Groeliin.
“Show me,” Isandra said.
She couldn’t see anything, so she kept one hand gripping the fur on the nape of his neck. The merahl crept forward, sniffing, and then began growling.
The haze cleared, but not completely.
That wasn’t quite right. The haze had cleared, but now what she saw was the dark fog of the groeliin.
Where were they?
They had to be nearby, especially if she saw the fog that surrounded them, but she saw no sign of them. The merahl guided her forward, and she continued to hold on to his fur, her heart racing as she feared when she might run into one of the groeliin.
Then one of the creatures appeared.
It was one of the taller groeliin, and it carried a dark blade. He swung it in an arc toward her.
Isandra’s training with Jassan set in. She dropped, blocking the attack, and swept her sword up in a controlled strike, catching the groeliin in the shoulder.
The creature was fast, as all like it seemed to be. It recovered and attacked again. Its blows were heavy, and it attacked with strength that Isandra could not match.
The merahl had left her, and she heard his breathless snarls as he attacked other groeliin that she could not see. When she’d faced these larger groeliin before, they had come with a single leader, with several others who followed. How many others might there be? Would the merahl be able to handle them on his own?
Isandra forced those worries out of her mind, needing to focus on the fight. This creature was powerful and more skilled than the first groeliin with a sword that she’d faced. Had she faced one like this the first time, she would probably have fallen.
It meant they were training.
The thought struck her, nearly slowing her, but she managed to regroup, and danced through movements, letting her mind go blank as she worked through patterns Jassan had taught her. She had continued to practice in the time since they had returned from the breeding grounds. It had been a distraction, and something she realized that she enjoyed, but now it turned out that it had been essential. Had she not, she likely would have fallen by now.
She twisted, leaping backward, and the large groeliin stumbled.
Isandra took that opening, and darted forward, bringing her sword around and beheading the creature. He twitched once before he stopped moving.
Where were the others?
She heard the merahl attacking, but saw no sign of the other groeliin. The dark fog hung over everything, preventing her from seeing clearly.
She needed to help him.
She whistled softly, trying to re-create the sound of the merahl. Jassan and Nahrsin had managed to make a whistle that the merahl would answer to, but Isandra had never managed to mimic it. Until now.
The merahl howled, and she knew where to find him.
She hurried forward, attacking as quickly as she could, and reached the space where the dark fog lifted enough for her to see another of the sword-wielding groeliin.
Not only one, she realized with a growing horror. There were two. Both were enormous and larger than the last one she had fought.
Isandra’s heart sank. She could face one, and possibly even survive against one this size, but against two? That was more than what she could withstand. If she did nothing, the merahl would fall. She realized that he had been bloodied, and his movements were not nearly as swift as they normally would be.
She had no choice but to attack.
It had been foolishness that had brought her this deep into the mountains. She had made a mistake not summoning help, and now that mistake would kill her. If she could help it, it would not kill the merahl.
She screamed, drawing the attention of one of the groeliin, but not of both.
The groeliin leaped at her.
The last creature she had faced had been skilled. It had more talent with the sword than any of the others that she had faced when they had found the breeding grounds, but this one put the last to shame.
The creature was too fast for her to track.
She fell back, retreating against its assault. Isandra barely managed to block each attack, and barely managed to stay on her feet. She slipped once and gathered herself in time to bring her sword up before a killing blow would have taken her head off.
Any hope she had that the merahl might jump in and assist her had faded. The merahl was injured, and likely had enough trouble keeping away from the groeliin it attempted to face.
As she staggered, that translucent haze returned and thickened around her.
It obscured her and gave her a chance to scramble back and gather herself.
Her heart pounded. She heard the merahl, a soft, hurt cry that was mixed with the threat of an attack. She whistled, letting the merahl know that she still lived. She didn’t know if the groeliin could hear the merahl, and she suspected they could hear her, but she needed her friend to know that she still lived and that she would still fight.
The dark fog of the groeliin pushed against the translucent haze, but it could not penetrate it.
Was she safe here?
How was it possible?
She licked her lips. Her mouth was dry from fighting, as well as from the effort of climbing for the last few hours. Had she only planned better, she would have been equipped for such a journey. She should have known better than to leave Farsea by herself, and she should have known better than to engage in an attack on some strangeness without having a good sense of what she would encounter.
Something brushed up against her, and she jerked, realizing that it was the merahl.
“Are you hurt?”
It no longer felt strange to speak to the merahl, and when he gave a soft whine in reply, she recognized what he told her, and she knew that he had sustained enough of an injury that would slow him.
“We should try to get back to Farsea,” she said.
She backed up, and the merahl went with her, keeping close by her side. This time, she suspected he remained near her for his benefit rather than for hers. With the haze surrounding them, they had cover, but how long would that last? How long before it cleared, and the groeliin saw them and managed to attack?
The haze continued to grow thicker.
