by David Adams
“Nor would elves,” Xanar added.
“I know,” Uesra said. “I just want her to be ready when the time comes, for her own sake. And each passing day that times draws nearer.”
“And each passing day she gains strength, and gets better with the weapon,” Darius countered.
Uesra nodded and said no more.
They sat silently for a while, listening to the soft crackle of the fire. The stars were brightening overhead, glittering gems in a sea of deepening blue.
Darius noted that Silas was watching Adrianna with more than passing interest. “What is it?” he asked, feeling he needed to whisper.
“Watch her,” Silas said, in equally hushed tones.
Adrianna was sitting cross-legged on the ground some twenty yards away, her back angled toward them so that her features were obliquely and subtly lit by the fire’s glow. Her lips moved and she made the smallest of motions with her fingers. Before her a small globe of pale white light, no bigger than her finger, formed, hovered for a few seconds, then winked out. Her hands fell to her lap and she grew still.
“Magic,” Darius stated. “What do you think it means?”
“I’m not sure,” Silas replied.
“Should we ask her about it?”
Silas shook his head immediately. “Not yet. She’s been staying apart from us when she tests herself for a reason. When she’s ready to talk about it, she will. Until then, we’ve seen nothing.”
“Not even sure what you’re talking about,” Darius told him.
* * *
The next three days fell into a welcome routine, with long marches unopposed by anything from Corterra or the netherworld, and small evening meals before or after which Adrianna continued her lessons with Darius. Both Silas and Uesra had offered their skills as tutors as well, but she politely declined. Less welcome was the routine way Adrianna seemed to be approaching her work with the sword. Even though Darius tried to vary what they worked on, she appeared to have reached the most basic level of proficiency and then leveled off. He was led to wonder if it was due to a lack of ability, or because her mind was more and more elsewhere. During the evening she spent greater amounts of time each night away from the others, silently testing and probing her skills with magic. What she accomplished appeared to be insignificant—a ball of light, a small flame—and she never spoke of it with any of the others. But as her time delving into those arts increased, a weariness returned that she had been shaking off over the days since they had confronted Orgoth. She did not hold them back on the march, and insisted on taking her regular turn on the nightly watch, but from time to time she sagged as if under a great weight, and had to gather some force of will to press on once more. As much as this concerned the others, they kept it to themselves, partly out of respect for her privacy, and partly because they were also growing hopeful that she might be regaining some of her former skill, that she might once again become the Adrianna they had known before, the mage that had saved them more than once.
That evening, just before they started the watch, the group huddled together around the fire. The wind had picked up, blowing a chill breeze from the northwest, and they drew their cloaks tightly around themselves. They talked of the road ahead, a week to ten days to reach Old Bern at their current pace, and of their shrinking supply of food. They had each taken smaller and smaller portions as the days passed, but even so they’d be hard-pressed to spread what remained over another two weeks. The two timeframes hung in the air like phantoms that each saw but none wanted to mention. They were wondering whether they’d need further supplies after reaching Old Bern, and if they did how much? The dead do not eat.
Wanting to look past the confrontation with Kaelesh to what might lay beyond, Silas told Xanar, “Keep a sharp eye. If you can take any game with your bow, even small game, do so.”
Xanar nodded. “Better to have our own fare. Kaelesh likely sets a foul table.”
“Too bad it is not later in the year,” Darius lamented. “There is good farm country around Old Bern. It seemed little effected by the pestilence plaguing the rest of Corterra.”
“That was likely the doing of the brothers,” Silas noted. “Keep the locals content and it is easier to rule. But I nearly forgot Old Bern was your home, Darius.”
“Not the city proper. Our farm was some distance to the northeast. Our path along the river will not draw near to it.”
“But when our business in Old Bern is finished, that would be a likely next destination,” Xanar said cheerfully. “There we might find a warm welcome, food, and rest.”
“Of course,” Darius answered, but his smile was tight. He wondered what he would find there, and even if nothing had changed, he would need to tell his parents about Luke. The thought of returning home almost filled him with as much anxiety as their plan to go to Old Bern to face a demon-lord.
Uesra had been looking into the distance with growing intensity, and now the fervor of her stare quieted the group and commanded their attention. “Look over in the trees to the southeast,” she said.
The moon had just entered the last quarter, and it hung heavy in the sky, low and orange. Its light filtered through the trees, turning the wood into dark-shadowed sentinels. Within the wood a mist curled, hovering, expanding then contracting. After watching for a time they could tell it only responded to a breeze briefly, shifting back against the wind when it was forced in one direction for too long, so that it remained within the confines of the sparse wood. A chill crept over each of them, a shiver that recognized the malice and dark intent the mist represented. It had no eyes, but they would have all sworn it was watching them.
“Guess we couldn’t move unmarked forever,” Darius said with a sigh.
As they all had reached the same conclusion, no one bothered to argue that it might just be a stray bit of fog or a swirl of steam from some underground spring. Against hope they wished it to be the case, but to speak it out loud felt like foolishness.
