Thorns in Shadow

by Sanan Kolva

  “Bah.”

  They rode through the day with few pauses, pushing the horses to make up lost ground. Aikan’s tracks remained absent, washed away by the rain, but Kithr was confident he knew the man’s destination, and Lyan trusted Kithr’s instincts.

  During the night, Lyan slept restlessly, plagued by half-remembered dreams. During his turn on watch, he saw that Kithr also slept poorly.

  We don’t want to admit, either of us, how badly the reapers have frightened us. Lyan gripped Equinox. And they aren’t the worst Murdo has to offer. Those were only a small taste of the minions he has at his disposal.

  o0o

  In the morning, Lyan didn’t mention his nightmares, nor did he ask about Kithr’s. Neither spoke much. Weariness hung over them like a gloomy fog.

  Mid-morning, they entered a forest. As the undergrowth gave way beneath the leafy canopy, Kithr jumped to the ground, and his expression turned to surprise.

  “Tracks. The old man’s, I think, though I can’t say for sure.” He followed the trail a little way, then freed a scrap of cloth from a bramble. “It was him—this came off his shirt. And in a hurry. Running. Why?” Kithr continued walking, leading his horse. He froze.

  “What is it?” Lyan craned his head, trying to see what Kithr had spotted.

  “Horses. They came from the left. He must have been trying to avoid them, but…” Kithr shook his head. “Looks like they caught up. Six horses, I’d say. Circled around him.” He passed his reins to Lyan and walked the area. Lyan saw the trampled earth, and hoof tracks in the once damp soil. “I don’t see blood, so he’s probably alive. I’d say the old man didn’t want to be found, though.”

  A chill ran down Lyan’s spine. “Someone’s taken Aikan prisoner?”

  “That’s my guess, but I can’t say for sure. The horses continued north, though. For now, at least, they’re also riding toward the keep.” Kithr swung back into the saddle. “Let’s go. We’re a day behind them. If they aren’t pushing, we can gain time—find out who they are and why they want the old man.”

  Lyan nodded, kneeing Shadowstar after Kithr. The stallion snorted and stepped into a trot. “How large is this forest?”

  “Large enough. Hunting preserve for the lord of the land if he feels like taking an expedition away from home for a few nights. I understand it’s punishable by death for the peasants to hunt any animals from it.”

  “Meaning, you’ve hunted here before,” Lyan said.

  Kithr just shrugged. “We had to eat. And it made the Tathrens mad. But I don’t know the area well. We weren’t here for long.”

  Like the Forests of Cossette, this forest was indifferent to elven presence under its boughs, neither welcoming nor rejecting them. Kithr focused on the trail he followed, and Lyan held back other questions to avoid being a distraction.

  The trees grew closer together. Kithr watched the tracks and muttered a curse. “How in the Mad God’s Pits did they get their animals through here? Magic?” He jumped to the ground. “Wait here, Lyan. I’m going to scout ahead.”

  “Be careful,” Lyan said uneasily.

  “Of course.” Kithr slung his bow over his shoulder and moved ahead, barely making noise as he walked. In a few moments, he had vanished into the forest’s shadows.

  Lyan tried not to fidget. Shadowstar caught the restlessness, pawing the ground and nibbling at leaves and grass, constantly shifting his weight. Finally, Lyan heard Kithr’s voice.

  “Lyan. Come here—quietly.”

  He slid to the ground, holding Equinox. Shadowstar snorted. Lyan patted the stallion’s nose. “It’s all right. I’ll be right back. We’re not going to leave you here.”

  Shadowstar snorted again, but settled. Lyan walked toward Kithr’s voice, trying to move as quietly as his friend, and knew he did a poor job. Speaking in a loud whisper, he asked, “Kithr, where are you?”

  “Over here.”

  Kithr’s voice came from the left. Lyan corrected course. As he did, a shiver ran down Lyan’s spine, becoming the sense he finally recognized as the awareness of being watched.

  “Kithr …?” he asked warily. His eyes searched the forest. “Where are you?”

  Moisture gathered in the air—not a storm, but a heavy mistwith no source and no discernible cause. From somewhere far to his right, Lyan heard Kithr’s voice—a curse he knew had to be Kithr, and a call of “Lyan! Where are you?”

