The stars slowly moved across the sky as the travelers slept near the fire. Distant howls from wolves and other Fesh’Unday echoed softly in the glade. The glade itself had returned to normal as large clear spheres slowly floated out of the ground and then back below, each time modifying the landscape.
Thorik was the only one awoken by the sound of a wooden door slapping against its frame by a soft wind. Its hinges gave off a soft squeak each time they moved.
Opening his eyes, Thorik saw a wooden shack standing a dozen yards inside the Govi Glade. It hadn’t been there before, and he wondered how long it had been sitting there.
The shack was old and worn, its shutters hung askew and holes could be seen in the roof. The front door and one window faced the campfire.
Thorik wiped his eyes to make sure he was seeing what he thought he was. Watching the shack for a few seconds, he noticed a shadow move behind the window, causing the Num to sit up straight and question himself. “Did I just see someone in there?” he muddled to himself.
His answer came in the form of the front door slamming shut.
Startled, Thorik jumped slightly from the event, before standing up to take a closer look.
As he started to approach the edge of the glade, he was surprised at the sight of a tall figure leaning against a tree, staring at the shack with his arms folded in front of him. It was Santorray. “There’s been movement inside for several minutes now.” Blothrud watched the small structure for any threats to the travelers.
Thorik crept his way closer to the shack. “Why would anyone build a home here?”
Leaving his scouting position, Santorray walked over to follow the Num in case he needed protection. The glade was anything but safe, and he knew it would only be a matter of minutes before their presence would start to affect the spheres of magic that floated within it.
Thorik’s pace slowed as he entered the glade and crept up toward the front of the shack. “Hello?” He then made his way closer.
As he approached, the wind began to pick up and he could hear movement from inside. Thinking it best to look inside first, he walked up to the window. It was dirty and difficult to see through, so the Num placed his face up against it and blocked out as much campfire light as he could with his hands.
Inside the single room shack sat a table and chairs and a fireplace was on the far side. Footsteps could be heard from within but no one was seen. At least until a hand print slapped against the window, directly across from Thorik’s face, from an unseen hand.
Thorik jumped back. His heart raced as he tried to make sense of it. He had seen the shack to be empty, and yet the impression of a hand could not have been made by itself. Starring at it, he tried to figure out what he was missing.
Santorray unsheathed his sabers and scanned the area for anything hostile. He found none.
But then a single invisible finger pressed against the window from the inside. It moved sideways before it pulled back. A few vertical lines were added as well as a horizontal. Next to that, a circle was drawn, and a backward letter “r”, and another two vertical lines, ending with two angled lines stemming from the last vertical one.
Shivers ran up the Num’s neck as he looked at the word in the window. His name, Thorik, had been spelled facing inside. Was it a call for him to enter? How did they know his name? Who are they? Questions raced in his head as he stared at his name.
Stepping forward, Thorik peered into the window again. This time without placing his face so near. Again it appeared empty. “No signs of life,” he whispered to Santorray. And yet something had written Thorik’s name on the inside of the dirty window.
Thorik moved from the window and to the door. Taking a deep breath and holding it, he grabbed the handle and pushed it open. The hinges whined as the door opened to unveil the room with trash piled in the corners. The walls were covered in writings on top of writings, so much so, that it was difficult to read any of it. What he could read didn’t make sense, but the sound of scribbling on the walls could still be heard.
“Hello?” Thorik asked, still standing in the doorway, knowing that there wasn’t anyone in the room to answer.
“Hello?” It was a soft faint voice that had replied.
Thorik’s body froze. Had he imagined that he had heard the voice or was it really there? “Watch my back,” he said to his Blothrud friend.
“As well as the rest of you,” he replied.
Stepping cautiously into the shack, the Num asked a different question. “Who are you?”
The pause was long enough to make Thorik feel he had imagined the original greeting, so he stepped farther into the room.
Santorray took one last look around before leaning down to enter the small doorway.
Without warning, the door pulled away from Thorik’s hand, slammed shut, and locked, smacking Santorray square on his nose in the process.
Grabbing the door handle, Santorray attempted to thrust it back open. Unsuccessful, he pushed it with his shoulder to dislodge it. Again, it didn’t budge the lock. He’d have to break it down. Stepping back, he prepared to use his body as a ram to bust through the door as he howled a warning cry, alerting Thorik to jump clear.
“Stop!” Thorik yelled from inside. The Blothrud’s attempt to open the door was causing the shack to nearly collapse on top of the Num as beams cracked and ceiling boards fell. “I’m not in danger!” he shouted, just in time to stop his companion from knocking the entire shack down.
