by V. St. Clair
Why didn’t I think of that? Hayden chided himself. In truth, he was feeling a bit sluggish and knew that his judgment would probably be compromised soon—if it wasn’t already. There was no point in pushing on just to get themselves killed when a little rest might help them.
“Okay, well let’s go see if anyone’s home.”
The three of them approached the little domicile carefully, Harold ducking down and peeking into one of the windows as the other two walked to the front door.
“I don’t see anyone inside,” he reported, moving to join them. “Looks like the place hasn’t been used in a long time. If someone lived here before, they’re either gone or dead by now.”
Slightly disappointed, Hayden opened the door and led the way inside. One look around the place told him that Harold was correct: dust lined most of the surfaces, and cobwebs grew in the corners. There were no lights on, so the only illumination came from what little light permeated the overcast sky and filtered in through the windows and the holes in the roof. The house was mostly one room, with a makeshift couch and a bed on one end and a crudely built kitchen area on the other, centered around a fire pit that vented to the outside and could be used for cooking.
Tanner looked around the kitchen area and came back with a few unlabeled jars balanced precariously in his arms. One contained strips of dried meat, another had what looked like crushed peaches, and the third had some unidentifiable green plants in it that Hayden couldn’t guess the origins of.
“Shall we eat?” he asked the others, setting the jars down in the middle of the floor and taking a seat on the edge of the rumpled straw bed. Hayden took his cue and sat down on the couch, the straw poking through his clothes and feeling scratchy, despite the cloth that had been thrown over it. Still, it felt good to sit down.
“Do you think that stuff is safe to eat?” Howard asked dubiously, eyeing the strips of meat and probably trying to figure out what sort of creature it came from.
Hayden shrugged.
“If someone lived here for any amount of time and ate this food, it obviously didn’t hurt them or they wouldn’t have lasted long enough to build this house.”
Harold looked like he wanted to disagree with him, but said nothing as Tanner opened the first jar and sampled one of the meat sticks, tearing a piece off with difficulty in his teeth.
“I’m not sure what kind of animal this is, but it isn’t half bad,” he said at last, and the others finally relented and tried some for themselves, trying not to think too hard about what they were eating.
Hayden agreed with Tanner—the meat wasn’t bad at all, and the peaches tasted like any he’d ever had in the other realm. He wasn’t brave enough to try the strange green matter, which had gelled slightly at the bottom of the jar, and neither were the others, so they left it alone.
Being fed and shielded from the elements—and hopefully, out of immediate danger—Hayden found it hard to resist the urge to sleep. He kept blinking furiously, fighting to stay awake, but his vision began to blur and his eyelids felt impossibly heavy.
“C’mon guys, we’d better go…” he mumbled, blinking and attempting to stand up.
The next thing he knew, he became gradually aware of a piece of straw poking him uncomfortably in the chest, and of a mild burning sensation in his hands and arms. Returning to consciousness and blinking his eyes open, Hayden snapped awake the moment he realized he had been asleep, looking around frantically for the others.
They were right where he remembered them, slumped over in uncomfortable positions and snoring quietly. He scowled and shook them angrily, yelling, “Wake up!”
Tanner and Harold jerked awake and the latter grabbed a knife like he expected a fight. Seeing only Hayden, he relaxed and said, “What’s with the rude wake-up call?”
“How long have I been asleep?” Hayden demanded, fear roiling inside of him as his Foci continued to burn like they were being exposed to direct sunlight for too long.
“How should I know? We were asleep too,” Harold frowned at him. “You fell off as soon as we finished eating, and we debated for a while whether to wake you or not, but we needed rest too so we took a nap.”
Tanner gave Harold a look that said he had obviously been in favor of waking Hayden and pressing onwards but had been overruled by the mouthy butcher.
“Are you stupid!?” Hayden vented loudly, getting to his feet. “Do you seriously want to die here? You know I’m on a deadline before I go insane and you thought we should NAP?!”
Immediately defensive, Harold also got to his feet, and despite being shorter than Hayden, his bulk gave the impression that he was looming over him.
“And what good are you if you’re falling asleep on your feet out there? You barely managed to be useful when that cockatrice attacked us, and that’s when you were wide awake!”
And so it begins…
Tanner held up a placating hand towards both of them and said, “There’s no point in fighting right now, we’re just wasting time. Let’s just get moving again now that we’re somewhat rested and try to make up some lost time.”
A part of Hayden wanted to refuse. He wanted to stand here and shout at Harold until he was blue in the face, and then he wanted to rip the man’s arms off and beat him to death with them, basking in the joy of the other man’s suffering…
Whoa, where did that come from?
The feeling left as quickly as it came, and Hayden shook his head to clear it, feeling the color drain from his face and trying his best not to show how afraid he suddenly was.
It can’t be happening already…
He tried to convince himself that he had just been feeling unusually stressed and vindictive, but it was no use. He remembered the way he felt, the savage pleasure that had surged through him at the thought of destroying Harold, of watching him suffer. That wasn’t the kind of thing he would feel on his own accord, no matter what the circumstances.
