When morning arrived, the sunlight burned through the sky, turning the clouds and mist from the rain into a heavy fog. Demalyn had been the first up just as dawn rose from the eastern woods. She peered out at them, thinking how haunted and dark the main road looked snaking into it. She put up several tarps and filled the tables with her wares.
Demalyn pulled her shawl over her arms and the sagging brim hat over her eyes as she settled into place. She pulled her long pipe to her mouth and set her orb down in front of her. She placed both hands around it, concentrating on it with some intensity. The vine on her wrist seemed to struggle to grow and grasp it before retracting from the orb, giving off a mild purple pulse before going dormant. Resigned, she sat back and lit the end of her pipe with a match.
It wasn’t long before Yulsif showed up wearing his fatigue. “I came to see if you needed help today. Most of the townsfolk are staying indoors today. The remaining council cancelled reconstruction projects for the day. The hunters that aren’t joining Keoma in the recovery efforts today are taking up refuge in the lodge. I’m not sure where I fit in.” Demalyn smiled at him patting the chair next to her.
Desdin made his exit from the van while still toweling off from a shower. Demalyn looked over at him, noticing that most of his wounds from the day before had faded. He stretched several times before pulling on his casual white shirt and black coat. She said, “You seem to have recovered.”
He looked at her with innocence before saying, “Doctor Cherry took great care of me?”
She gave his pretense a knowing smirk. “Great care, right? I guess that is why I didn’t find her asleep in the driver’s seat this morning.” He overlooked her before waving over at Yulsif.
Demalyn picked up her orb and began heading back towards the van. “Do you mind keeping Yulsif company? Yesterday seems to have drained me more than I thought. I’m going to rest a bit longer in my room.” Desdin obliged and walked over to the table, sitting and propping his feet up before motioning for Yulsif to sit next to him.
She passed Cherry on her way in who stopped Demalyn and spoke with enough volume so Desdin could also hear her say, “I’ll be at the hospital today. Please stay at the docks, both of you.” Neither answered her. Demalyn continued to her room and Desdin fluttered his hand in the air.
Cherry arrived at the hospital, that was operating in a fit of fury and confusion. One nurse noticed Cherry’s arrival and approached her. “Thank you so much for showing up today. Doctor Hobe and a patient you tended to the other day, Tarrich, have both asked for you.”
She gave a sympathetic nod. Please inform Doctor Hobe that I have arrived and will meet with him after I have checked on the trauma patients. I’ll let you know if I need anything.” The nurse thanked her again before continuing on. Cherry reached for a small metal cylinder before activating a display and scrolling through the charts of several patients. She began making her rounds.
They transferred the patients from the trauma ward into other rooms throughout the hospital as they shut it down from the events from the prior day. The morgue was also closed off. Instead, bodies were being wrapped and prepared in a makeshift walk-in fridge. She watched morticians as they dipped wraps in salt and viscous, clear fluid.
As she visited the wounded, she took note that several had suffered from a sleepless night. She requested sedatives and advised the staff tending to those that witnessed the events from yesterday to stay and speak with them relating their own experiences. She made several notes in her display before coming to the room of Tarrich. He was upright, staring into the wall with his one eye. She pulled over a chair, she gripped his arm with care. “I brought the ointments I promised. A nurse told me you wanted to see me.”
“I saw something crazy, doctor. Not sure anyone would believe it, but I need you to please. You said that you and your friends came to help, so please listen,” Tarrich pleaded.
He was shaking and on the border of tears as Cherry said, “I’m listening. Please tell me.”
“Vilsin, the hunt master, showed up with his men after the nurse in my room was screaming, being dragged by one of those things. Scrambling down the hall, I hid out of sight. I barely had my wits about me. I thought I would die for sure. It butchered Vilsin’s men. The thing was going to kill him too, but it spoke to him. Oldest, its voice, I’ll never forget it. Like something was choking it to death. It offered itself up to him. Said ‘for you’ over and over. Like some ritualistic chant."
