The Crimson Dawn

Silver chains wrapped around the tree, tightening the blood and keeping him trapped between the silver and evergreen tree. Eden sat before him, sharpening her tools and staring at him like he was a canvas and she wanted to paint it. Altair stood beside her, glaring at the Blood as he grinned through his gag. He talked constantly, but not about the things they wanted to hear, anything and everything but that.

“These things have a resistance to pain but they are not fully immune like they boast,” Eden mused as she picked up a strange contraption that Altair had never seen before. She opened it up, wiping away a brownish stain with little effort before clamping back down with a loud snap!

“I’ve noticed,” Altair muttered indignantly, side eyeing the torturer for a moment before his fire eyes focused on the Sorcerer, he didn’t look the slightest bit nervous, but a drop of sweat fell from his forehead. Eden picked up a thumbscrew and stood, motioning Altair to hold his hand down. “You’re crushing his fingers?”

“Removing the nails didn’t work with the last one. And I removed all of them very slowly,” Eden assured and put one of his wiggling fingers between the screw and the base.

“We could get him in an easier position for you, Lady Stark,” Altair offered but she shook her head, starting to twist the screw down.

“It’s better if he’s uncomfortable, don’t worry about me,” she looked up at him, “go check on everyone. Make sure Atlas is alright. I know it’s all you’re thinking about.”

Altair raised his brows in surprise at the last comment. “It’s not all I was thinking.”

“Torture’s my job, go do yours,” she dismissed, waving him away. Altair stalked off quickly towards the messy campsite, Icarus had gotten Chimera blood, the blue goo drawing grimaces from everyone in the party. Atlas lay in the wagon, the crates maneuvered in a way, so she fit but she didn’t look necessarily comfortable.

Bastien was there with her, the poor boy having to deal with her stubbornness. “Please, stop moving, we need to keep this cloth on you.” The boy pleaded, moving the damp cloth back into place.

“Go. I can handle her,” Altair ordered Bastien and he jumped before giving the Elf a quick nod and moving out of the wagon quickly and Altair took his place. Atlas squirmed again and Altair reapplied the damp cloth before it could slide off. “You are like an untrained puppy.”

“Puppies are happy,” Atlas grumbled, “I can take care of myself, I don’t need a watcher.” Icarus hovered his head above them, Atlas looking up at him before saying, “Yes, I’m fine, it’s just a small burn.”

“It was 3rd degree before Bastien and Idris healed you to a 2nd,” Altair sighed before removing the damp cloth and carefully taking her arm by his hand, grabbing the gauze.

“I don’t feel any pain,” Atlas whispered looking down at her burn confused. He looked at her for a moment before refocusing on the gauze.

“You won’t not for a few hours at least. Idris and Bastien are young, but they weaved in a pain reliever into their spell. I believe it was Bastien, he seems more knowledgeable and quite a bit more thoughtful than the other one,” Altair mused before he finished up. “There. I’ll try looking for some herbs to help with the healing and pain when we start traveling again. And you are either staying in the wagon or riding on Icarus, no exceptions.”

“My legs aren’t injured, my arm is,” Atlas argued.

“Yes. Your left arm, the one you use. I don’t think that happened by any coincidence, until you are mostly healed then you are not to be alone, are we clear?”

Atlas groaned and fell back into the rolled up sleeping bag that was being used as a make-shift pillow. “Why is it always me that gets injured?”

“You’re Death’s Creature, Atlas, and there’s a certain animosity between the Blood Snake and the Grim Wolf. I’m sure the Bloods want you dead as much as the Snake wants The Wolf dead,” Altair shrugged. “Wagon or Dragon, Atlas?”

“Dragon,” Atlas replied immediately, and Altair smiled at the predictable answer. He held out her hand for her, but she jumped off and ignored him, his smile only widened. “I can walk perfectly fine with an arm injury, Altair.”

“Get on Icarus,” he ordered, “And I’ll help since an arm injury does prohibit you from getting on him properly.” Atlas glared at him and he held his hands in a way to help boost her up. She scoffed, sighed, and relented, stepping on to his hands and was boosted up to get into Icarus’s saddle. “Zale put it on.”

“I figured. You wouldn’t have done it.”

“It keeps you safe. That’s the only thing I like about it.”

