Frostgrave_Second Chances

by Matthew Ward

  The distant voices grew louder, nearer. With one last glance in the direction the wight had taken, Yelen fled after Marcan.

  * * *

  Yelen had expected Marcan’s burden to slow him, but he carried Serene as if she weighed nothing at all. This was perhaps a testament to the man’s physique, but Yelen suspected fear played the greater part. He waited impatiently at each junction, eyes darting at every shadow as the wail of the awakening barrow rose to fresh heights.

  With each step, the numbness in Yelen’s shoulder intensified, but she hung onto both torch and sword for grim life, knowing that to abandon either was to invite disaster. Each backward glance betrayed shadows gathering in passageways lately abandoned – the barrow’s inhabitants had no intention of letting the upstart living go unpunished, but Yelen had taught them to respect the flame.

  The torch flickered.

  Yelen stared at it in alarm. It’d last until they reached the camp. It had to.

  Another turn, and they were in the entrance chamber. A breathless scramble after that, and they were outside.

  The chill morning air washed across Yelen’s face, driving away the lingering effects of the barrow-chant. Somehow, it was warmer outside than in the barrow’s depths. Or was that hope she felt? Exultation soured as she tried to raise the torch higher. Her arm, frozen at the wight’s touch, responded sluggishly. She swayed, suddenly dizzy – the exertions of the night at last catching up with her.

  ‘Follow the footsteps,’ she said. ‘They’ll lead you back.’

  Marcan regarded her appraisingly. ‘Lead us back, you mean.’ Without waiting for a reply, he slipped an arm around Yelen’s waist and lent his strength to hers. ‘Can’t leave you behind, not now.’

  Yelen opened her mouth to protest. Then she closed it again as a fresh wave of tiredness swept over her, and she realised she’d be glad to have the support.

  On they staggered, Marcan seemingly tireless and unhindered by the burden of one unconscious woman, and one rapidly becoming so. Yelen tried to remember how many paces it was to the camp, but the memory eluded her – in the dark, everything looked the same, and terror had driven many details from her mind.

  She still heard the wights behind, and surely there were others waiting ahead. Would the ghost-fences keep the group from the barrow from pursuing into rival territory? There was no way to know. There was only the trail of broken snow, and the frail promise of sanctuary at the far end.

  ‘They’re still following,’ rumbled Marcan. ‘Not sure we’ll make it.’

  ‘We’ll make it,’ said Yelen, shrugging free of his supporting arm. She glanced behind, saw the darkness moving. They were closer than she’d thought, and gaining all the time. ‘We’re nearly there. Just keep going. I’ll hold them back.’

  Marcan bristled. ‘No. Give me the sword. I’ll do it.’

  ‘No. Serene can’t walk, and I can’t carry her.’

  He looked sharply away. ‘Have it your way.’ He paused. ‘Listen…’

  Yelen shoved him. ‘Just go, will you? Otherwise it’s not going to matter who stays.’

  He gave a sharp nod, and trudged off along the trail, Serene lolling on his shoulder, and barrow-wisps spiralling above his head.

  Yelen set her back to the wall and held the torch as high aloft as her numbed shoulder would allow. A minute’s head start, then she’d follow.

  The torch sputtered and died.

  Darkness rushed in, sparks of green wisp-light the only source of illumination. Low, breathy hisses washed over her like laughter. Abandoning the spent torch, Yelen took her borrowed sword in both hands, and waited for the crippling fear to return.

  To her surprise, it didn’t. There was only a dull, angry rumble deep in her guts. Maybe this was how it was for everyone in their last moments, she thought numbly. One last burst of defiance before the end.

  ‘I’m sorry, Mirika,’ she whispered.

  The darkness surged. Green eyes shone.

  Yelen threw herself aside and landed heavily in the snows. A cold, dry backwash swept over her. The wight hissed with frustration and swirled back around, pale fingers glinting in the wisp-light.

  The sword felt cold and heavy in Yelen’s hands as she swung. The desperate blow bit deep into the wight’s faceless cowl. Its angry screech became a keening wail, and the robes collapsed empty at Yelen’s feet.

  She didn’t see the second wight’s approach. She only felt the cold, sharp pain as its claws raked her upper arm.

