Chapter 23:
A Cage of Rust
Twilight descended on the world. Gradually, the terrain rose into higher cliffs to the immediate right and south of Deros’s path. The moon Derametra crossed the sky over them, barreling toward the first visible, cloudy masses of Keramus as it rose up to inevitably meet and swallow the moon. Azrom’s last remainders were just barely blocked from view by the rocky hills behind, to the west. Deros covered himself in his fur cloak and considered stopping to find a place to try and deal with his binds, but he felt it would take too much time better spent traveling while heat still lingered. While he couldn’t put his arms through the coat while bound, he could still utilize its warmth by pulling it down over him, when the time came.
What are the odds they’ll come looking for me? They need to get to their well, I imagine. If the water supply was damaged by the explosion, they might even have to travel overnight.
High on a cliff, Deros caught a sudden glint. He quickly hid for a long spell, then moved away from his position stealthily, while using his sight-based makar’osa to look for any signs of movement. Nothing. Probably nothing…
Not taking any chances, Deros angled in a loop backward, then headed out further from the cliff, circling back eventually to continue east, watching for any movement at every juncture, his ears primed and tuned for any unusual sounds.
The rocky terrain eventually led to a smooth sandstone ridge — one he knew was coming and rather dreaded. As he cast his eyes over its length going north and south and ending in those high southern cliffs, he muttered a low curse. He’d hoped the ridge had breaks somewhere, or cover, but there was none that he detected. He’d either have to expose himself blatantly to any watchers by going over it or go further north until it either ended or he found a logical crossing. The only other option was to find a way up the cliffs, but that was where the glint had come from, and all that he saw of the approach didn’t appeal to him.
Ultimately he chose to go north, which was conveniently away from any potential sentry or searcher to the south. If the Ironbloods had made camp just over it, by chance, he did not yet want to be poking around, knowing they’d be on high alert.
Can I keep up with them on foot? Not moving like this. On sand or irregular hills, maybe. If I travel longer than they do. Damn it. I never wanted to be free and you not be, Palamera. I have to rescue you. Maybe I can steal a gun… or blow up more gunpowder… what do they even keep it in?
Through the eerie quiet, he stalked around jutting rocks like fattened spikes and great, broken teeth. Sometimes sandy valleys were trapped low between cliffs. Sandstone formations of varied twists and shapes were like massive looming creatures in the twilight. Once, he saw a huge arch along the way, a feature any traveler would have to note. It was so perfectly curved, it seemed artificially carved. Maybe it was, by some unknown people long ago. Deros could not spare any time to inspect it, however. He cast his eyes continually back to the ridge that he needed to cross east.
Finally, he came upon a break in the ridge — a pass with ample cover. He observed it for a spell from multiple angles and extended his hearing it over as well, but saw and heard nothing alarming, so he made his way over, keeping quiet and advancing from cover to cover. If he was to have any chance at keeping up with the caravan, he had to get across the ridge somewhere. Likely, he’d need to find a place of rest beyond it, so he’d be on the lookout after at most an hour, preferably for a rock overhang to get under, or if luck favored him, a cave.
The pass was almost a deep crevasse in the sandstone, like some ancient water weathering, with crumbled, broken terrain only slightly filling the gap inside. He could see all the way to the end of it. He traversed it slowly, ears continuously piqued and eyes peeled for any concerning movement. There was always ample cover along the way behind boulders and sandstone bits, so he made use of it every step.
Near the end, he stopped dead. A suddenly very swift movement ahead. Quickly, he ducked for cover and hid.
Someone passing?! What are the damnable odds?!
He turned up his makar’osa to full intensity as he found a spot to go flat and still, behind a great sandstone block. Though he prayed with everything in him to hear an aloga, his hopes were dashed. It was a rekas, he was sure. And instead of flying down the pass, it stopped almost immediately ahead.
It wasn’t Semõìn, either. A bigger rekas, a bigger-
“You can come out, tribal. I know you’re there.” Raetmus. Calm, in no hurry. “I saw you coming; I was waiting for you. There’s no way out of this trap. Not for either of us. This is the valley of your death.”
