Ignoring him as best I could, I kicked dirt over the small coals, dousing what was left of them, then quickly went to the horses and tacked them up. I checked their legs to be sure the mad dash out of the swamp hadn’t done any lasting damage. There were some nicks and cuts, and Batman’s left knee was a bit swollen, but he didn’t seem bothered as I bent it. With Shem’s horse lost in the swamp, though, we were going to struggle with dividing the weight on Batman and Balder.
Just the thought of shifting to four legs made my stomach curl with nausea. I wasn’t sure I could do it. I needed a fucking break.
“It’s all well and good to have to go, but how are we going to go fast enough?” Shem said, echoing my worries. “Two horses are not the four we need.”
He was right. “You can shift—” I said.
“No, I can’t. I’m injured. Not all of us have that ability of yours to heal as we shift. Or to even shift if we are hurt badly enough,” Shem said, pointing at his ribs.
I turned to Ollianna but she shook her head. “I am not a healer.”
I grimaced. Even if I knew how, I wasn’t sure I could heal Shem either. I’d done it once for Batman. And that had been a fluke as far as I was concerned.
Shem on Balder, Ollianna on Batman. I would have to shift again. Ford would have to go as a lion. I knew he could keep up . . . but it would be tougher on him, and what if we led them all the way to the others?
Fucking fiery shit, there was no good way out of this. Titania and I had bought us time. We needed to use it.
“For now, we mount up,” I said, pushing Ollianna toward Batman. “Ride with Ford for the time being. We’ll see if we can put some distance between us and them before we do anything else.”
Shem caught me by the arm. “Do they know we are headed to the Oracle?”
I frowned. “I don’t think so.”
“Then they will begin to wonder if they have not already just why you are headed to the blasted lands,” he said.
“So close, and yet so fucking far,” I muttered. I turned to Ollianna. “Can you create a diversion of some sort? Something to send them in the wrong direction?”
A slow smile slid over her face. “Destruction and diversions are my specialties.” Her hands crackled with power as she lifted them over her head. And then the power there promptly went out like a candle snuffed. Her eyes popped wide and the horror in them said it all. She had nothing. “I don’t understand. That shouldn’t have happened!” she yelled.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake!” I roared, not at her, but at my luck in general. Of course, this would be the time for Ollianna’s magic to fail for no apparent reason. She bowed her head.
“I’m sorry, I don’t understand. It could be because I left the swamp. I just don’t know.” Her eyes were downcast and for just a moment I thought about shaking her. Was she lying?
Why would she lie when we’d all die?
“What about that thing you did before,” Ford said to me. “Could you do it again, and take us to the others? It would hide our tracks and put us a couple days ahead, at least.”
“That thing, what thing?” Shem said. “You don’t mean that thing with the jewel?”
Ollianna lifted her head and looked from Shem to Ford. “What are you two talking about?”
“That thing that almost killed her!” Lila shrieked from my shoulder, right into my ear. I flinched and took a step back, thinking while they argued.
Using the gem was not something I wanted to do, not really. But at the same time, what if it got us out of here? Doing that jump thing had been instinctual, and I didn’t want to wait till the last moment. And now there were Ollianna and Shem added to the numbers. How would that affect me jumping us all somewhere?
“You aren’t seriously considering this, are you?” Lila tugged on my ear, digging her tiny claws into me.
“The jewels draw from us. There is a cost to using them, Lila,” I said. “But there is power there, and strength that we otherwise wouldn’t have. I see the cost on you to use yours. The cost of this one is a piece of my life if I am not careful.”
I turned my head so I could look her in the face. There was confusion in her eyes. “What do you mean there is a cost to me?”
“Not the time,” I said. “But we need to talk about it soon.”
The confusion hardened and a flash of anger snapped through her eyes. “I won’t give it up.”
Fuck, this really wasn’t the time.
