Bones of the Empire (25 page)

“Broken ground, she says,” Raeln muttered to himself as he stubbed his toe yet again on a rock he could not see. Flexing that foot, he found he could not even feel his toes, giving him no good idea if he had done any real damage. “The whole place feels like broken ground.”

He stumbled on a few more minutes and then stopped, realizing that there was something flickering ahead of him. Reaching over his shoulder, he drew a sword and inched forward, trying to make out what he was walking into. A few steps farther, the snow stopped, and Raeln could feel crumbling and cracked stones under his pads. The hard ground felt as though large gaps existed between the rocks, nearly large enough for him to step into if he was not careful. One wrong move and he would twist an ankle or break his leg.

“Right…broken ground,” he acknowledged, stopping. Even standing still, the brittle ice and small stones underfoot continued to crackle and shift.

The flickering Raeln saw in the fog ahead seemed to come from more than one direction. During his approach, the lights had blended together, so it was easy to believe them a single flame. It looked as though there were people hiding in the fog, holding torches as still as possible. Somehow he doubted the Turessians were huddled nearby just to scare him. If his sister had organized the trial, perhaps, but the Turessians would never be so silly. Those lights did not drift up, down, or side to side a single inch. Worse still, Raeln could not be certain how large they were through the fog.

Dropping his saddlebags and kicking his only blanket out on the rough ground to mark where he intended to wait, Raeln made a mental note of the scent of the place. With luck, he could make his way back if he did not go too far. He set down his other weapons atop the blanket, taking one spear and leaning it across his left shoulder, still holding his sword ready in his right hand.

“Hello?” he asked nervously, advancing toward the closest light. “Anyone out there?”

The whole area creaked and crackled softly, echoing the sound of his own footfalls. There could be no one out there or a whole army, and he would not be able to tell the difference. He hesitated before taking his next step, and in that brief pause, he heard the crackle of footsteps continue a moment longer.

Someone else was walking nearby.

After another few steps of his own, the faint flickers ahead of Raeln became clearer, looking to be some form of fire that hung midair. As he got closer, he saw an uneven hole hung in the air, the edges burning a dim red, as though the air itself was aflame. The center of the hole was dark, soaking up the light the way the cloud near Lantonne had before belching out the mists. Somehow this one seemed different, though no less ominous.

“Okay, what are these, Raeln?” he asked, trying to make out the other flickers in the distance, without luck. “Holes in the air…Ilarra babbled about something like this for days after a class. C’mon, Raeln, what she was talking about…”

Raeln struggled to remember what his sister had gone on and on about that particular time. She had always obsessed about magic and her studies, and he had ignored most of it. Now, remembering those stories might be essential to his survival. It was infuriating and demeaning at the same time, knowing he had ignored things he should have taken to heart. His sister was long dead, and now those memories were all he could hope for any help from. A pang in his chest made the stress worse as he realized he had ignored Ilarra when she had been happy and alive. With her gone now, those memories would have meant so much more, had he not ignored her.

He thought hard while backing away from the hole in the air, struggling to put his emotions aside. “She was talking about classes on magic…fire magic. What was that about? What did she say…pull magic through…through from where?” Raeln stared at the flame-edged hole until a realization dawned on him. “Pull flame magic from the realm of fire elementals. Like the one that attacked Lantonne. Shit. Damned wizards…that’s a portal to another world.”

Raeln let his sword hang at his side. It would do him little good against elementals. The few times he had fought the creatures—living embodiments of fire, lightning, stone, or water—they had been “hurt” by weapons but felt no pain. A half dozen would quickly overwhelm him, and with a doorway to their home realm in front of him, he had to assume far more than a half dozen could come show up at any time. He had to ensure he did not draw attention to himself.

Backing away from the portal, Raeln returned to his chosen camp site, trying to make as little noise as possible. He had no idea if the doorway was active, whether anything might be listening, or even if elementals could listen, but he had no desire to find out either. It had been a struggle to even piece together enough of his sister’s childhood ramblings to know what he was seeing, let alone guess at all the other possibilities associated with such doorway between worlds. He simply knew too little about such a thing to be sure of anything.

Raeln’s foot came down on the edge of his blanket, and he stopped, slowly easing himself onto it. With luck, he could wait out the night quietly and without interruption. He just needed to stay very still, and nothing would be aware that he was even there. He would meditate and slow his breathing, drawing no undue attention. Few creatures bothered him in the woods as a child when he had slowed his breathing enough, so he had to hope elementals would overlook him too.

Raeln reached over to where he had left his saddlebags. He felt around on the blanket, trying to find them, but there was nothing there. Even his extra spears and bow were gone. Sniffing, he could smell the oiled leather of the bags, though it was faint. The only other scent was animal—not his scent, though the specifics were too badly mixed with the mildew and other smells of the place. Somehow his bags had walked off. Something knew he was there. Worse still, if it was an animal of some kind, it likely had his scent.

“All right,” he said softly to himself, sitting cross-legged and laying his sword across his lap. “Don’t pick a fight and they’ll leave you alone. Animals don’t like to attack anything bigger than them.”

The crunch of a foot coming down on the broken stones made Raeln’s ears perk, but he could not pick out a direction. Another crackle nearby seemed to come from a different direction than the last. Seconds later, there were several more footfalls very close to him. If required to guess, he was fairly certain he was being slowly surrounded.

