The Mission Continues

The world spun, twisting and contorting in on itself before expanding outward into infinite darkness. As the ground reappeared beneath Avii, it came at him fast as he tumbled free of the limp, armoured grasp of the Lieutenant’s corpse.

“Lieutenant!” He could hear the voices crying in the darkness as heavy boots trampled over him to get to the body. “By the Gods! He-he—he’s dead!”

“It’s the mule’s fault!” Another called out as Avii felt a boot emerge from the darkness to kick free one of his recently regrown teeth. “If he hadn’t been waiting for the damn mule, he would have never died!”

Still blinded by the pitch-black of night, Avii could do nothing to avoid the blows that came his way. Then, without warning, an armoured hand took him by the throat, holding him aloft as he choked, gasping for air. In this vulnerable position he could do little to defend himself as a soldier’s fist struck his face again and again. Between the wet smacks of his bloodied visage being pummelled, he could hear the soft sobs of someone crying over the Lieutenant’s body.

Light began to illuminate the space as the rune adorning his assailant's body pooled with magic, revealing the hateful glare of a broad-faced human. The face of someone who had not been at the meeting and held much hatred for Avii. As knuckles glowed, ready to deliver a decisive blow, an orcish figure drew near enough to grab hold of the suit.

“Sebastian, stop!” Ostave ordered, his armour now glowing as he expended magic to hold back the strike. “Enough! That’s enough, Basti!”

“How can you say that, Oz?!” Sebastian hissed, looking to the orc with a hurt expression revealing itself on his dimly lit face. “Marx was our brother! And this mule—this mule is the reason—”

“Koviks!” The orc returned furiously. “The Kovik-bastards killed Marx! Not this mule. Save your hate, gynour! There will be a time to use it.”

With a grumble, the man lowered his fist, the magic slowly draining from the armour. In the fading glow, Avii caught a glimpse of Sebastian’s hateful gaze in the moments before the man’s grip weakened and the beaten mule was thrown back to the ground. Landing hard against stone, his shoulder popping back into place as he allowed his tired, battered body to fall limp. Avii quietly struggled for air, breathing in weak gasps as he spat up blood from the recent abuse.

“Aindes, report,” He listened to Ostave order. “Where are we? This doesn’t look like Camp Gwenhwy-fawr to me?”

“Negative, sire.” The elf hissed, his staff glowing a pale blue as it illuminated the world around them. “Something went wrong in transit. The stone took us somewhere else.”

Stone? Avii thought, as he turned his attention down to the ground where he landed.

“Somewhere else?” The thick voice of the dwarf spoke. “What’re you talking about, elf? The sigil-stone went from our tent to Camp Gwenhwy-fawr. Nowhere else.”

“To our best knowledge, yes, Ragart!”

“In recent years, after discovery of the second sending sigil, we’d been exploring the possibility of additional sites behind enemy lines—”

“Fascinating,” Ostave interrupted. “Aindes, can you use this stone to get us to the right location?”

By this point, Avii had begun rubbing at the stone surface beneath him. Under the glow of the elf’s staff, it was hard to distinguish between intentional shaping and years of weathering, but eventually he discovered it. A smooth groove that he traced with his finger, pushing up dirt and leaves as he drew the lines of a sigil out on the ground.

He knew what this was. The object that the Estarians called sigil-stones and the Koviks knew as ring-gates, but neither was close to what they actually were. His people, the Maldainians, had a different name for the magic sigil, one more true to their mysterious purpose. To him, they were labyrinth tiles, and it was not as simple as activating one and then appearing elsewhere. Much like how the hands of a clock could be the same twice a day, so too were the portals.

“Yes, I believe so.” Aindes answered Ostave, as his staff began to glow. “Just give me a moment to—”

“Wait!” Avii exclaimed, reaching his dirtied hand up. “Please, stop.”

“Quiet, mule!” Sebastian exclaimed, kicking Avii in the gut and rolling him from the stone sigil. “Else I free you of your disgusting tongue!”

“Sebastian, enough,” Ostave ordered, stepping between the heated man and Avii. “Marx insisted on bringing the mule along for precisely this reason. We owe it to his honour to at least hear what the beast has to say.”

“What could a mule offer to us besides carrying our gear and eating our scraps?”

“The Lieutenant had it on good authority that this particular mule was the Core Maldainian.” Ragart, the dwarf, spoke up, a flickering flame from the tip of his finger lighting the cigar he had withdrawn. “That this was the one there that day and knows this land.”

