by Kim Wedlock
"Put that away," Petra sighed wearily.
He slipped it the few inches back into its sheath and lowered himself back down, composed once again, and returned his gaze diffidently to the fire. "Why aren't you asleep?"
"Good one."
"When did you get up?"
"I gave up trying about...twenty minutes ago, maybe." She cocked her head just enough that the firelight caught her rich eyes. He glanced up, watching her peer upon him like a cat atop a wall. He thought the comparison was fitting. "What's it to you?"
"Nothing." He looked away impartially again, and she, too, dismissed him in turn. He glanced back briefly and frowned to himself. She'd been indifferent towards him since the flooded ruins just over a week ago. She hadn't attempted to talk to him even briefly while he kept an evening watch, and when their voices happened to cross in group conversation - not that there had been much of that going around lately - she acknowledged him politely. Too politely. He found that it was beginning to bother him.
"I can't believe you won't arrest him," she said suddenly, breaking the all too familiar silence. "Or get rid of him." He watched her lip curl in the firelight. "How can you stomach him?"
He took a stick from the fire and began poking at the embers. "My thoughts towards him aren't relevant."
"Don't you care that he's murdering people for personal gain?!"
"His victims have prices on their heads, wanted dead or alive. If he didn't kill them, either someone else would have, or they would have continued their crimes."
"So he'd have us believe..." She breathed a humourless laugh. "It's funny. I thought I had more to fear from a mage than a historian."
"Appearances can be deceiving."
She grunted flatly. "Can't they just?"
He watched her look up at the stars and saw her lips curve downwards through the darkness. "You're quite angry."
"Sod off."
"You were fond of Anthis."
She frowned down at him. "What does that mean?"
"You were close. Often talking together, laughing and joking. He really gravitated to you when Rathen's secret came out."
"Well, we were friends...I suppose, yeah, we were."
"But it was more than that, though, wasn't it?"
She blinked, but when he failed to continue, a bitter smile spread across her face. "Wow," she chuckled. "You...truly are..." She shook her head and rose to her knees, then clambered down the rock with such agility she could well have been a cat after all. But rather than join him to continue the conversation, or at least finish the thought, she moved on past him towards her tent instead.
"Where are you going?"
She didn't reply.
"Petra," he hurried after her, and was surprised when she hesitated and turned to spare him a moment. He dropped his voice to avoid waking the others. "I'm sorry if I've insulted you," he said honestly, if unsure how, or why it mattered, "and I'm sorry for this, too, but I need you to tell me how your father was killed."
She didn't ask how he had known. She didn't even flinch. She simply stared at him, reading his eyes, and he did his best to conceal his assumptions. He had little idea if he'd succeeded or not as she took a stern half-step towards him, and her voice dropped to a bitter tone. "Butchered in an alley," she told him venomously. "Stabbed repeatedly. A mugging gone wrong; he had nothing to steal." She didn't wait for a response before turning away and vanishing silently between the canvasses.
He stared after her, the small, ever-present knot in his brow tightening as he wondered why she had told him the truth rather than keeping her secrets, as she had been frequently inclined to do. But he soon shook it off, as well as the lingering confusion. He'd been distracted long enough. He had to get back to the watch.
It was half way between midnight and morning, but the desert had been awake for hours. As soon as darkness set in, small, dog-like creatures with oversized ears and silver eyes began yipping as they bounced playfully through the scrub; smooth-skinned lizards moved like fish through the sand in hunt of insects, silent themselves but for the running of dislodged grains, and every few minutes there came the distant bleat of what could only be giant goats closer to the mountains. But such, it seemed, was the norm, and they were all the more lively for the welcome, cooler air. But whether it had been the same nightly scenario for the past two and a half weeks or not, it was no easier to filter out. The sounds of a city - drunken shouts and laughter, the clatter of hooves and wooden wheels over uneven stone roads, the ringing of blacksmith hammers as they worked into the night - were deafening, but familiar enough to ignore. But the sounds of a wild place were undefinable and snatched even Garon's trained attention away from time to time.
