Harbinger

by Shae Ford

  “How about a little afternoon entertainment, eh? All right, you’ve twisted my arm. Prepare yourselves, gents and ladies,” he glanced at Kyleigh, “and those of us whose outfits suggest that we’re on the fence.”

  She gave him what Kael imagined was a very rude gesture, judging by Aerilyn’s offended gasp and Chaney’s snickers.

  “There’s no need to be so coarse,” Jonathan said with mock severity. “That having been told, t’would now be my delight to entertain you all with a dirty little ditty I call The Pirate’s Perilous Pantaloons —”

  “Oh, Jonathan please — none of your horrid songs today! We were all having such a wonderful lunch,” Aerilyn begged.

  “Yes, if you’re going to sing something, it needs to be appropriate,” Kyleigh said.

  “Oh, and look who’s lecturing on appropriateness! What was it you were saying just moments ago?” Jonathan countered, cupping his hand behind his ear in dramatic anticipation.

  “Well technically I didn’t say anything —”

  “Well technically it was vile!” Aerilyn cut in. “A lady should never engage in such profanity. Kael’s manners are better than yours, and he’s a boy.”

  “Thanks for that,” he muttered.

  Kyleigh gave her a wicked grin. “You’re right, I wasn’t exactly being ladylike. Why don’t you let me make it up to you?”

  She crossed her arms. “You can’t take back what’s already been said.”

  “For the last time — I didn’t say anything. Now,” she nodded to Jonathan, “feel free to jump in whenever you like. I know you know this one.”

  She crossed her legs and stretched her interlaced fingers — like they should all be expecting something extraordinary. Then quite unexpectedly, Kyleigh started to sing.

  Her voice filled the air and stunned them all into silence. Jonathan was so taken aback that he nearly forgot to join in. But when he did, his song danced along with hers: lifting in places where her voice fell, and fading back as she carried notes to heights he could not.

  Kael lost himself in the story they told.

  The pretty blue violets were blooming,

  Their blossoms abound in the field.

  But Sir Gorigan’s eyes were so gloomy,

  For he only had but a shield!

  The dragons laid waste to the Valley,

  The fiery beasts in great horde.

  Sir Gorigan cried, “I could slay them,

  If only I had but a sword!”

  Then the sun called, “I see you, Gorry.

  Take the blade from my burning forge.

  Hold it aloft and fall on the dragons,

  Their fire’s no match for my sword!”

  When the last line trailed away, he could hardly believe it: he thought she didn’t care a whit about Sir Gorigan. But before her audience could erupt in applause, she glanced at him. He saw her smirk and he dropped his head.

  All right, but he refused to let her think he was impressed.

  “That was absolutely beautiful!” Aerilyn said. “I don’t know why you’ve kept quiet all this time. And you!” She pelted Jonathan with a handful of orange peel. “How could you? You’ve been torturing us for all these years — and you can really sing! How dare you!”

  Peel flew at Jonathan from all directions. He laughed and tried to block their shots with the back of his fiddle. “How was I to know that you’d like that boring sort of thing? I’ve considered it my personal duty to educate you lot of heathens, teach you a little something about art, and all that — ow! Well that’s gratitude for you!”

  He sprang up and ran into the cover of the trees. Chaney and Claude charged in after him, hurling peel.

  Chapter 16

  Bartholomew’s Pass

  Beneath the fortress of Midlan, well below the warm hearths and comfortable beds, was a world of darkness: a honeycomb of dank stone rooms that lurked, forgotten. It was a gloomy tangle of crypts, a chapter that should have been struck from the Kingdom’s history long ago. And the King had promised to seal them, to judge in death or freedom but never to condemn a man to rot.

  Only, he’d lied.

  Water dripped from the ceiling in maddening drops. It pooled in filthy puddles and reflected the monstrous faces of Midlan’s most dangerous prisoners. The slime on the floors did little to muffle their howling. Some threw themselves against the walls of their cell. Some clawed at stone or whimpered. But try or cry none of them would ever see daylight again, not until the King allowed them to.

