Tejohn put a hand on Cazia’s shoulder. It was meant to be comforting, and to her surprise, it was. “She must have fallen while she was fleeing from… What’s this?”
There were two more puncture wounds in Ivy’s calf, much smaller than the one through her back. Of course, it made sense that she would have landed on more than just the one rib. Cazia was sure there were other marks on other parts of her.
But a little voice in the back of her mind was crying out an alarm.
“Is that a bite?” Tejohn asked, giving voice to her fear. “Could the grunt have bitten her?”
Cazia’s thoughts raced. Everything had happened so fast! Ivy had been scrambling away from the creature and it had fallen toward her…
All of her strength left her in a rush and she had to grab hold of the edge of the sleepstone to steady herself. Vilavivianna of Goldgrass Hill, princess of the Ergoll people, descendants of the Chieftains of the Forty Valleys, had been cursed by The Blessing.
Cazia burst into tears. After everything she’d done to look after the girl, after everything they’d been through together, Cazia had finally failed her. She’d promised to bring the princess home safely and she had. She had done it. Ivy had been reunited with her parents and, if she hadn’t stowed away on the bottom of that stupid cart, she would be safe still.
A bright, hot flush of anger rushed through her. Why hadn’t Ivy done what she had been told? Why couldn’t she ever do what she was told?
Not that Cazia was such a great role model. Fire and Fury, why couldn’t the grunt have bitten her instead? How could the princess return home to her people now?
“We have the stones,” Tejohn said. Cazia’s head hung down and she couldn’t see his face, but she knew his expression would have only enraged her. “The sleepstone brings on the curse quickly, but we can undo it. In fact, we can pull her off partway through if we have to.”
“It’s temporary,” Cazia said.
“What do you mean?” Tejohn glanced down at the pot-bellied man still lying on the floor. His horrible bare ass was covered with gray ash.
“The effect of the stones is temporary. My magic goes away but it always comes back.”
Tejohn’s hand dropped to his sword. Did he even realize he was doing that? “Maybe.”
“You’re right,” Cazia said glumly. “Maybe it will be permanent. But what if it isn’t? How am I supposed to bring her home if she’s cursed?”
He lifted the charred, broken handle of his mace and examined the stone at the end. It was still secure and unmarked. “We will cure her again. If we have to, we will make a nice piece of jewelry for her.”
“She would have to wear it for the rest of her life!”
The old soldier stepped close to her and put his hand on her shoulder again. She was struck suddenly by how tall he was—even more than most—and how heavy his touch was. “There are worse fates.”
He was right. She knew he was right, but it annoyed her anyway. Cazia didn’t want Ivy to suffer a less awful fate. She deserved better.
She turned toward the fat old man and cast a water spell, spraying him down to rinse off the horrible ash. It didn’t work very well; the ash stuck to his skin stubbornly. The water pooled around his body, then began to flow toward her.
She sidestepped, feeling a shudder of revulsion at the idea that it might touch her. The man needed someone to scrub him down, but Cazia wasn’t going to do it, and Old Stoneface was standing even farther back than she was. She kept the water spraying over him while he lay on the stone floor like a sick cow.
The next time she cast the spell, she made the water much colder. It wasn’t the glacial cold that she’d used to punish Ghoron, but it roused the man from his stupor anyway.
“Food,” he muttered. “Fire and Fury, but I have not had real food in—how long have I been…”
“We don’t know,” Tejohn said. “When were you transformed?”
“I was bitten just before midsummer,” the man said. “I thought we would be safe in my house, but the…my family…” He gaped at the floor, then at the two of them. He examined his dirty hands, then touched his belly. “Where am I? What happened to me?”
“You’re in the Sweeps,” Tejohn said. Cazia suddenly found herself aggravated beyond reason with the conversation. She turned back to the sleepstone and stroked Ivy’s faint yellow hair. She was still breathing and her color seemed a little better. It had taken Cazia a little while to get used to the idea that the girl’s fair skin—with the bluish veins showing through in some places—was not a sign of illness. Now she just had to convince herself that it wasn’t a sign the princess was fading into death.
