Dross (Sphereworld: Joined at the Hilt Book 2) Read online

  “Which way did you come from, friend?” the first boy asked, and as he approached Randall saw he was slightly larger of frame than Randall was. He had a wiry, farmer’s musculature and judging from his ears he was a ninth generation ‘half-elf’—meaning his most recent Ghaevlian ancestor was nine generations back.

  “I rode out from Greystone,” Randall replied, gesturing in the direction of the stone city.

  “I told you, Sissy!” the second, younger boy declared. “Fleshmongers would never go to Greystone—get their heads lopped off, they would!”

  The first boy nodded in agreement as he offered his hand, “Name’s Elric, stranger.” Randall accepted his hand and felt the younger man’s tremulous grip as he did so. The children all looked completely exhausted and had clearly not slept for some time. Normally that was not much of a problem for a half-elf, since they required little in the way of actual sleep, but they were no better suited to dealing with major stress—like having one’s house burned down and his or her family abducted by slavers—than a pureblood human.

  “I’m Randall,” Randall said with a nod. “How many of you are there?”

  “Twenty three,” Elric said, gesturing to the far side of the field, “the littles are back in one of the old trap shafts we use to snare prick hogs.”

  “Prick hogs?” Randall repeated in confusion.

  “Local varmints,” Elric said dismissively, “they’re about the size of a small cow, but with shorter legs, and they’ll tear up any root crops they come across. Only way to deal with ‘em is to trap ‘em in a hole stuffed with fresh tubers—you don’t want to tangle with a prick hog, even with a boar spear, I can assure you of that.”

  “You’re not from around here, are you?” the younger boy asked as he strode purposefully toward Randall.

  “No,” Randall admitted, “I’m from Three Rivers.”

  “The city in the south?” Sissy said incredulously as she brought up the rear of the group. “I doubt that. Mama said the Feds killed our kind if they came to Three Rivers.”

  “That’s not really what happ—“ Randall began, only to be cut off by Elric.

  “Can’t you just let the man speak, Sissy?” he snapped, drawing a wrathful look from the younger girl—who looked no older than thirteen.

  “Did the Flesh…I mean, the slavers,” Randall quickly corrected, not wanting to heighten the childrens’ collective anxieties unnecessarily, “take all of your parents?”

  “Aye,” Elric said darkly, “a handful of us young’uns were…erm…” he rubbed his neck nervously, “down by the watering hole when the slavers attacked. We hid in the prick hog traps ‘til the slavers left just after midnight two days ago. When we came out, the littles,” he gestured to the smaller children, some of which were being held and had clearly not yet learned how to walk, “were cryin’ by the fires. We…” he choked up as tears began to stream down his cheeks.

  Sissy eventually stepped forward and pointed to a nearby hillside, “We buried those of our parents that died fighting the slavers.” She spoke with such icy precision and lack of emotion that Randall felt a chill run down his spine as she continued, “But we’re running low on food, and some of the littles aren’t yet weaned.”

  “If only we’d been there,” Elric growled, his hands clenching into fists at his sides, “we might have helped fight them off.”

  “Sneaking off to neck with me by the watering hole is the only reason any of us tweeners are still alive,” Sissy snapped. “Those slavers could have killed everyone—including the littles—but they were after the adults. Probably after those of us with the blood,” she tilted her head toward Elric, “since it was only pureblood humans they killed.”

  “How can you be so cold, Sissy?” Elric demanded. “Our parents are dead or dragged off by slavers—why am I the only one shedding tears right now?!”

  Sissy rolled her eyes dramatically and pointed to the toddlers, some of whom had begun to cry, “The littles are keeping you plenty of company there, Ricky.” She turned to face Randall, “The only way we survive is if we make for Greystone. We can’t risk heading further down the mountain range since the slavers went off that way after taking our parents. Greystone’s a week’s walk to the east, but we haven’t gone there since we didn’t know if all of the slavers headed west or if some of them went east.”

  “There weren’t any along the road when I came from Greystone,” Randall assured her solemnly, “they would have come after me if there had been.”

  “You’ve killed ‘em before?” Elric asked as a spark of vengeful fire flashed in his eyes.

  “I…well, I had help,” Randall said awkwardly.

  Thank you, Dan’Moread said coolly.

  “But yes,” he continued with a briefly annoyed look down at her rebuilt hilt, “this sword has claimed several of their lives in battle. They definitely would have ambushed me if they’d gone east,” he explained. “But they didn’t, so it’s as safe as it will ever be if you head that way now.”

  “What about entering the stone city…won’t we need papers or something?” Elric asked, only to have Sissy sigh loudly at his elbow.

  “Greystone has a standing order to take in refugees, and children even get free food and shelter,” Sissy said in a patronizing tone. “We should set off as soon as possible.”

  “Have you got food?” Randall asked as he reached to Storm Chaser’s saddlebags. “I don’t have much, but I’d gladly share what I do have with you.”

  We will need that food, Randall, the sword insisted. You must resume your exercise regimen as soon as possible, and to do that you must have energy.

