Bloodstone

by Johannes, Helen C.

  “How long ago?” Pumble said, his face pale under his tan.

  “Not long enough.” Rees scowled at the sun. “And closer to Ar-Deneth than I thought they’d be.” He leveled a glare at Mirianna.

  He thinks I brought the Krad. And maybe the lion, too.

  The idea stunned her. She flushed hot at the memory of his groping hand and her helplessness against it, then cold at the implied connection. I didn’t summon the lion! It was just coincidence, nothing more! But she said, “Are we close enough to Ar-Deneth to reach it if we ride through the night?”

  Rees’s eyes narrowed.

  She averted her gaze from the latent heat rising again in his. Please don’t misunderstand why I said that. I’m not afraid of you. I’m just...afraid.

  “If I remember the trail correctly,” Tolbert said, leaning forward and stroking his chin, “we can’t be more than a day or two away. There’s the Bear’s Tooth.” He pointed to a conical formation of yellow stone visible along the rock wall in the distance. “It’s been some years, but I seem to remember that as a landmark before the trail bends southward.”

  Rees, attention diverted, squinted at the sandstone monument. His lips thinned, but he jerked a nod. “All night and half the day—if you’re up to it.”

  “I don’t know about the rest of you,” Pumble said, mopping his face, “but the sooner I get out of the Wehrland, the happier I’ll be.”

  “Yes, yes,” Tolbert said, nodding. “But we’ll have to return this way, you know.”

  Pumble shrugged. “Better to be halfway and know you made it, than go to sleep once more, wondering if you will.”

  “What about you?” Rees said.

  “Me?” Mirianna’s fingers worried the saddle horn. “Oh, I’m not tired. Let’s go. Besides,” she added, forcing a smile for her father’s benefit, “we can rest when we get there.”

  “And in proper beds.” Tolbert rubbed his lower back. “This sleeping on the ground, well, I guess I’m not as young as I used to be.” He grinned sheepishly and squeezed his daughter’s hand.

  Had they been anywhere else, she would have savored his admission. Here, though, a subtle alteration in Rees’s expression demanded all of her attention. It was in his eyes, but not only there. There was a movement of lips, too, so minute she could barely note the change, barely identify it. And it had begun with her father’s mention of “bed.”

  Mirianna closed her eyes. I’ll have to keep my door bolted day and night.

  Chapter Seven

  The man sat on a low, flat stone before a small fire. He stirred the flames with a stick, poking apart the glowing carcasses of deadfall he’d set aflame only an hour earlier.

  Ghost, tethered with the pack horses, showed gray in a sputter of sparks, then vanished as the glare faded. A night hawk screeched somewhere to the west.

  The man lifted his head and peered at the sky. Between long, blank shadows of cloud, he located the five-star formation of Kiros and noted its position. Two hours until the first faint bluing of dawn.

  He returned his attention to the fire, spreading it still more, letting it die. It was only a small one, and he’d built it primarily for the boy.

  An involuntary contraction of muscles pulled up one corner of his mouth. What does a blind boy need with a fire?

  Hah! How very droll, said the Voice in his head. But you know very well there are more uses for it than light.

  He rested the glowing tip of the stick on a stone. A wisp of smoke, pungent with burnt sap, curled up from it toward the dark tops of aspens and spruces sheltering three sides of his campsite.

  When the smoke dissipated, he looked down at a tankard nested in stones at the edge of the fire. If there was warm water left, he should drink it even though he had no intention of sleeping. They were still too close to Ar-Deneth, and he wouldn’t rest until they’d put another day between themselves and the main trail. As it was, the trail lay no more than a league to the south. Were he alone, he wouldn’t have stopped here. He would have continued until midday, rested the horses until evening and embarked again, putting as many leagues as possible between himself and the eyes of the curious before he would yield to the luxury of sleep.

  If he were alone.

  He glanced toward the blanket-clad figure lying on the ground an arm’s length to his left. The boy slept like one dead, his face a pasty half-moon in the fading firelight.

  Take him back. It’s not too late, the Voice in his head said. Again.

