Wanderers of the Silent Season (Heartbeat of the World Book 2) Read online

  Kechua glanced over the sands. Doers. “Be back in a second.” He slipped into the darkness and stole into his provisions, gnawing on the meat in secret and dropping a pair of fat berries in to chase it. He brought his water skin out for them to see, however, but kept his meal a secret.

  “Where are you going?” Susan asked as Kechua slipped past her, descending the crumbling ramps and sliding onto the first floor.

  “Let’s go see this bold and taunting monster!” Kechua shouted.

  “You aren’t going to stop him?” Susan protested frantically, slipping down a level from her sitting position and stumbling after Kechua’s progress.

  “Let’s go see the monster,” Tyran stated matter-of-factly. He and Gregoris joined them on the ground floor.

  Kechua stood at the arc where the concrete ended, and the myriad of footprints painted their stories into the sand below. The trails cut a fat stem to the bloom of the water, numerous branching paths curved away from the main stem before him.

  He stretched the stiffness from his calves to test his weight on them both, bouncing from side to side. “Your well’s a fair distance off,” Kechua muttered as he hopped.

  “Groundwater taint, something like that. Who was it who—What, just like that?” Tyran exclaimed as Kechua hopped into the dirt without further ceremony.

  “Just like that. Stay where you are though.” Kechua immediately felt the pulsing movement of the creature below, the memory of the school no longer drowning it out. He drew the black-bladed knife and moved carefully without looking directly down.

  “Feel that pull, boy? That tug in your gut? Hard to ignore, isn’t it?” Wolf’s voice echoed quietly from somewhere, lapping at his spine. He glanced back, feet at the ready; still juggling his weight subtly, even as he noticed Wolf cut a fourth form among those waiting in the safety of the building. The creature sat beside Susan, dwarfing her, and yet she leaned against the faded grey fur.

  “They cannot hear my words, as they do not know to listen for them. They cannot see me in my truer form because they do not know to see past the lies of their eyes.” Wolf chuckled. “They are my people though. They worship me; feed me with their fear. They are on the edge of that which is civilized, teetering on the desperation of the collapse of their comforts and security. Even now, they watch your actions, desperate to be saved, and their desperation too feeds into me.”

  And Kechua could feel the pulsing of their coiling rhythms within them. They trembled with unsure static, threatening to unwind with one more solid tremor wracked against their sides, but there was potential in the wavering unsureness.

  The inklings of whatever subconscious plan shed, Kechua’s attention slipped back to the pool of water and to the earth around.

  “Different from the others, a sweet treat among starchy bitter roots.” The voice sang its shrillness through the earth below. He could feel it slithering, moving; inching up.

  “Know your fragrance,” the creature hummed curiously.

  “There, to your side!” Susan exclaimed desperately. Kechua snapped his head to the side, drawing the staff rather than the knives. No appendage poked out of the sand. He only caught the sand shuffling back into sleep.

  “Again, behind you!” Gregoris shouted, almost ready to cross the threshold to assist the boy, but Tyran blocked him with a stiffly raised arm.

  Kechua spun with the staff, moving with the downward pulse of his subtle dance, and caught the flower. He twirled the staff around it quickly and locked it aboveground, still in the dance, but checking to make sure they saw. Jagged black teeth shot out from the brilliant red flower’s centre, and he wondered for a moment how they could have possibly taken these things as harmless.

  The thing gave a shrill shriek, its constant song—the chain of imperceivably echoing words—growing silent a moment. Another fanged bloom pierced the earth, but Kechua met it with the black knife, sending a shower of silver sand into the air.

  A pair of flowers rose from the earth, lacking in any of the jagged teeth of the gripping vines. They regarded him with swaying unsureness, positioned on either side of him and staying well beyond the bite of the black blade. The one tangled around the staff slipped below the earth with a sigh, only for one of the biting ones to dig a curved barb into his foot, the rhythmic dance interrupted.

  “Sweet, sweet blood. Feeds me, makes me strong,” it hummed happily but locked on too long.

