Samples from books that we have published at Eartherean Books.
This is another in a series from the third book in the 4-book series The Doom-Quest of Ara-Karn: The Iron Gate.
© 2009 by A. Adam Corby
This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 License.
The Sontil
FAR FROM TARENDAHARDIL, brightward of the grassy steppe of the Eglands, a chain of mountains ran North to South. As hills and islands, the chain leapt up from Elna’s Sea; as it ran South it swept darkward, like the bent of a well-made shield. Brightward of the mountains were Goddess, the Desert, and the sunstruck cities of Postio, the Delbas, Ilkas, Bollakarvil. Darkward lay the fertile lands of the Empire. Between them stood the mountains, a waste of rock and cold. None dwelt there, not even wolves. Not even the terrible armies of Ara-Karn, that had crossed the burning wastes of the Taril itself, had dared mount those slopes, but had instead marched beneath them, invading the Empire by the Southern Way of Vapio.
In the shadow of those mountains was a region even more shunned.
It was a forest. Yet no mere notion of forest could encompass that ancient, brooding, sullen land. It was furtive, secretive, shameful, like some stagnant, unwholesome sea.
Of the rains that fell upon the mountains, one part fell upon the sunward side, two upon the shadow. The sunward waters fed the Delba, the second-greatest river in the South. The waters of the shadowside drained into fens and brackish pools, whence no river survived.
Runaway slaves from time to time escaped into that forest, to live like beasts away from the cruelty of their masters. Many entered, none returned. It was said that they shed their clothing and went on all fours, and they became strange and forlorn monsters, feared even by the beasts.
Pharokul, seventeenth Emperor of Tarendahardil, commanded that a road be built through the southern fringes of the forest. Pharokul desired a road shorter than the Sea Way between Bollakarvil and Tarendahardil. Imperial engineers reported that the soil upon which the road would rest was firm, dry and level. Ten thousand laborers, under the command of the finest engineers, set forth to build the roadway.
In less than a week, ten passes of dark God overhead, all messages from the camp ceased. Three passes later, when the first supply train reached the campsite, it found a scene of horror. The camp walls were broken and scattered like straw. Tools and scraps of clothing were strewn everywhere. The beaten earth was pungent with human blood and refuse. In seven passes’ search not one body, nor any part of one, was found.
Ten thousand men had vanished.
They had completed two fastces of the roadway, less than the distance a man could walk in an hour.
This forest, ancient beyond even the legends of the high kings of Vapio, would not even own a name. Upon the Imperial maps it existed as a shapeless stain upon the parchment, marked simply Sontil, the Wood.
Birds, it was said, rarely flew over the Sontil.
Wood cut from the trees of the Sontil, when burned, released a smoke that was poisonous to all living things.
Other things were also said of the Sontil, but they were less believable.
Inozelstus of Anoth, the legendary traveler and philosopher, ventured beyond the knife-edged border and spent a season among the Madpriests, being every moment in danger of his life. But he never dared set foot within the Sontil.
The trees of the Sontil rose and fell like tidal currents of some painted sea. Upon one hill-like swell of that fantastic growth, a orin tree rose above the others like a stone tower. Older than Elna was that tree, scarred by lightning and stormwind yet balefully defiant; its roots clutched the hill upon which it grew like a knotted fist.
In the windwoven, uppermost branches of that monument of branch and leaf, a tiny figure clung. The winds parted the leaves and revealed the figure in greater detail.
It was the figure of a man.
Piebald in the shadows of the leaves, wrapping both arms about the branches, his mouth loose and open in the too-swift air, the lord Ampeánor, High Charan of Rukor and betrothed of the Empress Allissál, looked out on the Sontil.
When the winds abated somewhat, he made his way back down the trunk.
He wore a simple woolen tunic, shoes of soft leather, a belt, and a torn shoulder-mantle. A sword was tied to his back and a heavy war-knife caught in his belt. His legs and arms were brown, his hair long, his beard grown full.
As he descended, he climbed down into darkness.
