Chronicles Of Aronshae (3 Book Omnibus)

by J. K. Barber

  Jared moved closer to the doorway listening, but heard nothing in the silence that had descended upon the once noisy tavern like a funeral shroud. He reached the opening, taking a swift glimpse into the weak light that spilled out into the alley. He saw nothing. There was no movement and no figures in the shadows beyond. Taking a longer look, Jared found the entire alley empty. The gleaming blade of his own dagger sticking out of the wall of the far building was the only evidence that anyone had been there at all.

  Jared moved back into the bar and grabbed one of the lanterns that hung on the wooden posts, supporting the roof two stories overhead. Taking the light source back into the alley, he held the lantern over his head as he crouched low, looking in the dirt for tracks. It was useless. Too many people had trampled through the alley that night for him to discern any single set of tracks from the multitude. If there were no tracks, perhaps the daggers themselves would offer a clue.

  He knelt over the body of his former foe, reaching down with his fingertips to close the large miner’s eyes. Even though the giant was a murderer, all men deserved respect in death. Jared gently pulled the dagger from the fallen man’s back and began to examine the knife. His saw that the dagger was of one solid piece, not assembled. It was dark as obsidian and cold to the touch, which may have been a product of the chill in the night air, but he was uncertain.

  Suddenly, the knife began to melt, losing shape and substance until only a ghostly whiff of black smoke remained and that also dispersed into the still air of the tavern. Jared looked to the other victims to see similar puffs of black smoke briefly hover over the bodies of the murdered miners. The only dagger that remained was the one that had missed him and struck the wall near the entrance. He gingerly stepped over the bodies of the dead miners and began to examine the dagger. Careful not to touch it, he looked over the blade, hilt and pommel for anything that might offer a clue as to the identity of his attackers. Again, the black shining skull pommel of the blade taunted him, at least until the silence in the room was broken by the scream of one of the barmaids, returning from the back room.

  The barmaid’s shrill call rebounded off the walls of the tavern and fled out the door into the night, performing its intended duty. Jared heard the sounds of voices yelling and many feet approaching the bar. Sighing, Jared moved to his former stool. He quickly strapped on his sword belt, unsure as to what type of crowd was headed his way. In close knit communities, he was as likely to find himself on the end of a short rope as to find a level head from the local constabulary. He fished from his backpack, which still rested on the floor, his writ of bounty from the Sheriff of Binford’s Bluff, unrolling it and placing it on top of the bar. In the face of an angry mob, the last thing he wanted to do was make them even antsier by rummaging around in his knapsack. He leaned back against the bar, both his hands in plain sight, and waited.

  Chapter 5

  Katya felt the cold steel grip around her waist, as the blade of the dagger hovered near her throat. The man who held her was thin, almost emaciated in his flowing black clothing, but impossibly strong. She struggled against her attacker in the ways that Sasha and Mistress Mala had once taught her, striking out with her elbow into the man’s ribs as much as the knife at her throat would allow. The dark figure pulled her farther into the shadows of the tower’s stairwell.

  Her sorcerer training took over, and Katya ceased her struggling, as her mind reached out to the power that was all around them. She called to the energy of her craft, speaking an arcane word of summoning, her body singing with pleasure as the eldritch light hummed through her body and her hands began to glow against her attacker’s sallow flesh. The man let out a small involuntary hiss at the radiance, pulling her backwards with renewed vigor.

  Good, Katya thought. He fears my spell. Maybe I can use that to my advantage. She formed the energy in her body into a spell that would take that fear and magnify it into a full blown terror, hopefully causing him to release her. The hex fully formed in her mind, she reached out to her attacker’s thoughts, using the power to try to bend his will to her own. However, as her mind attempted to connect to his, it was she that recoiled in fear. An icy chill, that had nothing to do with the frigid air around them, lanced down her spine. There was nothing. Where her assailant’s mind should have been, there was only void, unending darkness that threatened to consume her.

