Satern, Fir of Febla: 33 Xiven

The more they walked, the denser the forest became. The forest floor rippled with tree roots; the mushrooms got thicker, some even standing tall and independent of a tree and basking the saplings in a soft, purple glow. Sweat gathered at Kayin’s temples from their pace, though Dhekk seemed unbothered.

“Can we—slow down?” Kayin asked. Dhekk responded only by giving him a look of disgust. “Fine, can we take a break?”

“You’re out of shape.” He had to walk in front of Kayin, stepping carefully between two trees. The air grew colder, though the humidity held the stale air in like a blanket.

“I was in jail.”

“Oh, yeah. Guess we do have a lot of work to do.”

“How do you know where we’re going?” Kayin used the thin tree trunks to help propel himself forward, to support each of his larger steps that he had to take over the mess of roots.

“I thought herbalism was your strong suit?” was Dhekk’s challenge. Kayin scoffed.

“If you’re referring to the moss, it’s a myth that it only grows on the north side. Moss doesn’t care about cardinal directions.” The ground had steady ripples from this set of trees; it was almost as if, in a way, the trees organized themselves so that their roots could all fit without disturbing one another.

“Nah,” said Dhekk with a laugh. “I’m referring to the hoodsmonk.”

“What hoodsmonk?”

“Exactly.”

“I don’t know what that means.”

“Where does hoodsmonk grow?”

“I don’t know. In Yatora,” was Kayin’s flat answer. He huffed and used his arm to wipe some sweat away.

“By fresh water.”

“Dhekk,” Kayin started, unable to hide his annoyance, “I think you’ve completely forgotten that I don’t even know where we’re going. I’ve never even heard of Ikan. I’ve never seen a real map that goes more than fifty kilometers past Yatora’s old borders, just a drawn one with major cities.” A felled tree caused his new mentor to pause, and at this point, he actually looked back at Kayin, brows raised.

“Really?”

“Really.”

“Huh. That sets us back a little.” Kayin took the opportunity to lean against the tree trunk while Dhekk dug around in his backpack. “Ah, not that.” Shaking his head, he placed a folded piece of paper in his mouth to hold while he used both hands to dig through his bag. That was the folded piece of paper he regarded before they left.

“What’s that?” Kayin asked, pointing to Dhekk’s mouth. The man wordlessly handed it to him and continued his search. Avoiding the splotch of saliva, Kayin opened the parchment, and twisted it upside-down to try and read it.

“This is Tidesa’s handwriting,” he recognized out loud.

“Mmhmm.”

“List of…cities?” Kayin noted, staring at the bulleted list. “‘Ikan, survivors to Kunnu. Urbana, likely. Dorr, unlikely. Tornah, likely. Kingsland, maybe. Meet at Kingsland docks on Morn, Fir of Junla’.” Dhekk made a sound of satisfaction when he finally pulled out a folded up document, but Kayin regarded the note. “Where’s Kingsland? We’re supposed to meet there in three months?” In response, Dhekk exchanged the instructions for a well-used map, and put the paper back in the bag.

“Yes. So this is a map—”

“I know what a map is.”

Dhekk scowled, folding his arms across his chest. Kayin got the distinct impression that maybe this was the incorrect response.

“Then read it and tell me where we are.” Oh. Well—that might be more difficult.

Kayin unfolded the paper that was the size of his hand to something bigger than Dhekk’s torso. A large, potato-shaped blotch covered the paper labeled Ronia. Well, this was the continent they were on, so at least Kayin knew that much.

Depictions of snowy mountains dotted the northern coast. On the northeastern most point was Borik, a massive city and language that Kayin studied with Natu. A bit to the south, a cluster of cities Kayin recognized for their sister-languages and a brief history of political strife over some sort of ancestral necklace: Harpin and Sor. Kunnu, the peace keeper beneath them. Kayin wasn’t very skilled at speaking Harpin or Sor, despite warnings by his language teachers that they were the basis for a lot of other languages in the world. (Really, he was quite good at Natu, which was the basis for all languages, so he didn’t really try.)

To the west, Veccie. East to that, just below Kunnu, was Tique. Tidesa said they were allies to Wakino—and the survivors of Yatora had to go through their territories to get to safety. Seeing it so clearly in colored ink made Kayin’s stomach churn.

