The Quest (The Hidden Realm Book 5) (20 page)

The somber thought marred Elerian’s enjoyment of the wood around him. Returning his mind to his original purpose, he began keeping a close eye on the Arvina, which he could see through occasional breaks in the leafy green wall on his left. When he came to a place where the river widened and became shallower, he descended nimbly to the forest floor and walked down to the riverbank to survey the potential crossing. Before him, wide, flat stones and long gravel bars protruded above the surface of the river, providing a way across. The current between them was still swift, however, the cold green waters of the Arvina foaming white around the obstacles in its bed and emitting a muted, rushing sound that bespoke the strength of its flow.

Raising his eyes, Elerian uneasily examined the tall, forested mountains that rose up on the far side of the river, wondering if Trolls still lived in their rugged heights. Prowling restlessly along the stony riverbank, he began searching for the best ford across the river, finding instead a great track in some soft ground by the water’s edge. It looked much like a human footprint except for its size and the claw marks at the end of the toes.

“That is a Troll print or I am sadly mistaken,” thought Elerian to himself, again casting an apprehensive look at the dark wood on the far side of the Arvina. Retreating to the cover of the forest behind him, he waited for his companions to arrive, determined to resume his argument with Ascilius over their route to the Broken Lands.

“I saw a Troll track by the river,” he said worriedly to the Dwarf when Ascilius and the rest of the company finally appeared. “I think we should reconsider the path you have chosen.”

“This print is days old,” observed Ascilius impatiently after he examined the track that Elerian had found. “You have insisted on a speedy journey since the moment we began this quest and yet you balk now at taking the shortest, most direct route to the only pass leading to the Broken Lands. It will take something more threatening than this print to deter me from the route that I have chosen. In the morning when the sun is up, we will cross the river and you will see that there is nothing to fear on the other side. Now, let us find a safe place to eat and sleep.”

Seeing by their faces that the rest of the company agreed with Ascilius, Elerian held his tongue and followed his companions north along the riverbank until they came to two great boulders that lay within the border of the ancient wood that grew on their right. There was a space between the stones large enough to hold the entire company, and a roof of green leaves overhead to shelter them from prying eyes. Here they made a cold camp as they had the night before. After his companions had eaten and rolled themselves into their blankets, Elerian kept a sleepless, worried watch from a branch high above their heads, his eyes constantly on the shadowed banks across the river, which ran silver-gray under the starlight. As he wondered what might be hidden there, he thought suddenly of his orb.

“It ought to be safe enough to use it to explore the land across the river,” he assured himself. “I used it in that way to good effect before the Goblin invasion into Tarsius.” Calling the sphere to his right hand, Elerian directed its gaze across the river, watching closely as, gliding through the air like a small, round window, the interior of the sphere revealed what lay behind the trees that grew there. Pausing a moment in his explorations to resume his sentry duty, Elerian looked across the river and saw a small golden ring of shimmering light hanging well above the ground between two great tree trunks when his third eye suddenly opened. A sudden suspicion swept through him. Moving the eye of his orb, he was horrified to see a corresponding movement in the ring across the river. When he sent the sphere away, the light vanished.

“Fool that I am,” Elerian berated himself. “How could I not have realized this before? The eye of the sphere is nothing more than a portal, easily visible to anyone with mage sight. That is how I was revealed to Torquatus in the Abercius and again in Esdras. By sending it to Tyranus, I may have already revealed how I plan to enter Anthea’s cell!” Resolving not to use the sphere again for any reason lest it betray his presence, Elerian resumed his vigil, but the thought of portals remained in his mind, for only a magical gate would allow him to reach Anthea’s side. He thought then of the simple spell that sent his spell book away and also called it when he required it.

“Can the answer to my problem really be so simple?” he wondered to himself, for he knew from his investigations as a child that the charm created a small portal to transport his book. Examining the spell with his mind’s eye, for it was one of the first that he had committed to memory at the beginning of his training, he quickly discerned how the charm might be modified to suit his purposes. “I need only increase the size of the opening and cover it inside and out with shield spells to render its dangerous edges harmless,” thought Elerian excitedly to himself. “But how to direct it to where I wish it to go?” Recalling how the eye of his sphere followed his commands, he called his spell book to his right hand. When the leather covered book appeared on his right palm, he turned to the pages on which he had recorded the complex spells which he had used to create his orb. Examining them line by line, for the pages before him were clearly visible to his eyes even in the darkness which surrounded him, he soon found the charms that he needed. On a blank page, he then blended and modified all of the spells he had selected, crafting a charm that should open a large portal that could be directed to different places like the eye of his sphere. Looking up, after writing and memorizing the last word of the spell, Elerian was surprised to see that dawn was breaking and night was already fading around him.

