The Restless Shore tw-2

by James P. Davis

  “No, that might be all that’s keeping him conscious,” he said quietly. “Leave it for now.”

  “Will he live?” she asked, brushing a stuck thorn from her neck.

  “Yes,” Vaasurri said without hesitation, “I believe so. We’ll need to keep giving him water whether he wants it or not, but he’ll live. The pollen of the wyrmwind can kill swiftly and painfully, but only with several breaths’ worth. More than one breath, and we’d be exchanging our swords for shovels.”

  “Idiot,” she whispered under her breath, though a tenuous relief tempered her anger at Uthalion’s foolish heroism.

  The rain grew stronger, pouring down in intermittent sheets blown by the wind. Ghaelya joined Brindani by the wall, watching the half-elf and waiting for his eyes to see what she could not. He shivered slightly in the rain, and occasionally his breath would come in a wheezing gasp, but each time he mastered himself and maintained his vigil, his bow at the ready.

  “They’re out there,” he said at length, squinting through the rain. “Not sure how many, but a few at least haven’t given up, despite the storm.”

  “Damn it all,” Ghaelya muttered as she peered over the wall, seeking movement in each flash of lightning or the buzzing of wings behind every bolt of thunder. A small glow drew her gaze to Vaasurri, who had produced his small lantern of moss. Its green light revealed the trembling form of Uthalion, muttering and shaking, lost somewhere between dream and hallucination.

  The light also shone on the blood blooming through the bandages on Brindani’s leg, a hindering wound at best. Turning back to the clearing, she stared into the glinting pairs of eyes appearing at the edge of the vine-trees, pressed low to the ground and creeping forward. Ghaelya crouched, caught between storm and shaedling and wounded companions. She clutched at the growing warmth in her mind, let it expand and spread across her body.

  “Tess,” she muttered, using the name to focus her spirit and the burning beneath her skin. The tides within her slowly pulled away to expose a smoldering shore of warm flame.

  “Ghaelya?” Brindani said in disbelief, though his voice barely registered. A glistening river of molten energy flared with her pulse, feeding her bloodlust, reviving it, changing her flesh into the pyre she felt inside. Her seafoam green skin warmed and reddened to a pale crimson as a scent of smoke filled her nose and mouth. Flickering flames writhed within the energy lines across her body and flowed across her scalp in a long mane of fire.

  She gazed over the wall with eyes like glowing coals and waited for the inevitable attack.

  When it finally came, no word from Brindani was needed. A shadowy spear cracked against Brindani’s bow, throwing his shot off-aim. Beating wings swooped close, and her reflexes took over in an explosive burst of speed. The shaedling’s sparkling eyes, blank and full of hate, guided her sudden charge. Snarling savagely, Ghaelya placed one hand and one boot upon the wall and hurled herself into the air like a tongue of curling flame.

  Her blade flashed as she twisted backward, dragging the edge hard and deep across the dark fey’s abdomen. Shadows poured from the screeching beast, a fountain of darkness that gushed over her as she completed the turn and landed in a crouch. The shaedling fell out of the air as Vaasurri’s lantern flew over the wall, lighting the immediate area in a vibrant green glow. Ghaelya rushed to match the creature’s descent, slicing its throat before it touched the ground. As a thin smoky mist pooled around her legs, she searched for another opponent.

  She sidestepped movement from her right, narrowly dodging a hurled spear of shadow as she charged its owner. Arrows whizzed by her shoulder as Brindani spotted more of the fey rising in the grass. The creature met her charge, a dark sword appearing in its hand, a leering skull-like grin on its dark, armored mask of bone. She rolled into the duel, her sword clashing dully against the thing’s shadowy blade.

  Spinning around its position, she forced it to keep moving, to keep readjusting its stance as she slashed and turned. Her sword edge caught on the dark fey’s wrist, and the wavering blade dissipated as it was dropped. She drove the point through the beast’s chest and pinned it to the ground, somersaulting over its body as she withdrew the blade and spun to meet the next attack, forcing another of the shaedlings into the edge of the vine-trees. The whiplike branches reacted instantly at the contact, striking like snakes and leaving the fey writhing on the ground, its wings broken beneath it.

