Soulwoven (42 page)

Cole cursed loudly.

Dark blood pumped rapidly from two gashes in the creature’s neck. Its legs twitched.

Quay watched it and breathed. It didn’t stop spasming until Cole planted his dagger in the base of its skull.

The bog bounced softly with the energy of the creature’s death throes. The water around it rippled. The fog seethed and swirled. The marsh grew quiet and calm.

The rumormongers were right,
Quay thought.

Behind that thought came another, more insidious:
Is that why you were led here? Did the necromancers want you in this marsh all along, to die at the hands of these beasts, or to lose someone, or to lose your way, or to lose the confidence of your followers?

Dil took a shuddering breath.

Quay’s thoughts evaporated.

“Three-eyed, nine-tailed, shivering mudfuckers,” Cole whispered.

A pack of eleven dark fins was moving swiftly through the water to their left.

“More behind,” grunted Len.

Quay glanced over his shoulder and saw seven fins heading toward them from the other side as well.

“I see some under the water too.” Dil was trying to train her bow on them as they approached.

Quay took a breath and shut his eyes. There were questions in their statements:
What do we do? What’s the plan? How do we face this?

What are your orders, my prince?

In the depths of Quay’s past, he stood next to a practice field in the palace, watching his brother organize seven boys to face twelve.

And he spoke.

“Leramis, on the left flank.
Ryse, Dil, on the right. Stay close to each other. Len, Cole, and I will deal with any that reach us.”

He could feel Litnig’s eyes on him as the others loosed or took their stances.
The
what
about me?
in
the older Jin brother’s gaze hung like a weight on Quay’s shoulders.

But the prince had no answers for him. Litnig had no weapons. His hands, big and strong as they were, were no match for claws and teeth.

The marsh beasts scattered and dove as Leramis, Ryse, and Dil began their onslaught. The animals were surprisingly agile in the water, and more organized than Quay had expected them to be. Only three died to arrows and fire before the others abandoned the surface. Two tried breaching from the water on opposite sides of Len, but a single ax blow from the Aleani took care of each.

The beasts stopped attacking after that, but Quay could see them circling in the water, just deep enough that Dil’s arrows couldn’t touch them.

He made eye contact with Ryse.

“Can you get them down there?”

“Not without disturbing the water so much that we might break through the bog.”

Quay could already see the spongy stuff starting to split apart—it had never been solid footing in the first place, and it wasn’t likely to hold together long with them fighting on top of it.

If they broke through, they were as good as dead.

“Leramis?” he asked.

The necromancer shook his head.

Quay clenched his teeth and watched the beasts circling. They were communicating with each other in a language of clicks and squeaks, and he had the feeling that they were planning something, almost like people.

The voice in his head whispered again that there were forces at work beyond his grasp, and that he was nothing more than a pawn, blindly leading those who trusted him to their deaths.

A hard, round shape brushed against the bog underneath his feet. It returned a second time and bumped him harder.

“No—” he breathed, and something slammed into his footing with enough force to stagger him. He saw Cole almost lose his balance as well.

Wide, disbelieving fear shone in his friend’s eyes.

I’m not,
Quay had said to Cole. He’d given his word that they’d be fine.

Now Cole’s mother was dead.

Quay looked for something, anything, to save them, but there was nothing. No solid land for at least five hundred feet behind them, nothing visible but the bog and the water in front. There was nowhere to run, nowhere to hide, and nothing to grab on to.

He turned to Leramis and Ryse.

“Take them out.”

Ryse frowned. “I don’t think we’ll be quick enough to get all—” A beast slammed into Litnig’s feet, and the elder Jin brother let loose a terrifying roar. He stomped viciously at the bog.

Cole whirled on Ryse and shouted, “Just fucking
do
it!”

She took a deep breath and closed her eyes.

So did Leramis.

The water began to froth and roil. The marsh beasts shrieked and slammed against the bog again. The scent of skunk filled the air.

The bog quaked, buckled, and began to break apart.

