Kerlith entered. “Master, I called to your horse using my stone and he came. He looks a little ragged. I think he may have been running to and fro most of the night. If we are to leave today, I do not think we can ride him.”
“And your pony?”
Bel interrupted, “He is gone.”
“Where?” asked Kerlith.
“The ghoul-kind. Last night. They tore his flesh. I saw it. I do not think he survived.”
Kerlith shook then quickly turned his back to them. Muolithnon said, “So the young pony joins the world of the dead. Do not be upset, Kerlith. Perhaps you will see him sooner than you think. But for now we walk. Nes’egrinon, thank you for your hospitality. If the ghouls followed us then I am sorry that I have brought that problem to you. My apprentice and I will go to see what we find. We will send you word, to you and the others, when we find the source of this abomination.”
The gray bearded mage looked down at his aged feet, his old hands showing brown spots and his dirty cloak that had already seen too many battles. He peered over at Bel’s soft face and frowned. Nes’egrinon looked around his home at his meager possessions and stood slowly. His bones cracked. He turned his head and gazed at Kerlith, standing away from them, still shuddering at the thought of what the ghouls had done to his pony. The old mage stretched out slowly, grabbed his hat from the table, knocked the dust off of it and said with a cracking voice, “Fifth Year, ready yourself. We are walking to the Hinterlands.”
Chapter 4
The Hinterlands
Bel wished someone would say something to break the tension but no one spoke and the silence was unnerving. Of course, he couldn’t speak first. Not yet. He needed someone to start talking so he could ask a question. He assumed that when he arrived his new master would have spent some time alone with him so that they could talk and the old wizard could explain to him how his training was going to go. But as yet he had no clue as to what his expectations were or even if he could speak openly. At Lasaat, students weren’t allowed to speak to masters unless they were in a classroom environment.
It had been dark ever since he got here too and that was one thing that Bel couldn’t quite understand. Bel knew it should be daytime by now. There should be a light-blue sky overhead but all he could see was dark twilight. Sitting on the far horizon behind them streaming fingers of light poked into the darkness, fighting a war for the sky. Bel turned his head back and marveled at it as the group pushed through branches of the overgrown path. Apparently not many people came this way into the wooded Greenlands and Bel could see why. There was nothing here but dark, dense forest; trees, trees, more and more trees, thin but tall, a slender variety of fir, stretching their arms high into the sky.
The silence of the forest was equally disturbing. Much quieter than a peaceful stillness; this was the quiet of death and darkness and eyes watching and patiently waiting. Like a cat crouching in the tall grass waiting for an unknowing sparrow to land just in front of it, Bel felt like a predator’s eyes were on him.
Here no bird sang; in this wood, no animal crept. There was only silence and shadows. Bel found himself constantly looking around and over his shoulder at tiny flickers of motion in his periphery, hoping to find insects or snakes or anything really but he could find no motion in the places that he chose to direct his stare.
As Bel and Kerlith walked a few paces behind their teachers, Bel decided to strike up a conversation with his old classmate if for no other reason but to hear his own voice. “So, how’s your training going? Been a year already. I see from last night you are already doing some things.”
“Yeah. It’s killer. I’ve been doing all kinds of stuff. Way better than school. Back there all they let us do was the stupid common stuff. You know. Now I am learning real stone magic under someone who wants to teach me everything.”
“That’s cool.”
“I have to do some menial stuff too. Take care of my master: food, water, washing, that stuff. But I don’t mind ’cause I get to use my stone for all kinds of stuff. It’s nothing like school.”
“Yeah. I can’t wait.” Bel tried to ignore the creeping feeling that something in the woods was watching them, following them and listening to every word they spoke.
“Oh, I got a new stone the other day.” Kerlith pulled out the stone hanging from a string around his neck. “It’s awesome. Much stronger than the one I had at school. It’s onyx but has amethyst surrounding the lower edge. Wicked, right? Here, touch it.”