  Yelen lurched away from her new assailant, icy numbness spreading across her shoulder. She sliced at the wight. The fresh leadenness of her sword arm made the blow clumsy. The spirit swooped away, leaving only a few scraps of severed cloth in the snows.

  Green eyes blazed all around.

  ‘Come on!’ Yelen shouted. ‘Scared of me, are you?’

  A wight darted towards her. She swung the sword, and the spirit jerked away.

  Yelen spun around, never turning her back on a wight for more than a moment, using the threat of her borrowed blade to keep them at a distance. But with each revolution, they grew bolder, withdrew with greater reluctance. They knew she was tiring. They knew it could only end one way.

  She could see their humpbacked silhouettes now, the darkness within the darkness betrayed by the dancing light of the barrow-wisps. Would they leave her dead in the snow like Darrick, Yelen wondered, or drag her back to their tombs, and make her as they were? She gave a thin, mirthless laugh. Azzanar wouldn’t like being shackled to a spirit any more than she would a corpse. There was solace in that, but it was thin and bitter as ash.

  The wights closed in a final time. Yelen marshalled the last embers of her strength, and gripped the sword tightly.

  ‘Enough! She is mine.’

  The shout rumbled like a landslide, ice and rock grinding together in a promise of icy death. It reverberated in the pit of Yelen’s stomach, stripping away what remained of her confidence with each mournful syllable.

  The wights shrank away before Yelen’s disbelieving eyes, their fear of the new-come voice seemingly every bit as abiding as her own.

  A new shape gathered in the darkness, its outline picked out by the flickering barrow-wisps. It was tall and cadaverous, the scarlet robes hanging awkwardly from an angular, fleshless body. Green light blazed from hollow eye sockets, casting peculiar shadows across the skull’s empty, skeletal rictus. Yelen had seen it before, at repose. The body of Szarnos the Great urged to new and ghastly life.

  Yelen stared in horror as the apparition approached. It was one thing to hear legends of ancient sorcerers come back from the dead, but quite another to see one with her own eyes. She wondered distantly how this could be. What use had Szarnos for Mirika if he’d reclaimed his own body?

  ‘Abase yourselves, worthless creatures!’

  Szarnos spread his arms wide. The wights cowered like the mortal vassals they’d once been. Yelen sank to her knees, not wishing to draw the undead sorcerer’s attention more than she already had. Not that the words ‘she is mine’ occasioned much comfort so far as that went.

  A hand tugged at Yelen’s arm. ‘Not you, girl.’

  Startled, Yelen turned and found herself staring into Kain’s expressionless face. The knight was still pale, and had dark, brooding shadows under her eyes, but she was no undead apparition.

  ‘Snap out of it.’ Kain reinforced her point with a vicious tug on Yelen’s arm. ‘He can’t keep them fooled forever.’

  Yelen glanced at the wights. Not one of them paid her any heed. Realization dawned. ‘Magnis?’ she whispered. ‘That’s Magnis?’

  ‘Good thing this lot’s brains are all rotted away, or they’d know it too. Now come on.’

  Yelen allowed Kain to lead her away, but kept her eyes on the huddled wights. Was it her imagination, or were some of them looking restless? Magnis’ illusion was convincing to her living eyes, but how long would it trick the senses of the undead?

  ‘I have returned!’ boomed Magnis. ‘
And claim these lands as I did before! Return to your tombs, and await my command!’

  Not one of the wights moved.

  Yelen and Kain drew parallel with the worm-eaten image of Szarnos. As they did, the first wight rose from its abasement. A bony claw extended from beneath a tattered sleeve, and a sibilant challenge hissed across the darkness.

  ‘Told you,’ muttered Kain. ‘Move!’

  For his part, Magnis clearly hadn’t given up. ‘You defy me? Have you forgotten the power I wield?’ The Szarnos-image struck a bombastic pose, arms spread as if to encircle the world.

  ‘What is he doing?’ hissed Yelen. ‘I’ve seen drunken mummers more convincing.’

  ‘That’s Magnis,’ said Kain. ‘His illusions are flawless until he opens his mouth.’

  More wights rebelled, joining the first in hissed accusation. They flowed across the snow, their numbers growing. Ahead, Yelen glimpsed the most beautiful sight she’d ever seen – a soft, white glow lighting the shoulder of the barrow mound. The camp. They were nearly back. Almost safe.

