Quest of the Dreamwalker (The Corthan Legacy Book 1)

by Stacy Bennett

  She called a final halt in a small glade near a runoff streamlet that would disappear come midsummer. It was far from the beaten track. Falin wasn’t happy with the distance they’d covered, and she resolved to push them harder tomorrow. She wouldn’t lose to Rebeka this time; she couldn’t afford to.

  “We rest here tonight.” She grabbed a sleeping roll off Cara’s back and unrolled it, kicking stray branches out of the way.

  The mercenaries dropped their packs and set about readying camp with smooth efficiency. Khoury gathered the fallen sticks she’d cleared and piled them in a dirt patch near the center of the glade. He drew out a flint, but Falin placed a hand over it, surprised at how delicate her hand looked next to his larger one.

  “No fire.”

  She watched rebellion swell inside him. But her steady gaze convinced him. His jaw bunched, and he packed the flint away without argument. The Outsiders arranged their sleeping rolls with Cara between the two younger men and Bradan’s a short way off. The group sat close together as Falin dug in her pack to retrieve the food she stole from the kitchens.

  “Dried venison and dark bread.” She handed portions to each of them. “After that, you can clean up at the stream but then I’d get some sleep. We start early tomorrow.”

  “Who’s got first watch?” Archer asked, gnawing the salty jerky.

  “You don’t need to—” Falin started.

  “You first, Archer,” Khoury rumbled. His dark stare dared her to complain. “Then me and Bradan.”

  Irritation rose like hackles across Falin’s shoulders. The ingrates didn’t trust her—the one who risked everything for them. She shoved her curses behind clenched teeth. “Fine, but remember, no blades.”

  Then, she rose and strode off into the fading light. Let them think they were alone. She’d keep her promise to Sorchia no matter what. She circled the camp, ensuring that there were no natural threats, though this part of the wood had been quiet since she’d killed the cat that haunted it during the winter. After a full circuit around the camp, she climbed one of the taller trees into the warm night, letting the lighter air dry the sweat from her brow. Through the trees, the night was cloudless above her but below little moonlight pierced the heavy canopy. She heard the murmur of their voices but her mind was busy rambling through memories.

  She had been like that girl down there once, though she scowled to think on it. She had wanted so badly to belong. Yet each time she achieved a milestone, each time she did what they asked, the bar was raised. The Sisters required a new and harder task before she could earn a place. She didn’t know quite when she realized they’d never let her in. That youthful eagerness hardened and turned brittle inside her. And now, here she was—the blasphemer—leading men through the Mothers’ garden.

  ARCHER STRETCHED HIS back and sighed. It was midday and they had stopped to rest. Again. A few hours’ hike was all Cara and Bradan tolerated even after three days. Now, Cara was napping in Khoury’s lap, and Falin had disappeared into the leafy ocean that was Foresthaven. And Iolair felt no closer. He paced through the brush not realizing his steps led him away from the others. Usually the one to hunt, he missed the daily solitude. Not to mention how degrading it was to be tended to like children: not allowed to hunt, told when to light fires and when not to. It wasn’t Falin’s fault; he knew she had her orders.

  The Huntress was surprisingly likeable, still prickly as they all were. But the occasional tiny flash of smile was a far cry from the stony disdain Huntresses were known for. She wasn’t welcoming, but he sensed warmth in her. If you were worth it, that is.

  In the last few years, he’d found a sense of stability as Khoury’s second. It was a comfortable job, demanding his best effort, and he liked it that way. But, Khoury was changing. Archer paused, wrapping his large hand around a sapling as he brooded. He could say the Keep had changed Khoury, but it had started before that. Why else would they be in that dingy inn alone instead of with the Swords? Archer didn’t understand the captain sometimes. It seemed the more handsomely they were paid, the more displeased he was.

  Then again, Archer thought, maybe it’s just the threat of Sidonius.

  His mind flashed back to the morning the giants attacked and his grip on the unsuspecting sapling tightened, making it creak softly. His blood boiled with a vengeful longing to meet Sidonius head on with a blade. But Khoury was in a cautious mood. Archer knew he wouldn’t move on the sorcerer until they had more information. They needed to get to Iolair and talk with Wallace’s sorcerer. But at this rate Archer feared they’d never get there.

