Dark Company

by Natale Ghent

  A sudden movement in the woods sent them both to the ground. They stared through the rain. She saw it first: someone slipping from the shadows into a clump of cedars. And another.

  “Company men?” he whispered.

  “Dreamers. Why are they still here?”

  “Waiting for communication.”

  “Shouldn’t Hex have contacted them by now?”

  “Maybe they’re in trouble. We have to talk to them.”

  “No,” Caddy said. “Let’s watch for a while to be sure it’s safe.”

  THE DARK RISES

  Skylark sat at the Speaker’s feet. With his right hand, he stroked her hair. In his left, he held two soul vials. The violet one was Sebastian’s. The other one, the one with the green mist, held the soul of Kenji’s woman. The Speaker rolled the vials mechanically between his fingers.

  “Did you see your precious boy?”

  Skylark’s spirit leapt. “Yes, Father. He is everything to me.”

  The demon turned his ice-chip eyes on her. “Did you do as I bid?”

  “Yes, Father. I gave him the strength and desire to seek out the Dreamers. He will lead the men to their quarry.”

  The Speaker growled deep in his throat. “Good. Now rise, child, and take your place beside me as the battle begins.”

  Skylark looked to the horizon. In the distance, the Warriors and their lions filed in rows without end. Behind their ranks, the Nightshades hovered, their ravens calling for the souls of the damned. The Speaker yawned, his mouth stretching open. With a deafening shriek the Dark issued forth, coiling upward in a black column against the bloated sky. Serpents slithered from his sleeves. Vermin crawled across his feet. Sizzling globs of black ooze dropped from the column, spawning towering golems. Teeth flashing, arms and legs pumping, they lurched single-mindedly toward the Light. Skylark shuddered to see it. The horror. But she could think only of Poe. Everything she did, she did for him.

  The column of darkness grew, twisting as it poured from the Speaker’s mouth. Rearing up, it met the legions and exploded in a shower of flames and black rain. The golems tore through the ranks. Skylark averted her eyes as Warriors and their totems blew apart, forever lost, the tinkling of their captured souls rising with the cacophony of pain. The Nightshades circled, swallowing the Dark ones as they fell, the demonic column advancing without mercy.

  Caddy and Poe watched for movement in the cedars. The Dreamers were holed up like hounded rabbits in the trees. No one had come in or out for some time, and there was no sign of Company men.

  “We should make a move,” Poe said. “I’ll go first.”

  Caddy vetoed that. “They don’t trust you. You’re an outcast in their minds. They don’t understand why you killed the Company men. I’ll bring them to you and we can explain everything once we take them to safety.”

  Caddy slipped into the cedars. The Dreamers huddled in a ragged group on the ground. There were only seven—three women and four men. They barely acknowledged Caddy, they were so beaten.

  “Is this all of you?” Caddy asked.

  One of the women nodded.

  “Where are the others?”

  The woman shook her head.

  “We found sanctuary,” Caddy said. “There’s food, warmth, real beds. It’s safe from war and bombs and Company men. I can take you there. But we have to go now.”

  A man spoke. It was the angry one Caddy had argued with before. “We must wait for Hex. She’ll take us to the next dreaming place.”

  “There’s no time. The Company men will come.”

  “The world is at war,” the man said. “It’s more important than ever that we hold the vision.”

  Poe appeared through the trees. “If you don’t come, you’ll die out here.”

  The man sneered at the sight of him. His voice was caustic. “Leave us. If we’re to die, we’ll do so on our own terms.”

  “Your own terms are based on a lie,” Poe said. “Hex is working against you. The mark will condemn you to death and everything you care about will be lost.”

  “He’s right.” The woman spoke. “We should go with him. What good is it to die in the rain?”

  “Shut up,” the man ordered. He pointed at Poe. “You brought this upon us. Your hatred will condemn us all.”

  “We came to help you,” Poe said. “You’ll die for nothing—all of you.”

  The man spat on the ground with loathing. “Then let us die.”

  They’d wasted their time. Caddy knew there was nothing she could say to persuade them. “We should go,” she said to Poe.

