Flames scoured the land, roared through the treetops and blackened the ground with char and silvered it with settling ash. From behind the waves of fire, a cloaked and wrapped horseman rode quickly down the break ridge switchback road, his horse’s iron-shod hooves pounding the ash-covered roadway. The rider’s fist tightly gripped the reins of his mount as the beast’s body churned underneath him. The old road had become overgrown and choked with forest scrub, ferns, and cast leaves, but now it shone like a silver pathway among the blackened poles still standing as the skeletal reminder of a forest gutted by fire.
The man wore a sash about his face, and a pre-moistened gauze, now drying, covered his brow and thick hair. Both the rider and the horse deftly chose patches of ground where the foliage had burned down and cooled or was laid bare to rock or gravel, alternating between the steamy roadway and the nearby dry river bed where the path followed along its border. The smoke was being pushed ahead by a slight wind falling down through the breaks beyond the city of Azragoth. The rider had taken advantage of the shift in the wind and had lit out to follow his general’s command, perhaps earlier than was prudent.
Observing the damage done along the way, the rider pondered what he was seeing. The flames from the interior walls of Azragoth should not have extended this far into the forest. He’d received thorough reports of the siege and knew what had transpired afterward. The flames from the oil and tar wall had burned and set the Manticores afire, and it was understandable that they would flee blindly into the wood, but their passage would not have burned such wide swaths of ground in their frantic flight.
Hours had passed since the attack and the company of Surface Worlders should have already been clear of the forest of Kilrane before the first flame reached the roadway and died out. Something or someone had accelerated the fire and carried it across the firebreaks. Something or someone who wanted Azragoth exposed to the outside lands once more.
The rider could hear the sounds of conflict ahead but assumed that the cries were that of the forest animals fleeing before the fire. Noises to his far left and right sounded like he was being shadowed by other horsemen, but it was too difficult to make out anything through the shifting haze of the smoldering wood and the dying crackle and pop of withering embers.
When he’d arrived from the backwoods and entered the city of Azragoth, the front forest was ablaze and black smoke billowed from the outer walls and flared through the treetops. The general had been savagely attacked and shot with arrows. He was understandably anxious to learn of his commanding officer’s condition and rode straight to the surgeon’s house in the low street. Jesh, Mattox’s taller bodyguard, had relayed the General’s command to seek out the elusive forester Jeremiah and bid him come back to Azragoth as soon as possible, but he knew that chance was dwindling. Jeremiah owed the general at least that. But with the front passage on fire, no one was coming either into or out of the city by that route. The Keep had been locked down and was under tight guard, so the underground route was not an option. For six hours the general had undergone surgery, and there was nothing he could do but wait. But when the wind shifted, and the billows towering over the front wall began to thin, Captain Lorgray knew the chance to carry out what might be the general’s last order had come. If the general wanted Jeremiah to return to Azragoth, then he was bound and determined to find the man and compel him to come back with him.
***
Dellitch was angry and terrified.
The audience before The Pan was not turning out at all how she planned. Their plan to destroy the Dryads once and for all had been found out, her fire-setting sisters caught in the act and then the whole burning of the forest entirely blamed upon them. The Pan’s rebuke still rang in her head. She had been in a tree when he raged, and the branches had caught her and kept her from falling, but her bones still vibrated like a tuning fork.
‘Curse that lying Troll!’, she thought.
She doubted if even turning over the Surface Worlder she had captured would make any difference to The Pan now. But it would distract him, and that distraction was badly needed. The dryads would have had nothing to do with fire. They were understandably terrified of it, which was another reason they never directly assaulted the settlements of men. And why they shied away from taking humans who traveled through the forests by night carrying firelight or refrained from molesting those who dared to camp within the forest sleeping around a campfire.
Much as they might want to, they could never make The Pan believe the dryads had anything to do with the burnt torches affixed to the wings of her sisters. And if The Pan were to follow that line of questioning further into how exactly those brands were attached, they would have to risk disclosing their own alliance with the Xarmnians. A weak alliance they had made in case they were ever entirely excommunicated from the Half-Men kingdom and declared ‘kill on sight’ by any of their former allies. The Half-men where a dwindling race, but the presence of mankind was increasing and would eventually overrun the Mid-World.
The Pan would most certainly make good on his threat. There were dark, violent things that seemed to do his bidding, and his reach was far and wide. Her captured prize might placate The Pan enough to where he still saw value in the harpies rather than receiving the full weight of his ire. She had to collect the Surface Worlder and bring him back to The Pan to have any hope of salvaging a place for her kind.
