image [https://i.imgur.com/7ZQbE80.png]

Unnerved by my stalker across the gulch, I considered screaming out to confront the creep but determined it would be better to let them think me ignorant.

It was a struggle the rest of the afternoon to avoid looking back over my shoulder too frequently. Instead I sometimes played as if I led Spinner by her bridle while walking backwards to sooth her with sweet talk—all the while my eyes scanned the craggy terrain for my unwanted shadow. I saw no trace however.

I stopped to rest only with great reluctance after the sun had curled itself away behind a peak, leaving only dim gray residue of its brilliance over the gravelly valley I'd withdrawn into. Feeling ill-equipped for whatever lurked the darkening wilderness, I tied off Spinner and paced for a good while debating how to secure myself. Finally I settled for a Tripping Cantrip.

For the naive reader who has never shared a dormitory with a dozen other teenage apprentice wizards I can summarize it thusly: the caster runs a line of string in a circle about a space while having each end of the string tied snugly about an index finger. With a brief incantation the caster may then set a charge to run about the string (a magickal 'current') such that if any foreign object makes contact with the string it shall discharge.

Mere string can hardly carry an enchantment, so typically these charges take the form a 'shrieker' or dazzling light effect which are all excellent for booby trapping the path a friend sneaking home after curfew, or more famously lining the entrance to a communal bathroom for which the spell has been affectionately known as the Craptrip. There were times during my apprenticeship when I could scarcely walk down the hall to take my morning constitutional without setting off a half dozen of the little buggers.

As a seasoned cantrip caster now thrust into more serious circumstances however, I laid on a 'whistle' aspect in addition to an electric charge which although not strong enough to cause injury would certainly startle anyone approaching me while I slept.

Not that I would sleep much that night. Angular stones stabbed me through the tent cloth I'd folded into crude bedding as I lay with hands crossed over my chest, the occasional passing charge tingling on a finger as if a hairy caterpillar danced upon it. That was the cost of the cantrip, for what little protection they offered they would passively drain me and make my sleep less restful—a low price for an inattentive student with class in the morning but possibly a matter of life and death for me.

I must have fallen asleep eventually as I was startled awake at daybreak by a shrieking of some bird of prey crashing into a nearby tree. The branches shook violently until whatever was being attacked must have died. I took it as a sign to get moving.

My food stores were completely exhausted so I had to make do with only sips from my waterskin and a pair of carriers slung over Spinner's back. There could be no turning back now. I walked for the most part, hoping to spare Spinner the strain so she could better endure the coming hardships and focus on carrying our water.

At some point I realized the terrain had fully transitioned into the rolling hills of the badland as the mountains grew into looming figures behind us. The green had been stripped from the land and we passed naked hills the color of baked clay ribbed with half-hearted upstarts of colorless grass and the occasional knotted bramble of twiggy black twigs which shone with a dull wax. Those queer trees, so fat about their middle, became my only landmarks as we trudged from hill to hill along the cracked earth.

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

Night fell again and after a warm mouthful from my waterskin I held a water carrier before Spinner. My heart wrenched with resentment, and disgust at my own agitation, as she nosed in and drank greedily, making an ugly sloshing sound.

Again I laid out the tripping cantrip before resting, and again I struggled to sleep as my mind churned; my fingertips danced with energy as my stomach let out a pitiable squeak. There were no trees here to obscure the heavens spread above. The moon bathed the wastes with a faint silver glow and The Serpent reigned on the southern horizon. For one who studies the theories of fate as I do, it was difficult not to personalize the sky reading: a time of to take chances, a time for reckless forward movement with enormous threats lurking but also a great reward.

I pushed my mind to the task of sleeping, and drifted in an uneasy rest.

I woke to inhuman screams above my head.

Rolling over, world spinning, I pushed myself up in darkness only to trip over the mess of string trailing from my fingers and landing face first into the hard clay soil causing me to bite my lip hard enough to flood my mouth with the iron taste of blood.

Spinner was bucking wildly and braying in panic now. I summoned a magelight to my palm, dragging its amber illumination over the cracked hillside and casting tentacled shadows off the brambles and stray grass. Nothing.

Gasping for air, I regained some small measure of composure and realized the initial sound must have been my cantrip firing off rather than the otherworldly horror my mind had perceived. I widened my search, stomping about the hill and eyeing the ground until I found the body of a horned lizard half the length of my forearm. The poor creature was blackened at its edges, struck dead by the force of the cantrip. With what reverence I could muster I skewered the critter with a nearby stick and set a bramble on fire with a snap of my fingers to roast it.

It tasted not unlike overcooked chicken, whether that was due to my poor culinary skills or its desert lifestyle I could not say. Regardless, I relished every crisp bite and didn't bother to apologize to Spinner for not sharing. I was feeling quite the fool for worrying by then, basking in the quiet until the first blue hues of sunrise appeared and I saw it again—the robed figure standing on a distant hilltop observing me.

He did not withdraw this time, or move at all for that matter, and I could observe now that he was alone without even a pack animal. A single man in the gray robe of a penitent which obscured all but a lipless mouth hanging in a scowl. I believe it rested in some vague torpor while standing and facing me.

It was time to run. I mounted Spinner and we made off to the southeast. Spurred by terror I slapped her rump most vigorously until we came to speed, following the natural hill-valleys like a gush of water seeking the path of least resistance.

The sun rose again to bake us, sweat working into a foamy lather on Spinners sides. Pitying her, I eventually dismounted and led her at a near jog — sweat dripping off my nose tip. Looking back I saw it following at a distance again.

We finished our water that afternoon and to my eternal shame I yelled at Spinner as she drank greedily from the dwindling water carrier, calling the poor beast a glutton and cursing her for my own lack of planning and competence at desert travel.

We could not go back or stay still for fear of whatever pursued us, and fighting it seemed a certain death for one of as gentle a constitution as myself. Perhaps my skills at magic seem impressive to some, but to a bounty hunter making his wages hunting men and mer, or any of the multitude of nameless horrors which feed on the unwary travelers of the wilderness, my abilities are mere children’s toys.

The sun fell and we pushed on through darkness, not daring to rest. My flickering magelight blinked hill after hill into existence until I could hardly distinguish one from another as the world shifted beneath me. Spinner began to lag and I was forced to tug her bridle, nearly dragging her. I realized for the first time that I might actually die. Not in a vague calculation of risk but as an actuality and all that would entail, of me gasping out my last on a hillside as I expired of dehydration, my bones to be bleached by the desert sun.

My panic was interrupted by laughter. We crested a hill and I before us a ring of five wagons glowing in the warmth of a small fire, the percussive rattling of tambourines within.

Stumbling, I pulled Spinner on towards the encampment, crying out so as not to take them unawares.