by Lee Hayton
At the click of a finger, Cade Storm had vaporized everything in the area. The creatures he’d sent out of the cloud must have been a clean-up crew, disposing of the mess.
A shiver worked its way through Sulli’s thigh muscles, and not from his intake of cold water.
“It’s nice to get off them, once in a while.” Shandra squatted next to him and filled up a container with the fresh water. “I swear, the minute we get back to the farm, I’m investing in a cart with a comfy chair.”
Sulli snorted with amusement, letting go of his troubles for the moment. “You’d need another horse to help pull the weight.”
She smacked him on the shoulder. “If that’s implying something about my figure, you can stop right there.”
He couldn’t help but give her figure a quick glance. It was in the same condition as when his eyes had last left it, curvy enough for his hands to beg to run over every inch. Sulli stood abruptly and turned back to the horse, not wanting to betray his thoughts. Unlike the dark shadows of the night, daylight wouldn’t hide sudden bumps and bulges.
“How long until we catch up with them, do you think?”
Shandra’s question was fair, but it still rankled. Sulli knew more about the man they were chasing than any of them, but that didn’t mean he had a signpost on hand, telling him the location. “We’ll know more when we can sight a fire or pass through a recent camp.”
He’d need to set his own fire, a special one with its own peculiar ingredients. But neither Shandra nor the clan brothers needed to know the details of that.
“Can you tell me more about the man we’re chasing and what he’s like?”
Sulli closed his eyes and patted the side of his horse. It whickered—a sound that vibrated up its rib cage and transferred into the palm of his hand.
“He’s not really a man. Not any longer. We started out as equals, but Cade let the dark arts take him over.” A ridge of fire burned into Sulli’s side, then was gone. A memory that shouldn’t have the power to cause him pain, yet still did. He rubbed at the area, the scar tissue caused by his supposed mentor lumpen under the fabric of his shirt.
To say they’d been equals was misleading, but not so much that Sulli corrected his statement. They’d been near in age, near in physique. Cade’s mind had been a million miles ahead in a completely different direction, but hidden values were harder to assess.
Shandra shifted her weight from one foot to another. Sulli knew she wanted more, probably deserved to know more, but the words stuck in his throat.
He turned to look at her, wanting to offer an apology and saw her gaze was fixed on the ground. Sulli watched her fiddle with the lid of the water container, spinning it back and forth with nervous movements.
“Have you checked on Io?” Shandra’s gaze moved up to meet his eyes, startled, so he explained. “When he jumped down from his horse this morning, I saw him limp. I thought he might be injured.”
Shandra nodded. “Yes. He turned his ankle crossing the river yesterday. It’s sprained, nothing broken, but the cure is rest and keeping it elevated.” She wrinkled her nose. “The horse lets him rest but getting it up in the air is the problem.”
She mimed lifting her leg up while riding, stretching out her long legs in an impossible stance. The unexpected motion caught Sulli off guard and he laughed, the first genuine moment of happiness since he’d heard the explosion. Soon enough, thoughts of their mission intruded back into his mind, wiping the smile from his face.
“Did he do something to you? This Cade?” Shandra folded her arms across her stomach and hugged herself, the water container digging into her side. “Were you friends?”
Sulli’s eyes widened with shock and he took a step back. “What? Who said that?”
Her face dropped, and her arms squeezed tighter. “Nobody. It’s just—”
She broke off and stared down at the ground, her toes curling in like a pigeon’s. Between that, her folded arms, and her stooped shoulders, it appeared she was trying to force herself into a smaller shape.
“Just what?”
The words came out sharper than Sulli intended and Mal’s head jerked around, looking their way. “Just what?” he repeated in a softer voice.
“The look in your eyes when you talk about Cade. The expression on your face. Sometimes, it seems you’re almost fond of him, while others, it’s like you’ve never hated someone more.”
“And that makes you think we were friends?”
