Unbroken Chain: The Darker Road (single books)

by Jaleigh Johnson

  Don’t watch your feet.

  “So, who will be the first to pay?” Daruk said. His voice was deceptively light. Ilvani heard the threat beneath the words.

  Thorm glanced at the men with the crossbows. “Kill him,” he said.

  Time slowed as Ilvani heard the twang of the crossbow strings releasing their bolts. The deadly shots hit Daruk in the chest and neck and passed harmlessly through his flesh as if it were smoke.

  “Well, look at that,” the bard said. He touched his chest and feigned a look of awe. “A miracle, that’s what this is.” He winked at the brigands, and the illusion of him disappeared.

  “A godsdamned miracle.”

  Now his voice came from farther up the pass. He smiled, raised his wand, and drove it into the ground.

  A thunderous roar shook the air, traveled through rock and ice, and knocked three of the brigands from their rearing horses. Ilvani put her free hand against the rock wall behind her and felt the pulse through the stone. With her other hand, she clutched her sphere and called on magic to strengthen Daruk’s spell.

  “Bring it down on their heads,” she whispered, lacing the words with arcane power. “Bring the mountain down on them. Bury them under the ice.”

  The confused riders instinctively drew together. Thorm pointed to Daruk and yelled something unintelligible. It set the brigands in motion. They charged blindly through the mist.

  Thorm’s was among the first of the horses to hit the disguised crevasse. For one breath, they were a charging wall of death, and the next they were simply gone, plunging through the mist to their doom. The riders nearest him immediately saw the trick and yanked desperately on their reins, but for several of them it was just too late. They, too, fell and died.

  The others retreated, which gave Daruk time to get off the path and away from the trembling mountain. Rocks started to fall around Ilvani. She slid her sphere back into her bag and turned to watch the snow slide down the mountain toward her.

  The white wall rushed toward her amid the rumbling echoes of Daruk’s magic and her own amplification spell. For a breath, Ilvani felt as the other shadar-kai did, staring into the face of death with such fascination that it made her heart pound. The avalanche would bury her if she didn’t move-she would be gone in an instant.

  Shouts echoed from the pass below her. The riders had seen her, but they were far more interested in the avalanche. A few of them spurred their horses forward and tried to jump the crevasse. Some made it, but many didn’t.

  Ilvani raised her arms and laughed aloud. The sound was lost in the thundering roar. She felt so alive. The white wall filled her vision, and the cold caressed her face.

  Regretfully, Ilvani teleported away. Her body became insubstantial, and the cold, damp caress was gone.

  When she reappeared next to Daruk, Ilvani saw the brigands were gone, and a fresh layer of powdery snow covered the ground. The scene was peaceful and still. Overhead, the owl had returned and circled the pass, but it made no sound.

  “Finely played, witch,” Daruk said. “We work well together, yes?”

  “Yes. This is the last time we will,” Ilvani said.

  “Is that a prophecy?”

  She looked up at him. He was taller than she was, but that wasn’t surprising. He didn’t try to use his height to intimidate her but merely stood watching her with curiosity.

  “You’ll try to take him,” Ilvani said. “You’ve already begun the game. But you were right when you said I’d be a player. I won’t let you have him.”

  He smiled benignly. “I don’t know what’s going on in your head, witch, but it sounds like madness to me.”

  “So it is,” Ilvani said. She added, almost to herself. “But that doesn’t mean there isn’t truth in it.”

  “What if he decides to come of his own free will?” Daruk said. “What will you do then?”

  Then I’ll have to kill you, Ilvani thought. She didn’t voice her decision aloud but trusted Daruk could read her black eyes well enough.

  Ashok heard the distant thunderclap and felt the ground shake beneath him. Power from arcane and natural sources filled the air. He knew then that Ilvani and Daruk had been successful in springing their trap.

  Ahead of him, he followed the snowfang tracks and those of the smaller winter wolves. He drew his chain, braced himself as the nightmare jumped a narrow crevasse, and held on when the beast veered off the trail to follow the wolf scent.

  Ashok heard Mareyn behind him some distance on Vlahna’s horse. She stayed safely back from the nightmare’s fire but kept pace with him. He glanced back at her once and saw her gaze fixed on the trail.

