The Pinnacle Of Empire (Book 6) (9 page)

“Poor man,” the captain said. All stared at the gruesome sight. “You men, bury him quickly before something attacks his body. He must be buried so his soul, too, isn’t left in torment in here.”

The other guards dismounted and together they heaved the starving troll’s carcass off the dead guard. The men scratched a grave in the rocky soil, but it was dark when they finished. In the meantime, one of the guards had gathered limbs and made a fire inside the stone ruins.

“We have the corners at our backs in case something attacks us in the night,” the captain said.

“Hear that?” Nemenese asked, his head turned at an angle, searching for the source.

“Look there,” the captain said, pointing to half a dozen vines in the firelight threading over the ground, following their trail toward the fire. Retreating guards backed toward king and captain.

“What can stop those?” a guard asked.

“Quick! Scratch a circle around us in the leaf litter,” one said.

The soldiers glanced at each other. One jumped forward and chopped at a vine. The probing tendril stopped, but after a moment began growing new leads from leaf axils back along the vine. The guards rushed to clear a circle around them. The guard that had told them to make the circle pulled a leather pouch from his saddlebag and sprinkled a powder around in the circle.

“What’s that? How is powder going to stop those things?” the captain asked. His sword drawn and poised in both hands, he spread his legs in a bracing stance and hunched for the attack.

The guard pocketed the empty pouch. “Stay inside the circle.”

The vines reached the powder and stopped. The slithering tips tested the circle, pulled back at the powder, then turned and searched around the circle for an opening. Before long, they had woven a wreath around the powder, but none penetrated it.

“What’s that stuff?” Nemenese asked.

“An old woman where I live told me about it. She sold it to me,” the guard said. He glanced at the residue and grinned at the king for an instant then his face hardened. “It’s ground gravestone dust from the blessed to ward off evil. I didn’t believe her, but when I found out I was going through this cursed forest, I bought it on a chance it might work.”

“And work it does for the present,” the captain said. He glanced around again, then lowered his sword, but didn’t sheath it.”

“By morning those vines will have woven an impenetrable mat to trap us here forever,” Nemenese said.

“I saved a bit of the dust,” the guard said. “In the morning, when there’s enough light for us to travel, I’ll blow it onto the vines. Maybe they’ll pull back. I think it burns them or something.”

All night the men sat back to back inside the wreath within the stone ruins. They kept the fire going with the little firewood they had gathered before the vines entrapped them. The endless sound of rustling leaves scratched the night as the tendrils entwined through them around the circle. Nerves frayed. The men pulled dead vines off the stone ruins and even used leaves to keep the fire going, running out of fuel just as the melancholy dawn light filtered through the limb canopy above them. A foggy vapor rising through the leaves made the damp morning chill worse. The thick scent of mold permeated their hair and clothes. The men ate a truncated meal and prepared to leave as the last wisps of smoke curled up from the dying fire.

“We must ride at once,” Nemenese said to his escort. “There’s no more of the gravestone dust to ward off evil another night.”

The guard with the pouch blew the last dust over the vines. It seemed to stun the writhing wreath wherever it landed. The mounted guards jumped the vines and galloped as fast as their horses would go through the ancient forest. They rode through the morning, advancing up the slope until they came across a stream cascading down the mountainside.

“We’ll follow this stream up the slope,” The king said. “It must lead to a pass through the mountains.” He looked down at the rambling water and saw an animal’s gnawed skeleton at the edge of the water. Bones rose through the ripples, but in the water, thick, grisly brown algae and bacteria coated the remains. Fetid swamp gas bubbled up, tainting the air with the sulfurous stench of rotten eggs. Another of the fanged rat-like creatures leapt from beside a rock onto a crawfish at the water’s edge. The rodent dashed away to its burrow, bearing in its mouth its doomed victim whose claws hopelessly waved defiance.

They rode up through the jagged mountainside, slowed by larger rocks and a steeper slope. The only living things they saw were crows that watched them approach from their tree tops then flew off all at once in a cacophony of squawks. Several times, vines deterred their advance, but they rode around them when possible. Once, the captain cut a vine that dropped in front of him. That seemed to excite the other tendrils. They began to dangle and writhe as if probing, though there was no breeze in the thick, humid forest.

“We must risk riding faster,” the captain said. “We’ll never get out of here before dark at this rate.”

In their rush, the horse bearing the two guards stumbled. The second rider lost his grip and fell. His arm smacked on a jagged rock, opening a small cut on his forearm.

“I’ll be all right,” the man said, wiping off the blood with leaves. Without thinking, he cast away the leaves and wrapped a torn piece of cloth over the wound. With his partner’s help, he remounted the horse.

The forest vines near where the bloody leaves landed appeared to shiver. Growth tips appeared and grew out and down to the bloody leaves, touching, searching the mass. They grew faster, spreading like webbing across the forest floor. The vines surged this way and that until one found the bloody rock then the trail of the wounded guard.

Horrified, Nemenese watched the vines frantic search. “Ride!” The king said.

The men rushed up the mountain beside a stream. Uncertain of their footing, their frightened horses whinnied, adding to the tension. A drop of the guard’s blood fell into the water. Instantly, a dozen rat-like rodents dashed out of burrows along the stream, scrambling over the rocks in search of the blood source.

“They’re coming for me!” the wounded guard said.

Looking back, Nemenese watched, as vines dropped back from the pursuit, new ones grew to take up the chase. Somehow, they communicated. More fanged rodents joined the pack now, following the men.

Frantically looking back at his pursuers, the sweating, wounded guard lost his grip. Another bump and the man fell from the horse again. Before his companion could turn back to get him, the rodents pounced on the injured man. The slithering vines wrapped up both rodents and the man. The other men realized they couldn’t save the guard but were unable to look away.