“I will have to wait to put my spell to the test,” he thought to himself as he stood up and stretched stiff muscles after sending away his spell book. Descending lithely to the ground, he roused Ascilius and the rest of his companions, joining them in a cold breakfast before following them down to the bank of the Arvina.

 “We will have to cross one at a time,” said Ascilius to his companions after he had chosen a place to cross. “Be swift, for you will be exposed to any unfriendly eyes that are about until you reach the far bank. Try not to worry so much,” he advised Elerian after pulling him aside. “Trolls are not the brightest creatures. Even if we find some in our path, we will slip by them without any trouble with the help of your woodcraft and illusions.”

Still full of misgivings about their route in spite of Ascilius’s reassurances, Elerian waited restlessly while the others made their way across the river, some quickly and others more slowly. Only in one or two places, where the stones protruding above the surface of the river were far apart, were they actually forced to wade through the swift, cold waters of the Arvina which was only waist deep on the Dwarves in this place. Once everyone reached the far bank, Elerian settled his pack on his shoulders and, under the envious eyes of his companions, ran lightly across the ford, leaping sure footedly from stone to stone. Without much effort, he cleared the gaps that had forced his companions into the river, arriving on the far shore without wetting even the soles of his light boots.

After casting an illusion spell over the company, Elerian followed his companions into the primordial forest growing on the far side of the river. The huge trees that composed the wood were spaced well apart with no undergrowth between them other than clumps of knee-high ferns growing between drifts of old, compacted leaves which crunched softly under the feet of all the company except Elerian.

“Do his feet touch the ground at all?” wondered Triarus to himself, but his sidelong glances were unable to discover the answer to his question because the great, humped roots that snaked everywhere demanded most of his attention. Dacien was tall enough to step over most of them while Elerian either leaped lightly from one to another or walked their lengths as easily as a man might walk down a broad path, but the shorter legged Dwarves and Triarus had a more difficult time, for they were forced to scramble over the larger roots and often stumbled over the smaller ones because of the shorter steps they took.

In spite of their slow pace, the six companions reached the first foothills of the Trofim by midday. On a ridge top, where they could look through the trees, they paused to rest for a few moments. Before them a wall of rugged, forested mountains reached high into a blue cloudless sky that reminded Elerian painfully of Anthea’s eyes. 

“How far must we travel through this dratted forest, cousin?” asked Cordus wearily of Ascilius. “I have already barked my shins and stubbed my toes on these confounded roots in our path more times than I can easily count.”

“It is barely fifteen miles across the mountains in front of us to the border of the Broken Lands,” replied Ascilius, seeking to lift the spirits of his cousins and Triarus. “We should leave the mountains behind tonight or early tomorrow at the latest.”

“By then my toes will be swollen to the size of sausages,” grumbled Cyricus to his brother as Ascilius set out once more.

Elerian remained behind his companions as they set out after Ascilius, doing his best to cover them with his illusion spell. Despite Ascilius’s reassurances, he still felt reluctant to enter the mountains ahead, for he was certain that they harbored Trolls and was none so certain that his illusion spell would suffice to keep the company safe from the cunning creatures. Keeping his doubts to himself and hoping for the best, he followed Ascilius and the others higher into the mountains where the ground became steeper and boulders and ridges of gray rock thrust themselves out of the ground between the trees. The groves of tall chestnuts, ashes, and oaks that had covered the lower slopes gave way to immense fir trees whose needles lent a sharp, resinous tang to the air. Ferns and leaves gave way to a thick carpet of brown needles, but walking was still a problem for the shorter members of the company, for the tree roots they encountered were just as large as those of the lower forest were. Nowhere in the groves that they passed through did Elerian or any other member of the company see any animal larger than a squirrel or partridge, an indication that they had been hunted hard by some large predator.

“That may not be a bad thing for us if the creatures responsible for the scarcity were Trolls,” thought Elerian to himself. “The lack of food will drive them to hunt elsewhere.”

