The next day passed exactly as the previous day had. The only real deviation in our journey was that Lloi was absent. She didn’t return in the middle of the night. She didn’t return at all.
⊕
The following day, after our usual morning rituals and preparations, Braylar summoned me to join him. When I took my seat, he glanced at me briefly. “You never look well-rested. I’m beginning to think that you don’t have it in you.”
I didn’t bother countering that I slept just fine when I wasn’t trapped on a wagon in the wilderness with the least loquacious man in the known world.
We sat in our customary silence for a time when Braylar finally said, “Have you grieved, Arki?”
I didn’t answer right away, equally surprised he was asking me a question and uncertain what he expected as a response.
“No? I thought as much. You haven’t lived until you’ve grieved. Death, life, together, the same. And if you’ve only experienced life you’re only half-alive. Of course, there are many kinds of grief. When we’re betrayed, when a lover leaves us in the middle of the night, when our fortunes overturn and dump us penniless in a ditch. Anywhere there’s loss, there’s a little grief. But they’re minor, and quick to disappear. We can take a new lover, take revenge on our betrayer, take the fortune of someone else. The losses can be recouped, and this is what makes these griefs minor, fleeting, inconsequential.
“But when you lose something that can never be replaced, and more particularly, someone, then you’ll know grief, true grief. The kind that tortures and warps and threatens to destroy, the kind that turns your insides to ash, that draws you toward madness or your own death. This grief will never leave you, ever. It will change shape, and if you survive its initial ravages, it will subdue, but it will never leave, periodically springing up again to catch you unaware with a new fierceness, like a plague that lies dormant for years only to return again with renewed ferocity. You’ll never fully escape it. For your sake, I hope you experience this grief soon. You’ll be that much closer to living a complete life.”
After that happy outburst, he lapsed into silence again. I was about to return to the wagon when he pointed out a figure on the horizon. At first I was worried it might be a Grass Dog, but his smile told me it was only his Grass Dog. When Lloi finally reined in next to us, Braylar said, “Report. What have you seen?”
She jerked a thumb in the direction she came from. “More than seen. Found.”
When she didn’t immediately expound, Braylar sighed. “Yes?”
“Best see it for yourself. I could spend the time telling you about it, but without presupposing I know what you’ll say or do, I know you’ll be wanting to just see it yourself anyway. So, you want me to lead you there?”
“How far away is this find of yours—should we follow on horse?”
“Horse be quicker, sure as spit. But seeing as to what I saw, I wouldn’t be leaving the wagon untended, Captain Noose, not if it were my wagon. Which it weren’t, of course. Just saying.”
Braylar seemed to be balancing between amusement and annoyance. “Very well, I’ll heed your cryptic and garbled advice. Wagon it is.”
Lloi’s horse trotted ahead of us. Braylar snapped the reins and had the horses moving at a fairly brisk pace—we rumbled over the ground, rocking as we went. Still, Lloi’s horse was quicker, even with its short legs, and she maintained enough distance between us that she was only a silhouette on the horizon, stopping on occasion to ensure the wagon didn’t fall too far behind.
Finally, Lloi stopped and got down off her horse. Braylar looked at me and said, “Pay attention. I believe this might be something worth recording.” Then he hopped off the wagon and it rocked gently on its springs. I got caught on a nail getting down, nearly tearing my tunic, and by the time my feet were on the ground, Braylar was striding after Lloi.
I hurried to catch up, but there was no need—they stopped a short distance away before a large area where the grass had been trampled down. That’s when I noticed the stench. Two odors intertwined, instantly recognizable to anyone who’s paid a visit to the butcher—meat and death.
As I approached, I saw something past Lloi’s shoulder, rising up above the grass. One of the largest creatures I’d ever seen was lying on its side before us. Easily as big as our wagon, perhaps bigger still.
It had short, squat legs, so that its belly must have swung very low to the ground, but now that belly was torn open, its thick, tangled, ropy innards strewn along with a great deal of dried blood across the flattened grass.
