Chapter Nineteen
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Aldora stood on thefinal broken step of the temple before the rest disappeared into the grasses and muck of the bog. She could already feel her boots sink into the mud and hated every second of it. She would hate it more when it was real. There was little left on her person but for some provisions she had pilfered from Calavia.
Stolen.The plants they plucked from within lay in hastily crafted knotted bags at her waist, made from her ruined cambric. The excess cloth she had left as payment, cleaned and folded.
She watched Vedikus return, stalking his way out of the mist. Anger had molded his features since that morning and she knew she had lost his trust. She did not want to lie to him nor evade the truth, but she was out of her element. If there had been another way, she would have taken it. It infuriated her that he was angry.
Aldora sighed, feeling defeated and nervous.
“Did you find her?” she asked as he approached, his hooves splashing water and his short tail swinging.
“She is gone.”
“And the encampment? Were there any survivors? Have any of them made it to Prayer?” None had shown up after them to disturb them during the night. It had always been a possibility, but she was uncertain whether the hag would allow it or not.
The fact that she still had all her blood and new clothes—although they would not hold up long—had given her a sense of dependence on the place. She did not want to depend upon it. Her eyes moved back and forth over the faded landscape.
“Three have survived and are in the process of burning out the rest of their camp. If they do not head back to the shore, they will come here and seek vengeance.”
“Let us leave now.” She no longer felt safe staying in one place too long, even if that place had food and shelter.
He rounded on her, eyes glinting with agitation. “Are you so quick to flee, Aldora? You have received a gift from our host, have you not? From a host who never gifts freely. I would think you would want to stay here and settle.”
She did not like him voicing her innermost thoughts. “I’m not fleeing,” she said. “But I’m not willing to stay here either. It’s too quiet...” The stillness unnerved her, and the flits of movement shrouded in white frightened her. The last thing she wanted was to remain in Prayer. “I choose to remain with you.”
“You had no choice in that matter, now or ever,” he snapped, eyes alight with sudden anger before vanishing again. She swallowed weakly. “It’s the thralls.” Vedikus had his hand over one of his axes. “They suck up the senses inside you then do the same to the land. This place is akin to an open wound so close to minotaur lands, but the hag and her minions have been here longer than my clan and will remain well after my bloodline is gone. Even in a land as dangerous as this, some things remain eternal.” His gaze sharpened on her.
Her mouth went dry and she hugged her arms around herself. “I have not seen them.”
The vial and its contents had not been given back to her to take. To see what she could become?
“Follow closely.” Vedikus walked off the steps and back into the high grasses. “And say your goodbyes, we will not return. You will not want to.”
Aldora rushed to his side, already knowing a goodbye was too much for this place.
The mist ballooned around her like a bubble in the early morning light to brighten up the strips of rotting wood cast about. She recalled it from the night before, but seeing the ghostly echoes of old life struck her in a way she hadn’t expected. She’d seen ruins and stone walls, hedges, and broken monoliths, but the wood pallets were too close to home.What would Vedikus’s tribe be like?
Ramshackle, decaying houses made from the same old wood appeared around her like monstrous sentinels in a quiet, grey field. Most no longer had doors, and those that did sat ajar and in pieces, hanging tenuously on rusted hinges. She peered inside the nearest one and saw broken crates and shadows, but nothing that would indicate the dwelling had an inhabitant.
Something moved inside, and she drew back.
Vedikus stopped a short ways away and waited. Aldora glanced from him and back to the shack, her legs tensing as she forced her unease deep inside. Groans and creaks, and bubbling pops sounded at her feet and from within. Shrouded by the mist, something approached, and she felt Vedikus’s presence at her side.
His grounded aura assuaged her budding fear when a nearly naked elderly man stepped from the shack’s shadows. He was followed shortly after by several others, all shrunken and pallid behind him, and all in varying states of dress. She sucked in a breath.
Dead white eyes met hers, emotionless, numb, hollowed of all that once made them human. One opened its mouth and moaned steadily, revealing grey, engorged gums where teeth should have been. Strips of long, nasty hair fell in stringy waves down their bodies, the same with their nails, which were spiraling away from their fingertips.
A screech and thump pricked her ears and she noticed that the old man was dragging a piece of wood. They all carried something. The two men that flanked the elderly one both possessed pitchforks.
