by R C Gray
“There’s nothin’ ya could’ve done. There were too many of ‘em. If it wasn’t for Renna, I don’t think any of us would’ve made it out of there. By the stone! I don’t even know what really happened back there.”
“We shouldn’t have been there in the first place. Out looking for something we didn’t even need to find. And because of it...” Faine said, letting his voice trail off.
Braig put his head down and focused on a patch of moss near his feet. “You’re right. But there’s no way I could’ve known that would happen.”
“Isn’t that what you do—see visions?”
Cursing under his breath, Braig scowled down at Faine as he moved farther down the trail to sit alone in the shelter of a pine tree. Keeping his eyes to the ground, he thumbed the amulet that Skara had made for him, occasionally glancing over at Faine as he sat in the rain, not bothering to find any shelter.
Hours passed as the two sat apart, keeping watch for Renna or any undead that may have followed them. The rain had stopped, and rays of sunshine broke through the trees around them, lighting up the small clearing.
Brushing the pine needles off his pants, Braig walked over to Faine and looked over towards the sun. “Only a few hours left before nightfall. We should try to make a fire, so we don’t freeze to death. And,” he said as he glanced down at Faine, “it’ll give Renna something to look for in the dark.”
Nodding his head, Faine carried Skara’s body to a small patch of grass, setting him down in a ray of light. “The stone is gone. It was in his hands when I picked him up. He had a tight grip on it. It must have fallen out when we were running.”
“I know it’s gone. But I don’t think it’s on the trail behind us. I could feel the stone before we ever got to it. If it was still here, I’d feel it. As far as I know, it used its magic up raising those damned undead.”
“Do you think that’s what it was meant to do?”
“I don’t know,” Braig said, setting rocks in a circle for a fire. “It could be that those things were already down there waiting for anyone that came. And this time, it just happened to be us.”
Faine looked down at Skara before he walked off into the woods, gathering any semi-dry sticks and pine boughs he could find along the way. Using his knife, he shaved off a few handfuls of cedar and birch bark before gathering a couple mushrooms from the rotting logs. Setting the tinder and kindling into the pit, Faine flicked a spark onto the crumbled inner layer of the fungus, adding the bark and thicker pieces of wood as the ember turned into a flame.
The sun had nearly set by the time Braig and Faine had built a steady fire and hung their clothes on sticks to dry.
“Do you think she made it?” Braig said as he warmed his hands.
“I don’t think the denmol took down...whatever that was.”
“I’ve never seen anything like that before.”
“From the look of it,” Faine said, “she didn’t even know she could do that.”
Hearing branches snapping out in the forest, Braig and Faine grabbed their weapons, standing back to back in their underclothes as they scanned the woods around them.
“Faine!” Renna said from somewhere in the darkness beside them.
“Renna? Where are you?” Faine said, dropping his sword and running to the edge of the light. “Follow the fire.”
Hearing a soft groan, Faine turned to see Renna staggering into the light. Her thin tunic clung to her body, wet and torn from the branches along the path. Her mouth and face were covered in dark blood, and her hair was tangled and full of sticks and leaves. Dragging on the ground behind her were the four bags of clothing they had left near the ruins. Tied around her wrist was the amulet that Skara had given her, its cord broken from her transformation.
“Where’s Skara?” Renna said, her breath coming out in fast clouds as she moved closer to the fire, her body trembling.
“Gods, Renna! You’re nearly frozen,” Faine said, taking the bags out of her hand and throwing them to Braig. “See if you can find her something dry.”
Stripping off her clothing, he took the slightly damp tunic from Braig and slid it over her head. Laying down a shirt across a stack of pine boughs near the fire, he covered Renna’s legs as she sat down, staring into the flames.
“Are you ok?” Braig said, glancing up at Faine.
“Renna,” Faine said, crouching next to her. “Say something.”
Shivers ran through her body as she stretched out her hands towards the fire. “I’m fine. I just don’t...I’ve been walking for hours.”
“How did you find us out here in the dark?”
“I could smell you,” she said.
Faine glanced over at Braig and furrowed his brow.
“What happened back there?” Braig said as he moved closer. “Do you remember anything?”
“I remember everything. I need to see him,” she said, throwing off the shirt over her legs as she looked frantically around the camp. “Where is he? Don’t tell me he’s already buried? Faine...where is he at?”
Holding up his hands, Faine walked over to a small space under the boughs of a pine tree. “He’s here. I knew you’d want to see him,” he said as he pulled off the branches covering Skara’s body.
Tears filled Renna’s eyes as she looked down at the corpse, his small arms folded over his chest. “Can you bring him into the light for me?”
Lifting gently, Faine set the body next to the fire as Renna knelt beside it, opening his shirt and running her fingers over the wound and arcane symbols that had been scarred onto his skin. Her shoulders shook with sobs as she put her hands over the wound and began slightly rocking her body back and forth as she turned her face up towards the canopy.
“I’lurian, great huntress who is both the wolf and the doe; both predator and prey. Please, cast your gaze upon me and find me worthy. I humbly ask you to return my companion from your kingdom in the Wilds.” Pressing her hands harder over the wound, she raised her voice, yelling into the forest around her. “In all things, balance. In all life, struggle. In all death, renewal. I will send you deserving souls to be hunted in your forest, a feast for your wolves. I ask you to let your strength flow through my hands and return to me what was taken.”
Renna’s eyes shot open as she felt Skara’s skin stretching under her hand as the wound began to close, the muscles and flesh healing under her touch. “Skara,” she said, rubbing her hand over his chest where the wound had healed, “Wake up, Skara.”
