“What do you suggest?”
Bastian thought for a moment. He didn’t want any of his townspeople to die in the fog. He needed them to form an army. One that could find Tressa and one that could march against whoever trapped them in the fog. One that could stop Stacia from killing another innocent like Connor.
“We will train. In the shadow of death and plague, we will arm our men. They will learn to fight. We will train day and night until we are ready to march. No one else needs to die. Not under my watch.”
“You will have a hard time convincing the village of this. Their plan is to gather as much as we can carry and move into the fog like a group of wary refugees, taking our chances with the unknown to get away from the known danger of the plague.”
“Then they are fools.”
“I’m not arguing with you.”
“Tell me,” Bastian said, shifting carefully to avoid too much pain, “what happened to the dragon?”
“After you left, we took care of it.”
“Meaning?” Bastian’s head hurt, but he was desperate to know. Somehow it mattered to him.
“We skinned it. Divided up the meat. The residents of Hutton’s Bridge will feast on it for a long while.” Adam laughed and patted Bastian on the shoulder. “Lay down. Get a couple more hours of sleep. I promise I’ll have you up before they plan to leave. You can state your case then and hope a few are willing to listen to you.”
“Is there something in this water?” Bastian asked, his eyelids growing heavy.
“Of course. Now sleep, nephew. You need your strength for the dawn.”
Bastian drifted off, visions of Tressa lost in the fog racing through his mind.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
Bastian stepped out into the village center the next morning. A crowd had gathered. Bedraggled children clutched the hands of their wary mothers. Men clutched garden implements, others held old weapons from the armory. They were preparing to walk into a massacre.
“Wait!” Bastian shoved his way through the crowd until he stood in the center. He stood on the slab where Sophia’s dead body had lain. “I’m the only one who’s gone out there,” Bastian pointed at the fog, “and come back. Well, other than my daughter, but she isn’t old enough to lead you. Will you listen to me?”
No one answered. Bastian wanted to scream. It was the same as the day he, Tressa, and Connor left. No one wanted to stand up for them. No one wanted the truth. He wondered for a moment why he even bothered.
Bastian looked out into their faces. The women huddled behind their husbands. The men didn’t know where to look, their eyes focused either on their toes or the sky. Pathetic. Every single one of them.
He pulled his sword out of the sheath on his hip. The metal glistened in the sunlight, except for the length of it stained by blood. There hadn’t been time to clean it. Just as well. Now they had proof of what awaited them in the mists.
“I lost someone I love in the fog. Do you want that to happen to your wives? Your children?”
Still no one made a sound.
Bastian refused to give up so easily. “I am the only one to ever make it back in the history of the fog. Do you think you will fare better? None of you were eager to volunteer when I chose to leave. Why are you so brave now?”
He waited, ready for a rebuke. Still, none came.
“All you’re doing is running from a plague. You’re trading one death for another.” Bastian sighed and sheathed his sword. He didn’t know how to make them see beyond their tiny understanding of the world.
“Even if you make it out of the fog, there’s an army out there, waiting to destroy us. They killed Connor. They will kill you too. Unless you learn to fight!”
“I want to learn!”
A child pushed his way through the crowd. Lukas. Geoff’s son.
“My mother and father died from the plague, but I didn’t. I’m strong. I want to fight.” The boy rested a fist on his hip. “I won’t be a coward like the rest of you. My Papa taught me to be brave. Didn’t yours?”
Bastian held back a laugh. Children always spoke the truth, especially when it was inconvenient for everyone else. He placed a hand on Lukas’ shoulder. “I accept your help, Lukas. Thank you for joining me.”
“You can’t fight with a child!”
Bastian couldn’t see which woman voiced her concern. It didn’t stop him from responding. “Why not? My daughter saved me out there. She’s younger than Lukas. Obviously the children do have something to contribute. Without her, I might have died. The beast would have torn me apart, just like it did Vinya and countless others from our village who were sent out over the years.
“If you want to escape Hutton’s Bridge and keep your lives intact, then give me time. Learn to fight.”
A man pushed his way through the crowd. Tom, the butcher. “How much time? People are dying here. The plague is spreading and we don’t know how to contain it. We could all die within weeks.”
“You will die if you go out there.” Bastian caught the man’s eyes. Neither of them looked away.
“You’re alive.”
“I was lucky. Please. Be patient. I will teach you what you need to know.”
Tom rubbed his temples. Bastian could see the exhaustion in his eyes. Drooping and bloodshot, Tom’s eyes carried a tale of hardship. The sheltered world of Hutton’s Bridge was slowly collapsing around them. There were no good solutions. Yet, Bastian wanted so badly to help them before they marched out to their deaths.
Children wouldn’t stand a chance against the beast. They’d mistake its call for their mother, wander off into the fog, and never return. Families would be ripped apart.
“Stay.” Bastian pleaded with them. He gripped Lukas’ shoulder even tighter. The boy’s strength fed his own conviction.
Whispers spread through the crowd. Finally. They were seeing Bastian’s pleading made sense.