For some time they watched it, oddly fascinated, almost hypnotized as the mist roiled and swam amongst the trees. How long they might have remained locked in place none could guess, but the mist finally expanded and then dissipated, the final tendrils drifting off into the sky, trailing across the bright moon before vanishing into the night.
Rather than relief, there was a sense that whatever the mist was—some sort of otherworldly being or some magic used by one—that it had done what it had been sent to do, had seen what it needed to see. It left because it no longer had to stay.
“Be sharp on the watch,” Silas said. “For anything.”
* * *
The mist did not return the next day or evening, and as the companions’ march reached its later stages the following day the mysterious vapor was not forgotten, but had started to recede in their minds, left to mingle with the other oddities that had become the norm over the course of their travels. The day had been overcast, the weather more winter than spring again, and an unnatural silence seemed to lie over the land, as if the world waited in expectation for what might happen next.
An hour before sunset Adrianna heard a low drone in the distance. She immediately called the group to a halt to still their own noise, upon which the distant sound was apparent to all. After listening for a few seconds she pointed south. “That way.”
They waited, tense, hardly daring to breath. The droning sound gained strength and a certain edge, a higher-pitched whine just on the periphery of their ability to hear. “There,” said Uesra, pointing south as Adrianna had.
At first it seemed the mist had returned, a dark, low cloud making its way toward them. But the mist had made no sound. As the dark shape closed they could see it was not one thing but many smaller things moving together.
“Bugs,” Xanar said. “Sounds like locusts.”
Silas looked at his staff with a grimace. “Weapons won’t be of any use against them.”
Adrianna looked at her own sword, knowing Silas was right and burdened with t
he knowledge that a week ago she might have had many ways to ward them off. Her mind raced, weighing her options. She had a card to play, but should she act now or wait until they faced greater challenges at Old Bern?
“The river,” Darius said, “though it pains me to suggest it.”
“A last resort,” Xanar said, although he agreed it might be the only way. “We should move inland to see if the insects indeed come at us.”
“As long as we leave enough time to reach the water,” Uesra said.
They dared not leave the river bank too far behind, and it was just as well. The swarm was far larger than they had first suspected, and as it came nearer it fanned out, seeming to cover the whole of the world to the south. The low droning sound had grown from a buzz to a great roar.
“Now!” shouted Uesra, realizing the gap between them and the insects was closing quickly.
They raced toward the river’s icy embrace, the insects reacting as one to angle toward them as they fled. Whether the pests were sent to attack the company or had simply come upon them by chance mattered little at the moment. There was an understanding that unless they reached the water they would meet a brutal end.
For the most part the race went to the companions, but as they each leaped into the air to fall into the Vale River, there could be no question that the insects were coming for them with dire intent. The bugs were larger than locusts, and moving at such a speed that the companions would sport bruises or welts where they were struck. A few even managed to grab on and dig in with sharp pincers, cutting small but ragged and painful tears in their victim’s flesh.
The icy water started to numb the travelers almost immediately, but had a far worse effect on the bugs. Those that had latched on quickly perished, and any whose wings were wetted soon floundered and fell victim to the water as well.
Everyone had gone under briefly upon first entering the river, and now as they came up for air they found the bugs swarming all about, which forced them to stay low, gulp down air as they could, and then duck under the waterline to protect themselves.
Silas realized they couldn’t keep such hide-and-seek tactics up for long. The river’s cold would claim them eventually if the bugs didn’t, and the insects had no trouble keeping up with the speed at which their intended victims were being swept downstream. He noted the bugs near him that had fallen to the water’s surface, saw their brief and futile struggle against the cold, and then started to thrash about furiously, spraying everything near him with water. He found by doing so he could remain with his head above water, for the most part unbitten—though it was growing harder to tell with the growing numbness the cold was imparting to him—and that fewer and fewer of the insect approached as they noticed the killing zone Silas had established. “Splash them!” he called to the others. “Try to stay together!”
It took a while for everyone to even hear him shouting, and he had to repeat himself several times before everyone could comprehend what he was saying, but eventually each of them had created a small, safe pocket about themselves, which looked as if it would remain so as long as they could keep splashing. How long that might be was the great question on each of their minds.
“At least we’re still moving toward Old Bern,” Darius muttered between chattering teeth,
Darkness was still several hours off—longer than the humans, and possibly the elves, could hope to survive in the water. But the sun was westering and its light growing dim, and the water, deep as it was, had a dark, blue-black hue. There came a surge then, as if a dam had been opened upstream and the quickened flow had just reached the companions, and as that subtle pressure change passed so to did the color of the water change. It was suddenly tinted a dark red. The smell changed too, to one they all recognized.
“Blood,” Adrianna said. She tried to check herself as best she could, thinking she might have been wounded severely and simply could not feel it in the frigid water, but she could learn nothing as the blood stained both her and her clothes.
“It may be just a trick, to make us panic,” Uesra suggested, ignoring her own senses.
