Ashok heard a loud howl from behind and above him. He turned just in time to see one of the other winter wolves leap from a ledge farther up the mountain. Ashok teleported out of its way and appeared near where Mareyn lay in the snow.
The wolf hit the ground and limped to the snowfang. It left a trail of blood in the snow.
“Did you … hit it?” Mareyn said. Her voice was weak from the cold. “Before you teleported?”
“I didn’t have time,” Ashok said. “I heard a voice—”
“Maybe it’s the caravan … catching up,” Mareyn said.
“They can’t be moving that fast.” Ashok willed his flesh to solidify, even though it meant succumbing to the biting cold. The snowfang, distracted, licked the other wolf’s wounds like a mother. Ashok considered his and Mareyn’s own injuries with a grim outlook. If they didn’t get warm soon, they would no longer be able to walk, let alone fight. Mareyn’s side wound still bled. Ashok didn’t know how she found the will to stay on her feet, but there she was, standing beside him again when finally his form became solid.
Ashok didn’t wait for the snowfang to finish its ministrations. He came forward again and struck the wolf a blow to the hind leg with his bound arm. The spikes laid open its flesh and exposed muscle, but there was not nearly enough strength behind the attack to cripple the beast. The snowfang turned and clawed Ashok’s breastplate, tearing into the bone scales. Mareyn attacked from the side but had to turn away when the other wolf struck her from behind.
We’re going to die, Ashok thought dimly as the wolf snapped at his face. The cold made his movements seem disconnected from his thoughts. He might as well have been watching the scene from outside his body. He registered the deep red stains in the snow, the weakening of the snowfang’s attacks. They wouldn’t lose the fight by much, but they would still lose.
A fire ignited in Ashok’s periphery.
He saw it reflected in the snowfang’s blue eyes. The nightmare had come back to life, shaking off the preternatural cold. His whole body burned, illuminating the scene in gold. A scream shook the air, and Ashok felt the torturous sound slam into him, jolting him back into his body.
“Take him,” Ashok growled.
The nightmare charged, eating up the distance between them in a breath. The stallion reared and brought his hooves down on the snowfang’s back. Ashok barely had time to roll out of the way before the snowfang fell. Pinned, the wolf got the full brunt of the nightmare’s fire. But the nightmare wasn’t done. The stallion sank his teeth into the wolf’s neck and tore at its flesh.
Ashok got to his feet and went to help Mareyn with the other wolf. The smaller one was weak from its wounds and was nearly dead when Ashok got to it. Mareyn leaned on Ashok for support, and together they watched the nightmare’s fire finally penetrate the aura of cold surrounding the snowfang. Its body caught and burned.
When the snowfang lay still in the snow, the nightmare’s fire died away to a dim blaze that Ashok felt even across the space between them. He started toward the stallion, but stopped when Mareyn resisted.
“Can you walk?” he asked.
She nodded. “I’m not going near … that one,” she said. “But I’m grateful.”
“His fire will warm us,” Ashok said. “If we don’t get heat back into our bodies, we’ll die before the caravan reaches us.”
Mareyn sighed and nodded. She let him lead her over to the nightmare but stopped before she was close enough to touch him.
“Gods, I can smell the blood on its breath,” she said. “But it is warm, at least.”
“I don’t notice the scent anymore,” Ashok said.
They stood in uncomfortable silence for a moment, absorbing the nightmare’s heat. As soon as she was warm enough, Mareyn moved away. She looked at the bodies of the wolves in consternation.
“The other one must still be around here somewhere,” she said. “It’ll have Les.”
“There are tracks here.” Ashok pointed to where the other wolf had come down from the snow-covered rocks.
They picked their way carefully up the slope and came eventually to a ridge that looked down on a bowl-shaped valley lined with jagged rocks and icicles.
Below them, hanging off a large rock, they found the body of the other winter wolf. Les lay in the snow beside the dead wolf, on what looked like an animal skin. A burly man crouched over the wolf with a skinning knife. He looked up when Ashok and Mareyn crested the ridge.