“Here’s the deal,” I said, avoiding Lila with a glance over my shoulder at the oncoming dust storm. “Lila and I walked the dreamscape last night. Ollianna, you know what I’m talking about.” She flushed and then nodded. I went on. “The problem is, between the Oracle and us is the blasted lands. And within the blasted lands are some . . .”
“Gorcs,” Lila spat out. “A whole lot of gorcs.”
Shem groaned. “And what do you plan for us to do about it?”
I drew a breath. “I’m going to jump us to our pride, gather them up, and then we’ll jump to the Oracle’s Haunt, avoiding all the conflict.” We’d miss the gorcs completely that way.
Shem’s eyebrows shot up. “And you think you can do this jumping thing not once, but twice back to back?”
“Yes.”
No.
Not really sure at all, but I wasn’t about to tell him that.
Ollianna drew close. “Do know how to thread your magic through the stone?”
“I can’t even touch my fucking magic until it wants to show up,” I muttered.
She smiled. “That is the way of much magic in the beginning. You can convince it, though. Welcome it through your body.”
I frowned as they gathered around me, each of them putting a hand on me, or in the case of the horses, a nose. I should have felt claustrophobic, but I didn’t. It felt like . . . family, safety, home. I breathed out all the fear of what I was about to do and thought about welcoming my magic into me, creating a space for it. Like a place it would always belong.
This was ridiculous, that’s what part of my brain tried to tell me, but my heart . . . heart of lion, soul of a dragon, magic of a witch, fierceness of a mother, those pieces of me were there and the magic was suddenly part of it, clicking into place like it had always been there, swirling through me and then through the jewel.
“She’s doing it,” Ollianna whispered. “Hurry, Zam, they are close.”
The wind around us picked up in answer to her words, sand and grit battering at our bodies as Ishtar and Maks closed in.
“Just be sure not to drop us on the gorcs,” Shem muttered as the power lanced through me, as I thought about getting away from Ishtar and Maks.
“No shit,” I whispered, “the last thing we need is to land with the gorcs.”
Gorcs in the thousands, like a fucking mating grounds, as if they had gone home to spawn more little gorc bastards to come after those I loved.
Landing there would have been the worst possible thing. We needed to get to Kiara. That was who I locked on.
Only my mind wouldn’t let go of the image of the gorcs, and I knew even before the world stopped swirling that we should have just stayed and faced Ishtar and Maks.
Because I could sense where we were going this time, and I couldn’t stop us.
“Fucking gorcs,” I growled. “Just what we need.”
18
The power of the diamond rocketed through my body, pulling on my life essence as it worked to move us away from the desert, away from Ishtar and Maks. It cut through the layers of the world, through the Veil if that was correct, to take us somewhere else. The jewel drew on the life force of the others and this time, I let it take a little from each of us, fighting with it as I would fight with a young horse. Guiding, while stopping it from bolting ahead in whatever direction it wanted to go.
A little energy from each of us was drawn in, and I held onto the magic with gritted teeth. Not so much energy that any one of us would be on death’s door when we came out the other si
de. I worked the reins carefully on the magic I had, asking it to do as I willed, giving it a space within me, while still using it, directing it with all my own strength.
And then a part of me I didn’t like so much showed up to the party. My blood that was Jinn had its own magic and it was hungry for more than what I was offering.
For just a moment, I saw all the parts of me. Five parts. Five pieces, all with an idea of what I should be, of how I should be. Jinn. Witch. Lion. Dragon. And something I couldn’t identify, that held itself back from me.
The Jinn within me roared upward, clashing with me, fighting for control of the magic. But it wasn’t just the blood of the Jinn doing it. Sweat poured off me, and through my closed eyelids, I could see Maks standing next to Ishtar, his face a mask of concentration.
“Bring her back, Maks. You are master of the Jinn and she carries Jinn blood.”
He grunted. “She is stronger than either of us knew.”
And then they were gone. Or at least the vision of them was. Maks—Marsum—was trying to control me through my connection to the Jinn.
