The Woven Ring (Sol's Harvest Book 1)

by Presley, M. D.

  Isabelle took the lead, slipping through the scrub that inundated the tolmen. Marta fell into step behind her, Caddie’s hand in hers, Luca and his lockblade again in the rear. Though no one said it, Marta knew no more words would be spoken within the tolmen’s borders.

  The shrubs grew taller the farther in they went, Marta suspecting the source of the growth was the creek she heard gurgling not far away. They never spotted the running water though, staying on a path parallel as they pushed deeper in. The nodus glowed its eerie gleam nearby, flickering like a massive candle upon the horizon, but Marta was more worried about the smaller glow she spotted to their left.

  This one was moving.

  Isabelle spotted it as well, shifting their course away from the unaware ghul. But not fifteen paces farther, a new glow appeared before them. Again Isabelle changed direction, navigating the increasing undergrowth seamlessly. The chase reminded Marta of the games of killer-in-the-dark she played with her Cildra cousins at gatherings. The lot of them would be let loose on the grounds at night, one of them designating the killer, whereas the rest were victims. No one but the killer was aware of his or her identity, but upon the killer’s touch, they would be dead and forced to remain motionless on the ground until all the other players joined them or the adults grew bored and called the children in for bed. Like all Cildra games, it was a lesson in stealth and deceit, but what Marta remembered most was the fear intermingled with the elation of the chase. Like that childhood game, this chase was a matter of remaining invisible, of moving silently long enough to elude their pursuers. But here in the tolmen, the elation was gone, only the fear remaining as they shifted course yet again.

  Despite Isabelle’s expertise, soon a half dozen of the glows surrounded them, silent as the mute woman darting among them. It felt to Marta that they were trying to steer their way through a maze where the walls shifted continually around them. Isabelle’s course changes became more rapid, sometimes taking only a few steps before being forced to jag another direction.

  The smaller moving glows now entirely encircled them. They had made it this far based upon their guide’s ability and a bit of good fortune, but fortune finally failed them when Isabelle stopped to let a wandering glow ahead cut across their path. So focused was she on the glimmering ahead, she did not notice the one to their right until the ghul emerged through the trees, the branches not even shaking as it passed right through them.

  Like all the emets Marta had encountered, it was entirely inflated with Breath, a full animal form rather than the thin angular lines the Shapers used in making their Armor or the Weavers their manifestations. Though made of three tiny Breaths, they were stretched to the breaking point like a bubble puffed up and ready to burst. The ghul was still spindly as a spider though, and reminded her of a monstrous harvestman. In the West they called these tiny arachnids granddaddy longlegs, a fitting name for the little ones with their gangly legs that occurred naturally.

  There was nothing natural about this beast though, its body the size of a large dog, its legs spanning nearly six feet of unnatural light. But the body was not entirely arachnid: two tentacles replacing its pincers, the odd appendages swishing back and forth like a serpent’s tongue tasting the air. The ghul paused in their presence, its tentacles increasing in their oscillations as if considering their appearance.

  Marta never hesitated, releasing the girl’s hand while summoning her rabbit legs to launch herself at the beast. The moment she left the ground, she recalled the legs, shifting her Breath to her claws and driving them into the insubstantial body of the monster.

  The ghul made no noise as it died, the three Breaths making it up instantly returning to the size of candle flames and floating off in different directions. Marta herself made more noise as she alighted in the copse of trees behind the dissipated being. It was not much noise, simply a rustling of leaves, but it shattered the still night as surely as a clarion bell. The sound echoed throughout the tolmen, but Marta did not linger upon it as she charged back to reclaim Caddie.

  Isabelle did not pause to gawp at Marta’s display, instead plotting a new course. Though the smaller glows surrounding them made no noise, their motions were swifter now. They grew closer, encircling them sure as the hunters’ horns outside the tolmen had. Only Isabelle’s quick darts allowed them to escape the noose once more as Marta again wished for the shattered glass saber.

