“Don’t make any sudden moves,” Erdhan said, keeping his voice soft and low.
“Something’s not right,” Orlla whispered. “What are they doing here? They don’t seem to know themselves.”
The words had barely left her lips before the shirtless man bounded past his companions and came to a halt in front of Orlla. “We need it,” he rasped.
She pulled back from him as his rank breath washed over her. “I have no idea what you’re talking about,” she said, frantically trying to construct a veiling rune over the Onyx and hoping Akolom was doing the same. Surely the man didn’t know they were transporting the dark dragon stone.
“Yes, you do!” he admonished her, waving a fist in the air. He paced feverishly, beside himself with frustration.
Orlla threw a sideways glance at Akolom. The sack was tied to a rope at his waist, the dragon stone now weightless—hopefully veiled from sight if her rune had succeeded. “Whatever you seek, you are mistaken to think I have it,” she said firmly.
“Not so,” a deep voice boomed out. The ragtag group of men and women surrounding them shrank in on themselves. One man started groaning and slapping himself on the face. A discordant medley of muttering and yowling broke out, not unlike the wailing that had plagued them earlier.
Orlla’s head jerked in the direction of the commanding voice. A thickset, muscular man with a swarthy complexion stepped out of the forest, a raised machete in his right hand. Several more equally intimidating figures followed—six men in total, armed with hammers, pikes, and swords and dressed in homespun tunics and thick leather boots. The cumulative effect of their battle-hardened appearance and daunting array of weapons was enough to squeeze the breath from Orlla’s lungs. She tensed her right arm, sword at the ready. The odds were stacked against them. If only Khor was still with them.
The thickset man who had spoken approached with an easy stride and a loose-lipped smirk, twirling the machete carelessly in his hand. Hard cords pulsed in his burly neck. He gripped the shirtless man by the shoulder. “This mad cur here sees things, and he says you have something he wants. Truth be told, he wants it so badly that he came to me for help. I’m better at taking things from people than he is.” The man threw back his head and laughed. “They don’t call me Pilching Puck for nothing.”
Orlla cast a dubious look at the shirtless man who had resorted to scratching his scalp again. It was apparent he was scared of these men—fugitives no doubt. It was unlikely he had recruited them to help him take possession of the dark dragon stone. Orlla took a steadying breath. Maybe they had overheard him babbling about it. As for how the shirtless man knew they were transporting the dark dragon stone, she wasn’t entirely sure—but what she suspected, terrified her.
The stone called to certain people. He didn’t need to see it physically to know they had it with them. The Onyx could make its presence known to the mind’s eye, and for some reason it had impressed itself on this mad mortal—tormenting his simple mind with vivid suggestions about its alluring beauty until it drove him wild with desire.
Puck gestured at the men with him, swinging their blades provocatively. “My companions and I would prefer to be on our way without any unpleasantness, but that depends on your level of assistance.”
“Are you threatening us?” Akolom asked, drawing himself up to his full height.
Puck regarded him with an air of amusement, like one might pander to a precocious child. He twisted his machete demonstratively through the air in a slow arc. “Not yet, old man. If you cooperate, we intend only to divest you of your treasure and send you on your way unharmed.”
“And if we don’t?” Akolom replied.
Puck’s expression clouded over. In a lightning fast move, he reached for the young woman with the matted hair and disturbing smile. Snaking an arm around her waist from behind, he trapped her hands at her sides, and pointed the tip of his machete to her throat, a cold smile tugging up his lips. “If you elect to be difficult, we’ll be obligated to demonstrate on the friendly forest folk here exactly why we became fugitives in the first place.” He released the whimpering woman with a contemptuous shove and leered at Orlla. “If that doesn’t persuade you, we’ll be forced to make things a little more … personal.”
Erdhan gripped his sword tighter and took a step toward Puck. “What do you want with us?”
“With you, nothing.” Puck jostled Erdhan aside with one sweep of his muscular arm. His eyes, cold as the Onyx of Darkness itself bored into Orlla. “Where is the dark dragon stone?”
Orlla jutted out her chin. “I don’t have it, and even if I did, I wouldn’t give it to you. It would devour you.”
Puck cracked his knuckles. “I don’t think you understand me all that well.” He nodded to one of his men who grabbed the young girl again and tugged her head back, exposing her neck. Slowly, he traced his blade across her quivering skin. A thin trickle of blood ran down, spilling onto her tunic.
“Stop it!” Orlla cried out.
Puck cocked his head to one side. “Something you want to give me after all?”
“Let the girl go first,” Orlla said.
The fugitive holding the girl twisted her arm behind her back, forcing her to cry out in pain.
Puck smirked. “She walks free as soon as you hand over the Onyx of Darkness.”
Before Akolom could stop her, Orlla reached her hand into the sack at his waist and held the invisible stone aloft. “Here is the stone you seek!”
Puck frowned. “I don’t see anything. Do you take me for a fool?”
“That is for the stone to decide,” Orlla said, and began chanting the forbidden rune.
A heavy beating of wings filled the air and an earth-shattering roar shook the trees like saplings. The shirtless man and his peers scattered like rodents, disappearing into the undergrowth as quickly as they had appeared.
