Chapter 15 – The Other Side of the River

The night passed by quickly for Sir Kyr and Vard, who alternated taking watch while the twins slept, hoping that the additional sleep would help them speedily recover from the shock and strain of the prior night. The twins slept soundly until the sun appeared once more, heralding the dawn. The morning light made Zaphyr and Zull stir almost instantly, rubbing sleepily at their eyes and blinking confusedly as they slowly awoke.

“Did that battle with Choler truly happen?” Zaphyr asked once she was fully aware. Her hopeful tone made it clear what she wanted the answer to be. “Or was it all a horrible nightmare?”

“It was real,” Vard told her sympathetically.

Zaphyr responded by curling up on the beach miserably, burying her face in her hands.

“Thank you for watching over us last night,” Zull told Sir Kyr before yawning loudly.

“It was my duty,” Sir Kyr said stoically.

“I helped as well,” Vard complained softly. Zull nodded his appreciation in the man’s direction, and, grumbling, the bard crossed his arms as he accepted the compliment reluctantly.

“Where do we go from here?” Zull asked Sir Kyr.

Sir Kyr lifted his snout and slowly turned, sniffing the air. “We should stay by the river for a bit and head further upstream,” he said after a moment’s consideration. “Eventually, we should come across a road taking us further west, straight towards the capital.”

“Won’t that take us through Ar Goll Forest?” Vard asked.

“Yes,” Sir Kyr confirmed.

Vard scoffed incredulously. “I thought you said you were familiar this part of the empire.”

Sir Kyr’s lips drew back into the barest hint of a snarl. “I am.”

“What’s wrong with Ar Goll Forest?” Zaphyr asked curiously. She had heard vaguely of the forest and knew that travelers were encouraged to avoid it, but she could not recall any specifics as to why.

“The forest is notorious for how hard it is to navigate through,” Vard explained, waving his hands about dramatically as he spoke to emphasize his point. “Some folks say that it shifts and moves around you, deliberately obscuring any trails that might lead you to safety. Of course, that’s all a bunch of silly folk tales. I’ll tell you what isn’t, though: nearly half of the travelers who enter that forest never come out again.”

“Oh, there is a simple enough answer for that,” Sir Kyr said with a wave of his hand. “Ar Goll Forest is too big and densely wooded to be effectively patrolled by the Empress’ soldiers, so many of the empire’s smarter criminals have ended up using the forest as their haven. I know, I was one of them for quite a while. That’s why so many people disappear: they were robbed, and then either recruited into one or other of the local bands of thieves, or, if they weren’t useful enough, slain.”

“In addition to being decidedly unromantic, your information still leaves us with the same basic problem,” Vard countered. “If we head through that forest, we’ll be sticking our necks out in the sight of every murderer and thief in this half of the empire!”

“I can protect us,” Sir Kyr replied evenly.

“And if you can’t?” Vard asked doubtfully. “It’s safer to go the long way around, follow the edge of the forest until we reach the imperial highway on the other side.”

“Are you daft, or just stupid?” Sir Kyr snapped back. “Doing so would add weeks, if not months, to our journey. Every day we delay is more time for the Master’s mercenaries to find us. We barely survived this last attack. Do you want to risk being attacked by another maniac like Zared Choler? I know the thieves in the forest, their methods and their weaknesses. I don’t know anything about the Master’s men, save for that they are most likely all as ruthless and mad as Choler. We have to assess which is the lesser risk, and it’s plain to me which that is.”

“You’re right, we don’t know what kind of men the Master has after us, or even if he does have any others,” Vard said. “It’s just as plain to me which way is safer, although you and I evidently disagree on this matter.”

Sir Kyr shook his head slowly. “There’s only one thing to do.” He turned to the twins, who stood nearby, watching the argument uneasily. “You two are the sole reason for this quest; you are the ones that we swore to protect. Ultimately, the two of you should decide what path we shall follow.”

“I…don’t know,” Zull said, frowning thoughtfully as he considered the question. “I know so little about this area, compared to the two of you. Neither of us has ever travelled here before…but, I think that Sir Kyr makes the stronger case in this instance. The forest is doubtless dangerous, but I doubt any of these thieves will possess hemomantic skills of any sort. And, the more time saved, the sooner we can deliver this message to the Empress.” He turned to his sister. “Zaphyr?”

