The outcome was inevitable.
One jarring strike dropped her dagger, the other left three gouges across her left shoulder. Myst screamed for a few seconds before the beast grabbed her by the throat and lifted her off the ground like she weighed nothing more than a child. Myst tried to pry the beast’s claws away, but she might have been trying to bend metal with her bare hands. It was simply too powerful.
The wolf-thing moved its head close, sniffing Myst’s wound and licking it once with a long black tongue.
“Not challenging at all,” it said with its guttural voice. “You are still a pup, though. A few more seasons might have made you a bit more interesting.”
Myst tried to tell the thing to take his observations to the nightmare realm, but the best she could do was try to stay conscious. A red haze began to envelop her line of sight. The beast lowered her ever so slightly so that its maw was close to her face.
“A pity I cannot allow you to live,” it said with an almost believable remorse. “My orders are sacrosanct. You and your kind must pay for the theft of the Purestone.”
The thing began to tighten its grip.
Myst suddenly found herself on her knees as air rushed into her bruised throat. The creature had let go and was howling in rage and pain. The wolf-beast had stepped back, favoring its left leg as a steady stream of blood gushed through its thick fur down to its sinewy calf muscle. Myst noted how blue it looked in the magical light. The monster examined its wound and then turned its gaze upon its attacker. Its glowing stare focused upon Tair, who was barely propped up by one elbow, brandishing a blood-stained dagger.
Myst quickly found her own blade and jumped up. The clearing spun dizzily as Myst tried to calm her rapid heartbeat. “You will not touch her!” she shouted. The effort tore her throat apart and came out as a ragged croak. She then gestured to the creature’s bleeding gash, “How long before your life bleeds away from you?”
The wolf beast growled at them, but it knew she was right. The wounded girl had cut him deep. Snarling in frustration, the beast grabbed its quarterstaff, loped up the small rise and disappeared, melding into the shadows cast by the hovering globe of light. Myst could only stand there, her dagger shaking in her hands. She looked down to see Tair staring back up at her.
“See that?” she said groggily. “You can’t do anything without me.”
Tair’s head then promptly fell forward into the leafy mud of the forest floor.
***
Myst quickly set about securing Tair to the litter once more, all the while casting fearful glances at the broken foliage that marked the entrance to the low clearing. The blue-white ball of light still hung suspended above her, giving everything a ghoulish tinge. Myst had attempted to wake Tair, but it was no use. Tair had awoken during the fight and had somehow used any energy she had left to stab the beast. Myst hoped that her awakening was a sign that her injuries were not as severe as first thought, but she couldn’t take any chances. Tightening the second belt that held Tair to the roughly made litter, Myst dragged her up the small hill and over the rim, staring back only once to notice the magical sphere of light dim and then darken completely.
She paused briefly as she reached the road, making sure the wolf creature was not lying in wait for them, but only darkness awaited her. Myst looked both ways, unhappy with the fact that she was to travel in the inky blackness of night with the possibility of the wolf-beast hunting her. She looked back to where the servants had perished and heaved a forlorn sigh. There was no help for it…they had been carrying lanterns at some point before the creature killed them.
Myst dragged Tair back to where she heard the screams and soon found the shapes of bodies sprawled on the road. The coppery scent of blood hung heavy in the air. Myst gently laid Tara to the ground and crouched near one of the bodies. She felt along the cooling shape, hoping she would not touch anything wet. Finding a lantern rather quickly, she thanked the gods and stood, reaching into a small pack on her belt for a flint box and candle stub. Using both, Myst was able to light the lantern and breathe a sigh of relief.
“This will get us to Tabaan faster,” she said out loud. She then turned the small knob on the lantern to make the flame a bit larger.
She quickly wished she hadn’t.
The bodies were all along the road, some were close together, while others looked as though they had tried to run. Their throats had been ripped open; blood soaked the ground all around them. Myst took a step back, nearly stumbling over Tair. The servants’ eyes still stared upward in shock. Even in death, their eyes reflected the horror and disbelief of what attacked them.
Myst gave them a quick prayer, giving their souls strength and allowing their bodies to return to the earth. Myst was not generally a spiritual person, but she had been raised in a household that worshipped Ethaea, goddess of the green, and she knew enough to send these souls to rest. She only wished she had enough time to properly bury them.
Shaking her head sadly, Myst tied the lantern to one of the handles of the litter. This would give them light without burdening Myst any further. Once done, she took her place in front and stretched down to pick up the worn end. That was when she noticed the pain for the first time. Sucking in a sharp breath, Myst placed her hand over her left shoulder and gasped when a burning sting shot up from the area.
The beast had scratched her. In all the excitement, she had completely forgotten her own wounds. Leaning down, Myst examined the bleeding scratches and noted with some relief that they were not deep. Shrugging off the pain, Myst told herself that she could get it looked at once they reached Tabaan.
Taking hold of the litter, Myst began marching south. She kept a wary eye on the darkness outside the small circle of light the lantern provided. Her right hand would occasionally reach for her dagger whenever a nocturnal forest creature cried out too closely. There were times when something within the forest would step on a twig, snapping it loud enough to make Myst stop and hold her breath. In her mind, Myst could feel the monster’s fiercely glowing eyes upon her and Tair from the darkness beyond the tree line. She realized that the road to Tabaan was not the best way to stay hidden, but she could not traverse the forest or the riverside with Tair unconscious.