  Vaasurri crawled carefully between the trees, crouching low. He struck precisely against any shaedling that came within reach over the twisting grove. Ghaelya smiled and fought closer to the clearing’s edge, giving the killoren more targets and making the dark fey flutter dangerously near the defensive trees.

  As she closed with yet another of the shaedlings, she underestimated the reach of its shadowy spear and received a long painful gash down her arm. Slapping the fey’s weapon aside she jumped and wrapped her arms around its waist, dragging it to the ground as a searing heat built up in the wound it had given her. Slamming into the grass, flames erupted between their bodies, bursting from her broken skin. The beast’s cries of agony ended with her sword through its throat, and she stood back to face its companions, the smoky smell of burnt flesh surrounding her.

  Lightning flashed deep crimson in the quiet space behind his eyelids, burning little spots of light that faded slowly as he stirred. Uthalion tried to get up and rolled over onto his side, the motion turning his stomach and making him choke on bitter bile. With some effort he opened his eyes, blinking at a blurry dark world lit by flickering lights and thunderous crashes. Rain splashed onto his face, and he coughed painfully; his throat burned and his swollen tongue ached. Spasms of pain pulsed through his chest as he tried to find purchase on the ground, to dig his hands into wet grass and soft mud, a surface that seemed determined to evade his efforts.

  He was not asleep, though somewhere in the haze of his thoughts he was aware of a thin veil where wakefulness hid among blurry shadows. Between reality and dream he fought to rise, clinging to the ground, barely, as though it would escape him, leave him hanging as it spun away.

  He pushed himself up, staggered by something, some injury he could not recall that caused his body to ache and creak. The crimson flashes came again, indistinct and familiar, arcing down from and through a cloudy sky. Voices cried out accompanied by horrid screams and shrieks.

  “No,” he muttered in horror, squinting through bleary eyes at the storm overhead, searching for the beasts that had swam so gracefully and horribly through the skies over Caidris. “Not again,” he added breathlessly.

  Alarmed, he rolled to one knee, slowly drawing his suddenly heavy sword, its tip falling to the ground. His men needed him. He would not let them face the terrible task alone, the work that needed to be done. He caught a glimpse of Brindani in the red lightning, and he followed as the half-elf disappeared beyond a low wall.

  “Secure the left flank,” he mumbled, his voice hoarse and raspy. “Don’t let them get … Don’t let them get to … the farmhouse.”

  Dark shapes flitted left and right, bright blades reflecting the red lightning and chasing shadows. He stumbled to the battle, a determined anger pushing each step. He tasted blood in the back of his throat and breathed its coppery scent through his nose. A shadow approached, crawling in the grass, hiding from the light. He reeled backward as it came closer, blinking and resisting what he saw, the veil separating him from reality lifting for a heartbeat before folding around him again.

  Something was wrong.

  “You’re already dead,” he said to the thing, his voice rising in defiance of the image before him. “Y-you can’t be real … You’re already dead!”

  It rose into a crouch, the blank face wavering into the image of a small boy, twin mouths gaping with teeth from either side of its face. Various eyes blinked, but the one that struck the most was the remaining normal eye, peering at him beneath a crumpled brow in pain and confusion. A long black tentacle lashed at him, and he deflected it clu
msily at first, but as it came again he swung back with more force.

  “You’re already dead!” he screamed and bashed at its mass.

  It shrieked and came again.

  They traded blows, and with each one Uthalion tried to reconcile reality. But the line blurred, and he grew frustrated, though the fear for his men remained strong. He heard Brindani’s voice nearby, but the words were lost, a jumble of confusing sound that only served to strengthen his sword-arm. He landed a blow against the shadowy child’s chest and struck again as the twisted thing staggered.

  “You’re already dead …” he muttered, wondering at the truth of the words as they echoed over and over again around him. The thing fell, trying to get up from the grass. He noted the tall grass curiously. The streets of Caidris had been hard dirt, trampled by crowds of people who had been broken by foul magic. They had come in hordes, shambling from the south, from Tohrepur. The thing leaped wildly from the ground, and he hacked through its gut, kicking it back to the dirt as a fountain of black erupted from the wound.

