Quest Call

by Kirk Dougal

  Chapter 10

  “Saleene and Bree are already inside,” Pagul said as we rode past the remains of the gate.

  The destruction was more impressive up close. Whole sections of the outer wall were missing, the logs snapped like twigs in the wind. Fire had consumed most of the buildings in sight, but the ones untouched by the flames still revealed plenty of damage. Most were open to the sky, vast portions of their roofs gone. Others were skewed to one side, collapsed walls leaving them leaning on their neighbor in an effort to stay upright.

  I had expected to find skeletons or at the very least scattered bones, but none were in sight. Even though that was strange, other items nibbled at my thoughts, trying to tell me something else was out of place. It took me a few empty streets before I realized what was wrong. Spoon had hinted at DeBrest being very young on the Long Night, perhaps as much as twenty years ago. If that was true, then the area outside the walls and the dirt streets should have been overrun by weeds and grasses. Instead, they were still bare ground, leaving me an open view to search for the dead townspeople.

  “That's not right,” I said, my voice lowering to match the quiet of the streets. “We should be hacking our way through grass as tall as our waists.”

  Pagul grunted.

  “It's been like this everywhere in the duke's old kingdom. Villages, towns, even the cities—all of them dead wherever the fighting took place. Nothing grows back.”

  “Did they salt it?”

  Pagul shrugged. “No one knows. The tales don't mention it, but few beyond Spoon survived to talk after. All we know now is that everything is dead, as if the Farwolaethans had been some kind of death plague spreading over the land.”

  I opened my mouth to ask another question but just as quickly shut it. In the space between two buildings down the street, I was certain I had seen a shadow move.

  Pagul must not have noticed the motion. He walked to a building where the sunshine was shining straight through to the uneven floorboards, one of his axes leading the way. I waited until he moved out of sight before I eased to the left, moving into what was left of a store.

  To call the structure a building would have been an exaggeration. Only two walls were still standing, and the collapsed remains of the others were rotting piles of lumber. I scrambled over them, trying not to snap my ankle or bring the rest down on my head. Jumping down to the ground on the far side, I drew my sword.

  This was a small country town, not much more than a village barely large enough to warrant a protective wall. It also had not been laid out with straight streets and was laced with alleyways. The buildings had been erected in a haphazard pattern, houses mixed in with stores, and at least one structure I thought looked like it had probably been a tavern with a small inn attached. I crept through the patchwork setup, keeping to the shadows when I could, moving low and fast when I had to cross open areas.

  A few moments later, I stopped, hugging close to a building near where I had seen the movement. No sounds reached my ears, but I remained there, leaning back against the wall. I knew I needed to make a move before Pagul noticed I was missing and called out, but I remained still.

  Someone was watching me. I felt their gaze as surely as I felt a breeze caressing my skin. Only these eyes did not promise a soft touch. A moment later, I flinched when I heard the footstep, scraping across the wood of a dirt-covered floor. The second time, the sound was closer. That left me with only one choice as far as I was concerned.

  I leaped around the corner of the building, swinging my sword like the baseball bat Jim had given me in the hospital for good luck. The first man was still raising his own blade when my steel bit into his chest, cracking bone and driving deep into his body. His scream was cut short by the air rushing from his mouth, a fetid stench that spoke of disease and decay.

  The man behind him had more time to react, and he stabbed at me with a short spear before his dying companion fell into his legs, making him stumble backwards. That was all the time I needed to jerk my sword free. I swung again, not at my opponent this time, but at his weapon, striking the pole out of his hands. After the contact, I did not attempt to reverse my sword, instead, hitting back with the metal bracer on my forearm and crushing his jaw. He joined his fellow fighter on the ground.

  But the shortened scream had done its job. I heard more feet running toward me, some in shoes and others barefoot, slapping across wood and dirt. I backed away as a half-dozen more fighters appeared, weapons raised and shouts ringing off the walls around us.