  The man returned his gaze to the gray-red glow, remembering how the boy had blundered into roots, caught his hood on low branches, and finally tripped over the pack to fall, face down, in the moss. The man straightened slowly, until his elbows rose from his knees and his hands unclasped and the palms rubbed, back and forth, against the prickly weave of the fabric covering his thighs. He’ll survive...once we get to Drakkonwehr. He’ll be safe there. We both will.

  There was a sound...far off. The man froze. In the moments that followed, he heard the nighthawk screeching now to the north as it dove and fed, dove and fed. Ghost, in the darkness, huffed and was silent. There was no wind to rustle the boughs, yet he had heard...what? A rattle of stone? No, not quite that. Something else, something like...voices?

  The man bolted to his feet, whirling so quickly his cloak whipped at his boot tops.

  Ghost, under the spruces, raised his muzzle and, ears pricked, sniffed the air.

  “Men,” the man muttered. “Fools!”

  The stallion huffed again and stamped.

  The man glided to the animal’s side and slid a hand under the stallion’s mane. There was just enough time to unfasten the tether and vanish into the night. When the intruders arrived, they would find only an untended, dying fire.

  And a boy.

  A shiver twitched along the man’s back. His gaze shot to the shrouded figure barely visible near the circle of embers. He surged two steps forward, then halted at the sound of hooves striking stone. He looked, once, toward the break in the trees and the shadows moving into it. Then, turning on his heel, he swept into the cover of the spruces.

  ****

  Mirianna halted her horse just behind Rees and Pumble, the two men’s mounted figures silhouetted against the faint light of a dying fire. Ah, a fire. It would be wonderful to warm herself for a moment or two, if only to beat back the chill emanating from everything in this forsaken region.

  Ahead in the narrow mouth of the clearing, Pumble leaned toward Rees. “See, I told you it was a campfire.”

  “Shut up and keep your eyes on those trees.”

  Even though the hissed retort wasn’t aimed at her, its tone shredded Mirianna’s remaining patience. She urged her gelding alongside Rees’s mount. “That’s a fine way to talk to him! You’ve been leading us in circles for hours. At least Pumble has had sense enough to spot the fire.”

  “I don’t know where we went wrong.” Tolbert nudged his horse beside Pumble’s. He pinched the bridge of his nose, and then dragged his hand over his face. “We should have found the fork by now.”

  Mirianna slapped spruce needles from her cloak and glared at Rees. She gestured toward the single blanket-wrapped figure visible near the fire pit. “Why don’t you just admit we’re lost and go ask that man for directions?”

  Although it was too dark to see more than an occasional glimmer of Rees’s eyes, she sensed the weight—and heat—of his stare. “Because,” he said, speaking slowly, as if to a peevish child, “I’m not sure there’s only one man.”

  Her heart thudded. This was the Wehrland, after all. “Well,” she said, stiffening her chin, “there are four of us.”

  Rees snorted, but he cupped his hands around his mouth. “Hallo the camp!”

  The shout echoed off the trees and faded. A horse, under the spruces, nickered. Mirianna’s mount shook its bit and replied. But the man, barely visible in the fading emberlight, lay still.

  Something heavy pressed in on Mirianna’s chest, shorting her lungs of air. �
��He’s dead,” she breathed.

  “Or faking,” murmured Pumble.

  “Or a dummy,” Rees said. “Pumble, go and see.”

  “Me?” Pumble’s face shone white. He licked his lips. Drawing his short sword, he rode slowly forward. At the edge of the firelight, he looked from side to side, then dismounted. He crept toward the ring of stones, scooped up a handful of kindling, and flung it on the embers. Backing two quick steps, he barked, “Hallo the camp!”

  The blanket-wrapped figure jolted upright. “Yes, sir! What am I to...?”

  A boy’s face, pale in the light of fresh flames, emerged from a fallen-back hood. Mirianna watched, breathless, while it looked not at Pumble, standing fully visible across the fire pit, but turned first one way, then the other, then cocked, as if listening.

  Pumble glanced toward Rees. Sweat glistened on the short man’s face. At Rees’s jerked nod, Pumble shifted the grip on his sword and demanded, “Where’s your master?”

  The boy convulsed like a startled animal. “Who—who’s there?” He scrabbled in the sand at his side for something Mirianna couldn’t see.

  Pumble bolted around the fire pit. Rees, beside her, raised his bow.