“Ricci looks at me like that, sometimes. Like he hates me.”
“That boy doesn’t hate you.” Sulli snorted. “He practically worships the ground you walk on.”
“When he’s not spitting on it and shouting at me for ruining his life.” Shandra shrugged and took a sip of water. “We used to get on great and now I’m scared that if I don’t work hard at our relationship, he’ll slip away.”
“It’s just his age.”
“And the loss of half his family, and the arrival of you guys just when he thought he was becoming the man of the house.” She blinked, staring down at the ground as though it was projecting an image. “Now, I’ve left when I swore I wouldn’t go. He’s probably written me off as dead already.”
As Sulli watched, her eyes filled with tears and her jaw turned rigid.
“We were inseparable, once.” Sulli gripped at the reins of his horse as it became eager to move on, holding it still. “I thought of him as a brother. At the time, everything he did was an adventure, an accomplishment.” He let out a shaky breath, inhaling another through his nose to catch the tang of the pine forest surrounds, the oils of horse hair. “It took me longer than it should have to realize how evil Cade was.”
“Aren’t you scared of facing him again?”
Sulli stared at Shandra, wanting to admit the truth but still too wary of her to offer up his trust completely. No, he wasn’t scared. He was petrified.
“We’d better get going,” he said instead, leading his horse up to where the clan brothers waited.
The next part of the trek led them upward on a steep climb. Sulli led but pulled aside often to give the horses a rest. It would do them no good to exhaust the animals—they might need their strength later.
“What’s that smell?” Baile asked as they finally reached a flat part of the track. It curved around the edge of the hillside, hiding what lay ahead.
Sulli tipped his head back and sniffed. The higher altitude brought the cold with it, which made his nose run. Still, he caught a small whiff of what Baile had latched onto. An oddly dry scent, with rich and meaty undertones.
Apprehension gripped hold of Sulli’s stomach, tying it into knots. For a change, he was grateful it was empty because otherwise, he might be leaning over the side of his horse, heaving into the undergrowth.
They advanced with more caution, each step increasing the scent in Sulli’s nostrils until nausea made him dizzy. Usually, odors decreased in their power the longer he was exposed but this stench just grew and grew.
A change in the atmosphere told him they were about to turn the corner into open land. The sounds echoed differently, the air moved faster though the breeze stayed steady.
Sulli raised his hand, turning to his brothers and mistress. “Better prepare some weapons, just in case. I don’t think we’re going to like what’s around the next corner.”
An understatement.
As his horse trod warily forward on the unstable ground, Sulli caught sight of something so appalling his mind refused to process it in bulk.
Snapshots came at him instead. Close-ups, each one worse than the last.
Chapter Five
Shandra moved among the wreckage. Although the destruction spreading out in all directions sapped her energy, hollowing her out into an empty shell, she couldn’t look away.
Each step brought a new horror, a torn piece of flesh she’d try to fit into a human puzzle. A limb charred black, eaten by fire down to the bone.
There couldn’t be a survivor he
re. Even if there were, the state they’d be left in would necessitate a mercy killing. Still, Shandra moved across the battlefield, searching, examining the wholesale carnage, trying to find a small piece of hope.
“What the hell did this?” Chance demanded, his anger for once fit for the occasion. “I’ve seen those creatures before and they never left behind a scene like this.”
He picked up an oddly shaped stick, then dropped it, wiping his fingers against his legs when it turned out to be bone.
“We should go.” Mal sounded as though he was holding onto his last thread of sanity. His voice contained a high-pitched tone edging into the land of hysteria.
Shandra closed her eyes as she saw a bangle with a perfect disc of an arm inside it. Nothing above, nothing below. Just the flesh and bone that had lain beneath the gold.
“They didn’t even scavenge this lot for jewels and weapons.” Baile stood back, hands on hips, his lip curling. “What kind of fighter doesn’t claim their prizes after a victory?”
