Remmy let out a little huff to demonstrate his frustration, but he finally jogged forward to better keep pace with Rialta and John.
For her part, Rialta found herself supremely focused on the new world around her, eager for any distraction that would let her forget about the group’s current predicament. The terrain was familiar, since it was similar to any other hilly landscape she had seen before on Ro, but it was vastly different in its substance. Here and there were sprawling patches of neon flowers, each of which seemed to glow in hues of bright green, purple, and pink. Tall grass grew in wild, uneven patches along the dirt path, and it danced with the wind as fresh gusts swept up from the beach behind them and drifted across the hilltops. Massive seafoam-blue bushes sprouted from the ground at every turn in the path, growing up the sides of the hills like weeds in a forgotten garden.
After an hour of following the winding path, the trio found themselves standing at the edge of a steep, grassy cliff. The dirt path stretched down the cliff and into a vast, open valley. The path snaked in and out of pockets of small trees and brush before disappearing behind a massive line of pine trees in the distance. The smaller trees in the valley were of a species that Rialta had never seen before. The trunks were not broad and straight like the pines, but narrow and wild, splitting off at several angles from their sprawling roots. They crested at a height of only ten feet, and their small yet bountiful leaves ranged in color from dark purple to vibrant pink. Though the sky overhead remained bright and clear, thick, dark clouds loomed above the woods down in the valley. The faraway storm was moving so quickly that its progress toward the valley was readily apparent from even a cursory glance. A roving gust of wind rushed through the grass in the valley, making it ripple like waves on the sea, and soon the chill breeze was blowing steadily through the air. Goosebumps formed on Rialta’s neck even though H’s cloak had been keeping her quite warm ever since she left the beach.
“Wow.”
The single word escaped her in the form of a whisper, as if she had said it unintentionally. She gazed at the sight before her. The stark contrast in colors was equally disorienting and beautiful.
“Do you think the trees got any fruit on ‘em?” John asked, yawning and stretching his arms high above his head.
“You find yourself before a sight like this and you immediately concern yourself with food?” Rialta asked in disbelief.
John shrugged. “Seen trees and clouds before,” he said, gesturing about. “Doesn’t change the fact I’m hungry.”
They proceeded down the side of the cliff, occasionally stopping to figure out how to navigate some of the particularly difficult slopes and sudden drop-offs. When they arrived in the valley below, it was immediately evident that it was much longer and wider than it had seemed from the hilltop. The grass fields seemed to stretch on for miles before them. The dark clouds above continued to glide in their direction.
Rialta shivered. “I don’t suppose you know how to cast shields?” she asked Remmy as they pressed forward along the path in the valley.
“Nope,” Remmy said.
Rialta rolled her eyes and shook her head. “All the knowledge and wisdom of the ages was available to you for free at the library in Laelynn, but you couldn’t be bothered to read about how to cast shields, huh?”
“Who goes to the library anymore?” John asked.
“Seriously,” Remmy said.
“I suppose just the people who need it the least,” Rialta muttered.
“I happen to read plenty, all right?” Remmy said defensively. “I’ve read my tome at least thirty times, not to mention countless other holy books.”
“What’s so interesting about your tome that you’ve read it so many times?” John asked.
“It’s a collection of writings from his lineage,” Rialta said before Remmy could respond. “Writings documenting the holy magic they’ve learned, as well as the beasts, monsters, and demons they’ve encountered, and how they overcame them. I suppose it must be plenty interesting in its own right.”
“How in the world did you know that?” Remmy asked.
Rialta shrugged. “I may be a mage, but it would have been foolish of me not to read up on the other schools of magic during my studies, would it not? It just made sense to me. I do not see why you would not have done the same, Remmy.”
“Oh whatever,” Remmy scoffed. “I’ve learned more than enough, okay? I just happen to specialize in blessings.”
“You specialize in blessings?” she asked incredulously. “What, to the exclusion of everything else any other cleric can do?”
