Sayri's Whisper: The Great Link Book 1

by Daniel J. Rothery

  The ground trembled again, and Sayri grabbed to a nearly tree trunk for stability. Somewhere ahead, there was a rattling sound, as if rocks were tumbling across a road.

  Wissa appeared. She came to Sayri, and pulled the hood of her stolen Collector’s robes down from her head, revealing her striking features and thick, dark hair. Behind her Sayri heard a grunting from the beast-man; it was the first time he had seen her face, and probably he had assumed she was a man with a high voice, or some sort of spirit. Wissa’s eye flashed in his direction, her glare nothing short of murderous; the beast-man squealed and rustled into the bush.

  “We’ve a problem,” Wissa said once the distraction was gone.

  “Another battle?” Sayri asked, wondering why she heard nothing.

  “No,” Wissa replied, motioning forward with her head. She led carefully through the thick bush; Sayri followed, and could hear the Proselyte behind her.

  The foliage was thick enough that Sayri could only follow; she couldn’t see anything ahead. She was quite surprised when the taller woman stopped abruptly, holding her hand up and pointing forward and down. Coming up behind her shoulder, Sayri peered carefully past.

  There were no trees, and no ground. About ten paces ahead, she saw jungle, but it ended suddenly, roots and rocks hanging over the edge of a sheer vertical drop. Sayri took hold of a tree to her left that seemed solid enough; Wissa placed a hand on her shoulder as she leaned out and looked down. The leaves immediately before her parted, and she looked straight down, then left and right.

  It was a freshly collapsed gash in the earth, likely the result of the tremors they had felt. It ran deep enough that water was trickling in from the sea far to her right. To the left, it ran to the mountain’s base, and disappeared in shadow. At the far bottom, she saw rocks, dirt, and broken trees.

  “Wow,” Sayri uttered. She couldn’t think of anything else to say.

  “At a full run I might’ve had a chance t’ leap the other side, an’ grab on t’ some bush,” Wissa said, frowning. “But not w’ the thick bushes on this side.”

  Sayri boggled. Wissa could even imagine leaping that far? She wouldn’t have wanted to try halfway. “I wouldn’t ask you to try, Wissa. Anyway, it’s too far to go all the way around the island. Any ideas?”

  “Well, we could go down t’ the sea, swim across, an’ walk back th’ other side,” Wissa suggested.

  Sayri grimaced. “That’ll take a long time, too,” she complained.

  “Well . . . take a look to y’ left aways. Above th’ trench,” Wissa said.

  Sayri leaned carefully back out, looking left. She searched up along the ravine for a few moments before she saw what Wissa was referring to; a collection of vines stretched across the gap from treetop to treetop. It had been left hanging, strung between the trees, when the ground below fell away.

  She nodded slowly. “I can make it. But I’m not sure about the Proselyte,” she said.

  “What about me?” the Proselyte said. He was getting quieter; though Sayri had known he followed her up, she forgot he was there once the concern ahead presented itself. He was standing a few paces behind them. There was no sign of the beast-man.

  Wissa didn’t seem surprised by his presence. “There is a way across, but it will be a difficult climb, Proselyte. There will be no way to help you.” She seemed unconcerned with the veiled suggestion that he be left behind.

  “I used to climb balconies in the free city for fun,” the Proselyte told her with a trace of irritation, which surprised Sayri. He had always seemed so perfectly humble and calm, she had almost forgotten that he was, after all, a man. The encounter with the boar, as clumsily as he had handled it, seemed to have nonetheless emboldened him. He flexed his thin arms this way and that, as if stretching for an athletics event. “I may not be the young man I once was, but I’m certainly capable of a little climbing,” he added confidently.

  “S’more than a little,” Wissa murmured, moving back the way they had come a few paces, then turning toward the mountain. “Stay y’ close a’hind me, in m’ footsteps. The edge could be treacherous,” she cautioned.

  Sayri nodded and followed. She noticed that the Proselyte, having said his piece, quietly fell in behind—quietly in voice, at least. Now that she was aware of him again, his plodding ruckus through the forest continued.

