A Tinge of Red

The Echo

Farros was riding hard through the snowy field, his three companions still in his sights. He looked backwards for a moment, enough to see that their pursuers had given up on that particular chase. Triumphant, he cheered, but the shout died in his throat prematurely as he turned his gaze forward. The storm hit him like a bucket of cold water in the early morning, coming out of nowhere and blinding him, though thankfully, Skajil was slowing down and maneuvering his horse in Farros’ direction, bless the old Seef. Riding closer, he saw that Skajil had not stopped for him, but for Slaapir, whose horse had fallen on its side. Slaapir himself was flashing hand signs to Galena who was furiously signing back in the odd fashion of… where were they from again?

“Farros! Get off and follow Galena on foot!” Skajil had to shout to make himself heard through the building blizzard. “Go on! The horses are getting spooked, we’ll take care of ‘em!”

Farros nodded and dismounted, not so much hitting the snow as falling several centimeters in it. He waddled up to Galena, struggling against the cursed snow, and she started by signing at him before shaking her head. He hadn’t been the only one shaken by the storm, it seemed.

She pointed a  gauntleted finger towards a direction that surely must have been meaningful but now only met a wall of swirling winds. “Slaapir seen home before White hit us! Up hill! You follow close!”

Next to them, Slaapir and Skajil were tending to the three horses, though the one who had fallen may have been beyond help. Galena left them both behind without waiting for Farros to acknowledge her, walking into the storm, and Farros kept as close as he could.

After a few minutes of walking through piles of snow, it became apparent that Farros’ best was not enough to keep up with Galena. He remembered blinking, and she was gone.

“Galena!” he screamed at the top of his lungs, but the blizzard consumed his voice. “Galena! Where are you?!” 

Nothing. He couldn’t hear his own voice, could not even feel his body vibrate as he spoke the words, only the screaming winds buffeting him left and right. He looked for footprints, but turning around proved to be a mistake as the snow was completely obscuring his vision any way he looked, and he now was completely lost, almost unable to tell which way was up. He kept walking in a random direction, trying to calm himself, but only meeting with a few laughing trees here and there, their twisted forms mocking him, a harbinger of his eventual demise. Galena had abandoned him, left him in the snow to die! Oh, he knew how these things went, he heard of those getting lost in the elements. First he’d walk in the snowstorm for a few hours if he was lucky, then the cold would start actually getting to him, even through the furs, and eventually the exhaustion would make him collapse, at which point he would have to fight against the urge to sleep, and...

No. She’s not abandoned you, you just got lost. Not the first time either. Calm yourse-

His thoughts were interrupted as he tripped against something hard and fell over. By instinct, he closed his eyes and drew his arms up to cushion his fall, but his stomach lurched instead. He fell in the air for a time -much too long- and once he touched ground, rolled down a steep incline covered with dead branches of varying shapes and sizes. Having left a solid impression of the various parts of his body on them all, he met the cold bark of a tree, hitting it headfirst and finally coming to rest on his back, covered in snow. Some more of the cursed white substance fell down the tree’s disturbed branches in small mounds around him as he opened his eyes and tried to situate himself.

He could only see a blur. A white, endless blur, interspersed with tall brown lines of trees, like he had always pictured the Sorrows.

The Sorrows will be worse. Much, much worse.

 Grunting, he rolled around on his stomach and tried to get up, but flaring pain made his arms give out from under him.  As he hit the floor again, something welled up inside his throat, but he could not pull his scarf  fast enough to save it from the surge of vomit and bile which came out of his mouth. The hot liquid covered the sides of his face plenty before he could pull the scarf down, thus inviting the biting cold to feast on his naked skin. Pulling the scarf back on seemed pointless as he couldn’t breathe through it anymore. With his heart beating through his chest and threatening to escape, Farros tried to crawl towards a fallen tree, hoping to find some form of shielding against the storm, downwind. He crawled, slowly, afraid a broken rib might puncture his lungs. His vision, already blurry, worsened as his tears turned to ice and clogged his tear ducts. The world started to spin, and his mind collapsed.

Time may have passed, more than he could recall, half-conscious as he was.

