Finding The Soul Bridge (The Soul Fire Saga Book 1) (29 page)

53

The hagget retched.

The potion that it had made for itself was wearing thin. The form that it had taken was wavering and would not last longer than ninety nine days if it was well prepared. Something was wrong with the mixture and it was wearing off far too soon. Time was against it. It had waited a thousand years for the perfect opportunity to execute its plan and now that the final hour was looming it had only minutes. The hagget shrieked. “Damn you. Damn you. Why was I struck with this cursed affliction? Why?”

Tears of acid rolled down its cheeks that stung the form that it had conjured, threatening to ruin its appearance. It rinsed its face in water over and over as it wept. A thousand years of sorrow, grief, anger, hatred and pain racked its barely living body. It needed one thing in the world and that one thing was all that mattered to it. “This wretched world can be damned and all the useless people in it can burn,” It sobbed as it rinsed its face over and over. “I will have my last will and I will make it come to pass before I exhale the last of my foul and rotting breath.”

It reached into its pouch and fumbled a small vile of potion to its quivering lips. It made sure not to spill a drop, as it was the last resort. There would be no second chances and no going back. It was too close to the end of its own quest to make alternate plans. The hagget swallowed “A thousand years, a million failures, but not anymore.” It could feel the power of a horse surge through its body and the glow of youthful beauty and vigour coursed its veins. Its cheeks glowed with energy and its eyes sparkled with verve. “Now… let us finish the job.” It glanced to the sunset, “Three more days, or two if those stupid boys can…” Its voice trailed off. There was no more time left to speculate on ifs or buts. The hagget had to press on and accomplish its goal or die trying.

“Just finish the job.” It lamented itself.

54

Kelvin wiped his face.

The arrow heads that Thist had made were easy to fletch. They were the right shape and seemed to obey his will, as if they knew their place. He still found the task of fletching arrows to be a chore. Spending ten minutes to fletch one arrow and half a second to shoot it away and miss was heartbreaking, even though Thist’s imbued arrows had never missed.

Kelvin wondered how Thist was doing it all; holding up against the voices in his head, and learning a lost art of magic.
“Are the voices helping him?”
thought Kelvin.
“They must be.”

He finished fletching his arrows and then washed himself in the stream before starting back. The sun was setting and the campfires were warm and inviting. As he approached their own tent he saw Jem and Thist sitting around the campfire like good old friends. “Supper ready yet chaps?” asked Kelvin as he approached.

“Sure.” said Jem “Thist and I were discussing how, since you have had that bow, we have eaten a lot of fowl meat.”

The three of them laughed together as Thist handed Kelvin a cup of ale. “This is good stuff.” said Thist.

The three young men sat around the campfire and enjoyed good food and ale as they discussed their bold plans for the siege.

They set out at first light, each carrying what they would need for the first attack on the castle. Kelvin peeled around to the left of the castle to find a vantage point within bow range of the gate. Jem went to the forest to set up a new trebuchet and Thist went straight down the middle to the gate. Thist stood in the road leading up to the gate. His coat and his hair flapped in the breeze. He held a staff in his right hand, his whip on his belt and a sack slung over his shoulder. He stood just out of bowshot range from the battlement and waited. He knew that he would be ignored for the whole day if nothing happened but he also knew that ‘nothing’ wasn’t going to happen.

The sun crested the mountain peak and illuminated the valley where he stood. He could see slight movements on the battlement high up on the castle walls. As the sun shone down on Thist’s face, he could feel the heat bleeding away the cold. An hour passed, then two. A long time after Thist had become bored, two guards walked out to meet him. “Well met fellows.” said Thist politely. “Stop right there.”

The guards said nothing and advanced on Thist. At the blatant disobedience of the guards, he put his hand up and commanded them to stop. It was a signal. Seventy-one arrows landed hard into the pavement in front of the guards with alarming clarity of purpose. “I command an invisible army, gentlemen. I suggest that you do as I say.”

