House of Fear and Freedom (The Wyrd Sequence Book 1)

by Kimberley J. Ward

  It hadn’t been an easy trip, reaching the top of the cliff, but the sight was more than worth the effort.

  “It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” Hunter said.

  Nessa could only nod.

  Mountains, too many to count, stood on either side of a wide valley. Steep-sided, they soared high into the sky, their snow-covered peaks jutting above the wispy clouds that clung around them. Distance had only given a mere hint of their size, but now, being trapped in their shadows, looking up at them, Nessa found them to be immense.

  The valley floor was lush green, mostly covered by a thick blanket of moss and small red and purple succulent plants. A few pine trees and majestic oaks lined the sides, some valiantly trying to grow on the rocky bases of the mountains. A river, slow and wide, snaked down the centre, crystal clear.

  The River Nyland, Nessa presumed.

  She followed it with her eyes, watching it gently bubble along, flowing against the clusters of stones that flanked its sides, until it disappeared out of sight, heading towards the Burning Forest.

  “Jesus,” she whispered, awed.

  “You say that a lot,” Hunter said, standing next to her with his hands filled with fruit husks.

  “I do?”

  Hunter nodded. “You mutter it under your breath quite often.”

  “Huh. I hadn’t realised.”

  “You do it all the time.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “I assume it’s a swearword. Admittedly, I’ve never heard anyone else use it. But when you do, it’s usually accompanied by a few other words that I am well acquainted with. Especially when we’re sparring.”

  “Oh.” A blush came to Nessa’s cheeks when she thought of what those select words could be.

  “I’m impressed really,” Hunter continued. “It’s a rare thing to find a girl who can cuss better than a hardened, seafaring man. Can I put these in your bag?” Without waiting for an answer, Hunter reached out and deposited the fruit husks in her empty messenger bag.

  “I suppose so,” Nessa murmured, rolling her eyes. “I swear during sparring?”

  “Quietly, if it’s any consolation.”

  “Mmm.”

  Nessa, feeling mildly mortified, turned away from Hunter, her eyes sweeping over the breathtaking view once again.

  “It’s called the Valley of the Haunted Kings. Few people come here, in fear of the ghosts.”

  “Ghosts?”

  Hunter nodded. “Legends tell of a battle that was fought here long ago. A king started a pointless war that killed thousands of innocents needlessly, and once sent his men here to fight against his enemy. They were slaughtered, and as punishment for his warmongering and selfish desires, the Gods cursed the king, making him walk for all eternally in this valley, never sleeping, never resting, forever haunting the place where he killed so many for his own gain.”

  “How lovely,” Nessa said dryly. It didn’t detract from the valley’s beauty, though, maybe even enhanced it in a desolate way.

  “Come on,” Hunter said, giving her a gentle nudge with his elbow.

  They started off again, slowly leaving the rise and heading downhill, venturing into the valley.

  “Are there really ghosts here?” Nessa asked.

  Hunter shrugged. “Who knows? Maybe there are, maybe there aren’t. I’ve been here a few times and have never seen anything.”

  “That’s a comfort then.”

  He looked at her, brows raised, faintly surprised. “Scared of ghosts then?”

  “Maybe.”

  “Mmm.” Hunter turned thoughtful.

  “Mmm, what?” asked Nessa, curious as to what was going on in his head.

  “Nothing,” Hunter said. “Just putting another piece of the puzzle into place, that’s all.”

  “A puzzle,” Nessa laughed. “You think I’m a puzzle.”

  “You’re an enigma to me,” Hunter argued. “I know hardly anything about you. And most of what I do, I’ve had to piece together myself. You’re not exactly forthcoming, you know.”

  Nessa was quiet for a moment, wondering if he was right. “I’ve told you how I came to be here.”

  “You said that while exploring the ruins of an old town, you came across a glowing mirror that Margan pulled you through, thus ending up here. You haven’t told me where you’ve come from, what family you have. I presume it’s all a world away from this.”

  “Quite literally,” Nessa murmured, taken aback by what Hunter had said.

