The Druid's Guise: The Complete Trilogy (The Druid's Guise Trilogy)

by Michael J Sanford

  Staying low, Wyatt darted between a pair of smoldering crates. He was a step from his prey when he inadvertently stepped on a fleck of smoldering sap. The ember smeared against the bottom of his foot and sent him stumbling. He scraped at the floor hastily, hopping around on his free foot.

  In that moment, he forgot about the Fae. He forgot about D’umbra. All he knew was that his foot was burning. However, he was quickly reminded when a rough hand grabbed his throat.

  “It is a human,” the female said as she dragged Wyatt close.

  By now the flames had grown. Orange shadows flickered over the faerie’s face. Her eyes were gray and uncaring. Wyatt didn’t resist. The whisper was screaming now. It bellowed from the faerie, begging to be taken.

  “He is smiling,” said the male from over the female’s left shoulder.

  The female grunted and leaned close to Wyatt’s face. “Why you smile, human? You die.”

  Wyatt let out a dry chuckle. “I’m not a human.”

  The female cocked her head to the side, examining him in the dim lighting. Wyatt brought his hands up to his shirt and pulled the ragged edges away, displaying his bare chest. The seed glowed emerald and pulsed in tune with Wyatt’s own heart.

  “Druid,” the faeries said in unison.

  The female let go of Wyatt and raised her sword, but he was too quick in that moment. He lunged forward, seizing both of her wrists. The whisper of life erupted in his head and he grabbed at it. With a deep breath, Wyatt pulled the life to him, tugging it from the ensnared faerie.

  The faerie’s arms shriveled beneath Wyatt’s grip. The silver sword fell with a clatter. She shrieked and pulled away, stumbled, and fell over a piece of mottled equipment. Wyatt grinned, still holding her decaying forearms. In another breath, they dissolved to dust and drifted silently to the floor.

  The female shakily stood. Her arms ended at the elbows. The male was so transfixed by his partner’s condition that he didn’t react as Wyatt stole up beside him and grabbed him forcefully by the neck. Wyatt squeezed with all his feeble strength, but it wasn’t needed. His mind had already teased out the whisper of life within the warrior. He sucked at it as if the large, winged creature was a giant straw. The faerie’s neck rotted away in a heartbeat and was dust in another.

  The body fell at Wyatt’s feet and he stepped back, his eyes set on the female. Power raced through his chest and pulsed along his limbs. He felt invincible, invulnerable, immortal. He had taken life, not merely by extinguishing it in another, but by consuming it for himself. It made his muscles twitch with tangible energy. He had never seen so clearly. The colors practically jumped with vibrancy, and he could see every bit of fear on the faerie’s face.

  The female stumbled away, fell over a crate, righted herself and took clumsily to the air, her wings beating fiercely at the scorched air. She vanished into the pines. Wyatt stared after her awhile before his thundering pulse ebbed and he was left standing alone amid an ever-growing blaze, awash in sweat, and twitching from an adrenaline flood.

  A groan joined the gentle crackle of a hundred fires and brought Wyatt to attention. The room was alight, nearly as bright as if the sun burned within. He had no trouble finding D’umbra. The thick sapper had pulled himself up against a large crate and clutched at his shoulder. The silver sword had nearly severed the elf’s arm. The deep gouge retched blood.

  Wyatt fell to his side. “You’re alive,” he shouted.

  The elf grunted. His eyes were unsteady as they tried to latch onto Wyatt. “It is only for another moment, I fear,” he said.

  “No,” Wyatt said. “I can save you. I’ll get you out of here.”

  D’umbra shook his head, but said nothing. His eyes had closed.

  Wyatt felt at his throat and brought his face close to the shaggy beard. Still alive, he thought, feeling the weak breath on his cheek and a faint pulse beneath his fingers. He leaned back and looked to elf’s shoulder. The blade had cleaved bone and tissue all the same, transforming D’umbra’s shoulder into a cruel mouth. Wyatt shuddered, but was reminded of Rozen. He leaned closer to the wound, placing his hands on the sapper’s thick arm.

