Into the Desert Wilds

by Jim Galford

  Estin already knew that Feanne had no ability to climb, having had that argument several times with her. Her instincts told her that foxes do not climb, so she had never really learned, nor did she handle heights well. She would need to be carried, but she weighed about the same as Phaesys, making the arrangement impossible. Estin could not very well carry both Phaesys and Feanne, and Oria could not carry either of them while climbing.

  Frantically looking for more options, Estin’s eyes went to a cross-beam well below the air holes in the ceiling, but still about ten feet off of the higher section of floor and easily twelve or more from the main floor. If they could get up to it, they could run along the wooden beams at least as far as the entrance to the room, or take more time getting up to the air-holes.

  As Arturis turned to look over his army, Estin grabbed Feanne in one arm and leapt onto the wall support, using his claws to scramble upward. It took him no more than a couple seconds to reach the cross-beam, where he sat Feanne down and flung his tail down for Phaesys. It fell well within the male’s reach, even as Estin heard Arturis say something.

  “Oria, up!” Estin called out, pointing at the wooden support on the wall for her. He then motioned to Phaesys to use the tail like a rope.

  Phaesys hesitated, but at Oria’s urging, he grabbed Estin’s tail and began climbing, trying to reach the cross-beam.

  Below, Arturis screamed angrily, waving his army forward. Like a wave, the ghouls rushed the podium area, stampeding over Desphon, who screamed as he disappeared in the rush of torn and rotting bodies.

  The pain of having a person heavier than Estin hoisting himself up was incredible and Estin had to cling to the cross-beam to keep from being yanked right off of it. With Feanne’s help, they managed to pull Phaesys onto the beam a few seconds before Oria made her own way up beside them.

  “Now what?” asked Phaesys, as ghouls swarmed beneath them. They hopped up and down, trying to reach their prey. “Aside from buying time, I see little room for escape.”

  Estin stood up on the beam, turning around as he searched for anything that they could climb or use as a quick way out of the room. Beyond the air-holes directly above them—which were easily another fifteen feet up—there was nothing.

  “We’re going up,” he told the group, noticing that the ghouls had begun climbing the walls, trying to reach them. “I can take one on my back per trip, but I think we need to make two trips.”

  Phaesys motioned to Oria and Feanne. “Take your mate while Oria climbs and leave me for last,” he insisted, shushing Oria when she tried to object. “My father caused this. I will not be saved before anyone else.”

  With no time to argue, Estin began fitting his claws to the stones of the wall, while Feanne climbed onto his back. Alongside them, Oria was doing her best to mimic Estin, using her smaller claws and a good bit of skill to maneuver up the wall.

  Estin let Oria go ahead, surprised at how easily she scrambled up the curved wall. Once he began climbing after her, he realized that she had it easy. The walls were well-suited to climbing, but with the additional weight behind him, it was taking all of Estin’s attention and strength to keep from falling away from the wall and down to the ghouls.

  Soon, Oria pulled herself up into the air-hole, bracing her knees and back against the walls of the narrower space to keep from dropping back out. She held herself there until Estin reached her and then somehow kept herself wedged while helping Feanne crawl in past her and up into the narrowing shaft above.

  Estin looked up into the air-shaft, finding it even smaller than he had thought. The females would likely be all right, but he knew he would never fit and Phaesys had far wider shoulders than he did. It was not even a matter of trying. They simply could not do it.

  “Bring him back,” Oria whispered to Estin, once her mother was past her. “Please!”

  Unwilling to say what he was thinking, Estin nodded and told Oria, “We’ll meet you on the outside. Climb to the top so we aren’t all stuck together. Don’t slow down and don’t turn around.”

  Taking a deep breath as Oria climbed out of sight, Estin let go of the wall and dropped back toward the beam where Phaesys was spinning expertly in place, using his sword’s reach to keep the ghouls at bay. Estin landed near Phaesys, dropping low as Phaesys stabbed a ghoul in the face over top of Estin, then turned and kicked a second off of the beam.