Deros squeezed his eyes shut briefly, feeling a panic he had to squelch down. I was free. I was free, but she wasn’t. I had to walk this. I had to…
“I can guess what you’re thinking, tribal,” Raetmus continued. “What a stroke of misfortune. But the odds were stacked against you. It suits me that these imperial swine think me a fool and it suits us that I am apparently friendless. Sadly for you, I’m not, or you’d have stood a meager chance of getting away in this terrain. Very meager, with the best scent-tracking rekas in existence trained to your stench. But better for you primitives in general, to have us around in the long run. Do you know why?”
Deros peeled his eyes open and looked around, as Raetmus continued to enjoy hearing his own booming voice. Trying to goad Deros out or to talk back, he imagined. It was unlikely he knew exactly where Deros was. There were half a dozen hiding spots in the area.
The options looked bleak. He’d be exposed trying to go back, and there was literally no way to pass by Raetmus undetected. Could he climb the sandstone? It was too sheer immediately adjacent. Glancing at a nearby boulder, which was very close to the wall, he could climb up it, then possibly up further to the ridge. But… he’d be exposed in the process, to Raetmus’s splatshot or gunfire. It seemed like an easy shot if he was caught climbing.
Maybe I can get him to move first if I don’t move or give away my location…
Naturally, Raetmus proceeded to calmly answer his own question. “We share a mutual oppressor, a mutual enemy. Every dead imperial and hamstrung operation of theirs is a benefit to us. We’ve arranged deaths, lost weapons, and — yes — even detonations.”
The giant laughed. “These imperials are lazy and stupid enough to keep you tribals around in their occupied zones and camps, to do all the menial things. The Ordenai soft-bottoms can’t do without their precious quari. Amazing what the invisible can overhear. Pass on to others still resisting. Amazing what generational resistors can arrange under the noses of incompetents.”
The words were certainly interesting to Deros despite the situation. Perhaps shocking. Even the military of Cajhor, even their apparent elites on an alien world, had discordant factions inside of it. Their culture seemed absolutely diseased. He could hope they destroyed themselves before conquering and enslaving the peoples of Hamellion.
On his rekas, Raetmus could be heard to shift and move slightly, possibly in a small circle. Sight angles, Deros figured, so he stayed motionless.
Settling finally with a great sigh, Raetmus called, “Going to do this like a rat, are you?! Die with some honor, for nokieu’s sake. I’ll admit, though… you’ve been a surprisingly worthy prey in your final hours. I didn’t even need to kill that idiot Vânser. I was going to have you cut loose, but that moron never even got into my sights to put down and allow it, stuck fighting with his own undisciplined mount. Pathetic. Lo and behold, you pulled some mad primer miracle and got free yourself. Impressive, bug. But it’s past time for you to be squashed. I still haven’t even had dinner.”
Raetmus made a swift move to a blessedly wrong spot behind a sandstone pillar. Deros opted not to make a move, though he began edging very, very slightly toward the closer exit. There was… an extremely dubious hiding location of a low rock ahead, that if he were prone, and Raetmus where he was… might cloak him from sight in a place he could eventually advance again from. However, it was a move that would expose him. He waited.
The giant circled back again to some degree, Deros thought, but then the sounds became evident he was rounding around Deros’s massive block. It was an opportunity, as it was opposite of the angle to the hiding spot. Slowly, Deros continued circling his block, keeping them roughly opposite for a few more steps, while carefully placing his feet to avoid noise… then he finally broke away, making for the low rock with as much speed as the stealthy footfalls allowed.
Deros was certain he gave away no blatant signs, yet he heard the animal make some throaty noise, and Raetmus wheeled around just as Deros was getting to the rock, darting into view and practically locking eyes with him.
Damn it! Heart leaping into his throat, Deros sprinted past the low rock, down the open pass, unsure of what he could do but run for thicker cover — slanted rocks ahead, but too far away. Too bloody far.
Raetmus did not fire any weapons, instead charging after him on his rekas with frightening speed, everything in the world entirely silent but for those heavy, heavy footfalls. Deros turned right at the last second, well shy of cover, feeling the great shape bearing down on him, and he saw the charging mount angled to go past him, as a great, long arm casually swung a half-spear down at his fleeing quarry, aiming to slice him open.
