Wraith's Lament, chapter 1: Chapter 1

‘...So that’s the whole story thus far.’

“Wow! I absorbed none of that.”

Decima checked an imaginary sundial on her arm as her hired armourer, a smallish grey feravo, busied about her casua, pinning and tacking, tacking and sewing ever more layers of cotton duck and denim on him. He was starting to look like a Festival of Frost tree.

Was this overkill for a routine escort mission? Perhaps. But with the Wraith threat still looming over the continent, no preparation was too much, and no cost was too high. Which was great, because Octavius’s costs were very high indeed.

“That’s your bird all sorted, ma’am,” he said at last, stepping back to admire his work. “What do you think?”

‘Can’t move,’ Prendergast coughed out.

It’s like a tornado touched down in the Denarius Store discount rack, Decima thought. Her pedigree mount was now swathed in layers of gaudy blue and gold and green cloth, each somehow a worse shade than the last. Particularly well-padded were the neck (Grimm’s own downfall) and the underbelly. “And this will keep Prends safe from possessed-evil-stryx attacks?”

“Absolutely. 100% guaranteed protection or your money back.”

‘Losing sensation… in legs…’

“We’ll take it. Send the bill to the gens Valerians.”

*

The Edge of the World was no one’s first choice of assignment, but with the Wraith threat looming over Sol’s walls, choices had to take a back seat. So off the pair had been sent, deep into this smoking wasteland where hope came to curl up and die, to play keep-away with a pack of crazed stryx.

Well, ‘keep-away’ made it sound more exciting than it actually was. In truth, all they had to do was lure them into a pit trap so Maja could study them.

But how to lure them out of hiding? Well, the pack had been reported attacking merchant convoys, so they loaded a wagon up with empty boxes and set off right off to their task. For all his whinging about the cloth armour earlier on, Prendergast seemed to have no problem keeping up with the dray-cara the Taura-Naji had loaned them for the task.

‘Hello,’ Prendergast said.

Mephistopheles blinked back.

“He doesn’t talk,” said the driver, a slight fellow named Samawat. “Few of our bloodstock do.”

“Well, that just sounds awfully boring,” Decima said. From her lofty casua-top perch, she surveyed the distant ashlands to the left, and the sweeping hills of the badlands to the right. If eyewitness reports were to be believed, the pack leader was a swirled teal raptor-on-steroids-- easy enough to spot.

“Here, beastie, beastie…”

Drat. Halfway through their route and still no sign of ‘em.

No birds sang for miles around them. No animals scurried across the solidified magma streams. So why could Decima hear a soft scratching sound that was completely out of sync with the two runners’ strides? Hoping to calm her nerves, she turned back to the Taura-Naji in the driver’s seat.

“So what do you folk do for-- for fu…”

It was right there. Sitting on top of the wagon. Jaws inching towards Samawat’s exposed head.

“DUCK!”

To his credit, the man had reflexes like a cat. He leaned back and dropped flat in his seat, and the Wraith-beast’s jaws popped over empty air. Pushing down with his hands, he kicked his legs upwards like a spring let loose. Wham! Right in the kisser.

As Spook reeled back, and time seemed to slow for a second, Decima ran through the checklist of tasks they had to do. Find the creature, check. Get it back to-- oh, yes, of course, back to camp!

“Drop the weight! Go, go, go!”

Samawat flipped himself upright in what looked like a mid-air somersault. In one smooth move, he leapt off the wagon and kicked it away from them. But Mephistopheles, oh! He was still hitched up to it!

“Skorp me!” he yelled, as the cara was flung backwards with a screech.

Decima drew her gladius. Samawat pulled a knife out of… somewhere. And then they were off, sprinting full tilt for the runaway wagon.

Prendergast was incredulous between pants. ‘Did you just yeet your stryx? Seriously?’

“‘Yeet’…” the Taura-Naji mused, “you must explain what that word means, when we're not on the verge of dying.”

*

The nature of lava flow was such that when it cooled, it formed a vast field of ridges and bumps that either helped or hindered a wagon rolling away at full speed. Curse you, laws of physics!

