Asunder

by Tanya Schofield

  The clicking shriek of the spiders was unsettling, but it was the walking dead men that were giving the others the most trouble, since they refused to stop or drop or die unless their heads were removed. Despite Rhodoban’s fireballs burning them where they stood, they would not slow, and none of the men were eager to get in close combat with anything that was on fire.

  “Archers, Rhodoaban— bugs!” Steel called, moving to engage the fiery undead. Derek stayed by his side, as did Jonn, who grimly helped Steel cut down men he’d known most of his life. Tyren had pulled the younger boys behind him, facing down one of the spiders alongside several Riverchill fighters while Edwin and Nathen cut down rat after rat.

  A pair of screams pierced the night as one of their own fell, and then another. A higher-pitched shriek followed close after, and one of the monstrous spiders curled into itself as the fire consumed it. When the second one collapsed in a similar blaze, the combined fires of the insects and dead men showed the group what had taken their companions. They all froze in place.

  The thing was huge. It was unimaginably big, no amount of staring could make the creature even seem possible. It was so long that the far end of it wasn’t visible in the light of the fires, with dozens of claw-tipped legs extending from the chitinous segments of its exoskeleton. It was reared back on some of its legs, looking down at the men with antennae waving over its head and deadly-looking pincers - clearly dripping blood - clicking in front of its open mouth. Steel’s blood ran cold, and he tightened his grip on his sword.

  “Rhodoban?”

  “I need time,” the mage called, backpedalling to put distance between himself and the monstrous centipede. The tiny ones in his nose and hair and clothes before they made it to Riverchill had been bad, but this—

  The centipede’s head snapped towards Rhodoban, alerted to the movement.

  “Now!” cried Steel, darting towards a group of large trees. As he expected, the motion drew the thing’s attention.

  Arrows sang from bows and swords slashed at constantly moving legs as the creature lunged after Steel, colliding with the tree trunks. It barely slowed, and Steel turned, lunging upward with his sword. He pulled the weapon back and dove again, trying to get closer to the thing’s massive body and avoid the grasping pincers at its mouth.

  Another man screamed as one of the centipede’s legs pierced through his belly. Edwin, pale and terrified, severed the insect’s limb with a hard downward slash. There were still more, though, always more legs, and the speed with which the head could whip around and make a snapping grab was impossible.

  It felt like an eternity before Rhodoban finally called out. “Get back!” he cried, and let loose the jet of flame he’d been building, feeding it with any heat he could pull from the land, the others, or himself. By the time the stream of fire left Rhodoban’s hand and landed squarely in the centipede’s face, it was white hot and barely under control.

  The men scattered, pulling the slower wounded men with them, trying to get clear of the engulfed and writhing creature. Branches and leaves overhead caught fire as it thrashed, and Steel pulled the exhausted mage out of the way before the dying centipede could collapse on top of him.

  They landed to one side, chill mud cushioning their fall, and rolled out of range before turning to watch as it coiled and burned. The smoke and smell caught in their lungs, and another tree ignited.

  “The whole swamp’s going to go up,” Derek said, sinking to his knees beside Steel and Rhodoban. His face was blank and stunned, smeared with blood that might not have been his. Elias and Tyren joined them.

  “I’ve never been happier to see something burn,” Tyren said. “You saved our lives, mage.”

  “Got any rain?” asked Jonn, trying to smile. Edwin and Nathen were behind him, looking pale and shocked.

  Rhodoban shook his head. “I don’t have anything else,” he said, still trying to catch his breath. He’d never used that much magic at once in his life, and his body felt as if he’d been running non-stop for days. “I need to rest.”

  “We all do,” Steel said, forcing himself to his feet and reaching to help Rhodoban up as well. “But we have to get out of these trees.” A sudden breeze pushed against them, making the flames dance behind them. “If the wind holds, the fire will die by the bridge.”

  “Here’s hoping.”

