The Shadowed Path

by Gail Z. Martin

  A cool wind raised the hair on the back of Jonmarc’s neck as it slipped by. Mist was rising from the tall grass, faint tendrils of fog at first, then mingling with the torch smoke in a haze that blanketed the meadow and made it difficult to see more than a few steps ahead.

  Jonmarc. The voice was faint, but it stopped him in his tracks, eyes wide and heart pounding.

  Jonmarc. Louder now, and unmistakable. His heart caught in his throat. It was a voice he heard in his dreams, his memories, but would never hear again this side of the Gray Sea. Shanna, his wife, dead and buried almost a year. Jonmarc peered into the fog. He could make out Shanna’s image, recognizable but distorted, like a reflection on water.

  you left us. The voice was his mother’s. Jonmarc wheeled, catching just a glimpse of her before the fog shifted. your brothers and I died because you left us.

  “Not true,” Jonmarc murmured. “I went with father to fight the raiders. You were supposed to be safe at home.”

  you called the beasts that killed me. Shanna’s voice, echoing Jonmarc’s deepest shame and fear. He had gone into the burial caves to bring back a talisman for a mage who offered him enough gold to provision his family for a year, and that night, monsters had descended on his village, killing everyone but him. He’d thrown the talisman back into the caves, sure it had brought the beasts.

  “I didn’t know,” he murmured. “You’ve got to believe me. I didn’t know.”

  One by one, the images coalesced in the fog. His three younger brothers, killed by the same raiders that slaughtered his father and most of their village and left Jonmarc for dead. Shanna and her mother, who had found him and taken him in. Friends and neighbors in their village who had given the orphaned young man refuge, until the beasts destroyed everything. All because of a raider’s curse.

  The ghosts surrounded him, eyes accusing, demanding atonement. Tears streaked down Jonmarc’s face as the old grief welled up anew. His intentions didn’t matter. He had failed them. Failed them all.

  “I’m sorry,” he said raggedly. “I’m so sorry.”

  The ghosts crowded closer, faces contorting in anger, bent on revenge. And as they grew nearer, Jonmarc remembered what Alyzza had said.

  The barrow wights lie. The faces they show aren’t their own.

  Jonmarc closed his eyes, concentrating on Alyzza’s words, repeating them under his breath. “You’re not real,” he muttered. “Shanna, mother, the rest of you, you’re not here. I buried you. I mourned you. You are dead.”

  He opened his eyes, and though the fog remained, the ghosts had vanished.

  Voices carried across the meadow. Some wailed in fear, others keened in grief, and some shouted in anger. Free of the illusion, Jonmarc saw the mist roiling like a storm at sea, covering the meadow like a shroud, separating each searcher into a private well of despair.

  “Alyzza!” he shouted. “Where are you?”

  Jonmarc began to run through the thick fog. Kegan was the first person he came to, huddled on the ground in a ball with his arms thrown over his head, shaking with fear.

  “Kegan! It’s not real. There’s nothing out there.” Jonmarc coaxed, but Kegan flailed at him when he tried to raise his friend to stand, fighting with a wide-eyed terror that told Jonmarc Kegan could see nothing but the visions of the barrow wights.

  Trent stood a short distance off, sobbing in grief. “Come on, Trent,” Jonmarc begged, reaching for the blacksmith’s shoulder. “It’s a trick. It’s magic. They’re not real.”

  Trent shook off his hand, weeping so hard that he gasped for breath. “I was wrong,” he groaned, talking to ghosts only he could see. “I was wrong. Forgive me. Please, please forgive me.”

  Then Jonmarc spotted three shapes moving toward him through the fog. At first, they were silhouettes, but more solid than the apparitions. They grew closer, and he stood ready, sword raised. The three shapes stepped through the curtain of mist, and Jonmarc recognized Hans, Jessup, and Clark, three of the caravan’s vayash moru.

  “Did you see visions?” Jonmarc asked, lowering his sword once he had assured himself of their reality.

  Hans nodded. “Aye. But we’re undead. Ghosts don’t have the same hold over us that they do with the rest of you.

  “Where’s Alyzza?” Jonmarc asked. “If there’s anyone who can send those spirits back where they came from, it’s her.”