“We put saddles on horses,” Atlas said hotly as she looked down at him.

“Do you want to hear me complain about all things wearing saddles, or just one?” Silence was his only response and he walked away with a small victory. “Vale, help Eden move the Blood. We don’t know how many of them are out there, best move on!” Altair called.

“Idris and Bastien should do a spell of some sort to hide out scents,” Esmer suggested. “They use Chimeras as hunting dogs. The ones similar to the one last night are especially good at it.”

Altair turned to the two boys. “Bastien, do you know how to do something like that?”

Bastien nodded. “I’ve read the spell, never done it before.”

“Good enough. Teach Idris, will you?” Altair asked and Bastien did another nod before turning to Idris with red cheeks and a squeaky voice as he began to explain.

Cyra marched out of the brush. “Nearby is clear of any sign of Bloods, including the one they’ve got. They are hiding their tracks and well, we should get out of here before the Vultures come to feast.”

“Vultures eat the dead, they’re scavengers, Cyra, they would be more likely to feast on the Blood Sorcerers than us,” Bastien interrupted and Cyra’s face lightened a bit when she looked at him.

“My mistake,” she bowed her head to her ward before lifting it and taking in Altair. “How old are you, Elf?”

“50 but for Humans it would be closer to 25,” Altair said gruffly, not understanding what his age had to do with anything.

“Then you are the most experienced here. It is your call,” Cyra gave him a nod, a sign of respect, at least that was a common theme among the races.

“I was already having preparations made for our departure,” Altair spoke, unsure if her statement was entirely true.

“Then I shall help,” she left.

Altair stood there for a moment, looking out at these people he barely knew before his eyes rested on Atlas. She was laying in her saddle staring at the sky, her mouth moving and he barely made out any words. She was talking to Icarus, it almost seemed as if she was insane, talking to the sky. Altair looked up at the sky too. It was bluer here than it was in Sylvisa.

✧

Atlas’s arm healed quickly over the last few days of their journey, she kept tacking it up to the Grim Wolf and his “gifts”. Altair accepted the only explanation they had for it, and he relented into letting Atlas not be watched 24/7. Icarus had huffed at that, still upset that he hadn’t been qualified to watch over her on his own but they were too much alike to be trusted, they’d fly off. Icarus had apparently been offended, but Altair didn’t take much offense, the Dragon didn’t seem to like him anyway.

Packing up the camp went by slowly, Altair didn’t hound them as he usually would, because they knew today was their last time in Aspyn for a while if they survived. The heat in the Shaken Sands was also daunting, the images they had all made up from the descriptions they had heard from people journeying into the Sands and the few that came back.

Eden came out of the trees, not a speck of blood on her but a frustrated frown pulling her face down. She caught Altair’s eyes and shook her head. “Dead. We couldn’t risk bringing him along any further.”

Altair nodded. “They may not be entirely immune to pain, but torture doesn’t seem to get to them.

“Death dulls the senses,” Eden sighed, and Altair ignored the look of disappointment that crossed her face. Altair gave Atlas a quick glance, would she have a similar immunity to torture? Death’s Creature didn’t notice his quick stare. “Atlas does feel. She’s not like the damned Bloods.”

“I know that,” Altair snapped, drawing his attention away from Atlas. Eden smiled before walking off, Altair didn’t care to ask what she had done with the body. Leave it for the death scavengers. Once everything was packed away into the wagon, they started trudging off towards the Shaken Sands.

A few hours later, the trees started thinning and dying, the evergreen needles brown and scattered upon the dried grass. The air grew sour as they spotted the small gates a few miles away and the horses grew skittish. A rusty fence surrounded the border of the Shaken Sands, put up by a survivor’s heartbroken family to warn people out. The horror stories had worked just as well.

As they drew closer Altair doubted that the new additions were part of the family’s design. The air grew thicker as they stood in front of the entrance, the scene before them unsettled Altair’s stomach as he stared up at the heads on the pikes. Blood stained the wood and around their necks, some had blood dried around their mouths and flies buzzed around each head by the dozen. One head held maggots in their mouth. Idris turned away and Cyra held Bastien as his breakfast hit the ground.

“Early signs of decay, they were placed here recently,” Eden took a step closer, trying to examine them but Vale stopped her. “It’s a message for us.”

