The Northern Approach Read online

  Coming up over a rise, Raeln stopped and looked down at the vast camp below. The whole place had been built in a gulley where travelers in the mountains would be unable to see them from nearby peaks, unless they were far above them. From where he was, he could see nearly sixty tents spread out across the area, all of them packed with people who had fled Lantonne or other nearby lands. They had picked up a few more stragglers after the rough winter, but most had been with them from the moment they had fled into the wilderness.

  Raeln could not make himself begin walking again once he stopped. He stood there, staring down at the people going about the tasks that would allow them and their neighbors to eke out the barest survival in the wilds. They were all haggard, many more so than even Raeln. These were city-folk, and the better part of a year spent starving and freezing had pushed them to their limits, but not taught them how to actually survive in the wilds.

  Several elves spotted Raeln at the tree line and hurried their pace, trying not to draw any extra attention from him. Another who had been coming to meet that group actually turned and went back the way she had come.

  He kept watching and saw several young dwarven children at play. The group stopped and looked toward Raeln and then hid, their expressions telling of fear. He had become the threat, not the undead. Somewhere along the way he had gone from helping these people to scaring them.

  Sniffing, Raeln realized On’esquin was near him, though he had not heard the man. Unlike every person down in the camp, On’esquin had no scent of his own, but his clothing had the smell of age and decay, as well as the aroma of some oils he had used on the armor recently, giving Raeln something.

  “What happens if I stay here?” he asked, hoping On’esquin was close enough to hear.

  “There is nothing in the prophecies, aside from the usual foreboding belief that if we do not act, the world suffers. Any one of us who dies or fails will doom or hinder the whole, I would dare say. If I were to judge based on experience with people, your time here will eventually lead to more and more reckless attempts to defend them, until you foolishly attack the Turessian army in hopes that it will put an end to your misery. Your suicide will end your suffering but wipe your name from history…and likely take away any chance of meeting the ones you wish in the next life, should there be one. My people did not believe in afterlife, but I know yours do. To my people, such a pointless death would merely make your life forgotten.”

  Raeln sighed and let his ears and shoulders droop. Deep down, he knew On’esquin was right. He had already begun routinely hunting without weapons and had attacked creatures larger than himself without calling for help. There was a certain thrill in it, a sense of being alive again for a moment. It would not be hard to imagine craving that rush, needing it to go on. That would easily get him killed in time, and that time was probably not too far off.

  “Where are we going and when?” he finally asked.

  On’esquin patted Raeln’s shoulder as he came up alongside him. “There were clues placed throughout the prophecies as to where each of you would be found,” On’esquin explained. “They are difficult to interpret by intent—Turess did not want anyone else to find them. Only a few were revealed to me before his death. Thankfully, I think I know where to find the next person we need and it is not even a long walk. It is my belief that each companion we find will point us in the direction of the next and eventually guide us to a way to stop the Turessians. We had to wait a space of time and I think that time is over.”

  “And if you’re wrong?”

  “Then we have found something else to spend our time doing and we die feeling like we tried. I cannot say that is a worse fate than remaining here. You, I imagine, would appreciate a fight that did not involve helpless commoners. I don’t recall you being overly fond of kicking orphans or taking candy from small children, which I believe will be your next course of action around here.”

  Raeln gave the camp one more sweep with his eyes and then turned to face his companion. “Do you have anything back there that you need?” he asked. “I’m ready when you are.”

  “We should bring food, Raeln. It may not be a long walk, but it will still take a week or more. I cannot starve to death, but you can.”

  “There’s no food to pack,” Raeln admitted, turning to walk into the woods. “We’ll find food along the way. Promise me that you’ll explain why you can’t starve before we arrive.”

  “I can’t promise that. I might need far longer than a week.”

  Raeln looked over his shoulder at On’esquin, who gave him a small smile in return. The man could have been joking, but Raeln could never be sure. Shaking his head in frustration, he picked a direction and started walking, knowing, when the time was right, On’esquin would say something to guide him.

  He had barely made it fifty feet when a distant horn brought him to a complete stop. He waited where he was, his ears twisting back and forth, trying to locate the source of the call while debating whether to continue on. That call should have only been used to indicate an attack, which was something the camp had not seen in almost three months. The last time, it had only been a bear that had wandered into one of the outer tents looking for food.

  “Go and help them one last time,” On’esquin said, holding out his sheathed sword toward Raeln. “Give them a good memory of you.”

  Raeln stared at the sword’s hilt a long time, trying to remember the last time he had held an actual weapon. His thoughts were cut short as another call from the horn echoed through the woods, giving him a more clear direction to look. A second scout had spotted the threat and they were trying to triangulate it for the hunters who would come running.

  Far off to the southeast of the village, Raeln could still see a thin line of smoke over the trees. That had been the same direction the warning call of the horn had come from. To Raeln’s knowledge, no one had tents set up so far from the center of the village. If it was not someone from the village, then that black smoke meant something completely different.

