"Searching"

Excerpt from "Season of Crows." Ash must find Elder Veil and ask him to lend aid...

 

The sun climbed higher and burned with deathly intensity as Ash battled his way through the seemingly endless sea of skeletal grasses. Fat grasshoppers rose in clicking arches over him, settling again beyond his sight.

The trees of Torzeria loomed larger now as he fought his way toward their promise of shade. The land sloped downward, which made his journey a little easier. At the bottom of the slope, the grass thinned somewhat, and he was able to make his push for the trees much quicker. At long last, he reached the first shade on the edge of Torzeria. He paused, breathless, drinking deeply from his water pouch.

The trees here grew about as close together as they did in Evershade, but the undergrowth was thicker, with very few discernible paths cutting through the brush. At last, he discovered what appeared to be an old trail and followed it deeper into the little wood.

Recalling the king’s words, he forged ahead in search of the heart of Torzeria, for that was where Elder Veil would likely be. The ground rose slightly, and soon fat wedges of limestone bedrock jutted out of the slope. Ahead, the trees thinned noticeably, allowing a pool of light to dapple the earth. The underbrush all but disappeared here. He stepped into a roughly semi-circular clearing edged by the oldest and largest trees of the little wood. To his left, thick shelves of moss-entrenched bedrock in various stages of erosion erupted from the earth. At their base, the ground leveled off and remained relatively flat to the edge of the clearing, then sloped gently away into the trees.

An unexplainable sensation of something very ancient resonated here. He could feel it in his whiskers. He paused and listened, his torn ear trembling in anticipation. Time seemed to stop, and his sense of urgency faded gently away. All was still, but he sensed a low, gentle pulse vibrating up his legs from the very earth. He exhaled. This truly was a holy place.

He strode gingerly into the clearing, allowing the patches of sunlight to splash across his fur as he crunched through the bed of dry leaves that covered the ground. He scanned the bedrock for any sign of the turtles, peering into the bushes and hollows made by gnarled tree roots at the clearing’s edge. But there was not a sign the turtles had ever been there.

“Elder Veil?” he half-whispered. His voice sounded strange, almost musical. Then, louder, “Elder Veil?”

At once, there was a slow, deliberate movement among the rocks. The large, round form of Elder Veil emerged from the moss and layers of leaves on the stone outcropping above. Ash stood stock still and gawked openly at the turtle. Elder Veil had been completely camouflaged, and he had been none the wiser.