As Jaruman came to another village, he saw something shimmer in a bush a stone's throw from the road. Allowing the power of Sulith to enter his bloodstream, he focused on the spot. With sufficient concentration, he picked up the scent of a man, the oil of a crossbow rail, and the wax of a crossbow string. He heard the clink of a quarrel meeting the rail and the heightened breathing of the man who held the weapon as he trained it on Jaruman.
"Don't fire," Jaruman said, raising his hands. He could have easily evaded a bolt from whoever hid in the bushes, and then plunged his sword into the spot before they fixed another bolt to the crossbow. He'd already killed half a dozen innocent men the previous day, and he didn't feel like unnecessarily adding to the number. "I've not come to do your village harm."
A hooded man stepped out from the bushes, crossbow raised. The green cloak of Aernheim's army swayed in the wind. "I'm making sure no skinwalkers pass through ‘ere.”
"Do I look like a skinwalker to you? Put down your crossbow, man."
The soldier raised it to eye level and, with one eye, stared down the rail. "How'd you know I was in the bushes? I've never been caught before. Not once."
"Would you believe that I'm Madukai?"
"Never heard of one of those."
This was about to get messy. Jaruman didn't have time to argue with a man who couldn't be convinced. Besides, how could he explain how Sulith's power made him superhuman when the only other things he'd seen capable of sensing a hidden man were monsters?
Jaruman allowed the man to get close. Power burning within him, he lunged. The soldier's finger pressed on the crossbow trigger, and the quarrel snapped free. Jaruman turned his head aside, watching the quarrel pass by his left ear. He grabbed the soldier's arm and twisted it, forcing the soldier to release the crossbow as Jaruman spun him around. Arm wrenched to the point of breaking, the soldier groaned. Jaruman had his mouth a fraction from the soldier's neck.
"If I were a skinwalker, do you think I'd be able to resist devouring you now?"
The soldier's neck sprouted sweat as he shook his head. Jaruman's nose prickled at the stench.
"You've been out here a while, haven't you?"
"Two days," the soldier said. "In that bush the whole time."
"You going to play nice? No more aiming that crossbow at me."
The soldier nodded, and Jaruman released him.
While the soldier rolled his shoulders, Jaruman prepared a meal with what the village woman had given him. The bread was stale, the fruit long lost its flavor, but the cheese was sharp and creamy. The soldier seemed thankful for the food, and before long, he was telling Jaruman how he'd come to be hiding in the bushes.
"We were meant to hunt the skinwalkers," the soldier said, "but I'm not hunting them no more, but I protect my village. I had my sample of bravery, and I saw what it did to poor Gillian. Better to stay out of it. It'll pass. It always does."
Jaruman twitched at the mention of a familiar name. "Gillian? Did she live in a village straight north of Indham, not far from the Edin?”
"Aye, that sounds like the one." The soldier shook his head. "They did something terrible with her corpse. I'd rather not speak of it. Didn't think it was skinwalkers at first because nothing without a mind could think up something so terrible. Now I know it was skinwalkers, except not the kind who roam around like beasts."
"What kind?" Jaruman said, his interest growing.
"One of the band saw one change in the morning. They're still not human, but they're not quite skinwalkers. They talk like us humans, though. That's what he said, at least. Don't know if I believe it myself. Don't know that I care either way."
"Alfric," Jaruman said to himself. These skinwalkers the hunter had seen had to be like Alfric. His soul still lived within his body. Maybe Fryda had found him. "Do you know where they went?"
The hunter pointed west. "Every day they travel closer west. They must be almost to Eosorheim by now."
"Have you seen a young woman? She has bright red hair. About this tall." Jaruman held his hand just below his chest.
The hunter shook his head. "Can't say I have, but I don't like her chances. Things are terrible out here. Indham sounds like about the only place that's not gone to shit."
"Oh, it's bad there, too."
The hunter gave Jaruman a skeptical look before slinging his crossbow over his shoulder. "Keep the rabbit."
