Chapter 3: A Period of Mourning

Her eyelids felt heavy. Lark was unable to lift her head but could see her limbs dangling and flopping erratically as the beast shook her and snarled. She was nearly dead, so close…so close. Please die! Lark willed her closing eyes to just stay shut as every shuddering breath became increasingly choked with blood. Just let me die before you start eating me, she silently begged the spitting cat as her body continued to flap around like a rag doll.

Thwack! Thwack, thwack, thwack! The beast screamed in pain and rage, dropping its prey to the ground. Lark tried to raise her head but felt it lolling uselessly on her neck. She hadn’t even felt the fall, the remaining neurons in her brain that were still firing were comforted, any second now this would all be over. Grimly, she thought of Thomas, seeing his face as he looked at her, his dark eyes promising to hold onto their secret.

Oh, God! The beast was eating her, she wasn’t dead yet! Lark's eyes opened in alarm, her fingers flexing by her side in a pitiful attempt to push the great cat away. Just wait another moment and you can chew on my broken body! her panicked brain cried, filling her lungs with a bloodcurdling scream that emerged from silent lips! But yet again, it was Albus. He had lived, and come back for her. Lark tried desperately to console the licking and whining puppy but as her mouth opened, only blood bubbled out. I’m sorry, she silently choked. The tears in her eyes were wiped cleaned by Albus’s warm tongue as he howled.

Awoooo! Awoooo! Awoooo!

The centaur came slamming into the Craggamore, avoiding its spiked tail as he reared and spun his hoofs crashing into the side of the beast and using his spear to lunge at the animal as it backed, moving tighter into the ring of warriors surrounding it. Fallston advanced as the animal was surrounded, he allowed the circle to close and stayed outside the kill zone. His soldiers would make quick work of this with their lances, the beast from the mountains had no chance of escape. The herd had sent their warrior band to deal with the juvenile Craggamore after the beast had come close to the village and taken a young filly as she galloped and played with her brothers in a nearby field.

Fallston, the son of the chief and Captain of the War band had anticipated a stimulating fight from the beast but had come upon it already injured. Alas, the junior soldiers he had brought in the hopes of gaining experience and perhaps a level or two would have to wait. The Captain had pursued the creature swiftly, outpacing his soldiers by many lengths. Yet, he had not been swift enough, the beast had found another to prey on.

The young woman who had clearly been mauled had sustained grievous injuries, but before her untimely death, the captain who was tracking the creature and the filly using Far Sight could see her final moments as she had battled with ferocity but little skill. Still, the woman had landed many blows on the beast from the mountains, with only a mage staff in her possession. As Fallston approached her body, the strange dog he had heard howling from afar greeted him by whining and pawing at his hocks.

Fallston looked at her body with little emotion, death was a familiar sight to him, its shadowy presence barely eliciting a response. The woman took a shuddering breath, but Fallston knew that sometimes that happened when the death had just occurred. The Captain watched with growing sadness as the blood soaked the ground around the young woman, she may have been beautiful but now her face lay marked with gore. Fallston's sadness changed to alarm as another shuddering intake became slow and shallow breathing with regular intervals, this woman was alive!

The whining dog increased its tempo and pawed furiously at his legs. Fallston kneeled, lifting her small body into his arms and feeling the blood from her mouth run down his armoured chest as her cheek lay against his collar bone. He quickly pulled out the vial from a leather strap that all centaur soldiers lashed to their bodies. The healing potion was the best quality that the village had, sent by the elders in the hopes that young Corsalla would be alive. Her body had been found, strewn on the Waystone, her torso consumed by the beast and grotesque angulation of her legs, only identifiable by her beautiful palomino coat, still shining despite the rust-red stains. Her body had been wrapped in soft cotton and lashed to the back of her cousin, a warrior. He would carry her home, the bloodstains he would receive on his back and coat would mark the start of his mourning period, lasting until all the blood wore away with time.

The yellow potion in the small vial was poured on the woman's chest, permeating through her tattered clothing and into the deep bite wounds and lacerations on her rib gage and extremities. The skin began to knit before his eyes, granulation tissue forming raised and pink before appearing pale and smooth. Fallston liberally poured the remaining liquid into her mouth, hoping the potion was strong enough to keep her alive until they rejoined the herd. As Fallston held the woman in his arms, he noticed her shallow breathing becoming stronger and rhythmic, ordering the Warband to return with speed, he set the pace at a smooth gallop through the hills as the female slept.