There wasn’t time to find the other Surface Worlders, but even if there had been, Dellitch reasoned, any remaining would most likely be driven out of the forest by the spreading fires…unless…
A thought arose her in mind from a distant memory, a mere scrap of a conversation she had overheard about certain places in the various woods where Faeries had once been sighted…a place such as Kilrane Forest.
It was time to extract some information from her treetop prize. She launched from the limb and swooped in and out of the smoky wood, headed swiftly to the place she’d deposited the overworlder. She would get him to cooperate or dangle his body in flight and let the branches of the wood beat the information out of him. If that did not work, there was always the path of fire. Funny how tongues of flame loosened tongues of flesh.
***
When the rider had left the gates of Azragoth, four figures bearing the face of O’Brian followed him, loping after the rider in furtive bursts of speed that the original body bearing their face had no capacity for.
Only the desperate, foolish and the called charged into the path of the fire. And from their perspective, the latter was the most dangerous.
The Azragothian would eventually lead them to the one with whom they shared faces, and then they would kill him and all those who followed him. They could not touch these persons within the Surface World except by means of deception and through the actions of others still lost in the death of the Fall. But here in the Mid-World, where the spiritual had form and corporeal substance, violence could be done in this perception realm that could not be done in the land of the original curse.
Surface Worlders were both ignorant and dangerous. They did not know who they were called to be, but if they were to learn the truth it would be the end of the Dark Reign and the “Stone of the Worlds” would open the portal that would usher in the returning king. The sleeping bride would awaken–roused to awareness by her beloved’s call. The lamps in the darkness were being lit even now by the fire of the Divine One. Violence and destruction and hatred were gaining ground in the Surface World, but it was also driving some into an awareness that there was a dark otherness bringing forth these influences.
The sentries of the Throne, the faeries, were being sent into the Mid-Word to aid those following in the quest. Their stories would soon be connected and restored to them. Already, the man had harvested the Fides stone, (also known as the Pax stone), from the body of their master. Six other stones remained in the Mid-World, three were harvested from the now-dead demons who had entered it, two still walked the Mid-World in monstrous forms, and one swam within it. The first quest to Excavatia had been successful in that the Praesperos stone, (the hope stone), had been delivered to the Kingdom gate and embedded in the key lock. The second quest had been partially successful but abandoned and the Cordis Stone was taken into possession by the Half-Men kingdom. The man whom they called ‘The Face’ had been in the company of the first quest, had risen in rank during the second quest, and had been partially responsible for its failure in the second, and now he had returned and was in the lead of the third quest.
The third quest must not succeed. The Dust Dragon had followed ‘The Face’ in his awakening. Had planted a whispering root of deception in his mind that had been exposed by his Mid-World intercessor and had been broken when he yielded to the Quickening of the One. The honor sword of covenant had been roused to life, and the quest had begun in the place of death’s defeat: Azragoth, city of plagues. A fortified city built of quarried stone carried from a hillside below what was now a rotting burial mound, covering the central Rock: The Bloodstone, designated as the most dangerous place of all within the Mid-Worlds. A town whose foundation was almost as ancient as that of the Surface World from which the human builder came and encamped during that first night after slaying his own brother. The place was not actually a town, to begin with. It was an altar. Built with stone and tears. A place in which the human builder had received a mark of protection when The One offered him Mercy instead of Justice.
***
Sometimes life might literally hang by a straining thread.
That thought passed through my mind thinking not only of my own predicament but that of the others in my company who had been taken by the Protectorate Guards. A band of brutes who were cruel as an afterthought, but wicked by intention, savage as any of the Half-men creatures falling under The Pan’s rule.
The Xarmnian military used to be thuggish and slow-witted, oafish and unregimented until Xarmni enlisted the Bergenians of the mountains to discipline them. Initially hired as mercenaries and personal protection, the Bergenians were given rank and Xarmnian-citizen standing in exchange for transforming their armies into brutal and efficient battle groups. The Xarmnian foot soldiers were originally comprised of conscripts and foundlings, orphans and the children of debtors who were taken, educated and made into what they had become. Few of these ever attained a status of higher rank, and most of the leadership came from among the Bergenians in the Stone Pass.
But the Protectorate Guard patrols were mostly comprised of Bergenians, their duties reserved for the hunters of the military bands. Enforcers who were tasked with ensuring that subversives were swiftly put down or rooted out and pursued until they were found and taken back to strongholds for public sentencing before a tribunal court. Chances were that since our company was Surface Worlders, the military would be interested in finding out what our interests and objectives were before slaughtering them, but I could not put too much weight into those chances.
