Friday Fiction: Koppa

Koppa

 

     The boy stood on the top of a hill, looking down on the ruinous city in the valley below. Thin grey smoke rose from scattered chimneys where, here and there, patched dwellings still showed signs of occupation. The streets had been cleared years ago of all save the heaviest stones, but the shattered shells of buildings, the unheeded areas of wild trees devouring whole neighborhoods, and the broken remnant of a useless wall encircling it all showed that Ravenglast was a dying ghost of its former self. The only real sign of flourishing life was an innumerable swarm of black birds that was flocking around the ancient tree that stood in the center of the city. The tree lifted titanic bare limbs flushing red in the fading light of the fall day. Even from here he could hear the harsh calls of the ravens. He shuddered, drawing his worn dark green cloak closer. A cold wind was springing up from the North.

“My city,” he whispered to himself, as if the place were miles away or under the sea. “And tomorrow is the Autumn Festival.”

“Koppa! Come back in! There’s time for one more lesson before darkness falls!”

Koppa turned with a sigh.

“Coming, Master Dunwolf,” he said. The man’s voice was gruff but not commanding. There was something in it, though, that made the boy obey without hesitation. Perhaps part of it was Koppa’s knowledge of the power that lay behind that voice. Koppa wanted that power; he needed it. But most of his obedience came from the trust he had learned to put in the old wizard’s ways.

The boy turned back from the brow of the hill to the low building that rose from the earth behind him. With its sod roof and sunken porch, it looked like the house had sprouted from the ground like a molehill. Dunwolf stood at the door, gazing out. There was a reassuring little half-smile under his scruffy white beard, but Koppa noticed his darting pale blue eyes staring past him to the skies beyond. The changing weather seemed to be troubling him. Not unusual for an old man, the boy thought.

But then how old the man was, was still a matter of doubt in Koppa’s mind, or at least his imagination had a hard time coming to grips with it. Since the time of his thirteenth birthday (four years ago now almost to the day, Koppa suddenly realized) when the wizard had emerged from the wilderness, scraggly and torn like a wild man of the woods, and told him his name, Koppa still wondered if he was THE Dunwolf of legend, or just some trickster who had adopted the title. The old man had power, true, but had taught the boy little more magic than a traveling conjuror could. But then, Koppa had often reflected ruefully, that might be because of his own lack of talent.

What the wizard had taught him most was lore and history and the ways of Ortha. Whatever else this Dunwolf was, he was a great storyteller, and certainly spoke as if he had seen much and been everywhere, from the shores of the Southland to the gates of Thoravil itself. Koppa’s apprenticeship had been amusing, even engrossing, but now on the verge of his seventeenth year he felt that his life was stalling, that he must progress or put away dreams of wizardry forever in favor of a duller but more practical way.

All these thoughts and memories passed through his head as he walked the short way through the withering grass towards the house and the old man. Perhaps they were only seasonal urges, prompting him to either fly or huddle down, but he decided then and there that he would ask permission to attend the Autumn Festival the next day. Maybe seeing what his old life at its best had to offer would help clarify his mind.

“Master,” he began as he drew even to the wizard, meaning to pass into the house, but the old man suddenly gripped his arm with a surprisingly strong hand. Koppa stopped in amazement and stared at the other. Dunwolf was not even looking at him, his eyes fixed beyond. The boy turned.

A moment before been darkening but clear with a low waning moon hanging thin and almost transparent among a few faint early stars. Now a line of boiling black clouds was marching from the North, eating up the sky as it came. For a few seconds Koppa was puzzled by the old man’s reaction. Such sudden fronts were not unusual at this time of year. Then he saw.

Distant as they were, Koppa could see the clouds were moving with unnatural speed, roiling into towering heads like battlements as they came. The sickening heights, even from this distance, made Koppa dizzy as they toppled and were thrown up again ever higher as they poured forward, fast as an oncoming flood. Silent lightning seared through the thunderheads with startling irregularity, and the heavens before the front were bruised purple at its line of advance.

“Bharek’s Breath,” Dunwolf whispered harshly, and the next instant the gale that must be driving the storm struck the hill.

It scattered the ruined city’s smoke, and a rattling cry of dismay went up from the flock of ravens that rose in momentary fright, only to land huddling again silently onto the bare branches of the towering oak. Despite its girth the great tree swayed and tottered in the blast. Koppa wrinkled his nose, squinting into the wind. There was something, almost a smell, a grim tingling that he couldn’t remember ever feeling before, but which somehow seemed disturbingly familiar, a herald of woe. He turned to the wizard.

