The Arkanist

The Felling

Chapter 16

The Felling

Each night seemed colder than the last. Aera tugged on her moleskin collar, trying to shield her face from the harsh winds. As the icy fingers scratched across her face, she clenched her jaw, feeling nothing. It was numb, beaten hard by the cold. Aera huddled, alone, in the wagon, the hay grey with ash and cracked with frigid ice. Ollor slept. He so often did. Aera flicked her eyes towards the lantern, dark and defeated. A feeble, wan light ebbed like the sundering sun before the horizon ate it. She shuffled toward it, and grasped the glass with both hands as she peeled her leather gloves away. Bare flesh touching the lantern, the heat was like water on a dry throat. As she touched it, the light flowed into her hands like liquid fire, warming, until the light waxed suddenly, and with the leap of her heart loped into her body as if the sun had been melted down and drained over her face and arms, down into her heart.

         Aera sat with her hands to the lantern all that nigh, the constant ebb and flow of heat flushing into her like the waves barreling onto the beach, climbing up the sand, and sinking back into the ocean. Each time, the heat felt warmer with the push. The darkness around her seemed to be beaten away by the glow of her lantern, and she never felt the ash kiss her…until the next morning. The light had gone pale and sickly, drained of life and color. Around her, the sky was the same, grey and bleak, the crimson veil shimmering against the stony expanse of still clouds. Small flakes of black ash fluttered down like the silhouettes of snowflakes, and danced in the sways of the wind.

         The grey did not linger. Soon, the sky had washed dark as ever, and the chill winds were fast upon them, screaming like the witches of Aera’s nightmares. The shrill, high voices chanted together, ripping across the black sky like rigid iron blades, tearing long sable wounds across the world that leaked with drips of ash and crimson blood. The mist, pale and smoky, slithered about the horse’s muscular legs, coiling like grim serpents through the rain-washed ruts in the Mountain Road. Aera knew better than to watch them play across the ground.

         The road went one, and so did the rangers, ambling forth, grim and dismal, the black flags, emblazoned with the grey shield and sword, held aloft by the flag bearers at the head of procession, writhed ferociously in the whipping winds. The heavy cloth tore with the icy teeth of the Darkness as it bit. Aera watched them flap, hidden in the dark. As she fixed her collar again around her neck, Ollor awakened. The lantern beside him was close to dead, breathing feebly to survive, the light fluttering like a fairies wings.

         He watched her struggle in the winds, waiting. “You haven’t thanked me yet.”

         “For what?” asked Aera.

         “That.” He gestured toward her lantern, the yellow light flapping against the glass.

         It took her a moment. “It was you.”

         He nodded, then, withdrew. “I was my magic.”

         Aera’s face dropped.

         “You cannot escape it forever,” Ollor said. “Nobody can.”

         “I can.”

         Ollor smirked. “We’ll see.” Her lantern went out, and she saw black, the wind tearing through her like spears of frozen ash.

         The sky was black as pitch when they made camp near the ruins of an ancient bridge. By the withered markings of the masonry, Ollor calculated it to be a creation dating back to the Atarrian Empire. The famed Attarians sought to expand their empire, constructing great roads and bridges, running like rivers across the entirety of Laan, meeting at each of the Seven Cities. It was a bold idea, for the time period, and an amazing feat that it had been accomplished. However, little after it was finally complete, after a hundred years of work, they were destroyed, as the barbarians of the north invaded the southlands and the capital of Atarros. The land was then thrown back in time, and the northern winters traveled south with its people. Only until the Anturrians drove them back, did they bring the land back to its former glory, ruling for thousands of years after.