by Wade to the sound of crashing water.
“Time to get up, princess,” he yells above the noise.
My eyes jump ahead of the boat, the sight of the end of the river and a dead drop instantly causing me to panic. I grab the side of the boat and stand in preparation to jump out, but Wade’s laughter stops me.
“I would give you a bit more warning before sending you over something like that.”
Seeing him standing in the water, submerged up to his thighs, calms me down as I realize that the boat isn’t moving because it has been anchored to a barren tree near the shore. My pack and bow lie next to it, for some reason making me uneasy and eager to have them around my shoulders again.
I throw myself into the water and wade to shore, immediately going through my pack and then strapping it back on. I glance at Wade as I do it, who now has splotches of wetness on his shirt and hat from my thoughtless splashing.
“You could have just let me carry you,” he says a little bothered.
“We’re in a marsh,” I reply stubbornly. “It’s not like we plan on staying dry.”
He shakes his head and begins hiking up a slope beyond the tree.
I follow him until we reach its top, a stunning vista overlooking marshlands to the north and northwest. The landscape is diverse and strangely beautiful and despite its dreariness, like a pale quilt patterned with grasses, bushes, hills, and patches of trees, all connected and divided by endless streams and ponds. Rock formations also rise at random, some forming deep fissures that water drains into.
The land to the northeast looks much more vibrant and lively, covered with grasslands and forested areas. I can imagine why people would think it a pleasant place to settle, though I then shudder at the thought of the terrifying beasts that supposedly fill the marshes and make this place uninhabitable.
“Why are we seeking shelter here if this place is as dangerous as anywhere else we could have gone?” I ask.
“It’s only dangerous if you don’t know where to go,” Wade explains. “The prowling creatures here are no different than people, lethal but predictable. They hunt near the grasslands because the monsters that hunt them dwell deep in the marshes. What makes this region so deadly is that the only place you would want to settle is the one place you can’t.”
“So we will be safe from harm by staying close to the creatures that even the hunters fear. Sounds comforting.”
“Very,” Wade replies. “But to answer the question I think you really want to ask, we are here to visit an old friend.”
“An old friend you would lose by killing Severin,” I pry.
Wade looks at me but doesn’t say anything for a second. I get the feeling that I’m perturbing him again, but I’m not going to stop until he finally opens up. Like he said, my life is in his hands, and if he is the calloused person he keeps trying to convince me he is, then I need to understand why he has taken it upon himself to aid me in my journey.
“Severin thinks too highly of himself sometimes,” he sighs, his eyes down toward the ground as though he is recalling some unpleasant memory. “I wonder if the others wouldn’t thank me for ridding us all of him.”
“Are these people you speak of also rangers?”
He ignores the comment and turns away toward the ledge.
“There’s not a lot of daylight left. We need to begin our climb down the rocks.”
I step next to him and study the cliff he is suggesting we’ll have to descend. The floor of the marsh is several hundreds of feet below us, not nearly as bad as what I’ve been through before, but it’s still high enough to make me nervous.
“Why not go around?” I suggest as I point northeast where the hill we are on folds gradually into the distant grasslands.
“Remember why we stayed out of the light?” Wade retorts.
“Yes,” I concede, recalling the beasts we saw fighting in the plains as I pull out the rope I have packed away and uncoil it.
By the time we reach the cliff bottom, the evening sky has greyed, leaving us precious little time to find a safe place to recuperate and await tomorrow. We trudge across wide areas of shallow water and slog through tall grass and thick vegetation, pushing toward a small oasis of trees that has emerged in the distance.
Once we get close, Wade slows down, his eyes digesting everything around us to make sure we are not invading some beast’s den. He then gives me an alarmed look, but I respond by pointing up toward the darkening sky. There is nothing we can do but hope we’re safe, so we quickly climb a particularly large tree and fasten ourselves in for the long night.
