Had she learned anything? Maybe. But it was nothing that changed their current situation; nothing that mattered to any of them; nothing she could articulate, even if it did.
…The world was divided…
“No,” she said, and she was unable to keep the bitterness from her tone. She let her gaze fall on the flickering torches that burned far below. They were much closer now, bobbing and swaying in the darkness like hellish fireflies.
…The world of ordinary things, and the Haven…
“They’re coming,” she said, getting slowly to her feet. “We need to go.”
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Her sword flashed in the first rays of dawn, slicing mechanically through the brush before her. To her left and right, she heard the continuous swish and thud as Garrett and Corbbmacc did the same, clearing a path through the forest that grew increasingly dense as they climbed. Rascal flapped from one branch to the next over their heads, surveying their progress with the detached interest of an outside observer whose stake in the outcome of events is merely academic.
Birdsong filled the air around them, blending its music with the sweet scent of pine and flowers. Once, those smells had brought her peace. Now, they only terrified her.
They’d seen little wildlife as they’d made their way higher into the mountains, but they’d definitely heard it. Several times, during the long hours of the night, the stillness of the forest had been broken with the ghostly, otherworldly howls of what sounded like wolves or coyotes to Emily’s untrained ear. About an hour before dawn, she’d caught a glimpse of silver fur between the trees as some large creature hurried away.
“Unicorn,” Corbbmacc had told her, watching her stare into the shadows where the animal had disappeared. Under other circumstances, such a pronouncement might have filled her with wonder. At the moment, she was simply far too tired to feel anything but her own exhaustion.
Every muscle in her body ached, and she wondered how much farther she’d be able to go. They’d been climbing all night, working hard to clear a path ahead of the others. The lack of rest or decent provisions was taking its toll on all of them.
She raised her sword again automatically, then paused, surprised. There was nothing ahead of her to hack her way through. She stumbled forward, carried by her own momentum, and found herself in a small clearing draped in early morning sunshine and carpeted with a thick layer of leaves and needles.
“Thank God,” Garrett groaned. He allowed himself to fall forward, full-length, onto his face with a huff. “If my leg wasn’t broken, I’d be making better time.” The laughter in his voice was drowned beneath the layers of weariness that threatened to overwhelm them all.
Emily fell to her knees beside him, arming sweat from her brow. She looked back into the trees behind them and saw the others forcing their way through the brambles and into the clearing.
Haake threw himself down beside Garrett, covering his eyes with one skeletal arm.
“Blazes, I’m tired,” he grumbled, a whine in his tremulous voice.
Mona slumped to the ground, still cradling Miraculum. The infant was asleep, Emily observed with a pang of jealousy, and he’d probably had the best meal of all of them, too.
Celine pulled Michael gently forward by the hand. Both of them looked dead on their feet. Michael was swaying like a drunk, and Celine was in no condition to steady his progress.
“We’ve got to be near the top now, don’t we?” Emily asked, flopping back on the soft ground and looking up at Corbbmacc. It felt so good to be off her feet, if only for a few minutes.
Corbbmacc shrugged at her, sliding his sword back into his belt and taking in their surroundings.
“Nice to see someone still has a sense of humor,” he muttered, his gaze falling on Garrett.
Garrett had pushed himself back up onto one elbow and was looking into the trees back the way they’d come. He ignored Corbbmacc’s jab, but his voice sobered considerably.
“I wish we could see how close they were getting.”
“There are a lot more of them than there are of us,” Emily said, shoving her own sword into her belt and resisting the urge to close her eyes. “They should be moving more slowly than we are. They’ll have to cut a wider path through the forest if they want to follow in any kind of significant numbers.”
“I’m going to look,” Corbbmacc said, and he turned and headed toward the edge of the clearing.
“Where are you going, Corbb?” Mona called after him. For a moment, Emily thought he would simply ignore his sister, then he stopped, looked back, and gestured toward a tall spruce.
