“You ever try to outrun them?” Dra’kor asked, as Grit examined Barack’s work.
“Nah. Can’t. They’re real fast, too fast for Dora here,” he said patting the horse’s rear. “I just go inside and lock the door; they lose interest after a bit ….”
“Dra’kor, you should see this,” said Grit, pointing to the brake. “It’s very clever!”
“Thanks. Where’d you say you were from?”
“Didn’t, but we hail from up river past the old inn,” said Dra’kor, as he peered under the wagon. “What’s that contraption by the front axle?”
“That’s my own invention,” said Barack proudly. “Well, actually I stole it from some folks way down south, about a two moon journey. Makes the front wheels pivot so you can steer better.”
“Well, I’ll be damned. That’s a great idea,” Grit said, grinning widely.
“Thought so myself the first time I saw it, so I rigged one up with a piece of iron,” Barack said, as he gave the axle a tug, showing how it pivoted on the axis. “Know much about wagons?”
“A little,” Grit answered. “I worked the docks in Edu’bar when I was a kid.”
“Edu’bar?” Barack grumbled. “Rough place —”
“Agreed,” Grit nodded.
“Huh!” exclaimed Men’ak, as he bent over and peered under the wagon. “Looks down right useful —”
“Learned a lot from those folks, they showed me how to put metal banding on the wheels. Keep ‘em from wearing and breaking on the rocks. I made the bands myself when I had the time and nailed ‘em on.”
Grit examined the wheels closely now that the merchant had pointed it out, “Sounds like you were fortunate to run into those folks.”
“Clever folks, I’ll give ‘em that.”
Dra’kor looked at Barack. “Where’d you say yer from?”
“Just left Grettle Notch up in the Northlund a week ago … but the road’s my home.”
“Isn’t that up by Stonegate?”
“Tis, but along a different road, skirts far to the east, maybe five or ten leagues. Know the place?”
Dra’kor shook his head, “Haven’t had the pleasure.”
“Pleasure is right!” Barack laughed. “They have some of the best working girls I’ve ever had the pleasure to spend an evening with. Got one hell of a tavern too.”
Men’ak blushed.
“Almost as good as Edu’bar,” he said while winking at Grit.
Grit nodded with a big grin on his face as he recalled the days.
“You said you were about a day’s walk out? You weren’t talkin’ about that run down wreck under the cliff?”
“That’s the place. We live just down the road a bit,” confirmed Grit. “Pretty much in a wide spot in the road.”
“Anyone live in that inn?” asked Barack curiously.
“Not that we know, it’s been vacant as long as I remember. It’s pretty run down. I used to play inside when I was a kid,” said Men’ak, crinkling his face. “Some vagabonds stayed there for a while, although it could have been gypsies, and I think they pretty much tore the place up when they left. I think they burned a bit of it too —”
“Oh, a pity to let a big place like that go south …” the disappointed merchant commented.
“Sure is. Say, any news from up in Five Peaks?” Men’ak wondered.
“Nah, nothin’ really new. Same as everywhere I suppose. It’s been a damn hard winter, spring crops failing, attacks on people for no darn good reason. Everyone’s a feared, barricades themselves in. Don’t go nowhere —”
“We hadn’t heard much news in our parts. Any plague or sickness we need to keep our eye out for?” Grit probed, sounding worried and concerned.
“Not that I’ve heard. I wouldn’t worry too much, but that don’t mean nothin’,” Barack laughed. “You live and then ye die, plain and simple.”
“Suppose it don’t matter,” Grit adding a chuckle.
“Well, we better get going if we’re to get somewhere safe for the night,” Dra’kor said. “It’s been nice chatting with you. Safe journey!”
The merchant pulled out a big burlap bag from under his bench, “By the way, you boys smoke leaf? I have good stuff, reasonable.”
“We don’t smoke,” Men’ak said, as the others nodded. It was a lie, but they stuck to their story, not wanting to waste their coin.
Barack opened the bag and pulling out a respectable-sized plug.