  “I can fix this,” he said, though it was clear D’umbra had lost consciousness. “I fixed Rozen. I can fix you.”

  He scanned the room, searching for something to use. He had had the entire forest to command at Rozen’s behest, but here there was little with any life in it. His eyes moved to the gaping hole in the back wall. I do have an entire forest, he realized at once. He stood and spun until he found what he sought.

  He grabbed D’umbra by the uninjured arm and pulled. Wyatt grunted and the large elf moved a scant foot. “Come on, D’umbra,” he grunted between pulls. “I gotta get you to that branch.” He nodded at the length of pine that grew through the floor and exited the ceiling. It was only a dozen feet away and was yet unlit by the growing fires.

  Wyatt pulled with all he was worth, feeling as if his own arm was likely to fall from its socket, but he persisted. His vision blurred from the stream of sweat. He kicked haphazardly at detritus in his path, more than once burning his heel on some piece of smoldering wreckage.

  He wasn’t sure time was moving and couldn’t be certain he was gaining any ground, but eventually rough pine bark raked at his back. He dropped D’umbra’s arm, wiped at his eyes and gasped with relief. He rolled the round elf until he lay propped against the edge of timber and knelt at his side. He laid one hand on the thick pine branch and the other on D’umbra’s shoulder.

  “Don’t worry,” he said to the elf. “I have done this before…once, anyway.”

  He closed his eyes and let his mind find the whisper within the pine. He found it at once. The mighty pine was enormous, its life rich and vibrant, powerful and resilient. The stream of whispers coming from D’umbra, on the other hand, was barely tangible. But it was there. Okay, he said to himself. Just like Rozen. Pull the forest to him…

  He grabbed hold of the whisper from within the pine, turned his mind, and seized the weak thread of D’umbra’s quickly fading life. He stayed like that for a long moment, kneeling between the two life forces, his mind linked with both. He commanded the tree to grow into the elf, just as he had done with Rozen, but the stalwart pine remained unchanged. He spoke to it again, but then stopped. A cruel realization swept over him as he remained fixed between the two lives. I don’t want to, he thought. To complete the procedure, he had to give life to the pine, causing it to grow and bend to his will, but he didn’t want to. Why give life when I can take it for myself?

  Wyatt shuddered, but stayed locked in place. The hunger formed in his chest again. He held both voices, both lives, in his hands. One was strong, the other weak, but they were alive nonetheless and he wanted them. Feeling like a prisoner in his own body, he felt his mind pull at the whispers. He grabbed the voices and breathed them in, making them a part of his own being. D’umbra shuddered beneath his left hand and the pine branch crumbled beneath his right.

  With a single breath, it was done.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  D’UMBRA’S ARM, SHOULDER, and most of his chest had fallen to dust, decayed at Wyatt’s request, but the rest of him remained as it had been. Wyatt stared for a long time at the elf’s face hidden behind his thick beard and knotted hair. The fire continued to slowly build around him, filling the large room with oppressive heat and thick, choking smoke that gathered at the ceiling, but was growing closer to the floor by the second. Wyatt paid neither any mind. He couldn’t look away from D’umbra.

  Why did I do that? I could have…no, I should have saved him. But I didn’t…I failed…no…

  A more sobering thought drifted into his mind. It wasn’t that he had tried and failed. That wasn’t the case at all. He hadn’t wanted to save the elf. He hadn’t tried to save him. Wyatt suddenly felt nauseous and looked at his hands. His left was sticky with blood, the other coated in a fine layer of wood dust. He dropped his gaze until it rested on the smooth stone in his chest. H
e ran a finger along the surface. Smooth and warm, as it had always been. But something was different. Had it made him kill D’umbra?

  He shook his head and rose to his knees. No, I am a Druid, he told himself. I do as I please. The power of life is mine to give or to take. That is my duty.

  He maintained his stalwart defiance until his eyes fell to rest on D’umbra again. His heart broke and thick remorse and guilt washed over him. He grabbed at his head, massaging his temples. He licked his lips and tasted salt. He hadn’t known he was crying, but as he put his hand to his cheek he found it damp with tears.

  “What’s happening to me?”

