by Drew Hayes
“Do you believe that’s actually how it happened?” Timuscor asked.
“I believe it’s close enough that whatever details might be wrong are inconsequential. And, in truth, I’ve never cared much for how Grumble became a god in the first place. What matters to me is how he uses that status, and Grumble chose to watch over those who previously had none that cared for them. His actions and people tell far more about who he is than a legend of his origins ever could.”
“He did seem pretty down to earth,” Eric agreed. “I mean, for a god.”
Timuscor turned his head so quickly it nearly sent Thistle tumbling off the side of the horse. “You too have met this god?”
“Sort of. We met in a dream. Or when I was dying; I’ve never been completely sure on exactly where I stood at that moment. Point is, yeah, we had a quick chat and he agreed to help Thistle heal me. All I had to do was promise never to set foot in my homeland again.” Eric allowed his horse to drift slightly away from Timuscor’s, a brief flicker of pain dancing in his eyes.
When he spoke next, it was not of gods or the sacrifices they demanded. “Thistle, I hope your gut is telling you to turn soon. At this rate, we’ll be trying to ride horses up a mountain in the next hour, and even if Grumph were here, I don’t think he has a spell for that.”
“As far as I can tell, we are meant to keep heading directly forward,” Thistle replied. “Though our proximity to the mountain does raise an interesting point: were we not told this was the place where the skull was first uncovered?”
“You think the people of the town came all the way out here, in the dead of night, searching for clues in the place where the skull popped up?” Eric didn’t bother trying to sound skeptical; his words did the job well enough on their own.
“I have no idea if this is where the people of the town are or not; even assuming I am being guided toward a spot of powerful evil, there’s no guarantee Briarwillow’s citizens will be at the same place. I do have one thought, however, about what it might be that’s pulling me in.”
“Do we want to know this?” Eric asked.
“Probably not, but I’m going to tell you anyway.” Thistle’s mind flashed back to the dream once more, and he shook his head until the visions sank back to the less accessible parts of his mind.
“My theory is this: skulls do not usually exist in isolation, at least not when fulfilling their intended function. More often than not, where there’s a skull, there’s a skeleton.”
* * *
The last of the trees were only spots of green in the distance as they drew close to the mountain. In place of the lush foliage were small, determined plants that stayed close to the ground, not daring to reach up into the sky. From what Thistle could recall, this mountain marked the division between Alcatham’s more bountiful pieces of kingdom and the Hooran desert, a vast swath of uninhabitable land separating Alcatham and Baltmur. Technically, both nations would claim it if pressed on the issue, but neither could find a way to actually make use of the desert’s desolate miles. That relegated it to a matter reserved for royalty to bicker about, not for soldiers to fight for.
The mountain did make an excellent boundary, though. It loomed before them, nearly as wide as it was tall. Going around it would take no less than two days, and that was assuming one had good horses and no delays. It was a sprawling expanse of elevated rock that could make the world seem like it was closing in if stared at for too long.
Just as with the other lands around Briarwillow, there seemed to be no signs of life remaining. Aside from the occasional bug or a lone bird circling high overhead, the world around them was lonely and quiet, factors which made the trail of footsteps lingering in a section of loose gravel all the more puzzling of a discovery.
“There were a lot of them,” Eric said. He’d dismounted from his horse, which was currently trying to choke down one of the tough shrubs as it hung around nearby. “I can’t tell how many, though, or when these tracks were made. This whole area seems so undisturbed that it could have been two weeks ago, or it might have been just before we arrived. We really need Gabby for any sort of decent tracking estimate.”
Thistle surveyed the area around them, finding nothing new that could have been missed in the dozen other scans he’d made. He and Timuscor had also dismounted from their horse, though theirs was a bit better trained and stayed close to the knight who’d been riding it. They were close, he knew that at least. His odd stomach feeling was practically growing stronger by the step. Something was around here, and it wasn’t on the side of good. It was plain to see where logic dictated the source must be located; Thistle just didn’t enjoy what those implications were. He’d always known it was a possibility, but he’d still held out hope that he’d be wrong. Not for the first, nor last time in Thistle’s life, he detested discovering that his suspicions had been correct.
“It seems the people of Briarwillow have gone the way of the dwarf,” Thistle sighed. He nodded his head slightly; there was no need to make a show of it. There was little chance the others could mistake his gesture to be indicating anything aside from the towering hunk of land that blotted out the eastern sky.
“Tunneling through mountains is a lot of work, even for an entire town working together,” Eric pointed out.
“Aye, but discovering abandoned tunnels, now, that’s a far easier task.” Thistle ran his eyes along the mountain’s slopes as carefully as fingers across a lover’s face. “The skull was found here, we know that much already. It was discovered by people who were looking to mine for precious ore. Now, while it’s certainly possible that someone chucked a powerful, cursed skull in a hole by a mountain, doesn’t it seem far more likely that it was stored away in some sort of crypt or hidden dungeon, accidently uncovered by a pair of bumbling prospectors that carved through the wrong piece of rock?”
