Petunya
Frond
Northern
Coast
THE TWO
Centuar maintained their
humanoid guise for reconnaissance on Petunya’s southern continent. While their
usual forms would eat up distance, it didn’t allow for proper scrutiny of the
situation.
Assint and Mahler arrived where birdsong had
the upper hand. Despite the harmonies, never had a place felt so empty. Everywhere there was sign of
habitation, but no people. In this type of cold one expected to see smoke
rising from chimneys, but the air was dead and still.
“One plus about these daetal is that they
don’t leave bodies behind,” Assint grimaced. “This would be worse if we had to
stumble over the dead.”
Mahler nodded.
They walked inland. Most fields were fallow
for winter, ploughed, and sporting a thin layer of green, the winter wildflower
seeds that had sprouted before proper cold set in. Orchards awaited pruning
time, their branches leafless.
The farms were large, with only the occasional
house and barn dotting the landscape. It was agricultural territory,
fortunately. No animals were in sight. If it had been about husbandry, animals
would now be penned for winter, and that was a terrible state to contemplate.
Those animals would now be starving without their minders to feed them while
indoors.
“Maybe the daetal ate the animals,” Mahler
muttered after a few hours.
“Maybe,” Assint whispered.
There was no sign of even a dog, never mind a
fox or boar or something.
“Horrific,” Mahler said.
“Shut up.”
Eventually they came to a cluster of
buildings. It had to be what passed for a town or gathering centre, because
saddles were on display in one window, preserves in another. A small outdoor
area contained multiple tables and chairs, under a pergola. A vine clambered
the structure, as leafless as the trees surrounding the village.
The two Centuar investigated every building,
but found no signs of life. They moved on.
“We’re wasting our time,” Assint eventually
said.
“We need to sniff out the presence of life,”
Mahler agreed.
Glancing at each other, they shifted into
their Centuar forms.
And galloped through the landscape, swift as
the wind.
Southern
Frond
KILA, a farmer’s daughter in another life, paled markedly. She
and Prima had arrived in a stable to find a skeletal horse barely clinging to
life, and the affront of that nearly
undid her.
Prima was as horrified, but he clamped it
down, and moved to the poor animal, and swiftly put it out of its misery.
She sobbed, once, and then squared her
shoulders to exit the stable. Outside, nothing moved. When Prima joined her,
she said, “I aim to kill them … slowly.”
Prima was grim. “And I aim to help you do so.”
Together, of like mind, they set out.
IT WAS
A fertile land, and it was also a goddamned wasteland. Nothing
warm-blooded lived, anywhere. Trees were mute accusers. As midday approached,
having been through two villages, they rested alongside a fast-flowing river.
“I need to do
something,” Kila muttered.
Looking around, Prima agreed. “I am of the
opinion that these daetal keep Tristan and Alusin hostage somewhere. They no
longer roam the countryside, because, well …”
“… there is nothing left.”
“Precisely. I am also of the opinion that we
will find nothing to shed light on the conundrum we face in this aimless
wander.”
Kila’s red tresses swung his way. “What are
you saying?”
“We meet up with Assint and Mahler and
together bloody find Tristan and Alusin.” Prima never swore; he had clearly
reached a point where action, whatever the cost, was better than simply
walking.
“While I agree with you, shouldn’t we inform
Belun first?”
Prima was silent a time, thinking about that.
“I am of the opinion Belun is too protective of his brothers.”
Kila licked her lips. “He can, um, neigh
pretty loudly if crossed.”
Prima snorted. “You should have heard
Torrullin in the old days. Now that
scared me.”
Laughing, Kila stood. “Let’s do this.”
THE UNIVERSE IS populated, and many worlds are far-flung,
forgotten. Until the day Gabryl, a man both alive and dead, his body reposing
in a sarcophagus, his spirit roaming as a shifting being, bellows a call to
arms. Eurue, as world and civilisation, after ages of isolation, will now step
into the ultimate arena.
Meanwhile, as the spaces become frantic, a woman in a turret somewhere, elsewhere, plans her revenge. The schism between what went before and the reality of the present presents to her the power to control the fate of all.
