The Great Darkening (Epic of Haven Trilogy) (8 page)

Shameus took a long tug on his pipe. The mood of the tavern, or at least of those within earshot of the storyteller, seemed to mirror the temperature outside: cold.

Cal spoke up, “Well, does anyone know what is causing this? The disappearances, I mean?”

“I heard it’s the forest witches, angry at us for destroying their homes, so they’re using their witchery and turning people into saplings,” a toothless old man blurted out.

“No, you old fool!” said another old man who had been partaking of the tavern’s ale a bit too long. “It’s all these hungry wolves and nasty shadow cats! We have done hunted out the forestlands and then we turned and hunted the forest itself! What else do you suppose they eat?”

“It’s the law of nature,” said another proudly.

“If you just stay skinny, mean and bony enough … you’ll be the last one standing!” blurted the first old man.

Once again, the tavern erupted in laughter, and flagons of ale and mead clinked and clanked against their brother vessels. Speculation turned drunken debate continued from the wisest to the thirstiest in the Gnarly Knob. As Cal sat amidst the noise, his thoughts turned a bit darker and his laughter more nervous.

Keily broke up the wives tales and forest lore with an unexpected motherly announcement. “Now don’t you go filling this one’s mind with all that nonsense … why you all are nothing but a bunch of crooked old pine trees with more squirrel nuts than sap in those heads of yours. He is a paying customer, and is off to do a deed that I don’t see any of you lining up to perform!”

The men hooted back at her as she scolded them.

“You’d better not be scaring him off before he gets started … he will have plenty of time to be scared once he gets out there.” She winked at her father and the old patrons howled again in response.

She bent over and whispered in Cal’s ear, “Come on, you; let’s go get that horse of yours and I’ll show you to the stables myself.”

“Thanks for nothing,” Cal nervously teased back. He got up from the bar and bid his farewells to the old men. He stopped to pay Shameus for the meal and the bed and to offer his gratitude.

Shameus leaned in to take the money, and then grasping Cal’s arm, he spoke without jest and with a haunted look in his eye. “If you see, or feel, or even sense that something, anything, is not as it should be … it probably isn’t, lad. There are things far more frightening than cats, wolves, and witches that roam the northern territories. So you keep a sharp wit about you, and an even sharper axe.”

“Thank you. I … I will,” said Cal.

“Word is,” Shameus told him, “that the woodcutters are moving east. Once you pass under the great wall, the road will take you north, through the abandoned villages and the ruins of what once was the mighty forest at the base of the Hilgari Mountains.”

He turned and pointed with his long-handled pipe in the direction of the mountains. “You will see a stone altar there that is as tall as two grown men, engraved with the writings of the Priests and their sacred flints. Once you have reached the altar, follow the fens of Abonris eastward along the felled forest. There should be a steady stream of oxcarts and wagon tracks to guide you from there to the cutter camp in the east.”

Shameus looked at him with guarded consideration, for he had given these directions countless times, yet seldom heard of the arrival of the travelers he had guided. “Farewell, young Cal,” he said.

With that, Cal followed Keily out of the tavern to where Dreamer was hitched. She led him to the old abandoned stables at the rear of the Gnarly Knob and its adjacent inn.

“You must not let them scare you too badly,” Keily said with a soft wisdom to her words. “Although it is a dangerous assignment that you have … you will only make it more dangerous and dark if you allow yourself to add fear on top of it all.”

Keily opened the stable door and led him in as she continued her warning.

“Just stay close to those who know what they are doing and you will be just fine. Hollis is their leader; some call him their chief, but I call him uncle. He is a hard man, but a good man. Tell him that you are the friend of his ‘little splinter’. That’s what he used to call me when I was but a wee little girl.”

Cal looked at her quizzically.

“He says that I have a way of getting under his skin,” she laughed, “although I think he means that affectionately.”

“Your uncle seems like a very...” Cal thought about the word for a moment, “perceptive woodcutter.” He gave her a wry grin.

“Oh he is, don’t you worry!” Playful indignation colored her words. “You just tell him what I told you, and maybe he will help you keep from disappearing like the others.”

