Ari saw the look in Jarvis’ face and was a little concerned that the other boy would ignore the warning and just keep going. But he did stop, and he even took a step back, giving Ari room to pull himself to his feet.
“The fight’s not over yet,” said Jarvis.
“For once, I think you might be right.” Ari brought a finger to his lip, tasting copper from the spot he’d bit down on when Jarvis had tripped him.
Without another word, Jarvis returned to sitting in the kellowack and staring forward impassively. Kerys took Ari by the hand and forcefully pulled him off to the other side of the encampment.
“We should keep our distance from him,” she said. “At least for now. He seems a little unhinged.”
“You don’t say?” Ari flashed a smile at her. “What gave it away? The crazy look in his eyes, or the fact that he picked a fight like he was two pitchers deep into root ale?”
“I’m serious, Ari,” said Kerys. “I think whatever happened last night might have… changed him.”
Ari nodded slowly. He’d actually been having similar thoughts about himself and his own behavior. It wasn’t anything as drastic as whatever Jarvis had been through, but encountering the fishers, and more importantly, realizing how easily the monsters could kill him or Kerys, had triggered a resolve that he hadn’t previously known.
“What’s your take on the rest of this?” asked Ari, in a lower voice. “Jed and the rest of his survivors. Do you trust them?”
“Not entirely,” said Kerys. “But I think we’ll be safer here than we would be out on our own.”
Jed called the two of them over, and they took a seat around the fire after pulling their own rations out to share, as requested. Ari still had a few pounds of dried foodstuff left, and though it wasn’t all that much split between the entire camp, it wouldn’t have been that much for just him and Kerys, either. At least this way, they’d have allies to fight against the monsters with and actually stand a chance at dying of starvation instead.
The soup was surprisingly tasty. It had a thick broth and chunks of root vegetables and a meat called “venison,” according to Jed. They ate it out of thin bowls crafted from outer halves of a large fruit that Ari didn’t recognize.
“We’ll head out to do some hunting and foraging as soon as we’re done eating,” said Jed. “But first, here. Let me introduce you to one of the perks of the surface.”
He pulled a small stick of tightly wrapped green leaves out of the inside pocket of his tunic and carefully held one end of it to the fire. Ari raised an eyebrow, sniffing as he watched Jed bring the stick to his lips and inhale.
“Is that…?” he started to ask.
“Sarkin flower,” replied Jed, as he exhaled smoke into the air. “It grows everywhere out here. No need for glowmoss and careful watering like down in the caverns. It’s basically a weed, it’s so common.”
Jed offered the smoke stick to him. Ari hesitated before accepting it, catching Kerys’ disapproving frown.
“Maybe later,” he said. As much as the stimulating effects might have helped him, there was also a risk of it affecting his judgement, and that was the last thing he needed.
“Suit yourself,” said Jed. He passed it to Smalls instead, who took a massive inhalation.
They finished eating, and Jed waved for Ari to follow him.
“We could use your help,” said Jed. “We’re not bad at hunting, but it’s a pain carrying the meat back to camp without extra hands.”
“That’s fine,” said Ari. “We can do that.”
“Your friend should probably hang back,” said Jed. “Normally, we wouldn’t risk hunting on a day like today, but we’ve fallen out of our routine recently and our food stocks have suffered.”
“A day like today?” he asked.
Jed gestured to the sky. There were a few dark clouds arrayed across the beautiful expanse of blue, just enough to hint at the possibility of rain.
“If we get caught out when it starts to come down, we’ll be in trouble,” said Jed. “Even if it’s just a light drizzle, that might be it. Trust me, you don’t want to have to worry about running from the fishers and protecting someone that can’t fight.”
Ari frowned. “We’ve stuck together so far. I don’t see any reason for us to stop.”
“She’ll be safe, here,” said Jed. “Not just because of the fence. When the fishers come, we have a climbing route that takes us midway up the cliff face. They don’t seem to like coming after us when we’re up there.”
