Path of Ruin

by Tim Paulson

  “No!” Henri said. “That's not happening.”

  “Suit yourself,” the doll said, arms crossed.

  The blacksmith grumbled and walked down the bank toward three larger trees. He approached the biggest of the three and yelled back.

  “Everyone stay back. Adem, play with the talking doll.”

  The boy's eyes lit like fireflies as he was given permission to harass Harald. He ran over to Mia and made an attempt to snatch the doll from her shoulder which she prevented, watching as Henri drew his two handed veil blade, glowing white hot with absorbed energy.

  Mia wondered where Henri had gotten a veil sword like that. She hadn't seen anything like it. It was quite unwieldy. It was her understanding that with the development of pistols more than half a century ago swords that size had fallen out of use along with bows and suits of armor. The only real armor one could have was a goliath, but even those were far from invulnerable.

  Henri didn't even swing the sword, he just pushed it against the tree's surface. The wood parted as easily as the morning's cake. The blacksmith carved a wedge from one side of the tree and then slightly above that wedge on the opposite side he pushed the blade through slowly letting the weight of the tree open the cut. There were several loud cracks and the old oak toppled, not exactly in the direction of the brook but it spanned it none the less.

  “Your turn now doll,” Henri said as she approached.

  Adem toddled along behind her, still grasping at the doll.

  The little yarn creature moved its arms in the air until, with a gnawing sound and the distinct scent of sawdust, the wood of the tree seemed to melt and reform into a very sturdy looking wooden bridge, railing and all.

  “There? Happy?” it said.

  “Let's go!” Henri yelled over the noise of the rushing water. “Everyone across. Adem, take my hand please.”

  “Daddy?” Adem asked, as they crossed the water.

  “Yes?”

  “How did the doll do that?”

  “He says it's sorcery,” Henri said.

  “Hmmm.” The boy frowned.

  Surprisingly they made it across without any trouble. Mia had become accustomed to calamities. Having something go smoothly was a nice change.

  The far bank had its own wider clearing full of tuft grass and tell weeds. The ground was wet and soft here and had been recently disturbed.

  “More horses,” Mia said as she studied the hoof shaped depressions and kicked up clods of mud.

  “Do you think it's the same ones? How did they get across the stream?” Henri asked.

  “They're the same, look,” she pointed to a line of four toed tracks with long deep claw marks. “They were pursued by horrors.”

  Mia's attention was diverted by motion to her right. The boy was waving at the doll, trying to get his attention.

  “Yes?” asked the doll.

  “Can you teach me the... uh... shorsherry?”

  “I think we should move as fast as we can. Can you tell me which way the horses were heading?” Henri asked her.

  “Yes. Looks like North West,” she said following the tracks off into the brush with her eyes, “Oh,” she added.

  “What?”

  “And something else.” Mia stepped forward several yards into the grass. Here a huge depression marked the ground. “A goliath.”

  Henri shook his head. “Time to go!”

  “I can't,” the doll said, looking down at the little boy.

  Mia too looked down to see a very unhappy looking Adem, hands balled into fists. He stomped along behind her, eyes fixed on the doll on her shoulder.

  “Why?” Adem said.

  “Let's head South, just a little. I want to give them a wide berth,” Henri said.

  Mia nodded.

  “Just go away would you? I'm busy admiring my porter here,” the doll said.

  Mia rolled her eyes. The doll was obnoxious, she had no idea why she put up with his antics.

  “I wanna know! I can do it!” Adem shouted. The sound seemed to echo in the clearing. Birds took flight from a nearby stand of parch trees.

  “Sssh!” Henri said. “We need to stay quiet Adem.”

  “Yes listen to your oaf of a father would you boy?” the doll said as it tried to pry into Mia's uniform top. She slapped his hand away, nearly knocking him to the ground. The doll glared at her.

  “Why? Why? WHY!?” Adem screamed.

  Henri's face fell. “Adem!” he hissed, “You need to stop. Now!”

