by Scott Kaelen
Oriken drew his sabre and strode for the farthest cabin, leaving Dagra and Jalis to inspect the closer buildings. A brief search confirmed it was no shelter at all, nor was there anything worth salvaging from the remains of the worm-eaten furniture within. He stepped around to the collapsed side of the cabin, meandering between the mossy debris. Behind the building, several short, prickly trees nestled in the lee of a hillock; behind them, the warped timbers of a man-made opening stood askance in the side of the hill.
“There’s a mine back here!” he called over his shoulder.
Jalis stepped into view a moment later. “Be careful.”
Oriken jogged to the mine entrance and peered in, With a shrug, he stepped over the threshold. The first set of supporting beams were visible a short distance along; beyond that, the rest of the tunnel stretched away into blackness. He took several paces further in and stooped to brush his fingers through the dirt. Satisfied it was dry, he tossed his pack to the ground and lay his swordbelt over it, then sat against the tunnel wall.
Jalis hurried into the entrance and pushed her hood back with a sigh. A moment later Dagra stepped in behind her, shaking the water from his cloak. Out on the heath, the wind gusted and the rain pelted down with a fresh fervour.
Once free of her gear, Jalis sat cross-legged beside Oriken. “As soon as it eases off, we’ll head back out.”
“Wherever there’s a mine, there’s usually a settlement close by,” Oriken said.
Dagra issued a non-committal grunt. “Any settlement will only be in as bad condition as those workers cabins out there. The houses back at the outskirts weren’t empty for more than a few decades, but this mine has been abandoned for at least a hundred years.”
“He’s right,” Jalis said. “No sense getting our hopes up. Besides, the woodland around here is much sparser; if it stays that way, we won’t be bumping into any more cravants.”
“Aye, well,” Dagra muttered as he stepped past. “No more surprises. That’ll be fine with me.” He dropped his gear against the wall and hunkered beside it, laying his gladius over his lap.
Oriken looked past Jalis to gaze out at the broken buildings. He wondered what the miners had been like back then, and if they’d been anything like his father. Puffing his cheeks, he glanced in the opposite direction into the deep gloom of the tunnel. “Hey, hold on,” he muttered. “Is that… Dag, look out!”
A shape rushed right at Dagra. He was on his feet in a flash to meet the attack head-on, swiping his sword into the dark shape. With a grunt, the attacker wrapped its hands around Dagra’s neck, and he stabbed the wide-bladed gladius up through his assailant’s belly, thrusting it higher into the chest. The hands around Dagra’s neck slackened and his attacker slumped over him. He wrenched the blade free from the body, and it fell to the ground. It had all happened in seconds, but Oriken and Jalis had their weapons out and ready for more to rush them from the tunnel. The moment drew long, but nothing came. Oriken looked to Dagra, whose eyes were set on the body at his feet.
Oriken looked down. “Shit,” he said, as he regarded the dirty, sore-covered skin, the long, matted hair and scraggly beard of a naked man.
Dagra groaned, walked over to the entrance and stood staring out into the rain.
“A hermit?” Jalis pondered. “Or are there more, deeper within the mine?”
“An idiot, either way,” Oriken said. “What was he thinking?”
“We invaded his home.” Dagra kept his back to them. “He was only protecting himself.”
Jalis shook her head. “We posed him no threat,” she told Dagra.
“We should burn him.”
Oriken threw his hands up. “Great idea. I’ll just go and get some dry wood for a fire. There are so many trees around here, and it’s not pissing down at all.”
“Okay, fine!” Dagra turned to face them. “Let’s at least drag him further in, if we’re staying a while.”
“That, I can do,” Oriken said, trying unsuccessfully to keep the hard edge from his voice.
Dagra looked at him, and after a moment gave a brief nod.
Oriken grabbed the hermit’s wrists and dragged the body into the tunnel, keeping his senses alert for further danger. The blackness was pitch, but he knew mine entrances well. Fifty feet further in, the tunnel angled away and he dropped the corpse into the corner. For a full minute he stood and stared into the darkness while unformed thoughts pushed at the edge of his emotions.
