Mountain Pass

Content warning: pg-13 (ish) fantasy violence

Soren awoke to the dull thunder of marching boots clanking against the ground, their distant steps echoing across the mountain pass. For a moment he struggled to register the sound. Sleeping on a bed of rough dirt and a rugged cotton blanket didn't come easy, even though it'd been weeks since his last time in a real nest. The frigid mountain air and dense trees blocking the sun didn't encourage him to get up. Mornings like these made him wish he was home.
"Pssst. Soren! On your feet!" Kadrisa hissed, already awake and frantically stuffing her equipment into her pack. The small blue-orange girl had wide eyes and ruffled feathers. Meanwhile, his other companion, Lazul, had his gear in a bag and an arrow nocked on his longbow. "There's somebody coming through the pass. A battalion, I think. We've gotta hide in case they come this way."
It took a moment for Soren to process it, rubbing his eyes with his claws, but as soon as he did he snapped to attention. Somebody was coming. The three of them had to get away from the road.
With a short nod, Soren jumped up onto his feet and began to stuff his things into a sack. His hands trembled slightly as he tightened the straps to his gambeson armor and put his sword on his belt. He thought he was pretty justified in being scared. These were the first birdfolk (besides each other) that the three of them had encountered in over a month. If word about the assassination had spread, it would probably end in a fight.
The three of them were Avani; birdfolk, as they were more commonly called. The Avani were semi humanoid creatures, except instead of skin Soren were covered in soft feathers and instead of a mouth he had a beak protruding from his head. He also had the added benefit of wings on his arms, at the expense of having weaker bones and being smaller than most creatures. Somewhere a few weeks back he’d seen tallfolk, what Kadrisa called “men”, and they were nearly three times his height. Even from a distance, the towering creatures had seriously creeped him out.
As quickly as they could manage, the three of them broke camp and ran up the hill, deeper into the trees and further away from the pass. Soren climbed to the top of a ridge overlooking the road and dropped onto his stomach behind it, knocking a few rocks into a tumble down the steep hill. His friends ducked into cover beside him.
“Who do you think it is?” He wondered aloud, struggling to keep his worry out of his voice. “We’re still in the middle of nowhere.”
Lazul shrugged, drawing and undrawing his bow. Unlike Soren, the tall bird with blue and white feathers barely seemed concerned about the approaching people. “Don’t know. Maybe we’re closer to the coast than we thought.”
“Unlikely” Kadrisa chirped, flaring her feathers “I’ve been checking the maps every day, and they say we’re still at least thirty horizons away from the ocean. The nearest town isn’t even within six. It’s at least another week’s flight.”
“Or,” Lazul responded with a sly smile, “maybe you don’t actually know where we are.”
Glaring at him, she ruffled her bristling feathers and unstrapped some of her heaviest gear. “Ha ha, sure.” Kadrisa crouched down and slightly unfurled her wings. “Watch my stuff. I’m gonna scout ahead and figure out who’s coming.”
The thin, nimble girl jumped into the air and flapped up into a nearby pine, catching on a branch near the top. Another jump, and she was flying in the direction of the distant travellers.
They had good reason to be careful around other birdfolk: the three of them had quite a high price on their heads. A couple of months ago somebody had assassinated the Jasani pentarch during a diplomatic summit, mortally wounding several important figures from the other kingdoms in the process, and Lazul was the prime suspect.
It wasn’t completely unexpected. As ambassador for the 2nd Republic, a secluded island nation almost-universally hated for starting the great war, he was an easy target. Even though there was plenty of evidence to the contrary, and Soren thought blaming Lazul for a war over 2 centuries ago made no sense, nobody wanted a serious investigation: they just wanted someone to string up.
Lazul pulled Soren out of his thoughts with a nudge to his shoulder. “Don’t worry, kid. It’s probably just a local militia, maybe a trade caravan. We knew we’d begin to see more folk as we get closer to the eastern shore.”
“Right. I just didn’t realize it’d be so soon.” Rubbing the tip of his beak, he sat on his back behind the hill. No point watching Kadrisa as she faded into the distance. “Now that we’re so close to the coast, I guess I’ve been thinking about this more, but I just can’t stop myself. What if the Altowood don’t give us asylum?”
“They will,” Lazul instantly replied, not even entertaining the notion “You’ll see. Their government is bound by a code, and they don’t break their code. When we make it to Kiptravos island with our evidence, I promise you that nobody will touch us.”