  But it was too late.

  Snapping twigs in the underbrush indicated that something had heard them and was coming to have a look. From the sound of it, several somethings. Mia bent and snatched Adem into her arms.

  “Run!”

  She bolted to the left where a clump of yellow leaved shrubs butted up against a stand of young parch trees. It would be excellent cover if they could only get there.

  A snarl announced the entry of a horror into the clearing. She looked back to see it tearing through the mud toward them as two others burst from the brush behind it. The creatures were too fast to run from, especially on uneven muddy ground. That left only one choice.

  “Take Adem out of here. I'll handle them!” Henri turned and drew his long veil blade with the pale golden glow.

  It was only seconds before the first monster leaped at Henri, claws splayed, mouth agape, revealing rows of needle sharp teeth.

  He stepped to the side and swung his sword in a wide diagonal arc but misjudged the distance. The smith's blow only caught the edge of the creature's forelimb, drawing a single red line across its skin. Barely a scratch.

  Mia grimaced. Henri was going to get himself killed.

  The horror lunged. Henri tried to back away but his foot found a void and he fell onto his back in the oozing brown muck.

  Then it was on him, raking at the skin of his forearms. The horror's claws hooked at Henri's flesh, pulling his arms down as the great globular head, covered with scores of black eyes, pushed its dripping maw forward to tear out his throat.

  Finally Mia made it into range and obliterated the creature's head with her blade. A spray of blood, brains and black ichor splashed every part of Henri's face and chest, bathing him in steaming goo. The creature collapsed, pinning the Smith's body with its bulk.

  Good. He would be less likely to die if he stayed down.

  Mia calmly stepped past Henri to set up in the center of the muddy field, facing down the remaining two horrors. They circled, prowling for an opening.

  “Hey!” Henri yelled, trying to create a distraction as he worked to squirm out from under the corpse but the creatures ignored him.

  Instead the one behind her charged, followed a half second later by the other. The creatures flung themselves forward, spraying muck in every direction as their clawed limbs dug through the wet ground.

  Mia waited.

  Just as the horror behind expected to close its ravenous jaws on the back of her head she dropped into a backwards roll over her left shoulder.

  The creature passed inches above. It dug clawed feet into the mud, desperately trying to stop as her roll wheeled her into a position directly behind the monster's left flank. The slash from her white hot veil rapier effortlessly cleaved its body in two halves that fell to the ground. Red and black blood sprayed from both of them like mirrored fountains.

  For the second horror she did not dodge, roll, or even flinch. She simply stood, still as a statue, until the creature came into her weapon's range and lunged. At just the right moment, she thrust the glowing blade straight through the center of its head and in the same motion twisted the rapier's tip up and to the right.

  The horror's head opened like a chopped melon, disgorging its contents in an explosive gush. Mia then sidestepped once to the right as its body dropped heavily to the slick ground, sliding for several feet before coming to a bloody steaming halt.

  She sheathed her sword and returned to Henri.

  “Are you alright?”
>
  Henri forced himself to his feet. “Yes,” he muttered, though she could see that he was not. His arms, bathed in blood, were so wounded the fingers on his right hand could no longer close. The great sword had slipped from them and dropped into the mud but she left it behind. Saving him took priority.

  As Mia reached to take his functional left arm over her shoulder a sudden tremor shook the trees followed by another. More birds took flight, calling raucous warnings as a third thunderous impact hammered the ground. This one caused Mia to stumble and the two of them almost fell.

  “We have to run!” she yelled. “It's the goliath.”

  On the other side of the field a gigantic man shaped figure of stone and steel loomed. The goliath bore the crimson markings of the Holy Ganex Empire. Eyes like two blood red suns burned with rage. Massive hands held aloft a great glowing veil bladed ax.

  “Adem!?” Henri yelled as he stumbled forward.

  Mia had watched the boy take the talking doll she handed him and head off toward the brush but could not longer see him. She had to save the father too, it was important. It just was.

