A Merciless Road

The Battlescarred Bard surrendered them to the night one lantern at a time.

First the rear door vanished. Then the yard, churned to mud by hooves and boots. Last came a thin bar of window light across the road, blurred by rain until darkness swallowed it.

Rishi did not look back.

Maeril did.

Then she faced south.

Rain needled across the Trade Way. It was not heavy yet, but it found the seams in their clothes and worked beneath collars and cuffs. Damp cloth darkened against their bodies.

The road ahead was broad, level, and easy to watch.

Maeril stopped where the verge fell away into thorn and wet grass. “We leave it here.”

Rishi looked into the dark beyond her.

“The boots,” she said. “Now is the right time.”

He sat on a low boundary stone, opened his pack, and drew out the soft boots made for elven couriers. His sandals were already wet through. He traded them without argument while Maeril stood between him and the road, both hands ready on her staff.

When Rishi rose, his first step into the grass made almost no sound.

Maeril caught his wrist. She spoke softly, and cool magic closed around them. Rishi watched his hand disappear inside hers. Then the rest of him vanished as well.

Her breathing remained beside him.

“Come.”

They left the road.

The first ditch taught them what the night intended.

It appeared shallow until Rishi stepped from the bank and mud closed over his boot to the ankle. The earth slid beneath his weight. His pack pulled sideways, wrenching his bruised ribs, and the point of his staff sank deep before striking stone.

He caught himself. Pain flared through his side.

Ahead of him, the rain broke around an invisible shape and waited.

Rishi straightened.

Maeril moved on.

They climbed the opposite bank without speaking.

The land beyond was worked but no kinder for it. Fields lay divided by drainage cuts, broken fences, and ragged lines of scrub. Old paths dissolved into mud. Water filled every hollow, and each slope shifted beneath their feet.

Maeril kept several paces ahead. Rishi followed the shape her body opened in the rain, the quiet tap of her staff, and grass bending beneath feet he could not see.

She read the ground as if darkness had changed none of its language. In fields that looked flat, she found the high line. She chose crossings where ditch reeds thinned. Once, she led him wide around a black patch whose deep, rotten smell revealed how far they might have sunk.

Halfway across another field, Maeril stopped. Rishi nearly walked into her.

A wagon creaked along the road behind them, heading north. Rain softened the turn of its wheels. Low voices passed with it.

They stood without breath or motion until the sound had gone.

They waited longer.

Then Maeril led him south again.

In time, the magic thinned. Rishi saw the pale suggestion of his hands return, then the dark weight of his sodden clothes. Maeril appeared a few paces ahead with rain shining on her horns.

She did not renew the spell.

Not yet.

They kept to ditches and thorn until an open stretch drew them close to a bend in the road. Lantern light moved there, near enough to find any ordinary traveler crossing the field.

Maeril stopped. A breath hissed between her teeth as she reached for Rishi again.

Her words took them from sight a second time.

They crossed beyond the reach of the lanterns. Once darkness lay safely between them and the road, Rishi’s steps began to fail.

The pain behind his skull beat with his pulse. Each footfall drove it forward into his eyes and jaw. The guard’s cudgel had left the ground uncertain beneath him, and the fight had taken everything his body might have used to answer.

Rain thickened around them.

Maeril paused beneath a thorn tree and looked back toward the road. Water streamed from the point of her chin.

“The rain will help.”

Rishi looked down at mud clinging to the courier boots. “How?”

“It washes out our tracks. It slows anyone following. Most importantly, it persuades sensible people to find a roof.”

They walked on.

The ground climbed. Before long, wet clay gave way to loose stone, and the ascent became a choice between slipping earth and roots slick with water.

Near a stand of storm-broken trees, Maeril raised her staff toward a hollow beneath leaning rocks. Thorn grew thick around it.

“We could stop there. It may be dry enough and hidden enough to wait for morning.”

Rishi studied the hollow.

“No.”

Maeril watched him.

He gave her no reason. She asked for none.

They left the shelter behind.

After that, the night lost its divisions.

Hours became mud and wet stone. They found ditches with their feet and crossed them by touch. Branches caught their packs. On the worst slopes they climbed with both hands, feeling for roots before trusting weight to them.

Sometime before dawn, they crossed the ridge.