Soren took a deep, calming breath, trying to suppress his nerves. “How can you be so sure?”
“I’ve travelled, kid. They are stubborn, holier-than-thou, and quite insufferable, but if the Altowood are anything they are honorable. The day any of their kind abandons the code is the day the world ends.” As Kadrisa, a dark shape in the sky, returned shouting in a language neither of them spoke, Lazul glanced at him with an eyebrow raised. “I believe those are curses, and not the magical kind.”
Frantic, Kadrisa dived out of the sky and landed beside them, stirring up the leaves and rocks under their feet. Her feathers were bristling. Standing up, sensing her concern, Soren asked, "What was it?"
“Olari! A whole battalion, by the looks of it.” She quickly strapped on her equipment. “They’re probably right around the bend by now: we need to get out of here!”
“Are you sure?” Lazul replied, flaring the crest of feathers on his forehead “Their border is at least 90 horizons south. Why would they have a battalion be this far north?”
Now that he thought of it, Soren realized that he could recognize drums among the footsteps that echoed throughout the range. Wide eyed, staring at the base of the hill blocking their view, he ducked behind a rock. “Get down!”
At that moment, just after Lazul and Kadrisa hid, a row of Avani in golden armored plating emerged from down the road, marching to the beat of a pair of drums. Each was covered in so much gleaming metal that one couldn't see an inch of feathers among them. They wielded large polearms (from a distance Soren thought they looked like halberds) and had large single-edged swords sheathed on their waists. Large rectangular shields guarded their left wings. A standard-bearer wielding a blue and white flag, the colors of the Olari kingdom, led the way, shouting in a guttural foreign language. Hotari. Soren didn’t speak it, but he could vaguely recognise some of the basic grammar structure.
As more and more rows, each identical to the first, appeared around the corner, Soren’s heart fluttered. Lazul managed to voice what he couldn’t: “Battalion? That’s at least 2000 troops! Why would the Olari need a full regiment of troops up here in the middle of nowhere?”
“I don’t know,” Kadrisa hissed, peeking out from behind a boulder “but it sure isn’t good for us! The treeline’s like 20 spans behind us: if we make a break for it, I think we might make it without anyone seeing us.”
Though Soren realized that she was right, he couldn't tear his eyes away from the marching soldiers. Something about this really, really didn't feel right. In Jasani, the upper class was defined by a strong military tradition: both his father and his mother had seen combat. Thus, he was familiar with standard military regiments like those that defended the cities from monsters, and this was not one of those forces. The Olari soldiers were equipped for siege warfare.
Suddenly, a chilling howl pierced peaceful morning air, echoing throughout the mountain pass. Immediately it was silent. The army of soldiers below them skidded to a stop, the drums no longer beating. Any wildlife in the area had stopped chittering. Even the wind itself seemed to sense the apprehension and faded to a low whistle.
The Olari officer turned to peer apprehensively into the forest, eyes turned their direction. Soren's limbs felt numb. Neither he nor Lazul or Kadrisa dared to move, dared to even turn their heads. It had come from behind them. The Apogee was in the forest behind them.
Less than a hundred spans to their left, a misshapen creature hobbled out of the trees. The creature, a bipedal being that could pass as an Avani from a distance, looked like it was made of thick black liquid. It had a vaguely beak-shaped mouth that melted into its face, deformed arms hanging from its slouching body, and tail-feathers littered with sizable holes and tears. Droplets of the substance that made up its body, an unholy mixture of disintegrating matter and liquid magic, oozed from it to a puddle underneath its feet. An aura of shadow exuded from its body, instantly wilting the plants within a few feet of its form.
Agonizingly slowly, the Apogee opened its glowing red eyes and twisted its head at an awkward angle to face them. It looked at the three of them for a moment, then turned its gaze to the army holding formation in the pass. As it moved, Soren could almost hear the bones in its neck that would've snapped if it still had any. The monster regarded the Olari soldiers for a moment, crouched down, and issued a blood-curdling screech.
Summoned by its cry, dozens of Apogee emerged from the forest, shambling down the hill towards the rows of soldiers. The Olari leader yelled "Fornurak! Heevatu dri!" At his order, the front row of soldiers immediately formed a phalanx, their shields creating a wall of gold bristling with polearms, as the rows behind them drew longbows. As one, the archers nocked their arrows and aimed them towards the approaching horde. "Fornak, tah!"