  The first stumbled only two steps from reaching me, a red cloud erupting from his chest. I barely had time to notice the arrowhead sticking out the front of his body before I sidestepped and met the second man. He tried to ram me with a dented old shield, the painted insignia long since faded away. I dropped and rolled to the side, rising to one knee. My opponent was so confused by my disappearance, he moved the shield to see where I had gone. I stabbed forward, pushing the tip of my sword through his throat and was rewarded with another spray of blood.

  Pagul roared as he ran into view, the battle axes in his hands a blur of motion. One man lost an arm before he could turn to face the tattooed warrior, and the second lost his head. Pagul never stopped moving, and I finished off the first man as he attempted to stop his bleeding and draw a knife for a back stab. The last two men, seeing six of their own dead and a blood-mad fighter headed their way, did what they considered the smartest thing. They turned and ran.

  They made it about six or seven paces before the air thrummed, once, twice, and they both collapsed, their bodies pierced with arrows. I caught a flash of silver from what remained of the roof of the building across the street as Saleene and Bree both lowered their bows.

  Pagul's chest heaved when he turned to look at me, and I could see from the set of his jaw and slitted eyes that it was not from exertion. He was mad enough to make me glad we were inside a game.

  “We fight together,” he said with a hiss, his words barely reaching me. “Now watch my back.”

  He turned back to Saleene, gesturing toward his eyes with one ax-wielding hand. She pointed at the front of the building beside us, then covered her eyes and shook her head.

  Pagul looked at me and frowned, his anger replaced by frustration. “Saleene says she can't see inside the building where they came from. There might be more.”

  He started to turn but stopped when I grabbed his elbow.

  “Do you know how to clear a building?” I asked.

  He stared at me, lines forming on his forehead. “Do you mean like…for real? Outside?”

  “Yes.”

  He shook his head.

  “Then you follow me,” I said, easing my way in front of him. “I'll go through the door first and go left. You've got my back to the right. Once I've cleared my side, then you move in front, and I have your back.”

  “Leap frogging past each other,” he said, more statement than question.

  I nodded. “Just keep moving. Yell if anything pops up on your side because I won't look your way unless I hear you. Once we make it through the first room, we keep going on using the same pattern. Ready?”

  Pagul twirled the axes in both hands, the blades snapping to a stop on both sides of me. “Let's go.”

  I eased around the corner of the building, what appeared to have once been an old common hall now that I could see the front, and stopped on one side of the open door frame. I tried to see inside but the sun was still too bright and the inside too dark for me to make out anything. I took a deep breath and leaped into the black beyond, moving left as soon as I was inside.

  My foot slipped as I stepped onto a small pile of cloth, dust rising through thin strips of light that forced their way through cracks in the wood-shuttered windows. The motes found my nose, and I held back a sneeze, grunting through the breath, while I opened my eyes wide, staring for any kind of movement.

  Wood scrapped over wood behind me. It sounded like Pagul had kicked some loose debris on his
side of the room, but I could not turn to see. That would leave my flank open and expose us both to danger. Just like I would have trusted my partner Jim on the outside, I now had to put my faith in Pagul.

  Nothing else moved in the room. Now that my eyes were starting to adjust to the dim light. I noticed other small piles of what appeared to be clothing, perhaps odds and ends of metal goods and other items. But no stack was large enough to hide a person in the long, narrow room.

  “Clear,” I said. I had whispered, but the sound was somehow louder, bouncing back to me from the bare walls.

  “Clear,” Pagul answered in return.

  I half-turned and nodded my head toward a doorway at the back. Pagul moved to the side and grabbed both axes in one hand, placing the other gently on the door latch. I stood in front of it and crouched, readying myself for someone or something to rush out as it opened or to run through it myself.

  It turned out to be the latter. The door banged against the wall, one hinge pulling loose from the force and squealing in metal protest. By then, I was already moving through the doorway, again dodging left and staying low.

