The fire warmed Kastor just enough to keep his fingers from going numb. Heridan got up occasionally to stamp his feet, but neither of them added any more wood. Though they were nestled behind a large moot a long way from the nearby fort, they were still behind enemy lines. Nightfall came quicker every day as the chill of winter approached. A sudden gust ignited a cloud of sparks and made Kastor shiver. He rotated the deer meat that rested over glowing wood on the end of a spit. Heridan reached over and prodded it. The meat gave off wafts of juniper berries and marjoram, which Heridan had gathered and rubbed into it before Kastor started cooking.

  “It needs a little longer,” the warrior said. Kastor’s mouth watered and his fingers twitched. He was waiting for the right moment to break some bad news to his friend and calculated no better time than right after a meal. But he itched to unburden himself and Heridan refused to rush a joint of meat.

  “I can’t continue my journey with you,” Kastor announced. They had not yet discussed what they saw that morning. It had been too disturbing to find the words. After witnessing the soldiers capture a sleeper they had walked in silence until they found a safe camp.

  Heridan froze, crouched before the meat. The small movements of his head as he examined it from different angles stopped, and Kastor waited with bated breath for his reaction. Heridan looked intently into the embers and replied without looking up.

  “What will you do? Try to free it? Try to kill it? I don’t know which is best.”

  “I never thought I would feel sorry for a sleeper.”

  “I don’t. But I understand why this frightens you. I’m afraid too: for their retribution when they awake next spring. I’m afraid this might even stop them from sleeping and they’ll roam the forest all winter. To the sleepers, we are all just humans. They don’t distinguish between the Seveners and the Republic, and their vengeance for this act will fall on us both.”

  Kastor thought about it. He understood Heridan’s view. He was a true Sevener and, as such, could not conceive of an enemy more terrible than the sleepers and their queen. But Kastor saw the forest through the eyes of an outsider. He had not grown up hearing tales of the ancient, scheming evil of the monsters who dwelt beneath the soil. He had not imbibed the fear of them into the depths of his mind, and that gave him another perspective. What if the Republic was more dangerous? Every day they presented a new surprise and whenever they appeared to reach the limit of their power, they surpassed it.

  “Well?” Heridan asked. “What are you planning?”

  “I don’t know,” admitted Kastor. “But I can’t walk on after seeing that. I must discover more: what they’re planning to do with the creature and why they took it.”

  Heridan sat still and stared into the fire. “Will you try to get inside the fort?” he asked quietly. “They’ll have many firearms. One mistake and you’ll be caught.”

  “I’ll get as close as I can without being detected. And I’ll listen. I’ll hear plenty from outside, even without breaking in.”

  “What if they find you while you’re… listening?” Heridan shuddered a little as he asked. Kastor’s deeper trances disturbed him.

  “That’s a risk I’ll have to take.”

  The farther Kastor drifted from his own body as he listened – the more he got involved in what he heard – the greater his vulnerability.

  “I’ll come back with you,” Heridan said, poking the meat and turning it again.

  “It’s alright,” said Kastor quickly. “Go North. You don’t want to delay finding Ingo.”

  Heridan shook his head and closed his eyes as though accepting a fate he had wrestled with all day. “There’s no point finding him if we lose the forest completely. There will be no future for any of us, if that happens. You’re right. It’s too big a change. We have to know what they are doing.”

  Kastor felt torn between relief and guilt. He did not want to delay Heridan’s search, but the thought of returning to the fort alone filled him with fear. He recalled his promise to his familiar: I’ll be more careful. With Heridan to watch him while he listened, he would fulfil it.

  “The meat is ready,” Kastor said.

  “Almost,” replied Heridan. Then he looked up, caught Kastor’s expression and laughed softly. “Alright,” he conceded, “let’s eat.”

  Feeling warmer and with full bellies, they picked their way through the darkness, retracing their steps towards the fort. The trunks and shadows merged around them so they had to feel their way forward, holding their hands in front of their faces to catch stray branches. Heridan led the way. This was his old homeland, near where the Hallin village had once been.

  Kastor followed silently behind the warrior. At one point he whispered: “It’s taking us much longer, Heridan. Are you sure this is the way?”

  “I know these parts,” Heridan replied testily. “My feet know them even if my eyes can’t see.”

  Kastor recalled one of the first lessons about life in the forest that Feren, the Levonin who found him starved and lost, had told him.

  Never travel in the Saltleaf Forest at night.

  War had forced them to abandon that rule. Now even Feren took advantage of the darkness to move between Republican positions, risking the dangers of the night to avoid the growing dangers of the daytime. But there was a reason for the rule, even if necessity had moved them beyond it.