Dunwolf glanced grimly back at him, blue eyes like ice.

“It hasn’t been seen in these parts for years,” he growled. “Not since ….” The old man turned abruptly. “Come in and shut the door. Tonight will be bad, and tomorrow …” He stopped and finally looked Koppa full in the face. He smiled wryly; it was almost a grimace. “Well, even I don’t know what tomorrow will bring.”

Koppa hurried in behind him. He closed the door with some difficulty. The rising wind seemed to be trying to force its way in after them. He set the latch, and then pulled down the bar as well from where it had been hanging like an upraised arm since last spring. As it clumped into place the light sprang up from a half-dozen candles set around the room; one of Dunwolf’s little tricks. Koppa used to be impressed with it, but now it was routine. The boy could do it himself. He went over to the old man, who had moved to stand leaning over the cold fireplace, clutching the mantle with a bony hand as he stared blankly into the ashes.

“’Bharek’s Breath’,” said Koppa. His voice was carefully neutral. “That’s what the old people in town mutter when a storm rolls in like this. But there is more in those clouds than a cold front, isn’t there?” He touched the wizard’s shoulder. “When did you last see it?”

For a moment Dunwolf said nothing. Then he straightened himself up and turned to the boy.

“You are right. It is more than a storm. This is the true Bharek’s Breath, a sending from Norda, from Thoravil itself, when Bharek wishes to remind the Southlands that he still rules in the North. Sometimes it is just to frighten and cast doubt into our hearts. Other times it has been a trumpet call to announce his foul deeds.” He stretched out a steadying grip to the boy’s shoulder. “The last time I saw it this fierce was seventeen years ago, when Ravenglast fell.”

For an instant Koppa felt as if lightning had filled the room. The next he was clutching the wizard’s shoulders under his thin brown robe and shaking him.

“Do you mean the Dark Lord and his army are coming here again, to finish the job? We’ve got to get down and warn everyone to flee! We’ve got to …!”

“Calm yourself, Koppa.” The wizard’s voice was unhappy, but steady. “Why should Bharek bother to kill a place that is already dead? No, he means this strike for other purposes, which are ill enough. Perhaps his troops march elsewhere on some other doomed city. Perhaps it is as I said, to strike fear in our hearts.” The old man shrugged. “If I know him, it is not beyond his vanity that it is simply to remind everyone of this … anniversary.”

Koppa stared a moment, then released the wizard and turned away. He certainly needed no reminder. He had been born that day. His mother had died that day. There were people in what was left of Ravenglast who stilled called him the Son of Misfortune, the Stormborn, and even the Cursed. It seemed that if you were unlucky you must bring bad luck yourself.

“Damn Bharek,” he gritted. “If I could get my hands on him …”

“You would doubtlessly die yourself,” Dunwolf said practically. “Come, read your History. I will prepare supper for us both.”

Koppa breathed deeply, straightened up, and let it go. He smiled lopsidedly.

“Another one of your famous stews, no doubt.” He started to move towards the book-laden table where an enormous leather volume lay open to his spot.

“And what is wrong with stew?” asked the old wizard, in mock offense. “When you have been in the wild as often as I have, you will appreciate the leisured luxury of a good stew. No, wait!”

Koppa stopped halfway to his seat and looked at his master quizzically.

“Not the Book of Home tonight. Stories about the Morgs can wait.” Dunwolf shut the heavy book, then reached into the square pouch that always hung by his side. “I have been working on this for quite a while now, wondering when and how to best use it. Read it and tell me what you think. It will help me to reach some decision.”

He drew out a little object somewhat smaller than a hand’s-breadth and presented it to the boy. Koppa instantly recognized it. It was an inexpensive, common sort of journal, bound in red leather. He had seen them offered now and then by the few itinerant peddlers that still passed through Ravenglast sometimes. It was only about seventy pages long. He flipped it open and saw the pages were filled with Dunwolf’s neat, square lettering.

“Been keeping a diary?” the boy smiled.

“No,” the old man said. “Turn to the title page.”

Koppa folded back the cover, and the words stopped him cold. “The Fall of Ravenglast,” he whispered.

“I have been working on that tale since I returned here four years ago. It is finally ready, I think.” He turned away. “No more words. Read it while I prepare supper. It shall not take long. Then after we eat, there will be time for questions.”

“Returned?” Koppa asked, but Dunwolf was already gone, the curtained kitchen door flapping shut behind him. With a wondering shrug the boy chose a seat next to one of the candles, settled down, and carefully opened the book.

