Bloodstone
Page 1
Table of Contents
Title Page
copyright
Praise for BLOODSTONE
Dedication
List of Characters and Places in Bloodstone
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-One
Chapter Twenty-Two
Chapter Twenty-Three
Chapter Twenty-Four
Chapter Twenty-Five
Chapter Twenty-Six
Chapter Twenty-Seven
Chapter Twenty-Eight
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-One
Chapter Thirty-Two
Chapter Thirty-Three
Chapter Thirty-Four
Chapter Thirty-Five
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Thank you for purchasing this publication of The Wild Rose Press, Inc.
Bloodstone
by
Helen C. Johannes
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales, is entirely coincidental.
Bloodstone
COPYRIGHT © 2014 by Helen C. Johannes All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the author or The Wild Rose Press, Inc. except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.
Contact Information: info@thewildrosepress.com Cover Art by Rae Monet, Inc. Design The Wild Rose Press, Inc.
PO Box 708
Adams Basin, NY 14410-0708
Visit us at www.thewildrosepress.com Publishing History
First Faery Rose Edition, 2014
Print ISBN 978-1-62830-055-0
Digital ISBN 978-1-62830-056-7
Published in the United States of America
Praise for BLOODSTONE
Winner 2011 Launching a Star Contest SpacecoasT Authors of Romance (STAR) Fantasy/Futuristic category *
Finalist 2007 Spring into Romance Fantasy Futuristic and Paranormal category San Diego Chapter of
Romance Writers of America *
Second place 1996 Fabulous Five Fantasy Futuristic, and Paranormal category Wisconsin Romance Writers of America
Dedication
To my critique partner Joe
who spurred me on to finish this book.
To Mary Ellen
who read this first
and helped find the weak spots.
To my WisRWA friends who kept encouraging me
throughout the process.
To my husband
who's been behind me all the way.
List of Characters and Places in Bloodstone Ayliss – Durren’s sister Brandelmore – Master of Nolar, a Landowner controlling the region and town Burl – Gem trader Durren Drakkonwehr – Dragon Keeper and heir to the Sword of Drakkonwehr Errek Eolan – Durren’s best friend and second in command Freth – Cook at the White Boar Inn Gareth – Stableboy and servant at the White Boar Inn Kiros – Legendary hero who set the Stone Dam at Herrok-Eneth Koronolan – Legendary hero who brought down the Last Dragon Krad – Beast-men who infest the Wehrland Leah – Gareth’s mother Mirianna – Daughter of Tolbert, determined to accompany him to Ar-Deneth Nell – Serving maid at the White Boar Inn Owender – Historian and chronicler of The History of the People Pumble – Partner of Rees Rees – Guide provided to Tolbert by the Master of Nolar Shadow Man – Gem hunter, provider of bloodstone Syryk – Mage seeking the Dragon Chant to raise and control the Last Dragon Tolbert – Gem-cutter commissioned to make jewelry for the Master’s wedding Ulerroth – Innkeeper and gem trader of the White Boar Inn in Ar-Deneth Ar-Deneth – Town at the western edge of the Wehrland Beggeth – Place of banishment for enemies of the People, a stronghold of black magic Drakkonwehr – Dragon Keep, a fortress to guard the Last Dragon’s resting place Herrok-Eneth – Stone Dam keeping creatures of Beggeth out of the Wehrland Nolar – Prosperous town and region east of the Wehrland, controlled by a rich Master Wehrland – Mountainous no-man’s land separating the People from Beggeth
Chapter One
Mirianna peered through her lashes at blue sky decorated with wisps of bright clouds.
Morning? But how…?
A quick inventory of her senses told her she lay on broken plates of rock. Spikes of meadow grass leaned over her shoulder. Distant treetops speared the sky, ringing a clearing that sloped down and away from the lichen-studded stone under her fingertips.
