Book 3 - The Fading of the Flame

"Oh, Ambrosia, please, don't let this be it," Neale Hamelin whispered as quietly as he could. He knew he shouldn't make noise, but he thought maybe vocalizing his prayer would give it the strength needed to persuade his god to intervene.

He placed his hand over his mouth to mute his breathing. He cursed himself and cursed the darkness, unable to see in the pitch black carriage.

Outside, the squelching sounds of eating stopped. The creatures outside stepped with soft footfalls. Neale could only hear well enough to track one as it moved over the fallen reins with a little jingle of metal. He imagined a dozen of them moving in, their tongues flickering as they realized that dessert was near.

A gentle, rough scratching sound started just on the other side of the wall as Neale, and he clenched his eyes and teeth shut so that he wouldn't gasp. The sound swept across the wall, scales brushing up against wood. Then there was a sharper scratch, claws testing the space between two boards.

Neale stopped wondering whether or not he would survive and started wondering if his body would ever be found. His ex-wife hadn't seen him in five years, but she probably would want to see him one more time as a goodbye.

And then there was Amabelle. Precious little Amabelle. But she wasn't little anymore, a woman grown. She wasn't precious much anymore either, her last words scathing him before she ran off to Kuutsu Nuna. She had left six years ago. Neale's marriage didn't last another year. She said she would follow the Kuutsu as she searched for her purpose, blaming her absentee father for how lost she felt in the world.

What if he had listened to her? If he had listened when little twelve-year-old Amabelle asked her daddy to get a job in the city, would that have solved all of his problems? It would have cropped up new ones, to be sure—for a man of Neale's skills and education, the job of transporting crops from Ambrosia City to the ever-depleted Sain was as lucrative as it got. But he would have been home. He could have been there for his little girl. Maybe she wouldn't have left. Maybe Neale's marriage wouldn't have fallen apart. And certainly, Neale wouldn't be stranded halfway through his route and besieged by licertes.

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He had gotten used to seeing them over the years—as much as someone could get used to seeing a horned, half-dog, half-lizard monstrosity with giant protruding teeth. At least once a year, he'd see one, usually in the warmer months, always alone. But then he started spotting them in pairs and then in threes. The usually solitary creatures stopped appearing alone.

Neale had argued with the Caravanserai Society that the development warranted increased pay, but the Society declined his request. Until the last summer, when a driver and his horses were attacked and killed. Neale had sworn he'd never take the route again, but then the pay went up by half, and he soon found himself on the road again. He had gone nearly the whole summer without spotting any creatures.

And then he spotted nearly twenty at once.

Neale had sent horses at full speed, but the licertes moved just as fast in the parallel treeline. He had a bit of movemash for emergencies just like this, but that meant stopping the horses to feed them, so he kept on the reins, but soon one of the horses' labored breathing told him that he no longer had a choice. He had stopped them and jumped down from his carriage, but by the time he was halfway to his horses, the licertes were halfway to him.

He had dropped the movemash and tried to detach a horse from the carriage. He'd ride it away while the other horse kept them occupied. But the moment he got the first horse detached, it bucked and ran off on its own. Neale had panicked and ran, closing himself in his carriage with all of his crops.

And now he was trapped. The creature outside moved away. The squelching resumed, Neale imagining the sight of the massive lizards ripping apart his poor horse.

Something shifted inside the carriage. Neale's eyes had adjusted enough to see a large lump of shadows started to move. His breathing quickened as he feared that one of those monsters had somehow gotten in.

Clunk!

Something fell from the shadow and hit the floor of the carriage. Neale grabbed it, his fingers brushing up on the familiar texture of a potato. He must have knocked the sack open when he jumped in.

The squelching outside stopped, and another potato fell.

Clunk!

Something walked over the reins again.

Neil rushed to hold back the next potato, but in the darkness, his hands went too low, pushing into the lopsided sack and sending a cascade of potatoes down.

Clunk-clunk-clunk-clunk!

Neale's heart froze. He stopped breathing. Things were quiet.

And then there was chaos as the licertes started clawing through the wood.

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