The Last Larnaeradee

by Shelley Cass

  Noal approached the skittish Amala, dancing on the spot a short distance away, while I turned my attention back to Kiana.

  She was still and pale, her eyes not flickering. I supported her in one arm, and stroked her hair from her face, only to find that her skin was as cold as ice.

  “Kiana, you have to wake up,” I said urgently. “Kiana, you’re the healer, I don’t know what to do, please wake up.”

  Relief flooded me when her eyes blinked open, but then I saw that there was a distress in them that I’d never expected to see in Kiana.

  She immediately tried to sit up, but then clutched at her shoulder, groaning in agony as she collapsed back and curled in my arms.

  “What is it?” I asked fretfully. “Has something happened to your shoulder?”

  “Don’t know,” she managed. Her eyes were still closed and I was scared she was going to lose consciousness again.

  “Let me have a look –” I started.

  “No,” she cut me off, speaking through gritted teeth and gasping.

  “Kiana, let me help,” I was aghast.

  She gripped my shirt with the hand on her uninjured side, her gaze asking me to understand. “No,” she repeated. “The pain will pass,” she said with certainty, and released me from her gaze. “I’ve endured worse.”

  “What can I do?” I asked, and felt her relax a little in my arms as I accepted her wishes.

  “We need to keep going to Wrilapek. It’s now the most important thing. To keep moving for the Quest.”

  “Alright,” I agreed, and her eyes closed again. She looked disturbingly fragile and vulnerable.

  I glanced over at Noal. His face was white, except for two little red circles in his cheeks. As if they had been pinched. But he had not given into his fear.

  “I need your help,” I said as he watched me with wide eyes. “We’ll have to trust that the horses won’t bolt if you drop their reins for now.”

  I had a feeling that these bays wouldn’t leave Kiana easily anyway.

  “I’ll mount up and you’ll have to lift Kiana up to me.”

  Noal nodded his head, and holding my breath, I put an arm around Kiana’s back and an arm under her legs, lifted her, and stood. She made no sound, but her face contorted as she was jostled.

  Ila and Amala stayed their ground as Noal let go of their reins and reached for Kiana.

  “Carefully now,” I said as I let her body rest in his arms. She was biting her lip and it was clear that whatever ailed her was not a normal injury.

  I quickly pulled myself onto the waiting Amala, and reached over for Noal to carefully lift Kiana up to me. I pulled her over to sit sideways across the saddle in front of me, and my heart skipped as I saw that she fought to hold back tears that were wetting tightly closed lashes. I slid one arm around her back to support her as she sat against me, and the other in front of her to grasp the reins.

  “You’re finally letting me take the reins,” I whispered jokingly as Noal mounted too, and a weak smile played faintly across her pale face.

  “Don’t go easy,” she whispered back. “Gallop when you can.”

  “It’ll hurt,” I warned her with concern.

  “I can manage.” Her eyes were still closed and she leaned with her side against my chest, her head against my shoulder, her face close to mine.

  “Alright,” I said again.

  I saw her wince as I kicked Amala into a smooth canter and motioned for Noal to follow. But, as she said, we kept up our pace until first dark when I decided to call a halt.

  Kiana had fallen asleep and had barely stirred from her position in my arms for the entire journey. Noal helped me to lift her down, and we set up a bed for her near our camp fire. I spent the night fighting all of my better judgements to search her shoulder for a wound as she slept unmoving before me.

  But by morning, when Noal and I woke, we found Kiana sitting up as ready as usual.

  “You’re well!” Noal exclaimed with undisguised relief. “We were so worried.”

  “No need to be worried.” She smiled a smile that didn’t reach her eyes. “I have an old injury that was playing up.” She was still smiling unconvincingly, and sat with her arm held lightly, gingerly.

  “In half a day we’ll get to Wrilapek where we can have a freshly cooked lunch,” Kiana said then, and effectively stopped Noal from questioning her.

