12. Chapter Twelve #2
He took his sword from me, while his eyes remained trained on the creature until it finally stopped thrashing a few moments later.
He sheathed his sword and dropped to my side.
His eyes roamed over my body, taking in my injuries as I tore off a strip of my shirt.
They were hard and cold, so unlike what I had seen so far even when he was taking on those Gaolin males.
I started to shiver, and I wasn’t sure if it was from the chill of the water, my nerves, or the pain.
“Shit…” Njall whispered.
He took the makeshift bandage from me and rolled up my pant leg to expose my shredded calf. I couldn’t tell where the wounds were underneath all the blood coating my skin. I removed my soaked jacket and winced as the leather ripped at the skin it was seared onto from the acidic slime.
Without asking, I dried my arm on Njall’s pants.
They were still damp but at least more dry than mine.
Then I reached down and gathered blood from my leg onto my fingertip.
His brows scrunched, but he didn’t question me as I re-wrote the washed-away riddle on my forearm.
He corrected me on one word, but didn’t say anything else as I finished and slumped back against the tree.
Njall took my jacket and gently wiped away as much blood as he could before he wrapped my leg with the scraps of my shirt.
“We shouldn’t have separated,” he said in a low voice. His face was tense.
“Don’t worry about it,” I grunted. “I’ve never read of anything like that before. You?”
“No.” He shook his head and lifted my hands, careful not to touch the burns on my wrists or the drying blood on my arm. “Does this hurt?”
“Stings. It’s fine. My leg is the biggest concern. We need to get moving.” I made to stand with his help.
“Can you walk?”
“I think so. It may be slow going though. Look… I appreciate you helping me and all but I’m a liability now and I’ll only slow you down. Go on without me.” It would have been the smart thing to do. My wounds would likely attract more predators, and I couldn’t outrun anything with this injury.
“Not gonna happen, Roav. We had an agreement.” The side of his mouth lifted into a smirk.
I let out a breath of relief. There was no way I could have made it on my own. And if I was able to solve the riddle, then maybe this symbiotic relationship really would have been worth it for both of us.
I put my jacket back on while he went to snatch up the canteens that were laid by the river, and we started walking north again.
Njall supported me for the first few steps until I got to a steady limp.
I left my daggers in the river creature’s head.
I wasn’t risking getting burned again to retrieve them.
“Where’s the food?” I asked after a few moments .
“Well, while you were fighting for your life against some water-lizard-thing, I was busy being scared of parasitic insects, so I didn’t get any,” Njall said sheepishly. “But thankfully the dried meat wasn’t ruined!”
He passed me some as we walked. He walked, I limped. I knew that he was slowing his pace so that I could keep up.
“Alright, let’s work out this riddle,” he practically chirped with a mouth full of meat. “I estimate it will take about two days to walk to the base of the mountain. And then we’ll have an entire night to do whatever else we need to do.”
I glanced down at my arm and read it several times, ‘ you shall find what light brings to life yet dies in darkness ’. I mumbled it under my breath over and over and over, until I had it committed to memory. At least it gave me something to think about other than my injuries.
“You still think it’s about the plants?” He gestured to my arm.
I shook my head. “No. Maybe? It could be.” I struggled with deciphering it.
“I mean, if it is plants or a plant, then you’re right, that doesn’t narrow it down.
And here.” I pointed to the next part on my arm, Njall bending over me to get a better look, a scent of iron and leather filled my nose.
“‘ Only its death will bring forth the path ’. What if that means it can only be seen at night, since it dies in darkness?”
Njall ran a hand through his damp brown hair and seemed to contemplate my theory. “But how do we know which one or ones? We’re in a forest for Nox’s sake,” he said, beseeching the Goddess of Gaol.
I stopped and looked around. The moss and trees and bushes looked average, nothing seemed particularly different. If I could just get a better look—
My gaze snapped up. Between the trees, I could just barely make out the concave tip of the mountain.
“What if we just can’t tell from down here? Maybe we’ll be able to see it from up there.” I pointed toward the mountain peak. It made perfect sense. The riddle was leading us to the mountain so that we could see the path. “We have to climb to the top of the mountain.”
Njall let out a sharp breath. “At night.”
“What?” My confusion was written all over my face.
“‘ Dies in darkness ’. We have to climb the mountain at night. And since it’ll take us two full days to get there, that only leaves us a few hours to find what we’re looking for before the third dawn.”
Njall was right. If we had the riddle correct, we would only be able to see the answer from the mountain in the darkness.
With the slopes completely barren of any trees, we would be completely exposed, unable to hide from the beasts that dwelled in the forest. Something neither of us looked forward to.
We trekked through the forest for an entire day, and thankfully, we hadn’t run into any additional unsavory creatures.
Njall talked. A lot. I listened. He revealed that he was indeed from Oryn, and he told me all about his life as a blacksmith.
He rambled on and on about the metals he forged, his favorite weapons he had been commissioned to make, and how much he loathed forging horseshoes—which he apparently did often.
And, how excited he was to finally work without long sleeves that had to cover his mark.
To my surprise, I found myself actually enjoying the sound of his voice, appreciative for the distraction of his stories as we walked for hours.
At some point, I tuned out his words, my mind trying to figure out the rest of the riddle. My eyes glazed over in thought, and my legs moved automatically. I couldn’t make sense of the words, and it bothered me to the point of frustration.
‘ What has a river that does not flow ’
I really didn’t want to think about any fucking rivers. But I repeated it in my head over and over and—
“Kya?” Njall brought me back from my thoughts, looking at me expectantly.
I shook my head. “Sorry. What?”
“I said, ‘What is it like being a Roav?’”
