At last his fingers uncovered a small, inconspicuous plant, whose thin green leaves ended in a weak dark red colour. That had to be it!
With a cry of triumph, more animal than human, Ahren dug the plant out of the hard winter ground, taking no heed of the injuries he was doing to his hands. His fingers bloodied, he pushed the plant into the herb bag attached to his belt, turned to head back and glanced one last time at the wolf skeleton while silently repeating his promise.
He would save Culhen!
It was night now and the Eastern Forest lay in darkness as Ahren stumbled from tree to tree. He had been forced into slowing down his tempo in order not to crash into branches and tree trunks although he could see more than should have been possible. The Moon Fungus clearly had a positive effect on night vision, and although the effect of the poison was wearing off, it helped him to move forwards at a faster pace.
He arrived back at the tree trunk with the Pallid Mushroom and paused briefly. His strength was waning, and he wasn’t sure if he could risk eating some more. His body had barely coped with the first portion, and he really had no idea what effect a second portion would have. He was about to move on without taking more of the stimulant when he heard a sound in his head. Culhen had become suspiciously quiet, but now he was sending a soft, sad howl to Ahren, which portended grief and farewell.
Ahren tore the rest of the mushroom from the tree and stuffed it into his mouth along with some splinters of wood while he raced with frustration through the night. The effect of the mushroom ensured that Culhen’s howling increased in an ever more powerful crescendo, driving Ahren into a madness.
Light.
Voices.
Ahren, guided by only the tiniest thread of reason and a large portion of instinct, tumbled out of the forest and into the strange flickering cloud of brightness, created by the torches that lit up Deepstone. Ahren spotted unfamiliar, grotesque faces, none of whom he recognised, but whoever they were, they quickly gave way to him. There was one person standing in front of him, smaller and broader than the others and with a funny dancing grey beard, and the person was saying something that he didn’t understand. The person grabbed his arm, and he weakly defended himself, but the iron grip moved him along. There were silhouettes kneeling around an animal that was lying there, breathing weakly and looking up at him out of tired yellow eyes. There was something wrong with the animal, and Ahren sensed instinctively that it was serious. It had something to do with the bag on his belt, but what? Dazed, he tinkered with the laces and finally opened the leather wide enough and pulled something out. There were screams and cries all around him, and the apprentice was sure he had done something wrong. But then the broad figure took the plant he was holding in his hands. How did they get there? While he was trying to figure that out, his tortured body collapsed under the thundering onslaught of the poison – and then there was nothing.
Chapter 4
It was the scent of honey dissolved in milk that awoke Ahren, and he slowly opened his eyes. He was lying on his bed in Falk’s hut and when he tried sitting up, his body refused to co-operate. Falk’s tired face came into view and broke into a smile.
‘Stay lying down for another while. That was a hellish run through the forest you managed’, he said, and there was pride in his voice.
Ahren tried turning his head but his neck muscles too were letting him down.
‘Culhen?’ he whispered weakly.
‘The greedy guts is fine. Can you believe that the minute he was healed he started eating again? You would have thought that after his poisoning he would have been more careful, but he gulped down everything the villagers brought him – and that was some amount.’ He looked down at Ahren and gave him another good-natured smile. ‘There seems to be no lasting damage done, either to him or to you although you seem to have been through the wars. What was it you took?’
‘Moon Fungus’, answered Ahren in a faint voice. He was finding speaking difficult, and he was surprised at Falk’s calmness. The last time that Ahren had almost died, Falk had been devastated.
The man put the milk and honey drink to Ahren’s mouth and carefully poured some in. ‘This will help you with speaking. And I’ve also added plenty of healing herbs which your body needs to counteract the paralysis. Jelninolan performed some magic which prevented your heart and lungs from packing in, but she had no energy for anything else. She and Uldini are absolutely shattered. It’s good that they can regenerate themselves during the Spring Ceremony.’
The old man was rabbiting on, and his demeanour was making Ahren nervous.
Falk noticed his apprentice’s concerned look and he smiled again. ‘Don’t you worry. You’re not getting a lecture from me today. If Selsena had been at death’s door, I’d have done exactly the same as you, and even more. Our companion animals are a part of us. Every Paladin who has seen theirs die has been shaken to the core and many of them have been mentally broken by the experience. There’s no doubt you took an enormous risk, but it was worth it. Jelninolan says that Culhen wouldn’t have lasted another hour, and unfortunately I didn’t find any Fire Weed in the place in the forest that Selsena had described to me. If you hadn’t done the necessary, he would have died.’
Relief and a deep sense of happiness flowed through the apprentice’s battered body, and he gave a barely perceptible nod. He concentrated on his connection to Culhen and sensed that the wolf was lying in a languorous food coma. His companion’s tiredness came rolling over him and he was swept away into a deep, peaceful sleep.
‘When you see them like that, you see that they’re two of a kind.’ Uldini’s voice was full of its biting humour again, and yet there was also sympathy in his voice.
Ahren glanced up from his food towards the Arch Wizard, who was keenly watching both apprentice and wolf gulping down everything as soon as it was placed in front of them.
