Silvious moaned in the water and ripped at the leather straps again. The man he owed everything in the whole of Dellerin to was just too heavy for a small rodenerack like himself. One of his jagged nails cracked and split painfully, but he continued with his horrific task. He was a Hound, and Hounds never gave up or admitted defeat. They always found a way.
Heygar bobbed and swayed in the current, and Silvious swayed with him. He avoided looking at his strained face. Eventually, he tore a gauntlet free and rose to the surface, leaving the piece of armour at the bottom of the river. One piece down, plenty to do. Where were the rest of his companions?
“Help us!” Silvious swallowed the gnawing desolation in his stomach before diving back down once again. He had never felt as alone as this, with his best friend only a foot away.
Even in the water, Silvious could smell the familiar scent. It seemed different now though. He had smelled the dying aroma of family before, and it felt tragically familiar, but still, he worked at the leather. It became a task of miserable repetition, tasting the delicious air, then diving back down and attempting to cut through stubborn clasps.
Silvious never knew how long it went on for. He’d never grasped the finer things in the world, such as the steady keeping of time, for that was not his people’s way at all. Theirs was a simple, tormented life after the great and unsuccessful Roden War. Even though he lived among humans, there were plenty of things he still followed instinctively. Telling time was one of these things. His day began at dawn, when he broke slumber’s grasp. His day ended with the darkening of the world, when slumber embraced him once more. The humans desired to count the moments in between—as was their privilege. Time just passed differently to rodeneracks.
How many hours had passed since Heygar had ceased his struggling? Maybe it had been only a handful of breaths. A human would know for certain. And what Silvious knew for certain was that enough time had passed that his friend was dead.
He surfaced once more, and his eye caught something in the distance. Something returning to view the devastation left behind. He gripped the side of the riverbank and pulled at the sunken warrior.
“Help us! He isn’t moving!” Silvious cried to Lorgan as he emerged from the undergrowth with his horse’s reins in hand. It didn’t matter that the man approaching was the enemy. What mattered was saving Heygar. Somehow.
“Nor will he move again,” Lorgan hissed and stood over the rodenerack. He was pale, and his body shook from battle, grief, and cowardice. “There is no honour in a death like this.” The assassin made no move to help.
Silvious dropped underneath the water and tugged at the body once more. With the absence of the gauntlet, he could slip his arm further in. Before he had lost his breath, he pulled the chest piece free and dropped it in the murk. Silvious surged above the lily pads once more and met the tip of a sword‘s blade.
“Leave the dead as they lie.”
Silvious saw the agony in the young man’s eyes, but it paled compared to the agony he felt.
Silvious swiped the blade away in disgust. It should have terrified him, but facing a sword was hardly a thing to him. “I will never leave this man.”
Without warning, Lorgan dropped into the water and pulled Heygar from the river. Silvious helped him as best he could, and they left the body to dry in the sun. He didn’t look any less dead from his bed in the dry grass. His mouth hung to one side, his teeth bore a manic grin, and his dull eyes stretched wide open. No warrior deserved to die like that.
“Here lies a fallen legend,” Lorgan muttered and sheathed his blade. “He can’t be saved. He’s too far gone, rat,” the assassin said before reaching for Heygar’s pockets.
“You will not take a thing from him,” Silvious said, leaping across the body of his friend and pushing his vanquisher away.
“You are a brave one, little rat.”
“We’ll hunt ye for this,” warned Silvious and met the doomed eyes of the assassin, who shrugged at the threat.
“You tore all that I had built this day, but I will live well for quite a time as the man who killed Heygar before any of you Hounds track me down.” He climbed atop his horse. “My fate’s sealed, rat, but I will wait with a sword in hand.” Kicking his horse sharply, he disappeared deep into the undergrowth.
“You will die a thousand deaths.” Silvious placed his pointy ear to his friend’s chest.
If Lorgan heard his weak, defiant retort, he said nothing. Instead, the assassin thundered off, leaving him to the hum of the forest and the silence of his friend’s chest.
