So they continued as if nothing significant had happened. Their objective was still the same, their immediate problems unaltered. Even in his inconsolable frame of mind, Appa readily resumed the journey along with them. After all, being seventy years old, he could not hope to return to Nordwas alone, even if he could find the road back.
‘But I’m only going as far as the next town,’ he insisted. ‘There I shall make myself comfortable for my last remaining days, and prepare in solace for the End of Days that will befall us all ere long.’
By nightfall Bolldhe had reached the lonely road that would take him south and west, and away from the Northlands. He had ridden long and hard, pushing himself and his horse to exhaustion in his anger, and now as he pitched camp, he reflected upon the turn of events that had brought him to this desolate place, and to one of the loneliest situations he had ever found himself in during all his years of wandering.
When he had been a child, at home, he had imagined the joy of being a free spirit, so he had been surprised when, on his first wanderings, he had so often felt sad, lonely, even heartbroken. Even after he had long grown accustomed to this rootless lifestyle, though he did often feel every bit the legendary lone hero, at other times it was good to feel the warmth and security of company.
It was inevitable, right from the start, that it would end this way. After all, had not all his brief companionships ended thus? No matter how free and easy the travelling relationship, no matter how long the journey shared, no matter what bonds of camaraderie were forged, it would always end up with something snapping in Bolldhe, followed by his sudden disappearance.
‘Always without a backward glance,’ he mumbled to himself, with a perverse sense of the aloof. Yes, that had almost become a matter of pride.
See now, he had spent the last week in the company of a group of would-be adventurers, and in all that time they had hardly managed to catch themselves enough for even one decent meal. Yet, within hours of leaving them behind he had succeeded in snaring two gorse hares, three fen-skippers, and picked enough gortleberries to last him for three days. Feeling well-fed, he was now warming himself over a cheerful campfire, relaxed in the knowledge that he was safely on his way without any other people cluttering up his life. Mercifully alone at last, save for the myrmidonic Zhang, the only friend he needed. Yes, he was much better off without that pack of religious maniacs.
Pleasantly tired, he kicked the dying fire gently to life with his brown wolfskin boots and savoured the brief glow that radiated from it. He considered his journey ahead – moving back into more familiar regions, places he was familiar with from maps he had studied over the years.
A journey continuing westwards would inevitably take him through the Herdlands of the Tusse. He had encountered them many times before, the Tusse, those nomadic herd-giants who could be encountered just about anywhere in the world that was flat enough to accommodate their vast herds of bison, camel, horse or yak. Most ordinary humans avoided the Tusse, but through ignorance and xenophobia. Bolldhe, however, knew them well enough to ensure his safe passage through their ranks, ‘just so long as I respect their customs and keep myself to myself.’
Once past the Herdlands, he was offered three choices: either head south over the eastern foothills of the Nail Mountains and into the great cosmopolitan country of Quiravia; or north-east into the Fram Peninsula and board a ship heading for Fram Point at the capital city of Aalesfleot; or he could risk the many dangers of travelling south-west through the river country that separated the Nail Mountains from the Speinstieth – thence heading into Venna, Bhergallia, Rhelma-Find, or any of the other nations bordering the Crimson Sea. Whichever route he chose, he would be getting closer to approaching his homeland . . .
Ah, the choices were endless to a free man such as he, he reflected as he stamped the dying embers of the fire into ashes and curled himself up in his bedroll. He needed no one; he was the Lone Wolf. Where the herd craved the security of others of their kind, he needed to rely only on his own resourcefulness. He would never succumb to their pathetic weakness, he thought contemptuously, because . . .
Bolldhe let out a deep sigh into the cold night air. His mind was tired from too much thinking, too much embittered self-esteem. And, besides, it was not entirely true. He always felt more resentful of his acquaintances after he had left them than when he was actually with them. Silently his surly mind gnawed upon itself in the darkness and solitude of yet another lonely night.
