by K K Ness
“I won’t help you,” he swore.
Brianna raised an eyebrow. “I think you’ll find yourself willing to do a great many things, Danil. With the right persuasion.”
“You’re wrong.”
“We’ll see. Lord Ronan, let us begin preparations.” She threw Danil a cold look, like winter come early. “Use this time wisely, Danil. My patience only runs so deep.”
She turned with a sweep of her cloak. Soldiers bowed as she strode along the road leading back to Farin, her staff thudding like a drum on the ground.
Ronan gazed down at Danil, a cruel smirk on his face. He indicated for the soldiers to let him up. “I do not share Magus Brianna’s patience, nor her belief that you are useful to us. At the earliest opportunity, I will gut you and leave you in the pit for the carrion rats to find.” He smirked. “I could even do it now.”
Danil swallowed as the soldiers tightened their grip on his arms.
Ronan stepped close, raising the firewhip. He pressed the handle against Danil’s cheek. Danil flinched, expecting the hiss and burn of the whip as it ate away his flesh.
“Uh, uh,” Ronan tutted softly. “Not yet. But soon,” he promised. His breath brushed over Danil’s skin. “You will lead us to the entrance of Kaul Mage-kin. And you will witness the might of our Great Lady coming into being. After that, I will have you.”
Gorge rose in Danil’s throat as he fought to school his face blank.
Ronan must have read his fear. Smiling coldly, he nodded to the soldiers.
Before he could dig in his feet, Danil was suddenly bodily lifted into the air and carried. With a heave, the soldiers threw him down the side of the pit.
He plummeted uncontrollably before crashing down onto something fetid and damp. He scurried back with a yell when he realized it was a torso, made unrecognizable by bloat and rotting flesh. Danil rolled over and vomited noisily.
Soldiers laughed from their stations above.
Wiping a shaking hand over his mouth, Danil looked up to see Ronan smirk before he disappeared from sight.
24
Only a few hours passed before Magus Brianna and Ronan returned. But they didn’t return alone.
To Danil’s shock, Hafryn was dragged behind Ronan. The firewhip wrapped around his throat, his face red from the struggle. The wolf looked freshly beaten, bruises evident on his face and arms. His braid had been yanked loose, his tunic torn and scabbard empty.
Danil met Hafryn’s eyes and saw them widen in dismay.
“Look what we found sneaking into the village like a sly dog,” Ronan said. He grinned, yanking Hafryn towards the edge of the pit. The wolf staggered but stayed upright with an effort.
Danil took an unconscious step up the side of the pit. An arrow suddenly landed inches from his feet. A soldier drew another bolt and took aim. Danil reluctantly stepped back down, chest tightening.
“Of course, the animal says there are no others sniffing about, but they won’t stay hidden for long,” Ronan continued.
Danil slid his gaze across to Brianna, who watched the exchange silently. A gleam of contentment showed in her whitened eyes. More corruption showed above her bodice.
“The animal hasn’t been forthcoming on why he’s here, but we can hazard a guess,” Ronan said. “Do you know why, rat?”
“No,” Danil croaked.
“I think you do,” Ronan countered, his smile turning cruel. “The Great Lady recognized him in a heartbeat. You’ve spent a lot of time with this one, haven’t you?”
Danil held his gaze stonily as a few of the soldiers hurled invectives down at him. He didn’t care.
Hafryn’s mouth became downturned.
“Perhaps we’re wasting our time,” Brianna said. She tilted her head, showing the delicate line of her neck. “We have no use for the shifter if our traitorous guide has no care for him.”
With a grin, Ronan yanked back on the handle of the firewhip. The cord snapped taut around Hafryn’s throat. Hafryn’s eyes widened as he tried to claw the firewhip loose. The cord turned deep red. Hafryn’s eyes bulged.
“Stop!” Danil shouted.
Brianna appeared unmoved. “Tighter, if you please, Lord Ronan.”
Ronan kicked the back of Hafryn’s knees before placing a foot in the center of his back. He slowly tightened the cord, eyes bright with relish.
“Stop, please!” Danil shouted. “I’ll do anything!”
