Wolf Awert - Ringwall's Doom

“Who were these people?”

Uul shrugged. “The others, here and there.”

“And who taught you to use magic?”

Uul shifted his weight back and forth; the boy seemed uncomfortable.

“I’m no sorcerer, Sire. I was a child of the desert for as long as I can remember. I can talk to the fire. If I ask it, it follows me. My task was to guard the horses, Sire. Never did an arrow hit a horse under my protection, and I could keep the predators of the plains away with the fire. That is all I can do. I’m no sorcerer, Sire.”

After a brief, tense pause, he continued: “Will you send me away?”

“I needed a shield of Fire to protect me against Metal. A person who can shield a herd of horses has the power to shield a king. We will see how strong you really are in due time. Until then, rejoice in your gift.

“And now ride. Both of you. And remember: we need a shield against all the elements, one that no one could hope to penetrate. The five of you are only the core of the army I will build, and it will be unstoppable.”

Ringwall’s dark shadows lay behind him. Nill struggled to remember when he had last felt as free as he did now, the warm wind blowing in his face, telling him tales and fables. The smells it brought were fresh and young, and the sounds came from far away. It felt as though with every step he took, he was taking off dark, heavy layers of clothing and leaving them on the ground.

Soon I’ll be all naked , he thought merrily.

He had not dwelled long on which direction to take. The name Perdis and the knowledge that this Perdis had written in the old runes of the Fire Kingdom were evidence enough for him. And so he followed the sun at its highest point. While he had promised to help Ambrosimas in his search for the five Books of Prophecy, that had to wait. The books could be anywhere. And if even Ambrosimas had not been able to find them so far, Nill himself would be even less likely to. Unless they just happened to come to him. Fate would decide, as with everything else. Nill decided to take the easier route, likely due to the sun, the light and the happiness he felt.

Nill avoided the paths and roads. His steps were long and light, like those he had admired of Dakh-Ozz-Han, his first mentor. Dakh’s steps left no trail; he left no footprints on the earth and left the grass unbroken. A stride like this made the wanderer invisible to hunters and trackers. Only dogs or arcanists could find him, for they could follow the magic that remained on his invisible footprints before it blew away with the wind. By the time Ringwall came to realize his disappearance, every hint of his trail would be gone, and so he hurried through the fields and meadows where the grass was tall, and past bushes and copses where his sharp shepherd’s eye spotted the fruits the birds had missed.

“I have the power of magic!” Nill cheered as he rejoiced in his newfound freedom.

He avoided the many small villages as well as he could, and the larger settlements in particular. It seemed the better choice to avoid other people, even if it meant not taking the faster roads. He ate what he could find on the land and slept wherever there was enough space and shelter, and so it took just a few days before he was outside of Ringwall’s province. The distances between villages grew, and so too did the lonesomeness of the landscape; in place of fields there was now tall, wild grass, its many blades caressing his legs and stretching to all sides like a vast green ocean. Only near villages was it cut. Away from those it belonged to the wild animals, rams and herds of ruminants. As they were easy game for any hunter, Nill avoided them too.

He stopped and looked back. Alone and oddly lost, he stood in the middle of the untouched grasslands, calmly swaying like the sea that barely remembered the last storm.

Moments of harmony like these were rare even in the untouched wilderness, for there was always something that disturbed the peace. A sudden gale, fighting cocks or a freak rainstorm were never far away.

Well, Nill thought, it doesn’t look like rain. But I don’t seem to be the only wanderer around here.

His sharp eyes had spotted small whirls in the steady swaying of the grass. Now and then it parted like a maw to swallow its prey, then fell back into unnoticeable calm as it waited for a new victim. Nill observed the grass with caution, but he was not afraid; whatever it was, it was not troubling to remain hidden.

The motion stopped once Nill was barely twenty steps away. His mouth fell open in a surprised laugh. He knew this distance.

“Come out, you,” he said hoarsely, but his spirit’s call was all the louder. The grass parted again and out of the green trudged an old ram with great horns and grumpy-looking, slanted yellow eyes, so starved that Nill could count every rib in its side.

Only now that he was reunited with the old ram did Nill realize how lonely he had been in Ringwall. His heart lifted as it had not since he was still a child in Grovehall.

He patted the ram’s coat, gripped its horns and knocked gently against its bony brow as if it was a door and he was asking to enter. The ram accepted all of it without losing a trace of its grumpiness.

“What are you this time? A stubborn old sheep or a Demon Lord’s vessel?”

He immediately regretted the careless question, but it was too late. A fleeting shadow flitted over him and he shivered. Jesting about the lords of the Other World was foolish; he cast a protective spell on himself. The shadow vanished.

“Come on, then,” he said to his ram. “We have a long way ahead of us.”

Nill could attract most small animals and even bind some to him. The larger ones were too strong, but he still felt them. But this ram, his old companion from his younger days, lived its own life, and Nill had no idea why it had decided to follow him all the way from Earthland to Ringwall, and now had suddenly reappeared. There was a mysterious connection between them. Another obscure secret in Nill’s life, which truly did not struggle to attract the inexplicable.

He set off again and the ram walked in circles around him. Nill began to worry. Shepherd’s dogs behaved this way to protect their herd, but a ram was not a dog, and Nill was not a herd. A ram stood still in vigil, or it kept the rear of the herd safe as it traveled. Nill looked around and allowed his senses to wander across the grassland, but he found nothing.

If you go looking for adventures you’ll find them. If none exist, you make them up in your head, Nill attempted to soothe his troubled thoughts, but he could not shake off the strange uncomfortable feeling. Even the next few uneventful days did not change that.

Sleeping in tall grass had certain disadvantages. Often his clothing was soaked with dew when he woke up, for the days grew shorter and the nights colder. The feeling that he was being followed surrounded him like flies on carrion. The grass concealed the hunter as much as the prey, and the air was heavy and threatening on his shoulders. Nill noted with displeasure that there were always small wild cats or birds of prey around him. They were not dangerous, but they knew where he and his ram were. He was not worried for himself, but a pack of leonpedons would judge a ram to be easy and tasty prey. Nill called for the ram to stay close, and to his surprise the stubborn old animal obeyed. From now on Nill followed the narrow hunter’s tracks, and they had soon left the plains surrounding Ringwall.

The terrain began to rise and soon the bald stone heads of the hills broke through the grass. One evening he made a wondrous discovery. Glittering like precious jewels in the last rays of the evening sun, small droplets of water clung to the grass. It could not be dew – it was too early in the evening, and the air was far too warm. Out of curiosity he decided to taste it. It was normal water apart from a subtle, yet impossibly sweet note. Nill caught the droplets in the palm of his hand. Twenty each made a tiny mouthful that filled his mouth with a flowery, mellifluous taste. Nill did not know that people called it dreamwater. Those who bought it paid a high price, for the gathering was an arduous process, and nobody was quite sure when the droplets came forth to breath the silent evening air. And so he simply enjoyed their sweetness and their smell, and the happy thoughts that followed.