by Thomas Rath
Ignoring his chatter, Tchee moved slightly to the left to clear herself of the aspen branches and then leaped suddenly into the air. Teek’s stomach dropped and he quickly clasped her about the neck trying to hold onto his lunch and keep his perch while Tchee pumped her massive wings and glided swiftly and smoothly higher and higher into the air. As they gained altitude his stomach settled to the point of almost becoming civil again allowing him to sit up some and look around.
The mountains quickly shot into view in the west, stretching out for miles, the highest peaks still covered with last winter’s snow. Looking to the east, he had a grand view of the dark Underwoods Forest that, although pretty from the air, still gave off a feeling of darkness and foreboding. Straining his eyes ahead while squinting through the rushing air, he thought he could just make out the water and trees of his homeland swamp. From this distance it was difficult to see where the Underwoods ended and the Teague began but he knew that he was headed in the right direction and that home was not going to be so long and hard to reach. It gave him a great rush of excitement. Home. He had wanted to trade it most of his life for the big world of adventure and discovery, always feeling he was missing out. Now that the opportunity had been given him, it was home that gave him the greatest thrill.
Scanning the distant trees while trying to get a clearer view he thought he saw a flash of bright light on the horizon. Straining his eyes to see better, he saw it happen again, and then almost immediately it flashed again and again in quick succession. The thrill he felt only moments before suddenly vanished replaced by an overwhelming sense of doom. “Did you see that, Tchee?”
Tchee screeched and then turned slightly to the left heading toward the flashes.
“What do you suppose that is?” His stomach suddenly felt sick but this time it was not from Tchee’s flying. It felt different. Almost like it felt when Twee died. Something wasn’t right.
For the better part of an hour he watched the horizon as the strange lights continued to flash each burst hitting him like a fist to the gut. He could taste the acid in his throat as his stomach reacted. Tchee remained quiet but seemed to push harder as if sensing Teek’s mood and fear.
Then the flashes suddenly stopped replaced by thin black fingers of smoke snaking their way into the air. He was still too far away to be certain where it was coming from but the direction seemed to be right to put it fairly near to his home. Tchee pushed even harder.
Neither said much the rest of the day. Teek kept his eyes locked on the smoke that billowed dark for a couple of hours before finally beginning to settle into a grayer line of haze. They stopped only once for a quick drink and to allow Tchee to rest. She tried to make him eat some of the fish she caught but he wouldn’t be bullied this time, his mood wouldn’t allow it.
His thoughts turned dark and frightening and all he could think about was getting home to his family and finding them all healthy and well. “I’m sure they’re all right,” he whispered, almost to himself. Tchee looked at him for a moment and then squawked. He turned to stare at his brown and white friend. She shrieked again and then lowered her wing inviting him back onto her back.
They flew for the rest of the day pushing as hard as Tchee could go. The urgency that had welled up in him that morning had long been replaced by a dull sense of wrongness. Something didn’t feel right inside. He couldn’t quite make out what it was but it only added to his worry. He tried eating something once or twice but the food seemed to have lost its flavor. As the sun finally dropped below the mountains, forcing Tchee to slow and look for a place to nest for the night, tears began to roll down his face. He didn’t know exactly why he was crying but he couldn’t hold back the tears. A sense of doom had overshadowed him and would not be pushed away. It had been there with him since he first saw the flashes but now it had become almost overbearing. When Tchee finally touched down and leaned over so he could slide off, Teek just dropped to the ground and then curled himself into a ball and wept. Tchee crouched down next to him laying her soft feathers over his body for warmth and comfort. And that is how they both stayed for the remainder of the night.
The next day dawned cold and clear. Teek rushed through a quick meal of dried bread and cheese and washed it down with a cold drink from a nearby stream he hadn’t seen when they landed. The feeling of sorrow and loss that had built to a crescendo the night before was still rooted firmly in his breast but his eyes would no longer produce the tears to release his feelings. Though feeling somewhat silly and fatalistic for having collapsed as he had, he still couldn’t shake the ominous emotion. He knew it had to do with his family and the flashes but he was unable to face what it might all mean. He still had hope that he would find his mother smiling at the door of their hut and his brother and sisters crowding out to knock him over with their hugs and kisses but it was all overshadowed by dread.
Tchee let out a tight snort and then dropped her wing. Teek ignored it though and instead wrapped his arms around her neck. “Where would I be without you, Tchee? Thank you.”
The powerful Roc responded with a low rumbling coo and then tilted her head to rub gently against his cheek. Teek enjoyed the slightest feeling of comfort for a brief moment before turning and climbing onto her back.
As they gained altitude he searched for the hazy smoke but could not see any sign that anything was amiss. He kept up his search for hours but to no avail and had to finally give up when his eyes started to blur and his head started pounding.