He stared at Bel as they walked, then down at the stone then back at the thin boy. Suddenly Bel realized that the way he said it wasn’t so much of an offer as a command. Touch my stone, now. “Err, I don’t want to touch your stone. It looks cool though, I guess. Rocks never interested me much.”
Kerlith tucked it back behind his shirt and said, “It’s wicked awesome. Kills. You have to get yourself some kind of fancy stick, I guess. Get rid of that schoolboy practice staff you’re lugging around.”
“Sure. Soon as I get a chance. None of this is going how I expected.”
“I know. Right. First day in and you’re already on an adventure. Well, could be worse. You could be sitting back at his shack cooking dinner every day and learning nothing.” Kerlith whispered, “You never can tell with these masters.”
Muolithnon began telling a story as they walked, out loud, to no one in particular. “This reminds me of the time that the North King attacked the Hinterlands. We went out on a path such as this one to meet them and let them know that a great mage protected the Land of the stonecutters. After I explained to them who I was and what I was capable of they went scurrying back to their forest. Such is the power—”
“Wait!” Nes’egrinon held his fist high and turned his head to the side. The party stopped. In the distance they heard hoofs. People were coming on horseback.
A good sign. Ghouls probably do not ride horses, Bel thought.
A group of people came above the ridge, some walking, others on horses and a few draft horses pulling a wagon. They looked ragged and worn. When they arrived, Nes’egrinon said, “Ho! How goes it?”
A man walking said, “Not well. You are the wizard of the forest, are you not?”
“I am. What can you tell me of what lies ahead? Are there ghoul-kind about?”
“Yes, we are fleeing west. The ghouls have overrun Sha’ul. We waited them out until they broke in and we used torches to burn them but they kept coming. We are the few that are left. The ghouls mostly rest during the day so we were able to steal away.”
Kerlith mumbled, “It’s dark all the time. I don’t see any daylight.”
The man looked at Nes’egrinon then at Muolithnon and said bashfully, “If only we had a wizard to protect us.”
Nes’egrinon glanced at Muolithnon, then replied, “A few days journey and you should reach the light. You are not far now. Tell me this, what of your dead?”
A young man seated on a horse answered, “We lost so many. It is hard to speak of it. No one is untouched by this sadness. Our dead? Our wives and mothers and fathers and brothers? There is no need to bury them. They usually rise up within hours of dying. Sometimes within minutes. It is painful to speak of it.”
“Aye,” Muolithnon moaned.
Nes’egrinon’s face grew somber as if he was thinking of another time. “I am sorry for you and your people. I will not hold you longer, only answer me one last thing. Tell me, does it take only one bite?”
The man swept the dirt with his foot and said, “My wife, she tried to help. I told her to stay inside. Only one bite took her. The poison crept into her and she died. The children too. Others tried to fight it. The stronger ones. They went into a fever that lasted days in some but none have survived it. None I’ve seen.”
“I am sorry to hear this.”
The young man on the horse added, “One odd thing though, the children did not rise. They died and when they did not rise for some time, we buried them.”
Nes’egrinon’s br
ow furrowed. “Oh, is that so?”
The man said, “Yes, that is something that we have yet to explain. I suppose there are many things we cannot explain. Not everyone rises. Some just die and are gone. Especially the children. I would like to think they go somewhere else but then why did my wife rise? I do not like to think about it. I just want to flee this darkness and forget, if I can, all that I have seen.”
“Thank you and Godspeed.”
The group departed and Kerlith lit his stone with mage-light. Later the others did also, Muolithnon his mage-stone and Nes’egrinon and Bel their staffs of mage-wood. It was getting darker the deeper they traveled and the closer they came to the Hinterlands. They all seemed to unconsciously quicken their steps as the dark and the dread surrounded them.
Muolithnon began telling another one of his tales. “This reminds me of the time I battled a swamp creature. It was wooded like this and dark but after I lit my stone full of power he could do nothing but run as fast as he could. He was never seen again.”
