Aster Wood series Box Set

by J B Cantwell

  The Coyle looked surprised for a moment, but then his sneer returned. Jade’s daggers fell at his feet, and he laughed.

  I felt teeth and fingernails try to claw me through my thick canvas pant legs. It would only be a matter of time before they overcame us, like military ants trudging over their prey. Still, I took care not to harm them, not to shake them off, even when they bit me so hard I nearly cried out. They were only small children, after all. Cait could have easily been among their numbers if I hadn’t rescued her from the Coyle.

  “Did you like the gift I left for you in Stonemore?” he asked cooly.

  Rhainn. He’s talking about Rhainn.

  “I thought it would especially please you.” His eyes were firmly on my face.

  I gulped, fighting back the words I so longed to throw at him and concentrating on the jet of power coming from the staff. There had to be a way in, a way past his protective powers.

  “You, after all, had taken from me,” he went on.

  “You’re wrong,” I gasped, trying hard to hold the staff steady. “Rhainn is fine. He’ll be fine.”

  “We’ll see about that,” he purred. “You’ve probably worked a spell of some sort over the boy. But don’t be fooled. In him you are mistaken.”

  My heart lurched. Was Rhainn some sort of trap? Some child made a monster, like the ones that tried to hurt us now? I looked down at the three who were trying to climb me, scratching with their tiny fingernails, biting with their tiny teeth. Father was the only one trying to fight them off. I flinched when he tossed one back a couple of feet, the child landing on his back with a cry of fury, but I could not tear my attention away from the Coyle for long.

  “You’re lying,” I said.

  Though I suspected he wasn’t lying at all. What terror would of the people back in the Hidden Mountains face?

  “I suppose we shall see whether or not I am lying,” he said, cooly. “Though, I suspect you won’t be seeing much at all, yourself, will you?”

  He raised his scepter then, a staff made from a twisted, tortured metal, and pointed it directly at me.

  I tried harder to get past his defenses. I poured everything I had into the bolt coming from my staff.

  It will be ok, said the voice in my head. You will make it past him.

  The tiny seed of hope that had so often been my salvation cracked and grew within me, spreading warmth and certainty through my chest. The power of the staff intensified.

  But even using everything I had, it wasn’t enough to break through.

  “Enough!”

  It was Father. He had stopped focusing on the children now, and walked forward, ahead of all of us, to face the Coyle.

  “You are an abomination!” he shouted.

  The Coyle laughed again, his power wielded so easily in his long, bony fingers.

  “I said,” Father growled, “enough!”

  He held both hands up before him and then jerked them apart, like he was opening the curtains in a dark room.

  And suddenly our powers were enough. Mine, Finian’s, Kiron’s, Jade’s, they all broke through his shield at the same time, and in an instant obliterated the Coyle until he was nothing but dust in the air.

  I looked around at the others, trying to figure out what had just happened. But before I could even ask the question, I noticed the children, so many children. They had fallen back now, grouping back together, and the eyes that stared up at us, frightened, showed no sign of black.

  They were free.

  And alone.

  “How did you do that?” I asked, rounding on Father.

  He seemed surprised, himself. As surprised as we all were.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “Jared … he sort of … took over.”

  “That was Jared?” Kiron asked. “Are you sure?”

  “I—don’t know,” he said, his face growing more concerned.

  My mind reeled. All this time Father had had power. Why hadn’t he used it before now?

  But before I could question him further, another pressing matter made itself known.

  The giants.

  They raced up the steep side of the mountain, and they looked as deadly as ever.

  “We have to move!” I shouted. I turned towards our path of escape and realized we would have to leave the children behind. I could only hope that they didn’t get trampled by the enormous men who were coming for us now.

  “Go!” I shouted, deciding that I would go last. I had a history with these giants. And it seemed to me that a lot of people under Corentin control were breaking free of it today.

  The group paused, waiting.

  “Go!” I commanded.

  Without another question, they all turned and ran up the steep slope.

  And I turned to face the men turned beasts that pursued me now. I lit my staff, the lightning bolts coming from each end of it menacingly.

  The giants did not pause, and soon they were upon me.

  “Stop!” I yelled, wielding the staff in a wide circle around me.

  It was no protective bubble like the Coyle had had, but the moving flames were enough to keep them at bay. They encircled me and, with a start, I recognized one of the giants, and I realized that I might have a chance to get through to them.

  “Druce!” I called. “I know you! I met you months ago in your village. I came with Erod!”

  The giants stopped their pacing and I saw something struggling upon Druce’s face, as if a fight were happening beneath the surface.

  With a jolt, I finally understood what had been going on, why people were able to break free of the Corentin today. He was weakened. His power had been diminished by all that we had done to level the Fold. He could try to hold on, to Jade, to the children, to the giants, but he was losing his grasp on all them, and fast.

  “Erod is dead!” I yelled.

  Druce shook his head, clearly confused.

