Raz appeared suddenly and sniffed at John’s wound and shook his head. “It’s a mortal wound.”
Tristan gasped at the appearance of the wildling, but held the cloth taut on John’s leg.
Even though Tristan was within arm’s reach, his voice barely penetrated her thoughts as she watched her brother struggle for breath. “I’m so sorry. I tried to warn them as soon as I found out. My younger brother told me that Father was going to make an example of New Memphis. He also told me that you’d been sent into the Forbidding.”
John coughed, spitting up horrifying amounts of blood and his lips began moving.
“John, I can’t hear you.” She leaned down and put her ear close to his face as he struggled to say something.
John’s voice was barely audible over the crackling of flames and the distant shouts of others. “Willow ... I ... love you. Can’t breathe....”
“I love you too. Always and forever.” Willow squeezed his hand.
“I’ll tell Brad you’re doing fine. Save ... yourself.” Willow felt the warmth of his dying gasp and then nothing more. John’s hand became limp in hers and she knew.
Suddenly, rage built up in Willow as she sat up and stared at her brothers. Both dead for no good reason. She looked at Tristan and demanded, “Why? Why are you here?”
Tristan stared at her with a bloodshot gaze. For a moment, he seemed confused and then his eyes cleared. “I felt guilty. I know it was somehow my fault that you were exiled. There was no reason at all that anyone could ever have had to send you away.” He pressed his lips together and shook his head.
“As soon as I found out what was about to happen, I raced here to help your brothers.” A tear dripped down his cheek and his chin quivered. “I’m sorry that I didn’t get here earlier. Maybe I could have....” He shook his head. “I was going to try to convince them to leave New Memphis.” He pulled a pouch out of his pocket and emptied a handful of silver and gold coins onto the blood-covered dirt. “In your memory and for the kindness your family showed me, I was going to even pay for them to start over somewhere else ... and now, it doesn’t even matter.”
Willow blinked away her tears of rage as Tristan’s eyes closed and he bowed his head.
Growl whined. “The morning is almost here.”
Willow glanced at her fallen brothers and knew that more soldiers would likely be upon them at any moment. She looked up at Tristan and for a moment, felt a deep sadness for everything that had happened. Despite her angry outburst, she knew it wasn’t his fault. Not really.
Ramai’s haunting words replayed in her head.
“Once again, an elven dreamwalker will walk the Earth. Only she will be able to complete the pact and see the creation of an Asherah completed. A second hope to a world that has fallen from grace.”
“Tristan, thank you for everything, but I can’t let myself get caught.” She gestured toward the dead soldiers. “I doubt the Steel Fist will exile me for this, heck they’ll probably put my head on a pole for all to see.”
Tristan scanned the carnage around him and with a hollow voice proclaimed, “I’m as good as dead. There’s no way that I’ll be allowed to have done this and not be made an example too. I’m only half Dominion born....” He looked at Willow, an with an almost desperate look on his face, asked, “Where are you going? Can I go with you?”
Willow’s internal voice screamed about him being a Vanden-Plas and she was about to deny him, but something in the timbre of his voice struck a chord in her. Tristan had felt so much like a brother to her ... but that time seemed like ages ago ... she hesitated. “I’m going back into exile. There’s nothing left for me here.”
Tristan glanced nervously at the sound of another building collapsing somewhere in the distance. “Well, can I join you?”
For a moment she worried about whether or not Ramai would welcome him to the underworld, but shrugged the concern away. “You have to realize that if you leave with me, there’s no turning back.”
“Understood.” Tristan nodded grimly.
Willow reached down and grabbed the contents of Brad’s nearly-full quiver, replenishing her supply of arrows.
She knelt by their side, kissed her fingers and touched her fingers to both of her brother’s foreheads. “I love you, always and forever.”
Raz called at her from the shadows of her home. “Come. It’s time.”
