Talwyn’s scream and the growl of a wild beast jolted Jair into action. Warrior training overcame instinct, and he rose with his stelian ready for battle. They stood on a stark plain that was devoid of color. Few trees or plants rose from the barren ground that stretched to the horizon, broken only by one or two rocky outcroppings. In the gray of twilight, it was difficult to make out the shape of the enemy, and then Jair spotted them and caught his breath. Shadows, not predators, were encroaching on Talwyn, who barely kept them at bay with a hand raised in warding and a gnarled broken branch wielded like a weapon. She looked exhausted, and the gashes Jair had seen on her sleeping form were fresh and seeping.
A ring of shadow forms circled Talwyn. At first, the shadows lay flat against the ground, and then one of the shadows rose out of the dark ring, amorphous at first, until it solidified into the shape of a man. It reached toward Talwyn with taloned hands, slashing at her and nearly getting inside her guard.
Jair hurled a rock at the shadow. “Leave her alone!” The rock sailed right through the figure. There was a guttural sound like many deep voices conferring in the distance, and the shadow ring began to move swiftly toward Jair across the dirt.
“Don’t let them touch you!” Talwyn’s voice was sharp with warning, but Jair could hear the pain and weariness that tinged it. She looked haggard and drained, with an unnatural pallor. He ran toward her, taking a zigzag path and doubling back on himself, eluding the shadow forms until he stood between them and Talwyn.
The guttural sound grew louder, and the shadows seemed to boil, as if his action displeased them.
“Where’s the onyx?” Jair shouted to Talwyn without taking his eyes off the roiling shadow that had doubled its size, coming toward them like a wave on dry land.
“I don’t have it!” Talwyn replied, dropping to her knees to scrabble in the dust searching for the stone. “Where was it on the other side?”
“Pevre put it in your hand,” Jair replied, bracing himself for the onslaught.
Behind him, Talwyn searched for the stone as the shadows drew nearer. Jair wielded his stelian as he would have in the waking world, unsure of its worth against their enemy. “What are these things?” Jair called to her.
“Esiteran. Life-drinkers. They drain energy instead of blood.”
“Will my stelian hold them off?”
“For a while. Sooner or later, they get inside your guard, as you can see.”
The shadows surged forward, and Jair struck at them with his stelian. The sword felt as solid and deadly in his hands here in the dream realm as it did in the waking world, although how it had moved across the gap between realms with him, he did not know. The stelian met the darkness, slicing through it like light. The shadows shrieked and drew back, only to rush at him from another angle, forcing him to pivot sharply to meet their advance with another blow of the stelian. A tendril of darkness snapped out and cut through the cloth of his pants, tearing into his leg. Jair gritted his teeth against the pain and slashed at the shadow, forcing it back.
The shadows were massing. Jair wondered if they had been merely toying with Talwyn, and whether his arrival had pushed them to action. He struck again at the shadows and a whip-thin edge of the darkness sliced down, lashing him across his shoulder and chest. He cried out at the pain and swung his stelian until the shadows drew back again.
“I’ve got it!” Talwyn found the onyx disk and clasped it between her two hands. “Lay a hand on my shoulder, and don’t let go,” she said to Jair. He complied, keeping his stelian ready in his right hand. Talwyn raised her hands overhead and murmured words of power, and she then held up the onyx between thumb and forefinger.
A brilliant flare of light streamed from the polished stone. The shadows hissed and receded, like a dark tide. The light traveled down Talwyn’s upraised arms, until Jair and Talwyn were encircled in a pillar of light.
With a sudden shift, Jair found himself back in the tent, kneeling next to Talwyn, his stelian gripped in his hand. He glanced down at his ruined shirt and the vicious slash that had laid open both cloth and skin. Jair shifted, painfully aware of the gash on his leg that had begun to throb. Talwyn’s eyes snapped open. Color had come back to her skin, and her whole form relaxed. Beside them, Pevre stopped chanting and drew a deep breath. He let his head hang for a moment, as though the effort had exhausted him, and then looked from Talwyn to Jair.
