David Niemitz
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Guild Mage 136
🕑 Added 2025-03-24 19:50:56 +0000 UTCChapter 136: The Cenote
It had taken weeks to make their way north through the jungles of Varuna, using short, chopping swords to hack a path as they went. Keri had almost immediately grown to detest the heat, the heavy moisture of the air, and the constant annoyance of buzzing insects.
Airis Ka Reimis and his young son, Livari had proven surprisingly vital during the march. Both men had used the ancient word of their house, Ker, to cast their awareness out over the growing things of the land. The guidance of the merchants from Al’Fenthia had allowed the Elden party to avoid the thickest parts of the undergrowth, to find fresh fruits and nuts along their path, and to avoid the staggering variety of plants that could kill.
There were delicate, bell-shaped flowers of pale pink fading to yellow; brushing up against them caused a man or woman to see and hear things that were not there. There were thick vines with heart-shaped leaves that climbed high into the canopy, thick as a man’s hand at their base, that caused bright red rashes and welts to appear on any skin that came into contact with them. There were woody shrubs that stank, as if trying to warn anyone who came across them not to eat their yellow fruits.
All of it was so different from the north, the taiga and the icy coasts. Even the mountains into which they now climbed were subtly wrong, Keri thought: they were too vibrantly green, and shaped more like hunching shoulders than long ridgelines capped by snow.
Save for the peak with the scar.
Rather than a vibrant green crest, the mountain to the northwest looked as if it had been smashed with a hammer, leaving a deformed flank of gray rock bare of any vegetation. The line of Elden warriors, every man and woman who’d come west on the Æn'kevea Kesent, extended both before and behind him.
“It is a lesser rift,” Valterri said, coming up on Keri’s right side. “The scouts have confirmed it. We believe it is where the Lady of Blood was resurrected.” The older man’s appearance, like all of them, was much changed after long days and nights on the trail. Liv’s father had tied his white braids back at the base of his neck, to keep them from swinging around his face, and had stripped to the waist. His pale skin glistened with sweat, and his shoulders and back looked painfully red, burned by the brutal western sun.
“It matches the story of turncloak?” Keri asked. He gripped his spear, the Næv’bel, in his right hand, and he used it as a walking staff during the long march. He’d ceased any attempt to wear his armor long since, and it was now packed away with the baggage train. A subtle use of Savel protected his own skin easily, something he’d been grateful for.
Valtteri nodded. “Which means that we are getting close. Be on your guard.”
“Taika and Wildheart said they would find us once we came to the highlands,” Keri recalled. “And that it was almost all women and children.”
“Still, we’ve been taken by surprise too many times,” Valtteri said. “I won’t lose any more of our people out of arrogance or complacency. When we stop for the night, I want our sentries back in their armor.”
Keri considered. “What if we were to signal to them? Make it clear that we’re here to meet, and not to fight?”
“Not a bad suggestion,” the older man said after a moment. “How would you do it?”
“I’d wait for dusk,” Keri said, “and then send up a light.”
Valtteri considered it for a long moment, and then nodded. “We’ll make camp early, and see to it all our warriors have a chance to eat something. Then, you can send up your signal. I’ll tell Airis to begin looking for a good place to stop.” He clapped Keri on the shoulder, then pushed forward, making his way up the line of march to where the two Elden men from Al’Fenthia were choosing their path.
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Airis and his son found them as good a place to send a signal as Keri could have asked for, and with plenty of time for the Eld to make themselves at home before the hot sun touched the western horizon.
It was at the Inn of the Dancing Lady that Keri had first heard the word ‘cenote,’ but all of the company had become familiar with the off Varunian waterholes during their long trek north. All through the jungle, sections of the underlying rock had fallen away, exposing sinkholes that fell twenty, thirty feet or more down into pools of clear water, brilliantly blue under the hot sky, with sandy bottoms that looked soft as fox fur.
The Eld preferred to make camp at these sinkholes, if possible - not only for the natural beauty of the location, but for a chance to bathe and clean themselves after they’d hauled up water for cooking and drinking. They’d found little more than small fish and eels so far in the waterholes, though Valtteri had cautioned the warriors often to keep an eye out for predators.
Keri took his chance in turn, climbing down the rope with Linnea and Olavi, each of whom seemed to have made it their personal mission to be certain that he returned to Mountain Home safely. While the Eld from Al’Fenthia still tried to segregate the genders when it came to bathing, Keri had grown up clambering over the wet rocks that surrounded the hot springs of his home, and any awkwardness that might have existed between he and his two guardians had long since passed. Once they’d scrubbed themselves as clean as it was possible to get, they climbed back up the rope to let the next group take their turn, and headed for the cook fires.
