Weremage: A Book of Underrealm (The Nightblade Epic 5)

by Garrett Robinson

  On the morning of the second day after their confrontation with Hewal, she awoke early for no reason, and could not get back to sleep. After tossing and turning for some time, she sighed and gave it up. At least she had not been woken by one of her dreams. She put on her clothes and left Chet snoring peacefully, making her way through the hallways and up to the stronghold walls.

  At first she had no particular aim in her wandering, but she soon found herself on the southwestern end of the fortress, looking out at the lands that fell away until they reached the hills and jungles far away. The sky lightened by the minute, and would already have turned from grey to pink if it were not filled with thick clouds that threatened rain. She would soon ride out across those lands, in just that direction, until she reached a golden city that she had seen only in her dreams.

  She heard footsteps on the wall behind her, slow and easy.

  “What wakes the Nightblade so early in the day?”

  Niya’s voice made her swallow and take a moment to compose herself. But as she hesitated, the Mystic came and leaned on the wall just next to her, so close that their elbows ended up pressed against each other. Through the thin cotton of her sleeve, Loren could feel the warmth of the other woman’s bare arm.

  “I do not know,” said Loren. “I awoke for no reason.”

  “Not another dream, then?” said Niya. “I heard a rumor that a nightmare came upon you recently.”

  Loren shook her head. “No. No dream. At least not one that I remember.”

  Niya nodded. Loren glanced at her, but the woman kept her gaze trained on the landscape.

  “How did you know about Hewal?” said Niya.

  “I …” Whatever Loren had expected, it was not that. “Why do you ask?”

  “Because I do not know the answer,” said Niya. “At first I assumed that Kal had you watch him, and that when you saw him ride out on the eve of Yearsend, that had raised your suspicions. But then I realized that it was you who brought news of Hewal’s betrayal to Kal, and that he did not at first believe you. So, then, I wondered: how did you know, when even Kal suspected nothing?”

  “He had a suspicious look to him,” said Loren. She shrugged, but that made their arms rub together, and she shifted so that they were no longer touching to remove the distraction.

  Niya only smirked at her answer. “Do not most people look suspicious? Some say that I have an odd look to me.”

  Loren stared at her. “I have not decided about you, yet. But I have seen nothing to indicate I should suspect you. Should I?”

  The Mystic’s smile grew broader, and she nodded as though she were conceding a point. “Very well. But there is another reason I came to speak with you, after I saw you brooding here on the wall. I have been told that I, and the other Mystics who came here to Ammon with you, have been assigned to accompany you on your next mission.”

  “Yes,” said Loren.

  “Can you tell me where we are bound?”

  Loren frowned. “Kal did not tell you?”

  “Kal did not even tell me that I was assigned to you. That news came down through the chain of command.”

  She could see no harm in it. “We are bound for Dahab, to gather information for Kal’s plans.”

  “I see,” said Niya, nodding. “And did Kal assign me to you, or did you request my presence?”

  Loren felt the red creeping into her cheeks. “I do not know what you mean.”

  Niya rolled her eyes. “Very well, if you wish me to couch my meaning behind other words: did you request my squadron of Mystics.”

  “I requested nothing,” said Loren. “In either direction. I did not request for you to come with me, or to remain here. The decision was Kal’s.”

  “You do not care either way, then?” said Niya, smirking.

  “I … I have not spent much thought on it.”

  The smirk turned into a grin. “When will you stop pretending that you do not think about me, the way that you know I think about you?”

  Loren flushed a deeper red, but she held the woman’s gaze. “I have not pretended anything of the sort. Yet you know that Chet loves me, and I him.”

  Niya did not look away. She only edged a little closer. “And what do I care about love? This is war time, and I am not looking for a wife. Only a pair of green eyes.”

  Neither of them moved for a long moment. Loren was not sure which way she wished to move—or rather, she was torn between her wishes, and some sense of … duty? Obligation? She was not certain. But in the end, she stepped back, away from Niya, and felt the spark in the air fade to nothing.