But he sat motionless in the darkness and calmed his senses to hear above and beneath it, just as he had every other night.
The light extended no further than a foot beyond the kindling. Nothing within the confines of the camp moved but weak shadows as they danced indecisively across the surrounding ring of canvas, barely distinguishable against the smothering darkness. All was silent but for a soft snore from within one of the tents, and an occasional giggle rippling from another.
The bags were heaped to one side, a corner of the minuscule fortress safe from scavenging creatures, while the jugs they'd carried had long been discarded in favour of the desert-lander's knowledge.
Only one bag stood apart from the collection: the historian's satchel. Filled with ancient books and scrolls and priceless research, it was never far from his side. It was a wonder he didn't keep it in the tent with him while he slept - a wonder, but also a stroke of luck.
Shadows flickered with a brief intensity, but the camp's stillness was unbroken. Even as embers scattered from the dying fire, dislodged by a phantom movement to rest against the tent where the satchel had stood but a moment before.
Chapter 45
"Fire!" Garon boomed, staggering through the wave of heat concealed by the glowing stone as he charged into the camp. But his warning had been needless; Petra and Anthis were already trying to smother the four-foot flames. But even as Garon set to helping them heap sand and empty water skins upon it, they could never work faster than the fire could spread.
Eyila burst out of her animal hide tent not a moment after the shout, and Rathen and Aria from theirs an instant later. Even as Aria fled the stones to safety at her father's unheard instruction, the flames immediately died at the banished mage's appearance and plunged them into darkness.
A relieved silence held for a long moment, until Rathen turned accusingly towards Anthis. "What just bloody happened?!"
The young man looked back at him in shock. Despite having surely been asleep until a moment ago, there was a definite light in his eyes, and he no longer stood with a sideways hunch. Evidently, Eyila hadn't allowed him to suffer.
"What makes you think it had anything to do with me?!"
"It was your tent!"
"Why would I set fire to my own tent?!"
"Why indeed, but it's a shame it didn't burn you with it."
"That's enough, Rathen!" Garon yelled, but Anthis didn't seem to have caught the last remark. Something else had stolen over his mind, and he darted instead towards the smoking remains of his magically drowned tent and began searching frantically through the tatters. He muttered hysterically beneath his breath, but no one caught a word.
"Is everyone else all right?" Garon asked, looking across the others, and all nodded, if slightly shaken. He stopped at Petra. "What happened?"
"I don't know." Her voice was tainted by a definite degree of mistrust, though she didn't glance towards the frenzied young man. "I was awake, trying to sleep, and when I heard someone shout in a panic, I came outside and found him standing there with a stupid look on his face. I started trying to put it out, then he joined in. I don't know how it started."
"But you don't think it was an accident," Rathen summarised.
Garon shook his head. "From the look of it, it started from the outsid
e. Anthis didn't do it. And why would he?" He glanced down towards him as his muttering became more frantic, flinging ash, sand and burned and blackened fabric out behind him. He looked back to Rathen and Petra, both of whom followed his gaze with clear contempt. "Be sensible. He hasn't suddenly lost his mind."
"And you're so sure he had it to begin with?!" Rathen burst, but though he inhaled to deliver more, something other than the officer's steel gaze stilled his tongue just as abruptly as it had been loosened. The inquisitor didn't fail to notice the degree of alarm suddenly present in his shaken eyes, and it sparked unease in the pit of his own stomach.
A horrendous curse erupted from the ground beside them before he could broach it.
"Where is it?!"
"Where's what?" Petra snapped accidentally, preferring to ignore him despite the spectacle he was making, digging like a dog possessed, but she'd been caught just as startled as the rest of them.
"My bag! My books, my notes--dammit, where is it?! It was here!" Everyone looked towards the ruin in silence while he continued desperately to dig, but he was soon wrenched away by the shoulders.
