The Great Darkening (Epic of Haven Trilogy) (11 page)

Hollis waited for the sullen Yasen to explain himself.

“Two of my riders were lost in the wild. I recovered their half-crazed and bloodied mounts, but the men were taken by the black arrows.”

Hollis gave Yasen a sad and knowing look as he puffed and thought about his fallen men. “I have told you before, Yasen. I fear there is an evil that lurks in the shadows. The stories we have heard are not merely fictions. I can feel it.”

“You know I am a man of the flint, and I have always been a man of faith … but if I am honest with you, my heart tells me that your fears are much closer to the truth than my flint
or
my faith would dare to admit,” Yasen said as he ran his rough hands across his road-weary face.

“The road has been hard on you these last days, North Wolf?” Hollis asked his friend.

“Frightening, is more like it.” Yasen replied. “We did our duty and delivered the timber to the city, but let me be quite clear … that place has gone altogether mad with fear. I assume Oren has spoken to you of the tree?”

“Of course,” said Hollis slowly. “Four years too early. It is inconceivable.”

“Conceivable or not … I fear the end is upon us,” Yasen replied with a dire look to his eyes.

Cal could not hold his tongue. “Why are men so quick to lose hope?” he offered boldly. “It still may be that a new light will be found in time.”

“Ha! A new light indeed!” Hollis roared. “Are you waiting for Illium, son? No wonder this one upset the Priests! Ha!” His eyes were aflame with something between rage and humor at the young groomsman and his seemingly blasphemous notion.

Cal tried to think of a comeback, but his wits failed him in the overbearing presence of the great chief.

“This
is
the end, boy.” Hollis set his pipe down and turned to face away from the others. “The forest will not last much longer than a few months, and it does not seem that our prayers are to be answered before the great tree fails.”

“Aye,” Yasen agreed. “I have this correspondence from the Priest King to give you, Chief. Maybe he will tell us what in the damnable dark we are to do about it.”

Cal watched as Yasen removed a letter from his wolf-fur coat. It was sealed with the signet of flint and tree, set in hardened green wax, signifying that it was from the office of Priest King Jhames. He handed it over to his chief, and Hollis read to himself in a cloud of honeyed burley.

When he had finished reading the letter, he spoke without taking his eyes off of the parchment. “Cal, I am going to send you to the horses and the oxen. I want you to see about tending to them, but your restitution will come by way of axe, son. See to it that you find Bor. He is a bit unpleasant, to say the least, but he will make sure those unsplintered hands of yours will know how to fell trees and make light before you are done here.” Hollis looked pointedly at Cal. “And no doubt he will do his worst to try and wipe any of that remaining Poetic
foolishness
from your thoughts, though I am not so sure he will succeed in the latter.”

“Yes sir,” Cal said hesitatingly. “Where would you have me make my camp? My horse was carrying all my supplies and belongings before she escaped the damned highwaymen who tried to fleece me of her.”

Hollis thought about that for a moment, and the grim news from the Priest King faded to the back of his mind as he gave way to a brief moment of humor.

“Ha, ha, a groomsman who has no horse?” Hollis laughed a deep and loud laugh. “Yasen, have you ever heard of such a thing?”

The old chief’s bellowed amusement lifted the mood of his heart. When the tears were finally wiped from his eyes and his breath returned to him, he spoke to the nervous needs of this new ward of his. “I am sure we can find you someplace dry enough. See to it that you find Oskar … he will make sure you have something more substantial than that summer cloak of yours to keep you warm.”

“Yes sir, thank you, sir,” Cal said, reaching out to embrace the huge arm of the chieftain.

“Alright then, groomsman … be off with you now,” Hollis said as he dismissed him.

Outside the warmth of the large tent, the wind bit with an unmerciful reminder that Cal’s first order of business would be to find this Oskar and get himself some kind of fur that might actually keep him warm out here in this cold northern territory.

“Well, just what do we have here?” said a mountain of a man whose head was as bald and round as a summer melon. “Tell me that you aren’t all that they could recruit from the city … are you?”

“Um … well, I wasn’t recruited here,” Cal said a bit defensively. “I was ordered here by the Priests.”

“Oh?” the bald woodcutter exclaimed. “Ordered, were you? Are you some sort of dangerous criminal sent here for hard labor and merciless punishment?” he asked with a wry smile

Cal hung his head as he spoke. “No sir, I am no criminal.”

“Well, I am no
sir
,” the woodcutter said teasingly.