Behind the warriors trailed a lone figure, a small dog. Albus could not keep up with the blinding pace set by the centaurs. A speed matching any racehorse in his world, despite the armour, weapons and weight of several figures carried by the soldiers. Albus trotted along the sloping terrain, lush with green grass, new smells and many exciting pee stops. He stopped several times, sniffing at a frog in a pond that belched a stinging vapour that made him sneeze and shake his head, and secondly to sniff the blood of his mistress, adjusting his course, he continued following her, deeper and deeper into this strange new land.

“Guardian- level 1. Skill, boom bark”.

Lark became aware of her surroundings in standard horror movie fashion. She became conscious, could hear perfectly and was completely unable to move her body, not even to wiggle her toes. She was laying on something soft that she thought was probably a thick fur but it was dark, very dark.

She could see a long, thin, sliver of light approximately 20 feet from her, although the distance was difficult to estimate. The vertical sliver of light rippled the longer she stared at it, making her suspect she may be looking at the flap of a tent as it moved with a breeze. The visible light appeared pale and fading. How much time had passed? Where was she? A crackle in the corner, she could not turn her head.

A small flame flickered into existence and a huge, dark shape was backlit against the growing fire. Lark wanted to scream but found no sound escaped, she willed her muscles to respond to her commands and run, but nothing happened.

“Who are you” came a gruff voice? “Why are you in our lands? Think carefully about your answer or you will be thrown into the river. The water will fill your lungs and you will sink like your dog. Not even the fish will hear you screaming".

A familiar clopping sound, muffled by some sort of cloth or carpet and the dark figure stood over her. The fire in the back of the tent was still too small and the figure cast no familiar silhouette that she could make out. A hand on her face, a rough and warm human hand. The hand slid around her neck and continued to slide until he was supporting the back of her head as he felt the bumps along her cervical spine. He stopped, and she felt a pinching sensation and pressure behind her neck that she hadn't realized was there.

“I’m going to pour more healing potion into your mouth and then you will be able to move. Don’t try to get up; this potion is weak, and the venom may take a long time to leave your body".

Venom! Lark knew her reality was imploding all around her, and now she had been poisoned! What the hell was going on? A vial was put to her mouth and her head further raised. She still choked as the cool liquid ran down her throat, tasting of lemon and menthol. It wasn’t exactly disgusting but was akin to a lemon cough syrup that she had bought once. She could feel tingling return to her fingers and toes, flexing her arms and legs, Lark thought she could probably sit up. But the hand that had been gentle behind her head, twisted a knot of her hair into his fist and growled at her, “if you try to run little rabbit, I will hunt you down and the things that I will do to you will make the Craggamore look kind”.

“You poisoned me” Lark managed to choke out, “why didn’t you just let me die? Who are you people? Where am I?” Fallston could hear the terror with a hint of anger in the young woman's voice. He knew mages to be dangerous and untrustworthy so pressed her, disregarding his misgivings.

“Why were you found near the Waystones, Mage? Did you see the filly in need, did you try and render her your aid?”

Lark knew she had to answer carefully but her head was spinning, she didn’t understand even half of what this man was saying to her. Suddenly, she felt sick…very sick. The sudden motion she made to sit up surprised her captor, he grabbed for her, catching her shoulder and yanking her down while she forcefully vomited in the direction she thought must be the edge of the bed. “Ahhhhhh!” came his bellow as she continued to heave with his hand forcing her to remain in a semi-raised position with her fingers scrambling for the edge of whatever she lay on. The hand left her shoulder and she heard the oddly familiar clopping sound for a moment before a blue light was cast around her and the fire made a spitting noise, the orange light growing twice the size as the logs spit and crackled. Lark continued to heave, not able to look away from the brown fur rug she was covering with her vomit, as tears ran from her eyes and her hair fell around her face. When she was done, Lark openly crying now, weakly pushed herself back from her mess and raised her hand to move the tendrils of hair that were stuck to her sweaty forehead.

“Here,” the gruff voice said, and a man's hand, held out a cup as her vision swam. Lark accepted it and looked up at the towering shape above the bed she lay in, now cast in the fires flickering light.

“You're a horse!” she croaked through parched lips as foul chunks and bile were swallowed down.

The horse? Raised his eyebrow at her, giving a quizzical look that may have been comical in another setting. “I’m a Centaur,” he corrected. “My name is Captain Fallston of the Fallen Stone Tribe. You are currently amongst my herd and will remain our prisoner until you answer my questions and I am satisfied. Why is a lone mage wandering through our lands, with no weapons besides a fractured staff? Why did you not use your magic when fighting the Craggamore, and why do you carry such strange possessions without magical abilities?” Answer me now, or I will place the StillSnail back on your neck and burn off your fingers in the fire.”

