Taren dreamt of Yethri that night. Since his near death at the hands of the water hag, along with the illusion she’d shown him after plucking the image from his mind, he’d thought much of the young woman who had captured his heart. Regret and longing, which he thought he’d gotten over months earlier, resurfaced like a fresh wound.
The night passed uneventfully, and they were up at dawn. They made good time and reached Ryedale before noon. A light rain fell for an hour or so but cleared up by the time they arrived. The small city was situated near a crossroads and important trade route. Ammon Nor lay about a week to the east, with the north road leading into the heartland of Ketania and eventually the large cities of Carran and, much farther north, Rockwallow.
The mood in Ryedale was grim. As soon as they entered the city, Taren could tell something wasn’t right. Daily business was being conducted, but voices were hushed, and people looked around nervously. Mothers and fathers kept their children close.
The reason why soon became apparent. A force of Nebarans were in the town. A group of soldiers stood on a street corner, observing the people passing by. Taren and Elyas quickly pulled their cowls low and tried to blend in with a group of farmers bringing vegetables to market in a pair of ox-drawn carts.
“Look at those bastards.” Elyas scowled at the soldiers. “Standing there on a Ketanian street corner, and plain as day!”
“Shhh. Keep your voice down,” Taren warned him.
He glanced over to see the soldiers busy interrogating a group of refugees across the street. He, too, was disgusted by the sight, and another pair of Nebarans emerged from a tavern as they passed.
“Where’s the king? There should be patrols led by his knights and the southern lords.” Elyas spat on the ground. “I look forward to driving the swine from our lands.”
As they walked toward the town center, where the market would be located, judging by the path of the farmers and their carts, they saw greater numbers of soldiers about. A group of locals stood just outside a home, muttering and casting dark looks at a squad of the black-and-gold-clad Nebarans.
“I don’t think we should risk staying at an inn here,” Taren said. “We should get our provisions and press on to Ammon Nor this very day. Once there, it’ll be safe to find an inn.”
Elyas grunted agreement. He stopped suddenly, and Taren turned to see what he was doing. “Something is going on up ahead.” With his height, Elyas could see fairly easily over the crowds.
“More reason to get our business done quickly and be on our way.”
When they came to the market square, even Taren could see the hulking figure wearing a hairy vest and holding a massive club leaning on one huge shoulder. The short man on the tall black horse beside him made him stop short.
The Inquisition was in Ryedale, and Taren and Elyas had walked right into the viper’s pit.
Chapter 27
Inquisitor Tellast sat astride his destrier before a gathered crowd. Arrayed in a loose arc facing the locals were a dozen soldiers, several with loaded crossbows and the others with hands on sword hilts. Glurk stood a few paces away, contentedly gnawing on a raw side of beef. Lashed to a wooden pole behind Tellast with a pile of kindling at its base was a woman in a tattered green dress. From where Taren stood at the rear of the crowd, he couldn’t make out the woman’s face as her head was bowed to her chest and her disheveled red hair hung like a curtain concealing her features.
Tellast spoke up, his voice carrying over the frightened, hushed crowd. “I am High Inquisitor Tellast, of His Majesty, Emperor Ignatius the Third’s Inquisition. It is our moral duty to cleanse all of Easilon of the evil, demon-worshipping magic users. Witness this witch’s fate. Such will be the fate of all mages and necromancers!”
“I told you before—I’m not a witch.” The woman’s voice was quiet but audible over the heavy silence in the market. She sounded hoarse as if her throat was parched, or perhaps she’d been screaming or crying for a long time.
Taren gasped, and his heart lurched into his throat when the copper-haired young woman raised her head and gazed at the crowd. He was looking into the face of Yethri. Her face was bruised, one eye purple and nearly swollen shut, and dried blood caked one corner of her mouth.
“Yethri. Oh, gods.” Taren started forward, but Elyas clamped his fist around his arm and held him back.
“Taren, don’t be a fool,” Elyas hissed. “We can do nothing for her.”
“I’ve got to help her—she’s innocent! I can’t stand here and watch that madman murder her before my eyes.” He didn’t know what he was about to do but hoped a plan would come to him.
