Another round of lightning veined the sky, celestial pyrotechnics that elicited a gasp from the pilgrims. A prolonged roll of thunder shook the earth. Soon the rain fell in blistering sheets, blocking even Vasen’s vision. Vasen could not believe that the Oracle had deemed their departure time an auspicious moment. They’d walked into the worst storm Vasen could remember.
They pressed on because they had no choice, the Dawnswords shouting encouragement, scanning the terrain for shelter but seeing none. Noll lagged, stumbled, his coughing loud between the intervals of thunder. The boy would fail if they did not do something soon, and they were moving too slowly.
Vasen strode to the back of the column, where Eldris tried to keep Noll upright. Elora, her dark, curly hair pressed by the rain to her pale face, fretted over the boy. The rain failed to hide her tearful eyes.
“Can you not help him?” she said to Vasen, and took him by the hands. “Please, Dawnsword.”
Vasen held her hands and spoke softly. “I hope so, but I need shelter to perform a more powerful ritual. I need a fire among other things, and no flame will hold in this downpour.” He kneeled and looked the boy in the face. The wind whipped both of their cloaks hither and yon. Noll’s eyes were bleary, his face wan.
“I’d like to carry you, Noll, but I can’t do it all alone. Can you hold onto me?”
The boy’s gaze focused on Vasen and he nodded.
Vasen shed his pack, shield, and sword as another round of lightning lit the plains.
“Come on!” shouted one of the pilgrims. “We’ll be struck by a bolt standing here.”
Eldris carried Vasen’s gear and Vasen lifted Noll onto his back. The boy wrapped his arms around Vasen’s neck, hooked his legs around Vasen’s waist. Even through his armor Vasen could feel the heat of the boy’s fever. He got a feel for the weight.
“Just hang on, Noll,” Vasen said.
“You won’t be able to carry him far,” said Eldris.
“Far enough,” said Vasen, and started off. To the pilgrims, he shouted, “Move! Faster now!”
The sky darkened further as night threatened and the storm strengthened, and still they’d found no suitable shelter and no Orsin. Lightning split the sky and bisected a twisted, long dead elm that stood a spear cast from the group. Wood splintered with a sharp crack and the two halves of the dead tree crashed to earth. The ruin spat flames for only a moment before the rain extinguished them.
“Where’s a damned stand of living trees?” Vasen shouted, as another coughing fit wracked Noll. The boy’s mother hovered near Vasen, fretting.
Vasen focused on putting one leg in front of the other. Shadows poured from his flesh. Noll was either past noticing them or didn’t care. So, too, his grief-stricken mother. Fatigue threatened to give way to exhaustion in Vasen and still the rain did not relent.
Byrne drifted back to the rear of the column. “How do you fare?”
“Well enough. How fares the boy?”
Byrne checked the boy, returned his gaze to Vasen. “Not well.”
Noll’s mother wailed. “Not my boy. Not my sweet boy. I’ve already lost his father to the Sembia army. I can’t lose him, too.”
“Find someplace,” Vasen said to Byrne. “Any place. We must try the ritual.”
“There is nowhere, First Blade,” Byrne answered.
A shout from the pilgrims drew their attention. Two of them were pointing off to the left, but the rain and darkness prevented Vasen from seeing anything. Lightning ripped the sky anew.
“There! There!”
Vasen saw. One hundred paces away, Orsin stood atop a rise, waving his staff over his head. Hope for Noll rose in Vasen.
“Light us up so he knows we saw him,” Vasen said to Byrne.
Byrne nodded and uttered a prayer lost to the howl of the wind. His shield began to glow, the warm, rosy glow of Amaunator’s blessing. So lit, Byrne headed toward where they’d last seen Orsin.
“Hurry now, everyone,” called Vasen. “Quickly. Quickly.”
Sloshing through the sopping plains, the group followed Byrne toward Orsin, who came down from the rise to meet them. Thunder rolled.