“The others’ll know what to do,” Silvious whispered to the dead man and patted along the cold body.
In the distance, he heard the first voices of his comrades. They had tired of waiting for their return.
His hand touched upon a small pouch in Heygar’s chest pocket, and Silvious froze. Better this way. He removed the pouch and carefully took the ring. Glancing at its beauty in the clearing sun, he tried it on once before slipping it back into a pocket of its own. Such a piece would catch a fine price in any land. Even Venistra. Such things couldn’t be taken as chance, and she would never need a ring like this anyway.
From above the slope, he heard their voices louder than before. With the ring safely away from prying eyes, Silvious called out for them, wondering if it was all too late.
9
Weaving From The Source
It was the young apprentice Iaculous who first appeared atop the slope, covered in blood from scavenging and weary from battle. The young human dropped from his horse and stumbled down the slope, scattering half the rocks on the decline as he did. Somehow avoiding breaking a bone, he scrambled over to the body, pushing Silvious away.
“How?”
“He fell.” Silvious pointed to the river.
Iaculous closed his eyes. Immediately, there was a turning warmth in the air. The surrounding ground hummed slightly, and Silvious felt dizzy as the weaving spun his thoughts awry. Though he couldn’t be sure, he felt something dark and menacing near him. It licked its lips, and Silvious shook the dizziness from his head.
Screaming filled the air. The lamenting wail was from Arielle. She fell to her knees beside him and cried like a heartbroken larker beast after mating season. A shaken Cherrie stood behind her and looked about to break. He had never seen her cry. He doubted he would. She was tougher than them all combined.
“How long was he under?” hissed Iaculous. He placed his hand across the other and came to stop over Heygar’s chest. After a moment, he heaved both hands down, and a thin stream of water erupted from Heygar’s grinning face like a geyser.
“Long time that his breath was taken.” Silvious didn’t think the sun had moved that far across the sky. Would that help?
The young healer groaned and pushed again, and even more fluid surged from Heygar’s mouth. Silvious allowed himself some hope as a thick veneer of blue weaving source energy covered the legend. However, this was no enchantment for a sprained knee or sliced flesh. Even Silvious knew that.
“Wake up, Heygar!” screamed Denan, and tears streamed from his eyes. Silvious wondered what it was like to cry. Though he knew sorrow and melancholy, his kind could not let precious fluids slip from their eyes on demand.
The warrior took hold of Cherrie and held her as the young healer went to work. Cherrie merely stared unblinkingly at the body.
“He is lost,” Eralorien, the master healer, muttered quietly. Weakness brought Silvious to his knees. Beside him, Cherrie moaned, and Denan spun her from the sight. She fought him and struck his chest but did not look back.
But one Hound was not willing to let things be.
“Nothing is ever lost,” cried Iaculous in a strange voice. He dove his hands down a third time, and the last of the resting water was expunged from the dead body. “I can save him.” He choked back the dreadful desolation of finding a loved one in such a state. “I can save him.” He groaned as though some unseen force moved through him. “No
one dies today.”
Iaculous grimaced as though fighting an invisible beast with eyes upon their souls. The heat around the weaver grew fierce. Eralorien had always berated and belittled the young healer, yet Silvious couldn’t but notice the master kept a distance as the apprentice attempted to save their leader. Perhaps even with such costs, it was best to let the student perfect his art. To push the darkness back at whatever cost. Or else, the master healer was too scared to take part. If Bereziel were here, that would be different.
“I can step into the source and pull his soul right back into his body,” Iaculous said, looking every day his youthful age in front of his master.
“You shall not take back what is lost,” Eralorien warned, but his words felt hollow. He stood behind Iaculous, watching intently.
If Silvious could have stepped into the source beyond and found Heygar’s soul, he would have done it in a moment’s breath, whatever that meant.