“Orik!” Jalis’s voice rang down the tunnel. “Are you alright?”
“Sure,” he called. He gave the darkness a sombre glance, then turned to rejoin his friends.
“You didn’t have to go so far inside,” Dagra said as Oriken approached the entrance.
“I didn’t go far. I was just thinking.”
“You do choose your spots for introspection,” Jalis said. “In an abandoned mine, in the dark, next to a corpse.”
“A little respect please, lass,” Dagra said. “That was a living person a few minutes ago.”
“He attacked us,” Jalis said, “not the other way around. You defended yourself. You have nothing to feel bad about.”
“I didn’t have to kill him.”
“No, but you had no way of knowing how dangerous he was, nor that he was even a man until it was too late. Don’t beat yourself up over it. We’ve got a long way to go yet, and we all need to keep our wits as sharp as our blades.”
Dagra rumbled a wordless acknowledgement. “I wish that fucking rain would ease off so we can get moving.”
Jalis smiled. “That’s the spirit.”
Oriken slumped down to sit against the wall.
Jalis sat cross-legged beside him. “Something up?”
“No.”
She studied his face. “Remember it’s me you’re talking to. I can see your soul.”
He snorted. “I don’t have one of those.”
Dagra came to join them. “You don’t need to follow the Dyad to have a soul,” he said. “Everyone has one. Even you.”
“Yeah, right.” Oriken turned his eyes to the darkness.
“Yes, right,” Dagra insisted.
“I don’t believe in any of your gods, Dag. You know that. Not the Dyad. Not the Bound. None of them.”
“Well, maybe they believe in you.”
“For fuck’s sake!” Oriken climbed to his feet and glowered at his friend. “Can’t you leave it alone, just for once?”
Jalis rose and stood between them. “I don’t know how the two of you managed to stay friends all these years,” she said, passing a stern look from one to the other.
Dagra waved a hand dismissively. “Neither do I.”
“I do,” Oriken said. “I owe—” He bit back the rest of the words and pressed his lips firmly together.
Dagra slowly turned his head. His eyes raised to fix Oriken with a baleful glare. “Don’t stop there,” he said calmly. “You still think you owe me? What I did for you, I did too late. I had a chance earlier, and I didn’t take it. You owe me nothing.”
Idiot! Oriken admonished himself. You couldn’t keep your mouth shut. “Dag, look, I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—”
“You didn’t mean,” Dagra sneered. “You didn’t think. That’s your problem, Oriken. You never think.” With a sigh, he sat back down.
Oriken stared at him, but Dagra said nothing more and kept his eyes on the opposite wall, his fingers upon the pendant around his neck. When Oriken turned to Jalis, she was regarding him serenely. Restraining the urge to light a roll of tobah, he shook his head and wandered into the darkness. Things hadn’t been this bad between him and Dagra for a long time. The place was affecting them both.
CHAPTER FOUR
STONES OF TIMES PAST
“What will you girls be getting up to today?”
Eriqwyn stifled a sigh and spooned the last of her broth into her mouth to avoid giving her mother a flippant reply.
Across the table, her sister shared a glance with Eriqwyn. “I expect
it will be a day like any other,” Adri said. “We’re happy to have you join us at breakfast, Mother. Did you sleep well?”
Their mother gave Adri the briefest of nods, then her eyes glazed over and she looked down at her food.
“Back into her own world,” Eriqwyn muttered.
Adri cleared her throat. “How are the young hunters getting along with their training?”
“Most are showing promise, but they still have a long way to go, and won’t be hunters until I accept them as such.”
Adri cast her a flat look. “That, sister, is an understanding which doesn’t fly above me as the leader of this community.”
Eriqwyn inclined her head in deference. “Of course. Tell me one thing though, Adri. As First Warder, accepting the trainees is my responsibility, but why on the goddess’s green heath did you insist on putting Demelza forward?”
“Ah, yes. Demelza.” Adri gave a tight smile. “Your dislike of the girl is quite apparent, and I know you would never have accepted her otherwise. I admit there’s something about her which unsettles me also, but she’s harmless and I believe she has potential.”