  He shook the sapling with angry futility, staring at the way his hand wrapped around it. Then he had an idea. What Bradan and Cara needed was help with fatigue. He looked around, this time actually seeing his surroundings, and found himself standing in a grove of a dozen slender saplings, all of them the perfect size for walking sticks. Selecting his first target, straight and slender enough for Cara’s tiny hand, the Northerner drew his sword. It was large even for a man his size and would make short work of the young plant. Winding up, he swung with all his pent up frustration and felt the metal edge bite into the woody flesh.

  A banshee shriek erupted in the glade, rising to a painful wail that lanced his ears. Looking for the source, he saw nothing. The pain of the noise hurried his next chop, sending a sliver of wood into the air. The tree was tougher than it looked.

  The wailing reverberated through his bones and rattled his teeth. Resting his sword against his leg, he covered both ears with his hands and scanned the glade again but there was nothing. A headache throbbed behind his eyes and he bent over with the pain. That’s when he saw the blood-red sap oozing from the cut. Only then did he remember Falin’s warning.

  Dread cramped his insides as the eerie ululation reverberated inside his skull. He needed to get back to the others. When he stood, the glade seemed darker than a few minutes before. He watched carefully and could have sworn the branches were closing ranks as he watched. With the piercing screech sawing at his mind and one hand over an ear, he gripped his sword and tried to push through the foliage. Something had hold of his feet. He looked down to see slender tendrils of ivy arising from the earth, closing about his boots, his ankles, his calves. He heaved his leg up to take a step, ripping the vines from the ground. One foot, then the other. Skeletal branches plucked at his arms. Every leaf, every branch, every root was trying to stop him.

  “Khoury!” he called though he couldn’t even hear himself. “Khoury!”

  “Bíar tsíozhán en.” The lilting words carried through the ringing in Archer’s ears as Falin seemed to materialize in front of him.

  “Bíar tsíozhán en!” she shouted, one hand latching onto his shoulder as she kicked the sword from his hand.

  She took his face in her hands, forcing him to look at her. There were wads of moss stuffed in her ears and she was shouting something, but he couldn’t hear it beyond the wailing of the woods. Guilty eyes darted to the wounded sapling, and she paled as her eyes followed his glance. She hurried to the sapling, dragging him along. Then she pushed him to his knees before it. For a moment, he feared her sword would find his throat.

  Through watering eyes, he watched as she took dark leaves from her pouch and stuffed them in her cheek. Chewing quickly, she carefully pried a loose piece of bark off and spit the wad onto it. She yanked his hand to her. Her knife flashed brightly as she slashed across the palm. Squeezing his hand, blood dripped onto the leaves. Then she cut her own hand, and her blood joined his. She mixed the blood and leaves all the while crooning her strange song. Somehow, her deep voice carried through the screeching.

  “Mathinas. Igntigh eginn gae mathinas gae cruezh egus fohle.” She knelt down and painted a symbol on the bark with the blood mixture. “Duiher egus íobeirt zhun eppais.”

  She took the rest of the blood mixture and smeared it over the sapling’s wound. “Dul er-eis zhodhled ahz.”

  The shrieking faded as she chanted the words over and ov
er. His ears throbbed, and his jaw was sore from clenching. The Huntress then painted him with the mixture, smearing it over his face and hands. Without a word, she grabbed the back of his head and shoved his face to the dirt, putting her forehead to the roots of the sapling as well. “Dul er-eis zhodhled ahz, mathinas.”

  He felt tendrils reach out of the ground, reminding him of the ivy around his legs. Only her iron grip on his neck kept him from sitting up. The tendril poked gently at his blood-stained forehead and then retreated into the loam. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see the glade lightening. The branches were retreating and soon it was as if nothing had happened, except Archer’s ears ached and his face was bloody. When Falin released him, he let out a relieved sigh and sat back on his ankles.

  “Thank you.” His voice trembled in his throat.

  Falin glared at him. Then her hand shot out and struck him across the face, hard enough to snap his head around.

  “Thornless man!” she swore at him, climbing to her feet. “Motherless cretin! I gave you one rule! One.” Her neck muscles corded as she shouted though he could barely make out her words. Her face was hard as she retrieved his sword and stalked out of the glade with white-knuckled fists.

