Three of them have stopped in their tracks, staring at the unexpected obstacle. One that never should have been there, and was not natural in any way.
“The island will not let us go that easily… that must be Vrigherqhuaihon’s tricks… have to be…”
Joe turned to Pat.
“What’d you do to anger gods like that, piss on their shrine?…”
He tried to calm the shakiness in his voice. It wasn’t working.
Out of three of them, only Irfan regained some resemblance of calmness, and even that was only partially working, as he was nervously glancing around with his eyes.
“Maybe I can climb that…” He hesitated.
Joe wasn't really sure, how it was possible to climb over a wall of trees, lying on their sides, stacked on top of each other, and forming an arc above their heads.
“You will risk that?”
Irfan didn’t answer. He walked up to a wall. His put his hand on the tree, and suddenly, his fingers released a curved claw.
“Wait, you can do that?! Like cats?!” Seemed like Pat was happy to find a distraction.
Irfan shrugged. Joseph decided to needle the doctor for a bit.
“Haven’t you read anatomy books during studies? Were you that bad of a student to forget a basic fact?”
Pat was annoyed.
“I very much remember my books, Mister Silver Brain. I never saw any arid do it right in front of me. And what now, Great Explorer of Trash Holes, you’ve read one piece of paper and now you are smarter than the universe?”
“You are putting words in my mouth, mate. I’ve never admitted to being smarter than anyone, and universe especially. But I did remember that little fact when I read a book a couple hours ago.”
“A couple hours ago? I’ve read them ages ago, and I still remember all of them! Can you name any of 281 bones in rhevalian’s body?!”
“I have no need for such specific knowledge. I only need to know where to shoot to disable one such creature.”
“And knowledge of bones you consider useless for that task? Why, exactly?! Do prey tell me, maybe my degree was useless all this time, since there is apparently All-Knowing Joseph, The Killer of Cats, who knows exactly where to tap to defeat a big wall of meat like Xander?!”
“Rhevalian are not cats, exactly.”
“Now you are just nitpicking. They have some similarities, like pillows on their fingers and much stronger lower legs.”
“...Wait, they do?”
“Of course they do! Next time you see our precious quartermaster, just keep attention. There is also a part-”
“Aaaargh!!”
A loud scream startled them both. Irfan fell to the ground, swearing and holding two fingers on his left hand. A thick black smoke was coming from them.
“Hold on, I got it! Joe, help!”
They both quickly wrapped Irfan’s damaged fingers with bandages, saturated with extract, that was used to lessen a pain, and allow a living tissue to go regrow quicker. Joe managed to sneak a glance at Irfan’s injuries, and it was not looking pretty. The skin was burned off almost to the bone itself, with charred edges, that were literally liquefied, streaming down arid's hand.
“What happened, man?!”
Irfan was heavily breathing. Then he wiped his forehead and slowly got up from the ground.
“No idea… I was climbing, then black smoke came from underneath my claws and touched my fingers. I felt them burn and let go…”
Joe looked up.
“Well, good thing you haven’t climbed far… So trees are dangerous and deadly, we have no way back and we don’t know what is going on. Should we return to the mansion and figure something out?”
Irfan slowly nodded. Pat frowned.
“I suppose we don’t have much of a choice… Maybe we could blast trees into the oblivion with your bombs, but I’m afraid of whatever is inside these trees. This substance seems to be extremely toxic, if even a bit of exposure does so much damage to a body.”
Joe agreed. While hostile trees was something straight out of an obscure horror movie, part of his mind was firing up, asking for more. If anything, he felt tiny bit excited about exploring unknown territory, with dangerous entity on their toes, which possibly wanted the death of them.
It was also helping to lessen the pain from losing an argument before…
*****
A motor carriage, true to its name, looked like someone sliced carriage cabin in half, moved its doors, added a back wall and slapped all of it on top of metal frame, calling it a day. The back part of vehicle itself, used for transportation, had a small lever to open a tailgate.
The engine in front of it looked very interesting. It had openings every 8-10 centimetres on the sides and the top, where Joseph noticed some sort of glass - or crystal, or gem - he wasn’t sure what kind of material it was. Whatever it was named, the material was shining dimly, even though there was almost no sunlight in the sky.
Meanwhile, Pat was rummaging in the cabin.
“Eh, no crank, no keys, nothing… Clean as Roth’s Medbay. Doesn’t look damaged… Leather on the wheel is worn out, but not too badly… calling it sufficient, overall…”
“What about a fuel?”
Pat looked behind his shoulder with pale face, like he just saw a ghost.
“What fuel?!”
“The usual?.. Gasoline, petrol, oil?..”
“No idea, what you are on about.” He jumped down on the ground. “This beast needs no stinking fuel, it runs on Dissonance!”
“It runs on what?”
The quartet of dumbfounded eyes told him that this was a question, an answer to which even kids should’ve known.
“Right, I forgot you got some brain damage. Empire uses Dissonance and converts it to electricity… I see you, I know you and I know what you want to ask - don’t. I have no idea. Ask our mechanics or our favourite cat, if he still remembers…”
Joseph looked at the engine again.
“So these… glass things are for this… Dissonance?”
“You would be correct. These are crystals, they are called “fouder”. They gather light inside of them and can keep it for a very long time. They are also used to gather Dissonance.”