“You’re back,” he said, a note of tired pride in his voice.
Talwyn reached out to touch Pevre’s sleeve. “Thank you.”
Pevre shrugged. “The question is, how did you become trapped in the dream realm?”
Talwyn struggled to sit, and Jair helped her rise. “I’m not sure. I keep wardings set around the tent to avoid problems just like that. When we came back last night, the wardings were in place. Either something broke the wardings or someone is doing powerful blood magic nearby, strong enough that it penetrated my wardings.”
“Wouldn’t you know if someone tried to break the wardings outright?” Jair asked. Pevre was busy making a paste from liquids and herbs in his bag to clean their wounds. Jair winced when Pevre applied the thick salve.
“The sting of it can’t be helped,” Pevre grumbled. “The wounds are most likely poisoned.”
“Yes, under most circumstances,” Talwyn said, answering Jair’s question. “It should have awakened me if anyone tinkered with the wardings at all, long before they were broken. So either something was able to get past the protections without actually breaking them or we’re up against a mage who’s good enough to be sly with his power.”
“Will you be all right?” Kenver’s voice was thin and reedy, and Jair could hear the boy trying to hide the way his voice trembled. Pevre dismissed his own warding with a gesture, and Kenver ran to Jair and Talwyn, throwing his arms around them.
Talwyn tousled the boy’s hair, and Jair drew him close. “We’ll be fine as soon as your grandfather’s poultices do their work,” Talwyn said, though Jair could hear the exhaustion in her voice.
Pevre took a seat against one of the support poles of the tent. “It’s still the middle of the night. I suggest you three get some sleep. I’ll stand guard. I doubt anything will try again tonight to harm you, but if it does, I’ll be ready.”
Kenver would not return to his own bed, insisting to be between his mother and father. For once, Jair didn’t feel like arguing. Despite Pevre’s medicine, his wounds still throbbed, and he wondered if he could possibly sleep. But sleep found him, and this time, he did not dream at all.
Light was already streaming through the smoke hole in the roof of the gar when Jair awoke. Kenver was sleeping soundly beside him, but Talwyn had rolled onto her side, awake, absently stroking Kenver’s dark hair. In the light, the slashes on her cheek looked even worse than Jair remembered from the night before. Carefully, they extricated themselves from Kenver’s wide-flung arms and moved quietly outside the tent, where Pevre joined them.
“It’s going to take a few days for those wounds to heal,” Pevre said, taking in their still-tender injuries with an appraising eye. “Nature of the beast that got you. Could have been worse. At least it wasn’t teeth.”
“I didn’t know shadows had teeth,” Jair muttered.
“Those weren’t exactly regular shadows,” Pevre replied, his voice rough from lack of sleep. “If you hadn’t figured that out already. The line between waking and sleeping is just like twilight or daybreak, or the solstices. It’s a place where the threshold between our world and other realms is thinner, easier to cross. Sometimes we cross over; sometimes something else does. Just like a summoner’s magic can cross between the realms of the dead and the living, other magics can invade thoughts or dreams, even memories. We’re lucky such magics are rare. They can be a terrible weapon.”
“Chief Pevre! Cheira Talwyn!” One of the trinnen warriors came running up to them. He stopped and made a quick bow. “Two elders from one of the nearby villages approached our night guard. They said th
ey have no one else to turn to, and they need our help.”
Jair and Talwyn exchanged glances. “I thought the villagers along this route pretty much ignored or avoided the Sworn?” Jair murmured.
“They do,” Talwyn replied. “They keep to themselves, and so do we.” She looked to the guard. “Why did they come to us? Why not go to the king’s patrols?”
The taller of the two warriors nodded. “I asked the same thing. With the preparations for war, it appears that patrols in the area are almost nonexistent. I think they were desperate. We’ve heard a little of their story, but I think you should be there for the rest. Their problem may have more to do with us than they know.”