Far away, many miles to the east, daylight faded, relinquishing its unsteady and unwelcome hold upon the Rainflats. The evening’s shadows – such as they were – lengthened over the marshes till they finally faded into the greyness that surrounded them, yielding to the black hand of darkness that descended upon the land. A land of tall reeds and wind-whipped, sighing grasses between solitary hillocks, pools of weed-covered quicksand opened up before the unwary traveller. But very few trod this land nowadays.
Long ago, in an age when the Torca ruled the North, this same terrain was covered by trees. But the rivers widened, gradually losing track of their courses altogether, and they slowly flooded the vast woodlands until most of the trees had drowned. Now only a few remained, sad remnants of the great forest that had died centuries ago. Alone they stood, grey, stunted and diseased, dying remnants clinging on to a doomed life. Their branches were raised futilely to the sky like skeletal fingers gripping the cold, uncaring air, holding back – for a while – from the glaucous, sucking death that awaited them.
Many were already sinking, their slimy boles half-submerged in the mud that was now incapable of supporting them. They tilted sharply, their lower branches even now submitting to the embrace of the livid green weeds that reached up to entwine them, ensnare them, strangle the life out of them, then pull them down into the mud to feed upon them.
It was a dead land, a land unwilling to sustain any but the most creeping, parasitic, fungoid life. A land shunned by people, hateful of any life-form that stood upright; a land of rank, stinking flora, of slithering, crawling fauna, and of clammy grey mist that enshrouded everything.
Into this dismal, drowning, dying land, the six came. Still they had not gained the road they so urgently sought, the ‘gradely highway . . . bilt upon a dyke . . . that dothe run strayte and trewe’ through the marshes. And although at one point Nibulus was sure he had seen the solitary figure of a man some distance away, they had not yet made contact with a living soul.
Slowly they rode in single file, only daring tread ground already tested by the wolfskin-clad sorcerer who paced ahead of them. They could all sense the vast stretches of Fey-ground (‘neither earth nor water, but something in between’) that surrounded them, waiting eagerly for them to take just one step in the wrong direction, waiting to swallow them up. All eyes strained blearily into the gloom ahead and no one spoke. Only the troubled whicker of horses and their muffled hoofbeats disturbed the barrow-like silence that hemmed them in.
Solitary trees loomed out of the darkness to either side. The esquire stared wide-eyed at them, believing them at first to be the silent, still-standing forms of barbaric Tusse intent upon slaughtering them. Only when Gapp drew closer could he identify them properly, the mist that had wrapped itself around them forming cold beads of moisture on their bark, which dripped steadily into the murky pools below like putrescence from a skeleton. Now and then, half-drowned boughs rose out of the mud, slime-covered and rotten like tombstones of long-dead trees.
This land is swallowing us, Gapp thought in rising panic. The mist has covered us up, and we’re going to perish here!
He could not shake off the feeling of dread that this loathsome land engendered on him. But he had to go on, did not have any choice. It was like wandering alone through one of his own nightmares, the swirling mist lending the experience a dream-like ambience. He held tightly onto Bogey’s reins with his left hand, and gripped the reassuring haft of his master’s lance with his right, forever casting fearful glances into the gloom all around. He exp
ected at any moment that something bestial and evil would suddenly leap out at them and devour his companions one by one, before turning to chase him out over the hungry marshlands all alone.
Suddenly his fearful train of thoughts was broken by a sharp hiss from Wodeman:
‘Look, over there! There’s somebody out there!’
Instantly the company drew together, weapons at the ready, eyes straining against the gloom.
‘What is it?’ came the excited voice of Finwald, followed by an expectant ‘Is it Bolldhe?’ from Appa.
The sorcerer motioned them to silence with an irate wave of his hand, then slowly pointed off to their right. Following his finger, they saw, just within their limited range of sight, a lone figure standing atop a knoll of tufted grass. Appearing briefly between wreaths of rolling fog, it was silhouetted against the last, faint, silver-grey light of evening. It appeared to be motionless, but in the dismal twilight it was difficult to be sure. It was even hard to gauge the distance, or even if it was human.
