The Summoner (44 page)

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Vahanian, the only one with actual experience with the beasts, was clearly the most nervous. He rode with a crude lance, fashioned from a sturdy pole, its tip wrapped in pitch‐soaked rags. It was longer than Carina’s stave and sharp‐ended. From the fighter’s grim expression, Tris knew Vahanian felt the same foreboding. The further they rode, the darker Vahanian’s mood grew and the shorter his temper became.

At this rate, we’ll all be wrecks by the time we reach Westmarch, Tris thought. By agreement, they rode as hard as their horses could tolerate, stopping only when the animals needed food, water or rest.

“Do you hear that?” Vahanian asked.

Tris frowned. “Hear what?”

“Exactly,” the mercenary said, settling his lance in front of him. “It’s too quiet.” They passed no one on roads that should have been well traveled by traders and farmers. “I don’t like this.”

Carroway brought his horse up closer. “I couldn’t catch what you said,” the bard interjected,

“but it’s too damn quiet out here.”

Tris smiled tightly. “Looks like we’re all thinking the same thing.” His horse nickered, reminding Tris that a stop and some water was overdue. He sighed and patted his mount’s neck. “The horses need to rest,” he said, and looked around with concern. “The problem is, where?”

“Over there,” Carroway pointed toward a village at the crest of the next hill. “I smell supper fires.

Maybe we can buy a hot meal for us and some food for the horses.”

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“Look sharp,” Vahanian warned.

They approached the village cautiously. As they drew closer, it became clear that supper fires were not the source of the wood smoke. The village lay in smoldering ruins, its buildings blackened shadows.

“There!” Carroway pointed. A body lay crumpled beside a burned‐out tavern. Tris nudged his horse closer, then dismounted, sword in hand. He rolled the corpse over with his foot. Whatever had killed the man, it was not flame. Great gashes rent the man’s face and tore open his throat.

“What creature hunts like that?” Carina exclaimed, reining her horse closer.

“I’ve got something over here you need to see,” Carroway called. Tris and Vahanian joined him, with Vahanian in the rear, warily eyeing the streets, his weapon ready. Carroway pointed at a heap near the door of one of the burned buildings. Tris realized that the body was not human. Tris rolled the thing over and gasped.

The beast would have stood taller than a man. Its hind legs were strong, and thin arms ended in wicked talons. Its thickly muscled legs attested to speed, and its massive shoulders spoke of inhuman strength. But it was its face, if one could call it that, which took Tris’s breath away. The gray‐skinned creature’s face was a fearsome thing. Huge, sunken eyes were located on the sides of its head, above a large, snout—its mouth filled with rows of glistening teeth. Tris swallowed.

The beast was obviously burned, and a warning tingled in Tris’s mind. Perhaps it was not the beasts who had burned the village, he thought. Perhaps it was the work of desperate villagers, who even with their sacrifice were not able to save their lives. Vahanian said nothing, but for the first time, Tris thought he saw a flicker of fear in the fighter’s eyes.

“Let’s get that water and get out of here,” Carroway said, swinging back up on his horse.

“I think that’s a good idea,” Tris replied. He turned, and stopped short. In the center of the 373

street, between them and the village’s well, stood a man.

Carroway’s bow was raised, trained on the man’s heart, as Tris took a step forward. “We mean you no harm,” Tris said, advancing open‐handed.

“Have you come for the fire?” the man shouted, drawing a few steps nearer. He was old, with wild white hair framing a gaunt face, caked with dirt and blood and streaked with the spittle that drooled from a corner of his mouth. The stubble of a white beard shadowed his face. Torn rags hung from his body, which bore the marks of an encounter with the beasts in the long claw marks that raked across one shoulder and down his chest—claw marks that unmistakably resembled Vahanian’s scar. His dark eyes were bright with madness. “Have you come for the fire?”

“What happened?” Tris asked. Behind him, Vahanian cursed under his breath.

The man spread his arms wide. “The spirits came,” he said, turning to take in the village with his gesture. “They came for us, only we hadn’t been good. No,” he said, shaking his head, “we hadn’t been good. So they weren’t good spirits. Dark spirits, they were, with wings of fire.”

Tris looked at the man with a mixture of horror and pity. “The fire,” he said slowly, trying to reach through the man’s madness for answers. “What started the fire?”

