"We should make camp. There's not much daylight left at all."
Flouce wasn't fooled by the gruff tone Puget used. Her shrew companion, however tough he might try to sound, was absolutely mortified at the idea of traveling in the dark without the rest of the Guosim with him.
The ottermaid laughed and ruffled the fur beneath Puget's bandana, playfully chiding him. "Aw! Poor baby! Don't tell me that yer already ready to go to bed?"
The far shorter beast grumbled in discontentment, slapping at Flounce's paws then fixing his bandana. "No! I'm just saying that it would be better if we wait for morning before we go on! It's safer!"
"Oh-ho! I think it's more likely that my little matey is just scared o' the dark!" Flounce wasn't willing to give up on her teasing so soon. Riling up Puget was just too much fun!
"I ain't scared of anything you… you… water whalloper! All that I'm doing is being practical!"
By now Flounce could see that Puget was starting to turn red under his fur, half with embarrassment and half with anger, displaying the typical bad temperament that shrews were so well known for. All Flounce had to do was keep grinning that impudent, ottery grin of hers and the shrew took the bait like a starving fish.
"Fine! We'll keep going then!" ranted the shrew. "But don't blame me when you trip over a branch in the dark and fall on top of a vermin band of robbers!"
Whump! Flounce jovially pounded Puget on the back, almost sending the smaller beast to the ground in a heap.
"Haharr! That's more like it, little matey! We'll keep going til there's nothin' but either water or worn-down stumps below our waists!" said Flounce, her excitement at the prospects of being back in the water obvious as she skipped down the road.
Puget grumbled behind her, starting to realize that he'd played right into her paws. He made no attempt to keep up with Flounce, dragging his footpaws with obstinate slowness and forcing her to make frequent stops to let him catch up. Puget couldn't help but smirk whenever he did catch up and found her so impatient to get going again that she was more or less jigging in place. It was almost cathartic to the shrew the way it was taking his friend so long to figure out just what was going on and reduce her pace to meet with Puget's funeral march.
"So," grumbled Flounce. "I don't suppose ye'd like to tell me why we're trudgin' on at a yard per season?"
Puget just shrugged and replied, "I thought we were setting just fine a pace, comrade. Besides, I need to check the map every now and then, and it's starting to get too hard to do that."
"Barnacles!" blurted Flounce. "Yer just slow!"
Another noncommittal shrug from Puget.
"Gimme that!"
Flounce took a swipe at the rolled-up map Puget clutched in his grasp, taking him by surprise and ripping the map from his paws before he even knew what was happening. The tiny scrap that he still had in his paw fluttered to the ground, abandoned so that Puget could leap towards his companion and try to retrieve the main prize.
With Puget jumping and grabbing at the map and Flounce making use of her considerable height to keep it just out of his reach, the two cut a comical sight. For all the world they looked like a pair of overgrown cubs fighting over the last cookie, though Puget's colorful language would likely have gotten him a bar of soap in the muzzle or a ladle across the tail were he still a young beast. Flounce, meanwhile, was laughing hard enough that she was left gasping for air when Puget finally realized how ridiculous they must look and stopped his feeble attempts to counter the height advantage of his otter friend. With sheepish self-consciousness, Puget backed away and shoved his paws into his pockets, ladling a sizable spoonful of sour grapes onto the situation.
"Hmph! Go on and take it then! We'll be lucky if you can even read the thing. In fact, you'll probably set a course so deep into the woods that we'll get lost and die! Won't you be sorry then, Miss Rudderbottom?"
"That's the spirit, matey!" Flounce's spirits were undampened by the pessimism her friend seemed to wallow in, and she gave him another hearty thump on the back that made him lurch forwards a few steps, sending him into a strange little dance so that he didn't stumble and plant his nose straight into the ground.
When Puget finally regained his balance, he found Flounce looking at the map with an expression of mild bewilderment on her muzzle and –oh, for Log-a-Log's sake!- holding the map upside down. Flounce may not have been the cleverest otter in the world, but this was really just too much! At this rate she really would march them straight off a cliff or into a snake pit.
Puget was just about to upbraid his companion, but before the first quarrelsome word could slip out of his muzzle, Flounce burst out with, "Puget, the rotten map's all wrong!"