“You and Wayland see something in her that I do not,” Eriqwyn said. “Her progress is slow, and her attentiveness is almost non-existent.”
Adri placed her spoon in her empty bowl. “It doesn’t mean she can’t learn. She lives alone, Eri. She’s proven herself to be self-sufficient since old Ina died. I’ve seen her return to the village with rabbits, pheasants, baskets of crabs. One time I saw her dragging an adult nargut back to her shack.”
“Well, I don’t know how she managed to catch them without nets or traps or a well-aimed arrow. What she appears to be capable of doesn’t match her observed skills. I don’t believe she has what it takes.” Eriqwyn shrugged. “No matter. Wayland has charge of the girl. If anyone can turn her into a hunter, it’s him. He’s fond of Demelza, and his patience is unparalleled.”
“Wayland is a strong Warder. As is Linisa.” Adri rose from her chair and reached across the table for Eriqwyn’s bowl. “The three of you might be the most capable team of Warders this village has ever known. Minnow’s Beck is indeed well protected.”
“It’s good of you to say so, sister.” But protected against what? As Adri left the room, Eriqwyn rose from her seat and glanced down at their mother. “I’m going out to gather flowers now, Mamma,” she said, hating herself a little for knowing her words were spoken less in kindness and more in mockery.
Her mother looked up and met her gaze. Despite the passing of years locked inside her memories, for just a moment her eyes showed the ghost of the woman she had once been. “All right, dear,” she said, with a faint smile. “Have fun.”
Fun. Eriqwyn pondered the word as she walked from the room. As if life is still about playing skip-rope and gathering flowers. I grew up, Mother. As did Adri. We scarcely remember what fun is any more.
A babble of voices drifted from open doorways as Eriqwyn strode down Fallen-Shrine Row, her unstrung bow in hand. Heat and the smell of steel filled the air as she passed by the open front of the smithy. Tan, the younger of the two blacksmiths, glanced from his work and raised a hand in greeting. Without breaking stride, Eriqwyn acknowledged the gesture with a brief nod, and continued down the street.
As she reached the village’s southern edge, a figure stepped out from behind the last house. Eriqwyn gritted her teeth as she recognised Shade. The woman’s dark, lustrous hair fell about her shoulders, and the sheer material of her long skirt and sashes that crossed over her breasts clung to her figure in the warm breeze.
Shade paused beside a wooden beam and lifted her hand to caress the smooth wood. “Hello, Eri,” she purred. Her brown eyes glinted in the morning sun.
Eriqwyn made to move past her, but stopped when Shade touched her shoulder. “What do you want?” Eriqwyn snapped.
Shade smiled. “Such hostility. You know I like that in a woman. I haven’t seen you for quite a while, Eri. Have you been hiding from me?”
“I have no need to hide from you,” Eriqwyn said acidly. “And don’t call me Eri. You and I are not close.”
“More’s the pity.” Shade’s voice exuded sensuality every bit as much as her appearance. “What would you have me call you instead? First Warder?”
“That would be acceptable.”
“Such formalities,” Shade chided. “I thought we were long past that. With the places you and I have been, I would say we are more… intimately connected than most in Minnow’s Beck.” Her eyes traced Eriqwyn’s body.
Eriqwyn glanced along the street to ensure there were no eavesdroppers. “There is no intimacy between you and I,” she said forcefully. “If there ever was, it is long gone. I know you for what you are, Shade. You are a gemstone – beautiful, but cold.”
Shade took a step closer, seeming to glide the short distance between them. Her fingers traced their way down Eriqwyn’s bare shoulder to her arm. “Do I feel cold?” She moved closer still. “Or do I feel warm? Do you remember that warmth, Eri? You should come visit me some time, I would remind you how pleasing I am to the eye and the touch.”
With a gasp of frustration, Eriqwyn glowered and shrugged Shade’s hand from her arm. “You will address me with the respect of my position.”
