The Crimson Highway ran along the edge of the forest for hundreds of miles. With only gradual inclines and distant ridges, the flat gradient of the land seemed to stretch past them slowly. Aralim had walked thousands of miles over his twenty years on the Path, but the stretch from Crossroads to the Eye of Maga felt like doing it all over again.
Devran and Nill were speaking about their experiences with Slithers as soon as they set out after lunch. Devran had only seen those that were brought to Rema or Nokire—he had never encountered them in the Expanse, despite two attempts at such a venture. Nill said that tribes of the snake-folk came out of the desert every year to trade with Tal’lashar. “We used to give them rubies from the old mine, and they would bring us jade or gold or agave leaves which we could make into oil or soap. They come less ever since the ruby mine was depleted.”
Aralim remembered the man in the public house speaking with him about the miners always seeking the next vein. He walked quietly behind the others. Grendar fell into step beside him, then began to slow his pace. Aralim instinctively slowed down with him. When they were a few paces away from his conversing friends, Aralim asked, “What is it?”
“I think someone noticed our campfire last night,” Grendar said. He looked ahead, like normal, but his voice was strained.
Aralim glanced around them. He couldn’t see anyone approaching the group or out across the flatland around them. Tall grass and slowly shifting hills obstructed detail after a few miles. “Not a Highwayman, by your concern.”
“No, there are men tailing us by about a mile out. Behind us.” He grimaced; Lerela looked back at them a moment, and then looked straight ahead once more. Had she been the one to spot their followers? “I haven’t said anything to the others yet, but I think we should be overly cautious about this. We might be in very real danger.”
They were two-thirds of the way to the Eye, according to their maps and some simple calculations. Aralim knew the nearest village was still several days’ march away, on the Serpent’s Border River. He glanced back at Grendar. “You know I’ll back whatever you decide. Do you think it’s worth trying to circle back on them?”
“I’m as concerned about bandits lying in wait ahead as a force following those scouts behind…” Grendar muttered. “I think we should keep on our current way, but send someone to scout ahead. If the way is clear, we rush forward. If not, we rush back.”
Aralim nodded. “We’d be able to get, what? A half day ahead, before we would have to make a decision?”
“Unless we have enemies behind us,” Grendar said. “In that case, the main group would see them first, and our decision would be made.”
“Who do we send ahead? Any choice either takes from our fighting force, or is a liability as a scout.” Aralim looked around, and caught Nill glancing back at him. Did she know something was amiss?
“Lerela can see the farthest. We should send her ahead,” Grendar decided.
They were still crossing open fields. Tall grass scattered with occasional modest trees made for a distant line of sight—though Aralim could still not see anyone tailing them. At least there was little space for an ambush. “Let her go then, but let’s try to stay in her sight as well. I don’t want to spread too far.”
“We will,” Grendar agreed. “We’ll have to tell the group then.”
“You tell your men; I’ll tell the others.”
Grendar marched ahead, pooling his soldiers around him as he reached the front of the group. The Aura started to walk at Aralim’s side, wordlessly, as Devran and Nill looked back inquisitively. Aralim looked at the Aura for a moment; the man’s eyes looked blankly at his and then back to the road. The man’s head was as smoothly shaved as ever, but his jaw had grown whiskery. Aralim hoped it meant nothing.
Aralim turned back to his friends. “I have some bad news. Grendar figures we are being followed.”
“Really?” Devran asked and looked back up the deserted Highway. Of course, he couldn’t see anything out of the ordinary.
Nill asked, “Could it just be other travellers, or the Highwaymen?”
“It could be, but it is the Crimson Highway. If things get bad… here.” Aralim passed the red coin—the sigil of their paid passage on the syndicate’s road. “You two get to safety.”
“What about you?” Nill asked, taking the coin between her thumb and pointing finger.
“I’m going to follow the Path.” Aralim smiled and added, “It’s gotten me out of worse.” He watched her nervously tuck the coin away. Devran repeated Aralim’s words, as though trying to commit them to memory. Their uneasiness struck a disharmonious chord in Aralim’s chest. They were usually so confident. Aralim quickened his pace to catch up to Grendar.
A few hours passed with an uneasy quiet. They spotted no one, save Lerela marching so far ahead she was a dot. After what would have been lunch time, she doubled back and started walking toward them. Aralim quickly spotted the reason—a cloud of smoke, kept low by an elevated wind, was rising from some indiscernible point in the rolling forests south of them.
“What in the seas…” Aralim murmured.
Grendar muttered beneath his breath in a similar fashion, then said, “That could be more bandits or a tribe in the jungle. It could be unrelated to those following us, or it could be them.”
“Should I check it out?” Lerela called, as she approached.
Aralim grimaced. “If it’s meant for us, we’ll know soon enough. I don’t like the idea of you going into what might be a trap. You didn’t see anything ahead?”
“Not yet,” she called back.
“March forward?” Aralim asked, looking at Grendar. He turned toward the distant fire. “Or into a possible battle?”
