Taken from Romilasco’s scout report on a search party from Galia’s territory. (The writer of this report has made any thoughts or assumptions based on what is known about the traits of the subject.)
[402 A.E. Temp d’ Fig, 26th]
Tendro cast a final glance over his shoulder as he rounded the last jutting spur of earth—the remnant of the colossal mountain range that had consumed three days of their journey. The view from this angle was a chiaroscuro of shadow and light. The mountains looming impossibly close and rendering him and his companions infinitesimally small.
‘What's caught your eye, Tendy?’ Vasc's voice cut through his reverie, and how he despised that nickname.
Tendro crinkled his brows, his gaze still fixed on the receding silhouette of the range. ‘Nothing,’ he replied, the word falling from his lips as barren as the outlands stretching before them.
‘Makes you think, huh?’ Vasc said, interrupting yet another moment of observational admiration of the beauty, and in this case also the ugliness, that fleshed out in the world around them.
Tendro ignored him. He just wanted to sink in the unsightly view he had in front of his eyes. Exceptionally horrendous. At first glance, the colour pattern ranged from total blackness to dark, to dark brown, to some flecks of grey that Tendro suspected were eyes of outerlander creatures staring at their next meal, and a weary purple that dressed the clouds in the sky. Trees happened to be only trunks. No leaves, just flaked, frail branches and rotten roots, some floundering around the surface as if searching for water that did not exist in a place like this. Not a glimpse of green on the withered ground.
A wary silence cloaked them as they gazed into the distance. Tendro's eyes flicked to Ugu, the self-appointed captain of the search party. With a curt nod, Ugu fixed his stare on the threadbare trail before them.
Tendro sighed. ‘Can Vasc do it this time?’
'Vasc's blood didn't prove to be so effective in that incarcerated outerlander back in Rumino,' Ugu said. The human had an air of pretence, but everything he did was born of passion. Perhaps all that deceit was his way of confronting his fears and instilling confidence in his crew.
Tendro drew forth a keen-edged dagger, his gaze flickering from Vasc to Ugu before he sliced his own pallid palm. Blood traced down his arm quickly daubed away with a rag of dubious cleanliness. He had to remember to sterilise that wound later on. With a coarse, frayed length of rope, he secured the bloodied rag to one end and cast it out, letting it settle in the centre of the barren trail.
As one, they leaned forward, gazes fixed on the inky depths of the outerlands. Tendro's fingers tightened around the rope's end, anticipation coiling in his gut.
'Likely another misconception,' Vasc said, clearly oblivious to the lurking peril that prowled the darkness. 'Blood doesn't lure outlanders. Not when it's just soaked into rags.' Vasc's eyes narrowed as they settled on Tendro. 'But perhaps,' he added, a smirk playing at his lips, 'the genuine thing might prove more enticing.'
'Don't be a fool,' Tendro spat. 'If you think—'
'The lad's got a point, Tendro,' Ugu interjected.
Tendro shook his head, a tremor of unease rippling through him. 'You can't mean that.'
Ugu fixed him with that poorly masked expression. 'When have you known me to jest, Tendrolopes?'
Tendro knew well that Ugu never jested, and so he trudged toward the path's center. No sooner had he parted from the others than a creeping murk invaded his boots, slithered beneath his trousers, then engulfed his chest and heart. There it halted, as if some unseen barrier prevented its ascent to his mind.
His eyes set on the spot where he'd last glimpsed the formless shadow. All was stillness now. His thoughts stood empty, warding off whatever outerland entity sought to claim his reason. It wasn't a battle of flesh or even of perception. Tendro needed only to anchor his mind to keep it from drifting into dangerous waters.
He cast a glance back at his companions. Their faces were dressed with a look that spoke of imminent peril, as if at any moment some unseen horror would mangle him against the weary earth. Tendro, however, felt no such dread. His body was cold and rigid, yet still his to command. His heart's rhythm slowed, but he could hear its steady pulse and feel the blood coursing through his veins, then obediently flowing to wherever the unseen force willed it. In this case, it sought escape through his nostrils.
A drop of blood stained his shirt.
Naught remained to stem the flow, saving the foul rag already sodden with his blood and worse. His arm lifted the cloth to his nose. The stench should have turned his stomach, yet it didn't. For a heartbeat, until the blood stopped, he breathed only that foetid air. His mind screamed at his body to convulse, to retch, but to no avail. At that moment, Tendro realised his body wasn't his anymore.
From the periphery of his vision, he caught a flicker of motion—Ugu and Vasc, still rooted to their distant post. Tendro thought he saw them gesticulating, though he couldn't be certain—his sight was limited, and they seemed unwilling to venture nearer, to pull him away.
It dawned on him then that sound had fled, leaving only silence—a fitting melody for his plight. His eyes, defying his will, rolled toward the path ahead, as if seeking. Perhaps the force that gripped him awaited something, or someone, to emerge from the gloom. Or perhaps it merely wished Tendro to witness, to gaze upon the horrors and anguish that cloaked the outerlands. To behold what no other man had seen or dared pursue.
And then he saw it. At first, just a wad of a corrupted stain roving faintly in front of his disobedient eyes. Arms, he thought, but no—there was no name for what protruded through the mass in the dark because it was so far-fetched from any sane person’s imagination that it couldn’t have been thought of or named yet. It shouldn't, at least. No soul should ever have to conjure such a thing, not even in the depths of their most fevered nightmares.
More offshoots sprouted from its limbs, and Tendro supposed they were legs, wobbling as they struggled to bear the weight of the black mass of abominations that developed dimly before him. He deemed it horrendous, for nothing should grow or move in such a manner, yet he couldn't fully comprehend it, shrouded as it was by the path's uncertainty.
Fragile motes of white light bloomed around him. Expanding with torturous slowness, or was time itself stretching? He couldn't be sure, but it was approaching. At least it will be over soon, he thought—more a desperate wish than reasoned thought, for he doubted even his mind remained truly his own by now.
A sphere of flame arced across his vision. Its brilliance forced his eyes to squint, and suddenly the outlands' paralytic spell shattered. Sound rushed back in the form of cries mingled with the frantic swinging of Ugu's torch, its light daring to reveal the ugliness of the outerlands.
'Tendro,' Vasc's voice cut through the chaos, and Tendro realised his companion stood right beside him. 'What happened?'
Words failed him. How could he explain the inexplicable? 'Didn't you see it?'
'See what?' Vasc's eyes widened, darting towards the path ahead. 'All you did was stare down the trail, then your nose started bleeding.'
Tendro ignored Vasc and turned to Ugu who was wielding a flaming torch as stiff as a rock. ‘You didn’t see it either?’
Ugu shook his head. 'It's nothing but darkness from here on.' He thrust his arm forward, the torch's light barely causing the murk to recoil.
'There was something...' Tendro managed. 'I couldn't make it out, but it was there.' Vasc's hand found his shoulder, and Tendro startled at the sensation. He'd been certain his body was still numb to touch, yet it wasn't. Vasc’s warm touch was comforting; it felt familiar amid such foreignness.
‘Let’s keep going.’ Ugu said with the firmness of a leader, or someone who had not been through what Tendro just did.
(to be continued)