A Merciless Road

The Battlescarred Bard fell behind them one lantern at a time.

First the door. Then the yard, churned by hooves and boots. Then the last smear of window-light across the road, thinning through rain until the dark took it.

Rishi did not look back.

Maeril did.

Then she turned south.

Rain moved in fine needles across the road. It was not heavy yet, but it found every seam and slipped beneath their collars. Their clothes darkened and began to cling.

The main road stretched south, open and easy to watch.

Maeril stopped where the verge dipped into wet grass and thorn.

“We leave it here.”

Maeril glanced at his pack. “The boots. Now is the right time.”

Rishi sat on a low stone, drew out the soft elven courier boots, and exchanged his wet sandals for them. He did not argue.

Maeril watched the road while he changed, her staff ready in one hand.

When Rishi stood again, his steps made almost no sound in the wet grass.

Maeril touched his wrist and spoke the words of invisibility. Cool magic passed over them, and both vanished from sight.

Maeril’s breath sounded beside him.

“Come.”

They left the road.

The first ditch taught the night its rules.

It looked shallow until Rishi stepped down and mud swallowed his foot to the ankle. The bank slid under him.

His pack dragged sideways, wrenching his bruised ribs. His staff-point sank deeper than expected before finding stone. He caught himself before he fell, but the jolt sent pain through his side.

For a moment, Maeril did not move ahead.

Rain marked the space where she stood, invisible and waiting.

Rishi found his balance.

Then she moved again.

They climbed the opposite bank of the ditch without speaking.

Beyond it lay worked land rather than wilderness: fields, drainage cuts, scrub lines, broken fences, thorn clumps, and old paths dissolving into mud. Every hollow held water, and every slope gave way underfoot.

Maeril led the way, walking a few paces ahead.

Rishi followed the gaps her body opened in the rain. The occasional tap of her staff and the bend of grass kept him on her path.

Maeril read the ground better than he could. She found the higher line through fields that looked flat and crossed the ditches where the reeds grew thin. When she led him around a stretch of black mud, its deep, foul smell told him how far they might have sunk.

As they crossed another field, Maeril stopped so suddenly that Rishi nearly walked into her.

A wagon creaked along the road they had left. They stood motionless as it passed north, its wheels muffled by rain and its voices low.

Even after the sound faded, they waited.

Then Maeril led on.

After a time, the invisibility faded, and their bodies reappeared in the rain.

Maeril did not renew the spell at once.

They reached a stretch of open ground near a bend in the road. Lantern light moved close enough to expose them there.

Maeril stopped, drew breath through her teeth, and renewed the invisibility over them both.

The spell carried them beyond the lantern light. Once they were clear, Rishi’s steps began to falter.

His head throbbed in rhythm with his steps. Pain spread from the back of his skull into his eyes and jaw. The guard’s blow had left him unsteady, and the fight had drained what strength remained.

The rain grew heavier as they walked.

Maeril paused beneath a thorn tree and looked back toward the road.

“The rain will help.”

Rishi glanced at the mud pulling at his boots. “How?”

“It will wash out our tracks, slow anyone following, and drive most people under a roof.”

They kept moving.

The ground climbed, and after a while the ascent turned treacherous.

Near a line of storm-broken trees, Maeril stopped and pointed her staff toward a shallow hollow. Leaning stones and thick thorn formed a rough shelter over it.

“We could stop there,” she said. “It might be dry enough, and hidden enough, to wait until morning.”

Rishi studied it for a moment.

“No.”

Maeril looked at him.

He did not explain. He did not need to.

She turned from the hollow, and they kept moving.

After that, the night lost its shape.

The hours became mud, wet stone, and ditches crossed by touch. They climbed slick slopes on hands and feet while branches dragged at their packs.

By the time the dark thinned toward morning, they had crossed the ridge and begun down the far side of the mountains. The ground descended in broken shelves of wet stone, roots, and clay, crossed by narrow animal paths that repeatedly vanished into the rain.

Partway down the slope, Rishi slowed. At a fallen tree, he planted his staff and stopped.

He tried to take another step. His legs trembled, and he lowered himself onto the trunk instead.