“We keep going with what we know,” Grendar decided, and pointed along the Highway. And so they continued with Lerela taking the lead once more.
Nill nervously tried to chat with Aralim, but his replies were short and his thoughts varied. What does the Emperor think of this? he thought, glancing at the Aura. The orange-robed man continued along quietly. Whatever he experienced would be reported to Tag’na, hundreds of miles away. Will I see Miresh again, or will my Path end here? He had been the one who kept living before, when his first family had not. Would he endure or would he be the one lost this time? He scolded himself—such doubts distracted from the Path. He would walk where it led and would emerge greater for his trouble.
An hour of such arguments passed. The smoky site to the south started to fade into a haze on the horizon. Then Lerela was returning to the group—and she was nearly jogging. Grendar gave a nod to Carrack and the guards began to don armour.
Then Aralim spotted them. There were men on the road straight ahead, coming their way. Two rode horseback, while two loped along behind them. Aralim calmly reached into his robe and withdrew the packet of powder that Rattar had given him. “Just a pinch in any fire source…” Rattar had said, “… if you find yourself in actual danger.” He had not thought of touching the pouch since their incident with the Highwaymen on route to Tal’lashar.
“Should we run?” asked a frightened Nill. She was closer to Aralim’s side than the Aura.
“Just fall back for a bit now.” Aralim didn’t say anything else as he continued walking forward.
When the horsemen neared their group, Grendar gave the order, “Be ready,” and his soldiers tensed. The group stopped.
Aralim, to the surprise of his friends, called out to the approaching riders. “Greetings! Did you see what caused that smoke earlier?”
The two horsemen were the closest to the group. One was a broad-shouldered Raderan man; his arms and shoulders were lined with tattoos of skulls, snakes, and winding tree branches. He held a short spear at his side, prompting Grendar to tighten his grip on his sword.
“We caused it!” boomed the other man. The second rider was of dark complexion, likely from the Elder Coast. He had brass piercings through his lips and ears and the ritual scarring of a tribe upon his chest. He didn’t smile as he glared down at Aralim.
The Raderan chuckled. “You are surrounded, of course. Throw down your weapons.” His voice was an impatient drawl.
Aralim sighed. “I figured as much. How many are you, that you stand to benefit robbing a small group like us?” Aralim’s group numbered eight, though they were not all fighters. The only bandits Aralim had seen so far were the four in front of them. One of the footmen carried a bow.
“Wouldn’t you like to know?” asked the Raderan. Without warning, he whooped loudly in amusement. He stepped his horse forward and leaned down at the waist to stare at Lerela. “You’ve got a second one—a she-hound from the look of it! You got teeth?”
Lerela remained cool and collected, despite the taunts. Her hand rested on her sword’s pommel.
The tribal rider wasn’t paying attention to his comrade. He stared at Grendar and then tapped his own, bare shoulder. “I have never had armour like that before. Throw it down, too.” He smiled in the way that a jackal would.
Grendar’s focus was on the footmen, sizing them up. He was assessing their tactics and their odds. He showed no sign of unbuckling his armour.
Aralim forced a chuckle. “Armour like that? It’s commonplace where we’re heading. Now, this staff: it’s made on an entirely different continent.”
“Really?” asked the Raderan with feinted interest. He shoved his spear into a leather loop of his saddle. Then he kicked his horse’s sides. Hooves dusted the air with sand as he galloped into the midst of their group. As he passed Lerela he stuck out his tongue and rolled it rudely—but he rode toward Aralim.
Grendar unsheathed his sword, rotating cautiously to keep his focus on the rider in their midst. His subordinates followed suits—three other blades were drawn. The bandits tensed, but the Raderan held up his hands innocently as he reached Aralim’s sides. “I just wanted to see it—may I?” He lowered one hand for Aralim’s staff.
Aralim’s heart was beating hard, but he tried to keep his cool. “Of course.” He reluctantly placed the staff into the man’s outreached palm. The blue shutters barely impacted the bright sunlight, but cast a slight blue glow to the underside of the rider’s chin. Aralim explained, “It is full of special details, from the wood to the very flame. I’m a priest from Ethirsia.”
The Raderan looked the staff over, examining the wood and the glass cabin. He was missing a tooth and he stank of sweat and old food. “The tinted glass might be worth something,” he called over his shoulder. Still holding the staff at an angle to his horse, he looked at the group of travellers around him. “Well, your weapons are halfway there. They are out now, but not down. I won’t ask again.”
The other rider drew a long machete from a back scabbard.
“Don’t you dare sell that for just the glass,” Aralim blurted. “If you’re going to rob me, do my staff justice. I’ve made my fortune off of that. Do you think I pay these men with my good will?”
The Raderan leaned forward in his saddle to sneer at Aralim. The Aura stepped closer, defensively. The bandit’s disorderly frown panted smoky breath at Aralim. “What do you think this is, my friend? You’re trying to buy us off, but we’ll take your money anyway. You are only eight strong. Tell your men to surrender right now, or you’re all dead,” he told the Walker matter-of-factly.
