Another merahl howled. In the faint light, Endric saw it appear at the edge of his vision. He danced back, keeping a distance between himself and the other creature, enough space so that he could watch both as they approached.
The second merahl snarled at him, snapping, until he swung his sword in its direction.
Like the first merahl, it jumped back, dancing away from the blade.
How would he stop not only one merahl, but two, and do so without harming them? He needed to find some way of trapping them so that they could study and find out what had happened. He would need to send word to Nahrsin and see if his cousin could help, but first he had to survive.
Creativity.
Could he borrow from what he’d learned from Urik and apply it to this situation?
He might need to harm the merahl, but could he do it in a way that only incapacitated them and didn’t leave them lame?
Both merahl lunged at the same time.
Endric dropped, swinging his sword around, and grazed the first merahl.
There was a strange pressure against him, much like when he’d changed the polarity of the teralin, and the merahl howled.
Endric rolled back, getting onto his feet.
The injured merahl snarled at him and snapped, but Endric brought his sword around, blocking the merahl from getting too close.
The other attempted to circle around, but Endric shifted his feet, keeping it from reaching him as well.
“I don’t want to hurt you. There’s something wrong. Let me help you.”
The first merahl snarled.
Endric feigned moving to his left before cutting back the other way. The merahl followed his first movement and he sliced at it, catching it along the flank. Much like the first time, there came a heaviness and the same sense as when he altered polarity. The merahl let out a pained cry and withdrew.
It left him facing the other merahl.
The creature watched his sword, keeping focused on it.
Endric darted right, then shifted. The merahl anticipated the move.
He had to jump out of the way of one of its massive paws, barely avoiding getting raked by it.
Endric swung around, hoping he wasn’t too aggressive with the move, and slashed at the merahl. He caught it more deeply than he’d intended, piercing the flank.
The howl from the merahl split the night.
The merahl snarled and crawled away from him, joining the other.
Both merahl watched him, the light reflecting off their eyes.
Endric stepped into a ready position, holding his sword in front of him.
The merahl stared at the blade. Endric had a sense that they were far more concerned about the sword than about the man wielding it. They howled in unison and darted away, disappearing into the night.
Endric stood in place, trembling. He might have stopped the merahl, but why had he needed to? What had happened to them? And how could he keep it from happening again?
No answer came. Instead, he had only the occasional sound of the merahl.
Sighing, he sheathed his sword. He had come this way seeking answers. He still didn’t have them.
He turned toward the darkness, back in the direction he’d been tracking the merahl. Whatever had happened to them was still there.
Now wasn’t the time to race into the darkness.
Endric turned away, making his way back to Tresten. He could track for answers in the daylight.
With each howl of the merahl, his heart fluttered and he wondered if he’d missed an opportunity to help them or whether leaving them alive would come back to haunt him.
28
Daylight began to spread by the time he returned to Tresten and Urik. Endric found the Mage awake and staring out at the sea, standing rigidly as he had so often over the last few days. A faint sheen of moisture coated his face, likely mist rather than sweat. His face had a weathered appearance, and the muscles in his cheeks were slack, leaving him more heavily wrinkled than Endric had seen before.
Whatever was happening with Tresten was aging him, and rapidly.
Urik remained asleep as Endric arrived. The man slept fitfully, every so often kicking at the air. What dreams assaulted him in the night to cause him so much difficulty?
Endric took a seat along the shore. From here, he could look down and see the rocky coastline far below. Occasional waves crashed, sending spray up toward him, but the sea was calmer today than it had been in some time. There was a peaceful quality to sitting here and listening to the sound of the ocean, one that he never would have expected. Endric had never spent much time near the coast, though had heard others who’d spent time near the sea describe their love for it in ways that reminded him of his feelings about working with the sword. For him, there was a peace in holding his sword, in flowing through the various catahs, and in the emptiness he forced his mind into so that he could focus on the task at hand.
“What do you see when you look out?”
Endric hadn’t heard Tresten appear and now the Mage sat next to him, his legs bent beneath him and his eyes locked onto something in the distance. What would he see? Magi eyesight was better than that of others, and he likely saw something out in the distance that Endric could not.
“I’m only looking at the waves,” Endric said. “The sound of them… the rhythm… it’s relaxing.”
Tresten started to smile but it faded. “There is power in the sea. Much power.” He took a deep breath and blinked. As he did, the emptiness to his face changed, the muscles in his cheeks tightening and the lines along his eyes fading, if only slightly. He turned his attention to Endric. “What happened?”
“There’s something wrong with the merahl,” Endric answered. He hadn’t come up with any answers during his walk back to Tresten and Urik. Endric wasn’t certain whether there would be any. Likely he would have only more questions. When Tresten nodded, Endric frowned. “You knew there would be.”
“I suspected. There have been sightings. It is why I needed an escort.”
Endric thought about the times he had thought he’d seen the merahl but hadn’t been certain. How could he when it seemed so unlikely that they’d have come out of the northern mountains?
