If she hadn’t gone to the ceremonial hilltop on that fateful day, she’d never have gotten involved with Keriya and Fletcher. She never would have grown to love them as she did now. She never would have met Thorion or Max or Effrax, who toiled by her side and who—despite his many, many flaws—was ultimately good company.
She might be miserable, but she did not regret the choices that had brought her here. As the days turned into a week, then two weeks, she thought of everything she’d gained. She reminded herself daily what she was fighting for.
And she marched on.
At last, they crested the peak of a sandy ridge and were met with the wonderful sight of civilization in the valley below. The lights of a lively town glittered in the twilight like a hive of tiny fireflies. On a rocky peak across from them, a white-walled monastery gleamed on the mountainside.
“The Valaani Temple,” said Effrax. “We’re halfway there.”
“Halfway?” she said skeptically. Surely it couldn’t be more than another day’s walk before they reached the temple doors.
“We got here, sure,” he replied. “Now we have to summon a god.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
“The river whose source is purest is most easily contaminated.”
~ Calzani Proverb
The bogspectre lifted its head to the sky. Its nose had rotted away ages ago, but it opened its toothless mouth and sucked in a rattling breath, tasting the night air.
Its prey was close.
It had never roamed this far before. It had spent most of its existence ensconced in its rainforest glade, guarding its single possession: a treasure of immeasurable worth, a gift from a creature long-forgotten, a sword that held a secret power.
Someone had stolen that treasure, someone who bore the mark of the Shadow. And the bogspectre must not let its treasure fall into the Shadow Lord’s hands.
Its hunt had led it to the furthest ends of its domain and further still. It stared now at a sluggish river scabbed with ice, beyond which towered great palisades. The white cliffs gleamed faintly purple in the light of the rising moons. Perched atop their heights lay a human city where the taint of the Shadow hung thick.
The bogspectre had been drawn to this place, sensing a swell of dark powers. The Shadow Lord’s servants had grown in number, and the bogspectre vowed to hunt them down. Destroy them. Yes. Murder them one by one, until it reclaimed its treasure.
It couldn’t gain entry to the settlement, for some manner of deep magic protected those high stone walls. So it had taken to lurking, skulking around the riverbank, circling and waiting for an opportunity to strike.
A violent tremor wracked the bogspectre’s floating, oozing frame. It hovered low to the ground, soiling the sparse snow with dark droplets of its seething, ever-melting body. But it was used to pain, and it knew the agonized cramping that had seized it would soon pass.
Sure enough, the seizure faded as quickly as it had come. The bogspectre lifted its head to the sky. Who was it? Why was it here? This wasn’t its home. Where was its treasure?
A frothing panic gripped the bogspectre as firmly as the seizure had. It remembered. Its treasure was gone. Someone had stolen it.
A bleak wind carried a string of muffled curses to the bogspectre, and it lashed its tail, turning in the direction of the noise. Two flesh-rats were bumbling around on the banks of the moat that encircled the Shadow-stained city.
Yes . . . yes, it remembered now, remembered everything. It had spotted two common footpads as they’d traveled from the east. They had missed the city curfew and had been stranded outside the locked gates for the night. Alone and defenseless.
They would be the bogspectre’s next victims.
The bogspectre followed them at a distance, a phantom in the dark. They were making an awful racket, these doomed mortals, complaining about city regulations. It was easy to follow them, for the bogspectre could make itself unseen. It had no soul, so it had no magic to wield—yet being soulless had provided it with strange powers. The bogspectre had but to twist the threads of its being to become invisible.
In a motion like the wringing of a washcloth, the bogspectre swirled its body around. It wrenched its threads through several different dimensions, a sensation which would have driven any sane creature mad. But the bogspectre was not sane. Its brain had long since dissolved, and was little more than a tangle of mush. It turned once more and was back in its own world, now invisible.
