The Long Road (The Compendium of Raath Book 2) Read online

  The Compendium of Raath

  Book 2: The Long Road

  by Michael Mood

  Chapter 1 – When You Cannot Overcome

  -1-

  Crack!

  Crack!

  Crack!

  “Otom!” Raven shouted. He could hear her feet pounding the ground behind him, trying desperately to reach him.

  Crack!

  Crack!

  Crack!

  Crack!

  She grabbed his wrist as he swung and his strength lifted her almost entirely off of her feet, nearly causing her to soar through the air like a bird.

  “Don't stop me,” he growled weakly.

  “You're soaking the ground!”

  Otom looked around and realized it was true. The thirsty soil had begun to drink the blood that ran down his bare back. He relaxed the grip on his whip and let Raven guide his arm back down to his side. The pain set in then, and he realized he had been immune to it before, his emotions having carried him into some sort of trance. His back felt as if it was on fire and he winced, clenching his teeth and baring down against the onslaught of pain.

  Raven was trying to staunch Otom's self-inflicted wound, sopping at it with a bit of cloth that might have been a shirt. It was like trying to soak up a lake with a prayer cloth.

  “I need to hold this here,” she said, pressing the cloth against his back. “Otom, my God. You've really done it this time. You need . . . you need to stop.” She inhaled and her breath wavered.

  “This is my religion,” he whispered. His voice was still hoarse and unreliable after his years of silence.

  “But this is too far,” she said. “You know it as well as I do. Come. Come be with the others. Wren may know a way to Heal this, but I don't.”

  “I don't want to go near them.”

  “And so you have told me, and told me, and told me. And yet we follow them, Otom. We've been following them for weeks.” He felt her move the cloth around on his back, but he knew that it was doing very little good.

  “Why don't you go with them, then?” Otom asked. “Use them to get your story, bardess. Leave me here.” He was becoming rather dizzy.

  “Please stop your protesting,” Raven said. He could hear that she was crying, but his heart was hardened to it. “Let me have your flail. Please, Otom. Watching you whip yourself is horrifying.”

  “Then look away.”

  Her small, fragile hand rested on his large and powerful one. He and Raven were two creatures crafted for very different purposes. Her fingers had the dexterity to dance on her harp, filling the silent emptiness with music, Otom's hands were weapons of destruction. He bore scars on his knuckles from his fight against the Foglins in the Temple of Sin'ra, and Raven had been right: scars could tell a story, if you knew how to interpret them.

  Something within Otom relaxed as Raven came around and looked into his eyes, and he struggled with his emotions as his breath came in sudden gasps. “You're right. I think I've really done it to myself this time,” he said.

  “I know you miss her,” said Raven. “But you have to carry on for her, not destroy yourself for her.”

  “You have no idea,” Otom said. “I thought I had failed her once, then I found her. When I set eyes on Allura after those thirteen years, everything made sense again. You search and search and search in this chaotic world. For what? I don't know.” He coughed and his back bled more. “I looked for answers in God, and I tethered myself so strongly to the other Monks and their order that I was sure I would find those answers. I found peace, but it was slow going, tentative. God took me away from her. God brought me back to her. God took me away again.”

  Otom suddenly found himself face-down on the ground and felt blood trickling down his sides.

  He and Raven had been following Wren, Heather, and their ever-changing menagerie of animal familiars, always staying behind the group, never interacting. Otom suddenly realized how stupid that seemed. If he was going to follow God's plan, then he would need to get up off the ground and go to Wren and give her the artifact he carried. That was what the tome had instructed him to do.

  But he wasn't sure he had the strength.

  He could feel the branch from the Dryad Tree pressing against his hip and he knew that it was the thing that Wren needed. The object that God had had him transport across all this distance and time. But he held onto it childishly. It was the last surviving thing from his old life and he didn't want to part with it. The pointed end that he had used to murder the woman was still sharp even after years of sitting in the bottom of his wardrobe at the Kilgane Monastery. The leaves, which had once been a vibrant green, were now the red color of the blood that the branch had drunk from its victim.

  As if reliving that scene wasn't grisly enough, Otom's recent goodbye to Allura replayed in his mind, slowly this time, like he was caught in a dream. When he wasn't doing anything it always lingered there. Even without hair she had still been beautiful, and Otom's heart broke again thinking of her. She had seemed so strong as he had watched her walk into the distance.

  She's probably on the ocean by now. Across the world.

  His vision began to blur and Otom tried to move his lips but couldn't.

  As his eyes closed he heard Raven say, “Oh you stubborn, stubborn idiot!”

  He couldn't disagree as the world around him melted to black.

  -2-

  The first thing he felt was a cooling sensation on his back.

  The first thing he smelled was wet animal fur.

  Otom opened his puffy eyes as far as they would go. It wasn't far. He peered around slowly, turning his neck gingerly. He was still laying on his stomach, but this wasn't the place where he had passed out.

  “That's right,” Heather said from somewhere above him. She was an old woman by anyone's standards, and her voice was high and light with a little bit of a waver to it.

