Soldier Sworn (The Teralin Sword Book 3)

by D. K. Holmberg

  Endric continued to scan, running his eyes along the valley. It seemed as if the pathway swept around, but if that were the case, would the Antrilii eventually make their way here?

  Would they have enough notice that they were heading toward this many creatures?

  Endric had seen the Antrilii fight and seen how brutally effective they were, but this would be too many for them to withstand.

  If they still had the merahl hunting with them, they would have a better chance. Endric needed to somehow alert the Antrilii.

  Anything he did would put him in danger. He would be forced to fight, and with the numbers of groeliin he saw, he doubted he would last very long. There were far too many for him to overcome.

  And then there was the larger groeliin. That one posed a greater challenge than the others. Endric didn't think he’d be able to easily combat him; he'd only survived by chance the last time. He still had his spear, but there was no other defense.

  What he needed was merahl help.

  Two of the groeliin neared him. Endric remained pinned to the rock, the laca fur standing out from the snow. So far, they still hadn't noticed him.

  He stared at the markings on their arms. This one had something like interlocking squares. Both were the same. They were raised, as if burned on. When the creatures moved past, Endric let out his breath. He had been afraid to move when they were so close, afraid to do anything other than watch.

  Another small band approached to his right. As they neared, Endric noted a different marking on their arms. This was something like a zigzagging pattern that ended with a straight line.

  Did the brood marks only identify them to each other, or did they have other meanings? Could the brood marks be some way of giving them power?

  Endric turned toward the east. His gaze settled on the trail where the Antrilii would come through this mountain pass. How much longer did they have before something happened here? How much longer before the Antrilii appeared? They wouldn't have the merahl cub to make noise, not like they had when he had discovered the other heavily marked creature.

  There were shapes near the rock, and Endric hesitated, making his way toward them. When he did, he nearly froze.

  Antrilii.

  Dozens of Antrilii, all with the same blue coloring, and all lying dead.

  Had the groeliin come across an entire tribe of hunters and slaughtered them?

  As much as he wanted to investigate, he didn’t dare. He noted movement near him. He looked over and saw one of the dark-skinned groeliin making its way gradually toward him.

  Had he been seen?

  The groeliin worked its way up the side of the mountain, moving more quickly, but in a direction that seemed as if it might move beyond him. Would it pass him altogether?

  He rolled toward a large boulder that would block him from its view.

  It was a gamble. All Endric wanted was to draw the attention of the single groeliin, not those down in the valley.

  The gamble paid off. The groeliin paused and started toward him. As it came close, it hissed. Endric stabbed with the sword, driving it up to the hilt, and the hissing stopped suddenly. Endric withdrew his sword when the groeliin stopped twitching and shifted his attention back to the valley.

  One of the nearest bands had paused and began making its way toward him.

  Endric had made a mistake.

  He rolled around the side of the boulder. On the other side, the ground sloped down, snow and ice creating a smooth sheet. If he took this, he would reach the floor of the valley and possibly not have a way out.

  The band came closer.

  Endric stepped over the edge and slid down it until he reached the valley.

  The suddenness of his movement drew the attention of the band, and one of them hissed. Endric ran toward the opposite end. He knew the movement would draw the attention of the groeliin, but he had no choice.

  The nearest groeliin hissed, and Endric avoided turning back, not wanting to see what it might do as it came toward him. The valley tapered at the end, and he thought he could escape that way.

  He hazarded a glance back, looking over his shoulder. The groeliin moved quickly, the rock not slowing them as much as it did him, and gained on him. The nearest two had long, brutal-looking clubs. One of them was spiked much like the one Endric had claimed from one of the groeliin. The others were armed with long sticks that were like clubs, but Endric wondered if they would wield them more like a staff.

  As he neared the what he thought was the end of the valley, where he had thought the ground tapered off, leaving him a place to escape, he realized there was no way for him to get free.

  When he looked back, there were dozens of groeliin after him now.

  With his heart racing, Endric did the only thing he could think of: he ran into one of the nearest caves.

  He waited near the mouth of the cave, ready for an attack. All he needed was to combat the groeliin as they came in. At least here he could control the flow somewhat. He could avoid being overwhelmed by them. If he did this, he could take them on one by one, or even two on one if it came to that.

  The first groeliin appeared at the entrance to the cave and Endric slashed at it, knocking the club from its grip and the creature cutting down.

  The next one was the same. As they fell, another one replaced it, and Endric continued to attack, the movements of the sword growing more fluid the longer he worked. That had been lost to him in the time since he left the Denraen. He had missed the practice and had missed the art of using the sword. Now that he was here, he allowed himself to fall back into the empty mindset that he had to have to be an effective fighter. He flowed through the movements. Each one felt natural, each one led him to the next, and he cut down five more groeliin.

  The entrance to the cave was littered with bodies.

  The smell became nearly unbearable. The stench from the fallen groeliin drifted up to him, so much worse in death than in life. He would have held his breath, but the effort of fighting left him winded. He would've thought that the days spent hiking through the mountains would have kept him fit, but that didn't seem to be the case.

