by Nunn, PL
And found a pair of bewildered horses, and an armored body sprawled in the debris of the forest floor. And further away another, not quite finished dying, but on the path to that goal. The hunt floundered behind him, flabbergasted, enraged. Sputtering in indignation and a growing restless, surge of vindictive power.
The humans should have come this way, but there was no sign. There had been no hint of magic used on the winds that reeked of such things. There was blood soaking into the earth. A great deal of blood. Azeral felt the rage building, competing with the confusion.
Then all he felt was awe and pain as the blade passed through the side of his throat, slicing into the pulsing thickness of his jugular. Blood spurted in great warm torrents. He could not quite cry out, all he could do was slap an armored hand to his neck in panic to staunch the blood, and then when the first frantic hysteria passed call all the healing power at his disposal to seal the wound, to repair the damage.
The vein closed and the skin over it sealed, but his body was still covered with his own blood. It made his head spin.
Dizziness warred with outraged indignity.
He looked slowly out into the wood.
The shields were strong enough to almost affect vision. The hunt was well and truly spooked now, and not even into the domain of the wood that bordered Annwn.
There was nothing there. No magic, no shield that he could discover. Nothing but thick, closely placed trees that made too good a cover for attack and helped little in the movement of a great body of horses.
And then he thought he saw movement between the boles of two trees, what might have been a slim, cloaked form that blended with the colors of the wood.
“My Lord.” The soft voice echoed out at him. It sent fingers of fear down his spine. “I cannot let you pass this way.”
Azeral drew breath, felt the trickle of cooling blood down his chest and the fear turned to incoherent rage. “Damn you to Annwn,” he hissed. “I’ll see you in the bowels of hell, you traitorous worm!” He flung out an arm and fire blazed forth.
Magic fire that exploded outward like the breath of the sun. The trees blackened and charred, bark catching and burning. Of the assassin there was no sign. Azeral cried out in fury.
“Find him. Find him and kill him.”
~~~
The flight was not as fast or as undetectable as it might have been. Dusk chose to leave the hints of a trail, he chose for his colors to vary just enough from the surrounding forest that a sidhe might take notice of him now and again. It mattered little that they were ahorse and he on foot.
The very nature of this forest gave him the advantage in that respect, and when the trees spaced out enough for the hunt to move at a faster pace, he merely called upon all the skills of a lifetime of creeping about unknown in shadows and eluded them.
Even as he made his way through the wood, skirting far and wide from the path Victoria and Alex had taken, he cursed himself for his ineptitude. Twice he had failed this day. The first in letting an arm of the hunt get past him and close enough to Victoria to drive her and Alex from their chosen path. And the second, the failure he truly berated himself over, was his bungled attempt on Azeral’s life. So close. So very close and the blade had gone awry. Through the center of the throat and the spine at the base of the neck and there would have been no chance for healing. The most important throw of his life and he missed!
He called himself a fool, among other things. The loss of his mysterious Ciagenii powers had little to do with the pride he took in his skill with the blade. With or without them he should have been able to hit such an easy target. Now, instead of having a confused hunt milling about the eastern wood, he had an enraged and vindictive Dark Lord, that would only chase him so long before reverting back to his original quarry.
He heard the raucous disturbance of horses behind him and stayed visible for longer than his protesting reflexes would have normally allowed. He melted into the shadows of a group of pine, then slipped into the cover of another and another. A spray of tiny fists of energy tore into his original cover, igniting damp pine needles and young bark. The smell of burning sap was overpowering.
Foolish sidhe. They would burn this wood in their efforts to take him and themselves in it. The resulting fire might even accomplish their goal, but they ought to know the magic assault would in no way effect him.
He let the first scattered group of them pass him, noting with unease that Azeral was not among them and wishing for just enough magic to be able to locate his former master. He slipped through the wood, heading east, senses straining for sounds of pursuit. Damn them if they had given up on him so easily.
He pressed behind a tree as he came upon a gathering in a tiny, cramped clearing. Two bendithy, one hulking ogre on a horse that dwarfed the other animals and a single sidhe hurriedly giving directions. Dusk hefted his last knife, one of four appropriated from unsuspecting Liosalfar in the Vale of Vohar. Lightly he shifted his hold from hilt to tip and with little exaggerated movement sent it sailing across the distance to bury in the base of one of the bendithy’s skull. The other bendithy cried out as his companion fell against him and the sidhe made an unnecessary gesture in bringing up shields around herself. The ogre just bellowed in rage and turned his horse without a moments hesitation to charge Dusk.
For a moment, Dusk stood in the open, allowing the sidhe to see him, allowing time for the alert to be given.
Absently he noted that the ogre bearing down on him was one he was well familiar with. The great, twisted face belonged to Zakknr. He inclined his head, a gesture lost on the ogre, and melted into the ample cover of the wood.
The sidhe he had chosen to let live would call the hunt down on him. He only hoped it be long enough for Victoria and Alex to make good their escape. He only hoped they realized the only path that escape could take.