  He tugged upwards and severed it with the knife, whirling around and getting a glimpse of his audience’s expressions before cutting through another of the reaching tendrils. His dance began anew, and the creature paused below.

  He pinned the last bladeless bloom, what must have been an ‘eye,’ as it attempted to retreat into the ground. “Let’s try this again,” he bit. Wrapping it around his arm, he let the trembling staff rest on his shoulder again.

  “Silly, silly, tried and failed,” the voice hissed, but it tugged in frustration. He leaned against the sand and his feet dug down, rocking back and forth like some sand bound fisherman, but he could still make no purchase.

  Even with the rhythm of the sands beneath his feet, he was a flea tugging at an elephant’s tail. He ended the eye with his knife, silver sand pouring down his arm.

  Kechua spun in place, the knife holstered, his arms outstretched. “You can hear me, can you not?”

  “Can hear, can hear, so biting, so hurt.”

  “Come up, creature, that I might see you; that the others can see you in full. When last we truly met, you were nothing but a little beetle; a maggot. I cannot think that is still you,” he spoke to the earth itself.

  “Never a mere maggot, but bigger, grander; smarter, so true,” the creature sang. “Branched wood and cutting rock, hurt so much,” the creature whimpered with a vicious streak. The slithering faded away, went deep into the earth, and shuffled into silence.

  “New cut on the leg.” Tyran knelt beside him. “Another right through the sole of your shoe too. I’m not sure how sterile the soil is, but we should clean it at least.”

  Kechua watched the fallen silver sand sparkle in the sunlight, melting like ice in the desert heat.

  “I would get your water now. I’ll watch your back,” Kechua declared, ignoring the waning sting in his foot.

  Without pushing the issue of his foot further, Tyran jogged back to the ruin and produced a few bags. Susan and Gregoris watched with suspicion, at least until he returned unimpeded from his first journey with full bottles of clear water. They joined him in the third and fourth trips to the well.

  “We have nothing left to fill, thank you.” Tyran waved, and Kechua strode in with as much dignity as he could, trying not to visibly limp on his tasted foot.

  “Have you really seen it? Or were you just baiting it?” Tyran asked, handing Kechua his water skin.

  “Baiting mostly. I stood on its back, but I couldn’t really see it, cloud of dust and all.” Kechua drank deep before removing his shoe and leisurely sitting by the pond, splashing water against his foot. The blood trickled away and revealed the healing pink scar. “See, not so bad.” In truth, the wound upon the shoe hurt more.

  “You’ve all seen it now, too. Didn’t seem that scary, did it?” He grinned.

  He was answered with silence.

  “Well, we’re all going to see it soon. All of it.” Kechua grinned, feeling the staff tremble on his back, humming faintly.

  “How . . . what would you even do if you could?” Tyran asked, bewildered.

  “We,” he corrected. “I can fight it, I can kill it, but it’ll take time to draw it out, to wound it; to wear it down. With help, that changes.” He stole a dirty look at Wolf, who lay silently, head upon his paws.

  He waited for the right moment, reading each of their pulsing hearts in turn. He let enough silence fall for their wound rhythms to be vulnerable to his words, and he mustered the confidence to finish.

  “What’s more is that we’re going to kill it before the sun sets today.” He notic
ed the skeptical expressions of the three waiting.

  CHAPTER 6:

  Earth’s Cruelty

  The sun moved, shifting high into the sky, and Kechua waited, sitting upon the earth with the staff resting in his lap. The creature remained below, rumbling and mumbling. He followed it, needing to strain at first, but watched it with a fair bit of ease as it rolled and cursed beneath. He meditated a little, sneaking in moments to feel the smooth quiet of the uppermost layer of sand in his mind. The more he focused, the more a growing giddy excitement crawled in his skin.

  The other three had slipped away, and Tyran returned briefly to offer Kechua a meal. Other than that, their footsteps had not disturbed his meditation.

  “Igniting their hope will only lead to a greater depth of despair if you fail,” Wolf chided, shattering Kechua’s focus into the earth. “What does your infinite musing tell you of your beast?”

  “Not much. It’s just hiding, but it’s staying close.”