  “I mean,” he continued, “there can’t be things like dragons or magic users, then?”

  “Magic doesn’t exist,” Nessa said, biting the inside of her cheek. “It’s just in children’s stories.”

  “So this must be quite a surreal experience for you?”

  “It’s unbelievable. Sometimes I think I must have whacked my head and this is all just a dream.”

  “You don’t have to keep everything bottled in,” Hunter said. “You can tell me. I’ll keep your secrets.”

  “I’ve known you for a week,” Nessa reminded the both of them. “Of course you’re not going to know everything about me. And to be honest, I’m not sure why you’d want to. I’m very boring. Very average.”

  Hunter smiled. “Oh, I’m sure that’s not true.”

  “I don’t open up to people a lot,” Nessa explained. “I haven’t for months. I find that people think they want to hear your thoughts, your opinions. Then when you voice them and they’re not what that person wants to hear, they get angry or upset.”

  “You can’t let that silence you on all things.”

  “Not all things,” Nessa argued. “Just most.”

  “I’m not like that,” Hunter murmured. “If you want to speak your mind, I’ll listen.”

  “I don’t want to speak my mind,” Nessa sighed. “I want to forget.”

  “Forget?”

  “Well…” Nessa struggled to find the right words. “It’s like... I feel that... if I were to talk about everything that’s happened, then it would make it even more real. If that makes any sense? And since we’ve nearly reached Orm’s, and he might be able to send me back home, then perhaps it’s best just to forget everything, push it aside and focus on the future. Forget that magic exists and that dragons are real. Forget about people like Margan and Shadow...”

  “And forget about me?” Hunter mumbled.

  “No!” Nessa turned to him. “Never! I would never forget you and your kindness. You’re the only thing that I will look back on with fondness.”

  “Fondness, you say.” His eyes brightened. “I’ll take that. For now.”

  “For now?” Nessa grinned. “You think your charm will convince me to stay?”

  Hunter winked. “That, and once you see The Hidden City, you’ll wonder why you ever wanted to go home.”

  “Will I now?”

  “It will knock your socks off,” Hunter promised.

  “Well, lead the way then, my charming friend,” Nessa laughed. “I’m burning with anticipation.”

  With a spring in his step, he did, whistling happily away. Nessa eagerly trailed behind him, pushing away grim thoughts.

  “You don’t think I’m normal?” Nessa said after a little while.

  Hunter looked over his shoulder at her. “I mean that in a good way.”

  “I’m sure you do.” Nessa stepped around a low shrub with unusually pointed branches. “It’s just that no one’s ever paid me much attention before.”

  “I don’t believe that.”

  “Not that anyone was particularly mean or neglectful or anything like that,” Nessa mused. “I suppose people just left me to my own devices.”

  “That’s not a bad thing.”

  “No, I suppose not. It can get a bit lonely, though.”

  “There’s no better company than one’s own mind sometimes.”

  “Wow, Hunter. You just spouted words of wisdom again.”

  “Hey, I can say something profound every now and again. Don’t look
so shocked.”

  Nessa smiled and made a non-committal sound.

  They crossed the valley, heading away from the river. The terrain steepened and became rockier, barren of bushes and shrubs. Huge slabs of grey granite loomed before them, steep blocks that barred their path. A few lone trees grew around the bases of the sheer cliff faces, with a couple clinging on a little higher up.

  Nessa waited for Hunter to divert from his course, thinking that he was perhaps planning on hugging the bottom of the mountain until there was a clearer path. He didn’t, and aimed straight for those granite blocks. Nessa eyed them with trepidation, hoping, praying that Hunter wasn’t expecting her to climb up them. A rock climber Nessa was not.

  Jesus, Nessa thought, it’s hard enough walking through the bloody tundra without tripping over, let alone having to scale up damn mountains.

  Nessa’s prayers, it seemed, were answered, and instead of being forced to climb up a vertical wall of stone, Hunter found a small crevice between two slabs that was slightly less steep.

