by Heath Pfaff
“It’s a shame the Fast Paths don’t go any further up the mountain pass.” Crow noted sadly as they set about their second mile up the steep mountain trails.
“The Unth allowed the mechanna to build their mountain fortress under the condition that it didn’t travel any higher up into the mountains. The Fast Paths were built later, and the mechanna didn’t want to take any chance of offending their northern neighbors.” Tilda noted, before adding. “With the number of trolls that have been through here recently it probably wouldn’t be safe for us to go any further on the Paths anyway.”
“Do you know where the Unth’s village is?” Haley asked, her eyes focused on the white expanse ahead of them.
Tilda shrugged. “I’ve never seen an Unth village, or heard of anyone else having encountered one. If we keep heading north though, the Unth will come to us. I expect them to be here rather soon.”
Xandrith reflexively wrapped his hand around the hilt of the knife at his side. It was Haley’s weapon. She’d told him to keep it for the time being since he didn’t have a good blade of his own. She was relying on her axe for fighting more often than not, and with good reason. It enhanced her strength and used her magical resources to give her an edge in battle. She’d used it to excellent effect against the giant troll. Even if she hadn’t been formally trained in axe fighting, she was very effective with that sharp wedge of black metal.
“You say they won’t attack us outright?” Xandrith asked, not for the first time. His paranoia told him that walking into enemy territory unprepared was a dangerous thing to do.
“The Unth are territorial, but they’ve always been civil enough to give a warning before attacking. The mechanna have been on good terms with them for years. They’re not exactly social, but they aren’t outwardly hostile either.” Tilda answered. “We should be fine.”
Xandrith nodded uneasily. “If we could look back through history, I think we would find those are probably the last words of many a fool.”
Tilda just raised an eyebrow and snorted.
They walked for another hour before a dark spot appeared up the trail from them. Tilda put a hand up. “Stop.” She said quietly. “That would be the Unth. I recommend we wait here and let him come to us. Let us not do anything to provoke him.” She looked pointedly at Xan. “Please try and keep your knife in its sheath.”
Xandrith held up his hands and wiggled his eight figures. “I promise to be good.”
As the Unth approached, Xandrith was able to get his first good look at one of the peculiar mountain dwellers. It was human in shape, the size of a small man. Its skin was a brilliant white color where it could be seen at all, the pale color blended in nicely with the snow covered mountain side. The only aspect that made it stand out was what Xan took to be a strange set of armor. As it drew nearer, though, he realized that the Unth wasn’t dressed in armor. It was covered in a dark blue layer of crystal that seemed to grow out of its own flesh and enwrap it. The patterns of the growing crystals were irregular and seemed random, but for the fact that they didn’t impair the Unth’s movement in any way. The random appearance of the crystals had a strange order about it. The crystal layer looked like a set of strange, grown plate mail. The Unth had blue eyes with a slightly darker blue iris and its gaze was intense.
“You are on Unth land. We give you this one warning. Turn back the way you’ve come and never return to these mountains again.” Xan was surprised at how feminine the voice was when the Unth spoke. He’d assumed masculinity, and the creature’s body or movement hadn’t given him any reason to doubt that assumption.
It had been agreed earlier that Tilda would speak on their behalf since she knew the most about the Unth, and Xandrith was just as happy to let her do so. He didn’t respond well to ultimatums anyway. Without a doubt his mouth would have gotten them all into more trouble.
“My friend, we’ve come here with the intention to speak with you about a grave problem that concerns both of our people. Will you hear us?” Tilda began.
The Unth responded quickly. “The Unth do not share the problems of men.”
“This is a problem that is shared by all peaceful creatures of this land. The trolls have risen from their holes and they seek the power to wake a god of chaos, a power that exists somewhere in these mountains.” Tilda pressed.
At the mention of the power in the mountains, the Unth seemed to tense. Xandrith could sense it the way an animal senses that a situation has just turned dangerous. He felt himself tense up as well, his hand creeping slowly towards the knife at his hip. He’d let Tilda talk as long as she could, but if communication faltered, he had no intention of being the last one to attack.
“We are dealing with the trolls on our own.” Again, the Unth replied so quickly that it seemed to Xan that it had already prepared everything it was going to say to them.
“The trolls have taken a tool from us that could be used to kill their god before he can come to power and destroy us all. We need to recover that tool. Perhaps you have seen it, it is a dagger made of bone. It would have been carried by a female human.” Tilda kept pressing their cause. Xandrith was impressed. He wasn’t sure he would have been so patient.
“We will deal with this trouble on our own. Leave, now.” The Unth responded promptly once more.
Xandrith stepped forward, his anger getting the better of him. “Are you winning?”
The Unth didn’t respond to him, but it blue eyes did settle heavily on him. It seemed to be noticing him for the first time. Judging by the look on its face, it wasn’t happy with what it was seeing.
“You are barely human.” It said, stepping in Xandrith’s direction. “You come here claiming to be peaceful, but you’ve brought one of the cursed men with you.”
Xan didn’t even see the attack that hit him before it landed. A massive pressure exploded against his chest, knocking him to the ground, and then he was gasping for air and trying to get back to his feet.