Ari furrowed his brow and looked at Kerys. She gave him a small shrug.
“It does make sense for me to stay,” she said. “At least for now. I think I’ll be okay.”
“What about Jarvis?” asked Ari. “I don’t like the idea of leaving you here at the campsite with him while he’s this unbalanced.”
“Ingrid will be watching over things while we’re gone,” said Jed. “She’ll make sure no harm comes to your friend. And we won’t be going too far.”
Ari was still unsure, but Kerys seemed comfortable enough with the arrangement. He hesitated for another moment before giving a slow nod.
“Fine,” he said. “Be careful, Kerys.”
She met his gaze, and an understanding passed between them. She would be on guard, and so would he.
CHAPTER 13
Ari, Jed, and another survivor by the name of Kevo headed out of the encampment and down the meandering trail that crisscrossed the slope. Ari was the only one without a bow, though he still carried his knife. He quickly got into the habit of keeping the other two in front of him, though he still hoped that his suspicions were unfounded.
“We’ll spread out along the river,” said Jed. “Ari, you can just focus on gathering fruit and berries for now. If you see a deer, or a pig, feel free to try to take it down if you can get close. Meet up back here in an hour.”
“What’s a deer?” asked Ari.
“One of the brown ones with the long legs and horns,” said Jed.
“Got it,” he said.
They split up, and Ari slowly made his way south along the river, searching the trees and nearby foliage for any sign of animals to hunt. He didn’t see much and wondered if maybe the sarkin flower would have made a difference, after all.
He kept going, putting a decent amount of distance between himself and their meetup point. The river was a rather impressive natural feature, and a number of smaller streams fed into it, strengthening and deepening its waters.
Ari split off to follow one of those secondary streams and found himself staring at an odd rock formation in the distance. It seemed as though the small stream had once been a much grander entity, powerful enough to have shaped and smoothed the stone around it.
He walked between the river and the stones, spotting a dark section that looked like the entrance to a cave. He drew closer, making out more detail as his eyes adjusted to the light. It was a cave, but a small one lacking any crevices leading deeper underground, unlike the caverns he’d grown up in.
The interior was far more spacious than the kellowack that he and Kerys had shared, and was occupied in a far more grisly fashion. An ancient corpse lay near the center of the cave, reduced to skeletal remains over decades, if not centuries, of gradual decay.
Ari hesitated before drawing closer to it, feeling a stab of unease. The skeleton still wore clothing, despite having no flesh to speak of. The clothes were faded and strange looking, with expensive embroidery and patches of once elegant fabric.
“You don’t look like a victim of the monsters,” muttered Ari. “You look like you died a more peaceful death.”
He crouched next to the bones, considering what to do. He had no interest in looting clothing off a corpse, even a long dead one. Something about it just felt wrong.
A small, gleaming rock protruded out from one of the corpse’s skeletal bones. Ari reached a finger out and tried to pull it loose, only to find that it was attached to something larger, something heavy enough to
resist the tug of his arm.
He considered the situation for a moment before carefully moving the skeletal remains aside and giving it another try. The gleaming rock appeared to be a sapphire, and it was a part of a handle. Ari dug through the dirt to free more of the object underneath, finally pulling it loose.
It was an ancient sword covered with dirt and closed into its scabbard. It was a few inches longer than a weapon that could be comfortably wielded in one hand, and two buckles on the scabbard suggested that it had once had a shoulder strap to hang from.
Ari took a firm hold of the sword, which had a handle tightly wrapped in strips of strange black leather. He tried to pull it free from the scabbard, gently at first, and then with all his strength. The weapon refused to come loose. There was enough rust around the dirty copper cross-guard to make him wonder if the sword and scabbard hadn’t fused together over the years.
Still, it was something. He couldn’t see much use for it, but it felt comfortable in his hands. The idea of leaving it behind seemed patently wasteful, so he carried it at his side as he left the cave and started to make his way back toward the meeting point.