  “We’ll find her,” Hans promised. Jessup and Clark nodded their agreement. “And if there’s aught we can do, just name it. The caravan is our home, too.”

  The three vayash moru split up, and Jonmarc took off again, searching for the hedge witch, making his way through the fog around the paralyzed forms of his friends and fellow caravaners. “Alyzza!” He shouted again. “Alyzza!”

  Jonmarc had seen Alyzza hold her own against a dimonn and its ashtenerath minions. Getting free of the dimonn’s power had nearly killed them all. That was one dimonn. But the wraith-like wights that rose from the barrows and ghosted along the fog numbered in the hundreds.

  He had run the length of the meadow, searching for Alyzza, hoping to find someone else who was not under the sway of the barrow wights’ magic. The largest mound loomed at the meadow’s edge near the line of oak and elm trees. The fog swirled heaviest around this ancient barrow. Spirits circled the barrow, and a dark opening gashed the side of the mound. The body of the missing child, pale and still lay sprawled at its threshold. He ran to her, hoping to get her to safety, only to find that she was already dead.

  “Alyzza!” Jonmarc shouted, searching the mist. Then he spotted her, standing between three of the largest barrows, and ran to catch up with her, fearing that at any moment, something worse than the wights might escape and doom them all.

  Bundles of dried herbs hung from twine like a mantle around Alyzza’s shoulders. Jonmarc recognized agrimony, boneset, and hyssop among the herbs, all powerful against evil and restless spirits. Bits of gemstone—amber, citrine, and chalcedony—were strung together on a lanyard around her neck, and the twine of the lanyard was knotted in a complicated pattern that increased its magic.

  Alyzza carried her staff with the rabbit skull, and with her tattered robes and wild gray hair, she looked like something out of legend. At her feet was a squirming burlap bag and a branch from a fir tree.

  “What do we do?” Jonmarc asked. He had drawn his sword, but it was of no use against the legions of restless spirits. He spotted Corbin and Karl, transfixed by the wights, their strength and fighting skill of no use against this disembodied enemy.

  “I’ll break their hold,” Alyzza said. “My power is a shadow of what it used to be, but it’ll suffice for this, I think. You wake them up. The wights are draining them. That’s how the spirits get their power. They took the child to summon the power to leave their barrow. The big mound, the elder barrow, is the hub.”

  She took Jonmarc’s hand and pressed a lump of salt and a silver coin into his palm. “Keep that on you,” she said. “It will help clear your head and protect you from the wights.” He poured the mixture into a pouch on his belt.

  Alyzza grasped the staff in her left hand and stretched out her right hand, palm out toward the gaping hole in the side of the barrow. She spoke a word of power, and energy crackled from her outstretched hand, burning across the mist, striking deep in the darkness of the open hole. “Go!” she shouted.

  Jonmarc, Hans, Clark, and Jessup ran through the fog, shouting and waving their arms in an attempt to rouse their comrades from the wights’ visions. Jonmarc shook Kegan by the shoulders, leaning so close he was shouting in Kegan’s face. Kegan continued to sob and mutter, bound by the nightmare vision, completely oblivious to anything Jonmarc did.

  The three vayash moru had no better luck with the caravaners they tried to rouse. Desperate, Jonmarc ran to Dugan, then to Karl and Trent, and finally to Linton, shouting until he was hoarse. He backhanded Linton across the face, but the caravan master regarded him with a blank stare, murmuring a heartbroken confession to whome
ver he had wronged.

  “It’s not working!” Jonmarc shouted.

  “Then get back here and help me hold off what’s in there,” Alyzza countered, with a jerk of her head toward the elder barrow.

  “Hold out your sword,” Alyzza commanded when he reached where she was standing. He did so, and she laid her hand on the flat of the blade, muttering words Jonmarc could not catch. The blade glowed with a faint greenish light.

  “Guard the tomb,” she said. “For as long as I can hold the magic, your sword will keep the worst from passing.”

  Jonmarc stood facing the dark hole that gaped into the ancient barrow. He planted his feet wide, holding the sword with both hands, trusting in Alyzza’s power since he was certain that steel alone posed no threat to whatever dwelled in the darkness.

