The Northern Approach (3 page)

Kicking up a pool of standing water the elementals had yet to reach, Raeln splashed two of the others, dimming their flames considerably. He went after them as fast as he could, trying not to think about the others that had all turned as a group toward him. They might be mindless, but they did understand a threat. Lacking anything else to attack, he would be their sole focus.

Cleaving one elemental after another, Raeln soon had trouble holding the sword—its hilt burned his hand. His whole body sizzled, reminding him of a time years past when he had spent too much time on the plains hiding from his mother and wound up burned head to paw by the summer sun. Each exploding elemental pushed his limits further, and soon he felt as though he had leapt into a campfire.

“Charge!” called out a woman somewhere behind Raeln. “Don’t let him show you all up, you slow sacks of shit! He’s one man, you’re twenty! Prove you’re better!”

Partially armored men and women came racing in around Raeln, cutting him off from the remaining elementals. He backed away quickly, panting as he dropped the sword into the mud, where it steamed angrily. His legs felt soft, making him stumble and nearly fall.

“Easy there, wildling,” chided the woman who had shouted a moment earlier, stepping close enough to help Raeln stay upright. The elven woman winced as she saw his hand and quickly wrapped some ragged cloth over it. “Get back to camp and get some water before you pass out. Even these infants can handle what’s left.”

Raeln nodded, dazed, barely aware of where he was anymore. He looked around at the group of soldiers and new trainees charging in to fight the elementals. They had wisely soaked themselves in water before coming, giving them an advantage against the heat. Making it even easier on them, out of the thirty or more elementals that had been there when Raeln arrived, he saw less than fifteen left. With luck, no one would die this time.

“Raeln?” asked the woman at Raeln’s side. She was practically holding him up. “You okay, big boy?”

Looking down as his head spun, Raeln thought for a moment that he saw his sister Ilarra. The woman was elven, but in reality, that was the extent of the similarity. When he blinked, his sister’s face disappeared and the face of one of the military officers from Lantonne appeared, staring at him with concern.

“Fine. Thanks for asking,” Raeln answered, smiling.

Then he fell face-first into the mud.

*

Coughing instinctively against the burning in his lungs, Raeln woke on his back, staring up at the ceiling of one of the village’s tents. Smoke from a nearby fire rose out through a small hole at the top, keeping the air inside fairly clear.

“Where am I?” asked Raeln…or he meant to. What came out sounded more like wheezing and mumbles.

Somewhere off to his left, a man chuckled and patted Raeln’s arm. Even that simple touch stung like knives scraping his skin—the burns there far worse than he would have thought.

“Don’t try to talk yet,” the man insisted. “You took a beating out there. It’ll take some time to heal. You sucked down a lot of smoke.”

Raeln looked over and saw the man was Finnias, an elderly human from one of Lantonne’s outlying villages. The man had come with them to the camp and tended to serve as their doctor, despite having little or no training. At best he could splint arms and offer advice for illnesses. More than once, Raeln had seen Finnias hack off a patient’s leg or arm to stop the progress of infection, far more readily than Raeln was comfortable with.

After seeing the wonders of healing magic in places long gone, Raeln could not help but feel this was the last person he wanted tending to him. Sadly, the village had no one with any appreciable skill in that art, leaving Finnias the closest thing they had to a healer.

“How long will he need to rest?” asked On’esquin, surprising Raeln. He had not realized the man was seated on his other side and certainly could not smell him over the scent of charred fur and skin. “We wanted to scout the area and look for other hunting grounds.”

“Two days, maybe three,” the man replied, poking at a particularly painful patch of Raeln’s skin. “The military wanted to have a small ceremony to honor what he did out there, putting himself at risk to save the camp. Nothing major, but they insisted.”

“When?” On’esquin asked.

“Three days, to be sure he was looking himself again and not covered in ointments.”

“Thank you,” said On’esquin, motioning toward the flap of the tent. “Excuse us a moment.”

Finnias nodded and, using a cane, got up and headed out of the tent. Seconds later, Raeln could hear him talking with others, mostly about the weather.

“You worried about how they saw you,” whispered On’esquin once the tent flap had settled into place. “We leave in two days, if I have to carry you. Let them remember this and not the beating of simpletons that crossed you.”

Nodding, Raeln closed his eyes and tried desperately not to scratch at his itchy skin.

“The Other Four”

I lay here, feeling my heart racing in its efforts to keep me alive. I hear the servants outside speaking of my death being moments away. I watch the shadows grow and retreat as each new day is a surprise to me. Each day I assume is my last, and when another comes, it gives me hope and wonder I have not felt since childhood.

Still, I am a young man who feels old before his time, thanks to the gift the dragon gave me. Mortality is its own curse, but knowing your death is waiting for your next breath or the one after it will destroy one’s focus on what must be said and done.