What was it? What caused it to be so dense here?
She took another step back and bumped into something.
She turned, expecting to see the merahl, but he was still pressed up against her side.
She saw a groeliin.
Isandra brought her sword up, preparing to attack, but the look of surprise—and one that she would almost call fear—on the groeliin’s face halted her attack.
The merahl sniffed, but he didn’t growl, and he didn’t attempt to attack.
This was the groeliin she had saved. This was the groeliin she had attempted to feed fruits. The one that had fed on the positively charged teralin.
The dark fog pressed the dense haze inward, growing increasingly thicker.
Understanding came to her then. The infant groeliin was protecting himself with this haze. The other groeliin had come not for her, but for this creature.
She looked down at the merahl. “We can’t leave it,” she said.
She didn’t know whether this groeliin was a him or her, but she knew with absolute certainty that she couldn’t allow the other groeliin to claim it. If nothing else, they still needed to study it, and they still needed to know whether feeding it with the positively charged teralin had somehow changed something for it.
They needed to know something that she never before believed even possible. Could the groeliin be saved?
Chapter Thirty-Three
Though the dark fog continued to thicken around them, pressing upon Isandra with something like a physical weight, she sheathed her sword and turned to the infant groeliin, holding her hands out. The air had a cool bite to it, and the scent of a coming rain mixed with the strange stink of the groeliin. She stood before the creature, unarmed, and for the first time since capturing it i
n the breeding grounds, she did so with nothing between her and it.
“Let me help you,” she said.
The groeliin watched her, before turning its gaze to the ever-thickening dark fog.
“We’ll get you away from them,” she said. She wasn’t certain that was what the groeliin wanted, or if it feared something else, but she was determined to save this creature, if only because she wasn’t convinced that it was the same as the others.
The groeliin made a strange sound, a sort of noise that sounded almost like a word. It was different from anything she’d heard from other groeliin, but not clear enough for her to understand.
“I want to help,” she said. “Let me get you away from here.”
The groeliin flicked its gaze toward her again, and back to the dark fog that surrounded them. She would have to fight, and she didn’t know whether she was strong enough to overpower the two groeliin. There might even be more.
“How many of the large ones are there?” she asked the merahl.
The merahl sniffed the air and then howled softly three times.
Three.
That was too many for her. Even if the merahl were uninjured, that would be too many for the two of them. The groeliin might not fight, and even if it would, she wasn’t certain she wanted it to. What would happen to it if it did fight? What would change? Would it become violent like the rest of the groeliin? Did feeding it on the positively charged teralin allow it to change its countenance enough for the creature to be more peaceful?
She needed to know. It deserved that chance.
This one might have been born of destruction and chaos, but did that mean it had to stay that way? It had been just an infant when she had rescued it and brought it north with them.
Fighting their way free would be nearly impossible if there were three groeliin, especially if they were all armed with swords. And if there were three, that meant there were possibly dozens of smaller groeliin, more than she could stop, and more than the merahl could stop.
They had to escape, and quickly, but with the dark fog of the groeliin surrounding them, they could do nothing.
She looked down at the merahl. For the first time, she realized that he was bleeding from a long gash down his side. He couldn’t fight; he barely remained standing.
If they were to survive, it would have to be on her.
There was only one way she could think of to save them.
The last few times she had tried reaching deeper into her mind and tried reaching for the manehlin, she had failed. What she needed now was a way to reach for that power, that part of her that had once been there, and had been stolen by the Deshmahne.
What she would have to do required her to risk tearing open her mind, and risked her going insane if she failed. Even if she were successful, would she be able to reach enough of a connection to the manehlin for her to succeed?
The merahl growled softly. She recognized the urgency in the tone, as well as a resignation. The merahl expected to die in this fight.
The infant groeliin made a sound something like a cry, nothing like the hissing the other groeliin had made during their battles.
Isandra took a deep breath.
She again reached for that portion of her mind that granted access to her Mage abilities.
As before, it slipped away. There was the wispy sense that they were there, but she couldn’t quite reach them, she couldn’t quite grasp the manehlin, though she desperately wanted to—and needed to.
Isandra pushed.
Pain shot through her mind.
There was a greater awareness of the manehlin, and once again, she reached for it, straining to grasp it, to control it as had once been easy for her.
Again, she failed.
The groeliin closed in.
She could feel them as much as she could see the changing of the black cloud around them. The air stunk of them.
She would have to try harder. She would have to strain with everything she could, reaching despite pain. Could she withstand it? Could she tolerate the agony she knew she would experience as she attempted to push her mind open?
Isandra knew that she could.
The Deshmahne had unintentionally prepared her for this moment. They had tortured her, branded her, and stolen her powers, abilities given to her by the gods. She had suffered. But she had survived.
She had reached the Antrilii, and she had learned that she was stronger than a mere Mage. She was more than that. Perhaps all the Magi were more than that if only they would push themselves.