The young healer held his fingers out over the body, and the air thinned to nothing. The ground shuddered, and a piercing heat encircled the two. A soul. Silvious thought an ethereal wraith of conscious energy locked inside the meat of a human body as something strange. He wondered if he had one. Was he more than just meat? They did not believe in anything like that among his people, but then again, he had known no rodenerack capable of weaving from the source.
“You’ve got to wake up, Heygar,” Arielle begged the dead body before pulling away from the rising heat. The rest of the Hounds followed, apart from the weavers.
“I can save him,” Iaculous said in that strange voice. It was older, wiser, and not meant for mortal men. Silvious had heard the same tone many times before, and terrible things usually followed. All of this was before Eralorien had joined their pack.
“Be wary, young one. Weaving like this is treacherous!” Eralorien cried. If the surging heat troubled him, he showed little on his old, wrinkled face. Instead, he stood like a statue and kept his hands firmly under his cloak. Perhaps he was worried they would get burned.
“I can save him,” Iaculous groaned again in the tone that sounded older than the mountains. His hands separated and focused over the heart of the great man.
Silvious watched the source reveal itself upon the healer’s hands. It was both mesmerising and terrifying. He’d seen illusions many times before, but this was something new. A tendril of blue flame surrounded the apprentice’s hands, and the ground shook as though a great earthquake was upon them. A sudden wind enveloped them. Trees swayed wildly all around them. Silvious could hear nothing but its roar until Cherrie broke away from Denan’s grasp. She wavered and looked ready to collapse, but she did not fall.
“Save him!” she screamed, but Iaculous was already lost to the source. His eyes were misty and grey—as if burned out by a poker’s tip—and his face contorted in a painful grimace. The source covered his body in the same blue veneer. He faded like an artist’s masterpiece left to display in a decade of uncovered sunlight, still there, yet less so.
“Do not step far into the source,” Eralorien cried as he fought the erupting storm. Still, he kept his hands under his cloak as it flapped in the unnatural wind.
Another surging pulse of heat erupted from the young healer. It struck as an invisible wave, and the remaining Hounds cowered from the blast. The tendril of flame had grown to a furnace. Silvious saw the young man’s hands bubble and burn.
“I can see a darkness,” Iaculous moaned and stood up. Somehow, he seemed taller. Perhaps he was levitating.
“Can you see beyond the black?” Eralorien pulled his hands free and gripped the young man’s shoulders. His hands, too, were glowing, but not with flame. His were a controlled ember of light, white, and calming. He healed himself as his own skin burned.
Silvious heard his comrades screaming and cursing and wailing, but it made little sense. He felt the fire burn his rough face, but he couldn’t help himself. Something great and ferocious lured him to the energy. He had not felt this way since Heygar had pulled him from that den almost a decade ago. That same sense of power as Heygar ripped into his jailors one by one, tearing and cutting, unstoppable and divine. He had loved his master then. Seeing him now, he loved him even more. He prayed to whatever was among them with words he had heard spoken by man and not a rat. He prayed for his master to blink his eyes once more and drink merrily with them that night.
“What do you see?” roared Eralorien. The flames engulfed his robes, yet still, he stayed with his protégé. He was a good man, Silvious thought.
“I see Heygar, trapped, waiting,” Iaculous whispered. His voice carried like a deity’s roar. He reached out as though Heygar was in front of him. The flames grew ten feet high, and he became immolated in the blue fire he was creating.
“Come back, Iaculous,” cried Eralorien. The flames overcame him, and he released his hold on his apprentice. The flames struck out like fireflies and struck the terrified Hounds.
“My love,” screamed Arielle. She leapt into the flame and knocked both healers from their feet into the cold water. Immediately, the storm passed, and the flames dissipated away. The only sounds were that of three burned warriors as they pulled themselves painfully from the river and the dull hiss from Heygar as parts of his body glowed an ember red.
Eralorien administered healing to himself first. Iaculous, though scorched and scarred, refused his help until he had removed the blisters from Arielle. By the time the healing took the last of the burns, Iaculous was already kneeling over Heygar’s body. His hands were a faded blue as he weaved healing back into himself.
