Ranger rule number twenty-one: always carry extra socks.
Tyrissa clipped on her knife, which had jokingly become known as Wurmslayer. Lastly, she retrieved her new, but already prized, steeloak staff from the lower shelf. It was unnamed and every idea for one felt forced. Weapons had to earn their names.
Everything was readied. Tyrissa picked up her boots and padded down the hallway, through the living room and out the front door. Her bare arms flushed red against the crisp morning air, an invigorating feeling to begin the long day to come. The common green lay as quiet the house at her back. Only a pair of the other houses had windows illuminated with bleary, yellow light creeping through curtained windows. The mix of the hazel fire of the aurora and blue, pre-dawn light made the village look as if it were underwater. All she could hear were the caws of the morning crows and the occasional bleat from the nearby sheep flocks.
Tyrissa trotted northward across the village green, racing to be away from the eyes of any waking neighbors. She paused only to fill her water skin at one of the wells and made it to the outer edge of town as the pink light of dawn ignited the soaring faces of the Norspine Mountains to the northwest. She would be alone, of course, both to have total ownership of this discovery and in the interest of speed. Her brothers or friends could never match the effortless way she could glide through the forest, and she had many hours of travel over rough terrain ahead of her. She ran through the route in her mind countless times over the last week. Out before the dawn, at the spire by midday, and back by evening, just in time for one of the final family dinners before Liran returned to the caravan for good. He would be traveling back to Khalanheim soon, and Tyrissa wanted to say good-bye with the tale of her own adventure.
Pastures for the herds of charcoal colored sheep and the bulky kaggorn lined the northern fringe of Edgewatch, filling in the space left by the retreating edge of the Morgwood. Tyrissa slowed to a walk as she passed the low stone walls of the pastures, glancing over the fields at a herd of about twenty sheep. A shepherd and his dog, both unrecognizable at this distance and light level, glanced at her in unison but turned back to their mutual watch without a word. Tyrissa continued unhurried, letting the sun grow strong enough to light the canopy-dimmed trails. Everything was coming together just as she planned. Even the aurora would be at its hazel peak tonight, bright enough to light her way should she take that long to return home. As the abrupt edge of the forest rose higher, so too did her excitement. Crossing into the tree line always felt like crossing into a different world. Her world.
The trails around Edgewatch were well packed and Tyrissa knew them better than anyone. She struck off into the forest, the first part of her northwest route long since memorized in other excursions. With the arrival of sunlight the forest awakened into its usual chorus of faint rustles, bird song, and the buzzing of insects. To Tyrissa, it was the sound of contentment and belonging. She quickened her pace under the shelter of the forest, her thoughts wrapped up in the thrill of what lay ahead.
As the initial hours and miles passed, the route turned from the well-trod routes of men, to forgotten and disused paths, to narrowed, natural game trails or untouched forest floor. Tyrissa knew from her schooling and her own explorations that there used to be a great many of homesteaders who preferred to live within the woods, either single family cabins or isolated clusters of homes. Their occasional traffic back to town would keep the trails clear, and extended the reach of man over the Morgwood.
The Cleanse had taken them all. The forest’s isolation made them easy prey for the roving bands of Pactbound raiders, or from the other side of the coin, they became pockets of corrupted men that had to be purged. People shunned the forest after the Cleanse, unfairly associating the shade of the trees to the shadow that crept through Morg hearts in those dreadful years. Now they clung to the still partially empty cities and towns for the perceived safety of numbers, civilization, and the reach of the king and his sentinels. Their abandoned cabins stood scattered through the southern reaches of the Morgwood, ruined and silent reminders of a discarded way of life.
It was approaching noon when the forest thinned and dropped away into a wide, glacier-carved valley. Tyrissa fished out handfuls of dried berries and nuts from her pack as she picked her way down to the valley floor. Here, she would turn west towards the mountains and avoid the detours caused by crevasses that broke the direct route. A long gradual rise to the foothills stretched ahead of her and as always the forest floor was strewn with nature’s chaos: varied shrubs and saplings sprouting between errant boulders and the occasional fallen tree.
