A Place To Bloom

High in the Mountains

After Oasis promised to kill me, Geraln and I joined up with Davod and the two men we'd met in the pub. Together we took the road towards Carthia so we could all die there instead.

For several hours, we hiked as the road led us up, then down, then up again, twisting around the side of a mountain, then leveling off again as it led us through forests thick with pine trees broken by huge piles of dirty snow. We crossed an old stone bridge that arched over a deep ravine with the sound of crashing water below us. We climbed up some more, and the road beneath our feet was strewn with rocks of a multitude of colors and shapes, only to return to the glittery gray-gold dirt with tufts of yellow grass that filled the air with mountain sage.

Ales found a nice piece of pyrite with several tiny, golden cubes growing out from a marbled mass of white and beige.

We came to a gully on the right with a roaring creek in the trees just beyond and a steep incline on both sides. Several trees had been torn to shreds by snow drifts from ages past and left there, bleached gray by the sun, with piles and piles of white-and-black speckled rocks strewn about. Up ahead, the road climbed sharp above the treeline, where rocks were broken up by ice and snow in the jagged peaks beyond. Above us, the sun had passed its apex some hours prior, and the wind coming off the high ground was cold.

"We should camp here," I said.

Ales looked at Faren, then turned to me and spoke. "We've still got hours of daylight left."

Davod stopped and looked around. "Caleb is right. Fresh water, ample wood, shelter from the wind, enough forage around here to support game, it won't get no better than this. Geraln, you and Caleb go find us some dinner, I'll teach these two how to set up camp."

Ales protested, "I know how to set up a camp, man!"

Faren laughed and spoke through an easy smile. "It's alright. We're going to need a lot of wood, so there's three of us to gather it up."

Ales sucked his teeth.

Geraln and I set our packs down, strung our bows, and set off up the hill to the left of the road through a thick grove of pine trees. The hill wasn't too high, and we began our descent into the valley beyond before climbing up the other side. I passed my fingers along the soft leaves of a dmusu, whose delicate purple flowers showed no sign of being chewed recently.

"What's gotten into you?" Geraln said. "You've been morose ever since we left."

I shrugged him off. "It's nothing."

He stretched his arm out and waved it across the empty forest around us. "It's just us, man. Are you scared of what awaits us in Carthia? We all are; you knew about that when we left Gath. Something's changed. Is it Oasis? You know she's not coming after you, right? She'll probably calm down, realize it wasn't your fault, and move on."

"It's not that."

"Well, I know you didn't get anywhere with her."

I squinted my eyes and gazed at him. "Maybe I did, maybe I didn't. You don't know that."

"Hah!" Geraln huffed. "I do know. Sage told me a few things; trust me, you never had a shot with her."

"What did she tell you?"

"Private things I'm not at liberty to repeat."

"I see," I nodded. "Well, it's not that."

We resumed our trek through another pine grove before coming to a small clearing with tall green-yellow grass just below a steep rock jutting out of the dirt. At the base of a giant boulder I found another patch of dmusu and knelt to get a closer look. Teeth markings on the stalks had dried, but there was no sign of new growth buds yet.