“I see no pursuit,” Kerna called softly as he passed her. She fell in behind them.
Long Draught slowed and then stopped a short while later where Girth waited watching the open meadow leading to Long Falls. They grouped around him. “He’s coming around,” he said.
“Has anyone packed hemp cord with them?” Camoe asked. “Kerna? Girth?”
“I kind of need what I have,” Girth said, patting at his waist.
Kerna passed a fair length to him. “All of you except our round one have not learned. How often has the need for it arisen during our journeys?” she chastised gently.
Camoe tied the captive’s hands together, handing the slack to Long Draught. “Set him down. He may be able to stand.”
“I can stand,” the hooded man hissed. “Do you not realize how foolish your actions are tonight? My generals will not rest until I am returned and all of you hacked to death.”
Long Draught and Girth chuckled, Tarn choked, and Kerna snorted at his words. Only Peers was silent.
Camoe cared not for the threat. “Your generals shall arrive too late to save you, it requires little time to kill a man. For now, I offer you continued life as long as you cooperate. I shall even consider releasing you for the outlander young woman in your possession.”
The hooded man raised his head high, his hourglass eyes glinting strangely bright in the moonlight. “So, druid, you too have knowledge of her great worth.” He laughed. “Yet you are too late. The anomaly has been sent to a secure place.”
In one motion, Camoe drew his sword and set the tip at the man’s heart. “You risk much elevating my ire. I shall ask you only once. Where have you taken her?”
The hooded man stepped forward, the tip pressing into his cowl. “Thrust quick and deep, druid. Her location dies with me.”
Girth moved beside Camoe, his axe free from its sheath. “Cut out his tongue or let me kill him. His voice and his life has little value to us. The young woman shall be tracked regardless of the deceptions that flow from his dark mouth.”
“What do you speak of?” Camoe asked.
“A regiment of horses passed through the north end of Silver Meadow over a half bell ago. A young woman and a man with two long swords strapped to his back rode behind the Captains Karnas and Bozlun,” Girth replied.
The hooded man’s flinch of surprise was only discernible as a small vibration through his sword. Camoe sheathed it and turned his back upon the hooded man. “Bring him. If he slows us down, even a little, kill him.”
Camoe took the lead. Slipping cautiously into Silver Meadow, he found what he sought almost immediately. The upturned soil from the tracks of many horses passing through was easy to spot. From the distance between the horses’ tracks, he judged them at a full gallop.
With the fires burning his beloved home flickering in the moonlit night behind him, he set off at run.
He did not have to look back to know his companions followed.
FOUND
Crystalyn brought out another symbol, one of the ones under the heading Elemental Style, which she’d read in the black-lettered book, tier three of The Tiered Tome of Symbols. A glowing, green circle, half the size and width of a shanty wall, hovered before her. The white maze-like pattern inside it wound around many circles, both big and small. She had yet to use it, so was unsure of the effect, though it felt airy to her.
Avoiding the crown of thorns encircling the sphere at the top of the black crystal candle, she gripped it by the base with her left hand, releasing the symbol. The candle thrummed, adding the immense power that only one of the greater artifacts could accomplish.
Streaking into the burning dark creation lumbering toward them, the symbol’s many circles spun with wind. Turbulent tunnels, big and small, struck the magical creation with gale after gale. The dark creation bent backward and then snapped apart at the thighs, falling upon the army behind it. Fanned by the slowly dissolving symbol, the flames spread in a growing circle incinerating dark-armored and dark-robed men and women alike.
Fighting down her disgust with her own destruction, Crystalyn sent another flying into the second, and last, dark creation entangled in one of the few remaining falun trees. Her wind tunnels blew the creation and flames out into the silvery meadow light, away from the severely charred tree and into the army.
The black candle artifact had grown uncomfortably hot with the power thrumming through it with each release. She put it in her pack and turned to face those behind her to issue the command to move out. Suddenly, weakness raged through her. She dropped to her knees and then her hands in the soft earth.