“Oh,” Shade purred with a tantalising smile, “but I do respect your position.” The tip of her tongue snaked between her teeth. “Every one of them.”
Eriqwyn pushed past and stormed away.
“See you soon!” Shade called after her.
Dagra grasped his Avato pendant and whispered a prayer to the Dyad and their prophets as he trudged through the low grass, still damp from the previous day’s downpour. To the west, a range of hills swept along the horizon, the faintest sigh of the ocean drifting over their peaks. To the east, reeds and marshgrasses jutted from the fog-laden wetland like steeples of tiny temples, while ghostly globes of fae-fire floated serenely above the white shroud.
They had followed the marsh through the rest of the previous day, and when the wetland finally gave way to firmer land to the south, Jalis called a halt for the night and they slept beneath the stars. Since daybreak they had kept a steady pace, hoping for the vast marsh to finally end so they could turn inland and head back towards the Kingdom Road. As the first hour of morning stretched into the second and the third, Dagra felt more and more as if a crushing presence filled the heathland.
It wasn’t the open space that unnerved him, nor was it the potential of any physical danger; he was a freeblade, after all, and if the going got too tough they could always turn back. What troubled him was the godless atmosphere that began when they entered the Deadlands, and which had only worsened since. He could scarcely feel the presence of the Dyad this deep inside Scapa Fell. His only hope was that Aveia still heard his prayers, and that her counterpart Svey’Drommelach also listened from the Spirit Realm; it was disconcerting, and – Dagra grudgingly admitted – ironic that his hopes almost outweighed his prayers in this place where the Dyad had never reigned, this place that was the domain of a primitive and long-since unworshipped goddess.
“Before the Uprising,” Dagra said, more to himself than the others, “they didn’t burn their dead. Just buried them and left them in the ground to fester and rot.” He shuddered. “Ungodly practice.”
“It was the same in the Arkh before the emergence of the Dyad,” Jalis said. “Some places bury their dead without cremation – in the remote areas where they still worship the Bound and Unbound over the Dyad.”
“I never much cared either way,” Oriken commented. “What does it matter what happens to you when you’re gone?”
“The dead should be burned and their ashes spread to the winds,” Dagra insisted. “Leave the bones to sink into the mud, but let the spirit fly free.” Mouthing a silent addition to his prayer, he released his pendant and glanced past Jalis to the western highland. At that moment the upper corner of a square stone structure came into view between the distant hil
ls.
Jalis had spotted it too. She paused and shrugged out of her pack. “Is that a castle?”
“I doubt it,” Oriken said. “Too small.”
“It’s bigger than that ringfort on the outskirts.” Dagra frowned at the ugly grey block that was as tall as it was wide. “No windows on the lower floor. Who’d want to live in such a place?”
“I don’t think it was built for comfort,” Oriken said. “More than likely it’s an old garrison.”
“Hm.” Jalis had the map in her hand and stabbed a finger down onto it. “It’s here. Caer Valekha.” She glanced around the map. “That means we’re a little under halfway to Lachyla.”
“Almost past the point of no return,” Dagra muttered. “When the destination’s closer, the sensible route is onward.”
Oriken quirked a brow. “Do I hear a surge of enthusiasm?”
Dagra snorted. “More like resolve.”
“Wait.” Jalis stared at the stronghold as she replaced the map and slung her pack over her shoulder. “I thought I saw movement.”
“You did,” Dagra said as he strode off along the edge of the marsh. “It’s the dust-trail behind me as I hurry to leave this place.”
“Dag’s right,” Oriken said as they hurried to catch up. “There’s no telling what’s over there, but it’s not our objective and I ain’t curious enough after the cravants and the hermit.”
Jalis nodded. “Agreed.”
After putting distance between them and the fortress, Dagra cast a wary glance over his shoulder at the building. Caer Valekha. Why did places have to have such grim names back then? As they continued on, the stronghold shrank behind the hills, beyond which a shimmering strip topped the horizon – the morning sun glinting from the coastline. “It’s a long time since I last saw the Echilan Ocean,” he said wistfully.
