Chapter 68 - Adjudicate

A solid wall of sound is erected and presses in from all sides. I feel the vibrations in my bones as we try to carve a path through the jubilant throng. 

We push past shoulders and outstretched hands, our eyes fixed on the impossible figures at the gate. My focus is a tight, narrow beam, cutting through the chaos to try and land on one man.

Roach.

He is a monument of grime and dried blood, his armour a painting of his own survival. 

He leans against the gatepost, not with exhaustion, but with the easy posture of a man at peace. 

His wounds are a collection of cuts and tears, nothing more than angry red lines against his skin, nothing that suggests the life-or-death struggle he must have endured. 

Nothing, except for the new, permanent addition to his face. A vicious, crescent-shaped slash from his forehead, bisecting his left eye before crossing the bridge of his nose in a bright, puckered line.

Clovis is the first to reach him, her professional instincts overriding the emotional shock. “Roach, that eye… let me see to it immediately.”

He holds up a hand, stopping her. The gesture is gentle, not dismissive. “No. You first, Clovis. You need to rest.”

The request is so out of character that it silences the immediate clamour around us. 

Clovis snaps her head back in disbelief. The gruff, demanding Captain who barked orders and viewed compassion as a weakness is gone. In his place stands a man with a quiet, earned authority. 

He looks at each of us, his eyes lingering on Orville, held steady by Riel. A silent understanding passes between the two leaders, one rising as the other is forced to set.

“I need to talk to you all in Arrian’s tent.” His voice steady with a slight rasp.

The interior of the Knight Captain’s tent is indulgent to say the least. Large and fitted with extravagant furnishing befit for a king let alone a military leader. 

We clamour in, the five of us and a humbled, Arrian. The smell of canvas, sweat, and the coppery tang of old blood. 

Roach slumps onto a simple wooden stool, accepting a waterskin from Arrian with a grateful nod. He takes a long drink before beginning his tale.

“The rockslide… it was a blessing in disguise,” he begins, his gaze distant. “It sealed the ravine, trapping a good portion of those… things on the other side with us. Pinned them like insects.” 

He takes another drink, the memory clearly a heavy one. “We lost good people holding them at the mouth of the slide. It was a bloody attrition. But then, something strange happened.”

He looks at me, then at Clovis. “They turned on each other. The ones that were more twisted, more monstrous… they just went berserk. It was a complete frenzy. The sickness, or whatever it is, it made them indiscriminate. They tore each other to pieces. It gave us the opening we needed to slip away.”

His story continues, a grim account of getting lost in a forest that no longer matched his mental map, a hostile landscape that seemed to actively work against them. 

They navigated by instinct, by the sun, by the faintest shifts in the wind, until they stumbled upon the river and followed it home.

Arrian has been listening with a quiet, uncharacteristic intensity. “It was your research that made the difference.” he admits his voice devoid of its usual arrogance. 

He looks from Clovis to me, a flicker of grudging respect in his eyes. “We may have taken rest in one of those clearings if you weren’t there with your lens, who knows what could have happened.”

“I don’t know if you realised it, but the entire time we were following the mana, we weren’t attacked once it was only once we stepped away, we were attacked.”

The acknowledgment, coming from him, feels monumental. And his insight is brilliant.

“I didn’t notice that no. But when I first got lost in those woods, I was being pursued by a Jougolin which all of a sudden stopped chasing me as soon as I got into the river, there must be a mana vein above the river. Maybe the creatures don’t dare to get near the mana veins? We’ll have to figure that out when the lens is repaired.” 

“That could be really crucial information, we might have to get a new division created solely for the purpose of mapping out these ‘Mana Veins’” Arrian’s enthusiasm is an off putting thing but I can’t help but be endeared at the possibility of helping save lives indirectly. 

As the reunion breaks up and people begin to filter out of the tent, a sense of weary finality settles over us. 

The immediate danger has passed. Now comes the long, arduous task of picking up the pieces. 

Riel is standing by the tent waiting for Orville to finish with Roach and Arrian. He’s looking out at the flurry of activity, his shoulders slumped under an invisible weight. 

I walk over to him, my own exhaustion a heavy cloak. “Riel,” I start, my voice quiet. “I meant what I said at Orville’s. I’m not leaving, I’m here to see this through.”

He turns to look at me with surprise in his tired eyes. He opens his mouth to respond, but a gentle hand on my arm stops me.

“Shikara, a word?”

It’s Clovis. Her face is smudged with dirt, her white hair is a tangled mess, but her crimson eyes are clear and bright. She looks much better now than she did even 10 minutes ago. 

She leads me a short distance away from the tent, into the relative quiet between two supply carts.

“Our work… it’s going to change everything. How mages understand magic, how kingdoms defend themselves. It’s bigger than just this village. I’m so proud of you, Shikara. Your attempts at magic even through your injury, your unwillingness to give up. I wouldn’t have done any of this without you.”

She takes a shaky breath, and for the first time, I see a flicker of vulnerability, of the lonely elf who has spent a lifetime keeping the world at arm’s length. “I know I’m not the easiest person to work with so I’m really happy you stuck through it with me and I still have so much to teach you, that is if you still want to learn?”

“Clovis, of course I want to continue to learn from you!” A quick smile spreads across her face. And then, her arms are around me, pulling me into a fierce, exhausted hug. 

I cling to her, my face buried in her shoulder, the shared weight of everything we’ve been through, the fear, the discoveries, the loss pressing us together. 

We’re not just a teacher and an apprentice anymore. We’re partners… We’re friends.

Later, as the sun begins to set, casting long, peaceful shadows over the bustling village, I find myself standing alone at the edge of the northern palisade. 

I look out towards the forest, its canopy a deep, bruised purple in the twilight. 

A sudden gust of wind whips a few strands of loose hair across my face,an unconsciously familiar sensation. 

My right hand comes across to my left arm, my fingers tracing the network of scars. They are surprisingly mute, the pain looming in the background.

I’m here not there.