A centaur, a centaur! Lark's mind whirled in wonder and fear, was she dreaming or was she dead? What to do and say? She was way over her head in this fantasyland that had a muder vibe. “What is a stillsnail?” Lark croaked, dreading the answer as she asked the question.

“The snail? That’s what you want to start with?” admonished the massive male centaur.

“Hey, curiosity killed the cat, and I’m basically dead anyway, isn’t that right?”

Captain Fallston looked at his prisoner, begrudgingly he thought her to be brave, pretty for a human but poor at acting the part of an innocent bystander. A stillsnail is this, he pulled a cobalt blue snail out of a pouch he had concealed around a belt at his waist. The snail was about the size of a twoonie but the brightest blue Lark had seen in the animal kingdom. Lark felt the creature was reminiscent of the poison dart frogs she saw in pet shops when she was in the mall, looking at various reptiles, amphibians and fish with her friends. Besides the colour, the stillsnail seemed completely average to her until Captain Fallston tapped on the shell, like a woodpecker might to a tree, ‘rat a tat, tat’.

The snail shot out a long barb that had been coiled in the mollusk's shell. Lark could see a thin violet-coloured substance on the tip of the barb as it whipped wildly, finding no purchase against the centaurs wrist guards. “The stillsnail injects a venom that causes moderate paralysis to keep you still and safe while the healers continued to use potions and stitch you. The initial potion used was very high quality, but you were close to death and I focused the application on internal injuries. Secondly, we used an ancillary potion but of a far weaker concentration, the potion closed some of your most severe wounds and the healers stitched the rest. We believed it was the best course of action for you as I did not want you waking and running off before this little session was complete."

“May I please sit up?” Lark asked, feeling increasingly vulnerable by the difference in her small frame and his massive…horse and man one that towered over her. “If you can,” he stated, making no move to assist her. Lark struggled upright, her limbs numb and heavy. Leaning forward with her elbows on her knees, Lark felt as though she had sprinted after the ice cream truck for her and Thomas that drove by their home on weekends.

“Sir, she began. You are treating me with hostility and I have done nothing to deserve it. I don’t know where I am and how I got here. I am talking to a Centaur which in my world is impossible and insane so I suppose I have either gone mad or I have travelled to a parallel universe. I have been mauled by a cougar-monster thing, almost to death and now I wake up in some creepy tent and am told by a horse that I have been poisoned or paralyzed or something. I realize you started this conversation off with threats and warnings but…” Lark trailed off, she could hear the octave in her voice rising to a shrill level and could feel the pinpricks of tears and they welled in her eyes. Don’t look weak now Lark, she chided herself. Keep it together, you must keep your shit together.

“Sir, please release me. I have no desire to be here or cause trouble for you or the other…horses, pardon me, I meant centaurs.”

Captain Fallston, battle-hardened and considered relatively bright, had never encountered a soldier so close to death that had made a recovery from a healing potion to still wake up so utterly confused. Either this mage was playing a trick on him or she had sustained a brain injury that even the high quality potion was not able to mend. He decided to entertain the woman and continue the conversation, if she proved harmless and a waste of time, there were plenty more beasts and monsters roaming the foothills.

"We used these potions because you are a mage, found in very close proximity to a young filly from our herd that lost her life to the Craggamore, we hoped you could tell us where it came from as that variety favours the mountains and we are in the foothills, far from its usual hunting grounds. I want to know why a mage is travelling alone, carrying a fractured staff with no other weapons. Are you seeking to be an adventurer? The selection process for a member of your, shall we say, skill, will be extremely trying.

The centaur said the last few words to Lark with what seemed like sarcasm and disdain. He let out a Hahahuhuhu! That trailed off like a horse's whinny. Lark stared blankly at the centaur, his conversation adding to her confusion that she felt could not have possibly increased.

“I am not a mage”, she said carefully, “I do not know what a fractured staff is, and I do not have one. I am a student, but not of magic, I studied Archeology for a year and continued my studies abroad. Recently though, I got my acceptance letter for veterinarian studies, my foster father…” Lark trailed off as the centaur creature had walked outside with the muffled clip clop that she had struggled to identify earlier. He returned a moments later with her grandmothers walking stick in hand.

“Explain the fractured staff to me now, Mage. I am losing patience.”

Lark hurriedly explained, “that is a walking stick, I got it from my..."

Boom!

The walking stick was thrown into the fire and exploded backward with such force that the logs in the fire exploded, spraying the tent with embers and ash. The centaur moved to the fire and restacked a log, casting his angry face in a terrifying glow. He had caught the flying walking stick and held it far from Lark's grasp. “No natural fire can harm a magical item, magic is needed to create and to destroy. This is a mages staff that was found in your possession. Try again.”