by D. H. Aire
The girls giggled.
Moments later Lawson finished belting her in. “You secure?”
She took her bow and leaned to the right to sight. Lawson hastily changed his footing, “Hey!” she complained.
“You must be heavier than you look,” En’sta commented, chuckling.
The laughter that followed stopped at the ire of Yel’ane glare. “I doubt that somehow, young ladies.”
“I’m not as strong as Greth is, nor,” Lawson admitted, “as good at balancing.”
“You will be,” Greth assured him. “You’re about to get a lot of practice.”
Nessa said, “You really expect us all to ride like this?”
“We will all practice walking first and stopping and turning right and left,” Greth said, glancing down at the hounds more than the girls.
The unicorn’s horn glowed faintly and the hounds rose and began their practice, the girls had little luck. The desperately shy Jen’yan said, “Look, we did it!”
Her hound paced in a circle to the right. Jen’yan shifted position and they circled left.
“How did you do that?” several of the girls cried.
“You have to think like you’re the hound,” she said. “You saw how they move. Try to do it with them.” Her hound suddenly halted. “See. You have to be the hound.”
“Be the hound?”
‘Be the hound,’ the unicorn whispered.
The girls blinked. “Oh… of course,” they whispered.
Casber just sat quietly on the unicorn’s back and stared, muttering, “Of course, it’s easy being a hound.”
‘Do not begrudge them my help, lad. You are my rider, not they.’
“But I wouldn’t like you licking my face.”
‘You want the girls to—?’
He grimaced, thought back, The hounds! Not any fool girl.
Casber blinked, finding himself on the floor, his backside stinging.
Everyone was staring.
‘Boy, you fell of a girl unicorn. You a fool, boy?’
“Um, forget I thought that… What? You think you can ride better, bareback?”
The returned to their practice, then once Greth was satisfied, he said, “Girls, you’ll need to excuse Nessa and I for a moment. I’ve got to see to opening the portcullis. You will follow and keep as quiet as you can until we’re well clear of here. Understood?”
Grinning in delight, tucked secure across their hounds backs, they nodded.
Casber was shaking his head as he felt the unicorn’s excitement. ‘The hounds sense it, too.’
“What?”
‘The coming battle.’
He blinked, thinking, Battle?
Yel’ane tapped Lawson’s shoulder. “Um, wherever did you find these Cathartan bows? And I’m warning you know –– I’m no good with one.”
Lawson replied, “Odd the things that turn up in this place. Oh, I wouldn’t worry, if I were you. Somehow, I think you will be a lot better than you think. And, unless I tell you to, you are not to shoot a single one of those arrows, in any case.”
“That’s good… I think,” she muttered, pressed up against him. “It’s a good thing you took that bath, too.”
He craned his neck, glancing back at her.
She took one of the arrows from the quiver. “It has a really shiny black arrowhead.”
“Metal?”
“Didn’t you look at it?”
“Did not think to… Is it paint?”
“Doesn’t feel like it.”
“Interesting.”
The unicorn’s horn flared and the hounds began racing up the ramp, Lawson and Yel’ane, literally brought up the rear as she found her cheek pressing against his gruffly bearded one. She had to remember to stop holding her breath, her face feeling rather flush, suddenly.
Chapter 19 – Western Borderlands
“Um, Greth, what exactly did you mean by ‘riding point?’” she asked as the troll ran in a sort of long legged lope, quickly catching up to the girls on their hounds.
The old guardsman had stared from the fallen tower’s last remaining window, when Greth drew the chain once more, raising the portcullis. Rubbing his eyes, the man stared as the racing hounds, with little girls on their backs, bounded past and out of the keep, followed by another troll with an archer mounted on his back, her blond hair flying.
Of course, the unicorn with the waving boy, who rode in the night before, was too much. He slammed the shutters shut knowing the mutton he had eaten must have made him sick and delirious.
Climbing back under the covers he shook his head and heard the portcullis slamming down, echoing through the tower. Had to be bad mutton. He chuckled. Seeing hounds and the unicorn of all impossible things...
#
Wind flowing through her now dry hair, Ani’ya felt herself bounding across the ground, face pressed up against the hound’s neck. Yi’ya’s hound raced up on her left, “Ani’ya! We’re flying!”
“Not quite!” she laughed as brush fell past.
They were soon joined on the right by over a score more hounds, barking in delight. Ani’ya heard more barking and, glancing to the left, saw more hounds bounding toward her. She grinned.
There was a thudding sound behind then. The girls glanced back. Greth ran faster than they were, passed each and every one as Nessa clutching her bow tight, cried, “This what you mean by ‘taking point’?”
“Not quite!” his voice rumbled as he ran to far ahead, several hounds nipping at his heels.
Ani’ya glanced back and saw the unicorn galloping with Lawson trying to keep pace, Yel’ane seemed to have him in a strangling hold. “Oops,” she muttered.
“Yel’ane!” Lawson yelled, “Ease off!”
“Slow down!” she cried.
Lawson started to slow as the unicorn’s horn flared in warning.
“Goblins are ahead!” Casber cried, pointing.
“Forget what I said! Don’t slow down!” Yel’ane yelled.
