Read last week’s episode here
Chapter Five
The stranger the Littles had named Walker was out and into the late night with the bundle of the ruck sack in one hand.
He stopped in the wide courtyard and smelled the night. Beyond the heady scent of the eucalyptus trees the Littles planted in this region to protect their crops from the cruel late night and early morning frost and mist, he could smell the dust of the roads, the salt from out along the ocean, and the general aroma of things growing in the lands all around.
And… he could smell others out there tonight. Unclean things coming along in the dark as they were known to do. They were here, unseen and out there in the darkness, undetectable because of their sorceries and craft, but there all the same.
By the sign in the dirt of the courtyard he could see their trace, just barely. They were crafty and careful, and they’d come close to listen to what passed beyond the great door of the dark inn.
Pulling his hood over his head he headed off down the lane, away from the coast and the road that ran south to the tower of Sirith Osildor, or north to Indolién. He moved swiftly, not bothering to cast a look back, knowing they were there in clusters, working their nets already and seeking where they could come upon him and catch him. They were new to these lands now that the sacred boundaries of the Black River had been violated. But as he moved fast and farther into the dark beyond the inn proper and the fields that surrounded it, each new scent on the wind confirmed to Walker what he already knew.
They were here on this wilding night. And they’d come for him.
The stranger took the northeastern road up out of the area around the Last Friendly Inn. Walker moved swiftly up and along the way, passing the last few Little homes in the district, he could still see the soft glow of candlelight coming from firelit kitchens and knowing that the simple gentlefolk there were possibly about a late night snack of perhaps some of the last of the winter smoked ham, a fried egg or six, and of course the Hot Lilly they all liked to make and put up for the winter from last year’s harvest.
The stranger had to admit to himself that he could have used a bit of that peppery fire, and a well-cooked egg, and perhaps even a fatty slice of ham. He had a long night in front of him, and if he was going to outmaneuver his pursuers in the dark wilds toward the northeast, then he was going to have to cover some rough country to come at Indolién from a direction no one suspected.
And was he even going to Indolién? Perhaps the hour for the great city was too late even now that the gateways to the south were wide open. And perhaps it was best to do as Bearkiller had bade him to now.
Set to his mission this night even though it was surest death and there was no hunting fellowship to see it done.
Those thoughts bothered Walker as he moved, shouldered the ruck, and ran one gloved hand over the leather scabbard of the sword. He gave it a slight pull, executing the barest of draws. Just to make sure the blade was ready to clear leather should the fight come soon.
And soon enough it would come. That was a safe bet for this night.
The first rise out of the coastal valley that lay next to the small ridge of hill and the wide plains along the sea, showed him the district of the Littles behind, and the wide and big moon starting down toward the sea.
Out there the sea was empty and made like the armor of the Elven Horse by the moon. There were no silver sails of Indolién. But, and Walker’s eyes were keen, there were black sails out there, in the mist, and out in the open, testing the waters between the Outer Islands and the approaches to the harbor at Indolién.
But he really only pretended to be interested in the wide moonlit sea out there tonight. Instead, he’d turned to survey the shadows of the trees, the draws, and the quiet places where he knew his pursuers must be waiting. Threading winter’s deadfall carefully to stay on his trail.
The Men of the North are known for their ability to run for days at a time. But now, in the dark, and heading into the East, pursued by an unknown force, now was not the time to run. Running was easier to track, and the goblins were known to run for long periods too. And what if they had the support of some riders? Dark horse or even wolf?
The best trick now, thought Walker, who was more skilled than most at tracking and evasion within the woods, was to throw them off and move quietly away in some other direction than the one they were certain he was pursuing. There was a greater chance of losing them altogether, and if they did find his trail, then he could set traps and deadfalls, or lure them into dangerous places they might not get out of.
Now he followed what the Littles did not call the Old Road. This was the Northeastern Lane according to the Littles. It was an ancient[NC1] way made so by the Old Kings but now, and in the long years since, it had turned to little more than a wide winding path that would make its way in a very haphazard fashion up into the Dry Hills country and through the small hamlets, holds, and large farms of the Highlands Littles who lived up that way.
