by Jada Fisher
“Could you lay it out in plainer terms for me?” Baerdon asked. Ivara snorted, and he gave her a rude gesture. He knew more or less what the situation was she was insinuating, but he wanted it spoken allowed. Gayla was sharp, after all, and might be thinking something completely different from him.
She rocked Yuma in her arms. “Plainly speaking, we must consider that some dark force is planning to collect as many tribes as possible and use them as an army against Masrataa. It seems outlandish, I know, but we must consider the possibility.”
The thought of his family, his tribe, filled with women, children, and elderly, marching on one if the great cities without so much as a weapon or shred of armor terrified him.
“How would they even cross the channel, though?” Ivara asked. “The waters are always violent. There’s a reason why Masrataa never comes to conquer us, and vice versa.”
“Ordinarily, you’d be correct,” Gayla said. “But we must remember that whoever is behind this has magic on their side, however dark and profane it may be. There are so many unholy magics in this world, and so many that aren’t. There are absolutely ways to make an army cross the channel unscathed.”
They all fell into silence at that. The tribes of the Human Plains, being forced into a war with the great city of Masrataa. Baerdon had never seen the place, obviously, but he’d heard tales of it, of its massive walls and great golden pyramids, said to be a city of the gods. He wasn’t sure if any army could conquer it.
And he didn’t want his tribe to be the fodder that tried to do it next.
“We don’t know that for certain, though,” Maedon said, trying to bring them down from the storm clouds of worry hovering above them.
“No, you’re right,” Gayla replied with a simple smile. She held Yuma’s head against her shoulder, and it was obvious that the child was now asleep. Baerdon looked down at his own little one. Baara was fast asleep too, with one hand still loosely gripped around his pinky.
“For now,” Gayla continued, “this is merely speculation and baseless conjecture. Perhaps we will find the tribes tomorrow and everything will be perfectly fine. We can only hope and pray that that’s the case.”
Yeah, we can hope, Baerdon thought. It was bad enough thinking of his family being controlled by some dark magic, but if they were forced to kill innocent people, to fight and die for a war that they had no consent in, that made his blood boil.
He contained his anger because he still had sleeping baby in his arms.
He wondered what became of the several babies and small children that his tribe had. There had been no trace of them back at his village, but it made little sense for some dark spirits or whomever to take them. If they were going to use his people for war, they wouldn’t need babies. So what happened to them?
His stomach twisted at the thought that perhaps those children had been killed. No, don’t think about that now, he told himself. Those were dark questions that would lead to wild and angry thoughts. And when he was in a rage, Baerdon often made poor decisions. He had to keep his head on straight.
Gayla stood slowly with Yuma and yawned. “We should probably get some rest. Tomorrow may be a very trying day for all of us.” She crossed the space to Maedon and handed him Yuma.
Maedon nodded. “Agreed.”
“I’ll take first watch,” Ivara volunteered. Baerdon didn’t argue. He was exhausted.
He handed Baara back to her father and watched as Maedon settled down to sleep, placing his children in a bundle of furs that they’d given him for them to use. With the babies cuddled up next to him, he lifted his head and spoke.
“In case I don’t get a chance to say this tomorrow, thanks again for your help. Not everyone would have done so.”
Gayla smiled. “You are quite welcome.”
Smiling, Maedon laid his head down and didn’t say another word. Baerdon, sensing that all conversation was over, leaned against Tuk’s bulk and closed his eyes. Hopefully, he would have some pleasant dreams and recuperate his tired body. He needed to, because tomorrow might turn out to be one of the hardest days of his life.
8
Baerdon
The group didn’t waste any time. As soon as dawn came, Baerdon woke the others. They ate a quick breakfast before finally leaving.
They traveled south for most of the day, and as the day went, they found more and more evidence that they were absolutely on the right trail. Because they found not one or two but several massive trails cutting through the forests and the plains.
Paths of dirt and trampled grass dozens of people thick. It was what Baerdon imagined it would look like after an army marched through. Footprints, muddy lanes and scattered broken sticks, branches, and the like.
They were on the right track.
The closer they got, the more excitable Tuk became. He barked and ran ahead, bounding to the next shallow woods. Beyond was a range of small, wooded mountains. Gayla, who’d been in the lead since the morning, dropped back to be by their side.
“I sense something powerful and wrong up ahead,” she said, her face gravely serious. Her emerald eyes were straight ahead, and Baerdon wondered if she meant literally right ahead of them, as in beyond these trees. Were they that close? Would he find his tribe, his family just beyond the wood? Maybe that was why Tuk was so excited.
He had to clamp down on his own excitement, however. She had said something was wrong, so he wasn’t about to have a warm reunion with everyone he loved. He had to be ready for the worst.
But he wasn’t.
After another half-mile, they reached the woods. As they passed between the thin pines, a buzz went through the air that made Baerdon’s skin itch. They were so, so close, he knew it. He held his breath, hoping for the best, or at least hoping not for the worst. He prayed to Rosk that if his family was alive that they could be saved. He had no idea what awaited them, but all he could do was hope and pray.
He hated having something like this out of his hands, but there was nothing he could do, and it drove him mad.
