Eventide (Meratis Trilogy Book 2) (40 page)

***

As the sky darkened, the path became more treacherous. Jeff focused on his breathing as stones, loosened by their steps, clattered over the side of the mountain.

Brady had long outdistanced them, but they could see his white figure ahead, moving forward with little hesitation. Venn kept a good pace behind him, harder to see.

The tops of the Kinneath Mountains were in sight, and from their position about three quarters of the way up, Jeff started to hear the telltale clangs and clashes of battle. Shouts and screams, whiffs of blood on the air. It was all too familiar from six months ago, and Jeff wanted to wait at a safe distance.

But Venn kept going, and Cassie followed her, so Jeff put one foot in front of the other, doing his best to ignore the black chasm next to his left foot that would swallow him whole with one misstep.

Brady came to a sudden stop on the path, and the other three stopped with him, waiting to see what he would do. Curiosity had carried them this far, and it seemed they were getting close to having that patience rewarded. But instead of continuing into the battle, he shifted to face the flat rock face to his right and tilted his head, as if considering. He’d fallen silent, his lips still for the first time since he opened his eyes in the death hall. Reaching out, he ran his fingers along the rock, stretched up and appeared to hug it.

Then he started to climb.

Jeff’s jaw dropped, and he moved to grab his friend’s shoulder, but Cassie grabbed him first.

“He hasn’t made a false move since he started,” she whispered. “Trust that he knows what he’s doing.”

“But
we’re
not doing that, right?” he asked.

Cassie’s eyed widened, and she shook her head. “Not in a million years.”

“No way I’m risking my life climbing rocks when the fight’s so close.” Venn drew one of her hidden daggers, a smile creeping across her face.

In that moment, with the shadows at just the right angles, it might as well have been Siobhan standing with them. The whole experience felt surreal, life and death crossing paths. Jeff crossed his fingers and hoped the lines wouldn’t be blurred any further during what came next.

Venn led the way, and they soon reached the top of the path, on the edge of large plateau.

From his place on the outskirts, Jeff’s senses were pummelled with a slew of impressions, the smell first of all.

If the blood had been noticeable fifty metres below, it took on a personality of its own here. Blood, sweat, shit, death, the odorous nuances turned his stomach and had him reaching for the rock face to steady his legs. Bile crept up his throat as he saw the severed arm by his foot, the muscle and veins dangling from the shoulder as if it had been ripped from the body.

Venn picked it up, hardly disturbed, and tossed it away from him. “We’ll celebrate with a pint if we survive,” she said, and then she was gone, lost in the chaos of the battle.

Cassie started to call after her, but clamped her mouth shut, staying silent next to Jeff in the shadows.

The sight equalled the stench. The blood soaked battlefield glistened black in the moonlight. Corpses littered the field in various stages of disembowelment and destruction, discarded weapons strewn between them.

Jeff tried to close his eyes to the gore and scan the scene for some sign of Jasmine or Jayden, but there were too many people, too much going on to make sense of anything.

“There she is!” Cassie said, as quietly as she could while still being heard over the din.

Jeff followed the aim of her finger with his heart in this throat, and his gaze fell on Jasmine. Her helmet was off and blood streamed from a gash on her forehead. Her face and armour were covered in blood spatter. As she drove back one of Raul’s guard, swinging the sword with such ferocity that the man hardly had time to flinch before she cleaved his head from his body, Jeff could see how she’d come by her war decor.

Another guard came up behind her, and Jeff almost screamed out in warning, but she twisted her sword behind her, the blade passing through the man’s guts. She grabbed her dagger from her hip and wheeled around, driving the knife into his neck as he gurgled, blood bubbling between his lips, and fell to his knees. She braced her foot against his chest to pull out the blade and sought out her next target.

So caught up in Jasmine’s fights, he didn’t notice Cassie disappear from his side until he heard her shriek behind him. Turning, he froze, brain shutting down and limbs shaking as adrenaline shot through him, sharpening his vision to make out every small detail on Darcy’s face, the twitch in his cheek as he grinned, the slight tremor in the hand that held the blade against Cassie’s throat.

