9 Tales From Elsewhere 12

by 9 Tales From Elsewhere

  The wind shifted, blowing leaves high above their heads. Shadows danced and nearby a bird shot into the air. The beat of steel on stone did not falter.

  Kilton had been dragged about half a mile from camp and laid in the center of a large roughly circular patch of brown grass.

  Kilton was bait. His hands and feet were bound, mouth stuffed full of rags, armored belly pointed to the sky. He was smeared with mud and covered in a tangle of underbrush.

  The circular patch of grass was bad. Davis knew that without even consulting Martellus, who had a faint touch of the Gift in him. Davis glanced at the knight, bulky and grim faced as he gripped his sword. The man nodded.

  Magic was here.

  Davis knew that, even with a mage, there was no guarantee of Kilton’s safety. According to Martellus, magic was deeply personal to all life and only followed loose rules. Even a brilliant mage could, in theory, find simple wards and enchantments impossible to break if he lacked the caster’s personal touch.

  Davis swept his eyes over the junior knights: four young men armed with pikes and naive determination. The wind shifted again, sending a cascade of patterned light and shadow over his charges’ faces, muting their features until they almost seemed part of the forest itself.

  The tapping that had been pulling them in on the last leg of the journey to save Kilton was coming from an arched stone hallway. It plunged into a conspicuous round hill at the far end of the clearing. Trees and grass covered the structure.

  The noise was steady, hypnotic; drawing Davis’s eyes deep into the shadows of what was likely an ancient burial mound, or some other ritual site. Davis got the sense that the interior of the structure was also round.

  Circles everywhere.

  Davis considered the issue: this was a trap, but the trigger and the killing mechanism were unclear. The maddening sound of steel on stone could be the lure, an arcane trick to draw them into the circular interior of the manmade hill. The entrance to the mound was narrow and would funnel the attackers into a single file line. A bad idea against a man with a knife and a crazy idea against a prepared mage. Moving fast and staying away from the mound was the only safe option. In the open, at least they could move freely and observe events as the unfolded.

  The attacker had to know they would come to Kilton’s rescue. Davis needed to show up to Dennum with all hands, a show of strength to revive faith in the laws of order and justice.

  Questions would be asked if six knights instead of seven showed up. Even more would be asked if Kilton showed up alive or dead sometime later.

  It would take four men to get Kilton up onto the stretcher, then two to carry him to safety. The short jog to the woods carrying man in armor would not kill the well-trained knights.

  Davis felt his brow furrowed as he began speculating about the threats of clearing. They would be within a giant circle, the possible epicenter of a spell. Could an imperfect circle that size even hold a spell? Wouldn’t a malediction cast on such a scale be ludicrous overkill? Davis felt a crawling sense of vulnerability, Martellus was great for locating magic but without a true mage to judge the situation there was no real way to be sure.

  He and Martellus would have to be on defense but Davis was unsure where they should place themselves. Kilton was only one experienced with a ranged weapon. He had been a crossbow man in the regular army before joining the ranks as a knight under Davis. Martellus was a fair shot with a bow. Didn’t matter now, as his compound bow had busted its last string two days before, while he was restringing it.

  The tapping in the archway droned on and on until Davis realized it had picked up-tempo, almost imperceptibly. Nervous juices churned in his stomach as the wind shifted, blowing leaves and vegetation. The air was suddenly full of agitated shadows swirling, dancing over every surface.

  The tapping represented a great threat but with so many inexperienced knights, a direct assault was impossible. The circle was surely too huge to be the trap. Davis waved his men closer and began laying out the plan using quick hand motions and clipped coded phrases.

  The plan was simple. Davis and Martellus would skirt around the circle to guard the mouth of the burial mound. Once in place, the four squires would rush into the clearing and retrieve Kilton as fast as possible.

  It was ugly.

  It was stupid.

  It would have to do.

  Kilton squirmed and groaned, even muffled as it was, he sounded like a stuck pig.

