by Gwynn White
I stopped short and just gaped at him. “You mean they’ve already left?”
Answorth nodded. “A couple minutes ago, Beyland and a dozen others. They took the middling path into the Grimwood, so you’d better hurry before they’re too far to catch.”
A rock formed in the pit of my stomach, making me feel heavy and hollow at the same time. “The…the Grimwood?”
“What are you waiting for? Grab your stick and go after them!”
I considered the slender staff that I had left leaning against the frame of the door, and my eyes slid to the more attractive sheath of the sword hanging next to it.
“Don’t you even think about it, boy,” Answorth growled.
But he was too late. In an instant, I lunged forward, taking both weapons under my arms. The sword was heavier than I had imagined it would be, and I only barely managed to dodge Answorth’s flailing, meaty arms as he tried to stop me. The door opened at my touch, though, and I felt the crisp mountain air and harsh morning sun battling to control the temperature of my face. Either way, it stung, but not nearly as badly as Answorth’s retribution would be once I returned.
It was about time that I learned to use a sword, though. I couldn’t understand why Answorth forbade me from wielding an iron blade like the other boys my age. Sure, he wouldn’t be able to stand long enough to teach me how to fight, but he could easily have conscripted one of the older boys to be my mentor.
No matter, I thought. I have iron now.
This iron was tamed, its nasty temperament beaten out long ago by the high flames and heavy hammer of a smithy in Kingsford. Its weight felt good in my hands—plural, since it was slightly too long and burdensome for me to comfortably wield in one hand. I tossed aside my wooden staff like an unwanted toy, finally understanding why Answorth called it a mere stick. I slung the leather strap over my shoulder and secured the sheathed blade along my back.
“The middling road,” I reminded myself. We needed game, and the men of the Brigade were the best hunters around. I took off at a sprint, which soon became a mild jog as the weight of the iron slowed me down. My legs carried me past the iron tamer, past a dozen other thatch-roofed wooden huts like mine and Answorth’s, following the well-worn trail that led south out of Pointe.
Straight into the Grimwood.
2
My first instinct was to turn around.
The opening ranks of the Grimwood stood to face me, their tallest branches soaring hundreds of feet overhead. Limbs and leaves overlapped and intertwined in such a way that there was very little sunlight, if any, making it to the ground. Its shadowy embrace was a dark spot on an otherwise pristine stretch of valley.
It would have been easy to flee to the relative safety of home. Answorth might whip me within an inch of my life, but I’d heard tales of much worse things happening to those who entered the Grimwood. Why in the world the Brigade had chosen such a dangerous path to hunt, I had no idea.
But we needed the meat.
A horn sounded from within the forest, a call that told me they had found a boar. I squashed my fear and charged through the tree line. The sword jostled on my back as I hopped over trip-roots and ducked under thorny, barbed vines that hung like serpents. I hadn’t encountered any beasts yet, and the Grimwood was already trying to dye the soil red with my blood.
Maybe that’s a tad dramatic, I thought considerately, just before a branch reached out and wrapped around my arm.
I definitely did not shriek in surprise. It was a mighty roar of defiance at this new threat.
The grey limb gripped my wrist so tightly that I was sure my hand would pop off like a cork from a bottle. Its bark started to scrape away my skin as it worked its way up my arm. I struggled in vain against it, my undeveloped muscles too weak to break its hold.
From the shadows of the tree, a woodland creature emerged. I don’t mean to say that it was any old creature inhabiting the woods; this monster was literally formed from the trees and the earth. A spriggan, no doubt, though this was the first one I’d ever seen. Over eight feet tall and apparently very angry, its eyes burned like swampfire as it bore down on me.
