By The Sword - Homepage

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The moon shined down on my face, once again blessing me with the ability to see.

A groan slipped from my lips as we broke through the final line of trees and into the clearing beyond. The simple sight of the long, sweeping wooden building that I now called my home sent waves of relief throughout my body.

But as the slowly calming winter wind stung at my fingers, that relief didn’t last long. My legs still burned, my skin still shivered, and my muscles still ached. I’d gone hunting, fought multiple terrors, and walked back—all in the frigid cold. I needed a break.

Myris lifted his head slightly and mumbled something incoherent into the air next to my ear. I glanced over at him, shoving his arm further up my back and shouldering more of his weight. I felt my back muscles strain, my entire body yelling at me to stop all at once. But as I felt the frigid, nearly impossible cold from his arm seeping down through my clothes and into my skin, I ignored its call.

I pushed on, pulling Myris’ body along with me and hoping his legs would continue to work. After I’d first picked him up, he’d been limp and mumbling. But after walking across the entire forest, his terror-frozen skin numbing me all the way, the situation had improved. He was still mumbling to himself, his eyes half-lidded as he struggled to form coherent words, but he was no longer twitching in fear, and his body was able to walk on its own. Well, it was only partially able to walk on its own, but that difference meant the world to my terribly aching bones.

Kye’s boots crunched the grass ahead of me as we continued toward the lodge. Her bow was out and ready, but her hands were relaxed. Her head was up and scanning, but her neck was limp and unfocused. Each time she remembered to keep her hand hovered near her quiver, ready to take an arrow out at any time, it didn’t last long. Every time, the exhaustion would catch up with her, and her hand would fall uselessly by her side.

Despite being in better shape than I was, and having the use of magic at her disposal, Kye was still just as tired. After all, she’d done almost all of the same things that I’d done throughout the hunting trip, but she drained herself further. As I’d learned on the trek back, she’d enhanced her senses much more forcefully than usual. And with the loosening bags under her eyes, staring down at the way her feet dragged in the dirt, it was more than noticeable.

She’d said she was fine.

And I had no doubt she would’ve been if she hadn’t set that fire.

The image of the blaze of sparks her arrow had erupted into played back over my vision. I felt phantom heat from the blaze pricking at my painfully numb skin. I heard the hisses and crackles that had moved further and further away as we’d made our escape into the night.

I shook my head, trying to force the images away. The sight of the fire only reminded me of the all-too-cold burn in my legs. I was sure that if I’d been forced to walk any longer, my flesh would’ve been seared from the inside out.

Kye had magic, just like most of the other rangers, but normally she didn’t do that. Normally, Kye just manipulated her energy by enhancing her own body, and that was it. It’s what her soul was used to. She hardly ever did anything else. But as I’d dragged Myris away from the source, dozens of terrors crawling out of the shadows in my wake, the magic she was used to wasn’t going to help.

She’d needed to do something else.

And that something else, it turned out, had been pushing as much energy as she could into the tip of an arrow and shooting it directly into an oncoming mass of terrors.

The action had drained her, so much so that I was surprised she could still navigate her way back to the lodge. But it had worked. It had done what she’d wanted to do. It had saved our lives.

I turned my head down, dropping my gaze to the ground once more. Trying to block out the world, I felt the pain in my feet as I tried the best I could not to drag them in the dirt. Myris’ feet stumbled recklessly beside me, half walking and half dragging their way along as I guided him home.

The grey-haired ranger started mumbling again, incoherent syllables combining in so many different ways I wasn’t even sure whether or not he had said any words. With the amount of nonsense Myris had spewed into my ear, I didn’t even know if I could recognize what a spoken word was anymore.

“The source…”

Or maybe I could.

I furrowed my brows, snapping my head up for a moment to stare at Myris. His eyes were still half-lidded and his skin was still as pale as the moonlight shining down on it. And his lips were still moving, but this time they seemed to be moving in an actually purposeful way.

“Why did you take me from…” His voice trailed off. “The source…”

Myris’ head bobbed up and down in a sporadic movement that was somehow more concrete than anything he’d done for the entire trip. I tilted my head. He twisted his neck and opened his eyes a sliver, staring directly into my face.

“Why did you... take me from it?” he asked in a soft, disjointed tone. Afterward, he shut his eyes again, put his weight on my back, and continued to drag onward.

My eyebrows dropped, and with the increased strain he was putting on my back, I considered shrugging his arm away and letting him fall into the dirt. But also feeling the coldness on his skin that I knew definitely wasn’t healthy, I just gritted my teeth and marched on, keeping him upright the entire way.

