by Kate Elliott
Elowen swung her head around as her mage-light floated away across the water, leaving their surroundings dimmer than they had been a moment before. Will pulled ice into his hands, scanning for a target. How had it gotten so much murkier all of a sudden, as if darkness were washing in on a tide of unsavory magic? Beside him he felt the prickling of Rowan’s lightning waiting to be released.
“Over there!” Titus urged his horse toward the trees, taking the lead as always.
A shadowy horse and rider lurched toward the young knight out of the murky twilight. A spear thrust caught Titus’s horse a glancing blow across the flank, sending the animal stumbling. Titus flung a leg over the saddle and slid to the ground before he could get thrown. Drawing his sword, he turned to face the enemy.
A stench boiled through the air. The fading remnants of Elowen’s light revealed the creature’s true nature. It was a lich knight, all bone and decaying sinew, the undead remains of a brave fighter from the Realm who had met death in the heart of the Wilds. Its dead mount wore full plate armor darkened with rust and smeared with the dried blood of untold opponents.
As the creature closed with Titus, it raised its sword to cleave the youth.
“Titus! Duck!” Will threw a mantle of ice onto the lich knight to slow it down. Rowan galloped up from behind, slashing her sword across the undead knight’s back. Lightning released from the sword shot through its frame, catching fire on scraps of cloth before it fizzled out. But the creature wasn’t staggered at all. Its sword slammed down on Titus.
He pitched backward, heels over head, the sword cutting air where he’d just been. As he rolled to his feet, he drew his sword to catch the lich knight’s next cut on his blade. His entire body shook from the weight of the blow, but he held it off.
Cerise’s arrow punched through the skeletal creature, tearing flesh and chipping bone, but the impact did nothing to deter it from pressing Titus back. Hale swooped, talons clutching at the lich knight’s head, but all that came away were the jagged remains of an ancient helm, revealing a face of bone and rotting flesh. An eddy of black nothingness filled its eyes and gaping jaw. Again, Will and Rowan cast their ice and lightning, but the magic coursed over it without effect. It marched relentlessly forward as Titus scrambled to stay out of its reach.
Elowen threw a globe of blue light toward the creature. The sphere pushed its way inside the shredded tabard and popped with a burst of blue fireworks.
The lich knight jerked to a halt, swaying as the tiny explosions rattled inside its armor. Overhead, Hale swept a turn above the trees, trying to get an angle from which to attack.
Titus swung up onto his horse. Though bleeding from a gash scored across its flank, his mount was able and eager to run. “Move! Move! Where to, Elowen? Back through the portal?”
“We can’t leave before sunrise!” shouted Will.
“I’d rather die than return to Garenbrig like frightened rabbits!” Rowan cried.
“To the jade bridge!” Elowen called. “A lich knight cannot cross moving water.”
In the brief course of the battle, strands of daylight had woven into the darkness. The petals of the floating lanterns folded together in the manner of night flowers closing up as the sun rises. On the mound, the white flowers blooming within the vines began to close as light touched them. At the base of the obelisks a tangle of vines was heaped up over the contours of a large four-legged body. What Will took first for the woody stalks of a dead bush stuck up from one end of the concealed body, two curving racks that mirrored each other…like antlers.
Antlers? A stag covered in flowers, imbued with magical sleep?
That was all Will had time to think as he raced with the others past the mound and toward the bridges at the river’s shore.
Elowen called, “Don’t go on the obsidian bridge! The jade bridge is the safe bridge!”
Although Titus was in the lead, he pulled up at the river’s bank, waving the others past him. Elowen rode swiftly out onto the jade bridge, with Cerise and Rowan close behind.
“Will! Titus! Hurry!” Rowan yelled back at them.
“Go!” Titus said as Will came up beside him. “I’ll bring up the rear.”
The lich knight jolted after them, but the creature was too far away to reach them before they would all cross to safety. It would be all right. It will be all right. With the words ringing in his head, Will started up the bridge. They just had to shake off the lich knight and then they could turn right around. Had he really seen a stag buried beneath flowers? Would it wake when the sun’s light touched it?