The dark comes and goes without trouble, as do the days that follow. This surprises Wade as much as it does me, but rather than granting him peace, it seems to make him even more paranoid. He doesn’t talk much, and when he does, it’s only to give instructions on the direction we are going.
As time passes, I get the feeling that he is using caution as an excuse to keep me from delving any further into his past. It reminds me of how intent he was on us not getting close when we first met. He’s still sarcastic and spirited, as I’ve come to expect from him, but there’s definitely something else going on in his mind. Maybe he just knows I want in but has to come around to me in his own time. I can only hope that that is the case, so I try to avoid putting any more pressure on him.
The landscape doesn’t change much, making it seem like we’re going in circles as we search for Wade’s friend, an old ranger named Yori. They haven’t seen each other for many years, but Wade reassured me that he is someone we will be able to trust, though again he didn’t elaborate much on why.
On the fifth morning, we find our first clue that he is somewhere near, an elaborate trap built into a grove of trees similar to the oasis we camped in on our first night.
“A ranger built this,” Wade says, examining a series of ropes meant to pull prey into a pit near the base of a tree.
“How do you know that?” I ask.
“The way it’s done. I haven’t found knots like these ones anywhere in this world unless a ranger did them. We used a lot of similar traps in the southern lands.”
“Maybe someone else learned,” I suggest.
“True, but I doubt it. It’s like a signature. You can duplicate one if you want, but the original always seems to stand out, an indication of the world its creator came from.”
“What’s a signature?”
“It’s your name written on a paper in a way unique to you, so someone knows that you were the one who wrote it. That’s what we did back where I’m from.”
I pause and look at Wade hesitantly, unsure if I should seize the opportunity to push for more.
“What’s it like where you’re from?”
He turns away for a second, and I feel foolish, until he starts speaking again.
“Dry, like the canyons around Sanctuary without the lava. Not much of a home, but better than none.”
I feel for him and despise the strange magic that stripped him of his former life. We talked about it a couple days ago, about the world stone I carry with me. He doesn’t understand the forces that bring people and creatures across the stars and abandons them here any more than I do. That makes us similar in a way. We’re both exiles. We’re both survivors.
Beyond where we stand is a hill of rock, and Wade suggests that we climb to its top to get a better idea of where we are. The climb doesn’t end up leading to a peak, but instead to a wide fissure tunneling far beneath the surface of the marshes. Without water draining into it, the cave fades into darkness, and I tremble at the thought of what might dwell deep within.
“This is a place Yori would be,” Wade says quietly.
“Of course,” I lament, “right near the belly of the beast.”
We make our way down steep slopes, slipping and sliding on the dark, flaky rocks that fill the cusp of the cavern until we reach more passable areas below. Wade moves faster the further we go, perhaps excited at the prospect of finding his old comrade. After not
too long, we locate what has to be Yori’s place of residence, a crudely constructed shack built up against a wall of rock in a crevice partially hidden from view.
As Wade approaches the front door, he hovers his hand warily over the handle of his gun, but then a horrendous roar bellows from further down and pulls our attention back the way we came. The ground shakes and then stops several times as though the cave itself is taking deep, heavy breaths.
The tremors freeze me in place until Wade grabs my arm and pulls me toward the entrance to the shack. He swings the door open, and we duck inside, immediately turning around and locating a small opening through which we are able to see a limited amount of the cave. The quaking becomes stronger and louder each time until, at last, a monstrous beast appears.
The creature’s great size astounds me. Its head alone is several times as large as the unexpectedly spacious shack we are in and has the shape of an elephant’s, with several short, jagged tusks protruding from its jaw and a short trunk hanging in front it. Its skin looks darker, though, and rougher, almost like a black onyx, or thick glass that has become opaque and clouded.
As the creature continues to climb, the rest of its gargantuan body comes into view. It has four legs, the front two pawing before it like a lion or cat and gripping the rocky terrain to aid its ascent. The back ones also remind me of a cat, but bend even more closely together before springing and launching the whole beast up with great agility and force.
Last, its