“Do something!” a man said.

Vines whipped everywhere around the wounded man the tips stabbing at the air for anything solid.

“Nothing we can do,” another said, his voice subdued.

A vine found the bound man’s wounded arm, it wrapped round and round, covering the bloody spot. The man struggled, but then something possessed him, presumably through the wound. He stood up then, still. His face went blank except for his eyes that turned to blood red. He looked up at his former comrades with a sinister grin. His free arm rose slowly, motioning for them to come to him.

“Ride!” the captain cried out. “Ride and do not look back at him. They have him now, he’ll be a ghoul until he rots and his soul joins them within the trees.”

A moment’s hesitation then the remaining men turned their horses up the mountainside and rode on.

By late afternoon, they had slowed, heads slumped. They rode as if carted along by the horses.

“The men are depressed; they’re feeling doomed,” the captain said to Nemenese.

“Yes, I’ve noted their demeanor, but we must go on and find shelter for the night or we’re all lost souls.”

Suddenly, the lead guard sat up in his saddle, leaning forward, looking at something.

“What is it?” the captain asked.

“I see a clearing up ahead and it looks like something large and solid in the center of it.”

Nemenese and the captain rode up beside the man and all strained to see what the clearing held.

“It’s a tower; I think it’s a tower, manmade,” the first guard said.

“Friend or foe?” the captain asked.

“We must go there,” Nemenese said. “Friend or foe, we’re dead men out in the open. We must find sanctuary from those cursed vines and rodents.”

“Lead on,” The captain said.

They rode quickly to the clearing, but slowed to a walk as they approached its edge.

“What do you want here?” a voice said without a visible source.

“We seek shelter for the night,” Nemenese said. He looked around for the source of the question, but still there was no one.

“How have you made it this far?” the voice asked.

“Gravestone dust kept the evil from us last night,” the captain said, also looking everywhere for the source. “We’ve no more for tonight and seek refuge in your tower.”

“What’s your purpose that you would risk certain death in disturbing the troubled souls of Urgenak Forest?”

“We must cross these mountains to pay court to King Nindax of Senoshesvas,” Nemenese said, not wishing to reveal who he was or his purpose.

“You come on more urgent business than you reveal, King Nemenese,” the voice said. The elfin witch began to materialize in front of the men at the edge of the clearing. She was old, even for an elf. Her disheveled hair was dark but streaked with white around her boney, wrinkled face. The sight shocked Nemenese, though he could tell she had once been beautiful.

“Come into the clearing; be quick,” the elf witch said, looking past the men.

Nemenese looked back. The vines were catching up. He crossed into the enchanted circle and his men followed. The racing vines approached the bare ground and, sensing something, stopped. Hesitant, they drew back into the forest gloom.

“None too soon,” the witch said.

“Thank you for your hospitality,” Nemenese said. “What’s your name?”

“My name is Ig. Come into the tower. Your presence here is disturbing the whole forest. The souls here haven’t seen a man, a living man, this far in the forest in eons.”

The men dismounted and led their horses, calm in the presence of Ig. Nemenese walked beside the witch-queen. His men followed close behind to the stronghold. At the tower, the witch pointed to an attached shelter and the men took the horses there for the night. The captain shadowed Nemenese closely into the tower, his hand on his sword hilt.

“How do you survive here alone, surrounded by death trapped in suffering?” Nemenese asked.

The witch added various ingredients to an iron pot hanging by the fire and swung it over the flames. She wiped her hands and turned to the king. “I’m not a human being they seek. I wear a shroud of their pain so they don’t recognize me, in any case. There are six crystals at the points of a hexagon that define the circle you saw. Elfin magic acts through the crystals, forming a shield that keeps out the tormented souls.”

“Evil warding off evil,” the captain said.

“Silence,” Nemenese snapped.

“I’m not the evil; men brought evil here.”

“Don’t you get lonely?” Nemenese asked.

The elf queen turned to the king. “I shall leave soon. There is an old evil that has returned to the west of Powteros. My powers are not great enough to defy it. I must leave before it senses my presence and comes to bend my unique abilities to its purpose. I saw your coming in the moon water by the Spring of Ar near this tower. I’ve waited to see if you got this far. I shall escort you to the edge of Urgenak and await your return from your mission. After you are safely back in your kingdom, I’ll go into the west, following my people.”

“If you foresaw my coming, can you tell me about the future?”

“I cannot do that. My visionary powers are for the elves. I’m not permitted to alter your future.”

“But you’re going to protect us through the forest’s dangers?”

“I know you must complete your mission if you got this far. My protecting you through the forest will not change the future I have seen.”

Nemenese went to the window and from high in the tower he could see the pale green light emitted by the crystals that defined the protected circle. He put his hand on his captain’s shoulder beside him also watching the lights and the perimeter. “We’re safe for the night at least.”

The men and Ig shared dinner and went to sleep early, their first peaceful rest since entering the forest. They woke late and found food already prepared for them.

“We must leave now,” Ig said. We’ve a long journey ahead.”

“Will my mission be successful?” Nemenese asked Ig.

“The visionary strength of the moon water is very weak since my people left the forest. I cannot see far into the future. I believe you will think your mission a success.”

“What does that mean, ‘believe it a success’?”

The queen said nothing more and they all rode forth in silence. Though exhausted, they traveled on through the night. Once, a vine slipped from a branch and caught a guard nodding as he rode. Surprised, he yelled and the queen turned her wand, shooting wizard-fire at the tendril. The spark was feeble. The vine let go, but it tried another stab.