‘Come to me! You must not tarry here!’

Ava started at the sound of the ghostly voice. The beast’s yellow eyes greeted her. It crawled under her fur during the night and was staring at her curiously now.

She lay unmoving and listened for the voice to come again, but only the wind whistled, and her tent clapped.

“You didn’t happen to hear that too, did you?” she croaked to the beast.

It sniffed her nose in response.

“I didn’t think so,” she mumbled, pushing off her coverings.

The cattle woke at her movement and shuffled to a stand. Ava crawled over the beast, unfastened the flap, and looked out.

It was early morning and darkness still fought the grey light for reign over the land. Spectermere was still, but this quiet was normal. Ava had slept fitfully in the silence of the night, tormented by an unknown threat felt in the back of her mind and the pit of her gut.

She moved to the side so the cattle could file out, removing their blankets as each of them exited. The beast exited too. Ava gathered her cloak tightly around her, wrapped her scarf around her face and exited after them to find wood. She wandered near the leafless trees nearby collecting sticks and pieces of bark, deep in thought.

Ava asked Minervin once about Draugr Forest and its dead trees.

‘Oh no, Ava,’ he said. ‘The trees are not dead, they look that way on the outside, but inside the trees are very much alive! And deep beneath the ground their roots are alive, that is why they keep growing so tall! They call it Draugr Forest because the spirits of all those who perished there still linger to warn the living away. That is why no one, except you, is so mad as to travel so deep into it and stay there overnight!’ Ava thought the notion absurd, at least of the forest north of the stream, but after last night she might just reconsider that.

She restarted her fire and went to the stream to fill a pot with its partially frozen water. Perhaps she had lingered here for too long and a slight madness had come over her. Ava set the pot over the fire to boil and broke up camp. She needed to leave the forest anyway, the frost season would start soon and living outdoors would not be wise.

For three months, every year, Spectermere had long sleet storms, making the ground muddy with half-frozen slush. Minervin would complain, as he always did when the first storms came.

‘This is a poor excuse for snow,’ he would say. ‘Not at all like the snowstorms in Skyreach at the top of the world. You must see it, Ava. That is a land where the cold has great beauty and wonder!’

Ava took the water from the fire and sat on a fallen tree waiting for it to cool. The beast’s sudden appearance at her side startled her from her thoughts. It plopped a wiggling frost serpent onto her lap. She bolted upright and yelped, chucking the venomous creature a short distance from her. Its fangs caught on the sleeve of her overcoat before it fell harmlessly to the ground.

The beast grunted at her reproachingly, not taking kindly to the way she had treated its gift. Bending low to the ground, it stalked behind the serpent as it tried to slither away. It was not doing a good job, since the serpent would turn and hiss at it threateningly when it got too close, sometimes even striking out at it with its fangs. Ava watched the scene playing out before her as she sipped on her warm water and munched on her leftover food, then packed up the rest of her camp when she finished. The beast, in the meantime, finally gave up toying with the serpent and pounced on it theatrically, quickly beheading it and enjoying the victories of the hunt.

She fit the wagon’s yoke to Bluebeard and Longhorn, and the cattle pulled the wagon into motion. Ava led them through the forest, sticking close to the stream. The beast jumped onto the wagon and watched the forest pass by from its highest perch.

#

It took Ava nine more days to clear Draugr Forest. The hours she took to rest shortened night after night, eliminating the prospect of making camp entirely on the ninth night. Normally, it would be a foolhardy decision, but her trepidation became so poignant that she felt the cold fingers of death brushing the back of her neck in her waking hours as well. The beast’s playful nature ebbed away as well, and it constantly paced the edges of the wagon, warily watching the surroundings.

A wave of relief washed over Ava when she led the cattle to the edge of the forest at the breaking of dawn.

“Come,” she ordered the beast, stopping the wagon and lifting her wool tunic.

The beast obeyed oddly, and she tightened her belt to keep it from falling out. She pulled her fur cloak tightly around her to hide the visible mound and pulled her hood low over her face. Only then did she lead the wagon away from the forest edge and make for The Outpost.

Minervin told her that The Outpost was first built by Orc invaders in the Second Era who used it as a midway stop to restock and regroup. But, they long since abandoned it. Preferring instead to journey to the perilous Serpa-infested Squall Islets before moving on to the bountiful human lands.

‘It is a warning,’ he said. ‘When the mighty orcs, who fear no living creature, retreat from a land and take nothing with them, we should all be wary of what lingers there.’

Whatever frightened the orcs from this land had long faded into history and now humans and dwarves used this land to rid themselves of their criminal and undesirable aspects. An exile punishment the orcs adopted recently as well. The Criminal Outpost outlanders called it.

The voices of the watchmen posted at its gate echoed across the flat, cracked plains as she drew closer to the wooden fortress. Strong crosswinds that blew from both land and sea took parts of the conversation away with them.

