by Shannah Jay
'Welcome, friends,' said a voice, and a tall thin man with silver hair stepped forward to greet them.
Distraught, Davred jumped down from the wagon and went to the deleff's heads, tugging at the nearest ruff of iridescent grey skin. 'Go back!' he pleaded. 'Please go back! We've left Herra behind.' He was nearly beside himself with fear and anxiety for the woman who led the quest.
The deleff ignored his pleas, pulled the wagon out of the water and walked out of the harness, to stand shivering, as if they, too, were exhausted and distressed.
Ivo jumped down and moved to Davred's side, drawing him gently out of the pool. 'We can do nothing now,' he said quietly, putting his arm around his companion's shoulders, 'except trust in our Brother.'
Davred tried to pull himself together. Then, as he turned to look for the rest of his companions and check that they were all right, he saw a figure running along the path towards the pool and froze where he was. It wasn't - surely it couldn't be -
'Davred! Davred!' Katia flung herself into his arms. 'Oh, Davred, my beloved, you're here at last.' She scattered kisses over his face, not caring who saw her joy.
He hugged her to him, burying his head in the soft cloud of curly hair he’d dreamed about so often.
'Katia! Katia! Katia!' He held her close, not really needing words to communicate with the wife who was a part of his very soul, but saying them none the less. 'Oh, my Katia, I've missed you so.'
Still hugging him, she looked round, her eyes moving from one to another of the bedraggled figures near the wagon. Then her breath caught in her throat and she asked in a voice barely above a whisper.
'Where's Herra? Is she not with you?'
'She's gone to rescue the boy.' Davred straightened up, his moment of weakness past. 'But she's in danger, perhaps the greatest danger she's ever faced. And there's nothing we can do to help her.' He felt as if he had failed Herra, failed her completely. 'Brother walk beside her now, for we need her most desperately!' he prayed as he walked into Northwoods by his wife's side.
Everyone with them echoed his words. It was terrifying to think of Herra back there, with only a young lad to help her, facing the dark power of Sen-Sether.
CHAPTER 9 JIRAN'S WAY
Herra struggled on through the woods. Petur's body seemed to be getting heavier by the minute.
She stumbled over the roots of a huge tree and stopped to catch her breath. It took her a moment or two to realise it wasn’t only the wild storm which was oppressing her. In the confusion of the night she’d been running towards Sen-Sether.
'Oh, no!'
She didn't realise she had spoken aloud until Jiran asked, 'What's wrong, Elder Sister?'
She clasped his hand, to give them both comfort. 'We've been fleeing towards our enemy. In fact, we're very close to him now.'
The boy lying beside them crowed with delight. 'Good! I hope he kills you, whoever he is!'
Then Jiran, peace-loving Jiran, slapped the boy's face. 'If you say anything else like that, I shall take great pleasure in knocking you unconscious. If you are so blind you cannot yourself sense this illustrious lady's worth, then let me tell you she’s not only goodness incarnate, but she’s the most important person in our whole world. One day you’ll thank our Brother on your knees that she took the trouble to rescue you from Those of the Serpent.' He shook Petur by the front of his tunic. 'But in the meantime, just - keep - quiet! '
Petur stared at him open-mouthed. Virath said Those of the Sisterhood were too weak even to
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protect themselves, that the Sisters were all unnatural whores who perverted young girls to suit their own ends. Jiran's love and respect for Herra shone like a beacon in his face. Petur didn't like to see that, because he could tell the other lad wasn't a weakling - the way he’d carried Petur and struggled on though utterly exhausted proved that.
'What must we do now, Elder Sister?' Jiran asked, his voice once again gentle.
'Find some high rocky ground and hope Quequere can hear us. I think he's our sole hope now.' Her face was grim. 'Alone, I cannot hope to defeat Sen-Sether and his followers. The time is not yet. ' She paused, then looked up at the sky. 'The storm seems to be passing, but the last moon to stay in the sky is still covered by the clouds. Let's wait a little until we can see our way better, then we must seek higher ground.'