  They’d cleared the spruce trees when they heard the screams. The Company men had routed the Dreamers. Caddy ran, the rain stinging her face. Poe was somewhere behind her. She looked back and the sky split open with a fiery blast. The earth shook, and the wind rushed in, the trees bending like grass. Caddy was blown face down to the ground. She covered her head, shouting into the blur of branches, mud, and rain.

  When the wind finally stopped, Caddy knew the city was gone, and perhaps her father with it. Her shining song played in a loop over the whine of white noise in her head. Something was pulling her arm. It was Poe, trying to get her to stand. She teetered to her feet, fell, and staggered up again.

  Poe’s face was savage. “They’re here,” he yelled, his voice small and far away in her ears.

  “The bomb,” Caddy said, her own voice a muted garble of sound, as if she were speaking under water. “I think it hit the city …”

  He grabbed her hand and dragged her stumbling through the woods, her feet catching on broken tree limbs and clumps of earth. The forest was torn apart. He kept pulling her forward, yelling at her to go faster, but her feet wouldn’t listen.

  At the limestone rock, Poe dropped to his knees and clawed at the grass with his hand. Caddy saw torches leaping through the rain. “Hurry,” she said.

  Poe found the door and yanked it open. He pushed the Zippo into her hand and fed her by one arm down the hole. She slipped on the wet rocks, hitting the ground at the bottom of the stairs. Poe started yelling and she cried out as the Company men swarmed him. The door smacked shut. Over the noise in her head she thought she heard Poe say, “Run!”

  Caddy crashed through the tunnel, the Zippo’s flame wobbling frantically as she ran. She cleared the door, the Company men behind her. Fighting with the bolt, she managed to secure the lock, but only just. There was a crash of splintering wood and the door broke away from its hinges. Caddy ran down the corridor, shouting. The Weavers poured out to meet her, panicking when they saw the Company men with their knives and fire.

  In the crush of bodies, Caddy slipped into the seed room. She stayed there, cowering in a corner, screams and cries filling the corridor. From the chaos, Hex emerged, slithering into the room, her blue eye dancing with delight over her luck.

  “Well, well, well …” she hissed and raised her knife, its silver blade stained red with Weavers’ blood.

  Caddy braced for the strike. The hit never came. Zephyr had jumped between them.

  “Get away from her!”

  Hex struck with the speed of a cobra, slashing Zephyr across the chest before she was able to knock the knife from Hex’s hand. The viper attacked again, this time tearing the medallion from Zephyr’s neck. Caddy rushed her and was heel-punched in the chest and sent crashing against the wall. Hex and Zephyr fought, blow for blow, hitting the floor in a tangle of arms and legs. Hex grabbed Zephyr’s hair, yanked her head back and drove her thumb into Zephyr’s sky-blue eye. Caddy flung herself on Hex and was thrown to the ground. Red burst into the room. He grabbed the knife and lunged, pushing the blade beneath the curve of Hex’s jawbone. She writhed to the floor, blood throbbing from her neck and lips.

  Zephyr lay in a pool of blood, gasping blindly. She lifted her hand, the medallion clenched in her fist.

  “Take it, Caddy,” she said. “Live.”

  Her face slackened and the light slipped away from her.

  Tears spilled down
Caddy’s cheeks as she untwined the bloody medallion from Zephyr’s fingers. She had saved her life. Caddy would never forget her for that. But there was no time to mourn. Red was lifting Caddy to her feet and pushing her toward the door.

  “Go!” he said.

  The corridor was a maelstrom of smoke and fire. Bodies of Weavers and Company men covered the floor. Caddy stumbled over the dead, choking for air. Through the confusion, someone called her name. It was April and Dillon, beckoning to her from the end of the hall.

  “Come on!”

  Dillon had found a set of stairs. He yelled over the noise.

  “It takes us to the cliff. Where’s Poe?”

  “Outside,” Caddy said. “We have to find him.”

  “We’ll look when we reach the top. We have to go.”

  April pulled back. “It’s too dark.”

  Caddy grabbed Poe’s Zippo from her bag and sparked the flint. “It’s all I’ve got.”

  “It’s good enough,” Dillon said.

