Chapter Forty-Four: Mountain Demons

“The world is a vast place. Anywhere with fresh water and an abundant supply of food, you can bet that a human will establish a settlement there.

“Sometimes, if a place has been isolated for a long time, it branches off in its own direction. A separate realm of time and technology from the outside world, separate cultures, separate traditions. In every society, communication is key. Learning a language is the best compliment you can pay a culture, and it is one of the secrets to my success. I only wish language weren’t an evolving thing, always improving, always changing. The day I return to find my mother tongue has left me behind is the day I retire from the life of an adventurer.”

—Dagus Adem, The Adventurer’s Guide to the Continent

Aeos was dreaming.

In his dream he saw a man, old and balding, with eyes that told tales across the ages. He was lean and lithe despite his age, and he moved with a fluidity like a snake.

The Prince was familiar with dreams. He’d been dreaming since he was a child, not just ordinary dreams, but ones with meaning. He saw things that were lost, disasters that would happen, even people who would die. Every time he saw a face in his dreams, he would worry how long the person had left to live. Oftentimes he told himself that everyone would die eventually; it was just a matter of time.

But some people died earlier than others.

He couldn’t quite see the face this time, which was a bit of a relief. The old man suddenly arched his back towards the sky, and he began to shift. His silhouette grew larger and elongated, and a wing sprouted from one arm. Aeos watched with the drifting sensation of being in a dreamworld as the man became a one-winged dragon, golden scales glistening along its back.

It had been a while since he’d seen such a vivid dream. They’d been plentiful when he’d been a child, back when Willard had still been alive, and he’d told his mother about them every day. When she began looking at him strangely and taking him to the medics and healers, that was when he realized he was not meant to tell people about these dreams.

He still heeded them, though, and even if he took them with a grain of salt, he acknowledged them. The Masters in the library always laughed at him for believing in prophecies, but they had not seen what he had.

The one-winged dragon roared, spouting a breath of fire into the sky. Then it lost its lustre, hardening into a cracked grey, the grey of stone, and crumbled into the wind.

#

When Aeos opened his eyes, it was raining. The rain fell in sheathes of grey, plastering his hair to his head, pattering through the leaves and branches, turning the ground to mush. The river roared beside him, bashing its way down the mountain. He looked up at the layers and layers of rock and vegetation above, further still, at the dark mouth that spat froth out the side of the mountain, and guessed that was where he’d been tossed from.

...from Mor’Gravar, where all things die.

All of a sudden he felt like laughing. Never mind the great welts on his ribcage or the red blood that trickled from his temple. Never mind all the scratches along his limbs where the riverside scrubs had pricked him. Never mind his empty stomach and the fact that he was completely drenched under a winter sky.

He was alive. He’d been through the mines and walked the streets of Mor’Gravar, fought the terror that lurked in the dark, and he’d lived. He let out a shrill laugh, one that wasn’t very Princelike.

But where was everyone else?

There was a groan beside him, and he saw an old man roll onto his belly. Garax coughed and then climbed to his knees, wringing the water from his shirt. The vine-rope around his waist had snapped.

“Wyd almighty,” he said. “Now I’ve seen everything.”

The storyteller unfurled the stump of his hand from his chest, revealing a tight bundle wrapped up in a blanket. It was Talberon in his swallow form, matted and wet, but still breathing.

“We’re alive,” Aeos sang. “We’re alive.”

“We’re not out of the woods yet,” Garax said. “Where’s Ein? And Rhinne?”

“The hell if I care. We saw the City of Sorrows and lived to tell the tale!”

“Aeos!” snapped the storyteller. “Your lips are blue. We need to find cover or you’ll get sick.”

Some part of him must have registered the truth in that statement, for Aeos found himself nodding in agreement. Now that Garax mentioned it, he was freezing. So much so that his teeth were chattering uncontrollably, his face so numb he couldn’t even feel the rain.