“Please, no!” Tilda was shouting, and Haley and Crow were moving. Negotiations had taken a turn for the worse. There was a loud and reverberating crack, like the sound of lightening splitting a tree in half, and then the chaos settled. Xandrith pushed himself to his feet, still gasping for breath. He wasn’t injured that he could tell, but the blow had hurt. He’d probably have a bruise.
Haley was standing over the Unth who had collapsed in the snow. Its eyes were closed, and it was spread eagle.
“What happened?” Xandrith asked as he approached.
Haley looked a bit guilty. “She tried to use her magic again and I didn’t have time to siphon the power away. It happened too fast, so I just snapped the connection to the spell. All the force exploded back on her.”
Tilda sighed as she bent down over the Unth. “I didn’t want it to happen like this.”
“We didn’t have a many options.” Xan noted dryly. “Good work, Haley. You probably saved my life. Again.”
After going over the Unth carefully, Tilda let out a relieved breath. “She’s not dead, just unconscious. I’m surprised. She took a lot of energy. If Haley hadn’t done what she did, we might all have died. Perhaps this is for the better.”
“She didn’t form any glyphs with her hands when she cast.” Xan pointed out the obvious in case the others had missed that fact. “I had no warning before that first spell went off.”
Haley nodded at Xan. “She was spinning glyphs with her mind, the way you used to, but they weren’t anything I was familiar with. They looked strange. They interacted with the flow of magic the same as I’ve seen in the past, but it was like she wasn’t speaking the same language that humans use for magic.”
“What are we going to do now?” Crow asked, eyeing their unconscious foe.
Xandrith partially drew his knife. “I can take care of this.”
Tilda raised a hand. “No, that would be foolish. If we kill this one, the Unth will have even less reason to be cooperative. We should wake her. She may be more cooperative now that
she’s seen we are capable of defending ourselves and are not interested in taking her life.”
The assassin returned his weapon to its sheath. “I hope you’re right this time.”
“We can’t rush forward killing everything that gets in our way, Xan. We want to be better than the trolls.” Tilda’s insistence was charming, but Xandrith thought it also surprisingly naïve for a woman of her age.
“I assure you, we can get much worse and still be better than the trolls.” Xandrith replied. “However, let us try your peaceful approach and see what comes of it. I’d rather the Unth help us too you know.”
Tilda knelt near the Unth’s head and reached into her own travel pack. After a moment she pulled out a small wood box and opened it, removing something stored inside. Xandrith couldn’t make out exactly what this item was, but she held in front of the Unth’s face and a moment later the strange, pale woman was waking from her trauma induced slumber. Her eyes fluttered open, her dark blue pupils slowly coming back into focus. She jumped as the situation she was in became clear, clawing at the snow and attempting to push herself away.
“Be calm, Unth. We mean you no harm.” Tilda spoke. “We only responded to your attack to defend ourselves. We are well defended from magic, so please don’t try and attack us again with that.”
The Unth’s eyes fell on Xandrith again, and a look of disgust crossed her face. “If you mean no harm, why have you brought troll kin with you? It isn’t a lostling. Is it a halfling instead? Whatever it is, it wears its corruption on its flesh.”
“This is our friend, Xandrith. He is very human, though he was once corrupted by red magic. He is as much against the trolls as any of us. He is the one who recovered the weapon that can be used to slay the troll god. He has given much to this fight.” Tilda spoke calmly and with a reassuring tone, but Xandrith could tell the Unth was unconvinced.
“Look, you don’t have to like me.” Xandrith said. “I don’t like you. You’re creepy, and you tried to kill me. We’re not going to be friends. I’m not here for friends. I’m here to try and stop our world from being destroyed. The trolls are terrible, but they’re the least of our worries. If they wake their god, we will all be wiped from existence. If I can recover the knife that was taken from me, I believe I can use it to end their god.”
“We are dealing with the trolls already. They will not find what they are looking for. None but the Unth are permitted onto those peeks.” The Unth insisted.
“We’re not interested in finding what the trolls are searching for.” Tilda interjected before Xandrith could say anything else. “We want to be taken to the troll horde. That is where our fight lies.”
“We know what is up there.” Xandrith said in the following silence. “We know about the spring of power, and I don’t care about it one bit. I just want to kill some trolls and go home.”
The Unth stood up, the snow falling away from her crystalline armor. She hadn’t liked when Xan had mentioned the Wellspring. “The trolls are near my people. I cannot take you to the trolls without taking you near the Wellspring. That is not permissible. Anyone who approaches the Wellspring is an enemy to the Unth.”
“There must be some way that we can get to the trolls without becoming an enemy to your people?” Tilda pressed.
“If you believe this knife to be such a powerful weapon, describe it to me and I will seek it out amidst the trolls. The Unth will use this weapon to slay the enemy. We are more capable of performing this task than you.” The Unth was unwavering in its conviction.
“It is a dagger carved of bone. I don’t know who will be carrying it, but it was last seen with a human female, a dangerous warrior with the ability to twist minds to her whim. I would guess there won’t be many of those amidst the troll horde.” Xan felt like he was fighting a losing battle. Why was he so insistent about doing this task himself anyway? Maybe the Unth really could do things better than he could. Could it really be so easy to shed the responsibility he’d carried for so long?