A man lay prone beside a small hillock. Shandra nudged him with the toe of her boot, scanning his comparatively untouched back for signs of life. When he didn’t respond, she dug her shoe in harder until she had enough purchase to flip him over. The front half of his body was gone, eaten away in tiny bites judging from the teeth marks in the remaining flesh.
Shandra flinched but didn’t jump away. She studied the pattern of wounds across his corpse—shallow on his chest where his shield would have offered protection, deepest in the meat of his thigh. Whatever had done this must have attacked there first. Once his legs went, he’d fallen face down.
A small broken creature lay crushed into the earth. Shandra could barely see it, only able to pick it up because of the soil it displaced. Using her toe again, she nudged until the tiny beast’s mouth fell open. She closed her eyes tightly, then opened them, catching the entirety of the body before it faded from view.
Three rows of teeth, each one as sharp as a needle.
She tried the eyes-closed trick again, this time noting the position of the body. Gingerly, she extended a finger to poke into the space where its mouth should be.
“Ouch.” This time, Shandra did jump back. The leather of her glove now had a pinprick hole. A drop of blood oozed out.
“We should move on,” Io called out. “There’s nothing left here for us unless you want to grab yourself a few weapons.”
Shandra glanced one last time at the half-eaten body and moved away. If this was the latest construction of the army, then the district had lost its finest men and women to this unwinnable fight.
Back beside Starburst, she turned and scanned the full carnage, then shook her head. Even if the creatures had disposed of most of the bodies—by eating or by fire—there should still be more wreckage left behind if it was the full contingent of warriors sent into battle.
The amount here seemed more like a scouting party. Big, maybe forty souls in total, but nothing like the numbers they should see for an entire battalion let alone the full army rank and file.
Shandra’s foot kicked against a chunk of metal and she bent down to examine the detail left on it. Some intricate work had melted together but there was still enough left to recognize Wella’s crest.
“Look.” She walked over to Sulli, holding the object out as though it were a peace offering. “I think this must be Wella and her harem. They often go out ahead to work out battle strategies for the rest of the troops.”
Sulli took the metal from her hand, turning it over and over. “If the overlord for your district is gone, Cade might be after her seat.” He handed back the metal but Shandra shook her head. She didn’t want to touch it again. He tossed it back onto the ground.
Mal walked over, a worried expression on his face. “This is close to the area where my mother said they were fighting. If Cade can do this in an instant, perhaps it’s time to send out a warning.”
“What do you think this is?” Sulli waved his arm over the battlefield. “He’s not done this for fun and games.”
“Still—”
“What’s that sound?” Shandra turned as an insistent knocking came from the field of the dead. “The winds not strong enough to cause that, surely?”
She tilted her head for a second, then walked in the direction of the noise. Dug deep into the ground, almost level with it, was the roof of a carriage. “Give me a hand,” she called out, pulling loose the dirt at the sides to try to find purchase.
Io, Chance, and Baile ran to her side, each picked a different space to dig down. As their hands hit against the roof, the blows from the other side picked up in speed and volume.
“I’ve got an edge here,” Io called out, and the other three joined his effort until they could each get their hands under the lip. “One, two, three!”
They heaved in unison and the carriage roof split apart from the body like a yawning shellfish. Shandra stared into the hollow of the vessel with dismay.
“Well, don’t just stand there, woman,” Wella Ufsprig yelled. “Give me a hand to get out of this bloody coffin!”
In her surprise, Shandra obeyed the instruction, helping her nemesis to scramble up onto the ground. Wella’s face was crisscrossed with scrapes, her hair clotted with blood. She pulled at one of the knots, wincing.
“Where did everybody go? I’ve been knocking on the bloody roof for hours.” After asking, Wella turned in a circle, surveying the scene. She looked down at her feet where a burned hand sat, still smoldering. With a cry of disgust, she kicked it aside.
“How many did those foul things get?” Wella stared at Shandra then, when she didn’t answer, turned her gaze on Io. “Did you see?”
