For two days, Ren followed the river into an increasingly desolate landscape. The journey was grim, the silence of the land broken only by the sluggish flow of the water beside him. He saw more patches of the Shade-blight, like ugly, weeping sores on the earth. He gave them a wide berth, the memory of the pained, maddened deer still fresh in his mind. The air grew heavy, carrying a faint, metallic tang of decay that made his eyes water.
He knew he was close to the Weeping Gorge when the river began to narrow, squeezed between two towering cliffs of dark, jagged rock that clawed at the sky. The name was terrifyingly literal. Down the sheer rock faces, dozens of tiny rivulets of black, oily water trickled down like perpetual tears, staining the stone and poisoning the ground where they pooled. The gorge itself was a deep, shadowed wound in the earth, and the oppressive feeling of corrupted magic was a palpable force that pushed against him.
Remembering Kael's advice and his own training, Ren did not charge blindly into the canyon. He spent half a day scrambling up the steep incline of the eastern cliff, Shiro clinging to his back, until he found a precarious perch that gave him a vantage point over the gorge below. He lay flat on his stomach, hidden behind a rocky outcrop, and peered down into the heart of the blight.
The sight stole the breath from his lungs. The gorge floor was a nightmare landscape. Twisted, skeletal trees reached up like gnarled hands, and the ground was a cracked, grey sludge that bubbled in places with foul-smelling gas. The river, slow and black, was the epicentre of the decay. And in the middle of a bend in the river stood a circle of five figures.
They were exactly as Kael had described: tall, gaunt figures clad in drab, grey robes, their faces completely obscured by deep hoods. They stood motionless around a large, jagged shard of obsidian-like crystal that was half-buried in the riverbank. The crystal pulsed with a sickening, violet light, and with every pulse, the blight on the land seemed to darken and expand by inches. The grey-robed men had their hands outstretched towards the stone, and Ren could hear a low, guttural chanting that was barely audible over the wind, a sound that seemed to vibrate in his bones and make his teeth ache. They were not just watching the blight; they were feeding it. They were nurturing it.
This was the source. This was the enemy.
Fear, cold and sharp, pierced through him. He was one boy. They were five, wielding a power that could poison the very earth. A direct confrontation was suicide. But the image of the burning village from his trial flashed in his mind. To do nothing was to accept that future.
He was a Guardian. And a Guardian protects.
An idea, born of desperation and the lessons of the glade, began to form. He could not fight them, not face-to-face. But the river—their source of power was rooted in it, corrupting it. The river was also his source of power. Even here, tainted and sick, he could feel its true, pure essence flowing deep beneath the surface filth. What if he didn't fight them, but fought their magic? What if he used their own conduit against them?
His plan was incredibly risky. It would drain him, and it would instantly reveal his presence. But it was the only chance he had.
Making his decision, Ren carefully scrambled down from his perch, using the shadows and the jagged terrain for cover. He moved with a stealth he didn't know he possessed, Shiro now coiled tightly on his arm, a silent partner in his dissent. He found a spot downstream from the ritual, hidden behind a large, weeping boulder just twenty yards from where the robed figures stood, their backs to him, their focus absolute.
He took a deep, steadying breath and knelt. He plunged his hands into the foul, black water. It was slick and unnervingly cold, a sensation of death and decay that tried to creep up his arms. He ignored the revulsion, closed his eyes, and reached deeper with his senses, past the surface corruption, searching for the river's true heart. He found it—a faint, struggling current of pure magic deep below.
He drew upon the blessing of the glade, the memory of the silver light, the feeling of quiet, unyielding courage. He gathered all of his will, all of his power, not into a weapon to be thrown, but into a pulse of pure, cleansing energy.
With a silent prayer to the spirits of the river, he unleashed it.
It did not create a physical wave. Instead, a shockwave of brilliant, silver-white light erupted within the water, traveling upstream with impossible speed. The black, oily river flashed with pure radiance for a single, breathtaking moment.
The wave of cleansing magic slammed into the corrupted crystal.
A piercing, metallic screech echoed through the gorge, a sound of grinding stone and tearing spirit. The crystal's violet light sputtered violently, and cracks spiderwebbed across its surface. The five grey-robed men were thrown back as if struck by a physical blow, their chant shattering into cries of shock and anger. Their ritual was broken.
Instantly, the oppressive atmosphere lessened. But Ren had no time for relief.
The five figures scrambled to their feet. And as one, every single hooded head snapped around, their unseen faces turning to stare directly at the spot where Ren was hidden. They couldn't see him, but they had felt the origin of the attack as surely as if he had screamed his name.
Ren's heart leaped into his throat. He was hidden, but he was discovered. And he was trapped in the heart of the enemy's stronghold.