Unbroken Chain: The Darker Road (single books)

by Jaleigh Johnson

  Out in the darkness beyond the camp, Ashok wheeled the nightmare around for another charge. From this vantage, he saw Vlahna and Tuva fighting the other troll with the rest of the human guards. Vlahna guided her horse with her knees and fired an arrow. It burst into purple flame before it struck the other troll in the eye. She dismounted and, with the spiked chain still wrapped around her arm, followed up the arrow shot with a vicious swipe to the creature’s back.

  One after another, her attacks weakened the troll, but despite these successes, Ashok sensed something was off in her body language. She hacked at the thing in desperation and placed her body in front of Tuva whenever possible. Finally, the big warrior pushed her roughly aside and charged in to strike his own blow against the troll. When he did, Ashok saw the cause of Vlahna’s desperation.

  Tuva had no visible wound, but he limped and swung his weapon stiffly, half-frozen from the troll’s aura. Not only did he present an appealingly large target, but he also stood too close to the monster to escape a blow in his wounded state. Vlahna tried in vain to protect him.

  The creature swung a spiked club wildly and hit Tuva. The blow plucked the shadar-kai off his feet and threw him into one of the fires. He rolled away but stumbled trying to get back up. Ashok saw him vomit blood onto the snow.

  Vlahna screamed in fury and hacked into the troll again. She used the spikes to lever herself up the monster’s back. She climbed and hacked until the troll collapsed to its knees from the pain.

  Ashok spurred the nightmare forward for another charge. The purple fire made his chain painful to hold, but Ashok reveled in the gift. He came at the other troll from behind, snapping the chain up and then straight down. The spikes raked up and down the troll’s back, leaving a line of purple fire. The monster went down and took another fiery arrow to its neck. Its flesh bristled with them, and the fires spread. The warriors converged on the maddened trolls in close combat, hacking and dodging the wild blows from their clubs and claws.

  It was over quickly after that. Even in their maddened state, the trolls couldn’t stand against their superior numbers, and soon there were four immense bonfires burning in the ruins.

  Five, Ashok corrected. Now that the immediate danger was past, the caravan crewmembers turned their attention to the other menace in their midst. The warriors, shadar-kai and human alike, surrounded Ashok and the nightmare, but they kept a safe distance between themselves and the beast’s flaming hooves. For his part, the nightmare stomped the ground and shook his head back and forth in barely checked fury.

  “Don’t come any closer,” Ashok advised the crew. “He’ll snap at you if you do.” The warriors must have sensed a threat in his words, for he heard swords slide from scabbards.

  Skagi, Cree, and Ilvani worked their way through the crowd. On the ground, Vlahna and Kaibeth helped Tuva, who looked badly wounded.

  “Where is a cleric?” Ashok said. He ignored the threat from the crowd. “Tuva needs healing.”

  “ ‘Tuva’ … needs … an explanation.” The warrior leaned on the two women for support. Blood coated his lips and chin. “What have you brought us, Ashok?”

  “You know what he is,” Ashok said. “I’ll wager you’ve brought them in from the Shadowfell plain yourself on caravan runs.”

  “But to hide it among us all this time,” one of the human guards said, “you must be mad.”

  “The beast has been under an enchantment until now,” Ashok said. “The magic keeps its essence contained. By the will of Neimal, the Sworn of the Wall, its powers couldn’t have harmed you.”

  “Why weren’t we told?” Vlahna demanded. “If Neimal permitted this, there must have been a reason.”

  Ashok started to speak and was shocked to hear Ilvani’s voice echo over the crowd.

  “For your protection,” the witch said. She glanced at the troll pyres. “The monsters were drawn here.” She dropped her voice. “More will come.”

  Uneasy murmurs drifted through the crowd. “More trolls?” Tatigan asked, stepping as close as he dared to the nightmare so he could address Ashok.

  “Maybe-we can’t be sure,” Ashok said. “Some force is driving the creatures of the Shadowfell mad, sending them into killing rages, just like what we witnessed that day on the plain,” he said, looking at Tuva and Vlahna. “We thought the madness didn’t extend to the creatures of this world-”

  “You were wrong,” Vlahna said flatly. “You should have warned us.”

