by Paul Yoder
Rolling backwards, Malagar barely dodged the giant hand as it scraped past him, but Lanereth was not as nimble, getting snatched as she went to crawl away.
Its boney fingers clenched around her. Lanereth cried out as its grip tightened, crushing her as she was dragged to the thing’s open maw.
The creature reflexively jerked back in pain, releasing its grip, flailing its arm and squealing out an ugly cry as Lanereth was dropped on her back. Malagar rushed to her, taking advantage of the sudden flash of luck, dragging her back up the canyon as the beast tended to its smoking hand, plummeting to the canyon floor as one of its legs fell into a hole behind it.
Finally getting her footing, Lanereth shrugged off Malagar’s helping hand, and the two sprinted higher up into the canyon, the walls shortening the higher they went.
The monster did not follow them, and after a long stretch of time of scrambling up the canyon slot with no more signs of rain or creatures to harass them, they came to the first, what looked like, hand-made structure they had seen in the distant world.
Taking a moment to catch their breaths and inspect the archway at the end of the canyon up ahead, they leaned against the ashen wall, keeping concealed as they whispered to each other.
“That looks constructed,” Malagar said, eyeing the brick-like pattern along the sides of the canyon’s exit, a long bone wedged into place, spanning the gap along the top of the walls.
“By what, is the question,” Lanereth whispered, trying to get a good look of what lay beyond the archway, the clouds of yellow fog making it hard to see anything beyond.
“Doubtful it was made by one of those giants back there. That archway is only five feet high or so. Not that it couldn’t climb over it, but if it were the one to construct such a structure, it’d be placing that bone arch quite a bit higher for ease of access, I’d guess,” Malagar mused, looking to Lanereth who subconsciously clutched her goddess’ amulet as she worried over the meaning of the structure before them.
“I saw the beast flinch when it grabbed you, almost like you had burned it. That trinket have anything to do with it?” Malagar asked, bringing Lanereth’s attention from the archway to the amulet she rubbed in her hand.
“This is no trinket,” she harshly corrected. “It’s a relic, blessed by Sareth herself. All High Priestesses are endowed with one. It is our channel directly to Sareth. It is rarely used, only in times of great need.”
“I would say this is a time of great need,” Malagar remarked.
“I would agree. That’s why I tried calling out to her earlier through it, but…,” she hesitated, considering the possibilities, “I’m not sure she has access to even my call here in one of the Deep Hells. If that’s the case, I’ve been stripped of power, for she is my power.”
“Well, you still have your healing,” Malagar optimistically reminded her, his tone one of thanks, the sting of the burns he had received almost completely gone by now.
“Yes. That I do,” she considered quietly, reflecting on it all before getting back on their initial subject. “Apparently, the touch of Sareth upon my amulet still has a strong effect upon the denizens of this damnable realm; enough of an effect to harm them if touched.”
“Let’s hope we don’t get close enough to any other creatures here to have to rely upon it,” Malagar said, looking back to the archway, still seeing no change to the drifting fogbank.
The two looked to the strange archway again, gleaning nothing more from it as they remained in their thoughts. At length, Lanereth broke the silence.
“We can’t stay here, there’s no shelter from the rain if it comes again.”
“Maybe Wyld’s up there somewhere,” Malagar answered hopefully, peering off into the eerily silent mist up ahead.
Lanereth started ahead, Malagar following, the two passing under the brick and boned archway, stepping out into the light fog beyond, the sting of acidity already nipping at their flesh.
18
Grace Along the Still Dunes
The night sky was clear, the air cool and crisp. The Kale moon shown down, casting a green hue along the normally pink and orange desert sands.
They had ridden hard that day, and all companies had been exhausted, ready for the order to halt as the night set firmly in.
No tents stood along the stretch of sand they had made camp at. No fire or communal sitting area erected. They bedded down and slept in their full gear, save their breastplates and helms. Within moments they could be ready to move and flee or fight.
Kissa called in the six scouts she had had patrolling during the day, sending a fresh set out to watch through half of the night.
Hathos found Henarus and his priest and asked how the prophet was faring. As they communed, he checked the middle-aged man’s responses to help him gauge how he was handling the concussion he had sustained from Nomad.
“The travel today…was rough,” the mature man confessed, patting his priest on the shoulder, smiling as he admitted, “Without Josiah, I likely would have fallen off my horse a few times.”
“Your balance is off?” Hathos inquired.
Henarus nodded. “It is hard to concentrate, which is quite foreign for me. Hassome is the god of focus, after all. That is his domain, so clarity...,” he said, trailing off, struggling to get through his statement.
“Rest,” Hathos comforted, standing up, looking around camp.
“I will find Reza. The sarens are known for their healings. Perhaps even that strange enchanter might have a cure for you, but first I would seek the saren,” he said, leaving the two to search for Reza’s attachment.
Seeing Gale, Hathos beckoned him forth, asking where he might find his charge.
“Reza’s with Arie over on the ridge,” Gale answered, pointing him to the couple standing atop the peak of the largest sand dune that hid their camp.