The man brightened. “Oh, we did,” he replied. “To see them better. Because fire sends them home, don’t you know?”

“How did you survive?” Tris pressed.

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The old man began to laugh. “I’ll tell you a secret,” he whispered, one filthy, gnarled hand reaching beneath his tunic. Vahanian and Carroway readied their weapons, but when the man withdrew his hand, he held only a charm on a worn leather thong. Behind him, Tris heard Vahanian gasp a potent curse.

“I wanted to die, but it wouldn’t let me.” Grief overtook him and he began to sob as he tore the talisman from around his neck and threw it at Tris’s feet. “I tried. I attacked them with my bare hands, ran at them with swords, walked among the flames,” he sobbed in a singsong voice. “But it wouldn’t let them take me, and now I’m all alone,” he repeated. His hand slipped to his belt and drew a dagger, raising it purposefully. “But I’m going now,” he said, his mad eyes clear with purpose. “I’m going home,” he said, and before any of the three could stop him, he plunged the dagger deep into his chest. A smile lit his ravaged features as he stiffened. “There are no fires,”

he whispered, “no fires at all,” he rasped as he fell dead and his hand slipped away from the knife hilt.

“Leave that cursed thing and let’s get out of here,” Vahanian cried as Tris bent to pick up the talisman. It was a small, simple design worked in a burnished gray metal with a pattern of parallel and perpendicular lines, a circle embedded within them. As they sprinted for their horses, Tris slipped it into his pocket.

“Look!” Carina warned as the things came into view. Tris scrambled for his horse and Carroway moved into position, his bow at the ready. Three of the gray beasts loomed just beyond the well, their heads inclined to scent out living blood. Carroway held steady until they ventured closer, then lit and loosed a flaming arrow. His aim was true, and the missile struck its target. The thing howled as its claws tore at its own chest while dark ichor flowed from its gaping mouth. It fell forward, dead. Carina cried a warning from behind.

“Carina and Berry, stay between us,” Vahanian shouted as the group retreated. Their horses whinnied, terrified by the smell of the beasts. Carroway picked off one more of the beasts.

Carina and Vahanian lit their weapons, and Tris lobbed a fireball toward the lead creature. Two more staggered from the wreckage toward them.

“We can’t hold them at bay for long,” Carroway shouted, loosing another arrow. Although he 375

dropped three of the beasts, two more appeared from the shadows to take their places.

“Ride for it!” Tris commanded. “I’ll hold them as long as I can, just get out of here!” Carina wheeled her horse and the others followed, their panicked mounts pounding down the village street as Tris lobbed fireballs.

Behind him, he heard a horse’s terrified cry and Berry’s scream. “Berry!” Carina shouted. Berry’s horse reared and bolted, leaving the girl on the road.

“They’re gaining!” Carroway shouted, firing off two more arrows.

Vahanian leaned into his horse and kicked its sides, riding down on Berry, his lance leveled. He snatched the girl up by her cloak with his left hand and she clambered onto his horse behind him, hanging on for her life.

A guttural howl split the twilight as two more of the beasts appeared, blocking Carina’s path. As Tris flung fireballs and Carroway fired arrows, the beasts began to circle.

Carina screamed as one of the beasts lunged for her horse. She poled it in the chest with her flaming stave, but her mount reared and nearly threw her. With a battle cry, Vahanian leveled his lance and rode for the thing at full gallop. Berry ducked her head and clung, white‐knuckled, to his back.

Vahanian’s lance scored a direct hit on the beast closest to Carina. His lance impaled the writhing creature, enveloping it in flames as it shrieked, charring with an acrid stench. He shook the dead thing free of his weeapon and wheeled his horse, wrestling it against its fear, rearing on two legs to bash his lance down on another beast.

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“Those were my last arrows,” Carroway breathed.

“I’ll make an opening,” Tris shouted above the din. “Ride for the road and don’t look back.”

At that, he dug his heels into his mount, crouching low, and bolted toward the center of the cursed village. Heart thudding, Tris realized that the beasts followed his sudden motion, whether from predator’s instinct or Arontala’s curse.