Myst walked for miles, unwavering, unyielding in her desire to get them to safety. She met no one else on the road, no survivors or refugees from Valdine. Myst was too tired to understand the implications of this; she only wanted to get Tair to a healer and sleep for six days. Myst was so tired that she failed to notice that the pitch black of the nighttime forest was giving way to the blue-gray of the coming dawn. The sinister calls of the nocturnal creatures gave way to the incessant, joyful chirping of those starting their day. Once she realized that dawn was near, her strength was renewed and she moved at a faster pace.
The road curved to the southwest, away from the river. Taking the bend, Myst was surprised to see a wall of fog drifting across the road in front of her. Slowing down, she felt dread enveloped her, dropping into her stomach like a lead weight. She dragged Tair to the side of the road and set her down quietly. Unsheathing her sword, Myst took a few steps toward the dark grey wall and let the fog pass over her.
It was not fog. It was smoke.
Tabaan was burning.
6
No, no, no, no, Myst repeated in her head.
She paced back and forth along the road, the thick trail of smoke still drifting nearby. The creatures must have moved along the Tebis’non, sailing past her and Tair sometime in the night. They had reached Tabaan and burned it – just as they burned Valdine. The next town or village was over a three day walk from here and Tair’Lianne would not survive that long without a healer.
Myst stopped her pacing and looked down at Tair strapped to the litter. Her breathing had become normal, but she was very pale. Her raven-black hair was matted with blood; her eyes were sunken, framed by shades of black and dark blue; her left hand was turning purple and swelling from the broken bone in her arm.<
br />
Myst turned to face the road leading into Tabaan. She looked beyond the smoke, trying to see how bad the attack had been or if the creatures remained within the small village. She knew she had to find something to clean Tair’s wounds, but it would be all for naught if they were burned to a crisp by the tiger-men.
Heaving a resigned sigh, Myst sheathed her blade and picked up Tair’s litter. She moved it to the other side of the road, away from the river a few feet into the brush. Yanking a few thick clumps of foliage off a nearby bush, Myst gently laid them on Tair, camouflaging her against anyone who might happen to walk by. She leaned forward and whispered to her friend, “I don’t know if you can hear me, but Tabaan has been attacked. I’m going in to find some supplies. I’ll be back as soon as I can.”
Myst waited for a moment to see if Tair would reply, but nothing came. Patting her friend gently on the right shoulder, Myst stood and drew her sword again. Steeling her resolve, she moved carefully into the smoke, trying to see and hear anything that might come at her. It was times like these that Myst wished she had stayed in Joram’s Bend and did what her family had intended her to do - marry the son of a rival farming house and have a few babies. It tended to lead to a longer life compared with gambling in seedy taverns or fighting mystical wolf men in dark forests.
The sound of a crackling fire pulled Myst out of her thoughts. A quick morning breeze shifted the smoke just enough for her to see the burnt husk of the town’s water mill. A few flames still touched what remained of the building, while the rest of the mill had collapsed closer to the river, leaving a black, skeletal frame. The main road continued around the building and the silence that stretched across the area was more unnerving than the chaos she had experienced in Valdine.
Myst passed a few homes that had succumbed to the fires. At least she thought they were homes. It was hard to tell from the smoking timbers that jutted out from blackened stone squares like fingers clawing their way out of the earth. The wind began to pick up, thinning the smoke until it only irritated her eyes.
The sun now peeked over the horizon, its warm disposition somehow inappropriate to the carnage Myst found in the town square. The crumbled remains of a stone fountain dominated the center. A number of large buildings that surrounded it were still aflame. Scattered around the square were dozens of charred bodies.
Most were burned beyond recognition; some still had their flesh intact. Most of the victims huddled near the fountain while others looked as though they had tried to flee. The smell made Myst gag, and had she have eaten anything recently, she was quite sure it would have come up. She covered her mouth and tried not to breathe in the foul air. She made a cursory inspection of the buildings nearby and found nothing she could use. Even the two-story inn that she and Tair slept in during their earlier visit had been ravaged to its foundations. Myst ran from the square, taking the road leading west, away from the river.
She found more bodies here. Some looked as if they attempted to outrun the fire before it consumed them. Others, who showed no signs of being burned, had the all too familiar signs of being attacked by the wolf creature. Myst gripped her sword tighter in response. Judging by the way the fires were nearly spent, Myst assumed that the attack had happened hours earlier. Was it more than one monster? It had to be, for the creature she faced could not have reached Tabaan in so short a time.
Myst followed the road at a more cautious pace, thinking all the while about how she could fight more than one of those nightmarish creatures. Another road branched south while the current one continued west. If Myst remembered correctly, the south road led to the small docks of the village, while the west led to homes and farmsteads. She thought to check the river first, to make sure the creatures had moved on, but stopped when she heard the shrill cry of a child from the west.
