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CHAPTER 65
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Zenryth Hail

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The trees soon thinned out as we walked forward in relative silence. Murkai had flown ahead, a dull sense of alertness lingering in our joint minds.

Eventually, when the trees became scarce enough, I became aware of the truth of the ground we were standing on. It gradually became steeper, the wind blowing harsher. As we became slightly elevated over the land behind us, it became clear how much more so we were from every other direction.

A thick, blunt pointed cliff made of rocky ground and icy, snowed on layers. The wind picked up, slapping the cowl of my cloak into my face as my hair clung to it. I grabbed the cowl, flicking it up so my vision would become unobscured.

I held it in place as I looked on ahead, a silhouette of life visible against the deep blue sky behind them. "That must be them," I grunted against the harsh wind.

Ethrin Wood didn't respond, frowning as we approached the figure. When he was within view, his jacket and scythe quickly confirmed my expectation. His hair was short, thick, white, and dishevelled. The eyes that met us were pale orange, corners downturned, and deep-set.

They flicked for a moment between us and Ethrin Wood, settling on the latter with a small, weary smile. "You're looking better," he commented, approaching his teammate and embracing him briefly. He clapped him on the back with both hands before pulling away.

Ethrin Wood frowned slightly at him, his hands resting on the man's arms like long-lost brothers. "Where were you?"

The other man shrugged as they stood back, his shoulders wide while his teammates were lean. "Fighting the ripper like we said. It escaped me not too long ago, so I went looking for it."

"Have a guess where it went," Ethrin Wood sighed. He opened his mouth to say something else, but paused when I interrupted.

"If you two want to keep chatting, do it in your own time. Where is your last teammate? Wasn't he with you?"

Five pairs of eyes looked at the newcomer -- who I could only guess was Lastri Aryth -- expectedly. The orange-eyed man -- face, jacket, and white hair speckled red and black -- hesitated.

His thick brows pointed downward in the corners slightly, his eyes softening as he looked between us and Ethrin Wood. "...we got separated. I lost him. When the ripper ran away, I tried to find them both--." As he spoke, I noticed his hand gesturing vaguely behind him.

I walked right past him, my cold voice interrupting his. "I asked for a location, not a story."

My boots moved through snow that shifted around me like powder being blown off a hand. My jacket whipped back and forth against the wind yet protected my body underneath from its sharpness. As I covered ground, approaching nearer to the edge of the cliff, another silhouette came into sight.

I could hear footsteps behind me as the others waded through the snow, stopping around the specimen that now lay in front of me. It was so close to the edge of the cliff that only its weight and the direction of the wind kept it from falling into the abyss.

The howl of the night reached us in a stronger, harsher current -- an eerie backdrop to the sight before us. There before my boots was a ripper, staked from below its chin and up through its head. It hung limply from the scythe, its tongue and mouth hanging over its snath.

The butt of the scythe was against the ground, its corners covered lightly in the snow that blew along the ground. Black blood drenched the ripper's body until its wounds were no longer decipherable, staining the scythe and snow around it in the process.

Nobody spoke, not quite sure what to make of the sight in front of us. Finally, after the wolf of the night had howled, and the sky had groaned under the pressure -- Ethrin Wood spoke, his voice trailing off in the night's breath. "Is that..."

I placed our bag on the ground, stepping forward, my boots squelching in the snow, oozing black lining its rim. I crouched down, catching something that fluttered from inside the rippers open mouth. Cagged in my hand like a bug was something blue, attached to a string that coiled around the place where the scythe's head met wood.

I turned it over, holding its corner between my two fingers to keep it still against the wind. It fluttered like a trapped butterfly, but was still enough for my observing eyes.

A blue origami sea-cat, battered and stained almost completely black. It seemed to make eye contact with me for a moment, black liquid dripping slowly down its paper eye.

I plucked it off the neck of the scythe, standing up. My eyes found Lastri Aryth's. Guilty. Then Ethrin Wood. Shocked. Something pained.

"We better start looking for tracks," I stated, tracking black boot prints over the white snow between us.

"Zenryth Hail..." Lylock Rin started, taking a step toward me. "I think he might be--"

"I know what he might be, I'm not dense. But I'm also here to do my job," I stated flatly, moving past him and scanning the snowy ground. The wind swept away even my own boot prints in seconds, my sight becoming obscured by the snow collecting in my lashes.

Ethrin Wood grabbed the ripper corpse, pulling it up and dropping it into a wet pile on the cliffs edge. The scythe fell, only held up by the weight of the ripper pressing its butt against the ground. He leaned down, pulling it from the creatures chin in a bloody mess.

He placed it on the ground beside him as he began inspecting the snow, the ripper, and the scythe itself.

"Listen," Lastri Aryth started. "...he wouldn't have left his scythe behind. He would've burned the corpse." He spoke to everyone, but his attention seemed directed mostly toward Ethrin Wood. Oryn Ryth's former apprentice.

He wasn't wrong. But exceptions always existed. He can't have just disappeared into an abyss.