Hungry Heart - Book 5 - Ch. 1 (Patreon)

Author's note: With Otis's story over, Dave and I agreed that it is a great time to return to Toru's adventures. Hoping that you didn't forget where we left our heroes the last time you heard of them, here's the start to a new book in the epic saga :)

Chapter One – Sungate

A winding road slithered before them, around hills and forests, like a ribbon of light-colored dust. They had been heading south after hearing the tales of merchants about a place called Coinvale. Duril had agreed with Varg that a city that catered to such activities – and with such a name to boot – had to be a great place to start learning of any rumors concerning abnormal use of magic and whatnot. From time to time, Toru touched his shoulder to feel the shards embedded under his skin, but they weren’t speaking to him. Whether other siblings of theirs were too far for them to react, or they simply chose to remain silent and unmoving for the time being, that was something Toru didn’t know.

His friends had proven of great help in choosing which way to go. After hearing so many things about Coinvale, such as the definite use of magic to reinforce certain items they sold there, and the presence of a guild specialized in identifying unknown objects, scrolls in particular, through skills that remained unknown to the rest of the world, they were all very intrigued. Duril, in particular, was in awe of those tales, and Toru had to admit that he wanted to see his favorite lover smile more often. Over the last years, filled with so much of their adventuring, he had given the kind healer a lot of reasons to worry, and now, he just wanted to watch him getting lost in the perusal of old books, in which Coinvale’s bookstores and libraries abounded, according to the same merchants who traveled to and from the place.

One of the strangest things about the road they followed to Coinvale was the ethereal mist that greeted them each morning. It thinned throughout the day, and the weather was sweeter the closer they got closer to the city of merchants, but it always came back after the night passed. It wasn’t like a normal mist, either. It covered everything, including their clothes, in a shimmering dust, so fine that they never seemed to be able to get rid of, regardless of how much they patted their garments to get rid of it. They were continuously painted in gold, and since that was the favorite color of the coins changing hands in the city of merchants, it had to be fitting.

The same merchants had assured them that the mist was nothing to worry about. In hushed tones, they said that it was of the magical kind, but Toru had his doubts. And if it was magical dust, who was to say that it couldn’t hurt those that moved through it along the path to Coinvale?

Maybe he was using his head too much, and there was also a dearth of any activity that required him to put his body to good use, save for the loving he enjoyed in the company of his friends and a bit of hunting on the side. Duril had gotten quite adept at making potions of all kinds, using the plants, roots, flowers, and many other things they discovered along the way, and he exchanged them for goods they needed whenever they met a caravan. And since the healer enjoyed spoiling him above all else, various delicious meats and other foods ended their existence before him, the result of Duril’s trading skills. Not only before him, and he did share with Varg and Claw. Toru didn’t think that he had ever been so not hungry in his life. Everything was nice, but—

“Are you getting a little bored with the long road ahead of us?” Duril asked him from his right, looking at him intently.

“It would be nice to fly,” Toru said with a long suffering sigh. “Although that’s not something I can just do on the spot. I wish magic wasn’t so difficult to understand.

Duril laughed softly at his complaint. “There’s nothing in the world that compares to flying. I experienced it once, too. But these feet of ours will take us where we need to be. This world unfolding before us will hold a lot of excitement, I am sure.”

“If only it didn’t take so long. All we see is hills and forests, hills and forests,” he said, and just as the words left his lips, he thought he could see something in the distance. The easiest thing to do in order to explore the soft golden glimmer at the line of the horizon was to shift into his tiger and rush closer. But he didn’t want to leave Duril alone, and his companions had already advised him to keep his real identity a secret for a while, since they didn’t know how the merchants and other inhabitants of Coinvale would welcome – or not – a living legend. He had snorted at being called that, but it had also filled him with pride. His friends knew who had saved the world once, even if most of the world didn’t know it got saved.