  “Don’t! He’s only a boy!” Mirianna grabbed Rees’s tunic sleeve, jarring the bowstring, tipping the arrow upward. Pumble, halfway around the fire pit, skidded to a halt and spun.

  But it was not to her they looked. Nor was it her voice they’d heard, as echoes of something deeper reverberated from the aspens and spruces. “Hold!” it had said. Yes, she was sure of it. It had drowned her own plea even though she’d screamed it. “Hold,” it had said, “if you would live!”

  Rees’s face, beside her, shimmered. His gaze scanned the trees even as he shook off her hand. “We mean no harm,” he said, the bow still poised in his hands. “We’re travelers...on our way to Ar-Deneth.”

  “We’re lost,” Tolbert said, huddling into his cloak. “And I’m not afraid to admit it.”

  Rees swung toward him, but the voice, quieter now, cut across his retort. “Sheathe your weapons and prove what you say.”

  The two Master of Nolar’s men exchanged glances. Rees lowered his bow. With a flick of his hand, he returned the arrow to his quiver. Pumble straightened slowly and sheathed his sword. He backed away from the boy who hunched like a stone on the ground. Both men turned slowly, scanning the trees.

  “There,” Rees said. “We’ve done what you asked. Show yourself.”

  A low chuckle rumbled around the clearing. It was near, Mirianna thought, yet not near—at once behind her gelding’s tail and, a heartbeat later, echoing from a wall of aspen trunks. It was deep, reverberant, and full, and the sound of it sent shivers into the well of her stomach—long, spiraling shivers that ended in sudden flares of blue light. For one breath-stealing moment, she thought the lion had returned, but the voice, speaking again, was somehow different. And definitely masculine.

  “They don’t know what they’re asking, do they, Gareth?”

  The boy’s head twitched upright. His already pale face blanched. “N—no, sir.”

  “Pity.”

  The drawled syllables hung in the stillness, thrumming not in the ear but along Mirianna’s nerves. Beside her, Rees stiffened. The odor of his sweat, hot and pungent, rushed at her nostrils, followed by something more subtle, yet chilling. It’s only the night. It’s only the night, ran through her mind like an incantation. It’s only the night and the Wehrland.

  “If you’re bound for Ar-Deneth—” The voice startled her with its sudden, precise closeness. “—you’ve come too far north.”

  Mirianna’s gaze searched the shadows between spruce trunks. Beside her, Rees shifted in his saddle. She sensed him lean forward, and knew he, too, peered into the darkness after a voice no longer as large as the trees.

  “You’ll find a path to the right as you leave this clearing,” the voice continued, the tone cool now, humorless. Even brusque. “Follow it about a league to a single large willow. The trail to Ar-Deneth runs past the tree.”

  The words hung in the following silence like the memory of sound in a vacant corridor. There should be more, Mirianna thought. Shouldn’t there?

  Confused, she looked toward Rees, but he was staring into the darkness, fingers still gripping his bow. Her gaze skittered to the boy who, standing now, hugged a stick to his chest with both hands. Not a stick, she realized, but a staff. He’s blind. No wonder—

  Tolbert coughed. The plaintive sound brought her attention to him, and to the dry cold that had long ago crept into her feet and turned them to stones in the stirrups. I haven’t made his tea. He’ll cough for hours if I don’t. She glanced at the fire, saw how the flames had dwindled now the kindling was spent, and cleared her throat.

  “Might we,” she spoke to the wall of trees, “share your fire until dawn? We’re cold and the trail will be easier to—”

  A twig snapped at her side, the pop ricocheting through the clearing.

  Mirianna jerked around. Her gelding sidestepped with a squeal. A shape darker than the shadows detached itself from them. The gelding shied from it, half rearing. The animal blundered into Rees’s horse and staggered, throwing Mirianna sideways in the saddle. With a little gasp, she flailed at the saddle pommel, trying to right herself. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw a phantom shape sweep toward the animal’s head, saw the gelding’s eye roll and flash white. She caught a handful of mane just as the gelding coiled back on its haunches.

  She expected the plunge. She didn’t expect the sudden stop that flung her against the gelding’s neck and drove the saddle pommel into her stomach. She clung there, feeling the gelding quiver beneath her while her breath sawed in and out. When she could close her mouth, Mirianna pushed herself up. The gelding back-stepped, whinnying.