The light of the upper branches gave way to shadow, the shadow of the middle branches gave way to gloom.
In an hour, Ampeánor reached the lowest branches, dead now for centuries, brittle, leafless, and dry. He hung ten fathoms above the forest floor. It was so dark that he could only dimly make out the ground. Distant overhead danced a scattering of pallid points. That was all of Heaven that reached here.
Ampeánor climbed down another six or seven fathoms. He reached the lowest branches. He hung for a moment by his arms, then let go. He landed in a thick growth of grayish moss that broke beneath him with the sound of a wet sponge. From the gash mounted a sickening exhalation.
Tethered to the orin’s grotesquely-arching giant roots, a warhorse waited. Ampeánor offered the beast a bundle of leaves he had gathered at the summit. The horse nibbled it, then turned away. Ampeánor stroked the horse’s flank. He felt bones beneath the slack, dry skin. His heart went out to the warhorse. It had been a fine beast when he took it from the stables of his estate on the outskirts of Tarendahardil. It had been one of his best for strength and endurance.
‘Your horse is dying, Southron.’
Some paces away, a half-naked figure was bound to the high arch of a root. His head was round like a ball and set directly into the great barreled chest. His arms were long and massive, the legs short and knotted as the root to which they were tied. If an ox had mated with a hardy woman, this man might have been their issue.
Such was Gundoen, chieftain of the far North.
Ampeánor untied him so that he was free of the root but his arms and knees were still fettered.
He answered him in the barbarian tongue. ‘Do you want to eat?’
Gundoen shrugged. Despite his bonds, it was a disdainful gesture. ‘Do you want to feed me?’
§
AMPEÁNOR ate on the bank of a dark, oily stream at the foot of the hill. The barbarian lay a few paces away. Ampeánor had left a bit of meat and a wooden bowl filled with water by the barbarian’s head. The bonds never came off.
It seemed to Ampeánor as though they had gone far enough to have reached the dark horizon by now. But even from the summit of the orin he had glimpsed no end to these woods.
He groaned softly.
What went on in the world outside? Was the League of Elna formed? How far had the barbarian armies marched? Had Allissál recovered? And what of the Gerso, Ennius Kandi? Ampeánor knew he was a traitor – perhaps the man had been found out by now?
‘Hey – Southron,’ the barbarian said. ‘What’s that around your neck?’
Ampeánor saw that the tooth had slipped above his tunic during the climb. Heavy, longer than a span, the tooth curved to a wicked yellow point.
‘A gift.’
‘That is a Darkbeast tooth,’ the barbarian said. ‘Only the bravest of our hunters have the right to wear one. Only those who have helped bring down a Darkbeast with their own spears. And Darkbeasts dwell only about the foothills of Urnostardil in the far North. They are huge as huts, with hides tough as armor. They can devour a pony in a single gulp. Not even I have hunted Darkbeast. How did a Southron come by a Darkbeast tooth?’
Ampeánor did not mind the barbarian’s insults. The silence here needed words, even with such a one as this. ‘Gen-Karn, your former Warlord, presented it to me in Tezmon. He is our ally now, and works against your god-king.’
‘He is dead,’ Gundoen answered. ‘The hand of Ara-Karn reached out and snatched him from afar.’
The hand of the Gerso rather, Ampeánor thought. He bound the barbarian to the root once more. Ampeánor’s ribs still ached from the time the barbarian had caught him unawares and knocked him sprawling.
‘Sleep well, barbarian. Next waking we go faster.’
Ampeánor settled himself in the damp moss. Deep in those malignant woods, his dreams were never peaceful. After a time he opened his eyes.
The barbarian slept soundly, but before Ampeánor stood another figure. It was the figure of a bent old woman wrapped in rotten folds of cloth festooned with curling leaves of strange colors.
Ampeánor recognized her as Melkarth, the ancient seeress whose hut stood at the border between the mountains and the Sontil.
She leaned on a carven staff and leered at him. ‘You were not right, my lord,’ she croaked, ‘to use my name in your lies. Do you not know that this man’s woman is a sister of mine? Now it will be the worse for you.’
