Eragos Feareborne (proscribed) wrote in caeleste, @ 2009-04-18 14:34:00 |
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Entry tags: | eithne savastian, eragos feareborne, npc, sleeping tiger, tanist leoncour, the grey riders, thiele varchardt, vera of beit-orane |
pillar of smoke, pillar of fire (vera, eithne, sleeping tiger, thiele, tanist)
"Pigeons," Birloch said quietly.
"Lots of 'em," Raed added with a stabbing glare.
"And you saw all this," Eragos said with a wry tinge of his voice. "From behind the bushes."
"You'd be surprised what you can see when ya ain't runnin' around like a madman wavin' some huge sw-"
Raed cut off with a yelp.
In the hideous one day journey that had brought them back to this camp there was little more time for talking. Oddly enough it was Elden who seemed to suffer the most for their walk. When the White Riders would slow their pace to let the mage keep up, he would wave them off, as though thinking of something else. Pillar of smoke by day and pillar of fire by evening was the way it went. So that now, they were a half-mile away from the forest that burned. And it burned brightly there in the distance. The entire wooded area was one harsh light in the darkness of the night. If there was smoke, he saw it only in the way that it seemed Birloch licked a drop of blood from the tip of his knife, and then shoved the thing into his belt. Disgusting. But perhaps he'd made his point. Raed no longer seemed interested in talking. He only seemed interested in rubbing his side and glaring at his fellow Rider. Eragos turned once again to the terrible sight of the world burning away one of its last mysteries. There was no proof but what they said when it came to the contents of that place. No proof but what they said. Eragos didn't know how long it was going to last, this quiet.
He wanted it to last forever.
Birloch's report had been terse. With a few details that Tirad had filled in - and Raed's constant, almost meandering additions that subtracted - the White Riders had painted a picture of the hours after their comrades had gone into the woods. Their story truly started with the fire from the sky. A single light went up, Birloch said, and around one hundred had come down. Whatever happened after that he didn't know. Until the Grey Riders came pouring out of the forest.
"In a column," Tirad said. "There was a man at the head, face wrapped in bandages."
"Like a military unit," Raed jammed his opinion in.
"Boy, if you don't learn to shut up..."
"What, gramps, are you gonna teach me then?"
"The pigeons were carrying messages. They must have released hundreds of the things."
A man at the fore. Face wrapped in bandages. It could only be Talon. To think that he hadn't taken the time to heal his face. Perhaps he'd have one to match Seca, now. The thought was unkind as it was true. The scars on their faces were their hatreds and their petty power-seeking madness given form. Massive cancers that no discerning eye could ignore, sapping the light and the warmth out of their eyes. Eragos was glad they were marked. He hoped to make one final mark upon his brother, but that was something he'd wish for later. For now there were more pressing issues. Such as the fact that he'd assumed - during the overland hike that had brought them back to this place - that the others would be waiting for them. Vargis and Sleeping Tiger and Eithne, and Hasna. No reason to think they were ever coming out now. The thought sickened him. The thought sickened all of them, but he made enough time to vomit into the bushes they'd been hiding behind. Wordlessly the big man - Grees was his name - offered a kerchief.
The entire journey he'd felt certain that someone was going to die in that forest. A great many of them had. In the field of the dead where their grave would stay, he'd confessed his love to the woman who had room for only one love in her life. And then he'd buried his friend, his compatriot and his charge in the woods with a stranger to guide them. Grees didn't seem to understand how that felt. He was stoic as he looked on, first to Eragos and then to the trees beyond. Tirad squired both Birloch and Raed back to the campfire. Their boots were all weathered and worn - that was part of being a Rider, part of belonging to this patchwork tribe - but today those sounds were hard. He didn't want to hear them. Didn't want to know them. And though he didn't weep it was a near thing. Mask in hand, Eragos came to one knee, long enough to wipe the corner of his mouth. All of them, dead. Or he could believe that... if anything was still alive in that inferno it was never coming out again. They didn't seem to realize that they didn't have a chance. And even if they did have a chance, it was slim enough that it didn't matter.
All of them were going to die.
He'd buried them, today.
"Don't worry, I won't think ill of you," Grees informed him laconically. 'You never did seem like the kind to weep."
"You can't know how much that means to me."
"But," and Grees narrowed one eye, his hand rubbing his chin. "I could make a fair guess."
It was only when he sat around the campfire, and took a slug of whiskey from a jar that Raed had produced to astonished results, that he felt anything like himself. Normally he didn't drink. And if he did, it was sour ale in some tavern that could give him information of one kind or another. Today he felt like he could drink the entire jug. Dead. And if not dead, trapped. Going back in was suicide, as Elden had admonished him more than once. If they did that, one stray gust of hot wind could snatch a map from a man's hands. Their luck was used up. Vargis had enough luck for ten men - twenty - but Eragos couldn't have said how much was needed to escape Hatharida. He knew exactly how much he'd needed, and he didn't think the old man had enough for that. It had to be... it had to be enough. The thought of riding away with only ash behind them, and lighter in their party for the cost of failure, was more than he could bear. Made his stomach tense. So when he issued his orders, he found two things curious amid the feelings that were writhing through his chest.
First, that he was able to issue them in a steady voice.
Second, that the orders were accepted.
"We'll wait another day," he rasped in the voice of a man who'd just swallowed too much whiskey. "Then we'll move on. With any luck, Cols has reached Agethlea by now. And they'll be ready for us."
It sounded more ominous than he'd intended.