Talwyn, Jair, and Pevre followed the taller guard, while the shorter man stayed behind on Talwyn’s orders to guard Kenver while the boy slept. The guard led the way to the large common lodge. The Sworn’s gar were large circular structures held up by an easily collapsible frame of light but sturdy wood. The heavy cloth of the gar and the fanlike ceilings could be insulated for warmth in the winter with a layer of cloth batting or sheepskin, or left to be a single layer of cloth in warmer seasons. The lodge was the largest of the moveable structures, and the entire tribe of guardian warriors could fit inside for important rituals when the need arose. Now, the large gar held only three guards, a half-grown boy, and a ragged man.
“What has brought you to our camp?” Talwyn stepped forward. Despite her injuries, she was fully in command as the Sworn’s shaman. She spoke Common instead of the Sworn’s consonant-heavy language, but the ancient language of the nomadic guardians accented her words.
Both the man and the boy made awkward bows. “Forgive us for disturbing you,” the man said. “But we had nowhere else to go. The king’s soldiers are gone to the war, and there’s no other justice within several days’ ride. Please, m’lady, we need the help of a mage. My village won’t last another night.”
Jair could see from Talwyn’s expression that she was both intrigued and moved by the man’s entreaty. Talwyn gestured for them to sit, and everyone but the three Sworn guards did so. By unspoken agreement, the guards remained standing, just a few steps behind their unexpected visitors.
“Tell me why your village needs a mage,” Talwyn said.
“It started when someone began stealing the bodies of our dead,” the man replied. Jair watched closely as the man spoke. At first glance, he’d taken the stranger for being in his middle years, but as Jair looked more carefully, he saw that hard work and deprivation had etched the man’s face more than time, and he revised his estimate of the visitor’s age downward by twenty seasons. The boy, whom Jair guessed to be twelve or thirteen summers old, seemed to shrink into himself as if wishing to disappear, or to be completely overlooked. Something’s scared both of them badly, Jair thought. That’s the only thing that would bring them here.
“A week ago, someone or something tore up our burying ground. They dug up the bodies and dragged them off.”
“Was there anything left behind, like sacrificed animals or rune markings?” Talwyn asked, leaning forward with interest.
The man looked surprised. “No, m’lady. Nothing at all, not even tracks. We thought it might be looters, but what little was buried with the bodies was left in the graves. Our village is too poor to bury anything of value with the dead, when the living make do with little.”
Talwyn nodded, and her smile gave the man courage to continue. “A few nights after that, two of the shepherds came screaming back to town in the middle of the night. They’d been out in the fields since before the grave robbings, and no one had been out to tell them about it. Swore they’d seen dead folks walking out along the ridge, and named them, all the ones taken from the burying ground. Scared nearly out of their minds they were, and these aren’t children. These are young men who have fought off wolves and robbers.”
“The dead were walking? Where were they going?” Jair watched the men as they spoke, but nothing in their manner seemed false. Like Talwyn, he was riveted by their story.
The man gave a bitter chuckle. “The shepherds didn’t stick around, or follow. They lit out of there as soon as they realized what they’d seen. Said the dead were headed north, and that they moved sluggishly, as if pulled along by strings instead of free to move on their own.”
“Is that why you came here? To ask for help in binding your dead to their cairns?” Talwyn asked gently.
Their visitor shook his head. “No, m’lady. While I would not like to see them disturbed, the dead are dead. I wouldn’t risk the living to bring them back, if they’ve taken to wandering, so long as they leave us in peace.” His voice caught. “But that’s not the worst of it. Last night, it was like madness struck our little village. M’lady, you’ll think we’re awful people, but we’re just a small village of herders and farmers, scraping out a living and trying to pay our taxes. Even when Jared the Usurper—Crone take his soul,” the man said, spitting to the side to ward off evil, “took the throne, we didn’t run away, the way so many did. We hunkered down and let the worst of it pass us by. But we’re paying for it now, m’lady, because something’s found us. Something evil.”
“You said that madness struck. What do you mean?” Talwyn’s voice was soothing, and Jair knew that its calming effect was enhanced by her shaman’s magic.