  “No,” she said. “Whatever you are seeking is not important. What Chet and I have agreed to, is.”

  “Oh?” said Niya, who did not look put off in the least. She folded her arms across her chest—those thrice-damned, thick arms, thought Loren. “And what have you agreed to? You have discussed such things?”

  “I … not in such detail,” said Loren. “Yet I know what would hurt him, and what would not.”

  A low growl of frustration rumbled through Niya’s thick chest, and she grimaced. “Do you think he knows anything of hurt? I suppose I should expect such foolishness from youth. You will learn, eventually, that young love rarely ages as well as either of the parties involved.”

  The words came surprisingly harsh and bitter, and Loren took another half-step back, surprised. But the vicious look on Niya’s face melted away as quickly as it had come, and she summoned a sad smile—though it seemed force. “I speak from passion, and not wisdom,” she said. “Forgive me. It is your decision, of course, if you wish to remain true to a boy who … well, he can hardly know what he is about, can he? But ah well. I must return to my duties. Until our journey together begins.”

  She turned and ambled off down the ramparts towards the western tower. Loren felt confused, and more than a little restless. She looked out across the landscape again, but it no longer held such attraction as when she had first arrived. So she made her way down the stairs instead, and through the hallways back to her chamber.

  When she opened the door, she saw Chet sitting at the edge of the bed, looking as though he had just woken. His hair was mussed, and he rubbed sleep from one eye with the back of his hand. “Good morn.”

  She threw her cloak upon the floor. “Shush,” she said, and pushed him back down upon the bed.

  Afterwards, he lay breathless beside her. “Sky above,” he muttered. Loren could not help a smile, but it quickly faded away. He saw it, and propped himself up on one elbow. “What is it? What is wrong?”

  What could she say? He had already said often enough what he thought of Niya, the deep distrust he held for the woman. Anything she could tell him that was close to the truth would only stoke that distrust, that anger, and just before they all set out on a journey together. It would not do to have Niya and Chet battling back and forth with each other the whole way to Dahab—and if their tempers got the better of them once they actually reached the city, that could be disastrous.

  One thing, at least, was close enough to the truth. “I am worried about the journey,” she said. “Just as with Hewal, I saw it in my dreams first, and now I will see it in the waking world. It is unsettling, to say the least.”

  “Mayhap your dreams are trying to guide you,” he said. “This could be a gift—though I know it comes at a heavy price to you, for the terror of the visions is plain to see.”

  “A gift,” said Loren, smiling ruefully. “Hardly.”

  “Not all of us can see what is to come in days ahead.”

  She pushed herself up on her elbow to look into his eyes. “No. I do not see our fate. Sometimes I see things from the past, only they are twisted and horrible. Other times, I see things, but they do not come to pass. The first time I saw Hewal, I saw other things as well—but they have not happened. Do you understand? This is not prophecy. I do not see the future. I only see … clues. Hints. Things that can help guide me in what to do—and, mayhap, what to avoid doing.”<
br />
  In her mind she saw Chet’s slashed throat, Gem pouncing upon her like a savage animal, and Annis’ broken body.

  Chet had gone solemn. She knew he must be thinking of the last time they had spoken of her dreams, and how she had asked him to trust her. But he did not ask her again what dark visions he had seen. He only asked, “And what must you avoid doing?”

  She gave him a vicious smile and leaned forwards to kiss him, and then pushed him upon his back once more. “Not this, certainly.”

  twenty

  No trumpets blared when at last they set forth from Ammon, and there was no assembly of troops in the courtyard to see them off. Indeed, they received even less of a parting ceremony than they had received upon the Seat. There, at least, the Lord Prince and Xain had come to see them off. Now there was only Kal, his hood drawn up against the rain, on foot as they mounted their horses all around him. He wore his cloak of red, but the Mystics who accompanied Loren had stowed their own cloaks in their saddlebags. The success of their journey relied upon secrecy, and it would not do to have word get out that a party of Mystics made their way across the land.