Broth’s comforting presence found a way into her mind. “I am here, Do’brieni. Draw strength from the link, use mine.”
Gratefully, she drank greedily from his great strength, sensing him weakening as fast as she had. Crystalyn forced herself to stop when enough strength returned to remain conscious. Even so, it was a while before she could speak. “Will that slow them? Can you escape through the southern pass now?”
A pair of legs wearing supple kell leather stopped beside her. “You have created a path to salvation for us all. Gather your strength. Are you not leading us through, my daughter?”
Speaking with the stilted formality of a native of Astura, the woman’s vibrant voice was familiar and unfamiliar at the same time. Crystalyn had heard it, though she couldn’t recall where. Pushing away from the ground, she made it as far as her knees.
A shoulder slipped under hers, lifting her to her feet, supporting her. She found herself staring into the deep-green eyes of Sureen Creek, Mom! “Mom? You’re alive. How?” Nearly swooning, she clutched at the woman.
Broth’s great surprise mirrored hers. “This female human’s scent has similar spoors as yours.”
“She’s my mom!”
Sureen smiled. “Let us make our escape first. Then we can talk longer. Can you walk?”
“I think so. I hope it’s not far.”
Her mother’s smile faded. Shifting her grip on a staff topped with a clear, white stone, she tugged at Crystalyn’s shoulder gently with her own, helping her move, the sword hanging at her mother’s side catching on hers. “The way is distant, I am afraid, and it is going to be close with who arrives at the pass first.”
“Someone comes.”
Atoi’s dispassionate voice cut through Broth’s thoughts. “Two riders gallop beyond the right flank this early morn coming toward us.”
“Leave them to me,” Hastel said, drawing his axes from the sheaths at his side.
That they came from that particular flank didn’t surprise Crystalyn. She’d expected them to try something from there; the right one was the enemy’s strongest. Though why send only two?
Leaning low in her saddle, the second rider chased the first. Closing the distance between her and an armored rider—male from the look of him—the woman’s long dark hair streamed behind her.
Without warning, the first rider’s hair burst into a bright white flame that quickly crawled down the man’s face and torso. From there, the flame jumped to the horse, where it, too, burned with a ghostly light.
Eerily silent, the horse and rider rode toward Crystalyn, seemingly impervious to the fire. A few gallops from reaching her, the horse’s legs buckled. Mount and rider crashed to the ground. Skidding to a stop, man and animal lay quiet and still.
The woman riding the horse behind the hapless man and horse, someone Crystalyn recognized, nearly rode past, pulling back on the reins at the last second. The white fire crackled as it burned down emitting a sickly black smoke into the air. A gust of wind whipped it away.
The Lore Mother came forward. “Kara Laurel, what have you done?”
Crystalyn had her own question. “Why did the Dark army let you ride past them?”
“I did what needed doing, and they did not let me go easily,” she said. With a grimace, she kneed her horse, coaxing it to turn around. The bolt of a crossbow protrud
ed from her lower thigh, and blood streamed from below her yellow kell leather skirt hemline, filling her boot.
Atoi laughed.
The Lore Mother cursed. “Blast it all! That needs a bandage until I can remove it. You are strong, Kara; every equine step must hurt something terrible.” Striding toward the wounded woman, she paused at the still smoking corpse. “You have not explained this mess.”
“Nor shall I. Not until we have fled somewhere safe. Please, accept my word on this,” Kara Laurel said. The melodious tone of her voice grew commanding. “No one touches these corpses or they shall meet the same fate,” she added loudly, her head swiveling back and forth.
About to step closer, the Lore Mother hesitated, and her luminous eyes brightened as she gazed at the woman astride the black warhorse. She opened her mouth and then clamped it shut.
Positioning a yellow bag from her side to her lap, Kara Laurel coaxed the tall black horse to step around the Lore Mother and then halted beside Crystalyn. “Can you run? The time for walking has past,” she asked, ignoring her mother, though she supported her.