  Bloodfang listened to their hopeless pounding. The ones who struggled were only pups: they had yet to learn that escape was impossible. Even if they squeezed through the iron bars or dug under the floor, the collars around their necks would burn and force their bodies back into their cages.

  His pack was used to their collars. After years of having their bodies twisted and pulled at the King’s command, their two shapes had become one.

  Now the pack was curled up, sleeping on a mound of straw. But Bloodfang couldn’t sleep. He sat against the wall with an arm propped on one furry knee and kept watch. His body looked like a man’s, but it was covered in thick black hair. His head and face was entirely that of a wolf. The only thing truly left of his human self were the eyes beneath his furry brow.

  The King could have his body, but he’d fought to keep his mind. He ignored the voices that swam in and out of his ears, the scattered thoughts of all those trapped by the mages’ spell. He knew if he listened to them that his eyes would go empty and dark. He’d become entirely animal … like the rest of his pack.

  Somewhere down the hall, a door creaked open. Bloodfang’s pointed ears twitched as heavy footsteps dragged across the cold floor, moving towards their cell. He stood, listened, then woke his pack with a low whine. They stretched and grumbled that their naps had been ruined, but couldn’t ignore the call of their alpha. One by one, they sat up. Their long limbs splayed out over their knees as they squatted, their deadly claws twitched in anticipation.

  When the mangled face of the beastkeeper came into view, Bloodfang’s tail thumped against the floor in greeting. He yapped at the gray hawk perched on the beastkeeper’s shoulder, who flapped his wings in reply.

  Bloodfang liked Eveningwing: he was only a pup, but he was clever. He knew to fight against the voices.

  It wasn’t feeding time, so if the beastkeeper was visiting them, Bloodfang knew he must have a message from the King. The iron gauntlet on the beastkeeper’s scarred arm glowed when he touched it. Bloodfang felt his collar get warm. He sat up a little straighter. Suddenly, the King’s voice was in his head:

  Follow Eveningwing — he will lead you to the prey. When you find her … kill her. Bring me her head, and you will be rewarded.

  The pack joined Bloodfang’s excited growl. They were ready for a new hunt and waited impatiently for the King’s memory.

  Bloodfang recognized the town they were to start at: a village the humans called Crow’s Cross. There was a bed at the inn that would have her scent. Then the memory changed, and he saw her face. That’s when he realized he wouldn’t need her scent, for he already knew it well.

  He let out an involuntary howl as his legs bent under the weight of his collar. He fought against it for the first time in years. But it didn’t matter how much he struggled: the spell binding him to the word of the King was powerful magic. It controlled his shape, stole his thoughts, and moved his legs. There was nothing he could do to stop himself once the King had spoken.

  When the beastkeeper opened the door, Bloodfang leapt out. He dropped down on all fours and his legs galloped beneath him. He followed Eveningwing through the murky tunnels, the excited barks of his pack bouncing off the walls around him.

  They didn’t remember her face. How could they? Magic took their minds years ago. They were like pups once again: so blinded by their lust for the hunt that they couldn’t see the certain death that awaited them. For she would surely kill them all.

  When the tunnel sloped upward, t
hey dug their claws into the slippery moss and climbed. They escaped through a small hole in the castle wall and the fresh scent of night air filled Bloodfang’s nose.

  The great walls of Midlan disappeared behind them as they ran. He followed Eveningwing, a small dot high above them, concentrating on the sound of his claws as they beat the earth. All the while they traveled, he tried to keep his mind away from the prey … he didn’t want the King to find out what he knew.

  *******

  For days on end, Kael woke and immediately peered back the way they’d come. He scanned the hills, watched for the cloud of dust that meant the army of Midlan was on their heels, but it never came.

  Ahead of them, the western range of the Unforgivable Mountains loomed ever closer. They were no longer purplish shadows in the distance, but the very large, very craggy image of their eastern brothers.

