Their party of six made their way through the rain-slick roads towards the eastern part of town, following Lyss as she strode ahead with steely determination, hand on the pistol at her hip at all times. It made Rook uncomfortable. Ordinary bullets did not work on riftspawn, so who was the weapon supposed to be for? It seemed that they were all like this, these continental soldiers – far too keen to draw weapons before the danger had even been spotted.
She couldn’t fail to notice the way Janus eyed it either, as he hung back, clinging to the shadows as if by instinct. He was from the continent; she could tell that much. But his lack of regard for the soldiers was telling.
“What’s your nose telling you, Sniffles?”
“Sniffles?” Rook looked at Alik. “Is that my nickname now?” She huffed a laugh. “I can sense that something has been here recently but the rain is masking it.”
The rain continued to pour, fat drops crashing from the sky and dripping down her face, her hair plastered to her forehead. She swiped it away and blinked into the onslaught, barely able to see beyond the slanted sheets of rain. Underneath there was a faint tingle in her nose but it was faint and fading quickly. She shivered in her sodden clothing and continued to splash through the puddles, humming softly.
In answer she could feel a faint thrum beneath her skin and she let the feeling take her as she walked, following the tingle until it grew, turning into a rumbling vibration in the air that she could almost taste. She sneezed, wiping her nose, and swept by Lyss as she continued on the trail, which turned back up the hill towards the mountains in the distance. “We have to go up there,” she said, pointing up to the entrance of the valley.
“Are you crazy?” asked Seeker.
“How do you even know that?” said Alik.
“I just have this feeling.”
“You just have a feeling?” said Lyss, eyes flicking up the mountainside. “We are supposed to trust you on this?”
“I mean you don’t have to but I’d rather not do this on my own.”
Janus nodded. “Not so steep if we go this way.”
Viktor groaned, wiping hair from his forehead as he followed the line of Janus’ finger. “This better be worth it. I could have stayed in the warmth with the others.”
Rook slapped him across the back. “Come on. I’ll race you.”
He shot her a glare and she laughed, breath hitching with the hike. It was to be a long journey up the incline of the valley.
By the time they reached a levelling out of the slope, the rain had petered into a few light drops, more of a relief than a nuisance now that she was sweating beneath her clothes. Rook was exhausted, muscles in her legs burning with the climb. On the eastern side of the valley she could see the faintest tinge of pink at the horizon line, bleeding into a deep indigo the shade of Lyss’ coat. The sun was coming up; it would be morning soon. As refreshing as the whole sight was, staring down upon a city built into the black rock with the faintest whisper of sunrise encroaching upon them, it was better to push on and find this riftspawn now.
For reasons she didn’t entirely understand, they were more likely to be out in the twilight hours of dusk and dawn. It was something about the barrier between worlds being thinner at periods of change, Grey had once explained.
“What’s that?” said Alik, pointing. It was just he, Rook and Lyss at the top, Seeker and Viktor struggling on the incline and Janus slinking behind in the rear.
Rook stepped up onto an outcropping of rock to get a better look. “Oh, it’s a shrine, I think.”
What had caught her eye had been the gold paint on the traditional archway, the eastern half shimmering as a reflection of the rising sun, the western half painted in a light-absorbing black, giving it the appearance of a gate severed in two. Her feet crunched on the gravel and stones as she drifted closer, craning her neck to try and read the writing etched at the top, but the symbols had worn away with the wind and rain, now indecipherable to her eye.
“It’s an Illumination shrine,” said Alik behind her. “There’s a monastery up in the mountains. It’s probably the monks that maintain this.”
Up this high the air was thinner, her breaths becoming shorter, and the otherworldly energy crackled and buzzed as if running on the same lightning energy used for the new streetlamps in Shanku Square. It intensified everything, keeping her on edge as she studied the shrine.
“What is this particular shrine for?” she asked as she wandered through the gate towards a small structure, round like a well with a ridged roof in a dark red, adorned with pieces of mirror-like glass. A small iron bell hung beneath, jangling softly in the wind – clearly a spirit chime to ward off malicious riftspawn, albeit one that didn’t seem to be doing its job very well.