Southwest to Tique was—the river! Kayin recognized the river that separated Yatora and Wakino. Southeast to Wakino was a very small city labeled Ikan. Amongst the drawings of trees and mushrooms were a few terrain details that Dhekk must have been using. A large rock they passed maybe two hours ago—maybe.

Dhekk said that they should arrive at Ikan before the end of the day at their pace. It was difficult to tell what time of day it was with the forest this thick, blocking so much light.

“It isn’t morning,” Kayin mumbled aloud as he thought of the taste of the air. Ichaemi, the air, tasted different when bathed in the light of the moons versus the sun; and, at this moment, it had a broader, wider taste than the crisp night. Dhekk hung his backpack up on his shoulders and watched Kayin study. “We haven’t stopped to eat, and the edias aren’t breeding yet….” Kayin shrugged, then pointed to about halfway between Wakino and Ikan, and showed the map to Dhekk. “Are we there?”

Dhekk let out a sound of uncertainty.

“Bit further to your right.” He corrected Kayin by moving his finger. “Not bad. We’ll be stopping about here.” He moved his finger by only an inch, next to the picture of a bush. “It’s a glade.”

“You know all of this by memory?” Kayin asked. He folded the map back up and handed it back. Dhekk sighed.

“Yeah. Been moving around a lot for the past…I don’t know, ten or so years.” Dhekk twisted Kayin around to shove the map between his bedroll and backpack, then pushed him to indicate for him to keep going.

“Why?” His legs didn’t want to keep moving. The idleness felt very nice—and his feet started to throb, now that they knew what a break felt like.

“There’s this guy,” Dhekk started with a sarcastic tone, “I think his name is Seven—”

“Fine,” Kayin interrupted to get him to stop. Even though Dhekk must have been about fifteen years older, he certainly acted younger. Kayin decided to try and lean on Dhekk’s talkative mood: “So why did you decide that you want to kill Xiven?”

Asking this didn’t garner the response that he anticipated. Instead of simply answering, Kayin watched Dhekk stumble over a root. The man’s knuckles blanched against a large branch that he swung out of the way, but he moved it so forcefully that it actually snapped away from the tree. He now held a cumbersome branch that he threw forcefully to the side. Kayin tried not to react.

“It wasn’t a split-second decision,” was his curt reply.

“Well?” Kayin urged. Dhekk shook his head.

“Not a story for today.” The shock of being brushed off so suddenly almost stung, but Dhekk didn’t waste another moment. “Pop quiz: What does white smoke mean?” It actually wasn’t until Dhekk had said the word smoke that Kayin started to smell it.

“Something’s on fire,” Kayin said. “But it’s really far.”

“No, white smoke means that the has a lot of fibrous materials that have just begun to burn.”

“I was observing what is going on.” Kayin rolled his eyes.

“Well,” Dhekk started, shrugging, “yeah. We’re a couple hours away from Ikan, now.” Hearing him say it out loud made Kayin’s heart skip a beat. For just the briefest of moments, his legs moved on their own accord, faster than he consciously meant to. Despite the fact that they felt like pure rubber, falling over them at a faster pace came naturally. Dhekk adjusted his speed accordingly.

“We—we’re looking for survivors and sending them to Kunnu?” Kayin recalled nervously. “Are we taking them to Kunnu?” Would they meet up with the other Yatorans there? And what made him worthy of protecting someone all the way to a city he’d never been to before? He couldn’t even dodge a halberd.

“We’re just sending them on their way,” Dhekk corrected. “We’ll give them one of our backpacks. Yours, actually.” The man turned around briefly to gesture, then used the same hand to help climb over a mound of dirt freshly dug up from some sort of large rodent. The sight gave Kayin pause, but Dhekk continued.

“Oh,” was all he said. The dirt compounded very easily; whatever made this mound did so recently. Possibly some sort of animal trying to run and hide. The cool compost felt nice against his skin; the sweat grew with his increasing heartbeat. He wasn’t sure which came first, moving faster or his anxiety. But one fueled the other, and at some point, his heart beat with every step.

No conversation passed between the two. Branches whipped at Kayin’s arms, specks of nature stained his tongue the more he panted. The air grew thicker the more the scent of smoke grew. Eventually, even the visible air in the thinning forest grew a gray tinge.

“We’re close,” Kayin said eventually.

