In The Shadow Of The Beast (25 page)

Sigourd shook the dismal thought from his
head, and pressed on toward that soaring peak.

Huron had waited patiently near the opening
of the cave mouth into which the Prince Regent and his two
companions had disappeared. He’d considered following them into the
heart of the mountain, but when they had left the majority of their
provisions and equipment near the opening, Huron though it better
to wait them out realizing that they would undoubtedly return in
due course.

For many hours, the knight had sat quietly
in his hidden place, observing the entrance to the cave with keen
interest, as the mountain winds whipped the snow about him.
Occasionally he would hear the distant squawking of his war hawk as
the creature circled high overhead. He had tasked the hawk with
delivering a message to the garrison of men at arms he’d
requisitioned from the city of Yarneth Vardis. The hawk had
returned three days ago with a note from the city’s watch
commander. With no great ceremony, the man had written back,
explaining that he had dispatched a cavalry company to rendezvous
with Huron forth with. By the knights estimation, the riders would
make quick going through the mountain passes.

Huron had watched with interest as the wild
man re-emerged from the cave entrance shortly after he’d
disappeared into it. He stayed only briefly on the face of the
mountain before some urgent matter gave him cause to dash back into
that cave with all haste.

Huron had watched with even greater interest
when hours later, the young lord and the wild man had re-emerged
together, looking much the worse for wear, and begun to head away
from the cave mouth, following the pass down the other side of the
mountain.

Apparently their elderly friend had either
elected to remain within the cave system, or had met his end down
there.

The knight continued to trail the pair once
they had reached the valley beyond the Ash’harad, and had gazed on
in awe at his surroundings. Never in all his many crusades had he
visited a land so humbling by virtue of its scale.

CHAPTER 14

Emergence...

The two dozen pod like structures clung to
the sides of the massive trees like over-large beads of sap, or
tears. Except that these tears were large enough to house entire
families, and were connected throughout the forest canopy via a
series of walkways and gantries that seemed to grow between the
pods in a strangely organic fashion. Sigourd and Jonn Grumble had
stumbled upon a village suspended many meters above the forest
floor, where the dwellings appeared to be formed of some kind of
living substance, pale gray and porous like bone. It almost seemed
to glow softly in the afternoon light.

Truly, the eyes of Sigourd and Jonn Grumble
had been opened to such miraculous sights since they had begun
their crossing of the Ash’harad, and Sigourd could not now doubt,
after all he’d borne witness to, that the Eastern Fringes beyond
the mountain ranges were a place of divine magic and
wonderment.

The pair had decided to conceal themselves
near the outskirts of the strange village so that they might better
observe the comings and goings of its inhabitants.

The people of the village did indeed live
amongst the trees, and moved along the walkways and strange
connectors of the pods with an almost feline grace, their rangy
limbs moving with a measured poise. Aside from their distinctive
ambulation, they possessed a certain animal quality about the eyes
and mouth. They had a look like the cats that prowled around the
palace, or wolves perhaps. It was not Sigourd’s opinion that they
were not human, but certainly, they were like no species of man
he’d encountered before.

But the one thing Sigourd did note about
this community, is that they were just that. Husbands and wives
walked together, children played and ran between the precarious
pods, while still others went about the daily routine of any normal
village person.

‘
They’re a pretty looking
bunch alright,’ whispered Jonn Grumble from beside Sigourd. ‘If
they’re the one’s ‘ave kidnapped your bird, then how shall we go
about looking for her?’

‘
We’ll wait and watch. When
night falls we shall move in closer to see what we can learn of
these people from up close.’

Jonn Grumble nodded, and began to quietly
lay down his pack, fluffing it up as if it were a pillow, ‘Might as
well have a bit of a kip in that case.’

The wild man’s head was asleep almost before
it hit the sack, and he slept soundly enough while Sigourd kept
watch on the strange village.