  “I know,” Ashok said, “but we didn’t think it would be necessary. By the strength of its will, the nightmare has been able to shake off the affliction, so I brought it along in secret to protect the caravan. We intend to seek the counsel of the witches in Rashemen to find out why all this is happening.”

  He met Skagi’s and Cree’s gazes in the crowd. He did not mention the other reason they’d kept silent, the part Ilvani’s dreams played in triggering the killing sprees. If they knew, there was every possibility Vertan would have a dagger at the witch’s throat again.

  And Ashok would have to kill him.

  “So in the meantime, we’re stuck out here in the middle of winter with our numbers diminished and half our wagons and horses either dead or damaged,” Tatigan said. “Tomorrow we start up into the mountains, so the worst is yet to come.”

  “At least we’ll be traveling light,” Kaibeth murmured. Tuva shot her a quelling glance, but she ignored him. “The witch is right,” she said. “When the monsters come, better we have the protection of bigger monsters.”

  “And what a monster we have,” Daruk, standing closer than all the others in the crowd, remarked. He lifted his hand in the air as if tasting the nightmare’s aura. “This is more than I could have hoped for. There’s a song in this, make no mistake.”

  The guards scoffed, but they had relaxed their grip on their weapons. The nightmare snuffed out a breath and danced in place, but Ashok didn’t think the stallion would lash out.

  “You’ll have to keep it well away from the other beasts,” Vlahna told him. “It’ll slow our pace to nothing if the horses have to labor under the strain of that thing’s presence.”

  “Done,” Ashok said. He looked at Tuva, who was sweating, his body trembling with the effort of standing upright, even with Vlahna and Kaibeth’s assistance. “You need a cleric,” he repeated.

  Tuva grinned, exposing bloodstained teeth. “The clerics are dead,” he said. “We’ll all have to settle for bandages and bed rest from here until we get to Rashemen.”

  “We’ll never make it,” said one of the older drovers. He was a tall, white-bearded, gangly human with a crooked nose. “Not through the mountains, not if we have to endure another rush attack like this one.”

  Tatigan looked at the old drover. “You’ve been on enough runs to know, Baelthis. What say you to that?” he asked Tuva.

  “I still say we were running too heavy to begin with,” Kaibeth broke in. “We scrape off all the excess-wagons, dead horses, extra gear-keep the bare essentials, and we’ll glide through the mountains smoother than we would have if we were carrying all that fat you humans thought you couldn’t live without.”

  The drovers were indignant, and Tuva snarled, “You keep those thoughts to yourself, Bl-” He caught himself, but Kaibeth stiffened, and new tension suffused the camp as her warriors automatically took a step closer to their leader. Ashok thought Kaibeth would throw off Tuva’s arm, but she kept her anger in check.

  “No, she’s right, Tuva,” Vlahna spoke up, which silenced them all. “The leaner we are, the better chance we have of getting through the mountains with minimal losses. Tatigan, I know your crew doesn’t want to hear it, but you’re all too much concerned with comfort. If we’re going to do this right, we have to do it our way.”

  “So we’re a shadar-kai caravan now, are we?” Daruk said. He scratched at his chin. “Interesting how the power balance subtly shifts.”

  Disgruntled murmurs of agreement ran through the crowd, especially among the drovers.
Ashok silently cursed the bard. He seemed to enjoy nothing more than spreading dissent, even if it ended up getting them all killed.

  The Martucks worked their way to the front of the crowd to stand beside Tatigan. The woman kept close by the boy, Les. They all carried torches.

  “What say you in all this, Martuck?” Tatigan said. “You have an equal stake in this to lose.” He addressed the family as a whole. It struck Ashok as odd. He expected it to mean they’d hear three different voices and opinions, which would be no more helpful than Daruk, but the man and woman exchanged a glance, and the woman nodded.

  “We’re willing to go on with you,” the man said. “We’ve come too far to turn back without great loss. And we’re willing to trim down our gear if that’s what it takes.”

  Tatigan nodded. “What says Thorm, then?” he asked. He scanned the crowd to try to pick out the dwarf.

  “Thorm is gone,” Ashok spoke up.