“Renna,” Faine said, putting his hand on her shoulder. “Renna, he’s gone.”
“No! His wound is healed. He’s coming back,” she said, tears falling down her cheeks as she waited, gently shaking him. “He’s coming back.”
A loud crack sounded in the distance towards the heart of the Grey Wastes as a strong wind burst through the camp, shaking the canopy above them as the limbs bent and swayed. Covering their eyes against the blowing debris around them, a bright flash of blue-green flame shot across the sky as Skara gasped, sitting bolt upright, his eyes wide as his eyes darted around the camp.
“I don’t believe it,” Braig said, dropping to his knees.
“Skara,” Renna said, wrapping her arms around him. “It worked. You’re back.”
“What happened?” Skara said, his body trembling and his breath coming out in white clouds.
“I was about to ask you the same thing,” Faine said, touching Skara’s shoulder, unsure if what he was seeing was real.
“I...I don’t know. I remember going into the ruins and looking through the first few houses for the stone. But after that, it’s all dark. What happened to me?”
Renna glanced over at Faine and Braig, her shoulders slumping as she turned her eyes toward Skara.
“You died,” Braig said.
Skara frowned and looked up at Renna. “That can’t be right. Then how am I here?”
“The goddess spared you,” Renna said. “I pleaded with her to send you back. She healed you!”
&n
bsp; Skara stared down at the cut across his palm and traced it with his finger. “I don’t know...maybe you’re right. Something inside me feels different. Not broken, but like I’ve been told a secret that I can’t quite remember. There’s a fog around my mind, but whatever’s hiding there is waiting for me...waiting to swallow me.”
Seeing the look on the faces around him, he pulled back his wet hair and rubbed his hands over his eyes. “Either way, I definitely feel like I’ve just come back from the dead.”
“I bet. You look like shit,” Faine said, a smile wide across his face.
Looking between his companions around the fire, Skara shrugged. “This coming from the three people sitting around naked in the dirt.”
“It’s good to have you back. You’ve missed a lot. But we’ll have plenty of time to fill you in after we get out of here. I mean, the search is over. It’s time to put this place behind us,” Faine said, sitting back down on his pile of pine boughs.
“We can’t just give up,” Renna said, using a wet cloth to wipe the blood off her face. “Look what’s happened here tonight. You can’t just say that doesn’t mean anything.”
“Faine’s right. We thought you were gone,” Braig said, glancing over at Skara. “And there’s something inside of you, Renna, that scares me.”
“I never lost control. I knew who I was...what I was. I don’t know how it happened, but it did. And if that magic hadn’t clawed its way out, none of us would be here now. There are wild forces out there, and I have to look at it as a gift. It saved all of our lives tonight, here and in the town.”
“I have no idea what happened, but there are forces at work here,” Skara said, absently rubbing the cut on his palm. “And I don’t think we should go back. We all made a choice to come here, knowing what could happen. We saw it in Banrielle, Mivara, and on the Banshee. People die...I died. Something is coming. It’s like a shadow spreading across Hiraeth. I don’t know what it is, but it’s looking for the stones. And if we don’t find them, I think that whatever happened here today is just the beginning.”
The three nodded their heads as they looked to one another.
“At least we have one less stone to worry about. I think the stone here got burned up calling in all the undead. Or, it’s just gone. If it were still here, I’d feel it.”
“What do you think then, should we keep going? The letters from the Sun Spear said there were more out there,” Faine said.
Renna tapped on her tusk and nodded. “Yes.”
“Well,” Braig said, running a hand through his beard, “I’ve never liked the thought of dying of old age warm in my bed anyway. I’m in.”
“Then where do we go from here?” Faine said. “We don’t even know where to start.”
“We head east, to the Riverside Inn at the base of the mountains. We know that House Egara is involved, so that’s a start. And I’m sure we’ll find someone at the inn that can help us.”
“I’ll drink to that,” Faine said, pulling the bottle of whiskey out of his bag and leaning back. “It’s not every day you start making plans to kill a king, after all.”
EMIN OPENED HIS EYES, the cold night air burning his lungs as he gasped for breath. Running his hands along the stone, he could feel the deep grooves beneath him filled with rain from the recent storm. Turning over onto his stomach, he sucked at the water in the cracks, catching a glimpse of his face in a shallow puddle. His flesh was thin and stretched like leather over his bones, his eyes dark and glazed. His cheeks were tight and split, rotted teeth showing through the gaps.
“I did it,” he said, laughing to himself as he stood and shambled over to the edge of the mage tower.
Although he had made the journey through the veil with Skara, he had been preparing for that moment for hundreds of years. For centuries he had waited for the stone to find him, to make its way into across the threshold. And now, he had finally completed the ritual and ripped his soul in two, leaving half behind in Thodun, keeping him safe from death as long as it continued to roam the land of the dead.
Raising his hand in front of his face, his skin cracked like old parchment as he drew an arcane symbol in the air, trying to cast an illusion spell to appear how he once was before the shattering—but only a slight glow emanated from his fingertips before fading away into the darkness. Crossing the realms had left him weaker than he had anticipated, and he knew he would have to devour numerous souls before reaching his full strength.
Gazing out over the desolation of the Grey Wastes, Emin thought about all the long centuries he had spent trapped in that hell, waiting to reclaim the lands he had lost over a thousand years ago. And now, he thought, holding the Stone of the Denmol in his hand, the world was once again within his reach.
