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Chapter 21
We follow a game trail through the brush until we're away from the shore. It winds its way precariously westward with the meandering gait of animals foraging for food. But it's easier than blunting our weapons on the undergrowth while announcing to anything that cares to listen that we're walking through its food bowl. Parts of the trails I follow are soft from the rains, and my boots sink into the mud. It's tough, sweaty work, and I trip over tangles of roots that grab at the soles of my feet with reckless abandon.
From everywhere amidst the canopy, monkeys hoot and howl. I spy them jumping from limbs and hanging from branches, watching us with bewildered curiosity. Underneath my boots the ground is moist with all things rotten and large insects scurry across our path always on the hunt for the next meal.
I top a small knoll and descend only to do this over and over again over the next two hours. The jungle seems never-ending if not repetitive.
The others fall-in behind me, keeping pace with my long stride. On all sides of me stretch ferns, dripping wet with dew. The forest floor changes to verdant moss. Rocks and tree limbs underneath this emerald blanket create so many lumps that the whole resembles the surface of a tumultuous ocean frozen in time.
The monkeys pelt me with red fruit; the small pods burst open when they strike and leave a trail across my armor resembling blood.
After walking for three hours, I reckon it must be high noon.
We come across a stream, and Angelaria calls for a stop.
Truthfully, I'm exhausted.
I wash my face in the freezing water and then drink deeply from it. Talen's clothes are soaked through with sweat, and the joints of my armor gleam with wetness. Talen runs his hands and face in the stream, looks up dripping, and stares in vain at the sky which has vanished beyond the leaves.
Angelaria washes her feet off in the stream and says, "I'm sooo tired."
"Let's travel two more leagues," I tell her. "I'll feel a lot happier if we can put some distance between us and the shore."
Talen agrees with me.
He empties out his water bottle and refills it. I follow suit, handing it to Angelaria. She takes a long drink from it and hands it back. "Thank you," she says.
The monkeys howl out loud, tossing more fruit from the trees. Angelaria puts her hand to my shoulder and lifts herself to her feet, sliding her boots back on. "I'm ready," she mumbles.
Talen takes lead for a while. Eventually, we're forced to abandon the trail as it begins to bank south, which is away from our destination, so the three of us set out to carve our own road through the forest. We wind between trees, over stumps, and across steep embankments. Our movement's reduced to a crawl, and my suit catches at every bramble. However, the others aren't better off as much of their clothing gets torn by bracken or sharp sticks.
Around us the monkeys continue to chatter.
Soon, the twilight begins to fade as final sunset chokes the world with tendrils of pure darkness. What I've always regarded as night grows imperceptibly darker and more sinister by the minute. Angelaria casts a spell: a bobbing light appears just above her shoulder. She gestures with her fingers and it buzzes over Talen's head until it's out front and high enough to illuminate the woods around us for several hundred feet.
"You can move that thing around?" I ask.
"Of course," Angelaria replies. "It wouldn't be much use as a light if I COULDN'T move it around, now would it?"
The howl of the monkeys is replaced now with the sound of the nocturnal hunters who are awake and hungry. The jungle shifts in its voice, and I hear the clicking of insects, the moving of snakes along the forest floor, and the flitting of bats high above me.
Ahead, Talen stops at the edge of a strange place in the forest. There's no undergrowth here, only the green moss we've seen covering the forest floor. The tree trunks rise like naked columns up into a starless black.
"How eerie," Angelaria says, giving voice to my apprehension.
I push my sopping blond bangs from my forehead so that the ends aren't hanging in my eyes. "Maybe it's a blessing," I suggest. "It'll be easier going over this stuff."
Talen turns, and I can see he's scared. "I agree with her, Kian. This is really strange. It kinda gives me the creeps, if you know what I mean."
I gaze out into the empty forest. "Well, do you want to camp here then and wait 'till morning?"
Angelaria wraps her arms around herself. "Can you feel it?" she asks me.
"Feel what?"
She looks out into the darkness. "The cold...the evil," she whispers. The way in which she searches the shadows makes my shoulders bunch. It's like she's expecting something to move; I'm standing so still that I can hear dew dripping from the leaves.