The man shifted uncomfortably. He refused to meet her eyes. “Last night, ten people in our village were murdered. M’lady, there are only forty of us, just a few families. There warn’t no reason for it. Can’t blame strong drink, because the ones who have too much to drink on a regular basis slept through it all.” He shook his head, and dared to look up. His eyes were red-rimmed, as if he had been among the grieving.
“In the space of two candlemarks, it was like a shadow fell over the village. Husbands and wives who had never quarreled took a hammer or a hatchet to each other. Parents who loved their children with all their breath wiped out their whole families. Brothers set on each other or on their parents. There’s no one untouched, no one who didn’t lose someone. And we can’t even bury the dead, for fear that they’ll be stolen away.”
At the word “shadow,” Jair and Talwyn exchanged a hurried glance. “Did anything unusual happen just before the murders?” Jair asked gently. “Anyone new visit the village or pass by? Any strange symbols or markings on the trees or rocks?”
The ragged man shook his head again. “No one’s been by our village in weeks. What with the talk of war, the traders don’t travel our way. It’s several days ride into the nearest real town of any size. We don’t have enough coin for the peddlers to make an effort to come to us, and there’s no inn or tavern nearby.” He thought for a moment.
“But there was one thing. A few days before the murders, the hedge witch in our village went raving mad. She’d been complaining of headaches that even her potions couldn’t set right, but no one else had them. When we found her, she had gouged out her eyes and was slamming her head against a rock until she was bloody. She’d been clawing at her ears until they were practically torn from her head, and her nails were stripped down to the quick. All she’d say was that something wouldn’t stop calling her, wouldn’t stop humming in her head.”
“And where is she now?” Talwyn asked.
The man took a long breath. “Last night she got away from the ones who were watching over her. She ran into the fire and danced while she burned, and she used her magic to keep anyone from saving her. She didn’t want to be rescued. The last thing she said before she died was, ‘It stopped. I can’t hear them anymore.’ ”
Talwyn and Pevre stepped away to confer in low voices. Jair sat silently beside the man, completely at a loss for words. The boy clung to his father, hiding behind a mop of unruly dark hair that covered his face. His posture and actions made Jair think of a much younger child, one just Kenver’s age. He’s seen horrors that would drive grown men out of their wits, Jair thought. Let him take his comfort where he can.
After a few moments, Talwyn
and Pevre returned. “I’ll visit your village and see if there’s anything I can do to help, although I have to warn you, I’m not sure I can set things right,” Talwyn said. She held up a hand to stave off the man’s protestations of gratitude.
“We’ll go tomorrow. I’m too spent to work the kind of magic such a visit requires. You and the boy may stay the night in our camp. You’ll be safe here.”
It was apparent to Jair that the man chafed at the delay, even as he realized the necessity. The stranger nodded in acquiescence. “As you wish, m’lady. We’re in your debt.”
Talwyn spoke to the guards in the language of the Sworn, instructing them to make the strangers comfortable but to keep them under guard without implying that the visitors were prisoners. When the guards had shown the man and the boy out, Talwyn looked to Pevre and Jair.
“Once again, I have the feeling that our enemy across the sea isn’t waiting to bring the war to us,” Talwyn said. Jair could hear the fatigue in her voice, and he saw the tiredness that lined her face. “Even worse, they… or it… has the power to cause damage far behind the battlefields. And with all that power, whoever or whatever is behind this wants to free the Nachele to make it even worse.”
Chapter Three
Martris Drayke, the Summoner-King of Margolan, watched over the seer’s shoulder, giving rapt attention to the scene that was unfolding in a basin of still water. Beyral, one of the king’s rune scryers and far-seers, held her hands on either side of the basin, near but not touching the bowl. On the still surface of the water was an image of a battle being fought miles away, out on the Northern Sea. The fighting was beyond the acute eyesight of the most eagle-eyed scout, even armed with a small telescope. And so the king and two of his generals watched anxiously, breathing shallowly so as not to ripple the water with their breath.
The Dread: The Fallen Kings Cycle: Book Two Page 4