Hollow Road

by Dan Fitzgerald

Carl nodded. “I worry Grisol won’t want to tell us the whole truth. I wouldn’t, in her shoes. But maybe Dunil will tell us something she might otherwise withhold.”

  Sinnie nodded, smiling, and turned to go retrieve the two Maer. Dunil skipped in front of Sinnie and Grisol, then slowed to a walk as he neared Carl, his face growing more serious, but still with the same dancing eyes.

  “Good morning, Carl!” he said. He ended every sentence as if it were a celebration.

  “Good morning Dunil,” Carl answered. “How are you?”

  “I’m fine! How are you?!”

  “Fine, fine. Grisol,” Carl said, nodding to the Maer female, who nodded back, her eyes wary.

  Sinnie rolled out the map onto a rock and pointed to the valley. “We are about...here.” Dunil and Grisol followed with their eyes. Dunil nodded vigorously. “You came from...here.” She traced slowly along the dotted line around Hawthorne Mountain and up the next mountain, on the edge of the map, ending on the square. Dunil looked up at his mother, who nodded.

  “Yesh,” she said, her mouth struggling to pronounce the sounds properly.

  “Yes, mao-tay! Yes, not Yesh!” Dunil’s expression of delight was quickly subdued by Grisol’s scowl.

  “Here’s what we want to know.” Carl touched Dunil on the shoulder, glancing up at Grisol for approval, which her eyes granted after a moment’s hesitation, “How many Maer are here, in the castle?”

  Dunil looked up at his mother, whose eyes showed no understanding, and looked down at his fingers, holding up two, then six, then repeating. “Twenty-six and twenty-six!” He said.

  “Fifty?” Sinnie asked. Dunil’s smile suggested he had no idea, but he nodded.

  “Twenty-six and twenty-six, many! Many Maer!”

  Carl looked up at Grisol, then asked: “Will the Maer try to kill us?”

  Dunil’s face fell, and he looked up at his mother, asking something in the Maer tongue. She replied with a few curt words of her own, then nodded to Dunil.

  “Yes-no,” he said. His eyes were not smiling this time.

  “So that’s a maybe?” Carl asked.

  “Yes. Maay-be,” the boy said. “Maybe.”

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Sinnie rode up abreast with Carl and said in a low voice, “I think we’re being watched. I’m not going to point, but look up the hill to the left, just above that big rock there.” She had seen movement on the hillside ahead, maybe a hundred feet above the path, in a boulder field. She thought she had seen a figure crouching behind a boulder, and though it was hard to tell from this distance, it seemed awfully big to be a human. Even after their encounters with the Maer and the Ka-lar, it got her feeling a little trembly.

  Carl glanced up, then looked back at Sinnie, his eyes steely. “We should stop, break out lunch early, and see if we can get a better view.” Sinnie nodded, and Carl glanced up again, squinting into the sun. “Does it seem on the large side to you?” he asked.

  “I don’t know what it is, but it’s bigger than any person I ever saw. I’ll go tell everyone we’re stopping for lunch.”

  As she ate, Sinnie determined there were two of whatever was watching them. She pointed them out to Finn, who watched with her. Their heads would occasionally pop up over the top of a boulder, then disappear. Their position suggested an ambush, but they were pretty far up the hill, so she was unsure what to make of it all.

  “Maybe they’re just watching us,” Finn suggested. “Surely they wouldn’t attack a group this size.”

  “Unless they have half a brain,” Sinnie said, “in which case they would realize we’re vulnerable, since we have to protect the children.”

  “What are they, anyway?” Finn asked, his voice full of fear and wonder. “I mean, they must be eight, nine feet tall. Does that make them ogres? Or maybe giants?”

  Sinnie shook her head. “I have no idea. Two weeks ago, who would have thought the Maer could be real? Or the Ka-lar? Or those giant lizards in the mine? It seems the world is not quite as we thought.”

  “It’s like a game of Seekers of the South come to life,” Finn mused. “But I’m not so sure I like it anymore.”

  “This is no game,” Carl said, plopping down next to them. “I have heard of such creatures, said to haunt the remote peaks of the Silver Hills. From what I heard, they can throw rocks the size of your head with deadly accuracy. If we just keep going down the road, they’ll slaughter us. If I were them, I’d aim for the horses in the front and back, try to take out me, and Sinnie, since we’re wearing armor. Then in the confusion, I’d rush down and finish the job.”

