by Scott Beith
We all came close together again. “Is everyone alright?” Radament asked as he sat down on his keg to regather his breath, his wine barrel refilling in the freezing shallow water through cleverly designed pressure vents. All of our feet drenched in the same foul swamp water he was filling it up with.
I looked about before asking the same dumb question. “Where did they all go?”
“No one knows. They just… go,” Radament said with a certain dispassionate lack of care, just as Ebony transformed back into her nymph self to see the split shroud up close.
With the gnolls gone, we took a moment to relax. Arlo stabbed his sword into the ground and leaned against it exhaustedly.
“Is it all over? Will they come back?” I asked, staring into the darkness again.
Radament’s lantern was dimming. He scooped up more swamp water, which bubbled and fermented in his hand as he decomposed it into some thickened tar based fuel. Using that putrid concentrate to rekindle the lantern’s dying pilot flame.
Ebony had backed away and stood at least a few yards from us, getting some fresh air. She looked a little delirious, wobbling to stay upright. Perhaps the fight had taken more energy from her than I’d previously thought. “Ebony, are you ok?” I asked, concerned.
“Ebony?” the prince then said moments later, her hair and face tipping as she slowly drooped towards the mud.
The prince rushed to catch her, putting one arm around her waist while he tapped her cheeks as a means to wake her with the other. He looked down, his eyes widening when he spotted a blow dart stuck in her side. Arlo then glanced quickly out into the darkness of the surrounding forest. “INCOMING!” he shouted.
Darts bombarded our vision as they flew towards him. They froze in mid-air around him, mere inches from his skin. An echoing soundwave exploded from him as he used his one solid soundwave to blast the darts back to their senders.
Things thudded from the trees and bushes as a second wave of gnolls charged from the darkness.
This wave was much larger than the last one. There were more than hundreds, maybe thousands. Gnolls pouring down on us like a maelstrom of movement. They hurled javelins and spears, and shot blow darts and crossbow bolts. Their organisation was staggering. Everything I’d heard about them I instantly considered lies. These creatures weren’t mindless at all. They were ruthlessly clever. Strategically stalking and ambushing us. Surrounding us so their darts could strike at us from all angles.
A dart hit Radament as he jumped behind his barrel for cover and he pulled me down with him.
A sharp stick flew towards me. I desperately placed my hand up to block it, unbelievably managing to deflect it with one misty bubble conjured from the back shadow of my hand. Radament’s lantern beside me giving the faintest of shine to do so, affording me the slightest protection as I coated a thin shadow barrier around me and him, protecting us from the gnolls’ projectiles.
Its thin fabric absorbed the darts like a tiny pin cushion. I crouched further down beside Radament and his barrel. He was sitting down, looking greatly dazed by the effect of the dart embedded in the left side of his overgrown belly.
I slapped his cheek to try and rouse him. “What do we do?!”
“Run, Kya. Just run,” he yelled before aggressively pushing me away and rising back to his feet, attempting to confront the incoming horde swooping in.
He stumbled to walk, heavily disorientated from all the darts hitting him at once, but he defiantly resisted the darts’ sleeping toxin as he physically held and pushed them back, stopping them from reaching me. “KYA, RUN!” he shouted at me, ordering me to run from him. I was still completely out of breath from earlier, but without any other ideas to consider, I ran just like he said. I turned back with tears in my eyes, to see him tackled by two or three of those beasts, disarming him successfully but somehow unable to stop him enduringly thrashing about.
Resistant to the darts’ intoxicating effects, the latter of gnolls were keeping their distance from those restraining Radament, continuously blowing darts into his exposed chest and back as they tried to take him down for good. He had saved my life, and the worst part about that was that I was barely moving through trenching pond-water fast enough for his sacrifice to mean anything. But nevertheless, I continued to try and tearfully bolt away while he rolled about, unwilling to let the gnolls restrain him.
