“What did she see?”
“Saw us.” The darkness swirled again. “Knew us.”
It was a sorry explanation for a sad death, Arrow thought, resting her arms on her knees, taking as deep a breath as her sore ribs would allow. Marianne had been too curious for her own good. It seemed Zachary agreed as he stepped back, lip curling.
“Are there more?” she asked.
“Always more. Tasty.”
“Are there more surjusi on this plane,” she clarified, power in her words.
“Plenty waiting. Brother. Sister. Little children. All hungry. So hungry.” The voice deepened, shaded to something otherworldly and Arrow’s hand moved instinctively to her sword hilt. The thing was stronger than it looked. Far stronger than the fragile human body it had ridden and ruined.
“Who is us?” Her attention snagged.
“No us. No us. Us. No. Us.”
“Who is us?” she demanded, fingers tightening on the hilt.
“No. Us. No.” The demon was to the fore now, human blue gone from his eyes and he surged up, pushing against the containment, the strands of the spells creaking in the second world, some fracturing. The physical body it was using was weak, but the spells were weaker. Freedom was a mere moment away.
Erith amber blazed, the warriors recognised how close the thing was to freedom, weapons drawn, the cadre moving to form a circle around the creature, each warrior’s face set and determined. Zachary rose to his feet, eyes blazing brilliant green, unable to see the breaking of the containment, sensing something wrong.
In the centre of the ring, watching the containment failing, the Preceptor’s commands ringing through her, Arrow drew her sword and thrust it forward, words of the banishment spell pouring out of her as her sword held the thing to the ground. It writhed under the spirit blade, shrieking in an awful mix of human and demon pitches.
Three repetitions this time and the body finally went limp, all darkness fading, leaving a heap of skin and bone, face turned to the earthen ceiling above, fading blue eyes clouded.
“Definitely dead?”
“Yes, Prime.” Arrow’s voice was faint, shoulders slumped, taking two attempts to get the sword back in its scabbard. “Most definitely dead.”
With the monster defeated and the danger passed, the enormity of more death pressed on her, edges of her vision blurring. Too many dead around her. And too many by her hand. There had been no choice, but the stain of it corroded her inside. Will alone kept her up. The draw of the dead filled the second world, a too-familiar grey, the weight of their wants and unfulfilled lives pressing on her. There was a price to pay for death. She wondered if the White Guard felt it too and had no words to ask that.
The ‘kin were coming back into the light, dragging a human corpse with them, one of the ‘kin carrying a modified crossbow and quiver of bolts. Mathias gave his father a brief nod signalling all clear. The body this time was recognisably human, no indication of any taint, an unfamiliar face. Lucy glanced at the body, bit her lip, glanced away. She was pale and visibly trembling.
“Michael Hessman,” Kallish observed, eyes on the heap in front of Arrow and Zachary. “Hard to tell but the colouring is the same.”
“Demon ridden.” Zachary’s voice was heavy with what sounded like sorrow. He shook his head. “Idiot.”
“Foolish,” Kallish agreed, Xeveran providing a rapid translation. “Not the first fool to want power and not count the cost.”
“And the others?” Arrow asked.
“Danes. Rowan. The one with the crossbow was another Rowan,” Matthias told her. “We recognise the faces from research.” Kallish nodded her agreement. Every White Guard cadre leader would know the Descendants by sight.
“Space is clear?” Zachary was just checking.
“No more living things,” Matthias confirmed. “It’s huge. A little way in that direction,” he pointed, “ground slopes up in a roadway There’s a vehicle door. Probably leads to the street. Couple of vehicles we need to check plates for and some stuff I’m not touching without Arrow.”
“They could have been here for years.” Zachary stared at the body.
Had been here for years, Arrow amended quietly in her mind. The ruined tower above had been two hundred years old, built to provide light below in a time when artificial light had not been available. She wondered what other surprises the Descendants’ residences would hold when the White Guard searched them. Treaty or not, the Queen would not allow this to pass without reprisal. The humans, so long used to the Erith as exotic neighbours, were about to get a harsh lesson in Erith justice.
