Hollow Road

by Dan Fitzgerald

  He stuck his staff into the entrance, bracing for impact, but there was none, so he peeked his head around. He could see no more than twenty feet into the tunnel from the reflected daylight, but there was nothing moving, no odd shapes, no smells other than earth, rock, and mildew, nothing to indicate the place was currently inhabited. He stepped back to the stairs and waved. Carl emerged from the bush, moving low but quickly with his shield in front of him, reaching the bottom of the stairs in a minute’s time. Finn met him halfway down.

  “No sign of movement,” Finn whispered. He pointed to the bones in the crevice. “Do you see those?”

  Carl nodded, his eyes hot. “Yeah, looked like some kind of huge snake or something.” He chewed his mustache. “Except there are no snakes that big.”

  “Not in these parts anyway,” Finn agreed. There were stories of giant snakes on some of the islands off the western coast, but there weren’t any snakes in the Silver Hills longer than a person’s arm.

  “Well, whatever it was, the Maer seem to have had a feast of it,” Carl said. “I wouldn’t mind having a taste myself.”

  “Yeah, I’m good with journey cakes,” Finn said.

  “Suit yourself.” Carl gripped his sword. “I’m going to see if there’s any more of those creatures in there.” He pushed past Finn, who was too surprised to react, and plunged into the tunnel entrance. Finn took a moment to ready the lantern, then followed Carl inside.

  The tunnel was just wide and tall enough for one person to walk through. Carl motioned Finn forward, since it was fully dark outside the lantern’s reach, but Finn hesitated, examining the floor, which had numerous footprints of various sizes. A few mice scurried away from the light as they moved around.

  “The Maer were here all right.” Carl squatted to examine the prints in the lantern light. “Now let’s see if there’s anyone else home.”

  “Carl, I’m not sure if—”

  “I’m not sure if we can say the mine are uninhabited just by checking out the first twenty feet of the side entrance,” Carl countered before Finn could finish his thought. Finn sighed; he had to admit Carl was right.

  “Okay, but let’s take it slow. There’s no telling how stable anything is after twenty years, and Rolf said it wasn’t too safe to begin with.”

  Carl closed his eyes and took a deep breath. “You’re right. How about this: You hold the lantern, out to the right, so I can see the light over my shoulder. I’ll move slowly ahead, and I’ll let you know if there’s anything to worry about.” Finn nodded. Carl grinned, turned, and started walking down the passage.

  The tunnel went for about fifty feet, expanding at moments as it passed through natural crevices, until it reached a shaft, which let in weak filtered daylight from above. Carl motioned Finn to the edge, and he held the lantern out. The passageway continued past the shaft, which went up unevenly for a hundred feet or so before opening to the sky, and down beyond the reach of Finn’s lantern. A patchwork of wooden rungs and ladders wove between occasional squares of support beams, and a pair of long ropes were attached to a pulley about twenty feet above them, dangling down into the darkness. White, yellow, and orange fungus crisscrossed the shaft in puffy lines and splotches. Mice and a few rats scurried up and down the rough walls, skirting away from the lantern light.

  “I wonder what they eat,” Carl said.

  “Bugs, I guess?” Finn wasn’t convinced, but it was a good question. There were quite a lot of them for a place without any obvious food source.

  “Well I guess we know what eats them,” Carl whispered, pointing down below, where a long gray shape darted up the main shaft and disappeared into one of the side tunnels. It was some kind of enormous lizard, at least six feet long, and lightning-quick.

  “That would explain the charred bones outside,” Finn added, his voice suddenly shaky.

  As they stared down the shaft, the lizard’s head reappeared, its tongue flickering in and out. It leaped across the shaft and began climbing up at remarkable speed. Finn backpedaled and set down the lantern as Carl leaned his sword arm out into the shaft, swinging it down with a roar that sounded oddly joyous. The sword clanged against the stone, and Finn heard scrabbling noises from below, then silence.

  “Did you hit it? Is it gone?”

