by H Waters
Following Scarlet and Lucy down to the dirt path, Dante grabbed my arm, stopping me. “I hope we meet again, but for now take this — it is much better than that old, crude map you have been using.” Dante handed me a light brown, worn-looking roll of paper.
I grabbed the roll from him. I had never showed him the map we were using; how did he know it was crude and old? Hell how did he even know we had a map? “So, why did you help us?” I quickly asked.
A grin crossed his wrinkled face, the same kind of grin Jake would have when he’d done something devious, like break into the pantry and steal some sweets. “Honestly, I just wanted to see that witch die,” he said loudly, patting me on the shoulder and letting out his best crazy-old-man laugh.
“Fair enough,” I agreed, waving goodbye again and continuing down the steps.
Scarlet and Lucy were already a little ways down the trail. “Hey! Wait up!” I yelled, jogging to catch up to them.
When I reached them, Lucy was trying to catch a glimpse of all the small creatures rustling on the forest floor, and Scarlet was standing with her arms crossed. “If we walk at your pace Redwood will be dust and ash before we get there!”
Catching my breath, I laughed. “Well, good to know taking the black blood out of you didn’t take your personality away.”
Scarlet stared at the old map. “This jungle is like a maze — every line crosses over one another. It’s impossible to tell a river from a trail, but if my memory serves then this is this way to Redwood.”
“Are you sure? How do you know?” I asked. Ignoring me, she just continued to walk down the jungle path, struggling to read the crudely drawn old map of the world.
She led the way for what felt like about an hour, but it may have been two — it was hard to tell. The scenery all looked the same and the sun appeared never to leave its spot in the sky.
Eventually we came upon a swiftly flowing but peaceful, clear river. “Well, I think it’s about time we take a break,” Scarlet said, sounding slightly out of breath.
“What happened to the never-stop, walk-forever Scarlet?” I laughed.
“That Scarlet was immortal,” she snipped, grabbing her water bottle from her bag and tucking the map away.
“Right, sorry,” I said, finding a nice fallen tree to sit down and take a rest on.
Scarlet sat down by the river, just close enough to reach in and fill her water bottle up without falling in herself. “So this Dallas character,” Scarlet asked, clearly trying to sound as soft and inviting as possible, “why are you so fond of him? You don’t see very many happy couples out and about these days.”
“He never stopped trying. He was willing to do whatever it took even if it nearly killed him. Yet he was caring, and loved Jake and I. He was good,” I replied, holding back tears. “That seems to be hard to find in times like these. Have you ever loved someone?” I asked, throwing a stick into the jungle to try and keep Lucy amused.
“Once, many moons ago,” she smiled.
“How does that work? Weren’t you fused with Grekal most of your life?” I asked, genuinely confused.
“It’s just a little more dangerous,” she smirked. “But I like dangerous,” she added, capping her water bottle and standing up.
Since it appeared we were staying for a while, I took my pack off. As I leaned it against the log, I remembered the map Dante had given me. I excitedly reached into my bag and pulled it out, and Scarlet gave it a curious look.
“Here, Dante gave me this on our way out,” I said, handing her the roll of brown paper.
Scarlet unrolled the map. After staring at it for quite some time she let out an annoyed sigh, tucked the water bottle back into her bag, slung the bag over her shoulder, picked up her staff and began to walk back the way we came.
“So, you were going the wrong way after all?” I chuckled.
“No, I’m sure this way would get us there, but it appears Dante knows a shortcut,” Scarlet replied. “It looks like it takes us through an old mountain pass instead of all the way around.”
“I have never seen a mountain before,” I said.
“Well, don’t get too excited — they are just overgrown rocks, nothing too special,” Scarlet said.
I slung my bag onto my back, following Scarlet who was walking with a new certainty in her step. We followed the dirt path back in the direction of Dante’s cathedral. The walk back felt much longer than before. “Okay, it says here we go right,” Scarlet said, staring intently at the map.
“It’s just forest,” I said. “There’s no path.”
