MySoultoKeep

by Dianna Hunter

  Kayla could see that Garth was struggling frantically against the constant surge of bodies, trying to reach the druid before he could complete his grizzly ceremony, but the additional peasants filling the church had effectively trapped him. The close quarters and crush of bodies made it impossible for him to swing his sword or to break away from the peasants who willingly martyred themselves for their Master, fervently throwing their unarmed bodies against Garth’s giant form and screaming in agony as they either burst into flame or were cut into pieces by the warlock’s sword.

  From her vantage point on Hawk’s back, Kayla saw the druid raise his dripping dagger above the squirming body of the second babe, chanting in preparation to offer the living heart of the child to his dread deity. Realizing that Garth could not possibly free himself in time and that she could not bring the giant Ral’i through that mass of bodies fast enough to prevent the priest from finishing his loathsome sacrifice, Kayla made her move.

  With her dagger firmly gripped in her fist, she bent over Hawk’s neck and whispered in his ear, “You must aid Garth and Star Dancer! Hurry!”

  Without a thought for her own safety, Kayla dropped from the relative safety of the Ral’i’s back and into the crowd. Determined to reach the mad priest and stop him, she began weaving between the milling people.

  The throng of peasants was so intent in their attack on Garth that none seemed to see the slender young woman who had followed him as a threat until a burly man with a pockmarked face took notice of her and moved to block Kayla’s path.

  “A warlock’s whore is fit only as meat for the hounds!” he barked.

  “Get out of my way or die!” warned Kayla. She was angrier than she had ever been in her life. How dare this baby-killing scum threaten her! She could feel the fury that had been building within her ignite as his rough hand closed on her arm.

  “An arrogant little bitch, too,” he snarled.

  All reason and caution was lost to her rage, and Kayla could feel the heat of her anger spreading through her whole body as she brought her knee up hard into the man’s crotch. He screamed and doubled over, foolishly bringing his head and neck within her reach.

  Twisting free of the hand still gripping her arm, Kayla spun around behind her attacker where she quickly reached under her attacker’s chin and drew the razor-edged blade of her knife across his filthy throat, severing the jugular vein as she had seen Garth do to the bull they had slaughtered days earlier.

  Kicking at his backside with one foot, she pushed the dying man from her and plunged on toward the druid who was continuing with his ceremony, oblivious to the carnage around him.

  Kayla was nearly to the altar when the crowd parted enough for her to see the flash of the black blade as it arched toward the tiny chest of the child.

  “NO!” She launched herself at the druid, and though she massed very little beside the bulk of the fleshy priest, the force of her attack was enough to send his blade clattering to the floor.

  Furious, he seized her by the shoulders and roared, “You will pay for this interruption, whore!” His huge hands closed about her throat.

  The adrenalin of her anger throbbed through Kayla’s veins, carrying her beyond all reason and fear as she let the flames of the fire that had been kindled deep inside her erupt in a burst of power.

  In spite of his size and strength, the druid was thrown away from the altar and to the stone floor by the force of the blast. Clutching his burned hands to his chest, he struggled to a sitting position and locked hate-filled black eyes on Kayla.

  “Foul witch! You shall die in agony just like the other one!” he hissed. His face was a mask of hatred and cruelty as he scurried on all fours into the midst of the crowd behind him, hoping to escape the wrath of the witch.

  Kayla took a step after him, intending to finish the evil priest off but a weak squeal drew her attention back to the bloody altar. The bloody corpse of the poor murdered babe lay on the cold slab of stone, at his side laid the blood-spattered twin that had come so close to suffering the same fate.

  This was all more than she could abide!

  The flames of rage that had been smoldering deep within her leapt to life. Kayla turned eyes burning with rage on the druid’s black-draped form where he had stopped, backed against a wall. Trapped by the very mob of people he had employed to escape, he was struggling to get his fat legs under him long enough to raise his corpulent body from the floor.

  “Druid,” she moved toward him, the fingers of one hand pointed at him. Tiny blue flames danced at the tips of her fingers and swirled across her palm, “To have done these heinous things you must be a thing of ultimate evil and darkness!”