As Ascilius led his companions deeper into the mountains, he wisely kept to the summits of the steep sided ridges that appeared before him, avoiding the deep, dark valleys that appeared on either side of the company, visible wherever some steep cliff suddenly appeared, creating a gap in the trees. Elerian looked suspiciously into those mysterious depths, wondering what dangers were hiding down there, but whether because of the path Ascilius chose or because of the illusion spell which concealed the company, nothing menaced the six companions during the course of the day. Before night fell in earnest, Ascilius discovered, by chance, a cave just below the bare peak of a steep sided mountain where he and his companions could spend the night.

“A good find,” said Elerian to the Dwarf after everyone had entered the large cavity. “It is already past time for me to end my illusion spell.” When everyone had gathered into a circle on the stone floor of the cave, Ascilius spoke words of encouragement to his companions as they sat and ate a cold of dinner of bread, cheese, and dried sausages and fruit, for his cousins and Triarus looked especially discouraged and weary.

“We made good time today,” he said in his deep voice. “I reckon we covered twelve miles altogether. By midday tomorrow, we will be on the border of the Broken Lands. We will still have a great many miles to cover before we reach Nefandus, but we will be less likely to encounter Torquatus’s servants after we leave the Trofim and the walking will be easier.”

“The distance to Tyranus will no longer matter once we leave these mountains behind,” thought Elerian soberly to himself when Ascilius fell silent. “As soon as I find some safe place in which to leave my companions, I will attempt to open a portal to Anthea’s cell if I can persuade Ascilius to release me from the promise that I made to him.”

TRAPPED

In the morning, under the bright sunshine of another cloudless day, Ascilius and his companions continued their journey under the protection of Elerian’s illusion spell. When they crested the stony peak above their cave, they were able to stand on lichen-encrusted rocks and look out over the country to the west that they still must traverse to reach the Broken Lands. Only a few miles away they saw a steep sided mountain which terminated in two bare peaks with a narrow gap between them. Between the company and those peaks was a deep, heavily forested valley, narrow almost to the point of being a ravine. Stretching out of sight to the north and south of the valley was a maze of peaks, sharp ridges, and deep, narrow canyons.

 “That gap between the peaks is where we must cross into the Broken Lands,” said Ascilius to his companions as they cast doubtful glances on the dark depths of the valley that barred their way to the pass Ascilius had pointed out.

“I think that I would rather skirt the valley in front of us rather than try and cross it,” suggested Elerian who stood by Ascilius’s right side. “It fairly shouts the word Troll.”

“I do not like the looks of the place either, but it will take us miles out of our way if we go around it,” objected Ascilius. “If we cross the valley, on the other hand, we will reach the pass by midday. We should be safe enough if we go quickly and quietly while the sun is high in the sky.”

“The sun will not protect us from Trolls in that dark gorge,” replied Elerian doubtfully as he looked long and hard at the forbidding country which lay at the foot of the mountain on which they stood. “There will be dark ravines and shadowy places down there where the sun’s rays will not penetrate, allowing any Trolls that are abroad to move about freely.”

“We have seen no sign of Trolls except for the old footprint that you discovered by the Arvina,” replied Ascilius somewhat impatiently. “I think that you are letting your dislike of the creatures get the best of you.” Looking around at the tired faces of his companions to judge their mood, Elerian saw that they now mirrored the same impatience that he had heard in Ascilius’s voice.

“They think my concern is unwarranted and wish only to take the shortest route,” he thought to himself. “If I continue to dissent, they will begin to believe that fear not caution drives my objections. I see a bit of contempt already in the faces of Cordus and Cyricus.”

“Lead on then,” said Elerian reluctantly to Ascilius. Full of unease, he followed his companions down the mountainside into the cool, dark fir wood that covered the slopes below them. Numerous gullies appeared on both sides of the narrow ridge they followed, cut by swift mountain streams, and more than once some steep slope or sheer cliff barred their way, forcing them to use ropes to help them in their descent. Gradually the firs covering the slopes around the company gave way to hardwoods, enormous old trees wide as two tall men whose thick roots drew baleful looks from Cyricus and Cordus. Tired and hot from their exertions, the six companions finally reached the floor of the valley before them, a place that proved to be as dark and shadowy as Elerian had feared. One wary step at a time, Ascilius led his small company through the gloom under the trees, Elerian following last, his unease growing stronger with each step he took. His common sense urged him to at least take to the canopy, but out of loyalty to his companions, he remained on the ground, doing his best to conceal them with his illusion spell as they scrambled over tree roots and circled around enormous, furrowed tree trunks. Everyone was trying to be as quiet as possible, but to Elerian the crunch of leaves and the occasional snap of a broken branch seemed to fill the whole valley with noise, sending out an invitation which any keen eared Troll would be glad to accept. Despite his misgivings, however, no enemy appeared to menace the company, and they made steady progress until, midway across the valley, a particularly deep gully suddenly appeared before the six adventurers. A grove of huge oaks covered its sides and bottom, their branches meeting overhead to form a thick green roof that kept the depths of the ravine in deep shadow.

