Akatika's Legacy Read online

  The walk through the forest was cold and damp filling Gabby’s nose with the smell of mildew. Perhaps stale air was better than the rot of leaves and slime that always found its way onto the trees this time of year.

  The staleness of the air disappeared as Gabby walked past the last of the crooked dead apple trees and saw her leman standing there. Lafe Souter was the kind of boy who made hearts melt and hers did every time she saw him.

  He was tall with perpetually ruffled hair; the kind that looked like he was always running his hands through it. It wasn’t just brown hair it was the brown of rich ribbons of chocolate. Something so rare and decadent, she had to savor it nibble by nibble.

  His face could have been taken from one of the statues of any of the many of temples or shrines throughout Thoamira. Only the eyes were so soft, with the warmth of a gentile fire behind them. Well, the ever so slight bend in his nose from where he broke it last summer, also took away from the god like visage. But by Gabby’s estimates, one of the gods made this muscular boy, no this man, from some angel.

  “Are you wearing trousers?” Lafe said raising both eyebrows.

  He took in the sight of the girl he loved. She wasn’t a tall girl nor was she short. If Lafe had to think about it, he would say she was the height of a sixteen-year-old girl should be. He noticed, and not for the first time, how much of a very nicely rounded bottom she had. Maybe trousers weren’t such a bad thing on girls like everyone said.

  She seemed to glow to him, he didn’t know if it was the cream color of her skin or something else, but it was soft the way snow glowed both bright and dull at the same time. It complemented her copper-colored hair perfectly.

  “Yes, they are quite fashionable for adventuring, I hear.” Gabby replied.

  It was fashionable to wear trousers while out on an adventure. She was also wearing a tunic she had borrowed from her father’s shop the kind he sold to the guards. It was an undyed linen tunic and had several pockets on it. The kind of thing an adventurer would need. She had also procured some of Lafe’s boots on her way out of town, they didn’t fit so she had to stuff them with a rolled-up pair of socks.

  Adventurers always wore boots.

  “Anyway, I didn’t think you would come.” Gabby said.

  “I wasn’t going to let you come alone. This place is cursed, everyone knows it. Except, maybe you.” Lafe explained.

  “I know what everyone in town says, but what do they know. The monastery hasn’t had anyone in it for hundreds of years.”

  “Gabby, no one has been in it because it's cursed. So, get your look at it and let’s leave; it’s creepy here. I feel like something is watching us.”

  Gabby locked her deep green eyes with Lafe’s, “My sweet, strong, handsome Lafe, you’re not scared, are you?”

  “No. It’s late, is all, and I have a full day of cutting wood.”

  “I guess you should get back to bed we wouldn’t want you to be too tired, after all, it is just past the evening bell. You’ll have ten hours of sleep if you go back home now.” Gabby teased.

  “I’m not scared, the job is important, I have to make my own way pretty soon.” Lafe said as they started toward the imposing stone behemoth.

  After two hours and three laps around the monastery, it was clear the only way in was locked tight. They had searched high and low and found no cracks or holes in the walls.

  “You know, after a few hundred years of no upkeep there should be something in disrepair.” Gabby said as she sat on the ground. She was frustrated, there had to be a way in.

  “You think we could climb the wall?” she asked.

  “No. It angles out as it goes up and I can’t find any good handholds.”

  “I wish there was something, anything to get us in. This is so frustrating.”

  “Yeah, I guess we should get headed back home.” Lafe replied.

  Gabby laid back, then she saw it. A massive lone pine tree about fifteen feet from the side of the wall. The top swayed a bit as a gentle breeze tugged at it.

  “You’re not getting off easy, Muscles. I just found our way in.”

  “Wait, what? Muscles?” Lafe asked.

  “Yeah, you know, you’re all big and muscly. I’m trying to find you a good pet name.”

  “Keep looking, please. And just where is this way in?”

  Gabby pointed to the top of the tree.

  “That’s ridiculous. We can’t use the tree to get into it. No branches reach far enough.”

  “Oh, Muscles, we don’t need branches. All we have to do is climb to the top and make it lean to the point we are hanging over the top of the wall.”

  “Please, don’t call me that.” Lafe deadpanned.

  “Fine, but let’s get climbing.” Gabby said.

  Before Lafe could answer she was off at a run to the tree. She wasn’t going to let him back out of it now. Not when the real adventure was about to start.

  It would be like the Adventures of Alaric the Magician. Finding some treasure and artifacts in some lost and forgotten palace. But instead of a long-forgotten palace, it was an old supposedly cursed monastery.

  Gabby raised her eyebrow. “Lift me, my rugged hero.”

  “Rugged hero? Can’t reach the branches on your own, little squirrel?” Lafe quipped.

  Lafe hoisted her up to the lowest branch, again noticing how trousers on girls were a very good idea. As soon as Gabby pulled herself up and was steadied, he climbed up the side of the tree like a spider.