“I’m not strong enough, Heygar,” Iaculous wept. Arielle knelt with him, her own tears matching his own.
“He is gone,” Denan said.
“He is at peace,” Silvious said sadly. Iaculous shot him a look.
“No, rat, he has found no peace. He is just beyond the dark. Something has hold of his soul, and he is waiting for us to save him,” the young healer said. “I’m not strong enough to step into the source, but I will try. His body is just a vessel. If someone returns the soul, it can undo everything.” He spun on Arielle. “If you hadn’t knocked me in the water, I might have reached him.”
“You would have burned up,” Arielle replied in a cutting tone only a spurned lover could use. Iaculous looked contrite at his misstep.
“Can Heygar be saved?” Denan asked, his voice a whispered wheezing breath. As he spoke, he fumbled for a little pouch of spices from his belt. He undid the clasp and inhaled deeply a few times. His breath returned a moment later. “Can Heygar be saved?” he asked a second time more confidently.
Eralorien spoke quietly as though wary of revealing a terrible truth. “A weaver strong enough might, but neither one of us are strong enough for returning a soul back into this world.” He stood over the young man and took hold of a few strands of his hair. “Grey,” he muttered.
Cherrie finally knelt by her man and stroked his features tenderly. “If neither of you can do it, then we will bring him to a weaver who is strong enough.” She kissed his forehead. “Wrap him up, Silvious.”
10
What To Do?
Silvious wrapped the body up in some sheets and tied it securely at both ends while the rest of the Hounds sat in silence around their temporary campsite. Death was no stranger to all mercenaries. It followed them every step of the way. It was a constant ally and the most deceitful of friends.
None of the Hounds should have struggled to accept Heygar’s passing, but they did it easily enough. Perhaps it was Iaculous’s suggestion that Heygar was not at rest that influenced them so. Heygar had led this troupe for two decades, in both war and peacetime, as flag-waving patriots, as expensive knives for hire, and occasionally somewhere in between. They were unwilling to let him go.
Silvious looked at the wrapped body and wondered how they would treat him now that his champion was silent. He sewed the last stitch and bit the thin thread, leaving the body as snug as possible. Denan and Ia
culous hoisted the burden onto the back of his horse. They spoke of resurrection, and Silvious knew the unlikeliness of such a thing, but his opinion carried less water than the others. They did, however, speak of a man capable of unlikely things.
“We bury Heygar here, or we bring him to Venistra and seek Bereziel to cast the enchantment of all enchantments,” Denan said carefully. Those were words from a man unsure of himself as a leader. Perhaps he would grow into the role, Silvious thought.
“Is it a choice? If so, we must give the great man every chance,” Iaculous said.
“I agree,” Arielle said.
Though Silvious’s mind spun, the only reassuring thought was that Venistra called. His initial desire to complete their treacherous task had grown since Heygar’s passing. Whatever was discussed or decided, Silvious thought it imperative that Mallum fall to their blade. Everything after that was up for discussion.
Eralorien placed his hands upon Cherrie’s shoulder as a father might with a lamenting daughter. She did not fight his touch nor accept his warmth. She merely stared blankly ahead, and he held her. “We cannot trust Bereziel to return Heygar to you … to us.” His fingers squeezed her shoulders ever so delicately. “This is madness.”
“No one is ever truly gone,” Iaculous said, eyeing the ground to avoid the contemptuous gaze from his master. There would be another screaming argument shared before the day was out, Silvious thought. They seemed to fight more frequently these days. The apprentice had attempted stronger enchantments these last few months, and Eralorien was having none of it.
“Even if his soul was retrievable, his body has already cooled and is decaying,” Eralorien said.
And cooked, thought Silvious, thinking of the fires burning at the flesh.
“Is it possible to heal a dead body if someone returns the soul?” asked Denan to the master weaver.
The Seven Page 7
