Kelven's Riddle: The Mountain at the Middle of the World Read online

  He drove his sword deep into the throat of the first wolf that attacked and then slid to the side using its body as a shield. A second wolf bounded over the body of the first and with a slash, Aram severed both its forelegs, but he also went down and the third wolf leaped. Aram rolled toward it, sliding under the trajectory of its attack, and shoved his blade deep into its belly. When he got to his feet, three wolves were dead and the others wounded. He killed them all.

  Then he examined the remains of the humans. The bodies were so badly torn that he couldn’t tell whether they were men or women. At first he had the thought that other slaves had escaped from the colony down river, but the clothing that was strewn about belied that notion. These men or women had been dressed in leather, and had both been armed with short daggers. Every slave he’d ever known had worn simple cloth and none had ever been armed. These people had come from someplace else.

  The thought troubled him. There had been times over the summer when he missed the companionship of other people and often had wished that Decius had survived. But he had also gotten used to the idea that the valley was his and his alone. Where had these two come from? They weren’t overseers; that much was certain—they’d have never been allowed to travel alone into this wild country. A lasher would have been with them and he would have slain the wolves.

  Aram walked to the top of the ridge and looked down into the canyon. Below him, sweeping around to his right in a wide curve was the stream that had carried him away and plunged him into the mountain. He walked downstream far enough to observe the whirlpool but on this day the water was low and the river simply ran directly into a cleft in the vertical rock.

  He went back and dug trenches with the men’s daggers and put what remained of them into the ground. He decided to salvage what he could of their leather clothing. He was in constant need of leather goods and these men would have no further use of them. As he stood quietly for a moment over their makeshift graves, he wondered again where these men had come from and what they’d been doing here on the fringes of his valley.

  What if, he wondered, and this thought was amazing, they were free men like him? He had never known of any people but slaves and overseers and the thought that there might be others like him who were free of Manon’s tyranny was compelling. One thing, he decided, the entire valley must be rid of wolves. No more truce. He was going back to war.

  VII

  Fall waned toward winter and he harvested the last of his crops. Worms had ruined many of the late apples and in the end he was able to fill only seven of the willow baskets he’d made. There was plenty of sweet-root, which he stored in an underground shelter he dug out near the south stairway. Some of the squash had made, though the fruits were small and few. These he stored in a subterranean room below the granary in the lower part of the city where they would remain cool without freezing.

  The last of the wheat was necessarily scattered and he filled barely half of another basket. Bread, at least for the coming winter, would remain an unmet desire, but he had higher hopes for the coming year. He decided that before going to war with the wolves, he needed to kill one more deer and cure the meat. Once again, he wished for a bow that worked. He preferred to kill the animals from a distance. He did not want them to fear him and he enjoyed their peculiar and graceful beauty.

  Lacking a bow and arrow, he was forced to take the deer with his spear. After the meat was cured and the hide tanned for future use, he made certain all his food stuffs were safely stored against the coming winter and then he armed himself, filled a pack with supplies and went out to hunt wolves.

  He decided to scour the countryside methodically from north to south, beginning on the long ridge to the north of the city that angled northwest into the foothills. It was from here that one of the larger streams that fed his river originated. Using the river as the eastern boundary and working south to the sinking river, he would destroy or drive out all the wolves inside that area. It was an area of about one hundred square miles and constituted just a little more than half the valley on his side of the river. When that area was clear, sometime in late winter or early spring if things went as planned, he would take a break to do his planting. In the summer, he would clear the rest of the valley on his side and then cross the river and finish the job after the next fall’s harvest.

  All that winter, when he found the tracks of packs of wolves, he ruthlessly hunted them down. It was fairly easy at first because when they caught his scent they moved to attack him and this tactic allowed him to choose the ground where he would confront them. But as their numbers dwindled, the wolves grew wise. They couldn’t know why this particular human, whose kind they were used to killing with ease, was now their most dangerous enemy, but they began assiduously to avoid him.

  Aram realized that in order to continue to be successful he would have to find a way to mask his own scent. By early winter, when the first snow came down out of the mountains and frosted the ground, he’d already slain twenty-four of his enemy. But as midwinter approached he was generally given very wide berth and had killed only six more. One day after a storm left several inches of snow on the ground, he came upon an older wolf feeding on the carcass of a deer left by others and he slew it easily. It was a large animal and its odor was very strong. It gave him an idea.

  He skinned the beast and made a coat and leggings from the wolf’s hide. What better way to mask his scent than with that of his enemies? After this he found that he could make his way almost in among the packs of wolves before they realized the danger. By the time the first permanent snow fell he’d cleared the valley from the north all the way south to the main avenue and its junction with the north-south road by the pyramids.

  One morning, in a shallow hollow between two long ridges south of the pyramids containing a small stream that meandered toward the river, he rounded a rocky corner and blundered into a company of eleven wolves, all of them large adults. Immediately battle was joined, and he was nearly overwhelmed.