I should offer a trade—me for Yethri’s release. What these bastards really want is me. Yet even as he entertained the thought, he realized Tellast would never honor such a bargain.
A few of the people at the rear of the crowd glanced over their shoulders at Taren’s raised voice. Elyas held him by both arms, and he struggled against the big man’s grip.
Tellast ignored Yethri’s denial. “Pity the old sorceress’s heart gave out before she could face justice. Have you anything further to say for yourself, witch?” His flat tone indicated he didn’t care one whit, but was merely voicing a rote pronouncement.
“May you rot in the Abyss, with fiends tearing out your black heart.” In spite of Yethri’s fierce words, tears shimmered on her cheeks.
Taren’s heart nearly burst at the sight. He tried to wrench free of Elyas’s grip again, but to no avail.
Tellast gestured to one of his men. The inquisitor walked forward with a lit torch and tossed it into the pile of kindling at the foot of the pole. The wood swiftly caught fire. Yethri coughed at the plume of smoke rising in her face, twisting her head away as far as she could.
“Elyas, let me go, damn you!” With desperate strength, Taren tore an arm free and threw his fist at Elyas, clipping the big man on the jaw with a fair amount of force.
Elyas grunted but maintained his hold with the other hand, his face sad but determined.
“Taren, they’ll kill all of us if you draw their attention. We need to go—now.” With all his might, he hauled on Taren’s arm and dragged him away from the crowd, back toward a nearby alley.
Taren’s feet slipped in the muck, and he would’ve fallen had the big man not been restraining him.
Yethri began to scream.
Taren whirled and saw the hem of her dress had caught fire. A moment later, a curtain of flames blocked her from his vision. Her screams intensified, shrieks of agony which rent Taren’s heart.
“Gods damn it—no!” With a sudden ferocity, he shoved Elyas, causing his cousin to slip in the mud and fall, releasing his grip.
Taren was suddenly seeing the world with his second sight and felt a thrumming in his head, pounding at his temples. The earth magic was strong all around him but was subtle compared to the bright amber glow of the crowd, teeming with vitality.
“Taren—” Elyas’s eyes went wide, looking into Taren’s eyes. He simply lay there in the mud, shocked.
Taren ignored his cousin and ran toward the crowd. Flames and smoke obscured Yethri, but her screams still rent his heart, and as he got closer, he could see her writhing in agony, her red hair now truly aflame. Tears of rage leaked from his eyes. Something broke inside him at Yethri’s suffering. Raw power surged into him, and he staggered, shocked by its puissance, but just barely wrested it under control.
“Move!” he shouted.
The crowd before him was swept aside as if they were dried leaves and he a mighty gust of wind roaring through their midst.
The inquisitors and soldiers regarded him in shock. The square had gone silent save for Yethri’s weakening cries and the crackling flames. All Taren could focus on was Yethri consumed in flames. He cried out, a wordless wail of anguished horror. Sensing the moisture in the muddy ground, he somehow coaxed it forth, water instantly condensing in the air as if a heavy rain was held by some invisible force. He directed the water at the
fire. After a violent hissing, the flames were abruptly quenched, the force of the water blowing smoldering logs into the startled soldiers circled around behind the burning woman. Smoke still curled off of Yethri’s horribly burned form.
Taren was at her side then. He reached up to her, and the blackened ropes binding her to the stake crumbled away at his touch. He eased her frail form down, falling to his knees while cradling her in his arms.
“Mage!” Tellast shrieked, having recovered his composure. “He’s the boy we seek—take him alive!”
Soldiers snapped out of their trance and charged, drawing steel.
Taren raised his hand, and the ground thrust upward around the two of them, encircling them with a barrier of muddy earth.
He barely noticed the cries and shouts outside their small sanctuary, all his attention now focused on Yethri. The young woman’s hair had been burned away to a stubble. Her face and neck were blistered and shiny with burns, her arms and legs much worse, charred black, as were the remaining scraps of her dress.
