Bloodsongs (39 page)

They traveled until the sun was gone from the sky. In the murky twilight that remained, they made camp for the night. Telric gathered kindling for a fire while Frost found a few larger pieces of dead wood, fuel enough to see them through until morning. Neither spoke of food. They spread their cloaks next to the flames and lay down with their saddles for pillows. He snuggled up behind her, slipping an arm about her waist. In no time at all, his breathing slowed and sleep claimed him.

Frost sighed and tried to relax. Telric's nearness warmed her, but she was relieved when he sought nothing more than to lie beside her. On her side, she gazed into the fire. She could feel the Rholarothan's heartbeat, and she could hear her own like a counterrhythm. Slowly, the sounds lulled her to sleep.

But with sleep came dreams! Sweet dreams and troubling dreams. She rolled ecstatically in Kimon's arms. Or were they Telric's arms? Then, armor materialized around her nude form. Kimon—or Telric—disappeared, replaced by Kel and his mercenaries. She swung her sword, cutting and killing until she stood knee-deep in bodies.

But every corpse wore her brother's face!

Those faces also faded, and she stared at the familiar visages of the men and women who had frequented her tavern. She danced and whirled for them, and they threw coins. But in midair the coins turned to fireflies that stung and burned her flesh. She ran stumbling, tripping on her skirts, until she came to a river, and she dived, but even as her feet left the bank she saw her reflection on the moonlit water.

Impossibly, the reflection reached up to embrace her. Yet it was not her image at all. The thing in the water wore her mother's face, and it laughed at her! Its arms closed about her and dragged her down into the murky depths. She struggled, gasping for air, inhaling the water, beating her fists against that mocking face while it laughed and laughed. . . .

Frost sat up, instantly alert, drenched in sweat. No matter the nightmare, she knew dream from reality. That hadn't been laughter. Only Ashur made a sound like that.

Telric came awake, too. “Huh? What is it?”

“Shut up!” she hissed. Her sword rasped from its sheath. The fire's glow rippled along the keen edge, casting an amber reflection among the leaves.

The unicorn screamed again, reared, and stamped his hooves on the mossy earth. His eldritch eyes burned and crackled with a wild intensity. He tossed his head, lashing the air with his mane.

Telric's horse suddenly joined in, whinnying and chewing at the rein that tethered it to a sapling.

Too late, Frost felt it, too.

“Get up!” she shouted. The air tingled with an unnatural foulness. The forest reeked with evil and decay. Telric freed his sword; his eyes searched the darkness as he leaped to his feet.

Something swooped across the fire straight for her. Her sword came up and cut a broad arc, encountering nothing. But she had cleaved it—she knew she had!

A black amorphous shape wrapped around her, soft as a spider's web, and a shriek tore from her throat. The touch was icy; her flesh began to freeze and her limbs went numb. She twisted, writhed, but her motions were too sluggish. The creature clung to her like thick smoke.

Her sword was useless. She reached within herself, seeking some spell to strike with, but to her horror the familiar music was stilled. Not even her witchcraft could help her! She felt her life being sucked away. The numbing cold reached inexorably for her heart.

Dimly, she looked for Telric. He stood helplessly by, the sword hanging from his lax grip. His mouth moved in shouts and curses she couldn't hear, and tears streamed on his face. She saw his plight and cursed fearfully. The thing that was draining her life had no substance. If he struck with his sword, the edge would find only her flesh.

But she was not ready to die! She knew this thing and how to defeat it. Desperately, she forced frozen lips to move, tongue and teeth to shape words. There was so little time!

“Gray . . . gray spot!” she cried weakly, but the words sounded wrong, slurred, incoherent. She tried again, begging her gods to make her comrade understand. “In the black body . . . gray spot!”

Telric stopped his mouthings and stared in confusion. Then, suddenly his sword flashed upward, gripped in both his hands. He shouted her name like a battle paean and stabbed downward with all his strength.

A psychic scream ripped from the creature. Telric stumbled back as if struck, clutching his head, and collapsed. White light exploded behind Frost's eyes as the cry cut through her mind like a saw-edge.

