Gaelin yelped when the fangs pierced his skin. With a frenzied snarl, the dach clamped its lips over his seeping blood. He felt more pain—a frenetic suction against his flesh, the dach’s throat muscles bunching and sliding while it drank. Darkness descended to numb his body, covering his sight with a tumbling fog. He groaned as the world went black.
Chapter 24
GAELIN FLOATED THROUGH a familiar fog. His consciousness had fled to this place when he was a child, to the same sanctuary he had revisited after the battle in the hills above Heartwood. Only now the mist held him within a storm of fire, the heat of it snatching the breath from his lungs.
With an effort, he lifted his head as a molten liquid rushed toward him from out of the vapor, splashing down in a rain of sparks. The lava frothed and churned in front of him, shaping itself into a snarling dragon, then an ember-maned wolf, and at last forming into someone he recognized, a golden semblance of Terrek Florne.
“I hope,” the figure boomed, “you will fear me less if I hold to this likeness.”
Mutely, Gaelin dropped to his knees.
“You cannot stay here,” the entity told him as it approached. Its lurid eyes flared, and yet Gaelin felt sorrow from the warder, a tangible weight of sadness. “If you can feel me, you can be saved. But you must wake and defend yourself!”
Defend myself? The words rebounded through his thoughts. His body ached for the freedom of death, for the chance to turn from Holram’s fiery regard. Terrek’s wrong,” Gaelin realized. This is a god. But why would it care for me?
“I am not a deity,” Holram asserted. There was another flash, another change, the bottom half of the warder’s face and jaw morphing into a lion’s muzzle. “I am the caretaker of stars. Time preceded my birth and will continue after my end. I had to wait for a fighting spirit. Now that I have you, you must endure!”
Holram’s image dissipated, melting into the currents of the lava, his anger cooled by the fog’s return. “Live,” he called behind the gathering clouds, “for I have no other. If you fail, I perish, along with everything else.”
Gaelin heard a hissing in his ears. He caught a murmur of dialogue—a human speaking close by—before Holram’s ominous voice jerked him back. “My creator, Sephrym, will destroy all life,” the warder said. “He will shatter this world to find his foe.”
“His foe?” Gaelin echoed. “You mean Erebos . . .”
He struggled, choking and tasting blood as he fought to breathe through the pain in his lungs. Lifting his fingers to his chest, he explored his skin and his aching ribs. Why am I naked? he wondered. Where am I?
“Fool!” a voice mocked him. “Better for you if you had stayed asleep!”
A set of hands dragged him erect. He tottered on his feet, rubbing his eyes while he struggled to focus. He grunted as he was shoved into something solid—a tree, he thought, identifying the trunk with his palms. Groaning, he slumped against it, squinting at a gray-robed figure bending over him, a middle-aged man holding a staff aloft, its teardrop-shaped gem blazing silver. Despite the color of its light, the crystal seated upon the iron shaft was opaque red, Gaelin observed, and then felt Holram’s presence recoiling in fear under his ribs. “It is the world’s blood!” said the warder’s horrified whisper in his head. “Keep away from it!”
Gaelin cringed when his assailant pressed close, the man’s blade of a nose a mere finger’s length from his. As his captor’s body blocked his view of the staff, Gaelin felt Holram’s terror unclench within him. The tree bark was digging into his muscles as he shrank from the stranger’s cruel stare.
“When I look on you, I see falsehood,” a voice intoned, and Gaelin started as he realized that the words had come from his mouth. He lifted his hand to feel his lips still soundlessly moving. What is . . . what? Stop it! he thought at Holram. You cannot use me like I’m—
“You pretend to be what you are not,” Holram said again through his mouth. Gaelin tried to clamp his jaws shut, yet still his lips demanded, “Why are you here?”
“I am Erebos’s loyal cleric,” the mage replied. “I do my god’s bidding; that’s why. You should brace yourself, puppet. For you are about to die.” Sneering, the stranger gestured to a drift beyond the tree. “Notice how your staff just lies there? You’re nothing, and your god is nothing, clearly.” With exaggerated care, the mage pulled a knife from a slit in his robe. “I regret your life’s been a waste; I really do. But your death will remedy that. I swear it. Already Erebos feasts on you.”
