Benedict Read online

  “You were a member of the elite guards?” exclaimed Mark with more shock in his voice than he had intended.

  “Yes for five years,” she muttered, picking up on the shock in his voice, “that is what shames me the most about yesterday, that they were able to subdue me so easily. It will not happen again, not now that I have these,” she added as she brandished two freshly honed short swords, one in each hand.

  “It is good to know you can fight,” Richard told her, “we may need your arm come tomorrow as we approach Fire Mountain. I think the enemy may be in that area trying to gain her secrets,” he acknowledged.

  “You can count on me. Now I must go as I promised to show the others how to use the weapons they took from the scum back there,” she replied, and with that she joined the other women, hefting the two short swords as she approached.

  Richard looked at Mark and raised an eyebrow, but said nothing.

  That night they made camp in the lye of a great boulder, as it was the only substantial cover they could find, for as the mountains gave up their snow, the ravines and gullies along which they had been travelling began to run with clean, clear crisp water, driving them to the higher wind worn ground.

  With a feeling of near invulnerability at their newly acquired weaponry skills, the women insisted that they be allowed to share in the night watch, as they didn’t want to feel useless and needed to keep themselves busy. Richard agreed, for he and Mark were tired and in need of sleep themselves, and so set the women watch’s in pair’s, as he felt that it would be safer, then went to sleep.

  Sometime during the night Richard was awakened by hands on his mouth and shoulder, and opening his eyes he gazed up at the eyes of Dorina. “The two on watch are dead,” she whispered to him, her green eyes glinting in the darkness.

  Richard nodded and rose slowly from his bedding and went and woke Mark, and then joined Dorina, who had woken the other woman, in the centre of the camp. When the two men approached, they saw them staring into the shadows that filled the night time landscape around them with fear and dread at the prospect of what dangers they might hold.

  “I went to check on them and found them with their throats cut,” Dorina whispered with a look of horror on her face. “There were several tracks around them which seemed to head off into the night, so I came right back here to wake you.” All the while she spoke her eyes darted about the night.

  Richard and Mark, without a word, headed to where the two women had been standing watch and found the scene as described by Dorina, the women looking oddly peaceful as their dead eyes stared into the night. Richard bent down and closed their eyes, making the sign for peace as he had done with the Voldiner, all the while his eyes trying to penetrate the surrounding darkness.

  They examined the tracks around the corpses, but they were so mixed up that it was impossible to tell how many there had been and from where they had come or gone to. There were many tracks that led into the night, any one of which could hold an assailant at their end, so following them would have been a foolhardy proposition.

  “We need to get out of here before whoever it is comes for us,” murmured Dorina when the two men returned.

  “Get your things we leave now,” hissed Richard in response as he re-entered the camp.

  They quickly gathered their gear together, splitting the supplies that the dead women had been carrying and headed of into the night, leaving the two women where they lay as there was no time to perform the ceremonies and rites of passage for the dead.

  ***

  The Shadow bent over and sniffed the two corpses.

  It straightened and stood still trying to determine in which direction the scent it had detected went.

  It seemed to lead off in all directions and then disappear.

  It knew the scent well, for it was the scent of its kind.

  It sent out its mind to search, seeking that familiar touch, but found nothing.

  After only moments the Shadow slipped away into the night leaving the corpses for the night scavengers that it could sense hovering nearby, for it would be days before its hunger would return, and followed the scent of the remaining men and women it was tracking.

  ***

  After several hours of hard travel in what amounted to complete silence and darkness, Mark approached Richard at the front of group.

  “I haven’t heard anyone following or seen any sign of a pursuer,” he said in a hushed voice.

  “We haven’t crossed any tracks since we left either, so whoever they were they didn’t take this route,” Richard said, glancing over his shoulder at the two women. “All the same keep your eyes open we can’t afford to be surprised.”

  “As if you need to say anything,” replied Mark as he headed back to the rear of the group and his vigil.

  As dawns first light broke over the horizon, it found the travellers on high ground and exhausted.

  “We need to rest,” groaned Dorina, her shoulders slumped and her breathing laboured.

  “I know,” Replied Richard having noted the way the pace had been falling off, “those rocks up ahead will give us some cover and will give us a good vantage point to give us warning of any one approaching.”

  This time when they had removed their packs, unlike the last, all five of them sat together in a tight group and began to whisper in nervous voices to one another.

  “We should reach Fire Mountain tomorrow, and then it will be in the laps of the gods if we make it any further,” said Richard a slight doubt entering his voice.

  “Will we wait at the entrance and sound the horn to announce ourselves, and for them to come to us as is the custom?” asked one of the women who had red hair and they now knew was called Claire. It was the first thing she had said to the men directly or indirectly.

