Chapter 47 - The Golden Desert.
Green hilly plains stretched along the muddy riverbank, while mountain ridges in the northeast rose in a dense range above the remnants of the morning haze, which had already melted away under the midday sun.
Far to the southwest, beyond the line of murky haze, the vague outlines of a plateau with the Cursed Forest could be made out, left behind over the past several days of the journey. The sun had already passed its midday point several hours ago, casting elongated shadows from the scattered boulders strewn along the water's edge.
Aren lowered himself onto one knee at the very edge of the water, filling his waterskin with the slow current of the river, after which he rinsed his face with his palms, washing away the road dust and ingrained sweat.
He lingered for a moment over his own reflection, resting his elbow on his bent knee and studying the features of his face, his breath sending small ripples spreading across the surface of the water.
Aren sighed, raising his gaze from the water to the expanses spreading out around him, while a light wind stirred the strands of hair at his temples.
Rising from his knee, he slung the waterskin over his shoulder, after which he continued on along the bank, while on both sides of the horizon green hills and distant mountain peaks stretched away.
Having made a brief stop by the water, Aren settled onto the grass, unfolding across his knees a worn map covered with markings from previous routes. He chewed a strip of dried meat together with a piece of stale travel bread, tracing his index finger along the broken line of the river, until his finger stopped at a mark denoting a passage through the Divine Ridge.
Aren chewed on thoughtfully, after which he sighed and raised his head, squinting slightly against the bright sun and the gusting wind that tousled his hair.
Suddenly, a loud guttural roar came from the opposite bank, forcing Aren to turn sharply, after which he caught sight of the massive silhouette of an unknown creature among the rocks along the shore.
The creature had the massive body of a large horned beast, with a powerful nape and a broad ribcage. In place of front and hind limbs, it bore heavy metal prosthetics, releasing thin jets of compressed steam from their joints. Along its spine and across the crown of its skull ran rows of metal implants, crowned by a single bony horn.
Even at this distance, the steady, cyclical hum of the creature's internal mechanisms reached Aren, and though the creature showed neither hostility nor aggression, Aren distinctly felt the need not to approach it and not to draw any unnecessary attention to himself.
The beast bent down to the water, taking several deep gulps, after which it raised its head toward Aren, holding its gaze on him for several long seconds.
The creature let out a long howl, the sound carrying at once the natural roar of a wild bull and the mechanical screech of compressed metal. Dense clouds of steam burst from its prosthetics and implants once more, after which the creature slowly walked away, vanishing among the boulders along the shore.
Aren remained standing there with his eyes wide open and his mouth slightly parted, not fully believing what he had seen, after which he exhaled quietly.
"How much I still don't know…" He murmured under his breath, recalling words that Elara had once told him back in Waldruhm:
"The world is far bigger than you think."
Aren smiled, turning toward the distant mountain peaks, after which he gathered his scattered belongings and continued on along the riverbank.
Aren left the river behind him, turning southeast across the open hills, while the sound of splashing water gradually dissolved into the rustle of tall grass. The noise of the current faded with every dozen steps, giving way to the quieter sounds of open space, filled with the humming of insects and the occasional cries of steppe birds.
The hilly plain stretched out before him in golden-green waves, dotted with scattered wildflowers and low shrubs, clinging to the dry earth with their tough roots. A warm wind rolled across the tall grass in broad waves, bending the stalks to the ground and filling the air with the thick scent of dry wormwood and sun-warmed soil.
An old, well-trodden road crossed his path after about an hour of unhurried walking, marked by occasional stone markers and a barely discernible cart track, worn into the earth over decades. Aren stopped briefly by one of the moss-covered boulders marking the roadside, examining the deep grooves left by the many wagons that had passed through here.
Sunlight settled on his shoulders with a pleasant even warmth, while the measured rhythm of walking gradually relaxed the tense muscles of his back and legs. Aren caught himself feeling a rare sense of calm, unconnected to any worry about the road ahead or to the weight of the recent events inside the Cursed Forest.