It began with a page or two of the history of Ravenglast, how men had founded the city nearly two hundred years ago, and how it had grown until it was nearly as large as some of the older Morgish settlements and was one of the largest cities to have an exclusively human population. They grew grain and brewed beer, were weavers and blacksmiths. They were not warriors but trusted to their city wall and the protection of the king in Morg City and his troops.

All of this Koppa knew, but somehow seeing it written down in plain, almost elegiac words fascinated him. It was, after all, his own history, and he knew with dread what was coming. He began turning the pages without thought, his brown eyes scurrying over the words.

It had begun that evening seventeen years ago, with a blast of Bhareck’s Breath. Having just witnessed a true example, Koppa shuddered at the memory as if he saw it again himself. There had been an unease that had gone through the city, but the Harvest Festival was at hand, so people had simply hunkered down in their homes and sought to be more cheerful to counteract the effect.

There was nothing else until sometime after midnight, when a sudden cry went up from the city gates. Farmers and their frightened families were streaming in from the darkened countryside, some driving their livestock before them, some merely running in terror. Under cover of darkness, a battalion of Ogres had swept down from the hills in the east and were marching towards Ravenglast, murdering what they could catch and burning the houses and full barns as they advanced.

The gates had not been closed for some decades and they shut with some difficulty, but panic lent the defenders some energy and the doors clanged almost in the very face of the first wave of the marauders. These were the Less Ogres, that had been loosed like a pack of hounds before the main body of the army. Koppa had always pictured them in tales as a sort of weak trash used by their masters as battle fodder, but now as he read he saw them as the menace that they really were: as tall as men and driven by a frenzy of violence that bordered on ravening hunger. The bald, pale, gangrel creatures had thrown themselves against the wall mindlessly, seeking a way in, until the second wave appeared, and the true horror began.

Out of the dark came the Great Ogres, towering twice the size of their lesser kin, moving in a line of fell purpose, purple eyes gleaming with wicked intelligence. Under their guidance the army spread around the walls of the city, grappling hooks, ladders, and torches springing into their hands. From the walls the few guards who could be mustered looked down in horror as the dark tide flowed around their defenses. Then abruptly a horn blew, and the host went silent.

The Ogres drew aside, leaving a torch-lined avenue into the darkness behind them. In the sudden silence, there was the sound of heavy hooves, shockingly loud on the paved road. Out of the shadows came, not an Ogre, but a tall man on a grey horse. The beast was knotted with muscle and seemed restless under his pitiless grip. The man was clad, not in armor, but in long grey robes. He held a tall spear at his side, and as he rode up to the gate his robes and his long tangled grey beard billowed behind him in the cold wind.

He stopped his steed within bowshot of the gate and set his spear at attention. The gibbering of the Ogre-host around him died into silence. For a moment his glittering eyes raked the walls, then his voice came, cold and commanding.

“I am Groka, Third Lieutenant of Thoravil, Master of Wolves! I speak here for Bhareck a-Rhalken, Lord of the North, rightfully King of this World. Is there any here who can speak for this city? I offer you terms whereby you and your people may be saved.”

After a moment of silence, a figure appeared on top of the gate. A young man, encased in armor that showed signs of being hastily donned and with a bared sword in hand, looked down on the wizard.

“I am Kharis, Lord of Ravenglast.” His voice was high and somewhat strained but did not tremble. “What are these terms?”

Koppa almost set the book down in shock. This was his father. He was seeing him as in a vision, carried along by the words that Dunwolf had written, and Koppa suddenly realized that they must be entwined with a spell that the old man had woven into the work. He found that he couldn’t even look up to ask a question but must follow the tale with spellbound eyes.

Koppa watched Kharis hungrily. He had never known his father, never seen him. He wondered for a second how accurately the enchantment was showing him, then threw that thought to the winds. He almost didn’t hear Groka’s words, though the spell was dragging his focus towards the dark wizard.

“The terms?” Groka sneered. “The terms are simple enough. Complete surrender, then absolute servitude under the Black King.” His mouth kinked into a smile. “Harsh, I know, but not as grim as the fate that awaits if you refuse.” His face suddenly slammed shut like a prison door. “Death for all, from the oldest warrior to the youngest new-born babe.”

His father blanched, and Koppa knew that those words had struck home. Somewhere in the city behind them, his pregnant mother was on the verge of giving birth, and for a moment he could see the temptation pass through Kharis’ mind. Then the young ruler gathered himself and stood taller in defiance.

“Death were kinder than slavery under Bhareck’s tender mercies,” he said. “We defy him!”

Groka shook his head in weary mockery.

