Wanderer's Song

by P. E. Padilla

  Two of the nine monsters defeated had disappeared without a trace, like those others he had seen before he used his magic during their night battle. He wished he had asked Dannel about that, though he had a feeling the scholar wouldn’t have known anything. There did not seem to be a lot of information on the animaru. Maybe the Master of Prophecy at the Academy could tell him more.

  Fahtin kicked one of the corpses, turning it over so she could retrieve her knife from its eye. Raki was pulling his throwing weapons from the bodies as well, wiping them on the grass at the side of the road and replacing them in their sheaths.

  Aeden stood there, looking at the bodies of their enemies, trying to figure out why his magic was not as powerful as it had been before. The other two came up to him.

  “Are you injured?” Fahtin asked him.

  “No. Are either of you hurt?”

  “They didn’t even come near us,” Fahtin said. “Their attention was fully on you. It was as if we didn’t exist, even though we were striking them with weapons. It’s eerie.”

  “Aye,” he said. “It’s not too comfortable for me either. But no, they didn’t hurt me. There weren’t enough of them for that.”

  “How come you didn’t do that magic burst thing you did the other night when you were in the camp?” Raki asked. “This time you just attacked them one at a time.”

  “You saw that, eh?” Aeden said. “For some reason, the magic was not as powerful as it was the last time. I’ll have to think about it. I didn’t do anything different. Same words of power, same motions. I don’t know why it was weaker.”

  “So,” Fahtin said, “does this change our plans?”

  Aeden sighed. “Yes, we’ll do as you two wanted and leave the roads, Codaghan save us.” He tried to ignore their triumphant looks as they glanced at each other. “You’ll see why I don’t think it’s a good idea. Even without mythical dangers, it’s a miserable way to travel, and slow. We’ll go, though. It’s clear that Dannel was right. They’re looking for us in front and from behind.”

  They left the road immediately, hoping that their tracks would be lost in all the marks from the battle. Aeden wasn’t sure if any of the creatures followed tracks or not, but he intended to be as careful as possible.

  “Cachten siolach peitseag,” Aeden mumbled to himself as they headed into the dark, twisted trees off the road.

  From the start, it was a chore to get through the thick underbrush. He tried to choose a path that would not show their passing as easily, but he didn’t fool himself. Anything they did would damage the thick vegetation and leave clues for those following. He hoped his foes were just mindless beasts. If they could think, he had a feeling they were in a great deal of trouble. They probably were anyway, even if the animaru could not think.

  Khrazhti looked out the window of the stone tower in which she had taken residence. It provided her a good view of the surrounding countryside. It was becoming evening, the light finally dimming to an acceptable level, and in that wan light she could see the rugged terrain below.

  It was fascinating to her how this world became bright for half the day. Not just bright, but so lighted that it hurt to be outside. Even the light coming in the windows of the fortress tower was blinding. There was no such thing in her world. The light dimmed at night, but it was never brighter than dusk in this world. What a strange place this was.

  The fortress sat on a hill, commanding a clear view for miles on all sides. It was a rock-strewn area, some few plants clinging tenaciously to the thin soil between the huge piles of stone. Hills smaller than the one on which the fortress sat, thrust out of the ground at irregular intervals, looking to have jutted up so suddenly that they broke in the process. In places, they looked like rows of rotted teeth.

  Thinking of rotted teeth, she almost laughed when a messenger came through the door behind her. It was one of the forgren, filthy as they typically were, face pock-marked and teeth cracked and broken. They were not pleasant to look at, but they made fine messengers. They were tireless and single-minded. They could memorize their missives and repeat them exactly when they arrived at their destinations.

  Unfortunately, those attributes came at a cost. They could not think their way out of a simple problem. If one encountered an obstruction in its way, it could starve while trying to figure out how to pass.

  “My Lady High Priestess,” the forgren said, this one a male. “We have word from two of your hunters. The one you seek has left the group he was traveling with. He is going west from where the warriors in the hills made their homes.”

  “West?” Khrazhti asked. “They are coming toward us, then?”

  “Farther north, my Lady. A patrol ran into them near the large forest. All were lost but the two who made it back to the fortress.” The forgren stumbled over the unfamiliar word, as many of the animaru did. There were none of these forests in Aruzhelim.

  “I see,” she said. “Have the two attend me. I would ask them questions.”

  “As you command.” The messenger saluted and left the room. Within minutes, two of her hunters came through the door. They stopped ten feet away from her and saluted.

  “Report to me what happened to your patrol,” she said.

  The soldiers looked at each other and then at her. One nodded to the other and then stepped forward. They were of the same rank, so either could provide the report.

  “We chanced upon the one you seek near the great forest north of here. We were surprised. The Gneisprumay reacted more quickly than we, and by the time we organized, he had destroyed all but the two of us.”

  Khrazhti raised an eyebrow. “Destroyed? Surely you are using the wrong word. Animaru cannot be destroyed.”

  “The word is correct, my Lady. Two had the twinkling, so they disappeared to be respawned in Aruzhelim. The others, though, they were destroyed. This one, he has some power. Even being near its use, I could feel the life, the light, in it. It burns to be within the area when it is used. He attacked the others with the power and they ceased to be, their essence burned away. It is as the others, his family, did to a lesser extent. They have been destroyed.”

