by Alicia Wolfe
“These trees give off an opiate,” he said, his voice thick.
“Maybe,” I said. “Or anyway, they do something.” My voice wasn’t thick but light and dreamy. “Whatever it is, I like it.”
“You would.”
“What does that mean?”
He started to say something, then bit it back. “Never mind.”
“No, go on. That sounded very interesting.”
He stopped suddenly, listening. I didn’t hear anything.
“Don’t try to get out of this,” I said. “I know you meant something by that.”
“Jade, this is not the time. Now be quiet. I did hear something.” He shook his head. “Or maybe I just felt it.” He balled a fist. “These trees are interfering with my abilities.”
I felt lighter than air, strangely happy and … glowing. I could have floated to the treetops and started dancing. Shake it off, I thought. Davril is right. These trees are drugged.
Then I felt it, too: a coldness, radiating from the left.
I gasped and pointed. Dark shapes were coming toward us from that direction.
“Wraiths!” Davril snarled.
There was no escaping them this time. The trees had mesmerized us, slowed us, and now the bastards were almost upon us. Six of them, I saw. A different group than before. They must all have been hunting for us, and this lucky patrol had been the ones to find us.
And now we were boned.
“Run!” I said. I’m not ashamed to say that I turned and ran, as fast as my legs could carry me.
Davril followed. I could hear his panting breaths right behind me, then level with me. He probably could have gone faster than me, but he would never have put me between him and the wraiths. In his hand he held his blazing sword.
I nodded and ripped out my enchanted dagger. It was time to fight for our lives.
The only problem was that I knew there was no way we could win. If we turned at bay to fight, it would be our last stand. There was no way to beat those fucks and we both knew it. We’d gotten lucky last time with Greenleaf’s ring, but he and the ring were far away now. Well, far enough away, anyway, that they weren’t much good to us at the moment.
“Shit,” I panted.
Davril’s jaw thrust out, and his eyes flashed dangerously—not at me, I knew, but at the wraiths. His anger over having to run, again, was burning him up from inside, and I knew he longed to turn that rage on the ones that were making him do it. I wouldn’t want to be them when Davril got the drop on them … somehow. As unlikely as that seemed right then.
I felt a sharp coldness behind me. Turning my head, I saw one of the wraiths, faster than the others, had come close. It was right behind me.
“Back off, asshat!” I said.
I slashed my dagger backward, slicing into the thing’s head. It shrieked and slowed down, but only for a moment.
Unfortunatetly, taking my eyes off the non-existent path ahead caused my foot to hit a root. I stumbled and almost went sprawling. Davril grabbed my arm at the last second, steadying me.
“Run on!” he said.
I ran. We both did. But the momentary pause had allowed the wraith, and more just behind it, to advance.
“Enough!” Davril said.
He stopped and spun, and I turned to back him up. He raised a palm, and great energy gathered there, welling up from within him. He glowed with power, throwing the shadows back, just for a moment. Then he bellowed something in Fae-ish and the light shot forward and consumed the wraiths. They howled and withdrew, fighting each other in their confusion.
Davril, looking spent, grabbed my hand and ran on, choosing whatever avenues through the trees that he could. My breaths came fast and hard. Damn, I thought. I had seen Davril use his power before, but only rarely. It was still impressive. The bad part was that I knew he could only do that light-blast once every so often—once a day, maybe. It was almost sexual in that way.
“A house!” I said, pointing through the trees.
“I see it,” Davril said.
Indeed, it was a bungalow, one of those used by the Fae during the summit, and lights shone from its windows like glinting eyes.
The howls shrieked in fury behind us and their owners renewed the effort to overtake us, having overcome Davril’s painful (to them) light-blast. I felt them getting closer with every moment. Man, they were fast! I swore under my breath. The bungalow drew nearer and nearer.
At last the wraiths drew so close that Davril and I sliced our blades behind us, whittling at them, but we didn’t pause to see what we were fighting but blundered on even as branches and leaves raked at us.