  Otom could feel hands moving on his back now; the sensation was both pleasurable and awful at the same time. He had gotten used to waiting for wounds to heal during his time as a tournament fighter, but this sensation made him want to get up and run.

  His flesh felt like a thing alive, pulling and tugging itself together, as if tiny ants were closing his wounds, their little mandibles forcing the skin together. Knowing that Wren and Heather were Protectors – sometimes called Nature Witches by the less tolerant – led him to believe that perhaps this analysis wasn't far from the truth.

  He had never been Healed before. Not with magic. He had always had tourniquets, splints, herbs, and the like. This was a rather foreign experience.

  “That's right, Wren,” Heather instructed. “Reach into your Well. Ignore the outward wound for now, feel only what needs to be healed within.”

  “There's . . . so much blood,” Wren said. “So many cuts. Gouges.”

  Raven sat to Otom's left gazing off to the north and looking completely exhausted. Her clothing was soaked with sweat despite the fact that the day was cold. They had been skirting the southern border of the Northern Kingdom on their way to the city of Benshar where the tome had said their apparent destinies lay. What he and Wren were supposed to do there hadn't been written in the tome, or perhaps Allura hadn't been able to find it.

  A snuffling nose inside of his ear jolted him. It has to be that bear. Wren had called it by some name, but Otom couldn't remember what. The bear was huge, and having it this close to his head was somewhat disconcerting.

  “That's right, bear,” Raven said. “Eat his head. It will make him a lot lighter to drag around in the future.”

  “You dragged me here?” Otom managed to whisper.

  “I dragged you, I shouted, I ran ahead, I came back to you, I dragged you some more. Finally the Protectors came back for you. I had to do what I did. You were dying. Oh, Otom. The look of your face. So pale. Don't do this to me again. I'm going to write a hero's story about you, and it's best if the hero lives to the end. Well, that's not exactly true. Sometimes the hero dies and it's heroic. But no great story I've ever known ended with the hero whipping himself to death!”

  “Hold still,” Wren said, pushing down on Otom who hadn't realized he'd been trying to rise. “This . . . isn't easy. Raven . . . you're gonna need to be quiet.”

  Raven looked slightly hurt, but she was silent. The dark-haired woman had a habit of letting her mouth run wild. It didn't really didn't bother Otom. After being in the company of many totally silent Monks for thirteen years it was actually refreshing to hear someone chatter so freely.

  The tugging sensation in his back began to subside, and the goosebumps started to fade from his flesh. Wren was panting above him, sounding for all the world like she had just run thirty bands. Then she began retching, making horrid heaving sounds. Otom tried to push himself up again, but found he lacked the strength.

  “Breathe, breathe,” Heather instructed.

  Otom heard the light tapping of horse hooves, the swish of bird wings, and other living sounds as animals ran over to Wren.

  “My baby!” the girl wailed. “My baby!”

  Raven was on her feet, wobbling weakly towards Wren.

  “It's alright, girl,” Heather reassured her. “I can feel it. Everything is fine.”

  Otom had finally managed to shift himself onto his side, having to wriggle like a fish out of water to do even that. He saw that Wren sat on the ground with the animals around her. There was the bear with the mouse o
n his head, four birds of various colors, two deer, the white foal with the odd forehead, three goats that must have followed them all the way from the Frost Mountains, and a few larger insects that buzzed around the girl's head in a swirling pattern.

  “There was so much blood on his back,” Wren said, swallowing hard. “Is that what it's going to be like . . . when my baby comes? Blood . . . everywhere?” She heaved again.

  “We'll deal with that when we get there,” Heather said.

  Wren showed no outward signs of carrying a child, so Otom was unsure how far into it she was, but the girl was obviously scared and distressed over it.

  Raven was uncharacteristically quiet, simply rubbing Wren's back gently. She was offering no verbal opinions or advice. Otom thought that was probably for the best at this point.

  “What do we do now?” Wren asked. Her eyes were always searching for answers.

  “For now,” Heather said, looking at Otom, “we rest. Monk, I know you are not up to making our Fire, so we will have to build it ourselves.”

  Otom nodded, or at least thought he did. The movement was slight and he wouldn't have been surprised if no one had seen it. His power to conjure Fire would take more energy than he had at this point, so he lay weakly and waited to be taken care of like an ailing farm animal.

  He felt something strong inside himself, though. He found that his magical power was building faster now. He had thought, with the loss of his Vow of Silence, that it would come slower. But he had sacrificed far more than that now: Allura. He wondered how fast power would flow into him if he retook his Vow. He wouldn't find out anytime soon. You couldn't just do it; it had to be done at a Monastery, and he was unaware of any in the area.

  But that was for later. He found that he rather liked being able to talk for now.

  Raven and Wren both set down large armfuls of firewood and Heather set to work at it with flint as the animals backed away, fear in their eyes. Aside from his trip to the Dryad Tree those thirteen years ago Otom had never had any meaningful contact with Protectors and found each interaction immensely interesting.

  Heather whispered to and pet the animals in a pattern that at first seemed random, but then Otom realized it was like being at a tournament. The animals were the crowd. Heather and Wren were the fighters, or something akin to that. The spectacles. The animals watched, curious and in awe, as their caretakers set up camp for the night.

