by B. T. Narro
It was difficult later to find a position that didn’t irritate his injuries, but eventually he managed to fall asleep. He awoke later to Beatrix’s angry whispering.
“Kirnich, you fell asleep.”
“Sorry.”
“It’s fine. I’ll take over.”
But Desil knew Beatrix was more likely to lag behind the next day than he was. She needed as many hours of rest as she could get. He sat up.
“Let me,” he offered.
“Why?” she asked, her skepticism obvious in her tone.
“Because I’ll be fine tomorrow.”
“You lie.”
“I’ll be better than you would,” he specified.
Now Adriya sat up. “Just let him do it so I can get back to sleep.”
“Fine. Wake me before you fall asleep, Desil.”
“I will. Adriya, stay up a moment longer please. I need your help with this.” Desil quickly collected some leaves and threw them onto the embers.
Adriya grabbed her staff from beside her and aimed it at them. A stream of fire shot out, catching half of the leaves in flames.
They all went back to sleep as Desil walked around and found more loose foliage to feed the fire. His shoulder ached as if he’d slept on it wrong, but the worst was his searing headache. It was going to be a long day tomorrow.
*****
Night passed into morning without event. Beatrix awoke with a gasp and looked around for Desil. When she saw him already awake, she huffed out a relieved breath, then squinted at their surroundings.
“It’s time,” she told the rest of them. “Wake up.”
Desil was starving, but it didn’t compare to his thirst. There were just a few sips of water left in his second pouch. He took a gulp and barely refrained from finishing the last drops.
Most of them reached for their water pouches right after rising. They let out grunts of pain between stretches and yawns.
The plan was set. They had about twenty miles to cover to reach the end of this forest before nightfall. If the rest of the forest was anything like what they’d already traveled through, then there were no paths to follow. Desil was glad they had not brought horses, as they would’ve been forced to leave the animals behind now. There simply wasn’t enough room for a horse during many parts of the trek.
Kirnich and Adriya stayed in the front. They cleared through the brush, Kirnich with his sword and Adriya with her staff. But many of the tree branches were too thick to waste time breaking, slowing down the group as everyone had to duck or walk around them.
Desil noticed Beatrix grabbing her thighs and releasing to strengthen her hands, just like Kirnich told her. Soon after, Leida was doing the same.
The noise their travel created surely made it easy for them to be followed. Desil could sense the cloaked man somewhere behind them. Walking at the back, Desil felt responsible for detecting any threats before their party might be in danger, but every turn of his head worsened his discomfort. Everyone had checked their cuts earlier for signs of infection. There was no water to wash them, but Leida and Adriya had brought a few potions for that purpose that everyone had shared.
They pushed on for hours. Desil was certain everyone was as parched as he was. Eventually Beatrix stopped and addressed the problem.
“I was hoping we would find water by now,” she said. “Because we haven’t, we need to follow an animal to the nearest lake or river. I sense something confident ahead that no doubt knows this forest better than we do. Don’t kill it.” She extended her hand as she took the lead.
Desil felt vibrations against the ground as they got closer. Everyone stopped and looked at each other with wide eyes. How large was this creature?
The edge of two steep hills nearly blocked their path. They made their way between them as quietly as possible, the aqua trees swaying from the wind tunneling through.
An enormous snout broke through the thick leaves and branches, with two nostrils each as big as Kirnich’s head. Desil tried to go for his sword but Leida bumped into him in her hurry to get back. He maneuvered around her as the rest of the beast’s head came into view. Its enormous gray eyes were glossy and ringed by loose, scaly skin. The beast opened its massive mouth and turned its head slightly as if curious at the sight of humans. Each tooth was as big as two of Desil’s fingers put together.
“It’s not going to eat us!” Beatrix announced.
“Because you have it under control?” Kirnich asked as he pointed his sword at its face.
“Yes, but also because it doesn’t view us as food. Just to be sure, I made it interested instead of aggressive.”
“Are you positive it doesn’t want to kill us?” Adriya asked.
“Not with me here.” Beatrix pulled down Kirnich’s sword arm. “Relax.”
The creature let out its breath as it grunted. The gust of hot air blasted Kirnich and Beatrix back into Desil and Adriya. Desil panicked for a moment as he wondered how much control Beatrix really had, but he took her advice to relax when the creature did not advance.
“Turn around,” Beatrix told the animal as she drew a circle in front of its face.
Everyone rushed to get back as its head turned and its feet shifted, the ground rumbling. Behind the walls of leaves, a dark mass came toward them. They first saw a thick tail as it slapped against a tree trunk and broke a couple branches. The creature’s rear pushed through next and took down many more branches, which gave sight to the rest of its body.
It was lizard-like, with a mane of drooping hairs down its neck and back. Its legs were as thick as tree trunks. Feet with four sprawled toes, a thick square claw at the end of each, made the beast seem capable of wrecking all of Desil’s small town of Kayvol in a single hour.
“Sit!” Beatrix commanded.
The beast grunted as it pushed out one leg at a time. Its stomach crashed to the ground, the trees shaking in complaint.