We burst out into the clearing around the bungalow. Instantly knights sprang up.
“Who goes there?” one shouted.
Then another said, “Look! Wraiths!”
The knights, and there were five of them, had drawn their swords to fight Davril and me, thinking us intruders, but now they turned their attention to the ones hunting us. I tried to focus on them enough to figure out what house they belonged to, but it was no good. I could only hope they were on the Queen’s side—House Stormguard, if possible.
We reached the line of them, then turned to fight the wraiths by their sides.
The dark shapes emerged from the forest, right on our heels, and streaked across the lawn toward us. The knights lifted their palms, as Davril had done, and blasted the wraiths with a solid wall of light. The lights weren’t as powerful as the one Davril had sent, but there were more of them, and the combined might of the blast engulfed the wraiths in what had to be a devastating wave of agony. They writhed and clawed the air, twisting this way and that.
“We did it!” one knight said.
Howling in rage and pain, the wraiths withdrew. But they were still alive, and once they gained their strength again I feared they would return. And then we would really be in for it.
The knights turned to us, swords still drawn.
“Lord Davril,” one said.
Other knights materialized from the grounds, surrounding us.
“House Strongwall,” Davril said, recognizing their armor.
“Hells,” I muttered. We’d been captured by allies of Prince Jereth.
One of the knights, the one who must be their captain, nodded respectfully to Davril. “Lord Stormguard, we are honored by your presence, and we respect your position. But you understand we cannot let you go. Not without our lord’s command.”
Davril grimaced. “I understand.”
The knight gestured to the bungalow. “Please follow us, good knights of the Queen’s Court. I’m sure Lord Strongwall will be very interested to speak with you.”
I tried not to groan as the knights shoved us toward the bungalow. I shot Davril a look, but his gaze was forward, on the temporary dwelling of Von Strongwall—--Therin’s father. Well, if nothing else, he should be friendly to the ones investigating his son’s murder, I thought. That was one good turn of luck, anyway.
I glanced over my shoulder as we went, seeing the dark lawn and the darker forest, but I saw no sign of the wraiths. They were out there, though. Circling.
The knights took Davril’s sword and my dagger, but they didn’t bother with the birdbath strapped to his back. They raised their eyebrows at it, but these were strange times and it didn’t seem to interest them over-much. I wondered if the Strongwalls would be interested in seeing it.
We were brought into the bungalow, which was as spacious and light and pretty as any of them, the perfect cute vacation home for rich people in a forest-like setting. I saw soldiers and courtiers and even family members packing and making ready to go somewhere, stuffing backpacks and putting things in boxes, etc. At first this puzzled me, but then I remembered Jereth telling his people to go to their residences and gather their things so that all his followers could hole up together at his own bungalow—the rebel prince consolidating power before the final push to victory.
Unless Davril and I reached him first.
“What do you know of the Strongwalls?” I whispered to him as we were led along.
“I knew them socially before they turned against the Queen,” Davril said. “And Lord Strongwall and I fought against the dark hordes once in the Fae Lands years ago. He was a brutal but effective warrior. A stern foe of the Enemy. Especially after his son was kidnapped.”
“Kidnapped?” I said. “Therin?”
“He had three sons then, one now, but yes, it was Therin.”
That was interesting. Therin had been taken by the dark powers. Did that mean anything? I couldn’t imagine that it did, since he was also killed by the dark powers, and they wouldn’t have murdered an ally, but I couldn’t completely discount the idea, either.
The knights brought us to a large, high-ceilinged living room, in a similar state of upheaval as the rest of the house. It amazed me that these nobles could accumulate so much clutter in so little time. They really knew how to travel, didn’t they? Then again, they had loads of servants and functionaries to do the work for them.
Lord Von Strongwall himself was holding a picture of his late son—actually a drawing, bound within a wooden frame. I wondered if the Fae took photographs. The image of Therin was remarkably realized and life-like, and the former King Von Strongwall stared down at it sadly while his servants packed and made ready. He seemed to have participated in the labor himself, though, and his own backpack, almost stuffed, sat by his feet, one pouch still unzipped.