“And,” the old soldier continued, “you’re the first person to be cured of The Blessing. That we know of, anyway.”
“You were wise to cure me,” the fat man said, as though they’d made some kind of careful selection. “Can I have a blanket, at least? The water was chilly. And I still need food.”
“We can share some of our meatbread,” Tejohn said, setting his pack on the floor. “And you can wear my cloak for now.”
The man sighed as though he’d been offered gruel, but he draped himself in the wool cloak gladly. “I have a reward in mind for both of you. My home was not as secure against the invaders as I’d hoped, but I have more than a few silver bolds, golden pinches, and golden petals. In fact, the reward will be even more substantial if you can cure my wife, children, and grandch—”
“If you don’t shut up about your money,” Cazia said, quietly, her voice tight, “I am going to burn you alive.”
She refused to look at the man’s face, but she could hear his shock and outrage. “What did you say?”
She ignored that. “What’s your name?”
“Winstul Cloudless,” he answered. “Second cousin to Tyr Gerrit and sole contractor for lumber collection in the eastern Grimwood.”
“None of that impresses me.” Cazia didn’t dare look at him because she thought she might start kicking him, or worse. He infected Ivy with The Blessing. It hadn’t been his fault, but her emotions didn’t seem to care. “None of that matters anymore. Do you know what you are? An experiment. We brought a new weapon into the wilderness to test it against a grunt, and you just happened to be the first one we came across.”
“Ah,” he said. “I see.”
“Do you think we would have picked a fat old man if we’d had a choice? We--”
“Cazia,” Tejohn said, clearly hoping she would relent.
She spun around, fixing Winstul with an angry glare. He sat draped in Tejohn’s cloak like an invalid, his gnarled, vein-ridden dirty feet sticking out. No, she wasn’t going to relent. Not to this man or anyone. “We came in search of someone important. We need scholars and soldiers. We would rather save a child! Or a mother who—”
There was a howl from outside that made the hair on the back of Cazia’s neck stand on end. “Fire and Fury,” she whispered, “did they hear me?”
“I doubt it,” Tejohn said. He pointed at Winstul. “I think they heard his roaring.”
The howl returned, and this time, it sounded louder than before. Cazia looked out the doorway, but the sun had already dropped behind the mountains. Night had come upon them and she could see nothing.
The howling returned, and this time, it was joined by a second voice. Panicky, she hurried back into the storeroom. They could have escaped in the cart, maybe, but Ivy couldn’t be moved. There was no hope for them to hold out here long enough for the princess to recover. “What do we do?” She could use her spells or take up one of the kinzchu stones, but not both. “What do we do?”
Tejohn put his hand on her shoulder and turned her toward the doorway. He stepped through and brought both of his spears inside. “I want heavy stone blocks in front of the doorway. Make them thick, broad, and tall. Just leave enough room at the top for an arm to reach through.”
“That won’t work,” Winstul said. “I tried that. My own son blocked our doorway with
scholar’s granite, but the beasts are relentless.”
Cazia began the spell, changing it to make the block as thick and tall as she could manage. The first block fell into place. Then the second. Then a third. She could see by Tejohn’s expression that he thought the gap was too narrow, but better that than too wide.
“It won’t work,” the merchant said again. “Trust me. I know.”
Even the man’s fear got on her nerves. “We’ve run into grunts a few times before.”
Winstul’s mouth worked. “At least douse the light.”
“If we did that,” Tejohn said, “they would have a hard time finding us. Besides, what if those grunts out there are your children or grandchildren?”
Cazia jammed her hand into her pocket and grabbed hold of the translation stone there. The howls suddenly became words.
Children! Children!
They’re coming because they heard the death cry, Cazia realized. They’re not on the hunt; they’re as worried about Winstul as she was about Ivy.
