Hungry Heart - Book 5 - Ch. 7 (Patreon)

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Chapter Seven – A Broken Heart

The Aureate Sea appeared before their eyes, the waves of sand rushing gently at the shore, while in the distance, a few of those strange boats rose with their tall masts, easy to spot by any possible customer in need of a ride back to the continent.

It struck Duril that very moment. Coinvale was part of the continent, and it wasn’t, due to how the sea of shifting sands separated it from the rest. In a way, it felt fitting that Hekastfet’s shard would find a home here, away from the usual paths of travelers all over the face of Eawirith. They had had their troubles getting here, and it seemed only by happenstance that they landed here, although, at the same time, their fate wouldn’t have let them stray for long.

“Let me go speak to one of them,” Claw told them and moved to the front, while they stayed back.

Varg was holding Mako in his arms, and his face was cut in stone. There were no other people in the area, searching for means of passing the Aureate Sea, as the city had been engulfed in a sort of excited terror over the fall of the Heart of Tradeweaving. That worked to their advantage, as they needed to leave Mako enough room to breathe.

Duril understood his friend’s pain. Although few words had been exchanged after Claw and Varg explained to them what had happened at the top of the spire holding the city’s most beloved landmark, there was a lingering sense of hurtful regret between them. His attempt to offer comfort had been met with one long suffering look and a shake of the head.

It took an effort on his part to realize why a pain of this sort went so deep for Varg. As a pack leader, he was responsible for the others’ wellbeing. Even when it was just a young lad met by chance at the heart of a city with many thousands of people, both locals and visitors.

Not even Toru’s bravery in assuming their collective guilt about reducing Mako to that state did anything to lighten Varg’s mood. The only way for him to feel better again was to have the boy regain his senses, open his eyes and speak like any other lad his age would.

The nature of the beast, Varg and Claw had called it, and Duril was beginning to understand. Hekastfet was no typical evil creature. He was the embodiment of all evil, and he changed his ways as he saw fit. To torment them right now, that tiny part of his dark soul had chosen to make Mako fall ill, because he knew that it would inflict the most pain to the group supporting Toru in his quest to destroy him for good. Innocents were his favorite nourishment, and fate or chance must have made Mako land in their path and thus suffer at the hands of that evil creature.

Varg stood slightly away from the rest of the group, as if he wanted to distance himself and his pain so that he wouldn’t contaminate his friends. But Duril wasn’t having it. He quickly walked over and touched the wolfshifter’s elbow.

“We will find a way,” he said with conviction. “We’ve been through so much, all of us. When have we ever failed?”

“You make a strong point, my friend.” Varg finally smiled.

Toru came closer, too, drawn by their conversation. “Let me hold the lad for a while so that you can rest your arms for a bit,” the young tiger offered.

Varg appeared reluctant to do so, but eventually relented. He moved Mako’s inert body to Toru’s arms with infinite care. While Toru began walking along the shore, talking to the unmoving boy as if he was aware of being spoken to, Duril took Varg’s arm.

“I don’t want you to withdraw again into your shell, but I must ask. You appear affected to no end by this,” Duril said gently.

Varg sighed and ran a hand over his eyes. “I’m making all of you worry, and only because of my lack of ability to handle the easiest things.”

“I cannot pretend that I understand what you are saying, so I must ask you again. Does Mako remind you of someone?”

Varg offered him a weary look. “How could you tell?”

“It was only a lucky guess. Do you care to share a bit of your pain with your friend?”

“And burden you, too?”

“I don’t mind pain. I’m a healer, remember?” Duril smiled and sat cross-legged on the sandy shore.

Varg had no choice but to join him. “It happened a long time ago. It was in the early days of my being a leader of my pack. I was still learning things. But until then, there had been others to lean on, elders who guided my path. And then, as I tasted the freedom to rule my pack the way I saw fit, I made my first mistake.” He paused for a moment, and Duril allowed him the time needed for him to collect his thoughts. “It was supposed to be just another hunt. I had yet to meet evil the way it seems to lurk along our path every day of our lives now. And there was this pup, well, he was no longer a pup since he was allowed to come on hunts with the rest of us. He was so pure-hearted. And he just wanted to be recognized by the others, because he was smaller, he had always been the runt of the pack, so to speak. The others, as much as I scolded them, liked to play their usual pranks and take advantage of his gullible nature. I overlooked some of the things, as this is how wolves grow stronger. But on this hunt, the youngest members of my pack rushed into the face of danger without my knowledge. They convinced Tano to come with them, determined to show how fearless they could be. To prove themselves to the older members of the pack.”

