The Incident Behind the Inn – Chapter 5

*Scene 01* 8:10 (Searching for a Troll)

At the back of the Inn, we gathered behind the two extruded rock backings, forming the exterior face of the fireplaces fireboxes, extending upward toward the gables and the chimney stacks. The ash pit underneath the firebox had a cast iron dump door that was released by a lever from inside the inn. When the dump door extended, the cooled ash could be scraped down the door chute into an ashes pale and carried out for other uses around the barnyard and garden.

The ground just beneath when the ash chute extended was covered in a fine white powder where the spilled ash dust had poured around the ash bucket. The ground was marked by footprints where Begglar and his son had harvested the ash, so it was difficult to tell from the prints alone which sets might belong to them and which to the escaping troll.  However, I knew something about troll sign that would prove distinctive among the others. I squatted down studying the patterns in the dust.

“What are we looking for?” one of the others asked as they crowded around me.

“Knuckle prints,” I said and then I spotted them. Fat indentations that looked like a small bundle of chubby sticks had been pressed into the powdered ground.

I spotted another set of these a few feet to the right, but easily within reach of a the former.  The company had moved in and encircled me while I had squatted down, and in so doing, they obscured any further markings. My fault entirely. I should have kept them back, but they were understandably curious.

The initial bearing of the creature was north, but the ground beyond grew more rocky and hardened. My only hope was that the group had gathered tight enough in around me that they had not stepped over the further trail sign of the troll.

“I need you all to tread carefully. We need to find which way it headed. These things are cagey. It could be anywhere in the vicinity.”

“What are we looking for?”

“Yeah. How will we know it when we see it?”

“Trolls are almost always short and squat by stature. In whatever form it takes, it won’t get any taller.  They move about in a kind of a galloping waddle, interchangeably using their feet and thick knuckles as ballast.  That is why there will be knuckle prints all along side of their foot prints.  You might have seen chimpanzees who move similarly, though trolls do not possess such animal grace of movement nor fluidity either.  They can be fast only in short sprints before they become winded and start snorting like a hog.  They squeal like them too when they are surprised or threatened.  Loud, ear-splitting squeals that would make one think someone set the shaggy hair on their forearms on fire. They have piggish eyes, a crinkled bulbous nose that looks like an anemic turnip, and they suck in their chubby fat cheeks, and have a strong tendency to pucker their pouty fat lips. But the problem is, when they hide they will not appear like this.”

“We didn’t see anything like that, inside the inn.”

“No, you wouldn’t have.  Often times your expectation of what they should look like or where they should conceal themselves for spying will cause you to miss spotting them.  Like a chameleon, they blend in with their surroundings.  Their skin is pebbled with a sort of photo-optic pigment that seems to texturize and darken or fade at their will.  It is uncanny.  They are the gypsy moths of this sub-world.  Like prolonged immersion in water can crinkle your fingertips, their skin does this creepy puckering all over. They can look like rock or a piece of ground, anything that might seem natural from a distance.”

I could tell they were skeptical of my statements, but I knew the little vermin were adept in the art of camouflage.

“The best thing is to look for is visible signs of its passing.  There should be further evidence somewhere close.  A broken twig, crushed patches of mountain brome grass and yellow toadflax weeds or purple sage.  Bits of scattered ash on the ground further up.  Or pressed gravel or dislodged stones, or some stubby foot or knuckle prints.  Trolls have broad feet.  As I mentioned, trolls waddle and grope when they walk, so there should be a pivoting action when its back leg bears its weight in that twisting action.  Look to the ground. You may see half-turned rocks or disturbed circularly raked ground over which the little beastie has passed.  Evidence of that peculiar and unique pivoting gait.  Spread out about six feet from each other and try not to walk over the signs. Raise your hand if you spot something, but don’t say it out loud. Don’t get ahead of each other. We’re going to have to work the area in a grid, just to make sure it hasn’t shuffled off into the scrub brush and sage patches skirting the pasture behind the stables.  Most likely he is squatting somewhere watching us through the grass.”

As the others spread out, I softly took the arm of one of the girls holding her back. I quietly asked her to go down to the stable nearby and bring one of the large burlap sacks back to me.  The creature would be feisty and hard to control, so we needed something to confine it in.  She nodded and moved quickly away to fetch what I had asked for.

I knew a little bit more about trolls than I was comfortable telling, and there wasn’t time to explain fully.  The little snot had to be still within the area.  Rounding the corner we saw that the flue door swung slightly, revealing that the troll had surreptitiously exited the dining area and was in the process of absconding with its sneaky little secrets. It was in a rush and had not taken to time to fully close the ash hatch, so it might have made other mistakes in its haste.

One of the other disturbing things about troll is, they have a memory like a three-year-old.  Those little cauliflower-like fat ears on their heads pickup sound as efficiently as Soviet-era submarine radar.  That is what makes them the perfect spies in a few senses. If I said too much to the others, it would overhear and know we might have a fair chance to catch it.

For all of their ability to hear, trolls did have weaknesses.  They are chronically plagued with bad eye-sight.  They tended to squint in bright daylight, and at night…

Well, if past experiences count for anything, I had rarely, if ever, seen one active at night.  Despite what one might think, they slept more often than not.  If blindfolded, they would fall to sleep like a narcoleptic at a pillow convention.

Knowing that weakness I hoped we could bag it.  Turn out the lights and it’s nighty-night within a few moments.  They are slovenly.  And they snore.  Very loudly.  When traveling incognito, they spend the night in close proximity to pig farms so their night noises cannot be distinguished from grunting hogs.

It is a good thing for trolls that mountain folk are so fond of bacon, otherwise, they would have no place to sleep without being discovered by those they were sent to spy on and harass.

The creature could not have gotten too far in such a short time.

I scanned the field and rocky hillside extending behind the Inn, carefully observing each sector within my field of vision in a systematic grid pattern as I had advised the others to do.

Then I see him.  About twenty feet away, to the northwest about halfway up the rising slope.

His cover is not what I had expected.  Most observers would miss seeing him, but I happened to know something about these mountain passes in the sub-alpine climes.

Clever devil, but obviously ignorant about mountain flora.

*Scene 02* 10:34 (Cornering the Troll)

There is a barrel cactus jutting out of the northern slope, leaning northward.  Or it is what appears to be a barrel cactus.

A few things gave him away.  One, barrel cacti do not grow at this elevation this far up the mountain.  Two, the soil is too shallow, rocky and sloped here; barrel cacti typically grow in a desert wash or gravelly bajadas.  And three, there is too much wet between the snowmelt, mountain fogs, and rainfall in these upper regions.  Barrel cacti are an arid plant occupying both lower and high deserts and plains.  And lastly, this cactus was leaning towards the northern face of the hillside.  Barrel cacti are also known as the compass cacti because they almost always tend to lean towards the south or southwest to prevent burns from the sun.

From a distance, the nettled spines over its body seemed reason enough not to get too near it.  But I couldn’t risk that stopping us.

I raise my hand over my head signaling the call to bring my fellow travelers back, trying to give the appearance, from a distance, that we are giving up the search.

We gather in a huddle with most of our backs to the hillside.

I kneel down opening my pack again. Discarding the stick I had grabbed from the woodpile and instead pulling out the central length of wood from the pack.  Along side it is a corked bottle of oil, wax-sealed.
“Open your packs and pull out the torch you find in there.  The end is wrapped, but may need a little more oil to keep it lit.”

“Where is it hiding?”

“It is just up the hillside there.  About thirty to forty feet away. Torches first. Lay them out carefully. Huddle in so it can’t see what we’re doing here.”

They huddled closer, squatting down around me, and I carefully…carefully poured small amounts of oil on the wrapped rags of our torches.  The oil is too precious to waste.

