//------------------------------// // Chapter 4: Out the door // Story: Banished // by Sixpence //------------------------------// Fire. Fire and chaos. The smell of burning flesh lingered in the air around me like a haze of death. I could hear screams of pain coming from the settlement around me. The wall had been breached, and the enemy was lighting everything in their path on fire. The walls, once the village’s protection had become a cage. An oven. I had been stationed on the wall when they came, howling like wild animals from the treeline. We had torches along the outside of the wall. To scare away wildlife, to provide some light. All it did was blind us to the utter darkness outside their range. The Centurion on guard had fallen from the parapet with an arrow through his neck. When they came, our century was in chaos without our leader. None of us were prepared, most of us auxiliaries posted as far away from the front as we could come. We didn’t stand a chance. I was thrown into a burning building by a giant of a man, his face and body covered in blue paint. I tried to crawl out, but everything was fire. My armor, my hair. I could feel my skin crumbling in the intense heat. The building started to crumble around me. The ground shook as the heavy beams of what had once been a home hit the ground around me. A groan from above was all I heard before I felt a pressure on my head, and the world went dark. And I woke up in the fire in my cave, on another world. The smell of burnt hair permeated the air, and a grumpy changeling was sitting on my bed covering her nose. --- “This is demeaning...” Chrysalis whined as I tightened the knots on the makeshift harness tying her to my back. “Why are we even doing this again?” “Because” I grunted and shifted her a little further up “I’m not going to sit in this god forsaken wasteland if there is a civilisation out there.” “Well. I’m perfectly fine with staying right here thank you very much.” I sighed and tightened another strap, making her squeak in surprise. “I’m not. And I’m not going to let you die out here alone.” I said and picked up my staff. On one end I had tied the last piece of a shirt together into a bag with some food, some tinder and a piece of flint. I felt the changeling slump against my back in defeat. “Fine. But why do I have to be in this stupid harness. I can walk.” Put her head on my shoulder and looked me in the eye. “What makes you think there’s anyone else out there anyway?” I rolled my eyes and started out the door after putting out the fire. I glanced back once outside. It wasn’t the best of places, not even close, but it had been my home for the last year. I had gone to the trouble of trying to cultivate some plant-life around the base of the mountain, but I was never much of a gardener. Last night’s rain had pummeled what little was left, leaving nothing but half drowned, pitiful little plants that barely clung to life in the ditch I had grown for them. “For one. You came from somewhere to the east. I have a hard time believing you’re the only sapient thing on this rock.” The weather was overcast, but the sun poked through in places, and even the jagged wastes looked majestic with the rays coming through the clouds. Like a deranged artists canvas. “Secondly. I’d like to get somewhere within the next few years... You’d only slow us down.” Chrysalis didn’t say anything, and I glanced at her. She was just staring right ahead, seemingly lost in thought. She caught me looking at her and rolled her own eyes and looked at me. “What?” “Nothing. You seem thoughtful. That’s new.” I smirked and turned forwards, taking the first step on our journey. She batted me on my head with her hoof. “Very funny.” She deadpanned. “So what’s on your mind?” Her eyes flickered away for a moment, before she resumed staring forwards. “Oh nothing. Just thinking about what your name should be.” I could feel her grin, but I kept my eyes on the valley before us. Chrysalis was surprisingly light, but the harness chafed nonetheless, and my cargo was obviously deflecting an issue. “I’m not sure that I’m comfortable with you giving me a name.” Truly, I didn’t mind all that much. But this woman, mare, changeling, had some strange ideas in her head when it came to names. “How about... Scruffy. You are pretty scruffy.” I sighed, again. “No.” “Sticky.” “What? No! Where did that come from?” “You’ve got a stick. So, Sticky.” “Oh, right. Still no. And it’s a staff, not a stick.” “Stick, staff whatever.” “There’s a difference!” “If you say so, Chuck.” I stopped for a moment and looked at her. She was grinning, almost if my stop told her something. “Chuck? Why Chuck of all things?” I asked, feeling rather curious. Chuck was a name that sometimes popped up in my memories of the old world. “Well.” She tapped my