For the second time in two days, Heror woke unsure of where he was.

He was no longer outside. He lay on his back, in a bed that was a bit too rugged – staring up at what appeared to be a wooden ceiling, with logs layered upon one another. The boards were rough and loosely fitted, enough so that the wind crept in, in small breezes, carrying smells of mist and moss.

His head rested on a straw-filled pillow. To his right, he could feel the light and heat of an oil lantern, sitting on an end table. At the other end of the room, a window sat, through which more light poured in. It was a dull, golden-blue light – as if either dusk or dawn. Heror couldn’t tell which.

For a moment, Heror blinked, as his eyes and mind started to clear. At first, he was comforted by the stitched fur sheets and the straw mattress. But as his thoughts came back, his eyes went wide. He suddenly sat up, brushing his back against the wooden bedframe. It was then that he felt a strange discomfort under his right arm. Wincing, he pulled up his dirty siephall cloak, and saw that the wound from his fight with Oranthei had been bandaged.

Quickly, Heror reached inside his garb, until his fingers wrapped around his kinship cloth. It was still there. Now Heror took a deep breath and slid his cloak down again. He glanced around the room, and on a nearby end table, he saw a small clay cup filled with water, and a smooth bowl filled with small, green petals.

Feeling dryness in his throat, Heror instinctively reached for the cup. He picked it up and brought it to his chest, but did not drink. His eyes rose and went to the end of the room, where a door sat, open just a crack. He couldn’t remember if the door had been open when he’d just woken up.

Heror stared at the door for a moment longer, but soon, his thirst drew him to the water again. He brought the cup up to his lips and started to drink, but just as he did so, he noticed a pair of wide, brown eyes peering out at him from behind the foot of the bed. A small child jumped out and raised his hands in a mocking predatory gesture.

“Rahhhhh!”

At first, Heror jumped, nearly spilling his water. But his fright soon turned to mere confusion. The child was not an Opelite, or a Pylanthean. It was a Midan child – one of the bull-people, with a furry face and a curled mess of brown hair atop its head. The youngling’s nose was wide and flat and dark, and he couldn’t be more than four feet tall.

Heror lowered his cup and set it back down on the end table, then slid his legs out from under the patchy fur sheets. He let his boots hit the wooden floor, and then the child scampered around the bed and tried to spook Heror again.

“Rahhhhh!” the child said again, with a playful smile and beaming eyes.

Heror couldn’t help but smile just a bit. He started to open his mouth to speak, when the door shot open, and an elinji woman rushed in, bearing similar features to the boy.

“Bhota!” the woman lashed, visible anger in her eyes. “Ti-alang! Pian sa wae!”

The woman grabbed the boy’s arm, then let out a quick huff at Heror before pulling the child away. She hurried out and shut the door behind her. Outside the room, Heror could hear the woman’s voice, loud and frantic. Soon, another voice came into range – low, calm, and familiar to Heror. They were clearly arguing, but Heror couldn’t understand the words.

“Jak mulanma sigorae sa lel wal abak tu lo…”

“Ti-ayake! Welu musay ig tu samro je…”

Heror gave up listening and grabbed the water cup again. He drank the water in one gulp, then set the cup down and wiped his mouth with his forearm. His throat was still dry, but already he was refreshed by the drink. It had been almost two days since he’d had any water at all.

The arguing continued as Heror sat in silence. The woman was no doubt agitated, and as the argument carried on, they both began to yell. It went on like this for minutes, until the arguing suddenly stopped. Heror still heard talking, but it was hushed and muffled beyond the walls. There were more sounds – a sliding chair, the opening and closing of a drawer – and then his door opened again.

In the doorway stood a bull-person – the one Heror had seen the previous night. He wore a light brown garb with a leather belt, which carried an assortment of tools and weapons. In his right hand, he carried a crude wooden chair by its backrest. Hastily, the bull-person set the chair down next to the bed, then slid a small table from the corner and halted it next to the bed as well.

