by Jim Galford
Estin strained all the more, trying to free himself before Arturis could return. As he leaned back, pulling against the chain, he found himself looking into the mists. They were close enough that Estin could have lobbed a stone into them.
He looked over to Phaesys, hoping that the mists had not reached him yet. They were a little farther from Phaesys, but Estin saw that Phaesys had fallen unconscious again. Blood was spreading from the wound faster than he had expected.
Elegant solutions forgotten, Estin clawed at the stone, trying to break away enough of the edges that he could slide his chain free, but his claws were doing nothing to the heavy rock. Next, he bit at the chains and clawed at the collar until his neck bled, but nothing worked.
Estin collapsed, panting as he stared into the mists. They were close now, nearly within reach of his tail, if he wanted to stretch it in that direction. It would not be more than a few more minutes and he would find out what happened to those who had not been as lucky as his family in their first journey.
He glanced over at Phaesys and felt his shoulders droop. Blood had stained the sand around him and the wooden spike in his chest was wet-looking. He would probably bleed to death before the mists got him, if that was any kind of blessing.
Lying back on the ground, Estin closed his eyes to wait. When he heard swiftly approaching footfalls, he turned toward them, preparing to say something—anything—that might make Arturis hesitate, but found himself looking at Oria.
Covered with sand and scratched head to toe, likely from her climb, the girl leapt past Estin, glancing at him in passing. She nearly tumbled as she reached Phaesys, sliding to a stop at his side. Oria pulled Phaesys’ head onto her lap, but he did not move.
“Dad, what do I do?” she asked, hand trembling near Phaesys’ wound.
“You get me out so I can heal him. Be quick!”
Though clearly reluctant to leave Phaesys’ side, Oria set him down gently and skirted the mists that were beginning to take over the area. As she reached him, Oria went to Estin’s side, examining the collar he wore and prodding it with her claws.
“This is an easy one,” she told him, wincing as she twisted her claw in the lock. The collar shook as her claw snapped, but she did not hesitate in trying again with another.
A click let Estin know the lock had come free, even before the collar fell away.
Nearly climbing over top of Oria, Estin raced to Phaesys, taking care not to brush the harder-to-see tendrils of mist that reached toward them from the larger whole of the cloud. Deep down, he wished it were dark out, which would have made avoiding the mists far easier.
Dropping beside Phaesys, Estin had to block the mists out of his mind and concentrate to be sure he did not waste any time. Though he had pulled spirits back to the bodies of the recently-dead in the past, in his weakened state he did not want to gamble on whether he could manage it again. More importantly, he never wanted to let anyone endure that again if he could help it.
At Estin’s first touch to Phaesys, he believed he might have been too late. More careful checking found a weak pulse though, giving him hope. The boy was alive…barely.
Estin closed his fingers around the wooden piece in Phaesys’ chest, trying very hard not to move it in the process. He would need to remove it during healing, or the wound would not close, but if he jostled it too much too soon, it could very likely kill Phaesys.
The whispered voices came swiftly this time, apparently sensing the urgency of Estin’s need. As the warmth of healing magic poured from Estin into Phaesys, he slowly extracted the wooden bit, hoping his timing was proper. By the time Estin opened his eyes again, he could already feel Phaesys’ breathing steady and knew he had at least helped buy the desert fox a few minutes.
“Dad…mists,” Oria reminded him, grabbing his hand.
Estin looked up and found that the mists were brushing the edge of the stone Phaesys had been tied to. A sudden jerk by Phaesys told Estin that he was awake and possibly aware of their predicament.
“Pop the lock, Oria!” Estin told her, yanking Phaesys bodily as far from the mist as he could manage, hugging Phaesys to himself in an effort to keep him as far as he could from the mists. It gave them several extra feet, but little more. Holding Phaesys tightly by the shoulders, Estin did what he could to maintain the distance between them and the mists, even though he knew he was probably choking Phaesys in the process. “Now!”
As Oria fumbled with the lock, Estin saw that she had broken nearly all of her claws. Some were bleeding stumps—an injury he had seen on his own hands from climbing—while others were sheared off farther out. None were capable of picking the lock, but she tried frantically anyway.
Phaesys seemed to be maintaining some semblance of calm, helping Estin keep the maximum tension against the chain, though his eyes never left the mist. Phaesys’ ears were flat back, his tail tense, and his eyes as wide as they would go, as though he were very nearly panicked, despite being able to think enough to help the others with his rescue.
“Oria,” Phaesys told Oria, as the mist drifted over the edge of the stone. Where it touched, grass grew, then blackened in the desert heat. “Let me go.”
Moving directly behind Phaesys to keep himself out of the mist, Estin continued to pull at the chain, trying to help in any small way while Oria worked.
“Oria!” barked Phaesys, finally catching her attention. “Move yourself!”
Oria glanced back and snatched her tail away from a tendril of mist and then slid alongside Phaesys and Estin. Grabbing at small stones, she began bashing at the lock, followed by the chain, trying to break them with no luck.
Bracing both feet against the stone, Estin leaned back against the chain, pulling as hard as he could, while Phaesys did much the same, adding his weight to the effort. The chain creaked, but would not break.
