Catching Pathways

by Danielle Berggren

  She twisted in a slow circle, eyeing the deepening shadows between the rows of tents. Tegal had set, but Rizor remained a sliver on the horizon, the sky bleeding red and orange above it. She saw the faint edge of night from the East crawling toward the setting sun. The moon rose and shone its unfamiliar face down on her, casting the faintest of shadows.

  She was taken when the light shone brighter. Now, it became a waiting game.

  Maeve kept an eye on the children, catching the gaze of a short, freckled youth with his arms wrapped around the wooden slats of the fence. His head cocked to the side, his huge brown eyes dancing in the dark. His tail swished, and she gave him what she hoped showed as a reassuring smile. He smiled back. Another child sniffled.

  Goosebumps rose and fell in waves down her arms, and she turned her head again, a slight shuffling noise drawing her attention.

  Nothing.

  At least, nothing she saw.

  Silence fell, thunderous and absolute.

  Did they miscalculate? Would the Nyx sense the trap? Would they find some way to take the children regardless?

  She shook her head to dispel the thoughts and shifted on her feet, legs spread, and her boots pressed deep into the earth. She had braided her hair again, pulling it back from her face, and wore leather armor in black and gold, the rose sigil over her breast, the colors oddly comforting. As though, though she neither saw nor sensed him, Rodan stood there at her back. In some ways, it was like a promise of things to come.

  Because she began to think she might never go back.

  The wind picked up, and the grasses whispered and danced all around the traveling city of Karst. The moon beat down, and then—

  They were here.

  They moved like liquid. Like grace made flesh and blood. They seeped through the spaces between the tents and oozed toward her, all sharp edges and cold, slick skin. She turned her head enough to see if they came from all sides, but they did not. They came toward her from the West, as they hoped for.

  A figure broke off from the throng and approached her. It looked like a centaur would, if the world were a more twisted place. It had six legs instead of two, with spikes erupting from its sides and four arms. Its head elongated and mouth vicious, full of straight black teeth ending in sharp points. It bared those teeth, black spittle dripping from the corners of its lips.

  “Go back to where you came from,” Maeve demanded, hand falling to the sword at her waist. “Leave Karst, leave this continent, and never return. If you go back to Attica, we promise once Rodan regains the throne no one will bother you. You’ll be left in peace.”

  The Nyx tilted its head, its dozen beetle black eyes glittering. It spoke in a slurred hiss, “We are the response. The die has been cast. You will join us.”

  “I will not,” Maeve insisted.

  “You will,” it said. “It is in your blood. We are your nature. We are inevitable.”

  The hair on the back of her neck stood on end, and goose flesh crawled down her back and arms. What did they taste in her? What made them so sure?

  “You will join us,” the Nyx repeated. “Soon.”

  “Not today,” Maeve promised, and drew the sword Rodan summoned for her, the pommel plain and easy to grasp, steel gleaming dull in the moonlight. “Leave. This is your final warning.”

  The thing laughed, and it echoed from dozens of throats behind it. The sound made her skin crawl. It was like crushing glass or tumbling rocks. Unpredictable and sharp.

  They began to move toward her, the last of the stragglers breaking free of the aisles between the tents, so they condensed in the space between her and the back stalls. A child whimpered behind her, and the centaur creature sniffed, craning its head to look at their bait.

  “The children are ours,” it said, its eyes swinging back to hers. “We do not wish to harm you.”

  “That makes one of us,” Maeve said, lips curling. “You’ll die this night.”

  That laugh again, and they spoke together, the voices melding into a oneness quite unlike anything she ever heard before. “We are eternal,” they said. “We are inevitable.”

  She was done talking.

  She could not stand alone against the group of Nyx, but she did not stand alone. She touched her chest where she anointed herself with the potion earlier and called to the part of herself that swam with magic, the part that sensed the shaping of the world and bent it to her will. She touched the potion and it reverberated from her fingers to where she had drawn it on nearly a hundred other beings waiting in the dark.