“So nice that you finally decided to join us,” Darcy yelled, straining to be heard over the battle. “Father and I worried you would miss it.”

Jeff heard his words, but they were dulled by a hum in his ears. He marked it as fury and tried to ignore it, knowing that emotion wouldn’t help Cassie. His hands clenched at his sides, and he dropped his gaze to the ground, searching quickly for a stone to throw. But he knew that even if he found one, he was more likely to hit Cassie than Darcy, more likely to make the man’s hand slip and cut her. His own healing wound hounding him with the memory of how close he’d come to ending the same way.

“I did enjoy your company, love,” Darcy said to Cassie, still loudly enough for Jeff to hear, goading him. “It’s a shame it has to end with your blood on my hands.”

Just as Jeff was about to jump at the man, Cassie’s eyes narrowed. He saw that she looked a lot calmer than he felt.

“Unfortunately for you,” she said. “It’ll be the other way around.”

Without giving him a chance to question her, she grabbed the wrist with the blade, stepping one foot back to brace herself. In a move so graceful it looked like dancing, she used the weight of her body to throw him off balance, gripping the back of his neck with her other hand and twisting his arm until he flipped over her shoulder.

Shaking with fear and adrenaline, she ran out of his reach and into Jeff’s arms as Darcy landed on the edge of the overhang. His hands scrambled for purchase on the rocky terrain.

“Help me!” he cried, rage and terror equally strong in his voice and eyes.

Neither Jeff nor Cassie moved as the stones shifted under his fingers. He lost his grip, and slid with a scream over the edge, disappearing over the side of the cliff.

Cassie buried her head in Jeff’s chest. Her body trembled and Jeff held her tightly as they turned towards the fighting. So far it seemed everyone else was distracted with their own battles, and their own had gone unnoticed. Jeff breathed a sigh of calm his shaking nerves.

Even as his rage settled, the hum in Jeff’s ears persisted, like the vibrations of a thousand bees buzzing in his brain. He shook his head, trying to clear what he assumed was the echo of blades clashing against blades. As his gaze scanned the crowd, it became apparent that their skirmish hadn’t gone as unnoticed as he first though.

Jasmine, in a moment of reprieve, stood gaping at them, with enough anger on her face that Jeff wondered if he wouldn’t prefer Darcy to climb back up and have another go.

She swung her sword to catch another of Raul’s soldiers in the gut, and then escaped the fray, keeping close to the rocky ledge. Jeff released Cassie, crept halfway to meet Jasmine. She shoved his shoulder and Jeff pressed against the stone to keep his balance.

“Hey, sharp drop!” he hissed.

“What are you doing here?” Jasmine demanded.

She stank of sweat and blood, her dark hair coated more with gore than her own natural colour.

Annoyed that she would think he came all this way for a lark, Jeff answered by thrusting his arm into the air, finger pointed at the rocky peak to their right. Jasmine glowered and followed his aim, her mouth falling open at what she saw. Brady had climbed to the very top, balancing somehow on the uneven crags, his arms outstretched. Too far to see clearly, and impossible to hear him over the noise, but Jeff knew he had started mumbling again.

The warrior-maiden blanched, the blood on her skin appearing darker against her paleness.

“What—” she managed, unable to get anything else out.

“Maggie thinks the ritual finally kicked in,” Jeff replied, watching the scholar, entranced. “It’s like he’s possessed. We tried to stop him, but he wouldn’t be stopped. Where’s Raul?” He tore his eyes away from Brady to scan the battle once again. “Where’s Jayden?”

“My brother is somewhere in there,” she replied, projecting her voice. Jeff heard her attempt at nonchalance, but her eyes were hard with worry. “And we can’t get to Raul. He only had a hundred men waiting with him, but they’re good. And the weapons.”