  They needed to make it to the treeline some twenty paces away before the knight noticed them but Henri was not moving well. Mia wasn't liking their chances.

  There was the chilling sound of cranking metal, like the noise of a castle gate being raised. Mia knew what it was. It was the sound of that great ax lifting above the goliath's head. In seconds it would swing it down and obliterate them.

  Henri was trying to run and Mia was trying to help him but the ground would not cooperate. It was covered in clumps of grass, lumps of disturbed ground and soggy patches that sucked at the boots. She could feel their window for escape closing.

  Then a snapping sound erupted from the woods ahead. The very air began to hiss around them as clods of mud began to rise from the ground. The mud lumps floated up to about head height before exploding into a thick steamy fog.

  Mia grit her teeth, dragging the bloody blacksmith forward.

  “This way!” she said, pulling his body with all her might. The man weighed a ton, but she wasn't the kind to give up either.

  They stumbled no further than five steps before the sound of rushing wind dwarfed all else as the gargantuan ax flew down, driven into the ground by the full might of the veil powered goliath above. The impact was such that both of them were thrown from their feet. A rain of mud, rocks and the demolished remnants of a few small shrubs followed right after, covering Henri and Mia in debris.

  At least they were still alive. Mia got up, crawled to Henri on all fours and wrenched him to his feet, forcing him to move forward through the mud and the mist. Into the trees. Just beyond the edge of the clearing they saw Adem. In the boy's arms was the doll.

  “Adem! Run!” Mia ordered, pointing ahead of them, farther into the woods, “We're right behind you.”

  The boy nodded but his widened eyes betrayed his fear at seeing his father covered in blood and stumbling.

  “I'll be fine Adem,” Henri said but Mia knew he was lying. She'd seen wounds like his before, they did not end well.

  Mia took them on a zigzagging pattern through the parch trees then down the bank near the swollen creek to the South. She pulled the woozy blacksmith along until they came to a stand of sapling evergreens where she felt they were obscured enough from above to rest.

  The sound of trees snapping like twigs in the distance echoed through the forest but they were receding. Because of the doll's obscuring witchery, they had eluded the goliath, but the smith had suffered dire injuries. His eyes kept closing and then opening again. He'd begun to shake. It did not look good. Mia laid him down to rest but he was already unconscious.

  Little Adem began to cry.

  * * *

  All the children screamed as one and bolted in every conceivable direction. They handled the troll situation better than Giselle however who found herself frozen, staring at the great beast's gigantic bulbous nose covered in thick black warts. She'd told a story once about a troll's warts, how did it go?

  “Giselle!” Aaron screamed as he ran toward her, directly in front of the massive hulking human shaped beast. The creature had clearly been moving toward their pony, perhaps to dry and add to its winter hoard, but Aaron's movement changed its mind. It roared some trollish curse and swung a massive club.

  Luckily for her husband, Aaron's foot caught on a rock and he lost his balance, falling just before the club whooshed by. It cracked into a thick sapling, snapping it like a tiny stick.

  She felt two pairs of furry hands pulling on her arm.

  “Come lady Giselle! With us!” cried the little lion voices as the pony bucked and shook, throwing their carefully tied provisions in every direction.

  The pony had turned itself around on the path to face Giselle. The poor thing's eyes were filled to the brim with fear. It was about to bolt right through her and would have had the troll's next swing not come down on the center of its back, flattening it to the ground.

  “Run damn you!” Liam said from behind the troll as he jammed the tip of his veil sword into the meat of the creature's thigh.

  The troll roared furiously and swung around only to receive one of Celia's knives in the center of its nose.

  That was a good idea, thought Giselle, trolls have very sensitive noses. This fact figured prominently in many troll related stories. Though not so prominently as the thing Trolls were said to hate the most: fire.

  Oh! She ought to tell them that.

  “Fire! Trolls... they hate fire!” Giselle said, hoping someone would hear.

