Benjamin Tate - Well of Sorrows

Without a word, they stumbled to the back of the wagon, where two others were throwing supplies and children into the back, the older kids already inside shoving the supplies out of the way as fast as possible, the middle kids trying to quiet the younger ones, all of their faces suffused with fear in each flare of light from the storm. Lightning sizzled and crackled around them on all sides, thunder shuddered through the ground at their feet, and the wind tore at the flaps of the wagons, at the hides, at loose clothing and hair. Colin began heaving boxes and crates and pots into the wagon, while Karen helped with the kids. The only illumination besides the lightning was a single lantern sheltered inside the wagon, held by a boy who couldn’t have been more than eight. At every crack of thunder, every flare of unnatural light, the lantern’s flame seemed to dim, almost guttering out twice. The boy held the lantern as far from his body as he could.

And then the last of the wagon was packed, and suddenly a guardsman was there, on horseback. Seeing everything was ready, he bellowed to the driver, “Go! Move out!” and then he turned to peer out into the storm, into the jagged purplish lightning as it pummeled the plains. Colin saw three other wagons, saw the fourth already headed out, but they were all instantly lost as soon as the lightning ended.

“How are we going to stay together?” he shouted toward the guardsman.

The man gave him a sidelong look as the wagon began to move. “We’re not even going to try. We’ll head east, or as close to east as possible in this storm, and regroup once it’s passed.” He turned his attention to everyone, raised his voice to a shout. “Stay close to the wagon! If you lose it in the darkness, you may never find any of us again!” Then he spun his horse and trotted toward the front of the wagon.

“Colin,” Karen said, her voice sharp with warning. She grabbed his arm and pulled him closer to the wagon, already beginning to fade out of sight. The rest of the women and men in their group edged closer to the wagon as well, some of them linking arms and hands, a few keeping hold of the back of the wagon itself.

They’d only moved a short distance when, with a warning splatter of light mist in their faces, it began to rain.

“Oh, great,” Karen said, before she hunched her shoulders and bowed her head.

Colin was instantly drenched in the downpour, spluttering as the frigid water sluiced down his back. Holding Karen a little tighter, he plowed forward, keeping the wagon close to his left side.

They struggled through the storm, the lightning making the surrounding landscape harsh and ethereal, the grasses thrashing in the wind and rain, swirling like the ocean. During the first hour, Colin saw two of the wagons close by, but after that the worst of the lightning moved farther west, and any sign of the other groups in the wagon train vanished into the darkness. They were enfolded by torrential rain, by darkness, by the receding sound of thunder and the occasional crack of a strike nearby. Once he thought he saw the vibrant orange glow of a lantern’s light out in the grass, but the image was fleeting, lost in the sheets of rain before he could turn and focus on it. And once he thought he heard shouting, close, but the wind tore the sounds away.

He lost track of time, his feet stumbling over each other, over stones and ridges of land he couldn’t see, but he kept close to the wagon, reached out and brushed its side to make certain it was still there, even though he could hear the occasional creak of the wheels as they moved. At one point, the guardsman appeared out of nowhere, his horse snorting and stamping, and he shouted, “Have you seen Peg? Either of you?” When both Colin and Karen shouted no, he swore and rode past them. Colin heard him asking the rest of the group, catching only a word here and there, the rest torn away by the wind. He traded a grim look with Karen, and they trudged on. If Peg was lost, there was no hope of finding her until after the storm ended.

And they couldn’t stop. Not with the dwarren behind them. When the storm finally broke, the rain fading to a drizzle, then halting entirely, it was already midmorning, the light a pale, thin gray as clouds scudded by overhead. Colin glanced up into that sky, clothes soaked with chill water, hair plastered to his face, then turned toward Karen, shivering slightly at his side as she moved forward, but still holding tight to his arm. Her face was blank, her head bent, eyes on the grass that had been beaten flat by the rain.

He shook her gently. She turned exhausted eyes on him, her face white.

“It’s over,” he said.

The words took a moment to sink in, and then her steady footsteps faltered and she halted. She looked up into the sky, where patches of blue sky had begun to peek through as the clouds began to tatter.

She smiled. It was a weary smile, haggard and torn from lack of sleep, but it was still beautiful.

The guardsman galloped up from where the wagon had drawn to a halt at the top of a knoll. “Look for the other wagons. We need to regroup as quickly as possible. And keep an eye out for Peg. She got separated from the wagon during the storm.”

Colin nodded as the guardsman moved on, then turned to scan the horizon. To the east, the plains sloped down from the ridge they stood on, the land rumpled, before hitting a flat area edged with darkness. In the vague light, it took Colin a moment to realize that the dark stain on the plains wasn’t a shadow but a forest of trees, what looked like pines, the dark green, needled branches blowing in the wind. The forest stretched into the distance, both to the east and curving around to the south where the plains broke into low hills.

Movement caught his attention, and he tore his gaze away from the trees. “I see one of the wagons,” he shouted.

“Where?” the Armory guardsman asked, and Colin pointed as he brought his horse up to Colin’s side.

“There. Between us and the forest. They just rose up out of that dip.”

The guardsman sighed with relief, a sound that didn’t carry far at all.

“There are two more to the north,” Karen said. “They’re already headed toward us.”

Colin turned away from the east and the darkness of the forest, caught sight of the two wagons Karen had spotted And then someone behind them muttered, “Holy Diermani protect us. Look!”

Everyone spun to where one of the women in the group pointed to the west. The storm still raged on the horizon, the black clouds lit from within by lightning above, rain and the cloud’s darker shadow completely obscuring the plains below.

But as Colin watched, as the storm receded, something emerged from that shadow.

The dwarren. Thousands of them. Headed straight for the wagons. Fast.

The guardsman swore, and Colin felt his stomach clench tight.

“Barte!” the guardsman spat. The driver of the wagon leaned out from the side. “Get the damn wagon moving! Head toward the two wagons to the north! The dwarren are right behind us!”

Barte’s pudgy face turned toward the west, his eyes going wide as he caught sight of the dwarren army, and then he vanished, the wagon shaking as he dropped back into his seat. Colin heard him shout at the horses, and the wagon rolled forward, but slowly. Far too slowly. The horses had been worked almost to their limit.

The guardsman watched the wagon begin ambling down the far side of the ridge, glanced toward the other two wagons, then back toward the dwarren, and he swore again, more vehemently.

“Someone’s riding hard toward us from the other two wagons,” Karen said. She frowned as she squinted into the distance. “I think it’s your father, Colin. And Walter. The Alvritshai are right behind them on foot. I don’t see Arten.”