I'm On My Way (3/16)

Never gonna reach the part I was actually interested in writing about I guess. We'll get there eventually! Enjoying writing something more continuous on consecutive days. While I think the 1,000 word ballpark is making these feel like quasi-chapters (they each end on a button, they're one specific scene) it's not quite the same as writing it all the way through as one. Having fun with it though!

            The next few hours passed in unbroken silence. Avek had slowly slipped his way to the back of the column, as far from Daska as he could manage. He pulled his hood tight around his face, ostensibly against the wind, but it was apparent to all it was to hide how pale his face had become. Shamblers, he swore under his breath, Saints above I’ll never hear the end of this.

The kid struggled to match their pace. They would change seemingly at random. One instant slowing to avoid what lay ahead, the next hurrying to get it over with. He didn’t know what about the word had made his companions so dire, but the pit of cold iron in his gut knew it was not the time for questions. Silence was the objective. Silence would save his life. He understood this without words. Shamblers could scare Daska. Whatever could accomplish that was reason enough to worry.

The sun beat on them, and they kept to the shade of the gulley walls to offer reprieve. The kid’s fears worsened as he realized they were doing it to save their strength. The end of the gulley could be around any of these corners, and they had to be ready as possible. Fire-of-Transendence padded softly behind him, her hands hovering over the dark bone handles of her knives. Her eyes were cold with fear and they churned the gray of a stormfront about to break. She spared the kid a reassuring smile when she could, and the kid almost allowed himself to believe she meant it.

As the rich amber rays of the sun abated to the soft pinks of evening, the territory they tread began to widen. The stone walls of the path no longer pressed so tightly, the stone turrets that rose overhead descended to join the party. They were reaching the mouth of the ravine, and the iron ball in the kid’s gut froze and jolted to his throat.

The stench. He’d never smelled anything like it. The festering stench of death and decay assaulted his nostrils. The iron ball jolted upwards yet again. He doubled over, retching against the odors. Daska had forbidden setting up a cook fire, so their lunch had been a mobile ration of bread-and an apple if they had one.

The paltry meal splattered against the stones of the valley.

Daska’s hand was on the back of the kid’s neck before he could gag again. The grip was unmerciful as stone. The panic alone drove bile back up his throat. The grip did not budge until the kid had nothing left in his stomach to give. His legs trembled, barely able to keep them beneath him. He felt as though Daska was the only thing keeping him aloft. A waterskin entered the tear-blurred edges of his vision. Daska’s voice was soft and precise as an owl’s flight.

“Clean yourself up. They’ll smell it on you,” she whispered, pressing the skin into his hands. “Quickly,”

In an instant the vice on the scruff of his neck was gone. He gasped in a shuddering breath, gravity once again becoming the most powerful force acting upon him. Daska turned and began undoing her swordbelt. Fire stood closeby, laying a hand upon Daska’s shoulder. Another gust of wind brought a new assault on the senses. The kid managed the willpower to keep his gut in check. He raised the waterskin above his chin and poured, cool water mixing with the viscous remnants of his lunch. He swished, blinking tears out of his eyes.

Daska removed her belt, the worn leather hissing against the metal of her cuirass. She turned to FIre-Of-Transcendence and the two locked eyes. Daska brought the belt and scabbard to her chest, the bells ringing in the foul breeze. Without parting her gaze, Fire-of-Transendence wrapped her hand over Daska’s. She squeezed the hand and the sword. Felt the weight of both weapons beneath her grip. Her eyes did not falter. Daska nodded grimly. The warriors had had reached an accord. She leaned forward and lay a soft kiss on Fire’s cheek. The lovers had as well.

Avek’s whisper was like sand in the kid’s ears. “What’re you doing? We might need that sword you know,”

Daska’s eyes shot lances of cold fire through him. “It is not permitted that I should silence my own scabbard. I cannot wield a sword that does not warn death. Fire-of-Transendence will take it,”. Fire kneeled on the ground, producing a strip of thick fabric from her pack. She wove it between the bells with the grace of a spider. Her work completed, she muttered a prayer in a tongue that wasn’t her own. She tucked the scabbard into her pack. 

Avek’s look was of untold despair, but he knew better than to argue. Butchers were notoriously stubborn but this woman truly exceeded the expectation. He dug his hand into a pocket of his coat, producing a cord of rope thick with Panoplist relics and fetishes. He muttered as he lifted the cord to his lips, kissing each ornament in turn. The prayers he offered were general. The specific Saints he appealed to were irrelevant. His left hand bounced nervously on the oiled leather grip of his knife.

“Do you have anything for Saint Hypatia?”

Avek turned his gaze to the kid, his sallow skin nearly as green as Avek’s. Amber eyes narrowed.

“Excuse me?”

The kid rinsed his mouth again and spat into the dirt beneath his boots. He straightened and turned to Avek. “Saint Hypatia. She’s the patron Saint of the city I was born in, the Saint of-”
“Of Cliff’s Edge, I know her,” he glanced down to his cord, flicking through the assorted finger bones and carved figurines. After a moment he nodded, seeming satisfied. He extended his arm to the kid, offering one of the talismans. It was a tarnished silver ram, almost all detail worn away from age. Avek offered a sympathetic glance and shrugged. “It’s the sign of Saint Cathal, he’s a little further up the coast from Cliff’s Edge but it should be close enough,”

The kid closed his eyes and leaned forward, laying the talisman between his eyebrows. The cool metal clung to clammy skin. Another breeze whipped at the tails of his shirt, though the foulness seemed lessened somehow. He opened his eyes, craning his neck to touch his lips to the silver pendant.

Avek ripped it back the moment his lips brushed the metal. “Saints kid don’t you have any respect? After spilling your lunch over the ground you think a couple mouthfuls of water are enough to purify you?” he jammed the cord back into his pocket, scowling at the kid, still frozen in a supplicated hunch. The kid met Avek’s eyes, and saw something else besides the scorn of the previous days or the fear of the last few hours. With another blink and scowl, Avek returned to the comportment the kid had become accustomed to. The scornful eyes traced their way to the mouth of the ravine, and whatever lay beyond.