We met with the Air Mage, a short black-haired woman named Sol, and her Vessel. The man was extremely tall and unnaturally quiet.
“He doesn’t speak,” Sol said in her lilting accent that betrayed her southern heritage. “But his name is Thandi.”
“Right, well, I was thinking we’ll hug the east side of the foothills, use the shadows cast from the moon to keep us hidden. The scout earlier said there’s a farm just beyond the hills, a half-mile or so, that looked burned out and empty. We’ll use that as our first regrouping spot. Vessels stay close to your Mages. Sol, I want you up front with me. If we encounter anyone, steal their air immediately, I don’t want anyone making a sound.” I easily slipped into battle mode, shutting off and blocking out anything that could possibly be a detriment to the Mage and Vessels under my care.
Sasori, Ilyas, and Thandi fell into step behind Sol and me without another word. Sasori and Ilyas were both loosely gripping knives, prepared to defend or attack at a moment’s notice.
We crept quickly and silently through the undulating terrain, bending as low as we could so the tops of our heads wouldn’t crest the top of the foothills. The night was cool, but the air was gradually warming, and I could feel the sweat from the last few days’ ride mixing with a new sheen of perspiration.
A bath will feel heavenly after this.
As we reached the last foothill, I held my hand up flat to halt our progress. Cautiously, I peered around, spying the farm just down the way. It was less than a hundred yards away, and I could clearly see the scorch marks indicative of a fire. The second floor and roof had collapsed in most places, but the first floor, made of stone, was still standing. There was no noise and no movement, which was entirely too eerie.
I waited for another minute, eyes trained on the husk of a house, but after seeing nothing amiss, I motioned for the group to keep moving. We wound our way through the side of the farm and hopped a small fence that separated the farmland from the open space.
“What the fuck?” Ilyas breathed as we straightened to our normal heights as soon as we were hidden from sight by the farmhouse. The entire backyard of the house was muddy, as if a Water Mage tried desperately to put out the fire but missed and hit the ground instead.
Carcasses of animals—horses, pigs, sheep—littered the ground, some scorched, others gutted. Flies buzzed around the corpses, and I could see the faint outline of maggots moving amongst the animals. They were bloated and the air was ripe with the smell of decaying flesh. I took a breath through my mouth in an attempt to ward off the smell but was awarded with the taste of death instead.
I couldn’t help myself, I gagged.
Sol, with a quick wave of her hand, created small air bubbles around each of our noses and mouths, allowing us to breathe clean air, at least for a short amount of time.
“Why butcher the animals? Why eliminate food sources? Especially if they were choosing to stay awhile,” Ilyas questioned. I shrugged. It really didn’t make sense. We typically saw these types of situations in slash-and-burn massacres or quick, hostile takeovers. It definitely seemed counterintuitive to completely eliminate a fresh food source—unless something went completely wrong in the rebels’ plans.
That thought had my brow creasing as we slowly edged around the other side of the house. A short way down the dirt road was another farm, just as burned as our current hideout. After making sure there was no movement, we quickly made our way to that settlement, only to find the same thing as the previous house.
We made our way toward the town this way, from burned-out farmhouse to burned-out farmhouse. Finding each house to look the same—a massacre of animals and, in some cases, the human occupants. The bodies were bloated beyond recognition at this point, and decomposition had started in earnest, especially in the soil that was saturated.
I schooled my mind against the horrific images as much as I could, but I could feel the prick of memories threatening to pull me under. The most recent house was the worst, the bodies of a clearly pregnant woman and her two children were defiled and left in front of the house as some sort of macabre warning. As we passed the entrance of the house, choosing to skip that residence and move immediately to the next, I had to close my eyes andtake deep calming breaths, images of another pregnant woman tortured and dying flashing across my eyes.
I felt Ilyas’ hand on my shoulder, roughly comforting me.
“You okay?” he asked lowly. I nodded, swallowing down the bile that edged up my throat.
“Yeah, fine,” I rasped.
He squeezed once more before releasing me and we filed into the yard of the last house.
“What happened here?” Sol whispered.
“Clearly the rebels are sending some sort of message. The question iswhatis the message,” I contemplated.
“Think they were hiding something?” Ilyas grunted.
“What would a small village like this hide?” Sasori argued. “This feels . . . intentional. Personal.”
I had to agree with her on that. The last time I had seen something of this magnitude was fifteen years ago . . . which I did not want to relive right now.
Ilyas and Sasori caught my gaze, though, their thoughts written across their faces.
“We need to find one of them and bring them back with us,” I decided.
The others nodded in agreement, even Sol’s mute Vessel.
“We’ll have to move quick . . .” I started before quickly hushing my voice and motioning for the others to remain quiet. There was movement ahead and I gestured for Sol and our Vessels to hide behind the small rock wall that separated the front yard from the dirt road.
I strained to hear above the pounding of my heart and the short breaths of my companions, but I heard the distinct sound of someone muttering as their boots crunched over the dirt.