  “Then it is truly as the prophecy foretold.” She tapped a long-nailed finger against her lips. “We must take the life from this one. He cannot be allowed to prevent our god from coming to this world. Is there anything further you need to report about this one or his powers?”

  “No, my Lady.”

  “Very well, then report to general Treclus for reassignment. You are dismissed.”

  They saluted again and left the room.

  “General Daosa.”

  “Yes, High Priestess,” her general said, stepping toward the center of the room from where he had been standing near the wall.

  “You will organize your troops. I would think two hundred would be enough. I want them to hunt down the Gneisprumay and put an end to him. The sooner we eliminate him, the sooner S’ru will come and take the accursed light from this world.”

  “It will be done.”

  “Daosa,” Khrazhti said. “Tell your troops to take care. The Gneisprumay has come into his power. He has the ability to destroy animaru.”

  The general’s mottled gray face—the only part of him without hair—turned upward, confusion filling his eyes. “Is it truly possible?”

  “It is. He has already extinguished the essence of some of our troops, as you yourself heard. He is to be killed on sight, as quickly as possible. Do not take chances with this one.”

  “I will see it done.” He left the room quickly, calling to his under-officers to rally the troops he would need. Khrazhti wondered if it would be enough.

  30

  “Okay,” Fahtin said halfway through the first morning of travel through the Grundenwald. “You were right. This is miserable and slow.” She swatted another of the bugs that landed on her neck. Where had they come from? She’d never seen the type before, even traveling the roads around and through the large forest.

  “My Nani t
old me one time that there are ancient magics on the roads in some places,” Raki said. “Things that keep smaller creatures and—” he smacked another bug that had landed on his arm, “—insects from passing from the forest. I always thought she was just teasing me. I think maybe she wasn’t.”

  Fahtin thought about that. How could someone lay magic on hundreds of miles of roads? And how could that magic last for hundreds or thousands of years? It boggled the mind.

  She looked over at Aeden, just in front of them, picking a trail for them to pass. A trail. She harrumphed. There were no trails here, only endless dark trees and thick underbrush. With how the boughs interlocked overhead, making it seem almost like night even during noontime, she wouldn’t have thought the bushes and shrubs could grow. But they did. They seemed to do very well.

  Another sharp prickle-bush snagged at her clothing. Loose, flowing Gypta garb was a definite disadvantage when trying to get in between branches, especially ones with sharp thorns that reached out to grab you.

  If that wasn’t bad enough, the bugs were driving her to distraction. They swarmed around her face, taking turns landing on her and biting her. She already had red bumps in several locations where they had done their dirty work. She wished she could kill them all. Maybe Aeden’s magic could do something. Maybe he could do one of those explosion things he did that night in the caravan camp.

  Looking over at him to ask, she noticed something. Though she and Raki had insects buzzing around them in a cloud, he did not. In fact, as she looked more closely, she saw that the bugs were avoiding him completely. How did he do that?

  “Aeden?” she said sweetly.

  “Yes?”

  “Why is it that we are being eaten alive by these flying monsters but none are bothering even to look at you?”

  His eyebrows shot up, but then drew down as his brow furrowed. He looked at each of them and then shrugged. “I don’t know. They just don’t seem to like me. Maybe that’s what you get for being so beautiful.” He showed her all his teeth, though it was in no way a real smile.

  She snapped a branch off a nearby bush and threw it at him. A thorn on it scratched her as she did it. “Ouch!” It wasn’t even a good throw. Aeden watched it as it went through the air and then fell three feet short of him.

  “Hey, now,” he said. “Don’t break the vegetation when you don’t have to. It’s hard enough to keep from leaving a trail that might as well glow in the dark.”

  “Oh, right. Sorry.” She was sorry, but he did deserve to be hit with a switch. Imagine that, being bug-proof.

  “Truly, I don’t know why the insects aren’t bothering with me,” he said. “If it’s any consolation, though, these animaru are only interested in killing me. They leave you alone to try to accomplish it, so I think it’s more than fair.”

  “I guess.” She slapped another bug that had landed on her cheek and started biting. “I guess.”

  She looked at the crushed insect in her hand. It was long and thin with wings so fragile she could almost see through them. Taking a closer look, she saw it had some kind of sharp edge on its nose, almost like a needle. Is that what it was sticking into her to bite her? She shook it off into the vegetation at her feet. Disgusting thing.

  After the first day of travel—an exhausting affair that they ended early—the three became a little more accustomed to how it would be. They took breaks whenever they found a place with objects they could sit on. Rocks, fallen trees, low branches, whatever they could use, they would stop and use them while they had the opportunity. Each night, they would make a small fire, confident that the light of it would not be seen for more than a few feet in the tangled mess, taking a chance that the smoke would not attract anything dangerous.