  Ten of them continued on, staggering towards the edge of the swamp, too stunned by what they’d seen to even talk about it. There would be time, later, when the sun was up and they’d washed the blood and ichor from their clothes.

  Full dark was upon them when they emerged and made camp too close to the trees. No one cared. When Steel halted their already slow pace, the men simply sank to the ground and pulled their cloaks around them. They didn’t need a campfire, they needed the blackness of sleep.

  Steel sat, but remained upright. “I’ll take watch,” he told Derek, who had done the same. “I’ll wake you in a few hours. Rest.”

  Derek nodded, and curled into his cloak. Rhodoban was the last one standing, watching the trees where they’d left the swamp, his nose to the air as he tried to determine if the flames would chase them.

  “Thank you, my friend,” Steel said. “Tyren’s right, you saved us all.”

  Rhodoban looked at the men, counting and shaking his head. “Not all. Not enough.”

  “It would have been worse without you. Sleep.”

  The mage nodded, and awkwardly adjusted his cloak as he laid on the cold ground. Those things shouldn’t have been possible. None of this was possible, and yet he had seen it. He had survived it, more than once.

  Whatever force was creating these monsters, his magic was no match for it. There was only one person he could think of with the potential power to withstand what was happening, and fortunately, her dreams were not difficult to find. Unlike his children’s dreams, which he had been unable to locate. He refused to give up hope, however. The twins had been hidden well, but could they have survived? Was it possible? If anyone would know about his children, it was Melody.

  Rhodoban stepped into sleep purposefully. This was not an escape into memories of when Aellielle and his children were alive and well, a time when he could see and smell and touch them. Neither was it a repeat of his earlier attempt to reach the dreams of the twins, which had given him no answers, only aching, empty loneliness.

  No, this time he was seeking the girl with the answers – and he could find her dreams with little effort, he knew.

  He looked around in the black no-space of his empty dream; the space just waiting to be filled by someone else’s images. There, in the distance – as it had been before, her light was so unusually brilliant and green that it was unmistakable. Relief flooded through him. She was alive.

  Rhodoban’s body ached in his sleep. When he was awake, his arm was useless, but here in the dream-space, there was only the remembrance of the wound. He breathed in, refusing to let the imagined pain disrupt his concentration. The light he sought came closer with his breath. Twice more he drew it towards him with his breath, feeling the strain of the magical effort. When he was finally encompassed within the deep green light, he gently stepped forward with a shimmer of magic.

  Melody’s dream, as it had been the first time he visited it, was of a forest. Whatever ran in her blood, the girl was a Dweller in her heart. Rhodoban smiled. Her dream-trees rose majestic above him, and the light of the warm afternoon sun danced down through the leaves above. Simply being here stole the tension from his neck and the ache from his wounded arm, and he stretched gratefully.

  Melody would be close, he knew, it was always so in dreams. When he turned to seek her out, however, he found himself instead looking up into the deep, near-black eyes of his rescuer— Steel Rygus. The large man was somehow even bigger here, and instead of being close-cropped, his hair fell well past his shoulders.

  In that instant, Rhodoban knew.

  Steel was Melody’s companion, the one she traveled with when he first
saw her in Foley. What was his name? Rhodoban couldn’t remember, but it wasn’t Steel. Why were they no longer together? Why the disguise? And where was the other man? There had been two with Melody, of that he was certain. Whatever had happened, whatever had destroyed Foley, that was the answer.

  Rhodoban looked at the clearing beside him, and furrowed his brow. As strange as it was to see Steel’s familiar face, this was even more curious. Melody was there, the Melody he remembered, but she was sitting at the feet of … another Melody? The second one stood straight and strong, her black hair loose down her back, her bare feet visible under the hem of her fine dress.

  This was no ordinary dream. He looked back up at Steel, who still stared mutely at Rhodoban with a mixture of recognition, confusion, and warning in his gaze. It was clear the man had no idea why he was there, and there was little comfort Rhodoban could offer.

