As they walked along the river, both kept an eye out for fish, but the river was shallow here and no fish in sight.
They traveled until the sun was high overhead before they found a rabbit. Both of them working together finally caught it. However, it was mostly Landon chasing it and Mirhana, with her speed, snatching it up.
After cooking and eating, Mirhana sighed as she glanced at him. When he caught her stare, she cleared her throat. “Time to keep moving.”
“If it were not for the Warloc and all of this … evil, would you consider staying … here?” With me, he wanted to add.
“My life will never be one of rest. Either I will hunt the undead in all their forms, or the witch burning monks will chase me.” Her emerald eyes saddened. “I will never put down roots anywhere or with anyone.”
He vowed to change her mind.
• • •
The next evening, they found nothing to eat. The river was empty of fish. Landon followed Mirhana’s lead and did not complain, but kept a steady pace. They drank from the river when the hunger and thirst made them.
A glimmer of a fin in the water. Fish! “Look, we will have a full dinner tonight.”
Mirhana had already left the riverbank and was searching the forest’s foliage for food. “Catch it.”
He tore off his boots and leapt into the water. There were fish swimming past him, but he could not grasp them. As soon as his fingers brushed their scales, they whipped around him. No matter how much he thrashed about, he only succeeded in getting himself drenched and no meal.
“Why haven’t you caught any?”
“The blasted things won’t be still.”
She laughed and he watched her remove her boots and roll up her trousers. “How did you catch our fish the first time before the Neried?”
His skin heated. “Well … Celeste helped me with her magic.”
“Ah, so you didn’t catch them yourself for our breakfast as you said.”
“It was a partial truth. I just didn’t tell you that the bait I used was Celeste and her magic. Would it have mattered how I got the fish?”
“Probably not.” She stepped into the water. “Now, watch me. Put your hands into the water and keep them open slightly and still.”
He copied her movements. A fish flipped by him and he jerked to snatch it up, coming up empty.
“Patience. You can’t rush this.”
He grumbled but put his hands back into the water.
“When you feel a fish near you, keep still. They are testing to see if you are a trap or not. Soon, it will slow its movements slightly and when it calms,” she said as she tossed a large white and black striped fish onto the bank, “you snatch it.”
She grasped another fish and then let him try as she readied a fire. For an hour it seemed, he worked, but to no avail. She had their fish cooking and his stomach growled.
“I will never get this.”
She sank into the water with him and grasped his hands. “You almost had that last one. Try again.” She pulled his hands into the water and set hers underneath his. “Let me help you. When you feel my hands move, clench yours.”
This close, he wanted to forget the fish and kiss her. He let out a breath and she shushed him. Then he felt her fingers twitch and he clasped his hands. A fish! He had done it.
With a grin he tossed it onto the bank.
• • •
On the fifth day of traveling alone with Landon, Mirhana saw a trail of smoke in the distance. They would reach the village before nightfall. As they walked, Landon’s arm brushed her and sent luscious chills dancing up and down her spine, yet she resisted holding his hand.
Once they reached the clearing where their fish and wooden swords had been, she and Landon followed the trail left by the others. Despite her resolve not to, she picked up the blades. The fish were gone, but someone had left them one of the horses, packed with their weapons, food, and a waterskin.
She was grateful that no one had stolen the animal. When she got closer, a spell barrier trickled away like a cool rain. Celeste must have cast a spell around the creature, hiding it from anyone but her and Landon.
Mirhana and Landon met up with the others outside of a town a few miles from the horse, with houses sprinkled among the taverns and temples.
Celeste hugged her so tight that she gasped in surprise. “I was so worried about you.”
“We ran into a Neried and we had no weapons save the wooden swords.”
Jeslyn looked annoyed. “I would have had my blades with me. I never take them off.” She grasped Landon’s arm. “Even when I bathe, I have one in my hair.”