  “Dead?” Tatigan asked.

  “Not last I saw him,” Ashok said. “More likely he’s fled to join the brigands.”

  “He’s the traitor?” Tatigan’s composure, thus far carefully maintained, broke at last. He cursed violently and hurled the torch in his hands to the ground. The brand guttered and died in the snow. The eyes of the crowd were drawn to the hissing and the smoke.

  “He fooled us all,” the Martuck woman said. “We all agreed he’d be our third partner, Tatigan. We trusted him too.”

  “I know it, Leesal, but he was my choice. I brought him to you.” Tatigan rubbed his eyes in weariness and looked up at Ashok. “Brigands too,” he said. “What else could we be facing?”

  “Winter wolves,” Cree said. “We’re in their territory now. Probably only the trolls’ presence has scared them off up to now. They’ll be coming at us. Before they might have been content to pick off stragglers, but if they’re afflicted by the madness, there’s no telling what they’ll do.”

  “We have to assume they’ll attack and fight until they’re all dead,” Tuva said, “just like the others.”

  “Brigands, wolves, trolls-like I told you,” Baelthis, the old drover, said, “we can’t make it.”

  “We can if we plan it right,” Ashok said. “We have no clerics, but we have capable warriors, magic”-he pointed at Ilvani-“and a monster, as Kaibeth said. But our best advantage is that we know what we’re facing.”

  “What about the mountains?” Baelthis said. “There are dangers enough up there to kill us all without the monsters’ help. Crevasses to bury whole wagons, avalanches, storms-”

  “And the spirits,” Ilvani said. “The spirits of Rashemen claim that land. We walk in their footsteps.”

  “The monsters and the brigands will face those same dangers if they follow us,” Vlahna said.

  “Which means we can use them,” Tuva said. A fit of violent coughing overtook him then, and he spat more blood on the snow. Kaibeth and Vlahna exchanged grim looks.

  Skagi came forward and spread his cloak on a clear patch near the ruins of a stone hut. “Put him down here. He needs to take the weight off his feet so he can breathe.”

  “I’m fine,” Tuva barked. “Gods, I haven’t been this clearheaded in a tenday.” But he allowed the women to lower him to the makeshift bed.

  “We’ll need that clearheadedness to make a plan of attack,” Vlahna said. “Drovers, you’ll come with me to collect the gear and get the wagons in order. Guards, collect the horses. You know what to do with the injured beasts.” She looked at Kaibeth. “Will you help me?”

  Kaibeth nodded. She instructed her sellswords to help with the wounded. Skagi, Cree, and Ilvani went with them.

  The crowd slowly dispersed. Each had their task to focus on, so that fear would not overtake them. Tatigan motioned to Ashok. Ashok got down off the nightmare’s back and went to where he, Daruk, and the Martucks stood near Tuva’s pallet. Mareyn shadowed the boy and kept watch. She still clutched her ribs from where she’d hit the stones, but she walked steadily and looked clear-eyed. They all looked uneasy at seeing the nightmare so close among them. The stallion’s aura of fear and evil was impossible to ignore, but no one remarked on it so long as the beast kept silent.

  “Baelthis isn’t a coward,” Tatigan said. “If he says our chances are bad, he means it. You three need to devise a strategy to get us through the mountains.” He pointed at Ashok, Tuva, and Daruk. Ashok was surprised to find the bard included in the group.

  The bard caught Ashok’s look and smiled. “Don’t worry, fire bringer. I may not be shadar-kai, but I know how to compose a play. You all get to be my actors.”

  “I could make a jest about this turning from a farce to a tragedy,” Mareyn said dryly, “but I won’t.”

  Tatigan and the Martucks chuckled, which eased a bit of the tension.

  “Let’s get to work, then,” Tuva said. “However the story ends, it begins at first light.”

  They reached the foothills of the Sunrise Mountains by midday. The snow held off for most of the morning, though the clouds were heavy and ominous the whole way. When they reached the last stone marker before the mountain pass, thick flakes began to fall, but the hills gave them a respite from the wind. The going was slow enough, but not impossible.