Now the bull-person pulled a folded sheet of parchment from his garment pouch and placed it on the table. Before Heror could ask any questions, the bull-person left the room for a moment, disappearing beyond the living room wall. Heror heard a few noises – a door opening and closing – and soon, the bull-person came back with a longsword. It was made of an unusual dark steel, with notches on the end and unorganized scratches across the blade.

Heror jumped at the sight. A flashback of Kraana’s Pass pulsed inside his head, and for a moment, he squirmed, looking for items to defend himself with. But not long after the bull-person came in with the sword, he situated the blade in both hands and held it out to Heror. Heror stared in confusion, and so the bull-person gestured for Heror to take it.

“Kerit,” the elinji said, voice fast and quiet.

Slowly, Heror grabbed the hilt of the sword and took it from the bull-person, setting it down at the edge of the bed. He nodded to the bull-person, and the bull-person turned away. The elinji left the room again, but only for a moment before returning with a metal pitcher of water. He refilled Heror’s cup, then picked up the bowl of green petals and poured a few petals into the water. After doing so, he held the cup out to Heror, who was hesitant to take it.

“Kera malam,” the bull-person said.

Heror grimaced, but the bull-person whisked it in front of his face, insistent. After a moment of apprehension, Heror accepted the cup and took a sip. Already, the petals had begun to disintegrate and mix into the water, and the flaky, sour-tasting mixture mingled between his jaws. He gagged for a moment, coughing with his mouth closed, but managed to swallow the concoction.

Heror quickly set the cup back on the end table, still holding in coughs as an aftertaste lingered. Meanwhile, the bull-person sat down in the chair next to the bed, and rotated the chair toward the table. Now he reached into his garb, and pulled out a rolled sheet of parchment, bound by a small string. He untied the string and unrolled the parchment on the table.

As the parchment unrolled, Heror saw that it was a map, unlike other maps he had seen before. It was far more detailed than Ardysan maps, with dozens of rivers, ridges, and ravines scattered across the paper, between dense seas of trees and woodlands drawn intricately with a careful hand. Each landmark was labeled by a grouping of Midan symbols – symbols Heror could barely distinguish, let alone read.

After a moment, the bull-person placed a finger on the map and eyed Heror.

“Saram sarma ton lamush?”

Heror’s mouth hung open for a mere second, and then he shook his head.

“I’m sorry, I… I can’t…”

“Woh sarma Jauvaun?”

Heror’s brow lowered. He shook his head again. The bull-person let out a quick, frustrated huff and turned his attention back to the map. He slowly slid his finger across the map, eyes parsing through the landscape, until he reached the northern edge. With his finger, he stabbed at a small sliver of blank parchment in the far north, marked with another unintelligible Midan symbol.

“Pylanjuum,” the bull-person said. “Woh sarma Pylanjuum?”

Heror narrowed his eyes, and he started to shake his head, when suddenly, something clicked inside his head.

“Pylanjuum,” Heror echoed, his voice fading off.

The bull-person watched him, eyes intense.

“Pylantheum?” Heror realized.

“Pylanjuum,” the bull-person repeated.

“Pylantheum!” Heror said, nodding excitedly. “Yes, I’m trying to reach Pylantheum…”

Before Heror could finish, the bull-person pulled a small clay cylinder from his garb and set it down on the table. Next, he pulled out a long black feather and dropped it next to the map. Afterward, the bull-person twisted open the clay cylinder, picked up the black feather, and dipped the feather’s quill inside. When the bull-person lifted the feather again, Heror saw that the quill was soaked in a red paste. It wasn’t blood; it did not smell like blood.

“Ku taray,” the bull-person muttered with a glance in Heror’s direction, leaning forward in his chair.

Quickly, the bull-person drew a small red dot toward the south end of the map. He then looked up at Heror.

“Vole.”

Heror stared for a moment, then shook his head. The bull-person repeated the word, pointing down at the wooden floor. He did so emphatically, until Heror started to catch on.

“That’s where we are? Here?”

