Niels Bernhardt
The Warlock of Hymal
Book I: A Boy from the Mountains
Niels Bernhardt
The Warlock of Hymal
Book I: A Boy from the Mountains
Cover: Sven Ballenthin
Translation: Edwin Miles
Published by Null Papier Verlag, Germany
Copyright © 2015 by Null Papier Verlag
1st Edition, ISBN 978-3-95418-652-5
www.null-papier.de/326
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An unexpected journey turns into a nightmare. Nikko, a simple farm lad, suddenly finds himself running for his life. Dark executioners, orcs, a strange land brimming with danger … and little hope of a happy end in sight! Only with the aid of an extraordinary weapon does Nikko manage to escape with his life.
Back home again, undreamt of opportunities open up. The landgrave takes Nikko into his service, but soon sends him back to that alien land. Then Nikko learns something that will change his life forever.
Nikko took his time cleaning the stables, but not because he enjoyed all the hard slog. There was never any shortage of work to do around the place, so why hurry when the only thing waiting for you was the next filthy job? If you worked too fast, all you did in the end was work more. Besides, at least in the stables there was no chilly wind blowing, like there was out in the yard. It was a good place to take his time.
The cold months were drawing to an end, fortunately, and they would soon release the village from its icy grip. The blanket of snow had begun to retreat to the mountains. Soon, the green fields up there would be free of snow again, and he would be able to drive the goats back up to the high meadows. The thought immediately brought a smile to his face, not because he found herding the goats particularly enjoyable, but because he would at least be able to get away from the farm during the day and have some peace and quiet up on the lonely meadows.
“Aren't you done yet?” a surly voice dragged him harshly out of his thoughts. It was Gimu, his oldest brother. “Speed it up! You've still got to clear the barn,” his brother snapped. “The snow's slipped off the roof and it's blocking the whole damned door.”
“Do it yourself! I still have to visit Thorodos today,” Nikko lied, earning himself a furious glare.
“Lazy, good-for-nothing …” Gimu grumbled, bashed a beam with his fist and stomped away, snorting. From time to time, Nikko had to lend a hand to old Thorodos, and Gimu had no say in the matter. For some unknown reason, Nikko's grandfather thought it important to carry out this duty to the old man. And on the farm, his grandfather's word was law.
The blonde lad with the big, blue eyes could not suppress a spiteful smile. He liked none of his many siblings much, and Gimu least of all: a burly brute with a loud voice who acted as if he was lord of the manor.
Now all he had to do was find a way out of his spur-of-the-moment lie. If Gimu found out that he had lied, there'd probably be hell to pay. Nikko did not get on with his family as things were. He was frail, often sick, and far too short for his age. Not a good combination for the hard life in the mountains, where the only people of much use were those who could really pull their weight. For his many brothers and sisters, he was the weakling, no more, and lazy to boot.
Hiding somewhere on the large farm seemed too risky to Nikko. Besides, they'd always found him in the past. And it was still too cold to vanish outside for a while. So it seemed to him best to actually pay old Thorodos an unannounced visit.
He'd been helping the old man for the last two years. He usually had to clean or tidy up, and now and then to run an errand. All in all, it was not a particularly pleasant duty, on top of which he often found the old man in a foul mood. Still, Nikko had always enjoyed the time he spent with Thorodos. The old man was simply different from everyone else in the village.
So a little later that day, Nikko set off for the old man's hut, just a few minute's walk from the family farm. Made entirely of wood and only a single story, the small house stood out from all the mountain farms that made up the village. Nikko had no idea for which purpose the building had originally been built. In their village, at least, there was nothing else even similar.
Apart from Thorodos's house, the farms of Vyldoro were all built in the same way. The main house, where the family lived, had a ground floor made of stone, or rather lumps of rock held together so badly with clay and dung that the walls had to be patched up constantly, especially when the hard winters were over. On top of the stone walls there was an upper floor cobbled together from sprucewood and crowned with a crooked slate roof.