  In the dancing lights of day, he could see the scarlet blooms of fresh blood as Kilton came to. There was no reason more reason to wait, so Davis signaled Martellus to move into place.

  Davis reached his position with Martellus close behind. The four squires rushed forward to Kilton’s aid. One carried the stretcher and other three hurried ahead, pikes raised to the empty air as if to ward off some unseen attacker. They fanned out as the first man checked Kilton for damage. Davis saw red fingers held to the light.

  Something had ambushed Kilton in their camp, incapacitated, and dragged him like a slaughtered deer to this circle. There were no obvious tears or dents so Davis imagined a long needle-thin lance plunging into the knight’s gut. Wounds like that could take weeks to kill. Injured but not dead, he was perfect bloody bait.

  Davis clenched his sword handle as his stomach hardened like a rock. It was not beyond a human or monster to be so brutal, but normally it was more theatrical. Sadists liked to show off, but this felt colder than that.

  All four of the men were making ready to lift Kilton now. It was only a short distance to the stretcher but he was being handled with the utmost care. Their attention was away from the mound and the tapping.

  The list of people who would do something so strange and dangerous was very small. Davis wracked his mind to think of mages or gangs that would do this kind of thing. Even foreign soldiers were possible, if unlikely. The tapping kept on going: steady and unfeeling.

  The list was shrinking as Davis discounted one name after another.

  The Scray Coven was a vicious band of mages. But they were located a hundred miles south of Dennum.

  Domen Craih was local and a ugly enough bastard to do it but he would be ninety this year and a hermit for over twenty after his last apprentice tried to kill him.

  Liss the Huntress did not walk in the daytime and hunted with her pack. She never carried cold iron, as it was rumored to be anathema to her.

  Hom’man the Walker was little more than a beast. It was stealthy enough to pull this off but preferred to devour his prey whole then flee into the shadows.

  The last option that came to mind was too dark to consider. That beast could not be here. She had been last seen north in the mountains, waging war with the hill people and winning.

  It could not be the Pariah. The tapping was gone.

  Davis tried to shout, opening his mouth, a warning cry that he hoped would be enough to avert whatever was coming. Nothing came out, at least, nothing that mattered.

  Kilton became a grimy bloom of bruised purple and red mage light with a hideous, echoing snapping sound. The shockwave knocked the men lifting Kilton back. The body fell and disgorged a wave of putrid light away from Davis and Martellus.

  As Kilton fell, Davis saw for a second a swath of burning runes carved into the back of his breastplate. Delicate lines of white-hot light searing themselves into his eyes.

  For an instant, Davis thought the blast would fly free and miss himself and Martellus, but it smashed into the wide outer circle and most of the power was turned back inward. An ocean of polluted light rushed back over his men, knocking them to the ground like rag dolls.

  Kilton was a geyser: a fountain of sickly power gushing out of him. Davis saw this for a second and out of the corner of his eye, he saw Martellus hurling himself into the archway. Davis didn’t move and the wave fell on him.

  The spell was cold like frozen ice picks in his spine. It made his heart race and his muscles burn and then go numb. His limbs gave out and he fell like a b
ag of sand to the ground. Davis flailed for a moment in mindless hysteria then stopped and curled in on himself.

  Davis was trapped: a prisoner in his own body. Distantly he heard a hissing sound a strangled cry and then the tapping began anew.

  Davis could not move, his muscles taut in confused hysteria, but his mind was clear as day. He recognized his physical reaction, as a child laying in bed afraid of monsters in the closet. Davis had experienced the overwhelming fear that led one to play dead.

  His mind raced, he willed his limbs to move, he ordered his legs to spring into action and roll him to his feet. It was useless, his body was limp, boneless.

  A flick of Davis’s eyes took a massive force of pure will power. He could make out one of the squires, his perplexed face staring up into the sky, tears pouring from his eyes.

  Davis had some training in countering magic. It would be foolish not to in a world where anyone could have the gift and was one argument from blasting you into the ground. This felt like none of the bindings or enchantments he had been put through. You could fight against those. He watched the weeping squire as he sobbed against his will up at the sky.

