The Northern Approach (36 page)

On’esquin thought about that a moment. “Ask me that question about any person and my answer is the same. If you become a threat to good people…yes. I gave you this power because I believed you had the heart to control it.”

“Don’t hesitate if it comes to that,” Estin said, falling off of On’esquin to lie on his back. “Leave me alone.”

“I will say one thing more that you must know,” On’esquin said, propping himself up on an elbow to look down at Estin. “Oramain’s gift was a blessing in the early days. He saved hundreds of lives, bringing back the fallen to say good-bye to their families. He was a good man before Dorralt finished twisting him. It was that memory of him that prompted me to give this to you. Power is neither good nor evil, Estin. Find goodness in how you use this gift and you will be seen as a good man…use it for evil and you will be seen as Oramain was. Just be aware that you are not him and do not have the same vast control over it. Until you master the power, exerting yourself the way I have just described would kill you and possibly rip Oramain’s spirit from you. We need to temper this and teach you control or giving this to you will have been a waste for us both.”

Estin nodded, only half-hearing On’esquin. “Let me be. I need time to think. I can’t…I don’t know what to do.”

“The same can be said for the rest of us,” On’esquin told him, standing up and offering him a hand. “You will struggle on. We will find our way in time. Nothing comes quickly.”

Feeling numb to the bone, Estin took On’esquin’s hand and used it to sit up. While On’esquin wandered back to the woods to patrol, Estin looked around numbly at the rest of the stone field, barely able to hold his head up as thoughts of all the tattooed Turessians he had fought came to mind. He kept thinking back to Arturis murdering his son and wondered if that was somehow what On’esquin had turned him into. Would he one day murder someone else’s child? The thought was unbearable, and Estin could not help feeling as though he were somehow complacent in Atall’s death, knowing he contained a creature like the one who had actually murdered Atall.

The others made a point of not watching Estin or On’esquin, both men settling back down to feign sleep.

“This is a horrible idea, girl,” Estin said to the fox, petting her once he was sure the others were likely asleep again. “I don’t know why yet…but I know a bad plan when I hear one. This is going to end badly for us.”

Settling down beside him, the fox let out a throaty whine.

*

The journey across the foothills and into rockier and more heavily forested lands should have taken them about five days, according to Yoska, but as the ground became more uneven, their pace slowed considerably. Soon after the fifth day, even Yoska admitted he had made his estimate based on the assumption of paths of some sort. It was not until the sixteenth day that On’esquin stood atop one of the higher points and squinted into the distance, grinning broadly as he finally appeared to recognize the area.

“Two thousand years and so little changes,” he noted, gesturing to a region that appeared entirely inaccessible in the hills ahead. “That little corner of the world is where we’re going. Every refugee in the region likely knows of that place and will be waiting for us. This will be a rough place to win friends, but we will certainly try. If we succeed, we may yet have an army at our backs. I never knew this place to have less than a hundred refugees at any time.”

On’esquin climbed down among the others, giving them each a hopeful grin, but all three stared back at him boredly. “Why are we looking like Dorralt has found us?” On’esquin finally asked, his visible joy at finding the place fading rapidly.

“Is not that we doubted,” said Yoska, gesticulating broadly. “Is that…we walk for weeks and you show us long walk ahead, over even worse land. I will be first to celebrate when we have wagon or place to rest for few years, but until then, I pout with the others, yes?”

“Yes…I mean, no.” On’esquin gave them all hard looks before sighing. “I swear to you that when we find the village, I will buy us proper transportation. Most residents of this region abandon their carts and wagons long before entering the village, so I am certain this will not be an issue. We will offer them something in return for the location of intact wagons and some horses. If we can recruit heavily, they may bring their own.”

That seemed to somewhat mollify the group and Raeln began walking without another word, heading toward the cracked stones that ran between their location and the dense trees a few hundred feet away. From what Estin could see, once they entered the woods—which were themselves slanted atop rapidly changing ground—they would have far fewer rocky sections to traverse. They would have shade, even if they were still constantly going up and down hills through heavy brush.

Yoska and Raeln seemed entirely unhappy, marching on ahead with the fox a little behind them, while Estin and On’esquin trailed behind, picking their way over the difficult ground.

Estin’s feet hurt even more than they had after weeks of travel as the sharp granite shards of the broken ground tore into his pads. He could see Raeln stumbling from similar wounds, but the man pushed on without complaint. The distance to the woods might not be far, but it would leave them in poor shape if they had to run before Estin could mend their injuries. Worse yet, he could only imagine what a fall on that stretch of ground would do to them, with all its broken and jagged pieces of sharp stone. On’esquin was likely to be the only one armored well enough to keep from being bloodied, and ironically he was the only one that had little to fear from such injuries.

“Are you still angry with me for hiding what I gave you?” On’esquin asked suddenly, surprising Estin. “Or have you come to grips with it yet?”

“Still angry and will be until I know I can control this,” admitted Estin, hurrying his pace in the hopes that he could put the man behind him. He had no desire to speak with him, especially not about the second life that occupied his body, along with all of its hidden risks.

Huffing as he walked faster, trying to stay near Estin, On’esquin told him, “I have never lied to you, Estin.”

“You also said we would never meet again.”