This time, my own ending has distracted me from what I have seen in the night. I nearly forgot, and in doing so, I believe I would have been to blame for the deaths of many thousands. Every lapse extinguishes lives of those not yet born and not even imagined.

How did I get on this topic? Oh…completion of what is set before us.

The betrayer must find the others well after the snows end and the days become longer. He will travel, not for the first time, hoping to find the other four who he must have at his side to change the fates I have predicted. The clues for where to find them I leave to wiser minds than mine. He will know them when he finds despair and sees the fruits of our failures, recognizing them by the lives extended past fate’s intention. The misty shroud can unveil what has survived to that day.

Lacking any of these four, the betrayer will watch as all he has waited to save dies around him. Why these people are important, even I do not know. They may matter not at all or the world may depend on them. I would hope that the betrayer does not tell them this or it may destroy them.

-
         
Excerpt from the lost prophecies of Turess

Ten days and nights of walking later, Raeln was near collapse. Food was the least of his concerns as they pushed farther into the southern mountain range, moving ever deeper into the peaks. The air had thinned enough that Raeln struggled to catch his breath and his tongue felt thick from dehydration. The last clean water they had found that was not falling from the sky was a runoff river, but that had been days before. Making matters worse, his skin had not fully healed and coughs racked him every so often as his lungs—irritated by the combination of thin air and the inhalation of smoke—would tighten painfully.

Raeln stumbled to a stop, putting a hand to a tree to steady himself. He had gotten steadily dizzier with each day of walking. He knew he could not go much farther, but he fully intended to push himself until he fell. Somehow, On’esquin looked as steady as he had the day they had left, continuing to walk with purpose no matter how long or hard they had marched.

“Are we close?” Raeln asked in hopes of distracting On’esquin from his own weakness.

The orc stopped alongside Raeln, looking first over the woods and slope of the mountainside ahead of them. Then he eyed Raeln the same way, evaluating him. “I wouldn’t know,” admitted On’esquin, shrugging. “I can only follow the clues and hope that they lead me to something that fits the description. Failing that…I simply guess and try to pretend I know where I’m going. We walk this way because I hope it is correct.”

“You said what we were looking for was a week out. Where did that estimate come from?”

On’esquin grinned. “I made it up. Longer would have discouraged you. Shorter and you would have questioned why we had not seen it in our regular patrols.”

“Then what are we looking for?”

On’esquin opened his mouth to answer and froze.

Looking around, Raeln tried to find the source of the man’s unease, but he could see nothing in the woods. He could smell nothing specific beyond the scent of something burning, though he could not be sure of what type of wood might make that particular odor. Whatever it was, it was far enough off that the smell was still faint. Deep down, he hoped it was not more elementals.

That was when it hit Raeln, his hand resting on the bark of the tree wet from a rain shower the night before and his feet soaked to the bone. Nothing out there should be burning at all, and even elementals would be hard-pressed to survive the dampness. For miles in any direction, nothing should have been remotely dry enough to burn—unless someone had worked very hard to start that fire. Elementals would mean smoke but likely not fire. Only a camp or home of some sort would justify the scent of burning wood.

“We must be close,” whispered On’esquin, pointing toward a narrower patch of trees ahead. He then pointed up at the sky, where black smoke rose over the peaks. It was not the smoke of wet things trying to burn, but the smoke that came from long-smoldering fires.

Raeln tried to follow On’esquin’s initial gesture, but all he could see were more trees, leading right up to the nearly sheer face of a mountainside. For all he could tell, the smoke was on the far side of the mountain. He stared at the area for several seconds and then realized the mountain wall appeared to part slightly, as though there might be a narrow valley, hidden by the woods themselves. Likely, the path, if it even existed, was no wider than twenty feet, making it extremely difficult to see so close to the mountains with the dense woods. They were no more than a mile out, and even that close, Raeln had to really look at the place to be sure he was not imagining it. Were it not for the smoke, he doubted they would have even noticed it.

“A pass deeper into the mountains,” the orc added, still eyeing the gap in the mountains. “If I were hiding from an undead army, that place would be quite appealing.”

Raeln started walking, not feeling well enough to wait for On’esquin. Where there was a campfire, there had to be water and food. Whoever it was out there, he had to hope they were not averse to guests. Even if they were, he might be able to put up one brief fight if it meant a sip of water that had not been collected from leaves that caught the rain.

The day seemed to drag on far longer than any since they had begun traveling, the gap in the mountains becoming only slightly more visible as they neared it. Raeln had nearly reached his limit, his legs trembling and his head spinning, before he could make out anything more about the pass and whether they had detoured for good reason. Still, the smoke continued to rise, hinting at something beyond the pass, however far that might be.

With the sun nearly behind the mountains, Raeln heard the rumbling of water coming down off the steep rocks. He searched around and felt like a weight had been lifted off his shoulders when he spotted the small stream coming off part of the mountain wall near the pass, winding its way eastward past them through the woods.

