The Northern Approach (8 page)

Yoska was already standing over Raeln, tapping his foot impatiently as Raeln looked up at him. The man’s side had been freshly coated with the mud mixture and he winced when he moved, but he handled himself well considering the wound Raeln had seen before it was covered. Most men would have been curled in a ball, waiting to die.

Nearby, On’esquin had already gathered his belongings to begin traveling again. They had little among them, so it took Raeln only a few seconds to finish collecting things and stand up.

“We don’t have enough food for the trip back to camp,” Raeln announced as he rubbed his eyes, trying to wake up. “I can probably find enough for a few days if we spend the rest of today hunting.”

Walking over to kneel between Raeln and Yoska, On’esquin spread out a worn sheet of parchment covered with maps of nearby lands. The sheepskin was old, cracking and crumbling to dust in spots as he applied pressure to it, attempting to flatten it.

“We are not going back to the camp, Raeln. We lost our other companions, so we will go on without them,” the orc explained, searching the mountains on the map with the tip of a large finger. He finally tapped a spot and kept his finger there. “I suggest a direct route, taking us north through Altisian lands and past, into the foothills and plains. That region is uninhabited, so once we get beyond the forces in Altis, we should make good time toward the city of Urlenna.”

“Is no city by that name,” interjected Yoska, though he did not look at the map. Instead, he rubbed a torn scrap of blue silk between his thumb and first finger, glaring at it. “You know nothing of these lands, do you, old man?”

On’esquin frowned, his tusks giving him a furious look despite Raeln knowing he was likely confused or disappointed instead. “Where would you have me go, gypsy?” he asked, motioning broadly at the map. “I’m guessing you have traveled more than either of us.”

Taking a knee beside On’esquin, Yoska looked over the map and drew one of his knives. He tapped a spot a little north of where they stood. “We are here, not there,” he noted. “Map is wrong, yes? You wish to go north, but here and here are lands controlled by the dead. Here, we lost old camp and many good people. The clouds that consume things roam near there now. We will not go there.”

Leaning forward, Raeln studied the locations the man was pointing out and added, “He’s right. I’ve been to their old camp. That area is heavily patrolled, and where it isn’t, a large black cloud like the one near Lantonne was drifting around.”

“All right,” On’esquin said, sounding frustrated. He put one finger on the city he had called Urlenna. “Even if the city has fallen, it had good walls. The ruins will be a usable location—”

Yoska made a loud click with his tongue and reached out with his knife, slicing away a section of the map containing the city before On’esquin could stop him.

“City was ripped down and stones used for homes and shrines of tribal peoples,” he explained, swatting On’esquin’s hand when the man reached for his weapon. “My people sold some of the wall stones to Altis nobles as holy relics. City-folk do not know where old things come from, but my people do.”

“Then show me where we can go and what of these cities still stand,” the orc asked, gesturing broadly at the map.

Raeln grabbed a muddy stone near his feet and used it to cross off Hyeth and the surrounding area. “My home,” he explained, sitting back. “The Turessians turned our leader…my father…into one of them. He controls that area from what I was told. Everyone there is dead.”

“Is much worse than one city,” Yoska told them, tapping one city after another on the map with his knife. “None of these exist anymore. Map is too old.” Tapping a few more locations, Yoska added, “These spots are cities that were once good for stopping when no one was upset about trades gone bad. All are now held by dead men or those who are likely controlled by them. These over here I think are controlled, but I do not see with my own eyes.”

On’esquin stuck his finger in the mud and drew a thick line across the map. “What you are telling me is that the Turessians have cut off the entire northern approach without going around to the east,” he said. “We cannot go through the mountains or it will take us a year or two to get anywhere. Dorralt knows the prophecies and is trying to ensure I cannot go home. He is likely trying to find his old generals and free them before I can get to him. This will become a race between him and us if we cannot find a direct route.”

“Will he be able to find them?” asked Raeln.

“Not for quite some time, I believe. The generals are in no condition to travel, and what is left of them has been hidden away where he will never find them. The last one to find them was the man who warned me to the Turessian war’s beginning. I have since hidden the remains again.”

Yoska reached past On’esquin and traced a line through the mountains. “We go here, yes?” he asked the two other men, smiling. “Is easiest way and dead men would not dedicate large army there.”

“In the mountains?” asked Raeln, shaking his head. “That’s months of travel before we’re even past Altis. They wouldn’t bother setting up patrols that far out. The mountains themselves will kill us.”

