Of Truth and Beasts (Noble of Dead Saga Series 2 Book 3)

by Barb; J. C. Hendee

  There was no one out there as far as she could see in the dark.

  Where was Chane? Had he gone across to the woods beyond? She couldn’t even see the far trees at night. If he’d crossed, she’d never find him. This was wasted effort, and more than likely she’d be the one to stumble right into a patrol.

  She pushed off the tree trunk, but Shade still stood perfectly still, staring out across the plain. Her head didn’t move. Her tall ears stood upright and poised. Her whole attention fixed in one direction.

  Shade began to rumble low in her throat.

  Wynn tried to follow Shade’s focus, but she still saw nothing.

  A dark silhouette suddenly rose out of the tall grass.

  It had to be Chane—just him. Who else would be on foot out here at night?

  Wynn grew cold, shivering in her damp clothes now that she’d stopped moving. Something about the plain had nagged at her the first time she crossed it. Chane’s lone, dark silhouette stood silent in the grass, and Wynn remembered....

  So long ago, Magiere—or perhaps Chap—had told her of a memory stolen from Most Aged Father. Once called Sorhkafâré—the Light upon the Grass—he had led the remains of his forces in desperate flight toward the only safe haven. So very few made it to First Glade, and Sorhkafâré had wandered in grief and rage to the forest’s edge.

  And he had seen them.

  Scores of undead had raced about the night plain, trying to find a way in. With nothing living within reach to feed upon, they turned on each other in frenzy. Their fluids matted the grass with stains of liquid darkness. All of those risen remnants of the enemy’s horde, as well as fallen allies who’d fought against them, had torn each other apart.

  Chane stood in the grass as if he’d risen from that earth still stained black in Wynn’s imagining. He, one of the undead, stood amid the ghost memory of ancient hunger that couldn’t stop until it consumed even itself.

  Wynn realized that very plain of madness was right before her eyes.

  “Chane?” she whispered.

  Shade’s rumble grew to a sharp snarl. Her voice twisted until it became something like the threatening mewls of a cat. Even then, Wynn couldn’t take her eyes off the dark silhouette in the grass. She began to take a step.

  Shade instantly wheeled and snapped at her leg.

  Wynn lurched back, but Shade wouldn’t stop. The dog lunged again with a vicious snarl.

  —Wynn . . . back . . . Wynn . . . stay—

  “Not now, Shade,” she said. “Stop trying to—”

  A shriek upon the plain smothered the last of Wynn’s words. It hadn’t even died before she screamed out, “Chane!”

  Chane shook and convulsed—though only one white petal had fallen upon his palm.

  He had stood up, holding his precious find by the stems, only to pause and wonder. They were just flowers, as strangely shaped as they were. In curiosity, he could not help pinching one petal with the fingertips of his free hand. Indeed, it felt like silk-thin velvet, though it stuck to his fingertip. He quickly pushed it off with his thumbnail, and it dropped into his palm.

  It was so fragile, like Wynn.

  The petal in his palm quickly darkened—first to dull yellow, and then to ashen tan. As it withered, black lines spread from beneath it, twisting and threading through the skin of Chane’s palm. He whipped his hand to shed the tiny husk, but the lines did not stop. They wormed up through his wrist.

  Chane dropped the flowers and grabbed his wrist. He thought he felt his skin begin to split beneath his grip, but instead, the veinlike marks were worming up his forearm, beneath his shirt’s sleeve.

  He began to grow . . . cold.

  He never felt cold—not after rising from death—not even when his hands had frozen solid in the mountains. Paralyzing, icy pain filled his black-veined hand, quickly following those worming lines into his arm. The cold carried agony to his shoulder and into the side of his throat and face.

  Chane shrieked, the sound deafening in his own ears.

  He began to fall, darkness thickening before his eyes, as his widened senses collapsed. Someone—somewhere—called out his name.

  Was it Wynn, or did he only wish it so?

  Sau’ilahk slowed at a scream carrying across the plain.

