Diamond Stained

by J M D Reid

  Two paces.

  The beast fell into two halves, the rear half lying limp. The front thrashed legs and snapped jaws.

  “Ōbhin!” she cried in desperate horror.

  One pace.

  The rotten stench filled her nose. She turned and shrieked, slashing wildly before her in a panic, taking off a reaching hand at the wrist. The blade slashed at another, cutting off three fingers. But two corpses still lunged for her.

  Ōbhin gained his feet and slammed his gloved fist into the corpse’s face. It stumbled back into a skeleton with brackish bones covered in gristle.

  “Here!” she shouted, pressing his sword at him before she retreated, falling into familiar footwork.

  He swung the sword with a grace that was almost mesmerizing. The weapon’s pitch swelled to a humming whine. The blade cut through a bloated torso and severed the horror’s arm in the process. The lower half collapsed, dropping the upper to the ground. Its good arm grabbed Ōbhin’s booted foot and pulled. The corpse bit at his toe, digging into the leather.

  His sword slashed, cutting through the head. Purple burst from it as he severed the gem.

  “Run!” she shouted at him, trembling, backing away from the shambling horde. There were four dozen more corpses stumbling at them. Skeletons reached with their sharp finger bones, jaws snapping.

  Ōbhin pivoted, his sword severing a skeleton’s head before he raced after her. She turned and ran for the intersection. People screamed. Others fled from the horrors, drunks racing in stumbling flight. Her heeled boots smacked on the wet cobblestones.

  Above, wings flapped like a mighty gull hovered over her.

  *

  Before him, Avena ran fast, her tattered skirts flaring about her legs. His chainmail rattled, almost drowning out the sounds of wings. Ōbhin furrowed his brows as she looked up at the sky. Then something hurtled out of the night. A massive bird slammed into her, driving her to the ground.

  She curled up into a ball to protect her body. The bird flapped wings, shedding black feathers, a leathery head stabbing down at her face. She smacked it back with the binder, wrapping its mouth in purple energy. The thing looked like a Khissan vulture, but bigger, the size of a jackal. Another abomination. It clawed at her flesh.

  Ōbhin slashed. He severed half a wing and the thing’s long, featherless neck. The thrashing head landed on Avena’s side, the neck undulating like a snake. She shrieked and threw it off of her, the body falling limp.

  “How many more horrors?” she demanded, her eyes wide.

  He grabbed her hand and pulled her to her feet. “I don’t know. Keep moving.”

  The air whistled.

  Something punched Ōbhin in his upper back. It ripped through his chainmail. Tore through his leather jerkin. It buried into his skin and struck his rib. Metal ground on bone, agony flaring through his side. He stumbled, reached his left hand behind him.

  He brushed a shaft embedded in his flesh.

  He glanced behind him and glimpsed Handsome Baill through the fog nocking another bodkin-tipped arrow. Ōbhin dragged Avena to the right, rushing for the nearest alley. A loud hiss. The missile streaked behind him before they vanished into cover.

  “Ōbhin?” she gasped. “What?”

  “Just go,” he snarled, stumbling. Blood spilled down his back. The steel point of the arrow scraped against his rib, torture bursting every time he moved or breathed. His heavy steps jolted pain through his body. “Don’t stop!”

  *

  Avena’s back and shoulders throbbed. Her dress clung to her in tatters around her neck. Scratches burned across her body from the massive bird. She hurried down the fog-choked alley, Ōbhin stumbling behind her. She could hear shouts. Screams. The meaty smacks of the fleshy corpses’ footsteps and the bony rattle of the skeletons’.

  Terror wanted to consume her.

  She burst onto a fog-choked street and went right out of instinct. Ōbhin stumbled after her. She glanced back and gasped at the arrow lodged in his back. A new fear spilled through her.

  “How deep is it?” she asked, itching to stop and tend to him.

  “My armor blunted it,” growled Ōbhin. “It can wait.”

  She nodded, the throbbing in her scratches intensifying. She raced to the next block, the fog rippling before her, and then darted into another alley. Ōbhin lumbered after. She felt winded already despite how little they’d run. They had to keep moving. Get away.

  Above, wings flapped. Ice spilled down her spine. Are they gulls, or some of his creatures?