Duril looked straight at Varg. “What happened?”

“The stag we’d been hunting belonged to a spirit of the forest. This beast was the most astonishing thing because it was larger than most and his antlers reached to the crowns of trees, even the tallest. Even the thought of wanting to hunt for it came to me in the most unusual manner. In a dream.” Varg snorted in self-deprecation. “Later I learned that it was the forest spirit who sent that dream to me, that for the glory of my pack I should set everything else aside and hurry to find the stag and bring it down, take its antlers and bring them home as a trophy.”

“Why did the forest spirit do that? Have you ever learned of its intention?”

Varg shrugged. “One of the things I learned about evil ever since I faced it for the first time is that it doesn’t need a reason. Its nature is to hurt, to cause the greatest amount of pain possible. It doesn’t matter who it hurts, it seems. It feeds on others’ misery and that is that.”

Duril nodded in agreement. “I believe that you are right, my friend. What happened on the hunt?”

“The youngest, as I told you, rushed first to the last place the stag had been spotted, as they heard it from some local foresters. They didn’t care to tell the rest of us where they were going, since they wanted all the glory for themselves. To fool the rest of us, they pretended to be scared of getting speared by the antlers of the famous stag, so we left them behind. When I discovered their ruse, it was too late. When we discovered them, most had been so severely wounded that they were never the same again. But at least, they had been allowed to live. Not Tano. The stag had speared his body so badly that he appeared to have holes in him everywhere. I don’t know why this has stayed with me through the many years, but I noticed that his heart was missing, carved out of his chest. The forest spirit, I heard, needed a wolfshifter’s heart for some sick curse it intended to create.”

Duril touched Varg’s shoulder slightly. “We can’t judge ourselves guilty for what evil does. That is no way of living.”

“I could have prevented it,” Varg said bitterly. “I should have left one of the older members of the pack behind to watch over the youngsters so that they didn’t go astray. As their seniors, we didn’t take care of them enough. How could I forgive myself such a thing? And now, with Mako, the boy said that he wanted to climb up there and put the heart back, the thing that made that contraption move, and I turned my back on him. I was so caught up in talking to Claw about it, to decide what to do next, how to reach you and Toru the fastest and tell you about a real fragment of a shard being there. And Mako did what all young people do. He tried to do it on his own, no matter the consequences.”

“We will save him,” Duril said. “I don’t know yet what it will take, but we will do it. He’s still among the living, and it doesn’t seem to me like the evil from the shard wants to finish him off.” Duril heard something and turned his head. “Ah, look, Claw is back. And he has a boat rider with him.”

***

Toru wasn’t sure whether all the boat riders who provided the means of passing the Aureate Sea looked the same or if it was the same boat rider that had brought them here. He wondered for a moment, whether it was an important thing to keep in mind, but then he brushed it off. It was meaningless to think too much when there was so much to do. He had taken Mako from Varg, not only to ease his friend’s burden, but to see if the tiny shard fragment didn’t feel like joining its brethren without being convinced in other ways.

The boat pilot said nothing and just opened his arms, gesturing for Toru to hand the boy over. After a short look at Claw, who nodded in encouragement, he proceeded to do as indicated. The being made the long garments he wore flutter in the soft breeze as his arms came around Mako’s unmoving body. He appeared to handle the lad as if he was carrying a baby, but his slanted narrow eyes were keen on the charge in his arms as if he were trying to decipher the solution to a puzzle.

“You did well to come to us,” he said, his voice deep and sonorous. It made Toru think that either the sounds he was making came from either far away or from the depths of the ground. Everything about these strange people who ran their boats over the Aureate Sea made him believe that they belonged to a different world, one that was impossible to see with the naked eye.

“Gate conqueror,” the boat man said, looking directly at him, “you must come with me. Only you can save this young man’s life.”

“Wait, what do you mean?” Claw intervened, although Toru had already taken a step forward, ready to do whatever was needed to be done to help Mako. “You told me that you only wanted to see Toru and guide him through.”

“And that is what I will do,” the boat rider said calmly, taking no offense at Claw’s harsh stare and words. “The gate conqueror must take the lad to the island at the heart of the Aureate Sea. There, and only there, the truth will emerge. The shard will go to its rightful owner.”