After a moment, Braylar and Lloi walked on, but never having seen anything like this before, I couldn’t help circling and taking account. Most of its body was covered in bulbous scales of dark gray, almost charcoal, interspersed with strange tufts of stiff hair. It had a short tail, a shorter neck, and a wedge-shaped head. Its mouth was agape, huge purple tongue lolling over knobby teeth, eyes like small black stones still open under a broad, bony ridge. Large flies scattered from the open wound at its belly as I came close, buzzing their protest. Its hide, more of an armor, really, was marked with white scars or punctures, particularly around the neck and head.
I looked up, and when I didn’t see my companions right away, there was a flash of panic before I noticed the tops of their heads twenty feet away. I walked over quickly and found another scene of carnage, much more dreadful than the first.
There was a chariot upended, comprised mostly of stiff grass. Harnessed to the front was a dead dog at least as big as Lloi’s pony, its thick mottled fur caked in a wide splatter of blood. Its throat had been torn out. I imagined what kind of creature could kill a dog this big, and in such gruesome, efficient fashion, and I couldn’t stymie a shiver.
Most of the harness straps disappeared underneath the dog, but it appeared there had been another dog pulling the chariot, though if it was in the vicinity, I didn’t see it. I wondered if that’s what Lloi and Braylar were inspecting and walked in their direction, suddenly wishing I’d stayed with the wagon.
Braylar and Lloi were squatting before a dead man, disemboweled from sternum to crotch, his bloated guts slung across his waist and pooling in the grass on either side.
I turned away, gagging, struggling to keep my last meal in my stomach. I tried to think on something else, anything else—beautiful flowers, a rolling brook, pen and ink—and the nausea nearly passed until I remembered I ate dried goat that morning, and then there was no stopping it—my stomach roiled and heaved. I took several steps back towards the chariot and vomited into the grass.
I dreaded Braylar’s ridicule and didn’t want to embarrass myself by spitting up bile, but I also didn’t want to walk alone back to the wagon. Whatever assaulted the Grass Dogs was still out here somewhere. And so, once I was sure my knees had wobbled their last, I approached again, reluctantly.
Braylar had just finished asking a question.
She pointed. “Over there.”
The two of them began walking without sparing me another look.
I glanced down at the man again, though I was careful not to linger on his innards. He shared Lloi’s dark coloring, both in skin and hair. Feet, sandaled; legs, bound in strips of felt wrapped tight; chest (what I allowed myself to see), once housed in a breastplate of dark gray leather that had been slashed open; left arm, still clutching a long wooden shield that had been flung wide; his spear is a few feet away, just outside the dried blood that coated the grass in all directions. He had a gray helmet that bore a striking resemblance to a bowl and was obviously fashioned out of the hide of a beast like the one also dead nearby. His eyes stared up into the cloudless sky, mouth still open in an unfinished scream. A fly traipsed across his lips and I turned away to find Braylar and Lloi before my stomach betrayed me again, my feet heavy as I dreaded what else they might be investigating.
They were standing on either side of another dead body, though this one was thankfully face down in the grass. For a moment, I feared Braylar meant to turn him over with his foot, shuddered, and began to avert my eyes.
Braylar saw, smiled quick and small. “No matter. Dead is dead. So, Lloi, you have my attention in full. Tell me what happened here.”
“Wasn’t here. But I can hazard a guess or two.”
“As could I. But I’m hopeful yours will contain more insight.”
Lloi pointed back where we came from. “That beast back there, what my people call a rooter, it—”
Braylar interrupted. “No longer, Lloi.” She looked confused until Braylar clarified. “They haven’t been your people for some time.” Surprisingly, this was said somewhat gently, less a reprimand than a reminder.
Lloi pulled her misshapen hat off her head. “Nah. They’re still my people, even if I’m not theirs. Can’t help who you are, Captain Noose. Can’t help it none at all.”
Braylar looked poised to argue, but conceded the point. “As you will, Lloi. Continue, then. What of the beast?”
“Called a rooter, on account of it eating not much more than roots. But mean as spit, for all that—can crush a man easier than I can crush a flower. Usually hunt them with a small party, like this, though I’m guessing they wished they’d a brought a bigger one right about now. But here, they got two chariots, probably four or five men, and—”
“Two? Where is the other, then, and those that rode on it?”
