Uneltemus

ELINA RAN AFTER HENGE, who crashed through the undergrowth ahead, clearing a path uphill. The golems they had been running from for the past two days crested a hill behind them. They had run into the monsters on the road about halfway between Brimir and Uneltemus. They'd almost made it past the group without being seen, but then a golem scout had spotted them and warned its companions. They had been fleeing ever since.

Her legs burned from the exertion. "I don't know how long I can keep this up," she gasped.

She crested the hill; Uneltemus lay in the vale below. The road wound around the foot of the hill, and from there straight to the grey stone walls of the city. This close to Uneltemus, the forest gave way to fields of rye and apple orchards.

"We're almost there," Finn puffed. "We're safe if we make it to Uneltemus."

Elina groaned. "I can't run all the way there!"

"I'll carry you." Henge picked her up and barreled down the hill. Elina dodged the branches that flew past her face, and Finn followed in their wake.

A realization struck Elina. "How are you escaping the golems?" she asked Henge.

"If we find you a place to hide, then I can outrun them and draw them along." Henge reached the bottom of the hill. He jumped a ditch to the road, and continued running.

Finn came up next to them. He pointed ahead. "We'll hide in the hamlet there."

‘Hamlet’ seemed too grand a name for the group of hovels they approached. A handful of grass-roofed houses lay scattered on either side of the road, brushwood fences separating their vegetable gardens. In an orchard in the distance, villagers picked bright red apples. Toddlers played a game of rocks by the roadside; a woman hung her washing while watching over them.

"Get inside!" Elina shouted as they ran past. "We're under attack!"

The woman looked up, and started when she saw Henge. She ran to the road, grabbed two of the kids by their arms, and dragged them inside. The rest scattered. In a moment, the hamlet was deserted.

A curve in the road hid them from the pursuing golems. Henge put Elina down. "Thanks," she said between breaths. She stroked Henge's chin. "Be careful."

"Don't worry about me," Henge said. "I can outdistance them easily."

"We'll meet you back here at nightfall tomorrow, then."

Henge nodded and ran off.

Elina ran towards the nearest house and hunkered down between a rain barrel and a pile of firewood; Finn collapsed next to her, panting. He had kept up with Henge, but the last stretch of road had really taken its toll. They could just see the road past the rain barrel. Henge was jogging leisurely along the road. The golems rounded the curve, and put on an extra burst of speed when they saw Henge. They would catch him any moment. Elina grabbed her staff and made to rise; she couldn't let Henge face them alone.

Henge accelerated when the golems were only a few dozen paces away. The distance between him and the golems grew again, slowly at first, but then faster and faster. The golems ran after him without any regard for their surroundings. Henge had been luring them along, bless him. She hoped he would look after himself and not get overconfident and let himself be caught.

Elina looked down at Finn. His breathing had steadied. "Ready to move?" she asked.

Finn pushed himself up. "I'm good to go. But let's give those golems a bit longer to get away from here. I don't want to meet them without Henge nearby."

They waited until Henge and the golems had disappeared. Nothing moved on the road. Straightening her pack, Elina set off towards the walls of Uneltemus on the horizon. She kept close to the edge of the road so she could hide if she saw a sign of the golems. The walls crawled closer. Elina kept glancing over her shoulder; she wondered where Henge was, and if he was okay.

They were perhaps a thousand paces away from Uneltemus when Elina heard the noise she'd been dreading behind her: a crunch like a boulder rolling through shrubs. The golems were on the road a stone's throw behind them. "Run!" Finn shouted. He sprang in motion beside her.

Elina ran after him. The walls came closer, even as the noise from the golems grew more deafening by the second. As they approached the main gate of Uneltemus, she glanced over her shoulder. The golems had closed half the distance. She wasn't going to make it—the gate was still too far away. She willed her burning legs to move faster. Any second now, one of them would grab her shoulder and pull her down.

A horn wailed atop the city gate. In response, a group of cavalry sprang out of the shadows near the gatehouse. The thunder of hooves filled the air as the riders raised their war hammers. The horses galloped past, the wind of their passing stirring Elina's hair. She kept running as the crash of weapons went up behind her.

