Whatever Nolan’s problem was, Nyla wasn’t one to hesitate. Drawing the wiry bowstring back until it was exceedingly taut, she sent a barbed arrow straight toward the fleeing man’s right leg. The arrowhead buried itself into his thigh, but he wordlessly yanked it free and disappeared into the dense cluster of trees.
“You let him get away.” Quin retrieved his axe and walked up to the dying man, where he smashed its blade deep into his chest cavity and ended his life with a squishy thud.
“I…”
“Don’t worry, Nolan.” Nyla stored her bow into her spatial bag and hurried over to the battered young boy. He’d fainted from the pain of his wounds, his face still slicked with hot tears.
“How is it okay?” her brother hissed. “With how strong they were, those men couldn’t have been some simple bandits. They were wearing the same clothes, so they might be part of a bigger group. We killed one of them and the other knows our faces. If it turns out that they weren’t traveling alone then who knows how much trouble we’ll be facing in the future?”
“Leave off, Quin. We’ll set out immediately after I see to the boy.” Nyla stuffed their remaining supply of purple bloodleaf into the boy’s mouth and helped him chew it up as best she could. The full effects of the medicine wouldn’t be displayed since it wasn’t properly ingested, but there was nothing she could do about it.
The poor child presented a pitiful sight that struck at the core of her heart and revived some traumatic memories of her past, of when she had lost everyone she’d ever loved to the tribe that they now fled from, all save for one. She glared at her brother. Must you be so crude?
She resolved to chastise him as she pulled out some medicinal herbs that she’d harvested within the forest and stuffed them into the boy’s larger cuts, the same remedies that she had used on her brother in recent weeks. As for the injured hand, she balled up a large wad of special moss and gently dabbed it upon his swollen skin. His injuries weren’t life-threatening, but they would be painful for such a young boy to tolerate.
“Don’t do that to yourself, man.” Jason was patting Nolan on the back. “You had to do it. I don’t blame you, no one does. He was torturing a kid—I mean, if someone had a gun to my head and told me to kill someone and that guy was around…”
Nolan waved him off. “I’m fine. I just wasn’t expecting to have make that sort of decision out of the blue.”
The two Otherworlders stared over at the dead man, whose messy beard was matted with blood, his body stained scarlet where a dark, meaty crevice had been carved into his torso. The hole that Nolan had opened in his upper arm was also leaking blood onto the verdant grasses below, the afflicted area covered in pestilent, black veins that had unsuspectingly extended all throughout his body. Blood even began to seep out of the man’s eyes, soon followed by his nose and ears and mouth. Although Nyla had long since grown accustomed to such sights, she still felt uneasy as she glanced at the ghastly corpse.
“You should always be prepared to make that sort of decision,” Quin said. “This isn’t your home world. This is Venara.”
Nyla and the others watched her brother drag the body deep into woods, and it was at that moment that the young boy began to stir.
Chapter Three: Tagging Along
I’ve killed three people now. Nolan watched Quin yank his latest victim past a distant oak tree and out of sight. Two boys and one man—two men if he counted his role in Hale’s death. They were all murderers, so I’m in the clear, right? The blood on my hands is clean. He didn’t feel particularly bad, just…how should he say it? Distant?
The boy in Nyla’s arms had just regained consciousness, exploding into pained sobs the moment that his puffy eyes peeled open. He looked around with downtrodden sniffles, confusion one of the many elements present on his soft, childish face. She cradled his head and hushed him with a soothing rendition of her sweet voice. “It’s okay. The bad men are gone.” She tightened her gentle embrace. “Nobody is going to hurt you anymore.”
Nolan had once seen a little kid get hit by a car. She hadn’t died or anything, but one of her arms had broken with a snapping sound loud enough to make the nearby pedestrians cringe with worry. He’d merely been a bystander, staring in shock with a slushy in hand as his afternoon took a grim turn. He’d had trouble sleeping for a while afterwards. The car screeching to a sudden stop, the soft thud of impact, the loud crack of a small arm breaking, the girl’s little body tumbling over the pavement like a ragdoll; these images stayed fresh in his mind for quite some time after the incident.