Raeln stumbled toward the stream in a hurry, barely mindful of On’esquin following him at a distance. He very nearly collapsed at the edge of the water when he arrived, and plunged his face into the stream to practically inhale water in hopes of catching up on days of drinking far less than he should have. There was something distinctly off about the water, but he was too tired and thirsty to care.

“We may wish to stop here for the evening,” On’esquin said, leaning up against a tree as he stared off toward the pass, making notes with a piece of charcoal on parchment. “It might be another hour or two before we get through the pass, and there’s no way of knowing how far past that we must go. I would rather we travel during daylight on unfamiliar ground.”

Raeln pulled his muzzle out of the stream, panting for breath as he nodded in agreement. He could have traveled through the night, once he no longer felt as though he would die of thirst, but On’esquin was the one with the plans and the poor eyesight. Raeln could wait until…

A disembodied leg floated past Raeln in the stream. Seconds later, as he continued to stare at the water in horror, the flailing remains of a zombie that had been hacked apart floated by, trying to reach for him in passing.

On’esquin seemed to have seen none of it, still staring off toward the pass. “The trees over there will make it difficult for anyone to find us by accident,” On’esquin continued, tapping his chin with the charcoal he had been writing with.

“We’re too late,” Raeln said softly, but On’esquin was still talking to himself, saying something about the altitude. He traced the stream back toward the pass they were heading toward. “On’esquin…bodies.”

Finally, On’esquin looked over at the stream as Raeln saw the bloodied remains of a wildling—a ferret, from what Raeln could see—float past, facedown in the water. Debris came past every few seconds, racing by and disappearing downstream.

“We can’t go on…it’ll be dark soon,” groused On’esquin, looking around nervously. “If we lose these four, though…”

“Follow me,” Raeln said, hopping to his feet. His legs begged him to stop, but he knew On’esquin would prattle on for hours if they did not continue. He needed action, not planning on eventualities that might have no bearing on reality.

They made their way up the slowly rising hillside, with Raeln keeping the stream on his right. Several more times as they walked, he saw bodies or parts of bodies rush past, though he did his best not to look at them. It was a horrible sight and one he knew would tell them little about what they wanted to find out there. He doubted he could even be sure whether the bodies were all from the Turessian army or whether they had been locals to the area. Thus, it was better in his mind to ignore them completely until he had more to go on.

Between heading toward the mountains and the time that passed, the sun soon disappeared behind the peaks completely, casting the woods into darkness. The change meant little to Raeln, as he could see nearly as well in the night as he could during the day, but he knew On’esquin would be at a disadvantage. On’esquin would not say anything about it, though.  He would simply slow down and wind up walking into something, as he had on previous nights. Raeln slowed his pace, letting the other man keep up.

Soon they reached the spot where the stream came down off the mountains, nestled into the opening of the pass they were walking toward, creating a misty spray in all directions and a rumble that covered any possible sounds in the area. At the foot of it, Raeln first thought he saw stones that had fallen from higher up, but then motioned for On’esquin to stop when he made out more detail.

Raeln advanced slowly, lowering himself closer to the ground as he went to minimize the chances of being seen. Whatever was at the base of the stream was not moving, but the water in the air made it difficult to see, even from twenty feet away. He slunk as best he could, trying to keep his feet from making sucking noises as he walked through the mud.

Lying at the foot of the stream, Raeln found dozens of bodies, most having been mangled beyond recognition. There were plenty of fallen stones, but most of the shapes had been people, and they had died recently, judging by their lack of decay. The first few he passed were halflings, short human-looking people that had an almost childish appearance. Soon after those, he passed several bodies far more severely decomposed. From what he could make out, part of the cliff’s side had collapsed, crushing many of the people and closing off part of the path into the mountains. Dozens of the fallen stones lay atop wriggling corpses, their broken hands reaching out blindly to try and grab at whatever might be near.

“A last stand,” On’esquin said softly, coming up beside Raeln. “They attempted to collapse the pass. A good plan, but it appears to have failed them. Their weapons were set too low for the shape of the cliff. They set it in a hurry.”

Kneeling beside one of the halflings—a woman probably no older than thirty—Raeln gently closed her eyes to keep her from staring at him accusingly. From what he could see of her wounds, it was not the stones or the explosion that killed her. The woman’s body bore clear signs of claws ripping at her and teeth biting and tearing at her flesh. Most of the bites looked like human teeth from what he could make out.

“The army already came through. This wasn’t just a couple zombies out for a walk,” he noted, pointing at the bites. Turning in place, he pointed at hundreds of footprints in the mud around them.

“Raeln, if we lose the four people here, we have already failed,” On’esquin reminded him, drawing a sword he had brought. “I may not know much of what I’m looking for, but we need those four according to the texts. Lead the way and hurry.”