  “You’re already …” he said as he stumbled sideways, shaking his head and trying to see clearly. From the wavy edges of his line of sight a figure slowly approached. Translucent and familiar, it wore the clothes of a farmer and held the simple bearing of an aging, hard-working man. Uthalion waved the man away weakly, recalling the face of Khault, the brave farmer who had helped a band of lost soldiers and brought doom to his little town. Khault looked at him pitifully and turned away, fading into the dark as Uthalion called out to him, his throat burning with the exertion, “You … You should be inside! Think … Think of your family!”

  He fell to his knees, coughing again, choking on blood and clutching his chest in pain.

  “End it …” he said, trying to convey orders to his men. “End it and burn what’s left … Give them naught but ash to defile … And watch … Watch the left flank …”

  Someone called his name, a girl’s voice ringing out from the battle, and he wondered how his daughter had found him here. His head swam, and he could not form the words to send her away, to make her run from this place. Echoes of his own voice slipped through his mind, repeating and taunting him as he lost his balance.

  Think of your family!

  The world shifted, the ground rushed toward him and struck the side of his body with all the power of the wide realms. Weakly he lifted his sword and slapped at the dirt, its edge unable to cleave the world that held him fast and kept him from going on.

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  9 Mirtul, the Year of the Ageless One

  (1479 DR)

  The Akana, north of the Wash, Akanul

  Uthalion!”

  Ghaelya ran to the fallen human, diving at the shaedling that crawled through the grass toward him. She stabbed at its back, kicking it down until it stopped moving. Shadows curled through the grass, mingling with blood that soaked into the soil. Uthalion mumbled something, his eyes fluttering, but lay still.

  She stood over him and turned in a circle, protecting him.

  Brindani slashed madly, fighting two of the fey, his sword a blur as he taunted them through clenched teeth. Unable to leave Uthalion, Ghaelya breathed easier as Vaasurri appeared, pouncing like an animal from the vine-trees. The bone-sword became a glowing beacon as blood filled the blade’s runes. The curved light dipped down, disappearing in a mass of flesh, then returned brightly, trailing droplets of the doomed shaedling’s life behind it.

  Instinct made her turn and duck as a shadowy chain swung over her head. As the weapon swung away, and the dark fey reversed its angle of attack, she jumped forward, rolling and rising to slash at the hand that swung the chain as she threw herself behind the bladed edge of the weapon. The chain fell away, and she drove her shoulder into the fey’s stomach, gripping its legs and dragging down its frantically beating wings.

  They rolled in the grass, and she was blinded by shadows spewing from the writhing spinnerets in its abdomen. Ignoring the blows from the beast’s armored fists, she stabbed at it, its resistance growing weaker with each new wound, until she sat, straddling its stomach, her arms wet with blood and dissipating bits of darkness.

  She stood over the corpse and looked back, feeling deaf in the sudden silence that had descended.

  Brindani walked slowly back to the wall, collapsing against it and panting as he slid to the ground. Vaasurri watched as the surviving shaedlings retreated to find easier prey or to crawl back into their lairs and lick their wounds.

  Uthalion breathed deeply, fluid rattling in his throat as he feebly tried to move. The killoren approached and laid a hand on the human’s chest, holding him still as he pried the sword from Uthalion’s weak hand. Ghaelya helped to drag the human back into the corner of the wall and laid him down, bundling his cloak for a pillow.

  They gave him sips of water, and he drank a little easier, only coughing a little as he settled into his delirium again, his eyes rolling at the stars and the clouds. Brindani crawled around to their side of the wall and sat shivering in his cloak, still catching his breath from the battle.

  Ghaelya and Vaasurri did not speak as they made a sparse camp of the little shelter. The wind grew stronger, and thunder rumbled as they made futile attempts to shield themselves from the rain. She chewed on dried fruit, letting the fiery tempest within her cool to a still surface of lapping waves and quiet depths. Her heart ached as the element of fire, the chosen element of her family, faded away. It was as if Tessaeril had been with her again, if only briefly. She felt very much alone.

