Magic After Dark: A Collection of Urban Fantasy and Paranormal Romance Novels

by Margo Bond Collins

  Of all the things that could kill her, she wouldn’t have thought starvation would be one of them, but it was a real possibility. She was able to convince those keeping control of her to let her lie down at a stream’s edge to drink water, after several kicks to the ribs when she flopped to the ground to try it. Apparently these creatures neither drank nor ate.

  Fahtin wondered about that, how they survived without food or water, but it didn’t matter. According to what they had learned, all these creatures were un-alive, creatures of death. They were not dead, precisely, because to be dead you have to have been alive before. Right? They were simply not alive, and so they did not need such life-nurturing things as sustenance. It made her feel as if an icicle was being dragged across her bare back.

  She needed to make them understand that she had to have food or she would die. How did one explain to those not alive how she needed something to maintain her life? How did one explain colors to one without sight? That would be an easier task.

  “Food,” she said when the big, hairy leader came to check on her during one of their brief breaks. “I need to eat.” She moved her mouth like she was chewing, but it didn’t seem to make any sense to the beast. It said something in that language they used, but it was just as meaningless to her.

  The animaru didn’t talk much—they were not a loquacious race, it seemed—but they did converse a little. As they did, Fahtin had started to notice something. Some of the words sounded like others she had heard. Her father and mother were not scholars, but there were one or two in the Gypta family who enjoyed books. Jehira was one such. As the old soothsayer was teaching Aeden about the Song of Prophecy, she had mentioned other ancient passages, these in the language of magic, Alaqotim. It sounded somewhat like what the animaru spoke.

  Maybe the languages were related somehow, the animaru language and Alaqotim. If she could just dredge up a word or two to make them understand…

  The leader barked a command, a familiar one by now. It meant they were to get started again. Fahtin racked her brain. Some word for food. She had to come up with something, or she would never survive this trip. Even if she did remember, it was possible that it meant nothing in their language. Why have a word for food if you never ate? If she could only think of a word that meant to them what food meant to her.

  A thinner and taller animaru than the one who took her before picked her up and threw her over his shoulder. As the group started loping smoothly through the surrounding trees, Fahtin closed her eyes again. She would try to think as they traveled so that when they stopped again—if they stopped again—she would be ready to tell them what she needed. She had to. Her very life depended upon it.

  The landscape was lost in the darkness as the forces that took her traveled at night. They seemed stronger when the light was dim or gone, and they stopped less to rest. Could she figure out the word for darkness and use that to explain what she needed? Failing at that, could she lunge toward some edible root or fruit and hope they would understand her before they beat her into unconsciousness for being rebellious?

  The world spun even when they were stopped now. The hunger, an ache in her stomach at first, had dissipated into a mild throbbing and a complete lack of any energy. Fahtin felt like just standing would take that last of her strength and make her lose consciousness. The end was coming if she didn’t figure something out.

  Lying there, on a bed of long grass where her animaru handler had dropped her when they stopped, she let her mind wander. It was so hard to keep it on anything specific. She tried to open her eyes and look around in the early morning light, tried to find something that could be helpful, but all she could manage was to flutter her eyelids, forcing them open only to have them close again on their own.

  She was going to die.

  Fahtin rolled to her side, trying to ease the ropes that tied her hands in front of her. They went halfway up her forearm, forcing her arms into an awkward angle that made her shoulders ache. She had found that certain positions alleviated the pain more than others, allowing her to breathe almost freely, though not quite. As she went to her side this time, she noticed something she had been too preoccupied to recognize before.

  Rocking back and forth, she confirmed what she thought she had felt. Yes, right there. Something pressed into her side as she moved. One of her knives. They had not taken her weapons. Since they were foreign things to most of these creatures, they wouldn’t check for anything dangerous, just securing her arms and legs and staying clear of her mouth in case she tried to bite them. She had at least one of her weapons!

  But what difference did that make? She couldn’t use it with her arms tied like this. They might as well have taken her blades. It gave her some hope, though. As little as it was.

  Before they started moving again, she gyrated her body as she often did to try to relieve her cramped muscles. This time, though, it was with a purpose. When she was finished, she had to suppress a smile. There, in a false pocket at her thigh, she had felt something that gave her even more hope than before. The knife she normally kept strapped to her leg was still there. That one could be reached—albeit with great difficulty—with her tied arms. She kicked herself mentally for not checking before. Well, she knew now. Maybe she could escape before she starved.

  All she had to do was to get to her knife, cut her bonds, and then slip away from several hundred creatures when they weren’t looking. No problem.

  Chapter 52

  Fahtin’s animaru captors started off again. Through the haze in her tired mind, she recognized that they did not move as quickly now that the daylight had come. It was true, the creatures seemed to derive power from the darkness. The next time they stopped, she would try to use that to communicate with them. Even if it earned her a beating, she was nearly finished already. Maybe they would beat her, and in her weakened form, she would just die.

  She thought she was ready to give up. It was obvious that her friends couldn’t rescue her. Even if they came after her—Aeden would insist on it, even in the face of his mission—they couldn’t match the pace set by the creatures. She didn’t know what they had in store for her, but dying of starvation seemed an easy way to go. She was so weak, so weak.