Behind him, Titus shouted garbled words.
“Titus!” Ahead of Will, Rowan dragged her horse to a halt.
Will swung around in the saddle. Five paces from the bridge Titus had come to a halt, hands clapped over his ears in a vain attempt to block a sound Will could not hear. Titus’s mouth came open in a choked, rattling scream as his gaze tracked upward.
Above him, outlined by the rosy light of the rising sun, a hooded and robed figure flew over the trees. The figure rode on a creature that bore something of the shape of a dragon but had the thin legs of an insect and a profusion of crooked horns in a cluster where its eyes should have been. It was a specter, one of the most feared creatures of the Wilds because specters only appeared to people who were already doomed.
Too late Will realized he’d frozen as if spelled by his own ice. His horse was fighting the reins, trying to follow Rowan, Cerise, and Elowen, who had ridden partway across the bridge. He dismounted and ran back toward the clearing, shouting for Rowan to leave her horse too and come after him. The lich knight was still too far away from Titus to strike a blow with its blade. But the mist of its magic billowed up from the earth. Immaterial vines twined around Titus’s horse’s legs, caught on his friend’s boots, and spun a rope of magic around his body so quickly that between one breath and the next the mist completely obscured Titus and his mount.
“Stop! Don’t leave the bridge!” shouted Elowen from where she’d halted beside Cerise on the jade bridge, safe above the moving water. “The mist is deadly. It’s the lich knight’s magic.”
From behind, Rowan grabbed his arm and yanked him to a halt. “It’s too late.”
Together, they stared in disbelief and horror. The mist unwound from its prey as a cocoon dissolves. Titus and his horse were still upright as they came back into view, but when the tendrils loosed their hold and sank into the soil, youth and mare collapsed in a heap.
Will had to get to Titus, pull him to safety. When he set a foot on the cold, damp earth, a chilly sensation pressed into his flesh. A thread of mist curled around his boot, winding up his leg as it leached warmth, energy, and life from his flesh.
Rowan’s hand on his arm was hot. She dragged him backward, back onto the bridge. Where the tendril of mist touched the jade bridge it withered, leaving Will free of its taint.
The lich knight halted an arm’s length from the bridge. A staggering chill emanated from its body. The void of its gaze opened to a pit of despair: Share his fate. Come to me.
Will took a step toward the knight. Rowan pulled on him, trying to drag him back.
“Will! Will!”
Death is peace. Come to me.
He took another step down, hauling Rowan after him because she wouldn’t let go. A third step placed his boot on earth, not jade. Eager tendrils of mist sprouted from the ground to wrap around his leg. The lich knight’s bony jaw opened wide. A miasma of stink and cold and desolation poured over Will, rooting him to the ground. So tired. So very tired. The world around him began to fade into a gloomy, hopeless haze.
Movement flashed. A magnificent stag charged into view, head lowered, and slammed into the lich knight and its mount. With a powerful twist of its antlers it flung the lich knight to the ground and then, bellowing, it trampled back and forth on the corpse, splintering it into pieces.
Released from the lich knight’s mesmerizing magic, Will sprang forward, followed by Rowan. They
hacked at the remains of the lich knight until none of it could have pieced itself back together again no matter how powerful its magic. At first Will thought the gasping noise Rowan was making was panting, but she was crying with fury and grief. She kept hacking and hacking long after they had done enough, chopping into the dirt until finally Will tightened a glove of ice over her hands. Dropping her sword, she staggered backward, fell to her knees next to Titus, and burst into tears.
Cerise arrived on Sophos. She dismounted in haste, knelt beside Titus, and pressed a hand to his chest. Titus’s eyes were open, staring vacantly at leaves and sky. The blue of his eyes faded to a foggy white. A sickly sheen made his skin glisten, and its oily texture began to blister and bubble on his skin.
“Fool boy,” said Elowen behind him in a sorrowful voice. “Less courage and more knowledge would have aided you. Stand back, Cerise. Let me burn the remains.”