Willow and Growl jogged toward the woods as Tristan scanned the area looking for something and finally shrugged, racing after the three of them.
Keeping a strong pace despite the darkness, she glanced at Tristan and asked, “What were you looking for?”
Tristan jogged by her side and sighed. “Charger. I sent him racing at the soldiers, but I guess he never stopped. For all I know, he’s off looking for other soldiers to stomp on.”
Willow grinned as she envisioned the giant horse stomping all over unsuspecting soldiers. “If that’s the case, I wish him all the success in the world.”
A New Start
As soon as Willow pushed her head through the woven undergrowth, the sound of an infant’s cries echoed from the south. The direction of the Dominion’s concrete barrier.
Tristan grimaced as he crawled out of the werebit den. “My skin feels like it’s on fire. I’m not sure what’s wrong with me.”
Willow immediately knew what the problem was and a moment of guilt washed over her as it dawned on her that she should have warned him. A half-dozen werebits hopped out of their den and before they raced off, she pointed at Tristan and yelled to the werebits, “Can you please lead Tristan to the lake? I’ll be there in a moment.”
She glanced at Tristan, whose face already had a red splotchy rash all over it. “Follow the werebits and bathe in the lake that they bring you to. It’ll take care of everything, trust me.”
The werebits raced to the northwest and Tristan bolted after them, expertly weaving through the dense forest.
Willow ran toward the crying sounds of the baby, Raz and Growl loping right behind her.
As soon as she broke through the edge of the forest, the seemingly endless concrete barrier loomed before her. Craning her neck up to the top of the barrier, nearly one-hundred feet above, she saw hints of soldiers marching. For the briefest moment, her mind recalled images of her life in the Academy. Willow had seen herself as possibly being one of those soldiers, Keeping the lands south of the barrier safe from those who inhabited the Forbidding. And in some cases, taking patrols into the Forbidding to eliminate some perceived threat.
A shiver raced up her spine as she focused on the ground level of the barrier. She was seeing the barrier not as something to keep the Forbidding from the Dominion’s people, but quite the opposite. Keeping the Dominion from the Forbidding. She spit toward the concrete monstrosity and snarled, “Stay where you are. We don’t need you.”
Not more than fifty-feet away a woman began screaming as she pointed at Willow.
Willow saw that the woman’s face was red and blistered from radiation. She was carrying a squalling infant. A half-dozen men took their place in front of her, all weaponless and sick from radiation.
Willow jogged toward the group and they backed away, fear etched across their faces. Willow yelled, “I’m here to help you!”
Then it dawned on her that standing next to Willow was a wildling and a large wolf. She put her hand on Raz’s shoulder and rubbed the top of Growl’s head. “Neither of them will hurt any of you, but I can’t say that much of any others who’ll find you.” Willow turned and urged, “Follow me now, or you’ll be dead within hours.”
The throbbing in her head told her where the lake was. Willow could close her eyes and walk to it if she had to. Even though she wanted to save these people, she needed to know how Tristan was doing. She began walking toward the lake, hoping that the other exiles would follow.
Hearing the men argue, Willow couldn’t stay any longer and she began jogging toward the lake.
The woman’s terrified
cry rang out, and Willow glanced back just as a half-dozen wildlings raced out of the forest toward the helpless group.
The scream of the crying baby tore at Willow, and without hesitation, she unslung her bow, nocked an arrow, and let it fly. Images flooded Willow’s mind of Rubyrend screaming down from the clouds, fire blazing forth as she scorched her enemies. Yet it was the images of a dead child that drove Willow forward. Before the first arrow landed, Willow aimed and let a second one fly.
Growl launched himself toward the pack of wildlings.
Willow shot a third arrow, but before she could send a fourth, the wildlings spun away and scrambled back to the woods.
The woman, baby held tightly, raced toward Willow, with the other men following close behind. “Please wait for us,” she cried.
Willow waited for the desperate people to get closer, turned and jogged toward the lake.