Only when she arrived at the gate did she look back. She leaned on her knees and gasped for breath. The fight was over; the golems lay broken on the road, together with several horsemen. The remaining riders had dismounted and were examining the golems.

Finn leaned against the gate next to her, catching his breath. He looked at a guard standing in front of the gate. "Thank you for the rescue," he said in between breaths. "Your timing was fortunate."

The guard nodded to them. "We spotted the monsters moving through the countryside earlier this morning. We have a few units out searching for them. But we suspected that they might show up here sooner or later, so we prepared a sortie."

Elina thought of Henge. Hopefully he would be able to avoid the patrols, as well as any remaining golems.

"That's some forward planning," Finn said.

"These monsters are easy to take care of with a bit of planning and belief in the cause," the guard said.

"It helped that there were only a few of them," Finn said.

The guard made a dismissive gesture. "If there are more of them, then we just send more soldiers."

Elina changed the topic. "Can you give us directions to the Inquisitional Library?"

The guard eyed their weapons. "Interesting scholars."

Finn laughed. He pointed at the golems lying in the road. "It's a dangerous world out there."

The guard smiled. "It is indeed. Head up the main road until you come to an inn called the Sober Scholar. Take a left there, and you'll run into the library. Can't miss it."

––––––––

ELINA STRODE THROUGH the doors of the Inquisitional Library, Finn at her side, leaving the hubbub of the city behind them. Vast shelves full of books lined the walls from floor to ceiling; four levels of walkways, supported by white marble columns, ran along the shelves. Daylight shone in through skylights in the domed ceiling high above. In a corner on the far side of the hall, two scholars sat hunched over a thick tome. The whole place exuded tranquility.

A man came striding towards them; he wore a brown robe that dragged along the paved floor. "Welcome," he whispered. His bushy eyebrows gave him a haunted look. "I am Sten, the librarian on duty today. How may I be of assistance?"

"We've come from Pythia," Elina said. "We're working on a treatise on the Ochloroc. We would like to go through your original sources."

The librarian raised his eyebrows. "Why come here, then? The library in Pythia has much better access to material on the Ochloroc than we do."

Elina stifled a curse. She hadn't considered that.

"All that has already been extensively studied," Finn cut in. "We hope to find some new material in your older sources."

"I see," the librarian said. "We do have some unique works from the last age. May I see your permit from the Inquisitional Institute of Information?"

"Our what?" Finn said.

"I take that to mean you have none," Sten said sadly. "To access the older sources, including those that haven't been translated yet, you need a research permit from the Institute of Information. I can help you petition them. You should have your permission in a week or two."

"Why do we need permission to check out untranslated works?" Elina asked.

"It is believed that they contain forbidden Manhir knowledge," the librarian said. "The Institute wants to maintain control over who can attempt to translate the texts."

"What a unique history you have here in the library," Elina said. "How do you catalogue such unreadable texts?"

The librarian's face lit up. "It's a challenge for sure. We have two sections." The librarian pointed with his hands to the top walkways on either side of the hall. "On one side, we have the works that have completely unknown content. They are simply ordered alphabetically, where possible. On the other side there are the works we know a bit about, for instance, based on drawings. Those are sorted and catalogued on subject first, together with the other ancient works."

"Fascinating," Elina said fervently. Finn started fidgeting. Elina shot him a stern look.

"Indeed," the librarian said. "I believe we're close to unlocking the key to reading those texts. Who knows what knowledge they hold of Ragnarok?"

"For now, can you bring us some works on the Ochloroc that we can access?" Elina asked. "We can start with those and use that knowledge to make a detailed permit request."

"A wise decision indeed," the librarian said. "Take a seat." He pointed at a table in an alcove in the wall. "I'll bring you a selection of our best works."

Elina took a seat. Finn sat down across the table from her.

"What was that all about?" Finn asked. "Whatever he brings, I'm sure it will be useless. And we don't have time to chit-chat or to wait two weeks for a permit."

"We need a believable story," Elina said, "and we learned something."

"You mean the fact that the librarian likes cataloguing old books?"

Elina chuckled. "That too, yes. But that's not what I meant." She pointed to the top walkway. "We know that the books we're after are up there."

"Clever. Now all we need to do is find a way to get to them."