  They made it to the place Wissa had spotted within a few hundred heartbeats. The jungle was just as thick here, but the bushes were lower and she could see out across the chasm; the trees from which the vines hung seemed sturdy enough on both sides. The vines themselves were somewhat thin to be climbing upon, but there were a good number of them. She supposed that bunched together they would safe enough.

  “Will the beast—will Bauma follow?” she asked the Proselyte. Wissa, Sayri noted, had already climbed up the nearest tree without a word, and was reaching to gather together a group of vines sufficient to carry her weight.

  “He can climb,” the Proselyte replied uncertainly, “but he has always been hesitant of heights. I cannot be certain. If he refuses?”

  “Then we leave him behind. I’m sorry, Proselyte.”

  The monk nodded, but said nothing.

  Wissa was swinging out from the tree, hanging by only her hands. She held her knees tightly under her, and swung from hand to hand like a monkey. As Sayri watched, she made her way out from under the canopy of trees and into the empty air of the abyss. Sayri’s chest tightened as the woman continued across the chasm, her legs swinging back and forth rhythmically, but eventually she dropped lithely to the ground on the opposite side.

  “Some of th’ vines attach further apart over here,” Wissa called over. “They want t’ separate in y’ hands. Be wary,” she warned. Then she vanished into the jungle, no doubt to scout ahead.

  Sayri felt a flash of abandonment as Wissa departed. Would the girl not stay to make sure Sayri made it across safely?

  Then she realized that if she didn’t make it, there would be nothing Wissa could do. She would plummet to her death; it would be as simply as that. There was no reason for Wissa to remain near for that.

  It might also have been that her protector assumed that Sayri would be able to save herself with the Link, or even fly across if she wanted to. Sayri didn’t bother to call her back to explain that she was wrong—she had no idea how she might stop herself from falling.

  All that said, though the height of the ravine unnerved her, she was not worried about the climb; she had traversed more difficult challenges in the hills beyond the Lower Valley, on the way to Red Rock.

  She turned to the Proselyte, and was astonished to discover that he was climbing the tree and gathering vines.

  “Nothing fancy, young lady,” the older man said. “This isn’t a race. Don’t try to cross like she did; just do as I do.” He swung his right leg over the vines collected in his hands, then his left over the other way, so that his head hung toward the ravine. He hooked his feet together. “Take your time, and don’t look down.”

  The Proselyte started crawling out over the gap. His progress was slow, but methodical. After a short time, he was past the midpoint, and soon enough he was across.

  The beast-man was squatting near the tree the two had climbed, frowning out across the empty space.

  Sayri faced him. “Bauma—can you do this?” she asked, pointing across.

  The beast-man stared at her, his tiny eyes barely glimmering under a massive overhanging brow. He remained silent.

  Sayri nodded slowly, and started up the tree. Once she had gathering together enough vines, she looked down at the creature. He was looking up at her, his previous fear of her forgotten. All she saw in his eyes was anguish as being left behind.

  “I’m sorry, Bauma,” she said, and starting crawling out into space.

  From her inverted view the vines extended out as if beneath her; in the near distance, at their terminus, she saw the Proselyte frowning. But he wasn’t watching her—he was scrutinizing something up t
owards the mountain.

  Sayri paused a third of the way across, wrapping her left arm over the vines, and looked in the direction he was staring.

  “Oh, rot,” she cursed. A great stream of glowing orange had made its way down the slope of the mountain and was filling the gorge she was climbing across. It had topped off the hole at its base, and was beginning to flow down in her direction. On either side of the ravine, trees were bursting into flame from the intense heat of liquid fire flowing past.

  “Young lady, I propose you climb faster,” the Proselyte said, his voice calm but firm.

  “Young man, I concur,” Sayri muttered as he began moving hand over hand and sliding her legs more quickly. Don’t look, Sayri, she urged herself.

  Left hand, then right. Pull with both, side the legs. Left, then right . . . she couldn’t afford to make a mistake; the fall would kill her as surely as the fire. “What is that, Proselyte? It looks like a river of fire,” she said, trying to distract herself.