Hathos quietly made his way up the sandy rise, catching only the tail end of the women’s conversation as they went silent, turning to consider their visitor.
“Ah, Hathos. Good to see you,” Reza greeted, looking back to the view they had been intently studying.
“What is it you watch up here?” he asked, seeing that Arie’s interest was held by something on the horizon as well.
“We traveled far this day,” she announced, pointing to the end of the dunes miles to the east of them.
“The Dolinger Crags are within sight far to the east,” she said, pausing for Hathos to inspect for himself.
He squinted, trying to see through the pale green waves of sand that seemed to stretch on forever.
“I see no crags,” he muttered after a moment, giving up on the search.
“I can’t see it either, but Arie’s half haltia. Sight is a gift to her kind. She says the crags lie ten or so miles eastward,” Reza replied, pointing south of them, sweeping over the horizon from south to west.
“She also sees other landmarks. By her description, I believe I know what they are. I lived in this region for a number of years, so I’ve been down to south Tarigannie. I think I can make out where we are in the dunes, and that is a good ten miles from the southern edge of the Tarigannie Dunes. Fort Wellspring is to our south. Also Daloth’s Ribs and the old pagan ruins lie to the west of us. The highway runs along all of those landmarks, and if Rochata-Ung does decide to make chase, if they do not simply follow us into the dunes, they may ride the roads around to head us off at the pass.”
Hathos looked to the horizon of sand, seeing none of the announced landmarks, but considering the information and the available options.
“The real question remains, where is the arisen army?” he whispered, deep in thought.
“Knowing that would make things much easier,” Arie admitted, adding, “I see no signs of movement out there currently though, only the lights of Fort Wellspring, and even that is barely within my view.”
Hathos breathed in deep, collecting his thoughts, looking back to Reza. “Speaking of gifts we’ve been given, Reza, Henarus is
not yet recovered from the blow your friend dealt him. I fear we may soon need his aid, and he will not have the clarity of mind to give it. Might you see what can be done in terms of a healing? We are in desperate need of a miracle.”
Reza turned to the shorn head man, slightly uneasy at the request, never quite fully in good terms with her innate talent, even though in past months she had learned a great deal more about the flow and ways of the skill.
“Show me to him,” she answered at length, following him back down the dunes and through the encampment.
Henarus clutched his head, clearly in discomfort, suffering through a migraine. His priest held an open canteen out for him, and he began sipping from it lightly as he winced through an episode.
“Henarus, would you mind a blessing?” Reza asked in a soft voice, the man opening his eyes, looking up to see her and Hathos kneeling next to him.
“Reza,” he moaned, steadying himself as a wave of dizziness came upon him. “Yes, dear. That would be a godsend.”
The prophet looked his age, more tired than Reza had ever seen the proud man. It hurt her to behold him in such a state. His presence was ever so firm and sharp, not much unlike her mentor, Lanereth.
She looked down upon Isis’ ring, concentrating on it, reaching into the gift the dryads had endowed it with, drawing it up to feel its energy.
Though Leaf’s warning of saving its energy for the fight against Sha’oul fluttered about her thoughts, she was convinced they would understand. Henarus was a powerful force for good and could bring much to their fight with the Lord of Ash.
She reached out, resting a hand upon the prophet’s crown, seeping into his soul, searching for what ailed him. The ring soothed her, mediating her navigation, flowing life into the fog that clung to his mind, dispersing the darkness as she shown light into the pathways of his thoughts and memory.
She released, standing as she looked to the man who opened his eyes, smiling at the return of his cognition.
“Reza, what did I say about believing in yourself,” Henarus beamed, standing to embrace his healer. “You have nothing to fear but your own self-doubt in who you are and what you are capable of, blessed child of Sareth.”
She hugged him back, glad to have been able to help relieve his pains; gladder still to seem to be finally getting a firmer handle of her skill of healing.
19
Favela of the grey ones
The fog thickened, and Malagar clutched Lanereth’s hand as the two began to cough through the caustic air, their skin beginning to pinch and sting from the tiny droplets of acid that hung in the air.
Lanereth tried to contest Malagar’s desperate push into the mist, but every attempt to plea for them to stop and return to the canyon was interrupted with bouts of coughing and hacking as he yanked her along.
The thick cloud began to lighten quickly, and Malagar slowed their pace as they stumbled out into a clearing, slumping over when they got far enough away from the gas to clear their lungs and compose their breathing once more.
“Look,” Malagar choked out between breaths, pointing to strange structures along the cliff face to their left; platforms, constructed of bone, cemented together with an ashen paste, creating frames in which many large cocoon-like structures hung.
The structures stretched on for miles, though they saw no activity or any inhabitants amidst the network of nests.
“What in the hells is that?” Malagar gruffed, fixated on the massive sprawl that stretched on endlessly.
Lanereth calmed her breath, shaking her head as she answered, “I have no idea, but with such a large network of nests, or whatever those cocoon things are, where are the creatures that built them?”
“Perhaps this hive has been abandoned?” Malagar speculated, looking back at the fog bank that they had run through, seeing that it had moved off a ways out behind them.
“What’s that?” Lanereth asked, pointing to a large basin and funneling system on the outskirts of the settlement.