"Was that everything?" Garon tried to catch his gaze, but Anthis could only stare helplessly towards the wreck. He shook him with little care. "Was everything in there?"
Slowly, blank eyes turned upon him. "No..." he pointed towards the three books discarded on the ground, half buried beneath the scuffed sand, and all were immediately familiar: two he'd been pondering over for the past few days, and the other, of course, his own notebook which was often as good as glued in his hands.
Garon exhaled a deep sigh and hung his head in relief, releasing the historian from the tight grip of his fingertips which alarm had encouraged to dig only deeper into his shoulders. But despite the most prevalent books surviving, Anthis didn't share in it. Tears had sprung into his eyes as he dropped heavily to his hands and knees, and he stared still and silent, as if paralysed again, at the spot where his most treasured belongings were always placed.
He was utterly broken.
Rathen was quick to stop Aria, who had reappeared at the edge of the camp, from taking even a single comforting step towards him. He felt her eyes burn into the back of his head with confusion as he barred her way, but he didn't look around. His own were distant and haunted.
Garon circled the quietly, innocently glowing fire and retrieved the three books, Anthis's own somehow just as worn as the two of seven hundred years, and flicked briefly through them. He understood little of it, but he knew what he was looking at. He nodded to himself and his usually rigid shoulders visibly eased. "Get some sleep," he told them all, then turned and dragged the quite unwilling historian back to his feet and drove the books firmly into his shaking hands. "We'll be fine with what we have, won't we, Anthis? Anthis?" He received a single nod, which had clearly taken effort, but his green eyes were still lost to a distant place. Garon accepted it, then looked expectantly towards the others until they began to disperse.
"Rathen," he added a little more quietly after ushering the defeated young man to his own tent instead. "Could you cast some defences around the camp?"
"Why?" He asked - or shrieked? Garon noticed he hadn't moved, and that his dark eyes were growing wider. "You said the fire--"
"No, it's not that." He eyed him carefully, and as he began to comprehend the severity of the alarm that lined his face and the intensity of the knot in his jaw, the unease began to creep back up into his stomach. "Rathen--"
"Aria, hide."
She didn't question the command issued through tightly barred teeth, nor why he now trembled. She didn't need to. Dread sparked in her eyes as she obeyed, turning and scurrying away quicker than had a harpy's talons been grasping at her back, woefully aware of what was coming. And the girl's haste was all the confirmation Garon needed. He drew his sword in one hand with a quick, sharp movement, grasped the mage's collar with the other, and dragged him as fast as he could from the camp.
Rathen's hand lashed up and grasped his wrist, clutching it tighter than should have been humanly possible, but he didn't try to free himself. He followed willingly despite his feet trying to carry him the opposite direction, despite the gasps and grunts of pain which became increasingly guttural with every stumbling step, and despite the paralysing fear which gave way to the beast and denied him the strength to fight it back.
His grunts soon became wails, and Garon suppressed the sickness in his gut at the terrible cracking they began to punctuate. The camp was still too near, the others would surely hear his unintelligible cries. He hurried his pace. He could handle Rathen himself now he knew what to expect, and it was his duty to protect everyone from his rampage. His duty alone.
His grip around his sword tightened as fingernails began to dig into his skin, and he braced himself against the burning that followed as they finally punctured through. He continued to drag him along, but the resistance grew, and before much longer he knew he would be thrown aside as Rathen's increasingly unnatural strength outmatched his.
He cast a glance behind him to note the distance of the camp, but his sight was stolen in an instant. Locked by jet-black eyes, distinctly malevolent and made darker by the paper-white skin of the monstrous form, which in turn was made whiter by the surrounding darkness and light of the slivered moon. Bony thorns had already erupted from his clavicles and broadened shoulders, piercing his shirt which had torn across his chest by the widening of his ribs, revealing those twisting, scrolling black veins beneath.