Hastily, Deros planted his feet to try and throw himself back out of the way, but his foot slid on loose gravel and he had to affect a backward fall to avoid the spearhead, which nonetheless still nicked him over the right side of his forehead, slicing open scarf and skin both. Raetmus and his rekas flew past as Deros hit the ground on his back. An instant later, he rolled and burst back onto his feet, as Raetmus wheeled around, laughing in seeming enjoyment.
“Almost over too quickly, tribal,” Raetmus boomed as he briefly inspected the bladed spearhead with a tiny amount of blood on the tip. “I’ve been waiting to clear this oath for a while. I’m conflicted on how long I want this to last, truthfully.”
Raetmus and his rekas stalked toward him slowly, as if waiting for him to break. So Deros just backed up, trying to keep distance enough to dodge again, conspiring in his head for what he could do, what he could use. His boot knife wouldn’t help, even if he had time to fetch it. No, fighting was pointless again. He’d have to run. Or talk…
“I’ve no qualms with putting it off,” Deros answered. “Perhaps I’m more useful alive? You’ll never know who killed your mentor if you kill me.”
“The incompetence of imperial swine killed Daekier. What we both hated.” His approach was steady — a looming tower of menace with a crown of horns, framed by the sandstone walls and the near-dead twilight. “In the absence of prejudice, we’d have been the snipers, dropping you primitives with ease. Instead, we’re made to run around with the mediocre, doing their jobs ten times better. Do you see how pathetic they are without him, or me in replacement, to see what is right in front of them? They blinded their own eyes.”
“They still weren’t the ones who stabbed him to death.”
“Insects are all the same. Some fly beyond your reach after they sting, even if you would swat them. Others cling and annoy. A waste of an oath to squash you, but an oath it remains. Briefly.”
Raetmus suddenly and smoothly dropped from his rekas. Deros was swift to take advantage, turning and sprinting away, casting only a glance enough to ensure the spear wouldn’t be hurled at his back. But the giant was running after him, with a short series of whistles that seemed to signal his mount to move independently.
They were both faster. Deros made a break for his prior cover, as the sandstone walls of the pass made the gap too narrow for either of his foes. Through his farsense, spooled out wider than he’d ever cast it, he sensed it to be a close thing with Raetmus if he could reach in time, but the rekas was far, far superior in speed. Instead of running him down though, it flew past and left, angling around the block…
It’s going to cut me off. I’ll be trapped in that gap. There’s nowhere to go.
At the last moment, Deros pivoted and turned right back at Raetmus, facing the giant head-on. That great mound of muscle was even greater in mass and momentum, so he feinted to the left, leading Raetmus one way while dashing to the other, hoping to evade that entirely stifling reach. His move was to the off-hand.
Raetmus was thrown off enough that he couldn’t bring the spear to bear, but with a last-second adjustment of surprising speed and agility, a great leg kicked out to trip. Deros leapt over it, but one foot was caught slightly and he pitched into the sand and grit arms and belly first.
Fearing a spear in his back, Deros rolled before springing up with as much quickness as he could muster, but Raetmus instead simply closed the distance. The spear came slicing down, and Deros narrowly dodged it, backpedaling… thrown off-balance, still caught in that ridiculous reach, he couldn’t avoid the great frontal kick that came as a follow-up. It hit him square in the chest and abdomen with an impact he could imagine a thrown tree should feel like, sending him entirely off his feet onto his back with all sense and wind knocked out of him, debilitating numbness saturating him to the core.
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Paralyzed for too many moments, he knew he should get away — he had to get away! — but his body wouldn’t respond. He only writhed.
Raetmus stood over him, spear hefted and ready. “The end of the line, tribal. Daekier, this is for you!” With a cry, he stabbed the spear down at Deros where he lay on a slight, gravel slope — aiming right at Deros’s heart, the body wrapped around it unable to respond. Unable to save it.
As so many had claimed occurred in such moments, his life flashed before his eyes, far too much and too massive, too fast… everything of him and nothing at all, seemingly condensed to tiny and irrelevant by the end. His brain so starkly and clearly registered his death coming down that every bit of it fired off to process a way out — survival by some unsolved equation or recipe of fitness to the task. Echoes, echoes all running together and over one another. Noise.
