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Chapter Thirty

It was still early enough in the evening that the bulk of Beccia’s nighttime denizens hadn’t come out of their holes. The daytime folks were mostly home now as well, which left the streets empty. Even so, I couldn’t help but feel like we were skulking about. Maybe because we
were
skulking about.

The wind was starting to pick up and kicked around a few piles of refuse, but aside from that it was quiet. Too quiet.

“What are you planning now?” The quiet around me was fine. It was nice to have those brief periods when the city wasn’t its loud obnoxious self. But the silence walking next to me had me worried.

“I was just thinking that maybe we should have taken the girls.” The tone of his voice told me he’d been thinking a lot more than that but that was the only thing he was giving me.

I stumbled over an early drunk that I missed in a pile of leaves. Or perhaps a very late one. “You really think taking those flying loons would be helpful in a stealth operation? Maybe their wild kin too and the chimera? He’d be fun. Maybe we could add the racing cats for a distraction.”

Alric had reached forward at my misstep, but then pulled back his hand quickly. “They aren’t stealthy, but they can go places we can’t. And if something does go wrong, we could use them for help.”

That stopped me in my tracks. “Are you admitting you might need help?” Those damn rags made it impossible to see his face, but the wince in his eyes was clear.

“No.” He started walking again. “I’m just thinking that with everything going on it might be a good idea to be prudent.”

We had only been walking for a few minutes, we could turn around and go back and get them. The fact I was thinking about it was more than a little disturbing. What was my life turning into when I was thinking of the faeries as back up?

That answer was made for us as a swarm of yelling faeries flew over us, circled our heads, then tore off toward the center of town. My own three were leading the flock. Obviously, they were introducing a few more of their wild kin to the wonders of alcohol and free food. Or rather, their soon to be formerly wild kin. I wasn’t sure how I felt about the ongoing faery domestication.

“Hopefully you’re wrong about needing them.” I resumed walking toward the ruins.

Alric waited a moment, then came after me. He dropped back into silent mode and I really hoped he wasn’t thinking of more great plans like the faeries. If I could have had anyone with us on this it would have been Glorinal. But while I didn’t think he’d try and turn in a fellow elf, he was also the one who was certain the elven high lord Alric was the one behind all of the latest attacks.

His silence gave me time to think. I really hoped that Alric was wrong and that Qianru was actually okay and had gone back home. While she was crazy, she was my crazy, and the first patron who hadn’t died or vanished on me. At least not until it was proven that she had. But why would she let the university send people over? People who, while being trained academics, had no digger backgrounds?

Alric coughed. “I said, don’t you think it’s time to make a plan?” The annoyance in Alric’s voice told me that might have been the third time he’d asked it. I was going to really have to work on this drifting off habit I’d developed.

“I heard you. I’m thinking.” Going past the watcher again so soon after yesterday’s visit might cause questions I didn’t want to answer. Not to mention, if that letter wasn’t from Qianru and there was something horrible and nasty about to happen, we probably didn’t want to be seen going in. A quick mental survey pointed out a spot along the edge of the ruins not far from here where the ground was uneven and they couldn’t get the fences to stay up. “We can go—” I cut myself off when voices came from ahead.

“I know we’re supposed to wait until tomorrow, but mark my words, if that Taryn is involved there is something fishy going on.” It sounded like the crazed harridan from the antiquities commission. Why would she be out in the ruins? It wasn’t enough she hounded me out of the museum and made filing my papers hell, she was now stalking my dig site. On a Sunday night. As if things weren’t weird enough.

The voices were ahead of us, but off to the right, and I couldn’t see anyone. But the sound of someone running from behind us, told me we were going to be seeing someone soon. The pattern of fast steps followed by silence indicated they were trying to avoid being caught by someone. Which meant they probably were running from something, instead of toward something—like us for instance—but I still found myself looking for a place to hide.

