Anaphe
The Season of Heat
Fanán the 29; 2421
The city of Anaphe stood proud at the tip of Oceana's southern peninsula, towering over limestone cliffs and facing east towards the ocean. At its feet rivers had worn valleys and gorges into the rock throughout the years, obstacles that generations of men mended with wide stone bridges. Not fire nor flood nor years of Dramorian rule had ruined them; they stood as a reminder of the city's resilience, and marked the greatest difference between Anaphe and her twin city to the north.
Imran disliked both of them, but dreaded visits to Anaphe far more.
Like Armathia, Anaphe's walls were white, gilt gates gleaming in the late afternoon sunlight. Many of Anaphe's towers, though once just as proud, had fallen prey to the last Dramorian occupation, leaving only a handful of the oldest stretching up into a cloudless sky. Imran thought them fine to look at, but disliked the sight of them all the same. His heritage was impossible to hide within Anaphe's walls, and as a result he tended to receive a frosty welcome from its inhabitants.
He would much rather spend the season along the desert border, else traveling through the settlements that sprawled past Anaphe's walls towards the water. Little hamlets clustered along the coastline's many inlets as far as the eye could see. Yet few ventured inland along the banks of the river, preferring to build upon the beaches – for past the great ravines at the tip of the Anaphean peninsula, the jungle began.
"Why am I not surprised?"
Imran came to a halt beside Valory, whose horse tossed its head with an impatient whicker. The bridge before them told the tale of the storm that had rolled through two nights prior. Though the river remained swollen with rain, water levels had subsided enough that, at first glance, the maze of flotsam and debris blocking the entry to the bridge made little sense. A heartbeat later, Little muttered,
"Good job we went overland. Looks like the coast was whacked something fierce."
Gabriel swung down from his horse, picking his way ahead to take a look at the severity of the blockade the storm had constructed.
"Early for the season," Valory agreed. "Do you think we can get through it?"
"Most of it looks like brush. There's one tree across the middle of it all, though – and it's not a small one. I don't think we can jump it," Gabriel called. Twisted vines and all manner of sodden shrubbery obscured him from the waist down, but Imran could see the obstacle once Gabriel climbed up to stand atop it.
"Bollocks," Little said, drawing a morose sigh of agreement from Imran and Valory alike. The tree was huge.
"If we can't move it we'll have to backtrack and take another route." Valory jumped down from his horse, hitching the reins to a rail at the edge of the entrance to the bridge.
"We lose daylight," Imran said. His only response lay in Valory's mirthless huff of agreement.
Some of Oceana's inland cities rose from the jungle, but they were few and far between. Most knew better than to inhabit its borders, and those who traveled within them did so at a rapid pace. Men were outmatched by jungle creatures during the most peaceful of times. Now, with strange sightings and violence upon their borders, Imran couldn't think of a place he'd take more care to avoid after sunset.
Except, perhaps, the deep waters of Oceana's gulf.
"You and sea-witches," Gabriel said, a half-smile turning his lips.
Imran hated it when others peeked at his thoughts. "Stop it."
"Not this again, Imran — you know I can't help it."
The conflict was an old one, hashed out with relative consistency throughout the years. He knew it wasn't liable to go anywhere, but he and Gabriel had long since taken up the sport of half-hearted bickering to pass the time.
"Cannot, or will not?"
Gabriel rolled his eyes. "If you think something with enough vehemence, I hear it word for word."
"Nosy Empath," he muttered.
"It tickles when you're worried — like an itch I can't reach. Am I supposed to ignore it and hope it goes away?"
"Shut up, the two of you. Being stuck here overnight won't be a barrel of laughs," Little interrupted, shooting a glare over his shoulder as he dropped down to stand beside Valory. "Whatever left the tracks we've been seeing these past few mornings is no friend of ours, and I, for one, don't want to be around when it realizes it's about to lose its chance at a meal."
Imran had been the first to feel that prickle down his spine, that phantom itch of a pair of eyes resting upon his back. It had come to him upon waking in the night before the storm rolled through, and in the morning, he and Little had gone out to reconnoiter. The rains had worked against them, washing away any sign of pursuit. Only after an extended search did Little find a massive partial print in the soft soil beneath a gnarled old trunk. It matched no creature either of them had ever before seen.
Since then another night had passed and still the thing – whatever it was – failed to show its face, though Imran had no doubt that it was out there still. They had made for the closest bridge to Anaphe with haste; none of them had any desire to meet it in the true-dark of a jungle night.
"We could backtrack, as you said," Gabriel offered.
"Not the wisest idea on my part. We don't have time to make for a different bridge. The sun is already setting," Valory replied. He had begun his habitual pacing, back and forth across the entrance to the bridge. Imran tracked his movements with halfhearted interest. Valory strode the width of the road with the authority that only a man who knew his place in the world could muster – and as the second son of the King, his place was no mean one.
"You think it'll follow us," Gabriel said. The look he earned in response brokered no argument.
They had taken the jungle road at breakneck pace that day. They were worn, tired, and travel-stained – in no shape to face down an unknown foe.
