by Ted Neill
The Journey to Karrith
Elk Riders Volume IV
Ted Neill
To My Brothers, Jason and Nick
Table of Contents
Chapter 1 Pathus
Chapter 2 Victor Twenge
Chapter 3 Old Enemies, Old Friends
Chapter 4 The Ruined Font
Chapter 5 In the House of Pathus and Annette
Chapter 6 Sidon
Chapter 7 Scouts
Chapter 8 Voices
Chapter 9 Darid Causland
Chapter 10 Storn
Chapter 11 The Feast
Chapter 12 Flight to the Gillithwaine
Chapter 13 King Talamar
Chapter 14 Gandolin and Seraphina
Chapter 15 In the Home of Sandolin Blythewood
Chapter 16 You and Yours
Chapter 17 Under the Elven Lantern Light
Chapter 18 The Ride of the Squires
Chapter 19 The Fire Point
Chapter 20 No Small Thing
Chapter 21 The Tunnel Road
Chapter 22 Pinky’s Port
Chapter 23 Chloe and Gunther
Chapter 24 Enter Karrith
Chapter 25 The Tameramb
Chapter 26 The Hand Sea
Chapter 27 The Haines Point
Chapter 28 The Long Night of Darkness
Chapter 29 Celine
Chapter 30 The Siege
Chapter 31 The Battle for Karrith
Chapter 1
Pathus
The body was face down in the ditch, the clothes soaked with the stagnant runoff from the road. The left shoulder was stained with blood and the hair on that side of the head matted and stiff where the wound had bled. He had been a trader. That much was clear from his wagon that lay tilted on its side, the less valuable items spread over the ground, the canvas cover torn away and hanging in the bushes.
Pathus stepped down from his own wagon, conscious of the goods stacked behind him: lamp oil, candles, packages of salt, yeast, and flour, enough to make it through the winter until the worst of the snows had passed. He was armed with a sword of the finest make, but it was for show and he knew it. He was too old to fight and he was also alone. He would put up no resistance if bandits were still about. Yet, it being midday he doubted an attack. These bandits were likely long gone.
His oxen, Cam and Ana, welcomed the rest, their ears flicking at the flies that buzzed about their heads, their wide guileless eyes following him, indifferent to the scene of murder before them. Pathus ran his hand along Ana’s flank as if to comfort her, but he knew he was the one who needed reassuring. He was not sure what horror waited for him when he flipped over the body, but the visage of death was always a terrible one, especially to a man who had more days behind him than ahead.
He scanned the road and bushes one last time before he dropped a boot into the muck and crouched down, his knees popping, and grabbed a fistful of the dead man’s tunic. Pathus had to move in a conscious manner to protect his back, but he still had strength in his arms and hands. His muscles flexed as he drew the body upwards, the mud making a gasping noise as the weight was removed. He braced himself for the scent of decomposition and the unnerving face of death—that slack expression of mortality—as he laid the body out on the road. So strange, he thought, to see death come to a man so many years his junior, one without a gray hair on his head—quite the contrast to Pathus’ locks which had gone white long ago. He touched the man’s forehead and brushed away debris from the ditch, sodden twigs and rotting leaves, then smoothed his hair as he would for his own sick child.
Mud mixed with the blood in the head wound creating a red-black mess. The color had yet to leave the man’s face, which was plain but kind, with soft features and a few days’ worth of growth on his cheeks. Pathus thought back to the gasp he heard pulling the body from the mud and a notion stirred within him. He crossed the road in two quick strides and examined the goods left behind by the bandits. They had been after coins and small valuables they could trade or practical items they could use. Pathus found what he was looking for: a hand mirror discarded and broken, its shards reflecting the milky sky as he leaned over to pick it up. He carried it back to the trader, set it next to his nose and waited long enough to see the glass cloud with the faintest of breath.
His errand changed. Pathus lifted the man up onto his shoulder—his back be damned now—carried him past Cam and Ana and laid him across the flour sacks in the back of the wagon. He hefted himself back up onto the bench, snapped the reins hard and reached over to touch the man’s hand. He was unmoving and unconscious, but was undeniably alive.
His name was James Nellis. He was a trader from Falum, and Pathus’ wife, Annette, fell into the role of ministering to him in his convalescence with the ease of a grandmother caring for children and grandchildren—a practiced mix of affection and command. James, when he woke, was grateful for it, as evidenced by his obedience to Annette’s every order and his words of thanks each time Pathus entered the room where James lay propped up on pillows, his head wrapped in bandages.
“You were lucky they were more interested in loot than killing,” Pathus told him, settling down in a creaky chair next to the bed one morning.
“I’m lucky to have been found by someone as generous as you with a wife skilled as a healer.”
“She has had practice over the years,” Pathus said.
“You are very kind to me, a stranger.”
Pathus sniffed. “Sometimes it is easier to be kind to a stranger than one’s own kin.”
“I suppose,” James said, but Pathus could tell by his expression that he did not quite understand.
“They were just boys really, the ones who attacked me.”
“Probably unable to find work but too young to join the army and march south with the king. More experienced thieves would have known what to take. They left a great deal behind.”