‘Is it the same one you saw earlier, Nibulus?’ someone asked.
‘It could be,’ the Peladane replied vaguely, ‘but it certainly doesn’t seem to mind us knowing it’s there.’
Finwald agreed. ‘It’s definitely making no attempt to conceal itself, up there. Do you think it’s a trap?’
Nibulus was a seasoned warrior and reluctant to jump to conclusions. He peered through the tendrils of marsh gas and clammy mist that snaked between them, then admitted, ‘I haven’t got the foggiest.’
‘Has it seen us yet, Nibulus?’ asked Appa.
‘And is it human,’ interjected Gapp worriedly, ‘or Tusse?’
They continued to stare at the figure, even though it was now a mere wraith-like shade among deeper shadows.
‘No, not a Tusse,’ Wodeman reassured them.
‘Right,’ agreed the Peladane. ‘The herd-giants seldom venture this far east. Especially not alone, and at night. ’
Gapp breathed a sigh of relief. His memories of the Ogre were still too fresh to permit him any ease in the presence of any giant, even the relatively civilized Tusse.
Then Wodeman’s low voice cut in again. ‘It knows we’re here,’ he said cryptically, ‘and it isn’t afraid of us.’
The others stared at him, but none questioned his words, acknowledging that his power of perception was far greater than theirs.
‘See!’ he whispered sharply. ‘It moves off . . .’
As they all peered, the figure disappeared. Whether the smoky pall between them had thickened, or whether it had indeed slipped away, they could not tell. Either way, it was no longer visible.
‘Quick!’ urged Finwald. ‘We don’t want to lose him.’
‘What!’ cried Gapp, forgetting himself in his panic. ‘Go after that thing? You jest, surely?’
‘It’ll almost certainly be from some nearby village,’ Finwald persisted. ‘No one would travel alone in this place.’
‘Aye,’ agreed Appa, ‘this might be our only chance of finding the road. Another day and we’ll starve – or I will, at any rate.’
‘Have a care, Aescals,’ Wodeman warned them. ‘It does not pay to be hasty in the marshes. There is something fey about yonder wight. It wasn’t walking on firm ground, and it smelt of huldre.’
Huldre was a Torca word, adopted by the southern Aescals, meaning ‘those that are hidden’. It was the name given to all those spirit-creatures that dwelt on the very edge of daylight in the strange, veiled world of fey, which was always there but could never be discerned by mortal men – unless the huldre themselves desired it. To the men of Wyda-Aescaland it was a name associated with many things not of this world, things that were evil, unholy, troublesome and malicious – meddling little bastards who sniggered at honest people on the very edge of hearing, slipping in and out of their world to cause mischief, turn milk sour, cause horses to be already sweaty in the morning, corrupt the innocent in unholy unions betwixt ill sheets, steal babies and replace them with their own malformed little brats. They were not to be trusted, not to be sought out, not to be acknowledged. Not even to be believed in.
But to Wodeman’s race, a people much closer to their roots in the earth, the huldre meant something very real. They did not need to question their existence, for the huldre had been here long before men, before any of the various races that dwelt on the earth today. Only the rawgrs were older in origin.
But Nibulus, leader of men, basically a pragmatic and unfanciful person, was not Torca. He could feel the firmness of his Greatsword hilt through the leather of his gauntlets, and made his decision.
‘We are enough against one,’ he solemnly declared, ‘be it man or devil. Put trust in your iron, my men, and follow me. For hunger is one enemy no sword can defeat.’
In pursuit of the vague figure they went, the going becoming increasingly difficult with each passing step. Darkness had descended in full by now, and they walked in a dream-like limbo world of mist, all now sharing Gapp’s earlier apprehensions. The constant sucking of mud that hindered each and every step was gradually getting to them, draining their will as if sucking their very life essence from them.
