by Sam Ferguson
Erik surveyed the land around them. A rocky beach spanned as far as he could see to the east and west. Twenty yards to the north, tall reeds and cat tails blew in the wind. The land sloped upward then, with some sandy dunes blocking a direct view of the tall trees that loomed in the distance.
“Let’s get to the trees,” Erik said. “We’d do better to find some cover. If we try to make a fire on the beach, we’ll be visible for miles.”
Lady Arkyn nodded. “There are orcs in these parts.”
Rafe kicked at the rocks under foot. “It’s almost dark as it is. We won’t have much light to work with if we move into the trees.”
“Leave that to me,” Lady Arkyn insisted. “We just need to find the right spot, and I can take care of setting up the camp. Elves aren’t just good for making clothes, we can see just fine in the dark too.”
Rafe sighed and gestured for Lady Arkyn to lead the way. Erik adjusted his sword belt before falling in with the other two and heading inland. They didn’t have to go far before Lady Arkyn found the husk of a once massive and vibrant redwood tree that was as big around as a small house. From the look of it, it had been mostly hollowed out by a lightning strike that had blown off the top of the tree and left a free standing natural wall. Animals had obviously been inside as well, as there were claw marks embedded into the charred wood, but the space was clear for the night. Lady Arkyn went to work cutting branches from nearby saplings for bedding, and to close the gap in the front of the hollowed husk where they entered. There was still an opening above them, but the night wasn’t very cold, and it was still a relief just to be shielded from the wind.
Lady Arkyn took the first watch, and the two exhausted men fell asleep in short order, eager to rest their aching bodies.
Erik took the third watch, waking a couple hours before dawn and waiting until the sun rose. He was more than a little pleased when the only thing he noticed come nearby was an owl that was busy hunting field mice. When the sun finally popped up over the trees, Erik woke the others.
“We should move as quickly as possible,” Erik announced.
“Uh-uh,” Rafe said as he slowly stretched his arms out. “First, you break my ship, then you take my shirt and have me chasing you through fog to save you from cassowacks, and now you want me to skip breakfast? No. I’m going to eat.”
“I think you left out the part about how I saved you from Vodklyk,” Erik pointed out.
“A minor detail,” Rafe replied. “Besides, I returned the favor by carrying you into a cave so the leviathan couldn’t eat you, remember?”
“Not for nothing, but technically the leviathan is the one who destroyed your ship, not me,” Erik said.
“I don’t suppose you managed to grab a map with those big old dragon hands of yours?” Rafe asked.
Erik shook his head. “I didn’t even have time to grab my pants, if you recall. That is the reason you gave me your shirt after all.”
“Oh I remember,” Rafe said. “I was there when we found you on the side of the mountain. I was just hoping you had it tucked away in some invisible, magical pouch.”
Erik shook his head. Regretfully, when Rafe’s ship was destroyed by Vodklyk, he lost everything he had taken from Alkantar, and he had lost the book given to him by the monks far to the south. He was going to have to hope that whatever knowledge the reclusive cult had about the Four Horsemen, they would be willing to share. While he was thinking about the book, his mind wandered back and plucked the memory of Tatev out from the recesses of his mind. He smiled as he recalled Tatev’s curly red hair and child-like amusement and wonder when discovering new knowledge. It was a shame that he had not survived their trek across the Eastern Wilds. Had the barbaric Tarthuns not sacrificed him, he would have loved to visit the monastery in the south with its obscure texts and ancient tomes.
His memories turned sour as the image of Tatev being murdered by the Tarthuns took center stage in his mind. Tears threatened to well up in his eyes, so Erik cleared his throat and moved quickly to splash some water on his face.
“I’m going on ahead,” Lady Arkyn called out. Erik looked up and wiped the water from his face to see that she was holding her bow in hand. “I think I found some tracks to follow. With any luck, I will be back with something to eat.”
She then turned and vanished into the forest as quickly as a whisper on the wind.