“Going to climb up and see what I can see.”
Emily watched him as he made his way up into the branches of the tree. It made her uneasy, seeing him surrounded by all that green. Still, it would be good to know where their enemy was. There hadn’t been any sign that Marianne was getting close enough to use the forest against them—not yet, anyway.
“I don’t know ’ow much farther I can go, Em,” Celine said, drawing Emily’s attention away from Corbbmacc’s careful ascent. In the harsh light of dawn, Celine looked far worse than she had in the shadows of night. Her tiny frame was beset by a steady current of tremors, and she seemed to have aged thirty years since Emily had first seen her on the boat. How long ago had that been now? Three weeks? Four? She was slightly alarmed to realize she wasn’t sure. The days she and Corbbmacc had spent in the mines felt strangely elastic—utterly timeless.
“We have to keep going,” she said, hating the words even as she spoke them. “We can’t afford to lose ground. Not with all this…” She glanced around at the lush plant life that surrounded them.
Celine reached out and took both of Emily’s hands, pulling her up to sit beside her. Emily looked into her face. Celine’s expression was solemn, and her mouth was set in a grim line.
“Emily,” she said, “listen to me. I’ll keep goin’ as best I can, but if there comes a time when I just can’t no more, yeh got to go on without me.”
Emily shook her head, gripping Celine’s hands tightly.
“Don’t say that. I’ll carry you if I have to, but we’re not leaving you behind.”
“Em, yeh ’ave to finish this, whatever it is, and I don’t want to be the one to make the whole thing fall apart, yeh know?”
“I’m not leaving you…”
There was a snap, and they all looked up into the spruce. Corbbmacc was climbing down as fast as he could without breaking his neck, apparently unmindful of the branches that were splintering beneath him. For one heart-stopping moment, she saw him lose his footing, and she thought he would do just that. He slid down the trunk a foot or two before catching hold of another branch.
“Get up!” he shouted at them. “Get up now!”
They were all on their feet in an instant, exhaustion momentarily forgotten. Celine went back to Michael and pulled the confused boy to his feet. Rascal fluttered down from a tree to Celine’s shoulder with an inquisitive yowl.
“What is it?” Emily asked, moving forward to meet Corbbmacc as he sprinted toward them.
“She’s using her power to make the forest part in front of them. They’re not hacking their way through at all. And they’re close.”
“How close?” Garrett asked, his sword suddenly in his hand.
“Maybe a quarter of a mile…maybe less. It’s hard to tell exactly.”
“Dammit.”
And that was when they all heard it. The rustle of leaves was still distant, but rushing toward them. It sounded like an ocean wave hurtling toward the shore.
For a second that seemed to stretch out to eternity, no one spoke. Then Emily drew her sword and headed for the far side of the clearing.
“How far are we from the top of the mountain? Did you see?” she called over her shoulder to Corbbmacc as she began hacking a path through the forest once more, the others hurrying along behind her.
“Not far. It’s hard to tell, but there’s another rise that look
s like it is the last one.”
They blundered onward, and though Emily tried to listen for the sound of their pursuers’ approach, she could hear nothing over the crash of their own frantic flight.
Ten yards…twenty…fifty… Were they making any progress? It was maddening, not being able to see Marianne’s approach through the dense woods that closed behind them as soon as they’d passed, regardless of their slashing swords and stomping feet.
To her right, Corbbmacc let out a grunt of pain, and Emily suddenly realized he was no longer beside her. She skidded to a stop and whirled around. Garrett continued forward, and she could hear the swish of his blade and the dull clang of metal as he carved a path through the brush.
Corbbmacc was getting back to his feet, disentangling himself from the roots of a tree over which he’d apparently fallen. As he took a step toward her, she saw one of the roots at his feet twitch feebly, reaching out for him.
She opened her mouth to shout a warning, but a scream cut through the air and stole the words.