The last she remembered, she’d been riding her horse through the night and searching for her father. Alone. Lost in the no-man’s land that was the Wehrland, while branches lashed her face and snatched at her cloak. Running from…something…
Led by…someone?
Twin glimmers of yellow-green, luminescent eyes hovered on the edge of her consciousness and vanished when she tried to bring them into focus. The effort awakened a torrent of complaints from every muscle and joint in her body. Mirianna groaned.
Had she fallen? She moved each of her limbs in turn. Finding them stiff but uninjured, she struggled to sit up, and a damp cloth dropped from her head into her lap. She stared at it while everything else pitched and rocked.
“Would you like some tea? It’s willow bark. Good for aches.”
Mirianna carefully raised her gaze. A boy about thirteen knelt beside her. He wore a cloth wrapped around his forehead, and his tunic, ripped over one shoulder, was russet with dried blood. All she could think of to say was, “You—you’re hurt.”
Color rose on his pale cheeks. “I’m on the mend. You’re the one who fainted.” With a crooked grin, he proffered a bowl. “Drink this. It’ll make you feel better. I should know.”
He’d coaxed a smile from her, and he looked harmless, so Mirianna held out her hand. When he made no move to pass her the tea, she leaned toward him and took the bowl from his grasp. His gaze, which ought to have followed her movement, remained fixed on a point somewhere near her chin.
The blind boy.
Apprehension thrilled along her nerves. The boy couldn’t possibly be alone. He hadn’t been alone before…
Memories followed in a stomach-tightening rush, tumbling over one another, strange events made even stranger by this ungodly wilderness. A voice in the night, sounding from nowhere and…everywhere, terrifying her and yet somehow stopping her horse from bolting. A presence haunting her room at the inn, invading her dreams with vivid, erotic suggestions. A touch—a dream!—that wasn’t so much a touch but a desire made...tangible. Mirianna quivered. Her breasts swelled, and the burgeoning nipples prickled against the fabric of her bodice.
Where was the boy’s master? Where was the Shadow Man?
Her fingers clenched, sloshing warm liquid onto her hand. She sucked in a breath, placed the bowl on the ground, and twisted her body to find the answer.
“So,” said the voice that made her stomach break into shards of sensation, “you do remember.”
Mirianna forced a swallow. The Shadow Man stood so close she could smell boot leather and wool, could see black-encased thigh and calf muscle
s that looked as solid as the rock on which she sat. Looked solid, because underneath the black hood, gloves and all-concealing clothing had to be nothing at all but darkness.
“I—I remember you told us the way to Ar-Deneth.” Resisting the inclination of her gaze to rise, she turned away, making a show of reaching for the tea and sipping it. Don’t look at him! Instead, she scanned the clearing for signs of her father. Be safe, Papa. Please be safe!
“Did you make it to Ar-Deneth?” The boy leaned forward with hands on knees. “I served at the inn until a few days ago. Did you stay there?”
“Yes.” Mirianna managed a wan smile until she remembered he couldn’t see it. She touched the back of his hand instead. “It was a very nice place.”
“Gareth,” the Shadow Man said, “check the pack mare. See if her leg is fit.”
A look of disappointment crossed the boy’s features, but he stood without hesitation. Staff in hand, he felt his way down the hillside toward four horses tethered below. Mirianna noticed her own gelding among them.
She sipped the tea, swilled it, and sipped again, forcing herself to linger over the cooling liquid. The Shadow Man’s brusque order to the boy told her he stood so close, she could almost feel the imprint of his lower legs cradling her spine. She wished he would speak or leave before the brackish tea made her vomit or her strung-tight nerves made her bolt.
“Why didn’t you stay in Ar-Deneth?” he demanded. “Why did you have to come back?”
His voice, though low, ripped at the shreds of her control. Not because it accused. She’d expected that. Just as she’d expected anger. And menace. What set her nerve endings vibrating was something that underlay all the rest, something she should have expected because she’d heard it before, only she hadn’t recognized it then. Nor could she quite name it now, except it bore elements of frustration. And anguish.
