Glyphbinder (19 page)

“You shouldn’t have come here.” The voice that came from Jair’s throat was low, female, and not his. “They turned our own Sentinels against us.”

“That’s incredible,” Sera said. “You found a Sentinel spirit?”

Kara dropped off her horse and approached Jair. Soulmages could speak with spirits, true, but they could also call upon them when needed, taking the spirit’s mind and skills as their own. With a strong enough spirit inside them, a Soulmage could become a skilled swordsman or a talented singer or anyone else dead.

“Who are you?” Kara asked. “Tell me your name.” From what she remembered, it was best to be direct with the dead.

Jair swallowed, eyes flitting side to side. “I’m … Lyra.”

“I’m Kara Tanner, and I lead this dyn. We’ve come from the Magic Academy of Solyr, and we need your help. What happened here? How did this garrison fall?”

“They weren’t gnarls.” Jair’s fists clenched as his blue eyes flitted side to side. “We thought they were a rogue tribe, and we met them in the field. They were better fighters than we had ever seen. We killed them and they killed us.”

“A gnarl tribe was here? How many?”

“They weren’t gnarls,” Lyra repeated. “Don’t you see? They were our own patrol. Sentinels. We saw a lie and murdered them.”

Kara cursed low. “Shifters.” They had cloaked the returning Sentinels in illusion, making them appear as gnarls. Each side had been certain the other was the enemy.

Jair fell to one knee, blue eyes wide. “When we were done … when we had finished killing each other … the lies went away. They showed us our dead. I put my sword through my own father. Garen Kost. I watched him die and now I can’t find him.”

Kara saw no evidence of any battle. “But, Lyra … the battle took place out here, didn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“Then … where are the bodies?”

Lyra gave no answer.

“Drown me, Lyra, where are all the bodies?”

Sera gripped Jair’s shoulder and pushed down. “That’s enough. Push her out. Her fear is toxic, and your heart is beating faster than a rabbit’s. She’s hurting you.”

Jair ripped Sera’s arm off his shoulder and backed away, hands raised. “No, please. I don’t want to go with you. Please!”

The earth rumbled beneath Kara’s boots and she stumbled, catching herself against Charger’s firm side. Stomper and Tack, the packhorses pulling Jair’s wagon, bobbed their heads and stomped their feet. Jair trembled and shook his head, violently.

“What’s happening?” Sera shouted. “An earthquake?”

It couldn’t be an earthquake. Earthquakes didn’t happen out here. Kara had only read about one in the Ranarok, and that had been summoned by Torn. Was this her hunter? Was he powerful enough to shake the ground? Was he going to attack them again?

A saw mill howl rose above the rumble of the earth, and a chill took Kara’s bones. Lyra’s final, desperate plea made sense. The harvenger had found them.

“Up in the wagon, now!” Kara shouted.

A skeleton hand burst from the earth and grabbed Sera’s ankle. Sera shrieked as it pulled her down. More hands snatched at her clothes, her arms, her hair. Charger whinnied and stomped.

Kara split the skin of her index finger with her sharpened thumbnail and glyphed a single Finger of Heat. She tossed it into the arm bones and blew them apart. “Get up! Get out of there!”

Kara blasted another hand that went for Sera’s legs, and another after that. Sera tore off the hands snatching at her cloak, shrieking and flailing. She clambered into the back of the wagon.

“Jair!” Kara shouted. “Move!”

Jair didn’t. His eyes were dark once more but remained wide, unfocused. Kara grabbed him and dragged him, boot heels sliding on dirt, toward the wagon. A skeletal hand clutched her foot.

Kara stomped it and screamed. Whole skeletons were now wriggling free of the hard packed earth, bones animated through will she did not understand. The dead were rising, and she must remember why.

Jair moaned and broke away from her, finding his feet. He sprinted to the wagon. He clambered up the side like a startled cat and snapped the reins. The wagon team took off at once.

Kara scrambled into Charger’s saddle. Wheels rumbled as the wagon rolled, and Kara spurred Charger after it. Trell and Byn must have heard the howl and would be leaving Highridge Keep, riding to meet them at the pass. She had to trust them to do that. She had to protect those with her now — Sera. Jair. The horses.

Jair was whipping the wagon team so hard Kara feared the reins might snap. She supposed it was better than letting the harvenger eat them, but she was surprised at his ferocity. Both horses snorted and flinched at the unexpected assault.

