Volume One: The Road Out
Chapter Five
Verse seven: Dealing with Demons
Harley stared at his ex-girlfriend and her companions, unable to conceal his surprise.
His eyes moved, looking at Amy and then Lady Purge. Bridger watched, reading rising
anger in Harley's features as he stared at the two women. Then, Bridger watched Harley
close his eyes, and take three breathes. The anger drained from the young man's
features, and he spoke.
"You're keeping interesting company these days Amy. Who are your friends? I mean besides
Lady Purge, the witch who trained me and then led me straight into a trap." Bridger
noted that Harley managed to sound entirely without malice, his voice modulated to sound
perfectly reasonable as he spoke. Bridger found the whole thing a little creepy.
Amy planted her hands on her hips, "This is Grub and Mung Bean, they're wizards and part
of the Tenebrati. And you really shouldn't talk, you're hanging out with a government
agent who treated me really crappy. So we're both with people the other doesn't like,
but life is bigger than we thought. Isn't it? You're the Storyteller, you and the Freak,
and I'm a Wizard now- and somehow we have to save the world. And here I am, saving your
big butt by shear dint of my natural awesome even though I'm still mad at you and am so
not sure that you deserve it. So be grateful. Wait, where is the Freak?"
"Trapped in a diner with the Witchdoctor surrounded by Wendigo."
"We didn't do that. Did we do that? We didn't. Did we?" Amy said turning to Grub as he
and Lady Purge held their arms wide and pushed a mystical shield outward, forcing the
wendigo backwards.
"No, that's what the wendigo were doing when we sicced them on the Men of Black and
White, we just stopped the Men of Black and White from attacking the diner as well, at
least I hope we did."
"Does nobody besides me find this all a little stomache churningly weird?" Bridger asked
to nobody in paricular.
The mystic shield split and coiled backwards, forcing the wendigo down the hill and
clearing a path up the hill, towards the Guardian Spirit.
"I see you annoyed the Guardian Spirit," Grub said, "That wasn't the sharpest move you
could have done. I'm hoping you didn't have a choice on that."
"The Wendigo were a distraction, and we didn't know we'd missed a gate until the bear
came out of the mountain." Harley answered.
"To see what he could see?" Grub said with a smile.
Mung Bean gave a low matter of fact woof and then went hurtling at the Mountain
Guardian. The Great stone bear looked at the dog with visible amusement on its stony
face. The Great big dog looked like a pekinese as it charged the earthen monster.
"Your dog's in trouble." Bridger noted.
"He's more a wizard than you are right now kid, he'll handle himself." Grub said.
"What's that mean? And what's a Tenebrati for that matter? This mythology just keeps
multiplying."
"It means I'll tell you later. Right now you need to get to the top of that damned
mountain and get The Walker here initiated or this collapse is going to be just the
beginning. Mung Bean can't distract the big scary rock bear forever you know."
Harley nodded and started back up the mountain, veering to the right to avoid the
guardian spirit and the great big dog buzzing around the spirit like a tiny gnat.
"Nobody is asking me what I think about all this." Bridger muttered before starting
after Harley.
"Now what?" Amy asked as Harley and Bridger receded into the distance.
"Now we hold the line," Lady Purge noted bitterly, "And try not to die. I really would
rather not die fighting beside this old goat."
"How would you rather die? This is their story not ours." Grub asked.
lady Purge shook her head and said, "It's like Sir Terry Pratchett said, 'If you don’t
turn your life into a story, you just become a part of someone else’s story', and I am
bloody tired of being in other people's stories."
"Our story only survives if their story survives, so this kind of takes precedence if I
understand what Grub's been telling me. Right?" Amy said.
Lady Purge nodded grimly, "Just Because you're right doesn't mean I have to like it."
* * *
The Pale Shepherd reached the crowds of Wendigo. As the Pale Shpherd's cloaked form
approached, The Wendigo noted the presence of the Pale Shepherd and the midwives and
began to retreat.
The Midwives began howling at the Pale Shepherd, who nodded a hooded head, "Go ahead,
they are nothing but a symptom of the changes. They are expendable. Eat your fill."
The Midwives charged into the rush of now fleeing Wendigo like Japanese Giant Hornets
into a bee hive, killing and devouring with impunity and without remorse or respite. The
ground began to stain red as blood began to spatter across the dusty earth.
The Pale Shepherd did not change pace, walking steadily up the hill, the ground always
clear as the Shepherd's rob reached it. Wendigo fled or were devoured ahead of the
advancing hooded figure. A pale reaper advancing up the mountain.
Occasionally the Pale Shepherd would glance up and to the left, as though watching
something none else could see. Occasionally, the Pale Shepherd would address the empty
air ahead to the left.
"You really should move faster, I'm going to be right beside you at this rate, and that
does you no good."
* * *
"Something has panicked the Wendigo." Amy noted, watching in concern as the mystic
shield cracked under the press of hundreds of frantic pale claws bodies.