  Two more groeliin appeared, and Endric sliced through them.

  Then the attack ceased.

  Endric waited, thinking that he needed to be ready for another onslaught. That he needed to be ready for something.

  Nothing came.

  He listened and heard movement outside the cave. He didn't dare risk going to the entrance, didn't dare risk looking out to see what the groeliin might be preparing. He might have killed ten of the horrible creatures, but hundreds more had to remain. An entire brood. Several broods.

  He shook himself, staggering back into the cave. A hissing began outside the mouth of the cave, a horrible sort of sound that grated on his ears, leaving his head pounding.

  Endric retreated into the cave. As he did, his eyes began to adjust.

  There should be no light here, but he had a sense of warmth, something that he hadn't noticed before. There was a faint, dark glow to the walls that reminded him of the teralin that he'd seen when meeting with Pendin's mother.

  His breath caught. Could there be teralin in these mountains?

  The idea seemed almost too much to believe, but there was no mistaking the warmth that he felt. For there to be this sort of warmth around him, there had to be some explanation, and teralin made a certain sort of sense. The outside of the cavern was cold. The wind this high up in the mountains had been almost bitterly so. In here was practically pleasant.

  The only thing that made it less so was the stench in the air.

  Endric moved deeper into the cave. There was probably a dozen—possibly more—caves scattered around the base of the valley. Were all of them made of teralin ore?

  As he thought about it, he began to have a different question. Was it possible that the caves were not natural caves? Could these be mines?

  He continued along the cave, heading deeper into it. He knew he should s
top, that he should wait and find a way to fight his way free. He'd already experienced the horror of remaining trapped in caves with no clear escape route, but he didn't want to risk staying too close to the mouth of the cave. At least in here, he could continue to hide, though he could do nothing more than that. He might be able to hide, to keep away from the groeliin at the entrance of the cave, but he didn't have any way of getting out. He would be trapped here.

  At least in the mines beneath Vasha, there was a hope of escape. At least there, he knew that if he were to remain long enough, he would be able to find his way out. That wasn’t the case here.

  He noticed a shifting of the lights near the mouth of the cave and continued backward. If the groeliin chased him in, how long could he fight them off? How long would he be able to face them while in the cave?

  How long until the Antrilii reached the valley?

  The farther back he went, the more he began to feel another rising sense of nausea.

  The last time he had felt it had been related to the groeliin.

  Endric turned, taking a moment to survey the cave. If he had to fight, he wanted to have a sense of his surroundings.

  The shifting darkness that he'd seen—the trail of lights along the walls—persisted, and he noticed it more strongly deeper into the cave. Now that he was here, now that his eyes adjusted, it was easier for him to see it. He wasn't certain exactly what it was, but the warmth of the tunnel made it likely that it was teralin. If it were dark like this, then Endric worried it was negatively charged.

  What would it take to negatively charge an entire cavern of teralin?

  More than he could fathom. When they had gone to Thealon, they had changed the polarity of the teralin there, but that had been with Tresten's assistance. This would be something much more, and Endric didn't think he would be able to do enough to counter it.

  He continued back along the wall, keeping his hand trailing along the rock. It was smooth rather than jagged. Could it have been carved out by man?

  The cavern continued much deeper than he thought. He continued into it, following the strange dark glowing, and realized that as he did, as his eyes continued to adjust to the darkness, he saw the shadowed outline of something in the distance.

  Endric hesitated. What was it that he saw?

  Sound from behind made him spin. The groeliin seemed to have started into the cave.

  He hurried forward, toward the darkness he saw in the distance.

  There, he froze. It took his eyes a moment to adjust and for him to realize what it was that he saw. He still wasn't certain that his mind was able to wrap around it.

  An enormous groeliin sprawled along the wall. What appeared to be a dozen smaller creatures were there. A stench in the air seemed to emanate from that.

  Endric recognized that was also the source of his nausea.

  As his mind began to comprehend what he was seeing, he realized what it was.

  He looked back, understanding why there had been so many groeliin here. It was the same reason there were so many in the mountains around here.

  He had somehow come upon the groeliin breeding ground.

  27

  Endric crept slowly forward. The only other option was to head back through the cave, back toward the groeliin waiting at the mouth of the cavern. He didn't want to risk that. This way, at least there was the possibility that he could find an alternative way out.

  He expected to see other groeliin, but there didn't appear to be any. There was only the single breeding groeliin. It—she?—lay prone, slightly propped against the wall, her grotesque neck peering into the darkness. The small creatures around it—her—moved with a dark energy. Endric couldn't tell what they were doing, whether they were suckling on teats and feeding or something else was taking place.

  Nahrsin had mentioned how difficult it was to find the breeding grounds, and how the groeliin had seemed to move undetected, and now Endric suspected he understood why. They occupied a series of mines.

  All of the searching and he had somehow stumbled upon the breeding ground.