“Yeah.” Matthias sounded worn.
“And we might never have found them.” Zachary’s voice held a threat, words cast in the direction of the human. “Come here.” There was no power in his voice, but Lucy rose to her feet and walked over to him, pulling her heavy coat more tightly around her, lifting her chin again in silent defiance. “This is what happens when people play with things they don’t understand,” he told her, pointing to the mangled remains.
“You killed him.” She was glaring at Arrow, voice shaking. Not fear.
“He carried a surjusi within. Willingly,” Arrow answered. “You would call it a demon.”
“No. I don’t believe it.”
“Look at him. Look at how deformed his body had become. That is no human disease,” Arrow said, then sighed as Lucy’s chin stuck out.
“Demon ridden,” Zachary said softly, close to Lucy’s ear. “And now look at your cousin.”
“I saw him. Dead as well.”
“Deformed, too. Tried to play with demons.” Zachary’s voice was still too quiet.
Lucy’s attention finally turned to him, and some of her defiance faded.
“Which we would have known about if you had told us the truth.”
“I don’t owe you anything.”
“This one,” Arrow said, pointing to Hessman’s remains, “killed Marianne on the mountain. He hunted her across the mountain until she had run her feet raw. Then he shot her with a crossbow.” Arrow paused to steady her voice. “It was a weapon made from body parts and powered with blood magic.”
Lucy’s face was white, eyes burning as she stared at Arrow.
“I didn’t know.” She swallowed hard, lines of her throat standing out.
Arrow believed her. Zachary did, too, face twisting in disgust.
“How did you know about this place?” Arrow asked.
“We played here as children. A few times. It …” Lucy looked around, swallowed, nose wrinkling. “It’s changed a bit since then.”
“And didn’t think to mention it.” Zachary’s voice was silky soft again.
“Would it have made a difference?” The bitterness in Lucy’s voice made no impression on the Prime. She seemed furious.
Arrow remembered the quiet question, is it my fault? and thought that Lucy was mostly angry at herself, hating everyone else because that was easier than accepting that she had contributed to her lover’s death.
“It would have saved us some time,” Zachary said, “and you’d still be a friend of the muster. As it is, you’re disavowed.”
“Y-you …” Lucy’s mouth opened again but no sound came out as all the ‘kin apart from Zachary turned their back on her.
“Get out,” he told her.
“I dropped my torch when you grabbed me,” she protested. He dug into one pocket, producing a small flashlight, and handed it over. After another glance up at his set face, and a long look around the silent Erith and backs of the ‘kin, she turned on the torch and walked out of the circle.
“One assumes that the human female was not widely known about,” Kallish said quietly.
“One assumes correctly. It has not formed part of my reports.”
“I see no reason to mention it.”
Perfectly in accord, Arrow and Kallish waited as Lucy’s torch disappeared into the dark and the ‘kin settled, anger on several faces. Not directed to their Prime,
she noticed. The glares were following Lucy’s progress into the dark. She had wondered how he had managed to keep it a secret from his people and it appeared that it had not been much of a secret. It said something about the regard they had for him that they had kept quiet, though.
“Injuries, svegraen?”
“Some minor wounds. And cleansing needed,” Kallish answered. For the first time, Arrow heard weariness in the warrior’s voice. “We had hoped not to have to face surjusi again.”
Arrow could find nothing to say to that.
~
She stared at Hessman’s body and wondered again if the human had thought the price for his power had been worth it. Every limb was distorted, fingers twisted so that he probably had not even been able to feed himself. If he had eaten at all. He was so thin, merely skin over bone and sinew. Her eyes snapped back to the misshapen fingers. There was no possibility that this thing had handled the chalk with the skill necessary for the runes on Farraway Mountain. He might have managed the containment spell in Hallveran, straight after the surjusi had arrived. The surjusi distortion would have been mild then. But the mountain recording had shown him shuffling and awkward in his gait.