“It’s good chewin too — want to try some?”
“No thanks, sorry …” said Dra’kor, waving off the offer.
“Huh! Don’t meet too many folks don’t enjoy a bowl now and then …. You monks or something?” the merchant asked, a little surprised.
Grit shook his head. “Na, why do you ask?”
“Well, monks always seem to have a problem with leaf for some reason unbeknownst to me. They don’t seem to have any issues with wine … or ale though,” he smiled
“We’re not exactly monks, but … it’s kind of … it’s a long story,” Grit said, scratching his head. “We really do need to go …”
“Same here,” Barack agreed, shrugging off the whole conversation. “Oh, I’d hole up the night in a tall tree if I were you. You’re way too far from both Five Peaks and Three Rivers to get to either by nightfall on foot.”
Barack grunted as he used his free hand to lift his leg up to the running board. He climbed back up onto the wagon pulling a thick blanket along the bench to rest his bottom on. He set his feet on the running board and adjusted himself.
“Thanks for the suggestion, Barack. Safe travels!” Dra’kor said, stepping back.
Barack unlatched the brake, picked up the reins and gave them a shake, “Safe travels! H-yah, horse.”
Dora let out a whinny and tossed her head and the wagon lurched forward. The three magi watched as the wagon slowly rolled down the road and disappeared around the corner. They heard Barack singing an old Bard tune at the top of his lungs.
Saw three maids walk down the street,
I asked them for a treat.
The maid with hips the size of mine,
With yellow hair so fine,
She pulled her skirt up near her knee
and said no treats for free ….
“Well,” Grit exclaimed, “he seemed nice enough.”
Dra’kor nodded, “That was helpful. We finally met someone who’s out on the road and knows something.”
“I know! I was beginning to think that the realms were deserted,” joked Men’ak.
“He seemed knowledgeable about what’s going on … It sounds like things are getting pretty bad out here,” Dra’kor reasoned, “but I’ll reserve the right to question some of the stories he’s telling. We’re going to have plenty to report to Ja’tar tonight.”
“Knowledgeable …?” chuckled Grit, “— that seems a little much. I think he’s a touch delusional.”
“You think so? I thought he was completely sane given the circumstances …” Dra’kor said, surprised at Grits response. “Things seem pretty dire out here.”
“You can say that again,” said Men’ak, a bit disheartened. “I was hoping for the better … this isn’t exactly what I thought we’d find.”
Dra’kor waved his hands menacingly and filled his voice with sarcasm. “What were you expecting, dark mages walking around in plain sight? Dark demons on the prowl,”
“Well, no … I was hoping we didn’t find anything at all,” a chided Men’ak replied, casting his eyes to the ground. “I figured this was just Ja’tar’s way to get us grumblers out of the Keep.”
“Really? Well, I don’t think Ja’tar would waste his time training us if he didn’t already have a pretty good idea of what we were going to find,” Dra’kor said, coming to Ja’tar’s defense. “I don’t think we really understood enough to judge him the way we did, and I do think he knew a lot more than he let on —”
“I suppose so …,” Men’ak grumbled.
“Wond
er about those wolves he kept talking about. Sounded kind of strange to me. So you don’t think he’s delusional?” Grit asked Dra’kor, but also back glanced at Men’ak.
Men’ak laughed, “Walking wolves —”
“Delusional? No, I don’t think he is delusional at all,” said Dra’kor flatly. “On the contrary, but I don’t think they’re wolves either.”
Grit was caught by surprise at Dra’kor’s reply. “No?”
Dra’kor sighed heavily and shook his head, “I think that’s what he’s calling them because it’s the only thing that makes sense to him.”
“Huh? What do you mean, Dra’kor?”
“Well, I don’t know how to exactly explain this, but I fear we are dealing with something the ancients called wolven,” Dra’kor speculated.
“Wolven? I’ve never heard of them,” said Grit, with a confused look on his face. “You sure?”