I seized the day, I dropped the blade on my chains, yet here it is to pay due…
The farsense processed that falling shadow, that dropping blade, quicker and clearer than anything else. It strained, stretched absurdly, ridiculously, impossibly, useless feathers of makar’osa wanting to brush forth as always, with nothing so thick enough to matter. Instead, it was stretched infinitely thin, like a net frayed into tiny gossamer strands all wriggling across a hundred times the distance of perception, seeking something, anything, something. The feel, maybe imaginary, of kilometers and kilometers, and the vibrational intent — quake — storm — of the tiniest, tiniest nothings that made up everything.
The farsense normally would have cut off by then, as it had before, slipping away in safety by the mechanisms of instinct, but if it did at that moment, he would be dead. Instead, it was forced to keep pushing, forced to keep stretching against a containing, buckling pressure conditioned and conditioned and conditioned to hold. Enshroud. Protect.
‘You were left with nothing more than a trickle through a sieve.’ Eklásia’s words. ‘Your ability is simply seared, burned into its unique, structured form.’ A Hospitaller, smiling politely. Such a kind smile.
It’s not burned — it’s not a trickle underneath! It’s a knot, a ravel, a quarantine, a cage! An alien thought, barely like him, maddened despair and hope transmuted together into some heinous, new thing.
Chaos into prime…
In that last dread, stretched moment he had, the many tiny fingers wrapping that point in the center of his brain suddenly snapped a thousand concordant snaps, and the tangle unraveled, the bindings unfurled, in a way they never had. Out of its confines, an aperture was exposed — the lenseye — with almost nothing restraining what lay beyond, waiting to burst forth. Almost nothing.
Power was alighted in dark recesses, unknown and awoken for the madness to bear…
Deros perhaps could’ve flared up in some warped, destructive ruin, taking Raetmus and the landscape with him in one final blaze of glory. But it wasn’t the intent in his heart, it wasn’t what he wanted, and by some means, he held a tenuous grip, held back the flood of that temptation to exult in unrestrained, infinitely desperate, emotionally-charged power. By one last shred of rationality, he rejected the non-solution and wanted simply the logical and clear thing already in the soul of the moment.
Freedom! Away! The farsense was a maelstrom of too-much input, arcing out over hundreds of kilometers, seeking, seeking, seeking… dead info of terrain, north-south-east-west, endless rock and sand… but there, there, so far east, was A Way, lit up like a beacon on high, screaming out across the whole world what it was and what it was doing, seemingly by blatant intricacies of design. A puzzle he could not understand, but felt the patterns and form of. Instruction. Formulae.
Dots connected. All things connected, so close, how could it be so close? Makar’osa in emulation of the connection, of two points becoming one, bubbled up like stars of sheer energy hiding behind every particle of air — everything shimmered with the spear point nearly impaling into his chest, all in a perfect sphere extending around him, every iota charged, touched, grasped, pulling inward on itself, like it was inverting, trying to go inside-out, trying to go…
In a flash, the world went black as death.
🙦⚜🙤
It took him a moment to realize he was conscious within a sensory-deprived state, and he panicked. He’d encountered sleep paralysis in his youth, and it was similar but for the lack of confidence a body was wrapped around him, waiting.
Death? Am I dead?
Flailing, perhaps trying to scream somehow, he reached for anything, groped for an anchorage, for the world, for Hamellion. And it answered.
Hands in the sand on his knees, a star-lit sky still too black, mountains in the distance, and the feel of gravity and heat. Hamellion. Relief. A glow about everything. When he lifted his hands out, he realized they were indistinct, blurry, unfocused. When he suddenly found himself standing, he looked down to see the same for the rest of him. A shadow of himself, bleeding the tan colors of not-really clothes over red, not-really skin.
His mind could’ve chosen to believe he was a spirit, then, or indeed that he’d been transported to another realm. But instead he identified it as a dream or vision. In his memory of the waking world, he understood urgency. Death waited for him, still. Back out was death, and the dream was for some purpose. But what?
But what. But why? The beacon. Through the impossible stretch of the farsense, something so garishly blatant and powerful and bright it stood out like another Azrom, just beyond the horizon. So far, it was through the planet, due to its slight curvature.
We’re walking on a ball! It was a gleeful, absurd, hysterical thought. No! Shut up. I don’t have time for wonder.
Nonetheless, more color bled into the world, the sand and sky erupting into new dimensions as if injected with paint, the sky becoming exaggerated gradients of twilight rising into a sparkling, dark blue haze. He tried to ignore it and focused — moved — toward the beacon.