A cold certainty settled. Someone else had drawn the runes. All of them. Someone who had knowledge of high Erith magic. Us. There were more.
And with that conclusion there was a new, vital, question as to how he had survived so long with that surjusi inside him. Nothing in the history that Arrow knew suggested he, or the Ancestors, had been powerful magicians. His body had not been made to carry that much power and had survived far longer than she would have guessed possible.
She took a step forward, crouching by the corpse, inspecting what she could, and found an answer to that, and another troubling question.
“It’s done, then,” Zachary said over her head, sounding as weary as she felt. Perhaps he felt the weight of the dead, too.
“No more surjusi.” Arrow nodded.
“We never found where Marianne was for four months.”
“I believe she was already dead, not long after she hired that vehicle in Hallveran.”
“Explain, please.” Zachary crouched beside her.
“I wondered how this thing survived so long. The surjusi should have killed the human long ago. Too much for a human body.” She glanced across and found that, once again, he perfectly understood. “But there are Erith spells to preserve matter. In particular there is an Erith spell which is meant to preserve remains so that the family might say their goodbyes.” She pointed to the dead thing and the rune carved into his chest. “Like that. Only it would have been invisible normally. I speculate that it was carved there to combat the surjusi taint. A marking like that on Marianne Stillwater would have preserved her remains for months.”
“We didn’t see the magician carving anything onto her.” Zachary rubbed a hand over his face and through his hair, rising to his feet.
“Spells can be spoken, too,” she reminded him, rising as well, pressing a hand to her ribs as they twinged, and regretting it at once as a fierce stab shot through her.
Zachary’s face was drawn as he followed her reasoning, probably remembering, like her, that there had been no sound with the reconstruction spell and it was impossible to know if or what the shadowed form had spoken on the mountain. She also kept to herself that a few minutes with Marianne’s body would have confirmed the spell. They might have known, much sooner, the correct time of Marianne’s death. Four months since Marianne had found the Rowan residence in Hallveran and run herself half to death across the mountain. Heading for Zachary. It was the only explanation that made sense. Chased. Hunted. And killed so close to her goal.
“Dead before we knew she was missing. We might still not have found her.” Zachary was grim, glaring at the body in front of him as though he wanted to kill it again. “I’ve had searchers out.” A few of the ‘kin twitched, ducking their eyes, embarrassed by their failure, a feeling Arrow was deeply familiar with. “I’ve not been pleased at the lack of finding. An impossible task. Impossible to track a dead woman.” The ‘kin settled, faces set.
“I am sorry that there are no better answers,” she said.
“At least we have some.” He turned slightly to face her, and she mirrored him, face to face. “You will convey to the Taellan in whatever terms that they will understand that we will have an accounting from the Erith as to how Erith magic came to be used to kill our mate and violate our territory.” It was not Zachary speaking but the Prime, his power coiling out.
“Prime, it will be done.” Arrow made a small bow before she could check the motion, Erith Court manners ingrained.
“And you will tell the Taellan that we have come to value your service.” He was still speaking as the Prime. Her jaw dropped. “We would be extremely displeased to find that anything had happened to you.”
She closed her jaw, words failing her, and simply bowed again, eyes pricking with unexpected tears. Valued. And an unsubtle offer of protection. An invisible yet tangible net that the Erith dare not ignore. Her throat tightened. The Prime understood far too much about the way that the Erith thought and operated if he knew, so clearly, how vulnerable her position was.
“The mage is under our charge,” Kallish said unexpectedly. Xeveran had clearly given her a translation. Arrow turned to stare at the warrior, astonished, and caught the edges of a straight look between Kallish and Zachary. Across races and language barriers they somehow understood each other perfectly, Kallish making a graceful, shallow bow and Zachary dipping his chin in respect. Arrow frowned, not quite sure what had gone on.
