Ascending Shadows

by Everet Martins

  The water here was a crystalline blue and warm as a bath. The clouds above the land were puffy balls of cotton pulled and stretched up into wispy shreds, the sun a bright ball of white behind them.

  “Never seen anything more beautiful in all my years.” Juzo grinned, his hands clasped and held behind his head.

  “Yeah,” Senka agreed but felt as if it was someone else’s words. Maybe if she could get lost in conversation again, she’d forget about her petty desires.

  “Can’t wait to get off this damned raft,” Isa grumbled. “Let’s swim it in.”

  They drew closer. Isa and Juzo plunged into the water, and Senka eagerly joined them, laughing and kicking as they pushed their raft to shore. She couldn’t help but spare a glance over her shoulder though, just to make sure nothing was swimming up from behind.

  “Can’t believe we survived this,” Senka mused. Now please help me find a bit of moss growing on granite, colored in a bluish-green and growing in thick sheets.

  “Of course we survived!” Juzo said triumphantly. “We wouldn’t have it any other way.”

  Isa let out a belly laugh and kicked harder, water splashing up behind him. She’d never seen the man look so happy.

  Senka’s toes scraped on a stone then the tops of her feet struck against silken sand. “Ouch,” she mumbled. The others were standing now, pushing the raft onto the beach.

  “Ground!” Juzo cheered and Isa snickered.

  The raft scraped against the sand, and Isa and Juzo went to the front to drag it onto the beach, Senka pushing it from behind. Once the raft was firmly wedged on the shore, she trudged out of the water. The sand was unlike any she’d felt before, fine as sugar crystals.

  Isa rolled back onto his ass and sprawled his arms and legs out. “Never thought I’d feel this again,” he said, swatting at a fly that had landed on his cheek. “Don’t miss the bugs though.” Another landed on his head. A fly buzzed around her face, and she waved it away.

  Juzo shook out his legs and started walking along the shoreline. “What’s with all these flies?”

  “Maybe they live on the beach,” Senka guessed.

  “Let’s hope— damn it!” Juzo growled and slapped his neck. “Little shits are biting.”

  “Where’re you going?” Senka asked, wriggling her toes in the sand. She started stomping her feet. “This isn’t a dream, right? This is really real?”

  “Not a dream.” Juzo flashed a smile and turned his back to her. “Making sure there’s no one waiting for us, no ambushes moving in. One can never be too cautious, an old friend once told me,” he threw over his shoulder.

  Senka nodded. “Wise.” She went to her armor and started strapping on the breastplate, buckling straps and making them snug. She did it mindlessly, taking in the land. The shoreline was narrow, maybe fifteen feet across. It would’ve been an unmarred sheet if not for Juzo’s footprints. The sand butted against a five-foot wall of vertical earth where the water had eroded it, showing all the worming roots of the shrubs and grasses above. A flock of twenty or so tiny white birds ran along the shore, avoiding the crashing waves then darting towards the water when they receded, going in and out like a sine wave. Behind the wall of earth and shrubs were towering trees that didn’t show much else beyond their peaks.

  “Think we can relax for a few minutes,” Isa said lazily, letting out a long breath, his arms resting behind his head.

  Once Senka got her armor on, she shifted over the water barrel, taking a few big glugs, making sure she was well hydrated now. There surely couldn’t be any shortage of water here with all these trees. “You should drink,” she said between more gulps. “Important to stay strong.” She winced at the pain of her cracking lips every time she spoke. She ran her finger over them, scabbed and flaking. Her nose and cheeks were in a similar state. Any more sun and she might have had a serious problem with burns. The pain was almost at a point where it made it hard to concentrate.

  “Thanks for the reminder,” he said, his glossy blue eyes regarding the clouds. He just sat there, not moving, not preparing.

  “We should get moving, Isa. The mission, remember?” Senka started stuffing nuts into her pockets, enough food to last her at least a couple days. She scanned the foliage above the wall of earth for anything that could be used as a salve. “Ah!” She grinned at seeing Star Lavender, each five-pointed head glowing in a bright blue. She rose up on her tiptoes and snapped off a few sprigs, dirt and stones sliding down onto her legs. She’d found something useful, sure, but not what she really needed. No sign of Angel’s Moss. No hope of relief. What was she going to do? She made her way to the raft, stifling a new tremble in her fingers.

