The Mark of Gold

by A. S. Etaski

  Several pairs of dark eyes bore into me, and I grinned, shifting my left hip forward to show off the red rune sheath and dagger at my hip. The thunderstones were out of sight on my right.

  “Demons abetting demons,” Kurn growled with a spit.

  I rolled my eyes and mounted Gavin’s mare alone, once again the caretaker of his possessions. I noticed Castis pull another pouch from the saddle bags of the extra horse before he gave the reins to the Deathwalker, then he glanced at me.

  *Well done,* the dagger cooed as I straightened and placed my gloved hand on its pommel. *He will find a way to do your bidding, Davrin. Be patient.*

  Skeptical and wary that it had been so easy, I thought, ~We’ll see.~

  Its cackle lingered until all of us mounted and, with the sun rising, were on our way along a road which was fast disappearing into a collapsing forest.

  Rithal stoutly watched my back, maintaining his pony’s position between me and Kurn and Amelda sharing the stallion, and Castis on his own gelding. Gavin was behind them and a good distance from me, with Mathias bringing up the rear.

  The Ma’ab muttered in their tongue; I could hear them clearly though they did not realize. It was good that Gavin was behind them, as their words would trail back, and they did not know he understood them now.

  Given the good pace of our travel with little delay from familiar infighting, I reflected that we’d found the only balance that might allow us to function as a group for a time. The one wild growth that worried me was Mathias.

  I had to assume he was here at Brom’s command, or Amelda’s in his name. The skin hunter made no motion to negotiate with me now; he had obtained what he wanted much earlier than he thought. Something had changed in his desires, but he would not state what. He had been in the shed with Gavin and offered that as a reason, but it did not explain if he was ally or foe.

  I’d long known Court Nobles who played sides as he did. Pincer worms waiting to strike. Had I been any greater threat than a lone Thalluen coaxing buas into bed, I would have been on the receiving end of all I’d witnessed.

  We reached the end of the road at midmorning, the sky overcast, and I did my best to tolerate the brighter light with only my hood up, rather than cut my peripheral warnings with the sun blind. The grey pathway Gavin and I had carved into the wilderness was still visible to me but not as pronounced; it had narrowed since yesterday.

  Peering around us, feeling the wrongness of the place, the Humans and Dwarf muttered low and beneath their breaths. Gavin opted to speak.

  “A mage will be greatly reliant on auras to judge one’s surroundings,” he said. “Non-mages with a magically imbued item may have some protection from false images but, regardless, you will face madness. If Mathias, Rithal, or Kurn do not have a magical anchor upon which to focus, I would not advise that they enter. Likewise, the living horses are likely to bolt and be attacked. One could tie them here. If they eat the grass, you may have to put them down.”

  No one made a peep, at first, as Gavin dismounted and demonstrated, tying up his borrowed horse. I smiled that he sounded like such the indifferent scholar sharing wisdom best not ignored. I waited to see if anyone would.

  Mathias turned his head to Rithal. “Thoughts?”

  “Goin’ in,” came the flat reply as he dismounted from his pony and led her to a bending tree.

  “You have a magic anchor, Dwarf?” Castis asked acidly. “We must put you down if you are taken by visions and become a liability.”

  The redbeard turned and spat in his direction. “Shut it, mule. Watch yer own backside.”

  I hoped that was an affirmative rather than foolish stubbornness, for Castis was not wrong about what may happen.

  Mathias peered around. “There’s a fair amount of grass.”

  The Dwarf shrugged. “I noticed she don’ want tah eat anything the last day, her stomach’s rumblin’. She’s smart an’ can last a bit longer.”

  Mathias and Castis followed suit although without the same vote of confidence for their mounts’ intelligence about eating the grass.

  Kurn held his chin high and adjusted Amelda in his lap. “If the maknuut nag enters with us, so does my warhorse.”

  “Kurn,” Castis protested, but was cut off.

  “If either try to escape, I will run them down!” barked the Hellhound.

  “Ain’t wise,” Rithal grumbled, “but ain’t new.”

  Mathias grinned and shrugged in agreement. “Alright, then. Let’s walk.”