Jonn Grumble awoke with a start. Night had
fallen and the stars were visible in places between patches of
cloud that hung in the sky like bad omens. Looking to his left, he
saw that Sigourd had not moved from his place, his attention still
fixed upon the village and its inhabitants.

‘
I’ve seen her, moving
between the dwellings near the rear of the village,’ said Sigourd
without ever taking his eyes off the pods looming before him. Jonn
Grumble rolled over so that he could sit up and peered out from
their hiding place in the tall grass, ‘How many were with her?’ he
asked.

‘
Only two others, they
walked together into that...whatever that is,’ said Sigourd,
indicating one of the strange tear like structures. Jonn Grumble
allowed his eyes to follow the direction Sigourd had indicated,
toward a pod hanging amongst a cluster of the large trees. There
seemed to be only two walkways connecting it to the rest of the
network, one leading away east, the other leading to the north
where it disappeared amongst more of the pods.

Jonn Grumble took a moment to survey the
network of dwellings nearest the one where Isolde was supposed to
be kept. His keen eyes searched for a place where they might gain
access to the village in the least obtrusive manner possible.
Finally, he saw something that they might be able to use to their
advantage, a matted area of thick foliage that would allow them to
climb most of the way up to Isolde’s pod while remaining hidden
from view.

He saw that Sigourd had seen the opportunity
too, and a feral grin split his face as he looked at the young
lord, ‘Last one up that tree buys the beers at the Dirty Dog.’

His smile was returned by Sigourd, and
together they carefully broke cover and made their way across the
shadowed forest floor toward the cluster of giant trees.

They were careful to stay well within the
shadows, avoiding the pools of light cast by strange orbs that hung
down from the trees on thick vines, their bulbous ends like the
glowing protuberances of fireflies in the dark. In the quiet
darkness, the entire place had taken on an otherworldly aspect.

With the glowing baubles hanging from the
trees, their hazy light illuminating the darkness as opposed to
scouring it away, images came to Sigourd’s mind of underwater
dwellings where brightly colored shoals of fish would trawl the
depths, their natural luminescence bringing vibrant color and
dappled light to their surroundings. Sigourd could not but help
marvel at the serene tranquility, the perfect stillness and peace
that seemed to permeate this wondrous place. He had expected to
find perhaps a city under the reign of a brutal tyrant or a nest of
thieves and vagabonds. Not this mysterious woodland paradise.

For Jonn Grumble, having spent most of his
life in the Velvet Forests climbing between the boles of mighty
oaks, it was no effort at all to scale trees, even trees as huge as
these. For his own part, Sigourd’s natural athleticism made the
task only slightly more challenging than his companion was finding
it. Together he and Jonn Grumble made steady progress climbing the
thick foliage that wound its way up and around the trunks of the
titanic trees. Nevertheless, despite their skill and tenacity, it
took them twenty minutes to reach the lower levels of the forest
canopy, where most of the pods were situated. Shortly, they found
themselves clambering up and onto a landing of sorts, that skirted
the perimeter of the pod.

Standing now upon the landing, both men were
able to stand and examine the pods from close up. Down on the
ground, some forty or fifty feet below, the pods had not seemed so
terribly large. But here, standing before them, their size was more
readily apparent. They were easily the match in scale for the
homestead of any noble of Corrinth Vardis. Sigourd estimated that
they were voluminous enough to hold several large chambers stacked
upon two or even three floors by the comparisons of human
design.

Jonn Grumble took a moment to look out over
the edge of the landing. The forest floor below had been completely
lost to darkness, and he breathed deeply to steady his nerves at
finding himself so high.

They were surrounded on all sides by
branches thickly coated with pine needles, as well as the
ubiquitous pods that clung to the trunks of those trees like over
large fruit, the pale substance of their construction giving of a
soft glow in the light of the luminous hanging bulbs.

