hand had felt when he had been at the district hospital with Yarrow. It pulsed in rhythm with something, but Halimaldie didn't know what.

  “Something's happening with my hand,” he said, breaking the silence. “It's pulsing. I can feel it. I don't know. Is that important? I think it's getting worse the deeper we get.”

  “What do you mean?” Telin asked.

  Halimaldie felt like he probably shouldn't have spoken of it, but the pulsing in his hand was becoming eerie and he didn't like it. If he was going to die in here, which seemed very likely, the smallest advantage could help. If his hand was trying to tell him something, he would be foolish not to listen.

  “Something happened to it. Before we left. After the boat, Telin, my hand started rotting, acting strangely.”

  The Kingsguardians looked at each other.

  “Take off your glove,” Telin said. “Let's have a look.”

  Halimaldie sheathed his silver dagger and peeled the glove away from his skin. Then he carefully unwrapped the thin layer of bandages. The skin was still mottled with blackness. Trance held the torch above it, but Halimaldie couldn't see it pulsing from the outside. It just looked like a diseased limb.

  “What the hell is it?” Kelin breathed.

  “It's like no disease I ever seen,” Trance said. “No wonder you were wearin' your gloves, Hal. It's gross.”

  “The last time it felt this way was when I was in the district hospital,” Halimaldie explained. “That place was underground as well.” Maybe something about the elevation?

  “Let us know if it changes,” Telin said. “To tell ya the truth, I'm growing kind of bored down here.”

  “Don't listen to my brother,” Kelin warned. “His boredom will serve him ill if we get ambushed. Stay vigilant.”

  The initial fear had start to wear off as they traversed span after span of the abandoned mine. So far there hadn't been any sign of the residents of Dunne or of anything else that even looked mildly suspicious. Halimaldie started to wonder if everyone from the town had just plain left.

  “It's a dead end,” Trance said, his torch illuminating the wall in front of them. “Nothing more to see here, gentlemen . . . and Kelin.”

  Halimaldie's hand was pulsing quite badly, feeling as tight and puffy as a sack stuffed with too many coins. His skin seemed ready to tear from the bone. He was glad to be turning around to go in the other direction: up and out of here.

  But then he felt a pull on his hand. For a moment it was as if ghostly fingers were drawing at it, urging him back towards the dead end. The pounding was so powerful that Halimaldie was unaware of any other part of his body as he walked over to the bare wall and rested his pulsing hand on it.

  “Hal,” Trance said. “What in the seven hells are you doing?”

  The wall pulsed, alive. It pulsed just like his hand, the two rhythms reverberating off of one another. “Something's back here,” Halimaldie said, half in a daze. He took his gold dagger and plunged it into the wall as hard as he could, suddenly becoming obsessed with his task.

  He dug.

  Dirt began to fly off in great chunks. It came off easily. Too easily.

  The wall began to fall away, clods of dirt littering the ground.

  “Hal,” warned Trance, holding the torch closer so Halimaldie could see what he was doing. “Be careful.”

  Halimaldie's hand pulsed infinitesimally more and more as he inched forward. Finally his dagger punctured empty space and the rest of the wall crumbled, falling to the ground as dust.

  “What did you find?” Trance asked. He held the torch ahead again and what Halimaldie saw made him retch.

  The ground was piled with human bones, lit orange in the fire of the torch. If they wanted to walk through this room, they would have to walk on top of them, since the floor could not be seen. The smell of death didn't greet him like he expected. There was some odor, almost like moss, but somehow more pestilent.

  Halimaldie could just barely make out the odd growth
s that protruded from the walls and ceiling. They almost looked like giant seed pods . . . or some kind of huge, thick hairs . . .

  A noise issued forth from the room. It was a clicking, starting soft and slow at first and then speeding up, becoming a frenzy.

  Telin turned around, his face totally white. “You three must leave here. Tell them what we saw.”

  “What did we see?” Halimaldie asked, his hand pounding in time with the clicking noises.