Highridge Pass moved to their left. Jair was driving the wagon away from it. As Kara’s eyes swept the distant rise, she finally picked out a stark black form against the blue sky.

It stood with arms outstretched. It looked massive. It had once been Aryn Locke, and now Jair was driving the wagon right for it.

“Jair!” Kara tapped her heels on Charger’s flanks. “Stop!”

Jair, the wagon, and Sera picked up speed, barreling up the ridge. Charger caught up and rode beside them. Did Jair hope to run that harvenger down like the davenger? What was he thinking?

“Stop!” Kara shouted. “Stop the wagon!” The clamor of frothing horses and rumbling wagon wheels all but drowned her out.

The side door of the wagon slammed open with a loud crack. Sera pulled herself into view. Her black hair whipped wildly about her face as she clutched the doorframe.

“What are you doing?” Kara shouted.

Sera leapt and grabbed the luggage bar atop the wagon. Her torasel cloak flapped as she pulled herself up, legs flailing. She fell on the top in a heap and scribed one bloody glyph on the air.

Jair slumped on the driver’s rise, reins going limp in his hands. He was not driving them any longer, but the horses didn’t stop.

“He’s sleeping, Kara!”
Sera thought across their dyn disc.
“But if I move, he’ll wake up!”

Kara tried a simple Beastruler summons, hoping to reach Stomper or Tack, but she mis-scribed the glyph and cursed herself for not practicing more. Solyr geldings like Charger were bred and altered to share their rider’s intent, to sense a mage’s needs, but the horses that pulled the wagon did not share that trait.

Charger could listen. Her gelding understood her. She slid her hand along rough horsehair, trying to think clearly of what she intended. Charger’s head bobbed.

Kara crouched in the saddle, gripping the thick pommel. Each fall of Charger’s hooves threatened to toss her to the ground and smash her head into the earth, but the horse stayed with her. If she didn’t do this right, she wouldn’t have time to regret it.

Kara leapt. Her world slowed, moving air and earth sluggishly around her. The world sped up again as her hands found the thick leather straps that tied Tack to the wagon’s harness. She gripped them with a drowning sailor’s strength.

Each beat of Tack’s hooves slammed her gut. One bad bump would drop her beneath the wheels. She pulled herself up, gasping, and then she rode Tack. Backward.

She wasn’t dead. Her heart pounded and her vision swam, but she wasn’t dead! Kara set herself and hurled her body toward the driver’s rise. She caught it — barely — and dragged herself into the seat. She tugged hard on the reins.

The now weary team gladly slowed. Jair slumped against her side as Sera climbed forward. The harvenger sprinted for them now, thundering down the slope on massive legs.

Jair opened his dark eyes. “I’m so sorry,” he whispered. “That demon captured Lyra’s spirit. It dragged us away.”

Turning wagon and horses was no simple task, and by the time Kara had done it, the harvenger was gaining on them. Fast. It stood twice as tall as Aryn, and almost half that height consisted of its grossly outsized head.

The demon’s flesh was writhing black, wriggling like a nest of vipers in a puddle of oil. Its eyes were the size of Kara’s head, burning with fiendish red light, and its teeth could cut a horse in half. Yet its face was more horrifying than anything else.

Beneath the red eyes, the huge teeth, and the writhing skin, the demon’s distorted and impossibly huge facial features formed a grotesque parody of Aryn Locke’s.

Kara spared a glance at Charger and found the horse keeping pace. She tried not to think about Aryn and what the demons had done to him. It was obscene. A wagon could not outrun a harvenger.

“We’re abandoning the wagon!” Kara shouted. “Climb out on the horses!”

“I’m ready!” Sera gripped her arm. “I’ll ride Tack. Jair, take Stomper. The one on the left!”

“Go!” Kara knew Sera wouldn’t agree to her plan and dared not elaborate. “I’ll use glyphs to cut them from the wagon!”

“That demon won’t take me again!” Jair shouted. “Promise!”

Kara scribed two glyphs and tied them to the packhorses. Jair leapt from the driver’s rise and landed on Stomper’s back. He nearly slid off before throwing his arms around the horse’s neck.

“Okay!” Sera yelled. “I’m jumping!” She leapt and landed, riding bareback on Tack with surprising grace. Kara had forgotten that Sera could ride. She was a noble, after all.