  Something used Kithr’s voice to trick me. His eyes narrowed. I don’t know how it found me, or how it got here. I thought we’d lost it when the portal took us from the Shrine of Equinox to Tather. But I know what it is. The pooka.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Hand, foot, and throat

  Bind the beast by three

  Bind, but do not gloat

  For such a creature still is free

  Mist thickened around Lyan. He gripped Equinox and called, “Kithr! Pooka!”

  A wave of vertigo washed over Lyan. Though he was sure he stood still, trees moved around him as rapidly as if he galloped on horseback.

  I walked blindly into its trap, and now the pooka is separating me from Kithr.

  He didn’t know where the pooka intended to take him, but he had no intentions of finding out. He drove Equinox head-first into the ground. “Enough!”

  A pulse from the Spear banished the mist, and the world stopped spinning. Lyan stood in an unfamiliar part of the forest, surrounded by trees and silence.

  “I know you’re here. Come out,” Lyan ordered.

  A shadow flowed from tree to tree. “Ah, little elf, you’ve gained a new toy, have you? And who would have thought it?”

  “I would,” Lyan responded coolly. “I don’t have time for your games.”

  “You have nowhere to run this time, little elf, and no ally lurking in wait. Your Tathren ‘friends’ are in chains—every one of them. The other elf stalks tracks that are a lie.” The pooka whispered from the forest.

  Lyan tensed and pulled Equinox free of the ground. “Where are Cailean and his men? Where is Aikan?”

  “You’ll be with them soon enough. You’ve run as far as you can go, little elf. Will you stand and fight, try to prove yourself capable of winning the challenge I issued at our first conversation, or will you admit defeat?”

  “Surrender? To you? Never!”

  Lyan saw the pooka step around a tree. It wore the form of a black-haired human male dressed in dark silk shirt and trousers. The red eyes narrowed on Lyan, then the man became a black horse. The pooka reared and charged Lyan. Lyan raised Equinox and, accepting the first answer the Spear pressed into his thoughts, shouted several short, sharp words in a command. Dust swirled, and a form materialized beside him.

  The pooka scrambled in a frantic effort to stop, glowing eyes wide in sudden fear. Only then did Lyan realize the significance of what he’d just done.

  Nachyne’s massive wings folded against his back as he stepped forward. The god of monsters fixed an icy gaze on the pooka. A monster belonging to Nachyne’s domain. The pooka skidded to a halt at Nachyne’s feet. The black horse awkwardly knelt, head bowed.

  Nachyne turned his glare to Lyan. “You interrupt a bottle of absinth finer than any vintage a mere mortal could endure for this?” He spun back to the quivering, kneeling pooka. “And you. You dare.”

  The ground trembled at the anger in Nachyne’s voice. Lyan wanted to cower, however much Equinox assured him the god could not and would not turn that anger onto Lyan. More than anything, Lyan wanted to turn time back a few precious moments and use some alternative, any alternative other than summoning Nachyne here, now, against the pooka. But that was beyond even the power of Equinox.

  “Honored and glorious Lord Nachyne.” The pooka’s voice whispered in Lyan’s mind and, presumably, in Nachyne’s.

  “You dare attack the bearer of a Spear of the Stars. You dare defy my laws.” Nachyne’s gaze remained fixed on the black horse at his feet.

  “My lord, I begged you to release me from the
binding placed on me by the mortal who hunts the Spears.” A hint of defiance colored the pooka’s words.

  “You will be silent before me.” Nachyne’s voice chilled the air. “You were careless and stupid enough to let yourself be bound. Then you asked me to free you. You said nothing of Spears or Spearbearers.”

  “The mortal who bound me would not permit…,” the pooka began.

  “I said you will be silent before me,” Nachyne repeated, raising his hand. A sharp gesture sent the pooka flying back to slam into a tree.

  The black horse shrieked in pain. Nachyne’s power swept the pooka into another tree, drawing another cry.

  Lyan looked away. “Nachyne, is this…”

  “This pathetic excuse for a monster belongs to me, Spearbearer. Over matters of my domain, you have no say. This wretch broke my laws. Do not think you have any right to interfere.” The god’s power jerked the pooka into the air, and Nachyne stepped toward it. “Especially not when the wretch proves incapable of following one simple command.”