  Suddenly three more ghuls passed through the trees to their left, each similar to the one they had already encountered but with slight differences. They reminded Marta of musical notation, the melody established early on in the piece and each of these monsters a variation upon the theme. All were made up of the same basic body consisting of spindly legs and waving tentacles. Yet there was no order to their pairings, each ghul seemingly assembled at random from these parts. Marta found herself wishing they had been caught by the dragoons instead. She understood how to make humans bleed and die. These ghuls were alien things though, not meant to exist upon Ayr, and their strangeness inspiring revulsion within Marta.

  Slipping her haversack off her shoulder, Marta set it upon the girl’s. “Keep this for me.”

  Not waiting for the answer that would never come, Marta hurled herself at the monsters, forgoing the rabbit legs and covering the ground between them on foot. Her Breath she divided up, forming claws upon her left hand, a blade in her right. It was a strain on her abilities, her Breath pushed until almost the breaking point between the two weapons, but Marta had no time to worry as her clarifying rage plotted her attack.

  The first ghul never stood a chance, rearing back to keep its body out of her range. Marta sliced through its front two legs before whirling upon the second beast. Her back upon it as she dealt with the first ghul, it had closed in, extending its tentacles towards her. Marta chopped through each, not waiting for them to retract back into its body before she swung her spectral sword deep into the core of its carapace, the three Breaths shooting off into the night with its death.

  Again she returned to the wounded ghul, removing another two limbs before turning her rage upon the third creature. It too raised high to meet her advance, Marta ducking at the last moment to slide underneath and drive her blade’s point into the beast’s belly.

  Its Breath still lingered in the air as she regarded the injured ghul. It had turned its back upon her, skittering away into the scrub on its diminished appendages. The almost piteous retreat would not save it though, Marta well aware a wounded enemy could still prove fatal. But she never had a chance to dispatch the beast, Luca leaping forward with his lockblade and driving the point into its body.

  It was a brave maneuver, one that Marta was certain would cost Luca his life, his attack doing nothing but drawing him within range of its flailing tentacles. Marta would not mourn his loss, the woman Isabelle much more useful overall. The only question would be if she would still assist Marta once her partner died.

  But to Marta’s surprise his blade cleaved cleanly through the creature, the three Breaths shrinking and returning to their natural form as they disappeared into the night. Despite all the wonders and horrors Marta had seen, she could not help but stare at the grinning man and his lockblade that cut like glass.

  “I told you I could not be defeated.”

  Luca tossed a wink her direction before returning to Isabelle. Shaken back to the moment by his movement, Marta hurried over herself, waiting on the half-Ingios woman for their next direction. Isabelle glanced over the woods, assessing the glows skittering among the trees like stirred-up hornets.

  Suddenly Isabelle was off, Luca falling in after her, Marta grabbing Caddie’s wrist and hauling her along. All sense of stealth was discarded, Isabelle crashing through the trees with an abandon born of fear. The glows coalesced behind them, now a solid wall of movement at their rear while scattered clumps grouped ahead and to their sides. Though the ghuls still made no sound, the air around them rushed about as if the woods surrounding them were breathing.

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nbsp; Several times, Isabelle tried to head south, the clusters of ghuls forcing her to instead cut north, back towards the poisoned nodus. Their way finally cut off entirely, they splashed through the creek. Coming up a small hill, they spotted the nodus and the hairs on the back of Marta’s neck stood on end. Although the cold fires of the Breath swarmed around the nodus, there seemed to be a blank spot at its center, a black core that allowed no light to escape. More puzzling was the crater underneath, the earth indented for dozens of yards around and devoid of life.

  Marta had no time to piece the tableau together further as the ghuls emerged through the trees and Isabelle darted another direction. Each creature bore the spidery theme, tentacles mixed in with their limbs, no sense of order in the beasts. Singularly they were a dangerous nuisance, a pest with poison, but collectively they would be the death of them.