“It has disguised itself as a barrel cactus”, I tell them in a whisper.  “There on the hillside.  It has some sort of shawl of thorns over its body.  Be careful of the thorns.  If they prick you and draw blood it will be a dirty wound that may take months to heal.  This troll must be far from home.  Or had once lived in the desert lowlands.  It probably heard us coming so it resorted to a quick cover it was most accustomed to.”

“What are we going to do with it?” I am asked.

“We’re going to circle it in a ring of fire.  That ought to warm it up.  If it fails to give up its thorny cloak, we light it up.  Those briars are dry and yellowed.  He’ll pitch it off in short order.”

Miray leaned next to me and said, “I’m afraid.”

“I know. I know. It is better if you stay back, my dear.  It is not safe to show these creatures any fear.  It is dangerous.  If you feel it coming, back out of the circle and we will close ranks around it.  If it thinks we are afraid of it, it will press that as an advantage. Hide your fear if you can.”

“And how do we do that?” one asked.

“Avoid any direct eye contact with it. That’s very, very important. Don’t let it lock eyes with you, whatever you do.”

At that very moment, the woman who I has sent on the errand, returned with the large burlap grain sack.

“Will this work?” she asked.

It is dusty and has pieces of straw stuck to it, but it has a good strong drawstring and no apparent rat holes chewed into the sides.  The burlap is thick and of a good strong waft and weave.

“Yeah.  This’ll do nicely.  Hang onto it for now. We will need it very soon. Time to light up your torches.”

We each have pieces of flint we draw against an ash-stone and directly our torches ignite one by one.

We fan out nonchalantly, edging our way up the slope.  Gravel and cracked slate crunch under our feet as we draw our circle inward towards the apparent…barrel cactus.

In moments, the troll realized the gig was up.

It rose up from its squatting place, its short stumpy legs, and thickly calloused feet breaking the illusion that it was only an out-of-place desert plant.

Turning this way and that, grunting in frustration seeing it was surrounded…it feinted and lunged, growling at the brightly burning torches, but together my friends hold him at bay.

Predictably, in a show of nastiness, the troll flips it spiny shroud off its back and swings it threateningly back and forth like a midget Matador beckoning and taunting a bull.  At that moment, we see its piggish black, seething eyes, fiery with hatred.  It thrusts out its lower lip revealing broken, yellow teeth, and an oddly placed tusk. A froth of drool drips over its blackened lower lip like a savage dog.  It’s ugly aspect and curious form draws eyes inexorably towards it like by-passers witnessing the aftermath of a car wreck.

In a guttural growl, it snarled, “Meddlers!  Push off, you pig piles!  Leave me be! Stay out of Xarmnian business!”

I can tell there is some hesitancy to move any closer to this pugnacious creature, but we must.

“Don’t speak to it,” I caution.  Creatures such as these cannot be placated. They will lure one into thinking they might be making some progress long enough to get the upper hand and turn that naiveté to their advantage.

“Well, now! Seems like you’re the spokesman of this group. If you won’t speak then listen, and listen well. You all are interfering in Xarmnian affairs. The suspicion of meddling alone gives me permission to kill you all. There are others not far from here that will hear me, and be here in moments, if I but raise an alarm. Back off now, and I may let you all live.”

“It is bluffing.  If its threat was credible, it would have already raised an alarm.”

But perhaps, its own self-interest and self-preservation instincts might distract it enough for one of our crew to throw the burlap bag over its head and confine it.

“No fear,” I remind them, meanwhile thinking to myself, That jagged tusk protruding from its mouth could just as easily rip open our guts as easy as an enraged feral hog would.

“I need you all to hold those torches together so you don’t give it an opening to run through.”  They are annoyed with me, I can tell.

Its forearms are muscled and powerful.  Knuckles calloused and hard as rock.

“Be careful, but don’t show fear.  Got it?”  But sometimes saying the very thing you should do causes the opposite to happen.

“Can you just shut up?!” a woman turned and wailed.

The Troll saw an opening and gambled.  He knuckle-crawled toward it, but thankfully a girl of about eighteen or nineteen thrust her torch into the opening saved the distracted woman from the assault.  The troll’s shawl of thorns brushed the flames and ignited.

Since the Troll could not stamp it out or smother the flame, he was forced to toss it away and turn his angry sneer on the torch bearer.

The women screams and starts to jump back, but one of the young men slash their flaming firebrand at the troll and he grudgingly flinches and moves sideways, on both his extended fists and short legs.

Having lost his immediate threat, the troll screeched and beat his head with both fists.  He then pauses and turns threatening and slowly toward the one who thwarted his escape attempt.  He champed his teeth crookedly and, with what passed as a nasty impish smile, he glared at the torch wielder.  He’s seen a spark of fear in the torch bearer’s eye and in the unguarded moment following the close call, she let her true fear shine through.

“I’m gonna get you for that!” he growled, making a knife cutting gesture across his jowly throat with a savage and wicked glee.

“Wait and see,” his voice dropped an octave lower to a guttural belly growl, as his lips curled again into that nasty, sinister smile, “Wait…and…see.”

*Scene 03* 6:21 (Dark Insight)

I can see, from across the way, the girl is visibly shaken.  The troll had locked eyes with her and in that moment her face pales in shock.

She has an ashen expression as her eyes ignite with horror.

She can hear him-in her head-plucking and pulling up painful memories. And the flame in her ignited eyes begin to douse that indignancy with a well of spilling tears.

The troll’s lips are moving rapidly in a quiet buzzing mutter, but none of us can hear what terrible things are being said to the girl.

Her grip on her torch begins to grow slack in her hands and waver.  Her cheeks flush red as she turns hurt and accusatory eyes my way, lifting them at last from the troll’s hold.

Her words came across the ring in a trembling whisper, each utterance slamming me with hard punches.

“F-For all your warnings and talk about these trolls, you failed to mention the most dangerous thing about them.”

A crushing look of betrayal enjoined her quiet charge.

“Why didn’t you tell me it could do that?!  How are we not supposed to be afraid if it can see into our memories, huh?!  If it can just pull out the most hurtful ones we suffered as children and beat us up with them?  This place is becoming too dangerous for me.  I don’t know where we are, but I can’t take this any longer.”

I swallowed hard, my tongue as dry as desert sand, trying to speak calmly to her without letting the fear I feel enter into my voice, but I am afraid it does anyway.

“Hold your torch.  Don’t give it any more opportunity to get into your head.  Don’t listen to it!  Remind yourself of Whose you are!  These creatures can only augment and regurgitate a lie planted in you by someone else’s cruel words.  If it has the ability to use it, the message it gathers from it is most certainly a lie, you have toyed with believing about yourself.”  My voice faltered.  Not because I am afraid for myself, but for her and that I will fail her and the rest of them as a guide on this shared journey to Excavatia.

I have never had to do this before–play the role of impromptu psychological counselor–but I cannot focus on that now.  The situation is becoming too dangerous.

The troll cocked its head and watched her earnestly for a few long seconds, its crooked smile broadening, but it also began to slowly turn his nasty fat face to me.

I should have taken my own counsel, but I too found myself drawn into its gaze.

Its malicious eyes did something strange.  One of its black eyes rotated and went wall-eyed, keeping a chameleon-like focus on my traveling companion, waiting for her torch to waver and sink lower, never losing its focus on her or her personal internal battle with fear and anxiety.

It continued to assault her with something far worse in her mind than what the Troll said to her openly.  In the half-turn, the Troll’s ratty, blackish other eye turned towards me and stabbed into my mind with a rush of hateful and cruel whispers from my own past in the Surface World.

The darkness rushing into my mind just got very personal.  Stabs of hateful words pounded my mind, threatening to peel my psyche apart.

In the distance, as my eyes watered and fluttered under the attack, I begin to see small flakes fall from somewhere far over our heads.

A connection is being made from the Surface World to this one, and there is a barely audible cracking noise, we can all hear, as more of the peeling ceiling above the clouds falls through.

I breathe in spite of the waves of darkness, pulsing behind my eyes, threatening to push me into despair. I swallow, and squeak out the words, “O God.”  Two words of a frantic prayer and plaintive plea for help.