  I felt some of the air explode out of me as I ran headlong into another man leaping forward. We hung there for a blink, our bodies smashed together, my shoulder jammed under his chin, the sour stench of his skin swimming into mouth and nose as I sucked deep a new breath. I gagged in reflex.

  He was the first to move, shoving me back with a small metal shield. I skidded to a stop and ducked as his sword whistled over my head.

  When I stood to deliver an overhand blow with my weapon, however, I noticed at once that I was at least two hands taller than him. My sword bounced off the shield, which he held above his head. With his defense that high, I lashed out with my right foot, catching him in the ribs before he could swing again. He screamed as I felt the bones crack beneath my heel.

  He attempted a backhanded swing with his sword, but I blocked it easily and stepped in, crushing his windpipe with a left hook to his throat. His eyes, strangely dark and lined with red, bulged out as he gasped for air like a fish on the river bank. All thoughts of battle gone, he dropped to the ground in a writhing heap.

  I had been so intent on my opponent that I heard the sword whoosh past my ear before I noticed the other man attacking my side.

  The sound grabbed my attention, and I lunged away in time to see Pagul's ax barely slow as it cut off the next man's arm at the shoulder, spinning him sideways so the second ax came down on the back of his skull, cleaving a wide valley through his head.

  We had time for a quick breath and to glance at each other before a scream sounded, this time from above us, as a shadow fell from one of the beams and landed on me. I fell to my knees under the weight and my sword skittered across the floor out of reach. I saw a flash of white and threw up my arm, trying to catch the knife on my bracer. The blade skipped down the metal and bit into my forearm. I reached out to grab the attacker before he could strike again.

  He was gone.

  A flash of heat and light rushed past me and drove the man to the side, a pillar of flame crushing him into the wall. The fire disappeared, and the burned out husk of a body crumpled to the floor, ragged clothes burned black and his skin still smoldering.

  I looked over my shoulder and there was Trellac, his hands still held in front of his body and glowing. Again, I was stunned by how the man could appear without my knowing he was around. Pagul took his appearance at more of face value.

  “We should've let you lead the way in, you red-skinned bastard,” he said, the smile on his face belying any real anger in his words. “I didn't know you were with us, Trellac.”

  The smaller man shrugged. “Stampeding cattle could have busted through and you wouldn't have noticed with all the noise you were making.”

  The pain in my arm brought my attention back to the issue at hand, and I stared down at the white-bladed knife near my feet. The pale edge dotted with blood looked odd in the low light, and I picked it up, bringing it close to my face. “I think this is made from bone,” I said.

  “It might be ceremonial,” Trellac said.

  Pagul had already moved to the corner from where the second man had attacked. He bent over but stood a few seconds later, backing away as he did.

  “Drop the knife,” he said.

  “Why?”

  Pagul turned and stared at me. “It's a human bone.”

  I swallowed as I dropped the blade, bile leaving a sour taste in my mouth. “You mean…”

  “So, they were Eaters,” Trellac interrupted. He walked past Pagul and began pawing through the piles in the corner with one hand, a small flame appearing in the palm of his other so he could see. “Yes, this is definitely a thigh, part of a foot here. I see teeth marks in the bone.” He stood up. “There is still flesh in the corner.”

  I turned away and bent over, fighting to keep the black spots from growing in my eyes.

  “Let's look around and see if there's anything useful, and then burn it to the ground,” Pagul said. I felt a hand on my shoulder, and I stood up again. “Go outside and have Bree dress your arm. We'll drag the other bodies inside before we light it up.”

  I nodded and walked toward the front of the building, anxious for the sunlight and clean air.

  Chapter 11

  I blinked and held a hand above my eyes, trying to adjust to the light again. When I could see, I glanced across the street at the building Saleene and Bree had used as high ground with their bows. Its broken roof was empty.

  “What'd you find?” a voice said. I turned and noticed Saleene in a position where she could fire from behind a corner but still be close enough to run inside if we had shouted for help.

