As he closed the distance, he made out a cluster of tentacles, none moving. His daughter squirmed in the center, a large tentacle wrapped around her. Garn swam to her and pulled the serpentine thing loose. Taking her by the waist, he pushed her upward and then followed when she swam on her own, glad he didn’t need his knife. Like a giant black corral forest, the tentacles swayed gently in an underwater current.
Passing the longest tentacle in the forest, a clearing of the murky water revealed General Karnas enfolded at the tip, his sword missing from limp hands. Beyond him, Surn floated wrapped in a tentacle. The gloomy water closed in again hiding the scene in a cloak of obscurity. Garn swam on, his lungs burning to draw breath.
Above the water grew noticeably brighter. Jade struggled but kept moving up, and then she broke the surface. Garn surfaced beside his youngest daughter, grabbing a ragged breath and then two.
Drawing in deep breaths, Jade smiled as she treaded water. “Have I told you how are amazing you are? I love you, Dad,” she declared. Abruptly, her smile faded, and her eyes rolled to the whites as she listed to her side.
Then she vanished.
Garn blinked, confused. Jade?
Something horribly strong wrapped around his waist and pulled him down into the murky depths.
OVER THE EDGE
Prying the scales to one side with his dagger, Camoe then swung his sword as he would an axe, cutting deep into the dragon lion. Hacking into the breast of the beast, he chopped and chopped, hewing huge chunks from the carcass. Panting from his efforts, he raised his sword high above his head once more. The grip slick with blood, he shifted his hold, preparing the downward swing.
An unsteady hand held his wrist in place.
Coughing, Tarn pointed at the dragon lion with a dagger. “You have found what you seek,” he managed to say, his voice hoarse.
Long Draught’s familiar leather wristband lay wrapped around a hand frozen forever clenched on the handle of a half-spear.
Slowing his breaths, Camoe lowered his sword and checked his friend’s pulse, though his underlying sense of Long Draught’s vibrancy was missing. As he expected, there was no beat of a heart. Letting go of the cold wrist, he stood. “Look for Girth and the bloody Alchemist, I have no sense of them, but these rocks could have put them out of range,” he growled at the three warriors who did exude the breath of life. Tarn’s had grown worrisomely weaker.
As Peers, Kerna, and Tarn moved carefully around the pile of rock covering his oldest warrior—Long Draught had served him the longest—Camoe leaned against the corpse of the dragon lion and barely held back a flood of the black despair, an old familiar battle that seemed to want to stay with him. He would miss Long Draught’s spears. Were all those near him destined to die?
The clatter of rocks nearby tore him from his reverie. Peers and Kerna held the half-conscious hooded man between them. Tarn followed, his complexion ashen. The Alchemist’s hands still tied together in front, his arms bled from several raw abrasions, and a long gash down the left side of his head streamed with blood. “What of Girth?” Camoe asked.
Tarn shook his head. “He was badly damaged. Death came quick with much honor.”
Camoe drew an extended breath and raised both fists shoulder-high as he leaned back looking upward. “Onan, please take my warriors under the shelter of your divine arms. They are good men.”
He regarded the hooded man and quelled a sudden irrational urge to hack the man’s bleeding arms from him. Deep down, he knew the prisoner had no part in bringing the beast upon them. Or had he? The group had run afoul of more than their fair share of nasty creatures of late, starting after the Dark One’s capture. Coincidence?
Camoe held little stock in happenstance. Broken Gap had more than one odd occurrence for his liking. Normally docile rock beetles had attacked Jade and her captors, and the enraged brute at his back had released the life essence of two of his men. There was something wrong with that. Dragon lions ranged farther north, and this one had gleamed with the sheen of sweat indicating the creature had traveled far at great speed, as if called. Though how? Had the Dark Users developed control of wild creatures?
From the hooded one’s past words, Camoe suspected the man had knowledge of whatever was happening or at least harbored some theory about it. But it did not matter. Whatever information or suspicions the man concealed, Camoe intended to pry it from him even if he had to sort through the man’s screams of pain. Though he detested it, he was not too squeamish for torture; he would do what he had to. “Clean and wrap his head wound and any others detrimental to the Dark One’s survival. Without Girth’s healing, our warrior training shall have to suffice. I do not care if he scars, only that he lives.”
