“I’m so sorry,” I said, frowning at Hallow when he made another note in his book. He looked guilty and stuffed it back inside his jerkin. “That must have been horrible to witness. The Harborym have killed many in our lands, as well, including Hallow’s family. How long ago was the attack? The chaos magic appears to be recent.”
She paused, glancing back at us. “You know about the evil ones’ magic?”
“Very much so.”
Hallow added, “We helped drive them from our lands, and we both have experience of just how…potent…chaos magic can be.”
She shook her head sadly. “It is almost as bad as the blood magic of the Old Ones. This way. There is a cellar where Old Gerald has made his home.”
We half slid down a muddy slope into the broken remains of a cellar. The stone cogs that once turned the mill still remained, but the rest of the building had been destroyed, leaving only shattered beams, crumbled stone, and dust everywhere. In the middle of it, propped up against the biggest cog, an old man lay snoring, an empty skin once most likely containing wine or ale still clutched in his hand.
It took us a while to wake him, and longer still before we got news of Idril.
“Gone north, she has,” Old Gerald said, absentmindedly scratching his privates.
We took notes on the route Gerald said he’d told Idril to follow, then Hallow asked, “We seek the whereabouts of two other friends—a woman named Dasa, and a man named Deo. Have you heard of them, too?”
Gerald’s rheumy eyes were focused on the skin of wine that Hallow casually let dangle from his fingers. Gerald licked his lips and said, “The one who destroyed half of the keep in Skystead? Aye, the men of the village talked of him. Taken away to the red hand temple to the west, he was. Er…a fellow gets powerful thirsty recalling such things. Powerful thirsty. You wouldn’t be willing to share that skin, now, would you?”
Hallow handed over the skin without protest, and a short time later we left Gerald guzzling happily from it.
“Idril’s going to be annoyed when she finds out Deo was banished to a temple, and isn’t in Skystead,” I commented as we headed back toward where we’d left Dexia and the animals.
“That’s assuming she is in Skystead,” Hallow pointed out. “I wish Gerald had more information, but I suppose we were lucky to get what we did out of him.”
We’d worked out a plan by the time we returned to Dexia.
“I regret we can’t give you a mount,” Hallow told Quinn. “But Penn doesn’t like carrying two, and I doubt if Buttercup would allow herself to be parted from Allegria.”
“Goddesses forbid the very thought of that monster coming with us,” Quinn said, shouldering his pack. “Dex and I don’t mind walking, do we?”
“Depends,” the girl said, wiping her nose with the back of her hand, her uncanny eyes assessing him. “Where are we walking?”
“We are going after Lady Idril. I told Hallow and Allegria that since they were urgently needed to rescue Lord Deo, we will find Lady Idril and make sure no harm befalls her.”
Dexia made the exact face that I expected, looking mildly disgusted. “All right, but if we see any Harborym, I get to feed on them.”
“And have you ingesting their chaos magic?” Quinn gently buffeted her head. “Not on my unbreakable life. You can kill them, but no feeding.” He looked up, meeting Hallow’s eyes. “May the twin goddesses grant you favor, arcanist. I fear you’re going to need it.”
“And the same to you,” Hallow said politely while I once again tried to draw a blessing, this time on Quinn. It refused to be drawn just as the other had, leaving me feeling as if I had been shut away in a dark room.
Quinn and Dexia headed off to the north, following the directions the old man had given us.
“Do you think he was telling us the truth?” I asked Hallow as we rode along a narrow track that led due west.
“Old Gerald? Aye. Once you dumped that leather of cold water on him, he seemed to come out of his wine stupor. I just hope that Quinn can reach Idril before she runs into trouble.”
The memory of how the Harborym had treated the people of the village was all too fresh in my mind. “She’s only had a few hours’ headstart on him, and since he can survive anything he finds, he should reach her before the day passes.”
We rode until the shadows that clung to the land started to grow thicker and darker.
“We should probably look for a safe place to stay the night,” Hallow called back to me. We were riding single file along a narrow track that wound beside an old river bed.
