by K.N. Lee
"You think it's the Darkness?"
"I seriously don't know what to think."
"If Galina's telling the truth," Cas said, squeezing my hand, "then I'll help you stop them from killing the firebird. No matter what it costs Evaron. The Darkness is... a more immediate threat than the Fire Priests. We can deal with them later."
I wrapped my arms around his neck and squeezed. He took a startled half-step backward, then slowly his arms curled around me, full of warmth.
"Thank you," I whispered. I couldn't do this alone.
Cas's hand cupped my chin and tipped it up. For a breathless second I thought he was going to kiss me again, but he only nodded. "Keep your eyes open. I'll watch your back. Let's go find your witch—or the firebird—whichever we encounter first."
And hope the Darkness didn't find us first—for if it could tamper with our minds, then what else could it do?
The attack happened several hours later, when we were watering the horses again.
The sun was slinking toward the horizon, and the light had dipped. Night would only be an hour or two away, which meant we needed to set up camp.
"Keep an eye out for somewhere to camp," Evaron called, as the horses strode into the river, sucking down water.
"Here," Cas said, propping his boot up on the rock beside me as I knelt to fill my water skin a little farther up from where the horses drank. There was a piece of meat jerky in his hand.
"Thanks." Salt exploded through my mouth as I bit into it, trying to soften the meat with my saliva.
He unscrewed the cap on his metal flask, took a swig of it, and then offered it to me. My eyes nearly watered when I smelled the brandy within.
"Easy up," he said, as I choked on a mouthful of fiery liquor. "It's strong enough to put hair on your chest."
"Vashta's... tits." I coughed, as he screwed the lid back on. "Where did you get that?"
Cas's head jerked up, and instantly I turned to stone.
"What is it?" I hissed.
He stared intently through the gloom, his eyes darting here and there. "Thought I heard something moving, but I can't smell anything. Only the forest. And Hussar."
Tension dissolved, and I rubbed the back of my neck. "Good thing he's been downwind all day."
"No weird thoughts?"
"Nothing." Not since I touched that tree. "You?"
"Occasionally," he muttered, his fingers curling around his axe handle. "Hussar's pissing me off."
"That's not weird."
"No, but I want to do something about it. Something permanent."
I touched his hand, and Cas sighed, closing his eyes and bowing his head. The hard line of his shoulders softened. "Thanks."
The wild look in those eyes was fading as he looked down at me, leaving him more man than wolf. It didn't scare me. Cas wasn't entirely human, but I was starting to learn him. This man was a protector, not a predator. His innate sense of honor was stronger than most of the men I knew.
And it felt like my touch calmed his inner beast.
He reached out with his other hand and wrapped a finger around one of my springy curls, his hard mouth softening into a smile. "Now I feel normal again. Why isn't it affecting you anymore?"
"Who knows?"
Galina did. My own smile fell. I wasn't a witch, was I?
Something shifted out of the corner of my eye.
"What is it?" Cas demanded, as I stood, reaching for my dagger.
"I thought that tree just moved."
We both stared into the gloomy woods. The trees here were prone to redwood and pine, which meant thicker growth than the bare trees elsewhere.
"Just... my imagination," I said, as nothing else shifted.
"Maybe." Cas glared through the trees. "Something doesn't feel right."
"We should get moving." Find a camp, somewhere with at least a few natural fortifications to keep anything Gravenwold could throw at us off our backs.
There was a glimmer of movement behind me. I spun, staring back the way we'd come.
"Now I'm starting to feel like something's watching me," I muttered. "Something definitely moved out there."
"What is it?" Evaron called.
"Don't know," Cas growled, his side pressing against my back. "Something's out there."
The men all drew sharp steel.
"Cursed creepy trees," someone muttered.
Indeed they were. The trees pressed in on all sides. Some of the horse's whickered and danced on the ends of their reins nervously.
I could almost see the branches rustling, as if something moved along them. My chin tilted up and I stared into the canopy, seeing the shivering limbs. It could have been the wind. Or maybe...