No one moved.
In no mood for a lengthy discussion of his reasons, Camoe hardened his demeanor and emphasized his request. “Go on, do as I have asked, or I shall handle it personally.”
Tarn coughed.
Peers exchanged a look with his wife.
Letting the hooded man hang on her mate, Kerna stepped to the side and reached into her leaf dress. The outfit accommodated her action by parting the length of her side. Her slender hand slipped a worn bag made from the sturdy leather of the kell from her shoulder. Camoe had not known she carried the bag. The living dress covered her smooth deep brown hip and toned front torso quickly.
Deftly, Kerna unwound the tie wrap strings from around two brass pins. Flipping the cover flap open, she removed a string-wrapped bundle of the leather, setting it on a flat-topped rock near her. “I see no reason we should help the Dark One, he has caused two of our number to go to the embrace of the Great Mother. But I follow your wisdom without question,” she said softly, though her abrupt movements belied her words. Untying the bundle, Kerna extracted a needle with black thread already inserted through the eye and a wad of cotton. As the kell leather flattened from its own suppleness and weight, clean rolled strips of the leather popped into view.
Camoe’s ire softened. Kerna was right in a big way. Girth and Long Draught had given their lives protecting the group, even for the dark stain of evil they all knew as the hooded one. He should kill the man and be done with it. Yet his true sense of the future warned the man might have a use still, though he knew not what. Blast the bloody foresight! Camoe thought. When had it brought anything other than a vague knowledge of something unanswered? Camoe could answer his own question with a single word. Never.
Brusquely, Kerna swept the black cowl from the Alchemist, letting it fall upon his broad shoulders. Pushing his head to one side, she threaded the needle deftly along the gash. Blood streamed freely as she pulled the skin together, tugging the thread.
The Alchemist moaned, his eyes fluttering open.
Deftly tying the thread, Kerna bit through the remainder, wadded cotton on the wound, and wrapped it with a kell strip, knotting it at the back.
Peers moved from under the Alchemist, reaching for him as he sagged.
Weakly, the Alchemist pushed the offered hands away and straightened. Swaying a little, the Alchemist blinked rapidly, his golden eyes tinged darkly with red. Reaching a shaky arm to the back of his neck, he draped the black cowl over his head.
Camoe stood and restacked the slate rocks over his old friend. Working alone and in silence, he covered the corpse thoroughly. No scavenger would feed upon his remains. He turned to those who yet followed him. “Come, bring him. Let us leave this foul place.” He regarded the prisoner. “Your knowledge has some use still; I expect to hear from you at first rest or you go no farther alive.”
Peers picked up the rope and tied some of the slack around his waist. A sharp tug tested the knot above his braided belt. He avoided eye contact with the Alchemist.
Camoe moved close to the hooded man, his hatred for an old enemy growing with each step. “Keep the pace, or my warrior shall drag you like the rotten carcass you are, Dark One. No one slows us down, do you understand?”
Th
e black hood rose slightly, revealing the grim line of lips drawn back with pain. He nodded without saying anything.
Camoe expected as much; the hooded man was no fool. The less he spoke, the fewer mistakes his weakened mind and body would give away. Now, while the Alchemist believed himself safe from interrogation was when he should fire questions at the man, but the gap exuded a sense of watchfulness, as if the entire ravine waited for the signal to strike.
Taking the lead, Kerna set a measured pace, her shorn head of black hair twisting back and forth as if she, too, expected trouble.
Camoe trotted at the back, keeping an eye on those few warriors left to him and the prisoner. Tarn’s valiant, though futile, attempt at covering his mouth with his hands matched the Alchemist’s stumbling as a cause for apprehension. No matter how quiet they moved, Tarn’s increasing coughs forewarned of their coming. With his hands tied, the hooded man’s staggers came with a likelihood of falling and bashing his head open again, but Peers tugged him along with no mercy.