He walked in strange skips of time, not really making footfalls, his legs moving having no actual meaning in that place. The time of the vague, featureless bounds he made over the surface toward that only-thing-of-relevance… the time was something, but also crammed into a moment free of such calculation. Like a dream, it all ran together, too compressed to stretch.
I don’t like this place. I don’t belong here. As he ‘walked’ he observed himself and saw that over the distance, he faded and grew more and more indistinct. The landscape began to wash out, as well.
But suddenly, there it was rising up high before him in the middle of nothing: a mountain with a flattened top. A volcano. Above it, a spiral of energy and fire swirled in a twisted madness of geometry bent into curls and angles eating themselves, all pulsing with inner, infinitely-hued light. Vaguely within, it was a sphere, tearing and warping at the reality around it in a bizarre vortex. Some dreamy lie. But not entirely.
An abstract representation of many layers of symbology. Instruction made into images more easily understood, the violent, twisting reality at the core.
But nothing is hidden. Layers, layers, layers, harder and harder. Exchanging two spaces. It’s being used… by someone else. I could — I can — sense every contour of its operating form. I’ve emulated it, haven’t I? A facsimile. Chaos into prime? Is this what I’ve always done?
He looked down at himself. Unraveling, shredding away, as if the wind would carry him off like so much dust.
Here. I have to come here…
But even as he decided it, he felt himself snapped away, dragged off far out of sight of the target, pulled to the limit he could actually reach from where his body was.
Too far. It’s not the same. A snap before a song, a crude imitation. Only that goes farther, doesn’t it…
The blackness flared back into light.
☙⚜❧
“It was faint but I caught his scent. He’s with them. Somewhere. Must’ve been at the back.” Aerion. Subdued. Everyone was subdued.
Ryza Meleton Rainfeather, Slowseer and Azakan warrior of the Taldecca, flipped her head from one side as it was pressed to the sand over to the other, to stare at Aerion laying down next to her, who did not meet her eyes.
She was trying not to glare yet knew she was, as she listened to the ground, listened to reverberations that spoke of the giant vile beasts and their tremendous, easily-tracked movements. The Horned Ones had sent a large force to tail the Sylmex forces that had retreated, and they were determined to keep them running or catch any stragglers. Ryza, Daexo, and Aerion had been forced to lag behind and meet up at a rendezvous after being separated, and so their enemies were potentially to any given direction. Two groups of ten, and more patrollers inside their sweeping zones. Hiding and moving slowly was necessary, particularly since their gun supplies were low.
My brother in the rear party? It would figure.
“We’ll take what fortune we can in failure,” Ryza replied quietly. Aerion’s mouth opened, but he didn’t say anything, his face pained. Well it should be.
Daexo had gone with the Sylmex charge, nearly three hundred strong, cutting right into the chaos after the explosion. Her husband had not seen Deros anywhere but managed to free Thalamon, in part thanks to Ryza’s gun use from the cliffs. She’d killed or wounded five from the main group… but then Aerion had gotten into trouble trying to chase after Urchon, who was held in the advance group — twenty-something strong and dealt much less disorder from the blow-up. Ryza had to support him to save his skin, and it was a near thing. She’d had to leave him when the Horned Ones began concentrating gunfire on her position and advancing with clear intent to entrap her.
Aerion, despite his lovesickness, finally saw reason and fled the scene empty-handed, carried away on the heroic legs of Enseres, Deros’s fierce, lost-and-found aloga. Aerion had taken minor wounds from his entangler gun taking a bullet and cracking in half, embedding him with shrapnel blasted out from the impact, causing superficial bleeding. It had been wrapped already. A concern for tracking, but they’d managed. Thalamon, however…
“I was so close to getting us something out of this,” Daexo muttered low, from Ryza’s not-visible right. They were all prone, hiding in a slight dip of the sand. Their aloga were kneeling down on their bellies nearby, long necks and snouts out straight on the ground. “One demon. One demon with a clear line of sight. It could’ve been my back shot, too…”
“I’m sorry!” Aerion whispered in a strangled voice, teeth clenched, eyes squeezed shut. “Her scent… I couldn’t ignore it, it was so gut-wrenching, she was so broken, hurt, I… I had to…”
“Enough, both of you,” Ryza admonished, sensing an outburst coming from her husband. “There is nothing we can do about Thalamon now. He readies himself to meet ancestors in the sky, and he’s a patient man. I know that he faces death honorably. Perhaps the Horned Ones will leave his corpse, perhaps it can be found and burned another day. For now, we cease our noises and fade away. This is too much of a wasp’s nest and we cannot afford more stings-”
Ryza suddenly had a weird feeling, like the kind she felt when other Blessed were using their external powers, but greatly magnified to shocking levels, like she was a gong someone had beaten. Resonating from somewhere north.