"They're going to break the shield at this rate." Lady Purge noted, "We should
concentrate our focus on a smaller area, protect ourselves when the wall falls."
"Then the Wendigo will get through and be able to chase Harley." Amy objected.
"They're going to get through either way," Lady Purge answered, "This way they don't get
us when they get through, they'll flow around us like a river.
"How strange to contemplate a river." Grub said, almost to himself, "There is no such
thing as a river when one thinks about it clearly."
"What?" Amy asked, her gaze shifting from the cracking crimson shield to her deshevelled
mentor. She tried to meet Grub's eyes, but he was staring into the distance.
"A river is a multitude of water droplets carried first by the breezes and the air
itself. And then dropped where they collected into what we call a river poor downstream.
And they are brought by the air in such a number but the stream never wavers never
dries. a river is mind-bending when you think about the volume of droplets that travel
each moment."
"Is this really the time to get poetic?"
"He's lost in the process of reinforcing the shield, ignore him." Lady Purge said.
"He's the guy keeping us alive, I think paying attention to him is kind of important."
The shield cracked again.
"The story is overtaking us," Lady Purge noted, "The narrative is inevitable, we can't
stop it, help me shape the shield, Grub us in no position to adapt right now, he's put
too much of his energy into powering the shield. It's up to us to survive the story."
"I'm not really good at shields," Amy began to to object, when the cracking of the
shield became audible. Amy flinched and spread her arms out reaching out with her mystic
energies until she found grub's shield and began trying to shape the shield inwards
around them, back into a bubble that could protect them.
"Faster!" Lady Purge hissed with a voice like a tin whistle, "It's failing!"
The shield shattered, and the wendigo tried to surge forward. Amy focused, forcing
herself not to panic. She felt blood leaking from her nose again, and ignored her
revulsion, instead reaching out for the exploding bits of mystic shielding and pulled
them back in piecemeal- knitting them pieces back together into a smaller dome, just
large enough to hold the three humans. Grub cried out in pain as the shield shattered,
but although the old man stumbled, he didn't fall and the pieces Amy pulled together
retained their strength.
The Wendigo burst past like a dam released, and charged up the mountain, around the
Moutain Spirit and Mung Bean and up the path that Harley and Bridger had taken.
Amy reached over and put a hand on Grub's filthy jacket, "Are you okay?"
"No. But this late. In the story. That makes sense." He managed between wheezing gasps.
"Let's hope that bought them enough time." Amy said watching the hurricane of wendigo
blasting around them.
"It's too late." Lady Purge whistled quietly.
Amy looked over at the old woman, "What's too late?"
Lady Purge's gaze was darting quickly from point to point on the landscape, "The fear of
the Wendigo, their panic. The change in the sky, in the soil. I know these things. These
are the signs of the Pale Shepherd."
"I've met that one, I think he may be on our side."
"The Pale Shepherd serves only change, and death is the ultimate change." Lady Purge
answered.
"It can't be the Shepherd, not yet. The Story." Grub answered.
"Then you wait around and prove me wrong!" Lady Purge answered abruptly before turning
and stepping, seven league style through the mystic shield and fleeing up the hill.
"She ditched us!" Amy said in shock.
"Now you see why are aren't dating anymore." Grub answered.
"And here I thought it was your bathing habits." Amy answered, "So what do we do?"
"Hold the line, and pray she's either wrong or that the Shepherd isn't interested in
us."
"I don't like those plans."
"When are you going to like my plans?"
"When you come up with better ones."
The shield cracked again, and Amy refocused on buttressing their protective dome.
"Fine," She muttered," I'll complain about your plans if we survive this. But I swear I
am going to teach you sexy if it kills me."
* * *
Harley looked down the mountain as they climbed and froze, the Wendigo were charging up
the trail behind them.
"We've got company." Harley said, putting a hand on Bridger's shoulder and pointing.
"Damn, they only gave us what, a five minute head start? That can't be good."
"I hear you. I hope Amy is alright. The last conversation we had before this wasn't a
pleasant one. I'd like a second chance to maybe hear her out and heal things."
"You may have a chance," Lady Purge said stepping into view from nowhere beside the two
men, "They were alive when I left them. The shield broke, but they mended it in time.
The problem is that the Pale Shepherd is coming, you remember him from the mine yes?
Somebody had to warn you, and if the Shepherd is here, the stakes have risen. You're
going to need my help."
"I don't want your help. Last time your help was pretty close to fatal. We can follow
the trail quite fine without you." Harley answered.
"You tried to go up the mountain by the trails?" Lady Purge asked, "But those are for
city folk. Those are traps and tourist traps at best. Designed to keep you from ever
going into the wild places, the magical places, the shrines and places of ancient power.
You'll never find enlightenment on the trail you must venture into the woods."
"You don't consider this venturing into the woods?" Bridger asked.
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