Erik and Rafe moved toward the small stream a few meters away from where they had camped. Rafe bent down for a drink, and then splashed water over his face to help himself wake up. “You all right?” Rafe asked.
Erik turned a questioning look on the sailor and nodded. “I’m fine, why do you ask?”
Rafe shrugged. “Looked like you had something on your mind,” he replied. “A lost friend, I am guessing by how distant your eyes became.” Erik was about to speak, but Rafe held up his hand. “Before you ask how I know, let’s just say that a sailor’s life may not be as grand as that of the Champion of Truth, but it is not without its dangers and losses.”
Erik nodded his understanding. “I lost a dear friend to a group of nomads in the Eastern Wilds,” Erik explained. “Thinking about the map and the other book I had brought on this journey reminded me of him, that’s all. It was a long time ago.”
“But it still feels close, doesn’t it?” Rafe asked. “I lost my grandfather when I was only seven. He had a growth on his neck the size of a small melon. Everyone said it was a goiter. It turned out to be a large tumor. He was in horrible pain for weeks on end, and then he died. I wasn’t there when he finally passed, I was at sea with my father, but I can still remember how my grandmother told me what had happened. There had been no tenderness about it. I ran up to her house, she opened the door, looked down at me, and said he was dead and I didn’t need to come around looking for him anymore. I broke down in tears. Cried right there in front of anyone passing by. It gets better with time, of course. It no longer feels like it was yesterday, but the old adage of time healing all wounds is a pile of gull droppings if you ask me. Time makes it a bit duller perhaps, teaches you how to live with the pain, but it doesn’t heal anything. It may not feel as recent as yesterday to me anymore, but his death still feels close, like maybe it happened a few weeks ago, or last year. There’s always a sadness.”
Erik nodded and sat back against a cedar tree. “Yeah, it still feels close for Tatev and all the others too.”
“And it probably will for the rest of your life,” Rafe said. “I lost several friends to the sea, a few to disease, and one even hung himself. He just gave up and tied a rope around his neck and then jumped off his center mast. Never did understand why though, out of all of us, he had been the happiest.”
Erik didn’t understand that. Suicide was never something he could legitimize. “There’s always another option,” Erik commented.
“Oh, I agree,” Rafe put in quickly. “Doing something like that only trades one kind of hurt for another. Better to persevere on this side of things, where your loved ones can help lift you up. I would have done anything to help him, if he had only told me there was something wrong.” Rafe picked up a stick and chucked it at a bush. “Then again, maybe if I had been a better friend, I would have noticed something wasn’t right.”
“Can’t do that,” Erik cut in. “Blaming yourself is not the right way to go about it.”
Rafe took in a breath and then moved to sit up against a tree trunk a few feet away so he could face Erik. “Sorry,” he offered. “I had been planning on trying to cheer you up. Instead, seems like the conversation went down faster than a rowboat in a whirlpool.”
Erik smiled and waved it off. “It’s all right, but if you want to change subjects, then tell me why you weren’t afraid to sail through the Natchy Moors.”
Rafe wagged a finger at Erik. “Yeah, I did promise you some secrets if we made it this far, didn’t I? Well, truth is, there are a few people who aren’t affected by the illusions and mind games that the moors attack people with.”
“Yes, I was told that it was either a charm or the absolute lack of fear,” Erik said, referring to what Lady Arkyn had told him in the cabin of Rafe’s ship.
“Well, given how I behaved when Vodklyk was after us, I think we can rule out infallible courage,” Rafe said with a wink. Erik laughed and nodded his agreement. “Just promise not to spread that one around when we get back to Gontin, I would lose my livelihood as a ship’s captain.”
Erik held his right hand up in front of him and shook his head. “Secret’s safe with me.”
“There isn’t any charm that would work either,” Rafe said. “Charms rely on enchantments, which as you know is like taking something ordinary, and then putting magic on it to make it special, but the moors can cut through that. I wasn’t joking when I said that wizards have died there either. There used to be scores of wizards that would go in there, hoping to rid the area of its curse and cleanse it for the use of all men, but none of them survived. I reckon there are some places on this world that are just evil, and there isn’t anything to be done about it.”