“Oh. Well, I like it. But I suppose I don’t really have anything to compare it to. It’s all I’ve ever done.” I shrugged.
“How many Roav are there?” His eyes sparkled with curiosity as he moved a low hanging branch out of the way for me.
“How many do you think?”
Njall shook his head and sighed. “Gods, I don’t know. From the stories I’ve heard, there have to be dozens, if not more. The Hunters of Morah are legendary.”
“There are less than you think, I’ll tell you that. But our vast resources make up for what we lack in numbers. Not to mention, we train rigorously.”
Being a Roav was our entire life, and everything we did revolved around making us better equipped to do our job. Morah used to have other Roav before us but they had died long ago and the Scholars had used mercenaries until Nikan, Malina, and I came along—now, we did it all.
His jaw dropped. “There is no way there are less than twenty. You guys infiltrated and took out that clan of pillagers who ransacked all those towns in Torx.” He gaped at me.
“I can tell you that it is definitely less than twenty.” I thought about the bet that Mal and I lost against Nik.
We bet he couldn’t handle them all on his own, and suggested that Malina go with him.
He came back after only a month, and we each owed him a new weapon of his choice.
The specifics of how he did it remained a mystery, as he refused to talk about it.
“Damn. That’s impressive.” He seemed to speak more to himself than to me.
The sun was lowering in the sky as we scouted out a tree to rest in for the night. While Njall worked on building a fire, I prepared to go out to hunt for food, but he stopped me as I turned to walk away.
“Maybe I should come?” he suggested.
“No river in sight. I think I’ll be okay. And I won’t go far.”
He nodded but was clearly unhappy about the decision. “If you get lost, just use the shadows of the trees to get a bearing on your direction. Just don’t stay gone past sunset or you’ll lose them.” He stood, wringing his hands.
Was he worried about me?
“I’ll be fine. I’m a Roav. Remember?” I could swear I saw a hint of pink on his cheeks as I slipped into the thicket of the forest—staying mindful of the shadows.
Njall was sitting next to a small fire, when I emerged holding a small animal by the tail—similar to that of a rabbit and was big enough for the two of us.
We cooked the meat over the fire and ate as much as we could before burying the rest away from our tree, so we didn’t attract hungry predators in the night.
I walked over to the base of the tree and looked up to the branches—which were higher up than the last one. I rubbed my aching fingers together and worried about my leg.
So much for the Test of Strength. I was probably one of the weakest ones here.
“Let me help.” Njall came to stand beside me.
He smiled and tucked a loose strand of my hair from my braid behind my ear.
I didn’t know what to think of the gesture, and I gave an awkward smile in return before he pushed me farther up the tree and I climbed to a branch wide enough to lay on.
My calf throbbed from the exertion, and I was thankful to be able to finally rest it.
Njall followed after me and took a branch next to mine, as we tied the ropes around our waists, securing ourselves to the tree.
We decided to take shifts sleeping while the other kept a lookout for beasts—Njall taking the first shift.
I stared up at the night sky, watching the stars and constellations twinkle in the inky blackness.
My mind began to wander back to the riddle, bothering me that we hadn’t figured it out, and I knew it was bothering Njall too.
“So what does have a river that does not flow?” I asked, still looking to the sky.
“I’ve been thinking about that all day,” he sighed. I turned to him, his light blue eyes finding mine. “I think maybe it’s not so obvious as a river of water, but perhaps a river of something else?”
“Could be. But we need to figure out what it is before we reach the mountain.”
He hummed in agreement.
“Let’s lay it out,” I said. Njall turned to face me as I continued. “At the mountain, we can find what dies in the darkness.”
“Which is why we have to go at night. So that in the dark, we can find the path.” He nodded.
“Not exactly. This thing that has a river that does not flow will reveal the path. That’s what we have to find.
I just don’t know what that is. And I’m worried we won’t find it, since we don’t even know what we’re looking for.
” I hated having a half-assed plan but I supposed it wasn’t any different from my job as a Roav, not knowing where I was going until I had worked through my resources.
My lips pursed, and my eyebrows creased in thought.
“Let’s hope that it’ll be obvious once we’re there and this…thing that has a non-flowing river will just…appear,” Njall stammered, his hands moving as he talked. He did that a lot.
“I feel like the answer is right in front of us. Maybe I’m overthinking and it’s simpler than it seems.” I shook my head.
“Which part?”
“All of it.”
“Look, this Trial is supposed to test us in more ways than one. It’s meant to push us to the edge and set us apart from all the others. Trust yourself. Don’t doubt now,” he uttered softly.
“It’s testing my patience for sure,” I huffed, my irritation earning me a quiet chuckle from him.
“Let’s just get to the mountain and see what the night reveals. Then we—”
A horrifying wail echoed through the forest. I whipped my head in the direction of the sound and my breathing stopped as my eyes widened.
That was a contestant .
I quickly untied myself and sat up, panic and fear taking over.
For the first time, I didn’t want to be alone.
I made to move to Njall’s branch, but he was already next to me, his sword drawn.
I pulled out my bow and nocked an arrow.
I looked to Njall, his tattooed chest rising up and down with his quickened breaths, and his eyes met mine.
Adrenaline coursed through me as the spine-chilling wails continued for what felt like hours.
Njall settled with his back against the tree, legs hanging off due to the lack of room.
His eyes were hard and searching the surrounding forest. He touched my back then quietly patted his chest, pointed to me then pointed his finger in a sweeping motion to the right.
I nodded in understanding. Keeping my gaze to the right side of the tree while he kept his to the left.
I rested my back against his chest, surprised that I felt comfortable in this proximity.
This forest had my skin crawling. Both of our weapons were drawn as we waited, hoping we would make it through the night.