  Carl nodded, gripping his sword and staring down, his face eager, almost hungry. “I nicked it. They’re fast as hell, but I gave it something to remember me by. I wonder how many of them there are.”

  He sheathed his sword and pulled on the rope, gently at first, then harder, yanking it as if he were trying to jerk the pulley out of the timber holding it up, but both the rope and pulley held fast. “I’m going to swing across,” he said, wrapping the rope around his wrists. Finn had to physically restrain him.

  “Have you lost it, Carl?” Finn said, getting in his friend’s face a little. Carl’s glare sent him back into his own space, but he kept a hand on Carl’s arm and maintained his tone. “We don’t need to go toe to toe with a bunch of giant lizards, or whatever the hell they are. We need to go back and report what we’ve seen, so we can decide as a group what to do. Gummache said to check out the mine, and I think we know what we need to know.”

  Carl’s eyed burned hard and hot, and he breathed heavily through his nostrils. “Finn,” he said through clenched teeth, “get your hands off me before—”

  Finn let go and stepped back, his blood getting hot. “Before what? What, Carl? Before you what?” His voice rose to a shout, which resonated in stuttering echoes.

  Carl closed his eyes, raised his hands a little. “Before I agree with you.” He opened his eyes and smiled, sort of. “I’m sorry,” he added.

  “Fine. It’s fine,” Finn replied, working hard to bring his breath back in line. “This place is making us both wonky.”

  Carl clapped him on the shoulder, his eyes softening. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  “Sounds a lot like rock crawlers,” Rolf said when Carl described the lizard they had seen. “But I’ve never seen one more than a foot and a half long, two tops,” Rolf had said, scratching his chin. “The old-timers talked about how there used to be big ones out there, but I’ve never seen one.”

  “But you did see a dragon once, right? That’s what Sinnie said.” Carl studied Rolf’s face as he spoke, hoping to draw him out.

  “I’ve seen a lot of things, but it’s been quite a while since I’ve been out this way. And I can tell you, the last time I was here there were no lizards of any kind. And no mice or rats to speak of, once the miners were gone.”

  “So you came up here after the mine were closed?” Carl asked, glad he was finally getting somewhere.

  “I find silver everyone else has overlooked. It’s what I do. Or did, anyway.” He looked down at his hands. “My eyesight isn’t what it used to be, so I can’t spot it like I once could. Please, don’t tell Sinnie.” His eyes, usually hard and distant, pleaded, weak and watery.

  Carl closed his eyes and gave a curt nod. “Not unless it becomes necessary.”

  Rolf pursed his lips, raised his eyebrows and sighed, then cocked his head to one side. “Tell me again about the fungus you saw.”

  Carl shrugged. “I don’t know, it was white, some of it yellow, maybe a little orange, and puffy, but not like a regular mushroom. More like big fluffy bubbles clinging to the rock, in these jagged lines.”

  Rolf’s eyes showed a spark. “Sounds like silver spores,” he said. “There never used to be any there, I can tell you that. Off deep in the mountains to the south, that’s where they say they grow, when there’s silver exposed to water and air, if it’s not disturbed for a while.”

  “So there’s still silver in the mine?” Carl asked.

  “Sure, there’s some, but it would be too much work to be worth the effort. There’s a lot of scraping, rinsing, hauling, smelting; you need the whole setup. You could work that mine for a hundred years and still get little veins here and there, but you
’d be hard-pressed to make a living from it.”

  “I take it you tried?” Carl said.

  “I dabbled,” Rolf replied. “I’ll talk to Gummache, Massey, and a couple of the old-timers, see what they have to say about the fungus.” His eyes grew cool and distant again, and when Carl turned and walked away, he doubted Rolf noticed.

