Chapter 8: Millbrook

Kai’s bare feet got tangled in tree roots at least ten times on the walk along the river, and every single time, Mira made a small sound behind him that was almost a giggle.

[Mira’s faith is currently at 14%. You have 2 divinity points]

"Tacos," Kai muttered.

[Yes. Tacos. I am confused too]

About thirty minutes into their trek, Garrick suddenly stuck his arm out, and Kai walked face first right into it.

"Get down," Garrick said in a hushed voice.

Through the trees, four horses were moving slowly down the river road, ridden by people in white and gold, and one of them carried a banner with a golden sun on it.

Garrick ducked behind a dead tree, and Mira grabbed Kai by his apron and yanked him into a small patch of bushes. There wasn’t enough bush for both of them to crouch in, so they ended up on the ground, with Mira on her back and Kai halfway on top of her. The branches stabbed him everywhere his apron didn’t cover, which was most of him, and her face was only inches from his.

"Don’t move," Mira whispered.

"I’m not moving," Kai whispered.

"Something moved," Mira whispered.

"That was a bush," Kai whispered.

"I hope so," Mira whispered.

[Your heart rate is very elevated. So is hers. I will not ask whose it is]

The horses came closer until Kai could hear the clinking of armor, and then one of them stopped right in front of their bush. Kai peeked through the branches just enough to see who it was, and his heart nearly stopped when he saw that it was Elowen.

She sat tall on her horse with her blindfold over her eyes, and her face was pointed straight at the bush, straight at Kai.

[She knows you are there. Remember, you glow]

"Sister, do you sense anything?" one of the riders asked.

Elowen didn’t answer for a long moment, and her hand rested on the hilt of her sword. Kai waited for her to point at the bush and have him dragged out by his underwear.

"I see nothing," Elowen said, and her sword stayed completely dark.

"Then we will continue," the rider said. "The High Priestess wants this entire river searched by the end of the day."

Elowen rode off down the road, and the others followed.

Kai let out his breath, and so did Mira, which only pressed them closer together, so he quickly rolled off of her and landed right in the thorns.

"Ow," Kai said.

"She knew," Mira said as she sat up and pulled a stick out of her hair. "She was staring right at you."

"She said she saw nothing, and her sword didn’t light up," Kai said.

"She’s blind," Garrick said, stepping out from behind the dead tree. "She told the truth. She can’t see anything, not with her eyes."

Kai looked down the road where she had gone and slowly started to smile.

"She found a loophole," Kai said. "That’s what you do when you’re running a scam. You find the loopholes."

[She learned that from you]

A chime rang in Kai’s head.

[Faith gained. Elowen Ashgrave: 2%. Status: Conflicted.]

"She went up," Kai said.

[She went from hostile to conflicted. I have been doing some research, and I believe this is what progress looks like]

They finally reached Millbrook around noon.

It was a small town of about thirty gray wooden buildings, with a few docks stretching out into the river and a little church in the center of town with a golden sun painted on its door. Far too many boats were tied up along the docks, and most hadn’t been used in weeks.

That was when Kai noticed that almost every door in town had a strip of black cloth hanging from the top of the frame.

"Mourning cloth," Mira said quietly. "One for every person they’ve lost."

Kai counted eleven of them before he made himself stop counting.

People were watching them from their windows and doorways, thin and exhausted, and nobody said a word to greet them. A few people stared at Garrick’s glowing hammer, but most of them stared at Kai’s apron, and then, once Kai walked past them, they stared at his tacos.

[I have learned that first impressions can be very important]

"Not right now," Kai whispered.

A tall, strong woman with a tight black braid walked up from the nearest dock, holding an iron-hooked pole like she knew exactly what to do with it.

"You can stop right there," the woman said, so they stopped right there.

"My name is Dagna Reeve, and I’m the harbormaster of this town," Dagna said. She looked at Garrick’s hammer, then at Mira’s damp shirt, and then at Kai, down to his apron and back up again. "This morning, the church put up a wanted poster for a heretic in strange clothes, traveling with a blacksmith and a girl with silver hair."

"Could be anyone," Kai said.

"Could be you," Dagna said.

"It is us," Garrick said.