  “Fok! Fok! Fok'N Umans!” the troll howled as it raised its club high above its head.

  Giselle allowed herself to be pulled by the two lion children, into a thicket of yellow leaved bushes but didn't dare pull her gaze away from the ongoing confrontation. She saw Celia dive behind a tree and her brother roll to his right as the club came down again with such force Giselle felt the impact through her boots.

  Where was Aaron, she wondered? Last she'd seen he'd fallen and just missed having his head removed by that monstrous club.

  Then she saw the fire.

  Somehow Aaron had made and started a torch which he then touched to the back of the very oily looking mix of hides and cloth that served as the creature's clothing. It lit instantly.

  Flames ran up the troll's back like a dragon's tongue. The creature's eyes, minuscule when compared to the size of its fat head, widened in terror. It let out a piteous howling shriek, dropped its club mid swing and scrambled off into the brush slapping itself furiously with fat gnarled hands.

  Giselle had to admit she felt a bit bad for the poor thing. It had just wanted something to eat.

  “Is everyone alright?” Aaron asked as he put his torch out in a muddy puddle.

  “The pony's been better,” Celia said, picking herself up and brushing the leaves and mud from her clothes as best she could. “But I'm fine.”

  “I'm fine as well,” Giselle said as she emerged from the bushes flanked by the two leothan children. “Min? Una? Wilfred? Remmy?” she called. Each of the remaining children emerged from some pocket of brush along the path. All appeared unharmed, though certainly a bit rattled.

  Wilfred, the lean long haired son of the Halett's head butler made a beeline for her and buried his head in her cloak, clutching her tightly with his arms.

  “It's alright,” she said. “He's gone, it's safe now.”

  Aaron was beaming at her. “That was excellent thinking Giselle!”

  She smiled. “Thank you.”

  Liam wore a disgusted look. “He might have run off but that doesn't mean he won't come back.” He looked to Aaron. “Could you finish off the pony? My powder's ruined by the wet out here.”

  “Actually... I... haven't yet loaded my pistols,” Aaron said, a sick look on his face.

  Liam threw up his hands. “You can't be serious!”

  “Useless, both of you,” Celia said as she brandished a long
Arden dirk, yet another weapon Giselle had never before seen. “Take the children up the path,” she said as she knelt over the struggling, gasping pony.

  Giselle did as instructed. Another long howl of pain echoed from somewhere far off in the woods. The troll was still far too close for comfort. They would have to get moving.

  They made it over the hill and therefore just across the frontier into the country of Vinicia that evening after slogging in the dark for what seemed forever. There they made camp. Giselle slept like a log, surprising given all that had happened and awoke the next morning to find she was once again entangled with children. Everyone ate stale bread and dried meat and set off down the path, past three tall standing stones, toward the stand of tall pine trees just a little further down the hill, the place where Aaron said he'd been told to go.

  Going down the hill was much easier on the legs and the children did well with it. The only challenge was avoiding a spill down the hillside as the trail was thin and rocky.

  The air was sweet and fresh however, which was welcome. Birds flitted by from bush to bush, plucking free the last of the season's berries.

  “I suppose this is it. The trees are magnificent,” Aaron said as he stopped to stare up at the great grove of pines that towered before them, hands planted on his hips.

  The entire party came to a stop behind Aaron. Ahead stood a thick copse of verdant dark green pines. The trees were as tall as castle towers, heavy and thick. The wide trunks had deep creased furrows that ran up and down reddish brown bark giving it the look of ancient plated armor. Despite their size they didn't feel menacing so much as protective, like the towering legs of parents as seen by a small child.

  “They don't look so scary to me,” Aaron said, peering all the way up to the very top. “I wonder what species they are. I've never seen this kind of pine. It's so.. huge...”

  “Look, we got here right? That's all we were supposed to do. Now we head South along the hills toward Kaastrict city in Calacia and then follow the roads to Valendam,” Liam said. He kept his eyes on the massive pines as if he expected them to bend over and slap him.