by Krista Walsh
Ariana was right. Up the path, just through the trees, smoke billowed up from a large fire in the middle of an encampment. Blankets thrown over trees, wood piles stocked every few metres to accommodate the number of smaller fires under each tent—a small town, camouflaged into the forest.
Grey robes scurried about by the hundreds, it seemed, all of them with somewhere to be even if they didn’t appear to be going anywhere.
“Ants, indeed,” Jeff murmured, thinking the Sisters’ analogy had never been so apt.
“So what’s the plan?” Jasmine asked. “Walk in and introduce ourselves?”
Jeff looked to Brady. “I don’t suppose Talfyr has any words of wisdom on these people? Witness anything on his flyabouts that might help us?”
Brady smiled, although Jeff noticed the wince at the mention of the dragon, and shook his head. “Not this time, unfortunately.”
Maggie pulled up her sleeves and stretched out her fingers. “I don’t think we can hide behind the branches forever. If we’re going, I say we go. They have no magic that I can sense, so we have the upper hand.”
Jasmine and Jayden exchanged a glance, and then Jasmine looked to Ariana for her input. The princess nodded, and Jayden pushed gestured for them to move forward.
“Halt!” one of the Robers called out as they approached. Weapons were automatically drawn and aimed at the travellers, and Jeff held his breath against the flurry of arrows he suspected would soon fly their way.
Jayden held up a hand and gestured for William to ride up beside him. “Hold your fire! We have one of your own. We don’t wish you any harm. I request a parley with your leader.”
The man who had cried out the order for them to stop crossed his arms and took in the eight figures before him. Jeff’s lungs ached, but he still didn’t release the breath, braced for disaster. Around him, Ariana, Jasmine, and Venn had all inched their hands closer to their weapons, waiting for the moment to draw them. Maggie and Brady kept behind them. Jeff’s own fingers twitched towards the satchel at his waist, filled with Maggie’s odds and ends. He didn’t know if he’d have the guts to use them, or what Maggie meant by “too close” in regard to collateral damage, but he felt better for having the vials at hand.
After eying them for a good long while, and giving his compatriot more than one scathing glance—likely less than happy their position had been revealed to the supposed enemy—the man nodded and jerked his head. “Follow me.”
Jeff released his breath in a wash of air and slid off the saddle, his legs shaking from the morning’s long ride. With more than one misgiving, he handed the mare’s reins over to a scowling brunette. One false move against the horse, and Jeff was prepared to stay behind to safeguard them, but the woman graced the beasts with much less hostility than she did the humans.
On high alert, Jeff fell in next to Venn, who was hauling Jacob forward with William, and followed the others through the camp.
“I don’t like this,” Venn whispered. “Can they scream ‘trap’ any louder?”
“Can you ask the question any louder?” Jeff hissed back, feeling more than one Rober’s eyes fall on them.
“We appreciate your trust in meeting with us,” Jasmine said to their guide. “Based on the very little we learned from your friend, we believe there may have been a misunderstanding somewhere along the line. By the sounds of it, we’re on the same side.”
“Oh really?” The man could hardly sound more skeptical if Jasmine had just announced she shat rainbows.
Jeff saw the irritation cross her face at the stranger’s unwillingness to listen, but she squared her shoulders and pushed forward. “Really. Jacob told us your mission is to stop Raul, and crush what’s left of him. We have the same goal. We have our army marching out this morning to do just that.”
The man sneered. “Forgive me if I take you at less than your word. We’ve heard all the stories of the Feldall clan and their associations with the madman. It will take more than a few assertions to convince me they’re false.”
“They are false,” Jayden said in a tone that would have made most men change their minds immediately. This one just smiled sardonically, refusing to be swayed.
That’s the problem with fanatics. Their truth is the truth.
A sense of unease slithered down Jeff’s spine, and he swivelled his eyes from one direction to the other, trying to keep as many of the Robers in sight as possible.
“I guess we found out where Basten got his crazy ideas,” Venn murmured. “They’ve probably been badmouthing us up and down the country.”
