‘Die from demons or die from smoke,’ Arrick muttered. He started to move away from the trap, but Rojer clung hard to his leg.
‘Let go, boy,’ Arrick said, kicking his leg in an attempt to shake the boy off.
‘Don’t leave me!’ Rojer cried, weeping uncontrollably.
Arrick frowned. He looked around at the smoke, and spat.
‘Hold tight, boy,’ he said, putting Rojer on his back. He lifted the edges of his cape to seat the boy in a makeshift sling, tying the corners about his waist. He took up Geral’s shield and picked his way through the foundations, crouching to crawl out into the night.
‘Creator above,’ he whispered, as he saw the entire village of Riverbridge in flames. Demons danced in the night, dragging screaming bodies out to feast.
‘Seems your parents weren’t the only ones Piter shorted,’ Arrick said. ‘I hope they drag that bastard down into the Core.’
Crouching behind the shield, Arrick made his way around the inn, hiding in the smoke and confusion until they made the main courtyard. There, safe in Geral’s portable circle, were the two horses; an island of safety amidst the horror.
A flame demon caught sight of them as Arrick broke into a run for the succour, but Geral’s shield turned its firespit with a flare of magic. Inside the circle, Arrick dropped Rojer and fell to his knees, gasping. When he recovered, he began to dig at the saddlebags desperately.
‘It must be here,’ he muttered. ‘I know I left … Ah!’ He pulled a wineskin free and yanked off the stopper, gulping deeply.
Rojer whimpered, cradling his bloody right hand.
‘Eh?’ Arrick asked. ‘You hurt, boy?’ He moved over to examine Rojer, and gasped when he saw the boy’s hand. Rojer’s middle and index fingers were bitten clear away; his remaining fingers still clutched tightly about a lock of red hair, his mother’s, severed by the bite.
‘No!’ Rojer cried, as Arrick tried to take the hair away. ‘It’s mine!’
‘I won’t take it, boy,’ Arrick said, ‘I just need to see the bite.’ He put the lock in Rojer’s other hand, and the boy clenched it tightly.
The wound wasn’t bleeding badly, partly cauterized by the flame demon’s saliva, but it oozed and stank.
‘I’m no Herb Gatherer,’ Arrick said with a shrug, and squirted it with wine from his skin. Rojer screamed, and Arrick tore a bit of his fine cloak to wrap the wound.
Rojer was crying freely by then, and Arrick wrapped him tightly in his cloak. ‘There, there, boy,’ he said, holding him close and stroking his back. ‘We’re alive to tell the tale. That’s something, isn’t it?’
Rojer kept on weeping, and Arrick began to sing a lullaby. He sang as Riverbridge burned. He sang as the demons danced and feasted. The sound was like a shield around them, and under its protection, Rojer gave in to exhaustion and fell asleep.
319 AR
Arlen leaned more heavily on his walking stick as the fever grew in him. He hunched over and retched, but his empty stomach had only bile to yield. Dizzy, he searched for a focal point.
He saw a plume of smoke.
There was a structure off the side of the road far ahead. A stone wall, so overgrown with vines that it was nearly invisible. The smoke was coming from there.
Hope of succour gave strength to his watery limbs, and he stumbled on. He made the wall, leaning against it as he dragged himself along, looking for an entrance. The stone was pitted and cracked; creeping vines threaded into every nook and cranny. Without the vines to support it, the ancient wall might simply collapse, much as Arlen would, without the wall to support him.
At last he came to an arch in the wall. Two metal gates, rusted off their hinges, lay before it in the weeds. Time had eaten them away to nothing. The arch opened into a wide courtyard choked with vines and weed. There was a broken fountain filled with murky rainwater, and a low building so covered in ivy that it could be missed at first glance.
Arlen walked around the yard in awe. Beneath the growth, the ground was cracked stone. Full-sized trees had broken through, overturning giant blocks now covered in moss. Arlen could see deep claw marks in the plain stone.
No wards, he realized in amazement. This place was from before the Return. If that was so, it had been abandoned for over three hundred years.
The door to the building had rotted away like the gate. A small stone entryway led into a wide room. Metal threads hung in a tangle from the walls, the art they had held long disintegrated. A coating of slime on the floor was all that remained of a thick carpet. Ancient grooves were clawed into the walls and furniture, remnants of the fall.
‘Hello?’ Arlen called. ‘Is anyone here?’
There was no reply.
His face felt hot, but he was shivering, even in the warm air. He did not think he could manage to search much further, but there had been smoke, and smoke meant life. The thought gave him strength, and finding a crumbling stairwell, he picked his way to the first floor.
Much of the building’s top floor was open to sunlight. The roof was cracked and caved in; rusting metal bars jutting from the crumbling stone.
‘Is anyone here?’ Arlen called. He searched the floor, but found only rot and ruin.
As he was losing hope, he saw the smoke through a window at the far end of the hall. He ran to it, but found only a broken tree limb lying in the rear courtyard. It was clawed and blackened, with small fires still crackling in places, giving off a steady plume.
Crestfallen, his face twisted, but he refused to cry. He thought about just sitting and waiting for the demons to come, in hopes they would give him a faster death than the sickness, but he had sworn to give them nothing, and besides, Marea’s death had certainly not been quick. He looked down from the window to the stone courtyard.
A fall from here would kill anyone, he mused. A wave of dizziness washed over him, and it felt easy and right to just let himself fall.
Like Cholie? a voice in his head asked.
The noose flashed in his mind, and Arlen snapped back to reality, catching himself and pulling away from the window.
No, he thought, Cholie’s way is no better than Da’s. When I die, it will be because something killed me, not because I gave up.
He could see far from the high window, over the wall and down the road. Off in the distance, he spotted movement, coming his way.
Ragen.
Arlen tapped reserves of strength he didn’t know he had, bounding down the steps with something approaching his usual alacrity and running full out through the courtyard.
But his breath gave out as he reached the road, and he fell onto the clay, gasping and clutching a stitch in his side. It felt like there were a thousand splinters in his chest.
He looked up and saw the figures still far down the road, but close enough that they saw him, too. He heard a shout as the world went black.