My present company were in danger as well, the longer I was away, but that could not be helped. There was a very important reason, I had to get near The Pan that I could not share with anyone. Begglar and Maeven both would have stopped me if they knew what I had to do, but it could not be helped. I knew I should have waited for Maeven to catch up, but there wasn’t time. Begglar, despite what he said, had been a robust fighter in his day. He’d had a hard life since, but I still suspected there was a considerable amount of fight and leadership qualities left within him. If pressed I was confident he would arise to meet the need, so it made sense that he remained with the group in my stead. There was something I had to retrieve that had been stolen so long ago. Something that I felt was crucial to set things right again. Something that would take away the advantage of The Pan in hunting us down and thwarting what we were trying to do. I was taking quite a gamble that the dangerous retinue would remain in his presence. And that if Maeven were to catch up, the most logical place she could do so would be along the dark forest road. Traveling through the ferns and brush would be furtive and noisy and draw attention and rouse animals. Though it may not seem so, the cleared road was the place from which my party would be able to see stalking enemies from any approach. But I could not be gone long, and the harpy capturing me and depositing me in the trees was not something I could have predicted.
That thread holding everything was growing thinner and frayed.
Set that thread afire and, if it holds at all it becomes a fuse.
We needed to catch up to those taken captive quickly if we were to have any chance to rescue them before or after they reached Dornsdale, but I could not get to them if I could not get past this moment and safely out of the tree.
The branches overhead crackled as the drier leaves fed the hungering tongues of fire, but I could not focus on what was happening above me and hope for any success with needed to be done below. Like that precarious balance between thread and fuse, the hold of the thread could snap if I acted too suddenly and the smoldering length of the shortening fuse pressed the fact that I was running out of time before all my options were lost in the flames.
I leaned down, straining to grasp the cleated straps as they spun and slightly swayed from side to side, the thin thread looking as fine as the filament of a spiderweb. I rewound the excess thread around the shaft of the arrow and held each drawn length gathered in my sweating palms wrapping it to slide over a finger as I cautiously drew each loop upward and over the arrow again. I held my breath with each pull, careful not to breathe too deeply as I knew any sudden movement would snap the line and send the harness down to the forest floor and along with it my hopes of safely getting out of the tree.
I lay braced between a slightly angled fork in the branch, my torso pivoted down, my legs and knees locked around the bough. The arrow point was wedged between another fork and I worked the loops through the fork locked the arrow and then bent to try to reach the swaying strap that was tied to the thread. My fingers lightly brushed the silver metal ring that joined the straps, but I could not lunge for fear of severing the line.
And then my feet slipped.
I scissored out my legs, trying to expand them far enough to keep from slipping through the forked limb and managed to hook a finger through the metal ring that dangled from the twisting thread. My breath caught in my throat as the limbs pressed into the muscles of my thighs, but I could not risk much more movement without slipping further down. Carefully I drew the spiked foot stirrups upward, trying not to lever too much to loosen my pincered hold. I was able to push a stirrup and spike through the gap in the fork and let it dangle over the branch counter-weighted by the other stirrup. Slowly, I leaned upward, knowing that I would lose my leg-hold in a few seconds because of the bend and shifting of my weight. I reached for the bottom of one metal stirrup and my other hand caught the other as thighs ground between the fork and finally slipped out.
I fell a half-foot, but stopped short, dangling from the two stirrups like a novice gymnast holding on to the chainrings for dear life while they swayed back and forth over a thirty-five-foot drop.
I told myself not to look down—to focus on getting back up to the limb above—but I could not help but feel gravity pulling my body and my gaze downward.
A screech to my left startled me, almost to lose my sweating grip, as I jerked and twisted toward it.
The harpy was returning—and she was very, very angry.
There was no time to think. Only to act.
I swung my legs upward, hooked a leg over the bough, pulling the stirrups toward me while avoiding the jagged tree spurs. Gathering the stirrups together into a fist, I swung an arm over the bough, grapple with the rough bark on the limb and shifted my body upward and over. The harpy would be upon me within seconds and the further out I was on the limb, the more certain my chances of falling became. I could see her coming fast, underlit by the fires below, smoke roiling around her wings, her face appearing vampiric and ghastly, wild hair streaming, eyes black and feral with rage. I scrambled backward from the fork, shuffling towards the trunk of the tree, trying not to lose my balance as I climbed to my feet to be able to move faster. The honor sword pulsed in its sheath, but there was no time to draw it forth or bring it to bear to fend off the imminent attack. I gripped the two harnesses in my fist, with the hammered metal shafts and barbs bristling out at angles, realizing that they served as a sort of make-shift weapon as well, though unorthodox. Like a rooster, if this bird-hag were to come at me claws bared, at least I would have these barbed spurs, called gaffs, to serve as claws of my own.