The Unth nodded, almost as if answering that very question. “Then I shall inform my people to watch for this weapon. Now you may leave Unth lands. We will know if you come any further into our territory, and next time we will come prepared to destroy all of you.” She turned away and began to walk back up the mountain.
Uncertain looks passed around the group, all of them coming to rest on Xandrith as though he should know what to do next. He didn’t. He didn’t have a clue what was expected of him. This was the kind of decision a hero in a story would make. That wasn’t Xan. His mind spun through all that had happened to him recently, and then he thought of Kassa. What would she do? Would she walk away from this kind of responsibility? What would she think of Xan for turning his back on the world? Certainly he was leaving the task with the Unth, but what did he really know about them? They were a cold and angry people.
“Shit.” Xandrith whispered under his breath. “Wait!” He called out, and the Unth stopped and turned back to face him. Her eyes were hard, an unforgiving anger hiding behind their blue surface. “We can’t just leave this task unfinished. I have chased this problem from one end of this land to the other, and I’m not leaving until the troll god is dead. I wish to speak with the Unth.”
The female cocked her head to one side. “You are speaking with the Unth. I speak for our people.”
“Are you the leader?” Xan wasn’t giving in so easily.
“We do not have a leader.” She answered.
“Then I wish to speak to more of your people.” Xan insisted. “You protect this Wellspring, and that to you is important above all else. Well, I need to see this troll god destroyed. That, to me, is important above all else. I have lost friends and loved ones to come this far, and I cannot quit until this war is finished. I don’t wish to make an enemy of the Unth, but I cannot turn back here. Please, let me speak to your people.”
The Unth was silent for a moment. Her normally quick responses seemed to have faltered. Xandrith could feel the tension in the air between them.
She was making some decisions, weighing some variables that Xandrith wasn’t aware of. “I will speak to the others, but you must remain here. If you come further into Unth lands then we will consider you enemies. Stay. Wait.” With those words she turned and walked back up into the mountains.
“That was surprisingly eloquent, Xandrith.” Tilda noted with a smile.
Xandrith offered up his lopsided grin. “Let’s not get the wrong idea. I would have preferred to fight my way to the top of the mountain amidst a flurry of spells and arrows, but I’d hate to see Crow get killed.”
Haley laughed and Crow frowned.
“Have you considered what you’ll do if they try to turn us away again?” The older woman asked, her expression serious.
Xan’s smile fell away, departing his face as though carried away by the wind. “That would be a mistake on their part. I don’t believe the Unth can handle the trolls by themselves. I’m not leaving these mountains until what I set out to do is done. This is too important.”
Tilda nodded. Crow and Haley watched Xan with dour expressions.
“None of you have to stay with me if matters turn violent. I wouldn’t fault you for leaving.” Xandrith added after a moment of silence.
“No,” Haley spoke up quickly. “This is what we’ve all come for. If we have to fight the Unth before we fight the trolls, then that’s what we’ll do.”
Crow nodded his agreement before adding. “You can only die once. I’m not sure being killed by the Unth would be any worse than being killed by the trolls.”
“I’m hoping we won’t be killed by anyone.” Tilda pointed out.
“That’s a lofty goal.” Xan replied dryly.
Chapter 6
Treacherous Paths
The mountain air was bitter and cold, dry and angry as it bristled across Xan’s face. He sat starring out from the small cave in which he and his companions had taken shelter for the night. It had been several hours since
the Unth had departed. The dark had come and gone, and the sun was climbing into the sky again, a barely visible spot of light behind a sky that was gray and sullen with the swelling of its snow filled belly. Xandrith didn’t need to be a scholar of storms to know that something big was coming. The already inhospitable mountain top was on the verge of becoming even more dangerous, and he and the others were still wasting time waiting for the return of the Unth.
They’d already been forced to retreat nearly a mile down the mountain before they found a place to take cover. Tilda and Crow weren’t blessed with any special resistance to the terrible cold, and they were suffering because of that. Xandrith’s part troll blood kept him from feeling the full bite of the weather, and Haley was protected by the nature of her axe. They’d gone out together and gathered just enough wood to keep a small fire burning for a few hours, but that was fading quickly. Very little was growing on the mountain, and so there wasn’t more fuel for the fire to be found. The sun would warm them a bit, but if they didn’t get moving and find some real shelter Tilda and Crow wouldn’t survive another night out in the wilds.
“Are you alright, Xan?” Haley’s voice startled the assassin from his dark thoughts.
He forced a smile. “I’m fine, just wondering where our Unth friend has gone.” He looked back over his shoulder. Crow and Tilda were gathered close around the last embers of the fire. The cave was warm for the time being, but it was too shallow to stay warm long once the fire was gone. The heat would be pulled out by the whipping wind.
“Do you think she’ll really come back?” The question Haley asked was one that Xan had been asking himself the last few hours. The Unth could easily solve the problem of their unwanted guests by simply not returning. Xandrith hoped they would have more honor than that, but he wasn’t willing to bet any of their lives on such a flimsy hope.
