The Warlord's Legacy (11 page)

Perhaps, just perhaps it was that cry of defiance that saved him, for had Jassion remained behind his ally, his attention locked on his inner struggle, he’d never have seen the shadows gathering, moving
against
Kaleb’s light, reaching toward them like questing fingers.

But because he had, when the attack came, Jassion stood ready to meet it.

Rustling, there, in the trees; an explosion of shattering sticks in the foliage beyond. Jassion saw nothing of his assailant, but he felt a gust of movement from the left and dropped into a defensive crouch, taking a blow against his hauberk that would otherwise have gashed open his unprotected hip. A piercing shriek stung his ears as something razor-edged raked across the mail, and though the chain kept his flesh unscarred, the force alone staggered him. Branches and leaves bent inward behind him, the only visible sign of his attacker’s passage.

He shifted aside, placing his back to Kaleb’s as the forest came alive. From all directions he heard them, though still he saw nothing: footsteps, impossible to pinpoint or to count, circling to a rhythm almost ceremonial, even singsong, in its cadence. The susurrus of
brushing leaves blended seamlessly into a choir of incomprehensible whispers. And beyond it, rising to a pitch practically beyond the baron’s hearing, that inhuman laughter, never once pausing for breath.

Another flicker of movement, and Jassion swung Talon in a low arc. With a speed seemingly impossible in so large a weapon, the demon-forged blade sliced the air, whistling a war cry of its own. A jolt ran through Jassion’s shoulder as
something
intersected Talon’s sweep. An impossible, childish voice rose in an abortive scream and died in a liquid gurgle. Milky crimson, like no blood Jassion had ever seen, spattered across the leaves, and he clearly heard the sodden
thump
of something striking the earth near his feet. Yet in the single instant it took him to glance down, something else darted from the undergrowth to claim its prize, leaving no sign of the foe he had slain.

A dozen voices hissed as one, and the mocking laughter died without echo. Even the parchment-like whispers ceased as though the leaves themselves held their breath, perhaps hoping to escape notice.

Refusing to be lulled or distracted, Jassion maintained his crouch, waving Talon before him in wide sweeps, struggling to spy his foe in time to strike. Behind him he thought he heard Kaleb muttering under his breath, but dared not glance around to see what the sorcerer might be doing.

They came as one, from not one side but
every
side. Sound without source, movement without form, they remained unseen—if they were even real at all. Jassion felt the tip of his blade bite into invisible flesh, and then the Kholben Shiar was wrenched from his hand by something that drooled and babbled beside him. He could not help but scream as something punched between the links of his hauberk and into the flesh of his side, searing his nerves like grain alcohol poured across an open blister. Blood welled thickly between the intertwining rings, and though there wasn’t enough to suggest an especially deep or gaping wound, Jassion felt the strength drain from his legs. Face beaded with sweat, chewing his lip to distract him from the pain until it, too, bled freely, the nobleman took a step toward his fallen blade, then one step more …

The ground rushed toward his face, an open-palmed slap delivered by the world itself. Jassion tasted soil, felt it filling his nostrils. His hand
flopped like a landed fish mere inches from Talon’s hilt. Already the pain of his wound was fading, settling into a manageable if constant burn, but Jassion heard the drumming of feet all around him, knew that the seconds he needed to regain his strength were seconds his foes would deny him. Something shifted above, casting a shadow not merely of darkness but of cold across his exposed back, and Jassion all but choked on the bile that surged behind his tongue, the bitterness not of death, but of failure.

The blow never fell, though, for suddenly Kaleb was there. Perhaps driven by whatever magics he had summoned, his limbs moved with speed to rival the forest creatures’ own. Jassion twisted onto his side and looked up to see a blur of motion from out of the darkness. And he saw Kaleb step into the assault, his fist closing on an unseen throat and lifting his enemy high with one arm. For a single heartbeat, Jassion thought he could just make out a silhouette, far too lanky and long of limb to be human, flailing as it dangled from the sorcerer’s fist. Then Kaleb’s hand closed with a vicious crunch, and those limbs fell limp and melted away into the endless night.