She looked up from the map, scanning the tree line. She then rolled the map up, tucking it into her back pocket. Using both hands she gripped her staff and began to use the sharp bone on the end to hack and slash at the foliage. After a while there was nothing left but bent twigs and chopped-up piles of leaves. Scarlet let out a satisfied huff, pleased with her work, then started to maneuver through the still very unkempt trail. Lucy followed close behind.
“This still does not look like a trail,” I said, concerned. I was ignored and Scarlet pressed on. “Well I guess this is the way we’re going then,” I begrudgingly muttered to myself, following Lucy and Scarlet down the makeshift trail.
We pressed on through the dense brush. The narrowness of the path allowed the strange tropical plants to rub and scratch at my skin, leaving itchy red dots and lines. Eventually the magically green and vibrant scenery began to fade into grand maple trees along with a mixture of oak, elm, ash and black cherry. Their leaves were red, yellow and brown. The path was much clearer now. Instead of the thick plants there were just enormous trees, the ground covered by rotting old logs and layers of leaves that had fallen from the canopy. Dante’s shortcut seemed long and winding, but we continued to follow it until the sun was beginning to set. The only saving grace was the cool fall air that now replaced the humid air from Dante’s jungle.
We walked up small hills and through shallow creeks, the water only ever getting as high as our ankles. Dante’s path was a far better walk than I was expecting, although the silence was deafening — Scarlet had not spoken a single word since we found the trail’s entrance a couple of hours before. The only noises came from the odd squirrel scurrying up a tree or the fall leaves being disturbed slightly by a passing breeze, sending a few drifting to the forest floor.
“Can we stop? My legs are on fire,” I asked Scarlet.
“Yeah, a break is probably a good idea,” she panted, still getting used to her new mortal body. We veered off the trail for a little bit and found a nice small tree to hang our packs on.
Sitting on one of the many downed logs, I opened my water bottle and took a long drink, until it was empty. I made my way to a shallow creek that was in view. As I bent over to fill my water bottle, Scarlet screamed from behind me. “Stop, wait, stop!” she yelled.
“What am I possibly doing wrong now?” I replied, turning to face her.
By the time I had turned around she was only a few feet from me, going through her bag. “What are you doing?” I asked, very puzzled as to why she was so concerned with my water-fetching abilities.
“Look at how still that water is,” she answered, looking at me like I was stupid. “Every leaf, bug and animal in this forest could have touched that. Just give me a second and I’ll show you how to filter it so you don’t get sick and become a liability.”
Scarlet grabbed the water bottle from my hand and sat down by the creek. She set her bag up in front of her so it was leaning against her chest. She dug through the bag for a while, shifting things around, occasionally pulling something out to examine it, only to put it back into the bag again.
“Ah-ha,” Scarlet said excitedly, pulling something from her bag. It was an old, clear plastic bottle, with two words on it. The first word was too faded to make out, but the second read cola.
“What’s that?”
“A pop bottle,” Scarlet replied.
“Oh, like the juice they sold in Kata?”
I asked.
Scarlet looked at me with a smile. “Except full of artificial flavor and loaded with sugar. It would rot your teeth from your skull,” she laughed.
“Well, that sounds awful,” I blurted out.
“It’s actually not half bad,” Scarlet assured me.
Scarlet pulled a small knife from her boot, using it to cut off the bottom end of the bottle. She then used the tip of the knife to poke a small hole into the lid. Pleased with her work, she tucked the knife safely back into her boot. She then began to dig a hole. Once she was a few inches deep she took some of the sand from the hole and put it into the bottle, filling it about a sixth of the way up. She carefully set the bottle onto the ground so the large open bottom was facing up. Once it was secure, she began to dig around in her bag again until she found a small container filled with some sort of black powder.
“Charcoal, it’s charcoal,” she quickly said, answering my question before I could even ask it. She dumped a layer of charcoal into the bottle on top of the sand, followed by another layer of sand. She repeated this process until the bottle was filled right up with many layers of charcoal and sand.