  “Unfortunately we don’t know how long that will take,” answered Mark, “they have been known to answer in hours but more usually in days or weeks. I don’t think we have that kind of time to waste. I think we should press on and hope they understand our need to do so, for that will surely get their attention.”

  “But no-one has ever entered uninvited and been seen again,” stuttered Janice, the raven haired and last of the women.

  “What other choice do we have?” asked Dorina, glancing at each of them in turn as if scolding them for second guessing the brothers.

  “None I suppose,” replied Claire in a whisper, for the dread could be seen undisguised on her face, yet she, along with Janice, still managed to glare at Dorina.

  “Then it is settled, Claire and I will take the first watch, you three get some rest,” Richard said with an authority and conviction in his voice that had been lacking earlier.

  For several hours they sat in silence, watching and listening to the darkness, then when they could keep their eyes open no longer they woke the others and took to their beds.

  Mark sat between Dorina and Janice, the two women refusing to speak to one another, and sighed. Dorina handed him a chunk of cheese which he took, thanked her for it and ate. He shrugged his knotted shoulders and looked up at the stars that twinkled gently in the darkness.

  “I wonder how many there are?” he said as he yawned and stretched, his eyes squeezing tightly shut.

  “I don’t know,” replied Dorina, “maybe you should count them to keep you awake... ”

  “Mark, Dorina? Where’s Janice?”

  Mark opened his heavy eyes and looked at his anxious brother. “Who?” he asked.

  “Janice,” replied Richard.

  “She’s here... ” he began, turning to his left where she had been sitting only a moment ago.

  At seeing she was gone he sat bolt upright and searched about him, the early morning light revealing no sign of her.

  “What time is it?” asked the yawning Dorina as she stretched, her ba
ck cracking in the silence.

  “Dawn,” replied Claire, “but more importantly where is Janice?”

  It took only a couple of minutes to find her, and when they did they wished that they had not. She was hanging from the petrified remains of a tree by her heels, her throat ripped out and the skin peeled away. Her face was gone, as were her eyes.

  Claire screamed and Dorina choked back one of her own.

  Mark stepped forwards and cut the piece of her own clothing that had been used to string her up, her bloodied, skinless body falling to the ground with a wet thud. He moved across to her head and made the sign for peace across her empty lidless eyes and turned to the others.

  “We leave now, no more stopping.”

  There was not a word of disagreement from any of them as they returned to the camp, gathered together their gear and headed down off the ridge and into the valley that would lead them up into Fire Mountain.

  As they left the ridge, Richard glanced back.

  There was a flash of light in the distance.

  There it was again.

  Who was out there? They had seen no one so far and the flash of light was so far off that they couldn’t possibly be following them. Deciding to keep it to himself as the group was already feeling the strain, he turned back to the path ahead and tried to remove the image of Janice from his mind.

  ***

  The Shadow bent over and sniffed the skinless body.

  Again it sent out its mind to search, seeking that familiar touch, but found nothing.

  The Shadow slipped away, tracking those that it sought.

  ***

  They moved fast in an effort to put some distance between themselves and the gruesome scene behind them. Richard could find no fresh tracks anywhere in the valley, which hopefully meant no-one had approached the mountain for some time, as this was, as far as they knew, the only way in or out.

  There was a certain sense of relief at this discovery as it meant that all they had to concern themselves with was the inhabitants of Fire Mountain, and whatever it was that had plucked three of their party from under their noses.

  As they moved along the valley, getting ever closer to Fire Mountain the warmer and dryer the air became and what little vegetation there was in this volcanic land began to disappear.

  The heat radiating from the rocks could be felt through the soles of their boots and as they turned a corner they came face to face with a huge rock wall in which stood a single large stone door with easily readable words carved into the ancient stone.

  KNOCK AND WE SHALL ANSWER.

  ENTER AND BE DOOMED

  Richard turned to the other three. “This is where you have a choice, come with me and trust our fates to the gods or stay here and face the soldiers that will surely follow.”

  No one uttered a word, as there wasn’t really much of a choice, so Richard turned, put all is weight against the door, offered up a silent prayer and pushed it open. With a surprising ease and grace the door swung open, putting him of balance and making him stumble through beyond the threshold and into the forbidden lands of Fire Mountain.

  ***

  The Shadow left them then, as they entered the lands from which its people had been banished all those centuries before, and it made its way, skulking from shadow to shadow, back to the city where it had found the two men roaming free.

  There were many things that did not make sense.

  They needed to be reported to its master, for it could upset their careful planning and spell the end of everything they had dreamed and schemed for, for all these eons.

  Chapter Nine

  Fire Mountain

  The land that greeted his eyes beyond the wall of rock was in stark contrast to those that he had just left. Everywhere and everything was blanketed in a thick lush green vegetation, above which a dense impenetrable mist hovered as if connected in some way to the swathe of green below.