  “Suppose it’s about that time.” Isa rose up onto his elbows, then reached out to grab his toes, dragging his head down and between his knees in a deep stretch. He made it look entirely without effort.

  Senka plucked the Star Lavender flowers free from their stems and pushed them into a neat pile on the raft. She drew one of her daggers, ringing with the sound of murder, demanding a cursory glance from Isa. “Nothing to worry about,” she said. She flipped her grip on the dagger, then started mashing the flowers with the Dragon’s head.

  “What are you doing?” Isa asked, standing and batting sand from his trousers.

  “Making a salve for my burned skin.” Her tongue jutted from the side of her mouth as she worked. She tipped a bit of water from the barrel into her hands and let a few drops trickle into her glob of mashed flowers. She sheathed the dagger, then started dabbing the blue paste over her face. Almost immediately, a cooling sensation passed over her skin, the pain of the burn muting down to a more tolerable level. “Oh yes, that is wonderful,” she muttered. She turned to face Isa. “Want some?”

  He raised an eyebrow at her and stared for a moment, then broke into a laugh.

  “What’s wrong, Isa?”

  “Nothing.” He shook his head, grinning as he tightened the straps on his boots.

  “So you don’t want any?”

  “No.” He snickered.

  She shrugged and applied some to the back of her neck, moaning at the icy relief. She turned her gaze down the shore at the hiss of Juzo’s feet in the sand, saw him hurrying back in a quick walk with a finger held to his lips for quiet. He furrowed his brow at Senka, and his serious look formed into a smile.

  Isa glided over to the raft and snatched the spears, setting them flat against the sand.

  “Don’t make too much noise,” Juzo finally said once in earshot. He came over to Senka and put a hand on her shoulder. “What’s that on your face? War paint?”

  “A salve, Star Lavender. Want some?”

  “What’s it do?”

  “Mutes the pain of burns, helps healing, prevents infection.” She held the last glob of it on two fingers.

  “My healing isn’t what it once was. I’d be grateful for something to help.”

  “Here you are, open your hand.” He did, and she smeared the rest of it into his ghastly white palm.

  “Wow, it works well,” he said with a nod, dispersing the blue goo over his face.

  “Why isn’t your healing working on the burns?” Senka asked.

  “I—”

  “Cause he needs blood,” Isa cut in. “The blood of men.” The last was said with a scowl and his arms folded.

  “That.” Juzo pointed at Isa with his thumb. “Told you it wasn’t my decision. Surely you’ve done things, working for the Tower, where you had no choice.” Isa grunted and Juzo continued, “Now would you stop? We’re to work together, remember? Not helping any.”

  “Have you two forgotten that we need to work together, as a team? Would you act this way around the Arch Wizard? Your petty squabbling needs to stop.” Senka sent a glare at Isa and Juzo, trying to give the most of it to Isa. Did a scorpion crawl in his smallclothes this morning?

  Isa sighed at the sand between his legs. “What did you find?”

  “A trail. Marked with footprints. Not human.” Juzo
shook his head and licked his teeth. “Looks like bear prints by my guess, but must have been a lot of bears.”

  “Tigerians, remember?” Isa handed a spear to Juzo with a nod. “Sorry,” he muttered.

  “Right. Never saw one. Care to give a refresher on what we should know about them?” Juzo dropped into a squat between Isa and Senka, putting his back to the earthen wall.

  The crashing of waves roared in her ears, might have even been a pleasant sound without the threat of an unknown race and the Shadow. The cool wind whipped through the trees looming above and made the palm fronds sway. Despite the call of Angel’s Moss, she thought she could’ve easily spent the day sitting here.

  “I’m no scholar. Wait, hang on.” Isa sniffed, then reached into his nose with his thumb and index finger, pulled out a hardened strip of yellow snot and flicked it away.

  Senka gave him a disgusted frown.