“...sorcerer! What’s the man think…?” said one guard.

Curses, what has Minervin done now?

“Who knows...  Never trusted spell-casters meself. …bend such forces with... It’s the Reaper’s doing, I tell you. They’re his seeds o...” the other supplied. Both men sounded deep in their cups and were practically yelling at each other.

“I’ll wager you two coppers that the sorcerer don’t turn up a’tall after the snow season,” the first offered.

“Done! I’ll wager he comes back mad before the snow season is up. Halt! Who goes there?”

“A draugr!” Ava shouted back, irritated. They may be drunk, but they knew full well who she was. As if they ever let her forget.

There was a long pause. “It’s the hybrid! Open the gates!”

A loud scraping sound came from beyond the gate as both men lifted the heavy wooden bar from its metal holders. The gates creaked and groaned as they opened, and Ava led the wagon inside.

The layout of The Outpost was set up as an orcish stronghold, with smaller huts surrounding a large central one. Its design was a protective measure against enemy invasion in any direction and modern orcs still built their strongholds this way, at least that’s what Minervin told her. Large elephant tusks and bones poked menacingly from every nook and cranny. There was also a scattering of human roundhouses and shacks among them, some even sporting small pens and farm plots, useless without expensive magical help. Ava hoped to rectify that today, for Minervin and herself, at least.

“You don’t look too dead to me, girl,” the first guard replied, sneering at the last word as if her very existence tainted its meaning. “Though most of us thought you were, being so long away in that accursed forest. I owe Jaefrey four coppers now,” he groaned regretfully, cocking his head to the other guard, and moving to inspect her wagon.

Ava did not feel the least bit sorry about the man’s loss; it would teach him not to bet against her next time.

“What is this talk of sorcerers?” Ava asked the guards, while she warily watched him going through her haul.

“Awful man that. He came to The Outpost off a pirate ship not three days after you left, wearing those long, hooded robes of master mages. Crastius put him up for the night.”

“No doubt expecting the sorcerer to cast some spells for him in exchange,” Jaefrey interrupted with a chuckle.

“’Cept the man only demanded provisions for a journey through Wraith Mountains and the Land Unknown the next day. Crastius told the man that the journey was madness. But the sorcerer would hear none of it.”

“It is madness,” Ava whispered, not even she had the urge to venture there.

Minervin felt a darkness beyond the labyrinth of mountains that spanned the western half of Spectermere, and Ava felt it too. An ancient fear she could not name that made her innards tremble and her body sweat whenever she ventured too close.

“See, even the hybrid has enough good sense not to go traipsing around there. We’ve had people venture there before. Fool adventurers looking for glory and fame, alone and in large groups, fully armoured and carrying an arsenal of weaponry. Most never come back, and the few that did come back mad and couldn’t tell no one of the things they’ve seen.”

“Mad with rage?” Ava enquired.

“No, girl.” He clucked at her as if she were dim. “Their minds were broken. I remember they locked up one man who returned. Day and night, he would shriek like a wild creature in pain, and when he wasn’t shrieking, the man would use the contents of his privy to draw strange symbols that vexed your cursed wizard on the shack walls. Made everyone feel ill at ease.”

“Why didn’t they put the man out of his misery then?”

“We wanted to, but your cursed wizard suspected he carried some sort of message from those mountains and hoped he’d snap out of it long enough to tell it proper. Only he managed to escape one night. Sliced his guard’s neck so deep the head near came off, and then he walked off the pier and drowned, or froze, either way, the man died, and we fished his floating corpse out of the water the next day. We set it and the shack alight. Slept better that night than I had in weeks!”

“So, what happened to this sorcerer of yours?”

“Crastius gave the madman his provisions, free of charge mind you, and set the man on his way. Told us the man was out to cause trouble and not to allow him into The Outpost if he ever came back. Said he didn’t like the looks of him from the start. I'll be agreeing with him, the man had an ill-favoured look about him,” Jaefrey answered her.

“Everyone here has an ill-favoured look about them,” Ava quipped.

“Iller, then. They’re the servants of The Reaper, these magic wielders. You’d best watch yourself when you’re alone out there with that cursed wizard, girl.”

“Minervin is not like your sorcerer, and I would suggest that you hold your tongue about him when you are around me,” Ava growled, fingering the hilt of her dagger.

“Not like your sorcerer!” the man burst out. “He’s much worse, only The Reaper’s minions would curse themselves like he did. Alright! Alright! Easy with the blade!” Jaefrey stepped back from her, rubbing his throat where Ava’s dagger nicked him, then waved her carriage forward. “’Tis a good haul you’ve brought us, girl. You’ve had a better hunt than Malgorn. Least, we won’t be eating fish through most of the snow season. Now get on with you and be quick about your business.”