They journeyed deeper into the Withering Woods. Brode didn’t risk them stopping for long, even at night. The only sleep Holt got were quick naps here and there. Nor did Brode allow them to fly above the canopy to gather lunar motes anymore.
Going deeper into the woods also meant a longer journey to Sidastra and they had already been pressed for time when they’d entered. Holt’s lack of an enhanced Ascendant’s body once again slowed the group down although Talia gave him no sour looks this time.
On the contrary, she fell in beside him, matching his pace, and never overtaking. Her comradery gave him spirit. And that kept him going. Even when his eyes became raw from lack of sleep; even when his feet and legs protested at every step, he kept going.
As the sun set on the third day of their flight – at least, Holt thought it was the third day – Brode mercifully called a halt.
“There’s been no thunder for half a day,” he said. “That doesn’t mean Silas has gone,” Talia said.
“No but it does mean we’ve gone deep enough into the woods to merit a proper rest. Even our enhanced bodies cannot go on forever like this and poor Holt looks pale as soap.”
Holt swayed a little. “I’m fine. Really.” “Rest,” Brode said.
“I’ll handle the fire,” Talia said, and gave Holt a look that he wasn’t to try and help. He didn’t have the energy to argue the point even if he’d wanted to. So, Holt took a seat on the least mossy patch of earth.
Ash collapsed dramatically beside him. “I’m soooo hungry. Can I get some of the tasty stuff?”
Holt mechanically reached into the bag with their remaining venison. “I’m not sure how it’s keeping.”
Inside the cloth bundle the meat looked in decent condition, if a little dark. That could be deceptive. Rot in venison came in shades of red to purple; it wouldn’t go brown or gray like other meats. One cut looked extremely dark on the edges, but his nose told him for sure it wasn’t any good.
Holt tossed the offending piece of meat to the ground. “Don’t think you can have that one.”
Ash groaned.
“This should be fine,” Holt said holding up a bright steak. “Once Talia gets the fire going—”
“Just give me it,” Ash pleaded.
Holt tossed Ash the steak and the dragon caught it in his mouth and swallowed it whole. A spark of light ignited in the dragon bond but just as quickly went out. Clearly eating the meat raw didn’t lead to the same power spikes.
He made a mental note to write this down in his recipe book. If he ever got the chance.
Ash started sniffing, his snout edging closer to where the rotting piece of venison had fallen.
“Bet it stinks,” Holt said.
“Yes, but there are other things there. Scuttling.”
It took Holt’s tired mind a moment longer to figure out Ash’s meaning.
When it did click into place, he scrambled back at once.
“What’s wrong?” Ash asked. The presence of the insects didn’t seem to bother him at all. Maybe that was because he couldn’t see them. But Holt could.
Their bodies were like ants crossed with roaches. Each had three pairs of legs, the front pair modified for grasping, and each had long reaching antenna. They were roughly the size of Holt’s thumb and shelled in green- brown carapaces. They approached at a frightening speed but slowed down as they drew closer to the meat as though sizing it up.
“Something wrong, Holt?” Brode asked. He stomped over. “Not afraid, are you? These bugs are only little.”
“What are they?”
“Look like vethrax to me,” Brode said casually.
“V-vethrax?” Holt said. “Here?” He backed farther away. Vethrax were said to be omens of death, and wherever they came the scourge would not be far behind.
“Nothing to worry about,” Brode said. “You still have a boot on that foot, don’t you? Just step on them if they get too close.”
Holt cleared his throat and got a hold of himself. “I know… I was just taken aback is all.” He refrained from admitting the way they moved unnerved him, or that the thought of one crawling on his skin made him nauseous. “They’re an ill omen.”
“Nonsense.” Brode inspected the creatures more closely. “I’ve rarely seen them in Feorlen. Rarely see them at all in truth. They don’t like the light, tend to stick to dark damp places, which I suppose the forest is.”
“I’ll see to them,” Ash said. He stalked forwards, head low to the ground as he sniffed the bugs out. Yet the second Ash was within spitting distance of the vethrax they turned and scurried into the undergrowth. Ash growled lowly after them.
“Scared them” he said happily. The victory seemed to have injected fresh energy into the dragon.
