Path to the Void [Points of Light 1 - RPG fantasy]

1.02

The morning of market day, we awoke early. I groaned and stretched, staring at the dark sky outside, but to watch Min, you would think the hour was no different from when she usually got up. She didn’t bother preparing her morning tea, however, instead grabbing only a waterskin for the road. I pulled on the heavy boots I had when I awoke in the field, tightening the laces until they were snug while she shooed Hedge out of the house. Then the two of us shouldered laden packs of dried herbs and jams – more bulky than heavy, really, at least for me – and set out.

The forest at night was very different from how it had been during the day. The usual birds were quiet – everything was quiet, except for the rustling of a small, constant breeze through the leaves. The darkness made it difficult to see anything, which didn’t matter so much in Min’s case, but it took a great deal of concentration at first to walk, until my eyes adjusted enough that I could see the trail.

Once I reached that point, however, it was surprisingly easy. My feet knocked against rocks and roots, but as long as I was careful how I lifted my feet from the ground, I had no chance to trip. I felt the ground with my foot before I put my weight on it as I went, which kept me out of the small holes that sometimes lined the trails when larger rocks got pulled from the ground.

Min walked ahead of me, stopping sometimes to listen to the sounds of the trail, and we continued that way for several miles. At that point, a bend in the trail, she raised her hand to stop my progress, her mouth pulled into a frown. “Listen.”

I went still and did so, closing my eyes and training my ears to the small sounds of the forest. A rustle. The scratch of something along the ground, then another, and another. A rustle too large and loud to be the wind. The sounds still occupying most of my attention, I opened my eyes and spoke in a low voice. “Monsters?”

Min hummed, a quiet noise of assent, only barely louder than the wind in the leaves. “Briarwolves, from the sound of the scrapes. Not too much trouble if there’s one or two, but they’ll call the rest of the pack if they find us.”

The two of us alone couldn’t fight off a whole pack; Min’s best weapon was her magic, but that required some level of concentration. I was carrying the long knife she usually supplemented her magic with, tied across the back of my belt, and that was all we had. Briarwolves were not like regular wolves, that would run to find easier prey at the first sign of magic; that was one of the the things that separated monsters from normal animals.

I reached back and ran a thumb over the hilt of the knife, wondering if I could even use it. The underside of the neck would probably be the best place to strike, coming from the side to avoid the large, snapping jaws; failing that, the stomach would injure enough to kill one of the wolves eventually, but it would be a long death and might not do us any good.

I dropped my hand away from the knife with a bit of a shock. How had I known that? The thoughts were perfectly sound; my mind told me that the information contained in them was accurate, as I thought about them, worked back through the pieces more slowly. But there was no reason for me to have known that strategy so automatically, as though it was already prepared somewhere in the back of my mind.

I said nothing. Min, used to my silences as unspoken requests to elaborate, continued in her quiet voice, “Well, we’ll just have to find a way to avoid them. There’s no point in turning back now, we’d miss the market.” Her tone of voice, although cheerful, carried a weight in it that meant missing the market was completely unacceptable. I agreed wholly. “Aster, would you step a bit closer? I haven’t attempted to cast this spell on anyone else in some years.”

Magic! I stepped closer immediately, my eyes darting around in hopes of seeing the energies of the spell as Min gathered and worked them. Not that, truthfully, anyone could be expected to see anything – even if it were not the darkest part of night before morning, Min’s magic was of that same darkness. All I saw, while she hummed the spell into a song, was the deepest parts of the shadows seeming to come flowing from beneath the shrubs and ferns lining the path to wrap around our feet. My boots, already black, darkened with the purple tint of shadow magic, but the rest of the shadows faded away as Min finished her spell.