Authors: Greg Curtis
Chapter Thirty Seven
It was evening and the camp was quiet. It was most nights. After the initial outpourings of jubilation over the victory at Midland Heights, things had slowly settled into their old routine. This was a war, and everyone knew it. So as they had begun their invasion of Vardania things had returned to how they had been. There were battles to be fought most days. And though they were winning them comfortably, still soldiers were falling and dying. More were being injured.
Then there were the endless chores of life in an army. The endless marching. The digging of pits, The cleaning of weapons, the drilling and the loading and unloading of supplies. The truth was that most of war was drudgery. And when there were months and maybe years of it ahead for most of them, it tended to drain the once high spirits.
Still, it was better to be marching in a winning army than locked away in a false temple waiting to die as part of a losing one. Nyma couldn't imagine what the morale must be like in the armies of the false temple, as they waited to be killed. They surely knew they had no hope. Especially when there had recently been word from the scouts that the Circle wizards in the realm had abandoned them and were returning to Lion's Crest. The silence here was surely far better than whatever noise was being made there.
Nyma could have wished for a little noise though as she sat around the camp fire with her sister and their own Circle wizard. She could have wished for anything that would have distracted the others from her report. But there was no such luck. The men were in a quiet mood and their camp fires were all some distance from the three of them. And it wouldn't really have mattered anyway. Dina heard every syllable she spoke. The wizard was sharp. And she was unimpressed.
“It's been a month and you still can't persuade the boy to accept a guard detail. What have you been doing with your time? He needs protection!”
Nyma coloured a little and stared rigidly into the fire and wished the wizard had asked her any other question than that. And apparently that was all she had to do to tell the wizard exactly what she'd been doing.
“Oh by the gods girl!” Dina looked as though she was about to yell at her. “You're supposed to be a custodian! Duty above all! The duty to protect! And instead you're letting the boy you're supposed to be guarding bed you?”
“He's not a boy!” Except of course that he was to the wizard. Everyone was Nyma knew. “And he has accepted some things. He wears his armour more often. He keeps his weapons at hand. And he is very capable with that sword of his.”
More than capable actually. She'd had him do some training in the fort with the other recruits and quickly realised he had true skill. And the blade was a devastating weapon in his hands. It could cut through trees.
“Besides wizard, as he says his true protection lies in not being known for what he did. And no one knows he crafted the bow.”
“By the gods girl! Is he at least skilled in the bedchamber? Because I can think of little else that could make you say something so foolish! Some know, some guess, and in time more will wonder the same. Many more. They will come for him. And when they do I suppose that instead of being there with a weapon in your hands and guarding his back you will be sleeping in his arms. Keeping his bed warm!”
“Dina!”
Erislee interrupted the wizard before she could launch into a tirade. She did that sometimes. Still, even as Nyma was happy for her sister's help she dreaded what was coming. The questions and of course the reminder that she would have to send her mother a letter to tell her about Harl. It would be expected. Dryads had no stricture on entanglements outside of marriage – they did not have the human nobility's strange ideas and all their foolish rules. But for a dryad everything was family. And for as long as she and Harl were lovers than Harl was family.
But Erislee surprised her then as instead of telling her that she told her of her worries.
“You know that Harl is a very damaged man. He walks with Lyssa. He hides it as best he can, but the rage is still there.”
“That's –.” Nyma was going to deny it, but suddenly she couldn't. Not when she knew her sister was right. The rage lived deep within Harl, and too often it came close to the surface. “I know.”
And she did know. The anger was there in him. He hid it, but he couldn't hide his rage entirely. And though he was with her, especially in the bed, a part of him was not. A part of him was always with his dead family, and with the anger in his soul.
“But he is happier.” Nyma had to defend him, at least a little. And he was happier, with her at least. Or maybe he just enjoyed their time between the covers. For men she understood, the two things were often the same. Not that she was complaining either. He was passionate and kind, and more than that a determined man when it came to bedding her. He was successful too. Each time she went to visit with him, determined to make him see reason she found herself in his arms and in his bed before she'd even got the words out. He had some power over her she thought. And the truth was that as much as she pretended to be annoyed by it, she wasn't. It was nice to be so desired.
“Good. But happier is not happy. And being happy is not the same as being free from a blighted soul. And with the sort of pain he has suffered, the losses he has endured, I fear it will be a long time before he can truly find happiness again. If ever.”
“Children!” Dina had obviously had enough of their chatter, and as always she wasn't afraid of showing it. No one else in the entire army would dare refer to Erislee as a child. But Dina would, and she wouldn't even think twice about it.
