His Descent To Madness

Chapter Two

My feet hurt.

We had been walking for half a day under the sweltering heat with no end to the decaying forest in sight.

It would take two days on horseback to reach my family's estate, but now that the cowardly beasts were spooked we had to go on foot and I estimated the journey would take at least five days if I were optimistic, but I knew we were looking at something closer to a week.

My elation when Telmar reluctantly declared that my training must be delayed so that we could make our way to the estate with haste had long faded.

If I had known earlier that my feet would blister from this much walking, I would have chosen Telmar's beatings instead.

As if it wasn't enough just to have them, my blisters decided to have their own angry red blisters making walking excruciatingly painful and arduous.

I could only imagine what it must have been like for the driver who had to carry most of our luggage.

Salty sweat escaped from every pore of my body. It ran down my face like a trickling brook, stinging my eyes. I would wipe away at it, forgetting that my arms were sweaty too, and my eyes would burn more.

"Stop," I panted. "I need some water."

Telmar gave me a disgruntled look. "At this rate you'll drink up all the water by the end of the day!"

"It's fine, there's a river not too far from here. We can refill our waterskins there," I say, recalling the geography of the land well.

"Perhaps we should assume that all bodies of water are plagued like these lands," said Reia.

She had a point, but a part of me hoped that she was wrong. In any case I slowed down on drinking the water.

There was still that irritating dry feeling in my mouth and it was turning me into an irritable mess.

"Can't you use your healing magic to recover our fatigue?" I ask Reia.

"Can't you stop whining for once?" she said. "Besides, healing magic doesn't work that way."

Her expression and the tone of her voice told me she was just as irritated as I was.

It was odd because she was usually so smug whenever she spoke. As if she knew everything.

We continued our walk in silence save for the sound of our boots crunching on the ground and my occasional panting.

Even Reia was staring to breathe heavily from the exertion, but Telmar did not seem at all laboured and continued leading us forward. Watching him reminded me of a raging bull recklessly charging ahead.

The soft sighing of the wind was ominous. It rustled the wilted leaves and made my ears pick up and my skin tingle. It reminded me of the time when my father took me hunting, except there was another beast watching us, waiting to take two birds with one stone. I was fortunate then that I didn't ask questions when father told me to duck as he swung his sword decisively spilling the hungry predator's warm guts over my shocked face.

I don't know if we'd be as fortunate now. After all, the evil seemed beyond our party of three.

I didn't want to speak up and tell Telmar and Reia about how the hairs on my arms were standing up just in case I was imagining things, but despite my fear I felt an odd sense of appreciation for the dying trees, and I felt a sense of connection to the earth beneath my feet as if it was thrumming, beating, breathing. Like it was alive.

#

My ears pick up the steady rush of water ahead.

The sky was fire above us. There was none of the warm orange hue I remember from growing up here, nor the dirty no-nonsense greyness of the busy capital.