Nightsworn | The Whispering Wall #2

Thirty Three: The Guildtown

The days had long since begun to blur into one another. After the desolate hamlet, a lot of the levity had fled from their evening gatherings, and during travelling hours Yddris set a punishing pace. No one talked about the ruin again, but the memory of it hung in the air in every conversation, and the night watches increased to pairs.

Because of their pace, Hap spent the most time in the wagon with his leg. Jordan had settled into a rhythm of hard walking, one foot in front of the other, no longer paying too much attention to their surroundings except to look behind them every now and again. He slept badly, tossing and turning on the hard ground, and when he did drift off he dreamed of the horrible cold emptiness that came of his last run-in with the aura-less Unspoken killers. He woke gasping, wishing Grace was there. There had been a time, when they were young, that they would comfort each other when they couldn't sleep, would creep downstairs at ungodly hours and raid the fridge. Jordan would make sandwiches out of whatever he could find and Grace would pour out squash that was always too strong, and they would sit under the duvet in their bedrooms and talk until they both fell asleep. He was often awake when his turn on watch came, his nervousness transformed into aching homesickness.

As they travelled, occasionally in the distance they would hear the rumble of approaching thunder. There were frequent bursts of heavy rain and howling winds, and still the clouds above kept building. Their evenings became more subdued as the fresh supplies ran out and they gnawed on bread and dried meat. Demons stalked the plains around them, sometimes drawing very close to their nets.

"There's a forest ahead," Yddris had grunted by way of explanation for the sudden increase in sightings. "Demons are buggers for a forest."

Lightened by the prospect of leaving the Barrens Jordan found a new energy the next day. Aside from the hamlet, their trip had been no more than trudging monotony; they had seen no bandits at all, and Jordan had started to think it was because something worse now haunted the expanse.

Reaching the Guildtown was still something of a surprise.

At first he didn't register that there was a settlement nearby; all he knew was that the wind-blasted rock plains they'd spent a whole two days trying to manoeuvre the wagon through were at an end. His shoulders ached and he stank of stale sweat. The only water they had passed, they had not lingered at; a small rocky stream on the borders of Little Dunbauern. There had been no time for a dip between refilling their water barrels for the last leg of the trip, and he was hard-pressed to think of a time in his life where he'd felt quite so disgusting. He'd had to remove his gloves several times to help dislodge the wagon's wheels or free a horse's hoof, and no matter how much he drew on the current his skin was seared raw with cold and sore from digging out splinters.

When he spotted the first trees, he stared at them for a full minute, feeling thick as two short planks as he tried to make sense of what he was looking at. He told himself it wasn't entirely his fault, because while the plants in front of him were recognisable, Nictavian trees were fucking weird. He marched up to the nearest one and peered at it.

"Never been out of the city, boy?" Chip called cheerfully. Jordan shook his head, feeling rather than seeing the disapproval rolling off of Yddris behind him. With origins as unique as his, it wasn't exactly a great idea to go announcing his otherworldliness to people who hadn't worked it out yet.

He turned his attention back to the squat knot of pale branches in front of him. The bark was entirely smooth and silver-white, but where it peeled away, the pith underneath was a dark bloody red. The leaves were dark and needle-like, arranged in compact umbrellas at the end of each snaking tendril. If Jordan hadn't known better, he'd have said he was staring at a cluster of mushrooms taller than him.