Shadow and Sword, page 2
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R, meet me at Erador. Come quick. Bring map. V.
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Erador, Reith thought incredulously. He can’t be serious. The ruined city?
He racked his brain and remembered that it was a city jointly made by humans, elves, and dwarves in the Second Epoch. It fell in the Dragon War, a thousand years past, when the dragons had come and laid waste to the west coast of Terrasohnen. To this day, a large portion of the West was a smoldering ruin called Dragonscar. Even grass couldn’t grow there. Why would Vereinen tell me to meet him in a ruined city? Reith wondered.
He pulled a large map from Vereinen’s map pile and spread it on the desk. This was Vereinen’s map of the continent of Terrasohnen. He found Coeden, near the middle of the map. To the west was Dragonscar, a blackened section along the coast. Reith judged it to be 200 miles away. In the middle of Dragonscar, at the coast of the Western Ocean, Vereinen had marked where Erador had been. It was nearly due west from Coeden.
Knowing his direction, Reith rolled it up and selected a second map from Vereinen’s collection. This one, he knew from a glance, was the one of the area around Coeden. Reith took the two maps from Vereinen’s file and wrapped them in a leather tube, which he then placed in his pack. He surveyed the room once more and noticed nothing strange. He left the house, locking the door behind him. As he walked through the trees toward the town, Reith wondered if he could salvage anything worth bringing with him or maybe find a horse.
“Halt!” came a shout as soon as Reith reached the edge of the town. In an instant, he swung his bow around and notched an arrow, whirling to see who had called to him. He saw at least a dozen men with arrows trained on him.
“I would lower your bow, if you know what’s good for you.” The voice was terrifyingly familiar, cold and icy as it was.
A man stepped out from behind the line of archers. He was tall and thin, clean shaven, and his hair was long and shaggy. The strange thing about him was that he looked like all the color had been drained from his body, as if he had taken a bath one day and the color was pulled from his skin by the water. His face and eyes were grey, along with his hair. At first glance, Reith thought him to be elderly, but his skin was still smooth and fairly young. Reith supposed he could be anywhere from thirty to seventy years old. His eyes were piercing and intense, hyper focused on Reith. He looked just as his voice sounded.
Reith slowly assessed the situation, along with this new, intimidating figure. He lowered his bow but kept the arrow on the string.
“Now boy,” the Gray Man said, his voice betraying his impatience. “Look at this reasonably. Don’t try to be a hero.”
“Who are you?” Reith asked, blurting out the first question that came to mind.
“Never you mind,” said the Gray Man.
“Why did you do this?” Reith asked, gesturing to the ruined town. Anger rose in Reith. He wanted to get this man talking so he could figure out a plan. One against fifty isn’t good odds.
“Enough questions. I don’t like questions,” the Gray Man said, his face somehow becoming more gray as if his cheeks flushed with anger and his very blood was gray. The Gray Man paced back and forth and with each turn came slightly closer to Reith.
“I am looking for someone. He is a historian by the name of Vereinen. Do you know him?”
“No,” Reith lied instinctively.
“You’re lying. I wish people would stop lying to me; it’s terribly frustrating. I am a man of my word, and I hold people to that same high standard. Now, boy, put away your bow and let’s speak honestly.”
Reith held his ground, not moving to put away his bow.
“You must know,” the Gray Man continued, his face contorting in rage, “that I am no one to be trifled with!” His shout disturbed a flock of nearby birds. He raised his hand, and fifty bows were pulled back, aimed at Reith.
Seeing no way that his continued defiance would end without him looking like a pincushion, Reith cautiously took the arrow off the string and slid it back into his quiver.
“Good,” the Gray Man said, taking a couple of steps closer to Reith. Seeing him more clearly, Reith guessed him to be in his mid-forties, though he still wasn’t entirely sure due to the gray skin and hair.