When he came to, he was protected by the fallen tree, at least to some extent. He could think. I need to send a signal to the others, before I freeze to death. I need color. He reached for the inside pocket of his coat and grabbed the small red pouch hidden inside, and drew power from it. Seeing the color would have been much better for him, but he could not risk the falling snow tainting it, and the simple memory of its shade would be enough. It would have to be. Warmth built up inside him, a natural reaction considering his physical state, but a costly one as he had very little color to spare. Shivering, he sharpened his mind like he had been taught and reached through the Halls, impeccable stonework setting itself on the ground nearby where there used to be snow, howling wind left behind. Farros had a tinge of luck, but no more. He threw it through the Halls, sending it to scatter like sand on the ethereal stone, far from an ideal result. Though he stayed within but briefly, Farros still spied the multicolored silhouette of one of the Halls’ denizens shifting towards him as he pulled back. Terror seized him as his mind returned to the colder realm, where his vision was still blurry, and his mind something of a shattered vase.

Disapproving snowflakes kept falling near him, and they all had something to say. Most of them foul-mouthed and angry at the world. The winds, too, they spoke, but through the inviting voice of a room full of friends, with the crackling quality of a stoked hearthfire. They offered words of caution and a bowl of steaming stew.

“Oh my, you don’t look so good!” the winds exclaimed, inviting him to sit with a small crowd around a blazing fire. “Have you never been told to not go out when it’s blowing this hard?”

Farros’ lips were frozen shut and opening them would tear some flesh off, but he could imagine himself answering well enough.

“We didn’t have a choice, Winds.” Farros imagined, his voice crisp and full of warm stew. Creamy, with mushrooms and roots, hints of… something sweet. ”We need to get to the city, and we didn’t expect such a storm, so sudden...”

“Oh yes, important business. But we all need some rest!” The winds cautioned, voice booming with fatherly love. “Here, close your eyes now, sleep while you can. Those things can wait.”

Yes, Farros thought. After a day like this one, a bit of rest sounded like exactly what he needed.

___________________________________________________________________________

Cold to the bone and muscles aching from the long ride, Skajil opened the cabin’s front door, leaving Slaapir to care for the horses outside. The interior was much more expansive than he had assumed from a distance, though it was also in great disrepair. Normally sturdy stones had given way to the passage of time and the elements, leaving gaping holes in the structure, allowing the cold to swirl inside. Small critters had built themselves nests near the main room’s hearth, and skeletal remains hinted at the presence of a larger beast spending time there, once upon a time. Nature reclaimed all, in time. A comforting thought, would Skajil not be in the middle of such a reclaiming.

He walked rapidly through the entrance, reflexively rubbing his gloved hands together for warmth while following the sound of rummaging. As Skajil passed the room’s threshold, he found Galena, the muscular woman holding herself up against a large shelf, its drawers emptied and discarded on the ground. Small boxes crowded other shelves around the windowless room, though they all seemed empty. Bits of ropes were hanging from the ceiling with hooks at their end, indicating that the room had been used as a pantry at some point in its existence.

“No food, I take it?” he asked. When Galena only shook her hand in response, he inquired further. “Where’s the boy? He wasn’t around the shack.”

She turned towards Skajil and met his gaze, her eyes pools of dark blue dotted with white, and had to think for a few moments. As he had been warned before departing, she and her brother were not as fluent in Gonpharian as he would have liked, but their survival skills so far had made up for that particular defect. So he took his mounting impatience and beat it bloody before setting it down somewhere comfortable, deeper in a recess of his mind. Dread was taking its place, at any rate, and he had no control over that one. 

“Behind boy, follow me like inkbird, all is good,” Galena said. She made an attempt at another sentence but it ended up being nonsensical. Seeing Skajil’s puzzled look, she tried again. “When I touch door, he is nowhere. I told him follow close, but he explore away. No knowing what he is now. Uh, where he is.”

“You left him out there?” Skajil shouted, disbelief quickly bleeding into anger. “You know he has been lost out there for almost half a turn, and you’re only now remarking on it? You are aware we must go back for him, yes?”

The entrance door opened again, letting in the cold winter air as well as Slaapir, guiding two horses inside. Meanwhile, Galena was tapping her fist against her open palm, executing a fast, rhythmic sequence of symbols with her hands. Skajil was not proficient with Coven-Sign, and this late in life he suspected he never would be, but he understood the gist. Why? She was asking why they should go back to rescue one of their own, lost in a storm, one that she had been responsible for. She did not look apologetic, or ashamed in any way. How was he supposed to reason with people like them?

He abandoned that disaster of a conversation as Galena was signing something more and walked back towards the entrance, checking his blade was still where he had left it, and his quiver still full. 

“Going back?” Slaapir asked in a hoarse voice. He was the better communicator of the two siblings, which was to say it took longer for Skajil to develop a headache when speaking with him.

“Farros is lost in the storm, we are going to get him.” When Slaapir looked at the horses, Skajil insisted, in that forceful tone he often regretted having used later, once he was deep in his cups. But not now. “Leave them! We are going back for him, now!”