  He didn’t see how Garron planned to drag six carts over the top of them. Most of the trails would be carved by deer and not even close to wide enough for a wagon. Yet no one else seemed worried. The caravan plodded on like the mountains were no more treacherous than the gentle green hills of the Valley. He didn’t think they realized just how impossible the weeks-long journey ahead of them was. In fact, he thought they were all thoroughly mad.

  It wasn’t until they were nearly at the base of the first mountain that he realized — with no small amount of horror — how they planned to cross it.

  The smallest peak did not stand like its brothers: it was split directly in half, like some great axe in the sky had mistaken it for a log and chopped it precisely down the middle. Between the two halves was a narrow crack. It bent into the center of the mountain and disappeared through the towering shadow cast by the peak.

  “It’s Bartholomew’s Pass,” Aerilyn said when he pointed it out. “A hundred years ago, Bartholomew the Inventor set up shop in that very mountain. But one of his experiments went horribly wrong, and he blew the whole thing clean in half! Poor man — one just doesn’t come back from a blast like that.”

  Bartholomew’s Pass? Did the merchants have their heads so full of coin that they’d forgotten to pack their common sense? He left Aerilyn and went for Kyleigh at a jog. “Did you see this?” he said when he reached her.

  She looked in the direction he pointed, and shrugged. “Sure, I’d have to be blind to miss it.”

  “We aren’t going through there, are we?”

  “Of course we’re going through it. The Pass is the quickest way to the coast.” She put an arm around his shoulder, like he was a panicked child who needed comforting. “Don’t worry — I doubt we’ll be crushed to death.”

  He jerked out from under her arm. “You doubt it?”

  “Very seriously.”

  “Well I don’t doubt it, not for a second,” he hissed, keeping his voice low enough that the people around them couldn’t hear. “I’ve seen rockslides in the mountains. I know how quickly they happen. And I tell you, if so much as a pebble shifts while we’re in there, they won’t find us for at least another hundred years — when the next Bartholomew comes along and decides it’s a fantastic idea to blow things up. Why are you laughing?”

  But she was too doubled over to answer him. Her face was red and her breath came out in gasps. A few times she seemed to collect herself enough to say something, but when she looked at him, the laughter started all over again.

  He was sick of her giggling, of all her nonsense in general. He turned on his heel and marched away, ignoring her pleas for him to come back. When the mountain caved in on them, he’d turn around and ask her if she still thought it was funny — provided he had the time.

  At least Garron partly made up for his foolishness by announcing that they wouldn’t stop to make camp: they’d march straight through the Pass and only rest when they were safely on the other side. He led the way in, the feather on his grass-green cap bouncing with the trot of his horse.

  As the caravan entered the Pass, their chatter slowly fizzled out. The pressure of being trapped in the middle of a mountain was not unlike having a hand clamped around their throats. With every step, the grip got tighter: the air was too thick to breathe and the silence nearly crushed them. Slowly, the towering walls of rock and dirt strangled the sun and finally snuffed it out, forcing them to travel by torchlight.

  Having nothing to do but walk and worry sent Kael’s imagination running wild. Darkness made every sound more sinister. A horse whinnied, and he stopped. He held his breath and listened. Pebbles skittered down the walls — the first ominous drops of a deadly storm, he was certain of it. He strained his ears for the deep rumble that meant the mountain was crumbling down … but it never came.

  Roots of ancient trees snaked out from the walls, reaching for him, elongated in the shadows. They clawed at his face, warning him: Turn back now, they said. Turn back, or we’ll devour you. Your flesh will make us strong, your blood will grow us tall.

  Though his heart railed against his chest, Kyleigh seemed completely untroubled. She walked confidently ahead of him; the light from her torch made her more a shadow than darkness ever could, etching the straight lines of her shoulders against the flames.

  An eternity passed before someone finally shouted that they could see the end. He looked up and breathed a sigh of relief. The small pinpoint of gray light in the distance grew larger with every step. Soon, they would be able to put this miserable, dark place behind them.

