The blight poured down, a driving rain that soaked through leaves and sunk into every gap and crinkle in his jacket. Plants wilted. Trees twisted, bark darkening, hollows turning monstrous. What little plantlife remained alive was stained or black, dying under the onslaught of blight.
Creatures skittered past, blackened except for long, sharp teeth and claws, almost none of them recognizable as what they had once been. Chipmunks and squirrels brandished extra limbs, or maybe barbs at the ends of their tails. Birds screeched, festooned with eyes, feathers cutting through the air, sharp as razors.
A herd of what had once been deer turned to watch them go, stained black, all of them bearing black, sharp antlers, eyes glowing a faint greenish, fangs protruding from their mouths and hooves curled into claws of sorts. Blood dripped from their mouths from the dead deer at their feet, its side torn open, crimson soaking into the blackened undergrowth. One of them chewed on a strand of entrails, jaw working steadily under the pounding blight.
The world is dying. The blight is taking over. How long before the inside of the Barrier is no different than the outside?
Twain hunkered close to Spar’s back. A faint white aura fended off the blight, but it only extended a few inches from Spar’s coat. “This is hellish.”
“You don’t say,” Spar snarked back. He turned his head, pointing with his horn. “Up there, can you see that cave?”
Twain squinted. They had climbed to the foot of a mountain without him realizing it, the oppressive, omnipresent low clouds obscuring the heights to which the mountain climbed. High above them, barely below the cloud line, a dark hole gaped on the mountain’s side. “There, that hole?”
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Spar nodded. “That’s where Reihann’s keeping him.”
Twain twisted his lips and nudged for Spar to keep going. “Let’s get a better look.”
From atop a nearby rise, he took in the surrounding lands. Between them and the mountain, an encampment of some kind of army laid—probably the human army. Smoke twisted from campfires, giving tell of an active group. Looks to be about a division’s worth. Far more than I can fight on my own.
“We’ll need to slip past them,” Twain pointed out.
“Once you get near the cave, there’ll be no ‘slipping past,’” Spar replied. He pointed with his horn at the bare mountainside, devoid of trees or any brush to hide Twain’s advance.
Twain pursed his lips. “That is a problem.”
Spar stared up at the mountain as well, thoughtful. “If only I could fly…”
“It would be awfully convenient,” Twain agreed.
“Oh, or what if I seduce the guards?” Spar suggested.
Twain snorted. “That’s a lot of guards to seduce. Too many for you, I suspect.”
“Eh… yeah, probably true.”
“Probably?”
Spar shrugged, an impressive conquest of horse physiology. “I mean, I could give it a good try. If we got an orgy going…”
“Gods, Spar.”
He chuckled. “Isn’t it what they always say? Make love, not war?”
“Gods, Spar!”
“Sir! We found him!”
Twain and Spar both spun. A human soldier pointed a sword at them, carefully circling toward their right.
“Shit,” Twain muttered.
Spar spread his forelegs and lifted his head. Light sparkled off his horn. The soldier fell back, but didn’t falter.
“Ooh, I bet your magic would come in handy now,” Xenozar giggled.
“Shut up.”
“Huh?” Spar asked.
“Not you.”
A man in a fancy helmet stepped out of the brush and took the two of them in. Twain sat tall atop Spar and tried to look as menacing as possible. “Let us pass, or—”
“Oh thank the gods, it really is you.” The fancier soldier dragged the first soldier to his knees as he fell to his own. “Please free Felix for us!”
Twain and Spar exchanged a glance. “Er… what?”