Are We Really Here Just to Suffer?

Once Ipas put herself to sleep, the time came for us to resume our journey to Freehold. The journey was mostly downhill by this point, though with some unpredictable uphill sections. All the while, I continued to wear the necklace. Part of me felt that wearing it would remind me to keep looking for Hilami. The other part of me thought it plainly silly to assume I could even forget about the old woman. Wearing the necklace did have one other (rather unexpected) benefit: it gave me the strength to endure this insane three-day hike across the Dorns.

This entire time, no demons attempted to attack us. Only Tomosse, if he was even real to begin with, came to visit. Even their constant hollering and running around stopped all of a sudden. The Dorns became quiet. Too quiet.

I put a hand to the hilt of my sword. One could never be too careful in these situations, I reasoned to myself.

Giorg turned to me and said, “You know, for someone who claims to not want to fight, you sure are ready to fight at all hours of the day.”

He was not wrong about that. At least… I didn't think so. Ever since putting the necklace on, my strength increased to levels I had not felt since my early days in the army. I had developed a strange drive to defend myself and the people I cared about. Even with total strangers, how I saw nearly everyone in Andawas, I had found a drive to protect them out of nowhere. It was strange.

On the other hand, did I really want to fight? I had spent the last fifteen years of my life not wanting to fight. Why would it have been any different now? Did the necklace make me want to fight? Surely not. I wouldn't reckon I'd allow myself to be controlled by a glorified piece of jewelry. I did not want to fight.

I did not want to fight.

My fighting days ended that day atop the city walls of Luwas. I knew that. That was the truth I lived by for all those years. But slowly, the idea had started to scratch at the back of my mind again. Maybe, just maybe, I wanted to fight. Perhaps I wanted to take up the sword again. But why?

I thought about taking the necklace off until I needed it. But I remembered quickly that, yes, as long as we were still hiking through the Dorns, I still needed the extra strength. It was to stay on until we arrived at Freehold.

“So tell me more about this council that's being held in Freehold,” I told Giorg.

“When we left on that scouting mission, I only knew of a meeting between the Elf King and the Ogre Stewards,” Giorg explained. “But the Elf King has sent pigeons to all the realms, from Land's End to Niwalos. He wants every political leader, every key merchant, the seers, and military leaders to come to Freehold to discuss plans to defeat the Demon Lord.”

“So you're taking the guy who failed to defeat the Demon Lord fifteen years ago to a place full of people who want to defeat the Demon Lord,” I replied, hoping to have understood Giorg's explanation. “Those people are probably very disappointed in the guy who failed to defeat the Demon Lord once before.”

“Yes, exactly.”

“Why do you do this to me?” I asked him. Why did he do this to me? Sure, he and I had become good friends for the time we had spent on the battlefield together. But there was really nothing between us that would have caused him to go out of his way to search for me.

“I didn't do this to you,” Giorg countered. “You did this to you. I'm basically having to drag you out here, just without the kicking and screaming.”

Of course, I thought to myself, because I did not want to do this in the first place. But that was in the first place. This place was not the first place.

“Yes, exactly,” I answered. “Because I did not ask to join you on this silly little quest in the first place.”

“This is not a silly little quest, Halliyah,” Giorg insisted. “The fate of the world is at stake here.”

“Tell me, Giorg,” I genuinely wondered what he would say after this. “What do you think will happen if we somehow come up with a miracle and defeat the Demon Lord? Do you think the Endless Summer will just end, as if someone cast a spell on the land? Will everything just magically become wonderful and nice and perfect?”

“Of course not,” Giorg answered. “Don't be a fool. Even with magic, one cannot simply undo all the damage that has been inflicted upon the world. That does not mean we cannot try.”

“You sound just like my old instructor,” I scoffed. “He always tried to fill our heads with his lofty ideals.”

“Maybe you need someone to fill your head with lofty ideals again,” Giorg replied with a slight belly laugh.

“Do you want to know where lofty ideals got me the last time?” I asked him, not quite understanding what he thought was so funny. “Impaled by two dozen spikes at the base of the city walls. Never again.”

“Watcher's Eye, how did you survive that?”

I wanted to answer by saying it was Hilami’s magic. She had given that answer to me the day I woke up. But I couldn't know for sure because she never elaborated on what exactly she did to me.

So I never answered that question.

A short time later, Giorg stopped at the edge of the trail, saying nothing, but trembling all the same. Not much could make an ogre shake in their boots. I had to see what he saw. Looking over a cliff, I noticed a pack of wiamiw off in the distance. Wherever wiamiu gathered, people would not be too far away.

“We need to find a way around this pack,” I told Giorg. “Who knows what else is down there.”

“I can’t move,” he replied. “I’m terrified of the wiamiu.”

Oh, good grief! Poor Giorg had frozen in place. I needed to hurry him (and me) away from the wiamiu’s line of sight before they or their owners spotted us.

But it was too late.

One of the wiamiu, upon having spotted us, slipped out of its restraints and pounced. Nearly as tall as a man and about as long as an ogre was tall, a single one of those wretched armored cats could slice and dice someone into dinner with its razor-sharp iron claws. We had but one advantage. When a wiamiu pounced, it left its unarmored underside exposed and vulnerable. I had to act quickly, but…

With a loud roar, the wiamiu perished, and its body collapsed on top of us. I had just enough time to pull out my sword and let the creature fall on top of it. The only plan I could have come up with in such a short amount of time, and it worked.

But that move also did more harm than good, for that death cry alerted someone to our presence. Or perhaps more accurately, a bunch of someones.