Famfrit's Jewel - Chapter 3

Tainted Land

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Two days had passed since Alaea had made herself known to Dagnar, the pair had chatted little beyond the first morn preferring the sounds of the forest incase enemies lurked in the shadows. They’d found a deer near a nameless river late in the first day to Ankoron. Dagnar bristled at having to waste the skin, bones, and most of the meat but it was too much to carry, nor would the meat keep. Perhaps a wolf or snowfox would find it instead. Alaea shared stories over the campfire each evening, some of herself some of others in her village. She told them to remember them for no one else would. At that Dagnar had begun to do the same, telling stories of his father first, then his grandfather, centred around hunting and near-misses involving bears and stags, and once a direwolf, but soon he remembered tales of his aunties and neighbours, his mother, who’d died young, and others. Each one, whether comedic or tragic, mustered a rage filled sorrow towards Marazoth and his black clad men.

Dagnar had laid down his head to a crackling fire and gentle snowfall, when he awoke the fire was guttered, as expected, the snow melted, the land pallid. Great centuries old sentinels dropped their leaves by the thousands, all a sickly shade of yellow. He struggled to catch a full breath though there was no scent of smoke in the oddly warm air.

Alaea rose suddenly, ‘Marazoth has used the crystal. Quick, we have to move.’

‘You mean Famfrit’s Jewel?’

‘Yes.’

‘Explain.’

Alaea leapt up and gaged her bearings, ‘I overheard Marazoth talk about inverting the power of this, Famfrit’s Jewel. This must be what he meant.’ There was fear to her voice, genuine fear.

‘Impossible. It is a god’s gift, ancient and terrible. No mere mortal could influence it, let alone alter it,’ Dagnar scoffed at her claim, she must have misheard or this Marazoth was mad, or she was simply lying.

‘I know what I heard and I know what I see. Look around you, once living trees are dead, there is no birdsong, no scurrying, the snows have melted, the ground itself as lost its colour, do you not understand?’

‘Birdsong is rare in winter, the squirrels and other creatures are quiet by nature, and warm spells are not uncommon with spring on the horizon.’

‘But spring is not on the horizon. The birds are dead, the little beasts are dead, the ground itself as lost its vitality. Marazoth has achieved his goal. We must get to Ankoron, lest he…’

‘King Ceradas is not my king, not out here, and I am not his subject. I hunt this, Marazoth, as duty to my murdered kith and kin and to my god, nothing more.’

‘So be it, either way we head for the city.’ Alaea was on her feet and began loping across the sallow land.

Dagnar hurriedly strung his bow and chased after her. ‘How do you know all this? Overhearing a conversation is one thing but you knew too much,’ he grumbled. The ground crunched beneath his steps, not the crunch of snow but of ashen wood and brittle stone, the land was different, that much was clear.

‘I overheard a lot more than one conversation. I snuck into their camp and hid beneath his tent pavilion. You don’t have to believe me but I know what I heard and I know what I’m seeing. Whatever that Jewel does he has tainted it, I don’t know how but I think I know why.’

‘To control the king.’

‘And through the king, the world,’ Dagnar paused. The air was warm and sharp, stale but in a too clean way, he thought though he had never experienced anything like it. Pale leaves drifted through the air light as snow, needles sank through the air without colour or vitality, the trees sagged with their weight, the trunks, once so mighty, now bulging and sagging, as if all the strength had been ripped from them. He watched Alaea jog through the dying world, her form a sharp contrast of colour and vitality. Why had the change not happened to them? Dagnar chased after her when he heard a branch snap. The scent of smoke reached his nostrils and he scanned all around him. There was no one but he and Alaea.

Alaea slowed to a crawl and then halted beneath a one hundred foot fir tree, the trunk large enough to live in. Bulbous white growths bulged from the once firm trunk, the bark splitting and tearing like rotten leather. ‘Do you smell that?’ she peered into the forest, gasped, and ducked. An arrow split the air where her head had been and struck the dying tree with a wet thunk.