  “Molten rock,” the monk replied. “Stone so heated under the earth, that it has melted.”

  She decided she would have been better off not knowing.

  The vines began to spread as Wissa had said; she fumbled slightly as she tried to adjust her grip, losing several of them. She swayed dangerously. Was she still clutching enough vines to hold her safely?

  “Here,” the Proselyte said. She saw he had climbed a tree on the opposite side, and was squeezing the vines together for her. She pulled two more in, and continued climbing.

  She could feel the heat on her right side. The fire was close.

  Finally she made it, and dropped down on the other side safely. Now they only needed to get enough distance—

  “Oh, no,” the Proselyte murmured, his eyes on the opposite side. Sayri whirled.

  The beast-man had ascended the tree and was beginning to climb across, hand over hand as Wissa had. He was swinging quickly; she glanced up at the river of fire filling the gorge, scoring the dirt and jungle on both sides as it flowed down, and estimated. Not quickly enough—it was less than a hundred paces away.

  “Tell him to go back,” she urged the Proselyte. Liquid fire popped and gurgled as it approached them; even from here she could feel the heat on her face, like a noonday summer sun. “He won’t make it.”

  “He would not understand me,” the monk said, shaking his head. His eyes were full of concern.

  “You have to try!” Sayri exclaimed. The river of fire was nearly upon them, and Bauma’s legs were swinging back and forth over the middle of the chasm. The fire would soon consume him, and the vines he swung from.

  He wasn’t going to make it.

  “Sayri,” the Proselyte said, seizing her arm. She looked at him; tears were running down his cheeks. How had he come to care for the beast-man so much? “We have to go now,” he urged.

  Sayri turned back to the beast-man, barely five paces from them. But the fire was ten paces away, burning everything it touched, the heat of it like putting her head in a stove. She could feel her skin beginning to burn.

  Bauma screamed. He was two paces away, but the fire had reached him.

  Close enough. Take him! she commanded the Link, throwing her hand out at the beast-man and closing her fist, then throwing her arm over her head and turning to run.

  The Proselyte dragged her into the jungle. Fire burst out behind her, igniting the trees and scorching the air. Her hair felt like it was curling from the heat.

  They ran. Bauma was wailing like a sick child, but he wasn’t in the fire behind—he was overhead. Twenty paces into the jungle the Proselyte stumbled and fell, rolling on his back. They were far enough, though she could still feel the heat; she stopped to help him to his feet.

  Tears were on his cheeks. He didn’t know what she had done. Bauma’s screams still echoed above them, and finally the Proselyte followed her arm upwards, and his eyes bugged.

  Bauma drifted down, writhing like a caught fish, his face full of terror. Sayri deposited him on the ground gently, but he did not rise. Rather, he curled into a ball, weeping. Sayri started over to calm him, but he screamed and tried to crawl away from her, his fingers digging desperately into the dirt. She backed away slowly.

  The Proselyte went over and gathered Bauma into his arms. The beast-man clung to him like a terrified child to its mother, burying his face in the man’s chest.

  “Sayri,” the Proselyte said, his eyes still full of tears as he looked at her, but a smile glowing behind them. “Thank you, child.”

  Sayri smiled, embarrassed, and curtsied to the spiritualist. Behind her, fire cracked and popped. “We should be safe here for a moment. Take your time to calm him the best you can,” she offered.

  Wissa burst from the jungle ahead. “What’s all th’ yelling? Were y’ attacked?” She sniffed the smoky air, looking past them. “There’s a fire?”

  Sayri laughed, her nerves relieved temporarily by the near escape. “It’s all right, Wissa,” she said. “But we might need a moment.”

  The taller woman gave her a confused glare, but nodded. “Just try t’ keep it down, a’right?” she urged.

  Sayri laughed some more.

  ・

  They made good time after that. The jungle was sparser for the most part, and several wide clearings—one filled with dead Somrians, making Sayri wonder if her people were winning—made for easier travel.

  The Proselyte had taken to walking immediately behind Sayri and seemed able to keep up now, though she hardly appreciated being unable to sneak at all with his noise following her. The beast-man was back a safe distance, probably from her. She grunted at him for his ingratitude.

