Had they taken a wrong turn?
That was Konehl-Ghervil’s immediate thought.
The last time, a similar misstep had led them into an ambush.
Prudently, Dr. Callan instructed her to remain in the vehicle while she ventured out to investigate.
Approximately ten minutes later, the two returned, carrying hastily fashioned torches, to explain the situation.
Mistfall City, a settlement built along a river, was crisscrossed by numerous tributaries.
Several of these waterways, marked by significant elevation drops, had carved steep river valleys through erosion.
Directly before them lay the downstream section of one such small V-shaped valley, spanned by a stone arch bridge roughly eighty meters in length.
The stone bridge abutments on both sides of the valley wall, aged and neglected, had deteriorated, causing one end to fracture and collapse for about ten meters, rendering it impassable for vehicles.
The group of thirty-odd individuals now faced two choices: either take a lengthy detour to another bridge, which served as one of the main arteries into and out of the city’s outskirts, adding an hour and a half to their journey.
Or, they could abandon their vehicles and wade across the river through the valley.
With the rainy season yet to arrive, the downstream section remained calm, its deepest point reaching only about a meter, while most areas held a water level of merely twenty to thirty centimeters.
Navigating the eighty to one-hundred-meter river valley in the dark would take a cautious ten minutes, and from the opposite bank, a further twenty-minute trek would bring them to Lily of the Valley Street.
Their initial selection of this route had been twofold: to expedite their travel, and to reduce the likelihood of encountering danger by using a less-frequented path.
“Could the bridge’s collapse have been deliberate?”
With the car window lowered a third of the way, Ghervil remained in the passenger seat, not disembarking, as the torchlight outside had attracted a swarm of insects.
“Highly unlikely,” Helm-Scard replied. “Such an act would be largely pointless, serving only to dampen our shoes and trouser cuffs without posing any substantial threat.”
Helm-Scard’s slightly rugged features flickered in and out of view under the dancing torchlight.
“If an ambush were truly intended, they could simply have collapsed the bridge while our vehicle was crossing it. For creatures roughly two meters in size, that would be no difficult feat. They could gnaw through those stone pillars with their teeth alone.”
“And your thoughts, Dr. Callan?”
She turned her head toward the woman standing at the front of the car, who, by the beam of a flashlight, was meticulously cleaning a surgical knife.
“If you’d rather not get your socks and shoes wet, I could carry you across.”
‘So, she favored traversing the river valley.’
“What about the rest of the team?” she then asked the man.
“They mostly agree with me,” Helm-Scard responded. “No one wants to take the long way around; who knows what complications might arise en route?”
“Then it’s settled.”
As soon as she stepped out of the car, Helm-Scard, a grin plastered on his face, offered her a small, roughly made torch.
“For warding off insects,” he explained.
Ghervil took it, noting it was nothing more than a moderately thin branch, wrapped at one end with gasoline-soaked rags. A foul, medicinal scent emanated from it, suggesting some additional substance had been applied.
The torch he held himself, however, bore no such odor.
‘Was he underestimating her?’
Still, his intentions were good; mosquito bites were undeniably unpleasant.
Ghervil decided to refrain from commenting on his beaming face.
At that moment, Dr. Callan approached, crouching before her, and turning her face slightly to the side, she extended a hand backward, silently inviting Ghervil to climb onto her back.
“Even you underestimate me?”
The words escaped her lips before she could stop them.
“You don’t need a ride?” Dr. Callan asked, her brow furrowing in surprise.
“When did I ever say I did?”
Ghervil met her gaze with an equally astonished expression.
“I thought you agreed because you heard someone would carry you…”
Nearby, Helm-Scard struggled to stifle his laughter.
Disinclined to waste any more words on the pair, Ghervil simply turned and walked toward the cluster of torches not far away.
While she certainly had no desire to soil her expensive, purchased socks, nor to endure mosquito bites, she was hardly so delicate as to require being carried.
‘What did these two think she was?’
Ghervil shot Helm-Scard a look, and he instantly wiped the grin from his face, resuming a serious demeanor. Dr. Callan slowly rose, watching the young woman walk away, bewildered as to how she had offended her this time.