The forest was silent except for an occasional distant rustling and the four were on edge. Bel pushed hard from within himself and lit his staff brighter. It made him feel safer to be able to see deep into the forest although he knew that that was a lie. He wasn’t safe at all.
“Fifth Year. Stop burning your energy like a fool. If a battle comes you will need it. Shine your light as dim as possible. We don’t want to attract any unwanted attention anyway.”
There was a swish and a thump as an arrow struck the ground just in front of them. A group of men on horseback sat at the top of the path staring them down. They were shadowed in darkness.
“What?” Muolithnon squeaked then he motioned for them to quickly leave the path. They all dashed to the safety of the forest but they could not go in too deep as the wood, full of slender and tightly knit trees, became thick and brushy. Shouting was behind them. More arrows rained in. Kerlith and Bel crouched low and they all extinguished their mage-lights. An arrow twanged into the brush next to them.
Nes’egrinon spit out, “Bandits!” then placed his hands upon two adjacent trees, an oak and an elm, and mumbled words that Bel could not make out. The forest became darker and twisted as if they were somehow moving.
The old mage released his hands and breathed hard, staring at the ground, exhausted. Bel listened to the old man gasp and felt sorry for him for he seemed to tire so quickly. He was said to once be one of the greatest wizards in all Hellas, in all of the known lands. They told us at Lasaat, anyway. Bel remembered the tales. He was the man who rescued the rightful king of Argus from exile and built the outer ring of defense that surrounded Lasaat; the only person who knew the length and breadth of the Black Forest from the glacier edge to the far river; the only one who had spoken with a dragon and lived. It was even rumored that he knew Achilles and fought against the Akkadians. But now? He is tired, old and—how does the saying go?—one foot in the grave and the other on a banana peel? No, he is not long for this world and what is to become of me when he dies?
The group emerged from the wood but the path looked different. “Where are we?” Bel asked without thinking but then wished he had kept quiet. He still did not know if it was his place to speak openly yet.
Muolithnon twisted his back and shakily said, “Kerlith?”
Kerlith turned to see an arrow trembling in his master’s shoulder. He reached up and snapped off the feathered end of the shaft as the mage gasped then winced and said, “Push it through.”
The arrowhead emerged bloody with chunks of flesh. Kerlith instinctively held his hand over the wound and pushed in healing.
Muolithnon rose to his feet and announced, “That will do for now. We must keep moving. There is no time for bandages. If Sha’ul is overrun as they say, then there will be no safety there. We must reach Sha’la or one of the other villages before nightfall. We must get inside the walls.”
Kerlith said, “Lawlessness has fallen upon the land. It is as foretold.”
His master replied, “Aye.” He looked about in both directions on the pathway then asked, “Master Archmage, you have transported us. Which way now?”
Nes’egrinon looked in front of them for a while then turned around and looked back. He turned around and looked in front again and scratched his head. He turned around once more then said, “Err... this way. Yeah. This way then.”
Bel looked at Kerlith who looked back and shrugged. They walked on the darkening path for what seemed like a half-day’s journey without the least change of scenery. Then the lane became narrower as the elm and pine and fir thickened; branches swatted them as they forced their way through. The roadway had clearly ended but they each knew the truth that no one wanted to say; there was no turning back now. After they pushed through a large crop of trees they came to a small cliff edge with a river below.
“Now what?” Muolithnon exclaimed somewhat desperately as it was getting darker; the dim twilight was fading to black.
The elder mage pulled down his gray hood, revealing his scarred face. His eyes were dark and impartial. They did not pierce or accuse but there was some hidden fire deep within them as if he had seen and known things that no other man could know. He said plainly, “You can jump if you like,” and stepped backwards off the cliff falling into the rapidly flowing current below.
Bel looked then quickly leapt after him, eager to prove himself. Kerlith grabbed his master’s arm and looked at his face to see if he might need help. The mage nodded to his apprentice and they stepped off together.
