The silent figures continued to stare as Nerthus and Edda slowly swam around the wall. The two agents made painfully slow progress in the water. Twice Edda almost let Acorn sink as she struggled to stay afloat. Yet the entire time, the pursuers shot no arrows, threw no nets, or made any other attempt at pursuit. The otherworldly terror Nerthus felt at the monstrous figures on the docks continued to grow even as she swam out of their sight on the other side of the wall. She expected them to bound over the wall at any moment and rip them to pieces.
But that moment never came, and as she dragged Janice Helley's body onto the rocky riverbank Nerthus thanked the gods above for the reprieve. She then turned and dove back into the water to help Edda drag her own cargo ashore. The two of them sat back to back for a moment, panting, willing their muscles to recover.
“Why aren’t they chasing us?” Edda demanded. “They could have shot us or caught us or whatever piking hell they wanted.”
“No clue,” Nerthus breathed, struggling to get to her feet. “But let’s not stick around to see if they change their minds.” She reached out a hand to Edda and helped her up. She was about to try and pick up Janice again when her eyes caught a torch being lit farther down the riverbank.
“Carpey! Sailey!” she yelled, relief in her voice. She almost ran towards them when another torch was lit next to it, and then a third. The faces that shone in the torchlight were most certainly not those of their people.
“Oh pike me,” Edda muttered behind her, drawing her knives. “Looks like it’s last stand time.”
Nerthus pulled out the small metal tube containing her one charge of Morning Sun. She held it skyward and looked at the ground, her eyes shut tight. She gave it three strong squeezes and found herself again reaching out to the gods, praying that water didn’t get inside the tube. Her prayers were answered when a blinding bolt of light flew out of the tube like a flaming arrow. The flash was so bright, so sudden, that Nerthus knew that even the torchbearers and their comrades on the riverbank were momentarily blinded. Behind her Edda swore.
“Goffs cock! Warn me next time! I can’t see a gods damn thing!”
“Just shut up and brace yourself,” Nerthus said over her shoulder. She tossed the empty tube to the ground and drew her own blades. “This just might that last stand you were talking about.”
As she looked over her shoulder to Edda, Nerthus’ eyes caught a flicker of movement on the wall behind them. Her worst fears were justified as three of the shrouded, deformed monsters had jumped atop the wall, one bearing a torch. Turning, she saw the ones in front of them further down the riverbank had overcome the shock of the Morning Sun and were approaching. In the silence of the night, with only the sounds of the river churning and rushing past them, a familiar wooden snapping sound shattered the quiet. One of the torchbearers fell, the glint of a crossbow bolt in his forehead. A second snapping sound followed, and Nerthus heard the thump as a body fell off the wall behind them. All was quiet for a moment as the advancing group halted, preparing for more crossbow fire, and then it began to rain amongst them.
Rain wasn’t the best word, Nerthus thought. It was just a light sprinkle at first, but the raindrops were a bright blue in color, each glowing with a gentle luminescence. She watched as the gentle drops of blue fell among the band of torches on the riverbank. They began moving in different directions all at once, as if confused. Another torchbearer fell to the ground. A dark, indistinct form fell beside it. The slow sprinkle of sparkles intensified into a downpour of bright lights with fading blue contrails behind them as the group was somehow laid low without uttering a single cry. The sound of crumbling rock caused Edda and Nerthus to whirl around to face the wall, where a similar torrent of blue streaks of light decimated both the stone wall and the figures who stood on top of it.
A figure came running from in between the dark buildings along the riverbank, crossbow in hand.
“Ladies I would greatly appreciate it if you would follow me to the wagon,”
“Clyde!” Edda yelled. “Help me!”
Their hired man hurried over to Edda and, handing her the crossbow, slung Acorn over his shoulders. Edda turned and helped Nerthus pick up Janice, together the two exhausted women managed to keep up with Clyde. As they ran between buildings and back into the city proper, another shrill howl sounded from Logun’s warehouse. Nerthus almost dropped Janice when another howl answered the first, this one distant from farther in the city.
One of their wagons waited for them at an intersection of two cobblestoned streets in the darkened warehouse district. The small cloth flags that had borne the Consortium insignia had been removed, leaving the wagon almost indistinguishable from the countless other wagons that milled about the larger streets of Bellkeep. Egveny sat holding the reigns. He looked tired but his expression brightened when he saw Clyde returning with the two agents.
“Thank the gods,” he said, his voice weak. “We must hurry.” He paused and looked past them towards the river. “Where are Carpey and Sailey? They went ahead half an hour ago.”
“Taken or dead,” Nerthus said as she and Edda laid Janice in the wagon next to Acorn. “We have to get out of here. There were a lot more people after us than what you took care of.”
Egveny wasted no time in spurring the horses on down the cobblestone street. Though the warehouse district was all but abandoned at night, the streets were well lit and maintained. Clyde rode up front with Egveny while Nerthus and Edda recovered in the back, with Janice and Acorn laid out on top of one of Egveny’s special cargo crates. Clyde reached an arm into the back holding a bottle of watered down wine, which Edda took and drank greedily from before passing it to Nerthus. Nerthus shook her head, instead massaging her temples. Two agents recovered, two hired hands lost. And one hell of a piked up secret discovered. She shut her eyes tight and tried not to think of Carpey and Sailey frozen and hanging from cold metal chains.
