TWENTY-ONE - Atherton

Draven leads an expedition to warn Xantom of the outside threat.

Draven was incredibly focused. The only thing he was willing to talk about was the plans for the mission. He wanted everything planned perfectly, with no room for error. After Atherton learned about the crack in the Dome, they had climbed all the way back up to the cavern Atherton awoke in the day prior. Here, they began to iron out all of the details.

“So we have our volunteers,” he said. “Wulfric, Hadrian, and his wife Ecclesia will come with Atherton and I to the break in the wall. Atherton will show us the way inside. After that we sneak into the castle, find King Xanthus, and tell him about the crack in the Dome.”

“And if we come across any guards?” Ecclesia asked.

“We silence them. There should be enough of us that we won’t have to kill them. Knock them unconscious, tie them up, whatever we have to do. The mission is to get to King Xanthus. While we’re doing that, Quintessa, Dragomir, and Meridian will be waiting just outside the Outskirts, in the Field of Spears.”

“The Field of Spears?” Atherton asked.

“That’s where we found you,” Draven said. “Do you remember how there were sharp metal objects sticking out of the ground?”

“Yeah.”

“Field of Spears.” I can’t believe I didn’t figure that out.

“We’ll wait there until you get back,” Quintessa said. “If anything goes wrong, meet us there. If anyone spots us, we’ll head deeper into the Barelands until we’re confident that they aren’t following us.”

“We can really do this! After all these years since my Exile, we can finally make things right!” Draven crossed to Atherton and placed his hands on his shoulders. He smiled brightly. “Thank you.” Atherton felt pride building inside his chest, but before he could speak, Draven had returned to the crowd, ironing out the details and expressing his excitement.

“I’ve never seen him this way before,” Meridian said.

“He’s never had anything like this to strive for.”

“I hope you know what you’re talking about. For your sake even more than his.”

“Of course I do. Why would I make that up?”

Meridian just shrugged. “People make things up. Sometimes they do it to fit in, sometimes they just like the way it makes them feel. And I don’t know you at all.”

“I wouldn’t risk my life to try to fit in.”

She smiled. “I like that.”

That had been a few hours ago. Now, they walked. Atherton didn’t know how far it would be to get back to Xantom. He had been unconscious for this part of the journey the last time. His head still throbbed in pain when he thought about it.

“What makes you think King Xanthus is really going to listen to you?” Meridian asked. She hadn’t left his side throughout the journey so far. Up until this point, she had asked him question after question. Why is she so interested in me? Whittaker may have been right about her and this test.

“Because he respects me. When he told me I was to be exiled I kind of… told him that he was a bad leader.”

“That was stupid.”

“I know. But I was so mad, I couldn’t help it. He was going to kill me anyway. I just thought, you know, someone should tell him. But it seemed like he respected me for saying it. That sounds crazy, but it’s what happened.”

“So you think you formed some kind of special bond and now he’s going to just listen to whatever you have to say?”

“I don’t know what he’s going to do. I just know he respected me for being honest with him.”

“I doubt he’s going to be very happy to see you returning from Exile.”

“It doesn’t matter. I have to tell him what’s going on. If there’s something he can do that we don’t know about, it will be worth it. Even if he kills me.”

“He wouldn’t just kill you,” she said. “He’d kill every one of us he could find. So I hope you know what you’re talking about. It’s fine to throw away your own life, but when you put all my friends in trouble…”

From just ahead of them, Draven spoke up. “Meridian, leave the boy alone. What Xanthus does with us has nothing to do with him.”

“Sorry, Dad.”

He seemed to ignore her, but slowed his pace to allow the two of them to catch up with him. “I have to say,” he said to Atherton, “I can’t tell if you’re being brave or foolish. You don’t owe the King this information. He exiled you for trying to take care of your siblings. If I were you, I’d want him to die.”

“He has a right to know. He may not be the best ruler in the world but he gave me a choice between exile and death. He let me choose. So I owe him the chance to make a choice of his own. Does he want to do something about the crack, or not? After I do this, we’re even.”

“That’s very fair of you,” Meridian said. Then added, “It’s impressive.”

“Thanks,” Atherton said, unsure what else there was to say.

He felt someone nudge him from behind. He turned around to see Hadrian with a massive grin on his face.

“What?” he asked.

“She likes you,” he mouthed silently.

Atherton rolled his eyes and turned forward. Meridian turned back to him. “What did you say to him?”

“I didn’t say anything,” Hadrian said with a smirk. “You’d have heard me if I did.”

“Hadrian,” she said sternly. “Tell me what you said.”

Hadrian just laughed, and she jumped on him, tackling him to the ground.

“Whoa, Mer!” Draven said through a chortle. “Go a little easy on him! He’s not as strong as you are.”

“What did you say about me?! Tell me now, you old fool!”

“I’m old am I?”

Hadrian just laughed and laughed while she continued her interrogation tactics, and Atherton couldn’t help but to crack a smile. I like these people. The thought surprised him more than it should have. Of course I like them. They’re good people.

No. They’re my people.

Finally, Meridian had given up trying to get an answer out of Hadrian and stomped ahead to lead the way alongside her father. The rest of the group followed silently. Atherton bundled up in the furs he had been given. He was thankful to have protection of any sort. It had only been a day ago when he woke up in a tent with nothing but a thin piece of fabric to try to shield himself from the cold. Was that only yesterday? So much has changed since then, it almost feels like a year ago.