  Isabelle seemed to sense this, pressing towards the lightest group of glows surrounding them, Marta much slower in her pace than the fleet-footed woman due to the dragged girl. So slow was she that Luca had to deal with the next ghul, dodging between its tentacles and legs to stab his lockblade into its body. Isabelle waited for him to finish the beast, allowing Marta and Caddie to catch up. She was about to depart again when Marta called out.

  “Wait.”

  Isabelle paused, her eyes trailing to Luca for direction as Marta finally reached her. The woman was useful, could very well lead them through the tolmen if their luck held just a bit longer. Still, she was also a liability in that she could not harm the ghuls. Marta could, but not while she had to keep hold of Caddie. Grabbing Isabelle’s hand, Marta set it upon Caddie’s wrist and looked into the girl’s blue eyes.

  “You follow her now. Do what she does and move where she does.”

  Caddie’s eyes shown as blankly as before, but for a moment Marta believed she saw something deep within them. It was only a twinge, and quite possibly just imagined, but for a moment Marta swore the girl looked hurt.

  Marta had no time to dwell though, as she removed her hand, nodding to Isabelle to move on. And move Isabelle did, Marta holding her breath until Caddie fell into step beside her. The decision to put the girl in the lead with Isabelle and leave Marta unencumbered by her haversack proved the right one as they ran into the next knot of ghuls.

  Marta flung herself into the fray with the five creatures, her claws and phantom blade streaming light as they swung through the air. To her surprise Luca was right there beside her, his lockblade glinting the ghuls’ light back at them as he lunged. Next to him Marta felt like a blunt instrument, her weapons an onslaught of unfocused fury while he darted in and out, his strikes surgical. She hacked away at any target available, slicing through legs, tentacles and carapaces with equal vigor, whereas he aimed only for the kill-shot of the bodies.

  The first three were easy, the monsters with no sense of collaboration. Marta and Luca worked as a team, she cutting a swath through the limbs while he swam in her wake and finished off the beasts with his blade. She cut the legs out of the first, Luca driving his knife home even as she was turning her attention to the second. It split apart to rejoin the flow a moment later, Marta already engaged with the third as Luca circled, catching the creature by surprise.

  Then another ghul dropped down upon Marta from the trees. It weighed nothing, its legs passing through her body, as if no more substantial than fog. But when its tentacles touched her skin, the pain burned, the attack not aimed at her body, but rather her Breath. The ache was enormous, so great that the shock of it almost shattered her consciousness. It felt as if her Soul was being torn apart, its pieces scattered along the winds.

  Marta fell to her knees, her body rebelling against her mind and control of her limbs a futility. Its legs still passing through her, its body cohabitating the same space as she, the ghul’s tentacles reared back to descend upon its prey.

  Having pressed forward to engage another ghul, Luca would be no help, and the monster within her certainly would have spelled Marta’s doom had she not spied Isabelle and Caddie cornered by another arriving ghul. Isabelle kept herself between the girl and the creature, her stone knife brandished. It was a useless gesture, the weapon sure to pass through the ghul as certainly as the monster would pass through her and attack the child. Of this Marta was sure.

  The sight sparked the rage within her, her Breath flaring in response.

  Marta’s blade leapt into her hand, her formerly sluggish arm again with momentum, as if animated by the Breath exuding through it. She stabbed it into the ghul still invading her body, its Breath disappearing into the night. The pain did not disappear with it, but for the moment Marta did not feel it as she hurled herself at the ghul attacking the girls.

  The monster never saw her coming, Marta’s assault blindsiding it as she sunk her blade through its body. Its Breath departed, floating off on the wind even as Luca dispatched his own target. And with the dissipating Breath, Marta’s rage disappeared, leaving her with only the protracted pain from the ghul’s poisonous touch. Blackness nearly enveloped her as she collapsed, her vision down to a pin-prick and fading further still.

  “Move,” Luca’s voice bellowed in Marta’s ears, the sound enough to draw her back to the moment and realize her legs were made of lead. He held her upright as she tried to move the dead limbs, but they refused to respond, just as her lips and tongue betrayed her as she tried to explain this to him.

