by Kirk Dougal
“Why weren't you with them when they left a little while ago?” the first guard asked.
“Says if she can't hold her drink, she can sleep in the tave'n. Laughed when I says I's carry her all t'e way back.” I thumped my chest with my hand, her weapons rattling in response. “I's show `em.” I plastered a grin on my face that I hoped appeared as goofy as I felt wearing it.
The guard stared at me for another moment before reaching over and yanking back the iron bar holding the door shut. He swung it open.
“Get out of here,” he said. “And tell your lord that the next time he owes more coin for the lot of you to leave.”
*****
The city walls disappeared in the dark behind me, the moon dipping low and losing its small grip of light on the night. Farm ground and a few scattered houses were my surroundings for the first portion of the walk. Eventually, those gave way to a hedge line and finally the start of the forest. I stopped there and eased the woman to the ground, leaning her back against a tree. Long before, I had slipped her knives into my belt and slung her short sword in its scabbard over my free shoulder. Now I listened, head cocked to one side. Only the random calls of night birds and the chirping of crickets reached my ears. I kept the weapons and moved farther into the trees before stepping off the road, finding a pool of shadow to hide in while I waited.
I did not need to wait long. The first sign was a groan, a low cry that escaped the woman and made its way to me. With her still on the ground, I did not have a clear view of her movements, but I heard rustling clothes. A moment later, I heard scraping and then snapping twigs. She staggered into view, one hand holding the side of her head, the other shaking as she reached out to ward off any tree that wandered into her path. When she was well by me, I followed.
I grimaced and hoped she was not permanently hurt. Convincing the blond leader to take me to Farwolaeth would be hard enough without damaging one of his group.
It was not long before her stride grew stronger. She did not reach out blindly anymore but, instead, walked along the edge of the road, hugging the side where she could disappear into the trees in a flash. Sometimes, all I could see was the faint glint of her silver hair, capturing the barest of moonlight, but I kept my distance, afraid of how easy it had been for her to find me in the city.
She rounded a bend in the road, and I followed a few seconds later. Ahead, a glow under the trees revealed a fire and voices gave away the people around it.
The woman stopped short of the light and stared into the trees on each side of the road, eventually looking only to the right. Another figure emerged from the dark, also tall and thin with the shine of silver hair. They faced each other for a few moments, and I thought I heard whispered words in a language I did not recognize. The second person reached out and touched the woman's face before they turned and walked into the fire light.
I watched as I approached. I could see now the other figure was also a woman with a short, thick bow in one hand. The two of them walked to the far side of the flames where the blond-haired leader was just climbing down from a covered wagon. He was joined by the tattooed man, and they faced the women.
“What do you mean you don't know how you got here?” the leader demanded, his face reddening as the volume of his voice grew. “You just walked into camp.”
I saw my opportunity and moved into the light where everyone could see me.
“I brought her into the woods.”
My words were still echoing across the clearing when the second woman whirled, an arrow pointed at my chest. I also heard movements from the sides, promising other weapons were aimed at me as well. But my eyes remained on the leader, and he met my stare.
“Are you waiting for me to thank you?”
The tattooed man stepped to the side, easing away from the conversation. I knew if I gave him long enough, he would circle around behind me. The two women, however, remained where they stood, the firelight flashing in their eyes. I imagined their hatred for me matched the heat of the flames.
“I doubt you'll do that.” I decided to take a chance and match the cockiness of the leader. “Here's her weapons.” I tossed the two daggers and the short sword on the ground in front of me.
My gaze snapped to the side when I heard a gasp. The smaller, red-skinned man I had seen earlier at the tavern was only a few steps to my right. I was not sure how he had managed to get so close without my noticing.
“Trellac is right,” the leader said. “That's a princely sum of money you just threw on the ground.” He gestured to the woman I had taken the weapons from. “I'm sure Saleene would have paid almost anything to have that dagger back. She's very upset over losing it.”