Stunned enough at the assertion that Puget quite forgot that he was trying to be belligerent, the shrew asked. "Wrong? What's wrong with it? Ole Gusso's been making maps for the Guosim since time began."
When the joke about Gusso's venerable age soared over Flounce's head, Puget added, "Besides, everything's been right so far."
"Aye aye, but now it's not. Look!"
Flounce shoved the map in her friend's face til Puget could very well have turned it into a handkerchief with a single snuffle. After throwing up his paws to battle the paper away to a more reasonable distance, Puget could see that Flounce was tracing a path with a stubby claw.
"See the out of the way, snaky path?"
"Aye…" grumbled Puget. "That's the one we're walking on right now."
"Well look over here!" the claw traced along the path and stopped midway up.
Puget squinted in the dimming light to try and make out the drawing and, furthermore, what seemed to be such a bother to Flounce. In the end though, he couldn't see it. To him, she was just pointing out a regular old junction in the road.
"Not seeing it. What's bothering you about that other road?"
Flounce let out a frustrated grunt, rolling her eyes at the obtuseness of her friend. "Well just take a look at the road. Matey, if you can find that other path, then ye've got a sharper set o' peepers than me!"
Sure enough, Flounce was right. Puget stared down the road with a surly squint, but he couldn't see any opening in the treeline where a new path would start. The dirt path just wiggled on into the distance, and for a moment Puget thought that the junction might have just been hidden by the trees the path curved around. But no. As Puget and Flounce carried on, they could see plain as day that the path was bereft of a companion.
"Fancy ole Gusso getting something like that wrong!" mused Puget to no one in particular. "That shrew always knew the roads of Mossflower like the back of his paw! Useless for waterways… but paths? He knew everything!"
"Bit queer a skill for a shrew, isn't it?" asked Flounce, picking up on the mutterings.
"I suppose," replied Puget with a shrug. "Maybe in his old age he's losing even that; starting to misplace roads and sticking them where they don't belong."
Flounce chortled heartily, finding the idea that a beast could misplace an entire road to be nothing short of hilarious. Puget, on the other paw, just found it annoying and worrisome. After all, what if part of the map were so wrong that they got all mixed up and lost? Then Puget could kiss the Guosim and Flounce kiss her hold a sad goodbye!
Such a thing never crossed Flounce's mind however, and so she continued to trot up and down the same stretch of road at a jaunty pace, looking for the path that wasn't there and considering the whole affair to be a harmless mystery. It was because of Puget's sulking that he missed what Flounce didn't. After all, how much could a beast see if he did nothing but fold his arms and stare at his footpaws?
Puget nearly leapt half his height when Flounce blurted out only a foot or so away from his ear, "Found the missin' road!"
Puget looked about with one upraised eyebrow and a finger digging in his ringing ear. "I'm not seeing it. Nothing but treeline 'til the turn."
Quite cheery, Flounce gave Puget a friendly jostle and jeered at him, "Short an' blind? My my! Hasn't life got it out for ye!"
A withering glare set Flounce explaining rather than teasing. She pointed at a clump of foliage. "See that? Look past the treeline an' the fallen stump an' there you go, matey! The road wasn't lost, just hidin'!"
This time, Puget couldn't help but be impressed rather than annoyed with Flounce, and the shrew put his paws on his hips in bewilderment. "Huh, fancy that! Guess I owe Gusso an apology," said Puget. He pointed at the obscuring trees and bushes. "Look at how young the plants are. Hasn't been many seasons since somebeast blocked it off with those logs and mussed up the dirt."
"Why do you think they did that then?" asked Flounce.
Puget was just as puzzled. "Hasn't the foggiest idea."
The pair stood there for a moment contemplating the reasons somebeast would block off a perfectly serviceable road, but there were no answers to be found. However, Flounce soon grew bored with the mystery and gave Puget a nudge forwards. Why think when a beast could do?
"Well, let's go take a look then! Nothin' much to be found just stanin' about thinkin'."
Puget's mouth hung open. The otter must have a sixth sense based in making him unhappy, because he'd just started to utter the first syllable of the suggestion that they make camp right there next to the unsolved mystery. They'd discovered a road that somebeast closed for some unfathomable reason, yet that wasn't exciting enough to close out the night with? Flounce actually wanted to walk down it? At night? Utter madness!