Sureen spoke first, the tone of her voice flat. “She cannot, at least not far. She’s expended herself attempting to save five hundred wrongly attacked souls. Perhaps something you may have been a part of.”
Kara Laurel frowned at the woman whose strong arms kept Crystalyn upright.
Confusion permeated Crystalyn’s thoughts and little else. She struggled with the belief her mother lived, yet the evidence was there from the beating heart she felt through her kell leather shirt.
Abruptly, Kara Laurel brought the sturdy warhorse to stand beside a flat-topped boulder spotted with lichen. “Help her mount behind me. Quickly, we have little time,” she commanded, her voice cold.
With Sureen’s support, Crystalyn managed to climb the rock and awkwardly throw her leg over the big equine’s back and settle upon it. The horse sidestepped abruptly from the additional weight. A small cry of pain escaped Kara Laurel’s lips from the sudden movement. Crystalyn felt badly for her, but she had no strength left to heal her.
“Can you delay the enemy’s advance, Sureen? I shall aid where I can, though I fear it will help little,” Kara Laurel asked, the tone of her voice softer.
Sureen held her petite head high. A stray strand of her light brown hair flattened against her chin, but she appeared not to notice. “I am still weakened from a Circle of Light endeavor. A duty you seem to have neglected for some time, but I shall do what I can.”
“Then I shall interrupt the Flow for you both,” the Lore Mother declared, placing one hand on her mother’s shoulder and another on Kara Laurel’s unwounded thigh, her elbows drooping toward the ground.
The warhorse stood quietly as if it knew what was about to happen.
Weak, Crystalyn watched the ground beneath dissolve away to translucence, as if the earth was only an illusion created to disguise the great river of power frothing below.
Two hollow tubes formed from the Lore Mother’s elbows to the ground, filling with the glowing whiteness of the Flow. Her glowing eyes brightened. “The conduits are in place. You may begin,” the Lore Mother said.
Slipping her left hand into her bag, Kara Laurel brought out a yellow crystal carved with the delicate hands of a woman pressed together. With the reins gripped in her right hand, Kara Laurel raised the crystal slightly as it vanished inside a white glow.
The clear orb on Sureen’s staff burst forth with a golden brilliance.
A nearly invisible wall, several yards wide, shimmered briefly in the morning light before fading to transparency. A tall coil of golden flames spiraled to life behind it.
The conduits faded. As if liquid, topsoil and meadow grass flowed into place hiding the great river from view. The Lore Mother’s glowing eyes dimmed, as her head turned to Crystalyn’s mom. “One is curious as to why you placed your golden coil after Kara’s shimmer wall? The normal technique puts it at the forefront to aid in hiding the walls location. Once touched, that part of the wall trap is sprung and its explosive effect used up. The enemy can get past by using the corpses as a location guide where to cross.”
The golden glow atop Sureen’s staff winked out. “Most Light Users who install a shimmer wall are not as adept as Kara; hers cannot be viewed until activated. With my coil behind it as an added obstacle and distraction, I hope to catch their front line unaware. They may well all contact it at the same time.”
Crystalyn’s stomach churned from her symbol use, and already the wide back of the warhorse had begun to cramp her thigh muscles from her instinctive reaction to maintain a grip, however small. “How long will it hold them?” she asked.
Her mother moved closer. “Not long, I’m afraid. Soon, they will work their way around it. We should go. Kara and you have drained yourselves with such powerful using. I am growing to that point. With Durandas and Lore Rayna leading the refugees, there is no one to cover us.”
Hastel sheathed his axes in one fluid motion. “You have what little help I can provide.”
Sureen smiled. “You do not give yourself enough credit, innkeeper.”
The glow vanished from Kara Laurel’s hand as she drooped forward in the saddle, the reins falling slack under the warhorse’s long black jaw.
Crystalyn wrapped her arms around the woman. “She’s lost consciousness. Hand me the reins, Mom.”