Cal smiled in response to the reply. “I am a groomsman, sent here to make restitution, and at the moment I am looking for someone named Oskar so that I don’t freeze to death in these north winds!”

“Oskar, huh?” the large man asked. “Aye … I imagine that the stubborn old mule of a man might have a fur or two to spare for a poorly-clad southern groomsman.” He gave a self-amused chuckle. “His shelter is there next to the smithy. Mind you … tell him that Goran sent you, and I am sure he will give you no problems at all.”

“Thank you. Thank you, sir!” Cal said gratefully, taking the arm of the large bald man before he headed off through the circles of yurts towards the large tent of the smithy and the shelter of the woodcutter named Oskar.

By the time he reached Oskar’s tent, Cal’s teeth were chattering uncontrollably and his lips had turned an unfamiliar blue. Though this cutter camp was barely more than a two-day ride from the borough of Westriver, the icy wind coming off the ancient Hilgari Mountains made for a drastic change of climate here in the northern territory.

“Hello?” Cal said with a shaky voice as he called into the tent of Oskar. “Hello? Goran told me I would find a man named Oskar here?”

“Oh he did, did he?” a haughty voice answered back. “And just what kind of man did this …
Goran
,” Oskar said with mock disgust, “say that I would be?”

Cal was a bit unsure how to answer this question.
Surely I’m not about to call him old or stubborn, let alone insult the one who might give me the furs I need by calling him a mule!

“Um … he said that you were the kind of man that might have a fur you could spare,” Cal called cautiously through the flap of the tent.

“Show your face in here!” the voice answered back.

Cal gingerly pulled back the opening and stepped inside, mildly warmed from the shelter but still rather frozen.

“You are lying, lad,” Oskar said as he considered the smooth-faced stranger that stood shivering in his tent. “Sure, he might have said that as well, but I will wager all my furs here that he told you I was an ornery old oxen, or a mangy old bear, or something like that first!”

Cal wrinkled his mouth and raised his eyebrows apologetically before he spoke. “Actually … he called you a stubborn old mule.”

“Ha!” Oskar pounded the table. “I knew it! That old fox. He’s still sore about yesterday’s count!” Oskar’s face lit up with the light of over-zealous victory. “When you’re beaten … you’re beaten, am I right?”

“Um … yes? I suppose so?” Cal answered hesitantly.

“Aye, you are a smart one lad,” Oskar said with a wink. “Come on, let’s see about getting you a real cloak. What do you think about fox fur?”

Chapter Twelve

T
he
work of restitution was hard, and more intense than anything Cal had ever experienced.

He soon met Bor, his assigned tutor, to be trained and instructed in the way of the flint and the art of the axe. Bor was not looking for friends, nor was he interested in shared ideals or camaraderie. He believed with every fiber of his large frame that what they were doing, the deliberate and immutable work of the woodcutters, was indeed the very last hope that the people of Haven had.

There was not one moment’s room for laughter or debate while under the tutelage of Bor. His only concerns were those of training and fine tuning, sharpening the outfit to keep the light alive. His only agenda was holding unswervingly to the doctrines of the Priests.

His fearful hunger was typical of the people who lived in these greying days. They held to this “way of the flint” with a ravenous desperation. The Priests believed that it was the anger of the THREE who is SEVEN towards His wayward citizens that brought about the great darkening. They believed that it was an act of judgment that led Him to remove His light from the whole of the world.

The Priests taught that piety, religious discipline and adherence to rituals would both fortify the faith of the people and, in turn, appease the vengeance of the THREE who is SEVEN. It was believed that if men were as strong and solid as stone in their holy resolve, they then could strike at the dark and spark a holy light as a reward for that collision.

Every third evening and seventh morning, the Priests from the cutter camps would gather. They would make an offering of timber and they would pray the first holy words of the way in hopes of earning divine appeasement.

“When the flint is struck and spark is made,

The tinder of the world is set ablaze,

And darkness flees from light displayed,

So our fired offerings beg the Holy One:

See and take Thee notice.”

Cal worked for Bor with a youthful vigor and a determinedly hopeful spirit that was altogether foreign to both the cold territories of the North and the stringent ways of the flint. However, Bor was not particularly pleased with his new charge. It was Cal’s respectful disregard for the Priests and their flintish ways that unnerved the pious tutor. He could not understand how one could, at such a perilous time as this, blithely play with the fate of Haven by holding to the old and tired beliefs of the exiled Poets.

