Chapter 29: Journey's End

They sat along the riverbank, just down the way from where the small party had crossed. It was the first time Adilash, Jathi and Majad had met since their last ugly confrontation, and while the conversation had never flowed easily between them, it was especially stilted now. The river beside them, quiet this far along, had far more to say than any of them. The greetings were perfunctory and formal, and gone were the days of Jathi lying back casually in a tree, leg dangling with blissful nonchalance. Once the deaths began to add up, her easy demeanour began to melt away.

“Only three remain now,” Majad said, going right to the important matters. None of them wished for smalltalk anyway.

Adilash frowned deeply and shook his head. “And what poor soul was lost to the rainforest this time?”

“The Vanderik noble.”

“Edda,” Jathi added solemnly.

“Yes. She tried to cross the river at an inopportune area. The rapids pulled her below. Her head struck a rock, and she subsequently drowned.” Majad presented the information with all the vigour of a patrol report.

“That makes… How many now? I’m beginning to lose track,” Jathi said. The body count was becoming truly severe. She feared that their purpose would be for naught if they all died. The prospect of convincing a Vanderik force they had all perished of natural causes was becoming less likely by the hour. The elixirs were meant to test their resolve, not to cause them all to die within days. She severely underestimated their determination, if not their fortitude.

“Three of the seven have passed on officially,” Majad replied. “The navigator is gone, somewhere. Wandered off. Presumably dead.”

Adilash inspected him closely, pushing himself up from his traditional seat upon a log to edge closer to him. He looked deep within his eyes, the younger man not backing away or flinching. In fact, he didn’t look uncomfortable. “Do you feel any remorse? These lives were lost under the elixirs that you have given them. Your actions led-”

“Your actions,” Majad corrected. “If you make a fist and strike me, I do not blame the hand.”

Jathi stepped in before they could enter the same philosophical argument they had gone down before. “I cannot listen to this any further. What matters is they’re dead and we’re going to have to respond to that, one way or another. If all seven die, we might very well invite the Vanderik to our border to search for them… or worse, they may take it as an act of war.” Images ran through her head of their beautiful rainforest burning at the hands of reckless Vanderik soldiers. Their Hashadi forces were strong, but not nearly as numerous. Vanda was an empire, while Hashai was a connected number of bands, valiant but miniature by comparison. “Yet… our mission was to test their resolve, and to see if they are worthy partners. The three that remain - they are their strongest, yes?”

“Indeed,” Majad confirmed.

“The captain, the brute-”

“Not a brute,” Majad corrected. “Just a strong man.”

“The captain, the strong man, and the Khorsuli. The latter has managed to control her urges thus far. And all the while meaning to actively steal from her companions. Impressive, if… unusual.”

“Then I shall administer the final elixirs soon.”

“Oh, shall you?” Adilash asked mockingly. “I do not remember a hand having so many opinions on how the brain should act!”

“Are we suddenly abandoning our course?”

Adilash grinded his teeth so strongly they could hear it over the many bird calls of the rainforest. He wanted desperately to strike the man, but knew that if he tried he would not so much as touch him, let alone harm him if he landed the blow. So he opted instead to prove him wrong, but found he lacked that ability as well. In the end, Adilash knew he had to acquiesce. “Yes,” he said through gritted teeth. “Yes, I believe we should offer the final potions.”

Majad had no interest in gloating and instead went right into his propositions. “The strong man is fraught with grief over the loss of Edda. He takes the blame upon himself, and is in a dire mental state. We must play upon that grief.”

“What a vile, dreadful thing to suggest!” Adilash said. “Have you no decency left in you?”

“I await your proposition,” Majad returned coldly. “You know this is the only path.”

Adilash gritted his teeth stronger than before. “I’ll get to work creating the potion,” Adilash said. “Return by the end of the day.”

Majad smiled. “Of course. I am the deliverance of your will.”

Adilash scowled. He had never gotten used to that.

--

The final march to the end of the tree line felt strangely perfunctory considering the gravity of the event. The terrain was no more or less difficult, and the few hours beyond the river passed by quickly and easily. They also moved in near silence, as no one yet knew how to speak to Farmund, and he had no intention of striking up a conversation. So they carried on quietly through the rainforest to their final destination, just so they could turn back as if they had never been there at all.

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Alarik led the way in spite of the pain in his knees, back and close to the entirety of his body. His will carried him now, the exhaustion of the many days of travel and weight of the deaths they had along the way heavy upon him. His conviction was all that mattered, though, and the younger and more fit companions at his side struggled to hold his pace.

Finally, the light began to break through the trees. The canopy opened up in the distance. They knew their journey’s destination was at hand.

It wasn’t hard to miss, after all. The tree line cut directly across, similar to the entrance to the great rainforest. Whatever magic the Hashadi used to keep the rainforest so insular and protected was beyond his understanding, but it worked magnificently. The rainforest was fertile and productive, right up until the very edge of their borders. Beyond that lay something much closer to a desert.

