by Colin Taber
The rustle of leaves sounded again and some of the ferns moved only twenty paces away.
Sef didn’t throw the blade at first, despite his initial intention. Instead he watched, his attention caught by a second and third movement. They were all tied together, all the same person, and now heading away as their attacker, seemingly alone, decided to get further back.
All up, Sef had been there and exposed long enough to earn another thrown knife if the attackers numbered more than one. With that in mind, Sef felt certain he was dealing with a solo foe, probably the lone Kavist who’d fled during their midnight combat.
Although few Kavists would use poison; it was more a tool of assassins and the followers of Mortigi, the god of murder.
The path taken by the retreating attacker went behind some thick patches of undergrowth and back the way they’d come. Sef looked at the path they’d walked and saw where it swung around some rocks, hugging the streamside, presenting an opening that would force the Kavist out of cover for that moment.
Tightening his grip on the throwing knife and with his pack over his shoulder, he quickly skipped across the stones and the stream. He went to the cover that Anton and Matraia had taken and soon found them waiting for him.
Anton was checking over Matraia’s wound. This one sat just near the recently divinely healed gash inflicted by the gargoyle.
Sef dropped his pack and then lifted a finger to his lips to indicate quiet. He whispered to them, “I think it’s the Kavist who fled last night. I also know where he is. Go further into the undergrowth and make a bit of noise to cover my own movements.”
“What are you going to do?”
“At least scare him off.”
“Is it worth it?”
“I won’t be long. Just head for where the cliff ends; I’ll meet you there.”
Anton gave a nod, grabbed Sef’s pack, and then helped Matraia to her feet as they made their way through the undergrowth, knocking branches and rustling leaves and ferns as they went.
Sef used the undergrowth too, but kept it between him and the stream as he quietly tried to get back down towards the opposite shore where the rocks forced the path onto the bank.
Before long, he’d come far enough, so he moved to get a clear view and raised the knife. As he did he could see the Kavist slip around the rocks, already ahead of Sef.
Thinking of the poison on the blade, Sef was furious and cried out, “Stop!”
To Sef’s surprise, the Kavist started to turn, shortening his steps as he did and slowing his pace.
Sef couldn’t believe it. Any Kavist with half a brain would have dived for cover.
This was no battle-hardened follower of the god of battle.
Regardless, Sef sent the blade flying with all the accuracy he could muster and all of his strength behind it.
Thwack!
While Sef hadn’t had too much practice of late, he’d always been a good shot. The knife found the meat of the man’s side, just above the hip and below the ribs. The blade went in deep, a wound that’d probably cause some serious damage, and that’s if the remaining poison on the blade wasn’t enough to create other problems for the bastard!
Sef yelled out, “Ha! Take that you fool!” And then he watched the man drop. The Kavist raised his head to see his own knife stuck in him. The pained expression then gave way to a mix of horror when he recognised the blade.
Poison!
Satisfied by the amount of blood leaking out to stain the man’s clothes, Sef figured that between the wound and the poison, their foe would soon enough meet his end. Without another look, he left the man to curse and headed back to where he’d left Anton and Matraia, seeking to pick up their trail.
-
Sef caught up with them at the end of the cliff, where the heights of the rock wall diminished to meet the rising forest floor and reveal a way out. Matraia was pale, but seemed determined to continue. Sef wasn’t sure how to raise the issue of the poisoned blade, as he couldn’t be sure what dose had entered her body or its effect on the Dagruan.
Yet, he had to say something.
As Sef walked up, Anton said, “I’ve had a quick look up there; it’s mostly clear of trees and shrubs, almost back to wasteland, truth be known. We can follow it back along its edge, over a small rise and then to where the stream goes over the waterfall.”
Sef nodded. “Good.”
He knelt down in front of Matraia sitting on a boulder. “How are you feeling?”
“Alright, but my shoulder is numb and stiff.”
Sef looked at what little there was to see, as Anton had already cleaned and bandaged the wound. The skin visible around it didn’t show any sign of anything yet.
Anton asked, “Is something wrong?”
Matraia pursed her lips, a spark of fear flaring in her eyes.
Sef bit his lip for a moment, before he finally answered, “There was something on the blade. I think it was poisoned.”
Matraia’s eyes widened.
Anton knelt down to be beside them, eye to eye. “Are you sure?”
“I had a look at the blade. Besides her blood, there was a slick coating of liquid, something bitter and yellow.”
“Perhaps it was just dirt or something?” Anton offered, but his words faded with doubt as he turned over what Sef had said in his mind.
Bitter and yellow? The former inquisitor had heard of such a thing...
Sef said, “I used the same knife on him, getting him in the side with it, just above his waist. When he recognised the blade, the look of surprise quickly fell from his face, replaced by horror. Now, it’s possible he was frightened because it looked to be a serious wound, perhaps deep enough to cut his guts, but I think his concern was more immediate. I think he was worried he’d just got a dose of his own poison.”
“Bitter and yellow? You think it bittershade?”
Sef nodded.
“But we don’t know, not for sure.”
