The Drow Grew Stronger (Goth Drow Book 4)

by Martha Carr

  “Whew.” Byrd stopped to wipe a sheen of sweat off his green forehead. “You know, I think I’d take a freakin’ Stairmaster over this. Can’t we have one of the nightstalkers port us into this secret place and get it over with?”

  Lumil smacked the back of his head as she passed him. “You don’t think we would’ve done that if it was an option?”

  “Hey, I dunno. Everything else around here is freaking out and doing weird shit. Case in point right there.” He nodded over the side of the ridge at the valley below and narrowed his eyes. “Kinda seems like the worst place to build a town, but again, the whole world’s lost its mind.”

  “A town?” Corian stopped near the edge of the ridge. “Zokrí.”

  “Nightstalker.” Cazerel turned around with an amused look, but it faded when he saw Corian’s darkening frown. The raug chief looked in the same direction and sucked in a sharp breath. “So it’s come this far.”

  “How long has that town been there?” Corian’s jaw clenched and unclenched quickly.

  “Last I knew, there was no town there.”

  Cheyenne peered over the edge and barely made out the rising blocks of stone buildings interspersed with shacks that looked a lot like the skaxen village. And every magical there turned into some kind of O’gúleesh zombie.

  Ember shielded her eyes with a hand, trying to get a better view of the small town nestled in the valley far below them. “Wait. Are you guys saying a whole town popped up out of nowhere? That is new.”

  “The Outers have been shifting around for a long time, like Cheyenne and Persh’al told us they were.” Corian’s silver eyes blazed in his frowning face. “Wouldn’t surprise me if that included whole settlements shifting with them.”

  “Looks like something else is shifting too.” Byrd’s eyes widened, and he leaned over the edge of the ridge, trying to get a better look.

  Lumil stared at the dark wave of shadow moving steadily across the valley below toward the small town. Her arm shot out to thump Byrd’s chest, making him stagger backward instead of falling over the cliff. Her eyes widened too, and she looked slowly up at Corian. “What the hell is that?”

  Cazerel grunted. “Out of our control. Keep moving.”

  As the raug chief continued across the ridge, an echoing crack like thick ice splitting rose from the valley. Within the moving shadow, Cheyenne finally realized the rest of what she was seeing. “It can move.”

  The blight rolled down the valley toward the town, splintering stone and felling trees—the ones that didn’t shrivel under its touch into hollow, twisted husks.

  Maleshi nudged Cheyenne softly with her elbow and nodded. “Come on, kid.”

  “What? No.” Cheyenne stared at the jagged black lines of magical destruction racing across the valley floor. An outcropping of boulders split apart as if it had been blasted and crumbled toward the town, leading the way. “We can’t leave them down there.”

  “We have to.” Grimacing, Corian ran a hand through his tawny hair and hissed. “Doesn’t mean we have to like it, Cheyenne.”

  The halfling turned toward L’zar, who stood on the higher side of the ridge and stared at the blight creeping down the valley. His glowing golden eyes widened, and the only sign that he wasn’t off in his own world again was that he stroked his chin and tilted his head when the streaking lines of his sister’s unchecked dark magic reached the outskirts of the town.

  Cheyenne scowled at him. “So everyone’s suddenly—”

  A scream rose, echoing madly across the stone valley. It was joined two seconds later by more screams and shouts of alarm, and the magicals meeting the blight below darted through the buildings were tiny moving specks within the black shadow sweeping across their homes.

  “We have to do something. Seriously, does no one else give a shit?” Without waiting for a reply, Cheyenne took off toward the other side of the ridge.

  “Cheyenne!” Corian took two steps toward her, but the screams from below made him stop to watch the devastation in morbid, guilt-ridden curiosity.

  She raced past the staring goblins and the slowly trudging raug warriors, scanning the descent into the valley. I can make it. Just a few long drops, but I’ve jumped from higher.

  Cazerel stepped in front of her to cut her off. “No.”

