Evenlight

by Krista Walsh

  “How do you expect him to walk?” Sophie demanded, gesturing to the splint on Darcy’s leg with an expression of contempt.

  Jayden stared back at her, unfazed. “He’ll figure it out. Leave the horses here. Jeff, you and Cassie stay with them when you get out.”

  Jeff nodded, happy he’d be of some use, if just for a simple task. He could handle that. He rubbed his palms on the thighs of his trousers to remove the sweat.

  With a gesture for everyone to be silent, Jayden led the way along the path.

  The mountains to their left, Jeff was grateful that this time they headed to the village instead of the peak. He remembered the climb from last time, staring down the precarious drop on one side of the path, clinging to the rock face on the other. This path was a nice easy incline, only difficult for having to wade through the high snow.

  Venn stayed close by Jeff’s side, daggers in both hands.

  “Cassie’s our priority,” she said. “As much as I can’t wait to cut the throats of as many of these monkeyball-grabbers as I can, I’m sticking close until you two are safe.”

  “It’s nice to know you have some sentiment,” he said, hoping she could hear how grateful he was beneath the teasing.

  “What can I say,” she replied. “I’m deep. Now shut up before they hear your loud voice.”

  She bumped his shoulder with hers, and he flashed her a smile, which he felt was marred by the worry in his gut.

  Less worried about how the next few minutes would go, Jeff felt more worried about how he wasn’t all that worried about how the next few minutes would go. After so many times in this same position, facing the impossible and the terrifying, possibly the end of life as he knew it, he’d become immune. Novel deadlines would be nothing after this. Meeting with his agent? Laughably stress-free. If he survived this, he could put his feet up and coast through the rest of his life.

  Until he forgot, of course. Which was inevitable. A year from now, his current dire circumstances would feel insignificant compared to the fact that his milk had once again perished in his fridge, and his tea was more curd than beverage.

  The thought made him laugh. He saw Venn’s baffled glance in his direction, noticed as she rolled her eyes, but kept his amusement to himself, clinging to it to keep his nerves at bay.

  A bend in the path blocked their view, but voices began to float towards him from the village. Ahead, Jasmine, Ariana, and Brady—who had fallen into his white-eyed Talfyr trance as he plodded along behind the others—crouched down and proceeded at a crawl. Ariana jerked Sophie down beside her, while Jayden remained standing next to Darcy, pressed close against a large tree. Jeff and Venn followed suit, keeping below the line of trees and odd rock formations that lined the path closer to the base of the mountain.

  Jasmine reached for an arrow, pulled back on her bow and a moment later, a body that should have been keeping guard from a treetop plunged to the ground. Jayden cast a dangerous glare at Sophie and Darcy, but the former refused to meet his eye, and the latter gave him a barefaced grin. Jeff was glad the entire plan didn’t hinge on those two not lying to them.

  Jasmine crept ahead, bow at the ready, paused, and then gestured for the others to follow. Ariana gave the prisoners an especially rough shove forwards.

  A pillow of smoke, thick and heavy in the cold air, wafted down towards them, catching Jeff in the face.

  A tickle crept up his throat.

  The Jeff from a year ago would have coughed.

  The Jeff from four months ago would have tried to stifle the cough, choked on a breath and sputtered until he gasped for air.

  The Jeff of that day managed to swallow the tickle and ignore the way his eyes streamed with grainy sand over his cheeks.

  I’m getting better at this.

  The thought had barely passed through his mind when his sights fell on the scene ahead of them.

  They had reached the village. Billows of smoke drifted up from the chimneys of dozens of cottages, some thatch-roofed buildings that Jeff remembered from the last time he passed through, but so many more hastily-constructed shacks.

  Jeff saw no heads on spikes of the villagers who had lived there before, no large burial mounds, which hopefully quieted Maggie’s fears, but neither did he see an image of picturesque country living.

  At least twenty people sat in a ring on logs or rocks, holding hands around a bonfire that would come up to Jeff’s shoulder if he stood next to it. They chanted something, but over the wind and distance, he couldn’t make out more words than “Raul the Destroyer”, “Devourer of the world,” and “Rise to meet you.”

