Eternal Darkness (The Cimmerian Cycle #1)

Chapter 19

“There was once a beautiful maiden;” she spoke quietly, “her skin was as pale as the moon and her golden hair fell past her knees. The lord of her village wanted her to be his bride. However the maiden only had eyes for her geese. She would spend her days with the birds and sleep with them at night. They were her children and family. The lord, feeling jealous of the birds’ ability to win over the heart of the beautiful maiden, shot the geese down. The girl mourned their loss and would not speak to anybody. She spent her days by the goose pond. Thinking that the maiden still had some geese to keep her company the lord set about sneaking down to her pond. He mistook the girl for a goose and shot her through the heart. Only when the arrow pierced her chest and the blood seeped down her body had he realised what he had done. He had committed a great sin. Feeling that there was no place for him now that the goose maiden was dead, he struck himself through the heart.”

She finished the story, her throat feeling raw. The others had their usual discussion of what the story meant as she crawled into her bedroll. That one story had always been a sad one for Kiayani. She felt sorry for the goose girl who was so wrongly killed. With a painful lurch of her stomach she realised that that story was the last one ever told to her by her mother. Pushing the memories aside she tried to bully herself to sleep. And when she finally did she dreamt that she was the goose girl and her father was the lord who shot her through the heart.

When they stopped to camp after another few hard hours of riding, it was because the ground had become much steeper and the horses were struggling. They stopped in a large clearing, on one side was the forever looming forest, on the other was a large rock face. While collecting firewood Kiayani found something very odd.

“Hey Leo,” she called out loudly.

He came jogging up to her, “Yeah?”

“I think I found a cave,” she said pointing to the crevice in the rocks that she had spotted further down.

“I think you might be right,” he said, his eyes widening, “take the wood back to camp and then maybe we can ask Koran if we can go check it out.”

Leo had been in a good mood the last few days. The cut across his cheek had finally closed over and the bruises were beginning to fade from his skin.

The two of them jogged back and while Kiayani deposited the wood by the fire Leo asked Koran.

He came back with a grin across his face and a torch in his hand, “Let’s go.”

They rushed off, the prospect of being able to have a good look at a cave prompting them to go faster. Kiayani was glad that Leo was still happy to be friends with her. When they found the crevice again, Leo switched on the flashlight with a click and had a quick look inside.

“Seems safe enough,” he said.

Slowly they both slid through the crack in the rock face and they found themselves in a large cavern. Leo beamed the light around.

“Wow,” said Kiayani under her breath.

She was admiring all of the strange rock formations that protruded from the floor and ceiling. Leo cursed quietly.

“We should show the others,” Kiayani said.

“Yeah,” said Leo enthusiastically, “I’m sure they’d love to see this.”

They slid back out of the cave and walked back to camp discussing their find.

“The roof must have been at least 20 feet,” said Leo.

“Did you see those rocks growing from the ceiling?” she asked.

“Yeah and what about those ones that grew up?” he said.

When they found the others sitting around the fire the both quickly explained what they had seen and they seemed just as excited to see the cave as they were.

The twins had the hardest time squeezing through the crevice. Mik and Koran had no problem entering the cave. They all had their own gasps of amazement and patted Kiayani on the back for such a good find.

Because they had all been distracted by the cave they had forgotten to catch anything so they had to eat leftovers instead. They heated the meat from the night before over the crackling flames and ate hungrily. After they had eaten they all fell into sleep very quickly and had dreams about giant caves that went on forever or about meat which could talk.

They rose from their bedrolls with little or no hassle and were riding again within the hour. Now that they were in the mountains Koran no longer used his compass, rather he rode in the lead, his eyes glued to the tallest peak in the horizon.

Kiayani could feel that the days left in their journey were numbered as they drew closer to the mountain peaks.

They were riding along the base of another cliff face, the trees of the forest no longer visible when Leo spotted something that was not rock. Feeling curious, they dismounted, tied their horses up and wandered over to it. As they approached it they saw that it was some kind of wooden hut. Koran held up his hand to stop them moving.

“I’ll go ahead,” he said, his eyes fixed on the hut, “You lot wait here.”

He crept forward with his hand on the hilt of his knife. They all flattened themselves against the rock that hid the hut, waiting for Koran’s signal. They waited with baited breath, all very aware of any sound, no matter how insignificant. Every crunch of a leaf or crackle of rock being broken underfoot was magnified a hundred times louder.

“It’s empty,” Koran called out.

They all rushed forward to see him stick his head inside the door frame.

“There is no one home,” he said, “By the looks of it this place has been empty for a while.”

They all gave sighs of relief and curiously Kiayani peered through one of the tiny windows. She couldn’t see in because of the build-up of grime that covered the entire surface of glass. With a loud creak Koran swung the door fully open. With the boys and Kiayani’s eyes on him he walked on inside. Kiayani followed him in, her hands on the straps of her pack.

The room wasn’t very big, only a few of her steps across. Inside the wooden walls and beneath the metal roof was a small bed pushed up against the back wall and like in the poachers huts there was a simple table and chair. Those two pieces of furniture took up most of the space and Kiayani went out almost straight away so that the others could have a look. While they had a good look around for anything salvageable Kiayani sat down on the gravel outside. She could hear them talking in whispers. The twins came out next; it was obvious that they would be taking up a lot of the limited space. Yulan pulled out his sling and started practising to pass time. Rute sat down next to Kiayani and together they watched him bounce countless stones off of a small tree trunk. After he had slung about twenty stones the others re-appeared.

“We are going to stay here the night,” Koran announced to Kiayani and the twins, “We found some documents that might give us some information about this shack.”

The others all nodded and Rute and Yulan went with Mik to fetch the horses. Koran walked over to Kiayani, his shoes crunching the gravel beneath his feet. She stood up so that he would not have to crouch down.

“Kiayani can you come inside with me?” he asked her.

“Of course,” she said pushing a stray stand of hair back behind her ear.

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