“Although I can’t say for sure, I think so. I remember talks of these creatures from years ago. According to lore, wolven are these hunters that were used in the time of Ror. They’re part wolf, part man, and part demon, concocted by some dark mage to track people, armies, and magi,” Dra’kor crossed his arms and offered up the little he knew.
“I thought he was exaggerating when he said they walked on two legs,” Men’ak exclaimed. “I can’t believe —”
“No, they existed all right, just not in the last millennia.”
Dra’kor face showed his frustration. He had a suspicious feeling, that the whole world was spinning out of control right before his eyes.
“They actually walked on two feet?” Grit said, as his mouth fell open in surprise.
“More or less … it’s like they can stand on their rear paws to fight, and take a step or two if they have to …,” Dra’kor elaborated. “But they’re still basically wolves.”
“Huh! Where’d you learn that?”
Grit was more than a little surprised that Dra’kor actually knew something about the strange beasts. Grit was a little bothered that Dra’kor knew about them and he did not, after all, they had been best friends forever and had almost the exact same training and classes.
“Back a long time ago in my studies of the Ror battles. Just something I remembered when Barack started describing them,” Dra’kor admitted, devoid of emotion.
Grit looked Dra’kor in the eyes. “Should we be worried?”
Silence filled the air.
“— Well, should we?”
“At the time, they scared me half to death. I had nightmares for years,” Dra’kor slowly confessed, his defenses collapsing. He shuddered at the memories.
“You were young at the time?” Men’ak guessed.
“Yep, maybe ten or twelve winters old, had only been at the Keep for a couple years. Everything we studied gave me nightmares —”
“Me too,” Men’ak mumbled.
“Maybe you don’t remember it right?”
“No, Grit. I remember this. I remember this very clearly, even today …,” Dra’kor said, resigning himself to having to relive the nightmares. He shivered, recalling the fables he had been told.
“Do you remember anything else?” Grit asked, “It could be important.”
“I remember a little,” Dra’kor said, recalling the lessons of long ago, but ignoring all the stories he had heard. “I think Zedd’aki taught the class. He said they hunt in packs and wield no magic. I suppose they can be killed just like any other beast, but they’re tough as ironwood.”
Men’ak looked down the road in the direction the tinker went. “Well, if you’re right — all I’m saying is that he seemed unusually calm about the whole matter for having seen them up close.”
Grit nodded. “If it were me, I’d be shaking in my shoes and I sure wouldn’t be rattling around the realms in a wagon. That’s for sure.”
“I think he’s calm because he’s rationalized what he’s seen into something that fits in his world. If he admitted the truth to himself, he’d probably be a babbling idiot. We have to remember, he hasn’t lived for centuries or been trained to accept magic,” Dra’kor reasoned.
Men’ak was enjoying the conversation and was entirely intrigued. “Ah, so the fact that he beclouds a wolf that walks and has a head twice as big is purely a coping mechanism?”
“Yes, that’s pretty much sums up what I think it is …” Dra’kor confirmed. “The only way he can cope is to pretend it’s nothing.”
Men’ak mumbled to himself.
“What was that, Men’ak?” Grit asked. “I didn’t hear you —”
“Nothing, “I’m just talking to myself.”
“Well then, either way, wolven or not, we should stay alert.” Dra’kor emphasized. “Alert —”
“How do we do that? We don’t have a horse to warn us …,” Grit chortled and grinned sarcastically.
Dra’kor gave him a bewildered look.
Men’ak stated the obvious, “We’ll just have to be vigilant and keep watch, that’s all … besides, it sounds like we might have a hard time getting to Three Rivers … ferry being out and all.”
“Could be a problem,” Grit agreed.
“From the warnings that Ja’tar told us, the river is extremely treacherous at Haagen’s,” Men’ak echoed, repeating verbatim what Ja’tar had told them two days ago.
“We’ll figure it out when we get there. You think we’ll reach it today?” Grit asked Dra’kor.
“Not if we stand here all day gabbing …,” Dra’kor complained.
