Running with Lilian over the next few centuries was a joy different from anything else. Lilian could not run as fast as him, even when he tried to share his mahee with them, but they did enjoy being wrapped up in his mahee or, even better to be carried. D’Argen had taken to carrying their slight form on his back and they went that way for a long time until they ran past a large plain where mortals were riding large animals in much the same fashion.
Lilian had only made a single comment of it and then refused to be carried that way again. D’Argen did not mind either way.
Together, they explored the lands surrounding the field where the others stayed, and Lilian was the second of them to see all of the oceans D’Argen had seen before. They were, however, most fascinated with the large stretch of still water that connected two of the oceans and split the land in half.
D’Argen watched from the shores as Lilian waded into the water until it reached their waist and then continued until they were on the opposite shore. They waved him over and D’Argen grinned, set his feet against the strongest tree could find, and pushed off. He was able to run atop the water for most of the stretch and by the time his speed failed him, he was sliding on the rocky shores beside Lilian.
“That was amazing! We have to tell the others!” Lilian gushed, always in awe of his speed and urging him along with their winds.
“I think it is time to go back anyway,” D’Argen replied though his smile faded some. He liked the others well enough, but there was something strange being with all of them. He always felt like there was something missing and every time Vah’mor even looked in his general direction, his mahee rolled over like a wolf waiting for its belly to be scratched. D’Argen hated that feeling.
They did, however, return.
Unlike him, Lilian had no issues at all and as soon as D’Argen slid them both to a stop, Lilian waved at him and walked off to join a small group. As much as D’Argen loved Lilian, he sometimes hated them with how quickly they abandoned him and went with others. D’Argen was not close to anyone else. He stood awkwardly for a moment until a white shade at the corner of his eye made him turn his head. There was nothing there but the shade stayed always at the edge of his sight even as he started wandering the area.
Eventually, he came across a small group of five standing around a fire and the shade disappeared. Vah’mor looked at him with narrowed silver eyes.
“You are the runner, no?” they asked.
D’Argen nodded though he took a step back, afraid he had intruded on a secret meeting between the first five.
“How fast can you go?”
“I’ve never counted,” D’Argen spat the words out so quickly that some of them merged.
Vah’mor’s eyes narrowed so much that it looked like they were shining a light on their on through thick eyelashes.
“It does not matter,” Acela interceded with a slice of her hand through the air. “He is still faster than anything else we have. D’Argen, I need you to do us a favour.”
D’Argen locked his knees to stop them from shaking when Acela approached him. He gulped and it sounded too loud but none of the others made note of it.
“We received a message that a caravan of mortals were making their way here. A tribe leader, a ruler of a small nation, important people, you see? The thing is, they should have arrived by now.”
“You want me to carry them over?” D’Argen guessed and raised a skeptical eyebrow. He had yet to carry anyone other than Lilian or wrap his mahee around anything else. He was not sure if he could even do it.
“No, no. Nothing of the sort. Just, meet them. Find them. Guide them back here if they are lost. We are just worried.”
D’Argen nodded. When he looked over Acela’s shoulder, the other four were nodding as well though Vah’mor was still glaring at him for some reason. D’Argen wet his lips and nodded again when he looked at Acela. “Where are they coming from?”
“The really tall mountain down south. Near the ocean edge.”
D’Argen felt his fingers tingle and his head get light.
“They call it Sky Mountain,” Acela continued as if she did not notice how his entire frame started shaking slightly. “They had an incident, a few centuries ago, around the time we first fell. I do not know the cause, but the lands there seem to be the only ones with governance of some sort, so we want to make an alliance and—”
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
“He does not need to know all that,” Vah’mor interrupted in a harsh tone and stepped closer. “Just go. Look for them and guide them back. Nothing else.”
D’Argen nodded and did not wait for any other instructions before he turned around and ran off. He kept to a slow jog until he exited the circle of wooden houses and areas where the others gathered. There, he stopped and waited.
He had no idea for what or why, but something told him to wait. The sun painted the fields in reds and golds as it sank over the horizon and then the sky filled up with thousands upon thousands of glowing stars. When the moon appeared, D’Argen wished for a moment her silver glow was white.
Then he realized he was sitting around for no reason at all, opened his mahee as wide as he could, and he ran.
Back to where he first fell.
Fortunately, the mountain was still far on the horizon when he saw a large party of mortals in the middle of an open field. Unfortunately, at least half of the mortals were dead and the rest were wounded.