  “N-no, wait,” he gasped and held his arms up before his face. “You d-don’t understand! I-I must cleanse this region. Yes, cleanse it of the cursed ones!” His wild eyes scanned the young woman, taking in her inadequate armament and unimposing figure and decided to risk it.

  The druid lunged for her with a dagger of blackest ebony that had suddenly appeared in his fist.

  Kayla did not even flinch. She opened her hand and released a ball of fire that struck the druid full in the chest.

  The priest was thrown back against the wall where he frantically flapped his arms, trying to smother the flames consuming his robe, their greedy fingers already reaching for the flesh of his massive chest and bulging belly. And as the flames fed and the tendrils of smoke grew so did the druid’s screams grow madder until even that was denied him by the blue inferno.

  Kayla watched with cold eyes as the burning form twisted in agony on the stone floor.

  “I only regret that you did not suffer as much as your victims,” she said coldly and spit on the smoldering corpse, before turning away.

  “Kay-La!”

  The urgency of the call broke past the haze of anger engulfing her.

  Turning to locate the source, she saw that Garth had finally broken free and that the Ral’i were holding off the considerably smaller mob as he made his way through the bloody carnage of hacked and burned bodies covering the floor to reach her.

  “Take the babe and let’s get out of here!” he told her.

  “Don’t burn it!” His shouted warning made her freeze as she reached for the sobbing babe. Exerting great effort, Kayla took control of the fire pulsing through her veins and, carefully averting her gaze from the remains of the murdered one, gathered the squirming infant into her arms and gently cradled it against her.

  When Garth saw that the glow of her anger had diminished sufficiently, he dared take Kayla by the elbow and guided her toward a side door. His shrill whistle brought the two valiant Ral’i stampeding over the remains of the mob to join them outside in the muddy courtyard.

  When they were a safe distance away from the church, Garth gently eased the babe from Kayla’s arms and laid it at the base of a tree behind them. Grasping her right hand with his left, he instructed her tersely, “Come, join with me, Kayla.” With a gentle tug, he urged her forward a few paces to face the stone building and the angry crowd that was beginning to spill from its dark recesses.

  Not needing any further encouragement, Kayla raised her more powerful left hand and, pointing it at the murderous mob, let her anger and outrage pour forth and join with Garth’s fury.

  Oblivious to the shrieks for mercy, they allowed the power to surge from them, incinerating that foul bastion of evil in an inferno of blue flames, consuming all within until all that remained was a crumbled ruin of blackened stone.

  The flames had begun to recede when Kayla became aware of the force of swirling wind and energy gathering around the blackened edifice. The blast of energy rushing over her brought her to her knees, sobbing.

  The ancient church had absorbed centuries of life force from the ill use of its worshippers, which released with its destruction. If not for Garth’s support, she would have collapsed as her body, acting like a magnet, drew and absorbed the wave of energy.

  Kayla’s body began to glow, fi
rst a pale blue, then gaining in intensity to a brilliant luminescence, and it seemed to her that she would surely explode in a nova of pure energy and become one with the stars above!

  Faintly, Garth’s voice reached her above the pounding in her temples.

  “Kayla! Stop! Close the conduit. Now!”

  It took a tremendous effort for Kayla to pull away from the ecstasy of the pain pounding through her veins. Desperately, she reached for the sound of Garth’s voice while trying to picture in her mind the closing of a door against the wall of energy that was assaulting her.

  At last, she felt the pressure ease and finally stop yet her whole body glowed and her veins throbbed with the excess life force she had already absorbed, unable to assimilate so much at one time.

  “Let go of it! Release it to me.” Garth’s command echoed through Kayla’s mind as he drew her rigid, burning body against his own, and Kayla felt the surplus power begin to drain into him and the pain and pressure ease until it became bearable.

  With a deep sigh of relief, she collapsed, falling limp in his arms.