“Yes,” Remmy replied in a low, soft voice. Rialta was surprised to see Remmy’s face suddenly droop with a sullen frown.
“Well,” she started, trying to adopt a gentler tone, “I am a mage, so my shields are pretty crude. All the same, I am starting to get chilly even with the cloak on, so this is going to have to do.” She stood still, then waved her arms in a slow, broad circle, her palms outstretched. A brilliant blue transparent bubble faded into shape and surrounded her. The shield shimmered as it expanded around her. Jolts of energy crackled from its surface and echoed across the sphere. Rialta immediately felt a wonderful, even warmth flood over her. The power of the glowing blue aura dissipated any lingering chill.
“Do you two want to get in here?” she asked Remmy and John. “It does not take much effort. I can probably keep it up for quite a while.”
“Not cold,” John said flatly.
“I’m okay as well,” Remmy said, not sparing a glance in Rialta’s direction.
“Suit yourselves,” she replied.
They continued along the path in silence for another twenty minutes before they had finally reached the tree line which framed the wooded area they had seen from the top of the hill. Here, towering pines and several other types of trees Rialta had never seen before dominated the landscape in every direction.
Almost immediately after they’d entered the woods, they came across makeshift bridge stretching across a small river. The bridge was constructed of thick branches, all of which had been seemingly tossed across the river that cut across their path. The river was no more than fifteen feet across, and perhaps about four feet deep; Rialta was able to see clear through to the bottom of the river where a school of little minnows appeared to swim in place. A large group of frogs sat on the shallowest portion of each bank. The river flowed from their left with a calm, lazy current. As they reached its bank, the soothing whisper of wind among the leaves just barely covered up the quiet babbling of the river. Rialta approached the rudimentary bridge first. She crouched down in place, preparing to run across it.
“Whoa, wait a minute,” John said. “We’re not seriously going to cross on this thing, are we?”
Rialta turned and smiled at him. She threw out her arms to either side for balance, then quickly crossed the makeshift bridge in six long strides. She leapt forward from her last step on the bridge and gracefully landed safely on the other side.
“Come on,” she called back to the boys. “I want to find some proper shelter before this rainstorm arrives.”
Remmy groaned, looking hesitantly at the unstable bridge. “All right,” he said, taking out his tome and holding it up, “but take this before I try. I don’t want it getting soaked if I fall in.”
Rialta held out her right hand and snapped her fingers. The tome zoomed out of Remmy’s hand, flew high above the river, then landed in her outstretched arms. Seeing his tome was safe, Remmy tentatively stepped up onto one of the branches. The branch rolled slightly to the left, and Remmy gave a huge lurch before jumping back off the bridge to where he had started.
Rialta rolled her eyes. “Just run across the damned thing!” she yelled across the river. “Hesitating will only make it harder!”
Remmy bounced up and down on the balls of his feet. He let out a little yelp as he finally sprang forward, crossing the bridge in a few quick steps. When he reached the other side, he trotted to a halt beside Ri
alta, who handed his tome back to him. They both turned to look at John.
John stepped toward the bridge, looked down over the side, and grimaced at the shallow river below.
“Come on!” Rialta shouted.
“All right, all right,” John muttered. He took a step back, then ran onto the bridge. After only two great strides forward, the bridge began to bow and creak under his weight. Just as he was taking a third step, he misplaced his foot and fell forward. He landed face down on the bridge, and the branches began to roll apart. John desperately hugged the branches to his chest to keep them from escaping further. His weight shifted with the branches, which continued to roll from side to side. His eyes widened in horror as he looked down into the water.
“Help!” he shouted.
Rialta remained rooted to the spot, her face in her hands. “We are getting our butts kicked by a bridge,” she muttered to herself.
Remmy ran back to the bridge and sank to his knees to reach his arms out to John.
“Rialta, help! Do something! There’s frogs in there!” John screamed.
