chapter 7
Eskaras strolled along the battlement atop the eastern city wall of Keldrin’s Landing, tapping the butt of his crossbow upon each crenellation as he passed. The night was humid and pressed in close about him, and inwardly, where there was no risk that a superior officer would overhear him, he cursed his patrol assignment.
On the northern wall, he would be enjoying the cooling breeze drifting over the city from the Vellayen Sea. The western wall boasted breathtaking views of the homes of the city’s wealthiest residents. Those sprawling, luxurious estates were lit well enough, even at night, to fuel the unlikely dreams of one scraping out a meager existence on the pay of a city guard. His assignment tonight was the southernmost stretch of the eastern wall, however, and it had little to recommend it these days. To be sure, the broad vistas were scenic in the light of day, but they palled to tedium with enough viewings, and after nightfall they dissolved into broad gulfs of impenetrable darkness.
Eskaras dropped his gaze to the flagstone path stretching away before him, fancying he could see a shallow furrow worn into the herringbone pattern from the countless booted feet that had trod this path before him. He wondered how many times he himself had walked this lonely circuit, and his mood darkened. Wall-watch was a duty desired by very few; it was monotonous, too secure to draw additional hazard pay, and too remote to catch the eye of a more generous private employer. Eskaras rapped the next crenellation harder with his crossbow as he wondered what he had done to merit selection for this duty yet again; he had his suspicions that it was guilt by association.
He stopped and peered over the edge to see the stone recede downward into darkness. He could not see to the ground, over one hundred feet below, but he glimpsed the periodic torches in wall sconces, each a tiny nimbus striving to hold back the gloom. There were tales among the city watch of strange and terrible things reaching the walls from time to time, and it seemed every morning a few of the sconces were found torn from their moorings and had to be replaced, but Eskaras had never witnessed such events himself. Even if something did reach the city’s perimeter, what primitive forces could dream of scaling or penetrating this sheer stone giant? It was far too high and impregnable to even require a patrol, in his opinion; even one as thin as a mere two guards per wall.
One of the squat bastions punctuating the battlement loomed ahead. He stepped inside, leaning his crossbow against the interior wall to check the oil supply in its hanging lamp. He glanced over the large brass alarm bell hanging from the aperture that overlooked the city. Satisfied, he was reaching for his crossbow when a stealthy shuffling sound upon the flagstones outside the bastion brought him about with a sharp oath. His fingers curled about the solid wooden stock and he lifted the weapon against him, drawing the string back and latching it into place. He was fumbling for a bolt when a helmed head peered around the edge of the stone doorway. A roguish grin split the bearded face. Eskaras sagged against the bastion wall, exhaling in relief even as he glared at the newcomer.
“Brek, you thick-skulled lummox!” he said. “You could be sucking breath through a new hole right now.”
“I have seen you shoot. I had little to fear,” the other laughed, stepping forward into full view. “You are as likely to castrate yourself with that thing as you are to hit your target.”
“It is you I should castrate,” Eskaras said with a scowl. Pointing his weapon at Brek’s groin, he pulled the trigger. The unloaded crossbow string snapped to with a sharp report, and he took great pleasure in the height of the man’s startled jump.
“Do not even jest so,” Brek said in mock horror. “Can you imagine the grief-stricken maidens across our fair city, faced with such a cruel twist of fate?”
Eskaras snorted. “I can imagine how many husbands across our fair city would shake my hand in thanks for the deed, not to mention the legions of maidens you’ve not yet met whose virtue I would be defending.”
Brek’s grin drooped into his reddish beard, and he hung his head in a passable imitation of injury. “You wound me, my friend, you really do.”
Eskaras arched an eyebrow at the other man, and the impish grin emerged once more. Wall duty seemed a perpetual assignment for Brek; he was always getting caught at one mischief or another, and Eskaras knew quite well that for every ill-advised endeavor at which the scoundrel was caught, a dozen more went undiscovered. The rogue’s charm was undeniable, however, and his golden tongue had deflected severe punishment and even termination on more than a few occasions. And, Eskaras was forced to admit, he was a fair hand at arms and a competent guard, when he was not distracted by his most recent scheme.