Kaleb spun away from his fallen companion, blue flames once more flickering across his fingers. Jassion felt the first burst of searing heat as Kaleb unleashed his magics, and then his wound flared with renewed agony and he felt nothing at all.

T
HE WORLD WAS BOBBING AROUND HIM
. Up, down, up, down, not violently but sufficient to send new throbbing through his aching head, new heaves through a gut that, he was surprised to discover, had already emptied itself. Only with that revelation did he notice that his mouth tasted of bitter residue, and he could only hope that he’d not vomited on anything that wouldn’t readily wash.

Jassion pried open eyes that felt gummed shut with the dregs of a tanner’s vat, and gazed blearily at the forest slowly marching past him. It must have been drunk, that forest, since it was so hideously out of focus. He snickered at that, a dry, croaking sound that ceased abruptly when he realized just how badly his throat burned.

“And here I was sure you didn’t know
how
to laugh, old boy.”

The sound of Kaleb’s voice was a dash of cold water to the soul, and Jassion’s head finally began to clear. He was
walking
, had been so delirious that he hadn’t even realized it, and wondered how far they’d come before the slow creep of consciousness had finally reached his brain. Something was tapping him in the back of his head as he walked; he felt back over his shoulder and discovered Talon strapped securely, if not comfortably, to his back.

He was held aloft not by his own strength, but by an iron-rigid grip that Kaleb had looped under Jassion’s own arm. His side stung, but it was a dull twinge rather than the roaring agony he’d felt before.

“What …?” he croaked, rather pleased to have gotten even that much out.

“The sidhe,” Kaleb told him, jostling the baron painfully as he shrugged, “apparently don’t take kindly to intruders in their home. You, my heavy friend, were rather badly poisoned. If the mail hadn’t absorbed some of the blow, scraped some of the venom off their claws before it got into your flesh, I might not’ve been able to save you.”

Jassion pushed himself away, standing—wavering and unsteady, but standing—on his own two feet. With a tentative finger, he prodded through the hole in his hauberk. His skin came away covered in some sort of lumpy sludge.

“Spellwork?” he asked dubiously.

“No. My magic is focused primarily in, ah, less
gentle
directions. I’m not much of a healer, and what few restorative incantations I do know wouldn’t have been potent enough to help you. I
do
, however, know my herbs. A few particular growths, chewed into a paste, should have counteracted most of the poison. You’ll be sore for a time, though, and you’ll need to keep the wound clean. It’ll be prone to infection.”

The baron shuddered at the notion that he owed his life in part to Kaleb’s saliva, but nodded his thanks. Kaleb passed him a waterskin from which the parched Jassion drank greedily, rivulets spilling across his chin.

“Careful. We only have so much until we get the horses back,” Kaleb warned. Then, “Can you walk on your own?”

“I can.” Jassion actually wasn’t certain, but he’d
make
himself certain rather than ask the other man to help him again.

“Good. I’m sure this’ll come as a surprise, you being an aristocrat and all, but people don’t actually
like
carrying you.”

Jassion shook his head, then staggered as a new dizziness washed over him, and focused on putting one foot in front of the other.

“Are they gone?” he asked after he’d managed a few score paces on his own.

“Hmm?”

“The sidhe,” Jassion said. “Are they gone?”

“Oh, they’re around somewhere. But I don’t believe they’ll be disturbing us any longer.” Before Jassion could ask for clarification, the sorcerer continued. “What in the name of Chalsene’s darkest orifice was with that speech, anyway? ‘I will not yield’? Really? You sounded like a drunken playwright. I could produce more stirring oratory by squeezing a goat.”

“Kaleb—”

“An incontinent goat.”

“Kaleb, do you really believe I give a damn what the sidhe think of my ‘oratory’?”

