Seablood

by Cameron Bolling

  Two eclipsers, entirely at her mercy. She could kill them both with two quick shots from her bow, or two swipes of her dagger against the soft flesh of their throats. Two fewer eclipsers out there in the world to kill and torture humans—to take them as slaves and force them to do the work they preferred not to bother themselves with. Ending their lives would be a blessing to all who may suffer by their hands in the future, wherever they ended up.

  Killing eclipsers was right. They murdered, destroyed, and cast fear into the hearts of far too many.

  But what was to say that these two would? She had no way to know what their futures held or what role they may play in the folds of fate.

  The shouts grew nearer still. The first glimmer of torchlight appeared over the edge of the quarry lip. Tor growled again.

  Oleja unsheathed her dagger quickly and made two swift, arcing cuts. The deed was done—whether good or bad, right or wrong, it was done.

  The ropes fell to the ground and the eclipsers stood, but Oleja stuck around to see nothing more. With Tor at her side, she took off into the night.

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Through desert hills and ruins she walked, Tor at her side, the two of them striking out on yet another long leg of the journey. Weeks now lay behind them—they had come a long way from Ahwan, a trek broken up only by the two trials from which she now carried her prizes. All that remained was the trial for the seablood—the one regarded by most as the most difficult of the three central trials, the one for which she sought the “sacred element of Ahwan.”

  But the longer she walked, and the farther she got from Ahwan, the more she hated how much time she spent out in the wilderness. Time and time again she thought to turn her course east and make for her village. Her people still waited there while she ran around on a scavenger hunt. She needed to get back to them, and soon.

  The words of the envoy captain weighed more heavily on her than any of the supplies she carried. Don’t you want to know what we have done to them in your absence? Perhaps she should have listened before she killed him. At least then she would know what to expect when she returned.

  No—eclipsers lied, and she had no way to guarantee that whatever the captain told her was the truth. It only had the power to worry her, and she didn’t need the distraction. She needed to stay focused on the trials, and then the people of Ahwan would follow her without question.

  Having the snow—now water—and the ore in her bag hastened her steps as she looked ahead on the map to the final destination before her return to Ahwan. The seablood symbol rested at the edge of whatever barrier bisected the map, and in a week—give or take—she would figure out what form that barrier took at last.

  Five days passed as she followed a range of hills northwest—not the same path as the one she took from the mountain to the quarry, but the dry and sandy terrain hardly looked different. By the end of her fifth day of walking, she reached a pass through a line of hills that looked to be the tapering-off continuation of the massive mountain range. For another couple days she passed through the hills. Sunlight reflected on the hard dirt slopes and short scruffy trees, lighting the terrain as if it were bathed in gold.

  She paused for the night in a clearing by a creek for her final night’s rest before arriving at the next trial, which she anticipated reaching by sunset of the following day.

  A fire blazed before her, cooking her night’s catch—some kind of grey-brown, round, square-snouted creature that she couldn’t identify, but hoped tasted good nonetheless. Dusk blanketed the hills and turned them blue, sitting especially heavy in the dell where she made her camp.

  “Only one thing left to get,” said Oleja aloud, pulling things from her bag. Tor flicked his ears in her direction, but she received no other response.

  She tugged off some of her armor and peeled back her sweat-dampened shirt to reveal the wound on her shoulder. The crossbow bolt hadn’t pierced deep into the skin thanks to her armor, but it had left a round puncture wound the thickness of her pinky finger. It still ached when the strap of her bag fell upon it and stung if she lifted a great amount of weight with her right arm. Otherwise, it healed nicely, reduced now to a raw and scabbed mark. Still, an infection made for a distinctly not-good development, so she kept a clean bandage over it and washed it whenever possible.

  “Just need to collect the seablood now, and then it’s back to Ahwan. Then all I have is the final trial.” She spoke to Tor as she cleaned and redressed her wound. “I have no idea what the final trial requires, but I’ll beat it. I have to. Otherwise, all of this was a waste of time—the trials, coming to Ahwan, all of it.”

  Something snapped somewhere in the brush. Oleja froze, casting her full attention around in search of the source of the noise. Tor perked up as well, his ears standing tall and straight atop his head. A pounding began to grow in Oleja’s ears as her heart beat faster.

  She put down the bandages and her waterskin and took up her bow and quiver instead. Nocking an arrow, she rose slowly, soundlessly, to stand.

  The creature that emerged from the brush had no business being so proficient at hiding. Its back rose six feet off the ground, and its body was at least fifteen feet long, yet somehow it had managed to remain fully camouflaged. Orange-brown fur covered its body, but each hair looked thick and sharp like small quills or the barbs of cacti. A few long hairs surrounded its mouth, which hung open slightly and revealed long, sharp teeth. Rounded ears rose from its head. A long, somewhat bushy tail that seemed to branch off into smaller appendages like the limbs of a tree swished behind it as it crept forwards, low to the ground, walking on four legs thick with rigid muscle. Each one ended at a wide paw lined with razor claws. Yellow eyes watched her, the dark pupils expanding as it slunk nearer.