“That’s a Saidican weapon,” said Jed, once Ari had met back up with the others. “A greatsword, if I’m not mistaken. Would be quite the find if it wasn’t in such a bad state.”
“Saidican?” asked Ari. “As in, from the Saidican Empire? Isn’t that just a fable?”
“Most certainly not,” said Jed. “Though given some of the legends I’ve heard about their mystical ways, I thought the same thing. There are ruins of their cities all over the place. They once ruled this continent, back before the monsters took it over.”
“Ruins?” asked Ari. “Are there any nearby?”
“I’ll show you tomorrow, if there’s time,” said Jed. “We don’t often go into the ruins, as there are some… strange things that reside within. But a single glance of them is all you need to understand that the rumors of the greatness of the Sai cannot be overstated. Even just the rotted bones of their civilization are still an impressive sight.”
The other survivor, Kevo, had managed to snag a small boar, and he passed it around so each of them could take a turn carrying the heavy carcass as they headed back up the slope. Ari ran his thumb over the pommel stone of his prize, fascinated by how flawless the sapphire still was after so much time.
He realized that something was wrong as soon as he stepped through the encampment’s crude gate. Kerys was nowhere to be seen, and none of the other survivors would look at him.
“Kerys?” he called. “Kerys!”
He sprinted forward, ignoring Jed’s plea for him to calm down. He heard a soft, feminine cry come from off to the side of one of the larger lean-tos against the cliff face. Ari rounded the corner of it to find Kerys with her back against the wall, cringing as Smalls attempted to pull her dress up.
“Just let me see…” said Smalls. “You have such a nice body. I’ll be gentle.”
Ari dropped the greatsword and stepped forward. The weapon might have still been useful as a bludgeon, even in its scabbard, but he preferred to do what he was about to do with his bare hands.
He wrapped an arm around Smalls’ neck before the big man sensed his presence and squeezed tight enough to make him sputter. Jed called out, and Ari heard footsteps approaching from behind him. He twisted his arm and threw Smalls to the ground, kicking him hard in the ribs. He still had his shoes on, which for once he was glad for.
“Ari!” shouted Jed. “Hey! Take it easy. We’re all on the same side.”
“That’s two fights he’s been in since he got here,” said one of the other survivors. “I say we throw him out. He’s not like us, anyway.”
“Neither is the kid we found last night,” said Jed. “But we’ll make it work.”
“Not like you?” asked Ari. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
Jed glanced around at a few of the other survivors, including Ingrid and Smalls, before giving a small shrug.
“We weren’t Chosen,” said Jed. “The hollow that most of us are from has… other reasons for throwing people out.”
Ari stepped closer to Kerys. They had their back to the cliff face, and he couldn’t help but notice how the survivors had moved to form a semi-circle around them. Jarvis was standing with them and seemed intent on making the side he was on clear.
“You’re exiles, then,” said Ari. “Or criminals.”
“Yeah,” said Jed. “But we’re not bad people. Trust me, we’re not. There’s no need for you to do anything rash just because Smalls got a little handsy with your female friend, there.”
“I’m not done with her yet,” said Smalls.
“Yes you are, Smalls,” said Jed.
“No.” Smalls took a step forward, pulling a stone knife from his belt. “I’m not. And you ain’t gonna stop me from finishing, you pissfuck.”
“Smalls!” snapped Jed, pulling his bow.
A few of the other survivors also pulled weapons, and everyone glanced around, as though waiting for a signal to begin the chaos. It came in the form of a silver flash in the distance, followed by deep, resonate boom.
“Thunder…” muttered Jed. “Dormiar’s blood, it’s going to rain! Close the gate!”
CHAPTER 14
The speed at which the situation devolved from bad, to worse, to complete madness, would have been impressive to Ari if the circumstances hadn’t been so dire. Most of the survivors ran around screaming as the rain began to come down in heavy, relentless sheets.