  She sensed those other marks, and she poured power into it.

  The world erupted in light. The shade Rodan had thrown over the waiting humans and centaurs crumbled, so they became visible, ringing the perimeter of the open-air market. Mothers and fathers, brothers, sisters, grandparents, uncles, neighbors, and friends all burst forth with light and heat.

  Standing in the middle of it all, Maeve felt her own skin burning, but she withstood it as the Nyx began to scream.

  That same piercing, agonizing wail she heard in the cavern, echoed in dozens of throats. In the light, their twisted forms were more perverse. Whatever grace they possessed washed away in a tsunami of light.

  She fed herself into the potion, pushing hard to keep the light burning as the Nyx twisted and screeched. Her naked sword shone, illuminated on all sides by the circle of people closing in on the Nyx.

  And then, so suddenly it made her stumble, they crumbled into nothing.

  She cut off the supply of magic and staggered, her sword sinking into the earth as she leaned upon it. Panting, she stared with light-blinded eyes toward the pile of ashen soot in the center of the market. Some shapes still resembled the twisted limbs or torsos of the Nyx, held together until the rising wind blew the pieces apart.

  The ash landed on her, coating her skin and hair, like a bitter candy on her tongue.

  Footsteps signaled Rodan’s approach, and when his hand landed on her shoulder, she leaned into him, grateful for the strength he offered.

  “Do you think that’s all of them?” she asked, her voice pitched low so the citizens of Karst would not hear them.

  He shook his head. “If I were them, I would have sent an advanced guard ahead of my main forces, to determine the threat.”

  She nodded, heart sinking but certain he was right. Drained, as though she had just run twenty miles or more, she glanced around. Pushing that much power into that many symbols exhausted her. Coupled with cutting open her arms earlier, draining a decent amount of her blood into the giant cauldron where her potion brewed, she was left shaking. All she wanted was a bed, but they were far from it.

  “Well, we’ve played out one scenario,” Maeve said, straightening up and pulling her sword from the ground, flipping the hilt in her hand so it flashed in the moonlight. “Now we wait for round two.”

  He kissed the top of her head, “I want you to fall back,” he said, not for the first time that night. “Please.”

  She grimaced. “There’s no such thing as safe.”

  The citizens of Karst moved in, surrounding their children, weapons gleaming in their hands. The centaurs held, by and large, bows and arrows, but the humans carried an assortment of weapons. Maeve spotted scythes, spears, swords, daggers, and crossbows all among them. They milled around the pen, ready for the second wave.

  It didn’t take long to materialize.

  The sound, unlike anything she had ever heard before, would haunt her. A clattering, chitinous crackle and wet sucking combined with a chatter of hundreds of throats speaking at once.

  She raised her sword, and knew Rodan was at her back, doing the same.

  They came from all sides, flooding the field and slamming into the wall of protectors. Maeve called to the part of herself linked to the potion, and the glow erupted from dozens of people who had been smeared with the symbol earlier that night. She couldn’t get to them all, and the effect grew weaker now that she dragged with exhaustion.

&nb
sp; Lights flickered and sputtered like flashlights on low batteries. One of the Nyx stumbled, hit by the light, and in the next moment, as it shut off, the creature speared the poor woman who bore the sigil with its talon-like claws.

  People screamed.

  Some were the cries of war, while others the terrified call of a life soon snuffed out.

  The children, those who had remained awake, wailed.

  One of the Nyx came at her, arms spread as though to embrace her, but the spikes erupting from its flesh like rose thorns meant she would be torn to pieces in its grasp. An arrow lodged through its neck, and one of the centaurs nocked another.

  For the most part, they avoided her. It became obvious as the fight went on. Maeve would rush those who got too close, and they danced away. She clenched her jaw and strained to press more power into the light sigil. If she did not get them with sword, she would be damned if she wouldn’t fight them any other way she could.

