9. Suffogen

Dannis, Pin and the parrot without name arrived too late. Along the way, they reunited with the five hundred soldiers that the Ape Lord had given them. Upon seeing the reinforcements, the Godesweets only felt more eager to launch a surprise attack.

The mist that blew their way was explained as smoke from yesterday’s explosion, or maybe innocent morning dew.

Dannis was faster than the others and sprinted onto the battle field.

“Stop! Turn back! Do not touch the gas!”

Nobody listened. It had to be those blasted helmets; they blocked their hearing.

He looked back. The fog seemed to accelerate. He had ten seconds to convince them all, then he’d need to leave too.

If he could leave at all.

“Listen! It is not a mist, it is—”

Pin was never one for talking. He fired arrows at their own soldiers, to force them to stop and check their surroundings. He hit a dozen allies before they turned on him with cries of “betrayal!”

A cry that seemed childish and weak compared to the screams of the first soldiers to touch the gas.

Dannis hadn’t noticed that several animals ran further ahead. Two confident apes had a large lead. As the gas enveloped them, they grabbed their head, their skin, their tail, every part of their body, as they cried for their mother.

The other soldiers thought it a panic attack. A nightmare in bright daylight. An elephant broke formation to lift the apes with his trunk and carry them back to a safe location. A friendly soldier that went mad and wildly swung around him was more a liability than an asset.

A gigantic elephant that did the same thing was fatal.

As the gas touched the gray beast, he thrashed and screamed. His trunk squashed his fellow soldiers and his tusk cut straight through the metal of a tank. His low grunt shook the entire battle field.

“My eyes! My eyes!”

The elephant seemed blinded. His flailing body caused gusts of wind that accelerated the gas even more. They didn’t have an even bigger soldier to carry the elephant to safety.

Soldiers stopped walking. Some frozen, as if the gas was ice cold and turned you to stone. Some turned around. They saw what happened to their friends and fled the battle with wild eyes.

As soon as the first soldiers dropped their guns and fled entirely, all hell broke loose.

Everyone yelled, touched or not. The gas twirled and swirled through all the ranks, like hurricanes always looking for their next victim, worsened by the many apes, lions, wolves and elephants that flailed around and lost control.

Not only accelerated by ourselves though, thought Pin as he looked ahead.

The eagles had come down. Their Windgustwing gave them precise control over air and wind. Possessing the Heavenmatter, they could steer the gas precisely at their enemies.

The gas moved too quickly.

Dannis ran as fast as he could, but never escaped. The gas followed everywhere, filled every space, like ghosts nipping at tails. He bumped into a soldier, and another one, and stumbled over one that lay in the grass. Soldier after soldier fell down, groaning in pain, as they proclaimed they were blind, deaf, or choking.

And those were the fortunate ones, for you never heard the others again.

Pin’s world was green, yellow, and gray mixed on a devilish canvas. You couldn’t cut gas in two. If you tried to dodge, it suddenly blew at your back. His body burned again. He pressed his beak together against the pain.

The parrot flapped his wings in a weak effort to blow back the gas. He was no match for an army of magic eagles.

Dannis asked for Pin, yelled for his friend, begged for mercy. His tail felt cut off. He didn’t dare look or breath, afraid to inhale the gas, afraid to let it blind him.

Nobody heard him, drowned out by the screams of an army.

Anybody who could still walk went the same direction: away. Leave this place.

“Pin!”

“Dannis!”

They had to be in close range, but couldn’t see each other. Dannis was nearly trampled by a skulk of foxes running with eyes closed.

He fell on his back. Panic stiffened his body. He’d forgotten how legs worked, how anything worked.

Pin’s body was exhausted. His voice was broken. His longs seemed to shrivel and when he called for his friend, only a crackling whisper came out.

His left wing felt something. He recognized it instantly, just by touch. Dannis’ tail. He held onto it with all the strength his burned fins still had.

“I am here.”

“I am here, deerfriend.”

The two friends lay together, waiting for death to claim them.

The gas cleared.

The Freethieves’ supply had run out. The final fog spread so thin it lost most of its effect.

Around the battle field erupted red flowers with a black core. They sang. The Singing Flowers of Eeris sounded a lament that would even make the Freethieves cry. Until they were also silenced, their leaves lacking for fresh air.

Dannis and Pin had survived. Most soldiers had survived. They lay in the dirt, badly injured and unmoving.

They lived, but would never heal.