As the day passed, the trees became scarcer and the land wilder. We were climbing steadily, and as evening was darkening to night, we could see the whole lowlands dropping away toward the sea on our right. On our left, dark mountains loomed out of deep forest.
My sense of the Festering told me that we were nearing our goal.
In a wooded dell near a stream, I called a halt. We would rest now and be at our best for tomorrow. No doubt, when we faced Yakuna, we would battle with a Festering-tainted creature of great power. But we would be ready. I had an army at my back and Personas from which to draw strength and skills.
My heart beat in my chest, and my hands ached to draw my axe. I stilled them both and sat in front of a crackling fire, staring into its embers as I recalled the first day I had encountered the Festering. The vision came to me unbidden, and I would have allowed it to continue before my mind’s eye were it not for Cara who came to sit in my lap.
“Are you ready?” she asked.
“For what?”
She stared into my eyes. “To face the man who was once called Yakuna.”
“With you by my side? And this army at my back?” I gestured at the many tents that had sprung up around us. “I am ready.”
“Good. Now, come to the tent. I have an aching desire for your seed.”
Chapter Seventeen
The next morning, we mounted up again and continued on our way. The day was gray and overcast, with a suggestion of rain in the air. Mist blew ominously across the treetops. We were approaching the Festering.
It didn’t take long before the men under Kai’s command felt the fear. They seemed to be more attuned to it than the mercenaries or Toshiro’s folk for some reason, and they muttered and glanced around as if they feared an attack.
When one man blanched and fell from his horse in a faint, we stopped so that Cara could distribute her potion. Everyone took some, even Kai, Toshiro, and Cara herself. I was the only person who didn’t need it.
Once the glow of the fear antidote was shining through all of the company, Cara rode forward to me and brought her horse, Yokaze, up next to my tiger mount, Yasei. We rode together in silence for a while.
“It’s close, isn’t it?” she said.
“Very.” I pointed uphill from where we were. “To my sight, there are visible waves of brown, rotten energy pulsing from up there. I think we should see the Festering’s origin when we climb to the top of this ridge and look down.”
We were riding along the spine of a ridge of hills, but now I urged Yasei up the slope, ahead of the rest of the company. Sure enough, when I gained the summit and looked down into the next valley, I saw it.
The Festering.
Gray clouds of noxious vapor floated in the valley below. Thick brown mold coated every blade of grass, and the trees were warped and distorted into demonic, nightmarish shapes. Cara and Kai both rode up and sat on their horses beside me, looking down into the foul and infested valley.
Kai shuddered. “Even with your potion, Cara, I still feel something of the horror of it. I’ve not been here for a long time, but I knew this valley years ago. It was beautiful. Now it has become a place of terror.”
“Don’t worry,” I said. “It will take a bit of doing, but we’ll drive the threat out, and when we do, it will return to the way it was. Come, let’s not delay. The morning has almost passed. I want to make the most of the daylight.”
But it was not going to be so easy.
When everyone had reached us, we led our powerful force down into the valley. Cara, Kai, Toshiro, and myself were in the lead. Green grass ran down to the valley floor, and the day was bright despite the overcast, but at an abrupt line, the Festering began. We stopped at the line and dismounted, then all four of us stepped over the line into the Festering, leading our mounts.
To my surprise, I heard a dull thud and a growl behind me. At the same time, there was a frightened whinny from Cara’s horse, and the line she was leading him by went taut. I turned and saw to my surprise that Yasei and Yokaze were both pressed up against the line of the Festering as if there were an invisible barrier there blocking their way.
Yasei growled, clenched his muscles and leaped, but he hit the barrier with an audible thud and fell backward. None of our mounts could pass.
General Koshu hurried up and tried experimentally to cross the line to reach us on the other side, but he could not.
“What is this?” he called, sounding angry and afraid. His voice sounded muffled, as if he was shouting through a stone wall. He raised a fist and slapped the air in front of him, but his hand flattened out as if it were pushed against a glass pane.
I approached what looked like the invisible barrier and pressed my own hand against it. Indeed, it was solid, and I could not pass through to the other side where Koshu, our mounts, and the rest of the troops were standing. Kai, Cara, and Toshiro also attempted to pass through the barrier, but they were unable to cross back over either.
“We cannot let you go in alone!” General Koshu protested from the other side. He drew his sword and slashed at the barrier, but his blade met an impenetrable force with a clang. From the way he gritted his teeth, it seemed the feedback had shot up through his hands and shaken his whole body. He
