Er’ril found the elv’in’s eyes staring into his own. No further words were needed. Er’ril nodded his head, the decision made.
Meric stepped forward—just as a howl shattered the night.
All eyes, including the she-demon’s, swung to the left. From the wall of meadow grass, a huge wolf leapt into the clearing. It was Fardale. He crouched with a loud growl flowing from his throat, the hackles on his back raised high.
“It seemsss we have another volunteer,” the she-demon said with a sharp smile.
“Get back,” Mogweed screamed to his brother. “You can’t harm it!”
Fardale glanced at his brother, his amber eyes glowing like twin moons in the night.
“Oh,” Mogweed whispered and slunk farther into the shadows of the others.
Er’ril sensed that some silent communication had been shared between the two. “Did Fardale tell you something?” he whispered quickly.
Mogweed kept his eyes toward the she-demon and his growling brother. “He’s freed the . . . There’s another—”
Again the quiet night was shattered, this time by a rumbling bellow that came from the other side of the clearing. It was no wolf. It rose from the tall meadow grass and kept rising and rising. How could something so large have moved so quietly upon them, especially burdened?
It took a shocked moment for Er’ril to recognize Tol’chuk. The og’re held a squirming dog over his head, its muzzle clamped shut in one of his large, clawed hands.
The she-demon snapped her wings and swung to face the new challenge. But before she could turn, Tol’chuk threw the dog at her. The squirming weapon cartwheeled across the clearing, limbs scrambling at the empty air.
Instinctively, the she-demon struck out at the flying object. Poison-tipped claws lashed out at the dog, knocking it aside. The hound crashed to the mud in a limp pile, its chest raked open, dead from the poison before it even struck the ground.
“My, my,” the she-demon said, “you do seem to be running short on weapons. What next, a sheep? A goat?”
Using the distraction of the dog, Tol’chuk had by now stalked into the clearing.
Er’ril noticed that his companions had succeeded in surrounding the she-demon. But of what use was that? She still had her dark magicks. Meric glanced once at Er’ril, then swung back toward the winged beast and walked toward it.
Er’ril’s heart ached, but he knew there was no other choice.
Mogweed suddenly snatched at Meric’s billowing white shirt and tugged the elv’in to a stop.
“Leave him—” Er’ril began to say.
“The . . . the dog!” Mogweed stuttered in a faint whisper. “It’s dead.”
“So?”
Mogweed’s voice snapped louder. “The monster killed it. Didn’t she?”
Er’ril’s eyes grew wide with understanding.
The shape-shifter’s words seemed to have reached the she-demon, too. Her eyes glanced to the dead hound near her clawed feet. The fanged smile faded on her face as she realized the truth. She had killed. She had taken the life of her prey. Her magicks were now vulnerable.
Her eyes met Er’ril’s for just a heartbeat. Er’ril grinned, but his lips were hard. “Do this for Nee’lahn,” he hissed at the others. “Take her down.”
Kral whooped in triumph and led the charge toward the encircled she-demon. She tried to take flight and escape, but Tol’chuk dragged her by a wing back to the mud and grass. The others swamped her, Kral’s ax a blur of revenge. Er’ril turned his back on the fight. He was no longer needed here. Elena, though, had been left with Vira’ni too long.
Behind him, he heard a screech that shivered the small hairs on his arms. It was a death cry.
Without glancing back, Er’ril ran from the she-demon’s dying screams. He felt no satisfaction, not while Elena was still in danger. With his iron fingers clenched into a fist, he raced over the small rise that separated him from the main encampment. He prayed he wasn’t too late.
He crested the rise to peer into the circle of tents of the main camp. Among the sputtering fires, a sea of blackness surged and flowed across the trampled soil. Scorpions! Their glossy armor reflected the firelight in poisonous glints.
But this was not the horror that caught Er’ril’s breath in his throat. In the center of this poisonous sea, Elena struggled. Vira’ni held the girl tight as the scorpions descended in a swarm upon the pair.
“Elena!” he called out to her.