“— But what if we can’t get across the river?” Men’ak fretted.
“I guess we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it …,” Grit joked. “Or not —”
Men’ak rolled his eyes in disgust.
Dra’kor sighed and looked up from the ground, “Guess we’ll have to wait to find out, but we better get going, daylight is wasting. You heard what he said about the wolven, they’re more likely to be out at night.”
“I miss the Keep …,” Men’ak blurted wishfully.
Grit echoed, “I hear that.”
“Well, the sooner we get going, the sooner we can go home,” Dra’kor stated, understanding exactly how they felt, for he also missed home.
“Tonight could be a long one if Barack is right …,” Grit admitted as he took a step down the road and looked back over his shoulder.
Dra’kor followed, “We’ll need to stop well before nightfall and figure out where to spend the night. I don’t really want to spend a cold night high up in a tree.”
“Sleeping in a tree? Of all the …,” Men’ak swore releasing a slew of expletives as he adjusted his pack and followed the others.
Dra’kor looked at Men’ak and chortled.
“What?” said Men’ak indignantly, his eyes glowering.
Grit was worried and nodded as he looked around frantically, “We better be on the lookout for these wolven, if they are as fast as Barack says, then we …”
Dra’kor watched Grit. He was a tad concerned that his friend was beginning to buckle under the pressure. “Calm down, Grit. No need for us to overreact yet.”
“We should set some wards,” a very anxious Grit stuttered.
“We should,” Dra’kor agreed. “Are you going to do it?”
“I guess I could,” Grit answered hesitantly, “Unless you want to?”
Dra’kor shook his head and waved him off.
Grit started chanting as the three started back down the trail. Dra’kor listened as Grit chanted, and smiled to himself. Grit had set about a dozen different wards. Unless the wolf could shape-shift, make itself small as a bird, fly and dig underground, he was pretty sure they would have plenty of advanced warning if a pack of wolven happened in their direction.
Haagen’s Cross
The three magi felt a new sense of urgency after their conversation with the Tinker and made quick work of the downhill trek that led to the falls. The closer they got, the narrower the canyon became and it wasn’t long before they heard the r
umble and saw the mist rising in the distance.
Grit scanned the tall walls, watching the shadows and dark crevices. “Canyon’s getting narrow,”.
Dra’kor nodded, “A good place for an ambush.”
“Ambush?” said Men’ak nervously. He immediately began frantically looking around, trying to follow where Grit was looking.
“I wouldn’t worry about it,” Dra’kor said, with a grin. “Demons don’t usually climb walls.”
Well, they actually did, but Dra’kor didn’t see any reason to share that little tidbit with his friends. After all, they were already nervous and adding fuel to an already smoldering fire seemed like a bad idea.
Grit looked at Dra’kor and nodded, feeling a bit better, but couldn’t help himself and continued scanning the tall jagged crags.
“— But highwaymen with crossbows do,” he added, causing Grit’s head to snap around.
Dra’kor sniggered and shook his head. “Have we seen anyone besides the tinker?”
“What?” Grit asked, not understanding. Dra’kor rolled his eyes.
They turned the last corner and saw Haagen’s Cross for the first time, a narrow spot in the ravine surrounded by steep cliffs and mountains. It was an amazing sight, the mountains rising high on both sides, the three rivers merging into one just before the falls, which tumbled over the side of the steep drop-off before settling into a quiet lush valley with a long narrow deep blue lake.
Near the edge of the Big Drop falls were the broken down remains of a stone bridge, which at one time must have spanned the chasm. The far side held the remains of the other half, which could be seen arching out over the water for a good ten paces. The massive cut stones were far too immense to have been moved by men and Dra’kor immediately concluded that it was the bridge built by the ancients, from the map.
“Now that … is really something,” Grit muttered to himself.
Dra’kor nodded, “It must have been the one destroyed after Ror.”
The Legacy of the Ten: Book 01 - Eyes of the Keep Page 32
