Gordwyn flopped down like a sack of wet wool, his sodden clothes clinging to bulbous arms and legs, sweat running rivulets down the hard earth. It looked like he had pulled himself from a pool.
‘At least … The mud has… Stopped,’ he wheezed, meaning that they had risen clear of the mire that had almost been their downfall.
‘Funny thing,’ said Dmitry, flicking a finger towards the book still in Marianne’s hand. He took a moment to swig from his water bottle, wiping his sleeve across his forehead a moment later. ‘Funny thing, old Copernichol, he didn’t say anything about swamps and savages with blowpipes on the way to the Golden Caves.’
‘Two hundred years is a long time, Dmitry,’ she replied. ‘A lot can change in two centuries.’
‘We knew there were natives,’ said Oata. She bent to one knee, staff in hand, and lay her other fingers on the hot rock, a smile creeping over her face at the contact. She stroked the mountainside, lost for a moment, before she looked up, eyes flashing with power for an instant. ‘Someone is coming! The rocks feel their feet.’
‘From the woods?’ asked Gabbri. ‘More darts?’
‘No.’ Oata leaned even lower, her cheek almost upon the warm rock, ear close to the ground.
She closed her eyes. The others waited, immobile, caught entranced by the Warden displaying her stone affinity. After what seemed like the turn of an hourglass she roused.
‘Not islanders, not snake-kin. Outsiders. They tread with iron nails in their boots.’ The Warden herself was barefoot, though the others had refused her entreaty to proceed likewise, despite her assurances that they would feel ‘closer to the islands’ if they did so. ‘Eight men. Determined.’
‘There are many crews searching the Archipelago,’ said Marianne. ‘I am surprised we have not encountered anyone else yet. Not on land, anyway.’
‘I feel their intent, their footsteps echo inside ours.’ Oata corrected her, standing up. ‘They follow us, for sure.’
Marianne took a breath and looked down to the forest, but she could see nothing. Her skin tingled and her pulse quickened, Heritor blood coursing, bringing a moment of discomfort that flushed her face.
‘Are you all right?’ asked Gabbri. ‘You do not look well.’
‘Just the sun,’ Marianne said, waving away his concerns. Intuition crackled in her thoughts and she cast her gaze across the mountainside. She spied a crack, the beginnings of a ravine in the shadow of a rock a few dozen paces to her left. ‘That way. We’ll follow the cleft down.’
‘Are you sure?’ said Dmitry. He pointed to the right. ‘The trees seem thinner that way.’
‘Trust me,’ said Marianne. She held up the battered journal like a talisman. ‘And trust Copernichol.’
Three dayes from the shippe, still we had found no goode timber for the new mast. Fresh water and game aplenty, but not a hard tree in syte. The fyre mountin kept up her growlin and blechin, a furyous fyre on the secondde nite kept us awake with the howl of beast an yammer of byrds. So tire we was and not bidin well, our lookouts dreary in thort.
From the bushes came dreadfull men, the tallist no hier than my chest hares, but all mussle an spere. Blue ink on theyr faces and arms. Black hare streakd red with die, an eyes rimme likewize. Shrill was the yells, lik the catte in a fite or a wild byrd. Darts filld the air. Poizond we latter found. Four of the crew were deade afore their boddys hit the mudde. The cap’n yelld to repel but no sooner had we got steele in our hans than the litle bastids was gone.
The woods resounded with the chop of blades into vines and branches and the continuous stream of curses from Adorl and Belaphus as they hacked their way through the impossible press of foliage, cutting a path for Amanuel and the rest of his crew to follow. Progress had been slow, far too slow, and with a snarl the party leader turned on Herrick.
‘We are losing ground, Warden. They did not come this way, obviously. Ask the wind where they went, or whatever it is that you do.’
‘The wind does not know,’ Herrick said calmly, ‘for they moved out of its touch from the mountainside. I told you this but you insisted we continue.’
‘It’s too late to double-back, it’ll be nightfall before we get back to open ground.’