ELENA HEARD HER name called, but knowing her plan to deal with Vira’ni had failed, she stayed silent. She had squandered her magick in a futile attempt to defeat the demoness. At least Er’ril was free, she thought as she stared into the baleful yellow fire in Vira’ni’s eyes. Hopefully, the others were safe, too. If nothing else, she could die knowing she had bought them their freedom.
Vira’ni yanked on Elena’s arm and pulled her closer. “I hear a little bird calling your name.”
Elena ignored her words, too. Her eyes were on the dying war of energies waging within the woman’s breast. The silver flame of elemental power had waned back to a weak flicker. Black energies whirled around this small pyre, still drawing licks of substance from the flame.
It was a mesmerizing dance of power.
It’s not too late! The last lucid words of the woman mocked Elena. How? How was it not too late?
The magick churned and wheeled around the tiny spark of flame.
Then Elena suddenly knew.
As scorpions skittered up her boots, she pressed her palm more firmly against Vira’ni’s chest, as if trying to keep the demoness at bay. If only . . . if only it isn’t too late.
Elena thrust once more into the woman’s chest with the last dregs of her wit’chfire. Again fingers of power wound toward the tiny elemental flame, dodging spats of black energies. As she worked her magick, the final streams of her energies became an outstretched hand. Reaching, she closed her wit’chfire upon the small bit of elemental magick—and squeezed.
Like pinching out a candle’s flame, her magicks snuffed the small brightness from Vira’ni’s chest, extinguishing the woman’s elemental fire.
In the void, the black energies collapsed around Vira’ni’s heart, swallowing the last traces of Elena’s magicks. With her power spent, her special vision dimmed and disappeared. She could no longer see the flows of magicks.
Elena removed her hand from Vira’ni’s chest. Her fingers were so cold—and so pale. Not even a trace of the Rose remained.
Suddenly a hand grabbed her wrist.
Elena jumped and tried to pull away, but the grip was iron. She stared up at Vira’ni’s wild eyes. The demoness grinned and wrenched at her arm.
Elena gasped from the pain, too stunned to fight. “Now quit squirming. You—” Vira’ni’s face suddenly took on a vaguely confused expression, as if she had forgotten what she had been about to say.
The grip on Elena’s wrist spasmed tighter for a heartbeat, squeezing a cry from Elena. Then the hold on her wrist relaxed, and Vira’ni’s hand fell away.
Free, Elena stumbled backward. Scorpions crackled under her heels as she crushed them. She stamped others from her boots. The scorpions seemed as stunned and confused as Vira’ni. Some were even stinging each other, while others stood as still as their mistress.
Vira’ni suddenly shuddered, as if shaking cobwebs from her naked body. As she trembled, the white streak in her hair faded and darkened to match her other black locks. For a moment, Elena thought she saw a dark mist seep from the woman’s skin and fade out into the night.
A winged scorpion landed on Elena’s arm, stinger raised. Elena cringed and started to swat at it when the poisonous creature collapsed and dissolved into a glistening black clump on her arm. It was clotted blood. Elena shook it off in disgust.
Around Elena’s boots, the other scorpions also collapsed into bloody piles that steamed into the chill night. Like the ripples from a pebble dropped into a pond, the dissolution of the scorpion army spread outwa
rd from the two women until the poisonous creatures were gone.
The Horde lay dead.
Vira’ni moaned, drawing Elena’s attention, though the girl stood unmoving, still wary of the naked woman.
Vira’ni swooned and fell to her knees in the mud and blood. Her ashen face had paled even further, as if her very substance had left her body. She raised her face toward Elena. The mad gleam was gone. “Is it . . . is it over?” she asked, tears flowing down her cheeks.
Suddenly from behind, someone grabbed Elena’s shoulder and pulled her away from the kneeling woman. Her heart leapt to her throat until she realized it was only Er’ril. The plainsman stepped between Elena and Vira’ni.
“Get back!” he snapped at Elena. The iron ward floated in the air before Er’ril, its cold fingers open and reaching for Vira’ni’s throat.