  Dje’awsa wants us both dead. That almost had her gibbering in fear. He’ll turn me into one of those corpses. Elohm’s bright Colours, one of those must have been Carstin. Twisted and transformed into something hideous.

  She’d never despised anyone so much in her life. She’d fought hard to keep Carstin alive. She’d stayed up at night to tend to his collapsed lung and feed him medicine and tea to fortify his blood and stamina. She’d stood up to Ust to keep him from dying.

  She’d failed.

  It sickened her to know his body was so abused. Not allowed to rest in the ground. Did bringing it back to a mockery of life trap poor Carstin’s soul in there? And what about the other corpses? These thoughts lashed at her as she led Ōbhin through the streets.

  They couldn’t be caught by Dje’awsa.

  “Avena,” groaned Ōbhin.

  She glanced back at him. He staggered to a stop and sheathed his sword, groaning as he did. Then he leaned against a building, wooden exterior whitewashed and coated in a layer of sooty grime. He sucked in wheezing breaths.

  Screams echoed on a nearby street. The corpses were close.

  “I’m afraid to take it out,” she said as she studied the arrow. The lighting was bad. “You sure it’s not in deep? It could be stopping arterial bleeding. It’s better to leave it in.”

  “It hit my rib,” he grunted then snarled something in the musical tones of his native tongue. “We have to move. Rip it out. We need to get to the hospital.”

  “Dualayn will have returned to the estate by now,” Avena muttered.

  “No, he hasn’t. He’ll be sick with worry over you!”

  Embarrassment flushed her. She hadn’t thought at all about Dualayn when she’d gone after Ōbhin. He was right. Dualayn would be worried.

  She grabbed the arrow shaft and pulled. Bones rattled as Ōbhin snarled out his pain. Terror skittered up her spine as she threw the missile to the ground. He staggered. She slipped beneath him to support him. Her legs buckled beneath his weight. The oil of his armor and the metallic scent of his blood filled her nose.

  “You can’t collapse on me,” she whispered, the rattling coming closer. A woman shrieked. Footsteps raced in the fog. “They’re closing in on us.”

  “Right,” he grunted and pushed from her. He jogged up the street, a long trail of crimson running down his chainmail. She gripped her binder and rushed after him, the throbbing pain of her scratches pulsing with the terrifying beat of her heart.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  “Niszeh’s Black Tone!” snarled Ōbhin as he whirled around. Pain screamed in his lower back, the severed muscles flexing as he swung his body around and slashed his resonance blade.

  The leaping horror flying out of the eddying fog met the humming streak of his sword. The tulwar sliced through the jackal’s black muzzle, sheering through rotted flesh and bone. It passed through the skull and cut deep into the torso before bursting out at the bottom of its ribs. A third of the beast, including the left foreleg, slammed into Ōbhin’s knee while the remainder hit his sword arm.

  No flash of orange, shouted through Ōbhin’s mind.

  Though he’d severed the abomination’s muzzle in half, it still fought. Its enchanted gem was still active. Sharp teeth slammed into the meat of his arm before he stumbled back. He snarled, his back a mass of agony. He crashed into Avena, sending her reeling in a gasp.

  “Mongrel beast!” Ōbhin snarled and pivoted. He slammed the
beast’s torso into the pavement.

  Teeth snapped.

  The beast came free. It rolled, three legs thrashing. Putrid lungs flopped out. A black lump which may have been its heart tumbled across the wet cobblestones.

  He slammed the point of his blade into its head with his full weight. The tulwar slammed through the animating jewel. The viscous orange burst around his tulwar as it drove deep into the paving stones. He fell to his knees beside it, panting.

  “Ōbhin,” Avena gasped, scrambling to her feet.

  Sweat poured down his brow. His armor weighed at him, strangling his chest. He struggled to breathe as he leaned on the pommel of his sword, emerald light bleeding around his sable-clad fingers. He needed to stand. To move.

  The puncture in his back sapped his strength.

  “You’re making the wound worse by fighting,” Avena muttered.

  “Alternative?” he asked, the fog flooding around them. A deathly chill gripped the night. People were indoors early. They could feel it. Death stalked Kash.