  Suddenly, the tracks stopped. Ashok had no time to react before a blast of ice and wind swelled up around him. It enveloped the nightmare and for a breath extinguished his flame. They were a black speck in a sea of white. Blinded, Ashok swung out at random with his chain. He breathed in the frigid air and tasted wolf scent.

  The nightmare screamed. The sound echoed off the rock walls around them and made Ashok throw his hands up to cover his ears. In response, the icy wind abated, but the nightmare’s flame was a dull blue, diminished.

  When his vision cleared, Ashok saw the icy vortex move toward Mareyn. The warrior was ready for it. She dismounted and let her horse ride away to safety. Drawing her blade, she dodged out of the path of the ministorm as Ashok jumped off the nightmare’s back and came up on its other side with his chain. The vortex coalesced into the form of the snowfang.

  Ashok readied his chain, but he kept an eye on the rocks and crevices around them. The snowfang had used the storm to cover the tracks of the other two wolves. Now they hid somewhere with the boy, waiting to strike.

  Up close, the snowfang was immense. Thick strands of ice-matted fur hung off its body. It growled at Mareyn but kept one eye on Ashok and his chain. It tried to appraise both threats, but Ashok wasn’t about to give the creature the chance to take their measure.

  Ashok attacked with his chain. The spiked end struck the ground harmlessly as the wolf dodged the strike. Ashok was surprised at its speed. Since it had such a bulky body, he’d expected the wolf to have no grace.

  Mareyn took advantage of the wolf’s distraction to wade in with her sword. Ashok saw her expression change from fierce concentration to confusion and pain as she stabbed at the thing’s chest. Her blade moved with agonizing slowness. She fumbled the strike and barely grazed the skin of the beast.

  Ashok ran forward to aid her and encountered a wall of cold so intense that it stole his breath. His fingers went numb; he barely had the presence of mind to keep a grip on his weapon. This creature’s aura was worse than any three of the winter wolves put together. At close range, the snowfang outmatched them.

  “Get away from it!” Ashok cried. He staggered back and automatically looked for the nightmare’s heat. The stallion stood several feet away. He had not fully regained his fire.

  Ashok felt dread well up inside him for the first time since the battle with the wolves had begun. If the nightmare didn’t join the battle, they were dead. Either the snowfang would wear them down with cold, or the other two wolves would spring on them when they least expected it.

  Mareyn kept her sword in front of her and backed away from the snowfang, but the creature came after her, its claws raking deep gouges in her breastplate. Off balance under the weight of the attack, Mareyn collapsed. Her sword was her savior. She slashed wildly, protecting her body, and instead of biting her, the wolf retreated.

  She didn’t escape unscathed. The wolf tore a long gash in her side. Blood ran down her leg and pooled in the snow. She cupped the wound with her left hand, but Ashok doubted it would be enough to stop the bleeding.

  Ashok planted his feet and struck out from a distance with his chain. The snowfang had grace, but it couldn’t dodge the speed of his attacks. Keeping the chain always moving in deadly arcs, Ashok drew the monster’s attention away from Mareyn to give the warrior time to recover.

  The
wolf hissed a breath that carried more ice and snow. Ashok went down in a crouch and whipped his cloak in front of his face to protect his eyes from the attack. The numbing cold enveloped him again, and when Ashok recovered enough to bring his weapon up, he misjudged the strike and slashed his own cheek with his weapon. Warm blood dribbled down his face and returned some of the feeling to his deadened skin.

  Inspired-or desperate-Ashok wound his chain around his arm as Vlahna had done. He had no hard leather to protect him, so the spikes pierced his flesh. The action went against Uwan’s edict that the shadar-kai must not weaken themselves by marking their own flesh, but Ashok had no choice. There was a greater threat here than the fear that he might diminish himself. He had to be able to fight through the cold, or he, Mareyn, and Les would die.

  In the wake of its icy breath, the snowfang lunged at him. Ashok knew he couldn’t get any colder, so he stretched out his arms, absorbed the wolf’s weight, and let it drive him into the snow. He hugged the creature close to drive the spikes into its flesh. The wolf howled and snapped at him. It sank its teeth into his other forearm and shook vigorously. Ashok heard his armor tear. The wolf crushed the bone scales and punctured hard muscle.