His Foci continued to burn.
“Tanner’s right, we don’t have time for this,” he said as evenly as possible, hooking his hands around his belt to make it less obvious that they were shaking. “Let’s head into the woods and hope that nothing nasty finds us in there.”
Harold grumbled in grudging agreement and the three of them set off again, this time entering the forest with the strange trees, immediately registering the lack of any sort of natural path through the foliage. Hayden’s neck soon began to ache from almost constantly being tilted upwards, determined not to lose track of the ley lines that seemed to go straight through trees without any regard for the solid objects. It resulted in him stumbling more than a few times over fallen branches or bits of uneven ground, and also made him eerily aware of how many birds and bats were perched in the branches overhead, watching their progress.
As long as they stay up there it isn’t a problem, he assured himself.
They hadn’t tried speaking to each other since they entered the forest, because Tanner was naturally quiet and Harold and Hayden had nothing to say to each other right now that wouldn’t start a fight. It therefore took him a little while to realize that he didn’t hear anything in the wooded area right now: not their footsteps over the leaves, not the owls hooting overhead…nothing.
He stopped and turned to the others.
“Do you hear anything?” he asked, gasping in surprise when he could only hear his voice in his own head.
Tanner made a confused face and mouthed something inaudible. They all reached the conclusion at the same time: this forest muted noise. They were walking around an area that was potentially filled with deadly creatures, and they couldn’t hear a thing.
There was nothing to do but press on, and though none of them said it (and it wouldn’t matter even if they had), Hayden noticed that they all increased their pace, weaving between trees and cutting their way through foliage at a killing speed, stumbling much more often now but not daring to slow down.
Hayden saw the black bear before it bit his head off,
but only because he was looking up at the ley lines and saw the creature jump out of a nearby tree. He screamed inaudibly and moved out of the way, smacking his colleagues on the arm to get their attention and drawing his knife. Tanner reacted with lightning speed and raised his crossbow—which he’d been carrying this entire time to keep it at the ready—nocked an arrow, and loosed it into the bear’s chest.
The bear staggered for a moment but then resumed its pursuit, and Hayden saw Harold dart past him, ducking under the bear’s claws and ramming his sword into its stomach, while Tanner loosed another arrow.
The bear went down before Hayden could even plan out his own attack, groaning silently and then falling to the ground without a sound. Hayden gave his colleagues a thumbs-up and tried to mouth that they were lucky that the bear wasn’t magical, but the others couldn’t read his lips so he gave up the attempt.
He turned back to continue on their trajectory when he saw no less than six wargs blocking their path.
They looked exactly like he remembered from his second year at school, when they’d breached the momentary schism the sorcerer-spy had created on the grounds and attacked Hayden and his friends. They were larger than normal wargs, and also looked like they were inside out, patches of fur peeling away from slimy innards that were visible from the outside, canine teeth hanging almost to the ground.
Hayden had no time to gauge the others’ reactions and see if they looked as terrified as he felt before the wargs attacked, darting around trees and bushes without a sound. The forest was not at all an ideal fighting ground because of all the natural obstacles, but that worked both in their favor and against them, as it also hampered the wargs’ movement. Ignoring the others, Hayden focused on the immediate threat in front of him and ducked behind a tree as a warg lunged at him, darting around the other side and brandishing his buckler in one hand, a knife in the other.
He and the warg exchanged attacks, one surging forward only to be repelled without landing a blow. It wasn’t until a second warg ran at him from behind—which Hayden could only tell because he felt the ground rumbling—that he jumped out of the way and watched the two crash into each other. While the two wargs were struggling in a tangle of limbs, he leapt onto them and stabbed ferociously with his knife, lodging it so deeply in one warg’s breastbone that he couldn’t get it out and had to grab another from his belt to cut the other one’s neck.
A third warg was streaking past him on its way to attack one of his companions, and Hayden leapt onto its back without thinking through the consequences. The warg slowed immediately as Hayden’s weight hit him, halting so quickly that with Hayden’s poor grip on its slimy fur he was thrown over its head, landing on a pile of branches strewn across the ground that snapped under his weight and poked him uncomfortably.
The warg lunged at him before Hayden could arm himself, so he did the only thing he could and grabbed both sides of the jaws that were threatening to clamp shut around his head, struggling with every ounce of strength he had to keep them open, hands trembling furiously from the strain as blood trickled down his arms. The warg tried to gnash its teeth, cutting Hayden’s hands even worse and making him clench his own teeth against the pain. Just when he thought he was about to run out of strength in his arms, the warg let out a silent howl of pain and slumped off of him, and Hayden’s hands and wrists began to bleed freely.
Harold was standing in front of him, looking rather worse for wear with a cut on his scalp that was trickling blood down his face, and rips all along his clothing. He pulled a knife out of the back of the warg’s neck—where it had severed its spine, and mouthed, You okay? to Hayden.
Well, I can’t say I like him much, but he did save my life…
He nodded before considering that maybe he wasn’t alright; his hands were bleeding pretty badly, after all. He looked around and saw that Tanner and Harold had disposed of the other three wargs by some miracle, though Tanner was applying a fresh bandage to his wounded arm, which was bleeding freely again.