Zaphyr bit her lip, then said, “I…do not know. I just…I don’t want to have to go through last night, or anything like it ever again.” She shuddered violently. “I say we take the forest route.”

Sir Kyr turned his attention back to Vard, who bowed slightly, acknowledging the other’s victory. “The twins have spoken,” Vard said. “We will travel through Ar Goll Forest. I hope for all our sakes, that you are correct in your assessment, Sir Kyr.”

Without a proper camp to take down, Sir Kyr simply kicked sand over where the twins had slept for the night and dragged his iron heel boots behind where the four of them walked, carefully obscuring any sign that they had camped or traveled along that part of the beach. Moving inland until the sandy and rocky shore turned into grassy turf to further conceal their trail, they made sure to remain close enough that they could hear the river roaring besides them. With Sir Kyr leading the way, the four of them made their way along the banks of the stream as they made their way up the river’s course, passing by several small waterfalls along the way where the river dropped off suddenly and sharply.

“How does anyone sail this river?” Zull asked.

“They don’t, except during the spring,” Vard explained. “Then, the river is high enough that it mitigates the effects of the cataracts. When that happens, it’s possible to sail up and down the river, although somewhat haphazardly. Now, in late summer, with the spring rain’s long past, it’s nigh impossible if you want to keep your boat whole.”

“We won’t need to travel by water of any sort for the rest of our journey,” Sir Kyr interjected.

“Good,” Zaphyr said queasily, glancing away from the river as she did so. It was evident to all of them without needing to speak what she was thinking about.

Zull, concerned, put a hand on her shoulder and said sympathetically, “Zaphyr, are you alright?”

“I don’t want to talk about it,” Zaphyr said softly, refusing to meet her brother’s gaze.

“Zaphyr, I know last night was upsetting for you, but…,” Zull began, before Zaphyr cut him off.

“I said I don’t want to talk about it!” she snapped at him, before immediately looking apologetic. “My…my apologies. I just had to watch a man be drowned to death last night, and I did nothing. I let it happen.” She finally met Zull’s gaze, and he saw the horror and self-loathing in her expression. “We committed the First Unthinkable, Zull! What would Gerok think of us?”

Zull winced involuntarily. “Well, technically, Zaphyr, the First Unthinkable is to kill a man with hemomancy. Since he drowned, we haven’t violated our principles…”

Zaphyr laughed hollowly, cutting him off in the process. “You and I both know that, even if the letter of the law is intact, the spirit drowned last night.” She pointed a trembling finger at the river. “It drowned right over there, with Zared.”

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Zull swallowed once then, looking down, said in a voice so quiet that Zaphyr almost couldn’t hear him, “I know. I have been telling myself that, even if there were other options, we couldn’t see them in the panic and pressure of that moment. Zared certainly didn’t give us the time to try and think of any alternatives. Or, I tell myself that Zared wasn’t just trying to kill us, that he would have slain Sir Kyr and Vard as well. I say, ‘if you hadn’t acted, more than the two of you would have died. Who knows how many lives you saved?’ But it isn’t working. I want to justify it, say that we had to make that choice, that we didn’t have another option. But every time I think those things, I see Gerok, and my words are thrown back in my face.”

Zaphyr gently picked up her brother’s hand and removed it from her shoulder. “You don’t have to act strong for my sake, Zull. I know you’re just as horrified by all this as I am.”

“One of us has to stay strong,” he said.

“True enough,” Zaphyr said. “But it doesn’t always have to be you.”

Zull smiled weakly. “That’s…fair.”

“I wish we could ask Gerok what he would say in this context,” Zaphyr said wistfully.

“Thanks to the Master’s men, we can’t. What’s in the past can’t be changed, and wishing it would be otherwise won’t help us,” Zull said. “But we can keep it as a guide moving forward. In the future, we will have to try and find other ways.”

“Yes,” Zaphyr said, clenching her fists at her sides. “There has to be another way, and next time, we’ll find it.”

The twins’ conversation was interrupted by Sir Kyr calling back to the two of them, “Zaphyr! Zull! Come here!”

The twins ran up to where Vard and Sir Kyr stood atop a small bluff, looking down at a fishing village. The hamlet seemed hardly more than a half-dozen hovels and a pair of piers along the river’s edge. A dirt path wound its way away from the village and towards the enormous forest which consumed the horizon in the distance.