  It turned out to be a fissure, narrow and long, and went on for quite some distance. The sides crowded in on them, and the ground angled up, driving them higher into the mountain. Nessa pulled herself up, grasping at any handhold she could find, wishing for some form of railing. Over countless years, rain had worn the granite slippery smooth. If not for the gripping leather soles of her boots, Nessa was sure she would have slid down the fissure like it was a slide; a very hard, very painful, and very long slide.

  Slowly, the crack widened and evened out, giving Nessa’s tired legs a much needed reprieve. It led onto a small space, a gully were two mighty mountains joined together. The air was cold, never warming due to being perpetually trapped in the mountain’s shadows. A mist clung to the ground, slow moving with curling tendrils that snaked and coiled around boulders and protruding fingers of rock.

  Hunter stepped forward, making the mist churn in his wake. Nessa trailed behind him, tugging her cardigan tight around her, shivering from the chill that seemed to seep into her bones.

  Something brushed against her ankle. Nessa yelped and jumped back.

  Looking down she found that it was only Aoife, who had merely rubbed up against her.

  Hunter sent her a quizzical glance.

  Nessa bent and picked up the little dragon, who was nearly completely hidden by the mist, only her head visible above it. Hunter rolled his eyes and continued on. Nessa held Aoife to her chest, wrapping her cardigan around the both of them. The smooth granite gave way to an uneven and rocky ground. Stones crunched underfoot, the noise echoing in a ghostly fashion.

  Together they wormed their way deeper into the mountains. The towering rock faces pressing in on both sides and the mist growing ever denser, cool, damp and concealing. Nessa craned her head back, looking up at the sky. Twin peaks framed a thin sliver of blue, the sun nowhere to be seen, tucked far away from sight. Despite climbing up a mountainside, Nessa had the bizarre feeling of being underground, swallowed by the earth.

  Further they went, climbing ever higher.

  Nessa’s breath puffed out in front of her in a thin white cloud, and she hugged Aoife all the tighter, savouring the warmth. The dragon, she found, had put on weight, growing a few inches. It wasn’t much, but just enough to make carrying the hatchling a chore after a while. She shifted her hold on the dragon and turned the corner that Hunter had just disappeared around.

  She stopped dead in her tracks.

  A void opened up before her, one filled with impenetrable darkness.

  Nessa swore and took a stumbling step back.

  “Bloody terrible time to discover you’re afraid of heights,” Hunter called. He was to Nessa’s right, standing on a perilously narrow ledge that ran along the side of the abyss.

  Nessa scowled at him, heart thundering away. “What the buggery bollocks is this?”

  “It’s the quickest way.”

  “Only if you don’t fall to your death first.”

  Hunter laughed. “I’m sure that won’t happen.”

  “That ledge is barely two foot wide.”

  “You’re thin. That’s plenty of room.”

  Nessa stared, aghast at his reasoning, and inched closer to the edge, peering over. The darkness was deep, the bottom of the chasm well beyond sight. Nessa eyed the ledge which clung to the straight side of the mountain, running along it until it was swallowed by distance.

  “No,” Nessa said, shaking her head vehemently.

  “It’s either this way or backtracking,” Hunter reasoned.

  “I’ll go with the second option.”

  “It will take us at least another five days to get to the city.”

  Nessa sighed, eyes darting between Hunter and the chasm. “I don’t like either of those options.”

  “Well, think of it like this,” Hunter said. “Five days of crossing harsh terrain verses forty-five minutes of utter terror.”

  Nessa frowned. “You’re not selling either of them.”

  “Perhaps not.” Hunter crossed his arms, waiting. “But those are the two options we have at present.”

  “Hmm.” Nessa gave it a bit of thought. “I don’t like this one bit.”

  “It will be over before you know it.”

  “If I fall to my death, I reserve the right to haunt you for all eternity.”

  “I fully respect that decision.”

  “Excellent.” Nessa bundled Aoife into the messenger bag, wanting her hands to be free.

  Shaking just a little bit, Nessa edged onto the ledge. It held steady, nothing coming loose. She let out a nervous breath and moved further along, angling herself so that none of her clothing would catch on the rocks.