“The campfire should ward them off once it gets going,” Brode said. “But don’t throw anymore aging meat to the ground. They like rotting things to eat and who knows what else you might attract besides.”
“Won’t they bring the scourge on us?” Holt asked.
“The vethrax aren’t the scourge. Folk mix them together because they come for dead animals. Still, I wouldn’t like to have them swarming around just in case. Any more meat that is going off can be burned instead.”
Talia returned shortly later, with little wood for the fire and a pained look on her face. “It’s so hard to breathe this deep in the forest. And I’m afraid most of the fallen wood is wet or rotten. The blight is in every other tree.”
Holt became aware of just how dense the trees were this deep into the woods, and how sickly they were. Half were infected and the air was twice as foul compared to the edge of the forest. No birds called. Nothing rustled in the bushes or treetops. It was a dead or dying place.
Given Talia’s hopes that the forest could be cleansed one day, seeing it this infected must have been hard on her. A distant dream indeed, Holt
thought. The levity of their first evening in these woods seemed a long time ago now. Talia’s mood had darkened further, that much was clear, even if she no longer took it out on him.
But if the blight caused this then could he and Ash not do something about it?
The foolish decision to take Ash’s egg had to mean something. He’d taken a risk not just to his own life but to his father’s and Ash’s as well. A sense of injustice had boiled over and pushed him to a mad choice. Something had to come of it to make it all right.
And he wanted to help Talia feel some hope again, even if just a little.
As Brode and Talia set about preparing their fire, Holt warily got to his feet. Every breath now seemed like a fight but whether that was the putrid air or his human fatigue from the toil he didn’t know.
He went to the most infected old oak he could find with piles of gray- black leaves at its base. Gnarled bark withered into rotting voids so that the trunk resembled a wizened face wailing in agony. A sheen of disease reflected the red of the dying sun as though the wood wept blood.
Holt strained to reach out to Ash telepathically. It wasn’t so easy when his life wasn’t on the line.
“Come help me.”
Ash answered with a warm pulse across the bond and the dragon padded over.
“Just like before,” Holt said. “When you cured Mr. Smith’s daughter.” “I remember,” Ash said.
“Holt,” Brode said, “what do you think you’re doing?”
“Probably we’ll need a lot more power than last time. This tree is… well it’s a lot bigger.”
“And the sickness runs deeper,” Ash said.
“This isn’t the time for experiments,” Brode said.
Holt faced him. “I can do this,” he said, sounding more confident than he felt.
“What if it hurts you, hmm? What if the magic alerts Silas to us?”
“Let him try, please,” Talia insisted. The look on her face made Holt all the more determined.
Brode looked between the two of them then fixed his scowl upon Holt. “Letting your heart lead the way again?”
Holt’s cheeks flushed. Then hoping to deflect some of Brode’s ire, he said, “What’s the point of all of this if I can’t help?”
“Stand down, Holt. That’s an or—” He snorted out his frustration. He couldn’t give Holt a direct command because he wasn’t in the Order. “We’re all tired, and hungry, and stretched thin. Let’s not make any rash decisions.”
“Let him try,” Talia said again. Her voice was so soft it seemed to break something in the old man.
“Fine, but I’m stepping in if I have to.”
Holt nodded. Gulped. And returned to face the rotting tree. “Here goes.” Then he reached for Ash’s core.
He didn’t really know what he was doing, as the only ability he could readily form with magic was his Lunar Shock. Blasting the tree didn’t make much sense but all Ash had done before was push a bit of his magic into Ceilia Smith.
So, he guided the magic down to his left palm, letting the heat form but not so quickly as a blast. White light flecked with purple began to shine. Controlling it was tough. Power flowed smoothly down his now practiced arm, but it pushed painfully at the edges of other pathways yet unopened.
A sudden kick to the back of the head made him alert and wide awake. The dragon song rang between his ears, but he kept the light swirling around his hand, not letting it go.
Ash gathered the same at the tip of his snout. It had all taken just a few seconds.
“Now, Holt,” Talia called, and the edge of worry to her voice urged him
on.
Holt pressed his palm against the slick, rotting bark. Immediately the
wood dried, the bark grew hard and coarse against his skin. That was good. It was working, yet every fiber of his body wanted to blast the light out of him. He resisted. With painful restraint, he pushed it gently from him instead as a Cook might push frosting through a piping bag: he pushed the power into the tree itself.