“So what?” Rialta called back.
“I hate frogs!”
There was actual panic in his voice, and Rialta could not help but laugh. “I can’t believe it. A big guy like you? Are you seriously that afraid?” she asked as she casually walked back toward the bridge.
John didn’t respond. He continued to stare wide-eyed into the water below.
Remmy was now on his stomach and frantically waving his arms at John, who was so preoccupied with keeping his arms wrapped around the makeshift bridge that he did not notice that Remmy was trying to help him. As Rialta made her way to the edge of the bridge, she withdrew her wand from her belt.
“Look out, Remmy,” she said, lightly grabbing him the shoulder. Remmy looked back and, at the sight of her wand, stood up and took several steps back from the bridge.
“Try to hang on, John. This spell is going to need a good bit of power and concentration,” Rialta said.
Rialta aimed her wand at the bridge, and with a flourish of her free hand, a bright blue light surrounded John and the branches beneath him. Rialta gave her wand a sharp wave up. With that, the entire bridge, John and all, popped into the air, then slammed down on the ground just in front of Remmy. John let out a loud grunt as he collided with the ground. He got to his feet, looked at the river with a grimace, then turned back to Rialta.
“Thanks,” he mumbled.
“Think nothing of it,” Rialta said, stowing away her wand.
Once they’d dusted themselves off and continued on their way, the trio found themselves in a thicket of woods so dense that their surroundings were nearly as dark as night. Rialta led the other two, keeping an eye out for any sign of movement.
“These woods are bigger than they looked from the outside,” John said as he crushed a dead tree branch beneath his giant boot.
“Do you think we’ll have to camp out here tonight?” Remmy asked.
“I really hope not,” Rialta said. “I am starting to get hungry now. I want to see if we can reach that town H was talking about in his note. Maybe we can get some food there.”
They continued in silence for a while. The only sounds that accompanied them were their collective footsteps trudging along the old dirt path and the gentle rustling of fallen leaves.
“What do we do if nobody in town speaks our language? Or what if they’re violent toward outsiders?” Remmy asked.
“I figured we would do some basic reconnaissance before just barging into a foreign town. We need to know what sort of situation we are getting into before we encounter the locals. H just told us to go to this ‘Chasm’ place, he did not tell us what to expect when we got there,” Rialta offered.
Soon the trees became fewer and further apart. The woods around them had opened up, and the narrow path was leading them into a sort of natural gate made out of stones that had settled at the base of a nearby outcropping on the hillside.
“Hang on,” Rialta said. “Look up ahead. Someone has built a fire down there.”
They stopped and peered out ahead. Just beyond the gate sat a large boulder, which itself was situated at the crest of a hill. A billowing cloud of smoke was rising from somewhere in a valley below.
“Come on, let’s check it out,” John whispered. He bent over low as he crept toward the boulder, and Rialta and Remmy followed close behind him. Rialta dispelled her shield as they settled in place behind the boulder and took turns looking out down the hillside. John was the first to steal a glance. His face fell as he looked down into the valley.
“Not good,” John said. “Check this out,” he added, jerking his thumb toward the valley.
Rialta scooted over to the edge of the boulder and peered down the side of the hill. She immediately felt an icy dread well up in her as she observed the sight before her. The hillside in front of her dropped off at a sharp angle into a narrow valley. Off in the distance was the little town made up of numerous structures of brick and wood—a town which surely must have been ‘the Chasm.’ A towering wooden fence surrounded the town in all directions, and a massive gate reinforced with metal bars seemed to be the only entrance. But it was not the sight of the town that had caused Rialta disquiet.
Three sheepstalkers, their gigantic broadswords in tow, slowly patrolled the area around the gate leading into the town. Rialta had never actually seen a sheepstalker before, but she instantly recognized them from the tales she had heard as a child. They were named for their tendency to form packs and devour vulnerable targets, such as unattended flocks of sheep and other livestock. These particular sheepstalkers had erected two battered old tents just outside the gate into the Chasm. A healthy fire roared in a pit between their tents, over which they were in the process of roasting a large, unidentifiable chunk of meat on a spit.
