The Legend of Asahiel: Book 02 - The Obsidian Key (32 page)

Torin fought on to make sure that didn’t happen. But not since Spithaera’s dragonspawn had he faced creatures so driven. Whatever fueled their hunger, these tree-demons fought now without any trace of self-preservation, as if guided by a pack mentality that seemed to encourage individual sacrifice. As stubborn and determined as he considered himself to be, Torin realized full well that this battle would not be won by force of will alone.

Just when it seemed the enemy’s numbers were endless, the unexpected
happened. It began with an anguished cry—Holly’s, he thought. Her pain startled him, and drew him about. The clutch of demons he was fighting refused him pause, looming over his back like a cresting wave. He felt their darkening shadow, and then their claws upon his back, shoulders, and arms.

Then what remained of their campfire erupted in an explosive gout of green-tinged flame. Torin’s view of Holly was obscured as he stumbled backward, arm raised to shield his eyes. In the same instant, smaller fires began springing to life all around him, from each of the smoking brands scattered about. Together, they lit the woods for dozens of paces in all directions, revealing a swarm of tree-demons milling about in startled chaos.

Those nearest him and the fires were scrambling away as if suddenly afraid for their own lives. Small wonder, for wherever one of the creatures came into contact with even a spark of green flame, its entire body lit up like an oil-soaked funeral pyre. There were no screams, but the stench was horrendous. Torin remained where he was, crouched on one knee. He searched for his comrades, but could not find them through the haze of smoke and light and flaming bodies.

Within moments, those demons who had not been reduced to cinders scuttled from the knoll in bitter retreat. Torin watched them go, his guard up, casting about should any return. He found himself squinting, blinded by the sudden radiance, wary lest the fires spread.

Then his eyes happened upon a lone shadow ambling from the south, out of the dark, bearing a globe of dim light. It was neither large, nor threatening, and yet the tree-demons, he noticed, gave it a wide berth, like waters split by a river’s fork. For a moment, Torin had no idea what it might be.

“Necanicum,” Dyanne whispered.

He glanced over as the Nymph and her kinmate stepped round the fire to join him. Each was breathless and glistening from her exertions, spattered with mud and sporting any number of welts and bruises. But neither appeared to have suffered any serious harm. Turning back, Torin joined them in marking the shadow-thing’s approach—up the side of the knoll, edging through the mists and picking its way past the twitching debris of battle. He saw it clearly now—a woman, hunched and knotted, draped in the hides of animals that had not been properly skinned. Legs and tails, still attached, swayed back and forth, withered by rot, while bouncing skulls stared at him with shriveled eye sockets.

She came to a stop directly before them, lifting her lamp as if to have herself a closer look. The lantern itself was odd, its battered casing aswirl with shifting lights, as though filled with twitching glowworms and dancing fireflies. As she raised it high, the surrounding flames lost their greenish tinge, dying into weak, yellow-orange curls that were once again at the mercy of the rain. Beneath their feet, the mists swirled round.

Torin joined Dyanne and Holly in lowering his weapon, waiting to be addressed.

“Ah, the young sisters, they looked affright. They did not understand the gnats were but children.”

The witch’s voice was wispy and ragged, and as soon as she had finished speaking, she tucked her chin into her shoulder and mumbled something Torin couldn’t hear.

“Mother Necanicum,” Dyanne said again, bowing deeply. “You saved us.”

The old woman ceased muttering to whatever dead thing it was that hung there and cast about the flaming rise. The others followed her sweeping gaze to find dismembered tree-demons lying everywhere, wriggling and flailing in the firelight.

“Did she now?” the witch asked, as if only then becoming aware of what had taken place. “The earth’s blood burned hot that night. But was it not they who brought the Immortal One to shield them?”

Sweat dripped from Torin’s forehead and trailed down his limbs, stinging rivers that carried salt and grime across the field of claw marks that crisscrossed his skin. He glanced at Dyanne to see what she might be making of this.

“We did bring one to speak with you,” the Nymph admitted quickly. “A man who seeks your wisdom.”

“Men seek not wisdom,” the witch groused, “but the power that comes with it.” She muttered again to herself before turning to Torin with a birdlike thrust of her head. “Ah,” she said, peering close. “Here stood the one the Teldara spoke of.”

Torin held his tongue as he returned the witch’s gaze. Her lumpish face was twisted and grotesque, with patches of hair that sprouted from more moles and growths than he could count in one sitting. And her eyes looked more like those of a cat, with multi-colored facets to both catch and reflect the light. They stared right through him as she spoke.

“This way then, yes?” They followed Necanicum before the gnats did return.

