The cart shook and clattered noisily on the unpaved mountain path it was being driven across. It had barely been a few days since he’d left home, but Simon was still scared out of his mind. He was tired and scared and he couldn’t get over the sense of loneliness he was feeling creeping into the corners of his mind. He wasn’t alone, there were at least three others like him sitting in the cart too. He couldn’t tell if the man driving the cart’s woefully overworked horses was anything like them either. But if he was, it was some small comfort that at least some people came out of the place they were being carried off to alive.
Simon wrapped the wool blanket he had over him tighter around himself to keep out the cold mountain air while he collected his thoughts. He tried to look around and get an idea of what was happening, where they were being taken. He’d always heard stories, but nobody had really put stock in stories these days. The area surrounding him was cold and bright, sunlight reflecting a harsh glare off of pure white snow into his eyes. They were ascending a mountain, he could tell that there were three other passengers like him and two guards. The two grown men were clearly experienced and equipped, with armor that seemingly kept out the cold and weapons that could match the incredible ability of their armor. There was one driving the cart, while the other sat in the back with the four of them.
He was planning his escape when he felt the cart shudder to a stop, and watched the guard in the back with them get up and push his way up next to his partner to see what was wrong. The two of them had a hushed conversation about something Simon couldn’t quite make out, right up until he started to hear exactly what the driver had likely heard. The sounds of shouting men and the hollering of orders. He took proper stock of his surroundings now, instead of just assessing what was behind them as they passed it. They were being shielded from the wind by the mountain pass they had just entered, and Simon figured out what was happening only a few seconds before it did. Rocks came raining down from on-high, crashing down all around them and filling in the gaps behind and ahead.
They had just driven into an ambush, and that fact only dawned on him properly when he saw the shafts of arrows seemingly spring out of the necks of their horses. The two beasts of burden panicked, lurching forward and snapping the pieces of metal that kept them connected to their harnesses. They barely made it a few feet before another volley of arrows put them down, and the boulder that followed afterword flipped the cart onto its side. The occupants were tossed out onto their backs or sides, including the guards, who stood up immediately and drew their weapons. Two of the other people that had been in the cart decided to make a run for it, and tried to break out from behind the cover of the cart and sprint for the small impromptu-barricade that was keeping them all trapped in here.
Simon, however, stuck close to the cart with the other passenger while the two guards collected themselves and prepared for their attackers to try and get a little closer. The volley of arrows from on-high stifled and finally stopped completely. And a voice that he could tell was trying to hold back some sort of glee and sound neutral came ringing out from above, likely their leader. The man cleared his throat before speaking “I shall ask you this once, and only once. Surrender now, and your lives will be spared.” The rest was drowned out as the world muffled around Simon, he was too busy concentrating on getting a good look at their attackers.
Simon slowly poked his head around the side of the overturned cart that had become their improvised fortification, and looked up at them. There were at least a dozen of them, that much he could tell. The lot of them had their bows strung over a shoulder and empty quivers cinched to their belts, likely because all their arrows had found their way into and around the cart. Finally, he could tell each of them had a smallsword in a sheath buckled to their opposite hip and a buckler strapped to a forearm. He could tell which one was the leader because of his impractical clothing and big mouth.
Simon watched as the gaudy and over-dressed man and two guards talked back-and-forth. From what he could tell from his own half-deafened world, they were arguing about terms of surrender and how the bandit leader could take his ‘terms’ and shove them where the sun don’t shine. After a few more seconds of arguing, with the gaudy one getting less and less composed, it seemed like he was about to order his band of thieves in to finish off the guards when Simon felt a burning sensation. He felt the burning form in the pit of his stomach, felt it rise up into his chest cavity, then to his spine, and finally up his right arm. He was acting on instinct now, he wanted the burning sensation to stop, to throw it away from him somehow, especially when it hit his palm and fingers.
So, he threw it away. He flung his hand in the direction of the big-mouthed fool, and was promptly flung backwards into a snowbank from the shockwave of force. His ears filled with the sound of crashing thunder right up until he felt something solid strike the back of his head and the blackness crept in around him. He drifted for a while, lying back in the black void of unconsciousness. Everything was so dark and impossibly vast, he could scarcely believe the space was in his own head.
Then he felt himself lurch forward and woke up to a lady moving a glass bottle away from his lips. Simon’s eyes stung and his head swam with pain, he tried to sit up but a hand on his chest told him to stay down. A soft voice rang in his ears “Stay down, kid. Let the poultice do its thing.” So he did, he lay there atop his blanket trying to figure out how he’d gotten out of that snowdrift and onto the ground next to their cart. A simple sideways glance gave him the answer he needed, the torso-sized trail leading from the snowdrift he was in some time ago to his current spot was fairly obvious now that he was looking at it.
