by M. K. Adams
Lyvanne was trying her best to understand, but it all felt very foreign to her. This was a world apart from the life she had believed she would lead. The two watched as Turiel spoke with various members of The Spring, before at last one put his arms around Turiel like a brother and the two began laughing together.
“Looks like we’re all good,” Jocelyn said, the green skin around her eyes loosening with relief.
Turiel motioned for them to come forward. Lyvanne had been right, there were at least twenty people stood just behind the tree line, all of them armed. Immediately she noticed a mix of races; there were three Hemeti, green of face the same as Jocelyn, five Islanders whose dark skin reminded her of Oh and the rest were similar to her, residents of The Rive.
“Jocelyn, Lyvanne let me introduce you,” Turiel said as they entered into the wood, the leaves of the trees somewhat shielding the gathering of people against the rain “This is Kwah.”
Turiel held his arm out towards the man who he had embraced. He was one of the Islanders, his skin darker than Oh’s and he towered over even Turiel who Lyvanne had thought to be tall. He was clothed in a basic brown gambeson, leather boots, and a hooded cloak for protection against the weather.
“It’s a pleasure to meet you both,” Kwah said, making sure he welcomed each individually. “As fellow members of The Spring you are welcome among my band of brothers.”
Lyvanne wanted to tell him that she wasn’t a part of their insurgency, that she was here to be with her friends rather than any great cause, but thought better of it when she felt Jocelyn gently squeeze her shoulder. Instead, she nodded and thanked him for the welcome, before turning to as many of the others present as she could and thanking them too.
“How do you know Kwah?” Jocelyn asked Turiel as the company made their way further into the shadowy cloak of the woods, the only illumination coming from the torches carried by a handful of men surrounding them.
“A couple of years ago when I journeyed The Rive in search of allies, Kwah saved me from a slaver ship just off the coast of the Shimmering Isles. I haven’t seen him much since then, but he’s been working for our cause ever since. I owe him two favours now,” Turiel replied, occasionally batting away a rogue branch before it could rake at his eyes.
Lyvanne found herself surprised. She struggled to believe that there was anything this pair didn’t know about each other, but more than that, she was surprised at how active in this organisation Turiel was for his age. To journey The Rive at such a young age would have been daunting for the bravest of men.
“You didn’t tell me you were nearly caught by slavers,” Jocelyn scolded him.
“I figured it best to leave out. You were so happy to see me return after all.”
Jocelyn grinned but tried her best to hide it beneath a scowl. “Next time you tell me, buffoon,” She turned to Lyvanne who was walking on her other side. “Never let men get close, they are stupid in many ways.”
The comment drew more than a few laughs, even from nearby members of The Spring who had overheard the conversation. Hearing the laughter Kwah slowed his pace and backtracked to walk with the trio of newcomers.
“Turiel has told me a lot about both of you,” he said gesturing at Lyvanne and Jocelyn.
“I am saddened to say that I cannot say the same about yourself Kwah,” Jocelyn replied.
“I cannot say that I am surprised. Turiel was always ashamed that without my aid he would currently be watering the plants of some far off foreigner’s garden, praying that the lashes were only minimal today.”
Turiel scoffed, “I would have made my own way off that ship eventually.”
“Yes, the chains seemed very flimsy,” Kwah joked.
The company travelled deeper and further into the wood than Lyvanne imagined they would have. The faint rays of moonlight that had been trying to break through the clouds were now entirely hidden above the canopy of trees. But through the trunks of the trees, there was light.
“We’re here,” Kwah said as they made their way into what turned about to be somewhat of a clearing within the wood. The company were greeted by a sizeable grouping of people. Between forty and fifty additional insurgents were spread out among the clearing. Tents and makeshift huts had been constructed throughout, enough to house most if not all of the party. There were a number of fire pits, some with food still being roasted above, others encircled by people trying to keep warm. Lyvanne noticed that the rain had stopped; a manmade canopy had been constructed high in the trees, siphoning and collecting the rain water in a series of wooden troughs around the edges of the camp.
