Night Rune (Prof Croft Book 8)

by Brad Magnarella

  “Hey!” I complained.

  “See that?” he asked.

  A female specter in tattered robes drifted beyond the trees. The halo of light surrounding her was pale and sickly. From inside a tangle of hair, vicious eyes roved back and forth, searching, searching. Breath clamped, I hunkered lower with Bree-yark, but our position on the path was too exposed.

  The banshee’s gaze swept past us, stopped, and then backtracked slowly.

  I adjusted my grip on my amulet at the same time Bree-yark slid his goblin blade from its sheath.

  A scream split the air as the banshee flew at us.

  12

  The banshee’s scream felt like an axe cleaving my skull and wedging deep into the brain matter. My thoughts fragmented. My vision went blurry. An unnatural terror shook my core. But throughout the banshee’s vocal attack, I maintained a death grip on my cane and cold iron amulet and repeated a single mantra:

  If I lose my nerve, we’re done.

  As the scream faded, I pulled myself together. The banshee sharpened into focus. She was rushing us headfirst, empty eyes wreathed in white flames, lips stretched from a mouth of ghastly teeth.

  The time for stealth was over. I’d deal with the consequences later.

  With an uttered Word, warm energy filled me, burning through the remaining effects of the potions and haloing my amulet in blue light. The banshee passed through the final tree separating us. I stepped over Bree-yark, who was still trembling on the ground, and thrust the amulet at the banshee’s yawning mouth.

  “Disfare!” I shouted.

  A blue blast discharged from the iron in a silent roar. But instead of scattering the being as I’d hoped, the force sent her tumbling off into the trees. I stooped and helped Bree-yark to his feet.

  “The heck happened?” he moaned, clamping his brow.

  “You succumbed to the banshee’s scream. No shame in that, but we’ve gotta make tracks.”

  “Is she destroyed?”

  “Displaced,” I said. “She’ll be back.”

  “Everson … your hand.”

  I followed Bree-yark’s wincing gaze to my amulet hand. The skin over the knuckles was blackening, thick puss oozing from a network of soggy cracks. I moved the glowing amulet to my cane hand and splayed my fingers. The veins were darkening, turning the color of ink. A piece of flesh fell from my fifth knuckle, exposing a white knob of bone. But I didn’t feel a damned thing.

  “Did she touch you?” Bree-yark asked.

  “I must’ve made contact when I blasted her.”

  I angled my cane down and uttered words of healing. The cane’s opal glowed softly, enveloping my hand in a cottony light. But though the black ink stopped spreading, the tissue wasn’t repairing. I pushed more power through the spell, but the necrotizing effect of the banshee’s touch dug in.

  This would require powerful fae magic to cure.

  And I could already see the damned banshee circling back.

  “Stay close,” I said to Bree-yark, who had pivoted toward her spectral form.

  At my word, light pulsed from my cane and hardened into a shield around us. I fed it additional protection through the iron amulet—and just in time. Though muted, the banshee’s scream punched through my mind like a hot spike and shook our protection. Bree-yark’s hands went to his ears.

  The scream tailed off, but not the banshee. Her approach was more cautious this time, eyes fixed on my still-glowing amulet. Even so, I wasn’t sure I could repel another direct attack. The invocations and spells I’d just cast in a rapid sequence had cost me energy. Maybe too much energy.

  “If she was flesh, I’d give her a taste of goblin steel,” Bree-yark growled. “Then she’d have something to scream about.”

  “She was once,” I said, cycling through everything I’d read about the beings.

  According to legend, banshees had been fae of extraordinary beauty and conceit. In death, however, their whole-soul obsession with themselves made them susceptible to an ancient curse said to reside in the darker forests of Faerie. The curse twisted those fae inside out—their ghastly, shrieking insides becoming their immortal forms, doomed to wander an eternal darkness. I could only imagine the kind of individual we were talking about, given how self-absorbed most fae already were.

  The banshee dove in.

  “Respingere!” I cried, sending light and force from our shield.

  The banshee withdrew and hovered a safe distance away, watching.

  “Holy thunder, she’s ugly,” Bree-yark muttered.