By dawn the three of them were trudging slowly uphill, every step a triumph over exhaustion. Jiran had persuaded Petur to walk on his own by the simple expedient of threatening to thump him soundly if he didn't move. This had worked better than Herra's Compulsions, to which the boy was more resistant than he should have been. But he seemed to accept and even respect a threat of violence.
They walked on, taking one slow step after the other up a slope that seemed an endless path to nowhere. Herra had no need to encourage or support Jiran. He radiated grim determination. She looked at the boy walking between them. His face was mutinous and anger showed in every muscle of his body, every stamp of his feet. Oh, Brother, she grieved, let us not lose this child's Gifts! For she could sense the strength that would come as Petur grew older, the strength which should be used to aid their quest, and which now might go to help their enemies.
Full daylight found them in sparse upland woods, where the ground was pierced by rocky outcroppings and the soil was thin, lying in windblown drifts. It was colder here and if it hadn’t been for their exertions, Jiran and Petur would have been shivering, since neither of them had learned to control their bodies as Herra could.
Suddenly they came out on to a well-beaten track. Before they could do anything, the sense of danger increased a thousandfold. It was as if the evil that had been hovering was now pouring out around them, saturating the very air with its taint. 'We’re surrounded,' Herra said to Jiran quietly and steadily. 'We've walked into a trap. My fault. I sensed nothing but a general evil.'
She frowned. 'I don’t understand how they concealed themselves from me.' Those of the Serpent were learning new tricks all the time. Or perhaps it was one of Sen-Sether's Gifts, for he came from a Gifted Line long cherished by the Sisterhood. But the taint had begun to appear several generations previously, no one knew why.
Petur opened his mouth to shout for joy and she stilled him before the cry could leave his lips. 'Look around quickly for the most rocky ground you can find,' she told Jiran.
Even as he was pointing to the right, they heard a yell. She saw men break from the woods, while other men appeared from behind the rocks. For a moment she bowed her head to gather her forces, then raised it to stare calmly at those who surrounded them. She would not give in, nor would she be captured easily.
One man came too close and the vile insults he was tossing at them made her so angry she sent a bolt of lightning sizzling into the ground at his feet. She’d never done such a thing before, though it was just an extension of her ability to create a ball of light.
The man yelled and leaped backwards to avoid the pieces of earth and rock that flew up from the crater the bolt made. The air around it seemed to sizzle as if the anger had taken on a life of its own.
'I try not to kill people,' Herra stated flatly, her voice carrying to everyone there, 'but times are hard and I must save myself. I warn you now: To touch me is death. ' Her last words rang out loudly, seeming to echo from tree to tree, then bounce up from the ground and beat against the sky.
For a moment or two no one moved, then a burly man came forward. He stopped next to the one who’d insulted her and was still shaking from shock. The smell of burning came strongly to everyone's nostrils and the power that had made a circular depression in the ground couldn’t be denied. 'We’re all prepared to die if you try to move from here, but we won’t touch you if you stand still,' the newcomer said, then raised his voice to call, 'Has someone gone to fetch our Lord?'
'Aye, Garveth,' a voice called back. 'As soon as we sprung the trap.'
'Good.' He turned to look at Herra, then at the boy, a
nd a chill smile replaced the frown on his face.
'My Lord Sen-Sether will be delighted with this capture, Lady Herra.' He stared at Jiran. 'Who is this?'
Quite clearly he’d already guessed who the younger boy was, but Jiran seemed to puzzle him.
'One of our novices.'
Jiran tried to make himself look as frightened and childish as he could, though the rage surging within him was that of a man grown, a man who knew his place in this world and the next. To his satisfaction, he could see Sen-Sether's henchman mentally dismiss him as unimportant. He grasped Petur's shoulder and said under his breath, 'If you make one movement towards them, one sound, I shall take great pleasure in wringing your neck.'
Petur goggled at him and held still, though his expression showed he was in two minds whether to obey or not.
