Night descended as they hurried north. Even if the moon and stars could help him, Holt couldn’t see them down at the true dark of the forest floor. He felt like he had entered a trance like state of exhaustion. Mouth parched, belly rumbling, eyes dry, and head sore, he shuffled more than walked. All he carried was his pack with the recipe book and some cooking utensils he couldn’t bear to part with. The others carried the rest of the load.
Talia was upfront and held her rider’s blade overhead. A constant swirl of fire encircled the sword, creating a torch for them to see by. Pyra stepped heavily and seemed unable or unwilling to keep her head held to its usual lofty height. Ash padded loyally beside Holt although the dragon was quiet. Burning out the cultists’ poison took its toll on the dragons.
A few hundred paces seemed like a league or more. Yet march they did, until a lurid green light flickered ahead.
They approached cautiously but Ash assured them he could hear no heartbeats. The trees thinned as they passed – chopped to stumps or rotted away – until they came upon a sprawling campsite. A ring of wooden stakes marked out the perimeter. The cultists had been close to them then. Yet what lay beyond the campsite stole Holt’s last strength away.
The forest floor dropped into a jagged ravine, its sheer opposite side half a mile away. He approached the precipice to peer down. A thick fog cloaked the depths of the gorge, through which only gray-green light filtered out as if through a poisonous mist. The air reeked of death and felt so close it could be cut with a knife. Yet it was more than that. Holt felt the
place press upon his heart, threatening to turn his blood cold and even suck the warmth out of his bond with Ash.
“Search the camp,” Brode said. He went off on some mission of his own. Talia began rifling through the base as instructed.
Too weak, Holt stayed put. He wasn’t sure he could have taken another step and found himself transfixed by the canyon. Above all else it looked crooked, unnatural.
“Holt, there’s food here. Holt!” Ash’s voice was like a lighthouse in this nightmare.
“W-what?” Holt said groggily.
He’d half turned when a small loaf of bread was pushed into his chest. “Food,” Talia said. “Eat this before you pass out.” She tore a chunk out
of her own loaf.
Holt took a bite and his jaw tingled as the muscles worked back to life. The bread was a chewy rye and tasted luxurious to his starving mouth. Good condition too.
“They must have been resupplied recently,” he said through a mouthful. “What makes you say that?”
“If the bread were stale it would be hard to say when it arrived.” He swallowed. “But as it’s not, it must have arrived within the last four to five days.”
“Mm,” Talia said. She gave him that intense studying look again.
Holt ravenously tore another large chunk of his bread and chewed fiercely. “What?” he asked of her.
She shrugged. “I couldn’t have gleaned that from bread.”
He swallowed a little too hard and nearly choked. “You don’t know when bread goes stale?”
“Never needed to know, pot boy.” She took a bite and it was clear she found it distasteful. “I admit, I don’t know how people of your rank put up with this stuff. It’s so… mealy.”
“It tastes of something,” Holt said, taking another great mouthful. “That white stuff nobles and riders eat is way too sweet.”
Talia shook her head and continued chewing.
They ate quietly for a while. As Holt’s energy and wits began to return to him, he found eating near this green trench entirely unpleasant. Judging from the eerie light, the sickly stench, it could only be related to one thing.
“This is a scourge chasm, isn’t it?” he said. He’d heard of them in passing before. Although he’d never had a clear picture of them.
“It’s not too big,” Talia admitted. “Could be why we never found it.” “Not big?” Holt said astonished.
“You’ve heard of the Great Chasm, right? And the Northern Tear?”
Holt nodded. He couldn’t have said where the Northern Tear was beyond the obvious geographical direction.
“Those chasms were the openings to the largest incursions in history,” Talia said. “The Great Chasm destroyed the Aldunei Republic in a single stroke. Ripped the ancient city in two. I’ve seen it.” She spoke as though the mere memory was frightening. “Saw it from Falcaer Fortress when I went to forge my blade.”
“And this is small compared to that?” Holt asked.
“It looks endless when you’re there,” Talia said. “I can’t speak for the Northern Tear, but it must be huge. They say it shook the foundations of one of the Storm Peaks until the mountain collapsed.”
Holt gulped. “So… the scourge attacking Feorlen came from here?”
“A lot of them,” Talia said. “The biggest bugs, for sure. It’s unpredictable where a chasm will erupt, but if the Order catches them quick enough then the waves of scourge can be better controlled.”
“I suppose the forest hid it.”
“Maybe,” Talia mused. “During the day, the green mist wouldn’t be so noticeable from high above.” She turned away from the chasm, looking back toward the cultist camp. “I fear we know why no hunters or jacks ever reported it.”
Holt followed her gaze. Brode had returned and was standing in the middle of the cultist camp holding a woodcutter’s axe. There was something unsettling in the way he stood there with his head and shoulders hunched. Even the dragons stopped eating to pay attention.