“The boy's happiness is not our concern. His survival and freedom is. The knowledge will become known sooner or later. That is inevitable. And when it is others will want to use him. I don't care if he's happy, or if he thinks he can remain hidden. And his ability to swing that sword of his will not be enough on its own. He needs to be protected. From his own foolishness as well as everything else! And the last thing he needs is for the one given the task of protecting him instead to be warming his bed!”
“Dina!” Erislee stepped in a second time, and once more the wizard fell silent. Then she turned her attention to Nyma.
“Are you happy?”
“Yes.” Nyma didn't even have to think about her answer. Harl was annoying and difficult and more than a little stubborn. He scared her some days with what he'd done. When she thought about what the consequences of that would be. But the truth was that he made her happy. Happy as she hadn't been in a long time.
Too happy perhaps. She should be taking more care with her dates, making sure that she couldn't end up with child. But each time she wanted to say no she said yes. She should be spending more time on her other duties, but each time she thought of them and planned to leave to carry them out, she lingered. So many times she had stayed the night instead of riding out. Too many times. And she was even teasing him. Letting him think that there was a chance she was seeing others when she would never do so. But he was simply so adorable when he was jealous.
“Then I'm happy for you.” Erislee reached across and hugged her. “And maybe he's right. He did overcome an entire caravan with just a sword. He is a true warrior.”
“Huh!” Dina clearly didn't agree, but even she wouldn't dare rebuke the High Priestess. Calling her a child was as far as she went.
“In any case there is another matter to consider. There is something wrong with the wizards.”
“Pardon?” Nyma didn't know what the wizard was talking about, but it still sent chills running down her back.
“We've had word from Inel Ison where a dozen or so are being held for interrogation. They've started to change. To relearn their proper ways. Some have started weeping. Mourning for those they've lost and expressing shame and guilt for those they've harmed. Claiming that they don't know why they took the demon king's mark in the first place. They have become quite irrational.”
“It may be a trick. A ruse to gain them mercy. It may be simply the effect of the time spent apart from any contact with the demon king's thralls. It could be a spell. It may be anything!”
“But it may also be something important. Something to do with the binding. And none of these wizards were party to the binding. We have no idea of what the consequences of such a powerful magic might be on those who may not have been party to the binding but are still sensitive to magic. Especially when that binding has been damaged. But my worry is that those who were in Lion's Crest when the binding was made may all be about to suffer some emotional malaise in the coming months. Both those who sided with the Circle and those who fought against them.”
“I have asked that those wizards among us from Lion's Crest be watched – though there are of course only a very few. And while you're spending you nights warming Harl's bed you should do the same. Warn him. It may not matter. Nothing may happen. He has been five years away from Lion's Crest and was never part of the binding. But he should be aware of what's happening.”
“Of course.” Nyma nodded, determined to do exactly as Dina said. She would ride through the nights if need be to make sure Harl got word as quickly as possible. Though truthfully, she had no idea what to do if Harl did start suffering some sort of wound to his spirit. Find a priest perhaps? He would never accept the advice of one of course.
But then another thought struck her. Dina had also been in Lion's Crest five years before – or just a few leagues outside it at least. If she was worried for Harl was she worried for herself as well?
Should she ask? Nyma wondered about that for a moment. Then she realised the woman was already acerbic to an unreasonable degree. That could be due to grief or guilt. It could be due to frustration. Or it could just be her way. There was no way of knowing. But how would anyone know if it was? And would anyone notice if it got suddenly worse? She suspected not.
Best, she decided, to sit quietly and not say anything to make the wizard any more upset with her. Especially when between the angry wizard and her overly concerned little sister it was already looking like being a long night.
Chapter Thirty Eight
The days turned into weeks and the weeks turned into a month and then more, and as the time passed, Harl grew happy once again in his work. He was happy in his home as well. It was good to have a lover again. More than good. It was a gift from Aphrodite herself. And after such a long time without! He had almost forgotten what that was like. But then for the longest time he had not thought about such things. His thoughts had been focussed entirely on survival and bitterness. And of course his hatred of the temple. But having Nyma come to him time and again was something new. It was something joyous. It was something he'd almost forgotten existed.
Nyma was enjoying their time together as well. Though she never stayed for more than a night, for that night she would revel with him as if making up for all the other nights they'd missed out on. She more than made up for them.
It bothered him that she left, though he knew she had other duties to carry out. But sometimes he worried that she might be seeing other men. She said not and mostly he believed her. But sometimes the thought still lived in his heart. Still, he did not own her. They did not have a bond of marriage. They had not even spoken of such a thing. And she was a soldier with her own life to lead. It was not his place to demand fidelity from her. He simply had to accept that she came to him and be grateful for it. And it was so wonderful to have a woman to hold, especially during the cold nights which were gathering upon them.
