In the Shadow of the Rook (The Sons Incarnate Book 1)

by JDL Rosell

  “Tara won’t like that.” The girl glanced back at the dull glow of their campsite. “She likes you.” She shifted from foot to foot, gaze falling to the ground.

  She likes me? Erik knew the words shouldn't mean so much. “Has she told you that?”

  “No, but I’m not dumb.” She suddenly crossed her arms, feet wide apart, as if daring to say she was.

  “Well,” he said. He felt his resolution ebbing away and sighed. “What about you, Persey?"

  Lunegazers clacked as she considered. “I wouldn’t like if you left,” she said, careful as a butterfly landing on a flower.

  Erik smiled weakly. “I wouldn’t blame you.”

  There she stood, a girl who had probably been abandoned many times in her life, and she was practically asking him to stay. She doesn't know what it means for you to stay. She doesn't know what she's asking.

  But did he? If he left, wasn't he abandoning them, just as he'd abandoned Ilyse to be alone that night by the river? Suddenly, he seemed to see the picture straight. If he left now, left when they wanted him to stay, left when they depended on him in some small measure, it would be what he'd done before. Cowardice. It wasn't protection—it was escape.

  No guarantees in this shattered world, Erik thought. No guarantees, but sometimes there are second chances, if you recognize them. Persey, Tara—they're giving you a second chance. Are you going to let that slip away because you're to scared to take it?

  He held out his hands, wrists together, like a prisoner willing himself to be bound. “You win. I’m your captive. I can’t escape if you won’t let me.”

  The girl walked over and looked skeptically at his wrists. “And people think I’m strange," she muttered. Then she took one of his hands in hers.

  He closed his fingers around her little hand and let her lead them back to camp. Inside him, sadness, joy, and frustration intermingled, but he breathed out and let them go. He closed his eyes and trusted, trusted in that rare feeling of a young girl’s blind faith.

  Seventeen

  The next morning came early and cruel, for it was a morning of walking, and Erik felt even more the corpse he was. Still, as Persey stared and Tara bustled around the camp gathering small necessities for travel, he couldn’t just lie around. No matter how he pleaded with the Mother, the decision was the same: rise, or wait for the Talstalker to find him. Not much of a decision when it came down to it.

  So he groaned and moaned but rose in the end, and they set off. The plan was to cut straight for Zauhn, a path Tara accepted with little comment. Perhaps it was simply because it was Erik’s home, a fact divulged along with many other during their sailing excursion. But Erik had neglected to mention the difficulties they would encounter when they arrived at the town. If they arrived. Considering he wasn't sure where exactly they'd landed on the shore, they might be too far south, in which case their path would cross lands better left uncrossed, and make arrival all the more uncertain.

  But Erik kept that worry to himself as they trudged along. Progress was slow, especially since they had to stop periodically to scrounge for food and water. Under Erik’s careful watch, the woman and girl collected midsummer berries, edible roots, and toadstools that wouldn’t kill them. After he himself rejected food twice, Tara stopped asking, but she didn’t look as disturbed as she ought to have. Iron guts, Erik thought admiringly, though I can thank Persey for preparing her. Still, he wasn’t sure he’d have felt the same in her place.

  Then there was that stench of rot steadily growing about him. Embarrassed, he’d started walking a bit apart, especially since Persey wrinkled her nose every once in a while and commented on the forest’s stench. But she never accused him of it, and neither did Tara.

  The trip was almost pleasant, even if Persey complained of gnawing hunger, Erik suffered with every step, and all three of them grew more tired and ragged. His clothes were a mess of blood, ash, and mud, the violet dye doing little to hide them, and Persey and Tara’s robes weren’t much better off. And the ever-present paranoia of being hunted didn’t make their exhaustion easier to bear. Even so, the Brunnen Forest was gentle, filled with the gently waving brun leaves and scurrying animals hiding in the brush. Little cause for worry, charfurs and deer. Erik started to relax.

  Then the forest abruptly ended, opening into the pre-dusk golden light. They stared up at several knolls, bare but for patches of a thick, vibrantly green moss, and his throat tightened.