  Burning pain shot up Ashok’s arm, restoring life to him even as the draining blood threatened to take it back. The snowfang had no idea that it helped Ashok by inflicting these wounds. He hugged the monster tighter and felt a rib crack as the wolf tried to tear his arm off. Neither would let go of their prizes.

  Distantly, Ashok heard a deep-throated shout. He thought at first it was the wolves, but then he realized it was a human voice. The voice said something in a language Ashok didn’t recognize. A breath later, he saw Mareyn in his periphery, half running, half stumbling toward the wolf. The warrior jumped and landed on the snowfang’s back. She hacked with her sword at the creature’s flesh, finally penetrating its frozen hide.

  The wolf jerked its head up and around, biting at the warrior. She gripped its flanks with her legs as if she rode a horse and kept striking, ignoring the cold that had turned her skin a wasted blue color.

  A deep slash to its neck sent the snowfang into a frenzy. It broke Ashok’s hold and rolled away in the snow. The force of its retreat threw Mareyn off its back, and Ashok felt his own rib snap as the beast rolled over him and picked itself up. Gasping, he came up to his knees and held his arm up in front of him, showing the wolf the blood-covered spikes.

  Ashok heard a loud howl from behind and above him. He turned just in time to see one of the other winter wolves leap from a ledge farther up the mountain. Ashok teleported out of its way and appeared near where Mareyn lay in the snow.

  The wolf hit the ground and limped to the snowfang. It left a trail of blood in the snow.

  “Did you … hit it?” Mareyn said. Her voice was weak from the cold. “Before you teleported?”

  “I didn’t have time,” Ashok said. “I heard a voice-”

  “Maybe it’s the caravan … catching up,” Mareyn said.

  “They can’t be moving that fast.” Ashok willed his flesh to solidify, even though it meant succumbing to the biting cold. The snowfang, distracted, licked the other wolf’s wounds like a mother. Ashok considered his and Mareyn’s own injuries with a grim outlook. If they didn’t get warm soon, they would no longer be able to walk, let alone fight. Mareyn’s side wound still bled. Ashok didn’t know how she found the will to stay on her feet, but there she was, standing beside him again when finally his form became solid.

  Ashok didn’t wait for the snowfang to finish its ministrations. He came forward again and struck the wolf a blow to the hind leg with his bound arm. The spikes laid open its flesh and exposed muscle, but there was not nearly enough strength behind the attack to cripple the beast. The snowfang turned and clawed Ashok’s breastplate, tearing into the bone scales. Mareyn attacked from the side but had to turn away when the other wolf struck her from behind.

  We’re going to die, Ashok thought dimly as the wolf snapped at his face. The cold made his movements seem disconnected from his thoughts. He might as well have been watching the scene from outside his body. He registered the deep red stains in the snow, the weakening of the snowfang’s attacks. They wouldn’t lose the fight by much, but they would still lose.

  A fire ignited in Ashok’s periphery.

  He saw it reflected in the snowfang’s blue eyes. The nightmare had come back to life, shaking off the preternatural cold. His whole body burned, illuminating the scene in gold. A scream shook the air, and Ashok felt the torturous sound slam into him, jolting him back into his body.

  “Take him,” Ashok growled.

  The nightmare charged, eating up the distance between them in a breath. The stallion reared and brought his hooves down on the snowfang’s back. Ashok barely had time to roll out of the way before the snowfang fell. Pinned, the wolf got the full brunt of the nightmare’s fire. But the nightmare wasn’t done. The stallion sank his teeth into the wolf’s neck and tore at its flesh.

  Ashok got to his feet and went to help Mareyn with the other wolf. The smaller one was weak from its wounds and was nearly dead when Ashok got to it. Mareyn leaned on Ashok for support, and together they watched the nightmare’s fire finally penetrate the aura of cold surrounding the snowfang. Its body caught and burned.

  When the snowfang lay still in the snow, the nightmare’s fire died away to a dim blaze that Ashok felt even across the space between them. He started toward the stallion, but stopped when Mareyn resisted.