  “Elementals,” Raeln grumbled, taking the hilt of On’esquin’s sword and yanking it from its sheath. “Bloody lovely time for them to show up.”

  On’esquin squinted at the smoke rising over the trees and nodded, saying, “Flame elementals would have been nice a few months ago, when the snow was still on the ground. Right now, I think most of the people here would wish for something with more meat on it. Unless there is such a thing as a steak elemental, I believe this is a real danger with no benefit.”

  Raeln ignored On’esquin’s half-hearted attempt at humor and began running straight toward a spot halfway between the village and the smoke. Judging by the rate of the smoke’s movement, he should be close to meeting it. He wanted to make sure whatever was out there got stopped before it could see the camp, lest anything report back to something even more dangerous.

  He ran hard, ducking often to avoid low-hanging branches rather than go around. Distantly, he heard the shouts of the village’s other defenders, hurrying to intercept whatever was coming. Raeln believed he would reach the elementals a few seconds before the others, which suited him just fine.

  Soon, the woods ahead of Raeln grew darker as heavy smoke filled the area under the heavy tree-cover. That black fogginess soon gave way to increasing warmth and light ahead as he approached what sounded like a bonfire. Another few weeks and the mountains would have been into their dry season and he would have been dealing with far more than smoke.

  Raeln slowed and continued at a slow walk, trying not to alert whatever was in the trees before he had to. A series of loud pops made him wince, thinking at first that he had been seen, but he soon realized the sound was a tree’s bark splitting and branches breaking and falling. A second after that, he could see the elementals.

  To someone casually glimpsing the creatures, they might have appeared to be a line of wildfires spreading across the otherwise wet ground—the source of much of the smoke. Having met these creatures more than once in the wilde
rness, Raeln knew better. He could see the distinct vaguely manlike shapes of each elemental, made entirely of dancing flame. Unlike a real flame, these would never go out on their own. They would move aimlessly, burning everything they could find, making them as mindless as any zombie Raeln had fought.

  The elementals had not sought out the village, that much Raeln knew. They had gotten lucky and happened to be wandering in that direction. Intent or malice was unimportant though—the elementals would easily burn the whole village to the ground if they were not stopped well away from the first of the cloth tents.

  Raeln searched around for any water. There was plenty of mud, but far too little water to make his life easier. Given that he was already soaked to the skin by rains from that morning, he had to hope that would be enough.

  Running at the lead elemental, Raeln slashed his sword through it, continuing past in hopes he could escape its flames before it had a chance to react. The sword passed through without any real resistance—something he had found distinctly creepy the first time he had fought an elemental—but seemed to do enough “damage” to the creature to kill it. With a pop and hiss, the elemental exploded outward, making its fellows glow all the more brightly and causing Raeln’s clothing to smolder.

  Kicking up a pool of standing water the elementals had yet to reach, Raeln splashed two of the others, dimming their flames considerably. He went after them as fast as he could, trying not to think about the others that had all turned as a group toward him. They might be mindless, but they did understand a threat. Lacking anything else to attack, he would be their sole focus.

  Cleaving one elemental after another, Raeln soon had trouble holding the sword—its hilt burned his hand. His whole body sizzled, reminding him of a time years past when he had spent too much time on the plains hiding from his mother and wound up burned head to paw by the summer sun. Each exploding elemental pushed his limits further, and soon he felt as though he had leapt into a campfire.

  “Charge!” called out a woman somewhere behind Raeln. “Don’t let him show you all up, you slow sacks of shit! He’s one man, you’re twenty! Prove you’re better!”

  Partially armored men and women came racing in around Raeln, cutting him off from the remaining elementals. He backed away quickly, panting as he dropped the sword into the mud, where it steamed angrily. His legs felt soft, making him stumble and nearly fall.

  “Easy there, wildling,” chided the woman who had shouted a moment earlier, stepping close enough to help Raeln stay upright. The elven woman winced as she saw his hand and quickly wrapped some ragged cloth over it. “Get back to camp and get some water before you pass out. Even these infants can handle what’s left.”

  Raeln nodded, dazed, barely aware of where he was anymore. He looked around at the group of soldiers and new trainees charging in to fight the elementals. They had wisely soaked themselves in water before coming, giving them an advantage against the heat. Making it even easier on them, out of the thirty or more elementals that had been there when Raeln arrived, he saw less than fifteen left. With luck, no one would die this time.

  “Raeln?” asked the woman at Raeln’s side. She was practically holding him up. “You okay, big boy?”

  Looking down as his head spun, Raeln thought for a moment that he saw his sister Ilarra. The woman was elven, but in reality, that was the extent of the similarity. When he blinked, his sister’s face disappeared and the face of one of the military officers from Lantonne appeared, staring at him with concern.

  “Fine. Thanks for asking,” Raeln answered, smiling.

  Then he fell face-first into the mud.

  *

  Coughing instinctively against the burning in his lungs, Raeln woke on his back, staring up at the ceiling of one of the village’s tents. Smoke from a nearby fire rose out through a small hole at the top, keeping the air inside fairly clear.

