Progeny (The Children of the White Lions) (10 page)

Nikalys and Kenders most likely thought him dead. If they had been smart, they would have run immediately, giving them a full day’s head start on him. He glanced upwards and found Mu’s orb high in the sky, meaning the day was a little more than half spent. He bent over, retrieved the leather case, and strapped it to his back. “Let’s get on with it, then.”

Glancing north, he said a quick prayer to Maeana for the souls of his parents and neighbors and then turned his back on the ruins of Yellow Mud. He strode toward the blood vulture and swiped at the bird as he passed. “Shoo!”

With an annoyed screech, the carrion bird took to the air.

Jak muttered, “And stay away.”

9th of the Turn of Sutri

The wave creature was coming fast, tearing up trees and bushes, roaring with the strength of a thousand waterfalls. Kenders sprinted past Widow Johns’ small house, rushing home. Swiveling her head, she looked behind her for Nikalys but the road was empty. She did not remember passing him, but pressed on without him, racing into Yellow Mud proper.

Chaos reigned around her.

Everywhere, people were running and screaming, shouting for wives, husbands, sons, and daughters. Some carried items from their homes; one man was carrying a set of farming tools in one hand and a piglet in the other.

Dodging her fleeing neighbors, she turned in the direction of the Isaac home. She doubted she could reach the house before the water did, but she had to try. Rounding a corner, she skidded to a stop in the middle of the dirt road.

“How…?”

Her house waited a few hundred paces away. Only a moment ago, she had been on the edge of town. Kenders had no time to make sense of what had happened. A quick glance north revealed the water was almost in Yellow Mud. She ran down the street, her sandaled feet pounding on the hard-packed dirt.

Reaching the front of her home, she burst inside, letting the oak door slam against the interior wall. The center room was empty. All four doorways to the other rooms in the house were clear.

“Mother! Father!”

There was no response.

“Jak!”

She moved to the kitchen and the other rooms, searching frantically. No one was here. Noticing the back door ajar, she hurried over and shoved it open. Her parents stood in the backyard, locked in a quiet embrace.

“Oh, thank the gods.”

Neither acknowledged Kenders’ sudden arrival nor the approaching water. Instead, the pair seemed to be enjoying a loving moment, hugging one another as they had countless times. Mist sprayed the back of the Isaac home, water thundered, wood shrieked and cracked, but Thaddeus and Marie Isaac appeared oblivious to it all. They seemed wholly content to stand there, waiting, accepting the inevitable.

“Mother! Father! Let’s go!”

They ignored her. Thaddeus leaned down and whispered something to her mother. Marie looked up, touched his face tenderly, and smiled back.

Panic grabbed Kenders, squeezing her tight. She felt like a grape being squashed in a fist. In a matter of moments, the wall of water would be on top of them. She needed to do something.

She stared at the looming wave and screamed. “No!”

The thundering roar shifted in tone, deepening. Trees no longer cracked and popped with the suddenness of a snapped twig, but creaked and groaned as a too-small chair would under the weight of a heavy man. Peering north, she saw the wave was still moving toward her, but at an impossibly slow pace. Looking back to her parents, she found them as motionless as statues. Her mother’s eyes closed slower than a slug crawling up a tree. Moments later, they opened at the same glacial pace. “What is—?”

She cut her murmured question short when a glimmering, glittering string of white popped into view before her, hanging in the air just beyond arm’s length.

The filament dangled there, light and airy, waving as though teased by a soft breeze. Pulsating with bright, white light, it fluttered before her, almost beckoning Kenders to reach out and take it. The string appeared only a few feet long, although when she tried to judge the true length, she found she could not. As her eyes traveled up and down the twisting thread, the part she had just surveyed would diminish, weakening and fading from sight. She could not say whether she ever saw its start or end. Flickering beyond the lone strand pulled her attention to the yard. “Bless the gods…”

Dozens of the strings hung in the air.

Most of them were white, like the first, but she saw other colors, too. Vivid hues of blue oscillated like waves on a lake. Ruddy, earthy-brown ropes hovered near the ground, sturdier and firmer than the white and blue ones. Every string radiated a powerful, otherworldly energy.

They were as beautiful as they were terrifying.