By noon they reached the Maddox, a large lake just beyond the Underwoods that generally marked the beginning of the Teague swamplands. This was also the place where Teek had first met Tchee when he’d freed her from a poacher’s trap. By all accounts, he should have felt a welling up of excitement building in his chest by their closeness to home but instead the feelings of trepidation were only getting stronger. They should make it to his home just before dark but what would he find there? He had already determined the flashes had to have come from the area around his home. Twice he actually considered turning back and never returning. If he never discovered the truth he would be spared the pain if his forebodings proved accurate. But he knew that not knowing would be an even greater burden to carry and he could not leave his mother to wonder about his own fate. “All will be well,” he whispered, though in his heart he knew he didn’t believe it. Something terrible had happened and no amount of denial would change the truth of it.
As Tchee flew over the swamp, things started to become somewhat familiar. Teek had never set his traps out this far but he thought he remembered some of the area from when he had first snaked through it at the start of his appeasing journey. Tchee stayed low skimming over the tops of the trees giving Teek a chance to find his way back to his home. It was different, to be sure, from a bird’s eye view, but he was beginning to point out areas he knew. They were going in the right direction. He could feel his trepidation rising.
Suddenly the giant Teague trees simply disappeared. Tchee squawked and Teek gasped. They were gone. In all directions the trees were just no longer there. All that remained were burned up stumps just barely peaking over the water. Teek gripped Tchee’s feathers in his trembling hands his mind unable to comprehend the scene before him. An area stretching in all directions for close to a mile was no longer there. It was gone. Twee’s tree, the elder’s council area, the whole town were all completely wiped out. It was as if a giant hand had reached down and plucked the whole Waseeni race right out of the swamp.
Teek pointed farther in and to the right. “Go over there!” Tchee banked slightly and headed in the direction he pointed. His family lived on the outskirts of the town cluster, there was still hope they may have escaped whatever had caused this.
He peered ahead trying to put his family hut in the trees ahead but as they neared the edge of the treeless crater he knew that all was lost. They had gone too far. He recognized the area that was now the edge of the great void left behind. It was beyond where his tree was. “No,” wa
s all Teek could say. His mind would not accept what his eyes plainly saw. They were gone. His family and all those he knew and loved were just no longer there. What could have done such a thing?
Tchee circled back and dropped down just over the water. She was searching for survivors but Teek knew that it was hopeless. If whatever had done this hadn’t killed them, what lurked below the swamp water surely would have. He briefly considered the possibility that some may have escaped in their canoes but quickly dismissed it. There would not have been time. They were gone. He was the only one left.
The dread he had been feeling since the day before was now replaced by a strange emptiness that was almost too painful to bear. “What could have done this?” Tchee banked to the right and then circled back for another run. Teek leaned against her neck trying to absorb what had happened. He wanted to cry and let all the hurting out but for some reason he couldn’t. Tears would not come. No longer would Bink, Eeni or Jina rush him as he returned from his traps. No more would his mother hold him and tell him what a good boy he was. They were gone, never to come back. What was he to do now? Where would he go? There were too many questions and not enough answers. Tchee banked for a third time but Teek put his hand against her neck. “No more. They’re gone.”
Tchee pulled up, lifting higher into the air, and then lit softly onto an outstretched branch bordering the empty area. Teek slid off easily, grabbing another limb that dropped down, and looked across the clearing. The sun was starting to fade on the horizon bringing with it the chirps and shrills that he was accustomed to when night fell on the swamp. It was as if all was as it should be save for the vast emptiness in the swamp and in his heart.
* * *
The next day Teek woke with the sun just as it was beginning to rise. It was still a shock for him to look out at the nothingness that was once his swampland home. His sleep was fitful at best giving him only moments of rest in between the nightmares that invaded his dreams. Every time he dropped into sleep he saw his mother huddled in their hut with his brother and sisters held tight to her and calling his name as fire dropped down from the sky all around them. He saw the ball of fire crash through the roof lighting everything at once and then he would wake up with a cry. Over and over again the dream replayed itself in his mind giving him no rest and no comfort.
He felt numb. He just wanted to sit in that tree and die. He wanted to wait there until the skin rotted from his bones and relieved the massive weight that dragged on his heart. Then, suddenly, it hit him. He couldn’t stay. He was the only one left. He was the only one who could fulfill the great responsibility that was now almost a crushing weight. They all had to be appeased—not only his mother and siblings but everyone else who had lived there, his whole race, they all had to be appeased. It was too much. How could he do such a thing? How could he appease them all? It would take a lifetime. But a lifetime is really all he had left. There was no choice. It lay upon him.
Reaching into his pack he pulled out the diamond that Helgar had given him. Hefting it in his hand he stared at it for a long time as if seeking answers from within its brilliant surface. Then as if by an oracle, it came to him. The dwarfs. They were the only ones who could help him. He would work the mines his whole life if he had to but he would find a gem for everyone lost. He would dig out their appeasement from the belly of the Dorian Mountains and would grant them their rest before digging one out for himself and letting his life slip away hoping it would be enough for his own appeasement. There was no other way. He had no other choice. It was what had to be done and he would do it. And he would start with Twee.