  Hunter waited for her, smiling in reassurance, and then started off again, albeit at an incredibly slow pace. Aoife squirmed in the bag, not quite fitting into it as well as she had upon first hatching, and Nessa put a calming hand on her. She could sense Nessa’s unease, it seemed, for she settled down.

  Nessa continued along the ledge at a snail’s pace, hugging the stone wall and keeping as far away from the edge as possible. It was a long, winding journey, and Nessa’s didn’t enjoy it at all. The further they went, the worse the condition of the ledge became. In a couple of parts, it had weathered away to nearly nothing, and in one place, it was gone completely. There was no greater terror than having to jump from one narrow ledge to another over a black, bottomless chasm.

  Although the ledge was in a terrible condition, Nessa could see that some poor soul had attempted to make some repairs to it. In one place, a huge crack had appeared in the mountainside, renting a gaping fissure that was too wide to jump. There, a couple of long wooden planks had been laid across it, forming a makeshift bridge. In those particularly hazardous spots, Nessa noticed, someone had also gone to the pains of carving small curled crosses into the rock face. Sometimes there was just the odd one or two, but occasionally there was a cluster of ten or more.

  “What are these?” Nessa asked as a way to distract herself. “Do they mark the dangerous bits?”

  “In a manner of speaking, I suppose.”

  “And generally speaking?”

  “They are markers to show where some unfortunate person has fallen to their deaths.”

  “Oh.”

  “Think of them as little grave markers.”

  That was not what Nessa had wanted to hear, and she fell silent, focusing on putting one foot in front of the other.

  Nessa’s forty-five minutes of utter terror must soon be over, for there, in the near distance, was a wide plateau. The ledge ran right to it.

  Not much further to go, Nessa told herself.

  The ledge widened and the worst was over.

  Nessa stepped onto the plateau and breathed a sigh of relief. She hurried away from the edge, not wanting to be anywhere near it. Hunter, though, lingered. He pointed to the side, at the small freshly carved cross there.

  “Poor bugger must have got overexcited at being at th
e end,” he said. “Fatal mistake.”

  “How unfortunate,” Nessa murmured, half tempted to kiss the solid ground in jubilation.

  Hunter went over to her and clapped her on the back. “See, I told you we’d make it safe and sound.”

  Nessa raised a brow. “A large part of me still thinks that backtracking wouldn’t have been such a bad idea.”

  “Rubbish,” Hunter scoffed. “It got your blood pumping with excitement.”

  “I think you’re getting excitement and fear mixed up.”

  Hunter shrugged. “Same difference.”

  “No,” Nessa said slowly, “I think they’re quite the opposite of one another.”

  Hunter just looked at her. “We’re going to have to agree to disagree.”

  “Fine,” Nessa said, rolling her eyes. “Whatever.” She surveyed the plateau. It was surrounded on three sides by tall rocky walls that allowed very little sunlight to reach the floor. It was swathed in thick shadows, which gave the air a ghostly chill. Despite a fair amount of fallen debris ringing the edges, the middle was empty, as if a path had been cleared.

  Nessa stepped forward, leaving the chasm behind her, and followed the pathway. She stepped around a boulder that was taller than her, and came face to face with an entrance to a deep, dark tunnel.

  She stared at it, then at Hunter, who came up beside her.

  “I’m beginning to think that you enjoy putting me in situations that you know I don’t like.”

  “Nonsense.” Hunter grinned from ear to ear. “It’s all character building.”

  “My character is just fine the way it is, thank you very much.”

  “What’s a dark tunnel compared to the ledge?”

  “Moderately less unpleasant?”

  “Exactly. It only gets better from here.”

  “That’s a small comfort, I suppose.”

  Hunter snorted with mirth. “Come on,” he said, “if we hurry, we’ll get to the city in time for dinner.”

  “Dinner?” Nessa looked up, nearly cricking her neck in the process. Despite the blanket of shadows wrapped around them, she found that the sky was still bright blue, no indication of dusk being near. Hunter followed her gaze.

  “Hungry?” he asked.

  Nessa’s stomach answered for her, growling loudly.