  “As I was saying,” Isa said. “Don’t know a whole lot about them, but what I do know is they’re stronger than men are, faster, more agile. About as intelligent, have hair like cats in odd patterns. Ride even bigger, more fearsome cats. Have some strange rituals… pray to heretical gods.”

  “More dangerous than men and better fighters. And there are only three of us,” Senka found herself starting to bite her nail but pulled it out before chomping down. The bitter taste of Star Lavender filled her mouth. She tried to flush out the taste with some fresh water to no avail. She jabbed her fingers into the sand, kneading a clump against her palms.

  “We should see where the path leads, seems like a good start as any,” Juzo said.

  “Doesn’t seem to be any other way to move but to follow it. Moving through all this vegetation would give away our position if we hoped for any manner of subterfuge,” Senka added.

  “Let’s take what we can, leave the rest here. Can always come back for it if we need it,” Isa said. They spent the next ten minutes eating, drinking, then draping fallen fronds over their raft, making for poor camouflage.

  “Didn’t see any of them? The Tigerians?” Senka asked, wedging one of the greener looking fronds between others.

  “No,” Juzo said. “Everyone ready?”

  “Ready.” Senka nodded. “What’s the plan?”

  Isa looked to Juzo, who shrugged. “Don’t know what we’re going to find, so let’s all stay close. No matter what happens… don’t have any other friends here. Juzo and I will lead in a triangular formation, Senka, you’ll cover our rear and the middle.” Isa drew a triangle in the sand with his long fingers as he spoke. “Sound good?”

  “Good,” Senka said, and Juzo grunted with a nod. Juzo shook out his arms and legs, then led the way to the path, spear in hand, his shirt flapping against his shoulders. They trudged through the sand in a silence that seemed to grow heavier with each passing step.

  They reached the mouth of the path cutting through the wall of earth, and Senka saw the prints. She bent down to inspect them. They were like a cat’s, except the nail spots must have made them long as fingers. “If they’re not friendly, we should be careful of their feet. Might have nasty claws.”

  Isa gave her an approving nod. He twirled his spear around in a show of skill and made a few practice thrusts. “Not an ideal weapon,” he muttered. “Good for some range though.”

  “You just about done messing around?” Juzo asked him with a good-natured smile. He clambered up the slope of dirt before Isa could answer. They followed him onto the plateau of earth, scrambling above the shoreline.

  “Shit,” Juzo said, his back stiffened and knuckles white around his spear haft.

  A squawk escaped Senka’s mouth when she saw the sight above. A cloud of at least a hundred buzzing flies surrounded what must’ve been the corpse of a Tigerian. The corpse was fresh, maybe a day old. It had a cat-like face with a short muzzle, cat’s nose, cat’s teeth and everything else. It had whiskers and long tufts of hair that trailed around the human sized head, a mix of white and brown stripes.

  Its muscular arms were sprawled out beside its body, legs spread apart, torso a gaping cavern of stinking guts. It looked as if it had been struck square on with a fireball, but there was no sign of burning. Its ribs were still intact, undamaged as if its abdomen simply tore itself apart.

  Isa drew closer and pulled his shirt over his nose. “Body seems fresh, but smells like it’s been decaying for weeks,” he said, his voice muffled.

  Juzo had his arm pressed against his mouth as he stepped around the body, brushing against a broad-leafed bush and swatting away flies. He turned around to give it a look from the other side. “What do you think did this?”

  “Might be what the Arch Wizard told us about.” Isa pointed to a flap of tattered skin folded over its hip. “Looks as though the flesh burst apart, like the boils she mentioned.”

  “Pustules,” Juzo corrected.

  “Stop,” Senka hissed, hands wrapping tight around her daggers. “Doesn’t matter. What matters is that it doesn’t look natural. We’re on the right track. Question is, where exactly that is.”

  “Well, on the bright side, we made it to Tigeria without a boat, sort of,” Isa said.

  “Downside is that we’ve lost our best weapons and are likely on our way to a village, city maybe,” Juzo added, beckoning and leading them away from the body, walking farther down the path.

  “They speak common?” Senka asked.

  “They do,” Isa said once they were far enough from the swarming flies. “Let’s go hand signals only from here on out, until we know what’s ahead.” Nods went all around.