But she'd been away too long this time. Nearly a month in fact as she'd had to ride to Inel Ison with words from her sister for the Great Assembly. And it was terrible how cold his bed had become without her. Soon though it would be warm again. Any day now in fact. And when she returned he would make sure she didn't plan leaving it any time soon. Especially when it was so cold out.
Fall was advancing and winter was on its way. Soon the first snowfalls would begin and the trees and the ground would turn white. He was looking forward to that. Not just because he liked the cleanliness of the season, but because winter was a time when people stopped travelling. Whether man or beast, there came a point when everyone and everything stopped.
For him as a wizard fleeing from his enemies that had been a good time for him while he'd been in the mountains. It had been a time when he had felt safer. He had never been completely safe of course, but at least there had been much less to fear for a few months. And this winter would be safer still. It was the first in five long years when the Rainbow Mountains were free from the chimera.
By the time that spring and then summer finally returned to the land he suspected Vardania would also be free. The word was that the war was going well. He still heard news from the soldiers every few days when they came to deliver him his ore and pick up his wares, and the news was good. Scores more towns had fallen to their army. And the cities of Vardania surely knew they were coming and the enemy no doubt trembled.
As for the promised dangers, none of them had appeared so far. But then as far as he could be certain, no one apart from Erislee, Dina and Nyma of course, knew what he had done. And of course Marni, but she was determined never to speak of it – and he suspected she tried never to think of it as well. Officially the High Priestess' bow was said to be a gift from Artemis herself. And perhaps it was. According to the bards who had made up endless songs about it, the bow had simply appeared as the answer to a prayer while she meditated upon the top of Midland Heights. It had been brought to her by one of the huntress' diving messengers; a griffin.
It was a fine story. It brought courage to her army and hope to the people of the five kingdoms. It also hopefully brought fear to their enemies. He himself quite enjoyed humming some of the little ditties from time to time as he worked. But more important than any of that if Dina was right, was the fact that no one would be looking for an arcane smith who might have fashioned such a weapon if it was a gift from the Goddess.
Meanwhile he worked every day from dawn to dusk as he always did, and the satisfaction he felt in his work continued to grow. His wares were improving in quality all the time, and he was crafting them more easily. Some days it almost seemed he didn't need a hammer and anvil any more. The metal simply flowed under his fingertips and found the shape he intended all by itself. His senses were sharper too. He could taste so much more in the metal. Smell its every perfection and flaw. And the enchantments barely required a thought. The magic simply streamed from him into whatever he was crafting so easily.
Harl had turned a corner in his art. He was no longer a mere arcane smith but a master. And while that had always been his intention, it was something that shouldn't have happened for a good twenty or thirty more years at least. His only lack if he had one, was that he did not have those additional twenty or thirty years of knowledge. Master Gallowgood had had an entire library devoted to the craft. The magic, the recipes and the shapes for everything he could craft. But even things that he hadn't learned Harl seemed to know, as much of that knowledge now dwelt within him.
A mewling came from the roof of the smithy, and he knew that it was lunch time. Where the little orange ball of fur had come from he didn't know. He didn't look much like a wild cat. And he wasn't really a very good mouser either. In fact he hadn't caught one yet as far as Harl knew. But he was exceptionally good at begging for food. In fact it might be the cat's best talent. That and getting into places he shouldn't. For instance there was where he was now. How the cat had climbed onto the thatched roof over his smithy he didn't know. It wasn't as if there were any trees beside it or ladders to climb. And he surely couldn't jump that high.
Still, he reached up his arms and the cat came to them, no doubt thinking there was food coming. And the sad fact of the matter was that there probably was. It was a pitiful thing to admit, but his heart was becoming soft of late. He blamed Nyma for that. Still, it was nice to have someone to talk to even if the fur ball didn't talk back. And something warm to hold when Nyma wasn't around.
“Inside, you. We'll finish off the rabbit.”
He didn't need to tell the cat twice. In fact the cat jumped down from his arms and immediately started heading for the house, tail high in the air. And when he reached the door he stood there and turned his head to look back at Harl, as if asking him what was taking him so long to come and open the door.
Harl dropped his tools and followed the cat across the yard, wondering if there was enough rabbit for the both of them. The cat was a vulture when it came to food. So much so that he couldn't work out why the little monster wasn't the size of a barn. Maybe he should have cooked a couple of rabbits.
Half way across the yard to his house the cat mewled strangely at him, and he instantly knew that something was wrong. Very wrong. He stopped and looked around, worried.
“Run you fool child!”
Someone yelled it at him, startling Harl. But instead of worrying about who it was, he worried about where to run to. Because he knew he was in danger. He knew it more when he saw a shadow racing along the ground as something flew over him. But then like a fool he looked up when he should simply have run.