“Then tell her not to sneak up on me again.” I was growing tired of the banter. “I don't care about the dagger. I'm looking for work.”
The blond-haired man smiled and walked across the clearing to me. Along the way, he signaled with his fingers at the tattooed fighter who stopped his slow sidle around the fire towards me.
“Why should I trust someone I don't know on a trip this important?” He stopped in front of me, his hand dropping to the hilt of the sword at his waist.
I leaned forward, dropping my voice to a whisper.
“Because I also must get to Farwolaeth.”
The man's mouth fell open, and he blinked. He recovered quickly, however, his forehead wrinkling and eyes closing to slits.
“I've only known one man who had ever heard the name of Farwolaeth, and he told me my destiny lies there. Now, today, I have two men who also tell me they need to go the lost city as well.” He glanced at the red-skinned man. I stared in the direction as well and noticed the smaller man had moved farther away, too far to hear us with our lowered voices. Trellac smiled and nodded, however, when I looked at him.
“I'm Robert, son of Duke DeBrest, the Bear Killer,” the blond man said, drawing my attention back to him.
“Are these your family lands?” I really could not have cared less if DeBrest was the ancestral leader for the area, but it would mean a lot about the help we could expect to receive to reach Farwolaeth.
He glanced away, staring at the trees lining the clearing for a few moments. “There are no lands and no family for me now.” He looked up. “But there will be soon. If you can take down Saleene, you're worth bringing along on to help this quest. What's your name?”
“RJ.”
DeBrest grimaced as if I had punched him in the stomach. He leaned in close and dropped his voice. “RJ? Shit, is this your first game? You gotta come up with something better than that.” He shook his head. “Don't worry. We'll make up with something for you.” He turned away and began walking toward the wagon again. “Everybody get some sleep. We leave in the morning.”
The tattooed man nodded before following DeBrest across the clearing. I turned to look at Trellac, but the red-skinned man was nowhere in sight, disappearing as quickly as he had appeared near me. The sound of approaching feet, however, caught my attention.
Saleene stopped a few steps away while the other silver-haired woman watched, the arrow no longer pointing at my chest but still set in her bow. Saleene's eyes never turned away from mine as she knelt, slowly dropping to one knee and picking up her weapons. The daggers in one hand and the short sword in the other, she stood again, sniffing as if she smelled a rotting carcass, before walking toward the tree line. A few seconds later, the other woman followed her off into the darkness.
I was pretty sure that was the only thanks I was going to receive from Saleene, as well.
Chapter 9
It did not take me long to realize who the gamers were in camp. Activity continued around me even after DeBrest disappeared back into the wagon. I watched as three characters paced back and forth at the edge of the tree line on guard duty, tracing and retracing their steps until I wanted to go over and push one of them just to make them walk a different path. Another busied himself around the fire, alternating between feeding it wood that never made the
flames grow higher and stirring in a pot. There were a handful of others also performing mundane tasks, over and over in the rote manner that only constructs could manage.
DeBrest was obviously a gamer's avatar, as was Saleene and the other silver-haired woman. No computer-generated character could muster the hatred I had seen in the women's eyes when I tossed the weapons on the ground. I was not sure about the tattooed man until I eased my way over to where he lay on a blanket near the wagon. His eyes were open, staring into space with the no-one-is-home stare that told me his controller was outside the game.
That left only Trellac. I was almost certain he was an avatar, but the way he had moved without drawing my notice made me wonder. And there was the question of his knowing about Farwolaeth. Anyone who knew about the city would need to be watched and that included the red-skinned man and DeBrest, at least until I figured out if the place had anything to do with the terrorist attacks happening in the real world.
“Too early for breakfast,” said the man stirring the pot over the fire. “I've got some bread and cheese, though, if you're hungry.” He smiled. “Everyone calls me Spoon.” He held up the nearly three-foot long wooden utensil in his hand.