For a moment he allowed himself to imagine Elara's voice, sounding beside him as during one of their evening walks across the fields of Waldruhm, and Aren smiled involuntarily, without slowing his pace.
Far ahead, beyond the wavy line of hills, the gray outlines of a mountain range gradually emerged, separating the plains from the southern lands and marked on the map under the name Divine Ridge. Aren quickened his pace, his eyes tracking the slowly shifting shadows of the hills, while the midday sun leaned toward the softer golden light of late afternoon.
Aren continued along the hilly plain, stopping at the sight of a strange fragment, embedded in the ground and covered with a thick layer of moss mixed with grass. He came closer, crouching down beside the find, after which he tore away the thick covering of moss with his palm, revealing the rusted metal beneath.
"A fragment?" Aren thought, running his fingers over the uneven surface, pitted with deep grooves of corrosion.
He looked up from the find toward the gentle lowland, opening up beyond the crest of the nearest hill, and his eyes widened at the scale of the scene that lay before him. Below stretched a vast expanse, strewn with the wreckage of wooden, stone, and metal structures, lying here for long years under the open sky.
Descending the gentle slope, Aren passed the first remains of a destroyed siege weapon, not knowing that before him stood the leaning wooden skeleton of a once-powerful catapult. Splintered beams jutted from the ground at sharp angles, while shreds of rotted ropes hung from a leaning support beam that had long since lost its shape.
A little further, among the tall grass, lay the mangled remains of a mechanical exoskeleton, its jointed limbs frozen in unnatural, broken poses. Cracked viewing plates still clung to their rusted fittings, while tough steppe grass had already grown up through the holes in the chest armor.
Further off rose the hulk of an airship, its bare metal ribs jutting from the ground in curved arcs. Shreds of its envelope had long since rotted away, leaving behind only scattered scraps of fabric, grown into the soil mixed with the roots of wild grasses. A shattered gondola lay a little off to the side, half sunk into the earth, with cracked sides and door panels torn from their hinges.
Among the rusted mechanical debris were simpler signs of an old battle, broken sword blades, cracked shields, and arrowheads, half sunk into the ground. Several shallow craters, left where powerful explosions had struck, had grown over with low wildflowers, swaying gently in the wind among the charred stones scattered around their edges.
Tall grass and scattered shrubs pushed up through the cracks in the mangled metal, gradually hiding beneath them the sharp edges of once-deadly machinery. Ivy wound around the surviving support beams, while moss covered the stone debris in a thick carpet, scattered among the rusted plates of armor.
Over the lowland hung a peculiar, oppressive silence, broken only by the occasional metallic creak, coming from somewhere deep within the mangled structures whenever the wind gusted. Aren felt a chill run down his spine, and he involuntarily slowed his pace, moving between the silent hulks of a battle long since fallen quiet.
He did not understand the nature of the old battle, yet he felt a distinct heaviness that had soaked into the very space of the lowland, ingrained in the earth together with rust and ash.
Aren passed the last of the wreckage, climbing out onto the opposite slope of the lowland, and the silhouettes of the mountain range ahead grew sharper against the brightening sky.
He cast one last glance back at the frozen field of rusted hulks and charred stones, after which he continued on.
By the close of day, Aren came to the edge of a small town, destroyed so long ago that its streets had grown over with tall grass and shrubs. The setting sun leaned toward the horizon, bathing the stone husks of buildings in thick honeyed light, breaking through the gaps of collapsed roofs.
Aren passed through a half-ruined arch at the town's entrance, built of roughly hewn blocks and partly collapsed under its own weight. A thick layer of ivy wrapped around the surviving sections of masonry, hanging down in green garlands along the cracks and chips left by time.
Narrow streets between the former houses had grown over with dense grass, pushing up through the cracked paving stones, and Aren's footsteps barely echoed among the silent walls. The collapsed roofs of most buildings exposed the dark gaps of interior rooms, filled with broken tile and fragments of charred wooden beams.
At one of the crossroads stood a surviving stone well, half filled with earth and wrapped in the dry stems of bindweed, and beside it, in the thick grass, the rusted fragments of broken utensils and shards of clay vessels showed through.