He leapt over a rotting tree corpse and his boot crunched down on long brittle limbs and dried leaves. He compensated for the terrain, placing his feet with more care to avoid sound. He noted, with the analytical part of his mind that took stock in such things, that the trees were barren of leaves and the cover was less than it had been. He would have to rely more on the shadow and the spear-straight boles of the trees themselves for camouflage.
No rain had touched this part of the wood, that was clear from the water starved bramble that struggled for purchase here and there. The ground was dry and even under its layer of discarded pine needles and long dead leaves it felt hollow, almost brittle. Instinctively he stepped lighter, the nagging fear that it might crumble beneath him nipping at the corners of his mind. He stopped altogether and stood listening. Faintly he picked up the sound of riders crashing through the undergrowth far behind him. Good. They were following him after all. He started to move again and froze as something small and brown darted across his vision thirty feet in front of him. Into the wood it moved with desperate speed, not quite as silent as Dusk in its flight.
He took a moment to calm his heartbeat at the unexpected shock, then slipped after the figure. A small man, carrying a fairly large sack, was in the process of squeezing himself into a too small crevice at the trunk of a long dead tree. He was struggling to push the sack in first, all attention on his efforts. There was a certain smell that one could mistake for nothing other than spriggan. Dusk stopped a dozen paces behind the little man and deliberately stepped on a dry twig. The resulting crack echoed through the silent forest. The spriggan gasped, whirling so quickly that he lost his footing in the tangle of roots and sprawled forward. He had a wicked dagger in his fingers though, even as he fell, and a frantic look to his small eyes.
“Begone foul creatures,” he cried, much too loud for Dusk’s liking. He saw nothing at first, of course and muttered in superstitious fear. “Damned, horrible cat.”
At which point Dusk stepped forward carefully and allowed himself to be noticed.
The spriggan gasped and his eyes narrowed. He filled his lungs with indignant air a moment befo
re venting his frustration in pounding his fist ineffectually against the ground. “Are you tryin’ to scare me ta death?”
Dusk arched a brow and asked quite seriously, “If that were the case, don’t you think you would be dead now?”
The spriggan sputtered, then settled for muttering. “Damned, arrogant assassin. Why are you following me?”
“I am not. But I might suggest you find another place to hide, for the hunt comes this way.”
“What?” The spriggan scrambled to his feet, staring behind Dusk as if the great hunt were already riding down upon him.
“Oh no. I knew they’d find me. I knew it. It’s all your fault. Yours and those damned humans. I’ll die slow… slow… slow.”
“Would you rather die quick?” the assassin snapped, unnerved by the overly loud quality of the spriggan’s voice. “I suggest you find a better hiding hole than that one, or they’ll find you for sure.”
“But they won’t come here. Not in this wood.” Bashru seemed to remember something that perked him up. “They’ll skirt this place.”
“They are already within it,” Dusk told him. Then having no more time to dally, slipped back into the wood. The spriggan called his name in frustration.
The echoes of it rebounded off the trees.
~~~
“I hate this place.” Victoria made a vocal statement of the feeling that had Alex’s nerves jangling irritation. The wood they rode though was creepy to say the least. It was dead and brittle and the only sounds issuing forth from it were the occasional cracks of rotten branches falling from the trees that had sprouted them.
A half hour ago, a band of sidhe had intersected them, rushing unexpectedly out before their path. A very short, bitter battle of magic had ensued, in which no one had come out the better. They had ended up turning tail and retreating along they path they had come. Alex was not so dense to continue on that path. At the soonest possible chance he had turned their animals sharply north and attempted to circle around the small band they had clashed with. So far it seemed to be working. They had entered what could only be the wood he had picked out of Bashru’s mind. He could see where superstitions might arise. It was not a comforting place to travel within, even negating the fact that the whole of Azeral’s hunt was after them. And to make matters worse it was starting to darken with oncoming night. He did not relish the thought of spending the night in this place.
He turned to Victoria and caught her worried profile in the failing light. She had been holding tight shields over them for hours now. The strain was bound to be telling. His own, as Dusk had pointed out, were useless as far as Azeral was concerned. He should have known. The dark lord had been too much inside his head to lose sight of him completely.
There was still that within him that occasionally urged him to give up the flight, that giving into Azeral was the right thing to do. He fought those urges of misplaced loyalty with a vengeance, telling himself over and over that they were false conceptions planted by Azeral.
Sometimes it was hard to ignore them. He found all he had to do was look at Victoria to overcome them.
“God, I wish there was just a hint of him I could find,” she murmured, brows drawn.
He did not need to ask to whom she referred. His lips tightened. Her concern for Dusk was too plain. Although the assassin’s appearance had set her thoughts to him rather forcefully, Alex could not wholly resent Dusk’s interference. Not with how cleanly and quickly he had cut through the sidhe and their bendithy henchmen. It was all too likely he had saved their lives. And was most likely out there doing it again in the form of hindering the hunt.
“If there was, they could find him too.
He’s good, Vicky. Trust him to take care of himself. We’re the ones at risk.”
She turned her haunted eyes to him.
They glittered green in the evening light.
Her hair was dry for the first time in days and burnished with coppery fire.
