Curse Breaker Omnibus

by Melinda Kucsera

  But it should, and the thought gave Sarn pause. His gaze strayed to the shuddering ghost boy hiding its face in his pant leg. The specter peeked at Sarn, and its pale, terrified eyes pleaded with him to stop.

  “I can’t,” he whispered to the ghost. “I have to do this.”

  Magic rolled over the flint arrowhead in his hand turning it a radiant green. Connection established, Sarn nocked, sighted and drew on the bow feeling muscles in his upper back pull tight. He released the arrow, and it sped past the standing stones into the darkness beyond. His will flew with the shaft and its sensory payload. The string slapped his right forearm, but he ignored its sting.

  Landing point first in the dirt, a remnant of his magic dispersed into the ground and dashed back to him, sending flashes of roots, rocks, and leaves—all of them motionless. Why were they still? Their immobility raised his hackles.

  To keep up the ruse, Sarn fired two arrows at the target hitting it dead center. He grabbed another arrow and shot it south toward the river. Nothing there either—was he losing his mind?

  A blur dashed up Common Rock and perched on its top. Its beady eyes glared at Sarn as its body tensed, readying for something. It was too far away to attack him or Inari and too small to do much harm. Aiming high, Sarn fired two more arrows targeting other sections of the forest. Had something broken its enchantment? What the hell was he mixed up in?

  A nudge here or there kept the two projectiles defying gravity far longer than any arrow should, as he curved their trajectories. Sarn fired off three more at the straw target planting them in a tight cluster to satisfy the Rangers watching from the cliff then resumed sending arrows into the forest hunting for information.

  His last arrow bounced off a tree rousing it, proving its enchantments still held—thank Fate. The arrow plummeted until something plucked it out of the air and snapped the shaft in half. After dropping the broken arrow, a blurry figure ground it under his boot and advanced.

  Moonlight fell on Hadrovel as the man stepped out of the forest. Those miserable eyes locked onto Sarn as the psycho lumbered toward him.

  With shaking hands, Sarn snatched an arrow, nocked, sighted and drew so fast he blurred. Thunk. The arrow passed through Hadrovel’s chest, but the man kept coming.

  “You’re dead—I saw—” Sarn seized another arrow and fitted it to the string.

  “He’s dead Kid. He can’t hurt you anymore,” Jerlo assured Sarn from the depths of his memory, but the commander had lied.

  Sarn shot two more arrows. Hadrovel swelled until the psycho loomed over him. Every arrow found its mark decorating the psycho’s chest with a death’s head of fletching, grim smile included. But Hadrovel refused to die. He just kept coming.

  Sarn reached for an arrow, but his hand closed on empty air, and his back slammed into Common Rock. The damned thing was the size of a giant’s boot. Gripping the longbow in both hands, Sarn swung it. Green lightning snaked along the bow, but it splintered against Hadrovel’s chest, raining embers, and twinkling sawdust.

  Sarn reversed his grip on the now-sharpened stave and stabbed, but the psycho didn’t even flinch when the magic-riddled wood punctured his chest. One good slap knocked the stave loose leaving no blood or wound behind.

  Recognizing the glint in Hadrovel’s eye, rage consumed Sarn. Not this time, the psycho would not bind his will to compliance. Magic leaked out of every pore. It ripped rocks out of the earth and hurled them at Hadrovel before the beast could utter a single word. The projectiles landed in a screaming pile and the thing masquerading as Hadrovel flickered like a guttering flame. He was not Hadrovel.

  The realization knocked Sarn to his knees so profound was his relief. Or perhaps it was exhaustion sapping his strength. He had done far more magicking in the last few hours than he could remember ever doing before. Pain probed at the spot between his eyes presaging a headache.

  “What are you?”

  The doppelganger grinned baring yellowed teeth then shattered sending red sparks to dance on the breeze. An invisible force spun the fragments into a thirteen-pointed star right before it shot Sarn between the eyes. He collapsed in screaming pain as the star cut through his mind, raising memories in its wake.

  Through a chink in the stone wall, Sarn caught the dark eyes of a slender figure. Swathed in a white cloak and cowl, the sacrifice stepped into a forest of candles and took Hadrovel’s hand.

