Chapter 12

Before entering this valley, we pulled back a bit and I considered our options. The fact that the depression in front of us was safe from sensing told me that most likely the people living there would not be totally unprepared. After some looking, thinking and some more looking I had an idea how the valley had been protected from sensing - or flashing by the Magicians: There were lots of trees called larches that had probably been planted in the area since I had not seen them to grow native around here, nor anyplace close. Not to make things obvious, they weren’t the first trees visible if you started going downwards, but those trees were there. If I hadn’t checked what sort of tree had been used in Elise’s house I would not have noticed this.

While lying on the hilltop and pushing my skills I was certain that there were people in that valley. If you looked carefully you could also notice areas without trees which indicated that there might also be some farming taking place. While pushing with my skills, I became certain that they had no people patrolling around the valley. Most likely it meant that they’d had no visitors lately - if ever. I got back to the women and together we started planning how to get down there and meet those people.

The closer we got the dwellings, the angrier I got. Besides those trees that had clearly been planted decades ago these people seemed to have absolutely no security. None at all. After getting past the line of planted trees I was able to sense the people in front of us - only that there weren’t so many people as I had expected. Not so many as there should have been, since it was quite clear that this group had been able to live here for some time, most likely totally undisturbed.

I stopped walking and the women also stopped and looked at me.

“There’s something wrong. There should be more people. Either they have separated into two groups or something bad happened to them after they left Aston.”

“Maybe they weren’t prepared to live here and all of them did not survive.”

I looked back at Ylva and shook my head. “No, I don’t think so. Even if they weren’t fully prepared, they already had prepared to escape. When part of Aston was burned, the Guardians who attacked them had no way of knowing how many of them died there and how many escaped. Besides, they should have been educated people and quite capable to adapt.”

I looked towards the dwellings and then around the valley.

“It might be better to look around just a bit longer and go to meet them a little bit later. It might be even better if they think that we come from the shore.”

For some reason the warrior inside me had woken up, even if there seemed to be no reason for that. There was no direct threat coming towards us and nothing that I had heard about these people from various sources - however sparse and unreliable that was - hinted that we should be in any kind of danger. Yet there was something that kept my inner warrior awake.

It was early afternoon when I got the first glimpse of something worrying. Because of the terrain, we had had to get a bit closer to the small village than I would have liked. I was sure that I had heard dogs barking from the distance. However, because of the wolves, I was quite certain that dogs would not be allowed to go very far and the wind was coming from the village towards us.

That was when I saw the graves.

I had seen the graveyards in several villages and in almost all the towns I had visited. Even if you didn’t belong to a church it was a common practice to show your respect to the deceased, to the people who again would come part of the Mother Earth. I felt a slight twinge when I thought about the graves of my mother and father and I hoped that the mountain ashes I had planted there would grow tall and give plenty of berries. However, besides respect, it was also important that the graves be in a place where they would not endanger the quality of water in the wells or tempt scavengers.

With these graves there was no sign that the people buried here would have been respected - or missed. Most likely this place was just far enough from the area the rest of the people occupied that there was no real threat to the drinking water, but nobody who respected the dead at all would have buried them in such shallow graves that the foxes would be able to get the bones out. Not only that, the graves were also located randomly around the area and there were half-finished holes in the ground in places where harder rocks or thick roots made digging too hard.

For a short moment, I wondered if some disease or some catastrophic event had hit the community, but almost immediately I realized that the graves were from a long time ago. The only thing the graves had in common was that it was more like a place to dump the bodies, not a real graveyard.

A shiver went down my spine when I wondered if the warrior in me had been able to sense this. I almost hoped that it was the case, since other options felt even scarier. Once we had retreated further away from the area where the shameful graves had been, we stopped and I considered hiding our tracks since it was clear that our group had left some clear tracks to follow. Somehow I felt sure that nobody from the little village would come to look for us. When I thought about it, there had been no evidence that anybody from the village would have been this far inside the forest.

“What has happened there, Stian? What could have killed so many people?”

I shook my head at Ylva. “No, those people were killed, or died, over a longer period of time. There had been years between the different graves and all those graves had been dug just to get rid of the bodies. Nobody has paid any respect to them.”

“Maybe they had some terrible disease.”

“No, Liv, I don’t think so. In that case, they probably would have burned the bodies or at least made deeper graves and further away from dwellings.”

“Maybe we should just leave and forget this group.”

I looked at Linnea, who seemed all serious. I shook my head for the second time. “As much as my instincts tell me to do just that, as much as I would like to, I cannot do that. We need more people, we need more men in the valley in order to continue with our plans. In order for our group in the valley to survive.”

When I closed my eyes for a moment the vision of a half-open grave with some bones sticking out came again into my head.

“However, I think that we’ll pull a bit further away. We need to be more prepared before we enter that village. We need a plan. A bit further away, there might be a place from which you can at least see some buildings.”

It was the following morning when our we entered the small village, and I did my best to make sure that I didn’t look threatening in any way. There were dogs close to the houses, but luckily for us their breed wasn’t any of those that has been used for guarding a herd of sheep or protecting people. Or used for hunting people. No, these dogs had more likely been used as companions to some of these people and they had followed their families here. Of course, they first barked at us but during recent months I had learned to deal with dogs, first with Kara’s puppy and then with a few other dogs that had been brought to the valley. Hakon, the ex-Guardian, had previously been working with dogs and he had been a great help with us there.