  There were animals, of course. The normal variety. The birds were all dark and drab, blending in well with the surrounding. The rabbits and squirrels were darker than Fahtin was used to as well. She figured it was that way because the lighter-colored animals would have been eaten long ago, so the darker would be the dominant variety. They were able to trap or kill a few with their projectiles, and they tasted the same as any other of the animals she had ever eaten.

  Aeden knew a lot about foraging for food. He dug up tubers and found berries where the other two never would have looked. He was a handy one to have around, that one. She smiled when she thought about it.

  Thus far, though, they had not seen any kind of monsters, animaru or the legendary beasts of the Grundenwald. It could be that the myths were plain false, or it could be that they were still on the edge of the forest, where the monsters didn’t live. Fahtin hoped it was the former.

  “Something is tracking us,” Aeden whispered to the others when they stopped for an afternoon break.

  “Have you seen something?” Fahtin asked.

  “No. It’s just a feeling, like the one I got when Raki was following us, but a little different. I think it might be the magic, though I don’t know enough about it to really know what it means.”

  “Can you tell if it’s dangerous or not?” Raki asked.

  “No. Just keep an eye out, especially when we set watches for the night.”

  They had been keeping watch in shifts every night. Nothing dangerous had appeared, but the sounds when the forest grew dark were unsettling. It was obvious by the screeches, cries, growls, and screams that things other than rabbits, squirrels, and birds lived in the Grundenwald.

  As they traveled, Aeden did his best to keep them on a path that would take them due west. The ancient forest, he explained, ran longer north to south, so crossing in a direct line from east to west would be the least amount of time they would have to spend in the trees. The trip across was still more than a hundred miles—it was more than two hundred traveling on the long axis—but it was the best they could do. If they had to be there, they had better try to be there for as short a period of time as possible.

  The problem with navigation was that they rarely saw the sun through the canopy of branches thirty feet above the ground. There was nothing to do but to climb a tree, get above the obstruction, note the sun’s position, and readjust their course. As if it wasn’t bad enough trying to force their way through the tangled world they had entered.

  Raki proved to be surprisingly talented at climbing. Or maybe it wasn’t so surprising. He was small, light, and agile, and he scampered up the trees as if he was some kind of monkey. Fahtin’s heart leapt every time he disappeared into a tree forty or fifty feet up. But he always came down, smiling as if playing a game, and telling Aeden where the sun was.

  “Do you still feel that we’re being watched?” she asked Aeden a few days after he had mentioned it.

  “Aye. It doesn’t feel different, no closer or farther, no more dangerous nor less. Just the same.”

  The constant effort of the traveling, the bugs, worrying about trying to find enough food to eat, the chance that the creatures would find them—or something else would—and the thought that they were being tracked, all of it exhausted her. She felt like she was in a stewpot over a fire and that the water was heating up slowly. They were not boiling yet, but it was coming. She was sure of it.

  The other two showed signs of the stress, too, though Raki did so more than Aeden. Both had dark circles under their eyes, and their attention didn’t seem altogether there. She wondered what she looked like, chastising herself for being concerned with appearance when there were so many other important things to think about. The trio made a pathetic sight, shuffling through the strange green and gray world they had entered.

  They set up camp for the night in one of the rare small clearings they found. It allowed them to spread out and sleep around the fire they made, stretching to their full lengths. It was a luxury they had not had in several days.

  “I’ll take the first watch,” Aeden said after looking at each of them carefully. There was concern in his eyes. Fahtin wouldn’t be surprised to wake in the morning and find that he had failed to rouse them to take their turns at w
atch. She thanked him and rolled herself in her cloak, setting it in her mind that she would wake up in a few hours to relieve him. He needed to sleep, too.

  Her eyes came open and she looked around. How long had it been since she went to sleep? She could hear Raki’s soft breathing from the other side of the fire, which had been maintained to keep its light and warmth. It took a few minutes for her to spot Aeden, sitting on a small boulder off on the edge of the little clearing. She went to him.

  “Hey,” she said. “How long has it been?”

  “About four hours,” he said, still scanning the dark forest around them. Little slivers of moonlight and starlight filtered through the tree branches above and as they sat, her eyes became more accustomed to the darkness.

  “Have you seen anything, sensed anything?” she asked.

  “No. Even the animals seem quiet tonight. That concerns me. Anything out of the ordinary is probably not good. It’s as if everything is holding its breath.”

  “Well, I’m up now, so go and get some sleep. I’ll wake Raki in a few hours so he can take a turn until daylight. Thank you for taking first watch. I feel much better than when we ended the day.” She smiled at him. He forced a smile for her, but it never reached those eyes that seemed to glow in the moonlight.

  “Okay. Be careful,” he said. “My feelings about our watcher have not changed, but something is going to happen, I can sense it.”

  Fahtin flicked her hand and a knife appeared in it. She spun it a few times, and then flicked her hand to sheath it again. “I’ll be careful.”

  His smile almost reached his eyes that time. “Good. I’ll see you in a few hours, then.” He went off, rolled himself in his cloak, and was soon breathing the deep, regular breaths of slumber.

  Her time passed slowly, with nothing making an appearance and none of the sounds she usually heard on watch. He had been right, it felt like the world paused, waiting for something. But was it a good thing or a bad one?