"Maybe it's nothing," I whisper.
Angelaria points at her breath. "There...see? A moment ago it was sweltering hot. N-now, I'm freezing."
"Where are all the sounds from the forest, Kian?" Talen asks. "Something's out there, watching us...observing what we do."
I look around nervously, straining with my eyesight to distinguish any detail that seems out of place.
Angelaria steps toward me and folds her arms about my chest. She's trembling; I loosen my katana and watch Talen carefully. His blue eyes dart all about, and I see the color drain from his face.
"I can hear its breathing," he says.
I hold my breath, and I can feel my heart pounding in my chest. Then I hear it too. It's a heavy, labored panting. The sound fills the glade like a blacksmith working a bellows.
"By Tethyr, what the hell is that?" I ask Talen.
"I-I don't know," he whispers.
I stand there, watching. Talen stands next to me, blade held before him.
Then, the breathing stops.
The sound of the forest returns along with a stifling miasma of heat.
Angelaria pushes away from me, eyes darting wildly in every direction. "It's gone," she says.
Talen collapses onto his knees. "I feel sick," he utters.
I drop my pack and pull out my small tent. I previously purchased it in Clothol for emergency purposes. It's supposed to hold only one person; I have it pitched in just a few minutes.
I help Talen gather some wood. Even though all of it is moist, one of Angelaria's spells is sufficient to get flames going within just a few seconds. Sitting by the fire, I sparingly cut into some dried fish I packed for us to eat; Talen cuts into a small cheese wheel, and the three of us make a dinner there by the edge of the strange glade. As I finish, I hear childlike laughter coming from the darkness.
"What is that?" Talen asks, eyes as wide as saucers.
Angelaria shakes her head. "I know it sounds like children, but it isn't. It's probably some kind of wild animal trying to lure us away from the fire. The animals of the Meronese coast are exotic, deadly, and quite clever."
"So the fire's a ring of safety then?" I ask.
She nods. "I don't think I'd like to sleep here tonight without it."
I look at Talen, and it's like he can hear my thoughts. Both of us rise and get another bundle of wood so that we'll have enough to last all night. But whatever that thing is that we felt earlier doesn't return.
Perhaps Tethyr is watching after me.
I sure hope that's true, because I love him with all my heart.
In the morning, I awake sore from the rocks and with cottonmouth. I selfishly used Talen's chest as a pillow all night, and I hope when he gets up that he isn't miffed with me. And then it strikes me that Angelaria isn't in our tent. Sure things were a might bit tight, but I would have noticed her leaving. At least I like to hope this is true.
An assassin's worst enemy is sleep.
I pull myself out of the tent and look around in the early morning twilight, rubbing the sleep from my eyes. Above the canopy, I hear the roll of thunder and rain pours down, trickling in streamers onto the field of green moss spreading out before my bony toes.
I see her then. She's not far at all and cooking something in a pan over our small fire that somehow remains burning even though we didn't feed it much of the night.
I hear Talen stir in the tent behind me.
"In a mood for a little breakfast?" she asks.
I sit down on an ancient log riddled with termite holes and covered in rotting lichen. Every once in a while, drops of rain pelt us from above; when they hit the pan it sizzles.
Angelaria cracks open some eggs and lays out some dried meat on the pan. She also points to a pot of warm gruel. "It's not much, but it's the best I can do...under the conditions."
I taste the gruel.
It isn't bad really. I wouldn't recommend it to any of my friends for a special occasion but it works in a pinch like the one we presently find ourselves in. A moment later, Talen joins us. "I feel terrible," he complains. "The expression 'rode hard and put away wet' comes to mind."
Angelaria hands him some hot tea, and I hope he doesn't notice that my ears are red with embarrassment. "Drink this... it's my own special blend of apples, sugar, and pure love."
Talen sniffs at it. "Smells good," he comments, drinking it down. "Bit of a bite, though," he says, twisting his head about to pop his neck.
I point out the gruel simmering in a pot. "Try some of that."
"Don't mind if I do," he says, ladling some into a bowl.
"Any sign of that thing from last night?" I ask her.
