Caved, Out

soft nicker sounded beyond the mouth of the cave.
Then came the muted rhythm of hooves.

Navian’s head lifted at once.

The others were stirring by the time the ivy shifted across the entrance. Jaeshu stepped through first, one hand wrapped around the reins of a chestnut mare. Lunara followed close behind him with her bow in hand, her hair disordered from the night and catching what little light found its way beneath the stone.

Navian was already on his feet. “You found another one.”

Jaeshu nodded. “The dwarf stays away.”

That was enough. One by one, sleep quietly left the cave.

Gaz moved forward to take the reins while Karneth pushed himself upright with a grunt, one hand briefly finding the side of his leg before he inspected the saddle from afar. Lunara loosened what she could from the mare while Jaeshu kept a palm against the animal’s neck, speaking to her too quietly for the others to hear.

Navian went to Av’elyth.

The elf had not moved. He lowered himself beside her and slipped one arm beneath her shoulders, the other beneath her knees. Oesora was there before he began to lift, her attention fixed on the wound at the elf’s side.

“Slowly,” the priestess murmured, more to the wound than the rogue.

Navian gathered Av’elyth against him. Her head fell against his chest without resistance.

“Not yet,” Oesora added.

The paladin stopped.

Oesora’s fingers rested lightly near the bandaging. She watched for a moment, then gave a small nod.

Navian rose.

Karneth had already stripped blankets from their bedrolls and folded them over the saddle, padding it wherever he thought the ride might punish her most. He pulled one loose, frowned at his own work, then folded it again.

“She won’t like this when she wakes,” the dwarf muttered.

Navian adjusted Av’elyth carefully in his arms. “She’ll live to complain.”

Karneth looked up at him.

“Aye,” he said quietly.

"Back away from the horse," Lunara said. Karneth quickly went back to packing.

She held the stirrup steady while Jaeshu kept the mare still. The animal shifted beneath their hands, once, then again, her ears turning toward the unfamiliar bodies gathering around her. Jaeshu ran his hand slowly down her neck until she settled.

Together, they lifted Av’elyth into place.

Cloaks followed the blankets. Then rope—not pulled tight enough to bind her, only crossed and knotted where it could keep her from sliding if the mare stumbled. Gaz tested each knot himself. Oesora tested them again.

Only then did Navian mount behind Av’elyth.

He drew her carefully back against him, one arm around her middle and well clear of the wound. Her head rested beneath his chin. Even seated, the elf seemed strangely light.

Oesora stood beside the mare for another moment, one hand against its flank and the other near Av’elyth’s side.

“She’ll hold,” the priestess said. “For a time. But not like this for long.”

“How far?” Navian asked.

Gaz had already unfolded his map. “Caerhaven. A little more than three days away. Two if the roads favor us. I have heard of druids within the city.”

Navian looked down at Av’elyth.

“Then we don’t waste time.”

They were gone before the sun cleared the trees.

The fellowship rode out from the cave in silence, leaving the shelter of stone behind without looking back. The land opened around them as they crossed the downs, low hills rising and falling in long, gentle lines. Only the mare carried a rider. Navian remained in the saddle with Av’elyth secured against him while the others went on foot, spreading loosely around them as the open country widened beneath the paling sky.

Morning over The Downs meadow arrived by degrees.

The world was, at first, little more than grey grass and distant hills. Then silver began to gather along the slopes of the young day. Gold followed it, touching the highest ground first before pouring slowly into the hollows.

They kept low whenever the land allowed.

Jaeshu walked at the rear, glancing back often enough that no one needed to ask whether they were being followed. Lunara moved nearer the front, her bow always within reach, watching the rises ahead and every patch of ground where something might remain hidden until they were too close to avoid it. Gaz walked with a scrap of parchment in one hand, occasionally looking from whatever markings covered it to the country around them. Once or twice he stopped tracing a line with his thumb, frowned at the horizon, then continued without explanation.

Karneth filled pieces of the morning with stories. Some involved fights. Most involved him winning them. At least one appeared to grow considerably more impressive between its beginning and its end.

Navian heard only pieces.

His attention remained on the road beneath the mare’s hooves and the unmoving weight against his chest. Whenever the ground turned uneven, his arm tightened around Av’elyth before the animal took its next step. When the mare climbed, he leaned with her. When she descended, he held the elf closer.

Av’elyth did not stir.

Oesora remained beside them whenever she could. Every so often the priestess reached up to check the bandaging without asking them to stop, her fingertips resting there for only a moment before falling away again. Other times she simply watched Av’elyth’s face as she walked.