Quay scrambled with the others to keep on top of it. Clouds of black blood billowed in the water around him.

And then he heard words that put a chill in his heart.

“Our’ma!
E’la e mash’shta!”

He whipped around to face the voice. It had come from the mist across the water, maybe a hundred feet away from them. He didn’t recognize the language it spoke. It wasn’t Old Mennaian. It wasn’t Aleani.

“Sh’ma,” whispered Leramis.

“Mash’shta!”
the voice barked again. It sounded high and strained.

The bog continued to break apart beneath Quay’s feet. Brown water ran over his toes.

“We bring a warning from Eldan!” Quay shouted. “Please, help us, and we can—”

“Mash’shta!
Olua our’ma e elua’shta!”
The Sh’ma’s voice sounded closer.

“The beasts are dead,” said Ryse.

But the bog was breaking up.

Their only chance for safety lay wherever the Sh’ma was standing. Even without the beasts to flay them, they could lose their provisions, their way, or their lives floundering in the water.

“Quay…” whispered Cole.

The prince glanced back. One of Litnig’s feet had plunged through the cover of the bog. Water was pooling around the other.

“Esh’na’shta! ’Oa ’tan kua aysh’shou!”

Quay’s heart pounded. He laid his swords on the bog in front of him and spread his hands. Snippets of old reports ran through his head.

Three lost on the border today… Ten soldiers and two soulweavers unaccounted for, signs of a struggle… Raid on Bywater Castle repulsed. No casualties, but a portion of the wall destroyed…

“Listen,” he said. He tried to keep his voice calm and reassuring. “We mean no harm. We want to help you.” He took a step toward the voice.

“Mash’shta!”
it cried again.

The bog sank further.

Quay kept his eyes on the mist and walked on.

“Mash’shta!”

Step.

“Mash’shta!”

Step.

“MASH’SHTA!”

The mist in front of Quay melted into a curtain of light and heat. The prince saw what looked like a tall, thin, blue-haired young man standing on a grass-covered bank. The youth’s ears tapered to a point almost halfway along its skull.

Other than that and its hair color, it could’ve been any sixteen-year-old Eldanian boy.

Behind it stretched a land of dark green conifers.

The light and heat reached Quay. He shut his eyes and raised a forearm to shield
himself
. The hair singed from his arm and face. Terrific pain scoured his skin, and he knew he was burning, knew he’d failed his land, his people, his ancestors, his friends, himself—

The heat stopped.

There was a snap in the air. Ryse shouted. A bow twanged.

When Quay lowered his scalded forearm and opened his eyes, he saw the Sh’ma on its back on the muddy bank. The mists began to close back in. His arm stung enough to take his breath away.

One choice.
Nowhere else to go.

Herded.

“Forward,” he gasped, cradling his arm.
“To the bank!”

He plunged into the cold, silky water, trusting the others would follow, and he prayed that his burnt arm would get him the thirty yards to shore.

It wasn’t a graceful swim. He spent most of it on his side, paddling with his good arm and kicking and hoping that no more of the marsh beasts would show up.

His foot hit the bottom.

Quay took two more strokes and settled his boots into the muck. He had to grab the bank with his good arm and pull and wriggle and dig in with his knees to drag himself out of the water.
A look behind him revealed the others swimming slowly through the rapidly regenerating mist, hampered by their clothes, the packs, and their weapons.

A look ahead showed him the Sh’ma.

It lay on its back less than a yard from him, with one of Dil’s black arrows protruding from its chest. Wool trousers of dark gray hid its legs. It wore a bloodstained, V-cut white tunic under a brown vest. A pale-green insignia of a tree with a crown and a star had been embroidered on all of its clothing.

Its chest moved in and out shallowly.

Quay struggled to his feet and walked over the wet ground to the Sh’ma’s side.

Its face was gray. Its eyes were open and unfocused. There were tears on its cheeks.

“Oleguash’ma,”
it sobbed.
“’Oan ohne suash’shta.”

Water splashed to Quay’s left. He heard grunts and whispers and footsteps and the sound of cloth sliding along mud.

