Into the Desert Wilds

by Jim Galford

  “I honestly wish I knew why I hated your people as much as I do,” Arturis went on, turning away from the wall to move more directly toward the center of the room, where Estin was frozen with his hand on Arturis’ book. “This is part of the curse my people share. I hear when my brothers and sisters are in danger, I know their plans if they do not hide them from me, but I also feel their pain and anger.

  “Whose anger, I don’t even know anymore,” he noted, gesturing toward Estin. “Do you know, perhaps? I might even spare you, if you could tell me which of my people was wronged by wildlings so gravely that now I despise all of you very nearly as much as I hate orcs.

  “In my own life—all those years ago—I don’t think I ever saw a single wildling, which is how I know the hate is not my own. The only memory I can tie to that hatred is Varra’s, but that came long after my own dislike of your people.”

  Oria had no doubt that they could make it halfway out to the surface before Arturis could lay a hand on them, but Estin had not moved yet. She watched him, waiting for some hint of what he was thinking, but he seemed to be scared beyond any ability to move, his hand still on the empty table.

  Making his way up the last few steps to the table, Arturis finally stopped just beyond Estin’s reach. Oria’s heart was pounding, wondering what he would do to her father. She knew full well that the Turessian could kill Estin in seconds and she found herself backing slowly toward the exit without realizing it.

  “Tell me, wildling,” said Arturis, leaning close to Estin. In what seemed an instinctual movement of fear, Estin’s tail curled close to his body. “Is there anything you can say that would still surprise me?”

  Estin’s wide eyes narrowed and he began to smile, as his tail flicked toward Feanne, Oria, Atall, and Phaesys. A small black shape arced toward them, until Feanne snatched it from the air. Oria could see that it was the book from the table. Somehow, Estin had taken it without her or Arturis seeing and used his tail to throw it.

  “I’m not afraid of you anymore,” Estin said to Arturis, drawing his swords and bracing himself for a fight, while Arturis scowled in the direction his book had gone. “That should be as much of a surprise as anything.”

  “Oria, run!” Feanne said, tucking the book into her leather vest. “Now!”

  Looking around, Oria saw that no one was budging.

  “Mom, for the first time ever,” she told Feanne as she drew her own knife, “I won’t do what you say. Get the book out of here and leave this land with the kits.”

  Not waiting for her mother’s reaction, Oria began to run toward her father. Ahead of her, Estin fought as hard as he could, whirling with his swords, slashing rapidly at Arturis. The blades just glanced off the man, who blocked with the palms of his hands, sending thin streams of blood flying with each strike.

  A column of flame fell from the roof of the chamber, narrowly missing Arturis as he dodged quickly out of the way. Off to Oria’s left, she heard Atall swear and begin another spell.

  With her mother and Phaesys at her side, Oria leapt into the fray, their weapons and claws tearing into Arturis from different angles.

  Oria struck less frequently than the others, focusing her efforts on making every attack count. She tore open the man’s kidneys, drove the knife up under his ribs into his lungs, and delivered multiple chopping blows to his spine. None of it had any more effect than the wide slashes from Phaesys’ weapon or random thin gashes from Feanne’s claws.

  Seconds later, as Arturis began to push toward Estin, forcing him off of the raised section of flooring with the altar, Oria realized that something in the air was changing. At first, she thought Arturis was using magic, but it felt wrong for that.

  Stepping back from the lopsided battle, Oria looked around for Atall. She soon found him near the north end of the room, backing slowly away from another entrance. For a moment, her heart rose on the thought that there might be another way out, but then she saw what he was trying to get away from.

  Streaming out of the passage—almost opposite where they had come in—flowed tendrils of dimly-glowing light. Oria had seen such a thing a few times and it still took her breath away.

  “Mists,” she whispered, entranced by the light. Oria could remember seeing the mists closing in on them back near Altis and believing them to be certain death. The Turessians there had believed the same. The pain from that moment would haunt her the rest of her life, even if they had survived.

