Samual (4 page)

After that they would travel a further hundred and fifty leagues along the arduous Dead Creek Pass as they cut their way between the Dead Belly Wastes and the Fedowir Kingdom. A winding and sometimes steep dirt track in place of a road, the Pass had few resources along it other than the odd trading post or well. It was also reputedly littered with bandits. Though he couldn't imagine them attacking a party of this size, any stragglers might not be so fortunate. And the caravan would be slow as it had to carry not just food but also water with them. On horseback a rider could make it through in three weeks. But a caravan with overloaded wagons would be lucky to do it in a month and a half.

After that they would finally arrive at Golden River Flats, and hopefully find a place to live. Maybe the Shavarran elves would find an area to settle; perhaps they'd be broken up into smaller groups to be spread among the other elves? But even there the elves might not be safe. With an army of golems nipping at their heels – something that until that night he would never have thought possible – and the caravan crawling, their enemy could perhaps chase them all the way to the Flats and beyond. Though it made no sense that they would, neither did anything else the soldier had told him.

If the golems had already taken the city, why were they chasing the elves? Because he had no doubt from her words that they were. Did that mean that their goal was not the city at all, just the elves themselves as she'd said? Was their goal purely murder?  And if so why? What sort of enemy lived only to fight and kill but not to take? But then what sort of army was made of steel rats?

The soldier in him said that if they were truly golems then they served another. A master wizard who was directing them from somewhere else. But then why would a wizard want a city? Or, if the wizard didn't want the city, why had he even attacked it? And if all he really wanted was the elves' dead as it appeared, then what could drive him to take such action? Was it some sort of vendetta perhaps? Revenge for past deeds?

Sam couldn't believe such a thing. While there were undoubtedly some nasty wizards around, surely none could hold a grudge against the elves. They were a law abiding people; peaceful almost to a fault. They never turned away those in need and they never attacked without cause. And they hadn't been to war in all the centuries the province had been inhabited. And yet try as he might Sam could think of no other possible reason for what he'd been told.

It was a riddle and a half to solve, and one that he knew was probably beyond him for the moment. He needed more information. Still, in the morning he decided he would find out more as he followed the caravan of elves west.

Until then, it was time to pack.

In the morning, before first light Sam did much as he'd been instructed. He'd already packed up his house the previous night and made it weather tight, making sure it would be there if and when he was able to return to these lands. Assuming the golems didn't destroy it. That only left himself and his horses to worry about.

Donning his full armour, (which still bore the crest of the House of Hanor on the banded blue chest plate despite his efforts to erase it) Sam gathered his weapons and mounted his war horse Tyla. He tied the reins of his other horse Aegis to the saddle, stuffed Elsbeth the milking goat into one of the oversized saddle bags, something she wasn't particularly happy about, and then left his home for what could be the last time.

The only thing he did different from what he'd been told to do was that he set off east instead of following the elves west to the village of Torin Vale as he'd originally intended. Straight into the heart of the enemy's advance as they chased the elves.

It wasn't a casual decision, nor he hoped a mistake. He was after all a warrior and a fire wizard both, and was more than capable of dealing with most threats. Although truthfully, he wouldn't have categorised giant steel rats or golems as most threats.  And from what he'd heard from the soldier the previous night he knew he would have to be cautious. Yet even if the danger was greater than he could handle, he had to go. It was his duty.

Whether or not he was truly welcome among these elves, they were good people and they were innocent. And since he chose to live among them they were also his people. It was his duty as a knight of Hanor to protect them with his dying breath. They were also his mother's family, and his wife's as well. Running from battle was not the way to protect kith and kin. At the very least he had to scout out the enemy. He needed to look for his lairs; his strengths and his weaknesses. That information would be invaluable to the elves. And if he could bloody their noses a little, so much the better.

There was anger inside him. It had been bubbling close to the surface for five long years but so far he had kept it under control. During that time he had concentrated on his studies and used it as he worked on drawing ever more magical strength. But he had always kept it under tight control. Now though for some reason, it had started breaking loose. It had come boiling up through the night as he packed, and it was all he could do not to scream with rage. He wanted to strike out and destroy the enemy. Such was neither the way of a trained soldier nor an honourable knight, and yet a very primitive part of him still wanted nothing more than a good fight. A chance to hit back at something. To finally strike out at anything instead of just taking the loss and suffering as he had had to do these past five years. And like it or not, these golems would make perfect targets for his rage.