A face seemed to stare back at me.
I blinked, and I was staring at the knotted whorl of a hole where a branch had long ago broken off. My eyes were playing tricks on me.
Behind us, one of the men suddenly screamed, and a crashing sound echoed.
We whipped around, but all I saw was his startled face and clawing hands as he vanished up into the canopy. His sword hit the ground, and then crashing sounds echoed through the branches above, as if something whipped him through them.
"What was that?" Hussar demanded, his face pale.
It was the first time I'd seen anything other than a sneer on his face. Who knew? Hussar owned other emotions.
"What's out there, girl?" he snarled at me.
"I don't know," I snapped, turning in slow circles.
Was that branch moving?
I blinked again, and there was a deer skull, pinned high in the tree.
What in the Darkness?
It was as though my vision suddenly shifted, putting a dozen puzzle pieces together so I could see the shape emerging.
Not a tree. Not branches.
Not human.
A monster, carved out of wood and tangled vines. The blood started draining from my face.
"Draugur!" I bellowed. "We're surrounded by draugur!"
It stood almost twelve feet tall, its skin brown and its limbs longer than most humanoid creatures. Wearing a long deer skull over its face like a mask, complete with antlers, it turned those hollow eyes sockets toward us, and my breath caught in my throat.
It wasn't just a skull, after all.
"Vashta's tits!" a man breathed.
Draugur. Trees given shape and life. Suddenly its lean sinews looked a little more like vines, and clay dripped from its skeletal ribs, beneath its skin of moss. More shapes emerged, moving slowly. Over a dozen. Maybe two dozen. Everywhere I looked, the trees seemed to be moving. Somewhere in these woods, we were dealing with a witch.
I wonder who that could be?
"Hold your formation!" Evaron bellowed.
The draugur swarmed the prince as though they intended to cut down our figurehead, and too late, I remembered what Galina had said about killing him.
"To the prince!" Cas bellowed, steel screaming as he drew his sword and a dozen other men echoed him. "Protect the prince!"
Hussar screamed in rage, and began slashing wildly at the draugur, his teeth bared. Evaron worked at his side, darting in with his sword like quicksilver, then away again.
But swords were not meant for creatures like draugur.
The sharp edges glanced off the draugur's woody arms, shearing off pieces of bark and moss but not causing enough damage. One of them backhanded a soldier, and he flew past me, slamming into a tree behind me in a steely clash.
I lowered my arms. He'd nearly kicked me in the head as he sailed past.
"Axes out!" Cas bellowed, turning to the spare packs, and hauling out one of the enormous woodcutters axes. There were two more, and he hefted one toward Hussar, then another to a guard whose name I couldn't recall.
I drew my bow, and stood there in indecision. I was a hunter, not a warrior. Steel flashed in the firelight as someone lit a torch to help us see, and men screamed as the draugur waded into them, ripping and tearing with arms of ash and alder, redw
ood and pine. One took a swipe at Cas, and he ducked the blow in a blur of movement, sending his axe shearing through one of its legs.
Another staggered forward as the first fell, and suddenly all I could see were the pale, bleached bone faces. Dozens of them.
It was enough to clear my head. I turned my arrow upon the one attacking Cas, knowing I couldn't kill it, as it wasn't technically alive.
There were other ways to handle the threat.
My arrow flew straight and true, driving into the hollow eye socket of the skull mask. The draugur screamed, swiping at its eye. Cas turned his axe upon it, swiping low and shearing through its legs. The second it went down, he sunk the broad head of the axe into its chest, cracking open those mossy ribs.
No time to enjoy my handiwork. I surveyed the fight. The first shot had been a lucky guess. Somehow the draugur could see through those hollow eyes. Without them, they were blind.
Arrow after arrow blurred from my fingers. I pinned a draugur's hand to a tree, leaving it vulnerable to a guard. The prince darted among the melee, fighting with expert grace, and I caught a glimpse of him and Cas back to back at one point, before one of the lumbering beasts turned on me.
