Becoming P.T. Lyfantod - 4
A serial fantasy novel
What follows is Part 4 of Becoming P.T. Lyfantod
If you missed Part 1, start there:
I awoke with a start some hours later to a jostling hand upon my shoulder. Hurlin, rousing me for the final watch. I yawned and nodded at him. Wrapping my blanket about my shoulders, I emerged from my tent and sat down on a large rock I was certain hadn’t been there before.
Judging by the tracks in the gravel, Dona or Hurlin must have found it somewhere up the beach and dragged it over. I shook my head. It was reckless, wandering off alone when you couldn’t see what dangers might be waiting. Still, it was a nice rock. Hurlin shoved a steaming cup of spiced mead into my hands before turning and burrowing into his blankets. He was snoring again before I’d taken the first rejuvenating sip.
With the aid of Hurlin’s mead, I threw off the last dregs of sleep and peered into the dark. Fog still hung about the camp, but not so thickly as before. I perceived a lightening in the east. I nudged a smoldering log with the toe of my boot, sending sparks spiraling upward. That was something no one told you about taking watch. That mostly what you watched was burning wood. I waited for the sun to rise and wondered what the day would bring.
The smell of beans and dried pork I’d set to cooking drew Dona from her covers. She came and settled across from me, watching them simmer. When she eventually spoke, she surprised me with a question.
“So, what did you see?” She glanced aside as Hurlin snorted and mumbled to himself, a sure sign he too was on the verge of waking.
I frowned. “Nothing. What did you?”
She rolled her eyes. “Do you recall what Argon said before we left? His warning?”
I nodded. Of course I remembered. “‘The island will show you things. Do not shy from the truth.’ You mean to tell me you’ve had a vision?”
“We both have,” Hurlin rumbled from inside his tent. With a great deal of rustling, the dwarf emerged bleary eyed and blinking, tangled in a mass of curly brown hair.
“You mean dreams,” I said.
They shook their heads.
“This was during watch,” said Dona. “And don’t go suggesting we fell asleep. I want to know why you were spared when we weren’t.”
“Spared? It was bad news, then?”
Hurlin made a great phlegmy sound in his chest. “Not bad.” He eyed Dona warily. She was scowling more than usual. “That is, if you can believe… In err—my vision, I fought an undead horde upon a mountainside, wielding a mighty hammer that glowed with golden light. I smote them. It was…” He coughed. “…exhilarating.”
Dona muttered under her breath. The only word I caught was, “Nonsense.”
“I gather yours was less exhilarating?”
She directed her scowl at me.
I raised my hands defensively. “You don’t have to tell us if you don’t want to.”
“What do I care?” she spat. “It’s rubbish.”
“Remember the warning…”
Dona gave Hurlin a murderous glare then turned back to me. “What I saw was Argon.”
“Argon? Not…dead?”
“Oh no. Nothing so pleasant.”
I arched an eyebrow.
Dona’s nostrils flared, and she gave a great huff, staring at the ground. It took me a moment to recognize the expression, because I’d never seen it on her face before. She was embarrassed.
“Argon and I. We…”
“You…” I prompted.
She looked up at me, and there was murder in her eyes. “We were making love.”
My mouth fell open. Hurlin had gone a vibrant shade of pink. Neither of us spoke. We knew full well if we did she’d slit our throats and stomp upon our corpses. What we were thinking, of course, was that Argon had said the island would show us truths. That to deny those truths was dangerous. And if this was what the island had shown Dona…
Ultimately, I settled for nodding stiffly and serving up hefty helpings of pork and beans. Dona’s revelation was slightly easier to stomach on a full belly. For me, anyway. She still looked like she’d swallowed something pale and wriggling. With dozens of legs. I worried the flattering nature of Hurlin’s vision might give him the dangerous inclination to argue their veracity. Fortunately, if he had those thoughts, he kept them to himself.
By the time we finished eating, the sun had risen and burned away most of the fog. The first thing I noticed was that there was no other land in sight. Either I’d rowed a lot farther than I’d thought, or the lake Glass had become a sea. But that wasn’t the most upsetting discovery we were to make.
“The boat’s gone,” said Dona.
I gaped. Hurlin made a noise that I could not properly interpret. Dona was right. There was no sight of it anywhere.
“We’re trapped,” I moaned. “Even if the far shore somehow reappears come nightfall. We don’t know if there’s game here, or edible plants to forage. Our provisions won’t last more than a week.”