  “Erod was our friend, a friend to the quest, and son of your village! All of you knew him, and he always considered you his family. It was his intention to fight against Corentin rule before he was killed by one of Jared’s gliding beasts. He knew that if he could defeat him, you would all be set free!”

  Now several of the giants paused, frowning in confusion. I saw the blacks of their eyes flicker with doubt, and my chest rose in triumph.

  All was quiet now but for the electric power coming from my staff.

  “You have the chance to leave him now, the Corentin,” I went on. “His hold over you is getting weaker with every second that passes by. You can be free again.”

  Druce shook his head hard, and his eyes popped from black to their original blue, the hue just visible in the moonlight. He stared around and, seeing his people spread out before him, looked utterly confused.

  “What … what are we doing here?” he asked.

  “You’ve been possessed,” I said. “All of you. And now is your chance at freedom. Leave him behind! Work instead to destroy him!”

  Pop, pop, pop. Suddenly more eyes than I could count were coming back to life. The men and women all wore the same strange expression on their faces, as though they had just been abruptly awakened after a long sleep.

  “Will you fight with us?” I asked.

  I held out a hand towards Druce, and when he took it the rest of the giants seemed to finally come to their senses. Though he was the smallest of the giants I had met, his size was still enormous compared to mine. For a moment a pang of fear fluttered through my chest. This man could squash me in a second with minimal effort. But then he turned to address his people.

  “Men and women!” he shouted. “We have been his slaves for too long! He has taken our children, our home, and now we must fight against his powers and do what is right!”

  A mumbling worked its way through the crowd.

  “Down with the abomination who poisons our lands and our minds!” Druce yelled. “Are you with me?”

  “We are with you!” came one single, lone voice. It belonged to
a woman, and I saw with a start that it was Erod’s mother. She had tears in her eyes.”

  “Are you with me?” Druce asked again.

  “We are with you!” Several more shouted out the pledge this time.

  “Are you with me?”

  “We are with you!”

  This time every voice on the hillside boomed loud, shaking the pebbles beneath their feet. Then, all at once, they charged.

  I froze for an instant, terrified.

  But then they were blowing past me, lurching up the hillside with wide, sure footsteps. I turned and found them continuing on either side of my companions, hefting their heavy weight up the mountain, in pursuit of the one who had wronged them more than any other ever had.

  Druce remained and turned to me.

  “I remember you,” he growled. “You took the stone.”

  I felt less nervous than I had before. I knew what my purpose was now, and I embraced it.

  “Erod entrusted it to me,” I said. “And besides, you know that it never belonged to you. It belonged to her.”

  I pointed up the mountain to my friends, where I could see them all, standing frozen and watching with terror as the swarm of giants approached. Then, as the first ones began to slip around them instead of attacking, their fear turned to wonder as they realized what I had done.

  “The Kinstone belongs to no man,” Druce said. “No man but Jared.”

  “You’re wrong,” I argued. “She is the heir, the oldest in the line.”

  “But … I don’t understand.”

  “There was a child,” I said. “The baby who had been born before Jared ever left his family, before he really understood his magic. He never returned for him.”

  Druce looked appalled at the idea of a father leaving his child alone, unprotected.

  “He is Jared,” I said, pointing up the mountain. “Over centuries, Jared became the Corentin. He is the one who’s been possessing you all this time.”

  Druce’s mouth fell open, but he was unable to get the words from his mind to his tongue.

  “Go,” I said, gesturing at his men above as they headed off to battle. “Go end this.”

  Despite his confusion, and maybe his disbelief that what I was saying could possibly be true, his eyes drained of their wonder and became hard and cold again.

  “We will fight all we can,” he said. “Every one of us. His defenses are great.”

  “Yeah, well, you were his defenses,” I said. “Maybe not so great anymore.”

  Druce smirked.

  “We will try to pave the way for you,” he said. Then, “What will you do?”

  My mind crunched with this question.

  Kill.

  Murder.

  Do away with.

  “We intend to end this,” I answered.

  Druce nodded, understanding. He clapped one enormous hand on my shoulder, and I tried hard to stay upright beneath its weight.

  “You will do what is necessary to bring back peace to these lands,” he said, squeezing his hand. “Do not question your purpose.”

  Then he was gone. His enormous legs shook the ground as he heaved up the hill to join his people, to join our fight.

  I stared after him, and beyond, at the group of unlikely friends who stood on the mountainside waiting for me.

  I would do what was necessary.

  Chapter 28

  I ran for my friends, no longer worried about hiding my magic now. He would certainly be able to sense us ascending the mountain. Could he also feel the loss of the giants? Of the children?

  I passed amongst them now, their scared, confused faces looking up at me, chins trembling. But I had no choice but to leave them behind. I would come back, I told myself, unsure of whether it was a lie.

  “We will come for you!” I yelled as I blew by them. “You’ll be safe soon!”

  Cries of protest came from many young mouths, but I couldn’t stop. The poor things would have to wait just a little bit longer for the comfort they had been deprived of during their imprisonment. My heart ached with the idea that, if we failed, they would be overtaken once more. But to stay here to try to care for them wouldn’t do anybody any good. Not in the long run.