The two made their way down the mountain, keeping to the thick pines to shelter themselves from as much of the downpour as possible. The more they moved, the colder and gloomier Aeos became. His elation was gone, replaced by doubt and questions. Where were they? How were they to find civilisation again, and least important of all, where were the other two members of their party?

Perhaps the country boy Ein was guilty after all. None could escape Kalador’s First Tenet.

After a few minutes of slogging through the woodland, they found a small alcove formed by two slabs of stone propped up against a cliff face. There, curled into a ball in front of a fire was Rhinne.

“Garax,” she exclaimed. “And Aeos. Have you seen Ein?”

They shook their heads. Aeos sat down and thrust his hands as close to the fire as he dared, feeling his fingers and toes defrost. “How on earth did you manage to start a fire in this weather?”

“She’s a dragon,” Garax said. “Or did you not believe her when she said so?”

He had to admit there’d been some skepticism when his father had told him such, but after what he’d seen in Mor’Gravar, nothing surprised him anymore.

“So, where the hell are we?” Aeos poked his head out from under the cavity, blinking away the raindrops from his face. Mountains of rock towered above them on either side, thrusting into the heavens. They were on a sparse ledge of stunted shrubs, a jagged plane of slate and dirt that grew more barren and rugged the higher he looked. At the very top, where the peaks disappeared into the rolling mist, the stone was blanketed by an almost perfect sheen of snow and ice.

“Lauriel’s Spine,” Garax said. “How good is your geography, boy?”

“So-so. I know the map of Faengard, though not well.”

“Lauriel’s Spine spans a good distance lengthways,” the storyteller said, sketching in the mud with a stick. “We came in off the Royal Road here, and entered the mines around this area. Raginrok is here, and Darmouth just beneath that.” He drew two big circles on the makeshift map.

“That’s a lot of room to get lost in,” Rhinne said. “We could be wandering for a long time. We don’t have any food either, remember. And we’ve only got one blanket between the three of us.”

“Perfect,” Garax said. “We don’t need blankets anyway.” Rhinne shrugged at that.

“Raginrok is the Summit of the World, isn’t it?” Aeos asked. “The tallest mountain in Faengard. Surely we should be able to see it from a distance. It literally towers above its neighbours.” He pointed to the mountain before them. “That mountain’s pretty tall.”

“You misunderstand,” Garax said with a wry smile. “All the mountains in Lauriel’s Spine are that tall. You know what the Darmouthers call this mountain range?”

“What?”

“Nanak Tur. In their tongue, the Tomb of the Ninety. The locals believed the mountains were formed upon the deaths of their ninety gods. To them the mountains are sacred, with Mandara, the Pillar of Heaven, being the greatest of them all.”

“I think we should follow the river,” Rhinne said. “It runs in the general direction we should be going. Like Ein said, all rivers lead to civilisation. And besides, we need to find him, and my guess is that the water swept him downstream.”

Garax raised an eyebrow. “For someone who’d all but lost their way, you’re awfully hopeful.”

Rhinne paused for a moment. “I suppose I was a bit hasty,” she admitted. “Ein helped me see past my shortcomings. Sometimes it helps to have another perspective on things.”

The storyteller nodded. “I think you’ll find that he influences us all in small ways, though we might not know it. That is the power of a Fateweaver.” He glanced at Aeos. “Now, my Prince, are you sufficiently warmed yet? Because I don’t think the rain is going away any time soon, and time halts for no one.”

#

About halfway down the mountain, Aeos saw the light again. Initially he thought it was a trick of the eyes, a cruel hallucination brought on by the harsh cold and the relentless rain, but another part of him said that it was real—that he shouldn’t ignore it. It had guided him back in Mor’Gravar, leading them to the canal and freedom. He’d trusted it then; why shouldn’t he trust it now?

He realized he’d stopped in the middle of the trail, staring ahead into the shivering pines while Garax and Rhinne watched.

“Something the matter?” the storyteller asked.

