ii travellers from antique lands

8/12/2019 II Travellers From Antique Lands

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II.

TRAVELLERS FROM ANTIQUE LANDS

ON a small winding path through the forest, above a chattering stream, a man walked,

leading a small, sturdy horse. Beside the horse, a girl, who sang a low, lilting tune as she

stepped lightly through the fallen leaves that covered the ground. It was the very end of

Autumn, and the woodland paths were thick with the mud and mulch of a rainy, chilly season.

The man stopped, and held his hand up sharply, and the girl fell silent, stood still with one

hand on the horses saddle, waiting for her master to explain. He looked around, up, down.

The day was dying, all day had been dying, and the weak light between the great tall trees was

fading away. A far-off skirl of a hawks cry sounded, lonely against the low-hung, leaden sky

of coming Winter. The wind was rising, and a chill gasp swept along the little valley that they

followed, swishing the twinkling pools of the stream that worked its way along the valley

floor. The man took from his jacket a strange amulet on a chain, and looked hard at it for a

moment, turning slightly one way and another.

Closer now, he said. The shard begins to glow. Perhaps at the end of this valley, or

over the next hill. We must move on. It will be night soon, girl. We must find it before the sun

is altogether gone.

Yes, Maestro, she murmured, and followed him as he moved off, faster now, along

the rocky, narrow path. The man pulled up his hood against the chill, and the damp, dripping

gusts of misty rain that now found their way among the trees. He looked back once at the

young woman, and half-smiled, nodded, then turned and trudged on. His face was dark, thin,

with high cheekbones and a firm, long nose, clean-shaven, and with eyes almost black set

deep in their sockets. The strands of long hair that escaped from underneath his hood were a


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rusty bronze colour, strange on one whose skin was so dark and sallow. His mouth was set,

determined, thin-lipped and cruel, and his brows drawn together in thought, or in anger. The

thick green cloak he wrapped around him covered most of his body, but one could see flashes

of a deep crimson jacket ornamented with gold brocade, which opened on a linen shirt, and a

black silk scarf at his neck, where the amulet nestled on its chain. He led the horse with one

hand, and in the other carried a long stick, almost like a shepherds staff, of some pale, ha rd

wood. It whorled at the top like a fern-bud, not yet unclosed, and close examination would

show it to be carved with elaborate curlicues and decorations along its length. Under his

cloak, the hard line of a sword could be seen at his hip, pushing the cloaks folds out as he

walked.

The girl was tall and slender, perhaps half the age of her master, at most twenty years

old. She also looked out of place in this wild, chill forest. Under a thick woollen cloak of dark

grey, the hood of which she now lifted against the wind-borne drizzle, she wore a long linen

tunic, over doeskin breeches which came down to just past her knees; despite the weather, she

wore only leather sandals on her feet, their lacings coming halfway up her calf. In her right

hand she carried a long, thin wand of willow-wood, the top of which was carved into the

semblance of two snakes curled about one another, their heads each facing each. It seemed

that her arms, apart from some bracelets, were bare. Her skin was golden, and her hair, in a

long, heavy braid behind her, was honey-blond. A wide, well-drawn mouth, a strong nose,

and liquid, dark brown eyes made up a pleasing, open face, set in an enigmatic slight smile,

her steady gaze on the back of the man she had called Maestro, with it is hard to say what

thought of him, amused, patient, or sardonically hateful. He owned her, and did not ask her

opinion of him.

The path topped a small rise, and moved away from the stream, then came down into a

clearing. At the edge, the man stopped, and hissed Here!before moving slowly forward. In


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the clearing, all was still, but there were the marks of a great fire. The half-destroyed ruins of

a cottage stood to one side, its roof all off, its stones scattered around the clearing and charred

black, fallen in a wide arc around the devastated house. The grass was burnt, and even some

of the trees at the edges of the open space were shrivelled and blackened. In the greying light,

the pair could make out tracks that led out of a path on the opposite side of the clearing, and

away through the trees again, with much mixing and mingling around the shattered house.

There lay one huge black carcass of a beast the size of a calf, just before the house, but so

charred and damaged was it that it was impossible to say what it had been, save four-legged,

and massive in the chest and head. The man put his finger to his lips, and looked around

warily, took out the metal amulet and looked at its face. A faint blue glow came from a needle

that was set into its flat disc, the edges of which were marked like a clock. The needle

trembled slightly, then spun round twice, before pointing again at the ruins of the house. The

man left go the reins of the horse, who whickered softly, and backed up, and the girl patted its

flank in reassurance. She put her hand on the hilt of a small, leaf-bladed sword that nestled in

a leather sheath at her hip. The man shifted his staff into his left hand, and threw his cloak

back over his shoulder, also putting a hand to his sword, and loosening it in its scabbard. He

crept forward, cat-like, among the fallen, blackened stones of the house, and towards what

remained of its walls. As he reached the demolished doorway, he straightened up, and looked

around again, then beckoned to the girl. She rubbed the horses neck once more, and set down

her stick upon the ground, then moved swiftly to the mans side, pulling her sword out with a

low ring of metal.

He stopped her with one hand, and pointed into the blackened pile of stones that had

once been a house. There, beside the chimney piece, which remained half-standing, lay a

mans body, twisted, on its back, among the wreckage of furniture almost burned away to

nothing. The fire had somehow not touched him at all, or he had fallen there after it had


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burned. It seemed though, that the remains of wooden table and chairs had fallen about, and

on him, and it may have been the girls imagination, but she thought that despite the drizzle,

some of the wreckage still gave out wisps of smoke, and the cinders and ashes were not yet

turned to damp ooze, or blown away, and so must have been burning until not too long ago.

