Luther: First of the Fallen, page 12
My nerve almost broke then, to think that the lord of Aldurukh had deigned to come to the wall and sound the Grand Voice for the passing of a squire. Accadis felt my reluctance and acted for me, rearing high with a loud snort before breaking into a canter that quickly took me around the switchback and out of sight of the wall.
My father had given me a silken cloth marked with the main landmarks west of Aldurukh, made during the most recent forays of the patrols in that direction. The westlands were more populous than other neighbouring realms, for the Sea of Alakon was only a few days’ travel away and its waters were bountiful with fish. Some of the most famous knights had quested along those verdant shores and I hoped to emulate them in success.
Consulting this map, I left the causeway and passed under the canopy of the trees, the first time I had entered the forests alone.
My first destination was Ringate, an outer tower of the Order about sixteen kilometres from the causeway. I had spied the crag on which it sat as I descended, a grey finger amid the green, but once beneath the leaves I trusted more to Accadis’ sense of direction than mine. I had a compass, of course, but the forests were littered with meteoric craters from the Starfire, when the planet had been bombarded with stellar debris for decades during Old Night. The needle was as likely to point towards some forest-swallowed deposit as it was north, and was of use only when utterly devoid of sight of sun or stars.
I was light of heart at first, as only a youth can be, and sang chansons to Accadis as she picked her way across the forest floor. Hearing my own voice, recounting the brave deeds of knights past, helped to steady my resolve. I thought of those brave warriors that had ridden out from Aldurukh and a thousand other fortresses across Caliban, and it gladdened me to count myself now among their number.
It was yet mid-spring and I had left not long after daybreak, so we had hours of good riding ahead. My pack and canteen were full, and though there was no road as such, I followed a trail used frequently by the patrols. If anywhere in the forests was safe, this was it, but as I sang, my eyes scoured the forest and my hand stayed near the pistol holstered at my saddle bow.
The sun was not yet at its zenith when I came upon a cleared path and saw the peak of Ringate above the trees ahead. A single rider awaited me at the gate and introduced herself as Galass, a squire from further south who had also recently begun her quest. The warden of Ringate, having been already notified of my similar intent, had bid Galass to remain a few days until my arrival, that we might be companions for a time.
I was reluctant, I must admit. I could relate half a dozen tales of pairs and bands of knights questing together, for there was nothing in law or lore to forbid it as long as the prize was suitably impressive or each knight brought home a head. But the tales that had enamoured me most as a child had been of the singular questor and their individual travails against world and beast.
I could not admit as such before Galass, so we agreed to ride together as far as Alakside, the largest town on the eastern shore of the inland sea. It was four days’ travel and I thought that once there she would depart my side and I could continue alone in the finest tradition.
As it transpired, Galass was admirable company. Hailing from a smaller fortress than I, she was full of questions about life around the Angelicasta and the Order. In return, she was a font of strange tales from the forest, some so outlandish I wondered if any of her stories were true. She laughed quickly and often, almost childish sometimes in her delight at small things, though as the Terrans would reckon it she was three years my senior.
Galass was also no amateur with a blade. I had thought my training by the knights of the Order unmatched, but her bladecraft showed her to be my equal, though I was the more accurate with bolt pistol. Her experience of the woods showed often, more than three years’ difference would account. She had a sense for its moods, even though we were far from the lands where she had learned to ride and hunt.
Spring was a time of divide. Prey was plentiful for hunter and beast alike, and so one could travel without too much fear of malice from the indigenous predators, unless one happened upon a Great Beast. In their stead, the forest itself was peril enough, for in the rising of the sap and the budding of seedlings the plants were swiftly waking from their dormancy and alert to intruders. West of Ringate the trees were young and feisty, so that one might swear they lifted root or lowered branch to waylay us. Fanciful, yes, but there was always a presence in the forests, a sense of constant watchfulness that was not attributed to a single bird or beast, but the whole arboreal entity.
