Iron Garland (Harbinger Book 3)

by Jeff Wheeler

  The first Leering was just inside the shadows, carved into the rocky side of the cave. The face was that of an angry man with wrinkles and crags around the eyes. The water echoed strangely in her ears now that they’d ventured within the space. Then her shoe shifted on the slippery stone beneath it, and she would have plunged into the water had Rand not pulled her back just in time. He cocked a grin at her but then raised his brows, looking for assurance that she could go on. She nodded and continued.

  “This is as far as I went,” Stephen said, his voice sounding strange in the chamber.

  “The first Leering is here, and there’s another deeper in,” Rand said. “Both are still active, but something’s off. They create a shield of sorts, mostly to prevent anyone from venturing into the deeper caves. The Fear Liath naturally attract the fearful. We shouldn’t have been able to come in this far without releasing the first Leering. Can you inspect it, Cettie?”

  Her dress was soaking up more water, making her shiver. She moved toward the Leering carved into the wall and reached out to touch it.

  “Be careful,” Rand said before she did. “Sometimes they’ll try to lock minds with you.”

  She nodded, acknowledging the risk, and set her palm on the rugged stone face. She felt the magic of the Leering swaying and pulsing, a warning song to repulse anyone from exploring the caves. Only it was unusually muted, not strong enough to affect someone’s mind. She did not sense the creature in its lair. If it was there, it was hiding from her. Cettie let herself drift more deeply into the magic, keeping on her guard. There was a distortion in it—a subtle weave that had been added. Her memory shot back to the night Anna had been abducted from Muirwood. The defenses of the abbey had been breached by just such a trick.

  “Do you sense anything?” Rand asked, standing behind her.

  “I do,” she answered. “It’s been tampered with.”

  “How can you tell?” Stephen asked, still squinting deeper into the shadows, fear emanating from him.

  “Because she’s bloody good with Leerings!” Rand scoffed. Then he turned to her. “Did you notice there weren’t any Myriad Ones in here? I can’t feel a single one.”

  “Why would there be?” Stephen asked, bristling.

  “Because they are attracted to strong emotions. This place,” he said, gazing up at the rocky ceiling and around the chamber, “is a feeding ground. Like a kirkyard,” he added in a serious manner. “Come on. Let’s check the next one.”

  The darkness grew more pronounced as they continued their exploration, and each step brought more worry into her chest.

  “Can we have some more light, Cettie?” Rand asked. “Just a little. It will stay as far back as it must to remain in the dark.”

  She invoked both Leerings, and the space around them began to glow. Even Rand’s face looked tense as he gazed at the walls of the interconnected caves. In the farthest corner of the space, there was a dark opening, a shaft leading into the throat of the mountain itself. The sight of it made Cettie’s blood freeze.

  “That’s the place,” Rand whispered. He brought his arquebus around. Stephen’s weapon was trembling violently in his hands.

  The other Leering was carved into the boulder facing the opening. Light shone from it into the gloom, but the cavern still looked inky and impenetrable. Cettie’s mouth was dry, and her hands were chilled.

  Rand stepped cautiously forward, aiming his arquebus at the opening. He motioned with one hand for Stephen to go around the other side.

  “What do they look like?” Stephen whispered hoarsely. “I’ve only seen it on the move, and it’s fast.”

  “Like an unholy vision,” Rand replied. “Part bear, part nightmare. I still don’t sense its thoughts, Cettie. Do you?”

  It was difficult to even speak. Her own nerves were taut, like the bowstrings at the archery butts.

  “No,” she answered tremulously.

  “Which is strange,” he answered. “They have a strong instinct for survival.” He continued ahead until he reached the second Leering. Stephen quaked and trembled, the arquebus rattling as he did so.

  Then Rand lowered his weapon. He waved her over.

  Cettie obeyed, her worries only growing as she took in his bleak expression. When she arrived, she saw that the Leering’s face, although lightly glowing, was broken. As if someone had taken a hammer to it.