“But I can heal him! I can!” cried Cerise.
“He is beyond your help, girl. See how he already begins to transform. If we do not burn him, he will arise as a lich knight in his turn. Stand back.”
The fireworks Elowen set on Titus, his dead horse, and the scattered pieces of lich knight corpse caught and blazed. Cerise scrambled away from the heat.
Rowan rose. “It happened so fast,” she said, gulping down sobs.
Will helped Cerise to her feet. The healer was crying now, too, hands pressed to her face. They stared with disbelief and shock at the ashes and scorched debris, all that was left of the dear friend they’d grown up with, the leader of their little band. How could Titus be dead?
The horses wandered down off the bridge. Even though Will knew they were simply following Sophos, their presence comforted him, as if they mourned Titus also. And maybe they did. Titus had always been good with horses, and they trusted him.
Hale landed in the clearing. Cado ran over, his hand pressed to his heart and his expression creased with grief and dismay.
“I warned you the Wilds is no place for rash, cocky youth,” said Elowen in a grating voice that made Will want to scream at her. With her staff she poked through the debris and uncovered Titus’s sword, the only object her fireworks hadn’t warped and burned. “I’ll give the boy this: He showed loyalty in placing himself at the rear so the rest of us could reach the bridge.”
In a choked voice Will said, “If only I had—”
“Will! Enough!” Cado broke in. “No matter what Elowen says, there’s not a thing any of us could have done once the specter materialized. Titus is not the first to lose his life in the Wilds, nor will he be the last.”
He grimly dragged the sword from the remains of the young man, his horse, and the lich knight that had killed them both with its life-sucking magic. The sword’s sheath was blackened and useless, so he slung the tarnished weapon across his back.
“We’ll return the blade to his family when our quest is finished,” he said, then lifted his gaze to the stag. The noble beast had retreated to the river’s bank and paused there, looking their way. “Cerise, you have the halter.”
Cerise wiped the tears from her face as she straightened. “I am ready,” she said with a hot glance at the loremage. “Sophos will help me calm it. If you’re sure we’re meant to capture it.”
Rowan picked up her sword with shaking hands. “What else can we do? The mirror said the stag will lead us to our father.”
“Is that exactly what Indrelon said?” Elowen asked. “One must be precise.”
Rowan bit her lip rather than snap at the woman, but Will wasn’t so tongue-tied.
“ ‘Find the stag and you will find your father,’ or did you not believe me the first twenty times I repeated it to you?” he replied in his frostiest manner. His eyes were red with tears, and he wanted to bash in the heads of a hundred lich knights to get revenge. “Before the lich knight attacked I saw the stag asleep in the white flowers at the base of obelisk.”
“Bespelled,” said Elowen portentously. “Woken by the midwinter sunrise. I don’t like this at all. Either someone planted the stag there to lure us here. Or the stag was imprisoned within the sleeping flowers for another purpose.”
“Or maybe our father is asleep in the flowers, and we should search for him there.”
A loud whistle like a command sounded from the opposite shore of the river.
The stag tossed its head as if in anger. It bolted past them and ran onto the obsidian bridge. Partway up the span it paused to look back. With a weird, uncanny instinct, Will was sure it wanted to return, that it didn’t want to cross the bridge at all.
The whistle reverberated again. Again the stag tossed its head, antlers cutting the air as if trying to shake off an invisible leash.
When the whistle shrilled a third time, it loped across the obsidian bridge and out of their sight.
11
Sword in hand, Rowan swung up on her horse. “We can’t let the stag get away.”
Elowen called after her. “Not the jade bridge! You have to cross by the bridge the stag used.”
Rowan halted. “You said the jade bridge is the safe bridge. Since both bridges cross the river, isn’t it better to use the jade bridge?”
“What makes you think they go to the same shore?”
“They cross the same river to the same island,” said Rowan.
Even though it was now daylight it was impossible to make out the landscape on the other side. She squinted, which only made the effect worse, as if the land beyond lay out of focus the way the world slips into doubled vision. “It’s the way things look when you cross your eyes.”