“Why not ask the Antrilii?”
“I fear this isn’t something the Antrilii can solve.”
“Why me? Why my father?”
“You have already seen why.”
“That’s why you wanted me to go.”
Tresten patted his arm. “If you saw them, then you know what it was that I feared.”
Endric sighed and looked back out over the water. “I saw the merahl, and I saw the way they seemed to have been… twisted.” He shook his head. “I don’t know of any other way to put it than that. I thought it might be teralin, but…”
“You don’t think it could be?”
“How would the merahl be influenced by teralin?” He turned to Tresten, looking up at him. “There’s something I saw when I was in the north. The merahl are tied to teralin the same as the groeliin.” Could that be why Tresten wanted him to come?
He watched a massive wave roll in until it crashed along the shore. Power. That was what Tresten had said. Power like that would destroy over time and wash away everything, but the rocks remained standing in spite of it.
“You have learned something that many never do, Endric. The metal is not good or bad. It simply is. Those who have studied it once believed that it was the power of the gods, but perhaps a better way to describe it is a remnant of creation. There is something quite primal about it. The metal stores power, and power can change it, make it into something else, which then has the power to change other things.”
The idea made Endric’s head spin. “I don’t have any power.”
“Don’t you?” Tresten pulled Endric’s sword from his sheath faster than he could react. Endric reached for it, but Tresten only held it out, studying the blade. “You have taken what had been charged a certain way and changed it so t
hat it was charged in another. I would argue that is quite a bit of power.”
“That’s the Antrilii part of me.”
“Is that what you believe?”
Endric shrugged. “What else should I believe?”
Tresten handed his sword back over. “You spent months with the Antrilii and you have returned believing that your only connection is to the teralin?”
“And the groeliin. There’s something about the Antrilii that allows them to see the groeliin.”
“The same reason the Magi can see them, Endric.”
Endric tipped his head. “What reason? The Antrilii have been gifted by the gods?”
Tresten sniffed. “The Antrilii and the Magi share a connection. How else do you think they have been able to stop the groeliin?”
“The Antrilii or the Magi?”
“Does it need to be one or the other?”
“The Magi don’t face the groeliin.”
Tresten clasped his hands in his lap and turned to stare out over the water. “Not anymore. You were raised in Vasha, so you know the stories of the Founding of the city. The Magi do not hide the fact that they claim ancestors who once were soldiers. What do you think they fought in the time before the Founding?”
“Groeliin?”
Tresten studied him as he nodded.
As he fell silent, Endric stared at the sea with him, breathing in the salt air. The sky began to lighten and thick clouds remained in the distance, but so far, there had been no thunder that rumbled. There was nothing but the sound of the sea and that of Endric’s heart pounding steadily in his chest. He breathed deeply, savoring the peace he found here.
He thought through what Tresten had said but still didn’t come up with any answers. There seemed no reason for the merahl to have been changed the way they had seemed to have been, unless it did have to do with teralin. The groeliin had been tied to the negatively charged teralin as well. Was there anything to that connection that would help explain the strangeness of the merahl and their attack?
“You said ‘they.’” Tresten glanced over, arching a brow at Endric. “When you were describing the Magi and the Founding of Vasha. Not ‘we.’”
Tresten stared, saying nothing. Eventually, he stood. “It is daylight. It’s time for us to begin our journey again.”
Endric watched him, wondering what he might be missing. The Mage had often been odd, but this was strange even for him. Since finding him in Thealon, Tresten had not said much, not nearly as he had in the past when Endric had spoken with him. Had something happened to him? Maybe there was more to the rumors than Endric understood. There had been the claim that Tresten had died, which had to have come from somewhere. He didn’t like to think of the Mage having such difficulty, but there was no doubting that he seemed more aged than he had before.
Plenty of men struggled at the end of their lives, especially if they lived long enough. There had been a few soldiers of the Denraen who had similarly struggled. Their minds would begin to slip and they would often more easily remember things that happened decades ago than they would recall what was happening around them, leading them to reminisce.
Was that what was happening to Tresten? Was he seeing the signs of a Mage fading?
If he was, should Endric follow him?
They were troubled thoughts, and ones that he didn’t have any easy answers for. Maybe he shouldn’t be following Tresten. When he’d been abducted from Vasha and gotten free, should he have returned rather than continuing on toward Thealon? Endric had wanted to know what motivated Urik, thinking that he might find answers to Tresten’s disappearance, and had not expected to find the Mage still alive.
Yet, if Tresten’s mind was slipping, could he abandon him? Shouldn’t he stay with him and see if Tresten needed him? Wasn’t that part of what the Denraen were called upon to do?
Endric returned to the campsite and helped break it down, burying the fire and readying for departure. He glanced over at Tresten from time to time but came up with no answers. When Urik woke, he studied Endric and the glint of his eye made it seem as if he noticed something was off, but said nothing. Endric didn’t share and they departed, heading west in silence.