“Wait. So Dissonance is just light?” Irfan interjected.
Pat scratched his chin.
“I have no idea… probably? I have never studied Dissonance in depth during my Capital days. I was a medical student, remember? I only know bare-bones basics of how this works. I did have a car, but I never was the one to fix it…”
“Well, it’s safe to say then that is has similar properties to light. But we are getting off track. So, this truck is useless for now?”
Pat nodded.
“It needs a crank to fire it up. We would have to search those buildings over there for it, I’d guess.”
Irfan carefully weighted their options.
“Brick shack is closed. That leaves white one and mansion… wait, what is that?”
He pointed behind concrete building.
It was difficult to notice, but up on the small hill, there were some other barely visible rectangular buildings. Joe counted three of them, others were hidden behind a top of the hill.
“There is a road leading there as well.”
Irfan cracked his neck.
“Mansion looks destroyed. I suggest white one.”
They approached the building. Nothing stood out enough for Joe to guess its intended purpose. It wasn’t even damaged much - just some ash on the walls and a couple of burns. The second floor had windows, barred by iron bars.
Joseph pulled and pushed the door in. No luck.
“Locked as well… wanna try to climb and check a windows?”
His companions weighted their chances.
“I could try, but my fingers still feel like burning…”
“I’m just a doctor, not a monkey.”
Joseph looked over the wall, trying to figure out the way up.
“I need some help…” He turned over to Irfan. “Can you push me up there?”
The hunter nodded. Irfan walked over to the wall and held his hands out together, covering his injured fingers. Joseph stepped back, prepared himself and dashed ahead, stepping on Irfan’s hand, pushing himself off at the same time. Hunter lifted his hands, throwing Joe up.
He managed to hang onto the window grate. Joe climbed to the top of the grate and put his legs inbetween bars.
“What’s up there?”
“A room. Two bunk beds, a closet, couple drawers, some tools like hammers, a dirty pickaxe, then some clothes… basic shirts and trousers, nothing fancy. I see no expensive things or uniforms.”
Joseph estimated the distance between windows. It was longer than his hand could reach, and he wasn’t sure if he could grab it if he jumped.
“Ah, screw it…”
He pushed himself off with his left leg. His fingers barely reached iron bars, frantically grabing onto them. He was now swinging on one hand, wincing from pain in his shoulder
“Quite a jump! Wasn’t smart, but very heroic. I give you highest grade for theatrics, and fail in brain power!”
Joseph only frowned. He managed to force his left hand to reach the grate and pulled himself up.
“Similar thing here… Basically no difference. Maybe pickaxe and hammers are missing, but that’s it.”
Irfan waved him to get down. Joseph did just that.
“So, what do he have? Just a mansion and workers' barracks?” Pat asked his companions, while Joseph was still wincing because of the pain.
Rat-faced doctor was left without an answer, as his companions were now looking at the direction of the mansion.
The wind intensified, carrying away displaced ash and dust from a square. Joseph covered his face with the hand, as black leaves flew past them en masse, forming a black line on a white stone.
A warning?
“You know,” Pat nervously whispered, “I was never really a devout follower of the gods… Always thought of them as some unnecessary louts who are sitting in the sky and watch me shitting in a gutter… But now I feel like praying, and don’t know to whom…”
“Pull yourself together!” Both Joseph and Irfan said in unison, gripping his shoulders. Pat jumped, swearing bloody murder.
Joe crossed the line. Wind was getting crazier, pushing him to the side, but he simply kept walking forward. Irfan and Pat joined him shortly after, with mighty hunter shielding the scared doctor with his body.
As they were crossing the line where gates were, Irfan stopped to check the hinges.
“Joe, look.”
Joe nodded and crouched to inspect a lower hinge.
“Same here. Whatever did this has a strength of a monster. They were ripped straight out.”
Irfan scratched his chin.
“Doesn’t look like a work of a human to me. It was done without any carefulness, only pure brutality and savageness, quick and easy. A mark of a wild animal, a very strong one.”
Joe stood up.
“Any ideas?” Irfan only shook his head in response to that.
“Some, but until we get more clues, I will not figure it out.”
Once beautiful garden, filled with flowers and trees, was now a poster image for this island itself. Not that black flowers were not pretty, but grey pieces of bark and dry leaves, branches, ash and piles of trash were destroying every last bit of enjoyment. Their slow steps were accompanied by muffled sound of crunching.
The mansion was rising in front of them, big and stoic, unimpressed by all the carnage it must have seen. The doors were broken down and pushed inside, still hanging on lower hinges. There, near the entrance to the mansion, they found their first proof that people were still here.
Just not in one piece.
“That’s a body.”
“A half of a body.” Joe corrected.
With a familiar black-red uniform. The person was indeed ripped in half, with bottom part missing. It had been there for a very, very long time, completely dried out. No worms, maggots, bugs or flies on it either.
“Strange… it wasn’t eaten by anything." Arid crouched. "No holes on a body. Lower half was torn off by an animal with claws, or very sharp and long fangs.”
“How do you know?” Pat leaned closer to a body.
Irfan pointed at the ruined uniform.
“See this? Long trails on both clothes and body. Now I’m sure it were claws. Cut from left to right, diagonally. There is no lower half around?”