At the edge of the river valley, the agents collectively stowed their flashlights, replacing them with torches as they sought a path downward.
These old-fashioned tin flashlights, lacking any waterproofing, would be rendered useless upon contact with water.
“Over here, Chief!”
An agent, waving a torch, shouted loudly from a spot approximately fifty meters from the arch bridge.
Dr. Callan and Helm-Scard followed, moving towards the source of the shout.
They had evidently found a location with a gentler slope and fewer obstacles.
Upon reaching it, they discovered two or three individuals already at the bottom of the river valley, waving their torches.
The descent was about a dozen meters high, with a slope of roughly forty-five degrees.
Branches and weeds along the path had been cleared, and several more agents, including Helm-Scard, successfully made their way down.
When it was Ghervil’s turn, a hand reached out to her from ahead.
“Hold tight; don’t slip and fall.”
She wanted to give the woman a look that spoke volumes, but considering the current situation, she hesitated, then, a little abashed, obediently grasped the offered hand.
‘So soft.’
‘Warmer than her own palm.’
‘Was this what a girl’s hand felt like…’
In the instant their hands met, these thoughts raced through her mind.
Were it not for the enveloping darkness, her crimson face would surely have been visible.
Unlike the formal handshake of signing a contract, where only warmth was conveyed, the intimate clasp of palms offered a far more intense sensation of softness.
Throughout the dozen meters of their descent, she repeatedly admonished herself against such wandering thoughts. ‘On the surface, they were both girls, and she was a nun! To think too much would be no different from that pervert Lalviye-Komel!’
Having finally reached the stable ground at the bottom, she fully expected the woman to release her hand.
Instead, the grip tightened.
This caused her to momentarily falter, inadvertently stepping her right foot into the water. The icy cold, rising to her ankle, instantly sharpened her senses.
“Are you alright? There are plenty of stepping stones ahead—smooth river pebbles where you can find purchase.”
Noticing her struggle, Dr. Callan simply stepped fully into the water herself, taking Ghervil’s hand and guiding her to step onto the river pebbles.
Positioned in the middle of the group, with others following closely behind, they couldn’t afford to delay. Ghervil, reluctantly, had no choice but to accede to the woman’s arrangements, while raising her other hand to hold the torch and provide illumination.
After approximately twenty meters, as they reached the central section of the river valley, everyone began to slow their pace.
The V-shaped valley, as its name implied, was deepest at its center.
In Fintish, a similarly shaped letter was used to describe it, though pronounced differently.
Over a distance of twenty to thirty meters, the water gradually deepened to a meter.
With no more river pebbles to step on, Ghervil was just about to leap into the water when, almost mid-air, the hand gripping hers gave a forceful tug. Simultaneously, an arm wrapped around her back, and her knees were lifted by another hand.
She found herself cradled horizontally in the woman’s arms, carried forward into the deeper water.
“Oh!”
She struggled briefly, and a voice murmured beside her ear,
“Given your height, wading through would mean getting completely soaked, and with your delicate constitution, catching a cold would be quite troublesome.”
A peculiar sensation welled up within her.
She sensed a subtle shift in the woman’s demeanor ever since she had been ‘pushed’ over.
Recalling their past interactions, such moments would typically involve playful teasing, not this consistent, earnest concern.
‘Her scalp tingled.’
‘Surely, she wasn’t plotting something elaborate, was she?’
“Watch out!”
They had not proceeded much further when a sudden commotion erupted within the leading group.
“Splash—!”
The slowly flowing water erupted in a spray of splashes, some of which struck the torches, causing them to hiss.
Approximately three meters in front of Ghervil, someone was instantly dragged beneath the water’s surface and vanished.
There was no struggle, no cry for help.
Moments later, under the flickering torchlight, the water churned violently, and crimson foam welled up to the surface.
Each person brandished their torch around them, desperately trying to locate the assailant lurking in the water.
“Damn it, what in the blazes was that thing?!”
Someone yelled,
“There! A ripple on the water!”
A sharp-eyed, quick-witted agent hurled their torch towards the disturbance.
Before it plunged into the water and extinguished, the agents indistinctly glimpsed something.
It was a colossal dark shadow, more than two meters in length.