  They pounded up the stairs, Dillon leading the way. At the top was a tunnel, carved through the cliff. The sound of dampened thunder rumbled all around them.

  “It’s the waterfall,” Dillon said.

  They worked their way to the end of the tunnel, where more stairs waited. The steps were dangerously narrow.

  “We’ll have to go single file.” Dillon nodded at Caddy. “You go first. I’ll go behind in case someone comes.”

  They climbed, April holding the hem of Caddy’s shirt, the thundering growing louder as they went. The stairs switched directions several times. When they reached the top, a stone barricade blocked the way.

  “We’re trapped!” Caddy yelled above the noise.

  Dillon ran his hands over the stone. “There’s supposed to be a door here.” He sat down and began to push with his feet.

  Caddy and April did the same, kicking and pushing until the stone gave way, scraping by inches along the ground. Dillon kicked harder.

  “Keep going!” he shouted, forcing open a gap big enough to squeeze through, one at a time. Cold air rushed in. The waterfall roared.

  “There’s something you should know,” Caddy shouted. “The city—it’s gone. And Zephyr.” She held up the medallion.

  “We can’t stay here,” Dillon shouted back. “We have to find a place to hide.”

  April pointed down the stairs. Torchlight swam in the darkness below. “Someone’s coming!”

  They struggled through the opening onto a thin ledge, the falls a moving wall of sound in front of them. In the distance, the city burned orange against the sky. Caddy stuffed Zephyr’s medallion into her pocket and looked over the edge of the cliff. The water plunged into a black abyss.

  “I guess it’s a one-way kind of thing,” Dillon said.

  April started to cry. “I can’t do it.”

  “Yes, you can,” Dillon said. He forced her to look at him. “Aim for the centre of the spill. Cover your head with your arms and take a deep breath before you jump.”

  Caddy closed the Zippo, extinguishing the flame. “You have to do it,” she told April. “I’m not going without you.”

  April crumpled to her knees. “I can’t!” she sobbed.

  The torchlight swelled in the tunnel.

  “They’re here!” Dillon shouted.

  Caddy pulled April to her feet. “Hold your breath,” she yelled, and took her over the edge.

  They hit feet first, April wrenching away from Caddy, the power of the water driving them down. Caddy jackknifed, her arms brushing stone, the water wringing her body like a rag and throwing her back to the surface. She breached, sucking air, and just in time to see Dillon enter the water. The river was fast. It grabbed Caddy’s legs, pulling her under. She fought the current, arms flailing, feet kicking toward a calm pool at the river’s edge. She floated there, scouring the banks for April. In the gloom of the rain, she saw her, clinging to a rock in a small eddy, her face pinched with pain.

  “My arm,” April moaned, as Caddy swam up. “I think it’s broken.”

  THE DARKEST HOUR

  The black column roiled from the Speaker’s mouth. It bulged, and a winged beast the size of a skyscraper was born. Flapping its wings, the creature shrieked, soaring over the armies and scattering Warriors with its barbed tail. There was a powder keg flash against the sky, and Francis, Kenji and Timon dropped in, narrowly missing the creature’s claws. Timon and Kenji reverted to their etheric forms and opened with heavy artillery. Francis jumped straight for her.

  “Skylark! Come back to the Light!”

  Skylark fired. “Never!”

  The cowboy dodged the arrow and was nearly singed by Kenji’s light blast. “It’s not too late!” he shouted.

  “Old fool,” Skylark cursed. She fired again, the arrow winging the cowboy’s arm and flipping him end over end. He hit the ground, his Stetson rolling in the rain. Skylark laughed with delight as he reached for the hat, shooting it from his hand and searing a hole clean through the top.

  “Dang blast it!” Francis swore. He grabbed the hat, smacked it on his knee, and planted it, still smoking, on his head. He jumped, landing right beside her.

  She rocketed into the air. “Get away from me, Francis.”

  The cowboy drafted in her wake. He just wouldn’t give up.

  “There’s nothing for you here,” he called after her.

  “Leave me alone!” She shot an arrow over her shoulder, flying higher.

  “I’m not giving up.”