“This is, in all likelihood, the last human settlement we shall see for the next week, at the very least,” Sir Kyr told the twins. “The Master’s men may well have already infiltrated this location, but we need supplies for the journey ahead. Zared Choler proved that the Master has supplied his agents with your physical descriptions, as well as information about myself, but Vard should be a complete unknown to them. Besides,” Sir Kyr added, “he’s the only one of us with any money.”

“My performances earn their keep, if only slightly,” Vard said, puffing up his chest proudly. “The three of you stay here, safely out of sight, and I’ll go down and procure whatever supplies the villagers might have. Then, we can cut around the village to the road and head from there to the forest beyond.”

The twins agreed to the plan, and so while the three of them waited patiently, Vard made his way down into the village, puffing slightly from the exertion as he did so. As he disappeared into the tiny cluster of buildings, Sir Kyr pulled out his remaining blade and began carefully sharpening its edge on a whetting stone he carried with him. It was clear to both the twins that he was upset about something.

“Vard saved our lives,” Zull told Sir Kyr, making a wild guess as to the source of their guardian’s irritation.

“I know,” Sir Kyr said, “but that doesn’t mean that I have to like him or trust him.”

“You owe him a blood debt,” Zaphyr pointed out. “Until you save his life in return, you are indebted to him.”

Sir Kyr froze for a second, then continued calmly whetting his blade. “You are correct. I will have to make a point of saving him at the nearest possible opportunity.”

Neither twin knew how to respond to that, so they waited in awkward silence until Vard returned, carrying a leather satchel in one hand. He tossed down the satchel before Sir Kyr, then said, “I managed to get us some potatoes, some carrots, a length of rope, and some pitch torches.”

Sir Kyr looked up at Vard. “That’s all?”

“That’s all they had,” Vard responded irritably. “This village is hardly a cosmopolitan center, Sir. You’re lucky they had anything spare to sell us at all.”

“Some steeds would have cut our journey time by half,” Sir Kyr grumbled as he picked up the satchel and tossed it over his shoulder.

“If you had seen the ancient mules they were using to plow their fields, you wouldn’t have bought them either,” Vard said, crossing his arms as he did so.

“Thank you, Vard,” Zaphyr said, curtseying as she did so.

“Yes, you have our gratitude,” Zull said.

Vard softened his expression, saying, “Thank you, young masters. Now, as your furred friend would no doubt say, we shouldn’t waste any more time.”

Without further ado, the four of them set off once more, heading in a careful arc around the edge of the village to prevent them being seen by any of its inhabitants. Once they were a safe distance away, they cut back towards the dirt road, barely wide enough for a carriage and dotted with potholes and ruts filled with muddy water. Despite all of this, it was straight enough and easy to follow, and led them along towards their ultimate destination: the Ar Goll Forest. The forest was impossible to miss, spread across nearly the entirety of the landscape before them, an impressive wall of trees, impenetrable and seeming to serve as a stern warning to stay away. A pair of mountains stood amidst the forest, their purple cliffs contrasting with the nearly endless sea of green. They surged up from within the forest and soared into the sky, so tall that their tops were lost in a haze of clouds.

“Those mountains stand almost exactly in the middle of the forest,” Sir Kyr said when he saw the twins staring at them in obvious fascination. “When we reach their base, we’ll know that we are halfway through Ar Goll.”

Zull frowned, his brows wrinkling. “Do the mountains have names?”

“None that I have ever heard, aside from ‘the twin fangs,’” Sir Kyr explained. “They are considered to be places of misfortune, and none of the forest’s criminals would visit them unless under the direst of circumstances.”

Zaphyr craned her neck as her eyes followed the mountains up to their very peaks. “Are we going to scale them?”

“Heavens, no!” Sir Kyr said. “We can travel around their bases. The mere legends and superstitions should be enough to keep any thieves at bay.”

“Finally, he shows some sense,” Vard mumbled under his breath. Sir Kyr’s ears twitched, but he didn’t react to the provocation.