Jed was shouting, but his voice was barely audible over the cacophony of panic and chaos. Ari held the greatsword in one hand and Kerys’ wrist in the other as they sprinted toward the encampment’s gate. He only slowed to scoop up his pack, which he’d left near the campfire, and to loop his arms through the shoulder straps. He came up short when he saw the first of the fishers approaching up the slope outside.
“The cliffs!” shouted Kerys. “We can climb up them, like Jed said!”
Ari nodded, and they spun around to run in the other direction. A few of the other survivors were already scrambling their way up. Ari found a few handholds as they slid to a stop at the base of the cliff, then frowned as he watched one of the climbers above him let out a shout and throw himself into the open air.
There was another fisher above them, at the top of the cliff. It was hard to make out through the rain, but the scream that left one of the survivor’s mouths as the monster used its long tentacles to pry them free from the cliff was sharp and clear. The survivor struggled, and the fisher barely seemed to notice as it carried them up and over the edge of the cliff. The screams took on a different quality, desperate and choked with wet gurgling noises.
“We can hold out!” screamed Jed. “We just have to work together as a—”
One of the fishers vaulted over the encampment’s gate, using its tentacles to propel itself into a lunge. It seized Jed in mid-sentence and sank its mouth into his shoulder and neck. Ari blinked, momentarily dazed by the horrible image. The fisher’s mouth had a disturbing aspect to it, its jaws opening in four directions like one of the paper fortune tellers that the kids in the Hollow used to play with.
“Aristial!” Kerys dug her fingers into his arm, and he snapped out of it. He pulled her into motion, running at a speed that she could only keep up with by being half dragged along.
Ari set both his hands on the greatsword as they approached the fence. He swung the weapon in its scabbard, striking down on the wood of the flimsy barrier. One of the posts tipped sideways slightly and then broke completely as he barreled through it with his shoulder.
Kerys was still close behind him, and he laced his fingers through hers as they sprinted down the slope at full tilt. The rain made the ground muddy underneath their feet, and every new sound caused them to flinch and stumble.
They were being chased. He didn’t have to look behind him to know it. He could feel the pressure of the attention of the monsters like a ph
ysical thing. The heavy weight of their predatorial focus. The slowly diminishing stretch of ground between them and their prey.
“Kerys!” shouted Ari. “Hang onto me!”
He pulled her tight against his chest as they reached the bank of the river, which was churning white from the sudden inflow of storm water. Kerys screamed as they fell forward into its depths. Ari kept a tight hold of both her and the greatsword and kicked his legs hard to keep their heads above the water’s surface.
They were swept along by the current at a frightening speed. Ari did what he could to keep their course from shifting toward rocks and other debris, but he wasn’t a trained swimmer, and his efforts only went so far. Especially as he had to account for the extra weight of his pack, the greatsword, and Kerys.
A large tree had fallen into the water ahead of them, and it spun in slow circles as it hurtled downstream. Ari briefly considered trying to pull himself and Kerys onto it before realizing that it would be far too dangerous to attempt.
Kerys coughed, spitting up river water onto Ari’s face and shoulder. Something splashed in the water behind them. Ari glanced back in time to see a fisher breaching the water’s surface, its tentacles pumping in unison to propel it toward them.
Fisher. Ari had never stopped to consider why Jed, or Old Man Leon, or whoever had coined the term had chosen it. The fisher looked more comfortable in the water than it did on land.
Ari gritted his teeth in frustration as it dove back underwater. He couldn’t escape the terror twisting through its bowels as he considered how easy it would be for the monster to pull them to their deaths.
The fallen tree snagged against a rock. Ari and Kerys were still being swept toward it, and he decided that it was as much of a sign as anything could be that it was time for them to get out of the water. He slipped an arm under Kerys’ shoulder and used all the strength he could muster to pull himself halfway onto the log.
“Ari!” screamed Kerys. “My leg! It’s—”
Her words were cut off as her head disappeared under the water’s surface. Ari’s arm wasn’t enough to keep her with him, and he grasped ineffectively into the river at where she’d just been, shouting wordlessly in despair.
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