To Desil’s amazement, Beatrix walked up the tail and onto its back. “Get on,” she told them.
No one moved.
“Hurry up,” she said. “It isn’t easy keeping it like this, and my thirst is hampering my concentration.”
Leida walked around Desil. “Will it take us to water?”
“Yes,” Beatrix assured.
Leida scrambled up behind Beatrix. Finally remembering his tormenting thirst, Desil followed with a sudden absence of fear.
Adriya and Kirnich came up behind him and they all followed Beatrix across the creature’s back. She stopped above its shoulders, then sat and grabbed its narrow yet long mane for balance.
“This doesn’t seem to bother it,” she told them. “Grab hold.”
Desil squeezed a cluster of the hair. It felt like flexible straw, each strand as long and thick as his arm.
Beatrix lifted one palm and the creature lurched upward, nearly throwing them off as it got its front feet underneath its body. Desil would’ve slid backward into Adriya had he not been holding on. He worried the heavy tug on the creature’s mane would bother it, but soon it was standing on all four legs without uttering a sound.
Its back shifted as it started to walk, its uneven gait causing Desil to slide around. He quickly sat and wrapped his legs around more of the mane to balance himself. He felt Adriya grab his shirt to steady herself.
“Duck!” Beatrix yelled from the front as the creature picked up speed.
A large branch swooped over Desil’s head as he shrank as low as he could get. He heard cracking ahead of him as the beast broke through anything in its way. Desil wondered if it was strong enough to knock down a tree. More branches came at it from every angle. The creature didn’t seem to care as the sides of his body deflected or broke everything the forest threw at it.
But soon the cracking stopped, and Beatrix announced, “It’s clear ahead. Bastial hell…”
Desil slowly rose as he tested his balance, needing a look for himself at where they were going.
“You’re going to fall,” Adriya scolde
d.
“Then hold my legs.”
She reached her arms around his ankles and shins. He put his hand on Leida’s shoulder in front of him for balance as he got his head just high enough to see over the creature’s arced neck.
The sight of a beautiful lake made him almost glad for his thirst. The water was white around the argent rocks, the water reflecting a halo made by a low-hanging cloud around its edges. The lake turned gold deeper in, blurring the reverse image of green and healthy trees standing guard at the other side. Hills covered by trees rose up past the cloud, eventually meeting a bare mountain.
Desil suddenly remembered the Marros. “We’re exposed here, so we’d better hurry,” he said as the enormous animal stopped. Desil slid down its side and rushed to the waterside.
The others joined him as he bent to fill his two water skins. Beatrix had Kirnich bring hers to the water while she stayed on the beast.
“He’s bored with us,” she said when everyone drank their fill. “It’s best we leave him here rather than wait for my psyche to falter. I’ll make him thirsty to distract him.”
The creature walked over to the lake and submerged its entire head. The water sloshed as Beatrix jumped off and walked back into the forest with the rest of them.
With newfound energy, they increased their pace as they tried to reach the end of the forest before sundown. Eventually the trees proved to be thicker but with more space between them, allowing room to walk through without interference. They made good time. The hue of the trees shifted again, matching the greens and browns Desil was used to from Raywhite Forest in Kyrro.
They avoided the hills as best they could, but eventually there was no avoiding an incline. Leida checked her compass often as if doubtful they were going the right way, but she never objected to the path Kirnich and Adriya chose.
Fatigue caught up with Desil by midday. The excitement of the experience with the enormous creature was long gone, pinning his focus on his pain and hunger. His legs were fine; they could keep him up all day. The strain was in his head, and he could see Leida was in pain too as she grimaced and winced.
They passed by walls of hedges replete with red berries. The presence of food drew everyone’s attention, but no one recognized the fruit. Kirnich plucked one off and sniffed it. He opened his mouth.
“Don’t,” Desil said.
“Seems fine.”
“I doubt it. There wouldn’t be so many unless the animals knew to avoid it.”
“So I’ll try one,” Kirnich said. “If it’s poisonous, one can’t do much damage.”
“It will do nothing for your hunger, either,” Desil argued. “We don’t have time for testing. First you should touch it and see if it irritates the skin after an hour. Then you should lick it and wait a day. Then you can have a small bite, but you should wait another day afterward. Then you can eat some but only a small amount. They didn’t teach this to you at the Academy?”
Kirnich dropped the berry. “I was too busy learning how to fight.”
Everyone stopped looking at the hedges after that.
They walked in silence for a few more hours, Desil’s pain reaching new levels of discomfort. It somehow helped to know he wasn’t the only one suffering, as he could see his party losing vigor with each new obstruction. Even when it was something small like a sea of bushes no taller than their knees, Desil could feel everyone’s agony matching his own.
Even at their best, the distance they needed to cover in this terrain would be difficult. Now it was beginning to feel impossible. He knew they must increase their pace if they had any hope of making it, but it took him a few breaths before he had the strength to speak it.
“If we don’t go faster, we won’t get to the end before nightfall.”
“How do you know?” Beatrix asked. “I can’t tell how far we’ve gone.”
“No more than ten miles.”
Leida stumbled. She caught herself by putting her hand out against a tree.
