The Gates of Night: The Dreaming Dark - Book 3 (26 page)

Lei felt a surge of recognition as the Woodsman strode out of the forest—recognition and anger. He smiled when he saw her, and shifted the long axe that lay across his shoulder.

“So, beloved,” the Woodsman said. “You have returned to me at last.”

“Beloved?”
Daine said. “Lei, wha—”

His words cut off as a branch wrapped around his head, gagging him.

“I knew you would return some day, my Lady Darkheart.” The Woodsman’s voice was deep and soft, wind rustling through a field of pine, and his smiling lips did not move as he spoke. “I thought you would travel in better company.”

“And I owe my friends an apology,” Lei said. “I told them you weren’t an idiot with an axe.”

“My axe is for flesh and blood. For your kind, vessel.”

“Show me.”

Lei lunged, remembering how deadly her staff had been in her battle with the Huntsman. In her mind, this fight was already over. She could hear the Woodsman scream as the staff pierced his body, see his mask falling to the ground.

Wood struck wood, the powerful blow shattering her dream. The Woodsman parried her thrust with his axe. His strength was incredible; the force of his stroke almost knocked her to the ground. Lightning flashed in the sky above, and the laughter of the Woodsman echoed in the thunder. “You threaten me, creature of flesh? Do you even know whom you address?”

“Torenas,” Lei said, speaking with all the confidence she could muster.
“Youngest
of the Nine Brothers of Night. An overweening youth, a preening pine-lord held in contempt by the true powers of this plane.”

Thunder rolled again, but the Woodsman wasn’t laughing. Lei saw his sculpted smile waver, and in that moment she lunged. The darkwood staff howled, and the Woodsman leapt away from her, barely avoiding the blow. He brought his axe down in an arc of silver and
polished wood, and Lei raised the staff to block the stroke—but he checked the blow. He doesn’t want to hit the staff, Lei realized.

“Halt!” the Woodsman said, and Lei was gratified to hear a little concern in his voice. “I have no wish to hurt you, vessel, nor to harm my beloved Darkheart. Your companions are another matter.”

Daine’s mouth was gagged, but Lei heard the muffled cry of pain as the tree limbs twisted flesh and bone. While Pierce made no sound, Lei could see his wooden bonds flexing, and she recognize the terrible stress this was putting on his joints.

“Stop!” she cried, lowering the staff. “Stop. Don’t hurt them. Damn you, what do you
want
from us?”

The Woodsman lowered his axe, his smile cold and triumphant. “What do I want? I want justice, seedling. I want what is mine. I want the Lady Darkheart. For now that means I must have you as well. Fear not, my lady. I will find a way to untangle your roots from this creature. I do not know who worked this foul magic, but once we are bound as one, I will find a way to restore your true beauty. And together we shall take vengeance on those who wronged you so.”

There was curiosity in the staff, but fury was the stronger emotion. “Don’t you see?” Lei said.
“You
drove her to this.
You
drove her away.” Her own anger began to grow, as she felt herself warming to the dryad’s tale. Throughout her life, she had let others tell her what to do. House schooling. Service in the war. Betrothal to Hadran. All the way to Lakashtai’s deception. Had she ever been more than a tool? A useful pawn?

“You lie,” the Woodsman said, and a gust of wind forced Lei back a few steps. “Our paths were twined from the moment of creation. Lord and lady, male and
female. We were made to rule this moon, to shape this hour of night, and I cannot reach the pinnacle of my power until we are joined. It is destiny.”

“Your
destiny.
Your
desire. Maybe she wanted more.” The staff was singing now, its voice clear and beautiful, a piercing lament echoing Lei’s words.

“More? At my side she would rule over this dominion! What more could she want?”

“Freedom,” Lei said.

“Bah!”
the Woodsman roared, raising his axe once more. “You fill her mind with madness, mortal! I had hoped to use you as a bridge, to join with Darkheart through your frail body, but I will not allow you to poison her any further. Cast aside my mate and you will die swiftly. Fight me and I will grow a garden of agonies within your flesh!”