  Never a good omen, but for all Jeff cared, they could have been raising Raul from the dead. His breath caught in his throat and his heart felt like it might burst from his chest.

  Cassie was in the circle. She sat with her profile towards him, and a hood from a woolen cloak pulled up over her hair, but Jeff knew the shape of her nose, and the line of her cheekbones.

  Even as he prided himself on learning the ropes of sneakiness, he let out a gasp that included an embarrassing squeak. Venn whacked his arm to tell him to be quiet, and the rest of his breath came out louder than planned.

  The group on the path froze, waited for the chanters to stop and see them, but they were caught up in their words.

  Maggie inched closer, wove her fingers through Jeff’s, and tilted her head to the side to better hear what they were saying. After a moment, her face blanched white.

  “Not good,” she whispered. “This is not good.”

  Jeff frowned. “What is it?”

  She ignored him and flagged down Jayden. “We either interrupt them right now or we’ll have a bigger problem on our hands.”

  “Bigger than that?” asked Venn, pointing out past the circle towards the first signs of an opening vortex. The snow began to spiral upwards, with a freak gust of wind blowing back the hoods on the nearest chanters. They didn’t stop the incantation, but a few of them, Cassie included, looked worriedly over their shoulders. Jeff saw her lips stumble over whatever spell they were casting, saw the person beside her elbow her in the ribs so she cringed and fell back into the flow. His vision went red.

  Venn’s hand closed around his arm and squeezed. He looked over his shoulder to see he’d moved forwards, ready to charge in on his own.

  With a breath, he held still, waiting for Jayden to give the order.

  Once assured he wouldn’t bolt, Maggie replied to Venn’s question. “Just as bad.”

  The warrior hesitated, staring across the village as if hoping to see his House colours rise up on the other side.

  “We don’t have time to wait, Jay,” said Maggie.

  A shadow passed overhead. Jeff didn’t want to look. He knew what it was. But his instinctual brain didn’t want to listen to his rational brain, and his head tilted backwards, just in time to see a flash of a grey tail against the afternoon sky.

  “Fuck.”

  A second head swooped down to catch up with the tail of the first dragon, and a third released a cry just out of Jeff’s sight line.

  “Can it get any worse?” Venn asked.

  Maggie cringed. “Much. Much worse.”

  Ice flooded Jeff’s veins as the ground beneath them lurched. Rocks rattled down the side of the mountain, and his gaze followed the path upwards, expecting to see that one of the new dragons had landed. But no grey-scaled beast stared down at them from the lofty peaks. Maggie was right. It was much, much worse.

  A skeleton wing stretched out, the bleached bones glinting in the sun. Another tremble under Jeff’s feet and the massive head rose from the ground, reattached to the body by the power of the chanting. The second wing stretched out, and the skeleton dragon released a cry more blood-curdling than when it was alive.

  For the third time, Raul had returned.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  How is this possible?” Jeff demanded, not too concerned about being heard over the sound of the world shaking itself to pieces. �
�Talfyr cut off his head! He was a stone statue! I think I’m panicking!”

  “Jeff, shut up,” said Jasmine, and he clamped his mouth closed. “Maggie?”

  Brafyr, white-eyed and blank-faced, spoke first. “The being you call Raul is dead. This spell has reanimated the final form his soul possessed.”

  “How is that better?” Venn demanded. “His final form was a dragon twice the size of you and impossible to kill. We won by pure chance. I don’t think we’ll get that lucky again.”

  “We need to stop the spell,” Maggie repeated.

  Brafyr shook his head. “It is too late. The magic has been cast. My brethren come in the face of the insult to our kind. Our remains are not puppets for inferior creatures. They will do what they can to destroy what was created, but do not trust them to stop with the dragon’s bones.”

  Jeff heard a whimper leave his throat, and he coughed to cover it. “So. Dragons, dead dragon, vortex, Raul’s people. Any other threats we should be aware of before we head in, or does that about cover the worst of it?”

  The others exchanged glances, and Jasmine took a breath. “I think that’s it.”

