Chapter 37: Reunion

“Right or left?”

They had been walking through the early morning hours, doing all they could to find Pelam. She felt a kinship with the Agerian hunter she couldn’t fully explain, and she missed his presence. More than that, it was also the gods’ will that they’d locate him.

Walking had, perhaps, been the wrong word. In fact, stumbling might have been more accurate. With Larean being in such bad shape, they hadn’t managed to get very far. He didn’t say much, but she knew he was in severe pain from the wolf bite.

At least the bleeding had stopped, Soria thought. But walking through the woods, looking for their lost companion in that condition? That was perhaps not the best of ideas.

Not that they had much of a choice.

The farmer and his wife had offered to let the Nimean stay with them until he felt better, but Larean had refused, saying it would only make the two peasants a target for the Imperials hunting them. Seeing him now, panting and groaning, she was fairly certain he had not been entirely honest about how he was feeling at the time. Despite his recent discovery of a conscience, she supposed he was still a con man at heart.

While she didn’t share his sense of responsibility toward the people who had sheltered them, she agreed with his conclusion—they had to keep moving. Somewhere out there was Pelam, and Patera had made it abundantly clear to her that she had to meet up with him, though the god hadn’t said exactly why. All Soria knew was that she had a job to do, and that it involved the Dark Flame who had killed Cairn.

That was really all the god of torture had to say to bring her onboard. Nothing else was relevant. This was no longer just her own mission of vengeance. Now she had both Pelam and the gods on her side.

Assuming, of course, that they could find the hunter somewhere.

She regretted not pushing back harder against Larean’s plan to stay and help with that cart. There had been no reason for them to do so, and now, because of his meddling, their group had fractured and Pelam was out there somewhere, angry and alone. If they hadn’t thought of others before themselves, Pelam would still be with them and everything would be fine.

Which all led back to Larean’s question. Which way should they go?

The road through the forest had ended at a junction. To the right, a narrow path disappeared among the spruces, while the left seemed wider and more frequently traveled. Instinctively, she would have avoided the smaller trail, but this was not a land she was familiar with. Pelam had always been their guide in this strange and foreign country they were journeying through, and now, without him, she truly had no idea which way to turn.

Then again, the question wasn’t which way was right. The real question was which way Pelam had thought was right. It wouldn’t matter if the left road led straight to Terynia, if he had chosen the other one instead.

At her side, Larean stood peering into the forest, as if he believed he might somehow divine the answer out of thin air.

“What do you think?” she asked impatiently.

At first, he said nothing. Then came the reply, reluctant and slow. “I think I know which way he took. But I don’t like the kind of thinking that led me there.”

“Why not?”

“He left because he was angry with me, right? So…”

“So he took the more difficult path,” she filled in. “Right.”

“Right. Right.”

She sighed. “Sorry to have to break your little bubble of self-importance, Larean.”

“He went left?” he asked, curious to know what she meant.

“I don’t know. I just mean your whole argument hinges on the assumption that he didn’t actually know the way. I can’t imagine he took the wrong path just to spite you if he knew it was wrong.”

He seemed to ponder that for a moment.

“So we’re back to not knowing?”

“He went right,” Patera screamed at the back of her head.

So that’s how it was going to be, she thought. From now on, her new patron god would always be there, present inside her mind. Seeing what she saw. Listening to what she heard. And having an opinion on what she thought.

The realization unsettled her, even as it made her feel strangely important. After all, one of the gods of the world had chosen to pay attention to her. To her, among millions.

“Actually, Patera says we should go right.”

Larean glared at her. Clearly, he disapproved of her new association. He obviously wasn’t being rational. Why should the source of her knowledge make a difference? All that mattered was that she was correct.

“Don’t take this the wrong way,” he said to her, “but if Patera knew all along which road he took, why did she wait to tell you until now? We’ve been standing here debating it for quite some time.”

“Blasphemer,” Patera wheezed inside her mind. “Find a way to show him the true meaning of pain.”

Soria only grunted. Fearful of what she might say to him, she didn’t want to reply to Larean’s question. Patera seemed to vehemently hate him, and at times she found it difficult to separate her god’s feelings from her own.

None of them said anything further as they delved deeper into the forest. The trees were old, and from their branches hung long, gray strands of beard lichen, giving them the appearance of something vast and ancient. On the ground, deep patches of moss covered most of the land, like a soft, green mattress. All around them, the air was filled with the smells of spruce needles and decaying plant material, mushrooms and resin, life, death, and rebirth. Just like the rainforests back in Derimar, this place truly felt alive.

After a while, they began to hear shrieks in the far distance. To Soria, the voices, if that’s what they were, didn’t sound quite human. If anything, they sounded more like animals crying out in fear and pain.

“I don’t like this,” Larean said. “Maybe we should go around.”

She nodded slowly. “Get your fire ready, just in case.”

“Follow the screams.”

“On second thought,” she said, pretending it was her own idea, “maybe we should go check it out. Maybe it’s Pelam. If it is, it sounds like he’s in trouble.”

She knew quite well that the Nimean was a coward. But she was also sure he’d never let any harm come to Pelam if he could help it. Using his conscience against him wasn’t a bad strategy to get him where she wanted him.

Going in the direction of the cries meant leaving the trail they had followed for the past half hour. Weaving around the old spruces and trudging through the wet undergrowth was probably even worse for Larean than walking the road had been. The land sloped downward, and the added strain of the descent taxed him more than was healthy. Still, he said nothing.

Eventually, they reached a point on the escarpment where a shelf overlooked the valley below. And on the bottom of the crevasse, they finally saw the source of the noise that had drawn them to this place.

