Tenebroum

Chapter 193: Fragile Hope

Despite their collective sense of dread, the sky never fell on them, and Leo and his little group slowly made their way to the northeast. Still, as they went, the remnants of evil grew thicker, and the fights grew more challenging.

An evil monstrosity that was one part giant snake and one part herd of wild horses that had been stitched together in a way that made it impossibly fast was very nearly the end for Reggie. It practically trampled the young man to death one night when it caught them by surprise.

One moment, a few of them were sitting around a low campfire, and the rest had already gone to sleep a little farther away, and the next, the monstrosity galloped through their camp like a stampede. It stood up to Leo’s silvered blade no better than anything else, but even after he cut the thing’s monstrous head off, the remains of it continued to blunder around dangerously, knocking over random trees until it was finally nothing but a squirming mass of spines and legs on the ground.

Reggie survived thanks to the healing touch of the light and the combined efforts of his friends. Even with that magical intervention, he would walk with a limp forever afterward.

They chose their campsites more carefully after that, which led to the discovery of the first scarecrow. That was the name that Rin gave them when she hurried back from her scouting patrol. “Everyone, you have to see this!” she cried out as soon as she sighted the main group.

None of them had any idea of what to expect, and Leo was hoping she’d finally found survivors. He was growing increasingly concerned that the world might be empty now, and they might be the last ones left.

That wasn’t what she showed them, though. It was good news of a sort, but only barely. What she’d found was a zombie that was so overgrown with weeds that it was frozen in place. The thing struggled weakly, but it was only enough that it appeared that it might be swaying in the wind, even though there was only the faintest breeze.

“It has to be magic,” he said stupidly as he studied it. It was obviously magic that had bound the thing in place with grasses and vines. Anyone could see that, but still, no one mocked him. Instead, they all quietly studied the gruesome sight. It was only after Cynara struck the head off that the silence was broken, and Toman finally asked, “Who do you think did this? Do you think another mage lives nearby? Like Jordan?”

“The rest of the mages are nothing like Jordan,” one of the girls said,

“Good question,” Reggie shot back as everyone seemed to be speaking at once. “Maybe it wasn’t a mage then. Maybe the gods did this?”

As everyone began to bicker, Leo started to tune out the conversation. He had no idea who had done it, but he was pretty sure a mage would have burned it to ash instead of planting it like a tree, and gods… well, he was pretty sure gods could do more than this.

That scarecrow might have been the first that they found, but by the end of the day, they found almost a dozen more, which only deepened the mystery. If this was something that could have been done, then why was it happening only here? Why hadn't the nature spirits of the world risen up as one to end this scourge? Could the god or the goddess of a single forest have decided to do something when no one else did? Why didn’t anyone else help them in the same way?

In the end, all that any of them could agree on was that whoever had done this was protecting something, which made it seem like there was something worth protecting up ahead. They bickered about what it might be for the next two days before they finally found it. Some people argued that it had to be a mage's tower, and others that it had to be a village or even a city.

“That’s why they didn’t kill them,” Toman declared, “Because that would draw the evil on upon the survivors. I’ll bet we’ve finally found where all the other survivors have gathered, and soon, we’ll have all the cakes and pies we can eat!”

The young man turned out to be half right, but only barely. After another day, they found the edge of the forest and, beyond that, dunes that sheltered them from the sea. It was there that they found one of the saddest-looking fishing villages that might have existed anywhere in the world.

There were people, and Leo was grateful to see them, but they were so malnourished that they made his small group seem well-fed by comparison. He instantly saw the dark humor of the situation: both of the groups rejoiced upon seeing each other, but only because they each thought that the other was here to save them.

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There was no salvation for anyone. Not yet, anyway. As that realization slowly set in, the others that had been touched by the light pulled away from the poverty and the disease of the survivors they’d just found, and the strangers pulled away from the men and women with light in their eyes.

This was not an outcome that Leo could expect. What would everyone do when this ambivalence turned into animosity? Would they fight and kill the only other men and women they’d found, or would they leave them to their fate, which was surely a slow death from starvation?