We taught each other songs as we rode, so that Galass learned the chansons of the Order’s past Grand Masters and from her I recited songs that she claimed would placate the spirits of the forests: verses of leaf and bough, grass and sun and the animus that lived within them.
We reached Alakside without incident and I had changed my mind on the wisdom of parting. Within Aldurukh one is never more than a bow shot from another person, even in the dungeons or towers of the Angelicasta. The thought that I might have spent the last few days alone chilled me, so I asked Galass if she was willing to travel further with me. She said she would answer the next day, which surprised me as I had just assumed she would want to continue at my side – though she kept her smile, she reminded me that I was part of her quest as much as she was part of mine. For a somewhat self-centred teenager, that was an important lesson and one which I have tried to keep in my heart ever since. We each are only guests in the lives of others.
In the morning she arrived with Kirl, a local guide and tracker. Of middle age, Kirl claimed to have accompanied half a dozen knights on their quests over the years. Galass told me that before leaving Ringate, she had been advised to enquire for a scout at the House of Garell, and it was they that had recommended Kirl.
The three of us took a ferry across the river mouth where Alakside sprawled along the shore, and after Kirl conversed with several fisherfolk and other locals she announced that we should continue northwards following the coast.
‘The coast?’ Galass asked as we rode out of the north gate of the town, the shadows of noon short on the ground, the sun hot for the season. ‘Are we to crawl from fisher hut to fisher hut inspecting crab pots for our quarry?’
Her tone was light but I could see that her words rankled with Kirl.
‘You can head straight into the elderwood if you like, child,’ the guide replied sharply, pointing east from the small stretch of road that led from the gate. ‘Fen and beasts in equal measure for those that are stupid enough.’
‘Stupid?’ Galass scowled at Kirl, the first time I had seen anything like anger in her features. ‘At least I am not cowardly, soiling myself at the thought of meeting a Great Beast. No quarry of worth comes this close to the shore, unless you count those in the waters, but I would not switch my mount for some swaying skiff to hunt one.’
‘Let us cool our tempers,’ I suggested. ‘We are freshly met and still strangers. We should decide nothing in anger or haste.’
‘At least one of you has a brain between their ears,’ said Kirl, hearing me but not heeding my words.
‘Who are you to speak to me like that?’ cried Galass, and for a heartbeat I thought she would strike our new companion.
‘Who are you that I shouldn’t?’ Kirl replied archly. ‘A squire? A lord’s daughter, maybe?’
‘We are nothing,’ I said quickly. ‘We are on the quest. No titles, no ranks, no homes.’
My interruption silenced Galass, and she glowered at me for several seconds.
‘By the heartfire, you really are annoyingly humble, Luther,’ she said eventually, shaking her head. She turned her attention back to our guide. ‘My apologies, Kirl. Is there some middle ground between us? Somewhere close to the elderwood we can venture?’
‘If you wish me to guide you, we head north,’ said Kirl. ‘Those are the lands I know. Plenty enough danger for you.’
‘See?’ Galass turned her dark eyes back to me, lip curled. She said nothing but kicked her heels to the flanks of her destrier and rode ahead, cutting eastwards off the road.
‘You brought Kirl to me!’ I shouted after her, but she disappeared into the trees without a backward glance. I looked at Kirl with a shrug. ‘It seems your service was short-lived, I hope you have had coin enough to cover your time.’
‘You’re going after her?’ said the guide. She sighed and pulled her smaller steed closer. ‘The going should be fine for three days east, but then you will strike the edges of the Shadowmire. You’ll know it because the name is well earned. Go south there, back towards the mountains. You’ll find firmer ground, and if you carry on you’ll come to Lords Fayre after another day. Find another guide there, please. Do not go into the marshlands, whatever tempts you onward. It is a queer place, thick with the spirit of the woods. Take care, Luther. That one, she is more dangerous than any beast you will find.’