“And who might you be?” he asked, his eyes gazing so intently on Reith that Reith felt like the Gray Man was peering into his soul so he had to look down to avoid the gray eyes.
Reith thought about telling the truth, but he decided to hide his identity from this murderer. “I’m no one,” he replied.
“Oh ho!” the Gray Man said, taking another step forward, though this one was a joyful hop. “Did you hear that, boys? This is No One!”
The other men chuckled at some unsaid joke. The Gray Man laughed the loudest.
“No One,” the Gray Man repeated, “I am a man of my word. I said so before. I always keep my promises. Always.” The last word came out as a snakelike hiss. “You see, when we entered this pitiful town of yours, I told my boys, I said, ‘Boys, leave No One alive.’ So you said the magic words.”
Reith, worried and afraid, and still not understanding what the man was saying, said nothing. His eyes jumped from the horrible gray face to the arrows still pointed at him.
This is it. I’m going to die.
“You said you were No One. I promised to leave No One alive.” The Gray Man let out a mad cackle. Now Reith was completely terrified of this laughing mad man. He looked around for an escape but could find none.
“And so, No One,” the Gray Man continued, pacing in front of Reith now. “Take one last look around.” Reith obeyed, glancing nervously at the armed men pointing arrows at him, at the burning buildings, and at the pile of bodies, rage bubbling up in him.
“Run,” the word was almost a whisper, yet it rang out, louder than Reith could have thought possible. It beat against his ear drum as if someone had rung a bell by his ear. “Run. If you look back, we will shoot over your head. The next arrow will be right behind it, aimed true at your back. If you come back, we will kill you. I am a man of my word. If you come back, I will give you a name we can mark on your tomb.”
Reith hesitated for just a moment, but then the Gray Man screamed, “RUN!”
The word hung in the air like the smoke from the smoldering town and Reith bolted. He pushed past the archers and rushed out of town, running in a headlong sprint, running for his life.
At the town's edge, just before he reached the forest, he chanced a look back and an arrow whizzed past his head, sending a short breeze across his face. He jumped behind a tree and heard the thud of an arrow hit the other side of the trunk.
Reith fled from the horror behind him, running faster than he ever thought he was capable of running. The Gray Man yelled after him, “If you see Vereinen, tell him I’m looking for him! Run!”
Chapter Two
That horrible gray face and voice haunted Reith’s dreams that night. He slept poorly and awoke groggy. It took a few minutes to remember where he was and what had happened. And then it all washed over him again. He kept picturing their faces. Their lifeless, bloody faces, eyes open in fear but not seeing, never seeing again.
He spent the first few minutes of his day with tears running down his cheeks.
Reith washed his face in the stream and then ate some of the rabbit from the previous night. He packed up his few belongings and prepared to depart his camp. As he looked around to make sure he wasn’t forgetting anything, a wave of nostalgia crashed over him. Despite only camping there one night, this clearing by the stream, in some small way, felt like a home. I have no home now, he thought sorrowfully.
The stream flowed from northeast to southwest. He knew he must travel due west to reach Erador and find Vereinen. But as the stream was his only source of water, he decided to follow it and hoped it turned due west somewhere downstream. If not, he could always leave its banks and cut across the land.
As he set out, the sun was nearly straight behind him, and when the trees weren’t too thick, his shadow stretched out far in front of him, a guide leading onward.
He traveled along the northern bank of the stream. The water on his left bubbled and babbled. Despite the sound, he heard plenty of birds singing in the trees. Several times early in the morning, he saw a deer scamper away when it heard him coming. He thought about shooting one but decided against it. Killing a deer now would stop him in his tracks for the day as he would have to skin and clean it. Around midmorning, he came across a patch of strawberries growing along the bank, which he happily devoured, saving a few for later.
As he walked, his mind wandered to that which was behind him. Unbidden, thoughts of Vereinen came to his mind. He remembered a time, shortly after moving into Vereinen’s house, when Vereinen had criticized his penmanship.