“Does it matter?” asked Lyss, looking around. “We have a job to do.”
“I’m only curious.”
“I don’t go to church as much as I should,” Alik said, “but these were generally built in places where the light hits.” He pointed to the eastern side of the valley, up to the peaks outlined in a rosy glow. “When the sun crosses over the ridge there it’ll light this up. Same with the moon. We believe riftspawn are the souls of the deceased and this is a beacon that lights the way to their resting place, like a lighthouse for a ship. It points them back towards the East where they will rise again.”
Lyss frowned. “Rise again?”
“Rebirth. Hence the circle.” He pointed to the circular structure of the shrine. “Life is a cycle. We are born in the East and die in the West. The riftspawn then seeks to find east again, where it will find life anew.”
“I came from the West,” said Lyss. “What you say makes no sense.”
“I don’t think it has to be taken so literally,” he said, eyes on the lightening sky. “Anyway, you’re right about one thing. We should get going.”
Rook paused to absorb what he had said. “We’re nearly there. I can feel it,” she said absently. Riftspawn as souls born again? That was a ridiculous notion if she’d ever heard one, not that she’d ever tell Alik that. But to think: these strange otherworldly beings belonging to this realm? It didn’t even make sense. No, there was a spirit realm; a dimension beyond the physical that had nothing to do with life and death. That kind of talk belonged to the shrine maidens.
Viktor came rambling up the hill, breathing hard. Collapsing into a heap by the shrine, he looked up at them with murderous eyes, but ruined the effect with how unsteady his breath was. “I regret ever agreeing to this.”
“Think of the money,” she said cheerfully and he glared again.
Janus appeared around the other side and he leaned down to inspect it, fingers running along the circumference and coming away flaked with crimson. It could have been paint but the clenching of her gut told her otherwise. He sniffed at it and she looked apprehensively at him. “Is it…?”
“Blood.”
Seeker blanched. “Is it going to – is Relkan going to – what’s happening to him?”
“Let’s cross that bridge when we get to it,” she said.
As all six of their party gathered around the shrine in a circle. Rook watched the first fingers of dawn claw their way over the ridged teeth of the mountainside and tumble down across the valley. Like kindling a flame the mirrored glass began to glow brighter and brighter until she had to look away, only glancing out of the corner of her eye as black spots danced across her vision. One half of the shrine shone in a pillar of light and she couldn’t help but wonder what kinds of riftspawn were regularly drawn here from the rift. There were innumerable numbers of species attracted to light and flame.
“Did someone hear that?” Viktor asked suddenly, eyes falling on a copse of trees that the path disappeared into.
Rook followed his eyes, frowning. The pressure was growing in her head at an alarming speed, whistling like the high-pitched keen of a tea kettle. In a flash, she drew her riftblades out in front of her as she braced herself. The power wafting off this creature w
as staggering.
In response to her motions Lyss also drew her weapon, the rest shifting stances as the wind picked up, making the trees shiver and sway.
“You won’t be needing that,” Rook murmured. She didn’t want to, but if anyone had the responsibility to put someone down it was her.
“I’ll make my own decisions, thank you.”
The rustling stopped, the wind softened into the gentlest caress against her skin, but her body remained tense, energy still crackling all around her. She couldn’t determine where it was coming from because it seemed to be coming from everywhere. It made her anxious, feeling like she was blind without the spirit sight.
“I’m not going back into the woods,” said Seeker, somewhere behind her.
“No one is telling you to,” said Alik.
Then suddenly it all seemed to happen at once. A figure darted from the tree line, scrambling low over the rocks, swaying from side to side as he ran. A shot fired into the air, booming across the valley, and it hit the rock, spraying up chips of black stone. Lyss lowered her gun with shaking hands as the face peered out over the rock, neck twisted at on odd angle as its sagging lips stretched into a grin. The eyes were drooping, hollow, and the man – for he had been a man once – trilled a laugh that sent shivers up Rook’s spine. His flesh was rotting away, splitting from bone, and his skull shone in a pale blue light beneath the skin.
