Authors: Usman Ijaz
He scanned the woods, all too aware that every
tree and every shadow could hide danger. He also scanned the ground from time
to time for tracks. Rebecca had said there were people on this side, and Alexis
believed her. They hadn’t caught a whiff of anyone so far, but he knew that in
a forest so grand, they could be anywhere. He didn’t find any human tracks,
only those of animals, and even those seemed rare.
The night darkened, and the three stopped and
made shelter.
It didn’t rain, but the night was far from easy.
The blankets Rebecca had given them were a great comfort, but they were not
enough. After eating some more of the hard bread and drinking some more water
the boys lay down for the night and Alexis took up his vigilant watch, a large
blanket wrapped around him.
The fire they had made was small, so as to not
give away their location to any seeking eyes. Alexis began to wish that they
had made it larger. The wind seemed to pass through the blanket and his coat.
He sat before the fire like a still statue, but for his brown eyes which
constantly searched the dark. His ears pricked at the tiniest sounds. He was at
his most alert.
He watched the boys sleep as the night passed.
The two lay close to one another, sharing blankets, and their faces were calm
and serene in sleep. He reflected on how he and his companions had stolen their
peace from them. It was a saddening thought, and he accepted it stoically,
knowing that they had done what had needed to be done. His thoughts drifted to
what he himself had left behind. They were bitter and heart-wrenching thoughts.
The consequences of every decision
, he told himself as he stood and
began a slow circle of their camp. His eyes scanned the darkness and the
ground, ears tuned to any sound. Still, the thoughts would not entirely leave
him.
I did what I had to do.
An owl hooted suddenly above him, startling him
out of his thoughts. Alexis had a gun drawn and aimed at the bird in a flash.
He laughed as he saw the owl. “You’re extremely lucky, friend.” The owl blinked
and flew off.
He returned to the fire and waited for nearly
another two hours, awake with his thoughts. In the early hours of the morning,
when dawn had not yet broken across the sky, he lay down and slept. His sleep
was a thin membrane from the waking world; at times the sound of the wood
crackling in the fire was enough to wake him.
3
Adrian felt the cold spatters of rain on his
face and sat up. He looked around, saw the fire reduced to smoldering coals,
and Alexis and Connor sitting nearby and breakfasting on more hard bread.
“This is going to be a hard day,” remarked
Alexis, voice and face resigned.
Adrian folded his blanket and placed it in the
haversack. He took out one of the waterskins - there were three, and one was
already empty and the others only half full - and drank a few sips before
putting it back. Connor tossed him a piece of the tough bread and Adrian
munched on it with no great enthusiasm.
He looked up at the gray sky and more raindrops
fell upon his naked face. It wasn’t raining hard, just a light drizzle, but
that also meant it would continue for a while. The woods twinkled with
dewdrops.
They set off again soon after, with Adrian
carrying the haversack.
“Are the dreams still troubling you?” Connor
asked quietly once they were on the march.
“No... not as much as they did before,” Adrian said
as he stepped over a large root that was in his path.
“Are these the same dreams you spoke of before?”
Alexis asked without turning to look back.
“They are just dreams,” Adrian quietly. He
suddenly felt reluctant to share them with his friends, afraid of what they
would make of them.
“What kind of dreams?” Alexis persisted.
Adrian sighed. “For the past month or so, I've
been having dreams in which a woman is killed by an angry mob. I’m sure she was
an Ascillian ... and I’m almost certain she was my mother.”
Alexis halted and looked at him then. “Your ...
mother? Are you sure?”
“I believe so,” admitted Adrian. “The dreams
have stopped, but I still see her sometimes. Now I sometimes dream of something
else as well.”
“What?” Alexis asked.
“I don’t know,” Adrian said. “All I see in my
dreams is darkness, and sometimes a bright light. It wavers in and out of
existence. Sometimes it is there, and sometimes there is only the dark.” He
left out the other dreams, where he was the precursor of death.
Alexis looked at him for a long time and Adrian
began to feel uncomfortable. At last the Legionnaire said, “It calls to you.”
“But how can that be?” Connor asked once they
were on the move again.
“The Ascillians and the Source were closely
related,” Alexis explained. “It is easy to believe that they could touch one
another in some manner.”
“How long can the Source last ... without an
Ascillian’s touch?” Adrian asked, not sure he wanted to know the answer.
“It has lasted for the last several decades,
let’s hope that it lasts for a while longer,” Alexis answered. “It’s said that
when the last known Ascillian was hunted down, she was running into the Ruins.
If she had reached her destination, perhaps the Source would not be in the
state it is now; perhaps we would have a few more years.”
Adrian’s hands tightened at Alexis’s words. He
wasn’t mad at his friends, or his uncle and cousins, but he felt the need to
blame someone strongly. And it was simply too easy to point the blame towards
all humankind. He understood what his duty was, what was expected of him, and
he supposed that there really was no choice for him, it was either do or don’t,
but he wished that he didn’t feel as though he was doing it for those that
didn’t deserve it. At times a malevolent thought crept upon him.
Why not let
the Source die?
Perhaps then they would repent their unforgivable sin. But
the thought always made him feel at odds with himself, as if he were going
against what he truly believed and knew to be right, and so he always pushed it
away.
By noon Adrian loathed the damned woods. He had
had enough with them and wanted to get out as soon as possible. He detested
their gloomy appearance, and he hated the sensation of walking in place. No
matter how long they marched, they still remained in the woods when they
stopped.
They came to a small stream and refilled their
waterskins. Then they were on the move again. It stopped raining, but the
ground beneath them was soggy and the trees that brushed their clothes were wet
with rainwater.
