Everything was covered in blood. The snow around the pillar was soaked in it, the steps leading to their camp and beyond it were a road of crimson on white, and all of their boots were stained up to their knees and beyond as the entire group trudged away from the still-sinking pillar.

But it was not blood.

D’Argen twisted his hand around where the grey stains had yet to dry into the cracks of his skin. The shade was exactly like that of fresh blood. The stickiness was the same too. But, for some reason, it refused to dry and harden and darken.

“You touched your face again,” Yaling said from beside him.

D’Argen flinched and went to touch his face to find the source until he realized Yaling was not talking to him. No. She took a ripped piece of cloth, licked it, and then used the wet end to rub harshly against Abbot’s cheek. The artist did not even bother to grimace. With D’Argen’s inability to see colour, he could not see the dark grey stains on Abbot’s dark skin. At least, he would not if they were actually blood and dried. He still saw their shine, slightly different from Yaling’s spit where she tried to clean the artist.

“Ugh, when are we making camp?”

D’Argen turned to look at the source of the question only to find a small group of mortals trudging beside him. They were slow, their steps heavy, and their frames hunched. They looked tired. A glance past them, ignoring the responses from the others in the group, revealed that almost everyone was walking that slowly.

Even Haur, so intent on getting them as far away from the pillar, was walking as if wading through water. D’Argen felt the weight of the pillar as if it was inside him, trying to stop him from leaving. It was a contradiction that made his head hurt and he stopped walking. Yaling and Abbot continued ahead as if they did not notice him. Lilian did and made sure to turn around and stare at him even as they continued walking away. They took a few steps back before turning around—too swift compared to everyone else in their line—and skipped a few steps to catch up to Yaling and Abbot.

D'Argen waited to be level with Haur and Nocipel before he started walking again.

“Are you alright?” the runner asked.

Nocipel glared at him. She was clearly being affected as well though trying to hide it. Haur only grunted in reply. The three were at the back of the group now, no longer a single column since they were on solid ground. Thar still led them at the front, his mahee opened so wide that even so far back D’Argen could feel it.

“Not yet,” Haur finally said, what felt like hours later but was probably only a few minutes. He sounded so tired. “I still feel it.”

“We started feeling it days before we saw it,” Nocipel responded with a growl in her voice that revealed how annoyed she was at the entire situation. “We have to make camp.”

“We are still too close.” Haur shook his head.

D’Argen looked back and he could see the black line of the pillar. It was still too wide. It would still be easy for someone to reach it and come back. If they came back.

“When the sun falls,” Haur finally announced his decision.

D’Argen nodded and walked faster, passing the message along to his usual three companions and then moving even further ahead of the crowd and to where Thar was leading.

Thar’s response was a hum. It was hard to figure out if it was in agreement or not though because he was frowning and his eyes were squinted as he scanned the horizon in front of them.

The winds were gentle, the sky was free of clouds, and the sun was shining bright on them all. The sharp contrast between the bright blue of the sky against the white of the ground created a straight line on the horizon that they were walking toward. When D’Argen felt the scents of oil and dew around him as Lilian and Abbot talked, he closed his eyes and breathed in the cold.

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The sun fell much sooner than any of them expected but Haur had already made his decision. The entire group, as one, started pulling out their supplies and putting up their tents.

“D’Argen,” Haur called him over the din of his small group putting up their shared tent.

D’Argen saw Haur waving him over and he handed Yaling the pick he was just about the drive into the ground. Yaling used the sound of her voice to nail it in much harder than D’Argen would have been able to without his mahee. He rolled his eyes at her and she grinned in response.

“I have a task for you,” Haur said as soon as D’Argen was close enough so the man did not have to yell. “Would you please scout the area for us?”

“Uhh… yeah, of course. But why?” there was nothing around them but white snow and flat ground. The pillar was finally hidden on the horizon behind them but only because its dark colour blended in with the night sky.

“We need to consider our supplies,” Thar was the one who answered him.