“Now you just set this bottle on top of your bottle, slowly pour the water through, and wait,” Scarlet instructed.
“How did you learn to do this?” I asked, amazed.
“A friend showed me once. One of the most useful things he ever said,” she laughed, standing up and throwing her bag back over her shoulder. “You can fill mine up too,” Scarlet ordered, tossing me her empty water bottle.
I scooped up some of the murky water with my hands, pouring it into the filter bottle that was now atop my water bottle. The water took its time, slowly forcing its way through the sand and charcoal, but after a while it began to trickle out of the hole in the cap. The murky water was now clear as day. Once the water bottles were filled, I dumped out the filter bottle and slid all three bottles into my bag.
I walked over and sat down beside Scarlet, who was now lying down on a log, reading Dante’s map with one hand while stroking Lucy’s head with the other.
“So, we probably should try to avoid being caught out in the open once it is fully dark,” Scarlet said, sounding deep in thought.
“Well, is there a town, or maybe another crazy old man in a church nearby? This forest seems to never end,” I replied.
“No, no town, but there is this little red building,” Scarlet said, sitting up and pointing to it on the map.
“What is it?”
“Not sure. Likely an inn or something of the sort,” Scarlet shrugged. “Worst-case scenario it’s abandoned, but even then it will at least provide some shelter,” she added, tucking the map into her back pocket.
We set off, but as soon as we’d stepped back onto the path Scarlet stopped. “Dog,” she said.
“Oh, right,” I replied, whistling for Lucy. Lucy reluctantly bounded over, soaking wet from playing in the creek.
As we walked, the sun began to drop lower and lower, creating dark shadows that loomed over the path. “So what is the story with this mutt?” Scarlet asked, as I pulled her water bottle from my backpack and passed it to her. “Why do you care about it so much?”
“Well, funny story, actually. You see, jewelry was very hard to come by in Kata—”
“I said the mutt, not jewelry.”
“Just listen,” I barked back. “So one day, Dallas and I were walking home from the market in Kata and this little puppy was eating garbage, all alone. Dallas approached it and it was friendly enough, so he picked it up. He then proceeded to get on one knee and propose, holding up the puppy and apologizing for not being able to find a ring. So that ‘mutt’ is my wedding ring,” I finished.
“When it dies, does it count as losing the ring?” Scarlet chuckled.
“Seriously? The last thing I want to do is think about death,” I replied, petting Lucy as she trotted by and shocked by Scarlet’s lack of empathy.
After that it was silent for a long time, the sun now hanging very low, reducing our visibility by quite a lot.
“Do you think we could take another break?” I asked.
“Are you serious? Look around you, it is almost pitch black,” Scarlet lectured. “You just executed one of the members of the Devil’s Legion, who just so happens to be Gorelock’s sister. Do you really wanna deal with an army of Ghouls right now?”
“You’re right, we shouldn’t take a break,” I said, rolling my eyes. Begrudgingly I continued to follow her.
“Stop whining,” Scarlet said.
We continued down the path in silence until the sun was almost completely out of sight, the last bit of light trying to force its way through the trees. “I can’t even see where I’m stepping,” I complained.
“Your eyes will adjust,” Scarlet said sternly.
“Do we have a candle or flashlight or anything?”
Scarlet sighed, picking up a stick. She pulled an old rag and bottle from her bag while she walked. She tightly wrapped the cloth around the stick, dumping some of the liquid from the bottle onto it. She set the bottle back into her bag, trading it out for the flint. As she struck the flint the liquid on the cloth was set ablaze, and she passed me her newly made torch. The light it gave off was warm and yellow. It made me feel much safer, even though in the back of my head I knew I was traveling to a possibly abandoned inn with a psychopath I had only known for maybe a week, alone in a dark forest, probably being hunted and stalked by who knows what kind of disgusting beast.
“Thank you,” I said to Scarlet.
“Don’t mention it,” she quickly replied, trying to read the map in the dim torchlight.