I thanked her for her advice and urged Accadis after Galass, plunging into the greenery in her wake.
The land about was certainly stranger than either of us had known, though we were still within sight of the great peak where Aldurukh nestled when we came upon a break in the trees. The ground was soft beneath the tread of our destriers, the trees spread out with large patches of trailing bushes and ferns between. The sun broke regularly through the canopy and the ride was pleasant, though we remained alert.
My conversations with Galass took a different turn, and she spoke more of her family – her ancestors specifically. As Kirl had alluded, Galass was a child of higher nobility, and being devoid of siblings there was much pressure on her to complete her quest and be ready to take up her role as heir to the lordship. For her part, she was set on becoming a knight of the Order, much to the dismay of her mother and father.
As she spoke, it became clearer to me that she did not see her knighthood as a duty so much as a right. A birthright, in fact, owed to her for claiming noble lineage for a dozen generations. Yet in her recounting of her family past there seemed something amiss, for she spoke much of their quests and victories, but very little about where they ruled or the people they commanded.
We camped as soon as the sky started to darken, splitting the overnight watch between us. The forest was alive with movement and calls through the night, and for the next two as we continued towards the ill-regarded Shadowmire. The further we rode, the more we had the sense that we were heading downhill, as though the whole forest was descending into some broad valley. The skies greyed overhead and the ground became spongy, the trees thinning with each passing kilometre.
Here and there we came upon fragments of masonry, most almost lost amid the moss and leaves, some of them large stones easily the size of a cart, swallowed by centuries of growth. Galass fell silent and her expression was grave. It seemed to me that she knew something of what had been here; a sadness passed over her face when we came upon what was clearly a toppled column or creeper-wreathed gateway.
‘There was a settlement here, a large one,’ I said to her, reining Accadis to a stop next to a half-buried slab. The stone looked odd, too uniform in its texture, free of vein or grain. I look back with the knowledge of ferrocrete and know that it was something similar, but at the time I just thought it unnatural.
‘A city,’ she said quietly, continuing on.
I rode after her, the trailing weeds plucking at the ankles of our steeds as they forged through the greenery. The clouds had thickened more, threatening rain, but there was barely a breath of wind to stir the stillness and it was clammy rather than cool.
‘Is this where your forefolk came from?’ I asked. ‘Did they live here? Is that why you were so insistent on coming?’
‘Yes, these were the lands of my ancestors,’ she told me. ‘It was called Greyhome, older even than Aldurukh. This is probably one of the border keeps. There used to be roads as well, but the marsh has long swallowed them too.’
‘I do not think there will be much to see. Further in, I mean,’ I said to her, pointing to the part-swallowed ruins. ‘But we can look anyway.’
‘Venture into the Shadowmire?’ She looked at me as though I had declared we ride across the Sea of Alakon.
‘Was that not what you wanted?’ I laughed. ‘Your argument with Kirl?’
‘I…’ She seemed disturbed by the thought. ‘I wanted to hunt a beast on our old lands, not lose myself in the haunted marshes. Greyhome was cursed, devoured by the forest, the people forced to flee.’
It sounded fanciful, like many of her tales.
‘There are lost towns throughout the forests, that were abandoned to the encroachment of the trees,’ I said. ‘Sometimes the forest just gets too strong to hold back year after year.’
‘This was not a slow decline, Luther,’ Galass said, her eyes fixed on me with a fearful look. ‘This was an attack, the ire of Caliban roused to overwhelm the city with an assault of beasts and plants. A sorcerer called Ezrekiel had demanded fealty of my forebears and they had him imprisoned. The next night, the walls were torn apart by the limbs of rampaging trees while nephilla and Great Beasts raced through the streets slaughtering all.’
I tried to take her story seriously, but she read the doubt in my eyes.
‘The River Erewater broke its banks and flooded the ruins, and what had once been a great hill became a swamp,’ she continued, angered by my scepticism. ‘Even the skies are filled with permanent storm clouds as a reminder of Ezrekiel’s wrath.’
