The Green Thief: The Land in the Void, page 41
Against his better judgment, Edo continued walking as the day’s light grew darker and darker, and then disappeared. There was just enough moonslight reflecting off the snow for Edo to continue forward, using the mountain as a fixed point. The wind continued to blow, even increasing its ferocity in order to mock Edo for his decisions. But still, with the gifts he had been given from the elves, and his natural tendency to overlook his own sense of discomfort, Edo continued on.
Although it took a long time, the mountain in the distance finally grew larger as Edo got closer. The ground turned rockier as well. In lieu of nothing but frozen tundra beneath his feet, Edo began to feel actual rock. Stones began to pop up in front of them, many of them completely covered with snow, others large enough to just wear it as an accessory. Halfway through the night, by Edo’s guess, he found a rocky valley. It was thin, and short, just deep enough to make a consistently narrow dent in the terrain. It curved to the east before turning north, winding back toward the mountain. Edo guessed it was where the water ran off to in the short span of months when the southern reach of Hornsteppe was actually warm enough to thaw itself out.
Whatever it really was, to Edo’s eyes it was a way to get out of the wind, at least for a while. He walked along until he found a deep section, and then moved down into it. If it was for water, it was little more than a babbling brook. Edo stepping down barely lowered him to the point of having the terrain at his waist. He laid down in it after brushing the snow away from a section of the rocky bottom, and then took his pack out again. After a few bites of the gifted food that Edo was referring to as, for lack of a better name, the bread and cheese, and a few more drinks from the melting flask, he laid back and stretched out his legs.
“Doo-hoooooooo-tooooo,” came a call in the distance.
Edo sat up. It sounded like a bird. That would’ve made it the first bird noise to reach his ears since he started walking across the plains. There were mountain birds and forest birds he had seen in Hornsteppe, but never had he seen any on the plains. Perhaps there was some kind of owl or hawk that hunted on the plains at night? Edo did not know, but the sound made him nervous.
“Doo-hoo-toohooo?'' The call raised in volume like it was asking a question.
Edo slowly stood up from where he was, scanning out over the white plains as they sat silently in the light of one moon. There was nothing visible to him.
“Hooo-tooooooo?” The call went again.
Fffwiiiii.
A noise whizzed by, jerking his reaction at the same instant that it appeared next to him. It moved so fast that Edo couldn’t even tell what it was as it sailed past his left arm. He turned and looked in that direction, and there was nothing at first. Then he heard a clatter. Like a small piece of wood striking a pile of rocks and bouncing away. The noise was familiar, and registered in his mind instantly. An arrow.
Edo grabbed his pack and began to run along the shallow valley. He kept his head down as best he could, fearing another shot. First thought, either some local hunter had mistaken him for prey, or the guards of Hornsteppe had mistaken him for an elf. Either way, Edo was not in the mood for a conversation about it. He ran as fast as he could. Perhaps there wouldn’t be a chase at all, or perhaps if there was, Edo could lose them at the base of the mountain.
Cursing the circumstances that forced his hand once again, Edo flexed his fingers to prepare the spell for his feet. Even after quickly throwing them down towards his feet, in the dim night he saw nothing. Edo tried again as he ran, and again nothing appeared at his fingertips. Not only that, Edo realized he was beginning to not be able to feel the tips of his fingers at all. He felt something else though, a dull throbbing in his left arm. Edo pressed his hand to it as he ran, and suddenly a great stabbing pain went out in every direction, into his chest and stopping at his numb hand. There was a fresh cut on his arm. The arrow had only missed its mark by virtue of not piercing his flesh, merely slashing it as it passed.
Edo attempted to continue running as fast as he could, but the numbness at his hands began to extend to his feet. Then it turned into a faint tingling. The wind in his face felt colder than ever. Then Edo realized that the wind had died down. He stumbled and caught himself on a rock, confirming the air was still. The tingling made its way further up, and when he tried to start running again it was like walking with round, wooden shoes. Another attempt was made to cast a spell, to allow himself to run faster and more sure-footed.