Before Jaruman could say he didn't need it, the hunter vanished into the forest. Rather than waste good food, Jaruman tied the rabbit to his belt and continued along the Edin.
He came to the bottom of a ravine, the Edin cascading into a cloud of mist. He drank from it and washed his face.
Something glimmered in the shallows, and he picked it up. He immediately recognized it for a suppression stone. He'd never held one before, but he'd seen the dragonriders use them.
What was one doing here?
He checked his map and realized that he'd come further north than he'd intended. The dragon enclosure sat above the ravine. Although he was curious, the enclosure wasn't west, so he'd be traveling against the direction Fryda had likely gone in. He didn't even know whether Fryda had come this way.
Still, the journey to the enclosure would take an hour, maybe less. With the suppression stone, Jaruman might even find a dragon he could control. That would make scouting the land far easier. Convinced, he hiked the steep slopes beside the falls.
When he reached the top, a bright patch of color among the trees caught his attention. He approached it, his heart racing. Fixed to the end of a branch, as though a passing person had torn it, was a fragment of thin cloth. He recognized the cloth. Fryda had a tunic made from cloth much like this one. In fact, it was identical.
Surely there were hundreds of items of clothing spun from the same cloth. But dyed like this one? This dye was special. Jaruman had had the tunic dyed in this green because it was the color of the Madukai. He had paid a handsome fee for it from one of the only peddlers who risked traveling into Madukgarrd to trade.
He stripped the torn fabric from the branch. He focused, feeling the blood flow beneath his skin, and drew upon his lifesoul. Power flooded his body. He breathed in through the fabric and smelled her—Fryda.
The power of the Madukai, using lifesoul without shedding blood, had helped him in the spire when he'd fought the skinwalkers. It had helped him a hundred times throughout his long life. And now it had brought him to Fryda.
I only hope it's not too late, he thought. He studied the surrounds. Where might she have gone? She was as curious as him, if not more so. If she knew the dragon enclosure was a stone's throw away, then she might have gone to look.
Holding the torn tunic in hand, a peculiar thought came to him. Had she purposely left it here? There were only two reasons she might have done that. Either she wanted someone to follow her, or she'd wanted to throw someone off her trail. As Jaruman bounded toward the dragon enclosure, he prayed that it was the former and not the latter.
23
Fryda
Fryda tumbled sideways as the troll's serrated blade thunked into a wooden beam. The crowd of drakens pressed in, constricting the circle with each passing moment. It seemed that now Kavyn had barely enough room to swing his weapon.
Before Fryda could use that advantage, Kavyn bellowed and thrashed the weapon to either side. He caught a draken in the arm, blood bursting from the clean slice of a severed limb. Another draken screamed as the serrated blade peeled open his guts. He caught them in his hand and desperately tried to stuff them back inside his body, even as he dropped to his knees and died.
The drakens now at a more cautious distance, Kavyn began his attack once more. Fryda held the spear in her hand and continued to do the only things she could—roll, dodge, and pray to all the heavens that she would somehow get out of this mess.
More drakens fell before Kavyn's gruesome weapon, until the bodies began to pile up. None of them seemed concerned by their fallen kin as they cheered and threw t
heir fists into the air every time Fryda managed not to get her head chopped off.
Fresh blood spattered Fryda as the troll's cleaver narrowly missed her. She rolled to her feet. Her shoulders heaved, breath coming in ragged gasps. She couldn't keep this up.
A tiny shadow appeared on the ground in front of her. It grew increasingly bigger, until someone landed where the shadow had been. It was a female draken about Fryda's size, except for the wings reaching up from her shoulders. Her face was unblemished by wrinkles, smooth except for purple scales.
"You stole my cloak," she said.
"You're late, Lopyl," the commentator said to her.
"I was trying to find Orland. Looks like I found him." Her eyes settled on the twisted draken the troll had given to Fryda as a gift. Her eyebrows stitched together, and her eyes grew watery. With a determined frown, she nodded at the spear in Fryda's hand. "Do you know how to use that thing? Or are you only good for dancing about? You have to poke him with it."