“What are you doing here, Brek? This is my patrol route tonight, may the sergeant’s eyes be blasted from his head.”
“Can a man not keep his friend company on this dreadfully dull stretch of night?” Brek asked. “By the heavens, there is nothing else going on up here to keep one awake.”
Eskaras chuckled and resumed walking along the battlement, and his friend fell into step beside him. He watched Brek from the corner of his eye, feeling a mix of envy and annoyance at the man’s jaunty, carefree gait with his own crossbow resting upon his shoulder. Brek somehow seemed utterly at home no matter where he was, and was at ease talking with anyone, regardless of station or appearance. Eskaras had never enjoyed that talent, finding all too often that his tongue became thick and clumsy when he tried to converse with superior officers or attractive women.
They walked together, and though Brek evinced no urge to break his affable silence, Eskaras grew ever more agitated. He could count on his friend for any favor, no matter the size or risk, but Brek was just as quick to make requests of his own, and helping the man seldom came without consequence. And just as old scars sometimes itched before a coming battle, he knew that Brek was after something. At last, Eskaras could take it no more.
“Out with it,” he said. “What are you after?”
Brek blinked at him with wide, ice-blue eyes that had unlocked more than a few bedroom doors. “Whatever do you mean, Eskaras?”
“Save your honeyed words for those who do not know you as well. You risk punishment for us both by abandoning your patrol route to join mine.”
“Bah,” said Brek, lifting his hand from his sword hilt to give a dismissive wave. “Our beloved sergeant favors the guard house by the northeastern corner, since it is nearest the refectory. With his great girth, he can only climb the long stairs to the wall-walk once or twice per night or risk heart failure, and he has already been up to glower at me once tonight. If he achieves the battlement again tonight, he will surely lack the wind to come within sight of your route.”
“But if he does, it will put him at the end of your route,” Eskaras said. “And you can scarcely afford to incur his wrath yet again, just as I would prefer not to share it for knowing you.”
“You raise an excellent point, Eskaras,” Brek said with sudden gravity. “I am a poor friend indeed for not having considered the reflection upon you should my plans tonight go awry.”
“What plans?” Eskaras asked as a sinking sensation developed in the pit of his stomach.
“Well, I had no wish to make you complicit in my own tangled affairs,” Brek said, lowering his voice and glancing about as if fearing to be overheard. “There is a certain merchant’s wife, forlorn in her plump, sweaty husband’s absence only slightly more so than when he is in town…”
Eskaras rolled his eyes. “I should have known.”
“I find I cannot be so callous as to abandon her to her plight,” Brek said.
“To be sure,” Eskaras said, wringing sarcasm from each word.
“So I must slip away from my pointless post this evening for a time, that I might console her,” Brek continued, as if his friend had not spoken. Eskaras snorted, and the other ignored that as well.
“As I said, however, I had not considered the potential impact on you, my closest friend, were my absence to be noted. I am resolved to take the compassionate path over treading an empty wall all night, but I could not ask you to cover for me on the lovely lady’s behalf.”
The man lapsed into silence, furrowing his brow and chewing on his reddish beard as he sought a solution. Eskaras glared at him through narrowed eyes, but Brek was as incapable of shame as ever and continued with his pensive display, seeming unaware of his friend’s eyes boring into him as they walked. At long last they reached the point on the wall where their respective patrol routes met. Eskaras sighed and cleared his throat, shrugging aside the familiar feeling of having been maneuvered.
“If we put aside the only sane choice, the one where you do not leave your post,” Eskaras said with a pointed look that met only an intent and innocent expression on Brek’s part, “I suppose I could walk the full eastern wall tonight. If I encounter the sergeant on your route, I can tell him that we switched routes because you owed me some obscure favor and I preferred the breeze off the sea at the northern edge of each loop.”
This last part was true, of course, and Eskaras found himself looking forward to the salty tang of that cooling breath. Brek broke into a broad, triumphant grin.