He slid to a stop not that far from them and jogged the last few steps, already aware how mortals startled when he suddenly appeared. Only a handful looked up at him as he arrived but it took barely a few calls before all that were able to stood up and faced him.
“You are one of them, no?” an elder man asked. “One of the gods?”
D’Argen knew the mortals called them that even though he had yet to be addressed that way himself. How they knew who he was, was not important. He nodded.
“Acela, our leader, she was worried by your delay and sent me to accompany you on the way back. What happened here?”
“We were attacked,” a weed of a man answered and stepped forward. “Nomads. They came at us on these great beasts. They killed our fighters, took our women and children, and all our supplies.” He motioned around the wreckage and D’Argen noticed a wooden cart with broken wheels and what must have been another cart turned to splinters and rope.
“Nomads?” D’Argen asked. He had seen many small communities on his runs with Lilian, but never stopped at any of them to learn their names. The word was new to him though after a brief explanation he understood they were people with no place to call their home.
“I will lead you,” D’Argen said, unsure of what else to do. Acela had not told him anything else, so he turned on his heel and started walking. It took him a few steps before he realized the mortals were not following him. “What is it? It’s this way,” he said and pointed.
“Our... you are just going to...” one of the men stumbled through his words.
D’Argen had no idea what he was trying to say.
“You will not help us get our women and children back?”
“Or collect our dead?”
“Our supplies?”
“Punish the nomads?”
There were over a dozen of the men, all elder and frail, but their voices quickly rose in anger as they questioned him. D’Argen looked around and he felt a soft leather grip in his hand and the weight of a sword. When he looked down, his hand was empty. The white shade from the gods’ field was standing at his shoulder and though D’Argen did not see it again when he turned his head, he saw the impression of a large blade stuck in the ground. As he stared, the small fissure disappeared and was covered by grass.
“No,” he finally answered and turned around to start walking again.
Vah’mor had told him to guide them back. Nothing more.
They followed at a sedate pace and it took too many cycles of the sun laughing over his head for them to arrive. When they did, the men immediately forgot about their troubles and instead dropped to their knees on the ground before Acela. Then Vah’mor appeared out of the shadows with tiny drops of blood on their face. Following them were at least two dozen women and children.
The two groups met and D’Argen realized who these mortals were when they embraced the elder men with tears in their eyes.
“Thank you, thank you,” most of the men said it to Vah’mor but one of them turned to D’Argen and reached for his hand.
D’Argen flinched away, nodded, and turned on his heel.
It should not have been Vah’mor that saved them.
D’Argen sat down on a rock away from the fires and frowned down at his hands. He closed them into fists. He still felt the leather grip of a sword in one hand and the cut of a bow string against two of his fingers on the other. He felt as if he had recently washed his hands or that they were stiff with dried blood. None of it was real.
The white shade crouched beside him and reached for him. For a moment, D’Argen could have sworn he felt a cold hand caressing his cheek as if to wipe away tears. Or blood. When he opened his eyes, he was sitting alone in the dark with his back to the laughter and joy of the mortals reuniting and rejoicing in their time with their gods.
The mortals stayed long enough that most of them died of old age. Then their little ones grew up and had children of their own. The cycle was unnerving to most but Acela watched them reproduce with a sick fascination that made D’Argen frown when she first spoke of it. Then those babes, the ones born in the field of the gods, wanted to show their respect. One day, they came into the inner circle where only the gods slept and ate, and presented Acela was a great plan.
D’Argen noticed Halen listening intently, even as the builder tried to hide his grin. When the mortals were gone with Acela’s assurance that their gift would be accepted, D’Argen slipped next to Halen.
“What did they say?” He had not been listening to the mortals.
“They want to construct us a great hall,” Halen answered, no longer hiding his grin.
“Will you build it instead of them?” D’Argen asked.
“No. I will help, only if needed, but they want to offer it as a gift.”
“To Acela.”
“To all of us.”
D’Argen squirmed on the spot and walked away before Halen could say something else. When the first wooden post was struck deep in the ground, D’Argen ran. He only came back years later to see the great hall once it was completed.
It was a wooden structure, at least five times as tall as him, and a single giant room. The roof was strong enough to hold the winter snows and the ground soft enough to sleep on. There were wooden posts to keep it from falling from the strong winds and large holes in the walls to look out into nature.
The year after D’Argen returned, Halen built a bannister on the inside with three levels. D’Argen never went to the top level but the first five slept there and often took their meals there to whisper alone in the dark.