Keily showed Cal around the stable and brought in the least moldy bits of hay that she could find. She showed him where the pump and well were and offered to show him to his room, but Cal decided to bunk next to Dreamer in the old stable. He was a little unnerved to leave his horse out here by herself in this strange land of disappearing horses—and if he were altogether honest with himself, he was a little nervous to be inside alone all night with just his thoughts to drive him mad.

“Suit yourself,” she said, “but my father has a strict habit of not returning money once it has made its home in his pocket!”

“Then perhaps in return for my coin and the now-empty room, you could help me start a fire to keep me and Dreamer warm.”

Keily agreed, and she brought a rusted brazier and some kindling to make fire enough to keep them from freezing. In the spirit of hospitality she also brought a jug of ale and a loaf of bread for them to break their fast after they had made their rest.

“And with that I will bid you good night,” she said as she handed over the last of the provisions. Smiling a most kind and sincere smile she said. “Be safe, Cal. I will say a prayer for you. Maybe one day our paths will cross again.”

The earnestness in her eyes caused Cal’s cheeks to flush, and he nodded his goodbye quietly. She leaned in close, kissed him on his burning cheeks, and laughed a girlish giggle, leaving him and Dreamer to make their rest.

When she left their stall, Cal laid the horse blanket on the stall floor and made his bed next to his friend, though sleep did not come easily to him.

Chapter Nine

T
hat
night, as Cal and Dreamer slept in the sparse bed of hay in the old stable of the Gnarly Knob near the border of Piney Creek, an Owele flew inside, undetected. He perched himself high in the rafters of the old building, silently watching the two sleeping travelers. Cal’s rest turned instantly troubled as he was visited by the haunting Owele dream all over again. As before, the Oweles were closing in on him, tightening the circle around him with half-eaten serpents in their clutches.

Like the other times when the Oweles came to his dreams, Cal fought against his paralyzed limbs with desperate force, hoping against hope that he could wake his sleeping legs and flee. If one would have happened upon the stable that night and witnessed the restless slumber of Cal and Dreamer, it would have seemed as if they were mad. Their moaning and twitching made it appear that a fever of deadly fire had caught ablaze in their minds.

It is doubtful, however, that one would have noticed the violet-colored eyes peering down from the aged and splintered rafters, and even more doubtful that one would have guessed those eyes to be the cause of such a fever.

Cal screamed in his dream, “What do you want with me? If you want to eat me, then go ahead and eat me already! What is it that you are after?”

Calarmindon
.
It is you that we are after
.

Cal woke with a jolt. Though it was cold in the darkening North, he was wet with sweat and his heart was racing within his chest.

As Cal tried to shake the effects of the terrible nightmare, he heard a sound that made his blood run cold. The notes of dreaded disaster that had haunted all of Haven these last seventy-three years pierced through the cold night air like a harbinger of doom. Cal heard the fearsome music ringing on the winds from the south, bellowed out from the golden trumpets whose very notes carried with them a palpable sense of terror. The Priests had ordered the three enormous trumpets to be fashioned not long after the branches began to fall and the first shadows darkened the Kingdom of Haven.

With each fallen branch, the Priests would blow the three trumpets seven times. The horns, housed in the highest turret of the great Citadel, would blast loud and long. It is said that, within the walled city of the Kingdom of Haven, not a note from the famed trumpets could go unheard.

And so it was that yet another branch fell, and the strength of the once-eternal flames of the dying tree shrank back in grim retreat.

The sound of the trumpets, though always distressing, was decidedly more fear-inducing on this particular occasion. Citizens of the border town awoke in a panic, and cries were heard in dark harmony all across the land. The branches had been dying at the rate of one every seven years, or so the Priests had recorded. This darkening … was
four years
too early.

“It’s not possible,” Cal whispered into the darkness of the stable as the sound of the terrible horns finally ceased. “What could it mean?”

He let the uneasy question hang heavy in the air for a moment before he made up his mind. “I’ll tell you what it means,” he told Dreamer, “It means there is going to be high demand for backs at the cutter camp, and I for one would rather get on our way in time enough for us to still be able to see how to get there.”