“No, we don’t, but if that’s what’s happened, we’ll know soon enough. For now, the best thing for us to do is to keep going. For a start, it’ll get us back to the stream, and we already know that its waters have helped us once. Perhaps, if the wound does look to have been poisoned, we can try and use its healing waters again.”
Matraia hadn’t said anything throughout the exchange, but now that Sef had voiced his fears and Anton was out of denials, she finally found her voice. “We’ve got to get moving, that at the very least. If I’m poisoned, we can try the waters of the stream, but other than that, there’s nothing else for us to do. I can’t slow you down. You’re needed in Kalraith.”
Anton nodded, as did Sef. The Outleaguer helped her up and then they began their ascent of the steep hillside, which sloped down around the end of the cliff side. He said, as they got underway, “I suppose it’s also possible that bittershade will have a different affect upon Dagruan.”
As she took her first steps, leaving the wood behind, climbing over rocks and into the light of the new day, she said, “We’ll find out soon enough.”
-
They followed the easiest way up the hillside and then started to walk back towards the hill crest under the new day’s light, seeking the stream that they hoped would lay on the other side. Everything seemed quiet, including the empty skies streaked with high clouds. In shadowed dips around them, sheltered patches still held a dusting of snow.
This really was the beginning of the mountains.
Turning to look behind them, once they had climbed high enough to stand over the canopy of the trees below, they could see the snaking woodland that had sheltered them as it wound through the foothills. No doubt the greenery crowded around the life-giving stream. Beneath it stretched the foothills, and further on, the blasted plains.
But they could not afford to stay and take in that view. They had to keep moving.
For now, Matraia insisted on walking without support. Aside from keeping her wounded shoulder still, she seemed to move without any
undue encumbrance or difficulty.
Anton and Sef walked with her, watching her as they did, and after a while their conversation drifted to other troubling matters.
Sef asked him, “What of Juvela?”
“What do you mean?”
“Something has happened back in the Northcountry. She fell to her hunger the day we reached the Wildling village. We both felt it, but somehow she has emerged stronger and in more control.”
“Yes, for now at least,” answered Anton.
“Where do you think it will lead?”
“Who can know? The addiction is her only real weakness.”
“Yes, but a large one,” Sef agreed.
“But a failing shared by her foes. It’s not an extra burden.”
The big Flet considered that and nodded as they walked.
Anton said, “I don’t know if she’ll be able to break her hunger. I doubt it, in fact, based on what I know of it all. Still, how can we even begin to understand what she is going through?”
With sadness thick in his voice, Sef said, “She hates herself because of it. I can feel it through our celestial link.”
“I know.”
“She thinks she’s failed not just herself, but us and Life.”
Anton sighed. “It is its own tragedy. I just hope she can find some solace.”
Sef shook his head at it all, at not knowing how all this was supposed to unfold. He still felt there was hope though, as Juvela did seem, at least for now, to be stronger and in control. In his confusion he chuckled, causing Anton to look across at him to see what had roused his mirth. “What’s so funny?”
“Listen to you, to what you say... no wonder you’re a failed inquisitor.”
Anton smiled, but it was shadowed by melancholy. “I just wish we could share some laughter with Juvela, to gift her some comfort during her trials. Her existence now is one of choosing between different kinds of pain. At times in our lives we all face hard choices, sometimes on paths that offer little but misery, but I fear her road is harder than anything either of us will ever have to face.”
-
They’d walked back along the edge of the cliff towards the rising hillside’s crest. When they got there, they could see that the land gently dipped back down into a wide and shallow gully that held the Dorloth-blessed stream. The waters broke up into several flows after gathering in a chain of small pools before going over the edge. Heading upstream, the water snaked along from a higher, rugged valley.
Matraia still moved fairly well, regardless of their previous concerns. Now that they were here, atop the cliff, they surveyed the path they had been intending to follow. What lay ahead was certainly a harder road than what they had faced so far. Truly, they were now entering the mountains of the Varm Carga.
Sef asked his two companions, “Are we ready?”
Matraia looked at the stony ground, which quickly became steeper, the slopes made up of rock and gravel. After a moment she nodded.
Anton watched her and said, “Yes. Let’s go.”
That’s how they’d started their day’s trek under the bright light of the morning sun. Up there, away from the sheltering canopy of the previous woodland, the wind whistled past them with a chilled sting.
Despite the rugged terrain, they made good progress.
Around noon, Matraia started to slow and occasionally stumble as she missed a step.
About the same time, they lost sight of the foothills and wasted plain, which they were now quite high above. The view of what lay behind them was obscured as they entered the more rugged mountain vales that made up not just the feet, but folded legs and knobbly knees of the great Varm Carga.
For now, Matraia insisted they continue, at least until they could find a good place to camp. So Anton and Sef took turns supporting her as the other remained vigilant, watching the sky.
Patches of snow were more prevalent now, and that didn’t bode well for the chilly night ahead. Increasing clouds reinforced the thought as they advanced from the west. The weather wasn’t the only concern though, as the landscape grew so rugged that the possibility that the stony slopes hid gargoyles or other Kavists became very real.