The air around us warmed as we walked closer to the lodge’s front door. The gold symbol of the rangers gleamed brilliantly in the moonlight as we walked in under its watch. The soft, warm orange flame was still burning next to the large entryway door. I smiled, the weight of my exhaustion making it hard to feel my own lips.

Kye glanced back to me lazily, shifting her weight between her heels. She flashed me a smirk, one still as arrogant as ever despite the circumstances. I glared at her, only held back from rolling my eyes by the sheer effort of the action. She chuckled to herself softly before swinging open the lodge’s large front door and storming into the heat within.

I stepped forward, the feeling of warmth on my skin stirring hope in my heart. The image of my bed flashed in my mind, nearly making me salivate on the spot. Myris muttered something else under his breath. I didn’t even stop to figure out whether it amounted to actual words or not.

Shifting my weight again, I reached out to the door’s handle.

My hand stopped in mid-air, frozen by something other than the frigid cold of the wind. I furrowed my brows harder, staring uncertainly at the door handle in front of me.

Something was… off.

Maybe it was something I saw in the corner of my vision, or something I heard off in the distance, I couldn’t tell through the haze of fatigue. But no matter what it was, a thin film of unease settled over my huddled shoulders and I didn’t like it. I tilted my head.

It felt… strange. Almost like I was being watched.

I twisted my neck, whipping my head around as quickly as my weary muscles would allow. My narrow eyes scanned the night beyond, watching for any sign of movement or abnormality. I scanned over the scattered trees and the clearing I’d just walked over, dragging my eyes all the way over to the town. I watched the motionless path that led away from the lodge and met up with the cobblestone road beyond. Everything I saw was barren.

No. Everything was not barren. Somewhere, out in the haze of dark, I saw a figure. There, somewhere on the hill that led up to the main part of town, was a stoic shape in brown cloth, adorned with plating on their shoulders and chest.

By the time I saw the bronze fist-shaped symbol gleaming in the moonlight, I didn’t even have to guess at their identity. Their gaze met mine, curiosity swimming in their distant eyes. I just grunted and turned back around.

With the door swinging open and heat pricking at my skin, I knew I’d made the right call. I didn’t have time to deal with one of Marc’s messengers again.

Ever since his announcement, Marc had brought more and more of his own into Sarin. At first, it had just been the two Knights of Norn he’d been escorted with, but that had quickly changed. Throughout the following week, Marc had brought in person after person, officer after officer into the town. And by now, it was nearly impossible to go into the market without coming into contact with an unfamiliar face—one of Marc’s lackeys.

Most of the new personnel he’d brought in were fine, and I didn’t have a problem with them. Some of them, in fact, were knights, and I had to respect their craft. The knights from Veron were just as disciplined and orderly as the Knights of Norn, if not more. And I admired that. No matter what Jason said, I couldn’t really be mad whenever I saw them patrolling, serious expressions on their face as they just did their job.

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Most of them were fine. Most. Some of them, however, just got on my nerves.

Kye turned around to look at me, one of her eyebrows raised in sleep-masked curiosity. I just shook my head, shouldering even more of Myris’ weight. The image of Marc’s messenger flashed in my mind again. I tensed my neck uncomfortably. He was the worst one.

Only a few days after he’d arrived, Marc had brought in his messenger. I didn’t know his name, and I didn’t even know if I’d even ever heard the man speak, but Marc’s messenger was everywhere. If I was on a grocery run—something Lorah was allowing me to do again—he was there. If I was on guard duty, he was there, showing up somehow in the middle of my shift apparently just to look around. I couldn’t escape the guy, and he was always watching.

I mean, the man never did any harm, and he’d never really interrupted me or any of my assignments, so I couldn’t be that upset. He just… gave me the creeps, was all. That’s the best way I could describe it to myself.

My body hobbled further inward, moving out of the lodge’s narrow entryway and into the warm training room beyond. I felt the heat coming off the still-burning torches in the room. They filled the room with both light and life, being the only source of either in the all-but barren space. Not even the fireplace was on. Not that I was expecting it to be anyway.

I opened my mouth, flicking my gaze back toward where Kye was standing by the wall. She narrowed her eyes, staring just past me as if she wasn’t even using her sense of sight at all. I snapped my mouth shut and tilted my head, pricking my ears to see if I could hear what she was hearing.

There. In the distance, or close up, I could barely tell with how tired I was, I heard voices. A low, firm voice and a higher pitched voice—both of which registered somewhere in my mind—seemed to be having a back-and-forth somewhere in the lodge.

I stared at Kye. Her gaze eventually moved to meet mine. I cocked one of my eyebrows and she nodded, confirming that she was hearing the same thing that I was.