“No,” Elena said, tugging at his real arm. “Leave her be. She’s no danger now. The dark magicks have fled her.”
“How?” he asked with narrowed eyes. His shoulders were still tight with fury.
“She was an elemental. The Dark Lord somehow bound his black energies to her land magick. Once that was gone, the foul energies had no hook in her and were cast out.”
Er’ril stayed silent, but he lowered his iron fist.
“It’s over,” Elena said softly.
ER’RIL REALIZED THE girl was right. “Vira’ni?” he asked tentatively, his voice softening as his anger fled him.
She raised her face toward his, and a mixture of pain and loss glowed in her eyes. Then her countenance settled into simple sorrow. As he watched, her skin paled and her flesh seemed to shrink to her bones. She was dying.
He stepped toward her. Behind him, Elena began to protest, believing he meant to attack her. He waved her back and knelt beside Vira’ni. After a moment’s hesitation, he reached and took the woman in his one arm. At his touch, she collapsed like a teetering stack of blocks in his embrace, too weak to hold herself upright. He gently lowered her to his lap and fingered stray black hairs from her face; he had always hated when hair got in her eyes.
As he stared at her, his heart remembered the face he had once kissed and the woman he had once loved.
From where she lay, Vira’ni stared back at him. “I’m so . . . so sorry, Er’ril.” Tears glistened in the firelight on her cheeks. “I . . . What I did . . .”
The plainsman reached out and touched a finger to her lips. “Hush . . . hush, it wasn’t you.”
Vira’ni trembled under his touch, too weak now even to speak. She reached for his hand, her fingers fluttering like a weak bird, but she was too feeble; her hand fell away.
Er’ril knew her death was near. He wiped the tears from her cheek and took her hand in his own, entwining their fingers. He bent down close to her. He would not abandon her again, not now.
Her eyes were barely open. He pressed his cheek against hers and whispered in her ear. “I’m the one who is sorry, Vira’ni. I should never have left you.”
She struggled to speak, her breath catching in her dying throat. “I . . . I loved you.”
He leaned closer and gently kissed her on the lips. He felt her relax under him. “And I loved you,” he whispered as he lifted his lips from hers, but she was already gone. He held her cold hand for several long breaths, his cheeks damp, his head bowed.
Beside him, his iron fist fell to the mud, once again just a motionless sculpted fist. He ignored the loss of his phantom arm, praying Vira’ni had heard his final words.
For truly, he had loved her.
TWO MORNINGS LATER, Elena stood by Nee’lahn’s grave at the edge of the rimwood forest. In the shadow of the dead trees, they had buried their companion. The spiders were long gone from the wood, destroyed like the scorpions when the Dark Lord’s magicks fled.
Elena knelt by the grave. The fresh-turned soil was like a blemish at the meadow’s edge. The team was due to head out for the plains today, but Elena wanted to do one last thing before she left.
She stared at the small stone at the grave’s head. It pained Elena to look upon it: Once again, someone’s life had been spent to help her on her journey. It seemed the path she forged would always be marked with blood and tears. Sniffing back a sob, she gently scooped a small hole in the loose soil of the grave.
Kneeling back, she reached and removed a small acorn—the seed Mogweed had given her—from her breast pocket. She placed it in the shallow hole and carefully layered soil over it. “If I can’t bring back your forest home, Nee’lahn,” she whispered, “let me at least bring back this one tree.”
Elena stood up, wiping the dirt on her gray trousers. “Let life come from death. Let this be the true marker of your final resting place.”
Wiping away her tears, she turned her back on the grave and looked out past the rolling meadows toward the rising sun.
It was time.
The others were waiting for her. The wagon was already loaded and hitched. They had scavenged the hunters’ horses to replace those of their own that had been killed. The only bright moment of the past two days was when Kral had gone to fetch Rorshaf and found Mist grazing in the meadow with him as if nothing had happened. Elena had been overjoyed to see the small gray mare again and had hugged Mist tightly as the horse struggled to get to the grain bucket.
