Chapter Thirty-four
They walked their horses with great care up the winding path. The ground was covered with loose rocks and debris of all kinds, and none of the three wished to risk twisting the ankle of their mount. It would be extremely difficult to find another animal to ride upon within these barren hills.
“I cannot see to the top. How long do you think we will be climbing?” Preston asked.
“I have never traveled this route before,” Elion answered. “I am uncertain myself.”
“Neither have I. The last time I went to Parth, it was from a different direction,” Tomas said.
“The ground is so dry. There is not even a blade of grass for the ponies to munch upon,” the young dwarf observed.
“Yet the air is damp,” Tomas commented.
“It is not the kind of dampness that precedes a rain though. I think it will only become more parched as the day wears on,” the elf replied.
They had been riding since the sun came up, having camped at the edge of the Cliffs the evening before. There had been no sign of life of any kind on the ground or in the air. Neither had they come across any indication that the hills were inhabited, though they knew they were.
“Where are the Freemen?” Preston asked .
“I can only assume that they have migrated elsewhere,” Elion answered him. “It would be unlikely that they would allow us to invade their lands without at least questioning us.”
“They are a nomadic people,” Tomas explained. “The Cliffs are extensive in size. Perhaps they moved their campsite to another location. There are not so many of them that they could be everywhere at once.”
The trio continued to lead its ponies up the path, though each of them glanced from right to left, searching the hills for signs of life. After walking for another hour or so, they appeared to have made little progress. Behind them the path fell away, down to the plain below. But before them, it seemed the same as earlier. The terrain had not changed and neither had the angle of the slope. It had not grown steeper, nor had it leveled in the slightest. If it was not for the fact that they were clearly higher up than before, they would not have known that they had advanced at all.
“Would you not think that a scout or someone would have discovered our trespass by this time?” Preston asked, dissatisfied with Tomas’ previous answer and clearly still possessed of the same concerns.
“I would, Preston. But it seems they have not sent out scouts. Perhaps they are unconcerned with who visits their territory. After all, they claim to wander constantly so that they do not become too attached to the physical world in which they need reside,” Elion said, in way of an explanation.
“They were always a rather spiritual people, Preston,” Tomas interjected.
“They have few possessions and they never desired to build towns and cities to live in. They chose the wandering life. It was not foisted upon them by necessity,” Elion continued.
“They have always worshiped the trees, though. In fact, their devotion was more passionate than that of most others. You could almost call it fanatical,” Tomas said.
“So you think that they would not object to us crossing their lands? I thought they always protected the Hills and that it was dangerous to enter without notice. My grandmother used to tell me that if I did not behave, she would carry me to the Hills of the Freemen and drop me there unannounced,” he persisted.
“Your grandmother threatened you often, Preston. You must have been a difficult child,” Elion chided him.
“He is correct though, Elion,” Tomas said. “This was never an easy place to enter uninvited. Even though the Freemen moved from area to area, they considered the hills their own, and they did not tolerate outsiders trespassing.”
Elion was in the lead now and he sat up high on his pony’s back.
“I see a plateau ahead. It looks as if the ground is leveling off.”
“Thank the First,” Preston said with a sigh. “I thought this climb would never end.”
“Do you hear that?” Elion asked, quieting the others.
“What?” Preston asked.
“I am not sure, but it sounds like voices. Perhaps singing or chanting of some sort.”
“Yes, I think I hear it too,” Tomas replied. His chin was high in the air and his beautiful eyes were closed tightly.
“I don’t hear anything,” Preston protested.
“Shh. Listen closely. You will,” Elion advised him.
They continued to walk forward and the pathway did in fact cease its ascent. The noise became more distinct as they reached the top of the crest.
“It is most definitely singing,” Tomas said.
“Yes, but it sounds like a funeral dirge to me. It certainly is not a happy group by the tone of it,” Preston remarked, finally hearing what the other two had heard earlier.
“We best be on our guard. It is no small group by the sound of it,” Elion warned.