  Just when he thought he might survive Bartholomew’s Pass, Kyleigh stopped. Her arm shot out across his chest and when he tried to get by, she pushed him back. “What are you doing? Keep moving, we’re almost —”

  “Shut up.”

  Her words were so abrupt, so sharp that they stunned him into silence. She had her head cocked to the side with her dark brows bent low as her eyes scanned the walls above them, looking for something he couldn’t see.

  Finally, she dropped her arm. “Maybe it was nothing. But I thought I heard —”

  Then a hawk’s screech ripped through the air, followed by a cry so horrible that it made his blood run cold.

  It sounded like the shrieks of a man having a limb cut off. It was anguish, the call of a tortured soul who was helpless to stop the pain — a man trapped in some cycle of agony with no beginning, and no end. He covered his ears and ground his teeth against it.

  Then a creature burst from the cliff side, following its cry, and lunged for Kyleigh.

  It was a monster — one of the monsters the innkeeper had warned them about. He never would have believed it if he hadn’t seen it for himself, but its body looked exactly how he’d described it: like a man who’d swallowed a wolf. Only now it seemed that wolf was fighting its way out.

  Patches of coarse gray fur burst through the gaps in human skin, nearly covering its long snout and sunken cheeks. Black, deranged eyes gaped out from their sockets and locked onto Kyleigh. Its pointed claws stretched for her throat.

  Kael didn’t even have time to be properly terrified before she knocked him to the ground. She stood over him and, as the monster sailed by, she ducked under its claws. There was a flash of white and then a thud as its lifeless body struck the wall. She turned, and he saw Harbinger gripped in her hand. Its blade glistened wetly in the torchlight.

  More howling tore through the Pass, more monsters erupted from the cliff side and fell upon the merchants. Garron bellowed above the shouts of his men, trying to bring some order to the chaos. Aerilyn’s screams cut over the top of everything, piercing their ears.

  The creatures must have been stalking them all night, lurking in the shadows, watching with their unfeeling eyes as worry and fatigue took their toll. They’d been waiting for this moment to attack, and they attacked like wolves — with the full force of their pack and with their minds consumed by a single goal:

  To kill.

  Another monster came after Kyleigh. It snapped for her neck and its deadly pointed teeth crunched shut on themselves as she leapt away. She cracked it over the hea
d with her torch and ran it through. Grabbing Kael by the arm, she yanked him onto his feet. “Follow me!”

  And because she seemed to know what she was doing, he didn’t argue.

  Garron had the merchants rallied together in less than a minute. He organized them into circles and ordered them to stand back to back. They swung their blades and fired arrows, defending their manmade keeps while Garron and his mount charged through the fray. He hewed the monsters with his sword and bellowed: “Hold fast, men! With all that you are — hold fast!”

  They found Aerilyn crouched on the ground next to the jewelry cart. The hem of her skirt was filthy and her eyes were red with tears. All the curl in her hair had gone limp. Kyleigh grabbed her and tossed her — skirts and all — over her shoulder. She kicked the jewelry cart’s door open and flung her inside.

  Kael had an arrow nocked and was ready to step out into battle when she grabbed him by the belt and tossed him in next to Aerilyn. He flipped himself on his feet and made a dash for the door, but she shoved him back.

  “You’re to stay right here, understood? Don’t move!” she growled, green eyes blazing as she slammed the door in his face.

  He was furious. He may not have been the strongest man in the Kingdom, but he was no coward: he wouldn’t hide while the other men fought. Grunting, he drew his bow and pushed the door open with his foot.

  A group of merchants were fighting a losing battle. They managed to bring down two wolf monsters before a third dropped right in the middle of them, breaking their circle. It batted one man down with the back of its claw and sent the second flying with a kick in the gut. The third man countered, swinging his sword until he got the monster back against a wall — and then lunged for its chest.

  The monster’s claw swooped under his jab, cuffing him in the chin. He went flying and landed hard on his ankle. It crunched as he collapsed.