Inside one of the former houses, a young tree had grown up through the gap in the roof, spreading its thin branches over a heap of crumbled plaster and stone debris.
Over the town hung a deep silence, broken only by the occasional gusts of wind, flying through the empty window openings with a quiet, drawn-out hum.
Somewhere among the collapsed rafters, birds called anxiously to one another, disturbed by the presence of a man within the long-deserted bounds of the settlement.
Aren felt a faint chill run along his forearms, while he moved slowly past another row of silent facades, stripped of doors and window frames.
The further Aren made his way toward the opposite edge of the ruins, the lower the sun sank behind him, lengthening the shadows of the surviving walls and turning the stone debris into dark silhouettes against the reddening sky.
Stepping past the last ruins at the edge of town, Aren stopped at a low hill, from which a wide view opened over the coastline and the slowly darkening surface of the water in the distance.
A huge bay stretched out on the horizon beneath the sunset sky, its outline lost in haze where the land finally gave way to the sea. Far over the water, heavy storm clouds billowed, hanging like a dark gray wall over the horizon line and lit now and then by distant flickering flashes within their own depths.
Aren walked over to the remains of a low wall, long overgrown with moss and a flat carpet of low grass, and spread his worn map out on its wide stone ledge.
Checking the outline of the coastline against the markings on the yellowed sheet, he recognized the strait spreading out before him as Verdens Porter Bay, marked among the territories of the Trade League.
"It will be better if I wait out the night here, and in the morning I'll already be in the desert." Aren thought, folding the map back up and fastening it beneath the strap of his travel bag.
He went around several of the nearby buildings in search of a more intact shelter, and soon settled on a low stone house with roughly a third of its roof still intact.
Inside the surviving part of the roof, massive rafters remained, capable of offering at least some protection from the storm advancing from the sea.
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Aren laid out his belongings beneath the surviving section of roof, spreading a thick cloth over the stone floor and pulling his pack closer to the wall. He had barely managed to settle in when the first low rumble of thunder reached him from far off, rolling over the sea and gradually fading away among the approaching clouds.
Over the course of the next hour, a strong wind picked up outside, driving scraps of dry grass through the ruins and lifting fine stone dust into the air. Pouring rain came down almost at the same moment as another peal of thunder, drumming against the surviving sections of roof and running in murky streams down the collapsed walls.
Aren sat wrapped tightly in the thick cloth with his knees drawn up to his chest, while a fine shiver shook his body from the cold air seeping in through the cracks. With his eyes closed, he tried to sink into sleep beneath the unbroken hum of the rain and the occasional muffled bursts of thunder, coming from somewhere over the raging bay.
He woke from a restless sleep with the first pale rays of morning light, breaking through the surviving part of the roof above his head. The rain had stopped sometime deep in the night, leaving behind a damp coolness in the air and the occasional measured drip of water, running off the broken rafters.
Somewhere beyond the walls of the ruined house, the cries of sea birds could be heard, circling over the bay now calm after the night's storm, while a light wind occasionally drifted through the empty window openings, carrying with it the fresh salty smell of the sea.
Aren's body had gone stiff from lying so long on the cold stone floor, and every movement sent a dull, aching pain through his shoulders and lower back.
He slowly sat up, bracing his palms against the rough stone, while his mind gradually cleared after a heavy and restless night.
Aren rose to his feet, squaring his shoulders and tilting his head back, and a quiet crack sounded at the base of his neck from his stiffened joints.
He drew several deep breaths of the cool morning air, after which he began methodically stretching his body, starting with rotating motions of his shoulders and finishing with deep squats.
With broad movements he stretched the tense muscles of his forearms and back, raising his arms overhead in turn and bending his torso from side to side.
The weight of the past night gradually receded from his body, giving way to his familiar focus and readiness for the long journey ahead.
Looking out through a gap in the wall, Aren swept his gaze over the brightening sky, which still held a few ragged scraps of the retreating storm clouds.
The surface of the bay glittered under the first rays of sun, while the rain-soaked stones of the ruins reflected the morning light with a damp, grayish sheen.