  Who would have done such a thing? Would Mr. Savage have done it, knowing the fear it would cause in the people he used to help? Would he have braved such a monster in order to release it? Her mind returned to that long-ago night when Anna had been stolen. Could it be . . . ? And then her suspicions became vividly real when a noise rumbled from inside the blackness.

  “Yes,” said a voice that echoed inside the cave. A voice Cettie recognized. A man emerged from the tunnel, gripping a pistol. “Because I knew you’d come.”

  The kishion. The man who’d claimed to be her father.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  MYSTERY

  The dim light from the Leering revealed the man’s familiar visage—the scar running down his cheekbone, his mass of dark hair, and his unshaven cheeks. His eyes bored into hers as they became silver, and a dark chord of magic swelled inside the grotto.

  Out of the corner of her eye, Cettie saw Stephen raise the arquebus to his shoulder in a posture to fire. The kishion didn’t give him a chance. He raised his own pistol first, and a deafening explosion ripped through the void along with a belch of fire from the tip of the weapon. Acrid smoke spread, and Stephen fell into the water, shrieking in pain. Cettie’s heart spasmed with horror. A feeling of hopelessness and grief ravaged her senses, heightened by the dark magic swirling around the kishion. But Cettie refused to stand in the cold water and do nothing. She went to try to help Stephen, remembering how the Aldermaston’s pilot had been killed in a similar attack. The water hampered her speed, and Stephen’s groans and shouts of pain continued to echo off the walls. He thrashed in the water, which turned cloudy with blood.

  Rand Patchett let out a cry of anger and fired his arquebus at the kishion. The shot missed, and the reverberation filled the space as the kishion and the dragoon engaged each other. Glancing at them, she saw Rand use the butt of his arquebus to strike at the man who had ambushed them. He landed a blow before the kishion struck his face and knocked the weapon away.

  Stephen’s head went below the water, muffling his shouts, and he came up spluttering. Cettie grabbed him, lifting him up, afraid of the damage done. His shirt was soaked in blood, and his face was a mask of agony.

  “Where, Stephen! Where did it hit you!” she cried, her thoughts scattering with fear.

  “It hurts! Oh, shades! It hurts!” he wailed.

  She gazed at his chest, where a direct hit was most likely to be fatal, but the blood wasn’t thickest there. He thrashed in the water, full of terror and pain, and she struggled to steady him, to calm him.

  “Where, Stephen?”

  “My arm,” he groaned.

  His sleeve was drenched and nearly black with blood. His arm—that was a relief to her. He’d dropped his arquebus into the water, and his good hand was pressed against the wound.

  Another explosion sounded, and the flash of fire gripped her attention. The kishion had let off another shot, but Rand had been struggling with the man’s wrists when the weapon discharged. More stinging smoke billowed into the air. The kishion thumped his forehead into Rand’s nose, then quickly wrapped his arm around the young man’s neck and twisted, dragging his head underwater. Rand thrashed against the hold, but he wouldn’t last long submerged. No one would.

  Cettie saw Stephen’s arquebus in the water and plunged her arms in to reach it.

  “Cettie! Cettie, don’t leave me!” Stephen begged.

  The water covered her face, but she managed to retrieve the weapon. She brought it up and started toward the two fighters. Rand hammered his fist into the kishion’s side repeatedly, causing grunts of pain, but he hadn’t managed to break
free. Cettie wiped water and hair from her face as she advanced on them, then held up the weapon, which was shaking. She didn’t worry about hitting Rand. He was a maston, and the ball wouldn’t kill him. But she only had a single shot before the arquebus would need to be reloaded—something she didn’t know how to do.

  The thrashing began to lessen as Rand ran out of air. Cettie raised the arquebus, gritting her teeth, and aimed.

  The kishion turned his head, seeing her approach with the weapon.

  “Would you kill your own father?” he said with anger. She felt a flash of emotion arc between them—a paralyzing uncertainty that sprang from his chest to hers. There was magic at play, and it was powerful.

  Cettie steadied her arms as best she could. Her thoughts were iron against his. “You are not my father,” she said coldly and pulled the trigger.