Gaelin moaned as the older man shoved him onto his side and then grabbed his ankles, raising his hips until claws from the canopy above seized his feet. The tree came alive overhead as two winged dachs hauled at his legs. Scrabbling, they climbed, dragging his shoulders from the snow until he hung helpless, his head throbbing between his dangling arms.
“This is where Mens steps in,” the priest said. “I’ve watched him work and he’s very thorough. He feeds Erebos the victim’s pain, while his helpers harvest the blood, and later the dachs are fed the meat. Or Arawn is, depending on the room. Nothing goes to waste. I think it’s brilliant how Mens can prolong the ritual; sometimes it lasts several hours. I tend to have a weak stomach. But if I want to get anywhere close to my daughter in the hierarchy, I’ll need to toughen up. Mens tells me to practice. If I do, he says I’ll get used to it.” The priest shrugged. “Well, I guess we’ll find out, won’t we?”
Gaelin eyed the dagger in his captor’s hand. “Now, where do I begin?” the cleric muttered, leaning in. Gaelin screamed as the blade’s edge dragged along his skin, slicing slowly from his breastbone to his navel.
“Yeesh, I could have chosen a better tool!” the mage said. “It’s more pulling than cutting anyway. Once I get a good grip with my hand. And not so messy as you might think.” Gaelin hissed, flinching as the man probed his wound.
“You have a lot of old scars, my friend,” his captor observed. “And now all these bite marks, too. Tell me, puppet, do they sting?”
Gaelin shut his eyes. He heard the cleric’s warped humans clustering around him, then felt their talons grasp his wrists, stretching his arms from his body.
“Good,” the priest said. “We don’t want him flopping or I’ll cut too—wait, not so hard! I need his hide in one piece when I present it with the staff . . .” The mage chuckled nervously. “No more gray-robes for me!”
Gaelin stared at the eight creatures whining for his blood. Even without Mornius, he sensed their torment. Yet they endure, he thought, reading fury and exhaustion in the dachs’ red eyes. And hunger, too. The poor things are starving.
“I could feed you to my friends right now,” the priest said as if perceiving his thoughts. “But I’d have no trophy if I did that, would I? I’d have nothing to prove my worth.”
Gaelin screamed as the knife’s tip deepened his cut. A trickle of blood ran down into his mouth while the cult leader smiled crookedly above him. “Did you get to see Tierdon?” the cleric asked. “That was Mens; I can’t take credit for someone else’s work. But I helped to expand his power. I am Nithra Vlyn. My daughter is Erebos’s favorite and the wielder of the Blazenstone. Rest assured, puppet, he hears me. And he will hear your screams tonight.”
The gray-robe dug in with the knife, grinding its edge between Gaelin’s ribs and making him jerk with every cut. Around him and his torturer, the huddled dachs licked their lips, fighting each other for a taste of his blood.
“I’m sorry you missed the first part; you were unconscious, I’m afraid,” Nithra told him. “The dach wasn’t supposed to drain you, but they’re almost mindless once they’re changed, and difficult to command.” Slowly, Nithra withdrew a short wooden club from his cloak and held it out. “In case you’re wondering where you got those bruises. I’ve gotten handy with this, too. I use it in the dungeons where I work. In fact . . .” Gaelin winced as the mage’s knuckles pressed his ribs. “You’re dead already; you just don’t realize it. I could take your staff now and be done, let
the dachs finish you, but then Erebos would lose his meal, and I’d be punished. Mens would get all the credit for finding the staff, of course.”
Gaelin choked, tasting blood on his tongue. “I don’t believe you,” he said, relieved to discover he could control his mouth once more. He coughed as his vision blurred red. “They put you in the dungeons because you’re nothing to them. Even Erebos doesn’t know you.”
“Boy!” Nithra’s black eyes flared within the depths of his hood. Gaelin screamed when the club descended, shattering his right knee. “Do not mock me! I do this for our future! You can’t fathom it yet; you’re among the unenlightened. But one day you will, after you’re resurrected and New Earth is born, a world meant for humans alone, where we decide the rules!”
Gaelin writhed, with more groans escaping his lips as his tormentor returned to his knife.
