Nightfall (Book 1) (5 page)

I managed to turn around and there, before me, stood a man easily reaching seven feet in height. He stared intently at me, a malicious snarl contorting his face. Of his flesh I could see only his ears and the part of his face that was not hidden by his helm. His ears were pointed and his skin was an unhealthy grey-green with a bruised and sickened hue to it. He was covered in a strange black armor that did not restrict his movements in any way, but seemed to flow with his body. In his right hand hung a twenty-feet-long, leather whip, studded with metal and sporting steel barbs along the latter half of its length. At his left hip he carried a longsword made of blackened metal.

I tried again to run, but still was unable to force my legs to work. The creature came up to me, grabbed me by the throat and lifted me so that I was at eye level with him, dangling a few feet above the cobblestone street. I could feel his breath on my face and it was colder than the iced over flesh of a dead
creature. Looking into his eyes, I realized who he was—or had been.

When I suddenly awoke, all I could remember of the dream were the frantic screams of people running from some horrible fate, which frustrated me because I knew there was something I had seen at the end that had sparked something in my mind. I tried to go back to sleep, but I could not relax with the perplexing shadows of the dream haunting my thoughts.

~ ~ ~

I woke again with Arrats’ and Ekaitz’ faces filling my view. “What is wrong with sleeping indoors?” I looked around and remembered my dream about Alaia and Koldobika, and the letter from the wizard, but it was a long time before I remembered the other things my unconscious mind had seen.

“I could not sleep.” My blurred words were barely understandable.

“Why not?”
Arrats asked.

“I…um…I do not remember,” I said, yawning and rendering the words far less intelligible.

Arrats grunted and Ekaitz asked, “Nightmare?”

I looked at him with mild irritation. “I do not recall the reason.”

“Okay, okay.”

I stood and flung my blanket through the door, then peeked behind me to see that Arrats and Ekaitz were looking in the opposite direction. I slid my hand in my pocket to make sure the letter was still there. It was. “Have you guys eaten yet?” I asked, turning around.

“No, we were waiting for you to wake up.”

“But you sure took your own time,” Ekaitz laughed, adding to Arrats’ answer.

The wind whistled and hissed through the rows of cornstalks lining the field that Ekaitz and I darted across. I attacked Ekaitz one last time with the cornstalk I wielded, and he quickly blocked it; the stalks shattered from the impact and their deteriorating condition, and chunks exploded in every direction. With the remaining length of his makeshift weapon, my friend attacked and I had to tumble out of his range. I came back to my feet with just enough time to tear another stalk from the ground and raise it in defense. We pulverized a few more cornstalks on our way back to the cellar and found Eskarne waiting for us when we got there. She sat cross-legged near the top of the stairs, soaking in the warm, late summer sun. “When did you get here?” She ignored me for a moment, her head tilted back and her eyes closed.

“I was bored and thought you fellows might miss me.” An amused smile tugged at her mouth as she opened her eyes.

“Sorry to disappoint you, but I am more interested in a book right now,” Ekaitz said. “The two of you could go for a walk,” he suggested airily, meaning that he would like us to leave him alone, uninterrupted in his reading.

“Or we could explore the Wall,” I suggested, excited by the possible chance of exploring the small opening, the location of which I had stumbled upon the night previous.

“Without me?” Ekaitz asked incredulously.

“It is your choice.” He chuckled and jaunted down the stairs and into the semi-darkness of the cellar from which—past experience told me—he would not emerge for hours.

“What are we looking for?” Eskarne queried as we walked toward the Wall. “We have never been able to find anything. The bloody thing is impenetrable.”

I shrugged. “You wanted to be entertained and this is my proposition.” She glared at me—it was nothing new.
“Patience.” I grabbed her shoulders and pushed her gently to keep her walking in the direction I was headed. “Ah, there it is,” I whispered and Eskarne’s curiosity finally got the best of her.

“What is it? What are you talking about?” I indicated a deeply shadowed spot at the foot of the Wall. Weeds rose from the ground to partly obscure the shadowy recess and it was barely visible. “That? It is nothing more than a shadow.”

