The Wanderer's Tale: Esmor

by Rex Foote

  “But you have not only gained knowledge and understanding during your time here; the bond you share, the bond the kept you going during the hardest times before, has been strengthened until now it is a thing unbreakable. With each other and with what you have learned from us, there will be nothing to stop you from reaching your destination and from roaming the rest of Unith, if you so desire.”

  He gestured, and Bula and Orgha stepped forward, a pack and stout staff in either hand. They gave one of each to both of the pair, and Esme was reassured by the weight of the pack and the supplies she knew it contained.

  “We give you these gifts to aid you wherever you wish to go. They are given by those who taught you what you needed to know, and this is their final gift to offer you.”

  They both thanked the Ohruin, then Esme spoke, “Thank you, all of you. Without your help, we had no chance to make it to Mymt.”

  Then she came forward and hugged first Yatur then Bula, both of whom returned her embrace in kind. For his part, Orgha came up to Hark, put a hand on his shoulder, and said, “You have changed more so than your friend; you are not the same Elreni I first met. Together, I believe you two will do great things.”

  Hark nodded, then also embraced Orgha, who returned the gesture. After this, the pair set off, walking in a northeasterly direction towards Mymt. The three Ohruin stood there watching them go until they disappeared over the far horizon. Bula bowed deeply to Yatur, gave Orgha a respectful nod, and headed back into camp, leaving the hunter and the shaman to stand silently together.

  “I was told,” Yatur began, breaking the silence, “that it’s not over for her, and that her old life will reach one last time for her. Tell me, do you think she will take the offered hand and return to her old ways?”

  Without taking his gaze off the spot where he had last seen the pair, Orgha replied, “No, she won’t. But it won’t mean that she will let go easily.”

  They made good time that day, and made use of the skills they had been taught when stopping at sun’s peak, checking the direction they were going was the right one. During the day’s travel, Esme noticed that Hark was far more like his old self back in Caladaria, quick to smile and relaxed with humour. Gone was the tense edge to his expressions and the fear that crept near the edge of his eyes. They eventually stopped for the day near a small stream where they took the chance to refill their waterskins, and got a fire going using dried dung chips from their packs. As Hark set up the food to cook, she reached a decision. She had to talk to him about the choice she made that morning in Yatur’s tent, never having thought to tell him before now.

  As their meal cooked, she said, “Hark, I need to tell you something.”

  He looked up at her, his expression one of interest.

  “That morning after we made it to Yatur’s tribe, I told you that I wanted to stay with the Ohruin, and after you did too, we both kinda decided that we were going to carry on to Mymt after we left them.”

  Still nothing from Hark, just an earnest expression of interest on his features.

  “Well, that’s not all I decided that morning. I don’t want to go back to my old life. I want to do this, to stay out here and roam the land and visit places like Rulun, Drackmoor, and the Heartward Isles. And I don’t want to do it alone. I want you to come with me because I love you, Hark.”

  That last sentence came out in a rush, and it left her slightly breathless, not just because she had let it all out in a hurry, but because she had wanted this for a long time, to tell him her plans for the future and to tell him what she truly felt for him. This whole journey had shown her that Hark was more than a good friend and that she wanted things to be this way. Hark slowly removed the stew from the fire, placed it on the ground, came over to her, and hugged her.

  “Good, because I want to come with you,” was his reply, whispered fiercely into her ear, and she hugged him back as she felt relief flood through her. The feeling of love was mutual, as was the desire to wander the lands of Unith with her. They separated after a long while and ate the now slightly cold stew, idly chatting about their time spent with the Ohruin, though each knew the other’s experiences by heart, having done all this during the evenings they had spent together. Rather than talking about anything of importance, each was simply content to let the other ramble and pass the evening like this until eventually Esme felt tired enough to rest. She withdrew her bedroll from her pack and drifted slowly off to sleep, a contented smile on her face, while Hark took first watch.

  Hark watched her for a long time after she fell asleep, his gaze resting on her peaceful form while his mind raced. He had known that she felt that way about him; there was no way they could have gone through what they had and not seen it. And he did want to go with her as she roamed this land and those beyond it, and surely he loved her in return, right? But when the subject of love came up, that small, dark voice in the far recesses of his mind that was the manifestation of his self-doubt whispered its poisonous words to him. It spoke of how it had been his failure that almost got her killed in the swamp, and that it was his fault that the patrol from Caladaria had assumed he had kidnapped her. The voice told him that all the danger she had ever been in on this trip had been due to him or his failings, and Hark felt inclined to agree; after all, hadn’t Yatur said as much during their conversation that first morning? But he was a different person now. Yatur’s exposure of his lie and Orgha’s teaching meant that he could now do the things he had only believed himself capable of before. So long as they stayed together, they would be utterly safe, able to survive this journey and any others they wished to take. But, purred the voice, what if his failings were down to his character? What if they were innate to him? If he decided to go with her, as well as love her just as she did him, and then he failed because it was in his nature to do so, then what a terrible thing that would be. These thoughts haunted him through his watch, never doing anything more than needling him with doubt and preventing him from admitting to himself that he loved Esme as much as she did him.

