16. Intertwined

“‘How far along are we…?’

When asked the question, I idly answered in the human tongue that progress on the pools was going well. And then I turned to see the green-robed alchemist standing in my caverns. Though I was at first wary, and swiftly considered how an old and frail shaman might best a human twice his height, the stranger seemed placid enough.

He then asked if I had heard the voice yet, which was a question I did not have any good answer for. He went on to explain that when I did hear the voice I should not pay it undue heed. That I would be better served treating it with suspicion and fear.

‘Keep it from The Small King as long as you can,’ he had warned.

I answered that I would both to placate him and because I would have graver concerns if I began to hear voices in my mind beyond my own.

Then he simply stood there, awkwardly, and began to make idle conversation.

I had not spoken at length to anyone of intellect in some time, so I humoured him. No doubt he placed great import on this voice, but all the talk that followed was seemed trivial and pointless.

By the time he finally left, I wondered if he were simply lonely.

Then that night I dreamed restless dreams, as if seering in my sleep, and I heard a voice that was ancient, bitter, and shaking with inconsolable rage. It demanded I build far bigger pools.”

Astrid trudged through ankle deep snow, her arms tucked under her grey cloak.

The dark green figure of Fragor loomed beside her, and she had watched every now and then as each of his lumbering movements formed more cracks in his skin, which required ever more wax to seal. Within his rounded humanoid frame, she could see the dark liquid sloshing back and forth in his great stomach, which had started nearly quarters full and had since fallen to half way down.

There was nought to eat for him to eat for miles around.

Other than Astrid, of course.

The great towering trees of the Blackwood lay behind them, separated by a long stretch of stone and snow. She could still distantly see the Snake Basin path, which ran alongside the forest, eventually opening to a wider road that cut through a wintry plain, crossing into a sheltered pass, towards the wide and icy mountain ranges of Timilir.

There had been farmsteads and cabins along that road, but they were now smoldering husks, blackened and burned. Astrid could make out their broken frames in the distance.

The stone city lay eastwards, while southerly cliffs dropped down to the Snake Basin. Astrid needed to head northwards though, where the stretch of mountains that separated Southwestern Tymir from the Midderlands gave way to a vast valley of swampy soil.

Though all she could see in that direction was an endless horizon of greys. She sighed, breath coming out meek a shakily, and barely made a plume of misty air. Astrid’s foot hooked on something beneath the snow, and she tripped forward, stumbling on. She barely managed to right her balance before she went head first into the cold grind.

“Acid!” Fragor exclaimed. “Want carry…?”

Astrid felt bone tired. And she had no real reason to distrust the giant green troll. But she still felt a visceral urge not to be plucked up like all those goblins had been before her. Still, she decided, it was either be carried or else die of exposure. “Yes, please, Fragor.”

Fragor reached out with his enormous wax arms and plucked her up gently, eventually setting her on his spongy right shoulder. Then her vision swam and ears rang and she was suddenly not herself, but a small, keen eyed goblin, looking up at the immense log walls of Horvorr, standing on the shoulders of a different giant. “Dalpho…”

Her stomach turned at the sight of torn open men and women of Horvorr, strewn about the ornate, half burned, hall of who must have been Gudmund son of Geirolf. He was alone, beaten, soon die. Then the sudden thrum of a bow sent Astrid reeling.

Back to herself, wind whipped past her eyes and she hurtled to the ground below, landing instead in the great and grimy paw of Fragor.

“Why you jumping, Acid. You ask for carry!”

“Sorry,” she managed meekly. “I have… visions, sometimes. But this was strange. I don’t usually see things that have already happened.”

“Oh. Still carry…?”

“Yes, please,” she answered, realizing that she had seen the last moments of the Great Chief Lazarus. He had spared a young girl and the young girl had not repaid the favour. She bitterly smiled, knowing full well that Gudmund of Horvorr had slaughtered all those goblins he swore to protect. “Thank you, Fragor,” she said, now dropped back atop his bulky shoulders.

“You is welcome, Acid,” came the happy answer. The hardened green wax was cold to touch, and slightly sticky, which made it easier to keep in place despite the great weight of each of his stomping steps below. The troll seemed all the more giant from up here, stepping through the deep snow as it were completely insubstantial. “What visions?”

“A vision is… well, I see through another’s eyes. Usually Hjorvarth’s.”

“Oh. Why…?”

“I believe are bonded in some way,” she honestly answered. “Fated to be together.”

“Oh. Like Fragor and Agak,” the giant troll said, picking up pace and marching forward across the vast snowy plain.