  The path they were on, and had followed up into the volcanic mountains continued into this forest of greens and disappeared from view several feet inside its dark mist shrouded canopy.

  Richard turned to the others, only to find them pressed close up behind him in a tight huddle, as if using him as a shield against the dangers they were expecting to find.

  “It would appear,” he began as he pushed them back so that he was able to breathe, “That we need to follow that path as it is the only one and hopefully will take us where we need to go.”

  “I don’t like the look and feel of this place,” said Mark, his eyes darting about, “It isn’t natural, not in these parts and I get the feeling that we are being watched.”

  “So do I,” piped up Claire, her voice lacking any power and almost squeaky in tone.

  “We have no choice,” Richard lectured, “We are committed to this course now, for good or ill. Besides, the door has closed and there is no handle to open it with,” he added pointing behind them.

  The others turned in panic to look at the place through which they had entered, only to find that Richard was right. The door had closed and had seemed to somehow blend with the surrounding rock, for it had completely vanished.

  “Onwards it is then,” declared Dorina in a steady voice that seemed contrived in the circumstances.

  For the second time Claire glared at Dorina, but said nothing.

  Forward they went and as they moved along the path it narrowed sharply as it entered the vegetation, forcing them to travel in a single file. Richard took the lead, Dorina then Claire following behind him and Mark again brought up the rear. As they travelled Mark scanned the ground they had travelled for any sign of the eyes he felt were boring into his skull, but could see nothing, yet with every step he felt the sensation intensify.

  After several minutes the ground underfoot began to rise up sharply and the vegetation around them began to thicken as the path began to narrow even more. As it closed in about them they felt as if their clothing and exposed flesh was being tugged at and caressed as the branches and leaves pressed in closer and closer.

  Claire let out a pitiful whimper as the brush pushed against her, seeming to caress her limbs as if trying to entice her into their mist, but then went silent as Dorina turned to look at her.

  Richard had noticed when Mark had, the prickly sensation at the back of the neck that said they were being watched, but had chosen not say anything as Claire’s puppy like whimpering had everybody jumpy enough as it was. Now though, as their surroundings seemed to close in ever more tightly, that feeling had begun to intensify to the point where he was convinced that he could feel something or someone breathing down the back of his neck.

  He stopped, not sure he wanted to carry on, and turned to tell Dorina not to push up so close.

  No one was there - literally.

  He was alone.

  Where there had been the others, only seconds before, was only vegetation, not even a trace of the path he had been travelling could be seen, just impenetrable green that pushed in close, to close.

  His heart began to beat harder and faster in his chest and his breath began to labour, as a panic set in that he hadn’t felt since he was five and his mother had locked him in the scullery cupboard for stealing one of her fresh pies, but on that occasion he knew he would be let out eventually, unlike now when he had no idea whether he would live or die.

  Something was behind him.

  He spun around to face the direction that he had been travelling, and as he did so his vision seemed to blur slightly, resolving itself to find the path gone, replaced instead by a large black obsidian stone in what amounted to a very small clearing.

  Richard took a step back in reflex, into the tangled plants that now surrounded him on three sides, only to be stopped dead in his tracks, as if he had his back to a solid, unmovable wall of stone.
r />   The sensation of someone breathing down his neck began to grow to such a threatening level he took an involuntary step towards the newly appeared stone, yet at the same time it felt as if he had been pushed forward, for he covered more distance than he had intended to.

  As Richard stood there alone in the clearing, the eyes that had been watching him faded away, enabling his mind to focus on the volcanic glass stone that was in front of him and the intense burning on his forearms.

  His arms itched like crazy, but were soon forgotten as the stone began to change. Drawn in, maybe by magic, he stepped in close to the stone as a distant unheard part of his mind screamed STAY AWAY.

  He looked closely at the rough, hewn obsidian as markings began to appear just beneath its surface. Grey and blue they were in colour, swirling around like smoke on the wind, and then slowly they began to resolve into strange letters and characters that joined together to form words.

  At first he was unable to read them, the flow and form of them unfamiliar to his eyes, but then slowly they began to resolve into ones that he could.

  They were in a flowery, dreamy script and as he spoke them aloud they seemed to flow from his mouth to their own, hypnotic tempo:

  “None who enter uninvited,

  Through the gate of stone,

  Ever see the ones they love,

  Or ever journey home:

  Richard of the race of man

  For you to trespass here,

  There will be a price to pay

  For you perhaps too dear:

  You seek our help to travel north

  Through lands that are locked in ice,

  But to help you find the Knight in Black

  Too dear, maybe our price:

  Receive our help and forsake your life

  As one becomes the many,

  Find the Knight in Black you shall

  And answers too a plenty:

  If you choose to stay your path,

  Place your hands upon the stone,

  But remember words spoken here,