Wildling Read online

  WILDLING

  GREG CURTIS

  WILDLING

  Copyright 2013 by Greg Curtis.

  Digital Edition.

  Dedication.

  This book is dedicated to my mother Ruth Curtis and my sister Lucille Curtis, my biggest supporters, harshest critics and all round cheer team, and without whom this book would not have been written. It’s also dedicated to my father Allen Curtis, gone too soon but not forgotten.

  Chapter One.

  The ancient cliff fort was a pretty place to live in Dorn's view. Though that was largely because having been abandoned for so long the plants and trees had taken over and added their own bright colour palette to the boring dark grey of the stone. Moss and lichens hung from the walls, turning the dark granite into a mixture of greens and yellows. Trees dominated the huge courtyard while a variety of bushes and wild flowers fought for space against the bases of the walls. But by growing out of the rubble they tended to cover up the worst examples of the fort's decay. They hid the endless fallen chunks of masonry.

  Once it had been a proper working fort. It had probably even been a tough one, able to withstand if not the assault of armies then at least smaller forces. The walls had been built tall, fifteen feet of solid stone topped with crenelations and backed with ramparts from which archers could stand and be protected as they rained down arrows on their assailants. The heavy iron gate had been reinforced with wooden braces.

  But time had robbed the walls of much of their strength. Stones were missing here and there, the supporting timbers had rotted away leaving the ramparts untrustworthy in places and the iron in the gate had rusted badly over the centuries so that it hung at an angle. A man could easily wriggle his way through the gap. Dorn did that every day. Worse still the locking bolts had rusted completely away so that even if it was shut it could be forced open with a good shove. Dorn tried not to do that as it left obvious scrapes along the ground that could be seen by anyone. Then they would not only know how to open the gate; they would also know that someone lived there.

  Of course the walls and the crumbling battlements behind them were only half of the ancient fort's protection. There was also the fort itself; five stories of carved stone that seemed to emerged from the cliff behind it. That was a trick of the eye of course. It didn't emerge from the cliff at all; it was a part of it.

  The fort had actually been carved out of a projection of the cliff. That was something that still amazed Dorn and he often wondered how many artisans and how many years had been needed to do such a thing. Not least because he knew it had been carved by hand as the marks of the tools left in the stone showed. No stonewrights had used their magic to reshape the stone. Still, however it had been done, it was an impressive looking piece of sculpture.

  Five stories of stone walled fort, fifty rooms with massive but now glassless windows complete with balconies from which archers could stand and fire down upon anyone in the courtyard they didn't like. And to add to its defences the entrance to the fort was ten feet above the ground. Access had originally been via a wooden staircase that could be raised and lowered as required. A staircase that had long since turned to dust. Now he had a rope ladder to scale the ten or so feet if he needed one.

  The loss of the stairs was fine by him. It added to his protection. Since the staircase had long since perished and the rope ladder had to be lowered by him, it meant that anyone who intended to enter the fort had to be able to climb. And that climb had always been part of the fort's defences. If attackers did make it through the gate they would find themselves trapped in a courtyard with arrows raining down on them from all sides. It was a natural killing ground; one that even a manticore would be proud of – if the deadly creatures had any understanding of pride. Anyone trying to climb the wall would be an easy target, even if they brought ladders – and attackers would have to bring their own ladders. That wasn't a problem for Dorn though. He only needed his own rope one when he was carrying something heavy back from town. The rest of the time he simply leapt in through the upstairs windows. And sometimes when he was feeling strong he simply leapt the ten or so feet straight up.

  The people who had built the fort had never considered defending it against someone like him. A shifter who in his four footed form could jump ten feet straight up or leap twenty across. That was his usual way in. He would climb the battlements, run around to the back of them where they met the cliff face and then simply leap the fifteen feet from them to the side windows of the fort's front rooms. Most men couldn't have made such a leap and would have fallen and risked hurting themselves. For him it was easy.

  Of course he had more to protect himself from attackers than just the climb and the fortifications. He also had a roof. He didn't actually live in the fort itself. The rooms were old and dusty and there was no furniture left. They were also cold and dark without the fires burning in the basement levels and the torches alight in their wall brackets. The fort was uninhabitable without people to collect wood and do all the chores that needed to be done.

  Fortunately the roof was a different matter, and that was what he called home. Up there he had a modest shelter and a large vegetable garden. He had a couple of poorly crafted wooden chairs as well, from which he could sit and enjoy the magnificent view over the surrounding forest he called home. It was humble but it was his home. And however modest his living conditions were, it was safe.

  Dorn preferred the view from the battlements though, simply because they were warmer. Mostly he liked them during the mornings when the sun beat down upon them from the hill behind the fortress. In the mornings the sun was too low and sank behind the cliff, and his roof would be without any warmth until it rose a little higher. The battlements were far enough away from the cliff that they got sunlight a little earlier.