“It doesn’t make more sense,” Eric said. “But given what we know about the world, it does seem more likely. You think there are tunnels and caverns under the mountain, then?”
“Under or through, it makes no difference. Either one would provide an excellent place to store a cursed artifact that could wipe out entire towns. No one comes here in the first place; its proximity to the desert makes it a pointless path, and the mountain itself is a sheer annoyance. There’s no challenge in scaling it or beauty to gaze at from its peak. It’s the sort of place that lends itself to going undisturbed, which I suspect was exactly what someone was looking for.”
“If you’re right, that’s still a lot of mountain to search,” Timuscor said.
“Thankfully, we aren’t searching as much as we are following a path. A wobbly, inconvenient one I’ll admit, but a path nonetheless.” Thistle found his eyes resting on a particular spot on the mountain’s surface, dull and lifeless as every other inch he’d scanned. Yet, when his gaze fell upon this spot, the twisting in his gut doubled in intensity, nearly causing Thistle to gasp in surprise. He looked away and felt the sensation lessen, then turned his eyes back. Sure enough, the twisting grew stronger once more. It was at best a pointed sign, at worst a clue. Unfortunately, it also meant they’d have to leave the relative safety of daylight and descend into the uncharted darkness of the mountain.
“I want you both to know, going beyond this point is likely to be very dangerous,” Thistle announced. “While I might not know precisely what’s waiting for us inside there, I can say with certainty that it will be powerful. I realize that trying to discourage you both from coming along is a fool’s errand and wastes precious time I don’t have, so at least let me caution you. Be on your guard, be wary of your surroundings, and be ready to retreat at my signal.”
“Paladins can’t retreat,” Eric reminded him. “That’s what got us into this position in the first place.”
“Perhaps, perhaps not. My god is one who rules over the minions, and we are not a stalwart bunch by our nature. Since I am working in preparation for attack, rather than committing to a charge, he may be willing to cut me
a little slack. Even paladins should have the option of using strategy. Either way, it makes no difference. I said that you were to be ready to run at my signal, not that I was certain I’d be behind you.”
Eric stared at the gnome with a look like he’d taken a sip of ale before it was done fermenting. “Thistle, you don’t really expect us to abandon you in there, do you?”
“I dearly wish you would, if the need arises. Remember, I have the protection of a god with me. It’s possible for me to survive things that you two might not. And, should that fail to prove true, I at least have the assurances of being escorted into the afterlife with a warm welcome and open arms. A paladin’s career might be short-lived, but the retirement is top-notch. You two have no such assurances. You need to prioritize living above all else, if for no other reason than to warn the others.”
“Let’s see if the situation actually arises before we spend an hour arguing about it,” Eric suggested.
“Good plan,” Timuscor agreed. “Words are malleable and easy to forget, anyway. No one knows what they will do in a moment of crisis until they live through it. We will only see what actions we take when we are put to the fire.”
“Well then,” Thistle said, starting off toward the mountain. “Let’s all try very hard to not end up running for our lives in the first place.”
Eric chuckled. “It would make for a nice change of pace.”
Chapter 12
It was hard to say what was more impressive: Fritz’s strange, horseless miniature cart or the way the device pivoted and bucked through the trees without ever crashing. Neither Gabrielle nor Grumph had known quite what to make of the strange device when it was pulled, in miniature form, out of Fritz’s seemingly bottomless satchel, and after hours of riding through the woods, they were still quite confounded by it. The one thing they both knew was that Fritz seemed to be having more fun driving her cart than they were riding their horses. Gabrielle almost opened her mouth to ask how much the wizards charged for a device like that, but then she remembered the price of a simple cooking box and thought better of it.
Gabrielle had never been poor, and she still didn’t consider herself to fall into that category. Growing up in the mayoral mansions of Maplebark had shown her luxury, and the amount of gold they’d won since leaving town would have required years to work up to honestly. Still, seeing the fancy trinkets that Fritz made a living selling drove home for the first time just how much money was out there. If they stayed on this path of theirs, continuing to work as adventurers, there might one day come a point where she could buy one of Fritz’s carts or cooking boxes without so much as a second thought. It was mind-boggling to try and picture, though still not quite as strange as the self-moving device tumbling across the uneven ground.
The forest had, thankfully, not grown any denser as they made their way parallel to the kingdom’s road. Occasionally, they would veer closer to it than intended, alerted to the mistake only by catching a glimpse of the road through the trees or hearing the sound of other riders in the distance. Fortune was favoring them, but as with all things, it was bound to run dry sooner or later.
Shadows splayed over the ground like lazy fingers as the afternoon sun fell further from the apex of its rise. After nearly a full day of solid progress, the trees were finally becoming too thick to navigate Fritz’s cart through, and the horses were struggling as well. Foliage had become a true forest, which meant their only way through was to risk riding the road until the trees thinned once more.
