James Davis - The Restless Shore

In one clear stretch of ground, she managed to grasp the pouch at her belt, found the flint and steel wrapped in cloth within, and gripped it hard enough to hurt. She welcomed the brief pain, and was comforted by its presence. The press of trees broke again, and she skipped down a sudden drop into a wide stream. Slipping into the water, she felt its speed fill her with strength, and she chanced a look over her shoulder, just in time to see Uthalion stumble down the bank.

The torch fell from his hand, spinning lazily through the air. She held her breath and stopped. Water rushed around her ankles, and a knot of cold filled her throat, spreading into her chest. Uthalion rolled cursing to the water’s edge as the torch hissed in the stream. It’s loss plunged the forest into a growling darkness. A huffing breath and a single clack of teeth preceded the pounding crawl of the beast as it descended on Uthalion.

7 Mirtul, the Year of the Ageless One

(1479 DR)

The Spur Forest,

South of Airspur, Akanul

Pain arced through Uthalion’s wrist as it twisted beneath the water of the stream. Rolling his weight to the right, he splashed onto his back, already mourning the last of the guttering light behind him. It flashed once on the mass of the kaia, glittering in dozens of eyes, shining on countless teeth, before leaving him to the long horrible moments before death.

He cursed the moment he had left the grove, the impulse that had carried him away and the ghostly song that had inspired his decision. Though the kaia loomed over him, his mind still picked at the half-heard tune, unable to let it go even in the face of the beast that would devour him. It thrummed softly, a piecemeal melody that ran from him like a well-kept secret, teasing him with unspoken promises.

Dirt rolled against his boots, pushed forward by the kaia’s bulk, burying his lower legs. A low gurgling growl washed warmly across his face, bringing the coppery scent of old blood and the unmistakable decay of flesh. Uthalion smelled wet fur, too, like the pelts his grandfather would lay out after a hunt. Bits and glimpses of his life came and went, as if the contents of his soul were being displaced by the descending beast.

Maryna’s face-in the better times before he’d left with the Keepers for Tohrepur-came to him smiling in the long dreamlike spaces between one pounding heartbeat and the next. He cursed the man that had left her, the man he’d not seen in a mirror in many long years, the husband and father he might have been.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered, willing the words to reach his wife and daughter somehow.

Quiet waves rippled against his back, lapping at his right arm as something moved with terrible swiftness to his side. Trailing a faint glimmer of water, an arm shot forward, producing an audible click and a minute spark that birthed a brilliance of light. He squinted as the scent of burning reached him, and he stared into the face of the thing Ghaelya had called the Mother of Nightmares.

A storm of roaring rage thundered from the kaia’s gaping jaws, leaving his ears ringing. The stream’s bank exploded into clods of mud and dirt. He felt the size of the beast more than he saw it. A humanlike arm, gangly and pale, shielded a lipless, tooth-filled snout. Long tentacles writhed and whipped as the kaia threw itself back from the hated light. Clear yellow eyes swirling in loose, fleshy sockets ringed the vague shape of its skull. It crashed back into the safety of the forest, away from the blazing torch in Ghaelya’s hand until the forked end of its lashing wormlike body disappeared from the edge of the torch’s burning glow.

Uthalion exhaled slowly, rising carefully to his feet with Ghaelya’s assistance. Her eyes never left the gap in the trees where the kaia had fled, her face a mask of defiance though her hands shook with an unstoppable tremor.

“It’s gone,” he said. She blinked, her jaw unclenching for a moment as she turned, a fluid quality in the movement that slowly faded as she focused on him.

“It’ll be back,” she said shortly.

“No,” he replied, gesturing to the eastern end of the stream where the dim glow of dawn graced the sky. “It won’t.”

Hesitantly, she nodded as her breathing slowed, and they turned toward Brindani and Vaasurri on the opposite bank. Before the sun even crested the horizon, they had cleared the edge of the Spur and found a suitable place to rest. Uthalion sat listening to the forest for a long time as the others fell into slumber. The howls of the dreamers left them in peace, the haunting voices of their masters never sought him out. But, like an unreachable itch, he came back to the unknown song in the cave again and again, turning his attention to the south as though he might catch it across the wide expanse of the Mere-That-Was.

Gray fog surrounded Brindani as the slow process of waking up brought him to the forefront of a half-remembered dream. He could feel the cool grass of the Akana on his cheek, but could not open his eyes, still trying to grasp the edges of consciousness that would release him from the border between dreams and reality. The familiar, quiet fog was a comfort, though it had grown thinner, billowing slightly to reveal the silhouetted images of the dream beyond. He recoiled from the figures that shambled through the mist, tried to shut out the barking orders that echoed from the ghostly little town that was usually hidden in the dream.

He found a sword in his hand, and blood covered his dusty armor.

A deep breath filled his lungs as he awoke with a start and cracked his tired eyes open in the bright light of the noonday sun.

He pressed his hands against the grass of the Akana, inhaling its refreshing earthy scent, and sat up to survey the land of the Mere-That-Was. Wide fields stretched as far as he could see, rising and falling in a tide of deep green. Long grasses flowed in the light wind, rolling like the waves that had once lapped these shores. Spiraling whorls of crystal dotted the landscape, the sculptures of a mad god, turning sunlight into blinding rainbows that dappled the fields with color. Small birds flew among the prismatic reflections, with translucent feathers and long trailing tails, almost invisible as they hunted flies and beetles.

Shivering despite the day’s warmth, Brindani turned away from sight of the Akana, only half-remembering the last time he’d crossed the Mere-That-Was. He was not particularly ready to recall the other half. A soft moan drew his attention to Ghaelya, turning in her sleep, her eyes twitching beneath their lids. She seemed lost in dreams of her own. He leaned close, wondering if he might somehow hear the things she heard in her dreams, but her lids fluttered open, and her hand immediately slapped to the hilt of her sword.

He leaned back nonchalantly as she sat up, shielding her eyes from the sun and peering out across the Akana. The whirling energy lines on her skin flared until she calmed somewhat and rolled back to her side with a sigh of relief.

“Where are the others?” she asked.

“Scouting the area, I suppose,” he replied, squinting east and west for Uthalion and Vaasurri, even though their trail would be hard to pick up. “They’ll be back soon.”

“Any sign of the dreamers?”

“No, but I heard them howling, just before I drifted off to sleep,” he answered, shuddering at the memory. Like wolves howling at a rising moon, the dreamers had heralded the sunrise with their own song from deep within the Spur before falling silent. “I think we’re safe from them for now, until nightfall at least.”

“Not surprising,” she said and stood, stretching in the sunlight. “Their eyes never close. I don’t think daylight agrees with them much. What about the Choir?”