Read The Hollow: At The Edge Online

Authors: Andrew Day

Tags: #magic, #war, #elves, #army, #monsters, #soldiers, #mages, #mysterious creatures

The Hollow: At The Edge (6 page)

BOOK: The Hollow: At The Edge
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When Caellix came into
the hold, she perfectly matched the image Serrel had of her in his
mind. Clad in leather, with her spear in one hand, a pair of axes
in her belt, and half her face painted blue, she was the perfect
image of a barbarian warrior.

“On deck in five
minutes, you dogs!” she told them. “The last one up there gets my
foot up their arse.”

“Well I do have an
itch, Sergeant. Heheh.” With an axe in hand, Dogbreath managed to
look even more disconcerting.

“Not you, idiot. If you
aren’t ready in five, I’m cutting off your beard.”

For the first time in
two days, the smirk was wiped off his face. “You’re
mean
,
Caellix.”

“You’re only just
figuring that out?”

Serrel decided not to
be the last one out. As he moved towards the ladder, Caellix
appeared in front of him. She held up a bowl of what looked like
blue mud.

“Sergeant?”

“It’s tradition in the
Hounds, Fresh Meat,” she told him.

“What exactly is
it?”

“Woad. We paint it on
our faces before battle. My people believed it instilled us with
strength and ferocity, and our enemies with fear. It does not come
off until blood has been drawn.”

“My blood or someone
else’s?”

“Preferable someone
else’s, but in your case, I will make an exception. Put it on.”

Serrel tentatively
dipped a finger in the woad, and dabbed some on his cheek. Caellix
rolled her eyes impatiently. “Oh, for the love of...”

She pressed her hand
into the bowl, then slapped it hard against the side of Serrel’s
face. When she pulled it away, he had a perfect hand print painted
across his cheek, with the thumb over his lips, pointing up his
nose.

“Now you look scary,”
she said sarcastically.

“Thanks, Sergeant,” he
replied sardonically.

“It’s why I’m here. Now
get moving.” She went off to harass someone else.

As Serrel went up the
ladder, he caught sight of Holly, woad painted in a thick line
across her own eyes, smirking and trying not to laugh.

“What?” he asked.

“Nothing.”

He climbed up on deck
as gales of laughter erupted behind him.

Up above, Brant saw
him, and clutched at his chest in mock terror. “Ye, gods! It’s
Grarax the Destroyer, come back for vengeance, everybody run!”

“Oh, shut up.”

“Wait, wait, no, my
mistake. It’s only Serrel.”

“Ha, bloody, ha.”

Just to make things
worse, Snow patted him on the head and said, “Aw. You remind me of
my daughter. That time she went to a costume party, dressed as
Caellix.”

“Thank you, Sir. Thank
you so much. Now if no one minds, I’m going to go throw myself
overboard.”

“You have to be the
most adorable beserker, ever.”

“Please stop.”

Snow smiled in
amusement. “Now listen. I don’t know what’s going to be waiting for
us on that beach, so I want you to stay behind Brant at all times.
He’ll keep watch over you. I trust you know what you need to
do?”

“Shield us from
incoming archers, magical artillery on command,” Serrel recited.
They had trained for this at Fort Amell, but that didn’t make the
idea of doing it for real while someone tried to kill him any
easier.

“Good lad. If someone
goes down, leave them for the healers. Just keep moving.” Snow
patted him on the shoulder. “You’ll do fine, Caster.”

“Thank you, Sir. I
won’t let you down, Sir.”

Snow nodded and moved
on.

The sun was rising now,
and Serrel had his first look at the Faelands with his own eyes. He
didn’t know what he was expecting. He could see a wide beach,
beyond which lay a thick line of trees. None of it looked
particularly mystical or otherworldly. It just looked like large
patch of sand and some trees. It could have been anywhere.

Then he remembered the
kraken dragging down ships, and the enormous sharks, and his
stomach began to churn.

The Hounds assembled on
deck. The last one out of the hold was Morton, who emerged dressed
in a neat, dark green wizard’s robe carrying only a tiny satchel.
True to her word, Caellix was there to kick him hard in the rear
end, and sent him sprawling across the planks, much to the
amusement of all.

“Don’t say you weren’t
warned,” Caellix told him.

