Asunder (23 page)

            "Ser Evangeline is completely beside herself," a new voice said behind him.

            He scowled as Wynne approached, but tried to control his annoyance at her intrusion on his solace. It was easy to pretend he was alone out here in this vast emptiness, that all his problems were a bad dream best forgotten, but it just wasn't so.

            "Do none of you people sleep?" he mused.

            "You snuck away when her back was turned. She would have come hunting for you herself if that didn't mean leaving Adrian and myself unguarded. I said I would look." Wynne had a blanket wrapped around her shoulders, but even so she still shivered in the cold and leaned heavily on her staff . Then her eyes widened in alarm as she realized just where he stood. "Rhys . . . what are you doing?"

            "Freezing."

            "No, what are you doing
there
?"

            Rhys sighed, turning to stare down into the chasm again. There was a faint smell that wafted up from below, acrid and sharp like brimstone but not entirely unpleasant. Faintly, he wondered if the edge could crumble under his weight. The jet- black rock looked worn from the blowing sands, maybe weak from the passing ages, but it felt solid under his feet.

            "Just admiring the view. I . . . couldn't sleep." He stepped away, though Wynne hardly seemed relieved. She clutched her blanket close, staring at him in concern, and for a long moment he stood there and accepted her scrutiny in silence. "Are you angry at me?" he finally asked.

            She let out a slow and weary sigh. Looking around, she spotted a large rock nearby and ambled over to sit on it. "Angry," she repeated uncertainly.

            "When I told you about Cole . . ."

            "I'm not angry about that."

            "Then what?"

            She thought about it. "You need to be more careful, Rhys. I barely know you, and yet I see you careering toward a terrible end. What do you think will happen?"

            "I don't really know."

            "Yes, you do," she snapped, growing irate. "If I had not intervened, you would be Tranquil. This Cole . . . what ever he is, the fact that you've continued to associate with him is what has drawn you into this mess. You know what he's done."

            "Yes, but I don't think he's in his right mind. He needs help."

            "
You
need help. You need to protect yourself, now more than ever."

            "I can't stand by and do nothing."

            "That's exactly what you should do." She paused, shaking her head. "But here I am, arguing with you again. I suppose I should have more sympathy for anyone with a penchant for lost causes."

            Rhys couldn't help but grin. Perhaps he was partly to blame for her anger that night. He'd questioned her willingness to help a friend, despite the risks, and this after earlier accusing her of being heartless. Both those things couldn't be true. In fact, despite all her protests to the contrary, she did seem to care about his welfare. She may not be the kind old woman he met so many years ago, but that person wasn't gone entirely.

            He was about to say so when he heard a faint whistling sound. Then something thudded into his chest. He looked down to see it was an arrow, a black and wicked- looking thing impossibly protruding out of him.

           
That can't be right, can it?

            "Rhys!" Wynne cried, leaping up from the rock.

            The darkspawn came out of nowhere. The pale creatures bared their fangs and hissed, raising crude swords over their heads as they charged. Rhys stared at them in stunned disbelief— he'd known they were out in the desert, but to see them up close seemed strangely surreal. He stared at the strange blackness that bled out of their eyes and mouths, the glassy hatred in their eyes. Time moved at a snail's pace.

            Wynne raised her white staff ; it pulsed with power, sending out a brilliant flash that pulled Rhys out of his stupor and made the darkspawn reel back in pain. The arrow still stuck in his chest, and only now was he beginning to feel it— like a strange tightness that grew more intense by the second. It made him gasp as it overcame his shock, and when he tried to move he succeeded only in stumbling to his knees. His every movement seemed too slow, like he was stuck in quicksand.

            Wynne spun the staff around her, and suddenly a great storm of electricity erupted around them. Arcs of it raced through the air, leaping from stone to stone and from darkspawn to darkspawn. The thunder threatened to make his ears explode.

            He watched as one of the creatures was hit dead- on by a bolt, and it screamed in agony as the power cooked it from within. A darkspawn roared in fury and raced at Wynne, and the old mage spun around again. She held a hand out in front of her and the creature suddenly froze solid, encased in a block of solid ice, before it finally shattered into a thousand pieces.

            Another ran at her from behind. Rhys began to call out a warning, but there was no time for her to react. He summoned mana from within, ignoring the throbbing pain it caused where the arrow still lodged in his chest, and
pushed
. A wave of force surged out of his hands and slammed into the darkspawn. It was lifted off its feet and thrown back into the chasm, the ear-splitting screech of terror as it fell drowned out by the thunder.

            Something hard slammed into the back of his head. He scrambled forward, trying to get away from what ever was attacking him. The flashes of lightning were too bright, too disorienting for him to see properly.

            His attacker grabbed his shoulder from behind. Sharp talons dug into his flesh, and he screamed. Reacting instantly, Wynne held out her staff ; a white- hot beam of energy lanced forth. Rhys felt rather than saw it strike the darkspawn behind him, and heard its grunt of pain.

            He wrested free, falling to the ground. The arrow shaft cracked under his weight, and a new jolt of pain shot through him. Nausea filled him, and his vision swam.

            How many were there? The sound of thunder suddenly seemed so distant, like he was hearing it through a tube. . . . He caught a glimpse of Wynne's blue robes, her boots in front of his eyes. He saw the lightning performing its blinding dance. He heard another of the creatures scream as it was struck by a magical blast. A pool of black darkspawn blood soaked the sands by his hands, the sickly sweet smell assaulting his senses.