The far side of the mountains fell away in shelves of stone, clay, and tangled roots. Narrow animal tracks offered easier ground for a few dozen paces before vanishing into brush or rain.

Partway down, Rishi slowed beside a fallen tree. He planted his staff. When he tried to step again, both legs trembled.

He sat on the wet trunk before they could fail.

Maeril returned from several paces below. Rain ran from Rishi’s shaved scalp into his beard. He held the staff upright between his knees, both hands closed around it while his shoulders rose unevenly.

She waited until he looked at her.

“Do you need more than a moment?”

Rishi closed his eyes. “Yes.”

His fingers tightened on the pale wood. He drew one slow breath, then another. The shaking eased from his shoulders. The pain beneath his ribs and behind his eyes did not.

He opened them. “But not here.”

Rishi planted the staff and rose. Halfway upright, he stopped until the dizziness passed. Maeril stepped within reach without touching him.

When his balance returned, she studied his face and nodded.

They continued down.

The descent consumed the morning. Slopes widened by degrees. Trees thinned. At last, dull green and brown fields opened beneath them.

The rain softened with the light. A pale rent appeared in the clouds, and colorless day spread across the low country ahead.

Maeril stared at it for several breaths.

“I have enjoyed staying awake until morning for better reasons.”

Rishi found enough strength for a brief smile. “Have you?”

She looked at him through wet hair, one eye darkened by bruising. “Do not become smug. You are currently among the less enjoyable reasons.”

“Currently.”

“Survive the morning. We can revisit the wording.”

They went on.

At the foot of the descent stood the leaning marker stone Teren had described. Beyond it they found the broken culvert. They followed the road’s edge only as far as the line of trees at the bend, where Maeril turned onto a narrow path almost lost beneath grass and thorn.

The abandoned village revealed itself slowly through the rain.

A broken wall came first. Then roofless houses with open doorways. Stone and weeds choked the village well. No lamplight, voice, or barking dog disturbed the ruins.

The chapel stood above them at the far end.

It had not entirely fallen. The little tower had lost its bell, and half the roof lay collapsed across the nave in a tangle of beams and slate. The surviving half protected a narrow strip of stone floor.

Moss filled the cracks around the open doorway. Rain streamed down the stones above it.

Maeril stopped at the threshold and listened. Rishi leaned on his staff beside her.

Water dripped within. Nothing breathed. Nothing shifted.

Maeril entered first.

Wet stone, old ash, rotting wood, and bird droppings scented the dark. A cracked altar stood at the far end. Most of the benches had been broken, moved, or carried away. Fallen roof buried one corner, but the wall beside the vestry sheltered a strip of mostly dry floor.

A ring of blackened stones waited near that wall. Crushed charcoal and damp ash remained inside it. Frayed rope hung from a beam marked by old knots, and someone had stacked broken boards beneath a fallen slab of slate to protect them from rain.

“We’re not the first to hide here,” Maeril said. Her voice barely carried. She looked toward the dry floor. “There.”

They searched before they allowed themselves to stop. Maeril looked behind the altar and opened the vestry. Rishi tested a side door half-blocked by fallen stone.

“We can get out here.”

There were no fresh tracks. No warmth beneath the ash. No scraps, bedding, or recent smell of people.

Safe enough.

Maeril lowered her pack. For a moment, that was all either of them could manage. Then she bent carefully and gathered the dry wood protected beneath the slate.

Rishi sank beside the fire ring. He was too tired and too hurt to pretend usefulness.

She built the fire low and shielded it with pieces of slate. Its smoke found the broken roof.

Then Maeril took a folded sheet of canvas from her pack. Her hands shook so badly that the first knot escaped her twice.

On the third attempt, it held.

She tied one edge to the scarred beam and the other to a cracked bench. Stones weighted the lower corners. The screen hid their dry corner from the open doorway, trapped a little warmth, and kept their firelight from showing outside.

Water had reached the bedrolls through straps and canvas. Maeril spread the damp blankets as close to the fire as she dared.

Only then did she lower herself beside Rishi.

Together, they considered the hanging canvas, the wet bedding, and the small guarded flame.

“This is dreadful,” Maeril said.

Rishi nodded.

She rested her head against the stone and let her shoulders fall.

“It will do.”