A triumphant shout from Belaphus brought the pair hurrying forward. They pushed through the last crisscross of vines and tangle of undergrowth to find themselves in a clearing no more than fifty paces across, before a high cliff face into which had been carved an immense figure. The woman – a queen or sorceress, or perhaps both judging by the flowing dress, serpentine crown and the egg-like orb set with real diamonds in her hand – stood above a narrow door. Her granite features glowered down at them with disdain.
‘Gems,’ crooned Adorl. ‘Those diamonds be as big as my grandpa’s flapping b—’
‘Leave them,’ snapped Amanuel as the sellsword started towards the cliff face. ‘We’re here for the book, not a treasure hunt.’
Forsca looked as though he was about to argue but any protest died in his throat as a strange noise issued from the mouth of the stone gateway. It was a susurrant, like the wind in the leaves at first, but quickly growing louder.
The party started to back away as the hissing echoed closer and closer, and two glinting lights appeared in the darkness of the corridor.
A heartbeat later and a massive serpentine head shot from the opening, gaping wide to snap around the head and neck of Belaphus. The snake’s body was broad in girth, greater than a man could put his arms around, the scales dark red and patterned with zags of ochre and gold. Its eyes were two multifaceted gems that gleamed with an inner fire.
It reared up, Belaphus’s legs still thrashing as it swallowed him further. Adorl and Forsca set upon the creature with their swords, hacking two-handed at the thick scales.
The beast gave up trying to eat its first victim and with a choking convulsion deposited the still form of the pirate into the long grass, blood and venom oozing thickly from two immense wounds just below his shoulder blades, upper body and head slick with saliva.
Amanuel wrestled his longsword free and backed towards the jungle, casting a glance over his shoulder into the shadows. For a moment, he would have sworn something was looking back at him.
Chanting madly, voice now a high-pitched shrieking, Harrick threw up a hand towards the skies, fingers splayed. Clouds writhed above them as the snake turned its attention on another of the crew, the wiry knifeman called Flay. It lunged, but the corsair was ready, leaping aside from the falling maw to land with a roll to his feet.
‘Do something!’ raged Amanuel. He could feel his Heritor blood starting to race, burning along his limbs, making his heart thunder in his chest. The snake twitched as though scenting something and twisted towards him with a long hiss. ‘Kill it!’
With a shout, Harrick brought down his arm and closed his fingers into his fist. A bolt of white lanced down from the sky to strike the head of the serpent. Energy crackled across its scales and fangs, writhing for a moment down its considerable length, charring flesh.
It slumped, oily smoke drifting from its mouth, eye sockets and nostrils blackened. Amanuel felt the blood-heat start to dissipate and approached cautiously, sword stretched before him.
With a last rattle, the serpent flailed towards him, the diamonds of its eyes falling from its face as its jaws widened. Amanuel let out a primeval shout and swung his sword. The blow was devoid of accuracy or elegance but Heritor-born strength propelled it. The blade caught the burnt muzzle of the serpent at an angle and sheared away the top half of its jaw in one blow.
Amanuel spun, the momentum of his attack carrying him three staggering strides away from the snake as it thrashed backwards, its now exposed innards slashed and pierced by the renewed onslaught of the others.
The blood burn raged for several moments, forcing Amanuel to his knees with a groan, his vision swimming, sword falling from spasming fingers. He wanted to be sick, to vomit out the scalding blood that boiled through his body.
‘I hate having to do that, you cretins.’ Amanuel pointed towards the darkness of the cave. ‘The guardian is gone, I would say our way through is clear now.’
‘I don’t like the look of it,’ protested Flay.
‘Turn back then, and try your luck in the jungles,’ snapped Amanuel, remembering the half-seen figure earlier.
‘What about him?’ asked Adorl, nodding towards the immobile form of Belaphus.
‘Dead or dying,’ Forsca replied casually, wiping snake blood from his blade. ‘No use to us. One less cut of the reward to share.’