“That must be the Sungate,” Varg said, joining their conversation, as he came up to them from behind. “Soon enough, you will be missing the hills and forests, Toru.”

“How so?” Of them all, Varg had been tasked to talk to the caravan masters and the merchants they met along the way, so he had to know the most about what waited for them in that famous city.

“The Sungate,” Varg explained, “separates the realm of Coinvale from the rest of the world.”

“Realm?” Toru asked as this new information knitted his brows into a frown. “I thought it was just a city.”

“A city with a lot of influence that reaches around it for quite a distance,” Varg replied. “It rises on top of shifting sands and dunes and reigns over buried treasures sunk into the depths of an unusual sea of golden dust.”

“Is all the mist coming from there?” Toru felt more and more intrigued by this place.

“That’s what the merchants say, and soon, we will be able to see if it is so for ourselves.”

“We should hurry then. I want to see this sea of sand. But if it is a sea, do we need a boat to cross it?”

“The people I asked said that they are available to rent soon after we pass the Sungate. And seeing how our intrepid friend Duril has established quite a profitable trade for his wares, I believe we will have enough coin to pay for passage.”

“Did you know about all this?” Toru asked Duril.

“Not all of it. We trust Varg to convince the people we meet to share their knowledge.”

Toru nodded and looked at Varg. The wolfshifter was capable of making mere humans tell him everything they knew, and not only them. He had his role, just as Duril was capable of making shiny coins appear in the little pouch he was carrying. And Claw could tell when people were lying. Toru could barely wait to be useful again.

***

What the merchants said about the Sungate intrigued Varg well enough. They said that the magnificent stone arch had been crafted by ancient artisans and imbued with powerful enchantments, serving as both a guardian and a symbol of Coinvale’s grandeur. He had a hunch that they were simply trying to boast about it, proud as they were of trading with such a famous place. In the frequent cases they called the city their home, Varg had noticed that their pride tended to be subtler, and their words were less vain. They spoke in the gentle drawl of southerners, but their speech was filled with wit. Coinvale, they said, was a blessed country in itself, a realm like no other. He took their word for it and was curious to see the truth through his own eyes.

And now they were almost there. The Sungate rose before them, like a guard intent on keeping intruders away. It wasn’t easy for anything to impress Varg, not after being by Toru’s side as the young tiger had saved the world from sure ruin. But this gate was something else

A colossal structure, towering high above them with intricately carved details, it displayed the tales of Coinvale’s history, legends, and the magic coursing through it. Varg moved closer and let his fingers touch the stone surface. The carvings were filled with warm yellow light, as befit its name. And it wasn’t cold to the touch, as one would have expected. It radiated warmth from within. It felt alive.

The stone used to construct the gate had an otherworldly luminescence in itself, Varg mused as he took in all the details. Toru was by his side and he was observing the gate quietly, with a serious expression on his face.

“Could it be that this gate was made from a single stone broken from the sun? Duril said you told him this legend.”

“Yes, but I doubt that it’s true.”

“But Claw can tell you when people lie,” Toru insisted.

“Indeed I can,” Claw said and patted the tigershifter vigorously on his back. “Even though the Sungate might not actually be made of sun stone, as the merchants we’ve met say, that wouldn’t make it any less true in their eyes. They choose to believe so, and no one can take that away from them.”

Toru nodded slowly. “And what else do they believe?”

Claw looked around. “I think we are going to find out soon enough. These merchant tales speak of a light that comes from the Sungate, capable of turning the night into day. And evening is upon us.”

“There are so many legends recorded here,” Varg added.

Duril was carefully examining the intricate symbols running along the gate’s pillars like tiny rivulets. “It’s not exactly like any letters I’ve learned,” the healer said. “Can you read all of this, Varg?”

“Some of it. It is in an ancient language, and I can only tell that it is a testament to the ancient history of Coinvale. I can’t say more without dedicating proper time to it. And I think Toru is too impatient to continue our journey to wait for me to do so.”

