Rend the Dark (6 page)

The smell of the fire still clung to the boy.

It clung to all of his friends as well, filling the space
of the small wagon they slept in. In spite of the open top, in spite of the
cold breeze that blew throughout the day, even in spite of the two weeks that
had passed since the night the orphanage burned down, the children still
carried the smell with them. The scent of soot and ashes, of fear and death.

The loss of the orphanage weighed on him more than he
thought it would. It had not been much, but in the two years he had been there,
it had been more of a home than he had ever known. It had been where he first
met the others, and where they welcomed him in as family.

And now, they had all lost everything.

Roan slammed his hand against the wagon’s side, the
coarse-grained wood biting into his knuckles. In the cold, quiet of the late
evening, the sound of it was like a crack of thunder, and immediately he
regretted it.

“Can’t sleep?” Kay’s dark brown eyes shined in the low
light.

“Did I wake you?” he whispered.

“No,” she said, rubbing her eyes sleepily as she sat up.
Her long brown hair had fallen forward, obscuring her face. Her features were
soft and pale, accentuated by large, bright eyes that seemed to take in
everything at once. He had always thought she was beautiful.

“I did. I’m sorry, Kay,” he said, keeping his voice low.
“Go back to sleep.”

“What’s wrong?” she asked, shifting more upright, a slight
edge of tension in her voice.

“Nothing. Just excitement, I guess. Cadell says we should
arrive at Resa the day after tomorrow.” He gestured toward the only adult in
the wagon, the old man handling the reins of the mule team that pulled the
wagon. The back of his bald head was wrinkled and marred with small scars and
dark, tattooed lines.

Kay’s eyes narrowed. “Do you really think we can trust him?
That he’s telling the truth about starting new lives there?” she asked. “I
mean, after everything, how can we trust anything?”

“He did save our lives,” he reminded her gently.

“And you saved his.”

“Well, that means we should be able to trust each other,
don’t you think?”

Kay was quiet for a moment. “I guess so,” she said, but
there was no confidence in her words.

In the half-light, she looked smaller. Diminished. The
suspicion and doubt in her voice hurt Roan in his heart. Kay had always seen
the best in people. She had always been the first to smile. The first to trust.

But that was before the fire.

Roan reached out and Kay moved to sit beside him. She
seemed so small as she settled in. He tousled her hair in an effort to try and
cheer her. “Come on. There are great things ahead for us. We’re going to become
Razors. Like the great heroes in Elinor’s stories.”

The wagon rocked slowly and both looked to Elinor asleep on
the floor, Alys and Ferran beside her. Roan felt a twinge of sadness at the
thought of separating from his friends after they had been through so much.

Almost as if she could read his thoughts, Kay sighed. “I
wish they could come with us,” she whispered.

Roan slowly nodded. “Me too, but they won’t be too far
away. And they’ll be following their dreams. Making them come true, just like
we are.”

“Are we, Roan?” Kay asked. “How? Other than kitchen chores,
I’ve never held a blade in my life. How am I going to become some great
warrior?”

“That’s what the school is for,” he chided her gently.
“They’ll handle teaching us and Cadell said he will give us a letter of
introduction, so they will give us a chance. That chance is all we need.”

Even as he spoke, he hated himself for lying. Kay was
right. She had no experience fighting, and she would be going up against the
best in the kingdom, students who trained their entire lives for that one sole
purpose. She had little chance of making it. And if she didn’t, if she failed,
then she would truly have nothing.

But what choice did they have?

“What if I don’t make it?” Kay said quietly.

“You will.”

“How do you know that?”

“Because I’ll make sure you do,” he said. “I’ll be there by
your side.”

There was a pleading look in her eyes. “And if we fail?”

His lips tight, Roan locked eyes with her. “Then we face
whatever comes after. Together.”

Kay found his hand and gripped it tightly with both hands.
Roan squeezed back. She nodded softly, and then laid her head on his shoulder.
He could hear her soft breathing and in a few moments, she was asleep again.

Despite her warmth, Roan felt cold.

His mind brought forth memories of childhood, of being on
the ragged edge, fighting for every mouthful of food, desperation turning you
into a wild, feral thing that was barely human. That had been life, until Kay
and the others took him in. He could not allow her to fall into that existence.
It would change her. It would break her. As he had seen it happen to so many
others.

No. He couldn’t let it come to that.

He wouldn’t let it come to that.

