Bravery is a special sort of insanity. It is to throw yourself into the open, dripping maw of death and poke its tongue on the faith that it will let you crawl out again unscathed. To be brave, as some mighty warriors might boast, does not mean to live devoid of fear. Rather, it is to feel terror twist in your gut, your knees shake, heart race, and then step into the Reaper's path anyway.
13
The damned fog smelled like hot metal, or maybe my helmet had begun cooking under the heat of the sun. I focused on the smell, letting the sharp, metallic scent distract me from the peril surrounding us. To my left Arrus walked carefully, taking great care to contemplate each newly revealed piece of ground before stepping down. On his far side walked Rhynne, eyes similarly cast down and one hand clasped tightly around her companion's.
The pair reminded me of days long ago, when my wife's hair held no grey and her hands were smooth. A memory came to the forefront of my mind unbidden, and her silky voice demanded breathlessly over the thunderous sound of my laughter that I put her down that instant. I cursed the two walking beside me their innocence of youth, and as I sent the unfair damnation in their direction Rhynne gasped, nearly stepping into a steaming pit of black tar. Arrus yanked her away, accidentally pulling her closely against him, and just as quickly let her go with a warning to watch more carefully. Poor lad, I thought more gently, to love her so much and not know it.
"Watch it, Sarj!" Arrus called out suddenly, and I remembered myself just in time to avoid stepping into a rather nasty looking pit of my own.
"Thanks, lad." I nodded, glad that my reddened ears could not be seen.
"I'm not a lad." He retorted with half his usual indignation, the heat and stress of our situation clearly getting to him.
I chuckled and held my tongue. Perhaps Arrus had indeed grown to manhood, but his debate skills were decidedly lacking in maturity. Pulling my thoughts back to my present, I focused again on the ground in front of my feet. The cursed fog gave only a step or two of visible ground at a time, making progress infuriatingly slow. Still, to have made it so far already felt like a small miracle. The first step, taken hours ago, had required a great deal of courage. The lass had been visibly shaking under her thin armor of cloth, and even I felt a fluttering in my stomach. When the fog parted for the first time the three of us let out a breath of pure, head spinning relief.
"How much farther could this wall go?" Rhynne broke the silence once the sun had begun sinking. Already another day had gone by.
"There's no way of knowing until we reach the end." Arrus told her gently. I would have given my left arm in a bet that he had squeezed her hand, too.
I watched from the corner of my eye as the young lass nodded her head and leaned closer to him. Another memory came, this one of my daughter excitedly describing the boy that apprenticed with the blacksmith down the road. Rhynne often held the same naivety in the sparkling blue of her eyes, but behind any look the lass gave a sadness shone through behind it. I thanked the gods every day that my Gloria's short life had known none of the same harshness. My heart ached bitterly at the tiny token, knowing that she would never know her first kiss or learn her archery.
"Th'fog seems a bit brighter, aye?" I piped up, desperate to rid myself of my painful thoughts.
"Aye…" Arrus agreed slowly, "That's probably a good sign."
"I've 'ad quite enough o'this damned noise." I added, still working to clear my mind.
"Mm, it's hard to ign-"
"Look!" Rhynne cried suddenly, interrupting Arrus and drawing our attention back to our front.
The white barrier had all at once begun to noticeably thin, marking the end of our ordeal. We quickened our pace, forgetting our caution in the wake of freedom. My heart soared, desperately glad to know that I could be out and away from this nightmarish creation and free of my cloth prison. The tar pits came less often as well, and our path seemed to become easier with every step we took.
"There's the sun!" Rhynne shouted joyously and took off running toward the grassy field that had just been revealed as the last layer of fog split away at last.
"Wait, lass!" I called after her with a deep-bellied laugh.
She quickly fell out of sight as she reached the newly open ground and changed direction. Arrus and I followed at a slower pace, laughing together at her childlike excitement. The land opening before us waved lazily in the cool breezes of the afternoon, the thick grass as green as the most precious emerald. My soul lifted gratefully at the sight of it, and I took my first step beyond our buzzing prison with a happy sigh.