“Griffon-shit!” Sebastian spat at Avii. “It’s just another slave. Let us be done with it and—”

“Stop!” The woman who had been mourning over Marx’s body cried. “Sebastian, stop! You weren’t at the meeting. It’s true. It’s all true!”

“Vivat, we all know how you cared for Marx. But I never knew you were also a mule fuc—"

“ENOUGH!” Ostave’s voice echoed through the darkness, shaking free creatures that had been hiding in the branches above. “With the Lieutenant down, the chain of command dictates I am now in charge of this crusade. So, stow the attitude, Gynour Sebastian, or so help me I will cut you down where you stand.”

Silence fell over the group at this, everyone holding their tongues as the orcish knight’s fury took over. Avii watched in the faint glow of staff-light as both men stared each other down. The orc’s hand rested firmly over the pommel of his blade, prepared to take hold of the grip in a moment. Meanwhile, as the human investigated the Knight closely, eyes shifting to Avii and back, his hands hovered atop the kukri knives that rested on either side of his hips.

“Fine.” Sebastian finally spoke, lifting his hands from the blades before turning and walking off. “Waste your time speaking to an animal if you wish. I’m off to patrol the perimeter.”

Avii listened as the man’s footsteps faded, disappearing into the darkness as he left all the tension of the moment back with the remaining soldiers. After a quiet nod, Ostave sent Ragart after the hotheaded man before turning his attention back to the beaten mule who still rested on the ground.

“Alright, mule, speak,” Ostave insisted, his hand still hovering over his blade as though debating whether or not he wished to keep Avii around. “Why shouldn’t we use the sigil-stones?”

“Th-their—” Avii gulped, trying to find the right words to explain his reasoning. “Not reliable.”

“They’ve been plenty reliable in the past—” Aindes spoke quickly.

“Without doubt,” Avii replied, pointing towards the horizon. “Dawn and dusk, right? That was when you travelled to your camp?”

“How did you—?”

“Estarian’s are nothing if not predictable. You always move in regular times, no doubt why the Koviks attacked when they did. Catching you right in your transitional phase. The labyrinth tiles are the same—"

“The what?” Ostave interrupted.

“S-Sorry, sigil-stones. They work in a similar style. Dawn and dusk must have connected your sigil, the one you said was beneath the tent, with this camp you speak of. When we went through, the time wasn’t quite right, which means we must have been sent to another tile—erm, stone.”

“And how do you know this?”

“The Mal—my pe—the mules, they used them once upon a time to transport goods across long distances. But the magic is the same as the mountain. It is ancient and unpredictable. We never truly understood it, and after losing many shipments and men—mules, we gave up altogether.”

The group stood quiet, consuming the information provided to them until eventually the elf spoke up.

“So why don’t we keep using the stones and jump to somewhere more familiar?”

“Last I remember hearing, there were thousands of tiles scattered across the land. Some atop mountains, others at the edge of towns, still more within hungry caverns or at risk of plunging into molten lakes. The stones cannot be destroyed, so every step we take through them is a risk.”

“And where is this one?” Ostave asked as he walked over to Marx’s body and delicately reached into his armour to withdraw the blood-stained map.

“It’s hard to tell in the dark.”

As though by command, the elf tapped his staff and a sphere of light, as bright as Avii remembered the full moons of his youth, bathed over the space. Trees as thick as houses, reaching far beyond the glow of the spell, surrounded the group. Their forms, seemingly petrified, were pale and appeared as hard as granite. The ground beneath them was dead, devoid of plants, with only the remnants of leaves, acting as a reminder of the life once present.

Avii’s heart dropped in an instant as he stared at the skeletal forms and their weak limbs that reached out from the shadows.

“A place known to the Koviks as The Great Forest,” Avii whispered, fearful of being too loud in such a horrid place. “But my people had a different name for it. We are currently within the Forest of Bones, and we should leave before they find us.”

Then, as though by command, an unearthly shriek echoed through the woods as, in the distance, a dozen glowing eyes opened and a hollow clicking echoed through the dead forest. Avii, chilled to the bone, looked at Ostave with a hardened expression, one of a man used to facing death. The Knight met his with a confused glance, hand gripping the hilt of his sword.

More eyes opened. More clicks echoed. And before long, they were surrounded.

“It’s too late, now,” Avii whispered. "They come."