Iron Bones

by Yasmine Galenorn

  I might be underwater, but since I’m not in my body, I don’t have to worry about breathing. The thought calmed me down as I tried to make heads or tails out of what was going on.

  Ember…can you hear me?

  Behind the voice, I could hear the howling of wolves. They echoed around me, a haunting refrain, and I wanted to follow their call, to let them lead me into the cold winter night.

  Who are you?

  You can hear me, then. Good. I need you to follow me. I need you to follow the thread of my voice, back to your body.

  The words wrapped around me, caressing my mind. I realized that I was in pain, but as the words showered around me, cascading over my form, the pain began to lessen its grip.

  I looked around, still caught within the pool. Then, I remembered. I had been shoved here when the kelpie took over my body. I had been tossed into the depths, and it wasn’t ever planning on returning for me. That brought images flashing to mind, faces…Herne, and Viktor and…Yutani. Crap! The kelpie had been going to feast on Yutani.

  Yutani? Is he okay?

  Yes. But you must follow me now. And you need to hurry.

  At that moment, I knew who was talking to me.

  Kipa? All right, I’ll follow.

  I wasn’t sure how he had come to be there, or where I was or how he had found me, but when he told me to follow him it felt absolutely vital that I obey. I swam through the mire of a pond, realizing that the reeds had been trying to hold me down.

  Kipa began to sing, so I could pinpoint his voice. I started in his direction, walking through the water, dodging this way and that to avoid the numerous logs and whirlpools that tried to block my way. As I broke the surface, I was facing the endless vista of an ocean, the breakers rolling in toward me.

  What do I do now?

  You must have faith. Dive into the ocean. Let it pull you down. I’ll be there to catch you.

  I hesitated, but the urgency to act outweighed my trepidation and so I dove into the ocean. Immediately, I began to spiral down, and it was all I could do to keep conscious. A few moments later, I began to black out, and I wondered if I had made a mistake. As the vortex began to spin faster, I realized that I couldn’t stop it if I wanted. I closed my eyes, trying to hang on. My last thoughts were of Herne, and of Kipa, and of wondering if I would ever see anybody I loved again.

  “EMBER? CAN YOU hear me?” Herne’s voice cut through the fog that clouded my senses. He sounded worried.

  “Her eyes are fluttering. I think she can hear us, but can’t yet respond.” Kipa’s voice, all right. I felt a flood of warmth and security when I heard it, which startled me. “Ember, it’s time to wake up. You’re back. It’s time to get up.”

  I managed a groan, and my eyes began to respond. When I tried to open them, it felt like my lashes had been glued shut. They protested before finally I was able to pry them open. I was staring up at Herne and Kipa, who were hovering over me with concerned looks on their faces.

  “Ember?” Kipa asked. His question was a command, and I felt no option but to answer.

  “Yes,” I croaked out. “It’s me.”

  Herne let out a long sigh and relief swept over his face. “Thank all the stars in the sky, you’re back. Are you all right?” He knelt beside Kipa, who gave him an odd look, then moved out of the way. Herne slid his arm under my back and helped me to slowly sit up.

  I was shivering, and the sun looked to be lower in the sky than it had been. “What happened?” I couldn’t remember much, just fuzzy images of trying to…Yutani. I frantically looked around for the coyote shifter. “Yutani? Is he all right?”

  “He’s okay. He’s sitting back by the campfire. We couldn’t take you there until Kipa called your soul out of the lake.” Herne looked crestfallen now. “I’m sorry. I failed you. I should have stopped you from trying to commune with the water.”

  “Kelpie.” I swallowed hard. “There was a kelpie.”

  “Yeah, there was a kelpie and it targeted you and sucked you in. It controlled the water elemental you tried to contact about the bones.” Kipa gave me a stern look. “Until that teacher of yours helps you transition, you need to quit doing that.”

  I blinked. “How do you know all this?”

  “Because Herne asked me to retrieve your soul and fight off whatever had hold of you.”

