When the wizard resurfaced, he felt fear rising in his heart in mind, rattling its rusted chains, ready to bind both his mind and soul. And while the people were busy on the ferry, and someone on a raft was getting close to those thrown overboard, Ash was once again pulled into a vortex of memories.
9th Day of the Month of Afir, 312 A.D., Mt. Mok-Pu, The Eastern Territory
Ash ran out into the street and couldn’t hold back a cry of panic. The whole courtyard was ablaze. Here and there, the outlines of the monks and the assassins flashed like ghostly shadows. The ever-blooming tree crackled sadly, ash and sparks dancing around its trunk instead of the petals. The pillars on which the younger students had stood in ridiculous poses earlier that morning were burning. There were arrows, spears, bullets, spells, magic flames, and blood.
A lot of blood.
Ash, who had been through dozen battles, froze in place, unable to move or believe his eyes. The smell of burning wood and flesh, of blood, and of steel filled his nostrils and clouded his mind. The shouts of the dying monks sounded like an alarm bell. And the sky, which used to be blue and so close, had now seemed heavy and close like a coffin lid. Smothered in smoke and stained crimson, it weighed on his shoulders.
A child screamed somewhere, snapping the young mage out of his numbed state. Time began to flow again, and Ash rushed to aid Chen, a cheerful boy, whose shaven head was always filled with the strangest ideas.
Chen struggled with his opponent, whose blood-stained blade was getting alarmingly close to his chest. Like a scorpion’s stinger, it pointed its tip at the boy’s heart, but didn’t dare strike the final blow. Not because of sudden pity, but because the man like to play with his prey. Holding his hand, he mocked the young monk with precise, but weak blows. There was no way that a novice like Chen could harm a man clad in armor. Leather wasn’t that strong of a defense against steel, but the monk was unarmed.
Picking up a stick from the ground, the enraged Ash activated the First Form and a ball of fire swirled at the end of the charred staff. It was very small, about the size of a nut, but that was enough to kill the assassin. He tumbled to the ground, covered with the ashes of the now useless staff. The monastery didn’t have in it position a weapon that could withstand all the fury and power of the young mage.
“Are you okay?” Ash asked, looking at the bruises and cuts on Chen’s body. “Are you hurt?”
“My rib...” the boy croaked. “Maybe a leg...”
“You’ll be okay,” Ash said with glazed eyes. “We’ll fix you right up.”
He looked up, trying to locate the shortest route to the medical win, but he couldn’t find what he was looking for. He could go over the roofs, but there, instead of a small pavilion with two roofs, was a pile of logs, stones, and bloodied bodies.
“Esh!” Chen shouted. “Look out!”
The mage turned around in time to look down the barrel of a rifle. One of the assassins raised his weapon, taking aim at the tall figure. The trigger clicked, the firing pin sang, and the barrel spat out a cloud of fire from which a bullet flew out with a whistle.
Ash automatically summoned the flames, but they didn’t want to answer his call — he didn’t have enough willpower, nor enough fire in him. His thoughts settled, murky and heavy like swamp mud, and his eyes stared helplessly at the bullet flying toward him.
With a cry, Chen leaped from behind Ash’s back and shielded him with his small body, arms outstretched to the sides. There was silence, and then Chen fell to the ground, blood spreading under him. His once-lively brown eyes gazed emptily into the distance.
Ash’s shoulder burned as if it had been pierced with a poker. Chen’s body couldn’t stop the bulled, but it had managed to slow it down and change its trajectory. The mage got away with a shattered shoulder joint. His left arm went limp and he had to grip it to hold it in place
Minstrels would say that Ash, possessed by wrath and anger, produced a fire spell; or that he said a Word, and his opponent crumbled to dust; or that he, driven by instinct, used the knowledge he had gained on the mountain and killed everyone, but all of that would’ve been a lie.
With a heavy heart and an even heavier conscience, and covered in blood of his friends, he stared at the rifle that had taken the life of an innocent child. The gunsliger, laughing, didn’t even draw his blade. He just took another bullet out of his pocket and started to reload his rifle. This was probably where the story of the young general would’ve ended if it hadn’t been for Ling. Even in death he was able to change the course of fate.