He leapt forward, his axe flashing with the speed of a falling star. Lei brought the staff up, directly into the path of the descending blade, and once again he pulled back. It was a deadly game of cat and mouse, as the Woodsman sought to evade her guard and land a blow on her soft flesh. His speed and strength were astonishing, and he handled his axe as if it were the lightest rapier. Lei staggered backward, seeking respite in retreat, and barely escaped disaster as a tree root grasped at her foot. The living trees massed just beyond the gates. She had to stay within the ring or the battle was over.

Lei redoubled her efforts. She wasn’t even trying to hit the Woodsman anymore. It was all she could do to defend herself. Yet as she fought, she found herself falling into a rhythm. It was Darkheart. The dryad knew the Woodsman, knew how he fought, and she was guiding Lei’s motions. He was still too swift, and even
the dryad couldn’t help Lei launch an attack of her own. But with the dryad directing her actions, Lei’s thoughts were free.

How is this possible? she thought. Is it all some power of the staff? Or is there something more? Something in me?

I will find a way to untangle your roots from this creature
, the Woodsman had said.

Darkheart’s words in the clear white water:
In any other hand, I would be cold wood. But you can reach within
.

And one memory rose above all others—the time she had fought Pierce in the sewers beneath Sharn, when she’d seen a vision of his lifeweb and had first thought of him as a brother. She’d seen four patterns, all connected, and now she was sure that one of those was her own.

It made no sense. She was flesh and blood, and a point made all too clear by her scorched skin and aching muscles. Yet in the heat of battle, there was no time to question.

She let go of all thought. Her body was moving under Darkheart’s guidance, but Lei fell within, searching for that thread she’d seen once before.

There
. A trace of energy, a beam of light stretching off into darkness. Lei seized it and
pulled
, and there it was: the web of light and life she knew as Pierce, that pattern she’d adjusted so many times before. In the past, she’d had to touch Pierce to bring up his lifeweb. Now she could feel it her mind. But could she affect it? Drawing on her talents as an artificer, she tried to pull at the threads, to weave a new, temporary pattern into the web.

And it responded. Though Pierce was across the clearing, held high in the air, she could feel the changes
taking place.
Strength. Take strength from me, my brother
.

The images dissolved in a burst of pain. She was staggering across the clearing, and fell just before she reached a writhing mass of foliage. Wet numbness spread across her right leg, and fierce pain told her that the handle of the Woodsman’s axe had cracked a rib. She tried to collect her thoughts, but the pain was too great. The Woodsman came forward, his bloody axe held high.

Pierce crashed into him, leaving a trail of torn vines and scraps of roots in his path. Grabbing the Woodsman’s wrists, Pierce forced the masked man away from Lei. Though the Woodsman had the strength of an ogre, Pierce was stronger still, and he forced the Woodsman to his knees.

The Woodsman screamed.

The cry came as a surprise to Lei; Pierce was fighting with magically enhanced strength, but he had no weapon, and was doing little more than holding the Woodsman at bay. Then she saw a flash of white bone, as Xu’sasar’s throwing wheel spun back across the clearing. The drow girl stood next to an arch of dark stone, and she caught the boomerang and prepared for another throw.

“No!” Lei said, hobbling across the clearing. “No. Don’t kill him.”

“
Unhand me!”
the Woodsman roared, still struggling in Pierce’s grip. “You will
pay
for this indignity! I will see you buried in the earth and devoured by insects, alive and aware until your bones are shards in the—”

His words dissolved into a howl of agony as Lei pressed the end of the staff into the wound on his back, where blood and sap were flowing freely.
The staff shivered in Lei’s hands as power flowed through the shaft. The Woodsman stiffened and screamed again as his body
stretched
upward. Pierce let go before he was lifted into the sky, and they watched in wonder as the being that had once been the Woodsman completed his transformation. He towered over them, forty feet tall, his limbs stretching out across the ring of gates.