  But Garth let her rest only a moment before rousing her. “Come, little one, we need to leave this place.” Gently, he helped her get her shaky legs under her.

  Kayla let him lead her as far as the tree sheltering the babe. Breaking away, she dropped to the trampled grass where she knelt, shuddering and retching, trying to rid herself of the black sickness that had filled her at the realization of the death and destruction she had dealt so easily.

  “H-how could I-I have done this?” she sobbed. “It was like I was another person an-and all that power just took over!”

  “It’ll be all right. You only did what you had to. You saw what they did to the Healer and an innocent babe, and if you hadn’t reached him in time, the druid would have killed this one, too.” He held out the whimpering babe to her.

  Kayla accepted the babe and cradled its shivering body in her arms. “It’s a little girl,” she said absently as she took her first real look at the child. She ran her fingers lightly through the unusually thick mat of russet-colored hair, exposing one tiny pointed ear. The babe responded to the caress by opening her large golden eyes and returning Kayla’s appraising stare.

  “This babe’s skin is blue and not just with cold,” she said. Curious, she rubbed some more of the gore from the small body, “and she has pointed ears, like an elf.” She looked up at Garth for an explanation.

  “Yes, most witchlings are blue when they’re born. I expect you were also born a very lovely shade of blue,” he teased gently, glad that she was beginning to put the trauma of the battle aside. “The tint usually fades by the time a witchling reaches a year old, and the pointed ears vary according to the heritage.”

  Pushing Kayla’s hair back from one pink ear, he said, “Yours are barely pointed. Only someone familiar with the witch-kind would notice.” He looked down at the babe snuggled in Kayla’s arms, sucking hungrily on a small fist and told her, “This one will most likely retain the pointed ears and some of the blue tint as she grows. Her mother was human, but her father was one of the mountain elves.”

  Seeing Kayla’s appraising stare, he added, “Her mother, Elsbeth, was a friend.” He reached one hand to touch the tiny girl’s fragile shoulder and rubbed more of the grime from it to expose an unhealed spot the size of a quarter and shape of a star. “Elsbeth sent for me when she went into labor. She’d sensed from the first that the two babes were joined and feared for their safe delivery.”

  “I cut them apart at birth myself. It’s too bad we didn’t get here in time to save the little boy, too.”

  “What happened to their father?” Kayla asked. “Why would any man leave his woman alone and with child at the mercy of those horrible villagers?”

  “The villagers drove him from the area several months before the babes were born. If only Elsbeth had taken my advice and left, too, this tragedy might have been avoided.” Shaking his head sadly, Garth left her, walked to where Star Dancer was grazing and rummaged through the pack strapped securely to her saddle.

  Returning a few minutes later with a small blanket in one hand, he took the infant from Kayla and carefully wrapped her in the soft folds.

  “Star Dancer, Hawk! Come!” he called to the Ral’i. With one hand under her arm, he helped a shaky-legged Kayla to the stallion’s side.

  When she had settled in her saddle, he passed the blanket-wrapped bundle into her hands. “It will be a few more days before we reach the inn at Eagle Pass but we should be able to get supplies for the babe from the farmsteads along the way,” he told her as he checked the sky and position of the sun above.

  “Easy, girl, everything is all right now,” he whispered soothingly as he reached for the black mare dancing skittishly at Hawk’s side. Both Ral’i were obviously anxious to be gone from this place.

  “How many more days will we be traveling?” Kayla queried in a flat voice. She found that she was feeling weary for the first time since the beginning of this adventure.

  “We still have another week of traveling before we reach the Pass. From there it is only a half-day’s journey before we are through it and in sight of Sea-Watch.”

  “Good.” She urged Hawk into an easy canter to keep pace with Star Dancer and hunched down as if cold, for somehow, the sun above just didn’t seem to shine as brightly for her as it had.

  MySoultoKeep

  Chapter Five

  Lulled by the quiet countryside and warm rays of the afternoon sun, Kayla had drifted into a near-sleep state, swaying gently in her saddle when the too-ordinary sound of a rooster crowing and cows mowing in the distance jerked her mind back to total awareness.