  Were magically imbued items so common among us, then? I’d seen no sign of anything powerful except for the ruby while traveling, and the three mundane males did not prove their protection now. Perhaps Amelda had aided the men; Soul Drinker was far from Brom’s only possession. Osgrid could have helped Rithal.

  The dagger cooed eagerly. *We’re about to find out.*

  Kurn’s stallion didn’t rebel immediately upon entering the forest. Indeed, the beast at last settled somewhat, trotting ahead while I walked the mare beside Gavin and Rithal, with Castis and Mathias staying close in front.

  I watched their expressions and body language, silently drawing the relic to accept its help anticipating the warp rot creatures we knew would accost us eventually. Castis craned his neck around when I did, focused on me and my aura for a moment. I wasn’t sure what he saw, but he shifted over to the far side of Gavin’s mare.

  “You’re as clear as the day,” he remarked, holding out the pouch he’d taken from Amelda’s saddlebag. “While so much else is in a green haze.”

  “If you say,” I said, accepting the pouch as subtly as I could, though Rithal and Mathias were no doubt aware. It felt to have three stones in it.

  “The rune dagger is proven effective against the warp rot,” Gavin said, drawing their eyes from me. “Although I understand it has a will of its own and chooses its wielder.”

  I smiled. “It likes me.”

  *Indeed, I do, Davrin. Indeed, I do.*

  Castis’s dark eyes widened as he stared at the dagger then he moved away from my mount. “I will catch up to Kurn and Amelda lest they go too far.”

  The Dwarf and skin hunter looked confused at this behavior but didn’t call it out. It was far easier going this time with a pathway carved out, as the many small things which once challenged our every step were avoiding the grey path.

  Rithal remarked, “I see th’ creep an’ feel sick, but me mind is clear.”

  “Proximity to Sirana may be helping,” Gavin remarked.

  “Eh? Why?”

  My Deathwalker’s answer was blunt as usual. “The Davrin has talents amplified by a relic once linked to her people. Sirana and Soul Drinker act as a consecrated sanctuary within the corruption. She is the one most likely to get close to the center to toss in Sarilis’s vial.”

  ~I am?~

  *Ohh, yesss, didn’t you know? Hehehe!*

  “If you aren’t certain what action to take,” Gavin continued, “defending her also defends your sanity, if you wish to look at it that way.”

  As Rithal and Mathias evaluated me anew, I smiled with enigmatic confidence, as if I’d known this before now.

  “Huh,” Mathias said. “Alright. In that case, maybe we should catch up to the three Ma’ab?”

  “Castis be comin’ back,” Rithal pointed out.

  Indeed, and he held his head like it ached. Kurn’s stallion had stopped to wait for us, scraping a front hoof against the ground. The Hellhound held the small Ma’ab woman like she was a child’s comfort. Both seemed alert but not paranoid for now.

  The first creature large enough to dare cross the threshold into purged land was a hunched, burrowing deer with short, strong forelimbs and spindly hindquarters intended for dashing. It was in a continual charging posture.

  Kurn kicked the stallion forward first. Shoving Amelda forward onto the thick neck, the Hellhound drew his sword and pierced the wailing creature through the neck, sending it into seizur
e. The swift break down of the mutated body and shedding of grey ash proved what object was keeping the big man sane.

  Castis used this distraction to pass me a third pouch of thunderstones he’d retrieved earlier from the stallion’s saddlebag. Despite his haunting look of muzzled silence that I recognized too well, I felt relief. That is all of them.

  For several hours I did little except maintain that “sanctuary” for Rithal and Mathias while they, Castis, Gavin, Kurn, and Amelda all challenged the encroaching warp rot. Their continual cleansing broadened our pathway where it had begun closing. Soul Drinker hissed in continuous disappointment as I held us back from all but the closest prey.

  *So be it, Davrin, they can have the animals. Promise me the corrupted sentients in the center. You said as many as I could glut! Promise me!*

  ~Yes, yes. We conserve strength and wait for the best opportunity.~

  *And give me the Ma’ab. All of them.*

  ~At least one, we agreed.~

  *All!*

  ~If there’s opportunity.~

  *You lie. You do not want to kill the woman despite the danger she poses to you and your grey servant. You will hesitate. Fool!*

  I frowned. ~I will get you at least one. You’re irritable because you’re hungry.~

  *Oh, so? Then show your strength, Red Sister, and feed me!*

  I shook my head, knowing better than to respond to such Courtly goading.