“So be it, then. Perhaps it’s just as well. My army has been eager for a bit of fun.” He raised his spear high. “Send in the beast!”

The torches of the frontline of the gibbering Ogres began to part, making room, and in the darkness behind there was first a thudding of ponderous footsteps and then a blacker shape came looming out of the shadow. Even Groka moved out of its path. Then Koppa saw it: an enormous creature like an elephantine lizard, towering over thirty feet high, swinging a long clublike tail that swept the path clear behind it. It had a short neck and bunched shoulders, and tiny eyes that rolled madly in its thick, flat skull. Two Great Ogres on either side were guiding it forward by long chains, tugging this way and that, leading it to the gate, and keeping well out of the behemoth’s way. Koppa knew what it was. It was a Pounder.

The beast was led to the gate, right up until its bony head bumped the steel-bound wood. Its minders dropped the chains and ran off to either side. The baffled reptile tentatively bumped the massive doors in front of it, then angrily nudged it harder. The wood creaked. A shower of arrows and a few hastily flung spears came suddenly from the defenders on the walls. They glanced harmlessly off the Pounder’s thick hide but seemed to madden the beast.

With a deep roar the Pounder butted the gate with its blunt head, and Koppa saw the iron and steel shake like a farm fence. It hit it again and again and then, enraged, it turned its ponderous body sideways and brought its thick tail around smashing like a club into the city gates, which shattered, groaned, and fell apart. The Ogres bellowed as the Pounder thundered into the city, and then surged after it when it seemed a safe distance inside.

The beast had scattered the defenders in its wake, flattening some of the less agile as it passed, but the men of Ravenglast rallied about the gate. For a brief moment they seemed to hold back the Ogre tide, then were overwhelmed by unnumbered waves of the foul warriors pouring into the city and through its broad lanes. Koppa watched helplessly as his father led his retreating men back to the center of town, he and his fellow defenders striking mighty blows as the rest fell back behind him.

When Kharis and his men reached the city bastion they found it already in flames. In desperation they gathered around the great oak tree in the nearby park for what was surely a final stand. Fire and smoke surrounded them, and through the dark night air rang the diminishing screams of the dying, the war-cries of the Ogres and the howls of wolves, and the distant bellowing and crashing of the Pounder as it rampaged through the streets. As the men’s defense weakened, Groka came riding up slowly on his mount, his ranks parting before him. Kharis looked at him in defiance, bloody sword in hand, back against the giant tree as the ravens wheeled and croaked above him in the glower of the burning city. Groka looked at him, smiled, then in a blur flipped his spear-staff into position and cast it in one quick motion.  With a leap in his heart, Koppa helplessly witnessed his father’s death, skewered by the shaft that transfixed him standing against the great oak, staining the stripped white wood with his blood. The sword fell from his hands.

The foul deed done, the wizard began to gloat, laughing as the Ogres drew in towards the dozen or so warriors remaining. His mirth changed to bafflement, though, as a sound cut through the chaos of the night; brave, warlike horns the like of which no Ogre ever blew. They were Morgish war calls, which Groka knew well but had never expected to meet here. He turned his steed’s head, called to his troops, and headed in the direction of the call.

Koppa was vaguely aware that he was reading again. The vision cleared from his mind, the sounds dimming, though the words, as his eyes passed over them, seemed to carry an echo of Dunwolf’s voice.

“The rest you know, my lord King. When Dunwolf the wizard became aware of what power was being expended there, he hastened to Ravenglast, where a Morgish division, alerted by the movement of Bhareck’s troops, had been moving to intercept them but arrived too late to save the city. He joined his power to theirs and managed to drive off Groka, who fled back to Thoravil and the North.  By that time Ravenglast was largely destroyed, and only a handful of her people left.

“Among them was the noble Kharis’s son, born in the very middle of the battle. His mother did not survive long after. He lives as an orphan without a birthright to this day.

“King Thron, do not let what happened to this boy happen to your people! This destruction of a major ally was just a way to weaken your flank in the east, to try tactics and troops on a walled position, to test the temper of the South. Do not dismiss it as happening years ago; it means the Dark Lord has had as many years more to plan and strengthen his army.

“I send you this history as a message and a reminder. The preparations and plans you made when your rule was new have grown rusty and dull. You must sharpen them again. I fear that at long last the Dark Lord will make his final move, and soon. If I am wrong, you have lost nothing but gained increased security for your realm. But if I am right, and if you do nothing, it will mean the end of all Aman’s children in our land, and then across the seas and through the whole world, to the end of time.