Aren sat down on a stone ledge by the entrance to his shelter, untying the neck of his travel bag and pulling out the remains of dried meat and a piece of stale bread, left over from his earlier stop.
He chewed slowly on his meager breakfast, watching the morning light gradually spread across the ruins, gilding the damp blades of grass between the stones.
Before continuing on, Aren filled both waterskins with rainwater, collected in several deep potholes in the stone paving near his shelter.
He understood that waterless stretches lay ahead, where he might not find a good chance to restock his supplies again for a very long while.
Gathering his things and slinging his pack over his shoulder, Aren left the half-ruined house, heading toward the southern edge of the town along the overgrown streets. At the last surviving arch he turned briefly, casting a farewell glance at the quiet ruins and the gleaming surface of the distant bay under the morning sun.
The road ahead led Aren away from the coast, toward the southern lands, where the green plains gradually gave way to drier, more barren terrain. The tall grass thinned with every kilometer he covered, giving way to tough clumps of sun-scorched vegetation, clinging with their roots to earth cracked from drought.
The ground beneath his feet gradually lost its former softness, exposing wide stretches of cracked clay and flat stone slabs, jutting right up through the surface of the earth.
Scattered thorny shrubs grew straight out of the cracks in the dry soil, clinging with their gnarled roots to every available patch of ground in search of scarce moisture.
The air noticeably grew warmer with every hour of travel, filling with a dry, hot shimmer, rising from stones scorched by the sun.
Here and there among the scorched vegetation lay the whitened bones of small animals, half buried under the sand and dust of many seasons past. Small dust whirls rose now and then over the plain, swirling dry leaves and fine debris, before scattering under gusts of hot wind.
By midday the green hills had finally fallen behind, vanishing behind the shimmer of heated air, trembling over the scorched plain right at the horizon.
Ahead, the land began to rise slowly in gentle ridges, revealing beyond them the first golden glimpses of true sand dunes.
Aren climbed the first sandy ridge, feeling beneath the soles of his boots the unfamiliar softness of loose sand, which had replaced the hard, cracked ground of the previous hours of travel. Before him spread an endless sea of dunes, flowing smoothly into one another in wavy ridges, polished smooth by the constant breath of the wind.
The scorching air trembled above the surface of the sand, blurring the sharp outlines of the distant dunes and creating a deceptive shimmer right at the line of the horizon. The boundless expanse stretched out in every direction, lacking any single landmark, save for the occasional outcrops of dark rock, jutting up among the golden waves of sand.
Every step Aren took left a deep print in the loose sand, which immediately began to slump under its own weight and fill back in with fine trickles, driven by the light wind, while the dry, hot air carried with it the barely perceptible rustle of shifting sand, filling the space with the desert's peculiar ringing silence.
The sun climbed ever higher, scorching the exposed patches of Aren's skin and forcing him to squint against the bright reflected light of the golden dunes.
He adjusted his hood, shielding his face from the scorching rays, after which he confidently continued on, deeper into the sandy desert spreading out before him.
Meanwhile, far to the south, Artus Hoon and Olen Krite arrived at the Solum military base, assigned here personally by the Archon of War Lucia, and stopped at the first gate with their mouths slightly open in astonishment.
Before them stretched an immense territory, dotted with vast training grounds, on which orderly ranks of warriors drilled coordinated attacks under a single rolling roar of dozens of voices.
Each of the training warriors was clad in shining armor, inlaid with numerous photocyte crystals, emitting a steady golden glow with every sharp movement.
Certain groups of warriors held their own type of weapon, made mostly of densely materialized yellow light energy, taking the form of blades and spears.
On the other side of the spacious yard, by the long stone barracks, groups of other warriors had gathered, talking quietly among themselves about their own affairs. Behind them dozed massive griffons, giant cobras, and predatory vultures, fitted with combat armor and saddles, their sides rising and falling steadily in deep daytime sleep.
"I've certainly heard a lot about Solum… but this…" Artus said, not finishing his sentence, struck by what he saw.