“Who the hell’s talking about the sidhe, old boy?
I
have to be seen with you, you know.”

Jassion twisted and reached out a hand, unsteady but enough to stop Kaleb in his tracks. “
My lord,
” he snarled.

“Um, what?”

“That’s the second time you’ve called me ‘old boy,’ and I’ll not have it. The proper form of address is ‘my lord.’ ”

“Oh, I’m so terribly sorry. Apologies, my lord Old Boy.”

Jassion’s eyes flashed, and his hand darted toward Talon’s hilt like a striking snake. Clutched it—and froze, without drawing the hellish steel, beneath Kaleb’s glower.

“Be very sure,” the sorcerer said, his voice low. “You’ve seen what I can do,
old boy
. You tasted a morsel of it, back at Castle Braetlyn. Even if you
could
take me—which, just to be clear, you can’t—you’d be dooming your hunt to failure.”

The baron was panting hard with anger, the tendons in his hands creaking with pressure against the Kholben Shiar. “I
will
have your respect!” he demanded.

“No, you won’t,” Kaleb said. “You’ll have my assistance, and that’ll just have to do. If it makes you feel any better, it’s not you. I really don’t have much use for
any
of—well, anyone at all, actually.”

“It doesn’t.”

“Ah. I can’t tell you how much that bothers me. Really, I can’t.”

Jassion took a few deep breaths and, visibly struggling, tore his hand from Talon. He swore he heard a faint wail of disappointment from deep within the blade.

They continued without another word. The world was largely silent, its only sounds the breaking of occasional twigs beneath their boots, or a rustling leaf suggesting that, even if the sidhe would bother them no more,
someone
watched their progress through Theaghl-gohlatch.

Kaleb’s mystical light offered little by which to judge the time. Jassion, guessing as best he could, figured that about two hours had passed between his rough awakening and the moment his companion, following gods-knew-what trail, finally led them to their destination.

It wouldn’t have looked at all incongruous in most woodlands, that simple hut, but here in the malevolent reaches of Theaghl-gohlatch its presence was nothing shy of miraculous. No trees sprouted within a dozen feet on any side, though their branches intertwined above it, the sensuous fingers of wooden lovers. On three sides of the house, the clearing thus formed was filled with a chaotic admixture of herbs and vegetables, growing in no rows or pattern Jassion could ascertain.

The cottage itself was built of loose stone, though where those rocks could possibly have come from wasn’t entirely clear. Ivy crawled across the walls, appearing like veins bulging from a petrified skin, beneath an overhanging roof of bark-coated shakes. The door, too, retained its coating of bark, and somewhere beyond a fire must have burned, for a thin tendril of smoke peeked from behind the rim of the chimney before dashing shyly on its way.

Kaleb pointed at the smoke, waited for Jassion’s nod to indicate he’d seen it. “Are you well enough to pretend to be useful in there?” Obviously taking Jassion’s murderous glare as a yes, he approached the door
and kicked it brutally open, stepping aside so the baron could dart past him, Talon held ready.

An orange ambience emanated from the hearth, though it came from glowing charcoal and ash without visible flame. A teakettle hung from a tripod, keeping itself warm without boiling away, ready to serve at a moment’s notice. Plants sprouted everywhere, hanging from rafters, rising from pots, even protruding through the floor.

And sitting on a bed in the far corner, her legs crossed and her eyes shut, was the woman they had braved the haunted wood to find.

Her hair was black as the unnatural night beyond her walls, save for a few glints of earthen brown where the light caressed her locks just so, and her outfit consisted entirely of the same lush browns and vibrant greens as the forest itself. Her face, though lined by many cares, boasted an ageless grace; she might have been just over thirty years old, or approaching sixty, or anywhere between.

Despite the violence of Jassion’s entry, the creaking of broken wood and bent hinges as the door twisted slowly in its frame, she did not wake. Her breathing continued, chest rising and falling so softly that the intruders might have thought her dead had they not specifically watched for it.