After laying there for a few minutes, Simon eventually forced himself to sit up and look around. There were only three of them now, the other two people who had been riding with them seemed to have escaped, and the other guard was missing. He’d guessed that the lady who gave him the poultice had been the one he had mistaken for a man who was driving the horses, and the other guy riding in the back was huddled to himself a little ways away. So he summoned up what energy he could, and tried to speak. “What happened?” he asked, doing his best to keep his tone even and calm. “You fried the bandit leader.” The lady guard replied, shortly. “And afterword, my partner and I drove off his cronies. Cost my partner his life, though.”
Simon slipped back down to lying flat, feeling like he’d been struck. Confusion ran racing lines through his aching skull as he tried to put together the words that she spoke in a way that made some sense. He spotted a small curling column of black smoke, and he could smell it on the wind. He felt an icy ball form in his stomach as he forced himself to his feet. And he felt the coppery taste of bile on his tongue as he walked out and saw the smoking remains of the bandit leader’s hand and upper-torso hanging over the edge of one of the mountain pass’ two stone walls, his clothing the most probable excuse for why he still hadn’t fallen into the pass.
A myriad of emotions rolled through Simon’s mind as he looked at the charred and blackened hand, swaying in the cold air. On one hand, he felt saddened and guilty. He did just kill someone after all, even if he hadn’t meant to do it. On the other, however, he felt justified and righteous anger. This man and his compatriots had attacked him and these other strangers with whom he was travelling, with the intent of doing who knows what horrible things to them.
He hardly had the time to dwell on these thoughts, however, as a cry of frustration from behind him hauled him quickly back to reality. Snapping back to his senses, he turned around in time to watch the only remaining guard slam her clenched fist against the wood of their overturned cart in anger. He blinked hard, twice, to make certain he was seeing everything correctly before going over to assess the situation. His father had taught him quite a bit about wilderness survival while he was growing up in the Bleakwood. But so much of it wouldn’t be much use here in the mountains, instead of down in the forests of his home.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.
So it would be best to get the help of someone who knows the area better, perhaps someone who’s travelled the path before. So Simon made his way back over to their ruined cart and made his best effort to talk to the lady who had been transporting them here. He didn’t bother to mince words, it wouldn’t be prudent “So” he began “What’s the plan? There’s three of us and only you know the area. I’m assuming you’ve got friends where we were headed.” And the lady nodded slowly, seeming to compose herself to speak. Simon could hear the regret in her voice “The plan doesn’t change. Even with Edgar dead, I still have to get the two of you to the tower.”
So it was to keep moving, as good a plan as any. The lady continued “We’re just going to have to move on-foot. If I were you, I’d pick up one of the swords off of one of those bandits. There’s still some creatures that could pose a threat to us in the small stretch between where we are now and the tower.” And Simon complied, making his way over to where the bodies had been piled up, the two of them had managed to kill three or four of them before their mates fled, and he managed to scrounge up two smallswords and a pair of knives that hadn’t been wrecked from the fight.
While he rummaged, he attempted to maintain their conversation “So what’s your name?” He asked, trying to keep his tone as even as possible despite being elbow deep in a small mound of bodies. The lady replied promptly “Isabel. And yours?” Simon gave her an honest reply, he didn’t feel the need to lie “Simon. And what about the third man over there?” He gestured with a nod of his head to the third of their trio, who had neither moved nor spoken in the time since Simon had woken up. Isabel shook her head “No idea, he hasn’t spoken since we picked him up.”
Strange and detrimental, fantastic. Simon calmly made his way over to the huddled form of their third man and knelt down across from him. The young man’s face was marred with fear and a complete lack of awareness. Simon snapped his fingers in front of the man’s face a few times to see if that would snap him out of it, but to no avail. He stood up and shook his head “He’s gone. We’re going to have to carry him.”
Isabel raised a questioning brow at this idea “And why should we do that? The two of us could make it on our own in good time. Adding him into the mix will slow us down and could perhaps even kill us on the way.” Simon’s brow furrowed as he finally picked their third man up into his arms “Because it’s the right thing to do. My parents taught me that you should never leave a man behind.”
The two of them argued for a few minutes, back-and-forth about the merits of their current plan. Eventually, however, the march of time got the better of them and they started moving to find shelter before nightfall. After a few hours of walking and climbing, the trio made their way further back down the mountain on the opposite side of the pass to a sheltered section of mountain where they could set camp. Using some wood scavenged from their cart, and some of the meat from one of their horses, the three of them filled their stomachs and got some rest, awaiting the new dawn. Simon in particular had little trouble letting the pleasant darkness of sleep claim his mind for a while.
