M. Mathias - Through the Wildwood

“Wolf?” Matty asked, her voice now a sharp whisper and her eyes wide with concern.

“That’s what I said, woman,” Trevin shot back. Then to Vanx, “We should make camp soon so that there is enough daylight to set up some defenses.”

“Aye,” Vanx agreed. “You’re the military man among us, take the lead and mark our place.”

Trevin did so. He found a partial clearing that was barely big enough to contain their bedrolls. The animals were tethered and fed at the trail edge of the camp. Anyone following their tracks would come upon the animals before them.

“We’ll make no fire this night,” Trevin said. “We need one set of eyes up in yon tree, and another on the ground.” He pointed up at the tree. “The rope we set will clang the cups together if something comes from that way, and I don’t reckon that even the inhabitants of this fargin place would try to come over that tangle of blood thorn over there.” He paused and looked at Vanx. “Is there any more of your brew left?”

“I saved some of the last batch in a skin,” Vanx informed him. “There are enough of the herbs to brew another small pot. If we ration her intake, I think we can get her to Dyntalla alive.”

Trevin nodded. “Give Matty the skin.” He glanced up at the darkening sky through a small opening in the foliage. Taking up his bow and arrows, he started for the tree. “Matty will watch and tend Gallarael while I look out from above. Rest, Vanx, you’ve barely had any sleep. I’ve only seen your eyes closed twice since we left Highlake a week ago.”

“Aye,” Vanx agreed. He filled a cup for Gallarael from the skin and gave it to Matty. “Don’t be dallying with Darbon this night. He needs his rest,” he told her.

“I wore him out last night,” she said proudly and pointed at the young man’s bedroll. “Look.”

Darbon was already sound asleep.

Vanx gave her a reassuring pat on the shoulder and found his own blankets. It took him only a few moments to find a deep, much-needed slumber.

Vanx dreamt of the Duchess of Highlake. She was smooth and round and full of wicked desire, but when she threw her hair out of her face and met his eyes, it was Gallarael he saw. She wasn’t lusting and intense like her mother was. She was dazed, with a cloudy film over her eyes. She did manage to raise her head and face him, though. Her gaze was vacant, her skin a jaundiced shade.

“I don’t want to die,” she croaked through cracked lips. “But if I do, take Trevin and run for your lives.” Her brows narrowed as if she were growing angry. “Promise me this, Zythian!” The skin of her face shrunk around her skull as if she were in a baker’s oven. Her cheeks and chin split open and sizzling flesh curled away from the bone. Her hair went up in a burst of flame and her eyes bulged, finally popping into dark, bloody spills of fluid. Through it all her jaw continued to move and her voice stayed firm. “Promise me Zythian, promise me you’ll take Trevin and run.”

Her visage was that of a red-eyed, gore-covered skull now, but the voice was still hers. “I died saving you! Promise me. You owe me as much. I saved you; you save Trevin.”

“I promise,” Vanx blurted out with a start. Trevin was shaking him awake.

“Shhh,” Trevin hissed in a whisper. “Wake up, man, but by the gods, be quiet about it.”

“Is Gallarael-” Vanx didn’t finish the question. He rolled to his hands and knees and crawled over to Gallarael’s side. To his great relief she was still alive, and for the first time since she was bitten, her skin was cool to the touch.

“She’s better,” Trevin grinned. “But we may not be.”

“What is it?”

“Those eyes of yours seem to see better in the night than mine, but I swear I can see a small fire a few miles behind us.” Trevin gave Vanx a look of deep concern, and then his eyes fell on Gallarael. “Matty said her fever broke a short while ago.”

“Appears so.” Vanx grabbed the bow and quiver from Trevin. He took a moment to clench his eyes shut and shivered off the ill feelings the dream had left him with. He looked up, and through the trees he saw the moon was already long past its zenith. “Why didn’t you wake me sooner?”

“The fire only appeared a short while ago, or maybe I only noticed it then. It’s a good ways off and I thought you needed the rest.”

Vanx nodded his thanks. “Let me go piss, and then we can go get a better look at what’s riled you.”

While Vanx relieved himself, the eerie memory of Gallarael’s dream voice crept back into his skull. Had she reached to him across the empty space? While many Zythians were clairvoyant to a small degree, very few, if any, humans could manage to project their thoughts without the aid of magic. He remembered eating some bread covered with spoiled butter once. The fever dreams had plagued him for two days and nights. His stomach roiled and he vomited profusely after eating it. Gallarael’s dream image was burning up. Did it represent her feeling her own fever breaking? She’d called him a Zythian too. Did she know? Did her mother suspect?

Lacing his britches up, he sensed more than heard movement in the darkness. His eyes sought the sensation, and then found for the briefest of moments a sight that stopped his heart cold. A wolf, poised to bound away — but it was no ordinary wolf. This wolf was saddled like a horse and one of the dark-skinned Kobalts sat in the rig glaring at him. Reflexively, he blinked and the image was gone. There wasn’t a wavering limb, or even a rustling leaf, to indicate if he had imagined the sight or not.

Trying not to alarm Trevin and the others, he eased toward the lookout tree. He stopped and grabbed a second quiver of arrows. Trevin was hunched over Gallarael and Matty was rousting Darbon for his turn. Vanx hurried his pace, and with no concern over his companions seeing his true Zythian grace in action, he literally ran up the tree trunk like a scrabbling squirrel. In less than a heartbeat he settled himself in the branches and started to scan the distance in search of the fire. What he saw, though, nearly caused him to tumble out of the tree.

Trevin’s fire was there, just where he estimated it to be, flickering like a tiny jewel in the night. What had Vanx grasping for reason was the three score other twinkles of firelight he could see. They were all around them, and just out of the range of human sight.

They were surrounded. Knowing this gave credence to his vision of the wolf-riding Kobalt. Vanx was certain that if they were aggressive, they would have attacked already. What wolf-riding Kobalts would do to a peaceful group of travelers was the question now. Be it good or bad, he had no doubt they would soon find the answer.

“She’s alive, my lady, but barely,” Orphas, the spiritual advisor to Duchess Gallarain, told her.

He was hunched over a melon-sized sphere that formed a flawless crystal, at a small, three-legged table in the middle of a dark, candlelit cellar. The room seemed like a cavern to Gallarain, and it smelled like hot steel. The amber glow of the crystal before Orphas shone upward onto his elderly face, giving him a sinister look. The sharp widow’s peak of his polished silver skull cap and his high-collared crimson robe lent to the eerie image. In truth, he was no spiritual advisor at all; he was a wizard, and so far, one of the most honorable men Gallarain Martin had ever met. She conveniently overlooked the fact that he dishonestly paraded around as her spiritual advisor and had been sent there by King Oakarm himself to spy on her husband. To her, those particulars made him seem even more wise and mysterious, like some scholarly well-traveled uncle figure. Why he had revealed his true identity was a mystery to her, but she was sure that it had a great deal to do with the fact that Gallarael was King Oakarm’s illegitimate daughter.