by Lisa Shearin
No pixies. No lights.
Piaras’s head popped up beside me. “They’re gone?” he gasped, once he had filled his own lungs. He seemed as doubtful of our good fortune as I was.
I scanned the surrounding trees. No glow. “That’s what it looks like.”
“Why?”
“Tastier offer?” I didn’t really believe it, but it would have to do until something else came along; but in the meantime, I wasn’t going to question it too closely. “Let’s get out of here.”
I felt heavier coming out of the pond than I had going in. I knew I was taking some of the pond with me soaked into my clothes, but I was listing a little too far to the right. Piaras looked at me, his eyes as big as saucers.
“Raine.” His voice was tight.
I stopped and looked down at myself. I didn’t see anything. “What?”
He grimaced and pointed to my right side.
I lifted my right arm to get a good look and bit back a scream. It came out as a squeak.
A black, shiny leech was working hard to attach itself to my ribs. It was easily a foot long. And from the enthusiastic way it was squirming to get through my leathers to my skin, I must have been the best thing to come along in quite a while.
I cleared the water and was on the bank with my knife out in record time. The only thing I wanted worse than to have that leech off was to scream. I couldn’t remember ever wanting to scream and run that badly.
“Soul-stealing rock, razor-fanged pixies, blood-sucking leeches,” I hissed as I struggled to get my knife wedged under the thing’s blindly seeking mouth and pry it off. “When this is over I’m going to treat myself to a screaming fit. I deserve it, and I’m going to have one.”
I sliced the leech from my doublet and checked myself for others. I stopped. Something was very wrong. Even more wrong than foot-long leeches. Piaras coughed twice from swallowing water, and then it hit me. The noise Piaras had just made was the only sound I could hear. It was as if every creature, living or whatever, was holding its collective breath in anticipation of something. The pixies had known what it was, that’s why they had given up so quickly. I suspected we didn’t want to wait around and find out what the pixies knew. Piaras realized it at the same time.
“Which is it?” he whispered.
I assumed he was referring to my litany of this evening’s monsters.
“None of the above. We need to move.” The amulet felt like it was trying to slice its way through my doublet to free itself. “Whatever it is, it’s coming at us fast.”
I doubled back toward the hill with the intention of skirting its base. That would put us back in the direction of the closest way out. The newest threat was coming from the opposite direction, so every step in our present direction took us farther from the whatever-it-was and closer to home. Worked for me.
I stopped suddenly just before the edge of a large clearing. Piaras plowed into me from behind, and we both went down in a tangle of limbs. I looked up and froze.
Prince Chigaru Mal’Salin stepped out of the shadows about fifty yards to our right. He wasn’t alone. I didn’t expect he would be. He had neither seen nor heard us, though I imagined that would change soon enough. He was well armed and armored, which was more than I could say for myself or Piaras. Looked like someone was a little put out by our early departure.
Rahimat, the goblin spellsinger, drifted wraithlike out of the trees to stand beside him. Neither of them had sensed us, and I didn’t know if it was the beacon shielding us, or the presence of whatever was coming up behind us. What I did know was that we were trapped between the goblins and something the amulet and my own instincts were telling me was infinitely worse.
Chapter 12
“Mistress Benares. I know you are here. I promise I will not harm you or your spellsinger, which is more than I can say for the creatures living in this forest. You will not make it out alive without my protection.”
Spellsinger? I swore silently. So much for keeping Piaras out of this.
The goblin prince paused, listening. He gestured, and his guards spread out to surround the area where we were. They didn’t know our exact location, but it wouldn’t take them long, especially if they stepped on us.
My hands were sweating against the leather dagger grips. I forced my breathing to remain even, and released the shielding spell I had been holding, quietly I hoped, to cover both of us.
The goblin prince and his guards moved closer. They didn’t make any effort to be quiet. They didn’t need to. They weren’t the ones hiding.
“I give you my word, both of you will be released unharmed once I have the Saghred.”
