by Joe Jackson
Almost as soon as night fell, their erestram guide was up and about. Breakfast was fast and silent as always, and once everyone was ready to travel, the erestram scooped up Se’sasha and set off on his course once more. The terrain here was much rockier, still dotted or covered with pine trees, and then it started to ascend a bit as well. Even under the sparse moonlight, Kari could see that they were approaching a high bluff, and she wondered how far off it actually was, unable to judge the distance in the low-light conditions.
The erestram picked up his pace, driving the women to their limits. Soon enough, he stopped, put down Se’sasha, and turned to face the group. He spoke to Danilynn and Sonja in infernal, gesturing several times toward the bluff and then toward the west. He waited on them to translate his words to Kari, and Danilynn did so: “He says we should make our way up to the top of the bluff; that’s the border between Sorelizar and Si’Dorra. Once we get to the top, we’re safe…well, from King Sekassus and his people, anyway. King Arku is another matter. Anyway, he’s going to head further west; he says they know who he is, so he’s going to head to the realm of King Koursturaux and surrender himself to her. It’s better than the alternatives.”
“Why?” Kari asked, her words technically directed at Danilynn or Sonja, but she kept her eyes locked with those of the erestram. “Why is he helping us? What does a syrinthian priestess mean to him or his people?”
Danilynn posed the question to the erestram, and he cocked his head before answering. “He says he’s returning a favor?” the priestess said, clearly as confused as Kari.
Seeing their confusion, the erestram loosened the straps of his left bracer and pulled off the adjoined bracer and gauntlet. The companions could immediately see that he was missing two fingers and a fair portion of his left hand, and realization hit Kari even before he reached down to his left greave. He took off the armored boot to reveal part of his left foot and a couple of toes were likewise missing. He let the women get a good look before he put the armor on.
“Etolivor,” Kari said, and the erestram nodded. Sonja and Danilynn both stared at Kari, confused, so she elaborated, “This is the erestram everyone thinks I killed. I keep trying to tell people: I beat him, but I didn’t kill him.”
“Why not?” Danilynn asked.
“That’s a story for another time,” Kari said. “Tell him any debts between us are paid, and thank him for his help. And…apologize for the death of his mate.”
The priestess hesitated a moment but then relayed Kari’s words. The erestram bowed his head for a moment, but then he drew the war scythe from his back. He simply held it in salute to Kari before replacing it. He spoke to Danilynn and Sonja quickly, and this time, he didn’t wait for them to translate his words. He broke into a run to the west, and didn’t look back.
Danilynn turned back to Kari. “He says we need to be swift; we’re not safe here, and won’t be until we get back home.”
“Let’s move, then,” Kari said. “This is the last day of our Seven Days’ Grace. We need to get into Si’Dorra, and quickly.”
Sekassus’ scouts and soldiers were patrolling the base of the bluff. Sonja risked using her masking spell again; they really had little other choice in the face of imminent capture. While they technically had until sundown to escape Sorelizar, all the soldiers had to do was delay them until twilight, and then they could take the women into custody. Even if the masking spell gave away their position to those sensitive to the arcane, it would hopefully allow them to slip past the patrols.
They found a place to creep between some of the sentries, but the going was still difficult. The ascension was steep and rocky, but they managed. It took nearly two hours, and eventually they found a goat trail – though if there were actually goats, there was no sign of them – to facilitate their climb. When they reached the top, they peered around suspiciously, and Kari stared down at the gathering sentries, obviously frustrated that they hadn’t captured their quarry. Now Kari was waiting for some agents of Arku to jump out and apprehend them after all the trouble they’d gone through to escape Sekassus. Nothing moved among the trees, though, and all four women breathed a sigh of relief: they had escaped Sorelizar unharmed.
“What’s that–” Sonja began, but she didn’t get to finish.
Kari was thrown violently to the side by a lightning strike that sapped all the energy from her body. Unlike the ones she had suffered at the hands of Emma, this one tore through her like the fires of hell, setting her nerves aflame and wracking her muscles with painful spasms. She hardly had the mental wherewithal or the energy to push up onto her side and try to get a glimpse of her attacker, but as she thought about it, she realized she didn’t need to: it had to be Turillia.