Tomas raised the hood on his cloak and covered his blonde hair. He pulled it tightly around his face and obscured most of his features. Elion and Preston did the same. They appeared to be no more than three vagabond travelers, wandering the hills.
As they neared the noise, they began to make out a line of people, all facing in one direction. There were women and children among them, and they were all chanting together in unison. A solitary figure stood upon a large rock, and it was he who was apparently directing them all.
They dismounted and let the ponies graze on what little grass grew up between the scattered rocks. Cautiously walking forward, they came up toward the last line of people and stood quietly and unobtrusively behind them. They noticed that others wandered in from time to time as well and joined the group, without anyone there taking any particular notice of them.
“Keep your hood up, Elion,” Tomas whispered in the elf’s ear. “Something tells me that a group of our makeup may not be welcome here.”
“The same voice has been talking to me too, Tomas,” he replied softly.
“I do not like the feel of this,” Preston murmured to Elion.
“Neither do I,” the elf responded.
They tried to be as inconspicuous as possible by keeping their voices low, bending their heads and staying way in the back of the group. A few stragglers had lined up behind them already and caused them all a bit of concern. They preferred to be in the back with a clear and unimpeded exit route. No one as yet had come from the direction they had.
Shortly, they were surrounded by green cloaked men and all sorts of otherwise shabbily dressed people; men and women, old folks and children. Elion spotted a huge troll sidling up to the crowd on the right and he elbowed Tomas gently, signaling him to look in that direction. Tomas nodded, indicating that he had already noticed that one himself. He raised his chin and leaned his head to the left. Elion followed with his eyes, and then he saw another two trolls pressing up against the stragglers in the back of the group. They both inconspicuously put their hands on Preston’s elbows and drew him backward with them, retreating behind the last line of people who had joined the burgeoning assembly. There were now only a few people remaining between them and their line of withdrawal.
“Tomas?” a girl’s voice suddenly asked in a hushed, though astonished tone. “Tomas? Could it possibly be you?” she asked again, obviously attempting not to alarm anyone else around them.
A young girl, no more than sixteen or seventeen years of age had edged up next to the blonde haired boy and was staring at him with an expression of wonder upon her dirty, yet pleasant face.
Tomas turned slowly to look upon her, not wishing to draw attention to himself either. He never expected to encounter anyone here who could possibly have known him.
“Stephanie?” he asked with quiet relief, recognizing the maiden at once.
“Yes— It is I,” she replied. “May the First bless us all,” the girl said, and then looked around her, fear in her eyes, as if she had uttered the Dark Lord’s name itself. “I thought you were dead. We all thought you perished in the fire with Trevor and Safira. Where have you been all this time?” she asked him as quietly as a mouse from behind her hand, thoroughly pleased that he was not among the bodies buried that fateful day.
Tomas beckoned to Stephanie to follow him away from the gathering to a more secluded area. They walked slowly toward where the horses had been left to graze, and Preston and Elion carefully trailed them, keeping well hidden in the trees just beyond the knoll that had at first obscured the group of chanters from their sight.
Tomas noticed that Stephanie’s clothing was dirty and ragged, and that her hands were red and bruised. Her hair, which he remembered because it was once so beautiful, auburn and smooth as silk, was straggly and unkempt.
“We have to be quiet,” she warned him while whispering and looking all around with a worried expression upon her face. “I will be punished if I am caught talking to you and not paying attention.”
When they were safely concealed behind the hill, Tomas faced his old playmate, and he realized fully just how different she looked from what he recalled. He removed his hood from his head and looked fondly upon her. They had frolicked together as children, as they were neighbors, so to speak. Stephanie’s home was the closest of any others in Pardeau to his own. Farmer Constant, her father, was always a good friend to his uncle, and the families celebrated the holidays together often. Stephanie was really the only friend Tomas ever had, aside from Ormachon, though she never knew about the Lalas.
She hugged him tightly, not wanting to let go, and Tomas sensed the great malaise that enveloped her.
“What brings you here, Steph, so far away from your farm?” he asked her tenderly, taking her coarse hands in his own. He remembered her as a gentle and delicate maiden.