Instinct took over for Myst. Harming adults was bad enough, but harming defenseless children could not be accepted. She charged through the smoke, her sword hand aching to end whatever malice threatened the child. She briefly recalled that there were no bodies of children in the square and she hoped the enemy had not found where the adults had hidden them.
She pushed through another thick layer of smoke, her body tense and her muscles coiled to fight. Out of the smoke she came and then abruptly stopped. Four small homesteads lined the avenue. Simple homes of timber and river stone were untouched while sloping roofs of thatch remained free of flame. At least ten children ranging in age from twelve to just mewling toddlers sat outside the home with the largest lawn. Some of them played half-heartedly, others sat in stunned silence – obvious victims of a terrible crime.
An adult female gasped and stood from a small table near the children. She held the child Myst heard crying and took a step away from her in fear. “Berik! Berik!” the woman cried through a window with an open shutter.
A man as thick as a tree came running out of the house, bending over to avoid bashing his skull on the low threshold. A blood-soaked bandage was wrapped around his brow, covering his left eye. He held a sword, but it was a crude weapon; not as structured or balanced as the blade Myst let fall to her side.
The children all grew silent once more and watched as Berik approached the wild woman with the sword. The man’s meaty hands were wrapped tight around the hilt and he held the weapon up in the clumsy manner of a farmer. Berik was older, Myst could see, due to the grey in his hair and stubble on his face. His brown eyes told a story of fear, despair, and determination. This was a man who was done being defeated.
He approached and demanded to know who she was and why she was here.
“I am Mystrianna Almdor,” she replied, leaving her weapon at her side. “I have come from Valdine. The city was destroyed by fire, by the same creatures that attacked your village. I have a friend just outside by the mill who is hurt. I…We came…”
The battle, lack of food and water, the wound on her shoulder, and her exhaustion finally caught up to her. Myst felt herself fall to the ground and slip into oblivion.
***
Myst woke up feeling as though someone had shoved glass down her throat and poured sand in her mouth. She lay on her back with a thick woven rug between her and the stone floor. Myst saw that she was in a medium-sized room with an arched, wood-beamed ceiling. A rectangular window was above her head, its green-slatted shutters open to allow fresh air in. The smell of wood smoke was gone, except for what still clung to the fabric of her clothes, and was replaced with some sort of flowery incense wafting through the breeze.
Myst propped herself up, noting she was between two cots with clean linens wrapped around them. The room was filled with cots, a few of them occupied by sleeping forms. She heard someone shuffling nearby and lifted her head enough to see a thick woman with long, dark brown hair that was haphazardly tied in a knot at the back of her head. She wore simple clothes of earthen tones with a heavy brown shawl tied around her waist. She was busy with something at a long, low table that lined the far wall of the room.
Myst reached for her sword, unsure of who the person was or of her intentions. There was nothing there. Her sword and dagger had been taken. That was also when Myst noticed that her shoulder had been wrapped with a clean bandage. An enemy would not heal her and then kill her.
Myst sighed quietly. Good thing for her that she passed out amongst friendly people instead of out in the middle of nowhere just like…
“Oh no,” Myst gasped loudly.
“Your friend is safe,” the woman said with a voice younger than what Myst expected. The woman turned to face her and smiled benignly. “I apologize for placing you on the floor. When you arrived, we had very little room.”
Myst nodded, rubbing a hand through the tangle of hair on top of her head as the woman approached her with a wooden cup filled with water. Myst accepted with a hasty thank you and she gulped the cool, soothing liquid in two swallows. The woman smiled and took the cup to retrieve more. She looked to be a bit older than Myst, but not by much. Her face was still you
thful; cherubic, if not chubby, with a wide nose and full lips. Her eyes were autumn brown with a sprig of green. She looked disheveled and exhausted, but she kept the smile on her face as she brought another cup of water to Myst.
Myst thanked her again, this time properly, and took her time sipping the water. “Are we still in Tabaan?” she asked.
“What’s left of it,” the woman said, a frown marring her jovial mask. “I am Laridiya, healer of this unfortunate village.”
Myst introduced herself and described to the healer how she and Tair had barely escaped the destruction of Valdine. She told her about the fires and of the strange tiger-creatures that could manipulate the flames with a gesture. At the mention of the tiger men, Laridiya focused her attention on Myst’s story. “Fire Magi,” she muttered. “Are you certain they were not men wearing masks?”
“Yes,” Myst answered. “I am quite certain. They were aided in their killing by wolf men, and I can tell you without doubt that the monsters are in league with the tigers.”
“Wolf men?” Laridiya queried, receiving an insistent nod from Myst.
“They came after the survivors…came after us,” Myst shuddered.
Laridiya’s face became more subdued, her eyes growing dark with anger. “That was no ordinary beast that attacked you,” she announced.
“Pardon me?” Myst’s brownish-red brows rose in an agitated state.
“The creatures that attacked Tabaan and Valdine are Zynnashans – a race of hybrids with the strength, speed, and cunning of the animals they are merged with, along with the intelligence and emotions of humans,” explained the healer. “You might know them from their common name – Zyn Beasts.”
Rage of the Diamond's Eye (The Guildsmen Series Book 1) Page 6