Dark of Winter: A Between the Worlds novel

by Morgan Daimler

  She had no idea how far they had to go, but the thought that her mother might be behind them, following their very obvious trail, helped keep her motivated. She had no intention of going back to her mother’s Holding and even less of being dragged back as a virtual prisoner.

  They hadn’t gone very far when Allie became aware of something in the woods around them. She stopped and Sal stopped with her, “What is it?”

  “I’m not sure,” Allie said, pulling her hood down. “We’re not alone.”

  Sal eyed the woods nervously, hands on the two kitchen daggers he’d taken. “What is it?”

  “I don’t know,” Allie said, trying to sort out what she was picking up. “I’m an empath I’m not clairvoyant. I think…I think there are several people out there. But I don’t know exactly what or who. They feel uneasy but not threatening.”

  “Any ideas on what that could mean?” Sal asked, still clutching the hilts of the daggers. “I’ve never gone wandering through the Wilds, off the roads, before.”

  “I can’t be sure,” Allie said. “But whoever they are, they feel, I don’t know, sentient? Like humans or elves or lesser Fey would. Not like animals, not that simple.”

  “Native Fey maybe?” Sal said, looking even more tense.

  Allie tilted her head to the side, thinking, “Could be. I’m not sure what the local native Fey are, and I’ve never met any. But people say they live here in the Wildlands, so that would make sense.”

  “What should we do?” Sal said, looking to Allie as if she had any more experience with this than he did.

  “I think all we can do is keep going forward,” she said, shrugging, then inclining her head in an elven shrug, mixing her body language without thinking. “I don’t feel any hostility from them. And I certainly don’t want to go back the way we came.”

  The two began walking again, trying to ignore the shadows that darted in the trees around them.

  ********************************

  The Elven Guard squad hiked further into the silent woods, unnerved by the obvious signs of something amiss, but unable to do anything but push forward. Jess wished they had the time to stop and go around whatever this was, but he worried that such a delay would put Allie at greater risk. With a growing sense of dread he kept moving his people forward, braced for an impending attack.

  As the sun fully broke the trees and lit up the world around them, warming the air slightly, they cleared the tree line reaching a narrow shore, bordering a small river. Jess looked across the half-frozen surface, estimating that it was at least 30 feet across, too far to jump. He started to turn to ask Bleidd if the mage had any way to create a magical bridge, when the surface of the water exploded.

  Brynneth yelled on his left, but he could not hear what was said, busy dodging an enormous dark green scaled coil surging towards him. He threw himself down, rolling in the snow, but could not fully escape the creature; the section of body rolled over his legs, twisting his right knee painfully, the scales ripping through his clothing and into his flesh. He moved quickly to get back up, ignoring the pain shooting through his leg and pulling his sword.

  He found himself facing a wall of writhing scales and flying snow and water. As fast as he could he stabbed forward, sinking his blade between scales and drawing a rush of thick yellow blood. With a shriek that shook the trees the creature’s head rose from the middle of the shifting mass, something like a blend of giant fish and snake, its mouth a cavern of fangs. Its pale eyes fixed on Jess and it pulled back to strike but before it could lunge forward a blast of blue-white fire struck it, deflecting off its scales but burning into its softer tissue; Jess watched as the thing’s gills and eyes melted under the onslaught. It let out another terrible shriek, then threw itself forcefully beneath the water’s surface, sending up a wave that broke high on the shore.

  He staggered back, trying to brace himself for another attack but none came. As the surface of the river slowly stilled he limped heavily over to the closest person, Tashlin, who was standing with his sword out. “Are you injured?”

  “It threw me back when it first appeared,” the younger elf said, his words slurring. “I struck my head on something. But otherwise I am unhurt.”

  Jess grimaced but moved on, stepping past Tashlin, “Bliedd? Brynneth?”

  “Here,” Bleidd called from the left, obscured by some underbrush. “Brynneth is injured.”