“I can mention that I saw you quite recently, but I will lie no further if he goes searching for you in earnest,” Eskaras warned.
“A sound plan,” Brek said, clapping him on the shoulder. “I could ask for no more, and I thank you, Eskaras.”
Eskaras waved a hand, dismissing the man and his gratitude at once. “Be gone, you greased eel, before I reconsider.”
His friend set off at a jog back the way they had come, heading for the southeastern stairwell. Eskaras sighed again, watching him recede into the distance. Then he shouldered his crossbow and continued the longer route to which he had just agreed. Searching for stars in the hazy night sky, he wondered if Brek’s escapades would this time cost them both more than poor watch assignments.
A cool breeze played along his back, carrying with it a strange medley of sounds, and Eskaras halted. He squinted along the battlement in the direction Brek had gone, but he could make out nothing except the distant glow of the lamp in the last bastion. He moved to the interior wall of the battlement and peered down into the city. Even at this late hour, the cobbled city streets in this section were well lit and people moved in miniature along them. He frowned. The wall played tricks with sound, often carrying the faintest of sounds to the heights of the wall-walk, or allowing one guard to overhear another’s words over great distance. Eskaras thought he had heard a man’s cry and the clang of metal upon stone, but he could see no sign of conflict below. It could have been some shady dealings in an alley below that was screened to his view, but he had an uneasy feeling. It had sounded like his friend Brek, and the draft that carried the sound had come from that direction, when the winds up here tended to run firmly the opposite direction. Most puzzling of all, the breeze had been almost frigid in an otherwise hot and humid night.
Eskaras braced his crossbow, drawing the string back and fitting a bolt into the channel. He held the weapon ready as he stalked back along the battlement in the direction Brek had gone and from whence the sound had seemed to emanate. If it was another of Brek’s pranks and he received a bolt in the leg for his efforts, it would serve him right.
The evening hung still and stifling once more. The sound did not repeat, and Eskaras began to think he had imagined it all. Then, as he approached the nearest lamp-lit bastion, the air grew colder with each step, and he noticed a blue tinge mingling with the amber glow spilling through the doorway. Through that arch he saw a crossbow lying in the middle of the floor on its back, as if cast aside. Eskaras hesitated, his breath hanging in a mist before him, when a gurgling moan from ahead galvanized him into action. Uttering a cry meant as much to bolster his own courage as to startle whatever he found within, he plunged through the entry and into the bastion.
Inside was a sight that froze the blood in his veins.
Brek was lying supine in a corner, his sword in one outstretched hand while his other arm was flung up before his averted face, trying in vain to fend off his attacker. He must have been trying to reach the alarm bell, Eskaras thought, as he was but a few feet from it.
Hunched atop Brek was a creature out of nightmare. It was larger than a man but translucent, and its blue radiance filled the small room. It seemed to waver before his eyes, and its lack of definition made it challenging to ascertain its true features, but Eskaras had the impression of a skeletal form swathed in some billowing, gossamer substance. He could not tell if it crouched or floated over the thrashing guard. Its elongated head hung low between bony shoulders, leering close to Brek, and tapered talons seemed to sink into the man’s flesh without drawing blood.
At Eskaras’s cry, the monstrosity swung its head to face him, and he found himself staring into bottomless eye sockets above a wide, gaping grin that bristled with crooked fangs. It showed no concern at his presence, but instead regarded him with a savage anticipation that made his flesh crawl. It’s a coldwraith, he thought in shock. His grandmother had scared him with tales of such things when he was a lad, and he had always thought her daft.
Eskaras leveled his crossbow and fired. He felt a surge of satisfaction as the bolt flew true to strike the coldwraith between the eyes, but then he quailed as it passed harmlessly through to shatter on the stone wall beyond. He recalled his grandmother’s assertion that iron would discomfit a coldwraith, but only a magical weapon could slay one.