She turned into the gloom.
Ampeánor called after her. ‘Wait! What can you tell me of the wars, and of Allissál?’ But she neither paused nor answered.
He stood, minded to follow her, but in the movement started as if waking. He looked about. He could not tell if it had been truth or dream.
The barbarian eyed Ampeánor coldly. Ampeánor caught up his sword.
‘Free me, let us eat and be gone,’ Gundoen growled.
Ampeánor untied him from the root. ‘And how did your sleep go, barbarian? Not comfortably, I hope.’
The massive shoulders shrugged as if in pain. ‘I dreamed of my wife, Hertha-Toll.’
§
THE BARBARIAN stumbled, and Ampeánor rode distractedly. They made poor progress. Ampeánor was not sure which way to go. After the fifth meal, he was reluctant to start again. The half-rotten wood of his fire burned poorly, with a great deal of smoke.
Ampeánor looked from the flames to the barbarian. The blood of Ampeánor’s kill had run over the barbarian’s beard and further stained his filthy, bug-ridden tunic. Even so the chieftain was impressive, even dignified.
‘Northman,’ Ampeánor said at length, gazing back into the flames. He spoke, but he would have preferred to remain silent.
‘Yes.’
‘Your fellows have abandoned you.’
Gundoen snorted. ‘They set trackers on our trail. They were fine men, among the best trackers of the far North.’
‘You recognized them?’
‘I knew their calls.’
‘Those men are dead. I killed them.’
‘How do you know?’
Ampeánor looked up. ‘You saw their heads.’
‘It was not an unworthy deed,’ the barbarian said. ‘But how do you know you took then all?’
‘If there were others, they lost our trail long ago. No one pursues us now.’
‘Others will come.’
‘They will never find you. There are only the two of us here. If we parted, you would be as lost as I am – more so.’
‘I know my way through woods.’
‘What would you do if I freed you?’
‘I think first I would crack your ribs between my arms. That was a wrestling-hold I ever liked.’
‘Chieftain, I am in earnest.’
Gundoen frowned. ‘You would free me?’
‘Yes.’
‘Cut loose these bonds? Let me sleep and walk as a man?’
‘Yes.’
‘Let me go back to my warriors?’
‘No.’
Ampeánor rose and walked around the fire. The smoke stung his eyes, drawing water.
‘What then, Southron?’
‘What has gone on in the world these past weeks? The lamed pace we keep is too slow. If you were free, we could go faster. You could help me hunt.’
‘And how will you know I won’t murder you in your sleep?’
‘You will swear an oath to remain and work me no ill.’
‘An oath upon the head of your Empress?’
‘An oath upon your people, your wife, and the first chieftain of your tribe.’
The barbarian growled. ‘And how do you know our ways so well, that you can pick the oath I would never break?’
‘Will you swear?’
‘As soon as we reach your land, I will be bound by no oaths. I will not go like a mare into the dark grove of your city.’
‘When we reach the Eglands, Tarendahardil will not be far. Then I will bind you again, and release you from your oath. It is only while we are here in the Sontil I will have your word.’
The barbarian shook his head.
Ampeánor sighed. He went to see to his poor horse. He stretched out beneath his cloak. The fire was now reduced to a few wan embers, and the dark, damp Sontil was cold with winter’s heralds.
‘Southron.’ Now it was Gundoen who spoke reluctantly.
‘Yes.’
‘I will swear your oath.’
The silence of the wood filled the little space. ‘Then speak it.’
‘By my people, by my wife, and by Tont-Ornoth, first chieftain of my tribe, I will not harm you or try to flee while we are in these woods. Cut me free now, that I may sleep in ease.’
Ampeánor rose and cut the barbarian’s bonds. Then he returned to his place, drew his cloak over him, and closed his eyes.
Across the fire, Gundoen chafed and slapped his wrists and ankles. Then the barbarian went to the stream by which they had camped. He splashed in the water and beat his tunic on a rock to dry. He scratched a bed out of the moss and bark and began to snore.