Tyrissa inhaled a full breath of the sweet, crisp air and broke into a run, kicking up dead pine needles in her wake. She ran with a focused yet reckless abandon, flowing through the forest like water over rapids. Every obstacle was part of the route, the variable ground all part of the plan. Fallen trunks were vaulted over, low hanging branches ducked below, fields of rocks became stepping stones, and the soft forest floor cushioned each landing. Any waver of balance from an uneven step became part of the flow and part of the thrill as the Morgwood blurred around her. The idea that should might take a serious fall and injure herself never crossed Tyrissa’s mind. Alone and wounded this far from the village, she would be easy prey for the wolves or wurms. But that was impossible. She was a ranger of the woods. In those moments of flight through the forest, she was invincible. She would only stop when her breath struggled to keep up, or if her balance ever verged on being lost. The breaks were time to savor the taste of youth, of freedom.
“This is what I want, papa,” Tyrissa said to the sky while running her hand along a nearby tree, through gentle moss and rough bark. She wanted the forest, the hunt, the exploration. She wanted to be the guide, the watcher, the Ranger.
I want something that’s no longer needed. I want something we’ve left to the past, the voice of reality reminded her. Tyrissa tried to push the idea away. It was persistent, but even when she tried to imagine herself as something practical, her mind drew a blank slate. She couldn’t be something so mundane. She wouldn’t allow it.
Her feet begged to run again, and she obliged. The foothills of the Norspine loomed higher, beckoning her closer. Tyrissa could see base of the hill where the curious black spire stood, though the top lay obscured by the forest marching up the slope. She ran on towards her goal, trying to escape her own thoughts and doubts.
Soon Tyrissa had to slow her pace, as the closer she came to her destination, the more rock-strewn the valley became. For a time she paid it no mind, but eventually she noticed that something was amiss. The rocks and boulders littering the valley floor weren’t the typical, half-buried and erosion-worn stones of the Morgwood, but fresh and bright. They sat atop crushed grass and many trees had recently scarred trunks. She thought back to her original idea of a landslide, but there was no wake of an avalanche to be seen and too many trees stood unharmed. It was as if it had rained stone.
By the time she reached the base of the hilltop with the strange spire, Tyrissa cautiously picked her steps around the serrated stone fragments that littered the ground. She already bore a pair of minor scratches and a tear in her trousers from careless stumbles. Looking up the hillside she saw that it was an easy climb clear of the disconcerting fresh rubble of the valley floor. On her left the Norspine Mountains dominated the western horizon, the sheer cliffs of Giant’s Gap soaring thousands of feet above her. Sparse isles of clouds drifted over the summits, blemishes on the day’s otherwise brilliantly clear skies. Using her staff as a hiking stick Tyrissa began her ascent of the hillside.
Tyrissa felt a silence descend around her. The ever-present sounds of the forest did not follow her up the slope. Halfway to the crest of the hill she paused to simply listen and she could hear only her own breath and the wind sighing through needled boughs. It was unnatural, and the disquietude of the stillness wormed into her heart. Briefly, she flirted with the thought that this journey was a bad idea. No, ridiculous. Tyriss
a resumed the climb, reassuring herself that there was nothing to fear here.
At the hill’s crest, Tyrissa laid eyes upon a landscape that belonged in one of her adventure novels. The hilltop was nearly flat, as if a rusted razor had shorn off whatever natural peak it once had. Fallen trees ringed the space, all pointed away from the center where the pitch black spire jutted from the ground like a thorn piercing the skin of the earth. The spire bore faded, unfamiliar runes etched deep into its otherwise smooth surface. The ground circling the base of the spire was blackened and broken, as if charred by fire. All was still save for the stirrings of the wind.
This must be what Tsellien was looking for, Tyrissa thought, though her directions had been slightly off; Giant’s Gap lay a few miles to the north of here. They hadn’t passed through Edgewatch on their return trip, much to her disappointment.
