Pash shook his head. “It is not so simple. Through that arch lies death! What if my Rebirth is not successful? You were there when Elder Kaeso agreed to my warleader’s request. She did not think I was ready; it was written in her eyes. If I walk through that gate, I will die.”
“Ain’t that the point?”
“I mean that I will die forever!”
It was all Jack could do not to shake the young scout. He wanted to shout at him that he was clearly going to die unless he did something, so why just sit there? The kid had even acknowledged that the only reason he was being allowed to try the Rebirth was because he had been so heavily wounded that it was his only chance at survival.
But Jack restrained himself.
This was life and death, not logic. Logic in the face of death was easy when it was someone else’s life you were talking about. But when it was your own? No, the kid was paralyzed by fear, and logic had left the building. It was a condition Jack knew all too well.
“Crap…” Jack muttered under his breath. He knew what he had to do, but it sure as hell wasn’t going to be easy.
Jack walked over to Pash and sat beside him. The scout was once again facing the stone arch, so Jack watched it with him.
“There was a war where I’m from,” Jack said. “A bad one. They called it a world war. Can you imagine that? Practically the entire planet fighting each other at once?”
Pash shook his head.
“Well, that’s what happened,” Jack said. “I signed up to fight for the good guys, barely more than a child. The war had already been going on for a while, but my country was just starting into it, and I enlisted in time for D-day. That was a hell of a show. We attacked from the water, the beaches exploding all around us. I thought we were dead when our way outta there was blocked by artillery fire, but some of the airborne guys took out the guns and we made it off that sandy strip of hell alive. Through the whole thing, I never hesitated. Me and my buddy Barty even took out a machine gun position together. Got ourselves a medal in the process. If you’d asked anyone, they’d have told you I was a hell of a fighter.” He nodded at Pash. “The same kind of thing they say about you.”
Pash bared his teeth briefly in acknowledgment of the compliment.
Jack continued. “That wasn’t the last battle. Not by a long shot. Things were going pretty well though, and we picked up a good string of victories.
“Then came the Battle of the Bulge.”
Even now, after all these years, Jack shook as tears welled up in his eyes. Damned Well-Aged Trait. Some memories get buried for a reason. He took a breath and composed himself.
“It was hell,” Jack said. “Do you have hell here?”
“I don’t know what you speak of,” Pash said. “We have the planes of torment, where those who have made pacts with demons go if they should lose control and be claimed.”
“That’ll suffice,” Jack said. “It sure felt like someone made a pact with a demon. But instead of hot, that place was cold. Cold enough to freeze the balls off a brass monkey. And every day, you woke up wondering if that was the day you’d be blown to pieces by the artillery. Practically every day, someone was. We churned through recruits, but we held on. Dug into our foxholes and prayed to any god who would listen that a shell wouldn’t hit us.
“Then one day I snapped. I was cold, tired, and sick. I’d barely slept, and I’d been working war for so long that I couldn’t remember what civilian life even felt like. And when that artillery started whistling and the trees started exploding, something inside of me broke. I just sat down on the ground and started rocking back and forth, sobbing. I was so goddamned afraid of dying that I couldn’t even move to the nearest foxhole.”
“But you lived,” Pash said. “You overcame your fear and survived, or you would not be here now. You have the soul of a warrior.”
“I didn’t overcome shit, kid,” Jack said. “I survived because Barty, the man I’d met in basic and fought an entire war with, the best friend I’ve ever had in my life, got out of his own foxhole and dragged me back with him. Most heroic thing I’ve ever seen in my life, and you know what his reward was?”
Pash shook his head.
“He got his goddamned face blown off,” Jack said. “The last moments of his life were spent bleeding out on top of me in that foxhole. The brave one died, and the coward survived.”
Jack climbed to his feet and inspected the stone arch.
“Why do you tell me this?” Pash asked.
“Because fear is inevitable, kid. And being terrified of dying is something that happens to all of us. Some of us are heroes who push past it, like Barty, and some of us aren’t, like me. But after that moment, I never shied away from death again. It wasn’t an homage to Barty or anything ridiculous like that. It was just that I’d realized life isn’t fair. You can be terrified, or you can be heroic. You can be a good mother, or you can be a bad one. But that’s got nothing to do with dying. I cried in the snow in Ardennes and lived. My wife was the greatest woman in the world, got cancer, and died. So, making a decision based on fear stopped mattering to me. I just saw what needed to get done and did it, whether that was taking out a German sniper or raising a daughter alone.”
Jack waved at the stone arch. “I get that you’re terrified of this thing, kid. I really do. And that terror is real because you don’t want to die. None of us do. But you’re labouring under the delusion that you have a choice. You don’t. Walk through that arch, and you’ll either die or you won’t. And sure, be terrified when you do it because it doesn’t matter if you’re brave, or scared, or ambivalent, or whatever. All that matters is getting the job done. Hell, most of life is about getting the job done, not how you feel when you’re doing it.
“Speaking of which, I’m pretty sure my own job is done. Hope we meet again.”
Then Jack stepped through the arch.
There was a moment of disorientation, followed by a jerking sensation that made Jack feel as though he were being dragged upwards at rapid speed. When his eyes snapped open, he was back in the room with Sextus.