I was about to agree when a flash of light caught the edge of my vision. Before I had a chance to shout a warning, two black shadows rose up and knocked me off Buttercup. I heard Hallow yell something, and the scream of a horse, but it all faded away as pain burst through the side of my head, dazing me for a minute.
“Hal…” I fought the pain, trying to gather my wits and make my body respond. Hands grabbed at me, yanking me upward with fingers that felt like they were made of steel. “Hallow.”
My voice came out a whisper even though I wanted to scream his name to the sky. Something was wrong with my eyes; my vision was blurry, but I desperately tried to gather power from Kiriah. If I could weave light, I could stop my attackers and find Hallow.
The seconds seem to crawl by while I was yanked forward, stumbling over rocks despite the cruel hands holding me. But with each step, slowly, my mind cleared, and although my head hurt abominably, at last my eyes focused, and I was able to look around.
My attackers weren’t Harborym, as I’d expected. The two men who held me were dressed in the linen robes of priests, reddish, rusty black with a symbol of a red hand on the chest. “Who are you? Where’s Hallow?” I asked, struggling against the men. I kicked out at one of my captors, twisting my body around to incapacitate him, but the man on my other side simply growled something in a voice that seemed to rake against my skin with little barbs, and my body went limp, unable to respond to my demands.
“Stop fighting,” a woman’s voice said from behind me. The two men were now dragging me along the riverbed, my feet colliding painfully with the rocks. “You will only hurt yourself. Not that you deserve to be unharmed, but since he will wish to question you, it is better if you are awake and without too much damage.”
“Is this a spell?” I asked groggily, my body feeling as if I was in a vat of molasses. “What have you done to me? Who wants to question me? Where’s Hallow?”
“The man who was with you? His horse spooked and ran off. But have no fear, the brothers will find him.”
Panic rose within me at the thought of Hallow on his own, fighting the goddesses only knew how many men. “Brothers? Are you priests, then? Priests of…” I tried to remember what the woman at the village had said. “Blood?”
“Bring her to the tent,” the woman said, striding off into the gloom. I caught only a glimpse of her silhouette before she disappeared out of view. My two captors hauled my unresisting body up the bank and through some bushes before tossing me down in front of a make-shift tent. When I managed to roll on my side, my vision filled with a brightly burning campfire, beyond which I could barely make out the dark forms of several people moving about. Dusk had changed to near night now, and if I rolled my head back, I could see the blackness seeping across the canopy of clouds.
Where was Hallow? Was he hurt? I knew he would come looking for me, no matter what his state, but would that lead him to fight with these blood priests? And if he did, would he defeat them, or was he even now in the same position as I, utterly helpless, with a head that ached, and a heart that felt incomplete because we were apart?
Chapter 15
Hallow didn’t know until much later what made Penn bolt, but he assumed—rightly, as it turned out—that some magic had touched the horse, maddening him and awakening his flight instinct.
&n
bsp; All Hallow knew was that he had been taken by surprise at both the ambush and his mount’s running off into the short scrub that crept up the sloped sides of the riverbed. He had tried to turn Penn in his wild dash, but to no avail. He called to the horse, hoping his voice would calm him, but it seemed to take eons before Penn at last slowed down and allowed himself to be guided. Immediately, Hallow turned him back in the direction they’d come and sent him into another gallop, this one controlled. But either he was confused by the featureless, flat surface of the land surrounding the deep cut of the dry riverbed, or Penn had run farther than he estimated, for when he pulled up at the top of the sharp slope that led to the channel, there was no one to be seen.
“No, no, no,” he said aloud, panic filling him as he urged Penn forward along the crest of the riverbed. “She can’t be gone. Allegria!”
His voice seemed to lift with the wind, evaporating into nothing. Swearing to himself and growing more worried with each passing second, he searched both the riverbed and the land above it, desperate for signs of his beloved, or the group of marauders who had sprung out of the shadows. Due to the dim light, he wasn’t able to see far into the distance, but heavier shadows on the land to the north hinted at other channels like the one he had been following.