  She fell.

  At first, she thought they had reached the stairs and had begun to tumble backwards, so she closed her eyes, anticipating an impact that never came. She opened her eyes but saw only darkness. Blinking several times, Katya tried to clear her vision before coming to the chilling realization that her sight was fine. It was everything else that had gone black. She thought she had lost consciousness, but she felt the breath of her kidnapper on her neck, as he let out an involuntary sigh of relief. The disappearance of magic around her was even worse than the absence of light. All her life, she had felt the electric tingle of power across her skin, as though she were awash in a gentle breeze of magic. Now it was all gone, and she howled as though a part of her soul had been ripped away, her tears of anger and fear quickly freezing on her cheeks.

  In desperation, the young sorceress reached out for any connection she had back in the world of light, latching onto her connection to her twin. Sasha had always been there for her, and even now when all else receded, she could still hear her sister calling out to her.

  Katya felt more than heard the harsh chill laughter of the creature that held her, his grip loosening slightly in his perceived triumph. The strange man turned, now moving forward towards some unknown destination, pulling the sorceress farther away from her home.

  Katya clung desperately onto her twin’s calling. An image of Sasha, who had been Katya’s anchor her whole life, formed in the sorceress’ mind. Her sister was a figure of strength and determination who never quit, no matter how hard things became. Katya drew upon that resolve, creating a picture of her twin reaching out from the embattled walls of their home, reaching out to pull her back to safety. She extended her left hand, now able to almost feel her sister’s hand holding hers in the all-consuming darkness. Amazingly, she felt pressure in her grasp. Not that of an actual hand, but more of a cord becoming taut as it was dragged upon. Using this pull as an anchor, she turned and let the last of the energy, still held within her body from her failed spell, well up in her right hand.

  Drawing upon something deeper than her own will, Katya fought harder than she ever had in her young life. All the brighter for the darkness that surrounded them, power flared in the hand that the man grasped tightly. He recoiled from her touch, hissing a curse as he struggled to keep his grip on the girl, while steering his course and avoiding her incandescent palm. The image of her warrior sister, fresh in her mind’s eye, Katya formed a wickedly curved blade of light in her hand with the sparse power she had left. She lashed out frantically plunging the dagger of energy into the creature’s chest.

  His scream of anguish filled the void around them and Katya’s connection to her sister was suddenly pulled taut, halting her movement through the shadows. Her captor continued forward, losing his grip on Katya, his only point of contact the blade of power imbedded in his torso. His momentum proved to be his undoing as the glowing dagger ripped up through his chest, glowing cracks splintering through his entire body. As he spiraled away into the darkness, his emaciated body, now illuminated from within, showed just how thin and frail looking his withered form was. He reached out with bony fingers towards Katya. The light from his shadowy body faded into the distance, as Katya clung to the invisible cord between her and her twin.

  She calmed her pounding heart and looked about for any point of reference in the inky dark. Not only was there nothing around, but now she was very much alone. The light radiating from her glowing dagger of energy began to fade. Katya floated quietly lost in a world of night, as the dagger in her hand sputtered and vanished. The only proof she existed was her connection to her sister, an
d that cord only resided in her deepest of thoughts. Trying to grasp the cord with her other hand in an attempt to pull herself back along its length, her palm passed through the line as if it was not there.

  Tears welled in her eyes. It appeared that she could not return to Snowhaven, and none of her training had prepared her for this. She felt weightless and the hand attached to the cord was no longer taut. The abyss in which she drifted seemed to have no end. Katya shivered in the cold air, the chill seeping into her bones and the beating of her heart the only sound. The velvet robes and thick fur cloak she wore seemed as thin as paper in this frozen emptiness. Without shelter and nourishment, she would not survive here long.