  “This fight is over!” roared Arturis. He backhanded Estin, sending him sprawling. Then he turned on Phaesys. “Run like the vermin you are!”

  “We are going now,” Feanne ordered, running past Oria to help Estin to his feet. Atall joined them, grabbing Estin’s other arm. “We cannot face the mists and him.”

  The mists spread quickly, pouring in through the tunnel and then parting to both sides and upward along the ceiling. They moved like a living thing, seeking prey in the large chamber. In seconds, they washed over the first few corpses, yanking the bodies into the glowing depths of the cloud.

  “Phaesys!” Oria cried out, watching him stand his ground against Arturis.

  The two men were both fighting hard now. Arturis was clearly trying to retreat, but Phaesys fought to keep him not just in the room, but pinned against the approaching mists. Each time Arturis made an attempt to run, Phaesys would kick his legs out from under him, or drive his sword into Arturis’ back, making the man roar in pain. Phaesys might not be able to hurt him for more than a few seconds, but Arturis could not manage to keep his feet under him long enough to escape.

  “If I cannot leave, neither can you,” Arturis bellowed, catching Phaesys’ sword in his bare hand. With his free hand, he motioned toward the tunnel they had entered through.

  Oria turned and looked back toward the entrance. Deep in the back of her mind, she remembered the long line of dust and sand near that opening and finally understood what it really was.

  As her eyes went to the ceiling, a massive iron grating fell at Arturis’ command, crashing to the floor hard enough that it sank nearly a foot into the stones. The entire entrance was blocked. Seconds later, Sirella was at the grating, wide-eyed and staring at the rest of the group.

  “I thought you might be back,” said Arturis. He dropped the sword and grabbed Phaesys’ wrist, squeezing. With a scream, Phaesys fell to his knees, trying to pull his hand free. “Even I cannot lift that grating. Your little group will die here and then I will walk out one of the other tunnels long before that mist gets close enough to harm me. All it costs me is my army, which I can replace with the next town I visit.”

  Oria leapt to her feet and rushed at Arturis without thinking. All she could see was Phaesys in agony, lit by the flickering mists off to her right. She raced past her parents and brother, over the raised platform, and slammed into Arturis with her shoulder hard enough to stagger him.

  Rolling away to keep from crashing into one of the tables, Oria saw that Phaesys was free, sliding away using his good arm, while clutching his other to his chest. Judging by the look on his face, she guessed that his wrist was very likely broken.

  “One more rodent for the fire,” Arturis told Oria, standing over her. When she tried to scramble away, Arturis stomped on her tail, pinning her as pain lanced through her tail and spine.

  Slowly dropping into a squat beside Oria, Arturis asked, “Or would you prefer some other form of death beyond fire? I’ll be happy to kill you in whatever gruesome way you prefer. What I am curious about is whether your family will live long enough to mourn you when you’re gone. ”

  Oria looked away, knowing that he would use magic at any moment that could easily kill her. Instead of waiting to see the flames—or whatever—flying at her, she focused on Phaesys, meeting his eyes. He stared back at her in horror, trying to get to his feet. She knew he would never make it to her in time and she actually hoped that Arturis would hurry up. Once she was dead, Phaesys would have no choice but to escape.

  Beyond Phaesys,
Oria could see the mists, now only about twenty feet away. They were moving far faster than she remembered, but that suited her just fine. So long as Phaesys moved out of their way, she was more than happy to die with Arturis. All that mattered was that Phaesys lived.

  “Your brothers couldn’t kill me,” Oria blurted out, laughing as she sat up. She still could not bring herself to look directly at Arturis, but she could feel him hesitate, though his boot remained firmly on her tail. “My parents, brother, and I killed them all.”

  “A little perspective here, fox. You are about to die. Focus on the facts at hand.”

  “It never works,” she told Arturis, forcing a giggle past the pain. Somehow it was working. He had done nothing yet, as though he had already forgotten the mists that she could see drifting closer each second. “Wildlings are just better than some old necromancer.”