Tariel, my cat, who now was the self-appointed queen of all the pets of the valley obviously knew dogs. It had taken her just a few sweeps with her paw to make sure that nobody questioned that. Once the others knew her position, she was ready to give some licks - and fell asleep between the dog’s legs where it was soft and warm. Well, I couldn’t do it that way.

Now, when those dogs came barking at us, I made sure that none of us made any threatening gestures towards the smallish dogs and we both had some small pieces of dried meat that we were able to give to them. Yes, we all didn’t go there, it was just Liv and me, while Ylva and Linnea were in the distance with most of our horses and equipment. Up in a clearing where they had at least some visibility towards the little village. All Liv and I had with us were some of our own stuff and some trade goods. Forget about the knives we had hidden to our clothing.

While acting as Hakon had taught me to do - and as these dogs were no real guard dogs - those small dogs accepted us almost immediately once we had been able to give them some treats. Okay, they had warned the people by barking, but none of these people seemed prepared to meet an outsider. I saw no weapons and the people I saw didn’t look like fighters.

Suddenly one more thing shook my mind - almost all of these people seemed to belong to the younger generation. I know that it’s hard to tell the real age of natural magic users, Elves or natural Mages because of their longer life span. I know that I still look like a young man who’s barely over twenty even if I’m closing thirty, but with some practice you’ll learn to see the differences. Well, as I’m able to see or sense or feel their inner shimmer, I have an advantage since experience seems to add something into it.

Still, I was horrified to find out that the people here didn’t seem to have guards, weapons - or any kind of defense at all planned. After all, these people, or at least their parents, had been hunted and chased away from Aston. They should know better. Or maybe it was something else. Something I had missed. Now the warrior was awake, even if still in the background.

“Hello, to the village! Interested in doing some trade?”

It was stupid, I knew it. There were no roads, no paths, no good waterways and there should have been absolutely no reason why somebody would come here to trade. Only mines of iron, gold or perhaps silver might have been a good enough reason to come here, but nobody had ever found anything like that here. The only reason to move here was to get away from everything - and now we were here. It would take certain kinds of hard people to prosper here - and it was clear that things had not really worked that well for these people.

The first fact that got into my mind was that if some people from here would follow us, they would need new clothes and shoes before anybody saw them. The second thought that crossed my mind was that I wondered what these people really knew about the life outside their own village. Based on the looks that we got, it was clear that they hadn’t seen many visitors, if any. Liv was standing next to me and I heard her whisper.

“Mother Earth. These people and their clothes - and the way they look at us and especially our horses...”

I was able to keep a smile on my face, but just barely, when I nodded very slightly. If I were a horse and saw someone looking at me like that, I’d run as fast as I could.

Nobody had responded to us, but some of the villagers must have done something, since a man appeared from behind a hut with two younger men behind him and those younger men carried the first bows I had seen here. Or I should say that they were crude imitations of a bow. If those were the best weapons they had, it was clear that these people weren’t fighters or hunters.

“Who are you - and what are you doing here?”

Suddenly a thousand spiders appeared out of nowhere and they started their run down my spine. My initial feeling was that I had gotten us into a real mess. To a place from which I would not get us out ... no way. That now our mission was doomed. My mouth started to open and I was ready to tell the man everything, starting from how we had gotten here and how we were supposed to get them to the valley to join and support the group that was living there. I heard Liv start to breathe in, like she was also preparing to say something. I knew that I needed to be faster than her. I took Liv’s hand in mine and made sure that she also had a hold on the staff I had been holding in my hand. As soon as I felt her touch, I hurried to start talking before Liv would.

“We heard about you from Tove and Frey. Tove and Frey and their siblings are my friends. Or, I mean that Tove and Frey and their siblings are descendants of people who escaped Aston but got left behind when they got hurt during the trip. My mother had also lived in Aston at some point and when she died, I decided that I should come visit Aston. Then I tried to find some people and...”

I drew a deep breath and allowed myself to relax when I sensed how Liv also relaxed. Somehow, I had been able to pull most of the magic away from Liv and push it to the fresh wooden staff Liv and I were holding. Just like those larches were able to block some magic, junipers were able to nullify some of it, if handled properly. The wooden staff gradually eased my urge to say more. It felt like a long time had passed but I knew that it had only been a blink of an eye, and mostly because of my internal warrior, I had been able to keep on smiling all the time. Nervously perhaps, but that was expected when you are forced to speak the truth. I squeezed Liv’s hand gently with an apologetic smile on my face when I paid her a quick look. I wondered what she had felt when the man asked his question.

While those thoughts, together with several others, were running wild inside my head I turned to look at the man and his companions. The man wasn’t quite as young as I had first believed and it was obvious that he and the two younger men were related. Maybe a father and his two sons. Whatever, it wasn’t the important thing here. I put a stupid smile on my face when I continued.

“Since Tove just had a baby and Frey wanted to stay with her and there were also their younger siblings to take care of ... I mean, I thought that it would be a good idea to try to look like a merchant and come looking for a place where we would be safe ... I mean, where people like me or you...”