I had my hunting knife, but I was no match for a draugur at close range. Sinking my last arrow into its nose—a narrow miss—I cast the bow over my shoulder, and leapt up, catching hold of the branch above me. A twist of the hips, and I was in the tree, panting hard at the effort.
Long hands came at me. Scrambling along the branch, I leapt between trees, moving as fast as a squirrel. I could see men fighting beneath me. Men dying. Blood smeared the churned up snow, and the draugur were winning.
Woven from magic, they weren't truly alive, and hence they couldn't die. Our only hope was to hack them into enough pieces that they no longer posed a threat.
Unless...
Wood burned. And I had something that could burn anything.
"Cas!" I jumped back down into the clearing, landing behind him and the prince. "I need your flask!"
He kicked one of the draugur's feet out from under it, his face flashing toward me, before he decapitated it. "What?"
"Your flask!" I yelled, trying to grab it from the belt at his hip. "I can burn them."
Cas ripped the flask free, and tossed it into my hands, before turning and sinking his axe into the chest of an incoming foe. "Hurry!"
Sweat tracked down his dirty face, and there was blood dripping down one of his arms. Draugur didn't tire, but the men were starting to.
I beckoned the guard beside him, confiscating his arrows. Two seconds later I had his shirt too and was tearing it into strips. Hurry... I wrapped one length around the head of an arrow and doused it liberally with the brandy Cas carried. "Keep binding the arrows!" I snapped to the guard.
It was as though the firebird's feather knew what I intended. The enchanted glass vial around my throat suddenly heated, and I ripped it free. The feather burned within, its flames licking the inside of the glass hungrily. I tore the stopper free and tilted the vial.
Liquid fire dripped onto the arrowhead, and the brandy went up with a whoosh. Sinking the feather's vial into the snow, I turned and set the arrow to my bow.
This time I wasn't aiming for the eyes.
The arrow sank into the chest of a draugur, and flames lit it up almost instantly, as if the creature were made of dry wood.
Or perhaps a firebird's flame simply burned hotter.
The draugur screamed and white-hot fire gushed from its hollow mouth. The deer skull fell off, revealing a nightmare face cobbled together from mud, twigs, and moss. It turned and fled like a bonfire on legs. The other draugur around it paused.
"Another," I said, grabbing the next arrow off the guard who was hastily preparing them for me. I could sense the sweat dripping from my upper lip, and the heat coming from the burning arrowhead was almost enough to melt the tip.
Fire whizzed across the clearing. Another draugur went down, and the men cheered. I lit four more of them on fire within the space of half a minute, and suddenly the tide of the battle was turning. Draugur screamed and fled, the burning ones lighting up their fellows in the rush. Heat melted the snow and my face felt hot and tight, as if the skin were about to split. A bush began to burn, and the rest of the draugur turned to escape, stumbling over each other in the process.
Then they were gone, and suddenly there was a new problem at hand.
The trees were bare from the winter, and the timber should have been too wet to burn, but this was no ordinary fire. A birch crackled and hissed as flames trailed their way up its trunk. Another bush blazed, and a lungful of smoke choked me.
There was fire all around me. I'd backed myself against a small cliff, to keep the draugur off my back, and now there was no way out.
"Neva!"
A hazy shape leapt the flames, landing in front of me. Cas. Behind him men were yelling, but the smoke made it hard to gauge what was going on.
"Cas," I rasped. What was he doing? We were both trapped now.
Tearing his shirt off, he draped it over my head, and then swept me up into his arms. "Hold on!"
I could barely see. I couldn't breathe.
We launched through the flames circling me, and then Cas was running. All I could do was press my face to his neck, and hope he knew where he was going.
Finally we burst free of the trees. The oppressive heat was gone; on another day I might have still thought it hot, but after the inferno, this was nothing.
The prince and the remainder of the guards had their backs to the river. Behind us, trees blazed with unholy glee.
The entire forest could go up.
I stared at it in horror, as Cas slowly set me down.