The shrew put his footpaw down. He folded his paws across his chest, turned up his snoot, and closed his eyes. He spoke a single, resolute word, "No!"
Flounce was befuddled by her friend's lack of curiosity. "No? What do ye mean no?"
"I mean no. I'm not interested in going down that road. Somebeast blocked it off and they've probably got a very good reason why. I don't see any reason why we should bother," explained Puget.
The ottermaid frowned, a sour and sulky look. She was curious as to why the path was so intentionally obscured, and to her, the whole affair was the possible start of a new adventure. And now her obstinate friend was going to ruin everything!
"But don't ye want to know what lies down that road? I mean, yer right that somebeast blocked it off, an' we could be the ones to find out why!"
"No, no I'm not curious! Not one little bit! And if you were a beast with half a lick of sense, you wouldn't be either." The shrew scrunched up his shoulders and sat down on the ground. Like most of his kind, when they were feeling quarrelsome, there was nothing in all the world that would cause them to move until they changed their mind.
But Flounce was a remarkably stubborn beast too, and when there was something she had her mind on, she knew that there was always some way to get beasts to do what she wanted. The light was getting dimmer, and Flounce strained her eyes to be able to see in what little light was left. A moment of study, and she found precisely what she wanted to see.
Not giving Puget a chance to ignore her or drown her out, Flounce thrust the map into his face once more, jabbing a stubby little claw at the hidden road and dragging it over the length as she talked.
"Look Puget! The road goes straight towards the River Moss! IF we follow it, we can cut hours o' travel off our time. We could just follow the river an' find the offshoot the Guosim need. Ye'd be back home out o' the dark before ye knew it."
Flounce could tell by the perking of Puget's eyebrow that he was hooked like a fat pike, and that despite the stubborn look on his face, he was all too ready to give in and rejoin the rest of the Guosim. However much he might want to argue, the map's proof was incontrovertible, and if he pushed more, then all he would get is a sour victory. Telling Flounce off wasn't worth having to spend even longer away from the rest of the Guosim.
Puget relented. "Have it your own way then, you water whalloper. We'll go down your abandoned road."
"Haharr!" crowed Flounce, spinning about and then clasping her paws in joy at her victory. "Ye won't regret it, matey! We'll find that waterway yet an' get an adventure out o' the deal!"
Puget was less enthusiastic, muttering darkly as he followed Flounce through the brush and over the rotting trunks. There would be no adventure for him, as he was too busy considering the entire event an exercise in futility, fatigue, danger, and irritation. The path to the hidden road was very well obfuscated, hidden at first by the brush and fallen logs, but then giving way to grass, the forest slowly creeping up the road to regain its lost land. But beyond that short walk, the road was much like any other, at least in its initial appearance.
How the road felt, on the other paw, was quite different. Both beasts felt it, but neither bothered to say anything about it to each other, dismissing the way this path seemed to be darker than others to be little more than their imaginations, or at most the darkening of the sky as the sun set ever lower. The fur on the napes of their necks prickled as their instincts picked up on a certain wrongness that their rational minds were incapable of.
Unconsciously as Puget walked, he began to wring his paws with worry, his head turning this way and that, peering through the trees which seemed to no longer merely stand by the side of the road, but instead loomed overhead as though they were attempted to menace the two traveling beasts into cowering submission.
Even Flounce settled into a stony silence for long stretches of the walk, the normally exuberant otter turning gloomy and subdued, losing her vibrancy to the somber path. Every now and then she would speak, but her tone was hollow, as though she were a bell that, one bright and jangling, was now being squeezed by a strong paw.
"Some road, eh?" she ventured, her voice suddenly sounding very out of place on the lonesome road. "I'm startin' to think it was closed off just because o' how creepy it is."
Puget just nodded; it was as good an explanation as any. The one thing he didn't have to worry about was a surprise vermin attack. Not even a crew of the most hardened, bloodthirsty bandits would want to use this place as either home or hunting ground!
Puget complained, while rubbing his arms down, "It's getting kind of cold…"
"It's always colder at night, Puget," countered Flounce.
"In the middle of summer?" snapped the shrew. "For Mossflower's sake! It feels like it's getting into a second winter!"
Flounce just muttered something about whining then fell silent. It was indisputable. The air down the road was quite chilly, far more so than it should be for that season.
