Hollow Road

by Dan Fitzgerald

  “I can’t speak to their souls.” Carl stepped forward, his voice calm and self-assured. “But they surely showed us no compassion when they tried to massacre us on the road.”

  “Nor when they murdered Samuel and August at Holden’s Glen,” Massey responded, his voice rising to a shout at the end. Finn’s heart sank when he heard the names; they had just joined the Village Watch when he had left Brocland and would have been fourteen or fifteen by now, just old enough to be trusted with a trip to Greenvale.

  “Or when they tore apart old Ms. Stepple,” cried a quavering voice from the back of the room.

  “How can we call them men when they are covered in hair like beasts?” cried Mr. Glyven, standing and jabbing a finger in the air for emphasis.

  “And when they slaughter innocent women and children like animals?” cried someone else. A cacophony of accusations and declarations filled the air, nearly everyone seeming to have something to add on the subject. After a minute or so, Elder Gummache moved to the center of the room, closed his eyes, and raised his hands. The voices trailed off, and quiet again reigned over the dim chapel.

  “The Maer,” he said, pausing and looking around at each face as he spoke, “whether they be man, or beast, or something in between, have brought death and fear to our village. For weeks now we have suffered, worried, and wrung our hands. We are too few, too old or too young, to go out and face them, so we have waited, holing up in our homes, our supplies dwindling, hoping for salvation. And now it has come to us, in the form of three of our own who have gone out into the world and come back stronger, braver, and wiser. While there will surely be trials to come, let us not descend into chaos at the very moment when the tide has turned in our favor. There will be time tomorrow to argue and discuss what the Maer are, and what should be done next. On this night, let us stop and contemplate our good fortune, and celebrate those who have brought it upon us: Sinnie, daughter of Rolf and Laila, and Finn, son of Georg and Ada, and Carl, son of Aubert and Juliette, who have gone to where they are needed most.”

  “Where they are needed most,” the crowd murmured, seeming calmed by the Elder’s speech.

  Gummache gestured to the three of them, and a couple of people clapped, followed by a few more, until soon the whole group was on its feet, clapping and cheering. Finn looked to his father, whose rare smile bloomed in the warm glow of the full chapel. Finn smiled in return, choking back tears that caught him by surprise. He looked over at Sinnie, who was covering her face with her hands, and Carl, who flashed a narrow, stoic smile to the crowd, then gave Finn a hard, pleading look. But what he was pleading for, other than an escape from this most awkward of moments, Finn could not have said.

  “COME, COME,” SAID ELDER Gummache, gesturing over his shoulder as he descended the staircase into the darkness of the chapel cellar, his candle providing just enough light to see the stairs in front of them. Finn, Sinnie, Carl, and Mr. Massey followed him down into the cool, earthy space, which Finn had heard about but never seen. It was surprisingly large, with room for even the tallest to stand, and nearly as long and wide as the chapel itself. The end farthest from the staircase was a dusty menagerie of broken benches and other debris, but the half nearest the stairs held a large rectangular table with a dozen chairs, with an oil lamp hanging from the ceiling over its center. The table was covered in books, maps, and various loose pieces of paper. Gummache lit the lamp with his candle, which he extinguished with licked fingers and dropped into a pocket of his robe.

  “Sit, please.” He gestured toward the chairs as he hobbled over to a small cask. “This brandy is made from the apples of the tree in the cemetery, so it surely honors the spirits of our forebears.” He brought back a tray with five wooden cups and placed one in front of each of them, raised his own cup, and drank with them. Finn grimaced as it scorched its way down into his stomach, raging down there for a while before settling to a low burn. Sinnie blew out hard and slapped the table as she put her cup down, smiling through squinted eyes. Even Carl could not help making a face and breathing through his teeth as he exhaled.

  “Thank you, Elder Gummache.” Carl held his hand out toward the old man, who closed his eyes with a smile and waved away the thanks.

  “Don’t thank me,” he replied, “until you hear what we have to tell you. At which point you may be in need of another cup.” He exchanged glances with Mr. Massey, who blinked his assent and cleared his throat.