  *Weak fool,* it pressed. *You must impress me to be worthy.*

  ~You said I am, and Queen Innathi promised I had your aid. If you discard me as your wielder so quickly, how will she discover what became of her Queendom?~

  The impatient dagger didn’t respond and pouted in silence; thus I had some sign this agreement upon the blue sands held a benefit for the demon. Admittedly, I was not certain what it was. I didn’t know if Innathi was separate from this lipless voice or part of it.

  “Yer mighty calm, Elf,” Rithal said with a slightly shaking voice, his axe covered in green slime slowly flaking off as black ash, his leather-bound shield colliding with things that ran faster than him. “Never seen anything like this.”

  “Calm is good,” I replied. “And I was here yesterday.”

  Mathias wielded an unfamiliar dirk which proved effective, but he had no shield and had to stay light on his feet. “All the kid tales I’ve heard about not leaving the path in a fey forest are as real as I could imagine.” He laughed. “Just like demons being real, eh, Sirana?”

  I smirked. “Just like.”

  Castis favored fire spells, which covered a wide area before being quenched. While most of the fire became yellowish steam as the corruption instantly turned to ash, if he repeated the treatment, it would catch fire for real. He sneered after the third time Rithal griped at him about having to stamp out the embers.

  “Jus’ once’ll do!”

  “Well, there is your proof it is cleansed!”

  “Yeah. Now stop wastin’ yer strength on branches that ain’t gonna bite ye!”

  Kurn ignored the bickering as he and Amelda led the way down into a darkening valley. With the big man as her devoted bodyguard, her many icy mist spells seemed to work as well as the spread of flames, be they of elemental light or ethereal shadow. Gavin’s theory had become truth before my eyes.

  Our group was charged by further warped wolves and a gigantic, fat-muzzled deer with a rack made of freshly chipped flint. There appeared to be no pattern or rhythm to when we would be attacked; it seemed not to matter if we made more noise or less. Jubilant voices rose behind the hills and within deep shadows but spoke no sensical tongue any of us could make out.

  The morning had long since passed, and I still wasn’t hungry. Or thirsty.

  Ahead, around a bend in the slope, Kurn’s horse screamed. It was soon followed by Amelda crying out, then the Hellhound shouting.

  “What in—!”

  Castis and Mathias sprinted forward, slowly followed by Rithal. Gavin lengthened his stride significantly but did not run, and I remained next to him, seated astride the mare undeniably showing her wear and tear.

  Once we got into view, I saw the big horse struggling to pull a thick foreleg out of a narrow muck hole. It had plummeted so deep that it painted the horse’s powerful chest in green mud. Kurn had dropped his sword near where Amelda had toppled into the grass from the saddle. He was attempting to brace his mount and help him out by plunging his entire arm into the liquid earth to grip beneath the chest.

  “Rithal, give me your aid, now!” barked the Hellhound as the horse whinnied and squealed in panic above his dark head.

  The Dwarf’s bushy red eyebrows lifted in utter surprise. He folded his strong arms as Gavin stepped forward and to the side, casting his black fire to the left of the struggle, pushing against the corruption which had overtaken this part of the path. Castis took the hint and cast his fire on the right side, and Amelda moved to where a goop spattered Kurn could see her.

  “Kati alhif!” she insisted, rapidly explaining something about the ground as she waved her arms about and motioned him away.

  He didn’t want to leave his stallion; for a moment, he argued, resisted. Something large and dark moved in my periphery, and I snapped my focus to my right. Green haze swirled, leaving a vague wake as the commotion filled my ears.

  *No warp rot close,* Soul Drinker reassured me. *Although if the brute doesn’t pick up his sword soon, you may have… difficulties.*

  Rithal and Mathias stayed near me while the mages worked, and I watched warily as Amelda had no choice but to cast ice on Kurn and the horse, hurting them both in all appearances. Still, this altered the nature of the liquid earth; at last, the stallion rolled and pulled his leg out, hooves kicking the air as the huge body struggled to right himself.