Scanning the room again, my ears pricked for noise, I settled on one of the side doors. On the left side of the training room, less than a dozen paces away from the weapon rack, was the door to the kitchen. And the voices were coming from just beyond it.

“Who’s that?” I asked in a hushed tone.

Kye just shrugged, a wicked smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. “Not sure. I didn’t even think anybody would be up at this hour.”

Myris’ head moved in the corner of my eye. I snapped my gaze to him, watching the nearly frozen older ranger make his best attempt at squinting as he pressed himself against me. My breathing quickened again.

“We need to get him to Galen,” I said. My words were firm despite the pain. They really conveyed just how much I wanted him literally off my back.

Kye nodded, walking forward and gesturing for me to follow. A sharp breath escaped my mouth as I forced movement into my screaming limbs once more, dragging Myris’ body along for the ride.

I’d thought we were going to Galen’s office, and that’s what we probably were doing. But after we’d started walking, we didn’t even make it halfway across the room.

The muffled voices from just beyond the kitchen door grew louder. Kye froze and I froze too, still following her lead. I bit back a curse, hating the simple fact that I had to carry Myris for another single second.

The low voice chuckled, nearly bellowing out amusement from inside the kitchen. The higher pitched voice made another quick quip, laughing to itself for a short moment as it moved toward the door. My eyes only got to widen a hair before a small bearded form burst out the kitchen door and stumbled into the training room. The entire world went quiet.

Galen’s face was priceless.

After a few seconds of silence that, with someone’s arm still draped over my back, felt like forever, somebody finally spoke. The firm voice that we’d heard before echoed much more clearly with the kitchen door open.

“What’s gotten into you…”

Words died at Lionel’s lips as he stepped out of the kitchen, his eyes latching on us. My eyes fully widened and my pained muscles stiffened up.

“What are you two doing up so late?” Kye finally asked, swinging her bow onto her back.

The short, bearded healer spluttered for a moment, his face becoming as red as a beet. His eyes widened and grew frantic, darting between Kye and Lionel, both of whom were refusing to speak.

“Uhm,” Galen said, actual words seemingly unable to form at his lips. He swallowed hard, the half-eaten roll in his hand getting an entirely new context. “We were discussing something interesting that Lionel brought to my attention.”

I narrowed my eyes and thought about opening my mouth. But before the tired thought could even get processed in my head, Lionel was already speaking.

“Yes. What are you two doing?”

“Three,” I said reflexively, my mind suddenly working faster than my mouth. I blinked, surprised by myself as I glanced over to Myris’ pale hung expression next to me.

Galen’s eyes widened again, this time new intent sparkling within. He straightened his shoulders. “What happened to him?” he asked swiftly.

“Not entirely sure,” Kye replied. “He got in a little over his head on our trip.”

I snorted, the sound making me instantly regret it. “A little over his head is an understatement. We had to save him from the nest of the terrors.”

The bearded healer nodded, looking Myris up and down. “He looks nearly unconscious. He’s pale, and I presume he’s cold as well?”

I nodded, walking further toward the healer with Myris’ body in toe. “Yes, he’s nearly ice cold. I don’t know how bad it is, but he needs treatment as quickly as he can get it.”

“Yes, of course,” Galen said shortly. “I know how to do my job.”

I tilted my head and squinted in confusion, but I didn’t press the issue. Then, keeping his eyes on Myris the whole way, Galen took a step toward the still-silent black-haired ranger and shoved the half-eaten roll in his hand. It was Lionel’s turn to wear a priceless expression.

“Give him here,” Galen said, waving me further toward him. I glanced around, shifting my weight for a moment before I just leaned forward and let Myris into the short man’s arms.

At first I was unsure if Galen could handle Myris’ weight, but he did. The short man held the older ranger up with what appeared to be little difficulty, wincing only at the intense cold on his hand.

“I’ll fix him up as quickly as possible,” was the last thing Galen said before he twisted on his heel and half-dragged, half-carried Myris right out of the room.

The training room was struck into a spell of silence by Galen’s departure. With the newfound freedom my limbs had, I was content to just stand there and stretch them painfully for a little while, but after standing around doing nothing for a few seconds, Lionel apparently had a different idea.

“What happened?” he asked, his voice low and solemn. I looked up, slowing the rolling of my shoulders. I could see the shimmering concern in his eyes.

“We found the source,” Kye said unenthusiastically.

Lionel snapped his gaze to her, a few strands of black hair flying over his forehead. “Is that what happened to him?”

She nodded, her fingers already curling into a fist. “He originally just wanted us to investigate it with him… but it wasn’t where he’d thought it had been.”