Astrid placed both gloved hands onto the sticky wax, and flexed her legs and thighs to better keep in place. In the distance, she glimpsed sight of greenery, flanked on both sides by rearing mountains of ash grey and bone white. “I suppose so.”

“What see Yore yar?” Fragor asked.

“I do not know,” she shouted above now thunderous footfalls. Her teeth began to rattle now the giant troll began to lope. “I do not see him always.”

Fragor hummed as if confused and disappointed.

“When I was younger,” Astrid added, “I saw him, much younger as well, in a house in what must have been Timilir. He was trying to rob the owners!” she had to shout to be heard, but then Fragor slowed to a noisy walk. “There was a locked safe, and the man meant to open it was terribly nervous. His hands were shaking. And try as he might, he couldn’t manage to open the dwarven lock. And Hjorvarth was growing impatient, scowling back and forth between the man and the door, when a great alarm rang out.”

Fragor curiously hummed. “What then, Acid…?”

Astrid’s mouth hung agape now the snowy plain gave way to mossy ground pocked by by tall bulbous plants and tufted by wild grasses. Before the disparate pair, a long stretch of signs and posts had been erected, each wooden point puncturing through the rotting heads of both goblins and humans. Flies buzzed around the gruesome markers, which gave way to overlapping crude fences and sharpened stakes further back.

“Oh. Pictures,” said Fragor, referencing the crossed out humanoid figures, as if they weren’t welcome, and then other etchings of claws and fangs and teeth. “And walls. What does it mean, Acid…?”

“I think it means that someone, or something, doesn’t want us in the Pass.”

“Oh,” said Fragor, his childish tone now edged disappointment. “I smash…?”

“Go ahead.”

***

“Moonbear is back!” cried the dirty, scrawny goblin now he scurried into the cavern. The words met, by the other goblins scattered around the large camp cavern, by fearful murmurs or frightful exclamations. “Moonbear—”

“Be silent! Do that,” Chief Ugu snarled, his grimy teeth ever on display, because a cruel scar ran from nose to chin. He had squared features, almost like a mans, and once spoke with a proud voice. But after he had lost his fight to Harak the Unseen—suffering the wound on his pale brown face—he’d had trouble speaking without a lisp. Despite the affectation, volume alone forced all of his clan to a tense silence.

“No, no,” said a second voice, as an even skinnier goblin limped inside. “Giant!”

“Where…?” Ugu demanded. If the Moonbear, or a giant, had entered the Middle Lands Pass then that was good news. It was Harak who had decided that Braguk was dead, after all. Ugu might never be Great Chief but he could at least take pleasure in Harak’s dying. And, if it were a giant instead, then he might be able to trick the creature into fighting Harak’s clan instead of Ugu’s. Then Ugu could have his revenge and be the Great Chief.

“From the snow lands,” answered the first scrawny goblin. “Carrying a tiny goblin.”

“A manling,” insisted the second. “A giant, dark and green, carrying a manling!”

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Ugu grumbled wordlessly to himself. He straightened in his stone-hewn seat, and glanced back at the hunched figure in the corner, crouched over a bowl of burning things that smelled foul. The shaman bore many scars and bruises, and was missing an ear. “What see you, Forgo…?”

The shaman’s small dark eyes kept staring into the flames, dancing with the light. He carried a small bone knife and wore a scaled jerkin over his bony chest.

“Shaman!” Ugu demanded.

“I would not go,” he eventually answered, his slow words strained. “Death waits.”

Ugu’s eyes narrowed, and he considered beating the shaman again. He had once respected, even feared, Forgo. But then he had seered that Ugu would lose his duel against Harak. And refused to unseer it. This had enraged the Chief so much that he did what other goblins thought unthinkable, and attacked the shaman, biting off his ear.

“If you leave them,” added the shaman, “Harak will be slain. And only you and Saka will remain. This will be better for you both… in some ways. Worse in others.”

“It is Braguk, or a giant…?”

“It is a troll—the very first troll—and a womanling. Their stories are strong. The smokes are clear. And the womanling is not seeking honour,” the shaman added. “A box has been buried. It is best for us all that she finds it in peace.”

Ugu scowled, his ruined lips drawing further up over his teeth. Forgo had never spoken so surely on any of his seering. And he spoke words that were supposed to be important, but did so flatly and without feeling. “This is a trick,” the Chief hissed.

The shaman looked over his hunched shoulders, his thin lips curled into a cruel smirk. “Not all battles can be won, Chief Ugu,” he studiously explained. “This is no trick. Be deaf, if you wish. You have done so before. This time will leave greater wounds.”

