Falduin roused.
Ganthe shook him. “We need to leave,” he was told.
Falduin was utterly spent. He had never been tried so harshly before. Not even against Bricmund, the Arena High Champion.
He nodded. Ganthe helped him stand. Falduin staggered, but Ganthe caught him, and steadied him.
Falduin could hear wailing, coming from down near the water
“What’s happened?” he asked Ganthe.
“Fahesha’s dead.”
Ganthe helped Falduin down the slope to join the others. Both Lera and Tegalie knelt beside Fahesha’s body, keening loudly. Ifonsa paced, her movements agitated, mumbling as though berating herself. Heric stood to one side, his gaze across the water, as he fidgeted.
Lera rose and came to Falduin. She embraced him and buried her face into his shoulder, as she cried loudly.
Falduin didn’t know what to say, or even how he felt. He’d never really lost anyone close to him before. Piggy Peohtwy might have counted if his death hadn’t been a footnote at the end of the Assembly immediately following the end of the war with the Empire. So he just hugged Lera, offering what little comfort he could manage. A pat on the back here. A cooing sound there.
Was he supposed to cry? He didn’t feel like crying. He barely knew Fahesha. They’d met less than a week before. It would be different if it had been any of the original four that had died. Then he might have harshly felt their loss. They were his friends. The closest friends he’d ever had, but Fahesha... she was someone else’s friend.
He looked to the other men. Neither Ganthe, nor Heric were in tears. Both were grim-faced, but there was no real emotion there. Maybe it was just women that cried when people were killed. His gaze found Ifonsa. She wasn’t crying either, but she was definitely upset. She crouched, her hand over her mouth. Her magical knife lying discarded upon the ground a good distance away.
“Get them up,” Heric said. “We need to leave.”
“We must have a service,” Lera protested, drawing away from Falduin.
“We haven’t got time. Grab the gear. Beware of hidden snakes,” Heric said. He bent and retrieved Ifonsa’s knife. He offered it to her hilt first. “You’ll need this,” he told her.
Ifonsa glared at him sharply. Falduin expected a barbed retort, but instead she nodded, and took the knife.
Heric began to climb the rise.
“We’re not leaving her here!” Tegalie screamed. “We’re not letting those beasts molest her body.” She stood protectively over Fahesha.
“We can’t take her with us,” Heric said.
“Then I’m not going!”
“You’ll go. You’re the reason we’re all here,” Heric yelled. “You’re the reason she’s dead.”
That stung Tegalie as harshly as a blow. Shock. Anger. Shame. The emotions all passed across Tegalie’s face in an instant. Falduin saw the tears well up, as Tegalie sunk down, completely wracked by grief.
“I will carry her,” Falduin found himself saying.
Everyone, including Tegalie, stopped and stared.
“I will carry our friend, until we can find a proper place to inter her.”
Lera said prayers over Fahesha’s body as Falduin cleared away the dried mud from blanket. Then carefully, Lera and Tegalie wrapped Fahesha up, as tightly as they could managed, using lengths of cord to bind, to ensure the blanket didn’t unwrap.
The others waited nearby, supposedly keeping watch. Yet, just as they finished, and Falduin prepared to heft Fahesha into his arms, Lera peered out across the water.
“What are those lights?” she asked.
The trees on the far side of the water glowed as though many lights had sprung up amongst them.
“Goblins.” Heric sanswered, ”Quick, every-“
“No,” Ifonsa interjected. “Those are fae lights.”
Falduin realised Ifonsa was right. The flickering was too steady, the illumination too blue to be torches.
“The fae are coming for her body,” Ifonsa told them.
“Why?” Tegalie asked.
“To play. To make it dance.”
“How horrid.”
“They are what they are.”
Heric peered at Ifonsa for a moment, as if realising a hidden secret. However all he said was, “Let’s go.”
“They will follow us,” Ifonsa said.
There was a vicious gleam in Heric’s eye and malice in his voice. “Let them,” he said.
Fahesha was not heavy, but Falduin found carrying her awkward. The previous days and nights marches had exhausted him. Maintaining the shield against the barrage of snakes had drained what few reserves he had left. Yet he continued the journey across the miserable landscape without so much as a sigh of discontent.