“No, no, no,” the man told him quickly, tapping the line again. “Not in mountains. We go through old dwarf and elf halls. We go under mountains, yes? Many doors and walls that the dead will use to stop us, so few dead will be needed to keep watch. A smart man can go through in a few weeks, once he reaches the entrance, yes? I am smart man, and handful of undead not keep me out. Even if we cannot take halls all the way to far north, we can use them to get past Altis.”

Raeln opened his mouth to object, having never even heard the dwarves maintained tunnels that long, but Yoska pointed his knife at him.

“I say smart man, do not argue or you look to be exception, yes?” Yoska told Raeln, smirking. “Trust me. Closed doors not keep my family out when we wished to trade. I give us ways around closed doors and we go through with dead men none the wiser, yes? This will get us to northern plains…after that, I can help less as my kin did not travel that far. Other families, yes, but not mine.”

“How far to the entrance?” On’esquin asked, picking up the map and staring at it as though intending to crush it. Sighing, he folded it and slid it into his pouch. “Your knowledge is of more value than my maps, it would seem.”

“Two days at most. We will need food and drink if we are to go so far below dirt,” the gypsy said, pointing with his knife roughly southwest. “Raeln offered to find food, which was very kind. I will go get water and proper drinks from whatever is left in village, as undead were so kind as to leave food and drink behind in our tents. Magic green man, you collect weapons. Should be easy trip, but I am not fool to have lived this long. We all bring what we can carry.”

“Then we collect today, rest, and leave in the morning,” Raeln said, pulling himself up using the tree he had been leaning against. His whole body hurt from traveling and he was not looking forward to doing it again so soon.

“No, we collect during day and we leave at night,” countered Yoska. “Dead do not care about light or dark. At night, the animals come out and the dead get very confused. They attack everything. We use that and they do not find us so easily, no?”

“Assuming we make it through the tunnels, how much farther is it from the northern exit onto the plains before we get to Turessi?” Raeln asked On’esquin. “I assume that’s where we’re going?”

“Yes, it is. Dorralt has gone there and will have taken anything of importance to the prophecy that he has found. We will have to go there to confront him if there is any hope of breaking his control over the armies.”

Raeln continued to stare at On’esquin and Yoska turned and gave him an equally expectant look.

“Fine,” the orc blurted out a moment later. “Two months by horse if we can travel almost to the border underground. If Yoska’s plan works, we can be there before the first lowlands snow. In Turessi it never stops snowing.”

“Then we need to get moving,” Raeln acknowledged, heading off toward the trees. “I’ll be back before dark with as much food as I can find.”

“The Deep Dark”

The land will be cast over with the shadow of destruction that takes its root in good intention. The monsters the world will face will believe themselves heroes who must commit atrocities to save the world in the long-run. My people revered their dead for generations, bringing them along as memories of those they had lost in their endless journeys. The very act of preserving our ancestors will be perverted and used against the nations and will create the nightmares that they will soon face.

Through shadow, hope will travel toward light. The six will stand against the darkness and will redeem those who still remain. I watch them, scurrying like mice about the world, trying not to be seen, yet watched by me. These six will find strength in mere survival and through living from one day to the next, give hope to the world.

To be honest, my friend, I do not understand these visions any more than you do. I speak nonsense and hope that it will change the outcome of what I have seen. Please let these words be enough of a guide that we can escape the worst of what these dying eyes were shown.

-
         
Excerpt from the lost prophecies of Turess

“You have got to be kidding me,” Raeln muttered, crossing his arms and stopping at the head of the trail that snaked down into a cave-like crack in the mountainside. Days of hiking and all he wanted to do now was turn around and go back.

Raeln had always heard the dwarves lived beneath the ground, but Yoska had cleared up that belief as they approached the entrance to the dwarven lands—at great length, regardless of Raeln’s attempts to put an end to his prattling. He had explained that the dwarves spent a great deal of their time below ground, working on their crafts and mining minerals for them, but their actual cities were always above ground. They had passed one such village earlier that day, smelling of death and seemingly empty. Yoska had steered them wide around it and no one had objected.

Now they stood before the entrance to the dwarven tunnels, used both for mining and transportation through the mountains. Yoska had told them the dwarves had built vast fortresses underground as precautions against invasion by humans, with the belief that they could fall back from any of their above-ground cities to the closest tunnel network and hide out forever, if needed.

