In Search of Auria (20 page)

I walked to the waters of the lake and took
some time for myself. I splashed my face, washed a couple of stains
off my clothes, and cleaned the sweat and soot off my body. As I
refresh myself, I admired the blue sky with the drifting clouds,
the sharpness of the far away mountains, and the reflection of it
all on the surface of the lake. I was in a country that was at war
with my own, a country with danger at every corner. But
nevertheless, it was a place of sheer beauty.

The waters cooled and revitalized my body.
It would make my journey south on the road more comfortable. My
next stop would be the fortified city of Ambros, and after that,
the capital, Vidana. Auria, I would see you soon.

After finishing, I walked with my usual
quick pace. I was thinking about the city when I noticed something
odd down the road. The farmer’s cart was in the middle of the way
with no horse to pull it. I walked around, inspected it, but the
farmer was nowhere to be seen. Then, I saw a puddle of fresh blood
on the ground ahead. A pricking chill went up my spine. Something
bad had happened. A trail of red stretched from the puddle to the
edge of the lake, and there I saw a woman. She was stressfully
crying while washing the blood off the bottom of her ripped dress.
Her moaning and sobbing rang in my ear. I hurried to offer my help.
Surely, she knew what happened.

“Miss, are you alright? What has happened
here?”

The woman abruptly stopped crying when she
heard my voice. I got close to her as she slowly turned her head to
me. Her black and dirty bangs covered half her face, but I saw her
features. Deep age lines around her mouth and cheeks, a long
crooked nose, and large black pupils popping out her eyes. I had
read about her on the Book of Beasts, but I knew the legend from
long before. It was a Banshee.

Banshees cry and moan to alert people that
someone is about to die. But what they don’t know is that the ones
listening to her cries are the ones marked with death. She attracts
people with her sobbing and kills them. The banshee must’ve lured
the farmer with her painful moaning and became her victim. And now,
she had lured me.

The moment I knew what she was, I gripped my
sword and aimed for her head. But, she raised her hands and my
blade bounced off them. They were almost rock like; stiff and gray,
with long claws sprouting out the index and middle fingers. She
whacked the sword away and pushed me on the chest, knocking me back
to the road. The monster then rose from the edge of the lake,
revealing her old, rotting feet.

I quickly darted with a thrust, but she
brushed to the side and slashed me. I dodged, but her spiky claws
caught my bag. It ripped open and all my belongings dropped on the
ground. I cagily circled around her, when she started to take a
deep breath. She was about to screech. I couldn’t let her, or it
would be the end of me! I dashed in swinging, targeting either her
head or stomach, but she avoided me by hopping back or blocking. I
finally managed to slash her shoulder, momentarily stunning her. I
stepped, sword raised high, to slice her head open. But, she got
me. She stretched her arms and clutched me by the ribs, squeezing
her long claws on my back. I screamed in pain. I couldn’t move or
free myself. She then threw me back upon the road.

I laid hurt on the ground, grunting on the
pain. It took me a couple of valuable seconds to recover, seconds
that the banshee could have used to finish me off. Why hadn’t
she?

When I eventually got on my feet, she stood
around fifteen feet from me. She was breathing heavily, wheezing on
every inhalation. She was preparing a screech. I’ve heard people
say the noise made men rabid and insane. I was about to find
out.

The banshee unleashed her shriek. Her voice
was so high pitched and monstrous, my whole body stiffened in
shock. It felt like daggers being rammed into my eardrums. I fell
to my knees and covered my ears, immediately feeling nauseous and
disoriented.

When the banshee stopped, I almost vomited.
I tried to grab my sword again, but when I looked behind me, she
was already there. The old hag grabbed my head, screamed straight
into my left ear and tossed me backwards like a rag doll. When I
landed, everything was spinning. I felt warm blood running down my
cheek and neck. It came from my ear. I could hear from it no more.
I tried to turn around and crawl, but I just couldn’t control my
limbs. Then, I felt something sit on my stomach. I looked about and
saw the banshee fixing her dress around her legs. She pressed her
knees on my arms so that I wouldn’t move. Then, with both hands she
grabbed my head and lifted me close to her face, almost dislocating
my neck. I trembled as I tried to shake her off, but couldn’t. She
opened her mouth and showed me her rows of broken, stained teeth.
She took a deep breath and that’s when I realized that this was it;
my end. With every other enemy I had an opportunity to counter or
flee, but here and now I was at the mercy of an irrational
creature. There was no escape from my certain demise. All I had
fought for had been for naught, and the reality of it glazed my
eyes.