Olen said nothing in reply to these words, continuing to stare ahead with the same wide eyes and slightly open mouth.
Nearby, coordinated detachments of warriors marched, drilling their parade step with practiced mechanical precision, while vehicles never before seen by ordinary citizens, powered by light energy, passed by again and again. Each such vehicle had two seats, one in front for the driver and one just behind it.
A guy in an unusual helmet brought one of these machines to a sharp stop right in front of the graduates, and Olen lost his balance from the surprise and fell to the ground.
Both graduates raised their eyes to the driver, who touched the surface of his helmet with his fingers, extinguishing the glowing energy patterns along with the central crystal. The closed part of the helmet, formed from dense light energy, dissolved into the air at once, fully revealing the face of the person inside.
The driver turned out to be a guy of about twenty-five, with curly hair, goggles pushed up on his forehead and a high-tech suit under a white coat.
"Oh, the new ones. I didn't know you were coming in today already," the guy said, climbing down off the vehicle.
"Y... yes… I'm Artus Hoon, and this is Olen Krite." Artus answered, while Olen got up off the ground, after which both bowed slightly.
"I see. Call me Dexor Runi, but you can just say Dex."
"Wait… Runi?… Dexor Runi?… You're the chief engineer of Helios!" Artus exclaimed in surprise.
"I'm not too fond of titles like that, but yes, most of the new developments come from my own head and hands." Dex answered, laughing quietly.
The graduates went on staring at the engineer with undisguised admiration, after which Olen worked up the nerve to ask a question.
"And what is this vehicle?" Olen asked.
"This is a light-cycle. Hasn't this shown up in Midar yet?" Dex answered.
The graduates exchanged glances, after which they shook their heads from side to side in unison.
"Well, well… and here I thought, on my next visit, I wouldn't recognize our capital anymore…" Dex sighed, with noticeable despair in his voice.
"And how long has it been since you were in Midar? And why?" Artus asked.
"I don't even remember anymore… years… I'm here constantly, busy with development and research… and a mean lady with a big ass won't give me any time off…" Dex answered.
"A mean lady… with a big ass?…" The graduates repeated in unison, exchanging glances again.
Dex slipped one hand into his pocket, closed his eyes, and broke into a confident half-smile, then continued.
"Yes. Our oh-so-great Archon of War. Lucia is merciless not only in battle but here on duty as well. And she's pretty cunning, you know, she knows how to make someone like me work without rest, and I'd like to have a chance to unwind sometimes too! But you know, all of it is worth it, if every day I get to see one of the most elegant, dangerous, and juiciest asses in all of Helios…"
While Dex was saying these last words, Lucia herself had already been standing behind him for some time, casting a long shadow over him, with the steady yellow light of her glowing eyes breaking through its depths.
The graduates froze in mute shock, afraid to utter even a word, watching the scene unfolding before them.
"Why are you looking at me like that?" Dex asked, immediately feeling a heavy sigh envelop the back of his neck in hot breath.
They carefully pointed somewhere behind him, and a frightened smile twisted across Dex's face.
"She's right behind me, isn't she…?" Dex said in a trembling voice.
Both nodded silently, while Dex slowly turned his head back, discovering right in front of him the towering figure of Lucia, her eyes filled to the brim with undisguised fury.
"Go on. Keep talking," Lucia ordered coldly.
"Lucia… it… it was a compliment!… and… I turned in the report, like you asked! It's already on your de—"
Dex never finished the phrase. Lucia's steel grip closed on his throat, tore him off the ground with a single pull and threw him aside a good thirty meters.
Warriors standing in his path tried to catch the engineer in flight, but the force of the impact sent all of them flying together into the wall of the nearest barracks, where they slammed into the stonework with a dull crash. A griffon dozing nearby woke abruptly at the noise, throwing its head up and watching the scene unfolding before it warily, pinning back its ears and spreading part of one wing.
In the next instant, Lucia stepped over to the massive light-cycle, tearing it off the ground with both hands without any visible effort, after which she sent the machine along the same route, right after the engineer.
