by TJ Reynolds
The arrows were flung aside, leaving the bushes torn to pieces.
Status Effect: Wing Storm
Wing Storm: A barrage of wind buffets the enemy, stunning them for 2 seconds. The Dazed debuff is applied and reduces movement speed and reaction time by 25%. Interrupts spell casting. Duration: 2 minutes. Cooldown: 5 minutes.
The successful use of the skill meant two things. One, the deadly little archers had nowhere to hide. I abandoned my bow and began hacking apart the defenseless beasts. The second was that the Silencing Shriek spell had worn off.
In a few bloody moments, Pachi and I had dispatched the dazed tasloi archers, and their bodies lay scattered at our feet. Attacking the green monsters, only hip height, had felt much like slaughtering children, but being filled with their arrows made the deed palatable.
The drone of Alysand’s song filled the air again from below, and I heard Madi use her taunt ability.
Pachi zipped down the slope with her teleport ability and I retrieved my bow. Overlooking the battlefield, I could see several things had taken place in the short time I’d been busy with the archers. Tejón had an orc’s axe sticking out of a bone plate and was fighting beside Madi against a fresh squad of orcs. Alysand was limping backward, away from the third and final wyvern. The second lay bleeding on the roadside, its head a mushed pulp. The gunsinger’s horse lay in a smoking heap.
I charged an arrow with Vital Aim, aiming at the final addition to the battle—which was in many ways the source of the enemy’s power.
Ratkin Overlord
Level 26
HP: 8730/8730
Abilities: Ambush, Muster, Cleave
My arrow flew true and plunged into the ratkin’s eye. The overlord’s head snapped back, its raised sword clattering to the ground.
As Alysand rolled out of the way of another blast of flame, I lifted my bow to fire another Vital Aim shot at the wyvern. My efforts were interrupted by a second Silencing Shriek, however. We would need to end this the old-fashioned way.
I released my arrow, causing the wyvern to flinch away, then focused on the remaining orcs below.
I called out to Pachi, hoping to restore some sense to the scene below. Help Tejón. He can’t take much more! Pachi flashed again and felled an orc that had been about to sink its axe into Tejón’s exposed neck.
I took aim and released an arrow that whipped over Madi’s shoulder and felled an orc before her. She used the moment to her benefit and tackled another orc. Madi fell on the creature, drawing her dagger to finish the job. The remaining orc raised his axe to cut her down, but I was too quick, my arrow plunging into its chest.
Tejón and Pachi finished their fights, and the only thing that remained was one massive and pissed-off fire snake. Alysand continued to dart side to side, dodging the occasional gout of flame.
“Bring it down!” Madi bellowed, hurling one of her axes. It bounced off the wyvern’s hide, but where the blade had struck, a line of blood showed. It was not invulnerable. I rained arrows down on its head from my perch. One sunk into the wyvern’s eye at last.
I was hoping that the Silence timer would expire soon, and no doubt there were only ten or fifteen seconds left. Yet even as Alysand continued to blast away scales and mar the wyvern’s hide, Pachi and Tejón attacked.
Though the wyvern stood taller on its long, wiry legs, and its head snapped out, sinking vicious teeth into Pachi’s back, the two overpowered it. Tejón took the wyvern’s neck in his mouth and used his body weight to pull it to the ground. Pachi transported away, leaving the creature’s mouth to snap closed on thin air. Then she returned again from the other direction, taking the wyvern just below its head. With a savage twist, she snapped its spine.
As quickly as it had begun, the ambush was over. Our party was as disheveled as a half-plucked chicken, and the bodies of our enemies lay at our feet, evidence of the Rat King’s ever-growing influence. The afternoon sun shone down gently, a fair lie that did little to calm the knowledge that this was only a fragment of the trouble to come.
2: “If you leave your home behind, there is no promise, and certainly no guarantee it’ll be the same when you return.”
— Corell Amredor
ALYSAND
The taste of blood and grit filled my mouth, two sensations that were oddly comforting. They were as familiar and welcome as old friends, and I supposed they had become so after long years of company.
