by Trudi Jaye
The demon swooped in one more time, a blur next to the lavaen’s head, then away again. He heard a growl emerging from deep in the lavaen’s throat. He felt rather than saw the hesitation, and then the immense creature beat its wings upward. This time its screech was angry, a hunter that had lost its prey.
In silence, Nate watched the lavaen spiral up and away on its powerful wings.
“Why did it leave?” whispered Bree.
“I don’t know. The demon I think.” Nate didn’t take his eyes from the lavaen. He didn’t understand what had just happened. How had they survived?
In the distance, they heard the frightened whinny of a horse, and Nate became aware of hooves thundering over the dry earth. The screech of the lavaen echoed across the night sky. It sounded triumphant, and Nate’s heart missed a beat.
Bree gasped, “Chamomile!” She made to move, then halted as Argus placed his hand on her arm.
Nate closed his eyes. The horse didn’t stand a chance, any more than they would have without a fire demon.
He opened his eyes and pulled at the fire in his core. Maybe he could do something, perhaps some part of his new power could help the horse. He drew it out and felt the fires swirling around him. He paused, suddenly unsure what to do. Fire spilled out of his hands, so he raised them up, and pulsed the fire into the air. It lit up a line of fire in the sky directly above them, great strings of flame, streaking toward the stars.
In the distance, they heard Chamomile’s frightened shriek. In the light created by his string of flames, they saw the lavaen dive straight for the mare.
“Do something,” screamed Bree, tears running down her cheeks.
Nate cut off the flames coming from his hands, darkening the landscape again, just as the mare’s screams abruptly stopped.
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
Now it was Bree who sat still and silent, wrapped in a blanket taken from the mercenaries’ campsite.
It had been a rough night. Afraid to stay too close to the campfire where they’d made such easy targets for the lavaen, they’d kept moving for most of the darkest hours. Because they now had only two horses—they hadn’t been able to find Nate’s horse at the campsite—they’d had to double up. Bree rode with Argus on his great grey stallion and Nate with Jena on her smaller mare. Sometime early in the morning they’d stopped, exhausted, and curled up together under an old tree. They’d woken to an overcast day.
“What do we do?” asked Jena softly. She was sitting next to Nate, a short distance from where Bree was steadfastly ignoring them all. She had yet to speak more than two words.
“I don’t know. We should probably keep moving. We weren’t safe at that campfire, and we’re not safe here.” Nate was watching Bree with a haunted expression.
“It wasn’t your fault. You managed to save us, and you tried to save the horse.”
“I should have been able to stop it from getting her horse.”
Jena hesitated. “What is this power you have? It’s not a usual mage skill.”
“I don’t know what it is,” said Nate leaning his head in one hand. “It’s saved my life twice now, but I find it hard to be grateful. I don’t have control over what happens when I use it.”
“Power comes in many shapes. Thornal taught me that.”
Nate’s eyes darkened, and his eyebrows descended. “What good is an ability like this if I can’t control it?”
“It’s better than no power at all,” said Jena, although she wasn’t convinced. She thought of her own abilities and wondered what would happen if she had no power at all. Perhaps she would be sitting in a home somewhere, nice and safe beside a warm fire eating a bowl of rabbit stew. No more worries than the vegetables in her garden and cooking for her table.
“I’d not wager on it,” answered Nate. “Power comes at a price, and I’m not sure I want to pay it.” He didn’t take his eyes off Bree.
Jena nodded. She understood. Her particular abilities would probably get her killed. “Do you know this area? We need horses,” she said.
“I’ve traveled through it,” he said. “There are several villages along the main road. We might have to split up to search for more horses.”
Jena looked at Nate suspiciously. He had no horse, and it was easy to see why he was sticking with them for the moment, but he’d already shown that he’d rather run than go to Argus’s master. Separating didn’t seem like a good idea.
“You’re not leaving us alone out here,” she said.
