Wars of Heaven and Earth

What goes up, must come down

We made landfall several days later back at Amara. From there, we traveled out of the city and headed south. The rolling plains of the central provinces of the kingdom soon gave way to a sparse, scorched climate. In the weeks that followed, we passed many small villages, some of which showed signs of being attacked in the past. Others were nothing but burned out husks, the only remaining testament of people living there. Tyra complained about the heat, having been sunburned several times due to her pale complexion. Leucos and I weren't much better. The harsh sun of the southern provinces easily burned our skin, making our travels much harder.

As we stopped for the night under the star filled sky, Tyra took first watch, while Leucos and I slept. Upon closing my eyes, I felt my consciousness be pulled upward and into another place. I opened my eyes and came face to face with an even more faded version of Realtai.  Her eyes silently spoke about the great weariness she felt. Whilst her motions were still fluid and graceful, yet slow. She then spoke, in a voice barely above a whisper. I strained to hear her words and managed to decipher most of the message.

"The child of the cold winds you have found. Through the sands you must bound. Into temples old you creep. Awake the child that sleeps. To the East you must go. Shadows, away you will throw. There will be no more light. For comes the Scion of the Night."

With that she faded, and I woke to Tyra shaking me.

"Get up. It's your watch." She said before standing up and curling up next to the low burning fire.

I sighed and rose, then walked a ways from camp. Finding a decent sized rock, I sat down and began to contemplate the words of Realtai. Eventually the sun rose over the horizon, and I had most of the riddle solved. Although there were things that troubled me about its passages.

As I walked back to camp, I thought I saw something duck behind a sand dune. After clearing my eyes, nothing was there. Most likely a hallucination due to exhaustion I said to myself.

After everyone had woke and eaten. We continued on our way, however I explained what had transpired last night.

"The child of the cold winds..that obviously refers to you Tyra." I stated.

"You don't say? What other stunning revelations have you come up?" She said, voice dripping with sarcasm. 

Leucos simply remained silent. Meanwhile I ignored Tyra's sarcasm and continued explaining what I had discovered to the two of them.

"The next line, through the sands you must bound is obvious as we're currently walking through a desert." I said.

Tyra rudely sighed and rolled her eyes, Leucos then elbowed her in the thigh which earned him a glare from her. He glared back until they both looked away from each other with a soft "hmph" and crossed their arms. I shook my head and continued.

"Into temples old you creep, I believe there's an old temple in a nearby city if my history studies are correct.. Then awake the child that sleeps.. I'm not sure about that one. To the East you must go, also self explanatory. Shadows away you will throw, I'm guessing that refers to me fighting someone, or something. Now.. the last two lines are odd..and I don't understand them. There will be no more light. For comes the Scion of the Night." I glanced back at Tyra who seemed to have tuned in halfway through.

Tyra yawned and then spoke. "Well, if you throw away shadows, then how is there no more light, and whoever this Scion of the Night person is, I say we bash him over the head and be done with it."

Leucos let out an exasperated sigh and shook his head. "I doubt it'll be that easy." He whispered. Tyra scoffed and continued walking. We traveled through most of the day, enduring the harsh sun, and blistering heat. We were miserable, thankfully, our stores of water were good for another day or two. Although from the look of things, we wouldn't have to wait that long.

Tyra looked forward and groaned. "Please tell me we're not going into THAT city." 

Leucos giggled and I tried to stifle my laughter. Apparently I did a poor job of it as Trya nailed the back of my head with a pebble.

"I heard that you laughing freak." She muttered. "I absolutely despise this part of the world. The weather is all wrong, and the people are even worse."

"Any place you need to grow a beard to survive isn't somewhere people should live." Leucos said while smirking at Tyra.

"I don't have a beard child" She said.

"Are you sure about that?" Leucos replied before he bolted down the dunes towards the city looming in the distance.

"Why you cheeky little-" The rest of Tyra's sentence was a mass of expletives in her native tongue. She responded in kind by sprinting after Leucos while hollering at the top of her lungs.

"Language!" I called, only to be ignored. Sighing, I jogged after the two of them, how they had so much energy, I'll never understand. This went on for several minutes until Leucos stopped in the distance, still a ways from the city. Then Tyra stopped, however it was when she gestured frantically to me that I came running.

When I arrived, I paused for a moment to catch my breath. "What's the prob...lem.." Standing in front of Leucos and Tyra was a man wearing tan robes, with a cloth covering his head. The only thing that could be seen was his eyes, which were an unnatural shade of red.

"Uh, Sir, if you'd kindly get out of my way, I'd appreciate it. I just sharpened this ax blade yesterday." Tyra said, while removing her hand ax from her belt.

The man slowly withdrew a dagger from within the folds of his robes.

"Tyra, now would be a good time to stop threatening strangers. Leucos, walk backward. Slowly." I said, my voice strained.

The man didn't move his head at all. His eyes simply tracked Leucos as he walked backwards towards me. Leucos was about two feet away when he stumbled, and then all hell broke loose.

---------------------Authors Note--------------

Another one bites the dust! I like how this book is coming along hehe!

I'm still not apologizing for this cliffhanger. Nope. Not gonna do it.

You know what time it is!!! Question time!

Who do you think the stranger is, and what is he going to do?!

How do you interpret the words of the riddle?

Okay, so I feel kinda guilty about not posting this the minute I wrote it..but posting order x.x

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