She set the bowl aside. “Please understand, I wouldn’t have come, but we—my father—needed more bloodstone. Ulerroth said—the innkeeper said you were the only one who—”
“There were three men with you. Where are they?”
His tone brought Mirianna’s chin up, but she held her gaze fixed on the empty tea bowl. She was not going to cry. Her father was safe…somewhere. He’d been ahead of her when they escaped the ambush. “I—the clearing was full of Krad. We got separated.”
“Krad!” The Shadow Man strode to the lip of the hillside and planted one boot on a rock.
He stood half turned away and far enough the jangling of her nerves faded to a hum. Emboldened, Mirianna let her gaze rise. The morning sun shone full on his back, showing her the sheen of wear on the black hood, tunic and breeches that concealed every inch of his flesh but hid none of the contours. On his raised thigh she detected a tear that had been carefully mended. His gloves and boots bore the creases and scuffs of long use. Even his belt showed faintly green where the dye had faded. A sword, the broken blade extending no more than two hands’ span from the hilt, stuck out from his belt like a common thief’s dagger.
Was this the being who had invaded her dreams and turned them so disturbingly sensual? Was this the wraith who two nights ago had spirited the blind boy from their sight? Was this the possessor of a voice that had shaken her to the core? In the full day’s sun, he looked no more than a man, taller than some, leaner and more fit than most. Chagrinned by her fears, Mirianna rocked to her knees and made ready to rise.
He turned at the rustle of her movement. Her gaze went automatically to his face. But there was no face to be seen. Only a shapeless drape of black cloth filled his hood where eyes and nose and mouth should be.
Mirianna sat as if turned to stone. Horror cooled her blood, and the hair rose on every part of her body. It’s his look. One look from him—at him—and men go mad. Or die. By the Dragon, let me not die!
Somehow, she summoned the power to close her eyes. She knew she’d succeeded only when she opened them again and the Shadow Man no longer filled her vision. Every nerve, however, thrummed with his presence, and she knew he stood not more than three paces behind her and to the left. She knew, too, he faced the forest’s edge, his right hand gripping the scrolled hilt of the weapon in his belt. She knew all this, and more, because somehow he’d let her know it so she might never again forget who and what he was. Don’t worry. I won’t forget again.
She turned slowly, like one waking from a dream, and saw what had captured his attention, three riders emerging from the trees. “Papa!” she choked, and stumbled to her feet to meet him.
Tolbert slid out of the saddle and wrapped his arms around his daughter. “Mirianna, lamb, I thought I’d lost you.”
Mirianna pressed her face into his neck. She clung for a moment, then leaned back and let him look at her. “I’m fine, Papa. Honestly, I am. But you—” She plucked a cedar twig from his hair. Creases etched his cheeks, and a distinct grayness underlay his usual color. He looked every one of his years, and more. “You need to eat.”
Tolbert chuckled, but the sound broke into a cough. When he recovered breath, he hugged her again and kissed her gently on the cheek. “So, lamb, do you. So do we all, now.”
“Perhaps we can share your fire.”
In the joy of finding her father, Mirianna had forgotten Rees and Pumble, the two men the Master of Nolar had given her father as escort. And even that dark being which stood somewhere behind her and drew Rees’s stony glare. The Master of Nolar’s man still sat his horse, and his hand hovered near his bow. Beside him, Pumble stood, sweating, his fingers twitching over the hilt of his sword. She turned slowly in her father’s arms.
“I said,” Rees repeated, “perhaps we can share your fire, this time...Shadow.”
The Shadow Man stood at the rock ledge, his body as motionless as a bat captured by the sun. His hand rested on the hilt of the sword in his belt, and between his gloved fingers something glinted red. His hood revealed only a drape of cloth where his face should be, yet she knew underneath every inch of that which passed for face was turned on Rees, and the air between them stretched to a brittle thinness.