Ampeánor, lying moveless with war-knife in hand underneath the cloak, got no rest at all that sleep.
When the time came for the end of sleep Ampeánor rose. Gundoen rose as well. The two men regarded each other.
Something had happened, but Ampeánor did not like to think what it was.
He had begun to trust the barbarian.
§
THEY MADE good progress thereafter. Ampeánor rode while Gundoen ran alongside, leaping like an animal. They hunted together and took counsel on their way. They even found a path, bare and hard as a stone, and three fathoms wide.
Ampeánor was thankful for it for a boon of Goddess, but Gundoen shook his head.
‘What troubles you?’ Ampeánor asked.
‘Lend me your knife.’ The barbarian thrust the blade into the ground. He pried up a chunk and crumbled it in his fingers. A bit of it he tasted, then spat with a growl. ‘I do not like this trail.’
‘Why?’
‘Taste the dirt yourself.’
Ampeánor smelled it. The dirt did give off a strange odor. It seemed to Ampeánor he had encountered the odor long before, and yet he knew he never had. ‘What do you fear?’
Gundoen grinned like a calynx baring its teeth. ‘I do not fear my death much, and yours even less.’
‘Gundoen, I will follow this trail. I know not what men or beasts may have formed it in the past, and I do not care. It goes the way we want, and will bring us faster out of the wood.’
‘Then kick your horse’s rump and move, Southron.’
For two passes they followed the trail. The path remained the same width and for the most part ran straight before them like the nether half of a manmade tunnel. Now and then it curved one way then the other, like a wriggle, before taking back its constant course.
They found no beasts near that path. They were forced to consume dried meat from past kills.
On the third pass the trail began to slope downward. At first Ampeánor thought they were descending the side of a hill, but when the two men lay down for the longsleep the land still fell before them and the light was dimmer, so that Ampeánor knew they were descending into a great valley.
All the next waking they followed the path down into the earth. Only vague forms could be perceived beyond twenty paces in the darkness. Ampeánor was uneasy, but little minded to admit that he had been wrong and the barbarian right. Besides, the memory of Melkarth hung upon his mind. He had begun to feel a dread of this wood, and longed to be free of it.
After the fourth meal, the barbarian spoke. ‘We better go faster, Southron.’ Ampeánor had slowed their pace. In the growing darkness he feared for his horse.
‘Why? Will you still not tell me?’
‘You will know that sooner than you please.’
‘I’ll not risk my steed.’
‘He is dead now, Southron.’
‘He soon will be if I make him go faster with his burden.’
‘Then give me its burden.’
The barbarian unslung the pack from the horse’s flank. The wood-axe clanked against one of the pans, and the lance swung through the air. Gundoen threw the heavy pack across his shoulders and started down the path in long strides.
‘Not so quickly!’ Ampeánor cried, but the barbarian paid no heed. ‘Stay, curse you! What of your oath?’
The barbarian was lost in darkness. Weirdly muffled by the packed earth of the black trail, his voice came back to Ampeánor:
‘Oaths mean nothing when dead men hold them!’
Ampeánor cursed, and pricked the horse. The horse stumbled and fell and Ampeánor struck the hard, slimy earth. He heard the horse trotting down the path. It nickered as it went, though from what, fear or anger? Ampeánor could not tell.
He pushed himself to his feet. His leg, which had been wounded in the wreck of Elpharaka’s ship, was numb with pain. He glanced about in the darkness. Barbarian and horse were gone. Ampeánor was alone. The silence was as deep as the darkness, deaf as well as blind. He still had his sword and his war-knife. The barbarian had the lance, the great bow, the woodaxe, and the last of their food.
If it came to a struggle between them now, the barbarian would win an easy kill.
Ampeánor limped down the path. He had to get back his captive. He would not return to Tarendahardil alone.
There was a movement in the stagnant air, full of an alien, repellent odor – the odor of the earth below his feet, greater by a hundredfold.
He was aware of a monstrous presence in the darkness.
The true nature of the danger now occurred to him. He began to run.
A frightful bellow shook the earth behind him.