  I resumed parsing through my knowledge of all things banshee until one feature of their condition suggested a weakness. And it related to what Bree-yark had just said. “Do you have water on you?” I asked.

  “Yeah, a whole skin.”

  “Grab it.”

  While he did, the banshee swayed back and forth, as though searching for an opening.

  Bree-yark held up the swollen skin. “Got it.”

  “Pour it out.”

  “Onto the ground?”

  “The shield, technically, but yeah.”

  He upended his skin until water began glugging out. Our shell of hardened air buckled slightly as the water landed. At one time I hadn’t been able to cast or hold invocations in the presence of liquid, the medium too disruptive to the conduction of ley energy. But with time and practice, I’d prevailed.

  And a good thing.

  I repelled the banshee’s next slashing attack with another pulse. But she veered back around, the eyes that peered at us radiating the most unnatural hatred. She wasn’t leaving here without a kill.

  “Water’s all out,” Bree-yark said.

  I glanced down at the puddle around our feet.

  “Good, now jump straight up on my word. Now!”

  As our feet left the water, I shouted, “Protezione!”

  A second orb of hardened air manifested inside our original protection, and we landed on dry shield. I grew it out until the water flattened between the two layers. I pushed harder, forcing the water into a paper-thin sheet that separated us from the banshee. The inrushing specter stopped suddenly and hovered inches away.

  Take a good look, sweetheart, I thought.

  Beyond the water, her head tilted one way and the other. She raised a taloned finger in front of the shield, then lowered it suddenly. Her mouth fell as her expression shifted from belligerence to naked horror. In a cyclone of hair and ragged robes, the banshee fled into the trees, a forlorn wail trailing after her.

  I waited until I could no longer hear her before dispelling the shield. The sheet of water splashed to the ground.

  Bree-yark chuckled in disbelief. “What the heck just happened?”

  “Banshees still think they’re the femme fatales they were in life,” I answered wearily. “Her reflection revealed what she really was. When that sank in, well…” I gestured toward her path of flight. “She flipped.”

  “Freaking brilliant, Everson.”

  Though I nodded in response to his shoulder punch, it was too early to celebrate. I had a hand that was half rotted, and I’d just broadcast our presence to the rest of Kinloch Forest in giant stadium lights.

  I activated another cocktail of protective potions, and we drank them quickly. I then recalled the power from my cane and amulet, snuffing their light. Darkness collapsed around us. “We need to get moving,” I said. “Even if it means feeling our way along the path on hands and knees.”

  “Um, the forest might have other ideas.”

  Snaps sounded, and a faint luminescence grew over Bree-yark’s face. I spun to find tangles of roots ripping up from the ground and taking large humanoid shape, a green swamp-like gas enveloping them.

  13

  “Oh, c’mon,” I complained. “Now what?”

  “Tanglers,” Bree-yark said with a grin. “And good news. These guys can be cut.”

  He lunged past me. Roots and earth flew as he ripped his jagged blade through one of the tangler’s midsections, eff
ectively chopping it in half. With a grunt, he wheeled and took off another creature’s reaching arm.

  With my damaged hand, it took time to pocket my amulet, separate my cane into sword and staff, and then move the sword to my good hand.

  Though tempted to activate the fire rune and torch the tanglers—and Kinloch Forest while I was at it—I didn’t want to compromise the fresh dose of potions already taking tingling effect in my system. Instead, I swung at the nearest tangler’s neck. The blade disappeared beyond a superficial layer of roots before being seized, twisted, and thrust out again.

  “You’ve gotta put your body into it,” Bree-yark said.

  He hacked through one of the tangler’s legs, dropping the creature to his own height, then demonstrated his point with a ferocious blow to the neck. I leaned back as the tangler’s head shot past.

  “Like that,” he said.

  I skipped around to confront another approaching tangler. But the goblin kicked the one he’d just dispatched, and in three running steps used its fallen form as a launch, thrusting with his thick legs. He caught impressive air and landed feet-first against the new tangler’s chest. As the creature toppled backward, it wrapped Bree-yark’s feet in roots. Anchored now, Bree-yark swung his blade like a lumberjack, one savage blow after another. By the time they reached the ground, the tangler was in pieces.