  “I won’t come back.”

  He accelerated, closing the distance between them. “The Speaker is using you. Once this is over, he’ll toss you aside.”

  “He’s my father.”

  “He’s a demon!”

  Skylark corkscrewed upward. “Everything I want is here.”

  “The boy?”

  “Yes.”

  “How do you know he isn’t already dead?”

  Now he’d gone too far. Skylark pulled back and faced him. “Liar!” she accused, and let fly with a scorching volley of arrows. One hit his left thigh, spinning him around and dropping him like a brick.

  Francis hit the ground with a grunt, reverting instantly to his etheric form. Timon and Kenji swooped in with a suppressing blast. Skylark deflected it with a well-aimed shot, bowling them over.

  Francis squirmed, the arrow buried in his leg. Skylark landed next to him, sneering as she raised her foot and slowly pressed the arrow deeper with her heel. She watched the cowboy wriggle, relishing his pain. He looked so helpless.

  “The boy’s dead,” Francis sputtered, filaments of ice spreading across his leg.

  “You lie.”

  “Ask the Speaker yourself.”

  “My father would never betray me.”

  “He doesn’t care about you—or the boy. He has what he wants. He doesn’t need either of you anymore.”

  Skylark eased back on the arrow. What if he was telling the truth? She would find out for herself. She blasted into the air, leaving Francis suffering on the ground.

  “Tell me he lives, Father.” She demanded, confronting the Speaker.

  The demon cranked his head around, disconnecting from the black column, a sulphurous green cloud spewing from his mouth. His eyes were glaciers, and his skin was crystallized with frost. “You dare to question me?”

  Skylark hovered over him. “The boy is mine!” she shouted.

  “He is yours as sworn,” the monster growled. “Forever!” He hurled a blue vial into the tempest.

  “No!” Skylark shrieked as she plunged, the vial whiffling beyond her grasp into the whirling column. Poe was gone!

  With a deafening crack, her soul light fractured, the pain of loss and betrayal shattering the bonds that held her captive to the Dark. She flew at the demon, bow drawn. “Die!” she screamed.

  The Speaker roared, and a ball of dark energy flew from his mouth, knocking her from the air. Skylark fell, reverting as she dropped, her robe flapping wildly around
her.

  Kenji soared to her defence, light beams searing from his hands. The Speaker deflected the shots back at him, sending Kenji hurtling through the air. Timon jumped between them with a protective field of light. The demon answered with a torrent of black flames and ice.

  Skylark lay on the ground, clutching the Ephemeral, the Speaker’s dark poison draining in an oily pool around her. A stream of shaming images washed over her—Sebastian, Kenji’s woman, Francis, Poe. She was responsible for so much misery. Francis groaned beside her, the arrow protruding from his thigh, the icy filaments nearly covering his entire body. The light in his blue eyes was growing dim. He shivered uncontrollably. She crawled over to him.

  “Forgive me, Fran.”

  With the last of her strength, Skylark gripped the arrow and pulled. The arrowhead ripped through Francis’s etheric form. He coughed, black ooze spraying from his lips. Skylark held her hand over his wound. Her light was weak, faltering. She barely had enough to save herself. Her soul was guttering out by the time Kenji soared down to help her, placing his hand over hers. Their eyes met, and she silently begged for his forgiveness as their energies merged, the war raging around them.

  Caddy led the way through the rain, the burning glow of the city an incendiary sunset behind them. April leaned against Dillon for support. She whimpered as she walked, wearing a makeshift sling from a strip of Dillon’s shirt. It was amazing she was on her feet at all, Caddy thought. The break was bad. It was swollen and blue, the same way hers was when she’d broken it as a child. It would have to be tended soon or she would lose it. April stumbled, her face a portrait of anguish.

  “We need to stop,” Dillon said.

  “It’s not safe. We’ve only just cleared the falls.”

  “Then go without us.” He helped April to the ground, resting her back against a tree.

  There was no way Caddy was going to leave them. “We need to put a splint on that arm.” She searched for suitable branches, collecting willow whips to secure them, thanking her father for the wisdom he’d given her as she tested the strength of the branches against her knee.