“It rendered my power useless as well,” Erik said. “That has not happened since I learned how to use it, and I have traveled to many places and fought with many demons and monsters.”
“Aye, I’m sure you have, but the Natchy Moors are a unique kind of evil.”
“So what makes you different?” Erik pressed.
Rafe wrinkled his nose and dug his heel in the dirt in front of him. “You know how the cabin below was lined with mithril, and I said it would keep the illusions out?”
Erik nodded.
“Well, it’s kind of like that, but I need to know that you won’t tell anyone.”
“Sure,” Erik said quickly, eager to know the secret.
“No, I mean it, not even Lady Arkyn can know. I’ll tell you because I owe you my life for getting me away from Vodklyk.”
“All right,” Erik said. “I shall not repeat what you say to anyone.”
Rafe nodded. “I come from a line of people native to Gontin. We have a unique ingredient in our blood.”
“You have mithril in your blood?” Erik asked incredulously.
Rafe shook his head. “Not exactly.” He paused and sighed. “You know how when there is a lot of blood you can smell copper?”
Erik nodded.
“Well, we have that too of course, but our blood also has great amounts of a kind of silver metal in it.”
“Silver?”
Rafe nodded. “It isn’t exactly silver, but it isn’t mithril either. It’s something unique, and it only runs in the lines of a few families, all native to Gontin.”
“How did you discover that?” Erik asked.
“Centuries ago, a vampire came to Gontin. He fed on one of my ancestors, and then immediately died. I am fuzzy on the details, because even now we aren’t entirely sure of the progression of events, but after that there was some research done by that ancestor’s brother. He tested a few other people in Gontin, and eventually discovered that there are people with this special metal in their blood. No idea how it got there or when it started, but it’s there. As time went on and people started disappearing in the Natchy Moors, that same ancestor who did the research went out to the moors to see whether the illusions would have any effect on him.”
“Brave man,” Erik said.
Rafe nodded. “Or insane, but the two aren’t mutually exclusive I suppose.” Rafe smiled and gave another wink. “In any case, he discovered that the illusions did not have any power over him.”
“If that was so long ago, then why not take a ship full of people with this special blood and try to eradicate the monsters in the moors?”
Rafe touched his finger to his nose. “That is exactly what he set out to do. He gathered as many able-bodied men with the silver-blood as he could fit into a ship. For added measure, he hired on fourteen wizards as well.”
“Wait, why not just use wizards who have the… silver-blood, as you called it?”
“Because that is the one down side,” Rafe explained. “To date, not a single person born with silver-blood can perform magic.”
Erik recalled Captain Deringer talking about failing time and time again trying to use the Nighthawk spell. “Captain Deringer is a silver-blood too, isn’t he?”
Rafe’s eyes widened a bit, but then he smiled and nodded. “You have a sharp mind and a keen sense of observation, my friend.” Rafe then shifted his legs a bit and continued on. “In any case, the ship my ancestor took into the moors never returned. Everyone on it died in the moors. Since then, few have dared brave the waters, but I have done it on four separate occasions, not including our voyage. I had seen the bat creatures before, but had only ever been attacked once, and it was easily enough scared off by some shouting and a wave of my sword. I suppose we might have been fine as well, had Vodklyk not showed up.”
“You suspect he stirred up the bat creatures and the giant octopus?” Erik asked.
“Seems as likely a reason as any, or I suppose it was just our lot and we were going to have a bad voyage no matter what. One can only play games of chance for so long before the winning streak turns dry.”
Erik nodded. “Well, we made it through well enough, thanks to you and your quick thinking with those branding marks.” Erik looked at his right forearm, but the mark had washed away when they had crossed the channel the day before.
“I try to keep a few tricks up my sleeve,” Rafe replied.