“Question is,” said Jeff, “where did they get the idea in the first place?”
The stranger led them into the tent, and as if the universe had heard Jeff’s query, it provided an immediate answer. His jaw fell open as the light from outside fell into the dim, candle-lit interior. For a moment, he was overwhelmed by a memory—no longer in a tent, but in the middle of a clearing in a forest. Jayden stood to one side, just as now, but instead of Ariana on the other, it was Corey, and the three of them shared a look of horror. Often had Jeff relived this moment, but only in his nightmares, as the past continued to haunt him. Never in his waking hours had he come so close to being back in that forest.
The woman bending over the map on the table, hands clasped behind her back and head tilted to one side as she regarded her guests, could have been one of Raul’s bloodless victims, a swaying macabre puppet that had stopped the Feldall scouts in their tracks outside of Treevale.
“Terise?” he murmured, so sure the woman in front of him was the same as the corpse he’d once seen. Terise Taven had been his wake-up call that the Andvell of this world was not the same as the Andvell in his novels. Raul had abducted her, among so many others, without Jeff’s knowledge. In his arrogant belief that he held power in this world, he had promised Terise’s family he would bring her back.
He had failed.
The woman’s eyes narrowed at the name, and the change of expression threw Jeff back into reality, the memory of the forest and Corey fading back into the dim light of the tent.
He blinked, cleared his vision, and saw this woman was very much alive, and a few years younger than the girl who had been murdered under Raul’s thrall. Younger than Venn—hardly even a teenager.
“Sophie Taven,” the girl reminded him. “But nice to know you remember my sister.”
“By all the bloody blessed bees in the bumbleberry bush,” Maggie murmured. Jeff could only nod in reply.
“Sophie?” Jasmine eked out. “What are you doing here?”
The girl smiled—not a pleasant sight. The right side of her mouth was pulled down into a grimace, and as a disturbance in the flap of the tent let in more light, Jeff saw the twist of white and red scars running down her face.
“You mean you haven’t noticed in over a year that I was missing? I’m wounded.” She placed her hand over her heart and sank down onto a stone covered with furs. “I guess that’s why it’s taken you so long to come and say hi. It’s nice to see you. Sorry your visit couldn’t be longer.”
Before Jeff could take in her meaning, he heard movement behind him. Someone kicked out his knees, and two hands held him down, a blade pressed against his throat.
Chapter Twenty-Three
As a reflex, he jerked away, but the hand on his shoulder squeezed and he froze, feeling the pressure of the sword bite deeper into his neck.
In his peripheral vision, he saw the others surrounded by weapons, but no one else in immediate danger of being cut open like a deer caught in a hunting trap.
Jasmine’s lips moved, but through the roar of blood rushing through his ears, Jeff couldn’t hear her. Beside him Venn stood with her hands up, dagger between her fingers. She had started to run to help him, but now three swordtips kept her still, while she glared with all the power of her cornflower blues. Jeff appreciated her gesture, but hoped she’d stay still. The last thing he wanted was to see her guts spilled out in front of him.
&
nbsp; Based on William’s panicked reaction across the room, he felt the same way. He, Maggie, and Brady had been penned in together, each with a sword to their backs. Ariana stood backed into the corner, two Robers standing guard.
“—cannot be allowed to live,” Sophie’s voice finally cut through Jeff’s panic.
But he had faith that his friends would get him out of this mess. Again.
Jasmine threw up her hands. “This is ridiculous. Let him go and let’s talk like adults. The Sophie Taven I knew wouldn’t jump straight to murder.”
Sophie scoffed. “The girl you knew? Making your condolence visit with my family and knowing my face when you rode by the farm does not mean you knew anything about me. Besides, I’m not the same person I was then. Not the same gullible child who believed you when you said you’d bring my sister back.”
She spat onto the ground at Jasmine’s feet, but Jasmine didn’t flinch or step away from it. Jayden took a step forward, and Jasmine stretched an arm out in front of him to hold him back. By the look of it, the warrior was ready to launch himself at the next person who insulted his sister, and Jeff could see the effort of his restraint.