The freezing stream carried them a short distance as they swam to the far side then exited on to a grassy bank at the valley of sparsely covered hills. Several stamped in trails led up and away and Nes’egrinon looked at each one in turn, rubbing his chin with a perplexed look on his face. A path through high grass, another through low, a trail between thickets and a twisting row down and up ravines and stony hills; paths, paths, paths everywhere and not a sign of civilization or a recent footprint; nobody, nobody, not even the smallest twig broken to indicate anyone had been through here in a long, long time. He said, “This one,” pointing, seemingly at random, at the steepest then immediately began walking up it, using the small bushes as handholds, dragging himself uphill. Bel stepped behind him. Muolithnon and Kerlith both wrung out their outer coverings then followed.
A long time passed where all they did was climb up and down hills and each time they scaled one more ominous than the last, Nes’egrinon said, “It should be just over this next ridge.”
Bel shivered and his hands were torn from clawing up the hills. It was perpetually dark now and there was no way to know exactly what time it was but it was getting cold. It must be near to midnight if it was not already. Ghouls would come if they stayed in one place too long; they had to keep moving.
After a time of climbing and descending Bel smelled something different and he furrowed his brow. A soft, curious scent danced on Bel’s nose. Kerlith noticed it also. When Nes’egrinon saw the puzzled looks on their faces, he said, “Spicewood. We are almost there. Should be just over this next ridge.”
The pathway grew wider, wide enough for four men to walk abreast and they entered a dark tunnel of spicewood branches holding hands above them. The trail curved in a meandering way, through the trees, through the silent forest without the sound of birds or rabbits or other little animals. Lost were the sounds, the rustling, the chirping and singing, the indications that they were walking through a living, breathing forest. All that surrounded them was the silence of death. As the thoroughfare peeked over the ridge it opened into a clearing and rough stone steps that led to a small shelter of dark, moss-covered bark, not much smaller than Nes’egrinon’s own home.
The old man said, “Ahh. Here we are. See. A shelter. We will stay here tonight.”
Muolithnon looked at him questioningly but said nothing and entered the shack whose door hung open.
A few moments later he stepped back out and said, “It will have to do.
I will cast an enchantment.”
The old mage said, “No, I will do it. Go in and rest. Kerlith, start a fire. Fifth Year, can you help him? We are still in the forest. This is my charge. I will take care of our protection spell.” After the events of the day, no one could protest. They were all exhausted.
It was a strange structure and it struck Bel as odd that such large logs were used to form its walls. But it would keep them safe from ghouls. There was a pile of wood ready near the hearth so they could warm up and dry off too. And maybe they would sleep. Maybe. The building was constructed of large round logs standing on end and supporting a roof of slats. The cracks between them were stuffed with twigs and a mud-like mixture. Inside sat a table and two chairs and not much else, but the dirt floor in front of the fire looked very comfortable right now.
As they prepared the fire, Kerlith baited, “Something’s wrong with you.”
“Why?”
“Your master doesn’t say much to you. I am guessing the old wizard can detect your incompetence?”
Bel did not return his gaze. “Shut up, fool. He will when he gets the chance.”
“I’m just saying what I’m seeing.”
“Listen Kerlith, we started this trip nice and all and I haven’t brought up our history back at the academy so I was just going to let that go. But if you start acting ignorant with your stupid comments like you did back when we were kids then we are going to have a problem.”
Kerlith chuckled and didn’t respond.
Muolithnon slumped down next to Kerlith and Bel, leaning his back against the single center post, and crowed, “Now this reminds me of the time that South Be’ershore was overrun with marauders. When I showed up to save them they were all huddled in a shack much like this one. Of course I had to save them, the poor pathetic lot. I always take care of the little people.”
Bel, wanting no more of Muolithnon’s stories, went outside, stood on the front steps and looked up at the sky. It spooked him for a moment when he didn’t see any stars in the blackness but he quickly realized that the eternal night, whatever it was, would eat all forms of light, not just daylight. The sky was pitch black. There was not a star in the sky.
Under the Shadow of Darkness: Book 1 of the Apprentice Series Page 3