When Nikko arrived at the old man's hut, he knocked quietly. He was not really supposed to be coming by that day, and in any case he could never be sure what mood he would find the old man in. But, as was almost always the case, no one reacted to the knocking, and the lad cautiously pushed open the door, stepped inside quietly and looked around.
The dwelling was certainly not very big, but despite its size it was crammed with an astounding number of things. The old man horded hundreds of dusty jars, strange bottles and containers. Then there were all kinds of implements whose purpose Nikko could only guess at. If he hadn't just thoroughly cleaned and tidied up the place a few days earlier, it would certainly have looked a lot worse than it did.
Finally, he spotted the old man napping in his armchair in front of a blazing fire in the fireplace. At the sight of old Thorodos snoozing away, Nikko was suddenly overcome by an attack of weariness himself. A little nap would be just the thing right then. Much better than digging the stupid barn out of the snow!
“The fire's starting to burn down again. Go and get some fresh wood, now that you're here,” the old man abruptly ordered, without so much as opening one eye. “Then you can clear the snow off the roof before it comes down by itself and shuts me up in here.”
Oh, marvelous! Was it really asking too much just to have a little time for himself? But he knew that any protests would be useless. Objections would just earn him a scolding and—what was worse—extra work.
Some days later, Nikko was, in fact, able to take the goats up to the high meadow for the first time that year. Finally, he was able to enjoy the tranquility offered by the remote field, broken only by the occasional bleating of the animals.
From up there, he had a good view back down over the village. Vyldoro was no more than a backwater, high in the mountains at the top of a valley that cut deep into the massif with its bizarre peaks. Countless springs fed into a small stream that flowed through the village before gaining power and eating its way down through the rocks. A path wound down through the valley, following the course of the river, and if you took that path you would come finally to the road that led to Hocatin. But in the east there was no more than a narrow track that led back high into the mountains, all the way to the old pass into Hymal.
Nikko himself had seen neither Hocatin nor Hymal, though. Like most of the inhabitants of Vyldoro, he had never left the village. That village, with its half dozen farms with their crooked walls and moss-covered slate rooftops, the spruce forests that always smelled so deliciously of resin, and the fertile alpine meadows ringed by jagged ridges of rock, their white crests looming high into the sky … this was all the world that the boy from the mountains knew.
He looked over toward the goats again. The mountain air was good for them, that was clear. They had spent the entire winter cooped up in their stalls with nothing but dry hay to eat. Free again, they tore greedily at the fresh meadow grass. Although the sight of the satisfied animals made Nikko happy, he didn't really care about the goats. But at least out here he didn't need to feed the beasts or clean up after them. All things considered, herding the goats was one of the more bearable duties of the farm.
He let the spring sun warm his face, still pale from the winter, and as he did so, his gaze wandered across the valley to the old pass high in the mountains. Seen from down where Nikko stood, the trail wound up from the spruce forests, climbing in a series of switchbacks higher and higher into the rocky summits, only to disappear into a snow-covered trough between two peaks. On the other side lay Hymal, a land steeped in legend. Hymal … could all the stories told in the village about that place be true? Frightening tales of vile orcs and trolls, old legends of elves and grim dwarves. Hymal, on the far side of the mountains. Another world, so close, yet still so remote.
Until the previous year, no one had paid the old mountain path much attention. No one ever crossed the old path anyway. No one had ever traveled to Hymal nor returned from there, at least not for as long as Nikko could think. The people in the village itself had had no reason to climb the steep track. The ascent was long and difficult. Besides, everyone in the village agreed that Hymal was a dangerous land. No one had any reason to go there, and consequently no one went.