What exactly had Claw told the boat rider? Toru wondered as he observed the exchange between his friend and the other. It was unlikely that the bearshifter would put them, either of them, in harm’s way, and he was sly and clever. He would make the boat rider believe whatever he wanted him to believe.

“We will all go,” Claw said, clenching his fists.

“No.” The pilot held Mako’s body balanced on one arm, while raising the other as if to bar Claw’s way. “There’s not enough room on the boat for all of you. Only I, the gate conqueror, and the boy to be saved must go to the island.”

“You are lying,” Claw said through his teeth.

Duril and Varg must have heard them quarrelling, because they rushed over with worried looks on their faces.

“I am then under no obligation to help,” he said and then made a move as if to return Mako’s body to them.

Toru took the young man from him, but at the same time, before any of the others could intervene, he said, “I will go where I must go. And I will go alone if that is what has to be done. Do not worry, Claw. You know who I am. No evil is great enough to scare me.”

Claw pursed his lips, but it looked like he was relenting already. The stakes were too high to spurn the chance they had been given to save Mako. Toru felt confident that they would be there and back before his friends had a chance to become too worried about his fate.

“Toru, this doesn’t feel right to me,” Varg warned him.

Toru only laughed. “The shard needs to be reminded who it belongs to. And that is me. Neither of you can take my place, see? And if I have to do this alone, so be it. It can’t be too hard after having defeated the soul of darkness once. What’s such a small part of it going to do against me?”

He could tell that his companions were still reluctant, so he needed to move fast before they could decide that they were unwilling to let him leave.

“Let’s go,” he told the man.

“Toru!” Duril called out from behind him.

Toru looked at him. “I will be fine, Duril,” he said. “And I will be back soon.”

He followed the boat rider, aware of the concerned looks of his friends still hanging on his back and shoulders like a mantle.

***

“I do not trust these boat riders,” Varg said through his teeth.

Toru, with Mako in his arms, and his guide had already disappeared from their view, into a mist of gold. They had walked behind them, hoping to see their young friend getting into one of the boats and moving over the sea of sand, but they had quickly lost sight of him.

“They seem to know what they are saying,” Duril said cautiously. “And I trust Toru to be strong, no matter what happens.”

“I have no doubt in our tiger’s abilities,” Varg replied. “But it feels to me like someone is trying to separate him from us so that he is less strong without his allies.”

“I don’t think the boat riders are evil,” Duril said. “Claw, what did you tell that man? How did you convince him to help?”

The bearshifter looked into the distance, seeming uneasy. Varg could sympathize with him, as he was just as worried. Only Duril appeared to remain calm, his head still on his shoulders, and the thought humbled him.

“I didn’t tell him the whole truth,” Claw said. “I only said that Toru is in search of something he lost, something that belongs to him. I have no hope that the boat man didn’t understand what I was talking about when I told him that Mako had been brought down by a strange affliction. I made no mention of the Heart of Tradeweaving’s falling being our doing. These are men of few words. He only answered me back that the thing affecting Mako will return to its owner once the truth is set free. If you’re asking me, it was quite a strange conversation.”

“I do not doubt it,” Duril agreed.

“We shouldn’t sit idle,” Varg said. “If we are just going to wait, I’m afraid that I might grow too impatient to avoid making new mistakes.”

“It’s all Hekastfet’s fault.” Claw gave him a sharp look. “Toru is now on his own. But yes, I agree that is no reason for us to remain idle, fiddling with our thumbs.”

“Do you have something in mind?” Varg asked.

“I do,” Claw confirmed with a short nod. “We will go back into the city. We will start asking questions so that we can learn where the other fragments of the shard are. Toru has his work cut out for him anyway, so the least we can do is make a map of Coinvale with all the places we must visit so that he can take out the evil parts of Hekastfet’s shard. With some luck, soon none of it will remain.”

“What a crazy idea, to break it into who knows how many pieces,” Duril murmured. “And how can we be sure there’s not going to be one or two parts of it left behind? Seeing what great evil it is capable of, even when it’s in the tiniest form, we cannot leave this to chance.”

“We need someone who knows exactly how many parts of it exist in the city,” Varg said.

“I know,” Duril said and nodded energetically. “I know who we need to ask. Who knows the most about the city? It’s Misar Dagou, the stall owner with the leaflets! Since I have to visit his son before sundown to get my book--”

“But you and Toru destroyed the printer in the process of printing your book, didn’t you?” Varg reminded him.