A moment later, he spotted a dripping black robe out of the corner of his eye and asked, “Can you understand it?”

Leramis’s silence spoke volumes.

“Ohne,”
whispered the Sh’ma.
“Ohne oleguash’ma, ohne.”

“Put him out of his misery already,” grunted Len.

No choices.
Herded.

Quay reached for a short sword the Sh’ma had on its belt.

“We might be able to heal him,” said Leramis.

Quay paused with his hand on the hilt of the sword. His arm screamed and throbbed.

The Sh’ma continued to whisper in its own language.

“It’s a soulweaver?” Quay asked. His heart thundered.

“Yes.”

“How powerful?”

There was a moment’s pause. The Sh’ma drew one labored breath after another on the soggy ground. The pines to the east rustled restlessly. The reeds near the water shivered. The last drops of the Estmarsh dribbled one by one from Quay’s nose, face, and clothes.

He felt the eyes of the others upon him. Felt their judgment. He had made mistakes that had gotten people killed.

“Powerful enough,” Leramis said. “It would be hard if he resisted.”

Quay looked into the unfocused eyes of the Sh’ma.

He couldn’t take the risk.

I’m sorry,
he thought.

He placed the point of the sword over the Sh’ma’s breast, took a deep breath, and pushed.

FORTY-EIGHT

Dil’s heart had raced for a day, and not because of exertion.

An ocean of pine trees sprinkled the air around her with the scents of vanilla and recent rain. A carpet of orange needles crunched demurely beneath her feet. The terrain was rolling, gouged with ravines, and well drained. It wasn’t the easiest walking, but compared to the Estmarsh, it was nothing.

Dil’s heart was pounding because Quay had killed the Sh’ma.

He’d been helpless and in pain, and the prince had stabbed him through the heart.

Dil stumbled over a root and wiped the sweat from her forehead. She hadn’t slept. Her arms tingled. Her chest felt tight. If she closed her eyes, she saw the Sh’ma jerk as Quay plunged the sword into his chest, watched the blood pour from his mouth, heard the crackling of his dying breaths.

The prince had killed him because he was afraid of him.

What would he do to me?

She tried to force the words from her head and focus on finding the easiest path up a small rise ahead of her. She was as safe as she could be heading for the White Forest. No one with her knew what she was.

Except for Cole.

She stole a worried glance behind her. Cole was wrapped in the same silence that had separated them for days.

Please,
she thought. She knew he was hurting, but she couldn’t stop the wish.
Please let today be the day he wakes up—the day he sees I’m afraid.

He didn’t
so
much as look at her.

He’d hardly spoken to her since they’d left Eldan City. He mumbled thanks when she offered condolences and smiled sadly at her from time to time, and occasionally he touched her lightly on the shoulder or the cheek, but the warmth had faded from his hands and his eyes and his lips. He was always quick to turn away, to roll over,
to
put his back between him and her.

She’d never felt so alone.

No,
she reminded herself.
Not never.

Old memories washed over her—her parents shouting, fingers pointing, furniture crashing to the floor. Someone pounded, pounded, pounded at the door.

Her older sister, face gray in the candlelight, listened and tensed and then grabbed her hand and pulled her out a window into a cold night of smoke and embers. The streets tore at her bare feet. A mob of angry men and women saw them, chased them, hurled rocks and insults—

Animal!

—hurt them—

Get it! Get them!

—grabbed her sister—

RUN!

—and she had to bite, had to scratch, had to run from them over and under and through a thousand shadowed anythings while her nightshirt tore and she sought darkness as fast as her small feet would carry her.

Because she had golden eyes.
Because of what that meant.

This is nothing compared to that,
she told herself as the needles rustled, and it was true.

But it wasn’t easy.

And they were being followed.

She hadn’t been sure about it at first. A whiff of something strange had spiced the air. A snap had sounded slightly out of place behind and to her right. The signs of pursuit weren’t things a human would’ve noticed.
Nor an Aleani.
Nor a Sh’ma.