“Thank you, Sergeant,”
said Snow. He turned to his men. “Hounds, I know I don’t need to
tell you what to do. We’ve been in this situation enough times
before. Just remember: this is the Faelands. You will be fighting
the elves, and though they may be stronger than us, and faster than
us, perhaps even prettier than us, though not me, obviously, they
are not tougher than us, or meaner than us.”

Caellix called to them,
“You smell an elf, what do you do?”


Hunt
,” the
Hounds replied.

“It runs, what do you
do?”


Chase
!”

“And when you catch
it?”


Bite
!”

“What are you?”


Hounds
!”

“WHAT ARE YOU?”


HOUNDS
!”

Caellix passed the bowl
of woad to Snow, who dipped his hand in it, and smeared it in a
diagonal line across his face.

“Hounds,” he told them,
“off the leash.”

Dogbreath started
howling. Brant and a few others joined in. Serrel stood quietly,
and tried not to throw up.

The Faelands grew
closer and closer. The expanse of sand seemed devoid of any life.
The troop carriers at the very front of the flotilla hit the
sandbanks of the beach and slid to a halt. Doors in the hull
opened, ramps were dropped, and the Legion poured out.

The Hounds watched as
the first battalions gathered into formation. They waited for the
first attack, for the defending army to come tearing from the tree
line, for the first arrows to start raining from the sky, or maybe
for missiles fired from catapults to plummet downwards.

Nothing happened.

The knot in Serrel’s
stomach grew tighter and tighter, as their ship came closer and
closer to shore. When they could hear the sandbanks scraping at the
bottom of the ship, Snow gave the order. They cast ropes over the
sides of the ship, and quickly slid down into the water. Serrel
wedged his staff between the straps of his pack, and waited his
turn nervously. He watched Brant skilfully take the rope and drop
down into chest high water, then took the rope himself, and climbed
over the side of the ship.

He managed the first
metre or so fairly well, but then lost his grip and dropped
straight down into the icy water. In his defence, Holland had been
fairly lax in his rope climbing lessons, something Serrel had
actually been happy about during his training. Not so much now, as
he surfaced from the water, soaking wet and spluttering.

Brant grabbed him by
the collar and yanked him forwards. They waded quickly through the
water and onto the wet sand of the beach. Caellix was already
there, having been the first one off the ship. Her dogs were
bounding around her, barking excitedly.

“Form up, Hounds!” she
yelled at them. “Move it! That tree line there? That’s ours.
Go!”

The two dozen Hounds,
plus Caellix’s two dogs, charged the tree line. Serrel’s nerves
kept him on edge. He half expected an attack any second. When they
reached the trees, Caellix held up a hand and slowed them. They
stopped, watching the shadowy forest for movement.


Schteillen
,”
she snapped at the dogs. They tore off into the forest, barking
loudly.

Serrel waiting with
Brant, shaking, and not just because he was cold and wet.

Caellix ground her
teeth. “Come on. Where are you...?” she muttered.

Shapes moved among the
trees. Serrel tensed. But it was only the two dogs bounding back,
tails wagging.

“What happened?” asked
Brant. “Did we forget to tell the elves we were invading?”

The was a sniff from
Captain Snow. “Fall back.”

They retreated back to
the beach, where the rest of the Legion was landing. There were now
several hundred soldiers waiting in formation, looking on edge, and
somewhat confused at the lack of greeting.

A tall fearsome figure
clad in highly polished armour approached them on horseback.

“Captain Snow? Report,”
barked a woman’s voice impatiently.

“There doesn’t appear
to be anyone home, General.”

“That can’t be right,”
said the General. It took Serrel a moment to realise it was
Arch-General Jadia Dillaini, leader of the Imperial Legion herself.
He wondered briefly where she had got the horse.

“I don’t know what to
say, Ma’am,” said Snow.

“Two days of giant
squid, monster sharks and gods damned jellyfish, and there’s
nothing here waiting for us? Perhaps they are hiding.”

“With respect, Ma’am,
no one hides from us. We’re the Hounds.”

Dillaini sniffed
irritably. “Fine. Take your people and scout ahead. If there are
any surprises, I want to know.”

“Yes, Ma’am,” said
Snow.