  Meanwhile, Kurn huffed loudly as he limped away from the lanced boil in our pathway, his hands shaking as he reached for his fallen sword. I spotted movement around the edges of his bracer and gauntlet. The wriggling looked at first like leeches trying to dig beneath the hardened leather and metal, but then I realized that was his armor.

  The small hairs at my nape stood up, and my guardians grew alert as I slowly dismounted to stand next to Rithal. Mathias reached for something at his belt as the Dwarf adjusted his grip on his axe.

  “Kurn?” Amelda asked in a smaller voice than before, and Gavin and Castis paused to pay attention.

  The Hellhound straightened up, holding his naked blade with a scowl on his pale face. Wordlessly, he walked to his stallion and mounted up, motioning us forward with his sword.

  When we hesitated, he barked, “Let us go!”

  Although his horse limped forward several paces, no one moved to catch him as Castis glanced at Gavin. “You… you said Sirana’s blade could draw out corruption before it spreads?”

  The Deathwalker did not reply but turned to me.

  ~Will you?~ I asked.

  *Would you want me to? We were both there when his cock was wallowing in your back hole.*

  A hot flush of humiliation flared but I tamped it down. ~He got his next. But now he becomes even worse.~

  *Then you should have followed your training and killed him when you had the chance. Do you really want to get near him only to help him?*

  I knew the answer to that.

  “Kurn,” said the fire mage without awaiting my answer. “Let Sirana cleanse Mikhaob. His leg, look—”

  “She won’t touch him!” the big Ma’ab roared.

  The black stallion left a black and green hoofprint in the grey dirt as he pranced. I saw his eye roll and show white.

  *Put him down,* Soul Drinker whispered. *It’s too late.*

  ~Which one?~

  *Either. Or both.*

  “Kurn, dismount!” Amelda tried, staying in Trade for once. “We must tend to wounds before we continue.”

  “I am not hurt,” he growled brandishing his long sword. “And if the black kus nears my horse
with that blade, I’ll chop her hand off at the wrist and jam her cold fingers down her throat!”

  Rithal glanced at me as I withdrew my hand crossbow from my side. The bolt remained dry-coated with the quick-kill toxin, though I did not know how long it would take to overcome a horse of that size.

  ~Maybe it would be better to hit Kurn with it, instead.~

  *Don’t you dare,* the dagger hissed. *You give him to me, or I leave you exposed at the very core of this corruption.*

  Kurn’s arm continued to tremble, the armor writhing against tightening straps; the black stallion’s agitation was spiking. Amelda backed up quickly, seeking refuge behind Mathias, and Kurn focused on her.

  “Woman,” he said, his tone sounding off. “Come, get on my saddle.”

  “No need, I shall walk,” she replied proudly though failing to hide her fear as she glanced at me, her dark eyes pleading.

  ~What do you expect me to do?~

  *Claim him for me.*

  “Castis!” the Hellhound bellowed, baring teeth in a smile I hadn’t seen before. “Bring your tight alibat here! The shareth proclaims herself untouchable. Let us use the ruby on her, together. Hold her down, like before. If you don’t want a turn, I know others who do.”

  Amelda sputtered, and Castis trembled as he stared at his fast-declining partner. The nobleman shook his head in disbelief and anguish at what he saw then he pointed at me.

  “Sh-she has the ruby.”

  “What?”

  “Remember, Kurn? Sirana has it.”

  “Sohn o’a fargith,” Rithal muttered, going two-handed with his axe.

  “Don’t you remember where we are?” the whelp continued. “We’re in a warp rot nest! We need you!”

  I saw green froth dripping from the stallion’s mouth as his ears flattened against his skull. The burr of protest which came out of the muzzle held a high-pitched laugh within it as it half reared. The foreleg which had dropped into the earth continued to leak fluids of ever-changing colors.

  The stallion whinnied, and the forest howled in answer.

  ~It’s too late.~

  Kurn paced his mount, their bodies twitching together in uncontrolled spasms, and I raised my arm straight once the horse’s broad side was to me. The Hellhound focused on me as I aimed behind the stallion’s shoulder and in front of the saddle; Callitro’s ring must assure I didn’t miss the animal’s lung. I squeezed the trigger, and the bolt launched, striking at close range with a thump.