  The pooka trembled, eyes wide as Nachyne held its gaze trapped in his own. The god spoke slowly and deliberately. “You will be silent before me. Each failure will result in further punishment. And you have not yet succeeded.”

  Nachyne raised a hand. Coils of fire wound around the pooka’s body. Lyan smelled burning hair. The pooka jerked in pain and hung helpless in the air, unable escape the flame. The faintest sound of agony escaped the black horse.

  Nachyne’s eyes narrowed. Cords whipped out of the air, wrapping around the pooka’s thrashing limbs, pulling tight and pinning them still. One cord began to draw the pooka’s right foreleg at an unnatural angle. The pooka’s eyes widened in fear and pain. It struggled, as if it had any hope of escaping its god. Lyan turned away, but he couldn’t close his ears. The snap of breaking bone filled his hearing, made all the louder by the absence of other sounds—most especially, the absence of any cry of pain from the pooka.

  Lyan looked back. The pooka’s sides heaved as it struggled for breath, eyes rolled back in its head. The coils of fire and the cords vanished, and Nachyne let the pooka fall with a thump to the dirt.

  “Take human form,” the god ordered.

  The pooka raised its head with great effort, and its shape changed with a slowness painful to watch. Its black hair hung loose and tangled, and its skin sallow. It still wore the gaudy finery Lyan had seen before, but dirt and blood stained torn cloth. Its right arm lay bent in a place no bone should bend. The pooka struggled to its knees and crawled to Nachyne’s feet.

  “So, you want to be released from your bonds to the mortal who caught you,” Nachyne said to the cowering figure.

  The pooka gave a faint nod.

  The god turned his head an inch. “Lyan, come here.”

  Lyan approached Nachyne and the pooka. The pooka didn’t look up. A trickle of blood ran from its mouth where it bit into its lip to hold back the agonized cries. Lyan looked uneasily at Nachyne. “Yes?”

  “You know how to bind a pooka?” the god said.

  “Yes,” Lyan answered with trepidation.

  “Good. Bind this wretch.”

  The pooka didn’t move, but it trembled a little more. Lyan almost refused.

  But isn’t this what I’ve intended to do since it first challenged me? Lyan drew his knife.

  “The traditional method would be to pull out its hair,” Nachyne commented in a deceptively mild tone.

  A fresh trickle of blood ran from the pooka’s lip as it bit down harder. Lyan looked at the god of monsters. “Do you really want to wait all day while I do, Nachyne? No? Then I’ll use the knife.”

  “If you insist.” Nachyne crossed his arms and waited.

  Lyan cut the pooka’s hair close to the scalp, leaving uneven black stubble. The pooka didn’t move.

  I never thought I’d even think this, but I’m sorry. When I claimed I could bind you at our first meeting outside Eilidh Wood, I never imagined I would do so by bringing your god’s wrath down on you.

  Lyan sheathed his knife and divided the long hair into three twisted cords. The first he used to secure the pooka’s ankles, but he hesitated on the second. The pooka’s broken arm hung limp, and forcing the creature to move it seemed an unnecessary cruelty on top of everything else.

  Nachyne spoke with thinly disguised impatience. “Bind the wretch’s arms behind his back.”

  Now, the pooka moved. Wavering without the support of its good arm, it lifted its broken limb with the uninjured one and shifted it to rest behind its back. Lyan tied the pooka’s wrists with as much care as he could, unable to overlook the tremors of pain that shook the monster.

  To complete the binding, Lyan wrapped the final cord loosely around the pooka’s neck. As Lyan stepped back, Nachyne snapped his fingers. Lyan started, drawing a sharp breath when his rude cord twisted and transformed. Where the ropes of hair had bound the pooka’s limbs together and ringed its neck, instead seamless bands of black metal circled its wrists, ankles, and neck. They provided no visible restraint, not pinning the pooka’s limbs or impeding movement, but the pooka shuddered and squeezed its eyes shut.

  What did Nachyne do? Nothing I’ve ever read mentioned anything like this being part of a simple binding.

  Nachyne gazed at his creature with icy eyes. “You belong to Lyan, Spearbearer of Equinox. Any bonds that held you before are broken. No mortal but Lyan has or ever will have command over you. You are a free creature no longer.”

