Chapter 12 Looking for Answers #2
On the first night into their trek, darkness settled over the camp like a velvet shroud.
The protected circle of wagons stood sentinel against the night.
Ezra’s warding magic hummed with invisible energy, protecting the travelers while they slept.
Lark moved stealthily between the vehicles.
Her footsteps were silent on the packed earth as she conducted her nightly inspection.
The crack of a twig shattered the quiet like a thunderclap. Lark froze, every sense suddenly crisp. Through the gloom beyond the protective boundary of the wards, a horse’s silhouette materialized like a shadow. Its outline was blurry as it faded into a cluster of brush.
Is that one of our horses that wandered off? The thought barely had time to form before Lark’s body was in motion. She pursued, each step taking her farther from the wards.
The horse stood quietly grazing between some bushes. “What are you doing out here,” she said, advancing carefully. The words had barely left her lips when the trap was sprung.
Three shadows detached themselves from the darkness like ink bleeding through parchment.
It was the bearded men from Stormwatch. Moonlight caught the edges of their weapons, two axes and a short sword that whispered as it cleared its sheath.
They moved with coordination; the two axe-wielders shifted to her flanks while their leader advanced from the center.
Ash, the curse burned in Lark’s mind as she back peddled. The necklace suddenly blazed with heat, no doubt responding to her surge of adrenaline. Her hands found her daggers, the hilts sang as she drew them.
Then the weapons left her grasp like silver fish darting through dark water, their trajectories perfect and inevitable.
The sound they made as they struck their targets was soft, almost gentle as her steel parted flesh.
Both flanking men staggered, their expressions twisted with identical masks of confusion. They stumbled into their leader’s path.
The remaining attacker’s advance faltered as a result.
His sword tip wavered in the darkness as he watched his companions fall.
Lark backed into the open grassland, the starlit plain stretching behind her like a vast arena.
The protective boundary of the caravan’s ward was just beyond reach, the energy raising the fine hairs on her neck.
“Give me that pack and I won’t kill you,” the man said, pointing with his drawn blade.
“No.” The word emerged from her throat hard as stone.
“You don’t have any more weapons. Give it up and I’ll let you live,” he said, but he sounded uncertain.
The tall Hawthorne brush behind him shivered, though no wind stirred the night air. The man straightened; his posture suddenly rigid as prey sensing a predator. “Guthrie, Lambert?” The names fell into the darkness without answer.
Lark shifted her weight, muscles coiling as she prepared to disarm him. The sword’s lethal edge demanded perfection. One miscalculation would paint her life’s ending across the moonlit grass.
“Hold it right there,” he commanded, catching her subtle movement.
The attack came with terrible swiftness.
Something vast and dark erupted from the brush, its movement so fluid and quick that even Lark’s trained eyes could barely track it.
The man’s body went rigid as a statue; his half-drawn breath froze in his throat.
Then he was simply... gone, ripped backwards into the Hawthorne thicket by the strange force.
Lark didn’t wait to see more. She fled back to the wagons, each stride carrying her closer to the wards.
The magical barrier washed over her like a warm current as she crossed its threshold, her heart hammering against her ribs.
She pressed herself against a wagon’s rough wooden side, eyes fixed on the distant thicket.
Through the darkness came a haunting sound. The slow drag of something heavy across grass, the rustle of branches bowing to unseen passage. Lark knew with a certainty that she was hearing the departure of both predator and prey.
The night grew long, filled with the ordinary sounds of the sleeping caravan that seemed suddenly fragile against the darkness beyond.
When dawn finally painted the eastern sky in brushes of pink and gold, Lark ventured back to the scene of the ambush.
Morning revealed the dark stains that had soaked deep into the thirsty earth and were already beginning to brown at the edges.
Her daggers lay carefully cleaned beside the Hawthorne bush, arranged with a deliberation that sent goosebumps up her arms. She retrieved the blades with swift efficiency, the familiar weight settling into their sheaths.
Over the following days, a feeling of unease watchfulness settled over Lark.
Her eyes constantly searched the western front of the Astral Range, seeking shadows of Nordraven assassins.
The threat remained dormant, yet its presence tugged at her subconsciousness.
Hardin’s ability to perceive Nix forced the fae to keep her distance.
The caravan’s evenings took on a familiar rhythm. The wagons circled for protection, the aroma of fire-cooked meals mingled with Hardin’s ballads of valor and heartbreak. Yet beneath the veneer of normalcy, Lark’s attention to the shadows remained.
On the fifth day, as the sun reached its zenith and cast harsh shadows across the rutted dirt road, a breath of movement behind the wagon caught her attention.
Lark spun in her perch, heart thundering against her ribs, expecting to face fur-clad warriors or copper-cloaked orcs advancing upon them.
Instead, she found only empty air. Her keen eyes noticed a fresh disturbance on the road. A set of unfamiliar tracks.
Making sure not to disturb the wagon driver, or group inside the wagon, she descended silently onto the road.
Worn into the dirt were the expected scars of their passage.
She saw fresh hoofprints and deep lines from the wagon wheels.
But there, a hundred yards behind them she found something else: a set of tracks.
As she crouched to study the massive oval print, Nix materialized beside her in a dance of sparks, her dress rippling liquid flame.
“What are you doing?” she asked.
“Look at this,” Lark said, pointing at the large oval print.
“Those are tracks,” Nix replied.
“Yes, but what kind?”
From the lead wagon now some distance ahead, Ezra’s gruff voice called after her, “Lark, don’t trail too far from the wagons. We’re nearly to Fletcher’s Passage.”
Lark signaled to the dwarf that she heard him.
“And look at this,” Nix said, flowing closer. “There are four smaller tracks in an arch in front of the main oval pad.”
“Those aren’t smaller tracks, Nix. Those are the toe pads to this foot.” Lark searched the hills again, her necklace tingling with warmth.
“It’s the dragon,” Nix voiced her thoughts.
“Lark,” Ezra called. “We’re leaving you behind.”
Reluctantly, she hustled back to the wagons. Hardin emerged, curious as ever.
“What were you looking for?” He asked.
“Answers,” Lark replied.