A short breath comes to me and in that gasping moment I know I must gain focus.  This Troll is turning the tables on us.

*Scene 04* 10:35 (Mind Armor)

Only the girl and I, truly perceive the darkness coming from this ugly creature. I feel its grimy, unnatural reach claw into our minds seeking out and using the lies which have secretly wounded both of us.

It has been so long since I faced down such an enemy that I almost forget that the critical counter to any mental barrage of lies is the truth. I should have been better prepared, but the stropped edge of my sharpness had been dulled by the intervening twenty-one years.

Still the Ancient text stirs within me, in response to my gasped prayer.

Its truth is the only mental sword capable of penetrating to the mind fogs of Trolls or any of the other mind beasts prowling this place. But its power is best wielded in relationship, and that is the solid ground my teetering mind tells me to seek.

I reach for that mental stability. Think, will you? Relationship.  Whose am I?  To whom do I belong?  Who gave me this calling and in Whom do I trust?

Internal voices, sounding like my own, try to interfere, telling me I need to defend myself, but my unworthiness threatens to darken my mind again. And then I find a spark of hope. A verse rises from somewhere deep within me.

“For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life because of me will find it. [Matthew 16:25 CSB]

Don’t think to defend yourself. Think to defend the others. Speak forth the Word. Save the girl and you will save all.

I breathe deeply and then find myself speaking the words of The One Who is Faithful and True:

“He who calls you is trustworthy, and he will in fact do this.  [1 Thessalonians 5:24 NET]”

Looks of annoyance come at me from around the circle, but I blink away their disdain, and reach again for the Words of the Ancient, Living and Breathing Passages and find them springing from my memory into my heart. Their shafts of internal light penetrate the darkness I feel within, blocking the unrelenting dark-eye from further probing…grasping to take hold of every careless and thoughtlessly cruel word spoken to me in the Surface World, that I had secretly catalogued and collected, storing them in the shelves of my mind.

“A scoundrel plots evil, and on their lips it is like a scorching fire.” [Proverbs 16:27 NIV]

It is clear what this impish and cruel creature and others like it are trying to do to us both here in this moment and in other places at the same time.  Other places back in our lives in the Surface World haunt us here, especially here.

Thoughtless and unkind words there have ways of springing forth from mouth to mouth, burrowing into the hearts, minds, and memories of torchbearers and would-be torchbearers walking unaware of this realm in the Surface World above them.  They do not understand the danger of continuing to carry those harmful accusing words within themselves. Even though we secretly berate ourselves with these barbs and especially so when confronted with their own shortcomings and real-world failures, these jabs do not stay on their shelves gathering dust, but will eventually become projectiles of bitterness that will wound others within our circles.  Inevitably, those harmful words, if given the unwarranted status of being “possibly true“, will inevitably find a way to spring forth from our own lips aimed at someone we love and cherish and would never, knowingly, consciously wish to harm or damage in any way. Unkindness cannot be allowed to take root in us. Each of these word-woundings are handles by which Trolls can climb into our minds and inflict pain.

Another verse springs to my memory.  Because I have been somewhat more faithful in my former routine of gathering these weapons together in the Surface World,  I am now able to use them powerfully as defensive and offensive weapons in dangerous moments like these.

I speak it forth, reminding my fellow traveler of a truth of the source of all of their personal doubts and fears. “Remember what the Writer from Prison said. He thanks The One for this truth:

‘…So then, with my mind I myself am serving the law of God, but with my flesh, the law of sin. Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those in Christ Jesus, because the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set you free from the law of sin and death.’ [Romans 7:25b to 8:1-2 CSB]

“Dear girl, I do not know your name yet. But The One who does is the same One who brought you here to find freedom from the chain this Troll is hurting you with now–The memories you are letting it hurt you with, by hanging on to them. Let go of them. Whatever it is that you have believed about yourself and your self-worth-Let go. You are a child of The One. Otherwise you would not be here.”

“I…,” tears poured from the girl’s eyes and she now held the burning torch in one hand, brushing the burn of the salt away from her cheeks with the other.

Her pupils were unusually dilated, and appear almost black, as if she were standing within a dark cave trying to catch the faintest of luminesce.

This overwhelming fear of release comes from the Enemy that occupies their imaginations and holds them back from being and doing everything they were called to and meant to be both here and in the Surface World.  This vicious word that each of you carries with you, even if they sprang from the lips of people present or in your past is not the truth.  They are used by and echoed by the vile pernicious ancient being who is in a futile and protracted battle to lie, deceive and accuse you because he cannot reach or strike the One who he really rages against.  His only way to hurt that One deeply is by unmercifully attacking you…the ones he can reach.

He is the true master of the monsters and creatures that live both here and in the world above us.  They do his bidding because he was cast out of a place of honor so very long, long ago.  He hates because he is consumed with his own hatred, and because of it, the first sin nested in him and cause him to foolishly believe a lie about himself that has sprung forth in dark, black, rivers of sewage ever since.  He whispered it into the ears of our first ancestors causing them to doubt who they were, and what they were called to do.  It caused them to doubt how perfectly they were loved and how doted upon and how pleased He was that He had breathed His Spirit into them and gave them a first birth to live in the joy of His delight and purpose and in a vast cosmos filled with undiscovered wonders He created just for them.

All of the substance of the Surface World, as we know it, its beauty, its microcosm, and its macrocosm its closeness and its vastness were designed for them, that they might have the promise of it and the dominion over it.  The bones of that Surface World remain healthy, its foundation was established for a forever, though its skin is threatened by a growing disease.  It has places both of inspiring beauty and places riddle and scorched with disease and blight.  Fear stalks that land and temporarily rules it until the King returns to it.  He will awaken the royal ones once again to who they are and remind them of their royal lineage.  It is a day we all hope and pray for.  A promise made, by One who has a record of always keeping His promises.  All of these thoughts, these pearls of truth, rally to me in an instant.  An instant that barely passes within this confrontation between we travelers and this Troll threatening us.  I share with you, my fellow companions, this revealing word from the Ancient Text that should help to rally you and your courage to confront this being.

“7 For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind. 8 Be not thou therefore ashamed of the testimony of our Lord, nor of me his prisoner: but be thou partaker of the afflictions of the gospel according to the power of God;”  [2 Timothy 1:7-8 KJV]

Hold your heads up high.  Bring power to your moment from a source far greater than yourself.  Keep your gift of a sound mind.  Armor yourself with the truth.

*Scene 05* 9:44 (The Girl in the Fight)

I see the Troll pivoting, glaring at each one of my traveling companions, clearly seeking what lies they have been told in their minds so that he can use it against them, cause them to drop their torch and run.  His aspect is fierce and cunning, intimidating even though we all stand a good three to three and a half feet taller than he does.  He feints a rush at us, watching us flinch and almost…almost step back and widen the circle around him.  We are all uncertain what to do next, when one of my companions, who I charged with bringing the large burlap sack, burst through the circle and charges the Troll with the open end of the sack as soon as it faces one of the other travelers and turns its back on her.  I am not certain, but I think she has a special relationship to this traveler coming under the accusing eye of Troll.

In true mama-bear fashion, she screams, “Enough of this!  I’ll do it!” and she rush-tackles the Troll in its defensive posture knocking it to the ground…but first, she miraculously manages to slip the dirty burlap bag over its head and cover its shoulders.  Emboldened by her sheer act of bravery and remarkable courage, my fellow companions lay down their torches and join the fray.

The Troll is powerful, and it struggles and coughs in the dusty interior of the bag, dirt wafting into its critical eyes and broad nostrils.  It flings its powerful, overlong arms around it, seeking to dislodge her in her vise-grip as she struggles to pull the bag down even further over its fiercely flailing body.  Its legs are short but powerful.  Its hard feet stamping at her, threatening to crush unguarded toes.