  Lafe stood on the branch next to hers. “You sure you want to do this?” he asked.

  “Yes. I do.” With that, she started climbing up the tree.

  The lower parts of the tree were an easy climb but once she got higher the branches were smaller and harder to stand on, but after a half hour, they were high enough in the tree it was leaning over the side of the wall.

  It was a seven-foot drop from the tree to the top of the wall. She wondered if she would hurt herself if she dropped from that height.

  She dismissed the thought. Adventurers are never worried about what is going to happen, they acted with confidence. If she was going to be the next great adventurer, then she would have to be a woman of action. She let go of the tree.

  Two seconds later she was rolling around on the top of the wall holding her ankle. Lafe, on the other hand, was now five feet away from the top of the wall and still on top of the tree.

  “Are you alright?” Lafe said with some panic in his voice.

  “Yes, I’m alright. I’ll open the gate for you.” She wasn’t about to let him know she twisted her ankle.

  “Okay, I don’t think I can make the jump. I’ll meet you at the gate.” He said as he started his descent.

  Gabby stood up hesitantly and began putting weight onto her foot. It was a bit sore, but nothing could slow her down. She wouldn’t wince at the pain, adventurers didn’t wince.

  She began to walk, with only a small limp, looking for a way down. Halfway around the wall, she found a switchback of wooden stairs. Rickety old stairs, each step looked to have about a hundred years of dry rot plaguing them.

  Adventurers are fearless. She told herself as she began the descent into the courtyard.

  Inside the courtyard loomed a billowy tree, filled with dark green leaves and an almost black bark. It wasn’t very tall, well for a tree anyway, only about twenty feet tall. The tree was wide, the widest she had ever seen. It had to be about fifteen feet wide at the trunk. The bark was dark it looked black from where she stood. Decidedly the strangest tree she had ever come across. Lafe could tell her more about it.

  To the north side of the courtyard was a stable yard with what looked to be the complete sets of about ten horses’ bones. Next to it abutting the east wall was a smithy with decades of rust sprawling over everything. Other than that, the courtyard was covered in long grass, which looked to have gone to seed, all the way to the main structure’s entrance.

  Was the door missing from the entrance? She thought as s
he stared at the south main building as she continued her descent.

  Snap!

  She fell the last three feet as her weight proved to be too much for the final few steps to hold. Rolling around on the ground she yelled, “This is not how adventures are supposed to start!”

  Lafe descended the tree with the same grace as he came up it. His arms felt shaky from the sway of the tree and nerves of leaving Gabby in the monastery alone. But there wasn’t anything in there, so she was fine, he told himself.

  He made his way to the front gate to wait for Gabby. It was an imposing beast of a gate. It looked to be iron but not a speck of rust on it. It wasn’t your normal iron bar gate but looked to be a solid slab of iron with small square divots running up the middle. It was embedded into the ground in the middle of the huge archway. The floor of the archway was the same iron looking metal but was a grate over moss covered flagstones.

  “Why would a monastery need this kind of a gate?” Lafe asked.

  The gate screeched as the heavy metal was lifted by archaic gears and pulleys. Deep gouges stretched down its surface where it sat for centuries settled against the grate on the ground.

  “This is really heavy. Please get in here.” Gabby groaned.

  Lafe darted in past her and took ahold of the ancient rope.

  “Do you see anything we can use to tie this off with?” Lafe asked.

  “Yes, it’s about an arm’s length away from you. There is a metal hook in the wall.”

  Gabby started to walk out of the small gatehouse as Lafe secured the gate. It was impossible to see the entrance to the main structure from her vantage point. But she remembered the general direction from when she was on top of the wall.

  Lafe caught up to her a few moments later and gasped.

  “Black Yew.” He said, all the color draining from his face. “Gabs, that’s a huge Black Yew tree.”

  “So…”

  “Gabby, I could buy a farm with a few branches from this tree. There would have to be a lot of branches, and large enough to turn or make bows with, but it’s worth a fortune.”

  “Why, it’s a big ugly tree?”

  “The wood doesn’t splinter and is really, really strong. So strong it’s used for armor in some places. A bow made from Black Yew is easily worth ten crowns, gold. Full crowns not chips. The throne in Thoam is made of it.”

  “Ten crowns for a log? Are you sure?”

  “Gabby, I know wood. I cut it down and haul it to carpenters all day. I heard some talking about it last year. Lord Clint sent a request for a Black Yew bow and the bowyer, then sent a request to the mill.”

  Lafe placed his hand on the tree as they walked up to it. A small smile on his face. “I might not have to be a woodcutter or take over my father’s boot making business after all. This tree could be our future, my love.”

  “Well, we’ve found the first piece of treasure on our adventure.” Gabby said with a smile. “Let’s go see what other treasures we find.”