A heartbeat later, a powerful bolt of fire ripped across the trail.
Chapter 25
Puck shrieked in terror and dropped to the ground, rolling around in the dirt as he tried desperately to douse the flames enveloping him. Three of his men lay like blackened logs across the trail, their clothes melded to their charred bodies, the stench of their fried flesh overpowering. Orlla could make out the leathery black serrated wing tips of several dark dragons circling overhead. As she hastily tried to stuff the Onyx back inside the sack, the dragons dove down and snatched up the two remaining fugitives in their claws, fighting over their scorched bodies and tearing them apart before her eyes.
“Run!” she screamed to Akolom and Erdhan. Clutching the sack to her chest, she sped off down the trail away from the flames. Her legs moved faster than she had ever run before, her strides so powerful it felt as though she were flying through the forest. Maybe the stone was giving her strength.
Panting, she chanced a glance down at it. The veiling rune they had encased it in had dissipated when the forbidden rune had been invoked, and through the woven sack she saw that the stone’s molten, fiery center was aglow once more. Her skin tingled at the sheer beauty of it, and that invisible fist closed around her heart again, squeezing harder than before. She simply couldn’t share this stone with the Keepers—it belonged to her, it knew her. She needed to protect the Onyx of Darkness from those who sought to destroy it. That was her real mission. She saw it clearly now.
The dark dragons had saved her again, proving once and for all that she could control them when she invoked the forbidden rune—she did not need to fear them any longer, or what they might unleash. She furrowed her brow. If she said as much, Erdhan and Akolom would make her turn the Onyx of Darkness over to them. She couldn’t let that happen. Her stomach churned at the thought. She had to lose them in the starless woodlands—separate herself from those who might separate her from the dark dragon stone that only wanted to protect her. Her legs pumped faster and faster. She would not part with it, no matter what.
Someone slammed into her from behind, knocking her to her hands and
knees. The sack went flying from her grasp, the Onyx rolling to a stop a short distance away, still glowing like a fiery planet beneath a leafy fern.
“What was that about?” Erdhan wheezed, leaning over her, his eyes wide with something akin to shock. “What were you doing?”
Orlla blinked at him, puzzling over the question. “Running—we were running from the dragons.”
“The dragons took off with the fugitives. You were running from us!” Erdhan’s tone was accusatory.
Orlla’s head filled with static. She furrowed her brow, at a loss as to how to explain herself. All she could remember for sure was the pressing need to run.
Moments later, Akolom stumbled to a stop beside them and leaned against a nearby tree to catch his breath. He frowned at Orlla’s empty hands and immediately scanned the surrounding foliage. His eyes lit on the Onyx, the rich hues at its core fluttering weakly as they faded to gray once more. Anger blazed across his features. He quickly retrieved the stone and slid it back inside the sack before turning to Orlla, his face a mask of restraint. “You are not to lay hands on this stone again.”
“But the Onyx protected us,” she protested, eying the sack covetously. “It serves me now.”
Akolom tied the sack around his waist, a forbidding grimace on his face. “The dark dragon stone serves no master but itself. You should not have invoked the forbidden rune.”
“If I hadn’t, we’d be lying dead on this trail and the stone would be in the hands of the fugitives.”
“And now they are dead because of your actions,” Akolom replied in a clipped tone. “You supplanted the veiling and protective runes I was weaving which would have sufficed to spirit us away. Instead, you called upon the dark dragons and in so doing alerted our enemies to our location. If the emperor’s scouts spotted the black breath of the dragons above the starless woodlands, they will know we are crossing through them and will spare no effort to pursue us.”
He let out a heavy sigh, his shoulders sagging as if beneath the weight of the knowledge he was about to impart. “You have been given a special gift to wield the power of the dragon stones, but the Onyx abuses your gift, corrupting it for its own purposes. Its toxic roots have found fertile soil in your heart.”
When Orlla didn’t respond, Erdhan reached out a hand and pulled her to her feet. She stood in silence for a moment contemplating Akolom’s words. If she was being honest with herself, the decision to invoke the forbidden rune had not been one she had consciously made—the stone had seduced her, taken hold of her senses and twisted her reasoning to suit its purposes. Akolom’s assessment was right. She was not strong enough to resist the pull of the Onyx. She had to stay away from the dark dragon stone until it could be safely destroyed.
“It’s not just Emperor Narlius we need to be concerned about now,” Erdhan added. “If Skinner glimpsed the dragons, he’ll send mercenaries after us to recover the stone.”
Akolom nodded. “We must double our pace and strive to reach Gaunt’s abode and pick up our horses by tomorrow. We won’t make camp tonight, we must satisfy ourselves with short rests instead. I fear if we delay any longer, we will be surrounded by enemies on all sides.”
Spurred on by the urgency of reaching Gaunt’s abode before their pursuers caught up with them, they settled into a pace that satisfied Akolom. But, it quickly became apparent he wouldn’t be able to keep it up for long. His legs no longer had the strength and endurance of youth to sustain him, and his breathing had become shallower in recent days.