  Wiping away the icy streaks of tears from her cheeks, she closed her eyes and whispered a prayer to the Great Mother. She took long deep breaths to slow her heart. After a time, the young woman quieted her physical senses, disappearing to the back of her consciousness. Reaching out with her mind, she sought any form of energy upon which she could draw. At first, she felt nothing, but then as she was about to give up she sensed a faint source of power. Excitedly, she began to gently draw upon it.

  A tenuous thread of the energy finally reached her. She opened her eyes to a weak trickle of glowing, pale yellow light. This energy was different though; it was exerting a force upon her as well. Only the resistance she felt from her sister’s hold revealed its draw upon her. Katya ceased her pull on the energy; it was making it hard to maintain her grip on her sister. The energy would not let go of her, however, and tugged her with renewed force. With a yelp the sorceress was peeled away from her sister.

  She tightly grasped the tendril with both hands as it pulled her to some unknown destination, filling her body with warmth. As the strand drew her along, the heat increased and grew more and more intense. Sweat beaded on her brow and her tongue felt parched and dry. As the heat suffused her body, the thick fur cloak she wore became unbearable. She bit down upon the clasp at her breast, releasing the cloak from around her neck and letting it flutter away in the dark. What seemed like hours passed, until eventually a glowing strand, that matched the one she held, appeared in the distance. What at first appeared to be a thin gossamer cord grew in size as she neared, soon becoming the size of a man’s forearm. The thread was pulling her toward another energy line. The closer she got she could see that her strand was attached to the larger energy line and was pulling her directly to it. She tried to sense what it was exactly.

  She had never before seen the energy she now drew upon, for in the sunlit world she could feel the energy but never see it. The tightly-bound pulsing cord ahead of her was enormous, now the size of a great oak trunk, and it continued to grow larger to her eyes every moment she was drawn closer. The pale yellow light became so bright she had to squint, so she was not blinded. The tendril she held no longer moved directly at the larger cord, but alongside it. It seemed that the larger cord itself was moving, dragging the smaller thread and, with it, Katya. She could see the origin point of the glowing vine now, deeply rooted into the larger cord. Within seconds, it would arrive at there. The sorceress began to panic but knew not what she could do. As the tendril disappeared into its larger self, she grasped onto it. Starting in the back of her mind, an explosion of blinding white light shot through her head and hummed through her entire body.

  Chapter 6

  Jared walked along the forest path on his way back to Binford’s Bluff. It had taken Jared the better part of five days to finally convince the Sheriff in Mica that the bounty hunter had been telling the truth. The writ from the constable in Binford’s Bluff had been dismissed as “an obvious forgery.” Jared had reacted to this statement with a tired sigh and placed his hands on top of his head, as his weapons were taken from him. The lawman of Mica’s attitude had not been improved by Jared pointing out that the sheriff had missed the tracker’s boot dagger or the small blade up his sleeve, when he was searched for other weapons. That had earned Jared a quick backhand across the face, and the sheriff a glare of menace from Jared that caused the lawman to involuntarily take a step away.

  Luckily, one of the deputies from the Bluff had arrived on horseback to see if Jared needed any help finding the murderer. Conner, the young man who assisted the constable of Binford’s Bluff, was feeling much better. Even then, it took the combination of the deputy’s word, a letter from the king’s garrison near Binford’s Bluff, and a private conference between the sheriff and the owner of the LaTolliver Mining Company to affect Jared’s release. Jared had a suspicion that the last of these occurrences carried the most weight with the Sheriff of Mica, but now that he was free the hunter wasn’t about to start nitpicking the reasons as to why he was released.

  Jared began thinking back on what had happened, trying to make sense of it. Who had killed the miners in the bar? Why had they done it and how did they disappear afterwards? After he had been released, Jared returned to the alley behind the tavern in hopes of finding some clue as to the identity of Breaker’s assassin, but the hope of finding any useful information had been obliterated by the small horde of people who had walked through the alleyway during the days of Jared’s incarceration. Jared wrote a quick report to the Sheriff of Binford’s Bluff and handed it over to Conner. The young man had offered to share his horse with Jared, but the woodsman had refused, preferring his own company for the time being. Besides, the report would get back to the Bluff and the King’s garrison faster with just one rider.