She was a fury. Harl recognised her form immediately even if he'd never seen one of her kind before. Furies were cousins to the harpies but much more deadly. Where harpies had the faces and bodies of diseased women to go with their bat like wings and claws, furies had the parts of vipers as well. Snakes for hair, needle thin viper fangs in their mouths, talons for their feet and hands, and a hiss that could shatter eardrums. They were also trained assassins. Skilled at striking quickly and silently. She proved that an instant later as she struck, hissing to distract him and then diving at him, talons outstretched.
Harl barely managed to dodge the attack, and then he had to dodge even faster the other way a heartbeat later. She was even quicker than he'd feared. Fortunately she'd landed and she was a slow runner, and once he'd escaped her claws he was able to put a few paces between them.
But only a few. He discovered with horror that even though she couldn't run she could still hop. She leapt high up into the air – as high as a tall man standing – stretched out her arms and legs wide so that the leathery flaps of skins they called wings filled with air and then streaked for him covering the distance between them in a couple of heartbeats. Harl unexpectedly found himself having to dodge all over again, twisting desperately to the side as fast as he could and then spinning the other way even faster. He wondered how many others had been caught out by the surprise move.
This time he wasn't quite fast enough. Her talon caught him on the right shoulder, tearing straight through his robe and drawing blood. Drawing quite a lot of blood he thought as he ran for shelter. But at least none of her vipers had caught him. Their venom was deadly. Thankfully as far as he knew she wasn't diseased like her cousins.
Harl suddenly knew that he needed to get to shelter quickly. He needed a roof. Anything to stop her hopping so high. And as she was standing between him and the house he needed to head for the smithy.
Unfortunately it was a long run. Thirty paces even at a sprint. And he knew even as he ran that he wouldn't make it. She was too fast. So instead of sprinting there directly, he zigzagged. After half a dozen paces in one direction he turned sharply to his right and watched out of the corner of his eye as she landed lightly on the ground where he would have been and hissed angrily when she realised he wasn't there.
Then she leapt back into the air to try and cut him off from where he was headed. He turned to the left the moment he saw her feet leave the ground.
Twist and turn. It was the only way he realised. The only chance he had without his sword or any armour. But it seemed to work. As long as he turned
after
she'd leapt. She couldn't turn as quickly in the air as he could on the ground. And little by little he made it to the pit. Somehow he even managed it without getting touched again. Which was good when he could feel the warm blood rolling down his arm.
Once there he instantly realised that his safety lay in always keeping the pit between them, and that was exactly what he did, much to the fury's annoyance. Under the roof she couldn't jump any more, not without hitting the roof and getting caught in the thatch. That meant that she also couldn't jump over the pit. She also knew enough to fear fire. In fact she kept hissing at it as if it was an actual creature threatening her and the vipers that were her hair kept lashing out at it angrily. But she couldn't go through it or jump over it and that left her with trying to go around it. Something that was incredibly awkward for her on those taloned feet. Harl was easily able to keep the pit between them as she moved to the left and right in awkward looking little hops.
That gave him a chance to gather his breath. To let his heart stop thundering quite so loud in his chest. And to think.
He was unarmed. He wasn't wearing any armour either. And Nyma was going to be upset about both of those things after he'd promised her he would be more careful. And he would be after this –
if
he lived. He was also bleeding. And the only thing keeping him alive was the fire pit between him and the hissing monster. Especially when she was clever enough to keep the racks of weapons behind her. That was smart actually. Smarter than any other chimera he'd encountered.
She was a true monster. A creature that made all the other chimera he'd seen look almost friendly. The writhing snakes she had in place of her hair were horrifying enough and the mouth with those huge fangs was worse. But then there was her skin.
Out in the sunshine it had looked normal enough, golden brown as if she'd been spending her days in the sun. But sheltered from the sun by the thatched roof and bathed in the light of the fire, it had suddenly become something else. Something unnatural. In that light her skin looked a waxy grey colour and it was covered in dark blue veins. It was the sort of skin you might find on a five day old corpse.
Or as he suddenly thought, on the thralls of demons. Everyone knew they decayed inside as they served. They hid it but the rot was there. Which had always made it seem strange to him that people would accept the denizens of Tartarus as their masters. They truly must want power to offer themselves to them. It also made him wonder: Could the fury be some sort of thrall as well? After all, if the false priests were then why not the chimera? And fire as every arcane smith knew, revealed the truth.
What the fire showed was that a part of what she was, was a lie. She was a monster, but even so there was something distinctly unearthly about her. As for her eyes they too were snake eyes he noticed. Yellow with dark slits in them. But by far the worst thing about those eyes was that they were staring straight at him. He was her prey. Her target – because he knew that she had been sent after him.