  Ashok trailed behind the caravan, keeping only Skagi and Cree in sight ahead of him. The brothers rode their horses back as close as they dared every hour or so to check on him. They worried he would lose sight of the caravan and risk fading in the blank whiteness, but Ashok’s senses were alert.

  The deeper they forged into the mountains, the higher the rock walls. There were many places for an ambush, many cracks and crevices for enemies to hide. They were walking into the mouth of the beast, and all of them knew it. Ashok was ready.

  Cree rode back to him an hour later. “See anything?” he asked.

  Ashok shook his head. “It will come soon,” he said.

  “I feel it too,” Cree said. “Skagi’s about to jump out of his skin.”

  “And Ilvani?”

  Cree’s brow furrowed. Ashok felt a surge of trepidation.

  “She doesn’t look well,” Cree said. “She tried to sleep earlier, but she’s having dreams, bad ones. I asked her about them, but she’s not making sense. Skagi thinks it might be the nightmare tormenting her-revenge for what happened out on the plain. What do you think?”

  “It’s the spirits,” Ashok said. “Whatever got into her head before is back again, and it’s drawing in all the monsters.” He clenched his hands into fists. “We should have turned away from Rashemen before we got too deep in the spirit land. She was fine when it was only this world she had to worry about.”

  Cree listened, but Ashok could tell the warrior didn’t fully understand. Neither did Ashok. He wasn’t convinced the witches would understand Ilvani’s affliction, either, or choose to help someone who wasn’t one of their own people, but now it was their only choice.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  "Agny has arrived,”Reina said.

  “I know.” Standing with her back to the healer, Sree gazed across the lake. She felt the presence of the other hathran as she felt the movement of the water. She buried her face in her cloak hood for a breath to warm her skin.

  “Shall I fetch Elina?” the ethran asked.

  “Yes, but don’t tell her anything. I don’t want to frighten her.”

  When Sree turned, she saw Agny dismount at the inn. A stable boy immediately came out, bowed to the hathran, and took charge of her horse. The woman patted his shoulder.

  Agny was on the grayer side of fifty winters, with leathery hands and a mask carved with symbols of water: hands cupping it, rain falling from the sky, a water spirit crouching by her left eye. She wore a gray and red wool dress, frayed and muddied around the edges from travel. The hathran walked stiff-jointed and carried a gnarled wood staff whose power Sree could feel even from this distance.

  “Well met, Sister.” Sree held out her hands, and Agny clasped them tightly. Her eyes behind th
e mask were unreadable, but Sree sensed affection in the old woman’s grip.

  “You look as if you’ve seen dark days,” Agny said. Her voice rang out clipped and strong. Age and toil had not dulled her mind, not even a bit.

  “You feel it, don’t you?” Sree said. “The telthors are shaking the earth.”

  “I feel the fear in the villagers, as well. That boy was drowning in it. You must not let this continue,” Agny chided. “Come.” She folded Sree’s arm through her own, and together they walked beside the lake. “If the spirits are displeased, we must act to set right whatever wrong called forth their ire. It’s the only way you will find peace in Tinnir again.”

  “What of the child?” Sree asked. “She is innocent in all this, yet the disturbances seem to happen whenever she is near. What if the spirits hurt her?”

  “They will not. I’m sure of that. She is the vessel,” Agny said. “The spirits are angry that Yaraella took her own life. They punish us, they remind us, by surrounding her child with violence.”

  “They should punish me,” Sree said. “I failed Yaraella by not teaching her properly. If I had done my duty, she would have embraced the path of the wychlaran instead of shunning her talents. She would have become a powerful hathran, a link to the spirits-”

  “Do not torment yourself with things that can never be,” Agny said. “You honor Yaraella’s memory by protecting her child. We must look to the child now to guide us. Tell me, where is she now?”

  “Reina is bringing her here,” Sree said. “She is calmest by the lake.”

  Agny’s sharp eyes bored into Sree. “Now I hear the fear in your voice, Sister. What are you not telling me? What is the child like when she is not calm?”

  Sree dropped her gaze. “Yesterday at dawn I caught her with a knife. She’d cut herself up and down her arms. I got to her before she did irreparable harm, but it could have been much worse. When I asked her why she’d done it …”