“Now!” he shouted, as the beasts—nearly a dozen of them—started after him. From the scrabble of their clawed feet behind him, he badly misjudged their speed. His ruse might have only a few seconds to play out. He heard the thunder of hoof beats and knew the others were making for the road. Barely ahead of the monsters, Tris suddenly wheeled his mount.

Tris opened himself to his power, and his mind formed the image faster than the words could reach his lips. Summoning a shielding over himself and his panicked mount, Tris called a curtain of fire that sprang up from the village earth, enveloping them. Even within the warding, he could hear the death cries of the beasts as the flames incinerated them.

It was over just as quickly as it had started, leaving Tris and his horse standing amid a blackened circle and the remains of the cursed beasts.

A cry cut through the silence. At first, Tris thought it was Carina—then he realized that the sound came from a grove of trees near the other side of the village, opposite from the direction in which his friends had fled. He turned his horse toward the sound, and although the mount was trembling, it obeyed, carrying him toward the crossroads.

A lone traveler, stalked by one of the beasts, was running out of time. The traveler was capable with a sword, but the beast was implacable, and Tris knew he had only moments to intervene.

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“Stand clear!” he shouted, spurring his horse toward the traveler at a full gallop. Calling down a curtain of fire here was impossible—in the wooded area, they would be killed along with the beast. Tris stretched out his hand, and the image of Vahanian’s lance came to mind. As his horse closed the distance, Tris willed both force and flame and a streak of fire shot from his outstretched palm. It struck the beast in the chest and engulfed it. Fire crackled in the dried brush.

“Get out of there!” Tris shouted to the traveler. The traveler dismounted and ran into the thicket, emerging a moment later with a small bundle before swinging back up onto the big stallion. “This way!” Tris gestured, and the traveler rode toward him, glancing backward several times at the fallen beast.

Together, Tris and the traveler thundered down the roadway until the smoke of the village was far behind them. When they finally slowed, he realized that the rest of his party—if they had survived—were on the far side of the village. A bad headache had begun to build in reaction to his working, and he struggled to clear his thoughts. He resolved to ask for some of Carina’s headache tea, assuming his friends had also made it to safety.

“Are you all right?” he asked breathlessly as he reined in his horse.

The traveler did the same, and sheathed the sword still clutched in hand. “Thank you,” the traveler said, and the heavy cowl fell back to reveal a woman, close to Tris’s own age, her auburn hair caught back in a braid and the glint of a studded mail breastplate unmistakable beneath the neckline of her cloak. “We never had a chance,” she said ruefully. “That… thing…

came out of nowhere. I couldn’t hold it off.”

“We?” Tris asked, hearing the note of sadness in her voice.

“I had a tame fox, and a hunting gyregon,” she said quietly. “The fox tried to attack when we were surprised. I saw him die,” she said with a

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catch in her voice. “The gyregon is badly wounded,” she continued, and only then did Tris see the bundle that she held on the saddle in front of her. Tris saw the head of her gyregon loll to one side. He brought his horse alongside hers and dug into his pack. Tris shook free a piece of cloth and offered it to her.

“It smells of cheese,” he said with a smile. “But you might make a sling to carry him.”

“Thank you,” she said with a note of surprise. Only when she winced as she reached for the cloth did Tris see the deep gash in her shoulder.

“Night’s a dangerous time to ride alone,” he said. “My companions should be on the other side of that small village. We were also ambushed, but we drove the beasts back,” he said, omitting just how that was accomplished. “We have a healer with us. Perhaps she could look at your shoulder.”

He saw the wariness in the traveler’s eyes. “You’re welcome to camp with us for the night,” he offered. “Be on your way in the morning. We’ll all be safer with another sword,” he said with a nod toward the weapon she sheathed. “I doubt any of us will sleep this night,”

He paused. “By the way, I’m Tris.”

Whether it was the promise of healing or the fear of camping alone, she seemed to come to a decision, and a faint smile came to her lips. “I’m Kiara.” She paused again. “I was sent on a Journey by the priestesses,” she admitted, letting her horse fall into step with Tris’s as they rode, warily watching the bushes for signs of other beasts. “It’s a… rite of passage… among my people.

A way to test what you’re made of, I guess.” “Sounds like a good way to get killed.” Kiara smiled. “Maybe you’re right.” She looked off into the distance. “I had the choice between that and an arranged marriage, so to tell you the truth, I thought I’d take my chances.”