The single imbued arrow that Kelvin had landed at the guards’ feet had spawned seventy mirrored illusions, giving the impression that a massive group of archers were watching over Thist.

The guards were riveted with fear and disbelief. They had been instructed to fetch the vagrant on the path and to bring him in for flogging and labour. The first guard stammered for his words. “M-m-may I i-inquire as to the p-purpose of your visit, sir?”

“Tell your master’s master that I have come for the bridge.” said Thist. “And please hand him this sealed brief of terms.” Thist handed the guard that had spoken a folded parchment with a wax seal. “Make sure that he gets it.”

The guard took the note while looking over Thist’s shoulder to see if he could glimpse a single bowman. But he could not. The two guards backed away and returned to the castle.

Thist retreated to a comfortable and hidden vantage point and waited for an hour after high noon.

Jem worked frantically to get his trebuchet in place. He had decided that his deadline was farcical, but he also knew from previous experience that the solutions will come to him as fast as the problems arose. “Building a giant trebuchet on my own, in a morning, why am I such an idiot?”

Jem hated the ancient forest. The forest wisps had gathered and were crooning like meerkats, taunting him as he worked. He could feel prickles on his neck every time he heard them and tried to calm himself. “Focus Jem, focus.” he said to himself. He had asked three of the men in the tent village to help him carry his supplies to the forest and was grateful that they had obliged. But they ran back to the village at the first glimpse of the wisps, leaving Jem with an untidy pile of ropes and equipment in one place.

First Jem had to find a dead tree or risk being lynched by the forest wisps. Then he had to climb up the tree and cut off the top at just the right height, this was the easy part. The cutting wire that Thist had imbued worked like a dream, slicing through the wood like a sword though water. “Finally, some good luck.” said Jem.

Jem sliced all the branches off as he climbed back down, but when he reached the bottom he was horrified to find himself standing on a mountain of branches.

“Stupid villagers!” he cursed, as he thought of the three that were supposed to help him for the day. Jem fretted about it for a moment and then decided that it was unnecessary to clear them all away. Only the bed where the shot had to slide needed to be clear; two paces wide and two hundred paces long. As Jem began to clear the centre slide out he realized the magnitude of the problem. The fallen branches were too numerous and were interlocked like a woven basket. He would have to think up a radical solution or miss his deadline. Jem looked up. “An hour after noon?” he said to himself. “I have about three hours left, probably less.”

Jem shut his eyes as he pondered the problem. Nothing came to him and he started to bite his bottom lip in anguish. “Go on.” He motivated himself, “Do what you can.”

Jem grabbed the end of a long rope, tied it to his waist and started to climb the tree again. When he reached a designated mark on the trunk, just eight or ten paces above the ground, he hoisted a bag of pulleys to where he clung to the tree trunk. The pulleys were already strung with rope, over and under many times and were powerful enough to lift two horses. He had attached the top pulley to the tree and the bottom pulley to his waist belt and used it like a friction block to slide down the tree and lengthen the distance between the top and bottom pulley. “Nice.” said Jem to himself.

Next, he hoisted the cross beam that he had prepared from the top part of the tree. It was just long enough to brace between two trees left and right of the one he had cut but that would be enough. He knew that if he could fire off just five shots then he would cause mayhem.

“This is going to be awesome.” Jem murmured to himself as he started to giggle.

The magnitude of the project that he had taken on was starting to sink in. He realized that the machine he was building alone in the forest was not less than ten times bigger than the one that he had built for the canyon crossing. He hoisted the massive cross beam, pulling the rope through the blocks hand over hand. He was exhausted. His arms burned like fire as they hung at his sides. “I’m going to feel that in the morning for sure.” said Jem.

Sweat poured down his face and soaked his shirt as he sat on a log to catch his breath. He was just about to enter into a lazy daydream when the sun came through the gap in the forest canopy, a reminder that his time was running out.