The Eld had brought travel rations across the sea: hard bread baked with mana-rich grains, designed to keep for weeks or months on end; dried fruits, harvested from the shoals around Al’Fenthia, and smoked mana-beast meat of all sorts, including large helpings of caribou jerky from Kelthelis. To this they had added everything they could buy before departing Calder’s Bay, and the first night of their march had seen them feast on meat from the wild turkeys that often wandered into jungle shoals, along with peppers, onions, and beans grown just at the edges of rifts near the coast. The last of those vegetables now added flavor to bowls of thin stew into which they dipped their hard bread, softening it until it was something you could chew without breaking a tooth.
Keri waited until dusk before he stood to send out his signal. He walked to the edge of the rock that had not yet crumbled away down into the water, where the undergrowth of the jungle had not encroached. Then, holding his spear in his left hand, he raised his right arm over his head, and looked to Valtteri for approval. The older man nodded, and Keri muttered an incantation, launching a flare of brilliant light up into the sky. He didn’t need heat for this, but he held the light for a count of twenty, to make certain that it would be seen and noticed, and not dismissed as some sort of natural phenomenon. Then, he lowered his arm and returned to his seat around the fire with the other leaders of the expedition.
“Well, there’s no way they can have missed that,” young Livari commented from where he sat on a log at his father’s right hand. “How long do you think it will take them to come?”
Valtteri shrugged. “What they choose to do, or not to do, isn’t something that we can control. I’d rather we focus on what we’re going to say if they do meet with us. Airis, you’re a merchant. We need a guide upriver, and information. How do we get that?”
The dark-skinned merchant leaned back and shrugged his shoulders. “In any negotiation, the key is to find out what you have that the other party wants. Once we know that, we can make an offer.”
“We didn’t bring much in the way of trade goods,” Keri pointed out. “We came with supplies to make war.”
“Still, they’re savages, aren’t they?” Livari asked. “We could trade them things they can’t make out in the jungle.”
Keri traded a glance with Valtteri.
“Don’t assume they are less intelligent than us, just because they live out here in the jungle,” the older man cautioned the boy. “We’ve underestimated our enemies too many times.”
“Look, there!” Linnea called from her place near Keri. He followed the warrior’s raised arm and pointed finger to the horizon, where a wheeling cloud of dark shapes rose against the last, dim blue glow of the sky before all was lost to stars. Somewhere high overhead, the ring gleamed, but it was not between their camp and the oncoming shapes.
“It seems that we have succeeded in drawing their attention,” Airis observed.
“On guard!” Valtteri shouted, rising from his own seat and calling the troop to order. “No one is to attack without my leave, is that understood?” Keri made note of the way the man stalked up and down the cook-fires, making eye contact with each warrior in turn and not passing on until he received a nod of the head or some other acknowledgement of the order.
“These people may well not be our enemies,” the man from the farthest reaches of the north continued, his voice effortlessly carrying around the clearing. “If we can speak with them peacefully, we will do so. If they strike first, then we will end them, but not until then.”
Keri had commanded warriors himself, for decades now, all across the north, but that had been small squads of picked men and women, almost always from his own House, on brief raids against cells of cultists. Valtteri had the air of a man who could lead an army.
When the bats drew near, they circled above the cenote and the cook-fires once, twice, three times, and then descended into the branches of the nearby trees, where they hung down from their feet, heads pointed at the ground. There must have been dozens, though Keri had a difficult time counting them. He tried to imagine what it must have been like for his ancestors to see hundreds or thousands descending upon the field of battle, blotting out the sky with their numbers, and shuddered.
One of the bats, rather than roost in the trees, circled a final time and then dropped toward the ground, just at the edge of the light from the campfires. There was a wet shimmer, and the bat seemed to expand, until finally a man with long, unbound hair and skin tanned by a lifetime of exposure to the sun stood facing the Elden camp. He carried knives on his belt, and a longbow, as well as a quiver of arrows. When he spoke, it was in Lucanian, with an accent that Keri recognized: Liv’s bodyguard had the same peculiar sound to her voice.
“Who is it that comes armed for war to the lands of the Red Shield tribe?” If the man was at all afraid to be facing down scores of armed and armored warriors, he didn’t show it outwardly.
Keri stepped forward with the others, but allowed them to speak first.
“I am Valtteri Ka Auris kæn Syvä,” the older man said, replying in the same tongue, and then indicated the other leaders of the troop with one outswept arm. “Here with me are Airis ka Reimis and his son Livari, of the House of Keria, and also Inkeris ka Ilmari, of the Unconquered House of Bælris. We come seeking the Red Shield tribe in hope of peace. Would you give us your name, and join us around our fires?”
“I am called Soaring Eagle, of the true Red Shield,” the man said. “I will speak with you in peace tonight, but when we are finished, you must turn your warriors around and depart our lands. We will take part in no further bloodshed.”
“It is a great honor and pleasure to meet you, Soaring Eagle,” Airis said, the merchant’s face lighting up with an easy smile that had all the appearance of being genuine, though Keri knew it was well practiced. The Eld from Al’Fenthia put a hand on Soaring Eagle’s shoulder as if they were old friends long separated, and led the man over to the fire. “Would you join us in opening a bottle of wine? I find that talking makes my throat parched, if I have nothing to drink.”