Getting through Broken Gap came first, and coming up with a solution for the two other concerns would have to wait.
Winding around large limestone boulders and hopping over smaller ones, they passed numerous dark openings under and beside rocks pockmarking the rockslide on both sides of Broken Gap. As they ran, Camoe’s foreboding amplified, the holes increasing with a sense of malice and the darkness inside them flickering.
The trail ahead widened, slowly growing less rocky. Kerna increased the pace. Camoe discarded his first thought of calling for her to resume the same speed, as the foreboding built, pounding an impending sense of doom inside his skull. The bloody prisoner would have to keep up.
Kerna moved beyond a dark hole, the largest yet, burrowed beside a house-sized boulder. A great malevolence emanated from within, growing stronger the closer Camoe got to it. The darkness lightened, shifting from abysmal blackness to ominous shadows, as Peers and the hooded man jogged past.
When Tarn passed, two large eyes, divided in half, opened. Seeming almost as four, the eyes glared redly as they swayed back and forth, coming closer.
Camoe burst into a sprint, roaring his fear. “Move! Run faster!”
A mark of their training, his band of warriors sped up and dashed into an all-out sprint without slowing to look for a threat. Camoe glanced over his shoulder. A dark round shape charged from the blackness, the claws on its six legs digging into the packed soil. Behind it, the rockslides roiled with shifting shapes.
“Blast you all! I said run! I shall not lose another this day!” Camoe roared. The line of warriors, and even the hooded man, gained a burst of speed. At top speed, the southern end of Broken Gap grew larger, the ravine widening and sloping into a respectable highland valley at the mouth.
Camoe risked a second look. The big rock beetle, larger than any he had ever came across, the red-eyed mother of them all, moved ahead of the scurrying ravine bobbing behind it, gaining ground with every bound of its six legs.
Judging the distance, Camoe ran on. “Keep going! They will turn back at the end of the slide, the openness frightens them!” he shouted, though he doubted his words. Rock beetles did not grow bigger than a wolf and throng after prey, not as these had.
Ahead, the Alchemist stumbled, making a desperate attempt to right himself. His shorter legs charged forward, trying to outrun his leaning upper body. With an incredible lunge, Tarn caught at the man’s shoulder, righting him. They ran on, the eastern mouth of Broken Gap drawing near.
A strong canyon wind gusting from the bottom pushed at Camoe, siphoning precious speed, as he broke out into the open. The trail sloped downward slowly at first and then grew steep.
Slowing, he looked back.
Though the smaller beetles were motionless, grouped in ordered lines at the ravine’s mouth, the red eyes of the mother beetle bore down upon him at full speed.
He jumped to the side, sliding in crumbling slate and grasping at his sword.
The mother beetle thumped past oblivious to him, leaving a rank scent of malevolence behind. Ahead, Tarn rushed along the trail, one hand held at his stomach, the hooded man’s affliction slowing him.
Though too late to be of use, Camoe dashed across the slate, a twinge of pain racing in the small of his back as he scrambled for footing. “Behind you!” he roared. The path intersected the trail, and Camoe picked up speed on the downslope.
Tarn glanced over his shoulder. Spinning, he drew a dagger as he slid to a stop. The beetle bore down on him. At the last moment, Tarn stepped to the side, and with his left hand, he stabbed the long knife into the softer meat above the beetle’s eyes.
The beetle shuddered, slowing but little.
Maintaining a firm grip, Tarn used the momentum of the beast’s charge to wrench himself atop the black carapace, straddling it with his legs and holding on by one hand. Beyond him, Peers led the Alchemist to one side of the trail, turning to face the creature where the path vanished over an edge.
Shrieking with pain and rage, the beetle veered, targeting the two men. Tarn plunged a second dagger beside the first. Emitting an ear-piercing screech, the beetle veered sharply to the cliffside and then vanished over the edge.
Camoe ran to where he had seen his friend last, though the fear in the pit of his stomach told him he was too late.