“Mind your tongue,” Ugu growled. “Or I will bite off your other ear.” He had only left the shaman alive so far, because all true Chiefs had a shaman. But he realized now that it was just a name to be given, or taken. That he could replace Forgo with any other fool.

“Even with no ears, I will still hear better than you, Ugu.” Forgo’s quiet chuckle was soon followed by a rasping cough. “You can kill me. I have seen my death in the smokes.”

Ugu forced himself not to rise, and smash the shaman’s head open with his bone club. Rage and confusion surged through the Chief. If Forlo had seered his own death, and he died, then his seering was true. But if Forlo did not die then Ugu would appear as a fool.

He glanced around at his clan, who watched with fearful confusion, while one or two of the bigger goblins appeared almost amused. “Forlo has seered his death,” Ugu then declared. “Whoever eats his eyes, will be the new shaman!”

***

“Strange,” murmured Astrid, bobbing atop Fragor’s great shoulders. The ground beneath them lay boggy, pocked with deep murky pools that no doubt harbored all manner of creatures, some likely dangerous, other perhaps murderous. “I had a feeling that we were being watched just then… oh, and now. But that started before…”

“Before…?” asked Fragor. Swarms of small, noisy flies buzzed in the humid air.

“When Hjorvarth arrived at our home,” answered Astrid. “I had the same feeling. And when he came back to us before the battle at Horvorr. And when I saw him in Fenkirk, as well. But since then I’ve been having the same feeling every now and then.”

“Oh.” Fragor abruptly stopped, nearly throwing the grey-cloaked young woman from his waxy shoulders. He craned his featureless head around as if he had a pair of hidden eyes. Fresh liquid pooled from his neck while he twisted and craned. “Not seeing.”

“Oh,” said Astrid. “No, not like that, Fragor. I mean… well… there are other ways of seeing. From a distance. The shamans use their seering smoke, and all manner of prophets and witches have different methods. They might be a vast distance away.”

“Hmm… not good. Or… is good? Yes? No?”

“I’m not sure. I don’t think the one watching us now means us any harm. But the one before felt desperate, and short lived. I think whoever seered us must live in the Pass.”

“Oh,” said Fragor, starting to trudge forward once more, his great foot noisily plunging into a deep pool, lifting back out with a raucous splash. “We find, Acid?”

“No,” she dismissed. “I’m sure they’ll find us. We just need to keep moving forward, and avoid all the monsters we can. Hopefully your size alone will ward off most.”

“I am very big!” Fragor happily declared. “Fragor never this big before,” he added. “Not enough food, and no room in cave. This widing world is much better.”

Astrid kindly smiled. “I’m glad that you like it, Fragor. If we do get attacked…” she began, not quite sure what she meant to ask or how she meant to ask it.

“I will fight! Protect!” Fragor made an excitable humming sound. “Acid must hide,” he then added, his normally high pitched voice going as low as it could. “Yes…?”

“I will try to stay out of the way,” Astrid agreed.

“Stay out o’ tha way!” a voice then echoed, from a man who had appeared amid the boggy reeds just ahead of them as if from nowhere.

Fragor stopped, and Astrid frowned, as the lanky, black-skinned stranger—clad in a fibrous skirt made of pressed leaves and caked in mud—spared them only a fierce glance as he turned, hands gripping tight round around a gnarled and battered cudgel to face nothing at all. Then the air shimmered and two more men, clothed in hooded robes and masked by ornate plates of etched silver—appeared stepped forth onto the sodden mud.

The black man leapt forth with an overhand swing.

The club crunched into the leftmost stranger’s cheek—bone snapping and metal clanging—which sent a silver mask spinning in a spray of spilled blood and shattered teeth. The second robed man, startled and surprised, staggered back and tripped.

Astrid thought that the fight was savagely, and easily won, but then the air shimmered as another pair of dark robed, silver masked wizards, appeared behind the black man.

“Behind—” she began to shout, but the straw-dressed stranger waved an idle hand, which sent roots bursting up from the ground to entangle them—by their legs at first, and then by their arms as they were wrenched into reedy grass and buried in the bogs.

The surviving robed man, crawling back on the floor, waved his own hand, sending up sudden flames which were soon swept away by a vicious gust of wind that turned the fire back on their conjurer. The heat took to the black fabric hungrily and set him aflame.

The black man turned, paying no mind to the awful screaming behind him, and readied his bloodied club once more.

Astrid saw then that his dark skin was lacquered with sweat, and his wiry chest heaved with breaths. He was unsteady on his feet, but rolled his neck and bared his dirty teeth.

Two more robed men appeared, ahead of the black man, and then another pair appeared, and another, and another, until he was surrounded by a circle of eight.