I shook my head before settling into a place by the fire, my back leaning against a crate. “I'm RJ.” I brushed dirt off my leg, letting a few seconds of silence settle between us. “Have you been with DeBrest long?”
Spoon laughed, the end trailing off before stopping short. His eyes glistened beneath the gray hair laced with black.
“Yes and no, I suppose you'd say. I've only followed Master Robert for a short while since he stepped out of the shadows. It's hard to serve someone who was thought to be dead since he was a babe. But the old Duke, the Bear Killer…I served Duke DeBrest in his house guard for almost ten years before the Long Night.” He cackled again, and this time I was certain there was no humor in the laugh. He pulled up his shirt on his left side and revealed an old wound, a puckered circle of tattooed skin about the size of his fist. “That's when I got this beauty mark. Got off easy, I did, considering that most everyone else crossed the veil that night.”
“What happened?” I suspected this was a game-generated adventure, but I found myself drawn into the tale anyway.
Spoon stuck his namesake back in the pot and began stirring again.
“It started with Qunader. We heard rumors of fighting, villages being wiped out, and lands laid to waste. All signs pointed to the enemy coming over the mountains from the south. The old duke sent word to our neighbor to see what was true and to offer aid according to past treaties. The men never returned. Then we started to hear about our own villages. Bence gone with the buildings burned to the ground and bodies left rotting in its streets. Tillshire, Wytham, and Lot's Corner—all the same. Wide chunks of the duke's ground left empty with no one to raise crops or children.
“Then one night—the Long Night—they came for the duke. Men dressed in black poured over Breton's walls like shadows advancing from the setting sun, swarming through the streets, growing darker and stronger as the night deepened. The duke led us to meet them, swinging that big two-headed ax that helped give him his name in his youth. We plowed a swath through the enemies' ranks, circled and cut through them again. Each time, we left bodies in our wake floating on a river of blood.” Spoon paused and looked out toward the dark beneath the trees. “We thought we were beating them down, thought we had a chance to kill what we could and drive away the others. Then the winds roared and fire rained from the sky. The fighting turned into a rout. The enemy soldiers just kept us in place as death poured from out of the night. The duke's soldiers died by tens at a time. Whole squads of good men, swinging steel and killing what stood before them, suddenly screaming as their skin blackened and roasted in their armor like meat in cook pots over too hot a fire.” Spoon glanced down at the container, and he began stirring again.
I waited for him to continue the story, but Spoon appeared to have talked himself out.
“How did you get away?” I asked.
Spoon shook his head, glancing at me as if he had forgotten I was there.
“A few of the other lads, and I charged one flank near the city wall. We figured the steel was a better way to die than the flames. I took a spear through the side that punched its way out my back. Skewered me like a half-grown boar.” He cackled. “I slid far enough up the shaft that I could reach my opponent, see that he was a man. Just a man in black clothes, his face darkened with soot ground into his skin. I took his head with one sweep of my sword.” He swung his long handled spoon as he spoke, splashing hot liquid in a wide swath. Some hit my legs, but I was too caught up in his story to wipe the spots away. Spoon kept going, not noticing the mess.
“Something hit me from behind, and I remember falling against the wall, feeling the cool stone on my cheek. Then the night went even blacker. I woke when one of the housemaids pulled the spear the rest of the way through my side, leaving this hole behind. She patched me up the best she knew how, and we stayed in the shadow of the wall for two days while the sun hid behind smoke rising from the wreckage of Breton. The Long Night.”
I smiled, trying to cut the tension. “She could have done a better job on your wound.”
This time when Spoon laughed, he nearly fell over shaking. “She was a lousy nurse and an even worse cook. That's how this came to be my new weapon.” He lay the spoon across the edge of the pot. “Of course, I married her for other reasons.” He cackled again as he grabbed his crotch with one hand. “You best get some sleep, boy. Master Robert will be wanting an early start.” He turned and started to walk away.