The previous summer, though, that had changed when a strange expedition made its way over the mountains to the east. Nikko could still vividly remember the soldiers from Hocatin and the strangers from the south. The excitement in the normally so sleepy village had been enormous. The villagers had observed the events of that day with a mix of curiosity and suspicion, but because the travelers had had little to do with the simple villagers, the motives behind the expedition remained a mystery. Throughout the winter, the appearance of that band had provided enough fodder to fill the nights of the Vyldoro farms with the wildest speculations until, finally, when the expedition had swelled in the memory of the villagers into the passage of a huge army, the opinion prevailed that the old landgrave was trying to seize power over long-abandoned Hymal for himself. Most likely in the search for new sources of ore. That's what these things were usually about: the valuable ore that the rulers needed so urgently to fit out their armies in iron and steel.
As he so often had, Nikko wondered whether he should have joined the expedition, to see where his fortunes lay. Of course, whether the expedition could have used a simple village boy like himself was another question entirely. But he had not worked up the courage to ask. Had he missed the only opportunity he would ever get to escape the tedious life of the farm?
Just then, Nikko noticed some sort of commotion down on the village square. It could only mean one thing. Old Fodaj and his two sons were visiting the village.
Fodaj was a permanently jovial trader from Hocatin, and also the only trader who ever found his way up to Vyldoro. Despite his advancing age and not inconsiderable weight, twice a year he and his two sons—not as old, certainly, but still no less corpulent—took it upon themselves to weather what he called the “inconceivable travails of the long, dangerous journey up to Vyldoro.” His motive, as he took care to repeat every time he made his way to the village, was the untainted solidarity he felt with the inhabitants of the place, people he held in the highest esteem. Of course, this most generous of men didn't come to the village just for the roaring trade he did there. No, he offered his goods at far too low a price for that, after all.
Even though no one in the village was willing to accept his assertions at face value, the trader was still a welcome guest. Not only could the villagers trade their own products for the many items that they themselves did not produce, but Fodaj always brought with him news and novelties from the wider world, and in particular from Hocatin.
The livelihood of almost all of the families in Vyldoro was dependent on livestock, mainly goats and sheep. The alpine meadows, with their lush grasses and weeds, provided abundant good feed for the animals, and the villagers used their rich milk mainly to make cheese. Fodaj gladly took the cheese and wool, but also pelts from animals hunted in the forests, and dried mushrooms and herbs. In return, he offered flour and fruit from the valley below, clothing, tools, pots made of expensive metal and other bits and pieces from Hocatin. Usually, the trade was goods for goods; coins rarely changed hands. For most of the villagers, money was suspect, and very few of them could count well.
Nikko set off immediately for the village, as he didn't want to miss out on anything. He could leave the goats to look after themselves for a while. He would only have to drive them back to the farm that evening. Besides, it was likely that the trader would have a delivery for Thorodos that would need to be taken to the old man promptly. The previous autumn, when Fodaj had last visited the village, Nikko had had to pass on an order from the old man. How well he still remembered the small leather sack with the coins clinking inside …
When Nikko arrived at the village square, a crowd of curious villagers already surrounded the portly merchant with the silvery-gray hair and his two sons. They had pulled up in the middle of the muddy village square, and were plying their wares in well-practiced three-part harmony.
“You're Thorodos's boy aren't you?” Fodaj enquired loudly when he spied the breathless youngster, who had raced all the way back to the village.
“Yes, sir,” Nikko panted. “But I'm not a boy anymore. This year will be my sixteenth summer.”
“I beg your forgiveness, young man,” the trader said, and laughed. “I have the delivery for the old man,” he went on, rummaging in one of the wagons and excavating a crate. “Please do me the favor of taking it to him at once.”
Nikko nearly dropped the crate when it was handed to him: for being so small, it was astonishingly heavy.
“Take this with you,” Fodaj grinned, and put a sealed letter on top of the crate. Nikko eyed the envelope incredulously. Thorodos had never, ever received a letter before.
“A consignment that has come a long way, by all appearances. Tell the old man that it's been sitting down in Hocatin since last autumn, so he can't blame me for how late it is,” the trader assured him with a wink.
Nikko would have loved to stay a little longer, but he knew well that he had better not keep Thorodos waiting. The cantankerous old man would certainly have noted the merchant's arrival in the village. Besides, he was very aware of the increasingly grim looks on the faces of the villagers. Did they think he was some kind of show-off, just because he accepted the delivery for Thorodos?