Ascilius stopped at the verge of the slope before him, trying without success to penetrate the gloom beneath the trees with his dark eyes. He was not so confident now in this dark and dangerous place as he had been earlier on the sunny slopes of the mountaintop and was having second thoughts about not following Elerian’s advice to avoid the valley.

“Still, it is too late to turn back now,” he thought grimly to himself. “Better to go on than to be caught out in the open on the slopes behind us when the sun goes down.” Spying a narrow game trail to his left that descended into the gully, Ascilius resolutely led his companions onto it. The trail of beaten earth was old and hard to see at times, but it quickly took him and his companions to the bottom of the gully where it ended on the bank of a small, dark stream about twelve feet wide which flowed around moss-covered boulders and over enormous, twisting tree roots. On the far side of the brook, the game trail resumed, continuing on through the trees as it climbed toward the lip of the ravine.

Elerian did not much like the look or feel of this dark and gloomy place, for it reminded him too much of the ravine where he had met his first Troll in Ancharia. A light breeze suddenly began to blow out of the east, rustling the leaves overhead and adding to his unease, for it would carry the scent of the company into the dark wood on the far side of the ravine. Before Ascilius could step into the stream, Elerian walked quietly up to his right side and spoke softly.

“Let us return the way we came, Ascilius, and try to find a way around this valley. I do not like the look of this place or the breeze that is blowing at our backs. If we encounter Trolls, they will be able to scent us but we will not be able to smell them in return.”

“That will take a long time and will only tire us further,” objected Ascilius who was feeling more confident now that they were nearly across the ravine. He thought Elerian was now being overly cautious given the fact that they had not glimpsed the least sign of a Troll.

“If I did not know him so well, I would think that fear had gotten the best of his good sense,” thought Ascilius to himself. “When we reach the pass, I will have a bit of fun with him in return for all the objections that I have had to contend with from him since we crossed the Arvina,” he decided as he impatiently led the way across the stream, which he had determined was only knee deep.

Full of unease, Elerian followed Ascilius and his companions across the brook, but his concerns about their safety seemed unwarranted. The game trail on the far side proved easy to follow, for it skirted the worst obstacles on the slope, and the company eventually crested the lip of the ravine without encountering any difficulties at all.

“Ascilius will harass me for days about this,” thought Elerian ruefully to himself as the company gathered together on the edge of the gulley. As if to confirm his worst fears, the Dwarf turned his way, a superior look on his craggy features that said as clearly as words, “See! There was nothing to worry about after all.” At that very moment, four Trolls suddenly sprang out of hiding from behind the surrounding trees. Using their keen sense of smell and hearing to guide them, they cast two heavy nets over the six companions, snaring them all in spite of the illusion spell which concealed them.

Without any thought at all, Elerian called his silver ring to his right hand as one net drew tight around him, the strands contracting as if they were alive. Only a few feet away, he saw that Ascilius’s smug expression had changed to one of shock and consternation.

“That look almost makes it worthwhile to be captured,” thought Elerian wryly to himself as he was crushed against Dacien and Triarus who were caught in the same net as he was. As the enchanted cords continued to tighten around Elerian and his companions, the three of them toppled over backwards. Elerian struck the ground first, stars exploding in front of his eyes when the back of his head collided with a knotted tree root. An instant later all the air was driven out of his lungs as Dacien and Triarus both fell heavily onto his chest. Dazed and breathless from the fall, Elerian involuntarily ended his illusion spell. A great roar of delight immediately went up from the Trolls as their victims became visible, excepting only Elerian who was shielded by his invisibility ring. Lightheaded, with a black haze obscuring his vision, he still had wits enough to lie still when one of the Trolls ended the charm animating the cords of the net wrapped around him.