Now the bull-person brought his hand back to the northern end of the map. In the open area where Pylantheum was, he drew another red dot. Heror nodded. He began to understand.

“Where I am, and where I’m going.”

Stolen novel; please report.

The bull-person dipped the quill into the paste again, and now turned his attention to a lake, just to the north of the shack’s location. Heror assumed this was the lake he’d seen from the ridge the day before. It was bigger than he’d originally thought; on the map, it stretched for miles, and dozens of its tributaries sprawled out in a complex network to the east.

Carefully, the bull-person drew a thin red line, from the shack to the lake. He then carried the line past the lake on the western side, through forests and highlands, through thinning plains and semi-arid steppes – until it came to the second dot, at the very top, where there was nothing.

Now the bull-person brought his quill back to the lake, and hovered his hand to the east. He drew a slash through what appeared to be a city east of the lake. Next to the slash, he produced a strange symbol that Heror had never seen before – what looked like a horned skull and a scythe, loosely layered upon one another.

“Doumu siay,” the bull-person said, his voice low and grim.

When Heror didn’t say anything, the bull-person gestured to the marking with his free hand.

“Woh sarma siayma, woh lal ikanq,” he continued. “Doumuyul.”

Heror spied the ominous symbol for a moment longer.

“You’re telling me not to go that way?”

The bull-person merely repeated what he had said before. Heror’s confusion remained, and the bull-person started talking faster in his foreign language to try and explain, when suddenly, a knock on the door stopped him.

The wife called out from beyond the room, still agitated. The elinji listened. Then, after a few seconds, he rolled up the map and tied a string around it. He then held it out for Heror to take. Heror took the map and tucked it under his belt.

Now the bull-person stood from his seat and grabbed Heror’s arm. He muttered something to Heror, then tugged, bringing Heror to his feet. As Heror gathered himself, the bull-person reached the door, then turned around and motioned to the sword, still sitting on the end of the bed.

“Kerit,” the elinji said again, opening the door.

Heror glanced at the sword, then approached the end of the bed and picked it up. He started to slide it inside his Ardysan scabbard when he realized the blade was too wide to fit within the leather casing. Instead, he slid the blade between his belt and his hip, letting the flat end rest against his right leg. Once the sword was strapped in, he started forward, following the bull-person into the main room.

At the other end of the room, the bull-person was busy fitting supplies into a small, linen sack with a drawstring. Not far away, the wife fulminated at him in their foreign tongue, holding her spooked child close to her waist as she did so. The husband ignored her, at least for the time being, and soon turned, carrying a full linen sack in his right hand. He went to the southern door and opened it, letting in the faded sunlight. He then looked at Heror and motioned for the young man to follow.

As prompted, Heror walked to the door, feeling stronger than he’d felt when he arrived. Once at the door, the bull-person held out the sack of supplies to Heror, and Heror took it. He slung the sack over his shoulder and looked up at the bull-person, nodding his head.

“Thank you.”

The bull-person hardly even acknowledged him. With a nonchalant nudge from the bull-person, Heror stumbled out into the forest again, and the door quickly shut behind him. And all at once, he heard nothing but the wind and the sounds of bird-like creatures in the canopy.

For a moment, Heror stood idle, and his thoughts took hold. Why was he still alive? Why had the elinji helped him? It wasn’t long before Heror brushed these thoughts away, however. There wasn’t any time to dwell on it. He had to get moving.

It was morning, and so Heror used the early light to set off to the north, guided by the eastern sun. He trudged along the bottom of the ridge’s edge – a thick coating of underbrush and leaves spanning along the forest surface.

As he walked, Heror tightened shut the bag of supplies he’d been given with the drawstring, and tucked the loose casing beneath his belt. He then took out the map and unrolled it, studying the path drawn out for him.

His next landmark was the lake, the name of which Heror could not read. As he scanned the path ahead, however, he could not see the lake. All he saw was more forest – rows and rows of trees blotting out the horizon in a sea of blue-green and brown.