“Revur, look!” One of the flesh-rats leapt forward, running toward a shiny black shape half-hidden in a patch of scraggly ferns. “Our luck’s about to change!”
“Helkryvt’s blood and bones,” Revur gasped, hurrying to catch his companion.
The bogspectre oozed after them, not wanting to lose sight of its quarry.
“It’s a tronkin’ bloodbound carriage,” the first man said, brushing aside the large, withered plant fronds to inspect a box-like object. “You know how much these things are worth?”
“Ooh, look at the insignia—this is one of those real high-class ones,” said Revur, running his hands across the smooth surface of the carriage. “If we can get in, we’d be safe for the night. They been saying the bogspectre’s come as far south as the fenlands.”
“Rubbish,” said the other.
The bogspectre hadn’t smiled in centuries, but a faint ripple disturbed the edges of its mouth. One could always count on humans to be fools.
“C’mon, help me get this thing open. Must be a door here somewhere. We’re gonna be rich!”
“Where’s its golem?” said Revur, circling to work on the far side of the carriage while the first human tried to find a door on the side closest to the bogspectre.
“Its what-now?”
“You know, the things that tote the carriages around. The golems. Now one of those would make us rich. It would do whatever we say—it would rob the Imperial Treasury if we told it to, and break the necks of anyone stupid enough to get in our way.”
The two vagabonds shared a chuckle and redoubled their efforts to open the carriage, banging on the black metal siding of the box, kicking at it, standing on a nearby boulder to see if there was perhaps a hatch in its roof where one could gain access.
“Hey Revur,” said one to the other. “What if we just wait for the owner to come back?”
“Huh?”
“We wait for the owner to open it, and when he does, we jump out and slit his throat.”
“Huh,” Revur said again. His hand dropped to his waist, and he withdrew a shiny dagger from a sheath.
The bogspectre feared nothing in the mortal world. Since it didn’t have a soul, it wasn’t truly alive; and since it wasn’t truly alive, it couldn’t die. It approached the armed human without hesitation.
It swirled soundlessly into visibility next to its target. The flesh-rat, who was burly and reeked of spirits, jumped and turned to face the unexpected presence at his side. He didn’t have time to scream before the bogspectre had ensnared his gaze with its own. The pathetic flesh-rat froze, his dagger halfway extended in defense, his mouth agape in a silent scream.
The bogspectre pressed its gelatinous face against the pockmarked flesh. It burrowed into its unwilling host through his eye sockets, compacting itself, stuffing itself down his throat and into his gut. The threads of its ancient, decaying, poisoned body twisted sideways, propelling themselves through the human’s veins. It twisted through another nameless, formless dimension, and saw the glow of the man’s magicsource.
A flare of jealous rage burned bright in the bogspectre, as was always the case when it was presented with the sight of that which it lacked. The bogspectre smothered the source, pushing the brightness aside to make room for its dark presence.
Revur opened his eyes. He blinked and gazed around. Who was he? Why was he here? Where was here?
“You bloody trog, a
re you listening to me?” An angry voice split the night. “I asked you a question!”
The bogspectre blinked again. It gazed at its newly acquired human hands, one of which clutched a narrow blade. It remembered. It curled its stolen lips and willed its feet to move. Revur’s body stumped around the carriage to join his friend.
“Well?” the other man demanded, planting his fists on his hips.
The bogspectre moved, drawing partially on its host’s muscle memory, and partially on some deep-submerged fighting instinct of its own. It didn’t know where the instincts sprang from, nor did it care—it was hungry. A primal urge to feed had possessed it, much as it had possessed Revur. It had not eaten a proper meal in a ten-age, and it longed to sate an appetite that would never be sated.
It launched Revur’s heavy body at his smaller companion. The other human, who was unarmed, shouted as the bogspectre wrestled him into submission. With a silver flash of the dagger, the flesh-rat’s throat opened and hot, scarlet liquid spurted out.
The bogspectre lowered its head and slurped at the lifeblood pulsing from the wound.