  “Well you’ve certainly given this a lot of thought.” Finn side-eyed Carl.

  “He’s right,” Sinnie admitted. “If they are planning an attack, going down the road would be a big mistake. But the footing is not great farther down, especially since the Maer can barely guide their mules on the road, let alone a rocky hillside.”

  “If they saw us take a detour, they could take advantage of the terrain, rush down and bombard us from the road.” Carl’s voice was grave, but there was some fire in it too.

  “But at least that would leave them open to my arrows,” Sinnie said. “And if they’re on the fence about attacking us, that might keep them on the other side.”

  Carl shook his head. “On the hill below, we’d be in worse shape than on the road. I say, Finn and I rush up the hill, catching them by surprise. Sinn, get ready to cover us, put an arrow in their eye when they pop up to hurl their rocks at us, just like when we were kids.”

  Sinnie chewed her lip. “I don’t know, shooting uphill is tricky, and they’re pretty far up. I’m not as sure to be able to hit them, and unless it were a perfect shot, as big as they are, an arrow might not slow them down much, and you’d be sitting ducks.”

  “We’d be running ducks, which are much harder to hit,” Carl objected. “And I do have my shield, so I might be able to deflect their rocks. Plus, Finn can do that force shield thing, right?”

  Finn screwed up his mouth. “Yes, but it’s hard to maintain if I’m moving too fast. Uphill, with rocks raining down? I’m not sure. Maybe.”

  “Well I say we give ourselves a chance to avoid all this mess,” Sinnie said, knowing Carl would not be convinced but hoping to appeal to Finn. “Even if you do reach them, do you really think you can go toe to toe with creatures that big and strong?”

  Carl grinned, and Sinnie did not like the look in his eyes. “This Ka-lar sword could slice through solid rock,” he said, his voice rising a little. “And bigger usually means slower. The last thing they would expect is for someone to come charging up at them with a sword. They would—”

  “They would knock you back down the hill before you had a chance to swing at them,” Sinnie said, her voice rising to meet his. “You know fighting uphill is madness. At least if we have to face them on the road you might have a chance to get decent footing.” She glared at Carl, then shot Finn a pleading look.

  Finn raised his hands. “I’m with Sinnie,” he said, avoiding eye contact with Carl. “If we go low, and we see them coming for us, we go with Carl’s plan—Carl and I rush them while Sinnie covers us, but this time, they wouldn’t have the vertical advantage.”

  Carl stood up, his fists clenched, breathing audibly through his nose, and stalked off. Finn raised his eyebrows and pursed his lips, then let out a long breath. Sinnie put her hand on his, looking down at his tattoo, which covered the top of his hand and his wrist. It was the first time she’d been able to examine it this closely, as he tended to keep it out of sight. The tattoo was a series of lines and squiggles that looked an awful lot like the writing on the Ka-lar sword. Finn tried to withdraw his hand when he noticed Sinnie looking at it, but she held fast.

  “It’s beautiful.” She traced her fingers along the lines. “What does the writing mean?”

  “We’re not allowed to even begin learning the script until we get here.” He made a chopping motion with his left hand on his right elbow. “All
I know is it’s an ancient language that only the highest tier of masters can read. And I’ve never seen it written anywhere except on the bodies of those in the discipline. We’re not supposed to talk about it, but I don’t suppose I’m telling you anything that would get either of us in trouble.”

  “How far do the tattoos go? For the masters, I mean.”

  Finn smiled and moved his hand up his shoulder, across his chest, toward his back, then up his neck. “One of the visiting masters had it up to his chin, all over his neck, as well as both hands. I can only assume the rest, since we never saw him naked. Which is probably a good thing, since he was old and rather wrinkly.”

  “So when do you get more?” Sinnie asked, glad she was finally getting a chance to satisfy her curiosity.

  “Whenever they think I’m ready. When I’m done here, with this, whatever it is, I’ll go back for a few months of training, and then the masters will decide. Usually, you get only one row at a time, about this much.” He held his thumb and forefinger about an inch apart just above his wrist. “But sometimes people get more, depending on what they’ve learned, or what they can do. I heard one woman got her whole arm in one day, which must have been...” He shook his head. “The fingers and the back of my hand were the worst. They say the underside of your arm around the elbow is no fun either. Of course, we’re supposed to sit there all stoic and take it, but I can tell you, it’s not the most fun thing I did in study.”

