by Jason Tesar
For a moment, the two stood still.
Then Ukiru burst into motion.
Kael spun on his heels and ran as fast as his feet would carry him. He lengthened his stride and breathed steadily as he had always been instructed to do. A quick look over his shoulder told him that he was keeping just out of Ukiru’s reach, even if he was closer than expected. The monastery came back into view and Kael circled around to the right, following the outside of the perimeter wall to keep from getting trapped inside the grounds of the monastery.
He was gliding now across the meadow between the monastery and the ocean cliffs. The ground started to rise before him, and he sprinted up the hill as his legs burned and his lungs gasped for air. Another panicked look behind showed that he had gained a few strides on Ukiru, but not nearly as much as he had hoped for. The older warrior was still as fit as a man half his age and ten times more deadly when the chase was over.
Cresting the hill, Kael picked up speed and started down a slight decline. He suddenly realized that he had been unconsciously heading for his favorite spot and now he was trapped between Ukiru and the cliffs.
He slowed to a stop.
Ukiru did the same, stopping just past the peak of the hill, knowing that he had already won. “Where can you go now?” he asked, hardly out of breath.
Kael turned and stared into the eyes of his mentor, the friend who had been revealed as an enemy. Slowly, a calming presence came over him, slowing his heartbeat and breathing. It was a sensation that he didn’t yet understand, but had come to trust over the years. It had guided his hand through many attacks and defenses. It had allowed him to feel the location of his enemies and had revealed to him the path that his weapons must follow. It was the source of his confidence in battle, and now it was welling up inside him, driving him to do the unthinkable.
With a tranquil assurance, Kael stood tall. “You can’t have me,” he said quietly before turning toward the cliff.
* * * *
Ukiru lunged forward, but it was too late.
Without the slightest hesitation, Kael ran and jumped off the edge, spreading his hands to the air.
Ukiru only caught a brief glimpse of the swirling fog as it enveloped Kael’s body. When he reached the edge of the cliff, he stood for a moment, shocked at the outcome of the situation. Already, the words were forming in his mind of what he would say to the other students.
Kael was a traitor, and his true self was revealed to him at the temple. He threw himself over the edge because he couldn’t tolerate his own unworthiness.
Ukiru tried to look down at the ocean hundreds of feet below, but it was obscured by the fog. I’ll have to send some men down to recover the body, or what’s left of it. Re-sheathing his sword, Ukiru turned and headed back to the monastery.
* * * *
The feeling of falling was gone, replaced by a suffocating presence. Adair was conscious of his limbs moving sluggishly around him. At first, there was only the feeling of pressure against his body. Then his skin began to detect temperature.
I’m cold!
The awareness that he was under water suddenly dawned on him and caused an initial panic. But his years of conditioning as a soldier took over. He stopped struggling in the water and held still, trying to determine which direction was up. A bubble escaped his lips and rolled sideways across his face, telling him the way to the surface.
He opened his eyes and felt the stinging of saltwater. His vision was cloudy, and he couldn’t make out any details until a flashing light drew his attention to his left. He turned his head and peered through the darkness.
There was another flash of blue light that turned white at the edges, illuminating something next to it. As Adair watched, the object moved.
It was the head of some creature.
Adair suddenly felt vulnerable and kicked his legs hard. He grabbed at the water and pulled himself upward. Without being able to see, he had no idea how fast he was swimming, but it seemed too slow.
Something crashed hard against his head and he winced, letting out a mouthful of bubbles. Instinctively, he lashed out with his hands and felt a smooth surface above his head.
I’m trapped!
Again, panic threatened to overtake him.
He glanced in all directions, then noticed that the darkness was less intense to his right. He moved toward it, and as he did the water began to grow lighter. He swam faster. Then the light was above him. He swam upward again, but this time, nothing was blocking him.
Starved for breath, he began to move the air from his mouth down to his lungs and back again. It didn’t help but seemed to distract his body from the fact that it would soon drown.
Faster and faster he swam, and the light above grew more intense. He looked down into the darkness below and could now see a black shape coming up through the murky water beneath him.
He kicked his legs harder, then looked again.
The dark creature was gaining on him. Bubbles were coming from its distorted face as two long fins propelled it through the water.
Adair looked up and saw the surface. He was only ten feet away, but it felt like a mile.
He finally broke through the surface into a hazy sunlight that instantly blinded him. Gasping for breath, he took in large quantities of air. Without the benefit of sight, he randomly chose a direction and began to swim as fast as his limbs would move, dreading that at any second he would be pulled under by the creature below.
Within seconds his eyes began to adjust to the light, and to his surprise, he saw land.
That’s not possible! I shouldn’t be anywhere near land.
He turned around and saw that he was in the center of a muddy bay, roughly a mile across. There was land on every side, covered by lush, green vegetation.
Then he saw the creature. It was only ten yards away, its head sticking out of the water. Light reflected off one giant eye at the center of its black face. Its breath hissed in and out. All of a sudden, another head popped out of the water … then two more.
There’s four!