The jewel fluttered against my skin and for a moment the thought to go back to Maks briefly touched the front of my mind. “NO!” I roared the word and pushed us through to where we were going.
Long as it wasn’t the horde of gorcs, we’d be fine.
The magic screamed as it shot through the jewel, shattering it into a thousand pieces, slicing into my body. I matched the scream as we popped into existence, unable to hold it in.
There was dead silence as I clamped my mouth shut and fell to my hands and knees. Carefully I pulled the front of my shirt up. Hanging from the leather thong was what was left of the jewel.
A single shard, shaped like a teardrop, the center of it pulsing with light for a moment before dimming completely. The diamond turned black, and then crumbled in front of my eyes, the essence of it nothing but ash. My chest and belly were covered in slices from the shattering of the jewel, the remaining black ash sticking to it all.
“Um. I know you’re hurt and all, Zam. But you need to stand up. Right now,” Ford said, his voice strangely calm yet full of obvious fear.
“Steve is being an ass already?” I grumbled as I pushed to my feet, grimacing with the new wounds across my skin. So much for keeping the jewels safe. I didn’t even know what to think about this new turn of events. What would it mean for stopping the Emperor?
Speaking of turn of events . . . I turned, my eyes widening.
We were not on the edge of the blasted lands, but well within them.
Oh, and it gets worse, my friends. We stood in the literal center of the gorc horde.
“They are still asleep,” Ollianna whispered. “Amazing considering you screamed like a banshee as we came through the Veil.”
“Mount up, quickly,” I whispered back. They did as I said, Ollianna behind Ford and me behind Shem.
Lila clung to my shoulder, swaying. “I don’t feel well.”
I looked at her as the sapphire pushed its way out of her chest and dropped out. I caught it midair, the stone sticking to me like the flail did.
Her eyes were wide and then filled with an anger that was not her, not my Lila. I shook my head and whispered, “Not here, not now.”
She looked away from me and hopped between the horses, landing on Ford’s shoulder.
My heart cracked at the look on her face. The betrayal there. I didn’t call the fucking jewel to me. I didn’t want it.
But now that the clear diamond was gone, the blue sapphire wanted . . . what? To be with me? That made no sense.
The horses picked their way carefully through the sleeping bodies of the gorcs. One wrong step and the whole horde would be awake and on us. More than that, we needed to find a way to get by them, to get to Kiara and the others and then get by the gorcs again in the other direction.
My thoughts skipped along. Maybe we should just turn and go to the Oracle now without the others. Maybe it would be better to leave them behind.
But that didn’t change the fact that I was worried about them, about what Steve was doing. If he was even still alive.
A sudden urge to vomit caught me around the middle and I tightened my hold on Shem.
“Almost there,” Shem breathed. “I can see the edge of the bodies.”
“Sentries?” I asked.
“No, doesn’t look like it.”
Only he was wrong . . . so very wrong.
A shout went up behind us. “Backlashti!” Intruders in gorc, along with the boom of a drum, and the bellow of a horn calling the beasts to arms.
“Go, go!” I shouted and the two horses leapt forward, landing on sleeping gorcs, waking them up faster than their call to arms did.
The gorcs were slow to rise, but once they did, they moved like shit sliding downhill. A crossbreed between ogres and orcs, they were an abomination created by the Jinn to use as muscle against any who opposed them.
And the gorcs hated everything that moved in the desert that was not them. We cleared the last edges of the horde, dodging the few massive clawed hands that reached for us. I pulled my flail and swept it toward those who got too close, taking heads and knocking them back with little effort. The flail warmed my palm and I shoved it back into the sheath on my back before it could get too excited about its job.
I only hoped we could outrun them.
“Where to?” Shem yelled as Balder pulled ahead of Batman, Ford, and Ollianna.
We had to lead the gorcs away from the others. Riding straight to the pride would be a death sentence for my people with the gorcs hot on our tails. “Straight south.”
Away from Kiara, Darcy, and the others.