Tarrich glanced at Cherry, who reassured him. “I believe you, Tarrich. Have you told anyone else?”
He shook his head. “No. I’m so scared, doctor. Please don’t leave me here.”
“I’m going to get a nurse to bring you something to help you sleep. We will get to the bottom of this. I won’t let anything happen to you. Has your family visited you?”
“Oldest no, I don’t want them here. They need to stay home. Something is happening in Leoris. As soon as winter is over, I’m taking them on the first transport out of here. To the coast or to any major hub.”
Cherry stood up, placing a hand on his shoulder. “Good. Make that your goal. Get better. I’ll be by to see you again.”
Tarrich stared down and tried to relax himself. Cherry intercepted a nurse and asked him to check on Tarrich’s needs. She then made her way to Hobe’s room.
Hobe’s room was well lit. In the corner was the axe he had used to take apart one of the Fallen’s abominations. He was sitting up, pawing at his display, typing notes with sporadic bursts. She observed for a minute before shutting the door and walking over to the window. She raised it open and pulled up a chair beside it. “I can’t say I advise you to stand up and walk over here. But if you can handle that I’d say you appear like you need a cigarette.”
Stolen story; please report.
He snorted at the challenge and promptly hobbled over to the chair. She lit her cigarette, taking a draw before handing it over to him. She said, “These things seem to be obsessed with going for the eyes. A primitive instinct to strike at vitals. At least it isn’t the groin.”
“That part of me has been long dead and my eyesight was going, anyway. Thanks for this. Who thought that doctors I had raised up with my hand would be so into following the rules? Should have told them about how to treat patients already neck deep in the grave. It is about letting them do what the hell they want and making them comfortable.” Hobe growled as he exhaled through the window.
He then said, “Keoma came by my room late last night to see if I was still alive. He mentioned he had a long talk with your crew. Bastard acts all high and mighty, but his brain is just a thick muscle. I’ll stubbornly outlive him just to spite that absurd physique of his. Still, you lot are here under some insane circumstances. Keoma and I were hot-blooded in our youth and got in over our heads far too many times to count, but nothing like this.”
She snatched the cigarette from him. “Yea, well, I regret revealing as much as we did to him. The Black Wings helped in a pinch in the Devil Lands, though. And to be honest, this whole deal in Leoris is beyond bad. The carnage this Fallen matriarch has poised over all of us is about to rain down and I’m not sure how capable or prepared we will be. I read up on the White Wings in the Lux, but I never met one before now.”
Hobe said, “It is a silly thing. The Black Wings always took themselves far too seriously. To them, the ‘secret’ organization stuff was about taking action and provoking change. The White Wings deal with the fallout and keep records. We didn’t take our duty with a heavy hand. When we gathered, we would enjoy ourselves and make jokes about how bad the world is. We had a chapter in the Lux. On first impression, you seem more like a Black Wing, so I doubt they would have reached out to you.”
Cherry handed him the cigarette back. “I’m surprised I never uncovered them. Then again, I’m miserable at this espionage act. I was just curious about the world. Then I met Desdin on a train heading for Ouren’s prison in the Devil Lands. He was half dead and crudely sewn back together. I took care of him because I grew up admiring Jonah. And the fire Desdin brandished against the insurmountable odds before him was infectious.”
Hobe gazed with fondness at Leoris before saying, “Damned Jonah. He imparted his will to his disciples then. Keoma never met him, but I did when he was returning from Lux. Full of himself and so confident that he could fix the continent. I was older than him, but I was jealous and captivated by him all the same. That friend of yours sounds much the same. He has faced two of the Oldest and lived to tell the tale. And you are awakened?”
She leaned against the wall and said, “Yes. Against the wishes of the royal family. It was a dangerous and reckless procedure. It is as you stated before. A countermeasure against the abundance of descendants on the mainland. I haven’t had the chance to compare my abilities against a descendant, but I can tell you the drawbacks of awakening are harrowing.”