  Jess and Tashlin both followed Bleidd’s voice, moving aside broken branches until they found the other two elves. Bleidd was crouched down next to Brynneth, who lay halfway in a small blueberry bush. His right shoulder was impaled on one of the larger branches, the wood jutting bloody through his torn uniform shirt. Jess took a deep breath, struggling for calm at the sight of his friend’s injury, “Is he alive?”

  “Yes,” Bleidd said, leaning over and running his hands over the prone elf’s body searching for other injuries. “Unconscious, but still breathing. There’s another wound in his back, but it’s not as severe. I think luck was with him, overall, there’s no sign that any major organs were hit, only muscle and bone.”

  “And you?” Jess asked, unable to completely conceal his worry.

  “Some cuts, flesh wounds, nothing major,” Bleidd said. He finally turned to look at Jess, and the other elf hissed slightly in concern; the whole left side of his face was obscured by blood. “And you? Tashlin?”

  “I hit my head,” Tashlin said, grimacing. “Is it dead?”

  “No,” Bleidd said, “But I think I hurt it badly, and it will take a while to recover. It’s amazing we all survived something like that.”

  Jess took an uneven step forward and Bleidd frowned, “Commander you need to get that leg bound before you lose more blood. Tashlin help me get Brynneth moved.”

  Then privately, “Jess please you’re bleeding badly, let me see to Brynneth but get that leg taken care of before you pass out.”

  Jess stopped short, wanting to argue, then nodded instead, “Yes, you do what you can for him. Then we will need to pull back and make camp at a safe distance.”

  The other two elves nodded, getting to work freeing the downed Guard while Jess stepped back and assessed his own injury. Pulling aside the shredded remains of his pant leg it was clear that Bleidd was right to be concerned. The edges of the creature’s scales had acted like blades, slicing deeply into his leg wherever they touched him, leaving him with a dozen deep lacerations from mid-thigh to ankle. He was bleeding profusely. He limped to the closest thing he could find to sit on, a fallen tree trunk that the forest was working to reclaim, and balanced on his good leg. Reaching into one of the many pockets in his pants he pulled out a ceramic vial. The top twisted off and he pulled it out along with a short attached wand. He shook the bottle and the contents gave off a strongly antiseptic smell. Jess dipped the wand back into the bottle, removing it this time coated with a thick amber colored fluid. Leaning forward he ran the edge of the wand across the highest cut, leaving behind a heavy coat of the fluid over the bleeding wound. He winced at the sharp pain that shot through his leg but the healing tincture did its work and the bleeding stopped, the flesh instantly beginning to knit together. He repeated the process on each slash, and by the time he had reached the lowest cut the first one was nothing but a pale line. By tomorrow it would be gone. Unfortunately while it could stop bleeding and close the wounds it did nothing to heal the torn muscles or ligaments and each step was still a painful struggle. Without the aid of a healer like Brynneth it would take days for the soft tissue to heal on its own; until then Jess knew he had no choice but to deal with the pain.

  That done he stood back up, swaying slightly as the blood loss made him dizzy. He walked carefully over to the other three, Bleidd and Tashlin having successfully gotten Brynneth off the branch and onto flat ground. The elven healer was conscious, his left hand reaching up and carefully feeling around the wound in his opposite shoulder. Jess pulled another dose of the healing tincture, and stepped towards Belidd, “Hold
still a moment,”

  A few quick passes and he had closed the gashes in the other elf’s head. He knelt down painfully next to Brynneth then, his leg complaining at the movement. Bryn met his eyes, “I’m afraid I need more than that bottle.”

  “How bad is it?” Jess asked, his eyes nevertheless searching his friend’s body for any place that the tincture might prove useful.

  “Don’t fear for my life Jessilaen, its nothing as dire as that. I can heal most of it myself, but it will take time. And I’m afraid I will be almost useless to you while I heal” Brynneth said, grimacing.

  “You need to rest and go into a trance to do this, yes?”

  “Yes, ideally,” Brynneth said.

  “We cannot linger here in case that creature returns, is it safe to move you?”

  “I can walk a short distance with help,” Brynneth said.