“I had no choice but to come. Besides, we don’t have the farm anymore. After the fire, after father was killed…” she said, holding her head high and trying not to get upset, “…we lost the entire summer’s crop. Mother could not harvest it, and no one in the county was willing to help us. People were frightened, and father did not get along with the mayor’s ‘guests’ from the south, just like your uncle Trevor. Remember?” she asked, looking at Tomas for recognition. “Then one thing led to another. Everything died on the vines. The melons, and the berries and even the squash was unsalable. We could not pay the taxes that were demanded of us. They told us that they needed to raise an army to defend the county and that if we could not pay the money, then they would take our land instead, and they came and took the farm away. That hateful man, Gumley, is living in my parent’s house now. He does whatever those nasty people want him to do,” she said disgustedly. “He allowed mother and me to live in the smokehouse, as long as we were willing to work in the fields for him,” the young girl related, turning her back upon Tomas for a moment to compose herself.
Tomas listened with a heavy heart. It must have been so hard for Stephanie to lose her father, she loved him so. Tomas recalled how they played together. Farmer Constant used to carry her on his broad shoulders all through the fields, and she used to giggle and giggle. He was a good man.
“It all happened so fast,” Stephanie continued. “Mother was so sad when father died, that she did not even seem to care. She didn’t even protest Tomas, when they came and threw us out of our own home,” she said sadly, though he could feel the anger within her. “I cannot get her to even leave the hovel we now sleep in. She sits and rocks all day. If I did not work my fingers to the bone, we would both starve. They barely give us enough to survive on as it is,” Stephanie concluded, and then she sighed deeply and turned her bruised hands over and over before her tired eyes.
Tomas put his arm around her shoulders, and he felt how thin and frail she had become. The bones protruded from her beneath her worn clothing. As soon as she felt the warmth of her old friend’s touch, the young woman broke down. The tears began to flow, though she maintained her self-control. She stepped a pace away from him, and dried her eyes with her dirty sleeve.
“We have to be careful,” she said quietly, nervously eyeballing the crowd. “If they find me here, I will be punished.”
“If who finds you here?” Tomas asked.
“You really have been away, haven’t you?” she replied, eyebrows arched. “The mayor gave up control of the town council to the soldiers from Talamar, the ones with the green trees emblazoned upon their chests. They made us denounce the trees, and they recruited all the young men left in Pardeau to go with them and spread their ideas. They told us all that it was the trees who were responsible for the fires that did so much damage to us all. I never believed it, but a lot of the others did. The Lady Margot rode into the center of the village and told these horrid tales of what happened in Talamar when their tree died. Everyone was so scared. I did not sleep that night, nor the next one either.”
Tomas did not wish to ask too many questions here, in the middle of what was turning out to be dangerous territory. But he still needed to know some things before they were interrupted.
“What brought you here, to the hills of the Freemen?” he asked her.
“It is here where they have the big meetings, where everyone has to come and listen to the leaders talk about the great changes,” she answered. “The Freemen volunteered their lands in the very beginning. They made a deal with the trolls who had marched in from the south, before the Talamarans even arrived. They let them live as they did always, wandering around and the like, and the freemen allow all the meetings to take place in the hills.”
Tomas was surprised to hear that those strong willed and independent people had surrendered so easily to the invaders. In the back of his mind, he believed that there was more to that story than Stephanie knew about.
“Who is Lady Margot?” Tomas questioned. “I have not heard that name before.”
“She is the Duchess of Talamar. Everyone around here knows her. She is the one who is really in charge. Even the trolls are afraid of her,” she answered, hunching her shoulders, as a shiver ran down her spine. “She was also the one who claimed to actually have seen the terrible things that the Lalas did to the people outside the gates of her city,” Stephanie related. “The stories were unthinkable. How any one could have believed them, I do not know,” she said, warily. “But, they did. So many of them did. It was almost as if they were being put under some kind of spell,” she recalled. “It never even occurred to me that what she said could possibly have happened.”