She reached out to touch the nearest wispy white filament, but her hand passed right through it. The crackling, tingly feeling that ran up her arm reminded her of the sound straw made when it crumbled.

With a fierce suddenness, the wave’s pounding roar resumed. She snapped her head up and looked north. The water was rushing toward them again.

As she stared at the wave now, she saw countless glimmering strings tumbling and roiling within water and debris. Instead of hanging haphazardly like those in the yard, however, the strands within the creature were arranged in an intricate pattern that reminded her of a knitted blanket. The bulk of the strings were blue and white, but she also caught flashes of brilliant, glorious silver and gold within the weave.

Without thought, she reached out with her mind and began to pluck the loose strings from around her. Not knowing how or why, she grabbed white and brown ones and wove them together clumsily, blindly. She had no idea what she was doing, or why she was doing it.

She directed her misshapen tangle of strings toward her parents moments before the wall of water struck them. The wave crashed into the Isaac’s yard and the pattern she had made. For a split second, her white and brown weave held against the onrushing force. Her eyes widened with hope.

With a resounding crack that she felt more than she heard, the tangle of strands gave way, bending, breaking, shattering.

Her parents screamed as the oncoming wall of water engulfed them.

Standing in her home’s doorway, Kenders threw her arms up to cover her face and shouted as the wave slammed into her. “Noooo!” She sat up, screaming and opened her eyes.

It was dark. Firelight flickered. Drenched in a cold sweat, she held her arms in front of her face, taking quick, ragged breaths. The odor of fired pinecones filled the air.

“Kenders! What is it?”

She whipped her head around to find Nikalys scrambling to her side. His hunting knife was in his hand, gripped so tight that his knuckles were white.

Disoriented, she looked around the campsite again. The fire was still going strong; Nikalys must have been adding logs as she slept. He was now scanning the edges of the woods, his eyes wide.

“Did you hear something?”

She shook her head, closed her eyes, and put her fingers to her temples, rubbing away the images of her parents’ faces caught in the wave.

“No. Sorry. It was…it was just a nightmare. An awful, terrible nightmare.” Opening her eyes, she stared at her brother. “I was in Yellow Mud as the water came, looking for Mother and Father. I found them in the back of the house, just…just standing there. I tried to help them, but I couldn’t get the…” She trailed off, wondering what she was about to say.

She had no idea what she had seen. Only that it probably had something to do with magic. She doubted Nikalys would like knowing that, even if it had been in a dream. Shaking her head, she mumbled, “You know, I’m already starting to forget the details.” She forced an embarrassed, tired smile, hoping he would accept her lie.

He did, lowering the knife to his side and slumping to the ground next to her.

“Gods, you stopped my heart. I thought the wolves had come.”

“Hold a moment,” said Kenders, her eyes narrowing. “You said wolves would
never
come near a fire.”

With a tilt of his head and a weak shrug of his shoulders, he said, “Actually, I said that I
heard
wolves would never come near a fire.”

“From who?”

He held her gaze for a moment before dropping it to an unremarkable tree root. Somewhat sheepishly, he replied, “William Holder.”

“William Holder?” exclaimed Kenders. “That man says lots of things. Most of them mad.”

“It makes sense, doesn’t it? Wolves don’t like to be burned, right?”

Rolling her eyes, she said, “So? I don’t like getting burned either, but I don’t hide from fire because of it.” She shook her head. William Holder had once run naked through Yellow Mud’s streets screaming that “the lions are coming for us!” “Wondrous. We’re basing our choices on the ramblings of a madman.”

Nikalys opened his mouth—most likely to say something smart—but stopped short as a lone, haunting howl echoed through the hills. Kenders turned her head, trying to determine from where the cry was coming. The forest and hills played havoc with sounds, however, and she could not. It seemed close, though.

As the yowl began to taper off, a second, slightly deeper howl answered. Brother and sister spun around as one, facing west. There was no doubt from where that one came. A third, higher pitched whine joined the first two. As the trio of howls faded, Kenders glanced at her brother and said in a quiet, subdued tone, “That makes three now.”

Nikalys nodded, his eyes scanning the dark forest past the fire’s glow.

“Don’t worry. We’re fine.”

Kenders shut her eyes and muttered a short prayer to Thonda, the god of Beasts and the Hunt, begging him to send his creatures away from here.