“Rel-Relkan?”
Seeker stumbled forward with wide eyes but Rook planted a hand on his chest and shoved him back. “Don’t.”
“How is this…?”
Rook thought she heard Viktor throwing up next to the shrine as she tightened the grip on her blades, palms sweating. There was no doubting it now. She was going to have to kill this man.
Relkan peeked around the rock and Lyss fired off another shot, the snickering taunting them as she gritted her teeth and fumbled with reloading. Alik tried to round the corner to the other side in attempt to trap him in place, teeth gritted as he slipped a dagger from his belt.
“Stop shooting!” cried Seeker.
Rook felt like her senses were being overwhelmed. She tried to keep her eye on the hunched figure as it darted out with impossible speed, making strange clicking noises while circling around them, the low angle of the sun obscuring her vision when it flashed in her eyes. Her nose was bleeding again. She could feel the warm trickle beneath her nose.
“Locker’s depths!” cried Viktor and she saw him grip the lip of the shrine, hunching over it as Relkan staggered towards him, surrounded by a glowing aura that looked like flames dancing in blue, red and green. She’d never encountered a riftspawn quite like it before.
Rook took a deep breath and cleared her mind. She felt the answering call inside her, growing louder and louder, rumbling with satisfaction. Keeping it at bay, she leapt over the shrine, swinging her blades in an arc towards the man but was unable to find purchase. With the creature inside him his reflexes were too fast, moving in blurring leaps that confused even her heightened senses.
Alik charged at him but the creature swerved and then slammed into him, knocking him into the dirt. He loomed over the man and she could feel the way the energy shifted as she realised he was quite literally sucking the life from the man. Alik’s grip on the creature’s unnaturally bent arms loosened as he struggled, its shoulders shaking as it rumbled with that barking laugh.
Another shot rang out, hitting the creature in the meat of its arm, and it hissed, looking up with blank eyes as a wad of flesh cleaved from the bone and dangled. When Rook looked back she saw not Lyss but Janus with smoke wafting from the barrel of his revolver, jaw set with determination. Taking advantage of the momentary pause, she swung again at the creature and her blade cut into his back, meeting the resistance of his spine as blood spurted black. The creature erupted with a shriek that reverberated through the marrow of her bones. It’s fiery aura dimmed and she felt that power sing inside her, swinging again, but this time it slipped away from her and she had to roll away to prevent herself from hurting Alik. She tumbled, kicking up dust and gravel, coughing as some of it stung her eyes.
Springing to her feet, she looked around. “Where did he go?”
She was met with five pairs of eyes ranging between disbelief and horror as they all gazed back at her. Extending a hand, she grasped Alik’s clammy hand in hers and hauled him up. He bounced unsteadily on his feet, looking ashen beneath brown skin. “Thanks,” he gasped, hand shaking around his blade. “I––” he choked off, eyes round and trembling as she felt a surge of energy behind her.
The creature ploughed into her and she barely managed to keep herself on her feet, blades whipping out automatically in front of her. Each swing seemed to miss him by inches as he contorted his body into angles that shouldn’t have been possible on an ordinary human, let alone one that had had part of his spine hacked into by her blade. When accompanied by that hideous laugh, it only agitated her further, and goaded her into reckless attacks.
As she attempted to gain purchase, Relkan suddenly began to twist and bend, the ghastly face rearing up, breaking the confines of his physical body and shining brightly enough that it was hard to look at him directly. Taking advantage of her momentary confusion, he punched her in the stomach and then flung her to the ground, bony hands clawing around her neck. She grappled desperately with her blade but he had her pinned. Struggling against the panic of the slimy flesh and bone against her neck and that torn smile, she managed to lift her hand enough to slice along his arm with her riftblade, fiery aura hissing as it sparked against steel.
