Chapter 5: The Journey Part 5

As the night aged, the animals called it a night. The birds returned to their trees of nesting, and the drunks began their nightly rituals of passing out in their own vomits, or perhaps that of their colleagues. The priest rose, and they left.

Vollo climbed up the tavern stairs with the woman his little brother had been so buried in and the tavern girl he had saved from watching two men fight over her attached to both arms upon their departure. It left Sethlzaar confused.

They walked down the length of the street and Sethlzaar found himself vaguely reminded of the conisoir. There was no doubt in his mind that the place was a slum of its own as he studied their surrounding with the faint light coming from the moon and a few buildings whose lanterns shone their lights through the slits in their windows, illuminating the night in a distortion of colors waged between a cold blue and a warm orange.

The place, as it had been when they'd come in, was littered with refuse at every corner. A dead cat probably two days gone laid smashed at the center of the road with a conference of flies tingling the air with buzzing sounds scouring the remains. And for every breath he took, his nose was bullied by the tinge of sewage so much that he often found himself struggling for air.

They walked a distance before taking a turn down an alley only to come out at another road and walk another distance before taking another turn. Sethlzaar's nose wrinkled at the smell of detritus all around them, smelling what was possibly a dead body.

After three more turns, he came to realize they weren't making their way to Rive. The priest had them walking in a complex circle. Sethlzaar deduced with a frown that should they take the right turn before them, instead of the left, it would place them back at the tavern. Groc had taught him something similar but on a simpler scale when he'd found out he liked to follow the alleys whenever he was out.

"If you think someone's following you and you are not sure," the old man had told him. "Take four right turns."

"And if there are no right turns?" he'd asked.

Groc had knocked him on the head for it. "Then take left turns."

The priest pulled of a more time consuming and intricate form, and he hadn't even noticed. He looked up at the man. The priest ignored him and took the wrong turn. It brought them to a dead end. There, he let out a resigned breath.

The first sign of their followers was a not so subtle sound of snickering piling at the entrance of the alley. Four men slowly stepped into view, each holding a knife of his own. The blades held nothing to that of Vollo's, but they were sure to put a man in the ground if stabbed.

"Wrong turn, old man," the one to the far left spoke. He was the shortest of them, and he snickered the most.

"Shoulda just taken that last turn. Woulda delayed the outcome." This from the man who stood with a hunch, with teeth a dark yellow and missing a few. Sethlzaar was amazed at how he noticed it.

"You know what we want old man. We seen the pouch already. Just giv' us the gold 'n we be out o' yer 'air," the shortest said with a ravening smile on his face that didn't match his offer.

Sethlzaar, terrified by the prospect of...

His mind went blank. He broke out in cold sweat, touched by the cold hands of terror, or perhaps it was just the night's air. Even frowning refused him. He realized which held him.

He was afraid, held captive by the strange companionship of a fear he'd never known. It was almost as though everything he hadn't known he was afraid of watched him from the secrecy of the darkness that surrounded him, feeding of his fear, promising a gift of paralysis as the air slowly drained from his lungs.

Despite how much his instincts willed him to run, ignoring the presence of the priest which should have been assuring, his legs did not obey. Besides, where would he go?

With no alternatives, he stood in place behind the priest. Shaking.

"Oi! Papi, what's wrong?" yellow teeth asked one of his men.

The man's knife fell from his grip as he stared. Eyes wide with fear, he shook with a shiver that Sethlzaar wondered if the man would piss his pants, too. Then, one by one their knives fell with a clatter, save yellow teeth who still held his in shaky hands.

"W-w...what's h-happening?" he stuttered.

"Fear is a strong instinct," the priest said regally. "It helps us survive." His voice, yet calm, carried a weight with it. "Did you know some animals hold their breath in order to become undetectable to predators?" He took a step towards the men. "It's quite amazing to think that the action is almost entirely instinctual; born of fear. The things fear can do," he marveled. "I've even seen men faint from it."

He took another step, and the three men around yellow teeth fell.

"Painful, is it not?" he asked. "It grips your heart and you can't think straight. It even turns the leg to jelly." Now he stood before the man. "Did I only say faint?" He sounded nothing like the man Sethlzaar had been traveling with. "You must forgive me," his words echoed, hollow as the night, twisted as the things hidden beneath a child's bed at night.  "I've also watched men die from it."

Sethlzaar could see nothing but the man's back. For some reason it terrified him more. It seemed to grow with the blackness of the alley.

The priest rose a hand to the man. Yellow teeth crumbled like a wet rag before it reached him.

Along with the smell of rotten fish and excrement, the alley now seethed with the foul stench of urine.

The priest turned his gaze to Sethlzaar. "Come, child," he said. "Time to leave."

Whatever had held Sethlzaar prisoner, released him. He rose to his feet, confused, wondering when he'd sat on the floor. He took a step toward the priest and embraced his returned command over his body, placing one foot in front of the other.

They took a few turns after leaving the alley. In time, they found themselves in the forest where they had left Rive. No matter how many times they stayed among civilization, or the closest things to it, they never spent the night there. They always returned to the forest, or whatever part of nature was nearby.

Sethlzaar always dreaded the days when nothing akin to a forest was nearby because it meant they would ride through the night while he slept on the saddle which was unsurprisingly the worst place he'd ever slept.

The moon was at its peak when they found Rive, the night so old there was nothing left for it in its growth than to begin its path to death. The horse had chewed any vestige of grass around it in a circle so nigh circumference that Sethlzaar wondered if it had been trained to do such. It was silently waiting when they returned.

The priest tossed Sethlzaar a canteen and a piece of cloth, unwrapped his weapons and drove them into the dirt. He took shelter under a tree, there he settled himself for the night. The realization of how thirsty the ordeal had left him hit Sethlzaar a moment sooner.

Looking up at the stars and noting how few of them were out tonight, he drank from the canteen, reminding himself to save some for the cloth, knowing how much he needed it. He wondered how Arslagh could have such insanity just beyond its gates without doing anything as he lowered the canteen, tilted it over the cloth. He wet it with a few drops and refused himself the urge to ponder on how the priest had known he would need water, convincing himself there was no need. After all, in a few days he would be a seminarian training in the seminary on his path to becoming a priest, a fate he'd finally digested sometime in the past few months.

But tonight he was the adopted son of a priest whose name he did not know preparing to sleep through a cold night with no fire. He could make one easily but something convinced him if the priest hadn't made one, taking up such an endeavor would be a terrible idea.

Walking towards the privacy of a tree, satisfied with how wet the piece of fabric was, he reminded himself that the rise of the sun would have them on the road under its warmth. It did nothing to make him forget how cold he was. He squeezed the water from the damp cloth and bit back on his shame.

Tonight he was standing under the night sky with no knowledge of where exactly he was. But at least he knew who he was. And that was enough for him...

He sighed. His trouser was soaked in his own piss. He had to wash it.

A waste of good water.