The creature’s eyes––or rather the depthless hollows where its eyes should have been––narrowed in anger, and it whirled and swept toward him in one fluid motion. He stumbled back from it as a gaunt arm lashed out at him, trailing that swirling, diaphanous material. He tried to block the strike with his raised arms, but the talons passed through leather, chain and flesh alike without leaving a mark, and left a biting cold behind. His crossbow tumbled from nerveless fingers, his unwilling muscles convulsing as he fell back. The creature flowed over him to perch weightless upon his chest, and its horrid face filled his vision. The aching cold pierced him like daggers of ice, and he went rigid in agony. The wraith inhaled deeply as if savoring the scent of a rich meal. Eskaras’s limbs grew heavier, and he watched in horror as the life force was drawn from his body in vaporous strands and wafted into the toothy maw above him.
From the corner of his rolling eyes, Eskaras saw an unsteady Brek regain his feet, his sword still in knotted fist. Run, you thick-headed lummox, Eskaras thought fiercely, but he could not force a word past his clenched jaws. Brek lurched forward and sent his sword in a whistling arc through the creature, but as with the crossbow bolt, it passed through without resistance. Eskaras felt the flow of life from him cease as the thing turned its head toward the other man. Brek spun on his heel and left the bastion at an awkward run.
“I will draw it off!” Brek shouted over his shoulder. “Ring the bell, sound the alarm!”
The coldwraith glided after his friend, sinuous and swift, its unnatural grace a mockery of the cold-stiffened movements of its prey. The creature’s eerie blue glow went with it, and some of the chill faded from the room. Shivering, Eskaras rolled over and pushed himself to his hands and knees. He tried to rise, but his jerking muscles betrayed him and he fell to the flagstones again. He heaved himself up with curse. He braced himself against the bastion’s doorway, and by the time he reached a standing position, he was mastering his wayward limbs once more.
Too long, he thought, frantic. It is taking much too long! And, as he raised his eyes, his fears were confirmed.
The coldwraith returned, flowing into the bastion and blocking his path to the alarm bell. A quick glance out onto the battlement showed Brek, fallen not half a dozen paces past the arch, lifeless eyes staring in mute apology.
Eskaras drew his sword and faced the creature. He had seen the awful speed of the thing firsthand; if he tried to escape, it would run him down as it had Brek, and he could not bypass it to reach the bell in this confined space. He set his jaw and tightened his grip on his weapon. It was time to prove Brek wrong about his aim for the second time tonight. In a sudden movement, he twisted and then uncoiled, hurling the sword with all his strength. It spun through the creature without contact and without altering its trajectory, whirling through the air, the polished steel flashing blue and gold fire in turn. The weapon flew true, and it struck the brass bell with a resounding clang, setting up further clamor as the bell rocked and the clapper inside rang against its sides.
Distant shouts erupted from below, and Eskaras smiled in grim satisfaction; it had worked better than he dared hope. His fellow guards would come, and the thing would not be free to make its way into the city.
The coldwraith’s eye pits narrowed, as if it understood what he had done. Perhaps it did, he thought. Perhaps there was intelligence behind its relentless malice. He had no way of knowing.
It rushed at him. He tried to spit in its face as it came, but the cold was upon him again, and his jaws were clenched so hard he feared his teeth would shatter. Something struck him hard in the back, and he realized the world had tilted without him realizing, and the floor had risen to meet him. Pain and exhaustion swept over and cut through him, and everything disappeared beneath a tide of darkness.
They attacked as night fell. Amric and Valkarr waited on the slope of the crag, standing just far enough apart that nothing could pass between them without coming within range of their dual blades. Amric breathed, slow and even, his mind clear and his senses extending to embrace this latest battleground. Further up the slope, at the foot of the sheer forward face of the crag, he could hear the snorts and stamping hooves of the frightened horses, and Halthak murmuring low words to soothe them as he held tight to their reins. Of Bellimar he could hear nothing, but he felt the old man’s presence up there as well, as still as the rock about him.
