Bearach ignored the woman, continuing his work. His armour was thick and heavy, but his crouched stance seemed agile. He looked as if he could spring up and cut the healer’s tongue out before she had a chance to use it again.
Sláine didn’t seem to have the same opinion. She raised her voice. “As a servant of the Trinity, I command you to stop, now!”
Bearach didn’t stop as he spoke. “The road ahead will be long and treacherous, my lady. The feathers of a beadhbh make a powerful blood potion, and right now we would be wise to carry some.” The knight paused, his knife weeping with blood by his side. “Just in case.”
Sláine stood with her arms folded, as if protecting herself from the knight’s reasoning. “I’ll have you know that I am a powerful and capable healer. There will be no resorting to forbidden magic in my presence.”
The knight pointed the blade towards her, smiling. “But what if something happens to you? Who would be left to heal the healer?”
Apparently, her silence was an adequate answer, and he returned to his work.
“I’ll keep the meat too. The vegetation in this region isn’t famous for its flavours, and anything else that walks through these woods can kill any one of us in our sleep. Instead of hunting some more hunters, we’ll make do with what is already dead.”
He picked up a handful of bloody flesh and placed it on the outspread cloak, next to the feathers.
“And if we do survive, we’ll sell what feathers we have left over in Penance, and I’ll share the profit with everyone else who’s listening!” His raised his voice for the last word, but the others were still arguing over what happened up on the ship.
“It wasn’t a mutiny, fool!” said the navigator. “The ship was infiltrated! You heard Brádaigh before he died. The man who claimed to be Malroy was a fraud!”
“I knew it, I knew it!” said the mechanic. “He barely spoke to me when he boarded today.”
The navigator hesitated. “There were others, too, right? Otherwise a proper fight wouldn’t have broke out like that.” He turned his attention to the red Simian. “What if one of them was you, huh? How do we know you’re not in with them?”
“Who’s them now? Can you answer me that? Why did all this happen in the first place?”
“Quiet! All of you!” Sláine stepped into the centre of the group. “Regardless of how it happened, it still happened. It doesn’t matter who was involved, but who has survived.” She looked up to the sky, the sun glaring across from the west. “Now, does anybody know where we go from here?”
The others looked down at their feet, but something stirred in Farris’s head. Maps he had seen long ago, embedded somewhere in his memory. He closed his eyes to fetch the image, and he remembered Garth.
“Yes!” Farris said, catching the attention of the others. “I… my brother is a scout for the Triad.”
The others paused and leaned closer, as if afraid they’d miss a word. Farris realised it was the first time all day he had told the truth.
Oh, fact really is more riveting than fiction.
“So, you know where to go?” asked the red Simian.
“Not exactly, there’s no paths that traverse the Glenn, and it's usually sparse of travellers for obvious reasons. There are roads that bypass the Glenn either side, but we’ll have to ascend and descend a mountain before we can access those….”
The Pyromancer stepped forwards. “I sure hope the next word you say is ‘but.’”
Farris smiled. “But there may be another way.” He crouched down and began drawing a rough outline of the area in the soil.
“Garth used to tell me all about his adventures through the Glenn, hunting down beadhbhs and fleeing from wolves.” This much was a lie, but it was better that the others have confidence in his story, even the little details. He pointed towards the western side of the crude map, etched into the dirt. “Here, he said that there were caves which he used to get in and out of Penance. The Triad commissioned him to find out about routes that lead from Penance, through the Glenn, and out into the Clifflands. We could use those, but I have no idea how far we are.”
The navigator crouched down beside Farris and jammed his finger into the soil. “I saw a map of this area once, and there’s a clearing right here. They call it the Scalp of the Glenn, ’cause it rises up over all the other hills and trees. We could gather our bearings better if we reach there.”
“Not a bad idea,” said Sir Bearach, who now stood over the two, covered with red specks of beadhbh blood. His cape was slung over his back and tied into a sack that hung heavy and dripping. “But what if we’ve already passed it?”
“Then we still should travel west,” answered Farris. “If we’ve already passed the Scalp, we’ll stumble upon my brother’s caves instead, and then we’ll be in an even better position.”
“Well, that settles it,” said Sir Bearach. “Let’s move. Don’t fall behind if you want to live long enough to taste my famous roast beadhbh and blood potions.”
***
The seven strangers continued westwards towards the setting sun. Only slivers of light made it through the dense canopies, casting staggered streaks of shadow and light along the ground. It was only at this point that Farris could really admire the landscape. Like a twisted parody of Nature, the Glenn seemed to mock the travellers as they went, with some plants as out of place as they. The flowers were similar to those Farris recognised from other regions, aside from a few subtle differences. Some looked like typical foxgloves and tulips, but their colours were more vibrant, as if fluorescing with their own light as dusk settled in overhead.
That would be the poison.
He passed what looked like a tangential path made entirely of dark blue roses, weaving away from the track. The trees seemed to grow away from the tiny blue flowers, as if afraid to touch them. For a moment, Farris wanted nothing more than to break away from the company and follow the bizarre path, wherever it led.
A child wouldn’t last an hour in here. Wolves, bears, and beadhbhs notwithstanding.
An hour passed with little said between the companions. They paused a few times, but Farris only spoke to Sláine during those brief intervals while she checked his wounds and eased his pain.
He never asked for the names of the others. The Pyromancer walked first, his hands always alight with fire. The red Simian followed, and every so often he’d throw another question at the young mage, who responded with the same calm, collected certainty each time. The mechanic and the navigator walked in front of Farris, separating him from the inquisitive Simian.
In a way, it was a relief to be thrown into such a dangerous situation. There were no more lies to keep track of, no politicking to stay updated on, and Farris felt himself adapt to the situation rather quickly. Here, the Crown didn’t matter, nor did the Silverback and his war. There was no Church. No Wraiths. No Captain Padraig Tuathil with his empty accusations, however accurate they happened to be.
It wouldn’t even have been all that detrimental if Farris had let it slip that he wasn’t Chester the Lucky, because none of that mattered anymore. The number one priority now was survival, and Farris welcomed all the chaos that the valley threw at them.
I’d rather fight a hundred beadhbhs than have to lie to another king.
As the sun sank, the company was about to give up and camp in the middle of the dense forest when the ground sloped upwards. The others ahead of Farris ran, and he followed reluctantly as his leg began to ache again. When they reached the top of the Scalp, however, he welcomed the day’s last view of the valley before them.
The hills beyond the river were still as high and steep as they had been before, but this time a river slithered down from the mountains beyond. Farris found peace in the silent dusk, and for a moment it seemed as if the trees weren’t filled with poison and the valley wasn’t crawling with predators.
The Scalp itself was barren, the ground uneven. The others walked in circles around the dirt, looking for a place to sleep. It quickly occurred to him that they’d be sleeping out in the open, with only their own cloaks for warmth. It didn’t bother him; he had slept under far worse conditions back in the Dustworks of Penance. To be safe, he figured that Chester wouldn’t be too happy with those arrangements.