Late this morning, they had heard the first wolf call of the day, but shrugged it off. After midday, another howl had pierced the relative quiet of the forest. Again, the pair ignored it until a second cry answered. Throughout the day, the wolves’ calls had periodically echoed back and forth, drifting through the hills.

The Isaac siblings had again discussed the wisdom of traveling through the woods rather than on the road. They even had a brief yet intense argument when they spotted a large patrol of soldiers from the cover of the trees. Kenders wanted to move down to the soldiers, but Nikalys insisted they avoid everyone. He did not want to be seen coming from the direction of ruined Yellow Mud.

Kenders looked to her brother. “We should have traveled on the road.”

“We agreed not to.”

Kenders hissed, “I only agreed because you said a fire would keep us safe!”

Nikalys glared at her, silent.

Pushing her irritation aside, she whispered, “What do we do now?”

“I truly doubt they’ll come close,” replied Nikalys. Firelight glinted in his eyes as he stared around the glade. “I’m not worried.” The timbre of voice said otherwise.

Another howl cut through the quiet night, raising the hairs on the back of Kenders’ neck.

“Perhaps you should be.”

Nikalys remained quiet, staring into the dark forest. With a sigh, he sheathed his hunting knife, stood, and crept to the fire. He grabbed the unburned end of a log jutting from the flames and scooted back to her, holding it over his head like a crude torch.

When Kenders gave him a questioning look, he shrugged his shoulders. “Just in case.”

“In case of what?”

He did not answer.

They had built tonight’s campsite in a small clearing nestled between three large trees—two oaks and one ash. A tall thicket of thorny fingerprick bushes with inch-long thorns ran between the pair of oaks. The rest of the clearing was surrounded by nothing but small, eminently passable bushes.

Kenders caught a soft, scuffling of leaves in the forest, across the fire and to her right. She stared into the black, but could not see anything. The moonlight filtering through the canopy of leaves above and should have illuminated the forest, but the fire—while turning their camp bright—had made it difficult to see much beyond the reach of the flames’ light.

She was searching in vain for a glimpse of anything when she heard a low puff of air, wet and throaty. Without saying a word, Nikalys grabbed Kenders’ hand, pulled her to her feet, and guiding her so their backs were to the fingerprick bushes.

Once stopped, he leaned close and whispered, “Do you see anything?”

Kenders could not, having made the mistake of glancing at the fire as Nikalys had pulled her to her feet, wondering if she should get a torch, too. Now, she had night blindness. Leftover, ghostly images of the fire danced in her vision everywhere she looked.

“No.”

A low, guttural growl drew their attention to the left side of the clearing. Staring into the nighttime forest, Kenders watched as a pair of yellow eyes emerged from the darkness, lit bright by the fire’s reflected light and only fifty paces away.

She felt a sharp pinch in her calf and let out a quick, startled cry—part pain, part surprise. Without realizing it, she had backed into the fingerprick bushes and stuck herself in the leg. At her exclamation, the wolf’s growl picked up and a second, throaty rumble joined the first. Kenders looked to the right side of the clearing to spot another set of yellow eyes.

“Nikalys?”

“I know,” muttered Nikalys. He moved his right hand to his sheathed knife, gripped the handle, and slid the blade free. With his left, he held his improvised torch out to Kenders. “Take it.”

“Why?”

“Just take it.”

Shifting her gaze between the wolves, she reached up and took the torch from her brother.

Displaying remarkable calm, Nikalys spoke in hushed tones, saying, “Now, I’m going to charge the one on the left. The other will probably come after me. When it does, I want you to run.”

She swiveled her head quickly to stare at her brother.

“No! I’m not—”

Nikalys hissed, “Don’t argue! It’s the only chance you have. If you hear them chasing you, climb a—” He cut off, his gaze snapping to the center of camp. “Hells.”

Kenders looked across the clearing and found a third wolf—by far the largest she had ever seen—slinking from the blackness, into the circle of firelight. Standing four feet tall at the shoulder, the wolf was covered in shaggy, dark gray fur except for what would have been white paws if not for the dirt coating them. Its ears were alert and twitching, its lips drawn back to expose sharp teeth and blackened gums.