Untitled Fantasy Project – Chapter Six

Dalylia spent a fair amount of her time over the next three days with Astrid. There were a couple of reasons for this, first being that Astrid talked little and second being that they were closer in age than Dalylia was to anyone but Kahotlo, the boy who had led her to the barge, but he only seemed to come out at night. It was possible that she would have spent time with someone else had there been more than eight other people on the barge.

The only thing that Dalylia learned about Astrid during the trip was that she slept very little and when she did sleep it was lightly and restlessly. Despite this the girl never seemed to be tired.

The township of Lakeside was exactly what it sounded like, a town by the edge of a fairly significant lake. The town itself was fairly small, but there was farmland encircling the lake all the way around, bridges spanning the river on either side provided access.

Despite the relatively small size of the town, it was bustling. The noticeable skew towards taverns over almost any other building made it quite clear why this was, though. People travelled though Riverside but very few people lived there.

Of the twelve people on the barge, eight of them unloaded when they reached the piers of Lakeside. It wasn’t really right to call the four piers and two warehouses a dock after seeing the massive dock of the Stony Bay. Those who did not participate in the unloading of the vessel were herself, who had paid for passage, the captain, who supervised and shouted, and Pykah and Kahotlo, who were both nowhere to be found.

Though Arnette had said there was no reason for Dalylia to stay on the barge while it was unloaded, she did so. The main reason Dalylia stayed was that Arnette was supposed to be organising travel for her to the Castle, but she also had this weird desire to just stay on the barge and go back up the river to Stony Bay.

This, unfortunately, was not an option, she had been instructed by her employer to take something to the Castle and she was going to do it. Back home in Lythazine she had one of the best reputations and she knew that running away from a foreign land would do no favours for it.

So she powered through and followed Arnette from the barge once the unloading was finished, not long after the sun had set. They walked with purpose through the town to the Lakeside Inn, named presumably for being the closest tavern to the lake.

The tavern was fairly full but not quite crowded, in that almost all available seating was taken, but there was barely anyone but the servers standing about. Arnette approached the bar and apparently telepathically ordered a drink.

“You know of anything going up to the Castle?” she asked the tall, familiar looking barman.

“Good to see you too sister,” he replied in a deep and absolute monotone. “The barge has not come in yet and there is no caravan going that way. But I have a client for your next run to Stony Bay.”

“Any word of when the next caravan is coming?” Arnette asked, her similarly deep voice approaching the same monotone.

“Falling Snow is coming, they will not be long.”

Arnette shrugged and turned to Dalylia. “You will have to wait for a few days at least before continuing on your way, unless you wish to travel alone.”

“I will wait,” Dalylia replied.

“Ferleye, give her a room until a caravan arrives, would you?” Arnette asked of her brother.

“Certainly, it is not my money,” the man replied. “Would you also like a meal?”

It took Dalylia a moment to realise that the man was addressing her, his tone had not changed and he had barely so much as glanced at her. She nodded and the man signalled over her shoulder.

A moment later a middle-aged woman in a stained apron disappeared through a door behind the bar and emerged moments later with a steaming bowl of stew and half a loaf of bread.

Stew was new to Dalylia, it was like soup but thicker and tended to be heavier on meat and lighter on vegetables. It was tasty, but not something she had ever eaten before.

The same woman came back some moments later with a heavy iron key and directions to her single room, which was on the third floor of the tavern. Arnette stayed at the bar, talking to her brother.

Dalylia’s room was spotlessly clean, a vast improvement to the Wiley Hunter’s rooms, and surprisingly large. It was also clearly rarely used and Dalylia wondered how much it would have cost had she hired the room with her own, rather limited, purse.

She did not unpack her belongings into the large wardrobe, instead hanging her pack from a hook on the front of the impressive dark-wood fixture. She shirked her coat onto the floor, ditched her boots, and huddled under the heavy covers, falling asleep almost immediately.

