Unbroken Chain: The Darker Road (single books)

by Jaleigh Johnson

  “Yes?” Agny prompted. “Did the spirits speak to her? I cannot believe they would have told her to do this to herself-”

  “No,” Sree said. “No, it wasn’t the spirits, Elina said. She said it was the shadow people.”

  “Shadow people?” Agny said. “But if she wasn’t speaking of spirits, what manner of creature did she see?” Agny stiffened, as if she’d felt a shift in the wind. She turned. “Never mind. I’ll ask her myself.”

  Reina walked toward them. She led Elina by the hand. The child stepped clumsily, trying to put her own small feet in the footprints left in the snow by Sree and Agny. Sree hung back as Agny approached the child and went down on her knees in the snow. She laid her staff on the ground beside her and held out her arms to the child, just as she’d done to Sree.

  Elina froze with one foot held in the air. She stumbled, and only Reina’s hands kept her from falling. When the ethran tried to nudge her forward, the child clung to her skirt and hid her face from Agny.

  “Don’t be afraid, Elina,” the hathran said. Her voice was gentle. “I was a friend to your mother. I knew her when she was your age.” She reached inside the pocket of her skirt and pulled out a fist-sized wooden box with blue waves painted on the outside. “She made this box for me.”

  Hearing the word “box,” Elina turned her face to look. Her hair hung down in her eyes, but she followed Agny’s movements as the hathran lifted the box lid to reveal a tiny painting of a waterfall that spilled from the lid to the bottom of the box in a cloud of white foam.

  “She painted this for me, so I would always remember the waterfalls I saw on my dajemma. It was the only journey I ever made beyond Rashemen.” She closed the lid and held out the box. “I think your mother would want you to have it. It would make me happy to give it to you.”

  Tentatively-though Sree could see the desire in her eyes-the child took a step away from Reina, then another and another until she was just within reach of the box. She reached up her hand and took it, her fingers barely brushing the hathran’s.

  It was enough. Sree watched Agny’s eyes widen. She wondered what the old woman had sensed from the contact, but she dared not question her in front of the child. Elina took the box and walked up to Sree with her arms outstretched. Sree obligingly picked her up.

  “Elina,” she said, “Agny has come a long way to visit us. She wants to know more about what happened the day you fell asleep behind the woodpile.”

  The child shook her head fiercely, but Agny laid a hand on her arm. “I won’t make you speak of it, little one. All I want is for you and I, and Reina and Sree-the four of us-to join together to think of your mother and the spirits. We will remember her and comfort one another. Will you join me in this, Elina?”

  Elina hesitated and glanced at Sree. Sree nodded encouragement and patted her on the back. The little girl finally nodded and then shyly buried her face in Sree’s neck.

  “My deepest thanks, Elina. You are a brave girl,” Agny said. The hathran looked to Sree, and her expression turned resolute. “Will you take me to Yaraella’s resting place?”

  “I thought it best if we communed here,” Sree said, gesturing to the lake. “I’ve a boat prepared for our use, so that you may be on the water during the joining.”

  Agny looked surprised. “But surely, Sister, the connection will be strongest around Yaraella. That is the place the spirits will gather.”

  “It may,” Sree allowed. She hated to speak of this in front of Elina, but Agny’s sharp eyes looked expectantly to her for an answer. “But we already have a strong center for this joining”-she hoped Agny would take her meaning without her having to frighten Elina by referring to her as a pawn in a ritual-“and to add the sacred ground of Yaraella’s spirit to this. I fear the power might be too much for some of us.”

  “Very well,” Agny said. “I defer to your judgment in this, Sister. Lead on.”

  Sree breathed a silent sigh of relief. Carrying Elina, she led the witches down the lakeshore to a small dock. Moored to one of the pilings was a boat, the bow carved with symbols of mountain peaks and flames. It was an odd grouping, when seen in that light: fire, mountain, water. But just as the symbols also represented hearth and home to Sree, so, too, did the water represent home to Agny. She’d been born on this lake and rocked to her first sleep by the motion of a fisherman’s felucca. No matter how frigid the waters became in the deep winter, Agny would rather swim than walk; she would rather be on a boat than on land. Sree often thought the water spirits had helped bring Agny into the world that long-ago day on the ship. Now they claimed part of her soul.