  Ignoring the sword, he unstrapped one of the two saddlebags and handed it to Elric, “It’s mostly dried breads, nuts and jerky. There’s not much taste to any of it, but it’s lightweight and should help you get to Greystone,” he said after counting twenty two children in all. “It’s not enough for everyone to eat well, but it’s enough to keep you moving in the right direction long enough to get there if you ration it.”

  “We’ve got some dried roots leftover, and I’m not too bad with a stew pot,” Elric nodded graciously as he accepted the saddlebag. Then he nervously asked, “Should we take the main road?”

  “Of course we should,” Sissy quipped. “He just came down the main road and didn’t run into any trouble. For now it’s safest place to travel.” She turned to Randall and curtseyed, “We thank you for your kindness, stranger.”

  “I…I wish I could do more,” Randall said heavily.

  “You’ve done more than enough,” she shook her head firmly before turning to the rest of the children, who had for the most part calmed down. “Let’s get our walking shoes and set off. It looks like we’ll catch some rain before we get there, so let’s bring Adam’s tent.”

  “I could come with you…” he began hesitantly.

  We cannot delay, Randall, Dan’Moread said firmly. You have already provided them with everything they need to reach safety. The patrols from Greystone would probably have checked here in the next few days, in any case; you have saved these children from a death by paralysis.

  “No thank you,” Sissy said confidently, slicing a disapproving look toward Elric, “we are not all children here. We are perfectly capable of walking to the stone city on our own.”

  “You’re probably right,” he muttered in reply to both of them.

  He watched with a mixture of empathy and approval as the children gathered their supplies and headed down to the road which he had just traveled. After accompanying them to the road, they said their farewells and he resumed his own trek to the False River.

  Chapter IV: The Long Road

  9-1-6-659

  Five days travel and one bridge-crossing later, Storm Chaser’s hooves brought them to a fork in the road. To the north was a well-traveled road which clearly bore the bulk of the traffic which the road behind them serviced. The other road, which stretched straight ahead in line with the one they had traveled since
leaving Greystone, was nearly overgrown. If not for the long-worn wheel ruts which shaped the grass which had overgrown that road, Randall might not have even recognized that the road had existed in the first place.

  This appears to be the fork described in the map she gave us, Dan’Moread mused. It looks like it has been abandoned for decades.

  “It does,” Randall agreed as he produced the aforementioned map and examined it. A quick look to the north confirmed that a ‘W’-shaped peak in the mountain range was precisely where it should be if this was indeed the fork mentioned in the map. “I still don’t understand the point of us going to this stupid place,” he grumbled as he placed the map back in its leather tube.

  Nor do I, she agreed, but it is in our best interests to investigate.

  “It is,” he said hesitantly as he absently scratched his chest. His hand brushed up against something warm, and he looked down to see that his Flylrylioulen was glowing. It was the first time it had done so since the night they had fought against the beast man on the rooftops of Greystone, and he took it as nothing short of an omen—but of what, he was uncertain. “I guess that seals it,” he muttered before spurring Storm Chaser down the overgrown road.

  11-1-6-659

  Two days later, the False River finally came into view—and it was a truly spectacular sight.

  Stretching in a perfectly straight line from north to south, and spanning at least a thousand feet from bank to bank, the pebble-strewn riverbed was as dry as the Last Coin’s taps at closing time. Jagged boulders larger than Randall dotted the riverbed, and several miles to the north was the same structure which had graced Randall’s strange dream before he had arrived at Greystone.

  Why call it the ‘False River’? Dan’Moread asked as Randall’s eyes remained fixed on the long, arching bridge which spanned the empty river. The bridge was unlike anything Randall had ever seen in that it appeared to have been formed from a single, solid piece of stone. It arched gently upward to the middle, and beneath that arch was what appeared to be a perfectly straight beam made of a single, solid stone. Small columns zig-zagged between the bridge and the beam beneath it, creating the appearance of a web with their seemingly random spacing and dimensions. Randall had only seen a few bridges in his life, but none of them resembled this one in anything but the most broad sense in that they were all arched and anchored on either end.

  “I guess it’s because there’s no water?” Randall shrugged as he looked to the far end of the bridge. There appeared to be a ruined pile of rubble there with only a handful of wall segments remaining upright, but on the near side of the bridge was a tall, apparently undamaged set of walls about twenty feet tall. An even taller structure—a tower, maybe?—was within the outer wall, but at this distance even his Ghaevlian blood did little to clarify its image.

  That is a magnificent bridge, Dan’Moread observed. I have never seen its equal.

  “Nor I,” Randall mused. “It’s a shame that it spans an empty riverbed.”

  Indeed, the sword agreed as Randall spurred Storm Chaser on toward the walled structure on his side of the riverbank.

  “The gate’s gone,” he observed as he guided his comically-oversized warhorse into what he suspected was called the courtyard of the structure which led to the bridge, “but the walls look as good as new.”

  I only count a dozen missing stones from the parapets, Dan’Moread agreed. It would seem that whoever built this structure did a fine job.

  “That’s mountain stone,” Randall tilted his chin toward the rich, blue stones comprising the arch through which they had just passed. “It’s got to be a hundred miles to the base of the mountains.”

