Chapter 35 Faron
FARON
N o wonder all the people fled Kanth,” Derek said, slapping at the red gnat biting his neck. “I’d leave, too, if I had to deal with these little shits every day.”
Isabelle’s army camped in the heart of the Frostlash Forest, which formed a perimeter around the capital, the ostentatiously named Grand Castle of Kanth.
The forest was not so cold as the name might suggest, not with it still in early fall, but instead the cool tones of the blue pines, their needle tips shifting from green to blue halfway through, added a strange wonder to the passage.
After a few hours in, the swarms of red gnats had arrived, smaller than flies but far more aggressive as they filled their bulbous little bellies with blood.
Faron had hoped they would be chased off by the smoke from the campfires, but that seemed not to be the case.
The red gnats left him and Sariel alone, of course, for they could dismiss them with a thought. Given everyone else’s misery, Faron worried even that minor privilege might be noticed and commented on…
“My ma told me about red gnats,” he said, scrambling for a lie. “The smoke makes them angrier at first, but just because they know they need to leave.”
“I hope you’re right,” Rowan said, sitting beside him in the grass.
She leaned against him, content to be near, as she had ever since he offered her a stay in his tent one night several weeks prior.
Their lovemaking was pleasant enough, and she a warm body to hold as he slipped into sleep.
“Because I’ve never seen gnats this large, or this vicious. ”
“They’re rare,” Sariel said, huddled underneath a blanket with his back to a blue pine.
His eyes were closed, as if he was trying to sleep.
Iris slept beside him, on just a tiny sliver of the blanket.
It had taken time, but the coyote had slowly warmed up to his brother’s standoffish demeanor.
“But I’ve seen worse. If you hate these, never travel the swamps of Kaleed. ”
Faron tossed another log onto the fire, using the motion to hide the closing of his eyes and summoning of his radiance. He spread his command of nature through the air, directing it solely upon the swarm of red gnats.
Begone from here.
That done, he sat back, clapped his hands, and then wrapped an arm around Rowan.
“See?” he said as the buzzing swarm started to disperse. “Just needed enough smoke.”
“I hope the bastards had their fill,” Derek muttered, watching them go.
Their conversation halted at the howling of a wolf pack hunting in the nearby forest. Faron was surprised by just how close they sounded, having thought they would be frightened off by the sheer size and noise of the encroaching army.
“Not to say the gnats aren’t terrible,” Rowan said when the howls ended.
“But I don’t believe a few bugs could empty out those dozens of villages we passed through.
Faron, you’re close with Isabelle. Did she tell you where the people went?
Something they don’t want us common soldiers and surgeons to know? ”
Faron shook his head.
“Nothing,” he said. “Everywhere is just… barren, and far too soon for it to be a response to our invasion.”
Nearly every village along the western half of Kanth they’d encountered was abandoned. They faced no resistance whatsoever on their march to lay siege to the capital, either. Isabelle’s best guess was a plague of some sort, yet no news of it had ever spread beyond the kingdom’s border.
Kanth is much weaker than we ever anticipated , she had said as they investigated yet another abandoned town. No wonder they wished to give us coin instead of soldiers.
Perhaps the rot of the castle had spread to the commoners, Sariel had suggested.
He and Isabelle had exchanged a look, but when Faron asked about it, he was given no explanation.
The secrecy upset him, but he let it die.
Whatever the truth, he was certain they would discover it upon arriving at the Grand Castle.
At least the lack of defense had kept the vassal kingdoms out of the war, too, both seeming content to let Kanth fall to Leliel’s Protectorate.
“Shit,” Derek suddenly blurted. “I just realized Bart’s stuck out there. Poor guy. No smoke to save him on his hunt. He’s gonna come back covered in a thousand bug bites, if he comes back at all.”
Faron’s call had gone out for at least a mile, likely saving Bart from the bites as well, but there was no way to explain that to Derek.
“Smoke travels far,” Sariel said, his eyes still closed. “I suspect he’ll be fine.”
A fine enough excuse, which Faron was thankful for.
Rowan nestled her head against his chest, and he slumped a bit, getting more comfortable before the fire.
They’d retire soon, and he drifted his hand lower to her waist. His fingers slipped just underneath her shirt, brushing across her skin.
She shivered, and he fought back an amused smile.
No matter how many lovers he had taken, he never tired of the way he could make a woman tremble at his touch, or how the slightest spark of radiance pulsed from his fingertips or tongue could—
“Faron!”