As he stared down at the young boy in Nyla’s arms he was filled with the same unsettling sensation that he’d felt after witnessing that accident, except that this time the responsibility of dealing with the situation had fallen upon him and his friends.
“M-my family, please help my family!”
“What happened?” said Nolan.
Rather than answer, the boy fell back into a fit of tears.
Jason bent down with an excess of sympathy in his big brown eyes. “It’s okay bud, you can tell us.”
After another minute of crying the boy was able to provide a broken narration of the events that had led up to him being chased by the two men. He and his brother had accompanied their father on a business trip through the countryside but were ambushed by a large group of bandits on the return trip. “Please,” the boy finished. “Please help them!”
“We can’t afford to take such a risk.” Quin had just returned, large and calloused hands covered in dusty layers of dirt.
Both Jason and Nyla wore frowns of frustration.
Nolan had hesitated to fight the two men because both of them had been at the first level of Profound Entry, the beady-eyed man the stronger of the two. If Nolan had made a single error in judgement then it could have cost him his life, something he usually wasn’t willing to risk on a whim. Thankfully he’d applied a light coating of the poisonous juices from his balled up supply of heartrending lilies to the tip of the demonic fox tooth, else the fight wouldn’t have concluded so conveniently after he stabbed the shorter man’s arm in such a shallow manner.
“Quin’s right,” he said after a minute. “Even if we tried to help, nothing would change.” If two guys had been such a headache then how could they expect to fight off the twenty or so others that the boy had described in his tragic account? He hated the fact that he couldn’t make things right for the kid but there was nothing that they could do. He wasn’t about to lead his friends to their deaths for the sake of some randoms.
“We can’t help you.” Nyla patted the boy’s head and smoothed out his mussed hair. “I’m sorry.”
Nolan expected the kid to plead endlessly for their help but he didn’t press the matter. He simply gazed at the ground with a blank expression as his reddened eyes squeezed out the last of their crestfallen tears.
“We should get going,” said Quin. He walked off before anyone could respond.
“Here, I’ll carry him.” Nolan tried to scoop the boy from Nyla’s arms.
“It’s okay,” she assured him. “I think he’ll be more comfortable with me.”
“If you say so.”
They walked deep into the night and eventually set up camp at another of the many woodland areas that dotted the vast, colourful fields. The dual moons were full and bright, their gentle glows casting the flowery meadows an ethereal, fairy-like hue.
Nolan managed a few hours of sleep before flinching awake to the light sound of snapping twigs. He immediately cast out his spiritual sense in every direction, only relaxing when he learned that there was a tiny, three-eyed rat scuttling through the floor of a nearby thicket.
The moment he woke up he lost all hopes of a good night’s sleep. Had Quin just been trolling him or was there actually a chance that more bandits would come around to cause trouble? Although he’d killed one of them, the dead man’s companion hadn’t seemed to lament the loss in any way. Would such a person really go through the trouble of
coming back to track down Nolan and his friends just to get revenge for someone he clearly hadn’t cared about? Still, this world had a great deal of petty and simplistic people, so he couldn’t be sure of the man’s rationale.
Careful not to wake the others, he tiptoed a dozen paces away and began to run through the many stances of the Ancestral Body Technique. The Origin Energy in his new environment was nearly twice as strong as it was back in the plains region. He hadn’t had a chance to cultivate since they’d stepped foot into this land so he thought that he might as well take advantage of the small window of time that’d presented itself to him.
Well would you look at that.
Something of interest caught his attention as he focused on the soil beneath his feet. When they’d first arrived in the region, Nolan had wondered why the plants were smaller than in the Northern Plains and in the towering forest they’d just left behind. He’d found the answer beneath his feet. Although the plant life in the area was smaller on the surface, within the earth was a dense layer of long, ropy roots. Even a knee-high plant would have a spindly network that dug ten metres into ground, its many veins intertwining with the endless limbs of its abundant neighbours.