Beyond Corbbmacc, she caught a glimpse of Mona’s frightened face as a vine sprang up from the brush at her feet and wound snake-like around her legs. She clutched Miraculum to her in terror, and he started wailing, joining his voice to that of his mother.
With a shove, Celine propelled Michael forward toward Emily and the others, then turned back toward Mona. She fell to her knees and started yanking at the vine, wincing as its thorns drove into her hands.
Haake flashed by Michael, a look of abject terror on his face. He pushed past Emily, his movements more spider-like than ever.
Coward, Emily thought distantly as she started forward toward Mona and Celine.
“Get Michael out of here,” she shouted at Corbbmacc and prayed he and Garrett would keep cutting a way forward and just let her help the others. They would need a clear path if they were to have any chance at all.
Past Mona, she could see the forest slowly coming to life. Mostly, its movements were still sluggish, but that was rapidly changing. Already, wild roses that had not been there a moment before were appearing between the trees, their white faces turning toward the prey they sensed so near. Boughs began to tremble above their heads, sending showers of leaves down around them like monstrous green confetti. The scent of jasmine filled the air, sweet and cloying, and its fragrance made Emily’s heart race.
Roughly, Emily’s hands closed around Celine’s shoulders, and she wrestled her away from Mona.
“Go!” she told her. “I have a sword. Go help them with Michael!”
Celine shook her off, looking mutinous. Emily didn’t have time for this.
“There’s no time! Trust me! Go!”
She didn’t wait to see what Celine would do; she knelt and began hacking at the vine around Mona with her sword. Brush began to wake around them as she worked, and the rustle of leaves and the creak of moving branches was growing louder with every passing second. Long tendrils reached out from the brush, clutching weakly at her arms and tugging at her armor.
The vine seemed as tough as bailing wire. How the hell was she supposed to cut through it?
In frustration, she clutched the vine in her hand, ignoring the bright pain as thorns dug into her flesh. With a heave, she tore it free from the earth. She felt its roots let go, and it squirmed weakly between her fingers like the severed tail of a monstrous lizard. That strange screeching sound she’d first heard down in Marianne’s dungeon split the air, and its cry seemed to send the other greenery around them into a frenzy.
“Run!” she shouted at Mona, who was just standing there, staring at the babe in her arms.
Her shout seemed to have brought Mona back to her senses, and the woman started forward, dodging tree limbs that swiped the air. Marianne must be getting closer; the forest around them was coming to life with frightening speed.
Emily got to her feet, pulling free of the brush and followed Mona. She swung her sword frantically before her in wide arcs, slashing anything with roots that even looked like it might move. She felt vines and brush snatching at her ankles; branches reached out and scraped skin from her face or yanked at her hair.
She was almost treading on Mona’s heels, and she reined in her wild thrusts with an effort. She needed to get a grip and calm down, or she was liable to seriously injure someone.
“Faster!” she shouted at Mona’s back. Behind them, the whole forest was alive with the sound of waking flora.
A branch suddenly whipped out and caught Emily around the neck, bringing her up short. It hoisted her off her feet, leaving her dangling, her toes barely scraping the ground. Images of the trees from the murals at Seven Skies flashed through her mind, branches laden with their bloody, macabre fruit.
She tried to scream, but the branch was closing around her throat, compressing it to a tiny straw, until she could scarcely draw a breath at all.
“Wait, child,” Marianne’s voice rang in her head. It was like it had been at the execution—everywhere and nowhere all at once. “There’s no rush. I want to talk to you. I’ve come a long, long way to talk to you.”
As her throat constricted, so did the world around her. Gray mist, far more ominous than the white of her visions, seemed to roll in from every side, swallowing the vibrant green and turning morning into dusk.
As though it were something happening to someone else, she felt her muscles relax, and the sword dropped from her limp fingers.
