1.9 Trail Of Dead

Silven puffed into the little village of Thornyhedge early the next morning. By sprinting through dozens of flailing swords and rounding corners at convenient times, he had managed to limit his slaughtering to only seven soldiers in his escape from Desert Marsh. And ten spiders, five wolves and three obviously Legendary caterpillars on his flight through the pleasant meadow which bordered the weird landscape to the east. Thornyhedge had three cottages, one windmill and twenty two strange folk who would only identify themselves as ‘Resident’ if pressed for a name. He only hoped they had a strict bed rota in place to avoid an even more explosive population problem.

He remembered to collect his wolf fluff and spider eggs and caterpillar legs, and easily arranged for his clothes and weapon to be repaired by Resident whilst Resident and Resident rustled up some porridge. As he ate on the grassy hillock underneath the mill’s swishing sails, he looked up at the brightening sky and considered his position.

He knew of no home to return to. No family, no job, no life. Whatever he had done before being imprisoned by Wallace’s men, it had obviously been so bad as to warrant some sort of cruel mind-erasing potion or poison or spell. And now, here he was, wandering from town to town, with no purpose other than to grow a little stronger and slay increasingly savage creatures as he went.

He shook his head. That wasn’t actually true. He knew what he was supposed to be doing. He was supposed to be fulfilling his destiny at the Three Toes Tavern. He suspected the Terrorknights of The Black Shadow could well be having a few for the highway there right now, and they were obviously bad news. But he was a cautious soul. Maybe he was being tricked by Wallace, or the desert-folk, or anyone else he had ran across. He had to find out more about the situation before he got caught up in conflicts he didn’t understand.

And that led him to the other fork in the road. He could write off his amnesia as poison, but the strangeness of everything around him niggled at his mind. Nothing was quite right, nothing seemed familiar. He always had the feeling things were supposed to work a different way to how they appeared. Professor Grennel’s research might just help with that. “Something beyond the norms of science,” Silven mumbled, finishing the last of his breakfast. That was what he would investigate. He couldn’t trust anything, but the professor seemed a better choice than a disembodied voice floating through the air. Or the damned mice.

So, it was just a case of finding out something that might help with something he knew nothing about. Simple.

Silven retrieved his sword and prepared to go out exploring. He consulted the Fast Travel Supreme and was pleased to see a variety of mysteriously and terrifyingly – named locations around his position. Time for a bit of good old-fashioned exercise. He paused by the edge of the village as he set out. There was a notice-board there, full of old letters about babies and weddings and apple-juggling contests. He thought about the good he had eventually done in Gigglewick. It couldn’t hurt to try and be a hero along the way.

He settled down against the defensive hedge and set his alarm clock for a two hour doze. When he awoke, he couldn’t help but chuckle at the reams of parchment stuffed onto the board. He gathered them up and skimmed down the first page. “Missing son, went off to forage in Pinecone Hollow,” he muttered to himself, and consulted the FTS. “Straight North from here. I’m coming, young Alty.”

Pinecone Hollow turned out to be a woodland clearing full of snakes with rows and rows of rippling legs. Somehow, he trapped them behind a lonesome tree stump and massacred them from behind as they waddled fruitlessly against the bark. Silven shrugged off their stupidity and went off in search of the boy. He found him soon after, face down in a pile of leaves, an abandoned basket of mushrooms by his side. “Poor thing,” shuddered Silven, wiping a tear from his eye. It was only to be expected, he supposed, rooting around in a snake pit, but he couldn’t help but feel sorry for the loss all the same. He took his gold chain as a memento for his mother and quickly turned to the next message. “My friend has gone to meet the Darktree Clan to ask for help against the great giraffe invasion,” he read aloud. “Darkleaf Grove, just to the east of here...”

According to the letter, the Darktree Clan had helped their village neighbours in dark times for centuries. But it seemed that just this week, they had decided to turn cannibal and made a mean hotpot from poor Freddie’s body. Silven punished them for their heinous acts, took Freddie’s ring for his companion back in Thornyhedge, and soldiered on.

Wyvern Reach should have been a gruelling struggle between man and beast, but Silven found an old bow, a narrow cave on the windswept hill, and picked off the monsters one by one with the ten thousand arrows the weapon didn’t come with. He rubbed his arms and went off in search of the caravan that had set off from Thornyhedge that day. It took two whole hours to find a hand and five toes. Luckily for Silven, one toenail had somehow concealed an entire drawstring bag of coppers, so at least the trip wasn’t wasted. Silven told himself this, covered his head, and wept. The day had been full of death and misery.