  It took longer than Gabby expected to cross the remaining part of the courtyard. Everything had seemed so much smaller when she was up on the wall. She would have to remember that.

  They finally reached the entrance. One door was closed while the other hung off to the side and cracked. It was broken off the top hinges and stuck part way into the ground. The years of neglect solidifying a new housing in the dirt for the massive door.

  It was the creepiest place that Gabby had ever been. Inside the doorway was a mesh of white with impenetrable blackness behind, a solid wall of spider webs and the darkness of hundreds of forgotten years.

  “After you.” Gabby said waving her hand toward the door.

  “No, don’t be silly, ladies first.” Lafe replied with a small bow.

  “One of the first rules of adventuring is to always have a torch. I am not going in without one.”

  “And where are we going to get a torch?”

  “Lafe, this place has to have some or a lantern or something.”

  “They are all inside is my guess. So maybe we should come back later, with more supplies.” Lafe said uneasily.

  Gabby began looking around for something to use as a light source. Then started back toward the tree.

  “I know, let’s use some of the branches.” Gabby exclaimed.

  “Oh no. That’s like throwing gold into a river. It’s a waste. We can find something else, or we can come back with better supplies.” Lafe pleaded.

  “Fine, how about over in the smithy shop?”

  Lafe said nothing and had a clear look of annoyance on his face as they started toward what they assumed was the remains of a blacksmiths workshop.

  The orange and green somewhat anvil-shaped rust monument gave it away. It was the ruins of a blacksmiths shop for sure. Some sort of animal had made its home in the empty pile of barrels from the look of the matted down grass. Small wooden handles topped with various rusted shapes sat on the chipped stone workbench.

  In the corner was a stack of jute bags, the contents spilling out forming a pile of fine sand immediately in front of them. On the wall were several cracked and rotting leather aprons with heavy leather gloves poking from many of the pockets.

  Along the main wall that abutted the parameter wall was a huge stone forge. Too much time had passed and too much moisture had found its way down the chimney shoot. The forge was now a raised garden. Mostly with grass but from the smell wild mint was mixed in somewhere.

  An unusually smooth barrel in the corner had what they were looking for, staves. Undoubtedly the pile was going to be used for something much more exciting than torches.

  Gabby imagined spears and halberds being forged from them. Then she remembered this was a monetary and the staves were fated to be hoes, rakes, or spades. The mundane tools of non-adventuring types.

  A sigh escaped her mouth as she banished the thoughts of weapons and picked up a staff.

  “I found something we can use.” Gabby said glumly.

  “Alright, we can use some of the jute bags over there as wadding. I found some jars of oil and some wire that has not gotten too rusted. I think we have torches.” Lafe assessed.

  “Uh, how do we light them?” Gabby said brow wrinkled in concern.

  “They have a bunch of flint under some oil clothes on the workbench. I can use my knife and we have functioning torches.” Lafe said with a smile.

  It was so hard not to be happy with that shine in Gabby’s eyes. They always shined like that when she was about to get what she wanted.

  Gabby found an oiled leather satchel hanging from a hook overhead. She guessed it at one time housed some sort of rodent from the holes chewed in the sides. They were small holes and if she used one of the jute bags as a liner for it wouldn’t be an issue at all. With the torches that Lafe was constructing and the satchel she had procured, they were ready for a true adventure.

  She grabbed two of the staves in case there was some animal that had made residence in the abandoned halls of the monastery. If there are, they should be small. After all they had a hard-enough time getting in themselves.

  After a few minutes waiting for Lafe to finish the torches, they were again on their way.

  Chapter 2

  Lafe lit the torches at the entrance. Stretching his arm as far as he could in front of him, he burned a path through the webs and into the foyer. Spiders and other bugs popped as they fell pray to the torch’s fire.

  Gabby had not expected what lay before her in the faint torch light. The walls were not decorated with tapestries of religious things but were filled with paintings of what looked to be high born people. It was hard to tell with thick layers of dust and webs clinging to the canvas. Perhaps leaders of the monks’ order from throughout the years, she thought.

  Two benches lined the walls to the side of the foyer. Both in various stages of decomposition. To the side of each was a small table. The kind that rich nobles had to sit drinks on in their waiting rooms.

  At the end of the foyer
was the entrance to the main hall. It was lined with the remains of what looked to be a set velvet drapes. Their grandness destroyed by moths and insects over the past few hundred years, left only mostly dusty tattered strips.

  Grass grew for about three feet into the foyer. Wind had blown enough dirt in over the years to make an adequate home for seed to take root.

  The couple passed out of the foyer and into a cavernous hall. Gabby hadn’t found anything of interest to adventurers so naturally it was time to move deeper into the abandoned structure. Her heart pounded and hand shook each step deeper they went.