Brianna raised her hand. Ronan loosened the cord slightly, expression rippling with displeasure as Hafryn let out a sudden, wheezing cough. His fingers tried to loosen the firewhip a little more, his flesh hissing at the movement.
“Do you know where the entrance to the lodestone is?” Brianna asked, voice mild.
Danil took a shaky breath. “I—” He struggled to speak, unable betray those he’d come to care for. Not when he was now part of an Amasian House. He didn’t understand why Hafryn was here. The wolf wasn’t supposed to be anywhere near Farin. Had he gone against Sonnen’s orders? It made no sense.
Hafryn shook his head, trying to speak with his eyes. “Danil—” he choked out.
The firewhip constricted his throat once more. Ronan grinned as he stretched it taut.
“I’ll take you!” Danil cried. “I know the way. Just stop, please!”
Brianna smiled. At her nod, Ronan eased off on his strangulation. The firewhip uncoiled from Hafryn’s neck with a snap.
Hafryn collapsed onto the ground, coughing wetly.
“There, you see?” Magus Brianna said. She smiled. Her eyes glowed with power. “I knew you would come around.”
Danil bowed his head in defeat.
Another five magi had arrived in Farin since Magus Brianna gained control of the staff and orb. They joined her and Ronan in the march across the deadlands, accompanied by thirty of her soldiers. Ronan called them the personal guard of the Great Lady. It turned Danil’s stomach.
With the afternoon sun already behind the mountains, long shadows cast a pall over the deadlands. At least Hafryn was by his side, wrists bound by simple rope. The cut on his throat looked painful, but the wolf walked with equanimity.
Danil let memory of the map guide him across the craggy rocks and exposed mineshafts. But as the escarpment drew inexorably closer, the desire to turn in a new direction took hold. A few of the soldiers faltered, but a dark look and crack of the firewhip kept them in check.
Dusk painted the clouds a dull pink by the time Danil stepped down into the shale field opposite the tunnel entrance. He gazed about, hoping to see shifters burst out of the sky. Only the quiet moan of a breeze sweeping across the stone met them. He paused, glancing at Hafryn.
The wolf studied the horizon, his expression carefully blank.
“We’re close,” Magus Brianna said. “I can feel the lodestone’s power.”
She stalked ahead. The shale barely stirred under her feet as she strode to the end of the field. To Danil’s surprise, she passed the darkened mouth of the tunnel as if it were invisible. He shared a curious frown with Hafryn.
Hafryn snorted. “To its very core, the lodestone rejects her.”
The mage whirled about, eyes flaring.
A soldier stepped up and struck Hafryn across the face. His head snapped to the side.
Danil jumped in front of the soldier and bared his teeth. “Hit him again and you’ll get nothing more from me.”
Sneering, the soldier looked ready to strike them both.
“Leave it, lieutenant,” Brianna said, walking back to them. She took hold of Danil’s arm. The grip burned. “Come. Show me.”
Danil could feel the corruption skitter across his skin. He pulled loose. “Release the shifter and I’ll do as you ask.”
Her eyes flared.
“You can’t find it without me.” He held her gaze, unflinching.
A flash of annoyance crossed her face. “Help me reach the lodestone and both you and the animal may go. I’ll even give you a day’s head start.”
D
anil narrowed his eyes. “Not much of an offer, considering your bent for spying on me.”
Brianna smiled. “You would have made a satisfying apprentice. You still might.”
Danil stared at her in revulsion.
A pair of soldiers lit torches and joined them at the mouth of the mineshaft. The air felt strangely energized. Brianna breathed in greedily. The orb seemed to glow in the firelight.
Danil gazed back the ruined landscape. It was bare of movement. Perhaps Sonnen had been unknowingly driven off by the magic that even now compelled Danil to back away from the dark entrance. Hafryn similarly studied the escarpment, though his expression was thoughtful. Ronan crowded in close. He thumbed the handle of his firewhip while glaring at the shifter.
“Lead on,” Brianna said to Danil.
Danil grabbed a torch and stepped down. The first few feet were loose gravel and puddles made from snow runoff. The walls and ceiling gleamed in the torchlight like polished stone.
