“Sometimes,” he said, looking at the woman’s form, but speaking, he knew, to himself more than anyone else, “logic isn’t enough. Sometimes, hope is what is called for.” He crawled out of the shelter and into the driving rain, setting about gathering the materials he would need. He would try. And he would hope. That, at least, he could do.
CHAPTER
NINETEEN
The rain did not abate as Caleb set about gathering the materials he would need to craft the litter, and as the night went on, the temperature continued to drop. By the time he had two sturdy, equally-sized limbs of sufficient strength and the vines he would use to lash the poles together, he was shivering uncontrollably. The task took him longer than it normally would have as he paused often to look over his shoulder, certain that one of the creature’s had snuck up behind him, its approach masked by the driving rain. But there was nothing—only the darkness and the shadows that clung to the trunks of the surrounding trees, only the chill rain, and a wind nearly cold enough to steal his breath.
He had entertained some small hope that Tianya would wake on her own, but it was a vain hope, he knew, and when he checked on her within the small shelter the overhang afforded he saw that she was still unconscious, her chest rising and falling in weak, almost imperceptible breaths. He would have to carry her then, and pray that Kevlane’s creatures would not detect the sounds the litter made. Another thought struck him, and he frowned, turning back to his work.
The poles were lashed together cleanly, a skill the Virtue had known from one of its previous bearers, but there was no support in the center on which he would lay the woman. In some areas of the world, he might have been able to find large, thick leaves that could serve the purpose, but there were none such around him here, and he didn’t dare waste any more time in a vain search for them. Morning, after all, was on the way, and once the sun rose, the army would march again, growing further and further away. The image of him dragging the woman through the forest, stumbling and struggling under the stretcher’s weight while the army marched in the opposite direction was a powerful one, and one he dared not contemplate for long.
He considered using his own shirt—it wasn’t as if the sodden fabric was doing much to keep the cold at bay anyway—but then his gaze fell on the piles of vines that were left from where he’d used them to lash the poles together, and he shook his head at his own foolishness. It’s the cold, stealing your wits, he thought, it must be.
He set about his task, and in a few minutes, he’d used the vines to craft a support that he believed would hold the woman’s weight. Then, he examined his work before adding two more small poles that stood upright where the woman’s head would lie. That done, he stripped off his soaked shirt and propped it on the poles—he couldn’t keep the rain off all of her, but the makeshift canopy would, at least, do something to keep the worst of the elements at bay. Or so he hoped.
Ca…leb?
The voice in his head was weak, little more than a faint whisper, but he recognized it just the same, and he breathed a heavy sigh of relief. “Palendesh?”
It…is I, young one.
“W-where did you go?” he asked, ducking under the shelter and rubbing his hands together in a vain effort to warm fingers that felt as if they had turned to ice.
I…went away? the Virtue asked in a confused voice completely at odds with his normal self-assurance. Yes. I went…away, for a time.
“Someone else was here, Palendesh,” Caleb said, ashamed at the memory, ashamed that he had almost left the woman to die in order to save himself. And that, he realized, would have been the truth of it, and never mind the justifications and rationalizations that he would have used.
I know, young Caleb.
Caleb nodded, swallowing. “It was me, Palendesh. My voice. But…older.”
No, Caleb, the Virtue said, and he jumped at the unexpected intensity of the Virtue’s normally calm voice. Whatever it is, whatever he is, he is not you. Do not ever forget that. Do you understand?
“But, Palendesh,” he said, taken aback at the Virtue’s tone, one he’d never heard it use before. “Who—”
Tell me you understand.
Not a question at all, this time, but a demand, and in it Caleb thought he could detect a hint of anger, and not just anger, but fear. “I understand,” he said, swallowing and suddenly more nervous about the Virtue than he had been since first meeting it in an alleyway what felt like a lifetime ago. “Palendesh,” he went on, his voice weak, “are…are you mad at me? Did I do something wrong?”
The Virtue let out a sigh. No, Caleb. You did nothing wrong. Forgive me, only, it is important that you know that the voice you heard is not your own.
“Then what was it?”
Several silent seconds passed, and he was beginning to think the Virtue wasn’t going to answer at all. When it did, it did so in a voice that somehow sounded haunted. Every rose has a thorn, child, and even those things which man most covets might be turned into weapons to destroy him. A man who marries a young, beautiful wife, but in treating her like a possession instead of a person turns her heart against him. Another who spends his life lusting for coin, trying to fill a hole within him, might lose friends and family, even his own life, in his quest for fortune. We Virtues are no different. For though we might bestow on our bearer great gifts, there is always a cost. The quest for knowledge is a worthy cause, the possession of it a noble goal, yet even knowledge has its dangers. For not all knowledge, not all intelligence is kind, and many of the world’s truths are cold ones, indeed, truths cold enough to freeze a man’s soul within him, to make of him a monster.
Caleb frowned, thinking over the Virtue’s words. “So…are you saying that the voice was right? That, in trying to save the woman, I doom us both?”
Forgive me, Caleb, but I must answer your question with one of my own. If you knew it to be true, if you knew that by attempting to save the woman’s life, you would doom yourself, would it change your decision?