Another yawning chasm of silence spread as the two of them trudged down the road. The overgrown entrance had long since faded into the darkness behind them, and the considerable remaining length of road ahead did likewise. It made the pair feel as though there was neither beginning nor end to the path, and that it would continue ahead of them for as long as their footpaws remained in motion.
Just as Puget was beginning to long for the chatter of the ottermaid, even if she was babbling to poke fun at him, Flounce stopped in her tracks and perked up her ears.
Puget's heart leapt into his throat, and he was shocked just how frightened he was. Not just nervous, frightened. "What's wrong, Flounce?"
"Did ye hear that?" she asked.
"Hear what?"
"I thought I heart somethin', like a beast cryin'."
"Out here? No, that can't have been it. You probably just heart a bird with a strange voice. You know birds, always chattering." Despite his assurances, Puget shivered, even though he wasn't certain as to why.
"Yer probably right, matey… just a bird," said Flounce, giving a nervous laugh that died before it could even truly start.
Further and further they walked, though they began to slow their pace, dragging their footpaws. As they walked, the chill in the air couldn't be denied by even the must surly of skeptics. Now it was cold enough that both beasts crossed their arms across their chests and succumbed to shivering. The sensation wasn't even worth comment. All that Flounce and Puget had to do was glance at each other and they knew that they were both feeling the same chill.
Not long after, Flounce spoke up again, a nervous edge to her voice. "I-I hear it again. It's definitely cryin', Puget. On me affidavit, I know I'm right."
Through chattering teeth, Puget answered, "No, I know you are… I hear it too."
While they were talking, the pair again stopped walking, standing there in the middle of the road as if stricken dumb and senseless.
"We… we should go help. It sounds like a malebeast's voice. He could be lost or hurt," ventured Flounce.
As usual, Puget was more cautious. "What if it's a trap? I don't like it one bit. We should just turn around and go back the way we came. Maybe we could come back later with more of the Guosim…"
"We can't just abandon somebeast who's in trouble; ain't woodlanderly. Come on, Puget, think, would you want to be alone an' lost out on this road, matey?"
"No… no I wouldn't."
The two started hiking down the path once more with no further discussion, moving ever closer towards the sound of the crying.
Not only was it getting colder the further the pair walked down the path, but the darkness was growing deeper, a black shroud that was enclosing upon Flounce and Puget. Were they in any fit state of mind to look skyward, they would have seen that there was not a single star in the sky, that the mood was absent, and that the sun had yet to descend entirely below the lip of the earth. Yet the darkness that engulfed the pair was so deep that it would convince anyone that it was edging towards midnight during a day of aggressive clouds.
The chirps and whistles of night insects were absent as well, nothing making a noise to break the funereal silence of the road aside from the crying, which grew steadily louder as Puget and Flounce neared the source. Fog settled in, thick and choking, preventing them from being able to see just how far away the weeping beast lay. Despite this, Puget and Flounce were drawing close enough for the crying to take shape into actual words.
In a mournful lamentation, the voice kept calling out, "Where're they? I can't find 'em! It's dark! It's dark! Help me find 'em!"
Again Puget and Flounce paused. Something about the voice wasn't quite right. It bore a strange sound to it, as though it were echoing upwards from the bottom of a well. Neither Flounce nor Puget wanted to continue towards it, and for a moment they stood shivering in the unnaturally chilly air, listening to the beast repeat his lament over and over in an endless plea.
Flounce began to walk forwards one more, shuffling off into the fog as her curiosity got the better of her once more. Puget was left standing there alone as he became embroiled in the struggle between the desire to flee or the duty he had to his friend. In an uneasy trot, Puget ran after the otter through the dense fog, his heart thudding in his chest as he realized just how forlorn the road really was when one didn't have a companion to walk with. When Flounce materialized out of the dense, miasmic fog, Puget heaved a sigh of relief and sidled up next to her, nearly standing on her footpaws.
Rather than letting the shrew ask her why she was standing stock-still, Flounce instead lifted a paw and pointed. "Look!"
Half hidden by the dense fog stood a burnt up wagon, twisted and blackened to the point of being little more than a skeleton. It was a foreboding sight to find on such a lonesome and gloomy road, and just staring at it made a lump form in the pit of Puget's stomach.
