Chapter 6 The Black Lake

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Kaelen pulled the mare to a slow crawl.

There was a stone monolith standing right in the middle of the way.

It looked ancient and was cracked.

Carved into the face of the stone were rough, angular runes from old clans. These same markings, Kaelen had seen on the burial mounds of his ancestors in the far north.

"What does it say?" Peter leaned forward, squinting through the dim lantern light. "You can read the old tongue, right?"

Kaelen stared at the stone. His eyes traced the lines of the central rune.

"It says the living don't belong here," Kaelen said roughly. He snapped the reins again, refusing to let the horse idle near the stone. "It’s an old boundary marker. The clans put them up to warn people away from places where the earth went sour."

"Sour?" Peter asked.

"Sorcery," Kaelen said, pulling his fur collar higher up around his neck to block out the damp chill. "The kind that rots the soil and makes the water taste fowl. The alchemists call it a curse. I call it a nuisance."

They drove past the stone, the wagon wheels making a low, grinding sound. As soon as the stone fell behind them, the air changed again. The odd scent of green moss vanished, replaced by the scent of roses. It was sweet, and completely wrong for the middle of a wilderness like this.

Peter noticed it too, sniffing the air with a confused frown. "Roses? How is that possible? Nothing grows in the winter, especially not in here."

"Don't breathe it in too deep," Kaelen warned, pulling a piece of dry linen from his pocket and tying it around his nose and mouth. "Some old hags in the north used to brew a tea out of white briar that smelled exactly like this. Two sips and you’d sleep for three days. Three sips and they’d be burying you before sunrise."

Peter quickly pulled his collar up over his nose, nodding his head.

The trail took a shift to the left, dipping down into a shallow ravine where the twisted trees grew even denser. The roots rose out of the ground like skeletal ribs, forcing Kaelen to navigate the carriage with extreme caution. One wrong move and the carriage wheel would crack against the hardwood, leaving them stranded in the middle of the dark.

As they reached the bottom of the dip, the mare stopped dead in her tracks. She reared back slightly, tossing her head and letting out a sharp, panicked whinny.

"Whoa," Kaelen growled, standing up on the bench and leaning over the front rail. "Easy, girl. Keep Moving."

The horse refused, her legs trembling against the ground.

Kaelen reached down, unhooking the lantern from Peter’s feet and raising it high above his head. The yellow light cut through the green gloom, illuminating the path directly in front of the mare's nose.

The trail was gone.

In its place was a massive, black pool of stagnant water, stretching from one side of the ravine to the other. The surface was perfectly flat kind of like a sheet of dark glass, reflecting the gnarled branches above. But it wasn't frozen. Despite the bitter cold that numbed Kaelen's fingers, the water remained completely fluid, thick and dark like black crude oil.

"Is there a way to go around it," Peter asked. "The horse won't cross that. I wouldn't cross that." He mumbled.

Kaelen looked to the left, then to the right. The black trees were packed together like a solid wall of pikes. There was no room for a man to walk through, let alone a horse carriage.

"There is no way around it," Kaelen said. He set the lantern back down between Peter’s boots and climbed down from the driver's seat. His leather boots hit the ground with a soft thud.

He walked to the front of the mare, grabbing her bridle and rubbing his calloused hand down her nose to calm her twitching muscles. "Stay here, boy. And hold the reins."

Peter scrambled into Kaelen's seat, grabbing the leather straps with both hands, his eyes fixed on the dark water.

Kaelen drew his heavy steel dagger from his thigh, the blade coated in the same witch-bane as his axe. He walked to the very edge of the black pool, kneeling down in the snow. He lowered the tip of the blade into the water, watching for any reaction.

The moment the steel touched the surface, the water began to sizzle. A thin wisp of white smoke rose into the air, carrying the bitter stench of burning lead and crushed nightshade. The black liquid rippled away from the blade, clearing out for a few inches to reveal the stone lined floor of the path beneath.

Kaelen stood up, sheathing the blade. It wasn't a bottomless black river. It was an illusion, a shallow layer of magical fluid meant to look like an impassable lake.

"It’s just a parlor trick," Kaelen called back to Peter. He grabbed the horse’s bridle again, pulling her forward with his brute strength. "The water isn't deep. It’s barely past the ankles. Drive her through."

"Are you sure?" Peter asked aloud, his eyes widening as the mare’s front hooves touched the edge of the black pool.

"Drive her, or would you like me to throw you in the water first," Kaelen barked.

Peter snapped the reins, and the horse, trusting Kaelen's grip on her bridle, stepped into the black water.

The liquid splashed against Kaelen’s boots, hissing and popping against the leather, but the witch-bane all over his boots kept the acid from eating through to his skin. The wagon wheels followed.

They moved slowly through the pool, the water never rising past Kaelen’s shins. The silence of the forest seemed to intensify with every step they took, the gnarled branches above leaned lower, their green sap dripping into the black pool with soft glups.

When they finally reached the opposite bank, the mare scrambled up onto the dry ground, shaking her wet legs with a loud snort. Kaelen climbed back onto the driver’s bench, his boots dripping the black slime onto the floorboards. He took the reins back from Peter.

“Impressive, Hunter,” The witch's voice returned, drifting through his mind, making him flinch a little. “Most men turn back at the water. They see their own fears reflected in the dark and run home to their warm fires. But you... you just keep coming.”

Kaelen didn't try to answer her in his head. He simply gripped the reins tighter, his eyes focused on the dark trail ahead.

His mind was locked onto the mountain of gold waiting for him at the end of all this. If she wanted to scare him off, she would have to try a lot harder than that.

Plus he planned on getting back at her one way or the other and surely she wasn't going to like what happens to her when he gets his hands on her. So she better hide well.