Dark Fate: The Gathering (The Dark Fate Chronicles Book 1) (52 page)

A massive mottled greenback surged into view from behind a building in the courtyard as Kinsey rounded the Keep. He dropped quietly to his hands and knees to avoid being the next target of the giant reptile’s appetite.

After waiting a few moments, Kinsey chanced a peek over the stone railing.

Bodies and pieces of bodies were scattered throughout the open space. Several irregular dark patches on the ground marked the former “final” resting place of corpses that had been dragged off by larger scavengers. Smaller creatures vied with carrion birds for the rights to pluck the viscera from the ground. Muffled pops of crunching bone rose up to Kinsey’s ears. He crept forward with his body tensed for flight, should the beast rear up to pluck him from the wall.

When he was far enough away from the reptile, he rose back to his feet and began working his way carefully but quickly along the fortification. Beyond the carnage below, he could see obvious signs of habitation. Doors and roofs had been patched, albeit roughly. Dozens of men, perhaps as many as a hundred or more, had been in residence here until very recently. The remains below appeared to be fresh; at least, the charnel smell that reached him had yet to become the sickening stench of putrefaction.

Kinsey had almost made it to a stairway that looked clear of scavengers when he came across a spot where the river ran directly below the wall. There was a pool of dried blood here, the first he had seen on this path. The gelled puddle was nestled partially in the shadow of the battlement and he shuffled to a halt. He put one hand on a merlon and leaned out over the wall to look down. The rush of the Tanglevine boiled past about forty feet below. He could see no sign of a body. He turned from the river and looked down into the courtyard on the other side of the wall. Nothing.

Kinsey ran a hand through his hair and knelt beside the puddle. He dipped two fingers in the blood, rubbing the liquid against his thumb.
A little more than a day
. The puddle was deep enough that the top layer had coagulated, but there remained a substantial amount of liquid, and it was slick. On impulse, he raised the fingers to his nose and breathed in.

Eos preserve me
.

This was Erik’s blood. He knew it in a way he could not define. As he breathed in the scent of the blood, he could hear his father’s voice in echoes from a childhood long past. Natural impressions of rich earth and leaves layered with the woodsmoke of countless campfires they had shared. He didn’t
smell
Erik in this drop of blood. He
felt
Erik.

Kinsey placed his hands on the battlements and noticed he was trembling. “You went into the river. Injured,” he spoke to his absent father. “Eos be merciful. Let me find you. Alive.”

“I’m sorry. I can do nothing more.” Sacha leaned over Erik. The elf’s shirt was rolled up so she could examine the weeping holes in his back.

Their fall into the river and the rough treatment through the rapids had not helped the injured man. The shafts of both bolts had been splintered and she suspected from the torn flesh around the broken quarrels that there was more damage inside.

By the time they had made it to the shore, Erik was all but useless, and she had had to carry the elf from the water as dawn was breaking.

To complicate her situation, whatever that bastard thief had done to her back at the Keep was still preventing her from using her power effectively. She could both sense and access the power now, but it was only a trickle; she could only manage to start a fire and slow Erik’s bleeding, despite having gathered the power to herself through most of the day.

Back at the Keep, the barrier had felt like an empty space she could not cross, preventing her from creating a conduit to the Shamonrae. Now it still had elements of the same void, but it was fractured somehow. She had been able to draw on the power, but the effort had made her head swim. Between the exhaustion from the past few days and her flight from the Keep, creating the fire had almost made her pass out. Only through gritted teeth had she managed to extract the shattered bolts and stop most of the bleeding. Luckily, Erik had passed out, for she had nothing left to prevent him from feeling the pain as the metal tips tore his flesh. The very thought of trying something else now, without a rest, threatened her vision with black spots.

Erik shivered as he helped to roll his torn and bloody shirt back down. “It’s okay,” he said. “I would be dead back there, if not for you.” More quivers shook his frame, and his teeth chattered.

Sacha shook her head at his comment but did not respond to it. “We have to move you soon.” She gently covered him with fronds of vegetation she had collected when pulling tinder for the fire. “Are there any towns nearby?”

His voice was faint. “Not sure. Don’t know how far downriver we are.”

That was bad news. If she couldn’t get him to a physician, he might die in spite of her best efforts.

“Thank you.” Erik looked up at her. “For saving my life.”

Sacha got to her feet and looked down at him with a small smile. “Thank you for saving mine.”

Erik coughed in an attempt to laugh. “I may have placed you in more danger at this point.”

She went to the small pile of wood she had collected and placed another branch on the fire. “No. I believe I was in greater danger before you came for me.” Shaking her head, she continued. “I might still perish, but here, I can do it on my own terms. Also, whoever that bastard was working for will not be able to use me as leverage in their schemes. Whatever they were.”

Erik made a motion that might have been a nod, but it was jerky and halting as he continued to shake. “We never got a chance to finish our conversation,” wheezed Erik.

She frowned and tilted her head in puzzlement. “Conversation?”

“
Sha-ou-Taun
.”

She half chuckled. “Ah.
That
conversation. Feel like baring your soul, do you?”

Erik’s teeth chattered. “Traditional, is it not? To lose all secrets before you die.”

Her gaze darted away from the elf. “Don’t say that.” She bit her lip and whispered, “You’re not going to die.”