  Chane vanished into the grass, and before his scream faded, Wynn’s cry spread over it. She was here, looking for him. Most certainly the dog would be with her.

  Everything changed in an instant for Sau’ilahk. He heard the dog’s snarls, and then someone thrashed farther off near the forest’s edge.

  Sau’ilahk could not bring himself to flee into dormancy. Frustration was unbearable with the temptation of Wynn so close, and Chane had been alone with that ring so close within reach. Sau’ilahk hovered in the dark, caught in indecision, until . . .

  The thrashing in the grass kept coming closer. It was now well beyond where Chane had stood, and the sound of snarls and growls came with it.

  —Wynn . . . stay back!—

  Shade’s command erupted in Wynn’s head as the dog charged into the grass toward the last place they’d seen Chane. Wynn wasn’t about to stand there, and she bolted after Shade. All she could do was follow the grass parting in the passing of Shade’s black form.

  It was only moments until she realized they should’ve reached Chane. Shade didn’t stop there. She charged onward into the plain as Wynn slowed for an instant.

  “Shade?” she called in a hushed voice. And then, louder, “Shade, get back here!”

  Shade’s snarls grew more distant by the moment. All Wynn could do was hurry onward, until she nearly tripped over a fallen form writhing in the grass.

  Even in the dark, she could see Chane curled up and convulsing. He gripped his right wrist, silently choking and gagging as if . . . as if trying to breathe.

  Wynn dropped to her knees beside him, not daring to risk igniting a cold lamp crystal. That would only alert anyone else out here. She grabbed his face, trying to turn it toward her, and his flesh felt damp and icy, as if he’d been out in a winter storm.

  “Chane?” she whispered, but he wouldn’t focus on her. “Chane! What’s—”

  A massive hand clamped over her whole jaw and mouth. It smothered her voice as something hulkish wrapped her in thick arms and jerked her back. Before Wynn began struggling, an iron staff toppled and flattened down the grass beside her.

  “Quiet!”

  Ore-Locks’s gravelly hiss was too loud next to Wynn’s ear.

  “Riders . . . across the plain,” he whispered. “Do you want them to find you . . . or him, like this?”

  Ore-Locks removed his hand. As he released Wynn, she spun away on her knees, but his attention was fixed into the distance along the forest’s tree line. She didn’t even wonder how he had found her.

  “I don’t hear anything,” she said urgently. “Now help—”

  “I can feel hoofbeats on the earth,” Ore-Locks answered, “long before a human can hear them.”

  Wynn was too frantic to answer back. Shade had run off, and she didn’t know what was wrong with Chane. If Ore-Locks was right, they had to leave before the patrol stumbled on them.

  “Get him out of here,” Ore-Locks ordered, hefting his dropped staff. “I will delay the riders long enough.”

  “No! I can’t lift or drag him by myself. You have to help.”

  Wynn finally heard the hoofbeats, more than one set. The Shé’ith were coming.

  Ore-Locks hissed something under his breath as he reached down to grab hold of Chane’s shirtfront.

  Sau’ilahk blinked through dormancy. It was a half-blind shift.

  Uncertain where he would awaken on the plain, it would be enough to baffle the majay-hì. That beast had somehow sensed him. The instant Sau’ilahk reappeared, he heard the rapid pound of horses—two, perhaps three—and he whirled to find his bearings.

  The road was far off to his right, so he must have shifted north, maybe a hundred yards more along the plain’s midl
ine. He traced the road to where it met the forest’s edge and the nearby place where he had spotted Chane.

  There were two shapes there now, but he was too far off to be certain who they were. The hoofbeats pulled his attention. The shapes of three riders were farther along the forest’s edge in a direct line toward those two waiting figures.

  Sau’ilahk panicked. How much more downfall could come atop a missed opportunity? He had heard Wynn call out Chane’s name, so what had the undead been doing out here? He could not afford to have Wynn delayed—or arrested. Perhaps she and hers were finally prepared to move on, out of that cursed forest to where he could track her once again.

  The very thought that he would have to save her burned Sau’ilahk within as he skimmed the grass and blinked once more through dormancy.