Alric pushed us into the bushes, but we couldn’t go in far enough to hide. Instead, he pressed in and started nuzzling my neck in such a way that both of our faces were covered by his hood. He caught my hand when I pulled it back to slap him, and raised his voice into something smarmy. “Oh baby, how I’ve missed this.”

He also blocked my knee as it automatically came up even as my mind caught on to what he was doing.

The sound of tiny footsteps skittered behind Alric, the person gave a squeak when they saw us, and then tore off toward the ruins. A much louder rustle from the direction of the misplaced antiquities harridan followed a moment later and vanished in the same direction.

Once I was sure they were clear I shoved Alric off. “Next time warn me. Unless you want to see that you never have children.”

He adjusted his coverings, then looked up. “How do you know I don’t already have some?”

I just made sure he could see my glare, then stomped off on my original path. The squeaking person and the harridan had gone the same general direction I was planning, but the bushes were shoved back down a larger side trail and my chosen path was still undisturbed.

That was fine by me. If that stupid woman found other prey, all well and good. Had there not been a dozen more pressing things for me to worry about, her use of my name out here would have been cause for worry. But it got shoved to the side by the other horrors disturbing my life. Right now, I just wanted to get to my dig site before more of those disasters starting working their way to my front door. As long as the harridan and whoever she was chasing stayed out of my way tonight, it was fine by me.

Except that something familiar about the squeak haunted me. I had just slid in through a gap in the fence when it dawned on me what I’d heard.

“Damn it. Amara.”

Alric almost smacked into me when I stopped. “You found her?”

I shook my head. “No, she found us. I think she was the person who ran past us.”

Alric pulled back on a branch that had a stranglehold on his cloak. “We need to find her, and not just for Foxy’s sake.” Another tug and he finally started removing the cloak and rags.

“What are you doing?” I kept my voice low this time, but not my annoyance.

“I can’t move through all this brush with this on, I’m getting snagged with every step. At this point I think we have to hope that Harlan’s make-up holds, and we can convince people I didn’t really die.”

He finished unwrapping himself, bundled everything up, and shoved it deep in the bushes. Then turned and started walking the opposite direction from where Amara had run off.

“They went further into the ruins, not this way along the fringe.” I whispered as loud as I dared.

He froze and held a hand up to stop me. Heavy footsteps came back from the direction Amara had vanished.

“We have wasted time and energy. Neither of which can I afford.” The voice was menacing and masculine and not one I recognized. I looked to Alric but he shook his head.

“I know Taryn was up to something, she must have been the one who ran. It wasn’t my fault I couldn’t catch her.” It was the harridan, but her normally imperious voice was pleading now. “You have to tell them I did my part.”

“They will be told. But now your spirit will finish its purpose here and have its reward. I have lost too much power recently.” The voice had dropped a few degrees and the chill crawled up my arms.

“I understand. But tell them…tell them I did my—” The harridan’s voice vanished into a scream that started guttural and low but rose in pitch, as if someone had stabbed her and was slowly draining out her life. The heavy thud and the increasingly breathy sound of her death scream made it clear this was not going to be a quick nor painless death.

I felt Alric shaking behind me. When I turned I found myself wishing he was still covered up. Even with the make-up, his face had gone pale and a look of terror had unnaturally widened his eyes.

“I can…feel the spell he is using. That’s an elven necromancer. He must have been the one who took my magic. And the one from the ruins.”

His voice was little more than a whisper and even right next to him I barely heard him.

He grabbed my hand and silently started moving as quickly as he could further into the ruins and away from the gruesome sounds behind us. Unfortunately, I could still hear them and probably would in my nightmares for the rest of my life. She was choking now as if fighting to keep her blood, or if Alric was right, her life-energy in her body.

There was nothing in my head, except to keep following Alric, get the hell away from here, and pretend we were never here. I no longer cared who did what to my dig site.

But then a rustle of tiny feet came from behind us. The muted scream that followed sank my heart. Luckily the necromancer was still feeding on the harridan, but I knew he heard Amara just as we had.