Aerion had a much more pronounced reaction, starting and half sitting up to stare off north, gasping and likely activating his own senses. “By the gods… what is that?”
“This is what I ask you two. Husband?” Ryza flipped her head around to gaze insistently his way.
Daexo’s sweaty, bloody, scowling face was not looking, but instead his eyes were closed, a vague feeling of his farsense radiating out. His was the only Ryza could truly feel like that.
“I bloody well don’t know,” her husband finally answered, eyes opening to meet hers. “Like a flare. It’s gone already. Just echoes, now. It was like that explosion the Sylmex caused... if it was makar’osa instead.”
“Should we investigate if we can?”
Daexo considered a moment but shook his head. “It’s too far. The echoes are fading fast. I doubt it can be tracked.”
“We should focus on following the demons,” Aerion said.
Of course you’d say that. Lovesick fool. “What of Palamera?” Ryza asked.
“I didn’t catch her scent, but I don’t know it like I do Deros’s. Perhaps she’s in the back party, too.”
“Alright… understand this: they won’t allow us to stalk them without confrontation or cost. They are angry, and the only way to avoid the sting of these wasps is to wait for them to bore and exhaust themselves; return to the normal grind in front of them. Rescue will require patience. We are three now, and the Sylmex do not plan on following them — we need to catch them to beg some supplies before we continue on this path. Now. No more talk. Let’s get as far west as we can before the cold hits.”
Ryza rose, and her boys followed suit, all moving silently back to their alogas. In truth, Ryza was very skeptical of rescue being viable, but Aerion’s nose was needed and she wanted to keep him alive besides. If she dashed his hopes, he might go off on his own in a mad panic, to die or get captured. She’d already tried to send him off with Bariaki back home after the old scout had led them through the last demon gauntlet and on to Sylmex territory. But Aerion had refused to go, intent on making up for his ‘mistakes’ in ‘losing’ Urchon.
Intelligence is what we need. For all our people. It was something she kept telling herself, she understood, but it was still the truth. Kelekos River’s Heart, the Slowseer of the Sylmex, had been relieved to have another twin to his skill available, to send up for a planned ambush. They had not known if the party they’d hit would specifically have the Taldecca captives among them, but they strongly suspected. Spies — they had spies in Twisted Bend. Even those capable of telling them of a viable ambush location and what wagon to target for severe damage, though why a volley of fire arrows caused a detonation as it did, she wasn’t sure.
Ryza had seized on the opportunity to help, especially because the Sylmex had extra guns, bullets, exchangeable cylinders, and the like, stolen from the invaders by various means. She’d traded a smaller gun for one of the two bigger ones they possessed, on the agreement of being a sniper for the ambush. She’d been taught how to use it, and even practiced with it. It was impressive, as where it pointed with sights, based on a certain range, it hit, at a speed she could barely track even with her ability… and it could penetrate the armor of the Horned Ones. She’s put it through several temples and eyes, with near-instantaneous results. After a few shots from her second cylinder, though, the accuracy began to decline, and she was unsure why.
Thank you, Kelekos. We’ve dealt them a vicious price this day, by your artifice. Live on and fight. Sylapoor Mexis will fall, but you must not. One day the Slowseers will fight all in the same battle. Wouldn’t that be something to see?
As the three mounted up and set out west, hoping not to run into any unfortunate encounters in the growing dark, Ryza stared off north and felt a pang of despair. She suddenly questioned her resolve to not fall into the same trap as Aerion, if even the tiniest opportunity again presented itself.
Deros. My sweet brother. I couldn’t leave you to this fate. How could I? I cannot allow it. While I breathe, it will be to free you. No one I love will be made into a slave.