Finally, they caught up with Tuk on the other side of the woods, sitting patiently for them as he stared down the hill to the valley beyond.
Baerdon gasped. They all gasped. His chest ached.
The valley was huge on its own, but it was filled, end to end, with people. So many people, too many, more than Baerdon was even able to comprehend. He hadn’t thought there was this many people in all the plains. Perhaps this was all the people of the plains. All the tribes, united here, captured by whatever dark force was at work. That seemed insane, and yet here they all were.
And the most eerie part of it all? It was deathly silent, despite the immense amounts of people. They didn’t make a sound.
He gulped.
“There’s so many…” he said, without any other words to say.
Ivara stood next to him, her eyes wide. She lifted a hand to her lips, her mouth slightly agape. “This looks like more people than in all of Masrataa.”
“Looks like all the tribes in all the plains are here,” Baerdon remarked. “Are we the last people left untouched on the entire continent?”
Gayla stood on his opposite side and chuckled to herself. “No, I can assure you that this is not all of the tribes.”
He lifted an eyebrow. “How do you know?”
She gave him a hard stare that seemed to shout, you dare question a thousand-year-old magical witch, idiot boy?
“I am very well attuned to the earth. Trust me, there are many thousands more people left in these lands. They are not all here.” She pursed her lips. “But this is a great deal more than I had anticipated.”
“C-can you find the cause?” Maedon asked, fear creeping back into his voice.
Gayla frowned. “I have my suspicions, but we should get closer so that I can make certain.”
They nodded and followed her as she led them down the hill into the valley. Baerdon felt like a grazing prairie hart, sitting out in the open waiting to get struck by an arrow. T
he hills around the valley were mostly just open grass, so they had to sprint between the few odd rocky outcroppings and clusters of trees. He was sure they’d be spotted, but as they neared the edge of the assembled tribes, no alarm went up.
At the base of the valley, barely a stone’s throw from the mass of people, they hid behind a small wall of trees that disguised them a bit.
Baerdon gritted his teeth as he watched all the people. There was no one in the immediate vicinity that he recognized, but there were tribes from all over. The paler-skinned tribes of the north. The darker-skinned tribes of the coasts. And then the golden-skinned tribes of the central plains, like his. He saw a dozen different tribal tattoos, and there were probably even more. Many of the people were filthy beyond belief, and some had wounds, but no one spoke or hardly moved. They just stood around, dead-eyed and silent.
“What the hell is this?” he whispered, more to himself than his companions.
But Gayla had an answer. “This isn’t good,” she said. Hearing her say that did not instill a lot of confidence. “See those strange wraiths hovering amongst them? Those are hikariva, or soul thieves, in simpler terms.”
Baerdon had to strain his eyes to see them, but yes, he saw them—a shimmer, an outline of a person that hovered over many of the assembled people. Sometimes they seemed more solid, like they were made of clouds or smoke, but otherwise, they were almost transparent.
Ivara gasped. “Are they stealing their souls? Will the people die?”
Gayla chewed her lip. “In a sense. Hikariva can latch onto a person’s soul and control them body, mind, and soul. It could take many weeks or even months to completely steal the soul and thus kill the host, but in the meantime, the hikariva will cause a lot of havoc. They are dark, chaotic creatures, usually left to the shadows. It’s one of the Sage of the Dark’s duties to keep them down, but with Bishta’s betrayal, they’re now rampant. Just like the undead.”
“So why are they all gathered here?”
“Uncertain. But soul thieves are not mindless creatures. They are intelligent, can speak and coordinate with one another. I think it’s a good guess that they might use these people as an army to attack Masrataa. Maximum chaos, and an easy way to expand their numbers.”
Baerdon cursed. “We can’t let that happen.”
“I don’t know how they’d cross the strait, but hikariva sometimes find magical means to do things so it isn’t out of the realm of possibility to find a way to let this army cross the waters.”
“We have to stop them before they decide to do that then,” Ivara said. She had a hand on the hilt of her sword. Baerdon liked where her head was at, but these people were innocent, and they couldn’t just go hacking away at them.
“How do we stop this?” asked Maedon, hugging his daughters tight to his chest.
Gayla didn’t answer. Instead, she plucked two small white flowers from the stem of her staff, brought them to her lips, and whispered something into them. Baerdon didn’t see any magical change to them, but even so, the sage handed the flowers to him and Ivara.
“It won’t be long before the thieves sense us here. I can banish them, but with so many, it will take a few minutes to gather my strength to do so. I need you two to run out there and distract them. If they’re focused on you, then they won’t notice Maedon and I.”
Baerdon nodded. “And these flowers will…?”
“They are imbued with a protective charm from my magic. It should keep you and Ivara from having your souls latched onto.”
“So, we just have to run around and get their attention?” Ivara asked. Her tone suggested that this sounded too easy, and Baerdon agreed. There had to be a catch.
“Well, yes, but even if the hikariva can’t sway your souls, that doesn’t mean that they won’t have their hosts harm you, so you better be ready to fight.” Ah, there’s the catch.
Ivara frowned. “But these people are innocent, we can’t kill them.” That was a departure from the feeling she’d had moments ago.