Adair turned and swam for the shoreline. His heart was racing from both fear and exhaustion. Though he struggled with every ounce of his being, his progress seemed terribly slow.
Something grabbed his ankle from behind.
Without looking, he kicked hard and broke free of the grasp.
A second later, something clamped down hard on his legs.
Ready to fight to the death, he spun around and punched the head of the nearest creature with all his might. The hit landed on the side of its giant eye and it reared back.
Adair’s hand exploded with pain and he knew instantly that he had broken bones.
But he was free again.
He backed away quickly, grabbing at the water to get some distance between him and these things, whatever they were.
The one that he punched reached up to its head with two arms and began to pull its face apart.
Adair flinched in horror, then stopped.
It was a man. He was removing something like a shield from his eyes and lifting it over his head. He spit out something from his mouth that was connected to a rope running over his shoulders. His head was covered in a tight black fabric of some sort, with an opening that only revealed his dark-skinned face, now covered in blood from a gash in his forehead.
The man spoke harshly in a foreign tongue.
Though Adair didn’t understand the language, he could tell that the man was cursing.
The other man who had grabbed him turned around and raised one hand into the air, waving it back and forth.
Adair looked over the man’s shoulder and could see a dark shape floating on the water a hundred yards away.
Is it a boat?
Then there was a bark, followed by a faint growling sound that got louder as the boat raced across the water. Adair watched in amazement. I’ve never seen a boat move this fast. What’s driving it? There’s no wind. I don’t see any oars. What kind of boat
is this?
The growling ended abruptly as the boat veered to starboard and came to a stop. The wake moved past Adair, lifting him slightly as he treaded water.
A man aboard the boat stood up. His strange clothes were mostly green, with splotches of brown all over. He wore pants and a tunic that covered his arms all the way to the wrists. He yelled at Adair in the same language that the other men had used. Then he waved his hand and beckoned Adair to come to him.
Adair kept still.
The man aboard the boat reached for something hanging from a strap around his neck. He raised it to his shoulder with both hands, then leaned his head to the side and closed one eye.
He’s aiming!
Adair looked at the object in the man’s hands. If it was a crossbow, he couldn’t see the arrow, or a bow string for that matter. There was nothing intimidating about it. There were no sharpened points, nothing to impale him. He thought briefly that he should be alarmed but he wasn’t.
A few seconds of silence passed as the man peered at him through one eye. Then the man moved his weapon a few inches to the left. A flash of fire exploded from the weapon, accompanied by ear-piercing claps of thunder in rapid succession.
The water next to Adair burst into numerous fountains, reaching up into the sky. Adair flinched. When the water settled, he looked back to the man in the boat.
He was still aiming his weapon. With one hand, he waved for Adair to come to the boat.
This time, Adair obeyed.
When he neared the boat, another man reached down and grabbed hold of his tunic and pulled him from the water and into the boat. He dropped Adair to the floor, then backed away toward the stern.
Slowly lifting his head, Adair noticed that there were a total of three men. The other two also had similar weapons on straps around their necks, pointing them in his direction.
Adair looked to the empty prow of the ship, then back to the men. They want me to move. He obeyed, moving cautiously on his injured foot. When he had gone as far as he could, he stopped, leaning against the soft side of the boat.
What is this? The boat appeared to be made from a pliable skin of some kind, stretched over a rigid structure of bones. He had never seen anything like it.
A low growl startled him, and he looked toward the stern.
Two of the men were still pointing weapons at him, while the third was sitting down and holding on to a handle.
That must be the rudder control!
Without warning, the boat lurched into motion and Adair fell forward to the deck. When he pushed himself back into a seated position, the two men guarding him looked suddenly tense, gripping their weapons with white knuckles.
It should have worried Adair, but instead it comforted him. He had seen the same thing time and time again with inexperienced soldiers who guarded prisoners. Any sudden movement brought them face-to-face, in an instant, with the prospect of having to kill a man. Most of them just froze with a look of intensity on their faces.
Just like these men.
Adair couldn’t suppress the smile that came to his face.
But this only angered one of the guards, who started cursing at him.
Adair turned away and looked out across the water. They were skimming over the surface of the ocean, faster than any horse could run. The constant growling from the back of the boat told Adair that it was somehow linked to their movement. He had no idea where he was or what he had gotten himself into. These men were not the same as the ones he’d encountered off the coast of Bastul. As he looked around, he realized everything was foreign. He didn’t recognize a single feature of the landscape.
He retraced the events in his mind, his running from the enemy soldiers and ending up in that large cavern. He had run across the bridge, over the moat and onto the circular stone area. That’s when he started to feel a great pressure upon his body. Then he was in water.
What happened? Am I dead?
Then he looked down. His sandal still hung uselessly from his right leg. He raised his foot slowly and looked underneath, seeing the deep gash that was still bleeding. His two small toes were numb and unmoving.
Well, at least I haven’t gone insane!
