Wildling

by Curtis, Greg

  And she was right. A few seconds later Dorn noticed the thin branches of the trees moving, shaking a little. Not a lot, but enough to tell them that something was moving in them. A monkey perhaps in the tree. Shaking the branches as it walked. Except that he could see no monkey.

  Then the branches moved again, and this time it was much more obvious. A larger movement and not just a few of the branches but all of them. Whatever it was it was quite large.

  “Alyssia.” Garren called to one of the other shifters and Dorn knew immediately why. As part of her equipment Alyssia had brought fire arrows. Rods of perfectly straight hardwood covered with a solidified oil that caught fire as they flew and exploded into flame when they hit something. Whoever had enchanted them had done a good job. And whatever was in the tree would move when it caught fire.

  Instantly he heard the sounds of the bow being drawn, the string being pulled back, and then the twang as the arrow was released. And then he watched as the arrow given flight burst into light, a glowing hot point of light streaking through the air for the distant tree.

  It hit the trunk of the tree perfectly and instantly released a ball of flames that engulfed most of it.

  For a split second Dorn thought they'd won. That they'd exposed whatever was lurking in the tree. But then the tree shook again and he suddenly understood the terrible truth. There was nothing in the tree at all. It was the tree itself. And all the trees around it.

  “Snap dragon!” Dorn gave the warning as quickly as he could, but he couldn't believe he was yelling it. He'd read the stories and heard the tales, but he'd never really believed that snap dragons existed. Yet others saw the same thing as he did and he was far from alone in giving the cry. The tree was no tree. They knew it. It proved that a heartbeat later as it started lifting itself out of the ground. The tree was in fact just the creature's head. Its body was an entire forest of trees and tangled branches behind it, shaped into the form of a huge lizard. A body that was slowly uprooting itself. The creature had eaten its fill of soil and water, drunk enough of the sunlight. Now it wanted food. It wanted them.

  Instantly there were arrows flying at it from all directions as everyone knew the danger. They had to kill the thing quickly. Before it managed to get clear of the soil. Dorn was launching arrows as well, but he had no thought as to whether his rock glass tipped arrows would have any effect on the snap dragon. They might pierce the hide of a troll but he wasn't sure about bark. The chances were that even if they didn't shatter they'd just annoy it. And in any case it wasn't really solid. His arrows might actually pass right through it.

  Luckily others had better arrows, and someone had brought ones with an enchantment of ice on them. He knew that when he saw one of the creature's feet – if you could call a pile of tangled roots a foot – freeze. And while freezing might not hurt it, at least it stopped the snap dragon from moving that foot. That slowed it down and gave them more time. But to do what?

  The snap dragon didn't like having its foot frozen though, and it let out an angry rustle, a warning sound, something like the rattle of a snake but with a lot more danger behind it. And as it tried to shake the ice out of its foot some of its smaller branches fell off. That just made it angry and it rustled some more as it pulled more of its long lizard like body out of the ground.

  Soon it was on fire with at least a dozen fire arrows having hit it, and all four of its legs had been frozen making it difficult for the creature to move. But difficult was not impossible and it was straining mightily against the stiffness of its own frozen flesh. As for the fire the snap dragon didn't seem to notice that it was burning. Maybe it didn't feel pain? Or maybe it just didn't care. The only thing on its mind apparently was them. It was hungry.

  So as it alternately burnt and froze it kept coming for them, putting one collection of twisted roots that acted as a foot in front of the other. Slamming each foot into the dirt with a thump that shook the entire plateau. It was winning the fight. A creature that large and powerful would not be stopped by a few arrows and a bit of fire. No matter what enchantments had been laid on them.

  Dorn's heart started thumping a little harder in his chest as it charged them slowly. It was getting closer. Dorn knew it; they all did. And nothing they could do was stopping it. The three or four hundred paces between them had become half that in far too short a time, and while it was well and truly on fire it didn't seem to care. And while it didn't seem to be moving that fast, it was so large that every step it took was thirty paces or more.

  They were going to have to run before it got close enough to strike. To use those huge feet of tangled roots as the weapons they truly were. But at least it would be a quick death. He hoped. The snap dragon killed by smashing its feet down on its prey with a terrible snapping sound and crushing them into a paste. Then it simply lapped up the remains like a cat drinking milk. Even if its tongue was simply another twisted pile of tangled branches inside the crater of tangled trees that passed for a mouth.

  “On my mark people, we break and run five hundred paces.”

  Garren used all the power of his howl to make himself heard above their panic, and Dorn was infinitely glad he did. He needed for someone to know what to do before the walking forest was on them.

  “Mark.”

  Immediately he heard him Dorn slung his bow, shifted, turned tail and ran as ordered, unbelievably glad that he was able to. The others did the same. The snap dragon had been getting far too close. To both sides of him he could see the others running with him, all of them stretched out in full sprint and he knew that they were faster than the snap dragon. But he also knew that the creature would not give up. It would keep coming for them until they were all dead.