Then, the creature was gone.

Her knees buckled, and she fell dangerously near the fire, unable to move, gasping for breath to fill her frozen lungs. Her exhalations fanned the embers and shifted the flames. Yet there was no sensation of heat upon her face. An uncontrollable shivering racked her. Her head snapped back with its violence; her limbs flopped insanely, then rigidly locked.

Suddenly, Telric was beside her, lifting and cradling her, rocking and pressing her to his chest. “Samidar!” he groaned. “Samidar!” She tried to answer, but words would not form.

Gradually, the trembling ceased. Telric held her as the night crawled by, and she began to warm. He rubbed her limbs and swayed back and forth as near to the fire as he dared take her. In the comfort of his arms, with two red cloaks wrapped about her, she let go of her fear.

But there was the memory of that touch and the cloying, sucking cold—the cold of the grave. She searched the gloom and the shadows and hugged the sword that Telric had recovered for her.

Once he got up, spying his own sword at the edge of the camp where it had been flung by the creature's death throe. He carried it to her, incredulous.

The blade impaled a dirty, age-yellowed skull.

The eye sockets, full of reflected firelight, seemed to accuse her.

 

 

 

Chapter Seventeen

 

“A
shimere
,” she repeated. Emboldened by the bright light of day, it was easier to explain the unnatural thing that had attacked her in the night. She held Ashur's reins lightly and let the unicorn choose his own pace as she answered Telric's questions. “Some people call it a
shimmer
and others a
sending
.”

He nodded, but she knew he didn't understand.

“Remember, Kel is primarily a necromancer,” she continued. “If he has the skull or any bone of a person who died a violent death, then he can conjure that spirit and send it forth to do murder. But somewhere within its form the spirit must carry that bone. It always appears as a gray or white spot.” She swallowed. The
shimere
's cold touch was still a vivid memory. It had held her helpless. “Nothing can defeat such a creature but a piece of steel thrust into that spot.”

Despite the sun's growing warmth, she shivered. Against the
shimere
even her witchcraft had been useless. She owed her life to the man who rode beside her.

“It was a ghost?”

She smiled at the simplification.

Her companion didn't share her amusement. “Kel knows we're after him, then. He can strike at us anytime, just as he did last night.”

“Not anytime,” she corrected. “Necromancy is nightbound. He can't work that kind of magic during the day. In fact, all his strongest sorceries seem to require darkness. It's a major weakness in his talents.”

“Like a vampire,” he spat. “He sleeps by day!”

She frowned at his display of ignorance. “Don't spout foolishness. Kel is wide awake at this very moment.” She hesitated and briefly shut her eyes. “He's reached his destination,” she announced.

Telric arched an eyebrow. “You can sense that? What about Oroladian? We must be very close.”

Yes, they were close. Sunset should bring them to Kel's hiding place if they rode all day. That troubled her; Kel would have time to prepare a welcome, and she had learned the hard way what his magics could do. She would have to be on her guard.

And if Oroladian was there as well? What if it was two sorcerers they faced? She reached within herself, listening and hearing only the disharmony that was her son. If Oroladian was near, Frost could not detect her.

She began to regret letting Telric come along. Clearly, the Rholarothan was out of his element. He knew nothing of sorcery or witchcraft, nothing of the powers he faced. It had been unfair of her and selfish to drag him into this.

Yet last night the victory had been his. Without him, the
shimere
would have claimed her life. Still, she was torn. It would be easy for Ashur to outrun Telric's horse. She could leave him behind. Of course, he would follow, but by the time he caught up, maybe she could finish this unpleasant business.

Yet Kel was his nephew as well as her son. He had come this far, fought beside her, stood by her through terrors he couldn't comprehend. She had no right to leave him. She had fought against magic before with nothing but her sword and her courage, and always she had won. Telric was no less a warrior than she. To deny him now would be an insult. If he knew nothing of sorcery, still he was a man. And men had made even the gods tremble.

“We must ride hard,” she said at last, “to beat the sundown.”