  As Loren gained the saddle atop Midnight, Kal gripped her ankle. She looked down at him, bracing herself for a final biting remark. But he only said, “Remember your vow to me, girl.”

  That softened her somewhat, and she nodded down at him. “I will.”

  He nodded. “I believe it.” Then he stepped closer, and his voice dropped so that Loren had to stoop to hear it. “Forgive what I said in anger and after too much wine that night. Jordel’s death was not your doing. He was his own man.”

  Loren could not reply for a moment, and she blinked hard as she drew her hood up against the rain. “He was that.”

  Only the guards at the final gate marked their passing, and before half the day had passed, Ammon was lost over the horizon behind them. Niya and Loren led the procession, though Chet followed just behind Loren and to her side, almost as if he was ready to spur his horse forward and between the two of them at a moment’s notice. Loren noticed, but made no mention of it. The last thing she wished to do was call attention to the rapidly growing divide between him and Niya.

  They stayed on the main road all that day, and made camp within sight of it. But early on the second day, they broke away and took a lesser-traveled path that plunged straight into the heart of the wilderness. If they were lucky, and the weather not too harsh, the side roads would only cost them two days on the journey, and it would be that much harder for the family Yerrin to mark their passing.

  The weather, however, did not cooperate. By the end of the second day, they were blasted by the heaviest rainstorm Loren had ever seen. It forced them from the road to ride beneath the trees, but even that provided them with little cover, and Niya called them a halt almost as soon as the pale sunlight had faded from the angry clouds overhead. The storm did not pass the next day, or the next. It was not entirely unexpected, but it was incredibly inconvenient, and made the whole journey a cheerless affair. After the first night camping in the rain, Shiun let them build a fire against the weather.

  “No one will be able to see its glow through this storm, not unless they have almost stumbled upon us already,” she said. “And secrecy will do us no good if we freeze to death.”

  Loren was surprised at the idea that they even could build a fire in such weather. But it was Uzo who built the fire each night, and he did it by building a little shelter against the rain out of sticks and bark. He did it effortlessly, and though it looked a flimsy thing, it did not rock in the wind, and it kept the rain from dousing the wood.

  “We learn this trick as children,” he said, the first time Gem praised him for it. The boy had scooted up close to the fire, practically sticking his frozen hands right into it. “These storms come every year, and there is nothing to be done about it. The world cannot stop to appease the sky’s anger, and so those who travel in such weather must learn how to endure it.”

  The more their journey was delayed, the more Loren began to complain about it. One morning, when the storms were particularly fierce, Niya commanded them to remain camped there for the day. “The winds might pick us up and carry us away,” she said. “And besides, the horses will tire themselves to death trying to plod on through this.”

  She found a place in the jungle where the trees kept off most of the rain, and there she commanded the Mystics to drill. Uzo and Jormund practiced their sword work against each other. Loren marveled at how Uzo, though he was far smaller than Jormund, was able to keep up by using his speed and skill. Though young, he seemed a most capable warrior, and suddenly she was not surprised that he had survived the battle on the Seat. Gem followed along with the two of them for a while, off to the side, until Weath took pity on him and practiced his forms with him. Shiun stood apart from the rest, practicing her archery against a tree.

  Loren stayed with them for a while, but she had no interest in training. Instead she returned to her tent, which Chet had never left, and fumed to him there.

  “Here we sit, helpless against the sky’s fury,” said Loren to Chet afterwards, as they huddled in their tent. “Some agents of the High King we have proven ourselves.”

  “I do not know that I think this is so terrible a thing as you seem to,” said Chet, grinning at her. “I can imagine many fates worse than being trapped in a tent with you for days on end.”

  Loren scowled at him and slapped his shoulder.