I spotted Arlo beside Ariss and his loyal ant. Carrying Ebony over his shoulders as he and the prince worked together to load her onto his great flying mite. The darts were coming at all of them but were luckily bouncing off the hard carapace of the ant’s bony skin and protective wings.
“Hop on!” Ariss yelled to Arlo while I puffed a fair distance from both of them. He watched as Radament battled behind me, struggling for freedom as I continued running to them for help.
I looked back for a last time to see Radament holding his lantern and tapping his barrel from its ignitable tap, slowly surrendering to unconsciousness as he did it. With nowhere to rocket but downwards against the mud, the barrel compressed and started crushing against the ground.
“Hurry up! Just get on, Arlo!” Ariss shouted to Arlo, who waited idly beside the ant for me to arrive, refusing to leave without all of us.
I was sprinting towards them as fast as I could. But I was getting weak, and the trenching water only grew thicker and thicker from where in the middle of the small swamp pond I was running towards. The water level of the puddle constantly rising in depth, causing me to slug through mud that had already reached as high as my kneecaps, slowing me down as the gnolls spat darts and chased me from the rear. The spiders had all abandoned us, disappearing into the canopy, leaving Ariss as my only hope of possible escape.
“Just leave her!” Ariss shouted to the prince.
I tried to go faster, thinking Ariss might wait longer if I showed him I could hurry up. But then something sharp stung my backside. My legs locked as heated numbness spread through both my thighs. I looked down in dread to see one stray dart embedded in my right hand side as I fought to stay conscious, fearing a stumbling trip would force Ariss and Arlo to abandon me. The crushing temptation of wanting to sleep was drawing me in, scaring me into thoughts of a shallow drowning within this small level swamp.
In pure panic, I managed to keep myself awake, desperately crawling my way through the swamp while gnolls circled around me effortless. I kicked at them as they pushed me over and grabbed at my legs, my hostility becoming futile as most of them patiently just stood there waiting for me to drop by myself. I put everything I had left into one last lunge, trying to push past the gnolls before failing and collapsing into the water.
My body near covered, I turned my head to keep myself from drowning. “Stop! Please stop,” I begged in a whisper, exhausted, as they started dragging me backwards, towards where Radament and his flaming keg still remained.
I was too exhausted to fight, and too terrified to cry. I felt paralysed, my mind hazy like I was being smothered into sleep. Lying there, I just gave up, finding myself too scared and weak to struggle anymore. I watched the blackness slowly brighten as the flames from Radament’s barrel jetted out from its upward hole. I felt nothing but coldness as spiky metal hands tugged at my dress, dragging me as I lost all hope of possible escape.
And then, suddenly, just like magic, the gnolls let me go. I opened my eyes and realised something had crashed onto them. I assumed it was the keg at first, but then saw Arlo kicking and punching the gnolls, after having collided into them like a tucked up cannonball. He fought relentlessly, attempting to break me free from their clutches.
In the chaos of it all, Arlo found a moment to drag me up, harshly yanking my arms as I did my best to place my feet on the sinking swamp floor. I focused my energy into getting ready to run, only for Arlo to push me back down a moment later, forcefully dunking me and himself as I weakly wrestled to break free. I didn’t know what was happening. Was he trying to drown me as a means of ending our combined suffering?
Pulling my head back up as we both gasped for air. Ready to continue our struggle, we looked around, expecting gnolls to have surrounded us, only to find most of them had retreated from the explosion. The light revealed the magnitude of the gnolls’ army, though, which was waiting nearby for the fires to recede, as if the light physically repelled them.
There was no limit to their numbers. Their ghostly black leather shrouds and beady white eyes glowed in every single faraway tree, every bush and in every pond outside of the explosion’s radius.
Arlo and I started running back the way we’d come, just as the fires rapidly diminished in this muggy swamp, chased by this barbaric horde. We looked for Ariss and spotted his vague silhouette in the sky, sailing off with Ebony. He didn’t so much as glance back to see if we had survived the blast.
