From Across the Clouded Range

by H. Nathan Wilcox

  #

  Between the darkness and the rain, Dasen could barely keep Teth in sight though his feet nearly clipped hers with each step. They ran to the outskirts of the town, water streaming off their heads and splashing to their knees. As they passed the last of the shanty buildings that defined the city’s end and prepared to pick their way through the rows of tents, Teth came to a sudden stop. Dasen nearly ran her over, before he arrested his momentum and looked up at the huge shadowy figure holding her shoulder.

  “Vo larägh tu sei flarcht, te-adeate?” the figure screamed.

  Heart suddenly pounding beyond that required for the exertion of the run, Dasen almost panicked. He searched for an escape, but Teth kept her wits. She stammered for a second then pulled the note from the front of her pants. The guard snapped the parchment from her hand – somehow the rain seemed not to touch it, bouncing off of it as if hitting an unseen barrier. The guard turned the paper over until he saw the black seal. His face blanched. He looked at his captive with wide eyes and motioned them to move on.

  Teth took a deep breath, tucked the note into her pants, and sped away. Dasen followed, but the going was slow. The tents were made of a tan hides and were easy enough to see, but the guidelines stretching across their path were all but invisible. Two other guards stopped them as they went, but they lost interest as soon as they saw the seal Teth carried.

  When they reached the last row of tents, they stopped and waited for a lightning strike to illuminate the field before them. The rain had slowed only slightly, and Dasen felt like he would never be dry again, but they were within steps of their escape. Lightning danced across the sky in a brilliant display that lit the field for an eerie heartbeat. There was nothing moving along the perimeter of the camp or in the fields below. It was now or never. They were at the point of no return. If they ran across the field, no seal in the world would convince anyone that they were not attempting to escape. They looked at each other. Teth dropped the note and pulled a short knife out of the back of her pants. Her other hand found his and clasped it hard. They looked at each other for a long moment. Finally, Dasen nodded. Teth released his hand and leapt from behind the tent.

  She made it two steps. A hand as big as her head darted out from the other side of the tent, wrapped around the back of her neck, and stopped her cold. “Vo larägh tu, te-adeate? Tu gurlüobt.” A mountainous guard followed the hand, stepping from behind a small shelter. He held Teth in a crushing grip and screamed his accusations.

  Teth buried her knife in the big man’s arm just as Dasen hit him with a shoulder in the side. Dasen bounced off the giant as if he had just hit a tree but Teth’s knife had the desired effect. The guard screamed and loosened his grip just enough for Teth to escape. Abandoning her knife in the man’s forearm, she wrenched her head away, grabbed his hand, and twisted his arm up over her head in one breathtaking motion. The sentry let out another muffled cry of shock and fell to his knees as Teth pushed his fingers back with all her strength. But it was not enough. Surprise had been her only advantage over the guard who was twice her size and built like a mountain. The shock on his face was soon replaced with determination. There was a pop as one of his fingers broke, but it was Teth who grunted as he fought his way back to his feet. If he made it up, Teth’s leverage would be gone, and they would be finished.

  Sitting in the mud where he had landed after his ill-advised attempt at unbalancing the guard, Dasen searched for a way to help. He considered the knife still sticking from the man’s forearm but wasn’t sure what he’d do with it even if he was able to claim it. There was another flash of lightning. His eyes latched on to a flat stone the size of a platter sitting in the mud next to his elbow – the Order had shown him the way, no matter how harrowing it might be. Using every ounce of fear induced strength he could muster, he lifted the heavy stone above his head, carried it the few steps to where the guard was pulling his hand away from Teth, and dropped it squarely onto the man’s down-turned head.

  A hair-raising crunch was the only sound that marked the warrior’s death. His head plummeted into the mud-soaked ground with the rock jutting from his skull. He twitched but did not otherwise move again.

  Teth released his hand and looked at Dasen. He was frozen in horror, overcome with revulsion at what he had done. He felt ill. His arms were shaking so hard that he could not move them. His knees trembled. He was frozen, could only look at the rock rising from the man’s head and relive the horrible thing he had just done.

  Teth reached down, retrieved her knife, then came to his side and supported him with an arm around his waist. “You saved me,” she assured as she forced him forward away from the corpse. “He would have killed us. That was our only chance. You did what you had to. You didn’t have any other choice. The Order showed you the way, and you followed it.” She continued talking, leading him slowly away from the scene toward the fields below.

  Dasen was in shock. He knew Teth was right but couldn’t get the image from his mind, could not believe what he had done. There was a yell, a powerful voice speaking a foreign tongue. It was close. Both their heads turned toward it. Shadows moved through the tents behind them. The guards cries had been heard, help was on its way.

  “We have to get out of here,” Teth begged. “Now. Dasen, you have to run. We have to go.”

  There was another yell, closer this time. Dasen looked back for the man he had killed but he was lost in the shadows. He took a deep breath, shook his head, and looked to Teth. He clasped her hand, squeezed it hard. “Let’s go!” he declared and started running down the slight slope before them to the fields beyond.

  The wet ground ruined the moment. On his second step, Dasen slipped and slid down the hill on his back. He was jarred by the fall but unhurt until Teth crashed into him from behind. Their bodies tangled together as they tumbled another few paces. When they finally stopped, Teth was on him in a decidedly compromised position. “Don’t get any ideas,” she joked as she lifted herself from him. She reached down a second later and helped him to his feet. They both looked back up from where they came. A half-dozen shadows were illuminated by the sparse light of the camp. They searched the darkness before them but seemed hesitant to journey into the field.

  Not wanting to risk the warriors changing their minds, Dasen and Teth ran, hand-in-hand across the field toward the distant lights of the city.

  They had made it only a short distance before something caught Dasen’s eye. In the sky to the north and west, a ball of fire bloomed. Following the fire, pushing through its light was the slender body of a winged creature. It dipped beneath its fire to the field, skimming the ground, then rose to the sky and unleashing another ball of flame. Dasen stopped and stared. It’s searching, he realized, searching for us.

  His grip on Teth hand broke when he stopped. She looked back at him with concern. Dasen gestured to the sky. She turned just in time to see another fireball bloom. It was followed by others as more creatures joined the hunt, spreading out across the fields. Teth’s eyes bulged. “How far is it to the city?” she demanded.

  “I don’t know,” he responded. “Three . . . maybe five miles across the common lands to the outskirts of the city. They’re just pastures. There will be nowhere to hide. What should we do?”

  A bolt of lightning was followed by another array of fireballs. The rain was slowing, the storm moving on to the east. The night was still decidedly dark, but the visibility was only going to improve. But they certainly couldn’t go back. The answer was obvious, and Teth voiced it with a yell, “Run!”