  “Where am I?” asked Raeln…or he meant to. What came out sounded more like wheezing and mumbles.

  Somewhere off to his left, a man chuckled and patted Raeln’s arm. Even that simple touch stung like knives scraping his skin—the burns there far worse than he would have thought.

  “Don’t try to talk yet,” the man insisted. “You took a beating out there. It’ll take some time to heal. You sucked down a lot of smoke.”

  Raeln looked over and saw the man was Finnias, an elderly human from one of Lantonne’s outlying villages. The man had come with them to the camp and tended to serve as their doctor, despite having little or no training. At best he could splint arms and offer advice for illnesses. More than once, Raeln had seen Finnias hack off a patient’s leg or arm to stop the progress of infection, far more readily than Raeln was comfortable with.

  After seeing the wonders of healing magic in places long gone, Raeln could not help but feel this was the last person he wanted tending to him. Sadly, the village had no one with any appreciable skill in that art, leaving Finnias the closest thing they had to a healer.

  “How long will he need to rest?” asked On’esquin, surprising Raeln. He had not realized the man was seated on his other side and certainly could not smell him over the scent of charred fur and skin. “We wanted to scout the area and look for other hunting grounds.”

  “Two days, maybe three,” the man replied, poking at a particularly painful patch of Raeln’s skin. “The military wanted to have a small ceremony to honor what he did out there, putting himself at risk to save the camp. Nothing major, but they insisted.”

  “When?” On’esquin asked.

  “Three days, to be sure he was looking himself again and not covered in ointments.”

  “Thank you,” said On’esquin, motioning toward the flap of the tent. “Excuse us a moment.”

  Finnias nodded and, using a cane, got up and headed out of the tent. Seconds later, Raeln could hear him talking with others, mostly about the weather.

  “You worried about how they saw you,” whispered On’esquin once the tent flap had settled into place. “We leave in two days, if I have to carry you. Let them remember this and not the beating of simpletons that crossed you.”

  Nodding, Raeln closed his eyes and tried desperately not to scratch at his itchy skin.

  Chapter Two

  “The Other Four”

  I lay here, feeling my heart racing in its efforts to keep me alive. I hear the servants outside speaking of my death being moments away. I watch the shadows grow and retreat as each new day is a surprise to me. Each day I assume is my last, and when another comes, it gives me hope and wonder I have not felt since childhood.

  Still, I am a young man who feels old before his time, thanks to the gift the dragon gave me. Mortality is its own curse, but knowing your death is waiting for your next breath or the one after it will destroy one’s focus on what must be said and done.

  This time, my own ending has distracted me from what I have seen in the night. I nearly forgot, and in doing so, I believe I would have been to blame for the deaths of many thousands. Every lapse extinguishes lives of those not yet born and not even imagined.

  How did I get on this topic? Oh…completion of what is set before us.

  The betrayer must find the others well after the snows end and the days become longer. He will travel, not for the first time, hoping to find the other four who he must have at his side to change the fates I have predicted. The clues for where to find them I leave to wiser minds than mine. He will know them when he finds despair and sees the fruits of our failures, recognizing them by the lives extended past fate’s intention. The misty shroud can unveil what has survived to that day.

  Lacking any of these four, the betrayer will watch as all he has waited to save dies around him. Why these people are important, even I do not know. They may matter not at all or the world may depend on them. I would hope that the betrayer does not tell them this or it may destroy them.

  - Excerpt from the lost prophecies of Turess

  Ten days and nights of walking later, Raeln was near collap
se. Food was the least of his concerns as they pushed farther into the southern mountain range, moving ever deeper into the peaks. The air had thinned enough that Raeln struggled to catch his breath and his tongue felt thick from dehydration. The last clean water they had found that was not falling from the sky was a runoff river, but that had been days before. Making matters worse, his skin had not fully healed and coughs racked him every so often as his lungs—irritated by the combination of thin air and the inhalation of smoke—would tighten painfully.

  Raeln stumbled to a stop, putting a hand to a tree to steady himself. He had gotten steadily dizzier with each day of walking. He knew he could not go much farther, but he fully intended to push himself until he fell. Somehow, On’esquin looked as steady as he had the day they had left, continuing to walk with purpose no matter how long or hard they had marched.

  “Are we close?” Raeln asked in hopes of distracting On’esquin from his own weakness.

  The orc stopped alongside Raeln, looking first over the woods and slope of the mountainside ahead of them. Then he eyed Raeln the same way, evaluating him. “I wouldn’t know,” admitted On’esquin, shrugging. “I can only follow the clues and hope that they lead me to something that fits the description. Failing that…I simply guess and try to pretend I know where I’m going. We walk this way because I hope it is correct.”

  “You said what we were looking for was a week out. Where did that estimate come from?”

  On’esquin grinned. “I made it up. Longer would have discouraged you. Shorter and you would have questioned why we had not seen it in our regular patrols.”