  “You move now,” he told her, giving her a good shake for emphasis. “You move or we leave you here, no grave to mark where you fell.”

  The idea of earning a grave was laughable, a grunt all Marta could manage in response. Traitors gained no grave, were simply left where they fell. She had never expected more than that, and the idea this freebooter would try and use this to motivate her was more than ludicrous.

  “Useless.”

  She did not see his hand, but she felt its sting as his slap snapped her head to the side.

  “Less than useless.”

  Marta was many things: a spy, a soldier, a Childress of the Cildra clan, and a traitor above all, but of all of her myriad identities, uselessness was not one. And to be called such by this freebooter was enough to set her rage off again, Marta’s world growing in scope from the pin-prick. It was enough to remember the plans for the full Armor she had used in the Grand War, her Breath emerging to give it form. It was a childish thing, something any capable Shaper would look down upon with disdain. But it was enough to sculpt her Breath into the basic outline around her body, the woefully thin ribbons enveloping her legs. It was the Breath of the Armor Marta moved, not her legs. The Armor proved to be enough, its form holding her erect and allowing Luca to leave her as he dealt with the approaching ghuls.

  Isabelle thrust on with Caddie in tow, Marta’s haversack bouncing upon the girl’s back with each step. It was on her haversack Marta focused. Aimed only on it, she forced one Armored foot forward, following it laboriously with the other. She heard cries from Luca behind her, unintelligible and composed entirely of emotion that superseded language. He was afraid, she realized, the thought gurgling to the top of her consciousness long enough to recognize that Luca was also defiant, and that was good—it meant they still stood a chance.

  Isabelle suddenly stopped as they passed the cluster of rocks, six stacked one atop the other. It was no natural formation, its strangeness made more pronounced by the white dot painted upon its apex. There, Marta halted as well, the plans to her Armor a tenuous thread she clung to desperately as they waited.

  Finally, Luca burst through the scrub, the glow of the dozen ghuls fierce at his back. The monsters did not follow him past the outcropping of stones though, the man stopping on the other side to catch his ragged breath. He grinned again at Marta, the woman turning away from his gaze to force her Armor forward farther still.

  Reaching Isabelle and Caddie, she dispersed her Breath, her poisoned body teetering as she grasped the girl’s thin wrist. Caddie turned to face her at the touch, her eyes d
ull as a cow’s. Marta had a moment at most before her body finally betrayed her entirely.

  “Don’t let them near me,” she ordered, her voice more a vague assortment of utterances than words. Marta only hoped that the girl would understand and obey as the blackness swallowed her whole.

  Chapter 13

  Blotmonad 13, 562 (Five Years Ago)

  Marta had been in Overhurst for nearly seven months and could not conceive of a more wretched place in all of Ayr. The official name of her prison was the Calderon Quarry, but everyone referred to it as “the Pit.” It was an apt name, nothing but a wide hole carved into the granite by Western Shapers and now housing the Eastern Shapers captured in the Grand War.

  Shapers, by their Blessed natures, were difficult to imprison, their Armor allowing them to smash through stone walls easily. Ekesh made them docile, but the drug was costly and kept in reserve for the war effort. Execution was a far less expensive alternative, but by killing their captives, the Newfield government would give the rebellious Covenant another incident to rally behind. So the captured Eastern Shapers were shipped to the northernmost state in Newfield and tossed into the Pit.

  The solution was almost elegant in its simplicity, the walls of their hole too tall to scale and sharpshooters poised at the lip with muskets to bring down any Shaper caught using their abilities. This situation was not explained to Marta as they lowered her down the winch, her head still swimming with ekesh, but it was easy enough to surmise when she came to enough to survey her surroundings. There were over 400 of her fellow prisoners here, all Covenant volunteers who now found themselves hauled to the farthest point from their homes. Like most Shapers, they were heavy laborers and farmers, professions where their strength was an asset. Just looking them over, Marta was sure not two in ten were able to read, she probably the only one who could recite the multiplication tables.