Holden’s boots sank into the mud, making each step more difficult than the last. The rain was seeping through his hood, reintroducing the frigid cold to his body. He looked about for some means of shelter. It was a miracle that he made it this far with the worsening conditions. The unkempt ground he walked upon was slowly becoming a marsh, trying to suck him further into the earth. As he used a tree to pull himself free of the terrain, Holden glanced at a route consisting of wood built above the mud. He had followed the route for a while, now, but dared not use it. It left him exposed, and if any Rnyrtian approached him, there was nowhere to hide.
Just then, Holden saw something crawling along the road. It was too big to be a man, and crept with fluid motions that the most experienced of rogues would envy. Just as Holden notched an arrow, the creature stopped. Had it seen him? He drew back the bowstring, and aimed at the form, taking care to back little noise. Right before he fired, Holden stopped himself. A more probable reason for the creature’s halt came into view.
A group of Rnyrtian warriors walked on the wooden path at an almost leisurely pace, their jargon mixed in with chuckles and expressions that holden had yet to comprehend. They were unaware of the creature lying in wait. Much like the beast, Holden waited to lay claim on a life. When the patrol passed over it, nothing happened. Instead, it waited until the last of the four Rnyrtians passed by. Then, -- without any warning -- the predator burst from the marsh, claws grabbing onto the last warrior. Powerful jaws drove sharp fangs through soft flesh, and the victim could not let out a mere squeak of alarm before going limp.
As the silent killer dragged its prize down into the marsh, the rest of the Rnyrtians carried on; none noticing the sudden absence of their fourth. It was but one of the several dangers lurking in the jungle, and they fed on carelessness. Holden looked around himself for any sign of such a predator, but finding nothing gave him little relief. It could be that whatever killed the Rnyrtian was already stalking him. Miserable and unnerved, he pushed further on in spite of it all, and searched for some form of shelter.
The downpour only grew worse, as he found himself waist deep in water. The murky waters made it simple enough for anything to move about freely, protected from sight. Holden reeled his attention back in when he spotted the warm glow of firelight through the rain. Moving from tree to tree, he drew close to find yet another Rnyrtian campsite -- built within the mouth of a cave -- occupied by four Rnyrtians who huddled around the fire for warmth. Readying an arrow, Holden weighed his options carefully. On the presumption that his first arrow was on target, he would still be left with three warriors, and they could close the distance between Holden and themselves before he could fire another.
However, the obscuring effect of the rain could afford him plenty of time. They would have no idea as to his whereabouts, giving him the opportunity to pick them off, one by one. Taking aim, Holden steadied his shivering form, just long enough to let his arrow take flight. Then, he took cover behind a tree, not looking for the results of his marksmanship. He would just have to trust in his accuracy. It would only pose a risk to check, and one he would regret if the Rnyrtians did spot him. He could hear a pained scream barely overpower the rain, indicating that his arrow found a target. Notching another arrow, Holden waited, placing time in between each shot. While the scream evoked a guilt he had felt since the battle with the Aradians, he kept drowning it all under the same logic that made him lose little sleep over each man he killed. It was him, or them. It was a battle for survival.
Exhaling slowly, Holden peered around the tree to find the three untouched Rnyrtians absent from the camp, the one he hit writhing in pain next to the fire. Staying as still as a statue, he waited for the others. He noticed one of the Rnyrtians slowly creeping towards the injured one, stopping now in then in what he assumed was hesitation. Pulling back his plumed messenger of death, Holden aimed carefully, imagining the targets Saul had him practice on. The rain stopped as he found himself atop the hill that Saul’s home was built upon. He felt the gentle breeze caressing his face, and saw the small bullseye painted upon the trunk of the oak. As he had done countless times over, he released the arrow, and watched as it landed in the heart of the target.
As quickly as it came, the scene melted back into the cold, soaking reality. The second Rnyrtian was motionless on the ground, the arrow nestled in his head; right in the eye. Just as Holden moved back behind the tree, an arrow whistled past his head. It landed in the marsh, disappearing from sight. He turned to find one of the Rnyrtians wielding a bow, and reaching for another arrow. Holden quickly drew and fired at the archer, his alacritous reflexes fueled by adrenaline and panic. As his arrow missed, he moved as fast as he could through the marsh to put the tree between him and the archer.