With the precision that came with years of training, the soldiers simultaneously unleashed a volley of arrows into the air. A dozen Apogee collapsed into the dirt, their bodies beginning to evaporate into noxious black steam as the rest broke into a stiff, unwieldy sprint. Before the archers could even ready their second volley the wave of howling monsters bounded down the ridge, crossing hundreds of spans in mere seconds, and slammed into the front lines.
Soren jumped to his feet and unsheathed his sword, catching the first one in the neck as it charged at the three of them. Gurgling and hissing, it stumbled away, clutching the slash in its neck as it spewed black goo. After a moment it decided to renew its attack, but another slice put it out of commission. The creature behind it carelessly trampled its ally underfoot as it tried to slash him with its claws. He skewered it through what remained of its chest and cut it in half. For a moment its upper body attempted to crawl towards him, before he gave it one last jab to its head.
As another Apogee leapt at Lazul, receiving an arrow to its neck for its trouble, Kadrisa stumbled back from the snarling creatures approaching her. Raising her staff, her eyes glowing dark purple, she muttered a short incantation in an ethereal language. Flames appeared in her hand and leapt onto the nearest two Apogee. Their liquid bodies lit like a vat of alcohol. Their howls and screams rent the air as they evaporated, slowly joining the noxious mist beginning to blot out the sun.
“Hetunak!” One of the soldiers in the canyon shouted, pointing to the sky. Soren briefly looked up to see two black, amorphous shapes that vaguely resembled dragons (and perhaps they had once been dragons) dive out of the sky. Their fiery red eyes pierced through the black mist, and their bodies left behind a rain of liquid in their flight path.
A few of the archers loosed their arrows at the flying Apogee, but too late. The massive creatures slammed into the first row of Olaran soldiers, their talons skewering fellow Apogee and unlucky Avani alike. By the time the two monsters pulled up their claws were slick with blood.
“Now’s our chance!” Kadrisa whistled, pointing into the woods “Let’s get out of here.”
Before she could dash off, Soren grabbed her wing. “We’ve gotta help them! You saw what those things can do to cities, back at Constolba.”
“Why should we, kid?” Lazul responded, his feathers bristling “They would probably kill us if they got the chance!”
“Because it’s the right thing to do.” Soren turned back to Kadrisa. “You’ve gotta have a spell or something that can help, right?”
She briefly glanced between the two of them, then at the battle going on behind them. For a moment he worried that she would refuse. Maybe it was stupid, maybe he was just a naive kid, but he didn’t want to leave knowing a hundred soldiers would get torn apart by the flying Apogee before the Olari could handle them on their own.
Eventually she relented, her feathers drooping. “Fine,” she sighed, “I think I have something, but it’s going to tell everyone within half a horizon that we’re here. Protect me while I check my stuff.”
As she quickly crouched down and thumbed through her pages of wrinkled parchment, most of it depicting strange symbols and scratchy writing no one else could read, Soren turned away to watch for any more Apogee that decided to attack them rather than the army. To be honest, Kadrisa’s magic unnerved him. Magic was somewhat common, but she practiced Dark magic. That wasn’t so common: in fact, in most kingdoms it was an executable offense. She hatched outside the kingdoms, in a nomadic tribe where it was part of their shamanite culture, so she was mostly safe legally… but Soren still hadn’t gotten used to it. He’d been told just about his whole life (which admittedly wasn’t that long yet) that it was irredeemably evil.
“Okay, I’ve got something!” She cried, jumping up from her crouch. “You two might wanna stand back if you don’t want to get fried.”
As she outstretched her wing-arm, Soren and Lazul quickly jumped away from her. Kadrisa sighed, closed her eyes, and began to mutter words under her breath. The palm of her hand began to glow and the wind picked up, creating a whirlwind around her hand. Above the smoke and noxious gas the sky instantly became overcast with the shadowy clouds centering far over her head.
In a blinding flash of light, a bolt of lighting struck her. The crackling energy ran down the course of her arm and straight towards the flying monster in her sights. Before Soren could so much as flinch, it and the other Apogee-drake were engulfed in electricity. They emerged from the attack visually unscathed but limp and spiralling towards the ground.
For a brief moment Kadrisa’s body flashed, everything except her skeleton briefly turning transparent after the massive use of magic, before returning to normal. She collapsed onto the rocky hillside. Her feathers briefly smoked and were seared with dark blue streaks. Though they looked like burn marks, Soren knew they actually came from the spell and would dissipate in seconds: didn’t make it any less creepy, though.