On’esquin laughed at that. “Yes, I was wrong in many things, that being one of them. Misunderstanding the jumbled prophecies does not make my intentions any less pure.”

“Then what do you think this will gain us, even if I learn to control everything that Oramain was?” he asked over his shoulder once he knew On’esquin would not let him walk in silence.

“In no small part, I hoped that with the failing of your resurrection circles, you might be able to save a few more lives than your magic alone could,” admitted On’esquin. “It was wishful thinking, I am sure, but that was my belief. I saw the circles become unstable during the first war and this time is far worse. I cannot watch nations die again, with healers unable to keep up. Last time, Turess spared us, but he never shared how.”

“I am no savior, On’esquin.”

“Estin, there are no true saviors. We all just do what we can. I have to believe that there are hundreds more like us out there, attempting the same thing.”

Estin was so wrapped up in his thoughts that he barely noticed as the trees closed in around them and the ground became easier to walk. He still found himself climbing over stones and around thorny brush, but without the constant sharp stones and drop-offs, it was far easier ground to cover without paying as much attention.

“A little farther and we should start seeing outlying parts of the village,” On’esquin announced, and Estin realized the group was somewhat close together again in the tighter spacing between the trees. “I do hope they took my advice and built up the walls in the last two thousand years. All they would keep out or in were unmotivated cattle and…”

The orc’s words trailed off and Estin looked up to see what had distracted him.

The forest had parted somewhat into a slightly less wooded area filled with stone hovels, interspersed with trees that made it difficult to see the village from any distance. Much of the open space was overgrown badly, including several livestock pens Estin could see off to the edge of the village. Even the houses had plants growing out of their windows and open doors. Several had collapsed entirely. A low fence around part of the village had fallen long ago.

“Abandoned,” said Yoska sadly, shaking his head. “Still, is good place to hide for a few days and rest, yes? Abandoned means dead people do not know of the place, either.”

Estin looked around again, feeling dread taking hold of him. He wanted to run away as fast and as far as his legs would take him. He could not even be certain why, but the place terrified him. Try as he might, he could not see a reason in the old buildings. Normally places far from human intrusion were exactly where he wanted to be. Looking down, he saw his hands trembled and he could not make them stop. For a minute he could not make himself move, even as the others went on and his fox watched him in confusion. Finally, he forced his legs to start walking, if only to keep up with Raeln as he made his way down past the fallen fence.

“They left for a reason,” noted Raeln gruffly, leaning into the first house’s broken window. “We find out why before we make any decisions. If something made it this far out, we’re safer outside the village than in.”

“Do you smell anything that might indicate where the people are? This certainly has not been abandoned since my time. There were people here within the last few years,” On’esquin said. “I see no indication of mists, either.”

Sniffing with his nose as high as he could put it, Estin tried to search for recognizable scents. Everything seemed entirely too familiar, but nothing stood out as a problem. He could not smell death, decay, or even people. All he smelled were the woods and some kind of flowers that tugged at his memories. Tears came to his eyes and he could not say why.

“I know this place,” Estin said to himself as the others spread out and looked into the houses. “I’ve been here. When could I possibly have been here? This is almost a hundred miles from Altis…”

He wandered like the others, though not as pointedly. While Raeln checked each house warily for threats and Yoska twirled a weapon in one hand while meandering down what had once been a small path or road, Estin made his way through the trees and homes toward a point farther into the village. He had no idea where he was going, but he made his way through vague remembrances, navigating past several homes and then back toward one near the far end of the village.

“Estin?” asked Yoska, jogging over to follow him. “You are okay, yes?”

Estin could not manage to reply, staring in confusion at a patch of weeds between homes. That place looked so familiar that he could practically envision sitting there, watching people pass by. It made no sense, having spent his whole life in Altis prior to the war. He had never traveled in his younger years, and this was much farther than he had traveled even after meeting Feanne, unless he counted the distance the mists had taken him.

He stopped in the space between the homes for a while, numbly touching the wall of one as though it might yield answers to him. Taking a knee, he traced scratches in the clay wall of the house, recognizing it as a child’s attempt at drawing an adult. An adult with a tail. Yanking his hand away from the drawing, Estin continued on, making his way past several more homes. At last, he came to one particular overgrown house and stopped at the door.

Deep weeds clogged the doorway, obscuring any sight of what was inside. Estin did not need to see though, having stared at that doorway and the room beyond thousands of times over the years in his nightmares. Until he had met Feanne, dreams of this place had haunted him every night. This place had been his own private nightmare.

“It can’t be,” he mumbled, pushing at the weeds. They broke easily, crumbling away from the stones that made up the walls of the house. “This can’t be it!” Estin could hear the others gathering behind him, but he did not care. He had to be sure this was not the house he thought it was. Frantically, he ripped away the last of the weeds and ran inside, stopping once he was fully in the dark home.

Estin’s eyes rapidly adjusted to the dark, giving him possibly a better view of the place than if it had been under daylight. The house was exactly as he had left it almost nine years earlier. The wooden table had collapsed, but the fireplace was the same as he remembered. A broken chair lay right where it had fallen. Even the dishes from an evening meal lay rusted near the table. On a whim he looked back at the fireplace and saw the missing stone where he had taken their hidden savings before fleeing.