A glance at Brady showed the counsellor grinding his teeth, grey eyes narrowed and full of hate. Jeff had never seen Brady lash out, but by the look of it, he was just as ready as Jayden to kick ass if anyone hurt Jasmine. Maggie seemed to recognise the symptoms as well, and rested her hand on his shoulder, while William edged closer.
“What are you doing here, Sophie?” Jasmine asked. “Why are you doing any of this?”
“How can you ask me that?” Sophie threw back. “I think the better question is why you’re not doing the same thing. Why tracking down and eliminating Raul’s people hasn’t been your only priority ever since you first heard he was back. When he first started stealing people away in the night to further his plans. If you had done your duty a year and a half ago, I wouldn’t be here. I wouldn’t be like this.”
She pointed to the scars on her face, once more scrunched up with the look of hatred. Jeff felt the passion of her fury. For being barely out of childhood, this girl carried a lot of anger. He glanced at Venn, wondering how much of herself she saw in Sophie, but his adopted cousin wore only a look of disdain.
“Raul has always been our priority,” said Jasmine, with impressive coolness, “but so has keeping our people safe and well-fed and housed. Your parents are healthy and thriving inside the walls of our Keep, yet you stand here accusing us of being heartless. Why didn’t you come to us with your concerns? Once you found out where Raul’s people were hiding, why didn’t you let us know so we could handle the situation before it became so critical?”
“Why aren’t you with your family?” Jeff added his question to the others. Jasmine’s were more important, but his curiosity pushed him forward. He bit down on his tongue as the sword pressed deeper into his flesh. He heard a snarl on his left and looked up to see Venn straining against her reason, her glare cutting into the man doing the threatening.
Sophie offered a venomous smile. “My parents never got over Terise, my poor weak sister who lost her life for some peddler’s baubles. Her vanity was her ruin, but instead of seeing that, Momma and Poppa lost themselves in grief. They may be surviving in your Keep, my Lady, but they’re not living. After the fire—after Raul’s people burned our farm to ashes and nearly killed me in the flames, I spent months screaming as my skin stitched itself back together. The healers were next to useless, and even though Mother doted on me hand and foot and never left my side, I could see the horror in her eyes whenever she looked at me. The disappointment that I wasn’t Terise. I got out as soon as I could.”
She turned to Jasmine. “As for your questions. I didn’t go to you because I didn’t—and don’t—trust you. After your miserable attempt to stop Raul the first time, which you managed so well he came back for a second go, there was no way I would put his people’s fate in your hands. And then word reached us that the Creator was back in our world, and we knew we had to act. Death follows you like a bad smell.”
She threw these words at Jeff, and he caught them in the gut like a stab. But how could he argue? It was no coincidence he was always here when the shit hit the fan, but there would be no way of convincing her that cause and effect went the opposite way. Even so, if someone had accused him of the same atrocities two years ago, he would have laughed and taken it as a token of pride, the losses limited to fiction. Today, the guilt and pain formed like a rock in his stomach.
“Sophie, we did the best we could for Terise. Your parents understood. Raul had her even before she disappeared.”
“You should have done better!”
The tenuous hold the girl had on her temper began to slip, hysteria creeping around the edges. Jeff’s breath hitched in his chest, wondering how long it would take before she broke and gave the order, before his blood spilled onto the frozen ground.
Jasmine saw the risk and held up a hand to calm her down. “I know. And I’m sorry. I deal with the guilt of what happened every single day.”
Jeff looked to Jayden, who appeared grimmer than Jasmine on the subject, and Jeff could empathise. Jasmine had hoped to bring Terise home, but Jeff and Jayden had been there to find out why she couldn’t.
“Keep your guilt. I don’t need it, and neither does Terise. At least I’m making an effort to avenge her, and I’ll make sure it’s done. Starting with him.”