Nate looked at her in surprise. “I was thinking perhaps Argus and you could ride to the nearest village and buy horses. I’ll stay here and look after Bree. I’d not want to ride that beast of Argus’s.”
“You’re coming with us, then? To Argus’s master?” Jena watched him closely, and didn’t miss the tiny twitch on his face.
Nate opened his mouth to answer, then closed it as Argus stomped back into their small camp circle, a scowl in his face, his travel pack in his hand. He’d been with his stallion, making sure the animal was fed and watered.
Stopping next to Jena, Argus seemed to be about to make some kind of declaration. Before he could say a word, his expression abruptly twisted into one of extreme agony. He grasped with one hand at his recently healed shoulder and fell to his knees. A groan escaped through clenched teeth, and he fell face-forward onto the dusty ground.
Bree gasped and raced over to him, her hands going to his shoulder. Nate crouched down and helped Bree turn Argus onto his back and pull the big man’s shirt back. The flesh on his shoulder was churning, visible lumps moving underneath purple mottled skin. Jena took a step back.
Bree’s eyes widened. “What’s wrong with him?” she asked. “We fixed it. It shouldn’t have come back.”
Jena looked around, trying to gather inspiration from the sparse scenery around them. She held her breath, listening into the silence. Then she heard it. The insistent buzzing that made the hairs on her arms rise.
The Riders.
Somehow, Argus was sensitive to the creatures. It was a terrible thing, but at least it had given them some warning.
“They’re back on our trail.” The raven fluttered on her stomach, and Jena stood. The bird wanted to fly free so it could assess the danger. But with Nate right next to her, she daren’t let it go. Perhaps she could sneak off behind the tree they’d slept under.
“I thought Miara said we’d be safe from Lothar’s creatures?” said Bree. “Because of you?” She looked up at Jena with wide eyes. Her tone bordered on accusatory.
Jena shook her head, knowing her sister was just worried, but wishing she hadn’t spoken in front of Nate. “She thought Lothar’s view of Nate through the Flames would be blocked because of me. But there are other ways the Riders could have found us.” She glanced down at Argus’s still body. “Maybe Argus is somehow connected to them now. Or perhaps they just got lucky.”
Bree smoothed her hand over Argus’s forehead, but the big man didn’t move.
“We can’t run. Not with Argus like this, and only two horses,” Nate said.
“Argus barely has a heartbeat, Jena,” said Bree urgently, her hand over his heart. “I think he’s dying, right here in front of us.”
Jena glanced up into the sky, trying to get a feel for the direction the buzzing was coming from. They needed to know how much time they had. She had to let her raven fly free. “You do what you need to do to save Argus. Keep him alive, Bree. I... uh... need to change my shirt.” She grabbed her bag, and scampered off before they could ask too many questions. Behind the tree, she pulled off her stained shirt, and the raven tore itself from her body. It was gone into the sky before she had her new shirt in place. She watched it go for a few moments and then returned to the other side of the tree.
Nate was pacing next to Bree and Argus. Her sister was leaning close to his chest, her eyes shut, murmuring a healing chant.
Nate strode over to Jena as soon as she emerged. “Do you think we can beat them? What affects them?” he s
aid.
She thought it through, trying to stay calm. “They’re made up of millions of flies and maggots. They’re almost impossible to kill. They separate and reform, almost at will.” The pages of the Book of Spells were very explicit. “They use poison arrows to kill people,” she added. “Their power comes while they’re a whole creature, so each individual fly holds less of a threat.”
“What about fire? It seems to be my ability. Surely fire could kill them.” Nate ran his hand through his hair, leaving it spiking up around his face.
“If you can catch them. I think they’d just separate out wide or up high. Losing a few of the group doesn’t affect the whole. And don’t forget their arrows. You might get some fire away, but they’d soon get an arrow into you.”
“So we need them to be still, somehow, while they’re just flies?” asked Bree. “You think they’d die from Nate’s flames if we could get them to stay still?” Bree looked up from her patient.