He settled back in the chair and asked, “What is it like?”
Cherry flicked the cigarette out the window. “Like the most incredible high you can experience. You can feel and see the flow of chrism as if it is a part of another world. You can sense the life force of everything around you. Time slows down and allows you to take in all the choices before you for a moment. Then your body starts to break down under the pressure. You can feel your insides cooking and your focus unravelling. It is so jarring that some awakened choose to dive right back in repeatedly. Until they die from the burden. The experiment itself didn’t kill the subjects. It is so tempting to awaken again after coming down, even knowing the risks. I almost did it yesterday but my friend stopped me. If I had been dosing every day, the intensity and side effects wouldn’t have been as horrible, but that comes with its own set of health issues.”
“When the gods descended to walk among us, those of us that didn’t want to bow had to become monsters if we wanted to keep up. The fallen, the descended, and the lost,” Hobe said poignantly. “A quote from a forgotten ruler of the sixth age.”
Cherry took pause at one thing he said. She repeated the phrase, “The lost. I see that crop up in some old texts from around the fifth age. I always thought it was metaphorical, but hearing it out loud, I wonder.”
“Your friend, the one that followed Jonah, he seeks the Roots of Dragsil. If you want him to find the truth, the lost is the key to it. Although I don’t recommend it. Dragsil, despite being one of the Oldest, was also a doe-eyed bastard of an optimist. The White Wings found those kinds of people to be the most dangerous to order, balance, and a general nuisance to those of us looking to have a good time. If you are like us, and like me, you will not and do not entertain these notions. The truth is always far more unsettling, and looking away from it and not directly at it won’t solve the problem.”
Ruffling the back of her head Cherry rolled her eyes. “It isn’t like I don’t want to know the truth. But life is fleeting. Is the value of truth worth the cost of life?”
Hobe grunted. “You would have fit in nicely with the White Wings. Staying in the present and focusing on recording and resolves the issues of today.”
Cherry started to thank him for the advice when a nurse burst into the room. She began to exclaim something before pausing. “Have you been smoking in here?”
Hobe and Cherry both deadpanned. “No.”
The nurse then continued, “Doctor, the hunter’s lodge has shown up and is trying to take Tarrich with them. Please hurry!”
Making long strides, Cherry rushed to the hallway where several hunters with Stokely as their lead gathered outside of Tarrich’s room. Walstaff stood between the door and Stokely in a heated argument. You are not permitted to move this man from the grounds of this hospital.
Stokely shoved Walstaff to the side and said, “And you will not stand in our way. You are not well, sheriff, go back to bed. Vilsin and the lodge are taking care of the town in the wake of this mess. It is out of your hands. This man has survived two attacks. He is coming with us for questioning.”
Unable to put up any resistance, Walstaff had slumped down on the wall. One hunter took pity on him and helped him up. Cherry charged in putting a finger into Stokely’s chest. “This is my patient. I demand you leave now.”
Stokely raised an eyebrow at her and chuckled. He said, “You look much better than yesterday. But some retired military officer turned vagrant has no authority here. Move before I move you.”
A slick voice came from the far end of the hall, “Stokely! Let’s allow the good doctor to do her work. I implore you, ma’am, since we have important business with the patient in question, why don’t you accompany him? His well being is, of course, in everyone’s best interest.” Vilsin strolled down the hall. “Sheriff, forgive my man’s bluntness. His loyalty to Leoris, the lodge, and myself is overzealous in this dire time.”
Cherry stared at Vilsin. His gait, demeanor, and tone unsettled her. Noticing her strange look, he said, “Relax, good doctor. Come and be our guest. You missed out on the festivities at the lodge the other night. And I’ve heard other council members vouch for your presence in the town.” He gave her a welcoming gesture and a bow.
Glancing nervously around for a way out of the scenario, she answered, “I promised Tarrich I would look after him, so I don’t seem to have any other choice but to join you. Lead the way.” With a suspicious grin, Vilsin turned and walked back along the corridor.