  Carl watched Sinnie talk to the Maer boy, the one with the knack for tongues, and had to stop his teeth from grinding. He shook his head, turned, and walked away from the group of Maer and humans, who occupied the same space as if it were the most natural thing in the world. He understood Sinnie’s sympathy for the creatures, especially these, who had harmed no one. But whenever he saw their hairy faces, he thought of the Maer who had attacked and almost killed them at Holden’s Glen. He accepted the need to take the Maer as far from Brocland as possible, and hope they would never return. But Sinnie was getting too close to them, and she was letting her guard down. Carl would not make the same mistake.

  He would have given anything to climb back into the mine and slice up some more lizards, or rock crawlers, as Rolf had called them. He found a spot in the forest not too far away with enough room to swing his sword, and spent a few minutes working off his frustration. But the longer he swung, slashed and thrust, the more he wanted some real action. He sheathed his sword and leaned against a tree to regain his breath. It was only then that he noticed the little Maer boy watching him. The boy gave a shy wave, and Carl nodded, not wanting to encourage the kid but not knowing what else to do.

  “Hi Carl!” The boy moved toward him with slow steps, a thin stick in his right hand. Carl’s eyebrows raised of their own accord as he heard the boy speak with almost no accent.

  “Hi,” Carl replied, a little annoyed he couldn’t remember the boy’s name.

  “How are you?” the boy asked. His eager eyes and smile shone out of his furry face, and though his enthusiasm was a little annoying, Carl could see how it might be infectious to some.

  “Fine, how are you?” Carl replied.

  “Fine, how are you!” the boy said triumphantly. Carl laughed in spite of himself.

  “What’s your name?” Carl asked.

  “Dunil,” the boy said, like ‘do-kneel,’ “I am nine years old.”

  “That’s great. I’m twenty-six,” Carl answered. The boy screwed up his mouth, then held out two fingers, then six. “That’s right. Twenty-six,” Carl repeated, wondering how he was going to get out of this unexpected tutoring session.

  “Twenty-six. You...” he made a motion with the stick he was holding, like he was stabbing something with a sword. “Ka-lar?” He whispered the word, looking around, his eyes wide.

  Carl closed his eyes, felt the Barrow Lord’s teeth chewing into his neck, the hot blood spraying over his face, trickling down inside his ear, the feeling of utter helplessness. He nodded and forced his eyes open. “Yeah, me and Sinnie, and Finn.” He pointed at each as he said it. “And Rolf helped us find it.”

  Dunil nodded. “Rolf is father Sinnie?”

  Carl forced a smile. “Yes, Rolf is Sinnie’s father.” He watched as the boy mouthed the words ‘Sinnie’s father,’ then nodded.

  “You good...” Dunil swung his stick around, then eyed Carl’s sword.

  “I know how to use a sword, if that’s what you mean,” Carl said. “And I’m practicing, so if you don’t mind—” He unsheathed his sword, turned his back to the boy and motioned him back. “See you around, Dunil,” he said, and began a set of thrusts, giving the kid a chance to get well back before he did any wider swinging. The Ka-lar’s sword now felt natural to him, an extension of his body, which seemed to know how to twist, brace, and shift to maximize the weapon’s weight while maintaining balance. He went through an entire round of drills, like he had done in the service, a series of wide, circular swings, working the low, middle and high zones, and everything in between. After a few sets of those, he leaned back against the same tree to breathe, and he noticed the boy was still watching, but from a greater distance now. In addition to being good with languages, it appeared the boy also knew how to take a hint. Mostly.

  THE WEATHER TOOK A turn for the cool as they moved down off Hell’s Chimney and onto Valleys Road. It was not much more than an overgrown dirt path, but it was said to be thousands of years old. Rolf guided them to a rock formation where they could find some shelter, and they made camp for the night. Carl managed to keep the Maer in a separate area, though he suspected Sinnie would have liked to sleep with one of the Maer children snuggled up tight. Rolf took the first watch, and Carl slept little before his watch, when the moon was high, and the starry darkness was oppressively silent. He spent his watch running through battle scenarios, including the various situations in which he might be required to kill the Maer they were traveling with. Though it didn’t seem likely, in just the right circumstances the adults might get ahold of a weapon and surprise one of them, and things could get ugly fast. He figured the one they called Grisol would have to be the first target; if she went down, the others would lose heart and huddle in a corner. He made a mental note to keep track of her at all times, to shadow her from a distance, just to be on the very safe side. With any luck, he would have something much bigger and nastier to fight before their mission was over.

