Sethlzaar made to rejoin what was left of the group, but his pride served to keep him in place where he fell to his knees.
He rose to his feet. They trembled in fear. Cautiously, he waded through the mist, finding only more of it with each step. As he wandered, he considered the possibility of Narvi and Cenam being the last a conscious choice of the priests. He decided that if he was to place a wager on who would be the last out of the group it would be on Cenam.
The sound of a twig snapping pushed panic into his mind. It sent him on a panicked sprint through the mist. Slowly, the mist thinned into nothingness.
He sidestepped a tree as his vision cleared, narrowly avoiding it. A stray branch hit him in the face immediately after. He crashed to the ground, like a discarded log.
Sprawled on the floor, he opened his eyes. The sun was at its peak. The direction with which the light bore through the shades of the trees was proof enough for him.
This was not the forest he had been dropped in when he'd been brought to the seminary. It left only one more gate. He wondered if Valerik had chosen that gate on purpose.
He wrung his hair free of whatever moisture was present from the mist, and extracted the strands matted against his face and fore head, then drew his knife from its sheath. Convinced that it was intact, he returned it, replacing it with his water sack.
It did not take him long to realize why they were asked to fill the sack before the test. The forest, as far as he had gone, proved to hold a dislike for such things as even a trickle of water. Possessing a steadily increasing chill that left Sethlzaar wondering at the possibility, it attested itself strikingly different from the one they used on Figsahel.
Sethlzaar walked on.
Hours went by, and the light of the sun seemed to deem when he chose to rest. He perched atop a log to drink from his canteen. Soon his mind wandered to his companions. He had no worry for Cenam. He believed with a certainty that if anyone would finish first it would be him.
Greater men have died in lesser ways, Antuas' words echoed.
Soon after, Ordan's words followed. I will be happy if yer didn't return.
They crawled through his mind as he wondered just how many of them were expected to make it back; how many dead bodies the seminary expected to find after the test.
Alsipin, in one of his many tales told of a forest situated to the east of the fort. It was known as the forest of the lost to the dissident tribe of the Kooliga that had inhabited it long before the first men of the realm claimed it, dwindling the tribe's number and eventually forcing them to flee to unknown parts.
What Sethlzaar knew of the Kooligas was what Valerik had told him, which was basically the same. Here, the effects of the lost were said to be stronger on the kooligas. It called on the souls of those who wandered carelessly into it in Asipin's tales.
Sethlzaar did not believe in the stories, though, he agreed it made a great form of entertainment during their nights. Its only verity was naught but the existence of the forest.
Still, he felt no virulence from the forest. The only other feeling being given was an odd sense of being watched. It was born of the mist spilling into it, ominously engulfing the grasses as far as the eyes could see.
Canabi often seemed exempt from Father Ordan's answers of the cane rather than the words. It did not change the fact that he was often graced with it on occasion. Sethlzaar believed it was to curtail any obvious signs of favor. Believing the stories, he had asked Father Ordan why the fort had been built within the lands of the Kooligas.
"Ingrad Ner Shalhaar had a han' in the capture of all the lan's of the realm durin' the wars of the first kin', either by involvemen' or by leadership," Ordan told them. "But of the lan's he led in the capture of, this was the only one he requested of the then kin'. It is the only lan' he ever owned. This seminary is built inside the forest of the kooliga tribe, not near it. It was before Maeldun grew so large."
Sethlzaar replaced the lid on his canteen. He rose to his feet, solicited from a sense of being watched. He scanned his surrounding discreetly, as Father Karnamis had taught them. The priest's words were a steady guide in his head.
The fact that you seek something does not mean it should know that you seek it.
His survey bore fruitless, and he suspected the air had no hand in the chill that seemed to creep into his bones. His pace remained steady as he cut through the forest, making certain not to wander too far from the view of the mist.
A shuffling sound broke to his side. He pulled to a stop and ducked behind a tree. The sound grew intense, like someone searching devotedly for something. With the eve drawing close, he doubted any of his peers would be so tactless as to make so much noise. When noise came to silence, he stuck his head out to assess the situation.
He froze. Knowledge eluded him. Fear held him.
Yellow eyes looked back. They held his gaze transfixed. Sethlzaar stared at the beast before him.
The bear rose from the misty ground. It did not take its eyes off him. Hairy and large, it was easy to be terrified by the size.
Sethlzaar took a step back. He watched it rise to all fours. Clearly, it out-weighed him. To face it was to court death.
He flexed his grip on the hilt of his knife. He took two more steps back, his fear propelling him more than his instinct.
"You will meet an animal of the wild one day," Father Karnamis' words came to him late. "Do not fret, they do not hate us as much as we hate each other. Be calm. If you run, they will chase, because only prey run. Now tell me, are you prey?"
The bear bounded towards him. The ground shook beneath Sethlzaar's feet as it came.
He pulled his blade free, and flung himself to the side. He wasn't fast enough. The bear slammed into him and sent him flying off the ground, through the air. He landed a few feet away.