  The rhythmic motion of the animaru carrying her stopped abruptly, jarring her out of her daze and making her open her eyes as she was dropped to the ground. She desperately tried to wrangle the blurred images into something clearer as activity sprang up around her. The black things were shouting in that stupid language of theirs, looking around as if confused. Unclear on what was happening, Fahtin nevertheless recognized this as her only chance to escape.

  The disturbance seemed to be coming from ahead and off to the right. As her captors rushed toward that direction, she had to curl up in a ball to keep from being trampled. Soon, the attention of all the animaru around her turned to whatever caused the commotion. None of them were paying attention to her.

  Fahtin rolled awkwardly toward the trees that lined the side of their path. When she reached the edge of the road and rolled one more time into the ferns and long grass preceding the trees, she had to close her eyes to fight off the dizziness her tumbling had caused. She clenched her jaw to fight the urge to throw up and closed her eyes until it passed. When she opened them again, they grew wide.

  Was that Aeden in the midst of the animaru? A flash of red hair became visible in between the creatures as they circled to combat their foe. Had her friends found her? How had they caught up? The pace her captors had been setting was faster than humans could possibly match. Maybe they had obtained horses.

  She focused her eyes from her hiding place and realized that the red hair she saw wasn’t the same color as Aeden’s. It was lighter red than his, and it was longer. As a space opened up between the fighting black bodies, she glimpsed a woman, moving with the grace of a skilled warrior, but also casting magic about her, flashes of light and fire burning away at her foes. No, it wasn’t Aeden, but someone else. Someone who carved through her
enemies as if they were wheat and she had the sharpest of scythes.

  For a second, Fahtin’s eyes met the red-haired woman’s, but then the warrior looked away, occupied with fighting numbers of the creatures that should have overwhelmed her.

  That was well and good, but Fahtin couldn’t trust that the warrior was on her side just because they shared an enemy. She would take no chances. She crawled as best she could with her arms and legs tied, going farther into the foliage. Once there, she wriggled until she could remove the knife strapped to her leg. When she finally bared the blade, it was only a minute until she was able to saw through the ropes binding her arms. The blood rushed back into them as the ropes fell free. Shaking them out was painful, like a thousand ants biting her along the length of her forearms and hands. She welcomed it, though, dropping her knife and rubbing vigorously at her limbs.

  A few slices of the sharp blade and the ropes fell away from her legs as well. She was free. If only she could get away from the area, find some food, and survive the day.

  By this time, the sound of battle had all but died down. Peeking out from her hiding place, Fahtin saw that the woman, with at least three others, were finishing off the animaru that remained. The big, hairy leader of the band was motionless at her feet, no doubt fallen to her sword and magic.

  Fahtin knew she needed to hide better, get away from where she was, before the group killing the animaru finished their grisly task. She moved as quietly and surely as she could through the choking vegetation, scratching herself on small branches and nettles.

  “I’m going to look for her, Marla,” one of the men said from a few dozen feet away from Fahtin’s current hiding place. “She looked like she was a prisoner.”

  “Leave off, Tirn,” the woman’s voice came. “She obviously doesn’t want us to find her, and we don’t have time to search.”

  “She looked injured, all trussed up like that,” he said.

  “She’s not tied up anymore,” the woman said. “Her ropes are right here. I don’t like it any more than you do, but we have to let her make her own way. We spent enough time dealing with these—” there was a spitting sound “—and we have important work to do. You know that.”

  “I know, but—”

  “Let’s go. She’ll be fine. She got the ropes off. That’s the important part. This area is full of roots, vegetables, and fruit. It’s all anyone can ask. Come on. We have work to do.”

  “Fine,” the man said. Fahtin could almost feel him looking around, his gaze passing over her. She heard him turn a circle—a softer sound than walking—and then crash through the foliage back to the path. The sound of their conversation dwindled as they headed off to wherever their important mission required them to go.

  Fahtin sighed and allowed her body to slump. She realized she was clutching tightly at her knife, her knuckles gone white and her forearm aching from the effort. She sheathed the blade and looked around. First she would find something to eat and drink. Then she would start heading back from where they had come. She would find her friends, eventually, and then they could continue with their mission. The Gypta girl would not die today. Not today, and hopefully not anytime soon.

  Aeden dropped his pack near the stream where they stopped to rest for a few minutes. They had been chasing after Fahtin’s captors for nearly five days, and he didn’t know how much more he could take. Raki stumbled and managed a controlled fall to the ground next to him, rolling onto his back and looking up at the sky. The boy had dark circles under his eyes and was paler than normal. If Aeden was having trouble, how much more would Raki be struggling?

  Aila Ven dropped her pack next to Aeden and sat down, drawing her knees up to her chest. She was dirty, her face smudged with dust that had clung to her perspiration, but she was still so beautiful. Aeden figured other women would hate her for that.

  “Damn,” she huffed. “I didn’t know that I would have to work this hard when I agreed to join your little group.” She flashed him a sly, but tired, grin.