  Carl returned, his face dark but steady. “Whenever you are ready, we should get moving. I’ve scouted the best path down, where there is a bit of a shelf on the hill. The mules should be able to handle it, as long as no one starts hurling boulders at us.”

  “Thank you, Carl,” Sinnie said. Carl responded with the slightest nod. “I’ll take the rear, if that makes sense to you, and you two can ride in front.”

  Carl nodded. “Have your bow at the ready, but we don’t want to frighten the Maer. If we see any movement from above, Finn and I will rush up the hill, and you tell them to crouch behind the mules.”

  Sinnie and Finn looked at each other and nodded.

  Grisol gave a concerned look when Sinnie pointed down the hill. She said something to Dunil, and the boy asked: “Why?”

  Sinnie crouched down to Dunil’s level. “There are some beautiful flowers on the hill down there.” She pointed to some late-blooming ironweed, vibrant purple on the field of green grasses. He smiled and relayed the information to his mother, who nodded to him, but fixed knowing eyes on Sinnie. She gave a grim smile in return, hoping Grisol would understand.

  “Beautiful flowers!” Dunil proclaimed, pointing down the hill.

  Carl rode in front, with Finn close behind him, followed by Grisol and Dunil, then Sabnil and his son Antee, then Pulua and her baby girl Margola. Anbol, Sabnil’s curious daughter, rode with Sinnie, running her fingers endlessly through the horse’s mane. They picked their way down the hillside and rode about two hundred feet below Valleys Road, through a rock field that lay on a nearly level shelf covered with grass and ironweed, many of the flowers beginning to fade but some still in full bloom. Sinnie watched the hill above, which was harder to see now that they were below the road, but she could just make out the two creatures, hulking, round-shouldered, and holding something in each hand as they stood up from behind the rock, watching the group. Carl looked back at Sinnie, his eyes confirming he had seen the same thing.

  One of the creatures reared back and hurled a head-sized rock, which hit just past the road and came bouncing toward the group, crashing against a rock and rolling harmlessly out of the way fifty feet from them. The other creature threw its rock, with similar results. Pulua, with her baby girl strapped to her chest, cried out. Grisol barked something back at her, and she kept quiet, leaning into the mule’s neck, as if that would offer her some kind of protection. Grisol and Sabnil followed suit, covering their children with their bodies as best they could. Sinnie leaned forward a bit for show; she was pretty sure they were out of range of the creatures, who stood behind the rock, unmoving, watching the group ride by. Sinnie looked over her shoulder as they passed, and the creatures turned and walked back up the hill, one carrying something, possibly a bag, over its shoulder, and both with what looked to be huge clubs in their hands. She sat up, breathing a sigh of relief and running her hand through Anbol’s thick, rough hair. She leaned over to snatch a couple of the taller stalks of ironweed, giving one to Anbol and tucking the other into her quiver.

  As they set up camp that night, the group was looking understandably agitated. Sinnie found Dunil and gave him the other stalk of ironweed.

  His face lit up. “Beautiful flowers!” he said in a breathy tone. “Thank you, Sinnie.”

  “I’m glad to see you took the time to stop and smell the roses,” Carl said, standing behind her with his arms crossed.

  “Shut up, Carl,” Sinnie said in what she hoped was a sufficiently playful tone.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Finn sank into the rhythm of his horse, which was favoring its front left leg ever so slightly, giving a predictably uneven swing to its gait. In the absence of a master to tell him what to do, he was experimenting with things he’d heard about but never tried before. He discovered if he rode the horse just right, rising softly and ever so slightly out of the saddle, he could take the energy of the horse’s movement into his body and harness it. He built it up until it felt like a solid, swelling mass of power in his core, then shot out a force shell, hardening his skin in an instant with almost no effort or fatigue of his own. He let it go, then pulled in another mass of energy, holding it this time, trying to compact it within himself, to store for later use. It was all he could do to hold onto it for five minutes; it felt somehow slippery, and whatever power he had to control it felt vague, imprecise, like trying to pick up an oily marble with mittens on. He kept practicing, hoping to someday be able to master the trick and hold onto the energy for an hour or more, which would give him an extra feat with none of his own energy spent.