"Mm!" Rhynne's choked grunt struck my ears just as something wide and hard connected with the crown of my head with enough force to make my helmet ring.
"Argh!" I roared through the blossoming of pain across my skull and swung my arms around in a blind, confused attack.
My fist struck something smooth and firm, knocking my assailant down at the same time Arrus let out a war cry and swung his sword beside me. Using my momentum to my advantage I lifted one arm up to rip off the cloth hindering my vision and drew my sword with the other. Six creatures stood in a half circle around us, each armed with a club or spear, and two more held Rhynne between them. A pained cry flew from her lips as in the next instant she let loose a shockwave of energy strong enough to smack my chest painfully, effectively throwing her captors off and away from her. They landed nimbly on their six feet and moved to join the others as Rhynne scrambled to my right side.
"Alright, lass?" I grunted, eyeing our enemy for signs of a new attack. I did not like our odds.
"Yes!" She panted as she hurriedly pulled her mask free.
The creatures numbered a total of eight, and each of them fixed four eyes on us. The only sounds that came from the group issued out in the form of clicking that resonated out of massive, beetle-like pinchers dominating most of their bald, round faces. Antennae almost three feet long twitched towards us as if tasting the air for our scent.
"What do you want from us?" Rhynne asked the beetle men after some minutes of silent stalemate.
The creatures shifted on their many feet, casting blank, lidless glances at each other with black eyes. They did not appear to be wearing any armor. Instead, a thick, plated exoskeleton glistened in the waning sunlight and covered their segmented, muscular bodies in a living barrier against melee. Where a man's hips would begin their body bloomed out and backwards into a four foot long rump not unlike an ant's, and from that arse protruded three legs on either side.
"We take." One finally said, its voice vibrating out of a crack that opened up between two chest plates. It then pointed at Rhynne.
"You can't have her." Arrus growled dangerously, raising his sword.
"Wait!" Rhynne stopped us as we shifted into battle stance. The bug men watched her with expressionless faces.
"Why take me?" She asked them slowly.
I marveled at her courage, unable to help but see my wife in her. Sweet Clara would have been proud for Gloria to have such a friend. The one that had spoken shook his antennae slowly as if in surprise and took a moment before answering.
"Wielder heal. Queen broken."
The words confused me. Their queen had been "broken"? The whole situation seemed to be a lie, but the pain in my head and ringing in my ears reminded me that they could have killed us already. Another, larger part of me distrusted anything that I did not fully understand. Their species existed completely unknown to the kingdom, and by all appearances they lived far less advanced than most civilizations.
"Why shouldn' we kill yeh fer attackin' us?" I boomed, taking pleasure in watching them shuffle their feet at the strength of my voice.
The creatures conversed among themselves in their strange clicking language, each voice a little different than the one before it, and eventually turned to address us once more. The one that had spoken before, whom seemed to be their leader, stepped forward. I watched with distaste as its legs rippled over the ground with the insectile grace of a centipede.
"No kill. We give gifts." His voice sounded hollow, as devoid of emotion as its smooth face, and I wondered if these creatures could feel humanoid emotions at all.
"Why should we believe you?" Arrus asked more calmly.
"We give gifts." The leader repeated, and as if by some unseen signal the eight of them dropped their weapons and lifted open, four fingered hands into the air.
"Alright. I'll go." Rhynne said after a moment of silence so thick it seemed tangible.
"Yeh can't be serious!" I bellowed in infuriated shock.
Had the lass lost her mind? These creatures could not be trusted! She looked the leader in the eye without acknowledging my outburst. I stepped closer, ready to block her if she tried to move towards them.
"Sarj." Arrus warned icily.
I froze at the authority in his voice and looked to my prince in confusion. The lad had an intense look of contemplation painted across his angular features that I recognized immediately. With a heavy sigh I back off.