  I heard the necromancer grunt in pain, hopefully the harridan was putting up a fight as she died, then call out to another person. “Gather her, this one is not enough. Dead or alive, I need another.”

We couldn’t hear the other person’s response, but a pair of booted feet took off in Amara’s direction.

“We can’t let her die.”

“I have to save her.”

We both whispered at the same time, but at least I included him in my crazy statement.

He shook his head and even went so far as to try and push me to the trail back toward the fence. “You need to leave. They were looking for you by name.”

I pushed back and stepped around him. “They weren’t looking for me, she mentioned me because they were going to my dig site.”

I took off as silently as I could in the general direction the light footfalls had gone. Alric was behind me in an instant. “I can’t protect you.”

“Fine.”

“You could get killed.”

I picked up my pace as fast as was safe. The brushes were giving way to the huge gapen trees so as long as I kept an eye on the roots I could get a good pace going. “Fine. So could you.”

He had been able to briefly pull alongside of me at a small clearing. He nodded with a smile. “Fine, but first let’s try to even the odds.” He took my elbow and led us off to a pile of boulders on the edge of the clearing. He moved a few around, then reached in, and pulled out his sword and scabbard. Followed quickly by a pair of knives that he handed to me.

We’d both just secured our weapons when a soul-shattering scream split the air.

Chapter Thirty-One

I’d heard Amara scream before, but never with this power or fear. And there was no mistaking who it was.

Alric took off in the direction of the scream, not looking to see if I’d follow.

They weren’t far from us, and judging by the direction of her new round of screams, Amara had taken the high ground. Or rather the high tree. Even though the trees around her weren’t her own tree, a dryad could still draw some strength from anything old and treelike. The monster gapens around us clearly met that criteria.

The necromancer’s guard was standing at the base of the tree shooting up with a rapid crossbow.

I could barely make out a small foot far up in the foliage. I wouldn’t have seen it at all except she moved when one of the crossbow bolts got too close.

Even though Amara was screaming, and our mysterious murdering bastard feeding on the remains of the harridan hadn’t seem concerned about sound—we didn’t have that luxury.

Alric silently motioned that he was going to go around the back and for me to stay put. I wasn’t sure why he was being so cautious, there were two of us and one guard. Then again, we had Alric’s sword and my knives up against a rapid reloading crossbow. Paranoia was a good idea.

A few leaves and twigs tumbled down as Amara found a perch higher in the branches. The tree was protecting her by more than just hiding her. Even as I watched her shape move higher I swore I saw a branch snap perfectly in the wind to send the next bolt tumbling back down. Broken in half.

Looking at the ground I realized all of the bolts were snapped in half. Considering they were made out of steel, that was an impossible feat for a simple tree. Clearly Amara was working something through it even if it wasn’t her old tree. We might not be able to fight back against a crossbow, but he was going to run out of bolts eventually.

Alric drew his sword as he approached from the far side.

Unfortunately, not only did I see him, but so did the second guard that neither of us had seen or heard.

The man had been waiting in the tall grass. He may have wanted to let his friend have his fun in private, or they’d been checking to see if there was anyone else in the ruins who would be foolish enough to try and help her.

This one had a sword and grinned as he drew on Alric. I held still as the crossbow-armed guard turned toward them. He still had a few more bolts that I could see, enough to wound Alric if not kill him outright. He also had an open bottle of dragon bane on the ground a few feet closer to me than him.

I charged forward and dove for the bottle. He turned toward me as I finished the dive, grabbed the bottle, and threw the contents at my face. There was no choice at this point. Either this worked or I was running up against two heavily armed guards with a pair of knives and an empty bottle. Although, judging by the look he was giving me, maybe the crazy card was enough to get him to hold back.

Unlike the spell bomb we’d created with dragon bane before, this time at first there was nothing but a stinging sensation. That and an urge to throw up as the smell of it hit my nose as it dripped off my face.

Then the world burst into flame.

But the flame was inside me, not outside. My muscles almost popped out of my skin as power, energy, and most of all anger flowed through them.