He and Valkarr had recognized the bloodbeasts the moment they broke from the trees, having fought their ilk before back home. They would fall before mundane weapons more readily than the infernal black things of the morning, but there were also more of them. They fought in a pack, and were deadly for entirely different reasons. Amric hoped the healer and the old man would prove able to restrain the horses during the impending battle, for the creatures that were coming would not ignore them as the black things had done, and these could rip a defenseless steed to shreds in a matter of moments.
Scrabbling for purchase, the mass of wiry, twisting bodies swarmed up the rocky slope, seeking to crash over the two warriors like a wave clawing at the sand. Confident their quarry was now cornered, the creatures abandoned the wraith-like silence of the hunt and gave voice to snarls and eager mewling. As always, he could not decide if their movements were more reminiscent of a wolf or a great cat, for they had attributes of each and seemed some wretched combination of both. As they neared, he saw their glistening, blood-slicked forms, as if mortal predators had somehow shed their outer hides. By their grisly appearance, they should have left scarlet droplets and paw prints with every step, but none of the moisture, their sustenance, escaped them. The telltale shimmering in the night air above their backs marked the slender tentacles lashing there, sharp at the edges and wickedly efficient at drawing the blood of their prey. Amric waited, head held low and forward to protect his face and eyes.
Then the bloodbeasts were upon them, and there was no more time for study. The one in the lead launched at Amric, slavering jaws open wide. One sword swept up to shear through flesh and bone, dropping the creature without a sound, and the other darted forward to pierce the breast of the next fiend hot on its heels. A dark form hurtled by him as he freed his weapons, and filament-like tentacles caressed his forearm, leaving a stinging wetness in their wake. He felt a familiar surge of revulsion as he saw rivulets of his blood lift away from the wound and drift through the air to join the ghastly coating of his attacker. The bloodbeast emitted a frenzied whine of pleasure. Spinning to one side, he cut it down before it could get behind him, avoiding the lunge of another and hacking the front legs from beneath yet another. Beside him, Valkarr was shifting back and forth, unerring intuition guiding his footing as the press of straining, crimson forms broke against the web of steel he wove before him.
Amric’s blades flickered forth, deflecting raking talons and dealing death with every stroke. Instinct and reflex took over as each strike flowed unbroken into the next. Foes fell all about him, crashing to the ground atop one another.
Their footing became treacherous as the hillside ran red about them, and the warriors backed up in unison. A snarling form clambered over its fellows and sprang at him, fangs flashing. His boot lashed out to send it tumbling down the hill. Murderous tentacles writhed against his leggings, and his skin prickled as they penetrated the leather. A sweeping downward cut stilled them, but he felt a spreading wetness there. More tentacles peeled at the chain mail around his chest and shoulder, making contact at last with the bare flesh of his upper arm. Starlight danced on his blade as he parted the appendages from their owner, and he sent a reverse stroke that aborted the resulting howl of rage.
And still they came on. Foot by grudging foot, the warriors gave ground, backing up the hill before the relentless tide. Blood flew wide from their swords as they found their mark time and again, and though Amric could not spare the attention to watch the cast-off fluid slow in midair and arc back to be absorbed by the ravenous bloodbeasts, he could hear the patter of it alighting on their bodies.
A red haze rose before his eyes, the lifeblood from his many lacerations rising in a fine mist to be consumed by the fiends. A glance aside showed the same cloud before Valkarr. The bloodbeasts did not need to strike a mortal blow; instead they could wear their prey down gradually, draining and weakening it over time until it became too feeble to withstand the rest of the pack. If the battle went on much longer, he and Valkarr would slow and be dragged down. The shriek of a terrified horse at his back told him that they would not be able to retreat much further, either. Very soon, even if the animals did not panic and bolt into the midst of the bloodbeasts, the warriors would lack sufficient maneuvering room to prevent members of the pack from slipping past.
Amric set his jaw, watching for his opportunity. There was a brief lull in the ebb and flow of battle, and he seized the moment. He lunged forward into their midst, a blur of motion as he laid about with demonic ferocity. A bare instant behind him, Valkarr plunged into the thick of the pack as well, a second whirlwind of biting steel. Here at the center of the maelstrom, there was no room for finesse or grace, no precision to the dance of death. Instead there was only force and fury, and a merciless, indomitable will.
