Book 2 Ch 37: Lake of Beasts

Michael picked knots out of his hair while he waited for the scouts to return. This was the first time he’d had to deal with the dread caused by the portal for a long period of time and he was finding it frustrating. With regular anxiety he could distract himself, or logic his way through it sometimes, but the dread caused by the portal was unnatural, and he could find no way to dismiss it aside from closing the rift itself.

Trina was handling it poorly as well, but she kept a stoic expression on her face and managed to catch herself the many times she went to nibble on her fingernails. He hoped she’d gotten a good night’s sleep the previous night, but it was difficult to tell if her paleness had been caused by a lack of it or dread, or both.

He muttered another quick prayer for her, himself, Davi, and all the rest. The prayers seemed to take a bit of the edge off of his discomfort, though it was quickly washed away again by another surge of anxiety emanating from the rift. He considered giving Trina some guidance related to the gods. He’d been focused on building her foundations first, and hadn’t exactly hidden his own devotions, but he wanted to make sure she had a certain baseline of ability and understanding before he brought it up to her.

There was a low whistle which Finnegan returned, and Alvarez and Grima, the other scout, walked out of the trees toward the rest of them.

“What are we looking at?” asked Tai.

The scouts exchanged glances.

“The rift is about a mile and half south, right on the beach of the lake… aside from the rift we didn’t see anything.”

“What do you mean?” asked Finnegan.

“Well, there were a few footprints moving toward the water, but aside from that we didn’t see any signs of anything. No bestial horned men, or land squids, or lizard people, or anything. We didn’t hear anything either, just the sound of the waves gently hitting the shore,” said the other scout.

“How fucking poetic,” said Tai looking at his brother. “I’m thinking they’re either invisible, or they’re waiting in the water for us.

“What kind of footprints?” asked Finnegan.

“Well, we couldn’t get a great look at them, but they were normal sized, and in pairs. Vaguely human foot shaped… if they were wearing strange boots,” said Alvarez.

“Well, we were paid to do a job, so let’s approach cautiously and get it done,” said Finnegan, unstrapping his shield and drawing his sword as he began to gesture for the others to follow him.

“Maybe we’ll be lucky and this’ll be an easy one,” said Tai with a wide smile. “Though, more likely it’ll be a kraken that fooled us with fake footprints waiting to whip us into the water and tear us apart when we get close.”

“Were you a motivational speaker back on Earth?” asked Davi.

“No, but I’m thinking of taking it up here. Think I’m ready?”

“I’m certainly feeling motivated,” said Michael, loosening the straps on his sword and mace.

“Thanks Mikey. Really earning that raise.”

Michael winked at him, and then they all started walking toward the rift. They were in a simple formation with Michael and Trina in the center, the bowmen in the back, Davi and Finnegan towards the front, and Tai and the others as the spear tip. Michael and Trina were having to fight their building dread the whole way, but Michael had gotten relatively used to it by this point, and Trina seemed to be handling it better now that they were actually moving to stop it rather than sitting around and waiting.

When they were clear of the forest and the dirt started to shift to sand, Michael got a better look at the rift. This one wasn’t the angry red he’d gotten used to seeing, but instead was a kind of wild swirling purple. It was large, not as large as the one that had let in all of the yeti, but larger than most of the others he’d seen. The color and movement of it made it difficult to see the edge of it.

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Tai didn’t hesitate when it came into view, leading the spear tip forward with a hand on the hilt of his sword and his eyes scanning the wide empty expanse of water in front of them. The rest of them followed behind and Michael immediately recognized how difficult it was going to be moving in the sand in full plate. He was going to have much less maneuverability than he was used to.

He drew his mace and could feel himself starting to feel the edges of the rift within his mind. He looked at Trina.

“Can you feel it?”

She nodded, her own shortsword and small shield held at the ready.

“We’re close enough to get started,” said Michael.

Finnegan nodded.