“Do with it as you please,” he said at last. “The boy and I were just about to leave.”
“Wait!” Tolbert put Mirianna aside. “I need—”
“Bloodstone?” The black hood swiveled. Her father stiffened under the weight of the invisible regard. “There is no more bloodstone, old man. Go home, while you still can.”
Tolbert shook his head violently. “But Ulerroth—”
“Ulerroth is a fool,” said the voice that vibrated along Mirianna’s nerves. “And so are you, if you stay another day in the Wehrland.”
A stallion’s shrill scream punctuated his words.
The Shadow Man spun. Below the rock ledge, the tethered horses milled, huffing. The blind boy clung to the pack mare’s halter, his face a pasty white. “Sir, I think I smell—”
“Krad!” Rees coughed, recoiling from a wave of stench that stole Mirianna’s breath.
“They must have followed us!” Pumble wheezed.
“Fools!” The Shadow Man’s faceless gaze raked from Rees to Mirianna. “I should damn you all to Beggeth, but the Krad will see to that soon enough.” He turned. “Gareth, free the horses!”
“Wait!” Tolbert said as an unearthly, high-pitched clamor erupted from the woods below. “What about us? What do we do?”
Only the hood rotated, cocking with exaggerated deliberation. “Why, you die, old man.”
Her father blanched. His grip on Mirianna’s arms faltered.
She saw the Shadow Man turn, saw the muscles of his thighs bunch as he prepared to leap down the hillside, saw, in the corner of her eye, shapes gathering along the tree line below, horrible shapes she’d seen only hours before rushing at her from a darkened clearing. With a shudder, she broke from her father’s grasp.
“Please!” She reached out to the black sleeve. “Help us!”
He recoiled at her touch like one snake-bitten. The sudden, sharp focus of his r
egard staggered her, but she backed no more than a step. No matter how he terrified her, he’d helped her once. She’d been led to him again, and not, her instincts told her, without reason.
“Please,” she repeated. “Help us. I—we’ll do anything.”
“Anything?”
His voice was a whisper that caressed flesh.
Mirianna’s stomach quivered. Her breasts tingled. Her mouth grew even drier.
Without thinking, she slid her tongue along her lips. Vaguely, she wondered what she’d done. And why time seemed suspended, as if everyone but she and the Shadow Man had been cast in stone and all sound arrested.
All sound except the taut, guttural repeat of his question.
“Anything?”
If she were sane, she would seize the opportunity to clarify, to explain, to negotiate her reply.
But even as she watched herself stand on the rock ledge and confront a shadow, she knew the question spoke not to her head but to her heart, and her heart answered in the only way it could, plainly and without hesitation.
“Yes,” she breathed, “anything.”
Chapter Two
Ten days earlier…
The stone glinted, a red-black clot amid the usual sand-and-pebble slurry in the panning dish. The man peering at it through the eyeholes of his face-covering sucked in a breath.
At least fifty-five grains, said the Voice in his head. Enough to be quit of this place.
Only if it proves true. He closed his eyes, mastering his breathing, until his hands steadied and his concentration focused. Then, with deliberate care, he tilted the dish. Water dribbled out, leaving only quartz chips, flecked granite, and sand particles clustered around the thumbnail-size stone.
With a gloved fingertip, he nudged the stone from its sandy nest and rolled it into the center of the dish. Perfectly oval. He blew out a breath, fluttering his face covering. Color and shape, good. There was but one more test. His gut knew the stone was true, but his gut had fallen for an illusion before, and he had to be sure.
Pinching the stone between thumb and forefinger, the man picked it up. Blood hummed in his ears, but his hands were steady as he set the dish aside on a flat rock. He placed the stone in the center of his gloved palm and pushed out of his mind all thoughts of what a find like this could mean. This was the Wehrland after all; nothing was ever as it seemed. With another breath, he stretched out his arm and opened his hand and its contents to the sun.