In the void of sleep, Simon had time to come to grips with the reality of the situation. The stories he’d heard were true, and he was one of the ones selected to undergo the test. The Sorcerer’s Test was awaiting him at the tower, and that heat he had felt before he hit his head and passed out. That must have been magic, and not the kind that travelling conmen practiced, either. Real, full-blown, change-the-face-of-the-world magic! He was practically giddy in his sleeping void, until the other side of his situation came back to remind him not to get too excited yet.
He was still a good ways away from the tower itself, with one of the tower’s guardians and another man who was due to take the Test as well. They had no transportation aside from their own legs, and between them only enough food to last a couple days if Isabel was to be believed. This wasn’t the best situation to be in, but if they got close enough to a forest, he could perhaps scavenge some more food and water for them during the trip. And if they didn’t run into too much trouble on the way, they wouldn’t need the weapons he grabbed. The mournful feeling of a boot nudging his side yanked him away from any further thoughts as he snapped back to reality once again.
His eyes opened to the dawn of a new day, and to Isabel holding their third man over one shoulder. They hardly needed to exchange more than a glance to understand the situation as it was. Simon started wrapping his weapons up in his blanket, tucked the bundle under one arm, and made ready to set out. They would be travelling down the mountain path and into the forest below, where they would then spend the next seven days making their way to the tower. And finally, they would reach the tower. Of course, they still needed to get there.
So they walked, and walked, and walked until they made camp the next night. Then, they got up and walked further along. Finally, they had reached the forest and Simon felt his mind stray back to home for a moment. How was his family dealing with his disappearance? How were they coping without him to help?
His thoughts did not stray long, however. He could not help his family later if he fell in this forest before even reaching his new goal. And he was glad he had the sense to stop this reminiscing quickly, because he heard the sounds moments before their source came screaming down from the treeline on-top of them. It had nearly pounced on-top of him, but Isabel had been there to put herself between the monster and Simon, her sword already drawn and alight with a fire he hadn’t seen there before. The impact of the creature on her weapon, and the force travelling from the blade itself up to her arm when she pushed it off let out a sickening crunch, and when the creature fell backward, one of her arms hung limp at her side.
The monster scrambled backward and regained its footing as the two of them made ready for its next attack. As he sized-up the creature, Simon thought aloud “This isn’t good. Is your arm broken?” and Isabel shook her head “I don’t know, I can’t feel it. But I can still fight.” This definitely wasn’t good, they had to end this quickly, before the creature could figure them out. He could already feel its dirt-brown irises combing over them, its sickly green skin and fetid claws scraping against the dirt as it took their measure.
The creature was taller than them by at least two feet, and lanky. He could see the cuts on its hands already mending before their eyes. They would take it on now, before it could regenerate. And without a word, the pair of them charged the beast. They traded blows with it as best they could, Isabel leaving a streak of cuts with her fiery sword and Simon taking the occasional stab where he could. But the tide of the battle was already against them, and as Simon’s blade snapped off in one of the creature’s legs, he realized that they were being pushed back.
Finally, the pair of them were caught in one of the beast’s wide swipes of its claws and thrown backward. Simon to the side and Isabel next to their third man, her weapon falling from her grasp and clattering to the ground. As he lay there for a moment, Simon processed things as fast as his mind could gather them. He had a deep gash across his chest, and he could see the blood streaking its way down his torso. The creature was closing in on Isabel and their third man, and Isabel’s longsword was between him and the beast.
He was moving before the thought even crossed his mind. He was acting on fear and adrenaline as he dragged himself to his feet and made for one last attempt on the creature, snatching up Isabel’s weapon as he went. Its blade lit up bright in his hand as he raised it high, then brought it up from below in a sweep across its side. Causing it to scream and leap away with a burning arc of a scar across its ribcage. Simon continued to press after it, putting himself between his two companions and the creature and stifling a scream he hadn’t even known he was making. He stood between them, Isabel’s sword raised in defense as the beast rose up to its full height and came down on him with its claws. Simon winced, and raised the weapon, but no deathblow came. No killing stroke, no claws biting into his flesh.
As he looked up at it, he saw the creature stopped mid-swing. Its claws hung in the air scant inches from his face as a deep voice laughed heartily. It boomed around them in joy as it spoke “Simon of Bleakwood, you have passed the first test!” Simon lowered the sword and let its flame die out, looking confused. He let out a breath he hadn’t known he was holding as he spoke, letting his confusion carry in the wisp of his voice “What?”