  Some Nyx bubbled and steamed as the potion affected them.

  Pike fought with twin daggers, letting the Nyx get almost too close before dispatching them.

  Others hacked away like they cut down grass, their motions viscous but lacking in any skill or finesse.

  Rodan dispatched a number of them, his skill with a sword readily apparent now. His styles of fighting during practice and this, here, now, were massively different. Watching him was like witnessing a force of nature. He cut through the creatures in graceful movements, no amount of energy wasted. Like a dance.

  Yet still, more came.

  Maeve fell to her knees, exhaustion stealing over her. She lost her sword somewhere. She barely remembered where she knelt, or what happened a moment before.

  She placed her hands on the ground, digging her fingertips into the hard-packed soil.

  She closed her eyes.

  Maeve reached out to every sigil she drew earlier. Not knowing what else to do, she had painted the circle with a slash through the top, like the power sign on her computer at home. The locals thought it some magical significance. For her, it reminded her of what she needed to do.

  There must be more than eighty of them remaining, but as she reached for them another flickered and fell, the person attached to them succumbing to the Nyx.

  They wanted the children. Would make more of themselves once they possessed them.

  She breathed.

  She pulled.

  All the living things under her knees, under her hands, responded to her call. She let the energy flow through her and out into the symbols drawn on her people’s chests. She heard the cutting scream of the Nyx, and then Rodan’s shout of triumph.

  There was nothing more.

  All went dark.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  Rodan

  THEY KNELT AND WERE CROWNED in the marketplace, in the same spot where two dozen of the citizens of Karst fell. Isadora, the leader of the elders, placed crowns of woven grass atop their heads. The ceremony, subdued, followed a mass funeral. They did not celebrate; they mourned. Yet under it all, a sense of relief wove through them all. The threat, for now, was over.

  After the Nyx contingent was dispatched and the fight won, after the sun came up and streaked the sky with gold, Maeve awoke and demanded they return to the cavern where she had been found. She brought the rest of the potion with her, and when they made it to the central cave, she studied the ceiling for a long time. Whatever she expected did not appear, and they left without a word.

  Another night passed, and no Nyx came in the night to steal away the children.

  Maeve fell quiet, subdued. The magic she wrought drained her. Dark circles shone beneath her eyes and her smiles became soft and sad. What they had discussed about her lineage lay like a stain between them, noticed but unremarked upon.

  After the crowning ceremony, they went to the stables and retrieved their horses. Leona nickered and danced when she caught sight of Maeve, and Maeve reached out, hugging the beast’s head to her chest. “I missed you too, girl,” she murmured, stroking her neck.

  Ender showed a more subdued greeting, flicking his ears forward and snorting as if to say, Finally! I thought I’d die of boredom. Rodan ran a hand up his face and scratched the spots behind his ears, watching the stallion’s eyes droop in contentment.

  Pike came with them. “There’s nothing more for me here,” he said in his gruff voice, nursing the wound on his shoulder from a Nyx claw. “May as well come with you both and make sure you don’t get into any more trouble.”

  The man possessed more in the way of supplies he brought along, though he left his poor excuse for a tent behind, trusting in Rodan to supply him with what he needed. Rodan also passed him a small purse of gold and silver coins, in case they got separated. “Maeve has the same,” he explained when Pike’s eyes widened. “I want to ensure either of you will be suitably taken care of if I’m—indisposed.”

  They departed with few words spoken to the locals. The city had suffered a great loss, not only in those who perished two nights ago, but for those children who would never be recovered. How many of those children became what they fought against?

  They followed the path of the river, sticking to the bluffs above it as they traveled to the south, leaving the vast city of Karst behind them. The city, already alive with activity as they prepared to move, would go along a similar path, but their progress would be slowed by the sheer number of people. According to Isadora, the elder leader, they needed to move on. “There is too much heartache here,” she said. “We want to leave our ghosts behind us.”