  Agny stepped onto the boat first, then Sree and the child. Reina untied the mooring rope, and the four of them settled down on wooden plank benches. Agny closed her eyes and touched her mask with both hands. The wind lifted her gray hair. Sree breathed in deeply and caught the scent of Agny’s magic surrounding the boat. It nudged the craft away from the dock and pushed it toward the middle of the lake.

  The few other craft they encountered gave way immediately when the fishermen saw the two hathrans. They bowed their heads as the witches drifted silently past.

  It was colder out here where there was nothing to stop the wind. Sree held Elina close so the child could share her body heat, but Elina did not shiver. She didn’t speak either. Her unnatural silence had always troubled Sree. What feelings might she be concealing?

  She had not spoken about the incident with the sheep and the stillborn child. Sree knew there was some malignant force at work, a force strong enough to kill. If Elina knew what it was, she wasn’t telling, and her silence struck Sree with fear.

  The boat stopped within sight of the shore. Agny’s power wrapped around the craft and sent up restless jets of water. A wet, frigid breeze blew in Sree’s face, but her mask shielded her from the worst of the cold. Behind her, Reina pulled her cloak close around herself and moved so that they were sitting in a loose circle with Elina in the center. Sree joined hands with Agny and Reina. Agny’s flesh was warm despite the frigid air-a measure of her great power and connection to the lake and its spirits.

  Elina sat quietly within their circle, watching each of the witches. The ethran closed her eyes and dropped into a meditative state. The healer’s place was to support, not direct, the ritual. Sree understood that support would be her task as well. She was also a hathran, equal in the ranks of the wychlaran to Agny, but Agny had been born here, in Tinnir, on the same waters that were the village’s lifeblood. Sree had not lived here as long. She was a teacher; she went where her sisters needed her to help other potential witches embrace their powers.

  Until her failure with Yaraella, Sree had considered herself a very good teacher.

  Sree tried to put these thoughts from her mind. Self-doubt had no place here in this circle. They gathered now for Elina, and for the people of the village who looked to them for guidance and protection. For their sake, she must not waver.

  Sree closed her eyes and cleared her mind. She felt Agny’s power rise up over the sides of the boat and envelop them. Suddenly she was warm, very warm. Her skin tingled with renewed vitality. She felt her cloak, her dress, and Elina’s small, cold hands gripping her skirt. Every sensation heightened, until Sree gasped with the force of it.

  What was this experience? She could hear her heartbeat, long, slow thuds that moved the blood in hot strokes through her veins.

  “We feel you, spirits.” Agny’s breath sounded as labored as Sree’s own. Reina gripped her hand and uttered a soft whimper. “We are one with you. Tell us your will. We ask you to speak to us on behalf of this child, who is in our hearts and minds. Look into her soul, and tell us why this evil force haunts her. Spirits, tell us why on behalf of her mother, Yaraella, who departed from us by her own hand. Will you protect Yaraella’s child? Will you show us the way to earn forgiveness for our sins?”

  The vision broke over Sree in a rush. She heard Reina’s sharp cry, and Agny abruptly stopped speaking. Distantly, Sree
became aware that Elina had crawled into her lap and held her tightly around the waist, but these details were secondary to what she was seeing in her inner reality.

  Four figures-three men and a woman by their shapes-stood on a mountain. More than that Sree couldn’t make out. The vision came at the four from a wide, soaring angle, like a bird diving down to capture prey. Were they telthors? Or perhaps Sree and her sisters rode on the wings of the spirits to a place the telthors wanted them to see. Sree waited impatiently for the vision to resolve itself.