Bart crashed through the trees and underbrush to stumble into their camp. His quiver hung empty from his back, and his bow was loose in his hands. His neck was covered with bites, and his eyes wide with fear.
“Something amiss?” Faron asked, withdrawing his hand from Rowan’s waist.
Bart stammered a moment, unable to form words. His face was pale, and he constantly glanced over his shoulder to the stretch of woods he came from.
“I don’t… I don’t know who else to tell,” he said once he composed himself. “While I was hunting, I saw a wolf, and it… it saw me, and so I shot it with an arrow, and it didn’t go down. It charged my tree, trying to climb, so I shot another, and another, until it died.”
Faron put his hands atop Bart’s shoulders and squeezed tightly.
“Get yourself together, lad, it’s just a wolf,” he said.
“But it’s not!” Bart shouted. He looked on the verge of tears. “It fled before it died, so I went to check, to make sure, and it… You won’t believe me, none of you will, but you have to, Faron. You have to. It’s not a wolf. I don’t know what it is, but it’s not a wolf. It’s not anything.”
Sariel was beside them before Faron even registered he had moved.
“Show us,” his brother said, Redemption ready atop his shoulder. “I would see this strange wolf that troubles you so.”
Bart glanced between them, uncertain.
“Be brave, now,” Faron said, and he used his innate gifts to add power to the words. “You can do this.”
The effect was immediate. Bart’s grip on his bow relaxed, and he nodded in the affirmative.
“All right,” he said. “I’ll show you. It’s… it’s probably nothing, right? I just spooked myself in a strange forest.”
“I pray it is so,” Sariel said.
They started to leave, and Iris hopped up from Sariel’s blanket to follow.
“No,” Sariel said, surprising Faron. “Remain here, Iris. This is not for you to witness.”
A strange request, but one the coyote followed. Faron’s frown deepened. His brother knew something. Why was he keeping secrets?
“Lead on,” he said, putting his hand on Bart’s shoulder while doing his best to not let it bother him. “We’re with you.”
The location wasn’t far into the woods. Bart had found a tree with a suitably high perch where he could wait in hopes of a deer wandering by, or, worst case, a few squirrels. The underbrush was thick, and Faron stomped through it, glad he need not fear the bite of a snake or sting of a spider.
The confidence Faron inspired with his radiance faded from Bart the closer they came to the hunting spot.
“There,” Bart said, halting in his tracks. “It died over there, past those bushes.”
Sariel pulled his sword from his shoulders, and Faron was surprised by how he twirled it in his grasp. It was a rare sign his brother was nervous, but why would he be so concerned by a strange wolf?
“Stay here,” Faron said, following Sariel. Together they pushed through the slender bushes.
The wolf lay collapsed on its stomach, its legs splayed wide at awkward angles. Six arrows were sunk into its gray fur. Faron saw nothing wrong at first, but his instincts cried out a warning. He realized it when he looked to the paws. They were too long, and curled like human fingers.
“What strangeness is this?” Sariel asked as he lowered Redemption toward the beast. Its eyes were open in death, and they were a yellow color Faron strongly disliked. The dragon-bone tip tucked underneath the jaw and lifted the head. Immediately they both froze.
Underneath that wolf jaw, where its throat should be, was a second face, human, also frozen in death. A pink tongue hung swollen from its mouth. Blue eyes stared into nowhere.
“Heavens help us,” Sariel muttered, and flipped the entire corpse over.
Six human arms sprouted from the rib cage, and they curled inward like a spider in death. They were small and chubby, like those of a newborn. The fur across the belly was thin, pale, and resembled goose down more than wolf’s fur. Where the wolf’s crotch should have been was a spider’s stinger.
“Burn it,” Faron said, fighting through his shock. “Whatever that is, it should not be.”
Sariel summoned blue flame in his palm and dropped it upon the corpse. The fire swarmed, catching easily. Faron felt no relief until the bulk of it was blackened and charred.
“Isabelle told me of rumors shared by her father,” Sariel said as they watched. “Rumors that Kanth is a place of horrors, and home to monsters.”
“He was not wrong,” Faron said. He kept his voice low as a change swept over him. His kindness and jovial attitude vanished, the centuries of age returning to weigh upon him. He studied the slain beast, his stomach twisting at what he saw. “You sense it, too, don’t you?”
Sariel slowly nodded.