He had wild, red-blond hair and a tangled beard that half obscured his wrinkled face. A wolf pelt rode on his back. For a brief instant, he reminded Ashok of his father, a big man in hide armor, his hair shining red in the meager sunlight. The vision hit him sharply and made Ashok catch his breath. He recovered quickly and caught Mareyn’s arm when she started down the slope.
“We don’t know he’s an ally,” Ashok warned her.
“That’s why I haven’t put my blade away,” Mareyn said, but she was no longer looking at him. She fixed her attention on Les’s unconscious form.
As she moved down the slope, Ashok called out to the man in Common. “Well met. You have our thanks for killing the wolf. If you hadn’t, we’d be dead.”
The man’s gaze shifted from him to Mareyn. It was impossible to read his expression. He put his skinning knife away and pulled a length of rope from his belt. He used it to tie the wolf’s back legs together.
Mareyn had reached the boy. Ashok kept his weapon looped around his arm, but the man ignored Mareyn and stood up. He turned his back to them and dragged the wolf carcass up the slope in the opposite direction.
“Are you of the Rashemi?” Ashok called after him. He knew they must be nearly in the witches’ lands.
The man paused to look back at them. His expression reminded Ashok of Ilvani. He looked at them without seeing them, almost as if he inhabited another world entirely, and they were only shadows probing at the edge of his vision. Then the man turned away and resumed dragging his burden up the slope. Ashok watched him until he was almost out of sight.
“Ashok, we have to get Les down to the nightmare,” Mareyn said.
Shaken from his thoughts, Ashok bent to examine the boy. His leg was broken, twisted out awkwardly from his body, but otherwise there were no physical wounds. The wolf’s teeth had torn away most of his boot, but the flesh beneath was intact. The boy’s eyes were half-open, but he didn’t seem to recognize Mareyn, even when she spoke to him in a soothing voice.
She was right. Cold was the enemy now.
He ripped off some pieces of his bone scale armor to use as a splint. The snowfang had ruined most of the breastplate. He’d have to replace the rest. Mareyn took rope from her pack and together they worked on the boy’s leg.
When they tried to move him, Les came to life at last. The pain made him jerk and thrash about in the snow. Ashok took hold of the boy’s shoulders and pressed him down while Mareyn spoke quickly in his ear. After long minutes, she got him to know her, and he calmed. She took her cloak off and draped it over him, rubbing his arms and legs to warm him.
“Let’s go,” she said. “Take his shoulders. I’ll brace his legs so the pain won’t overwhelm him.”
They lifted him. The boy moaned but made no other complaint. Even so, it was a long, slow climb out of the small valley and back down to the nightmare. Ashok carried the boy over to the stallion and started to drape him over the nightmare’s back.
“You can’t mean to let that thing carry him?” Mareyn said incredulously. “It’s a demon, not a packhorse.”
“It’s the only way to keep him alive until we get back to the caravan,” Ashok said. “You and I are too weak to carry him far.”
“He’s barely conscious. What’s to stop the nightmare from invading his dreams?”
Ashok wouldn’t lie to her. “Nothing,” he said. “You’ll have to watch him closely once we return. He’ll need someone nearby who can tell him what’s real and what isn’t. At least he’ll be alive.”
Marey
n opened her mouth to argue, but in the end, she said nothing. They arranged the boy carefully on the nightmare’s back and started down the trade route to meet the caravan.
For a long time, neither spoke. Weariness and pain marked Mareyn’s face. She checked the boy to see if he still breathed. Her own wound bled through the hasty bandage she’d put on it. Ashok watched her struggle through the pain to put one foot in front of the other.
The idea of pain as a weakening force in humans was a concept he still could not grasp. He wanted to tell Mareyn to use the pain, to let the burn in her side act as the anchor that kept her centered in this world.
Humans functioned differently. Pain yanked at their souls the way the shadows pried at his, tempting them to oblivion.
“Stop looking at me like that,” Mareyn said abruptly.
“Like what?” Ashok said.