"I'm not puttin' my sword away, though." I said grudgingly.
"You go." The leader said without inflection, and I thought perhaps their way of speaking did not allow for the tonality needed to properly ask questions.
"Yes, I go," Rhynne agreed, "but if you attack me or my friends I will kill you all."
"No kill. We give gifts."
And with that the beetle men lead us away from the infuriatingly loud buzzing of the fog and through the tall grass towards places unknown. The creatures left their weapons behind, and Arrus and I begrudgingly sheathed our swords but kept our hands resting on their grips. Between us Rhynne walked with an expressionless face, and I worried what she could be thinking to agree to this.
The men chose to walk ahead rather than surround us, and I found myself starting to relent that they may be telling the truth. Still, my gut warned that I be wary. These creatures' gifts might be food poisonous to humans, the "honor" of fighting their best warrior, or worse, one of their daughters being married off to one of us.
"I thought that the Plains would be harder to travel through." Rhynne said suddenly under her breath after a few minutes of walking in silence.
"We haven't reached their edge just yet." Arrus answered gravely, earning a stare of confusion from the lass.
"We're in a grassland…" She said slowly, unable to comprehend.
"The Plains 'ave grasslands doted throughout." I supplied, sorry to have to kill her hopes.
"If we live through our encounter with these people, we may have days yet to travel with more swamp ahead." Arrus finished with a shrug of defeat.
Rhynne dropped her head with renewed frustration. Of course we would not get out so easily, but nevertheless, the news hit the lass hard. I could almost feel the waves of annoyance coming off of her. I chuckled a hopeless sort of laugh and gave her a soft pat on the shoulder. She flinched but smiled at me gratefully, and her shoulders lifted with what I hoped to be determination.
"Almost." The leader called back to us in that odd, empty voice that seemed to hum out from nowhere.
We nodded and continued walking without pause, glad to know we had only a little more to go. My head throbbed under my helmet, and I could almost feel the knot swelling where I had been struck. I took the pain with a grim thankfulness, knowing that I had been stupid to be so unaware of my surroundings. If a knot on the back of my head proved to be my only punishment, I could hardly complain. Still, I did not fail to make the mental note that these men had been waiting for us. This meant that they knew of our coming, or people came their way quite often. Perhaps both answered the question.
Ahead, the beetle men came to a stop and if I craned my neck as far as it would go, I could only just see the tops of hut-like structures behind them. They rested at the bottom of an extremely steep hill that we had crested so subtly that my legs knew not the difference until we had reached its top. We stopped with them, careful to keep several feet of distance between us.
"No kill." The leader said again.
"We give our word." Arrus vowed regally, giving the men his most princely bow. "We will not harm anyone that would not seek to harm us first."
I nodded my promise, too, my aching head pounding with my heart beat uncomfortably. Rhynne followed our lead and gave them a rather graceful bow of her own. Perhaps a bit deliriously, I pushed back the strange urge to chuckle at the sight. That she had grown from a sheltered, abused farmer to a graceful, deadly warrior in only a few months seemed oddly funny. These damned monsters had given me a concussion, I suddenly realized with renewed indignation. I hoped then that they did, after all, let us fight.
The creatures teetered amongst themselves for a moment longer before motioning us onward. We obeyed, all of us secretly looking forward to seeing their village. Ahead the ground dropped off quite sharply and with no warning, and until I saw the stone stairs buried in the earth I feared they might expect us to roll down the nearly vertical slope. The beetle men gestured toward them, and then surprised us by walking down the slope directly.
"These things are amazing…" Rhynne breathed as we began our careful descent.
"Aye, and strangely intelligent…" Arrus agree, nodding at the rough steps the men so clearly did not need.