The librarian arrived with a stack of books. After he left, Elina took the top tome from the stack. "That's your expertise," she said. "You've got a whole day here to figure it out. In the meantime, we'll go through these works to see if there's anything useful."

They spent the rest of the day working through the various books the librarian had brought. They contained stories and Inquisition propaganda written centuries after the Ochloroc had last been seen. There was no useful information about how to fight the Ochloroc. They retired to the Sober Scholar, where they had taken their lodgings, as the sun neared the western horizon.

––––––––

LATE THAT NIGHT, THEY returned to the library. Finn led the way to the alley at the side of the building. The ornamental ledges and pillars offered plenty of handholds as they made their way up the side. Finn removed a few slate roof tiles to let them climb unimpeded up the pointed roof towards the dome; there, they edged along the outside of the dome until they stood on the side where the librarian had indicated the oldest works to be. Finn made short work of the window lock, and a moment later they stood on the top walkway of the library.

"You start at the other end," Elina whispered. "I'll start here. Wave me over if you find a promising section."

Finn hurried off. Elina stalked along the shelves, her hooded lantern raised high. She ran her hand over the spines of the books. There was so much knowledge here, all neatly labelled and catalogued. So much knowledge had been lost during Ragnarok... and now they were facing another Ochloroc war.

She shook her head. Now was not the time to get melancholic. She forced herself to focus on the labels on the shelves. There were books on art and metaphysics, on religion and geography. She made her way along the rows of books. Finally, she spotted a label that looked promising: Ochloroc.

"Finn." She waved at her companion. "I've got something."

Finn hurried over. As he did so, he bumped into a lectern. It wobbled, and Finn threw his arms around it before it fell over. The book that lay on top of it, however, slipped off and tumbled to the library floor far below. The bang as it hit the floor was deafening in the dark library. Finn and Elina knelt, hiding from anyone below them. She held her breath, hoping no one had heard the book fall.

A door opened down below. Light from a lantern shone on the floor.

"We've got to hurry," Finn whispered.

"What do we take?" Elina asked. "We can't take all of them!"

A shout went up below. "Who's there? Reveal yourself!" The book had been spotted.

"Just pick whatever seems most promising."

Elina grabbed two tomes, each as thick as her fist, from the shelves. Finn grabbed four thinner ones from a lower shelf. When Elina raised an eyebrow at him, he whispered, "Easier to carry."

Footsteps came up the stairs at the far end of the hall.

"Time to leave." Finn ran, hunched over, to the open window. He climbed through and reached back to take the thick tomes Elina handed to him, then helped her through the window. Finn lowered a rope, and together they fled into the night.

––––––––

ELINA WAS WOKEN THE next morning by a commotion. A press of people moved through the street past the Sober Scholar. "Damn city dwellers," she muttered. She splashed water in her face to wake fully and headed downstairs in search of breakfast.

The common room was light and airy. Finn was already sitting at a table in the corner, eating a bowl of porridge. Two guests sat at the bar, having a quiet discussion. The room smelled of fresh rushes. Elina sat down opposite Finn as the innkeeper wandered over to take her order.

"What's all the excitement outside about?" Elina asked after ordering.

The innkeeper bobbed up and down. "We're going to war! The troops are assembling outside the walls, and people want to see the spectacle!"

Finn looked up from his porridge. "War? Against who?"

"Haven't you heard?" the innkeeper gasped, scandalized.

Elina shook her head. "We were in the library all day yesterday."

"The day we've been preparing for has come," he said. "The Ochloroc have returned. They're on their way here. Now we'll wipe them from the face of the Earth once and for all."

"You sound confident," Finn said.

"We've got the gods on our side," the innkeeper replied. "Our troops eradicated their vanguard yesterday near the gates. And today reinforcements from Brimir have arrived! The Inquisition is showing its might." The innkeeper walked off to get Elina's order.

Finn leaned forward. "They're going to be slaughtered."

She nodded. "We saw what happened to Sleiptalen. We should leave before they get here."

"We can't just let it happen," Finn said.

"You're crazy. You saw how excited the innkeeper was. They'll never listen to us, no matter how sound our advice."

"We've got to try. It's a win even if they just prepare a little better."

The innkeeper returned with Elina's porridge. She found she was no longer hungry. The porridge tasted like mud as they ate in silence.