Only to be woken what seemed barely moments later by the sound of screams coming from some distance away. Immediately Dalylia was into her boots, quiver strung over a shoulder and collapsed crossbow in hand.

A woman’s voice, captain Arnette, boomed through the inn. “Corrupted. Stay inside.”

Dalylia ignored it. She had been a caravan guard for years before being hired by Herania, apparently to take something to the Castle, several months before. She could handle herself in a fight.

She was almost all the way through the door when a large, strong hand gripped her arm and halted her progress. “Do not go out there, child, you know not what goes on in this land, you cannot fight it.”

Dalylia looked up to see Farleye, expression serious. “I can handle myself, sir, I was a soldier in my homeland.”

“There is nothing like the Corrupted in Lythazine,” the man replied, voice gaining some character with the severity of his words. “You should not go out there.” Regardless he released his grip on her arm.

Dalylia, with barely a parting glance, pushed the door open and forged out into the deep darkness of the clouded night. She was not used to such darkness and had left her goggles in her room, but she could make out enough by the firelight coming from the edge of the town to get by.

As she approached the fire and sounds of fighting there was a whoosh and a gout of flame arched into the sky. She didn’t even pause, she had used such explosive devices before, they were more impressive than dangerous.

Then she turned a corner and stopped dead.

Before her were thirteen figures engaged in various forms of combat. Eight of the figures shone in the poor light of the leaping flames. Pure white, there was no colour to them at all. But that was not the worst of it.

Facing these odd people were five figures of various shapes and sizes. The small, padded shape of Astrid was wreathed in dancing flames, which seemed to follow her movements. The massive, luminescent figure of Pykah appeared to have vines growing from his clothes. As she watched, the small, dark figure of Kahotlo seemed to, without moving at all, blend into the darkness, apparently growing slightly in height and breadth. The other two figures Dalylia did not recognise, one was a portly man whose hands were circled by apparently floating icicles and the other was a withered old woman with white hair and blind eyes, whose entire body seemed to be glowing slightly.

Dalylia just gaped as one of the white figures twitched and apparently vanished into thin air, only to appear a moment later in the grip of Kahotlo, who plunged a long, curved knife under their ribcage. The wreath of fire about Astrid flared a moment before, with the same whooshing sound as ealier, another gout of flame blasted towards the white figures, who dodged it effortlessly.

Shards of ice, which formed from thin air, rained down on the white figures and they scattered. The fire around Astrid flared again and she did the same slight twitch one of the white beings had done before, also seeming to vanish only to appear before one of the white beings, hand on their stomach. A burst of flame howled through the white being’s body and from its nose, eyes, mouth and ears.

Dalylia managed a deep breath and, loading her crossbow shakily, loosed a bolt at one of the white beings. With a movement like Dalylia had missed a moment, the being turned to her and caught the bolt, which it dropped with a bloodstained grin.

The world seemed to slow around her as adrenaline pumped into Dalylia’s body. She saw the shifting of stance that indicated the being’s intention and just managed to draw the long knife that had been sheathed under her clothes for almost four years in time.

As Astrid and one of the other beings had done, the creature seemed to vanish and appear just within reach of Dalylia. Unfortunately for it, Dalylia’s knife did not take long to draw and the small time which had actually elapsed had given her time to begin a backhanded slash with the knife, which caught the creature in the stomach and drew dark red blood.

The sound that followed made all of Dalylia’s hairs stand on end and hurt her teeth, but was not a sound of pain, nor did it come from the creature she had struck. It came from the other white creatures, and was laughter. They laughed at their compatriot, injured as it was.

With an almost casual looking gesture the creature backhanded Dalylia with enough force that she was lifted from her feet. Time seemed to slow even further and she had time see Pykah’s vines digging into the flesh of one of the creatures, Astrid with a flick knife buried in another’s stomach, and Kahotlo’s speeding form decapitating yet another.

And then she struck something hard and the world went out.