“She could be in any one of them,” he said, his heart sick. Which direction would she have gone? Was she captured, or pursuing their attackers? “There’s no doubting her bravery,” he said aloud, looking first in one direction, then another. “But she’s not foolish, and she wouldn’t chase attackers on her own. No, Penn, something happened to her while you were running like a deranged fool. The attackers must have taken her somewhere, to a settlement or camp. We’re just going to have to search all the possible locations.”
Thus started what turned out to be a fruitless night, one spent in frustration, anguish, and a quiet, simmering fury at anyone who dared touch his Allegria. At least he had no fear that Allegria had been taken by Harborym.
“Those were men,” he told Penn some four hours later, as he dismounted to examine what turned out to be the dried blood of an animal. “Harborym are bigger. Much bigger. And they would have destroyed her on the spot, not taken her away. Bellias blast whoever they are! Where have they gone?”
Penn, who had been shaking his head and snorting once or twice, suddenly reared, almost knocking Hallow over. The horse’s nostrils went wide as he scented the air.
“What is it you—” The words came to an abrupt halt when a massive form appeared at the top of the riverbank, the silhouette pausing for a moment before calling out in a guttural, harsh voice.
“Harborym,” Hallow gasped and desperately clawed the air in an attempt to gather arcany. But the light from the stars could not penetrate the dense clouds of Eris, leaving him with nothing but a pale, weak ball.
Without waiting to think about it, he flung the ball of arcane light at the Harborym, then swung up into the saddle, this time not protesting when Penn leaped forward. He turned the horse so that he headed straight at the Harborym, yanking a long dagger from his boot as the horse screamed. The Harborym, a twisted parody of a man who stood a good two heads taller than most mortals, sneered, his skin glistening even in the dull light. He reached for a sword, but Penn had been trained by Lord Israel himself, and was no stranger to battle. The horse spun when he reached the Harborym soldier, slashing out with his back hooves even as Hallow twisted in the saddle, stabbing his dagger into the attacker’s neck. Blood as black as Allegria’s glossy hair sprayed out while the monster gargled horribly, the sword dropping from his hand. Hallow might prefer negotiations to battle, but this monstrosity would kill him—or Allegria—without a moment’s hesitation, so he felt nothing but satisfacation when he snatched back the dagger and plunged it into the creature’s chest where he assumed its heart was.
The Harborym gurgled a few more times, then fell over backward. Hallow, his breath ragged and rough, stared for a moment to make sure his attacker was really dead, then with a shaking hand patted Penn’s neck. “You really are as brave as Allegria, my friend. Let’s get out of here before we see if this thing had companions.”
The area of the riverbed he was in seemed to twist and turn every few hundred feet, so he turned Penn and rode quickly up the opposite side of the bank, relief filling him at the sight of a flat, empty plain before him. “That must have been a scout on his own. Thank the goddesses, we won’t have to fight any more of them without mag—”
A noise behind him had him glancing back.
Three Harborym were bearing down on him, at least a dozen more following.
Penn leaped forward in response to his yell and the pressure of his heels, while Hallow swore in a profane stream as he bent low over the horse’s neck, once again desperately trying to pull arcane light down from Bellias and her stars.
The riverbed turned north just ahead of them, and Hallow, deciding that he was too exposed on the upper plain, directed Penn down into the gulley again. If the going wasn’t nearly as easy for them, it would likewise slow down the Harborym.
The horse half slid down a slope of loose dirt and shale, and just as they reached the ground, another massive shape emerged from the deep shadows on the far side.
His heart gave a cry of pain at the thought of his imminent destruction at the hands of the invaders. What was he to say to Allegria when she discovered he’d died and gone to the spirit realm without her? She’d be furious, and he’d just decided to haunt her simply so they could be together when the figure paused a few feet from him, and a voice rumbled out one word. “Arcanist?”
