Hell's Bane (COMPLETED)

Chapter Nineteen: New Friend in Shadow

"This is bad," Susan muttered as they went on. "With all the kings captured, who knows what we're up against! For all we know, the Scavenger now has dozens of provinces on their side!"

Hugo held the reins tighter. "All the more reason to hurry, then. Getting the provinces on their side will take a while for them. If we can get Oswin's Chest, then there's a little time frame where we can go and take the Blade before all the reinforcements arrive." The explorer found himself lost in thought for a moment before he added: "I wonder how Davis is faring."

"Nothing that we can do about it," Joss said, waving the concern away. "Eye on the target, that's the best we can do. Karlin Circle should be nearby, right?"

Hugo nodded.

They continued with their horses, and around them, the only signs of life were the grasses stretching in every direction for miles, with small creatures scuttling about and squirrels climbing up the occasional tree. "It might be a bit of a difficulty to get into the tower," Hugo mused, looking around. "No one has ever set foot on Chandler Island other than the residents of it." The explorer gave a hollow laugh. "I wonder how much gold it took to buy that entire piece of land, and the lake around it, and the grasslands around the Circle."

"They bought that all?" Joss looked at him incredulously, as if such a thing was impossible. "Who would do that?"

Speaking so softly that the explorers could barely hear, Drea replied: "Somebody who wants to keep out of attention. Somebody who doesn't want to be noticed because they know too much."

Joss scoffed. "Nonsense, if you ask me. We also know too much, and we're attracting as much attention as we can. Mountains collapsing here, towns burning down there, murders everywhere..."

"You know what I mean."

The hermit all of a sudden turned stern and nodded. "I do. But it really does seem that bad luck follows us wherever we go, eh?"

Susan clicked her tongue and shook her head. "You need to get slapped in the face with reality some time or another, Joss. Death isn't a word you can use loosely."

The hermit looked at the ground and didn't say anything more. In his absence, Hugo cleared his throat and, taking a hand off the horse's reins, said: "Well, here we are. The bay of the Karlin Circle. You can even see the tower in the distance."

The grasslands suddenly went into a steep but gradual slope, where, at the bottom, pristine waters shimmered like thousands of diamonds. Though they could not see the other end, the faint outline of a jagged tower was visible. The explorers went on and only stopped when they reached the bottom, where but a thin line of pebbles were present at the very edge that separated the land from water.

"Just our luck," Hugo said as he walked over to a rowboat, tied to a small pier several steps away. "And for a moment, I thought we'd have to swim all the way to the island."

"That is pretty convenient," Susan mused, but something stirred in her mind. There was some part of the rowboat that just didn't seem... right. But the spy couldn't place her mind on it. Hesitantly, they untied it, and one by one climbed on. It had barely enough room for them – had Davis been with them, they would've hardly had any space to move.

Grabbing the oars, they sped off, with Drea and Hugo rowing them towards the island. The shoreline slowly went out of view, and soon they realized they were stuck in the middle of a vast expanse of water, with no land anywhere in sight. The explorers began to alternate between who rowed and who rested, and they slowly rowed closer to the island with every passing minute.