The spriggan had no mouth, but a deep rumbling issued forth from it, and I felt the vibrations of it through our connected arms. Leaves erupted from the surrounding trees, startled from their perches by the spriggan’s roar. My feet slipped on mud that seemingly appeared out of nowhere, and I found myself being lifted off the ground. The sword started to slip from my shoulder, but I managed to catch it by the grip. Its sheath fell free to the mud, the too-heavy sword now dragging me down. It was in my left hand—my strong hand—but I knew that I was only strong enough to hold it for a few more seconds.
Low and deep, the hunting horn sounded again, much closer this time. The Brigade was coming this way, apparently on the trail of their spotted prey. Unfortunately, the spriggan seemed to take no heed of their mortal hunt for food. Its limbs tightened with bone-crushing force around my forearm.
I heard several shouts from the approaching men, and an arrow whistled through the air and burrowed its head in the spriggan’s side.
The spriggan tossed me aside like a limp rag and turned its attention on the incoming threat.
For the second time today, a flurry of stars obscured my vision as I tried to see my rescuers.
Three men with thin, curved bows were lancing arrows faster than I could track, each one connecting with the spriggan. Well, almost each one. My head bobbed with fatigue, and an errant arrow embedded itself in the bark of the tree just above my head.
The small stone arrowheads seemed to be ineffective against the creature, which raised its leafy head and unleashed another mouthless, unearthly roar of fury. A shockwave hit the archers, knocking them from their perched positions.
Enough time had been bought for the rest of the Brigade to bring their arms to bear. Beyland, a tall, lithe warrior and leader of the Brigade, swung his broadsword with incredible speed. The spriggan batted the blade aside with one arm and pushed him back with the other, sending Beyland flying in a whoosh of air and scattered leaves. Like me, he collided solidly with a wide tree.
Unlike me, he got up immediately and charged back into battle.
Come on, I thought, urging my limbs to work together. The fingers in my left hand twitched.
The Brigade converged on the spriggan, and it repelled them all with devastating blows from its massive limbs and some kind of earth magic that commanded the trees and soil around them. A handful of men had the boots sucked right off their feet by hungry mud, and another cluster fell prey to a line of trip-roots that appeared suddenly from the ground.
I placed my hand on a gnarled root and started pulling myself to my feet.
Beyland held his own for several seconds in a frenzied exchange before the spriggan thwacked him solidly over the head. The thick bark of its arm cracked with the impact, a resounding noise that made my body shiver in response. In a matter of minutes, the monster had effectively taken out the entire Brigade. Only one man was left standing, with the perfect opening to strike.
Here goes everything.
I cried out in frustration as I raised Answorth’s iron above my head, the too-long blade threatening to send me off balance. Two steps carried me within range, and I swung down with all of my remaining strength. The iron sliced through the outer bark and plunged into the corky layer below, embedding the sword to the hilt.
A howl unlike any other knocked me from the spriggan’s back as the creature writhed and contorted in sudden agony. Its cry pierced to the core of my soul, filling my legs with pitch and making it impossible to move away from the terrifying sight before me.
The spriggan twisted and turned as its overall outline became vague, transforming into a flurry of radiant leaves one moment and warping into a mind-bending tangle of vines the next. Answorth’s blade remained stuck in its back, though, seeming to block that portion of the spriggan’s body from changing its shape. The bark nearest the blade remain
ed as fixed and unchanging as stone.
Iridescent, algae-colored flames glared at me from the shadowy forest spirit as it retreated into the embrace of the distant trees. It faded from view just as the first of the Brigade’s men came to.
“What in the hell was that?” one of the archers muttered.
Another man reached out and lifted me to my feet, slinging one of his arms under my shoulder as my legs still felt as stable as those of a newborn.
Beyland stomped into the glade with a newfound rage in his eyes. He stepped toward me with his tamed blade raised purposefully. “You’ve ruined everything, boy!”
3
String him up and flay him!”
“Burn him!”
“Cast ‘im in the river!”
I looked around at the frenzied villagers. While I couldn’t say any of them were friends, these were people I’d grown up with, people I’d known my whole life. To hear them so eager for my blood…it gnawed at something deep inside of me.