That’s what the prince was saying, but that wasn’t what I believed. I kept my hand on Piaras’s shoulder, and willed him not to move. I need not have bothered with the warning. Piaras remained flat on the ground, peering through the thick reeds, eyes alert to the goblins moving toward us. The long dagger was in his hand, and the look on his face said that he wasn’t going anywhere else with a goblin tonight—and if any goblin tried to make him, they were going to regret it.
Prince Chigaru’s guards were armed mainly with swords. There were a few crossbowmen. Not nearly few enough, but I would take any advantage I could get. I wouldn’t exactly call what I sensed approaching us an advantage, but if it gave the crossbowmen something else to shoot at besides us, they were more than welcome to join the party.
I didn’t know what scared me worse: the goblins, what was stalking us, or what I wore around my neck. If metal could have emotions, I would say that the beacon was having some strong ones, and it was doing everything it could to compel me to share them. My mind knew I was outside and there was plenty of air for everyone. My body wasn’t convinced. The air was getting thick. Only one thing could do that. Magic. The bad kind. And there was entirely too much of it.
I was being hunted, and not just by the prince.
I looked up. A richly robed goblin stood on the far side of the clearing, halfway between us and Chigaru Mal’Salin. The prince’s guards froze. I didn’t blame them. I also didn’t need a formal introduction to the newcomer. We’d met last night.
Sarad Nukpana stood alone, completely unprotected from Prince Chigaru’s guards. Any one of them could have put a bolt in his chest. Not a one of them tried.
The grand shaman’s head turned, his gaze leisurely taking in every goblin in the clearing. Some of the prince’s guards shifted uneasily, some looked away. I heard branches snapping as a few goblins back in the trees bolted in terror.
“I should have expected a traitor to be hiding in the wild with the animals,” Nukpana said.
“Or Khrynsani to be consorting with monsters,” Prince Chigaru replied, his features expressionless.
Others emerged from the shadows behind Sarad Nukpana, some robed, others in royal Mal’Salin armor. They had no intention of attacking immediately. They were waiting for something, and I for one, could go through the rest of the night without knowing what.
A solitary goblin stepped forward as the others deferentially made way for him. This was unexpected. The beautifully intricate scrollwork on his chestplate clearly identified him. Twin serpents twining around one another, battling for dominance, both surmounted by a crown. He looked like a slightly older version of the prince.
King Sathrik Mal’Salin.
“Brother,” he said.
Prince Chigaru remained motionless. “Sathrik.”
“You will address your king as Your Majesty.” Nukpana’s voice was still and quiet, but the menace was clear.
“He is not my king, and he is no longer my brother,” Chigaru said. “He is worthy of neither my respect nor my honor, so I may refer to him in any manner I choose.” He laughed softly. It was hollow and without humor. “He should count himself fortunate I use his given name rather than others that come to mind.”
Piaras and I didn’t need to be anywhere near this reunion. If we ran, we would be shot. If we stayed, we would be found, and th
en shot. And that was if we were lucky. Clearly, the ending would be bad either way. At the moment, I didn’t know which Mal’Salin brother was worse, and I didn’t even want to think about Sarad Nukpana. I suspected Sathrik Mal’Salin lacked the power to call his grand shaman to heel if he wanted to play with us a while before he had us killed. Still, if his words to me last night were any indication, Sarad Nukpana wanted me very much alive. That might be even worse.
The prince inclined his head in somber acknowledgment of his brother as he slid his saber free of its sheath. The hiss of escaping metal was instantly repeated on both sides. From the eager faces around us, this was a confrontation a long time in the making. I so did not want to be here when it happened.
The night was suddenly split by a feral goblin war cry. I couldn’t tell which side it came from. It was immediately answered in kind by a raw voice. Bolts were loosed from both sides as the goblins eagerly charged each other.