Jena thought about it a moment. “Yes, I do. But how do we get them to stay in one place? They’re flies. They fly.”
“Honey.” Bree’s expression was grim.
“Honey?” Jena wondered if her sister had actually gone crazy.
“We use it in the middle of summer when the flies get bad. We make little honey traps and then kill them.”
“Where do we get honey from?” Nate gestured around them at the barren rocky landscape.
“We create it,” said Jena, warming to Bree’s idea. “We just need water, or something like it, and we can create a sticky puddle of mud, and we turn it into honey. There must be a spell.” Jena tried to keep her expression neutral. Of course there was a spell. She knew the exact one, and if they didn’t get it sorted soon, they’d be too late.
Nate shook his head. “I’m not sure I can do mage spells anymore. I’d be more likely to incinerate us all.”
Trying to keep her impatience in check, Jena tried again. “We can’t run from them. And Argus isn’t going to be any help at all. We have to face them here. We have no choice.”
“We need another plan. I think I should just try to burn them, while you three take one of the horses and make a run for it. I’ll follow you once they’ve been destroyed.”
It took a great strength of will for Jena to stop herself snorting in disbelief. “Are we really so bad that you try to get rid of us at every turn?”
“I’m not trying to get rid of you. I’m trying to be heroic.”
Nate sounded sincere, but Jena didn’t have time to work out if he really meant it. “How is it heroic if you die, and they come after us and destroy us as well?”
“They won’t. According to Argus they’re after me.”
“I think they will, especially given Argus’s connection to them. They’re mindless hunters, and they’ve had our scent along with yours for a while now.”
Nate paced back and forth, his expression fierce. “Then where are we going to get enough water from?”
Jena looked around them. Everything was dry as a bone, even the scraggly tree they’d slept under. “I don’t—”
The raved cawed overhead, swirling through the air currents. The bird drifted off in one direction, its flight straight as an arrow. Then it drifted back around and came back to their campsite. It cawed again.
“I think we go that way,” said Jena, pointing in the direction the bird had flown.
Nate narrowed his eyes up at the raven. “Where did that bird come from?” he asked suspiciously.
“It’s a sign,” said Jena. “We should go that way.”
“We can’t just follow the flight of a bird, Jena,” said Nate. “I didn’t realize you were so superstitious.”
Jena narrowed her eyes and tried to see into the distance in the direction the raven had flown. There was a dark clump on the horizon. She pointed. “See, over there. It has to be an underground spring.” She hoped she was right. Surely, the raven wouldn’t lead them wrong.
“How do you know?” asked Nate.
“Birds need water too. I’m positive it’s a spring.” She covered her eyes with one hand to shade herself from the glare as she stared hard at the spot in the distance. “It’s close enough to the trail that we can carry the water to the trail, make it into mud, then turn the mud into honey.”
Nate stopped abruptly. “We’ll need bait. Something to make sure they come to us.”
Bree looked up at them again. “I think we are the bait. Even Argus. We just have to make sure nothing happens to him.” She brushed a soothing hand across Argus’s forehead. His color looked slightly better.
Nate grimaced. “We’re the bait. I make a pool of honey out of mud that they run into without noticing, and then I flame them while they’re stuck. What could go wrong?”
Jena grinned, then turned sober as the buzzing noise in the distance rose a pitch, becoming even louder. “Come on, let’s go,” she said.
Between the three of them, they managed to push Argus’s still-limp body up onto his horse, lying face down over the saddle. The stallion wasn’t happy about it, but Bree calmed the animal, and she led him, while Jena and Nate rode on ahead. Jena held her breath until they were close enough to see that the dark patch on the horizon was indeed a small patch of shrubs and undergrowth that indicated water.
She leaped off the horse as soon as they arrived. “This flat patch of earth is close enough to the spring,” she said.
Nate nodded, and strode over to the patch of undergrowth. Jena followed him, and they both stared down at the trickle of water coming out of the earth, hidden inside a rock formation.