Jiran added, barely moving his lips. 'I have very little to lose now, you know, but to help our Elder Sister I will happily give my life. And yours. Quite happily.'
Petur stayed where he was.
From the distance came the sound of riding nerids' steel-shod hooves and a group of dark clad men came into sight, with Sen-Sether in the lead on a pure white mount. He shouted in triumph, galloped almost up to Herra and slid from the panting beast, then the burly man held up one hand to stop him going further. 'Beware, Lord of my Claim. The hag might harm you.' He pointed to the hole and scorched vegetation. 'She threw a bolt of lightning at one who approached her too closely.'
Sen-Sether stood and studied Herra. 'At last,' he said softly. 'How long I have waited for this moment, my lady hag.'
'I shall be dearly bought,' she replied, equally softly.
He looked at the boy and drew in a long slow breath of satisfaction. 'I’m prepared to pay as dearly as need be.' He turned to Garveth. 'Take the other guards back out of hearing, but let them ring this place. Send all the Initiates forward to me quickly. Our first plan worked well, if they walked into our trap, and now we take the next step.'
Garveth nodded and strode off. The man whom Herra's bolt had stopped short crept quietly backwards, by his expression just as afraid of Sen-Sether as of Herra.
When everyone was out of earshot except for a few men in black robes, Sen-Sether turned back to study the boy. 'He looks very like his father.'
Petur gaped at him, but Jiran's fingers digging into his shoulder held the boy back.
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Herra gestured with one hand. 'Petur, this is your uncle, Sen-Sether, who rules this claim in your father's name. Sen-Sether, this is your nephew. A fine lad. A credit to Danver's line.'
The boy's face betrayed only bewilderment.
'He hasn’t been told who he is, then?' Sen-Sether's tone was conversational, but still the menace lay like thick unyielding ice beneath it.
'No,' Herra acknowledged.
'It's of no matter. I'll make sure he's dead before we leave this place.'
Petur's eyes fairly bulged in shock. 'Why do you want to kill me? She says you're my uncle.'
'Silence, whelp!' Sen-Sether fingered his dagger, then as the circle of black-clad men closed around the trio of captives, he threw the weapon at Petur with a swift skilful movement.
The boy's yell of shock cut off abruptly as Herra diverted the dagger, to let it whistle harmlessly past Petur's ears and clatter to the ground on a rocky patch behind him.
Jiran had no need to hold the boy back now.
'But I'm of the Serpent,' Petur told his uncle, trying to make this magnificent man understand.
'There's no need to kill me. Kill her instead! I hate those Sister hags.'
On a slight gesture from Sen-Sether, two of the Initiates threw daggers at Petur, but again Herra deflected them. Some of the men in the circle muttered underneath their breath and made a swift writhing sign with their hands, a silent plea for the Serpent's help.
'An interesting game,' she remarked.
'Hold your weapons for the moment.' Sen-Sether looked at the boy again. 'It matters not to me that you're of the Serpent, lad. A pity to lose you - I can see you're a credit to our line - but it's necessary.
You should have been killed at birth - it would have been so much easier for us all - but those hags intervened and rescued you. Just be thankful for the years of life you've had.'
'But why?' It was a wail of pure anguish from a child caught in an evil man's machinations.
'Because you're in my way.'
'But you're my uncle.'
'All the more reason to kill you. I wish to remain your father's heir.' He turned back to Herra. 'It seems you have many skills, my lady hag. So, too, do we.' He roared ' Now! ' at the top of his voice.
The circle of men began to chant, 'Serpent, save your Servants! Serpent, save your Servants!' in a low monotone, and on the fifth chant they moved forward one step. Although Herra managed to slow them down a little, so that their step fell short of a stride, she knew she wouldn’t be able to prevent them closing in on her. They’d used this tactic before, and had clearly refined on it, or perhaps it was more effective because these men were all Initiates. It was, she realised bitterly, only a matter of time.
And although she would kill herself and her companions before she let them fall alive into the Serpent's hands, that would be to play into Sen-Sether's hands.