  Choosing the element of water had been mostly instinctual for her as she’d grown older, serving as a passive rebellion against her mother despite the awkward rift it had created between the twins. She’d not turned to the fire for many years, feeling only the anger in the flames, but she’d forgotten the bond it made with her sister.

  Troubled, she washed the blood from her arms and found herself admiring the clean seafoam green skin beneath.

  Water flowed freely, adapting to whatever it encountered. It could move mountains or sit quietly in a pristine pool. She had kept herself in a glass for so long, living in Airspur, and only recently had she spilled herself into an unknown world, feeling it slowly change who she was. She had never had reason to kill in her city life-desire at times, perhaps, but never anything real to fight for. Outside of the city she had adapted to a different way. Something new and strange rippled in the pools of her spirit, mingled with old flames, as she wiped blood from her sword and heard Uthalion’s labored breathing grow slightly calmer.

  “Blood and bloom,” she said under her breath, finding the name for what she felt in Vaasurri’s words and hearing them echo somewhere in the back of her mind, in the dream-song that would return when she slept. She repeated the phrase quietly and leaned back against the wall, covering herself in her cloak and letting the constant patter of rain lull her to sleep on endless shores and thundering tides.

  Ghaelya stirred in her sleep, tossing and turning as the dream returned with more force, insistent and irresistible. Somewhere, red flower-blooming eyes watched her from the bottom of a deep stairwell. Dancing flames within the crimson eyes seemed to whisper, calling her down and down into the dark in a singsong voice.

  She resisted at first, but as she fell deeper into sleep, her will was slowly overcome.

  “Tess?” she muttered in her sleep, a musty scent, of old wood and faint lavender, surrounding her.

  A groan escaped Brindani as he awoke. He rolled onto his side and clutched his stomach for long moments before breathing again and carefully sitting up. His entire body trembled in the rain that had become a thin misting, little more than a damp fog. Dark clouds still hung overhead, occasionally growling with soft thunder, and he sighed in relief. Though he was glad the sun hadn’t risen to blind his sensitive eyes, he dreaded the day to come and the day after that.

  Dreams of Caidris, still fresh in his waking mind, were more detailed than they had been in some years. He recalle
d standing in the dusty road of the town square, shaking as the horde from Tohrepur had come shuffling into town from the south. Fellow mercenaries had stood with him, their swords ready and fear on their faces. Their names, forgotten for so long, came back easily enough. There had been Faldrath, a talkative soldier who’d been speechless that night, and Efra, a skilled young woman with old dueling scars. And the farmer, Khault, who’d bravely given them shelter in a deep basement after the first long night of bloodletting.

  He shook them away, banishing the old faces and the horrible town along with them. He stretched, rising to one knee. Uthalion still lay nearby, mumbling occasionally, but breathing more evenly. The human’s eyes were half-open, not entirely asleep, but seemingly unaware of his surroundings. Ghaelya mumbled incoherently in a fitful sleep, but did not wake, passed out after the night’s exertions. And Vaasurri-Brindani looked around curiously-appeared to be gone.

  Alarmed at first, wondering what had happened to the killoren, Brindani slowly realized he was alone. Shaking quietly, his hand drifted to the small lump hidden at the bottom of his pack, a single bit of silkroot the pilfering Vaasurri had missed. He sat still for a long time, longer than he might have several days before. The small piece of his will that desired freedom had grown stronger, a little louder in his thoughts, and enough to be heard within the screaming pangs of his need.

  In the end though, no matter how much he wanted to listen, that piece of him was powerless. He cursed himself for not throwing the drug away-for not having the strength to get rid of it. It made him weaker rather than stronger in denying it when temptation was so close.

  Quietly he stood, leaving the others and winding his way carefully through the vine-trees to hide himself in the twitching forest and the drifting mist. The early morning scents of rain and grass were sharp to his nose, more vivid, though sickening as a sudden nausea gripped him. He stopped, squeezing his eyes shut and choking down the bile that rose in his throat. In that brief darkness behind his eyelids, he imagined the road north out of Caidris, remembered bidding solemn farewells to those soldiers who had chosen to stay in the little town. He and Uthalion had promised to return one day-they never had.