  It was nearing mid morning when Wissa, who had for the most part been present only through brief whistles and hisses, appeared suddenly before them. She was slightly out of breath, as if she had run to them from some ways off. “Somrians coming,” she said. “Find somewhere to hide!”

  Sayri slipped into a large, broad-leafed bush. The Proselyte fell behind a gnarled growth of tree roots, and pulled loose foliage down over himself. Wissa and the beast-man, who understood the concept of hiding quite well, simply vanished. Both had, to Sayri’s annoyance, better talents at hiding than she did, though she was as physically quiet as Wissa, and much more so than the savage.

  They sat there in silence for a time; so long that the Proselyte, not understanding the subtleties of moving about in the bush, became anxious. “Have they already—” he began, to his credit in a whisper.

  Wissa whistled in the bird tone she had designated at the outset as a warning. The monk fell silent.

  Footsteps sounded, and a man ran past in a trot. Several more followed moments after. After a short time, two more passed nearby, at a slower pace, but still moving briskly.

  “We can’t just take na ship and go. Na Captains wo’ crucify us!” one of them said, his voice deep and hollow, and filled with fear.

  The answer came quickly and decisively. “Ya think they still alive na that? Burned up—or like na Kollivar’s division. One of na scouts tol’ me, they all just dropped in na grass, not a scratch. Some kind na curse. I’m for na getting off this island, and not na body will be left to charge me, hear?”

  “I’m with ya,” the other could be heard in the distance, then they moved out of earshot.

  Wissa hissed, and they stood, the Proselyte brushing dirt from his clothes.

  Sayri stared at Wissa. The tall woman’s face was etched with concern. “We aren’t stopping, Wissa,” she said. “He’s alive, I can feel it.”

  Wissa nodded hesitantly. “Then—w’ need t’ move quickly. S’ comin’ apart here, Sayri. Even survivin’ w’ might find a’selfs with no boat,” she warned.

  The mountain rumbled its agreement.

  “Fast, then,” Sayri agreed.

  Wissa eyes ran over the Proselyte, then Bauma, then came back to Sayri. “Where those men ran from, I’d say that’s where w’ find Arad. There will be more. Be ready to kill quickly,
and move on,” she said; it was half question.

  Sayri nodded, steeling herself. She would get to Arad, and nothing—or no one—would stand in her way. At least not for long. “I’m ready, Wissa,” she said, shocked by the coldness in her own voice.

  Wissa dashed into the jungle. Sayri plunged after her, hoping the others would keep up.

  50 GALLORD-SMIT

  They had won the battle, but it was now impossible to tell. Once the Somrians scattered, his own people had the luxury to look around; when they saw the volcano spewing smoke and fire fear clutched them as well, and panic broke out. Gallord-Smit tried to regain control, but the rumble of the mountain combined with the shouts of the men—from both sides—made it impossible for him to be heard. Fights were still breaking out here and there, but for the most part, the two armies were fleeing as one; the mountain was the final victor.

  Smoke was rolling across the sky over the island, plunging them back into darkness, though it was an eerie grey murk through which the sun’s rays still occasionally crept. Ash was dancing about now, sprinkling the jungle with what looked like great, dusty flakes of snow. Behind it, an ominous glow lit the sky to the north in deep orange, and it was creeping ever downwards.

  Arad was still alive. Despite being run through, he hadn’t lost as much blood as would have been expected. Though it was a mortal wound, Gallord-Smit had managed to partially staunch the young Somrian’s bleeding with a wrap fashioned from a dead man’s shirt. The lad was unconscious. Gallord-Smit doubted he would ever wake, but had decided that he would do what he could; the boy had been decent enough to him, and likely would have done the same if their positions were reversed.

  “Front-Captain!” He turned, and spotted Charese through the drifting ash. A mix of voices, some friendly and some enemy, echoed through the jungle, but the only soldiers in sight were those following her as she approached. She had more with her than Gallord-Smit had sent her out with; about a score grouped behind her as she approached, cautiously monitoring the area for enemies and nervously glancing upwards at the threatening inferno that towered above.