  The youth held his gaze as incantations in a guttural language assaulted his ears and scratched at his sanity. Pressure built, almost flattening Sarn as something ground against reality’s thin veil.

  Thirteen cairns surrounded his narrow prison. Fingers poked out of the one nearest, and they twitched. Oh Fate, there was an orphan entombed in it—in all of them. The dying children’s screams turned into hacking coughs as a sulfurous stink choked the air.

  “You killed them!” Sarn shouted at Hadrovel as the memory shattered. He rocked as pain stabbed him in each eye.

  Inari’s rose-scented arm wrapped around his shaking shoulders and her breath tickled his ear. “It’s all right. I’m here.”

  And Sarn wanted her to hold him forever. But this was wrong. She belonged to another, so he pushed her away. Once he was vertical, he stumbled, putting some distance between them.

  “Stay out of this or someone you love dies,” said Hadrovel’s doppelganger. Sarn pivoted, but the creature was gone. Only his warning remained, echoing with each heartbeat.

  ‘I saw a shadow monster,’ Ran had confessed, his little face screwed up in fear. And Sarn’s arms ached to hold his son, to protect the boy from everything.

  Nolo’s words from earlier echoed: ‘you have to let it go.’

  How could he? Sarn met the frightened eyes of the ghost boy. No, he would see this through to the bitter end. He had no choice now. His son was in danger, and it was his fault. But he was more lost than before. Where could he turn for answers?

  Look inside you, whispered the magic.

  Sarn reeled at the possibility. How could the answer be inside him?

  “What the hell are you doing?” Jerlo demanded as he rounded common rock.

  Inari started at the commander’s sudden appearance, but Sarn stared at the blood dripping down his throbbing arm. A crimson drop splashed onto the earthen lips opening to catch it. The ground shook, and something shot out of it. Catching it on reflex, Sarn held a bloodstone keyed to him. Inside the reddish stone, a spark of his magic waited for direction.

  “What the hell?” Sarn looked to Jerlo for an answer, but his master’s brows drew down in consternation, presaging a lecture, not an explanation.

  “Let me clean this.”

  Inari wiped at the blood and the dozens of raised welts along the inside of Sarn’s right arm. And her silken touch made his loins itch for some amorous action.

  Fates damn him to hell, he wanted her warm hands elsewhere on his anatomy. It had been too long, and the magic wanted another Ran. Its demand pounded with his heart, but Ran had to stay an only child.

  After applying a salve she produced from a pocket, Inari wrapped his sore arm in gauze then stepped back. “Keep the wound clean, so it heals all right.”

  Sarn nodded.

  “What the hell happened here?” Jerlo glared at Sarn.

  How could he even begin to answer that question? Sarn looked at the grinning skull outlined in fletching and shivered. How many arrows had he shot? Too many, no wonder Jerlo looked ready to strangle him. His latest bout of insanity had destroyed a target and created a six-foot cairn.

  “Get inside now. Go to my office and sit there while I decide what to do with you.” Jerlo pointed at the mountain. Command laced his voice, and it tugged on the compulsion, turning Sarn toward the doors beckoning from the mountainside.

  Before Sarn could blink, he was halfway up the mountain’s winding trail. The air had a cold bite and a hint of putrefaction to it, one reminiscent of the two murder sites. But he could not stop to investigate. Jerlo’s orders left no leeway this
time.

  For uncounted miles in all directions, save south where the river flowed, the enchanted forest stood like ranks of spent candles. Their lack of brilliance grated on his nerves until she blazed in the distance on Mount Shayar. Raising her refulgent branches, she extended them toward Sarn. And her summons reverberated in his bones.

  He must go to the Queen of All Trees. Staggering forward, Sarn stepped onto an inconvenient bluff and crossed it, only to crash into invisible chains. Promises pulled tight, tripping Sarn and he went down on one knee as Jerlo’s last words echoed in his skull: ‘go to my office and sit there.’

  He had sworn to obey Jerlo, and his master had issued an order. Each word flayed Sarn, abrading his will the longer he knelt there. He must do as Master bids.