Judging by what Raeln saw ahead of them, that is exactly what the dwarves had tried to do, not that he blamed them. If he had a hole in the ground available to him during the attack on Lantonne, it would have been very appealing.

The path the three of them stood on was well-worn from the passing of many wagons and feet over decades. Having lived in a trading village for most of his life, Raeln knew the dwarven people were frequent traders, perhaps more so than Yoska’s family. They would send out wagons on a daily basis to the human and elven cities around the region. Now dried blood marred the path and weeds had begun to fill in the tracks from the wagons. Nothing had come down that path in at least a week, though with the recent rains, the weed and grass growth made estimating difficult.

The road ran from the village at their backs down to a massive pair of stone doors set into the mountainside, made from the same stones as the mountain itself. Dwarven text covered those doors, telling Raeln all he needed to know. His dwarven was sketchy at best, but two words he could make out roughly translated to “We’re closed, go away.”

To add emphasis to the blunt statement carved into stone, a pair of twelve-foot polished steel statues stood with one on each side of the doors. At their feet lay the pulverized remains of either people who had tried to get into the tunnels too late or undead…there was too little of them remaining for Raeln to be sure. When the three travelers began toward the doors, both statues had turned their bearded faces toward them and watched them approach.

“Golems,” On’esquin said, sighing. “Mindless constructs that will perform their given tasks forever. Do you think they will let us pass?”

“Is only way to know, yes?” noted Yoska, dropping the heavy knapsack he had carried through the foothills with a loud sloshing sound. He put on his best grin and began walking confidently down the path toward the metal men.

“Yes, I would rather like to see him die,” On’esquin said softly, once Yoska was out of earshot. “I believe he will stop talking after dying.”

After two days of following the human through the wilderness and on to the roads the dwarves used, Raeln was still not certain he should interfere if the man got himself killed. The first task they had tried entrusting Yoska with was simply to collect and carry water for their journey. Instead, they had learned by halfway through the first night that Yoska had dumped out any water they already had with them and replaced every waterskin with wine and stronger alcohol scavenged from the destroyed village. As one who did not drink anything but water, Raeln had railed against the man’s foolishness, but On’esquin had simply shrugged it off and laughed. Having no appreciable recourse, Raeln had been forced to detour to find a stream when he was thirsty, something that had slowed them down half a day over the journey. In the end, he had stolen a canteen from Yoska and refused to let the man near it after filling it from a creek.

Raeln followed Yoska down the path, keeping a short distance behind him. They had not even gotten halfway when the two golems lurched into motion, blocking the whole path and putting the bulk of their stocky bodies in front of the door. With a grinding screech of metal, both raised rusted swords.

“Is not most friendly greeting I have ever seen,” noted Yoska, stopping and putting a hand toward Raeln to signal for him to stay. “We try different tactic, yes?”

Stepping forward, Yoska brought up his hands in a supplicating gesture of surrender. The golems shifted and readied themselves as though he might attack them. “I am dwarf-friend,” the gypsy said, sounding as though he were trying to negotiate with the mindless golems. “I will simply walk past you and there will be no need for smashing my head, no? I sell dwarves nice shiny things that maybe get turned into big metal girl golem…is good reason to let me through, yes?”

When Yoska took his next step, coming within reach of the golems, both metal men attacked, swinging wildly at him, trying to crush him against the ground. Each time they swung, a metallic voice boomed from each, shouting, “Go away!” The golem on Raeln’s left shouted in dwarven while the one on the right spoke in the common trade tongue.

To Raeln’s amazement, Yoska deftly avoided each swing, weaving and ducking his way past the golems until he reached the door. Raeln could not even fathom what he could do to help, finding himself standing helplessly as the man narrowly avoided a metal fist that slammed into the mountain wall, sending shards of stone flying in all directions. The golems’ weapons were soon bent beyond use and both dropped them.

Yoska stopped in front of the doors, continuing to evade the golems’ fists, forcing them to strike at the doors instead as they tried to hit him. With each blow, the doors shook and leaned a little more, cracking deeply after several solid strikes. He avoided one more punch from the golem on the left and its fist split the door wide open. Grinning, Yoska flopped to the ground dramatically, landing on his stomach with an almost comical groan.

The golems straightened up, staring down at the man. Slowly, they lowered their arms to their sides and went still.

“My friend tells me golems have orders to crush intruders to death,” Yoska called to Raeln, keeping an arm over his face as he spoke to hide the movement. “Magic is not so smart. Stupid golems think I am dead, yes? Now they do not see you come in until it is too late. Run through and they cannot follow in small tunnel.”