I watched their movements as they descended, marveling at their dexterity. Their tall torsos leaned back so far they rested against their vast arses as they moved, their arms held in close to the chest for balance. Their legs seemed to move both in unison and independently as needed, reaching out with long, single-toed feet to grasp the earth firmly. Truly these were a species beyond any imagination of man.
"Seriously, Sarj, watch your step." Arrus warned with poorly concealed annoyance.
"Aye, aye, your grace." I retorted, but turned my head to watch my feet anyway.
The "stairs" truly were little more than flat stones thrust into the earth, and their haphazard placement made safety a constant worry. Progress moved slowly, but we found our way to the bottom quickly enough. Rhynne reached the ground first and busied herself with scrutinizing the village while Arrus and I caught up. I observed the village, too, taking in the simple buildings with some respect. Each hut shone dully in the darkening sunlight, their rounded walls made from intricately woven layers of green grass. The newest buildings still held the fresh, living color of the grass under our feet while the older huts had gone pale brown over time as their living walls died.
"Queen broken. Wielder heal." Said the beetle man, striding in his rolling way up to us.
"Bring me to him, please." Rhynne demanded politely.
The men lead us into the village, and I breathed in the heady scents of freshly cut greens and boiling pots of stew with a rumbling belly. More creatures peeked out from the small buildings around us as we passed, waving their antennae. As far as my eyes could discern, there seemed to be no obvious difference in gender among these people, if in fact they had a gender at all. A miniature version of our accosters, obviously a child, scooted forward and tapped Rhynne with its antennae. The lass jumped but did not flinch away, and the child clicked at her with a squeaky voice, lifting a hand to tug on her hair.
I chuckled as the leader of our group shooed it away, glad to see that children of any species held such curiosity. By now I had decided that these beings did not wish to harm us, and I let my shoulders relax even as my hand remained on my sword hilt. Arrus's thoughts had remained within his head throughout this entire ordeal, and I could not help but search his blank face for any sort of distrust. None revealed itself, for better or worse, and I focused again on the task at hand with a silent sigh.
We came at length to the far side of the small village, a small group of ten or more children following excitedly behind us. A hut roughly three times as wide and twice as tall as any other hut we had yet seen welcomed us at the end of our trek. The men indicated that Rhynne should go inside alone, but she stood fast.
"My men come with me." She stated in a voice that shook only slightly.
"Wielder heal."
"Yes, I will heal, but not without my men."
The creature clicked and garbled with its companions for several long minutes, and then lifted the woven flap of the hut, disappearing inside. We waited impatiently, unsure what might happen next. Rhynne's gaze rested blankly on the ground, and I sensed that behind her façade of strength stood a shaking, terrified girl. More likely than not she had only agreed to this ridiculous situation to avoid Arrus or myself being killed. I shook my head slowly, dumbfounded by so much bravery and honor living in so small a form.
"You go." The leader said suddenly as it emerged from behind the mysterious flap of browned grass.
He waved a hand at all three of us, and Rhynne nodded her assent. Glancing back at us with eyes that begged for this to be over, she took the lead and stepped into the strange building. Arrus followed on her heels, and I took up the rear. No small part of me wanted very much to see this "broken" queen. The creature that lay on the matted ground within seemed to be pulled straight out of the darkest nightmare.
"Heal." It said in a voice identical to the beetle man's waiting outside.
"Balls…" I swore under my breath, my stomach heaving at the sight of their "queen".
The monster's head lay on its side within the folds of a pillow, completely detached from its giant, bulbous body. Its pinchers, smaller by half than the others we had seen, snapped together with an audible click every few seconds, and its antennae coiled over its decidedly delicate head like that of a butterfly's. The headless body rested on the ground, its plated torso thinner, less muscular than the other's. Its largest, most disgusting feature took up most of the large hut in the form of a giant, gelatinous arse covered in thin, clear skin and filled with some unknown, green fluid that heaved slowly. No legs protruded from the great mass, but it did have two twiggy, two jointed arms that ended with four fingered, clawed hands.