“The land of Rukara,” Alarik said between heavy breaths. “We’ve made it. We’ve travelled through the Hashai rainforest and made it.” He walked up to the treeline and looked out at the land beyond him.

“Where is… where is anything?” Inaya asked.

The land was devoid of trees, save for those that had burned to the ground. The entire landscape looked like it had been ravaged by fire, but not a single flame dared to cross the border into Hashai. Charred, broken huts and burned out wreckage of makeshift homes was the closest there was to civilization. Rubble was strewn about as far as the eye could see, leaving the entire place bereft of colour save for the dry, craggy dirt. It was a landscape without hope.

“The Rukara are a warrior people,” Alarik explained. “This must have been a village that ran afoul of a more powerful one. Their shamans can make fire dance for them as if it was another of their own limbs. Unfortunately, their infighting leaves the land… well, leaves it looking like this.”

“And these are the people you Vanderik so desperately wish to trade with?” Inaya asked further. Many of the Vanderik ways were a mystery to her, but this was something beyond her understanding.

“What purpose the trade would bring is beyond me. But they wished for a route here, and that’s why we were tasked to find it,” Alarik said with the classic stoicism of a warrior. Although one could say the same of a pawn.

“Soldiers,” Farmund said at last with a solemn nod.

“What was that?”

“Soldiers, I said. They wish to open a trade route to bring them goods in exchange for mercenaries.”

“And what makes you think that, lad?” Alarik asked with scepticism. The Vanderik had rarely recruited soldiers from other groups into their own ranks. It was part of their culture; a strict adherence to their own personal glories, stemming from a high opinion of their culture’s character. That said, even the presence of a Khorsuli on this mission meant that perhaps the old ways were changing.

“Rukara are not a cohesive people. This all but proves it,” he said, pointing to the wreckage ahead. “My guess is they’ve probably burned out most of what this land could provide them through warfare. Vanda wants powerful soldiers to continue their expansion. The Khorsul wars devastated our military. It’s a simple union; Rukara shamanistic magic, but paired with the Vanderik steel of our own shamans, would make a force that would be near unstoppable.”

Alarik looked at the devastation before him in a new light. He shifted his weight back and forth uneasily. “So we were sent to pave the way to an even greater force for warfare. One that could…” The words stuck in his throat. Charred huts and shattered villages, going off in the distance until the waves of heat obscured them into shimmering light.

Inaya wrapped her arms around Farmund’s shoulders in an unusual gesture of camaraderie from the traditionally cold woman. “You Vanderik,” she said wistfully. “Never quite satisfied with the destruction you’ve wrought. Always wanting more.” She removed her arms from around him and instead took out the small dagger she carried, the only thing she carried across the water. “Might as well see if I can catch something while you lot are out here staring at burned out houses. You’d think Vanderik soldiers would be accustomed to seeing destroyed villages by now.”

“An unusual woman,” Farmund said as she walked away. If Alarik heard him, he didn’t show it. Instead, he just stared off into the distance at the shimmering heat that looked like the lapping waves off the coasts of Khorsul. He looked far too lost in thought to be brought back. “Perhaps you need a minute,” he said, still not sure if he was heard. “I’ll take a moment to myself.”

Alarik looked into the distance until his eyes burned from the brightness of the sun reflecting off the shattered landscape. As he had done so many times throughout this journey, he used the time to sit, and wonder, and contemplate.

He had dreamt of this moment. The grand, incredible reveal of the great plains of the Rukara, brimming with fire-commanding shamans, battling in ceremonial duels or crafting their fine jewels with careful detail. He’d stare out, triumphant, the men and women of his crusade at his back, looking upon him in admiration as he pulled aside the last fronds of rainforest to show that they had, indeed, succeeded.

Yet another broken promise. Barren. Empty. Another product of wartorn devastation, at least this time not by the hands of his own people. At least as far as he knew. The Vanderik had a way of pulling a string that lifts a lever that levels the spear for someone else to thrust. So, what was his great triumph then? Stumbling, insect-ridden and physically devastated, the majority of his soldiers buried, vanished, or not even having enough left of them to bury. Honour and glory in the Vanderik Empire.

Yet, he was not even given the time to focus on his failings, and had little time to think wistfully of what might have been. Much to his great frustration, he had yet another trial of leadership, one of such that gets conveniently left out of the history books. Of course, he was the only one who could take care of it, and, as is tradition, he had no idea what to do.

Inaya underestimated a commander’s skill in observation. He saw what she did, just a moment ago. And when Farmund discovers what she had done, he will wish to kill her. That much is a fact. If he will do so immediately, without any confrontation beyond a sword through the spine, that is yet to be seen. He may yet ask for permission from his commanding officer - such is the nature of the man, after all. But one way or the other, he will demand retribution. So that, instead of any feeling of triumph, is what plagued poor Alarik’s mind. Not even at the culmination of what was thus far his greatest feat did he have a moment’s respite. Ever the cost of duty, and twofold for that of leadership. Perhaps life would have been better if he stayed a simple soldier.

There would be no sending men in to die or being forced to decide their fate. Instead, all he’d have to do was the dying.