She had saved him. Now, he would do the same for her.

He wrapped his arms around her and stayed perfectly still
as she slept. The thud of the team’s hoofbeats seemed to count down the moments
remaining in their journey to Resa, the capital, and to the Razor School of
Faith, where their new lives awaited.

Conbert’s hands were
slick with sweat on the reins,
despite the cold breeze. Every rustle of the long yellow grass, every whistle
of the wind, any sound not the rhythmic clop of his horse’s hooves on the worn
cobblestone road sent his eyes darting and heart racing.

He had traveled the Reach Road two times previous. Each
time had been without incident. Each time, he had arrived at his destination
hale and whole, without even a glimpse of the fabled predators the grasslands
were so famous for. Yet each time, the sense of dread, of cold fear, had been
with him.

The first time, he had tried to play the part of the brave
hero, riding forth on a grand quest like the legendary figures in the old
stories. That lasted until he caught sight of the infamous drowning grass. The
blades were the height of a man and they moved with a sinuous and lifelike
grace on each side of the wide stone road.

The fear had started then, shattering whatever myth he
might have fabricated of Conbert Eylnen, the future valiant officer of the
King’s Own. In the face of that grass and what he knew could be hiding under
it, he was just Con, apprentice engineer and architect, student of the academy,
and anxious to get the hell out of there.

Somewhere far out across the sea of grass, a lone tree rose
up like an island. It marked the halfway point in crossing the grassland. It
had often given Con comfort. But this time, beneath the shade of its heavy,
twisted boughs, there was movement.

A human shape.

Impossible. The only road through the drowning grass was
the one he was on now. No one would be stupid enough to travel into the middle
of the cursed grass, set up like a picnic for the rendworms.

Con pulled his horse to a halt. Reaching down to the heavy
saddlebag, he pulled out his surveyor’s glass and raised the delicate
instrument to his eye.

Sure enough, there was a person. A girl. She seemed tall,
but even with the glass, it was difficult to judge at this distance. She had
short, blonde hair that was almost white as it ruffled in the wind. What really
caught his attention was her clothing: the familiar grays of an academy cadet.
The same grays he had worn as an underclassman a year ago.

The fear came back, but this time wild. The girl was
doomed, marooned at that tree surely as any castaway on a lost island. It was
only a matter of time until the rendworms caught wind of her.

Before he knew what he was doing, Con urged his horse into
a gallop, off the stone road and into the undulating grass. His breath rasped
and tears blurred his eyes.

From the wind
, he thought.
Tears because of the
wind. Not because I am stupid and going to die out here.

He rode hard across the grassland, the twisted spire of the
tree ahead of him. As it drew closer, he saw the cadet had caught sight of him.
She waved frantically. Conbert focused on her desperate movements, shoring up
his rapidly disappearing courage with the knowledge that he was her only hope.

Something brushed his leg and he almost shrieked, but
realized it was only a heavy stalk of grass. The tree and the waving girl were
a few lengths away now.

Con leaped from the saddle, stumbled, and fell on his face,
but he got up quickly. Breathlessly, he stood before the girl. “It’s alright,
cadet,” he gasped. “I can take you out—”

Her hand shot out, covering his mouth. It was almost too
fast to follow and his eyes widened with shock.

The cadet met his gaze with a cold, hard look of her own.
There was a focus there and not the desperate gratitude Con had expected.
Slowly, she raised her free hand and laid a single finger against her lips.

Utterly confused, he could only nod.

She cocked her head, listening. Tall and fairly thin, she
was not a delicate beauty. Her features were too strong, too sharp for that,
but her clear, blue eyes were vibrant as she searched the grass around them.
She sighed and released the hand over his mouth.

Con drew a deep breath. “Cadet, what are you doing out
here?”

The girl turned and then, appearing to notice the black and
silver uniform, snapped to a smart salute. “Forgive me, sir. I was hunting a
rendworm.”

“You’re what? Are you absolutely mad, girl?” he asked, his
voice rising.

“No, sir. Not at all. I am merely here to honor the First
Trial of Aedan,” she said, bowing her head momentarily. “I am not to return
without the jaw of a rendworm, but so far, none have appeared.”

“The First Trial of Aedan?”

Con’s eyes grew wider. The Hunt. The joke upperclassmen
played on first-year cadets at the Academy. The older students regaled them
with stories of the First King, Aedan, and the legend of how he bested a field
of colossal rendworms to earn a meeting with an ancient one, the Shepherd of
Tree and Stone.