  Drawing his own weapons, Estin began fighting for one side of the beam, while Phaesys took the other. Soon though, the ghouls had pushed them together at the middle of the wooden beam, fighting for every inch of breathing room.

  “Nice sword work,” Estin told Phaesys, kicking one ghoul off the beam, and then ducking the swing of another. “Oria said you were trained, but she lies a lot.”

  Grunting as he cleaved the skull of a ghoul and slammed his shoulder into a second, Phaesys returned to his defensive position behind Estin.

  “Thank you, but I must ask, what now?” asked Phaesys, narrowly deflecting the reaching claws of the latest wave of ghouls.

  “Nothing,” answered Estin. He was just barely keeping the ghouls off of himself. What he tried not to think about was that no matter how many ghouls they knocked off the beam, the creatures would just get right back up and keep coming. “We are not going to fit through that opening.”

  “Did you tell them?”

  Knocking aside the filthy claws of another creature, Estin let loose a tiny shred of magic at the ghoul, sending it tumbling to the horde below. “Of course not.”

  “Good,” replied Phaesys. “Then we can die without fear.”

  “I like to call it heroics.”

  Phaesys somehow managed to laugh, even as he fought for his life.

  “Then I will see you on the other side soon enough,” the younger male told him. “Today, we will die as warriors. Thank you for letting me stay here with you.”

  Estin fought on until his arms could barely move, trying to keep control over the few square feet of space on the wooden cross-beam. The ghouls just kept climbing up, until Estin began to recognize injuries on the creatures he faced as ones he had inflicted.

  Looking down in-between snarling attacks, Estin could see that there was not a single “dead” ghoul on the floor. Each time one fell, Arturis stepped over to it and laid his hands on the undead creature. A second later, Estin would see it stand back up, as though fully recovered. Much as Estin could heal the living, Arturis was healing the dead.

  Though less a problem for his survival as for his hopes, he also saw that Desphon was back on his feet, standing near Arturis. The traitor watched passively, his face a twisted mask of amusement, despite the fact that he was watching his own son fight for his life.

  A stray claw raked across Estin’s thigh before he could slash at the ghoul that had done it, sending it tumbling to the floor below. As the next reached him, he could already feel the tingling of poisons spreading through his leg, numbing his muscles and making standing difficult.

  “How are you holding up?” he asked over his shoulder, wincing as his foot began to go numb.

  “Left arm is dead,” Phaesys told him matter-of-factly. “Won’t be able to swing my weapon much longer. My right is strong, but the sword is already getting heavy.”

  Though Estin heard no command from Arturis, the ghouls abruptly began a hard charge. Rather than climbing up one at a time, continually harrying them, the ghouls came up in droves at once. Half a dozen mounted the beam on each end, rushing in to overwhelm the living at the middle.

  Estin fought harder than he had ever tried to in his life, even carrying all his weight on his good leg. Each new ghoul that climbed onto the beam made it shudder, threatening to knock Estin off-balance.

  With a crack that echoed off the walls, the beam lurched, splintering near the wall. It turned sharply underfoot, as both ends broke away from the walls.

  Estin tried to lay flat and grab the beam so that he was not thrown free, but he tumbled away, flying for a brief moment, surro
unded by the shrieks of falling ghouls. The impact with the ground brought swift loss of consciousness, thankfully before Estin felt teeth on him.

  The last thought he had as his head fell to the floor was whether he would wake again as a ghoul. Then there was nothing.

  Sometime later, pain woke Estin and he realized that he was lying on his stomach, with the sun blazing down on him. There were no sounds of slavering ghouls or even the sensation of fifty moving shapes around him.

  Burning scrapes all over his body felt as though Estin had been clawed by the ghouls further after he had blacked out, or possibly just battered by the falling beam. The sensation was familiar from his previous run-ins with the undead, but he could move. He should have been dead.

  Estin pulled himself onto all fours, gagging on sand as he tried unsuccessfully to swallow. His tongue felt swollen, as if he had been exposed to the sun for far too long. All he could do for a span of time was cough.