“Madi, you and Tejón need to rest,” I said. “Let’s see to those wounds.” I waved her protests down. “Listen to me. You are worse off than you know.” Thankfully, the stubborn warrior yielded to my request and leaned against the hill on the side of the road, her leg protruding awkwardly as the arrow in her hip jutted to the side.
In the fight, she had apparently ripped out the arrow that had taken her in the shoulder. Now, a bloody hole marked where it had been.
“Should have left it in, girl,” I said as I examined the wound. “It will take a while to heal and may bother you afterward until you can find a proper healer or apothecary. For now, this will help. But this is going to hurt. Brace yourself.” I took the small pouch of tar leaf from my satchel and opened it. Removing just a pinch, I blew the powder into the wound. Immediately it began to coagulate the blood that continued to seep from the wound, and the warrior screamed.
I had to step away from her for a moment. I’d taken a beating myself and didn’t need to be thrashed about. When she calmed, I squatted down near the arrow in her hip. After a gentle tug, I determined it was indeed a barbed arrow.
“Just rip it out, I can take it,” Madi said bravely, though a look at her gray face made the boast almost laughable.
I smiled and patted her on the shoulder. “I think not, my friend. I know another way, and though it will still cause pain, it won’t be nearly so bad as pulling it by force.”
Circling the shaft with one hand, and holding the girl’s hip with the other, I sang the Arrow Song. It was a combined tune of two older melodies, the Song of Wood and the Song of Steel. Long ago, a bullet bard had found that by singing to the materials of the arrow itself, one could convince the arrow to exit a wound. Often times, it was simpler to push the arrow through, but this one had sunk directly into the bone of Madi’s pelvis. There was no way through; it needed to come back out.
I let the song dance between my throat and tongue, and immediately the wood in my hand began to vibrate, responding to the call.
Madi groaned as, no doubt, the arrowhead was likewise affected. But she bit down and closed her eyes.
Then I asked the arrow to let go of its purchase, to unbind itself of flesh and bone. At first, the arrow resisted. Like all created things, an arrow simply wished to perform whatever task it was created for. In this case, to bathe itself in flesh and blood, and to remain.
I convinced the arrow that if it let go, it would be used again, and find a home in another body, even deeper. This seemed to do the trick, and with a shimmying jig, the shaft began to retreat from the wound.
After Madi, I did the same on Hana and Pachi, though since the arrows that had struck them were embedded only in muscle, it was less devastating.
I treated each with a pinch of tar leaf and warned, “These wounds will leave scars, but there is no quicker way to mend a wound. And I fear we haven’t the time to waste. Another party will no doubt come and finish what was started here if we do not reach Gilsby before nightfall.”
Tejón was wounded most grievously. The axe came free of the bear’s bone plate, and two arrows were sung free easily enough, but a couple of the orcs had cleaved their axes into his shoulder and neck, nearly severing an artery in the process. Now that the battle lust had lifted, the beast could no longer stand.
I had one health potion remaining. The days when such items were easily acquired were long past, and they were invaluable. Yet the bear deserved all I could provide him. “Hold his head, please—he needs to drink all of this,” I told Madi. The bear was no simple beast, though,
and understood what was being asked of him. We managed to pour the whole bottle down his throat.
The wound knitted itself from the inside, and with the addition of a few more pinches of tar leaf, the wound stopped bleeding.
I looked to the mare that had so faithfully carried me and had unwittingly saved my life. She rested in a charred heap, her body so scorched that her head and face were indiscernible. I’d fallen early in the fight, and when the wyvern had opened its maw to roast me, I’d thought my journey was at an end. But then the horse had raised up on its hind legs, panic filling her eyes.
The flame had enveloped her mercilessly.
The two travelers were staring about, shock still dampening their senses. “Let’s get moving,” I said. “Do not worry about the loot and leave the bodies. The only thing that might save us now is haste. We all need to run. Pachi and Tejón cannot carry us. We are only about ten miles from Gilsby, though, perhaps less. If we hurry, we will see the ocean before sundown.” As I spoke, I took all that I could from the saddlebags on the fallen horse.