The creature then reached into the net, drawing Triarus out of its meshes with a powerful right hand. Terrified by the savage, gloating countenance of his captor, the little man from the west made no resistance, lying limp in the grasp of the Troll. The second of the pair of Trolls who had netted Elerian and his two companions seized Dacien next with both his clawed hands while his companion bound Triarus with strong cords. Dacien did not submit quietly, however, for as soon as he was free from the strands of the net, he drew his dagger with his right hand and stabbed at the Troll’s left eye as it crouched over him.

The creature reacted with the lightning speed of its kind, jerking his head to his right, so that the keen blade cut across his left cheek instead of entering his eye. Dacien was dismayed to see that his good steel blade had barely scratched the creature’s stony hide. Before he could strike again, the Troll cuffed him lightly across the face with his left hand. Dazed from the blow, which had almost broken his neck, Dacien was unable to resist when the creature relieved him of his weapon.

“Bless your courage Dacien,” thought Elerian, for Dacien’s attack on his captor had given him time to crawl, quietly and unnoticed, out of the net and into the surrounding forest while the Troll was occupied with his companion. His vision had cleared by now, but he remained lightheaded and nauseous from the blow that he had received. Even worse, a warm trickle down the back of his neck told him that he was bleeding, an unfortunate circumstance with four Trolls nearby whose sensitive noses could easily scent the warm blood spilling from his wound.

When he paused in his retreat to look over his left shoulder, Elerian was relieved to see that Dacien was still alive, making a feeble but determined resistance as he was bound hand and foot by his captor. A roar of anger drew Elerian’s eyes to the second net where an enormous Troll was pulling Ascilius from its meshes by his beard. Despite the powerful blows that he rained down on his captor, the Dwarf was quickly tied up and thrown down next to his cousins who were already bound tightly hand and foot with enchanted cords powerful enough to resist even the great strength of a Dwarf. A filthy rag stuffed into his mouth reduced Ascilius’s angry threats and curses to ferocious mumblings.

Rolling onto his back, Elerian laboriously propped himself up against an enormous oak tree and had his first clear look at the Trolls as they stood gloating over their captives. Three of them were little more than man size, but the fourth was huge, as large as Anferth, the Troll that he had encountered in Ancharia. All four were dressed only in kilts made of skins with the fur left on, leaving their upper bodies and lower legs exposed. Wherever it was exposed, their pale green, hairless skin bulged smoothly over knotted, enormously powerful muscles.

When one of the smaller Trolls spoke, Elerian was surprised to hear him use the common tongue, a language many of the Troll people had learned to speak because of their dealings with Goblins and evil men.

“We will feast tonight,” said the young fellow happily as he and his companions searched through the packs they roughly tore from the backs of Elerian's companions. The largest Troll, however, did not seem to share in their good spirits.

“I could have sworn there were six of these creatures,” he said in a deep, puzzled voice as he scratched his bald head with the blackened talons of his right hand.

“Your eyes are getting old, gramps,” laughed one of the smaller Trolls. “There were only five.”

The older Troll growled thunderously in his deep chest. “My eyes still see well enough and my nose is even keener. I smelled six when we threw the nets.” With a suspicious look on his face, the patriarch picked up the net that had captured Dacien and Triarus, snuffling loudly of the strands with his wide nostrils.

“I smell Elf blood,” he growled triumphantly.

“Time to go,” thought Elerian urgently to himself in response to the Troll’s pronouncement. Summoning all his strength, he stood and painstakingly but silently climbed into the tree against which his back had rested a moment before. The patriarch, meanwhile, got down on all fours, and like a great hound, followed Elerian’s scent trail to the base of the oak in which he had hidden himself. He stood up then and looked closely into the branches overhead, but his keen eyes failed to detect Elerian’s invisible form as he climbed onto a massive branch twenty feet above the ground. Lying down full length on the great limb, Elerian pressed himself against its rough bark, remaining as motionless as possible. Below him, the Troll snuffed the air carefully with his broad nose, and his large pointed ears listened for any unusual sound, but the light breeze blowing through the treetops carried away Elerian's scent, and he made no noise that even a Troll could hear.

“There was an Elf here,” said the patriarch vehemently to the smaller Trolls. “He was the sixth.”

“Well he isn't here now gramps,” replied one of the younger Trolls, winking at his brothers behind his grandsire’s back. They all feared the enormous patriarch, but were also contemptuous of him, convinced that his age, which spanned hundreds of years, had made him somewhat senile. “Let’s get the five that we can see back to the cave, gramps. Only their heads are wanted, so I reckon we are welcome to the rest of them. I can’t remember the last time I had a taste of man’s flesh.”