  The only way to do good now was to defeat the monster that waited for us at the top of this mountain.

  I reached the company before the last of the giants had passed them by. Father was the first one I addressed.

  “You’ve found your power, then?” I asked.

  He shrugged, that infuriating gesture that he had used so many times before. The movement that meant he didn’t know.

  For a moment I grappled with a thought that hadn’t occurred to me before: I was worried about him. Not just my dad inside that body, but Father, too. Because Father had become somebody. From the two personalities trapped within him, he had gradually found his purpose, and I had gradually come to care about him. I didn’t know whose power it was he used now; Dad’s, Jared’s, or maybe even Father’s own special combination of the two. Suddenly, it didn’t matter.

  “Well, use it,” I said. “Your power. They’re going to plow through anything they can up above.” I inclined my head in the direction of the giants. “We need to follow. Now.”

  Jade shrunk back.

  “I don’t trust the giants,” she said. “They don’t … you don’t know what it was like, being with them for all those months. They were my gatekeepers.”

  “They were just as possessed as you were,” I said impatiently. “And I trust them. That will have to be enough for all of you. Is it?”

  Jade opened her mouth to speak, but no sound came out. Her fear was clear on her face, but she didn’t argue again.

  “You just need to trust me,” I said. “Do you?”

  “Do you think we would have followed you this far if we didn’t?” Finian asked.

  I stared around at the group. There were no more arguments. I nodded, turning to begin the climb. Before long, a staircase appeared, rough steps cut directly into the rock. It went up and up and up, a relentless climb to the precipice above. Far ahead now, the giants kept their pace, unharmed. So far.

  I wanted to run. I felt sure that if I tried it here, it would be no more difficult than running on flat ground. But I couldn’t leave the group behind. My staff slipped back and forth inside my fist, and I quickened my pace.

  The climb was unforgiving, and I soon found that I was nearly as out of breath as my counterparts were. Several times we had to stop and rest, usually hiding behind a boulder or in a shadowy spot where anyone down below would have trouble seeing us. Though I didn’t see any movement there at all. Those who had assembled against us, the ones who had filled that battlefield below, had been either giants or children. There was one glider left, just one servant to the Corentin remaining if, in fact, the wolf was now free. My staff slipped again as I thought of all those we had overcome. Two gliders. The Coyle. The children. The giants. All that remained was the tiny sliver of black in my dad’s eyes. And in Jade’s.

  But that last glider. My fingers automatically touched the side of my forehead in the spot where his brother’s acidic slime had eaten away at my flesh. He was neither human nor animal, but I knew that he was pure evil. He was no innocent being, taken over by Corentin power.

  Just one more.

  I didn’t hear the cries of fury at first. My eyes were down at my feet, watching them as they made their slow, methodic pace up the side of the mountain. It wasn’t until a shower of stones fell down the steep slope from above that I looked up.

  And my heart fell.

  Giants were being tossed backwards, hitting boulders and sending a rain of rocks in our direction. The deep booming voices, some in pain, some in anger, echoed all around us the closer we got. I watched in terror as I realized that we were too far away to help. As we watched, a tiny glimpse of their attacker caught my eye.

  The last glider.

  Any attempt to curse it from here would probably result only in hitting one
of our allies.

  I needed to think fast, and I needed to get there fast.

  Father. Father had been the one to … what had he done, exactly … to break through the defenses of the Coyle, to open him up so that our magic could meet their target on the other side.

  “I need you to run!” I cried, grabbing Father’s arm and lurching up the stairs.

  All I could do was desperately hope that some giants were still alive when we got there.

  Father stumbled up the steps as he tried to follow me. But my pace was too fast; he couldn’t keep up.

  “Keep running!” I shouted, and I dropped his arm and flew up the stairs alone.

  It seemed like forever before I reached the battle, though it had probably been only minutes. Bodies of giants were spread out all around a central point like water droplets from a hose. Some moved. Others didn’t.

  A jet of power flew by me, missing my left ear by mere inches. I couldn’t wait any longer. I raised my staff and, aiming carefully, hoped that the giants between us would get out of the way.

  The glider saw my attack coming, and it quickly ducked behind the bulk of the giants closest to it, using their enormous bodies as living shields. I couldn’t get a clear shot, and the monster took every opportunity to pop around from the side of a giant and strike. I found myself dodging bolts of power, now so distracted by the danger I was in, myself, I had forgotten to think about my own attack on the glider. Back and forth, like some sort of sickening dance, I avoided the jets of light intended to kill me. I was moving so fast that I didn’t have time to think, didn’t have time to be scared. There was only evasion in my mind and nothing else.

  And then the world turned upside down. I hit the ground hard, cracking my head on the granite of the mountain. But that was nothing compared to the pain in my belly. I doubled over, clutching helplessly at it. Six inches wide in the center of my gut, the flesh burned. I shouted out in agony, unsure of how deep the wound went.