Otherwise, the past two days had involved too much grave digging and hurried activity. The bodies of the hunters had to be buried, along with Vira’ni and the she-demon she had birthed. Er’ril would let no one else touch Vira’ni’s body. He had nestled her gently in the grave, and then, as if tucking in a child after a nightmare, he had leaned and placed a lingering kiss on her forehead. Only Elena saw the plainsman’s tears as he filled the grave with cold dirt.
Amidst all the sorrow, the team united in support of each other, forging bonds where none had existed before. Even Mogweed was well congratulated for his sharp wits in helping defeat the winged beast. He strutted around the camp, his chest swelled with pride. Meric, who especially held the shape-shifter in high regard, even offered his filly to Mogweed.
Only Er’ril seemed subdued and withdrawn from the others. He had buried Vira’ni himself and since then had had little to do with preparations for their departure, only giving a curt command now and then.
Elena sighed. The rolling meadows held too much sorrow for all of them. The sooner they left, the better.
Still, she had one last chore to do. Gazing at the meadows aglow in the rosy light of dawn, she raised her right arm high and bathed her pale hand in the morning sunlight. She filled her heart with longing and hope and willed the gift to come to her. In response, her hand vanished in a blaze of brilliance.
Taking a deep breath and girding herself, she lowered her arm. Her right hand returned again to her wrist, her skin now afire with whorls of red magicks.
Elena stepped away from Nee’lahn’s grave—the first step, she sensed, on the long road ahead, a road that would eventually lead her to the Gul’gothal lord himself. She clenched her red fist into a hard knot and marched toward the dawn. She would make the Black Heart pay for all the blood, the sorrow, and the tears.
Magick crackled furiously around her fist as she crossed the rose-tinged meadows.
“I’m coming,” she spoke to the rising sun and the darkness that lay beyond it. “And nothing will stop me.”
Book Two
SEAS AND MISTS
11
JOACH LIVED AS a prisoner in his own head.
As his body stood in the Great Kitchen of the sprawling Edifice, awaiting his master’s supper, Joach stared out of two holes in a skull that felt like a hollowed-out pumpkin. He watched his arms move and his legs shamble, while inside his head he screamed for someone to help him. But his lips remained slack with a continual rope of drool hanging to his chin. He could feel the saliva slobbering from his mouth but could not get his hands to move and wipe it away.
“Eh, you! Boy!” jeered the greasy-haired kitchen urchin, poking Joach in the s
houlder with a dirty spoon. “Did your mum drop you on your head, or what? Git away from me before you slobber in the soup kettle.”
Shoved by the spoon, Joach’s legs stumbled back a step.
“Leave ’im be, Brunt,” the cook said from a neighboring hearth. He was a wide-bellied man, like most cooks, wearing a stained apron that covered him from neck to toe, sashed at the waist. His cheeks glowed ruddy from the heat of the kitchen’s many hearths. “You know he ain’t right in the head, so quit pestering ’im.”
“I heard he was left in the woods by his parents for the wolves to finish off.” Brunt made a snapping motion toward Joach.
“M-m-master wants m-meal,” Joach heard himself stutter with a slurred tongue. That was the extent of his conversation. Just enough words to let others in the Edifice know his ordered duty. The kitchen help ignored his garbled words. He might as well have been another spoon or pot.
“Naw, naw,” the cook said. “He was kicked in the head by a horse and everyone thought ’im dead. Were all set to bury ’im, they were! Then that old crippled brother, he came along and plucked ’im up. Took ’im here. Rescued the drooling dolt. Now that’s kindness!” The cook spat into a skillet to test its heat before continuing. “Speaking of kindness and dolts, if you want to keep working in my kitchens, you’d better get back to stirring that stew, or it’ll burn!”
Brunt lowered his spoon to the fish stew with a grumble and continued to stir. “Still, that kid gives me the woollies. He just stares at you with his nose dripping. It’s downright sickening.”