He looked up as we entered. Evidently a runner had gone ahead to inform him of our arrival, since he didn’t look surprised. A big man with huge shoulders and a long bristling black beard, the whole of him covered in thick armor, he was the very image if a warrior king, especially with his deep dark eyes and commanding visage.
“What brings you here, Davril Stormguard, fellow lord of the Nine Thrones? Though the number of thrones is diminished now, and what are we lords of these days, anyway?”
Cheerful fellow. Then again, his son had just been murdered the day before and his whole life had been thrown into chaos.
“We come on an urgent errand,” Davril said. He didn’t say what the errand was, though, and I didn’t blame him. Strongwall was on Jereth’s side, and he might not wish for the hostilities to end for the same reasons that we suspected Jereth didn’t. “We must leave here immediately,” Davril added. “I would appreciate an escort of your knights.”
Lord Von Strongwall’s lips twisted in bitter amusement. “A prisoner and an enemy asks for quite a boon.”
“Are we enemies, Von? Did we not fight together once upon a time?”
Strongwall stroked his long black beard. “Yes,” he sighed. “Yes indeed, in simpler times, when things made sense.”
“Simpler times?” Davril said. “Our lands were being overthrown, our people killed or enslaved.”
“Yes, but back then a man knew his own mind, and black was black and white was white.”
“I don’t understand.”
“It doesn’t matter.” Strongwall smiled as his wife Reva entered, along with their surviving son Meril, a tall young man, or at least he looked young to me. “Are you ready?” Von asked them.
“We are,” said Lady Strongwall. “Prince Jereth keeps a tight schedule, doesn’t he?”
“He does indeed.”
Reva’s eyes met mine. “I didn’t know we had visitors.” Her gaze passed on to Davril, and she flinched in recognition. “Lord Stormguard! What do you here?”
“An urgent errand for the Queen,” her husband told her, not without that same bitter amusement. “He hasn’t mentioned what that is.”
“What is it?” asked Meril—who was once a prince, I thought. But just like his father, and Davril, too, for that matter, any titles he might once have possessed were now meaningless.
“It is for the attention of the Queen alone,” Davril said. Then he paused. “Actually,” he added, a new note in his voice, “we need to reach Jereth more than we do Her Majesty. If you are going there, we will happily go with you.”
“A trick!” said Lady Reva Strongwall. “They wish to harm Prince Jereth!”
“No trick,” I said. “We have something we need to say to him.” I made myself hold her gaze. “It has something to do with who killed your son, ma’am.”
Davril frowned at me, but I ignored him. I knew he didn’t want me to reveal the purpose of our mission, and I wouldn’t, but Therin’s mother was trying to be a roadblock, and what I said was the truth. This should be important to her, and she should help us.
Instead, she only stared at me strangely. All three of the surviving Strongwalls were strange, and oddly detached, or distant. Then again, they had been under siege in a vine-overgrown and haunted castle for years. I would be a little weird, too, if I were them.
Just the same, Lady Strongwall didn’t speak against us any more, and Davril said, “Will you take us?”
After a long moment, Lord Strongwall nodded. “We’re going there anyway. Why not take you with us when we go?”
I breathed out, relieved. We would not only go to Jereth but we would go under heavy guard. We might be prisoners of a sort, but it would accomplish the same purpose, and probably faster than Davril and I could have done stumbling around in the darkness by ourselves, anyway. If we had made it at all, which seemed unlikely.
And then Lord Strongwall stooped to stuff the picture of Therin in the backpack that he was, apparently, intending to bear himself, and when he thrust it in some contents were dislodged inside, and I saw, to my instant horror, a sight which chilled my blood to the marrow.
For stuffed inside Lord Strongwall’s backpack was a short ebon rod, heavily encrusted with evil ornamentation, and giving off a fell aura. I knew then and there, without any corroborating evidence, that this was the Black Scepter Greenleaf had spoken of.