On the map, the lake wasn’t far from the bull-person’s shack, so Heror stayed alert, rolled up the map, and ventured forward. It wasn’t even an hour later when the trees started to thin, and small sand dunes started to appear, obscured by forest soil and detritus. Through the trunks to the north, Heror recognized the blue glow of water, and he quickened his pace.

Moments later, he emerged on the southern bank of a massive lake, and a cool brush of wind greeted him. Had he not carried a map with him, he might’ve thought it was the Publaic Ocean instead. The water was clear as glass, and as clouds rolled in above, the lake shimmered with a pearlescent silver-blue hue. In the distance, he could see fish hopping out of the water every so often, sending ripples through the subtle waves that rocked back and forth. Along the shore, a four-winged dragonfly hovered, catching aerosolized droplets of water from the soft tides.

Now at the lake, Heror unrolled the map again and planned his next course of action. The red path traveled along the western edge of the lake. To the east, Heror’s eyes fell on the strange symbol the bull-person had drawn. He still didn’t understand it, but it was clearly meant to be a warning. Either way, he wouldn’t have to worry. The western side of the lake offered the quickest path northward to Pylantheum. Heror would follow that path, and once he reached the northern edge of the lake, he’d be well on his way.

The sun was gone now – hidden behind tightly-packed tufts of white and silver. Heror had no need to reorient himself, however; he knew he’d come up from the south, so the western edge of the lake would be to his left. Rolling up the map and tucking it away, he started in that direction.

A light rain started to come down, and the world began to hum softly. As Heror walked along the lake’s edge, he found himself slowing down to listen to the sounds. The water and the trees and the wind mixed and materialized a sound, a whirr – and beneath it, bugs and birds chirped and sang. It was peaceful.

Heror had heard the wind on the water before. It was a sound he heard often on the docks in Cephragon. But here, it was different. It was deeper. Calls of life mixed into the forest’s unconscious lullaby. Behind Cephragon’s walls, Heror had never heard the trees mingle together. He’d never heard so many calls, from so many different creatures. All of it was new to him.

Heror almost wanted to stop in his tracks and stand still, close his eyes, and take it all in. But he knew that soon enough, night would fall again. He wanted to be past the lake by then.

He kept walking, trudging through dampened sand as the light rain fell. He carried on to the west for a time, until the forest neared again. He reached the western edge of the lake, then turned north, hugging the banks as wildlife echoed from beyond the trees.

Now the lake extended northward for what seemed like miles. Heror would stop periodically, but only for a minute or two before starting off again. His legs started to ache as the hours churned on, and his feet grew numb from dampness and cold.

He eventually lost track of time – his legs finding their unconscious rhythm again. But soon, he caught a glimpse of red in the west, to his left. He looked up, and the white canopy of clouds had begun to darken. It was then that Heror stopped by a small rock wedged in the banks, just feet from the water. Armor matted with dirt, clothes tattered and torn, he sat down, stretched out his legs, and all at once felt his muscles tense. He winced, waited for the pain to lessen, then gradually relaxed his knees, letting his feet fall loosely into the sand.

For a moment, Heror sat silently, weathering a wave of exhaustion. His eyes rose, and he looked to the north, following the lake up the bank as far as he could see. He thought he’d be close to the northern edge of the water body by now. But from where he sat, the lake stretched on without end – an idle ocean landlocked and shrouded by woods, as the tree leaves rustled softly in the wind above.

Heror shook his head and let out a sigh, then grabbed the linen sack that the bull-person had given him. He set the sack down on the thinly-grained silt, then tugged the sack open at the hems, surveying its contents.

The first item Heror grabbed was soft, wrapped in a small cloth. He tore open the cloth and found a small bread roll, which he quickly devoured, spilling crumbs. Heror nearly tossed the small cloth aside, but thought better and instead stuffed it back into the sack. Still feeling the empty rattle of his stomach, he quickly found two more cloth-wrapped snacks and removed them from the bag. Another roll, and a small cut of mutton. In moments, they were gone too. He left two more for later.