  Bree-yark and I were fully cloaked now, leaving the final two tanglers groping in search of us. But rather than sneak away, Bree-yark saw it as an opportunity to go full bore. When he finished, he waded from their demolished bodies and peered around, his face glistening with goblin sweat in the fading glow of swamp light.

  “Any more?” he panted.

  “That was all of them.”

  “And here I was just getting warmed up.” He returned to the path. “We make a good team, Everson.”

  I was about to point out I hadn’t really done anything when a groan sounded, low and shuddering. And was it my imagination, or were the trees a lot closer than they’d been a couple minutes ago?

  “You’re not gonna like this, Everson,” Bree-yark said, “but I think we’re standing on a Grumus.”

  I stared at him to be sure I’d heard him right. When he nodded, we took off down the path. Within a few paces we were beyond the dying glow of the dismembered tanglers and buried in thick night. I heard the collision of a body against a tree trunk followed by Bree-yark staggering and swearing.

  “It’s no damned good,” he complained. “Still can’t see a blasted thing.”

  Another groan sounded. This time the trees shook around us. Grumuses were living entities found in the deepest forests of Faerie. They blended in by supporting the forests’ natural growth, but layers of roots and soil hid a vast digestive tract that was always hungry. And a Grumus’s mouth could open anywhere and very suddenly. The only reason it hadn’t yet was because we were cloaked.

  “We’ve got to get off this thing,” I said.

  “No kidding. But without a light, we’ll have to wait till morning.”

  “You mean until whenever the forest decides it wants it to be morning?”

  “More or less. And I wouldn’t be surprised if the forest and Grumus are in cahoots.”

  I swore as I peered around the blackness. Beyond the trees, a banshee-like glow caught my eye. And it was coming our way.

  Oh, for fuck’s sake.

  Bree-yark saw it too. “Her again?”

  “Either that or another glowy denizen of Kinloch.”

  Suddenly, hobgoblin armies and stone giants playing boulder baseball felt like a day in the park compared to this never-ending nightmare. All we could do was remain still and hope that neither the Grumus nor our newest company drew a bead on us. With any luck, the forest would tire of night and switch to day again.

  Bree-yark choked on a laugh. “I don’t believe it.”

  “What?”

  “It’s Dropsy.”

  I squinted at the glow, not so sure. Before I could stop him, Bree-yark took off running down the path. I watched helplessly as my teammate closed the distance, my mind cycling through all the horrible things the light could be besides an enchanted lantern—banshee, wraith, will-o’-wisp…

  As Bree-yark neared it, the light released a bright pulse, sending my heart into my mouth. It wasn’t until he lifted it up, and I could see his grinning teeth, that I relaxed.

  “Would you look at her?” he said as he rejoined me. “Came all this way to find us.”

  He held the lantern in the crook of an arm like he was cradling an infant, her light still pulsing excitedly.

  “It’s amazing, and I’m grateful,” I said. “But can we coo over her later? We’re still on top of a frigging Grumus.”

  Bree-yark straightened. “Yeah, yeah, sure. Follow me.”

  He led the way at a run, the path seeming to unfurl in Dropsy’s enchanted light. I matched Bree-yark’s speed, one of my strides equaling roughly two of his, until we settled into a good pace. Behind us, the Grumus continued to moan. At one point I heard it rip open, as if mouthing blindly for us. But we eventually transitioned from creature back to forest, because the moaning and ripping stopped.

  About two hours later, we passed a jumble of fallen stones. Bree-yark reared back suddenly, a forearm thrown to his face. I arrived beside him and swore as sunlight nailed my eyes too. Forming a visor with my hand, I blinked around. Behind us, the forest remained buried in enchanted darkness. But ahead, mountains and meadows were soaked in a stunning alpenglow of late-afternoon sunlight.

  We’d made it to the other side.

  “See those trees over there?” Bree-yark asked.

  I followed his pointed finger down to where a distant lake glittered, a thick crescent of green wrapping its far shore.