Courageously, though perhaps thinking what she did was brazen and unwise, she clings onto the spinning troll as he batts at her with clawing fingers and tries to strike her and pummel her cruelly with hard, flat-calloused knuckles.  But it was and is not happening.  She has the Troll in a powerful hammerlock, holding on for dear life…it appears.  Her feet flail and drag and scuff as the angry Troll tries to pitch her off and rakes viciously at her forearm, but she is committed.  I can see a kind of ferocity in her eyes as well.

My companions, are wanting to help, but cannot seem to get close enough to do much good.  I think they are seriously considering stopping to take bets on the fight.  The clear odds-on favorite is the she-bear.

Suddenly, we all detect a move by the Troll, that we have not heretofore considered.  The Troll is armed with a weapon.  It is reaching to grab at a dagger scabbarded to its waist.  Normally it could get to it quickly enough, but the girl’s body makes that much more difficult, though not impossible.  Its fingers finally find purchase and it unsheathes the wicked looking black blade.  It begins to slash at her, but one of the men rushes forward and catches the Troll’s corded and muscled forearm before it can cut the girl’s hold.  The Troll has a powerful vise-like grip on the blade and its fingers cannot be pried loose from it.  The man underestimates the brute strength of the Troll and his shirt and skin suffer a nasty slash from it as a result.  A few inches closer and the cut would have been more than a grazing–and we would be burying one of them here.  One of the other women rush in also grabbing the Trolls arm, but she is flung away as it backhands her, with the other.  The men and women, boys and girls press in, trying to avoid the wicked slashing, but the Troll catches the back of a heel and threatens to fillet open the person’s calve.  Instead, in its blindness, it merely cuts into the person’s heel, cleaving off a part of their shoewear, but thankfully missing bone and flesh tucked safely within.

The Troll finally loses its balance, and in the midst of the fall, the she-bear manages to pull the burlap bag even further down to its waist, before they both strike the rocky ground with a thud.  She is abraded by the Troll’s slashing, but its upper arms are now more restricted by the bag over its head and shoulders.  The blade rings metallicaly against the stones as the Troll mewls and grunts in angered frustration.  “Kill you all!” it screams, thrashing and stabbing futilely.  “I’ll kill you all!  Wait and see!  You’ll all pay for this!”

The she-bear is fatigued, cut and scraped.  Her arms and back bleeding from the sharp gravel.  The Troll partially fell on top of her, pinning her leg beneath its body weight.  It knows she is near, as it struggles to stab her, without also stabbing itself.

“A little more help here would be nice, guys!” she pleads as her grip around the Troll’s enshrouded head begins to fail.  The others want to help, but the Troll’s knife is jabbing downward like the bobbin on a sewing machine.  Its blade scraping and clanging against buried stone and gravel.  They feint in, trying to grip the open bottom of the burlap sack, trying to pull it further down over the Troll’s bucking and heaving body.  If they can just get it down to its feet they might be able to pull the drawstring closed and bind the Troll.  But that wicked looking blade is stopping them.  They have to get that blade out of its fists first or it will cut the bag open and get free and all their efforts up to now–to capture and contain it–will have been for naught.

I should help.  I need to help.  But I am mesmerized by the spectacle. And I am ashamed that I have stood by here and done nothing other than talk and rally my companions into the teeth of danger.  To lead one must lead by example.  Never expect others to do what you are unwilling to do yourself.

So I pick up a stone and move forward.  The she-bear gives me a grateful, but an “it’s-about-time” look as I go to help her, and plan to smash the knife hand of the Troll until it gives up its blade, but another anticipates me and crawls forward in a pincer move to do the same as I had planned.  He gets the opportune moment before I could have.  At least that is what I tell myself.  Some guide I am.  Some hero.  A big joke is what.  I shouldn’t even be leading this team to Excavatia and on this crusade to save stories and inspire others.  I am ashamed of my own failures, how can I possibly speak anything worthy into their lives if I have my own obstacles and shortcomings?  If I hesitate when danger is present?  Am I a coward at heart?  That is not who I want to be?  Why do I doubt myself?  What am I even doing here, when I am so unworthy?  Again the reminder comes in a flash.

“He who calls you is trustworthy, and he will in fact do this.  [1 Thessalonians 5:24 NET]”

It is not my own strength, or even will that will give me courage for the days to come–the moments on this journey that stretch out ahead of us.  It is, merely, that I need to constantly remind myself that I was called to do this.  And in responding to that calling, I will find myself being equipped for it along the way.  We all learn from our journeys and our failings perhaps teach us the most important lessons of all.  Remember Who called you.  Remember that in that calling, the Purpose is always good and extends from the very Nature of the One who called you.  If you fail, it is only one of many battles you will face in the days ahead.  One battle does not make the summation of the war for victory, as long as one is willing to get up, brush off, attend to their inevitable cuts and bruises and be willing to learn from the painful experience and live to fight another day.

Though I know a lot about Trolls, I am not seasoned in combat against them.  They have beaten me a few times, and at some points in my Surface World confrontations with them, I have turned and ran.  I am not proud of those memories, but I will not let them be my final epitaph.  I serve under a higher calling.  The tasks given me, are doable through His empowerment, and not in my own strength.  I will meet with future failures, but that is part of the battles I must fight either alone or with the faithful few of you who remain with me and share this journey.

*Scene 06* 7:36 (Eternal Touch)

I see the knife finally clatter to the ground as the Troll’s pummeled fingers flex and clasp in pain.  The others rush forward to grab the Troll’s feet and pull the loosened bag over them and quickly draw in the slack.

The Troll lay quiet for a moment, its arms visibly trying to work their way up its body, but it could not get them high than its waist.  It let out a high-pitched, ear-piercing screech that seemed to reverberate and echo back from the surrounding hills.  It was a terrifying scream of frustration and rage, such that we wondered fearfully how long the bag would hold it.

“We need to shut it up.”  I am told.  “It will bring others down on us.  If the family inside is being pursued by theses Protectorate guards, they will have heard the noise it is making.”

Just wait for a moment, I tell them.  The Troll is in darkness trapped in that bag.  It cannot last much longer before it begins to get sleepy.  It will forget momentarily what we have done to it, and drift off as if night has fallen.  Remember what I told you about Trolls.  They are not particularly Nocturns.  Its own biological needs will win out.  It must sleep in the darkness and very soon.

We watch as the thrashing bag, imprisoning the Troll, falls silent and still.  Occasionally it tightens and twists, but that lessens too.

Just then, the innkeeper comes trundling up the hillside to where my friends and I are standing.

“What’s all this then?!” he shouts angrily.  “What’s this noise and who are all you folks?”

Then he spots me and frowns, shaking a, once meaty fist, at me.  “Is that you, O’Brian?!”

“Come back ‘ere to make trouble, are you?!”

I demur and grin at him.  “How are you, you old rascal?!  You are much changed from when I last saw you.”

He puts his hands to his hips and scrutinizes me with a suspicious look until the cobwebs clear from his memory and he sighs.

“Yes it’s me, Begglar.  And it’s just Brian, remember?”

“Oh,” he says.

“No.  Just Brian.”

He gives me a scowl missing the joke entirely.

“So you’ve come back, have you?” he growls.  “Be wanting some provisions and a place to bed down for your friends here, I’ll warrant.”

“That would be appreciated, if you could arrange it.”

He groused, “Times here ain’t what they used to be, O’Brian.”

He did so persist in calling me that, but I let it slide.

“Most of the travelers that come here, are of a different sort.  The kind’ll just as soon slit your throat as look at you.  These halls have no had good-natured fellowship and laughter in them for some time now.  There are evil creatures about and most of the worst ones are in man form.  Lookin’ as pleasant as you please and I pays ‘em I do.  I have too.  Not much cause they’re bleedin’ me dry of most of my savings.  I get a little now and then in trade.  I am paid for things I am mostly ashamed of.  But it keeps my family fed doesn’t it?  So there’s the devil’s bargain.  Shamed I am of it.  But my family’s fed, now aren’t they?  A man’s got to provide for his family, now doesn’t he?”