Telric looked thoughtful, then he frowned. He patted his mount along the withers. “This mare is stout-hearted, but worn. Ashur will make it easily.” He patted the horse again. “I'm not sure of this one.”

“Would you rather spend another night in the open?” she said ominously.

His eyes narrowed. “I guess Ashur can carry us double again.” He stroked his beast a final time. “Sorry, horse.”

Frost gave her own steed a pat, leaned low to whisper in the unicorn's ear. He snorted in response and tossed his mane. Then she touched heels to his flanks, and they were off.

 

Sundown found them deep in the heart of yet another wood. The rugged trail had slowed even Ashur. Telric's mare was lathered with a heavy froth and breathing heavily, but the spirited animal had made a valiant effort and kept the pace. Still, they would have to rest the poor beast soon or lose her.

“We're close,” Frost said, smacking a fist against her thigh. “Damn close. Where in the nine hells can he be hiding?”

Telric peered up through the trees. The sky was an orange blaze as day ended. Narrow shafts of light stabbed weakly through the foliage, contrasting eerily with the deeper patches of gloom. He sniffed; the air was full of a rich, earthen odor.

“The strangest one yet.” he said sullenly.

“What?” she called back over her shoulder.

“The forests,” he answered quietly, subdued. “So many of them in your land, all incredibly beautiful, almost haunting, like none I've ever seen.” He paused, staring around. “Yet there's a kind of subtle menace about them. I've seen no game but an occasional bird. And I feel like something or someone is constantly watching me.”

“A tension,” she added, “like you're being squeezed very slowly and can't quite draw a full breath.”

He nodded.

Frost leaned low in the saddle and ducked under a fat limb that stretched across the way. She understood well enough what her companion felt. As a child she had played in forests like this one. As a young girl at her mother's side she had practiced the secret arts among the dark shadows and creeping old roots of such huge trees. Sometimes, to escape her carping brother—or just to find solitude—she had climbed into the high tops and hidden from the world.

Even then, she had known the sensations that Telric had described, the sense that something lurked among the massive, tangled roots, in the tallest, unclimbable branches, something alien and curious. She had courted it as a child, dared it, played with the fear that behind the next tree something was waiting to grab her.

She was older now, and the games of childhood were behind her. Still, as she peered into the darkening recesses there remained a subtle dread.

“Esgarians believe our gods live in these wilder, northern forests,” she told him as they rode. “Perhaps it's true. Much of this land has never known the print of a human foot.”

Telric barked a short curse, and she turned around to see him rip at a thin branch that had snagged his cloak. “Because no human foot could get through some of this brush,” he commented gruffly.

The trail was treacherous with twisted root systems and creeper vines. It was impossible for Frost and her comrade to travel faster. Limbs bent low enough to sweep a careless rider from the saddle, and dusty cobwebs repeatedly brushed their faces. Sometimes the ancient path vanished altogether in the thick undergrowth. Fortunately, there was enough daylight for Telric to see where Kel's recent passage had broken tiny branches and crushed the impeding grasses. She also had her witchcraft, but that only told her where her son was—not the best route to take to reach him.

She ground her teeth in frustration.

“The light's fading,” Telric pointed out needlessly. “Maybe we should make camp. If we stand a close guard all night . . .”

“No!” she hissed. Then she apologized. It was no use getting angry with him. She had led them into this tangle. “He's close, I tell you. I can feel it. We're practically on top of him.” She searched both sides of the trail, peering deep into the gathering darkness. “What did you say the name of that town was? The one near the border where you stole our food?”

“Parkasyt,” he answered dully.

She shook her head. The name didn't mean anything to her. Perhaps it had sprung up in the years of her absence. They had passed by no other towns, but that was not surprising. In the far south, along the tamer seacoasts, Esgaria was dotted with jeweled cities, rich in splendor and bustling with commerce. But in the northern half of the country there were only a few cities and a few more small towns; the coastline was too jagged for shipping ports, and the forests were too vast for agriculture. The region was guarded—that is, ruled—by a handful of powerful warlords with private armies. They were the bastions against the Rholarothan expansionists and the more peaceful Keleds.