  Well-oiled leather boots stepped up alongside Estin, becoming the focus of his attention as he fought to control the coughing.

  “Good of you to wake,” said Arturis pleasantly, bending over to insert his face into Estin’s field of view. “I was worried that my servants might have broken you.”

  Estin tried to crawl away, but got no more than a foot or two before his head was yanked down and the tightness in his throat made him cough again.

  Looking around, Estin found that an iron chain was attached to a thick leather collar on his neck and the other end to a large stone block sitting on the desert floor. It was not even long enough that he could stand.

  “I thought this might be the only way to get you to properly bow to me,” Arturis told him with humor in his tone. “It will have to do for now.”

  Moving over beside Estin again, Arturis sat down, brushing sand off of his robes as he did.

  “Since it was your boy who enjoyed playing with the mists so much, I felt it might be exceptionally kind of me to bring that same joy to you. It seemed a fitting end to such a nuisance. Please let me know what you think of my choice. I would hate to disappoint you. That is, unless you want to reconsider my earlier offer and come join me. I could use an immortal slave who can heal my other soldiers.”

  Estin lifted his head and saw that no more than a hundred feet away, the shimmering cloud of one of the magical mists drifted lazily toward them. Whether it was the same one that Atall had held back, he had no idea, but he was already closer to it than he cared to be.

  Where the glowing tendrils of mist brushed the desert floor, Estin saw ice crystals glimmering for a brief moment before the mists consumed them. Entire swaths of sand simply vanished, while he saw other areas replaced with grassy soil, transplanted by the mists from somewhere else on Eldvar.

  Frantically looking about for anything he could do to save himself, Estin saw that Phaesys lay on the ground nearby, similarly chained, but unconscious. A long gash ran down the side of his head, from just below his ear and nearly to his neck.

  “Ah yes, that one was a bit worse off,” said Arturis, following Estin’s gaze. “Awful shame, but he might not get to experience the mists. What matters is that you will, though. I have my priorities, you know.”

  “I’ve survived them once, why think it’ll kill me this time?”

  Leaning close to Estin’s face, Arturis explained, “I don’t expect a wildling to understand magical science, but I will try. I do want you to grasp how likely it is that you will suffer before you die.”

  “Try to use small words,” Estin said, pulling himself to the maximum length of the chain away from the mists. He was feeling a little stronger and hoped that if he could stall, he might be able to find a way out. “I wouldn’t want to make you repeat yourself.”

  “I will do what I can,” the man answered, smiling slightly. “First, some background. One of my fellows did some degree of study of these ‘mists,’ as people call them. He sent dozens of his zombies through, but only a handful came out somewhere else in the world. I think you may have met him, before he fell into the mists himself.”

  Estin thought back, then laughed. “Yeah. He was one of the ones that attacked our camp. Last I saw, he was contemplating suicide into the mists. You’d think an immortal would have a better view of the world.”

  The smile fading, Arturis continued. “I repeated his experiment and found the right moment to bring myself and a few pets through. It was certainly faster than bringing a caravan all this way from Altis. I have repeated the process several times since then, bringing supplies and forces to these lands.

  “I believe entering the mists at just the right angle or timing kept you and I from being destroyed when we left Altis. Having magic of your own seems to help your odds, as well. I believe that the slightest error in your timing will doom you. I can repeat the process, but you certainly cannot.”

  “Think I’m too slow, or is this the ‘big words’ issue again?”

  “A little of both,” Arturis told him. “I guess we’ll see soon enough. If you do survive this, I have another surprise for you.”

  Rolling his eyes, Estin did his best to hide a glance toward the mists. They were getting very close now. He just prayed that Arturis did not realize he was sitting right in their path.

  “Do you know how long I have been here, slave?”

  Shaking his head despite knowing Arturis had invaded Corraith about a year prior, Estin waited patiently for whatever bragging the man had in store for him this time.

  “I have been here a year,” Arturis explained. “However, the stars tell me that I left Altis just a month ago. Thus, the mists moved me slightly back in time as they relocated me here. That part, I am still working on duplicating.”