staff. “I’m sure you could chuck this at something?” I rolled my eyes and started walking again. “How about... Pet?” “No!” And it continued like this as we walked through the muddy wastes. --- After half a day the mountainous landscape opened up and revealed a valley that ran through the wastes like a gigantic scar in the ground. The valley itself was barren, even the scraggly trees of the wastes were absent. This was not a good place to be. “Where are we?” Chrysalis asked from her perch on my back. “I can’t say I like the look of the place.” By now my eyes were tired of being rolled, so I simply shrugged and walked over to the edge of the crevasse. “Oh, this charming place?” I looked down into the foggy depths. “I call it Fang Valley.” Without waiting for a response I jumped over the edge. I heard Chrysalis draw in a breath to scream, but we landed on an outcropping not two meters below, and quickly clamped a hand over her muzzle. She looked at me, her eyes wild and accusing, and I released her mouth. “Just what in Tartarus are you thinking?!” She yelled, and I clamped her muzzle shut once again. Her shrill voice echoed through the valley, and I heard answering screeches coming from below. “Be quiet!” I hissed and glared at her, though my eyes betrayed my mirth and I removed my hand. Her eyes darted around the valley below us, the pupils wide. “What was that?” She whispered. “That, my dear changeling, was the reason I call this Fang Valley.” I smirked and dropped down to another ledge. Chrysalis squeaked in surprise when the ground dropped out beneath us for another few meters. When we landed she batted me upon the head once more. “Would you give me some warning next time? Please? I’m not a fan of heights.” “You have wings, how in the world can you be afraid of heights?” I looked up at her and moved forward to drop down another ledge. Only three more and the ground levelled out enough to walk the rest of the way down. Chrysalis groaned and looked down over my shoulder. “We have a disagreement. Heights and I no longer get along. I’m sure you could figure out why.” She sounded downcast, and her eyes betrayed a deeper hurt than she was telling me. “Right. I guess the way you... dropped in has something to do with it.” This time I lowered myself down over the ledge and dropped gently down to the next outcropping. The changeling looked back at her tied down wings for a moment, then squeezed her eyes shut before opening them again. She didn’t respond, and didn’t say anything more as we climbed the rest of the way down. On the bottom of the valley ran a muddy brown river. On one end of the rift in the land a majestic waterfall fell, creating a mist that rolled through the crevasse, making everything around the river damp and mucky. Before us ran a thin trail, worn into the wet ground by the creatures that stalked the area. Large paw-prints and smooth tracks from something that slithered along the ground lined the bank we were on. The mist was rather thick, it obscured the other side of the river, and the hulking shapes of large rocks gave the place an eerie feel. The sensation of being watched made my skin crawl. “What could possibly survive down here?” Chrysalis murmured and looked around at the stones half obscured by the fog, as well as the brown river where rocks below the water created the illusion of something big moving around. Or maybe it just was something big, I didn’t intend to find out. “You don’t want to know. And if we’re lucky, you won’t find out either...” I whispered back and started walking down the trail, keeping a wary eye at the fog. “Couldn’t we just have gone around?” She asked quietly. Surprisingly she sounded more alert than frightened. “There must be a better way than this?” I froze in my tracks. Something had just moved in the dim light the fog allowed through. I slipped the staff from my shoulder and pulled off the bag. “Hold this, and stay quiet.” I whispered and passed the bag over my shoulder. Chrysalis slipped the bag over her hoof and placed it between her chest and me. “What did you see?” She hissed quietly. “Hopefully nothing. Be quiet.” I hissed back and crouched behind a rock. Minutes passed, and I neither heard nor saw anything move. Slowly I made my way out from behind the stone, and started slowly moving forward, keeping a watchful eye out for anything that moved. The sensation of being watched was even stronger, and I saw something move in the water that was definitely not a rock. “We have to get out of here quickly.” I murmured to my passenger. “If night falls before we’re out...” “What?” She hissed. “Then we’re in trouble.” I answered and prowled forward. Again I saw a shadow move through the fog, only this time there were two of them, and there were no hiding places in sight. “This isn’t