  Standing in the center of the clearing surrounded by the three largest barrows, Alyzza cast a warded circle of salt and silver coins and walked widdershins to seal it. With a guttural cry, she raised her willow rod high above her head and then plunged it down into the ground.

  Chanting loudly, Alyzza walked widdershins around the circle two more times. She drew a boline knife from her belt, and reached down for the squawking burlap bag. Grasping it by the tied-off mouth, she held it up, invoked the words of power, and plunged her knife into the squirming mass, drawing her knife down in one swift stroke.

  Her knife ripped open the bag and dug deep into the body of a black chicken, sending its bloodied feathers flying. She made a circle around her staff, pouring out the chicken’s blood onto the ground and tore bits of dried leaves from the bundles of herbs she wore on the mantle around her shoulders.

  When she had circled the staff again, Alyzza raised her voice chanting in a strange language. She grasped the willow staff and raised it, and a loud cry tore from her throat.

  “Akanathani!”

  A blinding, pure white light streamed from the upraised staff. It rolled out from where Alyzza stood, like ripples in a pond, waves of glowing power that blasted across the meadow, making it bright as day.

  The light swept the fog and the malicious spirits back like a gale. For a moment, the crew of the caravan, frozen in their places by their nightmare visions, staggered.

  The light faded as fast as it flared, and the fog and the ghosts rolled in like a storm surge, taking back their captives. Even without magic, Jonmarc could sense a shift in the energy. Before, the barrow wights had merely been hungry for the energy of the living. Now, after Alyzza had challenged their power, the spirits were angry.

  He blinked, and saw that Hans, Jessup, and Clark had joined him. The three vayash moru took up places so that, together, they and Jonmarc made a semi-circle around the dark gash in the barrow’s side.

  “Alyzza!” Jonmarc shouted, still standing guard at the mouth of the entrance to the barrow. “Something’s coming!”

  Deep within the shadows of the barrow, Jonmarc could see movement. The maw of the barrow smelled dank and cold, stinking of moldering cloth and rotted flesh. He had no time to grieve the dead child. He feared they would all join her soon if worse things than the wights emerged from within the ancient tomb.

  Whatever was coming from deep inside the barrow dragged heavily across the ground, its labored steps growing louder by the moment. The thing inside the mound hissed and growled, guttural noises that sounded to Jonmarc like a predator sniffing out its prey.

  A large black shape like a massive, elongated wild cat sprang from the darkness, bounding toward Jonmarc. Red eyes glowed like coals and long fangs snapped. Jonmarc stood his ground, hoping that whatever enchantment Alyzza had placed on his sword was sufficient to hold the beast at bay.

  The greenish glow of the ensorcelled sword reflected off the mist like foxfire. Jonmarc’s hands trembled as he swung the sword to block the ghostly beast’s path. It dodged one way and then another, taunting him, yet wary of the luminescent blade that barred its path. It won’t tire, but I will, he thought grimly.

  Alyzza was chanting again within her circle of salt and silver. Jonmarc could hear tiredness and desperation in her voice.

  The wight-cat sprang at Jonmarc faster than he could react. Hans moved with vayash moru speed, knocking Jonmarc to the ground and coming up under the beast with his own sword. Han’s sword was not spelled, but he had the advantage of undead strength and speed. Jessup jumped into the fray an instant later, and the two of them stabbed at the spectral cat with their swords, but every time, their blades found nothing but mist.

  The cat-thing howled again, and reared back. Its massive paw struck Jessup across the head and chest, and its long claws dug so deeply into his flesh that it severed his head. Jessup’s body crumbled into ash.

  Hans and Clark let out a battle cry and lunged toward the creature again. Jonmarc regained his feet, and circled, looking for an opening. He had neither the speed nor the strength of the vayash moru, nor their centuries of experience. But Jessup had been a good man, and Jonmarc was angry at his death and that of the tinker’s daughter. If we can’t kill this thing, we’re all going to die anyhow, he thought as he struck at the monster.

  His sword connected with the thing’s haunches, and its blade flared as Jonmarc sank it deep into the cat-thing’s shape. To his amazement, his sword found purchase, and it felt as if the blade was ripping into cold corpse-flesh, not the dark mist that met the weapons of the vayash moru.