“Fine,” Aralim muttered. “I’ll just show you what this does then—it’s a blasted miracle stick.”
With that, Aralim opened the blue glass shutter with the slightest creak and slapped the contents of his palm into the oil flame. He had poured out half of Rattar’s pouch.
A blinding flash of white briefly shocked Aralim’s eyes. Then a column of flame erupted up from the oil burner as the yellow powder ignited. It surged through the glass and around the curved head of the staff. The swath of bright orange fire engulfed the rider, his saddle, and Aralim’s hand.
Wrenching agony twisted Aralim’s hand into a fist. He doubled over, losing his grip on the fire-spewing staff, and ended up on the grass. His own grunting was quickly overtaken by the Raderan’s bloodcurdling screech. He fell from his saddle, catching the point of his spear as he plummeted. His hollering grew hoarse before it was cut off. The horse’s back was aflame—it screamed and pranced in a circle before trying to roll across the grass. It never stood up again.
By this point, the bandit with the bow had notched an arrow and let it fly toward Aralim’s crouched chest. Grendar put his iron plate chest in its path; the projectile harmlessly bounced away. The other rider charged toward them, then turned to the side. As he made a southward retreat, he brushed past Carrack and smashed the warrior across the helmeted head with his machete. Carrack stumbled, but grazed the man’s shoulder with his own sword as the clang of his fractured helm rang out.
Meanwhile, Aralim’s left hand was still sputtering flame. He patted it in the grass agonizingly—whatever residue was left from the powder was still burning. Dragging his hand was both more effective and more painful.
He looked up again; he only realized then that his eyes were streaked and his cheeks wet. Unconscious tears, he realized. But the bandits had all fled southeast, and his friends were regrouping. Nill fell to her knees beside Aralim and took his red, blistering hand gently between hers. Aralim stared at his angry, oily flesh. He had never seen a burn like this before. Nill gently began to wrap the tender wound with a torn length of cloth; she wove it between each of his intact fingers as he growled wordlessly against the pain.
“What was that?” she asked him. “It looked like magic.”
Aralim forced a smile. “A gift from Rattar. I had no idea it was that strong; I would have used a little less.”
When she was done, Aralim rose to his feet. Yovin and Lerela were tending to Carrak. The warrior’s face was streaked with dark blood, but he was still standing. They bound the wound quickly and Grendar assured the wounded man they would stitch it as soon as they were able to stop safely.
As she turned away from her comrade, Lerela froze and pointed north. A group had emerged from the mile-distant slope of the savanna—anywhere between ten and twenty-five. There were a few more riders, from the look of it, and many armed fighters.
“They must have approached with such a small group because the rest were still too far away,” Grendar explained. He sheathed his sword again. “They will cut us off if we keep forward. What now, Aralim?”
Aralim picked up his staff from near the blazing corpse of the man he had killed. It was a straight slat of wood now; the curving loop and hook was gone, as was the entirety of the lantern. He sighed sadly, but carried it nonetheless. Then he looked south, into the woodland. “Their horses will be less useful in there.”
“Maybe we can lose them,” Devran offered, hopefully.
Aralim nodded and looked to his friends. “At the very least, the two of you can.” He looked to Grendar again. “We should march as long as we can—through the night even. We’ll head mostly south, until we’re sure we’ve evaded them.”
They didn’t see any of the bandits for the first hour—nor the second. They hiked silently through the third, also without incident. That evening, they stopped to stitch up the gash in Carrak’s scalp. Nill discovered some ointment in Grendar’s supplies and rubbed it onto a new makeshift bandage for Aralim’s hand. The pain had become a dull ache until she tore off the old cloth.
She kept looking up at him; her eyes were red, though he had not seen her crying. She always went back to focusing on his bandage, until she said, “You mentioned also having issues with the Crimson Highway before… Is this normal for you? Or for… out here?”
“No. We had some trouble with drunk Highwaymen last time. Nothing like this,” Aralim explained. “Although I got injured then too….” He held up his freshly bound hand as the sharp pain began to dull once more. Then he looked back at her grimly. “This isn’t really what you signed up for—I’m sorry.”
“No, it’s fine,” she said quickly. She ran a hand through her hair. “I just…” She took a deep breath. “All that I could think while we were talking to the riders was that I didn’t want to leave you. I didn’t want to just run away and hope I make it. I wanted to look them in the eyes like you did.” Then she looked down. “But that’s terrifying to me—that’s how people die.”
Aralim nodded. The others were on their feet, all ready to continue. This conversation with Nill was just as important, in Aralim’s mind. “You just have to trust your inner strength. Every decision you make is the best decision you were capable of at that moment”
Nill only frowned in reply to his encouragement. “But I didn’t make any decision,” she muttered. She stood up. “I guess I’m just thinking about next time.”
With that, they continued their southward march. They continued deep into the night, and their conversations drifted farther and farther apart. Soon they were more asleep than awake. They saw no more of the bandits that night.