  “We are overjoyed at your defeat of the Maer’s blockade. We owe you much, and yet we have much still to ask of you.” Massey’s eyes, which always shone with a glimmer of mirth, showed none now. “The Maer you slew, as I said, may be the bulk of them, but then again it may not. Your father Rolf,” he said, looking at Sinnie, “said he saw as many as a dozen, down in the valley, not two weeks ago. We don’t know where exactly they are holed up, but we assume somewhere in the valley, in one of the caves or overhangs that abound there. We will need to find them, wherever, or whatever, they are, and finish them off, if we are to find peace.”

  Finn pondered Massey’s use of the word ‘we’; he doubted Massey would have the stamina to go deep into the wilderness hunting Maer. Nicolas seemed an obvious choice, just the right age and maturity to be looking to prove his mettle; perhaps there would be a couple of others, but none of them would have the experience to protect themselves. Finn wasn’t so sure of his own abilities, and he had been trained and even, he supposed, tested in battle. Sinnie was deadly with her bow, but she was no killer at heart, and he wondered how much she could take. Carl was the only one Finn had full confidence in, but he was one man, and even the best soldier could be killed with one lucky blow.

  “I, for one, am ready to take on that task.” Carl glanced at Finn and Sinnie. Sinnie shook her head as if to rouse herself from a reverie, then nodded.

  “I’m in,” she said.

  “We’re all in it together,” Finn heard himself saying. Massey nodded, then looked nervously at Elder Gummache, who closed his eyes and drummed his fingers on the table, then collected the cups on the tray and went to refill them.

  “There is one other thing,” he said over his shoulder as he refilled the cups, “which will surely require another draught.” He said no more until he had returned to the table. He passed the cups around, raised his, and took a sip. Everyone followed his lead, sharing anxious glances. The Elder sat his cup down, spun it in a slow circle on the table, then looked up, his eyes deep and haunting.

  “The Maer, as terrible as they are, are not our only concern. In fact, they may not even be our greatest worry.” Finn looked nervously at Carl, whose face was unreadable, and Sinnie, who looked on the edge of a nervous collapse. “What I am about to tell you must not leave this room. Only Mr. Massey and I know the truth, and if it were to become widely known, I fear the panic that would spread would only make matters worse.” He took another small sip, pursing his lips. “If that is even possible.”

  Carl made as if to speak, but a gesture from Elder Gummache stopped him. “The Maer have been responsible for several deaths, to be sure. Samuel and August, two boys from the Village Guard, were the first. They left on an errand to Greenvale a little over a month ago and never returned. When Mr. Massey and Nicolas went out to search for them a week later, they found one of the boys’ shoes near the rockslide, along with a considerable amount of dried blood.” Gummache looked to Massey, who closed his eyes.

  “We drew back into cover when we heard the sounds of footsteps coming up from the valley, and that was when we saw them. Six of them, we counted, and at first we did not believe our eyes, but there was no denying it. They were not human. As you well know.” He shook his head. “It was only through good fortune that the Maer were not there at the moment we arrived, or we too would surely have been killed.” He looked to Elder Gummache, who nodded, rotating his cup.

  “A third victim, Ms. Stepple, is believed to have been killed by the Maer, but we are convinced this is not the case.” Finn’s head was warm and
thick with brandy, but a chill crept into his core at the timbre of the Elder’s voice.

  Massey cleared his throat, took another sip, and picked up where Gummache left off. “This will be tough to hear, but you must hear it straight. Ms. Stepple, whom you have all seen roaming the hills foraging for mushrooms, claimed to have seen something outside her window one night, must have been, what, two weeks ago?” Gummache nodded, his eyes closed. Finn recalled Ms. Stepple’s ramshackle cottage, on the edge of the village nearest the valley. “We assumed it was the Maer, and a few of us did patrol the village after dark. One of the men on patrol claimed to have seen a figure leering at him from the darkness, but it disappeared before he could call for help. About a week later, Ms. Stepple’s body, or what was left of it, was found strewn about the floor of her cottage. We could see no signs of weapons having been used. Only the marks of claws and teeth, and...” He stopped, took a deep breath, and eyed his cup but did not drink. “I can only hope none of you have to witness such horrors as we have seen.” He raised his cup, took a sip, then tilted it all the way back. When he set it down, tears had formed in the corners of his eyes. Elder Gummache reached over and took his hand, and Massey did not object.