Angelaria shakes her head. "No." She looks upward and I follow her gaze to the canopy, where the monkeys sit watching us and playing in the rain. "They're clever little creatures," she remarks. "That one there...it looks like an old wise man."
I study the fellow she's talking about. He isn't like the others with a great mane of gray fur and a longer than normal tail. He howls at me, taunting from his lofty place in the trees.
Next to me, Talen belches and pops himself twice in the ribs with the back of his fist. "I feel like I've had a bag of rocks on my chest all night."
"Sorry about that," I tell him. "I kind of used you for a pillow."
He hugs me from behind and giggles rubbing his fingers through my hair. "I'm just flipping you shit, pal." When he kisses my hair, I suddenly feel that everything is now right with the world.
After breakfast, we all gather up our packs, and I put away our tent. Then I set out marking a path over the emerald sheets of moss that blanket the forest floor. Our tread's soft, muffled by the footfalls of suede boots with leather soles falling against the ground. With me in the lead, we make good time all morning.
Sometime during our second break, I hear Angelaria scream. I shake the remainder of the piss from the end of my dick and find her as rigid as a board, pointing at the earth. "Kian," she says, "the lumps under the moss are bones. This whole thing's a massive graveyard."
I feel the color drain from my face. I bend down and scrape the moss from what I previously believed were limbs made white by insects and constant rain.
She's right.
Bones.
And there's millions of them.
Yet, after four hours we still haven't even reached the other side. Is this some huge battlefield? Is it a graveyard?
"What did this?" Talen asks.
I shake my head. "I don't know anything capable of doing this. Do you?" I turn and wait for Angelaria to answer. She's the only one here that even has a chance of answering that question to my satisfaction.
It takes a minute for her to regain her composure. But as anticipated, she shakes her head no. I swallow and ask, "Is everyone rested?" I hear a peal of thunder very far away.
They don't answer me. Rather, they indicate by posture that they're ready to go.
More rain's coming.
A storm breaks overhead fifteen minutes later, the wind whipping through the leaves above us with such fury that the entire forest springs alive with the sound of creaking timber. I tilt my face upward, watching the monkeys leap from branch to branch, so frightened they ignore the three of us. The rain falls only sparingly so, bringing with it spiders and worms and other grotesque things from the living terrarium suspended high above the forest floor.
Talen falls-in beside me, his slender form bobbing along with mine. At times, my pace is grueling, but the others don't complain even though I can see in their faces the early signs of exhaustion.
I call a halt for us when I stumble across a brook snaking through the woods. It's a pleasant place, this stream, and it's enshrouded in thick gooseberry shrubs. I spy ferns and wildflowers, and there are thick fruits that hang from low branches by the bubbling waters. I smell heady perfume drifting from the lilting heads of purple buds, and I look at Angelaria because it reminds me of women and the days when I fucked them.
I'm hot and sticky, but cautious of bathing...of washing my skin in the brook and taking a moment's pleasure to allow the cool touch of water to race over my dirty skin. Talen, however, is not afraid, and I watched him with lasciviousness as he strips down to his linens and immerses himself with abandon. He smiles at me...an invitation to join him for sex.
Whatever caution I have evaporates in that grin and I relax. I disrobe and step into the water. It's cold, but I find its chilling embrace comforting to my chafed skin. The bottom of the brook's covered in small smooth stones that slip between my toes.
I dip my head into the water, letting the cold run its velvet fingers through my hair, and I incline my head to watch Angelaria strip the clothes away from her curvy body. I'm frozen with disbelief at this lush creature which reveals herself to me. Even the mere gesture of holding out her hand to drop her soiled linens seems like an erotic tease.
I take her by the hand and the skin I touch is soft and pliant. She doesn't speak to me, instead lowering herself in the water between Talen and I, closing delicate eyelids and opening them only to reveal perfect spots of color.
It's like I'm there as a witness only to the majesty of her beauty.
Angelaria exchanges words with Talen and laughs.
What's so funny? I think to myself.