Charger drew close, snorting a warning. Kara looked to the harvenger and found it almost on top of them. It waved to her as it ran, mouth hanging open like a happy dog. Enjoying the chase.

Kara threw herself across the air before she could think better of it. Charger darted sideways and she landed right on top of him. She slid into the saddle and thanked her clever horse.

She scribed a Finger of Heat and burned the ropes that linked Stomper and Tack to the wagon. Then she ignited the beast glyphs she had scribed earlier. The horses shrieked and redoubled their pace, eyes going wide. They thought wolves were chasing them and in their minds, Rannos was. They galloped for Highridge Pass.

Sera shouted something as Kara turned Charger away, but Kara ignored it. This wasn’t Sera’s call. Kara refused to lose anyone else, not like she had lost Aryn. She would not lose anyone ever again.

The now horseless wagon tipped and tumbled end over end. The harvenger barreled through it and smashed it apart, like a Hand of Heat blowing through a tree. Sera and Jair had no hope of turning their panicked horses away from Highridge Pass.

Kara bared her teeth as she led the harvenger away from the pass, from her friends, from safety. The great demon spread both arms and howled as she twisted to face it. Charger kept their distance, but only just. She knew her brave horse was flagging and she had to end this, soon.

Kara scribed two Fingers of Heat. She would
a
venge Aryn with the fire he loved. She sent two fireballs into the harvenger’s face.

They didn’t even slow it down.

BYN MERIS DIDN’T THINK when the inner door burst open, and men in red and black armor stumbled out. He reacted. He roared and smashed the butt of his quarterstaff into the lead attacker’s chest. The blow knocked the Sentinel into the air, the now
dead
Sentinel. Byn knew it was dead because nothing living screamed like that, like a dying bird.

Another dead Sentinel stabbed at Trell. He simply spun past the blade and took its head off with one swipe of his broadsword. The head kept screaming as it rolled away. Then the dead had them surrounded, milling on all sides like a pack of dogs.

Each man or woman had been a Sentinel, and now they swayed like grass in a stiff breeze. Their flesh was peeling off to reveal bone and congealed blood underneath. Their bodies had been savaged — a cracked skull here, an open wound there. Their mouths hung open, some missing teeth, and drool oozed down their chins.

They all charged in at once.

Byn spun his quarterstaff into two more dead men, hard enough to knock them head over heels. Spinning around and ending in a low guard, he put his back to Trell’s as the two of them swung, ducked, stabbed, and survived.

Fortunately, dead men didn’t move as fast as living ones. Byn’s staff training at Solyr kept him alive, his palms aching with each impact of his quarterstaff. Each breath was loud in his ears, but no blade struck him. No dead teeth bit his flesh.

When all the dead were down, some still shrieking, Trell hopped over the bodies and beckoned Byn after. “Time to leave.” He sounded far too calm for the situation, but that was who Trell was.

As they charged the open archway more dead climbed onto the drawbridge from below, pulling together in a line that raised swords and spears. These did not attack. They simply held the bridge as the dead they had just defeated started getting up. Byn huffed, angry. How could they kill something that was already dead?”

“Ideas?” Trell asked, sword raised.

“Watch my back.” Byn ripped his shirt open and scribed a complex glyph on his chest, giving his soul to Kermodo. He hunkered down and charged the gate as the strength of the great bear filled his body and strengthened his limbs. “Follow me!” He had to get back to Sera.

Byn smacked aside the first Sentinels to block him with one swipe of his quarterstaff. Olden’s shell blocked the hacking swords of five more just before Byn trampled them. The only thing that kept him from biting down on the nearest dead soldier was the thought of how bad it would taste, and then the drawbridge was clear again.

Horses shrieked ahead, and Byn saw the danger. Pacer and Chesa waited for them, brave and loyal, and dead Sentinels menaced them from every side. Pacer trampled one soldier as Chesa spun and kicked, crushing the chest of another.

They were hopelessly outmatched. Even dead men and their lumbering swings would make short work of the poor horses. Byn charged the bridge at a pace Trell could not match, snorting loud.

He hit the clustered dead in a rush of fury, stomping, spinning, and ducking as he spun his staff. Many dead bodies went flying off the drawbridge and another nearly took off his head. He sent it flying with a single powerful kick.

Trell caught up just then, hacking through two of the dead with efficient, graceful strikes. Every strike severed heads or severed hands. Eight more dead fell, and then the horses were safe.