Dagnar loosed an arrow in the direction of the attack and heard a groaning. A black clad man slumped off a branch high up and landed with a crunch of bone. He screamed, ‘My arm! My arm!’ he rolled on the ground. Two more black clad men, swords in hand, came running.

‘Stellar shot,’ another man emerged from behind the dying sentinel tree, clapping. He wore a fur lined robe of turquoise embroidered in swirling patterns, his hair hung limp to his shoulders, and his eyes were a pale red.

‘Marazoth!’ Dagnar loosed a second arrow as quick as the first, the stone tip careening for the cretin’s throat. There was a white flash and a crystalline orb shimmered around Asparion, the arrow spinning away to land uselessly on the ground. Dagnar drew his dirk in a blur.

‘Afraid not,’ his accent was clipped and clean, a city man born and bred. ‘I am his mere apprentice, Asparion at your service.’ He bowed with an exaggerated wave of his arm. ‘While it is fascinating you survived and are managing to follow us, I cannot allow you to irritate my master as his plans come to fruition. It simply won’t do.’ He elegantly pointed towards Dagnar and Alaea, the two soldiers with him advancing on command.

Both went for Dagnar first, one circling to the left, the other to the right. Alaea retreated a few steps and strung her bow. The man on the right attacked first, his skin weathered from age, his armour more grey than black. Dagnar parried the sword with his dirk and regretted not finding a sword back home. The second man, of similar age to Dagnar, attacked next and all Dagnar could do was dive out of the way. ‘Loose an arrow!’ he cried to Alaea.

‘My string snapped, I have another,’ she dropped her bow and launched two knives from her belt. The first took the younger man in the calf, the second whizzed past and landed in a puff of ash. Alaea dove into her pack in search of the bowstring.

The soldier with a knife in his calf stumbled but didn’t stop, with gritted teeth he swung hard and heavy at Dagnar. The hunter ducked and dodged when he could while using his dirk to parry the twice-long blade when he couldn’t. The older warrior thrust and jabbed at Dagnar, catching him on the thigh and shoulder. Dagnar stumbled, blood spilling onto the ashen ground only to lose its colour and liquidity. Shock made all three pause.

‘What are you doing! Kill him, then her!’ Asparion crowed.

An arrow thunked into the neck of the older soldier. His eyes widened, his body stiffened, and he fell down, dead. The younger one shifted his eyes from Dagnar to Alaea but it was too late, Dagnar rushed and slit his throat with his dirk. Dagnar claimed the man’s bastard sword. ‘Alaea!’

Alaea loosed an arrow but it went wide thanks to the bizarre barrier Asparion had erected around himself. The sorcerer tutted, ‘If you keep following us you will be killed.’

‘I doubt it,’ Dagnar sprinted and went to impale Asparion on his new found sword.

The sorcerer shrugged, clicked his fingers and vanished, the air reeling with acridity and distortion. He reappeared sixty foot away shaking his head, with another click of his fingers he was gone.

The man with the broken arm whimpered into the pallid ground. Dagnar kicked him in the ribs, ‘Be gone from here.’ The man struggled to stand, hugging his misshapen arm to his chest, and fled.

Alaea stood over her victim with stunned silence, ‘I’ve never killed a man before.’

‘Me neither,’ Dagnar joined her. ‘Men die as easy as beasts and these deserved it.’

‘You’re too calm for a man who hasn’t killed before.’

Dagnar shrugged, ‘Why think about it. Either I died or they.’

‘It’s not that simple,’ she frowned.

‘It is,’ Dagnar relieved the dead men of their sword belts. ‘Take this,’ he shoved one into Alaea’s hands.

Alaea startled, tears crawled down her face and she began to sob. She held the sword and belt in one hand, the other hiding her eyes. Dagnar placed a hand on her shoulder, ‘We did what we had to, nothing more, nothing less. Come, let’s get away from here.’ He guided her away from the bodies and towards the city of Ankoron.

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