Before he even raised his hands to try, Edo could feel that nothing was happening. It should have been easy. With the C’rux on his person, his connection to the Void was dangerously close already. Pulling the energy needed for that spell should have been simple. With his hands up in front of him, Edo quickly flicked his fingers, hoping to see the green embers form again. Nothing happened. Then, standing right in front of Edo’s path as he tried to run, appeared the Shade.
Reflexively trying to dodge what he thought was a person at first, Edo failed and stumbled again, falling face first into the rocks. His bag fell next to him, just out of reach. For a moment all he could see was the rocky, snow-covered ground, and then he looked upward to see the Shade in front of him again. It was standing there, staring down at Edo with a look of petty satisfaction on its face.
Without realizing what he was doing, Edo instinctively rolled into a ball. He was cold. Colder than he had been the entire trip thus far. An uncontrollable shiver took hold of his body. The flask. If he could grab it, and get a drink, he could warm up his core, get his legs moving again. He tried to reach for the bag, but his arms were shaking too much to leave the center of his body. Edo wrapped them around his chest and pressed them even closer with his knees as he felt his face turning to ice.
There was a steady noise that Edo could barely hear over the sound of his shivering breath. But it grew louder as it approached. As he barely managed to raise his head to look, he saw the shape of a man. There was a shadow of a longbow held down at his side, and a hood and cloak much like Edo’s wrapped around his head and shoulders. It had only one difference. The shoulders were lined with spikes. No, not spikes. Edo had seen them before. On the Dead Dragon that he thought he had burned down to nothing. They were horns from various animals. Three sets from three different sizes. The figure drew back his hood, the moonslight revealing a human face. It was bearded, with slicked back hair.
“It was a fair pursuit, Edo,” the face spoke. “I am sorry.”
The figure stood above Edo, who tried to remember where he had seen him before, but couldn’t think another thought. The cold had gone to his core, and everywhere else. Except in his hands and feet. They were starting to feel warmer. The warmth spread, and Edo began to feel better. But sleepy. He closed his eyes and allowed the tightened ball he was laying in to relax.
Then there was nothing.
Chapter 22:
The Hunter
“The land keeps itself, but it’s the hunter who keeps the people.”
-Ilvrashe, Elven Singer
Edo dreamt that he had awoken several times before he actually did. The kind of dream with flying, where you’re walking and then you suddenly remember you can just lift yourself off the ground and glide forward without a second thought. But in Edo’s dream, he was going backwards. And behind him? A shapeless mass that overshadowed entire mountains staring down at him. It was the kind of dream where you knew it was there, even if you couldn’t see it.
His eyes finally opened when the sunlight began reflecting off the pure white snow all around him. The glare beamed directly into his eyes, causing his head to attempt to turn and move out of the way. That reflexive effort finally pulled him from the groggy, half-formed dream he couldn’t escape from on his own, and Edo realized he was awake. In motion was not the state in which one ever expected to awaken, but he could feel his body moving across the ground. Attempts to move his feet were met with a refusal. The same with his arms and hands. Edo felt his upper body being pulled as he watched his feet dragged backwards through the snow, while his cloak was flipped and draped over his chest to cover his body like a misshapen blanket.
Edo allowed his head to flop back down, and saw through watery blurred vision that there was rope tightly fastened around both of his shoulders to loop down under his armpits. The way his legs were dragging, Edo realized that he was being pulled backwards across the ground. The terrain had not changed. He was still surrounded by rocky foothills and the occasional mountain in the distance. It took looking at the far away mountains for his eyes to properly focus. When the blur slowly faded away, his hearing began to fade back in. The only noise apart from the wind howling was the steady sound of footsteps stomping into the snow, one after the other.
“Hey…” Edo attempted to speak, but his voice caught in his throat. He coughed several times, and groaned to warm up his vocal cords.
