The Rider's Legacy

Chapter 3 | Lost

Chapter Three | Lost

Escaping the maze of Ithrall was a slow and tedious job. With Nethore temporarily bound to the ground and all the markers I had come to know in Ithrall, wiped out, we got lost more times than I wished to count. 

Dead-ends sent us back on ourselves and I grew more despondent every time a great mountain of rubble rose up ahead of us. Neither of us had the strength to climb the rubble and Nethore struggled to find purchase on the great sheets of gleaming metal. The air was choked with dust and the only reprieve from it when Nethore stirred his wings and sent it away – but it returned just as quick.

I ate the plant that Mazus had given me and managed to find a small jar of Tar in Nethore's saddlebag. We took brief rests and during one of those rests, I packed my wounds with more kit from the saddlebag. It was brutal agony even touch the wound Amon had scored across my torso. The skin around it was red and inflamed but I cleaned it as best I could and bound it tight with Nethore watching helplessly, whining every time I made a noise. I bound my broken hand to my body, teeth ground so tight that I feared they would fall out.

Night came with a bluster of cold wind and then a hail of thundering rain. We kept trudging forward and Nethore spread out one wing to shelter me. The rain passed quickly, and the clouds cleared above. Nethore craned his head upwards, drawing in his wing. A hum settled in his deep chest. For the people of Ithrall, the island above had blotted out much of the night sky, but now the inky dark was gleaming with starlight. The moon hung, fat and heavy.

The ruins began to clear as dawn touched the grey horizon. My legs burned but I knew if I sat and rested for too long, I wouldn't be able to get back up again. Morning fog rolled through the streets, creeping around unknown corners. Tension lined Nethore's spine, his ears perked and muzzle set. He was uneasy being bound to the earth and I didn't like not being able to see ahead of me any more than he did.

With his keen sense of smell, he could catch the beginning of decay that was trapped within the stone. I didn't like to look at them, feeling as if I were traversing a great graveyard.

"Some of these people might have survived, hiding away in their homes." I croaked.

"Demons were going to flood the tunnels. More would have died."

I looked away from the strewn doll on the ground, the little green dress and woollen hair a flash of bright against the grey. "We could have saved so many more."

"We did what we could, human." Nethore soothed. "If you say that, you will always be guilty."

I would think of things late at night, when the world was quiet and I was alone with my thoughts. I would remember these bodies, the smell of ash and fire, the screaming, the dark. All the people who weren't as lucky as me and didn't survive the falling island. Still, I smiled balefully at him, "You're right Ne."

We marched on. Beyond homes that had been cracked open like eggs, spilling furniture out onto the streets. Photos of strangers; a child on a man's shoulders. An old, wrinkled couple laughing at the camera.

"Gone." Nethore was sober. His own fatigue weighed heavily upon him, but neither of us dared to stop. Morning passed to afternoon, then afternoon teetered on evening-time. A fine sheen of sweat doused me, and my heart seemed to gallop inside my chest, so loud that I could hear it between my ears. I ate another bit of Tar.

The ruins of Ithrall ended.

Ahead, the grey seemed to simply end. A rolling hill of green sloped downwards to the glittering shore of Derralann lake. Beyond that, trees swayed in the cold wind that stirred the surface of the water. Nethore scented the air cautiously. "That plant is everywhere here."