The apprentice had been ravenous when he had woken up and the same had been true of his friend. Now they were sitting in the dining area of the tavern, bolting down the enormous portions at lightning speed under the approving eyes of their travelling companions, not to mention half the villagers.
Falk had shooed the pair of them out of his hut and steered them in the clear winter sunshine towards the tavern where, much to the surprise of the innkeeper, he had laid a gold coin on the counter. ‘I’m not a canteen kitchen for starving whelps. You’ll both get your fill in here’, he’d growled. The food had been served and Ahren had become lost to the world.
Now the Arch Wizard’s waspish humour had torn him from his feeding frenzy, and he had to admit that his table manners had seen better days. There were leftovers lying around his plate, his fingers were greasy from having ripped apart sides of roast meat, which he had stuffed into his mouth with large chunks of dark bread. He could feel the remains of the gravy from ear to ear and all over his face.
Culhen was still transmitting waves of hunger, but Ahren’s stomach objected and finally surrendered in its own heavy weight, so that the apprentice quickly dropped the remaining food he had been holding in his hands.
Scarlet with embarrassment he looked around and saw benevolent and amused faces looking at him and his wolf. He sighed when he noticed both Likis and Khara smirking, who were clearly highly entertained by his gluttonous episode. His lanky friend deliberately took a tiny morsel of breakfast, which he raised to his mouth in an exaggeratedly polite manner before chewing it slowly, all the while looking at Ahren and wiggling his eyebrows in a meaningful manner.
Ahren snorted and exploded with laughter, thereby ensuring that the contents of his mouth were scattered across the table.
The rest of the tavern joined in the laughter, and Ahren felt the general goodwill and relief at the fact that the two had fully recovered. He felt a lump in his throat as he wiped his face to get rid of the remaining gravy and to hide the tears welling up in his eyes.
Falk strolled over to him, a pail filled with water, and a brush in his hands.
‘When you’ve regained your self-control, you can tidy up the place and wipe away the mess you’ve created.’ He ignored the protests of the innkeeper, who stammered that you couldn’t order a Paladin of the gods to clean up. ‘He caused this chaos and he has a healthy pair of hands. So, it’s up to him to get rid of the dirt.’ And with that, the Forest Guardian folded his arms, and there was enough steel in his voice to dissuade anyone from contradicting him, least of all Ahren.
He grabbed the pail and began cleaning the table. Falk continued speaking in a low voice. ‘You have to learn to control Culhen’s impulses. He’s a predatory animal, and his urge to feed is powerful, especially now that Jelninolan has healed him. Her magic has dramatically replenished his reserves - you know the effects of her healing charms. If you and Culhen amplify each other’s manners, that can really backfire.’
Ahren nodded and tried to ignore the protests from his over-full stomach while he scrubbed the tabletop. He was clearly more approachable now, and the area around him no longer resembled a battlefield, and so all his friends gradually came closer to reassure themselves that he had recovered.
He fiercely embraced Jelninolan and Uldini, and the Arch Wizard rolled his eyes in response. ‘Are you serious? Hugging again?’ he groaned loudly, but he embraced Ahren firmly, nonetheless.
‘Thank you for saving Culhen’, said Ahren before his voice cracked.
The wolf pulled himself away from his nearly empty bowl, leaped up to the two Ancients and slobbered them with wolf kisses, his gooey tongue plastering their faces with the remains of his meal.
‘If I’d know this would happen, I’d never have helped Jelninolan’, sighed Uldini as he tried in vain to keep the wolf from his face.
Ahren took the opportunity to turn around to Khara, who was clearly enjoying the grumpy Arch Wizard’s discomfort. ‘Thank you for comforting Culhen. You really helped him.’ Suddenly he got her scent in his nose, and Culhen’s memory of being helped by her came forcefully back into the apprentice’s mind. Before he knew it, he was embracing Khara in a bear hug. A heartbeat later and he suddenly let go and took a step backward. The girl was a budding champion in unarmed close combat, and up until that moment any sudden body contact had ended very painfully for Ahren. This time, however, the ex-slave bowed towards him in the manner of the Eternal Empire. ‘We all really love Culhen’, she murmured simply, and left it at that.
The wolf had finished his slobbery display of affection, and Likis placed his arm around Ahren’s shoulder in an expression of friendship before asking quietly, ‘Have you any idea yet where Culhen ate the poison?’ He looked with concern at Ahren, who instantly became anxious.
He hadn’t even considered the question. The poison must have come from somewhere! He turned to his master, who began to answer Likis’s question.
‘Trogadon and I have been asking around, but nobody knows anything’, he said. ‘Wolf Ice is rare and expensive. The plant is mainly used by shepherds who are at their wits’ ends, because a pack of wolves has been worrying their flock. That happens rarely enough, and even then, it’s difficult to acquire the substance.’ The old man made a sweeping gesture. ‘I asked everyone in Deepstone who might have used it. None of the farmers, shepherds or big landowners had any trouble with wolves, and so they don’t possess any Wolf Ice.’
Ahren considered what he had heard, and suddenly a terrible thought struck him. ‘Somebody deliberately poisoned Culhen’, he whispered aghast.