  “The Maer, from what little we know about them,” Gummache said in a small but steady voice, “should not have had the strength, or the savagery, to commit such an act.”

  Everyone at the table sat up straight, eyes locked on the Elder. He wiped tears from his own eyes, then looked around the table, fixing each one of them with his gaze. “We do not yet know what is responsible for the grisly attack on Ms. Stepple, or how it may be connected to the Maer, but it can be no coincidence. I have been searching through my library,” at which point he indicated the books and papers on the table with a sweep of his hand, “but as of now, I have no clue as to what it may be. So if you decide to help us go after the Maer, you should know that you may be facing something terrible beyond your imagining.”

  Chapter Ten

  “Where did you get this?” Mr. Massey stood over Carl, who held his hand over his eyes to block the sunlight streaking in the window.

  “Get what?” Carl felt like he’d been asleep for a year, and it took a moment for the sword to come into focus. “Oh, that. One of the Maer had it. Sinnie put an arrow in his chest before he had a chance to use it.”

  “Have you ever seen such a weapon?” Massey said in reverent tones, holding it out and giving it a couple of slow swings through the air.

  Carl shook his head. “It’s on the heavy side, but it has a nice swing to it. I think it’s made of bronze.”

  “Aye, it is. And have you ever seen a weapon made of bronze before?”

  Carl shook his head again. “It looks pretty old,” he said. “Did you see the markings on the blade?”

  “I did. It looks like letters of some kind, but we’d have to ask Elder Gummache to be sure. If it’s as old as it looks, it might tell us something about where these Maer have been. What of their other weapons?”

  Carl shook his head. “They were all handmade, spears and arrows with stone points, which is fortunate, since a metal arrowhead would have pierced my mail, and things might have gone much differently. They did know how to fight, and their strategy was sound. Better than ours, maybe. They ambushed us just as we were planning to sneak up on them.”

  “And yet you escaped with little more than a scratch. I see your military training has served you well.”

  “Everything I needed to learn about swordplay I learned from you, Mr. Massey.”

  “Please, call me Guy. You’ve earned it, and then some.”

  Carl smiled, sat up, and rubbed his eyes. “I’ll try,” he said.

  “You do that. And maybe after you get washed up, you can tell me anything else you might remember about the Maer.”

  AS CARL SAT AT THE worn table, Massey plunked down two bowls of hot mush with a few shreds of dried mutton on top.

  “It’s a little thin, as oats are in short supply at the moment, along with everything else.”

  Carl nodded his thanks, blew on a spoonful, and slurped it down. He had eaten the same thing many times when he was working with Mr. Massey on the Village Guard, and the pungent smell followed by the bland, vaguely rancid taste was as familiar as Massey’s body odor, which filled the cottage with a comforting masculine funk. They ate in silence, and it was not until Carl scraped the last streaks of mush from the bottom of the bowl that he looked up into Massey’s expectant eyes.

  “The Maer wore furs that had been stitched by hand, with some skill,” Carl said, “and decorated with large fish scales, sewed on in various patterns, mostly circles, squares, stars and the like. Their feet were shod in sandals, but their finger and toenails were trimmed, and their hair appeared to have been combed. And one of the warriors was female.”

  Massey raised his eyebrows and rubbed his chin. “They surely do not sound like the beast-men of legend,” he murmured. “What else did they carry with them?”

  Carl furrowed his brow and shook his head. “Not much, other than some smoked fish. But we did find an old shovel and a broken pick, like the kind my dad used to have in the shed, from the mining days.”

  “So they have been to the mine,” Massey said, almost to himself. “It wouldn’t surprise me if there are more up there as we speak. Or they might have just used the mine as a temporary shelter. There’s not much in the way of game that far up in the hills, so it seems more likely they would have moved down into the valley, where they would have found plenty of fish and small animals. Very good, I’m starting to get a fuller picture. Anything else?”