  “Cannibals.”

  Saleene spit on the ground at the word.

  “Eaters?” Bree said as she appeared from inside the doorway across the street. She removed the arrow from her bowstring and placed it in the quiver on her waist. “More damn Eaters?”

  I was nodding in response when I felt pressure on my arm. I turned to Saleene, who was staring at the wound on my forearm.

  “Did one of them bite you?”

  I noticed she was now holding the dagger that DeBrest had put so much value on the night we met. “No,” I answered, emphasizing with a shake of my head. “It was a knife.”

  “It could have been poisoned. Bree, he's wounded.” She glanced up. “Where's Pagul?”

  “He and Trellac are both fine. They're searching the rooms.”

  Saleene and Bree looked at each other.

  “Trellac was inside with you?” Saleene asked.

  “Of course,” the red-skinned man said as he walked through the doorway and into the light. “Where else would I be during a fight?”

  I noticed the set of Saleene's jaw as the smaller man walked past and kept moving down the street. Bree managed to bump her arm with an elbow as she reached for me. The contact broke the stare from the other woman, the blood returning to her fingers as she relaxed her grip on the knife. A few seconds later, she leaned against the front wall, arms crossed over her chest and staring at the area as if she expected some townspeople to walk by.

  Bree chuckled but kept her head down, but the laugh died away as she placed a long-fingered hand over the cut on my forearm and begin mumbling words I could not quite hear but, somehow, sent a wave of calm through me. She glanced up after repeating the same words a handful of times.

  “I'm not sensing any poison,” she said as she pulled a cloth from a pouch at her waist. She spread a thick, green-colored paste over the center, and then lay it down over my cut before tying it off. “Keep an eye on it, and I will change the bandage tonight when we camp.”

  A grunt and laugh preceded Pagul through the doorway. He was holding a bag in one hand.

  “A little gold, a little silver, and a handful of jewels,” he said. “It's not much but it'll have to do for us today.”

  I felt the bile creep into my mouth again at the thought of what the Eat
ers had done to the previous owners of the loot. “I don't want any of it.”

  Pagul grunted. “You'll take a survivor's share.”

  I opened my mouth to decline again, but Saleene beat me to it.

  “Take your share,” she said as she stood and stepped away from the wall. “Consider it a reward for making this area safer for the next travelers who come through.” She stepped into the street and kept on walking. “Besides, you'll be lucky to ever spend any of it anyway.” Bree nodded and trotted after her.

  “I'll put the money and jewels in the wagon and lock it up with the other we've taken on this adventure,” Pagul said. “It'll be safe until the end.”

  “So this isn't the first time you've run into trouble on your journey to Farwolaeth?” I asked as I fell into step with the tattooed fighter.

  “No, we seen our fair amount of fighting. It's how I met the duke. He was raising money for his quest and had hired out to clear a band of thieves from a land in the north near where he was raised. I was just looking for my share of the loot, and we ended up fighting beside each other.”

  “Is that where you met Saleene and Bree, too?”

  Pagul laughed again. “No, we found those two silver-haired princesses later. The lord who hired us sent out some men to take back the money he had paid us. It was bad going for a bit, not sure how it was going to go. But all of the sudden, a bunch of arrows started raining down from the trees, and then Saleene was on the ground with us, that damn dagger of hers sucking the life…doing what it does. Helped us chase them off, and they decided to stay after they heard DeBrest's tale.” Pagul started to switch the bag of money to his other hand, and I watched him blink in surprise when he realized he was already holding something. He tossed the rolled up cloth to me. “Here, I almost forgot I grabbed that for you.”

  The weight as it hit my chest told me it was more than just a coverlet I caught. Wrapped up inside the thinly padded shirt was sleeveless leather jerkin covered with overlapping pieces of metal about the size of my thumb. I let it fall free, and I realized it was a piece of flexible armor.