by R J Murray
With a heavy sigh, Syn sheathed his dagger and began to climb. It wasn’t particularly difficult, and he’d never had a problem with heights but then he’d never been so far above the ground, balanced on a thin shaft of wood with evil little imps flying all around him.
He gripped the wood tight and hugged it for a moment, squeezing closed his eyes before pushing onwards. The imp, he saw, was twisted in the ropes that were strung web-like around the mast. Its wings flapping wildly as it sought to free itself and its cries almost pitiful.
Any sympathy he might have for it disappeared as it lashed out at him, claws raking the wood where his hand had been moments before. He grimaced and stabbed at it with his dagger. It hung limply in the rigging and he wiped the green blood from his knife before sheathing it and pulling himself closer to the creature.
It stank, even with the putrid air of the wilds filling his nose, the imp stank even more. He worked to untangle it, lips twisting in distaste at having to touch the creature. It took longer than he’d hoped, clinging to the mast with the winds pulling at him and Til’s musket firing from below at a pace of almost once a minute.
He cast the creature as far from him as he could and followed its descent, wincing as it hit the sloped side of the airship with a heavy thump before rolling down the hull to be lost from sight.
“You’ll be caulking those damned boards!” Til called up to him and he flashed her a grin before beginning his climb down.
With the engines working, the ship had begun to move again, soon outpacing the imps hunting grounds. Til fired once more and then grunted an acknowledgement to him.
“Ya did good, pretty boy.”
“You too.”
He climbed down through the hatch, the gnome following and dropped the last few rungs to the deck, scanning the hold to see that all of his friends were uninjured.
“You’re hurt!” Mia cried, running over to him and reaching up to his cheek. “You’re bleeding!”
“Bah, scars add character,” Til said with a scowl that only grew darker as she caught sight of the open side-hatch. “Which one of you big buggers cut the rope to my ramp?”
Chapter 17
The airship rocked from side to side as the winds blew against it and Mia huddled in the corner by the water barrels hugging her knees to her chest. They had ascended to almost three hundred feet and the winds were rough.
Too rough for flying in, Jochum had said, but with the sails furled and the engines keeping the runes of levitation powered, they could sit in the air so long as someone watched the controls. It was safer than setting down amongst the bizarre wildlife of the wilds and high enough that few creatures that lived in the area could reach them.
While the others might have considered it to be safer, Mia had no such thoughts and the howling of the wind outside along with the patter of heavy rain on the hull as the airship shook and rocked, was enough to keep her from any hope of sleep.
Syn had no such trouble. He slept soundly in his bedroll, hand pressed close to the dagger on his belt. It was a strange kind of sleep for a thief to have, but he had assured Mia that when surrounded by friends he would sleep soundly, while alone, he would wake at the sound of an ant breaking wind two houses away.
A ludicrous image but one that had made her laugh and had chased away her fears for a little while as the thief settled down to sleep.
Elva sat with her bow across her lap and her back against the wall of the hull. Her eyes were closed but there was little sleep to be had for her. Every now and again she would open her eyes to the narrowest of slits and stare at Wynn for a short while before closing them again.
The mage slept restlessly, tossing and turning often as he pressed hands against his ears and muttered to himself. There was something going on there that the others knew about, and Mia didn’t.
Perhaps, she thought, it was time to find out some of those answers that had eluded her since the little adventure began.
She pushed herself to her feet and walked as softly as she could towards the forward cabin. The door had been closed to stop it banging against the wall or frame as the ship was rocked. Her hand turned the door handle and she pulled it open silently before slipping inside.
There had been little time to truly look around when she had last been in the forward cabin and she took a moment then to do so. There was little light, barely enough to see by, but apparently, enough for Jochum to read the dials set into the console.
Flags filled a rack on the wall, small enough to be held in a hand and waved, with odd colours and symbols that were unlike any heraldry that she had ever known. Which, considering the isolated life she’d had growing up, wasn’t that unusual.
“Signal flags,” Jochum said quietly. He’d swivelled around in his chair at her entrance and had watched her silently. “For those in the guild, they can be used to send messages to other airships or to the dockyards where we land.”
“How?”
“Nay, lass. That is guild lore and not for you.”
“Oh.” Her face fell a little, but she moved to the next item that had caught her attention. A battered iron shield, rusted and covered in marks. “What’s this?”
“I took that from a Snake down in the Southlands.”
“Snake? Why would a snake have a shield?”
“Nay, not one of those that slithers. The reptile men from the deserts and jungles. They raid the southern kingdoms and I was part of the force assembled to fight them off for a while. Calling them snakes is an insult.”
“Why would you want to insult them?”
“Who knows, lass. They raided our lands and murdered our people. Calling them by the names they had given themselves didn’t seem right.”
Mia nodded as though she understood, and she thought perhaps that she might, but it seemed such an alien concept to her. If you were already fighting them, killing them, why then was there a need to be so petty about their names?