Nolan subconsciously released his spiritual sense to its fullest extent as he withdrew into a tranquil state of mind. After three hours of ceaseless training, he felt so refreshed that it was as if he’d enjoyed a full night’s sleep.
Nyla woke up just as he finished his last run-through of the stances. She quickly prodded Quin and Jason until they awoke with disgruntled mumbles. The group kept quiet and let the kid sleep for a while longer, silently picking at various fruits that they’d scavenged throughout their journey. Once it was time to set out, Nyla gently lifted the boy from where he lay atop a tuft of tallgrass and then they quickly left the small woodland at their backs.
Sunrise brought forth a dazzling wash of daylight that enlivened the colourful mass of flowers that decorated the surrounding fields. Maintaining his vigilance throughout the walk, Nolan couldn’t help but appreciate such beautiful scenery. This corner of the world could have been the setting of a fairy tale, a picturesque environ that was exceedingly captivating at all times of the day. If only Thomas and Steph were here to enjoy the sights with him.
They spent hours lost in their thoughts as they trudged through the wondrous landscape with quick, measured steps. Only after the sun seemed to hang directly overhead did they find cause to break the silence. Nolan caught sight of three indistinct figures travelling in their direction from far off in the distance. “Guys,” he said. “Get down.”
“What do we do?” said Jason.
“Should we run?” Nyla suggested. She set the boy down, his eyes watering with fear.
Quin shook his head. “They’ll catch us. Nolan, do have any more poison?”
“Do bears shit in the woods?” He pulled out a small sack, within which sat a weighty clump of balled up plant matter.
Taking up the bag, Quin opened it and slid the blade of his axe through the clump with careful hands. Afterward, he passed it to Nyla, who coated the tips of three arrowheads with the deadly substance.
A light sheen of sweat covered Jason’s brow. “This world is gonna give me heart problems.”
“Let’s keep walking,” Nolan said. “They’re probably friends with those guys from yesterday but you never know. They might just pass us by.” He led the group forward with their weapons at the ready, his body tense under the afternoon sun.
Sure enough, it became clear that the three men had subtly changed direction in order to intercept them. Seeing this, Nolan and the others stopped and prepared for another life-and-death battle.
The leader of the three appeared to be the youngest of the group, a thin young man with wide blue eyes and a modest jawline, a head of long, black hair spilling over a pallid face. Scanning the group from afar, his expression lit up as he caught sight of the little boy that Nyla had just ushered behind her.
“Kole!”
“Brother!” The little boy’s expression underwent a dramatic change. He quickly broke free from Nyla’s caring grasp and then limped over to the young man as quickly as his battered body would allow. Seeing that he and the young man appeared to be related, nobody moved to stop him.
The approaching men didn’t seem to have hostile intentions so Nolan deposited his demonic fox tooth back into his spatial bag. All of the men were at the fifth level of Body Nourishment, a whole level stronger than the deceased leader of Redfox Village. Sensing the sudden change in atmosphere Nyla put away her bow and arrows, though Quin left his axe resting on his shoulder.
The young man swept Kole off his feet and pulled him into a grateful embrace. “Thank the heavens! I thought we had lost you.” He wore the same clothes as his younger brother; a silk tunic of deep blue that was tied at the chest with soft, white lace, and fine pants fastened with a silver-buckled leather belt. “Who are they?”
“They saved me,” said he boy. “I was chased by two men until I couldn’t run anymore. Right when I thought that I was done for they showed up and drove them off.”
“They saved you? But those two men were at the Profound Entry stage…” The young man rubbed his chin for a few moments before he straightened his back and faced the four of them. “I’m not too sure of the circumstances but the fact remains that you saved my brother. Thank you,” he bowed deeply. “Truly.”