“Myris was wrong?” Lionel asked, bringing his eyebrows together. The confusion was obvious in his tone, and I couldn’t really blame him for it. Myris was one of the best hunters in the lodge—even if it frustrated me to admit it.

“No,” Kye said, letting the word hand for a moment. “He took us to the right place. It’s just that it… moved.”

The raven-haired ranger’s eyes bloomed. “It moved?”

Kye nodded, clenching her fist even tighter. I found myself doing the same thing. “We found it in this weird clearing. The trees around it were all bent and twisted, grown into a nearly perfect circle.” Images flashed back in my head, sending rapid-fire shivers racing down my spine.

I grimaced at the residual feeling of the fear in my mind. I could still feel the mental pain and the wounds on my mind it left behind if I tried hard enough. The image of the bent trees played in front of my mind, the horrible stillness of it all. I wrinkled my nose as a phantom chill brushed across my face, the images of the terrors flying up in my mind.

I saw Myris’ pale body again, twitching and mumbling on the dirt. I shuddered. I saw the terrors that crawled out of the shadows after I’d pulled him out. I saw the grey wings.

A hitch caught in my breath as the final image died quickly in my mind. I blinked, trying uselessly to get it back, but it wouldn’t rise up again. I was left with only the cold reality around me, despite the warmth of the torches on the walls.

“Shit,” Lionel muttered. I could only nod in response. I didn’t know much about how terrors normally were—about how the cycles normally went, but I still knew something. This year, they were bad, and something was definitely different.

Kye stared him right in the face. “Yeah, shit is right.”

“You know you’re going to have to report to Lorah about this, right?”

My former cellmate nodded, a half-groan slipping between her lips. “Yes, I know.”

“And Marc’s going to want to know about it too. If not from you, from Lorah.”

She stiffened up, her fingers twitching toward her quiver. “Why does he have to be told?”

“He’s been getting more serious about the town’s security.” Lionel nearly spat the words through his teeth. “And with all of the knights he’s bringing in, it’s only going to get worse. Trust me, he’ll want to know.”

Kye’s neck stiffened up. “He just needs to make sure he keeps out of our business.”

“It’s not just here,” Lionel said, slightly under his breath. “Their scourge is bad this year. Apparently, they’ve been harassing any and all villages even near the forest.” Kye bit back a swear. “Especially ones that don’t have rangers like we do.”

Kye opened her mouth, then snapped it shut quickly after. I squinted at the two rangers, processing the words they’d just said. In the background, I could hear Galen’s high-pitched voice complaining about this or that. Myris was probably glad he wasn’t fully conscious. My lips tweaked upward, and in another situation, I would've laughed.

But with the silence pressing back in on the room, only staved off by the crackling of fire from the torches on the walls, I couldn’t have laughed if I wanted to.

My lips parted. “Let’s just hope the source doesn’t move again.” And words slipped out. “Things can’t get any worse.”

Lionel looked up at me, questioning my words with his gaze for a moment before all the questions fell away. He nodded to himself, content with the silence in the room. Kye gave me a sidelong glance, a more genuine smile sprouting on her lips, and nodded as well.

For a while, we just stood there, letting the words we’d just spoken set in. But the exhaustion still itching at my bones was still there, and the longer I stood, the harder it got to ignore. Taking one last deep breath and holding the image of my bed in my mind, I opened my mouth and…

A creak and a slam.

I jumped, whipping my head around to the entryway of the lodge. The door was still trembling slightly with the force of the slam it had just undergone. And, just inside the lodge where there had previously not been a soul, was a face I recognized in a second. Marc’s messenger.

I wrinkled my nose, snapping my mouth shut and letting irritation drown out the aching of my muscles. From the corner of my eye, I saw Kye tilting her head, a dangerous glare building on her face.

“Excuse me?” she said, not holding back even an inch. The minorly armored messenger bowed his head a bit and came back up with a smile, the bronze emblem on his shoulder shining brilliantly in the soft orange light.

“Are you the rangers that just came back from the forest?” he asked, his voice catching me off guard. I jerked my head backward and had to stop my eyebrows from dancing on my forehead. His voice was softer and more removed than I’d been expecting, especially in contrast with the Knights Marc had brought in. His voice sounded… agreeable, like it was molded to just say ‘yes’ all the time.

My eyes narrowed as I stared at the man who’s generic face I’d seen all-too-often over the past few days. Kye’s gaze was similar to mine, only a whole lot harsher.

“Yes,” I ended up saying, the words somehow slipping from my lips. “Why do you ask?”

The messenger opened his mouth, and I got an all-too-familiar feeling. Memories from months before rose up in my head and I knew the words that would come out of his mouth before he even said them.

“Lord Marcel would like to meet with you.”