The three travellers watched the landscape around them closely, as they wondered – were enemies lurking, watching their progress?
-
By midafternoon Matraia rallied herself, but not in a physical sense. Instead her rally was of the spirit. She had accepted that the poison was having an effect. The realisation that her health was stumbling and might yet worsen spurred her on to warn them of what lay ahead.
Anton assisted her as she trod the rocky path with an arm around her shoulders, while Sef walked ahead carrying both his and her packs. The big Flet watched both the sky around them and the streamside trail they took, including back from where they’d come.
After a long silence, she spoke up after pulling on her reserves and uttered, “There are things I must tell you.”
Anton raised his voice enough to be sure Sef would also hear, “Must tell us what?”
“What you need to know about entering the heart of Kalraith.”
Sef met Anton’s gaze, the Flet slowing so Anton and Matraia would be closer, so he wouldn’t miss anything. He knew this would be important.
She continued, “The gargoyles have always attacked and their tactics have always been the same.”
Sef asked, “How so?”
“Over time their swarms grow, their populations becoming so large that when they take to the air they darken the sky like storm clouds around their mountain peak homes.”
Sef nodded to hear it. “That is the story told to me through my childhood.”
She explained, “While they grow to dominate their territory, those stony crags can no longer provide enough food. That’s when they start to come against us. First a little, flirting with our borders, and then in increasing numbers as their hunger-born desperation sends them to range further afield. Such impromptu incidents become regular border raids, the extra food and territory only fuelling more violence as they enable the swarm to grow ever larger. This cycles through years until even our harried frontiers are stripped of easy prey. That’s when the raids become more forceful and reckless, what some would call an invasion.”
Anton asked, “This is what happens every time?”
“Yes, it is a cycle, but the last stage, the invasion, just doesn’t last. The raids build up over years, and then the big incursions become regular and larger, overrunning great swaths of territory until it all peaks as one last surging wave when a swarm is at its most devastating. By the time that moment is reached, their population is already starving. In some ways they are victims of their own success – certainly their excessive numbers, and lack of organisation.”
Sef observed, “It sounds incredible.”
“It is a terrible sight, like a summer fire burning wild through a woodland, getting fiercer and larger as it’s stirred by a wind. The inferno rages until it runs out of undergrowth and trees, and finally begins to falter. Afterwards, it leaves only a smoke shrouded land of ash.”
Anton nodded. He knew from his studies, all those years ago, that many things in the world worked in cycles, whether they be tides, the seasons, or life itself.
“They create only ruin with their raiding and fighting, devastating their new won lands. Eventually it leaves even them over extended, scattered and starving. Their strength is in numbers and little else, so as soon as their swarms start to thin out, they begin to suffer. That is when we Dagruan move to take back our lost territories.”
Anton asked, “You have mentioned both swarm and swarms. Please, clarify this for me; do they work together?”
She slowed and met his gaze. “This is what has changed. There have always been separate swarms, all moving through their own growth cycles. Occasionally a few overlap to peak at the same time, but that’s always been balanced by others who are collapsing or rebuilding. There has always been a balance of sorts.”
Sef got a sinking feeling. “But that’s not what’s happening this time?”
She turned to him and said, “No, this time they all are growing at the same time.”
“And how far away are they from peaking?”
Her eyes sparkled with fear. “We can’t truly know, but some think it will be this season.”
Anton shook his head. “By the gods!”
Sef asked, “How many swarms are there?”
“Ten.”
Anton asked, “What has happened to make their timing coincide?”
“We can’t be sure, but our fear is that they have somehow begun to organise.”
“What do you mean?”
“Through all their history they’ve been hampered by a lack of central rule, so there is no organisation or planning. They aren’t very intelligent, but that’s not to say they are stupid, as they have cunning. In many ways they are not much smarter than animals.”
“But now?”
“Now we fear they have a leader.”
Sef and Anton had no response to that, the whole situation made up of too many unknowns. They kept silent and let Matraia continue.
“In the past, most of their numbers would die from famine or exhaustion as they were forced to fly ever greater distances to hunt for food and out of their mountainous home range. Even their great swarming attacks killed many of their own as they had to cross not just one vale or two, but many, and often to only dash themselves to death against our defences.”
Matraia paused for breath, as Sef asked, “So, normally these campaigns pass, coming as a wave of starving foes from one swarm or another, and I gather that also means they come from only one part of the mountain wall?”
“Yes, something that usually just has to be endured to survive. When you see our cities, you will see how they are built for defence. At worse, we might retreat and then return when their swarm starts to collapse, their force similar to a crashing wave running up a beach and losing its strength. In truth, most of our history is one of our two races competing, of ebb and flow, but this time the gargoyles are not only more organised, but all peaking at the same time and thus more numerous. Some swarms have already taken frontier towns, yet not advanced further. Some of us think they are holding territory, consolidating and waiting. Their tactics are more sophisticated. This is what worries us – if the gathered swarms come at us from every direction at once, we will have nowhere to retreat.”