Elowen smiled condescendingly. “This is what comes of youths who aren’t educated at Vantress. The other courts think loyalty or persistence or courage or strength are enough, but without knowledge none of these suffice. Even Cado knows that.”
He shook his head, considering the ashes. “Loyalty is the highest virtue. That is why I stayed at Ardenvale and you left. Rowan is correct. Best we move swiftly so the stag doesn’t escape us.”
Elowen led her mount to the foot of the obsidian bridge, giving the span a dour look as if her gaze could transform its substance.
Rowan came up beside her. “Where does this bridge go, if not to the same place as the jade bridge?”
Elowen cast her an exasperated glance. “How should I know? I never cross obsidian bridges when I travel the Wilds. No one with a grain of wit ever does, not if they want to return home in one piece and with their minds intact.”
“Why not?”
“Every obsidian bridge houses a deadly guardian intent on killing you. Maybe a troll, maybe a four-armed, tentacled howl-back, maybe a horned viper—”
“I’ll go first.” Rowan pushed past her. “I’m less afraid of death than I am of never getting our father back.”
She rode her horse at a cautious walk over the span, awaiting a monster’s attack. The black stone had a slippery texture, disquieting in the way your senses can warn you about a half-hidden object you don’t want to touch. Unlit lanterns furled as tight as sleeping bats hung from poles along the bridge’s railing. The bridge ran for far longer than it looked from the shore. What appeared from the clearing to be a narrow waterway was revealed to be a wide and sluggish river whose waters churned with ominous eddies and grasping whirlpools. A large serpent-like beast prickling with a spiky crest slithered just beneath the surface. When they reached the midway point, a pair of white-bodied figures popped up beneath the piers that supported the central span. Naked from the waist up, they beckoned to the travelers with gracefully waving arms. At first Rowan thought they were unusually beautiful undines calling out in silent greeting. Then they grinned to expose razor teeth meant for eating flesh. These were dark undines.
Behind her, Elowen had commenced lecturing. “The Wilds don’t behave in the orderly way you are accustomed to in the Realm. For example, ordinary stone bridges are fixed and permanent. But in the Wilds other bridges may appear and disappear at random. You find t
hem in one spot one day, and they vanish the next, only to reappear elsewhere.”
“Such bridges are always carved out of one of five different substances: ivory, lapis lazuli, obsidian, ruby, or jade,” said Will unexpectedly. He rode behind Elowen, with Cerise and Cado at the rear.
“Well! I am impressed, young Will. You’ll fit right in at Vantress, if we survive this expedition.”
“You never answered how they can go to the same shore but different places,” Rowan said, ready to burst from frustration as she tried to get the far shore to come into focus so she could follow the stag. “How can a river be wider than it looks from the shore?”
“I’m glad you asked. The heart realm of the Wilds isn’t one single place but many possible places. The bridges extend into different emanations, shall we say, of the island that lies on the other side. Some are considerably more dangerous than others.”
At last the bridge’s span sloped down to touch the earth. If the land ahead was an island Rowan could see no banks, no sense of scale. Turf- and tree-covered hills rose in the distance. Closer at hand lay the ruins of a city long since fallen into disrepair. Pathways wound maze-like through clusters of elegant buildings whose roofs had collapsed. Trees twisted through shattered walls, and their grasping roots framed doorways.
She rode into a sun-drenched field carpeted in red poppies, delicate white lily-of-the-valley, and purple crocus, all beautiful and poisonous. The stag stood amid the blooms, head proudly raised as it looked back at them as if it had expected them to follow. A big man emerged from a gap in the tangle of thorny vegetation that grew around the edge of the field. He wore the rough clothing of a hunter and carried a huge axe.
A headache sprang to life between Rowan’s eyes. She was sure she ought to know the man but when her mind tried to grab hold of a name it felt as if a hammer were pounding against her memory so loudly she couldn’t hear the answer. Will pushed up beside her, face flushed, breath ragged with excitement or nerves or perhaps a headache match to her own.