Chapter 54

As we walked I was tempted to use my new air affinity, I’d wished I could fly ever since I was a child, and watching those Air Jacks had made me realize that it was now something that I might actually be capable of it. In order to do that I would need to train it up, if it was anything like my water affinity it wouldn’t be much more than a stiff breeze at the moment. Not to mention I would have to figure out how to fly without wings. Right now though I still felt like shit and was worried that using too much magic would just make it worse. As soon as we got back and I was cleansed I might be able to try it.

Unfortunately as it was the two of us were making pretty shitty time.

Lamia as I had already noticed did not have the best stamina for long distance journeys. Kallix and Renther at least were hunters and used to the rigors of travel. Talass however usually worked with her mother and as such tended to stay close to the village most of the time, despite that she was waiting for me most of the time.

My entire body was feeling stiff, and despite downing a small swallow of a healing potion I was still walking at half of my normal speed. She was obviously upset by how slow I was being, but didn’t say anything, until we saw it.

After we had walked for six hours through a valley we started finding regular markings left by Kallix and Renther. We had been climbing out of the valley and just crossed over the ridge, that was when Talass stopped and stared at the sky in the distance. Just over the side of a mountain that I now recognized as the Summit of the Ancients I saw it too, a curtain of thick black smoke was rising into the sky.

There was only one likely explanation, the Lamia Village was burning.

Talass was immediately distraught and started hurrying towards the distant mountain the second she saw the smoke leaving me in the dust. I hurried after her as quickly as I could, not bothering to tell her to slow down.

For hours I chased after her, neither of us talking, and both of us gulping in air as quickly as I could. My legs ached and my lungs burned, I knew from looking at Talass that she wasn’t in much better shape that I was.

It wasn’t until the sun started crawling behind the mountains a several hours later that I finally spoke.

“Talass, Talass! Stop! The sun is going down, we need to find a place for the night.” I said as she continued slithering away from me. Both of us were dripping in sweat and breathing like we had run marathons. I was about to call out again when she stopped her body tensed as she stared at the smoke on the horizon.

A moment later she rounded on me she shouting. “That is my home! My friends, and family are there! And I will not stop until I know they are safe!”

“I know, and I’m sorry, but the sun is going down, we don’t want to get turned around in the dark, we could end up god knows where, or eaten by god knows what!”

“Nobulous, will be full, and Nautilus has only just started waning, that will be enough light to guide us at least to the Summit of the Ancients. We can make it there by morning!”

Realizing that there was no way I was going to stop her I hobbled as quickly as I could to catch up to her. “Alright fine. That’s your home and your family there, if you want to push on overnight then we will. But we still need to eat. So I think we should take a ten-minute water and food break. As soon as we are done, we start again, ok? We’ll both move faster after a rest.”

She stared at the smoke her body tensing straight up for a moment before she sighed, then she all but collapsed, her hands on her hips. Her body heaved up and down as she gulped down air as quickly as she could. I walked beside her and took my bag off dropping it onto the ground.

Opening it I pulled out some Lamia travel rations and my bottle of water. I held the water in front of Talass’s face waiting for her to catch her breath enough so that she could take it from me. After a minute she straightened up and took the water from me with a shaking hand. Taking the other package I opened it and took out a few pieces of the trail rations. Popping in a large mouthful I started chewing the terrible tasting food.

After taking long gulp of water and looking down at the bottle Talass spoke again, softly enough that I almost missed it.

“When you leave the valley I wanted to come with you.”

Looking back at her I tried to respond but couldn’t as my mouth was full and swallowing the ‘food’ was proving difficult. Taking the water bottle from Talass I handed her something to eat and took a drink.

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“You want to leave?” I asked surprised. “You seem pretty happy here.”

Talass had sensibly taken a small bite of food and was able to swallow it fairly easily, as soon as she was done she snorted and answered me.

“Do I? I’ve never felt happy here, I always felt like I never belonged. Everyone else seems to so effortlessly fit in here. My only friend growing up was Shassala, now that she’s gone I see just how lonely I am.”

“What about Kallax and Renther, I know they care for you.”

“Maybe. I never felt that close to them, it was like Shassala was their friend and I was friends with Shassala so we just spent time together. And ever since I started to reach womanhood and I....” She paused looking down at her chest. “Well they’ve been nice to me, all men are nice to me and I’ve always wondered if it was because they liked me, or they simply wanted to sleep with me.”

“I’ve seen the way you talk to Kallax and Renther, it always looked to me like your pretty good friends. They care about you and enjoy spending time with you, not just your chest.” I said taking a smaller bite than before. If you took smaller bites, the texture wasn’t as bad and you could swallow it faster, so you weren’t stuck with the food in your mouth for so long.