Could she draw on that now?
Isandra reached deep into her mind, and this time, she felt it tearing.
She screamed.
It was agony, but it was no worse than anything she had endured at the hand of the Deshmahne.
Her head split.
As it did, awareness of the manehlin opened up to her.
It swirled around her, but not only her, she saw it swirling around the infant groeliin. It emanated from the creature.
How was that possible?
She pulled the manehlin toward her, controlling it. It was a nearly forgotten skill. She had been out of practice for so long that doing so felt awkward, and strange.
That wasn’t quite right.
It wasn’t that using the manehlin felt strange, it was that her connection to it had changed. Maybe it was the groeliin’s connection to it that was different, that made it feel unusual to her.
Either way, she drew it in, and then pushed out.
Her mind roared with pain once more, but what she did felt right. She was filled with a desire to protect the merahl, and to protect the groeliin, even more than she was filled with the desire to protect herself. The merahl was injured and needed her protection, and the groeliin was helpless, and if she was right, possibly innocent, as well.
The dark fog halted.
The groeliin pressed against her, a force of energy that pushed, but she resisted.
Her head throbbed. The manehlin had a texture to it that she could grasp, and she used it in a way she had never thought of before. She thickened the manehlin.
“Protect this groeliin,” she said to the merahl.
Isandra unsheathed her sword and darted out into the dark fog.
She had to fight. That much was clear. If there were three groeliin swordsmen, that meant that she had to find them first. The other groeliin would be easier to bring down once she did. Filled with the manehlin, she felt light and faster than she had before. It was truly as if she had been given strength and power from the gods.
She reached the boundary of the dark fog, and through her connection to the manehlin, she felt where the first groeliin was.
Isandra pressed out with her connection to the manehlin. She thickened it, encasing the groeliin in the manehlin. All she needed was to slow the creature. The effort caused her mind to scream in agony, resisting her attempt, but it worked. She struck the groeliin, cutting the creature down.
Pain caused her to lose some of her connection to the manehlin.
How much longer would she be able to maintain this?
She might be able to hold out long enough to stop the groeliin.
How could she not? She had to if she wanted to protect the merahl and the infant groeliin. She had no choice but to do so.
Her connection to the manehlin told her where to find the next groeliin. This creature was enormous. As before, she attempted to wrap her manehlin around it, but it pushed back. The strength of its connection to the dark fog—likely a dark connection to manehlin—overpowered hers. Isandra pushed again, straining through the darkness, and reached into the groeliin.
The creature hesitated.
Isandra used that momentary hesitation and attacked, striking down the groeliin with a rain of blows enhanced by her connection to the manehlin.
As the groeliin fell, her connection to the manehlin faded.
Where was the last groeliin? She needed to attack quickly. If she didn’t, she woul
d fail the merahl and the infant groeliin.
She found the one remaining groeliin at the same time as she heard the merahl howl.
It was a pained sound, and it tore through her, putting her on edge.
Isandra raced toward the sound and found the merahl biting at the sword the last groeliin was wielding but missing. The merahl was slow, the injury sapping his strength as well as his speed and ferocity.
Isandra raced forward, screaming as she did.
The groeliin looked up and pressed out with the fog.
Isandra was thrown back.
She was reminded of what Jostephon had done to Endric. There was control here that she had not seen from the groeliin before. Could she do something similar?
She focused on the manehlin and pushed.
Her mind resisted, pain causing her to scream in agony, and she knew she had to suffer through it. She had suffered through worse before.
The force of her connection to the manehlin threw the groeliin back, and away from the merahl.
She staggered forward. Her body was slower, and she could feel her connection to the manehlin fading. But still, she tried.
The groeliin rose, coming at her with the same intensity as before, the same speed enhanced by the dark connection to the manehlin. The creature swung its sword, and Isandra managed to block the attack, and stumbled back, planting her feet so that she could push off.
She reached for the manehlin, but her connection had slipped away. Pain throbbed in her head, making it difficult for her to focus, and impossible for her to reach for that power again. If she survived, she wondered if she would be able to access it again, or if it was gone for good. Had she somehow drawn on the last of what remained within her?
The infant groeliin made a sound much like a cry mixed with a hiss.
The dark groeliin turned toward it, bringing its sword around, readying a strike.
“No!”
Isandra staggered forward and jabbed her sword at the groeliin.
Stumbling forward, she drove her sword as deep as she could into its side.
The move took her to her knees.
The groeliin turned, and she watched as the dark teralin blade swung toward her head. She knew that she could do nothing. Her own sword was lodged in the groeliin’s side, but even if it weren’t, her mind throbbed from the pain she had put it through as she had attempted to force it open to reach for the manehlin. And muscles ached from the climb and then the fight.
The Last Conclave (The Lost Prophecy Book 6) Page 27