From the flames, which replaced the door of the main pavilion, the old abbot’s corpse flew out, a giant hole gaping on his chest. Ash turned his head and saw Racker emerge from the fire. In his right hand, he held Jin-Jing’s head. He held nothing in his left, for it was missing from the elbow up. Racker bared his teeth and threw the head at Ash’s feet. He watched with empty eyes as it rolled on the ground, leaving a scarlet trail behind it.
It was in that moment, when he finally realized that the corpse was that of the old abbot, that he noticed that Ling was clutching in his hand the traitor’s severed arm. Not knowing why, Ash grabbed the wooden ring that fell out of Jin-Jing’s mouth and ran. Yes, the brave general ran like a cowardly dog. Mad with blood, the assassins laughed like hyenas as they watched him flee.
“Find him!” Racker shouted.
Ash ran past the bodies of his brothers and sisters, leaving behind the fire, the screams of the dying and the cries of the wounded. Driven by fear, terror, and his own helplessness, he burst into the only building not yet engulfed in flames. The doors of the Hall of Wisdom swung open, letting in the pale-faced mage.
Distraught, Ash trudged toward the only thing he saw as his salvation at the moment. Holding his aching arm, he limped toward the statue of Liao-Fen, who, lost in his game of chess, payed no attention to the tragedy unfolding outside his home.
Ash was followed into the pavilion by his pursuers. They looked at the hobbling young man as if he was already dead. Wrapped in their cloaks, they played with metal flails, clicking metal on the floor like whips on the back of a lazy donkey.
The mage had almost reached the statue when one of the assassins swung his weapon. The chain whistled through the air and wrapped itself around Ash’s legs. Falling onto the chessboard, Ash reflexively closed his eyes. There was a crash, and the black king chessp iece snapped in half.
Opening his eyes, Ash saw something he didn’t expect to see. Instead of the faces of his pursuers, he was looking down a dark tunnel, the end of which was lost somewhere in the distance. Judging by the faint rays of light that reached the floor of the cave he had found himself in, he was somewhere in the bowls of the mountain, not far from the ridge. How he got there, he had no idea, but he suspected that there had to have been a secret tunnel under the chessboard. Now, how he managed to survive the fall that should have killed him, that he didn’t know.
Searching for a way out, he stumbled upon something he hadn’t expected to see in this strange cave. In the center of the room, where the rays of light crossed, a stick was stuck in the ground. Upon closer inspection, however, the seemingly magical gift turned out to be an ordinary stick.
“It’ll do.” Ash said, blood tricking down his chin. At this point, he was glad to have any weapon.
Walking over, or rather, crawling over, he was about to grab the staff when he experienced a wave of unimaginable pain. Blood seemed to boil in his veins. His eyes felt like they were melting, and his muscles and insides burned like dry wood. The hand holding the staff turned into coals. By some miracle, it remained intact, still holding onto the wood.
The spirit of the staff was so strong that it could’ve, ironically, turned Ash into a pile of ashes. But hardly had the flames got to his heart, when another fire burst forth. This wave was just as powerful and just as hot, but much more violent than the last. It swept over him, overpowered him, swallowed him up, and then entered the staff. It was impossible to see where one f
ire ended and the other began.
Slowly, but surely, the pain subsided, and the black burn that covered his arm was drawn back into the staff. For the first time in his life, Ash clutched a staff that wasn’t too rough or frail for him. On the contrary, he felt that if he wanted to, he could release all the power of his magic.
Yes, this simple-looking staff could embody any spell without crumbling to dust. Moreover, even if it seemed impossible, Ash had the feeling that the staff made him stronger.
Ash smiled in spite of himself, and a Word escaped his lips that turned out to be the name of an ancient companion of mages. The staff seemed to glow from within, warming the young man and taking away his worries. It accepted its new owner, and its owner accepted it. The newfound allies were eager to fight, but the moment Ash pulled the staff out of the ground, there was a click. The sound was followed by the creaking of ancient mechanisms, and the mage suddenly realized that he was flying.