  “Perfect. Great. What are we waiting for?”

  This time he didn’t wait for Jayden’s say-so. They had already waited too long, and now their fight had jumped from ridiculously challenging to beyond the boundaries of even the remotest possibility.

  “I don’t think I could find a way to write myself out of this mess,” he mumbled under his breath.

  Venn heard him and grinned. “Maybe not going in, author man, but just think: by the time we get out of here in one piece, you’ll have a pretty epic scene already written.”

  She released a whoop of excitement as she raised her blades and fell on the first chanters she could reach. Jasmine kept to the edge, firing arrow after arrow, dropping one follower after another.

  Talfyr remained with Brady, speaking soundless words that Jeff hoped were being heard by their temporary allies in the sky.

  “If Kariel turns away at this, I’m going to march over to his Keep and give the man a personal hiding,” Jayden grumbled, drawing his sword. He disappeared into the growing riot of the cabal circle.

  Jeff scanned the crowd, no longer the organised circle of a moment ago, but couldn’t find the familiar face that had drawn him in.

  Where are you?

  He spun around, trying to catch faces and stay out of the way of people with weapons. For now, since he held no obvious weapon himself, he was ignored as a non-threat, but that would change quickly once anyone recognised him. He had to find Cassie before then.

  “Jeff!”

  He heard her voice somewhere in the crowd. Whirling in a circle, he tried to place her, but all he saw was Maggie shouting words that propelled people backwards; Jayden swinging his sword and cutting down anyone too stupid to come close; Venn darting through enemies like a ninja, first here then there, sneaking low by people’s feet to jab them in the kidney with her sharp knives; the enemy using magic to summon lightning, fire, and more wolves, all in varying stages of decomposition. Squirrels, foxes, anything these people could bring back and turn to their cause now struck out with fearless ferocity.

  Jeff thought how awful it would be to die by undead squirrel.

  “Over here!” Cassie’s voice brought him around again, pulling him out of the smell of blood and the sight of the gore that oozed through the soles of his boots. The snow was more colour than white, and Jeff’s stomach suggested a few more colours were about to be added to the mix. He turned his mind away from his senses and focused only on Cassie’s voice.

  Through the crowd, he saw her for a moment, but she disappeared again as Jayden thrust a sword through a woman’s chest, and pandemonium ensued as the two other armies swarmed in, weapons clashing and arrows flying as the triad closed around the village. From every hut, cabin, and farmhouse, Raul’s followers spilled out into the snow, armed and casting spells.

  Three people jumped on the warrior, and as much as Jayden bucked and did his best to throw them off, they nearly succeeded in wrestling him to the ground. Not sure how to help, Jeff did the only thing he could think of and tackled all of them. Jayden landed on his back, pinning two of his attackers underneath him, with the third caught between him and Jeff.

  “What the balls, Author?” Jayden wheezed.

  “Sorry!” Jeff exclaimed.

  “Next time you want to save my life, try not to kill me.”

  Jeff eased off the sorcerer, and Jayden rushed to drive his knife into the man’s neck. They heaved the corpse off Jayden, and dispatched the other two Jayden had crushed, one of whom had struck his head on a rock buried under the snow, saving them the trouble.

  “Jeff!” Cassie called again, this time with a layer of panic that tore Jeff’s attention away from the new wave of people coming after Jayden.

  Again, he saw her through the crowd, this time with hands grabbing at her, pulling her back. Jeff threw out his elbows to fend off the pressing masses, and forced his way forward. Venn appeared at his side, daggers flashing as she darted and spun around him. Jeff pushed through the last of the crowd and swung a fist at the man holding Cassie’s left arm as Venn flung herself at the woman on her right. Free of her captors, Cassie threw herself at the man Jeff had punched, bringing her knee up between his legs so he keeled over with a groan.

  Venn shoved Jeff towards Cassie. “You two get out of here.”

  “You said you were coming with us.”

  She flashed him a grin. “I’m having too much fun. Besides, I promised William I’d meet him in the middle. Go!”