I think back to the stories of my childhood and wonder why I found it hard to believe Galass’ account even when I had been raised on tales of sorcery and valour. I suppose it was difficult to connect those legends with someone right in front of me. A defiant part of me wanted to show her there was nothing mystical about this place, it was just a result of Caliban’s perpetually changing mood and landscape.
‘If we are to create a worthy story, we might as well make it the grandest possible,’ I said to her. ‘Think of when future squires recount the tale of Luther and Galass, and how they dared the ghost-shrouded swamp to hunt the quest beast that had made its lair in her ancestral lands. You may not be able to reclaim Greyhome from the fens, but you can take back its glory.’
Did I mention I have a gift with words that can sway the hardest heart?
She thought about this and I could see fear become desire in her face. She reached out a gauntleted hand, fist clenched, and I banged mine atop it in knightly agreement.
‘There is something not right though,’ she said, her smile returning for the first time since we had parted company with Kirl. ‘Surely the bards will sing of Galass and Luther, not the other way around!’
We rode onwards.
I had thought Kirl’s warning about the boundary of the Shadowmire had meant the scattered ruins, but before mid-afternoon that day her meaning became much clearer. The forests had given way to fenland except for tree-clad hillocks breaking up through the mud every kilometre or so, their crowns topped with the nubs of ancient buildings.
The ground went from soft to wet over the course of a few kilometres, until our destriers were plucking their hooves from ankle-deep sludge, their breathing becoming laboured. As best we could, we rode from one mound to the next, taking a circuitous route at times to stay upon the driest land. To make matters worse, the immense bowl into which we descended was filled with tatters of fog, reducing our view to just a couple of hundred paces ahead, the hills by which we navigated rendered into sketches of distant shadow.
It was then that I had my first misgivings, but Galass now seemed intent on our new plan and I did not wish to appear frightened. It was still some time before dusk, but the cloud was thick and the sun weak, and we decided to make camp on a hilltop while we still had some light to see by. We found a hilltop that was relatively dry and broad, and having tethered our steeds to the twisted trees that populated its summit, set about building a fire and rough shelter.
A drizzle began to dampen our mood further, replacing the banks of fog with a steady haze of falling water. As best we could, we strung our oilskins between three trees and sheltered with our steeds, eating our supper cold. Is it not odd that the old tales never mentioned the discomfort of sleeping in sodden gear, nor the indignities of attending to one’s bowel movements amid pouring rain? I was certainly starting to feel that perhaps my optimism and confidence had got the better of me.
It was Galass’ turn at watch first but it took some time for me to sleep, water pattering on the roof of our bivouac, the trickle of freshly made rivulets running past. I eventually slept fitfully and was woken by a heavy snorting from the destriers at the same time as a hand touched my shoulder.
Opening my eyes I looked up into a clear, star-filled sky. It was beautiful. It was rare to see such a sight, for in Aldurukh the smog of fire and furnace and the light of the wall lamps made stargazing difficult, while the forest canopy obscured the view of the night for most of the land outside the mountains.
Galass’ grip on my shoulder tightened, pushing the pauldron into my flesh, while the grumbling of the steeds grew more insistent.
Sitting up, I saw that she was gazing down the hillside, as were the destriers. A fog had seeped up from the muddy waters, creating the impression that we sat on a mountaintop amid the clouds. There was another sort of beauty there, peaceful rather than grandiose, but I had no mind to appreciate it for I saw immediately what had disturbed my companions both human and equine.
Shadows moved through the mists.
Riders in single line, followed by others on foot. Silhouettes moving from west to north about half a boltfall from where we looked down. I could tell immediately that we had spied something ethereal for there was not the slightest noise. No tread of foot, splash of hoof or jingle of harness.
A cold breeze touched my cheek but did not stir the leaves on the stunted trees, nor tousle the manes of our steeds.