Help had better show up soon, Nerthus admitted to herself bitterly. They were swimming out of their depth, and the monsters of the deep had finally taken notice of them.
Chapter Thirteen
Ryker walked through the kitchen of their barracks, aimless in direction. He wandered from room to room, through hallways that were longer than they should have been, up stairs that led to floors beneath. Timber and floorboards were twisted and curved, giving him a sense of vertigo as he walked. Ryker felt only a mild curiosity at the bizarre and impossible construction around him. He looked out of a warped, bent window into the dreamscape beyond. A dull pink sky, swirling with gray clouds roiled at him from above. Mist-covered nothing yawned below. The house was an island unto itself in the void.
“Ryker,” a soft, gentle voice called from around him.
No, Ryker thought to himself. Not a voice. The voice. The Voice beyond the Door. The voice that had been dogging his dreams.
“Ryker,” the Voice called again, “Ryker come sit. There is much for us to discuss.”
Was it a note of pleading he heard in that voice, he wondered, or was it the dream casting about his reason? Nevertheless, Ryker followed the voice as it called to him, squeezing through a suddenly narrow doorway into the main hall of the barracks.
Where the front door should have been was instead The Door, the door that had been the source of the voice beyond it. Far larger than the wall that contained it, the Door strained at Ryker’s senses. The unfamiliar runes and symbols that glided over the surface of the stone seemed much clearer than before, their movements slower, more controlled. In front of the Door was a small glass table, its base made of a delicate-looking metal. A matching chair was next to it, facing the Door.
“I fear that I have been, perhaps, misinformed as to the nature of our relationship,” the Voice said. “Sit, and let us discuss the situation we find ourselves in.”
Ryker felt a jolt through his body, as if suddenly waking up. But he remained in the dreamscape, the only difference is he felt fully lucid, in control of mind and body. Half of his m
ind told him to turn his back on the Door and its Voice, that if he were to force himself awake it would be so.
But Ryker’s other half was intrigued, and after only a second of deliberation, the intrigued portion won out. He walked over to the chair and sat, crossing one leg over another, doing his best to look mildly annoyed despite the trepidation within him.
“Okay dream, you’ve got my attention.”
The symbols on the Door became clearer, and the Door itself seemed to become more solid.
“That...is a start,” the Voice said. “Now, my question. You do not know what I am, do you?”
As Ryker listened to the Voice, truly listened, he felt the strength in it. For the first time he could hear the vaguely feminine ring to it. He could also hear something else now. Something almost...pleading about it.
“You are...you’re the Phaedra, aren’t you?” Ryker said.
“No,” the Voice replied, and Ryker somehow had the image of a head shaking. “And that is what confuses me so.”
“What do you mean?” Ryker asked.
“I am not the Phaedra,” the Voice said. “You are.”
Ryker was not expecting that, and he was quiet for a rare moment. His thoughts raced back to the forest of Oberon six months prior. He had unhorsed Jurgund Kinnese, who was about to open the box containing the Phaedra. Ryker had stopped him, but not before the Phaedra had seeped into him.
“But, you’re inside of me!” Ryker said, almost shouting. “You were in the box!”
Again the image of someone shaking their head filled his mind. “No. You beckoned to me, as Phaedra do. Conscious of your actions or not, I came from the outside after you called to me.”
Ryker ran a hand through his dream-hair, the sensation an odd approximation of the real thing. “I don’t understand.”
“Phaedras bind my kind to them,” the Voice said, as if explaining to an especially slow child. “They call to us and then we join. I was the first to hear your calling, and now I am here. But you will not let me in, and I'm almost out of time.”
“What do you mean, out of time?” Ryker asked, still not understanding.
“I have begun the bonding process, but without you lowering the barriers between us, it remains incomplete. I will not last much longer without you now. And once I am gone, others will come. Others who may be less...gracious than I.”
“What...like, I don’t know anything about-”
“I can help you,” the Voice broke in suddenly. “I'm no parasite. In exchange for bonding, I can help you. I’ve done it already.”
Pieces fell into place in Ryker’s mind. “When I was tracking Kian. You made me...I dunno, you somehow made my senses sharper. Gave me better perception or something.”
The mental image nodded. “Yes. It took a great deal of effort to do so without permission. But I had to show you that I can help should you choose to accept me. Together we would be greater than each of us individually.”
“I don’t...I don’t know. I like being me. I don’t know if I want to share space with someone.”
“You're a strange Phaedra,” the Voice said, sadly. “At the very least, if you lower the barrier slightly, I can still help, even if but a little. Let me catch but a glimpse of what you see, feel but a mote of what you feel. In return I will lend you what strength I can. You won't be disappointed.”
