Brotherhood Saga 03: Death (79 page)

A moan came again.

The hiss of a dagger slashing through the air broke the silence of the night.

Carefully, as to not trip and fall, Odin rose, dropped the silver-bladed sword to the ground, and held his black blade secure within his left hand.

“Virgin?” Odin asked, tempted to light the area with magical fire, but unsure if he should. “Virgin?”

No response came.

Odin’s heart thundered.

His esophagus constricted, dried, and threatened to bleed.

What should have been a scream became but a tiny whimper.

Unable to take the silence anymore, Odin thrust his hand
out and released an orb of light.

Directly in front of him, no more than a few short feet away, Virgin stared down the creature with his dagger drawn and his shoulders taut with tension.

It would have appeared that the creature that had been following them for the past few days was human, were it not emaciated and covered in a thin sheen of grey flesh, though what it was Odin couldn’t exactly be sure. He’d call it dead, if that alone were enough an inclination, but the fact that it did not reach out and attempt to tear his companion to pieces was enough for him to disagree. Its face appeared sunken, as if it’d been dead some time, and what little of its skull Odin could see appeared to have been polished to the point where the bone resembled a porcelain doll freshly birthed from the flames of plenty. While its eyes seemed to still exist, mottled in their form and reflecting back at him in a hue of yellow, they seemed to be anything but alive—clouded, mostly, like Parfour’s one blind eye after he’d been struck in the face hard enough to destroy his vision.

“Stay back,” Virgin said.

“What is it?” Odin asked.

“I don
’t know, but it isn’t anything good.”

The creature tilted its head to the side.

Odin’s nerves lit on fire.

No.

Was it just by coincidence that the creature was repeating the same kind of behavior the flesh summon that had followed him, Nova and Miko had, or was it too something that had been created simply to watch travelers through the Great Divide?

As it continued to tilt its head back and forth, seemingly trying to look around the impre
ssively-tall Halfling to look at Odin, it shifted on its back legs and its muscles tightened beneath the flesh, making it appear as though all source of fat had been depleted from its body in order to create a perfect individual. The behavior, so far as Odin could tell, was mostly interest, as the creature seemed not in the least bit interested in harming Virgin, but if it really wanted something to do with him, why didn’t it just come forward and try to communicate?

Maybe it can
’t speak.

Maybe, but if it truly were a flesh summon, then what reason would one have to use such a badly-damaged, obviously-torn body?

Unless they’re just mining information.

“It
’s looking at you,” Virgin said, stepping to the side as the orb of white light drew closer to the creature, revealing the damage nature had done in all its horrible glory.

“I know,” Odin replied.

“It senses your magic.”

“How do you know?”

“It’s completely ignoring me. Look.”

The creature
’s head tilted in a full circle when Odin slowly rotated the orb of light before its head.

“Is that why it
’s been able to follow us?” Odin asked. “Because it knows I’m a mage?”

“I don
’t know,” Virgin said. “All I know is—“

The creature opened its mouth.

Virgin pursed his lips.

Waiting for any form of resp
onse, Odin drew the orb of light away from the creature and toward his companion, who remained stoic regardless of what took place around him.

Come on,
Odin thought.

If it truly was a flesh summon and it had been meant to follow certain individuals, then maybe it
could relay whatever message it bore to them.

Odin took a deep breath, then expelled it.

The creature took a few steps back toward the line of trees bordering the side of the mountain.

“Do we kill it?” Odin asked.

“I don’t think so,” Virgin replied. “Whatever it is… this isn’t good.”

“Have you had enough sleep?”

“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?”

Odin needed no further response.

He turned and made his way back to the camp, ready to pack up and get the hell out of the Great Divide.

They came to the end of the Great Divide come time that afternoon and grew dangerously close to the mouth of Denyon as they made their way north, toward where they would eventually find the ‘Ela Alna Pass come a few days’ time. Tired beyond compare but not willing to settle down so close to the Dark Lands, Odin raised his eyes and threw a glance over his shoulder to look at the sky, which remained a dark shade of grey despite the fact that the weather had since cleared up.

“We
’ll stop later on,” Virgin said, drawing Odin’s attention from the mouth of Denyon and back to the path in front of him. “I don’t want to stop here.”

“Neither do I,” Odin replied. “Are you all right?”

“I’m probably much better off than you are.”

True. Considering that he
’d had very little-to-no sleep the previous day, it was any wonder he hadn’t repeated yesterday’s endeavor to lean forward and fall asleep. Though he probably wouldn’t do that, the fact that the option existed was all the more tempting, especially since he could barely keep his eyes open.

Everything
’s going to be fine,
he thought.

Now that they were out of the Great Divide, everything would be smooth sailing—that was, unless they ran into Road Runners near the
‘Ela Alna or bandits trying to pick off those less fortunate in the aftermath of war.

“I
’m surprised we haven’t seen any bodies,” Odin said, trailing his eyes along the horizon, where he could see nothing in the distance.

“They were probably buried long ago,” Virgin shrugged. “You wouldn
’t be able to see the gravesites beneath the snow.”

While not thick, the powdery residue of the heavens did cover the ground enough to where the dead grass couldn
’t be seen beneath it, which would shadow all tragedy that had occurred within the months following the assault and reclamation of Dwaydor.

What will the king think?

