The thief stopped just short of Vander Bim, his mount skidding to a stop and kicking up a fountain of dirt. Bryon coughed and spat and wanted to yell and curse, but a look from the sailor quashed that idea before he began frantic questioning. He’d seen something on Switch’s face, and now Bryon saw it too.
“What is it?” Vander Bim asked.
“Blood and guts and maggots.” Switch’s curses had a particular color to them that, ashamedly, made Bryon smile. Reluctance rolled about the edge of his voice. “You’d best come with me.”
Switch didn’t wait for Vander Bim, or anyone else, to say anything. He pulled hard on his horse’s reins. The animal coughed and neighed and turned. The thief dug his heels hard into its side. It reared up and sped forward, leaving a trail of dust and dirt in its wake.
“I suppose we should follow,” Vander Bim said, looking back at the rest of the group.
Drake nodded, Bryon shook his head, and all three dwarves shrugged.
“Onward, then,” Vander Bim said with his own shrug.
After following for a while, Bryon saw Switch ahead, circling his horse around a spot on the ground, looking down at something. He stopped, threw one leg over to the side, and slid out of his saddle, immediately going into a crouch.
“What in the Shadow ...”
The encroaching scene interrupted Bryon’s question slowly as their horses went from galloping to trotting, to a standstill.
At first, all Bryon could see were bodies. He heard Nafer mumble something in his native tongue and heard Erik gasp. How many bodies, he didn’t know. Then, closer, he saw two. And then, even closer, he could see why the thief seemed so frantic.
“By the heavens, what is that?” Bryon felt the corners of his mouth dip and curl under his nose.
Red stained the dirt—blood. It didn’t rest just around the bodies, though. It lay all around. Too much blood. At least, too much for just two men. It looked dark, mostly dried, but Bryon thought he saw something else, tissue, bits of organ, stuck in the coagulating liquid.
“By the gods and the four hells of the four corners of the world!” Vander Bim cried out when they finally reached Switch.
Bryon turned his head and covered his nose with his arm. He heard either Erik or Befel gag and saw Drake retching, wanting to vomit, before he covered his mouth and nose with his hand. And there was Switch, crouched, unabashedly sifting through the remains of bodies torn apart like trees in a hurricane. Unworried about the stench of blood and shit, Turk joined the thief.
Bryon could make out the face of one of the men. It looked like a rat’s face—a thin chin, a pointed nose, short, wild grayish-black hair. He knew that face.
“The Lady’s Inn,” Bryon thought out loud.
“What’s that?” Switch asked.
“That one is from The Lady’s Inn.” Bryon pointed to the rat-faced man, his voice muffled by his arm.
“You have a habit of stating the obvious,” Switch’s voice conveyed a sense of irritation, but his face showed the contrary. He smiled wryly, almost approvingly.
“The other one, then,” Vander Bim said. “He’s from The Lady’s Inn as well?”
“Aye,” Turk interjected.
Bryon could see it now. He remembered these men, walking into that shit heap of a bar talking loudly about some whore they had shared and the sweetness of the brandy afterward. But something was wrong.
“There was a third,” Bryon muttered. No one heard him.
Switch and Turk inspected the bodies. A rock had crushed Rat-Face. Bryon could see the boulder, smattered with blood and lying just a few paces from the body. The dwarf picked up what looked like a small silver coin with a hole in the middle. But when Bryon squinted and leaned forward, he saw that a broken link from the man’s mail shirt sat in Turk’s hand. He looked about and saw dozens of links lying nearby, bloodied and bent.
“What could have torn a mail shirt like that?” Bryon asked, to which Drake just shook his head in disbelief.
The other man looked as if some wild animal had attacked him, the flesh about his face and neck slashed and torn. His iron breastplate looked battered, dented so badly that Bryon figured it dug into the man’s flesh. One of his legs barely clung to the rest of his body by a bit of tendon and clothing.
“What weapon could do such a thing?” Bryon asked.
“No steel or iron weapon made these wounds,” Demik said.
“No tunnel digger,” Switch said, “that’s for sure. Stone weapons, maybe. Or worse.”
“What could be worse?” Bryon asked.
“Teeth.” Turk’s tone sounded flat.
Demik dismounted and joined the other two mercenaries. He knelt beside Turk and gently brushed his rough hands over both men’s faces, closing their horror-stricken eyes.
“Who did this?” Vander Bim pondered quietly.
“Rather, what did this?” Switch replied without looking at the sailor, finally standing. “That is what you should ask. These poor bastards weren’t killed by the same thing that killed those other two we found. That’s for bloody sure.”
“Not men?” Vander Bim queried.