  Heridan stumbled, then stopped.

  “What is it, Heridan? Where are we?” Kastor hissed.

  “Ssh!” Heridan hushed him and held up a balled fist.

  Kastor crept forwards alongside him.

  At first, he could not see what Heridan had stopped for. There was only darkness ahead, as there was all around them. But this darkness was different. It was empty.

  He’s following his feet, but where do his feet want to go?

  “Where are we, Heridan?” Kastor asked. He listened to their surroundings. In the middle of the nothingness, something was alive. Or sort of alive. At least, it was there. It was not like the half-human, half-animal creature that he sometimes felt on the edge of his awareness. This was different. This was someone dying or half-living. And beyond that was something else: something powerful and subtle at the same time.

  “It’s the village!” Heridan exclaimed more loudly than he should have done. “I… I brought us to the village.”

  Kastor swallowed. He had never actually seen it, himself, not until after it had been burned to the ground and abandoned by its inhabitants. He stepped out into the black, empty patch of darkness where no trees yet grew. The ash that had once covered the ground had absorbed into the mud. He tasted the earth as his feet pressed into it: rich, fertile and full of memories. The stars shone with no branches to obscure them, and Kastor now discerned the shape of the space.

  If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.

  He vividly recalled being here before. He had arrived with Oli after saving him from the same soldiers who had kidnapped Ingo. He handed him over to Erlends of the Sullin, unaware of that clan’s betrayal of the forest. But the betrayal had been uncovered when soldiers arrived, and a bitter fight had ensued before they escaped with the help of Elder Joturn.

  “The last time I was here,” Kastor rasped, “I was with Oli and Joturn. I miss them both.” Kastor still had no idea what had become of Joturn. The old man had buried Oli and vanished into the forest before he returned.

  “This was my home,” said Heridan, just as hoarse. “This is where I lived with my son. This is where I woke up and saw him every day. Where I held him every day from the day he was born.”

  Kastor’s eyes watered and he blinked.

  “There’s something here, Heridan,” he said. “There’s something up ahead. Don’t get too lost in your memories.”

  Heridan shook his head as though waking himself up and placed a hand on the hilt of his sword. He scoured the darkness just as Kastor did, but neither saw anything.

  They stepped forwards, slowly and carefully. Sometimes Kastor’s feet bumped against the charred and rotted remains of a wooden beam that had not fully burned. They moved towards the centre of the open space to where the great communal fire must have burned only months ago. If it was anything like the fire of the Levonin villages, it would have been perpetually warm and welcoming: the heart of the village life in the evening.

  Something shuffled and moved like the shadow of a creature that existed without the creature being present. As Kastor neared it became clearer. The outline of a man, almost as wide and tall as Heridan, moved in a jerking, halting motion from one point around the empty space to another. It circled and clung to the centre, like a moth drawn to a flame. A point of darkness against the deeper darkness of the night that came and went as though it were flickering in and out of existence.

  “Do you see it?” Kastor whispered, pointing ahead.

  Heridan nodded. Kastor peered at his companion’s face in the darkness and saw a morbid fascination and horror.

  “You know what this is, don’t you? You’ve seen it before.”

  “Only a few times. This is a ghoul.”

  Kastor shuddered and took a step back. He had heard of ghouls and ghoul circles. Alongside sleepers and hoarders, they were one of the famed monstrosities of the forest: the dead who could not accept that their time had passed, still clinging to some deed or action that needed completing in the world of the living.

  Heridan inched forwards.

  “What are you doing?” Kastor hissed. “Come back! What if it speaks with you?”

  This was the great danger of an encounter with a ghoul, Kastor’s guides had explained to him. If they spoke to you and you replied, they would pull you into their hopeless quest. Men and women lost their lives trying to satisfy the desires of ghouls, believing that one final task would allow the poor soul to rest in peace. Sometimes it did, but sometimes they moved on to a new obsession and their hapless helper remained bound to their demands, caught in a hunger that could never be satisfied.

  Heridan chuckled.

  “They’re not as dangerous as all that. Elder Joturn used to listen from afar. If he thought he could help them move on and die, he did what he could.”

  Kastor took a deep breath. That was Elder Joturn: one of the wisest, kindest and strongest men he ever met. He liked Heridan, or perhaps had even grown to love him, but they were not the same. He anxiously followed a few steps behind.

  As they approached, the shadow became clearer, less black. The man wore armour with a large breastplate and carried a builder’s hammer. He looked down at the ground though, as though searching for something he had lost.