As bizarre and nonsensical as it seemed, Lord Von Strongwall, father of Therin, was the summoner of the wraiths.
He was our nemesis, and we were completely in his power.
Chapter Seventeen
“Is something wrong?” Lord Strongwall asked.
I swallowed, forcing back my shock and fear. “What? Me? No, nothing’s the matter at all.” I had averted my eyes from the backpack and I hoped he hadn’t seen it. Davril was staring at me. He could sense something was up.
“You just looked … odd, for a moment,” Von Strongwall said.
“Nope! Not odd at all. Just been a long day, that’s all.”
Strongwall zipped up the backpack, then slung the pack over his shoulders. I realized now why he needed to carry it himself.
“Are we leaving so soon?” Lady Strongwall said, eyeing the backpack. “We haven’t finished packing yet.”
“We leave now,” Lord Strongwall said. “Didn’t you hear?” he added with a grin. “Our guests have an urgent errand. We can’t get in the way of that, can we? We must away with all due haste. We’ll take a smaller force and let the others wrap things up here while we go ahead and bring our guests to Prince Jereth.”
Meril and Lady Reva watched him closely, then looked at Davril and I, then each other. They nodded, as if to themselves, apparently understanding something that hadn’t been spoken.
I thought I understood, too. The Strongwalls had gone bad. I didn’t know how, or why, and it didn’t matter at the moment. What did matter was that some of their knights and retainers were true—that was, they didn’t worship the Shadow, and they wouldn’t have gone along with aiding it. That was evidenced by the knights that had helped us earlier. But some of the knights were in their lord’s deep counsels and knew his penchant for darkness, and these were the ones who would go with us on our “journey” to Prince Jereth.
We wouldn’t go far, though, I knew. Just far enough away from the bungalow for Lord Von Strongwall to have us killed out of sight of his non-evil subjects. And his family was obviously in on it, too.
And they had our swords.
And Davril didn’t know any of this.
&nb
sp; Well, shit.
It didn’t take the Strongwalls long to finish getting ready. In mere moments they had filed up by the back door with five knights, all evil I guessed, or at least converted or whatever to the worship of the Shadow. They bore a few backpacks, and Meril Strongwall had a satchel about his shoulders, but otherwise they seemed to have decided to let their non-evil retainers and associates bring the bulk of their belongings along with them when they left. Of course, I knew that this was only because Von was in great haste to kill me and Davril.
Or would he kill us? It crossed my mind that he might want to torture us first, or even take us to his master. And he did have a master, I was sure—Nevos. It had to be. Nevos had become the chief agent of the Shadow on Earth, usurping even Angela. Maybe she would have won out if she’d secured the Wardrobe of Doom first, but she hadn’t. Whatever. In any case, it was just as likely that Von meant to simply murder us and leave us in the woods. That would be a lot easier for him, and he couldn’t have brought us through the Veil to Nevos anyway.
“Are you ready?” he asked his family and knights.
“Ready, Father,” said Meril.
Von personally thrust open the door and stepped outside, leading the way into the night. Two knights went next, then Lady Strongwall, then Meril, then Davril and I, then three more knights. The wind blew cold all around us, whipping out my hair and making me shudder.
“Quickly now,” Von Strongwall said. “Prince Jereth is waiting.”
He set out across the grounds, and we followed. All too swiftly we left the open area of the lawn and entered the forest, going along a narrow path. The stars were bright, and the moon was cut in two. They were our only sources of illumination. But for us they were enough.
In another few minutes I couldn’t even see the bungalow when I turned my head. We were going faster than I wanted. Well, then again, who wants to go fast to their doom? And that’s where we were going, I was sure. And Von wouldn’t waste time on it, either. He only wanted us to be out of hearing range of the bungalow. Then his people would kill us and continue on to their rendezvous with Jereth. The prince would never know about the viper at his breast. And the prince was innocent of all this, I was now convinced. He was a manipulative bastard, but hadn’t fallen to the worship of Lord Vorkoth.