As Willow approached the lake, the air tingled with an energy that seemed vaguely familiar. She breathed deeply and her senses picked up everything around her. The distant sound of frogs chirping and the ripple of the water as a fish grabbed an unsuspecting fly that had landed on the lake’s surface. The cattails that grew along the edge of the lake swayed as a breeze blew in from the north.
The shimmering white glow that hovered over the lake faded as Tristan crawled out of its waters. Willow raced to his side, the werebits scattering to make way for her.
She grabbed his arm and gasped as Tristan looked up at her with a look of astonishment.
His dark hair had faded, turning a pale blonde like her own. His ruddy skin had taken on a pale hue, and as she brushed away the hair that stuck wetly to his cheeks, she noticed that his ears had also lengthened slightly, developing points at their top. He blinked the water out of his eyes and asked, “How?” His chin quivered with emotion. “I feel so different.” With a look of awe, Tristan stared across the lake. “The world seems brighter, the sounds are so different ... it’s as if I’ve been looking at the world submerged underwater, and now I’ve suddenly surfaced.”
She turned at the plodding sound of exhausted people stumbling toward her. Their ragged breaths and groans of pain reminded her of the torture that she’d endured from the radiation poisoning. The difficulty breathing, the searing pain from the broken skin, especially when walking or running on raw bleeding feet. She pointed to the water, “Go quickly into the lake, bathe in its waters and it will help fight the Forbidding’s poison.”
The small group stumbled forward, some helping others while the mother lingered behind. She had a devastated expression on her face.
Willow rushed to her and noticed the baby had stopped screaming. Its limp body cradled in the woman’s arms. “Hurry into the water!”
The woman looked up with bloodshot eyes. A stunned expression that seemed to say, “I’m done.”
Grabbing at the woman’s right arm, Willow dragged her toward the lake. Tristan suddenly appeared on the woman’s left and between them, they half-lifted, half-dragged the woman and her child toward the water’s edge.
As the water lapped at the woman’s feet, she seemed to wake with a gasp, eyes widening with shock.
A white mist bubbled up from where her skin touched the lake. Fingerlike tendrils of white smoke drifted up the woman’s legs and Willow glanced at the others. It was as if a fog was forming around each of the bathers as they splashed.
Feeling a strange vibration at the base of her neck, Willow turned to her right and noticed that the entire lake had begun to glow with a strange opal mist.
The shimmering above the surface reminded Willow of the energy that had surrounded Ramai’s hands when he’d created the barrier in the dead city.
Slowly, the mist began to coalesce. It took on a distinct shape.
As it solidified, it began to glow even brighter. Rising up out of the water was a bearded man.
Willow’s heart thudded loudly and a vibration hummed in the air as the glow around the man intensified. It rivaled the brightness of the sun, yet when Willow glanced at everyone in the lake, nobody else was even looking at the bearded man.
Was it even a man? No. Ramai had mentioned that the natives of this land had believed that the spirits of their ancestors inhabited this lake. The power emanating from the spirit’s eyes sent a warm pulse of energy into the people bathing in its waters.
The woman who only moments before had seemed resigned to death was frantically bathing her listless infant. The sizzling energy pouring off of the spirit leaped into all of the injured people, including the infant.
Suddenly, the infant’s eyes flicked open, and Willow watched as the peeling skin melted off of its face. The redness of the child’s skin began to drain away, bleaching itself as it absorbed the power of the spirit in the lake.
Willow’s breath came in ragged gasps, not because she was injured. She finally began to understand. The vibrations she felt both in the air and in the water were a message. Something she’d heard when she nearly died, and only now, as the words repeated themselves, did she recognize their meaning.
“Wake children of the People.”
“Long enough have you suffered for the mistakes of past generations. It is time.”
“Time for the People to rise once again in a common cause. The old ways will be rekindled. Your new ways will be a guiding light in the darkness for those who’ve lost their way.”