He had become a tree.

His bark was as pale as the skin of his arms, his leaves dark as the clothes he’d worn, and Lei thought she could see a face faintly traced into his trunk, the vague image of the mask he had worn. But the storm winds were gone, and his limbs did not move.

“Can someone help me down?” The trees around the clearing had fallen still, but Daine was still hanging in the air, branches wrapped around his torso.

As Xu’sasar and Pierce ran to assist Daine, Lei turned to the great gate at the center of the clearing. She could still feel the power churning within the staff. There was a sense of satisfaction, but the sorrow remained.

“What happens to you?” Lei whispered.

In answer, Darkheart reached into Lei. Her power and presence were stronger than ever, and Lei moved without a thought. She struggled with the force controlling her body, but Darkheart was too powerful. Against her will, Lei stepped forward … and drove the staff into the ground before the briar gate.

Thunder shook the world. Lei’s hands locked around the staff, and she could
feel
the power the staff had drawn from the Woodsman fading away, being forced down into the earth itself. And the gate before her changed. Threads of gold ran up from the ground, twining along the black briars. And then she saw the
light. Sunlight, faint but clear, the first pure light she’d seen since she’d entered Karul’tash so long ago. The dark forest was all around her, but through the arch she could see the setting sun of dusk.

Free me
.

The thought was clear and vivid, the voice of the woman Lei had seen in her coma. And then it was gone. Lei swayed, and almost fell. She felt as if every ounce of energy had been drained from her bones. The staff was utterly silent, physically and emotionally.

“Lei!”

Daine ran to her, Xu’sasar and Pierce behind him. She turned toward him, but before she could speak she felt a sharp pain in her shoulder, pain followed by a chilling numbness. It was an arrow, a thin arrow made from a long, sharp thorn, with leaves in place of feathers.

“Lei!”
Daine cried. He caught her as she pitched forward, catching her before she hit the ground. A volley of arrows came flying out from the dark trees. Pierce dove forward, shielding Lei with his body.

“Gate …” she whispered to Daine. “Dusk …”

“Get to the gate!” Daine cried.

And the thorns charged.

The creatures came at them from all from all sides, and Lei couldn’t begin to count them. The night was full of thornblades and beady eyes, and the sound of tiny feet against the grass. Lei’s head span as Daine swept her off her feet, holding her in both arms. Xu’sasar scattered their enemies with a long chain formed from links of razor-sharp bone, carving a sap-drenched path to the central arch.

“Go!” Xu’sasar said as they approached the gate. There was an arrow in the girl’s thigh, dark blood
almost invisible against her skin. She whirled her chain, ripping the links across a thorn and pulling the creature to the ground. Daine hesitated, and then he ran through the arch …

And into the light.

In the distance, the setting sun made a silhouette of a range of mountains, but after the long night, the fading sun was the most beautiful thing Lei had seen. The sounds of battle were gone; all she heard were crickets and songbirds, and Daine’s labored breathing.

“Welcome to Dusk,” a voice said. Male, young. “It certainly took you long enough.”

A
drenaline surged through Daine’s body. He was still battered and bloody from the battle with the thorns, and while Lei was his greatest concern, Pierce and Xu’sasar were still on the other side of the gate. He’d hoped for a moment of peace, yet a new threat awaited them. Dropping into a crouch, he lowered Lei to the ground as gently as he could. As soon as he’d released her, Daine drew his sword and turned to face the speaker.

“Please, no need for
that.”
The stranger was leaning against the gate. On this side, the arch was formed of polished mahogany inlaid with gold sigils that gleamed in the light of the setting sun. The archway was empty, and Daine could look through to see waves of grass and wildflowers rippling in the meadow on the other side. No sign of the realm of Night.
Pierce!
Daine thought.