  Some kind of mutant—it had to be. Surely no normal animal could grow so big. This beast dwarfed a horse in size; the only other comparable beast she had seen was the one ridden by the sixth eclipser of the envoy, and that one had been too far off to see in detail. But the name of this beast didn’t matter—all that mattered was that it kept its fangs and claws away from her and Tor.

  Which, of course, it didn’t seem inclined to agree to.

  The beast pounced with lightning speed. It arced through the air as nothing but a blur of brown fur with sharp teeth and claws. Oleja ducked as it sailed over her. It moved fast and jumped high; she could never hope to outrun the thing.

  So fight it was.

  Oleja drew back her bow and loosed an arrow. It stuck in the beast’s shoulder but did little to deter it. The beast circled back around, readying for another pounce.

  Moving backwards, Oleja put herself in the center of a trio of medium-sized tree trunks. They offered little protection from claws or teeth, but at least while standing within she couldn’t be slammed by the force of a blinding leap, thrown to the ground or bashed to a pulp by the momentum. The trees didn’t offer much cover, but they did provide some.

  She took another shot aimed for the mutant’s face, but it turned away too quickly and the arrow struck its side. The fletching disappeared in the beast’s spiny fur. A low, guttural grumble shook the air.

  And then the beast leapt ahead, landing just outside the triangle of trees. With one massive paw it batted at her, faster than Oleja could dodge. Sharp claws raked her chest. Deep gashes split through the leather armor, but only one claw tore all the way through and scratched the skin underneath. A trickle of blood flowed through the fresh wound. Oleja hissed and took a few steps back.

  Tor stood by the fire, his stance wide, growling at the beast many times larger than him. It paid him nearly no attention at all, flicking one ear to pick up the sound but not even bothering to turn its head and look.

  The beast pushed through the trees. The trunks creaked and swayed under its force. It lashed out with its claws again, but this time Oleja managed to dart back in time as it struggled through the tree trunks.

  Again, she nocked an arrow and fired it, taking advantage of t
he beast’s position pinned between the trees. The arrow stuck deep in its eye. It reared up, pulling itself free of the trees and shrieking in pain. It squirmed back and forth across the ground and pawed at the arrow shaft jutting from its eye.

  Oleja nocked another and circled around, trying to line up her next shot. She dashed one way and then the other, struggling to keep up with the creature’s thrashing. When it lay still for a moment, she took aim, but then the beast looked up at her in an instant.

  She loosed the arrow, but the beast already leapt. It slammed against her and knocked her to the ground. She scrambled back across the hard-packed earth beneath her, her head still spinning from the strike, but she couldn’t move fast enough. In a moment the beast was on her, one heavy paw pressing down on her chest. The fur around the limb poked into her armor and skin. The pain proved what she suspected before—the beast had sharp hair like needles. A few of the needle-hairs bit into her skin, but they could not puncture her armor. Uncomfortable, surely, but no great wounds came from sewing supplies.

  The beast opened its mouth and roared. Drops of saliva hit her face like the spray of a crashing river. Teeth bigger than her hand hung just above her face. They certainly looked a bit more deadly than sewing needles.

  Oleja grabbed her knife from its sheath and drove it upwards into the belly of the mutant. The razor-fur sliced at her hand; a hundred drops of blood appeared on her skin. The blade glanced off the tough spines and nicked the creature’s underbelly, but it hardly noticed. Fury and adrenaline seemed to be all that controlled it as blood dripped from its ruined eye.

  Oleja brought the knife back down and swiped instead for the paw still pressed to her chest. Clad in shorter fur, she avoided the thicket of prickles around the skin there and sunk the blade into the side of its leg. It reared up, pulling the knife along with it. Oleja rolled out from beneath its belly, moving towards the fire.

  Tor still crouched there, cowering, yet clearly trying to put up an intimidating facade. Oleja darted past him.

  The beast whipped around, swinging its many-branched tail at Oleja. She ducked beneath the first strike, but the beast spun and swiped again. This time the tail struck Oleja hard in the chest. Longer barbs adorned the tail, thicker around and twice the length of the longest of the other spines. The ones that made contact with her armor only marred the surface of the leather, but a few slipped through, sliding into the weakened fissures made by the beast’s claws. They stabbed into Oleja’s flesh, and several points across her sternum erupted in pain.

  With another arrow nocked, she whirled on the spot and loosed it. The arrow found its mark in the thing’s cheek, piercing through the soft layer of flesh and into its mouth. The beast shrieked and pawed at its face again. In its flailing, Oleja’s knife fell to the ground, stained with blood nearly black in color.

  Oleja stepped towards the beast. It backpedaled away. She advanced again, and then it turned and fled, bounding up the slope behind it and disappearing over the ridge. The night air hung still in the dell for a moment, and then a piercing shriek filled the air, louder than any other and so chilling that Oleja felt for a moment as though she stood atop the mountain again. It sounded almost human, yet guttural and fierce and powerful beyond anything Oleja had ever heard. She slumped down beside the fire, though her eyes drifted often back to the hilltop where last she saw the beast.