#
The goblins had been delayed; first by a man riding a horse, who had the misfortune of crossing their path, then the group of locals, who seemed half drunk. They had turned tail upon seeing what they were eating as their morning meal, then ended up fighting for their very lives. The bones led them to the old fortress. Grinning, they relished the idea of the battleground it would offer them, both their revenge and the opportunity to feast.
There was a howling in the distance. The sound brought them all to a halt. “That sounds like—” the largest began.
“It can’t be,” the mage said, drawing out his bones once more, kneeling on the ground and tossing them. He blinked, “It is…”
“Scout ahead, trolls and Hounds? What else is being hidden from the auger?” the goblin with the scarred cheek ordered. Two of the goblins ran ahead. “Mageling, prepare to loose your Curse.”
#
Several of the chasing hounds began to slow. They sniffed the air, then paused and howled. That drew all the others to a halt, those rearmost, turning to stare back toward where they had come. They began howling, too.
The girls’ mounts growled as the unicorn swung around and glanced at Greth, who grimaced. “Nessa, ready your bow. We’ve company coming.”
“What’s wrong?” Yel’ane whispered in Lawson’s ear closest to the hounds which had run in the rear of their party.
“The unicorn says the hounds smell Goblins.”
She paled.
“Best ready your bow, too,” he added.
Swallowing hard, she hesitated. “I’m really a terrible shot.”
“I bet you are much better than you claim.”
“No, really, I’m not,” she assured him.
A goblin rose atop the hill behind them and stared at the unicorn.
“Shoot now before he can report back!” Greth cried.
“I’m not close enough!” Nessa shouted back, taking aim, certain her arrow would fall short.
“Yel’ane!” Lawson sai
d, “We’re closer! Loose!”
“Um,” she murmured, raising the bow, arrow notched. The goblin turned, shouted. She let fly.
The shaft flew wildly off to the right of the goblin.
That’s when a second goblin came into view to apparently see for himself. Her shaft hit him in squarely in the chest. The black metal tip met the creature’s bespelled chain mail and exploded. The goblin was sent reeling backward, tumbling out of sight as his fellow ducked low and ran off.
“What?” Lawson muttered. “Let me see one of those arrows!”
Nessa stared at her as Casber cried, “Good shot!” which was quickly echoed by the girls, who also cheered.
“Um,” she muttered in reply, handing over an arrow as Greth ordered everyone to make a run for it.
The unicorn turned back around and bolted forward, the hounds following. “Don’t just stand there, Lawson!” Greth yelled.
“Oh, right.” Gripping the arrow he had little time to examine, he ran, “I knew you were better than you claimed.”
Legs weak, Yel’ane held on to her bow for dear life, knowing no one could actually believe she had just made anything less than a lucky shot.
#
The goblin scout rose from his fallen companion, then ran back. “What happened?” the goblin in command asked. “We heard—”
“He’s dead. Archer with troll metal, the shaft reeked more strongly of it that I’ve ever smelled.”
“How many of them?” the leader demanded.
“Two trolls, one who looks merely to be a stripling. Nearly three score hounds, a dozen with riders.”
“What?”
“Worse, the unicorn is there… ridden by a human boy, Master.”
“The unicorn must have found a mageling to help him ward them…”
“Hounds with riders?” the goblin mage said, uncertain. “But the dwarves are long gone from this ravaged land.”
“Girls. Human younglings,” the surviving scout replied.
“Mage, unleash your Curse. Such an alliance with even but two trolls doubtless threatens the plan.”
#
The mage gestured and the glowing sacks they had carried from the brigand encampment were dropped to the ground. He said a single word and the bags began to seethe. Waving his hands over them, he uttered the final line of the deadly spell, triggering the Curse. The sacks exploded open in a burst of lurid smoke and green sparks, the skulls barely visible, raked clear by the growing Curse.
“Kill them!” the mage demanded, pointing over the rise before him.
The smoke blossomed, arching upward into the sky, the cursed spirits within howling, demanding to feed on life.
Any thought of the old fortress a mere league behind them was forgotten. As the writhing smoke twisted midair almost like a viper preparing to strike, the goblins hurried to the next rise to gain a better view. Atop it, they glimpsed the fleeing trolls with archers mounted upon them, the dreaded hounds, and the unicorn and its rider.
“The unicorn shall bother us now more!” the goblin’s leader shouted, grinning. “Mage, the Demon Lord himself will reward you for creating such a Curse!”
The goblin mage made no reply, his hands weaving as he directed his vile creation, which was now arrowing down at their quarry.
#
The remaining inhabitants of the vill manned its ancient walls, the woman, the taverner, and the well-washed husband, as well as the old guardsman, who hoped he was not the only one seeing things as the living cloud of smoke whirled high into the air, then shot downward out of sight.
None of them realized they had been spared a terrible fate.
#
“Um, what’s that?” Casber cried as the hounds cried out as what looked like a column of smoke arched down toward them.
Eyes wide, the unicorn answered, ‘That is living death. Run faster, my hounds!’
“Uh, can’t you do something about it?” Casber gasped as the unicorn galloped all the harder.