Astrid and Fragor stood unmoving, the giant green troll towering over the odd gathering amid the long grasses, and fly ridden pools, and jutting reeds.

“Come now, Void Walker,” said one of the robed men in a studious tone. “You must be nearly spent. Would you rather die than come with us?”

“Yes,” answered the Void Walker between breaths. He resignedly smirked, his tongue between his teeth, before he raised both arms above his head and thrust them down.

The wind surged in answer, with such force that Astrid was deafened, thrown clear of Fragor’s shoulder, and whipped through the air as she fell, thankfully, into a massive tuft of grass. The world screeched and fluttered above her with the sudden vicious weather, and by the time she manage to struggle out of the grass, she could see—between Fragor’s waxy green legs—that most of the robed men had been thrown from their feet. Flames erupted in great torrents, scything upwards when they seemed to hit an invisible wall, while great rocks were hurled haphazardly through the whipping wind.

Astrid watched, stomach turning, now one of the robed men paused in his conjuring of flames, and began wretchedly screaming. His anguish cut short by the roots of a plant bursting free from his belly. A great rock struck the Void Walker in his shoulder, opening flesh and sending him spinning, but he righted himself in time to club another’s head.

Four robed men down, the black man waved away a hurtling ball of fire, and then reached out, as if to drag those closest to Fragor under the earth as he had the others, but the roots did not jut upward and instead snaked out and flailed to the earth.

The Void Walker met the sight with a regretful grin. His smile fell, and then the rest of him followed now he toppled sideways into a murky puddle.

“Finally,” declared the same studious voice as before. “This would have been much easier if those fools had learned to properly time their arrival.” He made a tutting sound that hinted at disappointment and annoyance. “Gather him up, and we can go.”

“Yes, Magi, but…”

“What?” snapped the Magi.

“Shouldn’t we address the elephant in the room?” asked a woman’s voice.

Astrid had struggled to her feet, coming to stand beside the giant green troll, and now the four robed figures turned to face them both.

“I am not an elf and ant!” declared Fragor, confused and unhappy. “I am a troll.”

“Girl,” said the Magi to Astrid. “You need not concern yourself with this. This man is—”

“You called him the Void Walker,” she remembered. Edda had mentioned him once or twice, when speaking of Lucius Chance, but Astrid wasn’t sure whether her grandmother had seen him as malevolent figure or an ambivalent one.

“I did,” the Magi agreed. “Nevertheless that is not your problem. We came here to locate this fugitive, and we have done so. We will be on our way, and leave you in peace.”

“Why were you hunting him?” Astrid asked.

The Magi sighed. “I have humored you long enough, girl. Be silent. Grab the body,” he said to the others. “Ignore the mundane and her oversized pet.”

“What doing, Acid…?” Fragor pondered. “They is friends?”

Astrid was not sure whether to ask the giant troll to intercede. The robed folk had wanted to take the Void Walker alive, while he was viciously murderous in defending himself. And the black man had even asked her to stay out of the way. Yet she wanted to help him. Or maybe she just wanted to meddle. To ruin the plans of these powerful strangers who felt they could swoop in and out of her life as the Old Enemy had.

“The black man is our friend,” Astrid declared. “We must protect him, Fragor.”

“Oh.” Fragor lurched forward, collapsing one robed figure underfoot with a horrid crunch. Then another soon after. He grabbed his own hand with the other, the crude fist sloughing off into a ball, which he hurled at the Magi. The dark green liquid—a mix of dried and dull, fresh and smoking—engulfed the silver-masked man, who staggered back, skin turning stark red and clothes disappearing, his agonized screams muffled by wax while the acid killed him. “I am helping, I am helping, I am helping,” said the giant troll happily, his great feet lifting up with crushed bodies tangling beneath them.

The fourth robed figure, who had stood stunned for a long moment, then waved her hand and turned to face a shimmering portal, which showed an ornate stone corridor.

The Void Walker, groaning on the floor, grabbed her by the ankle, and she tripped. Falling half way between the portal, her head struck flagstones with an awful thud.

The portal closed, leaving only half of her behind.

“Tymirians,” muttered the black man, scowling up at her. “You never listen.”

Astrid might have replied but his eyes fluttered close and he sagged to the ground, and—seeing all the death and violence around her—she desperately needed to vomit.

“I am helping, I am helping, I am helping,” Fragor carried on happily above her, about to drop one of the crushed strangers into his now wide open head, teeming with teeth.

“Careful,” managed Astrid between retching. “The masks are silver.”

“Oh. Good thinking, Acid!” Fragor happily announced. “You are very good friend!”