"I want to go back. I don't think we should be here!" said Puget, giving Flounce's cloak a firm tug.
The ottermaid was about to wave him off when the pair went rigid, save for the uncontrollable shiver that moved down both their spines.
Echoing down the road, not too far from where the pair stood, came a sharp yelp of a cry, a pained squall from some poor soul in torment. Three more followed the first, each scream just as sharp and frightening as the last. The cries were of such melancholy suffering that they made Puget and Flounce doubt that they came from any beast of this earth. Afterwards there was a brief moment of chilling silence, then the weeping started anew.
"Where are you going?" hissed Puget as Flounce began to creep forwards.
She looked over her shoulder, answering in the same hushed voice that Puget used, "Whoever it is must be in real trouble. Would you really want to abandon somebeast makin' that sort o' row?"
The air around them was so tense and cloyed so close that they felt as though speaking in anything but a whimper would cause the world around them to shatter like a pane of glass a naughty dibbun lobbed a rock through. Even Puget's footfalls as he reluctantly followed behind Flounce sounded too loud to his ears, as though they were out of place on the abandoned road. More and more he was starting to think that the only noise that should ever be on that road was the incessant crying of the unseen beast. Nothing else fit.
More husks of wagons loomed alongside them as Puget and Flounce stalked forwards on sheepish footpaws. More than just a handful of beasts must have come to some horrible end; that many wagons did not catch fire by accident. Yet they all looked so ancient, as though they'd been set ablaze many years ago and left to crumble.
Puget was so engrossed in staring at the wagons that it was only a sharp intake of breath from Flounce that signaled for him to stop. It was then that he realized that the weeping was close. Damn close. And all it took was a glance forwards to finally see the source of all the noise. After the pair being alone for so long, seeing another living beast on the road was outright unsettling. Still, there was some comfort to be had in the knowledge that the source of all the noise wasn't some manner of hideous monster, only somebeast who was lost or perhaps wounded.
Yet at first it was hard to make out exactly what the beast was. He seemed to be hazy and hard to see, as though he were only half there, but this was almost certainly just a trick of the fog, making something mundane frightening. After a bit of staring, the shape of the beast became more apparent. Whoever he was, he was hunched over on his knees, muzzle nearly touching the ground and eyes covered by his paws, crouched in a miserable little ball of suffering. A plume of a tail lay flat upon the road, and judging by that as well as the pointed ears that lay pinned back against the beast's skull indicated that the beast was a fox. That, however, caused less alarm than it normally would have, as the entire scene simply felt too strange and surreal for such a petty issue as species to be the main reason to be afraid.
Whoever this fox was, he failed to notice either Flounce or Puget, and continued to sob and lament as he had for what felt to the pair of woodlanders like ages.
"Where're they? I can't find 'em! It's too dark t'find 'em! So dark! So painful! It hurts so damn bad!"
In a voice that she struggled to keep above a mutter, Flounce called out, "Ahoy! Are ye okay? Is there anythin' we can do to help?"
At first word, the fox's ears snapped upwards, and with a violent twist he looked up, straight at Puget and Flounce. No… not at them, beyond them, as if he couldn't see either of them.
At that moment, absolutely everything went wrong, and the world around them grew considerably less natural as the pair beheld the… thing in front of them!
The fox had no eyes, but where they were meant to be weren't merely empty sockets! Unnatural points of light shone in the empty sockets, beaming out in a spectral blue that Puget and Flounce could see wasn't a trick of the fog. The fox's entire body bore a lesser glow that matched those eyes, and they could see as he slowly dragged himself to his footpaws that he was transparent. From a ragged hole of cut cloth and split flesh spilled spectral viscera, a ropey organ dragging under his footpaws and trailing behind him. Yet there was no tripping, for there was no walking. The fox floated a few inches off the ground and didn't move his footpaws to proceed forwards.
As he floated towards the pair of woodlanders, flesh and fur seemed to fade off of him, leaving bare bone and a few scraps of leathern sinew and musty fur in its place. The fox's head was stripped nearly bare, a few ragged scraps that may once have been ears fixed to the bone of his skull. Behind him trailed a tattered rag of a tail, the once plush plume reduced to a threadbare support for moldering patches of fur. Yet the viscera still trailed behind, fresh as the day of his death!