Stepping around one of the blasted-flat trees, Tyrissa crossed the rocky plain to the edge of the black circle. Despite the land’s appearance of being recently charred, the air didn’t carry the long lingering scent of wildfire. She knelt at the edge of the charred circle and extended a cautious hand, running a finger along a blackened stone. Her finger came away with a clinging layer of pitch black ash, utterly devoid of the natural grays and whites. Flicking the ash off with her thumb, she watched as it fell back to the ground without drifting on the air. Indeed, despite the light wind, no ash stirred from the black circle surrounding the pointed spire. For all appearances, it could have been painted on.
Tyrissa walked a circuit along the edge of the ash, obeying her gut feeling that it would be a poor idea to step directly on it. The spire constantly drew her eye, its surface smooth and polished like obsidian, yet reflecting none of the afternoon’s sunlight. The etched runes ran in coiling spirals upward along its height. Questions of who built this and when bounced through Tyrissa’s head. She racked her memory for stories, true or otherwise, modern or mythic, of anything similar to the spire, but nothing came to mind. It was a complete mystery.
As she made her way around the circle, she spotted crooked gaps with shadowed depths hidden among the black ash. Crevasses opened by whatever broke away the hilltop and exposed the spire, no doubt. The ground was violently cracked between many of the gaps in the earth, causing the entire area to look unstable and further discouraging a closer look. Still, Tyrissa paused near a crevasse close to the circle’s edge and tried to peer within. At first she saw naught but shadow but soon she noticed a stream of sunlight beaming through the depths. She leaned in for a closer view, gingerly stepping atop the ash, and saw that a large cavern lay just below the surface of the plateau. No, not a cavern. She could barely make out a stone floor far below.
“Like the icebergs of fjordland,” she said to herself, resuming the slow circuit. There was much more of this ominous curiosity hidden from view and she cast her eyes about for an entrance. Nothing presented itself as such; the blasted hilltop was uniform outside of the ash-coated center.
The far side of the hilltop dropped away into sheer cliffs. Beyond, the Morgwood and foothills of the Norspine Mountains rolled onward into the uninhabited northern wilderness. Myths of the far reaches of the world greatly outnumbered facts. Even the ranger manuals were silent on anything beyond the northern fringes of the Morgwood. Legends of endless fields of snow where frost giants built cities of magick-infused ice were the best they had. For a minute Tyrissa half-leaned on her staff and stared into the seductive unknown, despite the sample at her back and below her feet.
Glancing down the cliff, Tyrissa saw that below the lip of the hilltop was a wide ledge that overlooked the steep drop. A wind worn, dark colored obelisk stood half embedded in the rock. Tyrissa lowered herself down the short drop to the ledge, happy to pass out of sight of the eerie spire. The obelisk was not made of the same material as the spire, but bore similar faded carvings and overall shape, like a waist-high sibling. She ran her fingers along the runes, though it brought her no closer to understanding any of it. There were two languages, one similar to old Morg runic, with many geometric angles and cross-hashes. Tyrissa could slowly read the old Morg runic language, but these were subtly unrecognizable, an antiquated dialect. The other language was written in more organic shapes, like flows of blood made into text. She cursed herself not bringing means to copy down the symbols for later.
Opposite to the obelisk on the ledge was a cave entrance. Tyrissa peered within and saw a wide doorway stood a short distance within. The doors were constructed of the same black stone as the spire and seemed to blend into the shadows. They stood open, the darkened interior inviting and challenging. Tyrissa tightened and loosened her grip on her staff, took a courage-fortifying breath of mountain air, and went inside to seek out answers.
Chapter Six
It was far hotter inside than the mild summer day at Tyrissa’s back. Beyond the black doors was a long hallway that burrowed into the hillside, the walls made of the same, now omnipresent black stone. Tyrissa pressed into the gloom, taking the knot in her stomach as steeled courage. Frescos covered the walls in long, rambling panels, covered in more of the alien script that was on the spire, as well as other symbols and designs that defied explanation. It all felt unknowably ancient.
Tyrissa ran the fingers of her free hand along the wall, seeking meaning through touch if not sight. There was no conceivable order or logic to the work, script mixed with shapes and icons at random. As she passed, the occasional face or recognizable animal would emerge from the chaotic crowd of foreign symbols, but they only further obfuscated any meaning in the expansive mural.
