Keith Baker: The fading dream

Cyre Olarune 20, 994 YK

Drix ran through the forest, death close on his heels. Thorns tore at his skin, but sheer terror blocked out the pain. His foe crashed through the underbrush behind him, and he could feel the heat of its gaze, imagine those burning eyes and hungry teeth. There was nowhere to run, no safe haven in the southern woods.

His foot caught on an exposed root, and Drix tumbled to the ground. He ignored the agony; there was no time for it, nor time to run. He rolled onto his back, raising his crossbow and searching the darkness.

“Go away!” he shouted. “Leave me alone. I’m armed.”

It was a painful exaggeration. He’d built the weapon himself, and he’d never used it on anything larger than a rabbit-and the sad truth was that a few of those rabbits had survived the first bolt. Still, his father would have been proud; Drix was a tinker to the end. Even as the bushes shook and death came for him, Drix’s last thoughts were of ways to build a better crossbow.

He fired the instant it cleared the underbrush. His hand shook at the last moment, and the bolt struck soil. The fox that had burst from the shrubs was as surprised as he was; it stared at him for a full second before scampering off into the shadows and disappearing from sight.

Drix sank back to the ground, breathing deeply. “Nothing to worry about,” he told his crossbow. “Situation entirely under control.”

The crossbow said nothing. At least she’s not mocking me, Drix thought.

He felt like a fool. He’d traveled from Callan to Seaside many times with his father and never strayed from the path. And his first time walking the woods alone, he let fear drive him into the thorns. He had a full year left as an apprentice, a year of wandering the countryside and facing the world alone. He was just in the first week, hardly an auspicious start.

Still…

He’d seen those eyes in the darkness. And something had followed him off the trail. A fox wouldn’t chase a man, but Drix was certain he’d heard claws scraping against the soil behind him. Perhaps it was just his imagination playing tricks on him when he was walking the road alone for the first time. Or maybe-just maybe-he had outrun his pursuer in his wild scramble. And if that was the case, it could still be out there.

He might have outrun his enemy before, but Drix wouldn’t be running again for a while. He ran a hand along his left leg, wincing as he touched the ankle-sprained at the very least. Twine from his pack and pieces of a broken sapling formed a splint, and with the help of a makeshift staff, he was able to walk. But there was the problem. Where should he walk to? He was still two days away from Seaside making good time, and it would take nearly as long to go back to Callan. He’d made the choice to walk the Southern Wood, as his family had done for generations. But when you were hurt and possibly hunted, it was a bad place to be.

The music came with the breeze, a warm wind that flowed through the trees and tugged at his hair. He heard soft pipes and the faint cry of a fiddle. There was a flicker of light in the distance, a hint of a warm fire. Whoever they were, they were far from the main path. But lumberjacks or hunters might well have set up a camp in the deep woods. And the music was welcoming. Perhaps he’d just imagined the eyes in the darkness. Either way, the thought of companions for the night was a comforting one. And if they had need of a tinker’s skills, well, that’s what his apprenticeship was about. He could sharpen an axe, fix a broken trap, show them ways to build a better snare. Perhaps fortune was with him after all. Perhaps it was the night he truly began his new life.

As he stumbled through the woods, he searched for the right words to say, an introduction to offset his shabby appearance, to convince his potential hosts to trust his skills. There were no signs of the pursuing beast. All he could hear over the night breeze was the faint sound of the music. And ever so slowly, the light grew brighter and broader, and the music grew louder. It was a camp for sure, a celebration by the sound of it. The laughter and faint voices were still too far to hear.

A glimmer caught his eye, something twinkling on the ground. It hurt to bend down, but there was something metal on the ground. Reaching down into the darkness, he felt cool leather and steel against his skin. It was a knife-a lovely weapon, with red leather wrapped around the pommel and patterns of gold beaten along the steel blade.

“Where did you come from, little one?” he murmured.

As his fingers closed around the hilt, Drix could feel the handle move, steel and wood mystically shifting to perfectly fit his grip. It was a princely weapon, to be sure-and a costly one. If he held it until he reached Seaside, he could probably get more for the knife than he’d earn in the next five years with the Tinkers’ Guild. For a moment he was tempted, but his upbringing and the desire for a warm fire won out. The weapon must belong to the people at the camp ahead. Returning it would undoubtedly earn him a friendly welcome and a good meal, and that was all he really needed. And if a grateful host felt a greater reward was called for, well, he’d be happy to accept it.

“Hello?” The source of the music was still some distance away, but Drix could see a clearing ahead, and he pushed toward it. “Is anyone there? I think I’ve found something of yours.”

There was no response, not even a shift in the music. He tried again, shouting with all the volume he could produce as he stepped out of the trees.

“Hello! I’m over here-”

As he stumbled again, his shout turned into a cry of pain as he caught his twisted ankle and fell to the ground. For a moment the pain blinded him. His vision cleared and he screamed again.

He hadn’t stumbled on a root. He’d tripped over the body of a boy, younger than Drix, his silk clothes stained with fresh blood. His long, golden hair was spread out over the ground, his skin pale and white. His chest was a ruin. He’d been stabbed through the heart, and it had the look of a barbed blade, something that had torn the flesh apart as it had been pulled free.

The riders were upon him before Drix had time to collect his thoughts, a half dozen figures in colorful cloaks and polished chain mail, slender soldiers with gleaming blades and eyes that shone in the darkness. Their mounts were graceful, white horses with red ears and coppery eyes, mares that moved through the woods in utter silence. Swift and silent as they were, they were no match for the woman leading the party. Drix never even saw her dismount; one moment she was on the back of a horse, and an instant later, she was standing over Drix, kneeling down to study the body of the boy. She wore a gown of black and silver, and moonlight eyes gleamed against pale skin. Her dark hair was bound by a circlet of golden leaves. A crystal shard was set into the circlet, shining with the same lunar radiance as the woman’s perfect eyes. She was the most beautiful woman Drix had ever seen, but as she knelt over the fallen child, her face froze in fear. She laid a gloved hand over the boy’s chest, and the stone in her crown pulsed with a brilliant light. Yet when she drew back her hand, nothing had changed.

The woman turned to Drix, and there was fury in her gaze. Her words were like a song, so musical that it was hard for him to make perfect sense of them. It was an Elven dialect. He’d learned the old speech as a child, but he’d rarely spoken it and never heard a voice like that. It was a demand, an angry one. He thought she said, “What have you done?”

“I didn’t do this!” he cried, trying to gather his thoughts and reframe it in the Elven tongue. “Found like this, not by my hand!” They couldn’t blame him. It wasn’t as if there were bloodstains on his clothes. It wasn’t as if he were holding a bloody dagger in his hand.