“What is this, a P?” Vereinen asked, squinting at the page Reith had written on.
“No, sir, that’s an R. See the tail?” he replied, pointing to the letter.
“Humph,” Vereinen grunted, “It looks like what one of my goats would write if they were able to grasp a pen.”
As he walked, Reith smiled at the thought of that memory. On the outside, Vereinen was sometimes grumpy, but on the inside, he had a big heart. He loved telling stories to the children and any adult who wanted to hear at the tavern. At that thought, Reith remembered the flames that had licked it. And then the image of that horrible gray face swam into view. He shuddered, shaking his head to dissipate the figure.
By the late afternoon, the sun shone directly in his face, making it hard for him to see. Reith stumbled several times over rocks and sticks because of the excess light. When he almost tumbled into the stream after tripping over a log, he decided it was time to find a place to settle for the night. He spotted a small clearing about twenty yards away from the stream and set about collecting wood for a fire.
As the fire grew hotter, Reith pulled out the maps again. He had no books, so he decided that he would study the map of Terrasohnen. I’ll know this thing better than the back of my own hand at the end of this journey, he thought.
He unrolled the map and gazed intently at it. There was Coeden, a bit southwest of the center of the map. Around it, and around him, was a giant forest stretching from near the mountains to the east almost all the way to the Great River. Before it reached the river however, it thinned out until it became a plain. He guessed that he had gone about twenty-five miles that day and perhaps ten the previous day. Reith looked for a stream on the map but could not find it. Must be too small, he thought. Still, he had a general idea of where he was.
It will meet either the Great River or the Rammis River, directly southwest of Coeden. If I follow this stream until then, I can follow the river back up to the point where I can cross closest to Erador, but that will make this journey longer.
Reith sat there looking at the map and decided that he must leave the stream the next day or the day after if it hadn’t turned due west.
He put the map away and skinned the second rabbit. He figured he could make this one last all the next day and into the day after if he rationed it. But he knew that he would have to hunt again soon. As the rabbit cooked, he pulled out the map and studied it some more. This time, he looked toward the wider world. To the far north, farther than even Galismoor, the capital city, were snowcapped mountains. Across the center of the map stretched the open plains. On the far side of the plains were twin lakes, and the area was aptly named the Twins Region.
Reith thought back to the time Vereinen had first shown him this map when he was thirteen.
“And over here,” Vereinen said pointing to the twin lakes depicted on the map rolled out on his desk, “are Rangit and Brendel. And between them, the great fortress city of Kal-Epharion.”
“Have you ever been there?” Reith asked, leaning back in his seat hoping for a story from his master.
“Oh yes, several times,” Vereinen replied. “And down here—”
Reith interrupted, “Can you tell me about it?”
“About Kal-Epharion? What do you want to know?”
“Everything! Why did you go there? What does it look like? What are the people like?”
“Well,” Vereinen said, leaning back in his chair. Reith knew this was Vereinen’s storytelling posture. “I went to Kal-Epharion as lad, probably two or three years older than you are now. I traveled there with a group of traders and soldiers from Galismoor, where I grew up. The king sent them, and I asked if I could go with them.”
“And the king said yes?”
“Of course. The king had been there about six moons previous and knew of a scholar there who would help me in my studies. So I took a scroll of commission from the king to that scholar. I was very excited, as it was my first time traveling from Galismoor—and to Kal-Epharion, no less. The City of Treasures, one of the oldest cities in Terrasohnen. They say the first men founded it in the First Epoch. I know it may be hard for you to picture it, Reith, but I was giddy.”
“I don’t believe it. You, giddy?”
“Oh, I was, Reith. In the days leading up to the trip, I could hardly keep still. My mind was so filled with excitement that I barely slept. And then the journey happened. The journey there took about ten days. We were on horseback, and we traveled the King’s Road. We spent our nights under the stars and our days in the saddle. Over the plains we rode. And let me tell you, it was the most bored I have ever been.”