Walker stood for long minutes, waiting as the moon sank down toward the distant sea. Across the many roads and ways down there among the Little’s strawberry farms near the coast, the watch had come out to light the lanterns that lay along the roads and wide spaces between their villages, as their job had been for many generations.
He could see none of his pursuers down there in the dark, but he sensed their presence all the same. He checked the dagger in just the same manner as he had the sword, and thus satisfied, turned, topped the rise as fast he could, and started up into Dry Hill country by heading down the opposite side of the large hill and down into the low hollows that lay between the rising landscape that formed the Dry Hills area.
There was nothing but late-night silence, perhaps some occasional owl calling out, and then there was the wind from down along the coast raced quickly up into the hills, moving through the stands of oak and other clustering trees causing them to whisper in hushed tones.
That would be good. It would cover the sound of his passage once he left the road. And the shifting winds would cause all the shadows to move in the tress and underneath them, not just his.
“Perhaps there may even be fog later,” he said to himself though no one was about to hear. It was his way, forged by hard years on the road, alone, and his investigations into all the forgotten places of the world. Often, when no one else was around, he would speak out his plans, his advantages, and the obstacles facing him, talking through it all just to hear if there was any falseness in them.
This was a habit he’d acquired from the Men of the North, and his time among their scouts and warriors before he found his way among the Storytellers, where talking, and the telling of things, became not just second nature, but a language all its own full of many strange truths.
So, Walker reminded himself that the fog might just come up into the low areas beneath the Dry Hills and perhaps along old streams and creeks of the hills, following the paths of such to send its misty tendrils up aways a little bit more. And that would be good for him against the shadows that stalked him even now. Moving in the fog would be like moving under a blanket. Concealing him and allowing him to hear them blundering about.
But the fog did not come to aid Walker before he was forced to give battle against them in a lonely old hollow once called the Charring Tree Wayside for no reason any of the Littles of these present days could ever remember. Though the reason why it was named such was known to the Storytellers and kept in their records and annals.
The Charring Tree Wayside was a place of ancient evils and Walker, as he moved swiftly, his road-eating stride long and relentless, cursed himself inwardly for not having thought they would be waiting for him among the crumbled rune-laden stones of that sort of place.
Such fell creatures were oft ever[NC2] attracted to all the ancient evils that were ever done under the sun. It was ever their way, and Walker cursed himself for not having taken this into account as they closed their noose about him in the night.
The hunters that faced him were Moon Fen Goblins from out of the eastern waystes beyond the Black River itself. An area of ancient sunken kingdoms and the shattered remains of an old battle where the bones and broken weapons of ancient heroes and foes still lay within the mud and the vast lakes of that area. Moon Fen Goblins were predators more animal than sentient. The orcish warlords used them as such. Excellent hunters, stealthy creepers, they moved like hunting wolves in packs when they needed to, and creeping snakes when they must. They were excellent at infiltrating held lands on long range patrols deep in enemy territory and it made sense that in the aftermath of the fall of Sirith Osildor and the ancient tower, they would be the first ranging into these lands. Often led by a strong leader, these Moon Fen Goblins had probably come north in the weeks before the battle of Sirith Osildor as some sort of screening force and perhaps they were not specifically sent to find him but had spotted him moving slowly and steadily north after the battle.
The first arrow of their attack came at the stranger out of the darkness as he entered the hollow and it was thanks to the swiftness of his kind that he sensed its flight and reacted by throwing himself against a sturdy oak for immediate cover.
The speeding arrow whipped past and off along the road. A second came, flying dark and fast in the night, and later several more slammed into the oak, or began to whistle through the air all around him.
The sorceries that had guarded them were now broken and he could see their foul presence revealed in the last of the spectral moonlight. Soon it would be dark, but as has been said, he had keen eyes, and the years he’d spent among the Men, and the Outcasts, had given him tricks and sharp eyes even for the darkest of nights.
The goblin hunters had ringed the clearing at the bottom of the hollow, staying well back up along the brush and tree covered slopes. There were five of them, and five was an evil number.
Use me now, whispered the voice in Walker’s mind. He ignored it and shifted the bundle under his other arm. A moment later he drew his old blade with barely the snik it took to clear leather.