  Carl stopped just before the crest of a hill, leading his horse toward a group of rocks, where he dismounted and stretched his legs. It would be about lunchtime, and Finn knew they were getting close. Carl unrolled the map onto a stone and called Finn and Sinnie over for a look.

  “The way it looks to me,” Carl said, “we should be no more than a half-day out from the foot of the smaller mountain, with the castle or fort or whatever it is, here.” He pushed his finger into the map, his fingertip growing white from the pressure. “From there, maybe another few hours up, assuming there’s a path in decent repair. The problem is, even if we wanted to try to avoid being seen, there’s no way to do it, short of traveling deep into the mountains to approach from the east, which isn’t happening with these kids riding along.”

  Sinnie nodded, her fingers covering her mouth. “They would have a perfect vantage point to see anything coming along the road,” she said. “And with a group our size, there’s not going to be any sneaking off to the side. They’ll know we’re coming.”

  “Let me just say I’m loving this mission more and more each moment,” Finn said. Carl and Sinnie gave him simultaneous glares, and he looked down. “Right, so we have to think diplomacy.”

  “And lookouts,” Carl added. “They will be well hidden, and aware of our position long before we know theirs. The only question is, how do we convince them not to attack us? If they have a few good archers in a hidden spot, we’re done for.”

  “We could have Grisol ride out in front with me,” Sinnie said. “I mean, they’re not going to shoot her, or me with Anbol on my horse, right? Assuming Grisol is okay with it.”

  “And assuming we can tell one way or the other how she feels,” Carl grumbled. “But you’re not wrong. They aren’t going to engage us when they see their own kind mingled among our group.”

  “I’ll go talk to her,” Sinnie said, leaving Finn and Carl alone.

  “We’ll need to talk contingency plans,” Carl sa
id, “in case things don’t go as we hope. Do you have any other tricks up your sleeve you haven’t told us about?”

  Finn rubbed his beard. At this point there wasn’t much point hiding anything; Finn had decided the mage code of secrecy need not apply to Carl, not at this point. “Not as such,” Finn said, “but things are getting a bit easier. I can put up a force shell without wearing myself out as fast. And I’m working on a way to transfer energy from the horse’s movement into my body, so I don’t use any of my own energy at all, but at this point I can only hold it for a few minutes.”

  “You can transfer energy from the horse into you? I’d never have thought that could be possible.” Carl stood slack-jawed, losing for a moment the bitter, bloodthirsty persona he’d been showing since the incident with the Ka-lar. Finn tried to imagine what it must have felt like for Carl to lose his gift years ago, to try to channel energy into his core only to discover he had no power, he was only breathing and wishing.

  “Well like I said, I’m working on it.”

  “Don’t stop,” Carl said with a gentle blink. “I feel sure we’re going to need everything you have before this is all said and done.”

  About mid-afternoon Sinnie slowed her horse, threw her arm back, and the group stopped. She held out two fingers and gestured to the right, toward a line of trees growing along what had to be some kind of creek about a hundred yards downhill from them. Finn couldn’t see anything, and they stopped for a minute, scanning the forest edge, but no one seemed to notice whatever Sinnie had seen. Carl rode up to talk to her, but Finn stayed in the back, turning to check behind them, up the soft hill to their left and down toward the woods. Still, he saw nothing.

  Carl fell back behind Sinnie and Grisol, who started moving again. Finn kept a close watch on the trees, and for a moment he thought he saw a flash of movement, but he couldn’t be sure. Whatever it might have been, he did not see it again. The forest continued into the distance, extending all the way to the foot of what Finn had started to think of as Maer Mountain, which was now coming into clearer view. It was about two-thirds the height of Hawthorne Mountain, steep on the road side but more gently sloping to the east, where taller mountains loomed in the distance. The top of the mountain had an unusual shape, as if the peak had been fitted with a square helmet that had been bashed in. His breath caught as he made out the remains of several towers, and he realized this was one of the famed Halean castles, which had filled his imagination during their childhood games of Seekers of the South. In the game, the castles were usually inhabited by giants or monsters of some kind, and it looked like the reality was closer than he had ever dared imagine.