The Path of Poison: Chapter 20
Previously…
On the long road to Farhaven, the caravan encountered and fought off a beastman attack, and finally headed off into the wintry Voerlund highlands. Now, the party find themselves descending into a stretch of absolute wilderness…
Check out the Chapter Index for all previous installments
The dawn came late and pale, but they had been on the move before that. Sepp decided he didn’t mind dark, early mornings so much, it felt to him like coming out of sleep by degrees, rather than suddenly being thrust into the blearing light. Well, that was at least when there was a nice big campfire and hulking northern warriors to guard them. Had it been just his party, or his god forbid, just himself, he may have felt differently. But he didn’t need to. Instead, he found himself amused at the contrast between Barosh and Seva, stumbling about half-asleep like drunkards, and Skivor who was already up, in the wagon, and chatting away with Captain Karel.
No rush was the captain’s orders, best take it easy on the descent from the wide but rather uneven hilltop summit. Lanterns lit the way after they finished a pretty decent breakfast, and Sepp watched the winter morning leak across the landscape, the sun coming today from the south. They were heading now into a sort of narrow gorge or deep cleft in the hillside. The land undulated in such a way that it was the only natural, safe path down, all else was steep declines, drops, and loose rock. All possible maybe on foot, if you knew what you were doing, but not with an entire caravan. As the burden beasts were gently driven into the cleft, tall walls of bare earth and stone rose either side of them, clinging to the night as the sun threw illumination from afar. Indistinct shapes could be seen just over the rim of the gorge walls. Almost certainly bent trees and scraggly bushes. But still, the caravan’s lanterns did little good here, and in that light they looked, more than anything else, a little too much like they were peering over. A tense quite settled upon the group swiftly.
The brothers Karmov and Dorach rode with the party that morning. They had fallen into the role of their unofficial bodyguards, and the captain seemed fine with it. Perhaps it was in their role as guards, for Dunmarrow had a reputation as, at best, reticent talkers, did they pick up on the grim mood of their charges, and so began to lightly question them to lift their spirits.
“So, how long have you all been on the road?” asked Karmov.
“It’s been...about a week?” said Barosh, looking around for confirmation.
“About that, yeah. The days sort of meld together out here, don’t they?” said Seva with a contemplative chuckle.
“Been a lot happening, hard to keep track of,” added Skivor.
“Different to your quiet village life, I’d wager,” said Dorach.
“Different indeed,” replied Skivor.
“Still, Yamesh wasn’t always that quiet, was it?” said Seva.
“I’d say it got a little rough at times,” said Sepp. “We were on the...well, the outskirts of the outskirts. Traditionally our claim to fame was being the northernmost village in all of Silverden.”
“Hmm, you suffered beastmen then, was it?” asked Karmov.
“Surprisingly no, they never bothered the village but they were out there.”
“Always heard sounds when I was out gathering game and wood, but I never saw anything more than shadows,” Skivor added, leaning it.
“Same here, when I was with my dad. Used to think he was keeping them away with, well, you know.”
“Always thought it was our dead doing that,” Skivor said with something that might have been approaching a smirk.
“Well, of course, yeah,” Sepp said, a little flustered at the inference of blasphemy. “Really I think it was that, and the mandrakes.”
“Mandrakes?” exclaimed Seva.
“No way we had mandrakes!” said Barosh, sitting forward. Sepp threw a surprised smile at them.
“You never saw their tree? Barosh, you were a farmhand, the old man never had you go out a little west of the village for anything?”
“No, never,” Barosh replied with wide eyes.
“Skivor, you saw them right?” Sepp asked as he turned.
“Aye, I did. Only from afar, mind you. Exchanged a nod. That’s it. I don’t believe we had much to offer them, or them us. But I suppose they wouldn’t much like beastmen either.”
“Fortune smiled on your village, then,” said Dorach. “No persons ever vanished from your homes?”
“Vanished?” returned Sepp, a nervous look on his face.
“No people ever went missing there, at least to my knowledge,” said Skivor. Sepp and Barosh were looking around the wagon for an answer.
“Mandrakes, in some places,” said Seva with some hesitancy, “have a reputation—still have a reputation for taking people.”
“I don’t think this is the time or place to start telling stories, Seva!” Barosh barely disguised his disquiet.
“It is no story,” said Karmov, matter of fact, “the Macha Clanhold is rife with stories of mandrakes taking people in the night, or out on hunts. But not in Dunmarrow. No land for them there.”
“Do we want to know what they take people for?” asked Sepp.
“Hmm. Old lore has it that mandrakes, in ages past, looked far less, ah, human, they do now in this time. You know what they are, these wandering ones, the mandrakes?”
“They’re people of the wilds, right?” Barosh ventured.
“One of many. But their mantrees are the real ‘people’, the wandering ones—the mandrakes—they are, how do I say, they are to the mantrees as leaves, or flowers, or fruits are to real trees. They gather food and wisdom and then return to be recycled. Some of what they gathered was once, and sometimes still is, human.”