He’d faced longer odds before. But no fight was ever fair. Or guaranteed of an outcome. They were archers and his bow had not made the journey with him north, instead breaking in battle as the Watch tried to hold the throughway beneath Sirith Osildor in the last hours before defeat.
Use me now, Hecil, whispered the voice from within the bundle. Two are better than one and I shall help you though you are not elvenkind. Turn loose my powers and strike them down, ancient Man. I thirst for vengeance. Even the pitiful blood of these dark hounds long from home will do for now. Turn me loose and watch me free you… of the trap you have gotten yourself into.
The voice was female. Whether elven, human, or some such other race… Walker did not know.
But he didn’t like it and he’d heard its siren’s call since being tasked with the carrying of the object in the bundle of his old travel ruck away from the dusty crypts beneath the tower.
But he’d been warned. Warned by Bearkiller and Almandir. And warnings from old Mountain Men were to be heeded. Walker had himself learned that during many hard lessons and come to trust their wisdom in the years since, always testing it. Always finding it true.
Still, the thing in his ruck called to him, as he heard the shadow orcs moving about in the brush of the hollow, whispering and giggling like it was play, scrabbling and cursing in the Black Speech. Firing their whistling bolts and seeking to move to their next cover as he quiet shifted [NC3] from cover to cover, ever one step ahead of their targeting.
Perhaps, thought Walker as he sought some advantage, they are not aware I possess no bow this night. If they were… then they would rush as one and try to take what I bear.
Walker bent and picked up a stone. He waited for a moment, then whipped it at a noise nearby. Whether it struck home or not, that was not his intention. For a moment they stopped their firing, whistling their hunting speech[NC4] [NC5] and orders. Unsure of what the noise was and what their prey was about even now when he was cornered down here in the dark.
But with the next seconds, using their uncertain halt, Walker was already moving up on them. Blades out. And as everyone knows, Men make no sound when they wish not to. Even if they are booted and clothed in the rough and woodlands manner of their peoples from ages past just as Walker was when he came upon them in the dark. A traveler. Not some Emerald Knight in full armor. Servant of the throne of Indolién.
The traveling stone he’d whipped at them had gone off through the brush and perhaps the goblins, because these were hunters, predators, thought it was him fleeing suddenly off in a new direction.[NC6] They were waiting for more sounds to confirm his flight when suddenly Walker exploded upon the first one, running that tall and lean goblin through with a simple stab of his old blade. It was done quick which was best[NC7] , and he shook the green creature, covered in black greasy stripes, naked and warty from the waist up, off his blade and made quick his next attack. The weapon he wielded was a blade borne in the wars across the desert waystes to the east[NC8] , and the long years he’d haunted the southern lands seeking rumors of the mission he’d been sent on long[NC9] ago. It was a simple blade. No magic in it[NC10] . No elven craft or sorcery. Something forged in the cruel furnaces of the north by mighty men who worked at hot forge and heavy hammer beneath the cold shadow of snow-capped mountains on cold mornings and even colder nights.
The sharp blade pushed neatly though the spindly Moon River Goblin kitted only in the barest traveling armor and carrying a darkwood bow. The horrid creature wore a gray sash across the bottom half of his twisted face, and though one ear was missing, he’d managed long ago to pierce what was left of the nub with an old misshapen and milky pearl the likes of which were unseen in the north.
That one died gasping and kneeling.
Moving swiftly forward, Walker hefted the blade and drove it though the creatures back, then pushed it until it came out another goblin hunter’s concave sternum[NC11] . He grasped that foul-smelling one[NC12] quickly with the well-worn leather glove of his other hand and smothered the cry of alert and murder the night hunter was bound to give in the next instant, ignoring the whispers of blood, blood, and goblin blood, pleading in his mind from the thing in the ruck on his back.
There were five here in the dark but there was confusion, and the goblin hunters were uncertain for a moment as he moved swiftly among them.
He held the goblin close, counting the remaining and seeing they were distracted with the confusion he’d caused them. He waited for the creature to die, its stench rising up into his nostrils and mixing with the night and the sickly sweet decay of the old hollow where once, much wickedness had been done long ago.
The rest of the hunters were moving in the next seconds, finding themselves and calling, really whispering to one another, in their vile black speak.
