“Forget what I said,” she sighed, shaking her head. “This poor bastard’s been alive for more like three hundred years or something by this point. Maybe he’d jump at the chance for us to kill him.”
Florian snorted, and even Koji chuckled. The tense atmosphere was starting to finally dissipate.
“I don’t know. He seemed pretty mad at us,” he replied.
“I think he was just as surprised to see us as we were to see him,” Koji said. “But maybe Rune is right. Once he’s had the time to think about this, maybe he’d be more willing to work with us.”
“So should we just wait here? I don’t know if that’s a good idea,” Florian said.
“No way,” Kade interrupted. “We can scout out the area, then come back tomorrow to see if he’s... friendlier, then.”
Everyone nodded in agreement. Florian looked back toward the cave; most of the beetles had followed the centaur out into the Blight, but some had lingered, still flitting in and out of the opening in the hillside.
“Let’s start here,” he said, gesturing to the cave. “Maybe we can find something useful.”
“He might be even more upset if he sees us messing with his stuff,” Koji protested.
“Two of us keep watch,” Kade offered. “And two check out the cave. Try to make it quick.”
This seemed to be the best option, so Florian and Rune went into the cave while Kade and Koji kept watch out in the hills. Florian led the way, Rune following close behind as they carefully brushed past the handful of beetles. The insects seemed only marginally interested in them now, a few flitting near the quiver at Florian’s hip but most of them remaining where they were already crawling on the walls. Florian was just glad they didn’t bite or sting after all.
“What the fuck is up with this guy, huh?” Rune muttered as they walked. The cave opening had become a long, winding tunnel, but there appeared to be only one pathway so far. It wasn’t especially wide, so it must have been quite cramped for the massive centaur to go in and out; hoof prints going back and forth peppered the dirt beneath their feet. “You’d think he’d be happy for some company after a couple centuries alone.”
Florian grimaced. “I don’t know. I don’t think he’s thinking clearly. A hundred years or more without seeing anyone... Even without the Blight, that has to mess you up. The magic of the Arrow must be affecting him, too—I mean, otherwise an Arrow through the eye would kill anyone, wouldn’t it?”
Rune’s expression became somber at that. “Yeah, you’re right. Kade mentioned you guys have seen other shifters affected by the Blight?”
He tried to sound calm despite the way just the mention of it made his heart beat faster with anxiety. “Yeah, we didn’t realize that’s what they were at first. We thought they were just weird Blight monsters. They were like panthers that were walking around on two legs in some old village ruins, but... When they attacked, one of them seemed to... shift back to their normal form when they died. So they must have been a village of panther shifters, but they were changed somehow to live in the Blight. I don’t really know. One of the Arrows was in their village, so I think it must have protected them somehow, but the Blight still... changed them.”
“And this Arrow is keeping this guy alive,” Rune mused. “How do they even work? What’s so special about them that they can keep these things alive in the Blight?”
Florian shrugged. “I don’t know,” he replied. “I don’t know what the Arrows are, exactly, only that we need them, and they’re really powerful magic. I doubt we’ll ever know more than that. Only Soleil would know, so...” He trailed off, shaking his head.
The tunnel had curved further down, and as they rounded a bend, the air felt cooler. Florian paused, uncertain, but then he felt the magic of the pendant snap off, the shroud dissipating all at once. The Blight didn’t reach down here.
“Huh,” Rune murmured, touching the pendant around her neck. “Didn’t expect that.”
“Yeah, weird,” Florian agreed, taking a few more cautious steps forward. He couldn’t see much beyond what was immediately in front of them as the tunnel continued to curve, but if this was where the Blight ended, he was sure there would be more to see soon. Plus, the centaur had come up to meet thempretty quickly—he couldn’t have been too far down the tunnel if he was able to hear or otherwise sense them coming.
The beetles this far down were becoming more few and far between, though they didn’t disappear entirely. Their shiny golden carapaces would occasionally glint in the dim light along the walls or flitting overhead, making Florian wonder if they had some sort of symbiotic relationship with the centaur, or if they were just a pest he hadn’t been able to get rid of.
Sure enough, as they rounded the next curve in the tunnel, a bit of light became visible from around the bend. The tunnel opened into a wider chamber, though it was still only perhaps thirty feet or so from one end to the other. This was evidently where the creature lived and slept, some makeshift furniture set up with a lamp softly glowing in one corner. On closer inspection, Florian could see it must have been powered with magic; the light within the glass dome wasn’t flame, but a small orb similar to the globules of light he had first learned to summon. There was a tall desk with what looked to be a random assortment of tools strewn about, a pile of blankets along one wall that must have been where the creature slept, and a shelf with some worn-looking books and papers, which surprised him.
“Oh, fuck,” Rune whispered, gesturing to the wall closest to them, where they had entered the chamber. She pointed at a handful of weapons that were mounted on the wall; they all looked old and some were rusty, but one, a large two-handed sword, still looked well-maintained. “Good thing he left his sword behind. That could have gone way differently.”
Florian nodded slowly, looking around. The longer he looked, the stranger it all seemed. How had the creature brought wood and paper and books down here without them burning up in the Blight first? Had this all been here before the Blight expanded?
Strange as it was, there wasn’t much to see. The creature evidently lived a spartan sort of life without much in the way of belongings or comforts. Florian wondered how he’d passed the time for so many long years. He started to flip through one of the books on the table, but the pages were brittle with age and he didn’t want to damage anything, so instead he looked at the loose papers.
It was a map, he realized after a moment, of the Summer Court and the surrounding area. There were several color-coded markings within the confines of the city, and faded hand-drawn routes along the outside, but Florian couldn’t make sense of what they were meant to indicate. Still, it was obvious the centaur had been keeping track ofsomethingout in the Blight.
“What do you think of this?” he asked, lightly tapping the map. The paper felt less brittle than the books, but he still didn’t want to risk damaging anything or leaving it out of place, making it obvious they had been there. Rune stepped closer and peered over the map silently for a moment.
“Seems kind of like a patrol map,” Rune finally said, lightly tracing a line. “See how it covers basically everywhere in the city, but there’s not any overlap of the colors? It’s like a daily patrol or something.”
“Maybe,” Florian agreed, looking at it again. “But what could he be patrollingfor?”
“Beats me,” she replied, shaking her head. “It seemed pretty damn empty when we were in the city. And the only creatures I’ve seen have been this guy and all these damn bugs.”
Florian chuckled nervously. It had been entirely empty, so what else could he be tracking? He had so many questions, but he doubted he would get answers.
“Let’s go,” he said, unsettled. There was nothing else to investigate; the tunnel dead-ended here. Rune didn’t argue, andtogether they trudged back up the tunnel and out into the blinding light again.
