3. Chapter 3
“We should be two days away from Ventus Bluff,” Sury said as he viciously chewed through his stew. “The concern we face is the lack of coverage from trees. There’s a large plain standing between the Bainas Forest and where Beralt lives. The chances of being seen are high.”
Having not been able to stomach Sury’s “cooking,” I pretended to be fully engrossed with our mission and claimed not to have an appetite. My stomach promptly betrayed me with a loud gurgle.
I stood by the map of Wieldera that hung on Fyom’s tent wall and stared intently at the territories within the Grian kingdom.
Books and papers of all kinds littered every piece of furniture inside the tent.
Fyom hardly rested as he devoured every type of literature he could get his hands on, trying to decipher the runes that linked us to some unknown prophecy—similar-looking runes as the ones in the eerie book I held months ago, before my sister’s broken ceremony.
We had decided to attempt a diplomatic meeting with Lord Beralt at Ventus Bluff, home to many Airus Wielders, as we strived to gather any sort of army we could salvage before making our way to Loamil Manor.
We took to the outskirts and unmarked paths until we were certain we had a backing that would ensure Ora’s safety and return to the throne.
I turned to look at Sury sitting at the large, round table and noticed that Ora, too, looked as though her appetite had faltered. As it usually did when it was Sury’s turn to cook dinner. He hardly noticed anyone wasn’t touching their food as he slurped down another spoonful.
“So we stay off the main paths like we’ve been doing,” Ora asserted.
“We could pay off travelers we might come across,” Fyom called over his shoulder from where he hunched over a raised counter. It was quite fun how this tent seemed to have the same sentience as his cabin, ever providing and leaving us as comfortable as we could be.
“I can run ahead and scout a few miles at a time,” Peiro added. “If I see anything standing in our way, I can run my sword through it.”
I turned my whole body this time, ready to argue with Peiro, right as Sury cut in mid-bite. “Not fair! How would I know if your number is truly higher than what you would claim when you’d come back, Old Man?”
Ora looked at them both with a shocked expression on her face. “Are you two really keeping a score of how many things you kill?”
“Well, yes?” Sury shrugged, then turned his attention back to Peiro and pointed his spoon in his direction. “You’re not using your freakish powers to best me. We’ll see who’s the better hunter when this is all said and done.”
Flashes of images echoed across my mind, of Peiro fighting against a handful of Raiders that had crossed our path. He took them down in half the time a solid-trained warrior would have done.
Peiro howled in laughter as he said, “Freakish? Boy, I’ve been hunting a long time, but never have I had someone challenge me the way you do.”
Sury scrunched his face. “I’m not a boy! I’m a man! I have hair on my ba—”
“No one is killing anyone!” I screeched, cutting Sury off before the conversation took yet another interesting turn.
Sury mumbled under his breath as I continued, “We’ll get horses at the next village.
” I pointed to the map. “Then we can stay off the main roads, just like Ora suggested. I’m sure by now Ariadne has a clue that we are alive after what we did at the Rising Rock, but she doesn’t know where we are or what we’re up to. ”
“It has been awfully quiet since we were at the Rock,” Peiro began. “We need to prepare for more of Dokvalon’s Raiders and the possibility that they could be guarding Beralt, since he is the last surviving member of your court.”
I nodded. “Anything’s possible.”
“So prepare for the worst,” Ora chimed and knocked Sury in the arm with her elbow as he loudly slurped his stew.
“I think it’s fair to prepare for just about any scenario.
You’re a wanted person, and while we have been strategizing, so have your enemies.
Whether they will battle through sword or word, I do not know, but best make plans for it all,” Peiro said with a swift nod before directing his gaze toward me.
“And you must keep practicing. Both of you should.” He glanced at Ora before turning back to me.
Ora inclined her head, her braided plait falling from her shoulder to her back.
“I say we give these bastards everything they asked for. We leave at dawn. Get horses. Stay off the main roads. If we come across anyone, we will determine their fate at that encounter.” She flicked her eyes at me, knowing my protest around the matter, but continued.