D’Argen was surprised only for a moment before he noticed that Haur was, once again, rubbing at his temples with his eyes closed tight. He motioned to Haur with his chin, a silent question. Thar looked to the other then back at D’Argen and only shook his head subtly, a silent answer. D’Argen, however, did not understand the answer and only rolled his eyes.

Nocipel, having seen the interaction, cleared her throat. Haur opened his eyes in a squint up at D’Argen and said, “Food.”

“Me. Hungry,” D’Argen responded with another roll of his eye. This time, all three of them glared at him. “Yes, yes, I’m going. Anything else?”

“Away from the pillar, please,” Thar said and his voice sounded almost playful.

Impossible.

“Will the night hinder you?” Nocipel asked before D’Argen could run off. At his confused look, she tacked on, “Would you prefer to wait for the daylight?”

“Oh. Uh… good point. Maybe? I don’t know. What do you think?”

“I think as soon as possible is better,” Nocipel answered him. “If you find nothing, we have to turn around.”

“No, not around.”

“Yes, Haur. If we have no supplies, we have to go back the way we came.”

“I do not want to go anywhere near that thing again.”

“Neither do I, but it would be better than to wander aimlessly until everyone starves.”

“We can go south and—”

“Just go,” Thar interrupted what would probably turn into a full argument. He was looking at D’Argen.

D’Argen hesitated only for a moment. Haur was their lead and highest rank. He did not notice any of the mortals listening in on their conversation, but that did not mean he should listen to someone who was lower in rank than even him.

Haur nodded and went back to rubbing at his temples. Nocipel said nothing.

D’Argen turned around and made sure he had a clear path out of their camp before he opened his mahee and ran. Like the last time when he opened it, it came at him so fast that he almost stumbled on the first step. By the third, he was in control of his speed. By the tenth, he was running toward the pillar. He had to forcefully close his mahee and slide to a stop—too far from the camp for anyone to have noticed him—to orient himself.

Away from the pillar.

What even was that thing?

He opened his mahee once more and ran. This time, when he slid to a stop it was right in front of the black stone. It had stopped moving, at least, and the ground was still. It was, however, still that horrible splatter of grey that would have looked like blood if he could see the colour. D’Argen tried to focus on a splatter right by his foot instead of the dark stone.

This time, it was not vibrating inside him with the urge to look away, look at anything other than the stone. No, it was trying to drag his eyes to it. When he finally succumbed, it was to focus on the carvings in front of him. Some of them were probably letters, characters, syllables even, but there were some pictographs in there too.

When he focused on those, the story they told him made him want to turn around and run back to camp and then all the way back to Evadia. It shows a figure falling. Beside it was a long line that could have been a wall or the pillar itself. The figure landed on top of the mountain. The long line broke apart and the pieces scattered in all directions. Another figure, or it could have been the same one, picked up one of the pieces and took it all the way around the pillar and two rows filled with characters down. When it reached its destination, the piece was no longer in its hands. The figure that had fallen was a few rows above it in the carvings.

“Food,” D’Argen said the word and closed his eyes tight. He could not waste time trying to figure this out. At the same time, he hoped that Abbot had been able to record at least some of the symbols before the ground started shaking and bleeding.

D’Argen opened his mahee and this time it listened. It took him away from the pillar. When he slid to a stop it was just in time to see a pack of snow-white foxes scatter. They blended into the terrain and hid behind dried shrubs and into the edges of a dead forest. Vegetation. Food. The horizon was no longer flat but there were jagged edges in the distance – a mountain.

He did not need the setting moon to orient himself.

Setting??

D’Argen startled when he realized that the sky was getting brighter. If he had run the entire night to reach this spot, it would be days before the rest of their group would reach it. He was not sure if Haur would be willing to risk that long a trek.

Only one way to know. He opened his mahee and trusted it to take him back to the camp. When he slid to a stop in front of a dying campfire, he barely ran any distance at all.