“Hey!” Edo shouted this time.
The movements, and the sound of the footsteps, came to a stop. Gently, Edo was lowered completely until he was sitting on the ground. The ropes kept him held upright as Edo’s weight wanted nothing more than to flop over in the snow. Edo himself wanted nothing more than for his legs to obey him once again, so he could begin running. That was his first thought, the second was that if his arms were working he could grab one of his knives.
Out of the corner of his eye, Edo began to see someone. Tall, thick leather boots lined with fur jutting from the top came into view. Then a long, dark cloak. Edo’s eyes scanned it upward, seeing the cloak lined with dark fur, but designed to nevertheless show off the horns mounted on the shoulders of the figure inside it.
“You are awake,” the figure said as he walked past Edo. “Surprising. Most people would be out for days at a time.”
The man coiled up the rope around Edo, and then set it down neatly in the snow. Draped across his chest, the strap tucked between two of the horns on his shoulders, was Edo’s bag. Edo’s eyes focused on the shape, and then on the face. Aside from the Dead Dragon he had destroyed in the forest, there was only one other person he had met with horns on his shoulders like that.
“We met back in Tarello…” Edo said, feeling out of breath just from talking.
“We did,” he confirmed.
“It was…” Edo had to stop to breathe, and to think. “Krowil?”
“Correct,” Krowil nodded as he stepped forward. “Here…”
Krowil came forward and picked up Edo by the armpits as easily as if he were a child. His limp stance was adjusted, and Edo felt something braced against his back, allowing his body to lean but remain upright.
“I am sorry about that. I do not want you to have to lay down in the snow,” Krowil said as he set Edo in place.
He made sure Edo was not going to fall over, keeping his hands out as if to catch until it became apparent he was stable. Then, the Hunter of Hornsteppe pushed the bottom of his cloak underneath himself, and sat down in the snow across from Edo, unslinging his bow from his shoulder and adjusting the quiver of black arrows he had at his side.
“What did you do to me?” Edo asked, head hanging to one side.
“It is a rare kind of moss,” Krowil said as he pulled Edo’s bag off his shoulders and set it down next to them.
“It releases a liquid that, if it gets inside the body, makes the victim feel extremely vulnerable to cold. What I have seen, it is usually small animals that fall prey to it. They lay there, thinking they have frozen to death, then allow themselves to actually freeze to death. Then the moss consumes their bodies for nourishment.”
“You poisoned me…” Edo said, finding it difficult to get a full breath.
“Only partially,” Krowil said. “You will be fine in time. And you will no doubt be able to lead me on quite a chase again.”
“What is this? What do you want? Why were you following me?” Edo used all his breath to say it.
Krowil’s eyes focused on Edo for a moment. Then, he reached for Edo’s bag and opened it up.
“Are you hungry?” Krowil asked as he retrieved one of the packages from inside the bag.
Edo did not answer, he just stared.
“Many of my people think that elf food is poisonous to them,” Krowil said as he deftly opened the package despite wearing very thick gloves. He began to stuff pieces of something into his mouth, chewing them hardly at all before swallowing.
“I, and of course you, know that to be a myth. I think they would be just as open to it if they ever got the opportunity to try it. But some are not as lucky as we.”
Krowil put the package back, and then closed the bag.
“At first I was not sure you were going to the elf lands. Your trail was so strange to follow. First north, all the time north. Then, after fighting, killing, and burning a man, suddenly turning east. Turning east from nowhere significant. A fight with one man, what I assumed was a fellow thief, made you reconsider your entire route. So I thought to myself, he must be hiding. And where better to hide than somewhere that your enemies are not allowed to follow?”
Krowil took a skin from underneath his cloak and drank from it, steadying it with both hands to ensure he didn’t spill anything. Edo was momentarily glad to see it wasn’t his own waterskin.
“But since you were heading north before, I saw you going to elfland as a simple detour in order to get out of sight. And since I know how elves sneak into this kingdom, all I had to do was watch the usual places, and wait.”