“But if we stay, we will continue to be exposed to the disease.” A woman stepped forward. She clutched a child in her arms. “Even a day can make the difference between life and death.” She moved in a slow circle, giving everyone a chance to see her face. “I vote we leave. Cowardice has kept us trapped here our whole lives.”
Bastian looked to Udor. He’d been oddly silent the whole time. When Bastian, Tressa, and Connor left, he’d been the most vocal. Now he didn’t utter a word.
“Udor, what do you think of all this?” Bastian asked. He knew he was taking a risk. The townspeople trusted Udor’s word, despite his selfish motives and lying heart. Few ever stood up to him.
Udor rubbed the tip of his gray beard. “I want to speak with you in private, Bastian. Will you allow us this?” he asked the crowd.
Knowing they really didn’t have a choice, the people parted, forming a path to the front door of the town hall. Bastian followed him in. Tressa had told him what took place in here right after her great grandmother died. Bastian’s fists trembled as he fought the urge to punch Udor.
Before the door could close all the way, Udor asked, “Where is Tressa?”
Bastian sighed and leaned up against the wooden wall. “I don’t know.” Lying wouldn’t do him any good. If Udor had any hand in helping him find Tressa, Bastian would give over his very life. “She entered the fog hours before I did. I didn’t find her in there.”
“And your wife?”
“Don’t you already know her fate?” Bastian had a hard time believing the news hadn’t made it to the leader of the town yet.
“I want to hear it from you.”
“She’s dead. Eaten by a beast.”
“Did you try to save her?”
Bastian sat down at the table. “As much as I could have tried. I couldn’t see her. When the beast attacked, I chose to save Farah instead.”
Udor nodded. “If it had been Tressa instead of Farah?”
Bastian wrung his hands together. “I’m glad I didn’t have to make that choice.”
“It’s as I suspected, then. You do love h
er.”
Bastian’s eyes narrowed. He stood up, letting the chair clatter to the floor. “That is none of your business.”
“But it is, especially if she feels the same about you.”
“I don’t speak for Tressa.” Bastian was growing more irritated by the second. Udor had no right to ask him such personal questions.
“Once you make them aware of the dangers in the fog, will you follow them in or stay here and wait for Tressa?”
“I’m heading back into the fog to find her.” Bastian hadn’t thought that far ahead yet. But he knew when he spoke the words that he couldn’t sit idly by in the village while others went out there. He had to find her and make sure she was safe.
Udor slapped Bastian on the back. “Then I will stay. So if she arrives here while you’re out there, I can keep her safe for you.”
Bastian knew the implied threat. Still, it didn’t make sense. “Aren’t you afraid of the plague?”
Udor paced the room. “I should be, shouldn’t I? You haven’t seen the dead. Did your uncle tell you how many have passed?”
Bastian shook his head. They hadn’t had time to delve into the affairs of the village. He’d fallen asleep before he could learn much from Adam.
“About a dozen. It’s not many, considering the size of our village, but it’s enough to send people into a frenzy.” Udor stopped in front of a window. With a finger, he pushed back the curtain. Bastian could see the people outside. They milled around aimlessly. Arguing. No clear leader or consensus among them. “It is always this way. There are too many of them who want out. The plague has only provided them with a good excuse to leave. It’s what they want, you know. To leave.”
“And you have never wanted to leave.” Bastian knew the truth of it. Not once did he believe it a coincidence that Udor hadn’t ever been chosen to enter the fog.
“I love this town. And you know now, just as well as I do, that there are things out there that want to kill us.”
Bastian drummed his fingers on the table. “What things are you referring to?”
Udor rushed at Bastian and grabbed his red hair, scrunching it in his fingers like a wet cloth he wanted to wring dry. He twisted his wrist to the side. Bastian’s neck yanked down, his ear nearly touching shoulder. “The dragons. They’re coming.”
“Let me go or I swear I’ll drive your head into the wall and let it hang there like one of your trophies.”
Udor released his grip. Bastian stretched his neck from one side to the other, loosening up his muscles. He wouldn’t be caught unaware again.
“What do you mean, the dragons are coming?”
“You saw the one that landed here before you left. Have you seen more?” Udor’s eyes were wide and dilated. Almost as if he had smoked the tall grass on the edge of the pasture.
Bastian thought of the claws raking across Connor’s body as it disappeared into the door. Tressa swore it was a dragon like the one that had landed injured in Hutton’s Bridge. He knew the truth, though. The woman in the tree had injured the dragon, forcing it to make an unexpected landing. Or maybe it had meant to penetrate their town in the first place.
“No,” Bastian said. It wasn’t an outright lie. It had only been Tressa’s opinion. He couldn’t verify it then and certainly not now.
Udor hurried over to the enclosed bookcase where the village kept their most prized books. Riffling through the pages with a careful, but shaky, hand, Udor found the page he was looking for. His fat forefinger rested on a picture. He tapped it twice, uncaring that the gold leaf flaked off. “Dragon.” He pointed outside where the beast had landed the day Bastian left. “Dragons. There are more.”
Bastian knew there were. At least one. He hoped that was all.
“The history books tell of dragonlords. Men who ruled the dragons and therefore ruled the kingdom.” He sat down in the nearest chair.