  He scuttled up, making ready to leave at once and I moved to help him break camp, kicking away any traces of our fire and sweeping up tell-tale signs of our stay.

  We mounted and I didn’t say a word when Kiana positioned herself on Amala behind me. She put her arms around my waist and laid her head against my back as we rode on again.

  Chapter Thirty Nine

  Dalin

  I felt the cold against my back as Kiana straightened to sit up alertly for the first time in hours.

  “I can smell smoke on the wind. There’s been a fire ahead,” she said.

  “I can’t smell anything,” I replied nervously.

  “Something’s not right.” She sounded troubled. “Watch for signs of anything strange ahead.”

  As we rode onward that uneasy feeling I’d had for the last week seemed to intensify. With each of Amala’s strides I felt I was being drawn closer to something rotten and inexplicable.

  Eventually Noal and I could smell the smoke Kiana had warned of, and now we could see steady tendrils of it rising up into the clouds in the distance, close to the woods that Kiana had said bordered Wrilapek. My stomach began churning with nerves as, the closer we got to the expanse of trees and village beyond, the thicker the smoke became.

  I moved to steer Amala around the trees, but Kiana stopped me. “Go through them,” she said grimly. “We may want cover.”

  “Cover from what?” Noal asked a little shrilly. “What do you think has happened Kiana?”

  “I can only guess.” She didn’t elaborate, but with thudding hearts we moved into the cover of the trees, our eyes darting toward every stirring leaf and shifting blade of grass.

  Finally, stepping around another row of towering trees, we saw the brighter light ahead that signalled their end. My eyes were watering with the smoky air and my lungs laboured to make use of the unclean oxygen swirling visibly around us.

  “Halt here,” Kiana ordered quietly, and she slid out of the saddle while Noal and I followed compliantly, tethering our reins to a low branch and trailing Kiana silently to the break in the trees.

  Though Wrilapek should have been just beyond the opening of the trees, there were no sounds of life, no indications that any people lived near.

  “Keep quiet, no matter what you see. Do not move beyond the shelter of the trees unless I say so,” Kiana whispered back to us as we reached the edge of the woods. Her dagger was already in one hand, and the other hovered over her sword.

  Following Kiana’s lead, we moved forward to each take shelter behind a tree, and, after a nod from Kiana, we peered slowly around their trunks.

  Kiana cursed softly.

  Noal gasped and fell heavily against his tree.

  My stomach felt as though it had dropped to my feet, and I saw nothing but the ruins of Wrilapek.

  The sun was setting over charred and smoking remains. A still graveyard.

  It could not have been from natural causes. There was no way that a fire that had engulfed an entire village wouldn’t have spread to the trees or become a beacon to Awyalknians far and wide. But worse, there was a feeling in the air, as though the atmosphere was sizzling with some hair raising, corrupted power. It felt thick and lingering, with invisible filth that coated our skin, foul and gritty.

  Noal had sunk down to the ground, nauseated.

  “How could a village, a whole village, be lost without warning?” he gasped, and covered his mouth, ready to gag. I sank down beside him, also feeling as though I would be sick if I breathed too hard.

  “Magic,” Kiana was stony faced. “It is exactly like Bwintam. It is exactly like th
e other border villages.” She drew her sword, still holding her dagger in the other hand and ignoring the pain in her shoulder.

  “What are you doing?” I whispered, reeling with shock.

  “I’m going to see if anyone’s left,” Kiana replied flatly.

  “You could find anyone. Good or bad!” I tried to keep my voice low.

  “That is my plan.”

  “We need to tell someone what’s happened,” Noal babbled.

  “We won’t need to,” she told him in a quiet, reasoning tone. “Some traveller will pass and see what’s happened and this place will be crawling with people. Though it will do no good for the dead.” She peered beyond the trees grimly. “But I can look for survivors right now and tend them, or look for enemies and avenge the dead.”