“Listen for survivors,” instructed Dhekk. Though not even the edias chirped their evening rituals here. The trees grew sparse, the mushrooms all but disappeared as the canopy revealed more and more smoky sky. They were close enough to where Kayin nearly felt the familiar constriction ash had on his lungs, but he managed to stifle his coughing. The deeper his breaths, the easier it was to keep his breathing silent. It was contradictory to instinct.

Now that Kayin and Dhekk could walk side by side, it was easier to move faster, to fall into a light jog closer to the thickening horizon. Though once they were close enough, the open spaces between the trees revealed stout, wooden buildings. The closest ones didn’t catch fire; instead, scars of charcoal streaks stained the groves of the logs.

“Hello?” Kayin called as loud as possible; he might as well have swallowed bark with how scratchy his throat felt. Dhekk broke away from him after they had passed a few buildings.

“Hello?” That was a different voice, one that Kayin didn’t recognize.

“Hello!” he called again. “Where are you? I’m here to help!” Or try to, at least. The voice, strained, mature and higher than his, called again from somewhere to his right.

This wooden building had a large perimeter, spanned multiple stories, though Kayin couldn’t tell how high it went from the smoke. He ran, ignoring the aching of his bones, toward the voice.

“I’m—I’m by the theatre!” This woman had a less thick accent than people in Wakino did; it was almost strange to be able to understand her without any difficulty, the way her vowels sounded clearer and purposeful. Amongst her calls were a few others: children, undoubtedly.

“I’m coming!” Kayin yelled again. Though now, the strain of so much soot and effort made him pause to cough and wipe away at his eyes. Unfortunately, Kayin couldn’t quite figure out what a theatre looked like, and only had the distant call to help him figure out that he had to get around this massive building. He’d read about theatres in theory from the stories he buried himself in in the past, but he’d never actually seen one before. In this case, the shouts got loudest when he finally managed to climb a wide set of stairs and approach a set of double doors. Parts of the pavilion caved in, crushing the intricate designs with heavy trusses and overturned columns. Pieces of ceramic roof tiles filled every possible crevice.

“Are you there?” called the woman.

“Yes! I hear you!” Kayin stopped in front of the doors, his hands hovering uselessly. “A column is—” He took a moment to cough— “The door is blocked by a column!” Mostly. Perhaps if they broke one of the doors, they could climb through and over.

“Can you move it?” At her question, Kayin examined the point the wood broke from the foundation, to where it buried itself into the head jamb.

“Uh,” he started with furrowed brows, “not safely.” He approached it, nonetheless. “Do you have anything to hit the door? You could break it, climb through.”

“Oh!” The woman and the few children began to talk over one another, until eventually she shushed them. “I don’t think so—do you?” At her question, Kayin glanced down to his belt. Well, there was a short sword that Dhekk gave him. Would he get mad if he destroyed it by stabbing a giant, wooden door? Kayin had a feeling Dhekk would get mad no matter what he did. At least this helped someone, potentially.

“Um, yeah. Stand back!” he called as he unsheathed his sword. “It might take a while!” Upon the woman’s confirmation, he took his sword blade and stabbed it in the seam between the set of double doors, and began to try to pry them apart.

“I see!” the woman cried. “I think I can try to get it on this side, too.”

“What?” Part of him doubted what he heard. Was she implying she was going to grab a sharp sword blade and try to wedge a bigger space in a door?

“Keep pushing that same way!” she said. Kayin braced himself against the felled pillar and shoved his hilt toward one of the doors. The metal began to groan against the wood, squealing and bending. But, despite this, a small crack appeared between the doors. Through it, Kayin could see a dirty face of a woman, grunting and grimacing, as she used a large stone to brace against the sword blade.

“Jarde, that stone!” she commanded without looking. In just a moment, Kayin’s bent blade was joined with a rock wedged right in that crack. The resistance of the doors lifted, and Kayin pulled his warped sword out.

“Good thinking,” Kayin breathed. “You pull, I push.” The woman in question readied herself, placing her fingers at the ready right above the stone that separated the decorative molding of the doors. Kayin slid onto the column, one leg on, another still hanging off. He shoved his foot between the two sections of wood, and with a loud grunt, he shoved against the door with all of his might.

More loud creaks of dried and weakened wood filled the air, until finally—snap! Kayin fell forward, into splintering and sharp edges of a now-broken door. The top half swung open, falling back and limply caving into a pile of debris.