While Mephistopheles was busy getting strangled by his own breast-collar, Spook had managed to recover its balance and leapt upright again, one leg on each sideboard. Again it darted in for the bite. But a particularly thick lava stream sent the wagon bumping, and it stumbled, its teeth shearing air mere inches from the cara’s eyes.

“Calm, Mephi,” Samawat yelled out. His long legs and leaping strides were surprisingly effective at traversing the ashlands. He was keeping pace with Prendergast without even breaking a sweat. “Give me a boost,” he said, this time to Decima.

“How do I--”

“Reach down… hand.”

She did so, and he dug his fingers into her arm, and to rider and stryx’s surprise, he leapt up, braced his hoof-like toes against the casua’s flank, and pushed off, sending Prendergast reeling sideways but him rocketing forward. He barely managed to grab hold of the swinging tongue, his knees sliding across the ground for a few painful moments before he managed to swing them up onto the crossbar. His knife flicked into his free hand, and he began to saw away at the thick reins.

Meanwhile, Prendergast had just managed to loop back on track. Decima leaned hard left, correcting his awkward tilt, and held her blade close to her side, ready to swing.

“Come up on the right,” she told him. Samawat was on the verge of a breakthrough on the left rein.

Prendergast ducked his head and sped up. His rider hugged the saddle, and with the slicing edge primed, whoosh! She swung up, slicing the leather clean in half.

Mephistopheles wriggled himself out of the harness. But there was still a little sinew on the remaining strap, and now he was being dragged backwards by his left flank…

And then the wheel hit another raised bubble, and a few boxes and a knife went flying… but the rein snapped at last. The wagon’s tongue hit the ground with a horrible crack and snap of wood, and Samawat wrapped his arms around his stryx’s tail and pulled himself up onto his back.

“Okay, all accounted for. Let’s go!”

*

So they’d had a few hiccups. Not ideal. But now they were free of the excess weight, and their runners could get back to doing what they did best: running.

But the predator hot on their heels wasn’t what they expected. Other than the pat-pat-pat-pat of its enormous talons against the ground, it made absolutely no sound, no screech of anger or other unearthly sound one might expect of a Wraith-possessed beast. But it was fast, and it was gaining on them, slowly but surely.

Three miles back to the pit trap. No problem.

Decima dug her good leg into her casua’s side. “C’mon, you big lunk, time to prove your pedigree!”

‘Just to inform you, positive punishment has actually been proven multiple times to be ineffective and unnecessary.’

“Less talking, more saving our hides, please.”

‘Yeah, that’ll work.’

No good. Even with her positive reinforcement, Spook was drawing ever closer. She swore she could feel its hot breath on her back. They needed some kind of obstacle, anything to trip it up and give them a little breathing room.

Wait a second…

“Sam?”

“Aye?”

“Pull ahead. I’m going to do a thing.”

As soon as Mephistopheles was out of the danger zone, Decima pulled out her pugio and started to hack at Prendergast’s cloth armour. Chunks of garish fabric peeled away and were flung backwards, hitting the mad stryx’s eyes, tangling up its legs, and getting under its toes and slipping it up.

“Huh. 100% protection, alright.”

She wondered if Octavius’s refund policy extended to ‘use as obstacles against crazed stryx’.

Half a mile left now. Quarter of a mile…

“Prepare to jump,” Samawat called over his back.

“Wait! How do we know where the pit is?”

“Patch of dry leaves!”

Decima scanned the ground. Black, dark grey, dead and lifeless charcoal… oh, dark brown!

“Up!”

Prendergast waited until the very last stride before crouching down and leaping up. For a few brief seconds, Decima experienced what it was like to ride a flying stryx. Kind of overrated, in her opinion. Then he landed on the other side with a thump that rattled her skeleton, followed by a second boom as a one ton stryx crashed twenty feet down the pit.

“Excellent!” Maja said, materialising seemingly out of nowhere. How nice of her to show up after all the excitement was over. “If you’ll excuse me, I must have ample room to study this poor creature. Perhaps you could partake of a little Taura-Naji hospitality in the meantime?”