A question that had been bouncing around the back of my thoughts leaped forward, and I sat up, the box scraping across the ground and stopping the other man.
“Spoon, I don't understand. What does any of this have to do with where we're going?”
“Because that's where the soldiers in black were from,” he said. “They were screaming Farwolaeth as the fire destroyed Breton.”
*****
A boot nudged my leg, and I turned over, a knife in my hand. The tattooed man stood over me, the sun throwing orange over the tree line behind him.
“Making sure you were back,” he said. “We'll be leaving soon.”
I realized he did not know I had stayed in Quest Call the entire night and not left the game.
“My name's RJ,” I said as I stood.
He smiled, the tattoos on his face contorting into odd shapes around the scar. “Yeah, the duke said we'd have to rename you. They call me Pagul.” He gestured toward a line of horses on the other side of the wagon. “If you can ride, grab an extra mount. If not, you'd better find a seat in one of the wagons before they're all gone. It'll be a long bloody walk otherwise.”
Spoon walked over as soon as Pagul left and offered me a bowl filled with thick porridge, a crusty piece of bread stuck in one side. “Eat it fast,” he said. “Master Robert won't wait for anyone on this trip.”
I thanked him and ate while I chose a horse. One of the constructs acting as a groom appeared with a bridle and saddle, and before long, I was heeling the bay into a trot, moving along with the rest of the group, tossing the empty bowl at Spoon as I passed his wagon.
We rode mostly south and east, the road meandering in that direction with detours around tough terrain. At times, it was broad and clear, appearing to be a well-traveled road near a city. Other times, it became little more than a path, grasses scraping the bellies of the horses and the trees growing close enough to reach down with their branches and cause me to duck close to my horse's neck.
On the second day, the road was wide when the tree line abruptly pulled back to reveal a small town in the distance, circled all around by an area of bare ground. I hoped we were stopping there for the evening, although we had several hours of daylight left. My lower back and legs were starting to grumble about the time in the saddle, and I wanted to be able to walk tomorrow. I shifted my weight, easing each side of
my backside off the leather in an effort to stretch. A laugh greeted my efforts.
“It won't last long,” said DeBrest. “In a couple of days, you'll be able to ride from sunrise to sunset without even a twinge.” He laughed again. “But the first couple of days are going to be a bitch.”
“A drink or two at a tavern in this town will help me get by,” I said. “At least numb the pain a little.”
The smile dropped from DeBrest's face. “Look at it again, RJ.”
I stared at the buildings outside the town wall, and for a few moments, I did not understand what he wanted me to see. Quiet reigned over the area, broken up only by the sounds of our horses' hooves and the creak of wagon wheels.
Then it hit me. The town was too quiet.
No children ran between the buildings, no voices raised in shouts. No women entered the town walls to visit the market and no men tended the fields. In fact, not one person was in sight. Then I noticed a building near the edge no longer had a roof and part of the city wall behind it was gone, broken logs rising up like blackened fingers toward the sky.
“Deserted?” I asked.
“Destroyed.” Brest spit the word out, anger dripping from each syllable. “This is why I must reach Farwolaeth. To avenge my family and all the families that were loyal to my father's rule.” He took a deep breath and when he spoke again, his voice softened. “But perhaps not deserted. We've found a few people living in the rubble of other towns like this one. But not many. Crops no longer grow in these fields and haven't since it was destroyed. No crops means no livestock. No livestock and no crops means no people. At least no one who can't live off the forest.” He gestured to the front of the column. “Ride forward and search the town with Pagul. We must look to be sure no one is there. If they are my people, then I will offer my protection, such as it is. If not, then Pagul knows what to do. We will wait and rest the horses on the far side until you are done.”
I nodded and stuck my heels into my horse. The pain in my body was forgotten as I cantered toward Pagul, his tattooed face already turned toward me and waiting.