Torin’s own eyes lifted reflexively to search again the night-shaded woodland. He saw only the helpless struggles of those tree-demons already severed and destroyed, their teeth and claws digging piteously at the earth.

By the time he looked back, Necanicum had turned, and with a final word to the carcass hanging from her shoulder, shuffled on down the slope.

“What now?” he hissed at his companions.

“It’s your quest,” Holly offered rather pointedly.

“The woman is witless.”

“She saved us,” Dyanne reminded him. “I’d rather not wait here to see if she’ll do so again.” She cast about, gripping tight her sword and dagger. “Care to disagree?”

He didn’t. Not after what had quickly become the longest day yet of this ill-fated voyage. He knew not where this witch intended to lead them, nor even that it was Necanicum they had found. But at that moment, surrounded by the scrape and scuttle of those dismembered tree-demons, anything seemed better than remaining where they were.

“Fine, but I’m not putting away my sword.”

“You’d be a fool otherwise,” Dyanne agreed. “Keep watch of our guide.”

Torin did so, eyeing the bob of the witch’s lantern while Dyanne and Holly retrieved what knives they could find and selected a pair of firebrands to use as torches. After that, the three of them hurried down the rise, following the sound of the witch’s voice as she continued to mumble in the darkness.

A
GEYSER OF SPARKS BILLOWED SKYWARD
as Allion poked and twisted at the crackling fire, rearranging its pieces in order to stoke the struggling flames. Although it hadn’t rained for hours, the elements were stacked against the little blaze he had built, the land around him wet and cold and swept by gusting winds. But he had decided against one the night before, and had nearly frozen in his sleep.

He stopped for a moment, allowing the fire to respond to his efforts, warming his hands over the flames. Through the shimmering veil of their heat, he peered over at Marisha, who sat upon a downed log before a line of trees they had selected as a windbreak.

“Warm enough?” he asked her.

Marisha nodded, a pleasant smile come to her face. Allion couldn’t help but stare at her, bundled there in a fur-lined hood and cloak, coiled tight against the cold. Her breath clouded before her, her nose and cheeks made ruddy by the frosty night. So helpless and dependent she appeared, when nothing could be further from the truth.

“Come sit down,” she said, patting the log beside her.

Allion hesitated, reluctant to abandon his position by the fire.

“Leave it be,” Marisha insisted. “It’s fine.”

The hunter blew a slow breath and climbed to his feet. Circling around the fire’s pit, he took a seat at the edge of the fallen tree.

“Do I smell like horse or something?”

Allion looked at her. “Of course not.”

“Then come closer. You’re wasting body heat, sitting all the way out there.”

He started to argue with her, but didn’t want to appear uncomfortable, and so shuffled nearer. What room he left between them disappeared when she moved over to close the gap.

“Much better,” she said when pressed against him.

Allion grunted, peering out over the edge of the plateau serving as their campsite. On the plains below, he could just make out the shadowed ruins of the Parthan city of Dirrk, one of those that had been razed by Spithaera’s army of dragonspawn weeks before. Like many of the devastated holdfasts and settlements, the city was to be rebuilt. But those plans had been slowed, first
by a lack of manpower and the season itself, and now by the threat of wandering creatures that had all but the most stalwart—or foolish—hunkering close to home.

“A beautiful night, is it not?” Marisha asked.

Allion turned his gaze from the husk of broken walls to the celestial ceiling above. Despite a nest of dark clouds strung across the sky to the east, both moon and stars were out in force, casting a silver light that lent a crystalline quality to the land below.

“Think it’ll rain again tonight?” she pressed.

“Snow, more likely,” Allion replied finally, glancing again at the looming cloud bank.

It was their second night out from Krynwall in pursuit of Darinor. The first had been spent in the shadow of the Aspandel Mountains on the eastern fringe of the Gaperon. They had ridden hard, because as best as they could tell, the man they chased did so as well. At this pace, they would likely reach Atharvan, the capital of Partha, on the morrow.

As far as Allion was concerned, the trip couldn’t end too soon. It had started out well enough, a welcome relief after too many weeks of being cooped up behind Krynwall’s stifling walls. Nor had they encountered anything but cold trails of the various bands of enemies said to be plaguing their lands. But a threat of a different sort had arisen, one that Allion might have seen coming had he been paying better attention to the signs. Or maybe he
had
seen them and simply chosen to ignore them.

He leaned forward, hands reaching for the halo of warmth given off by the fire.

“Your hands must be freezing,” Marisha observed. “I don’t know why you insist on wearing fingerless gloves.”