“It’s cool man, you don’t need to bow. After all, we only did what was right.”
“At the very least, I must bow! I can only imagine what you four had to do in order to get those men to leave my brother alone. You didn’t have to get involved and yet still put yourselves at risk for his sake. This is a kindness that I can never forget.”
Kole held onto his brother’s sleeve as he looked over at them. “T—thank you!”
“Come, Kole,” the young man said, his expression sinking into one of subtle sadness. “Our mercenaries managed to repel that mangy band of cretins, but only barely. We have no way of knowing when they might return, not to mention that father’s losing hair over you as we speak.” Kole’s brother bowed again and then turned to leave.
“Hold on,” Nolan said.
“Yes?”
“Do you know how to get to Greenwall from here?”
The young man hesitated. “Of course I do. It’s the largest city in the region.”
“That’s where we’re headed, though we don’t really know the way. We were just aimlessly wandering through the field when your brother ran of some forest and that’s when we saw two men chasing after him. If you don’t mind—”
“Say no more. Call it luck or misfortune or what have you, but we didn’t lose any merchandise to those bandits. What we did lose were mercenaries.” He looked from Nolan to Quin. “If you’re looking to tag along, I’m sure my father won’t mind having a couple more able-bodied hands in our company. Only, there’s a chance that we might be attacked again.”
“Wait, so you’re also heading to Greenwall?”
“That’s right. We’re originally from there.”
Nolan looked at the others, who all nodded. If the four of them were already on the radar, why not travel as a part of a larger group? “That’s fine with us!”
“Then it’s settled. I’ll lead the way.” The young man lifted Kole up onto his shoulders. “Let’s be quick about it, else my father might worry himself to death before we get back.”
Chapter Four: Remus the Merchant
The road that Kole’s brother had mentioned was only an hour’s jog away. Paved with aged, cracked stone, the ancient highway was twice as wide as the suburban streets in Nolan’s old neighbourhood and endlessly longer. It separated the vibrant landscape into mirror halves, a forgone expanse that shot off into the horizon and disappeared into the distance.
“Our father’s carriages should be just up ahead.”
Why did he get so serious all of a sudden?
They ran on for several minutes b
efore the road degraded into a mess of earthen holes and crumbled cobblestone. Many of the nearby flowers had been sheared down, their severed stems littering the broken road like bodies on a battlefield.
“Why is there so much blood?” Jason’s voice cracked on the last word. “I don’t see any people.”
Nolan stressed his spiritual sense to the limit. “That’s because they’re all in the fields.” He turned to the young man. “This should be where you guys were ambushed?”
“That’s correct. We moved the fallen away from the road so as not to inconvenience any fellow travellers.” The young man glanced up at Kole, a strange sadness in his eyes. “Hold on, Brother.” He quickened his pace.
Nolan was grateful for the surrounding flowers that masked the stench of death with a sweet floral fragrance. Several hazy outlines soon came into view, an imposing sight at the centre of the roadway. There were five large carriages with two muscular horses tethered to each, at least twenty armoured men patrolling the area with their weapons drawn.
Aside from a portly figure garbed in loose silks and soft furs, the rest hurriedly formed a line and blocked off the road the moment that they caught sight of the approaching group. As they fell within range of his spiritual sense, Nolan was shocked to find that most of the warriors were at the fifth level of Body Nourishment. Four were at the first level of the Profound Entry stage, and one was even at the second level.
Why is everyone so strong out here?
“Sir, I’ve returned!”
The richly dressed man pushed his way past the armed men, who’d lowered their weapons after confirming that the new arrivals weren’t enemies. Anxiously accepting the child into his arms, the man exclaimed, “Kole, your father has let you down terribly!” Without any regard for the surrounding people, his eyes streamed with wetness as he held his son to his chest. His arms shook from relief as lines of trickling tears dampened the heavy, walnut mustache that shaded his fat upper lip.
The Grey Ghost: Book Two of the Archaic Ring Series Page 3