All through the night as he'd made ready for the morning, he'd felt that rage growing within him, so much so that it frightened him a little. And right behind it was his fire magic, whispering its sweet song of destruction. Even if the golems ran away he might well roast them, right or wrong. After all, they had committed a terrible crime and they had no souls. They were fair game.

Yet there was still more than just honour, rage and a need to find out what had harmed his kin that set his path that morning. There was also a strange feeling in the pit of his stomach that as bad as this attack was, there was more to it than just a battle or a war.

It was the reference to golems that had triggered something deep within him, and he simply had to see them with his own eyes. It was a memory, or a fragment of one that had been dancing in the back of his mind for hours as he'd watched the last of the elves pass by his home. He still couldn't quite place it even now, though he knew it had something to do with his training in the arcane arts. And with all the readings of the various prophecies. A line from one of them kept echoing in his thoughts:

“– and when the golems hunt,

the cities shall fall,

and the people shall know fear.
”

He only wished he could remember the rest of it, or even which book of prophecy it was from. There were so many in the library of Fall Keep – thousands in fact – and it had been many years since he'd read them.

Maybe it was just the despair and hopelessness he'd been living with for so long which was driving him mad. Or maybe not. Either way he had an uncomfortable feeling in the pit of his stomach that that prophecy was a foreseeing of what was happening now. But if it was, then this was only just beginning, and dark times lay ahead. He hoped that by seeing at least one of the golems for himself that it would trigger the rest of those memories, bringing them to the surface and telling him what was to come. Or that at the least he would learn how to kill them. First though he had to see one.

Sam let the horses take their time as they wandered slowly back down the road, while he spied ahead for the first sign of trouble. He had no need to hurry, he knew. The rats would come to him even if he sat and waited outside his home. It would just take a little longer for them to reach him.

It wasn't a hard road to travel. The trail had been regularly graded and the ruts from the wagon wheels had been filled in. In the wetter, muddier areas, stones and cobbles had been laid out, and wide stone bridges crossed the few streams that ran through the land. As with everything else in Shavarra, the elves took great care to make sure the roads were well looked after. But emotionally it was a tougher ride as he had to balance his anger against his nerves. Sam needed to keep his wits about him. That was the difference between a soldier and a berserker. A soldier h
ad to be
always clear thinking and have a plan. And more often than not, a soldier would win.
Reason and strategy would overcome passion.

S
am
needed to win. To put an end to these steel demons. Too much of him though just wanted to pound them with his axe. Still, he remembered his training, somehow managed to keep his cool, and slowly made his way towards the front without incident.

Using his eyes, his ears and his nose as his instructors had taught him, he searched for anything out of the ordinary. Anything that might tell him that he was entering an enemy's domain. But the trouble with the steel golems, if he truly understood what the soldier had told him last night, was that he didn't know what those signs might be. All he knew was that they would not approach as an army. They would not march in formation. They would scurry and sneak like assassins in the dark. No more would they give off any odours as might a man or an anim
al
. Nor would they make unnecessary sounds as they conversed among themselves.

As well as using his physical senses, Sam cast his mind's eye ahead. It w
as one of the
senses that sharpened with advanced training in the arcane arts and he used it to look for signs of magic. He knew that if there was one thing that golems would give off, it was surely the smell of magic. Great and terrible magic.

Such creatures hadn't truly been seen in the lands for centuries, and even then they hadn't been common as they could only be created by the greatest of alchemists. Mostly they had been kept by the alchemists as glorified pets and servants. Symbols of their power. And now there was suddenly a whole army of them? Golems who were able to act independently of their master? Such things had to mean magic of the highest order. Magic that any spell caster should sense from many leagues away.

But while Sam couldn't detect the magic of the golems, what he did note was the quiet of the forest. Normally these lands were filled with creatures. And while his nature magic was limited, it was enough to detect the more magical of them. The unicorns, griffins and pegasi. He seldom saw them, but such was their presence that he felt them. Always. Not this morning though. Wherever they were, they weren't nearby. That worried him.