He nodded. There was no argument at least, which was nice. Behind us, the gorcs were coming hard and fast (get your mind out of the gutter), and we had to stay ahead of them as best we could for as long as we could and hope to all that was holy we found a way to lose them.
Outrunning them was no small thing, but they had weaknesses. They were terrified of water and couldn’t swim worth a damn. “Lila, there was a river through the blasted lands. Do you remember where it was on the map?”
She tucked her head away from me. No, that was not acceptable.
“Are you fucking kidding me? Our lives are on the line and you want to act like a spoiled child because the stone popped out of you?”
Lila’s head snapped around and she hissed at me, the spines down her back bristling.
Ford stiffened. “Please don’t make her spit acid right now.”
I locked eyes with her. “I don’t want your stupid sapphire, Lila. Just the fact that you’re reacting this way should tell you that it was doing something to you. That it’s making you a hoarder of power, just like your father.”
She snapped her head back as if I’d slapped her.
Ollianna reached up and touched the little dragon carefully. “Zamira is right. The stones will bend you to their will. They will make you want violence. It is the touch of the Emperor through them, infecting them. Why they don’t affect Zamira is beyond me, but they don’t. The stone is safer with her. For now.”
Lila’s body heaved and I thought for sure she was going to spray acid on Ford as we raced from the gorcs. She swallowed it down and spoke clearly, if with reluctance. “The river was to the east, but southerly. We’ll have to lose them across it and then go far enough south that they don’t try to follow.”
“Thank you.” I nodded at her.
She curled herself away from me and my heart ached. I couldn’t lose her, not from this.
Stupid fucking jewels, stupid fucking Emperor.
I leaned into Shem, doing all I could to not be more of a burden. I could have shifted to four legs, but the wounds in my body were not too bad, and I had a feeling that I needed to stay on two legs.
I looked behind us. A mile back, maybe less, the rolling horde of gorcs headed our way, bellowing and swinging their weapons. They’d catch us eventually. They had more st
amina than any horse, even Balder. Especially with two riders per horse.
“I think I see them up ahead!” Ford yelled.
“See who?” I yelled back, horror flickering through me. No, no, no. They weren’t supposed to come this far into the blasted lands!
I leaned around Shem to see just as Balder stumbled in a depression. I was thrown forward, arms straight out toward an outcropping of rocks.
My right palm hit first, and the resounding crack was in fact not the ground, but the bones in my left arm as they snapped clean in half, the butt end of the crack pushing up on my skin. I rolled, clutching the broken arm to me to protect it as best I could. The adrenaline coursing through me kept the pain at bay, but I knew it was coming soon enough. I had to move fast before it derailed me.
Shem slid Balder to a stop.
I shook my head. Steve had led them into a fucking gods-be-damned disaster. All because he didn’t want to listen to me.
“Go, get them ready!” I yelled at Shem as the pain rained down on me. There was no choice now.
Above us, the sky darkened and the roll of thunder boomed behind us. Or maybe that was the gorcs’ thousands of feet on the earth as they raced toward us.
Lila winged back for me, her eyes dripping with tears. “I’m so sorry, Zam, I didn’t know.”
“You didn’t break my arm, you little goose.” I clutched at my forearm and pinned it to my middle as I kept moving, working to get my belt off and wrap my arm.
I couldn’t shift. I’d done too many too close together. I was going to have to work around this.
“You know that’s not what I meant!” she said as I forced my legs into a jog. Nausea rolled upward and with it, what was left of the food in my belly. I puked to the side but didn’t slow down. The gorcs were howling now, seeing me on the ground. Slow. Wounded. All but begging to be killed.
Lila flew back and forth in front of me. “The stone, you were right, it was tugging at me. It still is. I didn’t want to believe it.”
“Then you don’t use it.”
“But how can I protect you then?” she cried. “You’re all I have left!”
Oracle’s Haunt: Desert Cursed Series Book 4 Page 15