“You heard the
General,” barked Caellix. “Move it, dogs! There might be elves up
ahead that need killing.”

“I hear elves taste
like chicken,” Dogbreath put in. “Heheh.”

Serrel thought the lack
of opposition would have been a relief. But the General was right.
They’d been beset by all kinds of monstrous sea creatures for the
past two days. Someone had clearly wanted to slow them down, had in
the very least gone to great lengths to intimidate them. So where
were they now?

 

From the top of a hill
that was a safe distance away from the Legion’s landing site, an
elf lay prone on the ground, and watched.

In a previous life, he
had been called Gorundil, and by those with a flair for the
poetical, Gorundil Dullstar. He had been, in all fairness, a fool.
And an untalented fool at that. All his life he had wanted to be a
mage, or a wizard, or perhaps even a great sorcerer. He didn’t
actually know what the difference was between those three things,
but sorcerer sounded butch. But as a member of a species that
legend said had been forged by the gods from the very ether itself,
he had succeeded in demonstrating the same ability at weaving as
the average toadstool. And toadstools at least had other qualities
that made them useful. Gorundil had been regarded by his teachers,
his friends, even his family to be, and this was putting it as
kindly as possible, a lump.

Then came Vharaes and
the rebellion. Then came the Ferine. Now all of those people would
have been hard pressed to recognise the elf they had once known and
looked down on.

Now he went by the name
Ghoraes. All the elves of the Ferine changed their names, to
distance themselves from what they had been, the weakness that they
had embodied. All of his life he had wanted power, and now he was
power and strength personified.

As he watched the
Imperials stomping about the beach, he could smell their sweat and
blood on the air. He could smell their fear. He dragged his long
black claws through the sand in excitement.

“Can we?” came a
hopeful voice behind him.

He turned back to
another elf waiting at the base of the hill.

“Not yet,” he grunted.
“Wait. Watch.”

In truth, he was
beginning to speak proper elvish less and less. The words were
becoming harder and harder to use. It was happening to most of the
Ferine. They regarded it as a minor issue. Most of them had hardly
been erudite before the ritual. Communication was actually easier
now. Words were just wasted breath, but a snarl, a flash of yellow
teeth, an exposed belly, the delicious scent of blood in the air,
that said more than words ever could.

Ghoraes smiled,
revealing long wolf-like fangs.

Let there be blood.

 

The fear didn’t go
away, not completely. But as it lessened, Serrel finally
acknowledged the thought that he was currently walking
in the
Faelands
. Apart from one eccentric uncle that had run off to
join the merchant navy, Serrel’s entire family for the last three
generations had never travelled further than the village of Sad
Weasel, and that was only half a day’s travel from his own home
town. But here he was, possibly the first Hawthorne in history, to
walk upon the soil of the Faelands.

He might have enjoyed
the moment more if he hadn’t been so on edge, waiting for someone
to pop up and try to kill him. After krakens, he would not have
been that surprised if the ground opened up and started spewing
death worms.

“I wouldn’t worry,”
Brant told him. “Death worms are vegetarians.”

“Then why are they
called death worms?”

“Oh, they’ll still kill
you. They just won’t eat you afterwards.”

“What a waste,” added
Dogbreath.

When they followed a
wide track up from the beach, they soon came to the first
settlement. It was a small fishing village proclaiming itself to be
Martin’s Rest on a sign made out of driftwood. The Hounds watched
the village for a while, taking in the empty streets, and the
closed doors. The locals had either abandoned it, or were hiding.
Either way, it seemed obvious that they were aware a large army was
walking down the road towards them.

Snow sent a runner back
to the main body of the Legion, then took the Hounds into Martin’s
Rest to investigate.

To Serrel, the town
could have looked like any town from the Empire. It was obviously
not a particularly rich town, and there were only a few different
ways a person could build a hovel. The fishing must have been good
though, as there was a long line of large smokehouses where fish
were being preserved, and every house had a rack of drying fish in
front of it.

There were only two
streets, and they met at a small T-junction at the north end of the
village. At the junction, sat the village’s largest building, an
old wooden longhouse shaped like an inverted boat.

BOOK: The Hollow: At The Edge
11.61Mb size Format: txt, pdf, ePub
ads

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