  The next day, around midmorning, the pair entered rocky, hilly terrain where steep walls of bare rock hemmed in small, narrow passages, while on the tops of these walls of stone grew grass and plants. It was if the land had been shattered and parts of it were splintered up to form these narrow defiles and canyons. The pair entered one such passage and spent the next few hours stumbling around it, unable to clearly see the sun as it was blocked by the walls of rock and earth around them. Esme was about to suggest they turn around when the land started to slope upwards. As she was leading, she started to follow the slope, and at a faster pace than they had been going, so much so that Hark gave a small shout of surprise when she began to outdistance him, making him jog to keep up.

  “Hey,” he said, taking her by a shoulder to slow her down as he drew level. “What is going on?”

  “There is something up this slope, I can feel it,” she replied, a feeling of excitement building deep within her.

  Hark’s only response was to raise a sceptical eyebrow, to which she slapped him on the shoulder. Turning back and jogging up the slope, she called back, “Come on, when have I ever got us into trouble over a feeling?”

  “Where should I start?” was all he said, but low so that she could not hear as he jogged after her. The path continued to slope upwards for the next ten yards until it sharply increased its angle, causing both of them to slow as the steep angle proved too much to move up with any great speed, even after their month spent with the Ohruin. While they had followed the slope, the walls that had hemmed them in had shrunk in size so that when they reached the top, they could see out across the entire breadth of the shattered landscape and to the familiar plains beyond. But neither of them cared about that, because they had reached the top, and what lay before them was not what either had expected to see. Before them was a perfect crater; its steep inner walls looked like they were made of glass. At its deepest point, it would have fit a tall pine without its tip passing the basin�
�s lip, and the crater itself was probably one hundred yards across. But that wasn’t all. What had caught the pair’s attention the moment they crested the slope was the solitary column of rock that reached up from the crater’s centre to about the height they were standing at.

  They stood and stared at the scene before them for some time before Hark, in an awed tone, asked, “What made this?”

  “Magic,” was Esme’s quiet, almost meek, answer.

  “What?” Hark’s gaze snapped from the crater to his friend. “How could you know that?”

  “I can feel it,” she replied, her tone indicating that she barely believed what she was saying. “It’s like when you walk into an old room, and there’s a certain smell about the room. I can smell powerful, old magic coming from this crater.”

  “How do you know how old it is?” Hark inquired.

  “Because that smell is faint—almost gone, but still there.”

  He nodded at this, unable to refute it, and turned his gaze back to the crater. This explained why the land they had just walked through had looked shattered. As he looked out over the scene, he said, “The magic that made this must have been…”

  “Very, very powerful.”

  They stood there for a while longer, their minds taking in everything before them before Hark finally said, “We can travel around the rim. Find a passage that will take us out of here and leave this behind us.”

  Esme nodded, and they set off, finding a way out quickly now that they could see over the entire shattered area, and by afternoon they had left the strange crater and all it implied behind them. As they camped for the night, neither of them spoke about it. After all, what could they say? The crater was the result of old and powerful magic, while the column of stone at its centre was a mystery whose possible answers didn’t comfort or reassure.

  The next day only deepened the mystery. They had made good progress after setting out in the pre-dawn gloom, both waking early and not wanting to wait for dawn. After walking for a few hours, Esme’s foot sailed through the air where it should have met solid ground, and with a small gasp she stumbled and fell face first into a small furrow. Looking up, she saw that this furrow went straight ahead, and she got to her feet, Hark helping her up while ineffectively suppressing a grin. Squinting up at the sun, then looking back at the furrow, she said, “It goes north.”

  Hark nodded, easily able to pick out the depression in the grass.

  “Shall we see what it leads to?” he asked.

  She nodded, and they headed off, following it for a few yards until it stopped abruptly in a mound of uneven earth. His interest sparked, Hark used his staff to prod at the mound until he had broken the surface and was rewarded a few moments later by a hollow thud. Tossing his staff aside, he bent down and widened the hole he had made and withdrew a dirty, pale, round object. Confused by this, Esme peered at it while Hark brushed the dirt away from it, and soon they both understood what it was.

  “What is a skull doing here?” Hark asked of no one in particular.

  Esme didn’t reply. Instead, she closed her eyes to aid her as she concentrated on trying to sense that faint, old sense of powerful magic, and detected it not long after. Opening her eyes, she found herself looking at Hark’s puzzled face.

  “It’s only a skull, no blood,” he said, the familiar grin edging the corners of his mouth.

  “I get the same feeling from this mound as I got from the crater,” she replied. While not entirely accurate, the sensation was close enough for her to trust in the link between the two.

  “So,” he said, dropping the skull, “first we find a crater made by some magical blast and a whole lot of broken land around it, and now we find a furrow with a skeleton in a mound at its end.”

  “They fought,” Esme interjected, beating Hark to the conclusion and earning her a look of slight annoyance, to which she smiled sweetly. Then the full impact of that conclusion reached her. “By the gods, that must have been a fight. Magic powerful enough to make that crater and throw someone a few yards through the topsoil. I wonder what they were fighting about?”