Dex, along with the three other warriors who had managed to get back on their feet, scattered in fright with loud shouts, while the terrified griffon bolted from its spot, beating its wings heavily in an attempt to put as much distance as possible between itself and the scene. The light-cycle slammed into the corner of the barracks with a deafening crash, leaving a deep, fresh crack in the stonework.
The graduates watched the whole scene in utter shock, wishing they could sink through the ground, as long as Lucia paid them no attention at all. But in the next moment she slowly turned her predatory gaze precisely onto the newly arrived graduates, and goosebumps shot across their skin instantly from nothing more than contact with her overwhelming aura.
"How long ago did you arrive?" She asked coldly.
"J-just now, Great Archon!" Artus answered.
Lucia held a long pause, casting a brief glance over her shoulder toward the wrecked training ground, after which she turned and walked away unhurriedly.
"Go to your barracks. I expect you in my office in the morning." She said flatly, without turning around.
Both graduates immediately snapped to attention, answering in one voice.
"As you command, Great Archon!"
When Lucia's figure had moved off to a safe enough distance, the graduates exhaled together with visible relief, their shoulders loosening after the long tension.
They turned their heads toward the wrecked training ground, where dozens of meters away, Dex and the three other warriors sat on the ground, surrounded by a silent group of fellow soldiers. The griffon, meanwhile, sniffed warily at the light-cycle, dented deep into the stone wall of the barracks.
Meanwhile, Aren drank the last drops of water from his waterskin under the blazing midday sun, after which he squinted with a sigh, sweeping his gaze over the endless sand dunes, stretching out in every direction to the very horizon.
Far to the south, through the scorching shimmer, the outlines of a vast plateau were already emerging, on which the silhouettes of a city rising above the plain could be made out.
Turning his head toward the southwest, Aren made out a colossal mountain range, stretching in a dense ridge along the line of the horizon, and even further beyond its peaks, a narrow strip of glowing forest could be distinguished, giving off a barely perceptible glow that reached even across such a considerable distance.
"I hope I don't die of thirst before I make it to Midar…" Aren thought, continuing on across the scorching sand.
Aren had managed only a couple of steps when several unknown figures shot up right out of the sand, lunging at him with loud shouts and drawn knives.
He barely had time to react to the sudden attack, picking up several shallow cuts on different parts of his body as he dodged, before springing back and putting distance between himself and his attackers.
"Fuck!" Aren cursed mentally, drawing his sword at once and sizing up his opponents, clad in filthy rags that covered their bodies and faces.
The attackers numbered seven, surrounding him in a tight half circle from every side.
"Who are y—" Aren started to say, but he didn't manage to finish the sentence, turning sharply at the sound of a rapid descent behind him.
A giant vulture dove down at him from the sky, forcing Aren to bring up his blade at the last moment and take the main force of its taloned legs on his crossed weapon.
Colossal mass pressed him down into the sand by sheer weight alone, while one of its sharp talons still tore clean through his shoulder, wrenching a strained, pained groan from Aren's chest.
The vulture tried to reach its massive beak toward its opponent pinned to the ground, but at the last moment Aren released a pair of energy limbs in the shape of Ursus's paws from behind his shoulders.
With one paw he lopped the bird's head off in a single broad swing, while with the other he flung the headless body aside.
The attackers visibly tensed at the sight of what had happened, yet not one of them retreated even a single step.
Aren rose from the sand, gripping his wounded shoulder with one hand and searing his opponents with a glare full of fury.
"Fuck… just what I needed…" Aren growled, pulling a vial of alchemical potion from his belt pouch and draining it in one long swallow.
A warm wave rolled through Aren's body from within, instantly dulling the pain in his torn shoulder and filling his muscles with a fresh surge of strength.
The seven attackers slowly spread out into a wider half circle, repositioning themselves to attack from every direction at once, while their leader let out a short guttural signal, raising his weapon higher.
Aren gripped his sword tighter, taking up a fighting stance, while his eyes swept quickly between the approaching figures in search of his first target.
The nearest of the bandits was the first to break from his spot, closing the distance rapidly with his blade raised for a strike.