As the body beneath it grew still and the salty tang seared its mouth and throat, a sense of regret and sickness stole over the bogspectre. Things hadn’t always been like this, had they? No. This wasn’t right. This wasn’t where it belonged.
It belonged in its rainforest glen with its treasure hidden from the Shadow. But that wasn’t right, either; hadn’t there once been something else to life? Hadn’t there once been someone . . . special? Yes. Someone important.
Memories crashed inside Revur’s head like storm-tossed waves battering against a jagged shoreline—some belonged to the bogspectre, some to the human host, and still others came from the countless unfortunate souls it had possessed and destroyed.
The bogspectre had no way of knowing which of these memories were real and which were stolen. It closed its eyes and hunched over the fresh corpse on the ground, rocking back and forth. Who was it? Why was it here?
“To find my treasure,” it rasped aloud. It remembered. Its treasure had been stolen, and it was leagues upon leagues away from where it belonged, trying to track the wretched, thieving shadowspawn who’d taken it.
Its cavernous hunger would never be sated, but strangely enough, the bogspectre had lost its appetite. It tucked the dagger into Revur’s belt, then grabbed the dead human by his ankles and hauled him from the site of the kill. It knew it would want to feast later. It would need strength if it hoped to gain access to the settlement atop the white cliffs.
Now that it had a new body to command, it would soon be able to cross those gates. It would overturn the city to find its lost treasure. And it would destroy anyone who got in its way.
It was so preoccupied with its schemes that it didn’t notice when the cliff grates opened and water from the sewer system thundered into the moat. Had it lingered, it would have found another victim . . . but it left quickly, and when Fletcher Earengale stumbled on the bloodbound carriage an hour later, the place was deserted.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
“The greatest weapon of our enemy is his ability to make us fear each other.”
~ Lykora Psyori, Second Age
Fletcher spotted the bloodbound carriage easily. It sat behind a patch of sorry-looking ferns and its shiny black finish gleamed in the darkness. Square on the bottom, rounded on top, it resembled a loaf of bread in shape. It was small, made for one passenger, and instead of a place to hitch a horse, it had two short poles.
How was Fletcher supposed to get anywhere in this? Pull it himself? How was he even supposed to get inside? It had two tinted windows but no door.
He desperately wanted to be out of the wind, but he couldn’t get the carriage to open no matter how hard he tried. Stumped, he paced around the contraption. If he lingered too long, he’d be an easy target for the Imperials.
He stopped short when he reached the far side of the carriage. Something awful had happened here—the ferns had been trampled flat, and there was a puddle of liquid that looked suspiciously like blood. The hairs on Fletcher’s arms stood on end. He slowly backed away from the blood spill that glistened black beneath the stars.
The gruesome sight stirred something in his frozen brain. Effrax had told him to give the carriage a drop of blood. In a convenient twist of fate, he was bleeding from multiple injuries he’d sustained in the sewers. Fletcher touched his cheek where his face had scraped along the floor, and his fingers came away glazed with red.
He retreated to the far side of the carriage. Then he pressed his bloody fingertips to the smooth metal siding.
The sound of stone grating on stone met his ears. Looking around, Fletcher a nearby boulder was shaking. There was a loud crack that set his teeth on edge. Fissures splintered the rock into five segments. The limb-like sections began moving of their own accord, hinging like joints. Dust crumbled from the main body, revealing a more defined form.
The boulder straightened and faced him. It now had the approximate shape of a large and lumpy human. Fletcher was frozen in shock, hardly able to believe what he was seeing.
With the grinding noise of something heavy being dragged across an uneven surface, the boulder raised one arm. Fletcher’s survival instincts kicked in and he tried to run, but he stumbled over his numb feet and fell flat on his face. But the monster wasn’t aiming for him. It banged on the side of the bloodbound and a door—so seamlessly integrated into the siding that Fletcher hadn’t spotted its outline—sprang open.
