The Legends of Kartas | Ongoing

27. FIRST BLOOD

Amid the mist-covered islands stood three men. Among them were Elias and his father, Erian Novire. As the king had commanded, Captain Novire had led a group of men to Ruscao. On horseback, they rode south on the Trader's Trail over prairies and hills, reaching the town of Ruscao with intentions to quell the slaves.

What they found, however, was peace and harmony. The slaves tended the crops in the fields, and the nobles and common folk prospered in their stone homes and huts. The only complaint of any ruckus was from a few nobles, who claimed that they witnessed smoke from the Daeli Isles further south. Elias had highly doubted their assertions, but the nobles had insisted they were right.

"The clouds from the south are gray," one aged noble had said. "What else to assume except firewood. There are rascals on the Daeli Isles, I tell you. Old Bernard saw it with his own eyes on his trip to the Rura's mouth."

If Elias had any say in what to do, he would've left Ruscao without checking the Daeli Isles, but his father was in charge. And unlike him, his father fell weak to his sense of duty, so they traveled to the Rura's mouth, following the riverside south to the Rekaiah Sea, where Elias was shocked to learn that the nobles were not lying.

A thin veil of gray mist covered the beach, carding between the trees and the rotten deck sodden with mold. One wooden boat hung onto the deck. It was big enough to hold about three men, so one guard stayed behind to watch the horses. Elias went with his father and another guard to the boat.

The sand swallowed Elias's feet as he walked to the deck, the mist fogging his glasses. He went grumbling the entire way, muttering under his breath how this was a waste of time, but his father did not comment—even as they rowed to the Daeli Isles with two paddles barely long enough to reach the waters.

During the entire trip, Elias was bent over the boat, smelling the salty sea until they reached the bank of the closest island. Then, they searched for the Lost City, the deserted town once inhabited by Daelics. When they did, it was—as expected—abandoned.

The huts were ruined and burned, windows were cracked and dirty with grime, and the earth was scorched, layered with soot and gravel. Elias kicked a sizable chunk of charred bark that skipped across the land before digging itself into a heap of ash that was barely visible behind the mist.

"There is no one here, Captain Novire," Elias said. "Let's head back to Ruscao before we get lost."

His father dismissed his statement, brushing off the soot from a fragment of a sword's blade with his foot before picking it up, weighing it in his hand. "Patience is key, son, as is timing." Chucking the metal, he sighed. "So you are correct. Let us leave."

After another session of rowing and inhaling mouthfuls of salt and sea, the men arrived back at the deck. On Elias's way across, the wood snapped, and his foot slipped between the boards. Water drenched his boot, and he tripped as he tried to escape, chipping the edge of his glasses.

"Shit!" he cursed, struggling to free himself when a hand appeared in front of his face. His father waited before him, but Elias did not take his hand. He pulled his leg free himself, much to his father's chagrin, and brushed himself off as if nothing had happened.

The rest of the journey was uneventful. They dragged themselves to the horses, bringing nothing to prove their efforts fruitful, so pitiful silence surrounded them. As they made their way through the mist, Elias felt that it somehow seemed thicker. He couldn't see as much as he could before, and their horses were nowhere to be found.

He was about to groan his frustration, argue this was the result of wasting time, when he spotted four silhouettes out in the distance. One towered over the rest with crossed arms and legs, leaning back, while the other two were sitting.