A Place To Bloom

Unprepared

Across a thousand yards of open field with uneven tufts of green grass and dark clouds overhead, a massive wall of stone with towers and crenelations like teeth along the top rose up from a river, easily a mile end-to-end.

Carthia.

As with the Lake of Doom, nearly-naked native women were out grazing their flocks, some with goats, one with about a dozen wooly bison and their calves. To our left, the jungle claimed the edge of the grass up to the black river spanned by a stone bridge tucked beside the walls and more open plain beyond. A streak of dark gray clouds reached down from the sky and brushed its fingers upon the forest. To our right, hills carpeted with trees rolled into the distance, and the gray-purple rock wall of the Terbulin ridge reached defiantly beyond the jungle's grasp and faded into the mist. Ahead of us, behind the outer wall was a cluster of towers reaching for the sky with more crenelations encircling the top and narrow slits running down the sides.

And what if Miyani didn't join us here?

Did she stay at the Lake, and would I ever see her again?

I turned to look behind me. Clusters of those red-and-green grassy stalks crowded the view beyond a few feet, and leaves rustling in the wind overhead joined the chorus of insects, chirps, and calls of the primeval forest beyond.

Perhaps it was for the best. I most definitely shouldn't have said that to her. How could I have been so stupid?

That look of shock on her face.

I should have learned the words to wish her a safe journey instead. Father in heaven, keep her safe? For me?

For now, Davod, Geraln, Ales, Faren, Rock, Kelint, Northstar, and I made our way across the irregular black slate road towards a world at war, with black magic, monsters in the woods, pirates, runaway slaves, and other outcasts.

The road led us across the field to the front gate. Kelint tripped on a slab of road and nearly fell over. He was busy watching one of the goatherds, a girl with dark-green skin, yellow eyes, and long white hair in a thick braid down her back. She was dressed as all of them, with a flap of cloth hanging from her belt front and back leaving her bare feet, legs, hips, belly, back, and... generous breasts out in the open.

Kelint shook his head and tried to laugh it off. "Gods, I could get used to this place!"

Another pair of ladies about fifty yards to our left waved at us as we passed. The younger one had an infant sleeping on her shoulder, and the older one had a long spear. While the older one shot her gaze at the forest nearby and took the spear in both hands, the young mother smiled and nodded at Davod, who nearly tripped waving back to her.

Ahead of us, a procession emerged from the archway at the main gate. Men who looked Herali, olive-green skin and long, straight, dark-green hair wearing chain armor, and women with dark-green skin and white hair, mostly naked as the others walked with three empty, bison-drawn carts. Women walked alongside the beasts with sticks in hand while the men walked the perimeter with weapons ready, keeping their eyes outward. While one of the men kept his eyes on the bush with his hands on his weapon, one of the women came up and stroked his bum. He leaned down and kissed her lips, and they kept walking.

As we drew close, we saw something long and bulky lying across the stone slats with a thick tail that reached onto the wooden bridge. Its heavy, armored, gray-black barrel of a body rose up about knee-height with four clawed tree-trunk hands out at its sides. It had to be at least six yards from the front of its snout to the end of its heavy tail. Two eyelets sat atop its head, and several fangs stuck out from its gargantuan mouth. The largest alligator I'd ever seen was in Kyoen, and it was a third as long.