by Scott Beith
Strangely so, even upon the sight of future forest and life, Milena was still yet to show her face or make a statement to her army. Instead, she always stayed at the back of the pack, keeping far away from any and all social interaction. I hadn’t said a single word to her since our conversation back in her husband’s study, where we’d plotted what to do about Midas and the crystal.
She was being unusually distant with everyone, choosing to trot on top of a medium-sized battle spider as she silently and cautiously looked on from afar, never saying a word about any of the orders her son and his Vanguard regiment were giving the rest of the convoy. Perhaps it was a test of leadership and character for him in her eyes, or perhaps it was just her being cautious, choosing to stay somewhere where she could oversee everything from the greatest vantage point one could find.
Regardless of her intentions, however, for the first time in history, our queen was out of her nest – far away from her dominion. She had left her husband, Delphi and Ebony to run the city in her stead, as with such temporary separation of authority and control, it appeared that alienation was affecting her in a seemingly toxic kind of way.
Reluctantly so, she had to divided our army into two disproportionate halves when she had had to make the courageous decision to come to the Caverns, deciding to leave all the slower bulky soldiers behind to safeguard the Capital. While she’d drafted the swiftest and most agile to come with her upon the dangerous dash to save her son and the huge diamond cortex crystal that was needed for the restoration of the collapsing Sunspire.
Every time I looked backwards, trying to spot her somewhere out in that distance, she was always somewhere on the edge of the sidelines, patrolling frantically about as if she was lost without the burden of government, dwelling in general isolation while the rest of us seemed to move on with or without her.
As for Akoni’s brave mother, Camilla was completely bedridden, travelling in the large ostentatious medical carriage tugged by four spiders at the very front of the convoy. The queen had very few of her friends to accompany her, possibly afraid of a mutiny as a result and therefore choosing to keep to herself because of it, trusting only Zephyr to rally important information from the centre convoy and back up towards her.
One thing I did find quite profound about her, though, was that she kept a very close eye on the prisoner caravan in the dead middle of the convoy, not an ounce of leniency being extended to Midas or his most loyal associates as they remained caged inside a thickly-covered iron framed transport caravan. The former king was completely oppressed from receiving any of the day’s natural sunlight. Perhaps just as afraid that if she was to give him the slightest opportunity to go outdoors, that he might be able to make another miraculous escape like he did back in Ambervale, not so many days ago.
I had many questions I would have liked to ask her about her uptake on everything still unexplained. But those thoughts ended as soon as we travelled further into the woods, and I had to keep my wits about me due to the rejuvenation of the upcoming forest and potential wildlife around me.
Earth, water and air were all intermingling before my eyes once again, as plant shrubbery revived in between two ridged valleys that converged around us like a runway path leading into our forest borders. Sweet mountain dew moisture filled the air as a whole new diversity of cool and shady plant life inclined along with it, air constantly becoming thicker and denser as we plunged deeper and deeper into fresh-smelling clouds of mid-morning jungle mist. Our breaths being shortened while our vision continuously clouded because of one all-consuming fog that rapidly increased and decreased, depending where exactly we were and how far away we stepped from the low level descent of our one large mountain walkway path.
It was only there and then that the soldiers behind us began to rejoice, humbled by the aerial sight of humongous hawking moths fluttering above us in the skies, serving as protective dragons that kept us safe from the more carnivorous flying gnats that were abundant across the lusher green land we had come back into. Our path safe so long as we followed below these ginormous winged creatures as they moved from the left mountain ridge to the right, scouting out possible sources of nectar to feed upon.
Unlike most colossal-sized animals we would generally tend to avoid at all costs, sighting these moths was a sign of good fortune and hope, seeing as their presence often signified nearby water sources and swamp-based vegetables that had pretty much become a staple in modern day nymph society.
It would have been nice to explore the sidelines and find a food source to help revitalize the soldiers, but upon signalled orders from behind us, Anara and I had no choice but to ignore looking for any potential waterholes, and instead allow nourishment to come from only the empty fumes of dew we inhaled while we pushed onwards. Burdened to supress our own rumbling stomachs in order to weave and work our way through overgrown ferns and bushes impeding our way. The two of us eventually re-converging with the front line beta soldiers as together we all took axes and arduously begun cutting our way through those bushes, attempting to widen the overgrown track so that the wagons could be rolled through without incident.
When the canopy was at its thickest, the darkness of combined mist and jungle shade was strong, and as a result, everyone was relying on Anara and her keen senses of sound to determine what was most straight and forward. The dense mist was revealing nothing to the rest of us, and yet more to her than unhindered sight would have done for her alone. It was almost as if she had two invisible moth antennas she grew in our travel time, as she and her sixth sense helped take us directly towards the long and brittle wooden rope bridge we had been hunting for since first entered the forest, under its two slowly converging canyon valley ridges.
We waited a while to allow the others to all arrive at the cliff’s magnificent drop off point, her and I were first to inspect the creaky old bridge before any of the others could come over and see it and frown. With much anxiety, Anara and I decided we would go first, hoping to test the flexing wood struts of the bridge’s rotten roped up plank panels before others got in our heads over how terrible of an idea it might be.