Not only was the text intriguing when they set their eyes on the magnificent construction. It was difficult to believe that people had erected the massive archway. Behind it, the sea of sand stretched as far as their eyes could see. Varg noticed how Toru moved closer to inspect the gate.

Two colossal stone pillars supported the massive, arched gateway adorned with majestic reliefs depicting strange creatures, heroic deeds, and celestial constellations. A pair of guardian statues, sculpted in the likeness of beasts, flanked the entrance, their eyes seeming to watch the newcomers.

It had to be the beasts that had caught Toru’s eye. They weren’t like anything they had ever seen in their lives, and given the number of things they had witnessed in their existence so far, that said a lot. One of them had the muscular body of a large feline, but its head was wrong if that could be said. It resembled that of a bird, an eagle being the closest Varg could think as being similar to it, and it had only one eye, placed in the middle of its short forehead. That eye had inside its pupil a small hole and from it, the same warm glow spread outward from its stone prison. Varg felt like the eye was watching them, even as they moved about.

The other guardian was just as unsettling in its appearance. It had the body of a snake, coiled tightly and covered with scales that had been painstakingly carved in the living stone, so well that Varg thought that his eyes were playing tricks on him and that the scaled surface moved as if muscles rippled underneath.

What made no sense was the presence of so many limbs, jutting out of its reptile body, following no rhyme or reason. There were arms and legs and seemed to have the softness of human flesh. They lay inert, as if they were aware on a certain level that they were useless, attached as they were to such a body.

This creature had no head. Its neck ended in a stump, and Varg pondered as he took in the strange sculpture. The end of it was a flat surface, turned toward those looking at it. An unfinished thing. Varg didn’t understand it.

“The merchants say that those who rent boats know no tiredness. I say that we should continue our journey.”

The others murmured their agreement, as entranced as they were by the appearance of the gate, as well as its guardians – or more so that of its guardians. Their heads remained turned toward them as they passed through the massive archway.

“Can you feel that?” Duril whispered, asking his question of no one in particular.

Varg could and somehow knew what the healer was asking. There was a subtle but palpable shift in the air, an undercurrent that had nothing to do with their passing through.

“Is it magic?” Toru asked, his voice dropping low, as well.

The young tiger was awed and also puzzled by magical things, so his endearing reaction was to be expected. To break the suddenly solemn air, Varg caught Toru by his shoulders and pulled him into a hug. “Kitty, if you’re afraid of magic, don’t worry. I’m here to protect you, and I will spare nothing to prevent even the tiniest hair on your coat from suffering any offense.”

“Put me down, mutt,” Toru growled at him, but these days, he no longer meant it. The young tiger was growing into a finer shifter with each adventure, and even each passing day, confident in his abilities and secure in the love of his friends. He no longer had anything to prove.

“This truly is a gate like no other,” Claw commented. “It separates the world outside,” he added, pointing at the road that stretched behind them, “and this realm of Coinvale. If you listen carefully, you can even hear the gate speak.”

Toru frowned. “I don’t hear anything. What is it saying?”

“I don’t understand it, as it speaks an ancient language, but it is beautiful, like a melody, that I can tell you.”

Claw had barely finished saying that when a swish-like sound cut through the air, and they couldn’t take a step further. Toru slammed his palms against an invisible wall, to check its existence. Varg looked at Duril, and the healer returned the same confused look.

“Was there anything in what those merchants told you about something like this?” Toru asked the very natural question.

“No, nothing like this. But it definitely looks to me like something is trying to prevent us from passing through the gate.” Varg reached in front and his hands met the same solid mass they couldn’t see with their eyes.

Toru threw his head back and moaned. “Great. I am right again. Magic is always dumb.”

“Come on, Toru,” Duril teased their beloved companion, “you know that’s not true.”

“But we were so close. We could have been in the city in hours if we just got to the other side.”

