Chapter 1
Discovering the Dursts
Continuing alone, finding the messenger's corpse, and the death house
The rain and kids luring them warily inside.
Realizing they're trapped, exploring the first and second floor briefly to find the crying child
Eliza finding the armor and being thrown down the stairs
“How long ‘till that bursts do you think?” Eross slowed his pace to point at the darkening sky through the sparse canopy of pine overhead. The storm clouds had been forming for an hour.
Athrin replied, “Likely soon.” His speech was kurt. “I hope you’ve all slept out of doors in the rain before. I’d rather not suffer complaints as well.”
Erros lowered his head with a frown and kicked a stone further down the path. It picked up speed as it bounced erratically among brittle yellow needles, before it was stopped by a cluster of cones. He’d never slept out of doors at all. Not until he left the proper world a week ago on this ridiculous faerie-chase. Of course he’d suffered the straw mattresses and drafty common rooms of backwater taverns before, even laid his head on mildewed hay once, though he recalled that night fondly as he hadn’t laid it alone. But to sleep in the bitter cold, woken every hour by the chill bite of a wind gust, or the squeal of a field mouse snatched up by an owl: Erros thought of a dozen of his enemies he wouldn’t wish this punishment upon.
And now rain!? What on earth am I doing out here? What sense has left me that I didn’t ride back with Stanimir at the sight of that cursed gate?
“Erros stop!”
The command was just loud enough to hear, stern but hushed. Eros halted his walk to realize he’d moved to the front of the group. His heart began to race and he flinched, “What, what is it!?...”
He whipped his head about to see Fabian’s palm held up to him, her finger pressed to her lips. The rest of his group stood five yards back, their knees bent as if readying themselves. She turned to Eliza who had stepped from the road and dropped to one knee. It looked as though she was…sniffing the air?
“Okay, what is going on?” he whispered.
Fabian approached on the balls of her feet, almost wading through the air like it dragged her back, “Eliza’s smelled something dead.”
“It’s down this rise, not too far.” Eliza said as she unsheathed a blade.
“I don’t smell anything,” sais Erros.
Fabian ignored him, “We should check it out, find out what we should be prepared for.”
Eliza was already sliding down the hill, bracing herself on the trunks of trees and ducking beneath spindling branches. The rest followed, alert and scanning for movement.
“Come Erros, we should stick together.” Fabian noticed he hadn’t made to move.
“But what does it matter, don’t animals eat each other? It’s probably wolves or maybe a bear.”
Pieron called back mockingly, “Aren’t you curious?”
“Curious to see a deer carcass, no I grew out of my childhood. It’s actually quite common where I come from to do so!” Erros thought highly of his jape, but Pieron just smiled playfully and kept up her bouncing descent.
Fabian held out her hand, “Some woods hold worse beasts than wolves and bears, it would benefit us to know what’s out there. Come on, there’s nothing to be scared of.”
Erros scoffed. If they didn’t know how much mud lurked beneath a bed of pine needles, and hadn’t noticed how clean he’d been keeping his boots, then there was no point in explaining. But he would not have it thought that he feared a lifeless, chewed-up deer. He stepped off the path past Fabian’s hand.
What they found tucked into a burrow was half gnawed but it wasn’t a deer, it was a man. They