  Five hundred paces came incredibly quickly, even in this thin air and with the grass trying to ensnare their feet. Fear was overcoming the weaknesses of their flesh. By the time they had covered the distance Dorn was breathing heavily and his heart was beating in his chest far too quickly. When he turned to face the snap dragon it was to see it still coming for them. It was on fire, the flames leaping twenty to thirty feet into the air across the entire length of its body. But it was coming.

  “Stay shifted! No more arrows!” Garren gave the order before Dorn could even think about shifting back to restart the attack. “From now on we simply run and wait for the fire to burn it to ash.” It wasn't what Dorn had expected him to order, but he suddenly realised it was a good plan. Actually it was the only one they had. But Garren was right. Their arrows were doing it no damage. The only hope was that the fire eventually would.

  So they stayed where they were, watching the burning snap dragon as it marched toward them, and waited for the order. And when it came just as the dragon moved to within about a hundred paces of them they ran again.

  They kept doing that for what seemed like hours. Standing, watching and then running away while the snap dragon gave chase. And little by little the creature seemed to slow down. The flames leapt higher into the cold air. The clouds of black smoke being given off became thicker and darker as the sap burnt. The fire was slowly eating into its wooden heart. Not that it had a heart. Dorn wasn't even sure it felt pain. As it burnt it never cried out. It rustled a little bit, but that could mean anything. And of course it had no face for him to see a grimace on. It didn't even have the ability to roll on the ground and try to put the flames out. The only thing it could do was chase them.

  And then finally it couldn't even do that.

  At some point, and by then Dorn had no idea at all how long the battle had lasted, it stopped moving. Or at least it stopped moving towards them. Its legs moved, but not in any coordinated fashion. Instead they moved in different directions seemingly at random, and the snap dragon started turning around on the spot. Something important in it he guessed, had caught fire. If it had a brain maybe that was what was burning. Everything else was alight by then and there was a cloud of smoke heading for the sky as large as anything he had ever seen. The snap dragon was a wal
king forest fire.

  Still, at least that gave them the chance to stop running, and they were all bone weary by then. Dorn was exhausted. After hours of running the sweat was pouring off him as it never had before. His breathing was ragged. And though he tried to control it most of his muscles were quivering. He needed to fall down and rest. It was lucky they were shifters, though that was of course why they had chosen to come on this mission. Other people would never have been able to get away from it. Not on foot.

  Twenty minutes or so later the snap dragon stopped making even those random movements and Dorn knew it was dead. Or at least that it was no longer a threat to them.

  It came as a relief to him. Probably to them all. But at the same time Dorn was thinking that the battle had been a disaster narrowly averted. If he hadn't spotted it they would have all been killed in the middle of the night. And even having won through it had come at a cost. He had no idea at all how many arrows he'd fired at that thing, but he knew it was a lot. And he had only so many with him. As did everyone else. They'd drained their supplies on a single enemy. And there were no enchanters with them. So whatever arrows they could fletch up here would have to be just normal arrows with no magic on them.

  But by far the worst thought on his mind was to wonder what else these lands would throw at them. Trolls, rocs, goblins, blood flies and now snap dragons. And they were only two days into the wastes themselves after leaving the ranges. What else was waiting for them?

  As he and the others finally found the strength to trudge slowly back to the rise and their proposed camp for the night, he couldn't help but think that they were in trouble. His only hope was that at the other end the Dicans were experiencing exactly the same sort of trouble.

  Or worse.

  Chapter Forty Three.

  A dozen days later the shifters came across the most wonderful sight they'd ever seen. The thirteen peaks that they knew to be the ring that surrounded the mountain lake. They had reached their destination, and they'd done it with no more deaths. That was a miracle and a half in his view. Eldas had favoured them as they'd run.

  In fact their numbers had grown. Another fifty or so shifters had joined them, and now he guessed they numbered at least a hundred and twenty. A small army perhaps but at least an army.

  Little by little they had overcome the dangers of the wastes. Trolls were being killed by rock glass tipped arrows. Those who could fly were destroying the rocs easily enough. They knew enough to avoid the areas where the blood flies swarmed. And the score of snap dragons they'd encountered had all succumbed to fire one by one. Best of all they had finally started to get used to the air. They were stronger. Not as strong as they normally were but still better than they had been.

  But ahead of them lay the toughest part. The battle if there was to be one. And against an enemy that they had no knowledge of. How many soldiers had the Dicans brought with them? How many war machines? How close were they to the lake? None of them had any idea. But as they made camp for the afternoon and their flyers took to the air to search them out they hoped to have some in a few hours.

  There was also the other part of their mission. To find the holes in the dry lake bed and fill them if they could. Or to mark them for those who were following. If the lake was to refill, its walls and bed had to be solid.

  Dorn looked around and immediately spotted a hole in front of him. It was in the shale hill between the two closest mountains. There was a small fountain of water shooting forth. Those who were following them would have to plug it.

  Unexpectedly though the sight brought him some cheer. It meant that the lake was refilling. If it wasn't there could be no water escaping. And that in turn meant that there was hope. That was, if they could block the holes. And if they could stop the Dicans from tearing larger ones in the natural dams.