It seems as if Old Begglar was talking more to himself than to us, as a way of justifying in his own mind, something that deeply disturbed him.  His eyes were blood-shot.  It looked like he hadn’t had much sleep in day, months, perhaps very nearly years from the look of him.  His once black full head of hair was now only gray, wiry tufts stuck here and there around his balding head.  His skin was slack and sallow-complexioned.  The once laughter plow lines around his eyes, now sagged into deep furrow of worry, fatigue and fearfulness.  He winced under the sunlight.  His hands were gnarled and twisted with an arthritic swelling.

He looked just beyond us and then turned accusatory eyes towards me.

“Oy!  What you got sallied and gussied up in that feed sack there?!  You stealing one of my pigs?!”

We turned and that is when we noticed the Troll in the sack, quietly wriggling its way up the hillside.  Rocking from side to side trying to gain ground before we noticed its new attempt to evade us.

“It’s not a pig, Begglar.  We caught a Troll, fleeing from inside your tavern there.”

Begglar immediately went ashen.  “Oh, my heavens!  Not that!  Please not that!”

Begglar began to shaken and tug at his hair, panicking and in fright and dismay.

“How long’s it been here?  What has it heard?!  We are all dead.  They’ll come for us.  They could be coming even now.  There’s a family I took in.  The Protectorate!  They’ll be searching for them.  No one gets away from them for long.  What have you done to us?!  Why did you meddle with it?!”

Calm down, I reassure him, as my companions move up the hill to drag the bag back down and stand guard over the captured Troll.  Sensing their approach the Troll wriggles more violently, trying to evade them, but in so doing fails to see the sputtering and moldering torch nearby.  It rocks too near the flame and its bag and shroud catches fire.

There is nothing I or anyone can do about it.  The bag burst into flames and the Troll lets out a scream of rage. 

It is not a sound of pain, but pure seething anger.  It shrieks and curses and thrashes under the fire.  Raging with such hatred it is very hard for us to feel that it has any sense of terror or peril.  Water is too far away for anyone of us to save it in time.  The bag burns and the Troll–finally–stops thrashing.  It is over.

Begglar is stricken silent.  He appears as if he might fall over so I steady him and ask one of the others to help him back to the inn.  We are all silent.  Death is never easy even when it comes for an evil creature, no matter how much they may deserve its eternal touch.

*Scene 07* 6:01 (The She-Bear)

I walk silently after the others, next to the she-bear.  I glance at her, questioningly.

“You alright?”

She nods.

“I’ll be fine.  Just a few scrapes and bruises.  Nothing I couldn’t have gotten tussling with my brothers growing up.  I’ll manage,” she shrugs dismissively.

But I know different.  This was a turning point for her.  She took a stand of courage that all of us hesitated to take.  She should be proud of herself.

I know I am of her.

“What made you do that back there?”

She smiled to herself.

“Back in my life in the Surface World, I am a mom. I couldn’t bear to watch that troll torment that girl any longer so I just did what I would do for one of my own. I love my kids, Brian or O’Brian. Whatever you’re called. Is that what the man running this Inn called you?”

“Yeah,” I answered in a clipped annoyance, not directed at her.

She nodded and continued, “I fight for my kids everyday.  I’ve keep them relatively safe.  Clothed, fed, and managed to keep a roof over our heads.”

“It’s tough y’know? Makes you tough.”

I nodded, but having no relatable experience, could do no more than that.

“It’s just me in their lives now.  Sometimes I have to be hard on them.  Show them that I am not their friend, but am something so much more than that.  I’m their mom.  I don’t want them believing any of the lies they’ve been told in their lives.  I want so much more for them than I’ve ever had.  Their good kids.  They need to know their mom has their back.  I’m not perfect, you know.  Things I may have said to them in frustration I’m not proud of.  I wish I could erase those moments.  Their good kids.  They do not deserve to have the pain they had to go through.”

“Momma-bear,” I muttered, with a hint of a grin.

“What was that?” she asks.

“You’re a she-bear.  Don’t mess with you cubs.”

She looked thoughtful a moment and then smiled a beaming smile.

“I like that,” she pondered the statement again for a moment, tasting it and savoring the idea.  “She-bear,” she said finally, “I never thought of it that way.  Don’t mess with my cubs.  I like that.”

She swallowed, touched by the thought in some deeper way that I could not discern, “Thank you for that.”

I could see the edge of a tear beginning to form, but I did not wish to embarrass her.  She was tough but tender underneath and there was no point in calling attention to that since I was still a stranger to her.  

To lighten the moment, I added, “So, next time we encounter a troll.  Do you mind if I stand beside you?”

She grinned in thought, “You think I need protecting?”

“No,” I offered, “I think I do.”

She laughed and the moment was lifted by my awkward attempt at levity.

“I haven’t ask this of any of the others yet, but I am going to ask you now.  You don’t have to answer yet if you don’t want to.”

She looked at me and said, “Sure, go ahead and ask.”

“Do you mind telling me your first name?  In these lands, we do not use last names here.  It is not in vogue here.  But I would like to know your name, if you don’t mind sharing it.”

She smiled that radiant smile again,  “Sure, my name is Christie.”

“Courage has a name, and today its goes by Christie. I am very pleased and honored to meet you, Christie,” I offered my hand and she shook it with a surprisingly strong grip.  “Your name is fitting.  Reminds me of another name.”

“Honored to meet you to.  You remind me of someone I once knew in the Surface World long ago.  I can’t quite make it out, but,”she shrugged, “…there it is.”

“You do know you saved us all back there, don’t you?  If that Troll had mesmerized us any further, it could have been really bad.”

She smiled again and crinkled her brow and nose, “Did I?  I didn’t see it that way.  It felt more like I was saving a part of myself than anyone else.  And the girl, I guess.”

“Yep,” I quipped, “Just like a She-bear.”

*Scene 08* 6:45 (Libation)

We came around to the front of the inn.  The others had procured a bottle of whiskey from the innkeeper’s storage.  Inside, Begglar sat at one of his own tables nursing a glass of the amber liquid trying to settle his nerves.  It was not something I would have recommended, but in that moment he appeared to need it.

We came in from the shadowed doorway, and I approached Begglar as he took another swallow from his drink.  The whiskey was of the kind one would normally take in small shot glasses, but he had poured a large draft glass of it. He scowled and winced at the burn of the potent drink and then caught my eye, tapped the side of the glass and muttered, “Medicinal purposes.”

I nodded, not sure of its particular qualities to make him any better, only that it might dull the sharpness of the fear he visibly felt at the moment.

“Where’s the family that was here?” one of the others asked.

“Saw them, did you?  Well, no matter now.  I gave them a room upstairs and locked ‘em in it.  They’re in danger, sure enough.  We all are.  But it felt right.  Yes it did.  ‘Bout time I did something that felt right,” he muttered to himself and took a long drink from the glass.

I sat down next to him at the table, and put my hand on his shoulder.  I could feel the hard bone of his scapula jutting out, much different indeed.  His back used to be solid and thick.  Muscled.

He had been a large man, solid as the large oak table that he now slouched forward on.

Begglar could once give you a bear hug that would’ve made you turn red in the face and the veins stand out on your forehead. Now he looked like he’d seen too many harsh winters, and the stout oak had aged and grayed.

“Begglar, I need to take them to the Stone Marker.  To see the prophecy of this land.  But I don’t remember where it is.  I need your help finding it.”

Begglar ignored my question, and muttered, “There’s a letter come for you.  Had it in my possession some many months now.  Back when the last post rider came through,” he gestured up to the cabinet near the kitchen.

“A Ranger said you might be by one day, through these parts again, but you’ve been a long time coming and I almost forgot about it until just now.”