  Telin didn't answer. He grabbed the torch from Trance and touched it to the wall of the room. Immediately it caught, flames licking the walls and their strange protuberances. Halimaldie knew what they were the instant he saw them in that flaring light. They're eggs.

  “My brothers,” Telin said. “I will see you on the other side.” He handed the torch back to Trance, then jumped into the flaming room, sword and shield swinging wildly at lithe black shapes that were bursting forth. There were so many of them. Far too many. Foglins filled the room.

  Or rather, the nest.

  Telin's sword became a blur in the air, whistling in and out, cleaving heads and limbs wherever he put it. But it wasn't going to be enough; even Halimaldie could see that. The fire and the sword could not cleanse that whole nest. He doubted all three Kingsguardians at once could stop the number of Foglins he saw inside it. The black shapes were trying to converge in on Telin through the flames. There were too many.

  Telin was merely buying time.

  Halimaldie's mouth went instantly dry and Trance grabbed him by the shoulder, turned him around and ran, tugging him through the tunnels.

  Halimaldie heard the clicking of the Foglins behind him now and he could hear Telin's screams buried within the cacophony. He couldn't tell if they were screams of victory or defeat.

  “Lightbearer!” Kelin yelled as they ran, but whether out of pain or glory Halimaldie couldn't be sure. Probably it was a bit of both. “Lightbearer!”

  The thought of that many Foglins behind him made Halimaldie run faster than he ever had in his life. His legs felt like those of a wild animal, driving him onward with immaculate precision. He vaulted every crack in the ground and hurled himself over every abandoned mine cart. He burst out of the mouth of the mine and back into blinding daylight. Without a word the three men were back on their horses, leaving Telin's there.

  They rode hard to the north for a few moments, putting distance between themselves and the mine.

  “Damn it, Kelin,” Trance cursed. “We're clear. Help me with the bubble will ya?”

  The other Kingsguardian shook his head as if to clear his mind and suddenly the world shifted. The trees beyond started to move in slow motion and Halimaldie and his companions were speeding along again, almost as fast as his heart was going.

  “Aren't we going back for him?” Halimaldie asked in a panic.

  “Can't do that,” Kelin said. “He knew what he was doing.”

  “Shit,” Halimaldie said, something dawning on him.

  “Losses happen,” Trance said. “We know the price of our duty.”

  “No, not that,” Halimaldie replied. “My hand led me right to those Foglins. That means . . .” The hair on the back of his neck stood up. “There's a nest under the district hospital. Everyone in Haroma is in serious trouble.”

  They rode like the wind.

  -3-

  “We have to stop,” Trance panted.

  Halimaldie was barely hanging onto his horse, bouncing around on its back, riding with the same level of prowess a corpse might display. “Yes,” he managed to grunt out.

  “We ride until we get there!” Kelin said. But he didn't sound much better off, and soon they slowed and stopped for the night despite his words.

  The three sat on the hard ground around a small fire.

  “I'm impressed with you, Kelin,” said Trance.

  Kelin looked up at him, his white-blond hair almost transparent in the firelight. “Why?”

  “You didn't stay with him.”

  “I will wear that scar for the rest of my life, Trance. I know that already. But, part of me feels that he isn't dead down there.”

  Trance smiled sadly. “Hope can be one of the most painful emotions, Kelin. I'd urge you to let it go sooner rather than later. Mourn when we return, when you have time.”

  Kelin sat silently for a moment then threw his head back and yelled into the night with a voice almost inhumanly loud, the veins and cords on his neck standing out. “You have taken my brother from me! I swear on the tombs of all who have come before me that I, Kelin Lightbearer, born first and older by seventy-three heartbeats, will not rest on these putrid laurels! You may think you know great deeds, world! But know this! You have seen but the hilt of the sword of Kelin Lightbearer! If I do nothing else in this life I will see Telin – brother and friend – avenged!”

  Halimaldie let the words hang in the air. Apparently Trance felt the same way, for he also said nothing more.

  Just before his eyes shut for the night, Halimaldie heard Kelin whisper: “He was my little brother, God. And I did love him.”