"Garrick!" Kai hissed.

"She would have figured it out," Garrick said.

Dagna’s grip on her hook tightened.

"Give me one reason why I shouldn’t turn you in for the bounty," Dagna said.

Kai had plenty of lines ready for this, but when he looked at the mourning cloths on the doors, he thought about Elowen telling the truth and decided to try something different.

"Because the church isn’t going to help your people," Kai said. "We will."

Dagna’s expression didn’t change at all.

"The last priest who came through this town told us the same thing," Dagna said. "He blessed the water, took forty silver, and left. We lost three more boats that week."

"I don’t want your money," Kai said.

"Then what do you want?" Dagna asked.

"I want you to believe in me," Kai said.

Dagna looked him up and down and let out a short laugh.

"Believe in you?" Dagna said. "The guy in the apron?"

"I know how it looks," Kai said.

"It looks like tacos," Dagna said.

"He came through the eastern drains last night," Mira said, stepping forward. "There’s a creature living down there called a gutter maw, and it comes from the northern mines. It’s pale and the size of a horse, its mouth is full of teeth that spin, and it hunts by light. And your fishermen go out at night with lanterns."

Dagna’s grip on her hook slowly loosened.

"Our nets," Dagna said slowly. "We kept finding them shredded and covered in gray slime. The priest told us it was weeds from the river."

"It wasn’t weeds," Garrick said.

More people stepped out of their doors to listen, including an old man with a cane and two fishermen with rope burns on their hands.

[Kai. They are listening. This is your chance]

Kai knew this moment would come, and all he had to do now was show them something they would believe.

He walked past Dagna onto the creaking dock, turned at the end to face the crowd, and raised his hand high into the air.

"People of Millbrook!" Kai shouted. "Your church has abandoned you, but I will not! I will give you a sign!"

[What sign?]

"Minor Light," Kai whispered.

He meant for the light to hover above his head like a halo, and for one glorious second, it actually did. Then it drifted to the side, rolled off the end of the dock, and dropped into the river with a tiny plip.

The entire crowd turned and looked at the river.

"That’s your sign?" Dagna asked.

"Just wait," Kai said.

The light didn’t go out, and instead it kept sinking slowly into the river, drifting beneath the dock and lighting up everything around it.

Kai leaned over the edge to get a better look, and the board under his feet cracked. He just had time to say "Oh no" before he fell straight through the dock and into the river.

He came up underneath the dock with his light floating right beside him, and that was when he saw it. An old drain jutted out of the riverbank under the dock, covered in the same gray slime that had been on the fishing nets, and dozens of pale sacs the size of watermelons were stuck all over it. They were slick and glistening, and inside each one, he could see a small creature with a mouth full of tiny spinning teeth.

Kai screamed at the top of his lungs.

He swam backwards and hauled himself up through the hole, scraping his arms, and lay on the dock gasping with his apron twisted all the way around, so the whole town could see his tacos.

Dagna ran to the hole and looked down while the town pushed in behind her, and someone gasped, and then someone started crying.

"They’re nesting," Dagna whispered. "Under our dock. This whole time."

"That drain," Garrick said, peering down at it. "It runs all the way north. It’s one of Draven’s."

Dagna turned to look at Kai, who was still lying on the dock, and for the first time, she wasn’t looking at his tacos, but at him.

"You fell through my dock," Dagna said.

"Yes," Kai gasped.

"And you found these," Dagna said.

"Yes," Kai said.

"On purpose?" Dagna asked.

Kai thought about lying, but then he looked over at Mira, who was standing there with her arms folded and one eyebrow raised.

"No," Kai said.

Dagna studied him for a long moment, and then she reached down and pulled him to his feet.

A chime rang in Kai’s head, then another, and another, until they all blended together into one long sound.

[Faith gained. Followers: 14. Status: Desperate.]

"Fourteen," Kai whispered.

[You missed your halo, fell through a dock, and screamed like a little girl. Now 14 people believe in you, slightly. I have stopped trying to understand this. I am simply documenting it]

"They come at night," Dagna told the crowd. "You all heard it. They come at night."

"Then we’ll be ready for them tonight," Kai said, pulling his apron back around to the front.