With that, Cal and Dreamer got to their feet to make ready for the journey. Dreamer drank deep from the trough while Cal drank his ale and ate half the loaf of bread that Keily had brought him the night before.

With saddle in place, they made their way down the center of town towards the northernmost gate, which Cal knew to be the last sign of civilized safety. The night watchmen did not spend much time in questioning Cal, for with all the panic that came from the sounding of the Priests’ horns, all hands were focused on quelling any uprising that may occur.

There was a finality to the booming sound of the iron portcullis of the Northern Gate locking shut behind him. It was not that he thought he would never pass through the iron gates again. Yet he knew somehow he would never,
could
never, be the same person to pass back through them.

Or maybe it was that he knew Haven would not be the same.

This thought, surprisingly enough, made it easier for Cal to put haste to his journey. There was an air of purpose and expectancy about this assignment, however dreaded it might be.

Beyond the Northern Gate of Haven, the outlying lands were almost completely brown. If there were once trees in this part of the country, they had been among the very first to fall. With no shade or protection from the rather unpredictable and severe weather, and no forests for boars and deer to make their home in, most of the outlying villagers fled south many years ago, leaving behind the decaying remains of forgotten house and hearth.

The road was stone, paved with pride by those who once sought to make the walled city the envy of the whole of the world in the days before the branches fell. The carefully laid stones ran long and far beyond the gates until they reached the edge of the ravaged forest at the base of the rocky heights of the Hilgari.

After more than a half-day’s ride, the stone road ended abruptly in a sea of stumps as far as the eye could see. These were the grave markers of a once-green land. It was here that the road turned to dirt, marked by the well-worn paths of the oxcarts that brought timber to the city.

“This must be the end of civilization,” Cal said to his mare. “Looks like it’s mud and earth for us now, huh?”

Dreamer snorted in reply to his words, and Cal gave her the click of his tongue and the tap of his boots. Soon enough they continued their journey without the luxury of paved roads.

The light was much dimmer out beyond the safety of the walls. However, at any position along the road, one could turn southward and still see the diminishing flames of the burning tree glittering against the black granite walls of Mount Aureole.

Cal and Dreamer went deeper into the once great forest in search of the stone altar that Shameus had directed them towards. They had come only a short distance into the rocky, stump-laden hill land when they came across a small creek. Cal decided they deserved to stop and rest a while.

He led Dreamer to the creek and then looked for a place to relax for a moment. He lay upon the brown grass and did his best to stretch his road-weary back. His eyes, heavy from the restless night before and fatigued from the early rising and the long road traveled, closed without so much as a protest. Unwelcome and unwisely, sleep came fast upon him.

The very same eyes, however, were jolted open like lightening bolts when their accompanying ears were filled with the blood-chilling howl of a wolf.

Cal scrambled to his feet, angry with himself for falling asleep, trying to take account of his surroundings. “No wolves yet,” he mumbled, “so at least we have time to make it out of here before they come looking to make us their supper.” His words were meant for Dreamer, who served as a dependable ear for his intermittent mutterings, but as he spoke he realized that she was not where he had left her.

He searched the horizon frantically, his eyes darting through the sea of stumps in an effort to find his only companion. Panic crept into his already anxious mind, for she was not by the stream and he dared not think of what kind of journey this would become if he were forced to trudge through the unforgiving territory with nothing more than his own two weary feet.

His mind raced and his heart pounded until his eyes found exactly what they had been searching for.

There, almost out of sight, down by the riverbank, Dreamer was grazing on some of the last remaining bits of green along the dwindling creek beds. Cal rose, brushing off the dust and dirt, and set off in her direction to retrieve his horse so that they might resume their journey.

The closer he got to Dreamer, though, the stranger the scene became; it seemed that she was not grazing on grass or riverweed, but rather she was chewing on the tops of carrots. This, indeed, would be a welcome meal for any a horse, but Cal had brought with him no carrots at all.

Just then, at almost the same moment Cal came to the conclusion that the carrots did not just so happen to be found growing alongside this stream, he heard a demanding voice call out from behind him.