“I’ve found a cave. It’ll bear us all.”
Vasen grabbed him by the cloak, leaned on him for strength. “How far?”
Orsin’s eyes looked like moons in his face. “Less far the faster we move.”
Vasen let him go, and all of them staggered through the storm. Fatigue and the weather made Vasen’s vision blurry, but Orsin appeared to know exactly where he was going. They topped a rise, descended, found below a sizeable stream turned river by the storm, and followed it a ways. It cut a groove in the landscape, the banks falling steeply to its edge.
“Not far,” Orsin said.
“Almost there!” Vasen shouted to the pilgrims. None responded. They just kept plodding forward.
Orsin pointed and Vasen saw it-a cave mouth in the riverbank on the opposite side of the stream. Orsin pulled Vasen close so he could hear.
“There’s a ford ahead. Follow me.”
Orsin led them to a narrower stretch of the rapidly flowing stream. He did not hesitate, stepping directly into the water.
“Make sure none are swept away,” Vasen called to Byrne, Eldris, and Nald.
All nodded, and they, with Orsin, assisted the pilgrims across, carrying the frail and young on their backs. The water rose waist high at its deepest point. Flotsam spun past in little eddies, mostly fallen limbs and leaves. The current pulled at Vasen as he crossed. He moved slowly, methodically, taking care not to dislodge Noll. In time, all made it across, and they staggered into the cave. The relative quiet struck Vasen first. The rain had been a drumbeat on his hood.
Byrne placed his shield in the center of the cavern, prayed over it, and its rosy light painted their shadows on the walls-dark, distorted images of the real them.
The cave was ten paces wide and tunneled into the riverbank perhaps another twenty. Brown lichen clung to the cracked walls, oddly reminiscent of Orsin’s tattoos. Smoke from old fires had stained the ceiling dark. At first the cave smelled faintly of mildew and rot, but the smell of the exhausted, sodden humans and their gear soon replaced one stink with another. Most of the pilgrims sagged to the floor around Byrne’s shield, stripping off packs and wet clothes. Some wept. Others smiled and praised Amaunator for the shelter. Vasen had time for neither pity nor praises.
“I need wood for a fire,” he said as he laid Noll down on the cave floor. “And bring me anything dry to cover him with.”
The boy’s face was as pale as a full moon. His eyes rolled back in his head. Heat poured off of him. Elora sat beside Noll, cradled her son’s head in her lap, stroked his head. Coughs shook the boy’s small frame. Black foam flecked his lips.
Several of the pilgrims brought dry blankets from the packs, and Vasen covered the boy with them. Byrne soon returned with several small tree limbs. Using his dagger, he rapidly stripped the sodden exterior from the logs to reveal dry wood. Nald set his shield on the floor, concave side up, and Byrne stacked the wood in it. Orsin tore a section of his tunic, shielded from the rain by his cloak, and shredded it for tinder. Flint dragged over a dagger sparked the tinder, and soon a small blaze burned in the bowl of Eldris’s shield.
“What could have been in the rainwater to cause this?” Elora asked, her voice faint as Noll groaned. “What?”
Vasen shook his head as he stripped off his cloak. “Who can say? The Shadovar poison land and sky with their magic.”
“It is cursed,” Elora said, tears leaking from her eyes. “Sembia is cursed.”
Vasen did not dispute it. He filled a tin cup from his pack with water from his waterskin and set it in the edge of the fire. Orsin nodded to him, backed away to stand among the flickering shadows on the wall.
While Vasen waited for the water to heat, he cleared his mind, stared into the fire, and began to pray softly. The pilgrims fell silent, watching. The sound of the rain outside fell away. Byrne, Eldris, and Nald soon joined him and formed a circle around the fire. Their voices fell in with his. Soon the pilgrims, too, joined. In a dark cave, in the midst of a black storm, the faithful of Amaunator raised collective voice in worship.