Grimacing, Hayden motioned to Harold, trying to pantomime that he should open his bag and get out the bandages for him. It took the butcher a moment to figure out what he wanted, but then he complied wordlessly, digging through Hayden’s pack until he found the wraps he needed and helping Hayden wrap his hands.
Hayden first hoped that infection didn’t set in since he didn’t have anything to properly clean his wounds, but then changed his mind and decided to hope that he lived long enough to see whether they got infected or not. Maybe he would make it back through the portal and get treatment from Mistress Razelle before it even became an issue.
Sure, and maybe pigs will fly.
A pig flew past him then, impossibly small wings carrying it through the air.
As Hayden fixated on this alarming and timely omen, he could have sworn the pig looked him dead in the eye as it flew past and winked at him. When he blinked again, it was gone.
“Did you see that?” Hayden pointed at the place where it had been, knowing that the others couldn’t hear him but assuming they’d get the point.
Tanner had been following his gaze but now looked confused, shaking his head and shrugging.
“Flying pig,” Hayden mouthed slowly, trying to gesture with his arms and feeling ridiculous.
Harold and Tanner exchanged an uneasy look and the latter shook his head slowly once more.
Oh great, now I’m seeing things…
That revelation was accompanied by a particularly painful twinge from his Foci. He couldn’t help but notice that the burning sensation was getting worse and traveling farther up his arm now.
Not knowing what Harold would do if he thought Hayden was a loose cannon, he tried to play it off by touching his head and gesturing that he’d gotten shaken up a little by that last warg. He wasn’t sure if Tanner believed him, but the man didn’t attempt to argue with him.
It took them a little while to find the ley lines again, partly because the forest was so dense in this area and partly because they had veered off course during the fight against the wargs. Hayden began to panic after ten minutes of the three of them staring straight upwards while attempting to navigate the terrain without losing sight of each other—their ears were still useless—until finally Harold tapped him on the arm and pointed to the faint beams of light twisting through the canopy overhead.
Sincerely hoping that it wasn’t a different set of ley lines that led to an entirely different schism opening, Hayden nodded and they returned to their course.
They were fortunate enough to clear the forest after Hayden estimated another hour or so had elapsed, though for all he knew it could have been days since they entered the schism. As thankful as he was to be out of the woods, he frowned at the sight that greeted them on the other side.
There were two distinct paths ahead of them, veering off in almost opposite directions. The northeast one (assuming that forward was north) had a dirt path—the first actual trail they had seen since entering the schism—that led across the dirt ground, pebbled with a light layer of what looked like sand, though Hayden didn’t see a beach anywhere nearby. He squinted into the distance and saw that the way looked clear as the ground sloped gently uphill and out of Hayden’s line of sight.
The northwest path led directly into a swamp of some sort, with tall grass that would come up to Hayden’s nose if he stood beside it, obscuring almost everything else from sight. The only reason he even knew it was a swamp to begin with was that he could see the squishy, uneven ground around the base of the tall grass nearest him.
That looks like a deathtrap waiting to happen.
Even if he managed to avoid getting mired in the wet ground, which was probably full of unpleasant drops that would plunge him into the murky water, there could be any number of deadly swamp-loving creatures in here that were just waiting to kill him, and he wouldn’t be able to see them until they were right on top of him.
Harold muttered a swear word behind him, and it was only then that
Hayden realized he could hear again.
Well, at least we’ve got that going for us now.
The reason for Harold swearing was undoubtedly the fact that the ley lines they had been following split into equal parts here, following each of the paths. They had to choose which way to go.
“What are we supposed to do now?” Harold muttered from behind him, and Hayden turned around. “We were told to follow the stupid lines, but now they’ve split into two directions, and one group isn’t any bigger than the other.”
“Yeah, I see that,” Hayden said dryly, wishing his Foci would stop burning because the pain was distracting. He couldn’t tell if he was feeling short-tempered because he was hurting and frightened, or if it was the effects of distortion starting to get to him.
Trying to will himself sane he said, “The two sets of ley lines probably meet up again somewhere in the distance, so I doubt it matters which way we choose from that perspective.” He certainly hoped that was true, at least. If one set of lines had to connect one set of doors, then both of these branches had to come together again at least by the time they hit the other aperture.
“Then obviously we’re going right,” Harold pointed towards the obviously nicer path, which led up the sloped hill.
Hayden would have traded the Frost estate and all of his assets to prevent him from saying those words.
Why did he have to say it like that? He had to call it ‘right’…
Hayden closed his eyes and wondered if there was any chance he could convince himself that Master Laurren had been wrong, or lying, or simply dreaming. How was it possible that the leftmost path through the swamp would possibly give him better odds of survival than the nice, clear, rightmost path?
Maybe that’s the mistake the others made, if they made it this far…Hayden tried to assure himself. Maybe there’s some horrible monster waiting just over that hill that can’t be beaten, and our only hope is to go through the swamp where we have some miniscule chance of survival…