Ournul would likely be disappointed in him—incredibly so since he had abandoned him for close to a year. Maybe after a while he’d considered his champion dead, as there’d been no correspondence, or maybe he’d just dwelled upon the possibility that Odin truly had gone insane and had come to peace with the fact that he was likely still mourning the death of not only his father, but one of the best friends he had. Either way, it didn’t necessarily matter, as it wouldn’t be more than a few weeks before he’d be back in the capital and getting the berating of his life.

Sighing, Odin bowed his head, closed his eyes
, and allowed his conscience one short moment to recover from the troubling train of thought.

He had to keep telling himself they would stop soon. Only then would he not have to worry about collapsing atop his horse.

That afternoon, when they finally prepared a camp complete with a fire and freshly-cooked food
along a hillside, Odin passed out immediately upon lying down and slept for hours. Dreaming of absolutely nothing and resting contentedly among his companion and their horses, he rose only when dusk greeted the world and the sun began to fall in the distance, lighting the world in hues of orange, pink and red and bringing from the west the distant smell of ocean salt. The air alight with warmth, the sky no longer grey and demure, Odin opened his eyes to find himself lying directly by his horse, whom had chosen to lie down rather than stand.

“Sleep well?” Virgin asked, lifting his head from what appeared to be a fresh pot of stew.

“I slept fine,” Odin said, pushing himself up and running a hand through his hair. “Sorry about that. I didn’t intend to fall asleep so quickly.”

“Don
’t worry about it. Besides—you deserve the rest. I can sleep when the sun goes down and you can keep watch.”

Without having to worry about anything following us,
Odin mused, the thought giving him a smile that he felt couldn’t have been broken even if the worst news in the world had been struck upon him.

Shifting in his bedroll, he pushed his hands to
ward the naturally-brimming fire, offering a slight smile when his companion smirked before lifting a pot from the fire.

“Hungry?” Virgin asked.

Odin only nodded and accepted the wooden bowl.

While he ate, and as the sun continued to set, slowly draining the color from the world and shattering the sky in deep arrays of blue, Odin
’s thoughts fell to his companions in the north—of Nova and his family, of Parfour and whether or not he was safe, of Carmen and how she was faring without her husband and ultimately of the mage brothers, whom likely had escorted the warriors along the plains and into the mouth of Denyon. Eventually, he thought of his adoptive father, whom, by all means, had probably no idea what had occurred over the last year. He probably didn’t even know Miko was dead, much less his real, biological father.

You never knew,
he thought, sighing.

Though Ectris Karussa may have been his real
father, Odin would never deny that the man who had raised him had done a job most ordinary men would have never even considered.

“You
’re thinking about something,” Virgin said, drawing Odin’s eyes from his half-empty bowl of soup.

“My father,” he said. “Well, my adoptive father, anyhow.”

“Is he human?”

“Yes.”

“Where did you grow up, if you don’t mind me asking.”

“Felnon,” Odin said, setting his
soup at his side and crossing his arms over his chest.

“Ah,” Virgin replied. “Marshlands.”

“Not so far north, no. The Felnon Providence is only half-covered by marshland, and that’s only in the southwest.”

“Do you have much to worry about
in the north?”

“Well, no… not most of the time, anyway, though the rain does tend to draw Marsh Walkers out.”

“Funny creatures,” the Halfling said, leaning back and bracing his body upright with his elbows. “I mean, considering they’re so close to what the Elves believe they evolved from.”

“I
’ve heard,” Odin said. “From many different people.”

“Funny thing, science. It can explain so much about so little, yet most of the time there is really no solid proof.”

“You said Elves came to the mainland when we were still animals,” Odin said, spooning a bit of soup into his mouth.

“I said that, yes.”

“How are Elves aware of the fact that they were once Marsh Walkers… or at least as much like them as they once were?”

“Skeletons, mostly. Fossils embedded in the earth.”

“Were the Elves always so prevalent across the Crystal Sea?”

“Before the Godly Ones enslaved them, I believe. I wouldn
’t be the one to ask about that though. You’d be better off consulting an Elf.”

“Which I
’ll probably never get to do again,” he sighed, setting his empty bowl on the ground. “Thank you for dinner, Virgin. You should get some rest.”

“I think I
’ll do that,” the Halfling replied. “Thank you, Odin. Wake me when you start to get tired.”

“I don
’t think that’ll be for a while,” Odin smiled.

As the Halfling settled down into his bedroll, Odin couldn
’t help but smile.

It wouldn
’t be much longer before they crossed the border.

They cleared the Western Shoreline and crossed into the Ornalan Territory just as the snow was beginning to fall. The lighting muted, the atmosphere cloudy, the fog lingering close to the ground and shadowing the world in an ethereal light Odin found absolutely mystifying but terrifying—never in his life had he been so far south when the winter had been so thick and reckless, so to see an area he had previously traveled in the summer so shrouded with snow was like returning home after a long journey and encountering friends one had not seen in years. They would be different, of course, and they would be aged, but never would they have remembered you in the current state you were in—changed, enlightened and, for the most part, completely ignorant to the life one had just lived.

It
’s so cold,
Odin thought.
So very, very cold.

It wasn
’t as though the weather had worsened any when they’d crossed over the border, as the last two days had been spent along the fairly-clear shoreline, but he’d never expected to be thrust back into winter weather so quickly, not when the Ornalan Territory was never known to be placated by such things.