“There’s no way they won’t have a camp around here,” Gabrielle declared, trying for the fifth time to guide her horse out of the oaks it was stuck between. “With as much as they’re riding the roads, this is the perfect pinch point to catch anyone who has been staying out of sight.”
“The thick patch might run for miles,” Fritz pointed out. She’d stepped out of her cart and was watching it shrink slowly back to a form no larger than her hand. “They can’t be watching all of it.”
“How long doesn’t matter. Only where it starts.” Grumph was still sitting atop his horse, as he’d seen where things were going and stopped trying to press forward unnecessarily.
“He’s right. If they know this is the spot where forest travel becomes impossible, then they only need to be ready around here . . . probably a little ways up the road, some of them lying in ambush. If too big of a group goes through, they just stay hidden. Otherwise, they pop out and do some plundering.”
Fritz frowned as she scooped up her cart and popped it into her satchel. “I find that unacceptable; most of what I have are loaned prototypes. Having to pay for them would seriously cut into my profit margin.”
“We could try to sneak by,” Gabrielle suggested.
“On an open road? How are we going to manage that? Do you two have some invisibility magic you’ve been keeping up your sleeves?” Fritz asked.
“No, not unless Grumph found any new spells in that book of his.”
“Still five,” Grumph assured them.
“Right, so we can’t go invisible, but we can wait until nightfall and try to ride past,” Gabrielle said.
“Pretty sure they’ll hear us coming, which actually would have been a problem with the invisibility plan too,” Fritz realized. “We could try racing by, running past whatever they have set up before they can get ready for our arrival.”
“Horses are too slow.” Grumph patted his mount affectionately, but it didn’t change the truth in his words. His steed might be able to make it for a few hours more than Gabrielle’s, but that was only a maybe. Both were older and had been on the road for weeks, with little chance to rest. If it were a sprint to town, there was a chance, but with at least another full day’s ride ahead of them, there was no hope of outrunning prepared bandits.
“It’s true; we wouldn’t make it more than an hour or so going at full speed.” Gabrielle tugged forward, finally freeing her horse. It snorted in either annoyance or gratitude—Gabrielle couldn’t be sure. “Your cart might be able to, though.”
“Sadly, they only run for around ten hours every day before they have to recharge themselves. As it is, I’ll have to hitch a ride with you if we travel past nightfall,” Fritz explained.
“We can’t sneak past, we can’t run past, and if we try to fight our way past, we’ll probably get slaughtered.” With a careful hand, Gabrielle guided her horse back to the leaner part of the forest, hoping it would manage to stay unstuck for at least a little while. “Any other options on the table that I missed?”
“Camouflage,” Grumph suggested.
“It’s an open road, and even if there were something to blend in with, I doubt I’d be able to whip up convincing outfits in a reasonable amount of time,” Gabrielle replied.
Grumph shook his head and lowered himself down slowly from his horse. Reaching into his backpack, he produced a length of rope, followed by a small dagger.
“Wrong kind of camouflage. If we must walk through a trap, we go as predators. Not prey.”
* * *
Finding the tunnel’s entrance hadn’t actually been difficult once they knew where they were looking. Had they been forced to comb the seemingly endless mountainscape, it could have taken weeks, perhaps even months, to locate what they were looking for. But with Thistle’s strange stomach pointing the way, it was a relatively simple matter to locate the small opening concealed in a hanging rock’s shadow.
Getting to the entrance had proved more problematic and required some moderate climbing from all parties involved. The horses were left at the base of the mountain—normally an equine death sentence as they’d be food for monsters, but with the area barren of other life, it seemed like only a moderate risk. Two humans and a gnome began making their way up the steep, rocky surface as carefully as they could, prioritizing sure-footedness over speed.
Eric, the only one of the three with human-sized limbs and not burdened by bulky armor, was able to scramble up well ahead of the others. Timuscor followed after him
with Thistle bringing up the rear. The climb wasn’t especially steep or high, merely burdensome, like everything else about the mountain. By his reckoning, Eric figured they’d be able to race down the mountain’s face if they had to hurry out of there, though Thistle might need to do some healing after it was all said and done.
“Do we have a plan for how we’re going to find our way around in there?”
Timuscor was staring into the narrow opening, straining to see more than a few inches beyond where the daylight ended. It was a futile effort; the mountain devoured what little light made its way into the waiting maw without so much as a hiccup.
“I think I may have a leftover torch from the dungeon.” Eric began to remove his small backpack, only to have Thistle put a steadying hand on his shoulder.
“Hold on a moment, there’s something I’d like to try.” Thistle walked over to Timuscor and gently rested his hands on the shining shield strapped to Timuscor’s back. “Grumble, god of the minions, you are sending us into darkness. To better serve your will and accomplish our mission, I beseech thee to light our path.”
At first, it seemed like nothing happened; then a soft white light began to cloud the mirror-like surface of Timuscor’s shield. It spread across the gleaming surface until every inch of the shield was glowing brightly. Unstrapping it from his back, Timuscor pointed it toward the mountain’s opening, revealing a sloped tunnel moving downward.