  I stood up too. “I’ll go with you,” I told her shakily.

  “I will be fast and thorough alone. Remember, I am a hunter. Stealth is my way.”

  I made to reply, but she shook her head to quiet me. “Enough,” she ordered me softly. But the confidence behind her natural tone of command left no room for argument.

  “I will return. Do not move from the shelter of the trees. Soon enough, we will all face danger.”

  Then she simply turned and left the protection of the trees, stepping lightly and melting into the cover of the shells of buildings.

  Noal and I were left to huddle together, shuddering and staring away from the chaos as the darkness of growing night and magic swirled in the air around us.

  I barely knew Kiana had returned until she squatted down in front of us. Noal flinched.

  There was blood all over her tunic and dust covering her hands.

  I sat forward in concern. “Where are you hurt?” I croaked.

  “The blood is not mine,” she answered and my stomach twisted.

  “Was there anyone … anyone at all?” Noal asked sickly.

  Kiana shook her head. “Nobody.”

  The blood and ash covering her was testimony to the fact that she must have searched each body for life.

  “I walked through every burned out room and street. I only found day old tracks returning to Krall.” She straightened then. “But now we must move on. We cannot stay at the gateway to a graveyard. Especially when our feelings of foreboding are not gone.”

  I realised she was right, and shivered at the thought that, while the mortal murderers may be gone, the evil thing, the magical one that had been here, could still be about.

  Kiana did not have to say that it could be the same magical one that Darziates might send specifically after us.

  Noal was staring at the ground numbly, but she rose and leaned toward him. “Come,” she said, sheathing her sword and holding her dusty hand out.

  I was about to tell her that he could not talk when he felt this way. But he stared up at her hand. After a moment he clasped it and stood, allowing her to lead him back to the horses.

  We turned as Kiana quickly poured flask water over her face, hands and arms, and discarded her bloody clothes to put on a new shirt and tunic from her packs.

  Then we rode out the night and into the next day, with blank faces and with Kiana pushing us to put as much distance as possible between ourselves and the village of dead.

  Chapter Forty

  Noal

  We had been largely silent in the days following Wrilapek, until Kiana had given us an invigorating tonic. It was of her own mixture from her healing bag, and we were relieved enough by it as we settled into our most recent camp site, that we tried hollowly to create some kind of functioning communication again.

  “You do remember that apples will be the death of me one day,” I grimaced as I always did at the sight of them when Kiana handed them out for our frugal dinner.

  “Or tea,” Kiana added quietly for me. “You’ve pointed out a hatred for tea as well.”

  Dalin tried half-heartedly to involve himself. “And I’ve just as often pointed out that I always thought Wilmont’s scorn would one day be the death of me,” he shrugged. “You never know.”

  “He could kill with a glance,” I agreed, but then I noticed Kiana had frozen. Her body had become rigid and she peered out through the darkness beyond our camp.

  “What is it?” I asked in alarm at her sudden change, also trying to look about myself.

  It was then, chilling and sudden in the dark of the night, that we heard two sounds in the distance, very far off.

  An inhuman shrieking call from one direction that was answered by another call in the distance.

  The wild echoes were so faint, and sounded so ghoulish and unnatural, that one could almost question whether or not they had been real.

  But Kiana stood quickly, her head sharply turned to listen. And we could not hide from the truth. We had heard unnatural calls like that before, when two beasts of cold darkness had first attacked us.

  “What do we do?” I whispered in horror, wondering where in the world we could hide.

  “We can do nothing,” Kiana was composed. “We are far from where they are and we have tired our horses and must rest them. We do nothing, safely, but ride hard tomorrow.”

  My heart raced and it felt suddenly as if white glowing eyes were peering out of the darkness at us from everywhere, as if the shadows beyond the light of our fire were moving and breathing, pressing in.

  I imagined them getting closer with every passing moment … loping and clawing their way across darkened fields to find us and freeze us with their cold grips. The usual clammy feeling of fear spread across my palms and sent tingles along my back. My breath began to quicken.