Pain throbbed in his hand. He glanced around for his fallen knife. The bear seemed to ignore him for a moment, sniffing at the foliage around it. A moment passed before he caught a glimmer of metal within the mist. He moved for it, spurred by a need.
The bear charged with his movement and he dived. A massive paw came swinging at him. His fear slowly dominating his thoughts, he threw himself to the side and hit the ground rolling.
Run! Run! Run! his mind screamed frantically.
The bear came charging again. He moved again, the action taken at the last moment, propelled by the same fear. Again he proved slow. The impact of thick muscle bashed his leg and knocked him askew.
He soared through the air, oddly placed. He hit the ground with the power of a boulder. The mist threatened to swallow him whole. He refused it like a drunk with a final mug, groggily and without zeal.
He rolled a few paces before coming to a stop. There, he forced himself to his knees. The pain in his arm raged now. It was no longer something he could ignore. His fear and need to survive had numbed his mind to it. Now, it had risen to match his body's natural anesthesia.
He looked at it and squirmed at the sight of the stick embedded in his upper arm. Blood slowly sipped from the wound. Whatever was damaged inside, the stick seemed to stopper the flow.
Is this how I die?
The bear watched him, uninterested but willing. The sight and the thought kindled in him a new feeling. Fear slowly dissipated. In its place, rage swelled.
Sethlzaar's body screamed in protest as he forced himself to his feet. In one tormenting motion, he pulled the stick from his arm, coercing more blood from the injury. Pain greeted him like a scorned lover.
The glimmer on the misty ground was closer now and he reached for it with a new zeal in his heart.
I am Sethlzaar Vi Sorlan, seminarian of the Holy Martyrs of Vazerick Seminary... He raised the knife before him as his aggrieved arm remained motionless at his side. And I will not fail.
The bear charged. The sound of its steps bellowed its size. Sethlzaar's nose wrinkled with the smell of death. He waited.
Lowering his body, he reached up with his blade before it rammed into him. He felt the slight resistance of flesh in his stab. Cold blood splash against his hand and he found himself lost in the air.
At first it seemed he would travel forever, a companion to the mist seduced wind of the forest. Then his back hit something hard and rough. It bowed from the impact, erupted in a pain, the kind of which he only felt when Omage struck him in unarmed combat. However, compared to what wrought his mind now, it was naught more than a sliver.
Sethlzaar moved to get up. His head swirled. Pain accompanied it. Black spots tormented his vision. Everything came to naught. He fell back down. They kept him on the ground as the bear stalked him.
His body cursed. His arm tormented him as he laid there. His eyelids drooped, surprisingly pulled by the pain. It was contrary to the knowledge he was acquainted with of pain.
In the end, just as Ayla faded from him, he was graced with the final sight of a snout with a viscous liquid, a translucent red hanging from it like syrup. Stench accosted his nose. It didn't take him long to place it. It was like fish left out to decay. Like bodies abandoned in the conisoir's ditch. It was the smell of something dying. Something dead.
Sethlzaar opened his eyes.
Darkness surrounded him, and his body protested as he rose to sit. He checked his arm, scared that he could feel no pain. It wasn't unheard of for people to lose limbs due to injuries. The thought led him to panic.
The injury was covered in a mix of wet leaves mashed together. It smelled of something he could not identify.
He sighed. At least he still had it.
In the seminary he spent most of his nights sneaking out of the tower. Its darkness had long proved to be more of an ally to him than an enemy. As the days had gone by in the seminary, he realized his vision adjusted to it given time.
On an occasion of great misfortune, he'd been caught by Father Ordan. The whipping that followed had been very unlike what he had grown accustomed to during practice. It led him to believe the priest had taken it as an opportunity to vent out his dislike for him in the privacy of the night.
But this had not dissuaded him. He continued to walk the night as often as he could with more caution than he did before the encounter.
Sethlzaar rose to his feet. Ignoring the pain in his hand, he leaned against a tree. A distance away was the glow of a night fire. Someone was doing something unadvisable. He wondered if one of his peers had made their way to the area and decided to rest but thought better of it. We have till dawn; no one would rest at this time.
Thinking caution was a best course of action considering his state, he moved away from the light.
The mist flowed into the woods, accompanied by the darkness of the night. It gravened the menace of its presence and, for the first time, Sethlzaar found himself believing Alsipin's stories.
Tree, he thought as he walked the forest looking for one tall enough. He checked his nose reflexively. It was not broken. The action reminded of the smell of death.
He ignored it.
He picked a tree not so far that he would lose sight of the mist, and climbed it. At the top he sought in the direction of the fort. To his dismay, the mist extended higher than his point. It presented him a view of nothing but trees and mist.
The disappointment was oppressive and overbearing. He climbed down.
Just when he was beginning to ponder on the insanity of his situation, the hairs on his neck stood on end. He feared his solitude was no longer a luxury of his.
He tasted fear on his tongue. His injury throbbed. His skin broke out in sweats. And when sound cracked the mist, it was the voice of a person.
It was calm. It was gentle. It belied the sound of a man who had seen and done things.
And it addressed him.
"Are you lost?"