A vigorous sloshing behind Holden made him turn around, only to find the last of the Rnyrtians closing in on him, war club in hand. Dropping his bow, he drew Yusil, and bared it at the Rnyrtian, its keen edge enough to make the warrior try to stop his approach, only to end up stumbling forward. Taking advantage of the warrior’s hesitation, Holden lunged forward, thrusting his blade to pierce the Rnyrtian’s chest. However, something under the marsh caught his boot and tripped him, sending him face first into the water. With all of his senses -- spare touch -- suddenly void of use, he shut his eyes and mouth tight to keep muck from pouring in. All he felt was a slight resistance against his hands, before it suddenly gave way. Moments after, he could feel warmth flowing over his hands; blood. Then, a crushing forced buried him under the marsh’s surface.
Struggling to free himself of the weight on his back, Holden’s strength was sapped by the water’s thick tension, providing more than enough resistance to keep him pinned. He wanted to cry out for help, but it would do no good. His lungs started to ache as he clawed at the silky mud at the bottom of the marsh, trying to pull himself out from under the mass. He could feel death’s sweet embrace around him, inviting him to rest if not for but a moment. As a sliver of relaxation started to slip into his panic, Holden then caught something firm between his fingers; a root. Grasping it firmly, he pulled himself with all of his remaining strength out from under the heavy weight, and shot his head out of the water. He sucked fresh air into his lungs, breathing raggedly and rejoicing in the fact that he was alive; forgetting where he was, or what he was doing.
Holden felt the rain wash over his face, cleansing it of the excess mud. Looking behind himself, he found the bloodied edge of Yusil protruding from the murky depths. As it dawned on him that the Rnyrtian warrior’s corpse almost drowned him, he chuckled softly.
Suddenly, someone grabbed him by the head and started to drive him towards the blade. Holden managed to muster the strength to keep from being impaled, the steel just grazing against his throat. With one hand dedicated to keeping his head from moving further, he felt about under the murky water for something; anything to trade for another moment alive. His hand found the handle of the war club, and he pulled it free, swinging it just behind his head. Holden could hear a crunching noise as the club made contact, and a howl of pain. As the pressure on his head ceased, he stood up and turned to find the Rnyrtian archer clutching his arm, which was bent in a manner the gods never intended.
Closing the distance between the archer and himself, Holden raised the club over his head for a devastating blow. The archer tried to back up, but tripped over something else within the marsh waters. As his body sunk under the water, the only visible thing was his hand. Holden swung the club into the water, as it lodged itself firmly into something, and refused to budge further. The hand twitched, before going limp, and sinking into the water; claimed by the marsh.
Breathing raggedly, Holden dropped the club, and staggered over to the impaled Rnyritan. Bloody, muddy and soaked to the bone, he lowered himself down and felt for the corpse’s shoulders. Turning the body on its side, Holden pulled his blade from the host of flesh. After some brief searching, he retrieved his bow from the bog, and then made his way to the Rnyrtian group’s camp. He paid little mind to the two dead next to the fire, too exhausted and enveloped in the warmth of the flames. Finding a spot to rest comfortably by the fire, he watched the flames and embers crackle. When his shivering subsided, he took care in putting out the fire, as to not draw attention with the smoke.
Draping his cloak over himself, Holden rested his head against the ground, and watched the rain fall through the jungle canopy, engorging the marsh even further. He was too tired to care about the lives he just took, nor the multiple ways he nearly died, himself. About the filth he was covered in, how subjected he was to contracting a disease, nor that a disease was one of the many ways he could perish out here; alone, and unheard. His eyes shut, and he thought of home. The feeling of a warm bed was already a distant memory, but he tried his best to immerse himself in it. When his body relaxed, and the rain was null to his ears, he drifted off.
***
When his eyes opened, Holden was relieved to find himself still in one piece. The rain had stopped, leaving only the marsh as a hinderance. The powerful stench of rot hit Holden’s senses, making him cover his nose in some vain effort to protect himself against the repulsive odor. He glanced over at the two dead Rnyrtians, their eyes locked open by death. Feeling the sympathetic grief in his heart, Holden got up -- slipping on his cloak and resting his hood over his head -- and approached the two corpses.
“May Hino reward your souls for giving yourselves to Om with such youth, and protect them in the Umbra,” he said; a brief prayer was all he could afford to spare. Closing the Rnyrtian’s eyes, he then stood up and began to leave the cave. However, he could not handle the odor anymore. He leaned against the cave wall as he hunched over, and retched onto the ground. It was not the rotting alone that made him nauseous, but rather everything that came back to him from hours before.
Turning back, he used his cloak as a cover for his nostrils, as he made a quick effort to search around for food. His stomach was grumbling, and the only thing that came out of him was pure bile. To his fortune, a half loaf of bread sat on the ground beside the fire. He brushed it off, before biting into it. While normally, he would be disgusted, he could not complain now -- it was a choice between eating dirt-covered bread, or dying. Finishing the bread quickly, he lifted his canteen to his mouth, and took in a mouthful of water, before he left the cave.