  Lyan’s eyes opened wide, along with his mouth, wanting to protest, but no words came. Nachyne glared at Lyan, his eyes dark and angry.

  “If there’s nothing else, Spearbearer, I’ll be leaving now.”

  Lyan tried to speak again, and still no words came. He shook his head in answer. The god cast the pooka a final, disgusted look, then took wing and vanished.

  Lyan looked at the kneeling pooka. “You, um, you may speak.”

  “What is your will, master?” The pooka’s voice was thin with pain, and its body still trembled.

  Lyan struggled to collect his wits. “Your arm first.”

  The pooka moved its broken arm to rest in its lap, face pale and tears of pain in its eyes. “What is your will, master?”

  “How long does it take you to heal broken bones?” Lyan asked. He searched the forest floor for thick sticks to use in a splint.

  “Healing naturally, almost half a moon to return to full strength, master. If you order it to be whole sooner, it will be sooner.”

  Lyan stopped in his tracks and stared at the pooka in disbelief. “If I order your arm to heal faster, it will?”

  “If you will that I be whole sooner, I have ways of forcing it to heal faster, master.”

  “At what cost?” Lyan asked cautiously.

  “I can force creatures of Lord Nachyne’s domain that are weaker than I to give me from their essences. If you will it, I could be whole by tomorrow’s dawn.”

  Leaving how many other creatures dead and drained? Lyan didn’t ask the question aloud. Instead, he splinted the pooka’s arm and fashioned a sling, unapologetically using the pooka’s ruined shirt for materials. The pooka looked at splint and sling in bemusement, then shot Lyan a questioning look.

  “If you’re anything like us mere mortals, keeping it supported and still will help it heal,” Lyan said. “And it might hurt less.”

  “Yes master,” the pooka said quietly.

  Uncomfortable and awkward, Lyan turned away from the pooka that had, only a little while ago, been attacking him. He looked around the forest in a half-hearted hope Kithr would appear. “Which way back to Kithr and the horses?”

  The pooka raised a trembling hand to point. “The other side of the forest, master. But I don’t know that the other elf will be there. He probably tried to follow the false trail. I can’t be sure; he is skilled at evading attempts to locate him.”

  “What about Cailean and his men?”

  “Ambushed by men in the service of the master of the
keep and taken prisoner, as was the man you followed. They are either on their way to or already at the keep, master. I was ordered to capture you and bring you there as well.”

  Lyan stiffened. “Cailean’s been taken prisoner? But how would Ewart know—” He looked sharply at the pooka. “How did he know? Who told him? Who betrayed Cailean?”

  The pooka studied the splint on its broken arm, shifting its weight and not meeting Lyan’s eyes. “I don’t know, master.”

  Lyan blinked. “What do you mean, you don’t know? You told me long ago you knew the traitor’s identity, when you taunted me with the knowledge that there was a traitor!”

  The pooka reluctantly raised its head to meet Lyan’s gaze. “I lied, master. I know one of them is a traitor, but when I claimed to know who, I lied.”

  Lyan didn’t know whether to rage or give in to hysterical laughter. He sank down and sat on the ground, head in his hands. The pooka watched him silently. After a moment, Lyan collected himself and stood again. “Are you fit to walk?”

  “In human form, yes, master.”

  Lyan drew a deep breath and let it out slowly. “I need to find Kithr.”

  Without a word, the pooka followed Lyan when he started walking. Having it so close at his back made Lyan’s skin crawl. However much his rational mind claimed the monster could not do him harm, his instincts rejected the idea of trusting it. Lyan remembered all too well his flight from the pooka in the Forests of Cossette.

  His thoughts turned to Nachyne. Lyan shivered at the memory of the god’s anger. I’ve really made a mess. And I don’t even know the best way to find Kithr.

  “Then you’re either a fool or willfully ignorant,” the pooka said sharply.

  Lyan spun around. “What?”

  The pooka’s baleful gaze met his, showing a creature somewhat recovered from pain and shock, and far less than resigned to its loss of freedom. “What is it you carry? A glorified walking staff, or one of the most powerful weapons to be found on this world? You moan and complain that you can’t find your friend while you ignore the power you earned the right to bear? Disgusting.”