Should I tell them? Aeos had never heard of anything like it, strange lights showing him where to go. Then again, if anyone knew, it was probably Garax. He’d only known the storyteller for a few days at best, but he already had a feeling there was much more to the old man than met the eye. Their conversations and the insight he provided on the mines of Mor’Gravar had revealed that much.

“I have a feeling it’s this way,” he said, pointing to a direction in the woods. He decided not to tell the truth. “I can’t describe it as anything more than that.”

“A gut feeling?” Rhinne asked.

Aeos nodded. The white glow continued to glimmer as if taunting him.

“Well let’s go then. No use standing around in the rain.”

“Hang on,” Rhinne said. “Are you just going to take his word for it? A gut feeling?”

“Better than randomly stabbing in the dark,” Garax said cheerfully. “Are you going to ignore an order from your Crown Prince?”

“I bow to no human.”

“Don’t forget he got us out of Mor’Gravar as well,” the storyteller added. “He’s earned my trust from that alone.”

Rhinne stared at Aeos for a moment longer and then shrugged. “If you say so. He’ll be the first to die anyway, if he’s wrong.”

The way she said it unsettled Aeos, but he masked it under a loose cough. Then, he began to lead them off the trail and toward the shimmering light in the woods.

It was tough. The light shone through solid matter, whether it was a tree or a mile long stone bluff. They half-climbed half-crawled around ditches and landslides, fallen trees spanning vast gorges, soft ground buried under lush pine needles and undergrowth. The rain continued, soaking them to the bone, making their lives miserable. It made their bodies heavier, the rocks more slippery, the streams and rivers more violent. The land was always changing; steepening, flattening, becoming rockier and bushier. Sometimes they found natural paths worn into the side of the mountain, sheltered from the wind and the rain. Other times they were exposed to the fury of the elements.

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They felt the first tremor about three hours into the trail.

At first Aeos thought it was thunder, low and booming along the horizon. But thunder didn’t shake mountains. It didn’t throw loose rocks and pebbles off the bluffs above them, or scatter minute droplets from the treetops.

It lasted all of five seconds, too short to be anything threatening, too long to be dismissed. Then it was quiet again, save the monotonous drone of rain and rushing water.

“Did you feel that?” he murmured.

The others nodded.

They continued on their way, stopping briefly to wet their throats at a stream. Aeos dreaded each rest they took, each time they slowed their pace. When they slowed, he would feel the aches and pains of his body and the cold seeping into his veins. When they slowed, the wind would freeze the sweat and water along his exposed skin, reaching its icy fingers through his fur layers.

Aeos had never been hunting before. Hunting had always been Willard’s thing, along with duelling and all the other ‘princely’ past-times. While his brother had been hunting in the woods with the other knights and lords, he’d remained in his room, reading. He knew the basics, of course—of tracking and trapping, survival, how to use a spear. The Kingsblades and the weapons trainers made sure of that. No son of Uldan was exempt from the basics.

But Willard was always the Prince, the one who all the ladies pined after, who all the ministers tried to befriend, who all the squires and knights and lordlings admired and envied. A journey of such importance and magnitude would have been right up his alley. He would have known the shortest paths to take, the right times to set up camp, the right plants and weeds to eat. He would have been laughing at the sky, daring the rain to come down harder. Maybe that was why Aedon always looked for excuses to send him out of the Keep. So he could become a proper Prince, or die trying. Illia was more protective of him, the way mothers were, but he could see the conflict roiling within her as well. The doubt. The disappointment. Things had never been the same since his brother died.

The ground quaked again, bringing them to a halt. It was louder this time, deeper, like the great reverberations of some sleeping giant beneath the earth. Aeos was brought to his knees as a large boulder broke off from somewhere above and crashed through the trees, tumbling down the mountain in an uneven mess. Birds scattered into the rain, their shrill cries like warnings.

“The mountains will shake with each breath of the world,” Garax said. “It stirs. The World-Eater.”

“That can’t be it,” Aeos said, shaking his head. “The World-Eater is dead.”