“Is it enough, do you think?” whispered Jena.
Nate gazed back in the direction they’d just come from. “It has to be.”
They pulled out their water bags and started filling them as fast as they could.
“I’m still not certain I can do it,” said Nate, as he carried a water bag full of water to their chosen bait trap. He splashed the liquid out onto the ground, where it immediately soaked into the dust. “We’re going to need a lot of water,” he said, watching it disappear.
“Then we’d better hurry,” replied Jena, dumping hers next to the water he’d just splashed out.
When Bree arrived with Argus, they settled the big man on the ground, and began working at a frantic pace to create a patch of mud big enough to capture the Riders. A system soon developed, with Bree filling the bags, while Jena and Nate ran between the portion of the trail they had chosen for their trap and poured out the water.
Soon they had a muddy mess where the dusty ground had once been.
Jena stood back, her hands on her hips, her feet and face muddy. The puddle stretched out in front of her, creating a massive barrier the Riders would have to cross. The raven flew overhead in wide, lazy circles.
They could see their pursuers now, not just hear their ominous buzzing. In the distance, a cloud of dust and stones sprayed in their wake, like some kind of strange fast-moving dust storm. Aside from the buzzing, which had increased to a high-pitched scream, it was eerily still and silent around them.
Nature wanted nothing to do with the Riders.
Jena ran back to where Nate had tied the horses just past the spring. Argus was on the ground, a blanket under his head. Bree was already with him, kneeling beside him, and holding his hand.
“He’s still not awake. But he’s breathing. He’s still alive.” Bree’s voice was shaky. “I don’t know how to help him.”
“Maybe we shouldn’t use him as bait,” said Jena softly, looking over at Nate. “Perhaps we should leave him here, behind the spring.”
Bree shook her head determinedly. “No, he’d want to be part of it.” She paused. “If we don’t succeed, he’s dead anyway.”
CHAPTER FORTY
Nate stared down at Argus’s peaceful face. The mercenary lay on the ground behind their mud barrier, his eyes closed and his face slack. He wondered if Argus was going to be annoyed about being part of the plan like this. He didn’
t think so; the big man wasn’t afraid of anything.
They were far enough back from the mud puddle that they wouldn’t touch the Riders when they were in the trap, but were close enough that the creatures wouldn’t just ride around the mud to get to them. It was closer than Nate wanted to be, but they had no choice.
He had narrowed his whole focus into making it out of this situation alive. Damned if he’d survived this far, only to be taken out by rotting meat.
Bree sat down next to Argus and put his head in her lap. She placed her hand over his shoulder and closed her eyes. She had regained her control and now exuded complete calm in the face of their oncoming storm; Nate couldn’t replicate it. His hands were clenched, and his heart was beating at twice its normal speed. The Riders were close enough now that their constant buzzing whine jarred Nate’s whole body. He remembered the arrow that had landed in the ground as he raced into the Forest of Ghosts. It had seethed with maggots and a rotten black infestation that hungered to attach itself to something—or someone.
He shook his head, trying to think of something else while they waited. Lothar had pulled the Riders from some dark hole to hunt him down. Not only the Riders, but also the lavaen, the wolvans, and even the mercenaries who’d captured him. Who knew what other creatures he would have to fend off in the future? He was beginning to realize he’d never get any rest until he faced up to the king-in-waiting; he no longer believed Lothar was going to let him disappear into the backcountry.
“Quickly, Nate. Change it to honey. They’re almost here.” Jena stood beside Nate, her hands clasped together in front of her. She glanced every so often at the approaching Riders. The dead eyes of the horses were almost visible, and Nate could just about smell the rotting meat that still clung to their bones.
“Yes, you better get started,” said the mage ghost. Nate jumped, startled by the cold whisper across his neck. He glared at the ghost.
“I’m doing it.”
“They’re almost here,” added the whispery voice, his tone mocking.