“Their inexperience was my blessing then.”
Pathus made a soft grunt of assent. This room had been shared at one time by two of his sons, Edward and Charles, whom he would see later that morning. He knew he wasn’t as noble as this stranger was making him out to be. What did it take to truly love someone, he wondered. Was it enough to be good? With strangers there was less time to find faults and tally resentments. But in the push-pull of closeness, there was space to gather hurts as well as gifts. He could only hope that at the end of his life, when the last tally was taken, the ledger would work out that he was more kind than selfish, more giving than hurtful. To strangers of course, but when he thought of his wife, his sons, he wondered if any amount of good works could absolve him of the little slights, the times he had been irritable, or forgetful. He knew he had been a good father and good husband. Annette told him so often. But he also knew he had been less than perfect. In the end, human.
James was talking again. Pathus directed his attention back at the trader. He was more of a listener, always had been, keeping his thoughts to himself—including the notion that he had grown fond of the time he would spend with James after morning chores and after breakfast, when he would rest a few minutes before tending to the endless tasks a farm demanded of him. Not that he would ever admit as much to James, but he had come to like the trader a great deal.
“It seems nothing in the realm is right, with war in Karrith, and now Antas joining the fight,” James was saying.
“War brings ill tidings and ill times,” Pathus said.
“Many a wagon was headed east on the trade road with the same intention as I: to head north to Falum in hopes that enemy armies would not want to push so far north in the winter months.”
“We’ll have you healed and on your way soon enough,” Pathus said. Outside, he
heard a child’s shout and knew his children and grandchildren had arrived. James thanked him and Annette at every turn, but Pathus felt he owed the trader something, for Annette was happiest when she had others to fuss over. Love came so easily to her. And Pathus welcomed the opportunity to undertake a project with his sons. This morning it would be riding out to the stretch of road where he had found James to right the cart and draw it back to the farm. He took his leave of James and made his way downstairs.
His grandchildren, Hester, Ryan, Langston, and Sue, descended from their father’s own wagon and wrapped Pathus in embraces before running off to the barn to play in the hayloft. Pathus smiled to himself. For years after his own children had left the farm he had occasionally found their toys—forgotten or lost—in the hay loft. By the time he felt he had found the last one, the last reminder of his children as children, he began to uncover newer ones, dolls, toy swords, left by his grandchildren.
And the cycle goes on.
Edward and Charles made for good company as they rode with Cam and Ana roped to the back of the wagon. They were good boys, long past the years of arguing with each other or their father. As a team they roped James’ wagon to the oxen and the horses and dragged it out of the ditch. Edward yoked the oxen to the hitch while Charles untangled the canvas cover from the bushes. This left picking up the fallen trinkets and other wares to Pathus. He found dolls made of clothespins, hemp rope, a cracked pot, and a cauldron with a repaired handle, and returned them to the back of James’ wagon.
He scanned the ditch one last time for anything he had missed when his eye fell on something that shouldn’t be there among the moldering leaves and strands of algae. He straddled the ditch, bent at the waist, and reached into the water to draw out a sword that gleamed and glistened in the morning light. His trained eye recognized expert craftsmanship: a hilt fashioned to resemble patches of briars with a heart cradled within. The blade was sadly broken but hefting it in his hand from one palm to another he could tell it had once been well-balanced.
“Something for you,” Charles said folding the canvas cover over his forearm. “It looks to be good steel.”
“Very good,” Pathus said, his breath coming quick. “Shame it is broken.”
“What is that it says on the hilt?”
Pathus rubbed some of the grime that had collected on the crossguard. Among the tangles of briars, across the face of the heart read the words: Wild Heart.
A frost had made the grass of the paddocks brittle underfoot the morning of James’ departure. The heads of the donkeys Pathus had purchased to replace James’ stolen horses were wreathed in clouds of their own breath. Annette, who had risen early to make sure James had fresh bread and a flask of hot tea for the journey, embraced him like her own son before releasing him. He buttoned up his cloak, another gift from his hosts, and turned to Pathus, a teary gleam in his eye.
“You’ve been too generous, I can never repay you,” he said, looking over his wagon, his repaired covering, and the able-bodied donkeys.
“Out here in these reaches we still believe the gods call upon us to be kind to one another,” Pathus said.
“The same in Falum, but don’t tell the Inquisitors that.”
“Repay us by reaching your home and your family and living to be a good father.”
“My children still have a father thanks to you,” James said, his voice catching. He wiped his nose with his sleeve and snapped his fingers. “I know that you and your wife are people of means, but please take something from my cart. I know my offerings are meager but if there is anything—”
James stepped around the back of the cart and flung open the flap. He had spoken true, the thieves had left little of value and his shoulders drew close together, his head sinking a fraction as if realizing it himself. Annette let out a sympathetic whimper. Pathus, however, knew what he wanted. The light filtering through the mended covering cast the inside in a dim tea-colored hue that the hilt of the broken sword reflected back in a warm radiance. Pathus found himself taking it by its handle and lifting it up as one would an ancient treasure.
“That is broken. Please friend, is there anything better I have left to offer?”