How can Landon say he doesn’t notice Jeslyn flirting when she’s standing in front of him puffing out her chest like a crimson-breasted pheasant? Mirhana wrestled with the knot on her pack.
“Celeste told us you both would arrive today.” Brock nodded. He looked like he wanted to give her a hug, but they both knew he could not.
If only she had known him before his curse.
Gillespie gave her a tight hug, then patted Landon on the back.
“We’ve delayed you enough.” Mirhana snatched up a piece of flatbread Brock offered. “Let’s go.”
The village was quiet despite the brisk morning air.
The smell of burnt flesh assaulted her as they drew closer.
The others rode through the village while Mirhana and Brock ran ahead. All appeared deserted. No one roamed the empty streets. The others reached them, and Celeste dismounted.
She walked up beside Brock. “Something’s wrong.” Celeste bit her lower lip.
Grey smoke curled into the air, over the tops of massive Hyperion trees that continued up through the clouds.
They followed the smoke to the source. Behind a butcher’s shop, villagers stood. They formed a semicircle before a fire. Mirhana’s breath caught in her throat at the sight. Flames covered a stable—it looked exactly like the stable from the village that they had left. The one with the hot water springs. She remembered Brock’s cry of fire and she shivered.
Carcasses lay in heaps as fire chewed their bones.
“What happened here?” Jeslyn patted her mare to calm her.
As if an invisible string connected them all, the villagers turned and faced them.
A child raised her arm and pointed. “They bring evil upon us. A demon is with them.”
The crowd thrust forward and seized Brock. Men and women swooned as his power hungrily took their kajh. Within moments, they fell at his feet.
“See?” the girl screamed. “Has not our priestess warned us of them? We must sacrifice them to the caves.”
Gillespie, Landon, and Mirhana removed their swords. Celeste’s dagger flicked in her hand and the shield glowed over them, but Brock was too far way.
Even though Brock knocked out several and kicked aside many more, before long, they had ropes tied to each of his arms. Mirhana could not get through the garnet-colored shield to fight. Brock made her promise to protect Celeste, but she wanted to cut down these who hurt her brother.
On each side, three men pulled. Both of his arms yanked out of the socket.
“Drop your magic.” The girl’s knobby knees poked through holes in her dress. “Or we’ll rip him apart.”
Mirhana gritted her teeth and nodded to Celeste.
“All right.” Celeste’s red glow faded.
Melwyn growled. It was then that Mirhana noticed an arrow shot overhead from a nearby Hyperion tree. Her voice was hoarse as she yelled.
Chapter Sixteen
Arrows rained down on them as if the stars themselves fell.
Mirhana leapt in front of an arrow aimed for Celeste. Her sword knocked the tip away.
More arrows flew. Gillespie and Landon swung at the avalanche.
Mirhana cursed as an arrow pierced her leg. “There are too many of them. Get away,” she said. Her pet growled. “Go! You can’t fight them all.” At her words, the cat raced into the forest.
> Jeslyn, without a sword, used her blades to cut the arrows in flight. Still they swept over them like a swarm of nightflies. Their pounding sounded like a hailstorm.
“Your shield!” Brock yelled even when the villagers tugged harder on the ropes around his arms. “Use your shield.”
When Celeste raised her athame, an arrow nipped her wrist. She yanked her arm down, and another arrow burrowed into her shoulder.
Brock strained against his bonds, engraving grooves into his flesh. Celeste slumped forward.
Mirhana, with an arrow in her leg, stood before Celeste and tried to keep the arrows at bay. Soon, she swooned on her feet. Landon caught her in his arms.
“We can’t fight them all,” Jeslyn hissed.
In surrender, she sheathed her weapons. Landon and Gillespie followed. The arrows disappeared.
“Ready the sacrifices.” The village girl’s voice rang out.
Her thoughts raced from chiding herself for walking into an ambush to Landon. What would it have mattered if I had given into my desire with him, if I were to die now? All her bluster would have been for naught.
