Paul Thompson - The Middle of Nowhere

Four days out of Robann their path took them across a well-marked dirt road, passing northeast to southwest. Amergin approached the road cautiously. There was no one in sight, but he felt the flour-soft dust on the path with his fingers, bringing them to his nose to sniff.

Howland halted the group behind a stand of bracken. He and Hume ventured out to confer with the Kagonesti.

Howland looked as if he’d regained ten years of his life since leaving Robann. His complexion and carriage had improved, his eyes had lost their fevered look, and he even allowed Carver to crop his matted hair.

“I could do a very artistic trim,” the kender said, scissors poised.

“Cut it all off,” replied the Knight. “Let me start this venture clean.”

With a shrug, Carver cut Howland’s hair down the scalp, leaving only a fine, brushy nap on the old man’s head. Without his lank, gray locks Howland’s sunken eyes and broad forehead lent him an air of perpetual sorrow. He now resembled a priest more than a fighting man. Knight and soldier stood on either side of the pensive elf.

“What can you see?” asked Howland.

“Many people came this way, two or three days ago.”

“How many?” said Hume.

“More than twenty on foot. They were walking quickly, pulling a two-wheel cart.” He stood up, dusting his hands. “No pony.”

“Soldiers?”

Amergin shook his head. “Ordinary folk-farmers, herders. Men, women. Most barefoot.”

“Where did they go?”

The elf pointed down the road, southwest.

“Probably just peasants on their way to market,” said Howland. He turned to his hidden companions and waved them forward.

“What’s wrong?” Malek asked upon joining them.

“Nothing. All is well.”

“I never said that,” said Amergin tersely.

Exasperated, Howland said, “Is there any obvious danger?”

“Perhaps. Something is strange.” Without a word of explanation, he started down the road. The farmers were appalled. For days they’d taken great pains to conceal their tracks. Now the elf was leaving clear footprints in the soft dust.

Howland and Hume shouldered their gear and hurried after him. When no one else moved, the Knight barked, “Don’t just stand there gawping! Move!”

“The heat’s gone to the elf’s head,” Raika said.

Khorr, who wore an old apron draped across his horns to keep the sun off, said, “It’s some clever forester ploy, do you think?”

“What I think is, I need a drink,” she replied.

The road curved to the left until it led due east. Heavy, gnarled trees crowded in on both sides. The shade was welcome. Years of traffic had worn the path into the earth, and before long they were traversing a sunken road, bounded on either side by near-vertical hillsides.

“Feels like a trap!” Raika said, looking around nervously.

“I wouldn’t want to be caught here by cavalry,” Howland said. Ahead, Amergin continued his tireless lope.

The hills flattened out again, and Amergin stopped. Off to his left, a sandy path led away from the road to a copse of maples. He held out one hand, palm down, his signal to halt. Howland reined in the hot, tired party.

“Wait here,” said Amergin. He dropped the sling to his fingers, loaded it, and moved on stealthily toward the maple grove.

Raika flopped heavily to the ground. “Who’s got water?” she said loudly. Howland shushed her.

Caeta unslung her waterskin and handed it to the Saifhumi woman. Carver squatted by the roadside, and the farmers followed suit. Khorr found a spot in the shade, pulled up some wild onions, and set to munching. After a brief foray, Amergin returned, looking adrift.

“I don’t understand,” he said. “Come and see.”

One by one they trailed after the Kagonesti, who urged them all to silence. When only halfway to the maples, it became clear a sizable crowd of people were ahead in the grove, standing perfectly still and not making a sound. The effect was so strange Howland, Hume, and Raika drew their swords.

Amergin paused by a lordly maple, peering in puzzled fashion around the stout trunk. Howland, Hume, and Raika glided past him. When they were close enough, Raika grabbed hold of the nearest onlooker, a scruffy peasant in a dark brown jerkin. He didn’t move at all despite her straining limbs. The fellow seemed rooted to the spot.

She uttered a sailor’s curse and tugged again, harder. Seams of his coarse shirt tore, but the fellow was as immovable as a marble statue.

Howland spoke sharply to another. No response. Unaccustomed to being ignored, he swatted the man’s backside with the flat of his blade. Not the slightest protest escaped the man’s lips.

Hume walked around the frozen people to see their faces.

“Great Khan!” he exclaimed. “Sir Howland, look!”

Every one of the unresponsive onlookers, all humans, stood with their eyes open, staring straight ahead. Their faces were scorched red by the sun, and their lips were cracked and peeling. Howland felt for a pulse in the young man he’d struck.

“This one seems alive,” he said, perplexed.

“So’s this one,” said Raika.

“These, too. What ails them?”

They moved through the crowd and found everyone in the grove in identical condition. Twenty-two people in all, standing rigid, eyes open, gazing at … what?

Beneath the largest maple in the copse was a two-wheeled cart of the sort used by woodsmen, little more than an oversized wheelbarrow. Standing in the cart was a strangely dressed man with a noose around his neck.

“Oh, ho!” said Raika. “A lynching!”

She, Howland, and Hume gathered by the cart. Four peasants gripped the sides of the cart, ready to drag it out from under the unfortunate fellow, but they were paralyzed as well, mouths agape, as if they had been struck rigid in mid-motion.

“This beats all,” Raika said. “If the gods still lived, I’d call this magic!”

Howland regarded the benoosed man thoughtfully. “I wonder what his crime was?”

The lynching candidate appeared to be near Raika’s age, thirty or so. His skin was olive brown, an unfamiliar hue in these parts, and his hair was glossy black, cut bowl-style, straight across on his forehead. His neck was shaved behind his ears. His nose was flat and his face round. No trace of a beard sprouted from his chin. Both his hands and feet were tightly bound with rope.

“A foreigner,” Hume remarked.

“Yes, but from where?” answered Howland.

“That’s a nice pearl in his ear,” said Raika. The bright white gem was pinned by a gold stud through the condemned man’s right earlobe.

She climbed into the cart. “I think I’ll fetch it off him-”

Her weight made the small cart shift on its wheels. Howland and Hume were about to protest when Raika saw the foreigner’s black eyes blink.

She let out a yell and fell backward to the ground. In an instant Amergin was at her side, sling twirling. Seeing the elf enter the grove, Khorr, Carver, and the farmers came running.

“He’s alive!” Raika shouted, pointing.

“I am,” said the man in a pleasant, cultivated voice, “and I’d like to stay that way.”

Hume cut the halter loose from the tree with a single swing of his newfound sword. Freed from the danger of strangling, the stranger’s knees promptly folded. He sat down hard in the cart.

Malek, Nils, Wilf and Caeta got no further than the ring of motionless watchers.

“Come away now!” Malek called to Howland.

“Wait.” To the stranger he said, “Who are you?”

“My name is Ezu. Will one of you kindly untie me?”

No one moved to help him. Raika got up, looking as if she wanted to restore the noose to the tree and kick the cart away.