  She disappeared back into the fray, and despite the chaos of the battle, time froze. Jeff stared at Cassie and everything else faded away. Nothing in the world was as beautiful as the way she looked back at him. The relief on her face, the softness around her eyes. Even covered in blood and surrounded by fighting, she was perfection.

  She threw herself into his arms, and he clung to her as if the world would fall apart if he lost her again.

  Her hood fell back, and Jeff ran his hands through her hair, his fingers stopping at the base of her neck. He paused and ran his fingers through again. With a strange, shaking anger he couldn’t place, he slid his hands to her shoulders and pulled back, getting a good look at her.

  She looked thinner than before, the hollows of her cheeks pressing out her cheekbones, making her eyes larger. Dark circles hung like crescent moons under her lids. The lingering yellow fingers of bruises stretched over one cheek, and he spotted another along her jawline on the other side. The rest of the analysis would have to wait until they were out of danger, but the one feature that stood out more than anything was that her long hair was gone, cut short into an uneven bob.

  She caught his gaze with a smile and reached up to squeeze his hands. “I’m alive, and I’m fine now. The rest can wait.”

  With her words, the spell broke. They were back in the battle, with the dragons flying overhead. Jeff cast his gaze up to the mountain top, pulling Cassie closer to his side, staring in horror as the skeleton dragon stood to full height. It blocked the sun with its bony wings, creating an uneven shadow over the battle below.

  Another ear-piercing shriek cut through the noise of the fight, and Jeff covered one ear with his hand, turning away from the noise as if it did a single thing to help.

  “We need to get out of here!” Cassie cried into his free ear, tugging him back towards the edge of the crowd.

  Jeff stumbled in surprise. If one of them was more likely to want to flee first, he would have guessed it to be himself.

  “What’s your hurry?” he asked, guessing there had to be a good reason and not entirely sure he wanted to know.

  “If they find you, they’ll kill you,” she explained as she pulled on his arm. “And not in a nice way. They believe you and Raul are intertwined, that’s why you were always the one to bring him back and the only one able to kill him.”

  “Talfyr killed him,
” Jeff argued.

  “Facts don’t bother these people too much. They have the dragon moving, and they believe if they sacrifice you, they can return Raul’s soul to it.”

  “Then yes, please, let’s get out of here.”

  They reached the path back to the horses as the rockslide from the top of the trembling mountain grew worse. The stone dragon, unable to fly due to its weight and bony wings, gripped the edge of the mountain with long, jagged talons, and proceeded to climb down, step by wide step.

  Jeff froze, couldn’t find his breath, and Cassie’s fingernails dug into his palm as viciously as he squeezed her hand in return.

  “I’m so sorry,” she said. “I did my best to interrupt the spell, but they watched so closely.”

  Jeff slid his hand behind her neck and pressed his lips against hers to silence the guilt. It wasn’t anything like he’d wanted for their first kiss. He’d imagined again and again something slower, deeper, leading to something far more exciting, but in case this stupid risen dragon was the end of them, he wouldn’t miss the opportunity for even a brief peck.

  A series of screams burst out behind them, and Jeff didn’t know which way to direct his attention. Cassie turned to look over her shoulder, so Jeff continued to watch as the stone dragon shook out its head and found its bearings at the bottom of the mountain. It stretched out its neck and snapped at the nearest people it could reach, a handful of its own devoted followers. With no mouth to enclose them, Jeff watched as their bodies were broken and turned to nothing more than human mash.

  A gasp of fear from Cassie tore his gaze away, but as he twisted his head around, he didn’t know which sight scared him most. The dead-eyed Raul-dragon-skeleton, or the ever-growing vortex that had stretched to almost the width of the road, one cottage sucked up by the pull, leaving nothing but a large crater behind.

  “Gives a new slant to rock and a hard place,” Cassie said, the grip on Jeff’s waist and tremor in her voice belying the levity of her comment. “What do we do? These people are insane. They want the vortices to open to wipe out the world so they can start again, in a society ruled by Raul. They managed to keep a sort of shield around the village, but it required a constant chant. It must have been interrupted.”