  Kipa’s eyes flashed and there was a soft tug inside me, as though I recognized him more than I felt I had any reason to. He hesitated, tilting his head, and I felt the desire to reach out, to stroke that long, flowing hair. It wasn’t sexual, the feeling, but a desire for connection. An understanding, if you will. Nonplussed, I turned my head but not before Kipa winked at me.

  He stood and walked away, leaving me to Herne.

  Herne helped me stand, gathering me to his chest, holding me tight. “I was so afraid, Ember. I was afraid we were going to lose you.”

  “I couldn’t fight it off. I didn’t even know what it was for a while.” I shivered. “What if it had gotten hold of Yutani? I could have killed him.”

  “Yes, you probably could have, though we would have fought you off. We did fight you off.” He kissed me very gently, as though I was a fragile piece of porcelain.

  Truth was, I did feel fragile, and vulnerable, and terribly uncertain. I struggled to keep back a flood of tears. I rested my head on his shoulder.

  “What do we do now?”

  “We keep you away from the water, for one thing. There are some dark spirits that live in the depths, and you’re too open to them right now. We’ll eat and give you a time to rest, then start hunting for the bones.”

  His arm around my shoulders, he turned me back toward camp and we started walking. My knees were weak, but I was starting to feel more grounded. As we left the edge of the lake, I could feel the kelpie out there, watching, but there was nothing she could do if I didn’t focus on her, and didn’t give her an opening.

  “I know where to look. Or at least, what to look for. I managed to get that much information before the kelpie caught hold of me.”

  We were back at the campfire by now. I glanced at Yutani, both embarrassed about what had happened, yet grateful that he was all right.

  “It’s okay,” he said without prompting. “I’m fine and you’re back, and no worries.”

  Grateful that he had approached the subject first, I nodded, silent. Viktor made room for Herne and me to sit down. Kipa was standing by the fire, staring into it. I blinked as I saw several shadow forms surrounding him. They looked like wolves.

  “Am I imagining things?” I started to say.

  He looked over at us. “No. My pack always runs with me wherever I go. They stay out of sight in cities and buildings, for the most part, but we are in the wild and this is their territory. They are my children and I am their Packmaster.”

  As I watched him, then looked at Herne, I began to understand. Kipa was the chaotic side of the forest, the deeper, darker woods. Herne might be Lord of the Hunt, but Kipa was lord of the pack that ran under the moon. They were both part of the Wild Hunt—the actual hunt—but played very different parts.

  The wolves swirled around him, their shapes misty in the afternoon sunlight, but they were there and I felt more secure knowing they were.

  “Before the kelpie got hold of me, I learned what to look for in order to find the bones.”

  “Good, then at least we are ahead of the game.” Viktor handed me a grilled cheese sandwich and an enamel cup filled with tomato soup. I saw the pans sitting on the edge of the fire and realized that either he or Yutani had been cooking while Kipa was retrieving me.

  Hungrier than I had expected to feel, I dove into the food and polished it off before any of the men managed to finish theirs. As Viktor poured me another mug of soup, I let out a long sigh, feeling mostly back to myself.

  “The hill across the lake, there’s a tall stack of rocks over there, and behind them, there’s a hole that will lead into a s
hallow cave. I think that there was a cave-in or something, leading to a landslide down to the lake, but the bones should be around that area.”

  Herne glanced at the sun. “As soon as we’re finished eating, we should get over there and start looking. It’s nearing three-thirty. We lost a good two hours thanks to the kelpie. And we may be smack in the middle of summer, but the light fades in the mountains early, and dusk will settle here in a few hours.”

  We finished our lunch, and then, putting out the fire until we returned, began to circle the lake. Kipa joined us and I glanced at Herne, but he merely shrugged and said nothing.

  IT DIDN’T TAKE long to navigate around the lake, and as we came to the opposite side, my gaze immediately fastened on a tall stack of rocks about a third of the way up the cliff.

  “There—those are the rocks we’re looking for.” I began to scramble toward them, but Herne grabbed my arm.