  She removed her dinner from the fire, crispy from its time spent neglected. After she carved off a piece for herself and stripped away most of the extra meat to smoke and save as rations, she tossed the carcass over to Tor. He loved to pick at the scraps still clinging to the bones, and she always left plenty for him to get his fill. After picking it clean, he gnawed on the bones to get at the marrow within.

  Oleja ate her portion quickly and then went to the creek. There, she removed her armor and stepped into the current. She washed her wounds—none of which cut too deep, thankfully, but many fresh marks crossed her chest and stomach. Using clean bandages, she dressed the worst of them, then donned her armor again.

  Back by the fire, she unfolded her map. One more day to the seablood trial, and then she just had to make her way back to Ahwan.

  The sooner she left the dangers of the trials and wilderness behind, the better.

  The next day she continued through the hills, making her final approach to the seablood trial. Early in the day she passed through some ruins—not the first of their kind she had seen by any means, but being tucked in a valley, they looked to be in better condition than many others. She poked around through the old town for a bit, sifting through rubble, but though the air still hung dry and hot around her, the ruins lay too far from the desert-proper where they might have been better preserved, so little of interest remained. Out in the hills and forests, hardly more than a few stones remained of civilizations from the Old World, but in the desert—rarely caught in the rain and snow or disturbed by animals and humans—they retained their shape longer. If one wanted to dig into the earth around the ruins outside the desert, they may have more luck finding things of use, but few had time for that.

  There in the valley ruins, large mounds of rubble remained, though only the vague shapes of buildings were discernable on even the best-preserved structures. She climbed one pile and kicked through the stones, some still vaguely rectangular and brick-like in shape. As she pushed rubble aside, however, she uncovered things below—things better preserved outside the grip of the harsh treatment of the elements. She began to dig a bit more intentionally, checking to see what lay beneath the rubble.

  She found scraps of wood and clay pottery, as well as some old dulled shards of glass and orange-brown stains indicating metal that had long since deteriorated into nothing more than dust. Further down she looked, shifting bigger stones, until she uncovered something that perplexed her for a moment before understanding snapped into her mind. It was dingy-green in color and smooth to the touch. A familiarity hung about it. Rubber, she realized after a moment, just like the yellow material she used on the raider wagon roof to make it float, and like the sole of her boot and pad on the bottom of her prosthetic, though those were fashioned of harder rubber that stretched little. This piece had much more give and snapped back into place with surprising force.

  A good length of the material remained intact and durable, with only the edges crumbling away under her touch. She cut away the useless edges and rolled up the section that retained its quality, then stowed the material in her bag. Looking around further, she found little else of use. She climbed back down the mountain of rubble and continued on her path southwest.

  The sun set ahead of her as she and Tor crested a hilltop. Looking out over the peak, her heart dropped.

  Before her, stretching out as far as she could see, lay the most immense body of water imaginable. Blue waves shone in the orange sunlight as if reaching up for the sun which descended along a course to meet them, sinking lower in the sky as it headed straight for the water. Across the waves, far in the distance, she saw nothing—only water.

  Only water. Before her, the land ended for good. She knew immediately what the line on the map represented—it showed the boundary between the world of earth and the world of water.

  A breeze swept in over the hill, carrying with it a sharp smell like fish and something sour and pungent. Somehow it all reeked of salt.

  At the base of the hill, a sandy shoreline ran out to meet the water, and a long ways off the coast rose some shape from the water. From where she stood, the details all blurred together, but it looked like a large boat or tower rising up from the water. She glanced down at the details scrawled around the sides of her map. A similar shape sat in the margins, with an arrow pointing to the symbol denoting the seablood trial. She looked between the image and the shape in the waves a few times. They seemed to be the same.

  She released a slow breath and looked out across the sunset-stained waves. People said the seablood trial was the hardest, and she still didn’t know the extent of it
, but one thing sat clear at the front of her mind, an undeniable truth that weighed heavily on her and put a horrible sinking feeling in her stomach. She had to get out to the thing in the waves, but whatever trial awaited her there didn’t matter at the moment. Because she faced a more pressing trial before that one mattered at all.

  Most of the people of Ahwan had an advantage in the seablood trial that she didn’t, greater even than their comfort in cooler climates that aided them in the trial on the mountain. And yet still they called this one the hardest.

  The trial beckoned her out into the waves for the task it demanded. But Oleja didn’t even know how to swim.

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  The water from the shores of the world of water tasted terrible.

  The morning sun peeked over the hills behind Oleja as she stood on the sand. She had made camp for the night atop the hill, then descended that morning, crossing some ruins and a rocky stretch of beach before arriving at the sand where the foamy water crashed against the shore in great waves. Immediately, she thought to taste the beautiful landscape of water. And immediately she decided never to do it again.

  She spat the residue of the salty water into the sand. It tasted like sweat.

  Tor bounded across the shore, kicking up sand and water. He snapped at flocks of white and grey birds that screeched and took to the sky whenever he drew near. Oleja kept her eyes on the horizon—on the shape that rose from the water. Somehow, she had to get out there.

  She paced the beach, looking around for ideas. Driftwood lay here and there, mostly sticks or small logs at the largest. They could float, but not well. Plenty of rocks scattered the beach too, but they were certainly not the best resource if she wanted to stay above the water.