Gather your strength. For it shall be needed in the dark times ahead.”
With a near-blinding flash of white light, the spirit disappeared, and the injured people all looked at themselves with shock, seeing their flesh restored, and turned to Willow.
The cooing baby grabbed at its mother’s blonde hair as the woman smiled, fresh tears welling up in her eyes as she looked up and stared at Willow with awe. “How ... how can I ever thank you enough for what you’ve done for me, for my baby?” The woman looked at the men gathering about her. All of them transformed, healthy and looking quite different from moments before. “It’s a miracle! We all owe you our lives.”
One man fell to his knees and clasped his hands together. “I’m sorry to beg this of you. I’m just a lowly merchant from New Memphis. I have no business asking for anything more, but my wife ... my children ... they too were being put into shackles and sent to the Forbidding. They may have already arrived—”
Tristan stepped forward. “I’ll run toward the barrier, if someone can point me in the direction. I can search for any stragglers and bring them here.” He drew his dagger from under his tunic.
Willow placed her hand on his shoulder. “We’ll go together.”
“Raz will watch your back, pretty flower.” Raz nodded grimly as Growl began pacing, waiting for them at the edge of the forest.
Willow gazed at the few elves and a strange feeling came over her, one she’d never felt before in the Dominion-controlled lands, nor even with her own family. She stared at the other elves, all of whom had suffered through some of the same things she’d suffered through.
She felt a kindred spirit with them, both in a figurative and literal sense. They may not have been linked by blood, but they were all reborn into a common family.
Willow felt a true sense of community and trust that had never existed before. Her gaze drifted back to the pleading elf and the other helpless newcomers, still dealing with the shock of exile and their near-deaths.
Willow turned to Growl and motioned for him. “Stay here and watch over these people. Your new pack-mates need protection while we gather the others.”
Memories flashed in her mind of the wildling who’d strayed into the protective domain of the lake. How it had literally been torn asunder by the touch of the lake’s water, as if it its healing waters were acid. With a wave of her hand, she gained the people's attention and yelled, “Stay at the lake. If for any reason you’re attacked, enter the waters.” Instinctively, Willow knew that the spirit of the lake would keep them safe. “The wildlings can’t follow you into the water.”
/> As Willow turned from the newly transformed elves, she knew what she needed to do. Willow raced toward the concrete barrier, Raz and Tristan running on her heels.
A Rescue
While most of the exiles kept their distance from Raz and stared warily at him, a crowd of over fifty frightened refugees from New Memphis gathered around Willow and Tristan. Their ages ranged from barely old enough to walk to elderly, and all of them were suffering both from the first symptoms of radiation sickness as well as the shock of having been exiled.
Willow shook her head at the anguished red faces as they cried and lamented what had just been done to them.
“Our homes are burnt to the ground....”
“... have you seen Billy McIntyre?”
“It’ll be known as the New Memphis massacre.”
“Daddy got killed by the bad men.”
“We’re all going to die!”
Willow put two fingers to her pursed her lips and let out a loud whistle, gaining everyone’s attention. “Are there any more of you on the way?”
“Aye.” One of the elderly men stepped forward, his stooped posture barely allowing him to raise his head to face her. Some of his beard had already begun to fall out in clumps and the skin on his bald head was bright red. “There were two more wagon trains behind us.” He frowned. The sad expression emphasized the wrinkles around his eyes and one of the blisters on the side of his mouth burst, dripping clear liquid down his cheek. “The rest are likely burnt, or were put to the sword by the governor’s troops.”
“A pox on the governor and all of his kin,” one of the men spit, and others grumbled in agreement.
Willow glanced at Tristan, who wore a grim expression and nodded in agreement.
Tristan turned to Raz. “Would you mind leading these people to the lake?” He skillfully twirled a dagger in his right hand. “I’ll watch Willow’s back as we gather the others.”
Dispocalypse Page 26