He was flying away from the where a huge fire was licking the sky, devouring the old monastery — the last refuge of the Girtai people and their God, the sage Liao-Fen.
As Ash flew through the clouds, he realized that he was not floating at all, but rather falling into an abyss.
And then everything went black.
Chapter 47
4th Day of the Month of Krag, 322 A.D., The Plains
“W e’ll spend the night here,” Mary said, jumping off her horse.
The Stumps supported her decision with a murmur. After the morning’s events, everyone was pretty tired and didn’t see the point in another four or so hours of riding just to get the outpost at the border with the marshes. Blackbeard and Tul carefully got Lari off the cart. He had been given a sleeping potion so that Alice’s elixirs would be more efficient healing his injured hands.
Using the Singing Blow had cost Lari a couple of broken and twisted bones in his hands and arms. Thanks to magic and alchemy, he’d live to fight another day, but the sight of him covered with bandages wasn’t a pretty one.
Ash held his staff over a pile of dry leaves and branches and lit a campfire. The clearing, surrounded by trees, began its play of light and shadows, enhanced by the orchestra of the wood’s most talented musicians, in which the trill of the crickets mixed with the crackle of the burning branches and the ragged breathing of the Ternites.
“Don’t bother,” Mary muttered, noticing that Ash was about to draw a Circle.
The mage shrugged. Quietly, he placed a wooden amulet shaped like a fox into the grass. If something big enough to make the animal represented by the totem afraid got too close, he’d know right away.
Alice continued treating Tul, while the others sat around the fire. Tul and Blackbeard exchanged nervous glances and looked at Ash with pity in their tired eyes. They figured that he’d be the victim of Mary’s next lecture.
“Esh,” she said sternly, stirring the coals with a stick.
“Yes?” The mage smiled, lighting a long, old pipe. “Have you finally decided to confess your love for me? Oh, Mary, but I’m afraid that I can’t return your feelings. You see, back in the tent...”
Mary’s right eye twitched and she smacked Ash on the head. The mage, as was his custom, sulked and began to mumble about hags.
“What were you thinking?!”
“What?” he asked, confused. “Oh, about the dancer? Well, you see, the moment she put her hand in my pants, I was already— Ow!”
Rubbing his head, he looked over at Tul and Blackbeard, but the looked away, shaking their heads sadly. The mage sighed, realizing that jokes wouldn’t help him this time.
“You’ve made a big mistake saving that boy,” Mary said calmly, but a little more quietly than she had intended.
“If you’re saying that just because he’s an Ernite—”
“I am!” she shouted, interrupting him for the third time. “That’s exactly what I’m saying! This entire time, you’ve been unreliable, lazy, sloppy, and downright annoying, but the moment we were almost there, you decided to risk your life because of a simple Ernite! Don’t look at me like that! I can spend the entire evening calling a spade a spade.”
Having finished her rant, she lowered her gaze. Perhaps she had said some things in the heat of the moment, but she told them anyway. And there was no turning back now.
“A simple Ernite” was what most people of the world were to the Ternites. Faceless and nameless, walking bag of bones, meat, and blood. Created in the image and likeness of the Gods, but with no destiny or purpose, only a path that led to oblivion.
“Yes, I risked my life, and mine alone,” Ash argued.
“No! No, you idiot! You risked more than that! You risked the future of this entire campaign! You risked our lives, our futures, our reputation, the life of the king’s daughter... On a whim!”
“Esh,” Blackbeard said carefully. “Mary can be a bit... hot-headed sometimes, but she’s got the point. Had you drowned, we would’ve had a really tough time crossing the Rezaliks and Lurka.”
Blackbeard continued talking, but Ash wasn’t listening. He tapped his left shoulder with his staff. The scar still ached.
“You’re too weak, Esh,” Mary said. “You’re not fit for this group. Sorry that it took me this long to realize... Weakness I can tolerate, it can be fixed, but recklessness and stupidity...” She shook her head. “When we return, you’ll hand in your badge.”