He pushed himself up from the table with effort and a groan.  I offered to get it for him, but he waved me away, irritated.

“Best get this off my person.  If the Protectorate guards find it…,” he paused thoughtfully frowning.

“Anyway, tis your business what to do with it.  ‘Tis one of them tales, you and those like you been seeking out for years.  Sent from one of the guests, used to frequent here.  A tale of her country far away.”

He reaches for the cupboard and cabinet door, sees us watching and pauses.

“D’ya mind turnin’ t’other way a bit.”

We look away, to humor him, while he rummages through the bins muttering to himself.

“Ah!  Here tis!” he pronounces, the sound of doors and drawers being closed is heard, and he comes back around to me presenting me with an ornately boarders envelop, with a wax seal, broken and the flap slightly opened.  I look up at him, and he shrugged.  “I dinna know when you’d be by an you must admit, its been a very long while.  Couldna make heads or tail of why you’d want a simple fairy tale, but that’s your business not mine.”

I took the cream-colored, ornate envelop from him and tucked it into my traveling coat pocket to read later.

“Now about the stone marker,” I began.  But Begglar’s hands went to his ears and he stamped his foot.

“Do ya have ta go there now?!  You’ll no be finding it.  I done a terrible thing.  Helped em do it, anyways.  Please don’t press me about it any further tonight!  Ya ken help yerselves to that larder.  Nine ta ten rooms upstairs.  Well’s outside for water.  There’s hay in the loft.  It’s not necessarily clean, but it is warmer than the night winds’ll be.  Sorry I canna be too much help to ya.  If you’re bound and set on findin’ the marker, I’ll lead ya to it in tha mornin’.  More’s the pity.  But now I’ll be takin’ this here,” he picked up an old bottle from behind the counter, and that there, he grabbed another and tucked it under his arm, “And I’ll be sayin’ good night to yee.  There’s a tapped barrel over there in the corner, if you’ve a mind for a little libation yerselves, and your welcome to it.  Good night!”

And with that he grabbed the newel post of the stairway, grabbed his grimy apron and determinedly marched up the stairs and out of sight.  A moment later, a door slammed.  Rather loudly.

My friends turned to me, eyes questioning.

I waved the saddening scene away, trying to make light of it.

“Do you think it wise to let him go off like that and get drunk?”

“Leave him be,” I said.  “The poor fellow is beating himself up with guilt already as it is.  No need to pile on any more.  I’m not here to judge him.  Poor fellow is doing enough of that himself.  Let him sleep it off and we’ll gather again soon to find out what he is talking about.”

With that I help my fellow travelers prepare for the night.  The winds will be cold, up here in the seaside highlands.  Storm clouds gather darkly on the horizon.  There will be much more to do in the days ahead and we will need to be rested for it.

*Scene 09* 2:40 (Upstairs)

Begglar slammed the hall doorway using the sound as a cover to signal to Nell that the noises from outside they had feared did not constitute an immediate threat.  He stowed the two bottles of whiskey into a wall cabinet used to service the upstairs and cover a clever block and pulley system to raise and lower service trays between the kitchen and the upper gallery of guestrooms.

Nell cracked opened the door to the guestroom on the far end of the hallway, the only above ground room with secret access to the back stairway.
“Have they gone?”

“Nay, they’ve just arrived and at long last the prodigal returns.”

Nell pursed her lips feeling the moment of dread pass through her with a long awaited release, “Then it was not the Overwatch?”

“The Stone quest has begun again.  O’Brian is back in the Mid-World and has twenty-three guests with him.  Twenty-three,” he stressed, “There should be no more than twenty, besides O’Brian.  The other three are unknowns. Your gift of perception is needed.  You were right.”

Nell stepped out of the room and quietly closed the door behind her, “Where is Dominick?”

“He has gone to alert Shimri. The fog below is rising.  They should be able to take the family from us tonight.”

“This family is not ready to travel. They’ve barely had even food to feed a squirrel. Did you see how weak the woman is? And the children are so small.”

“Canna be helped. Our time has come. It is the time we prepared for. We have only a day or two left before they come for us.”

“What do we do with the others below?”

“Go down to them. Get Aytama to help you. They will need rooms for the night. Some will have to pair up.”

“What about you? Will they wonder where you are?”

“I’ll get the family ready. Those below believe I’ve gone to get drunk and sleep it off. I doubt they suspect I’d be in any other condition to do otherwise. I’ll meet Dominick and we’ll get these ones out under the cover of the fog.  It is going to be a long night yet.”

*Scene 10* 13:50 (Hidden Wounds)

Begglar’s wife, Nell came down from the upstairs and helped us all get a late meal, get situated in the rooms upstairs, and stow our belongings.  I saw no sign of Begglar the rest of the evening, so I assumed he had gone off to drink privately or had gone on to bed.

There was some trouble getting Miray settled down with one of the other girls, but Nell and one of the women eventually worked out an arrangement.

I opted to sleep in the hayloft, as Begglar had suggested, and to keep the first watch of the night. Nell stoked the fire in the fireplace and recommended that I get warmed up before going out into the wet and damp, foggy night, so I sat at one of the long tables and drank some of the warm black tea she had brewed for me.

When she and her maidservant retired for the night and most of the others had settled into the guestrooms, the girl, whom the Troll threatened, came quietly down from the upstairs to the table where I was sitting.

Her head was down, and she could not seem to look at me for more than a brief glance.  It is clear she wants to say something but can’t seem to find the proper words to do it.  She paces a moment and then finally, she sat down across from me and put her hands on the table, one palm over the other.  I looked up at her and smiled gently, “It’s okay if you want to leave.  I do understand and I won’t hold it against you.”

With tears brimming in her eyes, she faltered and then swallowed and began, “It’s just that it wasn’t like what I expected it to be.  There is something more here that I did not bargain for.  That thing out there…”  She broke off, gathering her courage, but never truly find it.

“I’m sorry,” she said again, “I’m not ready to take on this quest.  I can’t face another situation like that.  I’m not strong enough yet.  It hurts too much…”

She broke down and wept.  Long, deep, waves of pain and memory washing over her.  Her head down and her hair covering her face as the dam of long-held emotion broke and the hurt washed out in pressure waves built up over far too long a time.

I put my hand over her hand and just let her cry.  Tears are healing.  We need them for release.  She had carried these burdens and wounds far too long by herself.  No words came to mind that could help her.  She just needed someone to be there while she cried.  Someone who didn’t judge her for it.  Someone who would just listen.

After some time, she lifted her tear-stained eyes, her cheeks brighten in the firelight from the hearth.

“I’m so sorry,” she said once more, and the silent tears continued to rain as she struggled to catch her breath and composure.  She half laughed and almost broke again when she said, “Back there with the Troll, memories I had pressed down and never dealt with suddenly came back to me.  And I couldn’t…”

Her hand went to her mouth, covering her trembling lips, again try to hold back the sobs.

“I haven’t dealt with it.  I wouldn’t…deal with it.  But now I’ll have to.  Won’t I?” again with a defensive laugh.

“Only I can’t do it here.  I can’t do it now.”  She wiped her eyes with the heels of her hands.

“I understand,” I assured her again, “No one here judges or condemns you if you don’t continue.  There will be another time for you.  If not here, somewhere where you can feel safe.”

She laughed at me, with a nervous and cynical sound full of doubt, yet wanting to believe it.

“There is no place safe enough for that,” she wiped her mouth and looked away into the firelight, taking in a few shuddering breaths.

“That thing out there.  What is it exactly?  How can it do what it does?”

I sighed and slightly shook my head.

“No one truly know the how about things that happen here.  We say we do, but in some way, we are deceiving ourselves into some semblance of security.  Are we safe?  I don’t know that we are either here or back in our lives in the Surface World.  What I do know is that, wherever we might be, we are loved, and wanted and uniquely special to a perfect Father.”