“Clever,” she said as she stood in amazement.
“Thank you,” Kwah responded from a few feet away. “The woods are good for protection, and the animals are just about enough to keep us fed, but the nearest stream is half a day’s walk from here. Not very practical for people who are trying to stay hidden.”
“Come, I’ll show you to your hut,” one of the men said, he was of a similar height to Turiel, but where Turiel’s skin was a sparkling white, this man’s was more similar to her own. He led the three of them through the camp. As they passed one of the fire pits the smell of roasting rabbit sent her stomach growling. She’d had more food over the past few weeks than she could have ever dreamed of having back at Abella’s, let alone during her time in the sewers, and she was starting to think that her belly was growing greedy because of it.
Their hut was far from special. A conglomerate of branches, leaves and rope, but it would do Lyvanne thought as she stepped through a small fabric doorway and saw ample room for the three of them. Claiming a small sleeping area furthest away from the entrance ,she immediately dumped her sack of belongings, took out the small toy soldier that Oh had given to her and placed it where her head would be when she slept. Soon after Kwah appeared at the entrance to their new home.
“Turiel, it’s time we spoke my friend,” Turiel nodded, said his goodbyes to the others and made his way to follow Kwah.
“Come on,” Jocelyn said to Lyvanne, “Let’s go get some food!”
“Don’t you need to be at those talks too?”
The question surprised Jocelyn, and appeared to give her some food for thought. “Soon. Our allies are slow to trust newcomers, but Turiel will introduce me over time. He might even involve you if that’s the path you choose.” She knew that the comment would draw a weary look from Lyvanne, but she laughed all the same. “Let’s eat.”
Making their way back out into the encampment Lyvanne was surprised to find that she had either not noticed before, or had given it no thought, that there were as many women in their ranks as there were men. Women from The Rive, Shimmering Islands and Hemeti all the same.
“Do they fight too?” she asked.
Jocelyn looked on proudly at the women around them, most of whom were armed, and those who weren’t seemed capable of taking on any man in hand to hand combat if the situation called for it.
“They do. If you believe in the cause and you have something to offer then you can join The Spring. Some women choose not to fight, to help in other ways; at Avagarde, I met a woman from the Shimmering Isles who is one of the best medics I’ve ever seen.”
Lyvanne smiled, she had not seen or even heard of such a fighting force before.
They took a seat around a fire pit with four other members of The Spring.
“So, you’re the new blood Kwah’s been going on about?” one woman said as she offered out a hand to Jocelyn. “The more the merrier, going to need a lot of bodies for what’s to come.”
Lyvanne watched the creases form in Jocelyn’s forehead. For now they held their tongues, but she knew that Turiel would be asked a series of questions later. Instead, they said their pleasantries and moved off to a quieter area of the camp to eat the cooked rabbit and boiled vegetables.
“What do you think she meant by what’s to come?” Lyvanne asked Jocelyn when they were alone.
“Not sure yet, little one. We can a
sk Turiel when he comes back.”
Lyvanne nodded and went back to her food. “Do you think we’ll be safe here?”
“Yes, at least for the time being. I don’t know an awful lot about these people, but I do know that they’ve been out here for a couple of years now and they’ve faced minimal resistance from the king. The important thing is that we keep you out of his reach until you’re strong enough to stay hidden without us, and then you can do as you please.”
“Will Turiel really let me leave?” Lyvanne asked, the question burning in the back of her mind to stay quiet for any longer. She had been worrying about how much stock Turiel was placing in his vision. If he really saw her as some kind of saviour then why would he let her just walk out of camp?
Jocelyn put down her food and stared at her friend “Of course, he will. Turiel often finds himself caught up in the vision the Angel gifted him; he forgets that people still need to lead their own lives. But he’s a good man and if when the time comes you decide that this isn’t what you want from life, then he will accept that… and if he doesn’t then I’ll make him.”