Jem scrambled to the next task. He had to tie off the beam on the three points and recover the blocks. The task of climbing and balancing in a tree with an exhausted body was like salt in the eye, but Jem knew that this had to be done, despite adversity. His success was required. “Dig deep.” said Jem. “Don’t save any strength for later.” Then he looked down at the massive pile of branches and cursed again “Stupid villagers!” and pressed on as the tears streamed down his face. He knew now that he would either find a brilliant plan or fail. “Think Jem, think.” He commanded himself.

He tied the last side of the massive crossbeam and slid down the tree a little too fast and cut his hands. The blood streamed from his palms and fingers as the sap in the wounds burned like fire.

Jem wept. The very thing that he had planned to do to his enemy in the castle he had done to himself. His resolve was shattered. The wisps gathered closer to Jem and he could hear their crooning, as if they were mocking him. Jem tried to ignore the problem as he bound his hand with pieces ripped out of his shirt.  The wisps came closer. Jem lost his temper with them and the situation. He picked up a log and threw it at the wisps. They dissipated. Jem stood in shock as he realised the solution to his problem. “Finish what you started.” Jem commanded himself.

The pain in Jem’s hands subsided to a dull ache as he set to work. “The final climb, nothing else matters until that is done.”

Jem had to tie the shot rope to the top of the tree trunk and attach the firing-release hook. He used an exercise that he had learned from a village elder. ‘Make everything in the world invisible, except what you need to do right now.’ Jem focused on his task, nothing else mattered to him. The sling was attached and ready for firing. Now all he had to do was cut the bottom of the tree bole below ground level, allowing it to swing freely on the cross beam. The cutting wire that Thist had imbued worked better every time it was used, like a tool that becomes sharper with usage. Jem sliced the massive tree, and as he cut through the dead wood he could hear the wisps screaming. “I hope I’m not making them angry.” He mumbled. 

The tree swung free of the ground, pivoting between the two adjacent trees on the cross beam. The bottom of the tree was as wide as a small village hut and was heavy enough to be the counter weight. All Jem had to do was to make it pivot on a joint without scraping on the ground. Using the cutting wire Jem fashioned a joint with wedge cuts and ropes to turn the sturdy tree trunk into a swinging counter weight. Now swinging freely and level with the ground, the trebuchet was ready to fire but for one thing; the mass of tangled branches on the firing bed.

Jem used the remaining blocks and ropes to wind up the trebuchet for its first shot, right on time. The mass of branches wouldn’t matter. He pulled on the rope through the blocks over and over. “Stupid wisps, why don’t you help me?” the wisps did nothing, they only stared, crooned and made Jem feel uncomfortable. “Finally!” said Jem.

The trebuchet was cocked and ready. His hands ached, working with tired and injured hands was bad and it was made worse by the looming deadline. “Now for the first shot.” said Jem.

He grabbed a double hook shaped branch and laid the one hook into the sling cradle. He looked up at the position of the sun to gauge the time. “It’s show time my friends.”

He pulled the firing pin. At first there was a creaking sound, like the hull of an old wooden ship birthing. The leverage on the counterweight was a thousand fold. The sound of snapping twigs followed as the large hook branch in the sling started to snag branches. The tranquillity of the forest ended with the ripping sound of bark being sheered from the twisting cross beam. Jem’s eyes grew wide. “Oh no, what have I done?” He said.

Jem retreated a few steps as he realized he was in grave danger. If the trebuchet experienced a catastrophic misfire then Jem would be pulped. The counterweight bit into the gravity of the world as it began to fall from the hoisted height. The main mast creaked and groaned as it flexed under the forces at play. The hook branch scraped up all and sundry that lay on the ground. Every bow, every branch and every twig squashed and snagged as it ripped through the centre gap. Then the hissing of air and the howling of wind as a vacuum sucked in from behind the now flying mountain of forest debris. The sling whipped around in a large arc. As the shot reached the apex of the arc, the sky exploded in a boom like a gargantuan whip crack. The debris flew high into the air. It started to fall apart creating a cloud of flying firewood soaring toward the castle. Jem stood in awe as he watched the cloud of lumber disappear beyond his vision.

Then he snickered “That’s how you clear the firing bed.”