And then, the screech. The stink of her
breath and the pressure of the noise overwhelmed my senses. My mind
drew blank, and my body grew numb. Foam clogged my mouth and
drooled from it. I felt my spirit preparing to leave my body as my
sight became blurry. Then, the noise started to diminish, and I
thought of it as my other ear bursting. But, it was something
else.

My sight was regaining its focus again, and
I saw a yellow and red aura thwarting the banshee. She jumped off
me and distanced herself away. I managed to turn my head around to
see the origin of the aura. Just a few meters away stood a bird as
tall as a man. It was bright red, with blue tail feathers that
trailed behind like the train of a dress. The edges of the wings
were golden and its chest had a blue oval pattern. It had a long
neck, a sharp beak, and white upright feathers crowning its
forehead. It looked like if it were the royalty of birds. But, I
did notice something else; something beside its talons. The box
Yang gave me was open, with broken eggshells at its side.

“Wait… the Fenghuang?”

It peacefully walked by me, keeping its
beady eyes locked on the banshee. It then spread its wings and
pointed them downwards, making it look bigger than before. There
the fenghuang stood, making a statement to the banshee that it
would protect me. The hag raised her claws and the royal bird
fluttered its wings. They were ready to fight.

The banshee went into a rage and charged at
the bird, screaming her lungs out. The fenghuang brushed its wings
forward to wedge out the sound waves. As the banshee got close, the
fenghuang opened up and rammed its head down, giving the hag a
head-butt to the chest. The bird started whipping its wings
forward, snapping at the arms and upper body. The hag couldn’t
defend herself, she could only stagger and receive the punishment.
Finally, the majestic bird hopped on the Banshee’s shoulders,
flipped her around the air and smashed her face into the ground.
The body twitched and laid flat.

I was astonished at how quickly the
fenghuang had taken care of her. I tried to get up to show my
gratitude to my savior, but I heard low grunt. The banshee was not
finished yet. She rose up with a bleeding forehead and a broken
nose, and again charged as before. The fenghuang covered itself
with its wings like it had done previously, but this time there was
no screech. This time the banshee clawed through the wings and
forced them open. She slashed the bird on the chest and then
unleashed a shriek to its face. My avian protector stumbled and
fell back. I had to roll to the side so it wouldn’t fall on me. It
started bleeding from the chest and the wing coverts, but it shook
off the pain and stood in defiance. With a big swoosh, the
fenghuang took flight towards the air and made its own shriek. The
hag did not expect it, and neither did I. It sounded like 10,000
drums beating at the same time, with orange sound waves casting
from its beak. The banshee had a taste of her own medicine,
covering her ears in twinge. The bird flew down and slammed the hag
to the ground, clamping its talons around her neck and chest. There
it released another thunderous drum yell. The banshee groaned, but
she was not giving up. She thrust her claws upward and stabbed the
fenghuang’s belly. The bird cried out with a weak caw. It flew up
with the banshee in its clutches and tossed her with a deadly spin.
She fell to the edge of the lake, landing on her head. I heard her
neck snap.

The fenghuang dropped from the air, landing
wobbly on the ground. A puddle of blood quickly formed beneath it.
Still a bit dizzy from the screams I received, I managed to stand
to my feet. Seeing the fenghuang wounded, I wanted to help it in
any way I could. But, once again, I heard the monster grunt. It was
more of a gagging since the neck was broken. She stood up facing
the water and twisted her head back in place with her hands. And
when she started pouting and breathing recklessly, I had the most
obvious and idiotic realization.

“If it breaths and screams… then it needs
air.”