If it was a trick, it easily fooled the bugs. They went into a crazed fury, as if driven mad by the smell of the bloodied water. They attacked the river like it was a living thing, and finding nothing there when they struck they simply flailed wildly until the cold water overcame them. Until they expired the river appeared to be boiling, such was the madness of the insects. The companions could not escape such numbers unscathed, and each took several sharp bites in the chaos. But the water was a steady, silent killer, and soon the insects sank toward the bottom or littered the river’s surface, and all were swept away.
The companions fought to regain the shore, helping each other from the water and up the river bank. Once they were clear of the Vale, Silas fingered his staff with hands that stubbornly refused to regain feeling and flexibility. “Start a fire, quickly,” he said. “I’ll stand watch for now.”
“It would be a good time for a follow-up attack,” Darius acknowledged. He pulled Gabriel from its sheath and for a moment thought he saw a subtle white glow. But then he realized that it gleamed only with the red-tinted color of the water, and he blew out a relieved sigh. “Might be okay for a bit. I’ll try to get some wood.”
They had a roaring blaze going just before darkness fell, and they huddled close, trying to work the feeling back into their limbs. They were soaked and slimy and the smell of blood clung to them, but for the time being they thought little of what had just happened or what they need do next, driven only by their primal instincts to absorb the warmth while they could. Xanar, feeling somewhat more himself before the others, noted one of the dead bugs had become tangled in Adrianna’s still-dripping locks. He plucked the thing free, and held it out in an open palm. “Doesn’t look like anything I’ve seen in the north,” he said. “Southern species?”
Darius shook his head. “Not from these parts.”
“Not from Corterra,” Silas said, confirming what they all suspected. “A message from Kaelesh, I would guess, as was the fouled river. Plagues, selected for a purpose.”
“There were similar things in the history of your faith,” Uesra said.
“Yes. Sent by God in the past.”
“And so he tries to show himself equally capable, I suppose,” said Adrianna.
“As did the servants of evil then, when they could. The bloody water was one such case.”
Darius sniffed his forearm and grimaced. “Well, we were lucky the smell of it drew those bugs to their doom. I just wish I could wash it off now.”
“As do we all,” said Uesra. “But the river will do us no good in that regard, and we need to dry out while we can. Perhaps tomorrow we might find a stream…”
In the light of the fire they went through their packs, finding nearly everything marred or ruined. Their food they had to discard, and their spare clothing and blankets they dried as best they could, just as they did with what they wore, as far as modesty and the chill night air allowed. Darius, of course, came upon the book, which was clean and dry. He laughed mirthlessly as he pondered it. “Any other book would have been the first thing destroyed after being taken into the water. Ironic that it’s the only thing untouched by the river and the blood.” He thought to toss it in the fire, out of spite or frustration, but stopped himself, realizing he’d just need to pull it from the ashes in the morning.
They passed a miserable night, and as a new day dawned they met it with bleary eyes and tired bodies. But as bad as the night had been, so the new day brought with it good news.
“Look at the river,” Xanar said.
The Vale had returned to its former state, now clear of any sign of blood or the insects that had swarmed over it. Cautiously they approached, and seeing no change entered in to bathe, keeping their eyes always upstream in case the blood would again come swirling toward them. They cleaned their clothes and kept the fire going through the morning so they could dry them, and though their march t
hat day did not start until early afternoon, they all felt relatively clean and warm when they readied themselves to set out. Food and water remained their main short-term concerns, as they had spied no game and would not risk drinking from the river.
“We should be okay,” Darius stated, doing so aloud partly to mask his own uncertainty. “There are many streams that feed the Vale, and even though the crops are months away from being of any use to us, the farmland draws many creatures through the whole of the year that we might take for food.”
Everyone put on a brave face and hoped for the best, but they moved a bit more swiftly than was the norm, partly because of their late start, and partly because of the need to find food and water as quickly as possible. So intent were they on what lay before them, no one noticed the wisps of black mist hovering in the trees to the east, which drifted upward for a time as they departed, and then dissipated on the breeze that blew the sparse clouds across the sky.
* * *
They found several streams that day and replenished their water, for which they were thankful, but they went without food. No one spoke of eating, but that evening and the next day as they set out, each had an eye roving the countryside, hoping to spot some game or edible plant. On this day progress was not marked by the miles put behind them but by the passing of hours without the fulfillment of a basic need, and so even though they moved with great speed they felt they were slowly falling deeper into failure. Late in the afternoon Xanar, who traveled a slight distance ahead and with all the stealth he could muster, stopped and brought up his bow. The others froze in place, holding their collective breath and straining to see what he saw in a shadowy group of trees to their left. He fired, rapidly readied the bow again and fired a second arrow, and then relaxed with a mighty exhale. “A deer,” he announced. “Small and thin, but still…”
It turned out Xanar’s description of the deer was generous, but given the circumstances no one was complaining. By the time they had dressed it they decided to go no further that day, instead building a fire so they could prepare a meal. Despite their hunger they ate little, knowing they’d need to conserve what they had and seeing how little meat they had actually been able to take from the frail creature.