“We just happened upon the scene as it is,” Shandra said, finding her voice. “I don’t think any of your men survived.”
“Nonsense.” Wella picked her way over to the same hillock Shandra had been standing near earlier. She stared down at the half-eaten body in silence for a minute, then turned away. “This can’t be my entire harem. I had eighteen men with me, the strongest in the land.”
Her voice caught and as Shandra tried to think of something more to tell her, she felt the first rumblings of sympathy. No matter how cruel Wella could be, to lose so many of her closest confidants in one blow must be devastating.
“What are you doing here, anyway?” Wella turned her attention back to Shandra, narrowing her eyes. “Did you finally come to your senses and decide to join the war effort? About bloody time, too.”
“Join this? Are you crazy?” Shandra pointed to the man on the ground. “If you hadn’t declared war, none of these men would be dead.”
Wella stepped back, blinking rapidly, then lunged at Shandra who fought her off easily.
“If I were you, I’d save that energy for the trip back home.” Sulli moved in between the pair, facing Wella. “It’s going to be a long slog with no horses and no carriage.”
Wella turned her head to the side and spat on the ground. “I’m not going home. We’ve just begun to make headway in this fight. If I leave now, I’ll lose all that hard-fought ground. And for what?”
“For your life?” Sulli folded his arms across his chest. “For the lives of the men and women under your command?”
“Yeah, I don’t take orders from the likes of you.”
“It wasn’t an order. It was a piece of advice.”
Wella raised her chin and sneered. “I don’t take advice either. You don’t get to be in my position listening to what peasant men think.”
“You don’t have to follow it, but if you carry on, you’ll wind up as dead as these men.” Sulli turned his back on her, a dismissal that obviously rankled.
He scanned the path above them and Shandra turned to look as well. She saw nothing, then wondered if it was the same situation as the attacking creatures from yesterday, or the beast mostly made of teeth on the ground.
Something invisible to the human eye.
“We’re headed farther up the mountain,�
� she said, turning to Wella. “If you don’t want to head back to the castle or your keep and shore up there, you’d be best off waiting here for us to return.”
“I’m not waiting.” Wella moved a few steps away, turning her back. After a few moments, Shandra realized the woman’s shoulders were shaking. Tears. The loss of her harem had taken some toll, then.
“No.” Sulli turned back to the group, directing his attention to Wella. “Don’t wait here for us, it won’t be safe. Can you get back home without your harem to assist you?”
Wella wiped her face before turning back around. “I’m the overlord of this district. Do you really think I can’t handle a stroll down the mountain?”
“Good. Go do it.” Sulli looked at Shandra with an expression she couldn’t read, then looked back to Wella. “We’ll be camping here for tonight while I try to locate our target. That’ll ensure no one is coming at you from behind. You’d do best to take advantage of that opportunity.”
With a flick of her hand, Wella turned and picked her way down the trail. Shandra watched after her for a good hour until the woman disappeared in the gathering fog.
Eighteen of the strongest men in the land had formed Wella’s harem. A single one of them had nearly bested Mal in the ring when he fought a battle on Shandra’s behalf. Any man who could dispatch the full gathering in one go was a formidable opponent.
Standing there, with the remains of Wella’s harem strewn in pieces around her, Shandra comprehended for the first time the scope of the fight ahead of them.
Chapter Six
Sulli crouched by the fire, stirring the embers as he whispered an incantation. It was one he’d learned long ago, rich with a power that didn’t wane with age. For hours, he’d waited until he was certain the rest of the group were asleep. To use the tracking spell called upon dark powers. Not the blackest magic but edging into the darker shades of gray.
The fewer people there were to hear him call the power forth, the better.
After the words were spoken, his wishes offered up to the shadows that crept alongside the seen world, Sulli sat back on his heels to wait. Powerful didn’t mean quick. Any spell this strong took its sweet time to get to work.