  “Whoa,” said a voice. “Steady.”

  Mirianna blinked. Her horse had no head.

  Dry mouthed, she stared at the blackness slicing across the animal’s neck only inches above where her face had lain. Logic told her someone had thrown something—a cloak?—over her horse’s head. But logic couldn’t explain the shape now standing next to the gelding’s missing head, a man-sized tower of blackness. If she could discern even a hint of nose or chin, she could take the shape for a hooded and cloaked man, but what should’ve been face staring up at her was as blank as a wall of unpolished jet. A trickle of cold sweat crawled down Mirianna’s ribs.

  “This is the Wehrland,” said the voice, welling unmistakably from the blackness scant inches away. The head turned as if surveying her companions who seemed somehow frozen although she knew, logically, the whole incident occupied no more than seconds. “You’d do well to be out of it.” With a sweeping gesture, the figure stepped away, and blackness slid like a magician’s robe from her horse’s head.

  The gelding snorted and back-stepped. Mirianna snatched at the reins and pulled them tight. To her left, the figure still stood, barely visible against the wall of trees. Then, as suddenly as it had emerged, it blurred into the shadows.

  The clearing erupted with sound. “Mirianna!” Tolbert trotted to her side. “Are you all right?”

  “What in the name of the Dragon was that?” Rees rode up with his bow still clutched in his hand.

  “I’m fine.” Mirianna squeezed the hand her father stretched toward her. It was cold, but her own was colder. Freeing hers, she tucked it inside her cloak before its tremor gave away her lie. Deep within her stomach and heart and spine, her body still vibrated like a sounding board. Sensations rushed and tumbled one upon the other, making her flushed then chilled. She was frightened, terrified, yet—somehow—calm.

  “I’m fine,” she repeated, this time to Rees who was riding his horse in a circle around both her and Tolbert.

  “Bloody Wehrland,” he muttered, reining to a halt between them and the line of spruces.

  “Hey!” shouted Pumble.

  They turned at the note of panic in his voice.

  “The
boy!” He waved his sword frantically at the fire pit. “Where’s the boy?”

  Mirianna stared. In her mind’s eye, she could see the boy as he’d last appeared, frozen and clutching his staff. Now, the place where he’d stood was vacant. “He’s gone,” she whispered.

  “Dragon’s blood!” Tolbert breathed.

  “They were here,” Rees snarled. “Someone was here. Look, there’s the damned fire! Somebody had to build it.”

  “I don’t care.” Pumble tugged his charm from his tunic collar and backed away from the empty circle of light. “I know what I saw, and I’m leaving—now.” He seized his horse’s reins and mounted.

  Rees hauled his horse across Pumble’s path. “What in Beggeth do you call yourself? A coward? Look at you—running from a few shadows in the night.”

  Pumble sat with his amulet pressed to his lips. His face glistened like a full moon on rippling water. “When it comes to the Wehrland, yes.”

  “I think that’s wise,” Tolbert said. “We have directions. I suggest we use them.”

  “Do you think they’re true?” Rees retorted. “Look at who—”

  “They’re true.” Mirianna’s voice carried around the clearing though she was sure she’d no more than mouthed the words that had bubbled, unbidden, to her lips. She flushed, startled by their certainty.

  Rees swung toward her, his face livid. “Now, don’t you start—”

  “Even if they’re not true,” she blurted, “what have we got to lose?”

  “Right.” Pumble urged his horse around Rees’s mount. “We were already lost.”

  “If this path goes downhill, it’s going in the right direction.” Tolbert motioned to Mirianna to follow him out of the clearing.

  Keeping her eyes fixed on the chestnut’s tail, she heeled her horse, maneuvering it around Rees. His horse jerked its head up and, for an instant, she thought he would cut her off. Instead, he sat immobile as stone while, one by one, they passed him and rode out of the clearing.

  After Pumble had located the trail, and her father assured himself it led downhill, she heard the slow thud of hooves as Rees rode silently into place behind her. She felt his gaze burning at her back, but she didn’t turn. Nor did she speak. Heeling her horse, she followed her father down the path that, somehow, she was certain would lead them to Ar-Deneth.