  “That’s where Crusspatch lives.”

  14

  By the time we reached the lake, the setting sun was transforming the sky into a stupendous canvas of pinks and purples that the lake’s placid surface caught and enhanced. To safeguard my mind, I focused on the narrow path that wound around the shore. As we approached the trees, I dropped my gaze to the backs of Bree-yark’s heels.

  “Lots of stories about this guy,” he barked.

  “Crusspatch? Any of them reliable?”

  “About as much as a story that gets passed around dozens of times can be, I guess. According to one, a group of orcs set up camp on the edge of these very woods. Next thing they knew, Crusspatch had joined them at the campfire. Just humming a tune, like the orcs weren’t even there. And he had a big chunk of something on a skewer that he was rotating back and forth over the flames.” Bree-yark peered at me over a shoulder. “Turned out it was their captain’s severed foot.”

  “Really,” I said dryly.

  “The rest of the orcs attacked, but fire balls leapt from the blaze and bored holes through their chests. Dropped them all ’cept one, a young orc who’d stayed back. He said Crusspatch never even turned his head. In fact, he was still staring at the sizzling foot when he said, ‘You’re welcome to the heel, but the toes are mine, mine, mine.’”

  “Well, it’s like you said, time and the number of tellings tend to inflate these stories out of all proportion.”

  “Yeah, but there’s always a seed of truth.”

  “Then maybe we should be keeping our eyes open instead of telling tales.”

  I didn’t mean for it to come out harsh, but the Kinloch Forest had put me on edge. And the threat of a banshee or Grumus paled in comparison to that of a full-blooded fae lord. Especially one off his rocker.

  “Sorry,” Bree-yark said. “Just wanted to prepare you.”

  “No, it’s me,” I sighed. “I’m still coming down from the forest.” I planned to leave it there, but I needed to get something off my chest. “I’m also feeling the pressure of Crusspatch being my last good shot. So if he’s going to be crazy, I need it to be the pleasantly confused kind and not the eating-roasted-orc-toes kind.”

  “I hear ya,�
�� Bree-yark said. “It’ll all work out. You’ll see.”

  Though he was just saying it to pacify me, I found his words, spoken in his thick goblin voice, strangely comforting.

  As we entered the trees, I began to think tactically. Was the better strategy to sneak up on Crusspatch’s dwelling, or alert him to our presence way out here? Deciding the second hadn’t done much for the orcs, I took the lead, wizard’s senses on high alert.

  I didn’t pick up anything resembling defensive energies, but ornaments began to appear. They swung from branches on long threads: sparkling baubles and little figurines. The deeper into the trees we went, the more ornaments materialized until they were everywhere. They spoke to Crusspatch’s oddness at the very least. Bree-yark squinted up at a wooden girl, Dropsy’s light glinting from a single crystal eye.

  “Don’t touch it,” I whispered.

  “Don’t worry. I like my feet attached to my ankles.”

  Soon, a small cottage appeared through the trees. With narrow walls and a sloping, moss-covered roof, it looked like something out of a fairy tale. Bree-yark and I crept to the edge of a small yard. A cobblestone path led to the front door. No lights shone from the windows, but it wasn’t fully dark out yet. Thin curls of smoke issued from a stone chimney, suggesting someone was home—or had been very recently.

  “What should we do?” Bree-yark whispered.

  “I think it’s time we announced ourselves.”

  He peered around nervously. “You really think that’s a good idea?”

  “If he’s as powerful as everyone says, there’s a good chance he already knows we’re here.” After all, not sensing any wards didn’t mean there weren’t any. They could have been beyond my abilities.

  “Hope he’s not preparing the skewers,” Bree-yark murmured.

  I tuned into my magic to be sure of my decision. It wasn’t nodding, but it wasn’t shaking its head either. Pulling Bree-yark up beside me, I uttered the Word for protection. The air around us hardened into a shield.

  “Crusspatch?” I called. “I’m Everson Croft and this is Bree-yark. A friend of Seay Sherard’s arranged for several of us to meet you. Unfortunately, not all were able to come. We would be honored and humbled if you would deign to grant the two of us an audience.”