“No, not men,” Switch said, “nor wolves or a cat if that’s what you’re going say next. Something used the bloody rock as a weapon.”
“Dwarves?” Drake questioned. Turk gave him a cold stare. Demik groaned angrily, and Nafer grumbled under his breath.
“No.” Switch laughed at Drake’s presumption, though, and even more at the dwarves’ reaction. “Dwarves don’t use boulders. And they don’t attack without being threatened first. Eh, tunnel digger.”
“Aye,” Turk replied and crossed his arms.
“There’s only two things in these mountains that could do this,” Switch muttered, more to himself than anyone else, “and only one of them would leave their kill behind. Blood and guts and . . .” Switch stopped. A cold, concerned look came over his face. He pursed his lips and squinted his brownish-gray eyes so that they almost disappeared.
“Mountain Trolls,” Turk interjected.
“Blood and guts and mountain trolls,” Switch agreed faintly. “Shit, this isn’t what I signed up for. Poor bastard’s been chewed on.”
“They haven’t been this far north of Strongbur, whose surface entrances are only four leagues from here, in years,” Demik said.
“There are two things that could cause a troll to venture into the lands of men. Either they are hungry, starving even,” Turk said, “or . . .”
This time, Switch cut off the dwarf.
“They aren’t acting alone,” Switch offered.
“Even more frightening,” Turk muttered.
“I don’t understand,” Bryon said.
“Clearly,” Switch replied.
“Trolls are stupid creatures,” Turk said, ignoring Switch and walking about as he talked, looking at the ground and, presumably, for clues. “In the past, however, some trolls with more than just typical animal instinct and wild cunning have been known to be adventurous, entrepreneurial. They would sell their strength and cruelty to powerful men—warlords,
wizards, the types of men that employ such a creature.”
“Like us?” Erik asked.
Bryon shot his cousin a hard look to which Erik returned the same.
Turk shook his head. “No, not like us. The only reason someone would want to hire a troll is to leave a path of destruction. That is all they’re good for. They are evil to their very bones. They have no sense of mercy, no pity, and they thrive on agony and the taste of fresh flesh, especially man flesh.”
“There was a third man,” Bryon said, “in Finlo. Where is he?”
“Escaped, maybe,” Vander Bim offered.
“Nah,” Switch replied, shaking his head. “It looks like he was killed too. He’s probably troll shit by now.”
Sweat collected along Bryon’s brow, spilled down and stung his eyes. He tried not looking to the mountainside but didn’t want the others to see him averting his gaze, so he looked. He didn’t think he was worried. He didn’t feel scared—until he looked to the mountain.
“What was that?” he muttered.
“What?” Erik asked.
He didn’t think he had said it loud enough for anyone to hear.
“Nothing.”
“What was what?” Erik asked.
“Nothing.” Bryon silently cursed himself. “I thought I saw something.”
“This is no way to go,” Drake said.
Bryon broke his stare on the mountains and gazed, once again, at the dead men.
“No mate,” Vander Bim nodded, “no it’s not.”
“Just bloody great!” Switch exclaimed. He practically leapt into his saddle. “Not only do we have to deal with magic, and slavers,” he cast a sidelong glance toward Erik and Bryon, “but now we have to deal with mountain trolls working for the Shadow knows who.”
Bryon hung on one of Switch’s words, shook his head, brushed it off as nothing, but, nonetheless, the word passed his lips.
“The Shadow.”
Chapter 64
THEY RODE WELL INTO THE night. Making up for lost time—that was Vander Bim’s justification. Erik knew he lied. Trolls. That was the reason. And when they did stop, they did so without the comfort of a campfire.
Erik watched as heavy clouds crept over the highest peaks of the Southern Mountains. Intermittent lightning lit the otherwise very dark night and brought an uncommon coolness, but for now, they tempted no rain.
“Every age has a name, you know.” Turk’s mumble caught Erik unaware. He peered through the darkness to see the faint outline of the dwarf, leaning against his saddle.
“Were you talking to me?” Erik asked.
“Yes, I suppose,” Turk replied. “Anyone who would listen, I guess. I find that talk helps pass the time. I very much enjoy history, so I like to talk about history.”
“Alright,” Erik said. “What is this age, that we are in, called?”
“The Long Peace, in Westernese of course,” Turk replied. “It’s called different things depending on where in the world you go.”
“The world seems anything but peaceful,” Erik replied.
“So it would seem,” Turk replied. “And certainly, in other places such as Wüsten Sahil or the Isuta Islands, it may not be a very peaceful place at all.”
“And the age before this one, the age before the supposed Long Peace. What was it called?” Erik asked.
“The Darkening,” Turk replied, “in your language.”