  They navigated their way down the path, winding in great arcs like a snake. A canopy of vegetation draped over it, coiling vines and long leaves hanging down. Thin lances of sunlight stabbed down through overhanging ferns. Rotting debris littered the path, softly crunching beneath their boots. The air was heavy with humidity, the dry sea air unable to penetrate this far into the forest.

  Senka worked her sticky tongue around her dry mouth. It always seemed to fall short of spit at moments like this. No matter how much water she drank, it never got better. She glanced over at Juzo and Isa, neither of them showing any signs of soft nerves. She wondered if they ever felt like her, frothing with worry while their insides screamed to go the other way. She put on her sternest face, preparing herself to face more havoc.

  Maybe it was only she who felt scared, no faltering at all in the men’s steps from what she could tell. But it didn’t make a difference. She was sure then by the twitch in Isa’s hand, the clearing of Juzo’s throat that they had to feel a bit of fear, doing what she did and stuffing it down deep so it didn’t get in the way of what needed to be done.

  She checked that the straps were tight on her armor, firm and buckled. She checked the buckle on her dagger belt, making sure her daggers were securely sheathed and glided out smooth if they were needed. She caressed the needles under her bracers. They were mostly useless now that the poison had been washed clean, though a little might remain. Then again, it only took a little. She wished she had more daggers, but one had to make the best of what they had.

  There was a clearing in the foliage above, and smoke limped up to the sky from what must have been cook fires. It didn’t seem like this would be the place where there’d be chimneys. Life had a way of surprising her though.

  Isa stopped and jabbed the butt of his pitiful spear into the ground. He rubbed at a line of scars on the back of his head and held up his fist. One of the more notable scars, a scar they all shared was a figure-eight character. It was the brand left by the Shadow Realm. She felt then that they should be together, bound by their scars and by their shared pasts. “Looks to me like a regular shit hole,” he whispered back. “Don’t see anything, anyone.”

  Senka crept around to where he was, quiet as a breeze. There was a fence made of knotted wood secured by vines. Between either side was an archway made of what looked to be a giant animal’s bones, in the center an enormous skull with two teeth hanging down lo
ng as swords.

  “Don’t care much for craftsmanship,” Juzo whispered.

  “Smells like a shit hole too,” Isa said, his shirt over his nose again.

  At the front of the archway, flies darted to and fro in a mad frenzy. She saw why: two crumpled bodies at the front of the gate. Juzo and Isa led them to the gate in a triangular formation, Senka taking up the back. Once again, they were assaulted by the pungent stink of rotting meat. One of the Tigerians had black fur with white spots, great swathes of flesh torn asunder from its legs and showing the white of bone. The other had golden hair, mostly matted with browning blood, both shoulders showing ragged strips of flesh where boils had torn it apart.

  “Dead,” she breathed. Maybe they wouldn’t have much need for weapons after all. Her thudding heart began to slow with the thought.

  Juzo jerked his head at the village beyond the gate. There were maybe ten dwellings that she could see. They didn’t look all that different than the huts she grew up in. They used fieldstone mortared together with what looked to be mud and topped with thatch roofs.

  Juzo slipped around the gatepost, she and Isa following after. His head was always swiveling, sweeping the dirt path. Senka let her breath out, realizing she’d been holding it, and felt a line of sweat trickle down the center of her back. She took careful steps, only putting her foot down on stones or bits of hard earth, avoiding sticks that would crack. Something flapped and landed with a thump behind her. She turned and saw one of the beautiful birds they saw soaring above treetops earlier plunge its white beak into the Tigerian’s ruined legs. Its beak was as long as a dagger, milky white now bathed in red as it stripped a string of flesh from its bones.

  There was a strange sound coming from somewhere in the village. A baby crying, maybe a whimper, or the singing of an odd tool. It was hard to say what the sound was. A feminine laugh pierced the air. It came from far off, but it was hard to tell where exactly with so much vegetation. It warped the way she expected things to sound. The laugh fell away as if never there, and no one turned to exchange glances. Maybe she was the only one who heard it. Maybe she was imagining things, hallucinating from her damned addictions.