“Once we are a few miles from Ventus Bluff, Peiro will scout ahead and see if any enemies, or things, stand before us. If not, then I will reveal to Beralt that we’ve come to speak. ”
“Are you ready?” I asked.
“It must be done. It’s time they know I will not yield,” Ora said with a swift finality.
Before anyone had the chance to speak, she stood and left the tent in favor of fresh air, leaving me with an uneasy feeling.
I was proud that she was leaning into leadership so naturally and how she provided thorough strategies, but I didn’t want her to have the guilt of blood on her hands.
Despite an inevitable war.
“What about the keys? Would Beralt know anything about them?” Sury’s question was valid.
I took a breath. “I hope we can find answers to that, and anything around the prophecy.”
“Can he be trusted?” Peiro grumbled.
I shrugged my shoulders. “Time will tell.”
Sury and Peiro continued considering our moves as I turned back and gazed at the map before me.
I admired the cartographer’s attention to detail with the rivers and streams running through some of the territories.
Even the trees from the Bainas Forest, which spanned almost tip to tip of the realm, were carefully sketched.
“Here.” I heard the gentleness in Fyom’s deep voice beside me as he nudged something against my arm.
I looked down and saw a small plate that held a thick piece of buttered bread.
I instantly smelled the warm spices and my stomach gurgled in response, and took the plate without hesitation.
The bite of warm bread melted against my tongue.
“How did you know?” I said with my mouth full.
Fyom chuckled. “With Sury’s cooking? I’ll wager that everyone is hungry.”
“Good thing he will be far away from the kitchens once Ora makes him king,” I responded with a laugh. I looked over my shoulder to see if Sury had heard our exchange, but saw he was too engrossed in his conversation with Peiro to notice.
Fyom started to speak when a piercing scream tore through the tent. “Aurora!” Sury called as he leapt from his seat, bow in hand, and disappeared beyond the tent’s opening. Peiro already had his sword drawn and sprinted behind him through the flaps.
Another scream, this one at a level that sat between a screech and a squeal, echoed around us.
I grabbed my shortsword next to the table and called the essence of the moon to my hand, a force that I began to Wield with such ferocity that it became my second blade.
I’d grown used to the practice of honing my delicate orbs into something tangible, something with a sharp tip that could be thrown and retrieved with speed.
And what I saw before me would grant me excellent practice to strengthen in my Wielding.
A monstrous urthen, identical to the one Sury and I had witnessed months ago.
The creature was as large as a bear, but its gangly arms and bald, overstretched skin were disturbingly human.
The skull had missing eyes, slits for an absent nose, and broken serrated teeth.
The sun edged to the ends of the earth, granting us just enough light to take in the beast before us and its jagged walk through the trees, like it was incapacitated—but I knew better.
Ora was mere feet from the creature with her own Wielding inside her palm, the endless ribbons rotating around her hand and up her arm.
I would have been awed if not for the creature taking another step toward her.
In a flash, she sent her sun-given power toward the urthen, turning the ribbons of Wielding into shards like shattered glass, which landed with sickening thuds that would have caused anything to drop.
Except it didn’t.
From the glow of her power that pierced the creature’s skin, I could tell she had already hit it more than once.
Thick, black blood oozed down its body in rivulets, and still the creature didn’t show signs of slowing down.
As the glow from Ora’s power faded, I noticed a shimmer of something across the creature’s leathery skin.
“Fucking crested walkers,” Peiro mumbled as he moved with preternatural speed and sliced the back of its thick legs.
I took in the urthen before me, noting where it had been injured, and threw all my weight into my Wielding. I embedded my own power into its thick skin, causing it to cry out in pain.
“That is a crested walker?” Sury called out as he nocked an arrow into his bow, ready to draw, and released with an easy speed that attested to his time as a hunter. “I thought they were much smaller!”