  “We can’t stand up here and do nothing!” The shrieks and screaming grew louder, punctuated by more cracking stone and the buildings higher up the valley crumbling in on themselves. “I’ve seen what that shit does to villages. No one deserves that.”

  “You are correct.” Cazerel’s eye twitched. “No one survives it, either.”

  “Yeah, we’ll see.” Cheyenne darted past him and slid on the loose layer of gravel and dirt, trying to gauge where she’d land before getting back to her feet.

  “Cheyenne!” Maleshi and Corian exchanged glances.

  “That’s something else, isn’t it?” L’zar muttered, unable to pull his gaze away from the destruction.

  “So are you.” Maleshi’s scowl was ignored before she took off across the ridge to get to the halfling scrambling down the steep incline. “Cheyenne, stop!”

  Cheyenne ignored the warning, paying attention only to the screams in the valley far below her. If I go to drow speed now, I’ll flatten myself at the bottom of this thing. Just when she got her footing and thought she’d try anyway, the ground lurched away from her, and she was flying back up the mountain toward the far side of the ridge. She landed with a grunt at Cazerel’s feet and scrambled away from him with a snarl. “What the hell?”

  The bright white light of the raug chief’s spell crackled around his hand as he pointed at her. “Try it again, and I will drag you along like this until we reach our destination.”

  She glanced down at the town caving in on itself, the magicals’ screams growing louder as they panicked and darted away from the blight taking everything from them. A burst of green light flared at the center of the village before the growing shadow snuffed it out.

  “So, that’s your answer. Just let everyone else die.”

  “No, Aranél.” Cazerel’s hand stopped glowing, and he offered it to the halfling to help her up. “It pains me to see anyone fall beneath that poison as well. You have seen what it does to villages, but I have felt what it does to the flesh.”

  Trying to block out the screams, Cheyenne swallowed and pushed to her feet without taking his hand. “Then of all people, you should want to help them.”

  “I do want to. I cannot. Neither can you.” Cazerel glanced quickly down at the town and scowled. “It’s too late for them, as it was almost too late for me. If you wish to kill yourself, by all means, die with them.”

  Cheyenne clenched her fists. “There has to be something we can do. And maybe the blight doesn’t do anything to drow.”

  “If the Healer were recovered, I might be willing to let you take that risk. Perhaps it would even be possible to save one or two of them, but without her, our only option is to stay above the darkness, yes?”

  The screaming in the town suddenly changed to gurgling croaks and gasping breaths that echoed up to the ridge. Cheyenne clenched her eyes shut and forced her anger back down. Now it’s definitely too late.

  “You cannot blame yourself for this, Aranél.” Cazerel nodded as the rest of their party crossed the ridge. Even L’zar had turned away from the destruction below to join the raug chief and his warriors, casting occasional glances at the town that now looked as abandoned as the skaxen village. “That same darkness nearly brought me to the deathflame. I’ve fought many battles and survived more wounds than I can count, but that?” The chief shook his head. “There is no coming back from that.”

  Cheyenne opened her eyes and glared at him. “Unless you’re a raug who was healed by a fae.”

  “Correct. You cannot say the same, and you have much more work ahead of you to bring the Spider to her knees. I also wish to see that come to pass.”

  As the chief turned away from her to continue the
trek, the valley fell silent. Cheyenne shot one more glance at the destroyed town and forced herself to breathe. It’s like nothing happened, and there’s nothing left.

  She looked back at Ember, who was focused intently on navigating the ridge with all eight of the crawler’s stiff metal legs. Maleshi reached her and set a hand on the halfling’s shoulder.

  “Don’t.” Cheyenne shrugged out from under the general’s hand.

  Maleshi eyed her, nodded, and followed the rest of their group. Corian passed the halfling next, but he didn’t try to offer any comfort. There wasn’t any.

  Cheyenne stared down at the destroyed valley. I should’ve been able to do something. What’s the point of kicking Ba’rael off the throne if I can’t help the magicals she left out here to die like this?

