Tarnin and Kirtet turned away and spoke together in whispers. Then they turned back and Tarnin spoke to her again. “We will take your word on this. How close do you have to get to attack Gulagh with it?”
“I must be right next to the Guardian,” she said. “The quantity of Stone power that I must release is too great for me to have much control over it. If I am too far away, I may miss completely and afterwards the crystal will be too depleted to try again for many days.”
“And you can come up right beside it with no problem?” Kirtet asked.
The ronhym looked at the ground where she had emerged. The ground showed no sign of being disturbed. Whatever the creature’s powers were, she clearly did not move through the ground by digging. “This is not a problem.”
The two men looked at each other. Shakre could see that they were suspicious, but she also realized they had little choice. At some point they had to gamble that the ronhym would do what she said she would do.
“Give us ten minutes to get our men into position,” Tarnin told her. “Then attack.”
“It shall be as you say.” She turned to the captive and said something in her language. He replied, then pointed at Shakre and Youlin, who were standing together, and added something else.
“What was that?” Kirtet demanded. “What did you say?”
“I merely reassured him that his ordeal is nearly over.”
“Don’t betray us,” he snarled. “Or he will die.”
“The ronhym want only to have our brother back and to be left alone as you promised.”
“Just make sure you do what we told you.”
The ronhym did not reply. She simply slid back down into the earth and disappeared.
Tarnin gave an order and the spirit-kin began to move down the slope. Three stayed behind to guard the hostage. The plan was to get as close to the Guardian as possible while still staying hidden. Once the ronhym appeared and attacked Gulagh, they were all to charge the Guardian. Meanwhile, a half dozen spirit-kin were given orders to head for the Gate and open it. If they could not destroy the creature, they wanted to give it an escape route that led it out of their homeland.
“You two wait here,” Tarnin told Youlin and Shakre. “You’ll only get in the way.”
Then he turned and followed the others, who were already disappearing into the trees.
Several nerve-wracking minutes followed. Shakre paced as she waited. Something about this wasn’t right. It still made no sense that the Guardian had killed its followers. Nor did she think they could trust the ronhym. If she were in their place, she would seize the first opportunity to turn on the spirit-kin. They had no reason to believe the human intruders would stick to their word once Gulagh was defeated. If the Guardian was defeated. This all seemed far too easy.
She wondered if she would be able to summon the wind again. She wanted to try, but was afraid to make any noise that might betray their presence to Gulagh. She looked at Youlin, but she was no help. She was lost in the depths of her hood once again.
Then it began.
Sixty-six
The ronhym rose up out of the ground beside Gulagh. She raised the crystal over her head and slammed it point first into the ground as Gulagh turned and looked down at her. Before the Guardian could react, she wrapped both hands around the top of the crystal. There was a sudden, high-pitched whining, and the crystal turned a deep, burnt orange.
A beam of orange light shot out of the crystal and struck Gulagh in the chest.
Gulagh staggered backwards with a thin cry.
Instantly, the spirit-kin burst from the cover of the trees around the clearing and raced forward. In seconds they were amongst the bodies of the dead followers. The bodies were clustered so thickly that it was impossible to avoid stepping on them, which slowed their advance considerably.
Then what Shakre feared worst happened.
The ronhym removed her hands from the crystal. The beam of light went out.
Gulagh straightened and stepped over to her. The Guardian did not look wounded in any way. The ronhym pulled the crystal from the ground and held it out to Gulagh, who took it from her hand.
She slid down into the ground and disappeared.
Gulagh looked at the oncoming spirit-kin and on its face appeared a ghastly parody of a smile.
Shakre heard a noise nearby and turned just in time to see black hands rise up from the ground beneath the spirit-kin guarding the hostage and grab onto their ankles. As they looked down, disbelieving, they were pulled swiftly down into the ground, until only their heads were still showing.
They began screaming, blood pouring from their eyes and mouths as the ground pressed in on them and crushed them to a pulp. In seconds they were dead.
Two ronhym rose up from the ground. Shakre and Youlin fell back a few steps, but the ronhym paid no attention to them. One held the hostage upright while the other snapped the spear in half and pulled it out of his chest.
The one who had been held hostage looked at Shakre and nodded once. Then all three slid down into the ground and were gone.
Gripping the crystal in both hands, Gulagh held it up. It began to glow brightly once again. Most of the spirit-kin slowed their charge, unsure.
Gulagh yelled something in its fell language. The crystal pulsed, and from it an orange gas began to spew.
Shakre realized she was yelling at the spirit-kin, screaming at them to run away before it was too late.
The orange gas spread outward quickly, engulfing all of the spirit-kin and the dead followers.
Shakre knew then, without a doubt, that it was too late. The spirit-kin were as good as dead. She raised her face to the sky, screaming for the wind. If only she could summon it, just once more, maybe she could blow away the gas. Maybe there was still time.
But there was nothing. Though she screamed until something tore in her throat, there was no response.