“Oh, gods, Yethri, I’m so sorry! I’m too late.” His tears fell over Yethri’s blistered face, the words coming out in a flood. “I didn’t mean to leave you alone in Swanford that day… I tried to come back, but we were followed home by a man, I think a Nebaran spy. He attacked us on the road, and after that I feared returning.” He was dimly aware he was babbling.
Yethri’s charred claw of a hand gripped his. Miraculously, her eyelids opened, and her lovely green eyes focused on him though they were filled with tremendous depths of agony. “Taren? I knew you’d come eventually. I told Grandma after that night we met I knew you were special.” Her voice was a soft wheeze. “Ah, gods, it hurts…”
He wept for a time, words failing him. Yethri closed her eyes again. Her breath rattled in her chest, and Taren had to look away from the blackened flesh of her arm, split open to reveal the raw pink meat within. He took a deep breath and tried to regain his composure. She’s about gone, but I can do this—I can heal her.
Although not understanding the magic he commanded, he thought he might be able to wield it in a different way, to use it to heal Yethri. The power eluded him when he tried to grip and form it, as if he were trying to snare minnows in a stream with his bare hands.
Thudding sounded from the earthen barrier as the soldiers hammered on it. Tellast screamed for Glurk to break it down. The berm shuddered from a mighty blow but held for the moment.
Yethri’s aura had faded to the faintest amber. Taren cursed, straining to get a grip on his power, but it wouldn’t yield to him. In the back of his mind, he knew it was too late for her, but he stubbornly paid that thought no heed.
“I’m ready to be free of my pain now,” Yethri whispered. “Will you walk with me to the tranquil glade?”
“Of course. I’m right here beside you.” He realized she must worship Etenia, the Earth Mother, as did the elves.
A small smile formed on Yethri’s blistered lips, then her life departed her. Taren watched as her weak aura faded to nothingness. She sagged back in his arms, and the last of her breath escaped with a faint gasp. He leaned over and kissed her blistered forehead then gently closed her eyes. After that, he sat there for some time, sight blurred with tears.
The earthen wall shuddered behind him. A soldier climbed over the top and dropped down, a couple paces from Taren. He had bared steel in his hand. The man raised the sword to strike with the flat of his blade.
Taren pointed, and he burst into flames, just as the awful image of Yethri aflame was resurgent in his mind. A scream tore from the man’s lungs, then in mere seconds, he was a smoldering, charred corpse, an oily smoke pouring off him as his fat sizzled.
The berm crumbled apart from a blow of Glurk’s huge club. The ogre leered at him through the breach in the wall.
Taren eased Yethri to the ground. He couldn’t rest yet—he still had to make the bastards responsible for her death pay.
Glurk tore apart the barrier, hurling large chunks of earth away until he could fit through. He reached in with a hand large enough to seize Taren by the head and smash it like a grape. The ogre was a large, pulsing aura of vitality, ripe for the taking.
Taren reached out and grasped the ogre’s knobby hand. He visualized the way he’d pulled the moisture from the ground, only now he drew the ogre’s own vitality. Glurk’s hand and arm shriveled, the flesh seeming to evaporate in seconds until only sinew and bone remained beneath the desiccated skin.
The ogre’s wide mouth opened in a pained bellow. Taren drew harder, and then the moisture was pouring from Glurk, boiling off him like wet leaves thrust into a campfire. The ogre began to collapse, a pile of leather-covered bones. Taren didn’t stop drawing the vitality soon enough, and the ogre hit the ground, disintegrating into dust.
A crossbow bolt struck Taren’s shoulder, spinning him around, but he barely felt it, with the rush of power he now held. He felt lightheaded, giddy with the magic.
A dozen inquisitors and troops were charging him, weapons drawn and loaded crossbows poised to fire. Tellast shouted commands from the back of his horse. People from the crowd who had been scattered by Taren’s attack were fleeing the scene, voices filled with panicked screams. Those who remained were either injured and slow to get up or unmoving.
Taren unleashed the ogre’s built-up vitality. He imagined a massive fist crushing the inquisitors. The ground buckled and burst upward, forming a massive hand that scooped up the attackers. It then slammed closed like a titan’s fist, crushing men and earth together.