  “Nope. You’re not going anywhere alone, or first. Not up here, not when we know that Elatha is the one who came after the bones in the first place, and that one of the Force Majeure is by his side. Ranna is a powerful sorceress and she’s loyal to the core.” He didn’t say it, but I got the sense that Herne was worried I’d end up in another jam like the kelpie.

  “All right.” I stepped back.

  Herne took the lead, followed by Yutani, then me, then Viktor, and Kipa brought up the rear. We scrambled our way up the rockslide, cautious to avoid sending debris scuttling down the hill. None of us said anything—we all knew how dangerous loud noises could be. They could set off not only avalanches, but debris slides as well.

  An hour after we started, we were standing at the tall heap of stones. They had been weathered by the wind and water till they were smooth, and they had been stacked into a towering obelisk. How long they had stood there, I didn’t know, but I was amazed they hadn’t come crashing down. As we cautiously skirted around the back of them, I caught the glimpse of a hole in the ground.

  “There it is,” I said, keeping my voice low.

  Kipa murmured something and one of the shadow shapes of his wolves went darting inside. He returned a moment later. Kipa held out his hand and the wolf placed his muzzle in it.

  “There’s a cave-in in the hole,” he said. “The path is blocked.”

  “That must be why the Fomorians only ended up with a few bones,” I said, looking around. “Ten to one, there are more bones scattered through this rock field that they didn’t find.”

  As if to answer me, I felt a tingle coming from under me, an uncomfortable sensation prickling through my shoe. I cautiously stepped to the side and knelt, hoisting aside the rock I had been standing on. There was something gleaming beneath it, sparkling like hematite. I reached for it, but the minute my fingers touched it, they began to burn and I quickly pulled my hand back.

  “There, there’s one.” I stepped back.

  Kipa glanced at the rocks on the slope above us, then cautiously began to shift the boulders where I had been standing to the side. Viktor joined him as the rest of us stood back, out of the way. A few moments later, Herne held up what looked like a long rib bone made out of iron.

  “The creature must have been huge,” I whispered, staring at the bone that was almost as long as Herne’s torso.

  “The Aillén Trechenn is a huge beast.” Herne set the bone to the side. “We need at least one more of these in order for Ferosyn to concoct an antidote. Spread out, look for any sign of any other bones, but be cautious.”

  “I’m a good litmus test,” I said. “If you think there may be a bone under a rock, call me over and I should be able to tell.”

  We began to hunt, combing the hillside. Viktor was the first to find another bone—this one a great claw attached to what looked like a finger bone. Another search of the immediate area uncovered two more. The light was beginning to fade when Yutani stumbled over two more rib bones. He piled them with the others.

  “We should probably get back to camp for the night. It would be easy to break an ankle heading down to the camp in the dark.” Herne bagged up the bones. “We’ll hunt again early morning. I wish we could find the entire skeleton so we don’t end up leaving any for Elatha, should he decide to pull this same stunt again.”

  “We’ll figure out something,” Kipa said. “Here, let me carry those while you lead the way.” He slung the bag of bones over his back as if it were a bag of feathers.

  Herne paused, gazing at the rock field. “I’m unsettled. Something feels off.”

  “Worry about it when we get back to camp,” Viktor said, glancing at the sky. “I’m uneasy too, and I want to get that fire built up again before it gets much later. We’re only an hour away from dusk.”

  We began to descend back into the crater. The going was tougher than the climb, because it was harder to keep balanced on the rocks as we edged down the hill. I almost fell twice and Viktor, behind me, steadied me. Finally, we reached the bottom, and headed back to our camp on the other side of the lake.

  “What time is it?” I looked over at Viktor.

  He stopped building the fire back up to consult his watch. “Nearly six.”

  I nodded, handing him sticks of wood as he arranged the kindling and began stacking the firewood around it. Yutani had retrieved our food and was sorting out what we would need for dinner. Kipa and Herne were in some sort of deep conversation over by the tents. At least they didn’t look like they were arguing.

  Within minutes, the blaze had flared up and our campfire was going again. Viktor brought out a handful of metal pipes, which fit end to end to form an arch over the campfire, sturdy enough to hold a hanging soup pot.