Gasping, her throat burning, Shakre watched as the gas began to quickly dissipate. As it faded, she could once again see the spirit-kin, looking about themselves in confusion. They seemed all right. She felt hope. Maybe the Guardian had made a mistake.
Then she saw something that filled her with horror.
The dead were rising.
Gulagh’s followers were climbing to their feet. Each one glowed with an unearthly orange light.
The spirit-kin responded quickly, hacking at them as they rose. One swung his sword, hitting what had once been an elderly woman solidly in the neck as she struggled to her feet.
The blade touched her and he began to scream.
Like flames following a line of oil, the orange glow raced over the weapon, onto the man’s hand and up his arm. As it touched him, his skin turned instantly black. He dropped the sword, his eyes bulging as he stared down at his blackened arm.
Two more heartbeats and the glow had spread up his neck, engulfing his head. He spasmed, then fell dead.
Other spirit-kin struck with their weapons and suffered the same fate. But those who did not attack fared no better. The bodies were too thickly strewn about them. The dead grabbed onto them, the orange light spread over them, and they fell dead. Panic swept over the spirit-kin. They forgot about attacking, they forgot about Gulagh. They forgot everything except getting away.
But there was nowhere to go. They had gone too deeply into the trap. The dead were too thick to avoid. Screams filled the air as more and more of the spirit-kin were infected with the rot.
Gulagh’s trap had worked perfectly.
In the midst of the chaos Shakre suddenly saw something. Not all the spirit-kin were trying to flee. Two figures were still moving toward Gulagh.
It was Tarnin and Kirtet. They alone had not paused when the orange gas appeared. As a result, they were far closer to Gulagh than any of the others were, each approaching from a different angle. Only a small number of dead separated them from their target.
“Come on, come on,” Shakre heard Youlin whisper.
Even as cl
ose as they were, it still took nearly superhuman ability to avoid the dead, who threw themselves at the two men from every direction. But somehow, miraculously, both men managed to avoid their deadly touch.
Tarnin broke free first. He darted between the last two undead standing between him and his target and attacked. Gulagh looked down in disbelief as Tarnin charged across the last few paces of open ground and swung his sword, burying the blade deep in Gulagh’s side.
Gulagh roared and shifted the crystal to one hand so that it could swing with the other at Tarnin. But Tarnin had already jerked his weapon free and was once again moving. Gulagh’s swing, slow and clumsy in comparison to Tarnin’s lethal grace, missed the spirit-kin completely.
Tarnin ducked under the swing and got behind the Guardian. As Gulagh tried to turn, he hacked at its hamstring, the blade biting deeply enough that Gulagh’s leg buckled and it pitched forward.
As it threw out its arms, fighting to regain its balance, it brought the crystal down to about the level of its waist and Shakre all at once realized what it was Tarnin was doing.
Tarnin was distracting the thing, opening it up for Kirtet.
Just at that moment, as Gulagh’s full attention was focused on Tarnin, Kirtet burst out of the press and charged. He leapt in the air, swinging the heavy axe—
And struck the relif crystal squarely.
The crystal exploded.
The shockwave burst outward, throwing up a huge cloud of dust as it came.
A heartbeat later the shockwave reached Shakre and Youlin and they were thrown down onto their backs.
Sixty-seven
Shakre lay there feeling like she’d been hit by a wall. Her ears were ringing and she could feel blood coming from her nose. The wind had been knocked out of her and it was a few moments before she could recover enough to draw a breath. Then she sat up, trying to blink away the dust in her eyes.
As the dust began to settle, she could see Youlin lying off to the side, moaning softly. Shakre got up onto her hands and knees and crawled over to her.
“Can you hear me? Are you okay?” she asked her. It hurt to speak, her throat still raw from trying to call the wind.
Youlin rubbed her eyes and nodded. Shakre helped her sit up.
“I think my arm is broken,” Youlin said, cradling her right arm.
“Let me look at it.”
“No,” Youlin said, pushing her away. “Later.” She hauled herself to her feet and Shakre did as well.
The devastation down below was complete. The crude shelters had been completely swept away. No sign of them remained. Whole ranks of trees had been turned into splinters and many more were standing crookedly. Bodies had been flung everywhere. Some were wedged in amongst the shattered trees and others were stuck up in the limbs of trees that were still standing.
Then Youlin, her mouth open, pointed.
The blast had torn a huge hole in Wreckers Gate. One side of the gate hung at a sharp angle. The other side looked close to falling completely down.
Movement drew Shakre’s eye.
Gulagh was lying at the base of the shattered gate. One of the Guardian’s arms flopped around, then found something to grab onto and the creature pulled itself up to a sitting position.
Its other arm had been torn completely off. One side of its skull had been caved in and there was a deep gash in its chest.
It tried to stand, but one leg was missing below the knee and it fell back down. On the next try, by holding onto the gate, it made it upright. It turned slowly, surveying the wreckage of the battlefield. Shakre realized she was holding her breath, wondering what would happen next.
Gulagh grabbed onto the edge of the hole in the gate with its remaining arm, pulled itself up into the opening, squirmed there for a moment, then fell through and disappeared from sight.