“It is not dead,” Garax said. “Merely shackled at the Summit of the World. Winter has come and stayed for three years now. The relicts have returned. What more proof do you need?” Aeos had never heard the storyteller sound angry before.

“I’ll believe it when I see it myself.”

“Then I take it you don’t believe in the gods? They’re invisible too, aren’t they?”

“I don’t.”

Garax fixed him with a look of contempt. “You are a fool, then.”

“I’ll not believe every single story to come out of a children’s book,” Aeos continued. “I’m sure you know that yourself, storyteller. More often than not, a legend does not reflect the facts of what happened. The relicts are real, and so is Aedrasil. I’ve seen them for myself, and so I know this. But the World-Eater? Tell me why it has been quiet for all these years, old man. Tell me why it is awakening only now.”

“The time had simply not come,” he replied. “Nothing more. Faenrir never stopped growing. Perhaps now he finally realizes he has grown enough to make a difference, to blot out the sun and cast the world into an eternal winter.”

“Hush!” Rhinne suddenly snapped. “Stop your bickering and listen. Something other than the sky weeps.”

They stopped at once and tuned their ears to the sound of rain. Aeos frowned; had he just heard a quiet sob from down the track?

“Did you hear it, Prince?” she asked. “If you did, then it must be. Otherwise I fear the altitude sickness has taken me.”

“I did.” And he realized that the crying and the light were coming from the same direction.

Rhinne took the lead this time, hacking savagely through the bushes. She never lifted more than a limb off the rocks at any time, for even on all fours it was all too easy to slip and slide down the mountain and break one’s neck. Aeos and Garax followed her lead, with the old man having tucked Talberon into one of the pockets in his breeches.

It wasn’t long before the undergrowth fell away onto a flat circle of dirt, a barren clearing wedged between a springwater brook and a wall of arrowhead trees. A boy sat with his back to one of them, his shirt completely soaked. He had a mop of dusky hair as dark as his complexion, and his eyes were wet with tears and rainwater. He became quiet as they approached, backing into the trunk as if he wanted to bury himself.

“Shh,” Rhinne said, lowering her voice as if she were talking to a small animal. The boy couldn’t have been a day older than a decade. “It’s alright, we won’t hurt you.”

He remained quiet, staring at the three in fright. His hands were bound behind him in thick ropes, his wrists raw and bloody from chafing. Aeos looked at the path leading from the clearing and smelled the faintest hint of chimney smoke.

“Where are you from?” the Prince asked. “Who left you here? Where are your parents?”

The boy started pointedly at the Prince’s ashen hair. “Talam,” he said. “Talam.”

Aeos frowned. “Common tongue?” he asked, putting emphasis on each word. “Do you speak it?”

“We should free him first,” Rhinne said. “Get him somewhere out of the rain.” She bent down on one knee. “We’re going to cut you free, okay? We’ll make a nice, bright fire and have you warmed up.” She breathed a flicker of flame from her nostrils. The boy’s eyes widened in surprise.

“Talam!” he said again. “Talam!”

Rhinne drew her knife and the boy suddenly became frantic. “Na! Na! Na’absud ma!” He shuffled backwards, staring at the blade in fear. “Na!”

“We’re not going to hurt you. Just cut the bonds—”

“Hang on.” Garax placed a hand on Rhinne’s shoulder and pulled her back. “Bhana Nepahl sur?”

“Bhana Nepahl?”

Garax cleared his throat. “Bhava Saksir sur?”

The boy’s eyes lit up. “Ka! Saksir ma sur! Bhava sa?”

“Ka.” Garax pointed to the knife. “Ma na’absud bhava. Ma absud bha’dandha. Oke?”

“Oke.” He extended his hands eagerly.

“It’s Saksir,” Garax explained, as Rhinne sawed through the ropes. “Not the Saksir I knew, but a different dialect. I can understand most of it, though. It hasn’t deviated too much over the years, probably because of how isolated the mountains have been.”