At any other time, that would’ve been the
most moronic of observations. But at that moment, it was going to
save us. The hag turned around to give the fenghuang another nasty
screech, but the only thing it saw was me. I ran as I could with my
limping sprint and tackled her into the lake. There in the
sparkling waters, I held her under and deprived her of air. She
fought back, but I pushed her down by the hair. She cut and ripped
my shoulders with its claws, but I kept my hold, agonizing as it
was.

Little by little, the banshee’s efforts
diminished, the water calmed, and the bubbles stopped. I released
her and the body emerged from the waters, her face still and
emotionless. She floated away with the help of the current, resting
on the surface like a dead leaf. I walked out of the water and
accompanied the fenghuang. My arms were completely numb, with my
shoulder muscles completely torn. The royal bird was still sitting
on the puddle of blood, with the wings missing feathers and the
chest gashed. I looked at it, and it looked at me.

“Well, I don’t know about you, but I’m ready
for a second round,” I joked with a sigh. I could no longer support
my weight and fell on my knees. The fenghuang stretched its neck
back over its body and opened its beak to sing. It let out a smooth
harmonic sound, similar to a flute. Like a fountain, out of its
beak flowed green sound waves that washed down its body. When the
green cleared and vanished into the air, the fenghuang emerged
totally healed and renewed. The wings were sharp, the chest was
perfect, and the belly was restored to a healthy state. It walked
to me and sang to the heavens. The green waves surged out and
poured over me like a shower. For a brief moment all I could see
was the song enveloping my body. It felt like a cool morning mist
flowing through me. After the waves washed away, I was renovated;
there was no pain, no wounds, no blood. I didn’t even felt the
aches and sores I had acquired along my journey. I carefully
touched my face; I was even shaved! But not only was my body
healed, my equipment got fixed, too. My clothes were not torn, my
bag was not ripped open anymore, and the straps on my shield were
repaired. I looked just like the day I left the Forest of
Agony.

To all of this, I did not know what to say
to the great Fenghuang. I could only express my most heartfelt,
“Thank you.”

It bowed, accepting my gratefulness, and
with one short flap of the wings, it shot up to the skies. The dust
on the road blew in all directions as it ascended like an arrow. It
flew east over the Pegnion Mountains, leaving a red and yellow aura
behind. It darted through the clouds until I saw it no more.

I thought of Yang. If it weren’t for his
miraculous gift, I would have died. But staying alive and being
restored, I saw it as a sign. I felt more energetic and more
determined than ever before. My destiny was clear to me now. I was
not to die, but to save Auria. It was my fate.

I was thrilled as I marched towards Ambros.
Full of passion and determination, my mind was centered on my goal.
I felt it in my very bones that Auria was near, right in the
fortified city. I knew she was there.

It wasn’t long before I saw it on the
distance. Its walls sprouted from the side of the mountain and
reached the edge of the water. They circled around the
circumference of the lake, just demonstrating the length of the
city. Made out of smooth solid rock, there was no way to climb
over. Plus, sentry boxes every few meters watched everything. Three
guards stood at the gates and three archers above the wall. There
were people coming in and out, but they were showing some type of
permit to the soldiers. I had nothing of the sort. How was I
getting in?

I continued walking and noticed a wagon
stuck on the mud. It was full of lumber. The owner, a round man
with a thick blonde moustache, was helping the horse pull it out. A
thin bony kid tried pushing from behind. They were failing
miserably.

“Come on, heave! The cooks need this wood to
fuel the fire,” the man said.

“I’m trying,” said the kid, “It’s too
heavy.”

With their groaning and moaning, I offered
my help.

“Hello there! Looks like you need some
assistance. May I help?”

“Of course, of course,” the man said
delighted. After my long journey, I would have been worn out and
wouldn’t have wasted my strength on stuff like this. But, since I
was renewed by the Fenghuang, this was going to be no problem at
all. And, if I helped them, they might help me get into the
city.

I went beside the kid, and when prompted, we
pushed. I dug my heels in the mud and heaved, so much that the
wagon thrust forward and the horse almost ran over the man.