I thanked Corbrae once more. The old bastard had enchanted my satchel of holding himself, and without it, even more would have been lost this day. Then I fell into a loping stride, trusting my companions to follow.
The distance that separated us from the relative safety of Gilsby was not insurmountable. Had our mounts been in good enough shape, we would have made it there in less than two hours, shorter if pressed. Yet on foot, and when nursing bruises and wounds, our march would be painful to say the least.
I set a pace that I knew I could maintain.
The fight with the wyverns and orcs had been a close thing. I’d used every trick I knew to evade the gouts of flame that had been launched at me. My stamina had paid the price. Just a week ago, it would have been easier.
Anwar had fallen to the Silent Hymn, and no doubt nearly any fell beast would have, but I carried the weight of it with me. Next spring would bring my seventieth name day. As a bullet bard, I knew that the years had not scathed me so. Even poor Sherman, younger as he was, looked my senior now. Yet after using the extent of my power on the wyvern lord, I felt the immense pressure of time bearing down on me. If Corbrae could be trusted, my days were limited now.
Madi teased me between huffs, and when I looked at her, she grinned despite the pain in her body. “Don’t look so grim, Alice. We’ve got this.”
“Yeah, we can make it,” Hana agreed as she trudged to run on my other side.
I laughed despite the bruises and cracks in my ribs, all caused from falling off the horse. The glint of youth and the fire of life was in their eyes. And though it had been plain to me from the beginning that both knew shadow and pain, their optimism was infectious.
I shouted, an ancient challenge coming to my lips without my bidding. “Aye! Onward, knights of Gil! Not storm nor starlight will hinder us!”
The girls and I ran on, and though our speed flagged on the few hills that remained, we did not stop. Pachi and Tejón loped behind us, most likely impatient with their two-legged companions’ slow progress.
We came to the final hill that blocked our way, and I slowed to a walk. I caught a glance from the warrior, concern flashing in her brown eyes.
She made to speak, but I held up a hand. “Let us walk a way. The night is no longer a threat to us. We are nearly there. My lungs could use a break, and besides,” I said as we slowly began to crest the rise, “the sunset from this vantage is beyond reproach.”
I’d timed my wording perfectly. Timing and subtlety are ever the calling of a gentleman, after all.
The hitch of breath in my companions’ lungs was a balm to my soul. And how could they not stand in awe?
“Behold friends, the Wyndark Sea!”
Below us opened the coastal valley that held fair Gilsby, and beyond the endless tumult of the untamed sea. The sun cast its undying fury upon the waves. And as we stopped to breathe in the first breath of salt air, the bottom edge of the sun dipped below the horizon, a spark of fire burning away the clouds that had gathered to watch its descent.
“Oh my! The ocean…” was all Hana could manage.
Renewed by the common miracle, our party had soon recovered enough to jog the rest of the way to town.
The twin spires of the church twinkled gold in the fading light, and the call of seabirds seemed, like always, to welcome me home. I’d come here decades ago to make a place for myself. At first, I’d fought Corbrae’s determination to place me in the West. Too far from the capital, from the flint and bang of action.
My master had denied my protests, insisting, “He who stands in the West must stand alone. And he who stands alone must be strong. Your watch will be peaceful, Alysand, until the day comes when you will be asked to sacrifice all you have left.” His will was iron, and I’d gone with a heavy heart. Yet when I had first arrived, a storm was raging in the bay, and I could still recall its wrath. It was a black tempest hovering just out beyond the safety of town, and though I was afraid, the beauty of it was too potent to ignore.
I fell into a walk again, leading my friends into town. “We look a mess, and I am sure all will notice, but we must also look strong. Wear a smile on your faces and wave at those who stop to look at you.” I hoped my words would bolster my friends against the unintentional scrutiny of the small folk.