  They progressed many miles along the riverside when they stopped for the night, the suns low in the sky and casting long shadows through the grass. The grass itself began to shorten, rising only to the height of Rodan’s head instead of above it.

  Maeve and Pike watered the horses while he walked in a circle, creating a stables and two pavilions, with a central camp fire and a few cushions surrounding it, so they might sup and talk together. The campsite created a circular depression surrounded by the grasses, the ground smooth and soft beneath his bare feet.

  Maeve gave a mere glance at the camp when she returned, all her attention on trying to get Ender to follow her to the stables. Pike gave a more appreciative whistle. “I could get used to this,” he said, leading his gray Lusitano into the waiting stall.

  Rodan helped them bed down the horses. Maeve seemed relieved when he took over Ender, the black stallion’s muscles relaxing by degrees under his hands. “You must try to be better with her,” Rodan murmured to the spirited horse. “She only wants what is best for you.” If anything happened to me, she would be the only one left to care for you.

  Thoughts like that dogged him now. He did not fear overmuch for his life during the battle two nights before, but they were not done with the Nyx. The leader disappeared, and Karst might be only one of many Realms infected with the creatures.

  Maeve disappeared into the larger of the two pavilions, emerging a short time later in a loose shirt and shorts, her feet bare against the soft ground. She washed her face of the road dust and brought down her hair so it fell in deep waves down past her breasts. She took his breath away.

  “I’ll have dinner for us in a moment,” Rodan told Pike. “If you wish to freshen up, there should be some water and clothing for you in your tent.”

  Maeve stared at Rodan while he worked at summoning up a table and the meal they’d share. A roasted chicken with garlic and butter crust, grilled beets, creamed potatoes, thick seeded bread, mugs of cool water and sweet white wine all appeared as he envisioned them in his mind.

  She came to his side, running a hand up his arm. He glanced at her as she lifted her head to him. “One of these days, I’m going to cook for you,” she said. “When we’re around a proper kitchen, that is. I may not be able to summon food with a thought, but I can grill a mean salmon.”

  He smiled at her. “I would like that. One day.”

  She frowned a little as she looked at him.
“What’s wrong? Something’s been bothering you.”

  Rodan shook his head. “It is nothing. We’ll talk later.”

  Pike came back out into the clearing and grinned at their supper. “I could definitely get used to this,” he remarked.

  They ate together, talking of little things. Talking of the world Sebastian wrought, and what they would do to put it to rights.

  “I’ve been meaning to get you on my side for some time now,” Rodan confessed to the scrapper. “It would be beneficial in the extreme to have you train the royal guard, and to help rehabilitate the way we mold our soldiers. Your ability to outmaneuver the guard for as long as you did is proof of your value.”

  Pike’s eyes widened. “Truly? You would have a cut purse and a back-alley brawler sully the good name of your imperial forces?”

  Rodan frowned a little. “They’re not as uptight as all that. Yes, I would have you with us. It is a far cry better than having you against us. I saw you fight against the Nyx. You’ve lost little of your edge.”

  The old man sucked his teeth and leaned back on his cushion, looking between Rodan and Maeve. Maeve smiled at him over a cup of wine, her eyes glimmering in the light. Pike’s eyes narrowed, and he leaned forward, his finger raised. “How much are ye willing to pay?”

  Rodan couldn’t help his smile. He had him. “My last good trainer I paid two thousand gold pieces a year. For you? How about... double?”

  In the ruddy firelight, Pike visibly paled. The amount Rodan spoke of was enough to keep a man in comfort for a decade or more, if he remained somewhat frugal. Rodan took the care and training of his troops seriously, and he had wanted to wrangle Pike into service for some time. Troy, too, but it appeared that avenue might be closed forever. Pike did not know what became of the archer, and with everything happening in the Realms, it felt safe to presume them passed.