  Still weeping, Wyatt pulled and wrenched at his own shirt until he had torn free a narrow strip. He shuffled close to D’umbra and tied the strip of stained satin into the elf’s thick mane. It wasn’t a harpy’s feather, but in Wyatt’s mind it served the same function.

  “You’re a Deceiver now, D’umbra,” he said, settling back onto his heels. “D’umbra…D’umbra the Brave.”

  He smiled against the tears and sorrow, knowing it wasn’t the most original moniker, but it suited the large elf. He had sacrificed himself for the group of children and for the greater Coven.

  Wyatt stood, pulled his ragged shirt tight to his chest despite the sweltering heat, and stared absently at his surroundings. Careful to avoid the multitude of slow burning flames that leapt from every speck of sap, Wyatt stepped up to the large opening in the wall the Fae had created and surveyed the forest.

  Heat beat at his back, but the greater forest bathed his face in frigid air. He thought the dichotomy fitting. He had two competing forces within his body as well. He didn’t have long to bask in the eerie juxtaposition, however, as distant shouts brought his mind to center. He couldn’t see the Fae, but he could hear them, and they were fast approaching, darting among the dense canopy upon their blurring wings.

  Wyatt stumbled from the opening and fell over the corpse of the faerie D’umbra killed. He rose quickly and ran for the stairs, weaving among the flaming wreckage. The smoke had filled half of the room and Wyatt had to stoop to avoid asphyxiation.

  The shouts grew louder as Wyatt reached the second floor. The Fae shouted in the Old Tongue, but the message seemed clear enough. It was a war chant. And it was Fae’Herot’s silky voice that led them.

  Embers coated two of the walls on the second floor and burning sap had fallen through the hole left by the decayed branch. It wouldn’t be long before the stores of sap and snaking branches lit as well, but for now the room was largely dark. Wyatt made no adjustment to his haste, opting to stumble over and around the obstacles on his way through the crowded space. He made no sound as his shins and knees smashed into each hidden object. He needed to be silent. Silence and shadows were his weapons. It sounded as if the full Fae legion was streaming into the third floor, above him. He had to find Athena. He had to warn the Coven. Whatever battle they were fighting elsewhere was a diversion.

  Wyatt found the staircase to the first floor quite by accident, and fell a majority of the way down it. His body screamed as he forced it upright again and trudged toward the sliver of golden light that leaked around the front door. He had to warn them.

  The light of the wide, wooden street was blinding, bringing fresh tears to Wyatt’s eyes as he squinted and blinked erratically. Why haven’t they smothered the torches? Shadows and silence. Those are our weapons.

  His eyes adjusted quickly enough and he found himself alone in the middle of the strange avenue.

  He ran as quickly and quietly as he could down the middle of the street. “Athena,” he whispered as loudly as he dared. A couple of elven faces poked out of glassless windows and stared at him quizzically. He ran to them.

  “Is Athena in there?” he asked.

  The elves were adult females. They lacked the tangled beards of the males and possessed far smaller noses. The pair looked at each other, clearly confused by the bloodied and disheveled human standing in the middle of the open street during an invasion.

  “Athena,” he repeated. “Human girl. Carries a silver sword. Impossibly red hair.”

  The elves stared back without speaking.

  “Wy’?”

  Athena wedged her face in between the two elves and Wyatt could not have been happier. He fought the impulse to grab and kiss her through the window.

  “The Fae,” he nearly shouted, casting a glance at the Sapper. “They’re invading through the third floor. They burned down a wall.”

  “Eh, so a few stragglers think to catch us unawares?” said one of the elven women. The other scowled and shook her head.

  “No,” Wyatt spat. “I think it’s their full force. Fae’Herot is there.”

  “Oh,” said one of the elves. “I see…”

  “They seek to deceive the Deceivers?” said the other. “Well, we can’t have that.”

  “What are you talkin’ ‘bout, Wy’?”

  “Whoever the elven Deceivers are fighting out in the pines right now isn’t the true attack. The Fae are coming through the walls in the back of the village.”