“You did that on purpose!” his captor raged. “Clever boy, but I’m on to you now. You’re trying to get me to kill you. Well, I—”
The hissing sound was back. Gaelin tasted vomit, the contents of his stomach mixed with blood. The upside-down forest was spinning, and the motion was making him sick. He spied his staff lying abandoned on a hillock beyond the dachs, its shaft and Skystone coated with ice. Please, he implored Holram, yearning for oblivion to take him, to sink him into a place without fear. A flash responded, the flicker of Mornius’s gem coming to life. Someone was near, he sensed, and very angry.
Light burst from the Skystone, and out of the surrounding trees, Avalar sprang. She stormed toward Nithra, her great sword raised above her head.
In a movement too fast for Gaelin to follow, her blade struck the first dach, the power of her stroke driving the steel straight through the creature’s skull and ribs to its groin. The body slid free, the giant’s blade streaming with gore.
Gaelin let out a yelp as his torso flopped askew and the dachs in the branches above him took wing. Avalar leapt with a furious howl. Gone was the graceful dance of the Talhaidor that she had learned in Tierdon. Here was one of the greatest and last of the ancient warrior races, the long-ago protectors of Talenkai. Like a scythe, Avalar’s sword swept bodies off their feet, flinging jagged, gory pieces over the snow.
Abandoning her sword, the giant charged the two remaining dachs, the rippling white fur of her heavy cloak glistening with blood. She seized the first and ripped the wing from its shoulder. As the magic-warped human collapsed, Avalar pounced with fists flailing.
Gaelin turned away. In the quiet of the forest, he caught the rhythmic cracking of bones. Her blows were precise and calculated. He nodded as he recalled how she had been trained to fight the Sundor Khan beasts threatening the North. Her bare hands knew how to kill.
Nithra Vlyn hunched staring behind the tree, with indecision on his wrinkled brow.
“You better run,” Gaelin said, his words slurred by waves of fatigue. “She destroys them to get to you.”
Nithra glared, his staff brandished over his head.
“Liar,” Gaelin murmured. “You were never at Tierdon.”
The gray-robe retreated with mincing steps, and as Avalar stalked the terrified priest, it seemed to Gaelin from her snarling expression she felt every chain her ancestors had borne.
With a despairing groan, Nithra Vlyn fled.
Avalar jerked to a wavering halt. Shivering with the force of her restraint, she moved backward into the furrow her boots had made.
“Staff-Wielder?” The giant’s voice was harsh. How far had she run? Gaelin wondered, eyeing her reddened features, her torn leggings slicked with blood, the bear hide unraveled, dangling free from her knees and calves.
Avalar sank beside him, gingerly touching his neck. “Sails, you’re frozen!” she said and then crawled forward to snatch his cloak, his deer-hide leggings, and his gray jerkin. He gasped in pain when she cradled his shattered body. Covering him as best she could, she wiped the blood from his face with her furry cloak.
“Help me, Gaelin! You must not sleep!” She inspected the burning cut below his ribs. “This, at least, is not a threat,” she said. “It is shallow. The little man was timid with his blade.”
Gaelin moaned as Avalar dressed him. He was well beyond obeying her words, his head lolling over her elbow.
“Stay awake,” Avalar urged. Her fingers shook as she caressed his hair. Squinting, he saw that her skin was streaked with sweat as well as blood. A cut at the base of her throat wept a sickly brownish fluid. He recognized its acrid smell. Oh no! he thought. Poison! He trembled as Avalar, unaware of her injury, pressed him to her chest. Groaning, she hauled herself upright and limped in the direction from which she had come.
He struggled to make himself heard, his hand pulling at her furry cloak. “Wait! My staff. Avalar, please. Let me . . .”
“I cannot touch it,” she said.
“I don’t . . . need you to.” Gaelin fought to stay alert. His strength was failing, with winter gnawing in his heart. Holram could restore him—and save her as well, for the young giant, too, was dying, the puncture in her neck darkening as he watched.
He visualized Mornius. So often, he had ignored Holram’s thoughts, had mistaken them for his own, or had rejected and resisted them. Now, by choice, he would surrender, as Avalar’s people had sacrificed their freedom to save the world.
Gaelin pulled in a breath that tasted of blood. The staff was his—Holram’s. His mind gripped it, held it, embracing the heat that leapt to seize his heart.