Cazia dropped the stone back into the bottom of her pocket and the noise from outside became mournful howling again. Goose bumps ran down the back of her neck, and a knot began to form in her stomach. She looked at Stoneface, and her expression must have alarmed him in some way, because he turned his full attention to her.
“They sound like they’re mourning a child,” Cazia said. They both looked at Winstul, still sitting on the floor. He looked uncomfortable for a moment, then struggled to his feet, one hand holding the cloak shut in front of him. He wobbled unsteadily, but when Tejohn took a fist-sized, cloth-wrapped piece of meatbread from his pack, the old man accepted it gratefully. He ate carefully, keeping the cloth between his ash-covered hands and the food.
There was another roar, closer this time. “Eat faster,” Tejohn said, and when Winstul popped the last piece into his mouth, Stoneface took the ash-covered cloth back and tossed it onto the top of the block tower, just barely hanging over the outside edge. He stood on his toes to peer through the gap.
“What can you see?” Cazia asked, the knot in her stomach slowly turning into nausea. He looked almost absurd with his huge spear and broken mace like a child’s spoon.
“Moving shadows,” he answered. “Here they come.”
The last word was barely out of his mouth when something heavy struck the stone barricade. A terrible roar echoed through the room, making Cazia’s knees feel weak. Great Way, how easy would it be for one of those things to tear her apart. Suddenly, a weapon that could defeat their enemy with only a touch did not seem enough.
A long clawed arm thrust through the gap and grasped at the air, then withdrew. The long fur covering it was a pretty purple--they weren’t facing the small, quick grunts now. These were the creatures that had destroyed Peradain in a day. Would the kinzchu stones even work?
Feeling light-headed, Cazia backed away, a fire spell forming in her thoughts. Winstul crouched on the floor, cloak wrapped around him as though he might make himself so small, he would vanish.
But Old Stoneface stayed right there against the granite blocks she had made, keeping low enough so that his helm was below the top of the stacks. He held his broken mace tightly. Cazia was just about to call him back when there were two more heavy collisions against the stone, shifting the top block slightly.
The roaring began again, and with it snarling and… Monument sustain them all, were the grunts barking? It was almost as if they were expanding their language. Cazia considered reaching for her translation stone, but in truth, she didn’t want to know.
Another long, clawed hand reached through the narrow space between the top granite block and the lintel, grasping and clawing at the air. This one was an even paler lavender. Fear made her stomach feel like lead. I killed my brother. Fire pass her by, she had not felt a terror like this when she faced Mother, or when the Tilkilit were hunting her through the wilderness of the Qorr Valley. What was happening to her? Her hands were moving and her thoughts seemed divided and diffuse.
A second arm came through, then a third. The noise they made buffeted her. Tejohn dropped to his knees to avoid their claws. He held the little mace but the beasts were moving too quickly for him to strike safely.
Cazia had a sudden image of Tejohn being grabbed and yanked through that tiny space, breaking his body and the mud wall at the same time, and suddenly her fire spell was complete in her mind and she let it go.
A narrow bolt of fire erupted from her hands. It struck the nearest arm very near the shoulder, setting fire to its fur and flesh. The beasts withdrew into the darkness, one of them whimpering like a whipped dog.
Great Way, its arm still lay on the top of the stone block. Her spell had been hot enough to sever it.
She stared in shock for a moment. How had she managed so much power? Then Winstul broke her concentration by saying, “Girl, you are going to burn down this building! Then what will—”
“Shut up!” she snapped at him through bared, clenched teeth. Her fear of the grunts and disgust with the man writhed within her like living things, and she had to stop herself from slapping him.
Tejohn stood and pushed the severed arm through the gap into the gravel outside. He peered into the darkness, then turned to Cazia. “The lightstone, quickly!”
She snatched it off the ground. With it enclosed in her fist, the room fell into near darkness. Tejohn pointed out into the yard. Both of his hands were full, so she grabbed the edge of the blocks and wedged her foot into the groove where the bottom two met to lift herself high enough to look through the gap.