Santorray halted his attack and scanned the area before moving to the window, but even with his strong night vision, it was difficult to see through the dirty glass into the dark room. Growling at the situation, he kept his senses on alert for approaching danger. Spheres would soon be gaining speed and could approach from any angle.
Thorik’s eyes began to adjust as the falling debris subsided. Only traces of the campfire light now worked through the soiled window and into the room. Coughing from the unsettled dust, he stepped toward the table in the center of the room. As he approached, a chair pulled out from the table by itself, as if to invite the Num to sit down.
His options were clear in his head, either he leave now or he stay and find out what is going on. Thorik took in a deep breath before sitting down.
“Get out!” said a low shallow voice. This one was different than the original voice he had heard. “Leave us alone…” The sound of writing became more intense on the walls, and symbols could be seen added but not understood.
Thorik was confused. “You called to me. My name is Thorik. You wrote my name on your window.”
The table pushed away from Thorik and trash in the room began flying about. It suddenly became cold and when Thorik tried to stand he found himself held down in the chair by an unseen force.
“…Warning!” the softer voice said near Thorik’s ear.
Thorik pushed with his hands in an attempt to get up from the chair as a dark shadow materialized and stood before him pushing him back down. Papers and trinkets continued to be thrown about the room, as more writings were etched onto the walls. “What warning?” Thorik asked. “What do you want?”
“…Vesik…” The voice faded in and out, often proceeded or followed with other words that were too faint to hear.
Thorik didn’t like the sound of a warning relating to the book they needed to save Gluic.
“…Avanda…”
“Avanda? What about her?” The idea of her being pulled into this warning struck a nerve of fear down Thorik’s neck and back.
A second larger shadow moved toward the center of the room. It was then that the table next to Thorik exploded into pieces, knocking Thorik onto the floor and freeing him from the grasp of the first shadow.
Thorik rolled to his feet and moved to the back wall, near a small window. Outside of the window, Thorik could see an approaching Govi Glade sphere. His time was up, the sphere would soon take the entire shack away, just as fast as it had appeared. “What about Avanda? Is she in danger?”
“…danger…”
The back wall began to disappear as the sphere rolled into its space.
“Thorik,” Santorray shouted. “I’m getting you out of there!”
“Not yet!” Thorik shouted back as he jumped from the wall and toward the front door. Halfway across, he was struck with the chair he had been sitting on earlier, and he fell to the floor. “Danger from what?” Thorik asked the shadowy mass after pushing the pieces of broken chair off him. “What can I do to stop the danger?”
“…Vesik…”
Over half the building was now erased from sight as the sphere filled it in with a boulder. The remaining walls shifted and bent under the pressure of the changes being made.
“What about Vesik?” Thorik yelled as he ran to the door.
“…must prevent…”
The ceiling was now gone and a thunderstorm raged overhead when looking into the sphere. Thorik unlocked the door and grabbed the handle to pull it open in order to escape the shelter, but the shifting of the walls had jammed the door and prevented it from moving. Thorik pulled again and again, but he was trapped.
The shack was nearly gone. Only the front wall remained as Thorik stood on the few feet of floorboards that still existed. Jumping into the sphere could end his fate inside of the boulder. If it did allow him to live, where would he actually be? Would he ever see his friends again?
Thorik then spotted the handprint on the window and realized his last option. Taking a few quick steps, he launched himself into the air and toward the front window. Unfortunately the floor buckled from the sphere’s pressure, causing him to miss his mark and slide to a stop under the window.
Torrential rain pounded hard from the open roof, as the sphere rolled up close to him, making it impossible for him to stand up and jump through the window. He had stayed a few seconds too long and began to scream in terror for help.
Crouching down to maximize the time he had before the sphere rolled on him, Thorik heard an explosion as shards of glass and wood sprayed his body. Two large hands reached through the wall and grabbed the Num, pulling him out into the glade, free of the sphere’s stormy destruction.
“Are you insane?” Santorray released the Num in the calm night air of the glade only feet away from the nearly destroyed structure. “You could have been killed.”
The front of the shack was being replaced with the large boulder as the sphere continued to roll toward Thorik on its way back down toward the ground.
Thorik was far too appreciative for the Blothrud’s assistance to argue with him. “Thank you.” He was still catching his breath from the ordeal between his words. “Let’s get out of this glade while we still can.”
“Agreed.”
Thorik quickly led the way to safety. “Did you hear the warning? Did you experience the voice?”
“The only thing I heard was a helpless princess voice calling for help. That wasn’t you, was it?”
“Yes, that was me. That must make you my prince who came to save me.”
Passing the Govi Glade’s boundaries, they both had a good laugh as they returned to the camp.
Chapter 36
Orders to Kill