“Cuzza suum Guzudi?” they hissed softly to one another. Some cant for counting and coordinating in battle, guessed Walker as the one in his arms began to go limp with loss of life and blood, turning to little more than dead weight.
Walker withdrew his blade, not bothering to wipe the fetid blood from it, tossed the rags of the thin twisted corpse into a sunken carved stone, long hidden here, and moved toward his next target, a dangerous thing now among the hunters in the dark.
Or at least for the moment.
The hunting party whispered their hissing speech to one another from across the distances that separated them in their ambush, clearly angry and growing more panicked by the second as the wild man among them began to hew and cleave at them with the long and deadly blade.
It was a bad stroke[NC13] the goblin Walker chose next. The thing struck light to a ghostly green lantern and turned, illuminating the savage man and blade just feet away and coming for it at the last instant there in the deeps of the ancient hollow.
“Heeeyai!” it screamed, frightened, and leapt forward suddenly, slashing at Walker with a small cruel dagger it carried. This night hunter had placed his strung bow about his slender chest in order to work the lantern in the chaos.
Though dagger faced the longer blade of the Stranger, no viciousness was spared, and no quarter given. The agile little goblin, maintaining a deft hold on the bobbing lantern spewing a mossy green illumination, attacked swiftly, slashing wildly to force the stranger to give ground downslope. The cuts were wicked and had they found flesh they would have been equally deadly for goblin blades are oft poisoned. Walker’s worn grey cloak caught a quick slash before he was able to parry a wicked thrust with his own rapidly deployed dagger. A moment later he brought his old sword around in a quick arc and forced the dagger aloft and away from its defense.
With the cruel little sticker out of the way, Walker withdrew his blade and plunged it forward an instant later as the orc began to call an alert of, “Heeyaa--,” once more.
There were two left of this small hunting clutch now, and they came toward the lantern of the dying goblin hunter on the ground, thundering through the brush to catch the stranger in the act of sudden attack and murder.
In the distances there were others, whistling their alerts to contact.
Perhaps their leader, one of the ones Walker had killed already, had wanted the taking of the prize they’d been sent to find this deep in enemy territory on their scout, for himself. And so, he had not sounded the alert. But now there were many others in the hills this long night, other bands of Moon Fen Goblins, and so whoever ran this clutch hadn’t given air to his horn to alert the nearby bands of hunters and assassins that the prey was found and run to ground. Perhaps he’d made that decision in the early moments of the battle, when the black arrows had whistled through the night and he’d hoped for an easy kill and a soft plunder, returning to their masters with the thing that was sought.
Or keeping it if he found it lovely enough.
Perhaps…
But now with three clearly dead, and two calling by shrill whistle for more, Walker presumed their leader dead. And for a moment, amid the fight, he sensed his chance to get away. To hit hard, and then fade away like some ghost that never was there.
Men are ever a cruel and tricky lot in battle.
Then there was a third moving fast through the tangle of the old and unkempt hollow, and this one was surely the leader if only because his armor and bulk were much more than the others in the shadows of the night.
The survivors of the hunting party he’d fallen upon attacked as one as the other two hunters joined the leader against Walker. The leader swept a blade out savagely, raised a ram’s horn and blew, alerting one and all in the host of goblins out that wilding night that the quarry had been run to ground finally.
One blast would let the others know the prey had been found.
A second blast would tell their ears where.
The swarthy, bandy-legged creature with a bald and scarred scalp and missing fingers, sucked in another lungful of air, preparing the second blast to alert the location of the fight, and then a dagger from the man appeared dead center in his chest.
Flung from out of the night, coming from the battle along the hollow floor, his fellow goblin hunters mere whirling shadows in the battle against the night-wraith of the man, the stranger a thing of darkness in the night seeming more so than even them, had flung his dagger to stop the alert and the goblin leader died watching it appear in his chest just above the old armor he wore.
It struck with such force that the wind was knocked from the goblin leader and he let go of the horn as he died.
Perhaps… thought the leader as darkness took him, unable to gain even the slightest bit of air, perhaps the whispering voice in the bundle was the thing they’d been sent for.
And then he was dead, rolling down the slope among the old leaves and waiting spiders, coming to rest against a cracked rune-covered cut stone that offered no comfort in the night.