They stopped only when they had to.

Then they moved again.

Hours passed beneath the steady rhythm of boots and hooves.

By the time the sun had climbed well into the sky, even Karneth had run out of stories.

For a while he walked in silence. Then the dwarf straightened suddenly, drew a breath through his teeth and planted one hand against the top of his thigh.

“Gods.”

Jaeshu glanced over.

Karneth twisted carefully one way, then the other. Something apparently failed to cooperate.

“That again,” he muttered.

“Knee?”

“Aye.” Karneth pressed his knuckles against it. “Been that way for years. Some days worse than others.” He grimaced and resumed walking. “Today’s one of the better ones, if ye can believe it.”

Jaeshu gave a faint breath that might have been amusement. “Back for me.”

Karneth looked at him.

“Too many miles,” the ranger added. “Too many winters.”

“Aye.”

They walked another few steps in mutual recognition of bodies that had apparently betrayed them both.

Lunara looked back from ahead. Her eyes moved from Karneth rubbing his knee to Jaeshu taking one slightly stiffened step. Then she looked toward Oesora.

“Oesora.”

The priestess glanced up.

“Can’t you just…” Lunara raised one hand and wiggled her fingers in the air. “…you know?”

Oesora smiled.

“No.”

Lunara lowered her hand.

Karneth turned his head. “No?”

“No.”

The dwarf stared at her as though she had misunderstood the question. “I’ve seen ye mend worse than a stiff knee. You pulled me together after that cave like it was nothing.”

“It was not nothing,” Oesora said. “And it was not the same.”

Karneth frowned. “A wound’s a wound.”

“Not always.”

That caught Jaeshu’s attention. “What’s the difference?”

Oesora walked several steps before answering. Her hand had returned to the mare’s side, resting there lightly as she kept pace beside Av’elyth.

“When the body is cut,” she said, “or burned, or broken, it does not wait for me to decide what should happen next. It already knows. Flesh closes. Blood stills. Bone begins to mend. Slowly, perhaps. Imperfectly. But the body has already begun its work.”

Karneth glanced at his own knees as though offended that they had apparently failed to receive this wisdom.

Oesora noticed.

“What I do does not create healing,” she continued. “It simply hastens it.”

Lunara looked over. “Hasten?”

The priestess nodded once. “It urges the body forward along a path it has already taken.”

“That sounds considerably less impressive,” Gaz said without looking up from his parchment.

Oesora smiled. “Most truths are when explained.”

The scholar accepted this with a small tilt of his head.

Jaeshu’s attention remained on her. “How?”

Oesora was quiet for another stride.

“Time.”

Gaz’s parchment lowered slightly. The ranger walked a step faster, to her side. "Then, what you do—"

“—is not Time Magic,” Oesora said, and there was a firmness beneath the gentleness now. “Not... truly. Something smaller. Much smaller. A borrowing, perhaps. A breath of it.”

The wizard folded the parchment once. “We mages and wizards have very strict rules concerning Time Magic. The foremost among them: Don't."

Lunara looked at him.

Gaz tucked the parchment away. “It is a remarkably easy rule to remember.”

The priestess gave a soft hum of agreement.

“There are accounts,” the young wizard continued. “of those who tried to command it. To hold a moment still. To choose what should come next and what should not."

“To turn it backward,” Oesora said. “Yes, I've heard."

Navian unconsciously tightened the reins to listen.

Her hand moved slowly along the mare’s flank. "They did not last long. And what remained of some of them…”

The words were left unfinished. “I know the stories.”

"They are not stories," said Gaz, looking up.

Navian spoke from the saddle. “Do you know anyone who has?”

Oesora’s hand stopped.

For several long strides, she looked only at the road. No answer came. Gaz drew a breath through his nose and glanced toward the priestess, then back ahead.

Lunara looked toward the saddle. “Then Navian could heal us, too?”

The paladin gave a quiet laugh.

Oesora’s expression softened. “No.”

“Why not? He uses the Light.”

“Not in the same way.”

Lunara frowned. Oesora considered her for a moment. “Think of steel.”

That brought Karneth’s attention back immediately.

“The same metal may become a sword,” Oesora said, “or a shield. Both are steel. Both are shaped from the same substance. But they are not the same thing. Nor used for the same purpose."

Karneth gave an approving grunt.

“Paladins are not taught to heal,” Oesora continued. “They are taught to endure. To protect.”

Her gaze rested on him for only a moment.

“To stand.”

Navian said nothing.

Karneth, however, had apparently not forgotten the original injustice.