My vision had dropped to only colors and energy. A green-brown figure danced above me and I found I knew exactly where Amara was. Alric was a blue and gold figure with a white aura.

The two guards were red.

I liked red. Red meant I could kill them. Some part of my brain shouted that none of this made sense. The surge rippling through the dragon bane on my skin said otherwise.

With a scream—one that most likely was heard in the Shimmering Dewdrop—I charged the guard who was armed with the crossbow. He seemed stuck in amber and had barely moved the bow up an inch when I struck him mid-torso. My knife hit his heart without even a thought and I ran to the one fighting Alric.

Alric and the guard were well matched, and most likely would have kept fighting for a while. I didn’t want to wait anymore. I shifted the second knife to my right hand then ran forward and stabbed the second one. He dropped dead to the ground without a sound.

“Taryn?” Alric looked far more frightened of me than I’d ever seen him look about anything. Aside from the necromancer.

The necromancer. We had to save Amara and get out of here before that thing finished feeding and found us.

I tried to say that but only a few grumbling words came out. It was as if my teeth were bigger than before and my tongue wasn’t working right. “Whth wrng wif me?”

The colors around him and the dead guards vanished, but I still had way too much energy. I had to run or fight or go tear down a few dozen trees. My blood was burning.

I shook it off long enough to see Alric’s eyes go huge as he tried to pull me forward. Then a horrific pain slammed into my head and everything went black.

***

“Easy there,” Alric said with more concern than I’d ever heard from him. I must be dying, and somehow, as usual, he was responsible for it.

I slowly opened my eyes, wincing at the bright sparks everything seemed to be giving off. I vaguely recalled the attack, the dragon bane, and the…guards. I rolled away from Alric and threw up as memories of what I’d done hit me. Not that they didn’t deserve it, but still.

Alric patted my back a few times. “It’s okay, I think we’re safe now. You saved Amara.”

A rustle behind me made me force myself to roll back toward him. Amara crouched down next to him, her eyes huge and wary. But she was intact. Foxy would like that.

“What happened?” I felt a lump rising on the back of my head. There were no other bodies around us indicating we hadn’t been newly attacked. But something had obviously hit me. On the plus side, my mouth still hurt but at least now it felt like my teeth all fit in there.

Alric looked at Amara and nodded to her.

She met his eyes and blanched, but then turned back to me. “I am sorry. You…you didn’t look like yourself. I was afraid you were attacking this poor man who had come to save me.”

I went berserk to try and save her, and she bashed me in the skull? And Alric was the hero? I shut my eyes. This wasn’t something I needed to deal with now. Besides, if Alric’s reaction had been any indication I really hadn’t looked like myself.

“Why did you leave Foxy?” I’d focus on the easier things for now.

“I had to.” She looked to Alric, then around the forest. “I wasn’t honest with him, and if I’d stayed….” Two giant tears fell down her face.

I tried to sit up and after the second try Alric took my arm and helped. “You have to go tell him the truth. You can’t just leave him like this. And why were you here in the ruins when that thing was here?” I would have thrown up again if there was anything left as a few thoughts collided in my brain. “That necromancer, was he your former master?” This was so far over the heads of anyone in Beccia that no one would be safe until she was given back to that bastard.

Amara wiped away a few more tears and slowly shook her head.

My heart slowed down a bit. It was bad enough we were still trapped in the ruins with an insanely powerful, hungry, and murdering psychopath, but at least he wasn’t the maniac behind the zombie troll.

Then why was she crying harder?

“We need to get out of here,” Alric said. “I don’t think we can get back the way we came in. He’s probably finished feeding on that woman now. But I still have a few places we can hide deeper in the ruins.” He rose and helped Amara to her feet. I managed on my own.

Alric started heading deeper into the forest. We hadn’t heard anything from the necromancer, but someone capable of sucking the magic and/or life out of a person with ease could probably manage to move silently if he wished.

I picked up my speed.