  “We shouldn’t go this way.”

  Tara looked at him, then the hills, considering. Her eyes widened in recognition. “These are the Barrows, aren’t they?”

  He nodded, and leaned against a tree. His legs felt worn and tired as a wrung rag, and every breath was another nail in his side. And now this. “We could be at the southwestern finger of them, and just a shortcut away from Lienze. But if we’re too far east, we could be traveling through for a day or more.” No need to mention they likely wouldn’t last the day—Tara knew it well enough, and Persey had surely had enough bedtime stories of the Barrows to have an idea of what was coming, even if she didn’t show it.

  The stories of the Barrows were almost as old as The Sons Incarnate itself. The hills were said to be the burial mounds of a Seafolk captain, the Krakos, and his bloodthirsty crew. Children in the District Nord were often told not to stray far from home or the Krakos and his mates would catch you in a net and carve you up for their infidel feasts. After the nekros had returned from their long sleep—thanks in no small part, it seemed, to Erik’s own father—the Barrows had become home to more substantial dangers. For some reason, a community of nautded existed there, continually rejuvenated as old lurchers lay down and new ones streamed in from the local nekromists’ laboratories. As if further cementing the unnaturalness of the place, even grass didn’t grow on its hills. Only a certain green moss thrived, feasting itself on the corpsewalkers too weak to carry on.

  But as dangerous as he knew the Barrows to be, Erik also remembered the danger behind them. If the Talstalker could track him to Kuust, it could find him in the forest. To go around might prove just as deadly. Despite his earlier resolution, Erik cursed himself for putting them in this situation.

  "We’d better go through after all," he said slowly.

  Tara had watched him carefully the whole time. “We’ll be overtaken otherwise.”

  He nodded and glanced at Persey, but the girl didn’t seem to be paying attention. She's either witless or brave, and I can’t decide which. “You all right with that?”

  Tara nodded firmly, though her worried brow betrayed her fear. “We took our chances coming with you, but it was our decision. So if we have to go into more danger, you can’t feel bad about leading us into it.”

  His mouth tightened into a line, but he didn’t object. Inside, that devilish part of him celebrated the way out of guilt, but he’d wait until they were through to decide if he was off the hook.

  “All right then,” he said, barely suppressing a groan as he straightened. “Let’s go.”

  He hoped for a better view when they reached the top, but they were still too low, so they ascended the next one, and the next one, and the next. Finally, just before the last of the sun disappeared, they found themselves at the highest point around. Erik looked east and west, then straight before, and his stomach dropped. Hills and more hills, for miles and miles. And Mt. Brunnen, obscured before by the hills and forest, loomed much larger than he’d expected, the tip of its peak piercing into thick clouds. Clouds headed their way, as it turned out, blotting out the red and violet hues with moody gray.

  He exchanged a look with Tara, and saw his own apprehension reflected back. Not only were they to cross perhaps the widest part of the Barrows, but they’d do it in the dark and a storm. A great weariness came over him, and he sank stiffly to the ground.

  Tara immediately tugged at his cloak. “We can’t rest yet. The light’s fading fast, and we’re going to need shelter soon.”

  “No shelter here,” Er
ik muttered. “We have to go the whole way through with as few stops as possible.”

  The relict paused, considering. “And if we run into lurchers because we can’t see?”

  He shrugged. That’s the question, isn’t it? “We’ll just hope they’re not newly raised.”

  The last of their light faded as they set back down from the high hill. The moon, covered as it was, made for a poor replacement, and they soon took to checking if they were still together by voice.

  “Erik?”

  “Still behind.” He took up the rear. If something overtook them, at least he’d be able to give them a chance to escape. He constantly looked back, wide-eyed, but nothing ever showed itself.

  The moss was soft beneath his feet, more loamy even than good farming soil. In the darkness, it felt like he walked on a cloud. If he’d had a more active imagination, he might have pictured it true, but imagination was a dangerous thing when unseen threats could be lurking in the inky darkness. Much better to keep your thoughts dull and your feet plodding forward.