“What did you do?” the old warrior asked. “You closed your eyes and have not moved for nearly an hour.”
Jack removed his hands from Pash’s writhing form and wiped them off on one of the pallet’s few dry spots. “I had a chat with the kid. Whether it helps is up to him. Or maybe he’s not supposed to be Reborn. Either way, that’s the best I’ve got.”
“You can Speak with the Dying?” Sextus said, his eyes going wide. “I thought only the priests of Nochd could do such a thing, and it has been generations since one last visited us.”
Jack shrugged. “No idea why I can do it. There’s not a hell of a lot I do understand about this place.”
The grub-like form of Pash suddenly arched its back, nearly falling off the pallet until Sextus raced forward and stabilized him. Then the scout’s body went slack, lying totally still. Sextus put his ear to Pash’s chest, his eyes narrowing.
“The scout heart slows,” he said. “Its beats are fading—soon, we will know if he survives.” The caretaker slid the drum next to him and withdrew a mallet from his jacket. He beat on the drum loudly, mirroring the rhythm of Pash’s heart. Jack knew that those on the walkway outside were listening to the rhythm in tense anticipation.
Jack wandered over to the woody wall of the hut and leaned against it, his arms crossed as he awaited the verdict. He was rooting for the young scout to survive, but if not, such was life. Jack had done his best.
“Soon,” Sextus said. His rhythmic beating of the drum slowed, its sound fading into weaker notes until finally, it stopped altogether.
A deep silence settled over the room. No noise filtered in from outside as those gathered on the walkway held their breaths in anticipation. Nearly five seconds of uninterrupted silence passed, and Jack could see the worry on Sextus’s face. Then the old warrior’s face split into a toothy grin, and he erupted in a complex pounding of the drum that sent the rhythm o
f a warrior’s dual hearts reverberating out of the room. Outside on the walkway there was an eruption of hooting noises and the sound of at least one chest being beaten, followed by one of the elders calling out to the village that a new Warrior had been born. That announcement was met by fainter cheers that were only audible when the curtain was pushed aside by Novus and two younger elders who carried drums of their own. They knelt on either side of Pash, each one placing a hand on his chest as they seamlessly took over Sextus’ rhythmic pounding. The old warrior immediately scooted back to Pash’s head and grabbed his basket of meat, shovelling hunks of flesh into Pash’s ravenous, toothy mouth.
Novus looked at Jack and bared her teeth in a Chian’dir smile. “You are fortunate that Pash survived, human Jack. If he hadn’t, your death would be a certainty. Now there will at least be a discussion on the matter.”
“There is no fortune in the matter, Elder Novus,” Sextus said, not looking up from his duties. “We both know Pash was lost to us, but Jack Spoke with the Dying. Whatever was said between them brought Pash through Nochd’s domain and back to us.”
The elder’s head whipped over to Jack. “You can Speak with the Dying?”
“Apparently,” Jack said, shrugging.
“But… that means…” she got a horrified look, and the hair around her head flashed in a wild movement of colour. “Forgive me, we had no idea you were a priest of Nochd!”
“Whoah, hang on now,” Jack said, holding up his hands. “When I look at my diary—that Tome thingy—it says the Ability is temporary. I don’t want to misrepresent myself.”
“It does not matter. You are someone who has caught the attention of Nochd.” She shook her head. “We must think on this. Will you stay with us for at least one more night?”
“Does that mean I’m not a prisoner anymore?”
“Of course you are not!” Novus said. “We cannot risk running afoul of Nochd. He means everything to us. Whatever path you are walking, we will not stand in your way.”
Jack considered her offer. Given the nature of Arenia, he was hardly at greater risk in the village than he was wandering the wilds. Sure, he needed to find his way to Palmyre, but maybe the Chian’dir could help with that if he hung around for another day.
“Alright, I’ll stay for a night,” he said.
“Excellent,” Novus said, nodding slightly. “Until tomorrow then.” With that, she swept out of the room.
Jack looked back down at Pash, then over to Sextus. The old warrior was grinning at him.
“You have no idea, do you?” the old warrior said.
Jack shook his head. “Not a damn clue.”
Every goddamned minute of Angela’s life was a miserable, wet, sloppy, COLD mess.
“F-f-f-f-f…” Angela chattered, shivering as she stumbled over a root. She couldn’t even swear. The words wouldn’t squeeze past her blue lips.
“C-c-cold. So, so cold. Why are you so cold, Angela? Maybe because it Never. Stops. Raining. Can you dry off when it’s raining? No, no you can’t.”
She squeezed her eyes shut for a moment as she shuddered. “Wh-wh-where is that river?” She’d been forced away from it when the bank got too steep, but now, 6 hours later, she couldn’t find it.
“Oh, come on!” she shouted. “It’s a river! A RIVER! How do you lose a river!!!”
Limping over to a moss-covered rock, Angela sat down with a groan. She gingerly took off her soaked shoe to inspect her foot. Not surprisingly, it was a blistered mess. She desperately wanted to cast her one heal spell, but if the last week had taught her anything, it was that she needed to save that spell for all of the horrific, life-threatening injuries she was bound to receive. You know, the ones that happened basically every day? She’d been injured so many times she couldn’t even keep track of it all.