  He scrambled after her, the pain subsiding and the world growing quieter. He lifted a hand to his ear and when it came away bloody, fear crusted on his heart. No birds sang. No footsteps sounded, even when a branch snapped under his stride. Regret roiled through him. He was no use to Khoury deaf.

  When he and Falin found the others, the three of them stood in a tight knot, their faces pinched with concern. He couldn’t meet the weight of their gazes, but the Huntress strode right up to the captain and threw the sword at his feet like a challenge.

  Archer couldn’t hear what she shouted at Khoury but Falin was brimming with fury. The captain’s face was stony as she pointed to Archer and then poked her finger into Khoury’s chest leaving no doubt where she placed the blame. Shame heated Archer’s face as the argument escalated.

  Khoury knocked Falin’s hand away in angry dismissal and moved toward Archer. The blue eyes that held Archer’s were filled with worry. Determined to make her point, the Huntress grabbed Khoury’s elbow and spun him around to spew some other venomous comment. Archer could tell the moment the jibe hit its mark. Without missing a beat, the captain punched her. The solid blow to her cheek whipped her head to the side though to her credit she didn’t go down.

  Cara cringed behind her hands as Bradan lumbered forward to intervene, but not before Falin straightened up and caught the captain with a sharp left hook. Her hands were still clenched and there was murder in Khoury’s eyes when Bradan stepped between them. The older man strained to keep them separate as more heated words were exchanged. Finally, the Huntress backed off, still glaring. She hissed something at the two men that Archer couldn’t hear but the angry snarl that twisted her lip was easy to read. She pushed the sack she’d been carrying at Cara, who jumped as if stung. Then she headed to the nearby stream.

  Bradan followed Khoury to Archer. The captain fired off questions as he approached but the younger man couldn’t hear anything beyond a whispering buzz. He shook his head, ashamed.

  Khoury pressed his lips together and clapped a heavy hand to the back of Archer’s neck, pulling him close and thumping him like Connor might have done. The pang of that absence only made Archer feel worse. Unshed tears gathered in this throat. He pressed his eyes tight shut and tried to put his brother from his mind. With a final brief squeeze, the captain released him. Bradan pulled the captain aside with worried glances at Archer.

  A small hand on his sleeve drew his attention down to Cara who offered him a gleaming yellow-green apple from the sack Falin had handed her. He offered her a weak smile in return but shook his head. She leaned her head against him in solidarity.

  Falin appeared at his side, startling him. Her face was freshly cleaned and still damp. Holding aloft a wet cloth, she roughly snagged his chin and scrubbed the blood and grime from his face with hard, brisk strokes. He watched the vibrant green of her eyes. A shiny swelling had begun high on her left cheek and her left eye was watering, but she seemed oblivious. There was a sideways softness to her mouth and damp delicate curls along her temple.

  When she was done with him, she offered a thin smile. Then she retrieved his sword and slid it into the sheath at his waist with a pointed look and a wry wag of her head.

  “I know,” he said. It felt strange to make words he couldn’t hear.

  The Huntress’s lips pressed thin, and she gave his arm a squeeze before she turned to the others. Archer watched as everyone began stowing their gear and slinging on packs. He found his and settled it over his shoulders. They moved out keeping close together and following Falin along a deer path through the stand of trees.

  Archer was happy to be on their way. The attack had shaken him to his core though he couldn’t say they hadn’t been warned. Eyes to the ground to avoid their pitying glances, he purposely trod on wayward sticks hoping to hear the snap. But there was nothing except the echo of whispers. At times, it sounded like the voices of old women but he knew it was just his imagination.

  In about an hour, they came to a wall of blackthorns like the one that had trapped them that first day by the water. Falin was waiting for them next to a huge thorn tree, as big around as a wagon wheel. Its thorns were as long as Khoury’s sword and purple-black. Archer felt a quiver of fear just looking at it. She waited until they were close and watched them as they considered the obstacle in front of them. She looked up and patted the large tree as one would caress a favored hound. The whisperings in his head crooned in chanted harmonies.