Kitty had a point, of course. But Varg had learned a few things in his many journeys and battles over the face of Eawirith. Patience was a tool to be used when the circumstances were as dumbfounding as they were at the moment.

“Claw, can you break through this wall?” Toru asked, the impatience of his youth just as transparent as it had been on many other occasions.

“Are you challenging me in the hope that I would go against magical forces while you keep your lovely coat unruffled?”

The bearshifter’s teasing found its mark. Toru let out a not so playful growl. “I am in great need of getting into a fight. Only magical things don’t fight fair.”

Claw seemed to have caught something with his very sensitive ears. He was also more attuned to the unseen world than he and Toru, at least. Duril had his gifts, but he was definitely not as astute as the mature bearshifter. They all understood from how stiffly Claw remained while sniffing the air, his nostrils flaring, that there was something else happening.

“Is the gate talking to you again?” Toru asked.

“It definitely is, but I haven’t lived long enough to understand this language.”

“Is it the same beautiful melody as before?” Duril asked.

“No. It seems as if it’s starting to lose its patience,” Claw declared.

***

This was quite the situation they were finding themselves in. Duril could tell that Toru was already fretting with anticipation, and that he was itching for a fight, something that hadn’t happened their way in quite a while. His more aggressive nature as a tigershifter was shining through, and Duril knew that he wouldn’t be satisfied with nothing but a snack, now that he had been provoked.

He had no clue where he got the idea, but the whole thing appeared to be a sort of challenge. Was the gate really trying to tell them something and becoming frustrated that not even the oldest of their group could understand it? Or was it something else?

The simple fact that the gate was reacting to their presence in such a way was a sign. The merchants they had met along the way hadn’t told them about such a thing. They had only informed them that they would have to pay for a boat to rent, and not to forget to put a single golden coin in the hand of the boater once they reached their destination, on top of the usual fee. That had been what Varg had told them, and between his shrewd reading of people and Claw’s ability to detect any lies, it seemed unlikely that those merchants had knowingly pushed them into a trap.

“I think I’m hearing something,” Duril started and lifted his head as high as he could into the air, as if that alone would help him identify the sounds emanating from the stone.

The evening had already set in. From where they stood underneath the large archway, Duril could see the sun going to sleep, setting the sea of sand ablaze, while its color was turning to the deep yellow hue of a fried egg.

“Look,” Toru exclaimed, and Duril turned his attention to what his friend was pointing at.

The gate was now all lit up, and the warm glow from before was more intense, like lava. And just like it, it began pouring from the stone, forcing them to step out of the way.

Duril couldn’t let out a sound. The lava began shaping itself, and soon, he realized what he was staring at. Those were the guardians from the pillars. Only that they were burning bright now, and their intentions were unclear.

“Toru, watch out,” Claw shouted, and the tigershifter barely had the time to move out of the way, as the snake-like guard tensed and shot its body straight at him.

Toru jumped from place to place with his usual grace. “Do you want to play? Do you?” He seemed amused and not at all frightened that a couple of stone sculptures were now out to get him, while seemingly infused with magical powers.

“We cannot touch these things,” Claw warned. “We might get singed if not burned properly.”

“I can feel the heat radiating from them,” Varg yelled at them as he pushed Toru out of the way of another swift attack, this time coming from the dangerous beak of the other guardian. “You don’t have to tell us twice.”

“Let’s just go back,” Duril advised and hurried to the same way they came, but his body slammed into another invisible wall. “I think we’re trapped!”

“Don’t worry, I will defeat these magical things,” Toru promised.

Of them all, he appeared not the least affected by the fact that the gate to Coinvale was playing some unusual tricks on them. It wouldn’t have been that unsettling if the tricks didn’t appear to be aimed at killing them or, at least, maiming them.

