The Bonded: The Allseer Trilogy Book I (24 page)

Akra was silent for a moment. “Many of your kind have passed through my halls unscathed, but there have been those that chose to let go. They’ve stayed here where it is safe. Protected by the buzzing. As for those unlike you… they’ve never left this place. They aren’t welcome here. Not like you. They are vultures. Hunters. Despicable.”

“What do you mean, unlike us?”

Akra scoffed, the sound echoing through the cave. “Empty minds and corrupt hearts. They aren’t like you. They cannot feel, cannot hear, cannot see or share. They are empty, empty…Husks. Unworthy of power. You’ll find many beyond here. Turn back before they corrupt you too.”

Kirheen shook her head. “We’re not staying another minute here,” she said firmly. “Open the way for us.”

“Are you certain? The world is unlike what you’ve grown accustomed to. The place beyond isn’t safe for you. Swinging…picked clean. Hunters. Don’t go,” Akra sighed, her voice husky and seductive, like that of a lover whispering secrets into her ear. 

“Open the door, Akra,” Kirheen demanded, trying to keep her resolve. Her words were toying with her mind, killing her desire to flee.

“I warned you,” she sighed. The blue glow of her eyes faded and the door rolled to the side with a loud grinding whine. Day light filtered through the cave, forcing them to both squint as they crawled out of the cave. The sun was high in the sky overhead and it was a welcomed change from the chilly air of the cave. As soon as she reached level ground, Kirheen swung the packs from her shoulder and lay down, letting the sun warm her face.

Her ribs ached from her encounter with the mad man, her body covered in scratches and ugly purple and yellow bruises, but at the moment she didn’t care. Garild had sunk down next to her and he pulled a pack close, digging through. His face turned into a frown as he did, his hand coming up with a cracked water jug.

He tossed it aside and pulled the other pack to him. Luckily, that jug had survived and he took a few cautious sips of the water before handing it to her. She pushed herself up on her elbows and tipped some water into her mouth. It was refreshing but part of her was disgusted knowing it had come from that cave. She handed it back, unable to stand the thought.

“We’ll have to make it last,” Kirheen said. “I’m not sure we’re going to find any place to refill it.” She stood up, hugging her ribs as she did. The land around them was similar to what it had been on the other side, though it was entirely devoid of wraith wood trees. The rocky landscape went on for a time before dipping down into a lush forest that she could see far ahead. “We better get moving while it’s still light. Are you feeling okay?”

“Well enough for now,” Garild said. “Let’s just get away from this place.”

Kirheen couldn’t have agreed more. 

It came to a point that everything began to look like food to Kirheen. Her stomach rumbled, her legs sluggishly carrying her body forward as she watched the world around her with hungry eyes. She couldn’t remember how long it had been since they’d left the cave. They’d found water in a stream, a stream they now followed, but food wasn’t readily available. It wasn’t as if they could hunt and every squirrel that passed she had to watch scamper off with drool pooling in her mouth.

Garild was faring even worse. His condition combined with a lack of food had left him exhausted and fevered. They stopped often, giving Garild a chance to catch his breath before setting off. His hand was looking worse by the day, the skin colorless and peeling away from the bites. She’d tried to clean it, but it didn’t seem to help.

When Kirheen saw a wooden structure far in the distance, she had to stop herself from running towards it. Surely hunger had driven her to imagine it and thinking so, she raised her hands to her eyes and rubbed at them. When she lowered them again, her heart began to hammer in her chest. There was something there and just slightly beyond it she could barely make out the tops of other houses. She reached over and tugged on Garild’s sleeve.

“Do you see that,” she asked, pointing in the direction of the structure.

Garild squinted. A moment later his eyes went wide and his jaw dropped. “Is that…”

“A village.”

