The stench of charred flesh seared Ivo’s nostrils. He blinked up at the darkness. For a long moment he didn’t move. Grimacing, he shifted his legs, arms, and torso to test for injuries. His entire body ached, but seemed able, if reluctant, to move.
He groaned and sat up, jerking his helm free. He dropped it to his left where it clattered loudly to the ground in the still night.
“Jaeger!” He called out. He turned and reached out his hand, but felt nothing nearby in the night. He clambered to his feet and dragged a hand through his dark hair as fear settled low in his stomach. “Jadeth! Emaranthe!”
“Ivo,” Jadeth’s voice echoed on the wind, faint and distant. Ivo spun around, tilting his head to better locate her voice.
“Where are you?” He yelled into the night. A grunt of pain just to his left startled him. He recognized that usually-snide sound and moved toward it. His boot collided with another iron boot.
Jaeger’s familiar voice hissed sarcastically, “So you’re trying to kill me too?”
Ivo ignored the comment and dropped to one knee at his brother’s side, “Brother, you are alive; thank The Four.” He gripped Jaeger’s arm and heaved him upright. Though unable to see in the darkness, Ivo was certain he was being glared at.
“What the hell happened?” Jaeger grunted. He tugged off his left gauntlet. Even without seeing his hand he knew it was cut up and bruised. He ignored it. “I remember trying to get the skeletons off the women—women! Where are they…are they okay?”
“I don’t know. I thought I heard Jadeth, but she sounded far away. I haven’t found Emaranthe.” Ivo said. He squinted into the darkness but saw nothing. The uneasy feeling sharpened.
“Jadeth! Emaranthe!” Jaeger bellowed into the night. Somewhere distant they both heard Jadeth’s voice in the wind. “Where in the hell—”
A neon green glow lit up the night sky.
Squinting, both men stared at the source in mute alarm. High above them, Jadeth crouched on a ledge, holding her hammer high.
“How in the...” Jaeger frowned at the Elf clinging to the cliff face. Jadeth stared down at them, white faced, scarlet braids undone, but other than that she seemed uninjured.
“I can’t get down!” Her voice drifted to them in the sharp wind.
Ivo didn’t hear her; he was staring at the unmoving bundle of fabric at the base of the cliff directly below her. Jaeger felt his brother tense and dropped his gaze.
“Aw, no,” Jaeger dragged his helm free, wincing as it glanced over multiple cuts and scrapes, and let it fall to the ground. “I’ll get Jadeth, you get her.”
Jaeger cupped his hands and yelled up to Jadeth, “I’m coming up; hold on!”
He backed up several yards, gauging the distance to the ledge. With a blur of speed he broke into a short run and launched himself into the air. Beneath him thousands of tinkling cracks echoed as the moisture in the desert air solidified into a stairway of ice. He leaped across the narrow gorge and upwards to the ledge, the hovering ice melting as soon as his feet moved to the next step. He jumped the last few yards and landed hard with a clatter of armor and a grunt of pain, just as the last ice step melted.
“Thank you…thank you,” Jadeth gasped. She clutched the unwieldy hammer in a death grip. “I am so sorry. I am so sorry.”
Frowning, Jaeger gripped her upper arms and gave her a small shake, forcing her gaze up to his. Horrified blue eyes, vacant with memories long gone, stared at him as if they didn’t recognize him.
“Jadeth! Snap out of it!”
“So many dead. So many. Mother tried to help them. B..b..bodies everywhere... blood,” Jadeth stammered and gasped as she trembled. Jaeger saw in her vacant stare that she was reliving something very horrible.
“Jadeth, that happened long ago. It’s over now.” Jaeger didn’t dare pull her down from the ledge without calming her down. Remembrances were never easy, or asked for. They hit Immortals at odd times, the last vestiges of their pasts, vague flashes of memory, from before they were immortalized.
“No, no. Mother tried to heal them, but there was too many. Too many,” she choked on a sob. “I watched the demons tear her apart.”
Jaeger shot a quick glance down but he could see nothing from his position.