Taking my eyes off her for a moment, I carefully placed my feet on the top of the rounded limb. Moving downward, I reached the central trunk feeling her arrival rather than seeing it.
Air whooshed by me as she came for me. Large black wings pumping gusts of hot air around me, as her claws flared, attempting to rake me off the limb. In a fall, she might catch me but might skewer me as well with those talons. A guttural bird-screech came forth from her open mouth as she dove at me, and I shifted the harnessed footwear to both hands. The bough bobbed as she thrust her claws upon it, and then lifted away, hoping to upset my precarious balance.
Turning my back against the trunk, I knew she would eventually tear me from my perch, so I gathered the belt harness I had flung over my neck shoulders cinched the shorter belt around my waist while the larger belt dangled from one ring on the belt with the other hooked end swinging free. I needed to get that end around the tree trunk below the limb upon which I was standing, but there was no time. The harpy had banked and turned back towards me, her wings flapping in large downward drafts, gathering momentum as she rushed again towards me.
I glanced below but saw only a rising wall of smoke building upward. If Jeremiah was still there, he could not see what was going on above, but then neither could the harpy attacking me.
***
A wall of soot and smoke stretched like spectral arms through the lower parts of the forest, and Jeremiah could no longer see what was happening to O’Brian above. He’d heard a loud screeching noise moving through the top of the forest. The fires in the canopy above dropped flaming embers but also created such a haze that O’Brian’s form quickly faded into a misty shape and then paled into a grayish-white. He could fire no arrow accurately, so he tucked his bow over his shoulder and turned to gather the man he had carried closer to the base of the tree to see if he might be able to tell when O’Brian began his descent. As a precaution, he’d hog-tied the man so that he would stay put while he attended to O’Brian’s situation. He had committed to bringing O’Brian and nothing more and he did not know the nature or the intentions of the man he’d picked up. He could prove to be a friend or a foe. All things considered, the treacherous influence of the presence of the dryad dust was only part of the risk he’d taken when he’d picked up the young man. Out in the forest, there could be more than one adversary hunting this particular young man. But that aside, there was no telling with the increasing number of crossovers from the Surface World, that something more unnatural might be in play here as well. The demons following travelers out of the otherness did not always manifest themselves in monstrous forms. Sometimes they took the guise of mankind and wore that image to deceive.
Thinking of this, Jeremiah fastened the foot to wrist binding rope even tighter, lashing the double knot securely. When he moved around him he noticed that the man’s eyes were now open. He had twisted onto his side, and he struggled against his bindings, looking with anger-filled hate and suspicion at Jeremiah for reducing him to such an ignoble state.
“Still not going to give me your name?”
The man almost spat at him, “Why should I tell you anything when you’ve tied me up this way?! Who do you think you are?!”
“Suit yourself. I would think you’d be more civil to the one who saved your ungrateful keister, but I guess not. Considering your present situation, I’d say it’s your job to convince me whether I should think of you as a friend or an enemy. If you had any idea what I saved you from, you’d be showing me a great deal more respect. Harpies and dryads are terrible creatures. You may think you’d like to see whatever vixen dryad got a hold of you again, but I guarantee if you knew what she had planned for later you would thank me profusely. They don’t always look so ‘friendly’. But then again maybe you wouldn’t. Kids these days. I don’t know you, and you’re doing a lousy job of even identifying yourself. What is your name, kid and where do you hale from?”
“You can go to hell! I’m not telling you jack! Untie me!” he spat back.
An enemy then, Jeremiah decided, but not one he could leave tied to a tree for the fires or the denizens of darkness now occupying these lands to deal with. The life of a Surface Worlder came with a much bigger cost.
“My name is not Jack and I don’t have time for this, you little snot. I’ve got something above I got to handle, and from the looks of these growing fires, not much time to do it in.”
He scanned the descending haze above.
Nothing had fallen, so he knew O’Brian still had the climbing gear. It was a simple enough apparatus. O’Brian should be able to figure it out, but lately, things weren’t going as they should.
He turned and looked back down at the young man.
“I’ll be right back. You keep quiet and don’t go anywhere. Hear me?”
The bound man growled a hostile answer back, but Jeremiah did not stay listen. Things above were heating up and there was precious little time left. Someone was going to die if he wasted any more of it.
Excavatia 