  Yutani glanced down at the lake. “We need water for the pot,” he said, hesitating.

  Viktor glanced over at Herne. “Better let one of those two get it. After what happened to Ember today, and the fact that you were responding to the kelpie, I don’t trust any of the three of us near that lake.”

  “Did someone mention me?” Herne said, looking our way.

  “Yeah. We need some water, boss. And I think either you or Kipa ought to get it.” Viktor pointed to Yutani’s cooking pot.

  Kipa jogged over, grabbed the pot, and headed down to the shore.

  I turned to Herne. “Why did he follow us?”

  Herne shook his head. “I asked him, but he just said that he felt like it. There must have been some reason, though, but he won’t tell me and I refuse to play Twenty Questions with him.”

  We gathered around the campfire as Yutani brought the water to boil. He poured the noodles into the pan when the water started to bubble and moved it so it wasn’t directly over the fire.

  “This will take a little longer than usual, given the higher altitude. I don’t want it to burn, so I had to move it a little ways off the main heat.” He began to skewer hot dogs onto sticks and handed them around. “You can each cook your own. Buns and condiments are on that rock over there,” he said as he motioned to a relatively flat boulder near us. “The mac ‘n cheese will be ready in a while.”

  “You bring marshmallows too?” I asked, hoping he had.

  He held up two bags of the fluffy white candy. “Also chocolate and graham crackers. Can’t go camping without s’mores. I also brought some popcorn.”

  Herne laughed. “I guess if we’re out in the woods, we might as well do it right.” He accepted a skewer with a couple hot dogs on it and held it over the fire.

  We fell into a comfortable silence, the only sounds the crackle of the fire, the sizzling hot dogs, and the sound of birds who were out too late and hurrying back to their hiding spots. A low hoooo hoooo…hoo hoo hoo echoed through the growing dusk, and then a loud screech followed, as we looked up to see a dark silhouette gliding overhead.

  The owl’s wingspan had to be almost four feet wide, and I caught my breath, rapt as it circled over us, then flew up toward the rockslide. As we watched, the great horned owl plummeted at an angle, wings sweepin
g back as it swung its legs to the front, catching up some small creature who had come out onto the rocks. As it pulled up barely before it hit the ground, it screeched again and then, circling once, flew back to the tree line.

  “You have to admire the skill,” Herne said in a hushed tone.

  I nodded, thinking that this was where life truly happened—out here in the woods and forests, between prey and predator. Something stirred within that made me want to jump up and join the owl in its hunt. I froze. Could it be the Autumn Stalker nature within me coming to the surface? Not wanting to be sucked into another situation like I had encountered with the Leannan Sidhe, at least not without Marilee here, I forced my attention back to the hot dogs on my stick, turning them and focusing on my stomach, which was clamoring for something to eat.

  My hot dogs were charred and bursting, and I slid them onto buns with ketchup. I didn’t care for mustard all that much, preferring the tang of the tomato with the char of the meat and the soft bread. As I bit into the first one, the flavor exploded in my mouth—an orgasm of beef and smoke and bun all coming together in the perfect bite.

  Yutani was stirring the noodles and now he used a heavy-duty glove to grasp the handle of the pan and pour the noodles into a colander, taking care not to burn himself in the process. He added what looked like a buttload of preshredded cheese, and poured a little milk out of a single-serve vacuum box into it, then added half a stick of butter and began to stir.

  “Dinner’s ready.” He spooned the mac ‘n cheese into plastic bowls and handed them around. My stomach was already doing a happy dance, and I eagerly dug into the creamy noodles. After everybody was deep into their food, we finally relaxed enough to begin talking.

  “So, alarm set for six a.m.? We go up and search for more bones? Then head out around elevenish?” I asked.

  “Sounds good to me,” Herne said. “We should have plenty of time to make it back to the car before dusk. As soon as we’re done eating, I recommend we turn in to get as much sleep as we can. I think, though, we should keep watch.”