Allion wiggled and stretched the digits she was referring to. “I need a full sense of touch when it comes to my arrows,” he admitted. “What full gloves grant in comfort, they sacrifice in sensitivity.”

“Yes, well, fine protector you’ll be when your fingers fall off altogether. Here, let me warm them.”

The hunter’s chest fluttered in minor panic. “I’m fine, Marisha, really.”

“Don’t be a stubborn child. Give them here.”

“Marisha—”

“It’s the least I can do for having you here with me.”

He ceased struggling and, with an exaggerated sigh, allowed her to take his hands in her own, where she pressed them between thick leather gloves lined with wool.

“As I recall,” he said, “you didn’t exactly invite me.”

“No, but here you are anyway, and I’m grateful for it.”

Allion scoffed.

“I mean it, Allion,” she said, pulling at him so that his gaze found hers. Her sapphire eyes had never glowed so bright and blue. “Thank you for coming, for not leaving me to face these wilds alone. For being so dedicated to me—to Torin.”

She stopped, leaving the man’s name to twist awkwardly in the wind. Silently, Allion cursed himself for ever leaving his place by the fire. He’d been much safer sitting with the tiny blaze between them.

He cleared his throat and forced himself to look away, back to the flames. “Yes, well, friends do that for one another.”

“And I’ve known no truer friends than the two of you,” Marisha confessed quietly. She looked to his hands as if she might release them, then started gently rubbing them instead. “How do you suppose he’s faring?”

“Torin? Well enough, I imagine. Hip-deep in trouble, no doubt, and probably of his own making. But if there’s one thing I know about him, it’s that he doesn’t know when to quit.”

“It just seems so impossible, what my father has asked of him. I can’t help but wonder sometimes if he’s ever coming back.”

Allion turned to her. “You must never stop believing that he will.”

“And what do you believe?”

She could read the doubt in his eyes, Allion knew. Doubt as to whether his friend could survive in that savage land long enough to find the Vandari. Doubt as to whether it was all part of some horrible ruse orchestrated by her own father, Darinor. He hid these doubts as best he could in order to answer her.

“He has you to return to, remember? If it were me, there’s nothing that would stop me. Nothing.”

Marisha leaned her head upon his shoulder. Allion closed his eyes and wondered what he had gotten himself into.

“In any case,” he added, “I suppose only your father can tell us for sure what progress Torin is making.”

His bitter tone made the words sound harsher than intended, but it was too late to take them back. She pulled away immediately.

“You still don’t trust him.”

“He’s keeping secrets, even from us. How can you trust someone like that?”

“We all have secrets. Is that not so?”

He started to argue, to explain to her that with Darinor, it was different. The Entient was hiding something—a great many things, probably—but something in particular that had nothing to do with personal shame, and that was vital to their struggle. Allion could sense it, gnawing at his mind like a rodent trying to escape its cage. But he scarcely understood these suspicions himself, much less knew how to explain them to the man’s doting daughter. So he shook his head instead.

“I suppose I’d feel a lot better if I could place my faith in someone I knew a little better, someone other than just him.”

“Then trust me,” Marisha bade him. “Or do you fear me to be an enemy as well?”

Allion snorted. “Of course not.”

“Even if I told you that I, too, have a secret? A secret I’ve kept from you all along, from the time we met in Feverroot until now?”

He knew better than to dismiss the matter when he saw the earnestness in her eyes. “Marisha, what are you talking about?”

He listened then as she told him about the Pendant of Asahiel, worn since her childhood. She told him of how the talisman had given her the strength needed to survive her enslavement at the hands of the dragonspawn when all others of her village had perished. She told him of how Torin had discovered it, and of the role it had played in their final confrontation with the Demon Queen. She told him finally of how it had been given over to Torin—that it was this artifact by which Darinor was purportedly able to track him.

Allion was not entirely surprised. He had long suspected there was something they hadn’t shared with him about the battle that had taken place in Spithaera’s lair. The details given him had never quite added up. He hadn’t pressed the issue, because he felt perhaps it had to do with horrors too great to relive. Hearing it now, though, he couldn’t understand why he’d been left in the dark.

“Why didn’t you tell me this before?” he demanded.

“Were you not listening? I told no one. Not even Torin. He discovered it for himself.”

“And why didn’t Torin say something?”

“Torin’s silence was in respect for my wishes. If you need to blame someone, blame me.”

Allion blew into his hands, which he had withdrawn from Marisha during her narration, then wrung them in frustration. “It’s not that anyone needs blaming. It’s just…If it was meant to be such a secret, why are you telling me now?”