“I know who you are now,” Marianne’s voice went on, as clear and calm as though they were sitting together in the garden. “He thought he could keep what he’d done from me, the old fool, but now I know. You and I are going to have a chat about that, my dear. Oh yes, we are.”
Through the mist, she saw Celine’s face. Sweet Celine. Celine got away at least. She hoped Celine would take Michael to the lake.
Celine’s mouth moved, and she seemed to be trying to tell Emily something, but all she could hear was the sound of Marianne’s voice as it reverberated in her skull and a faint, indistinct hum.
A sudden jolt struck the branch that was holding her, and its grip loosened slightly. Emily gulped in a great gasp of air, and some of the grayness withdrew.
Celine stood before her, Emily’s sword clutched in her hand. She lifted it over her head with both hands, her muscles shaking with the effort, then brought it down again on the branch, mere inches from Emily’s face.
There was a tremendous snap as the branch cracked and Emily tumbled to the ground, retching and gasping for air.
She curled in around herself and clutched at her throbbing neck, watching as color flooded back into the world around her.
“Get up!” Celine shouted. A small foot thudded into Emily’s ribs, and she felt a strange wave of deja vu, as though this was the boat, and everything was starting over.
But the sibilant sound in her ears was not the sea, and that wasn’t Celine’s foot nudging her side. All around her, she could feel more brush coming to life.
Coughing, she got to her knees, and then to her feet. Her head swam, and the whole world seemed to dip and swirl around her.
Celine held out her sword, and Emily took it.
“You shouldn’t have…”
“Jaisus, yeh’re still a feckin’ lunatic.”
Together, they started forward again down the rough path Garrett and Corbbmacc had cut through the brush. The trees were starting to thin out, and they shook off the smaller foliage that fought to catch hold of them as they passed. The screeches of hurt or dying flora mingled with the roar of the leaves and trees as Marianne’s power grew closer.
Panting, they stumbled from the forest and onto a rocky incline, almost entirely barren of vegetation. Above, the others were standing in a ragged line, facing away from them.
Nice, Emily thought wildly. So glad to see how worried you were about us.
She and Celine scrambled up the steep slope, scattering loose rock and pebbles in their wake.
They came up to stand beside Corbbmacc
, who still did not turn to look at them.
“What the hell…” Emily started, and then stopped as she followed his gaze.
They stood, cold wind swirling around them, at the edge of a sheer drop atop one of a series of peaks that pointed skyward in a jagged ring. A narrow path had been cut into the stone face of the cliff from where they stood, wending its way steeply downward into a deep basin between the mammoth spires.
Nestled far below them, almost completely filling the basin, was an enormous lake. Sunlight gleamed off of its surface, which rippled and moved like the sea. Its breadth was so tremendous that, even standing on this high mountaintop, only the peaks opposite them marked its farthest shore.
At the lake’s center was the dark speck of an island, shrouded in silvery mists. Waves crashed upon its shores, creating great piles of white foam that swirled and danced before being swallowed up by the depths once more.
Wind whipped between the peaks, its mournful howls joining together like the cries of the hounds of hell. It was a terrible, lonely sound, and it made the hairs on the back of Emily’s neck rise.
The mesmeric spell was shattered by the roar of tree limbs being bent to their mistress’s will. Emily turned back the way they’d come, staring down into the forest. A gust of wind blew her hair into her face, and she impatiently swiped it away from her eyes.
The trees were parting as if a giant finger was drawing a line through them. She could see a triangular formation of men coming up the path between them, led by the tall, regal figure of a woman in green.
Chapter Forty
“Michael, no!”
Celine’s voice rang out, slicing through the morning air like a knife and bouncing back to them from the stone faces of the distant peaks. Emily tore her gaze from the oncoming legion and whirled around.
Michael was disappearing down the path that crisscrossed the cliff face, moving at an alarming speed. Loose stones and pebbles showered down from his scrambling feet, bouncing on the ledges beneath him and cascading toward the sandy shore below.
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