  “I know. Come on. What if he can track them and knows where they’re at?”

  It was the second time a jackal had found them since they’d cleared the streets around the Gray Pillar. They worked their way south and west to the hospital. The silvery fog choked Kash, reducing the diamond streetlamps to bobbing lights in the distance, pinpricks that offered false solitude.

  He wrenched his sword out of the cobblestones and turned it off. He panted as he sheathed it. He staggered after her. She tugged on her torn dress, her scratched skin peeking through the rents. Dried blood clung to her injuries, some still oozing and staining the white cloth of her chemise.

  “How much charge does your sword hold?” she asked.

  “Not much,” he said. “It’s a small emerald. They’re not supposed to be used for more than a quarter-hour or so.”

  She nodded. “We’re almost there. I think.”

  He grunted. “Or we could be on the far side of Kash.”

  “We’d have to cross the river for that,” she said. “We crossed Rainbow Way not long ago. We should be working our way west to the hospital.”

  “Lead on,” he said and then followed her, his steps heavy.

  “Do you think one of those . . . things was Carstin?” she asked him.

  He grimaced. “Raleth’s Honest Tone, I hope not.”

  “Mejooli raureth nyafoog,” she said, butchering his language. “What did you say?”

  “Just praying for one of the Tones that it isn’t true. Raleth, the White Tone. The Tone of Truth.”

  “White is Elohm’s Colour of Honesty,” she said, flashing him a smile, the cut across her forehead wrinkling. “Interesting, no?”

  “That some truths can even penetrate a Lothonian’s headstrong skull?” he grunted.

  She giggled. “That’s almost blasphemous. I mean, if you weren’t a heathen who worships music notes.”

  “Revere,” he said.

  “What’s the difference?”

  “Respect versus servitude.” He glanced at the fog. “I hope Carstin isn’t one of those corpses, but why else did Dje’awsa want him? He intimated he could do dark things with that obsidian wand.”

  A noticeable shudder ran through her. “Obsidian. What madness would drive anyone to use the forbidden jewel? It’s full of Black.”

  “We call it Niszeh. The Black Tone of Disharmony. The one who ruins the melody.”

  “Stains the soul,” she said. “What else can Dje’awsa do with obsidian beside bring back the dead?”

  Her question chilled him more than the wet fog eddying around them. “I don’t know, but he made some sort of agreement with Ust.”

  *

  What else can he do . . . ? That thought itched at Avena as she led them through the streets. The fog made everything so surreal. The buildings loomed around them, the upper floors lost to the oppressive vapor. It obscured and concealed. Several times, she’d realized they were heading the wrong away.

  It both hindered and helped them. If it was a clear night, they never would have lost Ust’s bandits and Dje’awsa’s dead. Those shambling horrors would have torn them apart. There were forty or fifty of them. Maybe more. They were packed into the back of the wagon, just waiting to be unleashed. Plus the jackals and that disgusting bird which had attacked her.

  Her multitude of scratches throbbed with her labored heartbeat.

  Ōbhin staggered by her, his breathing heavy. If the arrow hadn’t caught his rib, it would have punctured his lung. He would have died. She could never have hauled him to safety, and he never would have been able to get far with a collapsed lung.

  He’d drown in his blood until the corpses got him. Then he’d be one.

  A nauseating horror squirmed through her. “How are you doing?”

  “I’ll live,” he grunted. “Tell me we are close.”

  “We are . . .” She frowned. “Look! We’re a block away. That’s the sweetmeats dealer that Deffona and I sometimes visit when she can sneak away. And there is the barber. He’s a drunk. Never have him sew you up. Dualayn swore for an hour at the sight of the man’s work.”

  “Dualayn can swear?”

  “When he sees shoddy stitching.” She squirmed. “Given what happened to his wife, can you blame him?”

  “No.”

  They soon reached the end of the block. The southeastern corner of the hospital blossomed out of the mist across the street. They were near the loading yard entrance. The gate stood open, guarded by Fingers and Cerdyn. Avena sighed in relief.

  She was actually glad to see the hulking guard with his glowering features. “Fingers!”