When he stared at her full of concern and something else she had never seen in his eyes before, she lowered the veil over her heart and let him see a glimpse of the passion she had for him. His eyes widened.
“The arrows are tipped in poison,” Mirhana said as Landon knelt with her in his arms. The toxin was nothing she had come across before like burning iron upon her tongue. Only their captors would have the antidote. “I can smell it.”
• • •
Landon watched as ropes jerked Brock’s feet out from under him and he fell backward. Villagers dragged him across the ground. Celeste collapsed and two of the men carried her away. Shadowdancer kicked aside a man and rushed forward, but the villager pressed Celeste’s own dagger against her throat and the horse ceased.
“Don’t injure the blond one, or our priestess will remove a pound of your flesh for each of his wounds.” The little girl skipped after the villagers.
“What have you done to Mirhana? Give her and Celeste the antidote to the poison now or I will gut you all.” Landon’s shouts were ignored. Thankfully, he heard her breathing, but neither she nor Celeste woke.
It seemed as though Mirhana had lowered her guard before she went unconscious. He had seen desire and regret linger in her stare. Yet he knew she felt much more for him, but hid it even from herself. His heart ached to tell her he was falling in love with her. He couldn’t lose her now.
Gillespie and Jeslyn followed Landon, who carried Mirhana in his arms. Landon compressed his anger, coiling the rage so he could spring upon this priestess. No doubt, she was the Warloc’s progeny that Brock and Celeste spoke of.
They hiked down a worn path, trampling grass into the dirt. One of the villagers slipped, his hand outstretched to catch himself on Brock. Then he fell away, dead. How was this possible that a mere touch did such damage so quickly? Landon wondered.
A shadow passed over the sun. They marched inside a cave.
Gillespie nudged him and pointed to the bones and skulls crammed inside the walls. Nausea dropped into his stomach and swam upstream. He heard the whispers of the others as they trudged farther into the cave.
The walls glowed in eerie shades of red and black by the light of sparse torches, as though blood and horror lined the walls.
After a man wrenched Mirhana from Landon’s arms, they slammed him down into the dirt, his arms stretched to chains bolted into the floor. Despite his struggles, the villagers clamped then chains on his wrists and ankles, and then tied the unconscious Celeste to an upright pole far away from him.
Then the villagers snatched up Jeslyn. “Let us go or you’ll die.” Blades spun in each of her hands.
“It’s a holy place; your weapons will not harm us here.” The little girl smirked.
In answer, Jeslyn threw the blades. They stopped in midair, close to the girl’s nose, spun thrice, and then thrust themselves into the ceiling.
Jeslyn gaped while villagers pushed her to an empty upright pole. “All of you will die for this!” she screamed. “You do not know what I am.”
Soon the villagers checked and removed the weapons from the others. Each was tied to a pole in a semicircle around Landon who was shackled to the cave floor. Fury gnawed him as Celeste and Mirhana’s heads slung forward, both women terribly pale.
“Hurry, we must leave before sunset.”
The villagers nodded as one, and then each dug in the sandy ground until one found a piece of black jagged stone.
“Here’s the calling tool.” A man held it up.
In turn, he sliced the edge down his left arm, then passed it to the next person. Around the doubled circle of villagers the stone cut. Blood dribbled down their arms as they raised them high and chanted.
“What are they doing?” Brock stared down at him.
“I’m not sure, but whatever it is,” Landon frowned, “I don’t think it’s good.”
“They prepare us as they said,” Jeslyn snapped. Her eyes flickered with a twist of evil as though directed at him. When he blinked, her countenance was normal again. “For sacrifice.”
The chanting escalated, and then stopped. Even after their silence, the echoes vibrated through the cave.
“There’s a shadow … I can’t make it out.” Gillespie faced the blackness in the distance.
How far the cave extended, Landon could not tell.
One by one, the villagers marched past them and outside. Gone. Left them to whatever fate brought. Then Landon heard a growl that sounded like a monstrous wolf. None of them spoke. The shadow grew darker.