So keeping our hands on the rope that acted as a handrail across the bridge, Anara and I carefully made our way across. We were at least halfway across the swaying platform before gaining enough confidence in its sturdiness to wave the rest of the convoy onto the bridge. We looked down in astonishment while we waited, having been too preoccupied by the danger of falling to even notice how amazing the view was of the low rising forest gorge below us.
Soldiers questioned the bridge’s integrity before they and their ludicrous loads of treasure sleds decided to cross over it. Without having to be told, each spider waited patiently in line with its owner, only to cross the bridge one member at a time. Cleverly and instinctively, many of the spiders were silking the struts of the path back together as they went, trying to reinforce each plank to make the crossing safer for the next person to come across.
Anara and I continued to stand halfway across the bridge, taking in the amazing views. It was crazy to see just how different things looked between The Badlands and The Borderlands – they appeared to be two completely different worlds when you looked back up and over towards the large arid red ridge canyons of more ancient lands. Only to turn forward and see life suddenly exploding with the envious green of forest gullies, followed by a beach and one long great plateau of grassy hillside towns like Treadfall – the place where Zephyr came from.
I Looked out towards the large uncultivated windy hillside heath, where I believed Treadfall to be somewhere nearby, I wondered if it was a place Zephyr was hoping to see one more time before our passing. There was also the possibility that he would leave us to go home and stay with his brethren, now that the war and his conscription was over.
In a way, we were all home again, reentering into the furthest reaches of the Sunspire’s dim light radius, back into a place well known for its variety of long-legged jumping critters – locust swarms and
hideous gnats of which Zephyr and his old archery tribe were fabled to tame and ride.
As being up above most trees, I really did hope to see some of his old battalion mounting their field-hopping battle beetles as they swooped through the sky, patrolling our mountainside borders. Although when the first of the convoy got closer to the middle, I was also just as eager to abandon those thoughts and get off the bridge, looking forward to Camilla’s first gateway stone, down on the beach ahead, which would transport us all back home.
Taking it all in, we had finally made the dramatic transition back to life from death, as we left the fog and old wooden bridge behind and began travelling down a thin rocky coastal mountain track towards the first enclosed beach and its ocean, walking under vines and branches of a suddenly tropical environment. Our senses were swamped by the lush green prickly beach shrubs we stepped over as we crossed onto the beach of washed-up seaweed, which was continuously deposited by the shoreline.
Dominated by tiny rapids and many little inlet ravines further down, nearer to the cliff’s huge deposit of loose beach rock, we entered into the first cove of Southshore: a tranquil beach setting Anara and I sat down by, taking off our boots and planting our feet in the sand as we waited for the others to come down the long beach track. The two of us both silently taken aback by the quiet serenity of the ocean-blue embankments and teal-coloured rock pools by the cliffs rocky ocean side edges. The sea smell of pollen mixed with salt water and sand refreshing to all who arrived after us.
Upon entrance, no one seemed to care that the beach was a place of crime and treachery, renowned for its swindlers and smugglers, who notoriously used this land for transport of foreign cargo into and out of The Borderlands.
The desert had nearly defeated the soldiers, and all they cared about was the giant gateway stone stumped in the middle of the soft sandy beach, looking almost like an idol in need of their worship. It received exactly that once the soldiers took to the sweet surrender of the sands and dropped down before it, one young dirty grunt soldier even kissing the rough marble stone as he wrapped his arms around it.
23
Southshore
Given a little time for the majority to arrive, the air had felt much more tense than how it looked, considering the whole beautiful midafternoon beach setting we sat amidst. Akoni and I were seated together down by the fence posts of the track between the field and sands, while our bubbly princess played with her new metal pet, throwing a tiny bronze wheel for it between the beach and coast. Thirty or so grizzly front line soldiers joined us, sitting or standing nearby, peering anxiously towards their queen as she made her way towards the stone, the lot of them nervously awaiting confirmation that they could take the quick way back home.
Milena talked quietly with Doctor Maxwell beside that large and narrow marble gateway stone, clearly deliberating whether or not Camilla would be able enough to operate and sustain the portal to deliver us all instantaneously back to the Capital’s training pits where another adjacent gateway stones resides.
It had been more than a painstaking endeavour for those everyday foot soldiers around us, as it was more than just an ordinary march this time – they were all exhausted and dehydrated, and simply wanted to leave as soon as possible. But given the looks and frowns of concern radiating from the queen and doctor, I think they were all starting to realise the inevitability of what was to come: another solid day of marching to reach the Capital by foot.
I watched my queen while she waved and fluttered her hands across the dark marble stone, and its smooth grooved incantations, mid-conversation, and then gestured some form of reference to Camilla’s gold ankle restraint that was bound across her leg like some form of binding weighted shackle. Camilla was still locked away in the medical carriage, which was stationed at the forefront of the other wagons, by the ravine and short initial grass clearing entrance that we had all come in from before our arrival upon this flat secluded shoreline.