“How is it that you are so okay with death?” I asked, trying to break the eerie silence of the night.
“Being okay with death and being used to it are very different things. Grekal was okay with death — hell, she enjoyed it. I, on the other hand, have just come to terms with it.”
“So, uh, how long were you attached to Grekal?”
“Much longer than your lifetime,” she replied, seeming kind of sad.
“Where you lived before Grekal, was it far from here?” I asked, trying not to push any buttons.
“Much farther, across an ocean actually and much colder.” She laughed lightly. “But after Grekal I never really had a home. Always moving, always killing,” she added.
“That sounds terrible,” I replied. Scarlet let out a laugh of agreement, stepping ahead a bit so she was just inside the limits of the torchlight.
Lucy was now walking next to me, showing she was too tired to lead the walk. She let out a brief whine. “I know, I hope we get there soon as well,” I said, petting her on the head to try and comfort her.
“Stop,” Scarlet suddenly whispered in panic. She grabbed my arm, forcing me to crouch down at the side of the trail. Lucy followed suit, lying down in the leaves next to us, likely happy to stop walking.
After we’d waited for a little while I said, “I think you’re paranoid. The night is just playing tricks on you. Let’s keep moving.” Scarlet ignored me and continued to stare off into the dark forest. “Okay, can we please go? You’re starting to creep me out,” I said.
“Seriously, come on let’s go, there is nothing out there,” I told her, trying to stand, but she grabbed my shoulder, forcing me down. She was incredibly strong for her size. Her hands were cold and clammy. I was about to say something when she put her hand over my mouth. Leaves in the distance began to crackle, followed by the sound of sticks breaking, almost directly in line with where Scarlet had been staring. Something was coming this way and it sounded big. Scarlet, Lucy and I army-crawled into a low spot with better cover.
“Ditch the torch,” Scarlet demanded. I panicked, throwing the torch onto the middle of the path. “I meant put it out,” Scarlet snipped.
After we’d lay there in the cold leaves for a couples of minutes there came a howl. The howl was deep and loud, chilling me to the bone.
“Are those
…?” I began to say, but Scarlet cut me off.
“Seekers, the same ones from before. The tavern is just a few more minutes down the trail. If we run now we could maybe get there before they reach us.”
“Maybe? Why is it a maybe?” I asked. “I feel like you shouldn’t leave our lives up to maybes.”
“Well, if we stay we die. You were angry and lucky enough to get the upper hand on Grekal, but you wouldn’t last five minutes fighting something head on, and if we run we have a chance. Drop your bag. I’ll take the map and my staff, you take your sword,” Scarlet said.
The howling began to grow closer. This was the most scared I had seen Scarlet on our whole journey together; maybe it was because she was human and vulnerable again. “I’m sorry if we die,” Scarlet said. “OKAY, one … two … three … run!” she yelled.
Scarlet took off down the trail and I followed, checking behind to make sure Lucy was keeping up. I scooped up the still-lit torch as I passed it on the trail. The howling grew more consistent, the branches and leaves crashing and snapping as the Seekers barreled towards us. “Keep moving, I can see lights!” Scarlet yelled from ahead.
I could hear the Seekers getting closer, their barking and growling growing louder. Lucy was barely able to keep up, still limping from her run-in with Grekal. Up ahead I could see the lights Scarlet was yelling about.
I focused on nothing but the dim lights far ahead. The taste of blood began to form in my throat, and with every breath I could taste it more and more. “They are flanking us!” Scarlet screamed. “Light the leaves!” she ordered.
“What?” I screamed back in panic. Scarlet slowed down, demanding the torch from me. She forcefully grabbed it from my hand, then held it low as she ran, making sure the flames touched the leaves. The dry leaves immediately lit up. She ran side to side, making sure to light as many leaves on fire as possible. The fire began to rapidly spread behind, beside and in front of us, faster than we could run. The large silhouettes of the Seekers slammed to a halt as they approached the flames.