  The sixth day was the worst yet, but Niya forced them to press on. They had already lost too much time, and had suffered days of delay. But the road grew worse and worse, and their horses slipped over and over again in the mud. They had to ride upon a river bank for almost two hours straight, and it was so slippery that they almost lost a rider into the floodwaters more than once. Niya called them to a halt hours earlier than they had meant to press on, and the frustration in the camp was palpable as they all built their tents.

  Soon afterwards they sat around the fire, staring into its licking flames, saying nothing. Weath seemed the least affected by the sour mood out of any of the party. Out of all of them, she had made the greatest effort to improve the mood of her fellows as they traveled. Now she looked around the fire and gave a low chuckle. “A sorry lot we all look, and all for the sake of a little unpleasant weather.”

  “I would call this more than a little unpleasant,” said Jormund. The big man’s broad shoulders were hunched over his bread and meat to keep them dry, and tore another chunk of his loaf with his teeth.

  But Gem seemed to appreciate Weath’s attempt to lighten the mood, or else he was still grateful for how she had practiced swordplay with him, for he smiled at her. “I do not know about that. I grew up in a city that would grow filthy in the summer, so that the smell of it pervaded the countryside all around. During those times, I would have welcomed a storm such as this to clean out the gutters and the back alleys.”

  “As you say,” said Weath, smiling in turn. “I think the kingdom of Idris would welcome a storm such as this, to soak their lands that have lain dry and barren for so many generations.”

  “Indeed!” said Gem, standing and puffing out his chest now. He raised his voice, shouting into the storm that still pelted them. “In fact, I am glad to be in such a storm as this, and not back in Ammon, where I could be warm and dry!”

  But from across the fire, Uzo snorted. “At least you have that right. Anything to get out of that place, and darkness take it. Better these wild lands than all the old guard sitting there and staring down their noses at us.”

  It was as though a cold snap had come upon the camp all at once. Weath and Shiun went stock still, looking at Uzo in shock. Weath sat up straight from her place by the fire, and slammed her wooden plate down upon the ground. Loren tensed, but she knew not what to do. She did not even know what Uzo had meant by “old guard,” or why it had turned the rest of the party so grave.

  “Enough of that talk, Uzo,” said Niya. “We are all of us Mysti
cs, old and new. I will not have you bring division to our ranks.”

  Uzo glowered into his hands. And beside him, Loren saw that Jormund, too, was scowling, though he did not speak up in defense of his friend.

  “Am I understood?” said Niya.

  “Yes, Captain,” said Uzo, though no one could miss the reluctance in his voice.

  Niya stared at him a moment longer, almost as if daring him to meet her gaze. Weath looked ashamed on Uzo’s behalf, which was well, Loren supposed, since Uzo did not look ashamed in the slightest. And Jormund’s face had gone a shade darker, as though he barely restrained himself from an outburst.

  At last Weath cleared her throat. “I spoke in jest, of course. This storm can take itself back to whatever pit in the darkness it crawled out of.”

  Jormund let loose a long, low sigh, and raised his eyes at last, apparently determined to put the disagreement behind him. “And do you notice how it only started after our journey began, and grows stronger the farther south we travel? It is as though this mission is Elf-cursed.”

  Weath chuckled easily. “I doubt the Elves care one way or another about a small party such as ours.”

  “Elves,” said Uzo, shaking his head. “Do you all believe in such tales?”

  Loren sat up straighter at that, and looked at him in confusion. “What do you mean?”

  Uzo met her gaze, unflinching. “You believe in Elves? Are all the southern kingdoms so foolish?”

  “I … do you mean to tell me that you do not even think they are real?” said Weath, shaking her head.

  “Of course not,” said Uzo. “No one but the witless would think so.”

  Loren did not even know what to say to such a thing. She looked at Chet and Annis beside her. They both raised their brows and shrugged. But Gem looked between Uzo and Loren, his brow furrowed, as though he were suddenly unsure.