“How is everything so big?” Daere asked, staring up at the flat leaves of the flower. “It’s like it was built for giants.”
Shea agreed. “The villagers like to say that the gods were once giants and that they created this garden full of wondrous and terrible life. They fed it with their blood to help it take root and grow, then tended it by watering it with their nectar. That even when the gods left this world, their creation remained and grew, flourishing through the years.”
Daere looked over at Shea. “What do you believe?”
Shea tilted her head back, staring up into the canopy above. “That during the last years of the cataclysm, a great and terrible battle was fought near here. One that involved powerful magics that found root and affected everything nearby, causing some type of rapid and atypical growth in the plants and animals. I doubt gods had anything to do with this place.”
Daere didn’t comment on Shea’s observation, making a noncommittal sound in the back of her throat and going back to observing the forest around them.
Shea probably shouldn’t have shared her thoughts. They were the sort of thing that she had been taught from a young age to keep secret from those who weren’t part of the Pathfinder Guild. Most didn’t want to hear or believe what she knew to be true.
Since Shea had decided to make the Trateri her people in truth, she decided it would be best to share what she knew in little drops. It was why she’d taken a chance in telling Daere a bit about the history of this place. History that her people had uncovered piece by piece as the villagers shared their oral history.
The feeling under Shea’s skin surged, the angry buzzing turning into prickles just this side of pain, running along Shea’s spine and arms and down the backs of her legs.
She hissed.
This was impossible. It couldn’t be here.
She reigned her horse to a stop and slammed her eyes closed, ignoring Daere’s exclamation and Trenton’s questioning rumble. She listened, tuning out her companions as she strained to feel the world around her.
There. She was right.
Her eyes popped open, the fear in them silencing Daere’s question.
She touched her heels to the horse’s sides, sending it galloping for Eamon. Daere, Trenton and Wilhelm were right behind her.
“Rally your men,” Shea shouted as soon as she got within hearing distance of him.
He didn’t waste time asking questions, putting a small bullhorn to his lips and blowing on it in three short bursts.
Shea didn’t wait for the rest of his men to assemble, swinging one leg over her saddle and digging through one of her saddle bags. She pulled out a coil of rope.
“Get off your horses,” she ordered those that were close.
“What’s going on?” a man asked.
“You want to live and see your family ever again, get off your horses and listen to what I say.” Shea’s voice brooked no argument—her eyes flinty.
Daere obeyed without question. Shea handed her a length of the rope and then did the same with Trenton and Wilhelm. Others followed suit, creating a chain of people holding rope when Eamon made it clear that Shea wasn’t to be questioned.
The sense of urgency under Shea’s skin grew, lending her movements a frantic speed. It was almost here. She was running out of time.
“What do we do with the horses?” Buck asked.
“Put as many of them on a string as you can, but don’t lose sight of us. If you do, you’re gone.”
One of the men gave a small laugh as if he thought this was a joke or that Shea had finally cracked, showing signs of Lowland weakness after all.
Eamon and Buck didn’t laugh, and they didn’t act like this was a joke—their faces deadly serious as they gathered the closest horses and threaded their own rope through their reins.
White mist blew through the trees fifty yards in front of them, swarming across the ground in an unstoppable, unavoidable wall. Tentacles of it rolled in front of the main body, like they were horses pulling ahead of the herd.
“Leave the rest and get back on the line!” Shea shouted at Buck and Eamon.
Eamon yelled at Buck and another man, telling them to go as he tied off the line. Buck sprinted the short distance to Shea and the line of rope she’d made everybody grab. Eamon was seconds behind him, the mist looming behind, threatening to swallow him. The third man scrambled after.
“Hurry!” she screamed.
If the mist swallowed him, if he lost sight of them, his chances of finding them again were slim. Shea wasn’t sure she’d be able to save him.
He reached her just as the mist engulfed them, bathing the world in a thick white that covered everything, including the man who’d been only a step or two behind Eamon. Holding her hand in front of her face, Shea was barely able to see the outline of her fingers.
“Richard,” one of the men on the line called. No answer came. He was gone.
“Whatever you do, don’t let go of the rope,” Shea ordered.
“What is this?” Trenton asked, his voice seemed to echo from everywhere.
Shea could only see Daere, grasping the rope next to her. The rest of the men were just voices in the mist, the visibility almost zero.
“It’s the mist,” Shea said.
“So?” someone asked. “We have this in the Outlands. Never this thick but it won’t hurt you.”
“Not like this,” Shea said. “I doubt you have anything like this in the Outlands. As far as I know this is something that only affects the Highlands and the Badlands. It’s the first time I’ve seen it this far into the Lowlands.”
“Where’s Richard? Why isn’t he answering?” the man who’d called for his friend asked.
Shea was quiet for a moment. “He’s gone. If he’s lucky, he’ll find his way out.”
“What is it?” Eamon asked, the mist making it nearly impossible to pinpoint where his voice was coming from.
“It’s the bogeyman parents warn their children about. Be careful of mistfall, lest you never find your way home again. You get lost in this and chances are you won’t come out. You’ll wander lost and alone, searching for the way out—never to find it.”
Even without being able to see them, Shea could sense the unease among the rest of the group.
“How is the rope supposed to save us?” someone asked. “We would have been better off trying to run and avoid it.”
“You’d never have made it,” Shea said. “It moves too fast, or otherwise I’d have tried just that.”
She peered out at the foggy world, even knowing it would do little good. This was one of the thickest mists she’d ever encountered, not just turning the world odd and dreamy but wiping it completely clean.
“Can you get us out of here?” Eamon asked.
Shea was quiet for a moment. “Yes.”
Relief filtered through the air.
“That’s not our only problem, though.”
Eamon understood without her needing to elaborate.
“Fallon.”
“Yes.”
There was a low curse.