  Just when he thought the endless night couldn’t get worse, rain started to fall. The moss became slippery, and where there wasn’t moss, mud made every downhill a slide and every uphill nearly impossible to gain. And as their path became increasingly jagged, Erik wasn’t even sure they were going in the right direction.

  So much in danger were they of becoming separated that Tara took hold of Erik’s hand and gripped it tightly. How nice it might have been even just a day before to know a woman’s touch—or even human touch—again, something he had never really expected again. But as the weight of fear settled more firmly over them, he barely registered the feeling.

  They came to a somewhat sheltered spot where a boulder leaned between two hills, and nestled underneath it for a rest. “Just a bit further,” he murmured as they all panted. A lie easily seen through, but he hoped it would reassure all the same. Sometimes, a bit of delusion was enough to keep a body going.

  Tara suddenly grabbed his arm. “What’s that?”

  “What—?”

  “Shh!”

  He held his breath and listened, but between his thumping heart and the rain, he couldn’t make anything out. Then he did hear something, a shifting along the ground like a branch dragging and rustling. He stared, straining to see, and Tara and Persey stiffened next to him. There was definitely something out there, and it was coming closer.

  The relict shifted, probably drawing her knife, but Erik didn’t have anything so readily available. All around him was mossy ground, no loose stone within reach.

  Then came the moan, and his fears were confirmed. He could barely make out the lurcher’s silhouette, a slightly darker patch against the black night, and its eyes didn’t catch any light. If it had noticed them, it gave no sign of it. Still, he swallowed, and felt around more desperately for a loose rock, for all the good it did him.

  Then there was a flash of lightning, and the figure lit up for a moment: a human form, broken and twisted, shoulders offset and legs uneven, its little skin hanging from the body like rags, and moss covering the rest, including its eyes.

  And in that bright instant, he knew it had seen them as well.

  As thunder boomed and shook the ground, Erik hauled up Persey and Tara, though they needed little encouragement. They rose as one ungainly group and bolted from their hiding spot, Persey tucked between them. He couldn’t see the lurcher, but he heard it snarl from behind, and other shadowy spots echoed it back. His heart pounded in his bruised chest, but he didn’t have time for pain—there was just the running up hills, sliding down in the mud, rising and running again.

  When they were coming up a hill and another series of lightning flashed, Erik risked a look back. Some two dozen lurchers ambled after them, pitching down in ungainly runs, but still in pursuit. They had to be no more than a hundred paces behind.

  “Go!” he shouted and desperately grappled at the moss with his free hand while heaving Persey up with the other. Everything was slick, and her arm suddenly yanked from his grip as part of the hill disintegrated beneath her. Her scream pierced the night as the girl slid back down the moss and mud, back down the hill, towards the approaching pack of lurchers.

  Erik cursed, but he didn’t hesitate as he launched himself after her. He felt more than saw the girl when he stumbled upon her, and grabbed at her as his momentum carried him past. Tara called out something indistinguishable, but there was no time to check what as they slid to a shuddering stop at the bottom. Gritting his teeth as his tight scars pulled and pulled rippled down his body, he picked up the girl and hauled her over his shoulder.

  “Down the ravine!” he wheezed back to the relict, who had followed them down. Not waiting to see if she’d heard, he started running, every breath starting wildfires in his body, but still he moved forward.

  He heard the muted noises of their many pursuers just behind, no more than a dozen paces back now. He heard Tara behind them, cursing with every exhale whichever of the three gods occurred to her. Erik couldn’t even think so much to do that. His mind was numb with tiredness, barely comprehending where to go next on their blind path of escape, while Persey clung to him and muttered indistinguishable words into his back.

  It happened fast. He heard Tara’s wordless scream behind him, tumbling to the ground, and the stampede of lurchers catching up again. There wasn’t time to hesitate. He slipped to a halt and threw Persey to the mud, then turned and charged back. He saw the lurchers’ shadows bobbing towards Tara’s rising form, moving to swarm her, but there was the glint of metal in her hand. As Erik passed, he instinctively snatched it from her hand, never mind the grunt of surprise she let off.