“Father!” she fidgeted with her fingers.  Her eyes growing distant and narrowing, as she seemed to be transported back into a memory she looked at with a certain defensive disconnectedness.

She dug at her fingernails abstractly, narrowing her eyes.

“That is what the Troll zeroed in on.  My relationship with my father.  I want to believe what you say about this all loving and all caring Father, but I can’t.  I can’t get past the prosaic reality and image of my own father.”

She was silent a moment.  Continuing to dig at her nails and brushed a wing of her hair out of her face where it hung against her cheek.

Finally she said, “Daddy said I’d never amount to much.  Said I’d probably be pregnant by sixteen and living on the street.  Never hold a decent job and be passed around from man to man.  That was his assessment of me at the age of seven years old.  That my life would be just some dirty joke told in a smoky pool hall.  That my phone number would be written somewhere on a bathroom wall for pervert to call me and ask me for a date.  That was what he told me before he left us for some floozy in Florida.”

She swallowed back her tears, shivered a bit, and seemed to find a certain calm.  Her eyes grew distant again as her sight probed and sifted through piles of buried memory.  She wiped her eyes as she raised her head again.

“It was raining the night he left us,” she said quietly.

“You know that verse that says, the rain falls on the just and the unjust?”

I cleared my throat and nodded.

“Well, it was sure falling that night.  Coming down in sheets.”

She sniffed.

“Mom, acted like she never saw it coming.  Her entire world came crashing down on her, when he told her.  She begged him to stay.  Said he could keep his new girlfriend, if only he wouldn’t abandon us.  That was to moment I lost all respect for my mom.  Crying and watching them fight through the window on the front lawn as he packed up our only vehicle.  I saw mom grab his arm as he dragged her through the dirt.  I saw when he cuffed her in the side of the head, and punched her in the stomach.  Later, my mom would tell me that it was my fault that he left.”

She said all these things in a detached calm that was eerie to listen to and gut wrenching to hear it so quietly told as if none of it mattered.

“My last image of my father was him driving away in our only car, my mother doubled over in pain on the front lawn for all of the neighbors to see and do nothing.  And all of this, while the rain continued to pour down.”

She was silent again, her eyes unfocused and now unreadable.  She stared vacantly at her hands on the table before us.  My comforting hand still over hers.  She took in a long breath, and at last, her eyes raised to mine.

“So.”

“So?” I asked.

“So, I need to leave here.  Back to the real world, where there are no such things as Trolls that make you divulge your deepest, darkest secrets to strangers who can do nothing for you.  My problems are my problems.  Yours are yours.  Back to the ‘Big Girl’ world.  Back to another day of proving my “father” wrong.”

It hurts so much to see the shroud of toughness and bravery be pulled back over her wounds like a winter sweater.  I don’t know exactly what to say to her.  I have had no context for such pain and any words I could muster would seem so empty now that she has put the tough-girl exterior back on.

Quietly I ask her, “Do you mind if I ask you your name?”

She stares at me for a hard moment and pulls her hands away, wrapping herself in them as if feeling a sudden chill in the air.

“Why?” she asks, with challenging eyes.

I flatten my hands on the table as if smoothing out an imaginary tablecloth, feeling the wood grain beneath.  I almost say something, then hesitate and check myself.

“Alright.  No need for names.  I just want you to know and remember, as you return to the Surface World tomorrow that there are people here that imperfect as they may be, do want to have you as a friend and could care about you, if you ever gave us a chance.  Fair enough?”

Her arms were still folded as she slowly stood up and watched me for a moment, measuring my words.

“You are welcome to come back anytime.  I’ll have one of the others provide an escort back in the morning.  Be sure and keep your torch.  It is yours to light at any time, should you wish to return.  No one will judge you for leaving.  And if you one day come back here, your arrival will be celebrated by all.”

Quietly she turned to go up the stairs to one of the upper rooms she would share with one of the girls.

At the bottom of the stairs, she turned once again, and whispered, “I’m sorry.”  And then quickly and quietly ascended the stairs.

*Scene 11* 4:21 (Millstones)

It was late, and I went and tamped down the fire, thoughtfully poking at it with a poker.  I would keep the first watch of the night, and one of the others would spell me in a few hours.  I would sleep in the barn loft, with the moon shining through the hayloft door.  It would be a long night.  Much had happened.  I was so saddened to see this wounded soul go.  So much pain.  So many burdens she carried all alone, and she is so defensive and mistrusting of everyone who would be her friends.

Bad people abound out in the world.  They may not have started out that way, but for various reasons, they get there and cruelly abuse others in both word and selfish deed.  Maybe they too suffered abuse from someone else they trusted.  But there is no cause to perpetuate cruelty.  To darkly pay it forward.  At some point, the pain must be dealt with.  They will have to seek Someone greater than themselves to trade all of that hurt, for healing.  But to do so they must be willing to make themselves vulnerable yet once again and trust the Healer.

For those whose definition of father, mother or friend has been so tainted, they must learn that there is another reality to those terms.  That those cruel incarnations are poor substitutes for the real thing.  I think in each person’s own heart they wish to know this.  There is a part of them that still desperately wants to know that they are loved, and can be loved, and even deserve to be loved, and valued and cherished.  Old definitions gained by harsh experiences are extremely hard to displace.

As I settle down for the night, I watch the moon above paint the lonely road ahead with silver light.  Fog is growing around us, so not much can be seen of it.

I think of the blessing of my own father and mother, not what I deserved, but what every child born of mankind would wish they could be born into.  Nurturing, loved, accepted. Praised and cheered on. Given the tools to make sense of life, and thrive in spite of it.  Being pointed to The Hope which drives me on this ongoing quest.  Knowing that I am both loved imperfectly and love perfectly at the same time.  That, at least, those definitions I learned were not so far off the mark of what was intended in the Ancient text that renews and sustains me.

And I remember again a moment in the Perfect Father’s life where he took small trusting children in His lap and spoke a warning to all of the adult parents and men and women gathered to hear His message.

“6 But whoso shall offend one of these little ones which believe in me, it were better for him that a millstone were hanged about his neck, and [that] he were drowned in the depth of the sea.” [Matthew 18:6 KJV]

By my reckoning, there are too many stiff and selfish necks out there in the Surface World, lately, and not enough millstones.

*Scene 12* 4:20 (Rider in the Night)

The fingers of fog crawled along the grounds of the inn, up from the lower road that extended down through the small village of Crowe.

A figure on horseback rode through the rising, foggy drifts up to the back of the inn and dismounted. It cautiously approached the back of the inn moving quickly on light feet, silent as a shadow.

The horse was secured to an adjoining fence post with a slipknot and the figure then ducked low and proceeded into the skirting brush to an obscured and angled cellar door.

The fog was slightly luminous from the muted glow of moonlight, shining high above the scudding clouds.

The figure produced a small key from a pocket and unlocked the cellar, leaving the horse to graze in the damp evening light, while he descended below.

The underground was dark and the air inside the cellar passage was musty and stale.

“Da?”

A soft click from inside, indicated an interior door bolt was pulled back and Begglar’s face peered through the narrow aperture, faintly revealed by flickering candlelight.

“Shimri and the others are not far behind me. Are the travelers ready?”

“Just bundling up. Help me gather the supplies.  Is Sable tied nearby?”

“To the corner fence. Father, Shimri told me they’ve capture a Xarmnian scout and one of the local farm boys.  The scout was terrified when he was captured. Not from our men, but from something that had attacked his company earlier this morning.  They could not get much out of him, but it backs up to story this man told.  Something new has come into the Mid-World and it is moving underground.”

“Not new, son. One of these has come here before, long before you were born. I believe this one is here now because of the other guests that have joined us. One of these others are leading it.  We all must be very careful.”

Begglar handed one of the bundled packs to the young man, and carried two others under his arms. They quietly moved through the short underground passage and ascended the stairs emerging out into the diffuse moonlit night.  Billows of fog roiled around them, making the silver view difficult to see beyond a few feet, but the two knew the grounds well enough to walk through it blind.