  “Yeah, well,” he said to her, his expression grim, “never let it be said that I don’t know how to show a lady a good time.”

  She snorted and made a show of looking to the left and then to the right. “Lady? No ladies here. Only a smelly, sweaty girl who wishes she could soak in a bath for a week.”

  Aeden’s face remained serious. “Sorry about this, Aila. You don’t have to come with us, you know.”

  “Fahtin is my friend,” she said defiantly. “I have as much cause to go after her as the rest of you, more than some.” She eyed Urun and Tere a little further down the stream. “I will continue. She will not remain in captivity while I’m alive.”

  “Thank you,” Aeden said. “I’m sure it will mean a lot to her. It means a lot to me.”

  “Don’t you forget it. When we have her back safe, then we’ll talk about how you can repay me.”

  “How she can repay you, you mean,” Aeden said.

  “No. I think I like the idea of you needing to repay me more.” She winked at him and crawled toward the edge of the stream to splash water on her face. The way her tight britches moved made his face grow hot. Of all the times to think about such things, now was not it.

  She wiggled her behind a bit. “Do you like what you see?” she said, almost purring.

  He promptly moved up beside her and dunked his entire head in the water. For some reason, the day had grown uncomfortably warm. It must have been his exertion. As he came up out of the water, he could hear her laughing.

  They drank from the stream, ate a few pieces of dried meat and stale bread, and began moving again. They all knew they couldn’t match the pace of the animaru, but every step they took brought them closer to wherever the creatures were taking Fahtin. The urgency was palpable, a living thing, one of their companions. Aeden mentally nodded toward it in respect and set his mind to his task.

  Late that day, Aeden’s little party ascended a rise. It was a hill bald of trees for the most part, strange in this area where most of the landscape was carpeted with trees of different types. As they neared the top, movement caught Aeden’s eyes.

  As tired as he was, his swords were out in a blink, and he set his legs in a stable stance on the tilted terrain, ready to do combat. In the fading light of the sun, which showed barely half its shape above the horizon, the Croagh saw a shimmery vision. Its long, dark hair, matted and dirty, floated on the breezes blowing at the top of the hill. Its bright, loose clothing rippled in that same wind, tears showing through in places, stains visible in others. The apparition stumbled as it walked, almost like it would fall down the hill toward them.

  Aeden sheathed his swords in one motion and found that his tired legs had the strength for one more sprint. He had covered half the distance before the others noticed, and then they joined the chase.

  He made it to the figure ahead of him and swept it up into an embrace. Fahtin collapsed in his arms, all strength gone from her legs. As he held onto her as if he might lose her again, she whispered to him, “I knew you’d come for me.” She coughed weakly and then added, “But you took too long, so I had to do the job myself.” Bedraggled, dirty, and exhausted, she was the most beautiful thing he had ever seen. He laughed, the first real laugh in days, and cradled her to his chest, whispering soothing things into her ear. She was asleep before he had even been able to gently lower her to the grass.

  Urun healed Fahtin of the cuts, bruises, and scrapes she had acquired. Though exhausted himself, Aeden carried Fahtin down from the hill to make camp in the trees at the base of it. They gave her water, as much as she could drink, and fed her small morsels of food. The priest cautioned against too much food. She had been starved, he said, and it would be a few days until she would eat normally. Until then, a little food would do.

  She slept for half the night, ate and drank a little more, and fell into exhausted sleep again for the rest of the night. In the morning, an hour after sunrise, she stirred and sat up.

  “You look much
better than when we found you yesterday,” Aeden said. “I was concerned for you.”

  “I was concerned for me,” she said. “So what are you saying, that I was ugly yesterday but presentable today?”

  Why did women do that? Why did he have to be careful about how he phrased things all the time?

  “No. You are beautiful, and you were beautiful when we found you. You just looked tired, worn out.”

  “I was beautifully worn out looking?” she said.

  “Daight daedos ist,” he muttered, and then said, more loudly, “Yes, exactly.” His comical smile made her giggle, a wonderful sound.

  “Oh, I’m just teasing you,” Fahtin said. “You look tired yourself. Maybe we should just rest until we both look fantastic.” She ran her palm along his cheek. “I almost couldn’t believe it when I saw you. You were the best thing I had ever seen.”

  He smiled at her. “Well, get used to looking at me. I’m not letting you out of my sight again.”

  “Promise?”

  “Ahem,” Aila came up to them. “How are you, Fahtin? We were all so worried about you.”

  Fahtin dragged her eyes away from Aeden’s and looked toward the shorter woman. “I feel much better, Aila. Thank you so much for coming for me. I had hoped everyone was all right, but was relieved to see you all yesterday.”

  “Some of us had some nasty wounds from the battle, but Urun healed us before we set out to find you. Handy thing, that healing.”

  The others came over, and Tere Chizzit told Fahtin their account of the battle and the chase. Fahtin explained to them her ordeal and the way she was able to escape.

  “A woman and a few men took on the entire group that abducted you, hundreds of them?” Aeden said. “I wonder who they are, how they’re able to kill the animaru like that. I’d like to meet them.”