Beyland held me tightly by the collar as we walked to the center of town. The magistrate and his councilmen watched impotently as the leader of the Brigade worked the crowd into their current state of bloodlust.
“For too long, we have allowed this cursed thing to live among us,” Beyland shouted. He threw me to the ground, and two of the other hunters pressed my face into the dirt as they wrenched my arms painfully behind my back. “We should have thrown him to the wolves after the fire!”
Cries of accord rose up from the mob.
“Fire with fire,” one woman shrieked. “Put him on the stake!”
“Make him into a steak,” suggested the man beside her.
“He should take the Walk!” shouted another man.
Beyland’s blade slid from its sheath, and even in the faint shimmer of the firelight dancing along its length, I could see the reflected image of the hawk-eyed man glaring back at me.
I’m cursed, and now I’m going to die for it.
I prayed to whatever gods there were, but they’d never answered me before.
“Brigadier,” the magistrate said, stepping forward. “Of what crime do you accuse the boy?”
“Theft, trespassing, and murder,” Beyland answered without hesitation. The crowd murmured and gasped at the last declaration.
“Murder?!” I tried to raise my head, but was quickly forced back down. I heard one of the archer nock an arrow.
“Try it again,” he taunted.
“Silence!” ordered the magistrate, but Beyland turned to address the crowd at large.
“You all deserve to hear the truth of his crimes,” he told them. “He took tamed iron that was not his own, a fact which was confirmed by his loyal and benevolent guardian. With this stolen blade, he recklessly barged into the Grimwood—without the consent of the council, I might add—and threatened one of the spirits within.”
“That’s not what happened,” I snarled. “You’re a liar!”
Beyland’s voice lowered, and the crowd hushed to hear what he said next. “One of my bravest men was slain in the defense of this boy,” he told them. “This worthless, cursed, wretched excuse for a coward cost the Brigade the valuable prize of its hunt, taking another man’s life so that he could…do what?” Beyland rounded on me now, and I could see the whites of his eyes as he continued his tirade. “Disturb the fragile arrangement we have with the forest’s guardians?”
“I went to—”
I received a sharp smack to the jaw, enough to stun me into silence.
“There’s only one thing left to do with you,” Beyland growled. With a single, fluid motion, he wrapped one hand around my throat and lifted me in the air. I kicked viciously, hoping to hurt him enough to make him drop me, but I may as well have been a helpless rabbit for all the concern he showed.
His blade hummed obediently as its edge nipped at the nape of my neck.
“I just caught this one rummaging through my grain stores again!”
Everyone’s eyes collectively turned to see the baker, a testy needle of a man, leading a young girl by the ear. His beady eyes took in the scene—the torches of our townsfolk provided more than enough illumination by which to see the Brigade’s drawn iron—and he called out to Beyland. “I need to use the stake,” he complained. The baker’s sneer swept the crowd. “Who is responsible for this girl?”
A lump formed in my throat as I recognized the girl’s features. Arwin. She was unsightly to lay eyes upon, but I couldn’t look away from her terrified face. The scar she bore was hidden behind a veil of hair, leaving only the smooth and proper side of her head to be seen in the light. Even so, there was no sympathy to be had from the mob. Arwin was feral, an unwanted outcast among the villagers.
I guess that makes two of us, I thought, trying not to hiss in pain as Beyland’s sharp iron teased a fine line of red in my skin. A single drop of blood dribbled along the length of his sword.
“As you can see, we’re busy,” Beyland told the man. “The wench is your business.”
A nasty gleam entered the baker’s eye, and I wondered what perverse acts he would force upon Arwin before her throat was slit. “A fine point, Brigadier,” the baker said lecherously. He tugged at the girl’s ear. “Come on, then!”
“You both seem to be forgetting who is in charge around here,” the magistrate said. He wasn’t a large man, and if it were to come to blows, Beyland would beat him handily. The imperial seal that marked his office was the only thing that gave him power in Pointe. “It is their right to choose the Walk, if they so desire.”