It was too disheartening for anyone else but myself to continue watching them talk, for I think in all the soldiers’ hearts they already knew the answer, but wanted to believe that perhaps something might miraculously change if they turned a blind eye to the conversation happening between the queen and the doctor.
Clearly the Legion Commander had not improved very much since her stay in the medical carriage. The melted handprint grip imprinted across the width skin were not going to simply fall off when the old surrounding surface skin was to shed – they were indeed locked upon her as constricting as a steel vice. A prolonged consequence of such swelling and agony made her too much of a liability to power up a device that could potentially portal us into the bottom of the ocean or the empty oblivion of space, should she lack the mental aptitude to use it appropriately.
“Hey, Akoni,” I said to my quiet friend as he sat in the sand just to the right of me.
“Yeah?” he responded absentmindedly, fiddling with his own removable electric metal wrist bracer and its inner web-like circuitry.
“What are you working on?” I asked, intrigued, watching him make, what looked like, some fairly major upgrades to his wrist bracer. He was ripping out its raw components and essential silver wiring, removing things in aggressive and careless segments, only to then add tiny little droplets of seawater from a tiny pipette straw-like instrument he had in his backpack. A long delay pursuing from once I asked, as he remained in great concentration while renovating his old technology with some newer more exotic type of wireless technology it would seem to appear.
“Huh? I’m sorry, what did you say?” Akoni eventually replied back, half a minute later, once I had already trailed off and started watching his new pet ‘Puppey’ roll on its back and then shake away the sand in a tail-wagging playtime.
“Never mind,” I said, thinking it would be potentially disastrous to distract him with conversation. Instead choosing to silently watch him while he replaced metal brackets and wires with clay fixings – obviously working to invent some new form of electro-aquatic system that was free of cords, some three-dimensional circuitry upgrade he had been inspired to attempt upon the success of his recent toy-pet protector project ‘Puppey’. The resurrection of a hell-hound-ish beast that was currently frolicking around his young hometown sweetheart.
Once given the freedom of choice and consequence, Puppey was an overly affectionate four-legged predator – a raptor that could find joy in anything as it searched and sniffed the sands in search for precious gold to consume, much like how it was originally developed to do. However, this time, any treasure it found it was going to eat in order to fuel and power its new self-sustaining flaming purple robotic heart.
Puppey was harmlessly sniffing and digging in the sand, excited by its first time being at the beach. Anara called to it over and over, trying to commandeer its attention towards herself, seeing as it had freewill and did not strictly have to follow commands anymore.
I had to admit that made me pretty nervous at times, with my panic having to be kept low-key each time it ran up beside me to munch on the silver wiring Akoni fed it. My greatest concern being what new mad science experiment was going to surpass this converted predator while he continued to tinker with his wrist device and draw and calculate his maths with a stick in the sand, working off some revolutionary paper schematics he must have simply dreamed about overnight and written down on the march to reach the beach.
“Akoni, say it’s all over…” I said to him as I sorely readjusted my back against the hard-wooden post we shared back support against. “And say there’s no more civil terror. Why is it still so important for us to fix the Sunspire?” I rather boldly stated, shocking him enough that he looked up from his work to stare at me.
“You really want to be asking that kind of question so close to the queen?” he responded, gazing towards Milena, who was currently discussing with her son and the other high-ranking soldiers what the best route back home would be.
“No, I’m serious. The gnolls were by far
the worst predators in the night,” I responded, determined that at least one person should dare question the decision to repair the Sunspire – although also knowing that Milena was far enough away not to hear.
“Well, I guess it’s more for prosperity than anything else,” he mused. “You know, in case the famine ever comes back,” he elaborated. “Why? What are you wondering about?” he then asked, intrigued, no doubt trying to figure out if my motives were self-righteous or self-indulgent, and whether I was going to preach something about his father that others wouldn’t dare say aloud.
“I was just wondering its necessity is all. I know the nocturnal predators are terrifying and dangerous, but our roads are very well protected now. Why are we in such a rush to deactivate the old crystal and reinstall the new one when we could just wait to see if the herbivore to carnivore ratio declines before jumping to the conclusion that the famine will return?” I ranted, hoping I wasn’t offending him too much, considering he had spent much of his life trying to fix the faltering spire.
“Well, yeah, perhaps we could go without it temporarily – go back to seeing the moon and stars again. But we have the crystal now, why not just use it to improve our livelihoods?” he replied, somewhat defensively.
“But what if it came at a cost?” I bantered.
“What? What cost?” he immediately bantered back.
“I don’t know… a cost – some unknown cost,” I spieled out, finally getting to the point of my argument, the words of his delusional father stuck echoing in my head.
I began to feel a small discord growing between us, based primarily upon Akoni’s silent stare towards me, realising I definitely had hit a sore spot this time, considering I was belittling his life’s work while also speculating about the chance that he and his mother had abandoned his father on a false assumption that he was crazy.