  Laughing at her, Arturis was cut short as Estin tackled him. The two men tumbled nearly into the mists, sliding to a stop no more than a foot from the opaque glowing wall.

  Screaming as he landed, Estin rolled away again, clutching his tail that had brushed the mists, leaving a long streak of brighter glow along the mist itself. Oria could see blood matting the fur and quickly covering Estin’s arms as he stumbled away from Arturis.

  Arturis also caught himself just outside the mists, yanking the edge of his robe away from the reaching lights, the hem burning away as though it had come too close to a fire.

  Knowing she only had seconds before things turned even worse, Oria scrambled to Phaesys, hooking his arm with hers. She practically dragged him toward the entrance, where Feanne was on the ground, mid-transformation. By the time Oria could reach her, Feanne stood back up in her bestial lycanthrope form, roaring so loudly that it shook the room.

  Normally, Feanne took a while to recover after changing. Rage was often the only thing that got her in motion. This time, she was running as soon as her body had finished resetting all of her bones and muscles. She slammed hard into the grating, causing streams of dust and sand to fall from the ceiling and forcing Sirella to back far away from the grating.

  “Mom, dad’s still out there!” Oria cried. She set Phaesys down near the grating as her mother growled with the strain of trying to move the iron portcullis.

  If Feanne heard her, she gave no indication. Instead, she pulled until her legs and arms shook, slowly lifting the grating inch by inch, until it was high enough that any of the wildlings could slide under it. With a choked gasp, she hoisted it a little higher and shifted herself to the exit side.

  “Get…out,” Feanne grunted at Oria, her feet slipping a little. Her claws dug deep trenches in the stone floor as she got her shoulder back under the grating. “Take him…go!”

  Phaesys tried to move past Oria again, back toward the fight. Reminding herself that she was just protecting him, Oria punched Phaesys hard in the gut and shoved him past the grating to safety, where Sirella caught him and practically dragged him out into the tunnel. Oria followed them, expecting to see Atall just a step or two behind her when she turned.

  Far across the room, Oria spotted Atall standing inches from the mist, which had now spread past the central table and was filling nearly half the room. Estin appeared not to have seen him yet, limping as quickly as he could toward the entrance.

  “Atall!” shouted Oria, but her brother took another step closer to the mist.

  Ignoring everything but Estin, Arturis crawled to his feet and began running toward the entrance, his face twisted in rage, making the tattoos near his eyes all the more sinister.

  Estin stopped running just outside the grating when Oria called out, turning to see Atall reaching out his hands toward the flickering glow.

  “Atall, no!” he called out, but hesitated, looking at Feanne starting to lose her grip on the immensely heavy grating. “We can’t leave him.”

  As Oria watched, the mists slowed and stopped, inches from Atall. If it were a living creature, it was as though it were examining him, unsure what to do. Being what it was, the scene was eerily disturbing, Atall standing there, seemingly holding the mists back. Then again, she wondered if Atall and the mists were actually studying one another.

  “Enough waiting around,” snapped Sirella, wrapping her arm around Estin’s neck and dragging him away from the main room. “We have to run!”

  “We have to get to Atall!” Estin cried, trying to get his feet back under him.

  Oria shouldered past Sirella, hesitating when she heard the woman say loudly, “Oria…the explosives! We have to go!”

  Looking at Atall and then to Arturis, who was nearly to the grating, Oria stepped back from under the iron bars. She turned to her mother, who trembled under the weight of the portcullis, still on the other side. It was the first time Oria had ever seen Feanne struggle with anything in this form, but now tears ran down her muzzle as she strained to keep the portcullis up.

  Shoving past the rest of her family, Oria made the decision that she would try to make it to Atall, even if it meant they both died in the explosion. It was all she could do, but she was going to try. So long as it was only her at risk, she was okay with her decision.

  Oria darted past Estin’s attempt to grab her, ducking under her mother’s shaking arms and into the room. Her path took her almost directly toward Arturis, but she hoped desperately that she could avoid him somehow and get to Atall, who was now nearly surrounded by the mists.