The boy suddenly jerked. “Asrah! Asrah!”

“What are you doing?” Rhinne grunted. “Stop struggling or I might accidentally cut you—”

“Rhinne, leave him.” Garax’s voice low, and very quiet. “For now.”

“What’s wrong?”

Aeos turned around to where the old man was staring into the trees. Something, or rather, somethings—were crunching their way through the bushes, speaking in low, guttural tones. Barks and grunts, like dogs conversing with each other. A chill ran up Aeos’s spine.

“The Fire burn me,” Rhinne said.

From the other side of the clearing emerged a pack of four Worgals strong, donning studded leather and crude pikes fashioned from wooden poles and sharp stoneheads. Upon sighting the three they immediately fell silent, spilling across the mud into a battle formation.

“Asrah,” the boy said, tugging at Rhinne’s arm. She’d left his bindings half-cut, and he was trying to break them against the slippery bark of the tree.

“We’ll handle this,” she said. “Aeos, stay back and watch him—”

“No.” Garax stepped in front, his black blade drawn. “The rain will quench your flames before they have any effect, Rhinne. Better you hang back with Aeos and the boy.”

“Will you be able to handle them?” Aeos asked. “I have a weapon as well. Two will be better than one.”

“Your spear is useless,” Garax replied. He stepped across the clearing with his sword extended, exposing only one side of his body. “There are three things all relicts fear—salt, Soulforged steel, and fire. This blade is Darksteel, forged from the hottest of dragonfires. It is one of the few steels detrimental to a relict.”

The Worgals shifted uncertainly at the sight of the blade, but held their ground. Aeos released his grip on the hilt of his spear. He had seen the storyteller fight before in Mor’Gravar, albeit briefly. Besides, this time was different. These were relicts. They couldn’t possibly be stronger than the automatons, could they?

The Worgals advanced, lowering their pikes in an attacking formation. Garax yelled Kalador’s name and then slid between the spearheads, jumping into the fray.

The first of the wolfmen fell instantly, ink-black blade sprouting from between its shoulder blades in a spray of blood. The others broke formation and collapsed, pinning the old man in a jumble of fur and limb. Garax caught one of the spears with the edge of his crossguard and tucked it under the crook of his arm, then snapped it. Grabbing the haft of the broken spear, he thrust it into the maw of one of his attackers and forced it back.

As it struggled to pull the shaft from its throat, the third and the fourth members of the pack advanced, one circling around to flank him. Garax kicked at the body on the ground, sending it rolling into its brethren. The relict ahead of him tripped, while the one behind stepped in with a low, wide sweep.

The attack caught Garax across the back of his knees and he stumbled, but righted himself with a step as light as the wind. Crouching low to the ground, he suddenly sprung like a panther, closing the gap between them in an eyeblink. The Worgal brought its pike up to parry, but Garax’s blade sheared right through it and embedded itself inside its skull. The Worgal fell to the ground, eyes still open, mouth agape.

The remaining two Worgals stayed back, eyeing him warily. The one with the broken spear barked to its ally, and the ally responded. Together they advanced towards him, driving him back to the brook. Garax was panting heavily, his face flushed red as he watched for any signs of movement.

“We have to go help him,” Aeos said in a low voice. Rhinne made to move, but the dark-skinned boy clutched tightly to her leg. When he looked up again, Garax had slipped on the riverstones and fallen backwards into the water. The Worgals pounced, not even bothering to use their weapons.

“No!” Aeos cried. Before he knew it he was dashing forward, picking up the half-spear that lay broken on the ground. One of the Worgals was in Garax’s face, pressing him under the water, barking and snapping at his face. The storyteller had the blade wedged in the Worgal’s teeth, but was struggling to lift his head out of the water.

