David Gaider - The Calling

“This is Katriel,” Maric told him with a sigh.

“You mean … ?”

“Yes, that Katriel.”

“But isn’t she … ?”

“Dead?” she answered for him, giving Maric a wary look. “That’s the rumor. I’ve come to help. If you prefer to think of me as something unpleasant, that’s fine. It would be no worse than what I was in life.”

Duncan seemed confused. “We can’t trust her!”

“She led me to you,” Maric told him. Then he turned to Katriel, trying not to meet her gaze. It was a torment to see her like this, to have memories dredged up that he had thought long-buried. “We need to find the others,” he told her.

She nodded, and gestured down a desolate path lined with tall statues. “There is another doorway in this direction. It will take you where you need to go.” Maric and Duncan stood in the Frostback Mountains. A wind rushed past them, cold and brisk. Maric looked up at the impressive snowcapped peaks looming high overhead. The snow on the ground was thick, almost coming to the top of their boots, and from the dark clouds it looked likely that a storm was to come.

“Oh, great,” Duncan mumbled. “More snow.”

Maric glanced at the lad but said nothing. He had left Katriel behind, as before. Either she couldn’t follow them or chose not to; Maric wasn’t certain. He found that his thoughts kept returning to her. If she was a product of his dream, how did she leave it? Why was she helping him against the demon that created her? Perhaps she was another demon, an enemy of the first? Or was he simply being misled? So far her information had been useful.

A part of him wondered if it was possible that she was actually Katriel. They said the dead passed through the Fade on their way to the Maker’s side, and sometimes lost their way. Perhaps she was a ghost. It was a dangerous and frightening thought, and he tried to push it out of his mind.

A steep path led up the side of the mountain and they followed it, shivering in the wind. The trees here were thick evergreens, crowding the path and forcing them to push many low-hanging branches out of their way.

When the path turned a corner, a vista opened up before them. These were the Frostbacks at their most breathtaking: great mountains reaching almost up to the sky, a vast forest in the valley below leading to a frozen lake that he could see with crystal clarity. Had the lake not been ice and snow, it would almost have been possible to leap into the water, so long as one didn’t mind bouncing on the crags a few times. And provided hitting the water from such a height didn’t simply kill one outright. Still, it was impressive.

“What is that?” Duncan murmured.

Maric turned to see what he was looking at, and realized the path continued along the cliff around the mountainside and ended at a walled holding. It was a grey, somber-looking fortified settlement, perched on the edge of the cliff and seemingly built half into the mountain. There were men on the walls, he saw, with long hair and beards and thick fur cloaks, already pointing at the two strangers on the path. Dogs began to bark as an alarm was raised.

“They don’t seem that friendly,” Duncan remarked dryly.

“They are Avvars. Hill folk. They’re not apt to like us much.”

“Should we fight?”

“No, let’s wait to see what they do.”

It didn’t take long for three men to stream out of the gates, tall warriors with stern frowns commanding vicious-looking warhounds that barked and growled and strained against their leashes. That they didn’t simply unleash the hounds on them must mean they were willing to talk, he hoped.

The trio stopped just short of Maric and Duncan, staring at them suspiciously as they held back their dogs. The leader was an older man with grey hair well past his shoulders, but even so, he was powerfully built. He had the air of authority, as well.

“Lowlander,” he growled.

It wasn’t exactly a question, but Maric nodded. He thought it best to remain polite. The Avvars had a long history of warfare with the “lowlanders” in the Fereldan valley, and had stubbornly refused to join the kingdom when King Calenhad had united the teyrns centuries ago. The years since had just made them more determined to remain apart.

“Why have you come?” the man demanded.

“We are looking for a man by the name of Kell,” Maric said. The looks the men exchanged told him they knew exactly who he was talking about. This wasn’t surprising. So far it seemed like each of these dreams had been centered completely around the person doing the dreaming.

Did people have different sorts of dreams? Ones where they were innocent bystanders to events, irrelevant to the larger scheme of things?

“You seek Kell ap Morgan? Why?”

“That’s something I’d need to speak with Kell about.” It wasn’t an answer that these hillsmen liked, and he saw them bristle at his temerity. Duncan raised his eyebrows at Maric, clearly thinking that they were about to get into a fight and not altogether opposed to the notion. Luckily, the grey-haired leader spat at his fellows and halted their rage before it got out of hand.

“We shall see,” he grunted. Nodding for the others to follow, he turned and began to walk up the path back to the holding. The others ran after him, yanking hard on the warhounds to get them to come. Maric and Duncan were left either to follow or remain behind. It wasn’t much of a choice.

“They smell like urine,” Duncan complained, though without force.

“You can stay here, if you like.”

They went inside the holding, and were greeted immediately by a crowd of curious hill folk. The children were filthy and feral, staring with wide eyes as they chewed on their fingers. The adults were little better. These were people who lived from day to day, clinging to this mountain like stubborn weeds and subject to a wide assortment of disasters, from disease to poor hunting years to violent feuds with neighboring holdings. The Avvars were born to harsh misfortune, as well as inured to it.

The buildings outside the caves were low but remarkably well-built. These were not primitives, Maric reminded himself. They knew of masonry and mining and traded with the dwarves to acquire fine weaponry and other supplies. Each of the doors had a hide stretched over it, which was then decorated with brightly painted runes.

The totems in front of most of the buildings were also typically Avvarian. Stone idols built to honor their gods, if Maric remembered correctly. The only one he knew of was the Father of the Skies, to whom the Avvars returned their dead, leaving their bodies out on the rocks to be picked clean by the birds. He supposed that was no stranger than burning one’s dead, though he was curious what they did with the bones.

The men led Maric and Duncan across a dirty courtyard littered with dog dung and hanging furs, toward a larger stone building. It was little more than a hut, really, but it was wider than most of the others and had an impressive carved eagle head over the door. Someone important lived there.

The grey-haired man went directly inside, and when Maric went to follow him the other two Avvars interjected themselves, crossing their arms and glaring at him firmly. No access just yet, then.

They waited in the courtyard, a group of dogs coming up and snuffling at their legs curiously. These were not well-kept animals like Hafter; they were almost wolves, and covered in matted fur that reeked of wet. Duncan gagged and covered his mouth, but Maric just smiled. Being Fereldan, he had been around dogs since he was a child.

Nearby, a group of children looked around a corner at them with fearful expressions. One brashly threw a stone at Maric, missing by a wide margin, and then the whole group of them ran off giggling in terror. The pair of guards at the door took no notice of any of it.