Below them the ground rumbled. And it wasn’t the deep, gut-wrenching growl of the Serpent.
'Quequere! Help us!' Herra called. 'Open a portal.'
The ground shook and groaned, but before the crack that opened slowly could widen into a portal, another sound rumbled around them, the deep throb of the Serpent.
'Dread my Lord, help us capture this woman, this enemy!' Sen-Sether cried.
'Serpent, save your Servants!' The chant had not stopped. Again, on the fifth count, the men moved forward again. A short step, but coming closer nonetheless.
'Meld your mind with mine, Jiran,' Herra ordered. She was holding fast to Petur's other arm. 'Let me add your energy to mine. Every little will help.'
Petur's face was turned towards his uncle and tears were rolling down it.
Sen-Sether didn't even look at him, too engrossed in the struggle going on below the ground. Some of the black-clad men were thrown to their knees as the earth shook first this way, then that. The subterranean struggle broke for a moment the circle around Herra.
Petur cried out in terror as a particularly sharp shock knocked him out of Herra's grasp and sent him sprawling to the ground at her feet.
Jiran raised his voice to call to his Brother the God for help, for what else could one novice do against the powers that had been unleashed around him? ' Brother, look down! Brother, look down! Brother, look down! ' It was a tenor interruption to the deep chant of the Serpent followers.
The sky lit up suddenly as thunder rolled and lightning flashed, not ordinary lightning, but great jagged streaks that lingered in the sky to lend an eerie silver light to the scene. On and on the thunder rolled. It seemed to the combatants that the whole universe was filled with noise, noise so loud it hurt the ears. Unseen forces strove one against the other, below and above the heaving quaking ground.
Only three of the humans managed to stay on their feet, Sen-Sether, Jiran and Herra. The Lord of the Inner Shrine was glaring at her now, his face a mask of hatred that stripped it of all the dark beauty bred in its bones. 'You won't escape!' he screamed into the turmoil of air and wind and shuddering earth. 'Not this time.'
'You won't take me alive,' she countered.
'Your death would be prize enough!' he yelled back.
In that moment, the sky itself seemed riven in two and silver light poured out of the gap.
Sen-Sether was caught in the edges of the light and couldn’t forebear from shrieking in both agony and fury as the pure energy from another plane of existence lashed along his nerves. He was unable to move, but now the Serpent was rising from the ground at the edge of the circle where he stood and he called out to it to save him, help him, kill the hag -
above all, kill the misbegotten hag.
The dark shape writhed, forming from below the ground, growing greater and greater with every groan of the earth. It seemed to hold within its outline a darkness which, if you looked at it, had no end. It was as if a tunnel had opened, a tunnel that led to the fount of all the evil in the universe.
Herra tried to hold the Serpent back, but she couldn’t affect this manifestation of malevolence, nor could she slow it down. She prepared to kill her companions and then herself. She wouldn’t let that soulless horror take them.
Then light from the unknown force in the sky began to flicker around her and her companions.
Suddenly she couldn’t move. The light formed a barrier against which the Serpent shape threw itself against it with deep, thunderous noises that seemed to echo in the core of Herra's bones, to gather in her belly, to weigh her down, down, down.
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The rumbling vibrations below the ground grew louder and louder, till the world seemed filled with the dark echoes of noise upon noise, evil escalating. For a moment, just a moment, the light around Herra dimmed. The silent struggle between light and darkness was obvious to all, and none of the humans could stir, not even a fingertip. Herra tried desperately to pour out her life energy to help her unknown rescuer.
As the battle waged between dark roiling horror and light so bright it hurt the eyes, Sen-Sether found he could move and seized the moment to pulled another dagger from his sleeve. Every movement was a slow agony, but he raised his arm and threw the dagger.
Herra, locked in her efforts to help her rescuer, didn’t notice it, but Jiran could see the danger. He threw the whole force of his mind towards it and for a moment the dagger seemed to slow down in the air, but then it continued to move, still travelling towards Herra's breast.
Without thinking Jiran threw himself forward to interpose his body between the dagger and Herra.