The Everburning City

Act 1, Part 4, Chapter 4

Gwendolyn

They were going back into the Gloam.

Beneath that shroud of pallid grey that would have killed her, Roderick, and all the other kids she was responsible for. Gwendolyn still remembered how close it was; close like the walls of a bedroom, feeling like the walls of a crematorium.

She didn't want to go, stepping back into that grey death put a shake in her legs that made it hard to stand. But her fears also inspired a certain sense of revulsion, a disgust at her own feelings that had a face. And that set her blood to boil.

That face was Sergeant Ewanmourn.

Now, as if to spite her own fears, she was waiting by the pilot-light perimeter, the makeshift wall now surrounding Barleybarrel. Barely twenty feet from the Gloam, her weapon held loosely in her right hand, she took a slow breath to steady herself, and took a step towards it.

Satisfied her legs weren't about to give out under her, Gwendolyn took another step towards the Gloam, and then another. The cold hand around her heart didn't squeeze, even as she came within spitting distance to it.

Another two steps, and she stopped close enough to see the small swirls in the mist. Like the river churning as the wind swept over it, it had the gentle swirl of wavy hair, and bent a little as her breath hit it. She held out her hand, and let her fingertips touch it.

It was cool, dewy, like the fields just after the rain. And like damp air, Gwendolyn could feel it as she traced her fingers along the edges, and watched the grey twist in the air, filling the space left by her passing. She let her whole hand sink into it, disappearing as surely as if she had hidden it on the other side of a door, and then pulled it out.

Gwendolyn touched her face, and was surprised to find her hand smelled like some kind of plant, a woody sort of plant she didn't recognize.

"I don't think you'll learn much about the Gloam by poking it," someone said from behind her. Gwendolyn turned around, surprised to see someone standing just a few feet from her. A stern, taciturn looking woman, with several small scars on her face, including one that cut through the left side of her lips. She had the now familiar white scarf, black hair smattered with ash-grey strands, and was wearing a backpack quite a bit larger than the standard-issue kit. On her right shoulder, the medical specialist cross, atop three bars.

She also had a salamander in her right hand, and a torch in her left.

"Sergeant. I'm just making sure I don't fall over in a panic as soon as we step back in there," Gwendolyn admitted, poking at the Gloam one last time.

The sergeant stepped up beside Gwen, and studied her. There was something cold, calm, almost clinical in her gaze. "Of all the answers I could have heard, that might be one of the wisest," the sergeant said, and held out her hand. "Master Sergeant Min Tavash, second squad."

"Corporal Gwendolyn Aranhall," she said, and shook Min's hand. "You're a medical specialist?"

"The ranking master specialist in the Rangers. Second squad is over-specialized in medics, which is part of why we were chosen for this detail," Min explained. "I was hoping for a chance to talk to you, before we left."

"With me?" Gwendolyn asked.

"I understand you haven't been in the army long," Min said.

"Less than a day,"

"And you challenged for you medical specialty." Min's tone was strangely neutral, clinical even. "Where would you tourniquet during or after a hand amputation?"