They walked as fast as they were able, with Falduin at the centre, Lera and Tegalie either side, Ifonsa leading and Heric and Ganthe trailing. Falduin guessed Fahesha would have cackled at her makeshift funeral procession.
Initially, they followed the wide path the snakes had made across the plain. Not all of the snakes had survived the stampede. Their bodies, both big and small, littered the great swathe they had left behind. Some had been crushed in the onslaught, but most had come undone in the pools and rivulets that marred the area. They had drowned, or found the waters and gases too toxic.
Eventually they diverted from the gouge, heading toward the south-west. Ahead in the far distance, Falduin saw low hills revealed by the moonlight.
Ifonsa led them in an around great ponds of steaming lakes and boiling channels that cut across their path. Some bubbled endlessly, while others lay silent, appearing to be deceptively solid instead of scalding waters.
After many hours their pace had slackened considerably. The urgency that powered their escape had waned, especially when they could no longer see the faerie lights following them. The moon had risen high, and a gentle south-western breeze dispersed the wretched reek from the pools, offering the glorious smell of the sea.
Heric called a halt, and once they had found a suitable place they lay down their burdens and took a well-earnt rest. They were all fatigued beyond measure. Falduin carefully placed Fahesha’s rigid body on the ground, and sat down beside it, breathing heavily. He could barely think.
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“Do not lie down,” Lera warned them. Then she slumped down beside Falduin.
“Why?” Ganthe asked. He seemed the least weary, yet still he crouched down breathing hard.
“Buzzing bugs,” Lera said.
That seemed to be the end of the conversation for a long moment, as they rested with just bubbling and popping sounds surrounding them. It took every grain of effort just to breathe. There were no insect noises, Falduin realised suddenly. Or frogs. Apart from the grasses, sprouting here and there, the plain was lifeless.
“Why didn’t you warn us about them earlier?” Ganthe suddenly asked Lera.
Lera paused. She had her eyes half-closed. “I quite forgot,” Lera finally admitted. Another long pause and then, “It’s not something we encountered often during the wars.”
“But you encountered it?”
“Yes,” Lera said. A pause. She shifted to face Ganthe. “When the Imperials tried to take Valeah several companies became lost in the swamps. They were infested with the bugs. It took us days to find and kill them all.”
“Kill them? Imperials or bugs?”
“The bugs.”
“You helped the Imperial soldiers?”
“The Sisters of Axiom help everyone without fear or favour,” Lera said. “Plus these were already captured.”
“What happened to them?”
“I don’t know. I expect they were ransomed back if they were highborn enough, or exchanged after the war.”
“There was no exchange after the war,” Ifonsa said. “The Imperials refused.”
“Then what happened to the prisoners?”
Ifonsa’s expression left little doubt as to the captured soldier’s fate.
“Oh,” Lera said.
Meanwhile Tegalie and Heric were having an intense conversation of their own, off to the side, seated not far from the nearest boiling pool.
“Did you mean what you said?” Tegalie asked in hushed tones. “About being to blame?”
Heric bowed his head. “No, Highness. I spoke out of line.”
“It’s Teg. And you’re a horrible liar.”
“Yes,” Heric nodded, “Teg.”
“Fahesha made me promise her something before she died.”
“What?”
“She made me promise to marry you.”
“Don’t I get a say in the matter?”
“No. None at all.”
“I don’t love you.”
“I don’t love you either.”
“Then why me?”
“We would make a good fit.”
“You can find better.”
“Perhaps, but I don’t believe I would ever love such a man, or be loved by him.”
“But me....?”
“Yes. I could.”
“Why? I’m a soldier, a thumb shy of a wandering vagabond.”
“I’m rich. You’d never need to wander ever again. You’d become the next Baron Milardus.”
“Not good enough. I want to know the real reason why.”
“You scare me.”
“No I don’t. Nothing, but a sea of snakes scares you.”
“Why are you making this so hard?”
“It’s supposed to be hard.”
Lera’s voice suddenly rang out interrupting everyone, “That’s an awful lot of fae.”
Eastwards, a multitude of lights stretched across the horizon. Far more and larger than they had witnessed before when encountering the fae. These lights were not bluish-white, but red and orange. Torch lights. Suddenly there was a flare, as a great flame erupted into the sky. It spread across the ground.
Ifonsa stood and peered at the flames. A dull thud echoed across the night.
“Those are not fae,” she said. “The Enemy is here.”