"I know that," Fryda said, her grip tightening around the spear's haft.
"Now there are two pretties for me." Kavyn scratched a foot against the ground and charged.
Fryda spun away a second before she might have been hewn in two. Slashing downward with the spear, she sliced the back of the Kavyn's calf. He bellowed before the sound was abruptly cut short. As Fryda turned, Lopyl landed deftly on the ground. The draken fighter cradled her spear behind her back, the blade soaked in blood. Kavyn's head rolled to a standstill, its vile green eyes staring up at Fryda. Blood fountained from his headless body as it teetered and collapsed.
The drakens roared with excitement. Broken from their silent stares, the elves atop the balconies clapped slowly.
A hand grabbed Fryda and hauled her up. Soon, she was tossed into the air as the drakens cheered her name. "Fryda of the North! Fryda of the North!"
"Name's Adrek." The commentator held out a scaled hand. Fryda shook it warily. "You did well in there. I'd let you fight more often, but folks are already talking about a human. Good for a night, but no more." He planted a sack of coins on the table. "Ten gold scales. Not bad earnings for your first fight. Kavyn was the elves' best fighter. Technically, two against one is against the rules, but I've never had so many pleased elves. They thought my addition of a human was superb. Well, better they think your arrival was orchestrated. I thought they would have been in an uproar after you burst in, but they seemed to enjoy it."
"I didn't mean to—"
Adrek cut Fryda off, and not for the first time. "My fighting rink is one of the only ones where the elves don't use the nornthread to control the fighters. Makes for a more interesting fight. Riskier, sure, since some of the drakens go after their owners, but the elves with deep pockets love it. You made me more than I've made this month, so I'll let you off for breaking into the match without a ticket."
"I didn't break in—"
"Say no more," he said, raising his hands. "Take what you earned." He nodded at the sack of coins.
"I don't want your coins." Fryda pushed them away. The troll had slaughtered at least a dozen drakens. Everyone had seemed to relish the bloodshed. She'd cleaned herself up in a pool with hot waters. She hadn't slept at all, and it had to be midnight by now.
"They're yours," Adrek said, pushing the sack back toward her. "You earned them."
Fryda peered into the sack. "Will they be enough to get me out of Dragir?"
"All the scales in Queen Elmyra's treasury won't open Dragir's gates. Besides, how'd you get in here, anyway? Ah, better that I not know. The queen's Leafspears are going to be looking for you soon enough. You're the first human I've ever seen. Don't even think my grandsire saw one of your kind. There are rumors, of course, of humans being smuggled into the city. Until now, I assumed they were false."
Adrek stood and took a cloak from the rack behind the door. He wrapped it around Fryda's shoulders. "Do yourself a favor. Take the sack of scales and find the costumer two streets from here. Take the road west, and then it's first on the left. The single-windowed building with the graystone roof. She'll make you something to hide your face, if you pay her enough. Probably cost you all twelve of them scales to keep her mouth shut, too. She might even give you some appendages to go on your back so you just look like a draken with her wings clipped. She doesn't speak a lick of Wallan, but I'll give you a letter you can take to her."
He leaned over his table and scrawled something onto a scrap of parchment.
"Why are you helping me?" she asked.
Adrek looked at her with concern, as though the harshness with which he spoke earlier that day had been nothing more than an act. "Like I said, the crowd ain't been that entertained for a long while."
"That's wyvern shit," Lopyl said as she came alongside Fryda. She started arguing with Adrek in the elf tongue, and he turned with a louder volume. Soon, they were in a shouting match. It ended with the draken fighter speaking in Wallan. "She did not warm them up. I'm more than capable of pleasing the crowd."
"You kill them too quickly," he said. "You have to learn to tease it out. Gotta make the crowd think you don't stand a chance." He smiled at Fryda. "Lopyl could learn something from you. You know how to move a crowd."
Fryda knew nothing of the sort. She'd simply been trying not to get cleaved in two by the troll's massive cleaver.
"I'll go see the costumer," Fryda said, taking the coin sack and leaving. Before she closed the door behind her, she peered back into the room. "Thank you."