Even Valory looked worse for the wear. Though his less-than-humble origins were reflected in his bearing, he wasn't given to ostentation; if a local happened upon them at that moment it was doubtful he'd be recognized. All they'd see was a muddy, broad-shouldered traveler with the nut-brown skin of a Midlander and a Northerner's piercing, light-eyed stare. Although many men of rank would choose to travel by coach or with a large escort, Valory wanted no such concessions, for which Imran was immeasurably thankful. The only tell lay in the crest stamped into his leather vambraces: the faint outline of the Regent's sigil, so worn with time that most missed it at first glance.
"We could go on foot," Little suggested. "We wouldn't make the gates until just before dawn, but at least we'd be away from the jungle's edge."
His words drew the full focused severity of Valory's expression. "How certain are we that it won't leave the tree line – even under the cover of darkness?"
"I do not want to meet this thing on foot," Imran said. "The print was large. It is no small creature."
"If we could push the end of the trunk away from us we might be able to clear a path," Gabriel suggested.
That was how Imran found himself sending up his evening prayers at sunset with his back to a tree trunk, shoulder-to-shoulder with Valory, Little, and Gabriel, legs trembling with strain as they tried to budge it backwards along the bridge.
"What I wouldn't give for an axe right now," Little said, voice tight with exertion, sweat beading on his brow.
"It's too heavy," Gabriel agreed. "We need another pair of hands."
They stopped all at once, slumping to sit side-by-side in the damp foliage flattened beneath their feet. Chest heaving, Imran watched as Gabriel cocked his head, turning to regard Valory with a furrowed brow.
"There's one more thing we can try," Valory said. He turned to face the tree, placing his palms against the trunk, digging his heels in to be ready to push.
Imran and the others hastened to comply, anchoring their backs against the trunk and finding their footholds once more. He knew what Valory meant to attempt, and couldn't fight the impulse to stare. As a child in Dramor he had never gotten the chance to see Oceanic talent firsthand. Though he'd fought at Valory's side for over a decade, he didn't think he'd ever become accustomed to witnessing such displays of power.
"Let us know when you're going to start," Little said, "and for Illen's sake, Val – don't push yourself like you did that one time when we had to bring you back to the inner city arse up on a horse. Your father was livid."
Valory cocked a brow at him, causing the scar that split it and the cheekbone below to flex and bunch. "I got the cart up off that merchant's leg, though, did I not?"
"And swooned like a girl in the process."
Valory's talent both fascinated and unnerved Imran. He wielded more power than his rare words on the subject suggested, yet despite the strength of his gift – or perhaps in spite of it – he chose to use his talent only at those times when it was absolutely necessary. Yet his abilities weren't without limits: limits that Imran had watched him skirt far too many times since swearing his oath as Valory's second-in-command.
"My father may not have an enchantment, but he still ought to understand them better than he does. If he thought your Healing suspect, that's got nothing to do with you or me," Valory said. "Alright – on my count."
They pushed together on his word, their combined strength causing the trunk to rock ever so slightly, but budge not an inch. Then Valory's eyes shut, his jaw clenched, his features twisted—
Another pair of hands came to their aid, just as Gabriel had wished. Bit by bit the gnarled trunk skidded on stones worn smooth by the elements. Valory pushed with them, doing the work of two men, labored breaths coming harsh and ragged. All told it took no more than a few minutes to open up a wide enough gap, but even that short span of time took its toll. When Gabriel spoke up to say they had done enough Valory's whole frame deflated; his legs gave out from under him and he landed on his knees in a graceless slump. It spooked Imran, how easily he was brought low.
"Damn," Valory muttered, wiping the sweat from his brow. "Sometimes I wish I was stronger."
"I thank Illen that you're not just about every day. You telekinetics are a chore," Little huffed, reaching out to clasp their arms together. Upon contact the pinched look eased from Valory's features. He lifted his head and managed to use the trunk to pull himself to his feet, walking with only the slightest sway.
"We must go," Imran reminded them. The sun's last rays had sunk below the treetops to the west, casting them in twilight-blue shadow.
Little stood up, shaking himself off. He had taken Valory's strain upon his own shoulders, and though it was less obvious to Imran when he was using his talent and when he wasn't, the stutter in his step told no lies. "Let's get out of here. I'm ready for a bath and a hot meal, me."
They saddled up and set off with a brisk efficiency that hinted at how nervous sundown at the jungle's edge made all of them. Valory's work paid dividends; the trunk had skidded just far enough for them to pass through on horseback, and none of the debris that littered the rest of the bridge created an obstacle they couldn't work around. Valory was the first to reach the road on the other side of the ravine, and urged his horse into a canter straight away.
Imran hesitated, twisting around in his saddle to cast one last look over his shoulder at the jungle's edge. For a moment he thought he saw a shadow pass through the underbrush, but then it was gone – a trick of the imagination. He was sure of it.
He turned, asking his horse for a canter. His request was granted. If he leaned into it, trying to push their pace ahead harder – well. However much he hated Anaphe, he looked forward to being safe within its walls. The road wound eastward before them, towards Anaphe's towers lit bright with the dying sunlight, towards the white sand beaches of its leeward shore, towards the sea once more.
...