“This is turning out to be a great day,” Connor
said dismally.
1
Adrian and Connor began to spread their blankets
beneath a large tree as Alexis constructed a small fire. Overhead the moon
shone through drifting waves of clouds. Despite the day’s rain the night was
gratefully not as frigid as the previous one. They were all tired and all they
had to eat was Rebecca’s bread with some fruitberries Alexis had found. The
Legionnaire gave most of his berries to Adrian and Connor.
“Don’t you want some?” Adrian asked.
“I prefer the bread,” Alexis said. He sat down
with his back against the tree.
Adrian knew it to be a lie but didn’t say
anything. He and Connor ate the somber meal and washed it down with water.
Alexis took out his guns and began cleaning them as he munched on his bread.
For a while they sat around the fire in quiet silence, each of them drifting
with their own thoughts.
“Do you think the assassins are still on our
trail?” Adrian asked into the quietness.
Alexis looked up from his guns and mulled the
question over. “I don’t know,” he said at last. “I’m beginning to think that
they might not have followed us into the woods, but that leads me to wonder
what we can expect once we get out of here.”
“Who do you think sent them?” Connor asked,
drawing his blanket tight around him.
“I told you before that it is possible others
are looking for Adrian,” Alexis said patiently. “It could be anyone.”
“What about Hamar and Owain? Do you think they
are all right?” Connor asked.
“I don’t know,” Alexis answered wearily. Adrian
could see his patience wearing thin. “We’ll have to see once we make it out of
these infernal woods.”
They all relapsed into silence once more. The
Legionnaire continued cleaning his guns and the boys eventually lay down to
sleep.
2
The night deepened and Alexis was left with his
thoughts again. He stared into the flames, in his mind going over the scenario
that had caused them to flee from Haven as fast as they could. He wanted to be
able to answer the boys’ questions, but he simply didn’t know what to tell
them. He didn’t know if Hamar and Owain had survived, if they had killed their
attackers or had been killed themselves. He didn’t know how long they were
going to be in these woods, and he didn’t know who else might be after Adrian.
For the first time he began to feel the weight of the duty that had been
dropped onto his shoulders.
Duty binds a man stronger than any chain
,
he recited to himself and smiled a small smile.
He wanted to get out of these woods and
send word to King Aeiron and ask for advice. Perhaps even to tell him to send
more Legionnaires to aid this mad quest. Sitting here, before a small fire in
the middle of these strange woods, all that he imagined lay ahead of them
seemed daunting. And he was by himself. He began to wonder if they would even
reach Gale. The capital of Teihr was nothing more than another stop in their
long and arduous road, but there he knew that they could catch a respite; it
had been for this reason that the king had agreed that they should stop there.
Gale was the one place where they could expect help. And now it was the only
place that he was sure they could be safe for a while.
The night deepened and Alexis kept his
silent vigil as he had done so many of these past nights. The lack of sleep was
beginning to take its toll on his body, but it was nothing that he couldn’t
overcome
-
at least for a little while longer. He kept his watch, and in
the early hours of the morning began to lay his blankets down to catch some
rest.
Crack!
Alexis jerked his gaze away from his bedding and
peered into the woods. The dry sound of leaves crunching beneath heavy feet
came from the surrounding forest again, barely audible.
An animal
, came
the thought, but he pushed it away; he wouldn’t take the chance. He was
suddenly filled with the premonition that they were not alone. He watched the
darkness around the camp, straining his eyes to catch the slightest movement,
but could see nothing. He was nightblinded, and cursed himself for it. But he
could hear them.
He drew his guns and straightened, a dead
certainty in his head that the assassins had found them at last. The wind
blowing through the trees stirred his hair as he moved toward the edge of the
light cast by the fire. He looked behind him to check on the boys, saw them
sleeping peacefully, and returned to studying the woods.
At first he saw nothing but darkness. Then a
shadow moved further off into the woods. Alexis raised a gun towards it. The
sound of a cracking branch from his right caused him to wheel in that
direction, his other gun leveled towards the noise. He caught a glimpse of
another shadow scurrying behind a tree, nothing else. Again came the sound of
running feet from behind him, and he turned to face the woods in that
direction, trying to assess the situation.
Whoever they are, they’re keeping
away until they’re certain they have us trapped
. A low growl from the woods
answered his thought, and Alexis realized that they were being surrounded. He
turned and strode briskly to where the boys lay. He knelt beside them and shook
them both awake.
“Alexis, what’s--?” Connor began, yawning, but
Alexis cut him off.
“We have to move. We’re not alone anymore.”
The two boys startled and rose from their
blankets. Alexis stood up and went to the haversack, he threw it at their feet
and told them to quickly repack their belongings. While they did this, he kept
a wary watch on the woods, his fingers flexing on the butts of his guns. If
only he could determine where the assassins were.
The sound of several hurried feet carelessly
running through the underbrush came from somewhere to his right.
They know
we’re aware of their presence
. He looked at the two boys and saw them
staring into the woods, eyes wide with fear and hands trembling as they readied
the pack.
Alexis turned around in full circle, fighting to
hold on to his own composure, trying to decide which direction was safest. And
even as he thought on this an arrow flew from the dark and buried itself in his
shoulder. He screamed aloud as sudden pain lanced down his arm and through his
chest. He nearly dropped his gun. He gasped in surprise and pain and stumbled
back several steps. He looked at the thin shaft protruding from his left
shoulder, and in some distant part of his mind realized that had it gone in
another few inches below it would have likely punctured his heart.