  “I was thinking of that cliff face we passed a mile back, is that too far?” Jess asked anxiously. “There were caves there. It would be dry and defensible.”

  “I can manage,” Brynneth said. “And that would be a wise choice. From what I know the Pesht usually stay near water, I think that far from the river we’d be safe.”

  “A Pesht really?” Tashlin said, touching the back of his head gingerly. “I didn’t think there were any left.”

  “Nor did I,” Brynneth said, closing his eyes. “I haven’t seen one in a thousand years. But if that wasn’t one then I do not know what it was.”

  “We all need to rest and heal,” Jess said. “My leg is injured, and Tashlin has a concussion. We need to regroup somewhere safer. I can alert Zarethyn to the situation and we can decide from there how to proceed. For now, let us get you stabilized Brynneth and then move at the best speed we can manage to the cliffs and hope we can find a suitable cave.”

  “I am…fairly tired at this point,” Bleidd said, obviously not wanting to admit how much the fight with the creature had taken out of him. “But if we can find a cave I should be able to manage the basic spells to ward the space and keep us warm.”

  As they all got to work Jess and Bleidd exchanged a worried look. “Do you think it was a Pesht?” Jess asked silently.

  “I don’t know,” Bleidd answered, using a piece of cloth to make a bandage for Brynneth’s shoulder. It was bleeding sluggishly where the branch had gone through it, and from the look Jess guessed the shoulder and collarbone were broken. “I have never seen one before. It could have been, it certainly fits the stories of them.”

  “I will have to tell Zarethyn and we will need to see about getting a detachment of the Queen’s Guard out here to kill it,” Jess said, agitated.

  “One problem at a time Commander,” Bleidd said, trying to calm the other elf. “We need to get ourselves out of here alive first, and to a safe – or at least safer location. Give Brynneth time to heal. And warn Allie not to keep heading in this direction.”

  Jess made a face, but he did settle down. He focused outward, reaching blindly towards his wife, “Allie?”

  After what seemed to him an impossibly long time she answered, “What is it? What’s wrong?”

  “How do you know something is wrong?” Bleidd asked, taking the bottle from Jess and rolling Brynneth to his good side to use the healing tincture on his back.

  “Because you both feel upset and…hurt? Are you hurt?” Now she sounded really worried. “What’s going on?”

  “We ran into one of the many dangers of the Wildlands,” Jess replied. “We are both slightly injured but nothing you need worry about. Tashlin was also hurt and Brynneth is seriously injured. We have to pull back and find somewhere to camp where he can heal himself.”

  “Damn,” she thought back, and Jess could feel her pulling away slightly. “What about Mariniessa?”

  “She is not with us,” Jess said, keeping his eyes off of Bleidd just to be certain Allie wouldn’t glimpse him in uniform. “Bleidd is here and we didn’t need two mages.”

  He could feel the warning look Bleidd gave him, and ignored it. But Allie was too distracted to press the issue, “How bad is Brynneth?”

  “It won’t accomplish anything for you to worry about him my heart,” Jess said, even as he and Bleidd helped the healer struggle to his feet. The elves were silent, keeping an eye on the water as they began to move back the way they’d come. The forest was still unnaturally quiet around them. Jess kept talking to Allie as they walked, knowing it was dangerous to divide his attention. “He says he can heal himself if we can get him somewhere he can go into a trance to focus his energy.”

  “Allie,” Bleidd cut in. “The creature that attacked us, we think is a Pesht. It’s a type of river Fey, animalistic, something like a huge cross between a snake and a fish. It has armored scales and is impervious to most injuries. I managed to hurt it with a fire spell, but this entire area should be avoided. We were lucky to escape without any casualties.”

  “I can’t exactly turn around.”

  “You can’t keep coming straight to us either,” he said. “If you reach this river you won’t stand a chance against this thing. If you could stop heading towards us and find a road instead-“

  “How?” she cut in. “I don’t know where I am and neither does...the person with me. We’re following my sense of where you are. Otherwise we have no idea where we are, except roughly south west of where we started and I am not going back that way. How would we find a road not knowing where any roads are out here?”

