Chapter 13

“The morning brings the truth to light,” Zuri said when he came close to the wolves. He had his staff glowing as bright as he could pump it while holding it loosely in his hands. Although the sweat was pooling on his forehead, he refused to wipe it.

The wolf on his right with the black streak down its back barked once before it turned away and began walking down the trail. He looked back once, and the second wolf stood and followed. The second wolf barked at them as well as he loped for a moment to catch up with his companion.

“I guess we follow them,” Zuri said to Leniz who had come up behind him.

“Maybe they do understand the old language,” Leniz said. “I sure hope I live to tell this tale because the ale will never cease wherever I sit to tell this story.”

“Yeah, the crazy tales of old men never fail to draw a crowd,” Zuri said with a big smile. “Unless I’m sitting at your elbow willing to vouch for the truth of your story, you’re getting a few pats of sympathy on your shoulder and a request for coin.”

“Life is wasted on the youth,” Leniz said as he tucked away his machete. “Little bastards think they know everything when they know a lot about nothing.”

“Your truths wound me, sir,” Zuri said. “They wound me to the core.”

“Yeah, you’ll live,” Leniz said. “Where are these wolves leading us?”

“I’m guessing they are leading us to what we have been seeking without knowing what it is,” Zuri said. “I worried we were following delusions of a crazy person, which would definitely not get us to where we want to go, at least not easily.”

“We’re fools,” Leniz said.

“No,” Zuri said, shaking his index finger at the wolves. “We’re seekers who understand there are no answers to what we seek behind us. We are ignorant, not blind or foolish. We’re doing our damnedest to get educated as quickly as we can. We may only find a ruin, but if we don’t try, we will never know.”

They walked. Clouds gathered in the east behind them, enticing winds to blow across the plain. Leniz explained that if a storm broke across the plain, they would need to dash for the closest outcropping. Flash floods were a real and immediate threat. If the short rainy season was arriving, the storms promised to be more dangerous.

The cloud front began to roll over them, heading further west. The light began to shift from white to yellow. Leniz kept glancing upward as he quickened their pace. “If the sky turns green, we run for safety, no questions. Save your breath.”

A mountain had been gaining height as they began in the morning. Now, the mountain was looming close, but there was a valley between their position on the far side and the fine white line of the trail scaling the flank. The sky had turned even greyer.

“The wolves have paused,” Zuri said.

“The sky is nearly green, Gura,” Leniz said. “We cannot cross that valley in time. We can choose the rocks on our left or on our right. The wolves are not choosing for us.”

Thunder rumbled across the plain. Without another word, Zuri ran to the rock pile on his left and started climbing. Leniz was behind him. The sound of ten thousand horses galloping at them filled the air, as Zuri’s leg slipped, causing him to fall halfway down a boulder. The pounding came closer until the first drops began pelting him.

“Climb as high as you can,” Leniz shouted above the din. “I don’t see a watermark.”

The rain made the rocks slippery. Small stones kept shooting out from under Zuri’s feet as he reached up for purchase. The hard drops turned into sheets of thumping pain. Even with his travel cloak pulled close and his hood tightly drawn, the rain felt like dull blows of hammers upon his back and arms. With his fingers at a breaking point, he used every crevice he could find to climb. Finally, Zuri found a small recess where the protruding rock above offered a slight roof. He slid into the slot with his backpack and staff to the stone face. “Leniz?” he shouted.

“Here,” came the muffled reply.

The rain drummed for hours, leaving Zuri numb and tired, but unable to sleep. The water was seeping through his clothes, and everywhere something touched his skin became itchy or painful with rash. He tried meditating but the lashing of the winds from different directions, throwing sheets of water, distracted him. He grimaced, hunkering down to wait out the storm.

After a long dark slide into oblivion, the rain began to slacken. Zuri dared to lift his head and peer out from under his hood. The rain was still thick, but the east was gaining light. He turned his head slightly to gaze northward when he heard a new sound, a rushing of waters. At first, Zuri thought the water sounded like sloshing he would hear in the harbor at high tides, but the sloshing turned more ominous. A dark roar began to fill the air as the rain continued to slacken.

Zuri caught sight of a roiling wave of dirt and debris coming from the east, a long broad line that consumed whatever was in front of it. As the wave drew closer, he heard boulders tumbling, smashing against each other. Noise filled the sky.

Zuri sat frozen as the wave smashed into the outcropping, splashing water over him and even higher. Rocks that had felt immobile in the mad scramble up began to shift and the entire pile of rock shuddered. The front of the wave pushed through. He shuddered as the water continued to rise as it rushed past.

Trying to climb higher, Zuri could not find any handholds. The roaring was still loud as he felt the ground shifting somewhere underneath. Then the entire formation shook as a large boulder slammed into the eastern face. Zuri was pelted with rocks and pebbles falling from above. Water lapped at his boots.

Zuri heard a great crash westward, on the other side of the outcropping, as if an entire cache of boulders had given way. The sound of the bashing rocks echoed across the valley several times, growing weaker with each pass. He looked down and saw the water was receding even as the newborn river continued rushing past his perch.

“I think I peed my pants,” Leniz shouted from somewhere nearby.

“How can you tell the difference, I’m soaked through and through,” Zuri said.

“You still got your pack and your stick?”

“Yeah, by sheer luck,” Zuri said. “What do we do now?”

“We let the rocks dry, strip off our clothes and let them dry, collect whatever we can burn from above the waterline and wait,” Leniz said. “I’ve heard of these flash floods coming off the northern mountains, but this is a first for me. I’m ready to go find the rocking chair and spend my time bullshitting my grandkids.”

“Are you still certain that Fundazioa is the promised land?” Zuri said. “I think the land just tried to kill us.”