“I don’t…Have we…”

“Garild, I think we’ve found help.” She realized at that moment that tears had sprung to life in her eyes and she wiped away at them with a dirty hand. A village meant food, shelter, warmth. They’d gone a while without such comforts and the thought of having them back again filled her with happiness. But there was a devastating realization that seeing that village confirmed what she’d been told, that the Darkness wasn’t real, that it had never been and the childhood she had known had been nothing but a lie. She realized that outside that cave, she knew nothing of the world beyond. It sobered the drunken happiness she’d felt and she found herself frightened. “Garild, I think I should go alone.”

“Why is that,” he asked, inclining his head towards her.

“Because we don’t know what to expect. Just let me go see what is there and I’ll come back for you.”

“And what if you don’t?”

She winced. “I’ll come back, Garild. We’ve made it this far, I’m not leaving you behind now.”

“Just come back,” he said. His mood had darkened and he took the packs from Kirheen, laying them on the ground next to the stream. He sunk down next to them, his eyes wandering to the forest. He didn’t watch her leave but she could feel his doubt follow her, clinging to her back with desperate hands.

As the distance between her and the village dwindled, she began to hear noises drifting towards her, could smell baking bread and the curls of wood smoke hovering lazily over the town. There was another smell though, something closer. It was sickly sweet, like meat left to rot in the sun. As she passed through a thicket of trees, she found the source of the smell.

Three bodies swung from a post at the edge of the village, a rope holding them around their necks. Two of them were male and a third was a female. They were in various states of dress, one of the males being completely devoid of clothing. His pale skin was covered in crisscrossing bloody red lines and the fingers of his left hand were all missing save for his thumb. The woman was missing an eye and her clothes were scorched. Her hair had been burnt and what little remained stuck out from her scalp in a disarray of frizzy locks. The third man had a dagger through his chest. All three had a bloody ‘X’ carved into their foreheads.

The sight made Kirheen gag and she turned away, using a tree to steady herself. She could feel the corpses at her back, their fingers reaching towards her pleading for mercy. She would have fled to Garild had she not had an overwhelming need to be in the village.

Forcing herself to move, she stepped around the bodies, giving them a wide berth. She could feel their lifeless eyes follow her and she shivered as she passed. She took a path in between two buildings and found a road alive with people. Giant wooden carts pulled by large muscular beasts rolled up and down the street, many of the carts laden with supplies. Weaving between them were people going about their daily business.

Doors along the street were flung open and people went in and out of the buildings at their leisure, some coming out with baskets of supplies. A woman to her left walked by with a basket of fresh bread and Kirheen watched her wander by, her eyes intently fixated on the bread. She felt her stomach twist into knots and she had to stop herself from bowling over the woman and stealing the contents of her basket.

Nobody paid her any attention as they passed. They were focused on their duties and they scurried past without a glance. The few that did notice her simply sneered down at her as if she were dirt, worse than dirt. And she supposed in her current state, she was. Her robes were torn, bloodied and streaked with dirt and she imagined her hair and face didn’t look much better.

She looked up and down the street, trying to find something familiar, something that could help them. She found it in the form of a small, rickety wooden house just a few doors down. Though hungry as she was, Garild getting help for his hand was the first thing on her mind.

She stepped into the street, trying to dodge past the carts that wheeled by while avoiding running into anyone on the street. She failed miserably and a man shoved her roughly to the side and yelled something about filthy beggars over his shoulder. She caught the hand rail of a set of stairs and she steadied herself, glaring back over her shoulder at the man that had shoved her.

Nobody around her stopped to ask if she was okay and she found herself feeling very out of place. Hurrying along, she slipped into the small building she’d seen, relishing in the quiet the front room offered. The room was dark and cramped. The walls were of a dark wood and the floors were covered in faded rugs of gold and red. A set of stairs sat off to the right and the left hand wall was covered in rows of shelves with a variety of bottles and tinctures. Two chairs sat by the window to her right and in front of her was a large wooden desk.

Behind it stood a tall man, dressed in the same odd manner as those outside. He had a thick head of gray hair and a moustache hovering over lips that were pulled down in obvious distaste. His bright blue eyes watched her closely. “Is there something I can help you with,” he said, but his voice didn’t sound friendly.