Fletcher lay there for a few long moments, gaping at the carriage and the monster. “Am I . . . allowed to go inside?”
No response from the boulder. When Fletcher stood and took a few tentative steps, the creature shifted its weight aside, as if inviting him into the carriage.
“Thanks,” Fletcher whispered. He climbed into the bloodbound, keeping one wary eye on the boulder. The interior was upholstered with a cushy pink lining and there were frilly pillows on the seats. Not what he’d been expecting, but he wasn’t about to complain. He pulled the door closed behind him and sat rigidly on the padded bench.
Again, nothing happened. Minutes passed and Fletcher grew antsy. When he couldn’t take it anymore, he opened the door. The boulder was standing exactly where he’d left it. With a gravelly creak, it turned to him.
“Sorry,” said Fletcher, “but I’d like to go to Elvinthrane. Can you take me there, please?”
He’d said the magic words. The boulder lumbered to the front of the carriage on its columnar legs. Fletcher pulled the door shut as the creature took its place between the two poles and bent to grab them with its bulky stone hands. With a jolt, the bloodbound lurched forward.
“I did it,” Fletcher breathed, gripping a frilly pillow in one hand and bracing himself against the carriage wall with the other. A sense of accomplishment swelled within him.
He gazed through the window. The sky was clear and the Oldmoon was bright. Somewhere out there, Keriya and Thorion were watching the same moon. Were they safe? Had they found any of the answers they were looking for? How much longer did Thorion have left?
Fletcher’s heart thudded unpleasantly as he focused on that last thought. He spotted a latch on the window and unlocked it, pushing it open. “Excuse me, would it be possible to go a little faster?”
The boulder sped up and Fletcher closed the window once more. Though his mind was abuzz and his stomach aflutter with worries, he only had to close his eyes to fall fast asleep.
Over the next few days, Fletcher tried to get a handle on the enigmatic driver of the bloodbound. He decided it wasn’t alive. It couldn’t be. It was a lump of rock that had been animated and enchanted with lifemagic—or perhaps some other, more sinister sort of magic—to do his bidding.
Despite it not being alive, Fletcher made an effort to be polite to the creature. One could never be too careful when strang
e powers were at work.
The boulder rammed its way across the Smarlindian countryside in a straight line, straying from its course only when there was an immovable obstacle in its path. It kicked through brush and dragged the carriage underwater to cross the East Outlet River. When Fletcher said he needed food, it took him to a small hunting village. He bought provisions but didn’t linger. He intended to keep going at this pace, not to make any more major stops until he reached the elven city.
The next morning, Fletcher awoke to find himself trundling across the open ground of a brown plain. To the left, a shimmering lake and a modest city stretched across the horizon.
As they drew near, he noticed groups of people clumped along the lakeshore. Curls of black smoke grew visible, spiraling in thin bands throughout the buildings. Something was happening—and Fletcher was ready to bet all the derlei in his pack that it was nothing good.
“You! Halt!”
He’d been so caught up in watching the people on the banks that he hadn’t noticed the blockade ahead. A wide road lay perpendicular to the boulder’s path . . . and it was policed by Imperial Guards.
“Halt!” A man was cantering toward Fletcher on an armored warhorse, yelling to get his attention. “Halt your golem now!”
Fletcher scrabbled at the window latch and pulled it open. “Stop,” he called to the boulder. It froze mid-stride, bringing the bloodbound to a jarring halt.
“Didn’t you see the roadblock?” the guard demanded, reining in his horse as he reached the carriage. By the looks of him, he was Fironian. He had a noble face and an icy gaze that speared Fletcher with suspicion.
“Sorry,” said Fletcher, hunching his shoulders so the collar of his expensive coat hid some of his face. He wasn’t wearing any disguise except his glasses, which wouldn’t do much if this soldier knew him from the wanted posters. “I’m in a hurry. Trying to get to Elvinthrane.”
Dragon Child Page 20