The razor-edged kiss of lashing tentacles became a constant pain as the throng closed about them. Amric clove one of the bloodbeasts nearly in half, smashed away slavering jaws with a fisted hilt, shouldered aside a twisting form, and sent a snapping head spinning into the night atop a scarlet fountain. His blades sang in the night air, such was their blinding speed, and he gave rein to his wrath. He felt tireless, unconquerable, but he knew it was the heady illusion of combat. His rage would sustain him only so long. They had to break the charge now, or they were lost.
Suddenly it was over. The snarling creatures faded back from them, and Amric and Valkarr stood alone among the strewn heaps of bodies, gasping for breath. The handful of remaining bloodbeasts gathered down the hill, drawing to themselves the last of the blood from the air and a few long strands from their fallen fellows. The fiends glared up the slope at them with burning eyes, and Amric glared back, his own lip curling. He would show no sign of weakness now, or invite another rush. At last the bloodbeasts turned and loped down the hill, melting into the forest without a backward glance.
Valkarr sank to his haunches, wobbled there for a moment, and then sat down heavily. Amric turned and was relieved to see that all of the horses were still present, and were beginning to subside. Then he noticed Halthak staring open-mouthed at him.
“I–I have never seen the like,” he stammered. “Standing fast against such odds…. And the speed! I could not even follow your movements. When you charged into the midst of those dreadful things, I was certain you would be swarmed under.”
“There was little choice,” Amric said with a rueful chuckle. “And I must admit I was not much more confident of the outcome. It was a close thing, and we were very fortunate.”
He flicked his swords to either side to clear the blood from the blades, and sheathed them both. He then peered past the Half-Ork and into the deeper darkness at the base of the cliff.
“Where is Bellimar?” he asked.
Halthak spun around in surprise, his head craning from side to side before he faced Amric again with furrowed brow.
“I do not know,” he said. “He never uttered a word once the battle began, and I heard no hint of a struggle behind me. I did not see him slip away either, but I was engrossed in the battle. Where could he have gone, unseen?”
Amric frowned and shook his head as he continued to scan about in vain. “The darkness could have concealed much, and we can certainly claim distraction. At the same time, we can see most of the slope from here, and we are backed by the sheer face of this cliff.”
“We are in no condition to chase after him,” Valkarr muttered in a thick voice from where he still sat on the ground. “And we do not dare call for him, for fear of attracting more predators. There is nothing we can do for him until the morning’s light, and until we rest.”
He gave a wet cough as he finished speaking, and Halthak started, hastening forward with wide eyes.
“How stupid of me to prattle on while you sit there, exhausted and bleeding!” the healer said.
Halthak handed the gathered reins of the horses to Amric, and knelt by Valkarr. The Sil’ath, shoulders sagging, made no objection as the healer pressed a hand to the flesh of his arm and closed his eyes. After a moment, those eyes flared open and the look of concern upon the Half-Ork’s coarse features was unmistakable. Amric heard his friend’s ragged breathing, and realized with a chill that Valkarr had taken more grievous wounds under the veil of night than he himself had.
“Valkarr, listen to me,” Halthak said, his tone low and urgent. “Your injuries are severe, and must be treated. By your leave, I wish to heal you now, as I did this morning.”
Valkarr looked at him with black eyes that were dull and unfocused, and he slurred something in the Sil’ath tongue that not even Amric could understand. Halthak glanced aside at Amric, who nodded. The healer turned back to Valkarr and continued in a rapid whisper.
“This will make you very tired, warrior, and you may succumb to sleep before I am even finished. This is normal, as your body must give some of its energy to the healing process, and you have precious little to spare just now. Do you understand?”