  Of course there was another reason for preferring the battlements. With the crumbling stone of the rest of the fortress a constant worry for his footing, and the thick vines and creepers slowly bringing down the rest of the ancient fort and the cliff above it in occasional rock falls, the battlements were the one place he felt safe. At least there, there was nothing that could fall down on top of him. And they were a comfortable place to sleep out in the sun.

  He'd been doing a little of that that afternoon. He shouldn't have been. He should have been keeping watch. And from the battlements he could peek out between the crenelations and keep watch over the surrounding forest in relative safety.

  That mattered. It mattered a lot to someone who lived with the never ending nightmare of being hunted. Who spent every day waiting to see whether armed men were riding towards him, planning on finally finishing his execution. An execution that would involve his being bound to a stake and burnt alive. He had seen too many of his kind die that way, screaming in agony, and those memories were burnt into his soul. They would never leave him. So even now, after all these years of peace, he kept watch. He could not risk the murderous black priests getting their hands on him.

  If he was still being hunted – and after all these years he didn’t actually know if anyone still cared enough to bother – being able to spot his hunters before they saw him could be the difference between life and death. And lying out in the sun in his alternate shape, peeking through the crenelations in the wall he made sure he kept watch every day. Provided he didn't fall asleep. He was susceptible to doing that on warm sunny afternoons. Just as he had been.

  He didn't berate himself for his failing though as he once had. When he had first fled into the wastes he had lived in terror. Frightened that the Dicans and their soldiers and war-dogs were on his trail. That bandits were attacking or that one of the many fearsome beasts that called the wastes home was creeping up on him. But over the years since he had discovered the fort and made it his home, that fe
ar had lessened.

  These were after all only the outer wastes. In fact he was barely fifty leagues over the northern border from Lampton Heights, the land where he'd grown up. While he was far enough into them that the priests would probably not send a patrol, the creatures in these parts were dangerous but could be dealt with if you were careful. People could live here safely. As long as they weren't stupid.

  When he had first arrived he hadn't known that. But what did a twenty year old man who had spent all of his life in a walled city working as a serf know of the wastes? Nothing. All he had known was that they were the wild lands. The home to so many deadly creatures that no one was safe here. His early days had been ones of fear. Every flapping sound he'd heard had been a griffin looking to make a lunch of him. Every creak a goblin horde creeping up behind him. Every distant noise in the forest an ogre or a troll. And every twig that snapped in the night had been the filthy Dicans there to burn him alive. It had taken time to accept that this part of the wastes wasn't so deadly after all. That he was safe.

  These days the fort was actually rather a boring place to live with almost no one ever passing by, let alone attacking. The distant track was little more than a path of less dense vegetation with few wagon wheels or horses hooves knocking it back. In fact it was actually easier to head to the nearby town of Little Rock by taking the walking trail through the forest. The only sounds he ever heard were those made by the wildlife and the wind. These days he could sleep on the battlements out in the sun, foolish as that probably was.

  The simple truth was that it had been a long time since he had fled. There seemed little chance that the church would still be actively hunting him. There were so many others for the Dicans to murder. Also, he had good hearing and he tended to sleep quite lightly. He would surely wake up if riders came. Well before they reached the ancient fort.

  And if they did come he had his escape route already set. It would take mere seconds to get away. He would simply slink away, heading for the far ends of the battlements where they met the cliff face, then slip into the dark fortress itself. It wasn't that dark to him. After that his journey would take him into the dark passageways in the cliff itself and up the long flights of stone stairs, until finally he found the fifth floor and the east room. From there he could make his way to the roof where none could follow him. It was there that his safety and his home lay.

  What he hoped that no one other than he knew was that the east room had a hidden ladder leading to the roof. It seemed unlikely that anyone else would know about it. And it was equally unlikely that anyone else would spot it in the darkness of the ruined fort. Most wouldn't even be able to enter the room since a piece of masonry had fallen across the door preventing it from opening. The top half of the door had rotted away though. To enter the room you had to leap over the bottom half of the door which was still solid and held in place by the fallen stone, something that was easy as a cat but not so easy as a man.

  Jumping over the remains of the wooden door he could then shift into his human form and climb the concealed ladder, push open the hatch and, when he’d made the roof, close it behind him. And if he was really worried, he could slide the ancient steel bar into place, making certain it couldn’t be opened behind him.

  There was no other way on to the roof. Not unless people were willing to risk life and limb scaling the outside of the fort, and not many people would do that. Especially when as far as they knew there was nothing up there.

  His wasn’t a brave and noble plan. If he’d been a knight or even a warrior he’d surely have chosen to meet his hunters head on, even if they were there to execute him by fire. But he was neither of those things. He was a runaway serf, and serfs didn’t fight. They ran and hid. So his parents had raised him and so he was. Besides, if he needed to fight, he still could. Even from the roof. He had a longbow and over his years hiding in the wastes, he had taught himself to use it. He might not be a dusky elf from one of the tribes of Tellur el Ve, and it might not be a battle bow, but still he was a very good shot. From the roof he thought he could hit anyone down in the courtyard. If he had to.