  The wolves attacked him en masse and at first it was only the outcropping of rock behind him that saved his life. Though he immediately killed two with his spears and wreaked havoc among the others with his sword, the situation rapidly became grave. There was no possibility of retreat. The rock wall behind him was too tall and too steep to climb and lacked indentations for use as cover. With so many concentrating their attack on him, they were bound to get lucky and do some damage.

  As he dispatched one wolf with a thrust to the throat, his sword caught in the sinew of its neck and he was pulled down. Another leapt upon him instantly and before he could sink his dagger upward into its belly it had savaged him. His dagger stroke killed it but it had used its long sharp teeth well in its dying moments. Pain exploded up the left side of his chest and through his arm. Pulling his dagger and sword free, he rolled to his feet in time to defend against two more that came at him together.

  He spun to his left and swung his sword into the neck of the nearest wolf, almost severing its head while the other was carried past him by the impetus of its charge. There were now just five able to do battle, four of them circling at a distance, looking for advantage. He turned just in time to parry an attack from the fifth, but failed to wound it seriously.

  A terrible weariness began seeping into him and though his whole left side was soaked in warm blood, he felt suddenly very cold and his left arm hurt terribly. He was bleeding severely and he knew his wounds were serious. The wolves knew it too. They ignored their six dead companions and approached low to the ground. Aram backed up against the abutment of rock and waited for them to come. There was no avenue of escape. He was in deep trouble.

  His left arm was quickly becoming useless and there was a dim, distant, uncomfortable buzzing deep inside his head. He realized that he didn’t have much time. If he didn’t end it quickly, he was finished and they would kill him. Drawing a desperate, shuddering breath, he yelled loudly and attacked.

  Lunging suddenly to the right, he kill
ed the first of the five wolves with a stroke, using its body for shelter. The others attacked in a frenzy. But now they had to come at him along a kind of alley between the rock wall and the pile of bodies. And they came. He was able to kill just two more before the remaining pair of wolves gave up and retreated. But they did not leave the area.

  As if they knew that the serious nature of his wounds would eventually debilitate him, they went out about thirty yards and lay down in the snow watching him. They seemed to know that he was in imminent danger of collapse and had decided to let nature aid them. Aram knew that he had to stay conscious and somehow get back to the safety of the city, nearly five miles away. Warily watching the two wolves, he examined his wounds. He’d been slashed across the forearm and there was a deep gouge in the muscle of his chest just above his heart. Both wounds were streaming frightening quantities of his blood. He slipped his pack around and found a poultice.

  He tied part of the poultice on his arm with leather thongs and shoved the rest deep into the ragged gouge in his chest. Then he slung his arm close to his body with a leather strap in order to put pressure on both wounds. He could not afford to lose much more blood. To fight the creeping dizziness, he washed his face with clean snow and shoved a handful into his mouth.

  Keeping a wary eye on his remaining enemies, he got to his feet, grasped his sword firmly in his right hand and started up the draw. The sun had already slipped past noon. He had to get to the city before it set; he would never survive the night out in the open. In his condition, the cold would kill him even if the wolves did not. The two wolves got to their feet when he began to move and paralleled him along the low ridge top to the north. Walking helped to clear his head but sapped his energy and he felt a weakness overcoming him that he could not fight for long. He had to get back to the city.

  He decided to ease up the ridge to his left and get on higher ground where he could make out the ramparts of the city and keep himself moving in the right direction. As he did this, the wolves stayed with him, slinking along the ridge to the north. It was as if they knew that the day’s battle had devolved into a contest of attrition that they would eventually win.

  Step by step throughout that long afternoon, he kept himself going, step by weary, painful step, toward the city while watching his enemies watch him. Slowly but surely as the sun slid down the sky toward the mountain he began to grow drowsy from the weariness induced by the pain and the loss of blood and the vicious, creeping cold of the winter evening. As if they knew it, the wolves gradually closed the distance to him. Once again, deep inside his fevered mind, there arose the desperate longing for a bow.

  Finally, while he was still a mile or more from the great porch, the sun slid behind the crest of the mountain. Injury and the bitter cold overwhelmed his strength, and he could go no further. He stopped, leaning on his sword, and as best he could in his debilitated state, considered things. The wolves crept ever closer, patiently wearing out their prey. He knew without any doubt that he did not have the strength to get himself back to the city while having to defend against their constant vigilance. There was only one thing to do. If he was to have any chance for survival, the battle had to be rejoined—and ended—here.

  Letting his sword slip down his thigh, he dropped to his knees and hung his head. He washed some snow over his face, stared at the ground, and waited. It felt good to abandon the exertion of dragging his damaged body through the snow but he knew he must stay alert while at the same time letting his enemies see that he was utterly spent. Hopefully, they would take the bait before his strength failed him completely. His right hand dangled near the hilt of his sword.

  After circling him slowly and cautiously several times, the wolves became convinced that he was finished and took the bait. Whining in eagerness, they circled closer and then charged. With a roar born more of will than of strength, knowing that it was very likely the last thing he would do in life, Aram grasped his sword and came to his feet. Summoning the last dregs of his life’s force, he swung the sword in a mighty circle. The blade severed the top of the nearest wolf’s skull and sank into the neck of the other, killing both, but the combined weight of their bodies drove Aram to the ground and one fell on top of him.