Hallow stared, his mind unable to believe what he’d heard. “Deo?”
The shape moved forward until the dim light fell upon it. With much relief Hallow scanned the face that scowled down at him. Deo was every bit as big as the Harborym, having consumed the very same magic that gave them their power, but where their skin was red as chaos itself, Deo’s had grown dusky just like Allegria’s. His hair was as dark as midnight, as were his eyes, although now they glinted with ominous reddish-gold lights. Just as Hallow remembered the year before, Deo’s chest was crossed in a silver harness inscribed with powerful runes. Silver cuffs were clamped on his wrists and ankles, also runed; the power in those protective devices allowing Deo to control what was for most, impossible to master.
“What are you doing here?” Deo’s expression was filled with suspicion before it twisted into annoyance. “You came with my father, didn’t you? I might have known he would try to ruin everything.”
“No, I—”
He didn’t finish the sentence, since at that moment the Harborym appeared at the top of the riverbank and paused for a minute.
Deo roared out an oath, a look of pleasure flitting across his face when he pulled a massive sword from the scabbard on his back. “Harborym! To battle!”
To Hallow’s amazement, several other shadows broke free of the darkness that embraced the opposite side of the river bank. Several men clad in dark reddish-black tunics rushed past him to follow Deo when he charged the oncoming Harborym.
Hallow made a mental note as he ordered Penn out of the way of danger that each of the four men with Deo bore the symbol of a red hand. According to Exodius’s notes, that implied they wielded the old magic.
But what did it mean that blood priests were working with Deo?
Hallow fought as best he could, armed only with a dagger and no arcany. One of the four men went down with a cry when the Harborym nearest him skewered him on a curved sword. Hallow and one of the others leaped at the attacker, but it was Deo who destroyed the monstrous creature.
At first Hallow didn’t think Deo was using chaos magic since the runes on his harness hadn’t lit up the way they used to—red or black, depending on the situation—but then Hallow realized that the soft reddish-gold glow that surrounded Deo was his magic…and he saw the exact second when Deo gave in to
it.
The main force of the Harborym had isolated him, clearly recognizing Deo as the most dangerous of the small company, leaving two others to take care of the men in the red tunics. But when one of the men fell, Deo stiffened for a moment, then suddenly, an inhuman cry tore through the gathering darkness, and the pale gold light that glowed around him gathered for a few seconds before bursting out in a cone of dazzling brightness. The color seemed to turn white, blinding Hallow for a few seconds, but when he blinked the white blotches from his eyes, he beheld Deo standing, head down, panting, his hands fisted.
Surrounding him in a circle were the bodies of the Harborym. It was as if they’d dropped where they stood.
“What in the name of Kiriah did you do?” Hallow asked, stumbling forward as the other men stood looking as dumbfounded as Hallow felt. “That wasn’t chaos.”
Deo stood silent, his body language telling Hallow just how hard he was fighting to control his magic. His runes, oddly, were now so pale as to be almost white.
“Deo?” Hallow said, approaching cautiously.
“I did what needed to be done,” Deo answered after another few seconds of silence. “No. No more. He is a friend. It doesn’t matter—you got what you wanted. They’re dead. Does it matter how they died? Stop inciting me! I will perform no more violence at your will!”
Hallow eyed Deo, remembering that just as Thorn could speak directly to him, so Deo’s magic had an awareness that allowed it to speak…much to Deo’s dismay. “The chaos still talks to you?” he asked.
“Aye.” Deo finally lifted his head, his face showing the strain of controlling the magic within him. “It’s worse now, though.”
“Worse? You said that it was urging you to take revenge on everyone who ever slighted you. How could it be worse?”
“It wants me to kill every living thing.” Deo turned and marched over to where his fallen soldier was being wrapped up in a cloak by the three surviving men. “That was Barnit? We will grieve for him later. Take him back to the temple, so that the priests might say their prayers for his spirit. Heath, you and Fian will come with me. It’s not safe here.”
Starborn Page 19
