Death Comes To All (Book 1) (16 page)

Some
thought that they were one of the species that had been changed
during the Mage War and had never joined the others, so they reverted
back to being more like animals than humans. Others said that they
had existed long before that, hidden out in the deeper parts of the
marshes, where even in the ancient times few people would go. His
mother, of course, said that it was unlikely that such an animal
existed at all. If it did it was certainly just an animal, no
different than any other.

Thinking
about his mother, he suddenly felt very homesick. He wondered, not
for the first time, where his mother might have heard the stories
that she had told him. Some of it she had read in the books that she
had with her, he was certain of that, but there was other things she
knew that he had no idea where she might have heard it.

She
certainly hadn’t heard any of her stories from his father, that
much he was sure of. His father had little interest in anything
beyond the borders of his land. His father had spent all his life in
the same place, and had spent more time with his crops than he had
with his own family. However, he had never mistreated them in the
slightest. He was a loving, caring man. He just understood his fields
more than he did his feelings.

Roland
wondered why his father was like that; why all sorvinians were like
that really. One thing he had realized during his time with the group
was just how strong sorvinians really were when compared to the other
races.

They
could have done anything with themselves,
he
thought
.

As soldiers they could have been the terrors of the
battlefield. They could wear armor many times heavier than what other
races could wear. The steel could be thick enough that nothing could
penetrate it. Give a sorvinian a hammer or an ax and they could wipe
out entire shield walls with one blow. It would be easy for someone
who could carry a weapon that weighs a hundred pounds or more.

In
all of his life though, he had never heard of a sorvinian taking up
arms. Not even in his mother's stories had such a thing had ever
occurred. Sorvinians ate only growing things, and they had no
interest in anything beyond the land that fed them and kept them
whole. Land was plentiful, so for a sorvinian there was never any
need for war. Granted, the mages taxed them so heavily that, though
they grew the food that fed most of the races, they still could
barely afford to cloth themselves. That didn't seem to matter much to
them. Their needs were few, so they could ignore the heavy burden put
on them.

A
movement above him broke him away from his thoughts. Trick flew down
from the trees, chirping softly. It was obvious that he was trying to
warn them about something, and that he didn't want whatever it was to
hear him. Roland strained his ears, but he couldn't hear anything.

What
could be out there?

"On
second thought you better wait for a bit before gathering more wood,"
Tara informed him unnecessarily. "I'm not sure what it is that's
out there, but Trick is giving us a warning. If Malik was up he might
be able to tell us exactly what it is that Trick is warning us about.
The most I can say is that it's an animal. I've heard his warning
when it's a human attacker. It sounds completely different then."

"What
do you think it might be?" he asked her. "I can't see or
hear anything. I can't smell anything either," he added,
remembering what she had said about the skunk apes.

"I
don't know. If I had to guess, I would think cougar. Cougars are
silent killers. We would hear most other things moving through the
brush. Don’t worry, we shouldn’t have much to worry about
here. Cougars won't come close to the fire, and neither will most of
the other things that Trick would feel the need to warn us about. As
long as we stay in camp, we'll be safe."

Trick
flew over them for a few more minutes, until he was certain they
understood the warning. Finally satisfied that they would stay in
camp, the dragonling landed on the ground between them. He stayed
there for nearly a half an hour, peering intently into the darkness
at an enemy only he was able to see. Roland looked at Tara, who also
gazed into the darkness sporadically while she ate. It was obvious
that she couldn't see whatever it was that was making Trick nervous.
Finally, apparently satisfied that the danger was gone, Trick took to
the air, gave one quick, sharp chirp, and disappeared into the trees
above them.

"I'm
guessing that was Trick's way of telling us that the danger is passed
and it's safe to gather more firewood," Roland joked dryly.

Not
a moment too soon,
he thought.

He
couldn't understand how guards did this job night after night. With
nothing to see and nothing to do, he had never felt so bored. Even
staring out into the woods after Trick’s warning had become
dull after only a few minutes.

At
least gathering firewood would give me something to break up the
monotony,
he thought
.

He
knew that Tara wanted him to continue listening to the forest around
them, but he could tell she wasn't hearing much more than he had
been, even with her superior hearing.

He
started gathering thick sticks, as large as he could easily fit into
the fire without breaking. He could have snapped some of the longer
pieces if he had to, he knew, but thought that the noise might wake
Malik.

It
would be better to let the man sleep as long as he could, he
believed. Malik had said to wake him for the second half of the
night, so he was going to get little enough sleep as it was.
Roland
was strong enough that he would be able to carry enough wood to keep
the fire going for most of the night, if not all of it.

There
isn’t any need to make more noise,
he decided.

Although
Trick had already proved that he would give warning if there was any
large, dangerous predators in the area, he still took Tara's advice
and stayed close to the fire, never allowing its light to leave his
sight. As he bent to pick up a large piece of wood he saw something
odd. He almost didn't notice it in the weak light beyond the camp,
but once seen it was unmistakably something unnatural.

A
long, unbroken trail cut itself through the forest floor, only about
a foot wide, as if someone picked up a thick log and dragged it
around the camp. Roland followed it for a moment, trying to fathom
what could have made it. At one end it went directly away from the
camp, continuing until it was out of site. Turning around, he
followed it once again the other way. The trail turned sharply when
it reached the camp perimeter. It followed the camp around in a half
circle, where once again it turned sharply away.