  “We turn off here,” Garth called. He nudged the mare with one knee and headed off the main trail and onto a narrow lane comprised mainly of deep ruts of dried mud and grass.

  When they rounded the first bend in the lane, Kayla got her first glimpse of the inn and its accompanying outbuildings. They were all solid-looking structures built of blocks of weathered purple stone that looked like they’d been cut from the canyon walls that guarded the perimeters of the farmstead. Curious about the source of the odd-colored stone and the mountain pass that was their destination, Kayla shielded her eyes with one hand in a futile effort to see more of the steep walls of stone, but it was impossible to see past the glare of the setting sun.

  Disappointed, she shrugged her shoulders and urged Hawk on, letting him follow the mare into a compound where several shaggy oxen could be seen standing in a muddy corral, lazily swishing their tails at the large flies buzzing around them. As they drew closer to the stable, they could hear cheerful whistling filtering through the gaps of the wood-slab walls, punctuated every few bars, by a soft thump as forks full of used bedding were added to the pile by the door.

  The clatter of the Ral’i’s hooves in the courtyard roused a pack of mangy, half-starved mongrels from the shade to earn their keep as watchdogs, barking and snapping at the heels of the strange horses.

  Alerted by the hounds, a man emerged from the shadow of the stable door with the tines of a pitchfork pointed at the intruders, his face fixed in a glare of defiance until his eyes adjusted to the bright light and focused on Garth.

  Grinning broadly, he lowered the pitchfork and leaned it against the building.

  “Hey! Be quiet there, you useless bunch of flea bait!” Waving his arms at the yapping hounds, he managed to send them cowering back to their nap.

  “Good day to ya’, Master, Mistress.” He dipped a shallow bow in their direction. “May I take your mounts, Sire? Looks like a good rubdown and feedin’ of oats be just what they need.” The young man reached a sure hand out to Star Dancer. Crooning softly to her, he ran an expert hand down her sweat-stained neck as Garth dismounted and passed his reins to him.

  “Yes, thank you, Troll, they’ve had a long trip and I’m sure they’d appreciate it.”

  Garth turned and reached for Hawk’s reins. “This is the Lady Kayla
and Shadow Hawk,” he introduced. He passed the second set of reins into Troll’s extended hand before reaching to help the exhausted Kayla from her saddle.

  “And remember,” he clapped a friendly hand to the fellow’s shoulder, “stable the Ral’i at the far end. You know they’ll not tolerate being too close to the horses.” He reached into his pocket and flipped a large coin toward the man. “Be sure they get enough to eat.”

  Garth released Kayla’s arm and turned to the task of removing both saddlebags, and for an awkward moment, Kayla and the young stable hand were left staring at each other.

  Shifting his weight from one foot to the other, Troll ducked his head shyly and mumbled something Kayla could not hear before tugging on the reins gripped in his hand and leading the Ral’i off toward the stable.

  Kayla stared after him, still trying to assimilate Troll’s odd appearance. If each of his features could have been viewed separately, he would’ve been a handsome man, but seen as a whole, it was like looking at a doll that had been taken apart and put back together again by a careless child. He had the massive, muscle-bound body of a professional wrestler with thighs like tree trunks and a thick neck that supported a round, childishly charming face, but then, he was forced, by the large hump on his back, to carry one shoulder higher, while one leg was inches shorter, its foot two sizes bigger than the other. Troll’s powerful arms and hands hung nearly to his knees, and his beautiful, kind eyes, one china blue the other saffron yellow, peered at the world from behind stray locks of hair that flowed to the tops of his shoulders in heavy ringlets of a deep auburn color.

  “Here, let me help you,” Garth said, breaking in on Kayla’s silent study of the stable hand.

  They were halfway across the courtyard when she finally remembered her manners and turned to call back, “It was very nice meeting you, Mister Troll.”

  Troll stopped at the entrance to the stable and called back, “Th-that’s just, just Troll, M’lady.” He smiled and waved as Garth urged her on.