“Get Se’sasha out of here! Go!” Kari yelled at her companions.
She was only vaguely aware, in her shattered state, that her friends paid her instructions no mind. Kari turned to get a glimpse of the half-succubus, but when her eyes re-focused and she saw her attacker, something wasn’t right. It wasn’t Turuillia standing there as she expected; it was a full-blooded succubus, beautiful and yet deadly, with a fang-filled scowl that screamed of bloodlust. Was this simply one of Sekassus’ minions, violating not just the Seven Days’ Grace, but the very border between Sorelizar and Si’Dorra?
The succubus was all pale beauty and seductive, deadly charm. Her skin shone milky white even in the light of the rising moon, her hair long and lustrous, hanging in wavy, raven locks. Her eyes glowed a malicious red, full of a fury Kari didn’t yet understand. She wore a leather tunic and breeches, which may have constituted armor if she was as graceful as Turillia, but otherwise seemed to offer little protection. Her legs and arms were tattooed with twisting designs that seemed to be black dragons, though the actual detail was hard to make out in the dim light. She brought one hand up before her and it began to crackle with arcane power again.
“You will pay for killing my daughter, you bitch,” she hissed in the Citarian trade tongue, though in an accented, otherworldly voice. She threw her hands forward and the cliff beneath Kari shattered. It turned into a landslide in moments, and Kari had to spread her wings and glide, right back down among the waiting agents of Sekassus.
Chapter XVII – The Weeping Woodlands
Kari angled her descent to try to come back down on the goat trail again. Lightning strikes from above and below missed her, but shattered the walkway, leaving no real avenue of escape. Zalkar’s symbol began glowing on her chest, pulsing as frantically as her heart. If she ended up down below, she would almost surely be captured or killed. Getting back to the top was her safest option, but with the succubus raining down arcane fury, it was also the toughest.
Sonja stepped between Kari and the succubus, her silhouette large and imposing under the moonlight. “Stay back!” Kari heard her sister-in-law yell. “You’re out of the safety of Sorelizar; you have no business attacking us here!”
The succubus tried to throw Sonja away with a burst of arcane power, but Sonja absorbed it and stood unharmed. Kari was impressed; her sister-in-law had learned quickly from Uldriana, and her confidence showed through in her calm, her posture, and in the silent command she now had over arcane power without using a spellbook. The succubus tried another attack, but Sonja’s shield held and she gave their enemy no ground. Still, she held a hand up, apparently to caution Danilynn against charging the succubus with her axes at the ready.
“I care nothing for what realm I kill you in!” the succubus shouted back. “You may die with your friend, or you may stand aside and allow my revenge to unfold. Either way, this murderer will pay for taking my daughter!”
Kari scoffed, but turned her attention the other way. Several elestram were climbing the rockslide to get to her. The arcanists among them had stopped throwing spells her way; no doubt they were afraid of crushing Kari with a rockslide or otherwise inadvertently killing her. They were surely under orders to bring her back alive, all the better for Sekassus to toy with her. She d
rew her blades, holding her ground as best she could, her legs still a little wobbly from the effects of the lightning strike. She was at her limits, but then she remembered.
Kari blew out a calming sigh and mentally held her hand out to Zalkar. His strength came flooding into her in a surge of energy and power, pushing away her fatigue and letting her feel her legs more solidly beneath her. Two of the elestram had climbed up to flank her, one on each side, and Kari stared out over the cliff so she could see both of them from the corners of her eyes. Her one-time lover and mentor, Suler Tumureldi, had trained her extensively to fight two opponents at once, such that she often mimicked the motions of such even when fighting only one enemy. It usually confused or distracted them, allowing her to claim an advantage when she brought both her weapons to bear.