“I wish I could take your jealousy away. I wish I could make you at peace here.” The eyes closed and she sighed.
“Even if you had me all to yourself, could you be happy here?”
“With Azeral after me?” He laughed, then realized how serious she was and felt his mouth go dry. She was asking him things he was too tired and scattered to answer now. Things that were too important to glaze over or take lightly.
“Vicky, this isn’t our home. We’re the outsiders here. Who’s going to ever look at us and wonder if we’re dangerous or think what use we can be to them? I hate being looked at like an enemy or somebody’s pet!”
“Oh, Alex, you’ve seen the bad side.
You’ve lived in Azeral’s court for far too long. You’ve never met the good people, the ones that would give their lives for you because they named you friend. Those people could make this home for us.”
“Your friends,” he reminded her. “The ones that distrust me.”
She did not respond. She turned her face away and rode in silence and he recalled her initial question. Quietly he asked, “If we found a place to be at peace here, would I have you all to myself?”
She was a long time in answering. He thought she might decline a reply altogether. But finally she looked back to him wearily.
“You would have my heart. You would always have my heart.”
Then she frowned and looked over her shoulder. “There’s something prying at the edge of my shield.”
He brought his own farsight into play, scanning the forest around them. Nothing.
Which meant not a thing, since their pursuers could shield just as thoroughly as Victoria. But she had his nerves tingling now. He was certain there was something out there. One might hope it was merely Dusk, protecting their tail. But it was unlikely that either one of them would sense his presence.
They kicked their tired mounts into a canter, the fastest they dared go with all the debris making an obstacle course of the ground. “Damn,” he cursed. “We have got to get far away from here.”
“Oh, I agree,” she called across to him. “But how?”
He lost himself for a moment in the smooth pace of his steed, remembering the first time he had been free to ride a nighthorse of his own accord without the constraining arms of an ogre around him.
During the hunt. His first hunt, when Azeral and Tyra had taken them far across the Alkeri’na in pursuit of worthy game.
They had used a magic portal to get there.
A portal that bisected space and distance.
He turned and beamed back at Victoria with sudden inspiration.
“A portal. We open a portal.”
She stared back at him in blossoming hope. Then her face fell. “I don’t know how to open a portal. Do you?”
In all honesty he did not. But he had ridden enough hunts with Leanan and seen Azeral and sometimes Tyra create no few holes out of thin air to guess. It was not quite an outright lie when he nodded his head and declared that he did. It was just a matter of power. Azeral could do it easily.
Tyra had to work at it a bit harder. Both of them were used up for some time after creating the hole. He was certain that he did not possess that kind of power. He thought Victoria did.
“I’d need help,” he asked. She brought her horse to a standstill and he reined back to join her. She was staring at him with forthright determination. Her face was too intent and too serious for him to avoid the truth. “I’ve never done it, but I’ve seen it often enough. I know I can do it, but I’ll need to borrow some of your power. It’s a big magic. It always took a lot out of Azeral.”
She nodded her head once, which surprised him. She was ready to trust him on this foolhardy plan.
“I might not be able to do it,” he warned, feeling the urge to argue against himself since she was not going to do it. Her eyes bored into him. “Have you a better idea? I don’t.”
He shrugged and grinned weakly at her. “Where should we go?”
“Someplace we know. Someplace I
’m familiar with. Maybe the plains below the End of the World range where we arrived at. We were there for a couple of days and I think I’ve got a pretty good image of them in my head.”
“Okay. So what do I do?”
“You lend me power.”
When she looked at him quizzically he shrugged, not able to explain exactly how one drew power from another, yet excruciatingly familiar with the process due to all of Azeral’s thievery of his own.
“Just open up. Let your inner shields down so I can draw out what I need.”
Her face closed up just a little. She was so used to shielding herself from all comers it would be hard for her to let him in.
“If I let my shields down they’ll be able to get at me,” she whispered. “So we’ll have to do this quick.”
He took her hands in his and leaned across the saddle to press his lips to her forehead. She looked up at him in confusion. Her lips trembled with a half-pleased smile. He whispered to her, “I trust you too.”
– And somewhere not too far in the withered forest sidhe horses struggled through the twisted growth. Armored forms with blazing, spell created shields urged them forward with feral excitement –
He closed his eyes and pictured the plains. Flat, featureless grasslands that stretched as far as the eye could see. If one squinted the line of mountains could just be perceived to the south. He remembered them being cold and inhospitable, filled with trolls the size of small houses. He shivered and pictured the plains closer to the southern edge of the Alkeri’na forest. Less of a threat there, more cover. He took a great deep breath and summoned all the power that would respond to him. It filled him, obedient, calm, waiting to be used. He held it in check easily and reached tentatively out towards the bright shining aura of force that was Victoria. For a moment, her outer shell resisted him, then it receded and he was swept up in the maelstrom of her power. Not at all tame like that which responded to him. It was a whirlwind of tumbled, emotional force. It changed and shifted and was in no wise stable. For a long moment he observed it in shock, observed her, and wondered how she managed to keep herself under control.