“Come on!” the prince yelled, refusing to give up as he pulled my arm around his shoulders and helped drag me away from the marching gnolls. Arlo must have seen something in the light of the explosion because he began hurrying towards it. I didn’t ask what it was. I was too out of breath and my mind was too foggy to form any coherent words in order to ask him.
I thought he might want to relight the Nyx statue, and I hoped he wouldn’t leave our fate to an act of religious propaganda. I kept up with him, though, and he helped carry me over fallen burnt trees and avoid the deep areas of swamp until we managed to get back onto the old gravel road.
The gnolls were gaining on us, their own shadows flickering behind them as we limped away from the dwindling, but protective, spot fires. I threw my hand out behind me, while I still had the strength to do so, forging as many thorny vines from their tiny silhouette as I could, snagging and tripping the gnolls over, giving us an extra few seconds to move and act.
“In here,” Arlo ordered, pointing to a deep hole in the ground. It was so dark now I couldn’t even see his face, yet he was asking me to jump down the hole first without any idea of what was at the bottom, or how deep it even went.
“I can’t.” I trembled, too terrified to do it.
“Trust me,” he said, trying to guide me down.
“You go first,” I argued stubbornly, only for him to forcefully shove me down.
I took the deepest breath I could, sucking up all the courage I had left in me as I fell endlessly. Either the hole was bottomless, or the speed I was falling was being slowed quite favourably but, either way, I dropped further and further down, unable to see anything in the blackness of long descent. Blinding terror wiping away the drowsy effects of the dart. The fear of a hard stone landing compelling me to fight the sleeping paralysis still plaguing my body while I continued to pin drop down.
My feet hit the surface first, falling straight through it, splashing into an ocean of deep fresh water. The column hadn’t widened at all from the small cylindrical walls I first jumped into. They felt sturdy like stone or concrete. After placing both hands onto each side of the wall to gain my bearings, I soon realised I was in an old abandoned well. A safe sight I wished Arlo had informed me of before he’d pushed me off the edge.
I heard the scraping of stone above as Arlo came crashing down after me. I pushed myself as close to the wall as I could, hoping the large bulky man wouldn’t land directly on me. Thankfully, he splashed beside me, sinking deep into the water.
I reached for him, but I couldn’t feel him. After all, without my hands against the wall, I was starting to sink myself. It was only then that I realised my armour was taking in water and weighing me down. I tried ripping at its knots, trying to undo them. But they were soaked, and my efforts were only tightening them more.
Arlo suddenly broke through to the surface, his lightweight half plate chest armour being beneficial after all. He saw me struggling to stay afloat and pulled out a tiny knife to cut at its strings. My armour dropping off me and silently sinking to what I could only assume was the earth’s lowest bedrock. The man then loudly crunched his knife into the wall to better his grip and hang on with just the one hand while we both paddled our feet to stay upright.
“We’re go-ing to die in he-re,” I said to him in a stuttering shiver.
“It’s o-k, we-’ll be o-k,” he gasped in tremor back to me, sounding just as frozen as I was.
I could sense he was terrified too; although his refusal to admit it gave me an odd feeling of comfort. It was reassuring to have someone who was calm and composed when I had all but given up.
The water was close to freezing, and although the night impaired my vision to mere black and white, I could tell by the way his body was shaking that his lips were a numbing blue.
“Gi-g, give me a mo-m-ent. I ne-ed to foc-u-s,” he said, spitting out surface water as he did his best to hang on to my hand with one of his, while his other hand gripped the imbedded knife.
The cold water was cramping my muscles, but it was at least fighting off the sleepiness from the dart. I was relying completely on Arlo’s hand to keep me afloat as I slipped and slid, struggling to hang on to the smooth stone walls with the other.
I looked up to see the gnolls gathered around the top of the well. They started throwing heavy rocks down at us. We were trapped in here, and I was fairly positive this was the end.