“Is it always like this, in the wilds I mean?”
“Sometimes worse,” he admitted. “The area closest to the border is always busiest and we’ve been attracting more than our fair share of the creatures that live here by flying over their homes. Syn was right when he said we could be seen for miles.”
“Then why didn’t we travel on foot?”
Jochum chuckled at that, suddenly reminded of how young she was and how much a novice in the ways of adventuring.
“The wilds are a dangerous place and everything from the insects that crawl on the ground to the trees and grass that cover the land, are trying to kill you. Whether by a bite, a prick of your skin on a poisoned thorn or even roots that will grow over you as you sleep. A thousand ways to die and each more painful than the last.”
She shuddered at the thought and couldn’t help but wonder once again, why they were there. What was so important that they had to fly there, attracting all manner of monsters in their wake. She chewed on her lip as she built the courage to ask.
The warrior was far bigger than her. His broad shoulders were as wide as her body was long and his muscles flexed with every movement of his arm. There was nothing inherently intimidating about him, but he had a commanding presence that left you feeling like you should wait for him to tell you what to do and not ask questions.
Even so, she had no choice as she was part of their company and had travelled with them far enough into the wilds that, no matter their goal, there was no backing out for Mia.
“Why are we here?”
Jochum exhaled a soft sigh. His head was slightly bowed and he glanced up at her as he thought of what to tell her. Finally, he decided upon the truth.
“The last time we were here, was ten years ago.” He turned and glanced at the dials, checking that all was well with the ship before continuing. “We’d been a company for a few years and had ventured into the wilds often enough to consider ourselves veterans of its dangers.”
“When so many other companies had not returned, we always did. We consider
ed ourselves blessed. Amina…” his voice caught as he spoke her name and he swallowed before speaking again. “She said often that the gods were with us. We all had started to believe it.”
“Syn was barely older than you are now, just looking for a purpose and Elva, eager to learn all she could about the wilds in the hopes that one day she could help tame them. Wynn craved knowledge and wealth. He wanted to become a powerful mage and that required coin and practice. In the wilds, he could find both.”
“What about you?” Mia asked, almost breathless and eyes wide as she listened.
“I wanted to be the greatest swordsman that ever lived. To earn enough wealth to marry the woman I loved and give her a life she deserved. She, well, she had her own goals in mind and service to her goddess was too strong a calling for her.”
“We had decided to head our separate ways but the others, they wanted to have one last trip, together, into the wilds. It was a mistake.”
“Why?”
“Elva said you saw some maps in the outfitters, yes?”
“Ah, yes. A few.”
“What do you remember of them?”
She was caught a little off guard by his sudden question but could remember them well enough. Some showed the mountains to the south or the citadels that guarded the borders. One had even been of far enough north to show the lands of ice and snow.
Notations had covered them showing the locations of ruined towns and cities, known monster encampments and the like. None of them, she realised, had shown more than a short distance into the wilds and, excited, that is what she told Jochum who nodded sagely.
“Aye, lass. There’s a reason for that. Few companies come back out of the wilds because they try to go too far in. The things you’ve seen so far, why, they are mild compared to what lives further out.”
“But you did,” she guessed and was rewarded with a weary nod from the large warrior.
“Aye, lass, that we did but not by choice. That last excursion we made, we ran into a group of gnolls that was larger than any we’d seen before. Too many for us to face as young as we were. We ran.”
“But it wasn’t enough. They chased us, hounding us for days and steering us ever farther away from the borderlands. We faced horrors such as you could never imagine, but wounded and weary, we finally lost our pursuers.”
His eyes were distant, and he gently kneaded the knuckles of first one hand and then the other, the memory clearly painful for him. His eyes darted to hers and she read the pain there, moving closer and sinking to her knees as she placed a comforting hand on his arm.
“We were lost and so very far from anywhere that was safe. Syn was wounded and even with the healing that Amina provided.” His voice caught on her name, but he carried on speaking. “Even with that healing, he was barely holding on.”
“Elva went in search of somewhere we could hole up for the night and that’s when she found the thrice-cursed place.”
“What place?”
“Was a cave and we thought it safe enough. We barricaded the entrance and settled in for the night. That’s when Wynn and Amina heard the whispers.”
Mia looked back over her shoulder, though the door barred her sight of the mage, she knew he would be there still, laid in his bedroll and suffering through something only he could hear. A chill ran down her spine as she wondered what he was hearing.
“What was it?”
“Something old and evil, lass. Its voice called to them and as the rest of us got what sleep we could, they went in search of the source. Elva was first to wake and find them gone and we hurried after them.”
“Wasn’t long before we found them, full of pain and rage as they laid waste to a party of kobolds. They were barely aware of what they were doing, so strong was the pull of the voice they heard. The rest of us, well we’d started to hear it too, the further into the caves we went.”
“What was it like?”