Whatever
made this path had come across the camp, carefully made its way
around them, then kept going in its original direction,
he
surmised.

The
strangest part was that whatever creature had come by them had
apparently done so without anyone in the camp being able to see it,
aside from Trick, who must have spotted it at once. Even Tara, who
could see in the dark, hadn't been able to find it.

The
trail was much closer to the camp than he would have liked. For Trick
to have warned them he must have thought it was something dangerous.
Otherwise he wouldn't have been concerned.

"Hey
Tara, you should come have a look at this."

The
feral woman didn't seem happy about setting aside her dinner, but she
did so after a moment, without saying so much as a word.
Whatever
complaints she had would wait until after she had seen whatever he
had to show her.

If
it’s important enough perhaps she won't voice any complaints at
all,
he hoped.

She
gracefully glided over to he spot on the ground he indicated. She
looked down, studying the track thoughtfully.

"Well,
at least now we know what Trick was warning us about," She
stated after only perhaps a minute.

"I
thought the same thing," he replied. "Do you know what
could have made a track like this?"

"I
know exactly what made this track. This was made by a snake. A very
large one in fact, either a python or an anaconda if I had to make a
guess, though there might be other species that I'm not familiar
with. This one here was at least twenty feet long, probably twenty
five, and would have had no trouble at all swallowing one of us whole
if we had wandered far enough from the fire.

“
It
would explain why I hadn't seen it. It was too close to the ground
for me to be able to spot in the dark. Still, I should have been able
to hear it, considering how close to the camp it had come. They don't
make vocalizations like most animals, but you can still usually hear
them sliding across the ground. If this ground wasn't so soft right
here it might not have left any track at all, and we wouldn't have
known what was out here."

Roland
had seen plenty of snakes on his father's farm, but the thought of
one large enough to eat a man was completely beyond his
comprehension. He thought back, trying to remember the largest snake
he had ever seen. He vaguely recalled a rattlesnake that his father
had caught once and taken to the edge of their land. It's body had
been nearly as thick as his father's forearm, and yet if his memory
served him it was only a little longer than his father had been tall.

That
would make the animal about seven feet long, give or take a little.
As a child it had seemed huge. Tara had said that the snake that had
passed them had been between twenty and twenty five feet. Roland
couldn't imagine a snake that massive.

I
wish I could have seen that,
he
thought, then decided against it
. Some things are best left
to the imagination.

"It's
gone now, I'm sure," Tara assured him. "Otherwise Trick
wouldn't have gone back to roosting in the trees. It's not often that
you see one this far north, but down in the deeper swamps in the
south I've seen snakes even bigger than this one. In the southern
continent there are supposed to be anacondas that make this snake
look tiny. Over fifty feet long if the stories are to be believed,
though I've never seen one that big myself. The biggest one I’ve
ever seen was just a little over thirty."

That
said, Tara returned to the fire and the meal she had waiting for her.
She was just finishing as he returned to her side at the edge of the
fire. They still had a few hours left of their watch, so she passed
the time teaching him how to listen to the woods around them. He
thought he had understood before when she had told him to listen, but
now she tested him by picking out small sounds made by insects,
birds, and other nocturnal dwellers in the darkness around them. He
realized quickly that it would take much longer than he would have
thought to learn how to locate things just by their sound. He wasn’t
sure if he was ever going to be able to get the hang of it.

It
seemed that hardly any time had passed when she abruptly told him it
was time to wake Malik, and for the two of them to retire. He hadn't
realized that it was so late already.

How
Tara had kept track of the time during the night?
he
wondered.

"Are
you sure?" he asked her. It wasn't that he didn't believe her.
He just wanted to understand how she knew, so that he could tell time
in the middle of the night the same way.

"Absolutely
certain," she answered. "See that star there, just at the
edge of the horizon? It started almost directly above us when the sun
fell, and will pass out of sight in only a few more minutes. That
tells me that the first watch is over, and it's time to wake Malik.
You mean you don't know how to read the stars?"

Roland
shook his head. "My mother understood the star charts, and my
father knew a few of them, enough to tell when it was time to start
planting and when to harvest, but I never learned them. Had I stayed
on the farm I would have."

"Knowing
your stars is important if you want to travel at night. It can tell
you where you are at, which direction you are going, or what time it
is at any moment during the night. I'll talk with Malik tomorrow and
you'll be staying up with me on watch from now on. I'll teach you
about the stars, how to find and track animals by their sound alone,
and a few other things you should know if you're going to stay with
us. We'll reach the city in another two days. Once we're in the city
you might decide to leave us, I know you're thinking about it still,
but until you do we might as well continue teaching you as if you
were staying with us indefinitely."

Roland
couldn't help but agree. While he wasn't sure what he wanted to do
once they had reached the city, there was no reason not to learn as
much as he could until then. He only wished he had been doing so
right from the beginning, but knew that, for the first few weeks at
least, he had been too tired from travel and practicing swordplay
once camp was set up to stay awake for a shift on watch.

He
marveled for a moment at the change he had undergone in such a short
time. It was already half way into the night and, while he was
certainly tired, he was not nearly as exhausted now as he would have
been at sundown only two weeks before.