  “If you go west you should hit the border,” Jess said, thinking quickly. “You can follow that down towards us, and it’s safer along the edges where magic is slightly weaker.”

  “I don’t know,” Allie thought back. “We don’t know how far in we are now either, and we don’t know what other dangers there are out here.”

  “This danger is certain,” Bleidd gritted out, obviously upset that she was arguing with them.

  “Have you seen any sign of anything concerning?” Jess asked.

  “Not so far, although we are being followed by what we think are some of the native Fey.”

  “The Makiawisug?” Jess said relaxing slightly.

  “Is that what they’re called? I couldn’t remember,” Allie said. “We can’t get a clear look at them, they keep behind the trees, but from the few glimpses I’ve gotten they seem about 3 or 4 feet tall, slim, I’d think they were children out playing in the woods if I didn’t know any better. They don’t seem hostile at all, but we’re definitely getting their attention.”

  “I’m glad, if they are around you now I don’t believe anything else truly dangerous is present,” Jess said, leaving Bleidd to help Brynneth by himself and going up to walk with Tashlin who was stumbling slightly. At least we don’t have to break a path going in this direction he thought to himself before speaking to Allie again. “We had them following us yesterday, but they left today, I believe as we entered the Pesht’s territory.”

  “Ah, okay,” Allie thought back. “So having them around is a good thing. Noted. You guys go find somewhere safe to camp and make sure everyone’s really alright. Don’t worry about me. I’ll figure something out.”

  “Allie,” Bleidd said, clearly not trusting her idea of what constituted ‘figuring something out’.

  “Trust me, I’ve gotten this far, haven’t I?” she said. “And I’ll avoid rivers.”

  She closed off the communication before either of them could respond, leaving Jess shaking his head slightly. Allie was stubborn and determined, but she was also totally inexperienced outside human settlements and had no combat training. And she’s pregnant Jess thought, worrying as he walked, the muscles and tendons in his injured leg protesting each step. And now she’s out on her own – Dark Court companion notwithstanding – in the Wildlands in the winter. I almost think she was better off before, captive. At least she was warm and safe.

  Tashlin swayed again, his hand going to his head, and Jess looked anxiously past him, relieved to see the dark bulk of the cliff face in sight. “Not
much further,” he said loud enough for all of them to hear. “If memory serves the caves should be another few hundred feet on, where the ground starts to rise.”

  Spurred by the closeness of potential shelter the battered group managed the last of the distance, struggling up the small hill. A variety of caves dotted the cliff face but the third one they examined was suitable; large enough, dry, and empty. Brynneth was pale and shaking by the time Bleidd got him into the space, as much carrying the other elf as walking with him, but they were both still on their feet and Jess was grateful for that much. He quickly set Brynneth’s pack down and unrolled his blanket, helping Bleidd to ease the injured elf down onto it. Brynneth grimaced but nodded his thanks, immediately closing his eyes and settling into a healing trance. Despite his earlier reassurances Jess was worried for his friend but he could only hope that Brynneth’s skill would be enough to stabilize him until reinforcements could be called.

  Tashlin was leaning against the wall, and Jess spared a moment to more thoroughly check over the other Guard as Bleidd worked to magically set up the small space. His fingers carefully felt along the back of Tashlin’s head, gently probing the swelling there. “You are either very lucky Tashlin, or very hard-headed, I can’t find any fractures. But I am worried that this is more than a concussion.”

  Jess reached into the same pocket he kept the healing tincture in and withdrew a small vial. It was to be used for dire emergencies only, but with their healer out of commission and unable to tell him whether or not Tashlin had any potentially fatal bleeding in his brain Jess wasn’t willing to risk not giving it to him. He held it out to the other elf.

  Tashlin shook his head, then winced and reached for the wall to steady himself. When he spoke his words blurred together, “Don’t waste that on me. It’s just a concussion. Give it to Brynneth.”