  The creature shrieked in anger, but Jonmarc sank the blade hilt-deep. The monster gave a shake, and Jonmarc went flying, his sword still firmly in his grip. Black droplets sprayed the air, not blood but something like it, as the catthing yowled in rage.

  “We’ll distract—you attack!” Hans shouted. Jonmarc could see in Hans’s face that the vayash moru wanted vengeance for the death of his friend. Hans and Clark began to dodge and weave around the cat-creature as Jonmarc got to his feet. When the thing’s attention was on the two vayash moru, Jonmarc made his move, running at full speed for the monster’s rib cage. He leapt into the air, using his momentum to help him drive his glowing blade between the cat-thing’s ribs, into the place where a heart should be.

  His sword sank deeply into the corpse-flesh of the creature. Black ichor gushed over Jonmarc’s hands, splashing his face and chest, covering him to the elbows. The cat-thing snapped at him with its fangs, grabbing at his cloak and tearing him away from the wound, sending him and his sword sprawling.

  Jonmarc dug his hand into his pouch and grabbed a fistful of the salt and silver, hurling it into the creature’s face. It reared back, just for an instant, then lunged forward again, intent on its prey.

  The wight-cat raised its paw to rake Jonmarc with its claws. Just as the paw descended, a wide-bladed sword swung between the creature and Jonmarc, blocking its strike. A dark-clad stranger stood between Jonmarc and the monster, holding his stelian sword in a two-handed grip. The newcomer ran at the cat-thing with a cry, fighting it back to give Jonmarc time to regain his feet.

  “Who in the name of the Crone are you?” Jonmarc rasped. He was grateful for the help, but wary.

  “My name is Madeg, from among the Sworn.” Madeg and the creature regarded each other warily, each waiting for an opening to strike.

  Madeg wore a dark tunic and trews, with a cloak of mottled brown. In his hand was a wicked-looking stelian sword, neither broadsword nor scimitar, but a deadly, jagged flat blade of damashqi steel. Jonmarc had heard of those fabled swords, crafted with magic as the metal was folded again and again on itself. Such blades were rare, priceless, and powerful.

  Across Madeg’s chest was a leather baldric that held a large number of knives, and around his throat, on leather cords, hung amulets and charms. The stranger had black hair, tawny skin and amber eyes, the same color as the eyes of the Sacred Lady, the goddess. He wore studded leather armor under his cloak. On his baldric were dozens of damashqi daggers.

  “I hope you’re up for a fight,” Jonmarc replied.

  The wight-cat’s retreat was short. Enraged, the c
reature stalked him, intent on exacting revenge for its injuries. Hans and Clark ran at the monster, slashing at it with their swords and launching themselves onto its back where they stabbed their blades down again and again until the creature dissolved beneath them, only to emerge a few feet past them.

  “Your blades are the only ones that hurt that thing!” Hans shouted to Madeg and Jonmarc.

  Jonmarc looked up just as the cat-thing suddenly changed direction, making a lightning-quick turn and lunging toward Hans. The creature snapped its sharp teeth shut over Hans’ body, and its fangs sank deep into his flesh, snapping him in two. Hans’s body disintegrated.

  The thing is solid when it wants to be, mist when it doesn’t for everything except my sword and Madeg’s, Jonmarc thought.

  Clark gave a howl of fury and made a headlong run at the creature. It swung its huge paw at him, pinning him to the ground with its full weight. The cat swiveled its head, fixing its red eyes on Jonmarc, issuing a challenge. It dug its sharp claws into Clark. The vayash moru screamed in pain. The blow would have killed a mortal; Clark would remain in agony until the creature clawed him through the heart or tore off his head.

  Madeg gave a roar and ran at the cat-thing, chanting as he swung his long stelian blade. The magic in his sword and the skill of his swordsmanship inflicted more damage than Jonmarc’s strikes, but Jonmarc remained ready, fearing that even one of the Sworn might be outmatched alone.

  The cat-creature snapped at Madeg with its fangs and slashed with its claws. Madeg pivoted out of the way, though one of the claws caught him on the shoulder, cutting a gash on his left side.

  “Alyzza! Do something!” Jonmarc shouted. He feinted to one side and then the other, sizing up his opportunities. The mist had rolled back over the meadow, and their fellow caravaners remained motionless, trapped in their separate nightmare visions.