Falk nodded, a stony look on his face. ‘That’s what we suspect too. You should ask your wolf, where was the last place he ate something before he was poisoned. Your friend had an incredible amount of toxicity in his body. If he hadn’t been able to speak to you, and if he hadn’t told you immediately, we would have noticed the symptoms far too late...’ Falk trailed off, but Ahren understood the implication. If Culhen had been the normal, faithful wolf he had been before the Naming, he would now be dead.
Culhen, where did you eat before your paws became numb? Ahren asked gingerly.
The wolf sat back on his hind legs, tilted his head and looked at Ahren with his faithful yellow eyes. Finally, he answered. House with wings.
Part of Ahren was overjoyed that Culhen’s messages were slowly becoming more comprehensible, but the other part was frantically trying to ascertain what his friend meant. What sort of a house had wings?
He looked out onto the village square, which lay peacefully in the late-winter sunshine, and gazed at the houses which were visible to him. Did the wolf mean a drawing or decoration? Could he even correctly interpret such an image? Ahren wasn’t sure how far the animal’s growing understanding had developed – but then the penny dropped, and he knew what the wolf had meant.
Ahren moved stiffly towards the tavern door. ‘What did Culhen say?’ asked Falk insistently, his voice sounding increasingly concerned.
‘He said it was at a house with wings’, answered Ahren in an ominously quiet voice.
‘A house with wings? I wonder does he mean the windmill?’ mused Uldini with a quizzical look.
Falk’s face froze as he put two and two together. ‘Sven.’
Ahren stormed up the hill towards the wooden door of the mill, which rose up a stone’s throw from the village. There was not much work for a miller at this time of year apart from doing repairs, and so the mill was standing idle.
Ahren kicked open the door and was propelled in by his own force. Sven and two of his cronies were drinking beer at the enormous millstone in the middle of the room. The air was sticky with the sweat of the three drinking buddies, who must have been celebrating for quite a while, and the young Forest Guardian suspected he knew why. The chubby miller’s son with his small, devious eyes had hardly changed since Ahren’s departure from Deepstone, and the same held true for his two friends. They had jumped up clumsily when Ahren literally appeared from nowhere, and now he was standing there stock still, a pace inside the entrance as the door, now split, crashed to the ground.
‘What do you think you’re...’protested Sven, but Ahren cut him off.
‘Why?’ he asked in a low tone, still standing motionless.
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about’, mumbled Sven, but with an oily smile, and he gestured to his two friends that they should sandwich Ahren between them.
The young Forest Guardian simply ignored the pair and fixed the miller’s son with his stare.
‘Why did you poison Culhen?’ Ahren blurted. Saying the words had stirred up his emotions again, and the makeshift Void into which he had fled shattered.
He had only rarely attained that meditative state devoid of emotion since he and Culhen had become connected, and when Sven again smiled slimily at him, he had neither the strength nor the desire to put the shattered pieces together again.
‘The brute should never have come here. This hill is our land, and we have the right to protect it from roaming predators’, said Sven with a false sorrow in his drunken voice and a hateful glint in his eyes.
Even if his life depended on it, Ahren would not have been able to explain what happened next. A red mist descended on him and a cry of rage overcame his reason. When he at least partially came back to his senses, he was standing, bending over and holding onto Sven, who was painfully touching his clearly broken right arm. His cronies were lying unconscious at the blood-spattered millstone, which also had a few knocked-out teeth lying on it. The budding miller’s face was beaten black and blue, both eyes were swollen shut, and his right check was strangely dented. Ahren’s fists were cut and bloody from the ferocity of his blows, and he was gasping and breathing heavily.
The apprentice stepped back in shock and dropped the bloody bundle to the ground, which was now a sobbing mess at his feet. Culhen’s wild howling was beginning to ebb away in his head while Ahren looked down at his companion’s tormentors.
Ahren could feel the wolf’s triumph and had to pull himself together so as not to emit a similar animal howl, torn as he was between his disgust a
t his own rage and the joyful emotions of the animal.
He was about to pull Sven onto his feet when suddenly it seemed like the end of the world. Through the damaged doorway he could see a snarling windstorm whipping up the snow from the ground, and within a few heartbeats the whirling mass of snow had reduced visibility on the slope to fewer than five paces. The cosy winter’s morning had been transformed into a raging inferno of wind and ice, which raged through Deepstone with elemental force. A silhouette approached through the sudden storm, and with a commanding gesture it burst the walls left and right of the doorway outwards, creating a gaping hole, five paces across, where the remains of the door had previously been hanging.
Ahren was stunned to see that the figure entering the mill was Jelninolan. Her feet left prints that were smooth as glass and of pure blue ice, and the air around her skin seemed to vibrate. Ahren instinctively retreated a step as she examined Sven with piercing eyes.
‘Is this the malefactor who has poisoned a messenger of the goddess?’ she asked in a resonant voice. At that moment there was no evidence of the maternal elf. Here was Jelninolan, the Ancient, the priestess of HER, WHO FEELS, in all her power. The snow seemed to be paying homage to the majestic sorceress, and was forming mysterious, magical symbols, while the glittering crystals of ice slowly transformed themselves into a mist.
The Brazen City Page 6