  “Can you walk?” he asked.

  She nodded. “I’m not going near … that one,” she said. “But I’m grateful.”

  “His fire will warm us,” Ashok said. “If we don’t get heat back into our bodies, we’ll die before the caravan reaches us.”

  Mareyn sighed and nodded. She let him lead her over to the nightmare but stopped before she was close enough to touch him.

  “Gods, I can smell the blood on its breath,” she said. “But it is warm, at least.”

  “I don’t notice the scent anymore,” Ashok said.

  They stood in uncomfortable silence for a moment, absorbing the nightmare’s heat. As soon as she was warm enough, Mareyn moved away. She looked at the bodies of the wolves in consternation.

  “The other one must still be around here somewhere,” she said. “It’ll have Les.”

  “There are tracks here.” Ashok pointed to where the other wolf had come down from the snow-covered rocks.

  They picked their way carefully up the slope and came eventually to a ridge that looked down on a bowl-shaped valley lined with jagged rocks and icicles.

  Below them, hanging off a large rock, they found the body of the other winter wolf. Les lay in the snow beside the dead wolf, on what looked like an animal skin. A burly man crouched over the wolf with a skinning knife. He looked up when Ashok and Mareyn crested the ridge.

  He had wild, red-blond hair and a tangled beard that half obscured his wrinkled face. A wolf pelt rode on his back. For a brief instant, he reminded Ashok of his father, a big man in hide armor, his hair shining red in the meager sunlight. The vision hit him sharply and made Ashok catch his breath. He recovered quickly and caught Mareyn’s arm when she started down the slope.

  “We don’t know he’s an ally,” Ashok warned her.

  “That’s why I haven’t put my blade away,” Mareyn said, but she was no longer looking at him. She fixed her attention on Les’s unconscious form.

  As she moved down the slope, Ashok called out to the man in Common. “Well met. You have our thanks for killing the wolf. If you hadn’t, we’d be dead.”

  The man’s gaze shifted from him to Mareyn. It was impossible to read his expression. He put his skinning knife away and pulled a length of rope from his belt. He used it to tie the wolf’s back legs together.

  Mareyn had reached the boy. Ashok kept his weapon looped around his arm, but the man ignored Mareyn and stood up. He turned his back to them and dragged the wolf carcass up the slope
in the opposite direction.

  “Are you of the Rashemi?” Ashok called after him. He knew they must be nearly in the witches’ lands.

  The man paused to look back at them. His expression reminded Ashok of Ilvani. He looked at them without seeing them, almost as if he inhabited another world entirely, and they were only shadows probing at the edge of his vision. Then the man turned away and resumed dragging his burden up the slope. Ashok watched him until he was almost out of sight.

  “Ashok, we have to get Les down to the nightmare,” Mareyn said.

  Shaken from his thoughts, Ashok bent to examine the boy. His leg was broken, twisted out awkwardly from his body, but otherwise there were no physical wounds. The wolf’s teeth had torn away most of his boot, but the flesh beneath was intact. The boy’s eyes were half-open, but he didn’t seem to recognize Mareyn, even when she spoke to him in a soothing voice.

  She was right. Cold was the enemy now.

  He ripped off some pieces of his bone scale armor to use as a splint. The snowfang had ruined most of the breastplate. He’d have to replace the rest. Mareyn took rope from her pack and together they worked on the boy’s leg.

  When they tried to move him, Les came to life at last. The pain made him jerk and thrash about in the snow. Ashok took hold of the boy’s shoulders and pressed him down while Mareyn spoke quickly in his ear. After long minutes, she got him to know her, and he calmed. She took her cloak off and draped it over him, rubbing his arms and legs to warm him.

  “Let’s go,” she said. “Take his shoulders. I’ll brace his legs so the pain won’t overwhelm him.”

  They lifted him. The boy moaned but made no other complaint. Even so, it was a long, slow climb out of the small valley and back down to the nightmare. Ashok carried the boy over to the stallion and started to drape him over the nightmare’s back.

  “You can’t mean to let that thing carry him?” Mareyn said incredulously. “It’s a demon, not a packhorse.”