  “Now you know what it’s like.”

  L’zar’s voice in her ear made her step quickly away from him. “Are you here, or is this more drunken crazy coming out of you?”

  Her father shrugged. “I’m merely trying to put things in perspective for you.”

  “All the perspective in the world can’t fix this, L’zar.”

  “No, but maybe it’ll help you understand what’s in store for you. And understand me, however difficult that is.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “This is how it feels, Cheyenne, to not step in when others think you should. When others recognize the danger and see you doing nothing because even though they’re begging for help, you’re the only one who knows how much worse the consequences would be if you were to get involved.”

  She narrowed her eyes at him, gritting her teeth. “You mean, the way you stand back and let everyone else do the hard work for you?”

  “There are reasons.”

  “Sure, but you’re still missing one huge difference between us.” Cheyenne gestured at the destroyed town in the valley but couldn’t bring herself to look away from L’zar’s golden eyes. “I tried to help. You’ve had plenty of time to explain to everyone else around you why you’re doing what you’re doing, or why you hang back and do nothing when it counts but can’t stop yourself from taking on a gang of raugs in the streets. You still haven’t told me or anyone else what you’re planning next.”

  “When the time is right, Cheyenne, you will know what steps to take.”

  “Right. Just like I knew who I was challenging when I dropped my coin on the altar.”

  “That was different.” L’zar held her gaze for a moment longer, then took a deep breath and ran a hand over his head. “I’ll settle for agreeing to disagree. But I do recommend chewing on it for at least a few minutes if you can spare that.” He stepped closer and lowered his face toward hers, his eyes roaming over her features as if he’d find someone else there instead of his daughter. “You and I are too much alike for you not to understand what I’ve told you, and we both know that when it counts, you will do what you have to do. Even if that means letting a few O’gúleesh fall to a fate none of them deserve. It’s about the bigger picture, Cheyenne. We can’t all be heroes all the time.”

  “Not your best pep talk.”

  “Hmm.” He pulled away from her, looked down into the valley one more time, and passed her to head after the rest of their group.

  Cheyenne stared daggers at her father’s back and stiffly pushed herself forward. He has no idea what he’s talking about. L’zar Verdys doesn’t do anything for the sake of helping someone else.

  Still, somewhere in the back of her mind, she couldn’t quite convince herself he was wrong.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  Cazerel’s path through the mountains flattened out noticeably, and the rocky passages gave way to forests. These had already been touched by the blight that spread with no direction and no warning across Ambar’ogúl. The raug chief grumbled and scowled at every area of scorched earth and clump of twisted, lifeless trees they approached before steering their party around the devastation.

  Cheyenne stared at the huge, jagged cracks splintering the dead ground fifty feet away. Most of them glistened with thick black ooze, the occasional bubble bursting with a wet, slurping pop. No one is gonna suggest passing through it, not after seeing what it does in real-time.

  The chief stopped and cocked his head. A husk of a tree groaned in the gentle wind cutting through the dead forest, then a branch snapped and fell to the blackened earth, shattering in a puff of glittering black dust. Dark sludge oozed from the hole in the tree’s trunk and dripped to the ground.

  “Ugh.” Byrd stepped farther away from the edge of the blighted landscape and wrinkled his nose. “And here I was, thinking I’d gotten used to the smell.”

  “That’ll keep you up at night, huh?” Lumil snorted and kept moving.

  The goblin man blinked at her, surprised she hadn’t smacked or punched or shoved him, and hurried after her.

  “I didn‘t know it had come this far.” Cazerel sighed heavily and turned toward Ember. “Have you seen this elsewhere, Healer?”

  She raised her eyebrows and shook her head. “No, but Cheyenne has.”

  When the raug chief turned to stare at her, Cheyenne shrugged. “Like I said, the Outers are moving in. So is the blight, I guess.”

  “But we are not.”