The creature hissed and darted away from her. Rook rolled to the side, gasping in air from her bruised throat, lungs on fire. Her head was pounding and black spots swam across her vision. She blinked heavily against the wave of exhaustion rolling over her and attempted to see what was going on but she could only hear muffled screams and glimpse the flash of colour out of the corner of her vision. I have to help. Her fingers dug into the stones and gravel of the path, feeling their edges rough against the pads of her fingers. Everything she’d fought for and learned and she couldn’t even prove she was worthy.
The presence in her mind trilled with glee. She tried to fight it but she was too weak. If she left these people to die it would only prove what they had said about her all along. Help me, she chanted, and closed her eyes.
For one long moment all was darkness. Then power sang through her; molten hot and alive. Her aches and pains faded, every sense magnified and she felt the vibrations on the ground beneath her hand for every step taken by those around her; the echoing cry of a bird far off in the distant sky; the rich, earthy afterscent of a waterlogged soil after rain; and the hum of spiritual energy from the creature to her south. Rook’s eyes snapped open. She swelled to her feet and raged.
*
Seeker was huddled up against an outcropping of stone as he watched the scene unfold. His hand trembled as he tried to grip the stone so he could look over but it was hard to watch his friend’s face peeling and cracking around the thing inside it; monstrous; inhuman. Dead. When Seeker had awoken this morning the world had made sense – even the thing that lurked in his dreams could be written away as some kind of sickness – but now it had been turned upside down. Now Seeker no longer knew what was real and what was not.
Relkan had knocked the woman over. In the bloodcurdling terror and scramble for protection he had forgotten her name, his mind tripping over any solid thought beyond that could have been you, that could have been you, that should have been you. His friend was being torn apart from the inside, all the while the rest of them were scattered around this strange arena, fighting for their lives. How did you fight a thing when you didn’t know what it was? Seeker couldn’t possibly lift a gun with the way his hands quivered and shook. And Relkan…
Was he truly gone? Was there no saving him? Seeker flinched as each shot from Lyss’s gun pierced the air, more than one bullet finding its home in flesh, to no avail. The creature
inside Relkan reeled away, twitching and pulsing. It shrieked and yelped but did not slow. With Relkan’s voice there was an eerie familiarity to the strange and somehow that made everything worse.
Suddenly a shiver crawled down his spine and he noticed the woman rise to her feet, hope inside him like a man trying to spark a wet flint; faint sparks that sputtered to nothing. Her eyes were what drew his attention – distant and hazy like she wasn’t really seeing, glowing with a pale light as she moved swifter than before. Wrong. Wrong, the wind seemed to whisper. Then a hiss: The Rook.
Seeker flinched as she swung for Viktor behind his hiding place pressed against the shrine wall. Viktor scrambled away as she came for him and, to his horror, ran for his own hiding place behind the rock, bowling into him as he launched himself behind it, leaving both of them sore and breathless. And sitting targets.
“Get off!” he cried, pulling himself out from under Viktor’s weight and peering over. Now she had turned and stalked after Relkan. He breathed out a momentary sigh of relief, leaning his head against the rock.
“What is Rook doing?” Viktor craned his neck past him with wide eyes as she lunged for Relkan, faster than before, quick swipes that hacked away at flesh, blood spraying black instead of red.
Relkan. Seeker could feel the contents of his stomach rising and he swallowed around it, eyes watering. She was a torrent; a dam burst open, and she moved in such sharp, powerful movements his eyes could barely follow her. The tide of their battle was turning as she pushed Relkan back towards the shrine, his body flickering and swaying as he staggered on his bandy legs, struggling under the onslaught of her movements. A pale, silvery fire engulfed her, pushing out the dancing colours around Relkan, and Seeker blinked. The fires disappeared.
Had he just imagined that?
Rook then kicked Relkan and he went skidding, gravel kicking up into the air as he barked a cry of pain. Still Rook did not stop coming for him, eyes locked on her target with a single-minded focus. It was as if she couldn’t see anything else.
The Broken Door Page 12