  Wolf made an amusingly pondering sound in response.

  “You will not attack any humans we meet, here or elsewhere,” Kechua said, unsure of the strength behind the statement.

  “No interest in flesh and bone, boy. Yet, so declared, so it shall be,” he growled low. “In return, however, I am hungry to hear your plan.”

  “The creature moves through the earth like water, but I can’t pull it up on my own. It only came up out of curiosity, only because it wanted to. Maybe with twenty more people, I could pull it up, but then they would get bit and cut, lose limbs, bleed; die.” He nodded slowly. “Can’t have that.”

  Wolf rolled his head and made a soft grumble of disapproval but remained silent.

  “If only I knew a mighty creature who could aid me, one who was kind and noble.” Kechua continued his musings, though Wolf seemed uninterested in taking the bait.

  “Yeah, I need help. Willing help. It needs to happen soon, else that thing might decide I’m not worth staying here for.” Kechua sighed.

  “Hah, you are all it wants. There is no feast greater than your death; no liquor sweeter than your blood.” Wolf chuckled darkly. “Mmm, wouldn’t mind a taste myself. Will have to wait till morning.” The beast lapped at Kechua’s cheek.

  “We’ll be done before morning,” Kechua declared. “Either I’ll be underground or it’ll be above. Whomever is moved will be dead.”

  “Bold words, but worthless until acted upon,” Wolf growled.

  “Fair.” Kechua took a sip of water. He tossed the skin onto the pack waiting in the safety of the concrete.

  “I had a flash; an idea earlier when fighting it.” Kechua rose with the aid of the staff. “I couldn’t tell you the words or rules exactly, but I can tell you all about barriers, about circles around things; about the pull and push of places.”

  Kechua walked to the dugout puddle, the water lazily filling to the declared borders. “There’s definitely something about this time, a kind of magic infused into the soil. It’s waiting to be shaped; hungry to be seen and understood.” Kechua grinned, stirring the cloudy puddle with the staff. The water quickly cleared, the unsure soil of the well’s walls dissolving to show shimmering mosaic pebbles. “It seems to respect barriers; the houses, for instance, or the circle. It could’ve taken me any of those days in the circle of stones.” He stumbled on the idea but pushed on. “I doubt my wonderful guardian fought it off,” Kechua bit drolly.

  “No, enough meat and blood for all.” Wolf chuckled with a rumbling savor. “Those were some satisfying days. Would you like to repeat that? Shall we dip your legs in the pond and let me gnaw your neck once again?”

  Kechua continued without so much as a quivering tone. “It’s more than strong enough to break a window and drag Tyran or me out in the night. Something else is stopping it; the respect for these circles. I wonder if the people taken broke some taboo they weren’t aware of—maybe planting things or watching their feet baited it up.”

  No hum of acknowledgement came from behind him, but neither did some snapping retort. Kechua gently spun the little carved world in the staff before him, squinting on the tiny figures hidden at its head. He found the lone boy in the circle again, slipping his eye onto the opposing twin in the creation side of the record.

  “See, I was thinking about the circle. Why didn’t it just grab my legs? It was enough for you to attack.” He chuckled darkly. “But then I thought about the forest. I wonder what we’d see if we went back there a week from now, or even a day or two from now? Would there be trees sprouting up, I wonder?” A smile forced up Kechua’s lips. There was a little twinge of delighted interest in Wolf’s chaotic patterning at the idea.

  “I think . . . ” Kechua tapped the staff to a purring retort from the wood. “It’s time to try a little magic.” He copied the rune etched onto the memory of the boulder, carved within the wood into a fresh patch of soil below. He licked his lips, his heart trembling with enough anticipation to make his pulse mash the wood against his palms. Come on, come on. Give me a stage, give me a miracle. Chills ran down his shoulders into the staff as he closed the circle around the boulder rune.

  His eyes blew open with delight. It was all he could do not to let out some primal shriek in triumph as the sand quivered in response the second he closed the barrier. An upper layer of sand, confused at what happened, took flight only to disintegrate into thin air. It left a flat mass of neatly-packed dirt within the circle, the rune gazing at him.