“Like a shadar-kai.” She laughed, but it turned into a groan. “When you’re human and you’ve lived in Ikemmu long enough, you start to notice that shadar-kai look. It’s either distaste or intense fascination—the fascination is more disturbing, if you want the truth. That’s how you looked at me just now.”
“I’m sorry,” Ashok said. “It’s just—”
“I know,” Mareyn said. “We’re too different for it to be otherwise.”
Silence fell between them again, but it didn’t last long. Mareyn slowed her pace until she was barely moving at all. Ashok came up behind her and touched her shoulder.
“We need to keep moving,” he said. “The nightmare can carry both of you if you need to rest.”
“Not even Tymora’s blessing could coax me onto that beast,” Mareyn said. “And I have to keep a clear head. I can’t afford to have nightmares haunting me the rest of this journey.”
“At least stay close to its warmth.”
They picked up the pace. After another long silence, Mareyn said, “Did someone do that for you—tell you what was real and what wasn’t—when you first tamed the beast?”
“Vedoran,” Ashok said. “He was a sellsword and one of my first companions when I came to Ikemmu. He was with me when I awoke from the worst of the dreams.”
“The two of you were close?”
“For a time, yes.”
“But he’s gone now, isn’t he?” Mareyn said. “Otherwise he would be here on this journey with you.”
“Yes. Vedoran would have relished a challenge like this,” Ashok said, gazing at the unforgiving landscape, the beauty of the snow-covered mountains. When he turned away, he caught her looking at him with a wistful, sad expression in her eyes. “What is it?”
“I was just thinking of a question that’s hard to ask, and maybe it’s not entirely fair.”
“You can ask anything you want,” Ashok said. He noticed that conversation distracted her from the pain, kept her alert and moving.
“When you volunteered to come with me to save Les, what was your first thought? Did you do it out of concern for the boy? Was it for me, or did you do it because you wanted to hunt down the snowfang?”
Ashok thought back to the moments after the wolf battle. They’d all been distracted by the need for haste, both to evade the brigands and to catch up with the escaping wolves. The snowfang had blinded him with its frost breath. Ashok remembered feeling anger, both at the snowfang and at himself for being caught off guard. He’d promised himself it wouldn’t happen again, that the next time they encountered each other, Ashok would have the upper hand.
He tried to sort out where in the tangle of those thoughts he’d considered Les or Mareyn, but he couldn’t get past the excitement he’d felt at the possibility of the chase, of using the nightmare’s fire to burn the snowfang down.
His silence seemed answer enough for Mareyn. The wistful expression deepened. “I didn’t really expect anything more or less from you,” she admitted. “And you’ll always have my deepest gratitude for what you did for me—for Les—out here.”
“There’s no need to—”
“Yes, there is,” she said, cutting him off. “It’s strange—the other races in Ikemmu, especially the humans, view your people in so many different lights. I used to wonder why your leaders revered Tempus. All this time, I’d convinced myself the shadar-kai were meant to be Tymora’s servants. Your fortunes and fates are so mercurial. You plunge into every experience as if it could be your last, and you dance right to the edge. I love to watch you when you fight for the same reason. I thought you were embracing life by behaving that way.”
Ashok shook his head. “Most of us are just trying to avoid death.”
“Yes, and you’ll court any force to do it,” Mareyn said, “fortune, misfortune, creation, destruction. For your people, survival comes before everything—fear, compassion, love, hate. To put any other emotion first is a struggle for you.”
“A struggle, but it’s worth the cost,” Ashok said, remembering Reltnar and the slaughter room of his enclave. There lay the consequences of putting survival above everything else.
“The night we shared together—for you, it was a means to keep from fading,” Mareyn said. “You don’t seek companionship for the same reasons I do. I might be looking for fun, for comfort in the night, a taste of joy on a hard, cold journey. But you—you’ll share pleasure with me, but if it’s meant to aid your own survival, I don’t think I want to be responsible for that.”
“So you don’t think we share Tymora’s kiss?” Ashok said, an edge of mockery in his voice. “Our paths didn’t cross by the will of your goddess so that we could bring good fortune to each other?”