“And what are you two chattering on about?” Lady Arkyn asked as she came bounding into view with a pair of slain hares slung over her shoulder.
“Just getting to know our fearless friend,” Erik said.
“Fearless?” Lady Arkyn echoed with a scoff. “Then I must have seen someone else panicking when Vodklyk was chasing us.”
“Ha, ha,” Rafe said dryly with a slow clap of his hands. “If you don’t make it as an adventurer, you can always try to become a court jester.”
Lady Arkyn gracefully launched over the stream and plopped the two hares in Rafe’s lap. “If I am to be the jester, then you shall be the cook. Get to work.”
“Ouch,” Erik said under his breath, but it was all in good fun. Rafe and Lady Arkyn were both laughing, and soon the catch was cleaned and roasting over a fire next to the brook. They tore at the food voraciously, having skipped breakfast, and then continued on their way north for another three hours before coming upon a large river flowing in a south-westerly direction. Erik took it as a good sign, because he had memorized the map taken from Alkantar, and the river marked the northern edge of the orcish lands, and signaled that it was time to alter their course to travel northwest, instead of simply north.
“With any luck, we’ll find the cult at the base of the mountains about one hundred miles northwest of this point,” Erik said happily.
“Assuming you can remember where to go,” Rafe cut in.
“I know the map from Alkantar’s notes well enough,” Erik assured him. “I also had done some research of my own on their location before that. We move North West until we find their city or camp somewhere along the base of the Impassable Spine mountain range. In any case, we should be away from the orcs, so we can travel a bit more freely.”
The three spent only a few minutes searching for a natural place to ford the river, and then continued along as the forest fell away and gave the land over to a vast valley filled with knee-high grasses and large, thorny bushes. Mice and rabbits ran across the ground in abundance, with a few eagles circling above or diving down to catch their quarry, but there were no signs of larger animals anywhere in the valley, except for the odd skull or bleached antler lying in the dirt.
After three days of walking and foraging for what they could find to eat, they came upon a stone fence in the valley, near the base of the mountain range. There were no signs or markings, but the fence appeared to be well maintained, with evidence of recent repairs plainly visible. However, there were no guards, or gates, and the fence
was only four feet tall, so they could easily see beyond it, and they saw no structures of any kind in the near distance.
“A border marker?” Rafe suggested as they approached the stone barrier.
“Perhaps,” Erik said. He wished he could take his dragon form and fly up to survey the area, but even if his wing hadn’t been damaged, the Cult of Zammin was the supposed origination of the spell that could prevent him from using his gift as a sahale.
“Well, at least it looks like we are moving in the right direction,” Rafe said as he placed his left hand on the fence and hopped over. “Shall we continue?”
Lady Arkyn nimbly jumped up onto the fence from a standing position, and then scanned the area from the slightly higher vantage point. “I see some animals,” she said. “Look to be caribou perhaps.”
“Well, then if we don’t find the cult you are looking for, at least we can have some proper meat. I am tired of rabbits and mice,” Rafe said as he rubbed his hands together eagerly.
Erik clambered over the wall and the three of them continued on. They approached what indeed was a large herd of caribou. The animals saw them, but they didn’t spook or startle in any way.
“Seems they are used to seeing humans,” Lady Arkyn said. “The fence may be a visual marker for the herd’s grazing lands.”
“A four foot fence wouldn’t keep these animals in,” Rafe said with a shake of his head.
“Unless they have been domesticated for a long enough time that they are trained to stay within their boundaries,” Lady Arkyn replied. “Either way, we should be getting close.”
They walked through the grazing herd and beyond them for two more miles until they came to a row of large, stone buildings. Smoke was gently rising out from the chimney of the first building. Rafe and Erik let their hands hover over their swords, but they needn’t have worried.
The wooden door swung open and an elderly woman with wrinkled, tanned skin, dressed in thick layers of cloth and leather clothing came out with an empty basket. She looked up and smiled at the three of them.