BLACKNESS
The blackness was back, rolling toward her awareness, her sense of self, like a dark fog of malice in her mind that exuded supreme arrogance to all that dared stand before it. Jade stood mentally before it, small and insignificant beside its great power. But she’d kept the darkness at bay before, even pushing it away by the force of her will, and she’d do it again. This would be the last of it. This time it was for good, she’d wrest it from her brain and destroy it for good.
Gathering her will, Jade faced the hurricane storm of malevolence, confident in the knowledge she’d deterred the thing once and she would do it again, even without Crystalyn’s help with the flicker, when it came as a dominion wraith.
There was something horribly wrong this time. The darkness rushed in without slowing, pushing Jade back to her safe pocket, her tiny bubble of protection, almost before she could install the barrier in the farthest corner of her mind.
How had the thing gotten so strong? The answer came to her with such clarity Jade knew it for truth even though it frightened her badly. Her body was dying, drowning in brackish water, and her willpower with it. As her body died, her brain lacked the strength to resist.
Arrogance, black and unyielding, pressed upon her, compressing her bubble inward and bearing down on her. Inhumanly strong, a dominant overbearing will clamped upon hers. With no strength left to fight it, Jade knew despair, she was doomed.
The darkness hesitated. Relenting a little, it flowed around her barrier setting up full control around her protection. Then it restored her eyesight to the bubble. Images flooded into her awareness and then opened up, becoming all-encompassing until she managed to sort it coherently. Images with sounds trickled in and then pieced together.
Black water melted into sandy shoreline from a distance above. The shoreline seemed to advance closer as the perspective changed.
Her dad descended, a dark tentacle wrapped around his limp form. Releasing its burden on yellowed grass, the tentacles arose to eye height, squirming in place in front of her.
“Search for structures intruding upon your domain made by man. Destroy them.” The command, alien and arrogant with supreme confidence projected outward from the blackness, flowing to the tentacles. The inherent menace Jade sensed within the command thoughts left her cold from the sheer brutality of it. Whatever thing had wrested control of her had a total disregard for all species.
The frightened young woman part of Jade wanted to babble incoherently, but her vocals, even her tear ducts, no longer belonged to her. She couldn’t cry to relieve pressure, which brought pressure bubbling around inside her thoughts. Jade wanted—no
needed—to scream.
Now Jade’s eyesight looked out upon Bracken Lake, the tree of tentacles withdrawing. Pulling itself deeper into the lake, it took its myriad of lidded eyes at every tentacle base with it. That many eyeballs staring about was hard to look at, even though it was as if she viewed it through someone else’s eyes.
As the creature submerged, Jade caught a glimpse of General Karnas’ body gripped in a tentacle as another tore at his armor, his boots gone. Somewhere on the thing, it had a maw. Jade was glad she hadn’t seen it.
The scene swung back to the shore. Her dad stirred, expelling water. Two hands reached out and pulled him on his side—her hands. Doing so allowed him to expel another round of water. To her great joy, her father lived. Yet the knowledge of it came with trepidation. Why had it kept him alive?
Her dad rolled onto his hands and knees, clearing his lungs and throat. Finally, he climbed to his feet, flashing a weak smile. “Praise the Great Father, somehow we survived that tentacle thing, and we’re free of your captors.”
A voice—her voice, changed and sounding different—spoke then. “Your neural functions were left intact for the purpose of ensuring the host, your offspring, is protected. If you wish for reunification, remain diligent with the task.”
About to come close, her dad froze. His shocked look stabbed at Jade’s emotions, adding to the pressure of her helplessness.
Her feet closed the distance between them as her otherworldly voice continued relentlessly on. “The One Mind will demonstrate the cost of failure.” Her hand grabbed her father’s forearm, and her vision changed, switching inward.
A translucent barrier hung before her, but it dissolved as they went through it. Images spun before her, slowing to a leisurely rotation, playing through as if a live holofeed. Side by side, her dad and her mom strolled through a lush garden. Flowering plants of all colors bloomed, exotic bushes spread intricate patterned leaves, and an earthen pathway led them onward.
Beyond the Dark Gate Page 25