Enchanted by the eerie frescos, she was well into the hall before realizing that, despite the enveloping blackness of the stonework, the interior of the ruin wasn’t entirely dark. She carried no light source and the sunlight from the entrance seemed to stop a few feet into the hall, as if hitting a wall. Yet there was a clinging luminance within the hallway, degrees of shadows rather than light, that caused the strange carvings on the walls to twist and contort as she passed. A few narrower halls split off from the main passageway, but many of those were filled with rubble from collapsed ceilings and fully darkened in every case.
If the silence above ground was unnerving, here it was overpowering. The scrape of her footfalls upon the stone floor took shape as whispers in her ears, speaking in sinister tongues of unknowable syllables, the language of the twisted art on the walls. Tyrissa shook her head to clear away the doubts and fears of an overactive imagination. Every few paces she would step onto a softer patch of floor and saw flecks of that black ash clinging to the sides of her boots. At each muffled footfall, she would quicken her pace until she stood upon clear stone again. She pressed on, heartbeat rising with each step.
At the end of the hall, what appeared to be a far wall in the distance was merely the black ceiling descending into a deep stairway. To her eyes, the dim light and steep angle made each step merge into a smooth slope. Furtive sunlight crept into sight at the base of the stairs far below, perhaps an entry to the large cavern she had seen from above. The light was inviting and despite the heat weighing in and the sweat running down her face, Tyrissa wanted nothing more than the warmth of that light.
Steadying herself with one hand on the wall, she started to descend the inky black stairwell and entered a void. Each step echoed away from her to be swallowed by the darkness. The stairway stretched on forever, hundreds of steps, as if she wasn’t moving at all. She was utterly isolated, an island of life in a place devoid of it. She used her staff as a guide, feeling out each step before taking it, making sure there were steps to take and not a sudden drop into an abyss. Either seemed equally likely, equally rational. The whispers returned, louder but still indistinct, alien. The thought of turning around and running never occurred to her. Tyrissa could only see the light below drawing closer and resolutely marched downward. She would not be afraid. If she reached the light all would be well. All would be well.
As her feet landed at the base of th
e stairway, the whispers stopped, the heat dissipated, and relief washed over her like a cool rain. She stood in a plain hexagonal chamber, built of the same black stone but the floor clear of ash and the walls free of murals. A grand arched doorway, fifteen feet tall, stood before her. One of the stone doors lay crumbled on the other side of the threshold, torn off its unseen hinges as if it were paper. Tyrissa stepped around the still standing door and into yet another scene from the tales.
Within lay a massive chamber, hundreds of feet long and half as wide, a cathedral of stone. Both sides of the room curved sharply upward to the roof, mimicking the shape of the doorway. Giant frescos covered the walls, dwarfing the ones above in their sinister grandeur. Afternoon sun poured through dozens of cracks in the ceiling. A long crevasse ran along the center of the roof, casting a highway of light among the smaller pools of gold upon the stone floor. Much of the chamber was bare, the floor a seamless piece of black stone dusted with pebbles and debris from the cracks above. On the far side of the room the base of the spire descended from the roof, a thin pyramid that merged into the far wall. A great pile of rubble, twenty feet tall, lay at the base of the spire, ringed by a skirt of scattered debris. A lone figure lay face down and unmoving on the floor, a discarded scrap of life. Tyrissa recognized it from a distance. It was Tsellien. She hadn’t come back through Edgewatch for a terrible reason.
Any earlier hesitation forgotten, Tyrissa broke into a sprint across the grand hall, boots crunching against the layer of pebbles and dust that coated parts of the floor, each step a grinding echo in the cavernous and otherwise silent space. A curious flash of warmth washed over her as she drew near, like a rush of blood to the head. Tsellien was long dead, though well preserved. No smell of decay hung in the air and at a glance the warrior could have been mistaken for unconscious were it not for the thin knife buried deep in the nape of her neck. A dried patch of blood encircled her head, a profane halo. Her sword lay nearby, the blade broken and the crystalline orb shattered.
Valkwitch (The Valkwitch Saga Book 1) Page 5
