Kitto started as the tavern door slammed open, shattering the tense quiet that had been holding its patrons in a suffocating grip. The man on the other side, one of the Pyry guard by the look of the violet tabard he wore over a mail shirt, took heaving breaths, enough sweat dripping down his face that Kitto almost believed he’d run the entire three-day journey from the city.
Braith, the broad-shouldered barkeep placed the tankard he’d been fastidiously cleaning deliberately down on the polished oak surface of the bar.
“Why don’t you sit, lad? Get your breath back. Whatever news you’ve come to deliver can wait until you’ve got lungs full enough to actually tell it.”
Kitto’s jaw clenched, and around him, he could feel the silence grow ever more suffocating. Pyry had been sending messengers periodically out to the villages and homesteads out in Pyria’s wilderness, giving updates on the war against the Shadow.
They were yet to receive word of even a single victory.
The messenger, younger even than Kitto, despite his position as a soldier shook his head, and straightened up, determined to deliver his message.
“Can’t…Have more places to go tonight…This…” He took another deep breath, speaking coming more easily the more oxygen he took in. “This is too important. The Lord Cuilain has received word from the front.” He paused, face tightening, and his gaze flickered downward to the worn pine floorboards.
Kitto glanced at Aodhán, his drinking partner for the night, and he returned the look anxiously.
“Yuno has fallen, and another force of the Shadow has arrived on the northern shore of Durabad and are burning their way through the country. Vilaria calls for aid. Volunteers. Soon they will be under attack from the north and the east, and if Vilaria falls…”
“We do,” the barkeep finished grimly, though all in the room had known it. Only a short boat crossing separated Pyria from Vilaria. Until now, the war, although ill-fated, had been a thing happening in some distant country. They had all known it would reach their shore eventually, and many fighting age men and women had already volunteered themselves and gone across the sea to try and hold back the Shadow. But, now it was here, and the horrific reality of that fact was like a spear of ice through his chest.
“There’s more,” the messenger said, eyes intense, and Kitto swallowed as the man’s eyes swept the room, catching his own for a moment. “There is talk of a weapon. Some of the folk escaped from Riwia have been working on it since the Shadow arrived—in secret, like. Something that can actually harm them. But they need time to finish it—time we can buy them. Anybody who wants to help, Vilarian boats will pick up volunteers to fight from Makavi, Estes and Pyry for the next week.”
“What kind of weapon?” another voice in the tavern asked over the outbreak of murmuring that had swept across the tavern in the messenger's wake.
He shrugged. “No idea. But if we can buy them enough time to finish it, then it would be the first sliver of hope we’ve had since the start of all this.”
“And this is trustworthy?” Aodhán asked, frowning. “It’s not just Vilaria trying to scrounge up some extra bodies to protect themselves?”
“Cuilain and his advisors believe it—sending out the call was his order. If it helps any, I was there when he read the missive and, well, I’m getting on a boat tomorrow with his blessing.”
You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.
Kitto’s brows rose in surprise, as a fresh round of mumbles and murmurs rumbled around the tavern. It was one thing to pass on a message for volunteers among the regular folk living in the Pyrian wilds—it was entirely another to endorse members of your own guard to leave and fight for another country.
That, if nothing else, told Kitto there was truth to the message from Vilaria. Truth to rumours of a weapon. Something that could help protect his brother after all.
A low chuckle rumbled out from beside him, the sound stopping his heart cold in his chest.
“Protect him? You and I both know there is only one thing that can do that, don’t we?”
The awful rasping voice was like nails in his brain, a scratching beneath his skin. The lack of response from anyone around him confirmed once again that it was a sound only he could hear. Aodhán turned to him, brows knitted.
“You okay, lad? You’ve got a face like a slapped arse.”
Kitto nodded slowly, face ashen. “Yeah, just…taking in the news is all. It’s a lot.”
The older man clapped a hand on his shoulder and tried to affect a reassuring smile with limited success. “That it is. Come. It seems things are winding down here and I find myself suddenly keen to see my daughter and be sure she is safe. You and your brother can sup with us tonight—a thank you for the help with the cart.”
Kitto smiled in thanks as he and Aodhán made for the door, but it faded almost immediately as the grinding, rasping laughter of the voice followed him outside.
“You know what you must do, boy. He will die screaming for you. Screaming for the brother that could have saved him but chose not to—I will make sure he knows it. You know what I ask. Know what you must do. It is the only way! It—”
Casek bolted upright, harsh laughter ringing through his ears. The second dream he’d had from the perspective of someone else, and he was now an awful lot less certain it was ‘just a nightmare’. The brother, the weapon, dinner with Aodhán and Catelyn. These things all rang true in his brain, as though seeing them in his dream had simply confirmed something he already knew to be true.
Yet, other parts did not. He was certain he’d never been to a tavern. And the voice of Tauph was infinitely preferable to the dread sound he’d heard in his dreams. Speaking of his own voice, he concentrated briefly, searching for any stirring of Tauph’s presence in his mind. Now that he thought about it, he’d had his first dream when Tauph had first disappeared—and the entity’s voice had returned as soon as he’d woken.
This time, there was nothing. No sound. No foreign emotion. Casek slunk down onto his back, the briefest of hope snuffed out as quickly as it had arrived.
“No point bedding back down now,” came Raelynn’s tired voice across their camp. “It’s dawn.”
He sighed, dragging himself up off his bedroll and stretching deeply, bones creaking, before wrapping his travel cloak around him to shield against the cold sea breeze and pulling on his boots and shuffling over to the still-smouldering fire pit. To his right, Idris was stirring from his own sleep, whilst sitting cross-legged beneath the fire, Raelynn sat scribbling in her leather-bound book with a stick of charcoal.
Mercifully, the sea was still relatively calm, gentle waves smoothly rolling to the shore. Further out, white gulls circled against the cool pink dawn sky, hovering above their nests perched atop a rocky outcropping jutting out of the foamy ocean. Casek smiled softly as the sound of the waves seemed to draw the tension right out of him, like poison from a wound.
He peered down at Raelynn, unable to make out what she was writing just by looking and his curiosity got the better of him. “What are you writing?” he asked, hoping he wasn’t being rude by asking.
Raelynn’s charcoal stick froze in her hand and she looked up at him like a child he’d caught rifling through the pantry for sweet things.
“I—ah—I’m keeping notes. About what happened in Makavi.”
“Like a diary?”
“Not exactly. I’m keeping a history. We’ve lost so much of our own that can never be recovered. I want to find as much of it as I can, of course, but I’m also determined that those in the future won’t suffer the same problems. It wasn’t so important before, but with what you can do, having a proper record of it feels important.”
Casek had never thought of things in that way—that people in the future might one day look back on what was accomplished today—but immediately he grew excited by it. If that future ever came to pass, it could only be by humanity’s continued survival. He, or someone else, had helped to keep the Shadow at bay, or even push it back, and humanity had lived on after they were gone.
It was surprising just how full of hope Casek found the thought, and how immediately he found himself wanting to ensure it came to pass.
