Giliad

Day 5

He woke startled and he couldn’t pinpoint what had caused the stutter in his chest. He’d had an odd dream, dominated by an insane woman who controlled water.

The rain stopped for a change … Giliad inhaled the fresh, earthy scent of the morning. The fog cleared rapidly all around him and his immediate area turned from meadows to an endless forest with a hill running above the trees like a wall. It resembled him that other night. He quivered, which hadn’t happened in a long time.

But this wasn’t time to dwell on the past. Giliad hadn’t been alone before the dream took hold of his mind. Somewhere there were Zuma and their bandit guide. They’d meant to travel to Soto to save Tzin from Butcher’s claws. Giliad looked up and determined the height of the hill. At least half a mile … a long walk up. This hasn’t gone as planned.

Giliad brooded for hours in the shallow waters of the meadows, always following the line of trees but never exactly reaching it. It bothered him to find a meadow of this size inside the forest. His dream had a lake in it. By midday he grew hungry, the mist returned obscuring everything to the south.

He didn’t hear the four figures emerging from the fog until their shapes were fully pronounced. Blood in Giliad’s ears wooshed and he almost attacked them—effect of an empty stomach—but then Zuma’s face appeared before him, it was a mix of shock, terror and delight. The bandit left the fog next and then two more persons came forth. A wildling called something weird and a girl. The girl gave Giliad pause. Her presence here was …

“Giliad!” shouted Zuma, derailing Giliad’s train of thoughts. “You’re alive.”

The Royalblood snorted. He expected to find both of his companions dead. They’d been in the Rain Tribe’s clutches. Their chances should’ve been minuscule. Despite the happy reunion, Giliad’s mood remained sour—partly because of the hunger—but more importantly because of the wildlings’ presence. They had no business here.

“We have a way to go,” Giliad said, annoyed. He meant to sound dry. “Let’s move.”

“Is everything alright?” If one’s didn’t know Giliad for four years and hadn’t served him countless drinks, one would miss a tick in the Royalblood’s eye. It vanished as soon as one blinks an eye.

The adult wildings stepped forward, carefully offering Giliad his vulnerability.

“Daughter of Rain guided us to you. She said you’re on the brink of starvation.”

His second snort didn’t sound very convincing, Zuma sensed his chance and said, “He speaks the truth. You disappeared yesterday. This morning, Wandering Rain found us and explained … that this girl knows where you are and that we should hurry up.”

Giliad froze. The dream slammed into his brain with a falling boulder’s momentum. This. Was. Only. A. Dream.

“It doesn’t matter …” His stomach disagreed with him. “We go straight to Soto. The sooner this is over, the sooner I can hit the road.”

The bandit nodded, he looked paler than before, and something of his projected confidence was not present. Zuma, on the other hand, had more to say. As an innkeeper, he’d been rather passive, and mostly a listener. This was a change.

“Wandering Rain will accompany us.”

“He’ll not.”

“Yes, I’ll.”

Giliad ignored Wandering Rain and began walking toward the tree line. The bandit and Zuma … and the tribesman followed. The Royalblood stopped and without turning around, added, “Get back to your tribe. We have no need of you.”

“You don’t have a choice,” replied Wandering Rain, his stoic tone sounded completely different from his little talk in his tribe’s dwelling.

“Are you picking a fight with a Royalblood?” It was not a good line … more, it was rather a bad line and Giliad cursed himself for resorting to such cheap tricks. His blood should not win this argument. The world was like this. Commoners were nothing but dirt on the Royalbloods’ shoes. But what was said, was said, and he wouldn’t take it back.

“He is not,” said Daughter of Rain smoothly. Her voice crept under Giliad’s skin like a skincrawler centipede. She sounded like her. Rain returned with a deafening might and the girl continued. “He doesn’t need to. I am here. I am inside you, boy. He does my bidding so I advise you to treat him well.” Although her voice barely more than a whisper, Giliad heard her with astonishing clarity.

Two hours later they were climbing the elevation. Daughter of Rain has stayed with the mist, the rain dispersed soon after her creepy speech. Dream my ass.

Harvey Logan

Harvey prayed to Garhala and he even considered a little prayer to Musalem – the Pantheon’s god of a forest as they climbed the impossibly high slope. They already knew that they wouldn’t get to the top before the arrival of night. It was going to be a disaster. At least this Wandering Rain fella wasn’t bad. He’s carried food from this village (animal meat only and tasty berries). The Royalblood was a different story. His mood has soured by a minute and each and every attempt from the innkeeper had failed. What happened to leave him so shaken? Yeah, the Rain Tribe was something else, many scholars at the University of Sagena would pay a gold coin to find out what made the rain and mists behave so weirdly. But the University soon was gone from Harvey’s mind. Even the Rain Tribe lost the remnants of importance in the face of tasks ahead. They were going to Soto where a bastard Royalblood ruled. If Giliad failed there, Harvey’s fate was going to be—gently speaking—worse than death. He didn’t want that. There was, of course, a contingency plan … an original mission he’d been paid to carry out. The House of Pacha might not be happy if he betrayed them, but Harvey believed that the House of Quilla would appreciate a blow to their rival. Hopefully, he wouldn’t need to resort to this. Making an enemy out of a Royal House was a death sentence and Harvey didn’t seem keen on meeting Garhala any time soon.