  Jared had told Conner to expect him in a couple days. The hunter wanted to return and take a closer look at the scholar’s house. Jared had left Binford’s Bluff in haste, pursuing the murderer, and he was sure he had missed something. In fact, as Jared pondered the scholar’s death, he realized that he did not even know the victim’s name.

  Jared berated himself mentally for such a novice mistake. How can I investigate the killing of someone, whose name I don’t know? Jared stepped off the trail into the undergrowth and headed towards a nearby stream. He was close to the place in the forest where he had made contact with the wolf. He smiled sadly, thinking how much simpler life must be as one of the innocent creatures of the forest. What bliss it would be to only kill for food, to know the complete trust of his pack mates, and to run the forest for the pure joy of it. It was these things that Jared longed for as he dipped his bare hands into the stream and splashed water on his face. Winter had finally released the season to the warming rays of spring, and Jared welcomed the cool water that came down out of the mountains on his warm skin.

  Suddenly, Jared caught movement reflected in the water and his right hand flew to the curved sword across his back. He raised his head to look into the wide black eyes of a deer that stood downstream and across the water from him. The large animal, its white and tan shoulder standing a good five feet above the cool water regarded Jared with confusion. It was just as surprised to find the woodsman here as Jared was to find him. The large buck was majestic in his stillness as it stared at Jared, trying to decide whether it should fight or flee.

  Jared remained still, reaching out slowly with his mind to calm the animal. The deer was startled at the woodsman’s, first mental touch, but then calmed as Jared sent mental pictures of a sun dappled forest, filled with the tasty leaves of high summer. The buck dipped its head again to the stream, its small pink tongue lapping up the cool clean water.

  An idea entered Jared’s head. He needed to return to Binford’s Bluff as quickly as possible, before someone began seeing to the effects of the murdered scholar. Whoever it was, might disturb some vital piece of evidence in their ignorance, and Jared needed all the help he could get on this little mystery, help that he now asked from the deer that stood downstream. Calming his mind once again, Jared slipped his awareness into that of the buck, and the deer stood up straight once again.

  Asking help from prey animals was always difficult for Jared. Sirus said that this was because Jared had had his first bonding with a wolf, and as such, the animals of the world would always l
abel him as a predator. Those like Jared and Sirus were forever marked by the first animal with which they bonded, often taking on their traits, both physical and mental, as a result.

  So Jared did not send images of pursuing prey to the stag that now watched him with renewed interest, but rather the woodsman sent images of being pursued and a need for celerity. The buck cocked his head while studying Jared, a look of confusion in his deep black eyes. Then the deer stood with its head held high, wearing his antlers like a crown. The images that Jared sent the animal of running through the woods, followed by some unseen predator, finally penetrated the animal’s confusion. The stag swiftly and almost imperceptibly bowed his head before bounding off into the woods, leaving Jared marveling at the creature’s speed as it raced out of sight.

  Jared did not stand still for long. Feeling the energy of the stag flowing into his muscles, Jared also leapt from beside the stream and returned to the trail. Once his feet, which now felt strange in their soft leather boots, hit the trail, Jared gave his legs over completely to the raging power that now coursed through his body. He ran. Letting a wild grin play across his face, Jared ran faster than his body would normally have allowed. Having borrowed the stag’s swiftness though, he was a dark green and brown blur through the sun-streaked forest.

  Jared fell to the ground in the woods outside Binford’s Bluff that night exhausted. He had held onto his preternatural speed for as long as he could before finally succumbing to his need for sleep. The borrowed vitality which had sustained his velocity also allowed him to ignore the weariness of his limbs, as long as he held the energy of the stag in his body. Once he released it, however, he collapsed to his knees, overcome by fatigue. The woodsman barely had the strength to find the shelter of a large oak before he curled up into his cloak and fell asleep.