Talen splashes water in my face, and it's my turn to laugh. He grabs me by the neck, and I play with him in the water, feeling delight at his touch and his affection. After a while, he starts to kiss me, and I press my mouth hungrily against his. Just like that, all thoughts of Angelaria vanish and are replaced by his tight muscular body.
"Can I watch you blow him?" Angelaria asks Talen.
Talen nods. "All right...that is if Kian doesn't mind," he says mischievously.
I kiss him on the cheek. I don't mind at all, lover."
I lift myself out of the water onto a nice mossy bank. By now, my cock is starting to get hard and it rises to attention before Talen's luscious lips. He licks my thick shaft, cupping my huge balls in his fingers and then plumbs my glans with such violent licking, it's like he's a child with a licorice lollipop. I close my eyes, enjoying the sensation of his closed fist and the warm wetness of his mouth all over my skin.
When I open my eyes again, Angelaria is staring open-mouthed at my eleven inch erection.
"What?" I finally ask, as my skinny abdomen flares with a six-pack of muscles.
"You're just so...big," she gasps.
I grip Talen by the hair as I explode into his mouth with multiple hot squirts of cum. Somehow, he swallows it all, lapping at my dick like a starving dog. And then he laughs, and I hug him playfully, French-kissing him so I can taste my own semen on his lips.
There's nothing more wonderful in all the world than sharing something so intimate with the one you love.
The three of us rest there for the remainder of the afternoon, laughing hysterically at times and then falling quiet in reckless somber thought of our individual nakedness and the fact that we no longer possess physical secrets. Before it's over, I fuck Talen until he cums while Angelaria watches. She says two beautiful guys going at it are a dream come true.
And for her pleasure, I leave my entire load in his guts so that she can watch it drip out of his destroyed hole over the course of five minutes.
"Does it hurt?" she asks Talen.
"At first it did," he says, "but now I really love it. Kian's dick is incredible."
"Thanks," I say, heat rising to my cheeks.
Angelaria kisses Talen on the forehead and smooths his sweaty hair, removing some cum that's just below his eye with a finger that he eagerly sucks from her skin. "What do you love the most about his gigantic dick?" she whispers in his ear.
Talen thinks for a moment. "I love the smell of it; when he's been sweating and working all day. I wish there was a way his cock could smell that way all the time, yet the rest of him was clean like after we bathe. I want my tongue to be the only thing that cleans it. Nothing else."
Angelaria puts finger to chin. "There might be a way..." she says, "I'll let you know after I've thought of it for a while. Be careful what you wish for."
At last, I don my killsuit, watching the others dress. Talen unfolds a new suit of clothes made from fine silk; Angelaria dons clean linens and black suede boots and puts on a shirt of shiny red velvet.
"How much farther do you think the road lies?" Talen asks Angelaria.
"I'm not sure," she admits, "but it should be much longer."
I sling my weapon across my back and tie it in its place just above my belt. "Let's press on 'till nightfall."
"And what if that thing comes again?"
I watch the woods, alive with cawing birds and cockatiels...that horrible breathing horror. It's a faceless fear, and I loll my tongue about in my mouth wondering at how I can bring myself to face such a thing. How can I fight a monster that I can't see but for whom I can feel its icy touch on all things around me? To think of it at my back makes my hairs stand on end. I meet eyes with Talen, and I know enough about my own facial expressions to realize that he's seeing an undeniable truth: that I'm afraid of this terror as much as he is.
"I don't know," I say as honestly as I can.
I cross the brook and take lead; our small group strikes out along the bend of a hill shrouded in deep foliage. Heavy raindrops fall continuously on our path, and I keep a cadence that tends to echo the thrum of the water. We pass under bushes laden with red berries, and I wonder if they're good to eat. But I realize if this were true, the forest creatures would have left the limbs bare. So I brush the thought of tasting their succulent flesh from my mind entirely.
I travel in this silence, my eyes searching the green explosion of life around me for any hint of a highway made by men that can take me to Soulwarden.
At first sunset, we arrive at the edge of a clearing where a rambling structure of timber, bone, and clay rests with its back to the foot of a monstrous tree. This colossal beast is so huge, its branches span beyond my peripheral vision like a cosmos of kudzu. A muddy road strikes out from it, heading north through the jungle. And there's a crowd out front, smoking and drinking, watching passers-by.