Pathus smiled and tapped his palm with the flat of the blade. “You will need what goods you have to rebuild your business. I have some knowledge of sword craft. To repair this will keep me busy during the long winter months.”
“It will keep him warm in his smithy and out of my hair, so it’s a present for both of us,” Annette chimed in.
“So be it,” James said.
Husband and wife watched the cart diminish down the road until it slipped out of sight over the next rise. Pathus said nothing. He didn’t need to: Annette knew where he was going next. He carried the sword to the smithy, opened the heavy door, and set the sword on the cold, scarred anvil. He ran his hand over the worn wood handle of the bellows. Then he stepped outside, righted the chopping block, took up his ax, and began to chop wood into lengths for the forge.
Chapter 2
Victor Twenge
The first arrow clattered in the elk’s antlers, startling the jays who had been resting there. The second struck Katlyn in the neck, embedding itself in the scarf she had wrapped about herself against the cold. The elk dropped down low to the ground, crouching behind a lichen-encrusted boulder while Cody yanked the reins of his horse and pulled himself broadside to their attackers.
Haille jumped down from his saddle to Katlyn’s side but Val had been quicker. He had stripped off his own gloves to grab Katlyn, slip her down off the elk’s back, and lay her on the ground in the shadow of the boulder.
“No, no, no,” the captain repeated in a quick rush of breath, his bare hands trembling. Haille knew they shared the same flashback, of Katlyn in Morbright mine, Avenger Red’s arrow lodged in her neck while bright red arterial blood stained her collar. But there was no blood this time, Katlyn’s expression was composed, concerned even, for Val and those around her with stricken faces.
“I’m all right,” she said reaching out to touch Val’s chest. “I’m all right. It’s stuck in my scarf that’s all.”
Val unwound the scarf and ran his hand over her throat to make sure for himself. The elk looked on with that uncanny face that was so full of human emotion. Once it was clear Katlyn was not injured, Haille and the elk moved side by side towards Cody who was bent low over his saddle. Together they scanned the rocky slopes behind them.
“I don’t see them but they are clearly behind us.” He turned to Val. “What is your call Capt’?”
But Val was unresponsive. Instead he sat leaning back against the rock, lichens flacking off onto his shoulders, Katlyn’s scarf twisted in his hands, his blue eyes wide and empty. Now roles reversed and it was Katlyn who knelt, tending to him as if he were wounded.
“Val . . . Val . . . .”
“I’m sorry Katlyn,” he said, his voice but a whisper. “I thought you were . . . gone again.”
“Cody, what is wrong with him?” she asked, running her hand over his forehead.
“Damnation.” Cody spat, sliding from his saddle. “No time for the fright to seize you Capt’. Haille, keep a look out.”
Cody grabbed Val by the shoulders. It was unusual to see him out of sorts, after all he had been their leader, their stalwart champion for so many days and over so many leagues. Now he cowered like some victim of the battlefield sickness.
“Val, she is all right. We’re all right. We need to move,” Cody shouted.
Val nodded, his eyes blank until he snapped back to himself. “The girl?”
“She’s fine,” Cody reassured.
“We’ve got riders in the open,” Haille said as six riders swept around the bend behind them. They were men, bearded and dressed in furs and skins against the cold. With a low ceiling of gray clouds, the sun was weak that morning but there was light enough to gleam on the edges of their axes and swords. The ground dropped away into a gorge to their west and rose up in a rocky
slope to their east. The only way out was south on the road they were already on.
Val, having come to his senses, was getting up, helped by Cody. The elk bent down so Katlyn could remount. Haille kicked his own horse and the four of them rode at a gallop deeper into the gorge. The trail followed the contour of the hills and moved downward so that Haille could hear the rush of water at the bottom. He checked over his shoulder and saw that the six riders were still behind them.
“Bridge ahead,” Cody shouted from the front. After another turn Haille could see it, a sagging bow of wood planks supported on two sides by a network of crisscrossing ropes. The ropes anchored to wooden towers on either side of the gorge. The whole structure shook and swayed as they rode their horses onto it, but there was no alternative. The river tumbled over a ledge just to their north, spilling out in an apron of spray that sent droplets onto Haille’s face. He snapped at the reins, focused only on the far side of the bridge where the trail turned sharply to the south, disappearing behind the shoulders of outcroppings—outcroppings that would provide blessed cover from arrows. The bridge was shaking violently with the pounding of their horses’ and the elk’s hooves, but the ropes were holding. They were just over halfway, the opposite end closing in when Val cried out for them to stop.
“Haille, wait!”
The bridge continued to sway and shake even after Haille had slowed his horse to a stop. The animal’s ears were back, its eyes rolling, just on the edge of panic. He leaned down to pat its neck. Why had they stopped? he wondered. Had the riders broken off their pursuit? Cody and Val brought up the rear, the riders still descending the hillside towards the bridge. Even Cody wore an expression of confusion as Val motioned for them all to stop in the center of the swaying mass of wood and rope.
“It’s a trap,” Val said, looking past them on the opposite side of the bridge and the empty trail awaiting them.
“How do you know?” Katlyn asked. “The road is clear.”