After each rest, Bor would wake with a newfound determination to reshape the thoughts and the mindset of his charge. He would use both axe and stone to grind away at this unpolished mind. If that wasn’t enough, he believed the sheer amount of physical labor would eventually wear down Cal’s resistance to the holy and Priestly way of things. Day in and day out, Cal was subject to the unrelenting zeal of his obstinate teacher, and he learned the new meanings of pain and exhaustion.

After each day’s work was finished and the words of the Priests were heard, Cal and the company of the encampment would make their way to the great fire at the southern point of their tent circle. The men would all dine in exhausted quiet, mostly upon the sheep and rams that were kept in the pens of the cutter camp. However, sometimes a few deer or wild hogs that thought to escape the retreating forests became a welcomed treat for the hungry men.

The hogs and deer were run through a spit and roasted over the coals near the small flames. The infrequent days where the men were able to partake of such luxuries did much to raise their tired spirits. The tastes and smells brought light to a few of their eyes, as many of their hearts remembered the days before the great darkening, when there were once rich and ripe forests teeming with all sorts of delicious life.

The bread and meat all served their purpose in helping the woodcutters replenish energy and recover strength, while the spiced ale that they consumed by the barrelful aided them to a quick and exhausted sleep.

Cal, never really feeling as if he were one of these men, would finish his meal near the horse corrals. He would whisper hopeful songs to the tired animals and brush the burs from their heavy winter coats. Even though most of his days were spent with axe and stone at the hands of the slave driver of a foreman, Cal’s gift with the horses did not diminish, and neither did his joy around them.

He thought about Dreamer often, hoping and praying that she was still alive, that somehow in the midst of all the ruthlessness of this darkened place, she had found safety or perhaps even found her way back home.

One night, Cal stood in the dim silver light of the distant tree and quietly sang to a large black Percheron, stroking the mane of the enormous draft horse and feeling, for the first time in a long time, at rest.

The peace of the moment was violently interrupted when the low booming sound of the ram’s horn rang out through the whole of the camp.

Cal and the horse both looked towards the watchtower, and the large animal’s ears shot straight up as she sensed that something was not right. The horns rang out again, and this time the whole of the exhausted and sleepy camp went into a frenzy of deliberate, hurried movements.

“To arms!!!” the watchmen shouted. “They are coming!”

Cal looked around, unsure of what exactly he was supposed to do, unsure of where they would need him, and most unsure about what it was that had the men ready for a fight.

Everyone moved into formation at the base of the watchtower, axes sharp and poised as they reflected the blaze of the watch fires.

Hollis called the men to order while Yasen and his riders charged up on their mounts, ready for their instructions.

“What say you, Chief?” Yasen asked.

Hollis called to the men in the tower, “What is it? What do you see?”

“There is a black mass, a hoard of some sort moving in the trees. There, to the east,” the watchman shouted down to the chief below.

“Wolves?” Hollis asked.

“I don’t think so, sir, they look much taller than wolves … bears perhaps? But I have never seen bears move like that, not with such—”

As the watchman tried to describe the strange sight, an arrow pierced his throat, exiting out the back of his neck and pinning him to the wooden structure. Blood began to pour out from his mouth and neck, and his eyes went wild as he frantically clawed and grasped at his throat.

“Everybody take cover!!!” yelled Hollis.

“Let me and my men ride fast and hard, and we will cut off this puny band of thieves that think that they can fire from the shadows and live to tell about it,” Yasen said with vengeance in his voice.

Hollis yelled up to the watchtower, “How many of them do you see? How many are there?”

“I can’t make it out, Chief. There is no way to number them,” the other watchmen nervously reported.

“Come, son! Tell us something! Is it a few or a hundred? I won’t send my best men into a slaughter if there is no chance of victory, but I won’t let this kind of cowardice go unpursued if we can overtake them!” Hollis angrily paced back and forth beneath the watchtower as he yelled up to the remaining watchman.

“I cannot see! They are obscured. There is a strange shadow that follows them, and it hides their numbers from me,” said the confused watchman.

Hollis stared out into the darkened forest in the direction that the arrow came from. His eyes narrowed warily as he tried to assess the situation, desperate to know what kind of danger waited out there for his men. These were not just soldiers or servants; these men who waited at the ready to attack and defend had become his brothers. Hollis was a brave man, a courageous man … but he was also a responsible and prudent leader.

The men waited, crouched and low to the ground, with sharpened steel in their hands and fire in their eyes, for a command from their chieftain. Yasen and his riders paced anxiously behind the thoughtful and staring Hollis, ready and eager to deliver swift justice for their fallen brother.