As he lugged the crate toward the old man's house, it became very clear to Nikko that the other villagers were looking at him with increasing suspicion. Did that have to do with how much time he was spending with Thorodos? It was certainly true that the old man was a strange bird who said little. Hardly anything was known about him in the village. But one thing was clear: he was an educated man, and that was enough to mark him as different from the simple village folk. He was the only man far and wide who could read and write, or at least he had been until he taught Nikko to do the same. He had been living in Vyldoro for quite a few years now. But he rarely revealed anything about himself to the villagers, and if he did, then it was only ever with reluctance. Many considered him a loner. Others thought there was something fishy about him. Some even feared him.
So perhaps it was no surprise if some of that now rubbed off on Nikko. But what good was there in that? To be as despised in the village as he was on his own family's farm …
A little later, when he arrived at the old man's hut, he put down the heavy crate and knocked loudly at the door. But it came as no surprise to once again get no response. Thorodos was usually deep in thought. Or asleep. So Nikko opened the door and heaved the crate, which had slowly been threatening to pull his arms off, inside.
Thorodos—a lean, gaunt-looking man compared to whom even Nikko's grandfather looked young—was standing at the fireplace, looking unimpressed. He turned the bald dome of his head, which was ringed by scanty dark-gray hair just above his ears, and turned to stare at the young man through gray eyes set deep beneath wild, bushy eyebrows.
“About time,” he rebuked Nikko as he gathered something on his table. “Put the crate down and take this back to the merchant before he disappears again!”
“This is also for you,” said Nikko, and felt important as he did so. It was the first time he had ever handed the old man a letter.
“What is it?” Thorodos asked brusquely, Nikko could almost believe he heard a tinge of excitement in the old man's voice.
“A letter from Hocatin. No, wait … that's not right. It's been lying in Hocatin since last autumn. But Fodaj denies all responsibility for that.”
“What are you blathering about? Give it here!” the old man snapped. He was visibly excited. “Now where did I put my glasses? Blast it all!” he muttered, once he had snatched the sealed letter out of Nikko's hands.
“Open it up! Read it!” he barked at the lad after a pause, handing the envelope back to him.
The letter was sealed with a shiny, red cachet in which strange symbols appeared. But Nikko had no time to admire it. Beneath the old man's impatient gaze and his hooked nose hovering like the beak of a predatory bird, he broke the seal and opened the folded paper inside. But what he saw was a confused tangle. It made no sense. It was almost as if letters and numbers had been thrown across the page at random.
“I can't read it, sir. The letters look all messed up,” he apologized from beneath the old man's intense gaze.
“A cipher?” the old man asked, exhilarated, although the question was probably directed more to himself, and he took the letter back again. He set it down on the table and stared into the blazing fire in the fireplace.
“All right. Here, take this and give it to the merchant,” Thorodos said, after a few endless moments that crackled with suspense, and he handed Nikko a list and a small leather sack containing some coins. Then he pushed the lad out the door before he could ask any questions. Nikko knew better than to pester the old man anymore. Thorodos rarely answered questions at the best of times. He would probably never discover what the mysterious letter was all about.
When he finally reached the square again, Fodaj and his two sons were securing the loads on their ox carts. Most of the villagers were busy toting home their exchanged goods to their farms, there to inspect them thoroughly in peace and quiet. Nikko found himself practically alone with the traders on the muddy square.
“Well, kid. A new order?” Fodaj asked when he saw Nikko approaching.
“Yes. Here it is, sir,” Nikko replied, and he handed the man the list and the little sack of coins, at which Fodaj smiled warmly. After a pause, Nikko worked up the courage to ask, “Are you going to Hocatin?” He hoped, at least a little, that he might be able to move on with the trader.
“That comes later, kid. First, we're heading over to Skingár. Ever been there?”
“No,” Nikko answered. “How long will it take you to get there?”