The two laughed together quietly, neither liked the attention and they were already drawing enough eyes as people walked by. As it turned out they didn’t get the chance to speak to Turiel. They weren’t sure where he had gone, but Turiel didn’t return to their hut until late into the night, by which point both Lyvanne and Jocelyn had already bedded down to sleep.
Lyvanne fell asleep surprisingly easily given the constant commotion of people in the camp, and the pattering of rain on the canopy above. But once she did sleep her dreams swiftly turned into nightmares. She dreamt about her vision, that rather than being sat around a table at the centre of the room she was instead on her knees before the throne, upon which was sat a faceless king. To her right was Turiel, motionless and devoid of life on the cold stone floor. To her left Jocelyn, hands bound and mouth gagged. She looked up at the king defiantly before an unseen man brandishing the largest sword Lyvanne had ever seen brought it swinging down and through her friend’s body. She was then snapped into another dream, where she found herself wandering around the camp. The huts were on fire and there were bodies all around her.
“Help!” she cried out into the darkness of the night, but no one replied. She ran to the hut where she had been sleeping, but that too was on fire. “Help!” she cried out again.
Movement to her left. Turiel stumbled out of the woods, she ran over to him but she was too late, he fell at her feet, two arrows embedded into his back. In the distance she could hear the clang of steel on steel. Running in the direction it came from she found Jocelyn, two swords in hand duelling with the same creature that had cut her down in the dream before. It was a goliath of a person, a good two heads taller than Jocelyn and bearing down on her quickly with their monstrous sword.
“Run!” Lyvanne screamed at Jocelyn, but her words had not been heard. The two continued to duel and Lyvanne wanted to run to her friend to try all she could to help, but her feet wouldn’t move. Then it came, the giant knocked Jocelyn’s swords from her hands and in one fell sweep, he sliced at her throat.
Lyvanne sprung awake, panting and sweating the way she had the day she’d had her vision. She checked around her, Turiel and Jocelyn were both there, sleeping and safe.
“It was only a dream,” she whispered to herself, before lying back into her sleeping area, damp from the sweat. She grabbed Oh’s toy soldier and held it close, the sight of her friends being killed replaying over and over again in her head as she slowly drifted back into a deep sleep.
Chapter 15
Lyvanne woke up late the next morning. Jocelyn and Turiel had already left the hut by the time she woke, and the sun was beaming down into the camp site. After changing into some fresh clothes packed away into her sack, Lyvanne left the hut and sought out her friends. All the time she searched for them, she contemplated whether or not to tell them about the dreams. The images of Turiel lying dead at her feet, and of Jocelyn being slain twice by the behemoth were still burning into her mind.
“Morning Lyvanne,” a voice called out from across the camp. It was Kwah, and with no need for a hood under the morning sun, Lyvanne realised that he was bald. A common fashion among Islanders she had been told, but a rare sight back in the Upper level of Astreya.
“Good morning,” she replied, doing her best to shield the sun beaming through the trees from her eyes as she stared up at him.
“Your friends went for a walk, that way,” he said as he pointed off into the woods.
“Thank you.”
“Would you like some food before you follow?”
Lyvanne was unsure. She didn’t yet feel entirely comfortable around these people, but that wasn’t going to change if she kept clinging to Turiel and Jocelyn.
“Sure,” she replied before following the Islander over to a large cauldron situated near the centre of the camp.
“It’s not much,” Kwah said as he poured a ladle of what looked like a vegetable broth into a small bowl and handed it over to her, “but it’s warm.”
Kwah was right it wasn’t much. The broth had virtually no taste, and lacked the meat that would make it a satisfying dish.
“I promise to find more rabbit for your dinner,” he said, nudging her with a fist and taking a seat down in front of her.
“Thank you, it’s good,” she lied.
“So, I presume that Turiel has explained why he has such interest in you?” Kwah asked nonchalantly.