“Are you all right?” Desil asked.
“That depends. How sure are you we haven’t even gone halfway?”
“Almost certain.”
“Then we double the speed,” Kirnich said. “Let’s go.”
But Leida wouldn’t move.
Adriya sat on a fallen tree. “It’s not possible.”
“It is,” Kirnich argued. “Come on.”
“We’re famished.” Beatrix sat by Adriya.
“No you’re not,” Kirnich argued. “You just ate last night.”
“And now it’s the afternoon, and we’ve been trudging through this forest without rest,” Beatrix retorted. “Adriya’s right. It’s impossible. We should hunt and plan to reach the end before tomorrow night. Then we can make it to the settlement one day behind them.”
Desil didn’t let himself consider stopping yet, as it might be too tempting once he did. He waited for Leida to decide as she held her hand over her eyes. She barely seemed able to stand.
Something changed in her as she dropped her hand and stood up straight. “Catching up to them today might be our only chance. We have to at least try.”
“I was hoping you would say that,” Desil admitted.
The two of them started south again. They didn’t look back, but eventually they could hear the others following.
Each hour was more painful than the last. Desil’s head throbbed, his mind calling for rest. They trudged through an expanse of wet ferns knee-high that soaked Desil’s boots and pants, bogging him down further. There had to be a more optimal route than the one before them, but only the Kanoans would be aware of it.
As the day drew on, the sting of his injuries was soon subdued by extreme fatigue. His whole party suffered silently, but he could feel their pain in the absence of words. He could sense them losing hope as well, as the light faded.
“How much farther, Desil?” Leida asked. The two of them had dropped to the back of the group, Kirnich and Adriya at the head again. Leida’s voice was too low for anyone else to hear.
“I only have a guess,” Desil told her.
“Tell me.”
“Five miles.”
She put her hand over her eyes and peered up. There was a gap in the trees that let through rays of dim light.
“We need to run,” she told the group. “It’s the only way to make it in time.”
Although it was true, running seemed impossible. The forest was not flat, and much of the ground was covered by plant growth. It was too easy to trip. However, Desil couldn’t think of any other way. If they let the Kanoans take Leida’s parents to the settlement, he didn’t see how his group would get them back.
No one objected to Leida’s demand, and soon they set a quick pace. Desil’s head complained as soon as he started up, but after a while at least his piercing hunger faded. He knew he was famished, but the others were too, and no one was collapsing yet.
It didn’t take long for the pain to overwhelm him. He seethed with jealousy that the others had slept and he hadn’t. He’d been fighting back a terrible mood successfully until then, but the last hour broke him.
They’d barely covered a mile when Beatrix stopped. “I can’t go any farther.” She wavered.
Kirnich took hold of her. He was covered in sweat.
Desil blinked. His vision had been reduced to a pin hole, while everything around it was blurry. The gash on his forehead stung from his own sweat. He resisted the urge to dab it with his soiled shirt sleeve, which he rolled up to check one wound on his arm. It didn’t appear to be infected, thankfully. He asked Leida to check his shoulder. His cut appeared fine, she said, though she could only squint at it as she barely kept herself up.
“How much farther?” she huffed.
“I don’t know anymore,” Desil admitted. “A couple miles maybe.”
“It’s already dark,” Adriya said. “They probably left.”
Beatrix shuffled over to lean against a tree.
“No,” Leida said. “We can still catch u
p to them before they reach the settlement. How many miles is it from the end of the forest to their settlement, Desil?”
He closed his eyes and tried to remember what he’d seen. He’d told them that the only sign of life he’d spotted from the mountain was the stone tower, but they’d agreed with his assumption that the settlement must be within the nearby forest.
“I think it was four miles to the Dead River and another four miles to the forest where the settlement must be.”
“That gives us more time to reach them before they reach their settlement.” Leida spoke with a shaky voice as if she didn’t believe her own words.
“Except I’m out of water,” Kirnich complained.
Desil was, too. Based on the looks of the others, it seemed that Leida and Beatrix were in the same predicament while Adriya—with her shifty eyes—just didn’t want to share.
“What do you think?” Kirnich asked Beatrix.
“I doubt the Kanoans are still here. I think it’s time to start figuring out how we’re going to get Leida’s parents out of the settlement.”
Everyone looked at Leida, waiting for her to agree that it was time for a new plan.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
If Desil was stuck here in Kanoan with the Marros, he would spend all of his spare time building a boat like some others had done. He figured the only reason there were still people on Kanoan was because those remaining had little to no idea how to construct a ship strong enough to make it all the way to Ovira.
There was a decent chance none of them would know who Basen was, but it should be clear he had some method of returning home. They might force him to take them back and probably kill him if he didn’t. There had to be hundreds of them, unless many had been killed in the twenty-five years since their exile, and some may have learned how to fight, cast, or use psyche if they didn’t already know how before coming here. Basen’s party might actually consider taking the Kanoans back in a portal. It would mean they’d all live, though Basen’s mission would be a failure and he would likely end up in prison. Desil figured Beatrix would be content with this, but she shook her head when Desil brought up the topic.