“We’ll stop at the freshwater lake and rest for a few minutes before we continue to the Field of Spears,” Draven announced. Atherton had never seen the lake before, only heard about it from his father and the other hunters over the years. Mostly his father had complained about how heavy the water was to carry back to the city, and how there still wasn’t enough of it.

Now the lake was in front of him, in all its glory. There’s so much water here… more than enough. If we didn’t have to worry about Bareland Beast attacks we could have all made the journey out here.

Atherton dipped his hands beneath the surface of the water and lifted them to take a drink. The cool water ran down his throat, he could feel it reach his stomach. The cold rushed through his entire body. It felt amazing. He greedily took another drink, and another, as though he had never drank before in his life. I don’t care how this looks. This is delicious.

The others drank more slowly. Unlike for Atherton, drinking water fresh from the lake was not uncommon. Wulfric merely took a single sip of water before seating himself directly beside Dragomir, who seemed, at least for the moment, disinterested in the water. Atherton watched the two of them after finishing his own binge, thinking their behavior a little strange.

Wulfric walked with a hunch, his neck bent forward, head outstretched in front of him as though someone were trying to pull it off. His arms swung wildly with every step he took, and didn’t stop moving until he took his seat. His beard was unkempt and hid the majority of his features, but couldn’t hide his missing teeth. He was a big man, but he appeared small beside Dragomir, who was truly enormous. Each of his chest muscles were roughly the size of Atherton’s head.

Wulfric tilted his head to the side and rested it upon Dragomir’s bulky arm.

“They’re in love,” Meridian said, having seemingly materialized beside Atherton. His heart skipped a beat and he sighed.

“You really have to stop doing that,” Atherton said.

“Doing what?”

“You really don’t know?”

She smiled coyly. “Why don’t you make me stop?”

Atherton sighed. When she realized he wasn’t going to flirt back, she turned away to continue gazing at the others.

“Who’s in love?” he decided to ask.

“Wulfric and Dragomir. Since they first met, they haven’t been able to keep their hands off each other.”

Atherton took a second look at them. Now that she mentioned it, he didn’t know how he hadn’t noticed to begin with. Dragomir stroked Wulfric’s hair gently while Wulfric nuzzled beside him. Dragomir pulled out a Beast Bladder and poured water into Wulfric’s mouth.

“That has to be a difficult relationship,” Atherton said.

“Why?”

“How do they talk to each other? I can’t imagine being with someone who I couldn’t talk to.”

Meridian smiled again. “They don’t have a lot of time for talking.”

It took a moment for that to land, but then Atherton let out a sound of understanding. He felt his face go hot and was glad for the darkness that surely hid the redness. “That can’t be all they do, though…”

“Not all communicating is done with words.”

He turned to look at her, and she met his eyes with hers. There was a sadness there that Atherton hadn’t noticed before. And beneath that, a smile. It’s all an act. Her whole ‘tough girl’ thing is an act… she’s terrified. He had the sudden urge to reach out and console her, to hug her, to do something meaningful, but he couldn’t bring his body to move. He could feel that she wanted him to touch her, but his body wouldn’t listen.

The moment was broken when a scream echoed out from across the lake. The entire group turned as one to try to see what had caused the sound. There was the dim light from torches from across the lake, but they couldn’t make anything out.

“What was that?” Atherton asked.

“Someone’s in trouble,” Hadrian said.

“Should we help them?” Atherton asked.

“No,” Ecclesia said simply. “It’s probably just hunters from Xantom.”

“Then we should help them!” Atherton argued. “The hunters are good people. If they’re in trouble�"”

“We leave them,” Draven said sternly. Something in the tone of his voice assured Atherton that there was no point in arguing any further. “We have other things to accomplish. We break for five more minutes, then we make way for the Field of Spears.”

“The whole point of this mission is to warn Xantom about the danger they’re facing. What good does that do if we let them all die when we have the power to help?”

“Stick to the mission. If we go over there, we’ll be in just as much trouble as they are.” Nobody else said anything. Am I the only one who feels this way? Maybe we’re not so similar after all. Atherton tried his best to push it out of his mind as the group continued walking. Look out for each other was the one rule. Not, “look out for everyone.” Apparently that was taken very seriously.

Hadrian hung back from the front of the group until Atherton caught up with him. “I understand how you feel,” he said. “But it doesn’t make sense to reveal ourselves, not yet at least. They hate us. You should know that. You went through an exiling ceremony yourself.”

“I know. But I can’t help it. I want to try to save them. My father was a hunter. Almost everyone I’ve ever known was a hunter. They could be dying right now and if I don’t try to help them, doesn’t that make it my fault?”

“Bad things happen all the time. You can’t stop all of them.”

“Can’t I try?”

“Trying to stop bad things from happening is part of what landed you out here. You can try, but there will be consequences.”

I’m out of my element out here. I don’t understand this world, and everyone knows it.

“It was hard for me at first, too,” Hadrian said.

“Does this happen often? You hear that the hunters are in trouble and you just let them die?”

Draven turned around and walked directly towards Atherton and Hadrian. The rest of the line stopped moving as Draven made his way through them. He stopped in front of Hadrian and looked at him, hard. “You. Stop leading him on. He wants the truth, we’ll give him the truth.” He turned to Atherton and looked him directly in the eyes for a long moment. “The hunters are not our friends. We’ve had run-ins with them in the past. The last time we sent a few of our men to try to help them, they never returned. Their bodies were never found. We do not help the hunters. Ever. Is that clear?”