“Tell me more,” Bastian said.
“Before the fog fell upon us, there were five dragonlords. One hailed from the north, two from the west, one to the south, and our own dragonlord on the Blue Throne. The peace was maintained until the Black Dragon in the south attacked his own people.” The old man scratched his beard, picked out a nit, and flicked it to the floor. “The other dragonlords debated attacking. They met at the town nearest to all of their borders—Hutton’s Bridge.”
Bastian’s eyebrows rose. He thought he’d heard all of the stories. Not this one. Not even a whisper.
“At the meeting, they decided to attack the Black. Show him that he couldn’t hurt his own people without facing retribution. Hutton’s Bridge was to be their main outpost for the war.”
The old man pushed the book in front of Bastian. He didn’t know how to read, but the pictures made it all obvious to him. “Why hasn’t anyone ever talked about this?”
“Sophia was the only one who knew. We found this book hidden in her cottage after the three of you left.”
“You went through Tressa’s things?”
Udor sighed. “Bastian. No one ever comes back. The resources must be divided up amongst the rest of the villagers. It’s never been any different. Why should we have suspected you’d show up half-dead last night?”
He wanted to insist that he, Tressa, and Connor were different. That everyone should have known they’d return. He knew the truth as well as anyone else. They weren’t special. They were dead the moment they disappeared into the fog.
“If we leave and find a way to destroy the fog, it’ll re-ignite a war, placing us right at the center. Is that what you want, Bastian?”
He didn’t respond. He was too distracted by the image in the upper right corner.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Bastian puzzled over how to respond to the picture. He knew exactly what the drawing represented. The woman in the tree. What he didn’t know until that moment was that she wasn’t alone. If the drawing could be believed, there were three of them placed at the edge of the fog. Their protectors or their captors? Bastian wasn’t sure.
Even more disturbing was Sophia’s involvement. How much did she know? What hadn’t she told them?
“What else do you know?”
Udor shook his head. “The story ends there.”
Bastian ran a finger along the inner spine of the book. “It doesn’t end there. The pages are missing. Someone tore them out.”
Udor grunted. “I’m sure it was Sophia. She was one of the few who could read. Carrac, myself, and only a couple of others. She was hiding something from us.”
The door opened. Both Bastian and Udor tensed until they saw it was Carrac. The oldest person in the village since Sophia’s death, he was also on the council of elders.
“He knows,” Udor said with a wave of his hand. He filled Carrac in on what they’d been discussing.
“Sending people into the fog was her idea,” Carrac reminded Udor. “She was trying to get people out.”
Udor’s fist slammed into the table. “Then why didn’t she prepare anyone properly?”
“Excuse me,” Bastian said, his eyes locked on Udor, “weren’t you just trying to send people out there yourself?”
“As if I could stop them.” Udor snorted and wiped his arm under his wet nostrils. “You think people here do as I say? Rubbish. They do as they please. They’ve lived in fear their whole lives, prisoners to this village. Guess what? None of them wanted to leave because it was idyllic. That damn Sophia used the fog to scare people into staying.”
“It was rare someone volunteered,” Carrac agreed. “They knew it was a death sentence.”
Bastian had difficulty believing Sophia could have been so vindictive. She’d never seemed anything but adoring and honest. She loved the village and her people.
“I’ve seen one of them.” Bastian rested his finger on the woman to the southeast. In the picture she had flowing, long blond hair. Big blue eyes. Full lips. She looked nothing like the woman he’d seen. Yet he knew it was her. Who else could it be? Age and time and some form of
magic had ravaged her body. Wrinkles as deep as an endless chasm. Her ample breasts wasted away until they resembled empty wineskins, drained of every last drop.
“You have?” Udor questioned him.
For the first time, they were allies. Bastian didn’t like that one bit.
“Then you know how to defeat her?”
Bastian shook his head. “I don’t. She uses magic to keep anything from making its way into the fog. She killed a bird and then tried to kill me.”
“But you survived,” Carrac said.
“I was lucky. In fact, my survival since I stepped through the fog has been nothing but sheer luck. I could have died many times over. My innards should be spread across the forest floor.”
“You made it outside the fog, didn’t you?” Udor asked. “Why haven’t you told us any of that yet?”
“When have I had time?” Bastian retorted. “I just recovered over night. I came out this morning, begging for everyone to wait until I could spread word of what’s awaiting them out there. No one wanted to listen. Don’t get on me for not telling you everything.”
Udor sank down onto the bench across the table from Bastian. Udor’s eyes were bloodshot. Weary, even. “Then tell us your story. Don’t leave anything out.”
Carrac remained standing while Bastian relayed the events of the past few days. He told them as much as he could, leaving out the private liaisons between himself and Tressa. That was none of their business, even though he was quite sure Udor would have enjoyed a detailed retelling.
“Getting past the fog is only the start of our troubles,” Carrac said. He stroked his long white beard.
“Which is why I vote we stay,” Udor said. “If people want to go out there and get themselves killed, let them. Hutton’s Bridge should stay as it is. Leave the guardians in their place. Someone put them there for a reason.
“To hide us,” Bastian said.
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