With the questing motion of a blind beast, a boney paw extended, and from the lipless mouth which should be eternally bereft of speech came a horrifying, eager question. "Is that ye? Are ye there? Take my paw, please! Lead me! I can't find my way!"
Despite the begging, the spirit –no, the wraith!- in front of them was scaring Flounce and Puget out of their wits. But as Flounce managed to reel back in horror as the wraith advanced upon them, Puget remained stock-still, frozen in abject terror. He was rooted to the spot, eyes wide and watching as skeletal fingers reached out towards him, seeking him.
"I hear ye… it must be ye!" moaned the wraith. "The Dark Forest… Hellgates… anywhere! Jus' take me anywhere away from the dark! Make the pain stop!"
Flounce wanted to call for Puget, to grab him and haul him away from the wraith, but the words died in her throat, and her footpaws refused to move towards the apparition. Meanwhile the air around Puget grew colder and colder until Flounce could see the ragged pants he made as he breathed.
The wraith was so close! And with every inch he floated forwards, he seemed to be more certain that his boney fingers were about to lay upon another beast. It was as though the dead fox could feel Puget's presence, but not discern that the shrew was not the one he was searching for. With sight well beyond the wraith's powers, all he knew was that there was a warm body standing in front of him.
No more than a few feet or so between the shrew and the wraith. Puget's heart was pounding in his chest, and Flounce could hear it providing a steady drumbeat to the wraith's constant, unhinged pleading. The remaining distance took little time for the wraith to cover, though for two beasts watching a soul without a home coming ever closer, the moments were an expanse. It was something that dibbuns were assured would not get them at night, and yet here it was, coming close enough to touch Puget.
The skeletal fingers searched out the shrew, Puget shaking as though he were caught in an earthquake. But rather than pressing against Puget's chest, the fingers sunk right through him without even opening a wound.
Something in the wraith changed, and the pleading stopped mid-sentence. Now he was frantic, shouting, "Yer not my son! Yer not my mate! Yer not 'em!"
Another of those bone chilling, screaming squalls tore from the wraith's exposed throat as he lay his head back and called to the heavens in desolation. And then he was gone. Like a puff of smoke on the wind, the wraith dissipated, vanishing into empty air. Now all was quiet, and Flounce was about to take a step towards Puget when he fell backwards and lay motionless, mouth open in a silent scream and eyes wide, stricken with fear. The beat of his heart, so loud before, was absent.
Puget was dead!
Now that the wraith was gone, some of the fog started to clear, and Flounce could now see what it hid. Skeletons, around a dozen of them, lay upon the ground, some of them half-buried in the dust from the road, others lying more exposed. Flounce could recognize another otter, a mouse, a hare, a pair of ferrets… all victims of the deadly touch of the wraith. And now Puget's bones would join them.
That was all Flounce could stand. She shrieked at the top of her lungs and ran; ran away from that wicked place. She fled off the road into the woods, swatting aside branches and brush as she ran in blind panic. Her temporary insanity didn't end until she tumbled headlong into the shallows of the River Moss, clothes and all.
The shock of the cool water returned her senses to her, and she at last had time to think about what she witnessed. Even recalling it she couldn't believe it. She wanted it to be just a bad dream. She wanted to wake up with a racing heart and the reassurance that it was all over. But the bad dream would never be truly over. Flounce would remember the sight of the wraith to her dying day, and Puget would stay dead!
Hot tears ran down Flounce's cheeks as she berated herself for Puget's death. If she hadn't been so stubborn, if she hadn't been so stubborn, if she hadn't forced him to come down the path with her, if she'd been brave enough to pull him away, then perhaps he would still be alive!
To think that once upon a time, she would have scoffed at the notion of ghosts and accused anybeast who thought such things to be real of being childish. No longer! Now she'd just taken part in a ghost story of her very own!
Not a night would pass without at least some thought given to the wraith; that horrible sight! And worse, the memory wasn't the only thing she took away which would serve as a reminder of the encounter.
As her head hung down, tear-laden eyes staring at the chest-level water, the ripples on the surface began to clear, and again the water became smooth. Flounce found an otter staring back up at her, and she gasped aloud as she realized that she didn't recognize this otter. This otter had Flounce's bright, but tear-swollen eyes, her ears, her button of a nose…
But this otter had a coat of fur turned white from fear!