I didn’t wait to see any more. I pushed Piaras to his feet and we ran back into the trees. I couldn’t see where I was going, and until we put the sound of goblins killing each other well behind us, I didn’t care. I found spaces between the trees, but more often I found brambles and vines. My face and arms stung with tiny cuts. The ground abruptly dropped away into a ditch. Piaras’s long legs took him to the other side. Mine weren’t as long, and I wasn’t as lucky. I landed just short of the rim, and my knee slammed hard into the ground. Tears came to my eyes, but I pulled myself up and kept running.
Piaras suddenly stopped. It was my turn to run into him. Fortunately for both of us, he didn’t fall down.
I saw what had stopped him in his tracks. I agreed with his decision. Sarad Nukpana wasn’t what I had sensed hunting me.
A black mass loomed before us. I had seen it before—through Siseal Peli’s dying eyes.
More of them glided from the trees, surrounding us. I felt rather than heard something move behind me. I spun, going back-to-back with Piaras, my daggers held low. I was face-to-whatever with one of them. I slashed where an abdomen should be, but the blade passed straight through it. An oily finger extended to touch me. The beacon kicked against my chest like a hammer. My chest tightened until I couldn’t breathe past the pain, and my vision blurred. The things drew back.
Someone was running toward us through the trees. Moments later four Khrynsani shamans burst into the clearing. Like Piaras and me, they stopped dead at the sight of the monsters. But unlike us, they didn’t seem surprised to see them. They didn’t exactly look relieved either. The shamans moved to surround them, chanting in low, sibilant whispers. I recognized some elements of a containment spell, but of a sort that I had never been taught, nor would ever want to learn. Perfect for monsters.
It had no effect.
It was the goblins’ turn to be surprised. I felt their fear, and the creatures’ hunger. They wanted us more than they wanted to obey the shamans, and the goblins’ spells just seemed to annoy them. Maybe it was me, but annoying these things didn’t seem like a good idea. The shamans didn’t see it that way and kept chanting. Two of the creatures turned toward them. The eyes of the goblin closest to us widened in disbelief.
Two of the things glided toward him. The goblin stopped chanting and drew breath to scream, but the creatures reached him before he had the chance. They flowed over the spot where he had stood. Nothing remained.
A static charge like the aftermath of lightning hung in the air. Two of the creatures had now fed, and the others shifted restlessly, eager to do the same. The remaining three shamans were more experienced. They didn’t run—and they should have.
Some of the creatures drifted closer to me and Piaras, their caution giving way to hunger. I fought back in every way I knew. Garadin’s lessons hadn’t left me unprepared. My repel and shielding spells were of the highest level, but nothing worked. The more I threw at them, the tastier a morsel I became. Magic didn’t stop them. It fed them.
The final goblin shaman managed to scream before they took him. Then Piaras and I had their undivided attention.
Garadin had taught Piaras protection spells, but because of his age and inexperience, I had assumed they were only the most basic. I was wrong.
Piaras sang. His normally warm, rich baritone turned harsh and dark, the notes booming and discordant. He sang in goblin, the language the creatures supposedly obeyed, the language of dark magics. I didn’t like hearing it from Piaras. But the monsters just ate it up. Literally.
Spells didn’t work, sung or otherwise. Shields didn’t work. They just swallowed them whole. The beacon thrashed against the center of my chest like a wild horse fighting a bridle. I froze, suddenly more afraid of what I was thinking than what the monsters were about to do. Prince Chigaru said the beacon was connected to the Saghred. If I was connected to the beacon, I was connected to the Saghred. The creatures ate everything I could give them. Could they eat everything the beacon—and the Saghred—could give them? It didn’t seem to think so. And with my life in danger, I didn’t have a choice, regardless of what the Saghred might do to me.
There was an opening just beyond where the creatures circled us. Both of us wouldn’t have time to reach it, but if I could distract them long enough, Piaras might.
“Get behind me,” I told him. “When they come after me, I want you to run.”
“I’m not leaving you.”
“Do it!”
Piaras glanced sharply at me, his mouth forming the word “no.” The sound never made it out. He saw my face and froze. His own reflected disbelief—and fear. He was afraid of me. I didn’t know how he saw me in that instant, and I didn’t want to. Prince Chigaru’s words came back to me. Death. He saw death reflected in my eyes. Was that what Piaras saw now?