Aeos rammed his shoulder into the other Worgal, sending them both toppling into the stream. It wasn’t deep; just a thin rustling of water above stone, and his knees scraped painfully against the bottom. Both Worgals growled, turning around, and Garax took the opportunity to flip himself over and drive his blade deep into the first Worgal’s neck, piercing it completely, and then further still, impaling the second one in the chest. The two stacked corpses fell sideways, landing in a great splash. Aeos rolled to his feet, scrabbling back out of the water and over the stones

“Thanks,” Garax panted. “I got careless. Should’ve known they’d try something like that.”

He pressed a foot against the two bodies and then heaved, drawing his sword from a sheathe of black blood. He rinsed it in the stream for a while and then stood up.

“Let’s take anything of value they have and go,” he continued. “Before the cold and the rain finish us off.”

The boy chattered excitedly in his foreign tongue, pointing at Aeos and Garax and the dead relicts. Rhinne coaxed him away from the clearing, holding his small hand in hers as they sought shelter from the rain.

They stripped the Worgals of their pikes and studded leather, donning it for themselves. It made them heavier, but also warmer—if only slightly. Garax handed one of the spears to Rhinne and one to Aeos, and they used them as staffs to aid in their walking.

As they walked, Garax continued to commune with the boy in their strange language. The boy sounded ecstatic—he kept pointing at Aeos and Rhinne and making loud, exaggerated sounds and motions that sounded like barking dogs and steel. The word ‘Talam’ came up more than once. The boy seemed convinced they were ‘Talam’.

“He comes from Darmouth,” said Garax after a while, translating what the boy had told him. “The village has been plagued by relict attacks for a while now, in addition to the constant tremors at the base of Raginrok. They’ve formed a temporary agreement where they offer their children as ‘sacrifices’ to the ‘mountain demons,’ so that they’ll leave them in peace. They sent one up Raginrok and it seemed to work, reducing the earthquakes in frequency and intensity, so they’re doing it again with the relicts.”

“That must be the Lachess heir,” Aeos said. “But then that would mean Faenrir really exists…” No, there must be another explanation.

“Ask him how many children have been sacrificed,” Rhinne cut in. As Garax had revealed the boy’s story, she’d steadily grown more and more livid until he could practically feel the anger washing off her in waves. On one hand she was no longer so silent and bleak as he’d first met her on the carriage out of the city, but on the other, if all she was going to do was be mad and take on the problems of other people, he would have preferred the mopey Rhinne.

“I had the impression you didn’t like humans very much,” Aeos muttered. At this point in time, all he wanted was to leave them behind and go home—but travelling alone lowered his chances of survival drastically. “What makes this child different?”

“He’s a child,” Rhinne said. “He’s done nothing to deserve this.”

“So if it were an adult you would be fine with it?”

“I…” Rhinne paused, her fire dampened. “It’s not the same. Adults are self-entitled bastards. They don’t care for others; not the land nor their fellow man, only themselves.”

“And how many adults have you met in your lifetime? How many Druids and Kings, who you hold so much scorn for?”

Rhinne fell silent, and before she could answer, Garax asked the boy her question. The boy replied with a sad voice.

“Nana,” he said.

“Nineteen,” Garax said. “Nineteen children have been left for the relicts so far.”

“How many have returned?” she immediately asked.

“Agat abhis sa killi tur?”

“Vidi.”

“None. My guess is that they realized coercing the villagers for food was easier and safer than simply taking it.”

Rhinne clenched her fists. “I’ll kill them all,” she seethed.

“Is he taking us back to the village now?” Aeos asked.

“He is.”

Interesting, he thought. The light was still there in front of him, and the tugging at his chest was growing stronger. Aeos wasn’t a gambling man, but he would have been willing to place money that Darmouth was the source of the light.

What did it all mean? First the canal and now the village. Could it be that the light was some form of precognition that showed him which path to walk? The idea baffled him. To think that he, the one who’d always been the ‘other’ Prince, might be gifted with such an ability.

He would ask Celianna when he returned. She always seemed to know more about these things than he did, being a gifted Songweaver herself. For now, he would keep it to himself and pray nothing detrimental came from it.

The rain continued to fall.