Before uncovering the aperture I checked to make sure there were no beings that could see us and therefore make our actions known. Ekaitz was indisposed, Arrats was still absent and the only things visible were the cornfields, and rooftops of a few buildings beyond the fields. Voices floated on the air but none of the people they belonged to were near enough to see us. I pulled back the weeds and vines which hung from the Wall and crawled through. As brave as Eskarne was, I thought it only proper that I should go first as we entered an unknown territory.

The opening was two feet high, but just beyond, the ceiling
rose another couple of feet. The tunnel was wide enough that I could easily crawl through and I could not correctly guess at its length; it was more or less straight with only a few places where it bent enough that the spaces beyond were obscured from view. Jagged rocks, broken sticks and sharp thorns littered the bottom of the tunnel, digging through our clothes and piercing our skin when we were not careful. Once through, we found ourselves in the strangest land imaginable—or so I thought, as I had never before seen trees. The tallest works of nature I had seen were cornstalks; what I saw there was not at all like anything I had ever before seen.

~ ~ ~

Beyond the Wall was far from what I had expected it to be—though there really was no distinct expectation I had held for it. A thick blanket of moss crept high up the side of the Wall and fringed the tunnel exit in a soft mane. At the base of the Wall a strip of blighted land lay as a void stretching between the imposing stone structure and the lofty reaches of forest that lay beyond. The forest rose as a dark, gloom-exuding mass. The tree trunks were black and the leaves of such a dark green that they could easily be mistaken for the same color; moss of a variety of dark, metallic tones hung from the trees’ branches. Dew was gathered on every surface and try as hard as it might, the sunlight would never make its way through the crevices of the forest canopy to release the moisture into the sky. In many places the drops of gathered moisture could be seen dripping from the springy fungus, which hung limply from the branches, and onto the thickly carpeted forest floor.

In the distance I could hear unearthly cries of evil triumph, cries of anger, and cries of terror, the sources of which I could not begin to guess. “Wow,” Eskarne whispered in awe, her voice nearly inaudible. I glanced at her and saw pure wonder written on her face. “This place is creepy,” she whispered, smiling at me.
“Much—much—better than Caernadvall.” She let her gaze wander again across the front of the monolithic trees and then back to me. “What do you think Arrats or Ekaitz would say if they saw this?”

I shrugged. I was not even sure what to say myself.

“We should look around,” she suggested; I supposed that there was no harm in going a short distance past the forest edge, so I followed her across the ring of barren land.

Almost to the tree front, I asked uneasily, “Are you sure about this?”

“Absolutely.” I was positive there had been a quiver of uncertainty in her voice, but I let it slide as we crept onto the soft carpet of moss lining the forest floor. Deep within the gloom I thought I saw a quick flash of red, but whatever it was, it disappeared as quick as it had appeared.

“Izotz,” Eskarne’s voice was lowered to a whisper again as she said my name. “What was that?” Apparently she had seen the same phenomenon, but if I had known the answer, I would not have had time enough to say it before something huge came crashing through the trees toward us. We turned and bolted for the tunnel.

“Go,” I shouted and Eskarne raced ahead of me and dove into the opening. I followed seconds behind her, but with far less grace. I felt the singeing heat of fire on my calves and caught a quick glance of dying flames flickering midair at the tunnel’s mouth. The hanging strands of moss withered and died, turning a sickly brown as they wilted. I followed close behind Eskarne as we scrambled from the mouth of the tunnel, fast as we could. I opened my mouth to speak, but she hissed at me to be quiet and pointed out the rise and fall of unfamiliar voices close at hand. We crouched as low to the ground as was possible—without falling on our faces—as we raced across the cornfield, careful not to disturb any of the plants which would give away our presence. Even after we had put a bit of a distance between the voices and ourselves, we kept close to the ground, at a quick pace. We hurried across the empty space surrounding my home and dropped easily to the floor of the roofless portion of the cellar. I forced the air from my lungs in one long gush. “That was close,” I finally said as we leaned back against the stone wall, finally able to calm the fierce pumping of adrenaline racing through our veins. We both smiled and chuckled briefly in relief.

