Chapter 6: "Crisis"

For a while, there was an awkward silence as the party progressed down the trail. It had been several minutes since the brachiosaur departed, and nobody seemed to want to broach the obvious question.

Finally, Arabella broke the silence.

“So you, Harada, are not a Venator then?” She sounded somewhat timid as she broached the question. “Are you merely masquerading as one?”

“Fully masquerading, no,” Caseus responded. Of course, the name she was still referring to him by was definitely a masquerade.

“I have put down Beasts that refused to communicate. But if a crisis can be resolved amicably, I believe that would be infinitely preferable, yes?”

He had been mulling over the revelation of her being a Shaman himself. Sure, he felt comfortable speaking with Shawk now, but his suspicions of her had only grown now.

“May I ask why you are keeping such a thing a secret?” she asked.

“Well now, I could ask the same of you, could I not? I presume you heard Shawk when we first met, yet you said nothing.”

Arabella looked down for a moment. “I may be young,” she replied, “but even I am aware of how Shamans are viewed now.”

“You are rather young, most people your age can't seem to recall a time before Venators and the Queen’s disdain.” That Kai boy's wrath was still fresh in Caseus’s mind.

“Not to mention,” Shawk spoke up, “you are from Filliana, correct?”

“Not much gets by you, does it?” Arabella responded, a hint of sarcasm in her voice. Shawk grunted, while Caseus chuckled. A little spark in there, he mused.

“Then you know why that makes you pursuing the Shaman path all the more odd, correct?”

The girl gave a weary sigh, her snark gone.

“Yes, I know the differences between our cultures. Again, I am young, but not an ignorant infant.”

“‘Differences’ is a bit of an understatement, our cultures could not be further apart!” Shawk barked.

“Well, maybe they are not so different now,” Caseus sighed.

To say Filliana and Enoménos were once polar opposites was indeed an understatement. While Enoménos had always coexisted as equals with the Primordial Beasts, Filliana had taken a more confrontational approach. Their religious orders and culture had never let go of the grudges from the war with Beasts. They clung to the birthright the Gods had granted humanity, and cursed all other species, and even other nations that disagreed with them, as traitors.

“We are the God's Chosen,” was the most often heard mantra amongst Fillianans.

“Indeed, your newest Queen truly is a product of Filliana,” Arabella agreed. “For the life of me I cannot fathom why a King would take such a disparate woman as a concubine.”

Caseus responded with a simple, “Neither do I,” but in truth, he knew full well the answer.

***

The trio took a brief rest at the Spiral Shell Falls. It was so named for the coiled rock formation the water cascaded over, which bore a striking resemblance to the coiled shell of an ammonite or nautilus.

They had shared what provisions Caseus had left: a couple of wafers and strips of dried meat. Shawk had sniffed out some edible berries as well. Then, after everyone answered Nature's call as needed and Caseus refilled the water skin from the falls, they were off again, heading downhill now.

As they began to descend, Arabella inquired about “Harada’s” own origins. He gave the same line as the villagers, the same rehearsed line he gave everyone.

“I hail from Soledad, I'm not surprised you haven't heard of it. Though you surely must have passed by at some point.”

She gave a puzzled look, but didn't push the question any further.

Up ahead, the trees cleared, and they could see the coastal plain spread out before them. To the East, they could see the massive earthen rim that made the wall of the capital, as well as the one-mile wide First Footprint next to it. To the north, on the edge of the horizon, they could see the port town of Sassukaru.

“So, which way is it to your home?” Caseus asked, scanning the vista before them.

The girl’s face was stricken. She only breathed a soft, “No…”

Caseus followed her gaze. Further ahead, still in the forest, a column of smoke was rising.

“No no no no!” Tears were welling up in Arabella’s eyes.

“Quickly Shawk!” Caseus was already dashing down the trail. Shawk quickly outpaced him however, one of his steps matching three of his master’s. As they pulled ahead of him, Caseus could see Arabella wiping tears with one hand, and trying to point Shawk in the right direction with the other.

By the time he caught up with them, Caseus fell to one knee, panting. He considered himself in fairly good shape, and while he walked for miles just fine, he hadn't run one non-stop in some time. He looked up at the scene in front of him, and felt his heart sink.

The home was tucked away in a small cirque, surrounded by redwoods and cypress, with a glacier-fed brook running down one of the walls providing relatively clean water. Despite being half-burned and beginning to crumble, it had obviously not been any ordinary home.

It was not a home in the traditional sense, but rather, the immense hollowed out form of a fallen redwood tree. Before the flames had caused the thing to collapse inwards, it must have stood twelve feet tall, and even though it had been a portion of the tree, it must have been nearly 300 feet long.

“Mother!” Arabella was screaming. “Mother! Where are you?!”

Shawk, for his part, was trying to quiet her. “Please, child, you must be quiet!”

Caseus placed a firm hand on her shoulder. “Arabella please, just calm down for a moment. You said there was a conflict with a Beast, correct? It could still be around here, could it not?”

Arabella bit her lip, clearly trying to stifle the impending sobs. She wiped the tears that had begun streaming down her face. In the back of his mind, Caseus felt his suspicion fading. If this girl had been trying to beguile him, it was a commendable performance.

“Now, what kind of Beast was it? What happened here?”

As he spoke, he was already examining the scene. There were tracks all over the place, so jumbled it was hard to identify species. But there seemed to be two pairs of human tracks: one dainty and barefoot, Arabella's, and another, larger and clad in boots. Definitely the Venator.

But more concerning was that there appeared to be two sets of Beast tracks.

“I thought you said it was just a single Beast involved in this,” Caseus said, crouching over the tracks to examine them.

“Well, I tried to tell you it was complicated-”

“I smell blood,” Shawk grunted as he sniffed the air. “And excrement, and the smell of something dying… that way.”

He gestured toward a small knoll, atop which was what could only be the stump the redwood home had come from. As if in response to his comment, a low, guttural rumbling, almost like a groan, came from behind it.

Arabella immediately sprung to her feet, dashing towards it.

“No, wait!” Shawk called. “Fool girl, it smells like a Beast!”

She did not listen, shouting “Mama! Mama!”

Caseus sprung to his feet chasing after her. What had possessed her?

He rounded the corner, and stopped in his tracks. Laying on its side, propped up against the massive stump, was a duck-billed dinosaur. The Good Mother Lizard, Maiasaura. The great Beast was nearly 40 feet long. Its scaly hide was a deep gray-blue, with white stripes running across the tail and legs. However, its body was also smeared in red, blood seeping from a myriad of slashes and bites. Worst of all, blood seemed to be leaking from its wide, beaked mouth.

Arabella was absolutely hysterical, but did not seem afraid of the thing at all. Instead, she was wrapping her arms around the maiasaurs’ blood-slick neck in a hug.

“Mama! I brought help! Please don't leave me Mama!”

The Maiasaura lifted its head up wearily, eyes half-open.

“Ah, my dear Bella,” she said, her voice hoarse, half-choked on blood. “I told you to leave me…”

“You know I would never!” Arabella shouted. “Besides, Harada here is a Shaman, he understands!”

The Maiasaura turned her gaze to Shawk and Caseus. Her glossy, half-shut eyes suddenly widened.

“By the Gods!” she croaked, hacking up a clot of blood. “I recognize those eyes, even this scent, anywhere! Blessed Prince Caseus! You yet live!”