Maggie let out a cry as Sophie pointed to Jeff, and his panic rose again, his heart flapping against his ribs in its effort to escape its bindings.
“Why Jeff?” Brady asked in a rush before she could give the order. “Why him specifically? He’s done nothing.”
Sophie began to laugh, a shrill noise that reminded Jeff of ghostly shapes lurking in the shadows. Sanity had forsaken this girl long ago.
“Are you people as gullible as you sound? Think of it! This guy comes here from another world with Raul hot on his heels. Twice! Do you really think it’s a coincidence? He’s Raul’s biggest supporter! We heard all about how he controls us, how he throws us into cruel and violent situations just to see what’ll happen. He and Raul worked together to destroy us. Raul is gone. He’s dead. His followers will turn to Jeff to lead them.”
Brady turned to Jeff, who stared back and let out a confused, “What?”
Sophie rolled her eyes. “Don’t try that innocent look on me. We heard them. A scout went in and overheard their plans. They said they need the Creator to finish what they started, and then the world will bow down before them. We won’t let that happen.”
Jeff didn’t like the sound of his being needed for any sort of plan, but in that moment, he could do nothing but laugh at Sophie’s reasoning.
If ever he regretted the big deal he’d made of himself when he first arrived here—the way he had insisted everyone was in his head, that everything they did was because he wrote it for them—it was at this moment.
“I haven’t written about you people in a year,” he said. “Raul’s return the second time wasn’t my fault. I worked with Brady and Jayden to make sure he didn’t come back. We failed. I’m sorry about that, but we got him in the end. I hated that man.”
Sophie didn’t bother to look at him, so little did she give credence to his arguments. Jeff released a yell of frustration and struggled against the hands that held him, knowing it was fight or be killed, but the hands held fast.
“You are the one that’s been spreading the rumours about the Feldall alliance with Raul?” asked Ariana, gaze flicking from Jeff to Sophie. “How long have you been organising this group of rebels? All of these people to follow one little girl.”
Sophie’s wild, misshapen grin grew. “It didn’t take long for people to find me. Not once I started making ground to find out what you should have discovered. There are hundreds of us, all willing to die to make sure Raul’s name is buried as deeply as his corpse.”
Jeff bit down on a smile. Little did she know Raul wasn’t burie
d at all. His stony memory remained on the top of the Kinnaeths, too heavy and large to be moved.
“Willing to die is right,” said Jayden. “We’ve killed as many of your people with as little effort as swatting a fly.”
“It doesn’t matter. For every one of us you kill, three more fill our ranks. We won’t stop until the mission is done.”
“And who’s training them? You?”
Again, the smile grew wider. “Oh no. I’ll be the first to say I don’t know a thing about fighting. Fortunately, after we tracked Raul’s followers here to the Kinnaeths about two and a half months ago, we came across a friend of yours. I say fortunately, but more for him than for us. Poor man was half-dead with badly mended broken bones, half-starved, half-frozen. He had nothing to live for. Until I told him about our mission.”
“A friend of ours?” Maggie asked.
Her grin turned wicked. “I say ‘friend’, but I doubt that would be his word.”
The tent flap stirred again. “No. Not the word I would choose.”
The voice turned Jeff’s blood to ice. Surrounded by so many ghosts, he began to wonder if he was actually awake, or still back in the inn, never having woken from his apocalyptic dream of fire and warning.
A shadow fell on Jeff as the man entered, and then faded as the tent closed, encasing them once more in the dim candlelight. The new arrival limped forward across the hard-packed earth. Jeff craned his neck upwards to see his face as he passed to stand next to Sophie.
He heard Ariana’s strangled gasp, and saw Brady’s, Maggie’s and William’s surprise. Jasmine looked dumbfounded, but her shock passed quickly into a hateful scowl.
The face matched the voice. Another resurrected body. This one still looked half-alive, his leg splinted with branches and bandages as he leaned on a tall stick, smoothed and carved into a sort of crutch. His arm sagged in a sling close to his chest, the crown of his head tightly wrapped, and his face bearing scars from old scratches.