  But she had called. Sarn stared at the clumps of grass clinging to the precipice while two desires strove for mastery. White light caressed his face igniting a memory of a white-robed youth surrounded by a blaze. The image sharpened until the candles separated into a circle winding around a star with thirteen rays. Somehow the event in his past and the murders were connected.

  “Thank you,” he whispered, letting the breeze carry his words to the Queen of All Trees.

  Her light winked out, breaking the enchantment and his mind cleared enough for Jerlo’s objective to gain the upper hand. Sarn stood up, dazed but determined, and stumbled back onto the trail. Waving its hands in a shooing motion, the ghost boy appeared, urging Sarn to go back.

  “Not you too. I can’t go to her. She knows I have orders.”

  But the specter shook its head and motioned him to turn around. Curiosity spun Sarn, and he blinked at the tenebrous vista spreading beyond the circle of menhirs. The Queen of All Trees had vanished into the enchanted forest, and its unnatural darkness had swallowed her. No hint of her radiance remained, not even an afterimage.

  “Is she in trouble?”

  The ghost pointed to where she had stood, and its pale lips moved in silent speech.

  “Is she?”

  The ghost ignored his question.

  Sarn folded his arms over his chest. “What are you afraid of? You’re already dead.”

  Far off, a voice whispered, eam’meye erator. Sarn shuddered.

  The ghost raised one spectral finger to its wide eyes then dissipated in a gust of wind, leaving Sarn alone with the night and too many questions without answers. He kicked a stone, sending it clattering down the mountain.

  Jerlo’s icon on his head map moved, spurring Sarn into action. He pivoted and continued up the trail. But as the gravel path bent to climb between two rock formations, Sarn felt a malevolent presence. His head map added a marker for this new menace and then subtracted it a moment later as a rat darted across his path. It turned beady eyes on him, and the force of its hatred pushed Sarn back a step. Was it one of Rat Woman’s attendants?

  For a long, tense moment, he and the entity looking out through the rat’s eyes remained locked in a standoff. Something held its hatred in check—was it Rat Woman or someone else? Had Hadrovel distracted him from a larger problem?

  It was possible, and the possibility frightened him. Rocks crumbled where he gripped an outcropping in frustration. The rat fled into the shadows lining the trail. Sarn shivered at the close call before plodding onward up the mountain’s more scenic face.

  Around the next bend, Sarn found Cyril and Bisheen still guarding the doors. The former whistled and the latter clapped Sarn on the back, spinning him around. An apology wrote itself across Bisheen’s blocky features right before the Ranger rammed Sarn up against a rock wall and pinned him there.

  “Sorry Kid, I have to search you. Don’t make this any harder than it has to be. Orders are orders.”

  Before he’d even stopped speaking, Bisheen kicked his feet apart. Maybe they'd heard about his earlier evasion. Rumor traveled at the speed of thought in the mountain stronghold especially when it pertained to him. Sarn gnashed his teeth.

  From their vantage high on Mount Eredren’s shoulder, Bisheen had a perfect view of his loss of control. Fear made their sweat stink and their breath catch as they prodded Sarn seeking concealed weapons. Cyril had joined in too, crowding Sarn. It made him laugh because the only weapon he possessed was magic and he avoided wielding it when he could.

  Keep your hands off me. Sarn bit down hard on those words, swallowing them. But his magic reared up and lashed out with a whip of crackling green energy, knocking both men away from him.

  Turning his back on their stricken looks, Sarn pulled his cowl low over his freakish eyes. He ran inside, but the fear on their faces accompanied Sarn, portending trouble to come.

  An emerald glow caught Nolo’s eye, and he turned, his gut clenching with dread. Sarn should be in the training room still assembling packs. There had been enough to keep the Kid busy and out of sight all night unless someone lent a hand.

  Charging across the meadow, he repeated the word “No” between breaths. But the wind swallowed his negation.

  The Kid stood cloaked and cowled as always, but his eyes blazed, throwing emerald light for a half mile in every direction. In the Kid’s hands, magic flowed through a longbow lighting up the wood. An arrow pulled free of the ground and sailed toward the Kid’s open palm. Its flint head fluoresced green as the Kid nocked, sighted and drew so fast he blurred. As the arrow flew, emerald lightning crackled around it.