For a long time, she didn’t reply. He thought he’d angered her. Then she stopped and laid her hand over his. “Do you think I’m afraid of you, Ashok?” she asked. “Is that why you try to keep me at bay? Or do you truly hate the gods that much?”
“I ride the nightmare—the demon; you’d be wise to be afraid,” Ashok said harshly.
She laughed, which shocked him. “Oh, Ashok, don’t make the mistake of thinking you’re the most frightening thing I’ve seen in Faerûn. You’re not.” She stroked the scars on his knuckles. “I’ve seen things here you can’t imagine. That’s why I want to be careful not to treat you too lightly. You’re not ready. Someday you might be, and maybe our paths will cross again when you return from Rashemen.”
“Nothing will have changed,” Ashok said. “You said it yourself—we’re too different. I’m not like you.”
“We’ll see. Until then, take care of Ilvani,” Mareyn said. “I want her to find the peace she needs.”
“So do I.” In that, at least, they were united. “I hope whatever path you walk continues to bring your goddess’s favor,” he said. “May Tymora never disappoint you.”
They walked the rest of the way in silence, until they heard the rumble of wagons and the snuffling of weary horses. Slowly the caravan came into view, diminished but safe.
“They did it,” Ashok said. “Ilvani and Daruk drove back the brigands.”
“Tymora be praised,” Mareyn said. Briefly, she embraced him, and they went to join the others.
CHAPTER
SIXTEEN
THE CARAVAN SPENT THREE DAYS TENDING TO ITS WOUNDED and seeing to the dead. Vlahna sent scouts ahead to report on how far they were from the road out of the mountains. Blessedly, they were only a day away from passing out of the mountains and into Rashemen. Their remaining supplies would hold out long enough for them to get to Mulsantir.
Despite this news, the caravan crew was discouraged and grieved for their losses. The Martucks were elated to have their boy returned to them, but Ashok sat on guard duty each of those three nights and listened to Les toss in his sleep until finally the boy woke up screaming. His parents sat up with him and never slept. They endured it when the boy woke and yelled and lashed out at them with loosely clenched fists when he didn’t recognize them. By the third night, he was quieter in his dreaming, but Ashok knew the nightmare still worked on his mind. The boy was probably reliving his ordeal
with the wolves. The Martucks never accused Ashok of anything, but they stayed as far away from him and the nightmare as the caravan would allow.
Here again was the price. Ashok had brought the beast into their midst to protect the caravan and especially to protect Ilvani. He, Les, and Mareyn would have certainly died without the nightmare’s intervention with the snowfang. But Vlahna had been right. The cost for such protection was to allow a monster to walk among them, and Ashok held its reins.
Of all of them, the dying Tuva seemed in the best spirits. The pain he felt walking around must have been unfathomable, but Ashok saw how it sharpened him and narrowed the focus of his world to include only the caravan and its crew. That single-minded intent probably saved them from despair and more deaths during those three days.
On the fourth day, when everyone was well enough to travel, they moved out, and Tuva stayed at the back of the caravan with Ashok, the brothers, and Ilvani. Ashok held the nightmare well back from the others, just barely keeping the rear of the caravan in sight. Tuva walked beside him.
“Your friends told me what happened to you the night you encountered the Tuigan,” Tuva said. “What was it like, riding with ghosts?”
“Like nothing I can describe,” Ashok said. “I felt … immortal, as if I was part of a tale that had been hundreds of years in the telling.”
Tuva nodded. “You did a great service for that warrior, guiding him to Tempus’s side.”
“I don’t know that it was Tempus who claimed his soul,” Ashok said. “It could have been any god.”
“It was Tempus.” Tuva smiled. Ashok noticed a faint sheen of blood on his lips. “You are His emissary. It was right to … be you.” His steps faltered.
Ashok reached out, intending to support the warrior, but Tuva brushed his hand away and kept walking.
“I should call Vlahna,” Ashok said.
Unbroken Chain: The Darker Road Page 23