“Cold and dirty, like someone dripping oil into your brain and no matter what you did, you couldn’t get it out. There was an insistence to it though, a need, pulling at us. Amina and Wynn, they were magic users and so more attuned to it, but the closer the rest of us were, the louder it became for us.”
He shook his head, lines appearing on his face and a weariness shrouding him and bowing those great shoulders. The memory clearly pained him but still, he seemed to want to speak of it.
“We found the source eventually and it was worse than we could have ever imagined it to be.” A shudder ran through him. “Darkness cloaked in light, it drew us in, calling to us. But it was an ancient evil and Amina, finding some strength even she didn’t realise she had, broke free of its hold and called upon her goddess for aid.”
Mia listened, wide-eyed. It was like some tale-tellers story that she had heard back at the inn. It was the sort of thing that happened in the age of heroes when the gods walked the world in physical form and banished the darkest monsters from the world.
“With the aid of her faith, we were freed from its hold and Wynn realised what we had to do. The ancient evil, you see, it was stirring. Waking from millennia long slumber and if it were allowed to do so, it would wreak havoc on the world.”
“What did you do?”
“He created a seal, binding it back into its sleep.”
“That’s good then! Surely?” she faltered as she saw his face. “It must be, the world is still safe.”
“For the moment, lass. Wynn hadn’t the power then that he has now and exhausted as we all were, there was limits on what he could do. The only way to make it work was to use the life force of each of us.”
He paused as the ship rocked from a particularly violent gust of wind. He checked the dials and pulled a brass lever about half an inch down, watching the dials all the while as he adjusted for the winds rough handling. Then he turned back to the breathless, waiting, Mia.
“Using our strength, he could devise a seal that would hold for longer. Not forever, but perhaps long enough for us to find another solution.”
“Why not go to the mage colleges for help or the temples?”
“The evil we found… if anyone knew of it, they would tear the world apart just to try to control it. We couldn’t risk that and so we made an oath.”
He closed his eyes and lowered his voice, speaking softly, almost reverently.
“We swore that we would do whatever it took to keep that evil contained. You have to understand that we had few choices and the spell Wynn devised was something no one had ever done.”
“What was it, what did it do?”
“He used our souls. There is power in the human soul, lass. So much so that it could power that spell until the ends of time, keeping that evil contained. But, for that to happen someone had to die.”
Mia tried to keep the horror from her face but failed utterly. Jochum smiled grimly and nodded, knowing exactly what she was thinking.
“We drew lots, we argued, we debated the reasons why it should be done and all the while, we were aware of Amina’s power fading and our time was running out. Syn volunteered. Wounded as he was, he believed he would not make it home anyway.”
The big man’s shoulders shook as he turned away his face and said, “to my shame, I agreed with him.”
“Was Amina that saved his life. She was a force of nature that lass and when she wanted something there was no stopping her. She argued, she pleaded, and she threatened. Finally, we all agreed. No one would die, not even for such a noble purpose. It would damn the rest of us to leave one to such a fate.”
“How then did you bind it?”
“With a small part of each of our souls, Wynn was able to create a seal that would last. But not long, no more than a dozen years. So, we swore an oath, each of us then and there.”
“We would meet again, ten years hence and decide on what must be done. Giving each of us the chance to grow in strength, to be able to better fight that evil and perhaps destroy it. We would each go our separate ways and spend the years
learning, training and finding a way to survive the next encounter.”
“If one of us were to die in that time, then that would be the will of the gods and we would gladly accept that fate. But it had to be by chance. It was bound into the spell that if one took their own life, it would not affect the seal.”
“Why?” Mia almost cried. “If someone wished to sacrifice themselves to save the world, how could that be wrong?”
“I asked that same question and Amina insisted on it being part of the oath as she knew I would have gladly taken my life to save any one of the others. Especially her. But she knew that allowing such a death would damn them all too and keep them from eternal peace. She was right.”
“Nor too could any one of the five of us raise our hand to another of the five. To do so would ensure the killer was bound to the seal and not the one killed.”
“That would stop someone getting scared and sending an assassin after the others,” Mia said, realisation coming. She was pretty sure she knew who that had been meant for.
“Aye, lass. The final part, when we met ten years from then, we would all travel back to the cave and either strengthen the seal or release the evil. The first of us it killed would bind it forever back into the darkness.”
Tears filled Mia’s eyes as she realised what they were prepared to do, what that would mean for one of them. To be bound into a seal for all of eternity, that evil their only companion. It was a thing of terror.
“I spent the first five years fighting in every war and skirmish that would take me,” Jochum said wearily. “I could not take my life but if I fought as hard as I could to live and still fell in battle, then I would save the others. All that I managed to do was become the most feared warrior in the land. I finally quit when I turned up for battle and the enemy ran at just the sight of me.”
“Wait!” Mia said. “Only four of you turned up!”
“Aye. The oath was broken and without… without, her, we cannot complete the seal. Our only hope is to release the evil and face it as we are.”