“My apologies,” he said with a cough. “I did not mean to upset you.” He scooted closer to the fire, wincing with every motion. “I meant only that death may be near, and I am at peace with that. It would please me, however, to finish telling you of my past.”

Erik seemed to be handling the possibility of death much better than she would have. Perhaps it was because of the many years he had lived, but regardless, his peace did not help her. Her fear increased as she considered the prospect of being alone as well as wet, hungry, battered, and tired. Sacha immediately chastised herself for being selfish. Time to grow up, she thought harshly. Erik needed her help, not her worry. “I should be the one apologizing,” she said as she settled to the ground next to him. “You’re the one who’s injured.” She touched his knee, drawing his eyes from where they had lingered on the meager flames. “If we are baring our souls, I must make a confession.”

His brow lifted. “Hmm?”

She hesitated for a moment, a twinge of apprehension at his anticipated reaction. “I’ve been avoiding you.”

He started to laugh but was seized with a fit of coughing instead. After he calmed himself, he asked, “Whatever for?”

Sacha frowned slightly. “Because of our last conversation about your past.” She felt rather sheepish saying it aloud. “I thought I had offended you.”

“I see.” He inclined his head to one side and hunched his shoulders. “You needn’t worry about that. I wasn’t offended.”

Sacha let out a breath of relief she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. “Glad to hear it.”

Erik stared at the fire, apparently lost in thought. The damp wood hissed and crackled as it surrendered its moisture. Around their small clearing, the forest was beginning to churn with activity. The sounds of insects and movements of small animals were strangely peaceful. Erik’s voice was low and blended with the surrounding noises of the forest. “I was only a child when
Ou-Taun
was attacked. The details of what happened are just jumbled memories to me now, like old, faded paintings in a forgotten hall. Even so, those memories will remain with me until my last breath.” He was seized by another coughing fit. When he had recovered, he shot her a wry grin. “See? Here we are, almost upon it.”

“We shouldn’t do this now. You need rest,” she said, dismissing his black jest.

“It’s okay.” He wiped a bit of blood from his mouth. “I need something to keep my mind off the pain.”

The blood was a bad sign; it confirmed the internal bleeding she feared. Frustration from her failure to help him began to build, and once more she attempted to reach out to the Shamonrae. Blackness swam at the corners of her vision. She was so tired. The barest trickle entered her, but before she could use it, it slipped away. She clenched her jaw, biting back the desire to scream.

Erik apparently did not, or could not, sense her struggle. He cleared his throat and continued, “I had been fishing along the northern shoreline of the bay when I heard the first screams. The waters were so calm that day and the setting sun looked like a great orange ball dipping into the distant ocean. So peaceful.” He stopped to lick his lips and shake his head slowly. “I can’t look at a sunset without thinking on the events of that day. By the time I had reached my home, the whole village had been destroyed. I searched for signs of what had happened, but I could find nothing. No enemy soldiers. No animals of war. Not even a set of tracks to say what had happened, where the doom had come from or where it had gone. Only the dead people of my village remained.” He coughed again, less violently than before. “I found my parents amongst the scattered bodies and I wept for what felt like days.” He fell silent and they both stared into the fire.

“How horrible,” Sacha said finally.

Erik nodded his head in reply. “I don’t really remember much after that, just surviving in the wilderness on my own, until an actual army did come. An army of elves and humans. They found me, took me in, and asked questions I could not answer.”

Sacha interrupted in his brief pause. “What questions?”

“The same ones I had asked myself; What happened? Who was responsible?” He shrugged and fell back into silence.

She remembered Chancellor Tomelen mentioning the elves and humans putting aside their differences to travel south in search of answers. “I’ve been told of the forces that traveled south to inquire about the events at
Ou-Taun
. What became of them?”

“Yes, in search of answers I could not provide, they traveled further south. I had refused to join them. Several weeks later, two men stumbled out of the desert. An elf and a human. I recognized them both as part of the forces that went south. What had happened to the rest of them, they could not, or would not, say. All they seemed able to remember was that we must all flee or suffer the same fate as the village.” He smiled, but not with joy. “Ironic. They could have been my saviors, but instead, I helped them travel back to Waterfall Citadel.”

“
You
were the child,” Sacha exclaimed. Kesh had mentioned a child surviving the events of
Sha-ou-Taun
, but not that it had been an elven child. “In the histories Chancellor Tomelen told me about?”

“Yes.”

“Why did you stay with the humans?”

The elf’s eyes blinked slowly and his voice was slow, as if he were on the verge of falling asleep. “It seemed like the right thing to do. I can’t really explain it.” His eyes closed and didn’t open.

A surge of panic went through her as he began to slump over. She caught his shoulders and lowered him gently to the ground. Her hands searched desperately for a pulse and found the slow rhythmic beats still thumping against the side of his neck. She sighed a breath of relief and leaned against Erik.
Please don’t die
.

Drying the tears from her eyes, Sacha resumed tending the fire and let her thoughts wander. It appeared that the mystery of
Sha-ou-Taun
would continue unresolved. The only survivor lay mortally wounded, and he only seemed to remember vague pain and loss. It didn’t really matter, though. The events had transpired over two centuries ago, and the answers would provide her no assistance now. Now she needed to find a way for her and Erik to survive.