  “Yeah.” Cheyenne glanced at Ember, who’d taken her hand off the crawler’s control panel and paused to watch the raug chief and the halfling. “That’s one of the weirder parts to wrap your head around. The farther we are from the capital, the worse it gets.”

  “And it’s crossing through the portals,” Corian added. “Bit by bit.”

  Cazerel looked at the nightstalker with a confused frown. “You have seen this on the other side as well?”

  “A different version of it, maybe. Yeah.” Corian pressed his lips together in thought. “Apparently, this darkness is squeezing its way Earthside and opening new portals. At least, that’s as good a guess as any of us can make.”

  The chief grunted. “And if that is not the cause?”

  “Then we have a lot more to worry about, don’t we?” The nightstalker spread his arms and dipped his head at their escort. “Which, of course, none of us would ask you to involve yourself in. Leading us here is more than enough.”

  “I know.” With a quick glance at L’zar, who’d stepped closer than any of them to the ring of blackened earth to study it with his usual objective apathy, Cazerel grimaced and ran a glistening black tongue over his needle-sharp teeth. “When my clansmen and I return home, I mean to close the gates and keep them closed.”

  Cheyenne cocked her head. “I don’t think that’s gonna do much good if this poison makes it back to Hirúl Breach.”

  Corian shot her a sharp look, and she shrugged.

  “The walls of my city have stood against the Spider’s venom for centuries, Aranél.” Cazerel snorted. “They will continue to stand.”

  “How do you know?”

  Corian clamped a hand around Cheyenne’s wrist to stop her as the chief gave the scorched, oozing forest a wide berth. “Not now.”

  “He knows exactly what can and can’t stand against the blight.” The halfling frowned at him. “Unless he has some kind of protective ward we don’t know about, he’s delusional.”

  “That’s his choice. Until we find a way to clear the sickness out of this world, kid, it’s not our place to tell anyone else what to think.”

  She blinked at him. “You’re kidding, right?”

  “Magicals have their own ways of dealing with what they don’t understand over here. When we find a way to stop the blight from spreading, we can offer them that knowledge and our opinions. Until then, trying to argue with a raug will only make it worse.” He raised his eyebrows, then clasped his hands behind his back and followed the chief and the group of warriors leading the carts on legs.

  Cheyenne stared after him and shook her head. I know everyone here is nuts. Why does it keep surprising me?

  Ember waited for the halfling to catch up before she comma
nded the crawler to move again. “Okay, I get that no one wants to believe what’s happening here, but did I hear him say the stone gates are gonna keep the blight out of his city?”

  “Trust me, Em. You lost your magic for a bit, not your hearing.”

  “That’s insane.”

  “Yep. You haven’t agreed to go back with Cazerel after this, have you?”

  “No. He hasn’t asked.”

  “Good.” Cheyenne gripped the straps of her backpack and stared at the raug chief stomping around the edge of the destroyed forest. “If he does, tell him no, or don’t give him an answer.”

  Ember bit her lip and stared at her friend as they turned east beyond the edge of the scorched earth to get back on course. “Cheyenne?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I don’t want to assume anything, but if you’re saying what I think you’re saying, I might be freaking out.”

  “Sorry, Em.” Cheyenne gave the fae girl an apologetic frown and lowered her voice. “He had no idea what happened there. He probably thought getting the blight was bad luck or some kind of debt he had to pay. I still haven’t figured these guys out.”

  Ember swallowed. “But?”

  “But now that he’s seen what this crap is doing to this world all the way out here in the middle of nowhere, I wouldn’t put it past him to try to keep you in his city.”

  “Like blackmail?”

  “Maybe. Or like keeping the only cure anyone knows about right at his side.” The halfling leaned toward her friend. “That’s you, by the way.”

  “I know it’s me,” Ember hissed, then ran a hand through her violet-streaked hair. “Jesus. You think he’d do that?”

  “Until we figure out how to reverse this, or at the very least keep it from spreading, I think every O’gúleesh is gonna do whatever they think it takes.”