  It didn't seem right that he should be the one to find it. The Antrilii had fought groeliin for generations, so for him to be the one to have discovered it felt unfair.

  The creature seemed to watch him, though Endric couldn’t tell. The dark glowing light, a faint blackness with a tinge of purple to it, surrounded him and surrounded her.

  Was she watching him?

  Endric moved forward with more speed.

  He stared at the breeding groeliin, feeling waves of nausea come over him as he did. Endric licked his lips, swallowing, forcing down a rising bile.

  Rarely had he felt so unsettled. Then again, rarely had he been so afraid. Standing here, alone amidst all of these foul creatures, he felt nothing but terror.

  He continued forward, and the groeliin began hissing even more loudly.

  Endric continued toward the groeliin, holding his sword clutched in hand, trying to decide what he should do. These were young groeliin, but were they born evil or did something that the groeliin do to them turn them that way over time? Was it possible that they could be saved?

  He reached the offspring. They didn't pay him any attention, giving Endric the chance to examine them. They appeared to chew on something, though he couldn't tell what it was.

  The nearest groeliin offspring had a mark already branded on its arm.

  Whatever branding did was a part of the groeliin indoctrination and had already taken place. Did that mean that the groeliin were already twisted?

  The infant looked up at him and hissed.

  The sound was soft, like a painful scream, one that reminded him of a child screaming. It flashed its teeth, and Endric realized that blood dripped from them.

  He looked down, studying what thing was feeding on.

  An arm.

  A memory of the fallen Antrilii came to him, and nausea rolled through him, this time separate from the groeliin.

  He looked at each of the feeding creatures and realized they all appeared to feed off body parts. Were they fed this by the breeding groeliin?

  Endric continued forward, and all the young began hissing.

  The groeliin female watched him, her malevolent eyes trailing after him.

  Endric noted that she wore three markings across her chest. Each was the same.

  Did that matter?

  He didn't know, but they were the same on the groeliin young.

  He stabbed the female in the heart.

  The young continued to feed on the body parts, and Endric backed away, not able to even look at the creatures.

  Movement toward the end of the tunnel drew his attention, and he backed away even faster. There was the sound of scuffing along the rocks, and he spun and realized that another groeliin stood there. This one carried a long, slender rod that glowed a soft orange.

  The branding rod.

  Endric's eyes widened.

  The groeliin hissed.

  Endric darted forward, swinging his sword in a sharp arc. The groeliin caught the sword with the rod, deflecting him down.

  Endric spun, falling into his patterns. Had he not fought the groeliin at the mouth of the cavern, he might not have been able to do so as easily as he did now. But he had shaken free the rust from lack of practice. He attacked, but each time, the groeliin caught his sword, twisting him down.

  Endric rolled, spinning in a movement that he’d learned from Senda while practicing the staff, and sliced up, severing the groeliin's arm. It dropped the rod, and Endric spun once more, taking off its head.

  When the groeliin fell, he noted that its body was covered with brood marks.

  Was this another creature like the one he'd killed before?

  How many more would he find there? The Antrilii had not seen them before, and Gron believed them to be rare, but that didn't seem to be the case at all.

  Other groeliin made their way down the cave, coming toward him. Endric didn't risk staying where he was
any longer, afraid to remain.

  What choice was there?

  He turned and headed deeper into the cave.

  The walls glowed and seemed to intensify the farther he went, almost like the power of the darkness itself began to increase in intensity. The warmth didn't change, a steady, constant sense that Endric felt deep within him. The hint of nausea persisted, and the deeper into the cave he went, the more he hoped that it would fade, but it never truly did.

  He looked around and noticed something else along the wall. He approached it carefully and saw what appeared to be fur. It wasn’t groeliin—what fur they had didn’t look like this clump of bloodied fur—and not laca. Another clump was near it.

  Merahl.

  A cub.

  It was too small to be the cub he’d traveled with, but had the groeliin been trapping cubs for other purposes? Why would they?

  He heard sharp hissing beneath behind him, and he paused. The groeliin were there and must have reached the female.

  Would they chase him into the cave or would they think that he'd been killed?

  He watched the shadows, wondering if the groeliin would make it this way. At least here he had the darkness to conceal him. Thankfully, he saw no movement.

  Endric continued backing deeper into the caves, trying to keep the sense of the groeliin in front of him. For some reason, they didn't continue toward him.

  He reached a turning point in the cavern, pressing his back against the wall, and hesitated. Did the groeliin remain where they were?

  He had come across the breeding grounds, which meant he had found something that none of the Antrilii had found before—at least not found and survived. If he survived—and with as many groeliin as were out in the valley, he didn’t know whether he would—didn’t the Antrilii need to know more about the breeding grounds?

  So far, he knew that the breeding grounds were these caves. He knew that there was teralin in the walls. He knew that the young groeliin fed off bodies scavenged by the groeliin. He knew that the females were essentially immobile when they birthed their young. And he knew there was evidence of the merahl in the caves.