“I beg you, Thron, rouse yourself and consider.”

Koppa was now fully aware of the pages before him. Slowly he closed the book and looked around. The candles were burning much lower, and the shutters on the windows still rattled in the uneasy wind outside. Dunwolf was nowhere to be seen, but the smell of stew filled the air.

The boy placed the book down gently on the desk, almost as if afraid it would burst into flame or explode. He headed into the kitchen.

Dunwolf was there, waiting stoically at the set table, his robes wrapped close. He looked up wordlessly as Koppa entered the room.

The boy sat at the table and drew a deep breath.

“That was a rather sneaky trick.”

“I know.” Dunwolf shifted in his chair. “It wasn’t meant for your eyes, but now I’m rather glad it was there to show you.” The old man creaked to his feet. “Let me get us some stew.”

“What I’m wondering is why,” Koppa challenged. “Why do it that way? With an enchantment.”

“Oh, well.” Dunwolf smiled as he dipped the ladle in the steaming pot and began filling a wooden bowl. “What’s the point in being a wizard if you don’t use magic now and then?”

“It’s manipulation,” Koppa said flatly as he accepted the stew. He placed it with a judgmental clunk on the table and gripped his spoon. “Mind manipulation.” He stirred the food moodily. “And you told me that that’s a cheat.”

The old man paused as he loaded his own bowl.

“I suppose it is, in a way.” He finished filling his dish. “But in another way, it’s not.” He sat down and blew on his stew. “I thank thee, Ortha,” he muttered. The boy joined in hastily, still staring accusingly at him. The wizard stirred his steaming stew a bit.

“You’ve got to understand the situation,” he began. “Thron does not like me much …”

“So you’ve said.”

“And he’s not much of an imaginative reader, either. I thought a little spell would … help him picture the gravity of the situation. I didn’t put anything in that didn’t really happen!” the wizard protested.

“And what do you think the King would say to you after he saw your … production?” Koppa tried the stew. It was really quite tasty.

“He wouldn’t have known there was a spell,” said Dunwolf. “The only reason you recognize it as magic is because of your training. He should only think it a piece of … unusually gripping writing.”

“Won’t suspect a gift from a wizard?” Koppa smiled.

“He won’t know it’s from me. I’m going to slip it to my old friend Korm, who’s on the King’s council, who will then pass it to Thron. Once he sets an eye on the first page, he’ll be hooked.” The wizard toyed fretfully with his spoon. “It’s not much of a plan, but it’s the closest I can get to that stubborn old ape. He doesn’t know it, but I’m trying to save him as much as everything else.” He sighed.

“It may all be moot now, anyway. I can feel … I can feel in this wind the Eyes of the North upon me again, as they haven’t been in years. All the doors within thirty miles of Morg City have been locked to me. I meant to go in disguise with the blacksmith Nolan as he travelled back there for the winter, but since Bhareck’s Breath …” He shrugged and took a bite of stew.

“Can’t you just send it by Nolan?” Koppa asked.

“Perhaps. Perhaps. But if I go near him now, that will draw attention to him, and I’m sure he’ll be followed. There must be a way …” He sighed. “I’ll have to think on it. In the meantime, eat your stew. And tomorrow you can go down to visit your foster-family and friends again for the Autumn Festival. After that Nolan leaves for Morg City. Maybe by then I will have figured out a plan.”

They settled down and ate in silence for a while, Dunwolf as if he hoped to find counsel in each spoonful. After a while Koppa paused and looked up. He was done.

“It was good to see my father,” he said quietly. “Is that really how he looked?”

“Oh, yes,” the wizard replied, barely slowing down in his eating. “I gathered most of the images from the memories of survivors.”

“And my mother?”

Dunwolf stopped and looked at the boy.

“I can show you her as well,” he said gently. “But I must work on that a while.” He returned to his meal.

Koppa toyed with his finger on the table-top, thinking.

“I’d always heard that he was Lord of the Rhavenglast, but I’d never quite realized … I mean I never thought before you said it to the King … what does that make me?”

Dunwolf finished his last bite and pushed the bowl away, looking up at Koppa in compassion.

“A lost boy without family or inheritance. There are no Lords here anymore.” He reached over and gripped Koppa’s shoulder. “You have your own destiny to make now.”

Late that night, after all the candles were put out and the fires damped, Koppa lay in his bed with the sound of a dark wind in his ears, thinking. Eventually, he slept.       

NOTES

After I had transcribed our early Eighties effort Goldfire into computer files. I had a go at rewriting the story in a more mature style. I stopped after two chapters. This is the first.