They reached the shore in only a few minutes. The growling sound lowered to a whisper and the boat coasted in the shallow water, coming to an abrupt stop on the dark mud. One of the men jumped into the water and moved around to cover Adair’s flank, aiming with his weapon. The other man, also pointing his weapon, nodded for Adair to get out of the boat.
Adair stepped cautiously over the prow and into the shallow water.
One of the guards walked up on to the bank and started toward the forest.
Adair followed, with the second man behind him, aiming at his back.
The third man turned the boat and headed back out to the middle of the bay.
A few yards ahead was another strange sight—an iron chariot with thick, black wheels. It too, was green, just like the guards’ clothes. Adair couldn’t tell which end was the front. There were no reins and no horses. One end of the chariot had a large flat area that looked like it was made to carry cargo. This was where the men herded him, pushing him forward while keeping a tight grip on their weapons.
Adair climbed into the chariot and sat down on the deck.
One man followed him into the cargo deck and sat against the railing.
The other man climbed into another tight compartment, where there was a chair of some sort. Reaching forward, he turned something in front of him and the chariot barked like a dog, then proceeded to growl in a similar manner as the boat, though the pitch was lower and sounded more powerful.
Adair stared in fascination. Was there an animal inside of this chariot? Or was it something worse? Perhaps these men were sorcerers and their chariots were moved about by demons. As it jolted into motion, Adair lost his balance again, but quickly realized that he was at the back of the chariot. The ground underneath would have been impassable to any other chariot he had ridden in. But somehow, this one rode over the ditches and holes in the road as if they were sitting on a cushion.
As they ascended the shore of the beach, Adair took note of his surroundings. Trees were down all along the shore and the low vegetation was covered in mud. In fact, it looked like this shoreline hadn’t been a shoreline for very long. Looking back at the bay, Adair could see that the vegetation ran all the way to the water, and even into the water in some areas.
Flood, he concluded. This water hasn’t been here for very long.
Moving uphill away from the bay, the muddy terrain gave way to a wide, smooth road. Adair looked down and noted the black surface that spread out five feet on either side of the chariot. There were no cobblestones. The chariot picked up speed on the smooth terrain and Adair lowered himself closer to the deck as he began to feel unsafe.
Shades of green flashed by as they moved through trees with leaves bigger than a man’s torso. Occasionally, they passed an open meadow with grass taller than a man. The air was incredibly humid. He remembered his first such experience when being stationed in Bastul. He and Maeryn had moved to the coast from the mountainous inland terrain in the north and noticed the change in the air. But this was different. It was as if the air was actually wet. Adair wondered if it rained in this foreign place, for it seemed that the ground would always be full of water. And that explained why the trees and other plants were as big as they were.
They rode for nearly an hour, winding through the forest, all the while climbing. Adair became mesmerized by the rhythm of the chariot and the passing trees. He was exhausted and on the verge of falling asleep at any moment. But a sharp, popping sound suddenly brought him out of his trance as he instinctively flinched. The popping was immediately proceeded by a horrendous squealing and scraping noise as the chariot skidded to a stop on the road.
Adair grabbed hold of the railing to keep from being thrown to the side. Out of the corner of his eyes, he noted movement. Before he could react, the guard at t
he head of the chariot seemed to flinch as one side of his head exploded in a shower of blood. His body slumped sideways in the seat.
Adair turned and looked at the thick treeline on the side of the road. There was nothing but a dense tangle of vines and leaves.
The guard next to him pointed his weapon into the trees. It flashed with fire and jolted in the soldier’s hands as he waved it back and forth.
Adair covered his ears and crouched below the railing.
As he watched the guard, plumes of blood sprouted from the man’s back as his body convulsed. The life left his eyes and his body dropped to the deck. Adair could see small wounds on the man’s chest and wondered how something so small could kill instantly.
Adair’s heart beat quickly in his chest, and the fear of being chased returned. He peered carefully over the railing and was shocked by what he saw.
Man-shaped objects were moving slowly out of the trees, but it was as if they were partially invisible. Adair squinted, trying to make sense of what he was seeing. As they spread out, he could see that they were men wearing multicolored clothing that made them blend in with the forest. He counted five of them, and they had now formed a semicircle only twenty feet from the chariot.
Adair ducked down below the railing and tried to think of how to get out of this situation. After only a few seconds, one of them yelled something. Adair stayed where he was, listening.
Again, the man yelled.
The language was foreign, but sounded different from his former guards. There was also no hint of anger in the voice. But Adair stayed where he was.
A few seconds later, a face peered over the rear of the chariot. It was a man, but like none he’d ever seen before. He wore a hat with a small brim that was curled upward on the sides. His skin was smooth and multicolored, like his clothes, with patches of brown and various shades of green. But his eyes looked normal, and despite the strange situation, Adair didn’t detect any danger.
The man spoke again, quieter this time, and waved for Adair to come out of the chariot.
Adair rose to a crouching position and scanned his surroundings.
The other four men were standing at ease. They also had the strange-looking weapons hanging from straps around their shoulders and necks. They were pointed at the ground and only being held casually.