Desire knifed through him, the need to make recompense, to drive Erebos from hiding, to escape the magic of Talenkai’s sky that held him trapped.
Gaelin sighed. He would endure as Holram had bidden him. He heard the song of the vanquished warder, understood for an instant the language of the stars. Pulling free, he emerged unscathed from the bonding to wrap a mental hug around his abandoned staff. He summoned fire and renewal, power and health. His crushed knee tingled in response, the fiery jolts of healing lancing throughout his body.
“Staff-Wielder!” Avalar, cursing, threw him into the snow. He landed with a grunt by his staff.
Howling, she lunged at the scattered dead, stamping them to a gory pulp as she hacked and chopped with her sword. Then abruptly she whirled, her massive blade spattering blood when she flung it away. Hunched over, gasping for breath, she lurched toward him. “Why am I doing this?” She pummeled the air with her fists. “So I will not destroy you!”
Seizing his staff, Gaelin clambered upright. He had seen this kind of rage before on his stepbrothers’ faces, the mindless violence taking them over, making both Delbert and Jax cruel copies of their father, oblivious to his cries.
As he struggled to flee despite the trees spinning around his head, his legs gave way beneath him.
The giant bared her teeth. “You touched me, with magic! After everything I have said!”
Gaelin crouched at her feet, loathing his body’s responses—the parched mouth and throat, the flinching of his limbs. Please don’t shout, he wanted to protest, but his tongue was immobile, locked behind his teeth.
“You know what it did to my people!” Avalar spat. She, too, was reliving a memory, her abhorrence of it reflected in the rolling of her eyes, the clenching of her chin.
“Yes,” said Gaelin, finding his voice at last. Though his wounds were gone, sickness roiled in his gut and tasted sour on his tongue. He sucked in air, hating how pitiful he was, his exhausted body sagging over his folded knees. “You were dying. We both were. I had to do something!”
He paused, keenly aware that his rescuer deserved more than his excuses. “When you almost fell from the cliff,” he said, “you were frightened and I wanted to help. But I couldn’t. So Terrek did—he had my staff—and the wind raised you up, or . . . whatever that was, because I was afraid I’d make it worse.
“You were poisoned!” he shouted, pressing his fists to the knot of frustration in his chest. “Your only hope was my staff, and I’m sorry if it upsets you, but I will not be sorr
y for saving you! I’m tired of doing nothing while everyone suffers!”
Avalar loomed over him as he fumbled for words. “It had to be me this time, taking the risk,” he said. “Me. Finally! Terrek wasn’t here. On the cliff, he had my staff and you had the wind—magic—that you called to because you were afraid. Well, so was I, when I thought you would die. So I called! I did something! And I will not be sorry for not failing you twice!”
Avalar was silent, a tall black shape blotting out the stars. Her breath plumed as she swung away. “We must get back,” she said severely. “Leader Terrek is hunting for you.”
Bracing himself, Gaelin tried to stand. His body felt dead from the waist down. His legs moved, yet they had no strength.
Avalar watched in silence. Nothing would soften her iron heart now, he realized. She’s a giant, he thought, and ruefully shook his head.
He started when Avalar knelt, her big palms light on his shoulders, cupping them gently. “This is a fell place, little mage,” she said. “It pits us against ourselves. Come.”
She lifted him up, bracing him on his feet. Bemused, Gaelin registered her compassion, her reassuring touch that moments ago had yearned for his death.
“I see,” Avalar said. “You mistrust the violence of my quickened blood. Should I try now to explain to you the whys and hows of giants, I fear we would both freeze ere the telling is done. Still, we must away. Let me carry you from this place.”
Gaelin motioned to his staff at his feet. “You want me to trust you?” he asked.
He pulled free and bent, prying Mornius from its icy sheath, and then lifted its Skystone to the giant. “Touch it,” he insisted. “I won’t go anywhere with you until you do.”
Her body suddenly rigid, Avalar glared down.
Chapter 25
GAELIN CONFRONTED THE young giant who had run so far to risk her life for him. She glared at Mornius in his hands, her body flinching as if it were a serpent with its head reared to bite.
Song Of Mornius Page 19