The magi, Hafryn and soldiers filed in after him. Their footsteps echoed loudly as he led them down to the first offshoot in the tunnel. Large sections had collapsed, forcing them to crawl in areas where the rocks were too large for the soldiers to move aside. Danil couldn’t imagine Sonnen making his way through without having to do the same.
Danil edged around a mineshaft cut into the floor, his hands spread wide along the wall as he shuffled past. Torchlight didn’t reach the bottom of the shaft.
A few of the soldiers balked at crossing. Towards the rear of the group, four soldiers edged back toward the exit.
“Enough!” Magus Brianna said. She swept her hand out, and suddenly the soldiers stiffened. Their faces held a familiar woodenness as they stood to attention. “Come.”
The soldiers trudged past the inky void, unfettered by concern for their own wellbeing.
Hafryn’s lip curled in distaste before Ronan shoved him into moving once more.
Danil took them further down, sweating in the strangely energized air. In some parts of the tunnel, the compulsion to leave felt overwhelming. He tried to recall the path he’d taken so long ago while in search of his mother. The memories seemed lost in a haze of desperation, and Danil found himself focusing instead on the thought of Hafryn, unfettered and wild in his wolf form, tongue lolling and tail in the air like a streamer. He yearned for him to enjoy such freedom again.
His feet led him down into a new side tunnel. Strange whisperings echoed off the walls, but a glance at the trailing magi showed that they seemed not to hear. Not even Magus Brianna, whose corruption had spread now to her jaw and left cheek. Sparks of white light danced off her fingers, frosting the walls.
The whisperings increased.
Danil trod over a slight dip in the floor, eyes on a darkened section of wall that indicated another side tunnel. A sensation tugged at him to stop.
He paused, suddenly nervous. “It’s here.”
Brianna motioned to one of the silent magi, who produced a small pouch. Inside, fine dust glittered in the torchlight. She licked her finger and dipped into the dust before sweeping her hand across the wall opposite them. The black stone seemed to melt away.
The hairs on Danil’s arms rose. From the stone emerged a jagged-edged glyph he’d once seen on the spine of Kaul’s journal.
Brianna gave a hum of pleasure.
“It appears you’ve led us true, rat,” Ronan said with a mocking smile.
Magus Brianna swept her hand again, and the wall melted further away to reveal a staircase that clung to the side of an incredible chasm. A roaring sound pulled Danil’s gaze to a waterfall that crashed down into the darkness far below. The echo of rushing water filled the chasm with a dull boom.
“Merciful gods,” Hafryn breathed behind him.
“Behold, Kaul’s legacy,” Magus Brianna said triumphantly.
The hairs on Danil’s arms rose as the whisperings struggled to be heard over the roar of the waterfall. There was something down there in the darkness. Something powerful.
Gods, where was Sonnen?
Brianna began her descent, her cloak splayed wide about her.
Ronan gave Danil a shove. “Move.”
He did, dread lodged in his throat. The air felt thick with damp, the wet black rock sleek and gleaming in the torchlight.
A full hour passed as they made their way inexorably downwards. The damp settled into his clothing. Trailing behind him, with Ronan and three soldiers blocking him from reach, followed Hafryn. His red braid was bedewed, mist clinging to his dark eyelashes. He met Danil’s gaze and nodded slightly.
The winding staircase came to an end on a wide platform of polished floor, though the waterfall continued to drop further down into the chasm. Brianna lifted her hand, releasing a series of magelights that spread out along the floor and then rose high, suddenly revealing a temple.
Danil stared in awe at the stark whiteness of the temple walls when everything surrounding it was black or slimed with moss and fungi. Warrior statues towered overhead, with crumbled swords and faces worn blank by time. Danil could tell they’d once stood tall, arms crossed and etched faces filled with foreboding.
He had no idea such a temple could exist below the deadlands.
Ahead, emerging from the white wall was a massive horse lying supine, legs flailed in the air as a warrior stood over it and drove a sword through its heart. Unlike all the other statues, this one was pristine, mane whipped back, the man’s nostrils flared, his chest broad and powerful. Flecks of quartz and marble reflected in the magelight. Directly below the warrior, a pillared entrance led to a dark cavern beyond. Even from this distance, Danil could smell mossy loam and sun-sweetened water emanating from the cavern.
