Wendell didn’t know himself, what he was capable of in those moments. He had slipped away, as if in a trance. Kill, survive, keep fighting, his silent mantra. Some of the spiders beyond the wall had come too close to the flames, trapped by the army of their own kind piling in at their backs. They wrestled for freedom, dragging the circle of flames further still from the pair who fought to keep them at bay.

The hand axe Wendell had claimed in the desert had proven to be an invaluable weapon, swift, light and easy to use. He cut through his enemies with a focus that might frighten any other man. Every now and then he chanced a look at Kes’tral, to make sure she was all right, to encourage her to keep fighting. The hoard appeared to be endless, but just as quickly as they had come into view, they seemed to be dispersing, perhaps called to arms by another distant master, the dead beast of Wendell’s back no longer holding dominion over them.

A few determined stragglers stuck around to fight, nothing the pair couldn’t deal with. He dreaded to think how many he had cut down, only to live with the knowledge that there were so many thousands more out there, tearing the Plains of Bohar apart. They had killed half a hundred at least with fire and steel, but it wasn’t enough.

Alone, Wendell slumped down on the grass to sit and catch his breath. He looked at Kes’tral, but said nothing. After all, what was there to say? Was she determined to stay? Was there still time to run? How could anyone run from this, knowing it might be the end of mankind itself.

Were they gone? It seemed that they fought on for hours. The toll of her physical exhaustion however, was nothing compared to the drain on her ability. She was a conduit for the magic, and it took more of her than she could afford to give. There was always a price. Wendy had been cross, angry at the advantage her magic gave her. He did not understand the price. Her arms moved with rhythm as she dispatched any who dared venture within the circle of fire. The muscles ached, fuelled only by adrenaline. Her limbs were heavy, her throat hoarse and dry.

Suddenly, as they had been in the forest, the creatures were quick to depart. The last one was dead and she dropped once more. Staff cast away from bloodied hands. The fire vanished as though snuffed out like a candle and left only the charred blackness behind.

The line of fire was burnt across her vision and she stared. As though she had her eyes closed, darkness was all that she could see, and the line of flames, as though she had been staring at the sun. But it hadn’t been the sun. And the darkness did not recede. She could not see stars, not her hands as she lifted them to inspect the damage. Soft hands had been torn on the wooden staff.

Kes stared without seeing, into the night.

“Wendy…” she inhaled, surely if she didn’t say it, it wouldn’t be true. She steeled herself. “Wendy…I can’t see.”

Kes’tral spoke and the man listened, his beating heart the only contender standing to thrum louder than spoken word. “What?” The man asked, turning to look at her. What a pair, he thought, how had they come this far?

Wendell walked on his knees towards the woman. He took her up, hands on her arms as he helped her kneel. Staring into her eyes, the black dots at the centre had almost tripled in size, the milky blue now no thicker than a hair. “Close your eyes,” he told her, pulling the woman into his arms to comfort her. Was this the price of fire?

“It's going to be all right,” Wendell said, “you just need rest.” He prayed that was all it was. What would they do if the woman’s sight did not return? “Rest and tomorrow we will make a plan.” Such was his way. There had to be hope, hope that tomorrow would come.

Once settled, he left Kes’trall to rest while some light still remained, enough for him to collect his weapons, pack and the arrows that had fallen out of his quiver. Wendell returned to Kes’tral then, putting an arm around her as he sat watch. Things were going to get a lot worse before they got better, he thought, especially if he was to go without something as crucial as sleep.

She could hear him approach, but his steps sounded weird. They shuffled across the ground and she stared, blind, trying to make sense if the movement. Warm hands curled around her arms and she wobbled. It was hard to find her balance without knowing where the ground was beneath her.

Disoriented, she clung to the man and was all too eager to be pulled into his embrace.
She could feel his heart hammering, pounding against his chest as they sat, wrapped up and close. What could she say? Sleep? Kes closed her eyes, perhaps it really was a simple matter of resting.

When he moved, she could sense him dimly with her power. He circled the perimeter of the ash and collected up things from the ground. She sat still, turning as she followed him with her sense of hearing. Another day she might have teased him, that she tracked his movements by smell.

He returned and she flinched, not quite knowing when the touch would fall. She moved into his embrace, more then he had offered Kes was sure. But he had been right, sitting within the circle of his arms was a comfort. Her head bowed against his shoulder. “If I rest…wake me and I will cover you.” She touched a hand to her eyelids. “I can sense the grasslands… if there is anything out there I can wake you.”

“I’ll wake you,” he promised.

Wendell held the woman close until she drifted off, his own heart racing for a time. During the days they had spent in the woods fringing the coast, even after the first attack, the surrounding trees had offered a sense of security. Here on the plains, out in the open, Wendell felt naked. An attack could come from any direction, with nothing to conceal their whereabouts.

The smell of death lingered in the air, mixed with the scent of ash. His only hope was that such a stench would ward off any other creatures from the void, but there could be no knowing for sure.

By the time it was dark, Wendell found himself blinking as he stared off into the distance, trying to see better. His mind was playing tricks on him, making anything that moved a threat. Wendell could feel a sense of madness spreading, finding that he was beginning to dwell on everything that could go wrong, a vicious cycle that only fed his inner panic.