***

His friends were confused and partly frightened, although that wasn’t something heroes and warriors like them usually felt when faced with a new opponent. Toru felt nothing of the kind. The heat coming off the two attackers didn’t scare him, and he could deal with it. Although Varg had hurried to push him out of harm’s way, he hadn’t worried for a moment.

“Toru, what are you doing?” Claw yelled at him from the top of his lungs. “Get out of that thing’s way!”

Toru only laughed. The shoulder with the shards was burning, too, giving him confidence. Without thinking twice, he lunged at the headless serpent and threw a punch right in the center of its stump. The thing shook, uncoiled itself, and fell to the ground like a limp mess.

“Toru!” Duril exclaimed. “Your hand!”

Toru looked at the fist he had used to punch the thing. His skin was aflame, but he felt no pain. “It’s nothing,” he shouted, full of energy and desire to defeat his opponents. The flames were licking at his skin, climbing upward, until they reached where the shards lay and fizzled out.

“Behind you,” Varg warned him, and Toru turned just in time to welcome the other guardian in a fiery embrace.

The heat radiating from the lava body of the second assailant gave him power. He had no time to explain it to his friends, who were shouting and trying to help. But their hands couldn’t touch those burning bodies, and they had to jump back each time they tried.

“Don’t worry and leave all this to me,” he bellowed. He grabbed the beak and began turning it upward with only the force of his muscles until the thing began transforming in his hand. With ease, he turned the beak toward that unnerving single eye that was just a mass of blazing yellow now.

The moment the beak touched the surface of the eye, the thing in Toru’s hand jolted, and the flaming lava shape faded. In the blink of an eye, the sculpture was on the ground, looking as before, made of stone and only gleaming from cuts in its surface, here and there.

“What?” Toru asked in disbelief. “Is that all?”

The other guardian tried to sneak up behind him, but Toru caught it and began strangling it, squeezing what he believed to be the neck of the thing. His friends were crying out, bewildered by what was happening before their very eyes, but he didn’t feel any pain. Only power, wild and free, coursing through his veins.

The incomplete snake fell from his hand, turning, just like its companion, into the same gleaming warm stone.

“Now that’s not very nice,” Toru scolded the two defeated guardians, now lying at his feet, looking not at all as the frightful things they had been only earlier. “I believe it’s high time for me to put you back where you belong.”

Sure of himself, Toru grabbed both of the inert things and dragged them along, as no wall prevented him from moving through. He lifted each stone figure and pushed it back into its socket, which was, no surprise there, empty.

His friends followed him outside the gate and stared in disbelief at the two guardians, now back in their places.

“Look,” Varg said, pointing at something on the pillars. “They’re… writing something?”

“I think so, yes,” Claw confirmed. “Wait, I think I’m hearing that beautiful melody again. Oh, I think the gate is thanking us.”

“For defeating its useless guardians?” Toru asked, feeling nothing but the joy of prevailing over his enemies. “And how come you understand it now?”

“It’s speaking more clearly,” Claw explained. “It says that heroes who pass through it have to be praised in the flesh of its pillars with new words.”

Toru looked at the symbols appearing in the stone. “I don’t understand a thing,” he said and scrunched up his nose. “Are you really sure? That the gate is praising me?”

“I suppose we should just see if we can pass through it,” Claw suggested. “Seeing how Toru proved himself and all that.”

He shrugged, puffed out his chest, and walked in front of them to show his companions that nothing as little as such incredibly weak guardians could stop him. The invisible wall wasn’t there anymore. He turned his head and saw the gate gleaming with its kind warm light. “Are you all coming or what?”

He smiled as Duril grabbed his arm and looked at him with eyes full of love. “Good thing you’re here with us,” he joked. “We need someone who specializes in dealing with such obnoxious magic.”

Toru brushed his nose against his lover’s and nodded as Varg and Claw patted him on the back, feeling relieved. “It was very easy,” he pointed out.

“Only for you,” Varg shot back, and Toru felt his heart swelling with pride at his friend’s words.

TBC