  As they flew closer, Sree realized that her heartbeat, the surge in her blood intensified. She felt as if her veins were on fire. Was this an attack from the four? She saw them plainly now. They had the faces and forms of humans, but their skin was the color of ashes, and their eyes were flat black, with no whites or color visible. One of them was missing an eye, and they were all terribly scarred-their spirits as well as their flesh. Inky black shadows surrounded the four of them, though the biggest concentration seemed to center on a man with long, matted gray hair. He carried a spiked chain in his hand and guided the others.

  Sree turned her gaze to the woman. She wanted to memorize all the faces before the vision soared past the four figures. Her skin and eyes were exactly like the others, but she had pale red hair and a skeletal slenderness that made Sree think she would break in a harsh wind. She seemed unafraid of the mountain, the howling wind, or the blowing snow that filled the air.

  The mountain-Sree hadn’t realized it until now, but she knew the mountains in the vision. Of course she did. The symbols carved on her mask were imitations of those majestic peaks, the Sunrise Mountains.

  They were close to Rashemen’s border. Surely, they could have nothing to do with Elina or the disturbances in the village. Yet why would the spirits show them this unless they were important? Unless they were a threat?

  Sree started to shift her gaze to the other two men, when suddenly the woman turned and looked directly at her. Sree was so shocked, she almost pulled back and lost the connection to her sisters. She told herself it was just a coincidence-there was no way the woman could see them, not when the vision existed by the spirits’ will-but the way the woman’s piercing black eyes seemed to bore into Sree was deeply unsettling. Then, the woman raised her hand and made a shooing motion toward Sree.

  “Go away,” she said. The rebuke, a tangible force, penetrated the worlds and rang fiercely in Sree’s ears. The hathran cried out in surprise and pain, and the vision dissolved into a black abyss into which she was falling, falling.…

  Sree opened her eyes and found herself back on the boat. She stared at her sisters. Reina’s eyes were shocked, Elina had her face buried in Sree’s lap, and Agny … Sree couldn’t see the witch’s face behind her mask, but her eyes were cold. It was a frightening sight, and for a moment, Sree was afraid the hathran’s ire was aimed at her.

  After a breath, Agny seemed to regain control of herself. She closed her eyes and opened them again. The boat began to move, angling back toward the dock. Agny breathed deeply before she spoke.

  “Reina,” she said quietly, “once we’re on shore, I want you to speak to Slengolt and his fang. They’re to put on extra guards to secure our borders. Tell them what you saw in our vision. If these strangers come to Tinnir, they’re to be brought to me immediately.”

  Reina nodded. Her large eyes were the only indication of her unease. Sree addressed Agny. “What does this mean, Sister? The spirits are rarely silent-”

  “They were not silent,” Agny said. “The spirits showed us that these strangers are at the center of what’s happening in the village. Now we must find out how and why.”

  “We don’t even know what sort of creatures we face,” Reina said. “Did you see their eyes?”

  Agny looked at the young ethran. “I did, and I know what they are-the soulless ones. You saw the shadows clinging to them, Reina?”

  The ethran shivered and nodded. “Shadows that looked alive.”

  “They are shadar-kai, a race spawned from the empire of Netheril. I’ve seen them on the caravan trails, though I’ve never spoken to one to know its mind. Outlanders tell stories of their frenzied nature. They lose themselves in battle and fight with a ferocity that makes others fear them.”

  “Like the berserkers,” Reina said.

  “No,” Agny said sharply. “Our warriors fight to protect their families and their homes. There is honor in every strike of their blades, for the sacrifices they make in battle strengthen us all. For the shadar-kai, fighting is merely an excuse to lose themselves to pain and death, to revel in suffering until their bodies are scarred husks.”

  “But why?” Reina asked. “Why inflict such torment on themselves?”

  “Because their souls are made of shadow,” Agny said, “or so the tales claim. Pain and suffering are the only forces strong enough to anchor their essences to this world. They suffer in order that they may live.”

  “What kind of life is that?” Reina said. She reached out to stroke Elina’s hair. The child had fallen asleep in Sree’s lap. “Better to end one’s own life than live to do such damage to one’s self and others.”

  “It’s not as simple as that,” Sree said, speaking for the first time. “To throw away that spark inside of us-to kill-takes a coldness and resolve that perhaps even these shadar-kai do not possess.”