  They likely used the river to transport the material, she suggested as Storm Chaser brought them further into the oversized courtyard.

  Randall guessed the outer wall measured roughly five hundred feet on each of its four, nearly identical sides. The dimensions of the place were truly remarkable for an abandoned facility of this nature, which led him to ask, “Why would anyone abandon this place? It looks like a perfectly serviceable fortress!”

  Minus the roof, she observed as Randall’s eyes quickly tracked to the top of the main house. Through a window on the upper floor he could see that the roof of the imperious-looking structure was completely gone, and through a window on the third floor he could see that the fourth floor’s floor also appeared to be missing. A house with no roof is like a blade with no scabbard: exposed to the elements and whims of nature, and soon made unfit for its purpose.

  “That’s a strange analogy,” Randall muttered as he slid down off Storm Chaser’s saddle and looked up at the impressive main house.

  To you, perhaps, she quipped as he drew her from her scabbard.

  He did his best to ignore her as he examined the main house. It was built of the same blue stone as the outer wall, and had rounded parapets and small corner towers which seemed to follow a design that was completely unfamiliar to Randall. Each story had ovular windows every ten feet on the house’s front, and those windows were an identical two feet by three feet. Some even had shards of what looked like stained glass protruding from their perfectly smooth rims, but there was something about the architecture of the place which seemed off.

  “I know very little about architecture,” Randall said as he absently drew Dan’Moread, “but there’s something about this building’s design that’s…different.”

  Different? she repeated as he felt a faint thrum of energy surge up his arm. I was just about to say there was something familiar about this place…

  “Familiar?” he asked. “You’ve been here before?”

  Perhaps… she trailed off dubiously. But perhaps it is simply the design which seems familiar to me. I cannot say with any certainty.

  “Can you remember anything specific about it?” he pressed.

  No, she replied, but to Randall it seemed as though she was being less than completely honest.

  “Ok,” he said, deciding against pressing the issue any further. “I guess we should investigate the main house,” he said, moving toward the steps which led to the imposing structure.

  Wait, she said just before his foot touched the first step, this house has a cellar.

  “It does?” he asked in confusion, looking left and right and finding no evidence of a cellar door. “Where?”

  In the rear of the building near the northern corner, she said.

  “You just remembered that?” he asked skeptically.

  I did, she replied tersely. Would you rather I not share such information as it comes to me?

  “Of course not,” Randall rolled his eyes, receiving a brief but potent jolt up his sword-arm after he rounded the front corner of the building. “Hey!”

  But Dan’Moread said nothing, so he merely glared at the five stones set into her blade. The two closest to the tip were cloudy and white, but the other three were nearly translucent and glittered much like her star metal blade glittered.

  “What’s the story with those, anyway?” he asked as he carefully made his way to the back of the building, peering around the corner and seeing precisely what she had described: a cellar door which led beneath the massive manor house.

  They are godstone, she said as he looked down into the cellar.

  “I guessed that much,” he said as he considered whether or not to investigate the cellar, “I actually received a godstone chip as payment for services rendered just before you and I met. It’s foggy, like your two tip-ward stones, but aside from these other three stones of yours I’ve never even seen godstone that was clear like they are. I thought they held a huge amount of magical energy?”

  They do, she said irritably. We have discussed this before if you will recall?

  “I know,” he muttered as an idea came to him, “I’m just curious about it.”

  Reaching beneath his shirt, he pulled out his Flylrylioulen—which he now thought of as his ‘flyl’— and focused his mind. The crystal medallion began to glow with
its customary, yellow-orange light and its luminosity steadily increased until it was bright enough to illuminate the at least some of the cellar’s interior.

  Creative, Dan’Moread said approvingly, but hardly a long-term source of light. Your focus and mental fortitude have increased even more than your physical prowess during our time together, but without proper training you cannot keep it lit for long.

  “So you expect that this cellar is larger than it first appears?” Randall asked as he stepped foot in the bowels of the structure.

  I… she trailed off hesitantly. That was a fine question, Randall. Until your question I was not aware that I do, in fact, expect it is larger than it should be.

  “I don’t suppose you could explain why that is?” he asked as he passed by a barrel rack carved of stone. The barrels were absent, but the rack itself—large enough to hold a hundred barrels—was in perfect condition.

  You guess correctly, she replied irritably.

  “Well,” he turned and inspected a large, stone table, “at least we’re on the same page about something.” There were several holes carved in the table’s surface, and if he were pressed to do so he would guess it had been used as a meat carver’s table. There were several grooves through which blood or other liquid might flow, and they all drained to a single down-funnel carved into the table’s corner. “I’ve never been in a building like this,” he said with mild confidence, “but this looks like an ordinary cellar. There’s the root beam,” he gestured to a long, stone beam with roughly one inch diameter holes drilled every few inches—holes through which string could be passed to hang roots and herbs, “and with a meat carving table and barrel rack it looks like this place could service dozens of people for months at a time.”

  Where is the zhan’em? Dan’Moread asked.

  “’Zhan’em’?” he repeated before realizing she had used a Ghaevlian word with which he was passingly familiar after working with Lorie for so many years. “You mean the meat locker?”