  They set up camp at the foothills of the nearest slope, deciding to rest for what remained of the afternoon and make the final ascent in the morning. Everyone was tired and even if the Dicans were there none of them were fit enough to fight. But in any case they were still a long way apart. The lake was twelve leagues across when it was full, and they were at the northern edge with another league to climb in the morning to reach the edge. The Dicans would be coming from the south. There was a little time, he hoped.

  Besides, the real question was how far behind them the Lady’s army was. Had they even made the central wastes? And how large were they? The Lady was still bothering him in his dreams each night, but thankfully not with lessons. Instead she brought him news and listened to his progress reports. So she knew what monsters they'd faced and where, and she had told him when his family had arrived in Balen Rale. But she told him little about the army's progress.

  The others when he'd asked also admitted that they were being visited in their dreams, though not all of them by Lady Sylfene. It seemed that dream walking across hundreds of leagues was a talent of all of the eleven and they were all interested in their journey. But they were also all careful with what they said. Perhaps because the high priests of Balen Rale feared that they would be terribly outnumbered, defeated and some perhaps even captured. And if so that they might then be forced to reveal what they knew to the Dican priests. Dorn hadn't mentioned his suspicion to the others. But he suspected that many of them shared it anyway. He could see it in the slightly haunted looks in their eyes. It wasn't exhaustion. Or rather, not just exhaustion. It was fear. They didn't know what they might face.

  “Full rations tonight!”

  Garren gave the order and it brought a smile to a few faces. They'd been conserving food as they travelled, not knowing how long they might be up here. But now that they had arrived they had to be ready. And shifters needed food to heal and to fight.

  Fairly soon they had the fires burning for the night. Big fires that gave out a lot of heat and brightened the world around them. Fires that would also act as beacons for those of their company that flew. After that it was just a matter of laying out his blanket for the night and collapsing on to his pack as he waited for dinner. And for the fliers to return.

  Their army would have seemed a strange sight he thought. An army of beasts camped out around a dozen huge fires. Beasts of all types; big cats, bears, wolves, hawks, and just for variety a few humans. Some of those humans dressed, some naked. And yet sitting there, leaning against his pack Dorn knew them for who they were. All of them. In both their beast shapes and as humans he recognised them. In fact, after weeks on the run he could see the beast in the face of the wildling and the wildling in the face of the beast.

  He wasn't quite sure how that worked exactly. Maybe it was simply that they'd been together for so long that they were forming a pack. But still, when he looked at any of his companions he knew them. Garren for example was a wolf. He was a wolf when he walked as a man and a man when he walked as a wolf. Somehow when he looked at their leader he looked beyond the flesh he wore. He saw the totality of him. And if they won through whatever lay ahead and the lake refilled and the gods once more returned to the world, he had to wonder what more he might see.

  “Fliers!” Someone gave the call and they all looked up to see their companions returning. The sight of them soaring should have brought them cheer, but instead it made them nervous. Dorn especially when he realised they had been gone less than an hour and had returned so quickly. That surely meant that they'd found something. Something bad and something near. And he'd been secretly hoping that they wouldn't. That he was wrong.

  Still, there was nothing to do except wait as they soared through the air toward them and finally alighted on the ground. And then as they shifted.

  It was bad. Dorn knew that the moment he saw the expressions on the faces of Nelalas and Brin when they shifted back into their human form, and his heart sank. What they were going to fight he didn't know, but it didn't look good. Still, he like the others hurried to find out.

  “Two hundred thousand men at least.” Brin didn't wait for them to ask. He just gave them t
he bad news straight away. Everyone’s spirits fell instantly. Two hundred thousand wasn't a number – it was a nightmare. And there was more. “Ten thousand war machines. And every soldier carries either a shovel or a pick as well as his weapons.”

  Two hundred thousand soldiers? How could that be? How could they have gathered such an army together? Especially when from everything he knew the accursed church was struggling just to maintain its grip on the southern realms? That had to be every soldier in all of Lampton Heights and the Kingdom of Yed, and every guard and probably everyone else of fighting age they could conscript as well.

  And ten thousand war machines? He hadn't known there were that many in the world. In fact he was sure there hadn't been. The Dicans had obviously been building.

  But the worst were the shovels and picks. He knew that. The war machines were terrible weapons. They could knock down walls and level cities. But two hundred thousand men with picks and shovels could level mountains. Which was exactly what they'd come to do.

  “They're on the second terrace below this one. But in a day or two they'll march up to this terrace and from there it'll be a straight seven or eight league march to the mountains. We have three days at best.”

  Three days! It wasn't enough time. Dorn knew that. But he also knew that it was probably more than they'd had any real hope of getting. The Dicans had started marching weeks before they'd even set off. Only their speed had let them gain that much of a lead.

  So now they had to slow them. They had to delay them at least two weeks until their own army could arrive. But even when they did, would even they be strong enough to stand against two hundred thousand soldiers? Dorn had no idea. He didn't know how many soldiers the eleven had been able to gather, but his thought was that it would at best be a few thousand. A few thousand wildlings against two hundred thousand. And that when by the time the rest arrived the Dicans would already be in place, their camps set up, their lines strengthened.