My dream stuck with me through the beginning of my watch. The evil laughter from the flame skull continued to plague my thoughts. Fortunately, our watch was uneventful, and Yukouth has a very calming presence. Like Adrala, he's been part of the guard since he came of age, and he says he was never interested in joining the officers' ranks. He comes from a family of brewers, his younger sister currently runs the family business. I could tell by the way he spoke of her, that Yukouth and his sister are very close. I told him about Envon and my parents, and how I'm sure Envon will take over our family business. I couldn't help myself, I had to brag about Envon's silk-dying skills.
I don't know what came over me this morning, but I poured my heart out to Yukouth. "I really miss Envon, so much more than I thought I would. When I was at the church I could go home almost whenever I wanted, and I barely visited. Now I don't know when I'll see my family again and I wish I had visited them more. I thought I had all the time in the world with them. I wish I had spent more time with them…" I felt myself holding back the tears. I was not going to cry in front of a stranger.
"Zira, I've lived 214 years and the one thing I've learned is, you do the best that you can with what you know at the time. Now that you've learned how important your family is to you, remember it, and the next chance you have, go spend time with them."
And I couldn't hold them back anymore, the tears just flowed down my cheeks. At that moment I felt like Dad was here with me. I tried to wipe the tears away without being noticed. And to his credit, Yukouth didn't say a word, we just sat there together. Once I got myself together, the talk switched to our mission and where we should go later today.
We decided to continue south along the High Road and looked for signs of the undead. After about half a day's ride we met a group traveling north. Thankfully we stopped and talked for a few moments. They had been attacked by undead close to dawn and had chased them off, using fire, into the Sword Mountains. The group had camped not even a half-day's ride from here.
Finally, we had a clue to go on!
We followed the road back to their camp. Once at their camp, we found the beaten path they created into the Sword Mountains. It was getting close to dusk when we reached the edge of the mountains, but I pushed for us to continue just a little longer. I could feel we were going the right way, and if we stopped I knew we would lose them. This of course meant we set up camp tonight in the dark. Which left everyone on the grumpy side this evening. I offered to take the first watch on my own, I needed some time with my own thoughts. It was then decided we would rotate from the last to the first watch, keeping the first one as the alone watch.
Marat's dreams usually aren't straightforward, but we are in the mountains now…
I thought I heard something out in the darkness, but I couldn't see anything. I even tossed out a rock I added light to, just to be certain. But nothing was out there. I feel like the undead are out there, just outside my ability to sense them. Maybe I'm just jumpy because I'm tired. My watch is almost over, and I've been yawning for a while. I guess it's time to put away the journal and wake up Israel and Adrala. She was so excited to be on watch with Israel tonight. And I'm ready for bed.
Z