  Accidental dream-walking was not unheard of, especially if the visitor held strong feelings for the dreamer. The dream itself held the answer, for any who knew how to look. The fact that Steel was larger and more intimidating in this place spoke of his desire to protect Melody, but his silence and his distance from her spoke louder. The space between them was conflicted.

  Steel Rygus would not interfere in Melody’s dream, but neither would he let anyone else. Rhodoban nodded, and returned his attention to the strange sight in the clearing. He should leave, he realized – this meeting of her two selves felt too private. He could get the answers he sought from Melody some other night, though it would be difficult if her former companion made a habit of watching over her.

  For now, though, there was somewhere else he wanted to be.

  Concentrating, Rhodoban released the magic he had used to reach Melody. He exhaled, and slipped from Melody’s forest into a dream of his own. It was his basement home in Foley, where Aellielle and his twins waited for him and the city was not in ruins.

  He wrapped his imagined wife in his arms, smelling the jasmine of her silver blonde hair and kissing the smile from her lips. He allowed himself to forget, for a time, that he would wake somewhere on the other side of a living nightmare, cold and aching and alone.

  21

  The small boat maneuvered easily down the wide river, but Calder’s urgency demanded more speed. After what he’d seen and heard in the time since leaving Bethcelamin’s care … He paddled even as the current swept them beyond Basinmoor to where Moon River split the second time, guiding the simple craft northwest. The tributary would take him to Lake Strom, two days’ travel from Porthold.

  The bridge city of Porthold, famous for its countless taverns and the Market where you could buy almost anything - or anyone - was the fastest route from the Westlands to the East. It was also where Korith had been planning to bring Bethcelamin, according to the maid, so fast didn’t mean safe.

  No matter, Calder had another route East in mind, one that would avoid Porthold - and any chance of crossing paths with Korith - altogether. It added at least a full day’s travel to his journey to Estfall, but that couldn’t be helped. He hoped his memory served, that there were no Darkmouths north of the Deep River.

  His father had taught him of the twisted places, frightening his boyhood self with tales of creatures wandering within and being “spat out” as something dark and unnatural - something that would never be right again, something Calder would need to kill in order to keep others safe. He’d called them Darkmouths, and warned his son that if the Lich King ever rose again, he would walk out of one of these places.

  There were many, Calder had learned as he grew older, but only a few that were still open, still active. Most had caved in on themselves, or been blocked by superstitious people building settlements nearby. He’d memorized their locations, wary of venturing too close - and not a single one was in the Eastlands.

  If that was how the nightmare was spreading across the country, and he was willing to bet that it was, Estfall was going to be the safest place to mount a defense.

  It was Irma that had first changed Calder’s mind, and his direction. He’d headed for Cabinsport as soon as Bashara had guided him beyond the walls of Korith’s keep, meaning to pick up Melody’s trail as he’d promised Beth he would. But just past Lodor, he’d met the group - fifty-odd strangers, looking as if they’d been through a war. The friendly innkeeper’s wife was among them.

  Tom was dead, she had told him, weeping. Spiders, rats, and worse came up from the basement, bigger than they had any right to be— Tom had died along with some other men, they were fighting the beasts while she’d gotten everyone outside. The survivors had boarded up the Inn, of course, but it did no good. When night came, so did the dead men, up and walking by some unthinkable dark magic. Even her own Tom, she had wept. Her dead husband, pushing though the boards and coming right towards her…

  Calder, unable to provide much in the way of comfort for her loss, had asked the sobbing woman about Melody. Disappeared, Irma had said, along with the boys— on the same day the soldiers arrived, she recalled. Not that Korith’s men had done a bit of good when the creatures came, no. Some soldiers they were. Tucked tail and ran back to the Duke instead of staying and helping, wasn’t that shameful? Only when Irma said she was certain she hadn’t seen Melody amongst the dead did Calder breathe easy.