Sigourd tapped Jonn Grumble upon the
shoulder, snapping the wild man out of his amazed stupor, and
gestured that he should follow. Sigourd led him around the landing
to the far side of the pod. There in the side of the structure was
a spherical opening large enough to admit a large adult male.
Across the opening there hung a fine silken substance, like gauze,
that Sigourd gently lifted aside so that he might duck inside.

Within, the pod was more of the same porous
bone like substance that had comprised the exterior. Something
about that strange substance drew Sigourd’s attention. He felt
compelled to study it as if it called to him, as if some instinct
or deeply buried race memory bade him to connect with it. Sigourd
pressed his hand to the wall, and instantly a series of images
flashed through his mind’s eye.

His vision was filled with the brilliance of
a full moon that hung low and bright in a cloudless sky. He saw
Isolde, her face close to his as if they lay in each other’s arms.
He saw the face of another. A man with the dress and bearing of a
noble, but a face that looked for all the world like it had been
hewn from rock.

Sigourd snatched his hand from the bone
wall, concerned at the nature of these images that ran so suddenly
into his mind. Jonn Grumble approached from behind, the concern
evident in his tone.

‘
Are ‘ya alright? What
happened?’ asked the wild man.

‘
It’s nothing,’ replied
Sigourd perhaps a little too quickly, ‘I’m fine.’

Sigourd moved on down the corridor, skirting
the wall as closely as he dared without touching it. Jonn Grumble,
his curiosity getting the better of him as it frequently did,
cautiously pressed his own palm to the bone wall in the same place
that Sigourd had before him. To his surprise, nothing whatsoever
happened. Jonn Grumble shrugged to himself before moving off into
the gloom to catch up with his friend.

Here inside the pods it was unusually warm,
the air heavy with moisture. There was also a peculiar scent about
the place, like the inside of an animal’s den. A rich musk that
permeated the air and was just shy of pungent. Jonn Grumble sniffed
derisively, and whispered ‘They could do with opening a bleedin’
window. Smells like someone forgot to let the cat out.’

Sigourd was about to turn and motion for
Jonn Grumble to keep his own council lest he alert any guards, when
a slight scraping up ahead drew his attention.

The space in which Sigourd and Jonn Grumble
moved stretched away down the length of the pod, terminating in yet
another spherical opening covered with more of the gossamer
gauze.

Sigourd didn’t need to wait and listen to
know that the sound was coming from behind that curtain. Moving
with more urgency now, he and Jonn Grumble arrived at the second
portal and slowly pulled aside the gauze, to reveal within the
thing that Sigourd had quested for all these long weeks.

There, sitting beside a softly glowing orb
that seemed to grow out of the floor of the chamber, was Isolde.
Cast in the soft light, she seemed even more beautiful than Sigourd
remembered. Her pale features were alight with a radiance all their
own, yet the solemnity of her expression was unmistakable.

‘
My love..’ breathed
Sigourd. When Isolde looked up at the sound of his voice, there was
astonishment written on her face, but that solemnity did not
entirely leave her eyes.

This had not occurred to Sigourd, who flew
across the room, caution be damned, and swept Isolde into his arms.
He held her for long moments as she hugged him tight, before
finally kissing her upon he scarlet lips with all the passion that
had been pent up in his heart.

‘
I knew I would find you,’
said Sigourd as he held her close to him.

‘
So did I, my love,’ she
said, her head resting upon his shoulder.

Sigourd stepped back, his eyes moving
quickly to assess her well being, ‘Are you hurt? Can you flee?’ he
asked of her.

‘
I am unharmed, they did
not mistreat me.’

‘
Who has done this, why did
they snatch you away?’ asked Sigourd, his emotions rushing to the
fore in an instant. Isolde was about to give answer, when Jonn
Grumble coughed quietly from his position keeping watch near the
portal, ‘I hate to have to rush a happy reunion, but maybe we could
do the catch up when this place is safely behind us?’

‘
Jonn is right,’ said
Sigourd, ‘we must make haste and escape this place.’ So saying, he
took Isolde by the hand and together the three of them fled from
the chamber.