Lazul rushed over to her and pulled her to her feet, she briefly muttering her thanks to him. “Okay, kid, we saved those guys, now it’s definitely time to go!”
As more and more of the Apogees peeled off from their attack of the Olaran army, the three of them rushed into the trees. They ran up the hill, smashing through brush and stumbling up rocks. Although the sound of the battle faded behind them, the chilling howls and scampering of deformed feet didn’t. Soren didn’t dare to so much as glance behind him to find out how close the Apogees were.
At first Kadrisa could barely walk, but as she quickly gained strength she managed to keep up and eventually took the lead: she knew rough terrain better than either of them. She led them frantically up the mountain, along a small path she’d managed to find between the ferns and boulders.
Though it was better than going straight up the cliff, Soren could still barely manage to keep up with the weight of his pack and the unstable rocks under his feet. Too bad they couldn’t just fly away: unless it came down to life or death, none of them were willing to abandon their equipment. He had the sneaking worry it would come to that. The Apogee were right on their talons.
Just as they reached the top of this part of the mountain, stumbling into a shadowy clearing full of crumbling ruins, Soren felt a sharp pain on his back. Almost on instinct, he whirled around and sliced off the blood-spattered talons of the Apogee behind him. Its stump of an arm hissed and spewed black acid. He dodged the noxious spray and stabbed it in the shoulder.
“Soren!” Lazul shouted, turning around “Are you okay?”
His knees shaking, he could hardly manage a squeak in reply. Regardless of whether or not the wound was serious on its own, it burned like his back had just been doused in flames. It was bad. Apogee bites and scratches frequently left parts of their highly toxic bodies in the wound. Condensed dark magic could be lethal, or worse, make you one of them. He could already feel poison beginning to seep through his fabric armor and his feathers, into the wound. If the pain wasn’t a good enough hint, the hissing and smoke coming from his back certainly was.
After a moment of processing what had just happened, the little training he had kicked in. “I’m hit! We need to get the poison out before it spreads!”
Before they could do anything about it, though, the rest of the pack came trampling up the hill, howling and screeching into the overcast sky. One bounded towards Soren on all fours, leaping over the melting body of its ally with its arms outstretched. He ducked underneath it with a wince and brought his blade up to meet the corrupted sword held by the one behind it.
Whistling as it shot past his shoulder, an arrow plunged into the creature he’d locked swords with. Freed from the parry, he stumbled back from the approaching monsters and towards the cover provided by the moss-covered stone ruins. Another shot from Lazul’s bow put the sword-wielding Apogee down. Flames, presumably another of Kadrisa’s spells, struck two more.
Soren struggled to lift his numb arms to block an Apogee’s strike. The impact coursed down his sword and into his rapidly weakening muscles, causing him to falter. It immediately seized on his hesitation and rammed him with the top of its head. He tumbled into the dirt, the sand and rocks scraping at his already burning back, and landed at the base of one of the ruined structures.
Gasping for breath, he struggled (and failed) to get back to his feet. His lungs felt like they were drowning in a pool of acid. None of his limbs worked. Everything around him began to go blurry. He could faintly hear Lazul shout “Do something!” to which Kadrisa replied “You know dark magic can’t do healing spells!” After that, he fell unconscious.
---
He was jolted awake, what seemed like a painful eternity later, by a flash of white light and a sudden rush of relief. A female Avani, eyes glowing gold, crouched over him. The Apogee were gone, nothing but piles of oozing liquid coating the grass, but dozens of Olari soldiers had taken their place. Lazul and Kadrisa were surrounded by a wall of gleaming golden armor, bows and pikes pointed at their heads.
Their captain, distinguished by the blue painted onto his armor, stepped forward and motioned to the magician and then the soldiers. “Casey! Hantu! Kah Enak Heeva!” At his command she stood erect and stepped back, while two soldiers took her place and forcibly pulled Soren to his feet.
Smug, the officer doffed his helmet and flared his feathers in a taunt. “Stand. Your actions have saved a great many of my troops today: by account of this I consider that debt repaid. You now live at the pleasure of his majesty’s armed forces.” Though the gratitude was sincere, and the remnants of the healing spell should’ve kept him warm for a while, Soren had chills.
They’d been rescued.
And captured.