More dead Sentinels stumbled from the garrison. Byn shrugged off Kermodo, an effort like clawing through ice, slung his staff across his back, and turned to Pacer. Like Trell had said, it was time to go.

A Hand of Breath hit him so hard it knocked him off the drawbridge. He splashed deep into the moat and then stagnant water was everywhere, filling his nose and blinding his eyes.

He fought to swim, to breathe — he had always been a strong swimmer — but then he felt cold, dead hands gripping his arms, his legs, his chest. The dead had him now. They were dragging him down into the deep.

It took all his will not to scream.

“BYN!” TRELL SHOUTED OVER the edge of the drawbridge as he stared at the ripples rushing across the brown moat. He could not remember if he had ever learned to swim, but Byn was not coming up. He supposed it was time to find out.

Just before he leapt Byn stumbled onto shore, choking and coughing. His torasel cloak was gone, leaving only his tattered Solyr uniform. His brown hair was plastered to his face and he was coughing muddy water, but he was alive. Good news.

Trell grabbed the leads of both horses and rushed off the drawbridge, then abandoned them at the edge of the muddy slope of the moat. He slid down and reached Byn just as Byn pushed up. Trell threw Byn’s arm over his shoulder. “What happened?”

Byn coughed as they struggled up the slope. “Battlemage.”

“That battlemage is here?”

“Has to be. Dead men don’t scribe Hands of Breath.”

Trell turned his eyes to the garrison as more dead Sentinels stumbled out, heading for them. “We have to ride. Can you?”

“No choice,” Byn said, coughing. They reached the horses and Byn climbed into the saddle as Trell did the same. They rode, pursued by the cries of the dead.

“Where’s Kara?” Trell shouted, once they were away.

“I don’t know!” Byn shouted back. Then he pointed. “Look!”

Stomper and Tack galloped toward them in a cloud of dust, snorting with eyes wide. Trell saw Sera and Jair riding them, but there was no wagon. No Charger. No Kara. Where was she?

“Sera!” Trell shouted, as he and Byn hurried Pacer and Chesa into line with the other horses. “Where’s Kara?”

“Fighting the harvenger!” Sera’s still orange eyes were wide. “We have to get back to her! The horses won’t stop!”

“Keep going! I’ll find her!”

“You’ll what?”

Trell turned Chesa from the group even as Sera shouted after him. He didn’t look back. He hoped she had the sense not to follow.

Chesa galloped bravely across dusty plains, weaving through or trampling roaming corpses. The dead were little but bones and tattered cloth. How could they move without tendon and flesh? Chesa leapt over one dead Sentinel, smashing its skull with a hoof, and then a black form came into view. The harvenger.

Trell shouted a challenge. He did not see Kara anywhere, and that had his heart pounding as hard as Chesa’s hooves. Where was she? Was she alive? A searing flame blasted from one of the crumbling towers.

Kara had taken the high ground! She was casting Hands of Heat down on her opponent even as it battered its massive fists against the tower. Trying to bring the whole thing down.

Trell felt sharp chills rushing through his arms and legs. With it came pinpricks of pain and stiff muscles. The sight of Kara in danger roused a power unlike anything he had ever felt, cold and fluid.

That power swept through him like a wave, washing through his veins, frothing in his chest, gushing into his hands and feet. It drowned him, and left him more alive than he had ever felt.

“Save her, Trell.”

Blue eyes opened inside his mind as a soft female voice spoke there. Was she real? Was she some hallucination? It didn’t matter. What mattered is she would give him the strength to help Kara.

He readed his Solyr broadsword for a sideways cut, taking a firm grip with both hands. Hitting things at high speed was dangerous. Chesa snorted and galloped as they charged the great black harvenger as one mind and one body.

“
Al elite sancadynis tyl adres!
” An ancient oath tumbled from Trell’s lips as the harvenger turned, mouth agape. Just before they collided, Trell imagined Aryn staring from behind those red eyes.

Chesa screamed as a great fist caught Trell in the center of his chest, knocking him from the saddle. Trell flipped as he dropped and landed on his feet, hitting so hard the impact tossed cracks in all directions. He dashed forward and spun like a leaf swirling in a river, sword slashing and tearing at the harvenger.

Trell fought without thought, without fear or worry, with speed that was not human. He became a rushing river crashing down upon the demon. He bobbed and ducked, dodging massive fists while his blade rent scales and sliced flesh.