  There was no explosion, just the jolt of the arquebus and the zip of the ball as it fled the chamber. She hit him in the shoulder, and the impact spun him around violently. When his face came into view again, it was contorted with pain. Releasing the dragoon, he clutched the wound and started toward the entrance of the grotto. The waters parted, rushing away from him as if repelled by his presence, his magic. The people of Kingfountain had power over water, she remembered. It was just as Aunt Juliana had described after seeing this man escape from the waters surrounding Muirwood.

  She hurried over to Rand, setting down the empty arquebus on a protruding boulder, and helped pull him out of the water. He looked bewildered but determined. Wiping water from his eyes, he stared at the mouth of the grotto. Then, seizing the arquebus from where she’d put it, he reached into his pocket and quickly loaded another ball. He raised the stock to his shoulder, took aim, and fired just as the kishion reached the mouth of the grotto. The ball hit him somewhere in the back, making him arch and sag to his knees. Suddenly the waters came gushing in around him.

  Cettie watched as the kishion’s body was struck by multiple shots from outside. She’d forgotten about the miners they’d left guarding the entrance. The man fell face-first into the waters, disappearing beneath the surface.

  “Did you get him? You got him!” Stephen said, his voice thick with pain.

  Cettie realized she was panting and shivering at the same time. She was soaked through, racked by emotions that were too disjointed for her to understand.

  Rand gripped her arm and pulled her with him toward the entrance. “Come on, Stephen,” he ordered gruffly. As they advanced, he loaded another ball into the weapon and trained it on the spot where the kishion had fallen.

  “I can’t move,” Stephen groaned. “My arm was hit.”

  “Use your legs, then,” Rand said sternly. “Stand up, man.”

  Surprisingly, Stephen obeyed and staggered after them, his face pale and wretched. Rand approached the entrance and held his hand up to his mouth to shout, “Hold fire! Hold fire!”

  There was splashing on the outside. Cettie was momentarily blinded by the difference in light, but she shielded her eyes until they adjusted. The three of them emerged from the cave and saw several of the miners approaching with their weapons raised. Rand handed Cettie the weapon and then ducked under the water.

  He emerged with a dead man.

  The kishion’s eyes were still open, but the hate and the silver were both gone. His expression was vacant, his lips pressed together. Bloodstains from his arquebus wounds marred the front of his shirt. Through her tears, she caught a glimpse of metal flashing in the sunlight. An amulet beneath the kishion’s shirt.

  Rand hoisted him higher and felt the man’s neck. He looked at Cettie and shook his head. His eyes asked her questions. But not his mouth.

  The doctor at Dolcoath had served there for many years, fixing broken bones and treating the workers’ various illnesses. Indeed, he was the one who’d trained Adam before her friend’s time in Muirwood. An old man, Doctor Dunferm now had a fringe of silver hair and beard and walked with a stoop. He was almost seventy by the looks of him. He wiped the blood from his hands on a rag and looked up at Cettie over Stephen’s comatose body.

  “It’s a good thing he fainted,” said Doctor Dunferm wisely. “It probably helped. You were a great help yourself, lass. Not many a maiden would have watched a ball being dug out of a shoulder like that.”

  Cettie did feel nauseated, but she had endured the discomfort without fainting herself.

  “Not one in a thousand,” said Rand, standing nearby. He, too, had been a witness to the makeshift surgery performed in one of the rooms in the manor. “I’ve seen enough blood to fill a hurricane. So Stephen will recover?”

  “He’ll need rest, but yes,” said the doctor. “And you all look like you’ve been swimming in the river.” He shook his head. “You brought a dead man back with you and not one of ours. Strange occurrences happening in Dolcoath. Might I send word to Lady Maren?”

  “Yes, Doctor Dunferm,” Cettie said. “I wish you would.”

  “Very well, Miss Cettie. You look weary to the bone. You should get some rest yourself.”

  “Perhaps later,” Cettie answered. “For now, I need to change.”

  “So do I,” said Rand. He gave her a searching look but didn’t press her for information. “I’ll see you later.”