Sixty-eight
Later that day the rest of the Takare returned. The remaining pieces of Wreckers Gate had collapsed by then and they made their way through the rubble of that once-impregnable barrier in silent awe.
Shakre stood up from where she had been sitting on a piece of stone. “Welcome home,” she said simply. Her voice was hoarse.
One of the first to enter was Elihu and Shakre hurried to him and put her arms around him. For some time they stood thus, she grateful for his simple, warm presence, he content to hold her until she was ready to speak.
At length Shakre let him go. “What happened here?” he asked her.
“There was an explosion. Kirtet broke the crystal.”
Elihu raised an eyebrow. “That leaves far more questions than it answers,” he said.
“I know. But it’s all I have right now. Later I’ll tell you the rest.”
He nodded, accepting.
Shakre saw Birna then. She’d just entered and was looking around. She was holding her baby. Shakre knew who she was looking for. She went to her and put her hand on her shoulder. “I’m sorry, Birna. I tried to find his body but the explosion…”
Birna stared into her eyes, then nodded. She brushed away a tear.
“His was the blow that defeated Gulagh,” Shakre said. “If that is any consolation.”
“Not really. He was a good man. I will miss him, but I have been missing him since the day the outsiders attacked our village.” Birna walked away.
Shakre walked back to Elihu. “Did you feel that, what happened earlier?” she asked him. While waiting with Youlin, Shakre had a sudden feeling as if a vast door opened. For a short while the world seemed bathed in light, though it was not light she could see with her eyes. Youlin had felt it too. Then the feeling shut off suddenly.
“I did,” he replied. “Do you know what it was?”
“I don’t know for sure,” she admitted. “But something is different now. The distant feeling of unquenchable hunger is gone. I think things are all right now.”
“I do not see Gulagh’s body.”
“The Guardian was badly injured. It went through the Gate after the explosion. I don’t think it will come back.”
“And none of the spirit-kin survived?”
Shakre shook her head. “All but three were killed here. Those three, the ones who held the ronhym captive, were killed by the ronhym.”
“So we betrayed our ancient allies once again.”
Shakre nodded. “I’ve been thinking about it and I think they planned for this to happen.” She indicated the destruction from the blast. Elihu gave her a quizzical look. “The ronhym knew they couldn’t trust the spirit-kin. It’s likely they did not trust the Guardian either. I think they deliberately handed over an unstable crystal. They gambled that either it would break apart under the strain of Gulagh’s using it, or that the spirit-kin would destroy it themselves. Either way, they’d be rid of two enemies at once.”
Elihu’s gaze swept over the destruction once again. “Was it part of their plan that Wreckers Gate be destroyed too, or was that just random?”
“I don’t know. Maybe they think we won’t stay here without the Gate to protect us.”
“I think the destruction of the Gate is a good thing,” he said, surprising her.
“Why?”
“I think our people have hidden from the world for too long. It is time we were part of it once again. Look at us. Our numbers are few. If we are to survive, we will have to mix with other people. I think it is time we do this.”
Shakre just looked at him. She hadn’t considered this. “I think you’re right,” she said finally.
Sixty-nine
She drifted, alone and lost.
She was fading away. It was becoming harder and harder to remember who she was, why she was.
It wouldn’t be long now until there was nothing left.
Was that really so bad?
Her most vivid memory was of being in the River. Being the River. Encompassing all life and looking outward, seeing the lost glows that were Melekath’s Children. Feeling compassion for them, for their isolation and loss.
It
was easy to reach out to them and embrace them, to draw them back to the River where they belonged.
She remembered sensing the approach of one far vaster and emptier than the others. Fast. She turned the focus of her attention, realizing all at once who it was.
A sudden shock as she realized what was about to happen.
Jolted by the oncoming violence, she reacted, though she already knew it was too late. There wasn’t possibly time to travel all the way back to her body, reenter it, and then move it from the path of danger.
She remembered jerking on the thin silver line that connected her to her body, even as she reached out with the River to embrace Reyna, to bring her back home.
Surprisingly, the line didn’t snap. She was whole once again, body and spirit united. But she was nothing and nowhere. It took her some time before she realized what had happened.
She was lost beyond.
Beyond has no landmarks. It is not a place. Those who travel there know the only thing that keeps them from drifting away, from being irrevocably lost, is that slender, shining connection to the body they left behind. Break that connection and there is no way home. No way to move. Nowhere to go.
She knew real fear.
How long she’d been drifting she had no idea. Time has no meaning beyond.
If she could have flung herself back into the River, even though her physical form would be instantly shredded, she would have. She longed for the sense of completion, of utter safety, that she’d felt while immersed there. Besides, anything was preferable to this non-existence.
As she drifted there, slowly fading away, strange fantasies came to her. Or they were real, and she was the strange fantasy. She had no idea.
She saw Cara sobbing and knew she wept for her. She longed to comfort her old friend, but she had no way to reach her and when she tried Cara bobbed further away.
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