Only there was no Hunt.

It was all an elaborate ruse, a traditional jape each
first-year cadet class went through. The cadets were stopped at the gate of the
Academy, chased and beaten by older cadets wielding sticks and wearing garish
costumes. And then the ale casks were brought out and everyone would get
ripping drunk.

No one ever actually went out to hunt the damn things.

He looked at the girl again. For her to be out here meant
she must have been very sheltered or very stupid. But that didn’t explain why
the other cadets wouldn’t have stopped her at the gate.

Conbert felt suddenly cold. Had they done this on purpose?
Had they sent her unknowingly to her death? The chill turned to anger. The
Academy had never been a warm place, but it had never been this cruel.

Conbert opened his mouth to tell the girl the truth about
her fool’s errand, but saw her posture change. She stood absolutely still,
looking past him, a long-handled black mace in one hand. His horse danced
skittishly as the grass waved around it.

The girl put a hand on his shoulder. Her voice was low.
“Whatever happens next, you mustn’t move.”

And then the ground underneath the horse exploded and a
pale white form the size of a wagon erupted into the air. The horse let out a
scream that turned into a wet gurgle as white writhing tentacles enveloped the
animal. The copper tang of blood filled the air and Conbert felt his stomach
lurch.

He thought to go for the sword at his side, but he saw the
girl’s eyes.

He held himself still as another of the creatures breached
the drowning grass. It was a huge mass of rippling white flesh, except at the
front, where the mouth opened like an exposed wound. Massive tearing fangs
lined the pink maw, and white tentacles writhed from the worm’s throat, seeking
the remnants of the thrashing horse. The two monsters tore the horse apart in
seconds, powerful tentacles flaying meat from bone with horrific efficiency.

As the rendworms began to slide across the ground in their
direction, Con felt a terror urging him to run. He fought against it, trying to
focus instead on the perfect stillness of the young girl as the huge worms slid
past them.

Then the girl moved.

The young cadet was fast and sure as she darted forward.
She struck out with the mace, swinging it with both hands, and smashing it into
the rendworm’s side. There was a loud crack, and Con knew that somewhere inside
the sinuous horror, a bone had broken under the blow.

The rendworm let out a keening screech that stabbed Con’s
ears and took the breath from his lungs. The injured creature folded its bulk
around, trying to round on the girl. The crown of white tentacles snapped and
writhed like angry serpents, seeking her.

Instead of retreating, she moved into the circle of the
rendworm’s turning bulk. The mace carved through the air once more, the flanged
head crashing squarely just behind the enormous hooked jaws and tentacles. This
time, there was no crack like thunder, but a wet sound like the smashing of
rotting fruit. The rendworm immediately shuddered and collapsed to the ground dead.

The other rendworm came now, covering Con with a shower of
earth, a massive shadow blocking out the sun. Bringing his blade free of its
sheath, he held it before him in desperation as one of the tentacles lashed at
him. By some fortune, Con’s sword came across his body right in the path of the
slashing tooth of the tentacle. Con dropped to the ground as the horror reared
for another strike.

There was an explosion of gore as the creature’s soft
abdomen was crushed under the girl’s mace. The white flesh shuddered and
collapsed, and Con scrambled away from the new corpse. Through the noxious
rendworm blood dripping down his face, he peered at the young cadet.

Her eyes shone with excitement and triumph.

“From the stories, I thought they would be bigger,” the
girl said, her voice colored in disappointment.

Conbert looked at her, unable to stop shaking, unable to
keep from staring as she handed him a water flask. She walked to the first
corpse and began working away at the creature with the short blade from her
belt. With quick, sure movements, she tore free the huge serrated jaws of the
rendworm.

The girl grinned ear to ear. “They have no eyes, but they
can feel your vibrations when you move. You did incredibly well, sir.”

Con could only nod dumbly. Finally, he found his tongue.
“Conbert Eylnen,” he said, unsure of what else to say. “My name is Con.”

The cadet nodded as she tore out the jaw of the second
rendworm. “Elinor,” she said, handing him the bloody mandible. “That one’s
yours, but I think we had better get on our way before we attract any more
attention. Don’t you agree?”

Con shook his head in disbelief. “After you,” he finally
managed.

Elinor smiled and started for the road.

Con made sure to follow close behind.