A stone slab appeared, dropping into her lap with a thud.
“Oof,” she grunted. Why the hell had this thing appeared? Looking at the contents, she discovered that it was a list of all her injuries to date. “Seriously? Someone is keeping track of my misery? Fuck you very much, Arenia.”
Still, she felt compelled to look it over.
APPENDIX A
* * *
INJURIES TO DATE (total)
Head, concussion x18
Head, broken skull x3
Head, broken jaw x2
Broken ribs x27
* * *
Leg (Left)
Meniscus tear x1
ACL tear x1
MCL tear x1
PCL tear x1
LCL tear x1
Broken kneecap x1
Broken fibula x3
* * *
Leg (Right)
Meniscus tear x3
ACL tear x3
MCL tear x2
PCL tear x1
Broken femur x1
Broken tibia x1
Broken fibula x2
Arm (Left)
Broken collarbone x1
AC separation x1
Broken humerus x1
Broken ulna x2
Broken radius x3
Broken carpus x2
* * *
Arm (right)
Broken collarbone x3
Broken humerus x1
Broken ulna x2
Broken radius x3
* * *
Nervous system
Electrocution x1
Severed spinal column x1
* * *
Total Blood Lost: 4.3 litres
“Daaaamn…” Angela muttered. Nature in Arenia was a bitch. At least she picked up another +7 to Constitution as a result of the beat-down she was receiving.
Angela reviewed the list again and shook her head. “That can’t be right. Eighteen concussions?” She mentally ran over the last week.
Probably got one falling out of the tree. Then there was the deer, slipped on those rocks… probably another eight from all the times I fell in the river. The boar attack, that ram thingy. Fell out of a different tree. The hill incident. The sapling… falling off the ledge in my sleep. Hitting my head when I passed out after eating that fruit. The mangalaur—whatever the hell that thing was.
Angela reviewed her list again and realized she was already over eighteen.
“Yikers… I am awful at this.”
There was no way to deny it. Nature sucked. Angela could appreciate its importance, but actually spending time in it? Fuuuuck that noise. All she wanted was a comfy chair, a warm fire, and a goddamned movie or something. What passed for a movie here? A bard? Yeah… a sexy bard with like, 57 Charisma and a dearth of clothing. That’s what she wanted.
Looking around, Angela gave every living creature in the vicinity the double middle finger.
“Yeah, that’s right! Fuck all of you! Druid my ass.”
A twig snapped behind Angela, and she leapt to her feet, taking off at a dead sprint despite her ragged state. A week in this god-forsaken place had taught her that it was always best to run. After all, the only things that chased you were the ones that wanted to eat you.
Pain shot through Angela’s now-shoeless foot every time her blistered flesh hit the rough forest floor, but she didn’t dare slow down. Even now, she could hear the racket of trees breaking behind her. Whatever was chasing her was damn big.
Sparing a quick glance at her pursuer, Angela’s eyes went wide.
“WHAT IS WRONG WITH THIS PLACE!”
Chapter 20
Arrival
The rumbling wagon eventually woke Mark from his slumber. Or maybe he woke on his own? He had no idea how long he’d been asleep. Not long enough, given how exhausted he felt.
With a couple of weary blinks, Mark raised his head and looked around, only to discover the late morning sun warming his face.
Okay, maybe not such a quick nap after all.
“Ma, he’s awake!” Gavin shouted, the boy’s face appearing above Mark. A moment later, Rosie’s smiling face was looking down at him as well.
“So he is,”
she said. “You were out for quite a while. Nearly a full day, in fact.”
Mark’s eyes widened and he dropped his head back down on the wooden tail of the wagon. “I think I’ve spent more time unconscious than I have awake on this god-forsaken planet.” The comment prompted an odd look from Rosie, but Mark was too tired to care.
Instead of saying something, she banged on the side of the wagon, signalling Darius to stop. She looked at Mark and pointed to the side of the road. “You go take care of business while I get you something to eat.”
Mark’s initial confusion at her words washed away as he realized just how badly he needed to pee, not to mention how ravenous he was. He immediately jumped off the wagon and sprinted into the bushes. By the time he returned, Rosie was off the back of the wagon with a plate of bread, cheese, and dried meats in hand.
“Come on then,” she said, waving him to the front of the wagon and sparing him the humiliation of having to climb up again. “We’ll ride up top with Darius so you can tell us your story.”
Gavin hopped down as well, only to have Rosie glare at him. “Not likely, child. I’m still mad at you.”
“But ma, you’ll still be mad at me a hunnert years from now!” Gavin exclaimed.
“Yes, I will. And you should have thought of that before you foolishly risked your life!”
She waited until Gavin pouted his way back up into the wagon, then gestured for Mark to follow. He went to grab his staff, only to discover a pair of gloves lying on top of it.
Mark looked at Rosie, but she didn’t say anything; she just nodded towards the gloves. He gave her a tight smile of gratitude, then donned the gloves and grabbed his staff before following her to the front of the wagon.
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