  A thicket of arrows outlined a grinning skull on the decimated target. Repeated pummeling had splintered one if its supports. Unperturbed, the Kid held out his hand again, but no arrow rose to meet it. The Kid swung his bow at the target, splintering it.

  Nolo slammed into an invisible wall and bounced off it. He punched the barrier, but the damned thing refused to yield. “Sarn!” he shouted, but magic continued to rise, charging the air, so each lungful delivered a painful zap to his insides. "Stop it Sarn! Listen to me!"

  Rage rattled the chains of Nolo’s sanity. Who had caused this? Was it Ranispara? Had she disobeyed Jerlo's edict? No, she knew why the Kid must never focus his attention, and by extension, his magic, on any task. Had Gregori orchestrated this tragedy? Dear God, it was possible after the stunt his friend had pulled yesterday. Nolo's hands curled into fists. If Gregori had anything to do with this, he'd—

  Stones lifted off the riverbank and hurtled toward Sarn, but the Kid just rocked, lost in his delusions. At the last second, the stones swept upwards describing a graceful arc. They remained suspended by will alone until gravity crashed them down, creating a cairn as tall as its creator.

  Helpless, Nolo watched months of work crumble. And he screamed a negation along with the Kid. It was happening again, and there was nothing he could do to stop it. Or was there? A familiar weight settled against his back. He could just reach up, seize an arrow and—no. Nolo laced his fingers together over his abdomen, but Death’s arrows tempted him.

  You could mark him for a good end. Why let that capricious bitch Fate decide how he should die? Wouldn’t a peaceful death be better? Or do you want him to suffer?

  No, Nolo told the black quiver. He would not shoot at a child for that’s what Sarn was—a boy stuck in a man’s body—one ill-equipped to handle life’s harsh realities. The Black Ranger does not mark children. Point taken, the black quiver of death, but he still carried the burden.

  A lithe figure darted forward distracting Nolo. She was a familiar woman-shaped silhouette against the magic's glow. Skidding on the grass, she went down on one knee and threw an arm around the Kid's shoulders.

  Sarn was shouting now. “You killed them—”

  Someone was inside the cordon created by the Kid’s magic. Squinting, Nolo recognized the huntress pattern dyed into the woman’s back and the waist-length braid of black silk bisecting it. Inari had caused this drama. He’d expected her to ask Ranispara to shoot with her since the two women had been fast friends for nigh on a decade already. They did everything together. So why not archery?

  Of all the people Inari could have
chosen, why had she picked Sarn? Casting his eyes skywards, Nolo looked to the stars and God for answers. But those cold pinpricks hid behind clouds, and God kept his peace. Maybe Sarn vexed the Almighty too. Giving the radiant barrier one last punch, Nolo blinked as it shattered, freeing him.

  He rushed forward, but Jerlo beat him to the Kid. Whatever emotional storm had caused this must have ended because rationality had returned. And with it came a stunned Sarn who stared at what he'd wrought under the magic’s influence.

  “Inside now,” Jerlo pointed at the mountain. “Go to my office and sit there while I decide what to do with you,” said the commander.

  Sarn left without saying a word. Nolo changed course to follow him. The Kid always had a seizure after magical displays. Someone should be with him because it promised to be a bad one. But when Nolo caught sight of his stricken wife, outrage detoured him to her side. How dare she stand there like she'd done nothing wrong.

  Anger hardened Nolo's voice into a truncheon he swung at her. “What were you thinking? We stopped giving him archery lessons because this is what happens.”

  Inari rounded on him, anger coloring her cheeks. “Have you ever bothered to figure out why this happens? I didn’t think so. He has magic. You can’t hide it away or pretend it doesn’t exist. He’ll never learn to control it if you keep him away from everything that triggers it.” Inari’s eyes flashed, and her breasts heaved as she stabbed Nolo in the chest with a calloused finger. “And before you accuse me of anything—this wasn’t my intention. I didn’t know this would happen.”

  Nolo glanced at his boss, but the commander had decided to play spectator for this argument. Inari seized his chin and turned his head back to her.

  “All I know is you used to teach him archery, but those lessons stopped suddenly. When I suggested we shoot for a bit, he was happier than I’ve ever seen him.”