  “Atall, I’m coming!” she called out, looking Arturis in the eyes as the distance between them closed swiftly.

  Turning slightly with his hands still held out at the mists, Atall looked at her as though he were only half-aware of her existence.

  Atall blinked and then his eyes darted from Oria to Feanne, then over to Arturis, just steps from Oria. Letting one of his hands drop, he flung it toward Oria, even as the mists began to advance on him again.

  Oria felt as though she had run into a brick wall as Atall’s spell hit her, sending her sprawling backward. When she landed, she found herself nearly underneath Feanne and the massive iron grating. Estin and Phaesys grabbed at her and dragged her into the hallway before she could react.

  Struggling to free herself, Oria went limp in shock as a second spell struck Feanne, taking one of her feet out from under her. In that instant, the grating slammed to the ground, cutting the group off from Atall and Arturis, with everyone else on the exit side of the grating.

  Arturis hit the grating almost before it had settled, yelling incoherently as he punched at the metal bars, leaving dents in the iron. He calmed a second later, brushing off his robes as he leaned close to where Feanne lay, panting.

  “Fox,” Arturis asked her, glancing at Estin and Oria with mischief in his eyes, “you were from Altis, correct?”

  Feanne could barely move, even with Estin’s help, but nodded weakly. Oria could tell that it would not be long before her mother reverted to her normal form out of sheer exhaustion. There was a limit to everything and it appeared that she had reached it.

  Arturis grinned and moved along the grating, trying to keep as close to Feanne as he could while he talked.

  “Shortly before the mists brought me here, I controlled a large golem as a test of new magic,” he told her, hands sliding along the bars as he moved. Oria could see that he was waiting for any opportunity to grab at them, but they were all too far back. Why he did not use magic against them was beyond her ability to guess. “Do you know what I saw through its eyes?”

  “Ignore him,” whispered Estin, grabbing Feanne’s face, forcing her to look at him. “We need to think of how to get to Atall.”

  Arturis went on, “I saw a whole camp full of little wildlings that my minions and I stomped on. What stands out in my memory are the last two, though. One in particular…a fox with markings not unlike yours, though he was far older.”

  Feanne’s massive head spun on the grating and she snarled angrily, pushing Estin away, taking him completely off his feet.

  “He w
as the last to die,” continued Arturis, shifting toward the south end of the grating as a long tendril of mist neared the other end. “Some mewling feline healer died just before him.”

  Throwing herself against the grating, Feanne roared directly in Arturis’ face.

  “Mom!” Oria screamed, but Phaesys wrapped his arms around her, keeping her from running any closer to the grating. “He’s trying to trick you!”

  Not backing away in the slightest, Arturis was nearly nose to nose with Feanne, still smiling at her.

  “I thought you might know them,” he told Feanne. “Those old vermin could barely defend themselves. It was practically a mercy to kill them. I do hope they weren’t anyone special to you. They wept and cowered until the moment I crushed the life out of them.”

  Feanne thrust her arm through the grating, trying to grab at Arturis, but he dodged her hand.

  “Pitiful, just like your parents,” Arturis told her and looked over at Oria. Grinning, Arturis slammed his fist into Feanne’s elbow, using the leverage of the grating to loudly snap the bones.

  While Feanne screamed in agony, pulling her shattered arm back through the portcullis, Arturis just walked away.

  Crossing the room to where Atall still stood, holding back the mists, the Turessian turned to look back at those who were behind the grating.

  “Were anyone else capable of what this child has done here, I would have been impressed,” he said loudly, so they all could hear him. Oria could even see Atall looking around nervously from the corners of his eyes, but if he moved, the mists would likely swallow him. “I don’t even know any of my own kind that could stop the mists.”

  Atall’s strain eased as he smiled ever so slightly. Dropping his hands, he threw himself backward, tumbling under Arturis’ reach and away as the mists lurched forward.

  Roaring angrily, Arturis turned to go after Atall, but the mists swept over his left side. He yanked himself away from the mists, screaming as his left arm was ripped away, burning to ash in the mists.