Benjamin Tate - Well of Sorrows

The guardsman kneed his horse and took off toward the figures, surging out ahead of them, his horse’s hooves kicking up clods of dirt behind him. Frowning, Colin grabbed Karen’s hand and said, “Come on.”

They ran forward, slipping in the wet grass on the steep slope, but they outpaced the wagon and the rest of those walking beside it. Ahead, the guardsman and the others met. The guardsman shook his head, pointed back over the ridge. Everyone turned in that direction, including the Alvritshai, faces grim, and then Colin and Karen were close enough to catch the conversation.

“-we can’t,” his father was saying. “The reason we’re headed toward you is there’s another dwarren force to the north. They’re converging here.”

“What about the Alvritshai?” Walter spat, his face dark. But even though his words were harsh, there was a look of desperation around his eyes.

Tom frowned. “They’re farther to the north, out of the dwarren’s path.”

For the first time, Colin noticed that Aeren and Eraeth had been joined by two other Alvritshai, both with bows strung and ready, their focus on the plains.

Looking at Aeren, whose gaze held his, the skin around his eyes tight with concern, Colin said, “Maybe we should join them. Maybe they can protect us.”

But his father was already shaking his head. “We can’t. We’ll never make it in time; the dwarren are too close. We’ll have to go east, take refuge in the forest, hope that the dwarren are more concerned with their own fight than with us.”

Aeren suddenly stepped forward, his gaze flicking back and forth between Colin and his father. “No. No trees.”

“Why not?”

Aeren turned his full attention on Tom with an intensity Colin hadn’t seen there before, even during their formal first meeting, when they’d shared food and drink. “No trees. Sukrael there.”

At the word sukrael, the other Alvritshai shifted, unsettled.

“Sukrael?”

Aeren motioned with his hands. “Sukrael,” he said in frustration, in impatience, then pointed to the ground. “Sukrael!”

Everyone looked to where Aeren pointed in confusion.

“He’s pointing to your shadow,” Karen said, hesitantly.

“What the hell does that mean?” Walter asked. Behind him, the two wagons they’d been escorting topped the rise and trundled down toward them.

“It doesn’t matter,” Tom said, his back straightening as he saw his wife at the head of the wagons, her eyes wide with fear. “We’re out of time.”

He began to turn, but Aeren’s hand suddenly latched onto his arm, held him in place, even though he sat on a horse. The other Alvritshai sucked in a sharp, stunned breath, their faces openly shocked, and Colin suddenly realized that none of the Alvritshai had ever touched any of them, had never gotten close enough except to hand over food. Now, Eraeth and the others took an uncertain step away from Aeren.

“No trees.”

The words hung in the tense air. The guardsman’s hand had fallen to his sword’s hilt. The other Alvritshai-those with bows nocked-had shifted, their shock at Aeren’s action gone now, their focus on the guardsman. The tableau held, Tom staring down into Aeren’s face. Colin couldn’t see what his father saw, but he’d heard the warning in Aeren’s voice, could see the cold, rigid tension emanating from the Alvritshai’s body.

And then Ana barked, “Tom! They’re right behind us!”

Tom slid out of Aeren’s grasp, and in a harsh voice, tinged with apology, he said, “We have no choice.”

He broke his gaze with Aeren, spun toward the two wagons. “Sam! Paul! Head toward the forest! The dwarren are right behind Colin’s group as well! The forest is our only chance!”

The wagons turned instantly, Ana pivoting to wave everyone on foot in that direction. People moaned, all of them looking as exhausted as Colin felt, wet and weary, but edged with fear.

The guardsman yanked his horse’s reins hard. “Barte!” he shouted. “Head west, head toward the forest!” But Barte couldn’t hear him. With a muttered curse, he sped off, his horse leaping forward as he dug in his heels.

Eraeth snorted, said something obviously derisive to Aeren’s back. Aeren’s face darkened, and he called something heated in reply, not even turning, something that made Eraeth bow his head in shame.

Tom turned, brow furrowed. Then he nodded in Aeren’s direction, ignoring the cold look Eraeth cast him. “Thank you. For everything.”

Aeren nodded in return.

Colin felt his father’s gaze fall on him, and something stabbed deep down into his gut at the despair he saw there. He’d never seen a look like that on his father’s face before. Not even in Portstown.

“Colin,” he said, his horse shifting closer, sensing its rider’s tension. “Stay with the others. Help them as best you can.”

It seemed he would say something more, but he shook his head instead. Then he and Walter spun their horses and rejoined the wagons. Overhead, the clouds began to clear completely, the gray sunlight strengthening to a late summer yellow, vibrant on the rain-washed grass all around. Colin felt it against his skin, felt it touch his hair, but he discovered it didn’t warm him. It should have, but it didn’t. Coldness had seeped into him-from the rain, the storm, the nightlong trek through the darkness-a coldness that penetrated deep, to his very bones. A coldness he’d seen in his father’s eyes.

Aeren looked toward him, stepped close and grabbed his shoulders, locked eyes with him. “No trees,” he said, adamantly, his hands tightening. And then, softly, sadly, “No trees.”

“No trees,” Colin repeated.

Aeren let his hands drop from Colin’s shoulders, reluctantly.

At his side, Karen shifted. “Colin.” One word. But Colin heard the terror in it, the need to move, to run.

“Let’s go,” he said, grabbing Karen’s hand, but refusing to look in her eyes. He didn’t want her to see what he’d seen in his father’s eyes, didn’t want her to feel as cold as he did.

They ran, back toward Barte and the wagon, now angled toward the dark line of the forest to their left, still shuddering down the slope of the ridge, the others scattered around it, all of them running, sprinting toward the safety of the forest. Colin glanced back over his shoulder, saw the Alvritshai standing alone on the plains, Eraeth trying to get Aeren to move, Aeren watching them retreat stoically, his expression troubled.

And then more movement caught his eye. Farther out on the plains, farther east, he saw the fifth wagon as it crested another ridge, silhouetted against the cloud-driven sky a moment before it plunged down the side of the slope toward them. Colin’s heart leaped, and he skidded to a halt and cried out. A wordless shout, cut off as Karen’s hand was wrenched from his own and they both stumbled to the grass.

“Colin!” Karen gasped, her breath harsh from running.

Colin ignored her, cupped his hands around his mouth as he bellowed, “The other wagon!” Ahead of them, the guardsman pulled his mount to a halt, frowning back at him, and Colin shouted, “It’s the other wagon!” as he turned and pointed.

The Alvritshai had vanished.

The sudden elation over seeing the other wagon died on Colin’s lips.

“Diermani’s balls,” he whispered to himself.

To the north, on the ridge to the right of the fifth wagon, the dwarren were spilling down the slope, riding their gaezels hard. A sudden cacophony of noise erupted from the dwarren as they spotted the wagon, a battle cry ripped from a thousand throats, threaded through with a sudden frenzy of drums, with the thunder of a thousand gaezel hooves and hundreds of dwarren feet pounding into the grassland as they charged. Colin couldn’t see any difference between this group of dwarren and the ones they’d run into near the underground river, not at this distance, but it didn’t matter. The group of dwarren that had attacked them appeared on the ridge to the southeast, raising their own battle cry and they charged down into the dip, the wagon trapped between them.