"My pleasure," Adrek said. "Come back and you can teach Lopyl a thing or two."
Fryda closed the door as Lopyl began her shouting anew. She walked through the storehouse, keeping her cloak wrapped tightly around her. No doubt Tursn and Naeth were searching for her. Fryda slipped her hand into her left boot and felt the dragon soul. She didn't take it out, in case someone saw it, but the touch of it confirmed she hadn't lost it.
Footsteps echoed behind her, and she glanced over her shoulder. Lopyl came beside her.
"You're not a bad fighter," Lopyl said. "For a human."
"You've met a human before?"
"I've just heard stories." Lopyl glanced away, as though hiding her face. Fryda caught a glimpse of red-tinged cheeks. "Apparently you're miserable at most things."
Fryda scoffed. "I avoided being gutted by Kavyn before you came, didn't I?"
Lopyl swung a door open, and they stepped out into an alley. "A stroke of luck. I was the one who killed him." She sighed. "Thanks for covering for me. That win gave the drakens a few hours away from their owners tomorrow. It means a lot to them."
"I wouldn't have been able to kill him by myself," Fryda said.
"That's true." Lopyl smirked, her scales shimmering along her cheeks. She stepped backward into the storehouse and shut the door.
Fryda gripped the sack of coins and walked toward the costumer's shop. With the cloak wrapped around her, she didn't draw attention. She turned a corner into a squad of armored elves.
One of them looked at her, narrowing his eyes. He barked something to the others. Realizing that her ruse had failed, Fryda threw the cloak from her shoulders and ran. The elves quickly gained upon her, and she tossed the bag of coins. The bag smashed into an elf's head and split, scattering glittering coins onto the cobblestones.
When Fryda stepped into an alley, something knocked her head and she fell. She stood groggily while an armored elf grabbed her. Bonds tightened around her wrists, except they didn't tie them together. They were bracelets. Nornthread bracelets.
Before Fryda could despair, something invaded her mind. Without the ability to do otherwise, she marched with the elves through the streets. None of the drakens or other elves seemed to care for her, though some drakens did whisper as she passed.
Although the presence inside Fryda's mind commanded every movement of her body. They didn't say any words.
With a sudden lurch, she stopped outside a building with a red-tiled rooftop like the others.
"The dr
agon soul," a voice demanded inside her mind.
Fryda fished the dragon pendant from her boot and slapped it into the outstretched palm of an armored elf.
Entranced, she walked inside, through a dozen corridors, and then into a barred cell. Shutting the door behind her, she sat on the cold stone floor. The foreign presence inside her mind left, and she gasped.
In the darkness, she wondered how she would ever find Alfric now.
24
Alfric
With an incantation, the woodland creatures scurried across the bridge and back into the forest. Hurn had set them about the task of scouring the rocky outcrop on the eastern side of the Obelisk Bridge for the necklace. They had searched until the sun rose.
"Who else has been past here?" Alfric asked Hurn. He'd also hunted for the pendant, and found no sign of it.
"Many others," Hurn said. "All those I turned away from Eosorheim. Your friends were the first—and only ones—I allowed through. After I spoke with them about my plans, I came to realize that humans were too shortsighted and stubborn to be of any assistance. One of those I turned away must have found the dragon soul. Now it could be anywhere." His mouth was set in a straight line, and the vein on his temple throbbed with fury.
"There's nothing we can do to find it? Can't you use magic?"
Hurn barked a harsh laugh. "Magic cannot solve all the world’s problems, young Alfric."
Alfric looked down, feeling a fool. "Then it's lost forever."
Hurn snapped toward Alfric. "You skinwalkers have senses far beyond normal beasts, do you not?"
"We do," Alfric answered, unsure where this was going.
"Hounds can seek out rabbits for hunting. They can also track a man using something with his scent, like an object of clothing, for instance." Hurn scanned the outcrop. "Take me to the exact place where the necklace was broken. Do you remember it?"
The Dragon Soul (Vagrant Souls Book 2) Page 16