  He had never needed to though. Not so far. And this was his fifth summer living on the roof of the ancient cliff fort.

  Still he would keep watch – and not just for enemies. Maybe one day he hoped, he might see his family come calling. Though of course that was a thin hope. Still, he kept watch day after day. Looking for them, looking for the black priests and their soldiers, and looking out for anyone else that might approach.

  Sometimes people did come, though never to see him. No one knew he was here. Still there were some who visited the ruin. Treasure hunters most often, seeking to find something valuable within the fortress. But they left quickly enough when they realised that nothing of any value remained. Nothing but death and decay.

  There were no precious metals or jewels here. Any furniture that had been left in the fort had disintegrated long ago, eaten by woodworm or simply rotted away. Here and there bits and pieces of ancient fabric could be found, the remnants of drapes and tapestries. But it was mostly just faded scraps that disintegrated in your hand. Not worth anything even to a collector. And the steel from any ancient weapons or armour left lying around had rusted away long ago, until what was left was mostly just reddish brown stains on the floor. There wasn’t much reward for anyone who came, and scaling the ancient gates and then crawling through the ruin was a lot of hard work. And that was after risking the dangerous journey through the forest. There were no shortage of wolves roaming them – and a few more dangerous creatures.

  Occasionally hunters spent the night in the courtyard. It was a relatively safe camp site behind the walls, though they almost never entered the fortress itself. No one wanted to guess what might be lurking in the darkness.

  And three or four times a year the herbalist Naia came from the nearby village of Little Rock to harvest the blood dahlias that grew against the walls. She never stayed overnight though. Instead she came in the middle of the day, spent an hour or so rushing around the walls gathering what she could as quickly as she could, and left within the hour. She never knew that he sat upon the fortress roof each time, watching her.

  None of them ever saw him of course. He was very careful about that. But sometimes when they were looking a little too inquisitive, he’d let them hear him. Not the man, but the beast. There was a place inside the ruin where he’d discovered that if he let out a good roar, it would echo through the entire fortress like thunder and let the visitors know that there was a wild beast lurking somewhere in the inky blackness of the fort. It tended to dissuade people from exploring the inside of the fortress, and usually persuaded them to leave quite quickly as well. Over the years as he'd grown in his gift he'd learned to roar a little even as a man. It was a useful trick.

  Of course there was one other reason that people visited the ancient fortress. To pray. The wastes were a land filled with shrines to the ancient gods and goddesses just as they were filled with dangers.

  He remembered that anew when he heard a distant crack as a twig snapped and peeked out through the crenelations to see a woman emerging from the trees. A woman he knew. It was Veria from Little Rock, the miller’s wife.

  He’d spoken to her many times as he’d bought her flour and other dry goods from the bakehouse. She was a nice woman. She was always fair in her dealings with him as they traded and she had a knack with her baking. Her bread was always light and fresh, unlike the heavy lumps of blackened dough he tended to cook when he tried to make his own. They often exchanged a few friendly words in the town, and she was in the habit of calling him “Blue Eyes” for obvious reasons. But she didn’t come out into the forests. Few did unless they had to. She’d stay close to the village always. And if by some strange circumstance she did have the need to come out into the forest she wouldn’t do it alone. Not unless something was very wrong.

  And something was very wrong. That was why she was there. She'd come to pray. The shr
ine in the centre of the courtyard was one of the last in the region to Xeria of the Dawn, the ancient Goddess of the Home and Hearth. And though he doubted she was a follower of the ancient gods, many did still know their names in these parts. The church of Dica had not yet arrived here and murdered the followers of their rival faiths and burnt their holy shrines.

  There was a shrine not a league from his home to Eldas The Fortunate. The ancient God of Luck. And many did go regularly there to pray. Mostly those who sought good fortune in gambling. Whether the Fortunate God granted any of their prayers he didn't know.

  Two leagues west was the broken table, an ancient altar to Oliviane the Goddess of Love. That place too was regularly visited by those seeking to bless a marriage – and more often by those seeking to make another love them.

  But Veria hadn't come seeking either luck or love. He could see the tears glistening on her cheeks in the sunshine as she neared. He could see the fear and the grief painting her face. And he knew that something bad had happened. Something so terrible that she had risked the dangerous journey through the forests just to say a prayer to the ancient goddess. That spoke of desperation. The same desperation that had caused him to say a few prayers and make a few offerings to her shrine over the years as well.

  But whatever her pain was, it was none of his. So he carefully slunk his way around the battlements, making sure to keep low so that he couldn’t be seen, and then when he reached the end where they met the cliff, he leapt into the darkness of the first floor window. Of course to his eyes the inside of the ancient ruin wasn’t dark – dappled panthers hunted by day and night. So as he padded through the passages and up the stairs cut into the heart of the small mountain, he could see perfectly. In very short order he’d reached the east room of the top floor where he shifted to his human form and climbed through the roof hatch. Well before Veria had even reached the fortress. After that it was simply a matter of dressing, grabbing his longbow and waiting.