  Wynn looked out across the night plain as Ore-Locks hefted Chane over his shoulder. The dwarf headed toward the tree line, but she didn’t follow him yet. Shade was still out there on the plain.

  “The dog knows where to find you,” Ore-Locks whispered.

  He was right, and she couldn’t afford to call out for Shade.

  Another shriek broke the quiet, and Wynn stiffened.

  Even Ore-Locks spun about, staring along the tree line, as the sound of something heavy hit the earth in the distance. The rhythm of hoofbeats broke amid the frightened whinny of horses. Thrashing in the grass followed as someone shouted and cursed in Elvish.

  The riders had stalled, run afoul of something, but what? That thought had barely finished when Wynn heard Ore-Locks snarl under his breath.

  “Be still!”

  Chane was struggling, clawing at the dwarf’s back.

  Wynn rushed toward them, but before she reached out, Ore-Locks dropped his staff again. He latched both hands on Chane’s torso and heaved. Chane hit the nearest tree trunk, and the impact twisted him midfall.

  His shoulder struck the earth first, and his arms and legs whipped down across the base of large tree roots. Almost immediately, he began clawing the earth, as if he hadn’t felt the impact. He couldn’t seem to get up, and he started crawling toward Wynn.

  Ore-Locks closed on Chane, cocking one clenched fist. Wynn threw herself onto the dwarf’s back, wrapping her small hands over his face to obscure his sight.

  “Enough,” she said directly into his ear.

  When Ore-Locks froze, Wynn slid off his back and ducked around him to drop beside Chane.

  Chane wasn’t lying at the dwarf’s feet. He was still trying to crawl off and kept whispering something as Wynn grabbed him, trying to pin him down.

  “Flowers . . . my flowers.”

  Wynn looked to the grass plain. Chane hadn’t been trying to crawl to her. A memory of white petals came to her.

  “What have you done?” she breathed.

  Magiere had once been seized by the an’Cróan while in their land and taken before their council of elders to be tried as an undead. Fréthfâre, who had acted as prosecutor, had pulled a vicious trick in front of everyone. She’d held up the white flowers and proclaimed . . .

  “Anasgiah—the Life Shield. Prepared by a healer in tea or food, it sustains the dying, so they might yet be saved from death. It is vibrant with life itself, and feeds the life of those who need it most.”

  Wynn remembered every word like it was yesterday, for then Fréthfâre had slapped those flowers across Magiere’s face. Magiere was not an undead, but her father had been one, and she shared some of their nature through him. When the flowers struck her, their effect was so damaging that she’d nearly collapsed.

  Chane was a true undead, and he’d touched the same white petals. Why?

  His hand clamped down on Wynn’s thigh. She felt its icy chill through her pants, and though he tried to squeeze, his fingers convulsed too much.

  “Flowers . . . for you,” was all he said.

  His eyes closed, and he stopped moving.

  “Chane?” Wynn whispered as she shook him. “Chane!”

  She looked wildly over his body lying facedown in the dirt. Was he gone? Had the anasgiah finished him? How was she to know with no way to check for . . . someone who wasn’t alive?

  “Move aside,” Ore-Locks said, stepping in over Chane. “I will bring him, but we must leave—now!”

  Chane’s body flinched at the sound of Ore-Locks’s voice. Wynn gasped, not realizing she’d been holding her breath.

  “Get him deeper into the trees,” she whispered to Ore-Locks. “I’ll come in a moment.”

  “No, you will—”

  “Go! Now!”

  Wynn ran onto the field, crouching low. All of this was mixed up in Chane’s obsession with her. Whatever purpose he had for those flowers might’ve cost him even more in his ignorance. When she reached the place where he’d fallen, she barely spotted the dropped flowers in the dark. They were crushed by his fall.

  She spun on her haunches, spreading the grass as she crept about, looking for more. As she saw another dome of white and grabbed hold of its roots, a rumble from behind pulled her around.

  Shade stood there, jowls still quivering.

  “Where have you been?” Wynn whispered.