Duril waved impatiently. “The printer should work without the shard. And I’m supposed to meet Misar Sogou anyway, as if nothing happened. Since it’s already late, and I doubt that Misar Dagou is still at his stall, I can just ask his son where to find him.”

“They appear to be quite reckless with the things they know about this shard,” Varg pondered out loud.

“They have no idea what evil power is behind it,” Duril said. “We can’t truly blame them for using it, as they only saw the benefits that could be gotten from it.”

“I agree with you.” Varg put one hand on the healer’s shoulder. “I hope that you don’t mind if I come along, right?”

“I will wait here, in the off-chance that Toru will emerge from the Aureate Sea with the young lad safe and sound,” Claw suggested.

“All right, then. We will not sit idle and we will help Toru to the best of our abilities,” Varg said, now feeling a little better for having something to do.

***

Toru swore to himself that he wouldn’t fall asleep like he had done the first time riding in that strange sand boat, but the moment he was on board, he felt his eyelids growing heavy. He sat down, cross-legged, still holding Mako in his arms. Only as sleep took him did he recall that these people were adamant about getting their coin and, this time around, it appeared that the boat rider didn’t require payment. All in all, it was odd, but he paid it no more mind as he drifted away to the land of golden dreams.

When he woke up, he did so because he felt as if the boat carrying him and Mako had hit another shore. But how could that flimsy contraption that seemed to float over the expanse of the Aureate Sea hit something?

Nonetheless, he woke up with a jolt and looked around. They were, indeed, at the edge of a shore, and when he looked up, he noticed that a tall stone wall rose before them.

“Hold on tightly,” the boat rider said, and that was all the warning Toru got.

The boat began rising upwards, and Toru lost his bearings for a moment.

“Are we flying?”

The boat rider didn’t answer.

Toru looked above their heads. It seemed like the stone wall lost itself in a cloud. “Is this a mountain or an island?”

Again, the boat man offered no reply. Toru decided to ignore him just the same. Far be it from him to understand what these morose people were about. After all, all he wanted was to make Mako better, get the shard from him, and then return to his friends.

Their trip to the peak of the mountain rising before them seemed to take forever. Toru risked a look down. The Aureate Sea was impossible to see, and the clouds had closed in under them, offering nothing but an expanse of soft whiteness instead of golden waves.

When he had lost Demophios in the Great Barren, he had come close to the sun. This couldn’t impress him. Toru took care, however, of holding Mako close to his chest so that he didn’t lose his charge.

The boat stopped again, and then Toru realized that the mountain didn’t have a peak. A blanket of green grass spread out before him.

“We are here.”

Toru jumped onto the grass, surprised by how light-footed he appeared to be. He wasn’t in his tiger shape so that he couldn’t chalk it all up to having padded paws that allowed him to move so soundlessly.

The boat began moving behind him. He turned just in time to see it floating downward. So, the boat pilot planned on just leaving him here, to figure it all out by himself. That was rude. With a shrug, he continued his walk through the grass. The weather seemed different here, cooler and wetter. Toru’s nostrils flared in search of some familiar scent. But the only thing his nose caught was the smell of melting snow, pure and gentle.

“It looks it’s just the two of us,” he told Mako, although the boy couldn’t hear him.

Left and right, the grass meadow appeared to have no end. Toru considered that he was supposed to walk forward until he found something that would help him in his quest to save Mako.

He wasn’t tired in the least, but he couldn’t help wondering just how long it would take him to heal Mako and return. He missed his friends already.

He stopped abruptly as something else appeared in front of his eyes. Lost in thought as he had been, he must have missed its appearance. It was an altar, as white as snow, a stone construction modeled as much by the hand of man as the winds blowing up here.

With careful steps, he drew closer. He really hated it when no one gave him a clear foe to deal with. All this mystery was making his head hurt.

“Gate conqueror,” a voice boomed from above the altar.

“That’s me,” Toru said and tipped his head back to see who was talking. His eyes met nothing but thin air. So, it had to be a witch of some sort. That was no issue. He could deal with witches, as he had done so many times before, not to mention some were kind-hearted if a little not all up there, like Agatha from Whitekeep. Maybe this was a good witch.

“Place the boy at my feet.”

Supposedly, that meant the altar, Toru thought and proceeded to do as told.

“Lie down, as well.”

Toru shrugged again and stretched himself a few palms away from Mako.

“And now sleep, tiger,” the voice whispered. “I have you now.”

“How do you know what I…”

He didn’t finish his sentence. His will was taken away from him again as he drifted into slumber.

TBC