The battle—if you could call it that, since it was decidedly one-sided—was intense and vicious, and very kinetic. In the middle, Pelam stood, covered in blood and gore, his curved sword swinging in circles as he defended against the attacking trolls.

No, she corrected herself. Not defending.

Some of the animals were indeed attacking him, but not, it seemed, out of malice. They simply had no other options left, as Pelam advanced on them, brutally cutting down any creature within his reach. On the ground, she could see the eviscerated bodies of adults and infants alike, lying like broken dolls on the valley floor. The large apes, trapped in the confines of the crevice and unable to escape the frenzied hunter, stood no chance as he dispatched them left and right, screaming in manic rage.

Others were desperately scrambling up the steep hillside, fighting for purchase on the moss-slick slope. But, robbed of coordination in their panicked state, they stumbled, slipped, and tumbled back down. Sliding on their flanks and backs to the valley floor, they became easy prey for the ruthless arc of Pelam’s sharp blade.

“Pelam!” she shouted, trying to get his attention. “Are you okay?”

The young man looked up at her, his eyes filled with a hatred she now intimately recognized, one that could only come from the gods of the world. How she knew, she couldn’t say. But whatever had happened to him during the night had made him her brother in ways far deeper than their shared mission ever could have.

Larean didn’t seem to notice it. “Do you need help?” he shouted, always eager to lend a hand.

“Stay back!” Pelam roared. “They’ll tear you to pieces if you let them.”

Something in the air made her feel light-headed. It wasn’t just the tangy smell of iron. No, it was more than that. Even though the fear and pain the animals down there felt, as life ebbed out of them, wasn’t human, it was still intoxicating. Their suffering was an offering to the gods, and together with Patera, she delighted in it.

“Do not worry, little one,” the god of torture rasped at the back of her mind. “Before long, we will find real children for you to play with. Much more fun than these ape babies.”

A feeling stirred in her. Deep down in her soul, something seemed to try to whisper to her that the thought was repulsive. But despite knowing better, she repressed it, and Soria instead found herself savoring her god’s suggestion, her mind quietly imagining what it would feel like to slowly cut young skin with her sharp blade.

She shrugged. This was not the time for such fantasies. She had to focus on the here and now.

Down on the valley floor, the fight was mostly over now. Pelam stepped over the broken bodies of the animals he had slaughtered to reach a juvenile trying to escape him. It looked back at him over its shoulder, baring its teeth in a futile attempt at intimidating the approaching hunter.

A quick stroke with his blade was all he needed to sever its head from its neck. It tumbled onto the forest floor with a dull thud, as blood sputtered from torn arteries, painting the ground dark red.

Pelam looked up at them, drunk on pain and death.

“Come down here, Larean!” he shouted. “Let me show you what I can do!”

“Yes!” Patera wheezed. “This is your chance. Down there, no one will hear his screams. We can entertain ourselves for hours! I’ll heal him and you’ll do the cutting. We’ll have so much fun!”

No, not yet, she thought. Larean was… well, for now she wanted to say “their companion”, but she truly didn’t know what he was anymore. But she still felt a faint urge to keep him safe, for old times’ sake.

When he had first latched onto her, back when they met in the Cold Edge, she had appreciated his company. Though their reasons had been very different, they had both shared the experience of leaving their homelands, and with him at her side, she no longer had to walk alone into a foreign country. Not to mention that she was a healer, not a fighter, and having a fire mage beside her when she went looking for Cairn had seemed like a good idea at the time.

But now? Soria wasn’t sure Larean would go along with her plan to torture and kill the Dark Flame. And if he didn’t, he was useless to them.

Eventually, she decided to keep protecting him, for now. But she and Pelam would soon have to have a serious conversation with him about his loyalties. And if his answers weren’t to their—or to the gods’—satisfaction… well, she couldn’t be held responsible for what might befall him after that.

She glanced over at Larean. He looked a bit uncomfortable, but didn’t quite seem to understand the implications of what Pelam was saying.

If he only knew.

As they watched, Pelam ascended the sloping valley side, grabbing the trunks of the smaller spruces for support as he hauled himself up to where they were standing.

“Did you see that?” he asked Soria, euphoric. His eyes looked almost feverish.

Before she could respond, the hunter continued. “Mardocar appeared to me.”

“Mardocar?” Larean exclaimed, clearly flustered. “But why?”

Pelam stared at him as if he was a mere bug to be squished.

“You don’t understand, Nimean,” he spat. “My whole war against them, it was all for nothing. I was just deluding myself. We can’t stand against the gods. Only by surrendering myself to Mardocar could something good come from all this suffering.”

Larean shook his head but said nothing. He seemed sad, though.

“What about the mission?” Soria asked, afraid of what this might mean for her own journey of revenge.

Pelam smiled as he wiped blood from his face with a patch of thick, moist moss.

“I’m with you. My old undertaking may be over, but the gods still want the Imperial agents dead. Not just the Dark Flame, but the Blood Sister and the Knight Eternal, too. They’ve served their purpose, and now their time is done. The gods of the world have revoked their favor. But first we have another task.”

“Blood Sister? So that was what she was, the fire mage?” she asked rhetorically, before turning to Larean. “We could use your help. You saw what that red-haired woman could do, back at the garrison. We could really use one of our own when we fight them. If you ask, I’m sure the gods will grant you the same powers they’ve given us.”

“You know I’ve already refused them once,” he replied. “I don’t want that kind of power.”

He sighed, then continued, his voice filled with both fear and resignation.

“I’ll go with you until we reach the nearest village. I need to find a Flow Walker there, to heal my wound, and you both need to rest before… whatever is coming. But after that, we go our separate ways.”

Author's Note

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