The mists slid farther over the stone, as though taunting them, forcing Oria to move almost atop Phaesys and Estin to keep from being caught by the tendrils of light.
Tilting his head to bring it closer to Estin’s ear, Phaesys whispered, “Take her and go. I don’t want her seeing this.”
“We still have time,” Estin grunted, yanking his foot away from a bit of the mist that seemed to be grabbing for him. “We aren’t leaving you. I wouldn’t forgive myself if I did and neither will she.”
Oria had gone into a full panic, smashing the rock frantically against the chain where it wrapped around the anchoring stone. The rock was breaking apart with each hit and she was tearing up her hands as much as the rock she held.
Cool air washed over Estin as the mists neared. He could feel damp winds like those that came before a storm back near Altis, despite how strange that felt in the middle of a desert. Somewhere in the distance, he even heard thunder, echoed from another place beyond the mists.
The mists had crept up and over the end of the chain, forcing Oria to change her focus to the collar on Phaesys. First she clawed at it with the bleeding stubs of her fingers and quickly resorted to biting at the thick leather. Each lunge she made at the collar tore away nearly as much of the leather as it did fur from Phaesys’ neck.
Chill air began to brush at Estin’s feet where the mists drew close and he began to wonder what they would do when they could no longer use the stone for leverage. The sand provided no solid grip for their feet and he doubted they could even effectively pull at the chain then.
Phaesys appeared to be having the same thought, trying to dig his feet into the sand, but with the short chain he was not getting far enough back from the stone to make it work.
“Oria, let me go!” Phaesys demanded, shoving her off of the collar.
Oria punched Phaesys across the face, nearly knocking him into the mists.
“I almost have it,” she argued, biting down on the back of the collar, where Phaesys could not stop her, though Estin could see the leather was barely marred. She had left long gouges in it and torn away chunks, but it was still thick and strong.
The chain in Estin’s hands began to grow cold. Estin looked down the length of it and saw that where the mists touched the metal, ice had formed, slowly working its way up the links. The cool winds were getting far colder.
As he looked at the chain, Estin saw that Oria’s foot and tail were in the outer edge of the mist, freezing over like the chain. She snarled and fought with the collar all the more, ignoring the pain she had to have been feeling.
Suddenly, the chain lurched as Estin heard crackling. Bolstered by the progress, Estin and Phaesys redoubled their efforts, soon joined by Oria when she saw that they had managed to budge the chain. With all three of them straining against it, the chain snapped abruptly, one of the frozen links shattering.
All three of them dove away from the mists, scrambling to get a little distance. As they ran, they managed to snatch up Estin’s belt and weapons, but they did not stop running—or limping, in Oria’s case—until they were nearly a hundred feet from the mists, far enough that they had some time to breathe.
Collapsing, Estin tried to prepare his mind to cast the healing magic Oria would need, but his head pounded from exertion and fear. She would have to wait a while and he had to hope that any damage done was not permanent.
Turning his head to look at the younger wildlings, Estin realized that Oria was hardly concerned with her injuries.
Oria and Phaesys were clinging to one another in a loving hug, nuzzling one another. Neither said a word, but the fear of near loss was obvious in how tightly they held to each other. Even with Oria’s foot and tail held out away from her body, wet with both melted ice and blood, she never looked away from Phaesys.
“Where’s Feanne?” gasped Estin, after giving the two as long as he felt comfortable with. Much longer without interruption and either the mists would reach them, or he would have grand-kits. Neither appealed much to him at that moment.
“Mom’s looking for you in the other direction,” Oria told Estin, though her eyes remained on Phaesys. She wiped sand out of his facial fur, while he stroked at her ear. “We didn’t know which way Arturis took you both, so we each followed one trail.”
“Where did the other trail go?”
“Toward Corraith.”
Sitting up, Estin turned toward the southwest, where he believed Corraith lay, based on where he had seen the mists in the past. Far off, he could make out the darker stone area on the pale brown desert floor.
“We pushed Arturis’ hand,” he told the others, getting to his feet. His legs shook and he doubted he could run for long. “He’s moving forward with an attack on the city. Feanne’s in a lot of danger.”
Oria and Phaesys got up quickly, but Oria collapsed again, her foot giving out as soon as she put weight on it.
“Estin, can you fix this?” Phaesys asked, slapping aside Oria’s hands as she tried to cover the bleeding wounds. “I’ve not seen injuries like this.”
Sliding over to them, Estin took Oria’s leg in his hands, examining the lacerations and damaged skin, where he could see it through the matted black fur. Blood had made it difficult to see some of the areas affected, but he had a good idea of what he was looking at.
“Frostbite,” he told Phaesys, leaning to check Oria’s tail. Similar bleeding wounds were visible near the tip. “She’ll lose the foot and part of her tail if I don’t heal it. Saw this a lot up in the mountains…never thought I would see it again down here in the desert.”
Closing his eyes and channeling, Estin hurried through the shaping of the magic, knowing he had little time. It would not take much to heal her injuries—they were certainly not as dire as being stabbed with a sword, or broken bones—but every second counted and his strength was very limited.