Lyvanne was taken aback and her face immediately flushed red. She hadn’t realised that Turiel had told anyone outside of Jocelyn and Sinjin about her role in his vision, but now that she gave thought to it, it made sense in helping convince The Spring to take them in.
“Yeah, he mentioned it.”
Kwah could hear the trepidation in her voice, ”Don’t worry, we don’t all feel the need to put such pressure on the shoulders of a young child the way Turiel does.”
“Hey!” she shouted playfully, “I’m fourteen you know? I can make decisions for myself.”
Kwah raised a hand up in innocence. “Forgive me, Lyvanne.”
The pair laughed together. Lyvanne toyed with the idea of telling Kwah about her own vision, he seemed nice enough after all, but before she had the chance she spotted Jocelyn making her way back through the tree line and into the camp. She was walking with pace, without Turiel and headed straight for their hut.
“Excuse me,” Lyvanne said, finishing another mouthful of her food and chasing after Jocelyn.
Lyvanne found Jocelyn in their hut, knelt over her sleeping area packing up her belongings. Her face was flushed with a tinge of red and her eyes were puffy. It didn’t take much for Lyvanne to work out that she’d had an argument with Turiel.
“What are you doing?” she asked, her voice shaking.
“Lyvanne… I just need some time to myself. I’ll be back soon, okay?” Jocelyn replied as she carried on packing her few belongings into a satchel.
“What did Turiel say? What did he do?”
“Nothing to concern you, little one.” As she finished packing, she turned to Lyvanne and brought her down onto her knees before squeezing her arms tight around her.
“I can come with you?” Lyvanne pleaded, not needing to know what was wrong, only wanting to be there for her friend.
“Not this time. You need to stay here where it’s safe.”
“I would be safe with you.”
Jocelyn shook her head, “Turiel’s spell can’t protect you from the king’s warlocks if you’re too far away.”
“I’m nearly strong enough though. Turiel tells me that soon I’ll be able to remove his spell and keep them out on my own.”
The comment wasn’t entirely a lie. Turiel had told her that she was getting stronger, but he had yet to insinuate exactly when she would be ready which as she came to think of it led Lyvanne to believe that he may just be delaying the inevitable.
“I won’t be long. Jus
t stay close to Turiel and try and make some new friends. These people seem nice.” Lyvanne nodded. Whilst she enjoyed no longer being the responsible person of a group, she was beginning to feel as though no one saw past her age and that if the time came she wouldn’t be relied upon to do anything that could help her friends.
With that Jocelyn departed. She didn’t say where she was going, and Turiel wasn’t yet around for her to ask. At first Lyvanne didn’t leave the hut, she didn’t understand what was going on and she wasn’t even sure if she wanted to. She obsessed over whether she should have told Jocelyn about the dream, about whether that would have made her stay, but it was too little too late. Sometime later Lyvanne emerged from the hut. The camp was busy, everywhere she looked there were people going about some kind of work, whether it was collecting water from the troughs, preparing food for later in the day, patrolling the perimeter or sharpening a large pile of weapons. For a group of people who lived in little makeshift huts in the middle of the wood she found them all to be quite charming. They clearly co-existed well and everyone seemed happy enough with their manmade home out in the wilds. It made her smile trying to picture the people from Astreya’s Upper level trying to live in such conditions. She wasn’t sure that any of them would last longer than a single day.
Her eye was drawn to one particular sheltered area of the camp. It was a wooden structure, slightly larger than the huts everyone used to sleep in. The structure was open on one side, and on the inside Kwah, Turiel and a few others stood around a circular wooden table. She was too far away from the table to discern exactly what they were all looking at or talking about, but she could make out various sheets of parchment, and what appeared to be wooden figures similar to the toy soldiers Oh had used to play with back in Astreya. Reluctance held her back at first, but Jocelyn had left for a reason and she wanted Turiel to tell her why. Straightening her back and quickening her pace Lyvanne strode into somewhat of a march, aimed directly at Turiel.
“Turiel!” she said, almost shouting, as she declared her arrival.