The elestram looked at each other, then down over the cliff at their comrades who were likewise approaching. “Go!” one of them shouted, and Kari tensed, readying for their attack. She didn’t even notice that they had spoken the Citarian trade tongue until they added, “Get up the cliff, quickly! Go!”
That got Kari’s attention completely, but she hesitated, unsure if it was a trick to get her weapons out of her hands. She received her answer a moment later when the speaker was struck by a lightning bolt from one of its comrades down below. The heat of the flash and the smell of the burnt fur of the elestram washed over Kari, threatening to nauseate her, but she grimaced and held her ground. She pushed out that aura that she had commanded when wielding the Blood Oath in Barcon, and approached the other elestram. When he moved between her and danger, she risked putting her swords away and started to climb. Her aura deflected another lightning strike aimed at her other benefactor, and she barked for him to follow.
Kari got most of the way up the cliff, and could hear Sonja and the succubus continuing to exchange arcane pleasantries. Kari’s elestram benefactor was caught by the foot and dragged back down. She jumped back down without thinking, drawing her blades during her controlled fall. Her sudden landing was the only thing that kept the elestram from being put to the sword by its “companions.” She engaged one of their enemies, and managed to disable it in short order, cutting the tendons on the insides of both of its knees. A lightning strike deflected off of her aura again, this time causing another rockslide to the west.
She dashed over and helped her elestram benefactor dispatch his own opponent, and then they both started scaling the cliff again. With no more lightning strikes coming from below, and the rest of the pursuers too far behind, they made it to the top of the cliff. Kari had no sooner gotten both feet below her than the cliff shattered again, part of it falling away in another landslide. This time, Kari was able to glide to safety at the top of the cliff, ready for the world to fall away beneath her feet. Her companion, though, was not so lucky. Kari saw his head slam against stone, and then his body rolled lifelessly down the bluff with the rubble. Kari gritted her teeth, and the symbol of Zalkar glowed so furiously on her skin, she could swear it was burning her now.
“Murderer now, is it?” Kari growled at the succubus, bringing her weapons to bear as she approached. Kari felt Zalkar’s strength flowing through her veins. She hoped no harm had come to her baby in all the excitement, but she couldn’t worry about that at the moment. She had a succubus to deal with, and she could worry about the repercussions after she survived. “Your daughter was a rabid dog, and she was put down like a rabid dog.”
The succubus screamed in fury and unleashed some attack that made Kari’s hair stand on end even from the distance between them. This time, Sonja protected Kari, and the arcane attack bounced off of Sonja’s shield to shear off part of the rock face at the edge of the bluff. Another small avalanche and hail of shattered stones rained down the cliffs, and Kari wondered if those down below had retreated to safety. There was also the issue of the succubus defacing the land, which was one of the warnings Uldriana had given Sonja that Kari could actually remember. They had to end this quickly, and get away from the bluff before the arcane displays attracted the attention of Si’Dorra’s own hunters and guards.
“Take Se’sasha and go,” Sonja called over her shoulder. “I can handle this.”
“Are you sure?” Kari and Danilynn asked in unison.
“She’s powerful, but I can hold her off until she burns herself out, at least,” Sonja said. “Head into the woods! I’ll find you, one way or another. She won’t dare chase us into the realm of another king, so once we’re out of sight, we should be safe.”
“You assume much!” the succubus growled. She unleashed another attack, but this one was of a different nature. Rather than directly attack Sonja, she shattered the ground between the serilian-rir woman and the cliff face, and the newly crushed rocks slid swiftly toward the edge. Sonja leapt up and took wing briefly until she found purchase on solid ground again. Kari was surprised at the way their enemy circumvented Sonja’s shields.
Sonja did something, and Kari winced as bright sparks flew from an invisible shield in front of the succubus. The two exchanged more arcane strikes for half a minute before Sonja yelled for Kari and Danilynn to take Se’sasha and go. This time, they took her advice, and when Kari glanced back over her shoulder, she could see Sonja working to stop the succubus from harrying her friends further with magic. Soon, there was a substantial wall of trees between the two groups, and Kari concentrated on pushing Se’sasha further into the woods.
