Page 132 of Earthbound

‘When this is all over, what do you want to do?’ Lettle asked.

It was a question for less fraught times. Wistfulness did not belong in a war camp, but to his surprise, Mortah answered with a nostalgic warmth he hadn’t heard from her before.

‘I want to rejoin the elven army. I know I’m old–don’t look at me like that, Alder.’ He hadn’t realised his face had changed at all. ‘But I think I could help change things, use the army to build a better world–not to fight, but to protect.’

Lettle’s face betrayed her feelings: she did not support armed forces, offensively or defensively.

‘Will you stay in Mosima, and continue on as seer?’ Alder asked her.

Lettle dropped her gaze to her prophecy tokens. It was clear she was battling some internal war. ‘I’m not sure,’ were the words she settled on.

Then she turned her violet gaze on him before he could ask more. ‘What about you?’

Alder allowed himself a small smile as he thought of Golan and the whispered plans they’d once made beneath the sheets, in the moments after ecstasy when anything felt possible. ‘Golan and I talked about starting our own farm, somewhere quiet, near Caperly.’

Lettle snorted. ‘Golan, a farmer?’

‘His mother kept a vegetable patch in the garden, it was some of his happiest memories of her.’

Lettle’s smile dropped. ‘Oh, I didn’t know that.’

‘We talked about corn for half the night. He knew more than me about growing it,’ he laughed. But the memory turned bitter as he was brought back to the present.

Golan would not love the man he was now. How could he after everything he had done?

The soulless obeah stood in the tree line behind them. He’d commanded they stay and they had complied with no fuss. He did not enjoy telling them what to do; in truth, the creatures terrified him. Their eyes reminded him of fish, freshly gutted. But it wasn’t just their coldness that unsettled him. It was the power he had over them.

Alder wasn’t a natural leader. The role of Wayfarer of the Nomads had been bestowed on him unwittingly. Though his job was to guide, it had taken him many years to learn to instigate his opinions.

To have complete control over another being sickened him to his core. When Lettle had suggested they use the obeah to fight their way through the army, sheer panic had gripped him. The creatures might have no souls, but they were still creatures. He could not and would not be culpable for any more blood spilled.

Afa had killed enough. He had killed enough.

‘Looks like some of the soldiers are moving. Everyone ready?’ Mortah said.

Lettle looked to Ajax then up at Alder. ‘Now,’ she said.

‘Obeah, to me,’ Alder said. The beasts launched forward. ‘Surround Ajax.’

The king’s obeah was taken entirely unaware as the soulless obeah surrounded him.

It had been Lettle’s idea. She had thought it up that morning when Ajax had left the camp to forage.

‘He won’t be able to stay out of harm’s way,’ she said.

Alder had been apprehensive; he did not like the idea of taking away Ajax’s will either.

‘Please, Alder,’ Lettle was distraught. ‘Ajax and Rayan will protect me at the cost of their own lives.’

‘But—’

‘You won’t be using the obeah to harm anyone, only to protect.’

‘Lettle, I—’

‘I can’t be the reason he dies, Alder,’ she cried, and it broke his heart. He knew what it felt like to cause death, even though it wasn’t his fault. So he had agreed.

But seeing Ajax’s fear as the obeah circled him made him regret his choice. His eyes were wide, the whites of them showing as they rolled back.