There was no way to be certain where Twee’s tree had been exactly. He could only put it in the general vicinity. He had regained his spot on Tchee’s back and she was now flying as slow as she could, and still stay aloft, just over the water. Teek searched the stumps below, certain he was in the right area but unable to make an exact choice so he picked a stump at random and unceremoniously dropped the diamond into the water next to it. He hoped it would be enough. It would have to be. There was no way to know where any of them lived exactly. He really had no idea how many Waseeni had even lived there at the time. He would just keep dropping in gems until he no longer had the strength to continue. It wasn’t the best option, but it was all he had.
Teek patted Tchee’s neck and the bird shot up into the sky and then banked to the left. She would retrace the miles they had come only days before and seek out Helgar and Bardolf who would hopefully give him the help he needed. He would go back to the mines and start his work.
The first gem he found would be for his mother.
CHAPTER FIVE
Jack put his booted foot on the edge of Colonel Braxton’s desk while leaning back slightly in his chair and eyeing the Colonel with a hint of doubt. “Are you sure you trust these healers well enough?”
The Colonel shook his and laughed while leaning forward and resting his hands on his desk. Colonel Myles Braxton’s office was small for someone of his rank and position. Haykon was a frontier town close to the Mogolth Mountains and claimed first defense against any invading attack by the goblins that infested them. The goblins had usually been fairly quiet only rarely attacking anyone fool enough to get close to the mountains. It had been some years since they had mustered any kind of assault against the city.
The Colonel was the leading authority in Haykon answering only to the king back in Calandra. For someone of his rank and stature a grand office would have been more in order but Braxton didn’t fall for that sort of pomp and luxury. He was a soldier not an armchair leader who merely issued paper orders. Wherever the fighting was the hottest that is where the Colonel would be found. A simple chair with a desk was all the luxury he needed. The chair Jack sat on had to be brought in.
“How many times are you going to ask me that question, Jack? Your friends are well and improving. Much better than the half corpses you brought us a week ago.”
Jack harrumphed into his beard. He had sat by those two half corpses since they got to Haykon and watched them improve daily but he still had reservations about the man and woman who were caring for them. “They’re just so secretive about everything it makes me nervous.”
“Rest your worries, Jack. They’re only changing the poultice on your friend’s chest today. What was his name again?”
“Dor. Dor and Tam are their names.” Jack’s mood suddenly changed from dark to darker. “Any news from Calandra?”
Braxton leaned back and shook his head the frustration obvious in his demeanor. “Not a word. I’ve already sent extra troops to help seal the pass and guard it, beyond that, all I can do is wait.”
Jack shook his head. “What does he think he’s got on his hands here? He knows about the rock trolls leaving the Shadow Mountains—he shut down Hell’s End Station because of it. He just let them go unchecked through the whole northern country!”
Braxton sighed. “I know, but there’s nothing more I can do until King Dagan gives the order.”
Jack ran a hand through his gray hair. “He’s a fool. He’ll end up giving up the whole country before it’s through; along with all of our lives.”
“I know,” Braxton said in a half whisper. “But, I don’t have the privilege you have in deciding my own fate. I’m a soldier. I follow the orders of my king and that’s that no matter what I might think of those orders.”
Jack sighed. “I know, I know. I’m sorry. I just see dark days ahead for all of us if we don’t address this problem now.”
The colonel eyed him for a moment as if weighing him. “You know, it didn’t have to be this way; and it still doesn’t.”
Jack quickly shook his head holding both hands up as if to ward away the suggestion. “No, my friend. I made that choice too long ago and have become too comfortable with it to change my mind now. Dagan’s all right, he just needs some smarter heads surrounding him to understand that life is not the same outside the palace as it is within.”
Braxton leaned forwar
d. “I know I could lose my head if anyone heard me say it, but your hand may yet be forced in all of this and when it does, you know you can count on me and my men.”
Jack just shook his head. “Let’s pray to all the gods that it never comes to that.”
Braxton leaned back in his chair. “So, when are you going to tell me more about these friends of yours you keep hidden under lock and key?” he smiled, changing the subject. “What’s the big secret?”
Just then there was a soft knock on the door. Jack smiled at his friend who growled to himself before calling out. “Enter!”
The door opened slowly and a robed figure walked in. It was Kat, one of the Healers. Like her counterpart, she wore a hooded brown, wool robe that hung loosely on her body almost swallowing the tiny figure within. Her hood was pulled back revealing charcoal eyes and dark brown hair that was cut short to just below the earlobes in typical Healer fashion. She was not a pretty girl but neither was she homely. Plain in appearance she would have been easily passed over in a crowd except for the Healer robes she wore that marked her.
Healers were something of a mystery. Without homes of their own they traveled from place to place working their art curing people of all sorts of ailments. Though secretive about their abilities, they were believed by many to use magic and therefore shunned by the more superstitious. They were all unassuming and quiet, mainly keeping to themselves except for when they were called for to heal. The only payments they ever accepted were food offerings and a sheltered place to sleep. Not much of a price considering their miraculous abilities. Still, some felt they were charlatans while others claimed they were thieves.