  The air filled with a venomous hiss as the wights surged forward. The Szarnos-image shattered like breaking glass, and Magnis fled towards Yelen and Kain. ‘Go! Go!’

  He thundered past Yelen in a spray of snow. Kain gave Yelen a shove. ‘You heard him.’

  ‘What about you?’

  Kain shrugged her bastard sword from its shoulder sheath. ‘What about me?’

  Yelen nodded, not wanting to force a reprise of her own earlier argument with Marcan. Then she set off after Magnis, leaving Kain to her work.

  She glanced back over her shoulder as she ran, fearful of what she’d see.

  Kain held her sword at high guard, the blade levelled at head height. A wight howled out of the darkness. The sword flashed, so fast that Yelen barely saw it move. The wight collapsed with a sound like ripping cloth. Then Kain took a long step back, the sword back at guard.

  Yelen looked again several times over the course of her retreat. Each time the scene was the same: a yowling shape severed by a blur of steel, Kain’s armoured form making an unhurried retreat across the snows. For all the concern the knight displayed, she could have been sparring, and with unskilled children, at that. Once again, Yelen wondered where Magnis had found her.

  At last, Yelen reached the fire, the light as welcome as the alien warmth. Serene sat shuddering beside the flames, Magnis at her side. Marcan reclaimed his sword, and moved to the light’s edge to watch Kain at work, his open-mouthed amazement obvious even through his beard.

  Serene stared up at Yelen as she approached, her eye red-rimmed and her face pale. ‘Kas?’

  Yelen hesitated, but what was there to say? ‘I’m sorry.’ She felt Darrick’s cold dead gaze on her as she spoke the words. The certainty that he’d caused all this returned, harder than ever. Nothing else made sense. ‘It was Darrick. He lured Kas from the camp, and left him for the wights in the hope they’d leave him alone. Kicked over the corpsefires, too. All for nothing. The wights had refused his sacrifice, and killed him instead.’

  Marcan spat.

  Magnis stared blankly at the blue-tinged body. ‘I should have sent him back.’

  ‘Should’ve cut his throat, you mean.’ Serene spoke the words through taut lips.

  ‘Maybe. He’s paid now.’

  ‘Doesn’t help Kas, does it?’ She twisted away, her words choked off.

  Kain stepped into the circle, her sword once more in its sheath. ‘They’ve gone. Even the dead know when they’re on a hiding to nothing.’

  ‘They’ll be back,’ said Magnis. ‘They won’t let our trespass stand, and I don’t fancy trying that trick again. It takes a rare talent and a deal of effort to root an illusion in an undead mind, even if I do say so myself. I’m not sure it’d work again.’ He peered thoughtfully at Yelen.

  ‘I didn’t have any choice,’ said Yelen, unsure why she felt so defensive. ‘I couldn’t leave them!’

  ‘Damn right she couldn’t,’ muttered Marcan. ‘Hells, Cavril, I know you think we’re all expendable, but there are limits!’

  Serene said nothing. Her eye was closed and her interlaced knuckles were white as snow.

  ‘You did the right thing, girl.’ For once, Kain’s voice held a note of approval even… of warmth. ‘And you’ve more than earned your passage, hasn’t she, Cavril?’

  ‘What?’ Magnis tore his gaze from Darrick’s corpse. ‘Yes. Twice over. Gather whatever’s useful from their packs, and we’ll head out. Everyone carries a corpsefire bowl. I want to be gone from this place.’

  * * *

  When dawn arrived, it found the denuded company of the Gilded Rose on the crest overlooking the Lower Reach. They’d walked without rest or food through the early hours.

  Magnis and Kain had taken lead and rearguard respectively. Neither seemed any the worse for their wight-sent dreams, and possessed both strength and alertness that Yelen knew was wholly lacking from herself. Marcan and Serene trudged at her side, each lost in private worlds, one of humiliation, and one of grief. Yelen had tried to give Serene Kas’ sword, only to be refused.

  ‘Keep it,’ she’d said. ‘You’ve earned it, love. And gods know you might yet need it.’

  Only when the barrow hills were lost beneath the ridge, and the sun burning bright in the sky above, did Magnis call a halt.

  ‘An hour, no more,’ he said, as Marcan coaxed life into a fire. ‘Some food will do us all good, but I don’t want to get caught up here if another storm comes in.’