Caleb thought about that, glancing back at the woman’s form. Then, finally, he shook his head. “No. I have to try to save her, Palendesh. I have to.”
Good, the Virtue said, a clear note of relief in his voice. Then let us be about it—our time grows short.
CHAPTER
TWENTY
It started with a feeling, one of being hunted. Stalked. Some distant part of Aaron’s mind knew that he was asleep in his tent in the army camp, that he was dreaming, but that did not change the feeling, the primal fear, that something—or someone—was after him. The things had not found him yet, but they were searching for him, their unnatural senses listening, looking for any sign of his passing.
Something wet struck him in the face, then again. It was raining, the water coating his slender frame which was wracked with shivers from the cold. He tried to look down at himself, knowing that there was something different about him, that he felt smaller, but the eyes that gazed out into the night were not his own, nor were the ragged, panting gasps of exertion, the breath that plumed out in a fog in front of him as he half-ran, half-stumbled forward.
They’re close. The thought was not his, but that did not stop him from feeling a surge of dread. Three times already, he had managed to evade them, more by luck than design, the darkness and the driving rain covering his movements even from their heightened senses. But they were getting closer. One of his feet struck a rock that had been obscured by the shadows, and he cried out as a litter he hadn’t realized he’d been holding slipped from his hands, landing on the sodden forest floor with an audible thump.
He froze at the sound, as loud as thunder in his ears, and spun, looking around the darkness for any sign that one of his hunters had heard, that they were coming. Aaron wanted to reach for the sword that was always strapped at his back, but his hands would not obey his commands, for they were not his at all, and he realized that he did not feel the reassuring weight of the scabbard in its accustomed place. Shadows moved in the darkness, his
mind—the mind of the person he inhabited—turning each of their shifting forms into creatures grinning lurid, bloody grins, each creaking sway of the branches the sound of them drawing their blades.
But a moment later the forms resolved themselves into the shadows of trees and foliage instead of the blood thirsty creatures he had imagined. Not his hunters then. Not this time. There was a soft groan from behind him, and he looked back at the form lying on the makeshift stretcher he had dropped. She was a wretched, pitiful-looking thing, her body shrunken, her face so white as to almost appear translucent in the darkness, shining with a fey, sickly quality. Have I killed her? a thought came. Have I killed us both?
But there was no time for such worries, and the chance to second-guess himself had long since passed. He was set on his course, and could not turn away even should he wish to. So, his breath hitching in his lungs from the exertion and the cold, he made his way to the stretcher and grabbed its poles once more, giving one final glance at the woman. Tianya, I’m sorry. This thought, too, was not Aaron’s own. So sorry.
Then he was running again. He was close now, he thought, an hour away, no more than that. But the creatures were closer, and though he couldn’t be sure, he thought that most of them were in front of him now, between him and the army, for each of the three he had seen as he waited, huddled protectively over the woman’s form, sure that they would notice him, had paused only long enough to glance around the woods before hurrying in the direction which he now traveled.
The sound of a twig snapping, a sound loud enough to be heard even over his ragged breaths, jerked him from his thoughts, and he spun, seeing a shadow not far away, standing near the trunk of a tree. Oh gods. Oh gods, they’ve found me. And it was then that Aaron realized that he recognized that inner voice. It was the voice of the youth, Caleb. And it was afraid.
***
He jerked awake with a shout, his eyes casting about for his attacker, his hand reaching for the sword at his back only to find that it wasn’t there. Then he saw it, sitting propped against the desk—why in the name of the gods is there a desk in a forest?—and snatched it up, ripping the blade from its sheath, spinning to face his attacker, to study the tree where the creature stood.
But there was no tree, and there was no attacker, not here, at least. He stood not in the forest, but in his tent. The small collapsible desk sat before him, as did the chair he’d fallen asleep in, now lying on the ground where he’d knocked it over in his haste. Slowly, lucidity returned, and he remembered that he’d been going over reports for the army when his lack of sleep had finally caught up with him.
There was a sound of the tent flap opening, and Aaron spun, the feeling of being hunted he’d felt in the dream not yet dissipated. He brought his sword up with a snarl, and the guard who’d entered recoiled, his eyes going wide. “F-forgive me, General Envelar,” he stammered. “I thought I heard a shout and…” He trailed off, swallowing as he stared down at the length of steel aimed in his direction.
Aaron recognized the man as one of the two guards stationed outside of his tent—a precaution upon which Brandon and May had insisted, but one that he left him feeling ridiculous nonetheless—and let his sword fall. “Sorry, Brenson. Just a bad dream, is all.” But was it? Was it really?
Unlike a dream, the images, the feelings of the experience were not fading upon waking as a dream would. What’s more, he had never felt a dream so powerful, so real. No. Whatever the vision had been, it had not been a dream but, he suspected, something brought on by the power of his bond working while he slept.
Caleb was out there somewhere, he and the woman, Tianya, and they were being stalked by Kevlane’s creatures. Never mind that the two of them should have been safe in the barracks of the Akalians or, at least, traveling with the black-garbed warriors. Something must have happened, something to force them to venture into the woods alone, and whatever it had been, that was a worry for another day. For now, it was enough to know that the boy was in danger.