“Barriers...I don’t even know how to do...wait-” Ryker suddenly felt a pressure in his mind. As if a hand was massaging a muscle he didn’t even realize was tight. It didn’t take any effort on his part to keep the muscle in his mind flexed, but he suddenly knew that if he relaxed it, the hand could reach into his mind. The Door in front of him seemed to lose coherency as he relaxed. He had thought the Door was just how the Voice taunted him, but perhaps the Door was his own creation, a manifestation of his own mental defenses?
“Yes,” the Voice said, as if responding to his thoughts. “That's what it is. It is what keeps Riders like myself out.” Ryker tensed the barrier more, and he felt his defenses solidifying further. He relaxed it, and felt it fade. “You learn quickly,” the Voice said. “You don't need to give me entry, not yet. With but a small loosening of the barrier I can at least prolong my own life in return for aiding you in yours.”
“What can you do for-” Ryker was cast from the chair as the dreamscape around him shifted violently.
“We will speak further,” the Voice said, growing distant. Ryker swore he heard a new, hopeful tone to the voice. “Oh, yes, I can see-”
Ryker, lying flat on his back, opened his eyes. The Voice had suddenly gone silent mid-sentence. Everything about him now was a deep dark, and after a second he could make out the dark blue of a night about to be cracked by the dawn. A hand was on his arm shaking him.
“Up at at them, sir,” a voice whispered. Vegard’s. “It’s time to be heroes.”
Ryker sat up, his eyes just barely making out the forms of the other Outriders around him in the gloom. He felt a familiar pressure in his mind, and the world around him brightened, as if by torchlight. He saw Vegard and the others clearly now, but without colors other than varying shades of gray and white. With his new vision, Ryker could see more than just the physical. When he looked at Toma he saw softly glowing shards of red light on the boy’s wrists, collar, and from under his jacket. It took Ryker a moment to puzzle out that the light was from the crystals the kid had sewn into his clothing. His thoughts raced back to what the Voice had said. It could help him, and now he was seeing it first hand for what it was. Garm sat next to Toma, and a different light, violet, leaked out of the lightning gauntlets on his hands.
Casting his gaze around to the rest, Ryker saw that Johan matched Vegard in simple pale colors. When he looked at Aleksander, however, he was taken aback. A faint, golden aura surrounded the man, shining through his clothing and armor. Thought it was hard to see, Ryker saw that it wasn’t weak, it was dimmed, like a candle under a cover. But what escaped was soft, warm light. Like the rays of the sun on a summer afternoon. Though the darkness was deep amongst them, Alek’s eyes caught Ryker’s and held his gaze for a moment, a mix of concern and surprise on the larger man’s face before Ryker looked away. This would take some getting used to.
“Alright everyone,” Johan whispered to the group, “Garm says he has a plan to get us in there.”
Ryker looked at Garm, who was staring down at the ground. Garm had a look on his face, gone in an instant, that Ryker had never seen before. Sorrow.
“Yeah, I guess I do,” Garm said. “I’ll take Alek and we’ll just go inside and drag the Underking out.”
“Uh, that is a kind of shitty plan,” Toma said.
Ryker saw Garm shrug. “It’s the only good one I can think of. If we had just charged in last night we’d have been facing everyone inside plus who knows what from the other farmhouses. There’s a good chance I can at least get inside without immediately getting shot with bolts or stabbed. And if that doesn’t work, Alek here can probably smash through the door for me.”
“How do you plan on getting the two of you inside?” Ryker asked. “Asking nicely?”
“Wasn’t going to do it nicely, but yeah that’s about it,” Garm said. “I still remember enough to bluff my way past any younger toughs, and if there are still any of the older ones around, they will remember me. It has been awhile, but I still have some accounts to settle here. I think they’ll let me in.”
“And if they don’t?” Johan asked.
“Like I said, it’s why I’m bringing Tiny here.”
Johan was silent for a moment, and Ryker could see his friend’s brow furrow as he weighed options. Ryker watched his friend think, thankful that Johan had pushed himself so hard to be Commander. Lately he had been making decisions that Ryker wanted no part of. As he watched, Ryker could tell the sky was growing lighter. The pale colors his eyes were feeding him were slowly fading, being replaced by the colors Ryker was familiar with. Finally Johan’s brow smoothed out, and that annoying grin
of his blossomed.
“Okay Garm, we’ll do it your way. But Ryker is going with you. No self-respecting gang leader would show up to a meet without his swarthy, backstabbing rogue.”
Ryker shook his head. Everyone was running rings around him lately. He needed to get this deal with the Phaedra sorted out soon so he could go back to getting regular sleep. His sarcastic edge had been dulled to the point of-
“Wait, what?” Ryker asked. He found that his hands had spread out in disbelief. “Garm and Alek seem to be quite able to handle this kind of crazy suicide mission. I’d just slow them down. Or get riddled with arrows and then slow them down.”
“Because I need someone with a...stronger survival instinct to go with them,” Johan said, his grin growing larger. “I can’t send the two of them in unsupervised. They’ll wreck up the whole place without someone to tell them to stop, grab the cargo, and run.”
One of Toma’s hands found his, and the other pressed a small thin pouch into it.
Chasing Down Glory: The Outrider Legion: Book Two Page 22