A sudden chill found its home in the length of my spine.
Sinister tales were told of the Walk, dark whispers that hinted at something unnatural dwelling in the tunnels north of Pointe. Our mining town had become a village of hunters overnight as the mines were abandoned and we effectively sealed ourselves away from the rest of the Empire. Nobody who entered the passageway ever came back, and so the Walk had become the last resort for dealing with criminals. By fire, by blade, or by the Walk. These were the three options that faced me now.
No way in any of the hells am I taking the Walk.
“No way in any of the hells is he taking the Walk,” Beyland echoed aloud, growling at the magistrate.
“Thank you,” I managed to whisper.
“This blade will bleed him dry for his crimes, and I shall be the one who wields it.”
The chill in my spine returned, intensified by the cold iron that pressed tighter against my throat. Nobody shouted out in protest, not even the magistrate, as Beyland clearly prepared to spill my life upon the rocky ground below.
“I will take the Walk!”
Once again, Arwin attracted the attention of everyone.
And that included Beyland.
Blood pounded furiously through my veins, my heartbeat throbbing in my skull as I raised my hand in desperation. Fear of the blade overrode any fear of what could come of the Walk. With a swipe that felt all-too-feeble to me, I managed to knock Beyland’s iron away from my throat for a fraction of a second.
That was long enough.
I rolled forward as the sword sliced through the air where my head had just been. An explosion of pain blossomed from my shoulder as I moved, and blood seeped through my fingers as I clamped a hand over the spot. I felt the wooden haft of an arrow sticking out of the muscle. Beyland stalked toward me, his tamed iron positively humming in tune with his arrogant, deadly stride.
I swore an oath and yelled, “I will take the Walk!”
Eager to prevent any further bloodshed, the magistrate stepped forward and stood by my side. Not in the direct path of Beyland’s blade should he have chosen to strike, but enough that his presence was visible even through the veil of red that must have fallen over the brigadier’s eyes.
“They have chosen the Walk,” the magistrate declared, as much to Beyland as to the mob.
“Good riddance,” grumbled one man.
“Serves them right.”
The crowd
didn’t disperse as expected, though, and the reason became clear a moment later. Beyland stood close by—too close to me for comfort—and his iron remained bare in his hands.
“They have chosen the Walk,” the magistrate repeated insistently. “Their fate is no longer of our concern.”
My heart soared for the man’s intervention, but at the same time, my mind raced as it thought through the magistrate’s claims. The Walk had never been an official judgment passed down by the Emperor, only the product of Pointe’s unfortunate run-in with the cave-dwelling monster, whatever it was. It was young, as far as judgments went, and Beyland could easily have decided that the magistrate had no authority to enforce the Walk. It was an informal law, after all, and he seemed to have a personal oath against me. As far as I could tell, he saw each breath I took as another mark against his honor.
“He will die either way,” Beyland said, his voice deep and low. “Why delay the inevitable?”
“The Brigade may follow your every beck and call, but these people—our neighbors and friends—are still loyal citizens of the Qati Empire. I know you desire Pointe and the Grimwood, Brigadier, so I ask you the same question. Why delay the inevitable?” The magistrate stood up a little straighter and cast a disdainful glance at Beyland’s sword. “If you go against their beliefs and use iron to enforce your will, they will one day rise against you.”
Beyland was silent as he alternated his glare between myself and the magistrate. With obvious reluctance, he slid his iron back into its sheath.
The reedy man cleared his throat and spoke again, loud enough to be heard by the townsfolk. “Mal and Arwin will take the Walk.”
4
We left for the tunnel immediately.
Seeing as we were going into a pitch-black mine shaft, the magistrate figured there was no sense in waiting until dawn for the hike to be made. A light rain began to fall, muting the light of the lantern held by the magistrate as he argued over the plan with his councilmen.