* * *
The gulley had led Marianne and her party some distance from the mountain, so far in fact that she began to think they would end up heading back to the coast. However, as the afternoon sun lowered towards the tree-filled mountains, their path turned sharply uphill and it was not long before they were again traversing the lower slopes.
When they came upon a clear stream, Gordwyn suggested a short break to refresh themselves and refill their flasks. While the crew busied themselves with this important chore, Marianne found a large rock beside the brook to use as a seat. The sun was warm still but lacked the strength-sapping intensity of its full glare. She closed her eyes and, for just a few heartbeats, let herself enjoy the warmth on her skin, the smell of the forest, the babbling of the water over rounded stones broken by the splash of fish and amphibians.
The islands of the Ghost Archipelago were beautiful – if one ignored the hostile natives, murderous serpentmen, carnivorous vegetation, predatory fauna and bands of rival Heritors willing to cut the throat of another for the smallest clue to the whereabouts of the fabled Crystal Pool.
Reminded of her purpose, she opened her eyes and brought out the journal of her great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandfather. When she thought of Copernichol like that, it seemed a little more extraordinary that any of his possessions had survived so long. It was hard to not think of the book as her grandfather’s rather than Copernichol’s, so entwined were the object and her memories of the two.
She found her place marked with a dried oak leaf from the gardens of the ancestral manse set between two slivers of near-transparent bone. Marianne read, occasionally glancing up at the mountains and other features to see if she recognised any landmark from Copernichol’s detailed but colourful descriptions.
A shadow passed over the book, causing her to flinch. It was Oata. The Stone Warden jabbed a thumb back towards the others, who were stoppering the last of the water flasks and getting their packs ready.
‘Nearly done.’
‘Any guidance from Copernichol?’ asked Dmitry, coming up behind Oata, his tarred leather bag slung over one skinny shoulder. ‘Any great words of advice from the ancestor?’
‘Yes, there is,’ lied Marianne. Only a little lie, because she was pretty certain that ‘the grate parrott of the skyes’ referred to a particular outcrop of the mountain some distance to the west, if viewed from a different angle. Her intuition thrummed along her veins and she suppressed a shudder but not the accompanying grunt of discomfort. The parrot rock was definitely the right way to proceed.
‘Are you in pain?’ Oata asked, regarding her closely. With concern, or was it suspicion?
‘Sitting on hard rock for too long,’ said Marianne, slipping from the boulder and nursing her backside as she put the book back in her pack. ‘And all the walking.’
They found a crossing point and used the water-slicked stepping stones to get to the other side of the stream. The trees were far sparser here, pure grasslands stretched up into the foothills. As they waded into the tall stems, Gabbri indicated the flattened stalks behind.
‘Not a hard trail to follow,’ he said.
‘Nothing we can do about that, we have to go this way,’ replied Marianne.
‘Because the book says so?’ asked Dmitry.
‘Yes,’ snapped Marianne, a little more harshly than she intended, exasperated by his tone. She turned on him, but softened her voice. ‘As far back as I can remember, my grandfather read me the passages from this book and told me about the Heritors. I learned on his knee of how Copernichol Amontill travelled to the Ghost Archipelago, drank from the mystical waters of a crystal-clear pool and returned gifted with extraordinary powers. Generations have passed, each of us a little more declined in our gifts, with no sign that the Ghost Archipelago could be found. My grandfather spent his life looking for these islands, hoping to retrace the steps of his ancestor. Every effort he spent was wasted and it is cruel fate that he died only two years ago, on the cusp of the islands’ return. I owe it to him, to his spirit and his memory, to finish the quest he never could.’
She wiped away the tear that had appeared at the thought, the droplet mingling with the sweat that already wetted the cuff of her shirt. Marianne set her shoulders, looked at the others and finished with a meaningful stare at Dmitry.
‘You came with me, knowing this is all I have to offer. I promised you all a share of whatever treasures we can find, taking none for myself. I only want to see the Crystal Pool. To fulfil my grandfather’s dream. You accepted, spat on your palm and shook hands on it. It is too late for complaint.’
Dmitry shrugged, reluctantly accepting Marianne’s acceptance of the situation.