  “It’s Otmer!” Heridan whispered. “Pasha’s father. He died in the battle at the forest’s edge.”

  “He’s come back to your village,” Kastor replied. “That’s what he can’t let go of.”

  The shadow came nearer and Kastor crouched low. Heridan dropped to the ground beside him. Kastor listened as Otmer spoke.

  “She used to play with it here. With her friend. They used to play sevenstones somewhere around here. Where did she leave it? Where is her brand new set of stones? She used to play with it here. With her friend.”

  Sevenstones. Somehow Kastor knew the friend she played with was Oli. Heridan looked at him with tears in his eyes. How well did he know this man?

  Otmer came closer. He was more solid, closer to where they lay. Had he noticed them? A voice close by said:

  “Will you help me find them? Her brand new set of stones. She used to play with them here. With her friend.”

  “Don’t look at him!” Kastor urged Heridan. Why did we come so close? What power does it have? Heridan turned and began to push himself up, as though he intended to greet the ghoul.

  Kastor stood, fixing his eyes on Heridan and forcing himself not to look at the shadow. Its breath was in the air. He could smell decay.

  “Remember Ingo, Heridan!” he shouted, abandoning caution. “Come away!”

  Heridan wavered. He turned his head to Kastor, and some force pulled it back towards the ghoul. Kastor jumped forwards and grabbed his arm. Heridan pulled against it and Kastor almost lost his balance. The warrior must have been at least twice the mass of the medicine man, but Kastor’s strength had its roots in other places.

  He renewed his grip on Heridan’s arm and pulled with all the force he could muster. And at the same time, he reached into the ground. His feet became as heavy as the root balls of two great trees. He bent his body away from Heridan and it leant like a tree trunk against the wind. One step at a time, he heaved.

  The breath of the ghoul chilled the cool air beside his head. Kastor’s activity – delving into the hidden power of the world – drew its attention like a new, brighter flame. The dead man's voice rasped in his ear like sharp nails scratching at his mind.

  “Help me. Help me find her sevenstones. She left them on the ground nearby.”

  It was such a simple request. A part of him wanted to yield and spend a few moments searching on the ground. Kastor fixed his eyes on the edge of the clearing where the darkness of the trees now beckoned. He had to get away, to throw off its attention.

  “Help him, for pity’s sake!” Heridan cried.

  Kastor pulled, one step over another. The forest’s edge drew nearer.

  “Nooooo!” Otmer moaned. “Don’t leave me! What will I say when my daughter comes home? I cannot find her new set of sevenstones. What will she play with?”

  Kastor threw his whole strength behind the final tug and pulled Heridan off his feet. They tumbled, arms and legs colliding, into the undergrowth and lay still in the deeper darkness of the trees.

  Heridan panted beside him. He reached out and touched his friend, needing the reassurance that he was really there.

  “I… I just wanted to help him,” Heridan whispered, his voice trembling with the realisation of how deeply the ghoul had pulled him in. “Is he gone?”

  Fearfully, Kastor lifted his head and peered into the clearing. In the distance, flitting between patches of ground near the centre, the shadow had returned to its previous routine.

  “It’s gone,” Kastor confirmed. “We must never come this way again.”

  Even as he said it, though, he felt drawn to the village. He had sensed something in there that wasn't just the ghoul of Otmer. Or, was that part of the lure it exerted?

  Heridan sat up and rested his back against a trunk.

  “It will attract others. Its desperation will draw them to it and they’ll cluster here, talking of their grief to other souls that do not listen.” Heridan shivered so powerfully that Kastor felt his body vibrate. “The old Hallin village, a ghoul circle. You’re right. We must never come here again.”

  They sat for a while, watching the ghoul called Otmer searching for his daughter’s toy. He might search until she grew old and died. He might search for even longer than that. Or, if he was lucky, he might find something that convinced him he could finally depart. Where he would go then, Kastor did not know. He placed a hand on Heridan’s shoulder and the man turned to him with wet eyes. “I was drawn into his grief because it is so close to my own.”

  “I know.”

  “I was weak.”

  “No weaker than anyone else would have been. Come on.”

  They stood and brushed themselves down. The moon was high and shone in patches through the branches overhead. Heridan took his time, gathered his bearings and set off in a new direction.

  Kastor followed, this time paying a little more attention to the path they trod. He tried to put the encounter out of his mind. He tried not to think about how easily Heridan had been swayed. He had to concentrate. They were heading to the fort of their enemy where an equally dangerous creature was trapped.

  BluePrint Server