The woman, tall and lean, let out a cry of relief.

“Come on, up and through!” she said to the children beside her. She cared for half a dozen kids of all shapes and sizes with matted hair and skin caked with soot and dirt. None of them looked old enough to even be able to gather firewood for a village fire. Kayin reached for the different arms and pulled them over his lap and onto the other side. One by one, the children helped one another scrape over the column until it was their guardian’s turn.

With a collective sigh of relief, the group took turns embracing one another; Kayin dismounted from the column and addressed the woman. She already bent to her knees, holding Jarde tightly, commending him for his help with wedging the door.

“You’re a good boy, you know that?” she murmured into his mop of auburn hair. Kayin cleared his throat, partially to interrupt the tender moment of victory, partially because the dust and smoke was getting to him.

“Anyone else you know of?” Kayin asked.

“What?” The woman turned, releasing the boy to let him hug his companions.

“Other survivors? Trapped?”

“Oh—I don’t know!” With wide eyes, the woman rose to her feet. She dusted her grimy hands on her dress—which dragged all the way to the floor—as she looked around. “We were preparing for a show, and—” She shut her eyes. “It was so sudden—!”

“I know.” Kayin glanced amongst the different children. A girl with tight curls stared at him with wide eyes as she held herself tightly. “Come on, let’s get you out of here.”

The small group clustered together like edias in the Cold Season searching for warmth; their guardian, Beulilly, she identified herself as, ushered them forth.

“Who are you?” asked Beulilly as they entered onto the destroyed streets of Ikan.

“Um….” No one, really. But that wasn’t a suitable answer. “My name is Kayin,” he said. He turned to address her for only a moment before he held out his hand to guide the children over a large crevice in the road. “I’m—I’m from Yatora. I was told Ikan got attacked, too, so I came to help.”

“Yatora,” Beulilly echoed uncertainly. “That little village?”

“Yatora does herbs!” Jarde announced proudly. He readied himself on one end of the crevice, then jumped with both feet and a surprising amount of force to the other side without help.

“Yeah,” Kayin confirmed with a nod.

“Why did this happen?” The little girl with curls that stared at Kayin earlier clutched his hand harder when he tried to let go to help another child across. He frowned.

“Um, from—from what I understand, there’s someone upset that we don’t—that we don’t….” He was at a loss for words. How could he explain this to someone who probably didn’t even know the true name of her parents?

“Because we defied Emperor Xiven,” Beulilly guessed darkly. Kayin nodded to her. When the last child crossed the crag, Kayin had to physically nudge Beulilly to get her to move again. Her expression, from shock to sadness to anger, the way her eyes softened and hardened and her teeth bore with her cracked lips felt too close to home. Kayin opted to lead the way—even though he didn’t entirely know where he was going for the full minute in which he was elected leader.

“Quake!” Beulilly shouted from the back of the group. Kayin twisted around before he felt what she meant; loose rocks danced on the cobblestone road; the children swayed and fell to the floor, and soon Kayin joined them. The world rolled and shifted, jolting and sudden. His stomach couldn’t settle, and his chest might as well have had an entire horse gallop atop it.

“What!” Kayin shouted over the rumbling. What was this? Even as he clutched the floor, it moved beneath him, swaying and knocking him onto his side. There were no explosions, nothing to explain the shift in the ground.

Not far, as the stones began to settle, Kayin could hear someone shout with a cracking and coarse voice: “Heeeeelllp!”

He snapped his head up toward the sound, over the small line of children. He tried to scramble to his feet despite the steadying of the world; and though he struggled, the children and Beulilly rose to their feet without much trouble and rushed toward the voice just as fast.

“Hello?” Kayin called. He tripped over his own steps, but caught himself on a wooden pillar that held up the porch of a small home.

“Over here!” It was a boy—not much younger than Kayin, but young enough so that his voice still sounded childish. Kayin saw him jumping and waving his arms. “This man!” the child continued. “He was helping me—!”

As Kayin ran toward him, a lump grew more and more visible. A pile of wood and ceramic roof tiles, the feet of someone collapsed beside it.

“He hit his head!”

Kayin skidded to a stop beside the feet of the fallen man, his heart in his throat. Beneath a sizable chunk of ceramic debris was the bloodied body of Dhekk.