  Falin was talking but he couldn’t read the words from her lips. When she turned to the large tree, she took out her knife and poked her thumb with the tip. A large drop of blood gathered on the pad and she leaned over putting her hand in a hollow on the side of the trunk. The whisperings grew more urgent. A vibrant purple light glowed from the hollow but suddenly went dark as the whisperings stopped and only stagnant silence filled his head. He felt, rather than heard, the groaning of the forest as it moved for them. It stretched and shifted and suddenly there was no wall before them, only a road leading into a forest, benign and quiescent.

  The Huntress wiped her hand on her leggings and led them past the large thorns. After fifty yards or so, the blackthorns disappeared completely from the surrounding forest. They were beyond the Gate and Archer breathed a little easier.

  Falin stopped them early for the night, for which he was glad. It was an ideal camp near a small pond and obviously well-used. There were stumps and logs surrounding a small firepit with a spit. Though Archer had been in a hurry to reach Iolair, he was content to sit and stare into the fire. Locked in silence, his isolation was complete. He didn’t notice when Falin disappeared. Bradan and Khoury were hunched in conversation by the pond.

  Cara was his only company. She sat in front of a log near him, her eyes on the fire, her thin knee brushing his leg. When he met her gaze, there was pity in her eyes. He wondered if his eyes had looked at her like that in the Keep. She gave him a tentative curve of her lips and patted her lap, offering it to him for a pillow. He shook his head, shame once again washing over him. But she was persistent and eventually his exhaustion convinced him.

  Weary, he laid down on the soft ground, his head on her thigh. She stroked the hair back from his face. Tired sadness welled up. Maura used to do that in their early courtship. He would sprawl beneath the pines staring up through the branches—head pillowed in her lap—and weave her stories of their forevers. He had been young then. Now it was such a tangled mess, he didn’t know if forever was possible.

  Cara’s soft fingers swirled around his temples, unwinding the tension coiled in his head, and his eyes drifted shut. The whisperings returned. If he listened closely he might understand what they were saying, but he didn’t care enough to try. His weight sank into the cradle of loam beneath him. It seemed to we
lcome him, as if forgiving his earlier trespass. His mind drifted in the fog between sleep and wakefulness while half-remembered dreams danced with thoughts of Maura and, oddly enough, his father.

  THE NEST WAS a small village in the far west of Foresthaven, named so because it was a nursery of sorts. It had another name, an Outsider name, but Falin never remembered what it was. There was little worth remembering about her years there. The important lessons learned by blood and sweat were tattooed on her very bones and the rest was irrelevant.

  She and the Outsiders had been on the road three days now and she had to choose which southern Gate to head for. She planned to infiltrate the small village to find out what traps Rebeka had set for them. It would be tricky, getting in and out again. The Sisters were undoubtedly looking for her, her blonde mane too distinctive to miss. But she had a plan.

  She had gathered blackthorn berries yesterday, each one half as big as her palm. Now, a dozen of the fragrant fruit bounced in her belt pouch as she ran. Their juice would dye even her brilliant golden locks black instantly. It was a shame to use them like that. Blackthorn berries were a delicacy and weren’t easy to come by. Not many Sisters would brave the daggered branches to climb up where the sun coaxed first the purple-blue blooms and then the night-black berries from the Thorns. But heights never bothered Falin, nor did the thorns. Besides, Sorchia was very fond of the taste of them.

  Falin’s feet drummed out a steady beat through the brush, and she lost herself in the mindless rhythm. There were no whispers now. Not like earlier. She used to wonder if the Mothers’ voices were real or if perhaps only true daughters of the druids could hear them. But there had been no mistaking the ghostly whispers that found her when the Northerner had gotten in trouble. Her name had echoed in the wind, and there had been unseen hands on her back urging her to hurry.

  But she hadn’t been fast enough. She had saved him, but his life would never be the same. When she’d seen the knowing in his eyes, the realization of what he’d lost, her normally iron-bound heart cracked just a little. It was a small fissure, but an unfamiliar weakness nonetheless. Falin flexed her jaw, feeling again the tightness high up in her cheek where the captain had struck her. She’d wanted to be angry: Angry with Archer, angry with Khoury, angry with life. She didn’t care about the target and he’d willingly obliged.