“I’m not asking you to, but you’ll likely have to defend yourselves, and that might require you to hurt some people. It’s their lives or yours, and without yours, then I cannot dispel this mess.”
Baerdon and Ivara shared a long stare. Neither of them liked the prospect of hurting these people, but he knew that Gayla was right. Freeing them from the soul thieves’ grasp was of the utmost importance, and only Gayla could do it. She needed them as a distraction, so they would stay alive and distract.
“You can count on us,” he said with a smirk, tucking the protective flower into his pocket.
Ivara nodded in agreement, though she lacked his enthusiasm.
Maedon adjusted his daughters as they squirmed against him. “What about me?”
Gayla’s lips simmered to a line. “You have two babies. I can’t risk you three, and obviously I can’t watch them, so you and Tuk will stay here with me.”
The father looked like he wanted to argue. He wanted to be brave for his daughters and his tribe, but being their father, being alive to raise them, was his most important duty. He needed to see that. So he relented.
“I understand.”
The sage nodded. She then sat cross-legged and laid her staff over her lap. She took a deep breath. “Okay. I will begin. Are you ready?”
After another look between them, Baerdon and Ivara nodded. “Ready.”
“Good, then get to it.”
With that, the two warriors ran from the cover of the trees to the valley filled with people.
The stretch between the woods and the first line of people wasn’t long, and it didn’t take even a minute before heads began to turn. When he caught a glimpse of their faces, Baerdon was distressed to find their eyes to be nothing but hollow and blank, with not a soul behind them. As he looked, he could make out the faint, shimmering outline of the hikariva attached to their hosts. It was their attention that they needed.
“Split up,” he said.
Ivara’s gaze snapped to him. “What?”
“Split up! That way we can get maximum distraction.”
“Baerdon…”
“This is the best way, Keet.” Baerdon didn’t wait for her response. Just as they reached the first of the mind-controlled people, Baerdon dug his foot into the ground and took off to his left, running like his life was on the line, and it probably was. He didn’t look back to see what Ivara would do, but he knew she’d listen to him.
For a moment, nothing happened as he ran. He passed dozens of blank-faced men and women, and none of them were familiar. They all cast him a passive glance, as if he was meant to be there and was not a bother at all.
But then the soul thieves must have finally taken notice, because the crowd suddenly began to move and follow him.
There were women and children, along with warriors from all sorts of tribes. They came at them armed and unarmed, some in armor and some barely clothed at all.
Baerdon ran as much as he could, but eventually he was surrounded. The mob closed in on him, silent but terrifying. Those without weapons shambled towards him, the shimmer of the soul thief hovering over them. As they attacked, Baerdon dodged and swatted away their arms, careful not to hurt them, but the ones that had weapons were harder to deal with.
Several came at him with swords and spears, and it was all he could do to not get himself. But when he dodged a spear, the attacker instead impaled an unarmed man behind him. Even when he was impaled, the man only grunted. Only once the man had collapsed did the hikariva screech and disappear from the body.
So, they couldn’t inhabit a body once the soul passed on. Of course, that didn’t help Baerdon. He didn’t want people to die. And it seemed that the thieves didn’t care if they hurt one another.
But Baerdon cared, and he had to be extra careful.
He was soon overwhelmed, though. There were just too many people. Thousands of pairs of arms ready to hurt him, hundreds of weapons bearing down on him and Ivara. He wished that mayb
e they had stayed together after all.
Baerdon danced and parried the bladed weapons and avoided as many grasping hands as he could, but soon they were pulling him to the ground, tearing at his armor and his clothes and soon his skin. This is how I go? He lamented. Torn apart by women and children and stranger?
After all he’d gone through, after all the brushes with death, all the pain and injures and highs and lows, this was how he would die? It wasn’t fair, not when he was so close to getting to see his family again.
A sword was raised above his head, and he knew it would plunge into him. He couldn’t move, though. He was being held and tugged in all directions and that hurt enough. So the end was coming. He closed his eyes, hoping that he could at least see Ivara and everyone again in the great hunt with Rosk.
But instead of the sword plunging into his chest, a terrible shriek went up throughout the valley, so loud that his ears almost burst.
He opened his eyes to see the hikariva fly from all the hosts, hundreds of them, and dissolve in the air like fog broken by the sun. They shrieked and convulsed and broke apart and then they were gone.
In their wake was a mass of thousands of confused people.
It was bizarre. As everyone looked around, it was clear that a lot of them were aware of what had happened. Had they been self-aware the entire time, prisoners inside their own bodies? That sounded like completely hell to Baerdon. To see yourself do strange and unthinkable things and not be able to do anything to stop yourself? That was a nightmare.
Slowly, everyone got back to normal, and hugging, crying, cursing, and every reaction one could imagine went through the crowd. But Baerdon wasn’t there yet. Not until he found his people.
He shouldered through the throngs, somewhat violently, looking for anyone familiar. He feared he’d never find them. There were just too many people. But then, he found a blessedly familiar face. Ivara Keet. She was alive. She had scratches on her arms and face and a bit of blood from whatever she’d dealt with during her chase, but she was alive.