Sure enough, the first group of children scattered like a school of mackerel after seeing us. Then the dubious faces of adults followed, peering from windows and alleys alike.
I avoided the center of town, heading for the docks. Hana and Madi both waved and tried to smile naturally at the clusters of kids that darted in and out of sight. A few stood boldly and waved back. No doubt, the sight of Pachi and Tejón was causing most of the excitement. Horses, mules, and even oxen were common enough, but the enfield and the stone bear were exotic, even to my eyes.
“Alysand!” a reedy voice called from an alley to my left. “I knew you’d be back. They said you were gone forever, though I didn’t believe them. But you did take long, too long.”
I looked over to see a gaunt and pale face smiling at me. I squinted, attempting to discern who this boy was. Then it became obvious as he came closer. “Shadrick! You’re as tall as a willow tree and twice as thin. How are you, boy?”
“I’m better than you lot by the look of your clothes,” he replied, pointing unabashedly down at my dusted and bloody coat.
I tousled his hair and then reached in my pocket for a few silvers. “Come closer, I’ve got something for you.” I pressed the coins in his hand and whispered a few requests in his ear, sending the youth bounding away at full speed.
When I caught the question in Hana’s eye, I simply winked at her. Good surprises were uncommon. No need to waste one.
Passing through Gilsby churned a complex well of emotions within me. Something was off, though. It was not only the fatigue of battle and our forced march. The people had a haunted look to them. None of the adults smiled at me even though I recognized quite a few. The children, though caught in the tumble of their games, seemed thin and wary. Whatever had happened in my absence had taken from these people. It would be my first priority to find the source.
The docks were the same as always, yet few boats were moored there. Surely, many were still out trawling the bay for fish, but I couldn’t shake the suspicion that Gilsby had fallen somewhat.
We came at last to a brick home at the end of the docks, its driftwood roof as twisted and lovely as ever. I stopped before it and extended my hand, a hopeless grin on my face. “Welcome to my home, friends.”
The front door was only large enough for us humans, but I told everyone to wait outside. I removed the iron key from my satchel and opened the front door. When I stepped inside, though, my heart sank. My small home had been ransacked. Drawers hung open, and my goods were spilled across the floor. Someone had been searching, and by the angry look of their efforts, they hadn’t found what they were looking for.
I sighed
, pushing the defeat away. This could all be put aright. I went down the hall, past my bedroom that was likewise thrown about. Then I opened the door that led to the small barn. Only a few bales of hay had been in here, and it was mostly untouched, though the lamp that had hung in its center was tossed to the ground. I picked it up, grateful that the oil hadn’t spilled. I lit the lamp and hung it up then opened the barn doors.
“This way. There is room for all of us,” I gestured, and was pleased to see that though the creatures we traveled with were large, they were easily accommodated.
Madi was the first to admire my humble home. “Pretty cool man cave, Alysand. Didn’t take you for the type to bed down in hay, though.” She finished with a playful jab to my shoulder.
Pachi and Tejón made themselves comfortable in the hay, which was dry and clean thanks to the many enchantments I had paid for over the years. I was the proud owner of the one leak-free roof in town, with the exception of the church. Enchantments, even minor ones that repelled water, never came cheap.
Hana peeked around me into the house beyond. “Wow, can we see the rest of it?”
I closed the barn doors, leaving us in the dim golden light of the lamp above. “One moment, please,” I said, and walked over to the small furnace that had been built into the side wall. I’d owned several horses in my time in Gilsby, and though my latest mounts seemed cursed with a shortened life—the dangers of bearing a gunsinger were many—I had maintained the barn in case my luck changed.
Inside was a bundle of sticks and some tinder set in advance. Laying the foundations of a fire was not something one enjoyed when it was late and cold. I produced a match and lit the furnace. The wood caught flame with enthusiasm, having been dry and curing for over a year by now. I added a few larger pieces from a pile in the corner and then closed the glass grate. The contraption was rare—no open fire should be lit in a barn full of hay, after all—and arrested any spark that tried to escape the fire.