“He can’t keep pushing this hard all through the night,” Orlla muttered to Erdhan, thankful that Akolom’s hearing was no longer as keen as it once had been. “We have to persuade him to find somewhere safe to tuck away in before night falls.”
Erdhan scrubbed a hand across his chin. “He’s stubborn, he won’t stop on his own account. Maybe you can fake a fall to trick him into stopping for a bit.”
Orlla tugged down the corners of her lips. “I lied to him once and it’s tortured me ever since.”
Erdhan raised amused brows. “You’ve lied to me on numerous occasions, but you’ve never struck me as a tortured soul.”
Orlla gave a sheepish grin. “That was different. I didn’t know I could trust you back then. I always knew Akolom had my best interests at heart.”
After a moment of silence, Erdhan asked, “Do you trust me now?”
“You know I do. You risked your life for me, more than once.” Orlla kicked at some leaves in her path to avoid meeting the intense blue-eyed stare he pinned on her. “Akolom doesn’t trust me anymore, at least not around the dark dragon stone.”
Erdhan frowned. “You shouldn’t trust yourself around it. It changes you.”
“Or maybe it just reveals what’s already there,” Orlla said quietly. “That’s what really scares me.”
“We all have divided hearts,” Erdhan responded. “You must rise above your dark desires and subject your heart to your will.”
“We cannot afford to dawdle,” Akolom called back to them, leaning against a boulder to catch a breath.
“You can’t keep up this pace,” Orlla said when she drew level with him. “We should find shelter and rest for a bit.”
Akolom pulled on his mustache, looking somewhat irritated, but to her surprise, he acquiesced. “Very well, a short stop to refresh us.”
“We’ll need to move into the woodlands,” Orlla said. “It’s not safe to stop on the trail.”
“Straying from the path is exactly what Gaunt warned us not to do,” Akolom grouched.
Ignoring him, Erdhan drew his sword and plunged into the tangled brush to the left of the trail, hacking his way through the undergrowth as he went.
Orlla and Akolom exchanged a look and followed him.
It was dark as night in the dense brush, and strange sounds rebounded around them, the calls and trills of unfamiliar creatures. They walked single-file, sweat trickling down the back of their necks as they wrestled their way through thorns, over gnarled roots and betwixt tangled undergrowth that clawed at them with gusto despite their best efforts to emerge unscathed.
“This is hopeless,” Orlla called up to Erdhan. “It’s a jungle in here. We’re hardly making any progress, and there’s no sign of a burrow or any kind of cave we can shelter in. We should go back and try the other side of the trail.”
“I see something up ahead,” Erdhan replied, thrashing onward until he had disappeared from view. Grumbling to herself, Orlla fought her way forward in his tracks, all the while keeping an eye over her shoulder to make sure Akolom remained in sight.
When she finally caught up with Erdhan, she peered curiously around him. Her eyes widened. The ground before them sloped gently down to a serpentine river, black as the Onyx itself.
Akolom shuffled up behind them and let out a low whistle.
“It’s flowing south,” Erdhan observed, barely able to temper the excitement in his voice. “If we can float it, we could make it to Gaunt’s place in a few hours instead of days.”
“That sounds overly optimistic,” Orlla said wryly, “but a lot more appealing than spending a single night in this cursed forest.”
Akolom grunted. “If we can float the river, others can too. Let’s check it out, but tread carefully lest we have company.”
They stilled their breathing and crept silently down the embankment to the river’s edge, boots squelching over soggy leaf litter.
Akolom put a finger to his lips and pointed at something.
Orlla and Erdhan turned and peered along the bank in the direction he indicated. Tied to a ramshackle dock protruding into a wide bend of the river, was a small wooden skiff. Orlla’s heart leapt at the sight. Maybe there was a chance they could get out of the starless woodlands before nightfall after all. “I’ll go scout it out.”
Erdhan laid a hand on her arm. “No, I’ll go. Keep an eye on Akolom and the Onyx until I get back. You can veil them from view if anyone comes. I can’t help with the runes.”
“A riverdrake,” Akolom replied, his voice grave in his delivery. “Gaff says they can overturn a ship with one swat of their tail.”
Orlla bit back the whimper that rose up her throat. “Taking that skiff might not be such a good idea.”
Akolom pursed his lips. “The skiff is our best option to shake anyone pursuing us. We’ll wait until the riverdrake has gone downstream before we take off.”
“We don’t know for sure if we’re even being pursued,” Orlla said.
Akolom gave her a reproving look. “Believe me, word is spreading of what we carry with us.”
Deep down Orlla knew he was right. Thanks to her actions, they had attracted attention to themselves. The stone itself might very well be guiding their enemies to them—she knew firsthand it was a master of deception. She returned her attention to the water. The riverdrake had disappeared around the bend, but not before sending a massive wave smashing against the dock and rocking the skiff so hard it almost overturned. Out of the corner of her eye, she spotted a figure darting back toward them. “Erdhan’s on his way.”
“Not a moment too soon,” Akolom said in an urgent tone. “Do you hear that?”
The nape of her neck prickled as voices drifted their way, faint, but moving steadily in their direction. They scrambled to their feet and ran along the river bank to meet Erdhan. “Someone’s coming!” Orlla whispered.
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