“Mother tried to fight them off… she wasn’t a fighter though, she was a healer! She fell next to the chest I was hiding in.” She whispered. Tears slid in filthy trails down her pale cheeks.
“Jadeth,” Jaeger whispered, but she cut him off.
“—I...I… grabbed her hammer and tried to fight, too. They laughed and flew away.” She swallowed and swayed. Jaeger tightened his grip on her arms.
“I followed them, searched for them… for years. My mother’s hammer was the only thing I had left of her or my people,” she whispered into the wind as it dragged streamers of her hair, now unbraided and loose on her narrow shoulders, over her face. “My village burned. My people were murdered! I chased the creatures for decades—”
“Jadeth, that was long ago. Please, we need to get down to help the others.” Jaeger shook her again, gently. She looked directly at him at last.
“I found every demon I could. I chased them all. I did everything I could to…die.” She sucked in an unsteady breath and blinked as the sharp wind whipped her hair wildly. Jaeger stayed silent…her agony was palpable.
“I died at last. I welcomed it. I felt them ripping at me. I felt their claws, their spears, their wings,” Jadeth sighed softly. “But I awoke again, in this body, with my mother’s hammer and bearing the Earth’s gift of healing. I vowed to avenge my mother and my people.”
“You had proven yourself then, Jadeth. The Four chose you because you are the best healer of all!” Jaeger hissed. “You alone healed us through that battle!”
“It wasn’t enough,” Jadeth said. Even in the green glow she could see the myriad of cuts, slashes, and bruises on his face and neck. His pale hair was tousled from either helm or wind… and slightly singed. “My mother would have been able to heal you all whole.”
“Stop it! You saved us!” Jaeger growled. “Without your abilities, I would have died. Something I vowed to never do again!”
He turned and stared far down into the vaguely green-lit blind canyon, but still no movement below. Unable to see directly beneath their position on the ledge, he could only figure Ivo and Emaranthe were still there.
“Come on. Let’s go see if Emaranthe is okay.” Jaeger glanced back at Jadeth and caught her look of utter horror.
“Emaranthe…” Jadeth gasped. “I forgot…”
“Do you have command of the plants enough to get us down from here?” Jaeger asked. There wasn’t enough moisture in the air to pull any more ice from, and Ivo and his command of the wind was not an option. That left Jadeth and her gift of earth and nature to see them safely from the ledge.
“Yes. There is one, but I’ve never used it,” Jadeth whispered.
“Then will you do it for your friends?” Jaeger’s voice pierced through the buffeting wind and echoed in the gorge.
“Yes,” Jadeth closed her eyes and swallowed. Her grip on her hammer tightened as Jaeger tightened his on her waist. She inhaled firmly and the glow of her hammer brightened. “Now!”
They leaped off the cliff.
An eerie green bolt of light erupted from the hammer. It speared the sky and lodged in the cliff face. It solidified into a thick vine and Jaeger and Jadeth gripped it with their hands and feet as gravity threw them downward. They slid down it and, gasping, landed on their feet at the base of the cliff. As soon as they let go it faded, scattering green ash. Wide eyed, Jadeth spun around and launched herself at Jaeger, giving him a victorious hug.
“We did it!” She laughed.
Jaeger stilled. He had scanned the green-hued shadows and fallen on the huddled shapes beside the cliff.
Ivo looked up and locked eyes with his brother. Jaeger stared at the limp, unmoving bundle draped over Ivo’s lap, horror plun
ging his heart into his stomach. Bloodied fingers, broad and strong, sifted through a charred streamer of pale hair methodically, but Ivo’s gaze was vague... empty.
“No. No…” Jadeth looked past Jaeger and cried out. She pushed past him and darted forward, heaving her hammer high.
“It’s too late,” Ivo climbed to his feet, clutching the tiny Mage to him. As he walked from beneath the cliff, the wind stung his face. It was the wind, he told himself, that made his eyes tear up.
Singed blonde streamers drifted in the screaming wind and a small, charred, gloved hand swung freely as he walked heavily past Jaeger and Jadeth into the black night.