  “Thankfully,” Hark said looking to the sky to get his bearings, “they are long dead. Come on, Mymt is this way.”

  Still looking at the mound, she replied, “The last time you sounded that confident, I ended up sinking into mud.”

  As her gaze was focused elsewhere, she failed to see Hark stiffen slightly at that, but moments later he relaxed and turned to give her a wry grin, saying, “How do you know that wasn’t my plan?”

  She laughed at this, and they made their way towards Mymt, all thoughts of skulls, old magic, and craters quickly forgotten.

  Chapter Sixteen

  8th Day of Jiva. The Season of Light. Year 250

  “We are close,” Mul announced as she examined the tracks near the mound.

  Kellan watched on from nearby. “Good,” he replied. “This has gone on far too long.”

  The trio were thirty-seven days into their pursuit of Hark and Esme, though that had little to do with being unable to find them, for the most part. It hadn’t taken long to discover that the pair had joined with an Ohruin tribe, a place from which the three adventurers had no desire to try and extract them, and a place that Mul had no desire to go anywhere near. So began a month of pointless waiting, living off plains herbs and whatever Mul could catch, passing the days training, observing the camp, or with tedious games of dice. Any other group of adventurers may have gone mad and either rushed the Ohruin to try and snatch the girl, or killed each other out of growing mutual boredom, but not them. Kellan was proud of the unity and loyalty his little group had achieved. Not that there hadn’t been days when tempers got short, but nothing that led to any bad blood between them, or any blood at all, come to think of it. Then the day had come, not two days back, when the pair had left the Ohruin, but again Kellan had held off taking the girl, as they were too close to the Ohruin to risk it, which had led to the pair losing them in that eerie, shattered landscape centred around the equally eerie crater. The pair made it out before them and had about a day’s headstart, but now Mul had found the trail, following the strong Ohruin scent that came off their clothes and gear. Kellan turned to the others.

  “Right. Since we are close, we should talk about how we are going to take them. They will be likely to fight back if we creep up on them, so here is the plan. Mul, I want you to scout ahead and report back when you find them, then head back and flank around behind them. Aiden, remain out of sight and wait for my signal; you will know it when you hear it. I will leave my weapons with you and try to convince the young lady to return with us. If I can’t, then we jump her, Mul from behind and Aiden to support me and take out the Elreni. I don’t want to kill him, but if it’s him or us, then choose him, got it?”

  The two others gave silent nods and wordlessly Mul departed, running off along the trail that led to their quarry, with Kellan and Aiden following at a slower pace.

  ***

  Vulmer watched the Ohruin as she ran off from the others. Though he didn’t know the plan these adventurers had hatched, he knew that she would be the one who presented the most danger to Hark. The Humans were nothing compared to the raw strength and speed of an Ohruin, and so he followed at a safe distance, using an enhancement spell to keep pace with the Ohruin and relying on his enhanced vision to keep sight of her. He knew that a confrontation loomed and that he should probably find Hark and Esme to ensure that they were safe, but he had been following these three for as long as they had been following the pair. He felt what he imagined a predator stalking its prey for days on end would feel. This was how he would keep Hark safe: by killing his prey.

  ***

  For once, Hark took second watch, and so it was his turn to gaze at the beauty of a slow sunrise. As Esme yawned and stretched underneath her blanket, he said, “I see why you like the dawn watch.”

  Blinking, she got to her feet and stumbled the across the few steps that separated them to sit clumsi
ly beside him. Chuckling at this, he said, “Did you have some ale stashed away somewhere, are you drunk?”

  “No,” she murmured, resting her head against his chest. “Just sleepy. Didn’t sleep well last night.”

  Hark froze as she drew in closer to him, one side of him wanting to let his guard down and return the obvious affection, while the other side warned him that it would just hurt when he finally failed her. Snarling internally, he banished thoughts of failure and pain. Ever since she had told him she loved him, he had been arguing with himself, and now he was done with it. If Esme loved him, then he would damn well love her back, and may the roots take any who would prevent him from doing so. He draped an arm around her shoulder and, still looking out towards the dawn, asked, “Bad dreams?”

  “Yeah, I bit my own arm off.”

  “What?” Hark tensed at the grisly statement.

  “Something grabbed my arm and wouldn’t let go, so I had to bite it off.”

  “You couldn’t just cut off whatever had your arm, or hit it with a spell, or do any of the numerous other things that would have had the same effect but left you with both arms?”

  “Dream logic,” she said as she turned to gaze up him. Looking down at her, he felt his heart start to race. “Did I do that?” she asked a moment later.

  “What?”

  “Make your heart beat faster?”

  He smiled wide. “Yes.”

  ***

  The midmorning sun bathed the small valley in light as Kellan ducked behind the rise of one of the hills. Down there, on the valley floor, walked the two he had spent a month trying to get to. He turned and nodded to Aiden, then handed the mage his weapons.

  “Listen closely for when things start to get heated or they refuse my offer. Then intervene.”