He kicked the door open and walked out, inviting the freezing air to flay him down to the bone, if it dared. Swearing he could hear the siblings sign to each other frantically as they followed him outside, boots crunching in the snow; he jogged down the hill they had just crested, praying to Blood some tracks remained uncovered by snow, through some miracle. An impossibility, he realized. Yet he would find the boy, or die in the attempt.

___________________________________________________________________________ 

The violent winds were not letting up, but why would they? The gods never cared for the machinations of Seef, nor would they stop now to help this small company in their hour of trouble. Both knees deep in snow, Galena followed behind Slaapir, with the latter trying to get the attention of the temperamental old man, Skajil. That one had no idea of how to maneuver in the field; in fact he had happily committed several mistakes worthy of a rookie in the past few days since they had left Goldranas, costing the group a great deal in ways of time and safety, and yet he was still oozing self-righteousness all throughout. Infuriating. And he dared reprimand her? At least she knew to follow basic Chain formation and stay aware of her clan.

The winds were much heavier than she’d ever experienced before. Her home marsh could get very cold, but wind was rarely an issue. This was something new, though not unexpected; they had been warned about Oglios’ peculiar climate before they departed from the capital. Navigating was not an issue for her kind, but Skajil looked fully lost after but a minute of walking down the incline. Slaapir managed to make contact with the sour old man by touching his shoulder, though it ended up with both of them screaming at the storm. Despite the clear advantage it offered, people of the drylands rarely knew how to Sign. That something so ingrained, so natural for Galena was so rare outside the bounds of the marsh... It made her wonder how these people had survived at all.

Though she was not faultless herself. Her habits had proven a detriment while accompanying Farros up the hill. It had been nothing more than a few minutes of light travel, but Slaapir had had to remind her afterwards, harshly.

They cannot see through the winds like we do. Imagine walking around at night without the Cradle’s light to guide you? Not so simple now, is it?

She had not known. It was another attribute of her people she had taken for granted. But ignorance was a weak defense, if a defense at all. Because of her lapse, one of their charge was at the mercy of the White Gods; there was no time to waste on grudges or past mistakes, the moment was now. Until they reached Oglios, Farros and Skajil both were part of the clan, and clansmen were not to be left behind.

Galena had reflexively been standing sentry, keeping her eyes on the surrounding treeline, watching for movement. Nothing had alarmed her so far; animals living in the area must have been taking shelter just like they had been, which explained the absence of critters. Yet something tugged at her. Something she felt but could not see, nor put on a name on it. 

Next to her, the men had finally stopped bickering. Skajil’s face was obscured by cloth, but Galena could tell he was rattled. Slaapir assumed command, turning to Galena. Starting to give an order, he stopped mid-sign, and turned his gaze towards the section of treeline Galena had been observing.

“Danger?” he signed. When she answered negatively, he continued. “What then?”

What could she sign? I just have a feeling. Trust me, will you? The clan did not survive on gut feelings, but on careful reconnaissance and decisive action. And yet, she had to restrain herself from heading closer to the woods, like she had been caught by a length of rope and forcibly pulled forward… And it clicked.

“I saw someone moving through the trees,” she signed excitedly. “It must be him.”

“Are you certain?” Slaapir signed quickly, turning towards Skajil for a moment, then back to Galena. “Fine. I will make sure Skajil is safe, we will be right behind you. Grid search if we find nothing. Go.”

Galena stomped through the snow as soon as the order was given. She would never admit it to anyone, but a strange sort of relief bloomed within her. Finally, the invisible string was saying. Unwind the thread, follow the path. Walking these few meters felt good, strangely fulfilling. It beckoned her closer and closer, though only a murmur now. She was fully aware of its effect, yet it was hard to dissociate the warmth in her mind from the potential danger its source might represent. Still, she pressed on.

The trees had little foliage, but they still offered some protection and packed as they were, the snow had trouble falling past them which grantly enhanced the overall visibility. It took a few minutes of trekking through the dense forest before the elevation shifted. A steep slope led several meters down, with evident signs of something or someone having passed here recently displayed clear as rain. Further, she spied two forms.

From her vantage point, her back to a tree, Galena could spy Farros’ red hair peeking from behind a fallen tree trunk, while a hooded figure was standing crouched in front of him. No, not crouched. Bent somehow, hunchbacked. 

Then the hunchback stood slightly straighter and gazed straight at her, its face a mask of horrors. Fleshy pink skin and a featureless visage, save for a maw that encompassed the whole of it, with rows of jagged teeth set in an impossible circle.

And it had seen her.