“What if—”

Eskarne cut herself off as Ekaitz’ face appeared through the tanned hide door. “What in the name of Lietha were the two of you doing?”

“We went for a walk?” Eskarne offered, still panting slightly.

“And you could not resist playing a prank on some poor Guard?” Ekaitz joked.

I coughed purposely. “Something
like that,” I lied.

“Would I happen to know the poor, undeserving lout?” Eskarne laughed and said that it was not likely. “I know a few who could use some good one-on-one time.” A wide grin spread across his face as he said it.

“Aye, ‘tis quite true,” Eskarne said in a posh manner. Her refined attitude made Ekaitz and I laugh at the irony of it and Ekaitz disappeared back inside, the smile still lingering on his face.

Eskarne leaned in close to me, and whispered in my ear, “I feel like we need to warn the people.” I nodded, not voicing my own opinion that it would not even be worth the time we spent doing it. She then continued, “But if the King or any of his Guards finds out about what we have done,
csst
.” She drew a line across her neck, with her finger, symbolizing death by beheading.

“Agreed.”
I stood up. “Want to go back?” She looked up at me for a moment, in confusion, before shrugging noncommittally. Deep down I knew I would be returning one day, but when—I could not be sure; hopefully it would be sooner, rather than later. I gave Eskarne my hand and hoisted her to her feet before we followed Ekaitz inside and inquired whether or not Arrats had made an appearance since our earlier departure.

Apparently Arrats had shown up only minutes before the two of us had returned, asked where we had wandered off to and had then proceeded to leave again. Eskarne suggested that we go and find him so we left Ekaitz alone with his book—an old tome we had found carelessly discarded in someone’s garbage pile. That book was the only one any of us could remember ever having owned and, since we were among the few street urchins who could read, it was one of our more prized possessions.

“Should we tell Ekaitz and Arrats of our discovery?”

I thought about pointing out the fact that I had seen the tunnel long before her, but discarded it, knowing that the true discovery was not solely to my credit. "I would love to see their reactions, and I do think we should tell them, but not yet.”

“Can you keep it a secret?” she asked, only halfway serious.

“Possibly,” I teased.

“You better.” She glared at me as she began weaving her way through the crowded street we had just come upon and I had to hurry to catch up.

~ ~ ~

It took us quite some time to find Arrats but eventually—with the help of the streets’ grapevine—we found him just in time to watch him win a pride-centered bet between him and the leader of a rival pack. In the gathered crowd I saw a handful of scamps my trio had close ties with and some with far distant ties whom I vaguely recalled meeting. When Arrats finally won his bet, it became obvious that the majority of those gathered were in favor of him and not his opponent. After finding him it took some effort and not a small amount of time to tear him away from admirers and random friends. As we walked away from the dissipating crowd Eskarne mentioned that Arrats seemed to have quite a few admirers. “Should I leave the two of you alone with this conversation?” I joked. Arrats objected and Eskarne glared hotly at me.

As we returned home I eventually remembered the small note from Koldobika, that I still carried in
my pocket, and I abandoned them to a random conversation about the antics of someone-or-other. I wandered haphazardly through the streets of Caernadvall as I slowly made my way home, hoping to find an open fire somewhere along my path.

The setting sun had begun sending rays of crimson, yellow, orange, and other shades across the skies before I found what I was looking for. An old man sat wrapped in a threadbare blanket on a small crate next to a fire in an old iron basket hugging the stone wall of a short building. I greeted the man kindly as I approached and then tossed the paper into his fire, engaging him in small talk as I watched the remains of the parchment succumb to the flames and turn to smoke and ash. “May good fortune go with you,” I said graciously as I walked away. The man nodded his thanks, smiling for what was likely to be both the first and last time that week. It pained me to see so many people homeless and without a caring hand in their lives, but there was nothing I knew that I could do that would make a permanent difference for any of them.