The spell completed, but before Estin could check to see whether it would require more magic to finish closing the wounds, Oria pulled away and hopped to her feet. She was unsteady, but made a visible effort to prove she could put weight on the foot.
“No time to waste,” she reminded them, setting off toward Corraith. “Mom’s waiting for us.”
Chapter Fourteen
“The Gathering Dark”
There were no longer any doubts for me. I knew what my role would be in saving my family and where things would go from there. It certainly wasn’t a plan in the sense that Phaesys always craved, but it was a direction to proceed.
We would charge headlong into Corraith, turning the populace to our side in a grand effort to stop Arturis. Powerful as he was, even a Turessian could not stand against a city of people opposing him, especially with us leading the attack.
I had a pretty high opinion of myself and my parents, though it was not entirely undeserved. We had accomplished more than most could dream of, merely in surviving as long as we had. We were tough to kill and I counted on that holding true. To believe in that, I did have to occasionally put aside the nagging thoughts of my brother’s fate.
Once we were victorious—that much was a given in my mind, since if we were not the victors, any other hopes were likely irrelevant, as we would be dead—we could stay in Corraith with Phaesys until it was time to return to our homeland. When that time came, I pictured no argument…he would join us.
I even pictured parades in our honor, though I wasn’t entirely sure what a parade was. From what little I gathered from Yoska’s stories when I was a child, it meant lots of people lining up to cheer and give you gifts of alcohol. I certainly didn’t care about the alcohol, but the recognition was something that appealed.
Corraith was a far more complicated place than Altis’ wild lands. I really did not understand just what politics had done to shape that place, or what it meant for us and my own future. I would learn to understand, but at that time, I had no way to grasp just how reaching people could be.
Desphon, I saw as evil beyond measure. He was no better than the power-hungry Turessians and was as good as dead if I found him again.
Never once did I sit down and ask myself, “Why did he do it? What does he really get out of being like this?”
I should have.
We all have our reasons…likely, even Arturis does. In our own minds, we are all good people, seeking the betterment of someone, whether it’s family, society, or ourselves. In the long-run, I believe that Desphon sought to secure power for his son, rather than himself. It is what a father would do, even as scheming a creature as Desphon.
I’ll never know for certain, but that was something I should have considered. Leaving such important details unexplored, we provide too many potential surprises in the future.
The whole time I pushed us on to find Arturis, I believed we—or better yet, I—would be able to exact revenge for every life the Turessians had taken.
I wanted that man to suffer for the people who had died in Corraith, but also for those I had lost back in Altis. Lihuan, Asrahn, Yoska, Finth, Ulra, and others, they would all be avenged by our attack on this one Turessian. Atall, above all, would be given peace, wherever he now was.
I truly believed it would bring me my own peace the moment Arturis was cornered. What I did for the dead was also for myself.
Funny how these things work out.
Oria drove them endlessly across the desert, pushing onward long after her foot and tail had begun bleeding again and the others were nearly dropping from exhaustion.
The path they took wove directly toward Corraith, traveling over the steep sand hills and around several naturally-formed hundred-foot stone pillars. When they finally did come up the last rise, bringing them within clear sight of the city, Oria realized they had gone the wrong way.
“Dad!” she called over her shoulder, as the two males hurried up to her. “There’s his army. The city’s fine.”
Far off to one side of the city, a large group of human-sized creatures walked almost directly away from Corraith. Even with the sun getting low, the group stood out. The lack of strong winds left their trail across the sands fairly visible, allowing Oria to see that they had skirted the city wide
ly.
“Where are they going?” she asked, though it was not a question she thought anyone would be able to answer.
To Oria’s surprise, it was Phaesys who spoke up, after looking around and gesturing to several of the stone spires, marking them in his mind.
“That direction,” he told them, glancing up at the sun, “would be Sirella’s camp for their families. I overheard Sirella giving directions to one of the new members.”
“Dammit!” swore Estin, nearly collapsing as he stopped. From what Oria could see, he would not make it another ten minutes, given the way he was panting, let alone all the way to the enemy. “We need to get there ahead of them to save the kits.”
Looking away from her father, Oria asked Phaesys, “How could Arturis even know about that place? I didn’t know where it was.”
“My father has connections,” admitted Phaesys. Blood had matted down the side of his face again, after the wound on his head had reopened. “He probably knew about it for months and chose to tell his master now to save himself.”
They pressed on, gaining little ground on the advancing army throughout the early evening, until none of them were in any shape to press on. To her own surprise, Oria was the first to fall, her foot too numb to keep her going. Phaesys made it a few more steps, but he collapsed just outside Oria’s reach, falling face-first into the sand.
Estin stopped a little ways past Oria and Phaesys, but wavered as he stood there, barely staying upright.
“We have to let them know, somehow,” Oria gasped, pulling the ragged hood of her desert cloak over her head to shield her from the low sun. The way the cloth stung her ears told her that she had waited far too long to do so. “There has to be a way.”
The others said nothing and Oria tried to stand again, hoping to motivate them to keep walking. Instead, she had to sit back down quickly. Eyeing her foot, she saw that it had swollen to nearly twice its normal size, though at least the bleeding had stopped.