‘I do not know. The magery they have raised… It is a thing of terrible ill.’
Dozens of riderless hounds slowed to a halt and raced back toward the writhing wide pillar of smoke, the wind seeming to shriek as it whistled around it.
Lawson shouted, “What are they doing?”
‘Sacrificing themselves to protect us, hoping to slow it,’ the unicorn answered in despair.
The first of the hounds bounded into the descending smoke with terrible howls. The smoke swallowed them up, slowing its progress.
The hounds wailed and Ani’ya and her year-mates glanced back in dread as Yel’ane said in Lawson’s ear, “Is there nothing you can do?”
“Against that?” he said, scrambling up the next hill, the hounds bounding past. “We’d need a miracle!”
Interlude
She looked up from the end of the chapter. “What is this?”
The page cleared, then words appeared, What?
“You’ve brought them all together somehow, haven’t you? Meeting up in that warded cellar, the Cathartan bows, riding straps, you prepared it all for them.”
Of course.
“I knew it. You don’t need me at all, do you? You’re not going to let those hounds just die or anything happen to them!”
The page remained blank a moment. Then: Child, I’m sorry, but I’ve done all I could for them. That the hounds live is something I did not arrange. Much is in the hands of others… those like you, who can make a difference.
“But… they lived through it!”
Did they?
“Of course, they did!”
Why are you so certain?
Because, she thought.
You know Lord Me’oh.
“Yes.”
“Do you know of her elder daughters?”
She blinked. “No.”
That is because, I am sorry to say, they died.
“What!”
The living death –– whatever it touches, dies. The tunnels that Mahr and Za’an travel will fall prey to it as it sweeps across the land.
She gasped, “And you expect me to read that?”
No, I do not… I merely hope you do, so you’ll understand what… what must be.
Angrily, she slapped the page, which flared white, like lightning. “Well, I like those girls and those hounds for that matter! I’m not going to read about them dying so!” She lifted the book over her head and moved to throw it.
Her luck flared.
She looked up and the unicorn stared back at her in shock, a foul black smoke retreating away from her image. Lowering the book, she hardly dared breathe as she turned the page.
Chapter 20 – Borderlands and the Old Fortress
There was a terrible thunderclap, which knocked more than a score of hounds from their feet, staggering unicorn and trolls alike. Casber gaped as the jewel at his neck blazed. A girl’s angry face flashed across his mind. Uncertain, he blinked at what had to have been an odd afterimage of whatever lightning must have struck so close as he slumped forward, gasping for breath.
The unicorn glanced back as time seemed to skip a beat. She remembered another moment now fading from memory when the living death had overtaken her and Casber–– and the girls’ cries of terror and the wailing of the hounds and trolls as their souls were rent from them.
The living smoke now writhed, smashing against the earth and stone behind them. Lightning flared within it as Casber went limp began to topple from the unicorn’s back, only to be swooped up in Lawson’s arms.
They halted, looking back as the smoke exploded into a cloud of ash. Through the haze, Greth could see two goblins poised opposite them, staring in astonishment. Another knelt by one that had fallen, apparently unconscious. “Girls! Get those hounds moving again! Lawson, get them out of here!” he shouted.
“Greth, I—”
“You heard me!” as Lawson carried Casber off, the unicorn coming to Greath’s side. To Nessa he said, “The distance more to your likely this time?”
Nodding, she raised her bow, drew, and aimed. “I’m a much better shot than Yel’ane.” she murmured, then paused and loosed.
The arrow flew true, just above the ash misting down and took the tallest goblin in the eye. He dropped as the other goblins hastily grabbed the one that Lawson guessed must be their mage, before retreating back down the hill and out of sight.
“No explosion?” Greth muttered.
“I never expected it to, though, I will admit to hoping,” she replied. “Now, let’s get out of here.”
#
At the thunderclap the goblin mage faltered, crying out in agony, falling to his knees. The goblin commander grasped his mail shirt, shook him, demanding, “What’s happening?”
The mage could barely hear him, his spell Curse rebounding, burning through his veins as lightning flared in the smoke of living death.
“The unicorn,” he managed to rasp. “It must be… subsuming… my spell.”
“How?”
“I do not know…” he gasped before slumping unconscious.
“With Highmage Alrex near death, its gifts should be waning!” one of the other goblins shouted.
The living smoke now struggled with itself, rising off the ground, slamming back down, over and over again as the goblins stared. White ash began to spew out of it, then it slapped down to the earth once more, and moved no more. That’s when something leaped out of the smoke, black as smoke. It paused, sniffed the air and howled. Another creature just like it did as well, and another and another, each howling as the smoke transmuted into ash. They stared as its mutated magic transformed the dreaded hounds that had been their bane for millennia–– that should have been riven of their very souls into something more dire.
“Hellhounds?” the goblin’s commander rasped.
“Unbound ones,” one of the others added, drawing his sword. “Who definitely have no love of our kind.”
Eyes glowing like red embers, the dozen black furred Hellhounds, nearly as big as horses, burst forward toward the goblins.
#
Greth stared. “Hellhounds?”
‘But not soul trapped ones!’ the unicorn cried. ‘It’s our chance. We must flee.’