As in the hive of a bee, this beheaded creature clearly lived as the only female in the entire population.
"You heal." She said again, a similar slit opening in her chest to emit the voice.
"Yes." Rhynne squeaked, startled by the unexpected sight into revealing her fear.
She stepped forward once, faltered, and then stepped again. Arrus kept right behind her, hand on hilt, ready to defend if the queen attacked. I stayed back on the chance that an attack came from behind, not at all ashamed to be glad not to have to approach. The creature shifted, reaching out her four fingers, and Rhynne hesitantly let them close around her own.
"Please." The queen said.
Something seemed to shift within Rhynne with this plea, and with new determination she briefly grasped the queen's hand in both of hers and then set to work. Taking a saddle bag from Arrus, she shifted through its contents quickly and produced a bag of stones, chalk, and a flint stone. Confused at the curious assortment, Arrus and I watched as she carefully, slowly, reached downward to lift the severed head from its pillow.
Its pinchers grew very still the moment her fingers came in contact, and the queen's antennae instantly uncurled and started tapping lightly all over Rhynne's face. She held very still for this, letting the queen get a good taste of her. After a moment the twitching structures recoiled and did not move again. Sucking in a deep breath, Rhynne took that as permission and tilted the head back to inspect its bottom. Underneath the uncovered flesh of the queen throbbed blue, thousands of tiny veins pulsing blood under the skin. The lass gulped audibly and then touched it very gently with a finger.
"Cut with a sword." She murmured to herself.
Placing the head carefully back on its pillow, she then stepped up to the queen's body and repeated the process on her neck. I watched in rapt fascination, unable to comprehend how a creature could live through such a wound, much less be healed of the ailment. Rhynne did not falter, however, and seemed to know a way to achieve her seemingly impossible goal.
"I can heal you, but it will hurt." She explained carefully, obviously not sure whether to speak to the head or to the body.
"Heal. Please."
"Yes, but do you understand that it will hurt?"
"Please."
Sighing heavily, Rhynne kneeled down and with the chalk drew four symbols into the ground that I recognized as Wielding markers meant to strengthen the potency of a particularly difficult spell. Next she removed the stones from their little bag. Five in all, she placed one on each symbol and the fifth in the center of the square. Finally, she muttered a complicated incantation and struck the flint stone with her dagger, letting the sparks rain down onto them. A yellow flame burst into life almost instantly, floating impossibly an inch or two above the arrangement. She then laid the stone and blade down and, to my shock and wonder, scooped the flame up into her hands. It hovered just above her skin and cast a sickly light on her face.
"It will let me see into her body," She explained to everyone in the room, "so that I will know which blood vessels to attach."
"How are you going to put its head back on?" Arrus asked in a voice that seemed in awe of her abilities.
"Shh, I have to focus for this to work." She admonished gently as she reached the queen's body once more.
Arrus shut his mouth quickly and watched with attentive eyes as she held the glowing fire out to the still torso of the waiting creature. The flames condensed into a bright ball on contact, sinking into the roughly healed over skin without any outward signs of discomfort from the queen. It sank out of sight, to all appearances recording all of the vessels within the body to report back to Rhynne. True to my assumption, the small ball of yellow light soon returned and floated back into her hands, flames once more. To my astonishment she then breathed them in, the shifting brightness curling into her nostrils in two spiraling columns. For a full minute, the lass stood there not breathing, her eyes closed in concentration.
"Rhy-"
"Ah…" She sighed, cutting off the beginning of Arrus's worried question, and her breath came out in a shower of brilliant yellow sparks.
"They don't have bones, which makes my job a lot easier." Rhynne said with a tired grin. Already, her amazing show of Wielding drew on her strength.
"Just be careful." Arrus warned with a furrowed brow.
"Always." She smiled at him dazzlingly. Only I noticed the prince tighten his grip on his sword, as if her smile induced a need to reach out to her that he had to repress.