The next morning, Silven worked through the notes with a little more care. There had to be something a bit more cheerful. “Ah, here we go!” he cried at last. A certain Count Steinbrook needed a strong back to cart some apples down from his private orchard in the Capital Foothills just south of Silven’s makeshift camp. The name seemed familiar, but the warrior could not quite place it. It didn’t matter. A good deed was a good deed, and after the whole Snake Hill mess, he could handle a load of apples with ease.

The hero’s feet were a little sore from all that walking yesterday, so he pulled out the FTS and teleported to Capital Orchard. The view across Oldeburgh was spectacular. He could even make out the towers of Solmond City itself far in the distance.

“Ah! Hello, young warrior. Are you here for the apples?” said a friendly voice from behind Silven. He turned and regarded a regal old man in a short robe, waving him closer.

"Count Steinbrook?” he answered, and moved forward. His foot met an apple and it bounced away along the neat lawn. Silven stopped dead and watched the rolling fruit with curiosity. The count was saying something, but he didn’t hear. The more he watched, the more the stinging dread pulled at his stomach. The apple was moving further than it should. It bounced on, and on, and on. Bounced with...purpose.

It made it to the end of the grass and plopped off into the undergrowth of the neighbouring woodland. A rabbit shrieked at the noise and bounded off into the trees. It stepped straight into the path of a snake, which struck out at its hind legs, missed, and crashed headfirst into a trunk. The tree wobbled, and several strange cylindrical berries rained down into the bushes. A passing deer approached and sampled the rare treat. A nearby wolf saw its chance and pounced on the distracted animal. As they writhed in the moss, the wolf’s tail swept over a bear trap, which sprung shut with a piercing crack. The noise happened to catch the attention of a lonely forest giant on the next hill over, who mistook it for the mating thump of an attractive male. In her haste to introduce herself, she tripped on an outstretched vine, and shook the loose earth from the rocky hillside. The resulting avalanche revealed the long-hidden basement of an ancient temple. The breaking of the entrance seal disturbed the spirits of its dead Halfling masters. Silven recoiled as a dozen tiny ghostly figures floated out and tugged on Steinbrook’s sleeves. The warrior rushed to defend his employer and halted as his sword-thrusts went straight through the foggy heads of the cackling little ones. “Silver!” cried the count as he was dragged towards the underground lair. “Fight them with silver!”

Silven panicked. He saw the orchard lodge at the opposite end of the lawn and dodged through the lurching dwarves to its door. Inside, servants and workmen ran for cover as he upturned box after box of fruit and supplies. And then, he saw the table in the centre, almost set for lunch. He grabbed the closest cutlery to hand and bolted for the temple.

It was too late. Looking back, Silven decided he may still have been able to save the count if he hadn’t had to circle each ghost twenty times and tap it on its obnoxious little head with a teaspoon each time it struck. As it happened, Steinbrook was slipping away by the time Silven reached him at the end of the dingy ritual halls. He still, however, had breath enough to whisper a question in Silven’s ear. “One last thing....before I go.... what is your name?” managed the old man. Silven answered and watched as the count rolled to his side and scribbled in the letters at the top of a badly written scroll. He handed it to Silven as the warrior looked for wounds on the noble’s chest. “They’ve got me... but not you.... you tried to rescue me.... go to Solmond City.... tell my family....” And he was gone.

Silven read the dead man’s letter. He thought of the name at the bottom. He thought of the guards at the capital’s gate. And he wailed against the damp walls of the dead chamber.

Solemnly, Silven sought Alty’s mother in the windmill, and delivered the chain and the bad news. He found Freddie’s friend and handed over the ring. He found the caravan master and described the most minute details of the toes to prove their identity. The three Residents cried, and then they thanked Silven, and tried to hand him their most valued treasures. But he pushed them aside and dragged himself to the notice board. Carefully, he pinned the unread pleas to the planks and stormed off into the night, Count Steinbrook’s letter in one fist.

He tried not to think about it. But deep down, he was beginning to understand. If he had never crossed paths with Thornyhedge, he was somehow quite sure they would all still be alive. That dark night, he made a vow to himself. He would never try to help another living soul again.