“I guess so. I know I’ll miss them, I just feel like...” She stopped trailing off.

Finishing my food I let Talass get her thoughts in order, I knew how difficult it could be to talk about things like this, especially with someone you didn’t know very well.

“I never felt like I belonged here. My father was an outlander who came to us to study our ways. My mother fell in love, and well, she didn’t realize that she was pregnant until after he had left. I always wanted to meet him, and I always thought that I might feel like I belonged out there more than here.”

“I can understand that, wanting to find your father, wanting to find a place to belong, but are you sure you would be okay leaving everyone behind?”

“Before today, I would have said yes, but after seeing that smoke? All I can think of is that I was about to abandon my entire family that I have here for someone that I've never met, someone who doesn’t even know I exist. I can’t leave as long as my family is in danger.”

“I’m sure everyone will be fine, the entire tribe has been on alert for days, they never would have been taken by surprise.”

“They would have been better with these supplies.”

“This isn’t your fault, we did everything we could. The fact that we’re making it back at all is a miracle, by all rights we should have died or gotten lost in the jungle.”

Talass didn’t look convinced but at least she was no longer moping quit so much.

“So when we get back what’s the plan? I don’t think we want to just walk up to the village and say hi.”

“In an emergency like this the tribe has a few different places it can move to. The mostly likely is the Summit of the Ancients."

“Isn’t that a little close to the village? Whoever attacked could just push straight up the mountain. “

“And we would just leave from one of the other dozen trails that go up and down the mountain. This part of the jungle is ours and we know it better than anyone, the next closest tribe is a hundred miles away and even they could never corner our tribe here. Outlanders won’t even get close.”

“Fair enough, but if that happens will we be able to find your people? Especially if we’re wandering around in the middle of the night?”

For the first time in hours Talass hesitated. She grabbed a piece of food from my hands and shoved it into her mouth in a way that would have been funny if we weren’t just talking about her family being attacked. Following suit, I shoved a small handful of food into my own mouth and washed it down with water almost immediately handing the bottle back to Talass.

She took a drink and stayed bent over in deep thought. “I know this is dangerous, and I know that waiting makes more sense, but we still have to try.”

“I agree, but we shouldn’t go to the village. If they’ve already been attacked then they’re probably already on top of the mountain, we should head straight there and save ourselves some time.”

She thought for a moment before nodding her agreement.

“Also we should have brought more potions with us, potions to see in the dark, to help with stamina at least.”

“We did, Kallix and Renther have them. I put the reagents we were sent to get in the same bag as the potions and the rest of my supplies.”

“They’re probably back at the village already.” I said leaning over feeling more tired after this break than before it. “Fuck I really do feel like I’m dying, why am I so tired? I can normally hike for days at a time, now it feels like my legs are jelly and my lungs are burning, and my back, ugh.”

“See I told you your dying, why do you keep grabbing your back like that?”

“I haven't been sleeping on it right, I swear to god rocks have been searching me out to get under my back while I sleep.”

“Take your shirt off.”

“Excuse me? I thought you were in a rush.”

“Shut up and show me your back.”

“Oh.” I said dumbly, slowly taking off my shirt and turning around.

Talass had me turn a little so that the red light of Nobulous was behind me illuminating my back. I heard Talass suck in her breath making a hissing noise from behind me.

“It was bruised a few days ago, is it worse now?” I asked reaching back to touch it only for her hands to grab my own stopping me.

“I don’t see any bruise on your back.”

“Well that’s good news at least.”

“Your tail looks like one giant bruise though.”

“My what?” I yelped.

“Your tail. Humans do have tails right?”

“No, we don’t! What does it look like?”

“A small tail on your back, it’s not that big. It’s kind of pathetic really.”

“I shouldn’t have any tail! Where is it?”

“On your lower back, just above your ass, which looks extremely weird by the way.”

“So at the end of my tailbone?”

“Tailbone? So, you do have a tail?”

“No! Humans don’t have tails!”

“But you said...”

“A tail bone is not a tail! They don’t leave the body.”

“Whatever, you have a bump on your lower back. It’s large, black and it looks like a small tail.”

Dropping my shirt I turned around deep in thought. How long had my back been bothering me? Two? Three days? Longer? Had this thing been slowly growing the entire time? What the hell was it? Could this have been what happened to the humans here so long ago? Was I going to end up like those monsters underground? Or was what was going to happen to me be even worse?

If I didn’t want to find out I would need to get back to the village as quickly as I could.