“It’s working!” Talia said.
Ash pressed his nose against the tree to help.
Most of the lunar empowered light was taken in by the tree, but now it began to glow from that power. White veins wove around the tree, so many
that it became a beacon. The tree sizzled and a rancid smell arose but without smoke.
With a gasp, Holt let go of the magic. The pulsing light of Ash’s core flickered but remained bright, a testament to the hard work of Holt’s meditation. The bond remained strong, nowhere close to its fraying point. Yet the departure of the power brought the harsh reality of his weariness crashing back. His vision blurred; his hungering stomach squirmed nauseously.
Once the immediate danger of fainting had passed, Holt looked upon the tree and his heart sank.
“It didn’t work?”
The weeping tree, so stricken with the blight, stood virtually untouched. Only the immediate area where Holt had pressed his palm against it appeared better for his efforts, a visible handprint etched upon the bark.
“I don’t understand,” Holt said breathily.
Talia gave him a look of deepest sympathy, bravely smiling where Holt knew she was disappointed, and it only made him feel ten times worse.
“No,” he said, as though if he said it with enough conviction, he could fix it. “No,” he said again, twisting this way and that to find another tree. He found another oak, one still more brown than gray. He made for it.
“That’s enough,” Brode said, intercepting and grabbing him.
But Holt drew on Ash’s core and hurled Brode aside with a sudden burst of strength.
“I have to try,” he insisted, as Brode crumpled onto the wet leaves.
Before Brode or Talia could react, Holt gathered white light in his palm and slammed it into the oak tree’s trunk. Once again, he channeled his power into the tree rather than releasing it in a Shock. White veins spread across the trunk, glowing and pulsing as the lunar energy worked its magic. The poisoned wood sizzled under the strain.
“I said, that’s enough,” Brode called out.
Holt fought to maintain his grip on his powers. “Just… a little… more.”
A strong hand suddenly clamped down on his shoulder, pulling him back. This time it was Talia, her strength overwhelming and impossible to resist. Holt staggered, nearly falling, but as he steadied himself, he heard Talia gasp, and he knew what that meant.
The tree was cured.
He punched at the air. “We did it!”
“Fool,” Brode said, shoving past Holt to place a hand on the tree as though he were trying to take its pulse.
Ash began bounding around the tree in celebration. Holt considered joining him, but Talia’s expression was reward enough. She looked more delighted than he had ever seen her.
“You really did it.”
Holt struggled for breath. The only thing keeping him upright was the gentle burn of magic. “I’m not sure how many I could do in a row.”
“It’s a start,” Talia said.
“Maybe once we reach a higher rank—” Holt cut himself off, his mood changing at once. Trepidation had spiked across the bond with Ash. He checked on Ash and found the dragon had stopped moving; his body pressed low to the ground, his ears pricked.
“What’s wrong?” Holt asked. “Something is out there.” “Ash can hear something.” “Scourge?” Brode asked.
When Ash next spoke, Holt felt the bond pulse harder. The dragon was speaking to them all and it seemed to take him some magical strength to do so.
“Heartbeats,” Ash said.
“Heartbeats?” Holt said. “You can hear heartbeats out there?”
Talia reached behind her back and lightly touched the hilt of her sword. “Probably just animals.”
“I hear and smell beasts all the time. I know the difference between their hearts and a human’s.”
Ash’s hearing was becoming potent indeed.
Brode drew his drew blade, the dark green steel nearly camouflaged against the foliage. “How many, Ash?”
Ash’s head shifted from side to side as he concentrated. “How many?” Brode was insistent now.
“A score, maybe more.”
Pyra stomped and growled. The trees restrained her physically but not her temper. “If they are enemies, they shall regret their decision.”
“It can’t be Silas and Clesh,” Talia said in relief.
“Their allies or Harroway’s are still a concern,” said Brode.
“They might just be Hunters and Jacks,” Talia said. “This deep into the Withering Woods?” Brode said.
“Harroway can’t have sent men in to look for us this quickly. Besides, if they are just a group of humans why are we worried? Not unless you think
—”
“They’re carrying weapons,” Ash said.
“How can you hear that?” Holt asked, part in awe and part in disbelief.
“Because they are almost upon us.”