“Hunger is the least of our worries,” said Hurlin. “We’ll worry about food when we must. And I fear home will have to wait longer still. For now, it’s time we started moving. We came here for a reason after all.”
“Easy for you to say. You’d be perfectly happy eating rocks.”
Hurlin bristled. “Dwarves do not eat rocks. We smelt them.”
“Aye, well… I’m sure you could if you wanted to,” I said, softly enough that he wasn’t obligated to reply.
Dona ignored both of us. “We’ll travel inland. If we’re to find Clara, it’ll be there. I spied a footpath not far off. Now let’s be on our way. The sooner we’re off this accursed island, the better.”
She was right, of course. I kicked gravel over the remains of the fire, and we returned our gear to our packs. On a whim, I walked down to the water and dipped my hand in it. I sniffed, and put it to my lips. “Peh!” I spat. Salt! Wherever we were, I’d a feeling it was nowhere near the village of Wrath.
Grey gravel gave way to rocky grey ground, sloping gradually upward. Everything was grey, even the sky. From grey dirt grew grey shrubs that hardly seemed alive. Foothills rose around us, Dona’s path snaking between steep slopes. And when we could see no more than a stone’s throw in any direction, the undead began to appear.
They reeked of madness.
First came the Shades, mere outlines of men, transparent and colorless as their world. They stood alone or huddled in small groups, muttering incoherencies and half-heard ramblings. Hurlin assured us they had no ability to affect the corporeal world, but the sight of them filled me with a powerful unease.
Most seemed unaware of us, but sometimes we’d catch their attention, and they’d run toward us, screaming, swinging phantom weapons that passed right through us, as ours passed through them. All but Hurlin’s staff. It met their spectral flesh and immaterial blades as though they were solid, and he battered them into nonexistence. The most persistent he banished with holy rebukes and invocations. It was all greatly unnerving.
“Shut your ears to their ravings,” Hurlin warned. “The madness of this place is infectious.” The further we got from shore, the more substantial they grew, till at last we came upon a dead man whose spirit was still attached to flesh. “By Duormir, begone with you!” Hurlin bellowed, lashing out with his staff at the shuffling abomination. One blow sent its head tumbling down the rocky slope, and the body followed soon after.
That was the first of many. Hurlin couldn’t manage them alone, so Dona and I joined the fray, she with sword and buckler, I with knives and rough grappling. But for every dead man we dispatched, another appeared to replace him. They grew stronger and cleverer as well. Some had rusted swords, moldering staves, most as decrepit as the hands that wielded them. Sweat sheathed our faces, our breath came in gasps, and I wondered how much more we could take. We were recovering from our last encounter when a cadaverous warrior clambered up the slope behind us and took us by surprise. A wild swing of its ancient morningstar sent Hurlin sprawling. Dona and I watched helplessly as the fiend raised its weapon to smite our fallen healer, until—
The half-orc warrior, Garish appeared, removing the foolish zombie’s head with a single swing of his mighty axe, Lucifille!
“Whoa! Where’d he come from?” Iain’s chair legs squealed as he lurched to his feet, dragging me back to the garage.
“Tom!” Merry was on her feet as well. “I told you that you can’t be a half-orc! This is the second edition! And it’s fighter, not warrior! Jesus!”
“Fine. The human fighter Garish appeared, wielding his mighty—”
“What the hell’s he doing here?” Iain rounded on Merry, his cheeks flushed.
“Tom Firth?” said Stuart. “Really, Mer?”
Tom flicked his hair that way he did. “I—that is, Garish—found your boat, washed ashore south of the village Wrath. I knew if you were to face the terrors of this island, you’d need the aid of someone as strong and daring as myself! So I—"
“You coached him? You did, didn’t you!”
“How’d he even know it was our boat? Doesn’t make any—”
“I—”
“How could he cross the lake? It’s daylight!”
“Behold my superlative navigation skills. There’s no path I—”
“Quiet, you!” Iain snapped. “Dona, what the hell?”
But Merry’s eyes were on Tom. “I told you to wait outside until I came to get you. Why can’t you listen?”
“What? It’s bloody raining out there. Christ, Meridith!”
That was how we found out Merry had a boyfriend. The four of us—me, Stuart, Iain, and Merry—were clustered around a little card table in Merry’s garage, shoved between an old fridge and her dad’s beat-up blue Austin Mini. Beside which, to everyone’s surprise, stood Tom Firth.
The twist at the end got me chuckling a good amount. 😁