“Because you’re right. You deserve to know. Do you think less of me now, knowing I kept this from you?”

He scowled for a moment to delay giving her his only honest response. “No.”

“Then do not begrudge my father the secrets he keeps. Sometimes, to defend an oath, those closest to us must suffer—just as you put aside your responsibilities to family and friends at Krynwall in order to defend the oath you made to protect me. Is that not so?”

Allion fidgeted, but refused to answer.

“And does your presence here mean you care for them any less?” Marisha asked.

At last he met her entreating gaze. “Perhaps you’re right. In any case, thank you for telling me.”

“I should think you’d feel privileged.” She smiled. “Being the first person I’ve ever told.”

Allion didn’t know what to feel. His emotions were running like deer in flight, leaving him but scattered glimpses until he knew not which way to turn. Fear, resentment, guilt—taken individually, any one of these was difficult to comprehend. Viewed together, they were a roiling mess.

Marisha studied him as if sharing in some measure his torment. She was good at that, he knew, always commiserating, regarding people as if by look
alone she might draw their suffering and ease their pain. Torin had told him once that it was this compassion, more than anything, for which he loved her. Allion could see why.

He realized suddenly that too much time had passed since her last comment. He should have responded by now, rather than simply stare at her. They had gone beyond awkward. Each was transfixed, lost in the other’s eyes. Marisha leaned into him, and before he could think of what to do, she kissed his cheek.

As she pulled away, their eyes remained locked. Allion’s pulse raced, and while the heat from their little campfire washed over him, a deep chill wracked his body. The moment had taken on a will of its own, and like an eddy in a river’s current, there was nothing he could do to stop the flow.

Then the horses screamed, with such pain and terror that Allion nearly pitched over backward. Upon recovery, he lunged for his bow and his quiver of arrows, left leaning nearby with their sacks of provisions. He strung the supple wood reflexively, and came up with an arrow nocked and ready, aimed toward the trees where their horses were picketed.

By that time, one of the animals was already down. The other, Marisha’s gelding, reared up, flailing at the darkness. What Allion saw made his blood run cold. For it seemed the darkness itself had come alive, like a whirling funnel cloud. It ripped at spruce needles and branches and the low-lying brush indiscriminately, whipping up a fog of debris. Great gashes appeared in the horse’s hide as stroke by stroke it was flayed alive. Blood spattered and sprayed, coloring the mist red.

When the second animal had fallen, the cloud-thing held its place, huffing and growling. Then it moved outward, toward the camp. Allion fired his arrow, but the storm parted to let it pass. The attacker slowed its approach, but widened and split again—no longer a single funnel cloud, but three, emerging from the trees and into the moonlight.

Allion glanced at Marisha, who crouched low behind their fallen log and stared outward with horrified eyes, a dagger clutched in her hand. An acute terror sucked at him, gutting his insides. It was a fear greater than any he had ever felt for himself—the certain dread that he was about to watch Marisha die.

His numbness was forgotten, cold fingers dipping into his quiver and strumming his bowstring as never before. He didn’t pause to see what became of his shots, for he already knew. As one after another sailed harmlessly into the backdrop of trees, he worked all the faster, his desperation driving him. The trio of storm-creatures came on, black and twisted, their shredded forms billowing.

Marisha squealed in warning, and Allion, reaching for another arrow, sensed the creatures breaking forward now in a sudden rush. He let go the arrow and reached instead for his hunting knife. With the knife in one hand and his bow in the other, he leapt atop the log.

“Run!”

In that final moment, the heavens opened, and a great, scintillating light
surrounded him. The accompanying boom was so loud that Allion felt the earth rumble. He lost his footing and tumbled backward to lie upon the chilled ground, eyes clenched against the radiant light and scorching heat.

It was the screams that forced him to respond, for he had to make sure they were not his own. He lurched up, squinting. Marisha was atop him by then, having abandoned her shelter to cover his body with her own. Riddled with shock, he peered past at their woodland shield. A leap away on the other side burned a steady pillar of brilliant white lightning, its crackling streams splitting and grinding in a dance about the three creatures, pinning them in place upon the earth.

The stench of their burning forms nearly knocked him back down as Allion wrestled Marisha aside and forced himself to his knees. He cast about, sweeping the ground for his bow or knife. It was then he saw the other, at the northern edge of their campsite, a towering scarecrow of a man whose gaunt frame buckled with strain against an invisible burden. His cupped hands were raised skyward, and Allion flashed back to a different fight not long ago, when the Entient Ranunculus had joined them in battle against a pair of Spithaera’s demons on the shores of Llornel Lake.