Garon's heart stopped as the gaunt, sharp face loomed over him, sharp teeth bared in a malicious grin, and the heat of primal fear surged through his whole body, unreasonable and unsuppressable. This man was no longer human.
The grip on his wrist tightened abruptly, but with a quick and jagged twist, Garon managed to free himself before his bones could be crushed, and he jumped back just quickly enough to avoid the beast's own aberrantly quick response. He spent the next few moments doing his best to avoid the advance and slashing of bone-armoured claws all while looking for an opening, but while this beast had been distracted by anything that had even twitched in Carenna, out here there was nothing to catch the quick, deathless eyes.
Until a nearby bleat snatched his attention instead. Garon didn't waste any time in gratitude. He lunged blade-first towards his waist, the only point of Rathen's body that appeared to be unarmoured by reshaped bone, and his steel duly caught, tearing fabric and skin. Blood seeped out, so dark it could have been black itself, and soaked quickly into the shredded shirt. But despite his own agility, Garon had no time to even draw back his sword before the beast was upon him again, claws slashing above guttural howls.
Once again he was forced onto the defensive, ducking and diving in tight movements, pushed to the limit of his capabilities. His sword didn't weigh him down, but it prevented the short, sharp jabs he would have preferred. With Rathen so close so fast, he hadn't the room to swing it.
Suddenly, Rathen hesitated, and Garon grasped the opportunity immediately, lunging out again to worsen the wound in the hope of slowing him down.
But the beast had only paused to gather his energy. Before steel could make even grazing contact, Rathen burst forwards at frightening speed, his sharp, armoured shoulder angled directly towards him.
Somehow, Garon managed to avoid the worst of the blow as he spun off to one side, planning to strike his flank instead. But though he was only clipped, the power behind the attack was astounding, altering his rotation and casting him off to the ground.
Garon barely had time to curse. The beast leapt upon him as he tried to stagger back up from his knee, and instead dropped and rolled to the side before Rathen's increased weight could pin him down.
He dashed through the sand for distance, fighting his way over the loose terrain. He had to strike him, to subdue him, give his mind a chance to clear. Last time a strike to the carotid artery had sufficed - but only once Petra had tripped him up.
He glanced back, hoping the
sand might do that job for him, but his feet, larger, clawed, and having obliterated his boots, were covering the ground like snow shoes, and anything concealed beneath, he surely crushed.
But of course he wasn't so lucky. Something caught his own foot and sent him flat on the sand, just like the last time, and he cursed himself for not paying attention. He pushed forwards and lumbered back to his feet, but just as he was quick to take advantage of any opening, so was his mindless opponent. Talons raked him, flipping him onto his back and shoving him back down into the thin desert floor. Sharp rocks pressed through the sand into his spine and shoulders as claws swiped across his forearms, raised to protect his face, and it was only then that he found he'd lost his sword, thrown from his hand as he was to the ground. He glimpsed it between blows, ignoring the burning agony of every slash, but it was too far out of reach and he had no hope of throwing Rathen off of him to snatch it.
He pushed aside the useless sense of hopelessness he felt creeping up inside him. His unarmed training was vast, but Rathen was much heavier than any opponent he'd ever faced, and stronger, faster, and with limbs longer still. Garon had been trained to fight against people, not monsters.
But he knew he could work it to his advantage.
He squirmed beneath him and soon managed to raise his knee and drive it straight up into his crotch. It had little of the usual effect, but his purpose was to knock Rathen forwards and pull himself down. It worked flawlessly. He toppled, and Garon dragged himself out from beneath him in the same instant, between his legs. He didn't waste time fetching his sword. He turned and leapt upon his back, avoiding as best he could the sharp protrusions along his spine, and raised his hand to strike its edge against the beast's neck.
Rathen roared in fury, stunning Garon for half a second, but that hesitation was enough. The beast rose and threw himself backwards against the ground, caring none for the rocks which broke the surface where the jagged escarpment peaked, his own skeleton more than sturdy enough to withstand any damage he might inflict upon himself.