It was a long slow trip, and for the longest time he could neither see nor sense anything of the enemy. He did however see the occasional peasant or soldier coming up the trail at speed, no doubt trying to catch up with the caravan. Many were frightened, some were wounded; all were in a hurry. Too much to have any time to stop and talk, though he asked all of them if they had seen the enemy behind them. None had – though all thought they were being chased – and none wanted to stay with him for any length of time to tell him of what they had seen. Not when he was clearly travelling the wrong way. The elves were like any other people in that regard. No one wanted to talk to mad men.

In truth they all probably thought him mishin li or moon crazed, but right then was not the time to argue with a human in full armour, riding a giant black steed, and with a second the same size beside him, loaded down with weapons and a goat. They hurried on. No doubt they would tell any others that they met of the mad warrior they had passed.

The sun had well and truly risen by the time Sam first felt the tingle of magic ahead, and he knew his enemy was approaching. It was only then that he fully accepted that this enemy was real. Because up until then despite everything he'd seen, his mind had kept telling him that it couldn't be. Armies of golems? That was madness. But then feeling the mass of distant magical energy, he knew it was real. They were still many leagues away, but the magic still raised the hairs on his neck, much like the charge in the air after a lightning bolt had just struck close by. Sam kept the fire in his centre hot and ready for use though he knew he had time. He didn't have to fan the flames of his magic just yet.

Three hundred yards further on he stopped the horses in a clearing, distracted by an unexpected emotion. He could still feel the enemy a good distance off, though closing in remorselessly, but he was sensing something else as well:

Fear.

Sadly it was not the golems' fear – metal magical constructs didn't have any.  But even if they had, Sam could sense that the source was much closer than them. Nor was it that of the animals of the woods as the golems passed them by. They hid, and though they knew something strange was among them, they had no concept that it was a predator. Then again for them it wasn't. The golems were hunting people. And what he was sensing was the fear of those being hunted.

It had been some time since he'd encountered anyone by then, and even when he had it had only been a straggler here and there. But this was more than that. This was a full party. Opening his senses wide Sam could feel men, women and children close by. There were a lot of them. Apparently not everyone had made it out of the city with the main caravan. Nor had they all made it out alive. These elves were grieving as they fled, and they were terrified.

Sam was torn. Part of him – the part that was soft and emotional – wanted to go to them and help. He knew he could. He had a couple of horses, some weapons and most important of all he had magic. But the soldier in him knew better. Where he stood was the perfect place to meet the enemy.  The clearing he was in was perhaps only a hundred yards across, but it was enough to stop the golems from creeping up on him unawares. And that according to what he had been told, was how they liked to strike. It was also enough space to use some of his more powerful weapons and spells safely, if he needed to. And he knew he would. The magical stench of the enemy was already growing. He could not yield this spot.

In the end the soldier won through as he usually did. The years of training were too hard to ignore, while the fear of the elves coming towards him wasn't yet overpowering. Nor were they in as much danger as they feared. They were still well ahead of their enemy and they would remain so for a while. Long enough to reach him and safety. He would let them come to him.

Soon enough he heard the first sounds of the elves arriving. Hooves beating erratically as tired horses galloped. The shouts as the frightened elves called to one another, urging each other on as they tried to stay ahead of the rats. The nickering of frightened horses as they picked up on their masters' fear. The sounds of twigs breaking as they broke through bush and scrub.

“Hanor!” Sam let loose his family's ancient war cry as loudly as his lungs would let him. He wanted to let them know that there was someone ahead of them. Someone who would provide them with help, even if they didn't know what sort. And in truth it was good to finally be able to shout his name out loud, admitting all that he had kept hidden for so long, while remembering happier times. It was a good name, a proud name; not something to be hidden. Immediately he felt their spirits raise as they heard him. They didn't yet know anything about him but they knew they weren't alone any longer.

Thirty or forty heartbeats later they broke through the last of the bushes before hitting the clearing. It seemed they had left the trail, perhaps hoping to evade the golems or make better time through a short cut. Arriving in the clearing they saw him standing there in the centre of the trail ahead. It must have come as a shock to them. A tall human dressed in full armour and astride a massive black horse, with a second beside him. And if any of them knew their heraldry they would have noticed the crest of Hanor on his armour and the blue of his honour. A knight of Hanor was surely the last thing a party of fleeing elves would have thought to come across in their own lands. But they weren't foolish enough to stop and wonder.