Chapter 66 - Scrabble Clamber Crawl

Calling this a retreat is a farce. We’re fleeing, unable to face the horrors that are now in pursuit of us. 

I want to cast an incantation on myself but I notice Clovis hasn’t cast one on herself. I can’t tell if it’s because she wants to stay with the group or if it’s because she can’t due to the stress of the situation.

My whole world is narrowing as I try to increase my pace while also orientating where we are.

“Left!” I scream, my voice raw.

Arrian, doesn’t question me. He relays the order with a hoarse bark. We plunge into a thicket of the warped, fleshy trees.

The first scream is cut horribly short. One of Arrian’s soldiers is dragged from the back of the formation. There is a wet, tearing sound, and then silence. No one looks back. We can’t.

The pressure in my head is a physical torment, a spike being driven through my skull with each push forward. 

My left arm is a conduit of pure agony, the purple fluid from my scars weeping freely now, soaking the sleeve of my tunic as I try my best to pull it along with me in my sprint. 

We burst out of the warped woods into a narrow, rocky ravine. Which is unfamiliar from the path we took to get here, I must have gotten confused with my bearings.

It’s treacherous and littered with loose stones. It’s a bottleneck.

“We can’t outrun them all. I’ll take my stand here!” He turns to the terrified faces of the expedition. “Who’s with me?” He shouts with such dogmatic strength. 

For a moment, no one moves. Then Aniro and a half dozen other soldiers and guards, step forward. “My magic is better suited for holding a position than for a marathon, Captain. I will stay.”

Arrian turns, his eyes wide. “What are you doing? We can make it!”

A strange smile grows on Roach’s face. “It’s a leader’s duty, Knight Captain. Something you’ll learn with time.” He looks at the rest of us. “Now go! That’s an order!”

Aniro’s hands are already glowing, a web of lightning forming between his fingers. The last I see of Roach is his broad back as he raises his shield.

Spurred on by the sounds of battle behind us we scurry across the ravine. 

Flashes of brilliant lightning illuminate the sky, followed by guttural shrieks. 

Then comes a final, earth-shaking roar from Roach, and the deafening crescendo of a rockslide that shakes the very ground beneath our feet. 

We stumble on, a ragged handful of survivors. Myself, Clovis, Arrian, and the remaining legion of guards and soldiers. 

We collapse a few miles later as the pursuit seems to have finally concluded.

 We search for indifferent trunks of healthier-looking trees to lay our backs to rest but none come to pass.

The stillness amongst us is only snapped by serrated pants for air.

Our adrenaline is declining but refusing to halt completely. 

We are no longer an expedition; we are the tattered remnants of men and women greater than us. Roach’s stand bought us our lives, and it’s a leaden burden to carry. 

Arrian still stands in front of us, but he isn’t leading. He’s just putting one foot in front of the other, his armour scuffed and dented from passing branches. 

The arrogant Knight Captain is gone, replaced by a man who has looked into the abyss and seen his own mortality staring back. He hasn’t spoken a word or order since the rockslide.

Clovis is a phantom at my side. Her emotional reserves, utterly depleted. I hadn’t realised she actually was casting incantations the entire way.

I keep my sleeve rolled down, unwilling to look at the weeping violet wounds, but I can feel them. I can smell their faint, rancid odor. 

But strangely, the constant throb is a grounding sensation. It’s a reminder that I am here, I am alive, and this pain is the price of that survival.

We stop by a small, clear stream, the water blissfully untouched by the sickness. As the others refill their waterskins, I sit on a mossy rock, my hands cradling the broken lens. 

The intricate web of cracks feels like a map of our failure. 

I run my thumb over the surface and feel a small, central piece of the stone that is still perfectly smooth, miraculously unharmed. 

It’s not enough to be useful, but its survival feels like a tiny, defiant miracle. A piece of hope in the wreckage.

Clovis comes and sits beside me, her movements weary. The gentle tinkle of the stream keeps our words at bay for a moment.

Arrian approaches, stopping before Clovis. 

“Healer.” he begins, with an odd glint in his eye. “Are you going to be able to carry on soon?”

Clovis looks up at him, her eyes vacant. Her hands are trembling in her lap. For the first time, I see her completely and utterly spent. “I… I don’t know.” A confession of defeat more profound than any scream for help.

Arrian doesn’t berate her. He doesn’t demand more. He just gives a single, slow nod, the gesture of a man accepting a truth he cannot change. 

He leaves us be, to go around to the others remaining. 

We don’t rest. As dusk begins to bleed through the canopy, staining the leaves in shades of purple and grey, I’m the one who gets to her feet.

“We should keep moving.” I plead with all of my remaining power. “If we stop now, we won’t start again.”

No one argues. They just rise and follow me into the growing dark. We walk through the night, a silent procession of the damned, each step an act of will. 

We don’t speak of what we’ve lost, or what awaits us. We just move, bound together by the simple, desperate need to see the sun rise over the walls of home.

The moon is a pale ribbon in the sky, through the scattered canopy. Only beat out by the weak flame Arrian is holding in his hand as he tries to guide us.

We emerge from the forest not where we entered it. Further up the valley alongside the river much like I did when I first came to this world.  

The lights outside the village are more pronounced than they were then. A symptom of destruction. 

They don’t fill me with hope like they did then.

No story is needed to enter civilization this time, for it is already written all over our faces.