They moved forward, one to each side, both looking all about: the edges of the clearing, dark

between the trees, remained empty, silent, motionless. All around them was still. The man

was not dead; his chest rose and fell slowly, his breathing laboured, but deep. He wore only a

thin shirt and breeches, and tattered boots, and there was, as the Master pointed out, a small

amulet of some silvery dark metal lying next to his hand. It had an elaborate knot design on its

round surface, symmetrical and never-ending. His skin was very pale, his black hair long and

unkempt, his beard full and thick. He seemed unharmed, despite the conflagration that

appeared to have taken place around him; no scars were visible on his skin, though his shirt

was torn and draggled, and his trousers ripped at the knees, and stained with mud. The Master

now knelt beside him, and felt his pulse. It was strong; he was not dying. He turned the mans

hand as he felt the wrist, and suddenly gasped. Looking up, he caught the girls eye, and

nodded down at the exposed palm he held between his hands. In the middle of the mans left

hand, spreading from the centre of the palm, were shards and splinters of a glassy, grey

material, radiating out in a star-burst shape. They were gouged into his flesh, which looked

raw and torn around them, but well-embedded. The Master pulled his amulet out of his jacket,

and held it near the mans hand; its needle glowed blue and spun in rapid circles. The shards

in the mans palm pulsed with a deep blue light in answer, and with a start, the man woke up.

Are they here? he gasped, sitting suddenly, pushing against the Master to stand.

Holding him by the shoulders, the Master hushed him, and made him lay back down a

moment. His breath came ragged and rapid, and words mumbled swift and indistinct between

his lips.


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Who and where have you come ? Did you see ? Are they ? How did it

happen? He spoke, strangely, not the language of local men, but a similar bastard Latin to

that which the Master and the girl spoke to each other. Among educated people, and travelling

people, this was a common enough language, with many regional variations. His had strange,

hard sounds in it, and words they couldnt catch, but they followed him well enough, when his

mumbling surfaced into speech. The Master shushed and calmed him, stroking his forehead

with a gentle hand, and gradually his mutterings trailed off, and his breathing evened out.

Who are you? You are not with them, I know this much He looked from the face

of the Master to the face of the girl, who now knelt on the other side of him.

We are perhaps friends, certainly not foes, the Master said, beginning to help him sit

up. But, you see, the light is fading. Those who seek you will come with the dark, will they

not?

They care not, at this time of year, when the day dawns barely, and the sky above

stays grey as iron. They prefer to hunt at night, but this pale sun of the end of Autumn causes

them no trouble. The man shuddered. I am cold. Have you not a coat or cloak to give me?

The Master gestured, impatient at not having thought of it, and the girl skipped

quickly to the horse, to pull a spare woollen blanket out of the saddlebag, that could be worn

as a cloak. They wrapped the man, and lifted him to his feet. He suddenly looked around

wildly at the ground at his feet, and swooped down to grab the metal pendant that lay beside

him in the ashy dust and cinders. He looked at it a moment, saying nothing, and the Master

and the girl looked on, not speaking either. The man tied a quick knot in the broken leather

thong, and then hung the pendant around his neck. He nodded, and looked up at the two again.


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So, youre right. We must go. But do you know the way? I confess, I am lost. I do not

know He hesitated. this place. He looked around once more, and shivered. The

Master led him carefully through the fire-blackened rubble, and then brought him to the horse.

Youre weak, still. You must mount the horse; I will lead it. That is, if you accept to

come with us. We do know the way. There is a path over there, he nodded at the other end of

the clearing, which leads along a hidden valley to the next great gorge. The path is narrow,

the trees grow thick about it. It would be difficult for anyone to follow, and if they did, they

could only come in single file. Those who seek you They hunt with a pack, not so?

The man nodded. His face creased in a wince of pained memory, of fear and horror.

They hunt with a pack, and mounted huntsmen, I think. I cannot I cannot say who

they are, or why they hunt me. I know only that I must run. If they were to catch me again

He paused, looking puzzled at his own words. Again? he repeated softly to himself. If they

once caught me, then the fear I feel for them is no idle one. For I know that if I fall into their

hands again, it will mean not only death. It will mean a death the horror of which you cannot

imagine, and I, thankfully, cannot remember. I have I think I have seen others go to that

death. I wish to cheat it, for myself.

He smiled grimly, and the girl thought she saw, for the first time, a slight trace of who

this man must once have been. A laughing, roguish, bold man, not this shivering husk, who

allowed himself now to be helped up into the horses saddle l ike an oldling, and sat hunched

there as her Master led the horse back to the path on which they had arrived. She picked up

her wand from the ground where she had left it, and walked back into the clearing once again,

searching with her eyes among the many, muddled prints in the mud and leaves. There were

prints of horses hooves, and mens booted feet, it seemed:of very large men. And there was

something else. There were other prints, of paws, cloven hooves, of great bear-like pads ?


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But no, they were too indistinct. She eyed the blackened hide of the creature sprawled by the

door once more, and then turned to follow her Master, and his horse, and the shivering man

upon the horse. Before she left the clearing, she reached into a pouch at her belt, and took out

a handful of dried herbs, which she rubbed between her fingers and then scattered about the

clearing behind them. They gave out a thick, pungent smell. Blowing the remaining dust of

them off her fingers, she smiled briefly, and then followed down the path in the gathering

dusk, beneath the trees where the others had disappeared.

ii travellers from antique lands

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