Right, she thought as she started off into the grass once more. Let’s just hope we’re not all deluded fools, grandfather included.
* * *
‘I know this place.’
From the ridgeline he looked down into verdant cleft below, a towering waterfall at its head, a treeline rapids running its length.
His heart quickened at the sight, indelibly marked into his memories from seeing it in the book he now sought, rendered in crude ink by the supposed pen of Copernichol Amontill. Somewhere in that valley, according to the journal at least, lay the entrance to the Caves of Gold. He could not remember the accompanying description in detail. Something about an ancient civilisation that had populated the Ghost Archipelago many centuries even before Copernichol’s arrival. Long dead, their city remained below the mountains of one of the islands.
‘What’s that?’ asked Forsca, clambering up the last of the incline with his crew close behind.
‘Nothing,’ Amanuel replied. It was nonsense. The book was a fabrication, his memory playing tricks on him. A waterfall and forest. The islands were littered with such places, he was sure. And it was best not to even suggest to his mercenary companions that there might be any truth in its contents. He could not risk the warband considering the notion that they might earn more by taking the book rather than waiting for the rest of the money he had promised.
He spied colour and movement below and signalled for Herrick to come forward. The heavily tattooed Warden approached.
‘Is that them?’
Herrick stepped a small distance away and lifted his hands, eyelids fluttering, lips moving in a whisper as he communed with the winds. It seemed as though a slight fog coalesced about his fingertips despite the strong winds that whipped over the shoulder of the ridge. For a fleeting moment, Amanuel thought he heard words in the sigh of the air, and there was a short outbreak of disconcerted muttering among Forsca’s men. Amanuel ignored them. It had to be coming from Herrick.
With a jerk, the Storm Warden opened his eyes. He smiled and nodded.
‘Yes, they are the ones we have been following.’
‘Good. Now find me a way down there.’
A thirdde our complemente had abandoinned the trek or been killt by serpentes, wildmen, boars and dizzease. The cap’n raged fierce agin that the gold we found in the village twas but a litle of the hord we mite find if we lookd hard still. Such hope was liftd when we found another rivver. Brode but fast, from the peaks.
We follows up the waters for a day more. We came upon a valleye set thick with trees. Fearin more
wilduns, we set dubble watch, but a peaseful nite past, an we woke with more strength that morn than for many afore.
After breakin our fast with fresh cort fish and eels, and sum eggs pilferd from nests aboute the water, we headd inland agin. Not long into the morn we saw a bridge of wite, brite in the sunne. We wonderd what hand fashiond such masunry, not a joint to be seen tween the blockes. Sure and hi it past the water. The cap’n left Davies and a quart of the crew to hol the bridg when we crosst. On the other side we found a big gate, marked by deville faces an shokin heathn roons. Some spell, feart the cap’n and we called up G’Nati, the wytchman from Aghad.
Prononucing all safe and sure, G’Nati led the cap’n an a few of us into the cave.
Inside we lit torches and found houses an temples an streets carvd from the rock isself. All stretchd as far as the lite carrid and beyonde.
In the depths of the gorge the sunlight was almost spent. The sky was touched with the red of dusk, the chatter of birds returning to their roosts loud in the trees that flanked the fast-flowing river. Marianne had hoped to find the Caves of Gold before nightfall, if only to have somewhere to shelter for the night. Hope faded as they pressed on, but a call from Dmitry a little way ahead roused their flagging spirits.
‘Look,’ he cried, pointing up the river. ‘Look!’
In the growing gloom it was hard to make out what he had seen at first. Shielding her eyes against the low rays of the sun, Marianne saw better what had excited the crewman. Over the bridge, not more than five hundred paces distant, a bridge of white stone crossed the foaming waters.
Their exclamations of delight and surprise were short-lived, however, as the bushes a short distance ahead rustled with movement. Six men strode onto the bank of the river, blades in hand. Marianne instantly recognised their leader and swallowed a yelp of despair.
Frostgrave: Ghost Archipelago: Tales of the Lost Isles Page 14