As Kirheen went to speak, she realized how strange it felt to talk to someone other than Garild. She felt her palms grow clammy and her voice broke as she spoke. She had to clear her throat before the words would come out. “I have a friend…he’s hurt. He was bit by something, some kind of snake but…”

The man raised a hand and shook his head. “I don’t mean to stop your tale of woe, but let me get straight to the point. I don’t cater to beggars. If you don’t have the money to pay for my services then please leave.”

Money? The word was foreign to her. From what she could gather, he was asking her for something in return for his help, but she’d never heard of what he asked for. “Money,” she asked. “I… what is it?”

The man clucked his tongue against his teeth in disapproval. “I’d laugh if I hadn’t heard it before. Just because you’ve never seen a copper piece in your life doesn’t mean you can come in here and demand services without paying. Now, if you’ll follow me, I’ll escort you out.” He moved past her, swinging the door open and sweeping his arm out towards the street. “That’s it, girl. Get out of here.” His blue eyes bore into her own and she saw he was in no mood to argue.

The second her foot was out the door, the man slammed it shut behind her with enough force to rattle her teeth. She turned back, fixing him with a glare before stepping back into the street. She was so distraught by his treatment that she nearly got herself run over by a cart. One of the great beasts whinnied, breaking her out of her cloud of anger. She dove forward, narrowly missing being crushed. The driver of the cart spit at her as he passed and she looked at the bubbling pool of saliva on the ground next to her hand with disgust. Suddenly the cave didn’t seem so bad.

Leaving Garild behind was the best thing she could have done. There wasn’t a friendly face to be seen in the crowds around her. How was she supposed to find help in such a place?

As she went to take a step forward a hand latched onto her right shoulder, strong fingers digging in painfully to the hollow above her collar bone. Lips moved next to her ear, the voice low and gritty and edged with warning. “For the love of the Lightbringer herself, stop using your powers.”

Kirheen whipped her head to the side to see who the voice belonged to. The man at her side was tall and thin and there was something very familiar about him. He had startlingly blue eyes under wild grey brows that were pulled together in concern. He had a strong, curved nose and a bushy beard that filled in his otherwise thin face. He had but a crown of grey hair left on his otherwise bald head. He looked down at her with a flash of anger.

“Are you trying to get yourself killed? A seeker finds you here and you might as well go find the nearest cliff to fling yourself off of.”

“I don’t know…”

“Guard your mind, girl.”

Kirheen realized she had been using her powers to keep a pin point on Garild. She’d been afraid of getting lost and so she’d latched on to his mind before she’d left him. She quickly dropped the link and threw up her guard. The man next to her scoffed. “That’ll have to do, I suppose. Follow me.”

He began walking but Kirheen planted her feet. He whipped around angrily but she held her ground. “I don’t even know who you are and you want me to just go with you?”

He looked from side to side, giving a small grin to a woman walking by as if everything was just fine. When she passed he leaned forward and grabbed her shoulder, speaking so only she could hear his voice. “Listen to me, I’ll explain everything until I’m blue in the face, but not here. We need to get out of here before we both end up strung up like those bodies on the edge of town. Got it?”

Kirheen opened her mouth to argue but thought better of it. This was the closest she’d come to finding help and she wasn’t going to let the opportunity pass. She couldn’t leave Garild behind though. “I have a friend in the woods. He’s injured. I came here to find help and I’m not leaving without him.”

The man looked surprised. “A friend?” He was quiet for a moment as he mused over her words. “Can you get him here?”

“I think so.”

“Then go fetch him and meet me at the edge of town.” He pointed to the place he’d be. “Don’t use or speak about your powers, understood?”

She nodded and he released his grip on her shoulder. She rubbed at the spot where his fingers had been, giving him an annoyed glare. “I’ll meet up with you soon,” she said and he nodded, grabbing the leather straps of the strange beast behind him and pulling it forward. It sidled past her, hauling packs to either side of its long body. Glancing around, she took the first opening she could find and slipped between two buildings. She could only hope Garild was where she’d left him.