“I don’t want to leave them like this but maybe we should. Show the Bloods, this didn’t affect us like they thought it would,” Zale suggested after landing and making his way to stand by Atlas. He got strange looks and he sighed. “I don’t like the idea of it, but our enemy is preying on our emotions and sympathies, they have an advantage we don’t, and they are using it against us.”

“He’s right, if we take them down, we’ll just be showing our weaknesses that they can use,” Esmer shrugged, he didn’t seem to be affected by the show of strength.

“With the blood around the necks, they were most likely alive when the process began,” Eden said as she squinted her eyes at the heads and Vale shook her head and pressed her lips together.

“Process implies it wasn’t quick” Cyra looks up at the heads before grabbing a cloth to clean Bastien up and keeps his eyes on her.

“We can’t leave them like this, I don’t give a damn if this tells them we were affected. We were,” Atlas growled, and Icarus seemed to agree with her as he nodded.

“Get them down,” Altair ordered and there were few complaints.

Once it was taken care of, Esmer opened up the rusty gate. “Who wants to walk into Hell first?”

Cyra scoffed. “This is hardly the realm of Hell.” She walked through with a glare to Esmer, Bastien following skittishly behind her with a small “Cyra.” Everyone started filing through, Icarus and Apallon simply stepping over the fence to the other side.

“Altair,” Atlas called, and he looked at her as she tried to pull the reins of the horses. “They’re too frightened. They won’t come.”

Altair sighed, walking over to the horses, petting Bumble’s nose and in between his eyes. “They sense the danger coming from there, they won’t come. We’ll have to bring our supplies some other way.” Altair looked at the Dragons waiting for them on the other side.

“That’ll be too awkward. Besides, they’re too strong and big.” Atlas shook her head and Altair put his hand on Rainer’s muzzle as the dotted black and white horse looked for comfort from the honey brown one. “We can’t just leave them, the Sands are a wasteland, nothing is out there.”

“What’s taking so long?!” Esmer called from the gate. Atlas called back with the answer and after a moment, Bastien and Idris were running over to where the horses had stopped.

“We can send them home,” Bastien breathed, and Altair stared at him for more explanation. “I-um-we-”

Idris interrupted, putting his arm around the small boy’s shoulders with a huge smirk. “Bas, here, knows a shifting spell.”

Altair’s eyes fell on Bastien whose cheeks brightened with the inspection. “Those spells have been lost to the Elves since the beginning of the Shattered Age.” His fire eyes squinted at the boy and Bastien’s feet shuffled nervously as he looked down.

“Well, they weren’t lost to us,” Bastien whispered, and Idris gave him an encouraging grin.

Altair nodded and looked at Atlas. “Help me unhook the horses.”

Idris and Bastien practiced the spell under their breath, staring at the pages of Bastien’s closely guarded book while Atlas and Altair unhooked the horses. The others waited, staring at them from the gates. Altair stopped and watched in a bit of awe as Idris and Bastien started taking shape and changing into horses similar to Bumble and Rainer.

“By the Lord Myrrh,” Altair breathed, and he swallowed his adam’s apple bobbing up and down. Atlas snickered at him before hitting his shoulder lightly, so he’d help her hook them on. As Atlas helped guide Idris and Bastien to the gate and the other side, Altair said his goodbyes and safe wishes to Bumble and Rainer. The iron gate was rusty and old, corrupted and was no use warding against anything, Altair wondered what had been done to it as he slammed it behind him.

“You seem to get along with nature very well,” Atlas mumbled as she looked behind him and through the gate, the two stallions still watching from a safe distance. He could feel their warning to come back.

“Elves are… more attuned,” Altair chose his words carefully, just as his teacher would’ve on the topic of Elves and nature. “It is the blessing of Lord Myrrh.”

Zale looked back at the two of them at the mention at his Lord before quickly snapping back forward. Altair and Zale hadn’t talked to each other over the days besides for maybe a few orders. They’d exchanged brief looks of something similar to contempt but not as strong. Zale was a strong and thoughtful warrior and Altair respected him for it. That’s as far as it went.

“We should start making our way through. It will be dark in just a few hours.” Altair shrugged off the questioning look from Atlas and started across the warm sand.