  The Turessian leaned closer to Estin.

  “If you find your way out of these chains,” he continued, “I’ll just go back in time and rip your woman’s head off before your children are born. A simpler solution even I cannot imagine.”

  Estin lunged, trying to bite Arturis’ face, but the man leaned back just far enough that Estin’s teeth clattered together.

  Rattling the chain that held Estin, Arturis added, “Good luck finding the right moment to enter the mists with this on. Even if you survive, I doubt you will keep all of your limbs.”

  Standing and stretching, Arturis lowered his hood and smiled at the mists that had drifted a few feet closer. Almost as an afterthought, the man picked up a belt—Estin’s, he realized—with its two sheathed swords, tossing it away.

  With a last glance toward the approaching mists, Arturis moved to Estin’s side, putting Estin between himself and the mists.

  “Goodbye, slave,” said the Turessian. “Say hello first-hand to the spirits that grant you your magic. Maybe you’ll meet a few people I’ve killed.”

  Before turning, the man kicked Estin hard in the stomach, flinging him the length of the chain.

  While Estin gagged and tried to draw breath, Arturis left, wandering casually into the desert.

  “Phaesys,” Estin gasped, barely able to speak.

  The younger male did not move.

  “Phaesys!”

  When Phaesys still did not budge, Estin looked around, trying to find something he could reach him with. They were about eight feet apart, making it impossible for Estin to do much beyond throw rocks at him. Then, gauging the distance, Estin smiled as he moved himself as close to Phaesys as he could get, stretching the chain on his neck to its limit.

  Flicking his tail, Estin lightly slapped at Phaesys’ chest, eliciting a twitch of Phaesys’ ears, but he remained mostly still. Nonetheless, it told Estin that the boy was alive.

  Estin tried again, whipping his tail to smack Phaesys full in the face. With a snort, the desert fox groaned and opened his eyes.

  “Where are…”

  “Shut up and listen,” Estin told him, pointing at the mists. “We need to think of a way out of here in the next few minutes, or we’re dead.”

  Phaesys’ eyes were still barel
y open, but he rolled over and looked toward the glowing wall that was only about thirty feet away. Groaning more loudly, Phaesys thumped his face into the sand.

  “I cannot even think straight,” admitted Phaesys. “Can you use magic to free us?”

  Shaking his head, Estin answered, “My memory’s all muddled. It’ll take me time to be able to use magic. Normally, I could just pull out my notes, but my belt is too far away for me to reach. I can heal us, but not much else without that book.”

  “Dying healthy does not change matters much. Do not waste the strength.”

  Estin looked back the way Arturis had gone and saw that there was still a shape out on the desert, but he could not make it out in the blowing sand. Likely, Arturis had stopped to watch them die from a safe distance. If he had been closer, Estin would have thrown a rock at him, just to make himself feel a little better.

  Getting back onto his feet, Estin wrapped the chain around one of his hands and tried to lift the stone it was attached to, but it would not move. All he accomplished was making his back and hands throb.

  “Can you move yours?” he asked Phaesys and then realized that Phaesys was still lying where he had been.

  “No,” Phaesys replied, shifting so that he faced Estin.

  Blood covered Phaesys’ shirt, mostly dried. At the middle of the large blackish stain protruded a piece of wood. Between the cut on his head and the wood stabbed into his chest, the youth was lucky to even be talking. It appeared that the wood had hit him hard enough that it had punched straight through his chain armor, leaving bent rings dangling all around the wound.

  After a second’s evaluation, Estin realized that Phaesys was breathing very shallowly and quickly. His lung was punctured, or at least had some pressure on it from the injury. Even if the mists did not get to him, Estin doubted that Phaesys would live more than another twenty minutes without magic to heal him. Possibly not even that long.

  Estin continued to struggle at the chain, hurting himself further, but making no progress. The light of the mists grew slowly brighter at the edge of his vision.

  Searching the desert again, Estin saw that the distant figure was far closer now and appeared to be walking or running toward them. Just what he needed, Arturis coming back to stop him from even trying to break free.