This is the highway to Soulwarden, known by some as the wickedest place on Garoahar.
The locals wear loose-fitting garments, and the air's thick with the scent of citronella, which is used to repel insects. Barn animals wander around in the mud; pigs root their snouts in shit, and walk indifferently amongst the throng of smelly men and their filthy packs.
The dwelling's made sturdy enough. It has one window and one door frame and it's warmed by a small, smoky fireplace on the south side of the main room which is choked by men, women, and their livestock. Piles of dung swarm with flies. They land on the sweaty necks of Nubians, some of whom stare at me while others check out Angelaria and even Talen.
"Do you want to see if there are any rooms?" I ask my companions.
Angelaria nods. "It's better than sleeping out of doors."
I walk over to a bar where a fat woman stands wiping it down with a blood-stained rag. She looks at me curiously as I approach. "Any rooms?"
"Not tonight," she replies, "unless, you're wanting to stay in my chamber."
From outside, there rises a shout of alarm, and I hear the stampede of feet. Talen moves to a window as a column of men on horses ride into the clearing and dismount. Four of them draw their weapons and block off the door to the tavern. Angelaria steps into my chest and grips me by the arm.
"Slavers," she whispers.
I narrow my eyes to slits and watch as a tall black man in rusty chainmail and sporting a dented camail steps into the dirty tavern room, regarding everyone there with a curious and inspecting eye. A cold, stifling silence fills the room.
"I'm General Skree Amladon, and I was beginning to doubt my fellow man's patriotism!" he sneers. "And then I stumbled across this place..."
"We're not soldiers, Amladon!" one man shouts. "We'll not join your fight!"
The others nod in agreement.
The soldier looks to his men who push past him and grab the speaker about the arms. He protests and tries to fight but it's to no avail. One of Amladon's soldiers stabs him in the gut.
"Haul him outside and put him in the cage," Skree commands. "Anyone else feeling unpatriotic?"
The others in the room hold their tongues. I'm frozen, unwilling to fight a hundred men.
"Shackle them up," he orders. "We move out in an hour. Welcome to the army boys."
Several soldiers enter the inn, and one clubs me in the ribs. I might have fought back, but Talen shakes his head, telling me to be still with rapidly moving fingers. They grip me roughly by my left wrist and push me forward into a throng of bodies.
The slavers inspect all of us, taking the sickly aside to kill them rather than leaving people behind at the outpost. Talen and I are shackled together by tight iron bands. We're chained to the others, a long string of people, and made to sit and wait for General Amladon's orders to move out. One of the slavers takes a particular interest in Angelaria, lifting her chin up and inspecting her face.
"This one's beautiful, milord," he says.
The general walks over and kneads her tits. Suddenly his eyes widen. "Lady Angelaria," he says. "How intensely gratifying it is to speak with you again."
"I can't say that I'm as happy to see you, general. If you know what's best for you, you'll take your hands from my boobs this instant."
General Amladon grins and drops his hands to his side. "You there...free the lady from her bonds."
I watch this exchange with mute bewilderment.
"Thank you, Skree," she says. "Perhaps I won't kill you now."
He stares at her. "I can't let you go, princess. Braedir will want to see you again. Especially since you left Soulwarden so hastily on your last visit."
"I was pressed for time, as I'm sure you can understand."
"You're a dangerous woman, princess, but your father is a long way from the shores of Meron. I'll treat you with civility, but you're coming along as my guest. I'm afraid that I must insist. Are we agreed on this?"
She purses her lips.
"I don't want you using magic. If I have to, I'll keep you unconscious the entire way to Soulwarden. If you don't agree to my terms, that is."
"How monstrous!"
He laughs. "You know so little of how the world works, don't you my dear? But I'm giving you a choice. What's it going to be?"
She falls silent looking past him to me. "I'll cooperate," she says at last.
"Splendid." He turns back to his men. "Let's march; the girl rides up front with me."