Lloi waved away a big fly. “I’m coming to that, short. Get there faster, you just let me.” She set the hat on her head and adjusted it, but I couldn’t fathom why—it was only a different kind of shapeless now. “Trails and ruts say two chariots, four, maybe five men. They hunt this rooter to ground, I’m thinking. Wasn’t expecting them to be this close to the road, but I’m guessing they followed that old devil away from a herd, he led them on a chase outside where they meant to go. You notice the skin? Thick. Tough to kill a rooter with spears. But worth it, if you can manage. So they chased, finally made the kill back there.”
We followed her back toward the chariot and dog. “Looks like they set to butchering when something took them unawares. Guessing the two we got dead here, they were carving the rooter. The other two or three, back over here with the chariots. Must have been when they heard it.”
She didn’t elaborate as she walked around the perimeter of the scene, her hand grazing the tops of the grass.
Braylar snapped, “What, pray tell, did they hear?”
“Ripper come on them. Looks like it attacked near the chariots first.”
I said, “Ripper? Let me guess. On account of it eviscerating everything?”
“If that word means ripping, then yeah, on account of the ripping. Biggest killer on the plains. Vicious bird, taller than a man on horse, and faster too, least in short bursts. Quicker and meaner than anything you ever see. No wings to speak of, but rippers got arms with long claws. Hook their prey still when they shred it with that massive beak of theirs. Eat ferrets, groundhog, gazelle, pretty much whatever else it come across. Loves horse. They usually steer clear of men and dogs, though, least of all, when in number. Can’t rightly say what it was doing here. Could be it had its eye on the old rooter, too, got territorial. Could be its stomach was just that empty. Guessing it came on them unawares. One wagon had time to cut loose. But those poor bastards, looks like one tried to run, the other tried to fight. Either way, dead is dead.”
Braylar dropped his hand to the flail on his hip and scanned the horizon. “Thank you for advising me to don armor before leaving the wagon. Most kind.”
“Wouldn’t help you none, if the ripper come calling. Steel armor would’ve surprised it some, true enough—not much of that out this way—but just would’ve taken a chunk from somewhere that didn’t taste so steely. You ever see a ripper up close, pretty much the last thing you ever see, no matter what you’re wearing. Unless you’re sitting in an iron box. But we got a real shortage of those around here too.”
She looked off across the grassland. “Ripper didn’t stay here long, guessing it took off after that other chariot. Guessing there’s another scene played out just like this one, some miles away. Guessing the ripper’s getting its fill right now, else it would’ve run back here already, before the scavengers come calling. That’s what I’m guessing.”
Braylar turned and began walking back towards the wagon, rather quickly. “Next time you’re tempted to lead us to a ripper’s trencher, think better of it, Lloi.”
We got moving again. Though it could’ve been my imagination, Braylar seemed to be snapping the reins with more enthusiasm. He asked Lloi to sit alongside him on the bench and began shooting volleys of questions at her, all dealing with what she saw while scouting. Particular tracks or trails, the locations of rivers or dried river beds, outcrops, likely spots for ambush, other signs of the Grass Dogs, rooters, or rippers.
A small cluster of strange trees appeared off to our tight. The trunks were incredibly thick—wider than three stocky men standing shoulder to shoulder—but they were also very short, no taller than our wagon. The branches were stout, too, comprising a dense canopy of foliage with prickly looking leaves. I couldn’t imagine many trees surviving the wind on these plains, but these appeared oddly suited to the task. It was only a small cluster, though, the trees huddled together, and they quickly disappeared.
We were now truly in the wild. If there was any doubt, Lloi leading us to the ripper’s bloodbath confirmed it completely. We were deep in the wilderness, in the middle of the alien Green Sea, far from anything or anyone familiar, and I was as afraid as I’d ever been in my life. I should’ve heeded my mother’s advice. Even if she was wrong about most everything else, she was absolutely point on when it came to avoiding the Syldoon.
⊕
Lloi and Braylar alternated watch during the night. I volunteered to help and was equally relieved and insulted when Braylar said they wouldn’t trust their lives to my vigilance.
Lloi was gone with daybreak, if not before. I didn’t see how she could spend half the night on watch and then a full day scouting ahead or behind us, but her endurance didn’t seem to flag at all.