They tied the bundled packs to saddle of the dark horse, now hidden completely within the fog bank. The stallion quietly nickered and a low rumble came from its throat, but the younger man calmed the horse by caressing the horses velvety nostrils allow the stallion to smell his familiar scent.

Begglar, turned and spoke quietly to the wispy shadow of his son.

“Now go get the man and his family. Remember, no names.  We don’t know them and they don’t really know us. It is safer that way if they are ever captured.”

“Should I get Zohar from the stable?”

“I have already attended to that. Bring the family out quietly.  Then go back inside and help your mother. I will take them on to meet Shimri and the Storm Hawk and the Lehi.  You’ve done enough for this evening. Go get warm. Your mother and Aytama saved you some supper, but you’ll have to eat it upstairs.”

“Father, this damp air is not good for you. If you catch a chill…”

“Nonsense! I’ve weathered a good many cold and much wetter nights in my time, than you, so be quick about it. I’ll be back in a few hours. Stick to the plan we agreed to. We knew this day would come. Now be off with you.”

Reluctantly, the boy turned and retreated again into the feathered whiteness to do as he was told.

*Scene 13* 2:37 (Underground)

Deep underground. Seismic level shifts crashed and crushed large amounts of earth and rock, as an incredible ramming force plunged into the dark fathoms of the Mid-Worlds substrate.  A pounding, pulsing of beaded flesh, coiled mountains of muscle, gristle and bone, tore savagely at the ground tunneling its own cave system.  A bellows of breathy force and champing teeth ate into the earth, funneling plumes of dust through pounding gills that coughed out a sinuous froth that melted the ground around its prodigious bulk.  It twisted and writhed, coiled and canted, side to side leaving a viscous glowing ooze in its driving wake.  A tangled net of phosphorescence striated the freshly cut tunnel, pouring out of the monstrous scales as the beast from the sky and shore–Sheol–A worm of consumption–A subterranean funeral train, moving at the speed of a railed locomotive, dug its way further in and further onward towards the vector of the one whom it sought most to devour. The smoke of its violent travel signified and swirling with a burial shroud of dust, filled the tunnels masking the monster’s vigorous pursuit.

A guttural thunder of barely intelligible words, sifted out of it’s lunging maw, around the grit and powder of poured and vented earth…
I’m coming…I am coming…I am coming…I am coming…for you traitorous leader.  I am the darkness…I am Sheol…I am the power of the grave waiting to eat your body…soul…and spirit!

*Scene 14* 8:15 (Finder in the Fields)

Fogs covered the lowlands, beneath the rise to the small village.  From a steppe plain, down a declivity but still above the highland valley the fog merely formed a low shrouded ceiling. A rider on horseback waited in the shadows, astride a tall black mare, she, in fact, called “Night Mare.”  The horse was lean and strong.  Iridescent black and polished silver by the wet of the night.  Chilled but taut, champing and ready for action.  The rider surveyed the vague moonglow, reading the night sky and scanning the dark treeline for movement.

The field of wheat bore an unlikely scar. An oblong trench, dialogonally cut across its golden rows that urged a constant funereal hushing “shhh, shhh” under the influence of the night winds.  The trench was a subterranean death mark.  What she had feared was true.  Another monster was now present in the Mid-World. 

They had captured a wayward Xarmnian scout, devoid of his mount yet retaining his characteristic bravado.  He had a small lad with him that he had cuffed and struck numerous times until the rider had commanded one of her men to apprehend the assault, and lash the brute, before he killed the boy.

“All dead!” the delirious man raged, when the rider’s sentry wrapped the end of his bullwhip around the man’s raised fist before he could use it again against the cowering boy.

The Xarmnian had seemed confused when the whip restricted his raised hand, and twisted him bodily away from the lad.  A boot to the man’s face broke his nose and caused him to stumble and fall to the ground, pulled by the whip, coiled over the saddle horn of the intercessor’s mount.

The soldier cursed through his bloodied face and twisted nose, spraying blood on the ground. “You dogs’ll pay for this!” he growled, and the man was pulled further, his arm popping as if it was being wrenched from the socket.

The whipbearer responded in a strong commanding voice, though muzzled slightly behind his kerchief scarf, “Who are you, Xarmnian?!  And what are you doing to this boy?!”

The Xarmnian laughed over bloodied lips and spat, “Who are you to demand anything of me, masked dog?!”

He glared up at the masked man who had him bound with the end of the whip.  He tried to jerk free, but the mounted man’s horse backed away, further pulling the Xarmnian off balance.

“I am here on the King’s business, which is none of yorn. Let me be!”

The masked man was silent and glanced back at his party of other riders and the one smaller rider whom they seemed to defer to.

The smaller rider moved forward, its face fully masked with only the eyes and bridge of the nose showing.

The voice issuing forth was calm and soft spoken, and the Xarmnian was perplexed by the incongruity of it with his own expectation.

“Why are you alone? Xarmnian patrols only ride in company.  Where is your team?”

The Xarmnian was sullen but thoughtful, he did not meet the eyes of his questioner when he answered under muttered breath, “Dead.  All of them. The ground opened up and something took them.  Took them all, save I and the whelp there.” he nodded, gritting his teeth at the boy.

“What business does Xarmni have with the eastern highlands to the sea?”

The Xarmnian raised his chin in defiance, blood trails streaking his beard and chin, his nose now purple and swollen.  “Wouldn’t you like to know.”

it was clear they would get no further cooperation out of the defiant man, so the smaller rider, gestured to two other riders towards him.

“Take him. Bind him.” the leader gestured, “Bring the boy.”

The young lad had fallen to the ground and looked warily from each of the riders, fearing that their intentions might also bring him further harm.

One of the riders dismounted and kneeled down and held his hand out to the boy, who raise his arm again, red with welts and bruising, fearing a further strike.

“It’s alright, son. We are not here with this man. Quite the opposite.”

The flare of distrust and fear in the boy’s eyes gradually softened as the masked man kneeling before him continued to hold out his open hand toward him.

Finally, the boy spoke, through a cut lip.  The Xarmnian had been cruel in his own fear, taking the loss out on the boy.

“They came and killed my Dah,” he spoke painfully, tears spilling from his eyes.  “Just stabbed him for no reason.  And then…”

Fear deepened again, causing the boy to tremble.

“What’s your name, son?” the kneeler asked gently, trying to keep the traumatized boy’s focus.

The boy regarded him as if he had not understood the question.

Gently, the man asked again, “How are you called, son?”

“Amichai, but Dah…,” tears welled, “Dah called me Michai.”

“Michai, then,” the kneeling one spoke calmly, “can you ride with us? Show us if what this Xarmnian says is true?”

The boy nodded, glanced fearfully at the Xarmnian, now bound hand and feet by one of the other riders who had him secured.  The Xarmnian glared at the boy, gritting his teeth threatening the boy to keep silent.  But the gesture had the opposite effect than what he’d intended.

The boy nodded, shifting his eyes back to the kneeling masked one’s outstretched hand, and took it, allowing himself to be raised to his feet.

“I will show you where it happened.  It is not far from here.”

The boy stood, steadying himself on shaky and brusied legs.

The smaller leader drew her reins, about to turn her horse away, but the boy spoke up.

“Are you who they say you are?”

The leader paused, turning the horse back towards the boy, addressing him in a quick response.

“And who do they say I am?” the oddly calm and softer voice queried.

“The Storm Hawk,” the boy stood up just a little straighter, raising his chest to seem more bolder than he had been. “The one who flys in a turns the storms away from towns like ours.”

The lead rider only gave the boy a slight nod, before turning her horse again and riding away towards the tree line.

The Xarmnian glowered, but it was clearly a pretense of bravado.  He knew the title, and the tales of the riders who followed the one called “Storm Hawk”.  If this was who these interlopers where, that now took him captive, he was in very real danger indeed.