“So what about this?” He slapped one hand lightly against his thigh and immediately seemed to regret doing so. “Or Jae's back?”

Oesora’s expression changed. “Because his back is not a wound that is healing.”

Karneth’s hand fell. For a moment there was only the quiet clop of the mare’s hooves.

“Time does more than mend us,” she said. “It wears us as well. Bone erodes. Joints wear. Things that once recovered easily stop recovering. What you feel now is not necessarily something your body is trying to repair. It is something your body has already accepted.”

Jaeshu shifted more carefully this time. “So you’re telling me if you tried to fix my back…”

“It would worsen it,” Oesora said. “Not all at once. Not like a blade or a fall. But it would push it further along the path it is already on.”

Lunara exhaled quietly. “So it’s not really healing.”

Oesora shook her head. “Not in the way most people think, no.”

She looked ahead again, her voice softening.

“It is not undoing a wound,” the priestess said. “It is only moving it forward.”

The group was quiet for a long while.

The ranger considered the conversation and lowered his hood. “And if one of us becomes ill?” he asked. “Or poisoned?”

Oesora shook her head. “Something else entirely.”

“Go on.”

“The blood itself is involved there. The Light does not meddle with blood magic.” She adjusted the strap of the satchel at her side. “For those you would need someone trained for such things. A witch, perhaps? Or a warlock. Shaman? I am not sure.”

Jaeshu nodded. "Then for now my herbs and woodland tricks will have to do."

"Then I suggest no one get sick," Karneth chuckled.

"You hear that, brother," called Gaz. "We are off cooking duty."

Navian only nodded, but Gaz could tell even from behind that it came with a smile.

Lunara turned around to Oesora, walking backwards. “Do witches and warlocks use Time Magic, too?”

Oesora let out a small, apologetic laugh. “I’m afraid we have reached the horizon of my very young wisdom.”

The ranger flipped his hood back up.

Oesora nodded toward the road ahead. “But perhaps if we come across one, we may ask.”

Lunara spun back around and Karneth gave a loud dwarven huff.

“Well.” He twisted from the waist and immediately abandoned the attempt halfway through. “Sounds like we’re not getting new bones today, ranger.”

Jaeshu bent as he walked, plucked a long blade of grass from beside the path and settled it between his teeth. He said nothing.

Lost in their own questions and thoughts, no one spoke for some time after that. Only the rhythm of their steps and the mare’s hooves followed them across the open land.

By late afternoon the country had begun to rise.

The long, shallow slopes gave way to gentler hills, their grass thicker and broken here and there by small stands of trees. Water appeared more often now, narrow streams working through seams in the stone before vanishing again beneath the folds of the land.

The day had begun to soften toward evening when Navian stopped.

“There.”

Everyone looked.

Far ahead, at the crest of a distant rise, a keep stood against the sky.

Caerhaven stretched across the distant rise, a broad line of weathered grey walls, long green banners, and towers beneath the clear sky. Even from several miles away, it was obviously larger than anything they had seen before, with smoke rising from countless rooftops and movement visible along the roads leading toward it. Age showed in the broken edges of towers and the darkened stone, but the city was far from empty.

Most striking was one quarter of Caerhaven, where the grey disappeared beneath a mass of trees and green. From this distance, the druid quarter looked almost like a forest growing inside the walls.

Three quarters of the city looked worn by time.

The last quarter looked untouched by it.

After so many hours of grass and sky, the sight of something made by hands seemed almost strange.

Navian drew the mare to a stop. For the first time since morning, his eyes left the road for more than a few heartbeats.

Gaz had already taken out the parchment again. He studied the keep, then whatever marks were written there.

“Caerhaven,” the wizard said. “If anywhere nearby can help her, it’s the druids there.”

Karneth stared toward the distant walls, drew a breath, and started walking again. “Then let’s not admire it from here. That’s days away.”

Navian looked down at Av’elyth. She had not moved. He looked back toward the keep. “We camp once tonight. We make good time and then, hopefully, we'll arrive in a few days.”

No one argued. Navian touched his heel lightly to the mare’s side. The others fell in around her without being told.

As one of the last three remaining kingdoms still standing in Aranthor, Caerhaven carried almost as much weight in their imaginations as it did upon the distant rise. None of them had traveled this far into the realm before, and none knew what waited beyond those weathered walls and long green banners. They could only hope it offered more than another brief refuge from the road.

Somewhere inside were the Druids Juna'rushing.

And, perhaps, help for their dying friend.

For the first time since leaving the Silver Stag, the road ahead led somewhere worth reaching.