After the last bite, Heror turned his attention back to the sack. Now his hands dug deeper, and they came across a small, rectangular metal flask. Heror shook it between his fingers and heard the familiar swish of water inside. By instinct, he pulled it out and twisted open the cork at the top, but then paused and thought to save it, and so he corked it and stowed it away.

The sack felt lighter now – half empty – but as Heror’s fingers snaked through the seams, he came across two more items, buried near the bottom. He clasped them together and pulled them out at once, then took one in each hand.

The item in Heror’s left hand was another flask, but this one was smaller – no larger than a finger – and made of glass. Inside, it wasn’t water, but instead an opaque, dark red substance. Heror had seen enough blood to know that this wasn’t. It was more viscous and grainy, and splotches of hardened mixture stained the inside of the glass.

Grimacing a bit, Heror slid the small vial back into the sack, then unpalmed the final item. It was a small stone, thin and sharp, that looked like it had been shaved down at the tip. It was wider on the other end, and as Heror clasped his fingers around the wide end, he realized it was a toothpick.

Heror eyed the toothpick with a look of questioning, then slid it back into the pack with the other items. At that moment, he felt a sudden urge to take off his boots and let his feet breathe.

By impulse, he sat up and leaned forward, first unbuckling the shin guards on his boots, and then loosening the straps on the bridges of his feet. Once he felt the fit loosen, he eagerly shoved off the boots, kicking them into the moist sands. In the dim evening light, he saw his feet – muddied, blistered, and bruised, with calluses on each toe. He winced at the lingering soreness, and then his eyes fell on the water just ahead.

Heror sat forward and slid toward the lake, moving his boots off to the side. He slid until his toes touched the ripples on the shore, and he felt the cool rush of the water against his skin. He felt a tinge of relief and fully submerged his feet, and all at once, the pain receded.

The clouds thinned as they drifted east, leaving a wide open canvas of red, blue, and black in the sky above the lake. The crickets’ calls crescendoed. Heror took a deep breath and closed his eyes, letting this exhale draw out until it mixed and dissipated in the evening air.

The feeling of the water on his feet was strangely familiar. Heror slowly opened his eyes, and then, as he blinked, visions of an ocean flashed in front of him. A sunrise on the open water, and the tingling sensation of the wind on the skin. He blinked once and it was gone. Once more, and it was back.

He felt the rough wooden planks of the dock at Cephragon beneath him. Heard the call of seabirds as they flew overhead, above the steady hum of the ocean. Saw the waves swell ever so slightly as a ship carried them inland, underneath the rich cerulean sky. Smelled the foam and the salts and the crisp, open air. He relaxed. He took another breath, drawn out even longer – wrapped in the warmth of the sun’s golden rays. And as his gaze drifted to the right, he saw strands of blonde hair dancing in the breeze, catching the sunlight. She started to look his way, glints of emerald from under her bangs…

Another blink, and it was gone. It was dark. The odor of musty forest brush wafted into the air. The water of the inland lake shivered in silence. The sunset to the west was nothing more than an afterglow, lost beyond the trees.

Heror sat idle for a moment – alone, armor worn and cloaks tattered, brown hair matted and unruly, skin crusted in dirt and grime and dried blood – and then he started to shake. He pulled his feet from the water and brought his trembling hands to his face. His bottom lip quivered, his nose began to run, and his eyes began to water. His chest heaved. His breath was short. His skin tingled. His feet were cold.

After some time, the feelings faded, and Heror fell into a tired trance. The afterglow was gone, and the stars clustered above. Seconds passed. Minutes passed – but soon enough, he forced himself to his senses.

He slid back from the lakehead and leaned over to grab his boots. Then he sat back by the rock, put each boot back on, tightened them, and gingerly rose to his feet, sack in hand.

After rising to his feet, he turned his gaze back to the south. For a long moment, he looked in that direction. And then, he whisked back to the north, on his path along the edge of the lake. In the quiet and the dark, he carried on, the hollow echo of his steps fading as he went.