“Mandrakes eat people?” said Barosh, distress clear in his tone.
“Yes. They did this, however, to learn.”
“But these days,” said Dorach, quickly chiming in, “there are places across Voerlund, beyond in the east, and even south Macha where mandrakes trade openly with settlements. They learned not to take, you understand. They can be good allies in the wilds.”
Several minutes of uneasy silence followed, stretching into interminable eternity, before Dorach spoke again.
“You said, ah, the village life was not always so quiet, no? Even with no beastmen or mandrakes to bother you?”
“I suppose it could have been much worse, being so remote,” mused Seva.
“Biggest problems always came from caravans passing through,” Barosh added with a laugh.
“And where were they from, hmm?” asked Karmov.
“Mostly Voerlund and southern Silverden,” said Sepp, “though every so often we’d get someone from further away.”
“Was always an occasion when a Baletorian or Minosmirii group came through,” said Seva, a melancholy touch to her tone.
“Latter won’t be getting as warm a welcome in future, I reckon,” Skivor spoke just above his breath.
“You know how it is with caravans, always some odd folk along for the ride,” Barosh said, and he made sure to say it with a grin. “But the temple guard always sorted out any troublemakers, thieves, you know the like.”
Temple guard, thought Sepp. My parents.
“Aye, your temple guard,” said Karmov brightly, “very good warriors, very respectable, faith gives them good discipline.”
“Have the Dunmarrow worked with them much before?” asked Seva.
“With. And against.” Dorach said this, though he didn’t look at any of them.
“Such is the line of our work, hmm?” added Karmov. “I would not be surprised to learn there were some of our number amongst those fighting the conflict in Silverden.”
For some reason, Sepp hadn’t thought of that. It made him feel a bit strange in a way he didn’t like.
“You knew about that?” asked Barosh.
“We did. There has been talk of bubbling trouble in the far south for some time. But we, we are going home.”
“What...were you doing before we met you?” Seva asked, masking well enough her discomfort, but the intent was obvious.
“Border dispute in eastern Voerlund. Old houses there are like monasteries in your homeland. Rivalries from centuries ago come to the surface in that land very easily.”
“You are concerned if we were part of wars in Silverden,” Dorach said, casting his eyes about. “I cannot say any of our troupe here were involved in such things, mostly we are bodyguards for merchants and farmers. There are many in Dunmarrow now who feel uneasy about taking part in perpetuating conflicts. But not all clans have that choice—gold is gold, and goods are goods. Maybe this will change in time, hmm?”
As they had been talking, one of the gorge walls had broken off into a lower incline, and revealed to the caravan was a vast forest of dusky trunks and great green shadow. Above the canopy were the grey veins and splotches of a twilight that would begin to deepen soon. But at the very least, the air was somewhat fresher now as it moved betwixt the trees and into the caravans with inquisitive tendrils.
“By the way,” Karmov asked, “funny business that, ah, dead as custodians belief you have.” It took them all a second, but they realized that the Dunmarrow was putting something of a teasing tone into his voice. It was appreciated.
“Do Dunmarrow dead really not help their relatives?” Barosh replied with a similar tone. The two warriors took it as intended.
“Life in the north is hard, my friend! Life is spent wandering and fighting, or keeping the tomb cities standing. We are promised eternal rest when our time comes, but in Silverden, they tell their fathers and their mothers to keep working!”
“I’m sure yours would come help if you asked,” said Sepp.
“Ah, no no,” Karmov almost sounded a little nervous, “no one wakes the dead in Dunmarrow, not for anything. It is a blasphemy to the death god.”
“Aye, something I think we can both agree on.” Skivor nodded to the northerners. “Folk mucking about in graveyards don’t get much mercy in Silverden. It violates the order of things.”
“I think you’d be hard pressed finding a nation that’s okay with it,” said Seva wryly.
Dorach was looking out of a side flap at the forest when there came a short series of sharp whistles. He looked to his brother, and then back out, and replied with two lower whistles of his own. It sounded like birds. Karmov leaned in to the others.
“Means rough roads ahead.”
“We really are in the wilderness now,” said Dorach, still looking out.
Skivor bent forward to see out of the side flap, and grunted in agreement. “People haven’t been out here in a long, long time,” he said in a low tone.
“How do you mean exactly?” asked Sepp.
“Look out.” Sepp did so. The space around them was so absolutely still that, even within the wagon, the chill air almost had a weight to it. Of the little he could see in the gloom, the thickly packed trunks and banks of forest detritus, it was completely unbroken, with nary a hint of even an old trail. The sense of it hit Sepp almost in a flash.
“There’s forest like this on the Macha border, where the Dunmarrow frost settles all year round, where neither of our folk go,” said Karmov.
“Old forest is oft loathe to be drawn from its deep dreams,” Dorach almost droned. “We should pass through here with haste.”