She could see movement out there, but it was little more than flickering shadows. With all her strength, she hurled the stone through the gap.
It landed in the yard a few feet away from the grunts. Two of them—Fire and Fury, but they were huge—stood just beside the third, who lay writhing on the gravel.
“Do you see that?” Tejohn asked.
“I do,” she answered, her voice sounding much more calm than she felt.
The third grunt was regrowing that severed arm. It was pale and hairless, like one of Ivy’s limbs grafted onto the creature’s shoulder, but it kept growing larger every moment.
“That was an impressive spell,” Tejohn said in a low voice. “Could you teach me to do that?”
For a moment, she thought he might be joking. “You would have to go hollow first.”
“Never mind. Okay. I have a new idea. Step down quietly.”
She did and backed away. Tejohn knelt beside the stone blocks and lifted his broken mace until just the stone was barely above the level of the tower. He began gently tapping it against the rock. It was difficult to see him with only the light that shone through the gap in the door, so she began to prepare a new light spell. Tap. Tap. Tap. Tap. When that didn’t catch the grunt’s attention, he began to bleat like a lamb.
One of the grunts roared. Although Cazia couldn’t see it coming, she could hear it charging at them. A pale-furred arm thrust through the doorway and seized the mace—
Only to release it again as if it were white-hot. The grunt screamed in pain and they heard it retreat in a rush.
The mace hit the stone floor in a clatter. She heard it fall but her light spell had not yet finished; in the darkness, she could not be sure where it hit. It seemed to be humming, like a chime in which the note grew louder after it had been struck, not softer.
“What is that?” Tejohn asked.
Cazia lost control of her light spell, the magic dissipating. The grunt was still shrieking outside, but the humming of the mace in the darkness below her became a buzzing noise—it was actually shaking against the stone floor.
That was wrong. Dangerous. She bent down and slapped her hand on the floor where the noise seemed to be coming from and felt the wooden handle under her little finger. She snatched it up—Great Way, the thing hummed so powerfully, it almost felt like it was burning her—and pivoted, then threw it down into the pit.
She didn’t
see it burst. She did see the little flash of light on the walls of the pit and heard the kinzchu stone pop with a sharp crack. There were sounds of a ricochet and she suddenly felt a dull burning on her cheek and ear. Winstul chirped in alarm but didn’t otherwise move.
“Fury guide me,” Tejohn said, peering through the gap into the yard. The shrieking had become more intense.
Cazia knew she should have felt her magic torn from her; just grabbing the wooden handle should have been enough. Could it be taken from her without her realizing it?
That question could wait. She rushed to the doorway and climbed up to look outside.
The shrieking grunt thrashed on the ground. The other two were very close; the beast with the shrunken, hairless arm tried to offer the same solicitous attention it had received, but the way the beast screamed obviously put the other two on edge.
If Cazia had not needed both hands to hold herself up, she would have grabbed the translation stone in her pocket. The grunt was making noises she had never heard from them before: not pain or rage sounds, but the noise she might expect from a dog being whipped to death.
The other two grunts suddenly turned and sprinted away from the fallen creature, squealing in terror.
The injured grunt clutched at its stomach, then exploded into a ball of white-orange fire.
Chapter 17
Whatever Tejohn had expected, it was not a miniature sun in the middle of the courtyard. Fire billowed outward like dust on a powerful wind and the sight transfixed him.
It was Cazia who saved him. She let go of the stone blocks and fell against him, grabbing hold of his cuirass and dragging him toward the floor. The flames rolled in through the gap over the door and curled up toward the ceiling. A wave of burning hot air nearly pushed him over.
“Ivy!” Cazia called, but the sleepstone was low enough that the fire passed above her.
Before the fire had finished pushing through the gap, the girl was already starting a new spell. Tejohn raced around her. He’d seen a bucket in the corner, and of course, there was still the pipe that fed into the pit. He kicked the pipe, shattering the clay, then held the bucket under it.
The Way Into Darkness: Book Three of The Great Way Page 19