            Rhys tried to summon more of his magic. He closed his eyes and trembled from the concentration; he wasn't going to let Wynne fight alone. But the mana wouldn't come, the pain was too severe.

            "Rhys, get up!" He heard Wynne shouting in his ear, but he couldn't quite place where she was. "There are more coming!"

            Oblivion reached up and dragged him down into its blissful embrace.

            Chapter 9

           
Evangeline smiled as she watched Rhys stir on his horse. The
way he blinked in confusion, not quite comprehending where he was or why he was moving, was a little amusing. Considering all he'd put them through the previous night, she couldn't help but think he was due a little discomfort.

            Adrian sat behind him, and grabbed him before he slid off. He had a heavy cloak wrapped around him to keep him warm, and the red- haired mage had been more or less supporting him since they left camp. Evangeline didn't want to risk waiting until he woke to get underway. If it took too long, after all, they might end up spending another night under that tower— and draw another attack.

            "Where am I?" Rhys rasped.

            "On a horse."

            He stared at her, not realizing she was joking, and then finally offered a weak grin. "All right, yes, that explains the smell— but what about the darkspawn? I remember . . ."

            Wynne pulled up beside them. The old mage looked pale and drawn, and for good reason. Evangeline couldn't begin to imagine the kind of power she had tapped. She'd lit up the badlands with her magic, and when Evangeline had gone running she half expected to find the entire side of the chasm crumbled into its depths.

            "I healed you, of course," Wynne said.

            "But how did we even survive?"

            "You almost didn't. If Ser Evangeline and Adrian hadn't arrived in time . . ."

            He sighed dejectedly. "I shouldn't have wandered off."

            "I was going to say that," Evangeline said. When he shot her a guilty look, she chuckled. "I would be angrier, but it seems you lived. We could easily have been attacked at the camp. Perhaps the lure of easy prey drew them off?"

            He looked back at Adrian, grinning crookedly. "You hear that? I'm a hero!"

            "You woke me up," she grumped.

            "Rhys," Evangeline said, her tone now serious.

            "Yes?"

            "Don't do that again." When his eyebrows shot up, she added a little more sternly: "Remember that you're still a mage of the Circle. You wander off once more and I'll treat you as an apostate."

            He made no comment.

            The winds had resumed shortly before the sun rose, or what passed for sun in these blasted lands. The grey haze in the sky was light enough to navigate by, and that would have to do. Just as Wynne claimed, the chasm became wider as they traveled west, and the other side could no longer be seen. Now it seemed less like a massive crack and more like the very edge of the world.

            Evangeline found these lands cold and uninviting, and not for the first time since they arrived she wondered what she was doing here. Following orders, of course, but how she was expected to do that when she couldn't even keep track of one mage's whereabouts unsettled her. She had a bad feeling regarding what was to come, but kept her thoughts to herself.

            Adamant fortress was slowly coming into view, its vague outline discernible through the blowing sand. It wasn't large but, through sturdiness and defensibility, had clearly earned its name. Tall walls of dark jetstone, and a massive gate with archer towers on either side. It perched almost precariously on the edge of the chasm, like a bird of prey waiting to swoop down upon its victim. Any attack against the place could only come from one direction— unless it came out of the chasm itself, of course, and considering its history, that wasn't implausible.

            As they drew closer, the fortress took on a decidedly sinister air. It was completely silent, for one. The towers were unmanned, and the gate stood half- open. A black haze wafted up from the courtyard, as if from a fire that had only recently been extinguished. Evangeline could smell something as well— even with the wind and the sand, the stench of carrion was unmistakable.

            Her horse shied away and fought against direction; she struggled to maintain control until she realized what it was avoiding: bodies, half- buried in the sand. There were dozens of them, fanning out in all directions from the open gate, now little more than suspicious mounds that only hinted at what lay beneath: an arm, a hand, the edge of a sword . . . all that remained to tell they were riding through a graveyard.

            Wynne's lips thinned into a grim frown. "These were the inhabitants of the fortress," she explained. "When we arrived, they rushed out to attack us. Mindless corpses, possessed by demons."

            Evangeline shuddered. She steered well clear, trying not to notice the wisps of blond hair on one of the exposed heads, now fluttering in the wind. A young woman in her prime, desiccated and taken by the badlands. If she was dead when she'd attacked, she was even more so now.

            "We?" Rhys asked.

            "I didn't come here alone."

            Adrian pointed down at the ground. "Are they still here? There’s a lot of tracks, and they can't be that old." She was right. The sand was disturbed in many places near the gate, and with the wind blowing as it was, it wouldn't take long for such tracks to be covered. Numerous horses had arrived here, a day ago or perhaps less.

            Wynne appeared suspicious. "This is too many. Someone else is here."

            “There." Rhys pointed off into the distance with his staff .

            A group of twenty men on horse back emerged from the swirling winds, slowly riding around the far edge of the fortress walls. They were in heavy armor, and it took a moment of squinting before Evangeline realized what they were: templars.

            "Friends of yours?" Rhys asked.

            "I have no idea why they're here." She cautioned the others to remain behind and urged her mount forward. Why would there be templars here, of all places? Had one of the other towers heard about the abomination? Were they too late? It didn't seem likely— if the templars had already dealt with the threat, they should be long gone.