"It seemed like a good idea at the time," I rasped, coughing a little more. "I didn't expect them to burn like that! They were covered in mud and moss. They shouldn't have burned like that."
Cas cupped his hands and dipped them in the water, holding it to my lips. The yellow in his eyes seemed a little more pronounced. Sweat tracked down his ashen face, and his hair was slick with moisture. "They were going to kill us if we didn't do anything. You saved our lives." His voice lowered. "You used the feather?"
I'd lost it in the madness. My father's one treasure. Tears wet my dry eyes, almost a relief, as I nodded.
Water slid down my throat, washing down the taste of smoke. I knelt at his side, and drank thirstily, plunging my hand into the river time after time. We had to move. We had to get out of here. A squirrel raced past me, darting along the shores of the river. Even the animals were fleeing.
But how could you escape a forest fire when you were in the heart of it?
Especially when your legs were weighted like they were filled with lead, and your lungs felt like an oven.
"Is everyone able to stand?" Evaron bellowed, checking over the handful of guards remaining.
Cas plunged his shirt into the river, and wrung it out, draping it over the back of my neck. I moaned. Bliss.
"Where is everyone?" I asked.
His face remained grim, as he knelt at my feet and checked me over for burns. Ash marred the hard muscle on his chest. "The draugur cut down over half the company. This is all that remains."
The prince had been here well before we arrived.
The reality of the situation floored me. "You came back for me."
Cas looked up, his hands softening on my ankles. "Always." His harsh expression softened. "Neva, you saved our lives. I couldn't leave you behind."
He'd been forced to make a choice; follow his prince, or save me. And he'd chosen me.
I reached out and stroked the raw mark along his cheek, "You're burnt."
And here he was tending me.
Whipping the damp shirt from behind my neck, I held it to his cheek gently. Cas closed his eyes, as though nobody had ever tended to him before. Then he sighed. "I'll heal. One of the benefits of being wolvren. Now, can you stand? We need to get moving."
Cas hauled me to my feet, shouldering the pack he'd saved. Of course. His fur would be inside it. Behind us, the trees still smoldered, but it wasn't the conflagration I'd been expecting. I stopped beside the prince. All of them were staring.
"What's happening?" I asked.
One by one the fires were dying down, as if someone snuffed them out.
Hussar drew his sword, his arm shaking with fatigue. "There's the bitch."
9
Galina strode across the clearing, her red cloak a shock of color. She carried an ash spear in one hand, and she was looking over my shoulder, behind me.
"You are not welcome here," she said in a cold, merciless voice, the words aimed at Hussar.
He kicked one of the packs aside and spat on the snow as he locked eyes upon her. Then a smile split his face, a leer that showed white teeth. "You’ve grown old and weak."
"I’m as old as the forest, and as weak as the mighty oak." Galina tipped her chin up, her silver hair swimming around her shoulders. "Did you think I wouldn’t feel you escape?"
"I find it ironic, you old hag, that these men came here to hunt you down, and brought me the perfect conquest." Hussar breathed in, as if the air tasted particularly sweet. "This one’s heart was dark enough to sing to me, even in my prison. It was no particular hardship to capture him. Perhaps I’ll cut out your heart and eat it myself."
"Hussar?" Evaron questioned.
"It's the firebird!" Hussar bellowed, pointing his sword at her. "Capture her! For the king!"
Galina? My head swiveled between the two of them. But how could—?
"Would you kill the firebird for your king?"
Of course.
No wonder the fires in the forest were almost out. For what creature controlled fire? And it was her fire, her flames... I'd never seen her in the firebird's form, but it was as though she'd been keeping all of the fire within her banked. Now it gleamed in her dark eyes, little licks of flame that reminded me of when I stared into the fire at home of night.
She'd grown taller too, her face thinner and less human than it had been.
I hadn't realized the firebird could shift form, but how better to hide?
Five guardians of Gravenwold had been created, and here stood one of the last remaining guardians. She'd been watching us at every step, trying to take the measure of the company.