“There’s a pit.” Brode’s usual gruff voice had fallen to darker depths. “A few hundred yards west of the camp… I couldn’t count the bodies in the dark—” He seemed to want to say more but couldn’t. He slammed the axe into the ground and balled his fists.
Holt stood stunned. It wasn’t like Brode to lose his demeanor like this. The old rider breathed hard, his chest rising and falling as though he were struggling for air. How quick had he moved between the camp and the pit? Or was even Brode reaching the end of his Champion’s strength?
“We can’t even burn the bodies,” Brode ended darkly.
Holt looked to Talia for some indication on what they should do or say. Seeing Brode like this, almost defeated, made him more afraid than the chasm. Talia gave Holt a worried look then approached Brode as though going to his sick bed.
“Master Brode, are you okay?”
Slowly, as though in pain, Brode raised his head. He looked to her, then to Holt, then leaned his head back as if seeking answers in the stars.
“Spending a lifetime in an endless fight against the scourge could seem futile,” he said. “Even when I lost Erdra, I clung onto my duties. The fight had meaning, and I still had a purpose. How fate conspires to show you how naïve you are.”
Both Talia and Holt said nothing. What could you say when your mentor and guide seemed lost?
“These tents are military quality too,” Brode said. “Well supplied. This is no rabble.”
“I can’t piece it together,” Talia said. “Why would Harroway work with the Wyrm Cloaks?”
“You said he dislikes the Order,” Holt said.
“His faction doesn’t want the riders wiped out,” Talia said. “Just to take less in tax, or ideally take none. Pay for their own upkeep. That sort of thing. Everyone knows we need the riders because of the scourge.” It seemed like she was trying to convince herself it wasn’t true, but it was impossible to escape reality in this grim place. “Let’s say he did recruit the Wyrm Cloaks, why then would they be defending the location of the scourge chasm like this? Why would anyone want to hinder our efforts against the scourge?”
“Silas would want that,” said Brode.
Holt continued picking at his loaf. He agreed with Talia that it didn’t add up, couldn’t add up. “We went over this before and couldn’t make sense of it. Why would an anti-rider cabal work with Silas of all people? Harroway can’t have condoned Silas driving the scourge into the kingdom.” “And why would the Wyrm Cloaks take orders from a rider?” Talia
said.
“There has to be some explanation,” Brode said fiercely. “I won’t believe that Silas turning traitor, your brother’s death, his implications of
Harroway’s cabal, and heavily armored Wyrm Cloaks defending a scourge chasm is all mere coincidence. Someone set these cultists here.”
Holt’s thoughts still circled around the puzzle of the cultists. He remembered now what their leader had said and the question it raised.
“The cultist leader spoke of someone called Sovereign,” Holt said. Brode frowned. “I don’t recall that…”
“Holt’s right,” Talia said. “Only I can’t remember the cultist’s exact words. It’s not a term I remember from reading about the Wyrm Cloaks. They’ve rarely had a united leadership, and when they do it’s a Grand Master.”
“Maybe the name has changed,” Holt said. “Maybe…” Talia said but she didn’t sound convinced.
Pyra joined the debate then, rumbling deeply to let them know she was about to speak. Then her voice entered Holt’s mind.
“I recall everything that wretch said. He told me that there was ’still time for me to take my place at the Sovereign’s side.’ But I’d sooner die disgracefully than stand side by side with whichever fool of a human leads them.”
As Pyra finished speaking, Talia’s expression turned from despondent to ecstatic.
“That’s it,” she said. “Whichever fool of a human leads them.”
Holt blinked, still unsure. He finished off his loaf in the hopes that his brain might work better.
Talia barreled on regardless, more animated than she’d been in some time. “Who would the Wyrm Cloaks follow above all? Not some human. They want dragon rule. This Sovereign – whoever they are – must be a dragon.”
Silence reigned as the idea sunk in.
“A dragon, you say,” Brode said. “It’s… possible.”
He seemed to be warming to the idea, but Holt wasn’t so sure. The notion of an evil dragon struck him as wrong somehow. They protected humans. They were the whole reason the riders existed and could beat back the scourge. Then again, Clesh had gone along with Silas’s betrayal.
Brode seemed to sense his dilemma. “Dragons aren’t all that different from us, Holt. Anyone is capable of evil.”
Not Ash, Holt thought. He sent a pulse of his own across the bond which the dragon returned.
“Even if it is true,” Talia said, sounding weary again, “I’m not sure how this helps us—wait.” She pointed to the sky and drew her sword. Above them, dark clouds raced to blot out the stars, clouds that had suddenly appeared in a clear sky.
Lightning flashed to the west. Holt started counting. The thunder struck in less than three seconds. Silas was under a mile away.
“Drop everything,” Brode said, drawing his own rider’s blade. “We’ll run.”