  Yelen nodded absently, but a greater worry remained with her. It had grown like a canker in her thoughts, fed by cold and sorrow. ‘What’s the point?’ she demanded. ‘We’ve lost the trail, haven’t we? How will we find it without Kas?’

  Serene flinched at the name. Not much, but enough to make Yelen feel guilty.

  Magnis spread his hands. ‘Everything we’ve seen suggests your sister’s retracing her steps. We’ll keep on, and hope that holds true.’

  ‘And if it doesn’t?’

  ‘One problem at a time, girl,’ said Kain. ‘No point planning for a tomorrow that won’t come. Unless you’ve a better idea?’

  Yelen bit back a retort. Truth was, she hadn’t even a worse idea. She told herself that she should be glad that the Gilded Rose were prepared to press on after the disaster in the Lower Reach. She was tired. She knew she was tired. Weariness made everything seem hopeless. Mirika was alright. She had to be. ‘I’m going to take a walk.’

  Marcan glanced up from the smouldering kindling. ‘Don’t go too far. Wolves don’t come up here, but there’s always something looking for a warm meal.’

  ‘I’ll come with you.’ Serene half-rose, but subsided as Yelen waved her down.

  ‘I just need to clear my head. I won’t wander, I promise.’

  Magnis exchanged a look with Kain. The knight nodded, almost imperceptibly.

  ‘Very well,’ said Magnis. ‘You’ve earned that much.’

  Yelen set her back to the group and retraced her steps through the trees until she made out the dancing barrow-wisps far below. She wasn’t sure what had driven her to look back one last time. Perhaps it was the fact that she’d left more than Darrick and Kas behind. Part of her was still there. The part of her that had always needed someone else to get her out of trouble. What if that was what she’d needed all along – not to run from Mirika’s shadow, but to cast her own? In either event, it dismissed Azzanar’s claims of a future in which she begged for the demon’s aid. That alone was progress.

  Yelen cast a glance back the way she’d came, but saw nothing but the trees. None of the company had followed her. ‘I’ve beaten you,’ she whispered. ‘I don’t need you. I can look after myself.’

  ‘Oh really?’ said Azzanar. ‘Is that what you think just happened?’

  Yelen grimaced. She hadn’t thought the demon had been listening, but perhaps this was for the best – an opportunity to put her in her place. ‘Yes. I’m learning to stand for myself. You
and I came together because I wanted to be like Mirika. But I don’t have to be like Mirika. I can be myself.’

  The demon chuckled, wending sinuously around her thoughts. ‘Oh, the lesson’s not over yet.’

  The certainty in the silent voice sent a shiver down Yelen’s spine. ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I confess, I’m surprised you handled that without pleading for help. That’s normally what you do, after all. When I set this little game in motion, I thought it would force your hand, but it doesn’t matter. Like I told you before, I’m close to the surface now. Things are different. Especially when you’re asleep.’

  The cold shiver settled in Yelen’s gut like a lump of ice. Kas’ last, garbled words took on a different meaning. Led me from the camp. And he’d fought her at first. She’d thought that the panicked action of a dying man, but it wasn’t, was it? Led me from the camp.

  You led me from the camp.

  Slowly, as if in a dream, Yelen set a hand to her dagger and tugged if from her sheath. It came slowly, reluctantly, and a glance at the blade revealed why. It was crusted with blood.

  Yelen stuffed a fist into her mouth to stifle a gasp. ‘No! No. I didn’t.’

  She fell to her knees, scrubbing desperately at the blade with handfuls of snow, as if erasing the blood would likewise remove the guilt. Fragments of memory flooded in. Taking Kas by the hand. Blood warm on her fingers. The weight of the rock as she struck Darrick’s senses away. All distant, like a horrible dream, but too real to deny.

  ‘It wasn’t me!’

  ‘Oh, but it was, poppet,’ laughed Azzanar. ‘At least as far as the others will be concerned. And believe me, I’m just getting started.’

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  The storm returned less than an hour after the company set off again, confirming to Yelen that the brooding city hated her, and everyone she associated with. This time, the storm was more wind than snow – a development that came as both good and bad. Good, because it meant the company could see well enough to proceed. Bad, because the combination of violent gusts and unsteady ground made the going even more treacherous than before.