Sureen froze, looking up at her in surprise for a heartbeat. Then she passed the reins to her, her green eyes moist. “She needs a healer.”
Crystalyn turned the big black horse toward the fleeing refugees, feeling its powerful muscles as it tossed its head. “I’ll find Lore Rayna and see if she can do a minor strength infusion while slowing the blood loss until I can heal her completely. Then we need to go to the front and come by a plan for the refugees. Blindly running will get them all killed. Can you three catch up?” she asked. The growing group of Valens and humans, mostly druids, still had some ways to go before converging on the narrow southern pass leading out of the once Vibrant Vale.
“Broth, find Lore Rayna. Lead me to her quickly!”
“Do not burden yourself with concern for us, we shall follow in good time,” the Lore Mother said. She slapped the horse on its rear haunch. The black stallion galloped away, throwing Crystalyn back from the saddle. She barely had the strength to hold on. Atoi ran beside her.
Broth leapt ahead. “Follow, my Do’brieni. The Vale people’s scent is like no other.”
Glancing over her shoulder as long as she dared, Crystalyn watched the Lore Mother’s eyes blaze bright as she and her mother turned to face the advancing army, the top of her mother’s staff already aglow with a golden radiance.
Hastel pulled his crossbow from his back. Lore Rayna’s longbow would reach farther had she been there, but the one-eyed warrior would do what he could to protect the two. Perhaps he had some of his exploding arrow-tipped flasks left to use. The damage those caused was comparable to her symbols.
She could only hope.
Crystalyn returned her attention to guiding the big warhorse. His gallop was strong and powerful. Even so, her anxiety elevated for the Vale and her friends, making her want her meds.
It took all her self-restraint to not look back and see how they fared. Now that she’d found her mom, Crystalyn struggled with leaving her behind. What had she been doing for so many seasons?
Though her mother didn’t know it yet, she was going to help her get Jade back. Along with anyone else Crystalyn could scrape together, refugee or not, providing anyone escaped from the thickening smoke of the Vale.
RUBY GLIMMER
The sand swirled. Darwin glimpsed the outline of a dark arched opening now and then through the dust and minuscule grains of red sandstone rock twisting in front of it. A whirlwind of gravel and powdered rock blocked the way to the hole in the rock.
The Red Rock woman, Railee, stood with the reins of her horse in her hands. A black silk cloth swathed he
r head and face. Only the deep gray pools of her eyes were exposed. Her admission of her race soon after mounting for the expedition had not surprised him. Though it was a common belief Red Rock people were red of skin, he knew better than to heed the words of commoners.
Still, Railee’s complexion was light, odd in a desert environment where uncovered skin tanned a deep brown or darkened to a deep red, or worse, a searing bright red.
Whatever the color of her skin, the Red Rock woman had led them to this unpleasant impasse. He was not pleased. Even though she had taken care of his baser needs thrice on the three-week journey through the blasted desert, he would not hesitate to destroy her if she thought to deceive him. “What is this, woman? Why have you not mentioned we would encounter such a prominent barrier?”
“Your displeasure shows by calling me woman instead of using my given name,” Railee said. Not looking at him, she hurried on as if afraid of raising his ire. “The wind door requires great strength with the Flow. Do you wish it opened?”
“Do not think to test my patience, woman. I have not endured such heat merely to gawk at the destination. Proceed.”
The desert warrior woman eyed him, a frown marring her smooth face briefly. “The wind door is two-handed. How the wind door came to be this way is beyond our knowledge. No one, not even a Servant of Eons—one of the Infused—can say why the Ancients created it so.”
Her words strengthened his interest. “Go on.”
“The wind door not only requires sufficient strength of the Flow, it demands two hands at the same time. Two right hands or two left. Whichever is used, it must be the dominant hand.”
“Obviously, my right hand has the strength. You, too, use yours for the sword. Together, we will open it.”
Railee gave him a bold stare. “There is one other thing.”
“What is it?”
Beyond the Dark Gate Page 15