  -3-

  Otom lay on his side near the fire. Wren and Raven had helped him move close to the warming flames. He was still dizzy.

  Raven had her harp out but wasn't playing a song on it, merely strumming and fondling it idly with her long, graceful fingers. Wren and Heather sat together across from him. Wren's arm lay over the shoulders of her huge, sleeping bear and Otom could see the whiskers of the mouse sticking up out of Wren's shirt pocket. No matter what other animals came and went, those two were constant companions and held some sort of special place.

  “How far away do you think we are?” Raven asked, breaking the silence.

  “I am unsure,” Heather replied. “I haven't been through this area in . . . a very long time.” She chuckled.

  “We won't miss it?” Wren asked.

  “Oh, I doubt that. Benshar is also known as the city of lights. It's said it can be seen for bands and bands. I thought you grew up around here, young Chosen.”

  Wren's cheeks got visibly pinker. “I worked on our farm. Not a lot of travel.”

  “Getting to see the world now, though, aren't ya?” Raven asked. “Exciting isn't it? Lots of stuff to see and do. Lots of interesting people to meet!” Raven was ever ready to be alert and boisterous.

  Wren, however, always seemed to be looking down at the ground.

  “Heather's right. We won't miss it,” Otom managed to say. He could feel the closed wounds on his back pull as he talked. “I can Detect human presences in a wide area. Once I'm . . . once I'm feeling better there's no way we'll miss a large city like Benshar. I remember some good tournament fighters coming out of there.”

  Raven put her hand gently on his head. “You can tell us about it tomorrow, Otom. We all need to get some sleep. It's cozy here amongst the sheep.” Raven nodded her head looking pleased. “Good rhyme. That's definitely going in one of my songs.”

  Otom heard the sounds around him - so alive - and as he tried to gently settle his body, the branch from the Dryad Tree poked him in the ribs to remind him it was there.

  She doesn't need you yet, he told it. You're mine. The last reminder of my old life, and some of my greatest sins.

  He relaxed and sleep took him immediately.

  -4-

  He awoke to a silence that seemed somehow greater than usual.

  The night air was filled with the scents of animals. The sleeping things looked like great, hairy rocks that moved slightly as they breathed. The fire had died down, as regular fires did. Nothing out of place there.

  But something was wrong. Otom shimmied along the ground, turning his body slowly, his back issuing complaints. Wren and Heather lay on the ground on the other side of the fire. He kept turning. There was Raven's harp case. But there was no lump where Raven should have been.

  Otom pressed his hands against the ground, trying to get the strength to push himself up. He was able to see a bit further as his muscles screamed at him.

  Raven's sleeping roll was empty and there was a trail of boot prints in the snow near it. Otom dragged himself silently and painfully along the ground, following the tracks. He tried to pulse his Detection and found the sensation excruciating. He only sensed a small area, and only for a brief second, but if Raven was still here she wasn't close.

  Otom felt like a snail as he dragged himself along the ground.

  The single pair of boot prints gave way to many. There had been more people here.

  Otom had grown up as a fighter, but also a hunter and a tracker. He pieced it together. Raven had left her sleeping roll of her own volition, but then something had happened. There had been a struggle here – what must have been a surprisingly silent one from Raven – and she was gone.

  Raven had been taken.

  Chapter 2 – The Wheels of an Empire

  -1-

  There's been no apocalypse here.

  Halimaldie had expected destruction, fires, and many dead citizens. Haroma in chaos. But the Foglins and their masters weren't in charge here. Whatever disgusting people Tellurian had been working with had failed. Or perhaps had been merely delayed and forced back underground. The rumors on the streets were vague and uninformed. Halimaldie had to hand it to King Maxton: the man handled his kingdom well.

  Halimaldie had done his part to defend this place. He thought back to the day, not all that long ago, that he had slain a tiny Foglin with one of his daggers. He felt a little proud, but still a lot terrified. His world had changed now that he knew the truth. He had seen the Foglins with his own eyes, both here in Haroma and at the Temple of Sin'ra.

  He had seen his brother bleed to death at his feet while he had stood helplessly over him.

  When Tellurian had died, the remaining Foglins had run from the Temple, pouring out the doors and windows like a disgusting black tide.

  Somehow his brother had been in control of that force.

  Halimaldie wiped his eyes with the back of his gloved hand to rid himself of the tears that still lingered there whenever his mind fell on his brother. The black disease still festered beneath his glove. It hadn't spread since Yarrow had worked her Healing on it, but it hadn't gone away either. His hand pulsed when Foglins were near, a useful weapon in these times. But for some reason it hadn't pulsed at the Temple. Tellurian had somehow been masking the Foglins. It was the only logical conclusion.

  He knew some type of magic. He was a mage. A few months ago he hadn't even believed magic existed. Now he was confronted with the truth over and over again. Telin, Kelin, Trance, Yarrow, Tellurian, and now himself.

  Did I do something to Tellurian's mind at the Temple of Sin'ra? His brother had almost let himself be caught. It seemed a rather stupid thing to do. And Halimaldie had felt something different inside of himself. He couldn't be sure what it was.