  Martellus staggered into view, his face decimated by a handful of brutal slash marks. His right arm hung dead, bleeding over the earth. His left arm clamped down on his neck, which was pumping blood down his chest. Any one of those wounds was fatal, all together it was an act of the gods that he was moving at all.

  Martellus fell, hand clamped around his throat.

  The tapping was back again. It was different now, a hollow clap of flat steel on stone. It was a sound of impending violence.

  Davis forced his eyes slowly over to the noise and saw the beast: a tall figure in dark weather-worn leathers. A cowl obscuring the features. At its waist, Davis saw the brutal eight-inch spike of a mercy blade. The armor-piercing dagger that had surely been used to puncture Kilton’s guts. Scarred fingers held a tool little more than a sliver of steel. Davis recognized it as an engraver's chisel. The implement vanished into a pouch.

  The tap sounded again, sharp in the quiet air and his eyes were drawn to the blade. The sword was curved like a cutlass, singled-edged with a brutal deep ground blade perfect for hacking through bone and meat. The broad surface slapped the stone archway, spreading a fine spray of Martellus’s face into the air.

  The beast moved forward, butcher's blade swaying like a blind man's staff, feeling the surrounding air for obstacles. It moved into full view of Davis, tall imposing head, blocking the sun. For a moment, the space under the cowl became a void. A hole that punched back into some vast hidden space.

  It was a trick of light and shadow. The head cocked to the side curiously. As if Davis was some rare oddity never before witnessed by the monster. Its face became a dark mask with one eye the color of frozen stone, the other an empty hole.

  He saw the hint of a feminine curve, the mild swell of a breast and the list of possible assailants became vastly shorter.

  The monster held up its right hand before Davis’s eyes and he saw the two fingers furthest from the thumb were cleaved off.

  Young renegade sorcerers were taking to chopping these fingers off in a bid for favor, or lacking courage, tattooed them black. Showing devotion as if she was some primitive goddess.

  Davis knew the woman shaped thing by reputation. He’d heard her name, spoken in dark corners by hushed voices. He had seen her rough likeness on posters and warning signs.

  She was a boogey man, half-legend and half-true, and she was looking down at him like a wolf might regard a snared rabbit.

  Witch King. Pariah.

  The trap had been laid by the Pariah herself. Davis had led his men into it like sheep to the slaughter.

  Davis felt his own fear rising up in his mind. His thoughts gibbered wildly for what felt like a lifetime. With other monsters, death was the outcome, but with the Pariah, gods only knew what she had in store for them.

  The dark mage loomed over him like a tower, hardly moving and Davis struggled to control his panicked thoughts. His ordered mind raced to an escape, to break down and explain the situation. Make it tactical and then deal with it once it was broken into known parts.

  The Pariah had entered infamy by torching her hometown, cleaved in the head of Master Coric after her capture and at last walked from away from Valcast Valley alive. And here she was staring down at Davis, letting him see her clearly, her hand still hung in the air before his face.

  She wanted him to know her. Davis seized on this problem to hold off the wave of unthinking, frenzied fear that was hammering at every door in his mind. She was turning away moving towards the prone and dying Martellus.

  Davis grappled his thoughts down and forced a battery of cold logic in the face of utter emotional collapse.

  Kilton was the bait.

  The trap was for them.

  Kilton was the center of the spell.

  Everyone but Davis and Martellus had been caught in the heart of the blast and

  Martellus…

  Davis could hear the faint struggle of the dying Martellus. He could hear his legs kicking up dirt and the muffled gurgles of a smothered mouth.

  Davis remembered the dread of the monster in his closet, his muscles unable to move for fear of alerting the beast. His body was afraid but his mind had been clear. The fear came from Kilton projected into them by the spell and focused inward by the surrounding circle.

  Martellus had jumped into the mound that had protected the Pariah from the blast and been hacked to pieces for his trouble. Then she had shown herself to Davis who had been hit by the backlash only.