Taking the queen's head in her hands once more, Rhynne now carefully held it an inch or two above her neck. She licked her lips, suddenly hesitant. If she should fail the queen might die, I realized, and that would cost us our lives. Rhynne seemed to be weighing her chances of success, her eyebrows furrowing as her mind calculated what might happen.
"Please." The queen said again, breaking the tense silence that had fallen.
This seemed to bring Rhynne to her decision, because her indecision melted away to be replaced by a look of grim resignation. Swallowing audibly, she recited a short spell that cut the air and resonated within my ears. The queen let out a long, sad cry as her skin split open under her head and in her neck, and Rhynne quickly started spitting out another, less harsh incantation. This one painted the air with purple and pink lights and nestled onto my eardrums with the soft touch of satin. The flap behind me ripped away as the leader of the group that had attacked us came bustling in, obviously alarmed by the queen's sounds of distress. He froze beside me just within the threshold and watched as Rhynne pressed the severed head against its detached neck.
Bright lights shone out of them, blinding us to what happened next. The sound of Rhynne's voice grew louder as the light increased, drowning out even my own thoughts, and I fought the urge to run. Beside me the beetle man danced anxiously, unsure whether to attack or wait, and I could not see far enough to perceive Arrus at all. At last, after what felt like an eternity, the incantation faded away and with it went the lights, too. Rhynne stepped back with a proud but exhausted grin, and I blinked through the spots in my vision to behold the queen sitting up straight, head fully attached again.
"Heal." She said, patting our youngest companion on the top of her head.
"We give gifts." The man beside me said, placing a hand gently on my shoulder.
"What sort of gifts?" Arrus asked quietly. He seemed to be in a sort of daze, his eyes focusing vaguely in Rhynne's general direction.
"You go." He said, motioning at the doorway.
We followed him back outside after polite bows to his now whole again queen. Waiting for us outside another surprise stood panting loudly in the light of the evening. Three giant salamanders, each the height of a horse and twice as long, sat waiting with oddly shaped saddles strapped behind their shoulders. Two of them held the obvious signs of being male, while the third, smaller one could only be female. We stared at them with a mixture of horror and interest, taking in their red, black spotted skin and reptilian yellow eyes.
"We're meant t'ride these?!" I exclaimed, an intense misgiving churning in my stomach. These beasts did not seem tame.
"Danger ahead." The guardsman said, saying his first new words in quite a while.
"What sort of danger?" Arrus inquired with furrowed brow.
"Danger ahead. Yucanni protect." He answered, apparently speaking of the creatures we were to ride.
"We give gifts." He explained when we continued staring in muted horror.
"Thank you." Rhynne said after some time to compose herself. "It is an honor to receive such splendid mounts."
"Wielder heal. We give gifts. Danger ahead."
"What can we call you, so that I don't forget who treated us so fairly?" Arrus asked with a polite bow.
"Groak."
"Thank you, then, Groak."
"Queen." Groak called out as we moved hesitantly towards our new mounts. He peered in his staring way down at Rhynne, who blinked up at him in confusion.
"I-I'm not a queen, sir." She said slowly, but he cut her off with a tap of his antennae on her head.
"Thank you."
"You're welcome." She said with a serene smile. Her eyes, though lidded with exhaustion, shone with pride and tranquility.
With that final farewell we turned to our terrifying new mounts and set about attaching our saddle bags. That task finished too soon for anyone's liking, we stood around a bit embarrassedly. None of us knew how to climb onto the creatures. Thankfully, without our asking, the Yucanni closest to us stretched out a stubby leg. Arrus climbed up it nimbly, careful to avoid the foot long claws at the end of each five toed foot. Rhynne followed suit, scrambling less gracefully onto the smaller female, and that left me to heave my heavy bulk onto the second male.
"Balls." I muttered in disgust and stepped onto its outstretched foot, my insides squirming with dread at the danger that awaited us.
Tonight did not appear to hold anything pleasant for us.