“Do you think it is possible that this is a town made up of sheepstalkers? And maybe these three are its sentinels?” Rialta asked John and Remmy as she crouched back behind the boulder.
“Not a chance,” said John. “Look at the town. It’s way too developed. Sheepstalkers are idiotic creatures. I would know, I’ve fought them a million times before. They’re barely intelligent enough to use weapons, let alone develop a settlement as sophisticated as that. They’ve probably set up camp outside the town to mug the townspeople going in and out of that gate.”
“But what are they even doing in this place?” Rialta asked. “Aren’t they native to Ro? How did they end up in this world?”
“No idea,” John said. “But it doesn’t matter, does it? They’re in our way, and we need to gain access to that town.
“But how are we supposed to sneak by them?” Rialta asked. As she surveyed the valley below, she became more and more sure there was nowhere for them to go without being spotted on their way toward the gate.
“We’re not. They’re stationed in a valley, and there’s no cover to hide from them. We’re going to have to kill them,” John said.
“What?” Rialta shouted. John’s eyes bugged out of his head as he made a fierce shushing gesture.
“Sorry,” Rialta said in a low whisper, “Just, do we really… Do we have to fight?”
“There’s no other way through,” John said. “There’s three of them. Even if we wait until nightfall to try to sneak by, one of them will surely stay awake to keep watch. We don’t have much in the way of food or supplies, so we can’t wait here indefinitely.”
“Don’t worry, Rialta,” Remmy said, putting a hand on her shoulder. “John and I have been in scrapes worse than this in the past. We’re going to be okay.”
Rialta let out a shuddering sigh. She wanted desperately to dissent, to come up with some alternative plan. Deep down, however, she knew that they were right. She clenched her teeth and withdrew her wand from her belt. “If we’re going to attack them, we need a plan,” she said.
“Right,” John said. “Gather around. I have an idea.”
Chapter 10
The Plan
John settled down behind the giant boulder and looked ahead down into the valley below. Three sheepstalkers patrolled their camp, blocking the entrance into the Chasm. His eyes roamed toward their rudimentary encampment, and a plan began to form in his mind.
“We take out the big one first, got it?” John said as he drew an ‘X’ into the dirt beside the boulder with his dagger. He began to draw a diagram of the fight, marking out their position versus the enemy position at the bottom of the hill.
“We need to focus one target at a time,” he continued. “If we take one out right away, y’know, before they have a chance to react properly, it’ll be three on two. Just like that, we’re at an instant advantage,” he said. He slammed his right fist into the ground for emphasis and clapped his hands together to knock the dust from his gloves.
“That’s really about it,” John said, sighing as he stowed his dagger in his belt. “Rialta and I will be the big guns. Remmy, you just keep us blessed, okay?”
Remmy nodded, taking his tome from his pack.
John paused, frowning. Something was wrong. He had only met Rialta just that morning, but spending the past several hours with her had been long enough to make him certain she must surely have some opinion contrary to his own.
He spotted her face. Her once-olive skin seemed to have taken on a pale, green hue.
“You good, Rialta?” John asked, raising an eyebrow. He might not have liked her, per se, but there was no denying that she was a powerful ally, for better or worse. He didn’t want to see her like this before a fight. He’d have almost preferred a confident, obstinate outburst to her sudden silence and timidity.
Rialta took a moment before she replied. “Yes. There’s no other way. We have to fight,” she croaked.
John watched as Rialta peeked out from beside the boulder and looked down the hill. He reached out to grab her shoulder and stop her from looking again, but he was too slow. It wouldn’t do to let her dwell too long on the task ahead of them.
A Quest for Chumps (Departed Dimensions Book 1) Page 6