  She had intentionally terrorized him.

  The spell must not have affected him as strongly as the others. This fear might be his own now.

  Davis tried to focus, to move, to clear his mind into action. He willed himself to flee or fight for his life, whichever came first. His head moved, he saw the Pariah hunched over Martellus, mangled right hand bare of coverings with its remaining fingers clamped over his mouth. Runes burned over her exposed flesh with insidious fire.

  Davis saw magic glyphs vanishing under her sleeve, he saw the fire of witch light blazing from under her cuff.

  Glyphs syphoned, contained, and focused power. Glyphs cut into flesh would feed on her own life and meat.

  Davis smelt burning blood and became aware that at least one of the squires was bawling helplessly, arms or legs thumping against the ground, his body consumed with wild fear.

  The glyphs were meaningless scrawls to him, but as they burned, they seemed to split the flesh of her hand open.

  Martellus seized, his body jerking and flopping like a fish in the air. The Pariah’s fingers dug into his cheeks as if she was trying to wring something from his skull.

  All at once Davis’s body came to him as often it did when the need to live surpassed common sense. Davis burst to his feet and was locked in indecision for a heartbeat. His mind possessed by his own desperate need to live and his loyalty to his men locked horns for a brief second and in that second the Pariah moved.

  She twisted towards him and made an explosive, jagged motion.

  The Pariah’s right hand slammed into his throat. Fingers like dead flesh clamped down on his windpipe. The sudden movement ripped back her sleeve, her bare burning arm muscled like a back ally pugilists.

  Layer upon layer of carved glyphs radiated baleful light, beyond that Davis saw crisscrossing scar tissue splitting open and bleeding more light into the air.

  The strike jerked Davis like a puppet and instinct took over. His steel gauntlet connected with the Pariah’s face with terrific force, years of training and an ocean of adrenaline powered the blow. He struck her twice more, cross hooks and she let go, but she did not fall.

  The mask was dislodged, cracked and broken. Her lower jaw revealed a lopsided bloody sneer. The right side of her jaw was covered in a webway of valley-deep scar tissue.

  The flesh of her right arm was squirming like leeches t
hrown into boiling water. Davis staggered back in horror as the arm twitched grotesquely.

  There was something in Davis’s throat and he gagged. His windpipe was nearly crushed into a pulp by the blow but there was something squirming in his neck.

  Davis gagged again and reached up to feel his skin boiling with worms. As if sensing his touch, they flooded around his neck and poured down his spine. Hot needles erupted across his body.

  The Pariah’s hand was dripping worms, monstrous little beasts with glowing heads. They hit the ground and thrashed together in an agonized mass and died as if the air was poison.

  The Pariah clenched her fist to stem the flow and crushed the little maggots that remained.

  She was infested, a hive of monsters and they were in Davis now, surging up his neck. He could feel them beneath the thin layer of skin that covered his skull. Davis cried out and felt them in his mouth.

  He saw them wriggling in his own eyes, tiny glowing faces filling his peripherals. He clawed at his face and screamed as he lost feeling in his legs.

  Davis fell like a rock and could not move. His face was numb and his fingers would not work. He could see them bubbling and twitching as the tiny infestation took hold.

  Davis struggled, arms flopping wildly, the only locomotion coming from his shoulders now. He watched them flailing grotesquely, almost completely beyond his control as the Pariah filled his vision.

  He saw the hand coming, two fingers, cleaved away. He saw it coming through a haze of wiggling worms and saw the glowing fire of the runes. The palm filled his vision, a bloody ring dripped mage fire as it clamped down over his mouth.

  The Pariah’s mouth sneered down at him, black blood slipping between clenched teeth and torn lips. He could see the swelling and cracked flesh from his blow and knew it counted for nothing. He met her eye, flat and grey as any winter sky, and saw no mercy there. The empty socket loomed into view full of wild fire.

  He watched as his dumb fumbling arms slap against the Pariah’s flanks. Davis was sinking now, his fading eyes became long tunnels.