Amara stayed silent for a few minutes as we got further into the thick growth. There weren’t any official dig sites out here as the academics had long ago decided this area wasn’t prime for ruins. Never mind the handful of extremely old towers sticking out of the ground at wild angles. My theory was that the money people behind the academics took one look at the extremely heavy forest in this area and decided the towers were of no consequence. Rather they didn’t want to spend all the money it would take to find out what was out this far.

We crossed a small stream meandering by one of the intriguing towers that I’d probably never be able to find again. With I sigh, I caught up to Amara.

“Do you want to tell us? Or should I guess?” I really hadn’t a clue as to what was going on, but maybe if she thought I did she’d come clean.

“That monster back there wasn’t my master. I don’t have a master.” Her shoulders bowed forward as she sobbed harder and I had to catch her satchel of belongings before it hit the ground.

“This isn’t the time,” Alric said as he dodged a heavy branch. We were all keeping our voices down, not only because of the necromancer, although he was cause enough. The woods here were still and heavy, as if they were listening.

“We may not have time later. We need to know what’s after us, and who she’s working for.”

Amara had been turned in profile at my words and I saw enough of her face to know that was the truth of it. She’d been working for someone when she went to Foxy’s place.

“I…the story is too long for here. But I was hired to become friends with Foxmorton, to work my way into his confidence and gather knowledge of the ruins and specific artifacts if they appeared.”

“Then the troll wasn’t really trying to kill you?”

“I don’t know. The woman who hired me told me that there would be others working on the same path. That I wouldn’t know who they were nor should I try to communicate with them. The troll could have been sent to attack me to win over Foxy.” I caught her as she stumbled.

I pulled her upright and put my mouth next to her ear. “You can’t collapse now. You don’t have the right to fall apart until you go back into town and tell Foxy everything.” I put enough threat in my voice to let her know what would happen if she didn’t.

“I understand. And I hope someday you’ll all forgive me.” She dropped out of my grasp and spun behind me. Both Alric and I turned just in time to see a pair of darts hit each one of us. I fell first, but Alric tumbled as he tried to free his sword. I heard Amara sobbing harder and the world went black. Again.

***

Waking this time was more difficult than before. Whether it was from whatever was in those thorn-like darts or the fact my brain was getting tired of being shut off against its will, I wasn’t sure.

Alric was lying next to me, but he was on his side and turned away from me so I wasn’t sure if he was still out or faking it.

We were in a tree-cave. There was no other word for it, at least no other word that would explain what I could currently see from my position. Giant tree limbs bent over into a roomy bower surrounded us completely. I couldn’t see where they met at the top without moving my head, but clearly it was tall enough to stand in. Applying some pressure to the ground below me reinforced what my eyes saw; I was lying on a floor of branches woven together, not dirt.

I tried to slow my breathing as voices came into hearing range.

“You shouldn’t have brought them here.” That male voice wasn’t at all familiar but had a slight accent. If I had to guess, it was another person from the south. It hadn’t been missed that Amara had said that a woman hired her to spy on Foxy, and that Qianru had now vanished but had been looking for a dryad. I tried to focus to hear if the speaker was Qianru’s assistant Jovan.

“Had you left them there, they would have been dealt with.”

“I couldn’t. That wasn’t part of my contract. He tried to save me, and well, I’m not sure what she is. She changed.” Amara sounded more confident than she had before. Didn’t bode well for us. “If I left them there,
he
would have gotten them.”

“Exactly my point. Or did you want him snacking on you? We lost one of our guards since you didn’t let him have these two.” Footsteps crunched twigs as they came closer. “She looks normal to me, and he just looks like some down-on-his-luck sword for hire. He’s not the elf we’re looking for.” He must have motioned in some way, because the ground bounced around as more people came into the room. “We can’t leave them here, and
he’s
gone back into the city and left orders to leave him alone for a while. Take them to the cottage ruin and set a slow charge. If anyone finds them it will look like gases seeped in from a ruin trap and killed them.”