  Cettie nodded and went to the guest room that had been prepared for her at the manor. She had to work to get the wet dress off, and then she slung it over a chair near the Fire Leering, and increased the heat with a simple thought. Gooseflesh lined both of her arms, and she rubbed them while standing in her shift, thinking about what had happened. She hadn’t killed the man who claimed to be her father. But she had been ready to. She’d tried to.

  Cettie bowed her head, feeling a strange mix of grief and loneliness. Was that man truly her father? Did he ever have a name besides “kishion”? His hard, angry look had told her he’d endured much in his life. Those secrets had died with him. Was it better that way?

  She didn’t know how long she’d been standing there, brooding and shivering, but a knock on the door startled her from her reverie. “Who is it?” she asked.

  “Rand Patchett,” said the muffled voice.

  “Give me a moment; I’m still changing.”

  She hurried to the bag she’d packed and withdrew another dress, this one dark green with gray stripes and a velvet collar—one of her favorites—and hastily put it on. The pearl buttons on the front gave her tired, clumsy fingers some trouble. She looked in the mirror and saw her hair still half-done, but she sighed and went to the door and unlocked it.

  Rand stood leaning against the frame, wearing an open-collared shirt beneath a blue dragoon-uniform jacket with large iron buttons on each lapel.

  “Sorry for the uniform,” he said with a wry smile. “I only brought it in case I was called away on duty related to the upcoming battle. I didn’t fancy I’d be taking a plunge in a pond.”

  “Neither did I,” Cettie replied, folding her arms. “What is it?”

  “I didn’t think you’d want to study a corpse. It can be . . . unnerving. But I found some clues about his person and wanted to show them to you. May I come in?”

  She gestured to a small table with two chairs, and he entered and stood beside them. She left the door open deliberately. There were servants bustling around the halls, so they weren’t entirely secluded, which would be improper for a young lady. He looked more on edge than he had before, more aggravated, and it didn’t surprise her that he remained standing. Rand was the kind of man who was always restless for action, and no doubt the encounter in the grotto had brought back difficult memories of his past duties. She was grateful he’d been there. Without him, something worse might have happened.

  “What did you find?” she asked, coming to the table.

  “He had coins on him,” he said, scooping them from his pocket and laying them on the table. “A few from the mint of Kingfountain.” His eyebrows arched. “Then there’s this . . .” He gestured to something he’d fastened to his bel
t, then removed it and set it on the table. “It’s called a powder horn.” It was a capped leather flask, though not one for water. The leather wasn’t even damp. It was waterproof.

  “Smell it,” he suggested with a gesture.

  Cettie twisted off the cap and lifted it to her nose. It had a strange, pungent smell, an alchemical smell. It made her instantly curious.

  As she did this, he set down another handful of small iron pieces fashioned into various shapes. “These are the balls from the pistols. He had two of the weapons. They’re both in my room, drying out. I’d like to keep one, if you don’t mind. I’m curious about their methods. I’ve been in many battles against our foes. They call that powder ‘black ash,’ and their pistols are equipped with stubs of flint that ignite it. The Ministry of Wind is still trying to understand how it works. It’s not like ours. You put it to fire, and it burns quickly. The smoke it generates makes it more difficult for us to see them . . . and hit them . . . and it propels the ammunition. Sorry, but I’m just a dragoon at heart.”

  Cettie screwed the cap back on and set it down. “Was there anything else?” The words came out breathlessly, for she knew—and feared—the answer.

  “I saved the best for last,” he said, rubbing his bristled chin. From the pocket on his uniform, he withdrew a tarnished silver medallion quite unlike anything she’d ever seen. The edges were rippled from time, and there were bits of grime and stain on it. It didn’t bear a symbol so much as a strange whorl-like pattern—a variety of flower perhaps. It was an intriguing thing, an artifact from another world. He handed it to her, and she took it and examined it closely.

  “Do you have any idea what it is?” he asked her.

  Cettie felt a strange tingling coming from it. There was some connection between this pendant and the Mysteries. A little burst of excitement swelled in her heart.