Aaron called on the power of his bond and quested out in the direction he thought Caleb would be coming from. At first, there was nothing, then, straining with the effort of stretching the bond to its limits, he began to make out signs of life. A lot of it. If this was an attack, then it was going to be the biggest one yet. And were the boy and the woman out there too? Were they one of the dozens of life sources he felt in the distance? He couldn’t be sure, but he believed so. And if that was true, they were walking right into dozens of the creatures.
“Brenson,” he said, turning back to the guard, “do you know where the others are? Leomin, Gryle, Seline and all the rest?”
“I-I’m not sure, sir,” the guard said, clearly confused by the unexpected question. “But I’ll be happy to find them, if you nee—”
“I do,” Aaron said, sheathing his sword and fastening the scabbard in place over his back. “Gather them and as many others as you can as quickly as you can, and have them meet me at the southwest corner of the camp.”
“Of course, General,” the man said, then he turned and started to walk out of the tent.
“And Brenson?” Aaron said.
“Sir?”
“Tell them to come armed and ready to fight. And hurry—we don’t have much time.”
“Yes, General.”
Aaron emerged from the tent at a run. This late in the evening, most of the soldiers and camp followers would be sleeping. He considered rousing as many as he could but decided it would take too much time, and settled for shouting at those few he passed, ordering them to gather as many others as possible and make their way to the southwest corner of the camp.
He’d been running for ten minutes when he caught sight of a campfire around which a group of soldiers sat. Among them was one Aaron recognized, and he hurried forward. “Wendell.”
The sergeant looked up, surprised, and when he saw Aaron standing there he looked more than a little guilty. “Ah, General, sir, we weren’t gamblin’ understand, but—”
“Gamble all you want,” Aaron said, aware that they were running out of time. “But later. Now, grab your sword and come on.”
“Sir?” the sergeant asked, dropping the cards he’d been holding, and Aaron noted one of the nearby soldiers taking the opportunity afforded by Wendell’s distraction to lift a few coins from the sergeant’s stack and pocket them. “Has something happened?”
“Not yet,” Aaron said, “but it’s going to—soon.”
Wendell grunted, grabbing his sword and rising. “I was losing anyway,” he grumbled, scowling at the others gathered around the campfire. “Don’t none of you bastards touch my coins.”
The man who’d filched several grinned widely. “We wouldn’t dream of it, Sergeant.”
Wendell’s sigh made it clear what he thought of that, but he turned back to Aaron. “I’m ready.”
Aaron gave a sharp nod. “You others, gather as many as you can and meet us—there’s little time.” And then they were off and running, and with each step they took, Aaron tried to shake the feeling that they were already too late.
CHAPTER
TWENTY-ONE
Caleb hissed with the effort of dragging the stretcher forward. His jaw ached from keeping it clenched against the cold, but it was nothing compared to the burning in his arms and legs. He thought it a cruel jest of the gods that he should be freezing and burning all at once. He’d started sniffling not long ago, and he was dizzy. He’d attributed it to his exhaustion at first, but the dizziness had grown steadily worse, and he didn’t need a healer to know he had a fever.
Tianya stirred from time to time, groaning in obvious discomfort, but there was nothing he could do for her, so he only pushed on. And as he half-walked, half-stumbled forward under the weight of his burden, a thought troubled him.
Why had all the creatures been heading in this direction, the direction of the army? Was a battle going on there? Had Kevlane perhaps decided to meet Perennia’s troops in the field, and would Caleb arrive at
the army encampment only to find that they had already been defeated? Such thoughts, such worries nagged him as he forced one weary foot in front of the other, demanding strength from arms that had long since run out of it.
And there were other worries, other fears. A few minutes ago, he’d had a strange sensation, as if someone had been sharing his head, his thoughts, with him. This one had been different than the Virtue’s presence, or even the presence of the older “him” he’d experienced before. It had seemed alive and, somehow, vaguely familiar. Had it really been there at all? Or was it only an imagining brought on by his own exhaustion and rising fever? He didn’t know, and couldn’t spare it a thought, all of his energy concentrated on driving deeper into the forest, toward the army and whatever fate awaited him there.
Soon, he was going uphill, and as hard as pulling the makeshift litter on even ground had been, this was worse. Much worse. He was less than halfway up the increasingly steep incline when one of his legs suddenly gave out, and he collapsed to one knee. The stretcher slipped from his hands, and he spun just in time to catch it with one hand before it—and the woman strapped to it—went sliding back down the hill to crash to the forest floor.
The joint of his shoulder, already tight and swollen from having his arms bent back behind him for so long, screamed in protest, and a sound somewhere between a hiss and a whimper escaped him as he fought to control the stretcher. Whether from the rain-slicked ground or just the incline, the stretcher began to slide down the hill, dragging him along with it, and he lashed out desperately with his free hand, grasping the trunk of a small nearby tree.
Let go, a voice said, and he recognized it as the thing which had spoken to him hours ago, trying to convince him to leave the woman behind. You tried. No one would blame you. No one would even have to know. There is darkness here and darkness only, and it is long practiced at keeping secrets.
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