  Athena leaned out of the window and looked at the three-story building at the end of the street. Then her eyes flashed to Wyatt, full of understanding. “Well, shit,” she said. “What do we do?”

  “Someone needs to warn the Deceivers,” Wyatt said firmly.

  The elven women nodded in unison. “Don’t worry about that,” one said.

  “We’ve just the runner,” said the other, then turning to the interior of the building, shouted, “D’raethe, come at once.”

  Wyatt gave a wary look toward the end of the street again and leaned into the window, giving Athena a smile. She remained stoic. The silver sword was at her side.

  A tall, lean female elf seemed to appear from nowhere in front of the window and the pair of older elves. Her hair was black as soot, and ran straight and true past her shoulders. She wore a tight-fitting shirt, narrow pants, and a long, billowing cloak. All black as black could be. Her skin was the color of pine bark, and in the shadows of the forest Wyatt knew it would be unseen. The only other color coming from the young elf was the piercing green of her eyes. She stood at sharp attention.

  “Yes, D’maed?”

  “It seems our foe is burrowing through our village walls. Be a dear and find D’orca. Inform him that the Fae are striking with their force at the east end of the third level.”

  D’raethe nodded sharply. “Of course.”

  “Go now,” D’maed continued. “Swift as shadows and silent as sin. Go.”

  The young elf vaulted over the window sill, slapping Wyatt in the face with her cloak, and quickly disappeared down the wooden street. She was fast, allowing Wyatt only a brief moment to watch her before she vanished from view.

  “She has two feathers in her hair,” Wyatt said, turning back to the elven women. “She’s a Deceiver.”

  D’maed chuckled. “Of a sort. That shadowy elf stole a pair of harpy eggs from a queen’s nest without disturbing a single straw or feather. That’s how she came by those feathers.” D’maed laughed and shook her head. “That one could steal every hair from the top of your skull and you’d be none the wiser.”

  Wyatt looked back down the empty street. “What’s her moniker?”

  “Do you really have to ask?”

  Wyatt looked at D’maed and shrugged.

  “D’raethe the Unseen.”

  Commotion from the end of the street caused him to wrench around. The door to the Sapper burst open, falling outward, void of its hinges. A stream of faeries poured forth onto the street along with a trail of thick smoke. They were coughing and swiping hands about their faces. Some beat their wings in an effort to displace the acrid shroud.

  “We’re goin’ to have to hold them off,” Athena said. The armed teen slung her legs over the sill and dropped next to Wyatt before he could react.

  “Uh, what?” Wyatt said. “It’s a whole army. Once they get their bearings…”

 
; “Fuck ‘em,” Athena said defiantly. She turned back to the window. “Get the young ones away from here.”

  D’maed nodded and the pair of elven women left the window, shouting to the children hidden within.

  “Maia,” Athena shouted.

  The spriteling entered the street through the door followed by a dozen female elves. Wyatt looked them over quickly. They were all adults, tall and strong, but there was not a single feather amongst them and he saw no weapons.

  Maia padded gracefully to Athena’s side. The stark contrast between the two was stifling. “We need to hold off the Fae until the Deceivers can be called back,” Athena said, her voice full of confidence and command.

  “I am with you,” she said.

  “As are we,” said one of the elves.

  The group pressed tightly together and faced the cloud of smoke and bone-ridged Fae at the end of the street. Some of the faeries had regained their senses and were staring back at the small contingent of elves, humans, and spriteling. Wyatt looked uneasily at his companions. Athena held the only blade.

  He turned back to the now advancing horde. A dozen had exited the building, but more were coming. Every passing moment increased their numbers. Wyatt’s eyes narrowed and his hands turned to rigid claws as magical energy began to ripple out from the gem set in his chest.

  “We only need to hold them for a bit,” Athena said.

  “Aye, but that doesn’t mean we can’t send a few to oblivion while we wait,” called an elven voice.

  Wyatt turned to Athena and saw her grin. She held the silver sword in front of her, knuckles white.

  Two dozen of the Fae now crowded the street. They charged, silver blades shining in the orange glow of a hundred torches.

  “Anyone got some shadows?” Wyatt said, dropping into a crouch. “Or silence?”