Neither was an acceptable option to him, so as his peers whispered and tried to decide the best way to leave the two dozen souls they’d found to their fate, Leo strode forward and introduced himself to the headman.

“Have you come to save us?” the older man asked.

“I will save whoever I can,” Leo answered simply, “but you seem more than capable of saving yourself. We just need to go hunting in the forest so you can build up your strength and—”

The headman interrupted, giving Leo a laundry list of reasons why they couldn’t. Martel’s leg was broken, Karana was sick with a bad fever, and most importantly, the forest was swarming with the dead. That, it turned out, was the reason they huddled on the gloomy shore: they were terrified of what they might find in the woods. The group wasn’t even a fishing village, as Leo had first thought. It was just the survivors from two ship-wrecked boats that had taken over an empty village and made it their own.

After that, things started to make more sense. He asked Cynara to put some of the other boys to work hunting in the woods to find some meat since he knew they would listen to her more than him; then Leo spent the rest of the afternoon using the gifts of the light to heal those that were the sickest, making them well again in minutes or hours.

This, at least, was hailed as the miracle that it was and robbed the air of the tension that had been building. One minute, Leo was sure that this was going to devolve into bloodshed no matter what he did, and the next, it was going to be okay.

This was not what any of them had been hoping for. Later, most of them would gripe that they’d been better off alone, but for the first time since the people of Sanctuary had aged a century in moments, they weren’t alone, and to Leo, at least, that made all the difference.

The first few days they were there were a whirlwind of activity as some people hunted and fished, and the rest moved the crude shelters most of the survivors lived in from just above the high tide line to the more sheltered area at the edge of the forest.

As that happened, the story of what had happened slowly came out. Both ships were from the north. One was from the capital itself, and the other was from a town nearby. Both agreed that the city was a dead zone now and that there were likely to be no survivors.

The captain of the ship from Rahkin, in particular, was a wreck, and when Leo tried to talk to him about what had happened, he only babbled about a dark and terrible thing crouching above the city on that last night. He described it as a flying sea monster that was made of shadows, which sounded ridiculous, but not even the light that Leo wielded so casually now could cure the man’s cracked mind.

That terrible truth stole all the hope that had been welling up in Leo for the last few days. “I’d hoped that this was the first of many small groups we’d find,” he confessed around the campfire to his friends one night. “I thought we might bind them into something greater, but if Rahkin is gone…”

“Who says we can’t?” Cynara said, looking at him from across the fire with fierce determination. “Where we found one group, we can find others. I’m sure we can. Just because they aren’t all in one spot like we’d hoped doesn’t mean we—”

“What about the dead?” Toman asked. He’d been grumpy ever since he realized there would be neither cakes nor pies in this dismal little place.

“Hang ‘em,” Leo answered, catching the faintest bit of Cynara’s enthusiasm as he forced himself to smile. He might not have much hope for finding other survivors, but he certainly didn’t fear the dead. “They haven’t been causing us much trouble so far. I don’t see any reason why that would change now.”

A few of the others disagreed with that, but Leo couldn’t make himself care.” Why do you think we survived when almost no one else did?” he said finally, almost shouting. “Brother Faerbar. Sister Annise. Jordan. All of them, gone, and all of them to get us here. Why did they die if not so we could live?”

"We don't know that Jordan's dead," Sam said. "He might be coming back..."

"We know he's not here," Leo snapped. "That's all we need to know."

“And what is it we lived for exactly?” Toman said. He opened his mouth and looked like he was about to make a bad joke, but Leo cut him off.

“We are the light,” he answered. This time, he was shouting, but he didn’t care. “We are the heroes. We might be the last ones left in the whole awful world, but even if we are, that will be enough. It has to be.”

It was stupidly optimistic, and by the end of his statement, he felt his cheeks flush, but no one laughed at him, at least not openly. As to what would happen if he was wrong, well, that went unsaid. They were the last of the light, but if they weren’t the salvation and were instead just a few remaining sparks from a dying fire… well, there wouldn’t be anyone left to mourn them when the darkness finally snuffed them out.