“Why was it boring?”
“Well, the plains are so flat that you can see the curve of the horizon on all sides. I know that sounds interesting, but where there is nothing to see except your companions and your horses, the view grows stale rather quickly. And if you have ever tried to read a book while on horseback, you will know that it is a nearly impossible task, what with the swaying and jolting with every step. And the company wasn’t great. The soldiers weren’t much interested in talking to a young chronicler like me.
“Ten days we traveled like this. So when Kal-Epharion began to rise out of the plains on the horizon, I was more than ready to reach it. For nearly two days it is in view as you travel to it, a red tower on the horizon that at first looks like a mountain. As you get closer, you can see that it is man-made. The more you ride in, you can see the lakes off to each side, each stretching past your sight. The fortress looms above the world, impenetrable. They used red stone from the mountains south of the Twins Region. It’s so red it looks like it’s on fire. Especially as the sun sets behind it. The gates were open when we arrived, so we rode in.
“The city is built in concentric circles. That way, if attacked, the defenders can retreat inward and have a wall to defend. In the very center, the fortress tower rises into the sky. We made our way to the fortress, riding along each curve and passing through another gate as we entered the depths of the city. We were given lodgings in the fortress and we stayed there quite comfortably.”
“And what happened while you were there?”
“I wandered through the markets during the morning, where the merchants sold exotic foods, spices, fragrances, dyed fabrics, livestock, and wares. In the afternoon, I studied with Master Windek. He taught me all I know about the history of Kal-Epharion and allowed me free use of his personal library, which contained many hundreds of volumes. We also went to the city library, which is nearly as big as the one in Galismoor. And in the evening, there were such wonderful feasts. We feasted with the governor, Master Windek, the clerics of the Temple of Kal, and with the lords and ladies of the city.
“That region is very fertile, and they grow the most delicious fruits and vegetables in the entire kingdom. You wouldn’t believe how scrumptious they are. The people are simply wonderful. They dress in vibrant colors and sing wonderful songs that are joyful and melancholy all at the same time. Someday, you and I shall visit.”
“Promise?” Reith asked, excited at the possibility.
“Oh yes. They have a wonderful library that I shall want to visit, and you can help me research.”
“I would love to, Master,” Reith answered. “I just hope the traveling isn’t as boring as your travels were.”
“You can help on that count too, Reith. Company and good conversation make any trip more bearable. In fact, we brought back a boy and his mother from Kal-Epharion to Galismoor. The king had requested that we find a new maid. Her boy was a few years younger than I was, about your age now, but he was just what I needed on that return trip. I had more questions about Kal-Epharion, and he had questions about Galismoor. We stayed friends, too, in Galismoor, until he went back to live in Kal-Epharion.”
Alone at his camp in the woods, Reith wished he had someone to accompany him. Company and good conversation was exactly what he needed.
The next morning, Reith awoke to the sound of some creature moving near him, close to the stream. He gasped in fear, thinking the worst, but the noise was drowned out by the nearby stream. He drew his bow and slowly raised himself to a crouch. Next to the water stood a huge buck. Reith decided right then that he needed to take it down. Carefully, he sighted along the arrow, aiming for the heart.
His arrow found its mark, and a second followed close behind. The buck fell with a grunt and went still. Reith spent the morning skinning and cleaning the animal. He ate a tremendous lunch of venison and cooked what he wanted to take with him before wrapping it in fresh green leaves.
The morning was gone when Reith finally began to march again, this time weighed down with meat. It was a burden he would gladly bear, especially if his prey happened to walk so close to him.
That night, instead of pulling out the maps, Reith practiced archery. Using his knife, he pinned a bit of the deer skin to a tree. The buck provided plenty of skin that would absorb his shot but not let the arrows penetrate the tree. From twenty-five paces out, he shot arrow after arrow at the skin, hitting his mark each time until the thing looked like a pincushion.