In the end he lay down beside Kes’tral, hard against her form, his arm around her for warmth. He closed his eyes, relying for a time on his hearing alone. There was little to keep him company but the sound of his heart, still throbbing in his ears, the whispering grasses and distant call of night owls.

There had been no intention to fall asleep and yet sleep came, silent in the night to take him away. Who knew what the dawn would bring. Every time he shut his eyes seemed like it might be the last. Still, what an adventure they had shared.

It was the first brush of dawn that woke her. Kes stirred, sitting up she ran a hand over her face and her eyes. Nothing. She stared into a dawn that she could smell, but couldn’t see. Wendy’s arm fell away and she tilted her head. She remembered being warm, sleeping soundly in his embrace.

With careful fingers she touched his arm and traced the shirt to his tunic, then his shoulder. She could feel him breathing. The steady rise and fall of his chest in slumber. Kes bent, pressing a kiss to his cheek before she edged away on her knees. With her hands, she explored the ground. The Earth was coated in a thick layer of ash that crunches as she moved. The taste of it lined her tongue and she imagined that she was covered in the stuff.

Kes stood up, careful and slow as she found her balance with arms outstretched. What could she sense? The grass that had escaped the fire still whispered and waved. There were small animals running between the strands. The rising sun would be warm. She couldn’t smell rain, were there any clouds?

She cast her senses wider. There was none of the strange sickness near by and she let out a sigh of relief. Having spent so long with Wendy, she could sense him as though he was outlined with her own magic.

Started awake, the man stared, wide-eyed at a too-bright dawn. He blinked, his vision spotted with small, glowing black dots where he had mistakenly looked directly into the sun. The soft hairs on his forearms prickled under Kes’tral’s touch, it seemed she too was awake. The man watched, smiling, only to realise she looked at him without seeing anything. The woman bowed and the pirate held his breath as she pressed a kiss to his cheek. Did she realise he was awake?

Wendell didn’t dare to make a sound as the bird-woman moved about the camp, as if going in search of something. He tried to imagine what it might be like to be in her predicament, to be blind, a thought he could not fathom and so, entertained for only a short while. The dew on the grass around him left his clothes damp, though the ground under his back was warm, if not a little firm.

He sat up, quiet and looked around at the small insects that crawled up and down the long, narrow blades of grass. They were all busy at work, as if nothing was wrong with the world. It wasn’t often a person could say they envied a bug, yet in that moment, Wendell thought he might. His gaze found Kes’tral once more and he smiled, something almost fond.

“Good morning,” he greeted her. “Is your sight any better?”

With her reply, Wendell felt they only had one option. “Then we return to the coast, sail to the closest city and make sure we find a healer.” The man suggested.

He sat up and she turned, as though to watch him. Only to realise that she still could not see. The woman tilted her head to the side, listening to the steady drum of his heartbeat. Something moved through the grass, a snake by the sounds of it and she turned a little to ensure that the creature skirted the edges of their camp. The breeze lifted and stirred the hair that had escaped from her braid in the night, sticking up at angles from her forehead.

“I still can’t see,” she confirmed, quiet. It was a hard thing to admit. As though every time she said it out loud, it became more real. As if saying it, would make it more permanent.

Wendy suggested that they made for the coast and she couldn’t help but smile. Kes pushed her hands into her pockets, somewhere, by her feet she knew, was her staff. “You don’t think a little thing like blindness is going to stop me, do you?” She lifted a brow as she looked in his direction.

It wasn’t that she wasn’t scared. She was terrified. The wrongness in the land still tugged at her, she could feel it wrapped around her soul like an infection. “I have to stay.”

She was so stubborn. Why was she so stubborn?

“Kes’tral,” he said, low, quiet, as if to plead with her. Was she being reckless. Was he just scared? “Please be reasonable… You can’t see, how can you fight?”

He was tempted to take up a weapon then and throw it at her, to see if she had the ability to snatch it up out of the air even with her vision being impaired.

“Sure,” he reasoned, “you might adapt, reply on your healing more than you used to. It could save you from one spider, a snake in the grass?” He watched the long, brown snake sliver past their camp in no real hurry. “But you saw how many of those things there were! Last night they seemed to have no end… Who knows what summoned them away or when they’ll be back?”

The pirate looked in his pack for something to eat, not sure why, he already knew there was nothing in there. “At least let us continue moving in the hopes of finding someone who might be able to help?” He suggested. If that direction just so happened to be by way of the coast, how would Kes’tral know?”

Wendell felt around for his compass. Where had he left it? He looked through his pack, hurried, a little panicked. “Uhhh,” he uttered, “where did that thing go?”

He made a reasonable case, but Kes knew herself to be an unreasonable person. She bent as the snake moved past, extended a hand to the creature. The animal moved up to make a home in her palm at first before winding around her wrist and arm. It settled against her short, long forked tongue kissing the air. Kes’tral patted its head with her free hand.

“What have you lost?” She asked the man without turning to look at him. Disheartened by her inability to see. His heart rate had increased, not quite panic, but no longer steady.

“I can fight,” Kes countered, she bent and let the snake wind its way back down her arm before it slid away through the long grasses. “We search for someone that can help, agreed…but the girl was warning everyone here. How many people do you think have stayed to fight.” She turned toward him then. “Wendy, if we do not fight, do you believe we will ever stop running?”