  Then they were all about him. He could feel them as much as see them, and smelled their decaying flesh most of all. First they snarled as he crashed among them, then the snarls turned to surprise as their bodies, brittle from their extended decay, crumbled under his knife swing.

  But even as the first of them fell back, more came on, grabbing at his legs, his arms, his screaming ribs, his neck. He swung fist and knife, stabbed and bit sour flesh off, but they were too many, and he was dragged down. A feral scream welled up in his throat, but was choked off as two hands closed about it, still powerful enough to squeeze it shut. He couldn’t push them away, his arms held back. It became too much. Erik fell under their weight into the mud, choked, blinded, unhearing.

  So he didn’t know why one pair of hands released, and then a second, and then a third. Or why he could suddenly suck in a breath, the once-choking hands suddenly gone limp. But he didn’t stop to ask questions. Thrashing about with renewed desperation, he cut unseen assailants and pummeled the head of the one on top of him.

  When he rose, gasping and in fiery pain in a dozen places, he wiped at his eyes to see the enemy had retreated a few paces back, dark forms tensed and waiting. One was still next to him, but he recognized the human pant: Tara, a stone shining wet in her hand, had come to his rescue. As had Persey, if the sudden pulsing in his mind was any indication.

  “What are you waiting for?” he growled at their assailants. “Fight or leave, blight you!”

  “Erik,” Tara gasped, “we need to go.”

  But a scream sounded behind them, and Erik whirled to see a large form grappling with Persey’s small one. Erik saw Tara go for her, and he followed, except his ankles were suddenly held fast, and he fell hard to the ground, ribs sending fresh spirals of pain through his body. Rough hands grabbed and held him again, the hands of lurchers he’d already dashed apart. They pulled his head back down as he tried to sit up, and he lashed out to get free, but it was too late. Lightning flashed, and he saw the mass of dead men seething forward again, hands outstretched to drag him back to the mud.

  In that same burst of light, Erik saw above him a huge boulder, tenuously perched atop a small stack of stones. Fall, damn you, he cursed it. Crush them! But the stone was deaf to his pleas, and even though he gained his feet, the lurchers tackled him back
to the mud. He felt his strength ebb away. Both of his arms were pinned, and hands again curled about his throat. He couldn’t get them off this time, couldn’t rise again. Fall, damn you.

  Then he heard it. As he lay in the earth pinned by the small army of lurchers, he heard the single stroke of a deep drum. It reverberated through him, making him shake and shiver, and he smiled despite himself, despite the fact that he was dying again, and this time for good. It came again, and again, and again, each time faster and more urgent, each time rattling his teeth and eyes inside his skull, but he didn’t care. There was power in that drum, and he felt as it moved within him and through him, connected like an unseen limb. At the next stroke, when it came through him again, he pushed it back out like he were hitting his own drum beat, and as he did, he thought he felt every droplet of mud around him ripple, every stone tremble, every fiber of moss flicker and wave. And he followed as it ran up the hill, felt as each of the stones shook and shivered, and then toppled. He felt the heavy weight begin to tip and, like the smiting hand of a god, catapult down the hill.

  Then, the sensation was gone, and the ground trembled with a very real rumble. Erik felt the lurchers release him and flee, and he scrambled away from where he’d seen the boulder so precariously lodged. But it was over before he’d even reacted. With a roar like a crumbling mountain, the boulder tore down the hillside, and into the ravine, and landed into the greater mass of the lurchers, crushing them beneath.

  The others left standing—no more than ten—backed away, and the separated hands released their grip, either limp or unwilling to continue, so that Erik pulled free and rose unsteadily to his knees.

  A moment later, the silhouettes turned and went splashing back the way they’d come, leaving their fallen for the ever-hungry moss.

  Erik slumped to the ground and closed his eyes, letting the rain wash over him, cold and cleansing. He didn’t watch for any that might be lingering, or for a resurgence—he was too damned tired. Tired enough he could fall into the mud and never wake and be happy for it. What was all the struggle for? he wondered. Why did he hold on so hard? He had to rest. He had to—