Around them the White Guard held their ground, alert and on watch despite the taint creeping through them. None were wholly taken over. The few struck by mage fire had countered it, not without cost. There were injuries of flesh and blood, too. All would survive. How well was a question for another day.
The ‘kin were equally battered, including the two in animal form, the same set, determined expression on their faces. Holding ground, waiting for orders.
An old White Guard saying crossed her mind. The battle is done. Take the win. Trouble will find you soon enough.
For now she set aside the future, the likely fury of the Taellan, the possibility of discovery of her own secrets, so long held, the probability that there was another dangerous magician still alive. All would come in time. All for another day. Today they had held.
She drew a long breath, ache of healing bones catching her again, eyes gritty from lack of sleep and using so much power, throat tight with the echo of the loss she had felt on the mountain. A strong-willed, vibrant woman, too curious for her own good, had died to lead them here. Arrow had found her killer. The promise was kept. In the privacy of her own mind she offered an Erith blessing for the dead and saw, shifting in the shadow, the ghost of a chocolate brown wolf with bright eyes who winked at her and padded away, disappearing into nothing.
There would be questions. An investigation. The Preceptor would want to inspect this place himself, to understand how a surjusi could come so close to the Erith border. The White Guard would want to know how Descendants could form a conspiracy under their watch. The Queen herself would need to be involved, to be fully informed. The Taellan would doubtless want to shout at her for some imagined misdeed. Eshan was probably already plotting her next unpleasant task. Cleaning spiders out of what remained of his archives, perhaps, once Evellan was done with her here.
But the Prime had offered her his protection, the protection of the Erith’s old enemies. She would live.
And for now, she was whole in mind and nearly whole in body. She would heal. The day had been won. She was alive. It was enough.
REVEALED, THE TAELLANETH - BOOK 2
CHAPTER 1
The battle is done. Take the win. Trouble will find you soon enough.
The old saying, favoured by Erith warriors, rang around her head for perhaps the fiftieth time. It had been a comfort when she first remembered i
t. Now it was irritating. Even in offering comfort, the Erith still warned of danger.
The battle was won. A very short time ago. It had ended in the middle of the night, and it was now barely morning. In the underground space not far away, the blood was still fresh, bodies still warm.
A single cadre of White Guard. The shifkin Prime. A dozen shifkin. Arrow. Such small numbers. Erith and ‘kin putting aside their differences, their long, bitter and bloody history, against a common threat. They had stood against the dark. Against humans. Against Erith predators that had no business here, in the human world. Against beings that had been human once, twisted and fuelled by unclean magic. Against surjusi. The Erith’s deadliest enemy. Stood and held. None of the bodies beneath them were Erith or ‘kin.
The battle was won. And even though she was out in the air, away from the cloying dark, her whole body was still primed to fight, heart racing too fast, fine tremor in her fingers, stomach twisting.
The battle was won. Every bone ached. She was spattered in dirt and blood and what looked like ash but was in fact the aftermath of battle magic. Her eyes were gritty with the stuff, and with tiredness. Her mouth and nose were full of the scent of death, and damp earth. The scent was even in her hair, loose strands brushing against her face in the light morning breeze, blond shaded with dirt. She pulled out hair pins with uncoordinated movements and bundled the tangle back up again. It would have to do. Her mind would not settle on anything, thoughts scattering. Too many fresh memories.
Memories like the bodies in the underground. The wreck of the human who had willingly pulled a surjusi into him, the demon eating away at his body until there was little but flesh and bone remaining. The other humans, less distorted, who had helped him. The surrimok pair, Erith beasts who should not be here.
Across cultural divide, language barriers and their history, the shifkin and Erith had simply been warriors, fighting a common cause. She doubted any of them were foolish enough to believe this would last, that there would never be conflict between their races again. Yet, for some time after the fighting was done, there had been an odd kind of peace as the warriors worked to thoroughly check the rest of the underground space for threats then made their way up to the wide, wooden doors that led here. Out to the human-made road.
Taellaneth Complete Series Box Set Page 25