By the time the rest of them had settled in around the fire, Livari had already uncorked a bottle of Lucanian red. Where he’d gotten it from, Keri hardly knew, but the boy was clearly well practiced in anticipating his father’s needs during a business meeting. “We, of course, have no wish to encroach upon your people’s lands,” Airis continued. “You see, we are strangers here in Varuna, and the counsel of your people would be invaluable to us. You said that you are the true Red Shield tribe? I hope that I have not gotten the wrong name.”
Soaring Eagle showed no unease or surprise when the bottle of wine was passed to him, and Keri guessed – combined with his ability to speak Lucanian – that the man must have spent a significant amount of time at Calder’s Landing.
Once he’d taken a sip, the hunter passed the bottle on and spoke again. “I say we are the true Red Shields,” Soaring Eagle answered, “for we are the ones who have returned to our ancestral hunting grounds. You have come here to fight the goddess, have you not?” He shook his head. “I knew this would bring war. We have cast her aside. We want no part of this.”
“Raktia,” Keri said, before he could help himself.
“Yes,” Soaring Eagle confirmed, looking across the fire to meet Keri’s eyes. “The Goddess who died and returned. The Great Mother.” He leaned to one side and spat on the ground.
“It was our understanding,” Airis said, his tone carefully even, “that the Great Bats were loyal to their mother.”
“Some, still,” Soaring Eagle confirmed. “But she does not care for us. Our last chief said that her return would save our people. But she sees us only as soldiers. I will not lose my children fighting her wars.”
“I understand that feeling,” Valtteri said. “I lost my own father to an attack by her people.”
“For that you have my regret,” Soaring Eagle said. “Were my people part of this attack?”
“Not that one, no,” Valtteri answered. “But on one of our cities. Soltheris.”
“That is when I left the mountain,” Soaring Eagle told them. “When they began planning to attack your city. I only wish more of my people had come with me. I am certain that some of my friends died on Eldish soil.”
“At least one of your people did not,” Valtteri said. “Wren Wind Dancer left Soltheris and flew south to warn my daughter.”
“Wren is alive?” Soaring Eagle asked, his voice and face both lifting. “That is good news, and unexpected. My wife is her cousin, and she will be pleased to hear it. Where is she now?”
“With my daughter,” Valtteri repeated. “Far to the south, at a place called Coral Bay.”
“Where the human mages come from,” Soaring Eagle said, and Valtteri nodded. “I am grateful to have news of her safety, then. What is it you wish from us?”
Here, Airis stepped in once again. “Information,” he said. “On Raktia, and where her forces are. And a guide upriver, to the bridge.”
“Knowledge, I can give you,” Soaring Eagle said. “The Mother Goddess has taken her followers far west, upriver and through the jungles, skirting the barrens where Silica prowls, and through the foothills into the western mountains. There she has uncovered an old fastness of the gods, long forgotten.”
“It has a waystone?” Keri asked.
Soaring Eagle nodded. “Yes. When we left, her followers were camped on the slopes of the mountain, but they will have built homes and walls by now. There are Eld and humans there, in addition to my own people.”
“Can you draw us a map?” Valtteri requested.
“Follow the river,” Soaring Eagle told them. “Follow it to the mountains. Keep the barrens to your left, until you come to the foothills. You will find them, or they will find you.”
“Thank you for telling us this,” Airis said. “But our expedition would go all the more quickly, and easily, with a guide. We are told there is a rift on the river, at the site of an ancient bridge. Could one of your people guide us there?”
“We know this place,” Soaring Eagle said. “But I will send no more of my family into this war. There are few enough of us left, as it is.”
A flutter of wings descended, as a second bat swooped down from the branches of the surrounding trees, and took the form of a woman, her hair unbound streaked with purple. “You say my cousin is alive?” she asked, striding up to the fire.
“If your cousin is Wren,” Keri answered, “I have seen her. She was at Coral Bay, and seemed well.”
The woman nodded her head, and then turned to Soaring Eagle. “I will guide them,” she said.
“Calm Waters,” the man responded, heavily, “you should have stayed in the trees with the rest of our people.”
“If Wren turned away from the dead goddess, more of our people may do so,” the woman insisted. “One of us must go, to speak. To save everyone who can be saved. If you will not do it, then I will.”
Soaring Eagle lapsed into a dialect of Vædic that Keri could not follow, and the woman responded, the two of them talking back and forth rapidly. Finally, the man got to his feet in obvious frustration.
“I will guide you to the bridge and no farther,” he said. “So that my wife,” and here he shot Calm Waters a sharp look, “does not leave our child alone. To the bridge, and then I will return.”
“Thank you,” Valtteri said, inclining his head. “We are grateful. My people will be ready to leave at dawn.”
Comments
Dave N
Name has been dropped once or twice; Wyrm in Varuna
Elinar Godly
TFTC Could someone remind me what is "Silica"? Thanks!