Jeslyn screamed. Then she was gone. The shadow receded, and returned. As Landon watched, the shadow covered Gillespie, and then moved away leaving only the chains and pole behind.
Landon shouted and strained against his chains. Despite the moan of the metal, the shadow came for Mirhana anyway.
When Brock saw the shadow approach Celeste, he yelled and rattled his chains to gain its attention, to no avail. Soon, Celeste disappeared within the shadow’s embrace, then Brock.
Landon was alone. The empty poles stood around him as he struggled against his bounds bolted to the cave floor. He shouted for the gods to curse the shadow and whoever controlled it. If only he could get free. He struggled with the chains again. So help them if they injured Mirhana any more than the poison arrow or worse …
Alone he lay. With each breath, it seemed to him as though ages passed. Every pore prickled for the sound of the shadow to return—or the death cries of the others. Was this his torture? To wither here chained to this cave floor? He stared at Jeslyn’s blades stuck into the ceiling and prayed for one to fall. Perhaps he could use the knife to pry open the lock.
Then the sand mixed with blood from the villagers stirred. Beneath the floor, ripples coursed through. The sand churned and bit into his flesh.
Black eyes popped out of the ground. Too many to count. Next came out a head covered with spikes. Mandibles shook the sand loose while the body emerged. The creature had the head of a spider and the body of a scorpion. Spikes that oozed liquid, he was sure was poisonous, covered its head and body.
Before he thought it couldn’t get any worse, he heard the growl of the shadow’s return as the creature loomed over him, snapping its mandibles.
Chapter Seventeen
Weightless, Landon floated inside the shadow’s caress. His chains had been broken open. A voice sounded behind him, but when he strained to see, nothing was there.
“Don’t be greedy, my pet. You’ve already had two villagers.” A woman’s voice sounded like the wind. “Go and find the cat that follows them. You may have him as a snack.”
Melwyn. Mirhana would skin anyone responsible if anything happened to her cat. Landon whispered a prayer that this monstrosity not find him.
“Of all the prayers you should speak, I believe your own life is in more danger,” the voice said.
Th
e shadow undulated with Landon. He felt as though he floated on water. He struggled to free himself, but the current pushed him forward. He watched the ground below him as he soared within the blackness.
“Name yourself.” Landon kicked his legs to spin around.
“Do not order me in my own domain.” The sand whirled and whipped his flesh. “We’ll have proper introductions when I say.”
“What do you want with me?” Sand stung his eyes.
“All will be explained. Hush or the sand will clog your mouth.”
At her words, the ground slapped him.
His body passed through solid rock as though he was a phantom seeping down into the Forgotten Lands. He could not shout, for dirt and sand crammed into his mouth, nose, and ears. When he thought he had died, the shadow spat him out onto a granite floor.
He heard footsteps gather around him. Sand coated his face so he could not open his eyes. Liquid was poured over his eyes, and then into his ears. He struggled as hands forced the liquid into his mouth.
Across an etching in the granite floor of a giant oak tree, Landon heaved up all the liquid and dirt.
Then a washcloth pressed into his hands. “Wipe your face before you meet the queen.”
Queen? He nearly laughed aloud as he wiped his face and hands. Had the Warloc’s progeny induced so many to bow before her? She was no queen. He knew all the rulers of the thirteen kingdoms, and none lived in caves. Even the Warloc wanted to be monarch over everyone, but that didn’t make it so.
“Where is Mirhana?” He tossed the rag down.
The men in hooded garments did not let him see their faces. Instead, they hauled him up and jerked him before a cave wall.
“If she has been harmed—”
The wall before them scraped open. Inside was a throne room, where swirls of gold, silver, and gemstones lined the walls.
Sitting before the empty throne were Gillespie, Brock, and Jeslyn.
“Where are Mirhana and Celeste?”
Son of Dragons Page 10