  Sinnie shot a groundhog just after dawn, and though it wasn’t much, it was good to get his teeth on some meat. He bit his tongue when he saw Sinnie offering equal shares to the Maer, leaving too little for everyone. She was right, of course, but he didn’t have to like it. Once they got back in the saddle, he rode out front with Rolf. They didn’t talk much, but they stayed clear of the babbling children, who had started singing nursery rhymes in broken Islish. When they crested Bear Ridge, and the rocky top of Hawthorne Mountain came into view, Rolf pulled his horse up short and turned around.

  “This is as far as I can go,” he said, “if I hope to get back by tomorrow night.”

  “You might be pushing it even now,” Carl replied.

  “I know a few back ways through these hills. You don’t need to worry about me.”

  Carl watched Rolf and Sinnie having one more father-daughter moment, but he had to turn away. There was no room for sentimentality in Carl’s head right now.

  THE AFTERNOON BROUGHT drizzle, then rain, then more rain. Carl was soaked to his skin; only the parts of him that touched the saddle stayed warm and dry. The upside was that the Maer children were a lot quieter when they were wet and miserable. Carl rode in front, and neither Sinnie nor Finn felt the need to ride up to chat with him, so despite the cool damp, he felt a kind of peace, or at least the absence of true aggravation. Bodily discomfort was nothing new to him, and while he did not exactly relish it, it was better than having to make small talk. The rain thinned to a drizzle as dusk neared, and they found some measure of security in a rock crevice in a shallow wooded valley. They set up tarps to keep out most of the water coming from above, but the ground was rocky and damp, and there was little comfort to be had, and no fire. Amazingly, the Maer children, even the smallest ones, did not cry, whine or complain, at least not loudly enough for him to hear at the distance he kept. By morning, the rain had stopped, and the sun glittered on the wet branches.

  Sinnie approached him as he sat gnawing on his journey cake. He nodded with his chin.

  “It looks like we should reach the foot of Hawthorne Mountain this afternoon,” she said, her eyes hiding something. “Grisol says we need to approach from the west side of the mountain, here.” She unrolled the map they had made with Grisol and Gummache’s help. It showed a dotted line meandering around the base of the mountain, then some distance beyond to another, smaller mountain, on top of which a square had been drawn. “I think the square is where they came from,” she said.

  Carl studied the map, tracing his finger along the dotted line and stopping on the square. “I bet it’s one of those old Halean castles,” he said. Sinnie nodded. There were said to be dozens of them in the Silver Hills, remnant
s of some ancient empire, built into the rock itself, virtually impregnable in their prime, though they were all in ruins now. Some said they were Maer castles, from when the southern half of the continent was under their control; others believed they predated the Maer, that they were the castles of the humans the Maer had displaced. Carl had never seen one, but he had spoken with a few in the service who had, and they marveled at their scale and mountaintop construction.

  “I was going to try to get more information out of them, talk to Grisol and Dunil, see what they can tell us,” Sinnie said, her tone hesitant.

  Carl’s grunt was almost a chuckle. “That boy is a bit of a pest, but he’s taken to Islish like a fish to water.”

  Sinnie flashed a sly smile. “He’s taken to you as well. He’s been swinging his stick around, saying, ‘I am Carl! I kill the Ka-lar!’ It’s kind of sweet, actually.”

  “I thought you would see it that way. But I’m not going to play father figure for him, or anyone else. I’m not cut out for it, and he’s a Maer. He needs to be back with his people, and out of my hair.”

  Sinnie gave him a penetrating look, then busied herself retying her ponytail. “Well, we need him to help translate, so if you’re willing, I’ll bring him and Grisol over so we can get a better idea of what we’re walking into.”