good...” I whispered. Chrysalis stayed silent, but I could feel her moving around on my back. Likely keeping watch behind. For what felt like an eternity we slinked through the fog. Shadows constantly moved around us, and I could hear muted snarls and hisses from the nigh impenetrable fog. Then a creature shrieked from above. The sound made the hairs on my arms stand on end, and I could see a large shadow moving above us. The creature’s wings churning the fog as it flew above. I crouched as low as I could get and held my breath. The thump of wings became distant, and I let out my breath. “Well. That was exci...” I didn’t get to finish my sentence, for at that moment something shot out of the fog before us, it was a large wolf-like creature. I barely got a look at a glowing yellow eye as it shot by us, huge fangs and a mass of black fur lining its muzzle. “Oh boy...” I said and clutched my staff. “That’s not good.” I could hear Chrysalis breathing hard on my back. “What was that? I’ve never seen anything like it.” She looked fearfully at the twirling fog where the creature had disappeared. “Direwolf.” I whispered while listening for signs of its whereabouts, but the fog and the rushing of the river muted anything more than a few feet away. “I don’t think it’s here to say hello and share a friendly chat.” Before Chrysalis could respond, howls came from all around us, and shapes only slightly smaller than the direwolf moved around us just out of sight. “Damn.” I spat and crouched. “What? What’s going on?” Chrysalis whispered through clenched teeth. “A pack. This is bad, very very bad.” I glanced around, and looked into the churning water not two metres away. “I need you to trust me.” “Why? What are you doing?” She sounded tense. “Just trust me, okay?” I clenched the staff harder in my hand, and checked the knots on the harness. Then I jumped into the murky river. --- “This was a stupid idea!” I gasped as I surfaced once more. The river ran a lot faster than I had anticipated, and the underwater currents constantly dragged us under. On my back a thoroughly soaked changeling was cursing in a language I didn’t understand, half the words were chittering, but their meaning was not lost on me. I swam for all I was worth, trying to reach the other bank of the river, away from the pack of undoubtedly hungry and furious direwolves. I constantly felt something slither along my legs, and prayed that it was just debris or rocks in the river. Something suddenly grabbed my leg, and I yelped in surprise before we were dragged under. The water was so dirty that I couldn’t see what had grabbed us. I jabbed at it with my staff, and hit something soft that recoiled at the impact, leaving me free to swim to the surface. I gasped for air when I breached the surface, and I could hear Chrysalis coughing up water. “You alright?” I yelled back at her, the river was picking up its pace, and I could hear the roar of a waterfall not far ahead. “No!” She cursed some more and coughed up another lungful of water. “Get us out of this damned river!” I heard a splash from behind us and Chrysalis screamed. I turned in time to see a tentacle the size of a tree trunk shooting towards us. Before I could raise my staff, another tentacle shot out of the water and something wrapped itself around my torso. The waters before us began churning furiously, and we were lifted out of the water. From the depths of the raging river rose a monster like nothing I had ever seen. The head was vaguely humanoid, but the eyes were black slits like those of a toad, and it’s mouth looked more like a gaping wound full of razor sharp teeth. Along its forehead were several horns, and its breath stank like meat left in the sun for weeks. “Oh crap!” I yelled and started hitting the tentacle wrapped around my waist and Chrysalis’. The creature roared, droplets of water and saliva flew at my face. Instead of letting go, the appendage only tightened, and I could hear my ribs groaning in protest. Chrysalis screamed in pain and fear as the chitin around her torso bent under the stress. Painfully slow, the creature lowered us towards its gaping maw, and I could tell that this was it. I would either die being slowly digested in the creature’s belly, or live eternally in its bowels while my companion was eaten away by the acids. Then something even bigger moved in the water, and a scaly claw wrapped around the first monsters head. The squid-like monster roared with pain as the claw dug into its skin, grey blood seeping up around the wounds. The creature flinched, and suddenly we were airborne. Our flight ended when we painfully impacted against something large and very hard. I glimpsed what looked like the support of a ruined bridge before darkness pressed against my vision and I slipped out of consciousness.