  “Elohm’s Colours, lass, what happened to you?” Fingers asked with concern, even fatherly horror. He broke from his post. His chainmail jangled as he rushed through the fog. “You look like you fell in a pen of chickens during feeding time.”

  “Something like that,” she said. “A bird attacked me.”

  “Bird?”

  “A hawk,” lied Ōbhin, staggering up.

  Fingers grabbed Ōbhin’s sword arm and supported the swaying Qothian. “Black stains, you’re bleeding. What happened?”

  “Ran into an old friend,” muttered Ōbhin. “He put an arrow in my back.”

  “It’s those bandits who attacked us,” Avena added. “They followed us back to Kash. They’re not happy with us.”

  “Can’t imagine why,” Fingers said. “Ōbhin probably made them run for hours and hours. Make any man murderous.”

  “You should have heard them wheeze,” Ōbhin said, chuckling.

  “How can you be laughing?” Avena demanded. “We almost died tonight.”

  “Good thing they didn’t follow your training,” Fingers said as they passed through the gate, Cerdyn nodding, “else you’d actually have died.”

  Ōbhin laughed louder then cut off in a curse in his language.

  Avena bit her lip.

  “Ah, there you are, child,” Dualayn called. The fog didn’t seem as thick in the yard. He rushed from the hospital, trailed by Deffona and the eldest sister. “You have had me affright with worry. Why didn’t you tell anyone where you and Ōbhin were . . . ?” His words trailed off. “You let her get injured!”

  “Did my best to prevent it,” grunted Ōbhin. “Bird attacked her.”

  “Don’t worry about me! Ōbhin took an arrow,” Avena said. “His armor blunted it, but it broke a rib and lodged there. He’s bleeding.”

  “Get his armor off,” said Dualayn. “I’ll do what I can, but I used up my healers inside. I doubt they’ve recharged much.”

  Avena hovered as Fingers and Smiles stripped Ōbhin out of his chainmail then his leather jerkin. He had a muscular chest, surprisingly hairless, just a slight down beneath his collarbone. His skin had that same rich red-brown hue as his face. He winced, leaning forward, his back slick with gleaming blood. It soaked down to his pants.

  “This will ease the pain,” said Dualayn. “Stabilize that rib a bi
t. I wouldn’t count on it healing fully tonight, but we’ll get the bleeding stopped.”

  “Avena?” Deffona said, her voice cautious. “Your dress . . .”

  “It’s not as bad as it looks,” she said.

  Deffona bit her lip. “What happened? Why did you and Ōbhin leave? I mean, I thought . . .”

  “Not that,” Avena huffed. “I followed him because I didn’t trust him. I was wrong. He saved my life tonight.”

  Deffona’s eyes brightened. “How? Did he fight?”

  “He stood up to death,” Avena said, glancing at Ōbhin as he sat on the carriage runner, orange light bathing across his back as Dualayn used a healer. It flickered out and died a heartbeat later, the jewelchine exhausted. “Literally.”

  She remembered the look of him before the corpses, purchasing her precious heartbeats to flee before he retreated. She had been terrified when the jackal had tackled him. She hadn’t even cared about the consequences when she’d thrown herself back into danger.

  They were good consequences, she thought.

  Her eyes met with Ōbhin’s. He held them, his face blank. Then he winced as Dualayn prodded his back. They exchanged words while Avena tore her gaze away. She glanced at her concerned friend, ignoring her own throbbing wounds.

  “Don’t start thinking those thoughts,” Avena muttered at the look on Deffona’s face. “He would have done that for anyone.”

  Deffona just grinned and nodded. “I am so relieved you’re safe. This night . . . It feels wrong, doesn’t it?”

  “Yeah,” she said.

  A bright flash of scarlet lit up the fog to the northeast. Deffona’s eyes furrowed. She cocked her head. “What a queer sight. A fire?”

  “Jewelchine,” said Avena as her insides squirmed. It came from the direction of the Gray Pillar. What else can Dje’awsa do?

  “My child, we’re leaving,” Dualayn said. “I’ll tend to your scratches in the carriage.”

  Deffona went to embrace Avena then froze. The daughter’s face twisted. “I don’t want to hurt you but . . .” She leaned in and kissed Avena’s cheek. “Be safe.”