Chapter Fourty Three – The Cleansing of Darnuth Keep by Kelly D. Tolman

Posted by admin on July 20, 2009

The Cleansing of Darnuth Keep is a fantasy novel describing the adventures of Colter Halfspear as he becomes a man and an initiate of magical powers.

The next markets passed quite uneventfully.  With Dina’s help I tied skins of animals filled with very smelly powder to poles three to four meters tall all around the valley.  Pascalli had both Dina and I make arrows by the dozen and practice firing them with their tips dipped and lit on fire.  Of course wherever I traveled I had that stupid pebble following me, and lighting arrows with magic quickly turned into a tedious chore.

The snow began to deepen, and the edges of the lake began to freeze.  Pascalli warned that it would not be safe to try to catch anymore of the enormous trout for the ice was thin and unsafe but the water could not be reached without walking on it.  We built two watch points outside of the walls where Dina and I could reach the poles with a long arrow shot.  Pascalli had a signal fire ready to go atop the city wall.  With our poles safely planted and our winter stores in, all we could do was watch and wait.

I had long lost the reckoning of days and markets though I know it must have been sometime after the midwinter festival.  Needless to say we did not celebrate.  Pascalli saw to it that day and night someone watched over the valley, and sure enough one evening just as the gray sun began to slip over the mountains Dina called to us from the city wall.

We all took our positions without questions.  Pascalli warned us that the shock might upset some of the keep’s current occupants and we should be on the lookout for creatures running out of the valley and out of the keep.  “Especially watch out for what might be inside the palace.  We’ve not ventured in there yet, but you can be sure it is not friendly.”

The Kaarum approached like a cold, slow, black snake.  Though I knew that their masters drove them on with whips at a running gait across the ice and snow, to me, sitting on my frozen perch the minutes seemed to pass like hours.  Much to my surprise and chagrin as the black army entered the narrow valley their pace slackened.  They moved carefully.  Clearly they knew that some armed resistance had taken at least a few of their scouts.  I looked to the place where the signal fire would light.  Nothing.  My heart sank more as the night began to surround us.  If they intended to move in the night my toes would surely freeze from staying still so long, but I had no choice.  I had a tiny flame concealed in a little earthenware pot scavenged from an abandoned home.  I moved it between my toes and waited.

The troops in the lead slowed and came to a halt.  At first I did not understand, but then I realized that they had encountered terrain more difficult than anticipated.  Some markets back at Pascalli’s behest Dina and I had struggled to fell trees and drag them with our horses across the road.  Covered with two or three meters of snow, the debris would make it dangerous and difficult even for the supply carts on runners.  Soldiers on foot could not move through the valley without risking a nasty fall that could easily break a limb.  Troops began to pile up behind.  Confusion ensued with Kaarum moving every direction but forwards.  Suddenly the signal fire flared.

Almost as one, the entire army shouted in collective panic.  I lit my arrow in my tiny flame and loosed it at the first target.  I knew by memory where each lay and did not need even the little bit of starlight that now filtered through the thin clouds.  My first arrow struck and I lit the next.  Before I could shoot a second arrow an enormous explosion rocked the valley.  I did not know if my second arrow found its mark because just after I let it go a second explosion shook the valley.  I found my last target and fired.

If there were more explosions I could not say because in the next moments the entire valley became one continuous rumbling tumult.  I grabbed my earthenware jar and scrambled to the relative safety of the abandoned city.  All around the snow had begun to fall off of the teetering mountain peaks dumping thousands of tons of white death onto the army below.  Somewhere I think I heard the cracking of the ice in the lake, but I can’t be certain.  The morning found a valley floor covered in white mounds where the night before an army had tried to cross.

I am glad that I could only catch faint glimpses of crushed bodies in the dark and that the massive avalanche drowned their screams.  Death is horrible, even for the Kaarum.  When spring arrived, bringing new life, we found a valley floor littered with bones and rot and old gear.  The deep valley lake covered much of the destruction and smell, but for a long time afterwards the marks of our triumph remained.

The shaking of the avalanche startled the entire city, including the palace.  Pascalli’s counsel to keep up our guard proved wise.  Dina and I both returned to the city wall about the same time.  We had opened the city gates, knowing that the Kaarum would not attempt to get in, but we had not really planned on facing down enemies trying to get out.

A dog, perhaps the size of a pony, surprised us in its terror. The scales along its torso, like those of a fish, glittered slightly in the starlight.  It cracked a long, bony tail like a whip.  The enormous jaws growled in unmistakable anger and fear.  Yellow eyes darted everywhere in panic.

We pulled up short.  I took a step backwards slowly, giving it plenty of room to pass.  Dina did the same, but her hand moved too quickly to her quiver.  Before I could warn her, the beast had already decided she was a threat and lunged.  It grabbed her arm in its teeth and flung her like a doll.  I had a brief second to knock my own arrow, but the point bounced harmlessly off of the creature’s natural armor.  I’m sure I panicked.  Dina had the good sense to lie still and it turned its attention on me.  I found my father’s spear and dropped my bow.  It would not be useful in this fight.

Though wide enough for several horses, the area in front of the gate did not leave a great deal of room for maneuvering.  I circled carefully, waiting for an overwhelming lunge.  I tried to put myself between it and Dina, but it seemed to sense my tactic and feinted.  I parried with a jab to the snout, but it pulled back in time.  Clearly this thing, whatever it was, had experience fighting and understood much more than the average wild animal.

Although I managed to hold my own for several more minutes, I am reasonably sure that in the end Dina and I would have met a rather unpleasant fate had Pascalli not been curious about us.  Suddenly I heard his voice, booming like thunder from atop the city walls.  “Use your blasted magic, boy!  I’ve not spent my life blood training you to watch you waste it away like this.”

I will admit that I felt stupid, and to this day feel a little guilt that I did not think of the idea myself, an idea that could very well have saved Dina some pain.  Of course the entire time my rock still flickered about me as it always had.  I think the rock, more than anything had caused the creature to hesitate when it attacked me.  I quickly focused on the rock, begging it to blaze to molten heat and sent it effortlessly into the dog’s eye.  I had expected it to burn and frighten the creature, but instead the rock’s intense heat actually melted through the eye and burned into its brain.  It dropped dead at Dina’s feet.

“Now that’s much better, lad,” said Pascalli.  “Best get inside quick, and take it careful with her arm.”
Copyright 2008 Kelly David Tolman

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