Valkarr mumbled something else unintelligible, and gave a bubbling chuckle. Halthak bowed his head and squeezed his eyes shut in concentration. He gave a low gasp through clenched teeth, and Amric watched in fascination as a dense, scarlet latticework of stripes sprouted across his grey skin, even as they dwindled from the other’s scaly green hide. Valkarr stiffened at first, then relaxed, and when the last of his wounds faded from view his eyelids drooped and his chin fell to his chest. Halthak eased him to his back on the rocky hillside, already asleep. By the time he stood to face Amric, the many lacerations he had assumed had vanished as well.
“It is your turn,” Halthak said.
“Not just yet, healer,” Amric replied. “We are exposed on this hillside, and must take cover at the base of the crag before I would risk being too fatigued to move.”
Passing the reins back to Halthak, he knelt and slid his arms beneath Valkarr, and rose to his feet with a grunt of effort. The Sil’ath people were dense with muscle and always heavier than they appeared, and the loss of blood had sapped Amric’s strength. He climbed the hill with legs that burned and quivered, and he was intensely grateful to reach a large cleft in the side of the crag before they gave out beneath him.
The fissure was open to the sky far above, with a tumble of boulders at the back, and it was spacious enough to screen men and horses alike from the forest edge below. Amric laid his unconscious friend down at the back of the cleft, wiping clammy sweat from his brow as he looked around. There was still no sign of Bellimar, but this location was as well hidden and defensible as they were likely to find. They would remain here until morning. He sat with his back to a leaning boulder as Halthak came into sight with the horses in tow. The Half-Ork saw to the horses as Amric had taught him, and the warrior remained seated, resting in silent gratitude.
Halthak brought him a water skin and some salted beef.
“You should eat. Valkarr will be famished when he wakes.”
Amric accepted the rations and chewed slowly. His eyelids were growing heavy, and he shook his head to clear the fog. It would be a long night without Valkarr to split the watch duties. They ate in silence for a time before Halthak’s gentle voice floated to him.
“Amric, it is time to heal you as well.”
“And if you encounter the same resistance as before?” Amric queried.
“Then I will persist until I succeed, as before.”
Amric hesitated, and then sighed. “Very well, but I must remain awake to keep watch, so do not reduce me to slumber as you did Valkarr. Perhaps only enough tonight to seal the wounds and staunch the bleeding, and the rest can heal on its own.”
“I will do only as much as I think you require,” Halthak promised.
“Thank you, healer.”
Halthak nodded, little more than a soft silhouette against the starlight as he hovered over him. The healer sat at his side, and Amric felt a warm hand against the corded muscle of his arm. A long moment passed, wherein only the insects, bold in their numbers, spoke into the night.
“I feel nothing, healer,” Amric said. “Are you blocked and straining again?”
“No,” Halthak responded. “This time I am proceeding very slowly and not trying to force it. This may take some time; will you answer me something as I work?”
“Ask it.”
“I would know more about your Sil’ath friends, the members of the party we seek. Tell me of them, their names, their natures, their temperaments. Make them real to someone who has yet to meet them.”
There was another long pause, and Amric smiled.
“Halthak, you are without a doubt the most human among us all.”
And so Amric told him of the five. Innikar, whipcord-tough and instigator of countless pranks. Beautiful Sariel, who lived for the joy of battle and was graceful as a dancer in its midst. Prakseth, jovial and powerfully built. Sharp-eyed Varek, the most gifted marksman Amric had ever known. And Garlien, sister to Varek and a shrewd strategist, with the potential to be warmaster herself someday.
He spoke of their loves and families, of their mischiefs and maturing. He spoke of them as the friends they had been to him since childhood, and he described their many accomplishments with a swell of pride. With a catch in his throat, he recounted their unwavering support of him as their warmaster, he who was born an outsider and yet proved foremost among them. He spoke at length, and felt something ease deep in his chest, a tightness he had not realized he was carrying. They might have perished out here somewhere in this deadly forest, and he would not stop until he knew their fates for certain. Here and now, however, it felt so good to revel in their lives and triumphs that he rambled on much longer than he intended, grasping at memory after memory.
Somewhere in that time, though he was unaware of the transition, his wounds were healed, his words trailed off, and his memories became dreams.