  More questions had revealed that the boys Irma spoke of were brothers who’d helped Melody finish the job he’d begun in the basement, though she wondered if they’d just made things worse.

  Worse, indeed, but not their fault. The tunnels on the other side of the Inn’s basement, Calder realized, must have been where a Darkmouth once led. With so many of the entrances blocked, the things inside were coming out and up through whatever holes they could make.

  After warning Irma and the others to stay away from Epidii, since there was an active Darkmouth on the coast between it and Valenar, Calder had cut across to Windham, a fishing village on the edge of Moon Lake— and found it deserted. Even in the daylight the smell of the dead lingered, and there was blood on the floors and walls of the few buildings he’d investigated. Calder loaded Attilus into the first boat that would fit them both and simply taken it, since there was no one left to pay.

  Night was falling as he continued paddling the boat down the much gentler tributary, the persistent cramp in his back from his time with Korith burning at the motion. If he was being honest with himself, Calder still wasn’t sure he’d made the right choice to seek out Duke Thordike instead of Melody. She was still so young, so unprepared— and that was his doing, wasn’t it?

  Calder sighed, deeply enough that Attilus raised his head from his paws.

  “Solus, my old friend,” he whispered - half thought, half prayer. “I’ve failed you. I’ve failed her. The danger to her now is not only Korith, but undead things, impossible things … How can I protect her from that?”

  Was this what Solus had seen? Was this the destiny the mage knew awaited his daughter? Calder’s instinct had been to seek out Thordike because if war was coming, the country’s best defense was men and steel, but now— Could it be that Melody was the answer? Had he abandoned her when she needed him most … again? He bowed his head.

  “Show me where she is, old friend,” Calder whispered, his heart heavy. “I will make up for my failure, I will see her destiny fulfilled - I only need to know where to look.”

  A campfire illuminated the shore of Lake Strom as he approached the coast, the flickering light showing him a double handful of men. Calder brought the boat ashore a short distance away. No sense trying to hide - bandits or not, they’d seen him already. All he wanted was to stretch his cramped legs and aching back, and put the miserable Attilus back on dry, steady land.

  “Well met, stranger,” a voice called out as Calder finished beaching the boat.

  “Easy,” he told Attilus, who had taken a wary posture beside his master. The ranger turned and raised both hands in a gesture of peace, then bowed low. Even with Bethcelamin’s ministrations, his insides st
ill groaned at the motion. It would be a long while before he fully recovered from his stay with Duke Korith.

  “Well met,” he agreed. “Have you room at the fire for another, friend?” The night was cold, and Calder’s cloak was thin. As much as he enjoyed solitude, even questionable company was preferable to no company this night.

  A small pause greeted his request.

  “Of course,” came the eventual answer. “You are welcome here.”

  Calder dropped his hands, resting one of them on the bunched muscles of Attilus’ neck. “Easy, boy,” he said again. “We’re safe.” He slapped the dog’s side, and Attilus immediately bounded out into the darkness.

  The ranger approached the fire, and was met by a wiry man with long dark hair. One of the man’s arms hung limply at his side, Calder noted, and his forehead was dark with what might have been a shadow, or a bruise.

  “I am Rhodoban,” the man said, extending his left hand. Calder clasped it.

  “Calder,” he said. “I’m grateful for the warmth.”

  The others looked up as Rhodoban and Calder approached the fire, and Calder saw more evidence of a recent fight in the wounds they bore - and the blank stares on some of their faces. They had seen terrible things, and recently.

  “This is Steel Rygus,” Rhodoban said, gesturing to the hulking shadow just outside the circle of firelight. “The boys are Edwin and Nathen, and that’s Derek, Jonn, Elias…”

  Calder didn’t hear the rest of Rhodoban’s introductions, the ranger’s gaze stayed on Steel Rygus. He was obviously their leader, the rest of the men were all angled towards him. Calder nodded respectfully in the shadow’s direction, then to the others.

  “Well met,” he said.