The Saghred’s power was building. I couldn’t stop it any more than I could stop the goblin-spawned things that closed on us. I couldn’t resist the power and found that I didn’t want to. My hand went to the center of my chest. It felt like it belonged to someone else. The leather of my doublet was no barrier. I didn’t feel the beacon, I felt what lay beyond it—wild and whole and wide awake.
Its power became my power. I was its instrument, but the tune was still my own.
My ribs heaved against the pressure to keep breath in my body. The power tore its way to the surface, a complexity of magic I never knew existed until now. That power became a part of me, as did knowledge of a way to destroy what threatened us. Thoughts not my own flashed like lightning through my mind, too fast for comprehension, too complex for reason—but not too inaccessible for action.
One of the creatures rushed us, crazed with hunger. I threw myself in front of Piaras and into the creature before it could reach us, and before it was ready to feed. The instant of contact opened a floodgate, releasing more power than a thousand such creatures could consume, and threw us both to the ground. The thing tried to separate from me to save itself, but it couldn’t. There was a blinding flash of light, then all was still. The pressure holding me down lifted. I opened my eyes.
The creature was gone. They were all gone. There was nothing left.
I felt raw and exhausted and I had the worst headache of my life. I also felt the urge to be sick. I groaned, rolled over, and threw up. It felt like there were hundreds of voices inside my head. Wonderful. Every magic-sensitive within miles must have heard what had just happened. The volume was deafening. I held my head with both hands. It didn’t help. I rolled over onto my back, gulping air. The ground was cool and damp. Maybe if I could just shut my eyes for a little while.
Piaras was kneeling over me. “Raine, can you hear me? Are you all right?”
I opened my eyes to a squint, and moved my head in what I thought was an up and down motion. It hurt, so I stopped.
Piaras started lifting me to my feet. “We need to go. Now.”
I didn’t want to be on my feet, but I tried to help him as much as I could. “Something’s coming?” I heard myself slur.
“Yes, something’s
coming.”
My legs would have been perfectly content to wait for every Mal’Salin and goblin in The Ruins to converge on us. The rest of me just wanted a nap. From the sounds of things, company wasn’t going to be long in coming. It didn’t matter if they belonged to the king, the prince, or the psycho—Piaras and I would be just as dead.
“I’m okay,” I told Piaras, standing on my own. I was a bit wobbly, but at least I was upright. The ground was still looking awfully good.
He didn’t look convinced. “You’re sure?”
I managed a weak smile. “I can sleep when I’m dead, and that’s not going to be tonight. Dead, that is. Sleep I’m still hoping for.”
“Perhaps we can help you with that.”
I knew that voice.
Paladin Mychael Eiliesor stood squarely in the middle of the path that I judged to be the best way out of this nightmare—and he didn’t look inclined to move. A full complement of Guardians moved quickly and silently through the trees, putting themselves between us and the goblins. That action I could agree with and even be grateful for, but I doubted the same was true of Eiliesor’s intentions. The beacon rested quietly against my skin. Coward.
A blond human Guardian ran back to the paladin from the direction of the goblin pursuit. “More Khrynsani shamans, sir.” The big man grinned. “Almost enough to make it worth the trip.”
He held a curved battle-ax in his hands, and I could feel the magic he held in check. I think he wanted a chance to use both, though he looked like he would enjoy using the ax more. I hoped he got what he wanted. Everyone deserved a little happiness. He was bearded and sections of his shoulder-length hair were braided. Myloran sea-raider stock. Uncle Ryn had a few Myloran berserkers on his crew, and the Guardian had a familiar maniacal gleam in his eyes. He looked like he’d fit right in with Uncle Ryn’s boys.
“Take the men and cover our exit,” Eiliesor told him. “Do not provoke an attack.”
“What if they attack first?” the blond Guardian asked eagerly.