  “Well, I did hear them speak, but not in any language I could recognize. They didn’t have time to say much, though.”

  “Very good. Very good.” Massey picked up the bowls and rinsed them in a bucket of dirty water before drying them on his tunic and putting them back on the table. “I think it’s time we go find the others and begin making our plans.”

  Carl nodded, then cocked his head. “But first I need to talk to Elder Gummache, about Theo’s... burial.”

  Massey put his hand on Carl’s shoulder. “It’s all in hand. They’ll be digging right now, and the ceremony will be this evening. But in the meantime, we need to get a group together and go clear out the rest of the rockslide, and send a fast rider to let Greenvale and Kelsey know what’s happened. And tomorrow morning, we ride for the valley to hunt the rest of the Maer.”

  “Are you sure you’re up for it? I mean, the footing in the valley can be tricky, and...”

  “Don’t you worry about me. I will only be going as far as the valley’s edge. It’s the three of you, and Nicolas, if you’ll have him. He knows the valley, having hunted and fished there since he was a boy. He’s as trained a swordsman as can be found in the village, and he’s strong, not to mention brave to the point of foolhardiness. A bit like you when you left for the service, as I recall. Plus, he’s had his father’s sword, shield, and chain mail repaired and shined. We’d be hard-pressed to keep him back. And you may need another sword in this fight.”

  Carl nodded, forcing a small smile. The last thing he wanted was to bring an unseasoned youth against the Maer, but Massey was right. With an unknown number of Maer about, not to mention whatever it was that had savaged Ms. Stepple, they would need all the help they could get.

  MASSEY, NICOLAS, FINN, Sinnie, and Carl rode out together toward the rockslide, along with Audrey, a thin, wild-eyed youth of about fifteen whose father, Mr. Newmarch, raised and traded horses. Massey had donned an old suit of reinforced leather armor, and Nicolas wore a mail shirt with some kind of brass military pin on it, along with a rehabilitated shield and sword. Carl insisted they stop a quarter of a mile away from Holden’s Glen, and only he, Finn, and Sinnie rode ahead to the rockslide, in case there were more Maer about. From a distance, everything looked quiet, and as they got closer they could see nothing had changed from the way they had left things the day before, with one notable exception: th
e bodies of the Maer they had lined up on the valley’s edge were gone, with clear drag marks leading down into the valley. They rode back and gathered the rest of the group, then returned to the rockslide and set to work while Audrey took off at a fast trot toward Greenvale.

  Massey and Sinnie stood watch while the rest of them moved what rocks they could, then broke the larger chunks with spikes and a sledge and removed them as well. Nicolas’s strength was impressive, as was his silence; he spoke no more than was necessary to accomplish the task, and his eyes remained serious and alert. Carl liked what he saw of the youth, and hoped his demeanor was a sign he would be cool under fire. A light drizzle helped cool them off as they worked, and within a couple of hours, the road was clear. The rain became steadier as they returned to Brocland, and Carl sat in one of Massey’s old smelly robes as his clothes dried by the fire.

  The chapel was packed for Theo’s service, and Elder Gummache had candles adorning each of the gods’ niches. Some of the older folks knelt to murmur a few words to their chosen god, and the children wandered from niche to niche, marveling at the faded paintings with their often bizarre and macabre depictions of the gods. As a child, Carl had always been fascinated by Orliss, the blue-skinned god of the sea, who was pictured rising above the ocean on a great waterspout in which swam all manner of fantastical sea creatures, their eyes fixed on his stern face. In his left hand he held a conch horn, and in his right a net filled with dead and dying men, their faces wrenched with pain and terror, even in death. Another of his favorites was Yline, the mother of all growing things, her body made up of vines, leaves, flowers, fruits, and vegetables, yet somehow shapely and deeply feminine; the expression on her face seemed to invite the viewer to come and taste of her bounty. And the Gray Wanderer, a cloaked figure who appeared as a man in the day and a woman at night, who would give travelers hints of their past or their future, but one could never tell which it was until it was too late.