He looked uneasily at the slain horse once more.
“Kaul was horse-kin,” Hafryn murmured, having come up beside him. His eyes were upraised, studying the statue with dislike. “A windrunner of the plains. He hated that aspect of himself, of course, and refused to shift. Naturally the pompous turd would make a monument of himself while denying half of what he was.”
Ronan shoved Hafryn hard. “Quit your blathering,” he ordered.
Hafryn’s mouth thinned, eyes promising death. But he and Danil trailed after Magus Brianna, who strode across the platform.
To Danil’s surprise, Hafryn caught his hand and intertwined their fingers together as they walked. The glyph on his palm grew warm.
Green eyes met his. He squeezed the wolf’s hand and continued toward the white temple.
25
Beyond the pillars was a sprawling, unnaturally smooth cavern. A pearlescent gleam lay about the place, yet what immediately caught Danil’s gaze was a well in the center of the cavern. It was small, no wider than a few feet, and yet the water within glowed so brightly it shone upon the ceiling high above. Danil felt a strange sort of peace as he looked upon it.
Beside him, Hafryn faltered a step. His face paled.
“What is it?” Danil asked under his breath.
“I-I thought it would be a crystal,” Hafryn murmured, green eyes wide. “One that would be tainted by Kaul’s workings.” He shook his head, taking slow steps on the polished floor. “But it looks like the leylines have cleansed this place.”
“That’s a good thing, right?”
“Not if she gets near the well. The power of the leylines must have escaped from Kaul’s workings. So now it collects like water in a cup. The Corrupt One will squat over it like a toad, and poison the leylines all the way to Amas.” Hafryn looked ready to shift into wolf form and attack the mage.
A few feet ahead, Magus Brianna strode for the well. A ring of blackness spread out from underneath the staff every time she set it against the floor. The blood orb took on a new nimbus, casting the cavern in red.
Magus Brianna seemed to suddenly remember them. She turned about to incline her head at Ronan. “We are done with these two,” she said.
Ronan grinned, firewhip stirring.
Without thought, Danil rol
led before the firewhip bit his flesh. Hafryn unleashed a roar and tackled the mage. The air shimmered but strangely Hafryn didn’t transform, and so human teeth bit down on Ronan’s upraised arm. The mage bellowed in outrage.
A wooden-faced soldier came up behind Hafryn, sword raised. Danil rammed his shoulder into the soldier’s guts and propelled him away. The hilt of the sword crashed down on his back. Danil hit the floor hard. He fought off another soldier, hearing Hafryn’s desperate fight a few feet away.
Magus Brianna reached the well and lowered the blood orb into the water.
“No!” Hafryn cried out.
The orb struck hard stone.
“What—” Magus Brianna began, pulling the orb back.
The well abruptly blurred out of sight. In its place was a large swirling glyph etched deep into the stone floor. The mage stood in the center. Smaller glyphs spread out under the feet of the soldiers and magi.
Magus Brianna spun about, her cloak whirling. Her eyes widened in alarm.
The well shimmered into place about fifty feet deeper into the cavern. A sense of rightness swept over Danil. It was the true well.
Magus Brianna made to approach but struck up against an invisible wall.
A heartbeat later, the air between her and the well wavered, and suddenly there was Sonnen. At the dragon’s side stood Blutark and Elania, along with more than thirty other Amasians. Danil even recognized the blue dragon among them. Sonnen’s expression was severe.
Magus Brianna took an involuntary step back.
“You are bound, Corrupt One,” Sonnen rumbled. “By fire and earth, you are bound.”
The dragon raised his hand, and suddenly Danil could see a gossamer-thin net of silvery light over Brianna, the other magi and the soldiers. Sonnen muttered a word, and the five magi behind Ronan shrieked and screamed, thrashing in place before they collapsed to the ground.
A few of the soldiers seemed to awaken from their wooden-like slumber. They stared confusedly about the cavern and at the thrashing magi at their feet, and then backed away a few steps. A handful bolted for the pillars but were met by shifters.