They were alone now; no erestram guides would be coming to give them a tour through Si’Dorra to get them safely to Pataria or Tess’Vorg. Now, Kari had to use what she knew of the movement of sun, stars, and moon to get her friends safely home. They paused in a thick stand of trees that may have grown from the same root bundle, and Kari bent over and put her hands on her knees to catch her breath. Zalkar’s symbol had stopped glowing, and the weariness and rubbery feeling in her arms and legs returned, so she sat down heavily.
Danilynn checked on Se’sasha, who made gestures of assurance that she was fine. The girl was still painfully thin and badly malnourished, but eating Danilynn’s conjured food was having a pretty obvious effect on Se’sasha’s energy levels. With the syrinthian girl satisfied that she was fine, Danilynn came over and checked on Kari. She didn’t even ask how Kari felt, she just put her warm hand on Kari’s lower belly and closed her eyes in concentration. Apparently, it wasn’t lost on the priestess that an electrical shock to her baby was foremost on Kari’s mind.
Danilynn breathed a sigh of relief and sat back on her heels. “Everything’s fine,” she said. “However you absorbed that shock, it doesn’t seem to have affected anything where your baby is concerned.” She rose to her feet and patted Kari’s shoulder. “Did you swear a Blood Oath and not tell us? That was the third time I’ve seen Zalkar’s symbol show up on you.”
“Third time?” Kari breathed hoarsely. Her baby may have been fine, but the rest of her was paying the price for that. Too many days of not enough sleep, or food, or even simple things like a proper bed or a bath were taking their toll. Had she felt this way in wartime, she’d have taken it as a sign of personal weakness, but her maternal instincts were letting her cut herself a lot of slack under the circumstances.
“You didn’t notice it happen when we were in front of King Sekassus?” Danilynn asked.
Kari thought about it; the meeting with Sekassus seemed like it had happened months ago. Only the summoned urn hanging from Danilynn’s pack brought the memories back to Kari fully, but she still didn’t remember Zalkar’s symbol appearing during the meeting. She remembered it flashing when she’d made the promise to avenge Uldriana, but if that had counted as swearing a Blood Oath, she had done so without conscious thought. Had Zalkar taken it upon himself to simply grant her one? She had never heard of such a thing; it would require asking the Council of the Order when she returned home.
“I don’t remember,” she finally answered. “I didn’t swear an Oath, though, so I’m not sure what it means. Might just be Zalkar warning
our enemies?”
“As if they’re smart enough to take heed,” Danilynn spat. She took a minute to kneel down and pray, and when she was finished, she had conjured some more of their divine food and drink. She passed it out, set aside some for Sonja, and then started to take her fill of it. Around bites of the tasteless, spongy food, she asked, “How long should we wait before we go back and look for Sonja?”
“No need,” came the sorceress’ voice, and she suddenly appeared among them. She took note of the shocked expressions on Kari and Danilynn’s faces, and added, “It should be fine if I use my masking spell here; no one in Si’Dorra is looking for it.”
“Are you all right?” Kari asked, and Danilynn echoed her sentiments a second later.
“Fine,” Sonja said, though she didn’t sound like it. “I drove her off, half with my arcane power, half by telling her she’d be crazy to follow us into Si’Dorra after damaging its border. But that doesn’t mean she won’t be waiting for us somewhere else…maybe even in Tess’Vorg or Pataria.”
“She may just be angry enough to try in Anthraxis,” Danilynn muttered. “That woman was furious.”
Kari straightened out and sighed. “Not sure I understand why; Turillia didn’t seem to feel anything for her parents when I heard her mention them. Well, nothing good, anyway, and she really only mentioned her father’s people, but still….”
“The apple doesn’t fall too far from the tree, as they say,” Danilynn said.
Kari thought on that for a minute; had that been the reasoning behind the name of the school she went to as a child? She shook the thoughts away, afraid of getting embroiled in those old, bad memories again. Instead, she focused on her sister-in-law. “You were able to drive her off, though?” she asked. “She wasn’t too powerful?”