  “Perhaps you’re right, Sister.” Reina’s voice was sad. She didn’t say what she was thinking, but Sree knew. She was remembering Yaraella and the ivory-handled knife protruding from her stomach.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  As the caravan passed the first trail marker in the mountains, the wolves descended.

  Cree had been tracking them all that morning. Their movements suggested they were mustering, gathering their pack as fast as they could for the ambush. Under normal circumstances, the beasts would never have been so bold and careless, but Ashok wasn’t surprised they were behaving erratically. The pack was in the grip of the same unnatural madness that had affected the trolls, drawn by Ilvani’s dream visions to the caravan. The entire crew was alert, ready to put in motion the plan Ashok, Daruk, and Tuva had concocted. They were as prepared as they were going to be to weather the storm.

  Ashok knew the moment the nightmare sensed the wolves’ presence. The stallion’s whole body quivered, muscles straining to attack, but Ashok held him in check. His biggest fear was not that the nightmare would surge forward prematurely but that he would utter the cry that sent the caravan into chaos.

  “Keep the beast silent,” Vlahna had told him before they started into the mountains, “or I’ll put an arrow in its throat.”

  Ashok touched the nightmare’s mane, running his fingers through the warm black strands in a calming gesture.

  “If you scream now, everything is lost.” He leaned forward to whisper in the stallion’s ear. “You know what I want from you-fire and speed. Give me those, and you will have your wolf blood. You’ll feast on their carcasses.”

  The nightmare snorted, and once again, the words may not have been there, but the emotions passed between them like shouts. The nightmare would not cry out. He would hold himself in check.

  The wolves reached the trail ahead of them. A high-pitched whistle rent the air, and at the signal, the drovers dropped flat to their bellies on the backs of the wagon horses. Guards rose up behind them in the wagons and let loose with crossbow bolts. Some of them missed, but enough hit that the wolves pulled back from their initial charge and spread out to get at their flanks.

  The horses saw the wolves and went wild. Draped over their backs, the drovers kept the wagon horses from bolting, but there were screams and chaos all through the line. They’d expected that-it was the drovers’ and passengers’ job to keep them in check while the warriors fought.

  Tuva, still wounded, fired a crossbow from the back of Ilvani’s wagon. Daruk was there also. He had his eyes closed-Ashok hoped he was preparing a spell, but he thought it just as likely the bard was me
ditating as if before a performance.

  Restless, the nightmare stomped his hooves and uttered a sound deep in his throat that sounded very much like a growl.

  “Almost,” Ashok said. The wolves ran along the line in pairs. The crossbow bolts wouldn’t keep them at bay for very much longer. They were too far gone for caution. At this distance, Ashok couldn’t see their eyes, but he knew by the way they moved-with little grace and no thought of protecting their bodies from the crossbow quarrels-the madness gripped them fully.

  Ahead of him, Cree and Skagi abandoned their horses to the Martuck woman, Leesal, who dragged them behind a group of the rear wagons that had clustered together for defense. Mareyn covered her.

  “Come on, Daruk, damn you,” Ashok muttered.

  Finally, the bard opened his eyes and stood up. He jumped over the side of the wagon and landed in a crouch. From his belt, he drew a slender black wand. Unornamented, the item nevertheless glowed with shadowy radiance. Daruk raised it above his head and brought its end down against the ground. At the same instant, he sang a single low note that echoed throughout the pass.

  “Time for the show!” Daruk cried. He threw his head back and laughed-a dark sound that echoed like music. “Goddess, take them into your arms and show them what the shadow truly is!”

  Black energy rippled over the ground like smoke, encircling the camp. Ashok felt a tremor go through his body when the shadows touched him. Strength filled him, a power that made his heart stumble in his chest. He was suddenly cold, colder than he’d ever been, but it was not the debilitating feeling he’d had on the trail. His mind was clear. He saw his enemies before him, and he knew he could crush them singlehandedly if he had to. The power was intoxicating. It filled him up and, when he could no longer take it in, Ashok knew he had to release it or he would die.