  Halimaldie had a hard time falling asleep. He was sad for Kelin and terrified for Tellurian and Yarrow.

  Chapter 26 – Alone and Traveling

  -1-

  Krothair had never been susceptible to cold, and he was suddenly glad of that. Up here in the heights of the world the air was thin and the temperature was low. Krothair climbed, his sword at his hip and the map tucked safely into his shirt.

  He was hungry much of the time because it was a lot harder than he would have thought to catch food up here. He had survived on his own before, of course, but more often in places where game was plentiful. Sometimes he'd even had a bow and arrow.

  His stomach was rumbling by the time night rolled around. Krothair was sharpening his sword by the light of the small fire he had managed to build, wondering idly if he would ever be able to reach his destination or if he would just wander alone and forgotten, his skeleton lost to eternity in the mountains.

  A noise in the trees made him think perhaps there was prey there, and his stomach urged him to try to take it. So Krothair stood up and inched through the dark with his sword in front of him, listening for the sound again. He held his glowing forearm out in front of him for light, feeling a little ridiculous.

  There it was, a low sort of breathing sound that stood out in the otherwise silent night. It sounded like big game, possibly a deer. Krothair tightened his grip and prepared to pounce.

  Suddenly the bushes to his left rustled and Krothair's brain instantly settled on the image of a Foglin. The creature would jump out and tear his arms off. Krothair's insides turned to liquid as he brought his sword up, instinctively swinging at the place he knew the creature would emerge.

  What came trampling through instead was a horse, but Krothair didn't have time to turn his blow. His sword connected with something sharp that protruded from the horse's forehead, and then the metal bit through whatever it was. Krothair barely had time to dive out of the way as the horse thundered past him. He watched it tear off into the night, leaving a trail of blood behind it.

  For the first time he felt terribly alone in the frigid, dark night. What have I done? Wounded some poor animal in my foolish terror?

  He looked down at the ground and there in the snow he saw something smeared with blood. Krothair bent down to inspect it more closely.

  It was a horn about as long as Krothair's arm, but anatomically that made no sense. I cut it off the horse's forehead, he thought. Since when has there ever been a creature like that? It looked like the long end of a lance, but it had a twisting pattern to it that shone beautifully in the light. Krothair picked it up, feeling the weight of it in his hand.

  “What are you?” Krothair asked.

  Krothair held it like a weapon, feeling the balance of it. He held it by the thicker end, like a spear with no handle, then he flipped it around and held it by the pointed end like a long, thin club.

  Eventually he wan
dered back to his fire, his hunger replaced with curiosity. He slid the horn into his backpack, letting the pointed end stick out the top lest it stab through the leather at the bottom.

  -2-

  The plateau stretched out before Krothair as he huffed in the thin morning air.

  “Should train up here,” he said out loud. “Get used to this lack of air and you could fight for hours and hours down south.” The northern folk were supposed to be tough as nails, perhaps for just this reason.

  Krothair's breath came quickly through his ragged lips as he traveled. He was still following the trail of the horse's blood when he finally found the animal. His plan had been to eat it, for he knew it couldn't have lived after bleeding that much, but now his plans changed. The animal was dead, certainly, but there were a lot of different hoof prints in the snow around it as if some large and varied pack of animals had communed around it.

  And there, on the horse's shoulder, was a human hand print scribed in blood.

  Krothair knew then for the first time that he wasn't alone up here. The thought was as terrifying as it was reassuring. He wasn't the only desperate fool wandering hopelessly in the mountains.

  He stood there and looked about, his breath fanning out in front of him.

  In the distance was the forest that was marked on Ti'Shed's map.

  It looked ominous and dark, but Krothair had been trained to fight by one of the best teachers in Hardeen Kingdom, and possibly in the entire world. He had Servitor magic flowing within him; he could feel it now. He knew, deep in his heart that if he applied himself – after this was all over – that he could become a member of the Kingsguard.

  He could become part of that elite group that gave everything to protect the Kingdom.

  And so the boy walked onward into the forest. Things were looking quite bright for him as he came upon a small group of people standing in front of a massive stone building.