  She immediately wondered if Shade had been scouting for the patrollers. There was no time to ask as another notion came to her. She took Shade’s snout in her hand and tried to remember useful images to pass as she spoke.

  “Riders are coming. Lead them away. Then find me.” She released Shade. “Go!”

  Shade rumbled once and took off through the dark.

  Wynn ripped out the dome of flowers, roots and all, and ran for the trees.

  Sau’ilahk remained far off, uncertain if his ploy had worked. As much as he had wanted to take the chance to feed, he had not. He had only slipped through the dark and nestled in the grass along the riders’ path. When the horses cantered nearer, moving too quick to see or sense him, he lashed his arms through the lead one’s legs.

  It had screamed and fallen instantly, and he had blinked away before its rider hit the earth. When he rematerialized, he could see the three elves moving about in confusion. It was not long before they regained their wits and the horse recovered, but it was longer still until they gathered themselves and continued on.

  They reined in short of the place where he had first spotted Chane. He thought he saw one of them point back the way they had come. They remained there, their horses stamping the grass, and Sau’ilahk finally risked rising to look.

  Back along the way the riders had come, something raced away that left a trail of whipping grass. Not one of the riders took chase, though neither did they race on toward where Wynn had vanished.

  For the second night in a row, Wynn stood in a room while Chane lay worse than broken and unconscious. Shade had barely caught up before they reached the inn, and now sat poised near the door.

  It hadn’t taken much for Wynn to get Ore-Locks to leave the room. Perhaps he thought Chane was finished and no longer a concern to his own goals. But Wynn saw the occasional shift of Chane’s closed eyes, and the intermittent twitch of his one unmarred hand.

  From what little Wynn knew of the ways of the Noble Dead, Chane didn’t appear to be in true dormancy. She couldn’t stop staring at his face.

  Dull black squiggling lines like veins ran through his other hand, up his arm, and into the same side of his throat and face. She’d found more across his chest on the same side, as if something had wormed through him just beneath his pale skin. He was so cold all over, and she couldn’t think of any way to help him.

  She carefully wrapped the flowers and stowed them in her own pack. She thought again of Fréthfâre’s words that anasgiah could hold off death. Had Chane inferred this from scant notes in her journals and made the connection when he saw the flowers?

  Wynn realized why he’d wanted the flowers so badly . . . for her.

  Chane suddenly gagged and rolled onto his side. She pushed back several strands of hair sticking to his eyelids. She let out an exhausted breath, sic
k with worry. This all had to stop, one way or another.

  Two nights later, Wynn pulled the wagon’s horses to a halt on the road at the forest’s edge. She looked out across the grassy plain.

  Chane was conscious but lay in the wagon’s back, wrapped in his cloak. The black lines in his face and hand were fading but still visible. He’d claimed to be able to travel, and she hadn’t argued with him.

  It was time to move on . . . almost.

  Ore-Locks had wanted to head directly south, through the forest. She’d told him that the branch road that the caravan had taken would give them easier access toward the south and the Slip-Tooth Pass. But that wasn’t the real reason she’d come here again.

  Wynn needed to see this plain—this place from Most Aged Father’s memory—one final time.

  The Lhoin’na called this the Bloodless Plain, though the origin of that name had been long forgotten. It wasn’t that no blood was to be spilled here, but rather that those who’d perished here had no blood to spill. Their bones had been long buried by time and nature.

  What bothered Wynn most was that glimpse of Chane, an undead, a Noble Dead, standing in the dark amid the grass. A connection tickled the back of her mind between what lay in the earth and him.

  Magiere had once severed Chane’s head, yet somehow he’d come back from a second death. Welstiel had done something, but Wynn had gotten no more than that from Chane. Aside from wondering if he really didn’t know . . .

  She stared across the plain, thinking of the horrors that lay buried and forgotten here, where only a blind tradition forbade the spilling of the blood of the living upon this place.

  “What are we waiting for?” Ore-Locks asked.

  Wynn didn’t look at him, though he sat at the bench’s far end. Shade rested her head over the bench’s back between them.