They picked up the trail not far from the edge of the trees. Endric noted shallow prints that looked as if they could have been made by a wolf, but he knew better. These were merahl prints, and frequent enough that the creatures had been nearby. That troubled him. Their proximity meant that they were willing to approach much closer than Endric had expected, and that they had been close enough to attack.
Urik seem to notice the prints as well, though he said nothing. He had claimed the howling they had heard had been wolves, and Endric wondered whether he still felt that way or whether seeing these markings in the soft ground had changed anything for him.
There were other prints as well. Most looked as if they were from horses, which left him wondering who led the merahl. The Antrilii would travel by horseback, though this was incredibly far south for them to have traveled, especially without any word of their presence getting out.
Unless that was the reason Dendril had departed Vasha.
When his father had left, he had done so without leaving any indication as to why, or where he was going. Endric had only been back in the city for a short time and hadn’t the opportunity to regain his father’s trust, and certainly wasn’t part of his inner circle, not as Senda now was. Endric tried not to think of the irony that Senda was the one who prevented him from knowing details of his father’s plans, much like Listain once had done.
Tresten made no sign that he noticed the markings, but he followed them just the same. They moved swiftly, trailing after the prints marking the passing of the merahl, and they found themselves continuing to make their way west. Eventually, this would take them to the city of Gomald. If the merahl had traveled all the way to Gomald, would the people of the city be in any danger?
When Endric had been in the Antrilii lands, such an idea would have been ridiculous. He never would have imagined the merahl harming anyone other than the groeliin, but after what he’d seen, and after Tresten’s vague comments, he no longer knew whether they would be safe from the merahl. He’d faced two of them and managed to prevent them from killing him, but what would happen to someone without his training?
What would happen to someone who wasn’t willing to merely incapacitate them and was more willing to slaughter them? Would it draw attention to them? Would it bring hunters into the northern mountains, seeking prizes? The merahl had been left alone, had been unknown, before now. If they were hunted—and killed—one of the greatest allies to the Antrilii would be lost. Without the merahl, the Antrilii would eventually fail in their mission.
That troubled him as much as anything else. Did Tresten think about that? Was that part of the reason that he was so motivated to bring them after these creatures? He was more enlightened than most of the Magi Endric had met and was a part of the Conclave, and so would know about the groeliin and the role the Antrilii played, but would they intervene?
If it came to it, Endric would have to. He couldn’t risk the merahl drawing attention to their presence and couldn’t risk something happening to the creatures. They were too valuable in the fight against the groeliin, a fight that would not be over anytime soon.
The longer they went, the more the markings in the damp soil from the merahl began to fade, spacing out more and more before they disappeared completely. Endric couldn’t tell if the merahl had gone elsewhere or whether the earth was now too dry for him to follow. He didn’t have much tracking skill but was relieved that Urik didn’t seem to notice the tracks either. Tresten didn’t alter his course, so if they were present, and if that were the reason he made his way through here, he had another way of following.
Evidence of horses coming through here increased. It was more than the way the ground was trampled, and more than the occasional broken branch. He saw evidence of horse dung that had hastily been cleaned up. What
would the riders have done with it? Endric imagined men scooping it and throwing it into the sea as they thought to obscure their passing, but that seemed extreme for soldiers. Even the Denraen wouldn’t have gone quite that far.
As they traveled, Endric watched Tresten. He kept his eyes on the Mage when they stopped, waiting to see what he would do. At times, Tresten would make his way to the ledge looking out over the sea and would simply stand and stare with his hands clasped behind his back, his face going slack as it did in the evenings. Other times, he would remain motionless, particularly when they paused at the streams with water spilling out into a waterfall that cascaded down the ocean.
Urik seem to pick up on it as well. He didn’t say anything, but he watched Tresten and occasionally he would glance over at Endric as if waiting for Endric to reveal his concern, but Endric never did. It wasn’t his place to share what he feared with Urik. He could be wrong. There could be nothing at all that troubled Tresten. It could simply be that the Mage worked through thoughts that bothered him, though his general silence left a sense of unease hanging between them.
When they stopped for the night, making camp, Tresten disappeared as he had each of the other nights. Endric and Urik prepared the fire and Endric sat near it, leaning forward. He was exhausted from the day and from a sleepless night and had fought against his exhaustion. If they encountered the soldiers they tracked, or even the merahl, Endric wouldn’t be of much use. With as tired as he was, he would likely make a mistake. He needed sleep.
They ate dried jerky that Tresten supplied, as well as a few of the berries they had gathered along the journey. “What I wouldn’t give for a hot meal,” Endric muttered.
“Just a hot meal?” Urik asked.
Endric glanced over. “What else would I want?”
Urik shrugged. “You used to be the kind of man who preferred a mug full of ale than a belly full of food.” He laughed, and it did nothing to pierce the strange anxiety that remained between them. “There were a few times when we had to get you from the stockade. As much as he tried to hide it, your brother had a soft spot for you. He was never willing to let you remain in the cell for too long.”
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