The expenditure of power struck Taren with a backlash, and he fell to the ground. He heard the sounds of fighting and strove to maintain his senses as a blizzard of dark spots swirled before his eyes. With a tremendous effort, he managed to remain conscious.
Elyas stood over him, fighting off three Nebaran soldiers, his sword seeming to flow in his hands. He parried a couple of blows then dodged a strike from the soldier on the right, suddenly bulling into the man to his left. His hilt cracked the man’s cheek, breaking bone and sending him reeling.
The second Nebaran struck, but Elyas was ready. He brought his sword around in a quick downward chop. He caught the man’s arm at the elbow and hewed it off. His next strike split the links of the third man’s mail shirt with ease as he drove two feet of steel through his chest.
“Taren? Are you all right?” Elyas glanced worriedly back at him. When Taren mumbled he was, the big man finished the stunned Nebaran with the shattered cheekbone with a quick strike of his father’s sword.
“Tellast. Where’s that bastard? I should have killed him back in that village.” Taren remembered smashing the pommel of his dagger into the man’s head. I should have stuck the blade into the whoreson’s brain. If I hadn’t been weak, Yethri would still be alive. He blinked away the spots in his vision and looked around but couldn’t see the High Inquisitor anywhere.
Elyas pointed, and Taren spotted the inquisitor’s long coat fluttering behind him, the rear of his black steed receding in the distance.
“No. You won’t get away. Not after Yethri.” He struggled to stand but couldn’t. “Help me up,” he snapped, more forcefully than he intended.
Elyas gripped his unwounded arm and hauled him to his feet. “What are you gonna do?”
Taren ignored him, focused on keeping a sudden vertigo at bay. His left shoulder throbbed painfully from the quarrel, and he focused on the pain until his vision steadied. His head pounded from a massive headache, and he felt completely drained. Crumpling into unconsciousness would be easy, and he somehow knew he should’ve already, but his willpower was kept kindled by rage and sorrow over Yethri’s death.
He couldn’t sense the deep well of earth magic any longer, but one spark of vitality was nearer. He gripped the thread, gently at first, then began hauling on it as if trying to uproot a tree. The magic resisted at first but then came free. The wounded Nebaran with the stump of his arm leaking blood into the mud desiccated before crumbling to d
ust as Glurk had.
Taren visualized a rope stretching across the road just before Tellast, one that would halt him in his tracks. The inquisitor was nearly out of sight, galloping rapidly from the market square down the open lane, cleared of terrified townsfolk. Taren pulled his magical rope taut, molding it into a razorlike line of force before the fleeing inquisitor. An instant later, the mounted man rode through it, and at first, Taren thought his magic hadn’t worked, that he was too weak for it to have any effect.
However, then the horse stumbled, wobbling. The top half of Tellast’s body slid backward, separating at the waist and bouncing off the horse’s hindquarters before smacking the street. Entrails and blood gushed everywhere, and finally the horse’s neck and head tumbled to the ground. The steed’s body, with the lower part of the inquisitor still mounted, crashed to the street a few paces farther along, spattering blood on the horrified townsfolk huddling nearby.
“I think… think I got him.” Taren crumpled, a black blizzard of oblivion roaring in with a vengeance that would no longer be denied.
***
“Balor’s balls. What in the Abyss did you do, Taren?” Elyas could only stand there gaping at the carnage. At first, the full scope of destruction hadn’t sunk in, for he had been running after Taren then battling Nebaran soldiers. But now that the momentary chaos had fallen still, he could only stand there in stunned horror.
Tellast and his horse had been hacked apart over a hundred paces away, as if by some giant’s blade. He’d watched an ogre and a wounded man turned to dust and a dozen or so other men crushed into pulp in a giant’s fist of earth and stone. The mess was still there, rising up twice Elyas’s height, a gruesome sculpture leaking the blood of broken men, with jagged bones and scraps of weapons and armor alike poking out of the fist, which seemed to have hardened to stone. A monument of carnage was all that remained of the inquisitors.
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