  “We knew we would be pursued,” Kiana said simply, her voice cutting across my clouding panic. “Take this as a compliment that Darziates still regards this Quest as important enough to worry about.”

  Dalin’s face was grave, but we said nothing as she calmly spread out her cloak to nestle in for the first watch of the night.

  Following her lead, we laid in shivering bundles on the grassy floor. But I peered around myself and squirmed with every crackle of the fire or rustling sound of some little animal scurrying harmlessly about in the night.

  Chapter Forty One

  Agrona had been enraptured as she’d swept across the chaos of Wrilapek, blasting dwellings to oblivion. Fire had raged through happy homes, screams had echoed down every lane, children had cried, thick blood had spattered the ground and her men had been laughing.

  Agrona had sent out thoughts to keep the villages’ horses penned safely in their stalls, and carefully prevented any fire from spreading out of the borders of the village into the trees. Not because she hadn’t wanted to set Awyalkna alight and roasting, but because it would draw more attention than was necessary so early. Angra’s soldiers would be safely back over the borders before Glaidin could retaliate.

  She’d paused to squawk encouragement as an elderly man had been stomped on, and had taken delight in the finality of the crunching of his bones into the dirt. She had stopped to admire Angra Mainyu’s undeniably effective methods as he’d slit the throat of a shrieking old lady. And Agrona herself had set a wailing child on fire.

  When the men had had their fun, when there’d been no more blood to spill, she’d let them rummage around for whatever trinkets they could find. Then she’d rounded them up, made sure each man had a horse, before they’d set off for Krall with laughs of merriment and pockets full of bounty, blanketed once more with her power. She only saw them out of the remains of the village and across the borders though, before she turned back to start her second task and to meet the five modified Evexus back at the ruins.

  She felt exhilarated as she swooped in again to the remains of Wrilapek – but nearly toppled out of her tree when a second vision, like the one that had visited upon her months ago, swamped her mind.

  She saw a girl. A woman. Beautiful. Powerful. She saw the two boys again. They were with the woman. She was their guide! They had been here, at the remains of Wrilapek. They had stayed a wh
ile but then had fled. No, not fled, but set off on their Quest again.

  If the woman were to live, the boys could succeed. Krall would be made equal to Awyalkna despite numbers and despite the magic of the Sorcerer, of herself and of the Evexus and the Dragons.

  But worse, if the woman were to live … Darziates would desire her. More than he desired his Witch.

  The woman was dangerously beautiful, yet also somehow powerful. She was a threat to Agrona and to Darziates’ Quest.

  Agrona lurched back to reality with a harsh cry of fury tearing from her raven’s beak. She was sure she had seen the woman of the vision somewhere before. Where? How had she never known that the woman was so powerful? That the King would want her?

  She must kill the woman. To save Krall, and to save Darziates for herself.

  Her feathers stood on end in livid indignation and her beak snapped open and closed as she angrily flapped up from her perch. She refused to believe it. None before in hundreds of years had been as powerful as herself or the Sorcerer. Not even the foul Lady of Sylthanryn, in the Great Forest of old.

  But then Agrona’s sharp raven eyes alighted on an ash and blood covered shirt and tunic discarded on the leafy floor. And when she gripped them with her talons and sent her thoughts out to find the owner of the garments, a chill ruffled her feathers again as she felt suddenly ill at the touch of them, and she found that her mind was indeed drawn back to the same three shadowy figures she had sensed those other times.

  But now there was something else she could sense. Something threatening. Something that felt a lot like the owner of the shirt had magic of a sort, or was being protected by magic somehow.

  Agrona’s sleek, dark middle roiled inside as she raged at the idea that this was possible. And as she puzzled over how it had happened, when all good magic, except that of those in the protection of the Lady of the Forest, had been wiped out in the mortal lands by her own cherished master.