The Waste
Chapter 17:
previously: the party decided to continue on to The Waste despite a warn from Calleum.
then: we witness the moment it was decided Martin would be the acolyte joining the hunt.
and now: the hunting party reaches The Waste, and endless swamp devoid of life
Once again, Brann took the lead. There was no trail to follow. Simply a direction — east, toward The Waste. And no need for Zilla’s tracking skills.
If Brann felt the same tugging at his inner being as Martin, then no trail was needed. Martin could have closed his eyes and known which way to go as if his body were the needle of a compass.
Brann’s route was direct. Sometimes he skirted around a thicket of thorn bushes but more often he’d simply stomp through a fernbrake or wade into a creek without first testing its depth. He was being careless with his pace hurried, almost rushed. Zilla was a few steps behind him and then Martin followed by Tack, who continually glanced back at Renkle and Fitcher.
“No one’s gonna carry your arses,” he’d shout at the pair, loud enough for Brann to hear as well.
Renkle and Fitcher’s curses of reply were grumbled and nearly indecipherable. Though, their dawdling did not cause Brann to ease his pace or lose focus on his goal.
As Martin watched Brann clumsily, yet forcibly, push aside a tree branch, he wondered if Brann was punishing them for not doing as he had wished—heading home like the ranger Calleum had suggested.
Zilla cursed, “Damn it, Brann,” as the branch whipped back and caught her in the chest with a sharp whack.
Brann’s step barely hesitated.
Zilla turned and nodded to Martin as she held the branch for him. He in turn did the same from Tack, who didn’t bother to wait for the final two members of their party.
For Martin, the exertion of their trek was nothing compared to what he had been forced to do at the monastery, in the salle during combat training. But he could tell it was wearing on the other members of his party. Zilla was falling further back from Brann, and Renkle and Fitcher’s complaints were barely heard over the twitter of birds.
The terrain held challenges for him, though. Once Martin stepped on a moss-covered rock hidden in the muddy bed of a river and would have lost his footing if not for Tack steadying hand. Another time, his tunic snagged on a hooked thorn nearly as long as his pinky finger. Zilla helped cut himself loose.
“We call that bush Sun-clad,” she told him with a shy laugh. She sawed at the thorn with her hunting knife while keeping her eyes focused on her work. “If you fell into it, the sun’s all you’d be wearing upon freeing yourself.”
Martin felt his cheeks heat up and redden at the thought.
When her job was done, Zilla whispered, “Best we hurry on.” She dared a furtive glance back, without meeting his eyes, before hurrying to follow in Brann’s footsteps.
Martin’s legs began to ache. Sweat dripped into his eyes, blurring his vision. His arms suffered scratches and bug bites.
Tack’s voice grew less patient.
Renkle and Fitcher’s curses became more distant.
Still, Brann continued.
Purposeful.
Determined.
Without slacking until he was forced to pause.
Suddenly, the foliage gave way, as if they had walked up to the edge of a cliff. Martin took his place on one side of Brann while Zilla stood on his other side, and they gapped in awe and dismay at the endless swamp the spread out before them.
“There it is, The Waste,” Brann said, anger sharpening his words.
To Martin, it was as if they stood on the shore of an endless ocean, only that ocean was a dark slurry of muddy water. Bogs covered in dying vegetation floated about like tiny islands, rotting tree trunks rose up from the muck, and the horizon seemlessly melted into the darkening sky.
While he heard the croak of frogs along the shoreline, saw minnows swimming in the water at his feet, and felt the buzz of insects in his ears, none of those signs of life extended far into The Waste. Not far beyond where he stood. Not beyond his awareness.
A wave of vertigo suddenly washed over Martin. To him, standing there on the banks of The Waste felt nearly as harrowing as standing on the brink of a precipice. The stench clogging his nostrils made The Waste smell of decay and rot. But the endless swamp was more than a place of death, it was a landscape absent of living creatures. Devoid of the rudimentary energy needed to sustain life. And he could feel it, vampiric, tugging at him as if wanting him to plunge into its depth and be consumed, giving his life to it.
This place is wrong. Martin thought.
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