The harvenger snorted, falling back. Trell stabbed and struck repeatedly at whatever surfaces he could reach. Scales crunched and fell in gouts of noxious dust, but no blows penetrated.

“Back!”
the woman in his mind shouted.
“Enough!”

Trell ducked a swinging fist and sprinted away, getting clear of the demon just long enough to survey the damage he had inflicted. He expected a gruesome sight, a bloodied demon struggling to stand. What he found was far worse.

Crushed scales were already reforming on the harvenger’s flesh. Its oversized red eyes narrowed as its grin widened. It burped up a masticated horse head and a shower of blood.

That was Charger’s head. This demon had devoured Kara’s brave horse. What kind of monster would eat an entire horse?

“We are not strong enough yet to kill this demon.”
The voice in Trell’s head spoke again.
“Find Kara and go.”

“Where is she?”

“Trell!” Kara shouted.

He spun to see her riding at him, on Chesa.

“Come!” She threw out a hand as Chesa thundered toward him.

Trell sheathed his broadsword just in time to snatch Kara’s hand. An invisible hand collided with his back and bottom, flipping him up and around. He spun along the arc of Kara’s stiff arm and then landed, throwing his arms around her waist.

“What were you thinking?” Kara leaned forward on Chesa as they barely outdistanced a swinging harvenger fist. “Did you think to bring that great corpse down by yourself?”

“Did you?” Trell was still amazed Kara had managed to toss him up behind her. Her glyph — a Hand of Breath? — had swept him up as easily as he might sweep up a sand beetle.

Trell dared glance back. The harvenger bounded after them, sword teeth bared in an eager grin. The immense strides of its long legs kept pace with Chesa’s gallop, but only just.

Trell looked ahead. He could see the gap of Highridge Pass between two steep rises, still a good ways off. Too far to trust they would reach it before Chesa flagged or the harvenger got a second wind. He needed to deal with the demon, but how?

“Keep going!” Trell said. “I sent the others ahead of us! They must be through the pass by now!”

Trell thought back on the fluid power he had felt while he fought the harvenger. What type of soldier was he? Why were all his memories gone? How could he do any of this?

The harvenger howled as dead pulled together before them. Kara scattered them with a jet of flame. Trell drew his blade and jabbed at any who tried for Chesa’s sides.

He heard snorting and shrieking. He looked back to see the harvenger crashing through the fallen dead, bowling them over and stumbling as it ran. Trell’s palms ached liked he had spent the day slamming them into a tree. His sword was getting heavy.

“I don’t know what to do here!” Kara shouted. “I’ve tried Heat, Life, Osis, even the Forever Prisoner. Nothing works!”

They were finally galloping up the gentle rise leading to the mouth of Highridge Pass, but Chesa wheezed and frothed. Struggling. Trell prayed they wouldn’t ruin her. The split yawned open ahead, like the sideways mouth of a great giant.

“An avalanche!” Trell shouted. “Drop these walls on top of it!”

“I can’t bring down that much stone!”

“But your dyn could! Use mindspeak! Tell them what to do!”

“Take these!” Kara passed Chesa’s reins back to him. Trell had barely taken them before Kara’s warm back slammed into him. She traced bloody glyphs on the wrist pad attached to her left arm.

Trell grimaced as Kara slid left along his chest. He clenched one arm around her waist, locking her in the saddle in front of him, and balanced his sword in the other. The sound of the harvenger’s hooves grew closer. It was gaining. Just a few paces more!

An armored skeleton stumbled into their path. Trell jabbed it in the face as Chesa snorted, slowed. Slowed some more.

Kara finished another bloody glyph, creating a chain of five that filled the space on her wrist pad. It made no more sense to Trell than the first four. The harvenger snorted and Trell felt the heat of its breath. So close.

He twisted in his saddle, but could not bring his sword to bear without letting Kara fall. He could almost reach out and touch the harvenger now. He could poke it in the teeth.

Kara screamed. The earth trembled, and the shaking threw poor Chesa off stride. Trell clung to Kara with one arm and Chesa with his legs, barely keeping the saddle. Barely keeping them alive.

“You are safe now.”
The strange voice spoke again from inside Trell’s head. “
Kara has done her part, and Land has done his.”

Trell looked back as the earth ceased to tremble. A wall of rubble and dirt had thundered down to bury the open mouth of the pass. Dust still rose from freshly piled rock. That rock had buried the grinning, red-eyed harvenger.