“If you speak the trade language, I’m not a threat,” he said to the fog around him, turning his head slowly to look for anything out there. For a brief moment, he thought he saw gleaming eyes, but when he looked directly at them, there was nothing he could make out. Whatever had moved out there was trying to keep him from seeing it. “Leave me alone and I’ll leave you alone.”

A puff of hot breath on the back of Raeln’s neck made him freeze. Whatever was behind him breathed again, sending chills down his spine. A faint sniff sent shivers across his skin all the way to the tip of his tail. The creature had gotten far closer than he would have liked and was evaluating him.

Raeln moved as slowly as he could manage, turning his head just enough to look behind himself, as he rolled his spear into his hand. A wolf’s face stared back at him…looking down on him. He had only ever seen one kind of wolf that large, and they were native to Turessi. Dire wolves were rumored to be intelligent and deadly, even to the Turessians. He had also been told they would almost never attack unless someone came too close to their den or tried to hunt them. They also rarely traveled in groups of more than four to six when hunting.

“Not hunting you,” he said in his most soothing voice, setting aside his sword. “I’m not prey…not prey…please understand what I’m saying…”

Once Raeln had a chance to sniff, getting an idea of the wolf’s particular scent, he realized there were dozens more nearby. They were everywhere. On’esquin had been quite certain that dire wolves only hunted in small groups, leaving the majority back at their den. He had said that so many times that Raeln could hear the orc’s voice in the back of his head.

“I’m in your den…” Raeln said in horror, putting his hand back on his sword. “Oh dear old gods…”

The wolves attacked as a group, hitting him from both sides and behind at the same time, knocking him prone and sending his sword tumbling into the fog. Rolling away from the snapping jaws of one wolf, Raeln swept his spear around and knocked aside another wolf. He twisted, trying to clear his body of any other attackers to give him time to reach his sword, but a third wolf landed on him like a boulder, pinning him on his back.

Kicking his legs up into the wolf’s stomach, Raeln heaved as hard as he could and pushed the heavy beast off him before it could get its jaws on his neck. Tumbling backward, he caught the hilt of his sword and came up on his feet, the sting of deep scratches all over his torso making him wish he had worn some kind of armor. Greth’s nagging about Raeln’s reluctance to weigh himself down came back abruptly, making him wish he had paid more attention to those who had warned him in years past.

Dire wolves were everywhere. Though their bodies were mostly masked by the fog, Raeln could see silhouettes of wolves as large as a small horse, some as small as regular dog, and everything in between, moving in the area around him. Gleaming eyes stared at him from every possible direction. There were easily thirty of the monstrous beasts.

When the wolves did not immediately attack again, Raeln took the moment’s break to check his wounds. Deep claw scratches had cut through his cloak and shirt in several spots, though his fur had mostly kept them from tearing into his flesh, leaving raw pink slices where they had almost gotten a larger piece of him after ripping away all of the fur. As he watched, the scrapes stopped aching, and a tingling spread through his muscles as Dalania’s spell took hold. His heart beat rapidly and his mind buzzed as though he were already far into an adrenal rush from fighting.

“All right,” Raeln said, turning in place to size up the wolves that continued to appear from the fog around him. “Enough playing. Let’s get this over with. I know the rules, and I’ll be damned if I’m letting one of you be the alpha. Back down!”

As the wolves advanced, closing off any chance of escape through the fog-hidden landscape, Raeln snarled and bared his fangs, trying to intimidate the animals. The smaller and younger ones backed away, but the larger ones matched his expression. Their teeth were far larger, and they were not about to be intimidated by a humanoid wolf half their size.

Raeln braced himself as he heard a sizzling roar from somewhere behind him. He glanced in that direction and realized that was the way to the hole he had seen hanging in midair. There was something coming through the portal…or lots of somethings. He had made far too much noise and drawn attention to himself.

“Son of a—”

A wolf tackled him and the burning silhouette of a flame elemental came into sight. He rolled with the impact, using fists and claws to try to keep himself from being ripped apart.

*

With morning breaking over the snowy plains, Raeln limped out of the fog. Yiral had set herself up with a small tent just outside the hills where the low cloud lingered. A ring of symbols, drawn into the snow and somehow not fading despite fresh snowfall, likely contributed to her safety. More magic that he had no understanding of or interest in learning.

Unlike Yiral, Raeln had nothing to shield him from the weather or the creatures of the region. His clothes hung in tatters, covered with blood in places. His cloak was long gone, burned away by one of the flaming creatures that had joined his battle with the wolves. Even his weapons were lost or shattered, leaving him with little more than his claws—several of which were broken, as well. His fangs even felt as though they had melted slightly under the thick caking of blood. He was too dazed and tired to even care.

Burns, cuts, and punctures covered most of his body, making the forward movement difficult. Despite that, Raeln pushed himself one step at a time, unwilling to pass out, lest yet another creature show itself before he could escape. He pushed his muscles through each step to keep himself upright, his mind as numb as his body. He could not think, only push himself to make each new step forward.

At his approach, Yiral came running from her tent, barely making it to him before he fell forward into the snow. He hardly even felt the chill anymore. His whole body ached, and freezing was barely even a thought for him. He could only stare off blankly, waiting for the next group of wolves or elementals to come. Blinking felt like a deadly risk. That moment of blindness that came with blinking meant another set of fangs digging into his flesh or flames burning away his skin. Despite his fear of losing consciousness, his mind drifted as he lay in the snow.