“I guess I’ll take the not so peaceful Long Peace,” Erik replied. “Should I even ask why it was called the Darkening?”
“It was called such for a reason you may not expect,” Turk replied. “History books speak of chaos and disorder not because of overwhelming evil and violence.”
“From what, then?” Erik asked.
“Education,” Turk replied. “Knowledge.”
“That was not what I was expecting,” Erik said.
“Education, knowledge, learning, language, art, music. These were the things lost during The Darkening,” Turk continued, “some possibly lost forever.”
“Why would a lack of learning and knowledge, as opposed to some great evil, be called The Darkening?” Erik asked.
“Is there any greater evil than the lack of learning, the loss of a man’s desire to know and understand the world around him?” Turk asked.
“I don’t know.”
“Think, young Erik,” Turk said. “Without knowledge, two nations war because they do not share language, or art, or music, or even religion. They do not wish to understand one another.”
“Why?” Erik leaned forward.
“Men fear what they do not know or understand,” Turk replied. “Without knowledge and education, we become suspicious, scared fools. A man is left to the whims of some noble lucky enough to be rich or strong enough to exert some sort of power. Or, he is left to the superstitions of some holy man, some hedge witch who has purposed to understand the world because of the smell of the wind or the patterns of the stars. He does not think for himself. He simply fears his lord’s sword, all the while forgetting that knowledge is the most powerful weapon the world has ever known.”
“So, the Long Peace is a time of renewed learning?” Erik asked.
“Perhaps,” Turk replied. “We are still not where we were in the Elder Days, over a thousand years ago. To hear the tales of grand towers and beautiful poems and moving songs and discoveries being made within this world and beyond, and then to realize in a blink of an eye, in the dropping of a single grain of sand through an hourglass, it all ceased, it makes me sad.”
“I would like to read those tales,” Erik said.
“You read?” Turk asked.
“Aye,” Erik replied. “My brother and cousin can as well.”
“Then so you shall,” Turk said, “once we get to Thorakest.”
“I do feel a change in the winds lately,” Turk added after a moment of silence. “Sometimes, I do wish I had lived during The Elder Days.”
Silence consumed the night for a while longer. Erik could hear Turk breathing, just sitting there in the dark, awake with him.
“Where are you right now?” Turk finally asked.
Erik slid down a little and leaned his head back so that it rested on his saddle. “I’m home.”
“Ah, and a good place to be right now.”
Chapter 65
“ARE YOU ALL RIGHT?” BO’S wife said, breaking the monotony of wooden wheels rolling over crunching grass.
“Yes, my dear, I am fine,” Bo replied.
“You’re lying.” Dika sat up with a frown. “I can tell.”
Bo quietly laughed. “Just tired, my love.”
“Where are we going?” Dika asked in between yawns.
“I do not know, my love. I am simply trusting the Creator, that he will guide our leader Mardirru, show him the way.”
“Do you think we will find the missing children?” Dika asked.
“I do,” Bo answered, and he meant it.
“Those poor
babies,” Dika said, sadness ripe in her voice.
Bo looked to the east. The sun faded fast this day. It did so many days, despite the oncoming summer. The sky, only for a moment, lit up in purples and oranges and faint yellows, a streak of red here and there, perhaps pink. Bo smiled. Then, in the space of a butterfly fluttering its wings, the moon appeared.
As the moon rose, it appeared red like someone had sacrificed an animal and covered the normally pale orb in the creature’s blood.
“A red moon,” Bo whispered.
Mardirru rode back toward his wagon. The young leader, who looked more like his father with each passing day, pulled hard on his horse’s reins. Bo slowed his cart.
“Be on guard tonight, Bo,” Mardirru said.
“What is it?” Bo asked.
Mardirru looked up. “A red moon, my friend. Wicked things are afoot. Have a keen eye this night.”
Bo nodded.
Mardirru looked east, to the same spot, only moments earlier, Bo had looked.
“What is it, Mardirru?” Bo asked.
The young gypsy shook his head.
“What is on your mind?” Bo continued.
He shook his head again, but slowly looked to Bo. “They are out there.”
“The children?” Bo asked.
“No,” Mardirru’s replied. “I mean, yes, I do think the children are out there, and alive, but Erik is out there, and his brother and cousin. Wherever that red moon shines, that is where they are.”
The faint glow of a distant fire dared to reflect off Patûk Al’Ba-nan’s face. Cries echoed through the black night. Howls and the snapping of teeth abruptly ended pleas for mercy.
“It didn’t have to come to this, you old fool miner,” the general muttered as he gave the night sky a sidelong glance. “You should just have agreed to do business.”
A Chance Beginning Page 35