There were so many things I wanted to say as last words, but I was too cold to form them. I wanted to thank Arlo for coming back for me, and to ask if he had any regrets in his life. The more I started thinking about my own, the more I wished I hadn’t. I felt warmer as I reflected on all of these silly desires; I could tell my focus was improving and making me stronger. Naturally, I just assumed it was an epiphany that helped rejuvenate my attitude but, in reality, I had begun feeling warmer because Arlo and my situation was actually improving.
That in my own mindless delirium, I had become too distant to notice that my body wasn’t the only thing shaking anymore. The entire well had suddenly started to shake. Frothing and bubbling as it vibrated in increasing warm waves. Through some form of meditative focus, the prince was pressurising the well and beginning to boil the water as a result of all this condensing pressure. The rock and darts halted inches from our heads, floating in the air as the gnolls threw more and more to pile upon it.
Water was splashing into my mouth and face, vaporising to steam as Arlo made it easier for us to float.
“Grab hold of me,” Arlo said as the water grew to an almost burning heat. “Sorry if it hurts,” he added, letting go of the knife and wrapping his bulky arms around my waist as we sunk underwater.
An explosion of pressure had suddenly hit us from underneath. I managed to squint my eyes open, water blasting into my face. We were tumbling through the air, leaves battering us as we broke tree branches and flung towards the pitch black clouds. Arlo had pressurised the well until it had literally shot us out like a cannonball. I had to admit, I was impressed by his ingenuity.
We escaped our deadly situation, passing through eclipsing clouds and exiting the nocturnal darkness, happily returning into the twilight as our ascent began to slow down. Our bodies re-expanded from the condensed curling balls that the pressure had forced us to become. We started waving our arms and floating above the clouds.
Arlo was an arm’s length below me, his armour weighing down his ascent ever so slightly.
Without a doubt, it was the most spectacular sight I’d ever seen: an aeronautical view of the world from above the blanketing clouds. It was beyond beautiful. The elegant tranquil meadows looked like the world’s most colourful and prized painting. Its lakes and valleys appeared almost unrealistic in its authentic dusk colouring while seen from space. I could see Ambarvale Cove with its maple-coloured beach sands and sapphire coloured coral sea. Its waves crashing along the long mountainous coastline that would lead us back to The Capital.
6
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Destiny
It was euphoric: sailing above the world, ascending through the free inviting expanse of the sun-rising sky, escaping from the dangerous earth.
The calming floating feeling soon settled into a stomach-churning free fall as Arlo and I started plummeting out of control back towards the ground.
We had no way of dampening our descent – no way of landing safely. From way up here, even the ocean couldn’t save us from a brutal impact. Arlo realised this shortly after me, and reached relentlessly for my arm, trying not to lose me in the fall. He had the power to push and slow the movement of all things around him almost telekinetically. But not himself. He couldn’t save us from this situation, and he was only just understanding the powerlessness of such limitations.
We finally managed to link arms and wrapped around each other in a combined panic as we spiralled down like two merging meteors bulleting towards the flat dry farmland on the outskirt valleys of Ambarvale. We were falling faster and faster, gaining speed as the greenery began to smudge into one single blur of colour. Delusion was telling me it seemed soft enough, with the aqua blue spurts resembling scattered swamp ponds. I was hoping we’d hit something that might lessen our impact. Unfortunately, that wasn’t what we were falling towards. We were on a collision course with a barn house.
Arlo’s hand slipped from mine and he was suddenly below me, falling with his back to the fast approaching ground. I wasn’t sure if he’d fainted, but I stretched my arms out as far as I could, trying to cling back on to him, but he was falling faster than me for some reason, drifting from my reach. I tried one last time to grab him and screamed his name. But it was no use. All I could do was watch helplessly as he smashed into the farmhouse just before me, crashing through its roof like a knife into butter. Glimpsing a fraction of distance between him and the floorboards before I blinked and all went black.
I awoke completely numb some time later. I didn’t feel any pain, and realised I was remarkably unharmed. I tried to retrace my last memory as I squirmed to get up but instead found my rise came with a very stiff and bumpy unease. And then it hit me like a brick: Arlo had broken my fall. How else could I have survived. Had I squashed my future king?