With three dead, two should have been fine to deal with. But the wild man called Walker found himself challenged against the two hunters who’d brought out their curved little blades no bigger than a troll’s dagger. Perhaps these two had been the up and comers in the hunting pack. Those who’d one day challenge the pack warlord for supremacy of the tribe, the mates, and the mean horde of stolen gold and captured gems the orcs of Moon Fen regarded as wealth and status, buried out in the high cliffs beneath the waters of the Dead Sea deep in the waystes.
Their ancestral homes for reasons not even they knew.
Perhaps these were those, Walker’s storyteller’s mind wove. Because there was a story to everything, and everything was a story. Still, that did not stop his parries or opportunistic thrusts to gain advantage as their steel rang out in the night and the horns of other hunting parties cried out in dark joy. He may have caught one on the arm, given a good slice because there was blood under foot and spraying about as the fight continued. But the battle was too close and too hectic, switching ground and seeking advantage one moment to the next for him to see which shadow he’d wounded.
And still the thing whispering in his mind hadn’t stopped. And if anything, it had grown to distract. Demanding now to be used for that which it was made for.
Chaos. Blood. Death.
Walker ignored these whispers, not bothering to pay mind as he fended off the two attackers along the bottom of the ancient hollow. Neverminding he’d lost his dagger to the dead goblin leader blowing the call for help. Or how imminent that help was in coming soon. Mere minutes perhaps…
And then, in just a brief instant, the blink of an eye really, the battle suddenly shifted and was done. The first goblin landed his blade deep in Walker’s side but pulled it free in the next. The wound was a silent scream that was both hot and cold in the same unending moment of pain.
Walker’s lore-minded mind knew this was not good. Perhaps a Mohrgul Blade, he thought as the offending goblin danced away, cackling gutturally, and clicking its broken teeth in some arcane and enigmatic meaning.
The other foe sensed its moment with the wounded man’s back presenting and struck out with an all or nothing blow to land his own blade in the back of their enemy and join the kill.
But this was a mistake. And where the brief fight suddenly changed and ended abruptly. Wounded though a man may be, they are a deadly race all the same. Able to divide their mind away from the things of this life and to concentrate on their task and purpose. Pleasure, or pain, the Men of long ago were able to endure[NC14] the hardships of the Dark Years and Long Crossing through the Frozen Nethers by putting their minds, and needs, elsewhere despite the harsh circumstances.
Perhaps the elves of Indolién had lost that trick, trading it in for the fineries of civilization. Eschewing pain over pleasure.
But Men had not.
Walker’s path had been much different than both men and elves. And his life a return in many respects to the old ways much sneered about in the Emerald Courts. So, it was nothing for him to simply ignore the fatal wound[NC15] and swing wide as he heard the suddenly foolish headlong rush of the other goblin smelling blood and excited for the kill. The old blade of the savage man bit deep into the orc’s skull and came away with brain matter and bone. The cut wasn’t clean… but it was enough.
The other goblin who’d backed off to enjoy his victory and cowardly slice, was surprised to see the deadly arc of the stranger’s blade take off the head of his comrade… and then… come for him in the same moment as the Man turned his pivot into a tremendous sure-footed rush across the treacherous deadfall of the old hollow. Giving ground, backpedaling, the lean goblin threw up both its black claws, one still holding its own blade, to fend off the furious attack. But this was to little avail as the blade of the man rammed home and pinned the sly hunter dead against the trunk of an old twisting oak.
Run though its tiny black heart, the last thing the cruel goblin hunter heard was the sudden snap of the man’s blade against the solidness of the oak as the warrior pushed it through, having a bad angle and revealing some old fault within the forged metal waiting for just such a moment to occur.
In the silence that followed, Walker backed away holding the hilt of the broken weapon he’d borne long in his travels.
Hearing the laugh of the whispering voice hidden within his worn ruck turn to the full-throated satisfaction of seductress scorned. The voice of the thing in the bundle.
Gray wisps of smoke crawled from out its knotted covering.
Walker could feel his own blood running down his side and along his leg. Into his boot. But there wasn’t any time for this. In the distance he could hear the others, the other night hunters coming for him, calling one to [NC16] another out there in the late night. Coming to do the evil the horn had called them for.
Coming for him.
The Tolkien Project: Chapter Five