She blew her hair out of her face, and Jeff looked more closely at the fighting, seeing a blue current of magic or electricity running down the enemy’s blades at each strike. Not many remained standing, but Jeff didn’t think Raul cared if his whole army got wiped out. The enchanted weapons helped to delay the inevitable massacre; obviously, all the sorcerer wanted was time.

But time for what?

“He made his stand next to the mountains.” She pointed across the field where a red glow surrounded a dark figure. “We can’t sneak around him. He’s chanting something, and the spell—we’ve had three men fall because of it. Even now he’s gaining power. There’s some sort of barrier around him that we can’t get through.”

Jeff’s thoughts jumped to the amulet at his throat, and he reached for it. “You might be able to.”

Jasmine’s gaze fell to his neck and back up to catch his eye. He saw the hint of fear, the uncertainty, the question of whether she really wanted to be the one to risk her life.

In a flash it disappeared, her face hardened with resolve, and she held out her hand. “We have to try.”

Jeff slid the pendant over his neck and ignored her hand, dropping it over her head.

“Good luck,” he said.

“And you,” she said, “
go home
.”

Jeff nodded, but how could he leave when they were about to reach the climax of the story? The turning point that would determine the course of their futures.

What if they failed?

Suddenly Maggie felt too far away, and he wanted to be nowhere else but back at the Keep, ready to go home if things should turn really ugly.

He turned to the path down the mountain, but before he could begin any internal debate, a familiar voice behind him called him back.

“Not leaving already are you?”

Jeff’s spun around, and in a moment of deja-vu, he saw Tanner, Raul’s new second in command—Siobhan’s murderer—standing at the top of the path, crossbow aimed at Jeff’s chest.

“Just like old times, isn’t it, Creator?” the man called out. “You trying to sneak your way out of trouble, me trying to further my ambitions. Remember how well it worked out last time?”

Again Jeff found he couldn’t hear him well, the hum reverberating even louder in his head. Out of the corner of his eye, Cassie winced and waggled her head, and he guessed she heard it, too.

“I remember I survived.” He dropped Cassie’s hand so he didn’t break her fingers.

“Luck,” said Tanner. “You don’t have Connell standing up for you this time.”

From the darkness, a small black figure jumped onto Tanner’s back. He lost his grip on the crossbow, the wood clattering to the ground.

“That’s where you’re wrong,” said Venn.

For a millisecond, her gaze met Jeff’s and a million reactions jumped through his head: some begging her to reconsider, some egging her on, and everything in between.

Instead he twisted his head away so he didn’t have to watch as she cut her dagger across his throat. The gurgle as Tanner drowned on his blood reached Jeff over the swords and screams of the greater battle.

His body crumpled to the ground as Jeff turned back, and then Cassie approached Venn, who stood by the twitching body of the man who’d killed her sister, her shoulders shaking with either the rush or the emotion. In spite of the gore, Cassie wrapped her arms around the younger woman and held her until the trembling stopped.

Before Jeff could say anything, the humming in his ears increased. He groaned and covered his ears with his hands. Cassie and Venn did the same, and the three edged closer to the rock face, watching as the battle waned. Raul’s people numbered only fifteen, with the majority of the Feldallian force still fighting.

The swords Raul’s men wielded sliced through flesh and bone like a knife through butter, the victims convulsing with electric shock at the slightest contact. It made a disgustingly unfair advantage, and Jeff cheered every time another one fell.

In the flashing movements of the fight, moonlight glinting off armour and blade, he made out Jayden. He had kept his helmet, but the one-armed soldier stood out—not for his handicap, but his skill with the remaining arm. The sword moved so quickly, it looked like a band of light, not unlike the weapons of his enemies. It spun and swirled in his grip, clashing against the sword of his opponent. It took a minute for Jeff to recognise Michael Dorning.

The man was on the offensive, pushing Jayden back, whaling on him with the strength and energy of a man younger than he. Jeff didn’t know how he managed to keep it up, blow after blow, but Jayden was tiring, his blade coming up a moment too slow, his reflexes a smidge too stiff.