“We are only a little distance away from the forest’s edge, let’s pick up our pace,” Sir Kyr encouraged even as he marched along tirelessly. The other three had to admire his seemingly unending strength. Zull wondered how much of it was Sir Kyr’s own native fortitude and how much was a byproduct of the horrific experimentations done to him. Even if he couldn’t imagine performing such an operation on someone, he thought he now understood why Phlegm and his daughter had done so; with an army of abominations with the strength, speed, and resilience of Sir Kyr, they could have conquered the empire with ease. His skin crawled at the very thought, and he wondered where the mad hemomancer and his daughter were now. Somehow, he thought that they weren’t far away, although why he felt such he couldn’t have said.

“You said that thieves and the like live in this forest?” Zull asked aloud. “Will we encounter any of them?”

“Hopefully not,” Sir Kyr said. “I know many of the secret trails through the Ar Goll Forest, and I should be able to keep us out of their way.”

Even as he spoke, the four of them reached the end of the dirt path, which simply petered to a stop a short distance from the very edge of the forest, where the trees grew so thick and so closely together that they formed an almost impenetrable wall, blocking any sight of what lay beyond. Only a narrow gap between two groves of trees, which wormed its way into the forest, was clear of vegetation, and thus marked their only way of going forward.

“Are you sure about this?” Vard asked the twins. “It’s not too late for you to decide to take the longer route instead.”

“I’m certain,” Zull said, far more confidently than he felt. He looked to Zaphyr and saw from the steely gleam in her eyes that she felt much the same.

“Very well,” Vard said with an apathetic sigh. “Sir Kyr, please lead the way.”

Wordlessly, Sir Kyr strode to the edge of the forest, then, to the other three’s surprise, walked past the open path to a particularly dense tangle of branches and, drawing his sword, hacked a clear path for the others.

“What are you doing, you pointy-eared idiot?” Vard demanded. “I thought you were going to show us the path!”

“I am,” Sir Kyr responded flatly. “Do you want to avoid the bands of thieves who dwell in this wood? Then you stay away from the easy, marked trails that every rich merchant and his idiot guards take.”

“That…does make sense,” Vard said slowly. “Very well, consider this my formal apology, Sir Kyr.”

“Apology accepted.” So saying, Sir Kyr turned back to the forest and continued relentlessly hacking his way through the forest, leaving behind him a narrow but clear path for the other’s to follow. Trailing a short distance behind him, they watched as Sir Kyr efficiently cut his way to another trail, this one kept less clear than the one they had spotted, but with the trees along its edges marked with arrows directing them in the direction they should travel. The paint used to make the arrows was old and faded away in many places.

“Argus Vyle and his men used to use this trail, since it runs nearly parallel to the more well known path,” Sir Kyr said. “It allowed them to keep tabs on their prey without revealing themselves until they felt ready to do so.”

“Not the Argus Vyle?” Vard said, aghast. “The pillager…”

“…of Empress’ Veil. Yes, that Argus Vyle. He left this part of Ar Goll Forest over a year ago, however,” Sir Kyr said. “As long as you follow my lead, we should be safe.”

Vard breathed a little more easily at that, as did Zaphyr and Zull. Even as far away as Varin, they had heard stories of the infamous Argus Vyle, the criminal mastermind who had avoided capture by the Empresses’ men repeatedly, and whose tactical brilliance was second only to his cruelty. Knowing that he was far away provided them with a great deal of comfort.

“How can you say for certain that he left his area?” Vard asked, narrowing his eyes suspiciously.

Sir Kyr returned his blade to its scabbard, no longer needing the weapon to clear a path. “Oh, the answer to that is easy enough. I used to be his right-hand man.”

“What?” Zaphyr, Zull, and Vard said in astonished unison.

“I told you that I spent some time living among the forest’s criminals,” Sir Kyr said, irritation starting to creep into his voice.

“True, but there is a difference between living among them and serving as the aide to the most notorious bandit of the last two decades!” Vard protested.

“When you look as monstrous as I do,” Sir Kyr said. “Only other monsters will accept you.”

None of them had any response to that.

“Believe me,” Sir Kyr told them. “I am not proud of what I had to do during those years. But until I can return to my former appearance, this is my fate. And, now all three of you are bound up in it as well. I only hope that I can protect you from the worst of my destiny.”

“Which is?” Zaphyr asked.

“To hunt Aldus Phlegm and his daughter until they are dead, or I am.”