  He lay there for a while, listening to the silence of deep winter, struggling to breathe beneath the weight of the dead wolf, and knew that he was dying. He tried to shift the body of the wolf and found it impossible. His strength had gone and taken his will with it. Strangely, though, he found that it wasn’t so bad. After all, he reasoned, he would die as a free man—a man that had known the joy of living at his own will and by his own wits, if only for a short time.

  He closed his eyes and a pleasant warmth seemed to seep out of the earth and push back the pain and the cold. He released himself into its soothing embrace.

  Aram.

  As if from a great distance, someone called his name.

  Aram, get up.

  Louder now, and more insistent, the voice had crossed the distance and entered into his mind and it was a voice that he vaguely recognized. Sometime, somewhere, he’d heard it before.

  With immense effort, he forced his eyes open and looked up. Bending over him in the gathering gloom of the evening was a cloaked and hooded figure. It was the same ethereal figure he’d seen on the ridge top the day Decius died.

  Do you intend to give up and die here, today?

  Given the events of the day and the current state of his health, Aram found the question somewhat offensive. “There’s not much I can do about that; I’m very tired and badly hurt,” he answered. “I’ve lost a lot of blood.”

  Indeed, I’ve lost more.

  Aram considered that curious statement for a moment but could not fathom it. Hoarsely, weakly, he laughed. “I didn’t know specters could bleed.”

  Specters can’t, men can.

  “Are you a man, then?”

  Aram, you are the last of our hope. If you lay there and die the race of men will undoubtedly fail. Light will go out of the world, Manon will win it all; eventually, even the stars may go dark. The Maker will have to start over. Much depends on you. Will you abandon your destiny?

  Even in his state of pain-induced delirium, Aram realized that he was hallucinating, but he decided to humor the delusions of his fevered mind.

  “Why would anything in the world or the heavens depend upon what I do?” he asked, and the strain of speaking pushed him nearer to a darkness that was darker than the surrounding night. “I am but a slave, and the son of a slave. I have gone as far as I am able—don’t put anything else on me.”

  You are the son of my line and no slave. There was a quiet and insistent fury in the specter’s voice. Get up, Aram, get up and return to the city of your fathers. You will not die today.

  A cold wind breathed over the valley and Aram’s eyes cleared and the fever-induced vision faded. He stared for a moment straight up into the darkening sky where the first bright stars were making their appearance. The cold had helped his wounds to clot and he felt a small bit of his strength return. Rousing himself to great effort, he pushed the body of the wolf off him and sat up, gulping in weak gasps of the frigid air.

  To the east, the very tops of the highest mountains were still colored with the last rays of the setting sun and the moon was in the sky. To the northwest he could just make out the dark ramparts of the city’s defensive wall a mile or so away. Using his sword as a crutch, he wearily pushed himself to his feet with his good arm and shuffled stiffly and painfully toward home.

  It was well into the night by the time he reached the city, struggled up the stairway, and made his way through the dark streets to his room below the tower. There, as if in a dream, weak and sick, barely alive, he cleansed his wounds, made new poultices, and started a fire. Then he collapsed upon the bed.

  He dreamed. In his dream he walked through a thick stand of pines. Sap ran down their trunks and he put his hands into it and it stuck to his fingers and palms. Then, his hands covere
d in thick resin, he walked near a stream and with his dagger stripped the gray bark from a tall, thin tree. Inside the bark were sinews like tendons in the muscles of a beast which he then pulled free of the bark in long sections and wove into string. For some reason this made him feel a great and overwhelming joy.

  Once or twice, in the midst of his fever, he sensed that he was not alone, that he was being watched over, even, at times, that someone spoke to him, but his eyelids were too heavy to lift and he did not care.

  He woke three days later, cold and soaked in the remains of his fever. The fire had long been out. He was very thirsty and a bit hungry. His wounded chest and his arm were sore but not inflamed. And there was something from his long sleep that he needed to remember.

  VIII

  It was the depths of winter. For several days, he rested and recovered his health. Outside, the world was buried in snow. When he felt well enough, he went up to the tower and studied the valley. To his relief, wolves were nowhere immediately in view. There were only a few deer, digging in the snow with their slim forelegs to get at the grass below.

  As he grew stronger, he remembered his dream. At first, he dismissed it as merely the subconscious response of his fevered mind to his deep desire to have a bow, but as the bitter weeks of winter crawled by he considered it again. The ancient people who had lived here had fashioned many weapons and they must have found the raw materials for those weapons in the world that lay before their door. He must do the same.

  In the meantime, he waited out the winter. There were several large storms that dumped snow into his valley, making the trees beautiful and softening the rough edges of the wilderness. He was thankful for the stores of food he’d put aside, especially the extra deer. And, as his health improved, he practiced his swordplay.

  Finally, the place of the sun’s rising began creeping back toward the north, day by day. The snow began to melt and bare earth appeared along the higher ground. The stiffness from his wounds was gone and he was anxious to take up arms again before it was time for the spring planting.