All eyes were east except for Cal’s and the black Percheron’s; their gazes were locked on the multiple pairs of small green circles on the western side of the corral. Cal stared as his mind raced to make sense of what exactly the floating green orbs were.

The horses and oxen were more than unsettled; they were afraid. The noise from the pacing animals seemed to cloud Cal’s ability to think clearly. Then, from a place he could not name, he heard the words—no; he
felt
the words in his mind. Clarity bloomed and his mouth exploded with violent force as he shouted with everything he had in his lungs, “SHADOW CATS!”

The crouched woodcutters leapt to their feet and the watchmen blew their horns as the circling shadow cats bared their huge, white fangs and lunged towards Cal and the rest of the corralled animals.

Cal reacted out of instinct and fear. He rushed forward, grabbing a pitchfork that was leaning against the corral fence, and ran with thoughtless bravery into the onslaught. To Cal’s great astonishment, the black Percheron followed him, rearing up on her hind legs and bringing down her mighty hooves with deadly accuracy on the intruding cats.

Just as the first few riders arrived within striking distance of the lions, screams came from the east as volley after deadly volley of raven-fletched arrows rained down upon the camp.

“TAKE COVER!!!” someone yelled.

Violent roars and screams mixed with bellowed commands and painful wails filled the night’s air as the dim, silver light was flooded with confusion on both fronts. Arrows flew with reckless fury, piercing man and beast, lion and lamb.

One of the larger cats, with fur as black as onyx and eyes of an unnatural green, bounded over the barricade towards Cal. As he fixed his hungry gaze on Cal’s throat, an axe flew from behind him and hit the post barely a hand’s-breadth from the large cat. The enraged lion leapt at Cal with fierce intent, and all Cal could do was kneel and brace the end of the pitchfork in the dew-drenched earth, aiming the rusted metal tines at the cat’s breast.

The shadow cat fell upon the pitchfork and the rusted metal found its purchase in the heavy, fur-laden beast. His great weight snapped the wooden shaft, and in an instant the bloodthirsty beast fell hard, collapsing his impaled form down on top of Cal. The green eyes hungrily stared at Cal, alarmingly close to his own blood-spattered face. Cal watched in breathless terror as the lion’s greedy eyes slowly faded black. The shadow cat let out a soul-chilling scream and then went limp, the life gone from him.

Yasen and his riders charged in on their horses and felled four of the green-eyed cats rather quickly. Some of the bravest men leapt over the sheep pens with axe in hand, dodging claws and fangs with as much deftness as exhausted men can muster, barely finishing off the last of the ravenous lions.

The arrows had ceased their chaotic assault, and at the moment there seemed to be no more shadow cats prowling inside the camp—at least none that still breathed. A few of the men had been ripped wide open by the razor sharp claws of the monstrous lions, leaving very little that could be done for them. Those men who were still whole knelt with those who no longer had flesh and limbs intact. Grasping the dying hands of their now-spilled comrades, they whispered the grieving words of the Priests as life departed from their fallen brothers.

Most of the woodcutters had come away with only minor gashes and scratches, however six of the men had been riddled with the raven-fletched arrows of this unseen enemy. Two of the three watchmen had fallen, and Bor, brave and unrelenting as he was, had refused to crouch when all others did so. He stayed his ground, protecting his chieftain, until the ravens’ arrows forced him to yield.

Yasen and his riders, upon dispatching the lions, rode hard and furious into the eastern forest, determined to waylay these ravens of the night. There were few braver in all the North than Yasen, save perhaps Bor the fallen. None, however, were as skillful a pursuer as he.

The hunts of Yasen and his men were legendary. The men called him the “North Wolf
”
, for he traveled, foraged, and scouted for the good of the woodcutters. He always hunted in a pack of fearless riders, and almost without fail they would return to their den with the spoils of their victories.

Some say that the white lion fur that Hollis wore was the last and greatest of the white lions in the North, and was given as a gift from Yasen in homage to his chieftain.

The feeling within the camp was uneasy at best, for many mourned their fallen comrades. Some were on edge, not given yet to rest, still waiting for the next wave of assault to come. Others began the hard work of repairing the damages and tending to the wounded.

Hollis made his way to the corral, knowing that it was here where the bloodiest of the carnage had taken place. Mutilated rams were tossed about like rag dolls, and a few of the men still lay splayed open with their insides spilled on the reddening, cold earth.

Hollis ordered some of the men to begin skinning the beasts. Their hides would serve as warmth and as a reminder of the dangers that live in the shadows; but he demanded that their bodies be burned, for there was evil in their blood and he would not permit even one of his men to consume the vile flesh.