Raeln turned to look back at On’esquin, who shrugged and began marching down the path, carrying a pile of weapons on his back and picking up the pack Yoska had dropped as he came. He stopped once he reached Raeln. “The man is insane, but he seems to know what he is doing,” On’esquin whispered to Raeln, grinning wickedly. “I will follow him for now. Sooner or later, he will get himself killed. Try not to get yourself killed with him, Raeln. We will do this together, but we must be careful. He will not be.”

Taking a steadying breath, Raeln held up three fingers toward On’esquin. The orc braced himself and nodded.

“You take the lead,” Raeln told him. “I will be right behind you. Keep going until the tunnel narrows. No matter what happens to me, keep running.”

Raeln counted down and dropped his hand. As soon as the last finger came down, On’esquin began running hard, putting a good amount of distance between himself and Raeln. With his longer legs, Raeln quickly caught up, maintaining a few feet between himself and the orc as they approached the golems and the dark tunnel beyond, with Yoska still lying on the ground, playing dead.

The golems seemed entirely unaware of the two men running at them, facing the wall of the mountain where they had stopped after Yoska turned them. They did not react at all until On’esquin was directly between them, his legs pumping hard to get past.

With surprising speed, the golems turned and tried to strike at On’esquin. The first missed, its arm passing harmlessly over him as he ducked. The second golem swung low, catching On’esquin in the shoulder and flinging him into the wall with a pained grunt. Blood sprayed across the wall as the orc collapsed.

Raeln dropped to his knees and slid under the arm of the first golem and then hopped up and over the second, the bottoms of his feet brushing the cool metal. As he did, Yoska rolled aside, getting himself clear of the doorway.

On’esquin was not faring nearly as well as the others. He crawled to his knees after the battering he had taken. A deep gash across his brow exposed bone. Wincing in agony, On’esquin slid the undamaged weapons and packs across the floor toward Raeln. Before Raeln could reach him, the golem that had struck him once already reared back and delivered a killing strike, flattening the man against the wall. He had barely begun to slump before it struck again, nearly crushing Raeln in the process but also driving On’esquin flat to the ground with the resounding crack of bone. The golem quickly attacked again with its sword, driving the wide blade through On’esquin and into the wall, before pulling it out and punching the man again. The second golem shifted almost constantly, trying to get a clear swing at On’esquin.

Grabbing Yoska, Raeln dove in to the narrower part of the tunnel to avoid the golems, hoping he could go back for On’esquin and pull his body to safety. Thankfully, once the two were out of reach, the golems relented and moved to their defensive positions outside the shattered doors, leaving On’esquin in a broken heap just inside the hall, covered with rubble.

Raeln inched back toward the entrance, not taking his eyes off the golems as he reached slowly for On’esquin. He had nearly lain himself flat to touch the man’s broken arm when On’esquin’s head popped up and he looked around in confusion, blood and exposed bone visible across much of his jaw.

“Get back before they hit you,” the orc warned around what sounded like a swollen tongue, his arm snapping back to a more normal shape. He pulled himself partway up and then winced as his spine crackled and straightened. Getting himself onto his knees, his legs seemed to right themselves and he crawled out of range of the golems.

“Is much more than living through knife in the chest,” Yoska said reverently as On’esquin came over to them, rubbing his face. “Where were you when we fought the ones marked like you?”

The orc chuckled and stood up, popping his back as he replied. “I was still guarding the remains of the last group of Turessians who tried to start this war, keeping them from joining that battle. You can thank me another day. For now, we need to keep moving.”

“Are you sure you’re all right?” Raeln asked softly, getting a grunt in reply from On’esquin. The orc stretched his jaw, and Raeln swore he saw several sharp teeth filling back in.

“He is fine,” declared Yoska, patting dust off of On’esquin’s armor. “He is also going first from now on, yes? You…how you say…do not pay me enough to be in front. I tell you the way and you get hit first. Is fair trade to spare squishy gypsy from messy death, yes?”

On’esquin nodded, muttering, “Yes,” and tried to draw his sword but could not free it from his sheath. Looking down, he groaned as he showed the others the bent scabbard where the golem’s fist had crushed the weapon. “I might survive nearly anything, but it’s rough on my gear,” he said, casting the broken weapon aside. “My armor was made to mend itself over time, but anything else tends to not last long. The two of you have already lasted longer than most companions.”