Silence fell over the clearing. Banning someone from the squad was the most serious measure a leader could take. A squad was like family, bound by ties stronger by blood. And once you broke those ties, they could never again be mended. Not to mention that it left an awful stain on the reputation of a Ternite. A banished member would probably never again be able to find a new family.
Tul smiled wryly, trying to smooth things over a little.
“I dunno, Mary, that sounds a bit too harsh... Everything worked out in the end.”
“I stand by my decision, Tul.”
Blackbeard muttered something inaudible and turned to the mage.
“I’m sorry, Esh. Tell her you understand and apologize. She’s just a bit jumpy now... Everything will be fine once we’re done with this, you’ll see.”
The mage suddenly hit the ground with his staff and looked at the woman with unexpected malice.
“Mary Birch, as a member of the Wandering Stumps I will listen to you unconditionally for you are my leader and superior, but I, and I alone, am in charge of my own life and fate.”
With that, Ash got up and walked over to the edge of the clearing, where he collapsed on the ground and wrapped his cloak around himself, pretending to be asleep. The Stumps talked for a long time around the campfire, discussing the day’s events.
Ash thought about that, too.
“What could have caused the river to attack people who meant it no harm? Spirits have no desires or reason, only instinct. The most primitive, but at the same time, the most reliable. To have the Erld attack them like that means that someone or something managed to make the spirit go mad with fear.”
First there was the cursed castle, then Helmer, then Arlund, then Irba, and now the Erld. Ash couldn’t shake off the feeling that a dark cloud was descending upon the earth, bringing with it a storm of pain and misery. None of this was a coincidence, there was no way that it could’ve been.
His mind refused to accept this as reality, forcing him to go over thousands of different ideas and scenarios as he searched for the truth. Unfortunately, the truth was either so great and vast that his mind couldn’t reveal it, or he was just going crazy.
Just like with the rest of the “accidents,” they came out victorious again. The spirit had been killed. It’d take two, maybe four decades before the river’s flow slows down, and, someday, it’d dry up completely, taking with it the vast fields, allowing the swamps of Lurk to spread westward. The most terrible creatures that lived in those bogs would be a step closer to the lands of the Thirteen Kingdoms.
The death of the spirit
was one of many things that set into motion the change of the world. Even if it was invisible to others, even if it looked insignificant, it was still a change.
Ash couldn’t tell if these changes were drops of rain in the dark cloud or those that had already fallen on their cursed earth, but one thing was certain — something terrible was coming.
Chapter 48
26th Day of the Month Kraig, 322 A.D., The Foothills
I n front of them were the Rezaliks mountains, with their sharp, snow-capped peaks that looked more like the fangs of some monster than a rocky formation. The horseless Stumps had been forced to carry all of their belongings on their shoulders. Even Ash didn’t dare levitate his humble load — he had been forbidden from using magic in order to save energy in case of danger.
The mage didn’t accuse his fellow travelers of cowardice. He, too, had been stressed out for the past twenty days, fifteen of which were spent in a constant fight against various monsters. The creatures that lived in the swamp seemed to have gone mad. No matter what path Tul picked out, no matter what spells Alice cast, they always found them. Day after day, they fought against giant toads, crocus that looked like humanoid crocodiles, gigantic spiders, things that looked like a crossbreed between a pony and a demon, and a hundred other monstrosities.
Every day, every single damn day, began with a fight and ended with it. If it weren’t for Alice’s healing skills, they would’ve died on the border with Lurk where they were ambushed by the toad warriors. These creatures, slimy and warty, despite the webbing between their fingers, were painfully accurate at throwing poisoned spears and darts.
Ash thanked the Heavens for the fact that Mary was the type of person who was ready for everything. She had bought a lot of potions that cleansed the body of various poisons and toxins, which saved their lives numerous times.
Still, their misadventures had their advantages.
For example, Lari got a chance to train his new skills; Alice had overcome the fear that consumed her when she saw her wounded allies, and turned out to be an irreplaceable member of the Stumps. She was adept at mending bones, closing wounds, conjuring up blood, and casting invigorating spells.
Ash. The Legends of the Nameless World. Progression Gamelit Story Page 30