Maeril turned from a few paces ahead and came back. Rain ran from his shaved scalp into his beard. He rested both hands on the staff between his knees, his shoulders lifting unevenly with each breath.

She watched him for a moment before speaking.

“Do you need more than a moment?”

Rishi closed his eyes. “Yes.”

His fingers tightened around the staff. He drew one slow breath, then another, until his shoulders stopped shaking. The pain remained behind his eyes and beneath his ribs when he opened them.

“But not here.”

He planted the staff and pushed himself upright, pausing halfway until the dizziness passed. Maeril stepped closer but did not touch him.

When he found his balance, she studied his face and nodded.

They continued down.

The descent took the rest of the morning. Gradually, the slopes widened, the trees thinned, and fields opened below them in dull green and brown.

The rain eased as the morning brightened.

A pale breach opened in the clouds somewhere ahead. Through it, daylight came thin and colorless over the low country.

Maeril looked at it for several breaths.

Then she said, “I have enjoyed staying awake until morning for better reasons.”

Rishi managed a brief, exhausted smile.

“Have you?”

She glanced at him through wet hair and a bruise-darkened eye. “Do not become smug. You are currently one of the less enjoyable reasons.”

“Currently.”

“Survive the morning, and we can revisit the wording.”

They kept moving.

At the foot of the descent, they found the leaning marker stone Teren had described. They passed the broken culvert, then followed the road’s edge to the line of trees at the bend.

Maeril turned between the trees. Beyond lay a narrow path almost swallowed by grass and thorn.

They followed it.

The abandoned village emerged gradually through the rain: first a broken wall, then roofless houses with empty doorways and a well choked with stone and weeds. No lights, voices, or barking dogs disturbed it.

At the far end, the chapel stood above the ruins.

The chapel had not collapsed completely. Its little tower had lost its bell, and one side of the roof had fallen into the nave in a tangle of slate and old beams. The other side still covered a narrow strip of stone floor.

The doorway stood open, with moss filling the cracks around it and rainwater running down the front stones.

Maeril stopped at the threshold and listened. Rishi waited beside her, leaning slightly on his staff.

Nothing stirred inside. Water dripped somewhere deeper in the ruin, but no voices or breathing answered.

Maeril entered first. Rishi followed.

Inside, the chapel smelled of wet stone, old ash, bird droppings, and rotting wood.

A broken altar stood at the far end, cracked through its middle. Most of the benches had been shoved aside or scavenged. The fallen roof buried one corner, but the wall beside the vestry still sheltered a strip of mostly dry floor.

Near the dry wall, a ring of blackened stones held crushed charcoal and damp ash. Frayed rope hung from a beam where someone had once fastened canvas against the draft. Broken boards had been stacked beneath a slab of fallen slate to keep them dry.

Maeril recognized it for what it was: a refuge for travelers who could not risk the road.

“There,” she said, the word thin and breathless.

Before settling, they searched the chapel. Maeril checked behind the altar and inside the vestry. Rishi tested the side door; fallen stone half-blocked it, but it remained usable as a second exit.

They found no fresh tracks, warm ash, food scraps, or bedding. Nothing suggested that anyone had occupied the chapel recently.

It was safe enough to rest.

Maeril set down her pack. For a moment, neither of them moved. Then she bent, slowly, and began gathering what dry wood remained under the slate.

Rishi lowered himself beside the old fire ring, too tired and hurt to be of any use.

She built a low fire and shielded it with slate. The smoke escaped through the broken roof.

Next, she pulled a folded sheet of canvas from her pack.

Her hands shook badly enough that she had to start the first knot twice.

She tied one edge to the old rope-marked beam, fixed another to a cracked bench, and weighted the lower corners with stones.

The canvas blocked the dry corner from the doorway, holding in some warmth and hiding the firelight from anyone outside.

She unpacked the bedrolls. Water had seeped through the straps and canvas, leaving the blankets damp. She spread them near the fire to dry as much as possible.

Maeril lowered herself beside Rishi and surveyed the shelter they had made.

“This is dreadful,” she said.

Rishi looked at the canvas screen, the damp bedrolls, and the low fire.

“Yes.”

Maeril leaned back against the wall and let her shoulders sag.

“It will do.”