“You there! If you want to come out of this with all that nice, warm, red blood still inside your scrawny bag of bones, you will halt this instant!”

Cal began to spin around and find out just who it was that was behind him, but as he felt the point of a blade pricking at the back of his neck, he froze where he was.

“That little creek right there has done made us some pretty rich men, it has!” said another voice with a mix of excitement and pride in his tone.

“Indeed she has,” the first voice agreed. “This is the part where you give us your valuables, and that there mare of yours, and we let you leave with your life.”

“But you have me mistaken for someone else,” protested Cal. “I don’t have much that’s worth anything, and that horse is not even mine, it’s the property of the Citadel.”

The poking sensation in the back of Cal’s neck deepened, and the first voice said, “Why don’t you just let us be the judge of that?”

Cal felt the stranger’s hands reach into his pockets and fumble around in his cloak, looking for purses or hidden treasures or anything of value. Then, in one swift, violent motion, two hands twisted him around so he was now face-to-face with his blade-wielding assailants. A man around twenty years Cal’s senior, with a greying beard and an oddly styled, rusted helm grabbed his wrists and examined his hands for rings or signs of nobility.

“I have already told you that I have nothing worth your having!” Cal pleaded.

“That’s what they all say,” said the second man as he made his way over to retrieve Dreamer, who was innocently munching on the carrots.

“I … I am on my way north, assigned to the woodcutters. What treasures do wise men bring on the roads to the cutter camps? What worth do they have in parts such as these?” Cal retorted.

“Riches enough to grant me a swifter mount than my own,” said the grey-bearded bandit with clever assuredness in his voice. While Cal pleaded with the thief, the second man led Dreamer by the reins back towards the highwayman and his protesting victim.

“Surrender your gold, your jewels, your sword and steed, and we shall let you live,” said grey-beard as he raised his sword towards Cal once more.

“I have already told you—” Cal began to speak with exasperation, but was abruptly cut off by the screech of an Owele that echoed upon the wind. Just as before, Cal froze, his movements suspended by the hold of the Owele.

The would-be robbers looked at Cal in dumbfounded amazement as he stood there, still as stone. Before they knew what was happening, a large Owele dove directly at the face of the horse.

Dreamer, remembering the last instance of bird and talon, reared up on her hind legs with a horrified scream. She kicked loose from the grasp of the second man and bolted northward, running as fast as her frightened hooves would take her.

Almost as quickly as the Owele came, it disappeared, releasing Cal from its all-too-familiar trance and clearly unsettling the thieves in the process.

“What in hell was that?” yelled grey-beard as he looked skyward in defiant outrage.

His cohort just shrugged a useless shrug, content to not be blamed for the horse’s escape.

“Argh!” the first man grunted to himself. “Curses, curses, curses.” He spat, pacing back and forth while debating his next move. “What else do you have to make this up to me, boy?” he asked finally, disgust dripping from his words.

“As I have told you twice, sir … all I have is an
assignment
for which I will now be doubly late, and I owe my deepest thanks to you and your cowardly companion for having lost my only means of arriving to it.” Cal answered with an equal amount of disgust.

“Sharp words from one who forgets he has no blade,” the man reminded Cal as he pressed the very point of his sword against Cal’s breastbone.

A peculiar look came over the thief’s face, for as his blade rested upon Cal’s chest, there was no grimace of pain or recoiling of body, and he felt no softness of flesh against the tip of his sword. He spoke curiously, “Just what do we have here that guards the neck of this brash and unlucky wayfarer?”

With a twist of his wrist, grey-beard hooked the leather thong that held the leaf-shaped flint Michael had given to Cal as a gift for his journey. His perturbed look softened a bit, for he now saw that not all was lost in the coming of the Owele.

“It seems that you, boy, are not as truthful as you claim to be.” He took the flint in his hand and yanked it hard, popping the thong off from around Cal’s neck in an angered act of bullying force. “Though I might not be able to ride faster and further as I had once hoped when I … I mean,
we
,” his companion nodded in agreement, “first planned on acquiring that now-vanished horse of yours, it seems that at least we will be a bit warmer tonight.”