The cool marsh greeted him with a chilled embrace around his legs, to which he paid little mind. It was nothing in comparison to the frigid temperatures he endured before. However, the removal of one obstacle only introduced another; the waning sunlight. Though he would soon be concealed in the darkness of night, so would the Rnyrtians, and the predators who lurk about. As he spotted the road of planks, Holden resumed his travel. Keeping an eye on the route, he saw nobody pass by. Perhaps the Rnyrtians knew that they had no business contending with predators without the broad daylight.
A crunching noise nearby drew Holden’s attention. With his bow in hand, he notched an arrow and moved carefully to investigate. Weaving through the trees, he looked for the source. As he circled around a boulder, his hair went on ends when the rock bellowed. Scrambling behind a tree, he let a few oaths slip under his breath. After taking a moment to calm himself, he peered around the tree to look at the form once more. As the creature moved -- as slowly as it did -- it was somewhat relieving to find it held no resemblance to the predator he saw before. And, surely it would have killed him the second he got close, if it had wanted to.
The beast looked like an unkempt bovine, with a shaggy coat that drifted around in the marsh waters. Aside from its size, the only intimidating aspect about it was the horns on its head, standing out like wicked daggers to skew anything that challenges it.
Keeping a safe distance from the beast, Holden returned to his route. He began to wonder about the various creatures that inhabited Erelith, aside from the Sentient Races, such as himself. There were predators that could pierce a man’s heart with a single bite, and beasts of staggering size, that could likely rend through steel. His thoughts were cut short. He noticed something sloshing a ways behind him. Turning around, he locked eyes with the predator that he saw earlier. There it was, its fangs still bearing a faded red color. As it gradually drew closer, Holden fired. The predator jumped towards Holden, before a sudden, violent bellow made it freeze. The ground shook, as the trunks splintered. The bovine-creature rammed into the predator. Though it missed with its horns, the force behind the creature’s charge sent the predator into the air. While Holden could not see it, he could hear the predator slam into a tree, before falling into the water with a splash. There was something comical about the scene, and he would have laughed, if not for the lack of energy he had to spare. He turned his back to the giant bovine, and ventured further on.
Though it was unlikely that the predator survived such a bone crushing brutality, Holden remained wary for the rest of the travel, yet picked up his pace. The longer he spent finding the Rnyrtian capital, the longer the Sea Tigers would wait on the beach, at the mercy of the storms and the sea. The longer the Aradians would have to escape the justice due to them, and the judgement in Tamef’s name. And, needless to say, the longer the jungles of Rnyrt had to claim Holden. As the moon rose, it only prevailed in shining through where the jungle’s canopy yielded. With the route all but impossible to see, Holden had to make the choice between waiting until dawn, or using the route itself. Approaching the wooden highway, he pulled himself onto it and resumed his mission.
Though he remained extremely cautious, Holden encountered nothing else until he noticed a change in the surroundings. Ahead, a collection of lights illuminated buildings wrapped around tremendous trees, seeming to climb up to the heavens. Moving off of the road, he crept through the trees to observe the settlement. Could this be the capital? He had not progressed very far, and was only a day into his travel. Then again, with such terrain, it made sense for the capital to stand so close to the coast. Their goddess could sink an entire fleet in exchange for their pleas, and the marsh between here and the neighboring nations would take swallow up an unprepared army.
A loud screech drew Holden’s attention away from the buildings. Rnyrtians gathered around a platform built at the base of a large tree. Atop it was what Holden assumed was a priestess -- designated the markings on her body, signifying the storms of their goddess, Ryn -- and another Rnyrtian, stripped down and left vulnerable. As the spectators were silent, the priestess held up a dagger, before bringing it down on the Rnyrtian. Holden almost gagged, but for some reason could not prevent himself from watching. There was no other sounds, except the pained screams of the sacrifice.
Suddenly, the crowd below bursted into ecstatic cheering and joy. With a fist-sized hole bored into his chest, the sacrifice plummeted from the platform as the priestess held high a blood clump in her hand. What it was, exactly, Holden could not tell.
Averting his gaze from the gory spectacle, Holden turned his attention to the huts again. Then, he saw someone, standing and peering out the window, watching the sacrifice as well. There was no denying the sharp ears and thin build; an elf, and undoubtedly one of the Aradians responsible for Tamef’s death. Drawing an arrow, Holden stopped himself short of slaying the Aradian. It would only jeopardize what he, Honler and the others worked to achieve. Easing the bowstring, he put his arrow back into his quiver and began the journey back. It would not be long before the elf became the victim of retribution.