Krowil raised the skin to take another drink, but before he did added, “You leave very similar footprints to elves. Did you know that? Very light-footed. I almost did not start to follow what turned out to be your tracks at all.”
“They’re not my enemies,” Edo weakly said.
“Hmm?” Krowil asked. He took the flask from his mouth and swallowed. “Elves? Or those following you?”
“The ones following me. They’re everyone’s enemies,” Edo said as his head hung down.
“I am sure,” Krowil said with vexation in his voice.
He put his flask back into his cloak, and then leaned forward with his elbows on his knees to stare directly at Edo.
“I would have believed you before,” Krowil pointed south.
“During the battle? I was on your side. Everything I had heard about the war up to that point told me that it was this ‘Kaland’ that was the problem. The words that reached my ears in Eastmeadow said that he had a magic sword that would defeat King Tassic. Then I see that Edo the Emerald Doe is lying in wait in Tarello where this man is going to attack next. I know Edo is a thief, and I think, if Kaland’s sword is stolen, perhaps the war ends before it spills over into Hornsteppe?”
Edo’s face strained to raise an eyebrow as Krowil looked back defensively.
“Yes, we hear stories in Hornsteppe. I know of you.”
Krowil removed one of his gloves before plucking out one of the arrows from his quiver. Ignoring the cold, he twirled the arrow between two fingers. The black wooden shaft stood out from the white snow all around them.
“So I thought I would help you, when I could. When I saw that this Kaland could not be killed by arrows, I helped you get to him in all that chaos. I fought the King’s own soldiers...to help you. Because I thought you were a thief looking to end a war, not an assassin. As disappointed as I was to see that. What happened next was worse.”
Edo said nothing. He was reliving the battle in his head, trying to picture where Krowil had been hiding when he fired all those arrows. His mind was quickly taken back to what he had seen. The Shade’s grotesque form, what it had done that night.
“You don’t understand,” Edo said in quiet defeat.
“I saw everything,” Krowil said defiantly. “Kaland was fighting like someone with a magic sword would fight, but only when you got your hands on it did horrific things come from it.”
It. Edo suddenly remembered the C’rux. He felt numb in many places, but he also felt that the hilt of the sword was no longer in place where he had left it.
“Where is it?” Edo asked, drawing enough strength to sound irate.
“Where you can not touch it,” Krowil said firmly.
“I’ve got to...get it away,” Edo forced out.
“Do not worry. We are,” Krowil said, standing up.
“In my position, I have to protect the land from the dangers that can come to it. Sometimes that means hunting down a dangerous animal. Other times it means making conditions inhospitable towards the animal. Like putting something a bear knows is poisonous in a cave, so it won’t hibernate in a place where travellers need to shelter. This is that. If Kaland does not have this, perhaps the war will end. And if you do not have it, then perhaps I will never see a creature like that in this world again.”
“Then why are you dragging me along?” Edo said quietly, his head swimming with dread at the possibility of the C’rux falling into the wrong hands again.
Krowil stood with his hands on his hips.
“I do not want you to freeze to death. And, you are a thief. If you are free to roam, what is to stop you from just stealing this back?”
Edo was feeling weaker again by the moment. He picked his head up one more time, looking up at Krowil while he assembled his things and prepared to move again.
“Those pauldrons you wear,” Edo spoke as loudly as he could. “Animal horns?”
“Yes,” Krowil nodded as if they were speaking casually. “They are a symbol of my title.”
“I’ve seen them before,” Edo said.
Krowil stiffened up, his eyes glaring down at Edo on the ground.
“You said you found the body that attacked me. Did you get a good look at it? Did you see that it was wearing the same kind of horns?”
Krowil scowled slightly.
“Yes, I know. The tomb of one of my predecessors was desecrated recently. I am assuming the thief was whoever it was that attacked you. Perhaps a rival of yours trying to steal what you have already stolen?”