  “Hm.” Despite this clear magic; this wonderful response, the soil within the circle was still simple soil. He checked the rune in the staff’s memory, carefully confirming it to be true.

  “Closer than you think,” hummed the humored growl. “You did not create a boulder from nothing, but you changed the nature of the world within. The staff and the world you just created reacted to your intent, not some clumsy glyph. Those who wove that magic used the runes to remind, not enslave them to perfect repetition.”

  “That was . . . unusually insightful.” Kechua glanced back at the creature but stopped halfway.

  “It was an excellent try, but it was also rather embarrassing to watch.” The beast chuckled.

  Kechua thrust the staff to rest in the centre of his failed boulder circle, his knife by his side, and slipped to his knees. While not even close to rock, the sound of his footsteps echoed clearly, and the thrum of his knees hitting the surface pierced loud and clear into the earth below. The isolation of the circle made everything below so clear, it tuned out the memory of the school.

  He pounded at the surface of the circle, dead in the centre, and sent the resonant drumbeats down into the rock, which was untouched by the grasping wall of red. The creature retreated further into the earth, into the stilled history beneath. Yet Kechua pounded the arcane harmony of the depths of the earth, and the creature shifted and writhed within the forced rhythm.

  Kechua smiled, rising to his feet. After a pointed interlude, he rejoined the beat, stomping rather than slapping. The caked earth, defined by his circle, trembled and bent with every movement, amplifying it and sending it in a barking grunt into the silent layers below, where it washed over the writhing beast.

  Intent. He needed a tool, a drum to beat and grate at the beast, and there it was. Magic purer than simple runes indeed.

  The beat of his footsteps washed back up and his rhythm cascaded upon itself, weaving into a more exquisite pattern. The pulse overflowed from his encircled world, and the earth around him trembled to life, excited by his silly dance. Its quickened pace resonated within his heart.

  He danced a dance for those missing, somewhere forgotten, somewhere safe; sleeping. The thrumming beats shook in the walls of the building. The loosened stones leapt in the air, seen by his closed eyes. He danced this way, for what seemed like hours, like days, and yet the passage of time was only present in the weight of his actions; in the familiar comfort of the beat of the earth.

  The answer came from beneath the earth. “Why rattle and chafe and clatter
so?” It was vague, even to him, yet carried the creature’s sweet malice to his heart.

  “Come up, that I might see you, creature,” Kechua said, the beating of his feet a wordless language more primal than any remembered by humanity.

  It slithered up, and Kechua intensified his beating of the earth. He stomped all the harder; all the faster. The creature rose, rose, and stopped short. “You say you only want to see, but I can smell the hurty hitty. I know your trapping taps. I could not come on such unfair soil.” The thing gave a pouting hiss.

  Kechua intensified the rhythm in response. The creature’s silhouetted body below trembled, feeling the pulse of the dance. The feeling tantalized it further, yet it stayed well below the earth. Its barbed tendrils licked upwards, tasting the aura of the dance; of his strange power.

  “I want another tasty taste, just a little. You can go again when I’m done . . . ” The creature hissed within its melody. “No fair, no fair with the hitty at your side!”

  “Come up, come up, vile thing.” He danced, pushing the thumping deep into the creature’s core. He felt its shape in full, a slug or a maggot, wriggling through the soil. The hard shell shifted in rounded plates, grinding like rock. The eyes and mouths writhing in and out of the shell reached upwards hungrily, slipping upwards cautiously. Yet in the end, the yearning stalks came short of piercing into the air, and the thing withered back down into the depths below.

  Kechua, exhausted, sent a final, stomping thump downwards. It shot through the hardened earth with such a substantive force, the interwoven plates upon its back shuddered and trembled open for a split second.

  It screamed, audible even to his naked ears. He smiled, stumbling dizzily back.

  A pair of strong arms caught him. “Now that was something,” Tyran said, his voice elated.

  “Didn’t know you were watching. Would’ve done better if I did.” Kechua grinned in a daze. “Didn’t work. Wasn’t enough,” he mumbled, his eyes opening again.