“Clearly, they are not,” Peiro grunted as he turned, and just in time, because the crested walker took its mighty daggered claw and swung where he had just stood.
“These are Dokvalon’s guards. See the pattern on their chest?
” He sliced again. “The species wears it like a crest. Why they are here, I don’t know,” Peiro called out again as he twisted his body and swung the sword into the thick of the creature’s back with a wet whack.
“Maybe they crossed over the Shadowcraigs before we imbued our magic?” Ora grunted as she sent more shards to slice into the creature’s skin.
“But all of”—Sury released another arrow, this one embedding into the urthen’s shoulder—“the damn stories”—he nocked another arrow and released—“said they are much smaller. And only come out during full moons.”
Peiro grunted again as he dodged one of Ora’s sharp ribbons. “And your books also said that the entity you call the Ancient One is just a nightmare.” He swiped the creature’s hand away with his sword, detaching it at the wrist. “Clearly your books are wrong.”
Sury nocked and released another arrow that found its mark in the creature’s knee, causing it to screech again.
“Fair point,” he said with a shrug, repeating his movements.
I huffed and called to my power again, feeling the essence of the moon pour into me, providing me strength to Wield as I needed.
My mind envisioned a rope as I spun my orbs in my hand and flung them toward the creature.
The orbs obeyed my command and multiplied as they wrapped tightly around the creature’s neck.
It fought with its claw, screeching every time it touched my magic. So close to death.
I smiled in wicked delight as I watched what my power could do.
A faint sweetness coated my tongue the deeper I dove into my magic.
My hand trembled as I kept my focus on the creature’s neck and forced it to its knees as it continued to claw at its skin.
Sury and Peiro finished the deed, the latter slicing through the creature’s neck, severing the bone.
I watched the creature topple over as I called my magic back to me, absorbing the rich power within my skin.
Ora stepped around the creature and stood beside me as we watched the men collect the missing limbs so we could set it ablaze. Peiro reminded us that anything that belonged to Dokvalon also belonged in fire, if we were to know peace.
“So, boys,” Ora called with a smile, “who gets to claim the number for that one?” She knew exactly how to stir them for our entertainment.
Sury and Peiro stopped what they were doing and looked to one another.
Peiro smiled mischievously and my own smile followed.
Seeing him at peace and not at war with himself allowed me to see the glimpses of the man I was desperately starting to fall for in an indescribable way.
The man whose laugh was deep and smooth.
I loved seeing how he could be serious yet carefree simultaneously.
How in those moments, when he was fully present, he could enjoy the life he was meant to live. The life that had been robbed from him.
“I’m not doing half-point scores.” Sury shook his head.
“Why?” Peiro asked, his smile growing. “Scared I would still beat you, Little Lord?”
Sury took the bait. “Beat me? I’m pretty sure I’m up by two kills, Old Man.”
Peiro crossed his arms as he retorted, “Ah, yes. But then we met those bandits just the other day. Pretty sure I rescued you not once, nor twice, but thrice. And if we count this creature as us both getting one point—then if my math serves me correct—I am now up by one.”
Sury narrowed his eyes and shook his head as he and Peiro walked toward us.
Fyom shifted behind me like a mother hen ready to check for any signs of injury.
I caught Ora’s eye and nodded, signaling for us to both cast flames from our palms onto the creature to set it ablaze, instantly casting the dark forest in a deep orange glow.
The smell of burning skin wafted unwelcomingly to our noses and caused us to gag.
“He’s right, Sury.” Ora giggled as we watched the urthen turn to ash. “You must do better than that if I am to name you my king.”
I lightly punched Ora in the shoulder. “Shut it. You’re going to make him cry.” I laughed under my breath, knowing full well that Sury had heard me.
As if on cue, Sury turned his gaze toward us before shaking his head, then pointed to Peiro with an arrow that was dripping black ooze from the creature. He opened his mouth to respond just as another screech pierced the night sky, followed by another, then another.