Every now and then one or other would cry out, ‘There it is!’, and they would all head off in a new direction, their pace temporarily quickened by renewed hope. Yet their elusive quarry seemed always a step further ahead, and would not stop or turn at their urgent calling. Ever alert lest they were being led into a trap, they anxiously persevered on their progress through the mist. Suddenly a wall of darkness loomed up ahead. At first they could not tell what it was, but as they cautiously approached, they discovered it to be a thicket of trees.
‘There,’ came the sudden whisper from Wodeman through the stillness. ‘Off to the left, just before the trees – see it? Our slippery friend.’
They followed the direction of his finger, but had to concentrate hard for a few moments before they saw it. Something was moving about twenty or thirty yards away. It was that same figure again, just about to enter the thicket. But before any of them could call out, it disappeared into the darkness of the woods.
Hurriedly they rode on, closing the gap, and within seconds were following their quarry into the thicket.
If it had seemed strange and fearful terrain out in the swamp, then it was doubly so here in these woods. With the mist now as thick as soup, and even the vestigial light of late evening lost to them, visibility was reduced to almost nothing. There was no clear path to be found, so they had to force their way through a dense undergrowth of thorns and roots that clawed at their cloaks and snagged their feet. Their pace slowed almost to a standstill as they hacked their way through the entangling foliage, while every so often branches dripping with moisture suddenly reached out and raked their faces.
Though exhaustion dulled their instincts, all they could think about was finding the stranger and somehow putting an end to this day’s futile journeying. But into their over-tired and over-stretched minds stole thoughts of great unease; foremost among these was that anyone else passing through these woods must have had as much difficulty in finding their way as they did, for they had entered at the same point, and yet had found no path. Yet there was no sight or sound of anyone or anything. Was it waiting for them, hidden in the dark? Was it alone? Was it human? It was above all a mystery why anyone should be out in the marshes on a night like this, so far from human habitation.
They now realized that they had completely lost all sense of direction – even Wodeman, to whom this had never happened before. They had also lost their quarry, and were just wandering around in this tangled thicket with no idea of where to go next. A decision as to whether they press on or go back was no longer relevant, for they did not have any clue where they were.
And now they began to hear, some way off yet all around them, a low bubbling sound that carried within it the rumour of drowning. One thing was for certain: none of them was prepared to stop and make camp for the night. Not in this place.
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Then all at once they felt themselves descending a slope, and before long the trees began to thin out a little. They perceived that they had descended into a hollow, and, filling this entire depression ahead and illuminated by a dim, unknown source of light, was a bog of thick black quicksand. It was a morass of such blackness, such life-swallowing awfulness that they felt as if their souls were draining out of their bodies and into its bottomless embrace. It was as if countless millions of things had died here, decaying into a stinking miasma. Here and there, sticking up out of the putrescent slime, the travellers shuddered to see the pale and fleshless bones of those that must have fallen prey to this dreadful place. Above the constantly sucking ooze floated a grey-green haze that lit up the entire hollow, looking noxious to the touch and repulsive to behold.
The travellers did not utter a word, but simply stared. Huge strands of pale cobweb hung from tree to tree, bough to bough, hemming the hollow in like a tent, while above them even larger sheets of gossamer hung like a canopy, crawling with great black spiders and poisonous-looking red-and-green insects that scuttled about silently. Ravens resembling reanimated gibbet-hangings stalked about stiffly amid the branches even higher up.
Gazing out across this awful glade, their hearts sank and fear flowed into them.
No one human had come this way tonight. No living person, at least.
Not this or any other night, for this was not a place for the living, and death permeated the very air. It was not a natural place. It had the air of dreams about it. Even Wodeman wrinkled his nose in distaste, sensing the darker side of fey here. It felt like a place where lost souls wandered, drifting off into a walking sleep through a somnambulant world of creeping numbness and disturbing, dream-like pseudo-realities.
This marsh was where it all came from: the fear, the dread, the swampy stench of death and decay, drifting out towards them in wreaths of whispering vapour. All sound was deadened: the susurration of hushed voices, the muffled clump of hooves, the eerie squeal of dead twigs scraping over armour plate. And from the rotting world before them only the sounds of dripping, sucking, whispering and scurrying.
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