Malagar rubbed his red, irritated eyes, trying to get a better look at the structure Lanereth pointed to.
“Could be a water catch,” he said, his interest in the find piqued.
The two stood, taking in their new surroundings for a moment, the view of the city in front of them the only landscape of any note, the fogbank still covering most everything else within their vision.
“What could possibly find this rain drinkable?” Lanereth scoffed before Malagar started off towards the funneling basin.
Following behind him, dread of getting closer to the network of web-like nests looming over them, they slowly approached the pool of clear water, kneeling under the protective hood that overshadowed it.
“Interesting,” Malagar whispered, looking down into the depths of the pool, seeing chunks of black and white objects lining the floor of the pool a few feet down.
“Think this is drinkable? Obviously if it’s just a rain catch, it wouldn’t be, but look. There’s some sort of thought-out process to all this,” he said, fascinated with the construct.
“And you would trust whatever horrors made this device enough to drink from it?” Lanereth scornfully replied, looking around uneasily.
“Look,” he said, ignoring her tone, “what do you suppose those stones on the pool floor are? Could they be purifiers? I wonder if even hellspawn could stomach acid. Maybe even they require some sort of clarity to their water to survive.”
“And if it is acid and we drink, what then? I’m already spent from that healing earlier. I can’t do that again so soon. My body’s not yet recovered,” she argued, not happy with her companion’s fascination with the strange substance, drawing them so close to such a massive hive city.
“And if we don’t try, then this—” he said, grabbing his flask from his vest Lanereth wore, “—is all we have left to drink. How long will we stay alive without water, saren?” he asked, somewhat put out with the amount of opposition she was showing on the subject.
“Here, lets finish this water off first before I test this pool. Drink up,” he ordered, uncapping the flask, handing it over to her.
She did not look happy, but she did drink half of the water, and couldn’t help but let out a refreshing sigh, the water soothing greatly her burned throat. She handed the rest over to Malagar, who relished the drink, enjoying it almost as much as Lanereth had.
Leaving the flask on the side of the pool’s ledge, he lowered a finger to the surface of the water, dipping a tip into the liquid, waiting to feel the sting of acid to let him know to pull away.
There was no sting.
He dipped his whole hand in and swirled it around.
“Feels like cool, clean water,” he said smiling, looking to Lanereth who, for the first time, seemed somewhat hopeful in their prospects.
Dipping the flask into the water, filling it to the brim, he brought it up to his nose, sniffing it, then trickling a bit in his mouth, swishing it around for a moment, Lanereth frozen in suspense as he gulped the swig down.
“Water,” Malagar said, smiling as he took another drink from the flask, handing it to Lanereth again.
She accepted the tin hesitantly, but watching the man, seeing no obvious pain from drinking the substance, gave her confidence and she tested it with a sip, tasting it first.
It did taste like water upon first analysis, and she took another gulp as Malagar looked back to the pool, reaching in, grabbing one of the black and white stones that sat along the bottom of the pool, pulling them up.
He lay the two objects out as Lanereth finished the flask, handing it back over to him as she inspected what he had plucked from the pool.
“This white one seems like some chalky stone,” she said, flipping it over in her hand, placing it back along the pool’s edge as Malagar inspected the black material.
“Some type of charcoal maybe?” he guessed, hefting it, contemplating the object. “It’s denser than charcoal though. Not sure.”
“Well I guess you were r
ight. Perhaps whatever created this catch somehow found out how to convert this acid rain into drinkable water,” Lanereth admitted, grabbing the two stones, pocketing them in the leather jerkin she wore.
“Good idea,” Malagar agreed, scooping up another flask, downing one whole before refilling it one last time, capping it and handing it back over to Lanereth to put away.
“The fog’s gone,” Lanereth idly said, looking back the way they had come, the two looking out over the vista before them, showing them a better picture of where exactly they were in the landscape they had been blindly traversing.
They seemed to be a on a flat-top, the edge a mile or so further out, dropping off, overlooking a massive thicket of red interwoven structures, looking grotesquely similar to entrails. There was another plateau far across the way, and what looked like a land bridge that led along to it which Malagar, with his better eyesight, could see.
The mountain they were on continued even higher past the city sprawl, spiking up high into the dingy yellow sky. Strange towers and formations were littered along its jutting cliffs, showing to Lanereth and Malagar that indeed the place they traversed seemed far from barren of inhabitance.
Barely had they been granted the time to soak in the scene before their gaze lowered back to the dwellings they had been eyeing so cautiously at the start, movement catching their eyes.
Eyes in the dark of the entrances were staring down, gleaming in the rusty yellow light that flickered off of their gaze as they watched the two strangers drinking from their water supply.
Hundreds of eyes peeked out from the dark of the cocoons, waiting in anticipation as Malagar and Lanereth took a step back. Lanereth took in a startled, sharp breath as she noticed little figures standing still, watching them from all around, some even on the ground relatively close to them, which must have snuck up on them as they had been gorging themselves with drink.
“Praven?” Malagar asked, confused with the small, ashen figure’s presence in the distant lands.