The slavers walk by, pulling us to our feet. We all stand, albeit slowly, and with the rattling of chains. After a moment, we begin our forced march down the muddy road toward Soulwarden. All around us are the mounted men of General Skree Amladon, a hundred or more, and somewhere up ahead in the gloom rides Angelaria who's growing more mysterious with every footstep.
She never told me she was a princess.
In fact, she never eluded to anything even remotely noble. I may have assumed too much and wrongly so. Everyone has a past, even the most unassuming of us. Somehow, she's not only well-traveled but well-known amongst cutthroats and thieves in Meron.
Who is she really?
The slaver's column progresses slowly through the night.
Others less rugged succumb to the forced march early on. They get released of their chains only to have the soldiers of General Amladon trample them under their horse's hooves. However, even at my fitness level, my muscles burn and my feet ache so much that every step's one taken in partial agony. Two hours past midnight, four men manage to escape from their chains and make a break for the woods. Cheers rise from our column and the general calls a stop. He orders his slavers into the woods after them, and we all watch breathlessly as the ranks of soldiers thin along the road, torches weaving and bobbing between moist tree trunks and moss-covered boulders that line both sides of the highway. The chase lasts until sunrise when tired and frightened, the last man is run down in the woods. They bring his body back to the road and toss it face-down in the mud.
It begins to rain and with it hope melts away.
Talen and I manage some rest during the night, and they feed us (it seems) not out of mercy, but out of necessity. I swear I'd just fallen asleep when they order us to our feet again to resume our terrible trek into the depths of the Mirimar. I think infrequently of Angelaria, trying to answer the flurry of questions that come to mind each time I behold her perfect face or think of the honeysuckle smell of her hair.
Talen's voice calls me back to reality.
"I think I can pick this lock, Kian," Talen states. I look down and he shows me what he's talking about. "What about you?"
I concentrate on the details of the lock. "Yes, I think so," I say.
Talen nods. "When we stop for a break, we've to do it at the same time. Understand?"
"Yes."
"You still have the picks I told you to sew into your shirts right?"
I remember my early days in the guild when Talen taught me a thief is never without equipment. "Yes."
"Excellent," Talen says. And then we wait.
General Skree calls his men to a halt sometime after noon. I'm famished as I sit down on the roadside, but I don't have time to be hungry. Our opportunity to escape is nigh at hand. One of the Slavers rides by and in the instant his horse is between me and the others, I slip my fingers downward and fish about in the lock with a slender metal pick. It comes open almost instantly. The man next to me regards me with green eyes. "Good luck," he says.
Talen and I jump up and run breakneck into the woods. The slavers swear and give hot pursuit, but Talen and I are exceptionally fast. We pull on reserves that come from our vigorous training as thieves in Clothol.
I jump up onto a rotten, lichen covered redwood and turn to face the mounted slaver on my heels. He draws up, surprised that I'd stopped. I leap from my purchase and knock him off his horse. When he tries to stand, I kick him in the face with my heel, splashing his blood onto the leaves around us. Then I crack his head open.
Talen spins around and draws out his sword to cut the legs out from the rider tracking him into the woods. The astonished slaver rolls to the ground where Talen catches him, breaks his arm, and pins him to the earth. The man's eyes open wide and he tries to yell for help. Talen grins and cuts downward with his sword, cleaving his head open and spraying bloody brains about on the moss.
We signal each other and run off in the same direction.
Two more slavers catch up to us, but we kill them, hiding their bodies in the silent woods. I drop mine in a bog of quicksand; Talen leaves his by an ancient oak, eyes open with a look of inescapable horror frozen on his face.
The chase lasts for three more hours before General Skree tells his surviving men to forget us and leave. Talen and I kill eight slavers a piece, and I can see this has shaken their resolve. The column cheers us on each time one of the slavers returns with the details of yet another corpse. It's a game...this killing...and Talen and I have always been good at games.
By the end, we're exhausted, but remain unwounded.
We collapse together at the foot of a massive banyan and take turns sleeping until nightfall. The column's slow-moving. Once we've rested, it'll be easy to catch and hopefully, I can find a way to free Angelaria.
That's my plan anyway.
I just hope Tethyr is watching.
I shall post Chapter 22 next weekend.